** Moonstone (Dark Avengers) ** [PRE 2015-05]

over_clocked

Since when do friendly special tiles count double, though?

Kolence

locked wrote:

Since when do friendly special tiles count double, though?

Kolence wrote:

Gravity Warp - Purple 10 AP
Moonstone chooses a Basic tile which then attracts a random Basic tile of the same color from the same row or column. As the tile collapses towards the chosen tile all the tiles between them are moved by 1 place to make room.
Level Upgrades

Level 2: Can choose and attract friendly Special tiles.

Level 3: For any friendly Special tile destroyed by collapsing, Moonstone gains 2 AP.
Level 4: Can choose and attract enemy Special tiles.
Level 5: Can attract two tiles. Cost increased by 2 AP.

Since I made it up for this skill! Do you think it is too much? I wanted her to be more reliable at removing the desired special tile at max level and to have a limited board shuffling and cascading and AP generating potential. Friendly special tiles counting as 2 AP instead of just 1 was to make her pair better with Daken, where destroying your strike tiles would fuel her quicker, and with Storm . At 12 AP her could be a less powerful AP generating and cascading Storm's but with the ability to get rid of a special tile when the board allows it.

Unknown

Kolence wrote:

Gravity Warp - Purple 10 AP
Moonstone chooses a Basic tile which then attracts a random Basic tile of the same color from the same row or column. As the tile collapses towards the chosen tile all the tiles between them are moved by 1 place to make room.
Level Upgrades

Level 2: Can choose and attract friendly Special tiles. Level 3: For any friendly Special tile destroyed by collapsing, Moonstone gains 2 AP. Level 4: Can choose and attract enemy Special tiles. Level 5: Can attract two tiles. Cost increased by 2 AP.

Control Shift - Black 8 AP
Moonstone shifts control of a random enemy Countdown tile to her team, targeting the enemy. Chosen tile's Countdown is increased by 3. If there are no Countdown tiles, stuns the target for 1 turn.
Level Upgrades

Level 2: Shifts control of two Countdown tiles. Costs 1 AP more. Level 3: Stun lasts 2 turns. Chosen tiles' Countdown is increased by 2. Level 4: Shifts control of four Countdown tiles. Costs 2 AP more. Level 5: Always stuns target. Chosen tiles' Countdown is increased by 1.

Now if only Sentry's power were a little bit more costly and there was a 3* with these purple and black powers...

Black is overpowered, and is pretty much a Win Against Goons power.
Purple is workable, but confusing, and at level 5 the implementation would be horrible.

Proposed alteration:
Gravity Warp - Purple 7 AP
Moonstone forms a gravity warp on a Basic tile in any of the 4 cardinal directions. The tile collapses, generating AP and doing damage, and other tiles in the row or column are shifted along the gravity rift.
Level Upgrades

Level 2: Can select enemy shield or strike tiles. Level 3: +1 additional tile is sucked into the gravity warp, getting destroyed and doing damage. Level 4: Cost -1AP Level 5: +1 additional tile is sucked into the gravity warp. Cost -1AP

Kolence

daibar wrote:

Black is overpowered, and is pretty much a Win Against Goons power.
Purple is workable, but confusing, and at level 5 the implementation would be horrible.

Proposed alteration:
Gravity Warp - Purple 7 AP
Moonstone forms a gravity warp on a Basic tile in any of the 4 cardinal directions. The tile collapses, generating AP and doing damage, and other tiles in the row or column are shifted along the gravity rift.
Level Upgrades

Level 2: Can select enemy shield or strike tiles. Level 3: +1 additional tile is sucked into the gravity warp, getting destroyed and doing damage. Level 4: Cost -1AP Level 5: +1 additional tile is sucked into the gravity warp. Cost -1AP

I like your idea too. One problem would be it looks too strong at that cost? Maxed it is 5 AP, right? And you get 3 collapsed tiles back right away, plus possibly some cascade. Also, I'd put the ability to target enemy tiles at least at level 4 if not level 5. I'm assuming that after each tile is collapsed, the direction from which tiles move is random?

In what way do you feel is OP? Is it too cheap? Should it affect less ? I don't think it would be any more reliable than AGD is against goons because of its cost, but I don't know.
This is a similar idea I had, but chose the other because the stun was too strong with 3 or 4 . But let's try with just 2 . Is this one better or worse?


Control Shift - Black 11 AP
Moonstone tries to take control of a random enemy Countdown tile. If her team has 5+ AP in the color of the tile, she succeeds but spends 3 AP of that color. For any Countdown she fails to overtake, the targeted enemy is stunned for 1 turn.
Level Upgrades

Level 2: Chosen tile's Countdown is decreased by 1 (to a minimum of 2). Level 3: Only spends 2 AP of the tile's color per tile. Level 4: Can try to take control of two enemy Countdown tiles. Level 5: Chosen tiles' Countdown decreased by 2 (min. of 1). Spends 1 AP per tile.

