I feel Ares should be a 3* character now.

Dragon_Nexus

I was thinking today that Ares feels very much like a character created purely to fight against.
With him being a 2* character we're limited to level 94, meaning anyone with a decent enough 3* roster won't use him unless he's boosted. Meanwhile on the computer side of things he can reach whatever level the scaling permits, anything from level 200 onwards.

This makes him useful only as an enemy. I feel he should be given a rank up to 3* status, especially if he has no 3* equivilent. He's a mainstay of the Dark Avengers line up. I wouldn't even demand they bump the level 94 straight up to level 166, instead making us level him from 94 to 166. I could dig that, I have some spare ISO.

What do you guys think?

DaveR4470

I think it's probably a terrible idea. Ares-as-enemy scales up to whatever level the node requires.... but still as a 2*. That puts a limit on how high his skills can grow in power per level beyond 94.

Make him a 3*, and (a) the "max" level 144 power of his attacks will be significantly higher, PLUS (b) the rate of growth in power due to scaling from 144-whatever will be, numerically, much greater than the growth for a 2* character between 144-whatever. And it'll be just soooooper fun going up against a level 240 Ares throwing down 11,000 points a strike every time he gets 7 green or so in 4-5 nodes per event....

Be careful what you wish for, sir!

Various38

I may not feel that Ares should be more than 2* unless they restructured his powers, but I do feel that Venom and Juggernaught should at least be level 50 characters. I can't remember who said it, but someone said "The days of the two power heroes is dead".

Chirus

They could re-release him as a lazy version like they did thor or storm. But you'd need a pretty darn good reason for that re-release, so I don't think it'll happen.

Arondite

DaveR4470 wrote:

I think it's probably a terrible idea. Ares-as-enemy scales up to whatever level the node requires.... but still as a 2*. That puts a limit on how high his skills can grow in power per level beyond 94.

Make him a 3*, and (a) the "max" level 144 power of his attacks will be significantly higher, PLUS (b) the rate of growth in power due to scaling from 144-whatever will be, numerically, much greater than the growth for a 2* character between 144-whatever. And it'll be just soooooper fun going up against a level 240 Ares throwing down 11,000 points a strike every time he gets 7 green or so in 4-5 nodes per event....

Be careful what you wish for, sir!

What are you talking about

Have you ever compared level 270 Juggs to an actual 4 Star? Lower Star level heroes have much heavier per-level-scaling than higher Star Level heroes.

Unknown

Juggernaut is probably meant to be a boss of some sorts and never intended to be that high level. There's no especially good scaling on ability damage within 1*-3* (and they're all still better than 4*) but some characters just scale better, probably because they're overpowered to begin with. At a rough glance I'd guess damage of X to self gets you X more damage to an enemy as cost. For example, Juggernaut would do around 4800 for 6 red at level 395, and that's not an outrageous amount of damage (Psychic Knife is likely to do more than that at 5-8 red AP), except when it becomes 9600 to you and 4800 to himself, that basically a one shot ability and his self damage really doesn't matter when he has 25K or whatever insane HP he has. Likewise Ares has the same issue as his extra damage comes from the self damage aspect of Sunder and Onslaught (give opponent green AP is about as close to self damage as it gets) but none of that matters when he one shots someone and even if not, he still has his insane HPs to absorb the counterattack. If you can have enough HP to survive a Sunder you'll notice that popping his Sunder CD does put you considerably ahead, or at least as ahead as you can expect after taking a 4 match move from a level 300 guy. The problem is that you usually don't survive a Sunder at all.

dkffiv

Phantron wrote:

