Wolverine (Astonishing X-Men) and Thor Character Changes

Unknown

Eddiemon wrote:

Skyedyne wrote:

Generally, I like the changes overall, except for one: Why for only 1 less red AP does Thor get to do more damage than rags, a rarer character?

Outside of that, looks golden.

Thor is 8 AP, Rag is 6 AP?

oh. I'm a fool. Lol. Pardon my brain. Just got off a 13 hour work day, and my brain is fried. Somehow thought it was 9. silly me.

Unknown

Have to say I was sure that these guys would be unusable after the Rags nerf. Now I'm not sure.

Wolvie: think yellow for wolvie was trashed pretty badly. Having to be halfway dead before it kicks in makes it a last resort thing but I was at 3 in yellow anyway so not too much harm done. Makes me fear for patches yellow. Also makes me value the 5 cover patch yellow more. If the green puts out extra strike tiles for each 3 and the 5 is a typo then I think he may live on for me. Even if it is not as strong as patches, I like not hurting myself. His new red gives him more of a red damge focus than I expected. He may replace Thor in that regard. I am lucky to have made him 5/5/3 since that is the build I would want now. Wish I was as lucky with Thor.

Thor: Wow. Again not for sure to be sidelined. Don't like his red skill so much anymore. Think they did a good job of making me possibly prefer Rags for red but overall Rags needs that teased third power to be viable. Rags can skip the middleman and green gen green from red. Is it me or is red becoming less powerful with green taking over? I'm 5/4/4 with Thor so not pleased with where this lands me. Of course, I was not pleased with his current build either so guess that's fair. Did not realize covers maxed before I passed 3 in green but now I suspect that the green is worth hanving.

Will be interesting to take these guys out for a spin and kick the tires. Suspect they will be watching from the sidlines but at least I'll have to think about it. At least now I may actually favor some 3 stars over them as I should. Aires may get some additional attention as well.

Unknown

I may be mistaken, but it now looks like Wolvies strike tiles maxed will be of the same strength as Dakens, Isn't Wolvie supposed to be better then his son?

Unknown

Wolverine changes:

green is very reasonable. still powerful, but not OP.
red - first I was "oh no!", but then I came to the conclusion that it's ok - higher cost, higher dmg. Now Logan has 1 cheap and 1 normally costed ability.
yellow - I see a strong nerf in here, but again - reasonable change.

all in all - new Logan looks ok. Still very powerful, but no more a "must-have". With no respec option coming soon, I'm happy to have mine at 553.

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Thor changes:

red - very big nerf. I don't mind the cost, but 3yellow tiles created (instead of 5) is a huge difference.
yellow - now we have damage sacrificed for some more board control. Thor should hit hard imho. now he lost it.
green - not much changed in here in fact.

all in all - I think we just said goodbye to the powerful and mighty Thor and instead we got sneaky Thor (hey, maybe it's Loki!). I'm not a fan of costly AoE - by the time player get it, usually 1 enemy is already dead.

Unknown

Snip a whole lot of people

Everyone is entitled to their perspective; we'll see how this plays out in reality. I don't believe these two characters' powers are drawn back anywhere near as much as you all think they are.

Let me ask a better and perhaps better pointed question then to the community with a bit more level headedness.

Given the current rampantness of Thorverine in the game, does these changes in any way make any other 2* character more desirable to use as primary characters?

If "Yes", Which 2* characters are equivalent in power after the change that a normal player would desire them over Thor or Wolverine?

If "No", (Thor, Wolverine, X) are still highly desirable as the primary 2* characters, then the problems caused by these characters pre-change still exist and the desired diversity goal remains elusive.

Discuss.

Unknown

I wasn't very far off when I guessed they'd just make Thor's red and yellow do half damage.

Thor is a tank and should never have been a damage machine. Wolverine's green was indeed way too powerful. It actually rendered Ragnarok's feed completely useless because you need to hold red to use his green, and his green was the strongest skill in the game on green, so feeding green is counterproductive.

I actually can't think of an obvious 'best' build for each character now so I think the changes are good. I mean, I'm sure people will eventually settle on something, but it's not like before where if you didn't have 5g in Wolv and 5r 5y in Thor you're doing something really wrong.

Wolverine's nerf also has a profound effect on OBW, who has always been riding Wolverine's strike tiles for her power.

Now the meta game against 3 star is going to be interesting because while most of the 3 stars are still slower than a speeding glacier, you're no longer certain to outrace people like GSBW/IM40 on offense (they used to always died before they get their big moves off against Wolv/Thor) but it's still quite possible.

Now all we need is a nerf on Spiderman's heal and then there would actually be a reason to switch teams between fights.

Mawtful

Lyrian wrote:

Snip a whole lot of people

Everyone is entitled to their perspective; we'll see how this plays out in reality. I don't believe these two characters' powers are drawn back anywhere near as much as you all think they are.

Let me ask a better and perhaps better pointed question then to the community with a bit more level headedness.

