Character Rebalance - ***** Star-Lord (Awesome Mix Volume 2) *****

IceIX
IceIX ADMINISTRATORS Posts: 4,322 Site Admin
edited March 2022 in MPQ Character Discussion


Star-Lord's been working out lately, having found a huge cache of classic 80's workout videos. Quill's been hitting leg day while sweatin' to the oldies, jazzing up his moves with some hard cardio, and getting his lifting rhythm down with some hi-profile exercise stars. 

All this work hasn't been for nothing; Star-Lord is stronger than ever, and he brings those healthy benefits to his combat against galactic foes in Marvel Puzzle Quest!

Star-Lord (Awesome Mix Volume 2) 
5-Star Rarity
Affiliations: Heroes, Guardians of the Galaxy
  greentilepng  

"The interstellar adventurer known as Peter Quill never imagined he'd one day be known far and wide as Star-Lord. But that's exactly what happened after the Guardians of the Galaxy banded together to save the universe.

Now, with a new outlook, a mixtape of fresh tunes, and a mystery from his past, Quill sets out to save the galaxy all over again."

(Abilities listed at level 255, followed by 450)

Health and stats both received a boost.

OLD:
12450 Health / 50041 Health

 171 | 22 | 20 | 152 | 133 | 18 | 86 | 4.3x
 688 | 87 | 80 | 611 | 535 | 73 | 346 | 4.3x

NEW:
18394 Health / 73934 Health

 253 | 32 | 30 | 225 | 197 | 27 | 127 | 4.3x
 1016 | 128 | 118 | 903 | 790 | 108 | 511 | 4.3x


OLD:
Something Good - 10  AP
Star-Lord swoops in with a last minute rescue, looking surprisingly heroic in the process. Convert 4 basic tiles of the enemy's strongest color to Green Charged tiles. If one of Star-Lord's teammates has less than 40% health, give the team a burst of 828 healing. (Max level 3328 healing)
  • Level 2: If one of Star-Lord's teammates has less than 40% health, give the team a burst of 1142 healing. (Max level 4590 healing)
  • Level 3: Converts 5 basic tiles of the enemy's strongest color to Green Charged tiles.
  • Level 4: If one of Star-Lord's teammates has less than 50% health, give the team a burst of 1142 healing. (Max level 4590 healing)
  • Level 5: If one of Star-Lord's teammates has less than 50% health, give the team a burst of 1501 healing.
NEW:
Something Good - 9  AP
Star-Lord swoops in with a last minute rescue, looking surprisingly heroic in the process. Convert 4 basic tiles of the enemy's strongest color to Green Charged tiles. If one of Star-Lord's teammates has less than 40% health, give the team a burst of 1357 healing. (Max level 5453 healing)
  • Level 2: If one of Star-Lord's teammates has less than 45% health, give the team a burst of 1508 healing. (Max level 6059 healing)
  • Level 3: Converts 5 basic tiles of the enemy's strongest color to Green Charged tiles.
  • Level 4: If one of Star-Lord's teammates has less than 50% health, give the team a burst of 1659 healing. (Max level 6665 healing)
  • Level 5: If one of Star-Lord's teammates has less than 50% health, give the team a burst of 2037 healing. (Max level 8187 healing)
Something Good gets a strong update to its healing numbers overall with an over 50% increase, as well as a bit off the top of the AP cost. This makes it a little easier to bust out and more effective when it is used.

NO CHANGE:
Something Bad - 8  AP
While everyone's distracted by the chaos, Star-Lord quietly pockets some loot. What? It's not like they're going to miss it. Steals up to 2 random enemy Strike, Attack, or Protect tiles. If there are none, steals up to 4 AP in a random color again.
  • Level 2: If there are no enemy special tiles, steals up to 5 AP in a random color instead.
  • Level 3: If there are no enemy special tiles, steals up to 6 AP in a random color instead.
  • Level 4: Steals up to 3 random enemy Strike, Attack, or Protect tiles. If there are none, steals up to 7 AP in a random color instead.
  • Level 5: Steals up to 4 random enemy Strike, Attack, or Protect tiles. If there are none, steals up to 8 AP in a random color instead.
Something Bad is an ability that is very commonly used to good effect by agents utilizing Star-Lord at current. With his other abilities being upgraded as well as his health and match damage updates, it wasn't seen as necessary to make changes to an ability that's currently strongly leading in use rate to both his others and when compared to uses for other similar abilities from other characters.

OLD:
Bit of Both - 12 greentilepng AP
Star-Lord cranks up the volume in the Milano, unleashing its blasters on the battlefield. Destroy a random column of tiles, leaving any friendly tiles, and deal 1428 damage to the enemy team. (Destroyed tiles do not generate AP or deal damage). (Max 5739 damage)
  • Level 2: Destroys tiles in 2 random columns.
  • Level 3: Deals 1714 damage to the enemy team. (Max 6887 damage)
  • Level 4: Destroys tiles in 3 random columns.
  • Level 5: Deals 1999 damage to the enemy team. (Max 8035 damage)
NEW:
Bit of Both - 10 greentilepng AP
Ability stats unchanged.

