I didn't know life could be this easy

Dormammu

I didn't say R&G was overpowered. I said he was broken.

Avalancher

And you were wrong.

Dormammu

I don't think so. In order for a 4-star player to compete for T10 in PvE, they have to use R&G (and probably some form of Thanos). They HAVE to. The developers didn't design this game so that 1 character was required to compete, which means they really dropped the ball with R&G's design. He's broken.

Sm0keyJ0e

aesthetocyst said:

It seems you haven't heard of tapping.

Also a broken game mechanic that D3 seems to turn a blind eye to.

Dormammu

And they're tapping with R&G.

aa25

Dormammu said:

I don't think so. In order for a 4-star player to compete for T10 in PvE, they have to use R&G (and probably some form of Thanos). They HAVE to. The developers didn't design this game so that 1 character was required to compete, which means they really dropped the ball with R&G's design. He's broken.

Competitive PvE is designed around "speed", obviously character that is designed to bring "speed' to the team is the obvious choice. When there are other choices that bring "speed" into the team better than RnG, they will get left on the shelf immediately (Thanos, boosted 4*blade, etc) I don't think calling RnG as broken based on competitive PvE is fair. (Honestly, I don't think he is broken at all.)

Edit: If there is something I think is broken is how the competitive PvE is designed centered around only on "Speed".

Bryan Lambert

Dormammu said:

I don't think so. In order for a 4-star player to compete for T10 in PvE, they have to use R&G (and probably some form of Thanos). They HAVE to. The developers didn't design this game so that 1 character was required to compete, which means they really dropped the ball with R&G's design. He's broken.

Using “what people need to get top ten placement” in anything as a metric to determine “broken” or not is madness. Top ten placement in anything is an arms race based on player “committment”, in both senses o fthe word. 

Jaedenkaal

Bryan Lambert said:

Dormammu said:

I don't think so. In order for a 4-star player to compete for T10 in PvE, they have to use R&G (and probably some form of Thanos). They HAVE to. The developers didn't design this game so that 1 character was required to compete, which means they really dropped the ball with R&G's design. He's broken.

Using “what people need to get top ten placement” in anything as a metric to determine “broken” or not is madness. Top ten placement in anything is an arms race based on player “committment”, in both senses o fthe word. 

In fact, you could probably just reverse it at that point and define "broken" as "what people need/use to get top 10 placement"

Dormammu

I don't care how committed you are. If you don't have R&G champed, it's not going to happen.

Daredevil217

Dormammu said:

I don't think so. In order for a 4-star player to compete for T10 in PvE, they have to use R&G (and probably some form of Thanos). They HAVE to. The developers didn't design this game so that 1 character was required to compete, which means they really dropped the ball with R&G's design. He's broken.

I strongly disagree with the assertion that he is broken.  The reason he is utilized so heavily in PVE is because of speed + the AI in stupid (they won't prioritize matching away the strikes).  If you are gunning for placement in PVE the fastest characters will always be used.  If it isn't Grocket, the meta will just shift to the next fastest character.  That is NOT a flawed character design but more a flaw in the PVE system.

In PVP you see him on a lot of teams because the strikes mean you are guaranteed to eat damage and in that way he is a good defensive deterrent for people (like me) who hate eating healthpacks (I often use X-23 to counter if I take on Grocks).  That said, once you match away 4-5 of his strikes he becomes pretty much useless.  His other powers are too expensive to get off reliably and I always save him for last.  I don't think anyone would place him atop their 4* ranking list.  I have him ranked #6 on my list which is much higher than most people have him (I think Carol, Medusa, Peggy, Ice Man, and Vulture are clearly better and Rulk is arguably better as well).

Dormammu

I don't disagree that the system is flawed, but I've seen every system since rubber-banding (the horror!) and believe me, the current system is the best anyone has come up with. So instead of something sensible, like changing R&G's strike tile power to something castable, we're just going to alter the entire PvE system because oh god - we can't 'nerf' R&G!

Gambit is broken too. We used to have to make matches to gather AP. Even for the Hood, who generates AP for free, needs a board condition to be met - a board condition that can be countered. You can't counter Gambit.

Jaedenkaal

Dormammu said:

Gambit is broken too. We used to have to make matches to gather AP. Even for the Hood, who generates AP for free, needs a board condition to be met - a board condition that can be countered. You can't counter Gambit.

Yeah there's a reason Venom Bomb was stupid when Carnage was getting 4 free Green and Red AP every turn (plus matches and cascades) to fire his fully-covered powers with.

tanis3303

Dormammu said:

I don't care how committed you are. If you don't have R&G champed, it's not going to happen.

Not entirely true. It's been my experience that if you wait until the 2nd or better yet 3rd+ bracket of  your chosen CL/Slice to join (easily doable via Line and I think there's still treads on here that track this) you will find the competition MUCH less aggressive.

When Rouge came out, I waited and caught a fresh slice 2 bracket in CL6, and I didn't even do final clears on one of the subs and still got top 10 (6th place iirc, and 7th had almost 1,000 less points). For Nightcrawler I pre-joined and saw scores in top 10 separated by like 3 points. Play the bracket select game and skip all the crazies that clear with an OCD like passion and you'll be fine.

