Can we talk about 4* Rocket?

Calnexin

Your issues are that he's too fast in PvE, and too fast in PvP.  I don't see a problem with either of those areas.  Is it an unfair advantage against people who don't have that character champed?  Perhaps.  But no more so than anyone with any champed 5*s, particularly Thanos.  Placement brackets in any CL that matter generally have such competition anyway.  Why nerf one of the few combos that would allow a 4* roster to compete for placement?

And PvP - I personally don't find them that threatening, non-boosted.  If they're worth decent points I'll try to hit them with a secondary team to soak the damage and avoid health packs.  If Rocket's boosted, I'll hard counter as you've laid out.  Speedwise - I fail to see how it makes a difference.  In my experience, regardless of who I'm fielding, I have to use the same hopping strategy past 800.  Champ 5*s will run roughshod on exposed R&G just as much as they will over any other 4* combo you leave out there too long.

I haven't been using Gramora in PvE, but maybe I should?  Early on in the character's lifetime I enjoyed the super-fast clears when boosted, but didn't find it any more advantageous than my usual 3* Thanos/OML/meat for easy nodes and whoever was boosted for the others.  This last event Carol and Rhulk seemed to do just fine - when Kingpin wasn't killing his entire team bouncing off Carol's revenge, I either had enough green/purple for a one-power wipe or enough black/yellow for exponential strikes of death.  I can't imagine unboosted rocket strikes being that much faster.

Hotnfresh

Well, I just got destroyed by Coulson/Rocket/Medusa-- all powered up in this first anniversary pvp. My team 466 Thanos/Hawkeye/Strange. Everyone down in less than 10 turns... yes, 71k health Thanos too. WHAWHAT?!?

Rocket's 771 strike tiles, a whole bunch of them to start, combined with only a couple attack tiles is too much damage to begin a match.

This is in need of a fix. No point in 5*'s when these 4*'s are this good.

Pants1000

Hotnfresh said:

Well, I just got destroyed by Coulson/Rocket/Medusa-- all powered up in this first anniversary pvp. My team 466 Thanos/Hawkeye/Strange. Everyone down in less than 10 turns... yes, 71k health Thanos too. WHAWHAT?!?

Rocket's 771 strike tiles, a whole bunch of them to start, combined with only a couple attack tiles is too much damage to begin a match.

This is in need of a fix. No point in 5*'s when these 4*'s are this good.

I'd argue that loss was more about Medusa and Coulson than Rocket.  Those 2 can really take advantage of cascades.

Rocket is good, but not worthy of a nerf.  I wouldn't even put him at the top.  I'd rank Peggy, Carol, Vulture, and maybe Medusa above him.

Hotnfresh

Pants1000 said:

I'd argue that loss was more about Medusa and Coulson than Rocket.  Those 2 can really take advantage of cascades.

Rocket is good, but not worthy of a nerf.  I wouldn't even put him at the top.  I'd rank Peggy, Carol, Vulture, and maybe Medusa above him.

They certainly didn't help the situation! But I believe Rocket starts with 7(?) 771 strike tiles (p'd up). There weren't any crazy cascades. But each turn was hitting for 15k+. I'm routinely fighting high lvl Coulson combos, Panthos, basically all the combos we're used to seeing. But I was not prepared for that kind of match damage at the start.
Though I hadn't had the chance to ever fight Rocket.

When he's not powered up, I'm sure it's managable. And you're right about Medusa. Last kitchy team that blew my mind, stunlocked me the entire fight, was Medusa/Carnage/Mr F. (After they upgraded Mr F.) Problem is these characters all being p/u at the same time.

Don't get me wrong, I'm impressed with the synergy. But it feels like Rocket is hitting far above his weight class. Never seen my team go down that fast... ever. Guess Deadpool/Thing is a much better solution (as some mentioned).

EDIT: It wasn't Coulson. It was 5* Starlord as the third. Increased strike tile damage with a GotG combined with 5* match damage... now it makes more sense. Still... stupid damage.

Phumade

Hotnfresh said:

Pants1000 said:

I'd argue that loss was more about Medusa and Coulson than Rocket.  Those 2 can really take advantage of cascades.

Rocket is good, but not worthy of a nerf.  I wouldn't even put him at the top.  I'd rank Peggy, Carol, Vulture, and maybe Medusa above him.

They certainly didn't help the situation! But I believe Rocket starts with 7(?) 771 strike tiles (p'd up). There weren't any crazy cascades. But each turn was hitting for 15k+. I'm routinely fighting high lvl Coulson combos, Panthos, basically all the combos we're used to seeing. But I was not prepared for that kind of match damage at the start.
Though I hadn't had the chance to ever fight Rocket.