Juggernaut is probably meant to be a boss of some sorts and never intended to be that high level. There's no especially good scaling on ability damage within 1*-3* (and they're all still better than 4*) but some characters just scale better, probably because they're overpowered to begin with. At a rough glance I'd guess damage of X to self gets you X more damage to an enemy as cost. For example, Juggernaut would do around 4800 for 6 red at level 395, and that's not an outrageous amount of damage (Psychic Knife is likely to do more than that at 5-8 red AP), except when it becomes 9600 to you and 4800 to himself, that basically a one shot ability and his self damage really doesn't matter when he has 25K or whatever insane HP he has. Likewise Ares has the same issue as his extra damage comes from the self damage aspect of Sunder and Onslaught (give opponent green AP is about as close to self damage as it gets) but none of that matters when he one shots someone and even if not, he still has his insane HPs to absorb the counterattack. If you can have enough HP to survive a Sunder you'll notice that popping his Sunder CD does put you considerably ahead, or at least as ahead as you can expect after taking a 4 match move from a level 300 guy. The problem is that you usually don't survive a Sunder at all.

Psychic Knife would do around 2600 damage and generate a strength 530 strike tile but Psylocke needs a buff b/c they weren't sure how to balance tile generation when she was created. Fireball and ALotT would do around 8k though. The real problem is the body, a tank shouldn't be doing more damage than an assassin.

Arondite

dkffiv wrote:

Phantron wrote:

Juggernaut is probably meant to be a boss of some sorts and never intended to be that high level. There's no especially good scaling on ability damage within 1*-3* (and they're all still better than 4*) but some characters just scale better, probably because they're overpowered to begin with. At a rough glance I'd guess damage of X to self gets you X more damage to an enemy as cost. For example, Juggernaut would do around 4800 for 6 red at level 395, and that's not an outrageous amount of damage (Psychic Knife is likely to do more than that at 5-8 red AP), except when it becomes 9600 to you and 4800 to himself, that basically a one shot ability and his self damage really doesn't matter when he has 25K or whatever insane HP he has. Likewise Ares has the same issue as his extra damage comes from the self damage aspect of Sunder and Onslaught (give opponent green AP is about as close to self damage as it gets) but none of that matters when he one shots someone and even if not, he still has his insane HPs to absorb the counterattack. If you can have enough HP to survive a Sunder you'll notice that popping his Sunder CD does put you considerably ahead, or at least as ahead as you can expect after taking a 4 match move from a level 300 guy. The problem is that you usually don't survive a Sunder at all.

Psychic Knife would do around 2600 damage and generate a strength 530 strike tile but Psylocke needs a buff b/c they weren't sure how to balance tile generation when she was created. Fireball and ALotT would do around 8k though. The real problem is the body, a tank shouldn't be doing more damage than an assassin.

Ehh, it's fine for a tank to have more damage than an assassin, it should just take longer to prepare (traditionally). Either that, or have more damage in the form of slow, sustained damage.

The problem is that he outdamages assassins in 2 turns (assassins are designed around bursting targets).

Juggs is a tanksassin.

Unknown

dkffiv wrote:

Psychic Knife would do around 2600 damage and generate a strength 530 strike tile but Psylocke needs a buff b/c they weren't sure how to balance tile generation when she was created. Fireball and ALotT would do around 8k though. The real problem is the body, a tank shouldn't be doing more damage than an assassin.

Psychic Knife will likely beat a 4800 for 6r straight up, and 4800 for 6r loses to Fireball straight up very easily too. It's just a bad assumption to assume that self damage on a guy with 25K HP is somehow supposed to matter. If they just drop the self damage and make it 4800 for 6r, that'd be quite fair and maybe even slightly on the weak side compared to most level 395s, though he'd still have his 25K HP to make up for it.

DaveR4470

Arondite wrote:

What are you talking about

Have you ever compared level 270 Juggs to an actual 4 Star? Lower Star level heroes have much heavier per-level-scaling than higher Star Level heroes.

Actually, all characters scale identically now (for attack scaling) - at the scaling rate of a 4*. Check the R69 patch notes. Juggernaut was the main reason this was fixed. He's tremendously powerful to begin with, and when he was scaled at the higher 1* rate over hundreds of levels, he became ridiculous. Now he's only obtusely powerful when scaled.

