Captain Britain Champion Guide

Captain Britain Summary

Captain Britain is an especially difficult defender with a strong offensive rotation in long fights. In this guide, I’ll try to spend equal time discussing Captain Britain on both sides of the screen, because she is a very different character on offense versus defense.

Captain Britain on Defense

Captain Britain is a menace on defense because she is both a tank that takes a long time to kill and has very specific RPG requirements to fight her effectively. Currently, there are only a handful of champions, all in the Tech class, that are able to fight her successfully in Battlegrounds and Alliance War. I’ll discuss these matchups more in the defender summary section. Here, I’ll focus more on Captain Britain generally.

Captain Britain has several attributes and abilities that make her a tanky champion. One overlooked attribute is that her base health is the 7th highest in the game, slightly less than Deathless Thanos and slightly more than Maestro. This can often catch people off guard when using champions like The Maker who like to finish the fight in one big burst.

To add to her tankiness, Captain Britain has a safeguard passive that caps damage at 3% of her health and can only be removed by a special power drain effect (which only Maker has, but which he can give via his pre-fights). For everyone else, they have to fight through this and can have their damage reduced, dragging on the fight.

Captain Britain also has access to an exhaustion passive, which reduces the opponent’s critical damage rating by a significant amount. How much you care about the reduction depends on the champion you’re using, but the exhaustion also acts as a trigger for Captain Britain’s neuroshocks, which is another defensive hurdle.

Captain Britain’s tankiness becomes a real problem because she uses her neuroshocks to punish you for being in the fight longer. You can get neuroshocks on you in 2 ways: 1) By landing a critical hit, which gives you an exhaustion passive, and then hitting her while inflicted with that exhaustion or 2) hitting her while she has her bulwark passive up from her special 2. These neuroshocks start as chip damage, but get really serious when Captain Britain activates Psionic Mode where her neuroshocks tick 200% faster.

So, in addition to finding a way to counter the neuroshocks, you also need to find a champion that has a damage style that Captain Britain does not counter.

Captain Britain on Offense

On offense, Captain Britain is a tanky champion with damage aimed at long fights. She is aimed specifically at 1 million+ health opponents but can perform serviceably in Battlegrounds fights if you need to use her there. She can also be optimized in a few different ways that can dramatically improve her damage output when played right. See more about this in the General Rotation Summary.

Full Champion Abilities

Signature Ability

Always Active

Increase personal Exhaustion duration by 5-10% for each Psionic Charge. Psionic Mode increases the duration as if Captain Britain has 10 Psionic Charges.
Each personal Neuroshock reduces the Opponent’s Energy Resistance by 18-35% of their current positive Energy Resistance. Max: 100%.

Abilities

Always Active

Basic Attacks deal Energy Damage instead of Physical.
Against non-Tech Champions, Captain Britain’s personal Neuroshock and Exhaustion Passives cannot have their duration or Ability Accuracy reduced.
Captain Britain starts each fight with a 3% Safeguard Passive. When inflicted with a Special Drain effect, or, as an Attacker, after reducing a hit’s damage, this Safeguard is removed.
When this Safeguard is removed or prevented, Captain Britain regains it after 20 seconds unless she’s suffering from a Special Drain effect.
When either Champion is knocked down, or Captain Britain is struck by a Critical Hit, the Opponent is inflicted with a non-stacking 562.5 Exhaustion Passive for 4 seconds.

Neuroshock

Captain Britain’s Neuroshock Passives deal 2536.5 Energy Damage over 10 seconds, scaling with Base Attack only.
The potency of her Neuroshocks is increased by Captain Britain’s current Prowess potency, but doubly reduced by her current Cowardice potency. Max: 200% increased potency at +200% Prowess.
When inflicted with a Shock or Bleed effect, inflict a Neuroshock Passive.
If struck by or striking an Opponent suffering from an Exhaustion effect, inflict a Neuroshock Passive. Can only trigger once every 1.5 seconds.
Whenever the Opponent Purifies or Cleanses a Debuff, inflict 2 Neuroshock Passives.

Psionic Charges – Max: 20

When inflicting a personal Neuroshock or gaining any Prowess effect, gain 1 indefinite Psionic Charge.
When activating a Special Attack, gain 6 indefinite Psionic Charges.
When knocked down, gain 2 indefinite Psionic Charges.
When inflicted with a Cowardice or Special Drain effect, remove 2 Psionic Charges.
If knocked down while one of these effects is active, remove 2 Psionic Charges for each unique effect, up to a max of 4 Charges.

