Rebalance & New Costume - Cable (Nathan Summers) 5*

S0kun

Cable is the latest 5 Star to get a rebalance along with a fresh new costume variant inspired from the X of Swords series.

General Notes

Increased Cable’s match damage to modern standards and increased his overall health slightly. We could have increased his health more, but we instead took a lot of that budget and pushed it towards his abilities to make them much faster than previous. Since he’s not designed to be a front line fighter, he really didn’t need the very tanky HP values he was using before. Let Thor or Hulk handle that sort of thing.

Health & Match Damage

Feeder Flow

Abilities

Ability: Cyborg Strategist

One of the things we noticed with this ability’s usage is that most players would use it for Charged tiles, but would only use it once, maybe twice a battle (on battles that lasted long enough for multiple uses of course), indicating that once it hit the tilting point of having the ability create few/no Charged tiles, it stopped being as worthwhile. With this change, it not only creates more tiles at the outset, but also deals some damage if the ability would be otherwise useless in the Charged tile area. Along with the slight boost in speed through lower AP cost, we’re thinking this ability should be more potent in stunning, Charging, AND damaging.

Color: Blue

AP Cost: 8 (Previously 9)

5 STAR: LEVEL 550

Before:

Cable uses his cybernetics and future tech to get the drop on his enemy. Choose a basic tile to become a 3-turn Blue Countdown tile. Whenever you make a Green match while one of these tiles is on board, stun the enemy for 2 turns and create up to 2 Green Charged tiles.

At Level 2: Green matches create up to 3 Green Charged tiles.At Level 3: Green matches create up to 4 Green Charged tiles.At Level 4: Creates a 4-turn Countdown tile.At Level 5: Creates a 5-turn Countdown tile; Green matches create up to 5 Green Charged tiles.

After:

Cable uses his cybernetics and future tech to get the drop on his enemy. Choose a basic tile to become a 5-turn Blue Countdown tile. Whenever you make a Green match while one of these tiles is on the board, stun the enemy for 2 turns and create up to 3 Green Charged tiles. If Cable runs out of tiles to convert Charged tiles, deal 2309  damage. 

At Level 2: Create a 6-turn tile. Create 4 tiles. Deal 5387 damage.
At Level 3: Create a 7-turn tile. Create 5 tiles. Deal 6927 damage.
At Level 4: Create a 8-turn tile. Create 6 tiles. Deal 11159 damage.
At Level 5: Create a 9-turn tile. Create 7 tiles. Deal 20012 damage.

Ability: Plasma Barrage

So… slow… The ability is decent for what it is and has a very unique flavor to it, but the AP cost meant that by the time it was ready to be used, you’ve whacked 1 or 2 enemies, or at least brought them low enough that you’re going to get a much reduced effect from the ability. So we poured every bit of budget into lowering the AP cost to make it as fast as it could be without actively lowering the damage dealt. There was still a little bit of budget within the tiers to soak up a bit more damage improvement, so the last bits that weren’t used for AP reduction made for some additional bang for Cable’s post-apocalyptic buck.

Color: Green

AP Cost: 9 (Previously 12)

5 STAR: LEVEL 550

Before:

Cable lets loose a blast from his massive future-tech plasma rifle. Deals 26134 damage to the target. Any damage beyond the target’s remaining health is dealt to each of their allies.

At Level 2: Deal 28747 damage.
At Level 3: Deal 31361 damage.
At Level 4: Deal 36588 damage.
At Level 5: Deal 47041 damage.

After:

Cable lets loose a blast from his massive future-tech plasma rifle. Deal 43870 damage to the target. Any damage beyond the target’s remaining health is dealt to each of their allies. 

At Level 2: Deal 48082 damage.
At Level 3: Deal 52732 damage.
At Level 4: Deal 61593 damage.
At Level 5: Deal 78878 damage.

Ability: Veterans Instincts

Similar to above, the Strike tile creation works fine for what it is, but it’s not very fast at doing its job. Could have bumped up the strength of the Strike tiles, but instead we made the ability much faster instead. That way if you want the Strike tile strength, you can use the ability twice (and quite a bit more quickly for the first use in any case) which allows you to pump out more damage. We left the Passive portion of this alone, using the delta that it would have gained in balance points to get that AP down just a little more (it “costs” more to bring AP from 9->6 than it does from 12->9).

Color: Yellow

AP Cost: 6 (Previously 9)

5 STAR: LEVEL 550

Before:

Years of battle-hardened experience allow Cable to make his team into true soldiers. Create 1 strength 820 Yellow Strike tile, plus 1 additional Strike tile for each of Cable’s allies still in the fight.

