Worst ability in the game?

MaxxPowerz

I actually prefer inferno to Torche's green ability. I think you might be underrating it a smidge. Boosted it's doing 2000+ damage for me a turn. Not to mention if you have some strike tiles on the board...well, in the words of Bill Paxton: Game over man!

Twysta

Why would anyone vote bewilder? Bewilder is awesome.

Mawtful

From the list provided, I think it has to be Hot Dog Stand. It's the only ability that I can think of which has two "anti-spam" measures in place - stuns the user after casting and can only be cast with <7 blue tiles but adds blue tiles to the board. To me, that's indicative of poor design. There are plenty of other "bad" (or at least "suboptimal") abilities on that list, but they could all be "fixed" with a tweak to cost or power. Hot Dog Stand is a hot mess of unconnected effects and inadequate theming.

So here's how I'd fix it.
There are a few things to consider; appropriate character theming, the ability's effect, and the colour traits.

The character of Totally Awesome Hulk is really quite new, I'm not reading his comic, so my understanding of the character is based on the few panels I can find via a Google search - plus his representation in MPQ. To me, he seems almost a little arrogant - he's smart and he ~knows~ he's smart, and being able to Hulk-out but retain his consciousness only kind of feeds that ego.
Cho two other moves are a Green ability which gains power based on Blue AP in reserve and a Blue ability which generates Green AP and charges Blue tiles. There's some great synergy there between his brawn (green) and his brains (blue), but then the black ability feels kind of tacked on.

I think keeping the ability in Black offers a great opportunity to represent that ego. Hot Dog Stand returns health - because that's what Hot Dogs do, of course - but the idea behind the ability isn't that Cho needs to eat to recover, bur rather he's so confident in his ability to win that he'll stop fighting to have a snack. So we keep the health gain, but I'm going to change the way the "drawback" is manifest and limitations.

Hot Dog Stand - 5 AP
Cho empties the stock of a nearby food vendor. Hulk is healed for 77 for each Blue tile on the board, then converts 3 Blue tiles to Black and ends the turn.
Level Upgrades
Level 2: Hulk heals himself for 90 health per Blue tile.
Level 3: Hulk heals himself for 103 health per Blue tile.
Level 4: Hulk heals himself for 129 health per Blue tile.
Level 5: Hulk heals himself for 181 health per Blue tile.
Max Level
Level 3: 204 health per Blue tile
Level 4: 255 health per Blue tile
Level 5: 358 health per Blue tile

I removed the stun, but this ability ends the turn. This will leave Cho on the receiving end of whatever the enemy is about to dish out. I think this adds a really neat strategic option to this ability as it lets you position your tank out front.
I changed the heal to a per tile basis (the numbers I have provided come from dividing the old values by 6 - since the limitation was "less than 7") bur removed the limitation. So this means you could potentially just keep casting HDS each turn, however the ability also reduces the number of blue tiles in play. In this way, by giving into his ego, Cho starts to impact his other abilities.

I think these changes make the ability somewhat more usable than its current incarnation, while still keeping some limitation on its use.

20three

Twysta wrote:

Why would anyone vote bewilder? Bewilder is awesome.

Because it's terrible.

(Let's assume you're not foolish enough to have it at 5 covers)

It's expensive. (costs almost what it steals)

It's a 3 turn countdown tile (is easy enough to destroy)

It steals the largest cover pool, not the strongest, the largest. So by the time you get 10 blue AP, I'd assume the enemy team has amassed a fair amount themselves, now what's the chances that's going to be a color that they need to launch a powerful attack? Not really that likely, granted there are a few that require a ton of AP, but I think it's much more likely you're gonna end up stealing a worthless color of a passive ability or a color they don't even have an ability for. Just saying, it's much too niche to be useful unless you're fighting someone like Black Widow, even then, it's awful.

Spiritclaw

I'd vote Squirrel Girl but somehow it didn't make the list. Three protect tiles aren't worth skipping your turn.

VA5

I would have to say x-force green is arguably the worst move in the game. I am putting this in perspective of class as a one star would otherwise hold the title.
1350 maxed level 5 star damage (yes I know it clears tiles). That's 169 damage per green. Ooch, that's 2 star land.

Overall I saw someone comment on Mr Fantastic and I would have to agree that he is worst player with respect to their star class.

Twysta

20three wrote:

Twysta wrote:

Why would anyone vote bewilder? Bewilder is awesome.

Because it's terrible.

(Let's assume you're not foolish enough to have it at 5 covers)

It's expensive. (costs almost what it steals)

It's a 3 turn countdown tile (is easy enough to destroy)

It steals the largest cover pool, not the strongest, the largest. So by the time you get 10 blue AP, I'd assume the enemy team has amassed a fair amount themselves, now what's the chances that's going to be a color that they need to launch a powerful attack? Not really that likely, granted there are a few that require a ton of AP, but I think it's much more likely you're gonna end up stealing a worthless color of a passive ability or a color they don't even have an ability for. Just saying, it's much too niche to be useful unless you're fighting someone like Black Widow, even then, it's awful.

We will just have to agree to disagree then my friend.
But just because their most abundant color is worthless to them... doesn't mean it's worthless to you.

Granted it would be a lot better if it cost like... 8AP.

Jarvind

As tempting as it is to poop on Chulk yet again, I chose Gravity Warp. Only useful for its tile-switching property if there is exactly one enemy special tile out, and mediocre damage otherwise. Blech.

Pylgrim

simonsez wrote:

Hot Dog Stand was modified so that if fires more often. I don't expect anyone to know this, since you'd have to be nuts to be using him, but it's no longer the worst skill in the game.

I just checked. It's still ****. It's ridiculous how many drawbacks they appended to an already bad effect. Almost surprised that it doesn't also cost you AP of other colours or something.

PuceMoose

Pylgrim wrote:

simonsez wrote:

Hot Dog Stand was modified so that if fires more often. I don't expect anyone to know this, since you'd have to be nuts to be using him, but it's no longer the worst skill in the game.

I just checked. It's still ****. It's ridiculous how many drawbacks they appended to an already bad effect. Almost surprised that it doesn't also cost you AP of other colours or something.

Heh - that might be a fun forum game. Imagine if Hot Dog Stand *also* destroyed a random column (which the devs seem to think is a powerful game-changing side-effect). What sort of additional drawbacks might me seen then? Ending the turn and stunning Cho for a turn?

Pylgrim

Puce Moose wrote:

Pylgrim wrote:

simonsez wrote:

Hot Dog Stand was modified so that if fires more often. I don't expect anyone to know this, since you'd have to be nuts to be using him, but it's no longer the worst skill in the game.

I just checked. It's still ****. It's ridiculous how many drawbacks they appended to an already bad effect. Almost surprised that it doesn't also cost you AP of other colours or something.

Heh - that might be a fun forum game. Imagine if Hot Dog Stand *also* destroyed a random column (which the devs seem to think is a powerful game-changing side-effect). What sort of additional drawbacks might me seen then? Ending the turn and stunning Cho for a turn?

Whoa whoa, calm down. Destroying a /whole column/? To add such a brutal, raw amount of power to the ability, we'd have to make it cost like 7 AP more, end the turn, heal less and deal 2k damage to his allies.

simonsez

Pylgrim wrote:

I just checked. It's still ****.

Absolutely... but at least it's functional. I don't see how it's as bad as overpriced, barely-functional abilities like BagMan's.