**** Wolverine (X-Force) **** [PRE 2015-04]

Pwuz_

I really like that idea of being able to collect 5 covers for each power, and then choose dynamically which 13 points to allocate for each battle. Perhaps make it so you have to go into the roster to alter your current set up. It would certainly make it more flexible when these types of inevitable balancing issues come up.

famousfoxking

Hanzo0313 wrote:

I can't do anything but swallow it.

This is very uncomfortable

I'm sorry, I am a child.

That said, there is some new policy where they'll refund you the HP you spent, I think. There's a thread around here somewhere for it (from when they adjusted Iron Fist).

GothicKratos

bonfire01 wrote:

GothicKratos wrote:

Jamie Madrox wrote:

Actually you're wrong. The reputation system is designed to work EXACTLY like the Facebook like system, only better because you can dislike something. Upvotes are for posts that you like or agree with. Downvotes are for posts that you dislike or don't agree with.

To be frank, I'd like a link to where you found that information, because I've never read that anywhere.

Could you also kindly explain why posts are hidden at -5 rep, if downvotes are intended to be for 'disagreements of opinion'? Are we hiding the unpopular opinions under the rug? Is that the stance we wanna take? Hiding people's opinions? It's bad enough pivotal informational announcements are being hidden, but people just trying to talk? Yeah, some community...

Well there is certainly nothing written anywhere in the forum rules to contradict Jamie in any way shape or form. That's why i've always considered it a matter of opinion how ppl use down votes (and up votes).

My point originally was that he wrote it in green text, which makes it looks like it's official.

As for the rest of your post, I'm not going to delve into the subject at this time, because it probably won't matter soon.

Moon Roach

GothicKratos wrote:

As for the rest of your post, I'm not going to delve into the subject at this time, because it probably won't matter soon.

Let me guess, they're closing the forum? You enigmatic teaser.

Arondite

Moon Roach wrote:

GothicKratos wrote:

As for the rest of your post, I'm not going to delve into the subject at this time, because it probably won't matter soon.

Let me guess, they're closing the forum? You enigmatic teaser.

Probably just removing the red thumb because people get really upset when they get one.

Boo hoo.

Unknown

Its a abit **** though, for the refund they will probably ask you to sell the XF and then they will refund you, it what happened with IF.

Hanzo0313

famousfoxking wrote:

Hanzo0313 wrote:

I can't do anything but swallow it.

This is very uncomfortable

I'm sorry, I am a child.

That said, there is some new policy where they'll refund you the HP you spent, I think. There's a thread around here somewhere for it (from when they adjusted Iron Fist).

Thanks man.
I took a look at their announcement:

If a new character has been added to the game, and changes have been made to that character's abilities within 30 days of the character's initial release, we will be offering a full Hero Point and Iso refund for any covers that were purchased directly or gained through Comic Packs.

So it's for "New Character" which does not apply to XF.

hurcules

Arondite wrote:

Moon Roach wrote:

GothicKratos wrote:

As for the rest of your post, I'm not going to delve into the subject at this time, because it probably won't matter soon.

Let me guess, they're closing the forum? You enigmatic teaser.

Probably just removing the red thumb because people get really upset when they get one.

Boo hoo.

Didn't you know? Forum reputations are intrinsically tied to PvE scaling and PvP Match-Making.

Arondite

hurcules wrote:

Arondite wrote:

Moon Roach wrote:

GothicKratos wrote:

As for the rest of your post, I'm not going to delve into the subject at this time, because it probably won't matter soon.

Let me guess, they're closing the forum? You enigmatic teaser.

Probably just removing the red thumb because people get really upset when they get one.

Boo hoo.

Didn't you know? Forum reputations are intrinsically tied to PvE scaling and PvP Match-Making.

No wonder my nodes are so easy

Unknown

Well i've posted a few places that I think getting downvotes isn't a big deal... so time to try earning some.

Xforce's post nerf green isn't that bad....please don't hurt me....

I think the nerf went too far, I think 4*s should be meaningfully better than 3*s and Xforce was an appropriate level of power. The Devs disagree (cause they're not as clever as me obviously) so we're left with Xforce being brought down to the rest of the overpriced 4* mediocrity.

So why don't I think it's that bad? Or more to the point why do I think you shouldn't respec into 4/5 yellow?

The damage from Xforce is part base, part tile shatter damage. Ppl have been quoting 42 dmg per tile as an average but unless something changed without my knowledge shatter damage comes from your entire team. So take into account your featured is buffed and you probably aimed for decent colour coverage and you are probably expecting more like 70 damage per tile or thereabouts. So about 1k damage from tile destruction. That's why I would expect about 4.4k damage from an Xforce pre nerf not 4k.

Post nerf you can expect more like 2.4k damage which is a big hit. If that was the story alone I would say to drop the ability like a bad habit but....

