The ChaHulk meta

GrimSkald

@ThaRoadWarrior said:
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.

This summarizes the issue with Chasm pretty well. The issue is not that he's unbeatable - obviously he's not, but the issue is that Chasm is an effective counter to any team that requires AP to fire their effective powers, which is 90% of them. When I switch to Chasm in my PVP climb, in general the AI gets one or two powers off at most. Players will do better, but you're still never going to fire a power more than 6 or 7 AP at the right time unless the stars align or you do massive boardshake every turn and get reasonably lucky.

iHulk is there to make the timing a pain in the tinykitty. With iHulk you need to fire a power at just the right time to down Chasm when he has few void tiles out, or else an AoE that takes out both characters. Now see Chasm's AP drain above.

I would say that Chasm's AP drain mechanic is what breaks him in the first place and makes him overpowered. It's too big, it basically cancels out normal match AP completely, which is a significant portion of your AP gain. The "revive" meta makes him even worse, and allows you to take on pretty much any team with passive damage.

It's a bit weird, I was kind of disappointed when I saw that we're not getting any 4* PVPs coming up - despite the fact that there are plenty of excuses - rebalances, movie tie-ins, etc. But then I tought, "Hey, it doesn't really matter, you won't actually fire their powers anyway."

I'm not one to call for a nerf, since the 5* tier came into being I've only ever thought Gambit and Bishop really needed a nerf (4* Captain America was not super bad to get around, but I'll say he probably needed one too.) People gripe about Colossus/SW, Okoye/iHulk, even Panther/Thanos, but I never really agreed with them. Chasm needs a nerf - he makes it really hard to use active powers, which is the whole point of playing the game.

Sekilicious

You guys need to run Chasm with mThor and MEHulk. If you focus on matching black every round you are swimming in all other ap, since the other two just passively collect it. I wish hulk had a green outlet but whatever. In pick-2, I target Chasm whenever paired with anyone but iHulk using Chasm and mThor. Chasm is basically immortal in mirror matches, but I can bring a MBW stun and/or mThor nukes if the web tiles get too ridiculous. I skip iHulk because there are enough other opponents available until I start shield hopping at 9xx, and I do not have a counter to the AoE damage yet.

ThaRoadWarrior

It's not just that he destroys your AP, it's that void tiles are worth 0 ap when you match them, and they proliferate real quick against the high level chasms I see, so after a few turns basic match 3 moves are worth 0ap sometimes, and matching his void tiles means more webs, which in turn means a basic match 3 can return more health to Chasm than you debit.

Things you can do in a counter character that won't entail a chasm nerf: passive charge tiles like bolt and Jane - they are worth 3x ap, so they can help you on a dry board where there aren't cascade or match-4 options, and they are something that can be used against you so it's not entirely 1 sided

Penalize enemies for regaining health, passively or attached to a tile that can be targeted

Mocking-bird style "fire a friendly power for free when X happens" type power that isn't tied to banked up AP, unless that AP is team up

retaliate when stunned like 5* widow or 5* Panther, except do it when you are stunned and make it actually matter (retaliatory stun, airborne toss, BIG damage, permanent health reduction, something that will work, tuned to not be OP)

I'd be fine with a pick-2 solution, because I have everybody champed, but it's important to remember Chasm is affecting all levels of play, so a multi-part 5* only solution might take a 4* player 4 years to cover. So if they are seeing partially covered Chasms, this counter needs to be something that will work similarly partially covered for them.

ThaRoadWarrior

@Sekilicious said:
You guys need to run Chasm with mThor and MEHulk. If you focus on matching black every round you are swimming in all other ap, since the other two just passively collect it. I wish hulk had a green outlet but whatever. In pick-2, I target Chasm whenever paired with anyone but iHulk using Chasm and mThor. Chasm is basically immortal in mirror matches, but I can bring a MBW stun and/or mThor nukes if the web tiles get too ridiculous. I skip iHulk because there are enough other opponents available until I start shield hopping at 9xx, and I do not have a counter to the AoE damage yet.

