Are Supports Over?

2

Comments

  • KGB
    KGB Posts: 3,189 Chairperson of the Boards
    Ultimately I suspect how you view supports is based on where your roster is and what modes you play.

    A) If you play PvP exclusively (minus DDQ) they are 100% useless to you (unless you need it for a crash on an under leveled 4* like Talos).
    B) If you are a 5* player who is using Thanos for PvE they are virtually useless to you (unless you get the 2 supports that give +X Green AP for Gladi-Thor to do turn 0 wins or the Royal Talon Fighter for Okoye).
    C) If you are a 4* player there are a fair number of useful supports that can speed your PvE battles / save health packs even at Rank 3 support.
    D) If you are a 3* or less player there are a lot of useful supports that can speed your PvE battles / save health packs even at Rank 3 support.

    I'm in category C and I've found useful supports for Grocket, Gamora, Medusa and Juggs to speed my PvE and cut my health pack usage to 0.

    I wonder how many here who aren't using them or hate them are in the first 2 categories.

    KGB
  • ZootSax
    ZootSax Posts: 1,819 Chairperson of the Boards
    To add to @KGB 's post, there's a few supports that are even useful at Rank 1 or 2 if their character-specific perk is something that doesn't necessarily need additional levels to benefit (plus Rank 1 & 2 supports won't have a lot of demand from other characters, so you can assign them and basically forget about them until you get a higher Rank version).  
    For example, Black Widow's Batons allow Infinity War BW to go invisible while saving your AP for a better purple user.  Lucky's perk to Kate Bishop is totally independent of both Rank and level.  The Tinkerer is still useful to Prowler at Rank 1, even if the benefits do increase with level.  I'm sure there are others, but that was just off the top of my head.  Granted, none of these are top-tier characters, but everyone's essential sometime...

  • BigSoftieFF
    BigSoftieFF Posts: 454 Mover and Shaker
    Unpopular opinion ion but I hope not. I like em.
  • jredd
    jredd Posts: 1,387 Chairperson of the Boards
    as mentioned some are very useful and are great to have on the right character. but they need to figure out how to actually make them reasonably attainable. getting one pull out of the supports store every 2 months doesn't cut it.
  • ThaRoadWarrior
    ThaRoadWarrior Posts: 9,388 Chairperson of the Boards
    It was a 1 day event that ran on Monday every week, and it had a placement component. It was essentially an extra pvp sub that culminated in a cool boss fight node, but otherwise was just more of the same for the most part. The extra 10 cp was nice
  • Black Duke
    Black Duke Posts: 694 Critical Contributor
    I think the problem with supports is still their lack of availability.
    Currently there are only two ways to earn supports:

    • Beginner tokens in event vaults  
    • Advanced tokens as reward for season placement

    Simple way to fix that: Add support tokens to the PVE & PVP reward table (e.g. T1 earns a Master token, T5 an Advanced token, T10 a Beginner token). So there wouldn't be any reason to run additional events like Support Circuit.
  • ThaRoadWarrior
    ThaRoadWarrior Posts: 9,388 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited August 2019
    Since supports are linear growth to a finite cap, and then you can't dupe them or sell them, I really don't know how well the feature would survive rampant accessibility in its current form.

    What I'd love to see (in addition to what we have) is a more fleshed out Support Event that comes around about as often as Webbed Wonder, and it gives out a Master Support Token on a node every time, and you can earn more via placement. It would be a first-class PVE/P event that doesn't have to run alongside the regular one. Otherwise something like the Crash of the Titans in DDQ that gives one out at some interval. 
  • randomhero1090
    randomhero1090 Posts: 396 Mover and Shaker
    If I woulda used my head I woulda used a support on Talos in DDQ.  Couple of the supports add a real nice boost to match damage and critical hits.

