***** Elektra (Woman Without Fear) *****

ThaRoadWarrior

We’ve had a string of “fun” or “interesting” characters lately, and while that’s fun and interesting, unless you landed Shang-Chi you are probably really struggling these days in single 5* MMR.

bbigler

ThaRoadWarrior said:

We’ve had a string of “fun” or “interesting” characters lately, and while that’s fun and interesting, unless you landed Shang-Chi you are probably really struggling these days in single 5* MMR.

Right, but I think this Elektra is the best we’ve gotten since Shang.  I’m not saying she’s as good as Shang, but better than the last 5. 

tonypq

Personally I feel in the past,  4s were what devs experimented with more regarding ideas for new abilities and concepts. Whereas 5s were a bit more solid release to release and the 4s weren't too spectacular. 

These days I feel like thats been flipped around. At least to me it seems the 4s these days are more well thought out, fun and functional. The 5s seem to be the guinea pigs now.  Almost like they're being developed from a grab bag of discarded ideas or concepts that didn't quite make the cut on previous releases. It's painful when they miss the mark on so many 5s as they clog up the LL store for months. As many 4s as we have now, why some of the coolest abilities keep going 4s and not 5s is beyond me. 

It's even worse for new or less informed players who don't know enough to realize how bad some of the new 5s are. Especially if whats in LLs most times of the year is what they try to leap into the 5 tier with. 

entrailbucket

It's definitely weird that basically every new 4* pushes the power creep threshold up and 5* seem so stagnant or spiky.  Maybe they feel like they can take more chances with 4* because they're limited by low health?

Warbringa

I think they really do need to allow players to choose where most countdown tiles in this game go for most countdown creating powers.  The fact you need to wait for the countdown to occur is already a drawback for most powers and then random placement is just the topping of what else makes this power worse.  If it is a fortified tile then fine, let it be random but if it is unfortified, make it a tactical choice by the player.  Repeaters can stay random since in effect they can fire multiple times but even some of the weaker repeater tiles could be made player's placement choice.  This still wouldn't make countdown powers better than instant or passive powers but it would at least not make them, generally, clearly worse in the vast majority of cases.  

Warbringa

Bad said:

Apocalypse is one of the Three Damage Multipliers. Dot. That is the peak of this game. Nothing is better than to increase the damage of others so there is no better characters than apocalypse, okoye and SW.

He is not the best on defense as AI will misuse his yellow. And a lot of new characters have their best power on yellow like elektra so both won't be compatibles. 
Well, those facts don't make that apocalypse is still one of the best .
SW is a slower damage multiplier but she is great defensively, more than apocalypse and okoye, so she is more popular. 
Also SW boost more effectively godboosted characters. 
And if another character multiplying damage appeared it will be another character which won't be compared with any other. 

Shang-Chi has something to say about your premise there. He don't need no multiplying (or health packs for that matter) just feeders, leave the damage to him.  

ThaRoadWarrior

Shang-Chi absolutely multiplies his own damage, by a ludicrous amount. He doesn’t multiply Allie’s like the others, but the only reason he is awesome and not just 2* Bullseye or Karnak is the self enhancement

Vhailorx

Warbringa said:

Bad said:

Apocalypse is one of the Three Damage Multipliers. Dot. That is the peak of this game. Nothing is better than to increase the damage of others so there is no better characters than apocalypse, okoye and SW.

He is not the best on defense as AI will misuse his yellow. And a lot of new characters have their best power on yellow like elektra so both won't be compatibles. 
Well, those facts don't make that apocalypse is still one of the best .
SW is a slower damage multiplier but she is great defensively, more than apocalypse and okoye, so she is more popular. 
Also SW boost more effectively godboosted characters. 
And if another character multiplying damage appeared it will be another character which won't be compared with any other. 

Shang-Chi has something to say about your premise there. He don't need no multiplying (or health packs for that matter) just feeders, leave the damage to him.  

Damage scalers have been the meta since the end of gambit.  SC IS just a different kind of damage booster (he makes his own match damage so crazy high that even trivial cascades are deadly. There is a train he is generally only played with regards that do boardshake (or stun): those are the characters whose damage he can boost. that creates a premium on characters with boardshake (see the sighclops renaissance) By contrast, boosters like okoye and apoc only boost power damage, which puts a premium on passive damage ticks and multihit powers.  Kitty puts a premium on cheap strike generation. 

