Soul Gem Season Character Update (1/9/17)

notamutant

Mr_Sinister wrote:

notamutant wrote:

Wow. This buff is huge. Blue still stinks, but yellow is now incredible. Red is now basically like 3 star Cap's red, but no ability to place the CD or overwrite other tiles. Will have to look at damage numbers for yellow again to verify how great he is now, but this should definitely push him up there to at least be as useful as IM.

How does blue stink? It's 7ap, scales up damage with special tiles and destroys AP. How is any of that bad?

1) 7 AP for 3k damage, which is nothing. BB does more a turn for free, and he creates charged tiles.

2) It is 428 damage per AP. It does no extra damage unless you use another power first which also creates special tiles. Even with 4 special tiles out (after using yellow once), it is still just average 5 star damage at around 1k an AP.

3) It is only 1 AP and it is random, so it is all but meaningless.

All those combined make for a mediocre move. Its cheapness is nice, but ultimately not that big of a deal.

Vhailorx

notamutant wrote:

Mr_Sinister wrote:

notamutant wrote:

Wow. This buff is huge. Blue still stinks, but yellow is now incredible. Red is now basically like 3 star Cap's red, but no ability to place the CD or overwrite other tiles. Will have to look at damage numbers for yellow again to verify how great he is now, but this should definitely push him up there to at least be as useful as IM.

How does blue stink? It's 7ap, scales up damage with special tiles and destroys AP. How is any of that bad?

1) 7 AP for 3k damage, which is nothing. BB does more a turn for free, and he creates charged tiles.

2) It is 428 damage per AP. It does no extra damage unless you use another power first which also creates special tiles. Even with 4 special tiles out (after using yellow once), it is still just average 5 star damage at around 1k an AP.

3) It is only 1 AP and it is random, so it is all but meaningless.

All those combined make for a mediocre move. Its cheapness is nice, but ultimately not that big of a deal.

But add a tile spammer and it can do almost 13k for the same 7ap (and destroys 7 enemy ap). It wont end matches by itself. But it will be annoying to fight and will help mop up after using his yellow.

you say that it's only average damage damage with 4 tiles out on the board. But it's easy to get 4 tiles out; it's even pretty easy to get 8 out. the problem with his old power was that he consumed the tiles. So the investment of producing the tiles had to be added to the cost of his blue to properly calculate its value. But now you get to keep the tiles, so you can use the same 8 to fuel blue for multiple casts, and the tiles also provide their own independent value.

I don't think "terrible" is an accurate description.

mpqr7

Very cool. I have him at 9 covers... now I'm more excited to champion him in a few years, when I get the last 4 covers (after I draw plenty of dupes).

Vhailorx

For everyone's reference re: Cap's yellow

At 450:
Yellow - Falcon swoops across the battlefield, deflecting incoming attacks with his wings. He places 2 strength 1366 Yellow Protect tiles.
Red - Winter Soldier steadies his rifle and fires off a shot dealing 9291 damage.
Purple - Ant-Man summons a swarm of ants into the fray! Places 2 strength 765 Purple Attack tiles.
Blue - Hawkeye fires off an electric arrow, stunning a random enemy for 2 turns.
Green - Scarlet Witch rends spacetime, dealing 3280 damage to the enemy team.

Orion

I'd like to care, but since the game has made it nearly impossible to cover these Classic 5*s, I really don't care one bit. I doubt the game will ever let me fully cover him at this point.

royalflush95

My 1/0/0 Cap. America is delighted with this change.

DFiPL

Not super thrilled that they've gone from two rebalances per season to one each of the last two. But at least Cap is my most-covered 5*, so there's that.

STOPTHIS

*sigh* Another season of soft capping Rags, Psylocke, and Colossus.

notamutant

Vhailorx wrote:

notamutant wrote:

Mr_Sinister wrote:

notamutant wrote:

Wow. This buff is huge. Blue still stinks, but yellow is now incredible. Red is now basically like 3 star Cap's red, but no ability to place the CD or overwrite other tiles. Will have to look at damage numbers for yellow again to verify how great he is now, but this should definitely push him up there to at least be as useful as IM.

