Character Updates - September 2020

shadow2999

Well, personally, think they epic failed with Worthy Cap.  If they were looking to get people into the CL10, they failed to realize that he is a **** pin to getting through a lot of the CL10 green nodes.  So instead of doing of making the Green Nodes fun rather than frustrating, they went with taking away one of the best tools to doing them.  Its just going to get players to say f-it to CL10, and defeat some of the other quality of life changes.  This is the problem with nerfs....its the laziest, stupidest way to address an issue in my book.  And its not just a small nerf, its HUGE.  Same with Bishop, but I personally never ran him.  People who complain about characters we can all get and use makes no sense to me.  But whatever, looks like my new goal will be shooting for T100, and happy.But it is a dumb sets of nerfs.

Steve111

Good job on all the character rebalances.... can’t wait for the bottom end of the 5* tier, like Wasp and Banner, to get some much needed improvements. 

DyingLegend

IceIX said:

DyingLegend said:

My question is, with worthy cap, does he negate the damage of a 4 match ability as well, such as prof x or onslaught?

I can't say with 110% surety since ya know, not released yet, but the current plan is that yes, he'll block the full damage from that attack.

Thanks for the answer,  this makes him more intriguing and still have a place in rosters .

Michael1957

DyingLegend said:

Not terrible , would have liked to see Gritty get wacked, maybe next time 

Gritty got absolutely trashed last week with the birth of Polaris, 28-2 against Gritty using her, and those only occur on a bad board when you can’t match a strike tile within 5 turns 

thedarkphoenix

I hope we consistently get these updates!

Worthy cap was annoying but I don't think he needed a nerf...

Angel buffs are nice but probably could have used one more AP reduction and he would have been in a really good spot.

Please help



oml
Phoenix
Banner

ASAP

tupacboy

yes!  less skipping in PVP!

Michael1957

I love it , 98% of my PvAI defensive losses all had Bishop or Hammerhawk on the attacking team. The best thing is you’re going to make all these one trick ponies figure out a new way to bully much weaker rosters . Well played . The game has become 100% more playable and balanced .

DyingLegend

Angel needs to be able to send enemies airborne. Till that happens , he will continue to go unused 

Michael1957

shadow2999 said:

Well, personally, think they epic failed with Worthy Cap.  If they were looking to get people into the CL10, they failed to realize that he is a **** pin to getting through a lot of the CL10 green nodes.  So instead of doing of making the Green Nodes fun rather than frustrating, they went with taking away one of the best tools to doing them.  Its just going to get players to say f-it to CL10, and defeat some of the other quality of life changes.  This is the problem with nerfs....its the laziest, stupidest way to address an issue in my book.  And its not just a small nerf, its HUGE.  Same with Bishop, but I personally never ran him.  People who complain about characters we can all get and use makes no sense to me.  But whatever, looks like my new goal will be shooting for T100, and happy.But it is a dumb sets of nerfs.

I’ve never used him in CN. It’s easily beaten with Okoye/ Yelena/ Peggy versus characters and Infinite Vulture / iHulk against minions . Granted he dies 500 times sometimes but a win is a win 

Vhailorx

The stunner bros work unlike any other characters in the game.  bishop was the real problem because he doesn't need a partner at all (worthy effectively requires HE or carol + strikes), so he was a problem in pick2 as well as pick3.  I obviously want to see the changes in practice, but I think that nuBishop will be meh at best (maybe like 4* GR).

If read this correctly, you now need to use 6 red ap to get Bishop jumping out in front, and even then he will only generate 1 blue per turn (though his yellow passive should still work too, so it will be 2 blue ap per turn after you cast is red, right?  and more if you have another source of protect tiles to eat).  That's bad.  spending 6 red ap to generate about 6 blue ap over 3 turns is bad.  and having to eat damage to do it is even worse.  It's nice that he can do 225% damage with red now, but I can't get excited about waiting 3 rounds to do a one time hit of no more than 2.25x a 4*s health pool.  This looks closer to the Gambit treatment to me: nerfed into the ground.  What's more, this took WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY too long.  almost 2 years.  basically inexcusable for a live service game like this.

Worthy is maybe a bit less of a nerf, but he also was less good to start. "Proc-on-enemy-match4 powers can be good, so he may have some niche uses, but the only real question here is how many tiles he will proc, and how long will they be, at 5 yellow covers.  EDIT: on re-read, he only ever creates 1 CD tile.  Nerfed into the ground.     

All of the other character changes are borderline comical.  Bumping Archangel up to ~65k health at lvl 450 is nice (I endorse the précédent that older 5*s should have their health updated to something near modern levels).  But his powers still cost 9 ap and aren't especially good even when cast.  the buff is nice, but he is still a niche play against vulture and any future airborne threats.  I feel similarly about the changes to thing, Chulk and jubilee.  I appreciate the desire to make them better.  But they still won't be anywhere near good.  Cho's green still costs 13 ap AND requires 12+ blue to do heavy damage, and I will probably have polaris champed in a few weeks (not to mention all the other strong new 4*s).  So as loathe as I am to admit it, the dev time spent on these changes was probably not worthwhile for demi/d3.  They were 'play when essential only' and will remain so.

