Thanos as Essential

Smudge

nyck1118 wrote:

What hell whiners. It goes off what. Twice? Once per kill. And it's not that big of a deal. He'll bring in a strike tile guy and it's awesome. Helps speed things along

Difference of opinion on what most regard as a bad character != whining. Do you like Sentry? Great! Use him! Most people don't.

Do you like Vision? Great! Use him! Many people prefer to bypass him because he has to tank to make his blue worthwhile, and he just isn't a priority compared to so many other options at the 3* tier.

3* Thanos takes those two characters and makes everything worse. My level 40 Thanos would, at 4 covers, do 975 team damage passively to everyone except Thanos when I down an opposing character, meaning I have limited control over whether I take the damage. And that's unboosted.

By comparison, at 5 red covers, Sentry does 141 * 9 red tiles = 1269 team damage per character. Granted, he hits himself, but that's also a level 178 Sentry. He's also dishing out 1608 base + 268 * 9 red tiles = 4020 damage to the entire enemy team (per character). Thanos, at 4 black, is doing only 948 to the enemy team.

Even if you bump Thanos to 5 covers, he's at 1307 enemy, 1170 team. The divide between friendly/foe damage is not great, and you again only have limited control over it.

To my Vision comment, I offered a more detailed analysis in the Character forum thread Vhailorx started, but suffice it to say that Thanos does everything Vision's blue does with his purple, but Thanos does a much worse job of it than Vision. He doesn't get the board control 5* Thanos gets, and his damage is way lower than the boost Vision gets.

Even Thanos's green nuke relies on a CD tile, something 3* Thor and KK way outstrip him of, AND they both self-accelerate! Not to mention that at his boosted level of 138, he's only doing 1968, which Thor and KK both scoff at as well (it could be higher, but I doubt it's keeping up at that pace; I'm happy to be proven wrong though). Thanos's green offers to move him to the front of the team so he can get KOed faster, I guess. So... yay?

3* Thanos is a bad character in the current meta. The 5* is the best of its tier, but the 3* I believe is the new bottom of the barrel. I'd rather use Carnage or Sentry any day...

Do you like 3* Thanos? Great! Use him! Most people don't agree (but we have to use him anyway because Unstable ISO-8 says so)!

Edit: Just checked him boosted. He's boosted to 138 from 40. His black, at 5 covers, does 3722 damage to enemies and 3333 to allies. This sounds marginally better on the surface. However, it's not! Consider this:

For the passive to trigger, you have to down an enemy. This means that, at best, 3* Thanos is doing 3722 * 2 still active enemies = 7444 total damage to the enemy team, and 6666 to your team (ironic at this level?). Passively.

Again as a comparison, at level 178, Sentry is doing 4020 * potentially 3 enemies = 12,060 damage to the enemy team and 1269 * potentially 3 allies to your team = 3807.

If that doesn't convince you that 3* Thanos is a generally bad play unless you're using self-healers (lol, who heals that fast besides OML) or characters you don't give a hoot about, I don't know what will.

Edit again: After digging in the Character forum a little more, I found that Thanos does 4277 team damage with his green at level 166, 5 covers. He actually does outdo Kamala at this level; she's "only" dealing 3390, but she still does have the self-acceleration and non-reliance of a CD tile to deal hers. Likewise with Thor; he is 4518 single target, 2259 to remaining enemies at the same level for 2 more AP, but he also carries the self-acceleration/no CD reliance. I guess you could bring Flaptain to boost the CD and Thor or KK or IM40 to boost green AP... but... why?

smkspy

Meh, him being a bottom tier 3 makes it easier to slowly build him and champ him. I just hope they give him a good 4 star as the champ reward.

Smudge

smkspy wrote:

Meh, him being a bottom tier 3 makes it easier to slowly build him and champ him. I just hope they give him a good 4 star as the champ reward.

That's the best thing about him! His champ reward is Red Hulk.

smkspy

So he's a dupe reward character too...double zonk. Now I really won't put any effort into max champing him.

revskip

Smudge wrote:

nyck1118 wrote:

What hell whiners. It goes off what. Twice? Once per kill. And it's not that big of a deal. He'll bring in a strike tile guy and it's awesome. Helps speed things along

Difference of opinion on what most regard as a bad character != whining. Do you like Sentry? Great! Use him! Most people don't.

Do you like Vision? Great! Use him! Many people prefer to bypass him because he has to tank to make his blue worthwhile, and he just isn't a priority compared to so many other options at the 3* tier.

3* Thanos takes those two characters and makes everything worse. My level 40 Thanos would, at 4 covers, do 975 team damage passively to everyone except Thanos when I down an opposing character, meaning I have limited control over whether I take the damage. And that's unboosted.

By comparison, at 5 red covers, Sentry does 141 * 9 red tiles = 1269 team damage per character. Granted, he hits himself, but that's also a level 178 Sentry. He's also dishing out 1608 base + 268 * 9 red tiles = 4020 damage to the entire enemy team (per character). Thanos, at 4 black, is doing only 948 to the enemy team.

