*** The Hood (Classic) ***

over_clocked

Sure enough, expect Phantron to come here and explain how Hood is totes broken (even if Sentry is too). Why are you playing the game if it's so boring? X-Force is boring, Sentry is boring (which is true), Hood is boring, everything is boring to you. And no, I wipe a lot to Sentry teams because he's broken both offensively and defensively. Without Hood, too. His moves are too cheap for the effect they have together and hard to deny in a semi-fair unboosted game.

Unknown

Riggy wrote:

Arith wrote:

This. Hood is the best defence for Hood. That's what I'm talking about. No matter how much forum "vets" get off bantering about nonsense the simple matter is fighting Hood the fastest, safest way is either 6ap of boosts or your own Hood.

I note that you've stopped talking about Sentry all together, which was the point of your terribly ill-advised OP. But what you're missing is that at least Hood has a counter. There is no counter to Sentry. Sentry doesn't even counter Sentry.

Ergo, to your OP, Hood isn't the problem, Sentry is..

Also, I rated down your quoted post (my first and only for the thread) for the insult. It's one thing as a forum newbie to come in and say "I'm right and you're wrong". It's something else to fling blatant insults about. I am a big enough person to note when I'm mistaken on something and I even rated Locked up for pointing it out to me.

Actually Hood was the point of the op, not sentry. I don't mind at all what you rate. I find you incredibly condesending and tbh if you seriously think your number of posts on forums for a match 3 game makes you the man whose opinion is the one right opinion by all means go with it.
I'm worried Hood will become essential. Sentry will get nerfed, we know this so he really isn't an issue.

Spoit

Hood is only essential to counter hood. If you can find a team that isn't running hood, you could just as effectively use bagman or yelena with sentry for pretty much the same effect

Unknown

Arith wrote:

Actually Hood was the point of the op, not sentry. I don't mind at all what you rate. I find you incredibly condesending and tbh if you seriously think your number of posts on forums for a match 3 game makes you the man whose opinion is the one right opinion by all means go with it.
I'm worried Hood will become essential. Sentry will get nerfed, we know this so he really isn't an issue.

It's pretty hard to avoid people posting about sentry when your title literally says "sentry isn't the problem". You probably should never have mentioned sentry in your title in the first place if you only wanted to talk about the hood.
Also, you mentioned: "Sentry will get nerfed, we know this so he really isn't an issue". And why do you think he is getting a nerf? Or do you think that sentry does not need a nerf?

Unknown

Arith wrote:

Riggy wrote:

Arith wrote:

This. Hood is the best defence for Hood. That's what I'm talking about. No matter how much forum "vets" get off bantering about nonsense the simple matter is fighting Hood the fastest, safest way is either 6ap of boosts or your own Hood.

I note that you've stopped talking about Sentry all together, which was the point of your terribly ill-advised OP. But what you're missing is that at least Hood has a counter. There is no counter to Sentry. Sentry doesn't even counter Sentry.

Ergo, to your OP, Hood isn't the problem, Sentry is..

Also, I rated down your quoted post (my first and only for the thread) for the insult. It's one thing as a forum newbie to come in and say "I'm right and you're wrong". It's something else to fling blatant insults about. I am a big enough person to note when I'm mistaken on something and I even rated Locked up for pointing it out to me.

Actually Hood was the point of the op, not sentry. I don't mind at all what you rate. I find you incredibly condesending and tbh if you seriously think your number of posts on forums for a match 3 game makes you the man whose opinion is the one right opinion by all means go with it.
I'm worried Hood will become essential. Sentry will get nerfed, we know this so he really isn't an issue.

I mean the title talks about sentry and hood, you'd kinda have to be an idiot to not assume sentry would be discussed.

Unknown

stephen43084 wrote:

DrUnpleasant wrote:

stephen43084 wrote:

Actually, developers want to remove boosts.

Not sure I've seen any evidence of that. When TUs came out they just forced more boost purchases because they stopped dropping after fights.

