***** Thor (Mighty Thor) *****

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Comments

  • Bzhai
    Bzhai Posts: 579 Critical Contributor
    Her red is not as nukey as before but I think a lot of people will be taken off guard by her high match damage, which will be a lot if she's causing cascades and matching charged tiles. 

    Too bad Negasonic is not a 5, cause both of them look as good as the Onslaught Prof combo.
  • Vhailorx
    Vhailorx Posts: 6,085 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited June 2022
    Bzhai said:
    Her red is not as nukey as before but I think a lot of people will be taken off guard by her high match damage, which will be a lot if she's causing cascades and matching charged tiles. 

    Too bad Negasonic is not a 5, cause both of them look as good as the Onslaught Prof combo.
    Colossus  and SC exist, so her match damage won't seem especially high.

  • Vhailorx
    Vhailorx Posts: 6,085 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited June 2022
    max5esq said:
    Thoughts on her since numbers are reduced? Still potentially a new Meta with charged tiles?
    Still good,  but definitively less hyped. A 6ap nuke that could be reliably spammed for 40k+ and scaled up even more as the match went on would have been somewhat gamechanging: close to SC levels of damage output but without the need to maintain combo and harder for the AI to mess up. Think better than garg's blue, but only 6ap to cast and spammable.
    With the new numbers, you will need something like 22 charges tiles on the board (or 2x that destroyed, or a combo of those two) to get to 40k.  That will only happen in long matches. And in a more reasonable  end-of-match scenario of 8 charged tiles and 8 destroyed, she will do closer to 25k per cast. That's still good, but not too different from something like IH red. It's painful but manageable.
    Her major nuke will be her yellow, which is castable once for garg blue levels of damage, but can then be spammed for 22k afterwards. That's also painful, but manageable.
    I think this is a pretty significant nerf, dropping her down from original gambit levels of "this is the only characrer you need" to "she should be quite solid, but needs a damage booster or strong battery." Maybe she will play up a bit from that if the effect of her passives produces a lot of friendly cascades without giving the ai extra ap as well, but remember that her boardshake passive only works if you don't save r/y/b ap. Overall, this is probably a good nerf for game balance, but I am now somewhat skeptical that she will be a dominant meta characrer.

    edit: I had misread her blue passive to require that she had all 3 of r/y/b ap pools at <9 to proc her boardshake. On reread, it appears that she need only have one of those pools at <9ap.  that is a whole lot better, and makes me think that her passive boardshake may well play up a lot and make her a meta support character (a la halfthor) even after the damage nerf.

  • Vhailorx
    Vhailorx Posts: 6,085 Chairperson of the Boards
    dianetics said:
    max5esq said:
    Thoughts on her since numbers are reduced? Still potentially a new Meta with charged tiles?
    It really doesn’t change much. What her powers are doing is still extremely valuable. Her match damage is still crazy good and she has great health.
    She still will probably be a top tier choice that will play well with others.

    Interesting that we are so far off in our assessment of the nerf.
  • Vhailorx
    Vhailorx Posts: 6,085 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited June 2022
    dianetics said:
    It’s totally understandable. I see what she is doing with the charge tile creation and tile destruction as very valuable for a lot of teams.
    I didn’t see her as a primary damage dealer but as a board control type character.
    Charged tiles prevent special tiles from being created. It prevents fortified and trap tiles too. Added that she destroys specials around the charges and it can be a giant monkey wrench in both PvE and PvP setups.

    But she only destroys special tiles if she has <9ap in r/y/b, right? It seems to me that the best strategies (at least the ones that aren't purely relying on passives) involve spamming powerful abilities, so not being able to save in 1/2 of all colors seems like a very big tactical sacrifice, even if the boardshake and special destruction seems valuable. 

    edit: on reread, it seems like she must have <9ap in at least one of r/y/b, but not all 3. That's significantly better, since you can basically just cast blue all the time and still get the boardshake without sacrificing the ability to spam her damage abilities.

    (also, can't some abilities fortify charged/trap tiles?)
  • jsmjsmjsm00
    jsmjsmjsm00 Posts: 268 Mover and Shaker
    You can overwrite enemy traps with charge tiles. You preferentially will not overwrite your own traps with special tiles though. 
  • Bad
    Bad Posts: 3,146 Chairperson of the Boards
    She wasn't on play yet so I wouldn't talk about nerfing, but instead about reconsidering her powers. This happens always with many characters until the last second as they say.
    Probably they reconsidered it after our comments here, yes that's good for the game. 
    I think she still will be like a half- life thor enhanced. 
  • jsmjsmjsm00
    jsmjsmjsm00 Posts: 268 Mover and Shaker
    Not a nerf and not based on forum feedback (I doubt they'd ever consider the forum accurate at assessing character power pre-release with 0 play testing).

