Who should be next in line for balancing?

Unknown

locked wrote:

Stop implying that oBW needs a nerf, plenty of people built her 5-5-3 and don't complain; the only thing devs are admitting isn't working properly is the extra Espionage damage. 8 ap ain't cheap because the opponent rarely needs purple, so you have to make 3 matches alright. And you always have to compromise between being able to steal fast or between denying the opponent some other cheap moves even sooner than that. 6 green for Feral claws or 5 red for Mistress ring any bells? Never mind the soon to be fixed Mags and Spidey.
oBW isn't a happy steal it all solution. She's squishy and she is easily countered by another oBW. Like I said if there is a lower limit at 11 purple for recon, the battles with 2 oBW in them would become dragged out.

No one is implying anything. Phantron and I have clearly stated she needs nerfed. No one has complained about her 5 black hardly at all. Our entire argument is that she blows 3* ap stealers and any similar characters out if the water whether her pink is 3 or 5. If you are gonna try to debate us your gonna need to do a way better job than that.

Moral

One of the stated reasons for rebalancing Ragnorok Thor and wolverine was that they were overused.

If this is the measuring stick, OBW will be on the list.

Unknown

Ok so she can steal AP, Heal and gets double the benefit of strike tiles. While that is pretty damned powerful, if we had a character with an aoe heal and direct damage abilities, I think she'd be forgotten in a heartbeat.

For our two healers we have OBW (arguably OP as with strike tiles she's a beast on control and damage) and Spidey (locks down two or three, with a good board, characters permanently). Both are very good at being the support, the trouble is, their support is better than any other character's. Even when Spidey gets hit by the nerf bat, he will still be used, often, because he can heal. Same w/OBW. If her recon and espionage gets nerfed into oblivion, she will be used because she can heal.

If Demiurge wants us to stop using these two characters as much, they NEED to introduce another character that can heal it's teammates. Right now Daken and the Wolvie duo (waiting to see on X balancing) are used because they can take a hit while making their teammates stronger.

I think the best way to neutralize OBW (without nerfs) or Spidey, is to introduce another aoe healer. Hood, IM40 and Hulk are all good AP generators, but since they cannot heal, they're often teamed with people who can (OBW or Spidey). If they don't want to do another AOE healer, give us one that heals the lowest percentage health. If that character uses black, yellow, blue or purple to heal (and is around 6ap) people will switch to that character.

What I want is a character that can apply vampiric healing. This could be
Morbius
Red - Blood Drain - places an attack tile the does x amount/turn
Black - Blood Drink - passive - each ally heals x% of dmg done for each red attack tile on the board
Purple - Hypnosis - Steals X ap

That's just a sample but healing could be applied to so many different characters and if we had a variety of healers, the conversations about OBW would be mute.

kensterr

A damage dealer + healer = Dr. Strange

over_clocked

Psykopathic wrote:

No one is implying anything. Phantron and I have clearly stated she needs nerfed. No one has complained about her 5 black hardly at all. Our entire argument is that she blows 3* ap stealers and any similar characters out if the water whether her pink is 3 or 5. If you are gonna try to debate us your gonna need to do a way better job than that.

There's your solution, buff other AP stealers or just make their AP stealing somewhat more reliable. Some characters steal AP reliably and that's somehow their fault?
oBW is not overused, among 2 star rosters maybe. Next thing I see you'll say mStorm and Thor are overused, or Patch. Patch IS overused isn't he? I demand Patch nerf, nao.

edit: ^ What Maggotbreath said.

Unknown

The Hood is likely too good on his AP steal but at least in theory you can hope for a board favorable to your attack colors, allowing you to match them and then eliminate the criteria for AP steal and then attack The Hood quickly. It rarely works out like that which is why he probably will be nerfed too but at least there's a theoratical plan you can approach The Hood.

