Lightning rounds (will they ever rotate again?)

SnowcaTT

LAST ROTATION WAS Season XIV, 4/14/2015-4/16/2015 Why did that ever stop D3?!?

CURRENT BUFFED VILLAINS:
CURRENT BUFFED HEROES:

These characters are boosted 50% more levels. Usually noon (Eastern time) Tuesday to noon Thursday, every other hour. [This changed to 1:00 EST as of Daylight Savings Time, and will likely change back when DST ends] If you enter exactly on the hour you'll see several seed teams, their rosters can be found here http://www.d3pforums.com/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=18027&p=295465#p295465.

A running history of these changes follows:

Original (?-as long as I remember LR's going) set of boosted Lightning Round characters -
Heroes: GSBW, Patch, Hulk, Spiderman, Psylocke, Punisher
Villians: Ragnarock, Loki, Doctor Doom, Magneto, Hood

These went for months and months, I'm listing and the characters as they began to change more frequently.

10/21-10/23 - first rotation of new heroes.
GSBW IM Hulk Psylock She-Hulk

10/28-10/30 - first rotation of new villains
Daken Sentry Magneto Hood Doc Oc

11/18-11/20...Magneto rotated out, Mystique rotated in (First LR of Season VIII [Magneto taken out of token rotation and Mystique for Season VIII])

12/16-12/18...Daken rotated out, Loki rotated in (First LR of Season IX [Daken taken out of token rotation and Loki put in for Season IX])
Buffed characters: Loki, Mystique, Hood, Sentry, Doctor Octopus

12/23-12/25... GSBW/Psylock/IM out, Gamora , GRocket in, Cap returns. Buffed characters: Rocket, Gamora, She-Hulk, Hulk, Captain America.
(First hero rotation of Season IX [GSBW, IM, and Psylock taken out of token rotation, Gamora and Grocket put in for Season IX])

1/13-1/15...She-Hulk out, Punisher in. Buffed characters: Gamora, the Hulk, Captain America, Rocket & Groot, the Punisher
(first hero rotation of Season X [Beast, Doctor Octopus, She-Hulk, Colossus rotated out in Season X, Doctor Doom, Human Torch, Luke Cage, Punisher rotated in

1/20-1/23... Doom takes the doctor chair. Buffed Characters: Loki, Doctor Doom, The Hood, Mystique, Sentry
(first villain rotation of season X, Doctor Octopus rotated this season)

2/10-2/13... Villain rotation remains the same as season X (first Season XI LR)

2/24-2/27...Hulk and Cap are out, in. Buffed Characters: Gamora, Spider Man, Daredevil, Rocket and Groot, The Punisher
( First (only?) hero rotation of Season XI. [Season XI Captain America and The Hulk rotated out])

3/10-3/12 in, Sentry out. Buffed characters: Loki, Doom, Hood, Mystique, Magneto
(First villain rotation of Season XII. Sentry rotated out this season).

3/17-3/19 in, Spidey out. Buffed characters: Gamora, Blade, Daredevil, GRocket, Punisher
(First hero rotation of Season XII. Spider-Man rotated out this season)

4/7-4/9 First rotation of Season XIII. Buffed Characters Gamora, Iron Man, Daredevil, Captain America, Punisher
(Rocket & Groot, Blade rotated out this season. Captain America, Iron Man rotated in this season.)

4/14-4/16 First villain rotation of season XIII. Buffed characters: Loki, Doom, Ragnarock, Mystique, Magneto
(Hood rotated out this season. Ragnarock rotated in this season).

Season XIV: rotated characters were removed this season. No lightning round characters were changed. (same as season XIII).

Season XV: points for wins/losses were boosted this season. No lightning round characters were changed (same as season XIII).

Season XVI: Loaners got all three abilities this season. No hero lightning round characters were changed (same as season XIII).

Realstuff_NameChange

Were the lightning rounds always 100,000 player brackets? Am I just shocked because of how wonderful the 10 player brackets for the anniversary were or is that not a lot bigger than they used to be?

Unknown

I'm happy to see the rotation, but I'm wondering what next week's Lightning Rounds will look like if we get Villains as usual. Without Doom, Ragnarok & Loki, are Daken Sentry and Doc Ock going to fill their spots? Seems like we need at least another subset of Hero for LRs

vudu3

I'm super psyched about Super Psylocke! She's tons of fun when she's buffed.

RIP Patch

GrimSkald

vudu3 wrote:

RIP Patch

Well, if they hold with their usual schedule for the Lightning Rounds, he'll actually be back in before he'd come up again.

It will be interesting to see what they do with the villians, yes.

Spencer75

Realcrap wrote:

Were the lightning rounds always 100,000 player brackets? Am I just shocked because of how wonderful the 10 player brackets for the anniversary were or is that not a lot bigger than they used to be?

The lightning rounds were always global. In other words everyone. 100,000 covers everyone participating in a lightning round.

The 20 person brackets were great for anniversary week but don't hold your breath for those coming back

Unknown

Aww, I loved using Patch, and now GSBW would be tanking Red and Green for him - that's no good. I wish they'd pop DD in for IM40.

yogi_

Prediction - these or most of these characters will be rotated out next season.