Even if you bump Thanos to 5 covers, he's at 1307 enemy, 1170 team. The divide between friendly/foe damage is not great, and you again only have limited control over it.

To my Vision comment, I offered a more detailed analysis in the Character forum thread Vhailorx started, but suffice it to say that Thanos does everything Vision's blue does with his purple, but Thanos does a much worse job of it than Vision. He doesn't get the board control 5* Thanos gets, and his damage is way lower than the boost Vision gets.

Even Thanos's green nuke relies on a CD tile, something 3* Thor and KK way outstrip him of, AND they both self-accelerate! Not to mention that at his boosted level of 138, he's only doing 1968, which Thor and KK both scoff at as well (it could be higher, but I doubt it's keeping up at that pace; I'm happy to be proven wrong though). Thanos's green offers to move him to the front of the team so he can get KOed faster, I guess. So... yay?

3* Thanos is a bad character in the current meta. The 5* is the best of its tier, but the 3* I believe is the new bottom of the barrel. I'd rather use Carnage or Sentry any day...

Do you like 3* Thanos? Great! Use him! Most people don't agree (but we have to use him anyway because Unstable ISO-8 says so)!

Edit: Just checked him boosted. He's boosted to 138 from 40. His black, at 5 covers, does 3722 damage to enemies and 3333 to allies. This sounds marginally better on the surface. However, it's not! Consider this:

For the passive to trigger, you have to down an enemy. This means that, at best, 3* Thanos is doing 3722 * 2 still active enemies = 7444 total damage to the enemy team, and 6666 to your team (ironic at this level?). Passively.

Again as a comparison, at level 178, Sentry is doing 4020 * potentially 3 enemies = 12,060 damage to the enemy team and 1269 * potentially 3 allies to your team = 3807.

If that doesn't convince you that 3* Thanos is a generally bad play unless you're using self-healers (lol, who heals that fast besides OML) or characters you don't give a hoot about, I don't know what will.

Edit again: After digging in the Character forum a little more, I found that Thanos does 4277 team damage with his green at level 166, 5 covers. He actually does outdo Kamala at this level; she's "only" dealing 3390, but she still does have the self-acceleration and non-reliance of a CD tile to deal hers. Likewise with Thor; he is 4518 single target, 2259 to remaining enemies at the same level for 2 more AP, but he also carries the self-acceleration/no CD reliance. I guess you could bring Flaptain to boost the CD and Thor or KK or IM40 to boost green AP... but... why?

I don't particularly like 3Thanos but he does add a puzzle aspect to matches which is a nice departure from some of the fire and forget 3*s. Bring 4* Punisher and stun him before downing enemies, or bring Colossus and send him flying before downing enemies or pair him with a good AOE character and down everyone at once. Actually adding more Puzzle to Puzzle Quest can't be a bad thing. He definitely at least captures the flavor of the character.

Smudge

revskip wrote:

I don't particularly like 3Thanos but he does add a puzzle aspect to matches which is a nice departure from some of the fire and forget 3*s. Bring 4* Punisher and stun him before downing enemies, or bring Colossus and send him flying before downing enemies or pair him with a good AOE character and down everyone at once. Actually adding more Puzzle to Puzzle Quest can't be a bad thing. He definitely at least captures the flavor of the character.

When you start talking about ways of using a character that involve not using that character, it's a badly designed character. I agree with the puzzle aspect being good, but you're specifically trying to circumvent the character. I also agree that it captures the flavor of Thanos; he shouldn't play nice with others. This is a poor design choice of that in my personal opinion; he shouldn't play well with others, but the fact that he plays so poorly with others means I'll never want to use him.

SummerGlau

Thanos is probably the first character truly designed around the idea of playing solo, which if you aren't careful he may end up doing

Crnch73

I think it is just dumb that no matter who kills the enemy, Thanos' power fires off. I initially thought that it only fired when he killed the enemy, which could be easy to work around so that Thanos never dealt the killing blow. However, having him penalize you for winning? C'mon now

Tiger_Wong

Guys guys guys......

Use Elektra with him. Activate her before killing a character. She doesn't take the damage, and you deal more to whoever is left.

fanghoul

A puzzle who's best solution seems to be "throw away all his black covers" doesn't seem like a very good puzzle to me. The rest of his powers aren't that great, so why would I want to max level him if it also means adding some major drawbacks to using him?

SummerGlau

Tiger Wong wrote:

Guys guys guys......

Use Elektra with him. Activate her before killing a character. She doesn't take the damage, and you deal more to whoever is left.

it's not enemy damage, which is why Captain marvel's energy absorption won't work either

Rick_OShay

Come on guys, USE his black. Play Thanos with characters that you can afford to get hurt. How many roster slots do you have? Dust off a few other teammates. Enjoy the game using more than 5 routine characters.
I played the Thanos node with Patch and Daken (both champs) for the first two clears. These guys recovered the damage right away in the next match. Then I actually enjoyed getting other allies out to get hit for the next two clears, who cares, it's fun.
Ragnarok is actually a decent teammate. Red spams blue tiles, which then Blue heals Rags if needed and then creates green charged tiles for himself, or for Thanos to use.

