*** Doctor Octopus (Otto Octavius) ***

Kolence

Pwuz_ wrote:

NorthernPolarity wrote:

Red Panda wrote:

So I'm wondering if the upcoming Sentry nerf/retooling will help Doc Ock become a better counter since there's a chance for reaching 11 blue before an enemy Sentry gets 12 green & more time for his passive to trigger while clearing rupture tiles. The few times I've used him, his blue hasn't done anything impressive but I'm willing to wait a bit before possibly respeccing from 5/5/3 to 3/5/5. His green sucks but at least I know what to expect if I ever use it.

Nope, turns out that swapping 8 pairs of tiles is still pretty inconsistent / bad.

Oh, idea for a buff to Doc Ock. Set the positions of the tiles he swaps! I'd even go as far as to make it a set pattern that it always follows so it can be planned and known both which tiles will swap (making it apparent which tiles it will grab to destroy) but also making it possible to plan out cascades due to swaps!

Perhaps make 3 of them tiles that World Rupture always affects, 3 of them tiles that Inferno always affects, and the last 2 some place near the bottom of the board.

After seeing the red power for Nightcrawler described here (Great idea, aesthetocyst!), I think it would really fit as Doc's "Manipulation". It affects 8 tiles. It could de-power enemy special tiles caught in the pattern like DD does. Doing damage for each rotation or maybe extra damage for special tiles. Rotating once at 1 cover, and 2-3 times with more? The more rotations, the more chances it can gather some AP in cascade(s), though it then runs the risk of being too expensive and too slow in play (so not really improving the character as much ). Or allow selecting another set of tiles to rotate with more covers (more damage), and just make them move only by 1 place (less AP).

edited because the link would not cooperate.

ronin_san

I didn't mean to cause a flare-up of emotion as to how to detune XFW. I have him. I like him in his current iteration and don't want it changed.

But I look at characters like Elektra and XFW. They're not in the same ballpark. Elektra's abilities can do fair damage. Sure. But Fair isn't what it's about. Fury's exit strategy does decent damage and makes a big fat attack tile. But it's one attack tile, and prone to being destroyed by XFW, Hulk clap, and cascades.

Elektra's double double (stupid name, btw) - I feel like it's a rejected name for two extra large crosscut fries at In 'n Out....It's ****. Just ditch it altogether. Make it a sai toss(initial damage) that pins an enemy to a wall. Timer tile or something. She runs up and pulls it out. It creates a new timer tile that does bleed damage for a couple turns and is done. Let me place it. Let it cost 7. /end.

Same with Doc Ock, and he's what I want to address. The dude could have been fun. But he's crippled. He'll never get off the ground in a fight against iron fist, and that's a shame.

He has all these arms, doing their own thing. They should passively riposte attacks if doc ock has either: x number of AP in pool or X countdown tile in place. Raise the number of covers in the ability, and increase the timer duration and damage output.

The limbs could also be used to tack on successive dmg eg OBW. What if each limb did 100 dmg extra. "That has the potential to be OP". Fine. Another timer tile ability. Whatever. I'm spitballing. It's OK to disagree or suggest alternatives.

His insult to injury ability is fun but requires the other team have ability tiles. So what if we expanded it to include charged and invisibility tiles?

I want him to be a fun character. He's a joke at current. What are your thoughts?

Unknown

Take his , roll it up, and put it in the dumpster. Start over. If you want an ability to do 3 things it has to do at least ONE of those things well.

Also Needs to cost 8 not 11, and it should go after special tiles first whenever they are present. None of this random bull. Swaps up to 8 pairs of tiles, selecting special tiles first if present, destroys them for damage.

Elektra's is called Double Double CROSS not, double double. As in "Double Cross Twice", as in secret agent stuff. It's not a dumb name, it's maybe a silly name, but it's on point for the ability.

While we are on the subject of fixing things, Elektra's needs to create a strike tile for your side even if none exist on the enemy side. That'd go a long way to making her pretty decent.

stowaway

Lerysh wrote:

While we are on the subject of fixing things, Elektra's needs to create a strike tile for your side even if none exist on the enemy side. That'd go a long way to making her pretty decent.

