Honest Question: Is Maggia Muscle Viewed As Overpowered?

MarcusGraves

For as long as I've played this game there hasn't been anything more frustrating to me enemy wise than the Maggia Muscle minion, this one enemy alone makes me wanna skip any event that involves maggia altogether because of how **** he can be and when he's paired with a character that can match it makes me wanna punch my screen.

Analysis:

-Both his abilities are very cheap on cost
-Threaten's strike tiles are insanely strong, easily matching or surpassing altogether max level ones created by patch/grocket (both total 1044 at max)
-Tommy Gun is not only a team damage ability but has very high base damage, combined with threaten it can devastate a lot of teams.
-He has a very high HP pool making it hard to burst him down if you can't come close to removing his CD tiles


So as he is right now, does anyone else think this minion is just way over the top in power, or is he actually balanced?

Unknown

I think he's probably the most OP character in the game in a few ways, but he's also a goon, which means that he can be relatively easy to deal with. I'd still rather fight an overscaled muscle than an overscaled Ares, and I don't consider Ares OP, in general.

The problem with several of the goons is that missions are basically binary - you either get out of them untouched or everybody dies. And that fuels bad scaling, and I think, in that respect, they're bad for the game.

dkffiv

With goons-only he's moderately balanced, I tend to kill him last (unless there's a Don) because his yellow doesn't actually kill you barring cascades (Thug's yellow is more dangerous). With an actual character a threaten going off is usually an instant loss.

PuceMoose

If you know you are going to be fighting Muscle, bring:



and laugh all the way to the bank!

simonsez

He's not really a problem, unless you're playing a Heroic PvE where the roster doesn't give you enough to properly handle him.

Unknown

I leave Muscle last as well. He is rage inducing when you suffer bad variance. As already pointed out, all you have to do is clear out the Tommy Gun tiles, and steal / remove his attack / hope no cascades occur. There are plenty of characters at different rarities that can help fight muscle.

I used to kill him first, but then the other goons tiles that can actually damage me would start propagating. So kill the thugs and the mafia sniper first. As said previously, the Don is relatively harmless. Always leave him for last.

wymtime

Puce Moose wrote:

If you know you are going to be fighting Muscle, bring:



and laugh all the way to the bank!

I prefer She Hulk who makes the strike tiles even more powerful. Although she was better whe would always steal 2 tiles. She Hulk also has a great AOE when you throw in the muscle strike tiles.

Heartburn

Why do goons have so much health, more the heros most of the time. They should be like the doom bots in terms of health. In no such scenario should they have as much health as the hulk or be able to take him and his team down so easily with a bad board. It has bothered me so much that low level goons are able to down so many heroes in this game. A sniper rifle round Or Tommy gun is definitely deadly to some heroes, but to others like hulk it is just a tickle. Goons in this game seem op especial when pair with a hero. It would be fun to see every characters kill count and see how goons stack up. Will be hard to see total impact because it won't track strike tiles damage boost in kills.

Goons have too much health for low level trash characters and need a nerf.
“ok goons, I forgive ya... But my Tommy gun don't!" Bam Bam Bam hahaha

rawfsu

He's an absolute pain in the neck! It still gives me much joy killing him off for all those times he whipped my teams in the early days. I guess I know how to hold a grudge? lol He's not much of a problem anymore, but man, he's my most hated AI along side ALL The Hand goons.

GurlBYE

He's a bit more powerful then he needs to be, especially with a limited selection in roster and if the pves aren't meant for exclusively maxed out players.

Am I crazy are a lot more attacks group effect that weren't before.
I explicitly remember using certain characters to tank rockets, literally last week.
No I'm dealing with group aoe boosted rockets and tommy guns.

MarcusGraves

since he's been mentioned a few times I do also find the maggia thug quite annoying since his ability only costs him 4 AP on a 3 turn (?) timer and does a considerable amount of damage for someone that "pops off a quick shot", seriously like what the hell kinda bullets is he firing, depleted uranium rounds?

that said I still find the Muscle way more threatening just because of how he provides such a massive damage boost and big team damage while having a big HP pool before he will go down. I always take him out first or else I usually regret it as in I'd rather take some damage from thug shots or a hitman sniper rifle and only have one character downed instead of possibly getting 2 characters downed or a complete team wipe from tommy gun or the AI getting lucky on a cascade while threaten is out.

Ben Grimm wrote:

The problem with several of the goons is that missions are basically binary - you either get out of them untouched or everybody dies. And that fuels bad scaling, and I think, in that respect, they're bad for the game.

