Where's the New Character Sunspot thread?

Gymp28

@Blackstone said:
The phone/stock animations are annoying...

Not just seeing them (I know they can be turned off) but knowing that's what they went with bothers me.

Obviously this is just a personal issue in which I would have preferred more of a focus on powers instead of a flip phone, but I just don't understand the reason for going this route with the character.

Isn’t it obvious? It’s tongue-in cheek from the Devs that they’re phoning it in! (and have been since the Unity launch).

Grantosium

I'm actually wondering if the character selection process and the character actualisation process are both run by AI. It's running through a database with the buzzword of the month picking randomly regardless of character popularity so it's just coincidence when it is a popular character at all and then no one on the dev team is actually familiar with the character's source material so an AI summary takes a few of the key words from the wiki and that's what they go with.

This is the second character this year with stocks and shares powers and the proportion of characters being added with business suits is going up. Gorgon and Mephisto were less than 12 months ago, right? Surprised we haven't had an alternate business suit look for Sidewinder! I'm looking forward to Wendell Meachum with a Pager, Tony Stark in business attire with a briefcase, Danny Rand with an mp3 player and Howard the Duck with a Tamagochi.

bluewolf

I assume Sunspot was chosen this season because he’s:

1. A fairly commonly requested character (along with other New Mutants)
2. Hispanic-ish, being from Brazil, and its Hispanic Heritage season. I may not know the correct terminologies and how they refer to themselves. He may be properly considered Latino. But he’s at least fairly representative of the theme.

As far as Business Suit Robert, this is the same basic look that Contest of Champions took when adding him although their version is constantly on black fire or whatever it is he’s doing when he’s in a powered up state. Also, he doesn’t seem to be holding a phone.

DAZ0273

I was reading through Sunspot's wiki entry and it confirmed something to me: the further along I got the more complete gibberish the story lines became. And we are not starting from an impossibly high bar as Chris Claremont could certainly get dragged down into his own nonsense but the later stuff just comes across as...fannish? Almost amateur? So maybe Stock Broker Roberto is the best he was in recent times.

nbperp

Schedule calls for a new costume to release today. Anyone going to be surprised when it's original New Mutant uniform Sunspot?

entrailbucket

@Grantosium said:
I'm actually wondering if the character selection process and the character actualisation process are both run by AI. It's running through a database with the buzzword of the month picking randomly regardless of character popularity so it's just coincidence when it is a popular character at all and then no one on the dev team is actually familiar with the character's source material so an AI summary takes a few of the key words from the wiki and that's what they go with.

This is the second character this year with stocks and shares powers and the proportion of characters being added with business suits is going up. Gorgon and Mephisto were less than 12 months ago, right? Surprised we haven't had an alternate business suit look for Sidewinder! I'm looking forward to Wendell Meachum with a Pager, Tony Stark in business attire with a briefcase, Danny Rand with an mp3 player and Howard the Duck with a Tamagochi.

Marvel picks which new characters we get, and often which versions of them. They have to approve the art, the powers, and the flavor text. The devs are given a few open slots but generally those end up being the really weird characters, or original characters.

...unless your argument is that Marvel is being run by an AI?

ProfShoehorn

...unless your argument is that Marvel is being run by an AI?

Shh… Quiet. Don’t want Skynet to know that we’ve caught on.

entrailbucket

There are plenty of legitimate reasons to be suspicious of AI, and it's currently terrible at a wide range of stuff that it's supposed to be useful for.

But the current wave of "blame everything I don't like on AI" is really overselling what it can even do, and underselling how bad humans are at all sorts of things.

SuperCarrot

So, is this official unofficial thread for Sunspot? Cause if so I am curious as to how he is working, especially regarding denying AP, which seems like it could be good in PVP?

entrailbucket

@SuperCarrot said:
So, is this official unofficial thread for Sunspot? Cause if so I am curious as to how he is working, especially regarding denying AP, which seems like it could be good in PVP?

I'm not sure active AP drain like that has ever been good in PvP...what were you thinking you'd use it for? I guess if you're getting murdered by turn0 support AP shenanigans, you could use his purple to drain them on your turn0?

