The ChaHulk meta

Sekilicious

I think Chasm will be all over the place because they are a defensive juggernaut. Riri/Thor will be a good counter though

Bad

@IrisRyu said:

Am I way off the mark or does anybody else think that Chasm’s meta reign will be shorter than most?

I don't know if chasm's meta reign will be shorter, but already it has been the earliest and the fastest on being unanimous.
If riri hard counters him it won't be because she is a counter to chasm, but more because she is a counter to everyone.
And that's actually the flaw of this meta: what chasm does affects every character, and really few can affect chasm, so actually there is no character countering what he does, preventing AP destroy.

@GrimSkald said:

.

It's a bad meta. Worse, it exacerbates problems the game already has - characters with expensive powers are DOA. When fighting Chasm you'll almost never get off a power that's over 8AP unless you have some kind of passive board shake or AP gain.

It's actually worse than that: you have to chew out 40k Ihulk health and 75k chasm, and most certainly another 20k Ihulk health and 50k chasm, plus another 20k Ihulk and another 20k Ihulk with just passives help.
And when you finally have the AP to fire a power it won't matter as there are few powers affecting them and also are situational.

HoundofShadow

Riri/Dr Thor is an obvious and effective counter tested by players who've already got her champed or close to champed. As someone else said (I can't remember where I saw it), you think too highly of AI's ability to play Dr Thor/Riri perfectly. The only thing they have against players is luck.

What the dev could do is to post videos of different counter-teams to Chasm/iHulk for players who have trouble dealing with them. Maybe, it could convince them that they're missing something.

Based on what I've see in reddit and probably here, I've no idea why some players think that it's compulsory to play mirror match against Chasm/iHulk (availability of counters aside), And then when they play mirror matches, they get themselves stucked in 10 minutes or more matches. I would have beaten two-three 60-70 point worth of Chasm/iHulk teams in 10 minutes with my Dr Thor/Iceman or Colossus/Wanda counter, based on my mmr. And I've already posted video of my baby champed Dr Thor/Iceman beating level 500(?) in 2 min 10 seconds. The counters are already out there. I wanted to post video of Wanda/Colossus defeating iHulk/Chasm easily but I don't see the point because players who want Chasm nerfed will simply ignore all these counters.

All the above doesn't solve "variety of opponent" problem, which is another set of problem. On the other hand, there are players who are tired of dealing with boosted 5* in pvps, just like how players are tired of dealing with Chasm/iHulk in pvp. I say it Chasm/iHulk is nerfed, take away boosted 5* as well so that more group of players will be happy playing in pvps.

Sekilicious

@HoundofShadow said:
Riri/Dr Thor is an obvious and effective counter tested by players who've already got her champed or close to champed. As someone else said (I can't remember where I saw it), you think too highly of AI's ability to play Dr Thor/Riri perfectly. The only thing they have against players is luck.

There was a post in another forum where a player got stunned by Riri for 11 turns and lost in the Spider-Man PvP. I think the problem there was there was no other green outlet for the AI to choose. So I think defensively Thor/Riri will be a step up over Shang-Chi/Chavez (ie not quite trash), where you can get cascaded to an auto-loss. Thor loves her cascades and thrives on chaos (and rng). I still think most boosted characters will eat them alive by matching every charged tile possible.

HoundofShadow

Currently, Riri/Dr Thor are still rare in pvp. I would look at consistency of getting stunned by this team. For example, if I play 10 matches against them, and I get stunned more than x turns in 7 or more matches, then it might be tricky. I expect to be stunned at least twice per game against them, depending on what team I bring against them. I do agree that most boosted characters will take them down comfortably.

The latest dev thought about Chasm/iHulk will be revealed in November Q&A tomorrow because I saw one or two questions related to them. Let's see what the dev says.

ThaRoadWarrior

There are loads of stun immune good characters now, so a stun lock meta seems unlikely to arise to me.

HoundofShadow

There aren't a lot of good ones in the game, based on general perceptions.

5-star
Silver Surfer, Moon Knight, Apocalypse (with Mutants), Dr Ock.

Out of this list, only Apocalypse makes the cut.

KK can clear stun and go airborne.
Black Panther benefits from being stunned. If I'm really getting stunned every other turn, I would throw in 5* Emma to boost Black Panther's damage.

4-star
Hydra Stomper, Peggy Carter (with Hydra Stomper)

If you could loosen your requirements, characters who go airborne for 1 turn is considered immune to stun somewhat.

Then, we would have
5*: C5rol, Riri, KK
4*: Vulture, Ikaris, Riri, Throg, Black Knight, Nico's partner (can't remember her name) and probably a few more
3*: Colossus (throw ally)

I'm still waiting for my trap meta and waiting for the day where players ask trap meta to be nerfed.

ThaRoadWarrior

Come join me in ushering in the proto trap meta in this spider-man PVP by running Sinister and boosted JJ. This is possible and fun due to the general lack of chasm/hulk teams in rotation.

GrimSkald

I'm up to near 500 and have seen two - I expect that I'll see nothing but the team above 800 or so, particularly since Chasm's web tiles help Spider-man's stun, and Chasm tanks everything for Spider-man so those AP pools don't get drained.

Been running them myself. I'm pretty sure the only time my opponent has gotten a power of any kind off is when I wasn't. Maybe once or twice?

ThaRoadWarrior

Because I climbed to 700 or so using a highly beatable team, I’ve mostly been farming retaliations that have overwhelmingly just been boosted pair variations.

