So, post-sentry-nerf, who even comes close to XForce?

GuntherBlobel

Budget Player Cadet wrote:

Lerysh wrote:

If this is your problem then you are not following maxim number 2, take enough black to prevent SS.

In one of my most recent matches, the AI matched a blue, then proceeded to cascade, off the top of the board, into a solid 14 black AP.

Dr. Doom/BP/HT just kicked your butt with that cascade too, you know? Maybe this game involves too much luck for you if you can't accept a bad roll of the dice. Chess may be more up your alley.

The argument that convinced me that Sentry needed a nerf was the concern that players felt zero sense of risk with full boosts. X-Force is scary for sure, but its no guarantee win. Sometimes max SS leads to useless AP generation. Sometimes it means game over.

I've come back from max SS in more than a few battles. I've learned to never to run Patch against him. SS is not a hard counter to every team, though.

Unknown

The whole deny argument reminds me of the talk about denying Aggressive Recon from OBW if you don't have OBW, which is basically the same thing as skipping your turn due to a lack of usable purple power not named Aggressive Recon. There are only two top notch black abilities in the game right now, Surgical Strike + Rage of the Panther. If you're not doing Sentry bomb, even if you have The Hood, getting black is still pretty much like skipping your turn if Intimdation is your only source of black. So while X Force on green can be easily contested, the same cannot be said for Surgical Strike because without those two specific characters denying black is the same as skipping your turn. This is probably more of a function with the game design itself as any strong power on purple/black/blue is magnified due to the relative lack of good skills on those colors.

scottee

Phantron wrote:

The whole deny argument reminds me of the talk about denying Aggressive Recon from OBW if you don't have OBW, which is basically the same thing as skipping your turn due to a lack of usable purple power not named Aggressive Recon. There are only two top notch black abilities in the game right now, Surgical Strike + Rage of the Panther. If you're not doing Sentry bomb, even if you have The Hood, getting black is still pretty much like skipping your turn if Intimdation is your only source of black. So while X Force on green can be easily contested, the same cannot be said for Surgical Strike because without those two specific characters denying black is the same as skipping your turn. This is probably more of a function with the game design itself as any strong power on purple/black/blue is magnified due to the relative lack of good skills on those colors.

Taking black isn't the only way to deny black. You can also plan the board so that there are no black matches available to the AI. But that probably takes too much planning and "puzzling" for people around here.

GuntherBlobel

Phantron wrote:

The whole deny argument reminds me of the talk about denying Aggressive Recon from OBW if you don't have OBW, which is basically the same thing as skipping your turn due to a lack of usable purple power not named Aggressive Recon. There are only two top notch black abilities in the game right now, Surgical Strike + Rage of the Panther. If you're not doing Sentry bomb, even if you have The Hood, getting black is still pretty much like skipping your turn if Intimdation is your only source of black. So while X Force on green can be easily contested, the same cannot be said for Surgical Strike because without those two specific characters denying black is the same as skipping your turn. This is probably more of a function with the game design itself as any strong power on purple/black/blue is magnified due to the relative lack of good skills on those colors.

I understand your point entirely, but yeah, this is a game design problem. But it has to be hard for the devs to create and maintain balance at all levels of the game. Since his buff, I've fought X-Force a billion times, because he's actually useful for 2* and 3* players even without maxed . I don't get the OP's intense fear of X-Force, because not everyone has a 270 X-Force.

We all talk on the forum like we only play only PvP with a full Roster of max characters and we're going for 1000+ pts. every single match. Anyone facing max X-Force should be able to pick an appropriate team that includes black denial. But then, the complaints about those teams are that they are too slow or not good on defense, etc., etc. The game isn't so poorly designed that X-Force is unbeatable, it's just that the game forumites play a highly optimized game that makes theoretically viable counters practically unviable.

I didn't lose a single match to X-Force in the Simulator as it scaled into silliness. But, I didn't have to worry about defense or speed, so I was very careful to counter X-Force the best I could. PvP would be better if you didn't have to play the fastest team that the AI plays best. You could use strategy.

I'm afraid that the high level PvP game will always suffer like this. I just don't see a way out for the devs.

Unknown

GuntherBlobel wrote:

I didn't lose a single match to X-Force in the Simulator as it scaled into silliness. But, I didn't have to worry about defense or speed, so I was very careful to counter X-Force the best I could. PvP would be better if you didn't have to play the fastest team that the AI plays best. You could use strategy.

I'm afraid that the high level PvP game will always suffer like this. I just don't see a way out for the devs.

The Simulator X Force isn't much higher than what players could have him at. He basically has 12K instead of 10K HP and a bit more damage but he still plays more or less the same. It's not like anyone's worried about the extra 2 yellow covers he has.

