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

ThaRoadWarrior

I ran him between ascended Coulson and ascended Carol. Ideally you fire OML’s black to make strikes, and as coulson’s tiles resolve it escalates fast. Using Carol’s yellow on a CD just makes more CDs. It’s not fool proof if there are stunners around but it’s pretty cool. At 475, my black strike's start around 1200, and every expired CD pumps 3 of them up by just under 2000 from a level 459 Carol.
Here is a single black firing and a Command Decision burndown on the following turn:

WhiteBomber

About 20 matches and a few health packs in and the only thing that seems for sure right now is; for someone who is supposed to be the ultimate "lone wolf" he definitely needs people to carry him through a match. Quick and dirty assessment of my 455 OML:

• He should definitely heal more. Healing is never OP, it would be cool and make sense if his was actually good. Currently he is usually not even shrugging off the match damage.
• It would be nice to find him a team that isn't Polaris.
• Sometimes he creates the additional 2 strikes when he throws his own abilities?
• Kinda fun with no Polaris: OML, DeathLok, DevPool. Does OK with Goose and other XMen defensives like Prof, Colossus and Jean. If you have ascended BlackKing? (sorry, I forget his name) seems like another decent partner.
• I think X23 is probably still better than him? I don't think we'll see him unboosted, but hopefully someone finds a good team for him.

Rod5

@entrailbucket said:
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.

She is 100% the worst and also most deserving of a rebalance….modern match damage/health and increased power damage for 50% of the AP cost with maybe a cheeky passive thrown in

pepitedechocolat

new OML is not wolverine anymore, you can run both X-force and OML in the same team. Is that a bug ?

ViralCore

@Rod5 said:

@entrailbucket said:
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.

She is 100% the worst and also most deserving of a rebalance….modern match damage/health and increased power damage for 50% of the AP cost with maybe a cheeky passive thrown in

Cable, goblin and black suit spidy are worse than widow. Those 3 never got any meta-play while widow had.

Borstock

@ViralCore said:

@Rod5 said:

@entrailbucket said:
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.

She is 100% the worst and also most deserving of a rebalance….modern match damage/health and increased power damage for 50% of the AP cost with maybe a cheeky passive thrown in

Cable, goblin and black suit spidy are worse than widow. Those 3 never got any meta-play while widow had.

When did Widow have meta play?

Rod5

@ViralCore said:

Cable, goblin and black suit spidy are worse than widow. Those 3 never got any meta-play while widow had.

Widow’s meta was nearly 10 years ago, and it was fleeting, you give me a choice of her vs with Goblin or Cable now and she’s so far away it’s laughable.

BSSM is a fair shout, he was good in his day though.

entrailbucket

@Rod5 said:

@entrailbucket said:
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.

She is 100% the worst and also most deserving of a rebalance….modern match damage/health and increased power damage for 50% of the AP cost with maybe a cheeky passive thrown in

She actually does have a passive (and it's not that bad! It's also not good, but it exists.).

When the enemy stuns another character on your team, she stuns a random enemy for 1 turn.

entrailbucket

@ThaRoadWarrior said:

I ran him between ascended Coulson and ascended Carol. Ideally you fire OML’s black to make strikes, and as coulson’s tiles resolve it escalates fast. Using Carol’s yellow on a CD just makes more CDs. It’s not fool proof if there are stunners around but it’s pretty cool. At 475, my black strike's start around 1200, and every expired CD pumps 3 of them up by just under 2000 from a level 459 Carol.
Here is a single black firing and a Command Decision burndown on the following turn:

This was actually a decent team before this change!

But Carol (that passive is seriously great and nobody ever talks about it) and Coulson are sorta doing all the heavy lifting there, and I'd probably rather have Multiple Man as the third, over OML.

KGB

@WhiteBomber said:
About 20 matches and a few health packs in and the only thing that seems for sure right now is; for someone who is supposed to be the ultimate "lone wolf" he definitely needs people to carry him through a match. Quick and dirty assessment of my 455 OML:

• He should definitely heal more. Healing is never OP, it would be cool and make sense if his was actually good. Currently he is usually not even shrugging off the match damage.

Have to be really careful with this. If he healed match damage there would be no way to whittle him down health wise via match damage (imagine him when boosted). You'd need a lot of cascades, a nuke type power or a stun.

It would be even worse for players not in 5 star land who only have 4 star and below damage. One of the reasons he got the nerf was because a 1 Yellow cover OML was virtually immortal against 3 star and under characters.

Also don't forget there are now supports in PvE/PvP and if you are playing him with the special tile crew (Polaris and gang) and put one of the healing supports on him (Lucky/Carol) he is going to double heal making it even that much harder to take him down.

