Lockjaw Character Update (Live 12/16/21)

IceIX

Who's been a good boy this year? Who is the size of a draft horse and slobbers all over the Inhuman furniture! You do! Lockjaw does! As a reward, lets give you some buffs! Good doggie!

With an eye towards getting some of the lower used characters in the game up to par, we've turned our eye to the big puppy, Lockjaw. While this doggo doesn't need a big rework or large changes to his powers like Robbie Reyes recently did, he could still use some power ups. So here we go!

Lockjaw (Royal Bulldog) 
4-Star Rarity
Affiliations: Heroes, Inhumans
    

"Loveable bulldog Lockjaw serves as the Inhuman Royal Family's escort, able to teleport groups of people great distances. Roughly the size of a small cow, Lockjaw uses his powerful bite to protect his loved ones. And though his origins remain unclear, Lockjaw certainly is a Very Good Boy!"

(Abilities listed at level 70, followed by 270)

Health and stats remain unchanged.

4446 Health / 16465 Health

 42 | 10 | 37 | 9 | 33 | 8 | 23 | 3.8x
 85 | 13 | 74 | 12 | 65 | 11 | 43 | 3.8x

OLD:
Loyal Protector -  PASSIVE
(PASSIVE) Lockjaw vigilantly stands guard to protect his allies. Whenever an enemy match includes a friendly special tile, Lockjaw jumps to the front, resisting 25% of that damage and dealing 196 damage to the enemy.

• Level 2: Deals 324 damage.
• Level 3: Lockjaw resists 50% of match damage.
• Level 4: Lockjaw resists 75% of match damage and deals 499 damage.
• Level 5: Lockjaw resists 100% of match damage and deals 826 damage.

NEW:
Loyal Protector -  PASSIVE
(PASSIVE) Lockjaw vigilantly stands guard to protect his allies. Whenever an enemy match includes a friendly special tile, Lockjaw jumps to the front, resisting 25% of that damage and dealing 218 damage to the enemy. (Max level 424 damage)

• Level 2: Deals 360 damage. (Max level 700 damage)
• Level 3: Lockjaw resists 50% of the match damage.
• Level 4: Lockjaw resists 75% of the match damage and deals 555 damage. (Max level 1080 damage)
• Level 5: Lockjaw resists 100% of the match damage and deals 918 damage. (Max level 1786 damage)

Loyal Protector's base and scaling resistance % was kept the same, but a small buff was implemented so that the base and scaling damage are improved at all levels. This change allows Lockjaw to retain his ability to protect allies while dishing out a little more punishment in the process.

OLD:

Royal Escort - 9  AP
Lockjaw teleports an Inhuman friend to the battlefield for help! He will summon someone different depending on which color is most present on the board.

Resonance Frequency -  Quake
If Blue is the most present on the board, Lockjaw summons Quake, who emits a high intensity, precision vibration aimed at the enemy's weak point. Destroys up to 5 random tiles in the enemy's strongest color and deals 769 damage. (Does not generate AP)

Bring Out the Best -  Kamala Khan
If Yellow is the most present on the board, Lockjaw summons Kamala Khan to inspire everyone around her. She gives the team a burst of 1278 health.

Quasi-Sonic Whisper -  Black Bolt
If Green is most present on the board, Lockjaw summons Black Bolt, who unleashes destruction with a whisper. Destroys the middle two rows and deals 463 damage. Destroyed tiles do not deal damage or generate AP.

Hair Meddle -  Medusa
If Purple is most present on the board, Lockjaw summons Medusa, whos hair wriggles its way through enemy defenses. Swaps 16 pairs of random tiles, stealing any swapped enemy Strike, Protect, or Attack tiles and improving them by 86.

Some Say The World -  Crystal
If Red is most present on the board, Lockjaw summons Crystal, who uses her mastery of the elements to cause mayhem and destruction! Deals 417 damage and creates a Red Attack tile, Blue Protect tile, and Black Strike tile of strength 50.

Cull The Weak -  Karnak
If Black is most present on the board, Lockjaw summons Karnak, who senses the weakness in the enemy team and finds an easy target. Deals 445 damage to the enemy with the lowest health, and stuns each other enemy for 1 turns.

• Level 2: Quake destroys 7 tiles and deals 1390 damage.
• Level 3: Medusa improves swapped tiles by 187.
• Level 4: Black Bolt also deals 926 damage.
• Level 5: Crystal deals 927 damage and creates tiles of strength 86.
• Level 5: Karnak deals 1622 damage.

