Okoye everywhere

HoundofShadow

Shield Simulators, non-timed pves or even full progression scl 10 could be the way to have more fun with different characters for you.

From what I see, players in Reddit play mainly for rewards, like 575 and out, which is a really common goal. The lack of understanding how PvP works also work against some players. That's where the displeasure come from. But that's another topic.

Ihulkoye can be fast, but when IHulk decides to be disobedient, he can really mess you up. I got boot out of top 10 multiple times because I used IHulkoye over Polaris/Kitty. So, IHulk has his flaws as well. Wh

Another generic counter to iHulkoye would be a 5* with 6 or 7 ap cost 3-4 turn stun and iHulkoye will be an afterthought. Peter Parker could see more play if he gets a 5* counter part who spits out passive web tiles. Bring on the web tiles meta to 5* land?

Bad

PiMacleod said:

Okoye and TU usage/denial.

Maybe i'm wrong, but what i gathered from his post is that there are barely any characters in the game that use Team Up AP like Okoye does... And for those that do (like 5* BP or Coulson), its not nearly as effective as Okoye's usage.  I mean... She doesnt even SPEND the AP to do what she does, but these others do.

Luckily now we have a character who can do it.  Okoye's nemesis wannabe.
The all-mighty cyclops 5.
(laugh tracks)

abenness

SnowcaTT said:

Daredevil217 said:

I’m curious if IHulk were not a thing would we see Okoye everywhere? I highly doubt it. She’s way too easy to dispose of (you know... without free unchecked passive AOE damage from a character who cannot die until all others are disposed of).

iHulk -is- a thing and you see almost no Apocalypse iHulk. That's because you can play around Apoc yellow.

iHulk isn't the problem. If ihulk was the problem people would be hoarding for big ihulks in vaults. It's that Okoye boosts him from the very get-go: just like trying to prevent BRB from getting blue (when the D tiles being destroyed give it blue) it's almost impossible to prevent match-4's giving Okoye a little bit of TU.

Add the ability to give +2 TU to start when you are using it offensively....or +4, if you're one of those...and that Okoye yellow ability adds to the TU 'problem'.... iHulk doing damage 'for free' every turn makes him the current 'best' for the Okoye boost. But it's not iHulk that's the problem - it's that Okoye boost, and that it scales with Okoye level.

As far as I remember iHulk hasn't been in a store since rotating out of LL, and also doesn't have a feeder.  As soon as he is featured or fed, I would strongly expect to see people building him higher - especially those with Okoye's big enough to tank more colours over him, or those with huge Apoc's who didn't break hoard to 550 both of them at the time.

I shudder to think of the pvp landscape if iHulk was more available.

Kolence

fight4thedream said:

sinnerjfl said:

You can be against nerfs and whatnot but there are limits. iHulk needs a nerf, he has too many upsides and nearly zero disadvantage to use. They made him too good, they need to fix it ASAP. Counters like Sighclops (lol) or Magneto (lol) are just not working.

I find this statement disingenuous. To start off, I think it's worthwhile to compare iHulk to Okoye:

The Immortal Hulk

Pros:

+ Passive AoE damage tied to board condition
+ Best single hit nuke in game
+ high match damage that gets stronger after each reviving
+ ability to revive means he must be taken out last
+ generates green AP to help trigger passive
+ high defensive deterrent, especially when paired with a booster

Cons:

- low health pool
- takes self damage for each match he tanks (with the exception of match ending hit)
- takes high self damage when he uses red (with the exception of match ending hit)
- does significant damage to teammates when revived
- high maintenance cost
- random green AP generation double edge sword (sometimes spawns in undesirable location)
- isn't ideal for one-on-one type battles

Ideal set up:

*team with a power booster (Okoye/Apocalypse)
* pair with a team that tanks as many colors for him as possible (current solution: keep at a low level)

Okoye

Pros:

