Puzzle Warriors 3 Episode #61!

XaOs72

It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Xavier!

* New Blade!
* Season name changes and Starlord fix
​* Featured character: Professor X!

http://www.puzzlewarriors3.com/pw3-e61.html

Jaedenkaal

Don't feel bad Ray,

I'm about 0/40 for Devil Dino pulls from anniversary tokens. My DD is 1/1/1, from the daily resupply only. /sadface

IamTheDanger

While I can't speak for anyone else, for me, being in a merc alliance gives me more options. If I want to slack off and play casually, I still get some extra alliance rewards. And if I want to grind out a high score, I can go to higher ranked alliance and get better rewards. And if the alliance decides to go all in for an event, like an alliance boss battle or a new release, then I stay where I am. Or, if the alliance rewards don't intrest me, or I don't need them, but I still play the event, then I'll stay and help the alliance get a little better ranking. Which is one of things that, imo, makes Dead Ringers a great alliance. Everyone is always helping each other.

So, for me, that is the benefit of a merc alliance.

wymtime

IamTheDanger wrote:

While I can't speak for anyone else, for me, being in a merc alliance gives me more options. If I want to slack off and play casually, I still get some extra alliance rewards. And if I want to grind out a high score, I can go to higher ranked alliance and get better rewards. And if the alliance decides to go all in for an event, like an alliance boss battle or a new release, then I stay where I am. Or, if the alliance rewards don't intrest me, or I don't need them, but I still play the event, then I'll stay and help the alliance get a little better ranking. Which is one of things that, imo, makes Dead Ringers a great alliance. Everyone is always helping each other.

So, for me, that is the benefit of a merc alliance.

Great insight into your alliance. I believe there question was what does the commander of this alliance get out of consistently farming others out to alliances?

I know there are a lot of alliances that are apart of a family of alliances where they will take the top scores to one alliance merc out others and the players who just want to chill out can. The benefit of the family of alliances is they can recruite to PVE and help people developed and if vets want to take it easy for a while don't need to be kicked out of a high placing alliance. My alliance is just one group of players who play a lot. I also have seen the commanders of these family alliances and they do a lot of work to keep them going. Those commanders have a real dedication to the game.

JeffCascadian

At the risk of coming across as a complete NCP, how does one join the Discord discussion? I've downloaded the app but I can't figure out how to even find MPQ discussions.

jffdougan

JeffCascadian wrote:

At the risk of coming across as a complete NCP, how does one join the Discord discussion? I've downloaded the app but I can't figure out how to even find MPQ discussions.

There's a link in my sig.

deadtaco

I happen to like "flaptain" and War Machine. Not the greatest, but not the worst either. Certainly not the new "Cho".

RE: You guys might have the three highest opinions of Boss Rush. For everyone else, the reaction was :

Vhailorx

Thanks for the content; an enjoyable podcast as per usual!

My commentary on Prof X and your other topics:

(1) Anniversary was mixed this year. Double Iso and the Anniversary Vault were nice! The events were a little lackluster. Demi should get credit for doing fun new things, but Class of 2016 was really vet only since it basically required maxed 4* or 5* characters, and Boss Rush was basically a failed implementation on a decent idea. Demi doesn't seem to get that crushing difficulty may be ok in a vacuum, but is not ok in a game that punishes losses very harshly (like MPQ does). They have consistently made changes that increase the difficulty and length of matches substantially. IMO that has made the game less fun to play, and Boss Rush was a perfect example of this dynamic.

(2) One thing you guys don't always consider when you do your review is max health. Prof X is good, but he is incredibly squishy (having been a weak 4* when introduced, and then completely left out of the health shift in April 2015 making him even weaker). Playing him straight up (i.e., not using master plan for an infinity engine), he is probably best run at 3/5/5 or 4/4/5. Getting strike tiles out of his yellow is very important if you are going to play the special tile game. Strikes are the best kind of special tile by a pretty wide margin (since they can boost damage multiple times each turn, while attack tiles only ever do damage once a turn). If you want to use him for various infinite combos, then 5/5/0 is the ideal build (since fewer special tiles on the board makes it easier to use board control characters like Quicksilver or GSBW). Keeping him underleveled is also a pretty good idea, so that you have an easier time selecting your preferred strongest color.

(3) I agree that Ghost Rider is a low priority for champ'ing. Black is the main reason to use him, and as you guys pointed out, damage from black is unrelated to his level. All he needs is enough health to stay alive.

(4) I didn't start listening until episode 40 something, so you may have done this earlier, but have you included general roster-building and leveling guides in your podcast? that sort of question is quite common on the forums and on reddit and it may well be helpful for a significant portion of your listeners. IMO the way to go would be to present the ideal strategies for playing to the meta, so that people will know the "best" way to do things (to the extent that there is a best way), but definitely with a caveat that people should do whatever makes them happy.

(5) War Machine -- Definitely NOT the new cho. He is solid mid tier. There are several worse 4*s even after Cho and Star Lord have been buffed (elektra, fantastic, probably venom to name a few). That said, I agree that war machine's awesome animations do not match his countdown heavy powerset. But direct damage blues are still nice in 4* land, his green provides solid boardshake, and it can be fun to mess around with the attack tile generation from his red. I wouldn't suggest that he is top tier or a high priority, but he also shouldn't be seen as the worst there is.

Tony_Foot

I had to pull my car over and throw up when they said they enjoyed the Boss Battle. I just got sat back in my car again when one of them said they liked that the alliance event was non collective scoring. I sicked up again a little in my mouth.

It bothered me a little when they had the dev on a few weeks ago that they didn't ask them anything challenging, but actually enjoying the boss event, come on. I'm not sure I can listen any more.

UNC_Samurai

I was amused by the complaints about the machine guns. I'' pretty sure War Machine stole the underpowered MGs from Battletech.