Coming Soon: Character Updates!

Taganov

mjh wrote:

why are these not live yet?

Hopefully because they are rethinking some of the over nerfs *cough Mystique, 12-->5 charged tiles cough*.

xdogg

The changes have been made to Mags and Mystique but there is no option to sell them for HP and increased Iso

john1620b

xdogg wrote:

The changes have been made to Mags and Mystique but there is no option to sell them for HP and increased Iso

Wonderful. Now they're nerfing characters and not even providing increased buybacks.

Hopefully this is just an oversight!

DubbaHuss

4hor took a big hit, she just feels much weaker now. Boo hiss for making things just a little less fun.

Raffoon

DubbaHuss wrote:

4hor took a big hit, she just feels much weaker now. Boo hiss for making things just a little less fun.

Yeah...... She is nowhere near as fun now. The fun part was working around charged tiles and with so few it makes the whole thing just feel so much worse

A nerf was needed, but this is crazy and quite an overreaction. I think they're over-costing charge tiles now.

Wish she was eligible for the full refund. What a waste of money.

Unknown

Raffoon wrote:

DubbaHuss wrote:

4hor took a big hit, she just feels much weaker now. Boo hiss for making things just a little less fun.

Yeah...... She is nowhere near as fun now. The fun part was working around charged tiles and with so few it makes the whole thing just feel so much worse

A nerf was needed, but this is crazy and quite an overreaction. I think they're over-costing charge tiles now.

Wish she was eligible for the full refund. What a waste of money.

Screw money. I woke up every 3 hours for 3 nights straight to get my first 5 covers.

Unknown

Certainly I was upset with the forthcoming changes as many were, especially to MN Mags. I do not have a maxed or near maxed out Madam Thor, Iron Fist? whatever, and I haven't had the pleasure to really use Mystique as yet so I can't speak on their behalves. However, having had a chance to use the new MN Mags, along with classic Storm and modern Hawkeye a few times in The Gauntlet, it really isn't so bad. Yeah, you may have to adjust the way you use his purple ability but being a little more observant and a using a little more strategy, that trio is still bad@$$! I took out level 132 Sentry, 3*Thor, and Captain Marvel at simulation 24 and level 139 Loki, Captain Marvel, and Patch at simulation 26. Although my team took damage, only Hawkeye needed about 2 hours to heal up, none was taken out.

Remember, that's a level 94 team with significant less life and only 1 powered up character, inferior in all aspects. When using Mag's purple ability, that random 5 red tiles created would fall into 5 linked cascades leading into Hawkeye's speed shot countdown attack, which as an added bonus increased his and Magneto's red abilities. At that point, it's up to you on what you prefer to use or need. Hawkeye's blast arrow which causes damage to entire team and costs less or Mag's magnetic flux which costs more but causes significant damage to the specific target. By that time Storm's blue windstorm is primed for attack and BAM!!! Opponent team decimated!

tanis3303

When the character changes (read: Nerfs) were announced, we were told not to judge them until we had a chance to play with the new characters, and that they would still be "fun". That's fair, so this morning I took all the new characters in their new forms and gave them some play time. Here's my experience. (Minus Iron Fist, I don't have him well covered, and I don't think any of really expected him to not get a nerf)

I took 2* Storm, Hawkeye and new Mags into the DDQ survival node, and I'm happy to report, Mags still works great, in fact, he might even be better. You can still make a match 5 pretty easily by only placing 3 tiles, and the random reds add a nice chance for a cascade to trigger. I was able to get Wind Storm going just as easily as I was before the nerf, the only difference was I had to make one extra blue match. However, I was also able to charge and use Mag's (IMO underrated) red power twice throughout the match, which blew up large chunks of the board gaining a top of AP and causing cascades. So far, so good.

Next up was the DDQ final survival battle for the red Cmags cover. I took in a team of Black Panther, Mystique and Mmags to see if the combo was dead. Good news! It's not! I was able to pull off a lot of chains, only stopping occasionally to match needed purple or blues to keep it going. It's probably not going to go infinite anymore, so it's not as safe vs opponents that can move the board, but it does still work, and will probably be as potent as ever vs goons and survival nodes where you can stockpile AP and plan matches 2 or 3 moves in advance. I used the times when I knew I was going to have to give them a turn to use Mag's red power. Cast Magnetic Flux, match purple. Next turn, blow up the board, gain a bunch of AP and continue on your merry way! So far, so good still!