+ good self-synergy
+ decent health pool
+ one of the best boosts in the game
+ one of the best self heal abilities in game
+ generates TUs to build her boost
+ strong red nuke that has strategic use
+ pairs well with a plethora of characters in all tiers
+ her limiting factor is easily bypassed by leveling her up as much as possible (and keeping her partner at an appropriate low level)
+ has match damage boost on TUs
+ player has immediate access to boost if TU boosts are used before match
+ TU generation ability also facilitates the use of Team Ups in battle (ie: bringing a 3* Loki black TU against BRB teams, MBW stun ability)

Cons:

-low defensive deterrent, unless paired with passive damage or cheap, multi hit abilities
- burns own TUs if not at front
- isn't ideal for one-on-one type battles

Ideal set up:

*Benefits from having high levels to tank as many colors as possible
*Best partnered with a high offensive type character with passive or cheap, multi hit abilities

I think it's clear that between the two, Okoye is the more versatile and player friendly character. She heals and speeds up matches. This isn't her first time at the top of the meta; if iHulk were to be nerfed, people would simply go back to using Okoye/Thor. Despite the claims that she is easily beatable on defense, her ability set is easily exploitable by any character with a strong, efficient offensive skill, meaning down the road when they inevitably release such a character, she will once again feature prominently in the meta (barring lack of synergy or introduction of a hard counter) and people will again demand that the new character be nerfed.

It is for this exact reason why I was against the Bishop nerf. The only real way to shut down players who exploit her passive boost is by basically ensuring either she or her partner get stunned within the first couple of turns. I understand there were problems and legitimate concerns with Bishop, but his original stun skill set was the closest we had to a hard Okoye counter. Yes, Onslaught has a decent counter but lacks offensive power and is limited in who he pairs well with.

Obviously the problem at the time was there weren't enough strong counters to Bishop; now we currently have Apocalypse and Cyclops with stun immunity. Cyclops/Bishop would have actually been a decent counter to iHulk teams. We needed Cyclops a year ago, not now when stunning is a non-issue in the 5* tier.

While it's a moot point now, I imagine the meta would have been more diverse had they left Bishop as is. Suffice to say that the current meta has reached a point of hyper offensive combos and can only reasonably be countered by the hyper defensive mechanics of BRB/Kitty. For a stun mechanic to work effectively in the current meta environment, it would have to be reliable, long lasting and passive/very cheap. 

However, considering the player base's distaste for a stun meta, it would probably be more fruitful to consider other avenues such as tile spamming a la Valkyrie's The Best Defense or as many have offered up an AoE damage reduction ability like Quake's Coordinated Tactics. I personally would like to see effective counter measures against Okoye's skill set otherwise we will end up in a similar situation again somewhere down the road.

@fight4thedream
I would add as one of the big "pros" for Hulk that his adding a single green tile, then destroying two, somehow manages to create a lot of cascades. It happens quite often. 

My guess would be trying to outpace his auto damage and deny the AI TUs, yellow or red matches, we players are likely to make match-4s. Whether to try and get as much AP for some active powers that can somewhat counter Hulk's passive - mostly by spamming the board with special tiles, or making a match that the AI certainly would have on next turn. Doing so it just makes more new (green) tiles drop onto the board, and likelihood of removing already present green special tiles also increases.

BTW, his threshold number really is on the low side, but maybe straight up increasing it would make him too unreliable? Average number of tiles of a color should be 9. He'll do his thing if there are 7 (and spawning the tile doesn't make a match). But at the same time, when there are much more green tiles, spawning the tile can more easily cause extra cascades.

I actually really like how that plays and how it makes Hulk feel dangerous. But it is maybe a bit much?
Maybe if Hulk would prevent green tiles from dropping on his start of turn passive resolution? Or reducing the chance a lot? That might slow him somewhat. While also giving other chars like Storm or Onslaught more value as partners for him.

For all the good sides Okoye has, she's not really self accelerating. It kind of helps my argument too...

Also, don't agree about Bishop and stun being the only counter. Once a stun power is the only counter for something, that something is too broken... (slightly joking, but not really)

SnowcaTT

abenness said:

I shudder to think of the pvp landscape if iHulk was more available.

