***** Ghost Rider (Robbie Reyes) ***** - Rebalance Details (10/26/21)

dianetics

So if this is the way it’s working who are you pairing him with? Wanda and Sighclops?

Edit* another interesting note is his green does not destroy friendly special tiles.

sinnerjfl

Bzhai said:

Feels like a similar change to 5* Cyclop's red could improve his gameplay dramatically.

The problem with Cyclops is he already has 2 very good powers, yellow and green. It's a bit normal the red is slightly lacking, that's usually the norm with powers distribution, the exceptions (3 good powers) usually end up top of the meta.

ThaRoadWarrior

dianetics said:

So if this is the way it’s working who are you pairing him with? Wanda and Sighclops?

Edit* another interesting note is his green does not destroy friendly special tiles.

Man; green powers that destroy friendly tiles are getting scarce lol.

HoundofShadow

Based on what was written:

But that’s not all! It now destroys *any* surrounding tile, including special tiles, and deals bonus damage on Green, Red or Black tiles, 

It did say *any*...

ThaRoadWarrior

KGB said:

P.S. Note the wording on this says *extra damage*. That's the same wording on Original Black Widows Black power. I would hope for consistency sake that Okoye/Apoc boost works the same on both powers.

I wouldn't be sure of that at all. This is very similar to War Machine's powers that do not gain the benefit of those powers. It's VERY inconsistently implemented as to what is, and is not, considered "tied to tile destruction." Hell Ride didn't used to benefit from those powers because it was doing a multiple of match damage, but powers like 4* Juggernaut's team damage which are effectively identical to 2* Widow's damage, do not gain its benefit.

Sekilicious

ThaRoadWarrior said:

dianetics said:

So if this is the way it’s working who are you pairing him with? Wanda and Sighclops?

Edit* another interesting note is his green does not destroy friendly special tiles.

Man; green powers that destroy friendly tiles are getting scarce lol.

Yeah I agree but then I imagine how broken he would if he fed the BRB/Polaris monster? Even breaking enemy tiles will be good with them though probably not as game breaking. 

dianetics

ThaRoadWarrior said:

Man; green powers that destroy friendly tiles are getting scarce lol.

Electro says hi. But she may be the only recent one that does. I doubt they want to feed brb Polaris with a 5*

Sekilicious

dianetics said:

ThaRoadWarrior said:

Man; green powers that destroy friendly tiles are getting scarce lol.

Electro says hi. But she may be the only recent one that does. I doubt they want to feed brb Polaris with a 5*

I like Electro early with BRB and Polaris, but there are so many caveats to her green it is pretty useless once the machine gets rolling. It helps populate the board with Protects though.

dianetics

I like electro but she doesn’t really fit with brb and Polaris. I use her as a dps behind defensive characters and chase her black. That works out for me.
I don’t use her to proc other characters but she could be good with ultron.

MoosePrime

HoundofShadow said:

Based on what was written:

But that’s not all! It now destroys *any* surrounding tile, including special tiles, and deals bonus damage on Green, Red or Black tiles, 

It did say *any*...

That's not part of the ability description, I would not expect it to destroy friendly tiles.

ThaRoadWarrior

The description calls out enemy tiles specifically, which I would expect to mean only enemy specials, otherwise it would have just said "including special tiles" like Blob's does.

ThaRoadWarrior

@Neko
Would it be possilbe to confirm whether Hell Ride will blast all types of specials or just enemy specials? I guess we'll find out in a few days, but just curious.  Thanks!

Thanos

It's nice to see this guy (or any 5*) getting a buff. My thoughts:

Green: I really like this power, I love random tile destruction, but I don't like how vulnerable the CD is. Either fortify it, lower the cost or have it return six green AP if it gets destroyed. No power should be a dud after spending nine AP to fire it. As is, I can see this ability being a disappointment a fair amount of the time.

Red: This power is a little iffy when used on characters with match damage lower than their teammates. Also, when used on Wanda you'll end up negating most of your damage when it's your turn again, plus your gonna eat extra damage from her repeater. It would be nice if all damage from both red powers couldn't be reduced and then Wanda can suck it.

Black: Not a whole lot to say here, it's a fine direct damage power on par with other similar black powers in the tier. The bonus damage is far easier to get than Electro's.

