Upcoming Character Rebalances: 3* Doctor Octopus, 4* Dazzler, 5* Magneto

IceIX

End of the month, time for some more character rebalances! This month we've got an old favorite in 3-Star Doctor Octopus, a LONG time fan favorite in 4-Star Dazzler, and rounded out with an unfortunately underpeforming leader of future Mutants in 5-Star Magneto (Age of Apocalypse). These updates are planned to go Live by 3/31, so let's get to the changes!

Doctor Octopus (Otto Octavius)
Manipulation - 11 Blue AP
Swaps 16 pairs of tiles, destroying any swapped Attack/Protect/All SAP tiles and dealing damage for them.

• Updated to always destroy all swapped SAP tiles instead of needing levels to gain that ability.
• Increased damage per destroyed tile by ~20%.

This ability is decent for what it does, with some good board shake from the 32 tile swap, then some good damage from the swaps themselves. However, it was really only useful at level 5, making for pretty static builds for the ol' Doctor. It's still a bit expensive, but not overly so in 3-Star land.

Insult to Injury - Black PASSIVE
Creates 1/2 Black Attack tiles when the team matches enemy SAP tiles.

• Updated to create tiles when the team matches or destroys enemy SAP tiles.
• Increased the power of the Attack tiles by ~60%

This ability was super niche as it was, and the Attack tiles it created were very subpar. Fellow Doctor, Doom, is going around creating 6 190 Attack tiles every cast while Octopus does 2 139s in very specific situations. This change increases the usefulness by allowing for destruction, and making it REALLY dangerous to be using SAP tiles against him by having him create strong Attack tiles on match or destruction.

Armed and Dangerous - 12 Green AP
Previous: 12 AP Deals enemy team damage, Stuns a random enemy for 1/2 turns, Empowers a random SAP, steals 1/2 Green AP.
New: 10 AP Select 2 basic Black, Blue, Green, or Yellow tiles. For each Black, steal 1/2/3 Green AP. For each Blue, stun a random enemy for 1/2/3 turns. For each Green, deal enemy team damage. For each Yellow, Empower random SAP.

• Now steals 1/2/3 AP depending on level, up from 1/2.
• Now stuns enemies for 1/2/3 turns depending on levels, up from 1/2.
• Increased Empower by about 120%
• Kept the enemy team damage roughly the same, despite the AP reduction.

Wholesale update. Before it did a little bit of everything for a large AP cost. Now it's a choose your own power. You can double stun, steal a ton of Green AP, deal decent enemy team damage, or do some SAP Empowering, all at your decision.

Dazzler (Classic)
Survivor - Black PASSIVE
When taking a threshold of damage, for each 2 friendly SAPs, remove 1/2 enemy SAPs and stun the enemy for 1 turn.

• Updated the threshold to always be at 5% health instead of a decreasing amount topping out at about 12% health. This makes it proc more often in general.
• Added: Empower 4 friendly SAPs by 10-20%

This ability is fairly niche in what it does, but was already decently powerful when you could get it to go off in that situation. Problem is, it usually took a pretty strong hit, and only really benefitted board control and didn't really do much to help win the match. By adding Empowering of friendly SAPs, it now does this more directly.

Dance Floor Queen - 10 Red AP
Create 3/4/5 Strike tiles plus 1/2/3 more Strike tiles for each 3 extra Red AP on cast.

• Reduced AP cost to 7.
• Updated so that it always creates 3 bonus Strike tiles per 3 extra Red AP.
• Kept created Attack tile strength the same.

With the old cost, it was difficult to get any of the bonus Strike tiles out, and the Strike tiles created were slightly weak for the AP cost anyway. With the lowered AP cost, the Strike tiles are now equivalently more powerful per AP, as well as providing a much better chance of having some extra AP to really pump out more Strikes.

Sounds of Light and Fury - 7 Green AP
Deals enemy team damage plus extra damage for each friendly SAP.

• Increased base damage by 100%.
• Increased bonus damage per friendly SAP by ~20%.

