**** Thor (Goddess of Thunder) **** [PRE 2015-03]

Unknown

NorthernPolarity wrote:

Pucco, I don't buy the money making argument at all: wouldn't having a more diverse metagame make Demiurge even more money? Instead of 4or being OP, now Starlord / XF / 4or / Fury are all equally as OP, so people will buy 4x as much stuff.

I don't buy the money making argument either but they'd have to free us from the tyranny of the current featured + your 2 best guy format for that to matter. Otherwise even if those guys are all equally OP you'd still just use the first 2 you maxed out, or the 2 that have the best color coverage. From just a color coverage point of view, if they're all equally powerful, then the best team would be X Force + anyone, as X Force + anyone means you're only missing one color (Thor = missing purple, Fury = missing red, Star-Lord = missing blue), while missing X Force would mean you miss at least green + black.

NorthernPolarity

Phantron wrote:

NorthernPolarity wrote:

We're getting too much into the world of hypotheticals here so I will concede my first point because it's too dependent on the new tank character and theorycrafting at that point. Thoughts on the Fury buff?

I don't think making a second X Force is the answer and as long as he's not on that level of brokenness, he's not going to be viable in PvP because his color coverage is very bad. He doesn't have green/black/red which are the power colors in general. Even if he's as strong as X Force, conceding black and green to your opponent (which you'd have to if you run Fury + Thor) sounds like an accident waiting to happen, but if you match them then you're skipping your turn and that's also asking for problems. Like Thor he's adversely affected by the PvP format itself, because if you can choose all 3 guys then having one guy on all the weak colors is perfectly fine, but you can't choose all 3 guys.

I thought about the Thor issue some more. If there is no X Force, how do you even get rid of the first featured guy with 5K HP? In general, the featured guy is someone who cannot contribute something meaningful but asking him to have 5K HP is still not asking too much. Right now you drop an X Force and that's that. Without X Force, where's the first 5K damage coming from? It's obviously not coming from Thor, but the next best 3 match move is likely Fireball or The Oldest Trick and both are red. If you need a 4 match move, that obviously slows down the game greatly. And let's just say The Oldest Trick somehow isn't red anymore, it's still not remotely the same thing to rely on a 3 turn CD to kill someone versus dropping an X Force on them.

I don't really buy your color coverage argument: the only reason why red/green/black are powerful in the first place is because no offensive character is as good as X-Force / LadyThor. Fury not covering those colors has no bearing on him being weak or not because the buffs are supposed to make his abilities match up as well, thus making his colors strong colors.

As for your "5k damage" question, isn't it obvious? Like I said before, Fury's purple would now have similar damage output to X-Force: 3.8k damage + the random CD tile stuff for 9 AP. Fury would be almost as fast as X-Force: Escape plan matches directly with X-Force, Demolition matches exactly with surgical (surgical on average is 5k damage + 5k off the AP generated, demolition is 10k damage.) Avengers assemble is another offensive option. He would replace X-Force's spot on the team, and would be able to kill the first guy for ladythor to down the second and third.

The hypothesis here is that you can now potentially have 3 viable 4* duos:
XFury -> low hp, tons of burst damage
XLadyThor -> same old same old
LadyThorFury -> Similar to XLadyThor -> less cascades, more damage potential.

If this is the case and all characters are similar power level, then that means that the featured character breaks stalemates. If featured is Torch, you run XFury because fireball conflicts with smite. If featured is Mohawk, you run LadyThorFury because green black conflicts. If we STILL see people running JUST XLadyThor and LadyThorFury, even on something like Cap's tournament, then it's obvious at that point that LadyThor deserves a nerf.

NorthernPolarity

Phantron wrote:

NorthernPolarity wrote:

Pucco, I don't buy the money making argument at all: wouldn't having a more diverse metagame make Demiurge even more money? Instead of 4or being OP, now Starlord / XF / 4or / Fury are all equally as OP, so people will buy 4x as much stuff.

I don't buy the money making argument either but they'd have to free us from the tyranny of the current featured + your 2 best guy format for that to matter. Otherwise even if those guys are all equally OP you'd still just use the first 2 you maxed out, or the 2 that have the best color coverage. From just a color coverage point of view, if they're all equally powerful, then the best team would be X Force + anyone, as X Force + anyone means you're only missing one color (Thor = missing purple, Fury = missing red, Star-Lord = missing blue), while missing X Force would mean you miss at least green + black.