It would at least keep her from being the most hilariously awful teamup in the game.

dkffiv

Doc Oc / DD / Captain Marvel need to punish the hell out of the enemy team for causing their abilities to proc considering that the average team may not even have abilities to create them. Specialized counters > neutered abilities that barely pull their weight when their conditions are present.

ronin_san

Lerysh wrote:

Take his , roll it up, and put it in the dumpster. Start over. If you want an ability to do 3 things it has to do at least ONE of those things well.

Dumpster and start over is a good idea.

Lerysh wrote:

Elektra's is called Double Double CROSS not, double double. As in "Double Cross Twice", as in secret agent stuff. It's not a dumb name, it's maybe a silly name, but it's on point for the ability.

http://www.in-n-out.com/mobile/double-double.aspx

Here are alternates:

betray, stab in the back, let down, deceive, swindle, cheat, sell out, con, dupe, beguile, bluff, cross, defraud, double deal, four-flush, hoodwink, humbug, illude, juggle, mislead, scam, sell, sell down the river, split, take in, trick, two-time

How about just undercover betrayal, secondary betrayal, misled loyalty.....but no. let's use the same word 2x. It's a poor choice of wording, man.

Lerysh wrote:

While we are on the subject of fixing things, Elektra's needs to create a strike tile for your side even if none exist on the enemy side. That'd go a long way to making her pretty decent.

I agree on this, too; some sort of improvement on She-Hulk's justice ability. Here. You get 3 strike tiles, and I get 1. Aren't you happy? It doesn't matter that mine is 300 and yours are 27 collectively. Just go with it.

Mawtful

best way to fix Doc Ock? Given him Threaten and Tommy Gun. Top Tier forever and ever amen.

Pylgrim

I was precisely thinking about this earlier. This is what I came up with:

Manipulation - Blue 8 AP
Science will not be stopped by petty concerns such as "ownership". Doc's mechanical arms sweep the battlefield, quickly gathering essential components, swapping 6 pairs of tiles and gaining control of any enemy Attack tiles swapped this way.
Level Upgrades
Level 2: Also gains control of swapped enemy Strike tiles.
Level 3: Also gains control of swapped enemy Protect tiles.
Level 4: Swaps 12 pairs of tiles.
Level 5: Also gains control of swapped Countdown tiles.

I like the idea of his Blue, as you really can visualise the mechanical arms swapping things around. However, I wanted to play up the fact that his mechanical arms were primarily a way to misappropriate whatever materials Doc needed in his research, in other words, Doc criminal side is more a thief than anything else. That tied well with his interaction with enemy special tiles and it constitutes a better reward that the measly damage + riddance of his current ability. I also lowered the cost (since the ability is highly random) and decreased the initial number of swapped tiles to 6 (because Doc's own human arms have no special capabilities.)

Insult to Injury - PASSIVE
Doctor Octopus never loses a chance to add scathing commentary to a beating, angering and humiliating his adversary. At the beginning of your turn if the opponent has no Strike tiles on the board, add an enemy Green Strike tile of strength 20 to the board. Whenever you make a match that includes enemy special tiles, add a Black Attack tile of strength 35 and a Green enemy Strike tile of strength 20 to the board.
Level Upgrades
Level 2: Creates strength 40 Attack tiles.
Level 3: Creates strength 52 Attack tiles.
Level 4: Adds 2 strength 36 Attack tiles.
Level 5: Adds 2 strength 48 Attack tiles and 2 strength 15 enemy Strike tiles.
Max Level: Adds 2 strength 180 Attack tiles and 2 strength 50 enemy Strike tiles.

I added enemy strike tiles to the ability (and increased the damage output of the Attack tiles accordingly) mostly to keep the ball rolling so his blue and black would not be mostly useless against enemies that rarely (if at all) place down special tiles.

Armed and Dangerous - Green 12 AP
With more arms on his own that the whole opposing team together, Doc Ock pushes his advantage. Deals 120 damage to the opposing team and 120 additional damage to the target.
Level Upgrades
Level 2: Deals 200 damage to the enemy team and 200 more to the target, stunning him for 1 turn.
Level 3: Stuns the opposing team for 1 turn and 1 additional turn to the target.
Level 4: Also steals 2 AP in the opposing team's strongest colour.
Level 5: Deals 300 damage to all enemies, stunning them for 1 turn. Deals 300 more damage to the target, stunning him for 3 turns. Steals 3 AP in the opposing team's strongest colour and 1 AP of each other colour.
Max Level: 980 damage to enemy team and 980 more to the target.

