Spider-Man (Bag-Man) - 2*

Unknown

You can select the two tiles to swap.

You can select which tiles to lock

You can select which countdown timers to increase. if you have 5/5 yellow you MUST select two countdown timers. If there's one, too bad. You can select your own. Anti-Gravity device is just a bit more AP affects all enemy countdown timers, and heals you too (at 5/5).

There is no ability that benefits from an increased friendly countdown timer.

famousfoxking

Bugpop wrote:

You can select which countdown timers to increase. if you have 5/5 yellow you MUST select two countdown timers.

If there are two on the board. If there is only one countdown timer on the board, you can select that one and the power will work (it just gives you a dialog telling you to select a cd, rather than the dialog with two check boxes).

I actually think Bag-man is a lot of fun to play against goons. Against enemy heroes, he's really not. Ultimately, I'd like to see his purple and blue made a little less expensive, and some secondary effect added to his yellow (like Antigravity Device has a secondary healing effect).

Unknown

famousfoxking wrote:

Bugpop wrote:

You can select which countdown timers to increase. if you have 5/5 yellow you MUST select two countdown timers.

If there are two on the board. If there is only one countdown timer on the board, you can select that one and the power will work (it just gives you a dialog telling you to select a cd, rather than the dialog with two check boxes).

I actually think Bag-man is a lot of fun to play against goons. Against enemy heroes, he's really not. Ultimately, I'd like to see his purple and blue made a little less expensive, and some secondary effect added to his yellow (like Antigravity Device has a secondary healing effect).

Recent change? When the conditions for a power are not met, you are unable to use it. I had verified this myself.

famousfoxking

Bugpop wrote:

Recent change? When the conditions for a power are not met, you are unable to use it. I had verified this myself.

Not sure, but I know that I've used it many times to extend a single cd.

Actually, I can test: I'm in a prologue mission right now, with a single pistol shot on the board, and Bag-man's yellow says "Select 1 more Countdown tile to delay." with no check bubbles to fill in. Selecting the cd tile, the dialog changes to read "Select 0 more Countdown..." and the cancel button turns to a green OK.

Now, with two CD's on the board, the dialog reads "Select 2 more Countdown tiles to delay." and displays two check bubbles. Behavior from there on is standard.

Unknown

Unknown

So Bagman is kind of a rarity in this game. With many chars, it's clear what the problem is - IM40 is too expensive for what he does; Moonstone is too swingy and conditional; Captain America just needs better damage scaling. But Bagman... Bagman is a complete mess.

His stats, from the wiki:

Switcheroo; Power Cost Purple 13 AP
Spider-Man pulls the old switcheroo, swapping 2 basic colored tiles and turning them to Web tiles.
Level Upgrades:
Level 2: Also swaps Strike and Protect tiles.
Level 3: Also swaps Web and Attack tiles.
Level 4: Swaps all tiles that have a color.
Level 5:Swaps 2 pairs of tiles. Costs 18 AP.


Web-Slinger; Power Cost Blue 9 AP
Slings a web that wraps 1 tile(s) in a sticky cocoon. These locked tiles stick in place and their special effects are neutralized. The locked effect is removed and tile effects resume if it is matched or otherwise destroyed.
Level Upgrades:
Level 2: Locks 2 tiles. Costs 11.
Level 3: Locks 3 tiles. Costs 13.
Level 4: Locks 4 tiles. Costs 15.
Level 5: Locks 5 tiles. Costs 17.


Snarky Remark; Power Cost Yellow 7 AP
The wise-cracking web-head befuddles his foe, increasing the timer on a selected Countdown tile by 1 plus 1 for every Web tile (up to 10). Turns all Web tiles to basic tiles.

Level Upgrades:
Level 2: Increases timer by 2 plus 1 for each Web tile.
Level 3: Increases timer by 3 plus 1 for each Web tile.
Level 4: Increases timer by 4 plus 1 for each Web tile.
Level 5: Affects 2 Countdown tiles.

