What do we think of the Mindless Ones?

Lemminkäinen

First, some music to get everyone in the mood:
Monster Magnet - Mindless Ones
(the song really is about Marvel Mindless Ones in case you're wondering)

It's not every day that we get new goons. Last time we got some was Symbiotes.

Now, Mindless Ones are a bit like Symbiotes in that they too like special tiles but instead of pooping a crazy amount of them, they are content having one and boosting it to high heaven. They also have an AoE attack (praise Quake!). Finally, they have high HP.

But when it comes to goons, I think that these are some easier ones. I mean, they aren't like the bomb setters and detonators (that feature in maybe four missions in all of PvE) but they certainly aren't Muscle or Symbiote-level annoying. Perhaps in the ISO mutant goon level?

JordanFromJersey

I like them. They're tough without being a non-stop pain in the ****, and they force you to think strategically to avoid letting their special tiles get buffed into the stratosphere.

Also their art is gorgeous. It's a great adaptation of their comics design.

Marine8394

Their set skills seem right. Not unmanageable. Don't over-spam. Don't over scale. Create a challenge for team making thought process. For me, as compared to recent goon introductions, I will take them any PVE of the week.

Esheris

I'll take anything that doesn't make matches.

I do like them though, especially when I can easily match their tiles away.

I had one match where they had a defensive tile over 8K. I got aoe'ed to death but it was entertaining.

PuceMoose

I think the new poo-monsters are pretty reasonable. They can get dangerous, but they don't ramp up to scary dangerous so quickly like Ultron sentries, and they give you a little time to prepare.

DapperChewie

Esheris wrote:

I'll take anything that doesn't make matches.

I do like them though, especially when I can easily match their tiles away.

I had one match where they had a defensive tile over 8K. I got aoe'ed to death but it was entertaining.

Falcon or Ant Man do a good job of shutting them down completely. Also, She Hulk, Loki, even Yelena is useful. It's nice that this pve isn't a pure DPT challenge though.

Esheris

DapperChewie wrote:

Falcon or Ant Man do a good job of shutting them down completely. Also, She Hulk, Loki, even Yelena is useful. It's nice that this pve isn't a pure DPT challenge though.

Oh gosh! I forgot Antman and I have him championed. He will do well against the Hand today. Thanks! (I always end up using my favorite team over the most viable.)

SummerGlau

My Falcon still can't give countdowns the Redwing treatment (I only rostered him recently and he's at 5/3/4)
but combined with Bullseye was very useful in the mindless node

kobu

I like their design. I just think their health scales up too fast.

The Bob The

I like 'em. They're a good balance of strengths (high health, special tiles and boosting) and weaknesses (slow, can't move tiles).

fanghoul

I like that they have a couple things going on with the huge damage AoE, and the tiles that keep scaling. Ignore one of those and you'll get screwed. Being shot for 3,000 damage sucks, but so does realizing that they now have a +2,000 strength protect tile out. It's entertaining to have to prioritize and try to pay attention to both at the same time.

It's also been tremendously entertaining to me to set it up wave nodes so that the mindless ones can endlessly buff one tile before I steal it, and then run amok with that +2,000 Protect or Strike tile

If I could change anything, I might like it if there were more differences in their powers, but I'm having fun, so I can't complain too much.

Jarvind

Big fan. They seem like beefier, slower symbiotes. They have the potential for their tiles to build steam and overwhelm you, but their countdowns are long enough that they don't become truly unmanageable until pretty late in the fight. I was playing Nova/Rulk/Chulk, so my only form of control was the occasional 2-turn airborne, and I think I only ate one Eye Beam throughout this entire event.

Moon Roach

They are relentless (TM).

STOPTHIS

While I think their health is a bit too high, they're easily the best new goon type since the Hand. I don't care for the fact that one of them is guaranteed to cause damage, but at least it's just the attack tile creator. But other than that, I say bring them on.

babinro

As a player at 5* tier play but with limited viable 5* options I find these new goons to be too challenging. I like their design and skill set but the issue is just scaling combined with 5*'s lack of utility options.

