***** Doctor Doom (God Emperor) *****

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Comments

  • MrEd95
    MrEd95 Posts: 280 Mover and Shaker
    Wow, any team with domino or cloak and dagger don’t stand a chance, while simultaneously being his best friends on his side
  • DAZ0273
    DAZ0273 Posts: 10,342 Chairperson of the Boards
    I had hoped for entirely selfish reasons that this was going to be a 4* release as I only have about 38CP. Oh well.

    I hear players saying that he is average for 5* tier but I can see Doom being very popular at lower levels. Passive healing and a decently cheap black nuke which can be fueled at both 3 * 4* level are going to make him an attractive option to run outside the 5* tier.
  • Phumade
    Phumade Posts: 2,503 Chairperson of the Boards
    @fight4thedream I agree with much of what you said. Doom could - and should - definitely be akin to Thanos in terms of health, and do much more damage, on par with GladiaThor and Jessica. Still, the devs designed him to be primarily defensive with a good nuke, and that's the lemons we'll have to make lemonade of.

    Your using comic Lore to justify a power rating?  LOL  The rest of us gave up reconciling comic tradition and history to the game when they failed to acknowledge that Kitty is actually a Dr. and should have been in the doom release store.


    But really this a 5* that is entire meant to be played by underleved by 3*/4* players.  Think along the lines of what a 2 yellow cover oml could do for a high tier 3* / low tier 4* player.

    Realistically a 3 cover doom raised to 315 -330 range with a 270 4*rocket, 3* featured. is a decently strong combo against other weakly champed chars.


    I actually think people who wanted 4* doom actually go their wish.   Doom's healing team heal isn't gonna keep up with Kitty.  In fact at the minimum,  

    champed kitty buffs 4 specials for 633 a piece or 2400 points every TURN!

    by comparision Doom's team heal is

    burst of 10k health for 10 yellow ap.

    If you assume it takes 3 rounds min to get 10 ap.  then Kitty has stacked
    7500 points of damage/ protect on her tiles.  and doom has just used 10 ap to heal back to full health.

    let that sink in.

    in 3 turns, kitty can generate 7500 point of buff and Doom just gets you back to full health, but still struggling against over scaled strikes.  And you praying that kitty doesn't luck into a double match the whole time.




  • Cactus_Jack_87
    Cactus_Jack_87 Posts: 210 Tile Toppler
    The fact that a herald of Galactus, an ancient cosmic fire entity, a god of mischief, a spirit of vengeance, all of Spidey's arch villains, the Sorceror Supreme, a time traveling mutant with a gun the size of his body, a horseman of Apocalypse, and the Incredible friggin' Hulk are outclassed by a lady with a pointy stick is just a reminder to me that I can't compare everyone to Okoye and her best buddy, Thor. With that said, I am also pretty disappointed that god Doom seems so lackluster. I guess he'll serve his purpose for me when he's boosted in PVE, and then it's back to autoplay with Thokoye for another few months. Hey, wouldn't it be great if we started getting some more character buffs pretty soon? Maybe we could even get someone reworked to give Doom a much needed partner! Finger crossing initiated...
  • MoosePrime
    MoosePrime Posts: 969 Critical Contributor
    So will his passive on death activate if he's stunned (like Phoenix)? From the wording of the ability I assume not?
    I had this question as well.

    Loki's passive does not mention stuns, but I'm fairly certain it works when he is stunned, so it's possible that Doom's will also work when he is stunned.
  • bbigler
    bbigler Posts: 2,111 Chairperson of the Boards
    Phumade said:

    champed kitty buffs 4 specials for 633 a piece or 2400 points every TURN!
    Kitty buffs up to 5 tiles per turn, so at level 450, it's 5 x 633 = 3,165 damage stacking each turn. You can lose some strikes along the way, but it still ramps up quickly. I saw someone with a level 503 Kitty which buffed for 952! Champed and Boosted in PVE, it must be well over 1K.