Now, it's worth noting that Spiderman is one of the few characters in the game without a single damaging power - the others being OBW (useful as a support due to AP steal and healing), MBW (useful as a support due to AP steal and stun), Spiderman (powerful defense, heal, and stun), Loki (also bad), and Falcon (who I considered leaving off this list because each yellow match is a good 230 points of strike tile damage). See the pattern, though? The only characters that don't have damaging abilities either significantly speed you up/slow down your opponent, or suck. Most of the characters on that list are incredibly underpowered; the only one who isn't is OBW, because her AP steal is completely unmatched and Espionage is one of the only skills in the game that lets you double-dip so easily on strike tile damage. But to cut it as a support, you need to do a lot. You need to help other people hurt, or you need to stop the enemy from doing things. Bagman... Doesn't. He sucks.

That's not to say Bagman can't work as a support, just that if he's going to, you need far more than what he does. Slowing down one countdown tile for 7 AP? For 5, Magneto will destroy 2; for 9, OBW will slow them all down plus heal your team; for 12, Cap will get rid of one and set himself up to get rid of another in 3 turns. Locking tiles in place is neat, I suppose, if you get to pick which tiles. Swapping tiles can be neat as well, but swapping one pair of tiles for 13 AP is just not enough - for 13 AP, Thor is damn near ending the game, and Wolvie is killing a character. Swapping 2 pairs for 18 AP... I mean, come on, look at what 18 AP gets you with any other decent 2* - usually, you're halfway to winning already. There are some neat concepts here, but it's all way too pricy and not effective enough. So with that in mind, let me repost what I posted in the moveset thread.

Budget Player Cadet wrote:

I'd really like to see more powers that deal with swapping tiles, or making multiple moves. Something like...

Switcheroo (3 Purple)
Level 1: Swap any two adjacent tiles. If one is a standard tile, one is transformed into a web tile.
Level 2: Swap any two pairs of adjacent tiles, costs 6AP (zero or one web tile per pair)
Level 3: Swap any two pairs of adjacent tiles, deals a small amount of additional damage per match if this leads to a match.
Level 4: Swap any three pairs of adjacent tiles. Costs 9AP.
Level 5: All tile damage this turn is doubled. (That is, damage from matching or shattering tiles). Allows swapping of diagonally adjacent tiles.


The idea being on the multiple swaps that they all go off at the same time, so you can set up nice extended strings, deal with some pesky special tile, or otherwise. And for 9AP, the level 5 effect can be very potent (we might want to reduce it to all match damage instead of tile damage). You could also maybe tie it to web tiles, or make it so that any cascades don't go off until you make a match for the turn.

This has a reduced effect, but at 3 AP, it would be a legitimately dangerous power. Swapping adjacent tiles, even just one pair, can lead to some very quick 4- or 5-of-a-kind matches. At 6 AP, it would still be potentially useful, and at 9, the increased damage could make it important - throw it out before Thunder Strike, Polarity Shift, Deceptive Tactics, or Trickery and watch as enemies **** themselves. While obviously the values would need to betweaked and playtested, this would certainly be a lot more fair than swapping one pair of tiles. For 13 AP.

Or maybe some kind of extended power denial. For example:

Snarky Remark (5 Yellow)
Spiderman distracts and infuriates his pursuers, throwing them off their game.
Level 1: During the next turn, enemy cannot use active powers. If you have 3 or more web tiles, enemy team cannot use active powers.
Level 2: Lasts 2 turns, costs 7 AP, reduces needed web tiles to 2.
Level 3: During the next two turns, enemy tiles also do not count down
Level 4: Last 3 turns, costs 9 AP, reduces needed web tiles to 1.
Level 5: Also negates passive abilities, attack tiles, strike tiles, and protect tiles.

(Note that the level 3 is different from simply adding 2/3 because you can use a power like intimidate to activate them anyways.)

Or maybe something slightly more dickish:

Level 5: enemies also cannot gain AP for the next 3 turns

Food for thought.

Come on, let's be honest, shutting down one countdown tile for 7AP is a raw deal - very few characters actually use CD tiles, precisely because they're so bad on their own. Delaying it for 7AP? That's just a joke. But what if the remark really threw the enemy off their game? Made them unable to really concentrate on, well, anything? Obviously, this is not balanced as it's written. It's probably a fair bit overpowered - essentially reducing the enemy team to match damage for 3 turns. They can still gain AP (or, in the other version, still abuse strike/attack tiles), but you can attempt to keep them away from the nastier stuff.

