** Black Widow (Original) ** [PRE 2014-06]

Nightglider1

Yep. Her Level 5 antigrav behavior might be frustrating, but it's not a bug.

Unknown

locked wrote:

Ew, Psyko. If you are unable to do so yourself...
Okay, what are other AP stealers?

Hood - extremely good, not 100% fool-proof but neither is oBW. You have to actively watch your enemy AP levels and the board. His steal is passive and is arguably better (as easy to use on offense, fool-proof for the AI on defense).
mBW - works the same, is good on levels 1-2. A one-star, so not really comparable for PvP.
Yelena - works the same, also deals laughable damage, but non-comparable as Yelena is *THE* worst character in the game and a one-star to boot so it's okay to be miles better than her.
Daredevil - non-comparable as he utilizes a different mechanism, traps. Higher risk/reward.
Psylocke - non-comparable as she utilizes a different mechanism (a CD tile). Higher risk/reward. If you steal 19+ of green/red, it's probably game over after that. (Ignoring the fact that her steal is on a highly contested colour and thus not very useful so far.)

I don't get what your gripe is. Let's demand to nerf Daredevil as his traps are the most powerful in the game, huh? Nerf Patch as his Berserker Rage is the most powerful in the game?
oBW is, for all points and purposes, the only usable PvP character with an active steal on an otherwise 'dead' colour. Therefore, your asking for reasons and comparisons looks silly for a lack of a better word.
Should we bring oBW more in line with Yelena and mBW? Should we?
Well, just name your favourite characters then. Is it lazyThor? Do I even have to state that he's OP like no other character right now? Etc, etc.

Lazy Thor is another subject but yeah he is very obviously the most OP 3*.

Ok so 1st when you talked about OBW you used her lvl 3/5 recon as an example. This implies that she is better at 3/5 instead of 5/5 which is 1 reason why I stated the move was broken, or else you would have used 5/5 as the example.

At lvl 3/5 that can be easily done in 3 matches. 2 if you find a match 4 or 5 on the board. So after she makes 3 pink matches she has the ability to create a 30ap turn around. 3 of every color stolen x 5 = 15. - 15 to opponent + 15 to you = 30ap.
The hood if doing very well will steal 3ap per turn. More often than not it's actually 2. Let's say with him stealing 3 per turn over 3 turns that is an 18ap turn around. -9 to enemy + 9 to you. So that is a max of 18ap turnaround in 3 turns at lvl 5/5 for the hood. So it takes him 2 more covers for his blue than it does for OBW pink yet steals potentially only 60% of the ap OBW steals.

The hood when he steals your ap, simply steals your ap. Sure, you can't get your attacks off on him but you can dwindle him down with match damage and be on your way. If OBW steals from you not only does she **** down your moves and power your enemies, not gradually like the hood, but all at once. You can't dwindle her down with match damage. She heals herself after. So now you can't get a single move off, especially when using a 3* team that costs mostly 10+ ap per move anyways. You are a sitting duck with 0 ap while your opponent has potentially dozens and full health. I've never once seen hood create this scenario. After that you are stuck in the trap because she continually steals and heals every other turn after that basically.


Now let's move OBW to 5/5 where she should be at her best. She now steals 4 of all 6 colors for 11ap.
With the hood you get your 4 turns at 3 per turn. Potential 24 ap turnaround. - 12 for enemy +12 for you.
OBW after 4 turns will use her *11ap* and potentially steal 48ap. 6x4 =24. -24 to enemy +24 to you.
Double the difference of a 3*. You may make the argument that she isn't gonna steal all 48ap. Well, rainbow teams are everywhere and so is OBW. I've seen the full 48 get taken many times. Usually you're gonna lose at least 30- if she gets a lvl 5 off. Something the hood doesn't even have the potential to do she is gonna get nearly every time.