KGB

WhiteBomber

@KGB said:

@WhiteBomber said:
About 20 matches and a few health packs in and the only thing that seems for sure right now is; for someone who is supposed to be the ultimate "lone wolf" he definitely needs people to carry him through a match. Quick and dirty assessment of my 455 OML:

• He should definitely heal more. Healing is never OP, it would be cool and make sense if his was actually good. Currently he is usually not even shrugging off the match damage.

Have to be really careful with this. If he healed match damage there would be no way to whittle him down health wise via match damage (imagine him when boosted). You'd need a lot of cascades, a nuke type power or a stun.

It would be even worse for players not in 5 star land who only have 4 star and below damage. One of the reasons he got the nerf was because a 1 Yellow cover OML was virtually immortal against 3 star and under characters.

Also don't forget there are now supports in PvE/PvP and if you are playing him with the special tile crew (Polaris and gang) and put one of the healing supports on him (Lucky/Carol) he is going to double heal making it even that much harder to take him down.

KGB

Totally agree they should be careful with it (and all opinions here of course) but back when he needed to be nerfed it was because he was like one of the first 5star characters crushing a bunch of 3 and 4star ants, now that 5star tier is built out, he should still have some teeth. In my opinion, him out healing most characters match damage shouldn't be considered a problem, unless those characters specialize in match damage (which there are many now), it should be expected. Some characters kill with match damage, most kill with AP or passives, and he isn't stopping those.

I personally feel as though his heal should at least be some sort of threat, given that's kinda his thing. I don't think many 5 stars (definitely not any relevant ones) would struggle to kill him even if his healing were doubled, especially with his health not being high tier.

The support problem is kinda moot for me since that is an EVERYONE thing, not OML. They have significantly bigger fish to fry when it comes to supports, and even still, so much of the roster could just immediately nuke him to death anyway, so healing, as per usual, is a non-issue.

All this just part of my usual desire for them to actually try to hit the bar they've set for themselves. If you're going to invest the work in to the character (or create a new one) at least try to get them relevant (without supports). I will definitely keep looking for teams that highlight his abilities though, I would love to see some excellent OML usage that isn't Polaris or ascended Coulson, because we know who is really relevant in those teams.

One final thought for the healing thing, is he even in the same game as M'Baku? I actually don't know because I don't have him ascended, though I feel I've heard enough about him to think the answer is "no". If the answer is "no" regardless, Wolverine comes out lookin like a chump.

pepitedechocolat

@KGB said:

@WhiteBomber said:
About 20 matches and a few health packs in and the only thing that seems for sure right now is; for someone who is supposed to be the ultimate "lone wolf" he definitely needs people to carry him through a match. Quick and dirty assessment of my 455 OML:

• He should definitely heal more. Healing is never OP, it would be cool and make sense if his was actually good. Currently he is usually not even shrugging off the match damage.

Have to be really careful with this. If he healed match damage there would be no way to whittle him down health wise via match damage (imagine him when boosted). You'd need a lot of cascades, a nuke type power or a stun.

It would be even worse for players not in 5 star land who only have 4 star and below damage. One of the reasons he got the nerf was because a 1 Yellow cover OML was virtually immortal against 3 star and under characters.

Also don't forget there are now supports in PvE/PvP and if you are playing him with the special tile crew (Polaris and gang) and put one of the healing supports on him (Lucky/Carol) he is going to double heal making it even that much harder to take him down.

KGB

Regen is never (and probably has never been) an issue in PVP. Anyway these days people expect to finish pvp matches in the first turn, or a couple of turns. It is an issue for the devs as they expect players to spend on health pack.

Besides I dont think OML healing figures were that strong in its previous iterations. it was like 400hp / turn with one cover, with small hp pool for a 5* it was quite reasonnable to handle in 3* land. He is stunnable too

And OML already has a big limitation as his heal goes down with less teammates. considering he is losing quite some health to his red, it would have need nice to get a bit more regen.

entrailbucket

@pepitedechocolat said:

@KGB said:

@WhiteBomber said:
About 20 matches and a few health packs in and the only thing that seems for sure right now is; for someone who is supposed to be the ultimate "lone wolf" he definitely needs people to carry him through a match. Quick and dirty assessment of my 455 OML:

• He should definitely heal more. Healing is never OP, it would be cool and make sense if his was actually good. Currently he is usually not even shrugging off the match damage.

Have to be really careful with this. If he healed match damage there would be no way to whittle him down health wise via match damage (imagine him when boosted). You'd need a lot of cascades, a nuke type power or a stun.

It would be even worse for players not in 5 star land who only have 4 star and below damage. One of the reasons he got the nerf was because a 1 Yellow cover OML was virtually immortal against 3 star and under characters.

Also don't forget there are now supports in PvE/PvP and if you are playing him with the special tile crew (Polaris and gang) and put one of the healing supports on him (Lucky/Carol) he is going to double heal making it even that much harder to take him down.