Daredevil217

tanis3303 said:

Dormammu said:

I don't care how committed you are. If you don't have R&G champed, it's not going to happen.

Not entirely true. It's been my experience that if you wait until the 2nd or better yet 3rd+ bracket of  your chosen CL/Slice to join (easily doable via Line and I think there's still treads on here that track this) you will find the competition MUCH less aggressive.

When Rouge came out, I waited and caught a fresh slice 2 bracket in CL6, and I didn't even do final clears on one of the subs and still got top 10 (6th place iirc, and 7th had almost 1,000 less points). For Nightcrawler I pre-joined and saw scores in top 10 separated by like 3 points. Play the bracket select game and skip all the crazies that clear with an OCD like passion and you'll be fine.

Yeah I only really use Grocket for the three trivial nodes and goon fights usually. Last PVE I got 5th.  I used Grocket, StarLord, Pun Max (+25% strikes) for only 3/10 nodes and it was probably only slightly faster than Thanos/Strange.  For the real fights I used Riri/Vulture/featured and Riri/Vulture/Star-Lord.

Edit: Perhaps off topic (feel free to PM me if so) but I have no idea what line is or how to use it to get a fresh bracket. Any info there would be appreciated. 

aa25

Dormammu said:

I don't disagree that the system is flawed, but I've seen every system since rubber-banding (the horror!) and believe me, the current system is the best anyone has come up with. So instead of something sensible, like changing R&G's strike tile power to something castable, we're just going to alter the entire PvE system because oh god - we can't 'nerf' R&G!

:snip:

I think nerfing RnG won't solve anything because it will only make the next fastest team becomes the meta instead of RnG, and so on.

D4Ni13

Dormammu said:

I recently champed 4-star Rocket and Groot (during the anniversary - I know, I'm a little late to this particular party) and I didn't know MPQ could be so easy. Last night I started the first sub of Venom Bomb and hit the first node with Grocket, Starloard (3 cover 5-star Lv 270 for match damage), and Dr. Strange (3-star for yellow passive). I was playing SCL 7, which is normal for me.

I never once changed this team.

I proceeded to chew through node after node of symbiote goons - 54 separate fights (9 nodes x 6 clears) without taking a single point of damage. And I did it in about 40 minutes, by far the shortest amount of time I've ever cleared an entire sub of 6 clears. Had I been using Thanos I probably would have cut my time even further, but I really wasn't interested in using health packs.

I now realize that true competitiveness in PvE is separated by one thing and one thing only - those who have Grocket champed and those who don't.

He is good, but with enemy strength going up, this strategy falls short very fast. Try clearing CL9 with Grocket and you will surely fail without changing the team. Sure having Spidey buffed helps a lot in this event because it takes the focus from Grocket, but other events are harder. 

So yeah, life is easier with Grocket most of the time, but hard matches will still give you a challenge.

crackninja

I couldn't get a 3rd r&g blue so finally shelled out 120 cp to get them champed a couple days before venom bomb.  Only other time I even considered doing that was to get Peggy as my 3rd 4* champ (and didn't have to do it that time).
Best 120 cp ever...just annihilated the simulator and am crushing venom bomb much like the op described.
I personally like to have variety, but it's really hard to bench them in non-essential pve nodes.

animaniactoo

aesthetocyst said:

animaniactoo said:

Fwiw, if you have Medusa champed, she speeds it up even more than Strange does.

Minimum 2k additional damage at the end of each turn after the first turn.

Bolt and 5lord.

Only works if you're even partly in the 5* tier. Somebody who just champed 4* R&G probably isn't, so for them Medusa is the next best thing.

Jaedenkaal

aa25 said:

Dormammu said:

I don't disagree that the system is flawed, but I've seen every system since rubber-banding (the horror!) and believe me, the current system is the best anyone has come up with. So instead of something sensible, like changing R&G's strike tile power to something castable, we're just going to alter the entire PvE system because oh god - we can't 'nerf' R&G!

:snip:

I think nerfing RnG won't solve anything because it will only make the next fastest team becomes the meta instead of RnG, and so on.

Yes, obviously. If the tallest person in the room leaves, the next tallest person becomes the new tallest person.

... but that's not a bad thing if the next fastest team is "as fast" as intended.

Stax the Foyer

One of the saving graces of Grocket Life is that it changes the optimal play style significantly.

Instead of looking for specific AP, you’re trying to create cascades.  Two match-3s at the beginning are better than a match-4.  It’s very different from chasing specific colors for damage, where you look for a match of your most preferred color and move down that list.  If you get good at skimming through the initial board drop you can shave significant time off your clear.  That playstyle is enabled by Grocket and that’s almost worth the other attendant issues for me.  

That said, I sometimes take an event off from Grocket in CL9 and still do pretty good.  I have a lot of other tools to choose from, but with the boost lists I can usually find something comparable.  I get beat by tappers still, but I’m not willing to go that far to stay competitive so I just deal with that.