    It's fair to compare Kitty to Okoye (not Doom). Both can stack damage to similar degrees, but they're very different. Okoye can't always get TU tiles to match, and if she's not in front, her damage boost lessens. Plus, her boost only applies to powers, not regular tile matching, like Kitty. Kitty can lose strikes during the match, but her boost works every turn, usually, and it works on every tile match, making simple cascades an actual nuke. While Thorkoye is setting up, Grockitty has already killed someone. I think the real test is which team is faster in PVE SCL 9. I said long ago that Grockitty-Thanos could rival the fastest teams in PVE. Let's test that out.
  • bluewolf
    bluewolf Posts: 5,847 Chairperson of the Boards
    I’m not going to argue that Doom is meta changing, but vs Kitty he could be interesting.  Kitty is paired with Rocket because otherwise she’s not much of a threat.  Her strongest color is yellow, so you leave yellow there, maybe (or at least some) for her to heal you and steal 1 AP each time.  So she’s healing you and feeding your shuffle while you match other strikes away.  Yes, it’s taking a while to get to 10 AP, but its not just Kitty roolz, Doom droolz.  You shuffle and there’s a decent chance you take out more strikes while healing your team.  Hopefully you’re gathering black as well to nuke her after you’ve destroyed Rocket and the 3*.

    I’m still not sure who to partner him with exactly.  In that scenario DD or Cap make a lot of sense.

    It might be a bit slow, but better than just letting all those Gritty teams float, maybe.
  • Richyyy
    Richyyy Posts: 305 Mover and Shaker
    The problem is that the game design makes characters like this pretty worthless to most people trying to play competitively. Everything's based on speed, whether you're trying to clear nodes in PvE or trying to climb before you get hit back in PvP. So defensive characters become of significantly less use than offensive ones who can power through opponents. If there were more puzzle-based, thinking-necessary events/nodes/opponents/whatever then characters who are difficult to beat, or who keep you alive, would be much more valuable. As it is, I read Doom's powers, go "Mehhhhhh", and go back to waiting for a 5* who's going to change anything.
  • Chrono_Tata
    Chrono_Tata Posts: 719 Critical Contributor
    So will his passive on death activate if he's stunned (like Phoenix)? From the wording of the ability I assume not?
    I had this question as well.

    Loki's passive does not mention stuns, but I'm fairly certain it works when he is stunned, so it's possible that Doom's will also work when he is stunned.
    Yeah if it can be disabled with stun then a Grocket team could stun him with a TU or something before killing him, which could make him a lot less useful on defence. Would be good to clarify.
  • bluewolf
    bluewolf Posts: 5,847 Chairperson of the Boards
    Richyyy said:
    The problem is that the game design makes characters like this pretty worthless to most people trying to play competitively. Everything's based on speed, whether you're trying to clear nodes in PvE or trying to climb before you get hit back in PvP. So defensive characters become of significantly less use than offensive ones who can power through opponents. If there were more puzzle-based, thinking-necessary events/nodes/opponents/whatever then characters who are difficult to beat, or who keep you alive, would be much more valuable. As it is, I read Doom's powers, go "Mehhhhhh", and go back to waiting for a 5* who's going to change anything.
    Gambit:  Aug '17.  
    Thor:  Oct '17.
    Okoye:  May '18
    Next one:  ????  March '19?  Late April?  July?  who knows.

    One problem the devs constantly face is how to make each new character do something unique (usually a combination of existing effects).  So the idea is less "new meta" as "new things to do".  This is kind of obviously their approach, and usually means "not a meta".

    You could easily make Thor 2 (just a different costume) by changing some colors around, increasing match/tile damage numbers, tweaking some of the conditions around damage causing, and BOOM!  new meta.

    Kitty is just SL on steroids.  Doesn't steal SAP, just destroys them and causes damage.  Doesn't boost Rocket once, but constantly.   Her ex-boyfriend 2.0.

    A champed boosted Kitty with rocket clears PVE nodes in 38 seconds by my count, and my phone isn't even the newest phone.  This is from pushing "fight" to "Victory" after switching from my stopwatch app (back and forth).

    There isn't a lot of room at the top of the meta at this point.  What do you want?  Push fight, watch the board blow up and win?  5 second fights?

