Character Rebalances - M.O.D.O.K., Nebula, Silver Surfer

Glockoma

Bro, keep up the good work Devs!

mani82

It s a good thing that they buff old characters but SS anti revive might take a long time and other boosted characters that week will be all over us on PVP if we take surfer In

mani82

But two things on the surfer boosted he would find use from now and it also starts off the Rock Paper Scissors as promised good thing from devs

dokiy

I just used SS in a Mindless one node with JThor and, perhaps luckily, got two black holes out and neither got destroyed by JThor. Knocked out two 100K plus mindless ones on back-to-back turns was fun.

Palookaville

Loving the idea of the Surfer rebalance, but I do wonder, how are you supposed to collect the needed 12 black AP when you are fighting Chasm, when he will keep draining your AP?

KGB

Just noticed that if you click through the power levels (1-5) on his Black power, the text at the bottom still talks about damage done

What's more interesting from a game point of view is there is absolutely ZERO difference in the power between 3 and 4 covers (it used to just increase damage when the black hole went away). This is I believe now the first time ever for any power where adding a cover doesn't do a single thing at all. Maybe the fix is that at 4 covers it destroys 5 tiles and at 5 covers destroys 6 tiles per turn.

KGB

skittledaddy

@KGB said:
Just noticed that if you click through the power levels (1-5) on his Black power, the text at the bottom still talks about damage done

What's more interesting from a game point of view is there is absolutely ZERO difference in the power between 3 and 4 covers (it used to just increase damage when the black hole went away). This is I believe now the first time ever for any power where adding a cover doesn't do a single thing at all. Maybe the fix is that at 4 covers it destroys 5 tiles and at 5 covers destroys 6 tiles per turn.

KGB

I, for one, am okay with that, as my Surfer is stuck at 5/5/3.

pezse

I tried SS against a Chasm team. SS created black hole, downed before Chasm. Then black hole reached 0, downed Chasm but he revived.

UNC_Samurai

@IceIX said:

Silver Singularity - Now downs the enemy on expiry, ignoring revival effects
This ability now acts like what it is, a black hole created by the Power Cosmic. There is no escape. No avoidance. No revival (at least until the next comics run). When it goes off, the opponent is just.... gone.

So in what 27 ways do 3* Colossus and 4* Nova break this power now?

Sekilicious

Anyone test SS black as a TU?

Venomous

So something my brother actually pointed out after Modok got his rework. There is a pattern here. First it was Emma and now it is Modok. It's clear that the devs are reworking whatever the 4 star feeder is for the newest 3 star and 5 star.

Basically. Whatever 4 star the newest 3 star feeds will get a rework. It is only 2 currently but I am certain the pattern will continue.

ThaRoadWarrior

What about XFW and Nebula?

atomzed

I tried using new SS against chasm-Ihulk. it worked but I was using him with SW-Colossus. SW was able to create black. Coupled with the charge tiles from SS blue, I could generate enough black ap to cast black hole. I then target black hole on chasm.

SS is probably not a hard counter, but definitely a soft counter for the reviving mechanism.
Thinking about it, it is essentially a 12ap + 3 turns wait for an instant KO. We can use it against future bosses too (maybe) or in difficult CN. Even though it may not be a hard counter to chasm, it is still a good toolbox to have.

The Viceroy Returns

Is it too late to make Silver Surfer immune to Airborne along with Stun?
Seems silly that a character of Silver Surfer's lore can get sent "airborne" - I mean, he flies in space.

The Viceroy Returns

Also, the upgrade descriptions for Surfer's Black power still mention dealing damage on expiring.
Which also means Rank 1 -> Rank 2 and Rank 3 -> Rank 4 have no upgrade at all and should say "no change".

fight4thedream

@atomzed said:
I tried using new SS against chasm-Ihulk. it worked but I was using him with SW-Colossus. SW was able to create black. Coupled with the charge tiles from SS blue, I could generate enough black ap to cast black hole. I then target black hole on chasm.