There's no such equivalent here for OBW. She basically has to die before they make 2 or 3 purple matches depending on what level of Aggressive Recon they're using, and 'kill someone with Magneto's infinite before they make 2 matches' is not a valid plan. As long as OBW is making the purple it's nearly certain they'll have 11 AP by 3 matches (unless you just conceded purple so they got nothing to steal, and you'd be in a world of hurt with this passive approach too).

Strong healing has no place in this game because the competitive model is built around characters dying or being wounded and limited by health pack regeneration. The fact that even in Nefarious Foes you still have people regularly take their wounded heroes to prologue or Simulator missions to heal shows how messed up the game currently is. Spiderman's heals are way too good and hopefully nobody else is ever going to come anywhere close to what Spiderman heals for after Spiderman is nerfed, and I run Spiderman in virtually every team I have. At any rate if you're using OBW primarily for her heals you're doing something really wrong. Aggressive Recon is her big heal, not Anti-Grav Device. Each Aggressive Recon subtracts 3200 damage from the other team and gives you 3200 damage worth of AP (it's usually a lot more, 100 AP per non red/green is generally a very low estimate). In fact without the denial aspect of Aggressive Recon, most high end red/green powers can easily outpace her heals, and some of them are capable of one hit kill her.

It's not uncommon to end a game with the opponent have 0 AP of all color with OBW. That's not how a match is supposed to go. Your 3 purple matches should not cancel out roughly about 10 turns of the enemy's. I don't think anybody has died to solely just match 3 damage, and if you found a way to lose to a team that never used a special move you'll probably be the first person to do so.

over_clocked

Phantron wrote:

It's not uncommon to end a game with the opponent have 0 AP of all color with OBW. That's not how a match is supposed to go. Your 3 purple matches should not cancel out roughly about 10 turns of the enemy's. I don't think anybody has died to solely just match 3 damage, and if you found a way to lose to a team that never used a special move you'll probably be the first person to do so.

Imho if you manage to die to a team with oBW on it, you're probably the one who's doing something wrong. Barring the lvl 200 oBW in Simulator, she, is above all, squishy, she can surely acquire 9 blue and 8-11 purple, but by that moment you should have a killing blow for her ready. I run oBW as regularly as you run Spidey, probably, and I encounter her often enough to judge accurately, I hope. And if enemy oBW sometimes managed to help in defeating me, it was usually thanks to stupidity/reckless moves on my part or a very unlucky board, and you don't need to face oBW to lose thanks to that.
Anyway the potential damage denied is a fun thing to calculate but you use quite generous numbers. Recon is most often used not when the opponent has 3-4+ of all colours but simply to save your team from a specific crushing blow or an ability that renders your work useless, it may even simply be Spidey's harmless yellow healing or oBW's blue.

kensterr

I have to keep matching purples to avoid dino bite - so no, no nerfing for her, since I only have 1 blue spidey. My 3/5/5 OBW is helping me through the hard mode (sometimes I need to boost too due to avoid a bad board).

Unknown

kensterr wrote:

I have to keep matching purples to avoid dino bite - so no, no nerfing for her, since I only have 1 blue spidey. My 3/5/5 OBW is helping me through the hard mode (sometimes I need to boost too due to avoid a bad board).

You have the most honest intentions in the entire thread at least lol.

Mawtful

locked wrote:

Phantron wrote:

It's not uncommon to end a game with the opponent have 0 AP of all color with OBW. That's not how a match is supposed to go. Your 3 purple matches should not cancel out roughly about 10 turns of the enemy's. I don't think anybody has died to solely just match 3 damage, and if you found a way to lose to a team that never used a special move you'll probably be the first person to do so.

