Marvel Puzzle Quest: Character Rebalances - Batch #2 (Nov 13, 2025)

LennoxHC

On the point of nerfing the characters like Polaris and Shang Chi that let newer players punch up, I feel a lot of that was offset by buffing 1* Hawkeye to enable his purple infinite. Using him since the buff, I think he's now the best punch up tool, and as a 1*, probably way more readily accessible.

It would be nice to see if they did something similar in this wave of buffs where an ascended 1 or 2* character can step up to be used more often.

Borstock

@LennoxHC said:
On the point of nerfing the characters like Polaris and Shang Chi that let newer players punch up, I feel a lot of that was offset by buffing 1* Hawkeye to enable his purple infinite. Using him since the buff, I think he's now the best punch up tool, and as a 1*, probably way more readily accessible.

It would be nice to see if they did something similar in this wave of buffs where an ascended 1 or 2* character can step up to be used more often.

I HATE that idea. Why am I chasing 5's and 6's when I'm losing to teams who went all in on some 1* that I've been staring at the entire time I've been playing?

I despise that you can now basically play the entire game at a high level by simply maxing out all the 1*s. And now that they're nerfing fun toys, what reason would I have for chasing the high level stuff?

DAZ0273

@MegaBee said:

@DAZ0273 said:
Nerfing Grocket after all this time! He is a one trick pony which I suspect will now be a zero trick pony. The horse had already bolted, found a horse companion, had a couple of kids and moved into a retirement stable by now. Grocket doesn't even feature in PvP!

I guess Jane wasn't really a surprise. I really liked her chaos but I guess many didn't and her and Polaris could be nasty.

Shang as everybody has already says is a glass cannon but I guess he could one shot people and that is obviously an issue for Devs.

Please also nerf some of the 1* - mostly looking at 1* Spider-Man, if Shang is a problem with crits then so is Spidey!

Buffs - all probably need although we really don't need another OP 1*. Widow already has her mega stun.

You stay the heck away from the 1-star characters!

Let's see what the reasoning on Shang is because it's hard to justify if it comes down to crit tiles whilst we have a frequently boosted 1" who can do pretty much the same.

DAZ0273

@LennoxHC said:
On the point of nerfing the characters like Polaris and Shang Chi that let newer players punch up, I feel a lot of that was offset by buffing 1* Hawkeye to enable his purple infinite. Using him since the buff, I think he's now the best punch up tool, and as a 1*, probably way more readily accessible.

It would be nice to see if they did something similar in this wave of buffs where an ascended 1 or 2* character can step up to be used more often.

This isn't helping new players. As an alliance that has plenty of them, none of them have ascended 1a5.

entrailbucket

@DAZ0273 said:

@MegaBee said:

@DAZ0273 said:
Nerfing Grocket after all this time! He is a one trick pony which I suspect will now be a zero trick pony. The horse had already bolted, found a horse companion, had a couple of kids and moved into a retirement stable by now. Grocket doesn't even feature in PvP!

I guess Jane wasn't really a surprise. I really liked her chaos but I guess many didn't and her and Polaris could be nasty.

Shang as everybody has already says is a glass cannon but I guess he could one shot people and that is obviously an issue for Devs.

Please also nerf some of the 1* - mostly looking at 1* Spider-Man, if Shang is a problem with crits then so is Spidey!

Buffs - all probably need although we really don't need another OP 1*. Widow already has her mega stun.

You stay the heck away from the 1-star characters!

Let's see what the reasoning on Shang is because it's hard to justify if it comes down to crit tiles whilst we have a frequently boosted 1" who can do pretty much the same.

My guess is it'll be the true healing.

I love nerfs and I can't come up with a metagame-based reason to change him now that m'Thor has been dialed back, so I bet this is an OML situation where it's about low level players.

entrailbucket

@DAZ0273 said:

@LennoxHC said:
On the point of nerfing the characters like Polaris and Shang Chi that let newer players punch up, I feel a lot of that was offset by buffing 1* Hawkeye to enable his purple infinite. Using him since the buff, I think he's now the best punch up tool, and as a 1*, probably way more readily accessible.

It would be nice to see if they did something similar in this wave of buffs where an ascended 1 or 2* character can step up to be used more often.

This isn't helping new players. As an alliance that has plenty of them, none of them have ascended 1a5.

He doesn't have to be 5* to punch up!

DAZ0273

@entrailbucket said:

@DAZ0273 said:

@LennoxHC said:
On the point of nerfing the characters like Polaris and Shang Chi that let newer players punch up, I feel a lot of that was offset by buffing 1* Hawkeye to enable his purple infinite. Using him since the buff, I think he's now the best punch up tool, and as a 1*, probably way more readily accessible.

It would be nice to see if they did something similar in this wave of buffs where an ascended 1 or 2* character can step up to be used more often.

This isn't helping new players. As an alliance that has plenty of them, none of them have ascended 1a5.

He doesn't have to be 5* to punch up!

Ha ha true, sounds like Polaris and Grocket!

