Gritty - nerf, or counter?

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Comments

  • tiomono
    tiomono Posts: 1,654 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited May 2019
    ThaRoadWarrior said:
    Hyperbole aside, it IS a strong defense team. As was Rocket/Medusa/Gamora before it (and probably still at some tiers of play).

    If it didn't go to work on opponent turn 1, I don't think we'd be having these problems or discussions. If Rocket worked like Carnage, where he spit out friendly and enemy strikes every turn (rather than battle start), we probably wouldn't be having this conversation. Same as if he worked like Daken or Ronin, where matching a certain color created strikes. Or C&D (or blade) where the shape of the board would create strikes based on the prevalence of a certain color. Rather than adjusting the cost of the strike, make them exist on turn 1 or not based on the presence of another guardian. that would incentivize people to include some non-Bishop 3rd in simulator.
    It is strong on defense yes. There have been many counter characters created (and some that already existed) that really do shut them down. 

    In my thinking they actually add thinking and strategy to the game. Just like fighting kacelius you have to plan on what you are doing to win. And when you use them you need to protect your strikes as best as you can or it crashes hard. 

    Compare that to the other meta duo that is pure ap gain and brute force, Thorkoye. That was easily the top team before gritty and is still a competition for gritty. They are easier to beat with a wider variety of teams however. So I'm thinking that is the heart of the gritty complaint.

    The last few releases have been specifically geared towards helping shut down gritty. And I would say they are way better attempts than archangel and lumbercap were to gambit. There are a pretty good variety of characters and strategies out now that deal effectively with gritty.

    We definitely would not be having this conversation if there were not 7 tiles on the board at turn 0. But we also have been given several characters that can deal with special tile spam, even punishing it. Is it enough? I guess we will see as more people get the counters covered and realize you can't just throw anything you want vs gritty and win. And conversely it will hopefully get to the point you can't just throw gritty at anything and expect to win.

    Rock, paper, scissors, is a time tested game for a reason. You cannot just do the same thing and always win. We need more meta teams that beat each other easily in this game. The more rocks, papers,and scissors we have the better. We should not try to make paper weaker. We should be making it easier to get a variety of scissors.

    But that's just my opinion.



  • Gold_Dragon
    Gold_Dragon Posts: 101 Tile Toppler
    Oh yeah and let’s not forget, BSSM laughs at all iterations of Gritty. 
  • Spudgutter
    Spudgutter Posts: 743 Critical Contributor
    LLohm said:
    All these nerf gritty talk is frankly getting tiresome.

    Gritty teams require a lot of heals to utilize. (Remember this point here)

    There are good solutions now in 4* land so I don’t think it’s 4* players or transitioners screaming for this nerf. Sabertooth and 4Thanos are more effective in hitting gritty teams than it looks on paper and I have tried champed versions of both. Thanos is already possible to champ since it’s in packs already. Sabertooth will be available too soon after this current season ends. The devs did a great job with both these 4*.

    Which leaves 3 type of complainers. 

    1. The hoarders who don’t want to open their hoard to get a working solution 

    2. People who are on Thor Okoye who don’t want to spend on heals since there’s a chance that they can wipe on that fight

    3. People who insist that they cannot be a target for other teams if they utilize a 4* to hit Gritty teams

    Groups 1 and 2 in my own opinion deserve exactly what they get since they chose to play that fashion. You win some and lose some via those strategy. Don’t be a toxic driver in the forums please.

    For people in the 3rd group, all I can say is this creates a Rock Paper Scissors situation which is a great dynamic from my perspective. Why not accept it as it creates more vibrancy?
    While i assume there will be plenty of people that fall outside of those three groups, this is still pretty much a good recap. 
  • Polares
    Polares Posts: 2,643 Chairperson of the Boards
    Malcrof said:
    If the requirement of "speed" in clearing and pvp matches were to be removed, we would find so many more combinations of teams.. i will take a long fun fight over what we have to do to get placement in PVE. No-one needs a nerf, the game needs a priority adjustment. 
    I really doubt you would be able to do that without a TON of nerfs, but sure, the game would be much fun if speed was not the only thing that matters.
  • Polares
    Polares Posts: 2,643 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited May 2019
    tiomono said:
    Polares said:
    KGB said:
    Polares said:

    You might have a very high level SB, but the problem for most people is that if you use a 4 to counter Gritty you are going to be eaten alive by 5 teams.

    Of course, countering GRitty with a 5 is much harder as most people need A LOT of time to get a 5 into usable level.

    That is why Rocket should be nerfed. All games nerf characters, and nerfing a 4 is not a big deal when most of us have 70+ ranked 4s.

