Nerf Bishop

tiomono

sinnerjfl said:

Sm0keyJ0e said:

TranscendGod said:

You asked how Kitty is OP. I can explain how she's OP at lower levels compared to other 5* characters with similar levels and coverage. A Kitty in the 300s has a passive that increases special tiles at an incredibly quick rate compared to any other character (often 200-300+ per turn for up to 5 tiles). This is enough to take down an unboosted full health 4* in a few turns without using a single ability. 

Is this primarily due to her interaction with Rocket? Are there other Kitty/[toon] teams that are difficult to fight? It seems that Rocket's mechanic of throwing out 7 strikes to start the match is the issue as she begins to buff immediately before you even make your next move. 

I'm just trying to figure out if the problem is Kitty or Rocket. Would as many people be running low level Kitty's if they had to build up a few turns to actually get specials to start buffing.

Rocket is 100% the problem. Kitty on her own is too slow, even worse if she's underleveled.

But in lower tiers with few covers she is still a force.

On a team with no other character making specials she is way too slow and is a pushover. She is only a threat on teams with special spammers.

Tony_Foot

The problem is definitely grocket and not kitty. I’d hit kitty teams all day long without him. 

Polares

tiomono said:

sinnerjfl said:

Sm0keyJ0e said:

TranscendGod said:

You asked how Kitty is OP. I can explain how she's OP at lower levels compared to other 5* characters with similar levels and coverage. A Kitty in the 300s has a passive that increases special tiles at an incredibly quick rate compared to any other character (often 200-300+ per turn for up to 5 tiles). This is enough to take down an unboosted full health 4* in a few turns without using a single ability. 

Is this primarily due to her interaction with Rocket? Are there other Kitty/[toon] teams that are difficult to fight? It seems that Rocket's mechanic of throwing out 7 strikes to start the match is the issue as she begins to buff immediately before you even make your next move. 

I'm just trying to figure out if the problem is Kitty or Rocket. Would as many people be running low level Kitty's if they had to build up a few turns to actually get specials to start buffing.

Rocket is 100% the problem. Kitty on her own is too slow, even worse if she's underleveled.

But in lower tiers with few covers she is still a force.

On a team with no other character making specials she is way too slow and is a pushover. She is only a threat on teams with special spammers.

She is when used with Rocket, no one can create so many strikes so fast. So with other chars you have time to react and kill her before she becomes dangerous (well, when Bishop is not present). The combo is what makes them deadly, but If I have to chose which one is worse, I would say Rocket (in fact, no one in 5 land can actually make Kitty work as well as Rocket. Hela, OML, Cable or Phoenix need AP to do so, so that means they can be killed before the ball starts rolling)



I think Devs have gone completely crazy nuts with passives for a while now, and sincerely, they have ruined their game. The game now is pretty boring, just casually matching tiles. And it is true Gritty helps A LOT in PvE, but again, Devs had absolutely no reason to raise to 5 node clears to get the CP (it was 4 clears for a long time).

On top of that, lately 4 releases are way better than 5 releases. Hela is good and Doom is okeish, but those are the only decent releases since Kitty (still undecided with Iceman). So, as a 5 player, why am I playing? Too much power creep is bad, but we need new and exiting chars to keep as motivated. And getting 5s is still hard, so you need to go all out to get them (playing full PvE and a bit of PvP or the other way around).

I will get to day 2000 soon, I think that after that, I will just stop playing. The game is boring (has been like that for a while really). PvP is "unplayable" in 5 land most of the time, and if you want to use somebody else other than Gritty in PvE, it is also super boring. And all of that to get CP to get super boring 5 chars? And I am not the only one who thinks like that we have recently lost like 4 players in our Alliance.

PS: And yeah, Bishop is another char with a crazy nuts broken passive that should have never EVER been released.

CharlieCroker

HoundofShadow said:

I think this can be summarised as 5* players can't steamroll 4* players or lower in PvPs anymore because Bishop is like a road spike that punctured the wheels of their 5* vehicles, which slow them down or even derail them. Therefore, Bishop should be nerfed in such a way that 5* players can continue to mow down lower * players smoothly and continuously.

However, Bishop is like an armoured car, especially for 4* players and below, that protects them from many kinds of attacks. 

Can these two differences be resolved? Or must it be made into a rule that whenever the devs design a new 4* release, they must made sure that 5* players can continue to steamroll all 4* characters and below, no matter how good they are?

