Is this the end of Polaris?

Akoni
Akoni Posts: 790 Critical Contributor
in MPQ General Discussion
After playing with the loaned Doc in PvE, I now realize how damaging his removal of special tiles is. Other characters such as Mobius, Sabretooth, and Mantis work against Polaris, but also work extremely well as allies of Polaris. As a result, their release has increased the number of Polaris teams rather than decrease them. Doc Ock, however, does not play play nicely with Polaris since he removes enemy special tiles while also spamming the field with tentacle tiles. Does this mean that Polaris finally has a true meta threat?
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Comments

  • entrailbucket
    entrailbucket Posts: 5,828 Chairperson of the Boards
    Wouldn't she just stun him?
  • Daredevil217
    Daredevil217 Posts: 3,966 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited January 2022
    I don’t see Polaris ending unless a better option than her is available for one of the 2-3 spots on your team. She stuns, spams specials, and does multiple tics of damage. All biggies in the meta game. I have 63 5* champs and still use her sometimes in PVE or as a third for Sim. I never see her in pick 2 though and only am using her in edge cases in PVE at this point.

    Defense has never been her strength (she’s easy to take out) so creating all these counters don’t change the fact that offensively she’s a monster who can speed up the game. That’s why people play her and will continue to until they get someone who does what she does better. 
  • Borstock
    Borstock Posts: 2,733 Chairperson of the Boards
    Polaris has plenty of counters. That's not been an issue for a very long time. The most recent issue is that her counters are cream-puffs, so the retals and hits come pouring in when you run those teams.
    Is the doctor a cream-puff on defense? (I honestly don't know.) If he is, Polaris lives on.
  • TheEyeDoctorsWife
    TheEyeDoctorsWife Posts: 829 Critical Contributor
    Doc may not be anti Polaris but he is now my #1 anti goon or tile spam . He has the best tile erase . 
  • TheRiddler
    TheRiddler Posts: 291 Mover and Shaker
    Borstock said:
    Polaris has plenty of counters. That's not been an issue for a very long time. The most recent issue is that her counters are cream-puffs, so the retals and hits come pouring in when you run those teams.
    Is the doctor a cream-puff on defense? (I honestly don't know.) If he is, Polaris lives on.

    I would venture and say that the majority of people care little about defensive utility. They just want what works the best offensively and gets the job done fast to save time and health packs.
    And that is just talking about PVP which is only part of the game.
    All you gotta do is look at that list of the top 5 most used characters and it featured Polaris, RnG, Dr. Strange and Shang-Chi. All those are creampuffs on defense. That should tell you what most players are worried about when picking their team.
  • Timemachinego
    Timemachinego Posts: 492 Mover and Shaker
    Strange is a pretty strong defensive choice down in 3* actually. Otherwise your point is fair, defense is really only a concern if you're climbing way past your float.
  • entrailbucket
    entrailbucket Posts: 5,828 Chairperson of the Boards
    Dominant, overpowered characters don't go away until they release someone that character can't beat.  When they release a character that Polaris can't beat (when she's on offense and that guy is on defense) then she'll disappear.

    How overpowered would that guy have to be? 
  • bbigler
    bbigler Posts: 2,111 Chairperson of the Boards
    They’ve created enough diverse powers that any team can be beaten. Characters are either offensive, defensive or batteries (or some combination thereof). Offensive characters usually don’t have good defense and defensive characters usually don’t have good offense. Scarlet Witch and BRB are the magical mixture of both. But the point here is that everyone has a weakness, even if they’re Superman in the game. 

    Morbius neutralizes Polaris teams on turn 0. Sure, Morbius can be beaten, but so can anyone else in the 4* tier. I don’t see what the problem is here. Polaris is really good, so people use her. People can use any of the half dozen 4* counters to her. 
  • Vhailorx
    Vhailorx Posts: 6,085 Chairperson of the Boards
    Polaris is not a problem on defense. She is squishy and easy to down first. And on offense her value is in the cheap stun and tons of repeated passive damage ticks. Until there is a better replacement for those, I dont think she is going anywhere.
  • TheEyeDoctorsWife
    TheEyeDoctorsWife Posts: 829 Critical Contributor
    We just need one character with a power of ( All passives do not activate) and she will disappear . Then we can go back to the original game where specific Match 3s actually determined victory 
  • Akoni
    Akoni Posts: 790 Critical Contributor
    As much as players ask for it, I don't think they'll create a character that kills passives. If they do, it'll be extremely weak on defense, therefore allowing it to be downed by match damage easily.
  • KGB
    KGB Posts: 3,236 Chairperson of the Boards
    Akoni said:
    As much as players ask for it, I don't think they'll create a character that kills passives. If they do, it'll be extremely weak on defense, therefore allowing it to be downed by match damage easily.

