PvP without 5* Thor

atomzed

Want to see how PvP will be without 5* thor?

Many, many teams are possible. 

Oko+ JJ
Oko + Black Bolt
Oko + DD
Kitty + Grocket
Black Bolt + Gambit
Thanos + Black Panther

While several of the teams involve Oko, Oko without Thor feeding yellow is not as much a threat.

I beginning to think that such a meta will be more fun. 

LLohm

I am personally enjoying this pvp without 5Thor and his 5 free AP per turn broken mechanism so people actually need to match for their AP.

5 free AP per turn on any 5* deserves to be nerfed anyways since it takes away the matching aspect of the game. Don’t tell me how it is half life disabling since nobody competitive will go in with a full life Thor.

Back to topic. These are the teams that are suddenly fun again without 5Thor including those above

BB + SS 
Strange + JJ
DD + PP
DD + Thanos
OML + Phx
SS + Phx
BSS + Phx
BB + Thanos
Strange + BB
DD + Steve (First Avenger)
and so on ...

In my opinion, I’m even willing to offer up my 5Thor in a nerf to the passive green to “Does not generate AP” to see all the variety again!

Afterall, if 5Thor isn’t about the free AP, then the nerf shouldn’t affect him too much. Something which broke the original Gambit.

Tony_Foot

I've long mentioned why Thor is an issue and been shouted down. Okoye isn't the issue, in this pvp I've struggled to keep her healed without thor mopping up auto yellow. Thors issue isn't just the Auto AP it's that he also denies AP to the other team by removing that red yellow and green leaving you to concentrate on denying other AP with matches tanked by another member of your team.

Yeah you get the same old tired argument that he isn't an issue because he's easy to beat but this game isn't just about pvp and he makes all new characters in that colour set or over lap bench warmers from day 1 because unless they are gambit 2.0 no one will shift Auto AP zero risk from your line up.

A year ago I asked what it would take for you to stop using Thor in the line up, how great or OP a release would have to be and I'm still sure it will take a more broken character.

Now to counter that, nerf Thor and I would no longer play pvp. Yeah that seems odd after what I said above but after over a year playing brain out auto AP at extremely fast speed this pvp has had me stop at 575 and not care. Yep it has everything you could want for a more diverse game, although kitty grocket is everywhere from 575 but I've been spoilt. I couldn't go back. Reduce the speed on pvp, make it so I have to use health packs and I just straight up wouldn't bother. They created a game I can't go back from. PVE is enough of a time sink I can't put more into pvp. 16 wins/575 and out.

LLohm

Tony_Foot said:

I've long mentioned why Thor is an issue and been shouted down. Okoye isn't the issue, in this pvp I've struggled to keep her healed without thor mopping up auto yellow. Thors issue isn't just the Auto AP it's that he also denies AP to the other team by removing that red yellow and green leaving you to concentrate on denying other AP with matches tanked by another member of your team.

Yeah you get the same old tired argument that he isn't an issue because he's easy to beat but this game isn't just about pvp and he makes all new characters in that colour set or over lap bench warmers from day 1 because unless they are gambit 2.0 no one will shift Auto AP zero risk from your line up.

A year ago I asked what it would take for you to stop using Thor in the line up, how great or OP a release would have to be and I'm still sure it will take a more broken character.

Dear Tony,

it’s a pity I don’t frequently read the forums but I would’ve defended you back then had those arguments been seen by me.

I like how you rounded the argument by denial of AP as well since AI wouldn’t have the necessary colored tiles to fire their yellow, red or green powers. That’s like nerfing half the power spectrum in defence for AI at a potential of 6 possible color powers scheme.

Personally to you, I think the removal of free AP will also stop some of the current practices in PvP unless the people are determined to proof a point and keep their fingers on the heals button. It may not be as bad as you think.

fight4thedream

I think it would be helpful if we take a look at the whole picture.

The main problem is the synergy between Thor and Okoye. Thor is designed to be a tank and he is supposed to be taking damage during the match but players have identified a work around this issue by ensuring that Okoye tanks red and yellow by having her 11 or 12 (can't remember off the top of my head) levels higher than Thor.  Even without having this ideal level difference, a player can reasonably expect to be able to do PvP without having to use many health packs. 