(PASSIVE) When you make a Yellow match, fortify 1 random friendly Countdown or Repeater tile.

At Level 2: Creates 2 strength 820 Strike tiles.
At Level 3: Creates 2 strength 888 Strike tiles.
At Level 4: Creates 2 strength 1025 Strike tiles.
At Level 5: Creates 3 strength 1093 Strike tiles.

After:

Years of battle-hardened experience allows Cable to make his team into true soldiers. Create 2 strength 1154 Yellow Strike tiles, plus 1 Strike tile for each of Cable’s allies still in the fight. 

(PASSIVE) When you make a Yellow match, fortify 1 random friendly Countdown or Repeater tile.

At Level 2: Create strength 1347 tile.
At Level 3: Create strength 1481 tile.
At Level 4: Create 3 tiles.
At Level 5: Create strength 1884 tile.

Rod5

From being basically unusable due to AP cost he’s now more usable - no huge synergies though. Big boosted Cable probably works in PvP I guess.

WhiteBomber

Thanks for giving it a try.

OPINIONS INBOUND
It does however make me sad and lack faith for any of the 5star rebalances upcoming. Either someone is afraid to make them on par with the new generation, or they are very out of touch with power levels of the characters in this game.

I think for any character to even make it in to the top 50, you need to come with a good or at least niche passive, or, have good abilities that can be fired off within the 2-3rd turn. I did a quick search, and I couldn't really find any characters that I would more often use (to win), that have abilities that cost 8 or more AP (UNLESS, they have something feeding them AP to use it, or a really good passive).

He unfortunately doesn't tick any of those boxes for me. You could have made his blue cost 6 and it still wouldn't have been overbalanced. 8? and it's not even fortified, unless you match yellow after the fact... and even if you do, the opposing team now also gets the benefit of those charge tiles.

The green does have a fun multi-hit feature, but the damage with the cost is nothing to be afraid of (especially since his blue will never see the light of day on defense).

The yellow passive, also some minor value, but honestly, he doesn't really care to be matching yellow for anything other than fortifying his own tile, that you might get off after 1 or both of your other characters are almost / dead.

He is in dire need of a strong supporting teammate; Darkveil could carry him, but she can carry just about anyone. I used to get excited for the 5star rebalances, but now with release after release I am just let down. I expect to see this character in the wild the same amount I see OroStorm, Logan, Havok, Wasp etc. etc. (not at all). If the goal is just to get people to try them out for a few more matches and sell a few costumes, I suppose mission accomplished, but if that's not the goal, maybe consider putting whoever did Sinister rebalance on the rest? Though even he doesn't see any play in my ques (outside of me).

BriMan2222

@WhiteBomber said:
Thanks for giving it a try.

OPINIONS INBOUND
It does however make me sad and lack faith for any of the 5star rebalances upcoming. Either someone is afraid to make them on par with the new generation, or they are very out of touch with power levels of the characters in this game.

I think for any character to even make it in to the top 50, you need to come with a good or at least niche passive, or, have good abilities that can be fired off within the 2-3rd turn. I did a quick search, and I couldn't really find any characters that I would more often use (to win), that have abilities that cost 8 or more AP (UNLESS, they have something feeding them AP to use it, or a really good passive).

He unfortunately doesn't tick any of those boxes for me. You could have made his blue cost 6 and it still wouldn't have been overbalanced. 8? and it's not even fortified, unless you match yellow after the fact... and even if you do, the opposing team now also gets the benefit of those charge tiles.

The green does have a fun multi-hit feature, but the damage with the cost is nothing to be afraid of (especially since his blue will never see the light of day on defense).

The yellow passive, also some minor value, but honestly, he doesn't really care to be matching yellow for anything other than fortifying his own tile, that you might get off after 1 or both of your other characters are almost / dead.

He is in dire need of a strong supporting teammate; Darkveil could carry him, but she can carry just about anyone. I used to get excited for the 5star rebalances, but now with release after release I am just let down. I expect to see this character in the wild the same amount I see OroStorm, Logan, Havok, Wasp etc. etc. (not at all). If the goal is just to get people to try them out for a few more matches and sell a few costumes, I suppose mission accomplished, but if that's not the goal, maybe consider putting whoever did Sinister rebalance on the rest? Though even he doesn't see any play in my ques (outside of me).

If your only metric for a good rebalance is, have they made their way into the meta characters that can be used unboosted, then I don't see not being disappointed by any rebalance. If your metric is, "are they now usable when boosted?", then all of these have been successful except for wasp. I have seen a good amount of oml and storm when boosted in pvp and I don't beleive havok has been boosted since his rework, but I imagine he should be usable.

