Update to Gambit (Classic) Character Update (7/18/18)

kenshohmer2

turul said:

Tony_Foot said:

turul said:

Player1575 said:

@Brigby can you try and get us some insight into the devs reasoning for still not removing the red/purple restriction on teammate abilities? Do they think he'd be overpowered again with that or just not like ap generaters or what? 

Yeah, we dont need that restriction anymore

I'm not so sure. I'd love to try it admittedly but I'd just run Okoye with Gambit generating red for her while tanking, run gambit at 3 red and obliterate the enemy. Or 4blade and Okoye. Yeah that wouldn't be meta defining for now but it causes limitations and concerns on future releases for red a and purple users, then you have the AP generating supports to consider as well. When something generating Purple or Red comes along like Chimi or the new Antman purple one you are creating a very painful experience when they inevitably hit pvp.

Gambits red straight up sucks now, might be of use if they ever fix the Okoye bug.

Red and purple generation is so slow and unreliable for him, it wont break anything now. There are better powers generating desired AP.

His passive still generate 3 red and 3 Pink every other turn for free!  Of course you can match the repeater but the core problem of Gambit was always his passive. So basically you guys want him to charge Pink/Red for other character passively... You might as well watch MPQ videos on youtube instead of playing the game if you want lazy wins.

I'd say best is to totally delete his passive and make an active black a la Phoenix/kamala pink power.

wymtime

Thank you for pulling back the nerds on Gambit.  With these changes if players only have Gambit in the 5* tier they will still be able to use him.  As others have posted above with the 2 turn repeater tile I think the restriction on his partners could have been removed.  The big reason why is it would allow for Gambit it be built differently for differt players.  You could run Gambit 5,3,5 and bring a better red or 3,5,5 if you use someone who produces charge tiles.  
Mad it is I think having someone to fortify Gambits repeater tile will be huge as they can be matched away and Gambit will no longer be meta.  He will be usable which I appreciate.

Sm0keyJ0e

Reading the comments thus far is hilarious. If I'm part of the dev/publishing/Marvel team I'm scratching my head. Gambit's never gonna be used again! All we're going to see is Gambit galore! He didn't get nerfed enough! He got nerfed too much! 

I, for one, as an investor of resources in this game, will see how this plays out. I've already noticed Gambit-fatigue in the Versus slice that I play in--many people who can and have ran Gambit before are no longer doing so. I think that trend will continue. His red is so pathetically weak now (as it should be since it can still be spammed) no one is going to be afraid of it--so if he's paired with JJ/Okoye/Thor you don't have to worry about their red powers (just make sure Gambit has fired red before you down him). It appears to now be a race to down Gambit before his purple CD's go off. Should be fun!

I understand both sides: he was ridiculously OP to begin with and when so many people invested so much into him, they understandably don't want him to drop to unusable. I'm really hoping the lesson learned here is that more care needs to be put into a toon before they are released to prevent changes to that character in the future. Gambit was broken on release, and that's on the devs. The reverse has recently occurred as well: Wasp is absolute trash. But their track record for improving toons doesn't seem to stack up to their desire to nerf them, at least in the 5* tier.

GamBaTron

Are we still getting a free gambit cover for using him in an event during this season? Did that happen already? I used him in multiple events. 

LeRoy1979

Is there a way to tie the Red/Pink power lock-out to the actual presence of the repeater tile on the board? In other words, if the tile is present you can't fire other red/pink powers, but, if the tile is destroyed then the limitation is no longer operative. Obviously, you couldn't match it away (actually a match-5 would allow this), but there are numerous ways to get rid of it by firing powers. It would open up the *possibility* for other characters to use red/pink but would also require some actual planning and strategy (God-forbid!) in execution.

babinro

turul said:

Tony_Foot said:

turul said:

Player1575 said:

@Brigby can you try and get us some insight into the devs reasoning for still not removing the red/purple restriction on teammate abilities? Do they think he'd be overpowered again with that or just not like ap generaters or what? 