I don't think any of us are having issues in Pick-3, and all the proposed "workable" pick-2 teams I've seen in here and tried myself are at best skin of your teeth wins when I do it.

Gladiator Thor at half health + somebody with a strong red/green/yellow was actually able to gather AP faster than Chasm could deplete it. he is, of course, super vulnerable to iHulk though, so you have to manage the green that's in play pretty aggressively for a few turns or you'll lose him.

Kolence

Let's say you (a player) are fighting a team with Chasm, and for whatever reason, you wish to use a non-mirror-match team. Chasm will drain 3 AP from you each turn. You can only count on making 3 AP in a turn with certainty, unless you have a passive way of cascading or generating AP from thin air (like Thor or Gambit, respectively, for instance). The rest is luck. There's also the option to start with boosts, and that can allow you to fire 1 or 2 cheap-ish abilities early on, but it won't last long.
It's an uphill battle, and it is no wonder more and more people are getting tired of it.

I'd like a reliable counter, though I wouldn't mind toning down a little bit Chasm's abilities. But then, which part? Is he making abyss tiles too quickly? Those also reduce overall AP generation from matches. Is he making too many web tiles? Is the combination of the two mechanics eating up basic tiles and choking the board? Can these even be slowed down without making Chasm on his own much too slow?

As far as a counter play goes, there's stuns left too. But those can be unfun in their own way, if heavily used.

In the end, I'd like to offer an example of possible soft counter abilities, hypothetically slapped onto say Black Suit Spidey. In my mind, something like that should work as a counter for Chasm (paired with Hulk, possibly).

Spider-Man (Back in Business)

reorder purple strongest?

Taek-web-do
POWER COST 6
Spider-Man unleashes a vicious flurry of precision kicks and acrobatic flips, striking his enemy's weakest points. He converts up to 5 basic tiles of a chosen color to Web tiles. Then, if he is invisible, he deals 10672 damage to the target. Otherwise, he stuns the target for 1 turn and deals 5429 damage.
(PASSIVE) During his turn, if there is a color which has at least 2 Web tiles but no basic tiles left, Spider-Man turns all the tiles of that color to basic tiles, adds a turn of stun to a random enemy for every 2 Web tiles removed, and gains 1 Green AP for each other tile so removed.

Automotive Artillery
POWER COST 14
Spotting his target in the distance, Spider-Man grabs a nearby parked car and hurls a 2 ton fastball at his opponent. Deals 39183 damage to the target enemy, 1gnoring the effects of any Protect tiles, and stuns a random enemy for 4 turns.
(PASSIVE) Whenever Spider-Man takes damage while invisible, he makes 2 Web tiles on the attacker's strongest color. When a Web tile is matched by the enemy, he makes a strength 345 Protect tile.

Shadowy Acrobatics - NO CHANGE
POWER COST 0
(PASSIVE) Peter darts through the shadows, using his foe's cofusion to disappear completely. Enemy Strike tiles add 100% less damage (to a minimum of 1). While at least one enemy is Stunned, Spider-Man is Invisible.

HoundofShadow

I actually find that Chasm brings the puzzle back to MPQ. He is a real puzzle compared to past meta.

Anyway, it seems like Riri/Dr Thor kind of fit your criteria. They destroy Chasm and web tiles via Dr Thor's passive, stun the entire enemy team and based on what others have experienced, create stun lock, create charged tiles, have cheap powers to fire regularly. Stun itself is almost similar to blanking out their abilities. AoE Stunlock is like a power up Bishop, I suppose.

Anyway, it's going to be another 20-30 days before Riri is in. And looking at the boost list until mid December, it should be easy to deal with Chasm/iHulk. Adam Warlock has crazy match damage and passive AoE. Knull deals permanent single and AoE damage. For Week 2, SMPP is going to be happy AoE stun them for 2 turns or SC and Carbage would destroy them with ease.

ThaRoadWarrior

I'll let you know when Riri actually shows up in tokens, and I have a better than 1/1/1 version to use. Currently she is not good enough paired with my 453 jane.