Im too lazy to find the posts. But if you remember they even stopped boosts drops. Players complained, now boost drops are back.

They stopped boosts dropping probably to increase purchases of boosts. I never purchased one boost before they stopped dropping, then magically found myself buying them afterwards. It's good that they've been added back in (a bit) but it's not like the easy boosting days of old.

If they wanted to remove them from the game then they'd have done exactly that when they retired the old boosts about 6 months ago, rather than simply changing those boosts for slightly different ones with new stacking options.

Mikaveus

The mass surplus of Hood and X-Force Wolverine I'm fleeing, er, seeing leads me to agree with the title of this thread.

Unknown

Mikaveus wrote:

The mass surplus of Hood and X-Force Wolverine I'm fleeing, er, seeing leads me to agree with the title of this thread.

This is what I've been trying to get at. Sentry won't be a problem for much longer, ergo he's not the problem. Hood is already a common partner with xf and once Sentry is nerfed I believe we'll be finding a new name for Sentryboming and we'll be forced to either have Hood, skip or boost. And before anyone starts again with how easy he is to counter. I'm aware of how he works. Even though I don't play him I've fought him enough and have found that boosting is the safest way. Not boosting leaves you wide open to all kinds of bad things happening.
That's why I think he's becoming essential to have but time will tell.

Unknown

Hood is appearing so often in this event because the super boosted Deadpool is acting as a shield to prevent people taking out Hood immediately. If DP wasn't boosted then Hood wouldn't feature half as much because people would target him immediately.

Seriously, people have to understand the game mechanics a little better before they make sweeping comments.

Bowgentle

DrUnpleasant wrote:

Hood is appearing so often in this event because the super boosted Deadpool is acting as a shield to prevent people taking out Hood immediately. If DP wasn't boosted then Hood wouldn't feature half as much because people would target him immediately.

Seriously, people have to understand the game mechanics a little better before they make sweeping comments.

OP is also saying that you should bring AP boosts to fights against Hood. I say good luck with that.

spccrain

Agreed that hood is annoying but EASILY countered by having one of your own. Having your own sentry doesn't mean a damn thing though. Without sentry he is annoying but squishy. Boost green and match one with xforce and he's out of the game. Hood has messed up bombing for me quite a few times by stealing my yellow or black with my wr timers at 1 but he is far from op. A very strong support character but only because of his blue. Sentry is stand alone however. You only need him to sentry bomb hood just helps by making it faster as a support character he's simply doing a good job.

Xiltyn

Arith wrote:

Now we're getting somewhere. My whole reason for starting the thread with my low cred was my worries about Hood becoming essential. And as it is, I think he'll be xf next sidekick. Psylocke and torch were my #2 and #3 166 and I've played them a lot. Of the two Torch typically does more dmg since you need everything to go just right to get full dmg from Psylocke. Changing her blue to stun might make her the ideal counter to hood.

Oh, and don't steal my thread :þ

Do you want to know why Hood is used so much? Because it's a really simple reason. He steals AP. That's it, right there.It's the same reason oBW is used so much in 2* land. Characters have abilities, that they need AP to use. Therefore if you can deny your opponent the means to use their abilities, while increasing your own means, it's a good strategy.

Ok, if you're willing to follow this logic, the next question we'll tackle is why only Hood and not someone else? Well, for that answer let's look at the current 3* characters with AP stealing abilities:

Blade: (active) places a countdown tile that steals from one color each turn (enemy strongest match color)
Daredevil: (lol) trap tile that steals 6 from each color when matched by enemy
Mystique: (active) places a countdown tile, if enemy makes a match while countdown is out, she steals one of that color.
Psylocke: (active) places a countdown that steals up to 19 from one color (enemy largest color pool)
The Hood: (passive) steals one AP of any color that has more than 9 of that color on the board.

