boosted 5* in pvp: how are you feeling about it after a few weeks

BeetleGeorge

As a player with some 5* baby champs for me the change mainly means even more skipping and less playing. Before the change I at least found baby Thorkoye and Polaris/BRB teams I liked to fight. To be able to fight with some meh 5* boosted to 530 against the same team boosted to 600 is not really more fun.
With much faster healing (my 455 Apo needs more than a day to heal) and much more health packs it might be fun to do the occasional kamikaze fight but as it is I loose my few health packs all too fast anyway.

BTW, I always wonder about the 600 or whatever limits often mentioned. I get clobbered out of top100 anytime regardless of the points I have.

MrPlow

Doesn't seem like coincidence they keep selling a 30 health pack almost every week since they introduced boosted 5*s.

Tony_Foot

I didn't use as many packs this time but I did stop at 500. It's still not filled the requirement for me that was needed. Boosting the match damage and health a little to bring them closer to being useful. 100 levels of boost is too much, it's gone the other way and made my non boosted useless. Having thanos do just under 10k match damage per turn in my matches was crippling. I skip more teams now than I ever did in the ihulk or bishop metas.

entrailbucket

Why should certain characters be useful all the time and others only useful when they're boosted?

HoundofShadow

It depends on what "useful" means to each individual. Almost all 5* have uses or are useful. The problems of "usefulness" happen when players start to add in criteria after criteria; thus, rendering most of the 5* "useless".  This is a mindset problem. If your mind is closed to only the fastest team(s), naturally, all other 5* will become useless. If your mind is open, you can always find ways to create teams that synergise well with one another.

Bergen

entrailbucket said:

PvP taking more time and using more health packs is the natural consequence of creating rock/paper/scissors counter-play.  If the strongest fastest characters have counters that actually work on defense, the game slows down significantly and you can't get by with using one meta team for every fight.

A lot of players ask for counters without understanding the implications of effective counters.  A subset of players really do want the game to be grindy, slow, resource-intensive, and strategic, but most players prefer a meta where the strongest team is very fast, is very weak on defense, is light on health pack use, and has no effective defensive counter.

not necessarily, in 4* land you got counter meta teams even faster than the meta teams themselves (example : polaris-groot vs polaris-saber, polaris groot is fast but when you see them you can use polaris-saber for an even faster match -- unless you are really unlucky to eat a huge cascade). even if it takes more resources it is only natural for players to expect to be neutral changes; you get something in exchange of something... this is "mainly" negative for everyone except a selected few with already 550 5* all rosters. it will increase old player participation and will drive collect all mentality which can be good; provided negative effects can be countered; getting reasonable teams in this game needs at least 1.5-2 years, making them useless 1 update... btw i think 10 years player should not be much much better than 3 years one, all the advantages should be designed as diminishing on normal games; yes you can have an advantage but it should be diminishing, not exponential, that is a failure of this game...

btw cascades does seem to happen more often for the last few weeks - may be it is just me or devs change that without notice, one cannot be sure ?!...)

entrailbucket

Bergen said:

entrailbucket said:

PvP taking more time and using more health packs is the natural consequence of creating rock/paper/scissors counter-play.  If the strongest fastest characters have counters that actually work on defense, the game slows down significantly and you can't get by with using one meta team for every fight.

A lot of players ask for counters without understanding the implications of effective counters.  A subset of players really do want the game to be grindy, slow, resource-intensive, and strategic, but most players prefer a meta where the strongest team is very fast, is very weak on defense, is light on health pack use, and has no effective defensive counter.

not necessarily, in 4* land you got counter meta teams even faster than the meta teams themselves (example : polaris-groot vs polaris-saber, polaris groot is fast but when you see them you can use polaris-saber for an even faster match -- unless you are really unlucky to eat a huge cascade). even if it takes more resources it is only natural for players to expect to be neutral changes; you get something in exchange of something... this is "mainly" negative for everyone except a selected few with already 550 5* all rosters. it will increase old player participation and will drive collect all mentality which can be good; provided negative effects can be countered; getting reasonable teams in this game needs at least 1.5-2 years, making them useless 1 update... btw i think 10 years player should not be much much better than 3 years one, all the advantages should be designed as diminishing on normal games; yes you can have an advantage but it should be diminishing, not exponential, that is a failure of this game...

btw cascades does seem to happen more often for the last few weeks - may be it is just me or devs change that without notice, one cannot be sure ?!...)

