Luke Cage & Iron Fist passives are hurting MPQ

Options
124

Comments

  • I think IF and Luke Cage can at least use the 'cooldown' mechanism from Redwing, something like: "Creates a special tile if there are no (Luke Cage or IF) CDs on the board and no special tile of that type, and then creates a 4 turn CD (Luke Cage or IF) special tile on the board." So while this special CD is on the board they wouldn't be able to replace their special tile if it's destroyed.

    It wouldn't really make it balanced but at least you can destroy the special tile and not have it immediately come back the next turn which is just insult to injury.
  • papa07 wrote:
    daibar wrote:
    papa07 wrote:
    Late to the thread so I may have missed someone else saying this.

    The counter to both of these would be an ability like Elektra's Double-Double Cross.

    Steal the Protect/Attack tile while giving up 3 small value Protect/Attack tiles. Until those 3 tiles are off the board, Cage/Fist will not produce a new tile.
    Pretty sure Double-Double cross only works on Strike tiles.

    It does, which is why I said an ability like it. Just stealing the concept, not the actual ability.

    I see. So the power is broken enough that there exists no real current counter to it; we have to resort to inventing new abilities for new characters which seem incredibly conditional and underwhelming, just like Double-Double Cross, a 4* ability. However, if they ever do buff Elektra, it'd be nice if she could steal attack tiles as well.

    Even if you try to overwhelm Cage with Daken, it takes 3 green matches to get the 6 attack tiles on board, and if they get destroyed you don't get them back for free. With Blade it's also 3 turns of being able to keep enough red, having at most one of them matched. Doc Ock's Insult to Injury only really works against Iron Fist; it's totally dominated by Unbreakable.

    I think the countdown for damage is also a better idea, even if it is a one turn countdown you'd feel like you could sometimes counter the damage. Now it's just unpreventable damage until he is downed and even after he is downed (excepting shields).
  • Omega Red
    Omega Red Posts: 366 Mover and Shaker
    Options
    But...it's luke cage his skin is unbreakable...it's always there like wolverines healing...these things make the game interesting. So it's not triggered...big deal....and so far I barely even see anyone using Luke cage outside his featured event, how can someone hardly even used ruin the game?
    The OPs concern is not as simple at them being over-powered. If it were, then the best solution would be to simply reduce the strength of these tiles.

    The OP is asking the Devs to remember that the game is called Marvel Puzzle Quest. These powers are supposed create problems to which there are some solutions that the player has some control over. Some powers in the game are more difficult to AP deny or counter: true, but discovering some way to combat them is a fun process and the reason why I play MPQ.

    As powerful as Blade is, I do have some control over the number of red tiles on the board. And against Patch's healing (Lvls 1-4) I can do the same, not to mention that BR counter-balances his healing. That's decent character design and its good enough for me to consider a fun challenge. But there's no puzzle or solution here. Even locking IF's and LC's passive tiles just leads to creating additional tiles (according to another post)! Thematically, its a mess too, since you can stun or down IF and he still manages to punch you in the head every turn until you match that stupid tile. I'm sure the Devs just wanted to do something different, but these powers are a major design error and it just goes to show, once again, how little thought goes into each new release.

    The OP is dead on. By making these powers "undeniable" the Devs removed an absolutely fundamental aspect of play that makes this game actually a game (albeit an unfair one, with a casino attached).