Assuming that everyone is equally OP, then the idea is that the featured character breaks the stalemate for you to determine which duo you are choosing. You would get to use more characters because if all the options are equally good, you go with the pair that works best with the featured.

Dauthi

I find it funny how the OP still hasn't replied to the 3* Thor vs 4* Thor argument when scaled equivalently.

When 3* is boosted close to, but still under 4*s maximum level his yellow did 3.7k(ish) damage, and green did 3.6k ish damage (x2 to the main target). This equaled out to around 18k damage across the team, why is this damage ignored just because it isn't targeted on one character? 3* Thor can do this without having a double edged sword at his throat like 4* with charged tiles to boot. Nine green dropping on the board is also more likely to create cascades of alternate colors creating more AP generation and damage, vs 4*s random charge tile drops and wasted turns having to match these.

Their HP is also similarly equivalent when 3* is scaled.

I can understand OP's feelings towards how strong she is offensively, I don't think he understands how useless she is defensively and underestimates this downfall. When more 4*s come out that are competent in both defense and offense like X-Force, she may be replaced for the same reason characters like 3* cap and 2* mags are replaced in PVP.

I can see maybe a slight nerf in how many charge tiles she drops with her blue, but that is about all I can get on board with. She is a character that has risk/reward and deserves to get boosted damage due to this.

kensterr

Instead of nerfing why not a proper "team-up" bonus?

For example the current Starlord PVP... If he has RG and Gamora with him powers cost lesser or there's extra % damage cos it's the GOTG team. If Patch, Mororo, Beast/Colossus etc is the team then it's a X-men secret attack or bonus. The idea is much like ultimate alliance game and might encourage better strategy and diversity. Captain America, Iron Man, Hulk, GSBW etc as Avengers team. Magneto, Mystique, Doc Ock as masters of evil yadayadayada the list goes on.

lokiagentofhotness

NorthernPolarity wrote:

Phantron wrote:

NorthernPolarity wrote:

Okay, so lets assume the metagame shifts and this does happen. Since 4* tanks are now one-shot smite immune, the metagame would now consist of LadyThor + that tank: the exact same problem of LadyThor nullifying every 4* below 10k , making those team compositions suboptimal. The same problem exists with LadyThor NOT promoting roster diversity. REGARDLESS of whether these tanks are released, LadyThor is still singlehandedly warping the metagame.

Now, I've thought about this topic some more and a large part of the issue is exactly this metagame of "every other 4* is of the 6800 class, so ladythor is able to one shot everyone still". So you know what, I'm going to stop saying the word ending in rf, and instead propose something different: let's try buffing just Fury to be as good as X-Force:
Purple -> cost reduced from 12 to 9. This makes it essentially X-Force's green.
Yellow -> AP thresholds reduced from 5 to 3, so full iso boosts gets you there.

Demolition = surgical. Escape Plan = X-Force. Yellow = additional utility that is more offensive than recovery.

See what happens to the metagame. If LadyThor is STILL being oppressive and dominating every single team composition, then at that point she definitely deserves a nerf right? We would have two characters who are as good as X-Force, who everyone agrees is a reasonable 4* that is significantly better than a 3*, and if LadyThor is still being put on every single team (even in Fury's PvP), then we can all agree that she should be toned down to be as good as X-Force. Correct?

Er, assuming the new guy isn't better than Thor, you'd have a hard time taking out the first character even with the general weakening of featured character. You can't use Thor because Smite doesn't even do that much damage by itself, and unless the new tank has a move that's close to X Force (which would make him quite overpowered) he's not going to be able to put away a ~5K featured guy either. Even if the new guy has a move that does put away a 5K guy, it'd likely be a 4-match move looking at how 4*s are designed, and that'd drastically slow down your ability to win quickly. If you're fighting against either Loki or The Hood, getting the 4-match in such a configuration can take quite a while.

We're getting too much into the world of hypotheticals here so I will concede my first point because it's too dependent on the new tank character and theorycrafting at that point. Thoughts on the Fury buff?