How does blue stink? It's 7ap, scales up damage with special tiles and destroys AP. How is any of that bad?

1) 7 AP for 3k damage, which is nothing. BB does more a turn for free, and he creates charged tiles.

2) It is 428 damage per AP. It does no extra damage unless you use another power first which also creates special tiles. Even with 4 special tiles out (after using yellow once), it is still just average 5 star damage at around 1k an AP.

3) It is only 1 AP and it is random, so it is all but meaningless.

All those combined make for a mediocre move. Its cheapness is nice, but ultimately not that big of a deal.

But add a tile spammer and it can do almost 13k for the same 7ap (and destroys 7 enemy ap). It wont end matches by itself. But it will be annoying to fight and will help mop up after using his yellow.

you say that it's only average damage damage with 4 tiles out on the board. But it's easy to get 4 tiles out; it's even pretty easy to get 8 out. the problem with his old power was that he consumed the tiles. So the investment of producing the tiles had to be added to the cost of his blue to properly calculate its value. But now you get to keep the tiles, so you can use the same 8 to fuel blue for multiple casts, and the tiles also provide their own independent value.

I don't think "terrible" is an accurate description.

I didn't say it was terrible, it just is mediocre, or stinks compared to the other skills. Remember, you have to drop red from 5 to 3 to get this damage, which is a drop in consistent damage to something dependent on special tiles. I also didn't realize it was 1 AP per special tile out, so it might be a bit better. So lets pretend you drop red to 3 to get blue at 5. That means his red will be useless due to low damage and high cost (not to mention it requiring team Cap anyhow). So now you need skills for red, purple, green, and black. For PvP, we only get to choose one partner, so if you are using max Cap, you are using another max 5 star. Who do you bring that creates special tiles? Phoenix red (4 special at 5 red). Hulk black (3 at 5 covers). OML isn't creating any special tiles on his own, so dependent highly on featured character using skills since Cap's are so expensive. Phoenix is pretty much only reliable teammate in my opinion, and you would have to save up that blue AP until you had 9 red and 10 yellow to use Cap's yellow and Phoenix's red skill before using Cap's blue for maximum damage. Meanwhile, your opponent took out half your health since you needed around 26 AP to get real damage from blue. It isn't a horrible skill, but it doesn't make much sense to use it instead of his red or yellow, and it requires too much setup to be worthwhile.

mega ghost

He needed the buff. I'm sure I'll appreciate it two years from now when I have him covered and playable. Sure, I'm disappointed that a fully-covered character in my roster in need of a buff wasn't selected this time around, but I'll make the most of the downtime by focusing on building characters I've neglected over and over again. First, 3* Captain Marvel, perhaps Invisible Woman after that.

Vhailorx

Mutant:

(1) you said it "stinks." to me that's synonymous with "terrible" but apologies if i misread your comment.

(2) oml doesn't make tiles on his own? Are we thinking of the same oml with a black power that makes nice beefy strikes (at the cost of a turn)? Pair oml with cap. Collect 10 yellow and 7 blue. Cast yellow, then cast blue. You will do all of yellow's effects (9k single target, 3.8k aoe, plus stun, plus specials), an additional 10k single target damage and destroy 6 enemy ap. That seems pretty decent for 17 ap across 2 colors.

(3) i am not sure if new cap will have much value in pvp, which requires speed, compatibility with a single partner, and a skillset that can't be ruined by the ai. That's a lot of requirements. But that's not the only measure of value in mpq. Lots of powers have little pvp utility but are definitely not terrible (e.g. 3* cap red and blue).

(4) yes, using blue means dropping red to 3. But shouldn't red be at 3 anyway? If it were a placed cd it might look better. But as is i dont see this power as very compelling. It still does the damage of a 3-match power (in 5* land) like phoenix or ss red. But now it costs almost 4 full matches and has only a randomly placed CD to offset that cost.

