Character Updates - 4* Iceman (All New X-Men) / 5* Kingpin (Spider-Verse) (Live 1/31)

IceIX

Iceman (All New X-Men)
Whiteout - 12 Green AP -> 8 Green AP
Reduced damage in-line with the new AP cost for roughly the same damage/AP.

This ability is decent as it is, and is often used as a decent nuke if there are enough Blue tiles on the board and the team doesn't have a stronger Green AoE available. However, at 12 AP, it often turns into just a basic finishing ability compared to something that can be used throughout the battle. Updating the AP cost should help make this happen.
Old->New values
Level 1 370/33 -> 247/22 (Max: 722/64 -> 482/43)
Level 2 518/46 -> 346/31 (Max: 1011/90 -> 675/60)
Level 3 666/59 -> 445/40 (Max: 1300/115 -> 868/77)
Level 4 962/86 -> 642/57 (Max: 1877/166 -> 1253/112)
Level 5 1554/139 -> 1037/92 (Max: 3032/269 -> 2024/181)

Build/Punch a Snowman - 6/6 Blue AP
Unchanged. This ability is already pretty close to a permastun, and with another 6 Blue AP can do some great single target damage (especially for a Blue ability). No reason to mess with it.

Cold As Ice - 8 Purple AP
Added an Affiliation based Passive:
(PASSIVE) Reduce damage taken from matches and abilities by 5/8/13/17/25% for all Time Displaced X-Men on the team.

This adds in some decent tanking for not only himself (Iceman is a notorious tank with his self-healing icy body), but also some protection to other Time Displaced All New X-Men (Teen Jean and Angel at this point). It has the knock on that it ALSO affects characters like Cable and Bishop, which we're fine with. Iceman's just there to help.




Kingpin (Spider-Verse)
Health and Match Damage has been updated to better reflect current generation 5-Stars.
14356/57701 -> 20200/81192 Health

Forced Hand - 7 Blue AP
Increased damage to match newer generation 5-Stars. Removed the requirement to have less than 4 AP to deal damage, but instead reduces damage dealt for each AP drained. These changes cumulatively result in about 100% increased damage, or roughly the same damage if it reduces all 4 HP.
New ability reads:
Kingpin makes the enemy an offer they can't refuse. Choose a Friendly Strike, Attack, or Protect tile to give to the enemy team. In return, drain 4 AP in your strongest color from the enemy and deal 4851 damage, minus 693 damage per AP drained. (Max 19497/2787 damage)

• Level 2: 5336/762 damage (Max 21447/3066 damage)
• Level 3: 5851/832 damage (Max 23396/3344 damage)
• Level 4: 6791/970 damage, drains 5 AP (Max 27296/3902 damage)
• Level 5: 8732/1247 damage (Max 35095/5017 damage)

The ability had a strong thematic feel; Kingpin gives with one hand, and takes away with the other if you can't pay the price. But what it turned into in practice was an ability that was only usable super early in a match when the enemy has no AP, or at super niche situations where the enemy just used almost all theirs and you can afford the SAP tile destruction to use it. This keeps the thematic feel, but adds more damage if the target can't pay the piper. After all, you can still work without kneecaps, right?

The Harder They Fall - 11 Black AP -> 8 Black AP
Redesigned to keep the theme but be more generally useful. Now reads as:
Kingpin undercuts an upstart opponent. Destroys up to 8 AP in the opponent’s largest AP pool and increases the power of the Passive by 3/3/4/4/5% (up to 80%) for each AP destroyed.
(PASSIVE) Kingpin laughs at the attacks of his puny opponents. Kingpin’s allies take 30/35/35/40/50% less match damage.

This ability was fine when it came out, but has since been heavily outclassed by other abilities that do everything it does and better. It still doesn't reduce ability damage, so it's not a one stop shop, but it provides a pretty strong buff to the team at the outset, and can get better when used during combat.