    And for those that say Gritty is the only thing that makes PvE bearable I say, maybe the problem is not nerfin Rocket, is PvE, maybe you should concentrate on asking Devs into making PvE fun (even though this would not happen after 5 years). Also, what happens then with the people that doesn't have Gritty, you have a MASIIVE advantage over them in PvE (and Kitty is not erasy to get).

    Again, NERF ROCKET.
    Sure, but then if they suddenly released a new 3* character who did something similar to 4* Rocket (say this new 3* started with 7 strike tiles but only strength 25 so it's quite weak) we'd be right back here having this discussion because that new character would be paired with Kitty doing the exact same runaway buff problem because Kitty would be adding thousands of strength per turn to those weak strikes.

    If there is going to be a nerf (and I'm against it) the least painful thing to do is change Kittys buff so that on specials created by 4* and below characters it only buffs at 1/3 the rate and buffs at regular rate on specials created by 5* characters. Voila, problem solved not only with Rocket but every other 4* and below character (Carnage for example) and any future character in the 4* an below tier while leaving her untouched in the 5* tier (which is presumably what you are hoping for as a 5* player).

    My personal guess is there won't be a nerf because there is no history of nerfing synergies between characters (otherwise Charlies Angels would have been nerfed years ago). All the Nerfs (Gambit, OML, 3* Fist, 3* Rags, 4* Wolvie, 4* Thoress and the rest I haven't listed) were on characters who were over powered in their own right with no partner needed. Nerfing this combo would set a new precedent that would immediately spark a cry for a  nerf to the Thorkoye synergy which would then spark a cry for the next synergy. Hence I don't see it happening.

    KGB
    They nerfed Magneto+Wolvie (even though Magneto was broken on its own). Also 2 Thor+Wolvie were nerfed. As some people have mentioned, Mystique. You can say 3 Gambit (the 0/5/0 battery version). And there was somebody else like Mysitique that was nerfed for his interaction with somebody else, but I can't remember who it was...

    I don't think Charlie's angels is a fair comparison. First of all, they were VERY slow, and second you could still lose a char against very high level enemies before you got the team to work, And finally you had to be clever, you had to be smart while playing, maximizing you match-5s to get the most damage and AP back. 

    Gritty is SUPER fast and it is a team that can be played by a monkey. You dont need to do anything (this is also why is so good on defense).

    Regarding the nerf, thing is, there should never be a char, either in 3, 4 or 5 land, that passively, at the start of the game creates so many special tiles. That was a really BAD move. And there is no other char that gets even close to Rocket. Rocket MUST be nerfed because it is clearly broken. Even before Kitty, he was the go to char in 4 land for fast matches. Kitty just made it worse (way worse).

    Devs should be EXTREMELY careful about passives and "start of the game" abilities, and they have not. The game now is at its worst it has ever been, because matches are super boring, as you don't need to do anything to win. Just casually match tiles. The first step to fix this is nerfing Rocket.


    They should also change the 5 clear per node needed to get max CP in PvE to 4 as it used to be. This was a really dumb move that has hurt the game A LOT, and the main reason why most people, even though they now that Gritty is clearly broken, they dont want them nerfed.
    Why do you have to exaggerate so much and insult people to try and make your point? 

    "Gritty is SUPER fast and it is a team that can be played by a monkey. You dont need to do anything (this is also why is so good on defense)."

    Do you have gritty? You definitely have to do something to win with them. There is another player that commented above you. They got 11th in the last event only number one and eight had champed kitty. Now he doesn't say if the rest had unchamped kitty or even had kitty at all. I dont know. But it's clearly possible to still outpace kitty if you put in the work.

    They are not "so good on defense" because there have been several counter characters made specifically to punish grocket. And the meta duo before them, thorkoye, still is an effective team against them. If you have the counter characters you can actually breeze through the "clearly broken" gritty teams.

    If gritty is in fact that "clearly broken" you should not need to exaggerate to try and make your point.

    Edit: Removed what I decided was an inappropriate statement.
    Exaggerate and insult, what????? I did not insult anybody in my comment! (Or even exaggerate for that matter, I think we all agree Gritty is a fast team and that they are amazingly good)

    What I mean by it can be played by a monkey, is that you dont need any strategy, just match tiles and try to protect your strike tiles a bit, and that is basically it. You dont need to get AP of any particular color, fire powers, or anything, just match tiles while your strike tiles get buffed into eternity and the other team dies. The team basically uses a start-of-the-game ability and a passive. And if you add Bishop then another passive gets added to the mix to make the team even stronger. Where is the strategy in there? (just in building the team, but not in using it). 

