Prevalence of MThor and could she be the target of a rebalance?

658_2

@Vhailorx said:

@658_2 said:
Why does a character who has Thor’s heavy damage and board shake/ap gen need to hit specials (particularly repeaters and countdowns)? If they removed that part of her blue, it’d be an extremely modest nerf that would open up a significant amount of high level gameplay and you’d still see 25 pages here of “she’s so easy to beat, so no need to touch her”

The blue is the reason she stands out. she would be good without any damage dealing powers so long as she has that blue. leave the nukes and take away the blue and she becomes havok.

And KGB has the right idea for a character to counter fosthor: a 5* who spams special tiles and then punishes the enemy every time a friendly special is destroyed (not matched).

If her blue only hit basics instead of specials she’d be Havok?

Vhailorx

@658_2 said:

@Vhailorx said:

@658_2 said:
Why does a character who has Thor’s heavy damage and board shake/ap gen need to hit specials (particularly repeaters and countdowns)? If they removed that part of her blue, it’d be an extremely modest nerf that would open up a significant amount of high level gameplay and you’d still see 25 pages here of “she’s so easy to beat, so no need to touch her”

The blue is the reason she stands out. she would be good without any damage dealing powers so long as she has that blue. leave the nukes and take away the blue and she becomes havok.

And KGB has the right idea for a character to counter fosthor: a 5* who spams special tiles and then punishes the enemy every time a friendly special is destroyed (not matched).

If her blue only hit basics instead of specials she’d be Havok?

No. If her blue had no passive effect at all she would be havok.

If her blue only targeted specials then polaris would be a pretty hard counter to her (as well as any other tile spammer) and she would become pretty niche.

Pantera236

5* Thanos's purple is already coded to shut down Jane. If they just did a little rebalance on him he would be a good counter to her. Make his purple 4 AP and fortified, green cheaper (not sure what would be appropriate) and fortified and a little health and match damage upgrade and he'd be good.

Vhailorx

@Pantera236 said:
5* Thanos's purple is already coded to shut down Jane. If they just did a little rebalance on him he would be a good counter to her. Make his purple 4 AP and fortified, green cheaper (not sure what would be appropriate) and fortified and a little health and match damage upgrade and he'd be good.

His purple at 4ap would shut down a lot of characters. And thanos shows up in pve nodes a decent amount. I do not endorse this suggestion.

entrailbucket

I just worry that if they touch Thanos at all, they'll buff his other stuff and nerf Court Death. Court Death is probably too good, but it's balanced by the rest of his kit being basically useless.

Ruinate

I dont really mind how often she cascades and then chunks me with yellow. I only sort of mind how often she cascades then one shots me with Shang Chi. I dont mind at all how many Mthor Shangs are running around unboosted because I use boosted chars to gobble them up for progress.

I only mind that she takes all the fun out of a lot of characters passively with her blue.

kuntilanak

I experienced multiple wipe facing MThor within 2-3 rounds where she collected tons of AP to fire multiple powers, especially YELLOW ... but when I use her, she barely collects any useful AP ... hmm...

Tony_Foot

Just match charged tiles apparently. The sheer number of times I cannot match them. Or like this one, match the charge tiles on my first turn. The AI first turn game over.

I would definitely like to see a rework. She shuts down too many other character abilities with far too much upside and zero thought. It's almost impossible for the AI to get it wrong like they can with Shang or other powerful characters. Yes I can often beat her but no one damages my whole team like she can. I'm happy for her to stay as she is but build a character than really punishes cascades in the 5* tier or shuts down her AP generation.

Vhailorx

@Tony_Foot said:
Just match charged tiles apparently. The sheer number of times I cannot match them. Or like this one, match the charge tiles on my first turn. The AI first turn game over.

I would definitely like to see a rework. She shuts down too many other character abilities with far too much upside and zero thought. It's almost impossible for the AI to get it wrong like they can with Shang or other powerful characters. Yes I can often beat her but no one damages my whole team like she can. I'm happy for her to stay as she is but build a character than really punishes cascades in the 5* tier or shuts down her AP generation.

This is just another way of saying "I don't like when the AI wins PVP matches." Stunner Bros, Gambit, Hulkasm, now fosthor, the thing people don't like is opposing PVP teams that the AI can't tinykitty up. All of these calls for nerfs just amount to calls for fast/easy PVP matches.

Unfortunately, the player experience is also hurt when the already long PVE grind becomes that much longer because all the best options got nerfed for PVP-only reasons.