That's not a counter.  That's not rock/paper/scissors.  A counter to Polaris would be a character that Polaris could not win against.  So if you try to fight this guy using Polaris/Sabertooth or Polaris/Rocket or whatever, you lose, no matter what.

DAZ0273

So the Loki PvP was a bit nuts, I managed to get to within touching distance of 1,000 points but then the hits came in. I decided as things were so nuts to just stay out and fire fight until I got under 3 hours of the event left. It was actually the biggest range of teams I have seen in PvP for ages, not sure if that is because of the boosts, the event itself or because float points seem to have dissolved and everybody needed points with whatever they can chuck at the event. I had this one guy hitting me with a champed Deadpool/Polaris team and he started off taking the big points off me but by the time I had finished with him I was taking 50+ points off him and he decided not to play any more! If I had shielded earlier I might have scraped top 50 but instead I finished 83rd but had more fun.

Negasonic - so the second team I came up against was one of those big Okoye/Little iHulk teams. So I decided to take my Apoc/Thanos team and just killed iHulk over and over again as Court Death completely destroyed the enemy then iHulk revived and added some extra destroying. Of course this tactic whilst very fun is not gonna be sustainable health pack-wise although my Negasonic is champed so she at least has boosted 4* heath. I'm interested to see what other teams pop up or whether it is just Panthos again until you can break past them.

DAZ0273

HoundofShadow said:

It depends on what "useful" means to each individual. Almost all 5* have uses or are useful. The problems of "usefulness" happen when players start to add in criteria after criteria; thus, rendering most of the 5* "useless".  This is a mindset problem. If your mind is closed to only the fastest team(s), naturally, all other 5* will become useless. If your mind is open, you can always find ways to create teams that synergise well with one another.

I feel that "useful" should mean able to hold their own at champed status. Unfortunately the older fives mostly just don't have the health pools - a champed 450 Black Bolt has 48835 - if you look at Wolverine (Samurai) a combination of 2 characters with historically lower health pools he has 61241 and a healing ability.

DAZ0273

entrailbucket said:

Bergen said:

entrailbucket said:

PvP taking more time and using more health packs is the natural consequence of creating rock/paper/scissors counter-play.  If the strongest fastest characters have counters that actually work on defense, the game slows down significantly and you can't get by with using one meta team for every fight.

A lot of players ask for counters without understanding the implications of effective counters.  A subset of players really do want the game to be grindy, slow, resource-intensive, and strategic, but most players prefer a meta where the strongest team is very fast, is very weak on defense, is light on health pack use, and has no effective defensive counter.

not necessarily, in 4* land you got counter meta teams even faster than the meta teams themselves (example : polaris-groot vs polaris-saber, polaris groot is fast but when you see them you can use polaris-saber for an even faster match -- unless you are really unlucky to eat a huge cascade). even if it takes more resources it is only natural for players to expect to be neutral changes; you get something in exchange of something... this is "mainly" negative for everyone except a selected few with already 550 5* all rosters. it will increase old player participation and will drive collect all mentality which can be good; provided negative effects can be countered; getting reasonable teams in this game needs at least 1.5-2 years, making them useless 1 update... btw i think 10 years player should not be much much better than 3 years one, all the advantages should be designed as diminishing on normal games; yes you can have an advantage but it should be diminishing, not exponential, that is a failure of this game...

btw cascades does seem to happen more often for the last few weeks - may be it is just me or devs change that without notice, one cannot be sure ?!...)

That's not a counter.  That's not rock/paper/scissors.  A counter to Polaris would be a character that Polaris could not win against.  So if you try to fight this guy using Polaris/Sabertooth or Polaris/Rocket or whatever, you lose, no matter what.

Sabretooth complicates matters here more than Polaris because we have Morbius and * New 4 Character* to counter Polaris but neither of them do anything against Sabretooth. I guess maybe Elektra to give Sabre's strikes back to him to have Morb/New 4 punish?

HoundofShadow

I think a 10-15k healthpool difference isn't much to me. I think synergy matters. That's probably why some 5* players still play with Kitty/R4G, Kitty/Polaris or Polaris/BRB even though they have other champed 5*.

DAZ0273

HoundofShadow said:

I think a 10-15k healthpool difference isn't much to me. I think synergy matters. That's probably why some 5* players still play with Kitty/R4G, Kitty/Polaris or Polaris/BRB even though they have other champed 5*.