Actually let's buff SG, Gamora, Beast, Bagman (bagman!!), and the 50 other characters that aren't used often because they're either not very good or not very fast. I still only see a few 3* characters in PVPs: 3* Thor (tank, massive damage), LDaken/Patch (strike tiles, healing), Hulk (tank, anger cascades), LCap (baby tank, AP regenerates infinitely)...and then the support characters like Loki, Hood and - sometimes I see Blade and CMags...yeah that's it? Not all characters are created equal, not all characters are meant for PVP. Characters are massively different in levels just based on what they can do. Nerfing TGT won't make the meta game more diverse - the meta game is always going to be dominated by 2 characters that people find work best for them. Boosting Fury might change the meta game....back to XF/Fury. Um, yay? What will that accomplish.

Fury? I used to fight Fury/XF teams and if he gets his blue off I can say goodbye to my entire team just because demolition is killer (and apparently keeps working even after one trap goes off - although that might be a bug, I'm not sure.)

Characters should be nerfed because they break the game, ie. you can end it in 2 moves when using the character, and not otherwise. TGT is great - she's not that great.

kensterr

Here's a solution that doesn't require D3 to do any nerfing to 4* that will please Arondite and those who agree with him, while also pleasing those who oppose the nerf.

Arondite can proceed to delete his two maxed 4* Thors. He won't be feeling that she's OP since he can't use her anymore. Others who feel that she isn't OP can continue to use her. D3 can continue selling her covers for those players who cannot get it via PVP or PVE placement and are willing to spend cash on her covers. It's a WIN-WIN-WIN situation for everyone.

Thank you and TGIF.

Unknown

kensterr wrote:

Here's a solution that doesn't require D3 to do any nerfing to 4* that will please Arondite and those who agree with him, while also pleasing those who oppose the nerf.

Arondite can proceed to delete his two maxed 4* Thors. He won't be feeling that she's OP since he can't use her anymore. Others who feel that she isn't OP can continue to use her. D3 can continue selling her covers for those players who cannot get it via PVP or PVE placement and are willing to spend cash on her covers. It's a WIN-WIN-WIN situation for everyone.

Thank you and TGIF.

I would love to see a video adrondite procced to delete his 4* thors. So epic!

Unknown

I haven't read this thread, so I'm sure this point is already made but no 4* needs nerfing while more are being released at a reasonable pace. Once the 4* power tier is as firmly established at 3* was maybe 9 months ago then it's time to look at whether nerfs are needed.

On the other hand, some 4* are clearly worse than 3* so they are priority for 'buffing' as there's obviously no way that a 4* by design should be significantly worse than a middle tier 3* (as is the case with IW), and at worst a 4* should be at least as good as an upper tier 3* (Cage, Blade, LThor etc).

Over time the natural progession of 'power creep' to a 4* norm will balance out XF and Thora without the need to nerf them now.

sinnerjfl

Dauthi wrote:

I find it funny how the OP still hasn't replied to the 3* Thor vs 4* Thor argument when scaled equivalently.

When 3* is boosted close to, but still under 4*s maximum level his yellow did 3.7k(ish) damage, and green did 3.6k ish damage (x2 to the main target). This equaled out to around 18k damage across the team, why is this damage ignored just because it isn't targeted on one character? 3* Thor can do this without having a double edged sword at his throat like 4* with charged tiles to boot. Nine green dropping on the board is also more likely to create cascades of alternate colors creating more AP generation and damage, vs 4*s random charge tile drops and wasted turns having to match these.

Their HP is also similarly equivalent when 3* is scaled.

I'll answer that for the OP then. Comparing 3* Thor with 4* Thor is a bad idea because believe or not, 3* Thor is not balanced at all in the 3* spectrum. We just forgot about him because other more powerful characters came out (ie: Sentry). 3* Thor is a tank at 10,000 HP and he's also a damage dealer, that is the problem with this character.

The biggest problem is Thor's yellow, which adds 9 tinykitty green tiles on the board which guarantees a crit almost every time and the gain of at least 6 green AP which makes it easy to call CTS probably on the same turn. This adds up to around 11,000 damage in one turn. That is not balanced and shouldn't be a gold standard to compare to. Thor gets 12 yellow = pretty much game over.