Therealsmkspy

While I expected this for a while, kinda makes me sad that I almost got to champ my Hawkeye to use with Worthy. So close, but so far. Oh well, shrug.

jp1

Buffs: Not worth the dev time, they don’t drive revenue...we’ll do them for characters nobody cares about to offset the obvious manipulation.

Nerfs: We need to get as much income as possible from Polaris...what can we do? Let’s take away their toys so they have to buy new ones. 

Imagine being just a little less transparent with the sleazy tactics. At least the few people who were sweating Bishop can’t see through it...I guess.

Sorry to be negative once again, but consider giving as much as you steal.

Vhailorx

jp1 said:

Buffs: Not worth the dev time, they don’t drive revenue...we’ll do them for characters nobody cares about to offset the obvious manipulation.

Nerfs: We need to get as much income as possible from Polaris...what can we do? Let’s take away their toys so they have to buy new ones. 

Imagine being just a little less transparent with the sleazy tactics. At least the few people who were sweating Bishop can’t see through it...I guess.

Sorry to be negative once again, but consider giving as much as you steal.

It does make one wonder how long these nerfs have been sitting in the hopper, just waiting for a new 4* launch to really excite the playerbase. 

Vhailorx

Therealsmkspy said:

While I expected this for a while, kinda makes me sad that I almost got to champ my Hawkeye to use with Worthy. So close, but so far. Oh well, shrug.

don't feel bad for now: HE/Coulson/Gamora is untouched, so we still have a good cl10 challenge node option.  I just hope you didn't plan to rely on HE/worthy for PVP.

Rhipf

@IceIX

Overclocked - PASSIVE - > 6 AP

This ability has been updated in a large way. Instead of being Passive, it is now an active ability, and functions a little more broadly than before as a result. The new ability is as follows:

(PASSIVE) Bishop absorbs his enemy’s attacks, storing them up for an explosive blast. Create a 3-turn Fortified Black countdown tile. While this tile is on the board and one of Bishop’s teammates would take damage, Bishop jumps to the front. When this countdown expires, Bishop deals 55% of the damage he took while the countdown was on the board to the target.

• Level 2: Deals 75% of the damage taken when the countdown expires.

• Level 3: Deals 100% of the damage taken when the countdown expires.

• Level 4: Deals 140% of the damage taken when the countdown expires.

• Level 5: Deals 225% of the damage taken when the countdown expires.

Is this supposed to be the new wording of Overclocked? If it is shouldn't he (PASSIVE) at the beginning be removed (I assume it will be in the update and this was probably just a copy/paste error).

marshall

Great to see a return to rebalances! Especially happy about minor adjustments, please let's see more of those.

It won't always work for every character, but it's easier to make further small changes than let a character sit unbalanced for years.

acescracked

Quick, call the Governor and get a stay of execution!!
#savebishop

DeNappa

 Long overdue but glad to see some balance changes upcoming! To me, the proposed changes seem good at first sight.

sambrookjm

Vhailorx said:

Therealsmkspy said:

While I expected this for a while, kinda makes me sad that I almost got to champ my Hawkeye to use with Worthy. So close, but so far. Oh well, shrug.

don't feel bad for now: HE/Coulson/Gamora is untouched, so we still have a good cl10 challenge node option.  I just hope you didn't plan to rely on HE/worthy for PVP.

4-star Gamora for Worthy Cap?  She's got a cheap stun, but no auto-AP generation, which is what made Worthy nerfable.  Do you bring in Blue AP to start the match to get her stunning started?

froggerjohn

Always sad to see characters ruined instead of adjusted.

It's a change that needed to happen, but it seems like it could have been done in a way that wouldn't have removed important 4* tools for dealing with stronger opponents. I guess the devs couldn't risk not solving the problem.

I think the even bigger issue, is the inconsequential nature of the buffs. Minor changes to characters that no one uses means essentially no benefit from those changes. (Cho might be an exception). This would be fine and welcome in a general sense, but if you're trying to put out an offset to removing some major tools, it's worth adding something of real substance.

There are plenty of characters that are so bad, people make fun of them.
Flaptain, Talos, Emma, Banner, 5Wasp... Any of these could have been targeted, and given the reverse of what happened to Bishop/Worthy. Make big changes that have a chance of making such characters usable.

I think the other thing that would REALLY help, is to double the number of boosted characters each week.
Not only is this necessary just to maintain parity against dilution, but the more characters on the list, the greater the chance of creating good synergies and maybe even discovering new combos.