    So no, the meta isn't being shaken up.  I question what it will look like when it is.  It's just some new stuff to do.
  • Daredevil217
    Daredevil217 Posts: 3,988 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited January 2019
    Phumade said:

    Your using comic Lore to justify a power rating?  LOL  The rest of us gave up reconciling comic tradition and history to the game when they failed to acknowledge that Kitty is actually a Dr. and should have been in the doom release store.
    They did not fail to acknowledge that Kitty has a doctorate no more than they failed to acknowledge Ock or the fact that Stark has multiple PhDs.  The store only has three 5*.  So they put Bruce and Strange in rather than the person who is already in a token store.  This is like saying they failed to acknowledge OML or Phoenix as mutants because they weren't in Cable's Mutant Maveicks store.
  • Daredevil217
    Daredevil217 Posts: 3,988 Chairperson of the Boards
    I agree, but I think the problem is if they are not game-breaking, but also not a smoldering dumpster fire, most categorize that as "meh".

    I'd say the top 5* in the game are (in release order): Thanos, Thor, Okoye, Jessica, and Kitty.  So 4 of the top 5 have all been released the past year and some change. I think we've been spoiled with some pretty awesome releases relatively recently and as such everything that doesn't hit that high mark looks cruddy in comparison.

    Starting with Thor, we've had the 4 awesome ones, we've had two "dumpster fires" in Wasp and Kingpin and the rest have been in that "meh" category: Archangel, Ghost Rider, IW Cap, Loki, Cable, and now Doom.

    So 4/12 Excellent, 2/12 awful, 6/12 meh.  That's half of the last dozen characters that fit into that meh category. I think that's where people's complaints come from. I think Doom has the potential to be the best among the meh bunch just due to his niche as an annoying defensive character, but he's still another "mid-tier" character. 

  • Thanos
    Thanos Posts: 722 Critical Contributor
    Dooms getting a teammate to make him better. Also Namor sneak peek.



  • JHawkInc
    JHawkInc Posts: 2,605 Chairperson of the Boards
    Thanos said:
    Dooms getting a teammate to make him better. Also Namor sneak peek.



    They've been talking about Victorious here and there, she's apparently the champion of Latveria. Guessing she's going to be Doom's new Support.
  • fight4thedream
    fight4thedream GLOBAL_MODERATORS Posts: 1,978 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited January 2019
    @fight4thedream I agree with much of what you said. Doom could - and should - definitely be akin to Thanos in terms of health, and do much more damage, on par with GladiaThor and Jessica. Still, the devs designed him to be primarily defensive with a good nuke, and that's the lemons we'll have to make lemonade of.

    I'll just address your comparison of Doom to Okoye, particularly as support characters (so I won't compare their nukes). Sure, Okoye has a better passive, self-healing, and match damage. But Okoye is designed to be the head of the Dora Milaje: she boosts the skill damage of her allies while leading from the front, hence her high match (and TU) damage to allow her to tank. As a result of her tanking, she'll need to heal herself with her Yellow. Note that her Yellow doesn't provide a burst of health to her teammates; instead, it's meant to heal only Okoye while simultaneously providing fuel for Okoye to boost her teammates' damage output. So, in a sense, Okoye converts defense into offense.

    In contrast, I see Doom as sitting on his throne in Battleworld, giving his allies the support that they need to continue fighting, which is represented by his burst healing his teammates. And of course, Doom reshapes his world via his will, which is represented by the board shuffle. Perhaps not the best representation of his comic abilities, as you mention, but it isn't the worst representation either. And, like Okoye, Doom can also heal himself, albeit less reliably.

    In sum: Okoye, as someone who leads from the front, supports her teammates by boosting their damage output, tanking hits for them, and healing only herself to allow her to continue her role. God Doom, as someone who generally hangs back and surveys the scene, supports his teammates by restoring their health, and taking advantage of opposition manoeuvers (i.e. their making Black and Yellow matches) to sustain himself in order to continue his role.

