To Devs - Marvel puzzle quest or Marvel vs. kitty ?

BoyWonder1914

As someone who just recently moved into the 5-star realm about a week ago and am now trying to navigate my way through SHIELD Sim, I must say - GRitty is not a problem for me at all. At least with my BSSM. The X-Factor that has really been making them an incredibly annoying combo is Bishop. Having Bishop as that third took them from a challenging team to fight if I don’t pick my targets carefully, to an absolutely unbeatable team if I’m using 2 5–stars. His passive takes away your ability to choose your target, or make matches that won’t get you stun-locked. 

I’ve consistently beat this team now with BSSM/Vulture/Gamora, by making matches with the latter 2 until I can stun Bishop and/or send Vulture airborne to keep the stuns coming. But since this is happening in PVP, I’m leaving myself open to other 5-star teams to come pummel me. Not exactly gonna scare anyone on defense with that squad. I’m much more supportive of a Bishop rework than I am a Kitty or GRocket nerf. But since we know reworks aren’t on the radar anytime soon.......feelsbadman. 

Phumade

BoyWonder1914 said:

As someone who just recently moved into the 5-star realm about a week ago and am now trying to navigate my way through SHIELD Sim, I must say - GRitty is not a problem for me at all. At least with my BSSM. The X-Factor that has really been making them an incredibly annoying combo is Bishop. Having Bishop as that third took them from a challenging team to fight if I don’t pick my targets carefully, to an absolutely unbeatable team if I’m using 2 5–stars. His passive takes away your ability to choose your target, or make matches that won’t get you stun-locked. 

I’ve consistently beat this team now with BSSM/Vulture/Gamora, by making matches with the latter 2 until I can stun Bishop and/or send Vulture airborne to keep the stuns coming. But since this is happening in PVP, I’m leaving myself open to other 5-star teams to come pummel me. Not exactly gonna scare anyone on defense with that squad. I’m much more supportive of a Bishop rework than I am a Kitty or GRocket nerf. But since we know reworks aren’t on the radar anytime soon.......feelsbadman. 

You just have to be intelligent about who you fight and when you fight them. With 5 pins in sim, you have a decent amount of flexibility to swap targets. But in any case after 2200, don’t expect more than 3 to 4 matches before someone hits even a 460 gritty combo

658_2

The only problem with Gritty is that it puts a 4 star in the meta. Definitely annoys me to have put thousands of hours into developing a 5 star roster and end up with a bunch who are (obviously) unusable whilst a 4 is part of the best combo in the game. I saw someone yesterday running a 405 Kitty plus Grocket, rather than Thorkoye with both in the 480s. I’ve seen many running sub 460 Kitties rather than other 5s in the 500s. But, we’ve seen situations like that for years. The devs decided to make 5 champ levels weak. Is what it is, and setting aside the annoyance, Gritty is no less beatable than Thorkoye for those with developed rosters. Takes more healthpacks but I beat that team 90%, at least, without a Gritty of my own. In a game more active about balance, it’d be quite defensible to reduce Grocket’s starting strikes from 7 to 4 or 5, while pumping them a bit, but they’ve never made small balance changes. They just don’t do that.

Bishop, on the other hand, is obviously broken. A blind monkey could see it, and he should have been nerfed every bit as fast as 3* Iron Fist.

Lystrata

I've run Gritty/Bishop in Shield this season, and as it comes to a close obviously the attacks are coming in. For reference, here are some teams that have managed to beat them:

4*: Vulture / Rogue / Gamora

4*/5*: Valkyrie / Bishop / Kitty

4*/5*: America / Rogue / Okoye

5*: Thanos / OML / Thor.

It's clearly not an undefeatable team, and you clearly don't have to have Thor/Okoye, your own Gritty team or BSSM in order to do so. 

Now, I'm not saying the Gritty/Bishop (or even just Gritty) combination isn't a pain to deal with, but those are actually some pretty varied teams, across the 4*/5* range, that're able to get a victory against them. There will always be a 'meta' in place, but as long as there are options to deal with them, I really don't think nerfs are the answer. 

This forum (generalisation here) swings wildly between outrage/disappointment when a new character isn't outstanding, then outrage/nerf calls as soon as a new character is introduced who is outstanding (or contributes to an outstanding team). 

This is probably the first time in years that we've actually got a couple of really solid 'meta' teams to choose from at the same time, who are great offensively and actually not outright impossible to take on as defensive teams. No idea why we would want to curtail that. 