    Dev said clearly it was a typo. 
    "Came to our attention that we were using the wrong scalar" 
  • Vhailorx
    Vhailorx Posts: 6,085 Chairperson of the Boards
    Not a nerf and not based on forum feedback (I doubt they'd ever consider the forum accurate at assessing character power pre-release with 0 play testing).

    Dev said clearly it was a typo. 
    "Came to our attention that we were using the wrong scalar" 

    That definitely does not say "it was a typo."

    I read that sentence as saying "We playtested her and she was comically overpowered.  Whoops!  here's a fix. . ."
  • Bad
    Bad Posts: 3,146 Chairperson of the Boards
    There are many characters experiencing changes at the time of their in game release.
    I can remember apocalypse SS from 9AP to 7, Black Knight yellow too, magneto changed his blue to more hits, gamora was totally uncertain.
    If those changes were typos, play testings, or influenced by forum coments, that info we won't never know.
    There were times when we clearly said that character was bad and devs should buff him, and nothing was done.
    Still those were the former devs who provedly weren't  so open as the new ones.
  • jsmjsmjsm00
    jsmjsmjsm00 Posts: 268 Mover and Shaker
    Vhailorx said:
    Not a nerf and not based on forum feedback (I doubt they'd ever consider the forum accurate at assessing character power pre-release with 0 play testing).

    Dev said clearly it was a typo. 
    "Came to our attention that we were using the wrong scalar" 

    That definitely does not say "it was a typo."

    I read that sentence as saying "We playtested her and she was comically overpowered.  Whoops!  here's a fix. . ."
    I mean, or you could read the sentence as what it says. There is a scalar based calculation that is being used to generate the damage numbers. They used the wrong scalar when getting the numbers typed here originally. That has been corrected.

    Not sure if your confusion is coming from being unfamiliar with what a scalar is, but using the wrong scalar is definitely a typo. Probably just referenced the wrong scalar in the code that calculates damage and didn't catch it at first. 
  • cronos
    cronos Posts: 3 Just Dropped In
    good afternoon i imagined that the character was going to be korg because jane foster was already there. It would be nice if in the future there were characters to switch an example like cloack and danger but a corvus and next midnight.
  • MoosePrime
    MoosePrime Posts: 969 Critical Contributor
    Vhailorx said:
    Not a nerf and not based on forum feedback (I doubt they'd ever consider the forum accurate at assessing character power pre-release with 0 play testing).

    Dev said clearly it was a typo. 
    "Came to our attention that we were using the wrong scalar" 

    That definitely does not say "it was a typo."

    I read that sentence as saying "We playtested her and she was comically overpowered.  Whoops!  here's a fix. . ."
    Is it a problem if they change a character's numbers before she is released?
  • Vhailorx
    Vhailorx Posts: 6,085 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited July 2022
    Vhailorx said:
    Not a nerf and not based on forum feedback (I doubt they'd ever consider the forum accurate at assessing character power pre-release with 0 play testing).

    Dev said clearly it was a typo. 
    "Came to our attention that we were using the wrong scalar" 

    That definitely does not say "it was a typo."

    I read that sentence as saying "We playtested her and she was comically overpowered.  Whoops!  here's a fix. . ."
    I mean, or you could read the sentence as what it says. There is a scalar based calculation that is being used to generate the damage numbers. They used the wrong scalar when getting the numbers typed here originally. That has been corrected.

    Not sure if your confusion is coming from being unfamiliar with what a scalar is, but using the wrong scalar is definitely a typo. Probably just referenced the wrong scalar in the code that calculates damage and didn't catch it at first. 

    I do know what a scalar is, but thank you for the polite explanation (that is not intended as snark).

    i stand by my original statement. What you are describing is an error in the code of the game. I suppose that's arguably a typo since the source code is just text, but to me that is an actual technical issue/bug in the game that needs to be fixed by the devs, rather than a typo on the forums or in a press release that is erroneous because it does not accurately reflect the software itself.
  • Vhailorx
    Vhailorx Posts: 6,085 Chairperson of the Boards
    Vhailorx said:
    Not a nerf and not based on forum feedback (I doubt they'd ever consider the forum accurate at assessing character power pre-release with 0 play testing).

    Dev said clearly it was a typo. 
    "Came to our attention that we were using the wrong scalar" 

    That definitely does not say "it was a typo."

    I read that sentence as saying "We playtested her and she was comically overpowered.  Whoops!  here's a fix. . ."
    Is it a problem if they change a character's numbers before she is released?

    Not in a vacuum. Sometimes the last minute revisions have been good, and sometimes bad.  I think it's probably better to pre-nerf a stupidly OP character before release, rather than end up with an original gambit scenario.
  • IceIX
    IceIX ADMINISTRATORS Posts: 4,333 Site Admin
    Vhailorx said:
    Vhailorx said:
    Not a nerf and not based on forum feedback (I doubt they'd ever consider the forum accurate at assessing character power pre-release with 0 play testing).