But note that the unifying factor is the damage boosting character that leverages teammate abilities to do massive damage. That has been the mpq meta for ~4 years now.

Vhailorx

bbigler said:

Because of my restart I think more about the latest 5*s than the established meta Classics.  Meaning, how good are the Latest and do they work together?  Most people I talk to about this game have champed all the meta Classic 5*s, but they’re certainly not representative of all players.  

What about new players that just started champing 5*s? Or ones that have no 5* champs but a hoard instead?  Should they listen to our comments and skip Elektra because she’s not top 10?  I wouldn’t advise that.  Her yellow power alone makes her viable.  

She’s certainly playable in my MMR.  She could be paired with Sersi to feed her yellow & red.  From the 4* tier, Clagger can constantly add yellow tiles.  Melinda could constantly feed her Red and provide a 2nd stun color too.  

Can we have another character category of “Not bad as one of your first 5* champs”? 

I usually say "X will probably be good for 5* transitioners. . ." To describe characters that are good first 5*s. But I don't know that Elektra is one of them.  DR is ok. And I think her yellow will be out in the board a lot. But until you face level 500+ enemies, most damage comes from unlucky enemy cascades (ans the powers fueled by the resulting ap). And elektra's yellow won't help as much against those because the traps will be plunked away first (compare this to SW's sir that ramps up when you really need it). So I would still recommend waiting for a good true healer as the ideal first leveled 5*.

ThaRoadWarrior

3 and 4* elektra traps still do their damage thing when matched, don't they? I would assume these would still do what they do if they are part of a match.

Vhailorx

ThaRoadWarrior said:

3 and 4* elektra traps still do their damage thing when matched, don't they? I would assume these would still do what they do if they are part of a match.

(1) no, if matched I think it disarms the trap before it procs, though if you have multiple traps *another* one will proc.

(2) regardless of the above concern, a trap will go away after each damage event. I think it would apply to all ticks of a multihit power, but discrete events like matches and additional casts will cure through them quickly. So imagine you cast yellow and the do your turn chasing red. Next turn enemy makes one match and has a lucky cascade for 4 more matches.  All of your traps are gone and you may not have 6 yellow to recast, but the enemy has lots of AP. 

entrailbucket

Warbringa said:

I think they really do need to allow players to choose where most countdown tiles in this game go for most countdown creating powers.  The fact you need to wait for the countdown to occur is already a drawback for most powers and then random placement is just the topping of what else makes this power worse.  If it is a fortified tile then fine, let it be random but if it is unfortified, make it a tactical choice by the player.  Repeaters can stay random since in effect they can fire multiple times but even some of the weaker repeater tiles could be made player's placement choice.  This still wouldn't make countdown powers better than instant or passive powers but it would at least not make them, generally, clearly worse in the vast majority of cases.  

I think high-variance powers are fine, as long as they're either cheap or crazy powerful or both.  If you put out an unfortified CD that's several turns, it better either win the game if it goes off, or be so cheap that if it gets destroyed you don't care.

Vhailorx

entrailbucket said:

Warbringa said:

I think they really do need to allow players to choose where most countdown tiles in this game go for most countdown creating powers.  The fact you need to wait for the countdown to occur is already a drawback for most powers and then random placement is just the topping of what else makes this power worse.  If it is a fortified tile then fine, let it be random but if it is unfortified, make it a tactical choice by the player.  Repeaters can stay random since in effect they can fire multiple times but even some of the weaker repeater tiles could be made player's placement choice.  This still wouldn't make countdown powers better than instant or passive powers but it would at least not make them, generally, clearly worse in the vast majority of cases.  

I think high-variance powers are fine, as long as they're either cheap or crazy powerful or both.  If you put out an unfortified CD that's several turns, it better either win the game if it goes off, or be so cheap that if it gets destroyed you don't care.