Splurch

Just want to say, as someone with all but a few 4's champed and a bunch of 5's champed, Kitty/Groot/Bishop is just a dominating combo. It's just not fun facing them, especially when they make up every team in the 1800+ ish range (for the monthly pvp) and even a victory against them means you are using revives. As for "counters," many of those teams are just leaving yourself absolutely open to being destroyed by teams other people are using around that level. This isn't a 'meta' with multiple team options, its either have that combo, have 5*'s that are very highly champed or just don't bother competing.

Phumade

Splurch said:

Just want to say, as someone with all but a few 4's champed and a bunch of 5's champed, Kitty/Groot/Bishop is just a dominating combo. It's just not fun facing them, especially when they make up every team in the 1800+ ish range (for the monthly pvp) and even a victory against them means you are using revives. As for "counters," many of those teams are just leaving yourself absolutely open to being destroyed by teams other people are using around that level. This isn't a 'meta' with multiple team options, its either have that combo, have 5*'s that are very highly champed or just don't bother competing.

How often do you actually play in the 1800+ range in monthly pvp?  
Your basically talking about the difficulty in the last part of a 28 day event.

Borstock

I don't mind Gritty, but I'm over seeing them every single match once you reach a certain points threshold. If it wasn't them, it'd probably just be Thorkoye, anyway, but Gritty is way more troll-y. It's just boring more than anything else.

JSP869

Gritty is pretty bloody nasty in Ronin's PvP event, too. I can beat them, mostly, with Okoye & XPool, but it's typically going to cost me a health pack, and sometimes even a Team Up.
Medusa's Hair Flip to steal their Kitty-boosted Strikes has saved my bacon on more than a few occasions.

DAZ0273

I'm not as high a level as a lot of you guys but it seems Gritty (and even just Kitty) mania is in full flow. As well as all the normal ones, I came across a player running a 1/1/1 Kitty and a non-champed but boosted Grocket in the Ronin PvP. I had a look at their roster and I really couldn't understand the logic as they seemed to have better options but I guess it must have been doing the job for them on offense, it wasn't particularly tough to defeat however and I don't even have a Gritty of my own. I also saw Kitty on a lot of other teams without Grocket, so her use metrics must be running pretty high across a wider range of players than Thorkoye is which I didn't see once (even when I started getting in the range of 5* players they were all Gritty-ing).

bluewolf

Someone running any Gritty combo can do pretty well with wins in this Ronin PVP.  Boosted Rocket makes it pretty much a no-brainer.

It is a good point that the past 6 months have likely seen Rocket's use go up significantly.  I run Gritty fairly often in PVE with Thor (others have their own combos of choice) - mostly on goon nodes - and I basically ignored Rocket once I got to 5 land until Kitty came along.  In PVP I see them floating a lot at the high end, which means I use a check room more than before.

That said, the game and its grind and dilution make (as pointed out many times already) a Rocket nerf extremely ill-advised.  I'd guess a solid chunk of 4* players would walk away if that happens.  So instead we see attempts to introduce anti-Rocket characters.

The good news is that the Spring '19 Rocketfest will end in a few days, and the fact that we have 79 4's in the game makes it about 16 weeks until the Fall Rocketfest begins.  (That boost list takes a while to get through.)

KGB

bluewolf said:

Someone running any Gritty combo can do pretty well with wins in this Ronin PVP.  Boosted Rocket makes it pretty much a no-brainer.
ough.)

It's not just Gritty. GRocket + any GoTG character is deadly in this PvP. It's a perfect storm due to Grocket being boosted but because also even the loaner Ronin will create 2 attack tiles for every Red match you make. With just Grocket + Gamora if I make a Red match on turn 1 (which I prioritize over anything other than a match 5) I can do 8K damage after the attack tiles fire so that on turn 2 or 3 I've downed an enemy and by turn 5-6 I can win outright if I get a cascade or two.

I suspect the reason everyone queues Gritty so often is because you don't need to shield with them due to the scarecrow factor of health pack usage if things go wrong. That's not an issue with Thorkoye and other teams on defense.

KGB

ZootSax

DAZ0273 said:

I'm not as high a level as a lot of you guys but it seems Gritty (and even just Kitty) mania is in full flow. As well as all the normal ones, I came across a player running a 1/1/1 Kitty and a non-champed but boosted Grocket in the Ronin PvP. I had a look at their roster and I really couldn't understand the logic as they seemed to have better options but I guess it must have been doing the job for them on offense, it wasn't particularly tough to defeat however and I don't even have a Gritty of my own. I also saw Kitty on a lot of other teams without Grocket, so her use metrics must be running pretty high across a wider range of players than Thorkoye is which I didn't see once (even when I started getting in the range of 5* players they were all Gritty-ing).