I don't know about the OP but I have rarely experienced 4* players running Bishop in PvP as my 5* MMR doesn't show me them unless I'm at 900+ and there are no 5* teams out there to hit (in much the same way I will rarely see 550 teams until past 1200 and with the same conditions).

I see Bishop teams in 3 main scenarios:

1.  In Sim.  Most commonly a champed Gritty team, but also with 5* partners, notably Dr S.
2.  Troll teams in PvP.  In S1 someone often floats with Bishop and a 490+ Jessica's Jones.
3.  When Bishop is boosted.  I saw a lot of this during off-season with the likes of Kitty, Phoenix, OML and Dr S.  Also with boosted Iceman at high levels.  It remains to be seen whom people will choose to partner him with next boost week.

So this is absolutely NOT about 5* players mowing down lower tier players.  We can rarely see them and to be brutally honest, if I I did come across a 4* team and they were worth decent points I would 'steamroll' their Bishop with Surfer or Okoye/Thor or Gritty etc.  Unfortunately these options are nowhere near as viable when Bishop is partnered with champed 5*s and/or Gritty.

TranscendGod

Sm0keyJ0e said:

TranscendGod said:

You asked how Kitty is OP. I can explain how she's OP at lower levels compared to other 5* characters with similar levels and coverage. A Kitty in the 300s has a passive that increases special tiles at an incredibly quick rate compared to any other character (often 200-300+ per turn for up to 5 tiles). This is enough to take down an unboosted full health 4* in a few turns without using a single ability. 

Is this primarily due to her interaction with Rocket? Are there other Kitty/[toon] teams that are difficult to fight? It seems that Rocket's mechanic of throwing out 7 strikes to start the match is the issue as she begins to buff immediately before you even make your next move. 

I'm just trying to figure out if the problem is Kitty or Rocket. Would as many people be running low level Kitty's if they had to build up a few turns to actually get specials to start buffing.

No. The problem is definitely Kitty. She can be even worse with Carnage, and is a nightmare with Daken for 3* players.

TranscendGod

Before Kitty, the 4* meta was fantastic. It was the most diverse meta in the history of MPQ. R&G, Gamora, Medusa teams had become much less prevalent due to the emergence of effective counters and other well designed, powerful characters. In multiple simulator events, I was able to climb from 0 to 2000 without hitting the same team twice. You had all kinds of carol teams, vulture teams, america teams, peggy teams, rogue teams, carnage teams, and many other 4s and randomly covered 5s in the 300-400 range. Jessica Jones was the most popular 5* for defense in 4* mmr, and she was much more fair and reasonable. The R&G/Gamora/Medusa team was never particularly powerful or popular in normal PvPs with featured characters (unless of course the featured character was GotG or medusa).

5* players are saying that R&G is the problem, and they're absolutely right for their current meta. Of course, if we ever get 5*s that passively generate special tiles they might sing a different tune. 3* and 4* players are saying that tinykitty is the problem, and you keep champ kitty as is.

ThaRoadWarrior

TranscendGod said:

Before Kitty, the 4* meta was fantastic. It was the most diverse meta in the history of MPQ. R&G, Gamora, Medusa teams had become much less prevalent due to the emergence of effective counters and other well designed, powerful characters. 

[...]Of course, if we ever get 5*s that passively generate special tiles they might sing a different tune. 

I'm not sure if you completely missed out on the Rocket/Medusa/Gamora ubiquity, but when I was a 4* player that was exactly the same situation as Kitty/Rocket is now. You saw other characters in sim up to a point, probably 1600 points, to be exact, and from then on it was nothing but that to 2k. 

We do have 5*s that do that. OML passively makes really good strikes anytime a wingperson does anything actively. Iceman and Rescue have really cheap powers, so I'm somewhat expecting an OMLaissance here before too long. I really do think Iceman is going to dominate with that stun and the cheap green team damage.

TranscendGod

Oh I remember when that team was dominant. About a year before Kitty's release that team started to become much less popular over time. Partly due to highly effective counters and strong characters being released. But also due to many players with those characters transitioning to the 5* tier. I actually used to specifically target those medusa teams because the counters were so fast and fun. But it is much harder to find these days.