The ability was already decent enough for the cost, but just lacked punch. Combined with her stronger ability to put out Strikes, this ability is now not only a much more useful base enemy team nuke, but can quickly also start to gather a lot of bonus damage for a one two punch.

Magneto (Age of Apocalypse)
Overall: Update health and match damage to modern generation 5-Stars

• ~20% health increase (Equivalent to Kamala Khan)
• ~15% match damage increase (Equivalent to Kamala Khan)

Polar Coordination - 10 Blue AP
Previous: 10 AP - Convert Green tiles to Yellow and go Airborne. For every 3 Yellow AP when landing, deal a hit of damage (up to 8)
New: 7 AP - Select a pair of colors (Yellow/Black, Green/Purple, Red/Blue). Destroy all tiles in that color, gaining 1 AP in that color for every tile destroyed in that color over 12/11/10/9/8.

Complete rework. The old ability was expensive, did some very minor board manipulation, then did relatively low damage after taking Magneto out of the fight for multiple turns. Plenty of abilities do all these parts better without any of those downsides. Now the ability can still deal good damage (destroy Red/Blue and get the damage from Magneto's strong tile strengths in those colors), or have good selective board control. Plus, depending on the color depth, you can also get a bunch of bonus AP in selected colors along with the stuff that happens with board shake in general.

Eternal Induction - 6 Yellow AP
Previous: Convert 2/3/4 SAP tiles of a chosen color to Protect tiles. If they were friendly, Empower instead. PASSIVE: Protect tiles are 28-48% stronger for each X-Men on the team.
New: Create 3-6 Strength 80-120 Strike and Protect tiles, prioritizing whichever have less, then evenly afterward. PASSIVE: Protect tiles are 20-30% stronger for each X-Men on the team. Strike tiles are 20-30% stronger for each Brotherhood on the team.

Nearly complete rework. Before, this would kind of randomly either convert a few enemy SAPs or Empower a couple friendly tiles, but you'd often either not have enough tiles of a color to use successfully, or hoping to the RNG gods that the right ones were chosen. As a result, using this ability was mostly a roll of the dice. Now with the updates, it creates a number of fairly powerful Protect and Strike tiles, and adds a buff to Strikes for affiliated Brotherhood members. Which, to be fair, isn't plentiful in 5-Star land. For now.

Magnetic Inhibitor - 9 Red AP
Previous: 9 AP - Create 2 Strike tiles. Create 2 2-turn Purple Repeaters that convert 1 enemy SAP to a friendly Strike and deal damage.
New: 6 AP - Go Airborne for 2-4 turns. While Airborne, whenever an enemy creates a destructible non-basic tile, Magneto destroys it, dealing 100-250% match damage for that tile, up to 3 times per turn.

Complete rework again. The old ability was expensive, then slow for the conversion of enemy SAPs. Which meant that if you wanted to deal with them, you were better off using Eternal Induction. Except that was random, so... As well, the Strike tiles created by this didn't get more powerful on ability levels, which made it rough to decide to put 5 points into it. As a result, Magnetic Inhibitor was by FAR the most common 3 point ability.

As it stands now, it's completely different. Reminiscent of Thanos (Mad Titan)'s Purple, This essentially locks down the board from the creation of any new special tiles while it's active. Thanos would prevent their creation, while Magneto allows it, but then blows it up. However, Thanos is on the battlefield with increased match damage while Magneto is out flying around, so there's a downside. Still, being able to blow up any new SAP, Web, Abyss, etc. as they get created for a few turns can be super powerful and well worth losing the use of one of your team members for a bit.

BlackBoltRocks

Interesting changes to Magneto; looking forward to trying him out.

His Blue is now an variant of Onslaught's Blue. Plenty of opportunities for cascades, and you can remove Yellow+Black tiles for Shang Chi.

His Yellow is effectively an instant version of Wong's Yellow.
...yea that's it. Will make for an irritating defensive trio with Kitty and Polaris.