    Not right at all. There is plenty of new strategy elements brought by free tiles. Do I just bring Laken and Patch to compensate? Maybe Spider-man and Blade? Do I bring Falcon and make a compromise, matching five blue early which denies me other colours but solves my problem for the rest of the match? Or maybe I bring Hulk or Captain Marvel? That's plenty of strategy you have to do, both pre-match and in-match. Cage and Iron First force you to generate and protect your own special tiles. How can that not be "puzzle"?
  • Unknown
    edited March 2015
    Options
    Omega Red wrote:
    There is plenty of new strategy elements brought by free tiles. Do I just bring Laken and Patch to compensate? Maybe Spider-man and Blade? Do I bring Falcon and make a compromise, matching five blue early which denies me other colours but solves my problem for the rest of the match? Or maybe I bring Hulk or Captain Marvel? That's plenty of strategy you have to do, both pre-match and in-match. Cage and Iron First force you to generate and protect your own special tiles. How can that not be "puzzle"?
    Redbird is useless against Iron Fist and only partially 'works' against Unbreakable. Laken takes 3+ green matches to overcome Cage's shield; a quarter of Patch's BR is nullified, still leaving the opponent strike tiles. Spider-man would take 4-5 shields to block IF's attack tile, Blade would also take at least 3 turns of optimal red. All these scenarios are without getting your tiles matched away.

    Sure there's strategy, but it seems to be such a narrow focusing of strategy that it makes the game too limited and possibly unfun if you don't have the right roster. Sure, a level 120 Captain Marvel will probably own IF (or a 140 Hulk?), but how many people have a full covered 120 Captain Marvel lying around?
  • Omega Red
    Omega Red Posts: 366 Mover and Shaker
    Options
    daibar wrote:
    Omega Red wrote:
    There is plenty of new strategy elements brought by free tiles. Do I just bring Laken and Patch to compensate? Maybe Spider-man and Blade? Do I bring Falcon and make a compromise, matching five blue early which denies me other colours but solves my problem for the rest of the match? Or maybe I bring Hulk or Captain Marvel? That's plenty of strategy you have to do, both pre-match and in-match. Cage and Iron First force you to generate and protect your own special tiles. How can that not be "puzzle"?
    Redbird is useless against Iron Fist and only partially works against Unbreakable. Laken takes 3+ green matches to overcome Cage's shield; a quarter of Patch's BR is nullified, still leaving the opponent strike tiles. Spider-man would take 4-5 shields to block IF's attack tile, Blade would also take at least 3 turns of optimal red. All these scenarios are without getting your tiles matched away.

    Sure there's strategy, but it seems to be such a narrow focusing of strategy that it makes the game too limited and possibly unfun if you don't have the right roster. Sure, a level 120 Captain Marvel will probably own IF (or a 140 Hulk?), but how many people have a full covered 120 Captain Marvel lying around?

    What's your point? You now have a use for that fully-covered Captain Marvel you have. Go drop some ISO on her and forget about the so-called Iron Fist/Cage problem forever. That's good for the game.

    The interesting thing about Iron Fist/Cage is that they bring pressure right from the beginning, but once you have gathered enough AP to do your thing they are not any harder to down than any other average three-star character.

    Also, I hate to tell you this, but you DO NEED to have the right roster if you want to be competitive. This was true before free tiles and it still is true now.
  • Katai
    Katai Posts: 278 Mover and Shaker
    Options
    Captain Marvel would blow up one protect tile, then Luke Cage would place a new one. You basically only freed yourself 1 turn of non-reduced damage.

    And a character going from "way better than average early game" to "about average mid-late game" sort of makes you above average overall.
  • The imbalance makes the game unfun. Most players have an idea of what a 3* power levels should be like, and this feels like huge power creep. Why use anyone like Beast or Psylocke if Iron Fist is orders of magnitude stronger than them in almost every situation? Why have characters that are only usable if they are essential? Why spend money on powering up a character if 3 months from now you get another character that completely obsoletes the previous one, much like Luke Cage did to Colossus?

    I don't disagree with the free passives in principle, only the degree of power they have been given, and the amount of power creep they represent.
  • I think they were referring to Marvel's energy absorption or hulk's anger vs the attack tile. But both require underleveled fully covered versions to be a counter, and I for whatever reason have both of those characters at 166 so no luck there.
  • Hayek
    Hayek Posts: 96 Match Maker
    Options
    OP lists the counters to some of the most common strategies. So here it is:

    Cage:
    redflag.png special tile spam, strike.png generators. Any team that doesn't rely on match damage to win. Doc Oc.

