**** Nick Fury (Director of S.H.I.E.L.D) ****

zodiac339

They weren’t kidding about Fury’s strike tile getting weaker. I think mine lost 450-500 in power. Initial damage is about 3000 higher though (6614 rank 5 level 183), so a 5/3/5 build actually sounds okay. Too bad I didn’t screen shot his powers last night for a better comparison.

Jaedenkaal

zodiac339 said:

They weren’t kidding about Fury’s strike tile getting weaker. I think mine lost 450-500 in power. Initial damage is about 3000 higher though (6614 rank 5 level 183), so a 5/3/5 build actually sounds okay. Too bad I didn’t screen shot his powers last night for a better comparison.

Escape Plan, level 70, before and after: (damage and other scaling number ratios are the same at all levels)

3 Covers
Damage - 1943 to 1574 (-19%)
Strike Str - 326 to 70 (-78.5%)
CD - 3 turns to 2 turns (+50%)

4 Covers
Damage - 1943 to 1991 (+2.5%)
Strike Str 326 to 83 (-74.5%)
CD - 3 turns to 2 turns (+ 50%)
AP Steal - 9 to 4 (-5)

5 Covers
Damage - 1943 to 3195 (+64%)
Strike Str 326 to 92 (-71%)
AP Steal - 9 to 6 (-3)

And, of course, the cost is 11 at all levels instead of 12.

So essentially, aside from being cheaper, it's largely worse at 3 and 4 covers, and better damage at 5 covers (although worse at the other things).

I'm not convinced that was much of a buff. At least Avengers Assemble! would seem to be a more straightforward improvement.

sinnerjfl

Very dissapointed about Escape Plan... the strike tile got a massive nerf. Yeah yeah, "it never resolves", I managed to have it resolve plenty of time and really appreciated the strong strike tile on 1 tile only.

Jaedenkaal

BlackBoltRocks said:

Avengers Assemble has effectively become 5teve's Earth's Mightiest Heroes in 4* land, so this has become the default "5" ability, especially with the stun only at 5 covers.

Except they also nerfed the damage, team damage, and protect strength. At 276 this power has gone from ~4180 damage to the target and 1395 to the other two (plus 2x 166ish Protect tiles) to 2229 damage to the target, 743 to the others, and a single 65 Protect. Also only a 2-turn stun. Ok, and 3 crit tiles instead of 2. Yay? 

So half the damage, basically no Protect at all, and less stun. I think I want the old version back.

Rick_OShay

Nah, I'll take it as-is now. Not having to qualify each other AP for the full assault is now fantastic. Sure, it was a kinda-fun challenge to get 5 AP in each non-black color, but - now you may fire this ability twice in a match, instead of just once. 
The crits can cause disgusting damage / AP gen.

Jaedenkaal

Rick OShay said:

Nah, I'll take it as-is now. Not having to qualify each other AP for the full assault is now fantastic. Sure, it was a kinda-fun challenge to get 5 AP in each non-black color, but - now you may fire this ability twice in a match, instead of just once. 
The crits can cause disgusting damage / AP gen.

Yes, the crits are nice. But you're going to have 5 AP in a lot of those colors incidentally anyways. I don't think we've gained more than we've lost on this once.

Rick_OShay

Fury was one of my first 5 champs at the 4* level and I can't emphasize enough how often you would have all colors at 5AP except one, and there's just no purple matches for example. You may have had to wait 3-4 more turns to fire his yellow for full effect. All too often it was dangerous to have that wait. But, that was when his yellow cost was 12, and I'm finding that at 10 it is Much easier now.

Fun TU to bring along, and even better now: 2* Bullseye black. It does crazy damage when there are 2+ crits already on the board (8K+ for a 2*), plus it lets you add 2 more crits. Of course it costs 16TU AP, so there's that. But you have to try this at least once.

Jaedenkaal

Sure. So now you can fire it more often, and it does... not very much.

Rick OShay said:

Fun TU to bring along, and even better now: 2* Bullseye black. It does crazy damage when there are 2+ crits already on the board (8K+ for a 2*), plus it lets you add 2 more crits. Of course it costs 18TU AP, so there's that. But you have to try this at least once.

I will definitely be doing this. It's 12988 damage for a 144 Bullseye. Over 15k if he's boosted.

Rick_OShay

Oh, I agree, there was no reason to nerf the damage on Fury's yellow, or reduce the protect tile strength. 

The other problem with having to qualify 5 in each non-black AP, was that you felt like you shouldn't fire any teammates powers unless you had 5+ the cost to fire their power. This used to be incredibly limiting. Say you fall into 12 green AP for Moon Knight, and you're tempted to wait on it until you had Fury's 12 yellow ready, or go for 17 total green AP before firing MK's blades, ugh.

Fury does become a bit more relevant on the Yellow-direct-damage list though, which is a very short list. Plus, he has the Only yellow power with a stun, in the whole 4* tier.  

