Character Rebalance - The Hulk (Bruce Banner)

danielrandkai

this is absolutely brilliant and the kind of rebalances older characters need. thank you so so much! can't wait to try it out!

tonypq

I'm glad they did something for Banner as I've hoped for a very long time for buffs. I like the decent ramp up in health and match damage. I also like his abilities all got some improvements or in some cases additional perks they didn't have before like AP in Hulk form. Not sure how much better or playable he'll ultimately be, we'll have to see. Hulk being my favorite character I wish he got even more, but that's just me being greedy heh.

Borstock

Not sure how the new powers will play, but this is no small buff. And if he changes to Hulk during the match, the health buff is going to be big. Not only is that a bunch of health to cut through, but you can't nuke him in one shot. You need to hit him twice. Should be interesting.

KGB

Borstock said:

Not only is that a bunch of health to cut through, but you can't nuke him in one shot. You need to hit him twice. Should be interesting.

Why do you need to hit him twice? It is because his health is now so high? Shang does that much and more without breaking a sweat. So do a lot of other characters when buffed.

KGB

Tiger_Wong

KGB said:

Borstock said:

Not only is that a bunch of health to cut through, but you can't nuke him in one shot. You need to hit him twice. Should be interesting.

Why do you need to hit him twice? 

If hulk is killed, he reverts to banner. 

ThaRoadWarrior

This feels like a good paper buff, I’m stoked to try it in practice. Adding AP gain to the auto match was probably enough without doing the rest!

question about bugged behaviors;

Hulkform seems to get treated as a different character who isn’t automatically boosted when Banner  is on the list. Have we fixed it so that he is properly boosted now?

Aargh behavior seems to have changed lately before all this, so I’m curious what the intended behavior is: it used to be that if Hulkform was last man standing, when his HP was depleted he would argh his way back to reverting to Banner. Now it ends the match. I believe the originally intended behavior was a banner reversion or else why give hulk so much less hp, but it would be good to hear definitively.

Glockoma

me: complains about Hulk


new devs: hold my beer

KGB

ThaRoadWarrior said:

Aargh behavior seems to have changed lately before all this, so I’m curious what the intended behavior is: it used to be that if Hulkform was last man standing, when his HP was depleted he would argh his way back to reverting to Banner. Now it ends the match. I believe the originally intended behavior was a banner reversion or else why give hulk so much less hp, but it would be good to hear definitively.

I suspect this is new intended behavior due to all the new characters with a revive mechanic. If he reverted back to Banner form then other characters might also be able to revive (our newest 5* since the game would go 1 more turn, 5* Phoenix etc).

In other words the 'game over' check seems to take precedence now to ensure infinite revive loops don't happen.

Hulks always had less HP because in that form he makes an extra match. The hp are totally backward from what one would expect especially with the added damage reduction making Banner form even stronger which is weird since he's a frail scientist when in human form.

KGB

ThaRoadWarrior

I would agree with that except it used to be that banner had the “real” health pool, and hulk was a virtual pool. It isn’t infinite revive here because he has to go through the multi turn Cd again, it isn’t immediate. If it’s supposed to be the way it is, I guess it’s supposed to be, but this felt like a bug ever since it quietly appeared one day. Who all can do it?

ikarus - seems like his should work if you have the AP but isn’t explicitly said

sersi - seems like hers should work if a CD is in play but isn’t explicitly said

Phoenix - not explicitly said, but since she creates a CD it feels implicitly understood? Would be nice if it were explicitly said though

immortal hulk: explicitly requires a team mate to be in play

Banner: old wording is kind of odd, says (hulk replaces banner until downed) which implies banner returns

Chasm: doesn’t explicitly mention it, but definitely should if it’s a requirement

if transforming to Hulk is a one way street like Wiccan becoming the demiurge, then the low health pool and single active power are definitely a step down that we’ll have to get used to.

KGB

Sersi definitely does not revive if she is the last one standing, her CD is out and you kill her. I did that yesterday in Shield Sim and the match ended. Same goes with Phoenix (done that countless times too).