    Iron Fist:
    Regenerators (Groot makes him trivial), quick protect.png generators in conjunction with high hp characters. Hulk/Mrs marvel for when he's boosted. Doc Oc.

    Problem solved?
  • Seriously ?

    4 pages of suggestions about characters that AT LAST give a new meaning to roster diversity ?

    Iron Fist and Luke Cage passives are just awesome, and it's no wonder if most players think those characters are indeed good.

    You probably could not max them as fast as you wished to. Therefore, you can't enjoy playing with them. But you'll most probably change your mind once you can play them with their real power.

    That being said, we've had 2 PvPs in a row where those characters were buffed, so their power was over the top.

    What do you want ? Winning with GT/XF endlessly or try something new ?

    We needed characters like these, and I'm sure they are becoming very popular, and D3 makes a lot of money with them. And for once, I'm glad they do.

    Many of us were getting REALLY bored with the game, it was hightime we could just PLAY with the new characters and not only collect them in a roster endlessly growing...
  • Arondite
    Arondite Posts: 1,188 Chairperson of the Boards
    Options
    Luke Cage is counterplay to Iron Fist
  • Pylgrim
    Pylgrim Posts: 2,309 Chairperson of the Boards
    Options
    arktos1971 wrote:
    Seriously ?

    4 pages of suggestions about characters that AT LAST give a new meaning to roster diversity ?

    Iron Fist and Luke Cage passives are just awesome, and it's no wonder if most players think those characters are indeed good.

    You probably could not max them as fast as you wished to. Therefore, you can't enjoy playing with them. But you'll most probably change your mind once you can play them with their real power.

    That being said, we've had 2 PvPs in a row where those characters were buffed, so their power was over the top.

    What do you want ? Winning with GT/XF endlessly or try something new ?

    We needed characters like these, and I'm sure they are becoming very popular, and D3 makes a lot of money with them. And for once, I'm glad they do.

    Many of us were getting REALLY bored with the game, it was hightime we could just PLAY with the new characters and not only collect them in a roster endlessly growing...

    This, thank you. So many people whine and whine when change is introduced and they need to adjust. I really don't understand... would they rather have each new character be so mediocre that it doesn't upset the meta and they can keep using the same tired strategies that they've been using for months?
  • I haven't hit Fist at a high level yet, but Cage makes me hates life. I feel he's just a subtle way of getting people to buy more damage boosts and having that trickle into real money being spent on some small level.
  • El Satanno
    El Satanno Posts: 1,005 Chairperson of the Boards
    Options
    I'm seeing a lot of the same glib replies from the defenders here that dance neatly around the free and unconditional nature of both Cage and Iron Fist. Not a single * counter to either of these abilities in question exist without some manner of stipulation, usually AP. Make your strike tiles, use your stun, whatever, but these two guys are still doing their thing, every single turn until they die. That's it. You deal with their powers until you off them completely. As far as I can consider myself a rational person I don't see how we can say that they don't create a problem.


    *Yes, Doc Ock does come without much stipulation. But then you're stuck with Doc Ock on your team, which is a bigger problem than pretty much everything else.
  • Unknown
    edited March 2015
    Options
    El Satanno wrote:
    I'm seeing a lot of the same glib replies from the defenders here that dance neatly around the free and unconditional nature of both Cage and Iron Fist. Not a single * counter to either of these abilities in question exist without some manner of stipulation, usually AP. Make your strike tiles, use your stun, whatever, but these two guys are still doing their thing, every single turn until they die. That's it. You deal with their powers until you off them completely. As far as I can consider myself a rational person I don't see how we can say that they don't create a problem.


    *Yes, Doc Ock does come without much stipulation. But then you're stuck with Doc Ock on your team, which is a bigger problem than pretty much everything else.

    Simple fact is the magnitude of the powers isn't all that big. If they were conditional or counterable they would have to be a fair chunk bigger to compensate. It is also the case that their magnitude is VERY difficult to increase. So whereas Daken can keep increasing your total strike tiles throughout a match (or Blade or anyone with an active power) the Cage and IF passives are entirely fixed (aside from falcon boosting them (and the new 4*)).