This has always been something that has bothered me with how goon enemies function in the game since sometimes you're just SoL and cannot reach the tile they place their ability on no matter how hard you try and you end up eating a devastating CD tile move like tommy gun/rocket/flamethrower/etc. It has always been frustrating and something i'm sure has turned off a lot of people from the game claiming it to be unfair and it really kinda is but it won't change unless goons in general are overhauled in their design, but that's an entirely different topic I guess.

mr_X

Yes his abilties do seem quite cheap. That tactical deployment is super speedy also. If I remember correctly two turns. Bad board with no blue and your in trouble.

Still rather have muscle than those pesky ninjas. They are just infuriating.

Anyway fingers crossed they don't padlock out OBW in the current Venom heroic.

Arctic_One

The issue is still that with near 100 characters to choose from, pve still consists of the same 5 opponents and assorted goons repeatedly. It has gotten old, tired and boring. Couple that with the overpowering of these characters to heights at which I will NEVER get to use them and it gets frustrating.
Whodathunk something revolving around Marvel Comics would lack in creativity and passion. Let me fight a normal level LC, IF & KK or similar teams so that i can use my roster rather than my health packs.

Unknown

Maggia muscle paired with characters definitely is pretty bad.

But the strange thing about maggia muscles only/goons only is that they won't cast their blue....so if I were to hit a bad board, there'd be plenty of threatens but it wouldn't necessarily be game over.

An interesting topic would be most overpowered goons...

Maggia Muscle
Goons who produce AP they don't use
Goons who produce tiles no matter what(Sniper's Deadly Shot)
Ultron Sentries(Particularly Gunners)

I think goons should be more like the ninjas(which are newer goons, and their design shows): they hurt you, but the match isn't impossible and you don't immediately die.

PS: Goons shouldn't feed characters unless they're literally a feeder goon D3

DFiPL

An overscaled muscle is still beatable if you don't get completely hosed on the board. I...I don't LIKE the muscle, exactly, but my fires of rage don't burn all that brightly for him, either.

Whereas the Ultron Sentries just make me want to DESTROY THE WORLD.

DFiPL

raisinbman wrote:

Ultron Sentries(Particularly Gunners)

This is the answer and it's not close. There's not an enemy in the game I look at and say "Gosh, I'd rather fight Gunners than this."

Unknown

I don't think it's fair to list any of the sentries as true Goons because they can move the board. They're more like (Yelena+Venom) level characters. Taking an extra turn (fighter) is kind of like Venom's Symbiote Snare. Generating crits is like Yelena's Payback Mission.

When I first started the game, Muscles were definitely the most threatening. Now they're only a minor pain unless they're paired with a high level character.

Unknown

If I had the option to include one goon in my team, I would probably take the Sniper and not the Muscle. Sniper green costs 0, if you match the tile he puts another one out next turn, and his ability most of the time is 1 bullet->1 kill (at least in high levels). If we had the option to buy goons for HP, I bet more would pay for them than they do for heroes.

Edit: OK, if we count Ultron Sentries Gunners as goons, I would pick one of those.

GrimSkald

I don't find the gunners too bad. With Luke Cage on your team the match and attack tile damage is managable - you have to sweep up their strike tiles a lot to keep them from generating crits. Certainly out of all the Sentries they are the most dangerous, but they're not that bad, just tedious. They're also the worst sentry with Ultron Prime since his special tile multiplication power means a crit tile or two a turn, but still, it's managable.

The muscles on the other hand - if they generate more than one or two strike tiles the board becomes this incredibly dangerous monstrosity. A CD tile resolves and it creates a match or two, that's 2-3k of damage easy. Worse, if there is a non-goon character those strike tiles will do you in right quick.

Speaking for myself, I think the muscle is the most overpowered single character in the game. Oh, the damage I could do if I had one...

mr_X

Same here, in terms of non playable goon/enemies types I don't really mind them. OK maybe the fights go on a bit to long.

Probably because I normally use magneto classic sometimes backed up by Loki whose L5 coercive field soaks up any damage. A couple of servings of that and even there meltdown crits just bounce of you.

Now the snipers that is different story. They can deplete your health packs quickly if you fail to deal with one their tiles. Pair them with muscle who is an effective force multiplier and things can get nasty quick.

Prob the worse combination is Ares or Juggernaut+ muscle. Spamming their attacks amplified by threaten in a heroic.

That one will quickly chew through your 10 new health packs.

tanis3303