    I didnt say they are the only good team around, but they are the fastest team in PvE for sure (as Thoryoke needs more setup, specially if you dont use Thor at 50% from the beginning).

    I don't know how you can say they are not good on defense. In my opinion, and we might disagree of course, they are the best team in defense right now. Which team is better in defense in your opinion?


    And just to reiterate, please, re-read my original comment, I think you have read it with hidden intentions I didn't have or misunderstood the tone I was using but I was not insulting anybody.

    Edit: Anyway I am not going to participate more in this thread as in any case it is not for us to decide, and we have talked about this over and over and over, and every time nerfs are discussed people gets to emotional (in general, not anyone in particular) and we get nowhere. 
  • freakygeek
    freakygeek Posts: 96 Match Maker
    1) Nerfs suck, stop advocating for them.  Advocate for some buffs.  Given the multiple dominant teams a nerf would only push another team to the top, and another, and another, and another

    2) I can totally feel the health pack situation.  I switched to Gritty about a month ago and my health pack usage doubled.  I used to build up so much HP that I would blow it on random things as I had nothing to do with it.  Now I am constantly buying 5 packs of revives and barely break even.
  • tiomono
    tiomono Posts: 1,654 Chairperson of the Boards
    Polares said:
    tiomono said:
    Polares said:
    KGB said:
    Polares said:

    You might have a very high level SB, but the problem for most people is that if you use a 4 to counter Gritty you are going to be eaten alive by 5 teams.

    Of course, countering GRitty with a 5 is much harder as most people need A LOT of time to get a 5 into usable level.

    That is why Rocket should be nerfed. All games nerf characters, and nerfing a 4 is not a big deal when most of us have 70+ ranked 4s.

    And for those that say Gritty is the only thing that makes PvE bearable I say, maybe the problem is not nerfin Rocket, is PvE, maybe you should concentrate on asking Devs into making PvE fun (even though this would not happen after 5 years). Also, what happens then with the people that doesn't have Gritty, you have a MASIIVE advantage over them in PvE (and Kitty is not erasy to get).

    Again, NERF ROCKET.
    Sure, but then if they suddenly released a new 3* character who did something similar to 4* Rocket (say this new 3* started with 7 strike tiles but only strength 25 so it's quite weak) we'd be right back here having this discussion because that new character would be paired with Kitty doing the exact same runaway buff problem because Kitty would be adding thousands of strength per turn to those weak strikes.

    If there is going to be a nerf (and I'm against it) the least painful thing to do is change Kittys buff so that on specials created by 4* and below characters it only buffs at 1/3 the rate and buffs at regular rate on specials created by 5* characters. Voila, problem solved not only with Rocket but every other 4* and below character (Carnage for example) and any future character in the 4* an below tier while leaving her untouched in the 5* tier (which is presumably what you are hoping for as a 5* player).

    My personal guess is there won't be a nerf because there is no history of nerfing synergies between characters (otherwise Charlies Angels would have been nerfed years ago). All the Nerfs (Gambit, OML, 3* Fist, 3* Rags, 4* Wolvie, 4* Thoress and the rest I haven't listed) were on characters who were over powered in their own right with no partner needed. Nerfing this combo would set a new precedent that would immediately spark a cry for a  nerf to the Thorkoye synergy which would then spark a cry for the next synergy. Hence I don't see it happening.

    KGB
    They nerfed Magneto+Wolvie (even though Magneto was broken on its own). Also 2 Thor+Wolvie were nerfed. As some people have mentioned, Mystique. You can say 3 Gambit (the 0/5/0 battery version). And there was somebody else like Mysitique that was nerfed for his interaction with somebody else, but I can't remember who it was...

    I don't think Charlie's angels is a fair comparison. First of all, they were VERY slow, and second you could still lose a char against very high level enemies before you got the team to work, And finally you had to be clever, you had to be smart while playing, maximizing you match-5s to get the most damage and AP back. 

    Gritty is SUPER fast and it is a team that can be played by a monkey. You dont need to do anything (this is also why is so good on defense).

    Regarding the nerf, thing is, there should never be a char, either in 3, 4 or 5 land, that passively, at the start of the game creates so many special tiles. That was a really BAD move. And there is no other char that gets even close to Rocket. Rocket MUST be nerfed because it is clearly broken. Even before Kitty, he was the go to char in 4 land for fast matches. Kitty just made it worse (way worse).

    Devs should be EXTREMELY careful about passives and "start of the game" abilities, and they have not. The game now is at its worst it has ever been, because matches are super boring, as you don't need to do anything to win. Just casually match tiles. The first step to fix this is nerfing Rocket.