Given the current rampantness of Thorverine in the game, does these changes in any way make any other 2* character more desirable to use as primary characters?

If "Yes", Which 2* characters are equivalent in power after the change that a normal player would desire them over Thor or Wolverine?

If "No", (Thor, Wolverine, X) are still highly desirable as the primary 2* characters, then the problems caused by these characters pre-change still exist and the desired diversity goal remains elusive.

Discuss.

Short answer, "No".

Creating diversity is looking more like a kind of Herculean task. Even running a team of Thor/Wolverine/Ares and locking yourself out of three colour matches doesn't seem like an entirely horrible prospect. Leveled to 84/83/85 respectively, you could use Ares as a giant meat shield while collecting AP.

Adding a new brawler/tank type hero with Blue/Purple/Black strength won't necessarily help the problem either, as the go to team becomes Thorverine + new Hero.

Would a Red/Green/Yellow support hero be enough to make you stop and think about popping another Feral Claws or Mjolnir's Might?

Unknown

Basically no, but you really have to acknowledge a lot of that is because 2* heroes apart from Thorverine have been mostly awful to date, and changing them doesn't change that unless you make them awful, too. OBW's still good, if not as good without Broken Claws, but everyone was using her, anyway. She's the only healer many players have access to, which is always going to make her popular. You're using her purple, so you don't want Moonstone's, and her blue clashes with Hawkeye's, whose red clashes with everyone's. Ares tops Thor for pure spike damage now, but you might as well use them together for a degree of redundancy and the HP-bag factor. Who else are you going to put there, Captain America? He's laughable in a game largely about how fast you can crank out easy wins.

Also, everyone has Thorverine leveled. I think I've seen one level 85 Hawkeye. Pushing for diversity while still expecting people to pour days of grinding into one character to level them up (to say nothing of the cost of doing that for 3*s) doesn't make a lot of sense. They have increased the average ISO payout per match, maybe that'll help.

We might see more Dakens. He still has old/Patch style regen, more or less, and his strike tile damage is a bit less pathetic in the new context.

Unknown

I think we'll still see a ton of Thor. Nine green AP created for 12 Yellow is pretty nasty. He's going to see a lot of play as a mana battery next to Hulk, Ares and Widow.

Wolverine's Yellow will be nearly useless on defense unless he sees an HP buff. Before, he was a glass cannon whose tankiness depended on a reliable healing. He was tough at the start of the fight, but once stuns and Strike tiles came into play it was easy to overwhelm his healing. Now, you'll be lucky to get a heal off before you get blasted down by abilities.

Unknown

dragma wrote:

I may be mistaken, but it now looks like Wolvies strike tiles maxed will be of the same strength as Dakens, Isn't Wolvie supposed to be better then his son?

Why should Wolverine's strike tiles be better when Daken has no activated move whatsoever?

DD-The-Mighty

I'm happy to see im not the only one who remembers the real reason why everyone mained Thorverine in the 1st place: the utter fail that would be 80% of the other non thorvarine 2**'s.

You got time to funbalance? How about you funbalance up some of these slow underwhelming 2 stars like Cap, Moonstone and Bullseye.

Unknown

Will probably go 5/5/3 Wolverine and 3/5/5 Thor if/when respec is added. Fortunately neither of them have been leveled past 69; don't really think I will use them anymore

Unknown

dragma wrote:

I may be mistaken, but it now looks like Wolvies strike tiles maxed will be of the same strength as Dakens, Isn't Wolvie supposed to be better then his son?

Not entirely better. They're pretty evened out I think in the comics in terms of strength. Thing is the ability is supposed to be based off Daken's Pheromones, where I think Logan's strikes are based off his feral side which is pretty subdued I think at the time because of his time with the X-men/stuff dealing with Prof. X.

TheVulture

Very pleasing patch notes - reasonable rebalancing all round.

Wolverine
Green: Exactly what I was hoping to happen; all the potency but double the cost - with some red stockpiling won't really feel the difference.
Red: Woo hoo - my 535 isn't really optimal any more, but my 3 red will be better than it is today!
Yellow: Obviously a big'un and not really the power to put 5 in going forward, but it is a sound & proactive change.

Thor
Red: Severe but not unreasonable - Thor goes on.
Yellow: WOO HOO - Grey Widow rides again! My 544 isn't optimal but good enough under new balance.
Green: Interesting - As IceIX says it's not the best for the cost, but it's still an upgrade for a 544 like mine.

Good work, devs.

P.S. Ragnorak 3rd power someday-maybe - rejoice!

Unknown

Lyrian wrote:

Snip a whole lot of people

Everyone is entitled to their perspective; we'll see how this plays out in reality. I don't believe these two characters' powers are drawn back anywhere near as much as you all think they are.

Let me ask a better and perhaps better pointed question then to the community with a bit more level headedness.

Given the current rampantness of Thorverine in the game, does these changes in any way make any other 2* character more desirable to use as primary characters?

If "Yes", Which 2* characters are equivalent in power after the change that a normal player would desire them over Thor or Wolverine?