    People also act as if passive powers are completely free when that's only half true. Yes you don't need AP to use them BUT the cost is that you are missing an active ability in that slot. It's a colour you need to cover some other way or risk wasted AP. So those passive powers need to be as impactful per cover used in them as an active would. THEY ARE NOT. I have zero problems when facing Cage's passive and I only find IF annoying to face cause of his purple. The attack tile isn't worthless but is a lot less annoying than a cheap and impactful active. For example... IMO DP's red is more of a pain to face than IF's passive.

    While you can claim any active is counterable by denying AP it is also the fact you can only deny AP in multiple colours for so long before something will fire cause the AI has to collect SOMETHING every turn. So if I am winning fast enough that my AP denial will deny abilities til the end I am ALSO winning fast enough that IF's attack tiles hasn't done all that much. I also don't have to worry about a cascade feeding into scary usage of his attack tile because no matter how many AP IF makes it's still only 1 attack tile of exactly the same size.

    In reality IF and LC's passives are no more than an irritation. The only way you should be losing fights is to BIG AI cascades and those passives are just colours the AI can't use if it cascades into them. If the complaint is that you can't faceroll through a match taking almost zero damage then GOOD. The person in question is giving up some of their incredibly small chance for a defensive win by having a slot without an active that the ai *might* cascade into to cause attackers an increased level of irritation to attack them. Don't see how that's not a balanced trade off.

    Final point.... top players aren't using them except maybe to climb. These "uncounterable super moves" are apparently not scary enough to be worth swapping out for my massively damaging actives that actually win me matches.
  • El Satanno
    El Satanno Posts: 1,005 Chairperson of the Boards
    Options
    bonfire01 wrote:
    Simple fact is the magnitude of the powers isn't all that big. If they were conditional or counterable they would have to be a fair chunk bigger to compensate. It is also the case that their magnitude is VERY difficult to increase. So whereas Daken CAN keep increasing your total strike tiles throughout a match (or Blade or anyone with an active power) the Cage and IF passives are entirely fixed (aside from falcon boosting them (and the new 4*)).

    That's a rather astute observation. I would counter again by drawing attention to the very particular word I highlighted above: can. This is pivotal because I am fond of my maxed Blade, yet have found myself in many a match sitting on 12+ purple but not wanting to drop KYEC because those stupid reds refused to drop. Likewise with Daken and green. Those powers can be expanded, but they can also be stopped. Cage and Iron Fist will keep dumping their problems on you. You cannot stop it.
    People also act as if passive powers are completely free when that's only half true. Yes you don't need AP to use them BUT the cost is that you are missing an active ability in that slot. It's a colour you need to cover some other way or risk wasted AP. So those passive powers need to be as impactful per cover used in them as an active would. THEY ARE NOT. I have zero problems when facing Cage's passive and I only find IF annoying to face cause of his purple. The attack tile isn't worthless but is a lot less annoying than a cheap and impactful active. For example... IMO DP's red is more of a pain to face than IF's purple.

    I am willing to concede that Cage is more an aggravation than a problem. Iron Fist, though, I am more hostile toward. The choice between active and passive, I think, is also a very subjective distinction to draw. In this game, and many of the other games I play in various genres, I tend to gravitate towards passive abilities because they always work. I would be interested to see what a poll would reveal about the preferences of the other forumers. Now, I'm not going to say that the best passive is on par with the best active or anything crazy like that, but rather that a really good passive (like Iron Fist green or Patch yellow) is at least as good as a mid-tier or even scraping the bottom of the top-tier ability grade.