It's a lot easier to deal with X Force in PvE since you can tailor your team to fight him, but in PvP it wouldn't be viable to run say Psylocke to get a marginal black ability in since Psylocke is weak overall and that's another game design issue. Some reshuffling of abilities on colors would help a lot. For example let's say you run Thor + Hood vs X Force + Hood, you can't take black easily because Intimidation does practically nothing even though you have a black ability. If it's say Hulk + Hood vs X Force + Hood, although Thunderous Clap is not on the same league as X Force, it's a usable move so you can deny green successfully provided you were indeed able to match greens. There needs to be more available mid-range moves for the non R/G/Y colors so that you don't end up with just a one way beatdown when a character is strong in blue/purple/black shows up. Nick Fury has the same issue though since he can't be reasonably paired up with The Hood (no green if featured doesn't cover it) this isn't as pronounced, but otherwise it'd be just as bad as you'd have to deny purple/blue to Nick Fury and yet those two colors are almost certainly useless to most teams, so you're screwed either way.

Unknown

GuntherBlobel wrote:

Budget Player Cadet wrote:

Lerysh wrote:

If this is your problem then you are not following maxim number 2, take enough black to prevent SS.

In one of my most recent matches, the AI matched a blue, then proceeded to cascade, off the top of the board, into a solid 14 black AP.

Dr. Doom/BP/HT just kicked your butt with that cascade too, you know?

Are you for real? The only one of those who even comes close is BP (1200 in attack tiles? That's not game-ending.), but if BP doesn't kill you (and he won't most of the time if your team is solid 3*), you're usually in a pretty good position. XForce? He gets that off, and you're taking well over half life on one character (often downing them by this point in the fight), losing a ton of AP, usually in a useful, active color, and giving the enemy team upwards of 8 or 9 AP to work with.

Look, I realize that that's a **** situation no matter what you're dealing with. Give that cascade to Thor, or Deadpool, and they wreck your day. But what I'm saying is that Surgical Strike and XForce are just hilariously far above the curve, and in a color with a whole lotta not very much stuff in it. You live through a ROTP, and next turn you're unloading something. You live through a Surgical Strike, and next turn you're eating at least one offensive power. Also, single target is better than AOE. So there's that.

homeinvasion

I am completely over one strategy beats all in this game, i.e. Xforce. Either bracket 4 star players or nerf him.

Unknown

I would say, wait for Goddess Thor to come in all colours lol
If you get to trigger her blue, red, and force Cascades with X-Force to go back to blue, red, or even yellow with enough tiles... could be insane

GuntherBlobel

Ok, here's where I'll agree with the OP. The 5th both doubles the damage and allows the generation of AP, which makes it one of the most valuable 5th covers in the game. I could image removing one of those two 5th cover advantages without completely nerfing the ability or X-Force as a character. It would probably put him on par with Fury, overall. I think SS is a cool and fun ability, but I would like it if 5/5/3 wasn't the only build that people wanted to play.

So, OP, which would you drop: the AP generation or the increased damage? Just curious.

Unknown

AP generation. It's completely busted. It turns a skill which is already really, really good into a 1-2 punch that will often just end the game all on its own.

Unknown

I'm guessing lot of these duo post sentry nerf :
DP/Hood : ALoTP - whales3
DP/BP : ALoTP - whales3 + BPlan - RoP
BP/Patch : BPlan - BRage - RoP
Blade/BP : Thirst - KYEC + B.Rage - RoP
LT/Rag-Hood-Mystique-Doom-DP
C.Mags/Hood-Doom

Unknown

tobi69 wrote:

I'm guessing lot of these duo post sentry nerf :
DP/Hood : ALoTP - whales3
DP/BP : ALoTP - whales3 + BPlan - RoP
BP/Patch : BPlan - BRage - RoP
Blade/BP : Thirst - KYEC + B.Rage - RoP
LT/Rag-Hood-Mystique-Doom-DP
C.Mags/Hood-Doom

If that is the case then it looks like D3 will have hit upon their must touted roster diversity.

Unknown

dragma wrote:

tobi69 wrote:

I'm guessing lot of these duo post sentry nerf :
DP/Hood : ALoTP - whales3
DP/BP : ALoTP - whales3 + BPlan - RoP
BP/Patch : BPlan - BRage - RoP
Blade/BP : Thirst - KYEC + B.Rage - RoP
LT/Rag-Hood-Mystique-Doom-DP
C.Mags/Hood-Doom

If that is the case then it looks like D3 will have hit upon their must touted roster diversity.

Then It'll be fun i forgot 1 more :
DP/Patch : BRage - ALoTP (if possible collect 18 red) - whales3

Last but not least the classic duet of OBW/LT will revive again (prolly)

GuntherBlobel

Budget Player Cadet wrote:

AP generation. It's completely busted. It turns a skill which is already really, really good into a 1-2 punch that will often just end the game all on its own.

That's what I would vote for too for thematic reasons. The 5th cover pretty substantially changes the use of the ability. As a ability it should cripple your opponent, which it does at levels 1-4. Upon that fifth cover its use becomes more like a or ability, putting Storm's ability to shame. That's a problem, as Phantron notes, because what other would you run against that? You can fix this by making more colors do direct damage like and abilities, or you can keep to the theme.