To get back to your hard/soft counter distinction:

A hard counter is one that does something specifically in opposition to a particular type of power or opponent, and sometimes only that type of power or opponent. Wanda is an elegant hard-counter to iHulk because she has a weakness in the form of single target direct damage, but she neutralizes his passive AOE passively and then sends it back in his face. this power is good against the rest of the game, but not over powered. Morbius is a hard counter to BRB/Polaris because he removes rather than destroys enemy SAP tiles, but that is a single-purpose power so it's a bit less elegant.

A soft counter example would be an ability that happens to work, but not what I would call Super Effective. Maybe it tries to counter indirectly - Onslaught is a soft counter to Okoye because he can starve the board of team up, but he isn't a hard counter because he doesn't undercut Wakanda Forever itself by targeting the TU pool of ap or negating % bonus damage. Main Event Hulk's Grand Entrance was probably a soft counter to 4* Rocket/Kitty - it didn't directly target strikes, but it could reasonably reliably create enough board chaos to get rid of a few right at the start of battle.

Chasm is a hard counter to almost every enemy type.

HoundofShadow

Is Gamora's yellow repeater or Ultron's red power considered hard counter against Wanda's repeater or Colossus's passive match damage reduction, or any other damage reducing ability?

Is permanent damage considered hard counter against revive or healing meta?

Sekilicious

@ThaRoadWarrior said:

@Sekilicious said:
You guys need to run Chasm with mThor and MEHulk. If you focus on matching black every round you are swimming in all other ap, since the other two just passively collect it. I wish hulk had a green outlet but whatever. In pick-2, I target Chasm whenever paired with anyone but iHulk using Chasm and mThor. Chasm is basically immortal in mirror matches, but I can bring a MBW stun and/or mThor nukes if the web tiles get too ridiculous. I skip iHulk because there are enough other opponents available until I start shield hopping at 9xx, and I do not have a counter to the AoE damage yet.

I don't think any of us are having issues in Pick-3, and all the proposed "workable" pick-2 teams I've seen in here and tried myself are at best skin of your teeth wins when I do it.

Gladiator Thor at half health + somebody with a strong red/green/yellow was actually able to gather AP faster than Chasm could deplete it. he is, of course, super vulnerable to iHulk though, so you have to manage the green that's in play pretty aggressively for a few turns or you'll lose him.

I offered a good Pick-2 as well for non-iHulk matches. Other have noted Colossus and Wanda work great vs the immortal bros. Colossus and Wanda were both designed to deal with iHulk. Chasm is simpering weakling once he stops tanking, just as he is when last standing. In other news, the community on Line has figured out the mirror match. I wish I could test mThor/Electra and Iceman/Electro against them, but I was on a break for Electra and firmly in 4* land for Electro. Only 30 more until Riri is in LL though I might wait for Arcade to rotate out.

One last comment not directed at anyone before I switch off for the day. The P in MPQ has stood for passive since Okoye and Polaris were released. Most of the fastest teams never have to fire powers. Gritty is the prime example. ihulkoye is another. Hulkgasm is only the latest.

ThaRoadWarrior

How does Iceman/Electro work? I don't see any synergy or self acceleration there.

@HoundofShadow said:
Is Gamora's yellow repeater or Ultron's red power considered hard counter against Wanda's repeater or Colossus's passive match damage reduction, or any other damage reducing ability?

Is permanent damage considered hard counter against revive or healing meta?

conceptually yes, those are intended as hard counters, but in practice they are undertuned or too expensive to be effective counters. Those fall right in the same bucket as Silver Surfer's new Black Hole power.

Permanent Damage is conceptually a hard counter, but nobody can do it hard enough to make it a useful tool without another character in play who needs AP to boost it. If Knull's strikes were any good, or came out way faster, he'd be pretty good probably. But they are trivial damage.

HoundofShadow

Is 7 aps considered expensive?
3-5 aps are considered cheap. I'm not sure about 6 and 8 aps. 9 aps and above are considered expensive.

Gargantos can do the hardest permanent damage in the game with his black but it's for pick-3. I think I did ~40-50k permanent damage against Chasm. His cd can do 4.7k at level 450. His permanent match damage while invisible might be bugged(?).

