New 4*s are mostly overpowered

veny

Not sure if i am the only one who have this problem, but while playing SHIELD, i am figting mostly players with new 4*s that makes deadly combo that is impossible to defeat (medusa + carnage, groot + gamora, and of course, 4* Ms Marvel).
This SHIELD may be the first one i wont finish cuz the lack of heals is way too bad...
Anyone else with same bad experience with latest 4*s?

BlackWidower

D3 understands your concern and have evened it out by releasing Yondu, Mockingbird, Sandman and Lockjaw.

You're welcome.

VizMantis

I blame vaulting more than the strength of new characters for the awful slog that is the tail end of the sim.  Power creep has always made the new characters amongst the best, but they used to make their appearance into the general population slowly.  As a result of vaulting, everyone got high leveled versions of those characters very shortly after they came out.  So now the shield sim is flooded with them.

Phumade

LOL  Now vaulting is to blame for high level versions of good chars?

When in doubt blame vaulting!

VizMantis

So vaulting isn't the reason that there's so many high level versions of really recent releases in player's hands?

As far as I know, the whole point of vaulting was to get new characters into players hands faster.  Of those new  characters, some are bound to be strong.  As a result of power creep, those strong characters will probably be amongst the strongest in the tier.  Therefore, more players has access to the strongest characters in the tier.  And so, rather than using whatever the strongest characters they've managed to build up over several months, everyone has and uses the best.  Thus, the sim is harder now.

I had most 4*s champed when vaulting was introduced, so I liked it from a selfish perspective.  I much prefer building new characters to boring champ levels for old ones.  But I have definitely noticed the sim being harder lately, which I've attributed to the above reasoning.

Dormammu

The OPer is correct, combos among recent-ish 4-stars is crazy. As far as 4-stars go, I think the strongest single individual is still Peggy, followed by Iceman, and maybe even Punisher. But the meta right now is synergy and it hard to beat Gramora, Caroulson, or Cardusa teams that work so well together. Individually neither Medusa or Carnage are all that strong, but together... they're like chocolate and peanut butter.

I know I certainly don't go into the SHIELD sim without Medusa, Carnage, and Mr. F. To do otherwise would just be silly.

mega ghost

I agree that this season's Simulator became extremely tedious towards the end, but it's not because of overpowered characters. 4* Gamora, 4* Rocket & Groot, and Carnage are far from overpowered. Individually, they're each a bit underpowered — they just all have great synergy with Medusa on the team (who is very powerful as a support character, but still not overpowered.) Medusa / Gamora / R&G also happens to be one of the best defensive teams for PVP, which is why we're seeing them nine times out of ten. And worse yet, if you're not using them, your defensive team will be the one out of ten that's different and you'll be everyone's target, dragging your score back down to ~1400 where it tends to balance out.

But there are solutions to this. Mine has been a team of Medusa, Iceman, and 4* Deadpool. Rocket & Groot's strikes (boosted by Gamora) are devastating from the get-go, but this team uses it to its advantage: between match damage and the enemy Medusa's countdown, Deadpool's X-Enforcer will be triggered two to three times per enemy turn. The enemy Medusa will be downed in about two to three turns. With her gone, Gamora and Rocket & Groot are pretty easy to get rid of. Just match away the strike tiles, and Medusa's The Resolute Queen will also give you 3 AP in Purple, Blue or Green. If your purple fills up first, use Medusa's Hair Meddle to steal the remaining strike tiles, at which point you'll win quickly. If your blue fills up first, Iceman's stun will remove one enemy from play for the remainder of the match, likely — get enough blue, and his Punch a Snowman will down the other as well. If your green fills up first, Iceman's Whiteout will bring the enemy team down to very low health, if not finish them off.

If you're fighting enemy teams all at 50-60+ points, which aren't hard to find when they're mainly Medusa / Gamora / R&G, you can make the jump from ~1400 points to 2000 points  in ~10-12 matches (a couple more if you're under attack.) If you only have to heal your Iceman and Medusa once every two or three matches (Deadpool has true heal), you might make the climb with your 10 health packs. I waited until I was sitting on more like 15 packs though, that way I would have a comfortable amount.

Jarvind

Phumade said:

LOL  Now vaulting is to blame for high level versions of good chars?

When in doubt blame vaulting!

Maybe tone down the smug there, chief? OP didn't even mention vaulting. They just said newer characters were way better than older ones.

Additionally, vaulting did make it far easier to champ and powerlevel newer characters, and if you don't think that's true then I envy your ability to ignore the obvious.

Jean Grey is the first 4* I ever championed. She's at 313. 

Blade was like...the 35th? 37th? Very recent, at any rate, and champed well over a year afterward. He's at 306.

You can sneer at people all you want, but the fact is that for better or worse, vaulting heavily skewed roster development towards newer characters, which are largely much more powerful than the older ones. So if you're unlucky enough to be one of the few that didn't champ and pump up Carol, Blade, Wasp, Medusa, etc. PVP would be miserable right now. Even if you did, there's still the utter homogeneity of teams to contend with, that was previously only seen at the 5* level.

LavaManLee

There's another reason, I think, for the ubiquitous Medusa/Carnage/Wasp/Carol/Blade/Coulson etc.  They are all fairly impervious to the AI screwing up on defense.  I could come up with a neat team that I can control well but hand it over to the AI and I will lose almost every match.  If there was no retaliation, or even limited loss on retaliation, I would be more open to trying new teams.  As it is, if you try something vaguely unique, the AI can't always handle it on defense.

