Character Rebalance - The Hulk (Bruce Banner)

ThaRoadWarrior

@IceIX I guess we will find out tomorrow, but any word on if his reversion to banner no longer happening at match end is a bug or a feature?

Glockoma

Devs mentioned an 8/23 update; still haven’t seen a data push to reflect this in game. Excited to try him out!

Chrynos1989

Wasp now hasn’t any friends left in F tier hell…

KGB

Chrynos1989 said:

Wasp now hasn’t any friends left in F tier hell…

Fatpin would like to remind you he still exists.

KGB

ThaRoadWarrior

Abigail Brand still hanging out in DOA territory as well

Chrynos1989

KGB said:

Chrynos1989 said:

Wasp now hasn’t any friends left in F tier hell…

Fatpin would like to remind you he still exists.

KGB

True, true

I honestly would like to know if anyone ever made it to 12 swarm tiles for wasp for the maximum damage output

Bad

Chrynos1989 said:

True, true

I honestly would like to know if anyone ever made it to 12 swarm tiles for wasp for the maximum damage output

Mr F did on his thread. 
https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/comment/937865/#Comment_937865
He decided to favorite Wasp and to make a thread telling his progress, for great joy of many people and horror and warnings of other ones (me on this group).

IceIX

Update: Made a couple changes to Hulk just prior to his re-release. These changes don't affect his balance at all, but make things easier on the back end and solve some edge cases that resulted from him having relatively low health.

Changes: Made his health the same in Banner and Hulk Form. Added a new Passive to his Hulk Form to account for this which takes the revival from GRAAARGH as well as adds a damage taken debuff to him. This debuff works out to roughly the same amount of health as he had been adjusted to previously, so still a buff overall.

Update: And the rebalance for The Hulk (Bruce Banner) is now LIVE!

Glockoma

IceIX said:

Update: Made a couple changes to Hulk just prior to his re-release. These changes don't affect his balance at all, but make things easier on the back end and solve some edge cases that resulted from him having relatively low health.

Changes: Made his health the same in Banner and Hulk Form. Added a new Passive to his Hulk Form to account for this which takes the revival from GRAAARGH as well as adds a damage taken debuff to him. This debuff works out to roughly the same amount of health as he had been adjusted to previously, so still a buff overall.

Update: And the rebalance for The Hulk (Bruce Banner) is now LIVE!

This is solid work. Way to bring him back!

Glockoma

@IceIX question about the updated tags:

What was the reasoning behind the affiliation updates across the characters in relation to the “genius” and “illuminati” tags? 

I went in search of them and a direct example would be the 3* IM40 carrying the “Illuminati” tag but the 5* variant does not. 

I’m just curious as the 5* still adds to Bruce’s black with the “Genius” tag. Thanks!

Punisher5784

Wow...... I remember before I retired I kept pulled 5* Banner and he was my first fully covered 5* which pissed me off.. now maybe I'll come back for a PvE to try him out

IceIX

Glockoma said:

@IceIX question about the updated tags:

What was the reasoning behind the affiliation updates across the characters in relation to the “genius” and “illuminati” tags? 

I went in search of them and a direct example would be the 3* IM40 carrying the “Illuminati” tag but the 5* variant does not. 

Because 5-Star Iron Man is the movie version who is not a member of the Illuminati, while the comics version is/was.

Wonko33

Thanks for the upgrade, I play pretty casually now so not always the most optimized teams , it’s going to be fun to add him to the arsenal and play him. I think I’m going to suit him up and play one on one VS the she hulk in the welcome to shield event. 

ThaRoadWarrior

IceIX said:

Glockoma said:

@IceIX question about the updated tags:

What was the reasoning behind the affiliation updates across the characters in relation to the “genius” and “illuminati” tags? 

I went in search of them and a direct example would be the 3* IM40 carrying the “Illuminati” tag but the 5* variant does not. 

Because 5-Star Iron Man is the movie version who is not a member of the Illuminati, while the comics version is/was.

on the one hand, I get that, on the other hand, that is a fine hair to split lol.

These changes to hulk are interesting; the full health refill on transformation in either direction is pretty sweet,but hulk tanks way too hard for me to test the rebirth at last man standing in the Rulk pvp. So far I really like these changes, thanks for putting in this effort!

Borstock

ThaRoadWarrior said:

Abigail Brand still hanging out in DOA territory as well

Brand is not useless. I've used her a bunch in Simulator as a healer.

Tiger_Wong

I’ll tell you what….. my Bruce is only at lvl 450 but when those 3 (or more) attack tiles hit the field, they’re pretty beefy. Especially when teamed with 5* carnage. 

Wonko33

I beat the day 3 "test of skill" of welcome to shield with Banner hulk, he ain't so bad. I mean he had the Wasp to help him but….

Hilk

Looks like Hulk last man ended he game vs reverting to Banner.

also, any posting of all the updates of all the new tags? 

TA Hulk is Illuminati, Mordo and Mr F are not. (So not MCU Dr S Illuminati ) 

DeNappa

I like that he got a rework. Even more that the in-game infobox said "(FINALLY)"

That said, I feel it would have been more 'thematic' if Banner form didn't get a damage reduction, but instead an acceleration towards his Hulk form if he got more and more damaged.

ThaRoadWarrior

Some impressions of play so far: 

His original loop was to chase green till you had enough to transform, then (i guess) chase black to try and get some attack tiles in play before doing so. His low hulkform health, damage, and general efficacy was useful as a meat shield with the drawback that he pretty much ruined all your match-5 opportunities prior to you getting to actively take a turn, and not providing any additional AP for your trouble. You could revert to Banner's original health pool until it was gone, which made him a reasonably useful Last Man Standing for those matches where you win by the skin of your teeth.

After this rebalance, the Banner loop still seems about the same - try to get the green you need to transform, try to chase black while you do it, then transform. Now we have this total health regen component on both forms, which is interesting as long as you have a partner out because the last man standing component seems to be gone on purpose. I get it, if you could regen your way back to 60k health over and over that makes for a long fight. However, Hulkform is a death sentence in that scenario, because of the accelerated damage he takes. It's not unlike trying to use a solo iHulk, except iHulk actually has a mega high damage output on his red, and Green Door seems to proc damage more often than Gamma Ray Experiment that only happens when you're Banner. 

Pros: the higher health and second match accruing AP are pretty strong.

Cons: Much like iHulk, if you are down to just Hulkform you may as well tap out of the match. Playing against 5*s he is just a few basic matches away from being dead, and his one active green power is still pretty toothless against those kinds of health pools. I'm not entirely certain that tradeoff is worth it in a world where Carbage exists.

I've mostly been running him next to Wa5p and boosted She-Hulk in the shield training Day 3: A Test of Skill node, so I've not really explored great teams to build around him yet. I'll probably need Simulator to open up to really do that. I don't think he's a dud still, I think there is a team for him I haven't really found yet. I'm curious to run him with Odin to see what that jump-in-front behavior looks like with Hulkform in play. Similarly putting him between Thor and Sighclops might be interesting to pump his match damage way up. Carbage and Rocket for 3x auto-turn russian roulette will be novel as well. The fact that Hulkform's matches doing that additional tile destruction that prefers enemy SAP tiles could be interesting with a few different characters, i guess mostly Polaris and Morbius though. I think the kicker is just going to be if he is properly boosted during his boost weeks moving forward.