Unknown

Kolence wrote:

I like your idea too. One problem would be it looks too strong at that cost? Maxed it is 5 AP, right? And you get 3 collapsed tiles back right away, plus possibly some cascade. Also, I'd put the ability to target enemy tiles at least at level 4 if not level 5. I'm assuming that after each tile is collapsed, the direction from which tiles move is random?

In what way do you feel is OP? Is it too cheap? Should it affect less ? I don't think it would be any more reliable than AGD is against goons because of its cost, but I don't know.
This is a similar idea I had, but chose the other because the stun was too strong with 3 or 4 . But let's try with just 2 . Is this one better or worse?


Control Shift - Black 11 AP
Moonstone tries to take control of a random enemy Countdown tile. If her team has 5+ AP in the color of the tile, she succeeds but spends 3 AP of that color. For any Countdown she fails to overtake, the targeted enemy is stunned for 1 turn.
Level Upgrades

Level 2: Chosen tile's Countdown is decreased by 1 (to a minimum of 2). Level 3: Only spends 2 AP of the tile's color per tile. Level 4: Can try to take control of two enemy Countdown tiles. Level 5: Chosen tiles' Countdown decreased by 2 (min. of 1). Spends 1 AP per tile.

Your first one controlled too many countdowns, 4 for 11 AP. If level 2 cost 2 AP more and Level 4 went to 3 countdowns it'd be more balanced, though still possibly too strong, depending on the enemy goon.

The second proposal is more interesting; it's a little more complicated, but no more than Beast or Colossus' new abilities. I personally wouldn't mind playing Moonstone with that sort of Control Shift.

With the original, at 17AP the fact that it controls <1> <Random> countdown is a huge blow to the ability. It should at least be targeted.


You're right, the cost should go up with additional tiles or do damage. The problem with moving enemy tiles to level 4 or higher is that once you're sucking in 2 tiles you can just target the tile next to one. I guess it does prevent you from getting rid of 2 adjoining enemy tiles at once. With that in mind it'd have to be more like:

Gravity Warp - Purple 7 AP
Moonstone forms a gravity warp on a Basic tile in any of the 4 cardinal directions. The tile collapses, generating AP and doing 40 damage, and other tiles in the row or column are shifted along the gravity rift.
Level Upgrades

Level 2: Collapse damage increase to 50 Level 3: Can select enemy shield or strike tiles. Collapse damage increased to 60. Level 4: +1 additional tile is sucked into the gravity warp in the chosen direction. Collapse damage increased to 70 Cost +1AP Level 5: +1 additional tile is sucked into the gravity warp in the chosen direction. Collapse damage increased to 80 Cost +1AP.

Kolence

After thinking some more, I really like your mechanic of destroying tiles one by one on the chosen location. But I also like the original idea of being capable to target same-colored tiles from a row or column. So let me suggest a combination of sorts. Also I feel the ability to directly target an enemy special tile would be either too powerful or too costly. This way it is still capable of destroying special tiles, but it depends on the board (pure luck) and how many special tiles there are (some control over this).

Gravity Warp - Purple 10 AP
Moonstone forms a gravity warp on a Basic tile that causes it and two closest Basic tiles of the same color in the chosen tile's row or column to be sucked in and collapsed, generating AP and causing the tiles behind them to shift toward the implosion. As tiles collapse, emitted radiation does 11 damage to the target.
Level Upgrades

Level 2: Can suck in enemy Attack tiles. Collapse damage increased to 12. Level 3: Can suck in enemy Protect tiles. Collapse damage increased to 13. Level 4: Can suck in enemy Strike tiles. Collapse damage increased to 15. Level 5: Can suck in enemy Countdown tiles. Collapse damage increased to 19.

Max Level: 178 damage.
As a side effect, this would make it possible for tiles to "drop" onto the board from the sides and from bellow too, could be fun.

8 _____ - 7 - 8 - 10 - 6 - 13 - 10 - 10
7 _____
6 _____
5 _____
4 _____
3 _____
2 _____
1 _____
-a---b---c---d---e---f---g----h-

example 1:
Say, Moonstone targets @f3. It collapses->does damage. Is replaced with the closest @f5-&gt;causes the tiles "behind" @f6..f8 to move down and a new tile is added @f8. Shifting tiles make match-3 @e5..g5 (let's assume no more cascades after that). When cascade caused by shifting tiles is over, 2nd collapses and does damage. It's replaced with the closest @f5 (it was @f7 at start). Repeat as before. After 3rd tile is collapsed, the ability is over and gravity returns to normal and tiles drop in F column to fill in the empty place (just like how it really works now, when there are no valid special tiles).
example 2:
Moonstone targets @b3. It collapses->does damage. It's replaced with the closest @f3-&gt;causes the tiles "behind" @g3..h3 to move left and a new tile is added @h3 (let's assume it isn't ). Shifting tiles doesn't cause any cascades. 2nd collapses, does damage. There are no more on 3rd row or B column and the ability is over and tiles normally drop in B column to fill the empty place.

