NO SHOGGERS NO LIFE

With Luna Snow gentrified by smelly Marvel Rivals players, we no longer claim her. Our reverence once again shines towards our gorgeous F2P queen Sharon Rogers, Shoggers for short. No other nicknames will be tolerated.

• Star in the Night (Early Era)

  Star in the Night (Early Era)

  To put things into context, we first need to revisit the state of the game in the early 2.0 versions. The 2.0 update had shaken up the game significantly, adding the new Tier-2 progression system, Black Order World Bosses, and the Native Tier-2 playable versions that came with them.

  World Boss at the time was almost impossible for many players for a variety of reasons:

  • The average character back then had 5 terrible skills, lasting about 1-2 seconds each, with no significant defensive buffs, movement, or healing.
  • The characters that were meta at the time were generally Timeline or Shadowland characters that depended on Crowd Control debuffs. These obviously did not work on World Boss.
  • The Card system had also just been revamped into the version we still have today, so account-wide stats were lacking.
  • You needed Tier-2 Materials from World Boss to get characters to Tier-2 to clear it more easily, making the initial clears feel like an unfair roadblock to keeping up with the game.

  Complicating matters further was the recent addition of paywall characters, with Carnage in 1.9 and Hyperion in 2.2 being some of the few that could reliably take down World Bosses. Many players felt this was a sign of the game heading into a "cash out" phase as whales built their Cards quicker, used stronger paywall characters, and were able to build up the Black Order, who were stupidly strong at the time.

  Captain America 75th Anniversary

  Captain America 75th Anniversary

  Update 2.3: Captain America 75th Anniversary
  July 14, 2016 (8 years, 274 days ago)

  Sharon Rogers entered 3 updates after the first Anniversary, foreshadowed only by Sharon Carter's renaming to Agent 13, and was immediately the most important character in the game. This truly felt like an event: celebrating an actual Marvel milestone (the Captain America 75th Anniversary), being the first OC character, and most importantly, providing a way for just about everyone to get their first World Boss clear.

  Sharon's damage output at the time was unparalleled for any free character, especially in the Blast category, which had been severely lacking till her entrance. She was also one of the first to have a Damage Immunity buff with a significant uptime, combined with one of the first complex mechanics of the game, Defensive Accumulation. On top of just dealing way more damage than other characters, this skill design was far more suited to taking on World Bosses and their telegraphed attacks.

  It is no stretch of the imagination to say that Sharon's 3 > 5 > 4 rotation laid the groundwork for the rotation-based character design we have today. Sharon being absolutely necessary for many players to have a shot at clearing World Boss meant that everyone had to learn their first skill rotation, paving the way for more complex rotations in the future.

  Star Light Armor

  Star Light Armor

  Update 3.0: Marvel Studios' Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
  April 27, 2017 (7 years, 352 days ago)

  Sharon's first uniform would have sold well regardless, but this uniform went above and beyond with what is still probably the nicest redesign she has gotten. She was a strange inclusion in an otherwise underwhelming Guardians 2 update and probably saved the update for a lot of people. (We later found out the GOTG2 update was crap because they were preparing the X-Men update.)

  The skill revamp here further modernised her, changing 5 into a delayed residual damage skill, and adding more movement to skills 1 and 2. Residual damage had become more common in the previous updates, especially with the more flashy characters like Strange and Satana, and this uniform added to the trend of what would eventually become the backbone of modern uniforms' skill design.

  Standards for uniforms at this time were still not very high, with the norm being a couple of skill changes and the 10% stat buff. For a character as prevalent as Sharon, this first uniform was a no-brainer purchase.

• On The Rise (Tier-3 Era)

  On The Rise (Tier-3 Era)

  Dark Star Armor

  Dark Star Armor

  Update 4.6: Crescent & Io
  November 28, 2018 (6 years, 137 days ago)

  We did not need Sharon Rogers with Daedric Armour but we got it anyway. A bit overdesigned but felt like a must-get due to the simultaneous Tier-3 upgrade.

  As World Boss Ultimate was still relatively new at this time, Sharon remained a dependable single-target boss clearer. Giant Boss Raid had also just been added the previous update, and Sharon was already making quick work of Master Mold with her insane 6th skill.