PVP does bring out some ill-advised "meta teams" from people with characters nowhere near strong enough.  A couple months ago I saw a "Thorokye" team from an otherwise 2-3* transition player, but each character only had ~2-3 covers, with Thor missing yellow and Okoye missing black.  There were quite a few similar Kitty teams out there in Ronin's PVP for me as well, including one without a yellow cover.   Of course, there were also the 10+ cover "trap Kitty" teams with Lv255 well-covered Kitty's, so with boosted Rocket you always had to be pretty careful in 4* MMR.  

As a point of reference, in 4* MMR for Ronin's PVP Archangel was the next most common 5* besides Kitty , which surprised me but I guess Peggy & Moon Knight gave good outlets for Vulture.  Okoye was the only other 5* I saw.  Single 5* champ rosters started showing up after ~650 pts for me (my 5*'s are soft-capped at Lv315, as none are close to fully covered, and my highest non-Devil-Dinosaur 4* is only Lv280).  All of the single-champ 5*'s I saw were Kitty/Rocket, which I skipped.

DAZ0273

ZootSax said:

DAZ0273 said:

I'm not as high a level as a lot of you guys but it seems Gritty (and even just Kitty) mania is in full flow. As well as all the normal ones, I came across a player running a 1/1/1 Kitty and a non-champed but boosted Grocket in the Ronin PvP. I had a look at their roster and I really couldn't understand the logic as they seemed to have better options but I guess it must have been doing the job for them on offense, it wasn't particularly tough to defeat however and I don't even have a Gritty of my own. I also saw Kitty on a lot of other teams without Grocket, so her use metrics must be running pretty high across a wider range of players than Thorkoye is which I didn't see once (even when I started getting in the range of 5* players they were all Gritty-ing).

PVP does bring out some ill-advised "meta teams" from people with characters nowhere near strong enough.  A couple months ago I saw a "Thorokye" team from an otherwise 2-3* transition player, but each character only had ~2-3 covers, with Thor missing yellow and Okoye missing black.  There were quite a few similar Kitty teams out there in Ronin's PVP for me as well, including one without a yellow cover.   Of course, there were also the 10+ cover "trap Kitty" teams with Lv255 well-covered Kitty's, so with boosted Rocket you always had to be pretty careful in 4* MMR.  

As a point of reference, in 4* MMR for Ronin's PVP Archangel was the next most common 5* besides Kitty , which surprised me but I guess Peggy & Moon Knight gave good outlets for Vulture.  Okoye was the only other 5* I saw.  Single 5* champ rosters started showing up after ~650 pts for me (my 5*'s are soft-capped at Lv315, as none are close to fully covered, and my highest non-Devil-Dinosaur 4* is only Lv280).  All of the single-champ 5*'s I saw were Kitty/Rocket, which I skipped.

Yeah, it really pays to check because I think players were trading on Grocket when better defensive teams were available but you couldn't be sure. Any Kitty between 255 and about 330 is potentially suspect so I always check. I also saw Okoye quite a bit, didn't see Archangel but saw a few Infinity Cap's. As I referenced in another thread though the strangest one  I came across was a champed 4* Kingpin! The team didn't even really have any synergy, he was just sort of there!

spidyjedi84

DAZ0273 said:

I'm not as high a level as a lot of you guys but it seems Gritty (and even just Kitty) mania is in full flow. As well as all the normal ones, I came across a player running a 1/1/1 Kitty and a non-champed but boosted Grocket in the Ronin PvP. I had a look at their roster and I really couldn't understand the logic as they seemed to have better options but I guess it must have been doing the job for them on offense, it wasn't particularly tough to defeat however and I don't even have a Gritty of my own. I also saw Kitty on a lot of other teams without Grocket, so her use metrics must be running pretty high across a wider range of players than Thorkoye is which I didn't see once (even when I started getting in the range of 5* players they were all Gritty-ing).

I know a lot of people run Gritty defense as a trojan, as they know people may not look too closely at the team and just pass on them as another Gritty team. It's hiding a weak team in plain sight and hoping a lot of people will just brush it aside since she's the new glass jaw meta. If Kitty doesn't have all three covers, I will take on most of those teams, as I know I can clean their clocks easily with my counters. 