Unknown

I like Moonstone. I'm probably the only one. I tend to only use her when she is powered up these days, but there was a while where I used her as a regular support character to compliment Thor, Ares and Wolverine when I was in the 2* stage. In particular, I find her red ability to be quite powerful under the right circumstances. Other times, it's kind of meh. But of the three powers, it's the only one that I think is where it should be.

Her purple ability is one that is more powerful at lower levels. It does a low amount of damage if the opponents don't have a special tile of various colors. The more covers you have, the more colors for special tiles can be moved. This is bad because if you do move an enemy special tile, her ability doesn't do any damage. It also swaps a special tile at random, so if the enemy team has more than one, you might not move the tile you want. When that happens, the ability is basically a waste of AP. And it happens a lot. When there are no special tiles to move is when the ability is at its best. Blowing out a single tile can line up other moves, and sometimes set up cascades or 5 of a kind matches. Not to mention that this is the only time the ability deals damage. This is what we want.

So what should it do to make it better? Well for one, the power should get better as you acquire more covers for it, not worse. So instead of swapping a random special tile, how about we blow out a single tile. You pick a tile on the board, and you get the effect of the "warp field collapsing" every time. Initially you can only collapse tiles that are purple or black. As you acquire more covers, you can choose tiles of additional covers. Level 2: Red. Level 3: Yellow. Level 4: Blue. Level 5: Any. It still wouldn't be great, but at least it would be usable.

Her black power is one that could be useful, provided it didn't cost 17 AP to activate. It changes an enemy countdown tile to your team, and brings the timer down to 2. This is pretty sweet if it hits a good ability. Switching over MN Mags tiles can be nice. Her ability also comes with a 2 turn stun, which is always nice. So the biggest issue I have with this ability is the cost. It's not a bad ability, but at 17 AP it might as well cost 100. You almost never get there. Dropping it down to 10-12 AP would make it much more useful.

So that's my thoughts on how we can fix Moonstone. I am open to other suggestions as well. Constructive discussion and ideas on ways to improve Moonstone are welcome!

over_clocked

Now this, I gladly agree with.
Black would still probably cost too much if the 2 turn condition stayed. The issue is, of course, that the most powerful CDs in the game belong to goons. Maybe it could keep the 2 turn condition for goon CDs but I would like a 1 turn drop for a 10 AP power against player teams. A player can see Moonstone getting that much black so they can prepare in advance if they have already placed CDs. As far as I know, Moonstone can't steal for good multiple-proc CDs like Redwing/Flame Jet/Molotov/Defense Grid/the like - considered to strong, perhaps. Maybe she could taint those and greatly weaken them after her use.
Self-destruct maybe?
Her red at higher covers could also account for some purple and black tiles to do higher damage.
Purple is tricky but I think it should keep the flavour. But not target a random tile, agreed.
Moonstone and Captain are the only two in their health class among 2*s, sturdier than Magneto/Wolverine/Daken but below Thor and Ares. Still, that's a very decent health pool and it's a darn shame these two aren't viable for PvP.

Unknown

I think her purple should work like OBW's blue- if there's an enemy special tile, it should move it and do damage, and do twice the damage if there is no special tile. And you should be able to pick which tile you're moving.
Her black just needs to have the cost decreased and let you pick which tile you take.

Unknown

Right now the only noteworthy thing about Moonstone are her ****, and that's a shame. I like the concept behind the character. Making her abilities cheaper would help a lot already.

Unknown

Maybe a lazy 3* version.

Same great animations, now with twice the gap!

Unknown

Is a Control-Shifted Flame Jet supposed to return to owner after it goes off for the first time?

I think I just had this happen - it turned back from black to green, but then I killed off HT and it disappeared, so I don't know who it would've damaged.

Unknown

You get one flame jet. The countdown goes from 1 to 0, then you lose it. It resets to 1 due to torches power.

Unknown

Paintsville wrote:

You get one flame jet. The countdown goes from 1 to 0, then you lose it. It resets to 1 due to torches power.

Ok, thanks!

Unknown

Shouldn't it just cease to exist after Moonstone converted it to black and it went off and all? How does Torch re-converting it back to green and continuing to use it make sense? Moonstone's ability doesn't say it takes control of an enemy cd temporarily.

edit: I might be wrong in thinking Moonstone converts the tile to be black but still my point stands.

