Week 29 Boost list: Adam Warlock, Carnage (Prophet of Knull), Cyclops (Phoenix Five), Banner Hulk

ThaRoadWarrior

It is pretty vulnerable, but as long as you don't burn the green it'll just pop up someplace else. This is not wildly different than the situation where Carbage or the opponent match away one of the enemy specials before you get a preponderance of them on the board. But it does make Banner especially weak against Kitty.

ThaRoadWarrior

Fun edge case interaction: if Sighclops and Hulkform are your only two characters left, and hulkform dies, Sighclops gets to use his black power for the rest of the match even though he reverts to banner.

Bad

I think it's a really funny pvp with so many options for the middle character, and loaning them too. I hope they continue with funny events like this!
I don't remember playing this pvp before. 

ThaRoadWarrior

It happened I think as a tie-in to the Neftflix Defenders show, but that only got the one season and then marvel pulled the plug on all those shows in preparation for D+. I like it because Daredevil and JJ are both really mechanically interesting old characters that are fun to have an excuse to use, and work really well with characters like Carbage and Hulk who happen to be boosted right now. Daredevil's netflix costume is one of the few costumes I really regret missing out on the times it's been offered, but I just never have 250cp laying around.

ThaRoadWarrior

Has anyone figured out why sometimes having a total party kill with Hulkform in play results in losing the match, and other times he reverts to Banner? Which is the bug do we think?

entrailbucket

ThaRoadWarrior said:

Has anyone figured out why sometimes having a total party kill with Hulkform in play results in losing the match, and other times he reverts to Banner? Which is the bug do we think?

I think you're literally the only person using him, you might have to work that out on your own.

MegaBee

ThaRoadWarrior said:

Has anyone figured out why sometimes having a total party kill with Hulkform in play results in losing the match, and other times he reverts to Banner? Which is the bug do we think?

It's probably the order in which the party members died. If Hulk dies last, he won't res.

ThaRoadWarrior

I’ve had him revive as last man standing loads of times though. This is Banner Hulk, not Immortal Hulk.

Captain_Trips88

I have also experienced both outcomes, hulk dying on his own and reviving as banner but also dying and ending the game. The more common seems to be the former, I can only recall the match ending once which raised an eyebrow but I can't offer any info as to what was different that time as took me by surprise. 

ThaRoadWarrior

Yeah I am pretty confident the intended behavior is a reversion to Banner. When it ends the match, Banner is available with whatever his health pool is on the roster rather than being dead too. I’ve had it happen against me and in my favor to an opponent but it isn’t consistent.

Jacklag

ThaRoadWarrior said:

I’m not so sure I agree with that. I was an early Carbage apologist for exactly that reason - an extra AP gathering turn that will auto seek out a Match N that you may overlook is pretty strong. But it becomes a real liability when you have a match 5+ that it whiffs AND you lose out on all the AP from the whole cascade.

That argument swings both ways. Sure, it may be annoying to see a match-5 ready to be made and then have it be screwed up by one of the many characters that do something to the board before your turn (America Chavez may put a critical tile where you didn't want it to be, Main Event Hulk swaps those tiles away, etc). But the inverse can also happen, a random move by the AI may result in a situation where you can make a match-5.

In the end I think it nets positive, even though as a human your brain is wired to register the negatives more often than the positives.

ThaRoadWarrior

I agree, the auto move is vastly underrated, but Hulkform is excluded from gaining ANY of the AP generated on his turn even if it triggers an epic cascade. Only powers like Profe$$or X’s match-n passive will accrue AP. Think about how much more value Banner would add if he could gather AP. My point was that simply allowing an AP gather does take him from aggressively bad to usable when boosted (if not usable always because of his virtual health). 

Vhailorx

entrailbucket said:

ThaRoadWarrior said:

Sighclops/Daredevil/Banner has been fun in the early stages of this defenders PVP. If you can transform into hulk and cast Sighclops’ yellow once, Hulkform tanks every color but yellow and does really solid match damage. You can then stun on green and purple for that sonar strike damage. If you’ve happened to cast hulk’s black before transforming you can flip those enemy attacks into strikes as well.

I still have never been able to get a solid answer as to why Banner is a joke character vs the many, many other similarly bad characters at the 5* tier.  He's not nearly as bad as Wasp or Kingpin, for example, characters that just don't actually *do* anything.

The most common one people give used to be that Hulk "steals your good matches," which...I mean, ok.  People also really seem to want the Hulk to generate AP, and that would make him a little better, but nowhere even close to being good.

He is also very old (summer 2016,  the 8th 5* ever I think). So he has had longer to develop his reputation for awfulness.  And then carnage coming along years later with the same passive + ap collection followed by a meta zombie hulk was just salt in the wound.

entrailbucket

Vhailorx said:

entrailbucket said:

ThaRoadWarrior said:

Sighclops/Daredevil/Banner has been fun in the early stages of this defenders PVP. If you can transform into hulk and cast Sighclops’ yellow once, Hulkform tanks every color but yellow and does really solid match damage. You can then stun on green and purple for that sonar strike damage. If you’ve happened to cast hulk’s black before transforming you can flip those enemy attacks into strikes as well.

I still have never been able to get a solid answer as to why Banner is a joke character vs the many, many other similarly bad characters at the 5* tier.  He's not nearly as bad as Wasp or Kingpin, for example, characters that just don't actually *do* anything.

The most common one people give used to be that Hulk "steals your good matches," which...I mean, ok.  People also really seem to want the Hulk to generate AP, and that would make him a little better, but nowhere even close to being good.

He is also very old (summer 2016,  the 8th 5* ever I think). So he has had longer to develop his reputation for awfulness.  And then carnage coming along years later with the same passive + ap collection followed by a meta zombie hulk was just salt in the wound.

I think it's simpler than that.  Most players don't have him and have never used him, so they can't actually tell you why he's bad, apart from reputation (and to be clear, he's very bad, for many reasons).

HoundofShadow

When I first started playing, I find some of Banner's ability useful: converting two random basic tiles or SAP tiles into green basic tiles. The meta back then were R4G/Medusa + Carnage or Mr Fantastic. On top of that, he could transform.
Now that we have Immortal Hulk, i wonder if we still need to buff Banner since nobody is chasing his covers. Do we need to rebalance character whom nobody chases after?

ThaRoadWarrior

I just finished mine last month, so I wouldn’t mind a buff, but he seems so generally fragile as an implimentation I am sure he won’t get touched.

Bad

Most players don't have him, and more importantly, won't ever think on having him, as his classic covers are exactly as hard to obtain as kitty okoye apocalypse BRB etc...
If they ever rebalance him it will be for bringing some joy to vets.