Mr. Fantastic (Reed Richards) Character Rework (1/9/19)

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Comments

  • MarcusGraves
    MarcusGraves Posts: 495 Mover and Shaker
    firethorne said:
    Well, you certainly took a middle of the road character and inexplicably made him worse.  Kingpin wasn't enough, huh?
    Extremely annoying they made the Black unusable unless you have 1 CD tile out, which technically makes it a 18 cost ability since you need to use his Yellow first to make it usable. At the same time it messes up you actually wanting to use it to burst damage someone down because you're stuck with the team damage version with all the tiles out.

    Easy fix, remove the 1 tile minimum for single target damage, been over a year since the change and still no fix. Whoever does character balancing is a sadist.

    It really says a lot about the balance team whenever the community sees an announcement about a character rework *cough*nerf*cough*, and everyone is more concerned about the character becoming worse instead of better.
  • TPF Alexis
    TPF Alexis Posts: 3,826 Chairperson of the Boards
    Yeah, I was reserving judgement, but playing his Crash was just a horrible experience. Much harder than the previous time I did it, even tho he's better covered now than he was then. A significant amount of the time, Imaginaut was actively harmful to me, feeding purple or black Charged tiles to Doom. Even with three of them going at once, I never managed to get enough friendly specials out to get damage from Reed's blue.
  • mega ghost
    mega ghost Posts: 1,156 Chairperson of the Boards
    CoT was a breeze for me. Usually his Crash is slow and tedious as you keep stunning your opponent as you hope to get out Imaginaut, and then pick away at them with matches of the right colors. Now it's fun. I got Imaginaut out quickly and it gave me powerful strikes, so right off the bat it was boosting my damage — except I wasn't required to make matches of colors useless to Mr. F! Then I got out my blue and downed him after a few turns. Much better experience for me all around.
  • mega ghost
    mega ghost Posts: 1,156 Chairperson of the Boards
    spidyjedi84 said:
    mega ghost said:
    dingo said:
    I'm not understanding all the negativity towards the change.... Currently using Carnage and Medusa in the pvp and Mr. F is doing close to 30k damage (boosted) with his blue after 5 turns. I'd rather have that than 2 protect tiles....
    I can't say for certain, but I think the feedback is being skewed by 5* players that are furious that their specific use for him has changed, and they can't see the bigger picture.
    Bingo, that's a majority of this thread. The rework is proving to make Mr. F. a fantastic team member on the right rainbow teams. Especially the free move, ala Mockingbird, for targeting and removing special tiles.
    I think there's also a PvP vs. PvE bias. People who mainly play PvP tend to only address characters in terms of that context and metas. I think these changes made him exponentially better for PvE. As I mentioned earlier in the thread, I'm finally excited to play against Ultron sentries and symbiotes.
  • Trilateralus
    Trilateralus Posts: 251 Mover and Shaker
    mega ghost said:
    spidyjedi84 said:
    mega ghost said:
    dingo said:
    I'm not understanding all the negativity towards the change.... Currently using Carnage and Medusa in the pvp and Mr. F is doing close to 30k damage (boosted) with his blue after 5 turns. I'd rather have that than 2 protect tiles....
    I can't say for certain, but I think the feedback is being skewed by 5* players that are furious that their specific use for him has changed, and they can't see the bigger picture.
    Bingo, that's a majority of this thread. The rework is proving to make Mr. F. a fantastic team member on the right rainbow teams. Especially the free move, ala Mockingbird, for targeting and removing special tiles.
    I think there's also a PvP vs. PvE bias. People who mainly play PvP tend to only address characters in terms of that context and metas. I think these changes made him exponentially better for PvE. As I mentioned earlier in the thread, I'm finally excited to play against Ultron sentries and symbiotes.
    I’m not a 5* player and I don’t PvP. I find Mr. F less useful and less fun now. 
  • DAZ0273
    DAZ0273 Posts: 10,275 Chairperson of the Boards

    I think thematically, Mr. Fantastic is far less appealing now. The fact that Imaginaut has a random result does not feel very fitting for Reed, who is a scientist. I’m not sure why he would invent a machine that does things that might not benefit him or his team? The dependence on specials for blue also doesn’t really make sense. I don’t see why Reed couldn’t have created strike tiles with his blue to give him an actual non-luck based basis for his damage, as the emphasis has now shifted with this power from defence to attack.

    The only thing I can say during his PvP is that his yellow was pretty effective against teams with R4G in – I managed to get a few free powers to fire but this of course also means that you need to think even more about who to use with him to get the most of his yellow which is now his only decent power and of course it still remains random anyway no matter how much you narrow it down with partners.






