This is Technically a Comprehensive Guide to Everything Kelvin

Overview

Hi, my name is Llamadowns. You’re looking at an extremely in-depth and detailed guide to playing Kelvin across all platforms in Battleborn. This is something I’ve been working on for several months, and I would thus appreciate every comment, suggestion, and criticism any of you may have. Also, credit goes to Kaede[x00] for helping me format this ♥♥♥♥ on steam. Enjoy the guide, and uh, stay frosty?

Introduction

Hey, my name is Llamadowns. While I haven’t had much experience with Battleborn multiplayer in previous versions of the game (i.e. Closed Technical Test and Open Beta), I’ve been playing the game basically ever since launch, with 1000+ hours worth of game time and experience. In the competitive scene, I played for Trash Tier in the Gears of Battle league before “retiring” and becoming basically a free agent for a few months. I’m one of the best, maybe the best Kelvin player on PC, according to some people in the community. I’m pretty sure I’m also the first person in the world to get Kelvin to level 20, but I’ve never actually confirmed that.

Anyway, enough about me and my shameless bragging. I’ve decided to pass on my knowledge of Kelvin in a comprehensive guide. So, here we are.

An Overview of Ice Man

Base Health: 2030
Base Shields: 300

Kelvin’s primary attack is a 4-hit combo in between his fists. Each swing deals about 50 damage per swing, with a very low attack speed, so this won’t be your main damage dealer. His secondary attacks is an area-of-effect (AOE) ground pound that deals about 60 damage per stomp. Whenever you right-click, it produces two ground pounds. This attack also has a small knockback capability, which we’ll look into further when we get to the Helix Builder portion of this guide. Finally, despite the AOE capabilities of the ground stomp, it can bypass shields on ISIC, Galilea, and Boldur, and it can still land critical hits, as long as you aim the crosshair at a critical hit location (such as an enemy player’s head).

Passive: Permafrost

Unlike the other Eldrid characters, Kelvin can generate his own shields. Each time he activates a skill, he gains temporary shields that slowly decay at a rate of -20 shield recharge per second until it drops back down to 0. You can see the negative recharge rate in your shield bar as you play him, which will be important to keep note of later on. As you level up, the amount of shields you get from every skill activation increases, from 98 shields at level 1 to 242 shields at level 10. In addition, the amount of temporary shields you get is proportional to your maximum shield strength. Therefore, by increasing your shield capacity through gear, you can achieve even more temporary shields. This will prove to be a huge part of Kelvin’s tankiness, as we’ll discuss later.

Skill 1: Sublimate

It’s a known fact at this point that Battleborn is a very Crowd Control (CC) heavy game, at least in a competitive sense. Many characters in the game have their viability in multiplayer matches evaluated based on how much hard CC they have. Thus, a huge part of Kelvin’s viability comes with Sublimate. Upon activation, you transform into a giant floating snowball. You become invulnerable to damage, your movement speed is slightly increased, you suffer no collision detection with enemies whatsoever, and every enemy you touch as a snowball gets stunned for 2 seconds. This effect lasts for a 2 second duration before transforming back into Kelvin’s icy self and has a 24 second cooldown.

There are a few hidden things about Sublimate. First, somehow, it can land critical hits, but good luck actually lining that up. Second, you can jump while Sublimating; use this to your advantage as you go for a stun or make your escape. Third, Sublimate can be cancelled early. Oftentimes, if I know our team can get a pick, I will go in to stun an enemy player, then immediately press the button again to go out of Sublimate to start dealing damage early, rather than floating around waiting for my teammates to do all the work. Do keep in mind that you are not invulnerable to CC; you can get silenced or knocked up by many skills, cancelling the Sublimate completely. In addition, any hard CC such as a stun or silence can interrupt Sublimate immediately after you activate it, since there is a small window at the beginning of the animation where you are still vulnerable.

Skill 2: Chomp

Speaking of snowballs, Chomp is the main way for Kelvin to transition from initiator to full-on tank later in the game. Upon activating the skill, your mouth opens, ready to eat something; press the button again to chomp down and receive the temporary shields from Permafrost. Chomp deals 67 damage plus 15% of the target’s max health to the target, up to a maximum of 500. Eventually, with enough skill damage gear, you can surpass that damage cap. Chomp will also instantly kill any minion (as well as lesser PvE enemies like Skulks and Primal Thrall). Additionally, every time you kill something with Chomp, you receive a permanent max health bonus. Killing minions and other lesser enemies like Strikers or Shepherds will grant 25 max health, and killing major enemies (i.e. players, Elite bots, and Thrall Bonecrushers and Brutes) will grant 75 max health. This skill has a 6 second cooldown and cannot crit except in very weird scenarios outside of PvP.