Psionic Mode

When reaching 10 or more Psionic Charges, if not already active, enter Psionic Mode. Psionic Mode lasts for 1 second per Psionic Charge when activated, paused during Special Attacks. While in Psionic Mode, Captain Britain cannot gain Psionic Charges, and gains the following:
Personal Neuroshock Passives tick 200% faster. Any personal Neuroshock Passives inflicted during Psionic Mode are paused until Psionic Mode ends.
When activating a Special Attack, for each level of the Special, gain 1 indefinite +15% Prowess Passive. When Psionic Mode ends, remove 3 of these Prowesses. Max stacks: 30.
Captain Britain is Stun Immune during her Dash and Medium Attacks.
As a Defender, Psionic Mode goes on cooldown for 15 seconds after it ends.

Special Attacks

Special Attack 1 – Psyblast

On activation, inflict a non-stacking 9.04 Exhaustion Passive for 6 seconds.
Each hit inflicts a non-stacking Slow Debuff for 16 seconds. If purified by a Skill Champion, inflict a matching Slow Passive. While active, Captain Britain’s personal Exhaustions are paused.

Special Attack 2 – Shield Assault

On activation, gain a non-stacking +2250 Bulwark Passive lasting until the next time Psionic Mode ends.
While this Bulwark is active, Basic Attacks inflict a Neuroshock Passive. This can trigger through Block.
Hits in this Special Attack gain +5250 Critical Rating.

Special Attack 3 – Go Medieval

This Special Attack cannot be activated if Psionic Mode is active.
Enter Psionic Mode and increase its duration by +8 seconds.
Gain a non-stacking 60% Power Efficiency Passive lasting until Psionic Mode Expires.
Gain 6 additional indefinite +15% Prowess Passives.

My Thoughts on Captain Britain

I’m a huge fan of Captain Britain on offense but not on defense. On offense, Captain Britain is my favorite long-form attacker in the game. Her damage output can be absolutely unreal, and when you stack a lot of paused neuroshocks, it is so satisfying to see the opponent’s health bar melt away. On defense, I don’t like fighting Captain Britain. From a design perspective, I do think that Captain Britain is a good defender and opens up interesting design space in the Tech class and gives more meta relevance to her counters. However, I don’t really enjoy using any of her good counters, which makes it difficult when I come across her in Battlegrounds. Overall, I do really like Captain Britain and often rank her up soon after a new rank is released.

Does Captain Britain Need to Be Awakened?

TL;DR: Captain Britain does not need to be awakened, but her awakened ability can open up more matchups when she is on offense and shut down matchups when she is on defense.

Captain Britain’s sig ability has 2 clauses. The first clause increases the duration of her exhaustion passives, which is helpful almost exclusively on defense.

The second clause is the one I believe to be much more important. This ability allows Captain Britain to lower the opponent’s current positive energy resistance by a certain percentage, down to -100%. This is not the same thing as energy vulnerability because it can never take energy resistance below zero. At max sig, it only takes 3 neuroshocks to completely negate the opponent’s energy resistance.

So, how does this work in practice? On offense, it makes her better for characters with naturally high energy resistance like Absorbing Man (in Magma form) or Count Nefaria. Additionally, people will often put the energy resistance stat focus on a defensive Korg or Yelena Belova. An awakened Captain Britain makes this a non-issue.

On defense, Captain Britain’s awakened ability forces the attacker to directly answer neuroshock rather than energy damage in general. In Battlegrounds, for example, I am only willing to use Absorbing Man against Captain Britain if she is unawakened. If Captain Britain is awakened, it is very easy to get 3 neuroshocks on you and lose your advantage. I also find that opponents in Battlegrounds often miss the nuance of this ability and can catch people off guard.

Best At?

Safeguard Effect

Captain Britain has the strongest safeguard effect in the game right now. At 3% potency, it has the lowest cap in the game, compared to Dark Phoenix’s 5%. Her safeguard also has an advantage because it is an indefinite passive rather than an expiring buff, making it much less interactable (though it can be removed via special power drain). It also stays around during a SP3, which you can use every 20 seconds and only lose 3% health (assuming the SP3 doesn’t also inflict damage over time effects or a stun).

Overlooked Interactions

Safeguard + Power Gain

Captain Britain’s safeguard is helpful, but can only save you from one hit or burst of damage on offense. Luckily, the game interprets the special 3 as one single hit, which means that you can use the safeguard to be protected from a SP3 as often as the safeguard is off cooldown. Just keep in mind that it will not save you from additional effects from the SP3, such as damage over time effects or stuns. This ability can be incredibly helpful if you use it to gain power at the cost of 3% health. If you time it right, you can use the additional power to use another SP2 and extend the duration of your Psionic Mode.

