Space Gem Season Character Updates *Updated (8/23/17)

zodiac339

Yep, Wilson's Gambit is pretty bad now. Now his best use is by the developers, pairing him with minions and free black generation. So, Maggia door in Strange Sights will still be awful, and even worse with the higher change that he'll get the AOE. So it's a big buff to the dev team, and mostly a nerf to us. 3/5/5 and find a better black user. (Still has niche use in PVE, paired with Starlord. Pop Starlord's passive CD's after sucker punching.)

Jaedenkaal

therightwaye said:

 And now you're also likely to burn through more CD tiles before they pop, making his yellow power even less fun.  Sad.

Well, if you don't use Wilson's Gambit, Maggia Pawns did basically get a straight buff. 12.5% more Thug damage, 65% better Muscle Strikes (still not real Muscle Strikes. That would be overpowered. WAIT...), and somewhat better resolution odds for Muscle and Snipers. Not an exciting change, but all upside.

All those 3/5/5 builds that never actually fired his Black did just get (somewhat) better. If they exist.

His combos as an enemy in story events (with two goons who make CDs and auto-generate black AP) is the real slap in the face for me, though. Bring Quake, I guess, and bait him into spending 8 Black and 3 friendly CDs to do ~1000 team damage, I guess?

carrion_pigeons

Jaedenkaal said:

carrion pigeons said:

Okay.

Now, I'll be the first to grant that you can't just directly compare two abilities without comparing the overall characters, but if you had asked me what a 270 4* aoe for 12 AP ought to look like, I'd have said something in the range of 5-6k.  Not half that.  The fact that his ability was pathetic before should indicate that a 40% boost to damage and an 80% boost to cost is not really appropriate.  It isn't even a buff at all.

Why would you expect 5-6k AoE from a 4* power for 12 AP? Neither Full or Surprises or Striking Distance do anywhere near that much. The only 4* AOE powers that do that much damage do so conditionally, or with drawbacks. And none of them have AP-reduction mechanics, which I would argue is better than AP generation in a lot of cases, since you can fire them more than once and retain the cost reduction. Burning Rubber even generates its own attack tiles. (And just never mind if either side has Carnage out).

That's a decent point.  He doesn't compare all that unfavorably with Jean Grey in some ways, and his green is just going to get better the longer the match goes on.  And both of them have an "oh ****" ability that turns the match on its head if the opponent starts to get the upper hand (although JG's is free...).  The fact that the 3* tier has better AoE options isn't really an important part of the discussion.

I would still argue that's a reason to give him some defensive chops.  The ability to slow down the match would make an enormous difference to his threat level.

Jaedenkaal

Well, the reduction in cost on Penance Stare is probably a defensive buff. You take down GR first, before he gets 10 black, or he probably downs whoever's in front. Unless you spend lots of time making sure your character with highest health/best regeneration also does the least damage, and then stuff them in front until he gives you the stare.

Borstock

When I use Kingpin, I don't use his black very often. I tend to team him with people who use black. So, for me, this is a straight buff to my Fisk.

Ghost Rider looks like he could be a real menace with Carnage and Medusa. Get that green to 6 and then it's spam city.

carrion_pigeons

Well, I meant defensive as in harder (i.e. taking more time) to kill, not defensive as in making people more reluctant to engage him.

Jaedenkaal

Well, if you're actively trying to avoid eating a huge Penance Stare right in the face (eyes, I suppose), the match will take longer. But yes, I see what you mean.

On the other hand, all you're really saying is that he doesn't make protect tiles, drain AP, stun, heal, go invisible/airborne, or have a ton of HP.

Ok, I got it.

The animation for Burning Rubber now lasts 1 second longer for every friendly Attack tile on the board (maximum +6 seconds) and the sound effect is 5% louder (max 30% louder).

Mordee

Königsmacher said:

Mordee said:

I only read more ISO, so I'm in.  

Yeah, it's sad. Although I'm intrigued by the changes to GR, the thing that thrills me most is the anouncement of more ISO.
I really hope they do a double ISO anniversary, so I can champ at least some of the guys in my roster backlog.