I cannot stress enough how important it is to prioritize getting your Chomp kills. Initiating in teamfights is nice, but you need as much tankiness and max health as you can possibly get to stay in the fight and continue to tank for your team. If you can, try your best to land Chomp kills on players. The extra health 75 health is always nice to have (not to mention the satisfaction of literally eating other players). In addition, spam it in combat as much as humanly possible, since you will still receive temporary shields from Permafrost and deal a good chunk of damage every 6 (or fewer) seconds, even if you don’t get any chomp kills. Remember that it’s better to actually get picks than have low-health players get away because you decided to wait to Chomp them. Finally, always remember that your Permafrost passive can save your life; if you have to run away, spam Chomp to receive additional shields to help stave off damage from the enemy as you escape.

Ultimate Skill: Ice Wall

For all of the cool design space and aesthetics surrounding a majority of the Battleborn cast’s Ultimate skills, I find it humorous that Kelvin’s Ultimate is just a wall. Upon pressing the Ultimate button, you will see an outline of where your wall will spawn; press the button again to call up your wall. As it rises, it will stun any enemies caught close to it for 2 seconds. It has a large width, and is a bit taller than some of the smaller Battleborn; as such, it’s hard to jump over the Ice Wall with the exception of the more mobile characters. The wall will block any AI or player, friendly or otherwise. It lasts for 7 seconds or until it is destroyed, has about 900 health, and has a 50 second cooldown.

Ice Wall can be used to devastating effect depending on your timing, and has a lot of utility. If you can line up the wall just right (as in right on top of an enemy player), in rare scenarios the player can be caught and stunned inside the wall for the entire duration, rendering them almost completely helpless as you and your team pummel them. To be honest, I wish this wasn’t possible; it’s a pretty crappy way to die and, besides, the 2 second stun is already enough. You can also use the Ice Wall as a way to cut off escape routes, or seal off narrow passageways so that you or your teammates can escape a fight. Additionally, the Ice Wall will almost entirely block minions in their path, preventing them from being cashed in on Meltdown or protecting a sentry on Incursion. However, be very careful where you place your wall; I speak from experience when I say that it can place you or your teammates in danger.

Helix Build (Part 1)

For most of you, this will be the most important section of the guide. The Helix Build section outlines the exact helixes I choose for PvP and PvE, and my reasoning for the choices. In essence, it is a tl;dr for how to build Kelvin.

• The Big Chill: Increases base health regeneration by 7 (+14 health regeneration at the start).
• Density: Increases maximum health by 360 (2390 maximum health at the start).
• Coldclock: Every fourth melee hit applies a brief 1-second slow to nearby enemies (both primary and secondary attacks).
• Correct Pick: Density. An extra 360 health is more than a lot of maximum health gear can provide. With this helix and proper gear, you will be more equipped to handle the rough early game. The Big Chill’s issue is that health regen does little to increase Kelvin’s survivability. With such a massive amount of health, it doesn’t refill enough to warrant staying for more than a few seconds in a teamfight. In addition, Coldclock’s slow is inconsistent and short, even with attack speed gear. Pick The Big Chill if you are not high enough character level with Kelvin to pick Density.

• Quick Bite: Damaging an enemy with Chomp increases your movement speed by 30% for 2 seconds.
• Diffusion: Chomp deals bonus damage equal to 3% of Kelvin’s current health.
• Strong Wind: Increases the amount of temporary shields you receive from Permafrost by activating Sublimate by 50% (about 200 temporary shields after Sublimating).
• Correct Pick: Diffusion. Admittedly, it is only about an 8% bonus damage increase when you immediately pick this helix. However, as you grow in level and get Chomp kills, your massive health becomes a huge damage modifier, allowing you to deal well more than 500 damage per Chomp with the right gear. Do keep in mind, though, that it doesn’t increase the max damage cap by itself. Quick Bite is useful when chasing down enemy players, especially with cooldown modifiers. Strong Wind becomes obsolete once we reach the late game, so pick Quick Bite if you are not high enough character level with Kelvin to pick Diffusion.

