***** Abigail Brand (Commander of S.W.O.R.D.) *****

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Comments

  • KGB
    KGB Posts: 3,236 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited January 2022
    Breadsticks said:
    That's the problem. I want Big Wheel and Sersi but I don't feel i need more than the 5 covers I have for Gamora. With how mediocre Brand looks, it seems I picked the worst time to come back playing lol. Odin, Electro, Gamora, SC, BW, Sersi, and Brand have been my choices so far 😩. 

    I really wish I knew whether the next 5* was going to be amazing. I'd just keep hoarding until then and snatch BW at that point. Seems like I may be forced to skip Sersi since there's no way the next 5 can be worse than Brand and at least as interesting as Sersi. 

    SC is a meta character. Given we are only getting about 2 per year you came back at a great time to get 1 of the 2 meta characters.
    Big Wheel is also a solid upper tier character and Sersi looks like she will be good too. That makes for some decent choices for you to pull for.
    Believe me, there wasn't a better time this year than now to be coming back (in other words when the other meta character 5* Switch was released her surrounding characters were no better) and the rest of the year it's never been more than 2 of the 3 characters in latest being average or above. There has always been at least 1 dud in the latest 3.
    KGB
  • TheRiddler
    TheRiddler Posts: 291 Mover and Shaker
    HoundofShadow said:
    They'll usually do a sneak preview over the weekend. So, you can guess whether that character would be amazing or not before Gamora rolls out.

    Pretty much just have to see if you like the mechanics because you really can't count on the numbers. We've seen some get released with extremely lower numbers than what people were expecting.
    That is what I look at least in the preview. Is there a mechanic in there that works well with other characters? Do they do something that is unique that might make them more valuable at a later point? Do they have passives? Are the move sets capable of scaling up when boosted? etc.
    But I always wait until the preview anyways before pulling for a group.
  • Breadsticks
    Breadsticks Posts: 85 Match Maker
    edited January 2022
    I thought it was understood that SC is Excalibur in this discussion. Lol BW I already accounted for but no one else has had a sniff at changing the meta. There are only two viable options, pull now or after Brand is out. 

    It would seem now is the best time to pull unless we really believe there's going to be a meta busting 5* after Brand. Avoiding her also has the downside of me missing out on Sersi who I think is an interesting and fun character but I don't want to miss a meta buster. 


     I hate operating with such imperfect information. If only I were psychic.
  • HoundofShadow
    HoundofShadow Posts: 8,004 Chairperson of the Boards
    True,  "amazing" can be subjective because it depends on your playstyle. Of course, meta is the same as amazing. But there's another type of amazing out there.  :D

    Next 5* release: 10 February. So, preview would be around 5 February. Gamora rotates out on ~7 February.



  • Breadsticks
    Breadsticks Posts: 85 Match Maker
    edited January 2022
    Cutting it close but that also ensures I have a lot more LLs and CP which I can use. Additionally, since I have 5 covers (for Gamora) already I could get lucky and get to 13 before finishing BW and Sersi. This leaves more hoard left o pull those and the new 5* if it happens to be good. If it's sub optimal then hopefully I'll only get a few covers of it before finishing BW & Sersi. 
  • tonypq
    tonypq Posts: 557 Critical Contributor
    What's really unfortunate is that some of us might actually have to pull for Brand depending who the next couple 5s are, if one ends up being good to great. Going to be a very long time before Brand comes and goes ugh. Hope this release isn't a sign of things to come as far as the quality of 5*s we get this year. 
  • MadScientist
    MadScientist Posts: 317 Mover and Shaker
    Abifail Brand doesn't help me win, she just delays my defeat by destroying enemy AP or by healing my team. The active part of her yellow would require a really powerful long-turn repeater of a teammate. The only candidate that came to my mind was 5-Loki's green but even that is pretty useless.
  • Srheer0
    Srheer0 Posts: 510 Critical Contributor
    MadScientist said:
    Abifail Brand doesn't help me win, she just delays my defeat by destroying enemy AP or by healing my team. The active part of her yellow would require a really powerful long-turn repeater of a teammate. The only candidate that came to my mind was 5-Loki's green but even that is pretty useless.
    Others have said Ronan, C4rol, Gh5strider and Iceman. They all have solid dmg countdown / repeaters.  

    From memory, there are more countdown and repeater users in the 4star Tier. Things like T4rch and Blob could work with Brand. 

    As for anyone worrying about Meta 5s in 2022. I would be very surprised if we get all duds this year.

