Loving SC boosted!

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  • Ares76
    Ares76 Posts: 227 Tile Toppler
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    My Shang-Chi has only two covers. So I can't say much about his offensive skills... but on defense he is meh because the AI can't play him. 
     
    I stumbled over a level 550 Shang-Chi in Simulator (along with level 550 Onslaught and level 550 Cyclops). 
    I won with my level 310 Polaris, level 455 Kitty and level 454 BRB. 
    It was close but you should never be able to beat a trio of level 550's including the newest hotness with a team like that...which brings us back to another topic. How broken is Polaris? 
  • entrailbucket
    entrailbucket Posts: 4,982 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Ares76 said:
    My Shang-Chi has only two covers. So I can't say much about his offensive skills... but on defense he is meh because the AI can't play him. 
     
    I stumbled over a level 550 Shang-Chi in Simulator (along with level 550 Onslaught and level 550 Cyclops). 
    I won with my level 310 Polaris, level 455 Kitty and level 454 BRB. 
    It was close but you should never be able to beat a trio of level 550's including the newest hotness with a team like that...which brings us back to another topic. How broken is Polaris? 
    Everybody gets really really mad when you say stuff like this.
  • Borstock
    Borstock Posts: 2,562 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Ares76 said:
    My Shang-Chi has only two covers. So I can't say much about his offensive skills... but on defense he is meh because the AI can't play him. 
     
    I stumbled over a level 550 Shang-Chi in Simulator (along with level 550 Onslaught and level 550 Cyclops). 
    I won with my level 310 Polaris, level 455 Kitty and level 454 BRB. 
    It was close but you should never be able to beat a trio of level 550's including the newest hotness with a team like that...which brings us back to another topic. How broken is Polaris? 

    That 550's team you beat was specifically an awful defensive team, though. With a board favorable to you, they have almost zero offensive powers. And you brought a team that can stun lock and put down protects enough to mitigate match damage.
    You're not easily beating a 550 Apocalypse+5witch+Colossu5 with that team, for example.
    Polaris is not broken. At all.
  • HoundofShadow
    HoundofShadow Posts: 8,004 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited September 2021
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    Polaris isn't broken. She will be broken if and only if she also gains blue aps for every strike tile matched.

    Here's a simple test: replace BRB with another 5* who creates protect tiles. Then take this team and fight another 550 teams. 
  • entrailbucket
    entrailbucket Posts: 4,982 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Replace Polaris with any other 4* and try to beat that terrible defensive 550 team.
  • HoundofShadow
    HoundofShadow Posts: 8,004 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited September 2021
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    If that player replaces Cyclops with 5PX, I think the defensive win rate should be better. I have multiple experiences where Onslaught and 5PX wiped my full health champed 5*. 

    A 550 Onslaught deals ~2843 damage per tu destroyed and 550 5PX deals ~16890 per match-4. That's approximately 40k damage. And this is only part 1. Add in match(-4) damage from cascades and they will easily wipe his full health BRB and full health Polaris.
  • Borstock
    Borstock Posts: 2,562 Chairperson of the Boards
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    entrailbucket said:
    Replace Polaris with any other 4* and try to beat that terrible defensive 550 team.

    She has good synergy with a very specific 5* team. Use her with Rescue and Ghost Rider and see how you do. She's not the problem. Plus, on defense, she's a glass canon. So is Shang-Chi. So is Thor.
  • Sekilicious
    Sekilicious Posts: 1,766 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Don’t we already have a nerf Polaris post? Do we really need two? This is supposed to be about showing love for the Shang-Chi design.
  • entrailbucket
    entrailbucket Posts: 4,982 Chairperson of the Boards
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    I can rescue this!

    I'm interested in whether Shang-Chi will become a part of the metagame.  He's probably the most powerful in the game (no other character can consistently win turn 1 or 2), but powerful in a much different way than the popular teams are now. 

    The teams people use now are what I'd call "autopilot" teams.  Players don't need to think very hard about what they're doing to be successful with them. 

    With Okoye + a passive: match TU, watch enemy die. 

    With Polaris: match special tiles, cast stun when available, watch enemy die. 

    Apocalypse/Thor: accumulate AP passively, cast yellow, cast red/green/black.

    Shang-Chi is nothing like this.  You have to think ahead to go infinite, target the right tiles, set up the board the right way.  There are tons of choices you have to make when casting his red.  Will people think it's worth it to use him when they can run slightly-less-powerful autopilot teams?
  • Sekilicious
    Sekilicious Posts: 1,766 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited September 2021
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    entrailbucket said:

    Shang-Chi is nothing like this.  You have to think ahead to go infinite, target the right tiles, set up the board the right way.  There are tons of choices you have to make when casting his red.  Will people think it's worth it to use him when they can run slightly-less-powerful autopilot teams?
    I totally agree. So many of the meta characters are about completing PvE in about half an hour while watching TV. It’s nice to have a meta character that rewards playing with a bit of strategy. More would be great, but often they become too convoluted or rng dependent  to be effective.
  • entrailbucket
    entrailbucket Posts: 4,982 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Sekilicious said:
    entrailbucket said:

    Shang-Chi is nothing like this.  You have to think ahead to go infinite, target the right tiles, set up the board the right way.  There are tons of choices you have to make when casting his red.  Will people think it's worth it to use him when they can run slightly-less-powerful autopilot teams?
    I totally agree. So many of the meta characters are about completing PvE in about half an hour while watching TV. It’s nice to have a meta character that rewards playing with a bit of strategy. More would be great, but often they become too convoluted or rng dependent  to be effective.
    That's the big question though: the metagame isn't necessarily about who's the best, it's often about who's the easiest, and Shang-Chi is not at all easy to pilot.