• Swelling Wind: Your movement speed while Sublimating increases the longer you spend in Sublimate (up to 60% movement speed after 2 seconds).
• Icemaker: Replaces Kelvin’s stun with a trail of ice following him while Sublimating that Slows enemies for 3 seconds.
• Correct Pick: Swelling Wind. Even though Sublimate’s duration has been nerfed, this helix allows you to use the terrain to your advantage and stun the entire enemy team while retreating to a safe position. It also enhances Sublimate’s value as an escape. Icemaker, on the other hand, is a steaming hot pile of garbage. In no universe is a 3 second slow better than a 2 second stun. It’s not even better than when Kelvin had a 1 second stun.

• Mastication Restoration: Grants 23% lifesteal on health damage with Chomp.
• Shield Snacker: 30% of damage dealt with Chomp restores your shields by that much (in order of Permafrost, then restores upon Chomp damage).
• Slow Food: Increases Chomp damage on slowed enemies by 25%.
• Correct Pick: Mastication Restoration. Remember that Chomp can deal enough damage to minions to instantly kill them. 23% of that damage, usually around 700 or so, will be returned to you as health, every 6 seconds. This is a great self-sustainability tool, especially with other sources of lifesteal. Shield Snacker does provide an early advantage in the game, but becomes obsolete once we reach higher levels. Slow Food is a heavy damage increase, but only on slowed enemies, making it very dependent on your team composition.

• Ice VI: Increases the base amount of shields received from Permafrost by 20%.
• Blue Ice: After activating a skill and receiving shields from Permafrost, your shield gets 30% damage reduction until it goes down. (Why this is on the purple side of the helix and not, you know, the blue side, I don’t know.)
• Correct Pick: Blue Ice. This helix is the crutch around which I build Kelvin. He excels at becoming almost impossible to kill after the middle stages of the game, and this is a big reason for that. One trick you can do with this helix is if you have a positive shield recharge rate (say, +20), then once you activate a skill you have a permanent 30% damage reduction on your shields until they go down. Ice VI is rendered obsolete by the fact that the shields received from Permafrost already increase with level at a rate that is more than enough for general play.

Helix Build (Part 2)

The Helix Build section outlines the exact helixes I choose for PvP and PvE, and my reasoning for the choices. In essence, it is a tl;dr for how to build Kelvin. (Continued.)

• Windchill: After stunning major enemies such as Elite bots or players with Sublimate, your maximum duration within Sublimate is increased by 3 seconds (up to a maximum of 6 seconds).
• Consume: After killing an enemy with Chomp, Sublimate’s cooldown is reduced by 5 seconds.
• Correct Pick: Consume. This is an awesome helix that rewards you for playing Kelvin correctly. By prioritizing Chomp kills, you yourself become stronger, and you have less cooldown for your teamfight initiator, which you can now participate in because you have more health. With enough cooldown gear and helixes, you can Sublimate, then Chomp 2 minions, then Sublimate again; this is a particularly nasty sequence for both starting and ending the same teamfight. Now that Windchill is fixed, it is usable as a way to more reliably stun multiple players, but doesn’t provide as much of an advantage as Consume does. Windchill is obviously more useful on Capture and debatably Face Off, where there are very few things other than players to kill with Chomp.

• Groupthink: You gain +7 health regeneration per second while standing next to a friendly Battleborn (including AI Battleborn in Story mode).
• Iceheart: You gain +50 health regeneration per second for 3 seconds after killing or getting an assist on an enemy player (150 health regained over 3 seconds).
• Ice Force: The knockback effect on the secondary ground stomp attack is increased.
• Correct Pick: Iceheart OR Icy Force. But first, a quick rant on Groupthink. This is a strictly worse version of The Big Chill, which we see at Level 1. Why is there an inferior helix located 6 whole levels beyond the original, superior version? I think this is a design error on multiple levels; some other characters like Shayne and Aurox suffer the same flaw. Anyway, both Iceheart and Icy Force are equally valid for PvP. 150 health over 3 seconds is a pretty hefty boost in health, especially after a teamfight where more players are likely to die either by your hands or by your teammates’. The increased knockback on the ground pound makes Kelvin infuriating to play against as a melee character, and helps with crowd control on minions. Obviously, pick Icy Force for PvE.