I'd probably look to take advantage of Sunspot's red passive, combined with his own cheap powers (someone said he triggers on his own casts, so he can be somewhat self contained). I haven't messed with him yet but I'd run him with strike tile makers or passive damage boosters, then let him do his thing. I have no idea if he's good or not.

SuperCarrot

Yeah, what you are saying makes the most sense. I guess he will be another Iron May partner. There does seem to be some battery potential with him as well. I guess I will wait and see what you pros think after messing with him some.

nbperp

Annnnnnndddddd…….. there’s the ‘97 Version costume for those of us hating the modern cell phone look

bluewolf

The skin tone difference between the ‘97 version and the release version is jarring.

nbperp

Obviously, the light from the phone is lightening the older one’s skin. Lololol

MegaBee

@bluewolf said:
The skin tone difference between the ‘97 version and the release version is jarring.

'97 version spent more time outside.

GrimSkald

I think he's a pretty solid B tier. His red hits hard enough, particularly if you get a bit of extra AP, and you will tend to use his Purple to generate traps (pick a color with 0 or 1 AP,) than to drain AP, but it's always nice to be able to pull an opponent back from the brink of unleashing a nasty power. The traps themselves are ... okay. They're traps, so they get overwritten in a heartbeat, but you can theoretically propagate them. I haven't played him enough to see how well it works in practice. The added effect that Sunspot does a decent chunk of damage any time anyone casts a red, yellow, or purple power (including himself) is definitely pretty good, and the burst heal on his own color matches is... well it's fine, it will rarely make a real difference but it's certainly not a bad thing.

His yellow power strikes me as pretty inexplicable - I have no idea what they intended with this one. It does create a decent number of traps, but it creates an (unfortified) CD that kills them all when it expires, and creates a strike tile. Sure, it's reasonably big, but its only one and it's not fortified. What's more, the strike tile it creates is exactly the same whether it consumes 1 or 20 traps. It's a weird power and strikes me as pretty out of line with the rest of his tool kit.

So all in all, I'd say he's definitely not bad but not worth unhoarding for either. I intend to get Nova to 550, so we'll see where I get him to -- as someone here once said (I think it was Daiches,) I don't see any reason not to get anyone up to 500 at least.

bluewolf

The resource accumulation rate - especially 2 years into ascension - for mature rosters is such that anyone who’s consistently playing and placing T50 or better can easily pick and choose who to 550 and who to leave lower - 500? Sure. Why not.

The PvP cover drop rate and current MMR has made this even more the case.

Anyway Sunspot seems fine. If PvP gets fixed at some point you might want to use him boosted depending on other people that week.

BriMan2222

I turned his animations on, as I do when a new character is released to see what they look like, and he has some of the best animations I've seen in awhile. Who needs a generic fireball or punch when you have great animations like "Look at my flip phone! Look at it!" and "My stock portfolio is lit yo."" and .... generic fireball....

Okay I guess 2 out of 3 isn't bad, especially when so many of the more recent "animations" have been "posing and not moving at all" and "posing and not moving at all in the exact same pose but also there is a small burst of light behind me"

Will changing his costume change his animations to something else? Showing off a fireball instead of his phone? Fire in the sky instead of stocks and bonds? If so, I'm definitely keeping him in his default costume.

bluewolf

Two of his powers…..

DAZ0273

@BriMan2222 said:
I turned his animations on, as I do when a new character is released to see what they look like, and he has some of the best animations I've seen in awhile. Who needs a generic fireball or punch when you have great animations like "Look at my flip phone! Look at it!" and "My stock portfolio is lit yo."" and .... generic fireball....

Okay I guess 2 out of 3 isn't bad, especially when so many of the more recent "animations" have been "posing and not moving at all" and "posing and not moving at all in the exact same pose but also there is a small burst of light behind me"

Will changing his costume change his animations to something else? Showing off a fireball instead of his phone? Fire in the sky instead of stocks and bonds? If so, I'm definitely keeping him in his default costume.

Oh that's a fireball! I could not work out what he is doing there, I thought maybe he was practicing his tennis strokes or something. I'm gonna go watch again!