  • bluewolf
    bluewolf Posts: 5,819 Chairperson of the Boards
    Liftoff said:
    Using him in pvp now.  This is a nerf.  Can I sale him for 13 5* tokens now?

    In case someone really wanted to sell him - but why would you ever sell a 5* feeder, except in the very early days of your game? - his iso and hp is doubled from an equally leveled 4*. Mine is 305, and I can get 128k iso and 700 hp.

    They only really go crazy with sellback amounts when they think it’s a nerf.
  • hopper1979
    hopper1979 Posts: 565 Critical Contributor
    This update was great.  I was a little weary of the change to blue power but running with carnage I was averaging 10k damage on most of the stuns.  His yellow is now probably his best power especially in this current meta and that power alone might put him into the top tier for 4-stars.  Black is debatable, is a great generator now and unlike the previous iteration you can have multiples running at once and you are not forced to make specific color matches.  This was a great update, he will be getting much more use from this point forward.
  • MrEd95
    MrEd95 Posts: 280 Mover and Shaker
    RickOShay said:
    Some examples of 'new' non-Carnage teams you should try, Mr. F with:

    Medusa & Venom - Her constant CD damage triggers Venom's protect tile each turn, easy to match them for free powers etc. 

    Ant-Man & Bl4de / GRider - Countdowns are specials, they qualify the damage from Mr. F blue. Ant-Man yellow is cheap and you get strikes after the CD's resolve. Super easy to get 8-12 friendly specials out. 

    Mockingbird & any Yellow-Green -  There's so many choices, mainly play this team vs. enemy special spammers. Lots of free powers if you play smart.

    Coulson & any Red-Green - Hey you get to swap tiles! Swap for yellow matches to play Coulson's CD's, blue will be stun plus base damage with them out. Ghost Rider has cheap abilities which triggers Phil's CD for more AP and damage often. Dazzler was a nice surprise here as well, using the charged swaps to build up tons of red for her strikes. 

    Against any PvE team that spams CD's or special tiles against you - Seriously the free opportunity to have a power
    fired off for free happens quite easily sometimes. You could bring 4SL or C4ge for easy friendly specials, and as mentioned, getting nearly any 5* power for free is probably going to be excellent.

    Any maaany more. 
    Just because he doesn't do what you (barely) used him for previously doesn't mean he's ruined. He still plays incredibly well with/against Carnage, I've already played him on more teams than I did before, and is a fine choice along with ThorKoye when facing many Kitty teams etc. 
    I have all 4*s champed, and most 5*s champed, I hate that his swap is gone, but trust me he is more useful now overall.
    Thankyou for finally saying it!

    There are many characters who may not be as good on their own, but will make a solid team with him in his new form. People just need to try him out in different ideas and give him time.

    Carnage would never be used without Medusa, nor would many other characters without means to boost their ap generation or attack power etc.
  • Ragnoluce
    Ragnoluce Posts: 50 Match Maker
    Yeah I was reserving judgement until playing with him, and my experience with his Crash/PVE was overall very positive.

    He's definitely different, but I wouldn't say the he is worse--I think that a lot of the functionality he used to have with special-tile teams is not gone, just slightly adjusted--I ran him with Medusa/Venom and Medusa/Human Torch for most of Unstable ISO, and while he isn't the fastest (he never really was...) he still held his own. Blue and black are both interesting enough. I think Hawkey3 would be another great teammate vs. goons--both of them get positive ability procs when you match enemy countdowns!

    I will say that the completely ruined his old synergy on Fortified tiles teams--I used to really enjoy playing him with Luke C4ge and that is now right out the window...ah well!
  • darkwatcherDEZ
    darkwatcherDEZ Posts: 110 Tile Toppler
    We, like most that have been around for a while, could not understand the need for a Reed fix. We suppose it is similar to the reworks on Carnage. Our initial attempts at PVP suffered till we realized we were trying to get him to work in the previous incarnation. When viewed as a new character, we synergized with Teen Jean and Vulture and climbed to 7th at the dwindling hours. Made the same mistake in Crash, then changed tactics to a game of stun and purple denial (slow going).

