The Problem with... protect tiles

OneLastGambit

The recent changes to reed raised a point. Why bother with defense tiles at all?

They are massively irrelevant. Match damage at 4* doesn't matter anyway so I'm happy to leave protects on the board there and in 5* the match damage is so great that protect tiles do nothing anyway so again useless.

Make them relevant by giving all protect tiles a 200% increase. Then all of a sudden they become a useful strategy. Right now they deduct a paltry sum away from even the weakest 4* ability

Mod note: you did that thing where people leave out the words that tell people what your post is about. Please don't do that thing. -DayvBang

Bowgentle

OneLastGambit wrote:

The recent changes to reed raised a point. Why bother with defense tiles at all?

They are massively irrelevant. Match damage at 4* doesn't matter anyway so I'm happy to leave protects on the board there and in 5* the match damage is so great that protect tiles do nothing anyway so again useless.

Make them relevant by giving all protect tiles a 200% increase. Then all of a sudden they become a useful strategy. Right now they deduct a paltry sum away from even the weakest 4* ability

Have you ever fought a level 440+ Bullseye in PVE?

Nope, I don't want stronger protect tiles.

OneLastGambit

Bowgentle wrote:

OneLastGambit wrote:

The recent changes to reed raised a point. Why bother with defense tiles at all?

They are massively irrelevant. Match damage at 4* doesn't matter anyway so I'm happy to leave protects on the board there and in 5* the match damage is so great that protect tiles do nothing anyway so again useless.

Make them relevant by giving all protect tiles a 200% increase. Then all of a sudden they become a useful strategy. Right now they deduct a paltry sum away from even the weakest 4* ability

Have you ever fought a level 440+ Bullseye in PVE?

Nope, I don't want stronger protect tiles.

That's one very particular circumstance. Yet for the rest of the time protect tiles are absolutely useless. Even thing protects do nothing versus literally any 4* damage ability.

As a compromise then let's boost all protects except ones generated passively ?

Edit: also even a level 440 bullseye protect is not gonna do much against a maxed 5* skill. The reduction even from 10 tiles would be negligible.

Here's a better question ...are you afraid of protects?

But I bet strikes and attacks bother you..

Fightmastermpq

OneLastGambit wrote:

Edit: also even a level 440 bullseye protect is not gonna do much against a maxed 5* skill. The reduction even from 10 tiles would be negligible.

Here's a better question ...are you afraid of protects?

But I bet strikes and attacks bother you..

No, I typically target Bullseye first. Speed is king, and those protects REALLY slow a match down.

OneLastGambit

aesthetocyst wrote:

OneLastGambit wrote:

The recent changes to reed raised a point. Why bother with defense tiles at all?

They are massively irrelevant. Match damage at 4* doesn't matter anyway so I'm happy to leave protects on the board there and in 5* the match damage is so great that protect tiles do nothing anyway so again useless.

Make them relevant by giving all protect tiles a 200% increase. Then all of a sudden they become a useful strategy. Right now they deduct a paltry sum away from even the weakest 4* ability

Finding your protects to be too weak? That's what tile buffers are for.[/quote

I see your point but why should I need to buff a protect? Shouldn't it be useful in the first place? Nobody needs to buff nova or Oml strikes to make them useful.

Jarvind

Boosted 4*s actually do pretty decent match damage - 400-500 a pop. It's not earth shattering but it adds up to a non-negligible amount over the length of a match. Reed's protects are pretty strong even unboosted, and planting both in corners and fortifying both all but guarantees that you're blocking a pretty substantial amount of damage throughout a match.

I do agree that protect tiles are largely irrelevant, though, and tile strengthening isn't a widely applicable solution since not many characters can do it; it would make more sense for them to absorb a % of all incoming damage. It'd be a little tougher to implement - powers like Flaptain's that spam a bunch could potentially be really overpowered unless the tiles blocked like 1-2 percent each, and I'm not sure how tile strengthening would work - but it would make a lot of characters and powers that are currently trashy suddenly much more useful.

firethorne

I think we have the issue of "The best defense is a good offense." Sure, taking less damage is fine. But, when you could have used that same time and AP nuking the opponents as you did setting up your protect tiles, the protect tiles feel like a bit of a waste. You take less damage with them on the board, but you take zero damage from a downed foe. So, regardless of any increase in their strength, this question of "Is it really worth it?" will still exist.

That's why I think only the characters that do it passively, like Bullseye and the Cages (and to a lesser extent 3* Spidey), are doing it right. You mitigate damage, but aren't wasting time building AP for it. You still use AP for offense (except Spidey, who needs a massive offensive boost of some kind).

