*** The Hood (Classic) ***

Unknown

Dormammu's Aid is overpowered, and the fix is that X Force can usually down The Hood by making 2 green matches (starting with green boosted).

There isn't a good fix for it right now because D3 tried to get rid of problematic characters like The Hood with HP/damage inflation so that anyone with less than 10K HP isn't very viable in PvP and The Hood has only half of that. While it'd be easy to fix Dormammu's Aid, trying to unwind the mess that we're currently in is going to be much more difficult and there's no reason to even try to fix Dormammu's Aid without having something that unwinds the HP/damage inflation.

Unknown

No he isn't overpowered. He's strong, and can be a huge issue if trying to fight 'up' so to speak. He's like Zangief in Street Fighter - the n00b killer...but loses to those who have transitioned frankly. Let's see...
-Low Health
-Super strong in some colors, and stronger than most in colors he isn't strong in, so he takes A LOT of hits
-His power is based on stealing colors that have I think its '9' on the board. I'm sorry, important colors get got quick, there are never 9 greens on my boards unless Hulk got slapped. So he's strong in the early game, but he gets beat up quick, and becomes a lot less useful later on
-Sentry nerf hurt him also, now his black is mostly a damage power, a useless one compared to the other black powers floating around now
-His yellow is pretty much a clean up on isle 9 power, but only after a real long battle. He never lives that long

He's a more powerful Punisher in that he used to be WAY better than he is now, but as mentioned, the health buffs have brought him down, and the high damage, low AP powers really eat into him.
- Unreall

Unknown

Dormammu's Aid is NOT overpowered because of that one simple fact that you just stated... his low health. Considering he's already been nerfed AND it was just recent there is no reason for him to be changed again. And, also taking into consideration that he is someone working for the Devil not a bird, therefore, he does NOT need any AP just to start stealing. The Devil is just that - he's unfair and steals at will. Stop complaining and starting these posts. It's people like you who sit there wanting to make these dumb illiterate changes that really have no use or point in the game. Just stop. Go eat a sandwich and munch on some skittles like a good little kid and just stop.

Unknown

Hood is probably best described as a threat on an unfriendly board and a very minor irritation on a normal/friendly one.

In order for him to properly menace you there needs to be a board which has lots of the colour you need to down him on it, but you can't match any of it and just down him.

You could say it's not entirely dissimilar to a damaging hero hurting you because the board is uncooperative and feeding them the colours they need while you can't match any. The boards where Hood is a pain are probably a little more common BUT do rely on someone else to do the actual hurting (twin pistols being an expensive **** ability).

You are also giving up a degree of rainbow threat that you can get from a pair of well matched damage dealers since Hood has 2 dead colours for doing damage, meaning he is much more effective with a good featured hero.

Overall... probably a fair enough skill. It's just a lot more frustrating for Hood to keep slowly draining your colours than a damage dealer to cascade into giving you a battering. Also worth noting that Loki's green, while less reliable, is a lot more dangerous when it goes off.

morph3us

I would agree with you that Hood himself isn't overpowered as a whole, if you consider his health, the cost of Twin Pistols, and the niche role for Intimidation. As Phantron points out, D3 has tried to balance Hood by increasing the damage output of some characters to make him more easily one-shottable (I think I just made up a word there).

The question is more whether Dormmanu's Aid itself, taken in isolation, is overpowered, in that it makes all other AP steal/manipulation abilities redundant.

NorthernPolarity

Dormammu's Aid in a vacuum is one of the best abilities in the game, and probably overpowered: consider what would happen if you replace 4or's yellow with Dormammu's Aid, for example. In the context of Hood though, it's okay because of two reasons:
1. As Phantron said, XF exists.
2. Hood's low HP, and not really bringing anything else terribly significant to the table. Hood's also really bad at sustained offense since he tanks yellow / blue for xor.

As a result, the ability is fine for now in the context of the current metagame. Characters should only be nerfed if the entire character is overpowered, and Hood clearly isn't right now, as supports such as Loki / Cage are as good (if not better) on offense for sustained pushing, and comparable on defense.

morph3us

kozmikpr wrote:

Stop complaining and starting these posts. It's people like you who sit there wanting to make these dumb illiterate changes that really have no use or point in the game. Just stop. Go eat a sandwich and munch on some skittles like a good little kid and just stop.

I'm a little surprised at this personal attack. I haven't called for a nerf, I'm just asking a question out of academic interest, for the simple reason that Dormmamu's Aid compares very favourably to pretty much every other AP steal ability. A little more civility would be appreciated, please.

morph3us

bonfire01 wrote:

Hood is probably best described as a threat on an unfriendly board and a very minor irritation on a normal/friendly one.

In order for him to properly menace you there needs to be a board which has lots of the colour you need to down him on it, but you can't match any of it and just down him.