Well, they might be fine in principle, but hardly anyone uses high variance powers except in low-value matches like ddq or the simulator. The freemium design elements of this game (limited healing, timed scoring, paid shields, etc) all make speed and reliability at least as important as raw power-ceiling.

entrailbucket

Vhailorx said:

entrailbucket said:

Warbringa said:

I think they really do need to allow players to choose where most countdown tiles in this game go for most countdown creating powers.  The fact you need to wait for the countdown to occur is already a drawback for most powers and then random placement is just the topping of what else makes this power worse.  If it is a fortified tile then fine, let it be random but if it is unfortified, make it a tactical choice by the player.  Repeaters can stay random since in effect they can fire multiple times but even some of the weaker repeater tiles could be made player's placement choice.  This still wouldn't make countdown powers better than instant or passive powers but it would at least not make them, generally, clearly worse in the vast majority of cases.  

I think high-variance powers are fine, as long as they're either cheap or crazy powerful or both.  If you put out an unfortified CD that's several turns, it better either win the game if it goes off, or be so cheap that if it gets destroyed you don't care.

Well, they might be fine in principle, but hardly anyone uses high variance powers except in low-value matches like ddq or the simulator. The freemium design elements of this game (limited healing, timed scoring, paid shields, etc) all make speed and reliability at least as important as raw power-ceiling.

The problem is that they give us high-variance powers that are also *bad*. 

If somebody had a power that cost 12 and put out a 3-turn unfortified CD that did 100k AoE, that'd be fine.  High risk, high reward.

Instead we get stuff that costs 10 and makes an unfortified CD for 30k, and that's just not a worthwhile tradeoff.  If I'm taking a risk, it has to offer a commensurate reward.

HoundofShadow

Hopefully, I'm not the one who said Abigail Brand is better than Apocalypse because that wasn't my point. I did say all characters released have the potential to be good, and by good, I meant in terms of synergy, rather than meta-ness. How good they are also depends on the available number of teammates at the time of release, and teammates released in future releases.

Apocalypse is better than Elektra in terms of offensiveness. In terms of defensive ability, she's better. That's my point. It's just that conversations around forums related to new releases tend to steer towards speed or meta-ness of characters. I think there's not much fun in comparing with meta all the time because it's simply about one-upping one another based on speed in finishing matches. 

Vhailorx

entrailbucket said:

Vhailorx said:

entrailbucket said:

Warbringa said:

I think they really do need to allow players to choose where most countdown tiles in this game go for most countdown creating powers.  The fact you need to wait for the countdown to occur is already a drawback for most powers and then random placement is just the topping of what else makes this power worse.  If it is a fortified tile then fine, let it be random but if it is unfortified, make it a tactical choice by the player.  Repeaters can stay random since in effect they can fire multiple times but even some of the weaker repeater tiles could be made player's placement choice.  This still wouldn't make countdown powers better than instant or passive powers but it would at least not make them, generally, clearly worse in the vast majority of cases.  

I think high-variance powers are fine, as long as they're either cheap or crazy powerful or both.  If you put out an unfortified CD that's several turns, it better either win the game if it goes off, or be so cheap that if it gets destroyed you don't care.

Well, they might be fine in principle, but hardly anyone uses high variance powers except in low-value matches like ddq or the simulator. The freemium design elements of this game (limited healing, timed scoring, paid shields, etc) all make speed and reliability at least as important as raw power-ceiling.

The problem is that they give us high-variance powers that are also *bad*. 

If somebody had a power that cost 12 and put out a 3-turn unfortified CD that did 100k AoE, that'd be fine.  High risk, high reward.

Instead we get stuff that costs 10 and makes an unfortified CD for 30k, and that's just not a worthwhile tradeoff.  If I'm taking a risk, it has to offer a commensurate reward.

Maybe, but would you use your hypothetical power in pvp?  Or pve when you want placement? When speed is important a high variance power very undesirable since it, by definition, includes some opportunity cost at a minimum.