Now for the real test. How does Goddess play after the nerf? I chose the Gauntlet Simulation 20 vs lvl 258 Beast, Juggernaut and Magneto as my test. I chose this battle because it's similar to something I might see in a regular PvE event, with a comically overscaled Juggs and 2 other characters that only sort of matter, as 7,000 damage headbutts are the real threat. I brought what I consider my best team to bear (Goddess, Xforce, Loki) and took in +3 blue/purple, +2 green/black and +1 red/yellow boosts. Much to my surprise, things went incredibly well! I had a great board, starting out with with a green match 5. I concentrated on magneto first, downing him with 2 xforce hits and match damage. By the time that was done, I had collected enough AP for the Thor bomb. But I didn't use it, not yet. I beat on beast for awhile while matching more reds to keep them away from Juggernaut until I had collected 20 reds. With 20 red and 12 blue, I cast my first power surge on beast. Then smited the 20,000 hp juggernaut 2x. He was left with 3,500 hit points, and thankfully I had an xforce to finish him off. This left beast stunned for 3 turns, but the charge tiles that were created where nowhere near each other to make any matches to keep the combo going. Loki fixed that, and I lined up 3 blue charged tiles with Illusions and well...anyone that's played Thora knows how that story ends.

Ok, that went very well, but I could beat battles like that before I had Thora with xforce/cap and 20 red ap/12 blue ap, so lets try something a bit more off the charts. My Global Domination sub in the Gauntlet started with level 395 enemies, so lets find a crazy battle there and try her out. Lets keep it simple and try the first one: Simulation 29 vs lv 395 Punisher, Star-Lord and Psylocke. Same team, same boosts. This...didn't go so well. The enemy team all had around 15,000 hp, and I went for Punisher first. I got him down to about 800 hit points before the AI had their big turn. Judgement (which lead to a hefty cascade), molitov, oldest trick in the book and a summon demons team up all in the same turn. Xforce was up front, and went from full health to dead. Luckily i was able to match starlords countdown tile away next turn. I had 9 blue and 15 red, and loki was hurting from earlier match damage. Time for a desperation play. I surged psylocke and cast smite on starlord, which took less than half of his 15,000 health. Once again, the charge tiles were no where near each other. Illusions didn't help this time, but it did get me a purple match which let me cast it again, lining up a charged red with 2 non-charged reds - enough that when matched i could smite a 2nd time. the 2nd smite took starlord to 6 hit points, with psylocke un-stunning in 2 turns. i matched charged yellows to kill star lord and stalled out. No charge tiles to match anywhere in sight. Psylocke unstunned the next turn and cast psychic knife and psi-katana, taking Thora down to under 5,000 hit points. I used her yellow for profit for what might be the first time ever to eliminate psylocke's special tiles, but there were still no charged tiles to match, leaving me hanging. I matched regular blues, taking me to 8 blue (-_-). Psyloke's turn matched some blacks (including the now charged one) but thankfully led to a 2 charged tile blue match for me next turn. Another psi-katana went off, taking Thor to just over 1,500 health. I surged her, buying me 3 turns, but couldn't find reds for smite or match away the attack tile from psi-katana, and Thora went down to damage from the attack tile, leaving Loki to face off against a 15,000 hit point Psylocke by himself with like 2,000 health. Yea, he died miserably.

So in conclusion, Mmags is still good after the change. He's different, and you will probably find yourself using his red more often, but that's in no way a bad thing. Mystique is one turn slower, but overall, she still works just like she used to. I don't really feel like her nerf was necessary, but it doesn't really cripple her either. But Thora? Thora is broken. She is a pale shadow of her former self, needing either 18 blue and 10 red for a double-surge/smite or 9 blue and 20 red for a surge/double smite, just to feel less than 75% as useful as she was before. And good frickin luck surviving that long against opponents where she is necessary. Even the time I was able to pull off the double smite trick, it didn't take down the guy it needed to take down. Her nerf went too far, and without access to more charge tiles, she is not worthy of her 4* status. She's a meat shield with a ton of hit points and a marginally powerful skill set that is ponderously slow and very board-dependent. I'm strapping myself in for several PvE's of getting reamed in hopes that my scaling gets under control, because my weapon for hugely overscaled enemies is gone.

TL:DR -- Mmags still works fine, Mystique is slightly slower, Thora is dead.

Unknown

4Thor is good for a big hit and then done for the rest of the match now

Overall Devs were right. Nerfs not as bad as we panicked them up to be (sans 4Thor). 4Thor seems overnerfed considering the $$/time/ISO/HP that was dumped into her, but she still have a Puncher's Chance to wreck shop and high HP.

LXSandman

Great post.

I also played around with mags and find his change to be less of a Nerf and more of a shift in usage. I like it.

Mystique I never bothered with before and probably wont after.

Thor I can't comment on, but I assume that what everyone says is correct and she is low Tier now for 4*'s

puppychow

fantastic post! I don't have mystique leveled enough to be useful, or enough covers on my goddess to use her, but I'm happy to see a confirmation that mnmag/cstom/hawkeye combo is still good, especially in 2* land.

babinro

I've changed my Thor build to 553 as a result of the nerf and she's playing well as a utility character.

