*** Captain America (Super Soldier) ***

Phaserhawk

It's too bad the AI is so terrible at playing him, he could actually be a very strong defensive character.

Unknown

I think that the AI might be good enough if you have him with colossus with black. Just imagine peacekeeper with colossus black swoon

CrookedKnight

Yeah, there is no bad result from throwing Cap at somebody. Peacemaker and Star-Spangled Avenger give you a ton of free AP if the countdowns last, and the big downside of Sentinel of Liberty is the cost, so when it doesn't have one....

NorthernPolarity

CrookedKnight wrote:

Yeah, there is no bad result from throwing Cap at somebody. Peacemaker and Star-Spangled Avenger give you a ton of free AP if the countdowns last, and the big downside of Sentinel of Liberty is the cost, so when it doesn't have one....

What do you think of the following abilities:
13 black AP - deal 1.5k damage and cast Cap red.
13 black AP - deal 1.5k damage and cast Cap blue.
13 black AP - deal 1.5k damage and cast Cap yellow.

Personally, I think the first ability is great, the second and third one are fine, but not exciting. I think the issue here is that you guys aren't looking at opportunity cost. Yes, casting a Cap spell for free is pretty sweet, but for 13 black AP you could be casting surgical strike or rage of the panther. A 33% to cast a great ability and a 66% of casting a meh one just isn't good enough for me to consider warping my team to this extent, especially when you consider how the only good abilities of Cap/Colossus are both red, making them a pretty meh duo to begin with. Not to mention that Colossus black is 13 ap, which means that you really need to prioritize the color in order to cast the ability in the first place. The only reason why you would even consider playing them together is because of the black synergy, and when the black synergy isn't even that good compared to the other blacks you could be casting, it just seems like too much work for too little effort. After all, why would you spend 13 black AP for a 33% at a great spell when you can spend 11 or 12 black AP at a 100% at a great spell?

Unknown

NorthernPolarity wrote:

CrookedKnight wrote:

Yeah, there is no bad result from throwing Cap at somebody. Peacemaker and Star-Spangled Avenger give you a ton of free AP if the countdowns last, and the big downside of Sentinel of Liberty is the cost, so when it doesn't have one....

What do you think of the following abilities:
13 black AP - deal 1.5k damage and cast Cap red.
13 black AP - deal 1.5k damage and cast Cap blue.
13 black AP - deal 1.5k damage and cast Cap yellow.

Personally, I think the first ability is great, the second and third one are fine, but not exciting. I think the issue here is that you guys aren't looking at opportunity cost. Yes, casting a Cap spell for free is pretty sweet, but for 13 black AP you could be casting surgical strike or rage of the panther. A 33% to cast a great ability and a 66% of casting a meh one just isn't good enough for me to consider warping my team to this extent, especially when you consider how the only good abilities of Cap/Colossus are both red, making them a pretty meh duo to begin with. Not to mention that Colossus black is 13 ap, which means that you really need to prioritize the color in order to cast the ability in the first place. The only reason why you would even consider playing them together is because of the black synergy, and when the black synergy isn't even that good compared to the other blacks you could be casting, it just seems like too much work for too little effort. After all, why would you spend 13 black AP for a 33% at a great spell when you can spend 11 or 12 black AP at a 100% at a great spell?

Fastball Special is more like a consolation prize. It's not meant to be some kind of AP acceleration move that lets you cast stuff for cheap. Especially against X Force's game ending Surgical Strike, you really can't ignore black for too long and this just means that while defending against a move like Surgical Strike or Rage of the Panther you also have something to show for the effort if you happen to be running Colossus but not one of the 2 characters with a powerful black for whatever reason.

NorthernPolarity

Phantron wrote:

NorthernPolarity wrote:

CrookedKnight wrote:

Yeah, there is no bad result from throwing Cap at somebody. Peacemaker and Star-Spangled Avenger give you a ton of free AP if the countdowns last, and the big downside of Sentinel of Liberty is the cost, so when it doesn't have one....

What do you think of the following abilities:
13 black AP - deal 1.5k damage and cast Cap red.
13 black AP - deal 1.5k damage and cast Cap blue.
13 black AP - deal 1.5k damage and cast Cap yellow.

Personally, I think the first ability is great, the second and third one are fine, but not exciting. I think the issue here is that you guys aren't looking at opportunity cost. Yes, casting a Cap spell for free is pretty sweet, but for 13 black AP you could be casting surgical strike or rage of the panther. A 33% to cast a great ability and a 66% of casting a meh one just isn't good enough for me to consider warping my team to this extent, especially when you consider how the only good abilities of Cap/Colossus are both red, making them a pretty meh duo to begin with. Not to mention that Colossus black is 13 ap, which means that you really need to prioritize the color in order to cast the ability in the first place. The only reason why you would even consider playing them together is because of the black synergy, and when the black synergy isn't even that good compared to the other blacks you could be casting, it just seems like too much work for too little effort. After all, why would you spend 13 black AP for a 33% at a great spell when you can spend 11 or 12 black AP at a 100% at a great spell?