Or none of them, but would lean more towards yes.

If so, probably a trend we'll see for a number of months / seasons, ie. if a character is out of tokens, they are basically nowhere apart from established rosters.

FaustianDeal

IM40 and GSBW are two of the oldest 3-stars left that didn't rotate out this time. Seems like a valid thought that they get shuffled out of the deck next season. I kind of hope they don't just rotate patch/punisher/spidey back in right away on their return though - give some other heroes a chance to share the spotlight.

As for the villians; I don't really see them rotating Mags out this soon after he was rebuilt, but who knows. With Hood, I can't imagine them taking half of the current power-couple out of the active roster. What do all the would-be (but "aren't-yet") sentry-bombers supposed to do if Hood suddenly got scarce?

CrookedKnight

Use Daken instead?

Unknown

Got a blue Fury out of the last LR, so these are my favorite since last week, at least.

Actualy, if you want to get picky, that means I've already gotten more useful covers out of this week than last week's. All I pulled last week out of my LR tokens was my 6th-11th Purple Dinos.

yogi_

Weak prediction - characters for the most part now will disappear, be rejigged and then reappear as "new". Of course, changes can happen at any time. I think devs stated this already.

Slightly weak prediction - if we get 5 villians for the next LR's, it maybe a combination of this current 5 and the next 5 that go.

Prediction - characters not appearing in tokens (so out getting looked at - like your car having a service in the garage) and not appearing in current LR's won't be getting balanced in the forseeable future. [Spider-Man in particular is a strange case - he could happen or not at any time. I still say my theoretical conspiracy theory of them being directed to downplay non-Marvel movie properties could be at play - there is strong but not conclusive evidence.]

Unknown

I had a horrible thought.

In the past, villain Lightning Rounds were Magneto, Hood, Doom, Loki, and Ragnarok. The last three of those appear to be out of rotation.

Who's going to replace them? The only real plausible 3* villains left are Doctor Octopus, Sentry, Lazy Daken, and, if you stretch, Deadpool. Which means we're liable to see the first three of those added to replace the three that leave. Which means Sentry lightning rounds. They'd be even worse than Hulk ones.

yogi_

I would say Doc Ock is unlikely - he's just too new still, but in the absence of a lot of other options, it might be.

Wouldn't be totally surprised to see Ares in the next rotation. He was part of a recent voting for PvP, so could just be thrown in.

As an extension of this and though even less likely are the theoretical options of 2* Daken and Moonstone.

vudu3

Ben Grimm wrote:

In the past, villain Lightning Rounds were Magneto, Hood, Doom, Loki, and Ragnarok. The last three of those appear to be out of rotation.

Who's going to replace them?

Maybe they're open it up to some 2* villains. Give people a reason to use Moonstone and Bullseye.

FaustianDeal

Ben Grimm wrote:

Who's going to replace them? The only real plausible 3* villains left are Doctor Octopus, Sentry, Lazy Daken, and, if you stretch, Deadpool. Which means we're liable to see the first three of those added to replace the three that leave. Which means Sentry lightning rounds. They'd be even worse than Hulk ones.

The real reason you should be terrified of your hypothetical scenario is because Sentry/Daken/Hood *all* buffed in the lightning round. That would make the existing Hulk round feel like a lazy day by the pool in comparison.

Vankysher

I just watched the most amazing AI cascade happen in this lightning round.
I match and my near full health lvl 50 2* moves to the front.
AI matches which leads to a then cascade which leads to a and enough AP to fire off the Psychic Blade to finish off Hawkeye.

FaustianDeal

I have IM40 capped. The Hero Lightning Round set, to me, demonstrates why this character desperately needs a retooling/re-costing.

Given the option of IM40 @249 or a different un-buffed 3-star I will always select "the other guy" (unless its the IM40 required round). That shouldn't be the case.

If the character was at least moderately well built the level buff given for lightning rounds would be enough to entice more people to run him in rounds. The fact that it does not demonstrates the low quality of his build.

(That or he has been so chronically bad that most people have neglected him, and, even with a 50% level buff, theirs is still sub-par for the round.)

Spoit

Honestly, they have enough people that they could probably do a X-men LR now

and non-mutant . But I guess they wouldn't have the redundant psylocke in heroes then

EDIT: oh duh

Unknown

Red Panda wrote:

I'm happy to see the rotation, but I'm wondering what next week's Lightning Rounds will look like if we get Villains as usual. Without Doom, Ragnarok & Loki, are Daken Sentry and Doc Ock going to fill their spots? Seems like we need at least another subset of Hero for LRs

Called it! ...also regretting it...

SnowcaTT

Updated first post.
Week 2 Buffed: Hood/Sentry/LDaken/Magneto/Doc Oc.

I may just sit out many of these LR's....Sentry + Daken + Hood buffed? Yeah, we all sort of knew that combo was one of the most brutal ones available. Yikes.

Better than the worst five characters I suppose. She-Hulk, Doc Oc, Beast, Loki, Daredevil - imagine that one.

Still, it beats the monotony of the same few characters over and over, I'll enjoy the changing buffed characters. I enjoy the changing characters in PVE's, this isn't much different for the first few nodes worth of ISO anyway.