Break Their Will - 9 Green AP
Increased the damage and Attack tile strength to bring it in-line with current 5-Stars. Removed the AP requirement for the Attack tile generation. Added a new Affiliation based Passive. New ability reads:
Kingpin loses his composure and launches into a relentless wave of pummels. Creates a 2-turn Fortified Repeater tile that deals 1639 damage and create 3 strength 47 Attack tiles.

(PASSIVE) At the start of the battle, for each Hero on the team, add 1 strength 47 Protect tile. For each Villain on the team, add 1 strength 47 Strike tile. (Max 6588 damage / strength 191 tiles)

• Level 2: 1896 damage / strength 52 tiles (Max 7623 damage / strength 210 tiles)
• Level 3: 2069 damage / strength 62 tiles (Max 8316 damage / strength 251 tiles)
• Level 4: 2414 damage / strength 87 tiles (Max 9702 damage / strength 352 tiles)
• Level 5: 3103 damage / strength 156 tiles (Max 12474 damage / strength 634 tiles)

This ability was another one that had some really cool flavor, but didn't work out well in practice. As a result, it was tough to get any of Kingpin's abilities set up in a way that he'd be truly powerful. This change will make the ability more generally useful (and that Repeater gets scary! Deals 12474 damage at 450 level 5!). It also adds an Affiliation Passive that allows him to make use of whoever he has at hand to create an early game advantage; A very Kingpin thing to do.

Bad

It doesn't spicify damage for Forced hand.
The harder they fall was a cd. I take it's not a cd anymore and lasts forever.

IceIX

@Bad said:
It doesn't spicify damage for Forced hand.
The harder they fall was a cd. I take it's not a cd anymore and lasts forever.

I'll be getting updated damage up Soon(tm). Want to get What's New done first.
And yes, Harder They Fall is now a permanent buff, not a CD.

entrailbucket

I really liked Iceman back when he was pretty new. I guess nobody uses him now, Polaris is way better. This should help, I think.

But Kingpin is the main event! The black power is probably still bad, but it's not as bad. Getting a percentage based passive match damage reduction is better than nothing. It's not as good as Colossus, even if you pump it up with his black power.

Blue is much better just because of his green passive. It's still annoying that you can't cast this if you don't have a tile to give away, but at least you'll always have ammo and it'll always do damage now.

Green was his best power before (it wasn't good but it was the only one even remotely worth casting ever). I wish it did less damage on a 1-turn repeater, and it should probably cost less than 9, but hopefully the numbers are good to make up for that.

Combined with health and match damage, he'll probably be usable when boosted, which seems to be the theme of these.

JHawkInc

3* Angel is also a Time Displaced member of the X-Men!

I like the buffs, bringing older characters in line with newer ones is awesome, doubly so for characters like Iceman who were already good in their day, nice to see that such characters won't get overlooked either.

HoundofShadow

After firing his black power, it increases his match damage reduction to a max of 80%, is that right?

The moment I saw his green passives, the first 5* I thought of was Ultron. In pick-3, Kitty would be the third. At the start of the game, you get three strike/protect tiles. Next, Ultron create either a strike/protect tile. Since there are 5 SAP tiles on her next turn, she'll buff them immediately. Every turn, Ultron and Kitty will be buffing your SAP tiles.

IceIX

@HoundofShadow said:
After firing his black power, it increases his match damage reduction to a max of 80%, is that right?

Yup, that's correct.

IceIX

Updated the post with the new values for all abilities.

Bad

Kingping is the 5* I used as my Champion for developing my roster. Now his rebalance almost feels nostalgic for me (luckily I'm not forced to play him anymore).
Now he will be interesting when godboosted.
And my SC will need to punch twice on many nodes.
But I wish all 5*s were already rebalanced, no matter if they appear on pves.

DAZ0273

I had completely forgotten that I have Kingpin nearly fully covered so he can join the queue for Iso if I ever have any spare. I guess he is in a straight fight with Abigail (not a fan TBH).