NEW:
Royal Escort - 8  AP
Lockjaw teleports an Inhuman friend to the battlefield for help! He will summon someone different depending on which color is most present on the board.

Resonance Frequency -  Quake
If Blue is the most present on the board, Lockjaw summons Quake, who emits a high intensity, precision vibration aimed at the enemy's weak point. Destroys up to 5 random tiles in the enemy's strongest color and deals 1204 damage. (Does not generate AP) (Max level 2345 damage)

Bring Out the Best -  Kamala Khan
If Yellow is the most present on the board, Lockjaw summons Kamala Khan to inspire everyone around her. She gives the team a burst of 1362 health. (Max level 2652 health)

Quasi-Sonic Whisper -  Black Bolt
If Green is most present on the board, Lockjaw summons Black Bolt, who unleashes destruction with a whisper. Destroys the middle two rows and deals 463 damage. Destroyed tiles do not deal damage or generate AP. (Max level 902 damage)

Hair Meddle -  Medusa
If Purple is most present on the board, Lockjaw summons Medusa, whos hair wriggles its way through enemy defenses. Swaps 16 pairs of random tiles, stealing any swapped enemy Strike, Protect, or Attack tiles and improving them by 143. (Max level improves by 278)

Some Say The World -  Crystal
If Red is most present on the board, Lockjaw summons Crystal, who uses her mastery of the elements to cause mayhem and destruction! Deals 699 damage and creates a Red Attack tile, Blue Protect tile, and Black Strike tile of strength 74. (Max level 1362 damage, 144 strength tile)

Cull The Weak -  Karnak
If Black is most present on the board, Lockjaw summons Karnak, who senses the weakness in the enemy team and finds an easy target. Deals 718 damage to the enemy with the lowest health, and stuns each other enemy for 2 turns. (Max level 1398 damage)

• Level 2: Quake destroys 7 tiles and deals 1778 damage. (Max Level 3464 damage)
• Level 3: Medusa improves swapped tiles by 250. (Max level improves by 486)
• Level 4: Black Bolt also deals 1333 damage. (Max level 2598 damage)
• Level 5: Crystal deals 1292 damage and creates tiles of strength 111. (Max level deals 2517 damage, 216 strength)
• Level 5: Karnak deals 2015 damage. (Max level 3923 damage)

Royal Escort was improved in almost every way. For starters, the AP cost has been reduced from 9 -> 8 to increase usability. The base, scaling, and max level stats have been buffed. As with Loyal Protector, this makes the ability easier and quicker to fire and also improves the ability that is chosen at every cast. It still requires some board control to ensure that the one you use is the one you want, but when you do it will all be a bit stronger across the board.

OLD:
The Dog That Bit You - 8  AP
Lockjaw follows a trail of psionic energy to track down his enemies and attack. Converts 5 random basic tiles to Charged tiles.

(PASSIVE) At the start of the turn, if there is a Charged tile in the enemy's strongest color, deal 111 damage.

• Level 2: Deals 194 damage at the start of turn.
  
• Level 3: Creates 6 Charged tiles.
  
• Level 4: Deals 509 damage at the start of turn.
  
• Level 5: Creates 8 Charged tiles.

NEW:
The Dog That Bit You - 8  AP
Lockjaw follows a trail of psionic energy to track down his enemies and attack. Converts 5 random basic tiles to Charged tiles.

(PASSIVE) At the start of the turn, if there is a Charged tile in the enemy's strongest color, deal 111 damage. (Max level 216 damage)

• Level 2: Deals 259 damage at the start of turn. (Max level 503 damage)
  
• Level 3: Creates 6 Charged tiles.
  
• Level 4: Deals 639 damage at the start of turn. (Max level 1244 damage)
  
• Level 5: Creates 8 Charged tiles.

Here his active ability doesn't change as it just creates Charge tiles which is already fairly powerful. However, the Passive portion of the ability has been raised overall so that it deals more damage when it procs.

So overall, these changes will increase Lockjaw's ability to take care of his opponents while not changing the overall feel of his abilities or their usage situations. The update is planned to hit with the normal morning server update on Thursday 12/16, so you’ll be able to take this bigger, stronger, meaner(?) dog into puzzle combat soon!

KGB

Whelp, the Royal Family node just got that much tougher

That aside, it's a nice overall buff to all 3 of his powers with no downsides to any of them (unlike with 5* Ghost Rider) so that's good news. Not sure it gets him used though since the 4* meta is already established.