Red...at first glance it looks good against characters like Polaris, maybe Chasm? Although it's a double-edged sword against Beta Ray Bill. I just wish it did something guaranteed while Magneto is airborne, such as if Magneto is airborne at the start of the turn, deal damage to a random enemy. Ikaris is a great example of how to build a kit centring around the airborne mechanic. And of course I just need to bring Archangel along to shut it down.

EDIT now that I think about it. How will his Red interact with Chasm's Abyss tiles? Let's say Mags is airborne, and Chasm creates 2 Abyss tiles. Mags will proceed to destroy those 2 Abyss tiles, thus creating 4 Web tiles. Mags then destroys those 4 Web tiles. Is that what will happen? Because if so, this greatly restricts Chasm's ability to heal and revive. You'll want Mags to stay Airborne as long as possible (which likely means Red at 5 covers). And if the opponent brings Archangel along solely to prevent Mags staying airborne, that makes it easier to take out Chasm in general, because the opponent will have to sacrifice either iHulk or She-Hulk (or both in pick-2). Okay maybe this ability isn't bad; a niche use, but a very useful niche.

Overall it looks a solid buff, and you can feasibly use any of the 5-5-3 builds, although Blue will probably be the one to put at 5 for an increased chance at AP generation.

Side note: Magneto's match damage was already equivalent to Kamala Khan's (both 922/820/718 at lv450). So...his match damage is staying the same? Not that it needed a buff though, it's already high enough.

Daredevil217

I’m super glad that magneto is getting a rework!

I just finished up my character, rankings, and in it, I have a list of characters that I want to see reworked. Magneto was definitely on it!

I need to see him in practice, but preliminarily, blue seems like an amazing board control power. Being able to remove yellow and black for Shang Chi for instance, or taking out all the green tiles when facing hulk, this is going to be his star power and have a lot of utility.

Yellow seems kind of boring. He just creates special tiles.

Red is tough, because I hate powers that don’t do anything, unless you are facing a certain enemy type. (like Gargantos black). Feels like yet another Chas counter attempt (is this like number 10?). It will be interesting to see in practice. I’m curious, do we get the AP for the destroyed tIles?

Iridious

I wonder if that red applies to charged tiles too, could slow MThor/Riri teams a bit, especially if you see they have the AP to start firing some of their powers next turn.

But like BlackBoltRocks said, I'm sure most of us are interested to see how that plays out against Chasm and if it can neuter him even for just a few turns.

Definitely an interesting buff!

Kolence

How is this going to work exactly against BRB? Seems like a potential infinite loop between the two passives.
From the comment in the announcement, it sounds like Magneto is destroying each and every special (or non basic, whichever) tile being made, so it should somewhat counter M'Thor as well?
Sounds pretty great to me.

Dazzler getting even better warms my heart as well.

Daredevil217

I think 3/5/5 is my go-to unless I'm not facing a special tile spam, then 5/5/3.

Reason being, it's just a 2 AP difference and likely in a color I'm not chasing, since I'm not likely to wipe the board of a color or colors I am after.

If he collects the AP for the destroyed tiles he could get out of hand quick. I don't think he will deter Chasm from showing up in every queue because it's an active power. Even on his third strongest color, human Hulkgasm players should be able to kill Mags easy. He doesn't really have any strong nukes, he's not stun proof, no multi-tap, etc.

DyingLegend

I like the changes. This should hopefully make him viable

KGB

Mag's Blue makes him another viable 3rd for BRB/Polaris since he destroys 2 entire colors when using his Blue. That assumes it destroys SAP tiles which it seems it does from the description.

I do wonder what happens if he faces off against his Daughter (Polaris) and BRB when his Red is cast. As mentioned above it seems like an infinite loop happens where she puts them down, he destroys them and rinse and repeat until she's dead.

His Red will be a lot of fun against goons who drop crazy amounts of CD's (looking at you Maggia Don) or special tiles (looking at you Ultron Sentries).

