Character Rebalance - The Hulk (Bruce Banner)

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  • ThaRoadWarrior
    ThaRoadWarrior Posts: 9,451 Chairperson of the Boards
    @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
    Glockoma Posts: 555 Critical Contributor
    Devs mentioned an 8/23 update; still haven’t seen a data push to reflect this in game. Excited to try him out!
  • Chrynos1989
    Chrynos1989 Posts: 342 Mover and Shaker
    Wasp now hasn’t any friends left in F tier hell…
  • KGB
    KGB Posts: 3,235 Chairperson of the Boards
    Chrynos1989 said:
    Wasp now hasn’t any friends left in F tier hell…

    Fatpin would like to remind you he still exists.

    KGB
  • ThaRoadWarrior
    ThaRoadWarrior Posts: 9,451 Chairperson of the Boards
    Abigail Brand still hanging out in DOA territory as well
  • Chrynos1989
    Chrynos1989 Posts: 342 Mover and Shaker
    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
    Bad Posts: 3,146 Chairperson of the Boards
    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).
  • Glockoma
    Glockoma Posts: 555 Critical Contributor
    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
    Glockoma Posts: 555 Critical Contributor
    @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
    Punisher5784 Posts: 3,845 Chairperson of the Boards
    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
    IceIX ADMINISTRATORS Posts: 4,322 Site Admin
    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
    Wonko33 Posts: 985 Critical Contributor
    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
    ThaRoadWarrior Posts: 9,451 Chairperson of the Boards
    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
    Borstock Posts: 2,733 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited August 2022
    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
    Tiger_Wong Posts: 1,056 Chairperson of the Boards
    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
    Wonko33 Posts: 985 Critical Contributor
    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
    Hilk Posts: 131 Tile Toppler
    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
    DeNappa Posts: 1,396 Chairperson of the Boards
    I like that he got a rework. Even more that the in-game infobox said "(FINALLY)" :mrgreen:

    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
    ThaRoadWarrior Posts: 9,451 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited August 2022
    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.

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