Maybe but personally I rub my hands in glee if they do. And I think a 450 Black Bolt would be just fine against Polaris or R4G but not against new 5's at 450 level. Even Yelena, a character with traditional low health beats out BB.

Bad

Having a character with 200k health is the safest way for the AI to collect some AP and fire it, given AI's usual ineptitude.
Also when one player is high and shielded it could feel insecure to facing them thinking the time it will be needed.
Fighting with one boosted 5* hardly will come hits before 800 points. 
Fighting without, at 600 points the hits begin.
3 months ago, hulkoye teams were 70% of the teams I was facing.
Right now if I see a hulkoye team could be because the player doesnt have a 5* boosted, just as me.

ThaRoadWarrior

Just to toss it into the mix,  a baby-champ unboosted ThorPocalypse can handily defeat a boosted Panthos team so long as you leave Panther for last. Even though they are still formidable, they just aren't fast enough to bring anything but match damage to bear against the speed-meta teems. 

HoundofShadow

1) OML, PhX, SS, BSSM

2) GG, IM, CW Cap, Banner

3) BB, BW, Strange, Thanos

4) BP, HE, SL, Doc Oc

5) PPSM, DD, Gambit, Thor

6) AA, GR, JJ, Beardcap

7) Okoye, Wasp, Loki, Kitty

8) Cable, KP, GED, CM

9) Hela, Rescue, Storm, IceMan

10) PX, Carbage, BRB, Sinister

11) Havok, iHulk, Yelena, Apoc

12) Onslaught, KM, OMD, Heimdall

13) DP, Magneto, Adam, YJ

14) Cyclops, Colossus, Wanda, Knull

The next set looks to be Doc Oc, PPSM, DD, and Gambit, unless they slot Loki in. We probably see a lot of DD and Gambit. I think PPSM is the only 5* who can do aoe stun, and he has a lot of potentials to be irritating. Hopefully, there will be a 5* web tile based character released when Venom 2 hits the theatre this year.

ThaRoadWarrior

I know everybody is all worried about Thor tanking stuff, but I have a feeling a boosted thor is going to slap. I'll be bringing mine out for sure.

DAZ0273

Thor will be booted into a different boost week. Week 3 and 4 are wrong. Thor and GR with JJ as a red outlet could be very painful. Unless they pull some trickery with 5* Loki getting boosted and then JJ might get punted too. I will have two 550 and a decent GR so should be fun!

ThaRoadWarrior

I'm excited to try GRRR boosted. He'll tank Thor, and those two with Sighclops in the middle are actually really fun (repeaters gonna repeat though, so not ultra fast on the clock). 

It's too ba Loki isn't boosted with Danver5, since Destroyer Armor can trigger her yellow earning passive allowing you to....have a lot of yellow in the bank for no reason I guess lol

AlexR

DAZ0273 said:

entrailbucket said:

Bergen said:

entrailbucket said:

PvP taking more time and using more health packs is the natural consequence of creating rock/paper/scissors counter-play.  If the strongest fastest characters have counters that actually work on defense, the game slows down significantly and you can't get by with using one meta team for every fight.

A lot of players ask for counters without understanding the implications of effective counters.  A subset of players really do want the game to be grindy, slow, resource-intensive, and strategic, but most players prefer a meta where the strongest team is very fast, is very weak on defense, is light on health pack use, and has no effective defensive counter.

not necessarily, in 4* land you got counter meta teams even faster than the meta teams themselves (example : polaris-groot vs polaris-saber, polaris groot is fast but when you see them you can use polaris-saber for an even faster match -- unless you are really unlucky to eat a huge cascade). even if it takes more resources it is only natural for players to expect to be neutral changes; you get something in exchange of something... this is "mainly" negative for everyone except a selected few with already 550 5* all rosters. it will increase old player participation and will drive collect all mentality which can be good; provided negative effects can be countered; getting reasonable teams in this game needs at least 1.5-2 years, making them useless 1 update... btw i think 10 years player should not be much much better than 3 years one, all the advantages should be designed as diminishing on normal games; yes you can have an advantage but it should be diminishing, not exponential, that is a failure of this game...

btw cascades does seem to happen more often for the last few weeks - may be it is just me or devs change that without notice, one cannot be sure ?!...)

