*** The Hood (Classic) ***

Xiltyn

Arith wrote:

Ok, once again. I dont have Sentry so this isn't a rage post. I'm simply discussing Hood being essential. Sentry may well be a little op, you can run him with many and win. My point is that the same can be said for xf.
The thing about hood is that he demands you boost, fighting sentry or xf without hood is easy.
I like this game, I like using different characters. I dont like fighting the same ones over and over (obw anyone?) and I think that's where we are headed. I want to use iso to level up, not boost for every match

Wait, Hood demands you boost? Why? So you have ap he can steal on his first turn?

Unknown

Riggy wrote:

Arith wrote:

Im not even all that much against him, havent really played him. I just think his stealing is a bit over the top, there's no reason to choose blade or mystiqe over him as they just don't compare

And now your credibility is gone. You haven't played him much, you're not all that against him, but you're convined he's the issue? Really?

There are a number of strategies that can defeat Hood easily. Bringing Hood essentially means giving up 2 other abilities for AP steal. His yellow is irrelevant almost all of the time in PVP, and his black is (as others have said) situational - it really only gets used when Sentry bombing to shave 1 turn off the clock.

I don't fear Hood. I fear Hood when he's paired with someone with cheap, brokenly-over-powered abilities... like Sentry. But oh wait, I fear Sentry even when he's not paired with Hood.

The easiest way to beat Hood is to bring a rainbow of abilities team (or as close as you can), and then study the board and focus on matching a color that he won't steal. There are 7 different tile types and it takes 9 required tiles to trigger the ability. With a little thought and planning (and b/c this is a match 3 game, a little luck as well), his ability will trigger no more than a couple times before he's dead. But as with any strategic decision, burning him down first means leaving characters that can actually hurt you alive. It takes time, but beating Hood is rarely an issue.

Yeah, takes time you don't have. I agree with you that killing him is fairly simple and that I'm then open to the big guns. That's the point! You need your own Hood on the team to counter that. My credibility comes from my not playing him. I'm discussing if it's ok that I need to level him and play him every game to be competitive.

over_clocked

Bowgentle wrote:

Locked, you're biased
No need to come out in every thread where even the thought is ventilated that Hood may need a nerf, your loved one is safe

Oh, but they are not so regular, and I'm happy to see most vets agree that Hood is not broken. Now expect Phantron coming here and explaining that a 5100 character with one OP skill is completely bonkers (Hey, 2* Daken and Juggs are completely bonkers in PvE too if past their natural cap for even 50-70 levels!)

GrumpySmurf1002

Arith wrote:

Yeah, takes time you don't have. I agree with you that killing him is fairly simple and that I'm then open to the big guns. That's the point! You need your own Hood on the team to counter that. My credibility comes from my not playing him. I'm discussing if it's ok that I need to level him and play him every game to be competitive.

You don't need him to be competitive in PvP. He helps, but he's not a must.

Unknown

Arith wrote:

Ok, once again. I dont have Sentry so this isn't a rage post. I'm simply discussing Hood being essential. Sentry may well be a little op, you can run him with many and win. My point is that the same can be said for xf.
The thing about hood is that he demands you boost, fighting sentry or xf without hood is easy.
I like this game, I like using different characters. I dont like fighting the same ones over and over (obw anyone?) and I think that's where we are headed. I want to use iso to level up, not boost for every match

Arith, probably we're talking about different things. You're saying that It's not Sentry that needs to be nerfed, but Hood because Sentry is easy to fight without boosts, while a team with Hood always requires boosts to be beaten. Did I get that right?

Now there are two problems with this reasoning:

1) If you require boosts to beat Hood it means you don't have any character developed enough to quickly down him. Usually this means that your roster isn't deep enough. 5100 hp is a negligible amount. Also starting a match with boosts means that you're just giving him something to steal. Usually by studying the board you can avoid the steal for the first 2-3 turns and kill him by turn 5-6. This means Dormammu's aid won't fire more than 3 times ideally.