In this fight against Mr. Sinister, I push him to his Special 3 but still come out of the fight with 100% health. Talking his Special 3 also gives me more power to continue throwing SP2s.

Neuroshocks Scale with Prowess and Cowardice

Captain Britain’s neuroshocks scale based on prowess potency but not attack rating. As an attacker, this means her neuroshocks will deal more and more damage the longer the fight goes on, making her very effective in long-form content like Coliseum. On defense, nodes that give Captain Britain more prowess or those from her own abilities will make her a much scarier threat. Note that the special damage stat focus does not contribute to this, though I do like to use that stat focus anyways.

Cowardice has the inverse effect of prowess on neuroshock potency. Cowardice reduces the potency of neuroshocks by double its percentage value. See an example of the math below:

1000 damage neuroshock +30% prowess -2x(20% cowardice) = 900 damage neuroshock

Matchup Summary

This is a list of matchups I wanted to highlight because they are good, bad, or tricky and force you to modify your normal loop.

Yelena Belova

Understanding this matchup requires you to understand why Yelena Belova is such a tanky champion. Assuming you don’t have access to Daunted effects, Yelena caps your attack rating at 60% of what it was at the start of the fight. For Captain Britain, this means that prowess will not increase the damage of her special attack hits but will increase the damage of her neuroshocks. Because it takes a longer fight for her neuroshocks to start dealing damage, Captain Britain is best for Yelena in long-form content.

Korg

Captain Britain is good for Korg because all of her attacks deal energy damage. The only thing to worry about in this fight is Korg purifying your parry stuns, which Captain Britain will punish by inflicting a neuroshock.

Punisher

Punisher is specifically weak to Mutant Heroes, which Captain Britain is. This means that Punisher’s indestructibles will not activate during her special attacks, making it easier for her to finish the fight quicker. Just get good at dexing his specials.

Nick Fury

Nick Fury gains reduced Tactical Charges against Mutants, giving Captain Britain a helpful advantage. Additionally, Captain Britain ramps by gaining prowess, which are effects on Captain Britain and are not removed when Nick Fury enters his second life.

Wow, Captain Britain Can Take...?

Count Nefaria

Captain Britain is actually one of my favorite counters to Count Nefaria. I find that Nefaria’s main threat is his resistances, which can slow down fights significantly without the right counter. An awakened Captain Britain can counter this ability by removing his positive energy resistance after only a few neuroshocks. When Count Nefaria was the Coliseum boss, Captain Britain was one of the best options against him, especially if you selectively baited his SP3 while you had your safeguard up.

Absorbing Man

This matchup is good for the same reason as Count Nefaria. If Absorbing Man is in his Magma form, just 3 neuroshocks from a max sig Captain Britain can remove his very high energy resistance.

Spider-Woman

Captain Britain does have a slow, but having good uptime on it requires you to sacrifice your damage. This can be helpful if you find yourself facing Spider-Woman without a better counter.

Kindred

There are a lot of science characters that have better protection against Kindred, but Captain Britain can work in a pinch. Her strong power efficiency after the SP3 helps you have power for a special attack once you get rooted.

Galan

Captain Britain’s safeguard can protect her against champions with big bursts of damage, like Galan. Just make sure the safeguard is off cooldown when he activates his harvest!

Maestro

Captain Britain can work against Maestro because his glancing does not apply to special attacks, which is where most of Captain Britain's damage is. However, Captain Britain is not protected against Maestro's Cosmic Radiation, which can chip down your health significantly.

In this fight, the Captain Britain is Rank 4 and Maestro is Rank 5 Ascension 2. I feel like this fight goes as well as it could, which is not great.

Defender Summary

Captain Britain is a very difficult defender because she is tanky and requires specific RPG counters to successfully fight her. There are various ways champions answer these, which I’ll break down by champion below.

The Maker

The Maker is the best answer to Captain Britain, and if you see her in Alliance War, you should almost always send Maker to the fight.

The Maker is good for Captain Britain because he is fully immune to neuroshock, her main defensive ability. Captain Britain’s safeguard is also turned off by the special power drain effect that Maker has and can give to other champions using his Pre-Fight ability.

Bastion

Bastion can reduce the ability accuracy of Captain Britain’s neuroshocks by up to -60%, helping him come out of a fight much healthier than other champions might. Bastion’s combat power rate reduction also makes Captain Britain throw fewer special attacks, making her threats less frequent. An awakened Bastion is usually best at fighting Captain Britain on hazard shift fights in Alliance War.