Additionally, as mentioned above, Thor's AP generation feeds Okoye yellow so she is basically able to fully heal herself after every match. Furthermore, because of her black passive being tied to the amount of TUs a player has and her ability to generate TUs through her yellow which Thor feeds, a player is able to punch well above their weight against higher level 5* teams by having her tank damage, Thor feed her yellow which in turn she uses to heal off damage and generate TUs which then goes on to enhance Thor's green and red attacks. 

In @entrailbucket's Please nerf 5* Thor thread, they recommended that a condition be added to Thor's 50% passive AP generation: Thor has to be in front in order for the passive to kick in. I think this a reasonable solution to the problem. It would make his yellow protect tile generation relevant in PvP as players would want to keep Thor from losing health as much as possible while having him in front to generate AP.

On offense, players running a Thor/Okoye team will have to consider how to use their yellow: to reduce damage to Thor or to heal Okoye and enhance Thor's fire power. On defense, I imagine Thor would even be easier to deal with as players can switch off his green passive by making sure he isn't in the front and gathering enough AP to either finish him off. 

I think the problem isn't so much that Thor generates AP at below 50% but that the intended cost of him being at low health is being worked around by partnering him with characters that tank his colors so that he takes very little damage when people play him in PvP. Requiring him to be in front in order to generate AP would fix this.  

bluewolf

Look, if you somehow nerf Thor, you're likely going to use one of the following:

1.  A good passive (or two).  It's the only thing that somewhat works defensively with the current AI (which we don't need to fix).  Hence people like Okoye, Bolt, DD, JJ, Thanos, Gambit (sort of, he's almost a complete joke on defense).
2.  Gritty (which also has superb passives)

Most likely a lot more Gritty.

The game currently has two reasonable metas - Thorkoye and Gritty.  Thorkoye is preferred by those having both options because it's usually healthpack free and more foolproof vs protecting a bunch of randomly placed strikes.

I'd much rather have the current situation than going to a bunch of secondary passive options (some of which I don't have covered, like Bolt).  I don't mind the break (too much) but look forward to Thorkoye again until I get tired of the game or a replacement meta comes along.

jredd

if thor's auto ap generator gets nerfed, then you best nerf kitty's auto special tile improvement at the same time.

LLohm

Good points @fight4thedream, however I think the crux of the issues lies in relatively risk free AP generation.

Gambit did it and got nerfed rightly. Thor doing it as well isn’t any better as the game basically goes out of whack in huge advantage to whoever uses it.

Just a simple example will show -

Assume both sides can only match 3

Thor after 2 turns - 11 AP
Without Thor - 6 AP

Thor after 3 turns - 19 AP
Without Thor - 9 AP

.....

Thor after 7 turns - 51 AP
Without Thor - 21 AP

Indiscriminate AP generation is the issue at hand. Need for heals comes at a secondary level of discussion as it is optional although I can see that if we stop this unbalanced AP creation, Okoye will not be a problem with Thor.

I don’t think Okoye is the problem as another Okoye-like iteration can easily come up. Solving the main problem which is free AP seems like the more logical choice in the long run.

Alternatively, make every 5* in the tier generate 5AP per turn as a 5* tier special. We will see diversity come back. Personally, I think the obvious answer is to nerf Thor.

On another note, repeater powers will not seem that bad any more since it will have more chances to proc as match 3 happens now and matches automatically last longer. Repeaters are a way for powers to keep firing and have a chance to become a threat. Stopping all these auto AP gen rebalances these characters automatically.

Borstock

Between PvE, PvP, and now support circuit, I play this game enough. 

Thor is fast. He's efficient. And he's easy to kill on defense. 

Yeah, let's get THAT out of the game. 

Vhailorx

I don't want Thor nerfed. I want more, equally good meta characters. Thor makes matches fast and reliable.

Mpq asks me to play and win a TON of matches every day.  Until Demi changes that, i don't want a slower meta.

Besides, Thorkoye is the ideal meta team in that they aren't brutally difficult to fight against.  Original gambit, and gritty were/are dominant in both offense and defense (unless you have BSSM against gritty).  That is when the meta becomes oppressive; there is no way to progress post a certain point without already having the meta team.

