*** The Hood (Classic) ***

Unknown

Not sure how you can change The Hood without touching Dormammu's Aid. The yellow change looks okay but it's not like people were boosting to do a quick Twin Pistols into crazy combos...

The extra turn on World Rupture matters a lot more than people because you really end up making some really bad moves while trying to preserve those tiles so giving an extra turn for the opponent to deal with it (or you, if the situation is reversed) can let you get rid of a lot more tiles one way or another. The interaction between World Rupture and strike tile is still problematic but it might be okay for now until the next great strike tile character come around. I guess Sentry can always serve as a barometer of whether any character's strike tiles are too strong since that guy will always combo with World Rupture, but it seems like asking for problems in the future.

simonsez

Let me add my voice to the chorus... having twin pistols end the turn makes ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE now that the interaction with Thorina has been obliterated. How do you possibly put this in the same category as a turn-ending ability like Supernova? 5.5k damage for 15 AP isn't even that good to begin with. Having it end the turn makes it completely useless.

Unknown

In seriousness though, remember that Hood's abilities "cost less" because he's Hood, and if it weren't for the fact that 15 AP is over the "you won't reach this much AP" line, 15 AP for almost 6k damage actually ISN'T overcosted when compared to "not call the storm" - especially on Hood. It also frankly doesn't please me that Hood (like Daken) went from "100% support character that is almost zero threat on his own" to "support character with a clutch shot that will steal a win from you"

I think the new Twin Pistols would be too powerful if it didn't end the turn, and not powerful enough when it doesn't - and I don't think there is an AP-Damage configuration or tweak for the new design (either ending the turn or not) that straddles the line between overpowered and useless. It's either going to give Hood an effective damage-focused ability WHICH IS TERRIBLE or it's a completely useless ability WHICH IS ALSO TERRIBLE so I think the redesign is just poorly done from the ground up

Kiera13

I understand that Hood's yellow needs to be nerfed because of the way it would interact with 4* Thor but I don't think it's necessary for twin pistols to end a turn when it's used at level 5. Call the Storm and sniper rifle don't end turns and they do just as much or more damage.

DD-The-Mighty

gamar wrote:

--I think the redesign is just poorly done from the ground up

In this we agree. I may have to raise it to Hood being a poorly designed character from the very start. Hes a one trick pony. Its just a really, REALLY good trick.

simonsez

gamar wrote:

15 AP for almost 6k damage actually ISN'T overcosted when compared to "not call the storm"

There are plenty of attacks that do more damage per AP, that aren't Call of the Storm. And no one is complaining that it's too expensive or should do more damage. The problem is that having it end the turn is complete nonsense.

Unknown

Twin Pistols can still blow away any 2 special tiles located in any arbitary position (and often a lot more), and can still setup some pretty awesome chains. Yes I'm sure nobody actually tried to setup chains with Twin Pistols because you didn't need to, but maybe people will start doing that now. The interaction with Thor is just wishful thinking because Power Surge never charged enough tiles for the theorycraft to work except the best case scenario and in the best case scenario, X Force can easily obliterate an entire team with a halfway decent Surgical Strike. More abilities should have the 'ends the turn' designation and it'd be good if they retroactively apply it to more abilities (like Unstoppable Crash, for one). A significant board shakeup move should end the turn because currently you get to use them and take a peek at the board for free, and if anything awesome shows up you get the benefit, and if the board is somehow changed into a dangerous configuration you can usually your one move to undo it. It's probably out of the line to apply it to Twin Pistols while Unstoppable Crash doesn't have the same restriction, but you got to start somewhere.

woopie

Kiera13 wrote:

I understand that Hood's yellow needs to be nerfed because of the way it would interact with 4* Thor but I don't think it's necessary for twin pistols to end a turn when it's used at level 5. Call the Storm and sniper rifle don't end turns and they do just as much or more damage.

I agree. Doesn't make sense to double nerf his yellow.

theshadeofopal

Twin Pistols: **** but still five times better than a professional assassin wielding one.

atomzed

Boohoo to Hood yellow! That does seem to mean that 3/5/ is the best build....

Yeah to the change to Sentry! It's not just the increase of green to 12 AP, but the increase of the CD from 2 to 3. Waiting 3 turns can be an eternity in shield hopping. Xforce may become the fastest build.

On second thought, they may have decided to nerf hood yellow because of concerns of Xforce-hood as preeminent shield hop combo. By taking away the yellow, it ensures that Xforce can only use green and black ap.

