**** The Thing (Classic) ****

wymtime

I take a look at his yellow and I see the de son putting a lot of thought and work into making this ability the characters signature move. The player base then says that is the power we will leave at 3 covers. Captain Marvel will be very helpful against this character.

simonsez

wymtime wrote:

Captain Marvel will be very helpful against this character.

Not as helpful as Loki. Seriously, anyone who tries using this thing will be shredded by any team with Fist/Loki. When a character's marquee ability is countered so well so easily, there's little to be enthusiastic about.

Vhailorx

Pylgrim wrote:

Uh? I don't understand why some people are so down on this character. He's very similar to Luke Cage who is a favourite:

-His green compares to Cage's yellow. Cage's deals around 1k damage more but is conditional on teammates being alive, while Ben Grimm's (I mean, c'mon) costs one less AP, is not conditional and has an effect on the board.
-His red compares to Cage's black. You have to pay it in one lump payment instead of two (though most people will wait until having 12 black anyway) and it deals 1k less damage, but you get a discount of 2 AP and get the stun increased to two turns.
-His yellow is initially worse than Cage's red as it doesn't reduce match damage from turn two, but the moment the AI gets AP for a damaging ability, it becomes much, much better.

I guess that people would expect that "comparable to a 3*" instead of much better is not exciting in 4* land, but when you couple it with that massive HP and the fact that you have to target him first, leaving dangerous allies like Hood or Loki cause havoc in the meantime, I'm sure that anything better would have been too much.

Well, the magic of Cage is that his protect tile just happens. no contingencies, no requirement that the enemy do anything, nothing. it's just there all the time. With this guy, you have to get the enemy to attack a squishy character for some minimum amount of damage before the defensive passive does anything.

That said, this is an interesting power. On offense it is only so so as it requires several conditions to be met before having any value. On defense, it may actually be pretty good as it is more or less ai proof. And I think the defensive use of the power is the main design intent judging from Ice's description of its utilty.

Slightly off-topic: has anyone else noticed that some abilities seem clearly designed for offense, while others are clearly designed for defense (e.g. deadpool's black. It's a waste on offense 80% of the time [which mean's its a wasted power], but it's very useful when the devs design nodes for story missions because it forces the offensive player to behave in a specific way). This yellow seems very much like a defensive focused power meant to affect the playstyle of a human opponent.

red and green look thoroughly fine, but nothing spectacular (no massive single target damage, no aoe, no ap tricks, etc, just straight damage, a decent stun, and decent boardshake).

Unknown

Berserker Rage is going to cause Ben to spam yellow, isn't it?

Unknown

This is the most bland 4* ever by the way. Why couldn't yellow just always trigger at a certain damage? Have him really be defensive. Have him be hard to nuke down. This just means he gets nuked first.

You know what doesn't scream "The Thing, monster made of stone" to me? The character that gets killed first offering no resistance.

ronin_san

simonsez wrote:

ronin-san wrote:

You going to target thing over Hood?

Do you not understand how this ability works? If you throw a nuke at Hood, this guy is going to take the damage anyway, AND generate protect tiles.

No. My reading comprehension is just fine. But I use a guy like Daken to quickly whittle down Hood and stay under Thing's radar.

Tone it down a bit, killer. I like the ability. It happen to see Hood as a first target over Thing. I see viable Loki strategies to swipe away the Thing protect tiles. And I see a huge bit of functionality from Scarlet Witch's hexaway ability, since it can target and destroy ANY tile.

Unknown

ronin-san wrote:

simonsez wrote:

ronin-san wrote:

You going to target thing over Hood?

Do you not understand how this ability works? If you throw a nuke at Hood, this guy is going to take the damage anyway, AND generate protect tiles.

No. My reading comprehension is just fine. But I use a guy like Daken to quickly whittle down Hood and stay under Thing's radar.

Tone it down a bit, killer. I like the ability. It happen to see Hood as a first target over Thing. I see viable Loki strategies to swipe away the Thing protect tiles. And I see a huge bit of functionality from Scarlet Witch's hexaway ability, since it can target and destroy ANY tile.

Use daken against hood and you die.

Grinding down hood only seems like an answer for people who don't play the game.

Pylgrim

Vhailorx wrote:

Well, the magic of Cage is that his protect tile just happens. no contingencies, no requirement that the enemy do anything, nothing. it's just there all the time. With this guy, you have to get the enemy to attack a squishy character for some minimum amount of damage before the defensive passive does anything.

There's no setup needed, really. The AI always gets AP, you just monitor when they get enough to fire a damaging ability next turn and make a match in a colour other than Ben's.

ronin_san

ArkPrime wrote:

Use daken against hood and you die.

Grinding down hood only seems like an answer for people who don't play the game.

He has the fastest bursty damage in the 3* range and generates free strike tiles no matter what Hood is stealing. I think you need to give him another look.