Unknown

KevinMark wrote:

Shouldn't it just cease to exist after Moonstone converted it to black and it went off and all? How does Torch re-converting it back to green and continuing to use it make sense? Moonstone's ability doesn't say it takes control of an enemy cd temporarily.

edit: I might be wrong in thinking Moonstone converts the tile to be black but still my point stands.

I think that Moonstone should keep the tile because the description of flame jet says "the tile activates every turn", it doesn't say "Torch creates a new timer every turn". Unfortunately I had to answer the question as it really is and not as it really should be.

Unknown

Paintsville wrote:

KevinMark wrote:

Shouldn't it just cease to exist after Moonstone converted it to black and it went off and all? How does Torch re-converting it back to green and continuing to use it make sense? Moonstone's ability doesn't say it takes control of an enemy cd temporarily.

edit: I might be wrong in thinking Moonstone converts the tile to be black but still my point stands.

I think that Moonstone should keep the tile because the description of flame jet says "the tile activates every turn", it doesn't say "Torch creates a new timer every turn". Unfortunately I had to answer the question as it really is and not as it really should be.

I agree with this. It sounds like a bug to me. If it would have re appeared every turn in a different spot then maybe i could see the argument for him getting it back but as it stands now, it should stay with moonstone.

Unknown

I hate thread bumping, but this seems like a thread that should have more discussion going.

ErikPeter

locked wrote:

As far as I know, Moonstone can't steal for good multiple-proc CDs like Redwing/Flame Jet/Molotov/Defense Grid/the like - considered to strong, perhaps. Maybe she could taint those and greatly weaken them after her use.

Just pulling the old quote to note that they recently fixed that.

I mostly agree with the sentiments presented above. I think her issues are mostly due to D3's strange tendency to over-cost situational powers. It's zany! Even in the right situation, you probably can't afford to use it.

I have a theory that part of the reason is that a reasonable cost would be too frustrating to play against when the AI is backed up by a couple AP generators, especially against Dark Avengers who we face most of the time. If Control Shift was 12 AP, MN Magneto and Hawkeye would be much worse in PvE, low-tier players would get frustrated.

However, I also think she's not so bad. I think I am in a similar situation to many others: I've never levelled her up to 94, but that's because I've got 3- and 4-star characters to worry about now. New Hawkeye is awesome but he's still sitting at level 40 from half a year ago; it's simply not worth the investment at this point. There's just never been a point in my career where she seemed worth putting effort into; not because she is bad, but because she's not as all-around useful as (2-star) Thor, Storm, Magneto, Ares, etc. Especially at a lower number of covers, when new players are starting to invest in characters (40+), she has even more limited usefulness thanks to her cover progression.

Photon Blast: I'm perfectly happy with this power. Seems well costed between the big one hit kills and the weaker ones. Weirdly synergizes with Blade.

Gravity Warp: It's only reliable when there are no enemy special tiles, or only tiles of one color. Countdown tiles often drop in multiple colors, meaning it's a **** shoot against the worst special tiles. Compared to Aggressive Recon at the same cost, yikes. No other character has a single-target tile destruction ability. I'm not sure this power needs to be funbalanced, besides removing the cover/tile color progression. Before the enemy gets special tiles out the damage and utility is pretty much worth the cost (and OK, maybe 6 would be totally awesome). So one fix I'd get behind is just making it single tile destruction as said above (but I don't think it's necessary.)

Control Shift: SO MANY OPTIONS. Let us choose the tile to begin with, or steal a handful of tiles. Let us take control of strike and attack tiles if we want to. Make it cheaper. Make it always stun from rank 1. This is really her most problematic power because it costs 17 and isn't even that great except against super-high-level mooks... You know those guys who pump out 3 CDs every 2 turns while you're trying to build up 17 black. I'd love to test it at 12 and see if it still feels just as weak.

I will think about this a bit from the perspective of giving her interesting interplay with Ms. Marvel, the way Bullseye/Hawkeye fight over control of purple tiles, and Daken/Wolverine used to have more strongly with green/yellow match interactions. Wonder about giving her a Defense tile as a weakness against Photonic Blasts. (She can already steal the sonic boom which is something.)

If you guys come up with some solid ideas, be sure to add them to the Character Engineering thread.

Unknown

I agree with all that was said in here. As much as I like her red power, I wish it was a blue power since when you pair her with Ares only blue isn't covered. Also, I like the idea locked presented about it being able to do more damage in purple and black tiles the more red covers you have. It will make it more useful since her red is unreliable at best.

I would like to say it for emphasis. Lower her black power cost to 10-12.