Maybe rather than nerfing anyone BCS should just re-implement cupcakes. They everyone could have as many easy matches as they like.

revskip

@Vhailorx said:

@Tony_Foot said:
Just match charged tiles apparently. The sheer number of times I cannot match them. Or like this one, match the charge tiles on my first turn. The AI first turn game over.

I would definitely like to see a rework. She shuts down too many other character abilities with far too much upside and zero thought. It's almost impossible for the AI to get it wrong like they can with Shang or other powerful characters. Yes I can often beat her but no one damages my whole team like she can. I'm happy for her to stay as she is but build a character than really punishes cascades in the 5* tier or shuts down her AP generation.

This is just another way of saying "I don't like when the AI wins PVP matches."

I'm not going to speak for Tony although I suspect there is a fair amount of your own projection here.

I don't mind the AI winning on occasion. I don't mind losing to bigger teams in PvP, I actually learn a lot from those matches and use Sim to take on teams way above me in levels to figure out counters. I've got healthpacks, I'll use them

What I don't enjoy are characters that passively cause cascades that can down a whole team as early as turn 1. That's not interesting or fun to me. Passive board shake is without a doubt the most OP power. Passive board shake every turn plus any time a power is fired is massively OP.

Bowgentle

That's why you bring Colossus to a Shang Jane fight.

Vhailorx

@revskip said:

@Vhailorx said:

@Tony_Foot said:
Just match charged tiles apparently. The sheer number of times I cannot match them. Or like this one, match the charge tiles on my first turn. The AI first turn game over.

I would definitely like to see a rework. She shuts down too many other character abilities with far too much upside and zero thought. It's almost impossible for the AI to get it wrong like they can with Shang or other powerful characters. Yes I can often beat her but no one damages my whole team like she can. I'm happy for her to stay as she is but build a character than really punishes cascades in the 5* tier or shuts down her AP generation.

This is just another way of saying "I don't like when the AI wins PVP matches."

I'm not going to speak for Tony although I suspect there is a fair amount of your own projection here.

I don't mind the AI winning on occasion. I don't mind losing to bigger teams in PvP, I actually learn a lot from those matches and use Sim to take on teams way above me in levels to figure out counters. I've got healthpacks, I'll use them

What I don't enjoy are characters that passively cause cascades that can down a whole team as early as turn 1. That's not interesting or fun to me. Passive board shake is without a doubt the most OP power. Passive board shake every turn plus any time a power is fired is massively OP.

What does projection have to do with it other than suggesting my post is somehow less worthy of consideration?

No one says "Chasm's stun makes mindless ones too easy and he needs to be nerfed!" Nerf calls ALWAYS center around pvp complaints. Most newer releases barely appear in pve, so OP new characters are really only a frequent occurrence in pvp. That is where most people see them so that's the metric that everyone uses when they describe why character X needs a nerf.

Now that chasm has been nerfed and doesn't show up that much people are seeing more fosthor teams in pvp and there are more calls to nerf her. And if she is nerfed it will be the next best defensive meta team.

My thesis is that what people are really calling for is reliable/fast victories in pvp. That is what they really want (and to be clear, it's what i want too! This game is frequently a grindfest, so fast and easy is the main goal). Nerf calls for specific characters are just a way of obscuring/rationalizing that underlying desire.

If i am right, then providing the requested nerfs will never actually end the complaints because nerfs aren't the goal; a better pvp experience is the goal. It doesnt necessarily prove me rigut, buy that is, indeed, what we see with the cycle of "nerf X!" threads that has become a meme unto itself around here.

Bad

@Tony_Foot said:
Just match charged tiles apparently. The sheer number of times I cannot match them. Or like this one, match the charge tiles on my first turn. The AI first turn game over.

I would definitely like to see a rework. She shuts down too many other character abilities with far too much upside and zero thought. It's almost impossible for the AI to get it wrong like they can with Shang or other powerful characters. Yes I can often beat her but no one damages my whole team like she can. I'm happy for her to stay as she is but build a character than really punishes cascades in the 5* tier or shuts down her AP generation.

It's pretty pretty rare to get a massive cascade in order to down all your team on the first turn.
However, I'd say it's a lot harder to get 7 purple ON YOUR FIRST TURN.
Unless supports on pvp were enabled today and I didn't notice it.
The only way would be a match 5 purple and matching it with other 2 purple.
However it's funny that you hate so much cascades yet you take SC, Mthor and half health thor.

bbigler

@Vhailorx said:

@Pantera236 said:
5* Thanos's purple is already coded to shut down Jane. If they just did a little rebalance on him he would be a good counter to her. Make his purple 4 AP and fortified, green cheaper (not sure what would be appropriate) and fortified and a little health and match damage upgrade and he'd be good.