• Hibernation: You gain +21 health regeneration per second while Sublimating (+63 health regeneration per Sublimate without Windchill, +126 health regeneration with it).
• Windy Season: Decreases Sublimate’s cooldown time by 20% (down to about 20 seconds).
• Correct Pick: Windy Season. The reasoning is simple; with more cooldown reduction, you get more Sublimates, which means more opportunities to stun players and chase down kills, or to escape. Hibernation is simply outclassed by the importance of cooldown reduction. Once we get to the gear section of this guide, you’ll see a full explanation why.

• Overeater: Decreases Chomp’s cooldown time by 20% (down to about 5.1 seconds).
• Sawtooth: Increases the percentage of a Chomp target’s maximum health added to Chomp as damage to 17.5% rather than 15%.
• Correct Pick: Overeater. Again, cooldown reduction is key here. Frequent Chomp use gets you more lifesteal, more Chomp kills, more temporary shields over time, and more sustained damage on players. The increase in Chomp damage Sawtooth provides is miniscule due to how the extra damage is calculated. Besides, Chomp will already deal big chunks of damage to enemy tanks, and Sawtooth is unnecessary in this situation.

• Walled In: Decreases Ice Wall’s cooldown time by 20% (down to about 40 seconds).
• The Great Wall: Doubles the width of the Ice Wall.
• Absolute Zero: Ice Wall creates an AOE field around itself that slows enemies for 3 seconds.
• Correct Pick: Walled In OR The Great Wall. You may be noticing a theme here: cooldown reduction is very important for Kelvin. The wall itself provides a lot of utility to the match, and being able to use it more often with Walled In will allow more opportunities to place Ice Wall in an advantageous spot (or use it to kill teammates, but you didn’t hear that from me). The Great Wall makes the wall hilariously effective at stopping enemy players, able to cover up an entire lane on Meltdown maps. Absolute Zero is inconsistent and unnecessary for an ability that can potentially prevent players from being able to play for a few seconds.

Gear and Loadouts

This section will be divided into gear that is recommended, situational, or just plain trash for Kelvin based on what we know about the character and the Helix Build above. Once again, you may treat this as a tl;dr. Two things to keep in mind: first, gear that negatively affect the stats listed under Trash Gear could end up being very useful on Kelvin, depending on what the exact gear is. Second, while the gear tiers themselves and their explanations are set in stone, every player plays every character differently. You may find certain items working out very well for you based on your playstyle that don’t necessarily fit into the recommended loadouts.

• Max Shield: Out of the possible defensive gear options in Battleborn, gear that increase your maximum shield capacity are the most effective for tanking as Kelvin. It increases the shields received from Permafrost procs, and makes Blue Ice much more powerful, effectively giving you up to 800 damage worth of tankiness (which, by the way, can be regained with one skill activation).
• Cooldown Reduction: As explained in the Helix Builder section, cooldown reduction overall is one of the best possible stat modifications for Kelvin. It increases your effective survivability with more Permafrost procs, and makes it so you can get chomp kills and stack health more often.
• Shield Recharge Rate: Putting on any gear that boosts shield recharge rate will turn Kelvin’s passive -20 recharge rate into a positive rate. This means that, after the 5 second decay period from activating a skill, you will start passively recharging your shield. Once you get to level 5 and pick up Blue Ice, you will have that damage reduction ongoing for as long as your shield is still active (you can tell if it’s working because orange squares will come up from the bottom of your screen and then fade away). Given that our shield will be fully charged due to the shield recharge rate gear outside of combat, you can enter teamfights very safely with this interaction. I recommend using gear that boosts shield recharge rate as a primary stat, but I have used gear that boosts it as a secondary stat to good effect; just make sure whatever you are using is giving you a positive shield recharge rate when activated.
• Skill Damage: This is entirely focused on making your Chomps as deadly as possible. Remember, Chomp gets bonus damage based on the target’s max health. Having a passive skill damage buff in our gear allows us to deal large chunks of damage to basically any character. In addition, it helps you more reliably Chomp kill things that normally aren’t instakilled by it, like Elite Bots or players. It’s also worth mentioning that stacking skill damage gear is the only way to increase the damage cap on Chomp.
• Shard Generation: Keep in mind that you will ideally want common shard generators that have 0 cost and a negative stat that doesn’t effect Kelvin whatsoever. In this situation, you can opt for either the Jennerit (minus reload speed) or Rogue (minus healing given) variants. If you have the Shard of Solus, that will work fine as well.