GrimSkald

@GrimSkald said:
I'm up to near 500 and have seen two - I expect that I'll see nothing but the team above 800 or so, particularly since Chasm's web tiles help Spider-man's stun, and Chasm tanks everything for Spider-man so those AP pools don't get drained.

Been running them myself. I'm pretty sure the only time my opponent has gotten a power of any kind off is when I wasn't. Maybe once or twice?

Oh, check that, two hulk/chasm and at least one she-hulk/chasm, which is definitely the worse team.

Honestly, it boggles my mind that the worst resurrection character out there has a limit on how many times she can resurrect. Not only that, but she only returns at the end of the turn, and her powers are tinykitty.

Sekilicious

Well, at the time of Shulk’s release, she was the only one the developers could limit without it being considered a nerf. But yeah, the revive meta would be pretty different if iHulk could only be revived 3 times.

KGB

@GrimSkald said:
Honestly, it boggles my mind that the worst resurrection character out there has a limit on how many times she can resurrect. Not only that, but she only returns at the end of the turn, and her powers are tinykitty.

As a 4* player I love her for pick 3 PvE in CL10. Her/Polaris/BrB can go Winfinite pretty fast thanks to her Green. I can beat most of the CL10 challenge nodes too all the way to 650 if I boost Blue/Green to get the engine running faster since she can revive up to 3 times.

KGB

StanleyBurrell

I see them from the moment I start until I’ve had enough, it’s beyond lame.

Bad

So the first slice for my MMR on this off season pvp has ended. Results are like this:
Pvp starting sunday: 850 points for t50
Starting~ tuesday: 750 points for t50
Starting~wednesday: 630 points for t50.
On a usual off season weekend (before the chahulk meta), depending on rewards 1200 and x points would always be t50, perhaps 1350 would be t25.
And in all these pvps ~550 points a guaranteed t100 (before chahulk a guaranteed t200).
Obviously (and no one should deny) the side effects of these leaderboards aren't benefitial for the game.

HoundofShadow

Seeing how you don't seem to be pleased with Chasm not getting nerfed, are you going to quit pvps until Chasm is nerfed or are you going to play 10 minutes mirror matches for the rest of the season? The next 5* releases on Dec 17, and you'll probably get to champ the new 5* somewhere in mid-Jan 2023, provided that this upcoming 5* counters Chasm or the revival meta.

Bad

You are quite assuming a good amount of things here.
First, I have a 465 chasm and I don't want him to be nerfed, although I almost never play him because I think he's not interesting.
Second, if chasm gets a hard counter it will be because he deserves it (and ideally players concercing about the game should indicate this situation asap).
Third, I'm not doing 10 minutes battles(if chasm isn't boosted).
My experience and skill fighting chahulk teams goes roughly like this:
First 20 matches: it was challenging.
Seconds 20 matches more: it was fun.
Thirds 20 matches more: at least it was points worthy.
Fourths 100 matches more: it doesn't worths more than 45 points, it's boring and slow.

And finally, imo this game wasn't developed for having to counter a single team.
Now there are godboost weekly, and 110 levels, a theorically maxed character, until now made a difference. Not for the chahulk team.
Historically when there has been a similar situation like this one, something has been done, and exactly that's what I want.

HoundofShadow

I wonder what hard counter and soft counter mean in MPQ. I actually googled these two definitions, and looking at the replies from various game forums, it doesn't seem like there is a widely agreed consensus on what these two mean.

Chasm/iHulk is a revive meta. Silver Surfer kills the revive meta and he's immune to stun. If you throw Electro or Wanda together, Wouldn't they make this a hard counter team? Stun team incapitates Chasm and iHulk, rendering them helpless, wouldn't they be considered hard counter team?

ThaRoadWarrior

Chasm/iHulk is more than a revive meta, it's also an AP denial meta and a start of battle passive denial meta. Silver Surfer's powers cost too much to get fired during a match, hard stop. He is not a counter to Chasm specifically, but in fact Chasm is a hard counter to any character that needs more than 5AP to fire a power and/or who derives their own value from a start-of-battle passive. He works fine against hulk on any other team. I would say that if ALL chasm was was a revive meta you'd have LOADS of options to deal with him, there are many very good AOE powers at the 5* tier. But none of them are cheap enough to fire off, and most of them live on the top color.

HoundofShadow

And to add on, do people want:

1) a single character or
2) a pick-2

who can counter everything

1) Chasm can do? Or
2) Chasm/iHulk can do?

I mean, it has been proven that Chasm is useless without iHulk. IHulk has been countered to death by Wanda/Electro.

Chasm can
1) Create character tile, called the Abyss tile, which can't be targeted by power that removes special tiles
2) Heal based on number of web tiles
3) Revives if and only if there are 3 or 4 Abyss tiles
4) reduce 2-3 front enemy aps in order of
Strongest colour to weakest colour, whichever colour has at least 1 ap in it.
5) Increased match damage based on certain formula
6) deals extra damage but also deals damage to himself.
7) give opponent free matches when he's downed

If you're aware of how Chasm choose to reduce aps or how he prioritises colours to destroy, and when his ap reduction occurs, you'll be able to fire power that cost more than 5aps.

If a single character can hard counter almost everything that Chasm is doing, wouldn't he be broken?

1) Target and destroy any tile
2) high damage permanent damage or cheap ability that prevents healing
3) prevents revive
4) gain at least 3 ap in strongest colour passively every turn
5) reduce match damage passively
6) reduce passive damage