    For many of us this is a character-evaluation blind spot.  I think this is the reason I missed so badly on SW and Colossus -- neither one is particularly *powerful* compared to the previous meta.  What they are is *easy*. 

    You sacrifice a bit of speed and overall strength to run them, but in exchange, you don't have to pay as much attention.  I underestimated the extent that players would be willing to make that trade, which makes me question Shang-Chi's potential place in the game.
  • Bad
    Bad Posts: 3,146 Chairperson of the Boards
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    What I really like about him is that he is a whole army in himself. You can bring partners to help him on his combo or not, then taking it more easy and collecting the AP in a few turns for to start his chained engine.
    Partners who can help him, are actually a lot. In the video I picked the cascade bros for to ged rid of TU tiles and to increase the matching.
    He can benefit from shufflers like loki 4*, this one can create charged tiles on his red.
    When SC starts creating a lot of charged tiles actually he can cover all colors, and cyclops is a good partner obviously for his match damage, but even more for his green wich stuns and creates red tiles.
    Finally his flaw is his low health. Wanda can be cruzial in here for to help him to survive and for to provide red or purple, and odin could take a killing blow on middle battle when he already has everything to win.
  • TheEyeDoctorsWife
    TheEyeDoctorsWife Posts: 829 Critical Contributor
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    This sounds like a lot of you are saying Shang Chi won’t be meta because most players are too stupid to correctly utilize his game mechanics and will keep relying on mindless passive auto pilot teams that even a 7 year old could win with correctly. Even in his debut I found his use challenging and relying heavily on a favorable board . I did get better with repeated use . I seem to remember the game years ago being the same way when characters with good passives were extremely rare . 
  • Captain_Trips88
    Captain_Trips88 Posts: 264 Mover and Shaker
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    Its the thing I really miss from 3* play back before 4* were a thing. There were multiple ways to win utilising different playstyles that actually required thinking and planning in order to carry out. Shang-Chi is a very pleasant return of that type of game, just need a better 5* in with him to unload on the LL store
  • entrailbucket
    entrailbucket Posts: 4,982 Chairperson of the Boards
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    I'd avoid "stupid" as a way to describe those folks...most people aren't laser-focused on MPQ while they're playing it, they don't want to be, and that's ok.  MPQ isn't something like a AAA console game and most people wouldn't want it to be.

    Playing Shang-Chi also isn't a AAA console game, but it's a *lot* more complicated than the other popular teams.  If you try to play him like an Okoye team he's going to be very bad.  The tradeoff for your concentration is that he's crazy absurdly powerful. 

    I have no idea what that will mean as far as his metagame share is concerned.
  • Sekilicious
    Sekilicious Posts: 1,766 Chairperson of the Boards
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    entrailbucket said:
    I'd avoid "stupid" as a way to describe those folks...most people aren't laser-focused on MPQ while they're playing it, they don't want to be, and that's ok.  MPQ isn't something like a AAA console game and most people wouldn't want it to be.

    Playing Shang-Chi also isn't a AAA console game, but it's a *lot* more complicated than the other popular teams.  If you try to play him like an Okoye team he's going to be very bad.  The tradeoff for your concentration is that he's crazy absurdly powerful. 

    I have no idea what that will mean as far as his metagame share is concerned.

    Overpowered on offense and terrible on defense is a good combination for a meta character I think, or at least meta adjacent like PX and Onslaught.
  • Jimsta_rooney
    Jimsta_rooney Posts: 167 Tile Toppler
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    Ares76 said:
    My Shang-Chi has only two covers. So I can't say much about his offensive skills... but on defense he is meh because the AI can't play him. 
     
    I stumbled over a level 550 Shang-Chi in Simulator (along with level 550 Onslaught and level 550 Cyclops). 
    I won with my level 310 Polaris, level 455 Kitty and level 454 BRB. 
    It was close but you should never be able to beat a trio of level 550's including the newest hotness with a team like that...which brings us back to another topic. How broken is Polaris? 
    That team can beat almost any team given the time. 

  • Bad
    Bad Posts: 3,146 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Captain_Trips88 said:
    Its the thing I really miss from 3* play back before 4* were a thing. There were multiple ways to win utilising different playstyles that actually required thinking and planning in order to carry out. Shang-Chi is a very pleasant return of that type of game, just need a better 5* in with him to unload on the LL store
    I agree that the last character SC needed is one like ultron. It might even prevent me for level him up more.
  • Bad
    Bad Posts: 3,146 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Finally SC lost his Godboost. Did something change? 
    Yes, actually now needs a team
  • Painmonger
    Painmonger Posts: 154 Tile Toppler
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    I find Storm a solid partner in pick-2, they have rainbow coverage & all the active powers cause some kind of board shake & feed AP pretty effectively. In pick-3 I throw in my under covered Onslaught for his extra cascades on match-4 and his blue rounds out the board control on all 6 colors. A tiny bit slow to get going if you don't use boosts & the board really bad, but will handily get the job done. As others have stated, not so good on defense, but even then they have almost no overlap so the AI will still probably annoy anyone attacking you.

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