2) The majority of people that wants Sentry nerfed doesn't want that because he's a defensive bahamut impossible to beat. X-Force is a bigger threat in defense. Hell, cMags if left unchecked is a bigger threat in defense. But actually, no character is truly scary in defense in PvP. We want Sentry nerfed because he's a broken character in offense. When attacking you could put Sentry alone against ANY team (with only a couple of exceptions) and he'll win 95% of those matches. With boosts in a minute or less. Throw HPs at him and he'll win a tourney by himself, shieldhop after shieldhop. The people asking for the nerf are the same that sentrybomb their way to 1300 and beyond, because it's the ONLY VIABLE STRATEGY to reach those scores in PvP. You want diversity? We want diversity too.

over_clocked

Look, OP, it has been said over and over in this very thread. Before Sentry, Hood was considered what, a top 12 character or some such? Definitely good but not necessary in any way. When Sentry came, Hood became prevalent in the top game because of how no one else enables Sentry's cheaper than dirt abilities better. If Sentry had one skill that cost 15 AP, even purple and not contested yellow + green, and did the same 10k damage to each character on the enemy team, even Hood would be unable to make him a hopping staple since 15 AP of a single colour is a ton and doesn't allow for 40 seconds matches. We would still probably see a ton of Sentry teams, though, but he would be quite harmless on defense outside of Supernova and whatever third skill, with or without Hood.
You often have to bring Hood to fight Sentry-Hood because Sentry happens to be the one character that possesses two very cheap abilities that when activated melt your entire team's faces. Hood enables Punisher or Psylocke or Human Torch very well too, none of whom have damage abilities more expensive than 10 AP. Do we get any moaning about them? No because they don't have a way of wiping a team with 7 + 8 AP.
*shameless plug* Please check out my thread on counters (see signature) to see what ways of countering Hood exist.
Oh and what level is your opposition usually? It's just that Sentry depends on levels somewhat while Hood blue doesn't need levels to be powerful, provided it has all 5 covers.

Unknown

Kappei wrote:

Arith wrote:

Ok, once again. I dont have Sentry so this isn't a rage post. I'm simply discussing Hood being essential. Sentry may well be a little op, you can run him with many and win. My point is that the same can be said for xf.
The thing about hood is that he demands you boost, fighting sentry or xf without hood is easy.
I like this game, I like using different characters. I dont like fighting the same ones over and over (obw anyone?) and I think that's where we are headed. I want to use iso to level up, not boost for every match

Arith, probably we're talking about different things. You're saying that It's not Sentry that needs to be nerfed, but Hood because Sentry is easy to fight without boosts, while a team with Hood always requires boosts to be beaten. Did I get that right?

Now there are two problems with this reasoning:

1) If you require boosts to beat Hood it means you don't have any character developed enough to quickly down him. Usually this means that your roster isn't deep enough. 5100 hp is a negligible amount. Also starting a match with boosts means that you're just giving him something to steal. Usually by studying the board you can avoid the steal for the first 2-3 turns and kill him by turn 5-6. This means Dormammu's aid won't fire more than 3 times ideally.

2) The majority of people that wants Sentry nerfed doesn't want that because he's a defensive bahamut impossible to beat. X-Force is a bigger threat in defense. Hell, cMags if left unchecked is a bigger threat in defense. But actually, no character is truly scary in defense in PvP. We want Sentry nerfed because he's a broken character in offense. When attacking you could put Sentry alone against ANY team (with only a couple of exceptions) and he'll win 95% of those matches. With boosts in a minute or less. Throw HPs at him and he'll win a tourney by himself, shieldhop after shieldhop. The people asking for the nerf are the same that sentrybomb their way to 1300 and beyond, because it's the ONLY VIABLE STRATEGY to reach those scores in PvP. You want diversity? We want diversity too.