I can't bring in 4*'s to tackle the issue because match damage makes mince meat out of them unless they are fully protected by 5's. Something which I can't guarantee because I don't have a wide array of 5's. I'm left to using 5*'s and just relying on decent boards to down them before things get out of hand.

Things get out of hand pretty quickly...within the first few turns it's not uncommon to deal 1 match damage from the big protect tiles. Meanwhile their attack tiles start to really add up against OML's self healing.

That node with Mindless Ones+2x Sentry's was effectively impossible. I failed it several times because of the absurd scaling. By the time I knocked one of them down it was common to take 10,000 damage a turn from a simple match 3 plus the attack tiles. Bringing in a counter character like Ant-Man with 5 blue worked once but it involved his blue staying on a board which was board shaken every turn via sentries while still eating 5000+ damage a turn since new enemy tiles refilled the board as fast as he could convert them. On top of that I had to generate most blue AP by indirectly matching them because trying to build up 9 blue with Ant-man in front meant the death of Ant-man.

Far too much luck required solely because of the max level scaling going too far for my roster.

Again, I LIKE the Mindless ones just stop it with the absurd goon scaling.

It's kind of sad that I would gladly take on any combination of equally scaled playable characters over any of the PvE goons (both new and old).

Stax the Foyer

babinro wrote:

As a player at 5* tier play but with limited viable 5* options I find these new goons to be too challenging. I like their design and skill set but the issue is just scaling combined with 5*'s lack of utility options.

I can't bring in 4*'s to tackle the issue because match damage makes mince meat out of them unless they are fully protected by 5's. Something which I can't guarantee because I don't have a wide array of 5's. I'm left to using 5*'s and just relying on decent boards to down them before things get out of hand.

Things get out of hand pretty quickly...within the first few turns it's not uncommon to deal 1 match damage from the big protect tiles. Meanwhile their attack tiles start to really add up against OML's self healing.

That node with Mindless Ones+2x Sentry's was effectively impossible. I failed it several times because of the absurd scaling. By the time I knocked one of them down it was common to take 10,000 damage a turn from a simple match 3 plus the attack tiles. Bringing in a counter character like Ant-Man with 5 blue worked once but it involved his blue staying on a board which was board shaken every turn via sentries while still eating 5000+ damage a turn since new enemy tiles refilled the board as fast as he could convert them. On top of that I had to generate most blue AP by indirectly matching them because trying to build up 9 blue with Ant-man in front meant the death of Ant-man.

Far too much luck required solely because of the max level scaling going too far for my roster.

Again, I LIKE the Mindless ones just stop it with the absurd goon scaling.

It's kind of sad that I would gladly take on any combination of equally scaled playable characters over any of the PvE goons (both new and old).

With a different buff list it might be a different story, but with the exception of the Ultron nodes (which were terrible for entirely different reasons), I've had no problems throwing 4*s at them. In fact, I don't think I've used a single 5* on any node so far this entire PvE except for funsies on an easy node. It's been nice.

doomette

I thoroughly enjoy letting them buff the tiles once or twice, then letting She-Hulk steal it and buff it even more. Mwahahaha.

mpqr7

I thought the Mindless Ones were great. They were strong and powerful, but the CD was slow enough that you generally could puzzle your way out of getting it to go off.

Also they didn't move tiles (like sentries), and they didn't drop terrible strike, attack or defense tiles left and right, every single move (like symbiotes). So they were the perfect blend of tough but reasonable.

TetsujinOni

I have dread of the next simulator's mixed goon configurations.

Fightmastermpq

Hadn't given it a lot of thought until now, but honestly they are perfect. Not too fast (Thug), or too overwhelming (Symbiotes), or too powerful (Muscle/Hitman), or too annoying (Hand), or too OP (Ultron Sentries), or too weak (HAMMER/ISO-8 Brotherhood). They are exactly what a goon should be - a threat that you need to deal with... on your own time, but becomes a serious problem if you allow it to go unchecked.

They did a great job on these.

spiderpool

I love goons that rely on creating special tiles. Use ant -man, use his blue ability, win.