Fastball Special is more like a consolation prize. It's not meant to be some kind of AP acceleration move that lets you cast stuff for cheap. Especially against X Force's game ending Surgical Strike, you really can't ignore black for too long and this just means that while defending against a move like Surgical Strike or Rage of the Panther you also have something to show for the effort if you happen to be running Colossus but not one of the 2 characters with a powerful black for whatever reason.

Yeah I know. I think that the general forum attitude about his black is a lot more optimistic than it should be though, so I'm trying to explain why it's not as rosy as it sounds.

Highdark

19 Cost is a tie for the highest cost in the game right? On a 3* toon it should be game ending. Have him put down 10 placeable 200 2k value with massive overwrite potential and good placement could give large ap gain. Same ability, same cost, far less ****

wymtime

Highdark wrote:

19 Cost is a tie for the highest cost in the game right? On a 3* toon it should be game ending. Have him put down 10 placeable 200 2k value with massive overwrite potential and good placement could give large ap gain. Same ability, same cost, far less tinykitty

IM40 blue is a cost of 20 with Big AOE damage and stun. It also is an AP drain on your own team.

Unknown

I think the yellow is intentionally too weak to make up for red being too strong. Generally speaking all the characters that can be considered remotely balanced tend to have one awesome, one average, and one bad ability and that sort of evens out. Even in the case of X Force you can argue Recovery is pretty bad in terms of in game impact (it's great for saving health packs but it sure won't do much in most games) to balance out his awesome ability (Surgical Strike).

NorthernPolarity

Phantron wrote:

I think the yellow is intentionally too weak to make up for red being too strong. Generally speaking all the characters that can be considered remotely balanced tend to have one awesome, one average, and one bad ability and that sort of evens out. Even in the case of X Force you can argue Recovery is pretty bad in terms of in game impact (it's great for saving health packs but it sure won't do much in most games) to balance out his awesome ability (Surgical Strike).

I wouldn't give them that much credit. For example, in Doc Ock's case most of us think that black/blue are his two strong abilities and green seems situational / weak. Yet a developer interview (http://marvel.com/news/video_games/2336 ... st_doc_ock) shows that the dev thinks that green is his "power ability". This leads me to believe that somewhere out there, a Demiurge developer must have thought "Well, Cap's yellow is pretty expensive, but if they cast it then it nullifies all damage for the rest of the game so it's definitely costed appropriately!".

Unknown

NorthernPolarity wrote:

Phantron wrote:

I think the yellow is intentionally too weak to make up for red being too strong. Generally speaking all the characters that can be considered remotely balanced tend to have one awesome, one average, and one bad ability and that sort of evens out. Even in the case of X Force you can argue Recovery is pretty bad in terms of in game impact (it's great for saving health packs but it sure won't do much in most games) to balance out his awesome ability (Surgical Strike).

I wouldn't give them that much credit. For example, in Doc Ock's case most of us think that black/blue are his two strong abilities and green seems situational / weak. Yet a developer interview (http://marvel.com/news/video_games/2336 ... st_doc_ock) shows that the dev thinks that green is his "power ability". This leads me to believe that somewhere out there, a Demiurge developer must have thought "Well, Cap's yellow is pretty expensive, but if they cast it then it nullifies all damage for the rest of the game so it's definitely costed appropriately!".

Well that's why I said 'remotely balanced'. I doubt that was the plan but it ends up being somewhat workable if you got a bad ability to balance with the awesome. The only characters that break this are Thor and Sentry right now (Daken has no weak ability but the last nerf made his awesome ability not quite as awesome) and neither can be considered as remotely balanced. Yes their red isn't anything special compared to the rest of their abilities, but it's certainly not a bad ability overall. That doesn't mean they're the two most powerful characters in the game, but while X Force is likely better than Thor, at least X Force's yellow is pretty weak as I sure can't recall using Recovery helped me won any PvP game (it did matter for Gauntlet but that's a rare exception), and of course Recovery is pretty insane outside the game via true healing so it's probably not fair to classify it as weak.

Unknown

NorthernPolarity wrote:

Phantron wrote:

I think the yellow is intentionally too weak to make up for red being too strong. Generally speaking all the characters that can be considered remotely balanced tend to have one awesome, one average, and one bad ability and that sort of evens out. Even in the case of X Force you can argue Recovery is pretty bad in terms of in game impact (it's great for saving health packs but it sure won't do much in most games) to balance out his awesome ability (Surgical Strike).