    Let's also consider some math: If we assume max covers for any given example, the damage for Iron Fist's constant attack tile compares very well with many good actives: 486 per turn, no restrictions. Round it up to 500 for simplicity's sake, and barring boosts you get 1500 damage in the absolute minimum time it takes to fire off almost any active. That's more than Psylocke's red or black, more than Cage's black, more than Punisher's red. Sure, it starts to get scaled out pretty quickly when we get into 4-match powers. But at that point, I think it's becoming quite a stretch to say you can get those off in 4 turns with anything approaching consistency. Conservatively let's say, what, 6 turns? That's 3000 damage you've taken. That's no small number.
    While you can claim any active is counterable by denying AP it is also the fact you can only deny AP in multiple colours for so long before something will fire cause the AI has to collect SOMETHING every turn. So if I am winning fast enough that my AP denial will deny abilities til the end I am ALSO winning fast enough that IF's attack tiles hasn't done all that much. I also don't have to worry about a cascade feeding into scary usage of his attack tile because no matter how many AP IF makes it's still only 1 attack tile of exactly the same size.

    I'm sorry, I'm having a really hard time sorting out what you're trying to say here. One thing that is for sure, though, no matter who is denying what, as long as Iron Fist is alive, you are taking just under 500 damage. Every turn. This is the problem.
    In reality IF and LC's passives are no more than an irritation. The only way you should be losing fights is to BIG AI cascades and those passives are just colours the AI can't use if it cascades into them. If the complaint is that you can't faceroll through a match taking almost zero damage then GOOD. The person in question is giving up some of their incredibly small chance for a defensive win by having a slot without an active that the ai *might* cascade into to cause attackers an increased level of irritation to attack them. Don't see how that's not a balanced trade off.

    I don't think anyone's talking about losing matches here. I also don't think anyone is crying about not being able to come out of matches unsullied. The problem lies in that, good board or bad, good play or no, you are going to take a not insignificant amount of damage for nothing more than showing up. I think it's a pretty widespread opinion that the relative scarcity of health packs makes your health management a pretty serious strategic consideration. With the introduction of Iron Fist, and in a more indirect fashion Luke Cage, you have a completely unavoidable strategic obstacle.
    Final point.... top players aren't using them except maybe to climb. These "uncounterable super moves" are apparently not scary enough to be worth swapping out for my massively damaging actives that actually win me matches.

    I think you're missing the forest for the trees here. It's less about an imbalance on the level of an individual match and more about setting a rather unpleasant precedent for future powers which drain health at a constant rate. No matter how good your roster or your tactics, you're not going to last nearly as long because you're taking that chunk of damage every time.

    If I am allowed a final point as well, thus far I've been speaking about Iron Fist's Exquisite Technique purely in isolation for a reason. Obviously none of these powers live on their own, and when we link up the rather beautiful symmetry of Iron Fist's other powers we get what makes his passive so scary: He's a little too good, and if that's the way things are headed...
  • @El Satanno... nice reply.

    My first point was basically saying you are gaining consistency for the price of scalability or potential. While you'll never get nothing out of those passives you also have no room to get anything amazing. Trading off between consistency and potential is a common gaming mechanic and, as I was saying, if you take away the consistency of those abilities they would need a LOT more potential. This thread is littered with posts just trying to make them counterable without giving anything in return as if the magnitude of the abilities is something amazing... it isn't.

    Second point you made is, IMO, disingenuous cause you're comparing it to 4 skills that aren't purely damage dealing. Psylocke makes tiles (and is underpowered), punisher's is a finisher (and otherwise underpowered) and Cage's black isn't meant to be fired at 6 AP, at 12AP the second hit is a lot more impressive.

    I will counter with DP's red. 2 matches in red gives in excess of 3k damage (assuming the target has much health to speak of). that's 6 (actually a lot closer to 7 if you remove the rounding up to 500 and compare to the 3299 max) turns of that attack tile. It's rare you can't get 2 red matches in 7 turns, more likely I could get 4 matches and even more thoroughly outclass the damage. I don't think most ppl would expect to lose a match if DP fires his red twice (it would suck though) let alone once. That's why I quantify it as an irritation (IF's passive) at most.