Well, all in all, I think the change is fine. I kinda thought that they would nerf dormmanu aid, but it looks like they keeping them similar to how they are like now.

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

Twin Pistols can still blow away any 2 special tiles located in any arbitary position (and often a lot more), and can still setup some pretty awesome chains. Yes I'm sure nobody actually tried to setup chains with Twin Pistols because you didn't need to, but maybe people will start doing that now. The interaction with Thor is just wishful thinking because Power Surge never charged enough tiles for the theorycraft to work except the best case scenario and in the best case scenario, X Force can easily obliterate an entire team with a halfway decent Surgical Strike. More abilities should have the 'ends the turn' designation and it'd be good if they retroactively apply it to more abilities (like Unstoppable Crash, for one). A significant board shakeup move should end the turn because currently you get to use them and take a peek at the board for free, and if anything awesome shows up you get the benefit, and if the board is somehow changed into a dangerous configuration you can usually your one move to undo it. It's probably out of the line to apply it to Twin Pistols while Unstoppable Crash doesn't have the same restriction, but you got to start somewhere.

I can sort of see your point, but 90% of the reason to use something like Unstoppable Crash is to "peek". If it ended the turn, the ability would be "6AP: Screw yourself"

atomzed

gamar wrote:

I think the new Twin Pistols would be too powerful if it didn't end the turn, and not powerful enough when it doesn't - and I don't think there is an AP-Damage configuration or tweak for the new design (either ending the turn or not) that straddles the line between overpowered and useless. It's either going to give Hood an effective damage-focused ability WHICH IS TERRIBLE or it's a completely useless ability WHICH IS ALSO TERRIBLE so I think the redesign is just poorly done from the ground up

I don't know, I disagree that the redesign of hood was poorly done. I mean, most ppl would have thought that dormmanu aid will be nerf, because it's THE reason why ppl use hood. Black, well, yes it has synergy with sentry, but only just sentry. Yellow, well, I never really depend on it. It has always been a "oh, I have 15 yellow now, didn't aim for 15 yellow". In that light, I think that redesign was ok since it didn't really change the way how hood is used. (Though it still sucks, I feel that the redesign was ok)

HailMary

Kiera13 wrote:

I understand that Hood's yellow needs to be nerfed because of the way it would interact with 4* Thor but I don't think it's necessary for twin pistols to end a turn when it's used at level 5. Call the Storm and sniper rifle don't end turns and they do just as much or more damage.

The mandatory turn-ending bit is indeed surprising.

LT CTS deals 9K+ total damage for 14 AP.
BP ROTP deals 11K+ total damage for 12 AP and a bit of enemy AP gifting.
Torch Fireball deals 3K+ total damage for 6-8 AP.
Hood Y deals 5K+ total damage and creates some board shakeup for 15 AP.

That comparison already makes Hood Y seem weak, and that's without always ending the turn.

GrumpySmurf1002

In theory, if they were going to change Hood anyway, they could've nerfed Sentry just by changing Hood's black to something else that doesn't reduce countdowns. Same net effect.

Unknown

gamar wrote:

Phantron wrote:

Twin Pistols can still blow away any 2 special tiles located in any arbitary position (and often a lot more), and can still setup some pretty awesome chains. Yes I'm sure nobody actually tried to setup chains with Twin Pistols because you didn't need to, but maybe people will start doing that now. The interaction with Thor is just wishful thinking because Power Surge never charged enough tiles for the theorycraft to work except the best case scenario and in the best case scenario, X Force can easily obliterate an entire team with a halfway decent Surgical Strike. More abilities should have the 'ends the turn' designation and it'd be good if they retroactively apply it to more abilities (like Unstoppable Crash, for one). A significant board shakeup move should end the turn because currently you get to use them and take a peek at the board for free, and if anything awesome shows up you get the benefit, and if the board is somehow changed into a dangerous configuration you can usually your one move to undo it. It's probably out of the line to apply it to Twin Pistols while Unstoppable Crash doesn't have the same restriction, but you got to start somewhere.