I wouldn't give them that much credit. For example, in Doc Ock's case most of us think that black/blue are his two strong abilities and green seems situational / weak. Yet a developer interview (http://marvel.com/news/video_games/2336 ... st_doc_ock) shows that the dev thinks that green is his "power ability". This leads me to believe that somewhere out there, a Demiurge developer must have thought "Well, Cap's yellow is pretty expensive, but if they cast it then it nullifies all damage for the rest of the game so it's definitely costed appropriately!".

Bottom line is Nick Fury is a better Captain America than Captain America. Avengers Assemble is 12 yellow for appropraite str shield tiles, AND you get a host of bonuses if you have the correct AP. I'm ok with the ability being high end defense, but it can't cost more than 12. Even at 12 it might not see use. Scale the tiles approximately, or whatever has to be done, but 19 is crazy expensive for an ability that doesn't return AP.

I don't even consider Cap's to be a power. I will bring other yellow users along to fill that hole or consider yellow a lost cause if Cap has the only power.

over_clocked

Yep, anyone that plays the game at all can say in the first minutes of playing that 19 yellow AP for a pure protect ability is an impossible task and must be reworked. I would use LC much more often if he actually had a usable 3rd ability.

Polares

locked wrote:

Yep, anyone that plays the game at all can say in the first minutes of playing that 19 yellow AP for a pure protect ability is an impossible task and must be reworked. I would use LC much more often if he actually had a usable 3rd ability.

I would say that a 19AP ability is a lost cause no matter. In the past BW green and IM40 blue where maybe viable but now they are too **** expensive and developers should lower their cost, specially IM40's blue, being the most expensive ability in all the game for a meh effect (Deadpool's is far better for 14).

At least Cap has one really good ability, and one ok ability, IM40 can't say that...

HairyDave

Polares wrote:

In the past BW green and IM40 blue where maybe viable but now they are too tinykitty expensive and developers should lower their cost, specially IM40's blue, being the most expensive ability in all the game for a meh effect (Deadpool's is far better for 14).

Nah, Sniper Rifle is about where it needs to be. I could see it maybe reduced to 15 but it still does a colossal amount of damage and board clearing.

IM40 I completely agree. He needs to be X-Forced before I'd consider using him.

Unknown

From now on character buffs from obsolete to useable power levels shall be known as getting X-Forced.

CrookedKnight

Sniper Rifle is where it needs to be at L5, but it should be substantially cheaper at lower levels. The jump from that last cover is so huge that it might as well be a different power entirely, while the cost scales up as if it were an incremental improvement. I can't think of another character who so badly needs to be fully covered to be worth anything at all.

Unknown

CrookedKnight wrote:

Sniper Rifle is where it needs to be at L5, but it should be substantially cheaper at lower levels. The jump from that last cover is so huge that it might as well be a different power entirely, while the cost scales up as if it were an incremental improvement. I can't think of another character who so badly needs to be fully covered to be worth anything at all.

Yea, there aren't many abilities that go from "probably the worst ability in the game" to "game ending" with one cover.

19 AP for a single target burst is epically bad.

But 19 AP for a team burst is strong and ends a lot of games.

IS there another ability with that huge of a flux in one cover?

the only two abilities that I can think of right now that drastically alter the gameplay of an ability with one cover are Hulk's black from 4 to 5 and Patch's yellow from 4 to 5.

But those are not as game changing as GSBW's.

Unknown

onimus wrote:

IS there another ability with that huge of a flux in one cover?

the only two abilities that I can think of right now that drastically alter the gameplay of an ability with one cover are Hulk's black from 4 to 5 and Patch's yellow from 4 to 5.

But those are not as game changing as GSBW's.

Hood's yellow - while not quite as big a difference as GSBW - is like that, in that it's useless at 4 covers and pretty good at 5. Same goes for his black, which gains its Sentry synergy only at five covers.

HairyDave

Lerysh wrote:

From now on character buffs from obsolete to useable power levels shall be known as getting X-Forced.

You're welcome.

I will now accept praise

Ben Grimm wrote:

onimus wrote:

IS there another ability with that huge of a flux in one cover?

the only two abilities that I can think of right now that drastically alter the gameplay of an ability with one cover are Hulk's black from 4 to 5 and Patch's yellow from 4 to 5.

But those are not as game changing as GSBW's.

Hood's yellow - while not quite as big a difference as GSBW - is like that, in that it's useless at 4 covers and pretty good at 5. Same goes for his black, which gains its Sentry synergy only at five covers.

Patch is a pretty big step up from four to five on all his abilities, but only really in terms of damage output. By some coincidence, Steve gets a massive boost in utility once you have five in either of his frisbee throws, though I guess that doesn't substantially alter gameplay other than making him useful on a greater variety of threats.