If "No", (Thor, Wolverine, X) are still highly desirable as the primary 2* characters, then the problems caused by these characters pre-change still exist and the desired diversity goal remains elusive.

Discuss.

In the question lies the answer grasshopper. They were nerfed from being 3*** characters into being 2** characters....by nature ppl should be looking to replace them.with 3*** characters and not 2**. There aren't that many 3 cover 2** out there. You basically have mag, thor, wolvie, moon, hawk, obw, ares, cap. So of those 5 remaining? Ares moves up in his usefulness. He is a full fledged "instead of thor" now for many I would assume...although he really cant make up for that mjolnir. Obw was already top 3 of the 2** paired with strike tiles. Might be the most desirable 2** now (with strike tiles..and also for covering black and purple).

So the question is...do hawkeye, moon, cap or magneto warrant use over tholverine? The answer is no probably. Hawkeye requires countdown tiles for everything and the purple is pretty throwaway. Magneto isn't bad but he is a support only character really. Red builds ap with mild damage and blue does less damage but destroys tiles (see: not very good). The purple is his best but requires a good blue user to be useful. Moon is the closest but I wouldn't take her over either considering. her black is pretty horrible (see: cool.concept but nothing around that warrants using it..until some character comes out with an insane countdown tile), her purple is too expensive for what it does, and the red is okay but nothing worth taking her over tholverine. Cap COULD be a swap..if they buffed his yellow to be a 9-12 ap move. Biggest boost to cap will be slowing the game down in general though as his shield system works on the idea that matches last 4-10 more turns after he starts using his abilities and not the 0-4 that characters like og thor worked via.

Now...imo...the REAL question is are there more 3*** worth taking now? I would say yes. Before both were easy picks over rag, doom, hood, im, and competed with characters like punisher hulk grey suit etc....not anymore. I don't think I would take thor over anybody except as a battery for a very green based team (see gsbw..who will be nerfed at some point). Wolvie might still be an option over 3*** as strike tiles have a special place in team chemistry...but o don't like the idea of 2 me colored strike tile makers on the same team so wolvie is replaced by punisher for me. ... and patches.

So I would say these nerfs did what they were meant to, which is to drop tholverine down to the 2** class that they belong in. Now hopefully x force is correctly placed in 4****, gsbw is nerfed out of what is likely goin to be sole ownership of the #1 after spidey/mag are nerfed, and we stop having nerfs and instead they make characters right the first time. O...and another 4**** would be nice. I wouldn't mind Cyclops being a 4****...I think of him as a 3*** but he is really the leader of the heroic mutants in the dark reign story (see:utopia)

Unknown

More reasonable changes this time. So that's relieving.

One thing I didn't expect though was Wolvies yellow change. Especially as they just released Patch with the exact same ability.
Does that mean I just dumped one month worth of ISO in a 2 week old character that is going to get nerfed immediately? If yes I think that'll be my Ragnarok.

Unknown

First nerf that did not render the chars useless it seems. And at the same time by harder to get strike tiles. Making loki even less usefull =P.

Unknown

finwe wrote:

More reasonable changes this time. So that's relieving.

One thing I didn't expect though was Wolvies yellow change. Especially as they just released Patch with the exact same ability.
Does that mean I just dumped one month worth of ISO in a 2 week old character that is going to get nerfed immediately? If yes I think that'll be my Ragnarok.

Patch is kind of different because his regen really doesn't matter if Berserker Rage resolves one way or another, and if you don't use Berserker Rage it's not clear why you're even using him in the first place. I guess you can try to make him some kind of tank and just never use your green but then you could just use Hulk instead if you're never going to touch his major ability.

Unknown

finwe wrote:

More reasonable changes this time. So that's relieving.

One thing I didn't expect though was Wolvies yellow change. Especially as they just released Patch with the exact same ability.
Does that mean I just dumped one month worth of ISO in a 2 week old character that is going to get nerfed immediately? If yes I think that'll be my Ragnarok.

I don't think so due to the purpose being self made strike tile mitigation imo. Regardless...it would take them 3-4 weeks to get him nerfed anyway, they generally run 2-3 weeks back between what is being pushed out and what is a new idea and they don't have patches on the docket beyond undoing the strike tile error (and I expect them.to stick to that nerf/buff table for the time being).

Unknown

The good: Thor is still wildly playable. Wolverine's green is still decent. Maybe even good if he gets an additional tile every 3 red instead of 5.
The bad: was it really necessary to kill Wolverine's yellow? I think nerfing his green would have sufficed, he doesn't have much health to begin with. Red is still a bad investment IMHO, so overall I think he's trash now.
The ugly: now running for top spots in PVP/PVE will pretty much require 3 capped *** chars. Probably that's the way it should be. Still you're looking at 170k+ ISO per char, 510+ total, which at the current rate generation will take probably 3 months to achieve. That's without counting new chars coming out, which may require ISO investments for tournaments etc. Not sure I have the strength to endure that.