  The skills hadn't changed much from Star Light other than visually. Despite proc Obelisks and C.T.P.s already being in the game for some time now, there still wasn't perfect proc-friendliness on her 5th skill, which only starts its residual after about 10 hits.

  Star Night Armor

  Star Night Armor

  Update 5.7: Warriors of the Sky + Avengers 3099
  January 8, 2020 (5 years, 96 days ago)

  All the uniform names start to blur together at this point, but this one is still very cool visually with the gladiator theme. The most significant improvement here is her 5th skill, which is a full delayed cancel with no early hits, finally allowing for perfect proc-friendliness. This provided a huge damage bump despite her skills having similar percentages, especially as players had become more accustomed to playing with procs in the year elapsed since the [Dark Star Armor].

  Squad Battle would release two updates after this uniform, with Sharon being a key scorer in the Blast Female Human restriction. She would also find plenty of use in Danger Room Extreme, added in update 6.4, as a key part of one-shot lineups. And finally Knull arrived in 6.5, where Sharon could edge out a clear with a great build and team setup. (This became much easier as players built up Pierce, which was also new in the Knull update.)

  Light Sirius Armor

  Light Sirius Armor

  Update 7.4.5: Light Sirius
  September 23, 2021 (3 years, 202 days ago)

  Another crazy design with the massive shield and futuristic aesthetic. Having matching suits with Luna and Crescent was quite special and unexpected for a Shang-Chi movie update midmonth.

  As expected, skill design stayed mostly the same, but with two important improvements: her 4th skill was changed to no longer be an i-frame, making it far easier to accumulate damage if you aren't hit during the 5th skill windup; and her Tier-3 charge values were increased just enough that you could get a Tier-3 skill in every two rotations, which was just becoming standard at this time.

  This uniform had a decent run in Danger Room until it was removed in 7.8, and in Squad Battle until it was removed in 8.4. With the removal of these modes and the addition of Tier-4s, it became harder to see a use for Sharon outside of WBL, which would carry over to the next couple of uniforms.

• Fading Away (Tier-4 Era)

  Fading Away (Tier-4 Era)

  Poseidon Armor

  Poseidon Armor

  Update 8.9.5b: Sharon Rogers Poseidon Armor
  April 19, 2023 (1 year, 359 days ago)

  The first of Sharon's uniforms to somewhat disappoint, as a minor upgrade that didn't iterate on her skill design, and the schoolgirl outfit rightfully rubbed normal people the wrong way. While there is some residual added to her 3rd skill, it comes with early hits that would surely steal a proc. An i-frame is also re-added to the first half of her 4th skill for no reason, reverting a lot of the QoL provided by the last uniform.

  The crucial part of this upgrade was the fact that she could go to Lv.80, though at this stage people were beginning to realise she had no use outside WBL. It likely would have been massively popular if it were one of the first Tier-4s to release, but at this point most players had a fair few Lv.80s that could make quick work of WBLs, making Sharon's uniform a luxury for those pushing higher stages.

  Arctic Warrior

  Arctic Warrior

  Update 10.6a: Christmas 2024 Uniforms
  January 1, 2025 (0 years, 101 day ago)

  Finally we catch up to the present (haha) where Sharon gets her most visually-stunning animations yet in a Christmas exclusive seasonal uniform. The rotation improvements are great while maintaining her iconic rotation: the 3rd skill finally has usable residual, and her 4th skill is once again a non-iframe which you can move around with the dpad, allowing you to dodge purples while leaning into regular attacks for accumulation.

  This all sounds very good, but in practice her performance did not increase significantly, and to make matters worse this is a seasonal paywall uniform, locking a traditionally F2P and new-player staple behind a $20 price tag. While the [Poseidon Armor] uniform is still usable and not that much worse, it all leaves a sour taste and the lack of gamemodes to actually use Sharon means that a lot of players will just skip over her without missing out on anything.

  Even if Sharon were to get a new uniform, which is unlikely for a couple years after a seasonal, it's hard to be optimistic with the lack of eligibility in ABX/L. For her next uniform to be any good it would require an expansion of useful PvE tags to include Blast Female Human Heroes, as well as increasing her DPS significantly to make her a top 3 overall. It might seem a bit ridiculous to ask for an F2P NT1 uniform to outscore the expensive metas, but that's the role she has played up till recently and the way it should be.