• Max Health: You would think that max health would be recommended for basically any tank in the game, given its power when used on other characters. For Kelvin, however, things aren’t that simple. By the time you reach the late game, you should have about 4,500 health to work with; an extra 280 in that situation is not very useful. Do keep in mind that, with Diffusion, Chomp deals increased damage based on your current health, so max health gear could amplify that effect, by 8.4% with max health being a primary stat on your gear. If you’re just starting out in the game in general, you may find quite a bit of max health gear from missions and whatnot; it will serve adequately until you find more optimal gear.
• Damage Reduction: Generally speaking, damage reduction is a nice trait to have on a tank, but not necessary. It can be effective in combination with Blue Ice, but that would require sacrificing either shield recharge rate, max shield, or cooldown bonuses. If you want to run damage reduction gear, think carefully about what you want to be doing with it and what you can live without.
• Healing Received: A popular strategy with Kelvin is to team him up with a reliable support that can provide sustained, sufficient healing, such as Miko, Alani, or perhaps Ambra. The idea is to make the tank an invincible distraction while the rest of the team coordinates to outplay the enemy team. Gear that boosts the amount of healing you receive can help you survive in the fight for an excessively long time, provided you have good coordination with your healer(s). However, it leaves you extremely vulnerable to wound effects, so keep your enemy team’s composition in mind before trying something like this.
• Buildable Cost Reduction: Kelvin doesn’t necessarily fit into a builder role as well as other characters due to the importance of him being on the front line as much as possible. However, in combination with shard gen gear, you can make wrenches work. Kelvin does need to hit later levels to start making a big impact on the game, so if you can survive the particularly rough early game, a wrench could serve you well, but remember to pair it up with a free shard regen item for maximum efficiency.

• Health Regeneration: Unless you can stack enough health regeneration to survive fights for obscene amounts of time, health regen is kind of worthless as a whole on Kelvin. You’re going to have way too much health to make it worthwhile. This is the same reason I generally avoided most health regen helixes in the Builder section; it’s a gimmicky way to stay alive that leaves you even more vulnerable to characters that can counter Kelvin, such as Beatrix.
• Attack Damage: You will deal by far the most damage as Kelvin by spamming Chomp until your E key is broken. Building attack damage causes you to lose too much of the other helpful stats for a meager damage increase.
• Attack Speed: See the reasoning under attack damage.
• Critical Hit Damage: See the reasoning under attack damage.
• Movement Speed: To be fair, this does affect how fast you move while Sublimating, increasing the likelihood of stunning multiple players. However, it doesn’t really provide any advantage to make it worth more than other gear, especially once you factor in Swelling Wind.
• Sprint Speed: Like movement speed, except somehow worse.
• Healing Given: Doesn’t affect Kelvin whatsoever.
• Reload Speed: Doesn’t affect Kelvin whatsoever.

Recommended Loadouts

1. Common Jennerit Shield Recharge Rate (0 cost)
2. Epic Rogue Max Shield + Cooldown Reduction (1050 cost)
3. Epic LLC Skill Damage + Max Shield Capacity (1050 cost)
   • I’ve found this loadout to be the optimum combination of survivability, utility, and damage, but it is expensive and you may find yourself hungry for shards.

1. Common Jennerit Shield Recharge Rate (0 cost)
2. Rare Jennerit Cooldown Reduction + Cooldown Reduction with negative trait (630 cost)
3. Epic Jennerit Max Shield + Skill Damage with negative trait (756 cost)
   • This is a cheaper alternative to the first loadout, prioritizing cooldowns and survivability over damage.

1. Common Jennerit Shard Generator (0 cost)
2. Common Jennerit Buildable Cost Reduction (0 cost) OR Common Jennerit Shield Recharge Rate (0 cost)
3. Epic Jennerit Max Shield + Skill Damage with negative trait (756 cost)
   • If you find yourself relying more on building structures and fulfilling base objectives to level up, this could be a great loadout for you.