Concerning 4* Thor, having her skills not generate blue charge tiles would be a start to toning her down a little. She does not need nerfs, she needs tweaks. She can just stunlock people a bit too easily making sure she gets even more charged tiles therefore repeating the cycle.

Unknown

I still think that an appropriate nerf to Thoress would be to change the value of charged tiles: Make them 2X AP, 4X Damage as opposed to 3X AP & 3X Damage. It'd greatly reduce the effectiveness of Power Surge, slightly increase the chance that the opponent can escape from perma-stun, and make damage from the tiles easier to understand.

Match 3:
1 charged tile -> damage 167% -> 200% normal match 3
2 charged tiles -> damage 233% -> 300% normal match 3
3 charged tiles -> damage 300% -> 400% normal match 3

Unknown

daibar wrote:

I still think that an appropriate nerf to Thoress would be to change the value of charged tiles: Make them 2X AP, 4X Damage as opposed to 3X AP & 3X Damage. It'd greatly reduce the effectiveness of Power Surge, slightly increase the chance that the opponent can escape from perma-stun, and make damage easier to understand.

Match 3:
1 charged tile -> damage 167% -> 200% normal match 3
2 charged tiles -> damage 233% -> 300% normal match 3
3 charged tiles -> damage 300% -> 400% normal match 3

I disagree. 4or is slow to get started. This the new spin on the old build up of thor red, then yellow, then green. Instead, it's match until you can cast PS; then, try and build up AP. However, unlike the 2* and 3* versions, these tiles are open to either side to match. A player can cast PS, but the AI can match tiles, and let's face it, of the two, the AI is more likely to get a cascade and really clean up.

The problem seems to not be with the AP, but either the PS followed by Smite move. So even if the chargers were worth less AP, the move is still as potent as before. Lessening the AP from the chargers would soften the drawback of creating charge tiles.

I'm not sure at this point after reading the thread how the balance should go. Clearly, 4or is 4* and should remain top tier after the changes (sorry detractors, but it's true). However, her combo needs to be reeled in some as well (sorry other detractors, but it's true). In the TAT PVE, I beat the 395 C Mags/Hood time after time like it was nothing using 4or/IM40/OBW. That should not happen. So hopefully the balance either makes both sides happy, or both sides unhappy.

Unknown

I disagree too about Lady Thor nerf.

In this game story many great and expensive ( at the time ) characters become trash by the nerf hammer because some users ( crybabies ) cant win matches against them:

Ragnarok ( The precursor of Lady Thor in board dominance )
Spiderman
Wolverine Astonishing 2 stars
Sentry ( what a joke he is now )

To be honest, the only real, good balance was made in Classic Magneto. Hes not anymore the total blue cheat machine he was before but become now a good support partner for some heroes, he´s solid.

Hood become more dangerous alone with his yellow change but i still prefer the older yellow version with ap generator.

If I cant have a 4 stars hero more powerful than the 3 ones, why i will invest tons of iso on it? Xforce is better overall and most dominant than Lady Thor and some users are asking for nerf her? nonsense. And in my mind its obvious that spent 400.000 isos in a 4 stars hero must help you to win, not the enemy.

Unknown

Wouldn't the simple solution be to have XFORCE/4THOR use the same freaking colors so you don't play them together?

Done.

Arondite

Dauthi wrote:

I find it funny how the OP still hasn't replied to the 3* Thor vs 4* Thor argument when scaled equivalently.

When 3* is boosted close to, but still under 4*s maximum level his yellow did 3.7k(ish) damage, and green did 3.6k ish damage (x2 to the main target). This equaled out to around 18k damage across the team, why is this damage ignored just because it isn't targeted on one character? 3* Thor can do this without having a double edged sword at his throat like 4* with charged tiles to boot. Nine green dropping on the board is also more likely to create cascades of alternate colors creating more AP generation and damage, vs 4*s random charge tile drops and wasted turns having to match these.

Their HP is also similarly equivalent when 3* is scaled.