Again - let me know how many copies of iHulk you see out there that aren't paired with Okoye. Evergreen ran over winter - you couldn't use Okoye, you could use iHulk! I don't think I ever saw one copy of him all event long.

I haven't heard of anyone hoarding for iHulk. But I know a ton of people spent all their CP on the several recent okoye hoards.

Ihulk only 'needs' 13 covers. Shoot, you could argue he only 'needs' two covers, a green and a black. I was running - I forget, a 3/2/2? something small and beating 550 thorkoye on the regular when iHulk was just introduced. He doesn't get much of a boost past 13.

Except....from Okoye...who gives huge boosts the bigger she is. I went to cycle this morning and saw the following teams, each a different roster here:

550 okoye
550 okoye
550 okoye
548 okoye
547 okoye
543 okoye
542 okoye
537 okoye
536 okoye
506 okoye
506 okoye

...all hulkoye of course, the hulk number simply doesn't matter so I didn't write it down. I could see one non-hulkoye team.

Maybe it's just my slice and the time I'm looking. Let me go cycle in LR that's ongoing, finding unique teams:

550 okoye
550 okoye
550 okoye
538 okoye
537 okoye
532 okoye
532 okoye
510 okoye
508 okoye
498 okoye
496 okoye

All with hulk, of course. Except the 496 (with good old Thor) which let me get higher and find more hulkoye. So yeah, I'm seeing a theme. And I'm not giving data that anyone doesn't know, it's a theme you all see.

My point though is the theme is not "ihulk is the best!"; it's to the point of the OP - Okoye is the best, and has been for so long that many have broken multiple vaults to get her as high as they can. She's been the best for so long that 500+ okoye as every single match is going to be 'the' thing you see until the Meta changes.

I'm not saying it's 'bad', you'll always have 'the' meta team. It's just that it's never been the same character for such a long time - so when it was OML and when it was Thanos and when it was Gambit and when it was Kitty you saw the few large copies of hoard-breakers but not huge copies everywhere....because they weren't 'the' meta for two years or more. Okoye has been meta for that long...and without changes probably will be long into the future.

Imagine an ihulk nerf without an Okoye rework. All of those teams I just posted: what do you imagine the rest of their roster looks like? Often I see Okoye 35+ levels over the next character. I agree with fight on that point: most of these would just revert back to Okoye + Thor, and you'd see the same players with the same (really big) Okoye I posted above: just a different character on the other side of the screen.

ammenell

those mean people who dare to spend their resources for okoye...

CharlieCroker

I don’t think many wouldn’t argue that that Okoye has been the best 5* since her release and has great synergy with a lot of other characters, in particular Thor and Ihulk and also some 4*s with great passives (Medusa, Chavez & Sabretooth spring immediately to mind).

However if Okoye was nerfed out of existence (which is the only nerf the devs know) then Apocalypse would just step into her place in the meta.  Apart from her boost starting from turn two with Ihulk and the true healing, Apoc is just as good if not better in most scenarios with his own yellow boost and 2 nukes.

Big difference being that most players don’t have Apoc as such high levels (by virtue of him being newer, appearing in less stores, and no feeder).  So any nerf to Okoye would effect those few players with both Okoye & Apoc at high levels much less than the vast majority of players with only Okoye.

Out of interest, what team would those players with multiple 550s run if Okoye was made irrelevant?  Would we see a lot of Apoc/Thor or Apoc/BRB or would Ihulk still be in their A team?

Bad

Reminding apocalypse (another time):
-Firing SS on turn 2 means using all boosters and matching 3 yellow(perfectly could happen there is no matching)

-ihulk will be boosted on turn 3 as he uses his passive at the start of turn

-the boosting of SS is capped to the apocalypse level.  It uses to be 9000 damage, if level 500 about 11000( okoye cannot stop laughing after reading that)

-after boosting 2 turns posibly the board will be filled with repeaters and protects.
After boosting 4 turns Ihulk wont posibly do nothing.

