***** Apocalypse (Classic) *****

Vhailorx

bluewolf said:

Loosie said:

bowla33 said:

And they seriously nerfed the HP reward in boss rewards from 50 to 30? Miserly doesn't even begin to describe this awfulness. 

It\s hilarious because they compensated the lost ISO by changing one of the (previsouly) 250s to 500, but didn't do the same for the HP.

You're getting 150 3DP shards in exchange for the 20 HP, though. I'm sure there are some players out there who will be happy with that.....

  Those people are either dumb or REALLY like Deadpool.

3* shards are quite easy to get, and much less useful than HP overall, even if the arbitrage rate looks good on paper.

ammenell

how do okoyes black and apocs yellow behave when combined together?
does okoyes wakanda forever proc more than once? 

optimus2861

ammenell said:

how do okoyes black and apocs yellow behave when combined together?
does okoyes wakanda forever proc more than once? 

It's a multi-hit skill, so should be the same as any other such skill, i.e. Sabretooth red, Wolfsbane black, etc. I think that's how I one-shotted that 5* Thor from full health, thinking about it some more. I must have had enough TU AP banked to make the four hits lethal.

JiraiyaSannin

the rewards in this game are trash now!! they keep cutting rewards from us. this is not the way to make the player base play more.

krakenoon

@JiraiyaSannin

There was a decision somewhere to drum up more money by restructuring. I suspect a bean-counter got a look at the currencies free players were getting and decided it was an unacceptable business model. The question is once everyone who will quits over this, how many more of us will quit due to substandard alliance performance and population issues in preferred slices?

 I know if I have trouble keeping up in the 4 star tier (can’t hit the HP reward in PvP anymore), I’ll semi-retire. Kinda sucks since I was really looking forward to working on the top 5 toons.

Vhailorx

Really!?  3 days and no comment from demi/d3.  Way to hang IceIX out to dry after telling him to hype up 5* shards in an alliance event.

shardwick

I sent in a ticket to CS asking when I will be receiving my Apocalypse shards since I'm almost done unlocking all progression rewards and haven't received any Apoc shards yet even though IceIX listed them as a progression reward in the Sneak Peek thread.

RickOShay

shardwick said:

I sent in a ticket to CS asking when I will be receiving my Apocalypse shards since I'm almost done unlocking all progression rewards and haven't received any Apoc shards yet even though IceIX listed them as a progression reward in the Sneak Peek thread.

https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/82397/lost-in-time-havok-apocalypse-shards-compensation#latest

shardwick

RickOShay said:

shardwick said:

I sent in a ticket to CS asking when I will be receiving my Apocalypse shards since I'm almost done unlocking all progression rewards and haven't received any Apoc shards yet even though IceIX listed them as a progression reward in the Sneak Peek thread.

https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/82397/lost-in-time-havok-apocalypse-shards-compensation#latest

That only concerns Lost in Time. Wish he had also addressed the boss event too. My feeling is that they were going to put 5* shards into personal progression but then changed their minds but forgot to update the info on the Apoc release events.

BriMan2222

People in my alliance are reporting that apocalypse black has been fixed and now destroys and not removes shield tiles.  Meaning it can lead to cascades if your lucky and paired with BRB it does feed him blue and green ap.

Glockoma

Apocalypse is not nearly as good as what it sounded on paper. Long live Kitty, BRB, Bishop.

Vhailorx

Glockoma said:

Apocalypse is not nearly as good as what it sounded on paper. Long live Kitty, BRB, Bishop.

Please elaborate on this. What have you found lacking about him?

bluewolf

Glockoma said:

Apocalypse is not nearly as good as what it sounded on paper. Long live Kitty, BRB, Bishop.

They are far more AI (idiot) proof than Apocalypse, but his offense is better and he'll be able to punch past some of their garbage protects.

Glockoma

Yeah, he is a bit slow to start. I believe passives have been the real power creep in the game. I would elaborate further, but that pretty much sums it up; he’s an old school, pretty much all active powers brute dressed up in healthy numbers.

Don’t get me wrong, love having him champed and boosted albeit. But, Safe to say that he is no Gambit. I believe he is a solid character, though not at all what we were thinking.

I think iHulk has more potential to be game-breaking due to his unique mechanics and future releases.