You have said "no one uses the spidey OBW combo. I will give you that more recently less people are using it with the release of tanky characters such as lt and bp. A couple months back it was very abundant combo. Taking OBW/patch/spidey or OBW/patch/hood can be very brutal teams to face. Punisher can also sub in for patch in these 2 combos. Just because you don't use the combo doesn't mean it isn't a great combo and often used by others.

That's all I'm gonna explain right now. There's many more arguments against her in the "who's next in line for balancing" thread I mentioned earlier but the link didn't show up. It's all the same argument as usual for OBW though.

Exce1sior

Guess I'm wrong then. I wish they would just spell it out in plain English. Strange, I used to have my OBW's blue power maxed and never remember it happening for me in the many matches I played against HAMMER and Maggia. Looks like I need to respec.

Unknown

Psykopathic wrote:

Ok so far we have had more talk about how she's an awesome healer. We have had more talk about how she can be beaten and strategies to fight her. We have had more comments about how I should go away and stop defending my point so you can deliver your opinions freely and without opposition. What no one has done is show some good date about how her pink is balanced compared to other ap stealers and how her pink is not a broken skill. I'm starting to think that no one out there can provide this since it's all I've tried to get through the entire thread and the 1 thing no one will respond too. (Unless you count locked and their rant about how to focus all your attention on 2* OBW right from the beginning and ignore the lazy Thor and BP sitting next to her ready to clobber you.) isn't focusing all your energy on a specific 2* every time while ignoring all other 2/3/4* until OBW is dead such a great strategy that makes so much sense to have to do. Lmao.

D3 and the rest of us don't have to explain why a specific skill is or is not overpowered or "balanced". The game itself isn't balanced and certain players have overpowered and underpowered skills. Oh well! It's not as if you're skipping all teams with OBW, right?

Personal note: I'm sick of seeing Level 85 OBW and Level 141 Punisher in every PvP. Does that mean I want her nerfed; no; I honestly don't care if she's nerfed or not..... and I'm also not going to pretend that my opinion should be the standard for all.

Unknown

While I'm as tired as the next player of constantly fighting featured+obw+various tanks, she's the only character that makes the game even playable at the 2* level. If not for her, I'd play 2-3 matches and then be out for at least 3 hours. With the points required to reach any relevant placement (i.e. HP reward rank), never mind worthwhile placement (i.e. 3* reward rank), without an OBW, 2* players would be entirely locked out of PvP.

Is her steal pretty damn powerful? Yes it is, especially if we consider that her passive black steals as well, although conditionally. But do we trust them to nerf *only* her steal? I don't. If she is nerfed, it'll be healing + steal and she'll end up another Yelena or Bag Man, making the game basically untenable at the 2* level.

What we need is not an OBW nerf, it's a few more new 2* characters with comparably useful abilities, for more variety. Because the way the game is now, the transition from 2* to 3* has been significantly slowed down, down to potentially locking players into a 2* level for many months if not forever for the more casual players. It makes perfect sense to throw us players who're stuck in 2* land a bone once in a while. And if the high tier players don't want to bother with a PvE that gives out at new 2* as reward? Even better - we get more chances to win one, you'll get an opportunity to sit out an event and lower your scaling. Win-win for everyone.

Unknown

MikeHock wrote:

Psykopathic wrote:

Ok so far we have had more talk about how she's an awesome healer. We have had more talk about how she can be beaten and strategies to fight her. We have had more comments about how I should go away and stop defending my point so you can deliver your opinions freely and without opposition. What no one has done is show some good date about how her pink is balanced compared to other ap stealers and how her pink is not a broken skill. I'm starting to think that no one out there can provide this since it's all I've tried to get through the entire thread and the 1 thing no one will respond too. (Unless you count locked and their rant about how to focus all your attention on 2* OBW right from the beginning and ignore the lazy Thor and BP sitting next to her ready to clobber you.) isn't focusing all your energy on a specific 2* every time while ignoring all other 2/3/4* until OBW is dead such a great strategy that makes so much sense to have to do. Lmao.