(5) and your description also reads like generating the special tiles is an inconvenience. But more strikes is good! And he doesnt consume them any more. Even in your scenario where you "need" 26 ap, you arent just doing bluem. You are doing 8.8k from phoenix red, plus all the stuff from yelloe as described above, plus 13k from blue and 8 ap destruction. And once you fininish you also have 2.6k of protect tiles, 1.2k of strikes, and 1.5k of attack tiles out on the board.

You are right that cap needs tile spammers to play with. But tiles are a big part of the meta right now anyway, and new cap no longer undercuts his allies by destroying their hard earned tiles.

Also, can we all pause for a moment to consider the colossal failure of cap's original design? To make his yellow power usable they had to: (1) reduce the cost by almost 25%; (2) remove the cd functionality of all effects to make them guaranteed, and (3) remove the 'ends the turn' penalty, all without decreasing the effects of the power at all. How the hell was this power ever approved for release?!

spectator

Let see, for pvp there's, storm event, blade, Spider-Man, daken , patch, magneto, beast and bullseye. I'm probably missing a few who produces decent number of special tiles and I didn't count doom since I don't know if traps work

[Deleted User]

I find this character update ok.

But it only affects a small number of players.

A hint for future updates: If you update a 5-Star-Character, please update also a 3-Star-Character (like Sentry)....

And please update Mr. Fantastic.

Mille grazie from snowed in Italy!!!

revskip

Bonny2712 wrote:

A hint for future updates: If you update a 5-Star-Character, please update also a 3-Star-Character (like Sentry)....

Strongly disagree. I like the one character per season. Doing too many at once has the potential to spread the devs thin and every update has unexpected consequences, see the last 4 patches if you don't believe me.

Also really like the changes to 5Steve. He's my most covered 5* and now I don't have to lament that fact.

Chrono_Tata

revskip wrote:

Bonny2712 wrote:

A hint for future updates: If you update a 5-Star-Character, please update also a 3-Star-Character (like Sentry)....

Strongly disagree. I like the one character per season. Doing too many at once has the potential to spread the devs thin and every update has unexpected consequences, see the last 4 patches if you don't believe me.

Also really like the changes to 5Steve. He's my most covered 5* and now I don't have to lament that fact.

I highly doubt that's the case. Character power balancing is the job of the game designer, and the implementation of rebalances are generally pretty trivial. The recent issues seems to have stemmed from some extensive back-end changes that are being implemented by programmers in preparation for some new features. But those back-end changes wouldn't significantly affect rebalancing of existing abilities.

Anyway, without giving any specific details (Don't ban me pls), we already know that there are already several rebalances in the work and being tested, so it's just a matter of rolling them out. If anything, the main reason to space out rebalances is so that they can monitor the effects of the change individually and limit potential of breaking the meta due to some unexpected interactions of certain powers.

Yoik

I appreciate the conscious effort D3 to look at improving your Toon’s that need re work.

Amazed you chose one that is not going to be used by the vast majority of your player base. Even with the changes how many people will suddenly play him?

Pleased there were no nerfs however.

[Deleted User]

revskip wrote:

Bonny2712 wrote:

A hint for future updates: If you update a 5-Star-Character, please update also a 3-Star-Character (like Sentry)....

Strongly disagree. I like the one character per season. Doing too many at once has the potential to spread the devs thin and every update has unexpected consequences, see the last 4 patches if you don't believe me.

Also really like the changes to 5Steve. He's my most covered 5* and now I don't have to lament that fact.

I do understand you! In your position I would probably write the same. But please try to see it with the eyes of thousands of other players. They are waiting a whole season to see then, that the "big" update doesn't affect them at all.