    At this point, you should be able to level up the supports to 5.  Use RISO to do so.
  • ThaRoadWarrior
    ThaRoadWarrior Posts: 9,388 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited August 2019
    I don't have any 5* supports. I have:
    4*: 6
    3*: 6
    2*: 18
    1*: 5
    Un-rostered: 19 (including all infinity stones)

    But yes, I used my 4* Corvus Glaive to win that talos crash with a 2/2/2. The additional health, on-color match damage, and random chance at additional damage if my countdown was out let me scrap by for the win there.
  • superdrongo
    superdrongo Posts: 5 Just Dropped In
    I like supports, for fun little bonuses in PvE and help in the 4* crash where necessary. Just would be nice to get more to have a way to get them, as everyone else says. I currently probably average one token a month, if that?

    I can understand wanting, say, the Infinity Stones to be a really rare, valuable prize, but at least give me more than 12 chances a year to get some extra levels on my Kra-Van or Corvus Glaive.
  • HoundofShadow
    HoundofShadow Posts: 8,004 Chairperson of the Boards
    I prefer the ability to upgrade my support Rank using the same duped support. Based on other match-three games that I play, it typically takes a couple hundred of them to max them out.

    That's one way I see them adding low rank supports as progression rewards in PvE or PvP.
  • Team_Jacob
    Team_Jacob Posts: 90 Match Maker
    I prefer the ability to upgrade my support Rank using the same duped support. Based on other match-three games that I play, it typically takes a couple hundred of them to max them out.

    That's one way I see them adding low rank supports as progression rewards in PvE or PvP.
    Yeah, that would be fair. ANY progression or glimmer of hope that I'll be able to unlock some 5* supports would be welcome. The RISO rewards (now decreased and also less frequent) has always felt like a sucker punch.  
  • therightwaye
    therightwaye Posts: 459 Mover and Shaker
    Did supports ever start? There are some good ones, sure, but it feels like we've been waiting for a festering wound to heal. But I hear you, its been unwrapped for so long the mold has started waving back.


  • AXP_isme
    AXP_isme Posts: 809 Critical Contributor
    So, did the list of supports in the store just change again with the latest data push?

    It seems like a bit of a waste of time maintaining this rotating store when we have no reliable way to earn the tokens and, let’s face it, there are looooooads of other more important things that the time could be spent on. 
  • GrimSkald
    GrimSkald Posts: 2,580 Chairperson of the Boards
    AXP_isme said:
    So, did the list of supports in the store just change again with the latest data push?

    It seems like a bit of a waste of time maintaining this rotating store when we have no reliable way to earn the tokens and, let’s face it, there are looooooads of other more important things that the time could be spent on. 
    Yes, definitely.  I think it changed before, too, but I can't say for absolute certain, since I noticed the day before yesterday that there were two supports in the store that I didn't have and that wasn't the case when I looked before that, probably xx months ago.

    Support Circuit made the tokens a lot more available, if only because when you drew from the Support Circuit vault you tended to draw additional Support tokens, sometimes even the more advanced ones.  I'm not sure why they didn't continue to run Support Circuit when they examined it - right now supports are all but impossible to get.  You get so few chances at tokens that if you already have many supports, you'll never get the rest.
  • bluewolf
    bluewolf Posts: 5,729 Chairperson of the Boards
    Based on this and the last update (8/1) it appears that the plan is to rotate Supports when the new season begins.

    Hopefully this continues?

    Wouldn't it be nice to get some official communication on something which seems so simple?
  • shardwick
    shardwick Posts: 2,121 Chairperson of the Boards
    .
    bluewolf said:
    Based on this and the last update (8/1) it appears that the plan is to rotate Supports when the new season begins.

    Hopefully this continues?

    Wouldn't it be nice to get some official communication on something which seems so simple?
    Wait. You mean actual communication on their game's official forum? Well that's just crazy talk.
  • gentgeen
    gentgeen Posts: 99 Match Maker
    Just noticed that the support "recruit page" design has changed... so I take it they are either back now..or very shortly??
  • bluewolf
    bluewolf Posts: 5,729 Chairperson of the Boards
    gentgeen said:
    Just noticed that the support "recruit page" design has changed... so I take it they are either back now..or very shortly??
    This is the second rotation that has happened at season start. I suppose that is “back” but I consider it the bare minimum they should be doing to keep them somewhat relevant in the game’s economy.