I also like the idea of Armed and Dangerous being a mix of effects to showcase the "multi-tasking" power of 8 arms, but the current power is way too weak and random (especially at its high cost) to do it any justice. I decided to go the route where Doc focuses on one enemy, greatly damaging him, while the rest of the arms just cause general mayhem around.

I believe that while he still won't be a staple powerhouse, he will at least be someone you could consider putting in your team when you're composing your team and not feel embarrased, while keeping close the the original identity that Demiurge gave him.

Tannen

I like the above. Blue has a few issues : I don't think that control should be granted for countdown tiles, as most of them are for abilities that a specific character is prepping to use (for example XFW recovery) and also that's a lot of tile swappage (12 pairs = 24 tiles potentially swapping ownership, 5 black storm creates 32 tiles for reference. I suspect that this would immediately make every single special tile on the board yours in most cases.) -- it would mean that he'd be essential for any match with tile generators (or against himself).

Suspect a better power scale for blue would be more like...

L1 : Swaps 2 pairs of tiles, gain control of any Strike tiles swapped this way.
L2 : Tinkering improves efficiency of tiles swapped by X.
L3 : Gain control of any Protect tiles swapped this way.
L4 : Swaps 4 pairs of tiles.
L5 : Gain control of any Attack tiles swapped this way.

Potentially swapping L2 for L5 would be better...

Unknown

stowaway wrote:

Lerysh wrote:

While we are on the subject of fixing things, Elektra's needs to create a strike tile for your side even if none exist on the enemy side. That'd go a long way to making her pretty decent.

It would at least keep her from being the most hilariously awful teamup in the game.

This honor still goes to IW. 2 force bubbles and end turn. Sweet.

Pylgrim

Tannen wrote:

I like the above. Blue has a few issues : I don't think that control should be granted for countdown tiles, as most of them are for abilities that a specific character is prepping to use (for example XFW recovery) and also that's a lot of tile swappage (12 pairs = 24 tiles potentially swapping ownership, 5 black storm creates 32 tiles for reference. I suspect that this would immediately make every single special tile on the board yours in most cases.) -- it would mean that he'd be essential for any match with tile generators (or against himself).

Suspect a better power scale for blue would be more like...

L1 : Swaps 2 pairs of tiles, gain control of any Strike tiles swapped this way.
L2 : Tinkering improves efficiency of tiles swapped by X.
L3 : Gain control of any Protect tiles swapped this way.
L4 : Swaps 4 pairs of tiles.
L5 : Gain control of any Attack tiles swapped this way.

Potentially swapping L2 for L5 would be better...

But currently his ability swaps 8 pairs (16 tiles). Have you had the chance to use it, even against special tile-spammers such as Daken? You are still more likely not to get a special tile than getting one; 24 tiles is still only a bit more than a third of the total tiles in the board. Moreover, you'd have to commit to at least 4 covers in order to get the 12, which depending on how you use the other two abilities, you may not want to do.

El Satanno

Pylgrim, I really like your write-up for a good Doc Ock. I don't have anything constructive to say, however I do want to point out a humorous point regarding your choice of terms: You're going on about 6 pairs for the octopus thing, and even say that his meat arms don't do anything...but Doc has four mechanical arms. Unless he's got some Lord of the Dance footwork going on, thematically you're off-base.

Unknown

A large part of Doc Ock's problem is his abilities are so reliant on enemy special tiles being present and THAT is a problem because of how few special tile generators are used by top end players. There are no (soon to be one but not sure he'll get tons of play) 4* special tile generators and of the 3* versions only Patch and Daken get much use (maybe LCap but he's not making a ton of protects for you to match). Letting a beserk rage go off to try and match green strikes seems like a very painful way to generate a couple of so-so attack tiles and Daken's use tends to be climbing (basically for his true healing) then he gets swapped out for a team the player feels is much better. So although he gets used he's not often in nodes to attack.

I guess I should be considering Luke Cage and Iron Fist too, but relying on match one tile on the entire board to get use out of Ock's passive is a low % play.

