New Character - Sidewinder (Seth Voelker) 4*

KGB

@Borstock said:
He basically ruined Rogue's PvP. Would be nice to also get some acknowledgement of that.

As an off season event I've really enjoyed this PvP with Sidewinder as it was a breeze getting to 25 wins with a boosted Chasm. I've eaten dozens of boosted MThor teams as she flailed away helplessly as Sidewinder cackled with glee as he + Leapfrog allowed everyone to effortlessly avoid her hammer blows. She's never looked more useless.

KGB

Borstock

He basically ruined Rogue's PvP. Would be nice to also get some acknowledgement of that.> @KGB said:

@Borstock said:
He basically ruined Rogue's PvP. Would be nice to also get some acknowledgement of that.

As an off season event I've really enjoyed this PvP with Sidewinder as it was a breeze getting to 25 wins with a boosted Chasm. I've eaten dozens of boosted MThor teams as she flailed away helplessly as Sidewinder cackled with glee as he + Leapfrog allowed everyone to effortlessly avoid her hammer blows. She's never looked more useless.

KGB

Right. As I said, ruined. If you find it enjoyable, good for you. I'm sick and tired of PvP being "win turn 1, or lose". Nerfing SideChasm doesn't fix the NaM'Baku nonsense, but it's a step in the right direction.

KGB

I think it's difference of what level of PvP we are playing.

I don't have the characters at a level where turn 1 wins are possible (baring cascades). Nor do I face teams that can 1 shot me in return (again baring some bad cascade luck). So matches, even with Sidewinder + 2 TU boost do not end on turn 0 or 1 etc (I don't seem to have cascade supports). They are all going several turns which gives AI teams time to luck into all kinds of annoying things (esp MThor). Being able to down her quickly and when I can't, having multiple 'get out of jail free' passes from damage is not only fun, it's super helpful.

This difference in PvP experience is probably one of the hardest things for the Devs to manage because for some it's awful and for others it's not.

KGB

entrailbucket

@KGB said:
I think it's difference of what level of PvP we are playing.

I don't have the characters at a level where turn 1 wins are possible (baring cascades). Nor do I face teams that can 1 shot me in return (again baring some bad cascade luck). So matches, even with Sidewinder + 2 TU boost do not end on turn 0 or 1 etc (I don't seem to have cascade supports). They are all going several turns which gives AI teams time to luck into all kinds of annoying things (esp MThor). Being able to down her quickly and when I can't, having multiple 'get out of jail free' passes from damage is not only fun, it's super helpful.

This difference in PvP experience is probably one of the hardest things for the Devs to manage because for some it's awful and for others it's not.

KGB

The "cascade supports" are Fantasticar and Thanos Copter -- I just realized I called them that without explaining it.

KGB

@entrailbucket said:

@KGB said:
I think it's difference of what level of PvP we are playing.

I don't have the characters at a level where turn 1 wins are possible (baring cascades). Nor do I face teams that can 1 shot me in return (again baring some bad cascade luck). So matches, even with Sidewinder + 2 TU boost do not end on turn 0 or 1 etc (I don't seem to have cascade supports). They are all going several turns which gives AI teams time to luck into all kinds of annoying things (esp MThor). Being able to down her quickly and when I can't, having multiple 'get out of jail free' passes from damage is not only fun, it's super helpful.

This difference in PvP experience is probably one of the hardest things for the Devs to manage because for some it's awful and for others it's not.

KGB

The "cascade supports" are Fantasticar and Thanos Copter -- I just realized I called them that without explaining it.

Ah, those are 2 of the 5 supports I have at R2, everything else (other than Mind Stone I don't have) are R3 and above. So that explains why I don't have them.

This last boss event let me get Lucky to R5 and I moved my favorite to the Car but it will be a while till I see anything because I won't use shards to go from R2 to R3, I'll wait and pull the next time it's in tokens and hope to get it at R3 (I have a decent stockpile) and save shards for R4/R5.

KGB

WhiteBomber

@KGB said:
I think it's difference of what level of PvP we are playing.