In return for these two powers, he could keep the fairly "meh" Web-Slinger power (don't get me wrong, it's his best power by far right now, it's just that it's still bad). The idea of having him as a denial/enabler character totally works for Spidey, IMO. What you shouldn't go for is... well, what he is now. He's completely and utterly useless. Which is a shame, because he covers the same U/P niche that OBW does, and could be a different option to pair up with Tharerverine.

Thoughts? Maybe vain hope that the devs read this?

atomzed

Tbh, it is so ingrained in me that bagman is soooo lousy (just like any game, which you need a jester and the worst card).

I rather them fix other characters and keep him the same. It will be like changing the natural order if he becomes useful

That said, I think some of your ideas are cool and should be considered for the next spidey character....If there ever was one

Spoit

Those changes would definitely help. Might even make him more useful than gold bagman

Unknown

Unknown

Bagman is actually pretty good. He literally was a key component to some of my top pve placements.

The other choices you mentioned are good and may be enough to win, but imo bagman is better. You compared 1 skill to 1 skill. Bagman has 3 skills dedicated to stopping CDs. His blue can arguably be better than obws blue in an all henchie mission. Heal is irrelevant vs an all hench team. Then he has both purple and yellow on top of it

Obw and mags are better in mixed hench/villian missions, but imo bagman is the best in pure henchie missions (for 2-stars).

That being said, he is indeed "broken", but not really in a typical way. 1st his abilities have terrible scaling. He's one of the few that arguably has better skills left at 2 than 3, let alone 5. 2nd, levels do nothing for him. 3rd, his skills can work on allies.

I guess a 4th would be he's terrible for pvp.

I think if they reworked his lvl 5s to have additional effects (I.e. dmg/stun/etc) rather than just being stronger for more AP, this would be all he needs.

Unknown

ihearthawthats wrote:

Bagman is actually pretty good. He literally was a key component to some of my top pve placements.

Vids or GTFO.

The other choices you mentioned are good and may be enough to win, but imo bagman is better. You compared 1 skill to 1 skill. Bagman has 3 skills dedicated to stopping CDs. His blue can arguably be better than obws blue in an all henchie mission. Heal is irrelevant vs an all hench team. Then he has both purple and yellow on top of it

Obw and mags are better in mixed hench/villian missions, but imo bagman is the best in pure henchie missions (for 2-stars).

Well, compared to C.Mags obviously he isn't (because, well, C.Mags is C.Mags, top char in the game for a reason), but honestly? At this point, good luck placing well off of just goons. They aren't giving us as many pure-goon missions; definitely not enough to succeed on alone in a PvE. That's a pretty tiny niche to inhabit - especially given that at least two other characters inhabit that niche almost as well and are actually good at other things - such as the other missions in PvE. He's like a character in Street Fighter who is a hard counter to Zangief and loses every other matchup. We have characters that hard counter 'Gief already; he's not a top tier and you're just better off learning Sagat or Fei Long or one of the multitude of characters that's a soft counter for 'Gief and good against most of the rest of the cast as well.

TL;DR: Even if Bagman is the ultimate goon-killer, he's still not worth a roster slot because OBW does it almost as well while fulfilling numerous other roles, and C.Mags does it better while just all-around being top tier, and all-goon fights are rare anyways.

Unknown

I like some of your ideas although the purple rework sounds really overpowered if I'm reading it right, but I'm not sure Bagman actually needs a total redo. I wrote something about this in the overpriced powers thread a while back, and through the power of copy/paste...boom! (Ah ha! I quote myself again! I am class personified! )

With as much abuse as Bagman takes, with the understanding that he's really an anti-goon character his powers really aren't that bad. If at max covers Switcheroo cost 9, Web-Slinger cost 8, and Snarky Remark cost 6 he would be totally viable in PvE. It's just that 18 for Switcheroo is insane. 17 for Web-Slinger, likewise. Shave just one point off Snarky Remark and suddenly at the cost of just two yellow matches it would be way more useful. The problem with his powers is precisely that they're overpriced.

Unknown

Bagman is actually great. His purpose is to assist (especially newer players) with CD nodes, which he is good at. He is not good and dishing out damage because that is not his purpose. Conversely, there are many (many, many) characters who are good at dealing damage, but not suited for CD nodes.

Also, his purple ability is the only one that lets you move tiles in the game to wherever you want.