    Dev said clearly it was a typo. 
    "Came to our attention that we were using the wrong scalar" 

    That definitely does not say "it was a typo."

    I read that sentence as saying "We playtested her and she was comically overpowered.  Whoops!  here's a fix. . ."
    Is it a problem if they change a character's numbers before she is released?

    Not in a vacuum. Sometimes the last minute revisions have been good, and sometimes bad.  I think it's probably better to pre-nerf a stupidly OP character before release, rather than end up with an original gambit scenario.
    This was pretty simply a case of me putting the numbers out there, blinking, looking at it again and going, "That can't be right, those numbers are too high, but I gotta get this info out so *post*." Then hitting up the designer who looked at it and said "Yep. That's the wrong scalar. Fixed and here you go." It would very likely have been changed if I hadn't caught it via QA, so no shooting the messenger/me for that please. Nothing nefarious, no attempts to sway or not sway anyone, just a typo/bug that got fixed pre-launch but after it hit time for our character reveal.
  • Bad
    Bad Posts: 3,146 Chairperson of the Boards
    IceIX said:
    This was pretty simply a case of me putting the numbers out there, blinking, looking at it again and going, "That can't be right, those numbers are too high, but I gotta get this info out so *post*." Then hitting up the designer who looked at it and said "Yep. That's the wrong scalar. Fixed and here you go." It would very likely have been changed if I hadn't caught it via QA, so no shooting the messenger/me for that please. Nothing nefarious, no attempts to sway or not sway anyone, just a typo/bug that got fixed pre-launch but after it hit time for our character reveal.
    Thanks for the explanation!
    Have in mind that we players are the people on Plato's cave and our reality's insight is only limited to shadows, fires, and our deduction.
  • Vhailorx
    Vhailorx Posts: 6,085 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited July 2022
    IceIX said:
    Vhailorx said:
    Vhailorx said:
    Not a nerf and not based on forum feedback (I doubt they'd ever consider the forum accurate at assessing character power pre-release with 0 play testing).

    Dev said clearly it was a typo. 
    "Came to our attention that we were using the wrong scalar" 

    That definitely does not say "it was a typo."

    I read that sentence as saying "We playtested her and she was comically overpowered.  Whoops!  here's a fix. . ."
    Is it a problem if they change a character's numbers before she is released?

    Not in a vacuum. Sometimes the last minute revisions have been good, and sometimes bad.  I think it's probably better to pre-nerf a stupidly OP character before release, rather than end up with an original gambit scenario.
    This was pretty simply a case of me putting the numbers out there, blinking, looking at it again and going, "That can't be right, those numbers are too high, but I gotta get this info out so *post*." Then hitting up the designer who looked at it and said "Yep. That's the wrong scalar. Fixed and here you go." It would very likely have been changed if I hadn't caught it via QA, so no shooting the messenger/me for that please. Nothing nefarious, no attempts to sway or not sway anyone, just a typo/bug that got fixed pre-launch but after it hit time for our character reveal.

    It appears as if everyone interpreted my posts on this topic as some sort of criticism of D3/BCS for changing Thor, or conspiracy theorizing about the game.  That really was not my intent. While I think this pre-release nerf does reduce Thor's value (as a damage dealer) significantly, I still think she looks to be a good-or-better character for support and I look forward to trying her out. And in general it's better to make necessary changes to the game to preserve the delicate balance necessary to keep a freemium game like this working, even if they make one character less fun.
    re: typos v. errors, the point I was trying to make is that it appeared to me as if the change to Thor was made on the game-code level (i.e., the numbers in your announcement from Tuesday accurately reflected the performance of the character on the test server), as opposed to someone making a typo when preparing the announcement such that the numbers in your post did not match the character in game (in which case the only necessary change would have been on the forums and similar public announcement spaces). 
    I further interpreted your statement, IceIX that her initial build was "catastrophic"  as an indication that playtesting (either the formal QA pass or your own informal experimentation) revealed that she was extremely OP (and that makes sense to me; an uncapped damage boost of several thousand damage per charged tile destroyed on a 6ap power on a character that destroys charged tiles is probably OP)
    I certainly don't object to D3 or BCS identifying and resolving errors with a character, before or after the release announcement, and I apologize if my commentary felt like an attack against you or d3/bcs.
    [To be fair, I should probably add a disclaimer that I have criticized D3/Demi on other topics in the past and will likely do so again in future, so guilty-as-charged in a sense, but I do (and will continue to) try to keep it polite and constructive.]
  • skittledaddy
    skittledaddy Posts: 1,013 Chairperson of the Boards
    Thoughts on a best build for She-Thor?
    5/3/5, maybe?