Character Updates - September 2020

HoundofShadow

I remember a lot of people asking for Worthy nerf, along with Bishop in here. I guess it's due to his usefulness in SCL 10.  It was in this year feedback for character rebalances thread where Bishop and Worthy Cap were nominated for nerfs.

https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/81128/feedback-wanted-character-balance/p1

As for Worthy, it's like a buff to me because I rarely use him and I don't use him with Hawkeye and C4rol/R4G. It's a buff because he negates all damage from match-4. And you know who's the king of match-4? It's 5* Prof X. America Chavez and Karnak also rank behind him. 

I do like the small buff to Jubilee. 

Great job. I wonder if Polaris will be next?

broll

I’m meh about the Bishop change. I didn’t use him all that much, but I also think nerfs are bad in general. 

Pretty upset about the cap nerf. I use him everyday, but never for PvP. In fact I rarely ever see him in PvP. Why nerf a character whose mostly absent from PvP?!  I understand the Bishop nerf even if I don’t like it, but this make no tinykitty sense!!

And buffs for characters I’m still not likely to ever use. *shrug*. All things considered I’m not a fan of these changes. If cap wasn’t nerfed I’d be meh enough about it to not bother posting, but seriously why in the tinykitty nerf cap?  

Taganov

The nerfs were too heavy-handed and the buffs were immaterial. Whelp, wherever they now fall in the meta, at least there won't be anymore Bishop/Worthy crying threads.

MrPlow

Nothing but Bishop in Magiks PVP after 800 points.  Thank God he's getting nerfed.

Rosraf

fmftint said:

Not that anyone cares but too long to bring me back, my MPQ days are long past

I said the same thing 2016-2019.  You can always come back tint. =c) ((whispers) run). 

Rosraf

Anon said:

D3 doesn't do slight nerfs. If they nerf, they murder the character.

RESTORE SURGICAL STRIKE ALREADY!

Kolence

Very happy that Bishop and jumpy Cap won't be as easy to work for the AI.

Happy that older characters are being improved and also that we are getting this many "minor" adjustments, AP costs and damage and maybe other numbers slightly changed, in one go. 

I don't think either Bishop or Cap got "nerfed into the ground". Well, maybe compared to what they were capable of before...
Compared to other 4-stars, though? I believe they'll still work ok. It will just require some team building and maybe even playing skill?    Instead of just being there and letting a 5-star make a simple match-3...

Man... these final couple of weeks of waiting will be the hardest.

Vhailorx

Kolence said:

Very happy that Bishop and jumpy Cap won't be as easy to work for the AI.

Happy that older characters are being improved and also that we are getting this many "minor" adjustments, AP costs and damage and maybe other numbers slightly changed, in one go. 

I don't think either Bishop or Cap got "nerfed into the ground". Well, maybe compared to what they were capable of before...
Compared to other 4-stars, though? I believe they'll still work ok. It will just require some team building and maybe even playing skill?    Instead of just being there and letting a 5-star make a simple match-3...

Man... these final couple of weeks of waiting will be the hardest.

When will you want to use bishop or worthy now? 

Bishop still turns protect tiles into blue ap, which might be useful, but his red is bad. 6ap to eat some damage AND wait three turns reflect it back and make 6 blue ap?  That's substantially worse than penance stare.   his blue does damage now, but it was never a top tier stun except for the fact that he fueled himself so well.  If you want a blue stunner, bishop seems substantially worse than ice or gamora or Polaris now.

Worthy might negate 4* match damage, which would be cool.  Being immune to match4s and 5s would be unique and interesting.  But the tile he proc's is not valuable for HE, and even with his boosted damage output, his blue and red are still cumbersome to use and only do 4* damagem. He can double dip on strikes or okoye, but is now capped at 6x dips and many other 4*s and 5* do that much more efficiently.

Obviously, we need to see how the needs work in practice to be sure, but on paper in struggling to find many scenarios where either character is even among the 1a tier of very good options, let alone a clear tier 1 meta leader.

HoundofShadow

Not every player are interested in only building meta teams. There are players who use characters to discover synergies that are fun. The answer would be: whenever playes want to have fun with characters and test out different strategies.

sinnerjfl

sambrookjm said:

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?

Fire any powers and Coulson will make a CD, and HE makes blue and red AP whenever a CD expire. It doesnt take much to get Gamora and her stun train going.

Kolence

@Vhailorx
I mean... personally, I'll use them just to see how much I can squeeze out of them after the nerfs...
That should provide some fun for a season or two (probably two, with the anniversary in between). I did the same with Gambit after he got axed...   And then, many moons later, we got 5* Storm! And he got a little bit better.

Bishop still does damage on CD expiring, that can be boosted, I presume. And he can take 1 point of damage to proc that. 
With the CD out, he could be making 8-10 blue every 4 turns. On his own. We'll see in what order his blue and yellow passives will proc, but that should only impact on which turn he gets a little blue AP spike. On his own.
With protect tiles spamming, this would go higher. Now, the stun isn't much but it's there, for teams that don't have any better option. And he can serve as a blue battery for someone else, say with a 4 turn stun... and a way of making more protect tiles... hmmm

Cap still makes CDs. For each match-4, if I'm reading it right? And if a match-4 will make him negate all the damage that turn, it could be huge help on CL10. Also, he'll now hit up to 9 times instead of 6, for Okoye type boosting purposes.

We'll see how it all works exactly, once the changes go live. I'm just saying I belive there are ways to play them ofensively still. They just may need to change their roles compared to before.

As for the tiers you mention... Maybe not. Bishop got hit harder. Pretty sure Cap might still work quite well with Hawkeye/Okoye though. For huge health pools in pve.

Vhailorx

sambrookjm said:

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?