Also, in the modern game characters like SC or apoc can get pretty close to 10ap/100k damage without having to wait for a CD to resolve, so I think demi would need to make the upside a lot higher than even your wildest dreams to make a tempting power.

dianetics

Shouldn't we be comparing new characters to the best characters in the game?
If we don't compare her to Apoc what about Kitty or BRB?
Elektra doesn't seem to be as good as either of those two. She certainly falls way behind Shang Chi.
She is looking to sit somewhere in the middle of the pack. Not terrible, but not great either, and that's ok.
Looking at her power set she seems to be a slot in niche character against very specific characters in the game. Not a character to build around.

entrailbucket

Vhailorx said:

entrailbucket said:

Vhailorx said:

entrailbucket said:

Warbringa said:

I think they really do need to allow players to choose where most countdown tiles in this game go for most countdown creating powers.  The fact you need to wait for the countdown to occur is already a drawback for most powers and then random placement is just the topping of what else makes this power worse.  If it is a fortified tile then fine, let it be random but if it is unfortified, make it a tactical choice by the player.  Repeaters can stay random since in effect they can fire multiple times but even some of the weaker repeater tiles could be made player's placement choice.  This still wouldn't make countdown powers better than instant or passive powers but it would at least not make them, generally, clearly worse in the vast majority of cases.  

I think high-variance powers are fine, as long as they're either cheap or crazy powerful or both.  If you put out an unfortified CD that's several turns, it better either win the game if it goes off, or be so cheap that if it gets destroyed you don't care.

Well, they might be fine in principle, but hardly anyone uses high variance powers except in low-value matches like ddq or the simulator. The freemium design elements of this game (limited healing, timed scoring, paid shields, etc) all make speed and reliability at least as important as raw power-ceiling.

The problem is that they give us high-variance powers that are also *bad*. 

If somebody had a power that cost 12 and put out a 3-turn unfortified CD that did 100k AoE, that'd be fine.  High risk, high reward.

Instead we get stuff that costs 10 and makes an unfortified CD for 30k, and that's just not a worthwhile tradeoff.  If I'm taking a risk, it has to offer a commensurate reward.

Maybe, but would you use your hypothetical power in pvp?  Or pve when you want placement? When speed is important a high variance power very undesirable since it, by definition, includes some opportunity cost at a minimum.

Also, in the modern game characters like SC or apoc can get pretty close to 10ap/100k damage without having to wait for a CD to resolve, so I think demi would need to make the upside a lot higher than even your wildest dreams to make a tempting power.

Eh, maybe.  At least it'd theoretically be useful?  Something like that is better than what we actually have, which is a bunch of high-variance stuff that's risky but never worth the reward.

Alternatively you do it like Hawkeye, where the arrows are cheap enough that you don't care if they get blown up.

HoundofShadow

If we keep comparing new characters with meta characters and expect them to do better, the only thing you get is power creep. I remember a lot of players lamenting about power creeps and how it makes older 5* useless. By releasing meta 5* more frequently, this will speed up the damage gap between characters. And rebalances have to be done even more frequently just to keep up with the damage gap.

If the dev wants to create meta 5* more often, they already have a lot of prototypes like Okoye, Kitty, Apocalypse, Wanda, iHulk, Colossus or Polaris to work with. All they need to do is make them deal more damage, make it easier to trigger, repackage them into other tile effect types and you have new meta. 

For example, if players want someone to replace Kitty as SAP buff and counter Colossus/Wanda, the dev could buff Ultron to make sure he can:

1) strengthen/create SAP tile by at least 3500 damage every turn with no minimum criteria like needing at least one SAP tile.

2) allow players to choose the type of SAP tile to create before battle start and here's your new SAP tile buff meta.

3)  prevents friendly SAP from getting affected by damage reduction ability passively.

You will see him in shield sim as frequently as Kitty/BRB/Polaris and Colossus/Wanda/Apocalypse. He might even replace them.

With only 16% of new 5* releases being worth comparing with meta every year, why focus on comparing with meta when the dev are not interested in creating 5* meta more frequently? 

dianetics

I don't know anything about pokemon so the comparison is lost on me. But, I guess you going after something along the lines of certain characters fill certain rolls and should be viewed within those terms right?

So would comparing Odin to Colossus be an apt comparison? A defensive minded character with one damage ability.

Abigail doesn't really have a comparable character.

Elektra can be compared against Beta Ray Bill, Gamora, or Deadpool. She doesn't seem to be as good as BRB, but could be comparable to the other two.

I slot in plenty of characters that are not top tier and find uses for them.

It could be helpful for players who do not have the resources to champ every 5* coming along, and whether they should spend for the character or hold out longer.
I can't champ every 5 that comes out, so I sort have to direct resources to characters that help my roster, and I am sure there are others in the same boat.