    I'll agree that it being passive needs to be taken into account but the nature of the game now is that there is a LOT of damage floating around in active abilities. Most matches are over fairly quickly, and doing 7k damage to own IF doesn't take all that long at all.

    My next point was meant to be that, if a game is going long enough for IF's tile to do a lot of damage, the chances are you would be taking active abilities off a different choice of hero which would be more impactful than the damage his passive has racked up. Also passives, by their very nature don't benefit from AI cascades. If the AI gets a ton of AP they can't use them to make more of those attack tiles BUT could use them on a black active from an alternative hero you picked. Since cascades are the only way ppl lose (aside from picking fights they shouldn't), you are essentially reducing the chances of your AI getting you a win (by having less actives for it to make use of if it gets a big cascade) in exchange for that chip damage.

    Which feeds into the last point. By giving up some of your potential for a cascade win on defence you are gaining the irritation of someone knowing they will take at least some damage from your team. I don't see any reason there shouldn't be that option.... why shouldn't you be able to trade potential for consistency if you want?

    As for your final point.... IF's purple is too cheap (at least IMO) and is the only scary thing about him (his green is meh). No matter what you did to his passive that won't change (and IMO there is no justification for touching the passive anyway) and the purple is what needs looking at (again, IMO).
  • I love having passives, 3 characters, 3 powers, is 9 powers, with only 6 colors. The hypothetical ideal team has rainbow active coverage AND some passives so you get benefit from without doubling up on a color.

    IF is actually perfect for that because he makes blacks with his other power and cannot use them himself on some trivial power. Which makes the fact that his black is a passive even more of an asset on defense assuming you have him paired with any good black power (or even ok black power).

    And you said above that these abilities are not scalable. But for IF that is also not true. Any strike tiles gain automatic double dip just for a level 40 one cover black IF being there. And a leveled up version can make his own strikes. So in a vacuum this one power may not be game breaking by itself but the combos it will be used with will be nightmares to deal with.
  • rednailz
    rednailz Posts: 559
    Options
    daibar wrote:
    Omega Red wrote:
    There is plenty of new strategy elements brought by free tiles. Do I just bring Laken and Patch to compensate? Maybe Spider-man and Blade? Do I bring Falcon and make a compromise, matching five blue early which denies me other colours but solves my problem for the rest of the match? Or maybe I bring Hulk or Captain Marvel? That's plenty of strategy you have to do, both pre-match and in-match. Cage and Iron First force you to generate and protect your own special tiles. How can that not be "puzzle"?
    Redbird is useless against Iron Fist and only partially 'works' against Unbreakable. Laken takes 3+ green matches to overcome Cage's shield; a quarter of Patch's BR is nullified, still leaving the opponent strike tiles. Spider-man would take 4-5 shields to block IF's attack tile, Blade would also take at least 3 turns of optimal red. All these scenarios are without getting your tiles matched away.

    Sure there's strategy, but it seems to be such a narrow focusing of strategy that it makes the game too limited and possibly unfun if you don't have the right roster. Sure, a level 120 Captain Marvel will probably own IF (or a 140 Hulk?), but how many people have a full covered 120 Captain Marvel lying around?

    I don't think that's a narrow stradegy at all, you have several charecters with several different effects. What's the strategy for MStorm when you're a 2 - 3 star transitioner? Match blue. What about when facing X-force - 1 strategy, match green (then black), what about hulk? don't anger, and patch? match green and hit big / stun, ect ect. There's a strategy that must be considered for every relevant charecter.

    It's not limited at all, it's focussed. some players are strong enough in some areas that you need to consider them. It's much more refreshing then a bunch of mid-tier do nothings where I can match blindfoled against.
  • El Satanno
    El Satanno Posts: 1,005 Chairperson of the Boards
    Options
    bonfire01 wrote:
    @El Satanno... nice reply.
    icon_e_smile.gif It's an interesting conversation to be had. I'm just glad we've both managed to behave ourselves. These conversations do tend to degenerate... icon_e_wink.gif
    My first point was basically saying you are gaining consistency for the price of scalability or potential. While you'll never get nothing out of those passives you also have no room to get anything amazing. Trading off between consistency and potential is a common gaming mechanic and, as I was saying, if you take away the consistency of those abilities they would need a LOT more potential. This thread is littered with posts just trying to make them counterable without giving anything in return as if the magnitude of the abilities is something amazing... it isn't.