A while ago I did a thread on board shakeup skills. I was collecting data on more skills to update it around about the point D3 convinced me to drop the game by making it obvious 4*s are meant to be no kind of worthwhile progression and I was wasting my time (I won't harp on about that now since I posted it all in my bye bye thread).

For Xforce's green I had a decent amount of data and it looks like you can expect, on average, somewhere around 4.5 to 5 tiles to be matched per use. You are also only a bit worse than a 1 in 4 change of taking out any given enemy special tile varying by location.

Basically.... as long as you have a good use for whatever random tiles you generate the power is, in a way, cheaper than it looks. Incidentally... if you SS first, thereby homogenising the board somewhat those cascade numbers improve a little.

The long and short of it is... I think the nerf went too far on his green (it basically makes him a slower character and along with the, IMO, much more painful nerf to black makes him a straight, somewhat slow damage dealer) I don't think it has become utter trash and still peg it as better than putting 5 in his yellow and having overkill on healing with a chance of damage if the tile matches and maybe a cascade for you but maybe a cascade for the AI depending who matches it.

Feel free to disagree OFC....

Mikaveus

It feels like Xforce and 4hor have rejoined the 4* pack. The biggest thing that needs to happen is making it less taxing to level and cover 4* characters. Especially if the devs have grand aspirations for the 4* realm. They still aren't very accessible characters for 95+% of players out there.

Surgical Strike 3.0 is a formidable attack, only now opponents have a chance to retaliate and save the match. And adversaries have even less reason to match that yellow, while Xforce users have more incentive to. I'd wager (nothing because I'm cheap) that Xforce is still a solid character.

Der_Lex

I can see how that meeting went.

"How can we make the forums a more positive place?"

"Well, we could implement some changes to the game that will actually go over well in the community."

"That sounds like a lot of work. Anything else?"

"Well, I guess we could revise some of the less popular changes."

"Still too much work. Anything else?"

"I guess we could just take away the ability to downvote..."

"BRILLIANT! Let's go grab a drink, we deserve it."

Unknown

I think the will now very rarely be the right choice. The nerf may not be as bad as it initially seems, due to the destroyed tiles' damage, but 8 AP for a board shaker and, let's say, 2400 damage isn't that great. It's not the worst ability in the game (Hulk's green or Ragnarok's are worse ), but If I have Kamala or Thor on my team, you can bet I'll very rarely use X-Force .

Surgical Strike will still be a decent ability. I'd argue that the current SS is the single most powerful ability in the game. On an average board, you dealt over 4000 damage, gained 9 AP, drained up to 10AP from the enemy and you had a high chance of cascades. A single SS basically meant an automatic game-over, assuming you have a use for the collected AP. Note that I'm talking about PvP here, not the overscaled mess of PvE. The new SS loses all the AP generation and drain, but it's now a very solid nuke. Magneto's is a good ability and new SS does more than twice the damage (admittedly for 3 more AP)

Unknown

@Mikaveus

Bit torn on SS. Despite the damage increase it was a MASSIVE nerf in functionality. That alone makes the scale of the green nerf seem strange to me. For a chunk of unreliable damage (board state dependent skills are always a bit of a lottery) you lose, what was normally 1 ability firing off for you and 1 less ability firing off for the enemy. His green becomes his only reliable damage source and took a big hit.

I still don't think it's unusable though.

Having said that......

@Wolfman

I agree. I wouldn't use it over a number of other greens unless the damage it did happened to be enough to down an opponent. Then I can swap the overkill the other guy would have caused for the cascade potential and genereal board shake Xforce can give.

As I said in my upvote I more think of his green being usable enough to not NEED another green user to make me feel like I have the colour covered. If, for example, the featured was a mainly passive using hero (with no green) then I wouldn't feel I HAD to get in one of the now premiere green users (since it isn't XForce any more) to use Xforce in that match.

Also his green has a lot of potential.... so while sometimes you get no cascades and feel thoroughly cheated, on other occasions you get 9+ AP out of cascades for free (best I got in testing was a hefty 20 AP (4 match (for 8) and 4 3 matches) and/or crit tiles etc. So part of it's value to you depends on whether you want reliable skills or riskier ones which can have a bigger impact, or fall kind of flat.

defixu

So part of it's value to you depends on whether you want reliable skills or riskier ones which can have a bigger impact, or fall kind of flat.