D3 and the rest of us don't have to explain why a specific skill is or is not overpowered or "balanced". The game itself isn't balanced and certain players have overpowered and underpowered skills. Oh well! It's not as if you're skipping all teams with OBW, right?

Personal note: I'm sick of seeing Level 85 OBW and Level 141 Punisher in every PvP. Does that mean I want her nerfed; no; I honestly don't care if she's nerfed or not..... and I'm also not going to pretend that my opinion should be the standard for all.

Ok so you continue with the tactic of just trying to shut down conversation while just providing opinion with nothing to back it up.

Unknown

Carthl wrote:

While I'm as tired as the next player of constantly fighting featured+obw+various tanks, she's the only character that makes the game even playable at the 2* level. If not for her, I'd play 2-3 matches and then be out for at least 3 hours. With the points required to reach any relevant placement (i.e. HP reward rank), never mind worthwhile placement (i.e. 3* reward rank), without an OBW, 2* players would be entirely locked out of PvP.

Is her steal pretty damn powerful? Yes it is, especially if we consider that her passive black steals as well, although conditionally. But do we trust them to nerf *only* her steal? I don't. If she is nerfed, it'll be healing + steal and she'll end up another Yelena or Bag Man, making the game basically untenable at the 2* level.

What we need is not an OBW nerf, it's a few more new 2* characters with comparably useful abilities, for more variety. Because the way the game is now, the transition from 2* to 3* has been significantly slowed down, down to potentially locking players into a 2* level for many months if not forever for the more casual players. It makes perfect sense to throw us players who're stuck in 2* land a bone once in a while. And if the high tier players don't want to bother with a PvE that gives out at new 2* as reward? Even better - we get more chances to win one, you'll get an opportunity to sit out an event and lower your scaling. Win-win for everyone.

A fair point that has been made many times and has been for the most part agreed with. There needs to be more 2 & 3* with similar abilities as to OBW and spidey. However, myself and others have also stated here that we did just fine getting through the 2-3* transition phase without use of OBW. It's plenty possible she just makes it way easier. And once again no one is saying to destroy her. Just that her pink is broken in multiple ways. No one is looking at the mechanics and logic behind everything. You are all just basing on opinions and that you don't want your shiny toys taken away. I use spidey and patch in nearly every team. Spidey is about to get hammered. You don't see me in his thread whining about that. He was broke and he needed fix. OBW is broke and she needs fixed. I put a simple solution that would by now and cripple her a page or 2 back. I'm sure there's many others that would do so as well. No one wants to think about how she could still be a fun character with a well-working pink ability. You see nerf/balance and take it as a negative and get hostile. I'm in the forums for productive conversation. If you don't wanna join the topic and be productive. If you only wanna join to complain or tell others to shut up, then why join? I mean, it's a thread about OBW being way too abundant in pvp. There's only gonna be 2 groups responding to that. People that think there needs to be more to fill the role. People that think she is OP. I happen to be both.

Unknown

I'm sorry but the whole lucky cascade argument is ridiculous. There are LOTS of heroes with abilities that screw you over if they get a lucky cascade. People just get frustrated by OBW because it's something of a slow painful death rather than a 141 C.Mags magnetic translocating one of your heroes to death with 10 purple. Fact is any hero that CAN'T do anything useful with a lucky cascade is essentially useless on defence, a category a lot of heroes fall into and why people spend ages debating what the best defensive team is.

Her purple is good, but so are a LOT of abilities in the game and it doesn't mean a hero has to be nerfed, tweaked, adjusted, whatever because of it. A 141 Hood is significantly more dangerous on defence than an 85 OBW assuming the rest of the team is well put together and just like OBW he'll still lose pretty much all the time because the ai is really really bad at the game. So you have a 2* AP stealer who's better than the 1* options (MBW, Yelena) better than a 2* stealer who also does damage when both stun (DD) and worse than a 3* stealer (Hood). Sounds like some kind of bizarre "balance".