The rockett

If you go after Thor then you will make a 5* and 4* team a meta team.  AI Kitty is broken as well with buffing strike tiles before move 1.  Let’s not just make this a Thor nerf thread.  

jredd

Vhailorx has the right idea. if all 5* brought something to the table where there wasn't really a meta, but there were several combinations of characters that brought something to the table that were quick and efficient then we wouldn't be talking about this. as it is, with a good chunk of characters being sub-par the top characters will be used almost exclusively. 

sinnerjfl

Leave Thor alone.

If you want something to be fixed in PVP right now, its the combo of Grocket + Kitty. It is far far more obnoxious than Thor at 50% health is (and yes I do have BSSM champed, it's still a broken combo).

Thor is not hard to kill, having a relative 28k health to be effective makes him quite fragile and susceptible to dying on cascades. His AP costs are high because of his passive, he is very slow withouth the AP generation.

HoundofShadow

I think PvP could be worse without Thor. You will probably be upset with Gritty and asked for Thor to be brought back.

Max champed R4G spits out 7 strike tiles of strength 274 or 571.
A champed Kitty buffs up to 5 R4G's strike tiles by 633 each or 3165 per turn. Total strike damage on the first turn = 5083 

Second turn= 5083 + 3165 = 8248.

Add in match damage and you will be dealing with at least 10,000 worth of match damage per turn. Throw in a cascade and you will probably be throwing your phone out of the window.

Thor is easy to counter... Gritty is challenging.

Vhailorx

The rockett said:

If you go after Thor then you will make a 5* and 4* team a meta team.  AI Kitty is broken as well with buffing strike tiles before move 1.  Let’s not just make this a Thor nerf thread.  

 Nerfing thor will then require another nerf to kitty. The solution is not to nerf anyone. It's to buff marvel and/or doom so that they too can regularly will matches in 7-10 turns.  Other 5* buffs would be good too, but these two are in latests, so they would be the best choices.

Any other change is just asking players to spend even more time going mpq (because average match length will go up).  That would piss people off to little other benefit.

PiMacleod

Heres my 2 cents

When people play against Gritty... they usually bring BSSM.  Maybe medusa...  some way to reduce the damage, and deal with the tiles.  We all know about Bishop and his stun against those high damage rates.

When people play against Thorkoye... they dont bring anyone special.  They just bring whoever and target the appropriate threats.  Theres not a single character you immediately think of as a "solution".  You just have to try to win fast against the characters in the right order.

At least against Gritty teams, theres a sense of counter-picking characters.  If you can counter pick, and disable someone's special like that, then it's not nearly as bad as the team where you dont have a counter pick.

I would agree with the nerf Thor argument for this purpose.


Okay, heres the unfortunate counter argument I agree with...

The game takes too long to slog through, and half-thor takes that pain away a bit.

Which goes back to the other argument I posed, where competitive should be removed from PvE, competitive rewards should be redistributed into PvP so competitive players can really slog it out for worthy rewards, and PvE can be reduced to just one clear for each to get the progression rewards.  This makes it so that players wont get so bored because of the grind, and if people really want those rewards for PvP, theres plenty to fight for in actual PvP (due to the redistrubution of competitive PvE rewards into PvP).

So, nerf Thor.  But only if you nerf our daily grind away too.  Besides, I really want a reason to not speed through story lines and animations. 

bluewolf

Psssst.  Lots of people don’t have BSSM but are in the 5* meta. I have just 7 covers. 

At least Thorkoye is a somewhat reliable Gritty counter.  Take away Thor and I’m using Daredevil, maybe.  And getting hit. 

Vhailorx

PiMacCleod:

There is basically one 5* counter to gritty.  And it's BSSM, who is 3 years old and is fully covered on only a tiny fraction of 5* rosters. 

Also, why is everyone so desperate to get to a state where the single meta team is a 4*/5* combo?  Where are all the hardcore elitist vets who love to whine about people "not earning it" and needing to "git gud"?  Isn't this the internet?

fight4thedream

@LLohm: The difference between Gambit and Thor is that the player has to have Thor at 50% below health before he starts generating AP. This limitation is significant and explains why most high end players find him easy to deal with as opposed to Gambit who was generating AP and burning opponent AP from turn 1 at full health. There are strategies various teams can make to deal with Thor where with Gambit you basically needed to use another Gambit to deal with him effectively. 

