**** Blob (Modern) ****

Daniel2121

It's a real hassle. I've come across any kinds of teams that NORMALLY they wouldn't be such a big deal, but with Blob in the mix they're beyond annoying. His jump to the front mechanic is way too strong.

dianetics

Every time he jumps in front I think to myself:  Damn, he just dropped another twinkie. I just hope he doesn't see it (ends up on the bottom two rows)

entrailbucket

It's not as strong as Bishop because Blob doesn't really *do* anything when he jumps in front.  Bishop reduced the damage significantly and then generated 4 blue AP, which he'd use to immediately stun you forever, or give to Beta Ray Bill to kill you. Blob just puts down a 4-star sized protect tile, and he can only make one per turn.

HoundofShadow

Rogue, D3adpool, Lockjaw, Thing and Worthycap jumps in front too. Blob reduces match damage by 90% and heals it back again.

Probably the above aren't that meta (anymore for some) or rarely used, that's why jump in front mechanics aren't that threatening or common.

I thought Rogue a bigger pain.

LazyHex

Blob feeds Mr Sinister .. just in case anyone interested to know 

KGB

entrailbucket said:

It's not as strong as Bishop because Blob doesn't really *do* anything when he jumps in front.  Bishop reduced the damage significantly and then generated 4 blue AP, which he'd use to immediately stun you forever, or give to Beta Ray Bill to kill you. Blob just puts down a 4-star sized protect tile, and he can only make one per turn.

Bishop didn't reduce any damage. He just jumped in front, generated Blue and dealt some damage (which as a 4* against 5* wasn't significant). It was really the endless generation of Blue AP that was the issue since Blue was used so much for stuns or BrB as you noted. Had he generated another color like say Yellow (or your strongest color), no one would likely have cared to the same degree.

Blob is the one who reduces incoming match damage. So it means it's going to take a long time to kill him off in a match (unless you have a 20-30K nuke). That jump in front, generate a protect and occasionally transform specials into CD's which resolve makes matches drag on. That's what players will hate, having matches drag on and constantly having to swap characters around when he jumps in front.

@HoundOfShadow - Rogue at least can be played around by matching the colors that don't let her jump in front. She is definitely annoying but not to the level Blob is and she doesn't have his high health and heal potential.

KGB

helix72

HoundofShadow said:

That's a nice counter. If you're using Blob, chances are you'll be hunting Polaris + BRB/R4G.

If I see Blob, I will use stun on him. Polaris + 4 blue ap will do the job, but it's expensive. +2 blue ap is fine. 

Thinking defensively, I would put Blob with someone who can bring him out of stun mode quickly. Invisibility or Airborne mode will override his stunned mode. I'll throw someone in with cheap stuns as another deterrent. 

My theoretical Blob's defensive team would be: Blob + "anti-stun" + stun/heal/ap gain/row destroyer

Anti-stun: Invisible Woman, Throg, Heimdall, Agent Venom.

Multi-Stun: Spider-Gwen, Mantis (potential) Gamora, Black Cat, Jubilee, Peggy Carter, Taskmaster

AP gain: Medusa, Vulture, C4rol, Black Cat,

Row destroyer: Hellcat

You can remove a stun by throwing a stunned ally airborne? I actually didn’t know this, thanks for teaching me something new @HoundofShadow!

Daniel2121

Yes Rogue, Lockjaw, D3adpool and a few others can also jump to the front, but there are ways around those, to not cause them to jump to the front. With Blob there's no such option, because there's no surefire way to prevent a cascade (even a little one) from happening. It also royally prevents you from taking 5-tile matches for an extra turn. Or you can take the 5-match but have Blob jump and protect his team and give him a free protect tile. Not sure how the old Bishop worked, but I regard Blob's jump to the front mechanic the strongest atm.

dianetics

Old bishop was nasty and too powerful by himself in his own tier. If I recall correctly he returned damage and generated AP during his jump in front. I'm sure other vets could explain the original mechanic better than I.