    Doom supports his teammates by replenishing their health, so they can continue doing what they were already doing. Okoye takes what her teammates are already doing and makes it do even more.
    This was beautifully stated. I have no objections to your argument. My only complaint is that Doom isn't trying hard enough to keep his teammates alive. lol 
    GrimSkald said:

    Character power level has nothing to do with power in the game.  Sorry.  Seriously, eight characters in the 5* tier are quite literally physically normal human beings with no special powers, or at least no special powers that affect combat with invulnerable people in a meaningful way.

    I mean, Daredevil vs Phoenix?  Hawkeye vs. Black Bolt?  Black Widow vs Thanos? Captain America vs. the Silver Surfer?  Sure, Cap's a master strategist, but what exactly is he going to do?

    It's never been about power level.  High power level on a character (i.e. God-Emperor Doom,) makes it more likely they'll introduce the character at the 5* tier, but only a little.

    I understand this. But as a comic book fan, it creates a dissonance that at times I feel is unnecessary. The MPQ universe is certainly very peculiar and I have learned to accept that to some degree. It is a universe where the Hulk has never been the strongest, where 3* Spider-man for a significant period of time had magic healing abilities that didn't make any sense lore-wise, where Black Panther and Thanos are best buds. But every now and then, the character design choices crosses the boundaries of my suspension of disbelief. 

    But my concern isn't just simply a matter of comic-lore fidelity. It's also a question of how his in-game use, or lack thereof, will affect the metrics and development decisions. For a long time, many players have been clamoring for more villains and Doom has been at the top of a lot players' lists. But his skill set doesn't fit in the current meta, for either PvE or PvP. And when the dev team looks over the numbers and notice that none of the new generation of 5* villains are seeing much play in comparison to other members of their cohort, this might be attributed to their "villain" status. There are still plenty of villains I would like to see in-game and it would be unfortunate if they don't get released because the devs think villains aren't popular.

    Finally, I also think this was a missed opportunity to balance out the current meta. I have long been an advocate for strong counter characters; unfortunately, the dev team hasn't been very successful in that regard when it comes to the 5* tier. I have noticed some people suggest that God Emperor Doom would make a good counter to the current Kitty/Grocket trend but that strategy necessitates your Doom being downed. To be frank, it's more of an emergency option than what I would call a desirable counter strategy simply because it's a huge drain on resources. 

    Had they made his blue power so that he steals (and possibly buffed) friendly tiles when matched it would have given Doom more appeal. Furthermore, instead of stealing black and yellow AP, had they made it so that he passively converted 2 or 3 TU tiles every turn into Yellow and/or black (maybe you could choose which by cover level), he would have put the brakes on Okoye/Thor teams. 

    But who knows, maybe they are saving these kinds of skills for a future character.

    It is true that we don't have the full picture here and perhaps he will make a good partner for someone down the line. I remember Black Bolt's initial reception also not being so great but he has had a few glorious moments to shine and has managed to stay at the upper ranking of the 5* tier. I can only hope a similar fate awaits God Emperor Doom. But only time will tell.

    Richyyy said:
    bluewolf said:

    There isn't a lot of room at the top of the meta at this point.  What do you want?  Push fight, watch the board blow up and win?  5 second fights?

    Nah, what I'd actually like, personally, is for them to address it from the other side. Give us events or new types of play where characters who have a particular skillset or are defensively strong are actually useful. Give us something (besides the occasional boss event) where you're not constantly striving for speed. Then these decent-but-different-but-not-good-enough characters could become meaningful. Maybe Doom keeps you alive long enough to beat a particular level you couldn't win with offensive strength, maybe there's a special board with no green that makes Thor significantly less useful, hell maybe they just bring back Heroics so I have to pay attention to the 90% of my roster that goes ignored.

    I agree with you that the game's already become virtually just a tap-fest in PvE and can't get much quicker without literally being decided by who has the better phone and faster internet connection. So give us more interesting styles of play that would in turn make these new characters potentially much more intriguing.

    And 100% this. New game modes that focused on other aspects besides speed would definitely do wonders! 

    Thanos said:
    Dooms getting a teammate to make him better. Also Namor sneak peek.




    And once again, kudos to the art team! Doom looks amazing!