I can sort of see your point, but 90% of the reason to use something like Unstoppable Crash is to "peek". If it ended the turn, the ability would be "6AP: Screw yourself"

Sure, but this goes both ways. All these Juggernaut nodes would not be nearly as intimdating if the AI didn't get to peek every single time they use an accelerated Unstoppable Crash. It's a 6 AP move after all and not meant to be a one way beatdown machine. Board shaking moves should usually carry risk and perhaps the distinction for a strong move is that it does allow you to peek. That is, suppose a character has 3 'balanced' moves, we usually think it's also fine if one move is particular strong, so if the particular strong move is a board shaking move maybe it's okay for that move to be able to peek instead of 'ends the turn'. But that should be an exception not the norm. Now I agree it's kind of bizarre that moves on the expensive end of cost (Force Bubble Crush and now Twin Pistols) for some reason are the only ones where you can't peek and I think they got it backwards. Stuff that cost 15 (Twin Pistols) or 9X2 (2 Force Bubble Crush) or 9+13 (Force Bubble + Force Bubble Crush) should allow you to peek compared to a relatively cheap move like Unstoppable Crash or Thunderous Clap.

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

A significant board shakeup move should end the turn because currently you get to use them and take a peek at the board for free, and if anything awesome shows up you get the benefit, and if the board is somehow changed into a dangerous configuration you can usually your one move to undo it.

Well, that's the whole point of a board shakeup, isn't it? To get the advantage.

What good would board shakeup moves be if they always gave a fresh board to the opponent?

Spoit

And yeah, how often do you actually have 15 AP of one color and are not either 1) already winning or 2) screwed over by the enemy special tiles already being there for like a halfdozen turns

Unknown

HailMary wrote:

Kiera13 wrote:

I understand that Hood's yellow needs to be nerfed because of the way it would interact with 4* Thor but I don't think it's necessary for twin pistols to end a turn when it's used at level 5. Call the Storm and sniper rifle don't end turns and they do just as much or more damage.

The mandatory turn-ending bit is indeed surprising.

LT CTS deals 9K+ total damage for 14 AP.
BP ROTP deals 11K+ total damage for 12 AP and a bit of enemy AP gifting.
Torch Fireball deals 3K+ total damage for 6-8 AP.
Hood Y deals 5K+ total damage and creates some board shakeup for 15 AP.

That comparison already makes Hood Y seem weak, and that's without always ending the turn.

All moves that hit every character do significantly more damage per AP, otherwise there wouldn't even be a point to use them since being able to kill one guy fast generally is far more valuable.

The best comparison there would be Fireball but Fireball can't target tiles while Twin Pistols can. 2 Fireballs will use 14 AP (you got to collect 14 AP before you can use 2 Fireballs even if you'll have 2 left over) for about 7K damage, compared to 15 yellow for 5.4K or so + ability to remove at least two special tiles + possible cascades - losing one turn. If there's anything interesting to remove, I'd still take Twin Pistols. If not, Fireball is obviously better. The game still has a problem in that special tiles are just not that valuable so abilities that can deal with them tend to be overcosted just because you got nothing to use it on, especially in PvP.

GrumpySmurf1002

HailMary wrote:

Kiera13 wrote:

I understand that Hood's yellow needs to be nerfed because of the way it would interact with 4* Thor but I don't think it's necessary for twin pistols to end a turn when it's used at level 5. Call the Storm and sniper rifle don't end turns and they do just as much or more damage.

The mandatory turn-ending bit is indeed surprising.

LT CTS deals 9K+ total damage for 14 AP.
BP ROTP deals 11K+ total damage for 12 AP and a bit of enemy AP gifting.
Torch Fireball deals 3K+ total damage for 6-8 AP.
Hood Y deals 5K+ total damage and creates some board shakeup for 15 AP.

That comparison already makes Hood Y seem weak, and that's without always ending the turn.

But compared to GSBW's Pistols, this is the best ability in the game!

Unknown

HailMary wrote:

Kiera13 wrote:

I understand that Hood's yellow needs to be nerfed because of the way it would interact with 4* Thor but I don't think it's necessary for twin pistols to end a turn when it's used at level 5. Call the Storm and sniper rifle don't end turns and they do just as much or more damage.

The mandatory turn-ending bit is indeed surprising.

LT CTS deals 9K+ total damage for 14 AP.
BP ROTP deals 11K+ total damage for 12 AP and a bit of enemy AP gifting.
Torch Fireball deals 3K+ total damage for 6-8 AP.
Hood Y deals 5K+ total damage and creates some board shakeup for 15 AP.

That comparison already makes Hood Y seem weak, and that's without always ending the turn.

Yeah, but Fireball is what Torch DOES. ROTP is what BP DOES.

1) Like I said earlier, Hood's moves actually "cost less" because he's the Hood.
2) A hypothetical ability that, say, does 4k damage for 10 AP is MUCH STRONGER on a character like Hood or Falcon than on Thor or Patch. You really can't look at an ability given to Hood and say "but it doesn't hit as hard/efficiently as an ability on a striker"