I hear you, but GR has just been a boss killer for me.  I rarely use him. Yeah I want double ISO often! ah well, one can dream.

wgasadude

Didn't see this question asked - if one enemy left and 3+ CDs on the board does black fire singly or aoe?

@Brigby

Edit: it'd be nice to have riri-like damage if 3 CDs and one enemy left 

Brigby

@Jaedenkaal
Update 2: Clarified that damage increase for Maggia Pawns only applied to Maggia Thug tile.

@mega ghost
Yes. The Hellfire Countdown tile is still randomly placed.

@wgasadude
Good question! I speculate it would trigger the AoE effect, but I will double check with the developers.

Vhailorx

Brigby said:

@Jaedenkaal
Update 2: Clarified that damage increase for Maggia Pawns only applied to Maggia Thug tile.

@mega ghost
Yes. The Hellfire Countdown tile is still randomly placed.

@wgasadude
Good question! I speculate it would trigger the AoE effect, but I will double check with the developers.

Thanks brigby.  Any chance demi has something to say about the reasons for and goals if the kp rework?  Because from the player's perspective these changes seem like a massive nerf to his best ability for only a marginal improvement elsewhere.  (Subtext: there is basically nothing that is worth removing 3x countdown tiles.  But 4k aoe is DEFINITELY not worth it!)

Jaedenkaal

Vhailorx said:

Thanks brigby.  Any chance demi has something to say about the reasons for and goals if the kp rework?  Because from the player's perspective these changes seem like a massive nerf to his best ability for only a marginal improvement elsewhere.  (Subtext: there is basically nothing that is worth removing 3x countdown tiles.  But 4k aoe is DEFINITELY not worth it!)

I could deal with losing 3 World Rupture CDs. but now we're talking 12 green and 8 black.
 
Ok... I got it. Save up 32 black AP, fire Looking For Trouble 3 times (once at each opponent) and then finish it off with a Wilson's Gambit.

... if that's the reason WG got boosted to 8 AP I'll be disappointed. 

Player1575

@Brigby any more updates for system reboot? Does it start tomorrow along with galactus hungers? 

Brigby

Player1575 said:

Brigby any more updates for system reboot? Does it start tomorrow along with galactus hungers? 

Yes. It starts tomorrow, and will reward Iso-8, 1 random Ghost Rider cover, and 1 random Kingpin cover.

Player1575

Brigby said:

Player1575 said:

@Brigby any more updates for system reboot? Does it start tomorrow along with galactus hungers? 

Yes. It starts tomorrow, and will reward Iso-8, 1 random Ghost Rider cover, and 1 random Kingpin cover.

Can you say anything more about it than that?

How long is it? Are the missions repeatable? How much iso will it reward? Will this be a regular event for each season just with different featured characters? 

jamesh

I guess one other side effect of the Penance Stare change is that it will likely do less damage when Ghost Rider is played by the AI: if the AI can collect the AP faster, then you will likely have done less damage by the time he can fire the ability.  Of course, it'll be a pain if he gets enough AP to fire it multiple times ...

OzarkBoatswain

I think people aren't considering the AP reduction on Ghost Rider's green enough. It's really a 6 AP move that you have to set up to use, a lot like Spider-Gwen's red.

GR's red doesn't look much better by itself than before, but now it also sets up his green.

Jaedenkaal

jamesh said:

I guess one other side effect of the Penance Stare change is that it will likely do less damage when Ghost Rider is played by the AI: if the AI can collect the AP faster, then you will likely have done less damage by the time he can fire the ability.  Of course, it'll be a pain if he gets enough AP to fire it multiple times ...

It'll do more damage than the AI who can't collect 13 Black, of course. And we might still be talking about less overkill, but still overkill.

shardwick

Brigby said:

Player1575 said:

Brigby any more updates for system reboot? Does it start tomorrow along with galactus hungers? 

Yes. It starts tomorrow, and will reward Iso-8, 1 random Ghost Rider cover, and 1 random Kingpin cover.

Hoping I don't get yet another yellow Kingpin. But this is MPQ so I know I will.

byc

I hate the Kingpin black nerf.  I don't care about AoE damage, I want the cheap cost.