Imho if you manage to die to a team with oBW on it, you're probably the one who's doing something wrong. Barring the lvl 200 oBW in Simulator, she, is above all, squishy, she can surely acquire 9 blue and 8-11 purple, but by that moment you should have a killing blow for her ready. I run oBW as regularly as you run Spidey, probably, and I encounter her often enough to judge accurately, I hope. And if enemy oBW sometimes managed to help in defeating me, it was usually thanks to stupidity/reckless moves on my part or a very unlucky board, and you don't need to face oBW to lose thanks to that.
Anyway the potential damage denied is a fun thing to calculate but you use quite generous numbers. Recon is most often used not when the opponent has 3-4+ of all colours but simply to save your team from a specific crushing blow or an ability that renders your work useless, it may even simply be Spidey's harmless yellow healing or oBW's blue.

Yeah, I've managed to end quite a few games in Blind Justice with my enemies on 0 AP thanks to Jazz Hands/Radar Sense. They should probably nerf Daredevil.

NighteyesGrisu

I really don't understand all these calls for nerfing of OBW. She's certainly strong, but still easy to kill. Thor, Wolverine or Ares (to include only **) all can kill her with relative ease; and that's after the their respective nerfs. The main reason she's used so often, is that she's pretty much the only healing character that mid-tier teams have. So instead of nerfing her, maybe introduce another hero with healing powers?

As far as ** go, I find Daken in a hostile team to be way more annoying than OBW (not that I'm asking to nerf him, mind you)

So no, not touching her

over_clocked

soenottelling wrote:

kensterr wrote:

I have to keep matching purples to avoid dino bite - so no, no nerfing for her, since I only have 1 blue spidey. My 3/5/5 OBW is helping me through the hard mode (sometimes I need to boost too due to avoid a bad board).

You have the most honest intentions in the entire thread at least lol.

Hey I'm not defending oBW just because I like the character, I quite hated enemy oBW back when I didn't have my own. But now enemy oBW never makes me refuse matches; enemy Daken, Ares, Punisher, lvl 115+ villains? Sure.

Unknown

Changing the subject a bit, what I'd like them to see do now more than anything is, since respec is coming, adding third skills to all the two-skill people. Daken, Doom, Loki, Rags, etc. I think that could add a lot to people's existing rosters, and it would probably be a lot easier than creating and balancing new characters from scratch. None of them are overpowered, and all could see more use with a third skill (and, correspondingly, higher level caps).

Unknown

Ben Grimm wrote:

Changing the subject a bit, what I'd like them to see do now more than anything is, since respec is coming, adding third skills to all the two-skill people. Daken, Doom, Loki, Rags, etc. I think that could add a lot to people's existing rosters, and it would probably be a lot easier than creating and balancing new characters from scratch. None of them are overpowered, and all could see more use with a third skill (and, correspondingly, higher level caps).

I'd imagine that adding a third skill is not cut and dry. They would need to tweak their existing skills a bit or risk creating inbalance. Imagine Daken at 85 with even better healing and strike tile dmg plus a third skill to taunt you with. Hello new over used char Or Doom's demons at 141 with a third skill to support him?

Unknown

I never avoid someone in PVP because they have a maxed OBW on their team. I take her out early in the fight and she contributes absolutely nothing to the enemy but a small bag of hit points. However, I will DEFINITELY avoid a maxed Hulk, or Ares, or Patch, or Magneto, or or or.....

Therefore, all those characters need to be nerfed before OBW.

/snark

Come on guys, get real. The fact that a character can do something more than match tiles doesn't mean it needs nerfing. OBW has strengths, and OBW has weaknesses. She's perfect.

Unknown

Marquoz wrote:

I never avoid someone in PVP because they have a maxed OBW on their team. I take her out early in the fight and she contributes absolutely nothing to the enemy but a small bag of hit points. However, I will DEFINITELY avoid a maxed Hulk, or Ares, or Patch, or Magneto, or or or.....

Therefore, all those characters need to be nerfed before OBW.

/snark

Come on guys, get real. The fact that a character can do something more than match tiles doesn't mean it needs nerfing. OBW has strengths, and OBW has weaknesses. She's perfect.