Great points, on Sentry most agree, myself included. Your point on Hood is kind of what I wanted to address and discuss. If you go in vs xf/hood for example turn 5-6 is where xf hits you hard. My roster is quite developed and I feel that bringing Hood is quickly becoming mandatory. Many here remember obw on every team. Look at cota running now, most use 2x boosted xmen and hood instead of 3x xmen. I'm not calling for Hood nerf, I'm worried we're headed towards Hood only teams

GrimSkald

DayvBang wrote:

Sentry is an exotic sports car. Incredibly fast, uses expensive fuel, needs to go to the shop for repairs all the time.

I actually kind of think the expensive fuel is kind of optional - if you use the expensive fuel he goes incredibly fast, if you don't he still outperforms 90% of the other cars out there. Either way you definitely need to take him to the shop often.

Great analogy.

Unknown

Arith wrote:

Yeah, takes time you don't have. I agree with you that killing him is fairly simple and that I'm then open to the big guns. That's the point! You need your own Hood on the team to counter that. My credibility comes from my not playing him.

Credibility is something you get (in part) from experience. I have a 166 3/5/5 Hood. In the season VII simulator he was in my default defensive team, along with Lazy Thor (3/5/5) and Black Panther(4/5/4). I've also Sentry bombed with my 153 3/4/5 Sentry. That's my experience with Sentry and Hood, and now that everyone knows where my experience comes from, they can base how credible my response is based on that experience. You're saying you don't have a Sentry and you don't play much with Hood. I hear that as you're shouting at the news anchors from your couch. You're armchair quarterbacking the football game. You're offering an outsiders opinion when you have no skin in the game. That's why you lack credibility. Not doing something could make you an objective outside opinion. However, you need to provide your credentials so people can judge your opinion appropriately. However, what you're saying flies in the face of experience.

The fact that I have Sentry bombed allows me to say that Hood's AP steal is almost entirely irrelevant for Sentry bombing. His black is what allows Sentry bombing to occur on turn 3. His AP steal is a nuisance, but ultimately, Sentry's cheap abilities in conjunction with boosts and Hood's countdown reduction is what allows the shield hopping sentry bombs to work. If I full boost, and match yellow first, and my opponent matches green and there are still 9 green tiles on the board, then I can fire off a World Rupture on turn 2, match black, and then sacrifice / Intimidation for the win on turn 3. Otherwise I have to wait until turn 4 (barring cascades on earlier turns). That's how sentry bombs work. Boosts + Sentry for a very consistent turn 4 win. I'm not even max level and I can kill anyone but Dino with that combo.

Arith wrote:

I'm discussing if it's ok that I need to level him and play him every game to be competitive.

You don't. What I was saying is play smart and he's a non-issue. His AP steal is very inconsistent and is based on the board state. You have to a) have 9 tiles of a given color on the board and b) have AP of that color so he can steal it. So with smart play, you can avoid Hood ever stealing AP while still fueling your abilities. That's the point you need to answer.

This game is competitive, and in any competitive game, there is a ton of analysis that surrounds it so that people can optimize their play, b/c that's what their opponents are doing and if nothing else you need to play as optimally as they are. If you want to be top 5, then in the current meta, you need to have both Hood at 3/5/5 and Sentry at 3/5/5. One without the other means you're playing sub-optimally and someone else will take top 5 from you.

Unknown

Class new topic idea

public static void main
{
if (you want a 4+ pages long topic) {
string title = "Sentry" + argument pro/against him;}
}

Unknown

The dilemma of Sentry and his partner hood.

