***** Beta Ray Bill (Korbinite Cyborg) *****

bluewolf

MadScientist said:

How many shards will be given by his release store tokens?

Assuming you mean the HP store, it will be the same as Heroics or Featured character packs (see MODOK).  No 5* shards.  (I asked this same question on Discord.)

The Worthy Challengers store will reward the same shard values as any other Legendary store.

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I am glad to see that Beta Ray Bill is the 200th character in our game (as in the game we actually play, not the console version); seems like an interesting addition to the roster and has some possible interesting interactions, including with future designs.

I've always liked the character; thanks to the devs for exploring some of the more fun characters lately.  And not a variant!

MadScientist

bluewolf said:

MadScientist said:

How many shards will be given by his release store tokens?

Assuming you mean the HP store, it will be the same as Heroics or Featured character packs (see MODOK).  No 5* shards.  (I asked this same question on Discord.)

That's exactly what I meant, thanks!

Vhailorx

So 32k damage for 12ap?  And 8.5k damage for 6ap, with modest self-accelerarion?

That's decent.  And he is a useful addition to thorkoye (his green is better than Thor's for proc'ing okoye, and he has an efficient blue to proc her even more often).  I am less certain of his value with kitty as boosting protect tiles is a bit of a dminishing returns prospect, unlike boosting strikes.  And they would be reliant on a teammate to produce useful offensive tiles.  It will definitely work, but I don't know that it will work better than gritty + bishop. 

Seems like he will be somewhere in the hela/ged/jj/X/Iceman range of pretty damn good, but not the meta.  I am unsure of his value relative to Bobby for hoard cracking purposes.  Bill seems to have more offensive value, but bobby has some decent cheap damage and a quasi-passive stun that makes him a solid, easy to use 3rd wheel.

RickOShay

wymtime said:

so with Kitty you just run 5,3,5 since on turn 2 you have eliminated match damage.  Blue and green do decent damage.

if Kitty was not in the game I would not mind this character, but with Kitty buffing free tiles to stupid high levels this will be another Rock Paper Scissors team probably with Eddy Brock nullifying protect tiles.

If BRB creates 4 Protect tiles at start, I know I'll lose at least 2 by turn 3..  Sure, match damage against us will be reduced due to the ones we keep, and we will be prioritizing blue to get more protects on the board. 
We'll need to be very careful since the only significant damage we may deal is from his 12 AP green, all while trying to avoid protect tile matches for the most part (yes we earn b & g AP from them but still don't want to lose them).
We'll get some damage from his blue, and hopefully Kitty's red will earn you some attack tiles at some point. No matter how this plays out, we are looking at a 5+ minute match. I think we may get hit faster than we can climb.
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Now, when facing against Kitty BRB, match or destroy 1 Protect as soon as possible and Kitty will no longer be buffing since she requires 4 on the board for her buff (unless your 3rd ally is an X-men, then it will require just 3 to buff). It will be hard to deny them blue for very long, but this team is not nearly as scary to face as Gritty itself, or many other combos.
Heck, even 5* Carnage has an advantage over this team (free turn etc) if you can't seem to get their protects matched away quickly. Fun to try 4* Thanos as well. 
Gritty itself destroys a BRB-Kitty team starting on turn 3 or 4 if you can deny them blue, with little fear of taking damage yourself.

If the PvP essential character is good at creating special tiles then yes we have a real problem with BRB-Kitty, otherwise not a big deal. As stated though, in Sim with Gritty & BRB that can be efficient to use and a pain to face.

Daredevil217

Tony_Foot said:

Borstock said:

Me likey. Definitely a hoard buster.

I don’t see it, colour for colour he is worse than grocket except blue but it’s still protects over strikes and who really wants or needs that. I guess I keep on hoarding, going to let prof carnage and this one slip off into the classic pool. 

754 pulls and counting.

Um no lol. Grocket is not better “color for color”. They have a better yellow. And that’s it. Blue, Green, health, and match damage all heavily favor BRB. 

That said, the yellow is what makes Grocket what they are, and it is significantly better than Bill’s. Shame too, because I laid out earlier how he COULD be meta if they upped the number of protects to match Grocket’s strikes. Instead he went from meta to very damn good. I will for sure be opening for him and will have lots of fun combos to try!

randomhero1090

Daredevil217 said:

Tony_Foot said:

Borstock said:

Me likey. Definitely a hoard buster.

I don’t see it, colour for colour he is worse than grocket except blue but it’s still protects over strikes and who really wants or needs that. I guess I keep on hoarding, going to let prof carnage and this one slip off into the classic pool. 

754 pulls and counting.

Um no lol. Grocket is not better “color for color”. They have a better yellow. And that’s it. Blue, Green, health, and match damage all heavily favor BRB. 