Milk Jugz

LavaManLee said:

There's another reason, I think, for the ubiquitous Medusa/Carnage/Wasp/Carol/Blade/Coulson etc.  They are all fairly impervious to the AI screwing up on defense.  I could come up with a neat team that I can control well but hand it over to the AI and I will lose almost every match.  If there was no retaliation, or even limited loss on retaliation, I would be more open to trying new teams.  As it is, if you try something vaguely unique, the AI can't always handle it on defense.

To your point, a favorite offensive team of mine is my champ Phoenix, 4* Cyclops, and 4* Blade. The ability to spam red on the board for Blade strike generation and then collect that red for his Bloodlust is unmatched. However the AI cannot play this team properly so it usually gets smashed on defense. 

I usually just end up defaulting to Medusa, Carnage, Iceman...... 

Phumade

Jarvind said:

You can sneer at people all you want, but the fact is that for better or worse, vaulting heavily skewed roster development towards newer characters, which are largely much more powerful than the older ones. So if you're unlucky enough to be one of the few that didn't champ and pump up Carol, Blade, Wasp, Medusa, etc. PVP would be miserable right now. Even if you did, there's still the utter homogeneity of teams to contend with, that was previously only seen at the 5* level.

Of course it did all those things.  The developers state that was their intent.  Provide players with a quick and painless way to build a strong and effective 4* tier that puts makes sub 720 day players competiive in the 4* tier.  The game evolved exactly along their stated roadmap.

I'm just amused that I've heard vaulting blamed for slow roster development, now fast roster development, now its being blamed for a stagnant 4* tier.

I need a faq posting to keep it all straight.

VizMantis

Phumade said:

Of course it did all those things.  The developers state that was their intent.  Provide players with a quick and painless way to build a strong and effective 4* tier that puts makes sub 720 day players competiive in the 4* tier.  The game evolved exactly along their stated roadmap.

My argument was that it wasn't overpowered new characters that made the simulator more difficult of late, as OP suggested.  It's the fact that there's a lot more players running powerful (but not overly so) new characters in the sim.  

You seem to readily agree that this was the intent and result of vaulting, so I'm not sure where the snark is coming from.

Wonko33

Shield Sim used to be my favorite- variety of enemies and sure way to get a 4*- now I can't even be bothered....

Pants1000

Vaulting did change the game, but it has good and bad points.  I'd argue it's better than it taking 12+ months to fully cover new 4's.

Back to the original topic, there are plenty of teams and ways to take out all of the common new 4* teams.  Yes they are stronger, but still very beatable.  

Last Sim I got to 2000 pretty easily with an unchamped OML, IM40 and Peggy.  XFDP and Thing can also be great counters for the Grocket teams.

champg0951

veny said:

Not sure if i am the only one who have this problem, but while playing SHIELD, i am figting mostly players with new 4*s that makes deadly combo that is impossible to defeat (medusa + carnage, groot + gamora, and of course, 4* Ms Marvel).
This SHIELD may be the first one i wont finish cuz the lack of heals is way too bad...
Anyone else with same bad experience with latest 4*s?

There's alaways a team out there who can beat someone else's team. I breezed thru the Simulator with Medusa, C&D and Vulture beating all different combos of teams even the "unbeatable" teams.

veny

For your info, i reached 2000pts in SHIELD... all this with promoted Medusa, Carnage (these two i used in every match) + Peggy/4* Phoenix/Iceman/4* Iron Fist/4* Ms Marvel. My OML level 420 remained unused
All i had to do was avoiding fights with Medusa

KGB

I reached 2000 for the first time ever with Medusa/Blade/4Grocket all between 270 and 275.

The first 1500+ points I got last weekend in 1 sitting using only a couple of health packs. There were lots of 3* teams and under powered 4* teams if you were willing to skip 5-10 times between battles.

Went to 1800 on Tuesday night and got knocked back to 1600 by Saturday. Then last night I did the final 400 point climb and shielded up. I used 3 health packs on my final climb only because one battle gave the AI an incredible cascade that caused me to lose.

I skipped every Cardusa and 4Gamora/Grocket team. It's a lot of skips but it can be done. I actually found the 4Carol teams the easiest to beat with my team because she needs Black and by the time she gets close to getting it I've killed her thanks to the initial strikes + Medusas damage. If the board has a lot of Red or I match Medusa's tile a couple times battles can be over by turn 5-6.

KGB

byc

Lockjaw is going to be a massive problem next season.

R&G is extremely annoying to deal with since the damage output from the start is uncounterable.

Anon

Yeah Sandman is pretty OP. Not sure how they'll ever manage to fix him...

Pants1000

byc said:

Lockjaw is going to be a massive problem next season.

R&G is extremely annoying to deal with since the damage output from the start is uncounterable.

With the new drop rates, it'll take a few months before new characters are seen much, especially over 300+ Carols and others.  Vulture is awesome, but even when he's boosted I don't see him much yet.

As far as having no counter for Grocket, try Thing with 5 yellow.  On the first hit he'll create protect tiles that basically nullify the strikes.  If you can match away some of the strikes then the AI will be hitting for 1 and you'll have a big advantage starting round 2.

Phillipes

I agree with OP completely. And he is right about vaulting. My highest champed is X-force, level 301. 2nd is Carol, level 298.
I also agree newer characters are mostly OP, or atleast very good. Simulators 2000 points are harder and harder to obtain with every season passed. It was easy 1 year ago, it is really hard for last 6 months. Even shield-hops were needed last season, for the first time for me in Sim.