Upcoming Character Rebalance - Chasm (9/21/23)

UnityGamer

@revskip said:
Seems reasonable. Glad he wasn't ground into dust. Now when is the nerf coming for Shang-Chi and mThor?

Aww, not Shang Chi. I rocked the coliseum with his combo points, vital healing and deadly strikes...

On all seriousness, I feel that a nerf to Shang Chi may be necessary. With the addition of Wong to my collection, Shang Chi's Blue passive River Of Blows powers up his match damage so much that I don't even get a breather to heal my team via Wong's Yellow power Wand Of Watoomb - the match is practically over by the time I get enough yellow AP to use it. This issue can be mitigating by drawing an opponent who has 4-star Juggernaut or The Blob, where their natural defensive tanking abilities allow me the time to see my entire team heal. By doing this, I was able to save and stock my Revive points, even had more than 100 of them in my journeys (not anymore as of this writing). That's the kind of meta you pick up when you put all the pieces together.

The only things that have been able to defeat my Shang Chi were teams which had a dynamic duo of Deathlok-Kang, the third spot usually going to 5-star Majik or 5-star High Evolutionary. I usually lose to those teams a lot.

Bad

According to devs metrics, Mthor is one of the character with more losses in the game.
SC should be really close grabbing Mthor's hand.
So where is the meaning on nerfing characters who usually lose a lot and devs know it?
Perhaps because they are able to snipe a a leader on rankings?
Okay, let's forget that question and let's nerf Mthor and SC because of their potential.
For when okoye's and Ihulk nerf?
If omega red performs well, he must face another nerf.
And we could continue, and continue this funny contest.

Punisher5784

@UnityGamer said:

@revskip said:
Seems reasonable. Glad he wasn't ground into dust. Now when is the nerf coming for Shang-Chi and mThor?

Aww, not Shang Chi. I rocked the coliseum with his combo points, vital healing and deadly strikes...

On all seriousness, I feel that a nerf to Shang Chi may be necessary. With the addition of Wong to my collection, Shang Chi's Blue passive River Of Blows powers up his match damage so much that I don't even get a breather to heal my team via Wong's Yellow power Wand Of Watoomb - the match is practically over by the time I get enough yellow AP to use it. This issue can be mitigating by drawing an opponent who has 4-star Juggernaut or The Blob, where their natural defensive tanking abilities allow me the time to see my entire team heal. By doing this, I was able to save and stock my Revive points, even had more than 100 of them in my journeys (not anymore as of this writing). That's the kind of meta you pick up when you put all the pieces together.

The only things that have been able to defeat my Shang Chi were teams which had a dynamic duo of Deathlok-Kang, the third spot usually going to 5-star Majik or 5-star High Evolutionary. I usually lose to those teams a lot.

The only way Shang can beat you is a bad board. Nerf the AI cascades

dokiy

Enough with the nerf talk. Other than in cases of a bad board, mThor and Shang Chi are an easy hit in PVP. The AI is bad and won't match purple and red, so generally he dies first, and Jane quickly thereafter.

bladewing

Now that Chasm is a eunuch of his former self, my guess is that MThor will now rule the PVP landscape, and people will be calling for her head, much like they did for Chasm.

DrClever

@dokiy said:
Enough with the nerf talk. Other than in cases of a bad board, mThor and Shang Chi are an easy hit in PVP. The AI is bad and won't match purple and red, so generally he dies first, and Jane quickly thereafter.

I'd be interested in knowing what order people choose when facing Shang / MThor - I'd always go for MThor first.

entrailbucket

@bladewing said:
Now that Chasm is a eunuch of his former self, my guess is that MThor will now rule the PVP landscape, and people will be calling for her head, much like they did for Chasm.

And they should -- she shuts down way too many characters (anyone who puts anything on the board is totally useless against her), and she goes infinite way too easily. She's going to be 100% of PvP teams I see, starting next week.

Will she be nerfed? I kind of doubt it, and if so, not for a long time.

