Gargantos Heroic Boss Event Impressions

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Daniel2121 said:

Tiger_Wong said:

As Hound just said, there’s synergy in the characters given. It’s just not “kill an entire team and punch above my weight class in 2 turns” great. 

Look… I really feel for those with low, 2 year old rosters. You probably don’t have the guns to really make this event a cakewalk like others. I get where you’re coming from. 

But you guys with 4-5 years in? You’re just complaining about the hand you dealt to yourself and want the devs to fix was has become YOUR mistake. You’re the ones who decided to forego everything else except the perceived meta or in anticipation of a meta shift. Well now it looks like new team is looking for a little more variety in your roster. 

Can you find it? If not…… that’s not a dev problem. That’s a roster development problem. I am literally walking through Gargantos and the side missions on match damage alone with baby champed 5*s. Come on guys….. the writing is on the wall now. It’s time to start fleshing out and developing that roster. 

I started playing MPQ roughly a year ago (April 2021) so I have a "1 year roster".
For the reasons I have mentioned before, I see this event as a big hassle more than anything else.

Like I said I don't need 4* or 5* characters to have fun. If only we could use regular Avengers I could use the likes of:

3* Wanda + Spidey + GSBW
3* Cap + IM40
3* Hulk + Thor
Etc

But as it stands now, 2* and 3* Dark Avengers are really bad.

The loaners actually have some pretty decent synergy especially now that they have been boosted.  My alt account has nothing but champed 2*s and a couple of decent covered 3*s that aren't champed and aren't available so I switched this last time and used the loaners for everything.  

For the boss before you go in have +1all AP.  That will greatly slow down the boss counters.  Bring a big nuke as a team up, whatever the biggest your alliance mates have, some great ones in 5* land are BRB, Colossus, Black Widow, in 4* land Peggy, Cyclops, Ghost Rider (save until the last move since it does 200% of the damage done by the boss).  In 3* Deadpool's whales can finish him by itself and Punisher can down him with his red power if he's under 40% health.  

Once in match prioritize matches with Daken since his matches are going to do more damage.  The exception to that rule is if you can take away a blue match from Gargantos and if you can take out a counter.  Once you have enough to fire powers, Bulleye's purple is great because Venom will have made several enemy protects for you to use and both Venom and Daken can use green depending on how many specials are on the board will determine which you use.  Try to stay away from Daken's red power until you are ready to land the kill shot unless there are no enemy special left, I try to fire it right after Bullseye purple if there are only two protects.  

Pwuz_

Tiger_Wong said:

As Hound just said, there’s synergy in the characters given. It’s just not “kill an entire team and punch above my weight class in 2 turns” great. 

Look… I really feel for those with low, 2 year old rosters. You probably don’t have the guns to really make this event a cakewalk like others. I get where you’re coming from. 

But you guys with 4-5 years in? You’re just complaining about the hand you dealt to yourself and want the devs to fix was has become YOUR mistake. You’re the ones who decided to forego everything else except the perceived meta or in anticipation of a meta shift. Well now it looks like new team is looking for a little more variety in your roster. 

Can you find it? If not…… that’s not a dev problem. That’s a roster development problem. I am literally walking through Gargantos and the side missions on match damage alone with baby champed 5*s. Come on guys….. the writing is on the wall now. It’s time to start fleshing out and developing that roster. 

My Roster is not the problem, but your overly generous definition of synergy seems to be part of our differing viewpoint on this event.

With 10 out of the 16 available characters being 1-3* is compounded further by the fact that Eddie & Flash can’t be on the same team since they share a symbiote.  Cleary you’ve been very lucky to have a well developed 5* roster, but anyone who is transitioning into the 5* and did not have the luck you did is forced back down to their 4*’s, but can’t even do that due to the shared Symbiot, so now we’re being pushed down to our 3* characters like we’re transitioning into 4* land?