She can still combo one shot non-buffed characters like Patch/Daken. She gives you the utility stun to safely alpha strike characters like Hulk/Captain Marvel. Her yellow comes in handy a LOT. The 2200 damage + XF green/black is enough to typically down a full health Patch/Daken character type.

All of this together makes her solid but slow.
Thor shines when your enemies are not powered up.

I guess this makes her a lot like 3* Thor. A character whose one-two punch is amazing until your enemies all exceed 10,000 hp and require two or more uses out of the combo.

She feels very underwhelming for a 4* character but clearly offers too many utility benefits and too great a health pool to fall under 3* status either.

The end result is a character whose adequate but no longer exciting.

Arimis_Thorn

Yeah I can only really comment on MNMags as well, but as others have said, he still partners very well with C. Storm. For the C. Mags red, I used those 2 with L. Thor (around lvl 110) and for the first time found myself at 30 Red a number of times. Rather than matching Blue at any cost, I found myself avoiding overwriting Red tiles. That helped a lot with cascades and I was topped off on AP for most of the match.

So yeah, he's a bit different but still great. Relying more on a 1 turn countdown just slows him down a hair.

cletus1985

Arimis Thorn wrote:

Yeah I can only really comment on MNMags as well, but as others have said, he still partners very well with C. Storm. For the C. Mags red, I used those 2 with L. Thor (around lvl 110) and for the first time found myself at 30 Red a number of times. Rather than matching Blue at any cost, I found myself avoiding overwriting Red tiles. That helped a lot with cascades and I was topped off on AP for most of the match.

So yeah, he's a bit different but still great. Relying more on a 1 turn countdown just slows him down a hair.

Play them with The Hood, it's a very fast team, although very squishy as well. His AP acceleration, yellow and black outlet, and intimidation for magnetic flux make them perfect partners. If only they were more durable there would be no downside to this team.

Unknown

I took Stormneto into the Gauntlet with a low level (92, but covered at 5/1/5) Cyclops and had a blast with that team. While you can no longer go from 0 to WindStorm with 9 purple, the red generation more than makes up for it.

While I was skeptical of the nerf from the 2 star perspective (I thought the proposal to change Mags Purple skill to Yellow was the best idea), I think Mags is much stronger than before as a standalone character and Stormneto is still 95% of what it used to be. This was a buff for Mags in my opinion.

tanis3303

Thanks for the replies all, I was worried when I saw the wall of text I had typed no one would bother reading it

So, I tried that same Punisher/Psylocke/Starlord battle again with Loki, Lcap and Xforce and I beat it without losing any of my team members. I'm not outright saying shes worse than Lcap now, but I'm certainly thinking it loudly...

Unknown

I did the same experiment you did (sans T4or, who I don't have fully covered) and came to the same MMN & Mystique conclusions. I'd go so far as to say I like MMN more now. He's more versatile than just a straight blue battery now.

tanis3303

Yea, before his red power was always "oh, I have 14 red? Well, its total overkill, but might as well use Magnetic Flux on the guy with 200 hp left..." Now its something that actually happens regularly in a battle, and damn if it isn't a really good power!

GrimSkald

My 4or is 2/2/2, so she's not particularly usuable, but I do have a 94 Cstorm and MnMags. I played with them a bit in DPDQ and found that I was generally not able to get two "Wind Storms" out of one "Polarity Shift," but I did get a lot of red for MnMags or MsM.

I just came off of a real acid test - I was Essential 13, 14, and 15 for "Global Domination" in the Gauntlet. Essential 13 I brought in Rags (4/3/0, level 40,) Patch, and UDaken (both maxxed,) and barely squeeked by - I ended up finishing off Spider Man with a badly wounded Daken, both Rags and Patch were down. I looked at Essential 14 and thought - "What the heck? Rags' red feeds blue, so lets bring in MnMags and Cstorm."

It went very well - the first time I used Polarity shift I managed to get off "Wind Storm," I generated enough Purple for a second "Polarity Shift" and that one triggered a cascade enough to fuel several "Thunderclaps" and it became a "lather/rinse/repeat" situation. I took them down without them doing anything more than match damage.

I then added 25 levels to Rags (65 is one of my breakpoints,) and pretty much did the same thing to Essential 15 - this time I never got off my second "Polarity Shift," but there was enough blue on the board to Wind Storm them into oblivion. I definitely got some satisfaction from Prof X going invisible. You cannot hide from the wind, baby!

All in all, I'd definitely say that the CMags change was more of a lateral move than a nerf. He does different things now, and "Stormneto" as a team was definitely nerfed, but it opens up other possibilities. As I stated on another thread - he is now one of the two (yes, only two) characters who add red to the board now...

CNash

The only downside to Polarity Shift now is that the animation covers the whole board, which can make it difficult to tell where the red tiles have been placed - especially as any resulting cascades often start to resolve before the animation has completely faded out.