I agree. Any team with OBW is dogmeat to me, sges nice on strike tile offense, but ive started using her only in PVE and as a healbot, i notice im attacked alot less. Im finding about a 40% defebse success with my hulk anf ares team

Unknown

Although 'magic cascades' can happen to anybody, it seems like it is more devastating when they happen for OBW. I agree that no one puts her on their team for defense, but when that stupid, top row environmental three match drops down into a four match into three more matches and a crit, into Aggressive Recon then I want to throw my phone. I HATE that.

OBW doesn't need nerfing, but I sure wish they changed the health system somehow so everyone didn't need to include her or Spiderman just to play for an extended period. I get sick of facing the same guys all the time. Maybe if they gave all surviving heroes a 1000 point heal after a winning fight or something that might allow a little more variety.

Unknown

OBW has 3100 HP which is 400 less than the standard 2* 3500 for say, Wolverine. Because she can indeed always heal herself if she gets enough blue, she's likely more resilient than The Hood (who has especially low HPs for a 3*) who cannot.

At any rate if you're using OBW as a healer you're using the character wrong. Her ability to heal isn't what makes her useful or overpowered. If you get rid of Aggressive Recon, she'd be a negative contributing member on the team because her heal isn't even going to outpace concentrated match 3 damage. The problem is Aggressive Recon makes way too much of a swing, from useless to totally overpowered. If Aggressive Recon was swapped with say, Gravity Warp, nobody would use her at all.

The post about how needing her beat Devil Dino is actually quite illustrative of how broken she is. When Spiderman is removed from the picture, it's very hard to imagine a team that can defeat the Devil Dino without OBW. She's balanced right now because she's not Spiderman, but Spiderman isn't going to be the one man lockdown machine he currently is forever.

Phaserhawk

Psykopathic28 wrote:

We already know who the developers have plans for. You know there's lots of other tweaks that need done. What do you think needs balanced and what are your priorities?

For me it's something like:
OBW needs taken down a notch - omg she's too awesome. Hate to say it but she exceeds 2* anything.

IM40 needs some tweaks. IMO his yellow is still worst ability to upgrade. None of his abilities are good at all, arguably his blue, but who would want an IM40 over an OBW or even a new Thor? Someone who doesn't know too well probably.

Bullseye / rags / Dr D / any other 2 ability characters need their 3rd skills. I would love to see all of those added ASAP.

Not much else to me seems too far out of line.

OBW, absolutely not. As many of the other posters stated, upgrade some of the other 2*'s, the issue with characters in general is this little tirade.

Access to 3* and 4*'s are difficult, thus most players will have 2* characters. Of those, only a handful are even decent. Thor, Wolverine, Ares, OBW are by far the top 4 and are Tier 1 category. Storm is Tier 1.5, Tier 2 is Moonstone, Captain America, Hawkeye, and probably Magneto, the rest are Tier 3.

Obviously when buffed these characters move up but the issue is, after Thor, Wolvie, Ares, OBW, and Storm there are no regularly playable characters. Now, on top of that you are in a tournament or limited time issue, you need to keep your one and only team healthy, thus the inclusion of OBW. If players had access to better cards or the 2 stars were deeper, then you could have multiple lineups, So your Thor, Wolvie, OBW is down, it wouldn't matter because you could play your Captain, Storm, Hawkeye with equal or better success, therein lies the problem. Players have limited access to characters in general, then you take those limited characters they can get, and halve that, it's no wonder you see generally only, Wolvie, Thor, Ares, OBW, and Storm, nobody else is playable.

In short, OBW is not OP, she is just good, because other characters are UP doesn't by nature make her OP

Unknown

Phaserhawk wrote:

Access to 3* and 4*'s are difficult, thus most players will have 2* characters. Of those, only a handful are even decent. Thor, Wolverine, Ares, OBW are by far the top 4 and are Tier 1 category. Storm is Tier 1.5, Tier 2 is Moonstone, Captain America, Hawkeye, and probably Magneto, the rest are Tier 3.

You forgot Daken who is better than every hero you listed in Tier 2