    The takeaways are that change sucks when it alters habit (initially). When treated like a new character, we are able to try and exploit new synergies and play styles. We can see what the DEVs were attempting with actual Fantastic 4 team mixes. Although, we do agree that changes should be made to Reed's new Imaginaut BLACK.
  • Dotproduct
    Dotproduct Posts: 217 Tile Toppler
    TPF Alexis said:
    I notice that a lot of reactions seem to depend on luck. Specifically, on what Imaginaut is doing for people. For those who have been getting it to spit out Attack, Strike, or even Protect tiles, he comes across as improved. For those who've mostly been getting tons of locked or charged tiles, he comes across as nerfed. I'm sure there are some exceptions, but that trend seems to jump out at me.

    Yes, I did feel the pain of not having the original Imaginaut. I took a low champed Mr F into the CotT and I was able to launch the power twice. All it ended up in was about 30 locked tiles including my own strikes and attacks...

    I had Imaginaut at 5* but with this nerf is it recommended to change, maybe 5,4,4 instead of 5,3,5 to compensate for the less than impressive heals in yellow?
  • sambrookjm
    sambrookjm Posts: 2,163 Chairperson of the Boards
    TPF Alexis said:
    I notice that a lot of reactions seem to depend on luck. Specifically, on what Imaginaut is doing for people. For those who have been getting it to spit out Attack, Strike, or even Protect tiles, he comes across as improved. For those who've mostly been getting tons of locked or charged tiles, he comes across as nerfed. I'm sure there are some exceptions, but that trend seems to jump out at me.
    Ways to improve Imaginaut:
    • Tell you how strong the tiles were, how many got locked, or how much AP you generated in the ability description.
    • Locked tiles were limited to enemy specials.  If there aren't any on the board, don't choose this ability.
    • Charged tiles were either blue, yellow or black - colors that he has powers in. (Yeah, yellow wouldn't be overly useful, but at least it would be better than ones he doesn't have a use for and the match damage would be better.)
    • Do one of each of the "random abilities" each time the repeater ticks down. Create an attack tile, protect tile, strike tile, generate 1 AP *and* lock a tile.  Lessen the power of tiles you generate, but it would certainly help with your team out. Paired with a 3/5/5 Nico, this would get out of hand quickly.

    Locking your own special tiles seems ridiculous and counterproductive.  I didn't have that happen, fortunately.

    Dotproduct said:
    Yes, I did feel the pain of not having the original Imaginaut. I took a low champed Mr F into the CotT and I was able to launch the power twice. All it ended up in was about 30 locked tiles including my own strikes and attacks...

    I had Imaginaut at 5* but with this nerf is it recommended to change, maybe 5,4,4 instead of 5,3,5 to compensate for the less than impressive heals in yellow?
    Blue at 5 is still obvious. Without knowing what the difference between LVL 4 and 5 for Imaginaut, it's tough to tell.  The difference between 3 and 4 for his passive yellow isn't that great.  My Mr F is at LVL 292, and the difference from 3 to 4 on his yellow is 326 at LVL 3 to 469 at LVL 4.
  • DAZ0273
    DAZ0273 Posts: 10,275 Chairperson of the Boards
    TPF Alexis said:
    I notice that a lot of reactions seem to depend on luck. Specifically, on what Imaginaut is doing for people. For those who have been getting it to spit out Attack, Strike, or even Protect tiles, he comes across as improved. For those who've mostly been getting tons of locked or charged tiles, he comes across as nerfed. I'm sure there are some exceptions, but that trend seems to jump out at me.
    This was particularly evident with his Crash. First time I pretty much had nowhere to go apart from a 1 turn stun and imaginaut was useless. Second time round thanks to a black cascade I had strikes and protects out from Imaginaut and all of a sudden there were options. I could even allow Doom to gather black as my shields helped blunt his attack tiles and then I was lucky enough that they fell in matchable locations.

    Of course as mine is 2/5/5 I was locked in and blue wasn't much a nuke anyway, so I needed luck even more. Unless it is Domino, luck is not a great design characteristic for players.
  • TPF Alexis
    TPF Alexis Posts: 3,826 Chairperson of the Boards
    himatako said:
    TPF Alexis said:
    I notice that a lot of reactions seem to depend on luck. Specifically, on what Imaginaut is doing for people. For those who have been getting it to spit out Attack, Strike, or even Protect tiles, he comes across as improved. For those who've mostly been getting tons of locked or charged tiles, he comes across as nerfed. I'm sure there are some exceptions, but that trend seems to jump out at me.
    It isn't a coincidence that all the team that "work well" with him are the ones that either trying to maximize his blue damage or get as many chances as possible to get his yellow to fire free powers. Nothing about his Imaginaut at all.
    Most of the reactions from play experience that I had seen at that point were from his Crash, which pretty much was all about Imaginaut.

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