Bit of Both gets a modest boost to its strength overall from a 2 AP cost reduction for each use. When combined with the decrease in cost for Something Good, it's easier than ever to get some Green AP through either matching or Charged tiles. As a result, this ability is also more easily used in combat to deal some good enemy team damage and board shake.

This character update is planned to go Live with the normal daily server update on 3/31, so look forward to bringing the now-more-jacked erstwhile leader of the Guardians of the Galaxy to bear upon his enemies soon!

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Comments

  • HoundofShadow
    HoundofShadow Posts: 8,004 Chairperson of the Boards
    His match damage is even higher than the latest 5*. 1016? 

    It's mostly ap reductions and no damage increment. 

    It looks like with the removal of Introduction... events, the dev has more time to do rebalances/buffs 
  • Borstock
    Borstock Posts: 2,728 Chairperson of the Boards
    With more health and more healing, he's more of a pill, now. To be honest, he was kind've already usable when boosted, depending on his boost partners. So, I think this is fine.
  • KGB
    KGB Posts: 3,223 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited March 2022
    Our first character to crack the 1000 damage barrier on match damage. Who would have ever guessed it would be Star Lord - rebalance.

    Really wish they had changed the Purple to let you pick the color to steal. Would have made the power so much more usable and unique.

    KGB
  • Bad
    Bad Posts: 3,146 Chairperson of the Boards
    Starlord wasn't competitive before, and I don't think he will be competitive now.
    Not changing a power because it's used it isn't the best reasoning, that could mean i.e. strange 5* doesn't needs a rebalance because people use him, and that is a crazy afirmation.
    More health and match damage can be helpful bit he needs more than that imo.
  • ThaRoadWarrior
    ThaRoadWarrior Posts: 9,435 Chairperson of the Boards
    Something Bad is an ability that is very commonly used to good effect by agents utilizing Star-Lord at current. With his other abilities being upgraded as well as his health and match damage updates, it wasn't seen as necessary to make changes to an ability that's currently strongly leading in use rate to both his others and when compared to uses for other similar abilities from other characters.

    I wonder if it's being used to good effect actually, or if it's just being used to burn purple when it's banked up because he is the only purple outlet? @IceIX do you know (or have liberty to say) who Star Lord's most common teammates are?
  • Thanos
    Thanos Posts: 722 Critical Contributor
    Guess they can't all be winners. Also, no one cares about burst healing, especially for such a paltry amount
  • Yepyep
    Yepyep Posts: 954 Critical Contributor
    edited March 2022
    These are good comments already, I would just add that there's just no real space in the game for 10 AP powers. And 8 is the new 10 -- purple should have been brought down to 7 or even 6 AP, even if it were at the cost of some of the power's effect (steals 7 or 6, mirroring the power's price). And I agree with those who say purple should let you choose what color is to be stolen; no thief just grabs whatever is available (unless it's something fungible, which AP colors aren't relative to each other).

    I like the boost in match damage but can only see using him for that, really. And maybe using green to end a match if you happen to build it up enough to use.

    EDITED to add: keep it up, though. The re-specing is a great thing and I don't expect it to be perfect. Efforts to improve balance and enjoyment are much appreciated and are a signal that the player-base is respected.
  • ThaRoadWarrior
    ThaRoadWarrior Posts: 9,435 Chairperson of the Boards
    For sure; this definitely didn’t make him any worse.
  • Bad
    Bad Posts: 3,146 Chairperson of the Boards
    I think his purple power belongs to another era, when the only way to strenghten the punch was special tiles. 
    Right now to use 8 AP for to steal 4 special tiles (without buffing them or fortifying them) is crearly uneffective.
    On the other side of his power, now characters usually have cheap powers. The only way to steal 8 AP is to steal it in a color not covered, or to steal 2 or 3 AP on their used power, being random. To use 8 purple AP for to steal 2 or 3 AP!
    Imo there are things which cannot be sized by the number of times people use it, also data can show different things depending on how someone is analizyng it: the data of this character and his powers usage since he appeared will show a % which will be not the same on his present day data.
  • ThaRoadWarrior
    ThaRoadWarrior Posts: 9,435 Chairperson of the Boards
    That purple was underwhelming even back then. We already had Medusa and Elektra at that time doing purple steal + Strengthen
  • Tiger_Wong
    Tiger_Wong Posts: 1,055 Chairperson of the Boards
    Well they can’t all be winners I guess. Maybe there’s some team I’m not seeing to tag him with but he still looks the same and looks as **** as ever. His yellow is too situational. It’s only for a team that needs green and has to be vs a team who’s strongest color ISNT green or else it just charges the green on the board. :/

    purple is unchanged. It’s also incredibly situational. Stealing A/St/Sh is good but if not this is a trash power. You can use this to steal and end up stealing the AP pool with the lowest AP. The only thing worse would be to steal a 0 AP pool (which this used to do at one time)

    dropping the green to 10 is good though. Never underestimate the power of dropping a damage dealer 2 AP. 