Sentry is completely op and no one disagrees with that with any reasonable argument. The fact that he can obliterate basically any non pve team with bagman and yelena is testament to that. His abilities - aside from a complete redesign - should all cost 10 or more and perhaps less AOE damage on top of that

Hood is a different issue - his blue ability clearly is the best passive now - sorry daken - because it both slows the enemy where 1 less of a color can mean waiting 3-4 turns to set off an ability (and sometimes just drain all the color left) and at the same time speeds up whoever you have. For a while I was also in the thought process that hood is an equal problem to Sentry because every team was using him. Well you need to when there are no passives nearly as good - Sorry Daken - Hood doesn't need a nerf but it appears ones coming with all the active stealing abilities going into the game. Perhaps they just do a Daken style nerf and increase the tiles required to steal - of course that would basically make him complete garbage - such a fine line.

As far as nerfing all the characters, there's a slow but happening power climb with the 'new best' as the game transitions to 4* You need the 3* equivalents of ares thor and OBW in Lthor etc for that transition. Not all 3* need to be equal but at the same time when there's clearly 3-4 guys that EVERYONE at the top uses - we need a few more options of equal power or you can't have variety. Game breaking mechanics always dictate which end game players use which characters - sentry bombing - The reason not to touch XForce or LThor is this: They aren't so much better than anyone else that they can't be beaten and they're surely no where near as fast as Sentry. We just need more of the new characters to be at least up to their level.

Boosts won't be going anywhere as long as they're a clear revenue source but they exacerbate the problem of characters with cheap abilities. Everyone knows you can kill hood before the enemy goes with the right team and right boosts. Sentry's abilities only cost 1 green and 2 yellow with the right boosts. But many expensive characters abilities still requires 3+ matches even boosted. In the end its extremely hard for D3 to abide by marvels requirements of characters abilities and power resembling their actual style and power in the comics but maybe D3 needs some liberty to keep the game a little more balanced.

Hood clearly is a little OP for the passives in that you're going to almost always take damage if you face a hood without a hood or boosts. But he doesn't break the game - that's Sentry's job.

On a side note, someone mentioned earlier about defensive abilities and how most are a complete joke because of cost. If you want to rebalance the meta a lot - defensive abilities should at least be much less expensive that offensive abilities. Not necessarily passives like spiderman but they surely shouldn't cost 12-18 or what not for an ability that puts up shields.

And I like hood but there'd be so many more viable combo's if you didn't have to worry about his passive

Unknown

And just imagine for a second that Hood wasn't with Sentry:

A. Sentry becomes a very easy target to kill because you don't need hood anymore to kill him nor worry that a 7/8 ap ability might only require 2 matches for each by the AI.

B. More people use a different second character. It's rare that we have a pvp event where you can pick a third character - that's why every pvp endgame looks exactly the same. I'm not saying it's as bad as Juggs Heroic with 3 slow useable characters but you must admit the node with a 200 hood was kinda annoying . . .

The reason he's so clearly the second choice is that he reduces a ton of damage you take as well - AI doesn't get to fire off abilities and yours go off faster

Don't need to nerf him but give us some viable options that aren't a complete joke like Beast

over_clocked

Riggy wrote:

You have to a) have 9 tiles of a given color on the board

10. 10 tiles.

Edit: have also been going to 1300 scores on one shield and getting top 1 - top 5 just fine (thanks, 2000 scorers!) with my 5/5/3 Hood(s): black is unnecessary for hopping and only shaves off a couple of seconds usually or allows the players to not skip 5/3/5 Falcons and 4/4/5 She-Hulks.

CrookedKnight

With D3 clearly trying to introduce some competition for Hood's AP-stealing niche, I really think all it would take to bring him down from "essential" to "one of a set of good options" would be a slight nerf to Dormammu's Aid. Either increase the number of tiles required for a steal, or have a minimum blue AP for the power to work a la Redwing, or something. Not a huge rework, just something that makes it either less likely to kick in or to prevent it from starting up on turn one. Even if it wouldn't make him less useful for boosted shield-hopping, it would get rid of the current situation where he's the best AP thief in the game, period.

Unknown

locked wrote:

Riggy wrote:

You have to a) have 9 tiles of a given color on the board

10. 10 tiles.