That said, the yellow is what makes Grocket what they are, and it is significantly better than Bill’s. Shame too, because I laid out earlier how he COULD be meta if they upped the number of protects to match Grocket’s strikes. Instead he went from meta to very damn good. I will for sure be opening for him and will have lots of fun combos to try!

I agree. Looks to be in that tier below meta. Could be a lot of fun. I know people were already talking W4sp and Bishop. Like Hela, i'd run BRB with Thor just for something different. In SIM, there are all sorts of combos that will be fun to try. I'd probably go BRB/Thor/Wasp to flip those shields a couple times. I still think his green is too expensive. If his ap gen was 2/2 or 2 green/1 blue then i'd get it. I realize it is still very strong, but 12 ap is a lot even with his passive gen IF you aren't using a battery.

Vhailorx

Will gritty + BRB match, or surpass, gritty + bishop or he/worthy/bishop in sim?

The 4 extra protect tiles will  make it harder to shut down Kitty's tile buffing right away, and that 6ap blue will be fairly easy to spam for quick damage from the strikes.  By turn 3 or four, if the tiles remain out this team will do 10k+ per match and be immune to any damage less than 10k or so. 

PvP matches against full 3-slot teams are rare, but this one might be a bit tricky for those without level 330+ bishops (I.e., those who will struggle to survive the first few turns when the board layout is bad).

ThaRoadWarrior

I've got a feeling that 50% Gladiathor/BRB teams are going to be an option. I doubt it'll take any time at all to earn 12 green when you're scooping it up passively every battle start. 

Vhailorx

ThaRoadWarrior said:

I've got a feeling that 50% Gladiathor/BRB teams are going to be an option. I doubt it'll take any time at all to earn 12 green when you're scooping it up passively every battle start. 

Maybe, but the dirty little secret about Thor's green is that as an active power it's just meh.  And that's also true of BRB.  Add in okoye's black and things look different.  But on their own, I think I might prefer hela's green or even rescue's red for fast, cheap damage fueled by Thor's passive.

And that's without considering okoye's true healing. . .

tiomono

Vhailorx said:

ThaRoadWarrior said:

I've got a feeling that 50% Gladiathor/BRB teams are going to be an option. I doubt it'll take any time at all to earn 12 green when you're scooping it up passively every battle start. 

Maybe, but the dirty little secret about Thor's green is that as an active power it's just meh.  And that's also true of BRB.  Add in okoye's black and things look different.  But on their own, I think I might prefer hela's green or even rescue's red for fast, cheap damage fueled by Thor's passive.

And that's without considering okoye's true healing. . .

Somewhere in a corner the smartest guy in the room wishes his green could be described as good as meh.

leoperez90

There is good ideas being thrown here hopefully the D3 is reading them and make the adjustments to BRB to make him meta.

randomhero1090

leoperez90 said:

There is good ideas being thrown here hopefully the D3 is reading them and make the adjustments to BRB to make him meta.

Make is green cost 10ap or 2 green/1 blue ap gen on passive.

Daredevil217

Vhailorx said:

ThaRoadWarrior said:

I've got a feeling that 50% Gladiathor/BRB teams are going to be an option. I doubt it'll take any time at all to earn 12 green when you're scooping it up passively every battle start. 

Maybe, but the dirty little secret about Thor's green is that as an active power it's just meh.  And that's also true of BRB.  Add in okoye's black and things look different.  But on their own, I think I might prefer hela's green or even rescue's red for fast, cheap damage fueled by Thor's passive.

And that's without considering okoye's true healing. . .

Here’s an even dirtier secret. Here are the damage per AP spent for the 4 powers you mentioned. 

3281.5

2790.3

2247.8

1928.5

Any guesses on which characters have the highest damage output per AP spent?

3281.5 - Thor Green
2790.3 - BRB Green
2247.8 - Rescue Red
1928.5 - Hela Green

Hardly “meh”. 

ThaRoadWarrior

You have to look at Gladiathor's green in total as well - that passive AP earn to fuel up all 3 of his powers works SO well it's wild. Looking at damage/ap is great, but you also need to factor in time to collect. Between BRB/Rescue/Gladiathor all performing their nonsense and then multi-tapping on multiple colors that all get collected by Thor passively, that team is going to be constantly hitting in a pick-3 event.

RickOShay

Vhailorx said:

ThaRoadWarrior said:

I

Maybe, but the dirty little secret about Thor's green is that as an active power it's just meh.  And that's also true of BRB.  Add in okoye's black and things look different.  But on their own, I think I might prefer hela's green or even rescue's red for fast, cheap damage fueled by Thor's passive.