I don't have the characters at a level where turn 1 wins are possible (baring cascades). Nor do I face teams that can 1 shot me in return (again baring some bad cascade luck). So matches, even with Sidewinder + 2 TU boost do not end on turn 0 or 1 etc (I don't seem to have cascade supports). They are all going several turns which gives AI teams time to luck into all kinds of annoying things (esp MThor). Being able to down her quickly and when I can't, having multiple 'get out of jail free' passes from damage is not only fun, it's super helpful.

This difference in PvP experience is probably one of the hardest things for the Devs to manage because for some it's awful and for others it's not.

KGB

I also had quite a bit of fun in this PVP; my un-ascended Rogue even added some fun value. I learned MThor and Darkveil are actually quite fun and you don't need Veil to keep her countdown out.

I didn't hit the wall of Chasmwinder util about 700 points. On defense I used Chasm MThor at first, but then ultimately left Chasmwinder around 750... no one fought me God boost is still waaay off balance though, regardless of the fun I had.

Glad to see them acknowledge Sidewinder, fingers crossed they only touch the match damage and that some of that power does actually make it's way to Hobgarblins abilities!

WhiteBomber

@Daredevil217 said:
@S0kun I put this in another thread but here’s an idea what other match damage monsters are doing. Hopefully SW will be in line with these characters and not blow them out of the freaking water. #powerbudget, #newengine

Captain Britain +780% max in strong colors with 18 stored AP.
Karnak- +560% after 4 turns
Ikaris +380% when airborne to enemy in back
IHulk +378% (after many deaths)
MBaku +300% (and 3% for each % health gone)
Ghost +300%
Juggernaut/Doop +225%
Chasm +220% max (I think? Not sure how he works)
Rhino +200% in strong colors
Thanos +175% (when CD out)
3* Namor +125% bonus damage with bottom 5 match
Colossus +125%
Adam Warlock +113%
Dark Beast +57% per black AP
America Chavez/Doop +30% per AP in that color
Headpool +30% bonus damage per match

Teammate boosts:
Iron May 150%
Agatha +30% per teammate match
The Hunter +90% for 3 AP (tied to a CD)
Cyclops +75% for 7 AP

Iron May is the best team booster at 150% flat. I think capping at 300% with 5 teamups would be fair for Winder.

I appreciate you posting this again. I think the only relevant ones are the teammate boosts since that's what he does, but I was curious and for anyone else who was wondering:

Winder is 10X more buff than IronMay (who is already amazing / the best) and for Agatha (the only other character who can boost anywhere near that) you would have to make 50 matches with other characters to hit those boost numbers. Whoopsie.

bluewolf

Prediction: assuming a nerf is coming, it hits as the next season begins in 4 weeks.

(I didn’t originally think of that timing.)

That allows them to fully see what happens when everyone can get him by favoriting him etc.

Too long? Sure, but it seems likely nonetheless.

entrailbucket

@bluewolf said:
Prediction: assuming a nerf is coming, it hits as the next season begins in 4 weeks.

(I didn’t originally think of that timing.)

That allows them to fully see what happens when everyone can get him by favoriting him etc.

Too long? Sure, but it seems likely nonetheless.

I feel like waiting that long is going to put a lot of players in a bad situation, and put the devs in a bad situation regarding compensation as well.

PvP right now is maybe 75% Chasm Sidewinder, and when the Chasm boost week ends I think it's going to stick around to some extent. Players who don't have him are going to feel pretty forced into spending some resources on him, even if we know he's disappearing shortly. The alternative is just taking a full season off, and I doubt most would do that.

Now, you've got a bunch of folks who spent money or resources into acquiring him, and they're going to expect compensation for the nerf. If they do it today, he's not even in tokens yet, so at the very worst you only offer refunds to the people who bought his bundles.

Borstock

The longer they wait, the worse they look, if they care about such things.

entrailbucket

@Codex said:

@entrailbucket said:

@revskip said:
I suspect a nerf will be coming in on this one. I know folks who did 2000 wins in SHIELD Sim this past season just doing 1 turn wins with Sidewinder. I personally am already up to 100 wins in the Rogue PvP with the vast majority of those wins happening before the other team ever gets to make a match. Those kind of metrics probably catch some eyes.