That's not a counter.  That's not rock/paper/scissors.  A counter to Polaris would be a character that Polaris could not win against.  So if you try to fight this guy using Polaris/Sabertooth or Polaris/Rocket or whatever, you lose, no matter what.

Sabretooth complicates matters here more than Polaris because we have Morbius and * New 4 Character* to counter Polaris but neither of them do anything against Sabretooth. I guess maybe Elektra to give Sabre's strikes back to him to have Morb/New 4 punish?

Sabretooth doesn't need a counter. He himself is a counter character against special tiles/GRocket. The way to counter Sabretooth is to... just not use strike tiles yourself. There you go, you countered Sabretooth.

If you don't have any strike tiles yourself, then the only way for Sabretooth to fire his passive is to make some himself for you with his black, which is fairly easy to just AP deny him from. And even if he manages to make a handful, he then would also need to match one, which isn't guaranteed. And even if he matches one, if he just punishes you for 1 strike tile, it's not too bad. He only hurts a lot when he can punish more strike tiles (=GRocket, Polaris with strike tiles).

So no, Elektra's purple would be a terrible choice, since she makes strike tiles, which you don't want to have in a Sabretooth fight. You don't need to punish him, just don't bring the specific thing he punishes.
Granted, he can still do a good bit of damage with his red. But that's pretty much it.

DAZ0273

AlexR said:

DAZ0273 said:

entrailbucket said:

Bergen said:

entrailbucket said:

PvP taking more time and using more health packs is the natural consequence of creating rock/paper/scissors counter-play.  If the strongest fastest characters have counters that actually work on defense, the game slows down significantly and you can't get by with using one meta team for every fight.

A lot of players ask for counters without understanding the implications of effective counters.  A subset of players really do want the game to be grindy, slow, resource-intensive, and strategic, but most players prefer a meta where the strongest team is very fast, is very weak on defense, is light on health pack use, and has no effective defensive counter.

not necessarily, in 4* land you got counter meta teams even faster than the meta teams themselves (example : polaris-groot vs polaris-saber, polaris groot is fast but when you see them you can use polaris-saber for an even faster match -- unless you are really unlucky to eat a huge cascade). even if it takes more resources it is only natural for players to expect to be neutral changes; you get something in exchange of something... this is "mainly" negative for everyone except a selected few with already 550 5* all rosters. it will increase old player participation and will drive collect all mentality which can be good; provided negative effects can be countered; getting reasonable teams in this game needs at least 1.5-2 years, making them useless 1 update... btw i think 10 years player should not be much much better than 3 years one, all the advantages should be designed as diminishing on normal games; yes you can have an advantage but it should be diminishing, not exponential, that is a failure of this game...

btw cascades does seem to happen more often for the last few weeks - may be it is just me or devs change that without notice, one cannot be sure ?!...)

That's not a counter.  That's not rock/paper/scissors.  A counter to Polaris would be a character that Polaris could not win against.  So if you try to fight this guy using Polaris/Sabertooth or Polaris/Rocket or whatever, you lose, no matter what.

Sabretooth complicates matters here more than Polaris because we have Morbius and * New 4 Character* to counter Polaris but neither of them do anything against Sabretooth. I guess maybe Elektra to give Sabre's strikes back to him to have Morb/New 4 punish?

Sabretooth doesn't need a counter. He himself is a counter character against special tiles/GRocket. The way to counter Sabretooth is to... just not use strike tiles yourself. There you go, you countered Sabretooth.

If you don't have any strike tiles yourself, then the only way for Sabretooth to fire his passive is to make some himself for you with his black, which is fairly easy to just AP deny him from. And even if he manages to make a handful, he then would also need to match one, which isn't guaranteed. And even if he matches one, if he just punishes you for 1 strike tile, it's not too bad. He only hurts a lot when he can punish more strike tiles (=GRocket, Polaris with strike tiles).

So no, Elektra's purple would be a terrible choice, since she makes strike tiles, which you don't want to have in a Sabretooth fight. You don't need to punish him, just don't bring the specific thing he punishes.
Granted, he can still do a good bit of damage with his red. But that's pretty much it.

Fair enough. It is quite a while since I needed to worry about Sabretooth/Polaris teams so I guess I overstated his value as a protaganist. I seem to remember he might be quite squishy too?

Elektra gives the opposition strike tiles, so the idea was that would give your Morbius/Mantis more stuff to work with and punish the enemy.