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

ThaRoadWarrior

How well does she work as a s strike pumper with Shang-Chi creating match-5s reasonably on demand? Is it worth it to run them together? My Jean is 5/2/2 currently

entrailbucket

ThaRoadWarrior said:

How well does she work as a s strike pumper with Shang-Chi creating match-5s reasonably on demand? Is it worth it to run them together? My Jean is 5/2/2 currently

If Shang-Chi is creating match-5s on demand, the whole enemy team is already dead.  I doubt you'd even notice Phoenix pumping up strike tiles.

It's kind of like Sersi's match-5 countdown-creating power...her tiles will go off after a few turns and hit for 30k, which seems nice.  But meanwhile Shang-Chi spent those few turns reducing the enemy team to a smoking, radioactive crater on your screen.

Tiger_Wong

It’s amazing how dropping 1 AP on her previously 9 AP powers helps her. 

5/4/4 with Hulkoye is money. I always liked her with them before, but with her match damage upped, it’s better cuz she tanks all her colors over them so she can die more easily. 

Been messing around with her/Sersi(5/3/3)/cyclops. I would LOVE jean with Sersi if the colors Sersi picks with her purple were different. I don’t want to choose purple or red obviously. Choosing black puts attack tiles on green but I can’t fortify anything in green because Sersi can’t choose that color with Gift of Transmutation. 

Glockoma

entrailbucket said:

You really need to set her to 5 green if you're planning to kill her on purpose.  Dropping the CD tile to 1 means that it resolves immediately (assuming she dies during the enemy's turn). 

Unfortunately it means giving up quite a bit on one of her other powers, but generally if you're planning to kill her, you'd make that decision before the match.  I typically go to 3 purple unless she's being used with a strong special tile generator.

I concur, it’s honestly the only way I run her with 3 on red.

Problem many folks encounter:

-Enemy turn
-uses power to take out Phoenix
-CD spawns or on red
-Enemy makes their match.

This is where the cd is vulnerable. Assuming you know the enemy has just gathered their AP for a power, one has a choice as to who is going to go out. Phoenix is an obvious choice.

CD fortification would be a modern and appropriate fix and really the only thing she needs in my opinion, of course.

entrailbucket

I really haven't run into that very much! 

When I have her set at 5 green, I can't remember a time the CD got destroyed.  When she's less than 5 green the CD *always* gets destroyed though.

Glockoma

entrailbucket said:

I really haven't run into that very much! 

When I have her set at 5 green, I can't remember a time the CD got destroyed.  When she's less than 5 green the CD *always* gets destroyed though.

Yeah, I’ve always had this problem with her. I’d say about a third of the time. 

It’s not terrible now that she can tank colors, her propensity to stay out front and get knocked out by matching is undoubtedly higher. But I, among others, will be teeing her up to take the kill shot from a saved power more times than not, and that pesky cd just happens to land in the match zone sometimes. It’s frustrating and could at least be circumvented a bit by fortification without breaking the game or anything.

I will drop some free advice for her: don’t spam her purple before she gets knocked out! Lol

Sekilicious

The timing of this is interesting as I just rostered Jean. Only Black Panther and Daredevil remain. Soon they shall be mine. Soon.

Jimsta_rooney

Glockoma said:

Jimsta_rooney said:

Be nice if she was usable for this pvp event

She is. Data for this morning is in and she’s up to date for me.

Aah thank you mpq fairy what should I wish for next?

Anon

This is great news. Hopefully we get more rebalances to come!

On a side note can we roll back the nerf to OML already? It was unnecessary at the time and even less necessary now.

entrailbucket

Remember the nerf to OML's healing actually included a pretty significant buff to his berserk abilities. 

If they gave him back his healing but went back to the old versions of his berserk abilities, he might actually get *worse* in today's meta (if that's possible).

HoundofShadow

I'm not sure why they want rollback to Gambit's  and OML's pre-nerfs, given that they would still not be good in this era: old match damage, old health. Maybe Gambit could still be broken with his any tiles overwrite, aps destruction and ap gains.  The other matter is, should the dev also rollback their compensations? 

Let's move forward and ask for buffs and reworks for them instead. However, I wonder if it's fair for these two to get so much attention again? There are other characters who haven't received much needed attention like Wasp, Kingpin and others. Even Silver Surfer, the first 5* released, should deserve priority. 

Jacklag

I liked the change, but isn't it time Jean Grey gets a new icon/symbol different from that of Professor X? At least the Phoenix version could be a little bird.

dianetics

This update is stronger than I expected. Maybe not a top tier character, but I think she is treading into a B class character.

AlexNapalm

entrailbucket said:

ThaRoadWarrior said:

How well does she work as a s strike pumper with Shang-Chi creating match-5s reasonably on demand? Is it worth it to run them together? My Jean is 5/2/2 currently

If Shang-Chi is creating match-5s on demand, the whole enemy team is already dead.  I doubt you'd even notice Phoenix pumping up strike tiles.

It's kind of like Sersi's match-5 countdown-creating power...her tiles will go off after a few turns and hit for 30k, which seems nice.  But meanwhile Shang-Chi spent those few turns reducing the enemy team to a smoking, radioactive crater on your screen.

Yup. It's like waiting for Sersi to take an incredible sniper shot while Shang-Chi is busy dropping atomic bombs on their heads. 

Breadsticks

That's assuming you get the board or matches you want with SC. There are many matches where it doesn't go my way or it takes long to set up. Getting 30k hits while setting up is really helpful. It can easily take out nuisances like Mantis or Polaris. 

Captain_Trips88

If SC is tanking red at 5 covers, taking valkyrie along and getting one match of red gives you 7 AP. You can then start manipulating the board and you have to be pretty unlucky not to gain red/purple AP from then on. 

As others have said, SC doesn't really need anyone else with him who causes big damage as his numbers are insane, its all about AP generation/board manipulation for his supports. 

9RMetal

OML needs some rebalance as well and please D3go make 5* bruce banner a new rework, he is the one that needs it the most.

entrailbucket

Breadsticks said:

That's assuming you get the board or matches you want with SC. There are many matches where it doesn't go my way or it takes long to set up. Getting 30k hits while setting up is really helpful. It can easily take out nuisances like Mantis or Polaris. 

This isn't an insult or putdown at all, but I think if you find those guys to be a nuisance, you're at a different roster tier than some other folks here.  (Unless they're boosted and near maxed out, I generally find those guys to be dead within one or two moves).

The view from players at that tier is pretty criminally underrepresented here, so don't let us get away with ignoring it.

DAZ0273

I enjoyed using her, this boost gets a double thumbs up from me. Previously I really struggled with what the point of her was. Good job Devs.

dianetics

The one thing that caught me off guard during this PvP was how beefy she is now. A character that can revive and has 70k hp is really troublesome.
Since she is boosted now I see her running around with 170k and it changes the decision making.
I saw a team with her and ihulk and it gave me pause for a bit for how to deal with them.

I would say this is a successful rework that takes a dated unused character, to one that you might see pop up more often, especially during boosted weeks.