The examples you listed may offer a limited amount of synergy under NORMAL circumstances, however Gargantos is a character who’s greatest strengths involve picking apart teams that use the special tiles that are a key component of that limited synergy.  Even beyond that handicap, the feeder aspect of Daken Ragnarok are exceptionally poor due to them both being random tiles & low number of tiles.  They would best be used in situations where you could sit on the AP and spam 4+ back to back to back; but again Gargantos’ kit is designed to prevent that.  As is you’re forced to use them as soon as you have the AP an pray they end up in a spot you can use them and not a place that Gargantos gets them after you’re forced to make a bad move giving him the Blue you’ve been tying to deny him.  This is compounded further by Daken’s self harm if not enough Blue is on the board. 

The other issue is the character selection due in large part to the Dark Avengers comprising primarily members from the very beginning of the game when 3* land was the end goal.  These characters were designed intentionally to have poor synergy together due to the frequency they were intended to show up in the Story mode & PvE events of the time.  Tying back to my prior point about lack of good synergy, Daken was designed to be his own worst partner as his Blue removes more Blue off the board, pushing him to that point where he deals self damage every turn.  You could sit on that AP, but as previously stated Gargantos is going to punish you for sitting on it or leaving those strike tiles on the board.  

Normally this isn’t too bad to build a team around.  3* KK is a great partner for Daken since her yellow heals the team when he spams his cheap blue, plus she can use those few green tiles with her purple (which is a significantly better feeder).  Oh, but we can’t use KK.  Instead we have this anti-synergy like where the black Flash wants is being eaten by Samurai Daken.

Your insistence on bringing up BRB/Polaris or Hulk/Okoye as the only examples of synergy the rest of us are happy with misrepresents that further.  Those are simply broken, and the fact that Gargantos exists as it does is in large part due to that.  Do I use them, sure?  It’s fun.  But I’m also perfectly happy using more offbeat combinations like C4rnage & Mr.F, or C4rol & W4sp.  None of the characters available here can manage synergy like that; nor can they even manage a full rainbow of active powers without mixing tiers past the 2* characters.

I get the desire to defend the devs as they are mixing things up to deal with the stagnation of the current meta, even more so as there are some here (and apparently on reddit, but who goes there, that place is Toxic) are being overly critical.  But that does not make this event perfect and all criticism of it boil down to the rest of us not being creative enough with our teams or poorly focusing our resources on the current Meta favorites at the expense of the only characters permitted in this event.  Anyone who’s played MPQ for a while should be expecting nerfs to the current Meta favorites…months ago.

This event could have been a great way to force us to use some older characters after a rebalance (which I’d argue 75+ of these characters could use).  But without something like that, it just further shows the age of the Dark Avengers.

nixed

Bad said:

The loaners on round 6. A battle of 2 minutes.
https://youtu.be/EQ1MxWmIdy8

For me personally, loaners are the only way I can kill this. I've done it the same way.

But you got an extremely fairly lucky board here. I want to show you the one I just had. No black matches anywhere, black Tentacle Trash tile drained my remaining black AP, next turn Gargantos got a Match-5 blue from a cascade, boom dead in one turn. 

TheEyeDoctorsWife

“Your insistence on bringing up BRB/Polaris or Hulk/Okoye as the only examples of synergy the rest of us are happy with misrepresents that further. “ 

Actually if you played PvP the past 2 years , which I have to presume by this statement you don’t , you’d find that 90% of the player base does not make it a misrepresentation. Either that or I’ve been on a 2 year hallucinatory trip.

Vhailorx

TheEyeDoctorsWife said:

“Your insistence on bringing up BRB/Polaris or Hulk/Okoye as the only examples of synergy the rest of us are happy with misrepresents that further. “ 

Actually if you played PvP the past 2 years , which I have to presume by this statement you don’t , you’d find that 90% of the player base does not make it a misrepresentation. Either that or I’ve been on a 2 year hallucinatory trip.

The fact that people use the best defensive teams (so they appear as the vast majority of available teams in pvp above a player's floatpoint) does not mean that they are the only teams people use.  (And personally, I see more boosted 5*s than brb/polaris these days. I often hunt brb/polaris above 500).

