After being
released over two years ago, the Colisseum mode of the game has been recently
retired, being replaced by the new Scramble for the Throne mode.
Unless the new
mode gets some horrible reception (I seriously hope that is worth the wait after
being postponed twice), I honestly doubt that someone will really miss
Colisseum, with the Burning Inner
Strenght comeback mechanic being a neat idea in paper, but in practice it
became the single most infuriating thing about the game for everyone that
played that mode.
Although thankfully there was some silver's lining with the Coin Store. At the end of every match you would get some KIN coins,
and at the end of each season you would
get NIKU coins based on the Rank you ended up.
These coins
allowed you to buy a variety of things, from Nachiguron, Iwao, Stamina Bottle,
Kamehames, and most importantly, Orbs that you could spend in Gacha sets. So atleast there was some clear
incentive to keep fighting other players, despite unfairly losing from time to
time.
The most curious
aspect of these stores were the possibility of buying Units that you could use in the game, which
sounds amazing at first glance, but sadly there was serious bumps in the road…
First of, these
units were really niche, having a extremely limited range of usefulness ablitity-wise,
while also having low-tier friendship attack and finishers, to the point that
even Trial Events 6* were better than them.
Second, in the
case of KIN coin store units, in order to awaken them you needed 3 copies of
their respective bond material…which could only be obtained on the same store.
Extra effort to awaken a niche unit, amazing.
And the kicker is
that these units only have one Operation slot, so in order to have another one
you had to increase their Bond up to MAX…atleast the units have a Bond Value of
5, but it still is quite annoying.
To say the least,
in all the time I have been playing (8 months) I only saw one of these units
once, and it was the Geronimo that had a Tag Team finisher with Brocken Jr.,
which, admitelly, dealt a decent amount of damage.
But before they
retired Colisseum, DeNA released a new NIKU coin unit which was quite the big
step up in comparison to previous entries, and that unit was "Steel Arms Vicegrip"Pinchman.
It should be
noted that this is the first ever versión 6* of Pinchman, which is a nice way
to throw a bone at him.
From time to time the units that were added to the
stores were ones that were the first ever 6* versions for those units, like
Cannon Baller, or entirely new units to the game, like Kirinman. At the very
least those units were a bit better than the average store unit.
Pinchman is a Water attribute that
has an ability set of Current Rope Resist/Spikes Resist/Dimensional Hole
Resist, which for a store unit, its quite outstanding, being the first its kind
to have more than 2 abilities, with neither of those abilities being a Killer
or Attribute Resistance (Especially Attribute Resistance) one.
The only other
units with Pinchman’s ability set are the 20 Million Power Event Grim Reaper,
Kid Mayumi and KMA The Ninja, and between having to beat a 20 MP Event to get
Grim Reaper (‘s bond awakening material…2 or 3 times if you are lucky) and
Mayumi being a rare unit that only appears in gacha sets from time to time, that left Ninja as the sole “accesible” unit that you could get in a somewhat
consistent basis, so its quite notable that you could get a unit with this skillset
from the store, with the only negative part about is him having only one
Operation slot.
Pinchman’s
friendship attack is…surprisingly good, while also being a bit funny.
Depending on their position, it can damage a
lot of enemies, and while the non-targeted enemies would only recieve residual damage,
they still would get the Speed decreasing effect alongside the target, with
said targeted unit recieving an
surprising amount of damage coming from a store unit.
This kind of
friendship attack, alongside his versatile ability set, turns Pinchman into a
viable option for PvP, which is quite the big step for its kind, considering
how the only store units that probably were used on PvP before were ones with
Tag Team Finishers…and barely acceptable to say the least.
And his finisher,
while not as good as his friendship attack (then again, having actual, legit
expectations for a store unit was unheard of before him), it can inflict a large
amount of damage to the target if you hit their weak point, especially if it is a
Fire unit, while also dealing a respectable amount of damage to adjacent units,
enough to either knock them out, or atleast weaken them to the
point that the next turn they would totally go down.
Event-wise, the
first thing that people would think of after seeing Pinchman would the the 20 Million Power Painman event, which, once again, for an unit like him its quite
notable.
 |
| This is Painman after he ate quite the spice pepper. His skin may endure some heavy punishment, but not his intestines. |
While atleast
some previous store units had the Tag Team finisher niche to give them something
resembling relevance, Im pretty sure
that nobody ever used them for a 20 Million Power Event, with the exception of
Asuraman.
Similar to
Asuraman with the Goldman Event, Pinchman counters almost everyone of the
Painman Event’s gimmicks, with the only exception of Wire Mesh, but then again,
we are talking about a damn store unit. Him being viable on this kind of Event is completely unprecendent.
Another Event
where he is really good is the first OKAN Trial, which is quite neat
considering how it is one of the most played Trials due to the amount of units
that need her material to bond awaken, while also being one of the toughest
ones.
 |
| I legit thought she was a man at first |
It has the same
gimmicks as the Painman event, thankfully without the Wire Mesh, allowing
Pinchman to be used at his fullest potential. He is in fact so good for this
raid that he became the most used unit for it.
Previous store units struggled to
even get to top 20, even less top 10, and this unit became number 1 overnight.
The cherry on top
on this is both of these Events are filled with Fire attribute units, which
pretty much solidifies Pinchman’s spot as a top tier option for those Events,
being able to resist damage inflicted by
most enemies, while also dealing extra damage to them.
In conclusión,
DeNA pretty much retired Colisseum with a bang. They nailed every single spot while designing this unit
without missing a beat, down to his attribute. I still cant believe that they
made a unit like this one so easily obtainable, but considering how much the
game has changed over the years, Im glad that they finally decided to step
their game when is about designing store units.
Pinchman marked
the end of an era in the history of Muscle Shot, but I hope that he also represents
the start of a new era of quality store units.
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