Please Consider Buffing Infinity War Cap, Archangel, Others...

professorplum9

Casey Malone, Lead Designer on Marvel Puzzle Quest put together a message regarding the character update.

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Hey everyone,

Since his release during the 2017 Anniversary, Gambit has dominated the high-level Marvel Puzzle Quest metagame...there's always going to be a "Best" character - and we set to making 5-Star characters who could compete with Gambit and round out a robust metagame. Archangel's Aerial Superiority and Captain America (Infinity War)'s Man Without a Country powers were both designed with the intention of creating counter-play with Gambit.

First, I'm definitely in favor of creating counters to "overpowered" characters rather than nerfs, but can appreciate the uphill battle the developers were in on this one. When trying to give a player an edge against a character that can generate AP independent of the board, not many options readily come to mind (a passive power that leeches/drains specifically red/purple AP seems like the only thing that could have reliably slowed him down). However, I would be really interested in hearing the logic behind the approach of using countdown tiles to counter a character who can overwrite them. Admittedly, they made them relatively cheap so you had a better than average chance (that could be substantially improved using boosts) of getting your CDs out there before Gambit could collect enough AP to overwrite them, but that meant you had to pick purple if you wanted any shot at keeping them out there still leaving you vulnerable to red. Furthermore, they weren't even fortified (not that it would have helped on the overwriting front), but at least it would have helped them from getting matched away. At any rate, I have to think one of the main reasons neither of these characters really gained traction was because from the outset the best counter against Gambit was always Gambit (this became even more true after Gambit's initial "nerf" that introduced random AP destruction) and either of these characters would be one you'd love to come across in your queues because you didn't have to worry about the AI playing them in any sort of intelligent manner that would actually impede your Gambit from destroying them.

At any rate, with this upcoming Gambit nerf both these characters will work better than ever at keeping him in check. However, given the severity of the nerf I think a compelling case could be made that neither of these characters are really necessary to counter him and in fact you're better off (as pretty much is always the case) with something that can dish out a lot of damage. I honestly don't think we'll be seeing very much of him any more at least as far as top end PVP play is concerned. It seems a shame that two characters who had powers tailored specifically with the intent to counter Gambit never seemed to get their day in the sun and now that Gambit has been nerfed they have arguably even less utility than before.

Sure the argument can be made that power suppression or AP gain suppression could be used to inhibit a wide number of characters and not just Gambit, however, the characters I see filling the Gambit void all have passives that worry me more than any active powers (one passive in particular that makes long term unfortified CD tiles not long for this world).

As many have said characters in the 5* tier take so many resources (time/money) to develop there really isn't room for any duds (and yet there are). I know there are some who have been in need of rework far longer, but I think it could take some of the sting out of the Gambit nerf and promote the variety so many people long to see in PVP if some of these 5* could be looked at in light of the new meta and made viable. I think there are subtle changes (tile fortification, increase damage, decrease costs, increased stun length, etc) that could be implemented with a minimal amount of programming effort that could yield significant improvement in a players experience. It would promote having roster breadth that I think would be beneficial to the company's bottom line. Having characters in the 5* tier that many want/choose to bypass is not a good thing for anyone.

wymtime

I will also say this AA is a fairly strong character and will seek more play in PVP now than you might think.  He has 3 powers that will do damage a good stun and can stop the enemy from generating AP in a color.  Also his color combination works well with Thor.
lumbercap on the other hand needs a buff to his non red powers.  His purple and yellow just need to do something additional to what they do.  I have yet to fire Cap’s yellow and I have used him a lot when he is essential in PVE. And his purple is more break glass incase of cascade.
for 5* banner, and cap need some reworking and AA just needs more allies to send enemies airborn

babinro

Always in favor of more character balance changes.

Especially in 5* land where the time to complete them is so substantial that its unfortunate to have any of them collecting dust.

Since individual character balance changes will be time consuming I'd STRONGLY recommend a change to impact all of 5* tier.

Normalize match damage values for all characters.

One of the big things that makes classic 5's obsolete is their paltry match damage next to the likes of newer releases.  A quick and easy fix to this issue would be to normalize all values.

Have your 'weak', 'average', and 'strong' character match damage stats and stick with it.