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

Brigby

Hi Everyone,

Based on additional internal testing of our upcoming balance changes to Gambit (Classic), we've decided to make the following adjustments to what we announced:

Casey Malone, Lead Designer said:
At the announced cost of 10 AP, it was too hard to get the bonus damage and AP from destroying Charged tiles, since the enemy had some extra time to match those Charged tiles away. To help get that Charged tile damage more often, the power's cost was reduced to 8, and it now creates 3 Charged tiles when fired, up from 2. 

As a nice bonus, I'm very happy with the poetry of a power specifically called Aces & Eights costing eight.

(Ragin' Cajun is unchanged from the previously announced adjustment.)

Casey Malone, Lead Designer said:
The repeater tile is a key part of the new, rebalanced Gambit, but 'at the start of your turn' doesn't include the start of battle, giving you a turn without the Stacked Deck tile.

After further testing, we determined that Gambit could start generating AP more quickly and still have a balanced power. So now Gambit will make that tile for you at the start of the fight.

These are the changes that will go live with the new season. We hope you enjoy playing with and against this updated version of Gambit (Classic).

Casey Malone

Lead Designer

Marvel Puzzle Quest

tiomono

Might not be bad. I was seriously considering selling my gambit as he seemed gutted hardcore before this update. 

I will most likely keep him now.

TheHungryPet

@Brigby does this mean his purple is getting changed as previously announced? 

alaeth

To clarify, the above posted changes are the ONLY changes to 5* Gambit?  no change to his purple (read: it will still over-write CD tiles, etc) ?

@TheHungryPet beat me to it...


It might simply matters to post the full scope of the change to the character, not just the "diff" version from the previously post/announcement.

Jwallyr

Can we get a few more "at start of turn" abilities tweaked to trigger at start of battle? Like why does the AI SWitch get her countdown out before mine? Etc.

Seems like a pretty trivial QOL enhancement that could be applied to lots of those semi-active-passive abilities.

Brigby

TheHungryPet said:

Brigby does this mean his purple is getting changed as previously announced? 

Yes. His purple will still be getting changed to the version that was previously announced.

tiomono

I would think this is a change to their previous change. That purple will still have higher damage but not overwrite everything like it does now. 

The purple change seemed to be a major point for them to open up more characters who rely on special tiles. I highly doubt they backpedal on that.

Thanos

There was no need to keep the restriction on purple and red powers for allies. Really no point in using him now.

STOPTHIS

Oh to be a fly in one of the devs meetings. I've never seen such kiddy gloves when it comes to nerfing a clearly broken (from the start) character.

y4747

personally, i think you hit pretty close to the sweet spot with this update. in fact, i think i suggested red costing 8 instead of 10 in the previous update thread...
in any case, he is no longer nerfed to mid-bottom tier, but to mid-high, which is the best we could expect, really. and most importantly - he is no longer essential for pvp, and you can beat gambit with something other than gambit

broll

Still don’t like the black/purple ability block. As long as I can stop using him whatever. 

firpo22

I am going to miss the ability to take out countdown tiles. I  think that this purple power could have been weakened but still allow some countdown tiles to be removed. Besides maybe 4Starlord, there is no really reliable way to take out mulitple countdowns.  This was something special that this particular character did, much like IM40's yellow generating AP, SW's countdown generating purple or R&G putting out strike tiles. Those are the key powers that made the characters popular.  I agree that he was too powerful "as is". He was sort of a Swiss Army knife of damage, with way too many options to take out opponents. But this change makes him sort of a generic good character without that special power that makes him stand out. 

professorplum9

On paper this seems like a welcome adjustment to the previously announced changes that IMO went a little too far. The proof will be in seeing how he plays, but it is encouraging that it seems they took him out for a spin and further tweaked his charge tile creation and initial repeater creation in response to how he performs in an actual match. I appreciate the effort here.

tph_james

firpo22 said:

I am going to miss the ability to take out countdown tiles. I  think that this purple power could have been weakened but still allow some countdown tiles to be removed. Besides maybe 4Starlord, there is no really reliable way to take out mulitple countdowns.  This was something special that this particular character did, much like IM40's yellow generating AP, SW's countdown generating purple or R&G putting out strike tiles. Those are the key powers that made the characters popular.  I agree that he was too powerful "as is". He was sort of a Swiss Army knife of damage, with way too many options to take out opponents. But this change makes him sort of a generic good character without that special power that makes him stand out. 

Yea... No way to stop cd spamming minions from now on... 

Thanos

celtickliq said:

@Brigby

Was Casey Malone part of the team that designed the initial Gambit? If not, can you say whether or not D3 fired the person or persons that designed him initially? If that person is still designing characters for D3 & MPQ, something should be done with them as they really have no idea how the game mechanics work. Because, like, Okoya is really broken too. 

If Casey and her team did design the initial Gambit.. not good, lady.

Why does D3 assume that Casey and her team has the rework correct this time? This is D3's third attempt to fix a broken character. Is D3 just hoping that the third time is the charm?

She's not gonna like being called a she.

jackstar0

Glad we got this  news today. Lots of time for people to consider their best move.

Borstock

He still might be worth selling, honestly, but I understand this one a little more. I'm guessing that the main reason he can't overwrite CDs is because they don't want people to feel like they have to bring their own Gambit to fend off that one power. That's reasonable to a degree, but I think the better nerf in that case would have been to lessen the dmg it does, not take away it's versatility. 

So, I'm still not a fan of the changes, but this is a positive walk-back. 

mega ghost

celtickliq said:

@Brigby

Was Casey Malone part of the team that designed the initial Gambit? If not, can you say whether or not D3 fired the person or persons that designed him initially? If that person is still designing characters for D3 & MPQ, something should be done with them as they really have no idea how the game mechanics work. Because, like, Okoya is really broken too. 

If Casey and their team did design the initial Gambit.. not good.

Why does D3 assume that Casey and the team has the rework correct this time? This is D3's third attempt to fix a broken character. Is D3 just hoping that the third time is the charm?

Oh stop, this is a game designer, you're talking about it like it was an architect that designed a billion dollar bridge that collapsed and killed people. I'd rather they experiment with abilities and then have to go back in and make some adjustments one way or the other than play it safe every time and produce boring characters. Besides, if it was in fact the same designer chances are they've learned some valuable lessons to build from in the future.

Half of the problem with Gambit was that there was an exploit right after his release and countless people were able to get fully-covered Gambits from the get-go. So many people pumped resources into the character that they couldn't just go ahead and rebalance him right away, they had to try other methods first (i.e. other characters.) I'm sure the fact that the very people using Gambit had grown sick of his dominance made it easier to go ahead and nerf him.

HoundofShadow

As for character designs, I believe Marvel somehow plays a part too. 

I guess the reason why some wants the devs to remove the restriction on allies firing red or purple power is because they want Gambit to be a free ap battery for them, without needing to collect any aps. It seems like it's not happening. 

I think Gambit is pretty okay now. The main conplaints previously were his red and his blocking of allies' purple and red powers.  

Megaturd

@Brigby the previous nerf post mentioned a health boost for gambit. Based on the revisions described in the post should we still expect to see a health boost to gambit when these changes are implemented? If so, can you provide any information on the new health specs?

Thanks

LifeofAgony

This is why I still won’t spend money.  They can’t even agree how broken he is so continue to try and half-attempt this.  Break him once and for all already.  Good grief.