When he's not powered up, I'm sure it's managable. And you're right about Medusa. Last kitchy team that blew my mind, stunlocked me the entire fight, was Medusa/Carnage/Mr F. (After they upgraded Mr F.) Problem is these characters all being p/u at the same time.

Don't get me wrong, I'm impressed with the synergy. But it feels like Rocket is hitting far above his weight class. Never seen my team go down that fast... ever. Guess Deadpool/Thing is a much better solution (as some mentioned).

why not bring Black suit spiderman to negate those strike tiles?  Bssm with vulture is actually very self-sustaining. 

Hotnfresh

why not bring Black suit spiderman to negate those strike tiles?  Bssm with vulture is actually very self-sustaining. 

I would love to if I had them viable. Played one match against Vulture and he meant business. Just came back so trying to catch up. BsSman is only 8 covers and Vulture @4.

I edited after your comment. It was actually 5* Starlord and Rocket that was the problem with amplified strike tiles.

MaxxPowerz

Ok but lets not pretend that most people dont avoid fighting grocket teams in PVP. At the very least you know its going to wipe out 3 of your characters health, and a lucky cascade can kill a character or bring them near death, sometimes within the first few matches!

I feel like the developers have all but acknowledged this by introducing Yondu and Lockjaw, characters who's powers can counter grocket, but it will still cost healthpacks.

Dotproduct

MaxxPowerz said:

Ok but lets not pretend that most people dont avoid fighting grocket teams in PVP.

Or Strange, or Thanos or Captain Marvel or Medusa or Vulture or Bolt...etc.

Huntah86

As long as hes not boosteed I do target Rocket teams. As soon as you take out the strike tiles hes pretty useless actually. When he is boosted then he can he scary but the same can be said about plenty of 4*. 

Straycat

I recently champed Thing, and I like that he has a use now. Just tried him out in Sim against Medusa, Rocket, Gamora and got a bunch of protects out early. I triggered it twice, then tried matching away the strikes early so Medusa doesn't heal much. Would still need healthpacks for Thing, but the rest of the team could go again.

Calnexin

Straycat said:

I recently champed Thing, and I like that he has a use now. Just tried him out in Sim against Medusa, Rocket, Gamora and got a bunch of protects out early. I triggered it twice, then tried matching away the strikes early so Medusa doesn't heal much. Would still need healthpacks for Thing, but the rest of the team could go again.

If you have a functional Mr. F, Thing can usually go 2-3 rounds before needing a heal.  So long as you don't have him in front the opponents' first turn, and have his yellow cranked to 5, the protect tiles he gets will save his bacon until the opponent matches them away, then Mr. F heals him up.  You can't start too low, or he'll go down before Mr. F can heal him up, but you can get a lot of mileage with a 2/3 health Thing.

I wouldn't risk it on a 60 pointer, or while hopping, mind you.  But standard low-risk climb, he can take it.

mega ghost

I've said this elsewhere, but there are several antidotes to the Rocket & Groot / Gamora / Medusa teams in PvP. I like to run 4* Deadpool, Iceman, and Medusa. If you let Iceman or Medusa take some of the strike damage in the first two turns, Deadpool's X-Enforcer can down Medusa in one or two turns depending on her level. From there you can easily match away most of the other strike tiles with the enemy Medusa out of the way, or even steal some with your Medusa. Iceman can also stun and kill Gamora before she can do anything. And Rocket & Groot? The AI doesn't play them well past their passive ability.

Sure, this is gonna cost you a healthpack or two, but you almost always get 60+ points for it in exchange and it's pretty much a guaranteed win if you're not playing sloppily or cursed with supernatural enemy cascading.

mattonline

What if the points you earn in PvP were based on which team you use, not on point differential? Using the "optimal" team would result in fewer points per win, and some rare team combination would yield higher points per win.  On the "defense" side, the most common teams would lose the most points, and so on.  That might encourage some diversity, and would also effect the timing of people starting late getting higher point values. 

mattonline

mattonline said:

What if the points you earn in PvP were based on which team you use, not on point differential? Using the "optimal" team would result in fewer points per win, and some rare team combination would yield higher points per win.  On the "defense" side, the most common teams would lose the most points, and so on.  That might encourage some diversity, and would also effect the timing of people starting late getting higher point values. 

To clarify, the devs would rank team composition by frequency (which we know they can do) at some rate (after each event?) And assign points based on quartiles or octaves, or decades, or something.

Darknes21

I think they should nerf every character to lvl 40 so everyone can stop complaining about nerf characters! 

Darknes21