Mathanugg

As a commander of newbie friendly alliance this event started out with some very low morale as they were getting wasted in the first 3 rounds where they don't have any issues till 6 or 7. Hope more though is put into the situations in the future. 

Daniel2121

I reckon 3* Daken + Ragnarok would be a semi-decent team under normal circumstances. The two of them can heal and Daken's health regen offsets Rag's green hurting him. You chase green tiles to fuel Rag, while making strikes along the way further amplifying Rag's damage. You fire Rag's green doing a lot of damage with no worries because Daken's regen keeps him up. And if you ever need blue tiles for Daken's regen you can use Rag's red. All this sounds great in theory, right?

Well the problem is that Gargantos just chips health away by doing unhealable damage which negates this team's health regen for the most part.

And its not helped by the fact that Gargantos firing his blue once is basically game over. Which makes Rag's red largely a liability. You DON'T want to put more blue tiles on the board because the AI almost invariably chases those.

HoundofShadow

It's not theory. I've already posted videos of me clearing Gargantos with 3* Daken/Bullseye. Veteran players who have problem with 3* Daken don't know the word "strategy". Theoretically speaking, 3* Daken looks like a terrible choice. In practice, 3* Daken is the MVP for 3* players. They just need to strategise.

Pwuz_

TheEyeDoctorsWife said:

“Your insistence on bringing up BRB/Polaris or Hulk/Okoye as the only examples of synergy the rest of us are happy with misrepresents that further. “ 

Actually if you played PvP the past 2 years , which I have to presume by this statement you don’t , you’d find that 90% of the player base does not make it a misrepresentation. Either that or I’ve been on a 2 year hallucinatory trip.

If you cared to read literally the next sentence of my prior message, you’d see that I called those combinations an example of synergy so strong they are BROKEN.

There is synergy in this game between the extremes of those teams and the joke of synergy between the Dark Avengers.  For reference using Boosts and Supports to get a single cheap move off on turn two to hopefully one shot the boss is not a synergy.  Fun synergy is how Riri can knock opponents into the air and when paired with Archangel damages them and stuns them.

I’m all for creative solutions to push the player base out of relying so heavily of the Meta Flavor of the week.  Finding fun combinations of synergy is a large part of what keeps me coming back to this game…gosh, has it really been almost 9 years now that I’ve played this?

Daniel2121

HoundofShadow said:

It's not theory. I've already posted videos of me clearing Gargantos with 3* Daken/Bullseye. Veteran players who have problem with 3* Daken don't know the word "strategy". Theoretically speaking, 3* Daken looks like a terrible choice. In practice, 3* Daken is the MVP for 3* players. They just need to strategise.

I told you my 3* Daken is currently not champed, but I doubt that it would make a difference. Gargantos counters Daken + Rag very solidly for the reasons I've said.

3* Bullseye's purple is just way too expensive to rely on it. By the time I am able to use it, I got my team down by one member.

I just gave up already on this event since I inevitably lose against Gargantos no matter what team I use. The best synergy 3* DA guys have to offer is already shut down by the one-eyed octopus. And everything else is just... garbage.

HoundofShadow

Theoretically, what you said is plausible.

However, in practice, what you said is not true. You need to think out of the box and strategise. Yes, strategise. 

And 7 ap is considered expensive now...

Bad

Daniel2121 said:

I just gave up already on this event since I inevitably lose against Gargantos no matter what team I use. The best synergy 3* DA guys have to offer is already shut down by the one-eyed octopus. And everything else is just... garbage.

Have you seen my video? They are the loaners at round 6.
Do you have the loaners? Yes, you have them.
Then, what's was exactly the problem...??

HoundofShadow

The problem is he's already thinking that he's losing no matter what suggestions are given to him. 7ap is expensive to him. By the time he hits 7aps, he's downed. 

It's either a mindset or strategy problem.