You could say it's not entirely dissimilar to a damaging hero hurting you because the board is uncooperative and feeding them the colours they need while you can't match any. The boards where Hood is a pain are probably a little more common BUT do rely on someone else to do the actual hurting (twin pistols being an expensive **** ability).

You are also giving up a degree of rainbow threat that you can get from a pair of well matched damage dealers since Hood has 2 dead colours for doing damage, meaning he is much more effective with a good featured hero.

Overall... probably a fair enough skill. It's just a lot more frustrating for Hood to keep slowly draining your colours than a damage dealer to cascade into giving you a battering. Also worth noting that Loki's green, while less reliable, is a lot more dangerous when it goes off.

That's a good point, I hadn't thought of it that way. I guess it's not all that dissimilar to Blade's The Thirst. On a bad board, it does nothing, whereas on a favourable board, things go downhill very fast. Good point with Loki's green too.

morph3us

NorthernPolarity wrote:

Dormammu's Aid in a vacuum is one of the best abilities in the game, and probably overpowered: consider what would happen if you replace 4or's yellow with Dormammu's Aid, for example. In the context of Hood though, it's okay because of two reasons:
1. As Phantron said, XF exists.
2. Hood's low HP, and not really bringing anything else terribly significant to the table. Hood's also really bad at sustained offense since he tanks yellow / blue for xor.

As a result, the ability is fine for now in the context of the current metagame. Characters should only be nerfed if the entire character is overpowered, and Hood clearly isn't right now, as supports such as Loki / Cage are as good (if not better) on offense for sustained pushing, and comparable on defense.

Also a good point. I guess it's not entirely fair to ask the question of Dormmamu's Aid in a vacuum, since it is very contextual, based on the character as a whole. I would certainly agree that Hood isn't overpowered. He's certainly a very desirable character though, since he fills a niche that virtually no one else does (apart from perhaps Loki).

NorthernPolarity

kozmikpr wrote:

Dormammu's Aid is NOT overpowered because of that one simple fact that you just stated... his low health. Considering he's already been nerfed AND it was just recent there is no reason for him to be changed again. And, also taking into consideration that he is someone working for the Devil not a bird, therefore, he does NOT need any AP just to start stealing. The Devil is just that - he's unfair and steals at will. Stop complaining and starting these posts. It's people like you who sit there wanting to make these dumb illiterate changes that really have no use or point in the game. Just stop. Go eat a sandwich and munch on some skittles like a good little kid and just stop.

The first part of your post makes sense. The irrational fear of nerfs and blatantly unjustified attack on the OP deserves a thumbs down.

Unknown

The Hood isn't OP.

DA is most definitely OP.

If you put DA on a character like Dino he would be used in every match. It's an ability that turns messed up boards into a nightmare for no cost.

Arondite

It's impossible to look at a single skill and say whether or not it is OP without looking at the characters whole kit.

Is dormammu's aid OP in a void? Theoretically, it could be, but is also situational. Sometimes it's crippling, sometimes it'd be useless.

Is dormammu's aid OP on a squishy character who tanks yellow and blue for a great deal of 3* teams who has a strong but slow yellow that leaves him vulnerable and sets up potential cascades against him and a black that's virtually worthless? No, no it's not.

Unknown

The bigger problem with DA is what happens to the entire The Hood and even Loki HP class? X Force can one shot The Hood and pretty close to anyone in Loki's HP class as well. It's hard to imagine this to be the result of a freak accident, and although it's not a good balance, it is indeed fair to say a super cheap ability is probably fair if the user of that ability can be relatively easily one-shot. But what happens to everyone else who shares the same HP class as those guys? Why should Storm, HT, GSBW, Falcon, and Mystique all have to fight with the threat of being one shot by X Force while clearing not wielding power compare to DA? And what happens if you do nerf X Force so that The Hood no longer gets one-shot? While X Force is quite overpowered, it's still preferable for X Force vs X Force versus The Hood mirror matches (DA has basically no effect here and it's a snoozefest), and The Hood versus someone without The Hood or X Force is a very nasty mismatch too. I much prefer to fight Thor than The Hood but that's just trading one problem (The Hood being overpowered) for another (Thor being overpowered).

morph3us

Arondite wrote:

It's impossible to look at a single skill and say whether or not it is OP without looking at the characters whole kit.

Is dormammu's aid OP in a void? Theoretically, it could be, but is also situational. Sometimes it's crippling, sometimes it'd be useless.

Is dormammu's aid OP on a squishy character who tanks yellow and blue for a great deal of 3* teams who has a strong but slow yellow that leaves him vulnerable and sets up potential cascades against him and a black that's virtually worthless? No, no it's not.