For me, Cable was borderline usable when boosted but he was just a bit too slow. This should give him the push he needs to get over the usable when boosted threshold.

Bzhai

Lol ok sure. You're not even trying anymore with the costumes. Collector$ will be happy, and that's the most important thing.

I always liked his passive yellow. He's one of the few who can reinforce repeaters. I wish they would have leaned more into that as his strategy.

Will just wait for the 4* version to have something more interesting that has to do with his time-travel and psychic abilities.

Pretty unspectacular to use, but will be now annoying to face in pve. Thanks...

KGB

@WhiteBomber said:
Thanks for giving it a try.

OPINIONS INBOUND
It does however make me sad and lack faith for any of the 5star rebalances upcoming. Either someone is afraid to make them on par with the new generation, or they are very out of touch with power levels of the characters in this game.

I think for any character to even make it in to the top 50, you need to come with a good or at least niche passive, or, have good abilities that can be fired off within the 2-3rd turn. I did a quick search, and I couldn't really find any characters that I would more often use (to win), that have abilities that cost 8 or more AP (UNLESS, they have something feeding them AP to use it, or a really good passive).

He unfortunately doesn't tick any of those boxes for me. You could have made his blue cost 6 and it still wouldn't have been overbalanced. 8? and it's not even fortified, unless you match yellow after the fact... and even if you do, the opposing team now also gets the benefit of those charge tiles.

The green does have a fun multi-hit feature, but the damage with the cost is nothing to be afraid of (especially since his blue will never see the light of day on defense).

The yellow passive, also some minor value, but honestly, he doesn't really care to be matching yellow for anything other than fortifying his own tile, that you might get off after 1 or both of your other characters are almost / dead.

He is in dire need of a strong supporting teammate; Darkveil could carry him, but she can carry just about anyone. I used to get excited for the 5star rebalances, but now with release after release I am just let down. I expect to see this character in the wild the same amount I see OroStorm, Logan, Havok, Wasp etc. etc. (not at all). If the goal is just to get people to try them out for a few more matches and sell a few costumes, I suppose mission accomplished, but if that's not the goal, maybe consider putting whoever did Sinister rebalance on the rest? Though even he doesn't see any play in my ques (outside of me).

That Green is a very strong nuke and with carry over is likely to hit at least one other character unless you use Green on a fully healthy character.

Why wouldn't you match Yellow? You can fire the ability for 6 AP to generate some strikes. So matching Yellow is definitely useful since you can get up to 5 strikes of 1800 plus if he still has 2 allies alive (you are running him 3/5/5 since Blue isn't that great).

He didn't go to S tier or even A tier but he's no longer totally DOA. The truth about rebalances is that they ABSOLUTELY MUST NOT EVER create an A or S tier character from a rebalance. The reason is that new players have no access to these characters and are unlikely to have them champed much less any higher level. So it would be incredibly unfair to make such a character that is frozen out to newer players that they would suddenly need. That's why rebalances just tweak things slightly so they move from bottom 10 to sort of middle of the pack (40th - 60th) and only useful when boosted.

KGB

P.S. On another note, once again a rebalance occurs on a character who is featured in multiple PVE nodes. Not sure the last time a 5 star was rebalanced that didn't. It makes those PvE nodes more annoying which is something it should not do.

entrailbucket

@BriMan2222 said:

@WhiteBomber said:
Thanks for giving it a try.

OPINIONS INBOUND
It does however make me sad and lack faith for any of the 5star rebalances upcoming. Either someone is afraid to make them on par with the new generation, or they are very out of touch with power levels of the characters in this game.

I think for any character to even make it in to the top 50, you need to come with a good or at least niche passive, or, have good abilities that can be fired off within the 2-3rd turn. I did a quick search, and I couldn't really find any characters that I would more often use (to win), that have abilities that cost 8 or more AP (UNLESS, they have something feeding them AP to use it, or a really good passive).

He unfortunately doesn't tick any of those boxes for me. You could have made his blue cost 6 and it still wouldn't have been overbalanced. 8? and it's not even fortified, unless you match yellow after the fact... and even if you do, the opposing team now also gets the benefit of those charge tiles.

The green does have a fun multi-hit feature, but the damage with the cost is nothing to be afraid of (especially since his blue will never see the light of day on defense).

The yellow passive, also some minor value, but honestly, he doesn't really care to be matching yellow for anything other than fortifying his own tile, that you might get off after 1 or both of your other characters are almost / dead.

