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

Vhailorx

HoundofShadow said:

That reply wasn't meant for 5* acquistion. It was meant for metaness of characters.

Some have been trying to impose their views on how MPQ should be but they have been failing all these years. Because they couldn't deal with such failure, they decided that it is the dev who fails at their job by saying they don't know how to do their jobs or they don't know how to design characters, or they are out of touch. I apologise for missing out "trying to".

Like I said, it depends on the players' goals. If you still don't believe that majority of players play casually, go join a top 5k to 10k alliance. Even a T100 alliance requirement is pretty low. Look at their scores for the next 3 months and you'll see what I'm saying. You caa preach about how to play the game "effectively" for the next few months in the chat and most of them won't even bother with your advice.

If very casual players expect to hoard 200 LTs as quick as competitive players, they are being unrealistic. They should not be setting a goals meant for competitive players. Look, we have shards now. If they want to build meta characters faster, they can do so. In reddit, some player champed Apocalypse with the use of shards, feeders and pulls within 300 days and he's not even a whale.

Saying that it's difficult to build meta characters are becoming more of a myth, with the introduction of shards, feeders, milestone rewards. Besides, there are 2 meta a year, and meta stores are held 3-4 times a year. So, there are plenty of opportunities to cover meta.

The important point is all types of players exists. Just because winning matches quickly is the best way doesn't mean that it is the only way. For players who play for speed, winning matches quickly is important, but they consist of only 1 subset of the entire playerbase. Because they are many subsets of players, it's only right that the dev release characters that makes as many subsets of players as possible. Since competitive players remain a minority; therefore, 16% of 5* releases are for you. The rest is for non-meta chasing players.

(1) We are talking about a new 5*. From a player perspective, new characters are only relevant insofar as you can roster them and use them. 5* acquisition is an essential element of the conversation unless we are just talking about fighting against Elektra.

(2) sure, most players of MPQ are casual. But most MPQ players will also never champ a single 5*. Imagine a country where 80% of the population lives inland, and the government announces the construction of a new port on the coast. Would it be out of line for the sailing community to evaluate the merits of the new port from a sailing perspective just because 80% of the country's population will never sail?

(3) you say that collecting 200 LT pulls is an unrealistic goal for a casual player (I basically agree), but your proposed alternative is shards? How is a casual player than can't collect 200 LTs supposed to get 5000+ shards for one 5*?

(4) you constantly assert that forumites are myopically focusing on the admittedly small percentage of the playerbase that is competitive, but your proposed alternative is that we should instead focus on an even smaller group of unicorns who (i) play extremely casually, but (ii) come to these forums, and (iii) care deeply about the full kit of a newly released 5* that they will never acquire.  And somehow all that means the bad guys here are the ones pointing out that Elektra's red is not especially good compared to the existing powers in the game? I just can't follow that logic.

HoundofShadow

1) New characters even at 1/1/1 is relevant for 3* or 4* players. The general advice for such players is to roster one cover and talk about pulls when they have accumulated enough LTs/CPs. Besides, the dev has never said that it's compulsory to champ all characters. 

2 & 3) We are not in 2017 or 2018. We are in 2022 now. Shards, milestones rewards and feeders make it possible to champ 5* of their choice. There are players champing old meta 5* within 1 year of playing MPQ. I think you probably forgotten how generous milestones rewards are.

Here's the link:
https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/86097/milestone-rewards-list/p1

Just champing 4* and collecting 5* covers alone will give players more than 5000 shards to champ a 5* of them choice. I haven't touch on feeders and gaining 3 5* shards via pulling cp tokens yet. 

I think I said collecting 200 LTs as quickly as competitive players are unrealistic. However, if these players have a realistic timeframe, then it's fine. Being realistic means knowing your cp and LT earn rate, if your earn rate is 60 cp a week on average, then a realistic time frame is 1 year 8 months to hit 200 LTs. If your earn rate is 60 cp a week and you expect to champ new 5* every 6 months, it's unrealistic.

4) If majority of players are not interested or can't put in the effort to play like full progression players, why should they be dreaming of champing 5* as fast as the rest who spend money or time on the game? In the first place, do they really want to champ 5* at all? It's a fact that majority of players play casually. I've said go join a top 5k or 10k alliance and watch how they play. Teach them how to play optimally and observe how many bother to respond to you. I even pointed out that the bar for T100 alliance is low.

I said that forummers largely consists of competitive or min-max players. I'm actually confused about your i, ii and iii?? Who are they?

As for Elektra's power, it's bad because it doesn't fit a certain criteria for some players. And on top of that, I don't remember responding to you regarding her red. I think I was responding to another player about how 9 ap for 20k damage is low or something to that effect.

Vhailorx

I think I said collecting 200 LTs as quickly as competitive players are unrealistic. However, if these players have a realistic timeframe, then it's fine. Being realistic means knowing your cp and LT earn rate, if your earn rate is 60 cp a week on average, then a realistic time frame is 1 year 8 months to hit 200 LTs. If your earn rate is 60 cp a week and you expect to champ new 5* every 6 months, it's unrealistic.