Accept bagman for who he is, don't try to change him, unless it's too make the "kick me" sign on his back easier to read

Unknown

WorldRunner wrote:

The irony here is that Sentry is MORE OP than Bagman is bad. Devs just need to wait until the last fool buys his covers before they nerf him . . .

Unknown

Budget Player Cadet wrote:

ihearthawthats wrote:

Bagman is actually pretty good. He literally was a key component to some of my top pve placements.

Vids or GTFO.

The other choices you mentioned are good and may be enough to win, but imo bagman is better. You compared 1 skill to 1 skill. Bagman has 3 skills dedicated to stopping CDs. His blue can arguably be better than obws blue in an all henchie mission. Heal is irrelevant vs an all hench team. Then he has both purple and yellow on top of it

Obw and mags are better in mixed hench/villian missions, but imo bagman is the best in pure henchie missions (for 2-stars).

Well, compared to C.Mags obviously he isn't (because, well, C.Mags is C.Mags, top char in the game for a reason), but honestly? At this point, good luck placing well off of just goons. They aren't giving us as many pure-goon missions; definitely not enough to succeed on alone in a PvE. That's a pretty tiny niche to inhabit - especially given that at least two other characters inhabit that niche almost as well and are actually good at other things - such as the other missions in PvE. He's like a character in Street Fighter who is a hard counter to Zangief and loses every other matchup. We have characters that hard counter 'Gief already; he's not a top tier and you're just better off learning Sagat or Fei Long or one of the multitude of characters that's a soft counter for 'Gief and good against most of the rest of the cast as well.

TL;DR: Even if Bagman is the ultimate goon-killer, he's still not worth a roster slot because OBW does it almost as well while fulfilling numerous other roles, and C.Mags does it better while just all-around being top tier, and all-goon fights are rare anyways.

And on this topic, I would love for there to be some characters that are good specifically in pve for pve even if they suck in pvp. Would probably allow for some new mechanics with that in mind

Unknown

LoreNYC wrote:

Budget Player Cadet wrote:

Even if Bagman is the ultimate goon-killer, he's still not worth a roster slot because OBW does it almost as well while fulfilling numerous other roles, and C.Mags does it better while just all-around being top tier, and all-goon fights are rare anyways.

And on this topic, I would love for there to be some characters that are good specifically in pve for pve even if they suck in pvp. Would probably allow for some new mechanics with that in mind

Agree with this point. Just because you don't think it's worth a roster spot to carry an anti-goon specialist doesn't necessarily make the design of that character bad. It just makes it something you don't value, and you're free not to invest any resources in it. Fact is, PvE is still theoretically half of the game. There are still plenty of nodes there where goons are featured either alone or with other villains, and often times it's the Muscle's Tommy Guns or the healing Lieutenants that are the ones that really **** you rather than, say, Bullseye or Yelena. Bagman's powers are bad, mostly because they cost too much. Make him considerably faster and maybe a little better at doing his job and he'll be fine in the roll he's meant to fill.

Also, can we stop comparing anything to CMags? He's incredibly broken and due to be nerfed. So using him as an example for any kind of balance purposes doesn't make a lot of sense. OBW is a much better benchmark for comparison.

Unknown

His web-slinger 'ability' is a joke. You get more useful stuns, + damage with other characters for the same AP. Further, the fact that the tiles can be put back into play by matching them makes this skill even more useless for stopping countdowns. That means you then have to do 2 same colour matches on the same tile to get rid of it, probably forgoing a match 4 or 5.

If they made this ability a stun or gave it a little damage, it might be useful. Does anyone know if webbed tiles inactivates them as far as counted colour tiles, eg Hood's steal, Daken's heat, Hulk's smash, Moonstone's blast?

Unknown

...So we've got a handful of people here defending bagman.

Katai

Seriously, if you reduce all his skills to 1 AP, he still wouldn't be any good.

Unknown

Katai wrote:

Seriously, if you reduce all his skills to 1 AP, he still wouldn't be any good.

Your obvious exaggeration notwithstanding, I still respectfully disagree. His powers are not that terrible. They're just so absurdly overpriced for what they do. Heck, all that tile webbing and swapping might even be pretty fun...if you could do it more than once every third match. The fact that you're more likely to get to 14 green and kill the world with Thor than you are to get 18 (!!!) purple and swap two sets of tiles pretty much says it all.