I can understand OP's feelings towards how strong she is offensively, I don't think he understands how useless she is defensively and underestimates this downfall. When more 4*s come out that are competent in both defense and offense like X-Force, she may be replaced for the same reason characters like 3* cap and 2* mags are replaced in PVP.

I can see maybe a slight nerf in how many charge tiles she drops with her blue, but that is about all I can get on board with. She is a character that has risk/reward and deserves to get boosted damage due to this.

I haven't addressed this argument because its a non argument. If this character you're arguing existed, we could see whether or not it was too strong for the game in practice and make a decision then. But this character doesnt even exist. Why would I go around with you about something that's not even real? Of course you'd like to do this, since arguing about a character that doesn't exist distracts from the actual, existing hero that's a bit too powerful in the weak-featured-character metagame. But id rather focus on real problems lmao.

kensterr wrote:

Here's a solution that doesn't require D3 to do any nerfing to 4* that will please Arondite and those who agree with him, while also pleasing those who oppose the nerf.

Arondite can proceed to delete his two maxed 4* Thors. He won't be feeling that she's OP since he can't use her anymore. Others who feel that she isn't OP can continue to use her. D3 can continue selling her covers for those players who cannot get it via PVP or PVE placement and are willing to spend cash on her covers. It's a WIN-WIN-WIN situation for everyone.

Thank you and TGIF.

How would it please me to disadvantage myself, cripple my team and cost me hundreds of dollars? You don't seem to be a very smart man, my friend.

NorthernPolarity

lokiagentofhotness wrote:

NorthernPolarity wrote:

Phantron wrote:

NorthernPolarity wrote:

Okay, so lets assume the metagame shifts and this does happen. Since 4* tanks are now one-shot smite immune, the metagame would now consist of LadyThor + that tank: the exact same problem of LadyThor nullifying every 4* below 10k , making those team compositions suboptimal. The same problem exists with LadyThor NOT promoting roster diversity. REGARDLESS of whether these tanks are released, LadyThor is still singlehandedly warping the metagame.

Now, I've thought about this topic some more and a large part of the issue is exactly this metagame of "every other 4* is of the 6800 class, so ladythor is able to one shot everyone still". So you know what, I'm going to stop saying the word ending in rf, and instead propose something different: let's try buffing just Fury to be as good as X-Force:
Purple -> cost reduced from 12 to 9. This makes it essentially X-Force's green.
Yellow -> AP thresholds reduced from 5 to 3, so full iso boosts gets you there.

Demolition = surgical. Escape Plan = X-Force. Yellow = additional utility that is more offensive than recovery.

See what happens to the metagame. If LadyThor is STILL being oppressive and dominating every single team composition, then at that point she definitely deserves a nerf right? We would have two characters who are as good as X-Force, who everyone agrees is a reasonable 4* that is significantly better than a 3*, and if LadyThor is still being put on every single team (even in Fury's PvP), then we can all agree that she should be toned down to be as good as X-Force. Correct?

Er, assuming the new guy isn't better than Thor, you'd have a hard time taking out the first character even with the general weakening of featured character. You can't use Thor because Smite doesn't even do that much damage by itself, and unless the new tank has a move that's close to X Force (which would make him quite overpowered) he's not going to be able to put away a ~5K featured guy either. Even if the new guy has a move that does put away a 5K guy, it'd likely be a 4-match move looking at how 4*s are designed, and that'd drastically slow down your ability to win quickly. If you're fighting against either Loki or The Hood, getting the 4-match in such a configuration can take quite a while.

We're getting too much into the world of hypotheticals here so I will concede my first point because it's too dependent on the new tank character and theorycrafting at that point. Thoughts on the Fury buff?

Actually let's buff SG, Gamora, Beast, Bagman (bagman!!), and the 50 other characters that aren't used often because they're either not very good or not very fast. I still only see a few 3* characters in PVPs: 3* Thor (tank, massive damage), LDaken/Patch (strike tiles, healing), Hulk (tank, anger cascades), LCap (baby tank, AP regenerates infinitely)...and then the support characters like Loki, Hood and - sometimes I see Blade and CMags...yeah that's it? Not all characters are created equal, not all characters are meant for PVP. Characters are massively different in levels just based on what they can do. Nerfing TGT won't make the meta game more diverse - the meta game is always going to be dominated by 2 characters that people find work best for them. Boosting Fury might change the meta game....back to XF/Fury. Um, yay? What will that accomplish.

