Wakanda Forever! How does it even work?

Yepyep

ThaRoadWarrior said:

I found an interesting nuance of running Apocalypse together with Okoye today: Wakanda Forever and Shared Strength don't actually stack, it uses whichever one is giving the higher bonus exclusively.

So for awhile now my SCL10 hard node clear team has been 50% Thor (5/0/2)/Okoye/Apocalypse on the premise that you get yellow ASAP, fire Shared Strength, then chase team up while Thor builds everything else in the background. I was looking at the bonus numbers today though, and they didn't seem to be adding up, which is when I made the aforementioned discovery. 

So it's still a pretty fast team, it just gets you an early fixed boost while you build up a better one in the background to really stomp them flat after a few turns - but I've swapped out Okoye for BRB and I'm thinking the cheap hits and added multi-hit on green are actually faster with the lesser Shared Strength boost, so I'll play this for a bit to see if that isn't better.

Wow. This is a really big deal in my play. I had no idea. Thank you!

ThaRoadWarrior

Sure thing, that’s what this thread is for. 

Probably worth noting here also - Juggernaut’s passive receives no benefit from Shared Strength either.

HoundofShadow

I think they hard coded Juggernaut's passive ability to not benefit from Okoye and Okoye-like Support and abilities. How else would you explain that he triggers Kitty's red power CD when it specifically mention "enemy power"? He will be nerfed into oblivion if his passive match AoE gains additional damage from Okoye's passive. iHulk/Okoye is already pretty problematic unless you have those niche counters.

ThaRoadWarrior

Yes it was specifically excluded I’m sure - but the wording as written on any power involved would not make that clear to players.

HoundofShadow

I remember they explained that his passive aoe is a match damage or something to that effect. So, Kitty's CD kind of contradict what they say, unless it's a bug.

I don't remember seeing the definitions of these terms in the Help guide in the past, but here it is:

We also put together this handy list of terms to help define the difference between matching a tile, destroying a tile, and removing a tile here - 

Matching - A tile is a part of the active match.

Destroying - Done from a power or the non-matched tiles from a Match-4 or greater.

Remove - Done from powers. Removes the status of the tile but keeps the tile intact.

ThaRoadWarrior

Here’s the thing though - juggernaut’s AOE is initiated by a match, but the damage is a separate fixed slug of damage in exactly the same way as 2* widow’s additional damage. Widow gets the bonus but Juggs does not, so it was definitely a choice.

KGB

Obviously it was a choice. Maybe for balance reasons but also definitely for thematic reasons as to what each one does. OBW's extra attack is a separate espionage attack as per the description while Juggs is collateral damage from him matching the tiles.

From a players standpoint it's confusing why one works and another doesn't but when you read the description of what each one does it becomes clearer why each works like it does with WF. The devs have tried to make characters and powers fit thematically as much as for game balance.

KGB

ThaRoadWarrior

That feels like a reach. I think it was for balance reasons. IHulk has a risk/reward drawback to his passive AOE in the form of self harm and teamkiller damage, but Juggs would be unstoppable with WF! Or Shared Strength stacking on it. There are tons of inconsistently implemented powers that should work with both these powers but don’t. 

Yepyep

This ad hoc balancing is severely aggravating. Errors in coding, subject to patching, are fine, that just happens. But arbitrary deviations are soul-killing...

PiMacleod

So I found something that I don't know if other's have found -- but maybe they have...

I decided to try this WF thing with Cable's green.  You get the point, I think...?  You know, bank that TU AP... make that green Cable power hit as HARD AS POSSIBLE.  But only fire it at the first opponent you get down to near nothing... so that (according to Cable's power description), the remaining damage gets dealt to BOTH remaining enemies.

Yeah, that didn't do a thing.  Nothing.  No effect.

I fired it off, and by itself, it should do about 21k damage (he's a baby champ).  I had about 12 TU AP (approx... can't recall if it was 10 or 15... but you get the point).  The opponent I targeted had about 8k health left.  So, I said -- hey, lets do this now.  Lets see how this works!

Nope.  It finished that dude off, then did nearly 12k to each remaining opponent.  It didn't take any WF boosting into account.

And that was really disappointing.  I was looking forward to having a fun use for Cable as a 3rd on a Thorkoye team.  But oh well.  He'll sit next to C5rol some more.

Vhailorx

PiMacleod said:

So I found something that I don't know if other's have found -- but maybe they have...

I decided to try this WF thing with Cable's green.  You get the point, I think...?  You know, bank that TU AP... make that green Cable power hit as HARD AS POSSIBLE.  But only fire it at the first opponent you get down to near nothing... so that (according to Cable's power description), the remaining damage gets dealt to BOTH remaining enemies.

Yeah, that didn't do a thing.  Nothing.  No effect.

