Character Rebalance - ***** Jean Grey (Phoenix) *****

Tony_Foot

entrailbucket said:

Interestingly, the massive crazy player reaction to the Gambit nerf is what caused the devs to *intentionally stop* caring about balance, and it's why I suspect they'll never nerf a 5* ever again.

I've seen a ton of people say that that nerf wasn't controversial, that everyone knew he had it coming and that it was deserved.  This is revisionist history -- at the time it prompted a full-on rebellion among the players who depended on him.  Most of them are gone now (it prompted a massive wave of retirements) so that history is also gone.

Absolutely, I had no problem with his nerf. I don’t mind balance changes. I did and do have an issue though with how they did it. I asked them many times for honesty if it was on the cards and they gouged the player base for ages with him before the nerf.

It happened and I made the decision to never ever give them a penny again. I haven’t. I have no issue if they want to nerf okoye or whoever next but give me a 1 for 1 on another 5* cover of my choice. Not some RNG store when I already went through that to get the gambit covers.

I play 100% for free until the game folds because they lost any trust I had.

TheRiddler

Wrong post.

bbigler

I didn’t know about the 5*Danvers nerf either. Could someone explain? Because I didn’t think she was good to begin with

MegaBee

entrailbucket said:

ThaRoadWarrior said:

entrailbucket said:

I[...] it's why I suspect they'll never nerf a 5* ever again.[...]

Still waiting on an explanation for the secret Danver5 nerf myself.

To me it kind of felt like it introduced a bit of a timidity to make truly good 5*s as well. We've seen a few since then to be sure, but not quite like that I'd say.

Honestly until I came back to the forum, I had no idea the change to 5* Carol even happened.  In hours upon hours of discussions about the game with lots of high level players it was never even brought up.  Nobody I knew used her before or after the change.

I noticed the 5* Carol nerf immediately because she was the destruction component of my Brolaris team.

MegaBee

bbigler said:

I didn’t know about the 5*Danvers nerf either. Could someone explain? Because I didn’t think she was good to begin with

BRB, Polaris, 5* Carol. At the time, Carol could destroy friendly tiles. They stealth changed her green so that it no longer destroyed friendly tiles, which meant she wasn't letting Polaris and BRB do their thing anymore. I switched for 4* Thanos, but we never got an announcement or explanation for the change. It was odd.

ThaRoadWarrior

Her green used to destroy friendly specials, because that would then synergies with her red passive that creates yellow whenever strikes are destroyed. But then she was being used with BRB/Polaris in a wonfinite combo, and she was quietly changed to not destroy friendly specials. It has never been acknowledged or addressed officially.

entrailbucket

I just find it hard to believe that was the reason/goal for that change, because they left the engine of the combo completely untouched and did nothing about the other 5,000 characters who could fill Carol's exact role in that team.

MegaBee

entrailbucket said:

I just find it hard to believe that was the reason/goal for that change, because they left the engine of the combo completely untouched and did nothing about the other 5,000 characters who could fill Carol's exact role in that team.

We found it hard to believe, too!

ThaRoadWarrior

I have been watching for an Omega level yellow user ever since, on the premise that that was the issue. So far, Magneto got a maybe as the reason, and the more I thought about it, the more I became sure that Ronan was the issue because if you could hard-blast a board full of his repeaters it would be match-ending. Of course 4* Torch can already do that though. But yes, that it was invisibly done one day, no sell back offer, no warning of any kind, we all just woke up to Danver5 not doing that anymore, it was real baffling.

ThaRoadWarrior

They never even updated her character thread, though the in-game text was all changed properly.

https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/77433/captain-marvel-galactic-warrior/p1

HoundofShadow

2 years is too long a wait. Does the dev design character that far in advance?  I think the reason is because she doesn't have a hard cap like Th4nos or other characters do and her damage per ap skyrocketed.

At that point of her release, no team exists that could make firing her green power a breeze. No one could find a use for her. Her green couldn't destroy 64 tiles every single turn, without losing a turn. Back then, the expectation was probably  she can at most destroy 64 tiles once but the setup was difficult and tedious. At best, on average play, she destroys at 1 or 2 rows of tiles.

However, with Polaris/BRB, She can destroy 64 tiles and she deals damage for each tile destroyed quickly. At level 450, her average match damage is 400. So her green power deals 6643 + an additional ~ 25, 600 damage from destroyed tiles. She could do this every single turn with this team without the "cooldown" they have for her. 