Polares

notamutant wrote:

I didn't say it was terrible, it just is mediocre, or stinks compared to the other skills. Remember, you have to drop red from 5 to 3 to get this damage, which is a drop in consistent damage to something dependent on special tiles. I also didn't realize it was 1 AP per special tile out, so it might be a bit better. So lets pretend you drop red to 3 to get blue at 5. That means his red will be useless due to low damage and high cost (not to mention it requiring team Cap anyhow). So now you need skills for red, purple, green, and black. For PvP, we only get to choose one partner, so if you are using max Cap, you are using another max 5 star. Who do you bring that creates special tiles? Phoenix red (4 special at 5 red). Hulk black (3 at 5 covers). OML isn't creating any special tiles on his own, so dependent highly on featured character using skills since Cap's are so expensive. Phoenix is pretty much only reliable teammate in my opinion, and you would have to save up that blue AP until you had 9 red and 10 yellow to use Cap's yellow and Phoenix's red skill before using Cap's blue for maximum damage. Meanwhile, your opponent took out half your health since you needed around 26 AP to get real damage from blue. It isn't a horrible skill, but it doesn't make much sense to use it instead of his red or yellow, and it requires too much setup to be worthwhile.

You don't need red if you bring PH or OML. Fire PH's red then Cap's blue and you are doing some serious damage, plus the AP stealing (you don't wait until you have 26, you fire it right away when you have 9+7, which is fast to get). And those two just overlap in red. Then with OML, he also creates strikes on black, and then everytime you fire blue it adds two more, and at 7 AP you can fire blue a lot. I think you are being to harsh on his blue.

For me, he is much better now, I think that is obvious.

- Yellow is so much better now. Not an incredible power, but it is good. Removing the countdowns makes all the difference. And now that it creates the 4 special tiles right away it also helps much more his own blue, you can fire yellow and then blue, something you couldn't do before (at least not in a reliable way).
- Red is very similar to 3 Cap's red, but with two big differences. First, it might return a different color, not red (red is not even Cap's strongest color). This might be good to fire other powers as a combo but not to reliably fire this power all the time, which is the big deal with 3 Cap red and blue. There is also the problem of not having Team Cap chars in 5 land. This is a big problem, so most of the time it will return just 7 (If the essential/featured is team cap then 9, but that's it, it is going to be hard to get all the 11AP back).
- Blue is much better now that it doesn't destroy the tiles, THIS IS A BIG DEAL. Now you can use Cap with the other 5s that create tiles (PH, GG or OML are all great candidates), and again this is a big deal because now Cap can be used with other 5 chars (!!!). It might do a bit less damage in total than before, but now it doesn't destroy those precious tiles, and at 7 AP now you can fire this ability A LOT (this ability now is similar to SS's red).

For me 5/3/5 is probably the best build now. We really need some Team Cap chars in 5 land (OML at least should be team Cap) to consider other builds as possible (even though going 3/5/5 and partnering him with GG, to fire Cap's red and then GG's black together is a nice combo).

Big improvement, it is still hard to know where he sits now but probably still mid tier, he probably sits together with SS. I think we can now say that there is no bad 5, the worst now is probably Banner, but at least he is fun to play and unique. This is a big improvement for this tier.


To all those people that are complaining about this change, they should think how cruel it is when you have Cap as the only covered 5 in your roster, this change will help those people a lot. And on the other hand there are 40+ 4s and 40+ 3s, so yeah there are some that still need buffing, but it is not like you can play with other chars!!! (You don't chose which are your most covered 5s)

Mitchjewitz

First thank you devs for rebalancing a clearly broken character. Ever since 5Cap came out (almost a year ago) everyone has been asking for a rebalance. So it comes and then people complain that he is the only change. D3 never promised to change more than one and even change anyone at all per season. Mr. Fantastic is no where near top tier but he isn't useless. And there haven't been any nerfs yet. Stop complaining and be grateful.

Crowl

Good to see a character that clearly needs it get fixed, but why only a single character a season, especially when that one is a 5* that the vast majority of your playerbase will not have covered anyway, the aim should be for every season to update a 3*, a 4* and if needed a 5* as there are plenty of characters that need fixing not just one or two.