His purple at 4ap would shut down a lot of characters. And thanos shows up in pve nodes a decent amount. I do not endorse this suggestion.

Ha! I believe 5-Star Thanos purple shuts down almost EVERY character. Let’s see….. it stops MThor, Shang, Omega, Chasm, Switch, Kitty, BRB, Kang, iHulk, Apoc, Onslaught, Prof X, Arcade, Magik, Banner, Black Bolt, Ronin, Gargantos, Carnage, Gambit,

Who’s left…..Okoye, Colossus, Crystal, Riri

You don’t want that purple power any cheaper than 7 when fighting against him.

KGB

Technically he shuts down Okoye too (her Red and Yellow).

But the degree he shuts down varies wildly. For instance if Switch already has her tile on the board it will remain there doing damage each turn. She just can't place a new one. ProfX still gets his extra damage from a match 4, he just wouldn't be able to do his board shake component. BRB still gets bonus AP from matching protects, his Blue just can't be fired (or if it's already fired can't add more protects).

KGB

Tony_Foot

@Bad said:

However it's funny that you hate so much cascades yet you take SC, Mthor and half health thor.

Jesus, people hated chasm they still used him, people hated gambit they still used him. 99% of the time I use Half Thor Shang and Valk but this was in Sim and I was trying it out. Is that ok with you?

Vhailorx

@Bad said:

It's pretty pretty rare to get a massive cascade in order to down all your team on the first turn.
However, I'd say it's a lot harder to get 7 purple ON YOUR FIRST TURN.
Unless supports on pvp were enabled today and I didn't notice it.
The only way would be a match 5 purple and matching it with other 2 purple.

Boost +2 purple/blue, +2 all colors. make one purple match. get ganked.

not terribly common, but definitely possible if fosthor gets a great first turn cascade.

entrailbucket

@Vhailorx said:

@Tony_Foot said:
Just match charged tiles apparently. The sheer number of times I cannot match them. Or like this one, match the charge tiles on my first turn. The AI first turn game over.

I would definitely like to see a rework. She shuts down too many other character abilities with far too much upside and zero thought. It's almost impossible for the AI to get it wrong like they can with Shang or other powerful characters. Yes I can often beat her but no one damages my whole team like she can. I'm happy for her to stay as she is but build a character than really punishes cascades in the 5* tier or shuts down her AP generation.

This is just another way of saying "I don't like when the AI wins PVP matches."

I'll extend this further -- everyone hates it when the AI wins matches at all.

The dev team said "you're supposed to lose" 9 YEARS AGO (this was in reference to the first run of the Galactus boss event) and players still fling that at them almost every single day.

Look at the endless debates about softcapping/levelling up characters -- it's the same idea. Some players heard years ago that levelling up guys might possibly maybe make their PvP fights harder, and based on that rumor, they're willing to handicap themselves forever.

This game has an unspoken pact with players that you'll win every fight you take on, and win it relatively quickly, with minimal thought or effort.

If you look at defensive win rates, Gambit was the best of all time (I don't know what Chasm looked like, to be fair) and it was less than 10%. Think about that -- the best defensive character of all time, the guy who generated thousands of complaints, and we beat him 9 out of every 10 tries. And it felt crazy! I remember losing to him all the time!

You're saying that people get upset about losing a few PvP matches, like that's news to any of us. Any character who can consistently achieve random defensive wins is overpowered by definition, because of the rarity of AI wins overall.

I do think there's room for defensive characters in this game, but here's how it should work: defensive characters should be terrible on offense. That's balance. We've never had that. The good characters are just really really good all the time, and all that means is that they're too strong.

Bad

@Vhailorx said:

Boost +2 purple/blue, +2 all colors. make one purple match. get ganked.

not terribly common, but definitely possible if fosthor gets a great first turn cascade.

In the pic there aren't 2 APs in all colors.
So for to be in the first turn and having 7 purple the only possible way it's amatch 5 in L and matching 2 purple. Extremely rare too (and then I think who plays pvp without boosts, isn't it?)
Anyway, if you mirror Mthor then you doble up her cascades and just make her doble dangerous.

Jimsta_rooney

Nah,leave her alone...