I ran Chasm (550) M'baku (470) Sidewinder (272 or something) with both cascade supports and leapfrog -- boosted +2 TU every fight, against mostly 550/550/550.

Against non Chasm teams I usually won (mind you, against full 550 5* teams) before they could move the board at all, and sometimes even before they woke up from the stun. Any cascade killed one or more enemies.

Sidewinder just has to be bugged. There is no way this is intentional.

The only "full" 550 team I saw was 3a5Namor chasm baku. The rest had at most two 550s with at the most a lvl 290 Sidewinder.

I was just thinking about this, and I'm not sure why I didn't realize it then. The matchmaking algorithm tries to find fights appropriate for your roster, and hides opponents that are too weak.

When I started in sim, near the very end, there were a bunch of poor unfortunate folks running weak teams like 550 Shang-Chi/m'Thor/Riri, and of course the game is going to give me those fights over Sidewinder teams -- the Sidewinder teams are running a 4* who's barely 270 (or even less). The game was hiding them because it thought they were too weak for me, and it was still able to find tons of "appropriate" fights made up of 3 550 5*. Once it ran out of those, it started showing me the "weak" Sidewinder teams.

I bet this is also why I never see the Iron May teams in sim. This is actually a pretty serious flaw in the current matchmaking algorithm -- it thinks all 5* are better than all 3* and 4*, and they've broken that rule recently.

S0kun

Thanks everyone for sharing your thoughts on Seth's kit and obviously his Yellow. We've made some adjustments to slow him down a little without making this rebalance feel too much like a nerf with the updated numbers found in the OP.

TLDR; His Yellow will require 8 TU AP to reach max potential vs the original 5 TU AP.

These changes will go into effect sometime tonight around 10pm PST.

ThisisClemFandango

Hey @S0kun any chance we can get hobgoblin looked at pre or post release, his numbers seem very very low

S0kun

@ThisisClemFandango said:
Hey @S0kun any chance we can get hobgoblin looked at pre or post release, his numbers seem very very low

Unfortunately not so we'll have to wait until post launch to make any adjustments.

JHawkInc

@S0kun said:
Thanks everyone for sharing your thoughts on Seth's kit and obviously his Yellow. We've made some adjustments to slow him down a little without making this rebalance feel too much like a nerf with the updated numbers found in the OP.

TLDR; His Yellow will require 8 TU AP to reach max potential vs the original 5 TU AP.

These changes will go into effect sometime tonight around 10pm PST.

Hey when you overwrite the old numbers in the original post it makes it harder to compare the new/old numbers and actually see what changed.

entrailbucket

I don't think this change is going to impact him very much.

WhiteBomber

I would wager it doesn't really change anything at all (it miiiight add an extra turn to a fight here or there).

The napkin math (assuming the comment about 8 TU rather than 5 and nothing else changes):

• 1,525% / 5 = 305% per TU that it is currently
• 1,525% / 8 = 190.6% per TU after
• The 5 TU was already a given, you were basically getting that to set him off. So now, when you do, his buff will still be 953% (which is ludicrously higher than the norm). Start with a few TU and you will also be doing match ending damage and maxing it out on your first move.

Is the intent that this is only temporary while the full rebalance is being looked at? No one else in the game can come close to him... and he's a D List villain at best.

That said, I appreciate the hot off the press news, even if I don't understand it. Hopefully the next few characters block 98% of match damage, because that's what it's going to take to stop this guy.

WhiteBomber

Maybe they are going to raise the price of buying TU to start the match with, this would make sense.

toecutter3095

@ThisisClemFandango said:
Hey @S0kun any chance we can get hobgoblin looked at pre or post release, his numbers seem very very low

Sorry, no resources to spare. The team is busy working on a support that gives TU at the start of the match

Codex

Well atleast now we know, we can look forward to the next 4-6 releases being a counter to Seth.