HoundofShadow

Changes is live now and things didn't go the way I expected initially. I took Ultron/Kingpin/Kitty into the battle and only two strike tiles were created. Protect tile was not created. Ultron's abilities begin at turn 2, so the buffing will take an extra turn.

I decided to replace Ultron with Kamala and 2 protect tiles and one strike tile were created. Team: Kamala/Kingpin/Kitty.

Then, I used Ultron/Kingpin/Knull and three strike tiles were created.

Lastly, I used Ultron/Kingpin/Kitty again and 2 strikes and 1 protect were created. It seems that potentially, there might be some bug here.

Anyway, this team was taking 1 damage after a couple of turns thanks to double buff. Another typical team could be Brolaris, or Ultron/BRB.

Sekilicious

@DAZ0273 said:
I had completely forgotten that I have Kingpin nearly fully covered so he can join the queue for Iso if I ever have any spare. I guess he is in a straight fight with Abigail (not a fan TBH).

Buffed he might actually beat her out.

DAZ0273

@Sekilicious said:

@DAZ0273 said:
I had completely forgotten that I have Kingpin nearly fully covered so he can join the queue for Iso if I ever have any spare. I guess he is in a straight fight with Abigail (not a fan TBH).

Buffed he might actually beat her out.

You would think that with a space station that fires some sort of energy beam she might be quite dangerous but I think my money is also on the fat bloke in the suit.

Punisher5784

@IceIX
Great to see more rebalances!
Any chance y'all can leave the original 5* Kingpin in PvE.. please lol

Sekilicious

Turns out that energy beam fires strobe effects for her local nightclub. No need to harm the Patrons in the match. They’re paying customers after all.

DAZ0273

@Sekilicious said:
Turns out that energy beam fires strobe effects for her local nightclub. No need to harm the Patrons in the match. They’re paying customers after all.

This is all a lead up to the eventual release of Hypno Hustler. THEN we will see some Disco!

Borstock

So, Bobby basically gets the Sentry and 4*KP buff. He still won't be useful to us, but he'll be more annoying when he shows up in PvE. Swell.

I don't like 5KP's black. Too many powers in this game fire without the need for AP or at a threshold where they will fire before they reach 8. I know you can fire it before that, but you don't want to fire this power 2 and 3 times a match, so you want to maximize it if you can. There are also some nice hitting powers in black at the 5 tier where I'm not sure I want to waste 8 AP just to get my match dmg resistance up to a point I can already reach with Colossus or Emma (when tanking) or by throwing down some protect tiles. Maybe this is trying to be a counter to a niche match-dmg meta with the new Jubilee and Dr. Thor?

5*KP's blue might be a scary jab when boosted, similar to Gargantos, but eh. I guess the green passive helps it.

5*KP's green, when boosted, is going to do massive damage if you can get it out quickly enough. Reminds me a little of buffed-Ronan's 1-shot tile of death. I wonder if the 9 AP will make it too slow, but any faster also might've been ridiculous.

I could be missing something with KP, but both these buffs feel like they only make PvE a little harder.

ThaRoadWarrior

Does his green do damage on fire, or does it still require all those turns to gather green and then 2 turns to repeat?

Tiger_Wong

Kingpin + Colossus = -1 match damage on turn1. I’m not sure the shield comes into play with it or not. If you fire kingpins new black power, a level 472 SC at combo lvl 5 matching a crit with a red tile and a charged red tile showed about 35600 on the match but only about 5060 in actual damage.

usually when 2 characters have % powers they don’t combine. That doesn’t look to be the case here. More testing will be made.

Bad

It's a bit hard to realize inside all those numbers but: now kingping provides heavy special tiles.
Before his green provided small attack tiles easy to give out, now he provides 600 strenght tiles when firing green and on the start of battle which the player might think twice.
When boosted kingping will be a must.

HoundofShadow

@Tiger_Wong The protect tiles helped to reduce the damage to 1. Did you bring two heroes with Kingpin? I used Colossus/Kingpin/Electro against Chasm and I was still taking ~1000 match damage from Chasm.