He is in dire need of a strong supporting teammate; Darkveil could carry him, but she can carry just about anyone. I used to get excited for the 5star rebalances, but now with release after release I am just let down. I expect to see this character in the wild the same amount I see OroStorm, Logan, Havok, Wasp etc. etc. (not at all). If the goal is just to get people to try them out for a few more matches and sell a few costumes, I suppose mission accomplished, but if that's not the goal, maybe consider putting whoever did Sinister rebalance on the rest? Though even he doesn't see any play in my ques (outside of me).

If your only metric for a good rebalance is, have they made their way into the meta characters that can be used unboosted, then I don't see not being disappointed by any rebalance. If your metric is, "are they now usable when boosted?", then all of these have been successful except for wasp. I have seen a good amount of oml and storm when boosted in pvp and I don't beleive havok has been boosted since his rework, but I imagine he should be usable.

For me, Cable was borderline usable when boosted but he was just a bit too slow. This should give him the push he needs to get over the usable when boosted threshold.

I'm somewhere in between you guys on this rework specifically. That blue ability is BAD, and yeah, it was worse before, but that's only because it was one of the worst abilities in the entire game.

His green gets better and cheaper, but honestly there's no longer a place for 9+ AP abilities that don't immediately end the game.

His yellow is definitely a buff, but I'll need to play with it to see how good it is. It's competing with stuff like Prowler and Maria Hill, and those are high bars to clear.

Personally I don't believe any character should ever be usable unboosted, so I'm not asking for rebalances to achieve that. I still think this one falls a bit short. I do have Cable at 550, so if he's good at 672 I'll report back -- sometimes the numbers get so big that nothing else matters.

ThaRoadWarrior

I was seriously considering him as a write-in on the poll, so this saves me the trouble. I don't love the costume either, his existing Liefeld Pouch Suit and the Daredevil black suit are the two costumes I missed out on that I wish I had. Hopefully the powers are good in practice, I love the character Cable and have always wished he was usable.

Borstock

I mean, the green will play with boosts. It feels like another dude I'll see more in PvE nodes than in PvP. But I've been wrong before.

Omegased

4vulture5/cable/4ironmay will be a nuke machine

TheXMan

I think they need to increase their budget on these reworks

Tiger_Wong

I’m good with this rebalance. I now want to try the blue if for no other reason than to see if by simply making a green match while the rest of the board is filled with green charges can I get that extra damage or do I have to wait until it expires. If I can leverage the board in green, this might be sneaky effective.

The green power DEFINITELY needed to be faster. I want to use it but I REALLY had to leverage the board/AP/team. This is a welcome buff.

As for the yellow buff, I’m all for all of it.

I’m lookinv forward to a character that can really combo with him (crossing fingers for a future Hope Summers) but until then, I’ll do some labbing with this rebalance Nathan.

Carnage1484

@WhiteBomber said:
Thanks for giving it a try.

OPINIONS INBOUND
It does however make me sad and lack faith for any of the 5star rebalances upcoming. Either someone is afraid to make them on par with the new generation, or they are very out of touch with power levels of the characters in this game.

I think for any character to even make it in to the top 50, you need to come with a good or at least niche passive, or, have good abilities that can be fired off within the 2-3rd turn. I did a quick search, and I couldn't really find any characters that I would more often use (to win), that have abilities that cost 8 or more AP (UNLESS, they have something feeding them AP to use it, or a really good passive).

He unfortunately doesn't tick any of those boxes for me. You could have made his blue cost 6 and it still wouldn't have been overbalanced. 8? and it's not even fortified, unless you match yellow after the fact... and even if you do, the opposing team now also gets the benefit of those charge tiles.

The green does have a fun multi-hit feature, but the damage with the cost is nothing to be afraid of (especially since his blue will never see the light of day on defense).

The yellow passive, also some minor value, but honestly, he doesn't really care to be matching yellow for anything other than fortifying his own tile, that you might get off after 1 or both of your other characters are almost / dead.

He is in dire need of a strong supporting teammate; Darkveil could carry him, but she can carry just about anyone. I used to get excited for the 5star rebalances, but now with release after release I am just let down. I expect to see this character in the wild the same amount I see OroStorm, Logan, Havok, Wasp etc. etc. (not at all). If the goal is just to get people to try them out for a few more matches and sell a few costumes, I suppose mission accomplished, but if that's not the goal, maybe consider putting whoever did Sinister rebalance on the rest? Though even he doesn't see any play in my ques (outside of me).