I recall someone (IceIX?) said match ends if Chasm is last one standing and is killed (and has the requirements to revive or else it might be impossible to end his matches). That just leaves Ikarus which I am sure someone has tested by now.

I'm guessing the Game Over mechanism changed with all the revive characters and as part of that, it meant if Hulk is downed he doesn't go back to Banner form (that would mean they'd have to specially code it which means lots of future testing to make sure it doesn't break etc).

As far as the low health pool goes, he's always had that. His old numbers were 41 Banner, 24 Hulk so now at 67 Banner, 37 Hulk it's still Banner with the bigger health pool. Also, it doesn't say transforming is a 1 way street because his Red still says if he is downed in Hulk form then Banner returns. It's just the Game Over logic changed.

KGB

ThaRoadWarrior

Well, I would say fix the power or fix the description. I would expect banner, Sersi, ikarus, Jean, and chasm to work as last man standing based on the power descriptions. Chasm seems overtuned to me, so I don’t necessarily want him to work like that, just saying I expect he would from the text. Jean, like Loki, creates a tile on death that has to resolve, so I would expect her not to do it. The others need you set them up during the match in preparation, so it makes sense that they would work until the conditions were broken.

Banner absolutely used to, so that’s why I asked about it. 

ThaRoadWarrior

Interesting after checking that Immortal Hulk is the only character with a revive power that explicitly states you need an un-downed teammate to do it. 

HoundofShadow

Probably they want to standardise all revive mechanics so that players would know that you need another character to make sure it's not game over.  Else, game's going to go infinity unless you brought your winfinite.

ThaRoadWarrior

I wouldn't be surprised if it was intentional, but Banner Hulk's transformation is about as "winfinite" as a Vulture who keeps going airborne on you. It's mechanically different than the others, but it seems to have been captured in the same net.

KGB

As I said, I don't think they changed Banners power specifically.

I suspect they changed when the Game Over mechanic runs. The check for Game Over now appears to run *first* every time a character is downed before any other logic so once the final character dies, the Game Over logic runs. This stops all revive mechanisms from happening. This also stops stuff like IHulk from Self Damaging if he uses his Red to end the match or Thanos from Court Deathing his team mates etc.  From a game simplicity point of view it helps prevent bugs from creeping in.

KGB

a_girlboss

KillaBeeSwarm said:

Curious to see who will get the Genius and Illuminati tags.

not sure about the Genius tag, but I'm sure the 616 original Illuminati would make the cut (not too sure about MoM's version).

so that'd be... Namor, Black Bolt, Iron Man (even the 1-star version?), Professor X (not sure he'd be added considering AvX and his omission from World War Hulk), Doctor Strange and Mister Fantastic. Beast joins in Xavier's place after AvX, idk anyone else.

going off MoM's version, there's Captain Carter, Monica Rambeau, Professor X, Mister Fantastic and Black Bolt, so three of these overlap with the main universe group. Most of these are 4-stars, so...

Gundala

I've never looked Banner because of DD217's list (not to complain cause your thread is like a Holybook to us). I hope Strange (Health and Yellow Power) and Havok (pricey)  are next. 

Bad

Right now any character last man standing doesn't revive (sersi, chasm, loki, Phoenix, Ihulk, ikaris).
However this rebalanced hulk is a transformation, not a revive.
The new 5* has a revive too and it's expected to behave the same. 

DAZ0273

Oooh - Hulk rebalance - nice!

ThaRoadWarrior

Bad said:

Right now any character last man standing doesn't revive (sersi, chasm, loki, Phoenix, Ihulk, ikaris).
However this rebalanced hulk is a transformation, not a revive.
The new 5* has a revive too and it's expected to behave the same. 

Yes, this is the distinction - Hulk is not "dying and reviving" as Banner, he is reverting to Banner. His being Hulkform is a character specific status, at least as originally intended - he being from the same general era as OML and X-23 who have stateful movesets but clearly implemented in a different way. I have a suspicion he is getting caught by that piece of code because Hulkform was implemented as a distinct character who replaces banner under the hood, as evidenced by the fact that Hulkform is hardly ever boosted when Banner is on the boost list.