Kolence

HoundofShadow said:

2 years is too long a wait. Does the dev design character that far in advance?  I think the reason is because she doesn't have a hard cap like Th4nos or other characters do and her damage per ap skyrocketed.

At that point of her release, no team exists that could make firing her green power a breeze. No one could find a use for her. Her green couldn't destroy 64 tiles every single turn, without losing a turn. Back then, the expectation was probably  she can at most destroy 64 tiles once but the setup was difficult and tedious. At best, on average play, she destroys at 1 or 2 rows of tiles.

However, with Polaris/BRB, She can destroy 64 tiles and she deals damage for each tile destroyed quickly. At level 450, her average match damage is 400. So her green power deals 6643 + an additional ~ 25, 600 damage from destroyed tiles. She could do this every single turn with this team without the "cooldown" they have for her. 

And yet, BRB Green does more than that. On those same teams. Also, you can start the turn with 30 Green AP if you're blowing up the board with Juggs, Thanos, pretty much anyone except Danvers. For some reason, her power would spend AP only after the board destruction had settled.

The only difference was she was slightly faster (in my experience, though some forum posters were saying they found other Green power board shakers faster, Thanos IIRC) and you only had to keep tapping the one button, instead of 2 or 3 buttons, now. Oh, and a little more health as a 5*, I guess. Still, it was nowhere near as fast as the "real" pve teams, so it couldn't have affected any placement, I think.

If the intention was to prevent the infinite move, BRB should have been changed to not generating AP if YOU destroy Protect tiles. Only matching them. On enemy turn, it could remain intact.

Anyway, I don't think the change is really a clear cut nerf for her. It now let's her shake the board while preserving the friendly tiles, barring any matching away due to a cascade. It did affect the passive part of her Red, but it wasn't exactly working great before, either. Bottom line, she needed some kind of boost or rework both before and still needs it now after the change, to really be able to compete better...

ThaRoadWarrior

The yellow strike destruction passive is still in place, which is odd since she no longer has a way to do anything with it other than a match-n line clear. Her whole kit is now disjointed and less effective, so she went from having exactly one useful team to now being totally busted. I’d call it a nerf without hesitation.

and that they only nerfed her rather than any other component of the winfinite engine that was actually critical to it tells me it must have been something unique to her.

HoundofShadow

Based on damage per ap, she does more damage than BRB: 3203 vs BRB's 2790
The unique things she could do:

1) destroys 64 tiles and deals damage for every single one of them
2) generates 30 yellow aps
3) could speed up green ap gains by 1 turn.
4) has 5* match damage

The three most common BRB/Polaris winfinite teams:

Th4nos
1) destroys 32 tiles and additional  damage has a hard cap.

1* Juggernaut
1) destroys 16 tiles for 6 green aps.

C4rnage
1) destroys 16 tiles, plus additional damage for each special tile. Has a hard cap.

Others
I don't think anyone else brought up The Thing, TAH, Namor or Wolverine as part of Polaris/BRB team regularly even though they are effective as well. 

So, C5rol is the only who can destroy all 64 tiles, deals additional damage for every one of them and she doesn't have a hard cap like Th4nos or C4rnage does. 

With the nerf, her damage tile destruction has a hard cap based on number of non-friendly special tiles destroyed. You can still destroy all 8 rows, but your damage won't hit 32k now. It's more like 6643 + teamup tile damage. 

Is there any other characters who can potentially destroy all 64 tiles immediately? I could think of Blackbolt and 2* Magneto. But hardly anyone uses Blackbolt as a C5rol replacement.

Warbringa

I like the Phoenix rebalance, doesn't really make her relevant but at least more mid tier viable in 5*.

There are no completely dominate 5* characters now as there was when Gambit ruled the meta.  I had lucked into  really great 5* draws and covered Gambit with a ridiculously low amount of draws during that meta and he was simply not reliably beatable with any other characters in the game unless you had your own Gambit. If you didn't have your own Gambit, your success rate in battle was well under 50% against Gambit teams.  

