In proposition of the single build

Mawtful

The recently announced changes for Hood and Sentry have been received with a mixed response. Sentry's nerf is really more about timing. I saw someone else say something to the effect of, "he's still dangerous, he can still wipe teams; this only slows him, it doesn't contain him" which pretty much sums it up. Hood's changes, on the other hand, left most of us confused. The one ability that was mostly just incidental took a huge hit. The prospect of a Hood + Thor power couple that could generate unlimited AP. And rather than give Hood a different kind of support ability, he was blessed with a nuke.

Even now, there's still debate about Hood's build. The ability that's actually powerful, Dormammu's Aid, can still be used to rush 4* Thor, Sentry, X-Force, or whichever character the metagame delivers us to next.

But then this crazy idea kept on coming back to me: What if characters only had one build? What if 13 covers maxed out each ability? I think it could actually work.

I'll believe that the devs put a lot of work into designing 3 "full" abilities. And then within hours, we as a community settle on the optimal build and that's about the last time anyone gives much thought to it. Hood's probably a good case study here, since Sentry gave a reason to take Intimidate to rank 5 when previously it was "known" that Hood was 5/5/3 and that was that.

In game terms, my idea is that characters would have 2 abilities and 1 "ultimate". Each of their standard abilities has 5 ranks, and the ultimate has 3. Let's take a look at some examples:

2/3* Thor. The current optimal build is 3/5/5. Under my proposed "5/5/3" single build, the Red and Yellow abilities would behave the same as rank 5 in each ability currently behaves; and the 3 ranks of his Ultimate would perhaps mirror the same as ranks 1, 3 and 5 currently do.

This should start to get a bit of a feel of a MOBA type game about it. Those standard abilities are each character's bread and butter, but that ultimate? Well that's their signature move. Thor's swinging Mjolnir and slapping goons about, and that's fine, but when he's toe-to-toe with a gang of villains - that's the time to Call the Storm. Thor's obviously a good example, since his abilities already build, so you get that real "videogamey" feel to it. But even for someone like Daken with two passives as his "standard" abilities and then an activated Ultimate you get a sense of it being his "thing". As the latest character, Mystique is almost made this way already.

Certainly some characters would need a bit of work to determine what their "ultimate" ability is, and to make it a little more ultimate (OBW? Falcon? Spider-Man?) and those that are already vaulted could at least make a glorious return with Ultimate abilities that really wow us.

Perhaps there's some opposition to this? "No one will need to pay for respecs anymore, so devs will lose revenue"
To that, I say; if the devs are changing characters every few months to get a few coin purchases because they are relying on respec revenue to stay afloat, then we're already doomed. By changing to a single build for each character, they're firstly going to stop running into this same situation of giving out covers and then changing the hero once people have sold those covers. And when they do change abilities, there should be a much more obvious way in which the abilities are used and the characters role on a team.

Let's finish with a look at Hood. Let's keep him a little bit unique, and let him have a Passive Ultimate. So he gets Twin Pistols as a nuke, Intimidate to speed up friendly cooldowns, and then for his Ultimate, he's draining the enemy AP every turn.

Unknown

Would rather see the damage per tile slashed in half and have a cost of 11 Yellow, without AP or ending the turn at all levels. Would make it more useful.

Mawtful

Well, if I truly had my way, I'd redesign each of Hood's abilities as well. I posted a brief outline for my ideas in the discussion thread.

The idea of the single build is for each character, it's mostly just that Hood's under the microscope right now.

Unknown

Might as well just push the devs to let us have 5/5/5 builds since we already face enemies built 5/5/5 in PVE. Hopefully they would fix skills to have set AP costs (like Aggressive Recon, Recharge, Pistol, Godlike Power, Headbutt, Symbiote Snare etc.) This would mean more covers to collect which could increase revenue but it would eliminate a level of strategy from the game and this is supposed to be a strategy game.

mohio

I do rather like this idea, although it does seem like a big enough change as to be an issue with changing too many older characters. There are also a few characters/abilities that would be problematic with this. Obw's aggressive recon and im40's recharge come to mind. Basically any ability you actively don't want to max or put more covers into would maybe need to be looked at and possibly redesigned.

Edit: in response to above, if the devs don't want to allow us to have 5/5/5, one thing they could do is allow us to "bank" 5 covers in each ability and essentially have unlimited free respecs at that point by just applying whichever 13 you wanted at that time.

Unknown

This idea, while interesting, would make the game way more boring if implemented. Further, I like the idea of having different character builds then someone else depending on my play style. It allows for the flexibility of playing the game the way you want.

Dayv

Not everyone buys into the "one true build" consensus. I have specifically chosen less popular builds for Captain Marvel and Classic Magneto, for example.

ClydeFrog76

One build to rule them all
One build to find them
One build to bring them all
And in the forums bind them

Eddiemon

Under the one true build model I need exactly the right combination of covers to max a character.

Currently I can use a suboptimal mix while waiting for the perfect covers.