Vhailorx

Glockoma said:

Yeah, he is a bit slow to start. I believe passives have been the real power creep in the game. I would elaborate further, but that pretty much sums it up; he’s an old school, pretty much all active powers brute dressed up in healthy numbers.

Don’t get me wrong, love having him champed and boosted albeit. But, Safe to say that he is no Gambit. I believe he is a solid character, though not at all what we were thinking.

I think iHulk has more potential to be game-breaking due to his unique mechanics and future releases.

So if, hypothetically, someone had written they following over a week ago, would you say that person was prescient, or just incredibly brilliant?

Apoc will not be as dominant as Gambit.  The 5* tier is much bigger now, so it's harder to dominant everyone so utterly. But even more important is that apoc doesn't have the sort of passive powers that can dominate the game on offense and defense (things like passive ap gen or damage boosting are both fast and ai-proof). . . .

I think apoc will enter the meta mix on offense, in pvp and maybe even in pve.  He has cheap, good powers and a ton of versatility.  But on defense he seems more likely to be something like gritty, in that he will likely hurt to fight, but can be dealt with reliably, than to be like Gambit 1.0 or stunner bro teams where the only reasonable option is to use a mirror team.

fight4thedream

He exists to help expand the meta, not overtake it. 

The meta is entering a new phase where competitive players have the following options:

In terms of pure offensive strength, a high level Okoye/iHulk will stand at the top. Boost TUs before the match and with a good board the enemy team will be down in no time. Additionally seems to have a significantly higher scarecrow factor than Okoye/Thor but that may simply be because people are still learning methods for dealing with this team. 

At the other end of the spectrum, you have Beta/Kitty with their strong defensive mechanics. If Beta gets his Clash of the Worthy off within the first few turns, the match should be set particularly against Okoye/iHulk teams. 

In the player's hands, it's hard to say which is the better team. It really depends on the player's preferred play style. Okoye/iHulk offers speed but there's a risk of a bad board; Beta/Kitty offers more reliability but is significantly slower.

As an opponent, it's difficult to say which is the tougher fight as it's very much dependent on the team composition (especially champ levels) and the board set up.  


Apocalypse falls in the middle of these two extremes and thus offers a player more versatility with their options. Here are the current possible meta-team combos with Apocalypse:

Apocalypse (5/5/3 or 4/5/4 or 3/5/5) + Beta: Arguably his best partner, the goal here should be to chase blue and yellow. Once Apocalypse has his yellow on the board, it should basically be game over for the other team. With 4 repeaters churning out two shields each every other turn, it shouldn't take too long to get Beta's Skuttlebut which will get a damage boost from Apocalypse's Shared Strength. 

Even a Beta/Kitty team will have trouble against this team, so in that scenario you would have to focus on denying yellow AP at all costs, leaving your team exposed to his red (not a big deal without yellow) and black (should be manageable if your Kitty has been buffing tiles). The big issue here isn't whether a Beta/Kitty can beat this team but how long the match could potentially take. 

Against Beta/Kitty, the player should match away protect tiles in the first turn or two to avoid Kitty's passive boosting them. In the event that isn't possible, the player still has options in chasing yellow, red and blue. It won't be a pretty fight but should still be winnable. 

Apocalypse (3/5/5) + iHulk: iHulk's passive will soften up the other team, chase red and yellow. With red, you have the option of doing iHulk smash on the biggest threat or use A's red to target the enemy with the lowest-health. Black can be used to heal up iHulk a bit although notably A has higher match damage in all colors except green and purple. 

So for those interested in iHulk but don't have a high Okoye, Apocalypse can definitely fill that role. 

Apocalypse (3/5/5) + Thor: Will speed up Apocalypse's ability to get red and yellow and Thor's green nuke will benefit from the Apocalypse's Shared Strength boost. However, suffers the same defensive vulnerability as Okoye/Thor. 

Apocalypse (3/5/5) + Prof X: A good middle of the road team. Won't be particularly fast or slow but has some defensive teeth and will render stun-n-gun teams mostly useless. 

Apocalypse (3/5/5) + Iceman: A fun team that also benefits from stun immunity. Apocalypse's yellow and Iceman's green should prove to be a deadly combo. Once again, prioritizing getting yellow first. 