    Overall I think the match damage boost and dropping green to 10 makes him almost usable while boosted. 

    But please devs…. Keep the rebalances/reworks coming! 
  • BriMan2222
    BriMan2222 Posts: 1,273 Chairperson of the Boards
    Not enough of a change to make him any good,  even when boosted.   He needed major improvement,  not just increased numbers.   This doesn't give me hope for other terrible characters like wasp or banner. Seems like they don't want to do anything other than pump up numbers and decrease ap cost. 
  • acescracked
    acescracked Posts: 1,197 Chairperson of the Boards
    IceIX said:


    ... agents utilizing Star-Lord at current. ...


    This is the most surprising part of this entire thread. I would not expect that to be true.
  • HoundofShadow
    HoundofShadow Posts: 8,004 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited March 2022
    I noticed there seems to be a trend or similarities among rebalanced (5*) characters:

    1) has "high" ap cost powers such 9 or 10 aps
    2) close to zero or hardly triggered passive power (Dr Ock, Archangel, Ghost Rider, Jean Grey)

    If this is indeed the trend, then Black Widow, IMXLVI, SMPP, SMBB and CAFA would be on the priority list. I was thinking of adding Cable, Kingpin and Wasp to the list but they are relatively new compared to the above.

    Anyway, the players' goals of rebalancing 5* were mainly focused on stat buffs, damage buff or small tweaks like ap reductions. You get what you asked for, I guess.

    At this point in time, how many still look forward to such rebalances? Out of 5 5* that got rebalanced, there are 3 negative reactions (AA, Dr Ock and Starlord), 1 positive (Jean Grey) and 1 mixed (Ghost Rider).

  • BlackBoltRocks
    BlackBoltRocks Posts: 1,186 Chairperson of the Boards
    This tweak is akin to the Archangel one. Slight AP reduction, notable match damage buff, and that's about it.

    For Yellow, it would have been nice to be able to choose which colour of tile you want to convert. Also, the healing should have been a conditional passive, similar to Rescue and Abigail.

    For Purple, something similar to Antman's Blue would have been cool. Place a Trap or Countdown (either selectable or not) that steals enemy SAP tiles every turn. When the Countdown goes off or the Trap gets matched, deal damage.

    For Green...10 AP for 24k AoE damage is just sad in 2022's context. I get that Starlord can fuel it with his Yellow, and there is cascade potential, but it pales in comparison to other Green AoEs like Thor, Bill, and of course Hulk. Even Hulkform's Green AoE is superior. Still...it's better than Yelena's I guess?

    Nevertheless, I appreciate the buff, even if it's relatively minor. Depending on who is boosted with him, he could be a gamechanger.
  • Yepyep
    Yepyep Posts: 954 Critical Contributor
    BlackBoltRocks said:
    This tweak is akin to the Archangel one. Slight AP reduction, notable match damage buff, and that's about it.
    Interesting observation; I like it. I'm of the mind that the Archangel buff yielded a very playable character when boosted. And one which I might play more should his special aerial skill ever glide into relevance. Maybe it will, maybe it won't. But dude is playable boosted even if it's just in a ménage-à-x with America Chavez.
  • BlackBoltRocks
    BlackBoltRocks Posts: 1,186 Chairperson of the Boards
    Yepyep said:
    BlackBoltRocks said:
    This tweak is akin to the Archangel one. Slight AP reduction, notable match damage buff, and that's about it.
    Interesting observation; I like it. I'm of the mind that the Archangel buff yielded a very playable character when boosted. And one which I might play more should his special aerial skill ever glide into relevance. Maybe it will, maybe it won't. But dude is playable boosted even if it's just in a ménage-à-x with America Chavez.
    Whenever I see enemy Vulture (or anyone else who can go Airborne), I immediately bust out my Archangel. The reductions of his Blue and Green to cost 9AP (from 11 and 10 respectively) definitely made him quicker to get going. I'm hoping likewise for Starlord's Yellow and Green, especially as they both complement the current king of PVE Shang Chi.

    Also, Starlord's Green at lv450 is now 790. Thor's Green at lv450 is 705. Anyone who can tank over Thor is always welcome.
  • qandols
    qandols Posts: 1,176 Chairperson of the Boards
    I just upgraded to v249 and my level 453 Starlord still takes 12 green and 10 yellow AP. Am I missing something?
  • HoundofShadow
    HoundofShadow Posts: 8,004 Chairperson of the Boards
    It says March 31 after server update.

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