That sounds exactly like a Wolverine skill. It's not as volatile as Patch's Berserker Range, which will cost you the match if used badly, but then again, spending 8 green in high level play which might fall flat is also a risky proposition in itself.

over_clocked

I don't agree that Mohawk's best build is 5/3/5. The extra covers in yellow aren't much. Aren't much at all, seemingly. But she's not meant to be a damage dealer anyway and her black is reasonably cheap that you can cast it several times over, whereas an extra cascade on yellow or yellow into green could well save your matches, and her primary purpose is to create cascades and earn AP, not hog basic tiles and overwrite traps, imho (although her black is an all-star for that!).
I see the merit of the 5/3/5 build, it deals more damage out of the gate, but I've been running 5/5/3 for quite some time already and I easily see post-buff Mohawk with that build as a respectable rival to X-Force. If you have potent strike tiles (hello, Groot!), doesn't matter the level on black.
I think both builds are good and serve slightly different purposes equally well, although of course 5 green is a must - wish I saw it sooner and didn't write off Mohawk when she was just released like many others did.

Edit - forgot to comment on the actual topic - plenty of characters start looking good when X-Force no longer dominates the meta, starting with poor Human Torch, Gamora, Mohawk and Punisher. Hulk, minorly. Lazy Thor, significantly so. Not to mention squishy but dangerous Blade, Hood, Loki, Mystique, Kamala Khan and oBW. Without a cheap alpha strike, Luke Cage, Spider-Man, classic Magneto, Falcon, Squirrel Girl all start looking that much more annoying. I could go on. But the single character I am looking forward to playing with the most in the post-XF nerf world is Mohawk. She has been underrated for far too long.

Hanzo0313

To me, this really pissed me off.

1. If I know these changes, will I spend my money on Green? Of course not.
I made choices because of the skill description.
2. How many money you earned in XF, D3?
How many HP spend on 4*IW comparing to XF?
3. Over power? That is not my problem.
D3 you should check the whole system not nerf the most powerful(selling) character one at a time.
How do you feel when you buy a shiny laptop and found it downgraded to win98 because it's too powerful?
4. Don't tell me this is just a game. I've been infected by the all day.
And it's not just a game to D3, it's a business, a service.

homeinvasion

I'm going to start playing your game again as a gesture of goodwill. Hopefully its the first of many steps.

Unknown

WolfmanX25 wrote:

I think the will now very rarely be the right choice. The nerf may not be as bad as it initially seems, due to the destroyed tiles' damage, but 8 AP for a board shaker and, let's say, 2400 damage isn't that great. It's not the worst ability in the game (Hulk's green or Ragnarok's are worse ), but If I have Kamala or Thor on my team, you can bet I'll very rarely use X-Force .

2400 for 8 is quite meh, but if it indeed generates 4,5-5 extra AP on average, making it net cost of 3-4, I'd say it's pretty good if you have team comp that can use whatever dropped for you, plus board shakes are also good for letting you get access to colour matches you want and perhaps setting 4 or 5 in a row. I don't see myself dropping 5 green for 5 yellow, at least not until matching yellow by enemy would switch resulting cascade for you.

Mawtful

bonfire01 wrote:

Bit torn on SS. Despite the damage increase it was a MASSIVE nerf in functionality. That alone makes the scale of the green nerf seem strange to me. For a chunk of unreliable damage (board state dependent skills are always a bit of a lottery) you lose, what was normally 1 ability firing off for you and 1 less ability firing off for the enemy. His green becomes his only reliable damage source and took a big hit.

I still don't think it's unusable though.

I had originally believed in a bold new 5/3/5 build for XFW. In part, because I think Recovery is a significant threat and X-Force has better* (*more consistent and more frequent) board disruption over SS. In part, because I thought that the drawback of eliminating a colour from the board was too much of a "double-edged sword". Green is still likely to be the most common strongest colour, in which case, casting Surgical Strike will now slow down your own X-Force and diminishing any advantage it might provide.

However, SS could become a greater Alpha Strike ability than before - when XFW is paired with the right teammates. If you can pair XFW with someone who can generate tiles which match the enemy's strongest colour, then you can really ramp up the damage on SS. XF + Kamala against Green: use Stretchiness and select a colour which won't make any green matches then use SS.
Assuming:
an average of 9 existing Green tiles,
Kamala's purple at only Rank 3 to generate an additional 5,
Surgical Strike at Rank 5 for 781 damage per tile,
= 10934 damage, plus cascade fallout.
GSBW may even be a better partner, since she is getting a health buff to 8075 (Kamala will have 8670) and will be able to add tiles without causing a match (9+6 tiles brings the damage to 11715, which may as well be a guaranteed kill on Hulk).

You can team up with Cyclops vs. Red
Iron Fist/Doom vs. Black,
Thor vs. Yellow,
Mystique vs Purple,
and I guess Ragnarok vs. Blue.

Green/Red/Black seem to be the more important colours to be able to counter, but that may change after the 17th. In any case, I agree that XFW might not be dead yet, he may be a little trickier for the AI to use effectively though, so I see 3/5/5 as the most annoying defensive build (letting Recovery heal him back to full just gives the AI more time to get things right).