So first off Daredevil and Psylocke abilities are pretty useless. Daredevil because it seems that trap never gets matched by the AI. Psylocke because the largest color pool is usually a color that the enemy doesn't have an ability on anyway. So now we're down to 3. Blade only steals from one color, the strongest match color, which usually isn't the strongest ability. So Blade I would rate as marginal for AP steal. We're down to two. Mystique, we don't really know yet because she's so new and not many have used her fully yet. I do like that she steals from r/y/g initially, typically the strongest ability colors, and adds other colors with more covers...
That leaves us with... Hood. He can steal from any color as long as there are 10 or more on the board. His is passive, so his can't be denied by matching a countdown or avoiding a trap. Making his the most "reliable", therefore the most used.

We may see Mystique more as people get her covers and level her, since her health is a little higher. But once again hers is tied to that countdown tile being on the board, so still not as guaranteed as Hood.

(Edit: initially only put info for Mystique at 1 purple cover, fixed. Thanks Locked for pointing it out to me.)

Unknown

While Sentry is more game breaking/changing than Hood I actually do agree that Hood is some what more essential to a roster after the xforce update.

One thing you will notice is after 1100 scores you will see a ton of sentry. And more often than not its Sentry Hood. But I would bet there are more Hoods on D after 1100 than Sentry in total. You can hop with XF Hood. And honestly I generally hate Hood a lot more than I hate Sentry. I never lose because of Sentry if I lose its because of Hood. Hood is also the only character on D that makes me pick him as well just as a counter.

That being said Hood really isnt game breaking. Hes very good at support. His active abilities are both very underwhelming from a damage and ap cost perspective. His black happens to work perfect with Sent but I think its obvious that the main reason people use him on any team is the ap steal. His low HP and the new XF green allows him to be one shot though so he is balanced.

Thats coming from someone who stopped playing the game as much because of Hood. Not because of Sentry, Hood alone caused me to stop wanting to play at high level hops every 2 days. I got tied of the **** hops with him and its just not fun. I still play a lot but I just dont win my bracket every time now. Its not worth it with Hood in hops. Its just frustrating.

Still Sentry does need an adjustment more than Hood does. He can cleave a team for 10k on his own. Yes he needs a lot of AP to do it but he is too powerful. The funny thing is I bet D3 just leaves his damage alone and makes his team take a lot more. Discourage everyone else from using him except people willing to pay for health packs.

Unknown

Hood is good, no doubt about that. But he's not 'broken' as he has counters -> any characters with cheap abilities who can take him out quickly. Daken would have a field day with Hood or any other low health AP stealer. Even Psylocke or Punisher don't have too much problems with Hood.

Phaserhawk

Sentry is broken. Hood just takes his brokenness and brings it to such an insane level that words can describe.

Sentry solo

---

Boosts
Turn 1. Match Green
Turn 2. Cast World Rupture, Match Yellow
Turn 3. Cast Sacrifice, match whatever
Turn 4. Game over


Sentry/Hood

---

Boosts
Turn 1 Match Green
Turn 2 Match Black
Turn 3 Cast World Rupture, Match Yellow
Turn 4 Cast Sacrifice, Cast Intimidation game over

As you can see you don't need Hood to end the game any sooner than Sentry by himself in perfect board setups, hell in some situations it's
Boosts
Turn 1 Match yellow
Turn 2 steal Green at begining, cast World Rupture, match Black
Turn 3 Cast Sacrifice, Cast Intimidation game over

So Hood does give you the opportunity to end the game 1 turn quicker. The only thing I notice with Hood vs. without is that I don't always kill the entire team espeically when featured character is fairly tanky because without Hood you have to wait 1 more turn, which gives the AI time to destroy your Sac tile or more of your World Rupture tiles, but again that doesn't happen very often. Hood takes a skill combo that will outright win quickly 95% of the time, to 99% of the time. Hood removes or greatly reduces those chances that things go wrong. Dorammu' reduces the chances the enemy can do something and get you that extra AP, Intimidation ends the game 1 turn sooner, but Hood's kit just exaccerbates the situation it doesn't cause it.