Character Matchups

In a competitive draft environment, you and your teammates will be working to find a strategy that all players are comfortable with or can at the very least play adequately. Likewise, the other team will be working to counter your team’s strategy or sometimes specific players themselves. Should you find yourself playing Kelvin in this environment, it helps to know what characters work well with and against Kelvin to prepare yourself for the match, as well as any characters that Kelvin performs exceedingly well against. Keep in mind that both lists are in alphabetical order, not in order of effectiveness.

• Alani: Though she’s not nearly as effective of a healer as she used to be, Alani pairs well with tanks that come equipped with hard CC. Sublimate into geyser is a powerful combo that should kill just about any lower-health character, given enough focus fire from your teammates.
• Kleese: To be fair, the mad scientist himself is in a rough spot in a competitive sense. However, Kleese’s rifts help keep Kelvin’s shields healthy enough in combination with Permafrost to tank anything that isn’t a massive assault. In addition, he can provide massive burst damage in the late game to help capitalize on your stuns.
• Miko: The in-game lore shows Kelvin and Miko as best friends, and in competitive matches this is exactly the case. Miko is the only real healer currently that can keep up with Kelvin’s massive health pool and can either initiate or follow up with a stun that doubles as a slow should he miss. However, he’s also very fragile and easy to counter; you and your team will want to protect the Miko player as much as possible (to an extent, this applies to the other healers).
• Rath: Rath is by far my favorite assassin to pair with as Kelvin. Catalytic smash is an excellent CC skill, especially after level 4, and will allow your team to get multiple picks on unsuspecting players once you factor in Sublimate. For added hilarity, try trapping someone with Ice Wall and just watch a competent Rath Dreadwind them into swiss cheese with no chance of escape.
• Toby: With huge amounts of range and burst potential, an experienced Toby is very deadly paired alongside Kelvin. He can chain CC an enemy player from very far ranges and provide big damage to compensate for Kelvin’s overall lack thereof.

• Boldur: Boldur seriously counters just about everyone. In the late game, there’s very little anybody can do about his damage or sheer tankiness, despite multiple nerfs to several skills and helixes.. Thankfully, this doesn’t come up very often in a competitive sense, as he is either honor-banned or heavily fought over in draft.
• Ghalt: Ghalt traditionally excels at murdering tanks due to the spread of his shotgun and ease of landing hooks on said targets, and his matchup against Kelvin is no exception. Despite having very little in the way of mobility, his raw DPS against a character whose entire front half of his body is a crit spot is devastating. Ghalt is to be feared throughout the draft process if you plan on playing a strategy focused around Kelvin, and you should be especially careful in game.
• Marquis: A veteran Marquis player can ruin any Kelvin’s day very easily. A coordinated team will provide him with plenty of opportunities to land easy shots on you, especially considering his time field can essentially prevent you from Sublimating entirely. The good news is that Marquis himself can be easily countered, so keep that in mind while drafting.
• Montana: Montana is generally regarded as the anti-tank, tank. His minigun can deal high sustained damage to targets that are easy to hit, and if timed properly, either his knockup or his stun can break Sublimate. Kelvin doesn’t exactly deal enough damage to take him on alone, especially not after a Mansformation.
• Toby: Even though he is a powerful ally, Toby is even more deadly as a flat counter to Kelvin. Toby can engage you at vast ranges and land crits very easily, especially after he stuns you once he hits level 4, and has surprising escape capabilities with his thrusters. If there is an experienced Toby player on the other team during the draft, you should seriously consider not playing Kelvin, or at the very least banning Toby.
• Thorn: Thorn’s monstrous damage output is simply too much for any melee character to deal with without catching her off-guard. After level 5, her damage over time from curses will eat away at your shields, preventing you from having large shields or damage reduction. In addition, her ult is a simply devastating nuke that can be hard to dodge. You should definitely be worried about the possibility of a good Thorn wrecking your day.
• Whisky Foxtrot: Coming equipped with a very easy-to-land wound and powerful ranged damage, Whiskey Foxtrot can wreck any strategy reliant on Kelvin as the main tank. The sticky grenade slow effect can put a damper on using Sublimate effectively, since the slow effects how fast you move while Sublimating. In addition, his ult can spell your death very quickly if you are caught off-guard.