Solvarch

Solvarch doesn’t crit, which is a main trigger of Captain Britain’s neuroshock. If Solvarch is inflicted with a neuroshock, they are very good at regenerating energy damage, making the neuroshocks much less of a threat. Solvarch can still take chip damage from receiving a lot of neuroshocks while Captain Britain is in Psionic Mode.

Jack O’ Lantern

Jack O’ Lantern doesn’t crit, making it harder for Captain Britain to land neuroshocks against you. He also has an easy-to-access cowardice on his 4th light attack, reducing the potency of any neuroshocks Jack gets on himself. His sig ability also allows you to regenerate while you have a neuroshock on you. I find that this ability only really helps when Jack is at a high sig level.

Nimrod

Expect to lose significant health in this fight, but it can be very fast. Captain Britain will inflict Nimrod with a neuroshock when you inflict her with a shock debuff, but Nimrod can easily remove her prowess and inflict cowardice, reducing the potency of those neuroshocks.

Emma Frost

Emma Frost is immune to exhaustion while in her diamond form, removing one of Captain Britain’s main avenues of giving you neuroshocks. However, Captain Britain’s safeguard will hinder your damage significantly. It’s a fun, little-known interaction though!

Gamemode Summary

In this section, I’ll cover the general rotation first, then highlight the gamemodes where you may need to adjust your approach or pay attention to additional details to perform effectively.

General Rotation Summary

In most fights, Captain Britain’s offensive rotation is very simple: get to your SP3, get a massive power efficiency, and throw as many SP2’s as you can before Psionic Mode ends. If you have played Cyclops or Dust, you will find that Captain Britain’s rotation is very similar to theirs.

In my experience, you are able to throw between 1 to 4 SP2s per Psionic Mode cycle. This is largely dependent on how cooperative the AI is and how much time you need to spend baiting out special attacks (though the time in the special attack animation won’t count against you). Regardless of how effective a Psionic Mode cycle is, you will come out of it with more prowess than you started with, making the next cycle deal more damage.

It is also important to note that Captain Britain’s neuroshocks don’t start being inflicted until Captain Britain gets her bulwark passive after her first SP2.

If I have a bad damage cycle and can only throw 1 or 2 SP2s, I usually prefer to save my power afterward for another SP3. That makes it easier to set up my next Psionic Mode cycle, especially since I won’t have many neuroshocks on the opponent to deal damage.

If I have a good damage cycle, that means that Captain Britain’s neuroshocks have stacked up a lot on the opponent and will start to deal a lot of damage. In this case, it is better to prioritize keeping Psionic Mode and your neuroshocks paused over ending the rotation with higher power. You can do this by throwing your specials or waiting out the opponent’s special attacks. In really good rotations with a lot of neuroshocks, you may even consider throwing your SP1 to extend Psionic Mode a little further.

Also, keep in mind that Strikers may not be helpful at the end of Psionic Mode as they will not let you and your opponent throw special attacks to pause Psionic Mode.

Matchups with Evade and/or Unstoppable

Captain Britain has access to a slow debuff (or passive, if it is purified) on her SP1. This can be helpful in a number of different matchups and you can reliably have close to 100% uptime on it if you want. However, this will completely lock Captain Britain out of her SP3 loop and much of her damage. While this slow can be helpful, the difference in damage with or without it is usually enough for me to look elsewhere for a counter.

Battlegrounds

If you are punching down against a weaker opponent, it can be sufficient to just go for a SP2 to kill the opponent. I do this in this fight against Mantis.

However, this usually is not the case, so you will need to go for a SP3-SP2-SP2 rotation to deal enough damage. This goes quicker because of the power efficiency but is not particularly fast. I use this rotation in this fight against Dust.

I still like using Captain Britain on offense, but this is rare because of how good she is on defense. I will consider using Captain Britain on offense if the opponent drafts a counter like Maker.

Coliseum Rotation

Captain Britain really shines in the Coliseum. I find that the best rotation for her is to push the opponent to their SP3, assuming it doesn’t have any additional negative effects and that her safeguard is off cooldown. This can let her get a massive power bonus in Psionic Mode to potentially get a 5th SP2 and extend her damage a lot. The difference between the 3rd, 4th, or 5th SP2s can be full health bars where the opponent melts from neuroshock damage.

Other than that, Captain Britain’s Coliseum loop is the same as her general rotation with necessary modifications for the specific fight.