    They should also change the 5 clear per node needed to get max CP in PvE to 4 as it used to be. This was a really dumb move that has hurt the game A LOT, and the main reason why most people, even though they now that Gritty is clearly broken, they dont want them nerfed.
    Why do you have to exaggerate so much and insult people to try and make your point? 

    "Gritty is SUPER fast and it is a team that can be played by a monkey. You dont need to do anything (this is also why is so good on defense)."

    Do you have gritty? You definitely have to do something to win with them. There is another player that commented above you. They got 11th in the last event only number one and eight had champed kitty. Now he doesn't say if the rest had unchamped kitty or even had kitty at all. I dont know. But it's clearly possible to still outpace kitty if you put in the work.

    They are not "so good on defense" because there have been several counter characters made specifically to punish grocket. And the meta duo before them, thorkoye, still is an effective team against them. If you have the counter characters you can actually breeze through the "clearly broken" gritty teams.

    If gritty is in fact that "clearly broken" you should not need to exaggerate to try and make your point.

    Edit: Removed what I decided was an inappropriate statement.
    Exaggerate and insult, what????? I did not insult anybody in my comment! (Or even exaggerate for that matter, I think we all agree Gritty is a fast team and that they are amazingly good)

    What I mean by it can be played by a monkey, is that you dont need any strategy, just match tiles and try to protect your strike tiles a bit, and that is basically it. You dont need to get AP of any particular color, fire powers, or anything, just match tiles while your strike tiles get buffed into eternity and the other team dies. The team basically uses a start-of-the-game ability and a passive. And if you add Bishop then another passive gets added to the mix to make the team even stronger. Where is the strategy in there? (just in building the team, but not in using it). 

    I didnt say they are the only good team around, but they are the fastest team in PvE for sure (as Thoryoke needs more setup, specially if you dont use Thor at 50% from the beginning).

    I don't know how you can say they are not good on defense. In my opinion, and we might disagree of course, they are the best team in defense right now. Which team is better in defense in your opinion?


    And just to reiterate, please, re-read my original comment, I think you have read it with hidden intentions I didn't have or misunderstood the tone I was using but I was not insulting anybody.

    Edit: Anyway I am not going to participate more in this thread as in any case it is not for us to decide, and we have talked about this over and over and over, and every time nerfs are discussed people gets to emotional (in general, not anyone in particular) and we get nowhere. 
    It's an exxageration to say that you dont have to do anything. Even in your response you claim gritty needs no strategy, then you list a strategy they need to do. It's an exxageration.

    And when you talk about having to be smart to play some other teams but that a monkey can play gritty is insulting. Granted not targeted at any individual, but it's still an insult.

    To your point about who is better on defense I am still less inclined to hit teams with Jessica Jones because she is the rng monster. She seems to always get the right matches on me to lay down the pain. But vs gritty I have counter characters that make them very ineffective.
  • jtsings
    jtsings Posts: 278 Mover and Shaker
       I'm certainly not tryng to derail this thread but I'll give my opinion first to the topic and then try to delve into what the real problem could be with Gritty.

       1)  Neither Rocket or Kitty imho need a nerf; Bishop is another story for another time.  A poorly covered Sabertooth pretty much derailed all the Gritty teams in my Sabertooth PVP experience and I've used Thanos on multiple occasions and he's quite effective against this duo as well.  I think for those of you that don't have a well covered 4* Thanos or Sabertooth I don't blame you for not seeing "the light at the end of the tunnel"  but I personally think that these are two well developed characters that are pretty effective for 5* and 4* players for dealing with this team.  Is Rogue and Sabertooth or Vulture/Kraven and Thanos going to be an effective defensive team in PVP; most likely not but this leads me to my 2nd point.

       2)  What exactly would we accomplish by nerfing Kitty and/or Grocket.  If developers said "you're right, Gritty is a toxic duo so we're going to totally rework both of them into oblivion", the next day PVP is not going to change but someone that has a higher roster with better characters than you (that you can't possibly retaliate against), is going to be able to see your roster and beat you down.  People, I think, are actually frustrated by the design of PVP and Gritty is an example of what I think is this bigger issue:  PVP by it's very nature is unequivocally not fair.  It is designed to make you use HP to buy shields to hold your position or use iso to skip difficult opponents.   How do I know this: no matter what level I reach in this game, I always get attacked by a team that's better than me or get presented with a team that would be very difficult for me to beat; once I get high enough in points.  Does PVP need to be fair?  That's another discussion. But I do know that the only way I'll be able to beat any team that attacks me or beat any team that is presented to me in PVP is if I have a close to maxed Meta 2 (or 3 for sim) 5*s. Unfortunately, I think I've resolved myself to realizing that if I'm not there already, I'm probably not going to get there.

    tiomono said:
    Gritty is SUPER fast and it is a team that can be played by a monkey. You dont need to do anything (this is also why is so good on defense).