    From my start of playing we've had;

    Th5r
    Okoye
    BRB
    Pr5fX
    Onslaught
    Apoc
    iHulk
    Colossus
    Wanda
    Shang Chi

    So that's 1-3 a year?
  • Sekilicious
    Sekilicious Posts: 1,766 Chairperson of the Boards
    Breadsticks said:
    That's the problem. I want Big Wheel and Sersi but I don't feel i need more than the 5 covers I have for Gamora. With how mediocre Brand looks, it seems I picked the worst time to come back playing lol. Odin, Electro, Gamora, SC, BW, Sersi, and Brand have been my choices so far 😩. 

    I really wish I knew whether the next 5* was going to be amazing. I'd just keep hoarding until then and snatch BW at that point. Seems like I may be forced to skip Sersi since there's no way the next 5 can be worse than Brand and at least as interesting as Sersi. 


    Sekilicious said:

    Regardless if you choose Gamora or not you should see who is released after Brand. If it is the next Apocalypse then you will have many more pulls and probably won't miss Gamora.

    There is two weeks between the when a character is introduced and the earliest character in LL rotates out. Lots of time to get deplete the hoard. They seem to release two meta characters in the same store every once in a while. Colossus and Wanda, Apocalypse and iHulk are the examples. Okoye was release with Jessica Jones, who was considered the best defensive character at the time. For some reason I recall BP and Thanos released together but that might be a false memory.  I wouldn't stress too much about it. If you blow a hoard on the 'wrong' characters it doesn't hurt to soft cap them and start hoard again. There is no end to the game so if you enjoy where you are you can kind of float there without too much trouble. 
  • KGB
    KGB Posts: 3,236 Chairperson of the Boards
    Sekilicious said:

    Colossus and Wanda, Apocalypse and iHulk are the examples.
    At the time Colossus was released he was considered a dud because he did not counter the meta team of the day (Hulkoye). It was only later after Wanda got released (who totally beat Hulkoye into the dust) that people figured out he might be good and by then I believe it was too late for many people (they had already opened their hoards for Wanda and mostly ignored Cyclops when he was still in latest).
    KGB
  • Tiger_Wong
    Tiger_Wong Posts: 1,057 Chairperson of the Boards
    Uhhhh….. didn’t Wanda get put in LL with colossus? Which is why many people have Wanda and colossus near the same levels?

    Also, too many people don’t know jack until a character is released and are wrong about them from first speculation  anyway. (See, Kitty, IHulk, Thanos, colossus, onslaught etc). 
  • ThaRoadWarrior
    ThaRoadWarrior Posts: 9,454 Chairperson of the Boards
    Is colossus really all that good though? You could number-pump Doom and he'd be about the same I think, maybe better.
  • entrailbucket
    entrailbucket Posts: 5,828 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited January 2022
    ThaRoadWarrior said:
    Is colossus really all that good though? You could number-pump Doom and he'd be about the same I think, maybe better.
    2 things:

    #1 Colossus is extremely easy to play, and because of that he's exactly as good on defense as he is on offense.  That's extremely rare and characters like that tend to be viewed as very strong.

    #2 Colossus counters himself, so there's a strong incentive to bring your own Colossus if you're facing an enemy Colossus.

    That, combined with the fact that he happened to be in tokens at a time when a lot of people happened to have a huge hoard built up and another strong defensive character happened to be released, and presto! a new metagame emerges. 

    If he wasn't in tokens with SW, or if he and SW were released together much closer to Hulk and Apocalypse, he doesn't even make an impact.
  • Sekilicious
    Sekilicious Posts: 1,766 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited January 2022
    KGB said:
    Sekilicious said:

    Colossus and Wanda, Apocalypse and iHulk are the examples.
    At the time Colossus was released he was considered a dud because he did not counter the meta team of the day (Hulkoye). It was only later after Wanda got released (who totally beat Hulkoye into the dust) that people figured out he might be good and by then I believe it was too late for many people (they had already opened their hoards for Wanda and mostly ignored Cyclops when he was still in latest).
    KGB
    The choice was Cyclops, Colossus, Wanda or Colossus, Wanda, and Knull. People opening hoards generally chose Knull over Cyclops because of Knull's health pool (and Cyclops was considered trash tier). I will not argue your assessment of the perception of his value at release but my impression is that Colossus was considered 'bad' because people are quick to look for flaws rather than see value, especially when it comes to 5* characters. For example, Kitty and Carbage were consider awful on release, Sighclops was considered worse than Mehneto.