    Well put. I guess my stance boils down to placing a higher value on that consistency. As evidenced by my own experience, even Surgical Strike sucks **** when you can't muster up the black AP and/or enough of the right color tile on the board to get it to do it's thing. Meanwhile, there's that fuggin' Exquisite Technique...tapping on your health bar like Chinese water torture.
    Second point you made is, IMO, disingenuous cause you're comparing it to 4 skills that aren't purely damage dealing. Psylocke makes tiles (and is underpowered), punisher's is a finisher (and otherwise underpowered) and Cage's black isn't meant to be fired at 6 AP, at 12AP the second hit is a lot more impressive.

    I will counter with DP's red. 2 matches in red gives in excess of 3k damage (assuming the target has much health to speak of). that's 6 (actually a lot closer to 7 if you remove the rounding up to 500 and compare to the 3299 max) turns of that attack tile. It's rare you can't get 2 red matches in 7 turns, more likely I could get 4 matches and even more thoroughly outclass the damage. I don't think most ppl would expect to lose a match if DP fires his red twice (it would suck though) let alone once. That's why I quantify it as an irritation (IF's passive) at most.

    Mea culpa, this was admittedly the flimsiest part of my argument and I concede your point. At the risk of being a last-word jerk, though, there is a dearth of 3-match abilities at the 3* level to draw comparisons against. I would also posit that Deadpool's red is really frickin' good and I wouldn't even consider a direct comparison between the two. Moreover, it's also precisely why I didn't touch Surgical Strike as anyone with even a quarter of a brain knows it's the cat's pajamas. Not much comes close, right?
    I'll agree that it being passive needs to be taken into account but the nature of the game now is that there is a LOT of damage floating around in active abilities. Most matches are over fairly quickly, and doing 7k damage to own IF doesn't take all that long at all.

    Yeah, I can dig that. I just prefer that if I'm going to take a couple thousand damage in any given match, it be due to "**** I didn't prevent X" or "another MFin' cascade" rather than "I was there."
    My next point was meant to be that, if a game is going long enough for IF's tile to do a lot of damage, the chances are you would be taking active abilities off a different choice of hero which would be more impactful than the damage his passive has racked up. Also passives, by their very nature don't benefit from AI cascades. If the AI gets a ton of AP they can't use them to make more of those attack tiles BUT could use them on a black active from an alternative hero you picked. Since cascades are the only way ppl lose (aside from picking fights they shouldn't), you are essentially reducing the chances of your AI getting you a win (by having less actives for it to make use of if it gets a big cascade) in exchange for that chip damage.

    Ah, that is so much better. Thanks. I think this is starting to bleed over into the issues based off the entire character's design more than the single ability, though. But I will humbly yield to you this point.
    Which feeds into the last point. By giving up some of your potential for a cascade win on defence you are gaining the irritation of someone knowing they will take at least some damage from your team. I don't see any reason there shouldn't be that option.... why shouldn't you be able to trade potential for consistency if you want?

    As for your final point.... IF's purple is too cheap (at least IMO) and is the only scary thing about him (his green is meh). No matter what you did to his passive that won't change (and IMO there is no justification for touching the passive anyway) and the purple is what needs looking at (again, IMO).

    I'll lump these last two together as I think they fit in again into the entire character design, and move still further into considerations about his role among other characters. When you give Iron Fist the means to produce a whole mess of decent strike tiles and/or hit really hard and automatically have a beefy attack tile to capitalize on those tiles...well, it just makes that passive seem like a great big kick straight in the ding-ding.