Sekilicious

Bishop played differently against the 4* and 5* tiers AFAIK. Against 5*s he procced on match damage and proceeded to stun someone important, often Okoye or someone similar. Against 4*s you actually needed to fire powers to proc the jump-in-front mechanics. Blob was annoying at 1/1/1 but if I was playing Polaris and Grocket he did not always proc before killing the opponents Polaris or Karnak. He might jump once or twice if I was paying attention.  If he did jump I often (too often) was forced to eat health packs. Sabertooth is a cascade machine so the opposing Polaris/Karnak is left to wreck havoc.   The match damage reduction is not an issue at the 4* tier. Often, if you are relying on match damage to win you will have a tough time anyways. The health pool, and the fact he forces you to pay attention to him are what make him annoying. 

ThaRoadWarrior

Bishop used to jump in front off of a basic match 3 from a 5*. The damage he dealt was trivial, but since every such match generated 4 blue AP, it was not just common but likely the opponent would have 30 blue AP by player turn 2. Not only that, but when run with BRB, he would absorb a bunch of the battle-start friendly protects on their turn to also generate blue. At the time, the only stun immune character was Silver Surfer, who was wildly outdated by then. By the tail end of his life Apocalypse was released, so he was pretty much on his way out as a real threat I think. I never liked running him offensively because all he did for me was run out into traffic and get hit by a car, but characters who have come out since then like Mr. Sinister and Ronan would be a lot more fun if we had a blue battery that effective still. 

entrailbucket

KGB said:

entrailbucket said:

It's not as strong as Bishop because Blob doesn't really *do* anything when he jumps in front.  Bishop reduced the damage significantly and then generated 4 blue AP, which he'd use to immediately stun you forever, or give to Beta Ray Bill to kill you. Blob just puts down a 4-star sized protect tile, and he can only make one per turn.

Bishop didn't reduce any damage. He just jumped in front, generated Blue and dealt some damage (which as a 4* against 5* wasn't significant). It was really the endless generation of Blue AP that was the issue since Blue was used so much for stuns or BrB as you noted. Had he generated another color like say Yellow (or your strongest color), no one would likely have cared to the same degree.

Blob is the one who reduces incoming match damage. So it means it's going to take a long time to kill him off in a match (unless you have a 20-30K nuke). That jump in front, generate a protect and occasionally transform specials into CD's which resolve makes matches drag on. That's what players will hate, having matches drag on and constantly having to swap characters around when he jumps in front.

@HoundOfShadow - Rogue at least can be played around by matching the colors that don't let her jump in front. She is definitely annoying but not to the level Blob is and she doesn't have his high health and heal potential.

KGB

Interesting.  What you're dealing with here is the same issue I have with SW and Beta Ray Bill. 

Because their powers have no damage threshold, even doing 1 damage causes them to fire.  This is awful design and they should stop doing it.

(Also, they really, really need to get rid of the 1 damage "minimum." That was from the very early days of the game, when you could realistically 1-damage a guy to death.  You can't now.  Removing that is a giant nerf to characters like Beta Ray Bill, SW, and Blob, but it's years overdue.)

I did not notice this with the loaner Blob because he only reduces match damage by 20% and my boosted 5* do over 10k match damage.

LavaManLee

The key thing is that Blob is a "take out first" kind of character.  Target him up front and he doesn't reduce any damage and you can whittle him away.

KGB

entrailbucket said:

KGB said:

entrailbucket said:

It's not as strong as Bishop because Blob doesn't really *do* anything when he jumps in front.  Bishop reduced the damage significantly and then generated 4 blue AP, which he'd use to immediately stun you forever, or give to Beta Ray Bill to kill you. Blob just puts down a 4-star sized protect tile, and he can only make one per turn.

Bishop didn't reduce any damage. He just jumped in front, generated Blue and dealt some damage (which as a 4* against 5* wasn't significant). It was really the endless generation of Blue AP that was the issue since Blue was used so much for stuns or BrB as you noted. Had he generated another color like say Yellow (or your strongest color), no one would likely have cared to the same degree.