Projectus2501

No wonder they don't create a feeder for kitty... Imagine if that happened...

Polares

The game is so broken right now... And Devs keep ignoring the problem. We never have had too much communication in this game, but it baffles me that they are not addressing the situation.

Nerfing a 5 is a big deal, but Rocket and Bishop can be more easily nerfed, and in fact they should as I think they are the ones causing this current mess. Kitty would be ok without them.

Taganov

Polares said:

The game is so broken right now... And Devs keep ignoring the problem. We never have had too much communication in this game, but it baffles me that they are not addressing the situation.

Nerfing a 5 is a big deal, but Rocket and Bishop can be more easily nerfed, and in fact they should as I think they are the ones causing this current mess. Kitty would be ok without them.

I don't know man, especially, as others have mentioned in the thread, BSSM and other teams exist to defuse the threat of Gritty & Bishop. Grocket is pretty much worthless outside of instant strikes. Bishop is nothing without that blue production.

I much prefer they look at characters already in play and create more options for dealing w/ the meta. E.g., make Pepper Poots stun proof, but she stuns the stunner/sends them airborne if someone attempts to stun her or any party member. Or give her the ability to passively speed up repeaters. Or both. Suddenly PP, and a host of other characters whose only niche is taking up roster spots aren't so useless (CM, Emma Frost, any repeater-based char etc.).

I don't know, I just hate the thought of dumping on the most fun tier in the whole game.

Shadojakk

I play, and 8/10 high end builds are the same old Kitty/Grocket. Seriously it is so old. Nerf either Kitty or Grocket, please. Starting to see a rise of Daredevil/Bishop combos too.

AXP_isme

Some sort of intercept mechanic could be interesting. If you had a passive that inhibited the jump to the front mechanic in an opponent you could neuter bishop (and also thing and 3* deadpool). It’s pretty niche, I admit, but it would provide a counter to some of bishop’s deterrence value. You’d probably want to couple it to another power so that it’s less situational and so that you have some options for scaling by cover, otherwise it’s a bit binary. 

Polares

Taganov said:

Polares said:

The game is so broken right now... And Devs keep ignoring the problem. We never have had too much communication in this game, but it baffles me that they are not addressing the situation.

Nerfing a 5 is a big deal, but Rocket and Bishop can be more easily nerfed, and in fact they should as I think they are the ones causing this current mess. Kitty would be ok without them.

I don't know man, especially, as others have mentioned in the thread, BSSM and other teams exist to defuse the threat of Gritty & Bishop. Grocket is pretty much worthless outside of instant strikes. Bishop is nothing without that blue production.

I much prefer they look at characters already in play and create more options for dealing w/ the meta. E.g., make Pepper Poots stun proof, but she stuns the stunner/sends them airborne if someone attempts to stun her or any party member. Or give her the ability to passively speed up repeaters. Or both. Suddenly PP, and a host of other characters whose only niche is taking up roster spots aren't so useless (CM, Emma Frost, any repeater-based char etc.).

I don't know, I just hate the thought of dumping on the most fun tier in the whole game.

I would agree with you in normal conditions, but this case is a bit special. Rocket passive should have never EVER been created in the first place, specially when then you create a character that buffs special tiles ALSO with a passive. Bishop trigger should be way higher (like ALL other "intercept" powers, I don't know why his is so low).

Using BSSM has two big problems. First, most people don't have him, as he was released in a time when not that many people was able to get 5 chars. And second, and probably more importantly, he is quite meh in general, and opens you to a ton of attacks in defense. Also, if Bishop is present, he might get stunned (as his match damage will trigger him) and then strike tiles will work again :S

Devs sadly don't know how to create counters (remember Bear Cap and Angel were supposed to counter Gambit). Pepper doesnt counter in any way Gritty. 4-Thanos does it a bit better, but if you are a 5 player, using him also opens yourself for attack, specially in Shield.

Sadly there is no good solution here, Devs should have been way more careful with their passives :S

There are some times nerfs are needed, Gambit also deserved a nerf, and nerfing a 4 would not be such a big deal. so they should do it ASAP.

PS: And I have both BSSM and SS, so those teams for me are nto a problem, but seriously it is annoying fighting the same team over and over and over and over again.

PSS: I think it is fricking time to get buffs for 5s for PvP, so we are forced to use more 5s.