    Or it will cost a lot of AP to last for only a few turns and will be deemed worthless.
    Remember, stopping passives stops the goons in PvE from accumulating AP so it would have a lot more dramatic effect on PvE than PvP with Polaris.
    KGB
  • HoundofShadow
    HoundofShadow Posts: 8,004 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited January 2022
    There are mechanics in the game that target specifically goons or minions, so they can simply add an exclusion for them. However, I wonder how players will response to such exclusion. I think there are some challenge nodes that pair a character with two goons, or two characters with a goon.

    Stun and sending characters enemy airborne, in a way, disable their passives, unless they benefit from such status. 


  • entrailbucket
    entrailbucket Posts: 5,828 Chairperson of the Boards
    I wanted that character for a really long time but I don't think it's realistic now.  Too many characters get all their value from passives -- a guy who passively shuts them all down would be way too strong. 

    They could make a guy with an active power that puts something on the board to shut down passives, but that ability is probably too weak to be very useful.

    My hope now is for a guy who passively shuts down all damage reduction.  I think that one is much more realistic.
  • sambrookjm
    sambrookjm Posts: 2,163 Chairperson of the Boards
    entrailbucket said:

    My hope now is for a guy who passively shuts down all damage reduction.  I think that one is much more realistic.

    Depending on how you define "shuts down all damage reduction," we may already have some.  Besides the obvious Scarlet Witch repeater tile (also removed by 4-star Doc Ock with correct tentacle location)

    Does 4-star Venom count, for reducing all protect tile strength?
    Does Kraven count, for reducing all special tiles if there are more than a certain number of them?

    Even "damage reduction" can be tough to pin down.
    Do you define going invisible as damage reduction, since the player can't be damaged by anything that's not an Area of Effect ability?
    Do you count 5-star Colossus's and Prof X's passive abilities (or 3-star Colossus's yellow active) as reduction?

    I think 5-star Gamora's ability might be the developer's "Put our toe in the water" to see how that ability works out on a larger scale.  Plus, from their point of view, anything that increases Health Pack use will be a good thing.
  • HoundofShadow
    HoundofShadow Posts: 8,004 Chairperson of the Boards
    I think he's looking for anti Colossus/Wanda meta kind of damage reduction. Basically, turn Gamora's repeater into a passive ability and he'll be happy.
  • entrailbucket
    entrailbucket Posts: 5,828 Chairperson of the Boards
    HoundofShadow said:
    I think he's looking for anti Colossus/Wanda meta kind of damage reduction. Basically, turn Gamora's repeater into a passive ability and he'll be happy.

    That's exactly it.  Gamora is useful but that's an active ability that relies on sticking an unfortified tile.  When you're going up against always-on passives, it's just too slow and too unreliable.

    I don't think that passive would be overpowered because it's pretty narrow.  There are some fights against some characters where it wouldn't do anything at all, but it would be very useful/necessary against certain characters.  That sounds like rock/paper/scissors to me!
  • KGB
    KGB Posts: 3,236 Chairperson of the Boards
    Or an ability that shut down passives on just a single character (rather than all 3) so you could select a single character and lock out their passives until one of the characters was dead (yours or the target).
    Once upon a time I thought that would have made a lot of sense on Rogue (back when she was first introduced) as a thematic power of her temporarily absorbing other mutants powers and short circuiting them.
    KGB
  • Srheer0
    Srheer0 Posts: 510 Critical Contributor
    Wanda or Kitty are probably the best things to use against polaris if you are a 5star player and don't want to kill her in a few matches with colossus.  

    Both wanda and Kitty like taking damage and they can hit back harder (kitty red and wanda repeater).

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