At the risk of getting my best team nerfed, 4* gamora is straight up better than worthy for cl 10 challenge nodes.  Her stun is SO cheap (6ap for 4 turns  split across 2 targets) that HE/coulson can fuel a stunlock indefinitely against 3 opponents while still cycling through all of HE's arrows.  Finding available blue tiles is harder than getting ap.  It's slightly more risky to get started, but with a +2 or more blue ap boost it takes incredibly bad luck to prevent this team working.  Plus her black passive is a great way to shorten cl10 fights by insta-killing enemies with ~300k health.

Vhailorx

HoundofShadow said:

Not every player are interested in only building meta teams. There are players who use characters to discover synergies that are fun. The answer would be: whenever playes want to have fun with characters and test out different strategies.

 Play the game however you like, of course. Personally, I like dabbling with old characters every once in a while.  I dust off Gambit or xfw or even try to set up a sentry bomb for fun.  But that in no way means those characters weren't all nerfed into the ground.

Glockoma

JHawkInc said:

I like the changes.

I like seeing a bundle of them at once. That kinda balances out the news a little for people who aren't excited about any one change.

I like just having a little bit of explanation written into it all, instead of a clinical "opinion-free" chart of before and after. (I think I might like this part more than the fact that there are changes to begin with)

Also, a month before Anniversary? All things considered this has been a pretty fantastic year (weren't rebalances on the bottom of the list when things were getting shifted from the office to work-from-home earlier this year?), looking forward to ringing in the next one for MPQ!

This is great feedback that I agree with wholeheartedly.

I, too, have my opinions on the specifics, but big picture time:

ACTUAL rebalancing(!), with approaches, and in batches no less!

This is a stark difference from the MPQ the first 5 years I played. Year 6 looks to be quite a good year if we keep on this path.

...and yeah, Bring back old school 4* Wolverine!

HoundofShadow

True, a nerf is still a nerf. I think it's how we look at things. I think if you still like them, not because of how broken they were, but because you like these characters, then this nerf/rework could provide a fresh perspective on how to create new teams with them.

Jaedenkaal

DyingLegend said:

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 .

I think there's some miscommunication going on here; I highly doubt he'll prevent other powers from triggering as a result of that match-4. You'll take 0 damage from the match, and then full damage from Know His Name or Signal Boost or whatever.

Vhailorx

Glockoma said:

JHawkInc said:

I like the changes.

I like seeing a bundle of them at once. That kinda balances out the news a little for people who aren't excited about any one change.

I like just having a little bit of explanation written into it all, instead of a clinical "opinion-free" chart of before and after. (I think I might like this part more than the fact that there are changes to begin with)

Also, a month before Anniversary? All things considered this has been a pretty fantastic year (weren't rebalances on the bottom of the list when things were getting shifted from the office to work-from-home earlier this year?), looking forward to ringing in the next one for MPQ!

This is great feedback that I agree with wholeheartedly.

I, too, have my opinions on the specifics, but big picture time:

ACTUAL rebalancing(!), with approaches, and in batches no less!

This is a stark difference from the MPQ the first 5 years I played. Year 6 looks to be quite a good year if we keep on this path.

...and yeah, Bring back old school 4* Wolverine!

You do remember that, off the top of my head, cmags, im40, and riri were all successfully reworked during the first 5 years of MPQ, with the latter two becoming among the best characters in their respective tiers (without being OP) after their reworks, right?

Yes, it's been a while since we had reworks (especially reworks that explicitly tried to buff anyone) but let's not pretend that this hasn't happened before.

jredd

regardless of the changes being good/bad/indifferent, thanks for doing these. shows a level of care for the game that seems to have been absent for awhile now. 

much appreciated.

shadow2999

Do not thank someone for smacking you in the face....

DAZ0273

Vhailorx said:

Glockoma said:

JHawkInc said:

I like the changes.

I like seeing a bundle of them at once. That kinda balances out the news a little for people who aren't excited about any one change.

I like just having a little bit of explanation written into it all, instead of a clinical "opinion-free" chart of before and after. (I think I might like this part more than the fact that there are changes to begin with)

Also, a month before Anniversary? All things considered this has been a pretty fantastic year (weren't rebalances on the bottom of the list when things were getting shifted from the office to work-from-home earlier this year?), looking forward to ringing in the next one for MPQ!

This is great feedback that I agree with wholeheartedly.

I, too, have my opinions on the specifics, but big picture time:

ACTUAL rebalancing(!), with approaches, and in batches no less!

This is a stark difference from the MPQ the first 5 years I played. Year 6 looks to be quite a good year if we keep on this path.

...and yeah, Bring back old school 4* Wolverine!

You do remember that, off the top of my head, cmags, im40, and riri were all successfully reworked during the first 5 years of MPQ, with the latter two becoming among the best characters in their respective tiers (without being OP) after their reworks, right?

Yes, it's been a while since we had reworks (especially reworks that explicitly tried to buff anyone) but let's not pretend that this hasn't happened before.

Add 4* Wasp to the "good buff" list.

I never really used either Bishop or Worthy Cap very regularly but it was inevitable they would get hit. My 2/0/0 Hawkeye is happy he can stop pretending to go to the gym when he is really down the pub now. Makes me fear for Creepy Juggs and Polaris missile now with all their free passive damage although the guy I see the most in 4 land these days is Karnak. As for the buffs - a buff is a buff, I will give them all a try and at least Thing got some love. He has gone from pathetic to just mildly useless. 😁 The Archangel boost seems promising but I can't see that he will suddenly be everywhere but it is encouraging that some of older 5s might get a little catch up. Players always cite Banner and Wasp but actually I would really like to see 5* Iron Man get some love - a Marvel game without a top tier Tony just seems wrong somehow.