Yeah, we dont need that restriction anymore

I'm not so sure. I'd love to try it admittedly but I'd just run Okoye with Gambit generating red for her while tanking, run gambit at 3 red and obliterate the enemy. Or 4blade and Okoye. Yeah that wouldn't be meta defining for now but it causes limitations and concerns on future releases for red a and purple users, then you have the AP generating supports to consider as well. When something generating Purple or Red comes along like Chimi or the new Antman purple one you are creating a very painful experience when they inevitably hit pvp.

Gambits red straight up sucks now, might be of use if they ever fix the Okoye bug.

Red and purple generation is so slow and unreliable for him, it wont break anything now. There are better powers generating desired AP.

Turn 0 - 0AP
Turn 1 - 0AP
Turn 2 - 3AP
Turn 4 - 6AP
Turn 6 - 9AP
Turn 8 - 12 AP
Turn 10 - 15 AP

Turn 12 - 18 AP

When you consider this is essentially FREE AP I think it creates a slippery slope that could be dangerous to unlock to other characters.   I understand that IM40 and Vulture can severely ramp AP with little work but the time it takes for them to get started is typically long enough for a player to interact with them in some meaningful way.  Thor's AP generation is conditionally immediate but its also entirely random and thus unpredictable...its also very clear that he's the most powerful character in the game right now so it might not be wise to set Gambits standards next to him.

I think the devs are right to lock out the colors if for no other reason than it will not impede future design space of red or purple skills.  I'd hate to see the devs afraid to release anything as good as Spider Gwens purple at 5* tier just because Gambit feeds those colors reliably for example.

Dartmaster01

I was assuming the restriction stayed in place to prevent Gam-battery coming back. Which I am ok with.

tph_james

Gambit is officially dead in pve and pvp:
1. Red is too weak in SCL9.
2. purple no longer overwrites cd, useless against maggias, ninjas, doom bots, mindless, etc.
3. Black is slower and only feeds his own weak powers.
Instead of just tuning his passive, I don't understand why they want to mess with his actives. 
Time to say goodbye. 

GrimSkald

One thing you have to keep in mind is that any particular placed tile is very destructible.  I play a lot of 5* Thor (he's a great combination of both fun and good,) and almost never have anything better to do with yellow then put out Thor's repeater.  It gets destroyed a lot.  Frequently on the first turn (i.e. before it gets to do anything.)  I haven't tracked statistics on it, and don't trust anecdotal evidence (people see more of the negative, particularly if they've already formed a theory,) but I feel fairly sure any particular tile has a better than average chance of being destroyed within 3 turns.

That means that Gambit's AP flow is going to be erratic.  Unless you have a way of fortifying that tile (Green Goblin will do it, other than that your only real option is to use a support in PVE,) it's going to be destroyed every few turns in a fight unless you get very lucky with the random placement.  Since every time it's destroyed it has to be replaced (and it resets the timer) that means you're going to go stretches where you don't get any AP at all (i.e. it places the timer, it ticks down, it gets destroyed before it yields any AP.)

I'm not saying this is a bad thing for the game exactly, I do think the unrestricted AP gain is too powerful, but I do think you have to take this into account when you try to determine if Gambit is a top-, middle-, or low-tier character.  I'm also saying that you can't look at the new black and say it's as good as the old black - it's not, IMHO it's not even close.

My impression is that the previous "new build" took him all the way down into low-tier - his powers were too expensive for what they got you and in particular his red was almost worthless.  This current new build?  Probably below the center line of mid-tier -- too slow and not good enough for PVP but you'll still find a use for him from time to time, particularly in PVE.  I could be wrong, of course, I haven't tested him, but that's my take.

ThaRoadWarrior

Is the LT for using him at some point between now and then still going out?

The Viceroy Returns

Tony_Foot said:

MadScientist said:

Tony_Foot said:

Gambits red straight up sucks now, might be of use if they ever fix the Okoye bug.

What Okoye bug?

That okoyes team up black does not add to gambits second throw of red, It should and it’s been acknowledged as a bug but quite clearly avoiding fixing it until gambits nerf is live.

Im guessing it will be fixed then as I saw a screenshot yesterday of icex showing it working in testing, I think it was testing because it still doesn’t work for me.

Where'd you see a screenshot from IceX of this working?

BlackBoltRocks

ThaRoadWarrior said:

Is the LT for using him at some point between now and then still going out?