Now, using him in PvP is probably not great, until you put him out on defense (maybe).

revskip

Smudge wrote:

revskip wrote:

I don't particularly like 3Thanos but he does add a puzzle aspect to matches which is a nice departure from some of the fire and forget 3*s. Bring 4* Punisher and stun him before downing enemies, or bring Colossus and send him flying before downing enemies or pair him with a good AOE character and down everyone at once. Actually adding more Puzzle to Puzzle Quest can't be a bad thing. He definitely at least captures the flavor of the character.

When you start talking about ways of using a character that involve not using that character, it's a badly designed character. I agree with the puzzle aspect being good, but you're specifically trying to circumvent the character. I also agree that it captures the flavor of Thanos; he shouldn't play nice with others. This is a poor design choice of that in my personal opinion; he shouldn't play well with others, but the fact that he plays so poorly with others means I'll never want to use him.

One of my other favorite 3*s actually plays decently well with him and also has a power that requires you to think about how and when it will fire. Patch was one of my first 3*s and figuring out who to pair him with to maximize his effectiveness was one of the most fun parts of the 3* transition. Since he is a true healer he also mitigates the court death effect quite well.

I don't love the rest of Thanos' skillset which I think is the bigger knock on him. The purple needs to do more than just buff match damage to make it something I would plan a team around. The green is pretty decent although most of the characters I would use him with have a green that is more attractive. But having him as an essential is definitely forcing people to "puzzle" ways around him. Which I enjoy even if I am very much in the minority. There are plenty of characters I only use when they are essentials and Thanos will be relegated to that group but I'm okay with that. Especially considering that the power creep 3* Strange exhibited instantly made him one of the top three 3*s. Thanos balanced that out with a bottom 5 character that needs to be planned around.

madok

Rick OShay wrote:

Come on guys, USE his black. Play Thanos with characters that you can afford to get hurt. How many roster slots do you have? Dust off a few other teammates. Enjoy the game using more than 5 routine characters.
I played the Thanos node with Patch and Daken (both champs) for the first two clears. These guys recovered the damage right away in the next match. Then I actually enjoyed getting other allies out to get hit for the next two clears, who cares, it's fun.
Ragnarok is actually a decent teammate. Red spams blue tiles, which then Blue heals Rags if needed and then creates green charged tiles for himself, or for Thanos to use.

Now, using him in PvP is probably not great, until you put him out on defense (maybe).

This can be an issue if your scaling is bad enough in PVE events.

Jam_Adams

if Court Death fired only when Thanos makes the kill shot (a la bulls3ye), he would be an A-OK character. not top tier, but definitely not utter trash.

granne

Agreed. That's what I thought was meant when I read the pre-release info. Still kind of expecting the Devs to come back in the new year and say, "Oh, sh...inykitty".

MushroomGenius808

BoyWonder1914

Tiger Wong wrote:

Guys guys guys......

Use Elektra with him. Activate her before killing a character. She doesn't take the damage, and you deal more to whoever is left.

I applaud your out-of-box thinking, but Elektra isn't a character that most people are going to have covered/leveled well enough to pull that off. I'm also not seeing where on her black it says that teammates are protected from the damage. However I don't use or fight her at all really, so maybe I'm wrong about that. In either case, 10 black AP isn't exactly cheap, and you'd be counting on all of those trap tiles not being matched away in time for you to put someone down, which can be a hard thing to do. On the Thanos node yesterday, Moonstone had 15K health, and Venom and Daken had 10K after 4 clears. It was like Thanos wasn't even there anyway, and all damage he did was laughable.....well except to my other team members that he helped kill

If they made his black only affect the enemy team, that'd instantly raise his stock. Or hell, even just making it be HIM that needs to down someone to trigger it would work for me. I'm all for abilities activated on death, Bulls3y3 is one of my favorites. It makes sense for him to have an ability like this of course, but they could have executed it way better.

His purple is the one power I don't have any issues with, but it's still pretty mediocre unless you've got him champed. Even then as someone else pointed out, his 260% increase to match damage usually falls short of what Vision's blue density adds. Purple, Black, and Green aren't easy colors for me to have him tanking at this level, especially since I prob won't have him champed for a while.

Green is just....i don't even know. There's no real tactical advantage of any kind putting your weakest character at front for 4 turns, and you have absolutely no choice unless that cd gets destroyed. Sure him dying isn't the worst thing, but being down a person is never good when your strategy usually centers on your keeping your folks alive so you can use all of their abilities in conjunction.

Not sure why they felt they had to make this guy, and even give him duplicate rewards as someone as at that. Tsk tsk.

Arimis_Thorn

fmftint wrote:

Speaking of 3nos black, why do covers 3/4 hurt YOUR team more than the enemy team?

This actually deserves a formal response. Is this really the intended design? If so, why (specifically the effect for the 3rd and 4th cover)?

Dragon_Nexus

Smudge wrote:

<posts a Thanos critique that's spot on>