Plasma barrage is one of the hardest hitting powers in the game with this rework. India scales infinitely in theory but starts way lower, May drains all AP, Omega red is cheap but not even half the damage of this. It might be the highest flat damage dealing power in the game outside of Ironmans 19 AP blue. There’s also supports for green AP, up to like 12 or 16 to start a match. I feel like your undervaluing this change.

trewiltrewil

@S0kun just wanted to say thanks, the color commentary on this one is much better. It gives a lot more insight into the process, maybe you could add a few notes about who each of the powers might play well with or characters to try him with as an additional color line to add a bit more context, but this is very improved and more helpful than the prior posts (especially the note on how lowering the AP cost at lower numbers is more expensive).

S0kun

@trewiltrewil said:
@S0kun just wanted to say thanks, the color commentary on this one is much better. It gives a lot more insight into the process, maybe you could add a few notes about who each of the powers might play well with or characters to try him with as an additional color line to add a bit more context, but this is very improved and more helpful than the prior posts (especially the note on how lowering the AP cost at lower numbers is more expensive).

Glad to hear! I’ll try to get more context next time. Luckily, we plan to have these blurbs moving forward.

WhiteBomber

@BriMan2222 said:
If your only metric for a good rebalance is, have they made their way into the meta characters that can be used unboosted, then I don't see not being disappointed by any rebalance. If your metric is, "are they now usable when boosted?", then all of these have been successful except for wasp. I have seen a good amount of oml and storm when boosted in pvp and I don't beleive havok has been boosted since his rework, but I imagine he should be usable.

For me, Cable was borderline usable when boosted but he was just a bit too slow. This should give him the push he needs to get over the usable when boosted threshold.

I'm not sure how you came to the conclusion that them being meta was my metric, but I can clarify, it is not. Here is an example list of just some reworks I believe were good, but don't believe are meta:

• Sinister
• Moonknight5
• Yellow Jacket (I think this was the new team?)
• Silk
• Puck
• Maria Hill

For more context, my definition of meta being; you likely need those characters to compete in PVE or PVP (maybe the top 10 or so characters).

My metric will also never be "usable when boosted", I think this is a bad way to approach these, (same goes for new characters). If the goal is, "this character is good enough to play once per year (dramatization) on a feature that boosts characters to such a high level you almost have no choice but to choose them", then why not just have them turn off all of the other characters who aren't boosted and make it even easier on us.

Again, ALL OPINIONS, but the fun for me personally, is finding creative ways around / outside metas with the fun tools (characters) we have at our disposal. So basically being forced to play poorly designed characters because they are boosted to ludicrous levels, is less fun to me, and therefore a bad metric.

I definitely don't expect these reworks to break in to the top 10, hell, not even the top 50 (as mentioned in my initial post), but at least give them a chance when they aren't boosted. Make 1 ability that stands out enough to want to play him, hell, it doesn't even have to be a great one, just make it FUN! He has the makings of a fun kit, but it's too expensive, if they just nerfed the damage and lowered the cost to reasonable levels, it would be worth it for fun factor. I don't have to tell you matches are decided in the first 1-3 moves, and if Cable wants to play, he came to the wrong game, or at least the wrong iteration of it.

I'm not even saying he is "so bad", but I am saying that it doesn't feel worth the effort of making these changes if it doesn't move the needle enough to get people to play him, unless of course, again, your purpose is to sell costumes. You can also play him in Deadpool daily, where time and wins don't matter, but I hope and don't believe, that's what most of us want.

For any comments about how hard his green hits, here are examples from 30 seconds of roster scrolling I personally would consider better:

Green only:

• BRB: Similar multi-hit for 80k, only it's easier for him to get 12 green than Cable to get 9, while also providing great defensive value
• X-Force Wolvy: 65ishk for less AP plus a boatload of destruction damage and likely ap gen
• Ares: I forget the exact number, but it was basically 80ishk damage if you had 9 green, except you can use it at 5+ (and I don't even consider this ability usually worth it)
• Phoenix: Does like 175k total
• Kamala3: 52k team damage (150+ total) and is probably a better green battery

As for the other colors, why even bother looking, who knows how many characters can hit close to that damage or way harder, for far less. We know straight active AP damage numbers are no where near the best / meta, and that's ok.

Again, he might not be BAD, but he could have been a lot better without breaking the meta, in my opinion. I have no intent to dissuade others from playing him, rather give my feedback (early feedback even, maybe he has a great partner). So by all means, if you like the change, please bring him in to PVE or PVP (I would love to play against him. Maybe try starting with supports who give green).

SAking

Will Doops move copy of Plasma barrage also be updated accordingly?