Fury? I used to fight Fury/XF teams and if he gets his blue off I can say goodbye to my entire team just because demolition is killer (and apparently keeps working even after one trap goes off - although that might be a bug, I'm not sure.)

Characters should be nerfed because they break the game, ie. you can end it in 2 moves when using the character, and not otherwise. TGT is great - she's not that great.

So you want us to stay at a stagnant metagame forever? This doesn't make any sense. Everyone agrees that X-Force is <= LadyThor. If we buff Fury to X-Force tier, how will the metagame shift to XFury? The metagame would shift to Fury / X-Force / LadyThor, which hey, at least supports more team compositions than it currently is at (three instead of one!). The entire point of the buff is to make a 4* character that is regarded as barely better than 3*s to 4* level, which is what I thought everyone wanted.

Unknown

Np why do try and make these people happy? Half don't really know what a meta game is, half will disagree with anything, and half just care about #1 (hopefully they have high fiber diets).

The truth is a lot of ppl don't care about what the game needs, only what they want. As a consequence, you cannot reason with us.

lokiagentofhotness

NorthernPolarity wrote:

So you want us to stay at a stagnant metagame forever? This doesn't make any sense. Everyone agrees that X-Force is <= LadyThor. If we buff Fury to X-Force tier, how will the metagame shift to XFury? The metagame would shift to Fury / X-Force / LadyThor, which hey, at least supports more team compositions than it currently is at (three instead of one!). The entire point of the buff is to make a 4* character that is regarded as barely better than 3*s to 4* level, which is what I thought everyone wanted.

Well will you look at that. We're back at "why don't we buff other characters instead of nerfing 4Thor". I completely agree! Let's leave Lady Thor alone and buff the other characters - I have plenty of unused characters that could use a buff.

NorthernPolarity

lokiagentofhotness wrote:

NorthernPolarity wrote:

So you want us to stay at a stagnant metagame forever? This doesn't make any sense. Everyone agrees that X-Force is <= LadyThor. If we buff Fury to X-Force tier, how will the metagame shift to XFury? The metagame would shift to Fury / X-Force / LadyThor, which hey, at least supports more team compositions than it currently is at (three instead of one!). The entire point of the buff is to make a 4* character that is regarded as barely better than 3*s to 4* level, which is what I thought everyone wanted.

Well will you look at that. We're back at "why don't we buff other characters instead of nerfing 4Thor". I completely agree! Let's leave Lady Thor alone and buff the other characters - I have plenty of unused characters that could use a buff.

I'm still pretty convinced that LadyThor needs a nerf, but given the massive amounts of trauma everyone here has had because of previous botched nerfs like Rags, etc, people won't even think about the option until it's absolutely clear that the character needs a nerf. The hope is that with the Fury buff, we can see if LadyThor STILL dominates the metagame (which shouldn't happen if she is balanced as you all think she is), and if she does, then it's obvious she needs a nerf. Clearly everyone here thinks X-Force is balanced, and if Fury is boosted to X-Force tier and LadyThor is still better, then the reason why she needs to be nerfed would be looking at all of yall straight in the eye.

This solution works best for both camps: the main reason why people argue against the nerf is because the 4* metagame isn't diverse enough. Boosting Fury would make the metagame three characters, and let us see very closely how well each of them functions. No one gets nerfed so we don't see any crying, and either way, if it reveals that ladythors op, then you guys have no argument. If it reveals that xfury is being used as much as ladythor compositions, then she's balanced and I have no argument. This is the best solution to appease both camps as it gives everyone a better insight as to the real strength of the character.

Unknown

JBruno wrote:

Hood become more dangerous alone with his yellow change but i still prefer the older yellow version with ap generator.

Hood in retrospect was probably one of the more intelligent changes, due to his infinite AP loop potential with 4Thor. However, they could have reduced that somewhat by changing it's colour to something non-charged as well - but eventually more 'charged' tile characters would come along and it would have to be looked at again.

The worst bit about Hood was the nerfing of Sentry, which I guess shouldn't be taken as a direct nerf to Hood even if it was at the time.