SS is probably not a hard counter, but definitely a soft counter for the reviving mechanism.
Thinking about it, it is essentially a 12ap + 3 turns wait for an instant KO. We can use it against future bosses too (maybe) or in difficult CN. Even though it may not be a hard counter to chasm, it is still a good toolbox to have.

I think this is a good assessment. I don't consider him a hard counter either. iHulk/Chasm teams will not have much trouble facing teams featuring Silver Surfer, barring a random black AP cascade early in the match. I suppose some players might test the waters with him when he is boosted but I don't know if he will be embraced as a viable counter, at least under the current meta.

Basically, for pick-2 PvP he needs a partner that both mitigates damage and generates black AP. Scarlet Witch is currently the best option but I am not convinced they work well enough together to justify the cost (i.e.: having to spend health packs for both characters after each match against an iHulk/Chasm team and still face a decent amount of risk of wiping). I could be wrong, but I think Apocalypse is the better partner with SW if you are going to go that route.

For pick three, yes adding Colossus addresses the match damage issue but again Apocalypse has the better tool kit, all things being equal.

That is not to say Surfer is useless against iHulk/Chasm. For casual play, I think he is fine. I think it will boil down to how much the player is willing to pay the damage cost to run him.

fight4thedream

@The Viceroy Returns said:
Is it too late to make Silver Surfer immune to Airborne along with Stun?
Seems silly that a character of Silver Surfer's lore can get sent "airborne" - I mean, he flies in space.

I actually wrote an argument regarding this very topic when the airborne ability was first introduced: https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/39407/silver-surfer-and-novas-rocket-man-ability.

Suffice to say, my opinion hasn't changed.

EienRyuu

HA, this is interesting.... xD

I got SS due to the game rewards on day 740..... I believe, I forgot already. And it was actually my very first 5 star character I introduced in my roster. I made a topic here on the forum but in the Roster subforum.
Not to mention it was EXACTLY with his black ability.... xD

As to how I noticed it - I sometime use him in PVE with Polaris and 3* Strange since his support makes Protect tiles. And SS helps with placing more blue tiles at start making more protect ones. And I suddenly saw his health was different. xD

ThaRoadWarrior

The airborne thing is interesting; I always felt it was somehow a letdown that Archangel shut down the airborne status instead of doing cool stuff while airborne - in the comics he has exactly one move: fly around throwing razor blades out of his wings, right? Seems like going airborne to spams stiles is how that would equate to this game. There are just a few characters who use Airborne defensively, and a few who use it offensively, so maybe somebody who can fly should avoid any damage from airborne to be fictionally aligned?

Glockoma

To preface, I like the quick adjustment to the oldest 5*. I think those sort of changes to non-oppositional characters have a higher acceptance rate than those other controversial characters that have received complete overhauls.

To that end, I believe this is where the Devs could explore more liberty. Surfer was always a simple construct: true healing damage stick with an expensive unique power. His true takeaway ability by the community though was his seemingly arbitrary passive of being stun proof.

These were easier times long before the passive meta we know today and even before early terrors that truly required counters (looking at you Gambit + your “counters”).

Now, being stun proof is no longer unique. The one thing that kept his utility in our eyes was usurped by Apoc, a literal powerhouse on release. This can be sourced in Apoc’s release thread and felt by the comments there.

A correlation to SS in 5* tier would be 5* Black Suit Spiderman and any future release that would carry his unique passive (reduction of strikes to minimum of 1). If this occurred, one would notice the same thoughts of replacement and absolute drop in usage of BSSM due to age (and everything that comes with it), as well as the relative lackluster powers.

A similar buff to him in the same vein as Surfer would be a mediocre reception.

For those of us that have played this game effectively since inception have had a feeling of these characters and their usage since release. Even if some of the development team can only ascertain that feel through numbers, they are doing a great job, especially with promises of tweaking said rebalances.

This post is really to advocate for a bit more freedom in these once-unique, now forgotten characters. Specifically with surfer, I would have enjoyed a self-propagation of black (passively ala Gambit style) that could compete with Chasm’s drain.