Anyhow, I agree with the many people who would rather have weak characters improved (and specifically designed to be counters to the most problematic characters). For example:

Make weak 5s like Wasp and Bruce Banner immune to stun, have far greater match damage than a typical 5, and improve their actives considerably (without great passives, they're unlikely to become top tier). When a new 5 is released and clearly underpowered, make them immune to stun so it's more accessible to newer players. Improve silver surfer's match damage and abilities so he's less of a liability to use against bishop.

Then you could have a more interesting 5* meta. Highly effective anti-bishop teams that are countered by the usual top tier passive characters. Top tier passive characters countered by bishop teams. And Bishop teams countered by anti-bishop teams.

tiomono

TranscendGod said:

Oh I remember when that team was dominant. About a year before Kitty's release that team started to become much less popular over time. Partly due to highly effective counters and strong characters being released. But also due to many players with those characters transitioning to the 5* tier. I actually used to specifically target those medusa teams because the counters were so fast and fun. But it is much harder to find these days.

Anyhow, I agree with the many people who would rather have weak characters improved (and specifically designed to be counters to the most problematic characters). For example:

Make weak 5s like Wasp and Bruce Banner immune to stun, have far greater match damage than a typical 5, and improve their actives considerably (without great passives, they're unlikely to become top tier). When a new 5 is released and clearly underpowered, make them immune to stun so it's more accessible to newer players. Improve silver surfer's match damage and abilities so he's less of a liability to use against bishop.

Then you could have a more interesting 5* meta. Highly effective anti-bishop teams that are countered by the usual top tier passive characters. Top tier passive characters countered by bishop teams. And Bishop teams countered by anti-bishop teams.

Take his stun out of the picture. A 5* player makes a match 3 and does almost 2k damage. Bishop gains 5 blue and hits you for 4k damage. Then it's his turn. 

Increasing match damage is not the answer to bishop. That would just make his 4k smack proc more often even without the 5* player getting cascades.

ThaRoadWarrior

Banner Hulk is 100% dead in the face of Kitty, particularly coupled with Hela who is probably hilarious with Kitty if you don't need to go to work on turn 1 via rocket. She'll eat his cd every time before he can transform.  Hela will take a huge chomp as soon as he has the green, which is what his other banner move does. His other move puts  down a pair of attacks for her to buff, and another pair for her to eat. Sad really; an artificial health pool would be pretty viable against her nonsense if he could get it to happen. But now he is hard-countered by multiple 5s...

Wa5p being based on immune specials could be made to do...some kind of thing I guess. She is pretty awful.

Sm0keyJ0e

After reading several of the posts of 4* players and listening to (reading?) their experiences on Discord, I will acknowledge that Kitty is a problem. If the devs thought a low-covered OML was a problem, hopefully they will see a similar trend in the metrics with Kitty and address.

But Bishop is absolutely broken for 5* players. There is no counter and trying to create one will cause other issues. He needs to be fixed.

bluewolf

I am in favor of a nerf, as Bishop's mechanics (stun 5* teams) creates the optimally un-fun situation of doing nothing, and there is no effective way to work around his mechanics.

Do I recognize that he is a valuable tool to 4* players?  Yes.  Is he completely broken as a tool that 5* players are taking advantage of?  Yes.  As much as Kitty is annoying to 4* people and ubiquitous and (obviously) a major problem, at least there are some counterplay options in a lot of cases vs "I hope the right person gets stunned and that my whole team doesn't get stunned while I watch the AI destroy me".  So she is definitely less broken IMO.

I'd accept a Kitty adjustment at lower cover levels; some Bishop power tweaks are long overdue.

A couple other thoughts:

Hey, there's a new-ish (ok, 6 months) lead designer for the game now!  Maybe the old era of "Nerf = destroy to the point of trash tier" doesn't need to apply anymore.  Especially in the era of dilution where you need 100 pulls to naturally pull just 1 cover for a 4 and 220 pulls to maybe find one cover for the 5 you want.  (Bonus heroes aside.)

And dilution also, of course, makes nerfing someone a more impactful step than before, just because of the effort and time you devote to building someone up.  Even building a 4 from scratch from 4 is no small undertaking anymore.  Hopefully they take this into consideration when deciding how to approach a rebalance as well as the compensation they offer.

tiomono

Sm0keyJ0e said:

After reading several of the posts of 4* players and listening to (reading?) their experiences on Discord, I will acknowledge that Kitty is a problem. If the devs thought a low-covered OML was a problem, hopefully they will see a similar trend in the metrics with Kitty and address.