So the first stage to making Doc Ock better is to have some heroes who place a reasonable number of special tiles which people actually use (at least from a PvP point of view).

That said, his abilities need work too. Blue needs to get cheaper and swap more tiles. That way even if there are no enemy special tiles you get a shot at cascades or just offering better matches. I reckon 2-3 AP more than illusions (Loki) whilst doing the same number of tiles is about right to cover the *chance* of damage from from matching special tiles assuming any even exist to match.

His passive is ok if the enemy has special tiles to match. If you boost it too much then, on the occasions you can actually use it, it would become too good.

As for his green it's a mess TBH. I think it needs a complete rework because I get the impression all of those little abilities are taken into account to give that HIGH AP cost when they are rarely all going to be useful. Either increase the damage to be of value in it's own right and/or drop the cost a bit.

Unknown

bonfire01 wrote:

His passive is ok if the enemy has special tiles to match. If you boost it too much then, on the occasions you can actually use it, it would become too good.

What does 'too good' mean? A power that does nothing if you aren't fighting specific opponents and is only balanced/mid-tier skill if you do? That's good way to keep Doc Ock trash tier. Way I see it, he is made to be counter strike tiles teams and he does next to nothing if he can't. That means every time he does get good matchup, he should be god like. If you are against Daken/Blade, and you think 'I'll take LT/BP/Patch etc.', you tweaked him wrong. If you are against perfect counter target, and you even think as using him as B-team member, after all guys who are good in ALL situation, you made him wrong.

If you take on Ock with Strike tiles, you should get punished. If you get faced with Strike tiles and have Doc Ock, you should wreck them. That's how you reward roster diversity. If you make specialist counter character that is barely mid-tier only when fighting selected opponent, that's sure way to make no one waste Iso on leveling him.

tl'dr A tech/counter character used against specific match ups must be stronger than the top characters that are good in every matchup.

Pylgrim

El Satanno wrote:

Pylgrim, I really like your write-up for a good Doc Ock. I don't have anything constructive to say, however I do want to point out a humorous point regarding your choice of terms: You're going on about 6 pairs for the octopus thing, and even say that his meat arms don't do anything...but Doc has four mechanical arms. Unless he's got some Lord of the Dance footwork going on, thematically you're off-base.

Haha oops, what I meant is that he cannot grab things with his legs!

Unknown

I think Doc Ock's black is fine how it is - it's actually both one of the better black powers and passives in the game - but his green costs too much, and his blue is worthless. I think he could be fixed simply by making his green cheaper (maybe 8 ap) and redesigning his blue from scratch.

Phaserhawk

You can't make this swap 12 pairs, this is dumb, he's an octopus it has to do 8 pairs, period, end of story. that being said the cost needs to go down to 5. Yes I know Loki's is 5 but he also swaps 32 pairs, not 8, the added bonus is the damage, I would go as high as 7 on this one, but think this needs to be 5 or 6

this is my suggestion (which is the same but 1/2 the cost)

Manipulation - Blue 5,6,7
Dr. Octavius reaches out with his mechanical arms to use controls and devices, smashing enemy plans easily. Swaps 8 pairs of random tiles, destroying any swapped enemy Attack tiles and dealing 110 damage for each tile destroyed.
Level 2: Also destroys enemy Strike tiles.
Level 3: Deals 146 damage for each destroyed tile.
Level 4: Also destroys enemy Protect tiles.
Level 5: Destroys any enemy special tile when swapped.
Max Level: 463 damage per special tile swapped


This is fine, except it needs to create attack tiles whenever any enemy special tils are destroyed, not just on matches, this would tie into blue, if blue destroyed 6 tiles, you would get quite a bit of attack tiles.