    In addition to @entrailbucket's assessment,  Colossus is meta because he has good synergy with Wanda (and Chavez), but there are no characters that are incredible by themselves. After all, the games seems to be coded so that I never have yellow matches with Apocalypse (or black with Vulture; this could also be the guy in the janitor's closet playing havok with my games), Okoye is great if someone on her team has a good passive and does little damage otherwise, and Shang-Chi quite often peters out even if I bring a good partner along.  Even Polaris, the queen of 4* may her reign be long and prosperous, is horrible by herself. 
  • ThaRoadWarrior
    ThaRoadWarrior Posts: 9,454 Chairperson of the Boards
    Yeah I mean I get that, he just seems like one unit of damage dealer for the most part is all. He's not wildly different than Robbie Reyes in that regard, down to the conditional black damage.
  • Sekilicious
    Sekilicious Posts: 1,766 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited January 2022
    ThaRoadWarrior said:
    Yeah I mean I get that, he just seems like one unit of damage dealer for the most part is all. He's not wildly different than Robbie Reyes in that regard, down to the conditional black damage.
    The 100% addition to match damage should not be discounted, especially when Chavez is providing free critical tiles and appropriate critical boosting supports are added. The new version of Reyes would be pretty meta if we switched the 4* version of Captain Marvel with the 5* version and added BRB. Especially if everyone broke their hoard to acquire him because of a partner in LL and many (relatively) had him at lvl 550.  Reyes would be pretty good as a solo 5* due to the same synergy with CM and Grocket. Better than Kitty in his place? Probably not since passives > anyone that requires ap. But lots in my PvP prefer Apocalypse to Colossus with Wanda as well in spite of the aforementioned aversion to yellow matches when using Apoc.  
  • Thanos
    Thanos Posts: 722 Critical Contributor
    Sorry folks, no videos this time. Her yellow was her one chance at greatness and it's total ****. I don't understand why Demiurge insists on releasing characters that are D.O.A.
  • entrailbucket
    entrailbucket Posts: 5,828 Chairperson of the Boards
    ThaRoadWarrior said:
    Yeah I mean I get that, he just seems like one unit of damage dealer for the most part is all. He's not wildly different than Robbie Reyes in that regard, down to the conditional black damage.
    Sort of, but also definitely not.

    Robbie doesn't have a passive.  Dr Doom does, but his passive doesn't do something every turn.  Colossus's passive generates value for you literally every single turn, because the only constant in this game is that both sides are required to make a match every turn.

    It's the same with SW -- she punishes you for just playing the game, because there is no way to avoid doing damage to the enemy every single turn.

    Passives, especially passives that are guaranteed to do something every single turn, are just wildly overpowered in this game.  A high level SW smacks you for 5000+ damage, every turn, completely for free, while preventing damage to her own team at a rate that beats the best active protect tile powers.  Colossus's passive essentially does the same thing for you in a slightly less obvious way.
  • Sekilicious
    Sekilicious Posts: 1,766 Chairperson of the Boards
    entrailbucket said:
    ThaRoadWarrior said:
    Yeah I mean I get that, he just seems like one unit of damage dealer for the most part is all. He's not wildly different than Robbie Reyes in that regard, down to the conditional black damage.
    Sort of, but also definitely not.

    Robbie doesn't have a passive.  Dr Doom does, but his passive doesn't do something every turn.  Colossus's passive generates value for you literally every single turn, because the only constant in this game is that both sides are required to make a match every turn.

    It's the same with SW -- she punishes you for just playing the game, because there is no way to avoid doing damage to the enemy every single turn.

    Passives, especially passives that are guaranteed to do something every single turn, are just wildly overpowered in this game.  A high level SW smacks you for 5000+ damage, every turn, completely for free, while preventing damage to her own team at a rate that beats the best active protect tile powers.  Colossus's passive essentially does the same thing for you in a slightly less obvious way.
    SW can also be targeted by Colossus's blue. Maybe not efficiently since it is 9 blue, but that is almost as good as a stun. 
  • entrailbucket
    entrailbucket Posts: 5,828 Chairperson of the Boards
    Sekilicious said:
    entrailbucket said:
    ThaRoadWarrior said:
    Yeah I mean I get that, he just seems like one unit of damage dealer for the most part is all. He's not wildly different than Robbie Reyes in that regard, down to the conditional black damage.
    Sort of, but also definitely not.

    Robbie doesn't have a passive.  Dr Doom does, but his passive doesn't do something every turn.  Colossus's passive generates value for you literally every single turn, because the only constant in this game is that both sides are required to make a match every turn.

    It's the same with SW -- she punishes you for just playing the game, because there is no way to avoid doing damage to the enemy every single turn.

    Passives, especially passives that are guaranteed to do something every single turn, are just wildly overpowered in this game.  A high level SW smacks you for 5000+ damage, every turn, completely for free, while preventing damage to her own team at a rate that beats the best active protect tile powers.  Colossus's passive essentially does the same thing for you in a slightly less obvious way.
    SW can also be targeted by Colossus's blue. Maybe not efficiently since it is 9 blue, but that is almost as good as a stun. 
    It's not that helpful unless you've got enough AP stored up to kill her immediately, because she just makes another one for free the next turn.

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