What do you guys and gals feel is the strongest counter to Benedict?
He’s my most played character but I’ve never feared too many enemy Battleborn with the exception of a good Ghalt or sniper.
With multiple Benedicts currently romping around in Chaos Rumble, I’m curious what people think is the best answer to him.
Ghalt, Gally, Marquis. Pretty much what you said
Well, it sure as hell isn’t Mell.
I don’t feel Galilea “counters” Benedict. She’s got a fighting chance against him, but he’s got a fighting chance right back, as he can obliterate her through her shield. I think it’s just that Benedict shuts down squishy evasive characters so effectively, the fact you can actually pull and silence him with Galilea makes you finally feel competitive. And she can use her ult to escape from the Hawkeye (more of a “win” button than Dreadwind, if you ask me), although obviously that’s a waste of an ult.
50% of my career deaths at this point must be from Hawkeye, I swear.
Hmm. He’s quite weak to slows - Thorn, Ghalt, and Foxtrot (if he takes the slow on Sticky Nade at level 1) are all decent. He is a hilariously huge target when he’s flying, even a Toby could pop him out of the sky.
I’ve been Hawkeye some thought since last night’s shenanigans and was struck by an unintended byproduct of removing Benedict’s reload cancel.
When the reload clipping existed, Benedict players had little use for attack speed and would invest heavily in damage and reload speed since keeping the mag full and reloading after every rocket was optimal for DPS.
What this meant for hawkeye was that generally only 3 rockets could be used in the hawkeye cycle.
Now attack speed has become more prevalent on Benedict for his general gameplay since you can’t reload clip, it has had a huge impact on his hawkeye burst potential.
Taking the level 1 right helix combined with just 7% attack speed allows Benedict to unleash a full clip during Hawkeye.
Combine that with any damage boost and surgical strike? It can burst Shaurox down in one cycle from a full 1000 shield.
He’s not really weak to slow. It doesn’t affect his ability to use liftoff as an escape, nor his glide really.
It does affect his double-jump, however, and if he’s caught on the ground with Liftoff on cooldown, he’s as good as dead.
And it still crits, right?
The Benny last night running Symbiotic Gauntlet was able to kill me a heartbeat after any sparkling blue splash damage grazed me. It’s so frustrating to know that I have to (on an inferior connection) play a completely perfect game to avoid getting practically oneshot… but if I land a precision mid-air flying canister on the guy, he’s just gonna be eh, venom and fly away.
I don’t really like the tracking attacks at all, though, I’ll be honest. Ambra’s beam, Kleese’s taser, Hawkeye, and Priority Target plasma - I personally don’t consider KOs with these four abilities to be much to brag about. And Kid Ultra has a homing Bola’s now too, right? 
(edit: Bladestorm is different because I worked hard for that, okay 
)
It no longer crits, which is probably for the best.
That’s actually kinda depressing for me, because it means it really just does do that much base damage, haha. I figured I’d just been hit by an unlucky crit or two.
Reyna does it the best. Overshield can easily save a life, and last I heard, the cleanse mutation removes Hawkeye. Lockdown clips his wings, or homing plasma gives him a taste of his own medicine. Ult renders him useless for a short time.
Cloaking also removes the hawkeye effect, so I suppose its feasible to run a cloaker deliberately into hawkeyes.
Maybe a Shaurox which sets itself up as target and saves its cloak for hawkeye, then saves its pull for liftoff, but that’s a highly specific set for counterplay.
Benedict is only one of six characters i’ve used in PVP, and probably my second best. I’ve found the hardest counter for him to be Boldur (go figure, huh?), because while he’s not a threat in the air (or any other melee, for that matter), you also can’t do much of anything to him; also, you got to land sometime…
WF, OM, Montana, Thorn, and Marquis can focus him well enough to keep him at bay, though Thorn and Marquis also make up a good number of my kills with him, do to thier low health. Ghalt, S&A, and Galilea can knock him out of the air if they land thier pull, but Galilea isn’t really a big threat if she does. Honorable mention to a good ISIC, who can reflect Benedict’s rockets, while nailing him with charged shots.
Any time you can stun him out of the air, he drops like a rock. Shayne’s pull even does well if you have the range on it
I’ve found Shaurox can’t burst him down solo after the stun from the air.
I hit a Benedict with a number of stuns/pulls out of midair but he was able to get away from me fairly easily once he was actionable. You really need everyone to collapse on him I guess.
Yeah, exactly; Ghalt can kill him sometimes though. Every other pull? Not so much…
I’ve noticed your hatred of Benny. As I also prefer to jump around and harass with EVERY character I play, I despise him as well. And his taunts, grrr, they’re not wrong on occasion
Why I don’t main them, although they’re awesome. I need some burst in muh life. Mellka’s is sufficient, Marquis has some nice stuff, WF is always good, Phoebe is burst damage, and etc. but Shayne just can’t pull it off for me
And Benedict provides so many special frustrations for a Mellka. With choice helixes, Hawkeye > a full rocket clip makes for a substantially more lethal homing attack than Bladestorm… just drives me wild.
Especially when Hawkeye can just casually curve behind walls past 90 degree angles. I wish Reynas cpuld do that. Sadly, I rarely hit level 10 with Mellka just because games are so short lately, and at first I chose Pool Shot instead of the right one. Oops. And then, Claw Lunge can’t always save you BECAUSE HE HAS THE MOST RIDICULOUS HOMING. (Actually, would it be better to just shoot at Benny? Kill the rockets, I mean? This may be the first time her accuracy being horrible would be useful. Hmmmmm)
I’ve suggested shooting the rockets in the past, since you can theoretically destroy them, but when that hawkeye hits its pretty much panic stations.
I’ll have to try standing ground and trying to smack them out of midair.