• El Dragon: To be fair, El Dragon can put out insane damage after activating his ult if you’re not careful. However, the combination of Kelvin’s tankiness and general ability to shove off melee characters makes him a formidable counter to Mr. The Dragon. Make sure you coordinate with your team and be prepared for a dive bomb to negate his assault.
• Mellka: Just to give an idea, there was very little Mellka could offer against Kelvin even before she was unnecessarily nerfed into the ground. Her poison is mostly a nuisance against you, and without a way to break Sublimate, it should be relatively easy to stun her once her skills go on cooldown. However, you yourself won’t be able to kill Mellka without her getting away most of the time, so be prepared to focus your efforts on a different target should she escape.
• Orendi: Simply put, Kelvin takes a giant ♥♥♥♥ on Orendi. Her burst damage isn’t quite high enough to contend with an adequate Kelvin’s health pool, and her one mobility skill, Nullify, comes with a very hefty base cooldown. She should be your first target should you find her in game; once you stun her or otherwise place her in an awkward spot, there’s very little Orendi can do to stop you.
• Pendles: Everyone’s favorite sneaky snek tends to struggle in a competitive environment, where players are more familiar with strategies to play around him; Kelvin’s mere existence exacerbates that issue. Pendles’s damage isn’t nearly high enough to kill any tank, and can be easily caught out by a well-timed Sublimate.
• Thorn: “Wait, didn’t you just say that Thorn counters Kelvin?” It honestly depends on who’s playing Thorn. During quick matches, you will often find that she can’t actually deal enough damage to kill you; she can certainly dish out high damage very quickly, but as long as you’re playing carefully it shouldn’t be too much of an issue. In addition, be ready to coordinate with your team to take Thorn down, as her burst propulsion and increased jump height after level 7 make her a very slippery target.

Gameplay and Strategy (In-Game)

This last section will focus on in-game strategy and establishing a gameplan throughout a given game of Battleborn. We will first go over the early, mid, and late-game objectives to focus on during the match, then talk about Kelvin’s viability in different game types. Finally, we’ll finish this guide by informing you of some general tips about Kelvin to keep in mind for casual and competitive play, as well as give an evaluation of his overall power level.

1. Early Game: Right off the bat, you shouldn’t be too focused on getting picks unless you find an enemy player that’s severely overextended. Make sure, above all else, that you are getting Chomp kills on minions as they come along. Be prepared to rotate out of a potential engagement to get a couple Chomps, then step back into the fray. Play very, very carefully; as of right now, you don’t have nearly enough tankiness to survive sustained damage for very long. I will often hide behind a pillar or wall after getting in a couple blows into a minion wave to either heal myself up with a support or simply avoid damage. Coordinate with your team to land multiple player stuns per Sublimate as you engage in teamfights. As your max health increases and you activate your gear, you will gradually become more comfortable with managing your survivability. Make sure you build structures or capture objectives to level up as needed, as you will want access to your Ice Wall sooner rather than later. As a general rule of thumb, use your left-click attack for single-target damage or against minions and use your ground pound attack to force enemy players into awkward spots or keep them in one place for as long as possible. Do remember that your ground pound produces a small knockback effect that doesn’t suffer diminishing returns, which can be augmented after level 7.
2. Mid Game: With your ult available, you’ll be much more deadly as an initiator, since you’ll be equipped with two 2-second stuns. A common strategy is to stun someone with Sublimate, then immediately stun them again with the Ice Wall; due to hard CC stacking additively for some godforsaken reason, you’ll produce a 4-second stun on potentially multiple targets. If you’re lucky, you can even trap a player inside the wall on top of all this CC. However, be prepared to see your wall go down often, especially if you’re up against a team with a lot of ranged poke. In this situation, feel free to use your ult more liberally. Oftentimes I’ll use my ult just to stun a minion wave so my team has some extra defense; this tactic will come in especially handy on Incursion. As always, make Chomp kills a top priority throughout this stage of the game. Be prepared to do some body-blocking to get picks, i.e. standing in front of enemy players such that they can’t get away from you very easily.
3. Late Game: At this point into the game, Kelvin transitions from full-on tank to full-on hard carry. You’ll have way too much health and constantly refilling shields for the enemy team to deal with without extreme focus fire and multiple ults. In addition, your skills will come off cooldown extremely fast with adequate play; factoring in gear and helixes, your Sublimate should be coming off cooldown once every 8-10 seconds. A team stun coming off cooldown that fast is extremely difficult for any team without a lot of silences to deal with. Focus on being in the fight for as long as humanly possible, taking advantage of careful positioning and Chomp kills as they come up. Once you reach level 10, pick the helix that most fits the situation; cooldown will be more important if you find yourself more or less throwing away the wall, and the increased width is hilarious in itself as a way to halt an enemy team’s advance entirely.