Pylgrim

ronin-san wrote:

ArkPrime wrote:

Use daken against hood and you die.

Grinding down hood only seems like an answer for people who don't play the game.

He has the fastest bursty damage in the 3* range and generates free strike tiles no matter what Hood is stealing. I think you need to give him another look.

It's definitely the strategy I use when I'm facing Deadpool + Hood. Has never failed me. I obviously also bring my own Hood to slow down the opponent's AP acquisition.

Unknown

ShionSinX wrote:

So you aim berserk rage at someone else, he jumps to take it, creates protect tiles, you use trickery and now you have 3k worth strike tiles and 1200 worth in protect tiles. Nice.

And when you hit him on the next move, he'll fire off more protects that will most likely start to match and cancel out those strike tiles that you made, then on your next attack, there is a good chance he'll fire off AGAIN, leaving him with possibly somewhere around 2k-3k of protect tiles, and you without the strike tiles to truly chews through it. All you get out of the transaction is some protect tiles that you could have gotten by better means, and maybe 5k of dmg, which is good, don't get me wrong, but looking at almost 18k of health...is ONLY A DENT., and to do that you've consumed a TON of black and most likely your green, you won't be doing again anytime soon...so you'll be doing NO dmg while the whole time he's been building AP and will continue to do so to use himself *meh* or for whom ever he's protecting to use it (IMHB for instance).

I'm not saying it's a totally flawed approach, but Patch/Loki is not some mystical 'iWin' button against this guy. I'd rather bring high dmg and massive board shake-up to just erase the tiles, since he will STILL get hit at full cost initially.
- Unreall

Unknown

Definitely think people are underestimating his yellow. Nearly 18k health is nothing to laugh at when you're trying to take down a support behind him. When he's boosted?! Trying to use only match damage to take down a support is just too slow.

This guy takes away much of the Daken vs Hood strategy because you can't use Chemical Reaction to finish.

Malcrof

He is a tank, Tanks historically in MMO's deal less damage, but can take a pounding. I think these abilities are just about perfect.. And for anyone bringing loki, realize, he can one shot loki at will.

atomzed

daibar wrote:

Definitely think people are underestimating his yellow. Nearly 18k health is nothing to laugh at when you're trying to take down a support behind him. When he's boosted?! Trying to use only match damage to take down a support is just too slow.

This guy takes away much of the Daken vs Hood strategy because you can't use Chemical Reaction to finish.

Fully agree. I shudder to think this thing protecting hood or Loki... Giving a support character 17k hp is really good.. And bad for the opponent.

It screams auto skip for me. I rather fight carnage or IMHB than this thing shielding hood.

poomermon

Then again there are counters to thing/hood. Iron fist can chew hood quickly without triggering the protect tiles. Carnage red does aoe dmg which also does not trigger him jumping in front. Also you can just bring your own hood and they pretty much negate each other.

mjh

Can I say that I am sick of the character releases now?

I am almost on Day 500 and have been playing consistently. I am still trying to obtain covers, let alone IMHB, and let's not forget and now this guy. Who can keep up except those that not only spend way too much of their time grinding PVE for all 3 covers but then immediately buy the rest?

With this guy they really need to release him the same way they did for IMHB. The PVE grind is way past old at this point and this guy seems a bit OP.

Did I mention I'm still trying to get covers after how many months now? This might be the end for me

Malcrof

mjh wrote:

Can I say that I am sick of the character releases now?

I am almost on Day 500 and have been playing consistently. I am still trying to obtain covers, let alone IMHB, and let's not forget and now this guy. Who can keep up except those that not only spend way too much of their time grinding PVE for all 3 covers but then immediately buy the rest?

With this guy they really need to release him the same way they did for IMHB. The PVE grind is way past old at this point and this guy seems a bit OP.

Did I mention I'm still trying to get covers after how many months now? This might be the end for me

I feel your pain, my Prof X is at 0/3/1 ... starlord at 1/0/0.. at least 5+ covers on the rest (except carnage, 0/0/3....)

OzarkBoatswain

Red at level 5 is 489/AP with stun. Worse than 2* Storm's blue (501/AP) but still very nice.

The passive has the same flaw as Captain Marvel's -- it requires taking more damage at higher character levels, so there's a reason to keep him underleveled. 1805 protect at level 5, 1156 at level 4, 867 at level 3.

Green destroys a better pattern at levels 3/4 than at level 5 -- the different levels lead to more cascade potential. Level 5: 508/AP. Level 4: 273/AP. Level 3: 176/AP (yuck).

I'd probably go with 5/5/3 and never use the green. I don't know what character this is.

TLCstormz

.........where is Ant / Giant Man?

Malcrof

TLCstormz wrote:

.........where is Ant / Giant Man?

His movie isn't for another month or so.. so we wait on him.