Who earns 60cp a week but is still casual? hell, which casual player is going to track their CP/LT earn rates? Anyone who cares enough about the game to track their income rates is also interested enough to consider which characters are the best tools to acquire those resources.

Bad

Casual players, or not informed players, just will save possibly 30 cps and pull for it, and not caring how good is the character or even which character is featured because they even wouldn't think on champing one of them.
When I had 10 kingping covers, the commander on my former alliance said that the best way to champ characters was to hoard. And I took those words seriously. 
Not all players are as commited or have strong will  needed for to hoard. 
And the forumers who usually are talking in here indeed they are, or they were.

Blackstone

Is there any way to confirm there are no plans to nerf SC shortly after this store closes?

HoundofShadow

Precisely, if they don't care, why do you care so much about whether they could champ 5*?

bbigler

You do not need to hoard to champ 5*s! 

Caveat: Active players that earn around 15+ Latest pulls per week (LT + CP) can champ Latest 5*s with the help of milestones & focused shards.  Then with those new 5* champs, they can play PVE SCL 10 and get even more pulls per week to keep champing the Latest.  Classic 5*s can be slowly acquired through 4* feeders.  

As for casual players, what is casual? 10 pulls per week? 5 pulls? Maybe just 2? If a casual player wants to champ a 5*, then they can either play more actively or slowly hoard their pulls.  It could take them a year or more to acquire enough pulls.  But active players don’t need to hoard. 

Caveat to the Caveat: For active players, once you have a 5* fighting team and are acquiring 20+ pulls per week, then you have the flexibility to hoard while still collecting the Latest 5*s. 

ThaRoadWarrior

HoundofShadow said:

Precisely, if they don't care, why do you care so much about whether they could champ 5*?

 

This new forum upload image feature is excellent lol.

The only person talking about what casuals care about is @HoundofShadow. Most of us are trying to evaluate where Elektra fits into the 5* game, because she is a 5* character.

And I can confirm you super don't need to hoard, and you don't even need to spend either. I've never done either thing and I have 52 5* champs. 

Vhailorx

HoundofShadow said:

Precisely, if they don't care, why do you care so much about whether they could champ 5*?

No, it's the other way around. They don't care about fully built 5*s because they will never experience that aspect of the game, and they aren't here on the forms anyway because they don't care about that part of the game.  Great! They can be them and enjoy themselves! So why can't this thread discuss how these new 5*s fit into the meta here on the forum dedicated to the nuts and bolts of mpq

Also, what roadwarrior said.

bbigler

Blackstone said:

Is there any way to confirm there are no plans to nerf SC shortly after this store closes?

I would bet my large tax refund that they won’t.  He’s perfectly balanced as a top 10 character.  Each of the top 10 do 1 - 2 things really really well, but they all have weaknesses too.  

Vhailorx

bbigler said:

Blackstone said:

Is there any way to confirm there are no plans to nerf SC shortly after this store closes?

I would bet my large tax refund that they won’t.  He’s perfectly balanced as a top 10 character.  Each of the top 10 do 1 - 2 things really really well, but they all have weaknesses too.  

But the bottom line is that there is no such confirmation. demi/d3 reserve the right to change any character at any time and we players should always consider that when we decide how to spend resources in this game (both digital resources and real world $).

HoundofShadow

Acquiring and champing 5* is different from talking about character's abilities. You don't have to be a 5* player to talk about 5* abilities. You can be a 3* player and also talk about how their ability can be useful at 3* tier.

I don't think @ThaRoadWarrior can be considered as casual player, given that he goes for full progression, if I didn't remember wrongly.

Everything started from my comparing Elektra's red to Apocalypse's red. Not everyone in the forum care about only meta. There are players who also care about playing interesting and fun mechanics. Again, such adjectives are subjective.

Anyway, the general consensus is that her red is bad or not good because 1) it's delayed damage 2) it's a 2-turn cd 3) it's not fortified. 4) expensive

My counter is that her red deal 23xx damage per ap, which is comparable to Apocalypse's red. When compared with other characters' red powers, like Ghostpool, her damage per ap is better.

The thing is based on past unpopular powers, I can summarise that a lot of dislikes from these unpopular power stems from two main causes: 1) lack of patience 2) low tolerance for risk.

The lack of patience stems from the fact some have serious dislikes against cd or repeater that is more than 1-turn. If it's unfortified, the dislike intensifies. Almost all cd/repeater based damage that are more than 1-turn are considered slow. For example, Kingpin, Loki and Captain Marvel, Magneto and Elektra. 

The low tolerance of risk is even more obvious. Almost every cd or repeater got to be fortified because they will get matched away quickly. It's as the players play like the AI and will match her cd away immediately. I'm sure many would be smart enough to fire her power when the best situation arises, right? 

The typical feedbacks to such powers can be categorised as: 

1) make it 1-turn cd or repeater and fortify it or change it to a direct damage power instead.
2) make the repeater fire at least once when that power is fired.

If every power starts to have such qualities as the bare minimum, power creep will happen even faster and the game will become really stale. i thought a lot of you like to talk about power creep and dislike power creep.