To sum up, then, I think we can say:
(1) Dormmamu's Aid in a void is potentially, theoretically OP, but it's also very situational.
(2) BUT, It's not fair to consider an ability in a void, since there's a reason why characters have differing health, match damage, and other abilities.
(3) Therefore Hood, as a whole is well balanced.

Thanks, everyone, for your thoughts. I always learn a lot here.

To follow up, I'd consider Loki's Mischief to be Dormammu's Aid closest competitor. I know most of the standard advice is to bring XF to burst Hood down, or bring your own Hood, when facing Hood. Would anyone consider bringing Loki as reasonable counter to DA as well?

Unknown

morph3us wrote:

Arondite wrote:

It's impossible to look at a single skill and say whether or not it is OP without looking at the characters whole kit.

Is dormammu's aid OP in a void? Theoretically, it could be, but is also situational. Sometimes it's crippling, sometimes it'd be useless.

Is dormammu's aid OP on a squishy character who tanks yellow and blue for a great deal of 3* teams who has a strong but slow yellow that leaves him vulnerable and sets up potential cascades against him and a black that's virtually worthless? No, no it's not.

To sum up, then, I think we can say:
(1) Dormmamu's Aid in a void is potentially, theoretically OP, but it's also very situational.
(2) BUT, It's not fair to consider an ability in a void, since there's a reason why characters have differing health, match damage, and other abilities.
(3) Therefore Hood, as a whole is well balanced.

Thanks, everyone, for your thoughts. I always learn a lot here.

To follow up, I'd consider Loki's Mischief to be Dormammu's Aid closest competitor. I know most of the standard advice is to bring XF to burst Hood down, or bring your own Hood, when facing Hood. Would anyone consider bringing Loki as reasonable counter to DA as well?

There's nothing situational about DA itself. It'll generate about 4-6 AP turnaround each turn (+2-3 for you, minus 2-3 for them) on even an average board after there is some time for both players to pick up AP. Any conservative estimate of what each AP can be converted to damage would result in a passive that does an unbelievable amount of damage. It's situational when used by The Hood because he has next to no HP to begin with and sometimes die by turn 3 when matched against X Force (boost green, match green, match green) which severely limits the damage done by DA.

Mischief is arguably as strong as DA, but it gives you an illusion of choice so it doesn't feel nearly as bad as DA where you can easily get a board where there's nothing you can do about DA.

Unknown

It should be said that there are several other abilities that obey the same "not op because of the body they're on" principle. 1* BW blue is clearly ridiculous at 5 covers. Same with both juggs abilities and OBW purple AND blue.

Unknown

I feel like dormammu's aid is op but he doesn't need a rebalance because 1. His black is bad now that sentry hopping days are over and 2. He has VERY low health

NorthernPolarity

morph3us wrote:

Arondite wrote:

It's impossible to look at a single skill and say whether or not it is OP without looking at the characters whole kit.

Is dormammu's aid OP in a void? Theoretically, it could be, but is also situational. Sometimes it's crippling, sometimes it'd be useless.

Is dormammu's aid OP on a squishy character who tanks yellow and blue for a great deal of 3* teams who has a strong but slow yellow that leaves him vulnerable and sets up potential cascades against him and a black that's virtually worthless? No, no it's not.

To sum up, then, I think we can say:
(1) Dormmamu's Aid in a void is potentially, theoretically OP, but it's also very situational.
(2) BUT, It's not fair to consider an ability in a void, since there's a reason why characters have differing health, match damage, and other abilities.
(3) Therefore Hood, as a whole is well balanced.

Thanks, everyone, for your thoughts. I always learn a lot here.

To follow up, I'd consider Loki's Mischief to be Dormammu's Aid closest competitor. I know most of the standard advice is to bring XF to burst Hood down, or bring your own Hood, when facing Hood. Would anyone consider bringing Loki as reasonable counter to DA as well?

Loki is far better as an XF partner than Hood is for sustained pushing: XF tanks 2 colors for Loki compared to Hood's 1, and illusion is much more reliable to get off than pistols. Loki also gives you incredible insurance vs AI cascades, which is one of the main ways you lose the game. He's even roughly as annoying as Hood on defense. Loki's only weakness is Hood: the food chain works such that XF + Loki is better at sustained pushing against every single team EXCEPT XF Hood, so XF Loki is not a good matchup vs XF Hood, but is better than XF Hood vs any other team. Loki's replaced Hood for me as the support of choice for that reason.

Unknown

No he is in the right place

He can be very powerful and very useless

i dont think his blue can dominate the game. It is annoying but not unavoidble

OzarkBoatswain

I think it's a little too powerful at 5 covers.

I suggest having a color that DA doesn't steal from, like how Star-Lord has two abilities that each miss a color. This would make counterpicking Hood quite easy. Green would be my choice as it is the color easiest to add to the board. It also keeps the Hood's synergy with Cap A intact.