I propose this

Insult to Injury - Black PASSIVE
Doctor Octopus casually delivers a scathing monologue about his superior intellect while his metal arms continue their assault. Whenever you destroy enemy special tiles, add a Black Attack tile to the board of strength 27.
Level 2: Creates strength 32 Attack tiles.
Level 3: Creates strength 38 Attack tiles.
Level 4: Adds 2 strength 27 Attack tiles.
Level 5: Adds 2 strength 43 Attack tiles.
Max Level: Adds 2 strength 139 Attack tiles


This is a pile of garbage to say the least. This skill tries to do everything, but does everything terribly at the same time.
First the damage is too low, even for an AoE. I would drop the random stun this just feels tacked on, keep the AP destruction, but add a few more CD tiles destroyed
I propose this

Armed and Dangerous - Green 12
The fury of Doctor Octopus is unleashed as his metal arms strike, constrict and mangle all his opponents at once. Deals 164 damage to all enemies, reduces enemy AP in their strongest color by 1, and destroys a random enemy special tile.
Level 2: Deals 328 damage to the enemy team.
Level 3: Destroys 3 AP of the enemy's strongest color.
Level 4: Destroys 2 random enemy special tiles or CD tiles
Level 5: Deals 492 to all enemies, destroys 3 random enemy special or CD tiles, and destroys 5 enemy AP.
Max Level: 1566 damage to enemy team,5 enemy AP destroyed, 3 random special tiles or Countdown tiles destroyed ,

The three changes I propose would basically turn Doc Ock into a one man special tile wrecking crew which would be AWESOME!!! He would not really be super PvP material, but he would be one of the best characters in PvE against goons or Daken or Blade etc, this is what I have talked about before. You can make a character extremely overpowered as long as they are niche. I'm not saying Dock Ock would be overpowered, but the fact his 5 cost blue could turn into 6 attack tiles would be pretty sweet, not to mention you are destroying tiles left and right.

Unknown

I think with 4* characters every active skill should have a damage component or otherwise something worthwhile with each cast. Double Double Cross (should be called 'Triple Cross') should always do something in your favor, the first cast merely being a setup is a complete waste of a 4* skill. Even cage's black does something on its first cast even though it is clearly a setup to cast it again. Power surge is a setup to Smite and has a 3 turn stun with it, smite requires a setup for maximum damage but still does 4k without anything. Even x-force's healing skill has a trigger for hurting people. DDC even has 'stealing information' in the power description why not let her take some AP with each cast too? Make it a weird AP steal keeping the funky strike tile juggling.

As for Doc? The idea of manipulate stealing special tiles I like. The idea of it 'targeting' special tiles is wishful thinking. I think it should still cost 10, and still manipulate the board, but also do base damage with bonus damage for any special tiles destroyed. Good bonus damage too, not quite cMags strength but at least comparable.

As for his green... I also advocate scrapping it all together. My suggestion is to give him something that synergises with the other two powers.

Defensive Posture - Green 6 ap (if we are keeping him green, I know defense is more of a yellow/blue kind of thing)
Doc Ock call for his arms to protect him, but looses some of his ability to strike back
creates X number of strength X defense tiles for each team. (Actual number and strength up for debate)

Ock takes some time to get his other powers going (if only because sometimes he has to wait for enemies to make special tiles he can use) This would give him some survivability, draw the match out a little on offense and defense, but most importantly let him monologue while defending and then let manipulate capitalize on all the cheap enemy defense tiles you had been making. Like he planned it that way or something...

Unknown

ronin-san wrote:

Elektra's double double (stupid name, btw) - I feel like it's a rejected name for two extra large crosscut fries at In 'n Out....

Actually, it's a coffee with two cream, two sugar at Tim Horton's.

Unknown

Phaserhawk wrote:

:blueflag:
You can't make this swap 12 pairs, this is dumb, he's an octopus it has to do 8 pairs, period, end of story. that being said the cost needs to go down to 5. Yes I know Loki's is 5 but he also swaps 32 pairs, not 8, the added bonus is the damage, I would go as high as 7 on this one, but think this needs to be 5 or 6

He has only 4 mechanical arms, so he swaps 2 pairs 4 times to make 8 switches. If you need to keep the 8, he could 'Swap tiles with his arms 8 times' so it would switch 32 tiles. If it only target 16 tiles it would still be trash even at 5. It supposed to be counter to special tiles, but a move that only clears 25% of them at random is not really good. Or just make it swap 8 tiles, but let player choose which 4 to grab and swap randomly while disarming them and doing damage. Then it's 11 Blue for 4 destroyed tiles and 2k damage, about what Daredevil does, just can also destroy countdowns. Although it still doesn't feel powerful enough for character who will be completely useless against half enemies.