ThaRoadWarrior

CDs have been a liability for a long time if they are singular; Kitty pretty much made them obsolete at the 5* tier, even if fortified unless you can spam them. There are powers that do things on fire, and those are good - Ghostpool's power does everything it does on fire, the CD is a secondary effect you can chase or avoid. 

I wouldn't self-identify as casual, I grind an excessive amount. I just don't get caught up in aggressive competition outside of hitting full progression. I was meaning that casuals don't care about/have access to finished 5*s, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't evaluate finished 5*s against their tier-mates because those of us who are having this debate are, in fact, likely to get her champed. 

HoundofShadow

If I see Kitty as my opponent and I want to fire Elektra's red or other cd based power, I'll 1) stun her 2) down her 3) spam the board with special tiles 4) use someone who can remove special tiles. It takes Kitty's Circuit Breaker two turns to remove the first SAP or CD tile.

In the context of Elektra's red against Kitty, I don't think she has the opportunity to override her cd with Circuit Breaker, or I don't think she can even activate Circuit Breaker in the first place, if you choose to stun Kitty. 

20k damage in today's context is about ~27% of an average 5* health. The difference between firing now and it going off later is how risk averse players are. If the average health of 5* are 20k, I'll definitely question the point of delaying her cd for 2-turns when other characters can one-shot the other opponents immediately. 

I think the game has a good mix of direct damage and "high risk" based powers, that caters to one of the many criteria/preferences of players. It just so happens that Elektra's red power is a 2-turn cd that kind of doesn't fit your and other players' cup of tea. If Elektra's red deals damage directly, I think most would be fine with that. And I don't consider 9 ap cost expensive, given the amount of damage she deals. 

As for her purple, I don't think one would want to build around it too much unless you are dealing with SAP spammers like Polaris.

ThaRoadWarrior

The risk is that the other team is also doing things, and if they are a direct damage, low AP cost or even passive team, then 3 turns to fire, 2 turns to do something is not a good power. It just isn't. Characters we all agree are good exist, and you'll be facing them, and if this is your only option, you'll wish that you had a better more reliable tool in your box to deal with it I'm sure.

But while we're talking about CDs doing ~20k damage, Ronan does that passively

Vhailorx

ThaRoadWarrior said:

The risk is that the other team is also doing things, and if they are a direct damage, low AP cost or even passive team, then 3 turns to fire, 2 turns to do something is not a good power. It just isn't. Characters we all agree are good exist, and you'll be facing them, and if this is your only option, you'll wish that you had a better more reliable tool in your box to deal with it I'm sure.

But while we're talking about CDs doing ~20k damage, Ronan does that passively

There is also a big opportunity cost.  9 ap spent on elektra's red is 9ap *not* spent on another ability (e.g., Apoc or thor or SC's red).  And as entrailbucket noted earlier, a high risk proposition only makes sense if the reward is large enough to offset the risk. and .27 of a newer 5* health bar is not especially high reward.

I'm sure it feels like we are all ganging up on poor elektra here, but it's not really about her; she is just the current exemplar. her powers are meh. Yellow is the most intriguing and might play up a bit once we can test it. (we don't really have anything like it in the game except 3/4* elektra's black and that comparison is flawed because she needed to tank to proc those traps, which is a non-starter in the day of 5*s.) But she is unlikely to be relevant in top tier competitive play.

that doesn't mean she isn't fun to use, or a favorite for some players or anything like that. it just means she doesn't look like she will be in the meta, or even meta adjacent.

entrailbucket

I don't even think anybody's ganging up on Elektra.  She's fine.  She's obviously not as good as the "good" characters.  That puts her in like with like 95% of the characters -- it's not some kind of grievous insult.

If someone thinks she's better than Apocalypse, feel free to make that case (you're wrong!).  If you think saying she's worse than Apocalypse is a terrible insult made by bad people who hate the developers and want to purposely ruin the game, that's indicative of some real weird bias on your side.

Bad

The red is super meh no matter how you see it. Ghostpool red is a lot better. Elektra deals a bit more damage than ghostpool?
If the cd is destroyed it won't never deal more damage than ghostpool. 
Also this red forces to put it on 5 for stun for 2 turns: ghostpool on 4 is already stunning for 2 turns, at 5 it only increases the damage. And also it can re- stun if matched or destroyed without limits, and it's 8 AP: that is a good power.
For the things elektra red is doing, 9 AP is too much.

ThaRoadWarrior

Comparing only the damage/AP is a misleading quantitative analysis, you have to do a qualitative analysis that factors in other things like ease of use, repeatability, likelihood it does anything at all, etc. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that a numbers only approach is why we get powers that aren’t used much.

entrailbucket

It's risk/reward.  You have to adjust the damage output by the risk that you won't get any damage.

One thing they seem to have stopped doing (that I applaud them for) is making powers where the floor is "do nothing at all."  Something like "12AP: create a 3-turn CD that does X damage."

Almost every modern power either does something else when you cast it, fortifies the CD, or does something while the tile is on the board.