So please, give me an apocalypse meta. It will mean no more characters with instakill TU.

Okoye can be nerfed/rebalanced for earning her boosting with a bit of workout, like all her fellows characters appearing in this game do.
And I would call that fairness.

CharlieCroker

Bad said:

Reminding apocalypse (another time):
-Firing SS on turn 2 means using all boosters and matching 3 yellow(perfectly could happen there is no matching)

-ihulk will be boosted on turn 3 as he uses his passive at the start of turn

-the boosting of SS is capped to the apocalypse level.  It uses to be 9000 damage, if level 500 about 11000( okoye cannot stop laughing after reading that)

-after boosting 2 turns posibly the board will be filled with repeaters and protects.
After boosting 4 turns Ihulk wont posibly do nothing.

So please, give me an apocalypse meta. It will mean no more characters with instakill TU.

Okoye can be nerfed/rebalanced for earning her boosting with a bit of workout, like all her fellows characters appearing in this game do.
And I would call that fairness.

Put Okoye with anyone other than Ihulk and she is relatively little threat by herself.  Apocalypse by contrast can seriously damage you by himself at 450 let alone 550.

Personally I wouldn’t mind an Apocalypse meta, he combos well with a decent amount of the 5* tier and is fun to use.  But I would prefer not to see an Apoc/Ihulk meta.

tonypq

Apoc is ok with Ihulk but eventually his repeaters and regular match of greens, also enemies special tiles placed on greens randomly, there gets to be a point where there won't be enough plain green tiles for Ihulks passive in many cases.

I used to use Apoc and Ihulk very often until I finished covering my Okoyoe. But it could get frustrating with Apoc, especially when he and your opponent would place specials on green and eventually prevent Ihulks passive. 

Okoye is much faster of course boosting right out of the gate matching TU tiles.

wymtime

Here is my 2 cents. If the Devs nerf Okoye I sure hope the decide to buff more 5* and even 4*. I feel one of the reasons some other characters have been released on the lower end is because of the damage buff Okoye can do.  The Devs could buff so many 5* characters to make the meta more interesting but Okoye and slightly Apoc causes issues.

lastly I fear a Okoye nerf becuase of challenge nodes.  Okoye makes them so much more manageable.  I use Hawkey/Coulson/Gamora for some challenge nodes with Carnage, but overall Okoye carry’s me through most of them.

Jexy

I guess it's because my highest 5* is a 467 Apoc, I don't see many Okoye's higher than that in PVP. I only play to 1000, maybe it's after that that it gets bad? Okoye ~ 460 + iHulk is an easy win with BRB + Kitty, I seek those out. It's a boring battle, though. I win 90%+ but it takes longer than I'd like.

Jacklag

I think the solution would be quite simple. Both Okoye and Apocalypse should buff allied powers by a percentage, rather than a fixed amount. That would make them remain relevant, and still good partners for many teams, without becoming utherly broken when paired with other characters that deal lots of small hits.

It might not even be considered a nerf, since other character who have big expensive nukes would now benefit more.

ammenell

it's all MMRs fault.

I have my highest 5*s (okoye, apoc, kitty) all softcapped at 400.

one in ten matches I see ihulkoye - i see way more polgritty, brbritty and saberalis, doesn't matter if it's regular pvp or shield sim.

ihulkoye isn't a problem for me - not because i regularly beat that team, but because I see a diverse mix of teams in 4*/5* land and skipping is a thing. 

Phumade

ammenell said:

it's all MMRs fault.

I have my highest 5*s (okoye, apoc, kitty) all softcapped at 400.

one in ten matches I see ihulkoye - i see way more polgritty, brbritty and saberalis, doesn't matter if it's regular pvp or shield sim.

ihulkoye isn't a problem for me - not because i regularly beat that team, but because I see a diverse mix of teams in 4*/5* land and skipping is a thing. 

This point is so spot on!!!!