KGB

Dogface

The Royal Family node is going to be even more fun ...

DaSal

Any buffs to old characters is certainly welcome. Let’s hope it continues. 👍

entrailbucket

He's better, but I'm not sure if he's good enough to see more use.  I'm not a 4* player though, so this isn't for me. 

I was going to make a joke about Polaris but I realized that both old and new Lockjaw kind of partner pretty well with Polaris, specifically his passive yellow.  Did anyone ever try that team?

Phumade

This is probably a drawback for players to be honest.  While there is something to be said for buffing characters.  The reality is that all players will face him in Royal Family and probably less than 5% will ever face off against him in PVP.  Unless he becomes the de facto required 4* essential (I can't even remember the last time he was required essential) or he just happens to be one of the first 4* a new player champions, I have serious doubts that he'll see increased usage in either PVE or PVP.

tonypq

It's not really about making everyone all a sudden make a mad dash to cover him if they don't already have him. These are quality of life changes and I certainly welcome them. If they made sensible QOL changes to older 4s and 5s it would make this game a lot more fun being able to use some of the older characters and not feel totally **** doing so. 

Most of the out of dates 4s and 5s if they gave across the  board buffs to health, match damage, power damage and for some characters lower ability costs, that would be enough. Surely there are some characters that could use significant tweaks to design, but IMO for most a decent across the board buff to bring them a bit closer to todays releases would be great. No reason older characters should be at such a penalty due to power creep that they never see the light of day. I'd love to see more buffs on a regular basis. 

HoundofShadow

This is a random buff. That makes it two reworks/rebalances this year, if I didn't remember wrongly.

Akoni

I wonder if there is a list of characters to be reworked? Do devs have meetings where they all suggest characters to be buffed and vote on the order in which they occur?

ThaRoadWarrior

I wonder if this, like Kingpin’s before him, wasn’t just to make him harder in those couple PVE nodes he shows up on?

Godzillafan67

Unexpected, but cool. If your criteria is to rework the lesser used characters, I expect we’ll see Talos and Emma in no time.

ThaRoadWarrior

Man; even at 365 and boosted Emma is unusable. I hope they do scrap and rebuild her, she is too popular a character to get a dud like that.

Davidk777

"With an eye towards getting some of the lower used characters in the game up to par"


I hope this plays in the 2 5* that you put in the Roll The Dice Legendary Store. They need to be up to par.

Waddles_Pines

ThaRoadWarrior said:

I wonder if this, like Kingpin’s before him, wasn’t just to make him harder in those couple PVE nodes he shows up on?

Yeah, totally agree with that.  Hopefully they don't rework the dark avengers.  Imagine chewing through even more Moonstone or Juggs health... Ugh...

TheEyeDoctorsWife

entrailbucket said:

He's better, but I'm not sure if he's good enough to see more use.  I'm not a 4* player though, so this isn't for me. 

I was going to make a joke about Polaris but I realized that both old and new Lockjaw kind of partner pretty well with Polaris, specifically his passive yellow.  Did anyone ever try that team?

I used to use it all the time in 4* land . Once Polaris filled the board he tanked everything taking 0 damage and retaliation was boosted . 

Seph1roth5

Nice idea but the number increases all seem negligible.  And he was already pretty good, I'd much rather they rework/buff some of the truly terrible characters.

DAZ0273

Sadly I think Lockjaw would probably have to teleport in Polaris to get any love. He is still a good boy though!

Sekilicious

Godzillafan67 said:

Unexpected, but cool. If your criteria is to rework the lesser used characters, I expect we’ll see Talos and Emma in no time.

Emma got her boost when she was designated as a Kitty Pryde feeder. Now everyone should have her champed. 

Borstock

I mean....okay. Lots and lots of fives need love, but sure, rework a random four that still won't get used.

DAZ0273

I remember a while back that it was revealed Punisher (Max) was the least used 4* in the game which was a bit surprising (so I made it a point of using him everyday in DDQ for a few weeks) - I wonder if there are any other "surprises" who are way down from where we might have thought.

dianetics

Punisher is my favorite marvel hero. I have the first 20 issues of his first run and his first appearance in spidey.

I used 3* a lot to punch up against 4*s

Punisher 4* is just too slow in the 4* tier now. He actually more suited to being last alive and or having his teammates disabled.

While is was still in 4* range I rarely came across jubilee, prowler, talks, and mysterio.

not sure if it’s still the same though