If every other hero wasn't some variety of doing damage, possibly with a weird mechanic which the AI entirely can't handle then there wouldn't be so much OBW around. If you want to see her less argue for a new 2* (and ideally 3*) control/AP gen/AP steal type hero +/- heal. On the other hand we could ensure defensive wins are EVEN less likely than they are now by nerfing anything the ai can't screw up completely.

Unknown

bonfire01 wrote:

If every other hero wasn't some variety of doing damage, possibly with a weird mechanic which the AI entirely can't handle then there wouldn't be so much OBW around. If you want to see her less argue for a new 2* (and ideally 3*) control/AP gen/AP steal type hero +/- heal. On the other hand we could ensure defensive wins are EVEN less likely than they are now by nerfing anything the ai can't screw up completely.

I'm seeing people saying more 2* would make it harder for transitioning players by diluting the hero pool, but with the new random covers as rewards I really see no reason for at least another 2* that can fill OBW's role a bit.
Hell, even release a 3* version along with it, like a 2* Jean Grey/ 3* Phoenix or something.

Unknown

sup123 wrote:

bonfire01 wrote:

If every other hero wasn't some variety of doing damage, possibly with a weird mechanic which the AI entirely can't handle then there wouldn't be so much OBW around. If you want to see her less argue for a new 2* (and ideally 3*) control/AP gen/AP steal type hero +/- heal. On the other hand we could ensure defensive wins are EVEN less likely than they are now by nerfing anything the ai can't screw up completely.

I'm seeing people saying more 2* would make it harder for transitioning players by diluting the hero pool, but with the new random covers as rewards I really see no reason for at least another 2* that can fill OBW's role a bit.
Hell, even release a 3* version along with it, like a 2* Jean Grey/ 3* Phoenix or something.

That would be awesome! I was actually thinking something like that myself. Lol. After all the destruction from sentry entering the battle there are many wounded. 2 new healers simultaneously released from the following Pve. 2* covers are very abundant now with the new feature. I've been loving the ISO from them.

over_clocked

Psykopathic wrote:

Ok so 1st when you talked about OBW you used her lvl 3/5 recon as an example. This implies that she is better at 3/5 instead of 5/5 which is 1 reason why I stated the move was broken, or else you would have used 5/5 as the example.

That's the common opinion but likewise you have lots of people defending the 5/5/3 build (which is probably better for PvE as there are more dangerous purple abilities out there). pasa of scAvengers even religiously proclaims 5/3/5 to be the best, *the only* correct build.

Psykopathic wrote:

If OBW steals from you not only does she tinykitty down your moves and power your enemies, not gradually like the hood, but all at once. You can't dwindle her down with match damage. She heals herself after. So now you can't get a single move off, especially when using a 3* team that costs mostly 10+ ap per move anyways. You are a sitting duck with 0 ap while your opponent has potentially dozens and full health. I've never once seen hood create this scenario. After that you are stuck in the trap because she continually steals and heals every other turn after that basically.

Do you die to oBW often? How come? I'm sorry but I'm just gonna laugh at your expense.
The only time I lose to oBW teams is when they get the most ridiculous purple cascades off and even that's becoming rare, as 3*s usually have enough health to weather some damage and still win. I presume that's the way with absolute most players.
You complaining that your team often loses after an enemy Recon sounds an awful lot like 'enemy Thor used Thunderstrike, got 14 green and I lost - NOT FAIR! He has the means to charge his green and I am unable of watching enemy AP levels!'
Hood doesn't steal as aggressively and openly as Widow but then again that's his strength. People tend to discard his passive to get a nasty surprise mid-game. Oh and I faced defensive Hood's last-second ONE AP steal that led to my defeat, often enough to recognize his threat level (high). He's in no way worse than oBW and even stronger due to being a 3*.