Dormammu

I've never thought defense tiles are as useless as people claim. They stop match damage, which is not insignificant. Sure, they don't always inhibit big AP powers much, but that's not the point. 250-500 worth of match damage every turn doesn't seem like much when it's happening, but it adds up quickly.

I don't know about Mr. Fantastic, mine isn't usable yet, but I get a lot of mileage out of some other defense tile generators. Try teaming Luke Cage with She-Hulk to shut down opponents entirely. I like to make Invisible Woman and Hulkbuster buddies and always try to get their blue/yellow defense tiles out quickly. Cmags is another spammer who can easily reduce a lot of damage.

I know they say the best defense is a good offense, but a good defense in MPQ can be frustratingly difficult to overcome.

Punisher5784

Last year (maybe 2-years ago) during PVP I had 2-minutes left if I wanted to place T100. I entered a match with IF, Falcon and Cage. I was literally one 3-match away from victory.. what does the AI do.. uses a Moonstone T/U that stole Cage's protect tile!! This extended the match and I missed T100 as a result.. so this post brought back bad memories of what a protect tile could do to you.

Straycat

Match damage is still good for finishing off low health enemies. Protect tiles can make you use an ability when you didn't want to. Of course since its used for defense its hard to see the benefit. Its also useful in balance of power to have luke cage at 5 red to stop all match damage.

Reed's design is counter intuitive, tho. You fortify the protect tiles but are encouraged to match them and lose fortification. You also want them to be matched by the enemy to trigger the yellow passive. So it feels like the devs are implying protect tiles aren't that useful on their own.

carrion_pigeons

What they should do is introduce a character or two that use protects as a way to win. (yes, I know, Craptain Falcon exists, but his play pattern demands that you actually not lay down protects until they don't do anything protective)

Imagine a character with a passive "whenever a protect tile is destroyed, do X damage to the target, where X is Y times the strength of the tile" or "whenever a character fires a power that creates a shield tile, also create a randomly-placed crit tile".

Jaedenkaal

Jarvind wrote:

I do agree that protect tiles are largely irrelevant, though, and tile strengthening isn't a widely applicable solution since not many characters can do it; it would make more sense for them to absorb a % of all incoming damage. It'd be a little tougher to implement - powers like Flaptain's that spam a bunch could potentially be really overpowered unless the tiles blocked like 1-2 percent each, and I'm not sure how tile strengthening would work - but it would make a lot of characters and powers that are currently trashy suddenly much more useful.

You could multiply them all together instead (1.03*1.03*1.033*1.15 etc...). Doesn't solve tile strengthening but it does prevent them from blocking all damage almost immediately. Doesn't solve the strengthening issue, among other things.

I think one of the problems with Protect tiles is that they are rarely used to full effect, compared to Strike and Attack tiles, and there is a sharp drop off in the value of additional Protect tiles (or protect strength in general) after they are blocking all but 1 match damage every time. Sure, they'll occasionally have full effect against most powers, but that power is still likely to do significant damage.

Compare that with Strike tiles. The only way to "miss out" on the value of a strike tile is to have so much that you're already downing the opposing char in one more match/attack tile/power etc.. At that point though the match is very much over so its not something anyone loses sleep over (I assume).

Quebbster

Protect tiles can be really helpful in long survival nodes. Back when I was still playing 3* characters I had a lot of fun playing Falcon, Spider-man and Punisher in Enemy of the state - just plop down some protect tiles automatically, strengthen them a few times, and then laugh any time a Caltrop goes off to do a measly 1 damage.
Also, playing against Sentry can be hilarious when you have good protect tiles on the board so his World Rupture does a lot more damage to his team than to yours.

But yeah, overall you are usually better off focusing on offense. There are uses for strong defense too, but they are much more rare.

Dayv

OneLastGambit wrote:

The recent changes to reed raised a point. Why bother with defense tiles at all?

Mod note: you did that thing where people leave out the words that tell people what your post is about. Please don't do that thing. -DayvBang

Pants1000

Some characters protect tiles could use a boost, but not all. A boosted Thing can drop some pretty strong tiles, to the point where match 4 and 5's do 1 damage.

carrion_pigeons

What if protect tiles blocked a percentage of damage instead of a total amount?

I.e. Instead of trivially reducing match damage and doing nothing vs abilities, a 10% tile blocks 10% of match damage and 10% of ability damage.

Borstock

Passive protect tiles are helpful for me. I pair C4ge and Wasp and change+boost them all when I'm ready to pounce. This can also work well with Falcon, though his isnt passive. I can see C4rvel being great boosting them too, but I don't have her at a fun level yet.

I agree that having to spend AP to put them on the board usually doesn't equate to an efficient play style.

Protect tiles relative to 5* play doesn't concern me. I don't anticipate competing on that level any time soon. I only have around 12 ch4mps and just recently champed my final 3*.