My concern is that with the strategy of "Hide the Thunder God" it by passes this limitation and we now have a meta where the strongest team is not only the fastest, hardest hitting but also the most resilient team. While Kitty/Grocket has certainly brought something new to the table it still falls a bit short in comparison under a majority of PvP events (they really shine with events where the 3* character automatically produces a special tile). I guess what I am trying to say is that it will be very difficult to supplant such a team as is unless the devs release a hard counter character similar to the way Black Suit Spider-Man is a hard Kitty/Grocket counter (although hopefully not as offensively slow and awkward). 

And for the record, I am not a fan of nerfs and would much rather prefer strong counter characters or at the very least, characters that are comparable in strength. I do believe the devs missed a great opportunity with God Emperor Doom to give Thor an alternative partner had they given Doom a good yellow AoE ability instead of burst healing and that pairing would have fit the comic-lore perfectly (the Thor Corps anyone?). I actually believe that 5* Thor is one of the best designed characters in terms of matching character lore and power levels. I do think this "Hide the Thunder God" strategy goes against the intended design of the character but I acknowledge it to be a legitimate strategy. 

Furthermore, most of the teams listed in the OP are perfectly capable to take on a Thor/Okoye team it's just that they are slower and will end up costing the player more health packs thus why most players prefer to stick with Thor/Okoye since it is the team par excellence. It's more a matter of convenience than anything else. 

Ideally, there should be a variety of top competitive teams, some that excel at particular types of events the way Kitty/Grocket do with 3*characters that automatically generate special tiles or good overall teams like Okoye/Thor but that are balanced out with strong counter teams or comparable teams. Hopefully that is the goal of the dev team. 

My only concern is that Thor/Okoye does everything except defense so well that it will prove difficult to come up with a team that is comparable in both strength and endurance. I personally don't have a problem with the current meta; I enjoy using Thor a lot. But I suspect some of the ennui I have heard from other high end players is partially because of the supreme convenience of that combo (although, the lack of new game modes is the prime suspect but that's a separate issue). 

Then again, as many have pointed out in this very thread, Thor actually helps in that he speeds up matches in an already time consuming game. And I can imagine quite a few players will quit if they nerfed Thor. So this is a matter where they need to tread carefully. 

One other quick and easy solution would simply be to make Okoye's healing ability another color. Perhaps they could switch her black and yellow abilities, making black her TU generating healing ability and yellow her power enhancing ability. At least that way, it would make God Emperor Doom somewhat more relevant since he can steal black and Okoye would need to actually match black tiles in order to heal. Considering the history of hostility between their respective countries, I think this would be a more appropriate dynamic in terms of comic-lore. 

But once again, the hour is late and I have said too much. 

Daredevil217

Thor PVP was brutal. Thor is my most reliable Gritty counter. Without him it was a huge healthpack suck limiting when I could play. I would probably not play PVP nearly as much if Thor was nerfed.

Luckily I don’t see any of the meta getting nerfed as they were just offered in a hoard-breaking special store.

My guess is they will look to create a 4* hard counter to Rocket (passive strike steal, passive strike destruction, or passive board blow up), and a 5* deterrent to playing Thor (passive AOE damage like 4* marvel, or something like Jessica’s traps only they go off on the players turn, punishing Thor for cascading into dangerous matches). 

Counters are preferable to nerfs. Also makes great business sense. Sell us the poison and the antidote!

wymtime

I ended up to use DD JJ combo for most of the PVP.  I was able to save healthpacks with DD and JJ did some nasty damage.  I tried out Okoye BB combo, Okoye JJ, I even ran AA some and ran GR for a match.  Once I got to 900 I went gritty kitty to shield then ran some Panthos for biggest thing this PVP showed me is that you don’t need to constantly run Thor Okoye on your climb, it is just easier on the health packs to run Thor/Okoye and when we have PVE, support curcuit and PVP Keep it sweet and simple Thor Okoye is the easiest to go with.