I do think it's funny that asking for nerfs is somehow anti-player, as if every player prefers to use (and face) the same 2 overpowered guys every single event, for years.

BriMan2222

@DrClever said:

@dokiy said:
Enough with the nerf talk. Other than in cases of a bad board, mThor and Shang Chi are an easy hit in PVP. The AI is bad and won't match purple and red, so generally he dies first, and Jane quickly thereafter.

I'd be interested in knowing what order people choose when facing Shang / MThor - I'd always go for MThor first.

I usually use collosus against her so I save her for last so she keeps making charged tiles for collosus to take advantage of.

Heartbreaksoup

@entrailbucket said:

@nycjonny said:

@entrailbucket said:
I don't think this is enough, but we waited this long, so I guess it is what it is.

It reads like enough. Every power weakened. Revive threshold higher each time. Match damage down. Ap steal down. Don’t see what more they could do.

Kill the stun. Kill passive AP drain completely -- replace that ability with something else.

I appreciate that they reduced each power by a bit, but I'd have given him a more thorough rework that removed his problematic stuff (rather than reducing it) and added strength in some less problematic area.

I disliked playing with Chasm so much that I sold him and started again without his black power at all. It's not like this is a character I want to use (I don't know who he is and I dislike what he does) but yes, killing the passive AP drain completely would have been what I was looking for in a nerf. This doesn't change anything for me; if I ever somehow acquire a black Chasm cover, I'm just selling it off.

Vhailorx

@entrailbucket said:

@Jacklag said:

@Kolence said:

@revskip said:
Seems reasonable. Glad he wasn't ground into dust. Now when is the nerf coming for Shang-Chi and mThor?

Don't forget Kang!

Do these guys need a nerf? They are all powerful offensively, but any player can defeat an AI controlling these characters.

In general, the consensus around here and in the rest of the community is that characters should never be nerfed because of their performance on offense -- nerfs should only happen because somebody is too good on defense.

I disagree with this (I did a whole thread on it -- who remembers One Punch Guy!?!) but I've accepted that I'm in a tiny minority.

You are. And rightly so, IMO. This game wants us to play several dozen matches a day. Nerfing characters that make that grind go faster is bad for the player experience.

That's not to say that no character should ever be nerfed under any circumstances, but nerfing offense-only characters like SC would be a terrible idea.

entrailbucket

@Vhailorx said:

@entrailbucket said:

@Jacklag said:

@Kolence said:

@revskip said:
Seems reasonable. Glad he wasn't ground into dust. Now when is the nerf coming for Shang-Chi and mThor?

Don't forget Kang!

Do these guys need a nerf? They are all powerful offensively, but any player can defeat an AI controlling these characters.

In general, the consensus around here and in the rest of the community is that characters should never be nerfed because of their performance on offense -- nerfs should only happen because somebody is too good on defense.

I disagree with this (I did a whole thread on it -- who remembers One Punch Guy!?!) but I've accepted that I'm in a tiny minority.

You are. And rightly so, IMO. This game wants us to play several dozen matches a day. Nerfing characters that make that grind go faster is bad for the player experience.

That's not to say that no character should ever be nerfed under any circumstances, but nerfing offense-only characters like SC would be a terrible idea.

I don't find Shang-Chi to be problematic or overpowered, so he's a bad example here. But the idea that an overpowered character is good for all players only works if this is a single-player, noncompetitive game.

Tony_Foot

@DrClever said:

I'd be interested in knowing what order people choose when facing Shang / MThor - I'd always go for MThor first.

I always take Thor first, so sick of her **** out of nowhere getting yellow on mass to fire her attack. I'm also sick of her tile removal. It was part of what made people hate gambit, when he would over write countdowns. Apparently that was anti game mechanic. I would be pleased with an MThor re-work. I lose more games against her **** than other. Also even unboosted I often go against her like I did in apocs boost thinking easy match and end up left bleeding across my whole team

Shang is fine, I can happily leave him until last and it's rare he bothers me. The best designed character in the game, fun to use and pretty much irrelevant on defence. In the boost week he's one of the least problematic in my pick 3 matches and is left until last.