Future heads up, look for Hood/4*Thor infinite combo's, while not as powerful as Sentry it'll be more fun. I'm seriously debating swtiching my Hood back to 5/5/3 because of how powerful Sentry is by himself. I'm going to be testing the World Rupture/Sacrifice combo by itself without Intimidation and see if I notice any difference.

GrumpySmurf1002

You don't HAVE to counter Hood with Hood. It makes life a helluva lot easier, but it's not a necessity. Pretty sure all those Hood nodes in PvE/Gauntlet didn't just go unbeaten for eternity because the AI had Hood and the player couldn't.

The issue at hand with needing Hood vs Hood has little to do with Hood and everything to do with speed. The mechanic of needing to win quickly lest your point total be slain is the big picture issue.

GothicKratos

This is simple enough, so I shouldn't need to elaborate, but I can if someone wishes.

The Hood is absolutely not "the problem". 'A problem', maybe, but not broken.

Sentry is absolutely not "the problem". 'A problem', maybe, but not broken.

Boosts are absolutely not "the problem". 'A problem', maybe, but not broken.

Shields are absolutely "the problem".

Unknown

GothicKratos wrote:

This is simple enough, so I shouldn't need to elaborate, but I can if someone wishes.

The Hood is absolutely not "the problem". 'A problem', maybe, but not broken.

Sentry is absolutely not "the problem". 'A problem', maybe, but not broken.

Boosts are absolutely not "the problem". 'A problem', maybe, but not broken.

Shields are absolutely "the problem".

Shields are not the problem. Being able to buy them with HP is the problem.

No wait.

Being able to buy shields with HP is not the problem, being able to buy HP with cash is the problem.


Just joking...............or am I?

GothicKratos

Sentry is only used one way, because he cannot function in sustained play. He is used for his patented "Sentrybombs" at the very top of the brackets almost exclusively (or at the end of someone's current push). Yes, you can acquire 150 points in 2 minutes pretty easily, and that's ridiculous, so then you heal your team and do it again, and then again, and now you're out of health packs. Nobody is going to do this for the whole event. Sentry is a monster, but shield hopping is the game breaker (and Boosts exacerbate the issue). If shield hopping was not a thing, Sentry would serve as a defensive scarecrow and for final pushes - that's it. And yes, he would still net you 150 points in 2 minutes, but if shields didn't exist (or if you couldn't "hop") they wouldn't be practically free points like they are now - chances are you'd lose at least half of that in a few minutes.

The Hood is an amazing character, but he is not broken at all. Dormammu's Aid is unarguably the best Passive ability in the game and it'd be pretty hard to argue it's not in the T10 (if not the T5) abilities overall within the game currently. When you see a Hood you're faced with either ignoring it and looking at another node, skipping it, or facing it. If you face him, you have to figure out how to face him; what's he paired with, what should I bring to counter it, et al. He is easily the most interesting and strategic character in the game. Do you bring Daken and Psylocke/Torch for low-cost, fast-pace beatdowns to get him out of the picture early? Do you bring oBW and try to beat The Hood at his own game by stealing enough AP to shot off an ability and OHKO him? Are you going to ignore him all together and take down the real damage dealers? Do you bring your own Hood and just outright counter him? The Hood is basically a playable Boost. He's not the problem, he just aggravates it. A lot.

Speaking of Boosts, they are not the problem either. They're only so explicitly "pay to win" right now because Sentrybombing is so damn effective. If Sentry didn't exist, we'd be boosting for what? X-Force Black? Thor's Call of the Storm? Neither of these are an "I Win Button" like World Rupture + Sacrifice, and both of those abilities cost a lot more AP to fire off. However, like I mentioned above, nobody would be "abusing" Sentry without the ability to hop.

The core problem is that you can shield hop. This is the problem.

Unknown

Throw sentry and daken into the current pvp... That's a slow sentry bomb you don't even need to sacrifice for. With the new mmr it's also the only way i can really play that event.

Hood is easily one of the most balanced characters in the game. His yellow could be a bit cheaper or maybe not turn ending, but that is it.