Psykopathic wrote:

You have said "no one uses the spidey OBW combo. I will give you that more recently less people are using it with the release of tanky characters such as lt and bp. A couple months back it was very abundant combo. Taking OBW/patch/spidey or OBW/patch/hood can be very brutal teams to face. Punisher can also sub in for patch in these 2 combos. Just because you don't use the combo doesn't mean it isn't a great combo and often used by others.

I'm sorry, what? You just derail more and more. In what way oBW/Patch/Hood is an oBW/Spidey combo? And I have great uses for oBW, so don't you worry about me. In fact, Punisher/Hood/oBW is my favourite combo when it's not Pun/cMags.

over_clocked

People losing to oBW on offense, sheesh.

Next time I lose to Patch on offense, should I demand his nerf? (Not that that ever happens, though - but I'm like most players and most players do NOT usually lose on offense.)

Unknown

locked wrote:

People losing to oBW on offense, sheesh.

Next time I lose to Patch on offense, should I demand his nerf? (Not that that ever happens, though - but I'm like most players and most players do NOT usually lose on offense.)

Another post full of insults and little to nothing productive. You're a troll dude. I'm done even trying to communicate with you.

over_clocked

Now I'm the one being unproductive and insulting, great! *sarcasm*

And that goes to show what kind of people oBW haters are.
*actuall trolling*

DD-The-Mighty

Psykopathic wrote:

Carthl wrote:

While I'm as tired as the next player of constantly fighting featured+obw+various tanks, she's the only character that makes the game even playable at the 2* level. If not for her, I'd play 2-3 matches and then be out for at least 3 hours. With the points required to reach any relevant placement (i.e. HP reward rank), never mind worthwhile placement (i.e. 3* reward rank), without an OBW, 2* players would be entirely locked out of PvP.

Is her steal pretty damn powerful? Yes it is, especially if we consider that her passive black steals as well, although conditionally. But do we trust them to nerf *only* her steal? I don't. If she is nerfed, it'll be healing + steal and she'll end up another Yelena or Bag Man, making the game basically untenable at the 2* level.

What we need is not an OBW nerf, it's a few more new 2* characters with comparably useful abilities, for more variety. Because the way the game is now, the transition from 2* to 3* has been significantly slowed down, down to potentially locking players into a 2* level for many months if not forever for the more casual players. It makes perfect sense to throw us players who're stuck in 2* land a bone once in a while. And if the high tier players don't want to bother with a PvE that gives out at new 2* as reward? Even better - we get more chances to win one, you'll get an opportunity to sit out an event and lower your scaling. Win-win for everyone.

A fair point that has been made many times and has been for the most part agreed with. There needs to be more 2 & 3* with similar abilities as to OBW and spidey. However, myself and others have also stated here that we did just fine getting through the 2-3* transition phase without use of OBW. It's plenty possible she just makes it way easier. And once again no one is saying to destroy her. Just that her pink is broken in multiple ways. No one is looking at the mechanics and logic behind everything. You are all just basing on opinions and that you don't want your shiny toys taken away. I use spidey and patch in nearly every team. Spidey is about to get hammered. You don't see me in his thread whining about that. He was broke and he needed fix. OBW is broke and she needs fixed. I put a simple solution that would by now and cripple her a page or 2 back. I'm sure there's many others that would do so as well. No one wants to think about how she could still be a fun character with a well-working pink ability. You see nerf/balance and take it as a negative and get hostile. I'm in the forums for productive conversation. If you don't wanna join the topic and be productive. If you only wanna join to complain or tell others to shut up, then why join? I mean, it's a thread about OBW being way too abundant in pvp. There's only gonna be 2 groups responding to that. People that think there needs to be more to fill the role. People that think she is OP. I happen to be both.