Gameplay and Strategy (Gametype)

1. Incursion: Right now, Incursion is the most popular game mode in Battleborn (sadly). In this mode, Kelvin is very powerful. Keep in mind that thralls will give 75 permanent health when killed with Chomp; as such, try to take the Bonecrushers every chance you get, and save the killing Chomp for when they have about two bars of health left on them to reliably kill them. On the subject of killing thralls, also keep in mind that Kelvin isn’t very good at taking the central thrall Brutes that spawn every 5 minutes. Each brute is about twice Kelvin’s height, so it’s hard to land critical hits, so if you plan on killing them, go with a couple friends. Plan on using the terrain to your advantage while preparing to use Sublimate. This depends on the map, but one of my favorite things to do with Sublimate is to take either paths on the sides of the main lane to stun the enemy team from behind. Unfortunately, ever since Sublimate’s duration was nerfed, it’s much harder to do this, but if you can pull it off, it’s devastating.
2. Meltdown: Prior to the changes to Meltdown finale, Kelvin was one of the best characters to play in that game mode. Nowadays, his power has diminished slightly as the focus turns toward characters that are better off with economy builds that rush out Elite Bots. However, the increased frequency of minion waves will help you build up a massive health pool. As teamfights develop on either side of the map, try to focus on coming back to the wave every chance you have to get chomp kills, then rotate back. Also keep in mind that, depending on the map, you will be better off sticking to one lane with a support and having the other three players to to the opposite side. Be careful fighting at the second set of enemy grinders, since the Thumper turrets can basically prevent you from fighting entirely.
3. Capture: The whole reason Kelvin is even viable on Capture is because of Sublimate. Later in the game, he can defend objectives well with the combination of Ice Wall and Sublimate and help drastically in team fights. Remember that your overall tankiness will drop significantly as you’ll find nothing to Chomp other than players and Varelsi.
4. Face Off: Or as I like to call it, Jungling Simulator. Face Off is about the same as Capture as far as Kelvin’s viability is concerned, just with slightly more stuff to kill with Chomp. Remember that you can use Sublimate, Ice Wall, and your ground pound attack to keep players from turning in their masks. As a tank, you’ll usually find yourself carrying other people’s masks, since you’ll be much more likely to be able to turn them in with all your health and damage reduction. Be prepared to initiate a teamfight with every opportunity you find, especially during the fights with the Varelsi boss.
5. Supercharge: To be honest, I haven’t really played enough Supercharge to properly gauge Kelvin’s viability in it. I will say that, from the few games I have played, I found that Kelvin actually struggles to keep up. He needs to build up his max health fast enough to keep up with the massive amount of buildables and Elite Bots that other players can more easily take advantage of, especially early game. An economy loadout is basically required for Supercharge.

• Right now, Kelvin is in a very good spot, despite the recent nerf to Sublimate. Generally speaking, he has extremely tanky, deals good damage late game, and comes equipped with two forms of hard CC and a good mobility tool. From a competitive standpoint, this makes him one of the strongest characters in the game, and a big part of the reason chain CC is a very easy and very popular strategy. It’s for this reason that many leagues will have him honor banned or at the very least banned early on in the draft. However, in the situations where he somehow goes through in the draft, you will see an entire strategy focused around Kelvin, whether it’s about keeping him alive or stacking hard CC to get easy picks (the most effective strategies are capable of both). In quick matches, you will often find that kind of coordination to be lacking unless you are in a stack, but even then, at least you even get to play Kelvin, am I right? Finally, the most important thing to remember, especially while learning a new character, is that practice is key.

Conclusion

Holy merciful God this took forever to finish up. If you find this guide to be helpful in any way, I think I’ve already done my part, but feel free to leave behind any comments or suggestions on how to make this guide better. Thankfully, this is a Google doc, so I can change or edit on a whim if there’s something I missed or a mistake I made (which, at 15 pages, I probably did). Thanks again for reading, and remember, an ice cube’s gotta eat!