Fix MMR not nerf rosters

akboyce

We all know they don't want to nerf Okoye because of the compensation. MAYBE they could get around it by nerfing how "damage from friendly powers is increased" works. When used with an AOE you are not boosting by X you are boosting by 3x X or 2x X if they have 3 or 2 characters left. If instead the damage boost was divided amongst the targets you would cut her damage bonus by 1/3 or 1/2 for AOEs while maintaining her power as is for single targets. So if her bonus damage was 1000, instead of doing 1000 extra to each enemy with an AOE it would only do 333/334 extra damage to each enemy if they had 3 opponents and 500 extra damage if they had 2 opponents.

Could go either way for multi hit attacks as well. Less people seem to have an issue with the bonus on single target attacks. Its the multiplicative nature on AOEs. Sadly Apoc gets caught in this but I think its a reasonable change. 

If you combined that change with a new 5 star that had a scaled version of Quakes passive for mitigating AOE damage I think we might actually see a shift away from the AOE dominance. 

killahKlown

akboyce said:

We all know they don't want to nerf Okoye because of the compensation. MAYBE they could get around it by nerfing how "damage from friendly powers is increased" works. When used with an AOE you are not boosting by X you are boosting by 3x X or 2x X if they have 3 or 2 characters left. If instead the damage boost was divided amongst the targets you would cut her damage bonus by 1/3 or 1/2 for AOEs while maintaining her power as is for single targets. So if her bonus damage was 1000, instead of doing 1000 extra to each enemy with an AOE it would only do 333/334 extra damage to each enemy if they had 3 opponents and 500 extra damage if they had 2 opponents.

Could go either way for multi hit attacks as well. Less people seem to have an issue with the bonus on single target attacks. Its the multiplicative nature on AOEs. Sadly Apoc gets caught in this but I think its a reasonable change. 

If you combined that change with a new 5 star that had a scaled version of Quakes passive for mitigating AOE damage I think we might actually see a shift away from the AOE dominance. 

Nah...

HoundofShadow

After Okoye gets nerfed, a few months down the road, we'll see

"Apocalypse everywhere". Then, Apocalypse gets nerfed next. A few months down the road, we'll see

"'BRB everywhere". Then, repeat the above and Kitty, Carbage, Onslaught, Prof $, and so on.

One very important thing that is missing is context. That's why it's difficult to "solve" this problem.

Context can refer to that particular player's playstyle, top 5 highest level of champed 5*, competitiveness, slices played, level of Okoye and (IHulk) that player has, what levels of Okoye/IHulk they are facing, goals in playing pvps, any shield hoppings etc. Without context, players won't be able to put themselves in the shoes of others. Maybe iHulkoye is not the problem...

DAZ0273

This thread and others make me nervous about champing Okoye, so I have been sitting on the assets that would make this possible.

I have been in 5* land for around 2 weeks now and have definitely noticed a steep increase in Hulkoye teams. It was fairly unusual for my team to get hit by one when I had my highest character capped at 408 with others at 400. So I would agree that it is seems to be a MMR issue as much as anything else. The problem is of course if you have fully covered 5* at that level I did previously, you are matching against 5* teams 50+ levels above you any way so you might as well try and level the battlefield even if it means that you are opened up to a whole new roadblock. I still see Kitty, Apoc, BRB, Prof, Onslaught, Carbage regularly too so it isn't like it is 100% Hulkoye 100% of the time. I also see plenty of Okoye based teams without iHulk. However the increase in traffic around Hulkoye is undeniably ratcheted up above 450 and some of them can be paired with some pretty high Okoye's.

There must be a way to alter PvP so that these roadblocks do not occur. In a world where shards make obtaining 4* quite easy, why on earth are we made to try and slug through a SHIELD Simulator for a single cover? It is sadistic on the Devs part and Masochistic on the players part!

Oh, uhm, NerfHulk(Bruce Banner).

ammenell

one more reason to stay in 4*/5* land.
i don't think I will ever champ my L400 roster

what's your experience overall, is pvp more or less fun now?