Blob is the one who reduces incoming match damage. So it means it's going to take a long time to kill him off in a match (unless you have a 20-30K nuke). That jump in front, generate a protect and occasionally transform specials into CD's which resolve makes matches drag on. That's what players will hate, having matches drag on and constantly having to swap characters around when he jumps in front.

@HoundOfShadow - Rogue at least can be played around by matching the colors that don't let her jump in front. She is definitely annoying but not to the level Blob is and she doesn't have his high health and heal potential.

KGB

Interesting.  What you're dealing with here is the same issue I have with SW and Beta Ray Bill. 

Because their powers have no damage threshold, even doing 1 damage causes them to fire.  This is awful design and they should stop doing it.

(Also, they really, really need to get rid of the 1 damage "minimum." That was from the very early days of the game, when you could realistically 1-damage a guy to death.  You can't now.  Removing that is a giant nerf to characters like Beta Ray Bill, SW, and Blob, but it's years overdue.)

I did not notice this with the loaner Blob because he only reduces match damage by 20% and my boosted 5* do over 10k match damage.

Once he's champed with 22K health and 90% match damage immunity it will take your 5*s 22 match 3s to kill him!

He's going to be the bane of characters who take extra turns (5 Carnage, 4* Grockets Green, 5* transformed Banner etc) or do a lot of passive board shake (Half Thor, 4* ME Hulk, America Chavez) or even board shake when firing powers all of which will often have him jumping to the front.

The other annoying thing I discovered is that once he jumps to the front for the turn you can't put him at the back and make a match because he just jumps back in front again. I was using America and her crit would often make a match 3 so that was my 1st match 3. I'd rotate a character to the front and then make a match and he'd jump right back in front again in the same manner that Rogue does. It's incredibly annoying.

KGB

entrailbucket

It's not as big a problem because I'm already used to dealing with Colossus, who reduces all match damage to 1 at all times and has 500,000 health.  Boosted 5* active powers or damaging passives can take him down though, so 5* players have decent tools to take care of Blob.

For 4* players, I imagine they'll just stun him.  I remember hearing about a pretty good 4-turn stun at that tier but I can't remember which character has it...

ThaRoadWarrior

What happens to Blob’s defenses when he is stunned? Does the stuff he gets from those countdowns resolving stay applied permanently?

entrailbucket

All passives turn off when the character is stunned, unless the ability specifically says so.  So his match damage defense turns off, but I think he would regain the benefits from the CD tiles when he wakes up.

Daniel2121

ThaRoadWarrior said:

What happens to Blob’s defenses when he is stunned? Does the stuff he gets from those countdowns resolving stay applied permanently?

His countdowns (if he has any) are stopped for as long as he is stunned, just like all other chars with countdowns. His passives are disabled for the stun duration so he stops jumping to the front or entrapping more ASP tiles at the bottom.

The thing is that sometimes it's not so clear-cut as to "just stun Blob". Sometimes you really need to stun some of the OTHER heroes first. Like Polaris. Or Medusa. Or Juggernaut. Or... etc. That's when Blob starts being annoying. Lets say a Blob + Polaris + Grocket team. Who do you stun first? Assume you have only one single-target stun. If you stun Blob first, fine, Blob is disabled now so he stops tanking your blows, but now Polaris + Grocket is spawning strike tiles all over the board. etc etc. If you don't really have an AOE stun it really gets annoying. It's not "unwinnable" at this point yet, but get ready to eat lotsa health packs.
Hope you guys see what I mean.

entrailbucket

I understand, and thanks for the perspective from the 4* tier. 

I guess I'd say, welcome to the defensive meta, 4* players!  At the 5* tier we've been dealing with this for months.  It's hellish, and I don't know what kind of players want it, but like 75% of players are using it full-time now.

ThaRoadWarrior

My question about Blob’s bonuses was about the stat increases from already resolved CDs - do they drop to base or stay applied? I guess it doesn’t matter, they are offensive anyway.