So basically, Apocalypse's yellow is what makes or breaks the match. Without it, his red does minimal damage and black becomes a heal/protect tile ability (with notable exception of Beta). But with it, he boosts damage for everyone on your team.  So in most matches, your primary focus will be getting yellow out as quick as possible. Then everything else can fall into place. 

For better or worse, the AI will not prioritize chasing yellow and will not wait until his yellow is out to use other offensive powers. So in that respect, he isn't much of a threat fighting against as long as you can deny yellow AP.  This is probably why A + Beta team's are still your best bet if you are looking for defensive deterrence as it will be difficult to deny both blue and yellow and they both have high health.

 Glockoma said:

Yeah, he is a bit slow to start. I believe passives have been the real power creep in the game. I would elaborate further, but that pretty much sums it up; he’s an old school, pretty much all active powers brute dressed up in healthy numbers.

Don’t get me wrong, love having him champed and boosted albeit. But, Safe to say that he is no Gambit. I believe he is a solid character, though not at all what we were thinking.

I think iHulk has more potential to be game-breaking due to his unique mechanics and future releases.

As for iHulk, yes and no. With the right partner (Okoye/Apocalypse), his passive hurts. But there are three things working against him:

1. Beta's blue: If the opponent's team Beta is able to get Clash of the Worthy off in the first few turns, it will prove to be a headache for the iHulk team (especially if Kitty is buffing those tiles).

2. His passive is tied to basic green tiles: All it takes to shut down this passive is tile spamming abilities. I have read reports that Carnage/Beta have proven particularly effective against iHulk teams for this reason and I imagine they are not the last characters we will see with tile spamming abilities. 

3. He is also susceptible to stun-n-gun mechanics. 

All in all, I think the dev team is trying to usher in a new meta without having to nerf anyone and I think they are mostly succeeding in this regard. For those hoping for the end of Kitty/Beta, this probably won't be it. Instead, I think Apocalypse is just a faster alternative who has a lot to offer other characters in the 5* tier. 

HoundofShadow

I don't see how Apocalpyse can be the new Gambit because pre-nerfed Gambit was all about:

1) passive ap gains every turn (+3 red and + 3 purple) 
2) opponents' ap destruction every turn,
3) overwriting of special tiles
4) mirror matches. 

Apocalypse is all about active powers, making use of protect tiles to hit hard, a repeater that boost power by a fix amount and throws out 4 protect tiles every two turn. The only good thing about Apocalypse is his high health and cheap powers 

1) No passive ap gains every turn, but has cheap powers
2) doesn't destroy opponent's ap every turn
3) doesn't overwrite special tiles but put out protect tiles which get destroyed for high damage
4) mirror matches are not needed. As a matter, a lot of teams can defeat  Apocalypse teams. It depends on whether the players want to chew down the high hp or they would rather pay skip tax.

The closest thing to Gambit is half health Thor: free 5 ap + potential free matches due to tile destruction every turn.

IMO, the minimum criteria to be the next Gambit are:

1) least 5 free ap gained every turn passively.
2) Only mirror matches can defeat this team

Unfortunately, players will asked the dev to nerf whoever can fulfill the above requirement. So, Thor is likely to be the last Gambit that players gonna have.

Bad

Dont forget stun inmunity. That is sometimes better than a gambit. And huge damage match and huge health pool , so he will have plenty of time to fire all his active powers, wich they all are really good.
And his black just destroying protect tiles on this meta is just OP even for AI.
I dont think this char should be understimated.

fight4thedream

**Mod note: Split a discussion on Bishop to a new thread found here. Please try to keep the discussion on topic. Thanks!

Glockoma

Bad said:

Dont forget stun inmunity. That is sometimes better than a gambit. And huge damage match and huge health pool , so he will have plenty of time to fire all his active powers, wich they all are really good.
And his black just destroying protect tiles on this meta is just OP even for AI.
I dont think this char should be understimated.

I got ‘em champed. I’d say he is pretty estimated in my opinion. 

I’m with @fight4thedream, he’s an expansion of the meta. He’s not bad, but he is far from how he was touted to be when announced. I just like to keep things brief if I can, but Fight’s analysis was pretty spot-on.