And that's without considering okoye's true healing. . .

Thor's AoE is just meh? It's near 1100 damage per AP as an AoE. (~13,300/12)
BRB's is similar per AP per enemy, but you can't guarantee a KO even if a non-solo target has just 8371 health.
(8371x4)/12 / 3 enemies = 930 
I realize you didn't say BRB's is better, just that Thor's active side of green isn't that great in general.
Are you saying that simply the cost of 12 is the huge drawback? (it is, but such is the cost of 'strong' AoE's).

Looking at other 5* green abilities, or even any color AoE, many have more potential drawbacks or specific conditions to be any better than that. 
I'd say Thor's is quite Good, and BRB's is Good to Great, depending on how fast he builds up green AP in live play.

randomhero1090

RickOShay said:

Vhailorx said:

ThaRoadWarrior said:

I

Maybe, but the dirty little secret about Thor's green is that as an active power it's just meh.  And that's also true of BRB.  Add in okoye's black and things look different.  But on their own, I think I might prefer hela's green or even rescue's red for fast, cheap damage fueled by Thor's passive.

And that's without considering okoye's true healing. . .

Thor's AoE is just meh? It's near 1100 damage per AP as an AoE. (~13,300/12)
BRB's is similar per AP per enemy, but you can't guarantee a KO even if a non-solo target has just 8371 health.
(8371x4)/12 / 3 enemies = 930 
I realize you didn't say BRB's is better, just that Thor's active side of green isn't that great in general.
Are you saying that simply the cost of 12 is the huge drawback? (it is, but such is the cost of 'strong' AoE's).

Looking at other 5* green abilities, or even any color AoE, many have more potential drawbacks or specific conditions to be any better than that. 
I'd say Thor's is quite Good, and BRB's is Good to Great, depending on how fast he builds up green AP in live play.

Thor's green is awesome because he self gens green at a pretty alarming rate. BRB's green might work because you will collect green without worry of getting hit, he's the tank. I'm sure we've all had 1,000s of boards at this point with match 4 green that we pass on so Thor doesn't take damage. At this point, I gotta see him in action. I gotta figure you are right in that Good maybe Great category.

Vhailorx

Daredevil217 said:

Vhailorx said:

ThaRoadWarrior said:

I've got a feeling that 50% Gladiathor/BRB teams are going to be an option. I doubt it'll take any time at all to earn 12 green when you're scooping it up passively every battle start. 

Maybe, but the dirty little secret about Thor's green is that as an active power it's just meh.  And that's also true of BRB.  Add in okoye's black and things look different.  But on their own, I think I might prefer hela's green or even rescue's red for fast, cheap damage fueled by Thor's passive.

And that's without considering okoye's true healing. . .

Here’s an even dirtier secret. Here are the damage per AP spent for the 4 powers you mentioned. 

3281.5

2790.3

2247.8

1928.5

Any guesses on which characters have the highest damage output per AP spent?

3281.5 - Thor Green
2790.3 - BRB Green
2247.8 - Rescue Red
1928.5 - Hela Green

Hardly “meh”. 

This assumes that there are 3 targets that can all absorb ~13k damage.  I would say brb's green is slightly better than Thor's (just active elements) because it is useful in more scenarios.

Also, a few caveats to my statement that I thought were obvious, but clearly aren't.

(1) I explicitly limited my comment to Thor's active green.  His passive green power is arguably the top power in the game, and certainly top 5.

(2) I said that hela/rescue's powers are better for cheap, fast damage.  Thor sure smokes them for damage/AP against a full team of three.  But hela and rescue (and brb too) keep their damage/AP value regardless of the number of opponents, while Thor drops down to just under 1300 against a single target.  And for purposes of efficiently proc'ing okoye, it isn't even close (Thor's green is fine for proc'ing okoye, and since I comes along with his green passive, they are an awesome pairing.  But damage/AP is less important than AP/tick of damage when it comes to proc'ing okoye).

(3) 12ap for 13k aoe damage is fine.  But that's still only 1/3-1/5 of a typical 5* health pool.  In a meta that requires speed, high cost nukes that don't end the game outright are not the best options.  Add some additional damage (via strikes from Thor's own yellow, or okoye etc) and thor's green plays much better, but that it outside the scope of my original discussion.

Pongie

AOE hits invisible opponents. With green being random target, does it still hit invisible opponents?

Jezequel

Pongie said:

AOE hits invisible opponents. With green being random target, does it still hit invisible opponents?

Yep!

Vhailorx

Pongie said:

AOE hits invisible opponents. With green being random target, does it still hit invisible opponents?

Any random damage tick will pierce invis status. Anything that refers to "the target" cannot strike an invisible enemy.