But Bishop is absolutely broken for 5* players. There is no counter and trying to create one will cause other issues. He needs to be fixed.

But kitty and Logan are still not the same. Kitty sucks healthpacks for both sides. Logan pretty much made healthpacks irrelevant for people using him at low covers.

DAZ0273

tiomono said:

Sm0keyJ0e said:

After reading several of the posts of 4* players and listening to (reading?) their experiences on Discord, I will acknowledge that Kitty is a problem. If the devs thought a low-covered OML was a problem, hopefully they will see a similar trend in the metrics with Kitty and address.

But Bishop is absolutely broken for 5* players. There is no counter and trying to create one will cause other issues. He needs to be fixed.

But kitty and Logan are still not the same. Kitty sucks healthpacks for both sides. Logan pretty much made healthpacks irrelevant for people using him at low covers.

Sorry but I haven't seen health pack use ever stated as a reason for OML's nerf by the Dev's regardless whether it is true or not. OML 1 cover yellow was used at multiple tiers far beyond what apparently the Dev's intended. 1 cover Kitty yellow fits this condition exactly, possibly even more so.

For the last time I don't want a nerf but really, the data is probably there for the Dev's if they cared to bother looking.

ThaRoadWarrior

Buff Kraven before nerfing Kitty. If he were tuned such that he could outpace kitty up to some reasonable build, it solves the problem for the lower tiers 

Warbringa

Rod5 said:

Ultimately, like I say if you remove base match damage from his passive threshold then he will still work against Kitty but not as pure Kryptonite to EVERY SINGLE 5* CHARACTER IN THE GAME.

I guess capital letters make every statement true?

JackDeath666

Broken, broken, broken, broken. Broken.......

(Bishop.)

TranscendGod

ThaRoadWarrior said:

Banner Hulk is 100% dead in the face of Kitty, particularly coupled with Hela who is probably hilarious with Kitty if you don't need to go to work on turn 1 via rocket. She'll eat his cd every time before he can transform.  Hela will take a huge chomp as soon as he has the green, which is what his other banner move does. His other move puts  down a pair of attacks for her to buff, and another pair for her to eat. Sad really; an artificial health pool would be pretty viable against her nonsense if he could get it to happen. But now he is hard-countered by multiple 5s...

Wa5p being based on immune specials could be made to do...some kind of thing I guess. She is pretty awful.

That's why I advocated for substantial improvements to their active abilities (in addition to high match damage and health). Of course the current versions would be too weak (even if immune to stun).

TranscendGod

ThaRoadWarrior said:

Buff Kraven before nerfing Kitty. If he were tuned such that he could outpace kitty up to some reasonable build, it solves the problem for the lower tiers 

Agreed.

tiomono

DAZ0273 said:

tiomono said:

Sm0keyJ0e said:

After reading several of the posts of 4* players and listening to (reading?) their experiences on Discord, I will acknowledge that Kitty is a problem. If the devs thought a low-covered OML was a problem, hopefully they will see a similar trend in the metrics with Kitty and address.

But Bishop is absolutely broken for 5* players. There is no counter and trying to create one will cause other issues. He needs to be fixed.

But kitty and Logan are still not the same. Kitty sucks healthpacks for both sides. Logan pretty much made healthpacks irrelevant for people using him at low covers.

Sorry but I haven't seen health pack use ever stated as a reason for OML's nerf by the Dev's regardless whether it is true or not. OML 1 cover yellow was used at multiple tiers far beyond what apparently the Dev's intended. 1 cover Kitty yellow fits this condition exactly, possibly even more so.

For the last time I don't want a nerf but really, the data is probably there for the Dev's if they cared to bother looking.

No. I believe the stated reason was that he was in 10% of all matches. So it was his overuse according to them. There is nothing but our speculation to say that healthpack usage played a part in that decision.

The fallout was pretty rough though. And I feel that influenced the way they handled Gambit. 5* Gambit was probably not at the 10% usage mark but was problematic in other ways. And he was changed.

So kitty or bishop may or may not get changes. We dont know. All we can do is say what we experience and let them look at their data and do whatever they want to do with that data. 

I would think a character or team that allows you to somewhat bypass certain parts of the game like healthpacks, or the need to progress up tiers, would raise additional flags for them beyond just usage numbers. But I'm not on the dev team and they aren't very chatty around here so who knows.