The issue I'm raising is that if you make Ares a 3*, his 'base' damage is going to be significantly higher than the 2* Ares -- and even though the scaling is over fewer levels than the 2*'s scaling, the higher starting point leads to a higher endpoint.

If you assume that the scaling rate is 1% per level (I don't know the actual %, this is just for illustration), then a max 1* raised to level 200 does 491% more damage, a max 2* raised to 200 does 287% more damage, and a max 3* raised to 200 does 140% more damage.

Juggs lv 40 does 1100 damage for 5 red with Headbutt. So under this example, at level 200 he'd do 5405 damage.
Ares is tricky, because he's variable damage based on how many green you have. But the minimum 6-green trigger at 94 does 1242 damage. Scaled to 200, that's 3566 damage.

3* characters, so far, do AT LEAST 2x the damage of 2* equivalents. Look at LThor vs. Thor, or the two Torches. By that metric, Hypothetical 3* Ares would do 400 damage per green. Keep the trigger at 6, and that's 2400 "base" damage. Which, under this, would scale at 200 to 3484. And that's the minimum.

Edit: and if you run the numbers further, you'll see that 2* and 3* will be pretty much the same when scaled up, or at least within a couple of percentage points, if 3* damage is 2x 2* damage.

Juggernaut is even more stupidly powerful, because his damage at 50 is proportionately HUGE compared to damage by 2*s at 94, so scaling him gives you 44 extra levels of compound interest on a huge base.

So while it's admittedly not as bad as I first thought.... I still don't think we need a 3* Ares, thank you very much.

tl;dr Juggy's ridiculous.

Edit: I caught a math error here. Will fix and update....
Edit: Fixed. Of course it ultimately ruined my original point. Stupid facts! Stupid Smarch weather!

Unknown

The base ability damage of a character is a function of how overpowered they are and has nothing to do with what tier they are. 3* Thor's ability damage is much higher than 2* Thor's ability damage because 3* Thor is overpowered, not because he's 3*. 3* Storm's ability damage is actually quite inline with what 1* Storm would be scaled to 166. Juggernaut's ability damage is too high because he operates under the assumption that self damage gives you more power but it really doesn't matter to him on high levels. Ares is the same thing. If you go way back to the prologue you'll notice that Juggernaut hits extremely hard for the levels you're expected to fight him at, so he's probably meant to be extra strong due to being a boss type character without any concern of what happens when he's level 395.

Unknown

I would be down for a lazy Ares that had the powers of the 170 2* version of the character. He was good but not stupid good. Yet another R/Y/G brawler type to roster. Ares is fun to play tho and it's sad to leave him behind now. I use him daily in DDQ and on low level PvE still.

Arondite

DaveR4470 wrote:

Arondite wrote:

What are you talking about

Have you ever compared level 270 Juggs to an actual 4 Star? Lower Star level heroes have much heavier per-level-scaling than higher Star Level heroes.

Actually, all characters scale identically now (for attack scaling) - at the scaling rate of a 4*. Check the R69 patch notes. Juggernaut was the main reason this was fixed. He's tremendously powerful to begin with, and when he was scaled at the higher 1* rate over hundreds of levels, he became ridiculous. Now he's only obtusely powerful when scaled.

The issue I'm raising is that if you make Ares a 3*, his 'base' damage is going to be significantly higher than the 2* Ares -- and even though the scaling is over fewer levels than the 2*'s scaling, the higher starting point leads to a higher endpoint.

If you assume that the scaling rate is 1% per level (I don't know the actual %, this is just for illustration), then a max 1* raised to level 200 does 491% more damage, a max 2* raised to 200 does 287% more damage, and a max 3* raised to 200 does 140% more damage.

Juggs lv 40 does 1100 damage for 5 red with Headbutt. So under this example, at level 200 he'd do 5405 damage.
Ares is tricky, because he's variable damage based on how many green you have. But the minimum 6-green trigger at 94 does 1242 damage. Scaled to 200, that's 3566 damage.