Sekilicious

@ThaRoadWarrior said:
How does Iceman/Electro work? I don't see any synergy or self acceleration there..

It was actually mThor and Iceman or Electro. I just got lazy writing it out.

Glockoma

I wish Surfer had a passive component to his active Black Hole that would proc a Black Hole each time an enemy revived. This allow for some competition from iHulk/Chasm teams while still giving a hard counter to the current meta through some active play.

ThaRoadWarrior

@HoundofShadow said:
Is 7 aps considered expensive?
3-5 aps are considered cheap. I'm not sure about 6 and 8 aps. 9 aps and above are considered expensive.

Gargantos can do the hardest permanent damage in the game with his black but it's for pick-3. I think I did ~40-50k permanent damage against Chasm. His cd can do 4.7k at level 450. His permanent match damage while invisible might be bugged(?).

Gargantos' black is unfortunately useless against Chasm, whose tiles are un-owned and won't count towards it's conditions to fire. I believe that Knull is closest to having a useful perma-damage capability, but his strikes are weaksauce. He puts them out way too slowly for Kitty to buff them. Old Man Daken probably has the best all purpose perma-damage on his green, but 9ap is a tall ask against a chasm team, even on his 3rd color.

Sekilicious

Mod On: I removed some comments as off topic since the discussion was escalating. Please keep this civil and refrain from personal attacks.

HoundofShadow

WeFor Pick-3, I used Gargantos/Eddie Brock/Carbage. That's how I dealt that much permanent damage. I might need to test it out again.

For buff to permanent damage, it's either strike tiles or power damage increment.
Ultron is good with Knull because he speeds up the strike tiles created, and while he can't buff tiles as high as Kitty, he needs only 1 tiles for his passive to kick in. Unfortunately, they don't have defensive ability in pick-2 unless Deathlok or other defensive character is the essential. For ally power damage buff, we have more choices now: Okoye, Apocalypse, Emma, Wanda.

Other way to deal with abilities is to 1) disable them or 2) reduce their power level
Oscorp Spidey and 4* Emma can disable entire targeted enemy's abilities. Wanda and C&D can reduce targeted enemy's power level by 4, while 5* Emma can reduce all enemies' abilities by 3. And I brought this up is because such abilities help a lot after Chasm revives the first time. For example, after you fire Wanda's blue power, Chasm can only convert 1 tiles to Abyss tile, reduce only 1 ap, requires 5 Abyss tile to revive and reduces his match damage increment to between 75-150%. This is not theory because I it works every time.

ThaRoadWarrior

Emma and Wanda require you to have a bank of AP saved up, their buffs are not going to work against Chasm very well.

HoundofShadow

That's why I emphasised that if you really understand how Chasm's black power deducts ap, you'll be able to collect 9 blue/purple aps without much trouble, depending on your team composition. There's an inherent weakness in how Chasm deducts ap, and if you can figure it out logically, you'll be able to work around it.

ThaRoadWarrior

Emma requires her top color to be in the bank, I think she is unsuitable. If you have somebody that tanks something else over Wanda’s purple and you choose a color that isn’t anyone’s top, your chances are better, but not what I’d say are reliable.

Bad

Please stop suggesting 4* characters for countering chasm.
On my MMR if I use a 4* character on pvp, at the end of battle I've had lost more points that those that I've earned.
SW with her hex is simply ridiculous.
I use SW ALWAYS against chasm and by the time I can fire her hex, the board is full with void tiles and when he dies the hex expires so actually it makes no difference, just for to minimize his damage.
Are you suggesting effective things? Or just something for to try to mock us?.
And yes, we understand how chasm black power works, we have him rostered. The colors to lose are 4, black green and the 2 of your characters strongest color.
All that doesn't change that we must play chasm's game and not ours.
I repeat although you can counter chahulk team there is no better team than them.
If you could fight a smart AI and if they could target your characters, no one would win a chahulk team.
And that's the reason because they are everywhere and they are broken.