While people complain about many 5* today, none of them are unbeatable.  There are enough good 5* and enough counters that no team or character can't be effectively countered.  It is a much, much healthier meta than the Gambit pre-nerf meta.  Now I understand that it is still frustrating when your roster doesn't have the counters to certain meta characters, but the current meta is in no way comparable to the Gambit references being thrown around and the easiest solution was a Gambit nerf.  I hated it at the time but in retrospect it was such an unbalanced meta.  The problem was they nerfed him into oblivion but that is another matter.

On another note, do people think BRB is so great that he needs a nerf?  I feast on BRB/Kitty teams all the time in PvP with a variety of teams.  In addition, he really helps players in PvE punch above their weight on the challenge node if they can cover him without having many other 5*. In fact with Colossus and Shang-Chi, I rarely even find myself using BRB.  I still use 5Thor way more and I don't see too many people clamoring for his nerf.  

Kolence

You don't need to destroy 64 tiles, Hound, 30+ will suffice when Protect tiles are everywhere. That lets BRB fire his Green twice again and still Juggs can continue the board shake. 

ThaRoadWarrior said:

The yellow strike destruction passive is still in place, which is odd since she no longer has a way to do anything with it other than a match-n line clear. Her whole kit is now disjointed and less effective, so she went from having exactly one useful team to now being totally busted. I’d call it a nerf without hesitation.

and that they only nerfed her rather than any other component of the winfinite engine that was actually critical to it tells me it must have been something unique to her.

Heh, we can only guess when there were no official comments about it from devs.

I could just as easily see it as a fix with as little work as necessary to ensure she's not used in that combo anymore. Nothing super unique or possibly game breaking. 

And there's always a possibility of simply overlooking something, as well.

Her kit was already somewhat disjointed, imo, with her going airborne while relying on repeaters for damage. Relying on having friendly strike tiles, but her repeater being so easy to lose before even doing anything. And even if it survived for a while, it being limited by basic red tiles available...

entrailbucket

The meta is definitely in a better place than it was during Gambit's reign (although if it was ever in a worse place, the game would probably not exist). 

Is it in a *good* place?  The newer defense-oriented characters don't have good counters yet, so they're dominant right now.  If we get a good offensive character that has Gamora's yellow on a passive, we'll get much closer.  I think that would be enough, but of course we'd be locked into using that guy.  He would also go a long way toward fixing Beta Ray Bill, for the people who think he's a problem (I'm not sure but I can see the case for it).

I'd love for them to be more proactive about these things.  If you're going to release a new mechanic, immediately release a counter for that mechanic.  Don't let one strategy dominate for too long.

Ultimately I'd still like them to get to a situation where any 5* can beat any other 5* (of comparable level) on offense.  I don't think that's an insane ask -- the offensive player has such a huge advantage.  A new player should be able to champion Sersi or Ultron (or Wasp or Banner) and be able to beat a champion Scarlet Witch or Apocalypse.

HoundofShadow

The 64 tiles destroyed reference is due to wanting to figure out how C5rol is different from other characters green power tile destruction abilities:

Looking at all the green destruction power in the game, it seems they have certain parameters for them. They are:

1) maximum number of tiles destroyed
2) type of tiles destroyed (basic, friendly special, enemy special, special, specific colour, random)
3) capped bonus damage dealt based on point 2. 
4) no damage for tiles destroyed
5) drawback.

The typical number of tiles destroyed is between 7 to 16. 32 and 64 tiles destruction are rare in the game.

Tiles destroyed either dealt no damage or a certain amount of damage.

Bonus damage are typically capped.

Blackbolt is the other green user who can destroy all 64 tiles but it requires a specific setup and he drains all friendly aps to achieve that, else he destroys only 16 tiles and tiles destroyed don't deal damage.

Basically, I think C5rol was the only who can exceed all the parameters above and she was nerfed so that she became in line with these sets of parameters.

Anyway, back to Phoenix. I'm surprised that there isn't any special store or costume for her. However, we have her pvp coming up soon. I think the other version of Phoenix seems to be more powerful and she's probably be part of SC team if she can convert tiles to red passively.

Bad

I'm glad that old classics 5*s are gonna be rebalanced. And I hope that in the future old classics and new releases could play together. 
https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/84944/self-service-rebalance
On this thread we talked about rebalances and a weekly buffed list. The list came really soon. However the 5*s rebalances came after 8 months!
I hope that other great suggestions we've made could be adressed without taking all that time. It would be great.

ThaRoadWarrior

That is a ton of speculation, which is all we can do without an official announcement.