3* characters, so far, do AT LEAST 2x the damage of 2* equivalents. Look at LThor vs. Thor, or the two Torches. By that metric, Hypothetical 3* Ares would do 400 damage per green. Keep the trigger at 6, and that's 2400 "base" damage. Which, under this, would scale at 200 to 3484. And that's the minimum.

Edit: and if you run the numbers further, you'll see that 2* and 3* will be pretty much the same when scaled up, or at least within a couple of percentage points, if 3* damage is 2x 2* damage.

Juggernaut is even more stupidly powerful, because his damage at 50 is proportionately HUGE compared to damage by 2*s at 94, so scaling him gives you 44 extra levels of compound interest on a huge base.

So while it's admittedly not as bad as I first thought.... I still don't think we need a 3* Ares, thank you very much.

tl;dr Juggy's ridiculous.

Edit: I caught a math error here. Will fix and update....
Edit: Fixed. Of course it ultimately ruined my original point. Stupid facts! Stupid Smarch weather!

2 Star and 1 Star characters scale on health and skill damage more than any other star tier per level.

Unknown

Arondite wrote:

2 Star and 1 Star characters scale on health and skill damage more than any other star tier per level.

You can compare the stats of 2* and 3* Thor in a node that features them both at the same level and while they've basically the same HP (might be some rounding errors), every skill on Thor 3* does significantly more damgae than Thor 2*'s and they're exactly the same skills. On the other hand if you compare 1* and 3* Storm you'll find their damage are quite in line with each other and certainly not separated by the difference between Thor 2*/3*.

Ability damage is a function of how overpowered a character is. It has nothing to do with star rarity.

Arondite

Phantron wrote:

Arondite wrote:

2 Star and 1 Star characters scale on health and skill damage more than any other star tier per level.

You can compare the stats of 2* and 3* Thor in a node that features them both at the same level and while they've basically the same HP (might be some rounding errors), every skill on Thor 3* does significantly more damgae than Thor 2*'s and they're exactly the same skills. On the other hand if you compare 1* and 3* Storm you'll find their damage are quite in line with each other and certainly not separated by the difference between Thor 2*/3*.

Ability damage is a function of how overpowered a character is. It has nothing to do with star rarity.

3 thors base damage is wild Compared to 2 thor.

2 Thors base damage goes up x5 for maxing his level out, 3 Thor's only goes up by ~3x.

2 Thor's scales way harder, there's just more ground to be made up than the levels are able to do. Lol. He definitely is scaling harder per level, as I said.

Unknown

That'd be great for anyone who already has Ares.

Meanwhile, the new players would be screwed out of their best chance at transitioning.

Dragon_Nexus

onimus wrote:

That'd be great for anyone who already has Ares.

Meanwhile, the new players would be screwed out of their best chance at transitioning.

I...actually think that's the best counter argument to my idea that I've read.
Yeah, I totally disagree with myself now ¬¬

Arondite

Well you got your wish.

Ares officially hits as hard as a 4 Star on Green!

Unknown

Dragon_Nexus wrote:

onimus wrote:

That'd be great for anyone who already has Ares.

Meanwhile, the new players would be screwed out of their best chance at transitioning.

I...actually think that's the best counter argument to my idea that I've read.
Yeah, I totally disagree with myself now ¬¬

Yea but LAZY Ares would be cool.

roberts_2

Ares is more powerful than some / chars. His green power as 15-20 gems is a one-hit-kills per mostly chars.

Unknown

roberts_2 wrote:

Ares is more powerful than some / chars. His green power as 15-20 gems is a one-hit-kills per mostly chars.

Many characters can kill almost anyone with 20 of the same color. You give BP 24 black and he can do 7,000 team damage. Ares is good, but not 3* good (in his current form).

170 boosted Ares is 3* good.