KGB

Regen is never (and probably has never been) an issue in PVP. Anyway these days people expect to finish pvp matches in the first turn, or a couple of turns. It is an issue for the devs as they expect players to spend on health pack.

Besides I dont think OML healing figures were that strong in its previous iterations. it was like 400hp / turn with one cover, with small hp pool for a 5* it was quite reasonnable to handle in 3* land. He is stunnable too

And OML already has a big limitation as his heal goes down with less teammates. considering he is losing quite some health to his red, it would have need nice to get a bit more regen.

Health regeneration has definitely been an issue in PvP, multiple times. 2* Wolverine had his heal nerfed. OBW's heal touched off one of the most hated changes of all time ("true healing").

OML wasn't nerfed because of his use among 5* players. He was nerfed because new players would earn one yellow OML cover, then stomp everything at their level. He was completely unbeatable for them and enabled infinite play.

They have to be EXTREMELY careful with unconditional passive true healing, and it probably shouldn't ever exist -- it defeats the purpose of the health pack system. It's pretty much overpowered by definition. Players, of course, are meant to hate the health pack system. It exists to limit our play. Of course we want to circumvent it!

pepitedechocolat

I stand with the fact that regen is not an issue, it is not an issue for the players, not an issue for the gameplay nor for game balance, nor for PVP.

It's only a monetization issue, this is not our (the players) problem. And I doubt health packs are a major source of revenue nor a great ressource sink for the game

changes to 2wolvie and OBW were to force the use of HP, no player was happy with the changes.

entrailbucket

@pepitedechocolat said:
I stand with the fact that regen is not an issue, it is not an issue for the players, not an issue for the gameplay nor for game balance, nor for PVP.

It's only a monetization issue, this is not our (the players) problem. And I doubt health packs are a major source of revenue nor a great ressource sink for the game

changes to 2wolvie and OBW were to force the use of HP, no player was happy with the changes.

You're arguing against the health pack system, which is fine -- it's meant to stop us from playing forever unless we pay.
Anybody who wants to play forever without spending money (most of us) will obviously hate it!

As long as that system exists, they're not going to produce characters that circumvent it.

I saw someone else say "health regeneration can never be overpowered," which is definitely false. My classic example is a theoretical 5* Blob -- he has 1 match damage in all colors and can't be stunned. He's got 300,000 HP at 450, and another passive that says "if Blob is at less than 100% health, (true) heal him to 100% every turn." He does literally nothing but heal, and that guy would become the entire metagame immediately.

DAZ0273

As somebody who used to have a 2 cover yellow OML when I was a 2/3* player I can confirm that I ran him all day in PVP, hid my damage dealers behind him like Cap/Thor and it was glorious. Sure he might finally die after 8 or 9 battles (not always though) but that is a LOT of progress for no real drawback where you don't need a health pack. That match damage was nothing to sniff at either back then.

DeNappa

A boosted 5* Melinda May can outheal their team from a lot of damage.

Godzillafan67

@DAZ0273 said:
As somebody who used to have a 2 cover yellow OML when I was a 2/3* player I can confirm that I ran him all day in PVP, hid my damage dealers behind him like Cap/Thor and it was glorious. Sure he might finally die after 8 or 9 battles (not always though) but that is a LOT of progress for no real drawback where you don't need a health pack. That match damage was nothing to sniff at either back then.

Didn't you true heal him in a campaign node?

pepitedechocolat

@entrailbucket said:

I saw someone else say "health regeneration can never be overpowered," which is definitely false. My classic example is a theoretical 5* Blob -- he has 1 match damage in all colors and can't be stunned. He's got 300,000 HP at 450, and another passive that says "if Blob is at less than 100% health, (true) heal him to 100% every turn." He does literally nothing but heal, and that guy would become the entire metagame immediately.

I said its never an issue in PVP, which is different than "never overpowered". And I was ofc from a player PoV.

In your demonstration you need to introduce another param, stupidly high health, to make regen somewhat impactful. now slap this "infinite" regen on a standard 70k toon with abilities and suddenly nothing happens in PVP, he will be bursted like any other toon.

The 300k bulk would be more a problem than the fact that it needs to be taken in one go. And we would still have a few ways to handle him (Kang, flerken, HEVO ...)

DAZ0273

@Godzillafan67 said:

@DAZ0273 said:
As somebody who used to have a 2 cover yellow OML when I was a 2/3* player I can confirm that I ran him all day in PVP, hid my damage dealers behind him like Cap/Thor and it was glorious. Sure he might finally die after 8 or 9 battles (not always though) but that is a LOT of progress for no real drawback where you don't need a health pack. That match damage was nothing to sniff at either back then.

Didn't you true heal him in a campaign node?

I probably did from time to time but I tend to be overly risky when it comes to health so it wouldn't have surprised me if I had taken him into battle with like 100 health left and expected him to get out the other side.