Conclusion: Overall a pretty solid buff, just needs a few more tweaks and I could envision him seeing play in PVP, even unbuffed. Thanks, Devs, please make this a trend.

Warbringa

BlackBoltRocks said:

Nice buff overall. I really like the Robbie version of Ghost Rider, so this is delightful.

As for his Green, do the destroyed tiles deal damage (before the bonus)? Because the text doesn’t state something like “destroyed tiles don’t deal additional damage”. Going by this, let’s say a 5-green, lv450 Ghosty destroys 5 Green tiles (for simplicity’s sake). Will he do (968 + 1179) x 5 damage, i.e. 10,735 damage? If yes, it’s going to be a sleeper wrecking ball. I’m also wondering if the bonus damage will be boosted by Apocalypse and Okoye, because precedent (Juggernaut Green, Yellowjacket Blue) would suggest no.

My reading of his green is also what you calculated there.  I would hazard a guess that it will not be buffed since extra tile damage seems to be an add on after buffs as you pointed out but I guess once someone tests it out we will know.  

I don't know though if this green power change is really much of an upgrade though since we are losing the potential AP gain and the ONE random countdown tile can be easily matched in most cases and is easy picking for Kitty. I think they should have left it has as with AP gathered and made it a one turn repeater that moves at least.  Now if the damage is boosted.....this could be an upgrade but assuming the extra tile damage isn't boosted, I question how much better it may.  It  may still be better though just by causing more cascades due to tile destruction not getting caught at the bottom of the boards as easily?  Does he become a better pair with SC for that purpose etc?

entrailbucket

Thanos said:

It's nice to see this guy (or any 5*) getting a buff. My thoughts:

Green: I really like this power, I love random tile destruction, but I don't like how vulnerable the CD is. Either fortify it, lower the cost or have it return six green AP if it gets destroyed. No power should be a dud after spending nine AP to fire it. As is, I can see this ability being a disappointment a fair amount of the time.

Red: This power is a little iffy when used on characters with match damage lower than their teammates. Also, when used on Wanda you'll end up negating most of your damage when it's your turn again, plus your gonna eat extra damage from her repeater. It would be nice if all damage from both red powers couldn't be reduced and then Wanda can suck it.

Black: Not a whole lot to say here, it's a fine direct damage power on par with other similar black powers in the tier. The bonus damage is far easier to get than Electro's.

Conclusion: Overall a pretty solid buff, just needs a few more tweaks and I could envision him seeing play in PVP, even unbuffed. Thanks, Devs, please make this a trend.

I agree with everything you said here.  I think this is a solid buff, but I'm not sure it changes very much for him.

In some other threads we talked about 3 groups of 5* in the boosted era: tier 1 are usable all the time, even unboosted, tier 2 are usable when boosted, and tier 3 are so bad they're unusable even when boosted.

Ghost Rider was near the bottom of tier 2 before: he was usable when boosted, but not like a Killmonger or Ronan is.  This rework moves him up in that list but doesn't change his tier, so I'm not sure how much impact it'll really have.

If their expectation is that after this, GR will see a ton of use, even unboosted...well, I hope they keep doing 5* reworks anyway.

skittledaddy

Robbie is in Gamora's release store, right?
How sweet would it be if the devs did that with every new 5*?
So once a month, a new 5* is released and his/her "companions" in the release store would be (1) an already good/decent 5* char and (2) a newly-rebalanced previously mediocre/bad 5* char.

Sure could lead to more CP spending in release stores without interrupting the release cadence we already have.

ThaRoadWarrior

It seems like this design team is big on Countdowns; did we hit Peak Repeater with Ronan? I’m still kind of mentally struggling with the removal of AP gathering. Characters with a double fire effect have always been AP factories (miles, Thor, 3* fist, og robbie), so removing that and leaving a 14 AP red kind of disrupts the concept.

ThaRoadWarrior

I do plan to run GR/Hawkeye/Ronan in this pvp though, particularly if Hell Ride crushes friendly specials

TheEyeDoctorsWife

As I estimated, a good upgrade will be achieved with the character, but no one is bringing him off the bench . I can’t use him with 2 covers but with Hawkeye boosted in PvE next week it sounds like he may be just in time for advanced players to experiment with the new combo theory . 

Tiger_Wong

His green sounds very interesting. So does it destroy and then reappear on the same turn? That would be big.