3* Doc appears in a lot of PvE nodes. This makes him more annoying to face. It's interesting that so many 3* who appear in a lot of PvE nodes are getting updates. Almost suspicious

KGB

Kaidrin1979

Red works also against Abyss-tiles. Realy nice

skittledaddy

Kaidrin1979 said:
Red works also against Abyss-tiles. Realy nice

Mags' Red and Blue should both impact abyss/web tiles.

BoyWonder1914

I've been away a while - if these rebalances truly are a regular monthly thing, then that is just objectively awesome. Even if Wasp is still meh, I'm glad that there's someone who appears to be looking at these things regularly, and there was still an ATTEMPT. Keep it up!

Bad

As kingping rebalance, this takes a character from zero and makes something for him, so of course is positive.
After saying that, I don't understand why a near omega class mutant still doesn't have a good nuke.
Now he can have selective board shake and AP gain. This is interesting and useful.
And of course the chasm counter part (finally I got why you don't want to nerf him: for to release counters and rebalance counters who will see guaranteed play. Try this for the next one: this character at the start of battle gets immunity to stun and AOE for 1 turn).
The way I expect his ability to work is destroying abyss tiles created by chasm and so creating webs. So chasm won't have abyss tiles for 2-4 turns but he will have a web sea: useless counter.
Now that you devs know it you can ignore this comment and magneto will be another failed counter. Thanks.

entrailbucket

Happy to see a full rework -- he was just awful before.

Red is interesting but I wonder how it'll actually work. Most special tiles get created on the enemy's turn, so if Magneto immediately destroys them, the enemy will get the benefits of any cascades. I'm not sure you'll want to bring this against characters who spam a lot of specials.

HoundofShadow

I can't believe I got it right: Mehneto reworked to target non-basic tiles. However, they added in one more adjective: destructible. It will definitely target Abyss tiles, but not web tiles because they don't destroy themselves.

No Abyss tile = low to zero ap reduction. Throw in Kang and you should take him down with ease. +3 red ap at the start of the game if you want to speed things up. Second turn Mehneto goes airborne and destroys Abyss tiles.

Kolence

I understood "destructible" are any tiles that can be destroyed (even those that cannot be matched, like BB's inspire yellow). Only boss Apocalypse horsemen tiles or the like (don't think there are any other currently?) would be indestructible. So, anything that can be destroyed by powers that don't specify they only work on basic or some types of special tiles, or by line clear from a match-4.

MirrorKnight

Excellent updates! Keep up the good work Team!

HoundofShadow

The answer is right at the bottom of the thread :

"Still, being able to blow up any new SAP, Web, Abyss, etc. as they get created for a few turns can be super powerful and well worth losing the use of one of your team members for a bit."

Adding the word destructible seems redundant since only Four Horsemen's tiles can't be destroyed, unless the next 5* or future releases will create non-destructible tiles. Is that a subtle hint for future new tile type or effect: non-destructible?

Once Mehneto come back from airborne, fire his blue to destroy colours with remaining Abyss tiles. Chasm is history with Mehneto/Kang.

On a non-Abyss note, he could be crazy with Sersi/Storm/Onslaught/Emma with his blue. I think he's a potential winfinite candidate.

MirrorKnight

@HoundofShadow said:
Adding the word destructible seems redundant since only Four Horsemen's tiles can't be destroyed, unless the next 5* or future releases will create non-destructible tiles. Is that a subtle hint for future new tile type or effect: non-destructible?

Aren't SS's Singularity and 5trange's Eye tile both indestructible?

HoundofShadow

They are destructible: by match-4 or greater or by abilities that target random or a block of selected tiles. For example, Clea and Rogue can target those tiles.

entrailbucket

We don't currently have a definition of "non-destructible" so nobody knows. I was assuming that it can't kill singularity, swarm or eye tiles. We won't know what it actually does until someone tests it, the description is too vague.

KGB

Maybe they mean fortified tiles aren't destructible (at least not directly) so if your SAP is fortified it won't be destroyed by him. It would make fortified tile makers extra useful.

KGB