Wolverine (Old Man Logan) 5* - Rebalance & New Costume

S0kun

Old Man Logan is the latest old man from back in the day to get a new rebalance. Here're a few notes from our team regarding how we consolidated his abilities and sharpened his claws to be a more powerful character in your roster.

Rebalance Notes:
General: Raised match damage and HP to modern standards.  This already goes a long way towards bringing up his power level.  Combine that with improved healing and Old Man Logan is tougher than ever.

One of the tough things about OML is that his design is cool; He has two modes depending on how well the fight is going. However, his gameplay is tougher.  Battles nearly never go how you want, especially so in trying to time when and how to push Wolverine over the edge into his damage mode.  Just less fun than it should be. So we took a different tack and combined the two!  Same flavor, and improved usability.

Normally, combining two sets of abilities would mean that the power of both abilities would be heavily nerfed, but Wolverine has a secret: He was one of the first 5-Stars.  5-Stars went through a period of power increases that meant that any newer 5-Star would have more budget and damage than an older one.  So, in raising him to modern standards, we realized that we could not only combine his kit, but STILL have room for higher numbers.

Black: Allows the player to choose either the old Living Legend or Still Sharp ability on use, with Still Sharp’s lower AP cost. Also spent a bit of the budget that could have been used for stronger Strike tiles instead of getting rid of that pesky “ends the turn” that Living Legend used to have.  Yay for usability!

Yellow: This was one that was a bit tougher.  We tried the same trick with Black in combining, but ran out of budget with 6 AP on the active portion. Fast abilities just don’t pack as much punch.  As it stood, we could have kept the 6 AP, but it would have resulted in a significant numbers nerf across the board for the ability.  So instead we raised the AP as little as we could to get a bit of ability budget, which netted out at 8 AP.  Still somewhat fast, but not as speedy.

Red: Nothing much here to report. Combined the abilities, raised the numbers, and now overall more powerful.

KGB

Re-posting from the What's New thread:

That's a huge upgrade. It might be the best one ever done to a character at any tier!

I get the idea that the player can choose the affect on his Black but why would anyone choose the strikes? You get 4 strikes of 2K (+8K damage) OR 50K direct damage + more if strikes destroyed. You'd need 6 matches at +8K to equal the 50K damage you could get 'now'. Doesn't seem you'd ever want to chose the strikes.

The Yellow AOE might be the only one in the tier and he keeps the healing aspect (8K a turn if he has 2 allies). It also got me thinking that when you face an enemy OML if you bring your own OML you might want to bring Electro so that she can reduce the enemy AOE and generate Yellow for your OML's AOE.

Also realized you can get 6 strike tiles on turn 0 with the right partner (some of these new characters like Darkveil and Jamie Madrox can fire powers on turn 0 that don't require any AP and do nothing but will trigger his strike production). Sure he takes a bit of damage but he can heal that back fast.

KGB

ThaRoadWarrior

neat! Hopefully this gets him some playability. I don't think that costume is for me though.

KGB

@ThaRoadWarrior said:
I don't think that costume is for me though.

That's his new disguise / character:
Wolverine: The Hood

KGB

bluewolf

OML’s costume is from Millar’s FF run circa 2008 (about the time many people were tiring of him) and he added future OML (over 500 years old) to a storyline. FF 558 was the first appearance. He called himself The Hooded Man.

Looks lame as heck but it was probably done on a pretty tight deadline and not really intended to be used beyond the few issues he appeared in.

WhiteBomber

Holy man that is an ugly / silly shirt, one of those ones you actually want to wear as a joke (note I am talking about the design, not their take on it, which I'm hoping it just originally looked that terrible).

Not considering his health and damage output, I actually liked the design of the old one since you had to think about it a little with the different abilities. Agreeing with KGB that I can't imagine ever using the strikes for that black, so that kinda just makes him a healing "damage stick" I believe Daredevil calls it. Definitely appreciate making him more viable though, just maybe less fun viable.

Tiger_Wong

Yeah that costume looks yuck.

But the rebalance? I LOVE IT!! Let’s go!!

sinnerjfl

If you want the 450 numbers, divide everything by 2.2

bluewolf

A shot of the original costume.

I’d say the devs captured it pretty well.

WhiteBomber

If you're like me and will have him much closer to 450, here are those more useful numbers based off of @sinnerjfl 2.2 division (I'm just assuming they are correct and this was fast math):

All at level 5

Black:

• 4 strikes at 1,085 or 23,067 damage and destroy 4 tiles at 6,243 damage (48,039 max)

Yella:

• 3,585 team damage and 1,793 per enemy (7,172 max, assuming it only counts 2 extra enemies, 8,965 if counting all 3)
• Heal 1,923

Red:

• 22,745 damage if under 60% add 21,896 (44,641 total)
• Create 2 strikes at 655

ThaRoadWarrior

kinda looks like Hawkeye Ronin and the TMNT Last Ronin getup.

Just for the sake of constructive critique - what I don't like about it's implementation in game is the digital painting makes his silhouette look vague compared to the tightly finished original artwork.

entrailbucket

I'll have to mess with him to get a real sense of this, but I think it's promising. Getting rid of the transform was the right call. I don't love active abilities at 7/8/8AP -- in a modern character you'd like to see something usable in the 6 and under category. But both passives are pretty good, and I'm always glad to see a character get modern health and match damage.

Do Black Widow next! I think she's (still) the worst 5* left.

ElReyFelix

Happy to see this! In the spirit of the DP vs. Wolverine movie, hoping another 5* who hails from the bayou gets an update too - his black power is way too punishing on his team and he deserves better!

ThaRoadWarrior

@entrailbucket said:
...

Do Black Widow next! I think she's (still) the worst 5* left.

Hm, this is a tough call for me. I would probably feel better using Widow than using Abigail Brand. Odin is also terrible, as is Knull, Rescue, and to a lesser degree Cable, who isn't like bad, just not as good as I want him to be.

pepitedechocolat

I wish they just do a whole pass on all old 5* just upgrading health and match damage in one go. It would be a huge improvement for many oldies

Domitronas

@pepitedechocolat said:
I wish they just do a whole pass on all old 5* just upgrading health and match damage in one go. It would be a huge improvement for many oldies

Maybe after the engine update

Jinx

Just used him with Polaris and BRB against the Hela, Carnage, BRB node and came away near full health every time. Pretty amazing team. And for the next rebalance, still waiting for Loki. One of the most powerful ECU characters now and still the worst character in the game.

Bzhai

That costume looks like it would fit right in the Midknight Suns game.

BriMan2222

Just tried oml, polaris, and ascended domino against the challenge node and oml rebalance is a success. My only minor gripe is that in losing his transformation mechanic we also lost his transformation animation which was imo one of the best in the game.

The simple side profile animation of slowly unlsheathing his claws was quintessential wolverine. Now you done messed up and he's going to go berserk.

Hey devs, maybe you could make this animation the one for his black strike tiles and get rid of the old man shakes his fist at teenagers on his lawn animation.

Grizwald

Glad i kept OML on my roster. Now I can break out 4* Magik and 4* Vulture with him.

Borstock

His healing was great for the "Make 50 matches in your strongest color with OML" quest today.