/cheerleading  

Tiger_Wong

Hm.  I like him better now. Getting 5 in each color was a pain. Now I can wreck the board and the opposing team with 10 yellow AP. Sucks that the strike tile from the purple is so low, BUT that immediate damage is cake.

and I really like @Rick OShay’s suggestion of adding 2* Bullseye. That will make me try.....

Fury 5/3/5
Mockingbird 3/3/4 (I’ll hoard for her soon)
2* Bullseye 3/3/5

it may depend a lot of mock’s oppurtunist, BUT it looks good. It even covers the rainbow. 

poomermon

I'm thinking running fury as 3/5/5 now. You only lose the small aoe and 2-turn stun with 3 yellow and still get the single target dmg + most importantly crit tiles. Purple is a decent nuke and becomes really cost effective if the countdown resolves. Blue still does a crapload of dmg

hopper1979

The damage decrease to his yellow is a bummer but now it is usable by the 3rd turn in most cases if you have a little luck.  I have been cast his yellow 2-3 times a match in pvp before I was lucky to get it off once before especially with all the benefits.  If they did not decrease the damage it might almost be a broken power.  I am still trying to decide between blue or pink as the other 5, I think it will depend on his partner.  I have been running him with C&D so I have kept his blue at 5, I am going to try him with *gasp* Sandman and see how stun-locked you can keep the other team.  A good third might me Gemora for some real control.  I think this change will look better and better as people play test him.

hopper1979

I have been play testing the updated Furry and his yellow is no joke.  With a lvl 435 OML, 284 Fury and 279 C&D on average his yellow is doing 15-20 K in damage in the simulator.  I think people who see his power as a nurf (on paper it is) are missing the most important factor the ap requirement was such a hindrance to getting all the benefits (10 ap vs collecting 35) that even though the previous version had higher numbers the odds of you of getting all the effects are minimal other than end game where it is almost pointless.  Now you get all benefits sometimes as early at turn 3 and it can be devastating, a 2 turn stun on the best character or a 1 shot to many of the 4's check him out if you have him. This is a perfect example of a change that may not look good on paper but it is a major buff.

hopper1979

Not arguing with that, (I selected this time to maximize his yellow) but the numbers I am giving are typically before the C&D switch or right after it, so not too many of OML attacks tiles are on the board.  It is even better later in the match.  On a team that does not have a 5star damage will not be quite as high those crit tiles make a huge difference with a 5star present.  The main point is that his update may not look great on paper but the extra speed and the removal of the ap requirement make it very good in power in practice.  After seeing it in action I would argue that it would be broken if they left it the way was but removed the ap requirements.

Dormammu

I like Fury's re-work but he's still a slow burn due to AP costs. I believe 5/3/5 is now the so-called optimal build because of the unreliability of trap tiles. He gets more effective with AP generators like C&D or switch and his purple has some teeth. The removal of the 5 AP requirement for yellow is probably the best improvement.

On my roster he's been elevated from 'deep bench' to 'use when boosted' which is where a lot of 4-stars are.

hopper1979

I agree he is definitely not top tier by any stretch but he is markedly improved.  I am not sold on his purple yet, it still seems a little too expensive to be useful to me and blue has saved my **** so many time in the past I am sticking to 5/5/3 unless I bring somebody who has a better blue.  For me this is a solid indication of a "good" character if you can switch powers to optimize their effect on a team they are "good", Fury is now a "good" character and I would argue "very good" on a team that accelerates yellow.    

undrtaker

I have Fury at 13 covers with 2 more stashed (1 expiring today), but not champed.
Is he worth it? I have 350k is, so can do it now, but at the expense of someone better who I can champ in a few days
have 18 champed 4* so it's not really a big deal either way I guess

Rick_OShay

I vote yes, but I'm kind of a 'champ em all' guy. 
If you've read the other comments, people are applauding the update to his yellow quite a bit. It's up to you to decide if his purple is better now or not - more upfront damage, less strength strike tile, potentially less AP steal - but you probably haven't played him much before now anyway to know/realize the difference. 

Will any other characters suffer or lose covers by prioritizing Fury? If they just have to wait a week or two for more Iso, I'd say he's definitely worth it.

hopper1979

I champion everybody so I say yes as well.  I think he will be a monster boosted, I am looking forward to playing him then.  Right now if you can run him with a high leveled 5 his yellow is averaging 10-20K depending on how many crits match on the cast.  He has become an excellent support character.

maximumboo

Just tested the updated lv 189 Nick Fury (5/5/3) with Kingpin (5/5/3) and war Machine. I found that they have great synergy. Rainbow color coverage; with KP's pink and prioritizing in matching yellow, NF yellow is gonna fire 3-4 times a around. War machine's red and green are great attacks on their own, but also serve as countdown tiles for Kingpin's black; both NF's and War Machine's blue are great. 

But I dunno why this team still took higher damages during my testing. The speed of the team seems not fast enough as there are many stronger teams in the game that are either always generating special tiles, or triggering cascade. Not sure if there were better team for NF, but still it's fun to play with this team.