      Well this dumb monkey has had plenty of times where Gritty has fallen apart for me in PVE.  I even have the  Lockheed support which means the team starts out with 7 strike tiles and 1 protect tile and within two turns I've lost 4 of my 8 special tiles which turns this team from lightning fast to painstakenly slow almost to the point of retreating.  Does this happen often?; no, but it's not always as much of a cake walk as you might think.  

  • DyingLegend
    DyingLegend Posts: 1,208 Chairperson of the Boards
    As it was said earlier ( forgive me I forget who posted it ) the easiest way is to decrease the number of strike tiles Grocket makes but increase there strength so it's the same damage. Then it doesn't kick start kitty immediately. Easiest solution. 
  • formula11
    formula11 Posts: 68 Match Maker
    I must suck I just got wiped from a gritty team on the  magneto pvp. Used my championed bssm, 250 4* thanos 4-4-4 and mags couldnt down Kitty .
  • GKar
    GKar Posts: 20 Just Dropped In
    I think there is nothing wrong with Gritty.  She costs health packs, is weak when strikes are gone, BSSM almost always shuts her down unless BSSM is stunned or killed early.  Sabretooth is an AMAZING counter as well.  If you want to almost guarantee victory go with BSSM/Sabretooth.  Just don’t cast damage dealing abilities when her red countdown is out and you should be fine.


    The rock / paper / scissors aspect we are seeing now in 5* tier is great.  We have two meta teams, and teams that can easily beat meta teams but aren’t strong on defense.  If we still just had one meta team, then I can see a reason for calling for a nerf.

    I also agree buffs are way more favorable than nerfs.   Buff/ fix Banner/Wasp/ 5* IM46/CW Cap/ 5* Phoenix/5* Captain Marvel / OML/ 5* Kingpin instead.
  • Dormammu
    Dormammu Posts: 3,531 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited June 2019
    LLohm said:
    Which leaves 3 type of complainers. 

    1. The hoarders who don’t want to open their hoard to get a working solution 

    2. People who are on Thor Okoye who don’t want to spend on heals since there’s a chance that they can wipe on that fight

    3. People who insist that they cannot be a target for other teams if they utilize a 4* to hit Gritty teams
    I'm not a nerf advocate, but there's a large fourth category: the players who enjoy a little variety in their lives. Can we beat Gritty? Yes. We have the tools. Should the SHIELD Sim queue up 5 nodes of gritty once you're above 1400 points as a 5-star player, where you struggle to find anything else? I don't know, but many players have reported that happening.

    In a game with with nearly 110 four & five-star characters, it is amazing how it often boils down to two or three of them on every PvP node you look at. In fact, it's a travesty of a failure on the developers part to create any semblance of balance. They fail to make regular, small adjustments to characters which would be easy to do and instead insist on major revamps every time they 'rebalance' a character - which has been happening about once a year and often nonsensically (see: Mr. Fantastic).

    But I generally keep my mouth shut because I'm part of the problem. I want to get my clears in and move on with my day, so I keep using Gritty too. I don't want them to go away. It's a nasty catch-22.
  • Gold_Dragon
    Gold_Dragon Posts: 101 Tile Toppler
    Gritty is not the fastest team. 

    Not in PVE. 
    Not in Sim.

    Its the fastest LAZY team. 
  • Dormammu
    Dormammu Posts: 3,531 Chairperson of the Boards
    It's my fastest team in PvE, and it's not even close.
  • sambrookjm
    sambrookjm Posts: 2,163 Chairperson of the Boards
    Gold_Dragon said:
    Gritty is not the fastest team. 

    Not in PVE. 
    Not in Sim.

    Its the fastest LAZY team. 
    Dormammu said:
    It's my fastest team in PvE, and it's not even close.
    As with everything else, it all depends on the roster.  If you've got a champed Kitty, then she'll probably make it part of your fastest team.  My Kitty is 1/1/1, so I go with Thano5, Okoye, and Meat Shield #2.  Daredevil is working OK now that I have him up to LVL 420 in that spot.  Thorkoye with Strange is another fast team I use regularly.
  • zeddicus
    zeddicus Posts: 77 Match Maker
    If already mention disregard. I like using nico, not have match that kitty has, or removing special tiles as passive. Her blue once damaged does remove and freeze, has special tile creation, to help with passive boost. Not as strong as five star, but could be beneficial with some characters. Just some thoughts

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