DAZ0273

@DrClever said:

@dokiy said:
Enough with the nerf talk. Other than in cases of a bad board, mThor and Shang Chi are an easy hit in PVP. The AI is bad and won't match purple and red, so generally he dies first, and Jane quickly thereafter.

I'd be interested in knowing what order people choose when facing Shang / MThor - I'd always go for MThor first.

Definitely. Shang might occasionally one shot you if the AI pays attention but Jane is a nuisance from round one.

Bowgentle

AI playing Shang is like a drunk flailing around in the dark.
Definitely take out Jane first.

Bad

Taking someone first doesn't mean a thing.
Fighting chahulk you take first the 3* character in the middle because you can't do another thing.
Fighting Mthor you take out her first because the cascades she can do can benefit the other character she is paired and also gaining AP.
It's like fighting onslaught you take him first because of his cascades.
Or if there is an enemy able to go airborne or invisible you take first out.
Or if there is kamala you take her first because she can gain AP.
Killmonger, etc...

jp1

I don’t even use Chasm, but “rebalance” seems generous when you only take away from a character. Why not just call it what it is?

Anyway, trade all covers above 450 for O-Red covers?

entrailbucket

@jp1 said:
I don’t even use Chasm, but “rebalance” seems generous when you only take away from a character. Why not just call it what it is?

Anyway, trade all covers above 450 for O-Red covers?

I think the Chasm nerf takes a bit of shine off Omega Red. He's still good -- a passive AoE is always going to play -- but the two big things favoring him over Hulk were "hits while he's stunned" and "permanent damage," and both of those things just got a lot less important.

Blackstone

@entrailbucket said:

I can't say I've ever had a problem dealing with the puny strike tiles that mindless ones drop.

I don't think the strength of the special tiles put down by mindless ones is the issue... It's the time it takes them to put them out. And that time adds up throughout the event.

I'm sure you already know that, I'm just not sure why you focused on them being "puny strike tiles" to dismiss Chasm's usefulness against mindless ones.

You have certain lines you think shouldn't be crossed, and believe chasm crosses some of those lines. But he does serve a purpose... And is much weaker now. Which means you won't see him as much.

You're on the winning side, but still raging against the result.

Some think it's too much, others think it's not enough. Which only proves there's no objective standard being used to determine opinions. And there change isn't even live yet.

All that aside, it sounds like your upset about a particular scenario where chasm caused you to go down without getting a turn. Which is fair...

I would ask how many games have you won in which the enemy team never got a turn against you? Yes it's AI controlled, but it's a players defensive team. If you don't have an issue winning on your first turn (and you've commented often on how that's something you see) losing on your first turn is just the opposite side of that coin. Which is fair.

Your opinion is valid, it's just not the only valid opinion.

I think we'll see how the changes realty effect things very quickly after they go live and will personally reserve my own judgement until then.

Bowgentle

You haven't seen bucket rage yet.
This is him chuckling to himself while drinking brandy in the gentlemen's Club next to the fireplace, going "oh, you"

entrailbucket

Yeah, I don't think this is rage at all.

Let me restate the argument:

Chasm was a problem because he did a bunch of unique stuff that's too good and shouldn't exist in this game. His stun and AP drain took away a lot of agency from players, particularly when he was on defense, in a game where the offensive player has a massive advantage by design. Breaking that advantage is a big deal.

(Defensive characters are fine, btw, but really strong defensive characters should be balanced by weakness on offense. Chasm was way too offensively strong to be that good on defense.)

The nerf is fine. It mostly solves the problem -- we won't see Chasm in every fight. But I think they had a chance to do something cool here. Rather than letting him keep all his old stuff, just worse, they could've removed the problematic stuff entirely and given him strong but non-problematic stuff.

Am I, like, angry about it? Not at all. This fixes the problem, and I don't have anything big invested in Chasm. But if I did, I'd have preferred that he was changed to be different, rather than just worse.