Edit: have also been going to 1300 scores on one shield just fine (thanks, 2000 scorers!) with my 5/5/3 Hood(s): black is irrelevant for hopping and only shaves off 1 couple of seconds usually or allows the players to not skip 5/3/5 Falcons and 4/4/5 She-Hulks.

9. 9 tiles

Unknown

Riggy wrote:

locked wrote:

Riggy wrote:

You have to a) have 9 tiles of a given color on the board

10. 10 tiles.

Edit: have also been going to 1300 scores on one shield just fine (thanks, 2000 scorers!) with my 5/5/3 Hood(s): black is irrelevant for hopping and only shaves off 1 couple of seconds usually or allows the players to not skip 5/3/5 Falcons and 4/4/5 She-Hulks.

9. 9 tiles

MORE THAN 9.

So 10.

over_clocked

Riggy wrote:

locked wrote:

Riggy wrote:

You have to a) have 9 tiles of a given color on the board

10. 10 tiles.

Edit: have also been going to 1300 scores on one shield just fine (thanks, 2000 scorers!) with my 5/5/3 Hood(s): black is irrelevant for hopping and only shaves off 1 couple of seconds usually or allows the players to not skip 5/3/5 Falcons and 4/4/5 She-Hulks.

9. 9 tiles

Oh the preview for 4th cover of Dormammu's Aid. That's old. I asked it to be changed due to being ambiguous and it is currently correctly saying 'requires more than 9' in-game.



viewtopic.php?f=8&t=6449

viewtopic.php?f=14&t=445&start=160#p121797

Xiltyn

Riggy wrote:

locked wrote:

Riggy wrote:

You have to a) have 9 tiles of a given color on the board

10. 10 tiles.

Edit: have also been going to 1300 scores on one shield just fine (thanks, 2000 scorers!) with my 5/5/3 Hood(s): black is irrelevant for hopping and only shaves off 1 couple of seconds usually or allows the players to not skip 5/3/5 Falcons and 4/4/5 She-Hulks.

9. 9 tiles

When there are more than 9. Yes it requires 10 on the board for it to trigger.

Unknown

Riggy wrote:

locked wrote:

Riggy wrote:

You have to a) have 9 tiles of a given color on the board

10. 10 tiles.

Edit: have also been going to 1300 scores on one shield just fine (thanks, 2000 scorers!) with my 5/5/3 Hood(s): black is irrelevant for hopping and only shaves off 1 couple of seconds usually or allows the players to not skip 5/3/5 Falcons and 4/4/5 She-Hulks.

9. 9 tiles

Yeah, credibility :þ

Ok, before the thead goes to hell. Let's say Hood is fine, how about reworking blade and mystique to at least match his abilities, giving us at least some options on who we want to use for stealing?

over_clocked

Arith wrote:

Riggy wrote:

locked wrote:

Riggy wrote:

You have to a) have 9 tiles of a given color on the board

10. 10 tiles.

Edit: have also been going to 1300 scores on one shield just fine (thanks, 2000 scorers!) with my 5/5/3 Hood(s): black is irrelevant for hopping and only shaves off 1 couple of seconds usually or allows the players to not skip 5/3/5 Falcons and 4/4/5 She-Hulks.

9. 9 tiles

Yeah, credibility :þ

Ok, before the thead goes to hell. Let's say Hood is fine, how about reworking blade and mystique to at least match his abilities, giving us at least some options on who we want to use for stealing?

We already hijacked your thread because your OP had very little credibility while Riggy still has tons (the actual dev-posted preview is ambiguous and wrong, no wonder they changed it on request). And I completely agree on your other point and wish there were tons of viable options besides Hood; Blade kinda already is due to a damaging passive. As mentioned by others, if Sentry's high damage output wasn't completely warping the meta, fast and squishier characters like Human Torch, Psylocke, Punisher could see more play and also be viable Hood counters.