I fired it off, and by itself, it should do about 21k damage (he's a baby champ).  I had about 12 TU AP (approx... can't recall if it was 10 or 15... but you get the point).  The opponent I targeted had about 8k health left.  So, I said -- hey, lets do this now.  Lets see how this works!

Nope.  It finished that dude off, then did nearly 12k to each remaining opponent.  It didn't take any WF boosting into account.

And that was really disappointing.  I was looking forward to having a fun use for Cable as a 3rd on a Thorkoye team.  But oh well.  He'll sit next to C5rol some more.

Huh, does cable's green work with apoc's yellow?  Damage boosting is such an important  part of the game these days that I would really like to know exactly how it works.

ThaRoadWarrior

Apoc and Okoye seem to follow the same rules, which seem to be different than the rules followed by strike tiles.

so does WF not work on the first hit of Cable’s green either? Or just not the splash damage?

PiMacleod

BlackBoltRocks said:

Ice already mentioned this in the Cable thread. Okoye and Poccy will only boost the initial damage that was meant to be dealt.

https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/75559/cable-nathan-summers-10-12-18/p3

Which basically means, if you kill the opponent with the first hit of it, the splash won't receive any effect. 

In my prior example, if the victim had like 30k health remaining, the 21k damage Cable green plus the WF boost would finish it.  However, if the enemy had only 21k health left, it'd kill the victim, and NOTHING would pass on (except maybe 1 HP damage?) to the other two remaining enemies.  

This further explains why my 8k victim died, and only about 12k damage passed on to each remaining opponent.

I would REALLY like to see this limitation lifted for Cable.  After all, he's not used at all.  His passive is very niche, and his active blue and yellow aren't necessarily game-breaking.  His green is the only thing that's REALLY unique about him (i know, blue is unique-ish too, but it's just not that effective).  If this limitation is lifted, he still wouldn't break the meta, but it'd be an option for those that wanna run with it, trying to hit that "big damage" green.

ThaRoadWarrior

I'm convinced there's a Cable team out there now, even if there wasn't when he launched. I'm 400 shards from finishing him, I'll have to spend some time on it at some point.

Kolence

@PiMacleod
@Road_Warrior

This must be some newer change then. Here's a test from May/June 2020, where it's clear that the boost is applied on "leftover" damage.

https://i.imgur.com/Nlb628j.mp4

PiMacleod

Kolence said:

@PiMacleod
@Road_Warrior

This must be some newer change then. Here's a test from May/June 2020, where it's clear that the boost is applied on "leftover" damage.

https://i.imgur.com/Nlb628j.mp4

Yep... totally didnt work like that for me.  Huh.

BUT -- I DID find a use for Cable today...

As my 3rd for Hulkoye.  My Cable is champed, iHulk only has 5 covers.  So, when Green Door accidentally matches a green set, Cable does it, not iHulk, saving him some health... and now I have an outlet for green too. 

EDIT:  Although, now that I think about it... I probably should just use Hela.  Her green has a decent passive, and her red is usable decently often in this meta.  ...ooooo, or Yelena.  She's got a better green too, and a great passive.  I went to Cable for this because of accidental green matches, and thinking that if I happen to get the blue to use, the extra green matches would be cool.  But now... i see that I'm never really gonna get enough blue in the average match. ...sorry Cable, my extra thoughts just put you back down again!  

EDIT part 2:  Used Yelena, worked much better.  Although still not nearly as fast for PvE for my tastes... I seem to do faster with Pocket Kitty (Polaris/Rocket/Kitty)... so much easier to find a strike to match, than it is to find TU AP to match.  CPU seems to always hunt down TU AP as well... whereas all I need is ONE strike matched, and they multiply.  Same story for Pocket Nico.  This is just for my PvE clears mind you... might be a different story in PvP.

ThaRoadWarrior

Cable, being one of a...couple? Characters who can passively fortify repeaters, ought to be useful some kind of way I’d think.

PiMacleod

ThaRoadWarrior said:

Cable, being one of a...couple? Characters who can passively fortify repeaters, ought to be useful some kind of way I’d think.

I'm really not trying to derail the conversation, but I'll end on this...
On all the stuff I mentioned, I've come to appreciate Cable and Loki for THIS -- they allow Okoye to tank her colors still.  Yelena, SamDak, Hela, Ghost Rider... they tank colors over Okoye.  

AXP_isme

He can form a reasonable pair with 5* DD. He adds another way to stun, a better active green and a yellow outlet. They share a lot of colours so it's not a great combo. I've also used him with some success with gambit. They're both very slow but it's a rainbow team, cable fortifies gambit's repeater and/or CD on a yellow match (why would you though) and you can collect a lot of green by firing gambit's red after cable's blue. Neither is great though. 

ThaRoadWarrior

It just feels like there must be some kind of Heimdall synergy there, right? lol; anyway, back to wondering how Wakanda, Forever! even works I guess...