The landscape in which you were in the 2* ghetto was very different than the one players currently are in. Heck even 4 months ago it was drastically different. Even with the minor spike in random 2*s from pvp wins leveling a specific 2* is a nightmare now. A lot more grinding and waiting around from some random pull. If things were the same as before; fine. but the "i got over it, so should you." dismissal is weak now.

Unknown

@DD I did think about that a lil bit and it's a fair point. With the higher # of 3* the transition is harder and the landscape has changed. I do think though the healing is the aspect that is relied on.

Something else I thought of. With spidey being nerfed very soon and OBW being on the same level as him for ap steal, are people still gonna see a need to level hood or spidey? OBW seems like she fills both their roles to an equal degree now less spidey still has a lil stun. However she is way more abundant than either and takes 1/2 the ISO. The entire 2* tier of players could just stick with her forever and just level 2 tanky people.
LT / L Dak
LT / BP
LT / HT
LT / Hulk

Basically team up any 2 on the right as well. Throw OBW in an you have everything you need. I might even finally level her.

Then again adding some new healers and new ap thiefs would also fix this problem. Totally down for more characters. But are they really gonna give us 2-6 new utility characters like would be needed right in a row like that? Even if so it would still take some time for people to acquire them.

I blocked locked btw. I'm not trying to shut y'all's arguments down. I want to hear every side of the argument. Just trying to keep convo civil and open minded.

Unknown

DD-The-Mighty wrote:

The landscape in which you were in the 2* ghetto was very different than the one players currently are in. Heck even 4 months ago it was drastically different. Even with the minor spike in random 2*s from pvp wins leveling a specific 2* is a nightmare now. A lot more grinding and waiting around from some random pull. If things were the same as before; fine. but the "i got over it, so should you." dismissal is weak now.

Based on tracking my pvp rewards, you get a 2-star ~ 4.6 - 5% of the time. I've said this before as well, but there's some numbers to back it up. Also, average ISO tends to increase with ranking, based on what I've observed, so it's mostly people with 3-star rosters or with full 2-star/ transitioning, who're pulling most of those covers. So basically intermediate players are screwed right now, unless they drop a lot of money on cover packs, or manually upgrading powers. The way it used to be, second tier rewards gave out 3x ** s so you could still advance, even if you didn't get top tier rewards.

In that context, their recent changes make a lot more sense. They've decided to lump all vets into death brackets to basically say "get lost", reduced chance of getting ***'s in cover packs (what little chance there was already), nerfed *** tokens, and refocused on monetizing ** territory to get them in the habit of paying for covers and shields and health packs etc.., so they're (presumably) more okay with paying way more when they get to *** land.

As players, no one really wins here. Not the hardcores, not the vet casuals, or transitioning players, not the intermediates. The only ones they haven't screwed over yet are the fresh meat 1-star people, because they need to hook them in, so they can't nerf the fun out of there yet or else they'll have nothing to advertise with.

Nellobee

I seriously just signed up for a forum account to complain that OBW is ****. I'm at the 2* level, and I can win against almost everyone else at that level consistently. Against OBW I'm maybe at a 40% win rate. And that's if I focus-fire her, try to deny her both blue and purple, etc.

Obviously, I don't have her covers or I'd use her, but this is ridiculous. I feel like I'm massively underpowered in comparison to any other 3x85 team that has her.

Unknown

Don't you love Oterseys way of communication.
Check the note on the down vote at top of this page.
It's a wonder why I get frustrated in this thread when people I'm talking to are doing such childish things as to hide insults in the midst of their rep bombing me. Lol

over_clocked

Firstly, if you cannot shut down oBW without your own oBW, you probably need to choose your characters more wisely (Ares is great at downing oBW from what I hear, cStorm/MMN utilize blue and purple and can stun>kill oBW), secondly, you will eventually get her too, as 2* covers drop like rain now.
Yes, oBW demands being focused early, but there are other similar characters (both Storms, the Hood).