Daniel2121

Bad said:

Daniel2121 said:

I just gave up already on this event since I inevitably lose against Gargantos no matter what team I use. The best synergy 3* DA guys have to offer is already shut down by the one-eyed octopus. And everything else is just... garbage.

Have you seen my video? They are the loaners at round 6.
Do you have the loaners? Yes, you have them.
Then, what's was exactly the problem...??

Lol. Of course I have the loaners. It doesn't matter, my rostered versions of the loaners (3* Bullseye and my Eddie Venom which is 3/3/3) are better than the loaners. It doesn't matter, they still fold down like paper. The "synergy" between them is just too weak for them to be anything worthwhile.

Believe it or not, 7 AP for a power is somewhat expensive. The reason why things like Polaris' blue stun which is 7 blue AP work at all is because you have a battery (BRB's yellow) fueling them.

It's not as bad as 10-12 AP and beyond, but by the time Bullseye's purple amounts to something, I've already lost the game.

Sure, you can overdose on AP boosts to have more to start with, but it's all the same because you can't keep the AP coming.

It's just not fun.

Bad

I've put down my champed guys for to check the loaners already 3 times.
2 of them I won, and the last one I recorded the video. Another one I lost and he had 3000 health left.
I understand! I have extremely good boards in all my attempts.
No! It's something else! My loaners are better than yours, for some strange reason.

HoundofShadow

He's picked up bad habits from meta players.  His post already showed what kind of synergies he is expecting. BRB/Polaris - match protect tiles to get free +1 blue/green aps. 

And once again, 7 aps is expensive. 

This kind of mentality exists in meta chasers.

Bad

Daniel2121 said:

Sure, you can overdose on AP boosts to have more to start with, but it's all the same because you can't keep the AP coming.

It's just not fun.

If you think that wasting 200 iso on equipping AP it's not worthy of 2 5* covers, then I have no more questions.
And if it's just not fun... well, this is the same game than a week ago.
Only that now it's forcing you to think another play.

Daniel2121

Bad said:

Daniel2121 said:

Sure, you can overdose on AP boosts to have more to start with, but it's all the same because you can't keep the AP coming.

It's just not fun.

If you think that wasting 200 iso on equipping AP it's not worthy of 2 5* covers, then I have no more questions.
And if it's just not fun... well, this is the same game than a week ago.
Only that now it's forcing you to think another play.

I said that AP boosts changes nothing. All they do is to give you a start, nothing more.
With +2 AP at the start you can fire a power slightly earlier than expected, and that's it. But without an AP battery, you can't keep the wheel rolling. And there's no purple battery among the DA heroes.

I am a meta chaser, who isn't? That doesn't automatically render all of what I've said invalid.
I didn't always rely on Polaris + BRB to win most of my games. How do you think I did when I was in 3* land? I used 3* Spidey + Witch. That carried me a lot.

For one PvP event I even used 5* Murdock + GSBW because both of them were boosted and GSBW's red and green triggered DD's green countdown tile. Now THAT was fun.

Daniel2121

HoundofShadow said:

He's picked up bad habits from meta players.  His post already showed what kind of synergies he is expecting. BRB/Polaris - match protect tiles to get free +1 blue/green aps. 

And once again, 7 aps is expensive. 

This kind of mentality exists in meta chasers.

I've said I don't want a "Polaris + BRB meta" kind of synergy.

All I wanted for this event was some kind of solid/fun synergy. If you really think that Eddie + 3* Bullseye is good synergy or even synergy at all, no, you're wrong. I mean that's no real synergy. Eddie's enemy protects are there just to let Bullseye use his purple, just that. That's all. Eddie enables Bullseye, but doesn't make him deal more damage than normal, or keep him going with more AP, or anything special.

you've done better in the past.

HoundofShadow

I think the difference lies in our definition of synergy. 

What about OMD + Eddie Brock + Bullseye?  OMD fires red, replaces Eddie's protect tiles with strike tiles, which can be removed by Bullseye to deal damage?