It’ll be given out at the start of next season, after he’s nerfed

ThaRoadWarrior

And i can use him anywhere? PVP/PVE whatever? Mine is terrible, does it have to be in PVP, and if so, do I have to win a match? lol

The Viceroy Returns

ThaRoadWarrior said:

And i can use him anywhere? PVP/PVE whatever? Mine is terrible, does it have to be in PVP, and if so, do I have to win a match? lol

Hopefully using in in a feeder PVE node is enough.
Maybe if you get lucky and find a seed node in PVP that could work too.
That's what I did just now to make sure I used him at least somewhere, cause mine is unusable cover wise as well (4 2 2 @255).

HoundofShadow

Here's the criteria to get free LT:

IceIX said:

sirwookieechris said:

So if I use gambit even once during the next season I get a free LL? Does it have to be pvp or does pve nodes work too?

He needs to be used in an event in the Mind Stone Season.

ThaRoadWarrior

and so "event in the Mind Stone Season" is a pvp event with that indicator on it then? I just went in to High Stakes and won a match with my 1/1/1 lvl 250, so I guess I'm good. Would be nice if we got some notification we met the criteria in-game

entrailbucket

Sm0keyJ0e said:

Reading the comments thus far is hilarious. If I'm part of the dev/publishing/Marvel team I'm scratching my head. Gambit's never gonna be used again! All we're going to see is Gambit galore! He didn't get nerfed enough! He got nerfed too much! 

I, for one, as an investor of resources in this game, will see how this plays out. I've already noticed Gambit-fatigue in the Versus slice that I play in--many people who can and have ran Gambit before are no longer doing so. I think that trend will continue. His red is so pathetically weak now (as it should be since it can still be spammed) no one is going to be afraid of it--so if he's paired with JJ/Okoye/Thor you don't have to worry about their red powers (just make sure Gambit has fired red before you down him). It appears to now be a race to down Gambit before his purple CD's go off. Should be fun!

I understand both sides: he was ridiculously OP to begin with and when so many people invested so much into him, they understandably don't want him to drop to unusable. I'm really hoping the lesson learned here is that more care needs to be put into a toon before they are released to prevent changes to that character in the future. Gambit was broken on release, and that's on the devs. The reverse has recently occurred as well: Wasp is absolute trash. But their track record for improving toons doesn't seem to stack up to their desire to nerf them, at least in the 5* tier.

Players are really, really bad at judging characters on paper (even me!).  I'm not sure why.  You can go back in this forum and read tons of fun and extremely wrong hot-takes on pre-release characters though.

Warbringa

LifeofAgony said:

So every 2 turns he will gen 6 ap passively and when he fires red creates 3 (!!) charges which now makes him even more powerful and hugely increases the likelihood that you’re gonna take a full blast at some point.  And he’s getting a health boost.  Once again, you have missed the point and it will still be a never ending parade of gambit in pvp.  

//Removed Insult -Brigby

No it won't.  His red damage has been nearly halved and its AP cost increased.  His purple now doesn't overwrite tiles.  The damage has been increased though making it his best offensive weapon. However, you would have to tank his red to 3 covers, making it nearly useless and his black prevents you from having any other red active powers on your team which is brutal since red is the primary damage dealing color in MPQ.  Most importantly, his AP destruction has been removed and AP generation has been decreased by 25% and is now conditional. It can be matched away and/or manipulated by other powers unlike his AP generation before.  He will probably be solid mid tier after these slight readjustments they just announced however characters like Thor/Okoye/JJ will be better options for offense which is the only thing that PvP is about now with his nerf.  If they removed his AP color restrictions for allies he would still be top tier.

ThaRoadWarrior

Warbringa said:

No it won't.  His red damage has been nearly halved and its AP cost increased.  His purple now doesn't overwrite tiles.  ...

Just wanted to make clear that it still overwrites strikes, protects, and attacks, just not CDs and Repeaters

Jaedenkaal

Dartmaster01 said:

I was assuming the restriction stayed in place to prevent Gam-battery coming back. Which I am ok with.

Also, since apparently Red powers are the best damage dealers (according to other posts here) allowing him to feed others' Red powers would do nothing to increase team diversity. 

Best 2 5*s have good (or even fine) Red powers? Gambit is an auto-include 3rd.