MBZ

The Mthor nerf on the blue going from 1 tile destroyed per charged tile to just 2 max feels pretty harsh. Could it be changed to scale with skill level instead, maybe 1 max at level 1 up to 5 max at level 5? That way players have to decide on tile destruction or direct damage from red/yellow.

skittledaddy

entrailbucket said:

I love nerfs and I can't come up with a metagame-based reason to change him now that m'Thor has been dialed back, so I bet this is an OML situation where it's about low level players.

Agreed. And they are doing a spectacular job of chasing us away.

skittledaddy

Spider-Ham got a stealth buff, as well.

"Into the Spider-Verse" went from 9 to 7 yellow AP
"When Pigs Fly" went down from 10 to 8 blue AP

DAZ0273

@skittledaddy said:
Spider-Ham got a stealth buff, as well.

"Into the Spider-Verse" went from 9 to 7 yellow AP
"When Pigs Fly" went down from 10 to 8 blue AP

Look out Players, here comes the Spider-Ham...into the same existing limited play you use him now!

scottee

So I spend literally years building MThor up to 550 and now you nerf her with no compensation?

Even the old devs gave out LLT's when they wrecked OML and Gambit.

I don't see much reason to stay in this game anymore.

LennoxHC

@Borstock said:

@LennoxHC said:
On the point of nerfing the characters like Polaris and Shang Chi that let newer players punch up, I feel a lot of that was offset by buffing 1* Hawkeye to enable his purple infinite. Using him since the buff, I think he's now the best punch up tool, and as a 1*, probably way more readily accessible.

It would be nice to see if they did something similar in this wave of buffs where an ascended 1 or 2* character can step up to be used more often.

I HATE that idea. Why am I chasing 5's and 6's when I'm losing to teams who went all in on some 1* that I've been staring at the entire time I've been playing?

I despise that you can now basically play the entire game at a high level by simply maxing out all the 1*s. And now that they're nerfing fun toys, what reason would I have for chasing the high level stuff?

Just speaking from my personal perspective, I wasn't all that upset by the Polaris nerf, and even though mThor is one of my favorites, I don't feel all that shook by her nerf either. And honestly, I think this is all because I don't use them nearly as much as I used to.

And this is also the case with Shang Chi as well. The 1* Hawkeye buff has actually made me use Shang Chi recently far more than I had been.

And this is because I think some of the new characters and buffs have given me new fun toys to play with. Frankie Nova is probably my most used character right now, Galactus with Iron May and the 1* Hawkeye infinite has been super fun for me. And when I've gotten one of the Hydra team's feedback loops going, that's also been fun. I've enjoyed using these new characters and that's why I will chase them.

I specifically look at my own play patterns and recognize that the new character rolls outs have worked on me. I started playing about 4 years ago and made my first leap with Polaris and Grocket. I jumped to 5* play with Chasm and mThor, and since that time, the devs have timed out new 5* releases on a pretty regular schedule that have shifted my play patterns towards those new characters: Kang, Omega Red, Golden Oldie, Mephisto, Frankie Raye.

In that sense, I guess I'm the ideal mark. Like this sort of behavior is what they would ideally want from a customer, continually moving on to the next big thing. Ultimately, I don't mind nerfs if there are new toys that I can get that are fun to play with.

And honestly, I don't mind if someone else can play the entire game just by maxing out the 1*s. Like I have my goals in how I build out my roster and I'm not going to be bothered by someone else doing it a different way. In fact, I think that's a good thing where folks can climb by building their rosters in a variety of different ways.

BriMan2222

@scottee said:
So I spend literally years building MThor up to 550 and now you nerf her with no compensation?

Even the old devs gave out LLT's when they wrecked OML and Gambit.

I don't see much reason to stay in this game anymore.

After playing a bunch with her and polaris in pve today. It's nothing to quit over. Polaris/mthor is still polaris/mthor, but now instead of easily squashing teams a hundred levels above them in 2 or 3 turns, it might take 4 or 5 now.

waywreth

I'd already mostly stopped playing and paying when Unity started. The lack of new content or events was really a downer combined with the number of bugs/errors.

These sorts of changes to characters I've spent building up, makes for a final reason to put the game aside. Thank you for the game over this past decade.

DAZ0273

Y'know the more I think about it, the more I am starting to question what is going on with the R4G nerf. This is a character who has been in game EIGHT years I believe?!?! The time to have nerfed them was the Gritty meta. We have somehow survived all this time with them. Why now? I can understand Jane and Polaris (not so much Shang) but why exactly do this after so long?!?!? Do too many players have him now? Well, dear Devs, you did put his covers in a Season pass! This one is a real head scratcher.

entrailbucket

@DAZ0273 said:
Y'know the more I think about it, the more I am starting to question what is going on with the R4G nerf. This is a character who has been in game EIGHT years I believe?!?! The time to have nerfed them was the Gritty meta. We have somehow survived all this time with them. Why now? I can understand Jane and Polaris (not so much Shang) but why exactly do this after so long?!?!? Do too many players have him now? Well, dear Devs, you did put his covers in a Season pass! This one is a real head scratcher.

Agreed, I'd hope that this one is a rebalance to make his other powers more useful. I'm not sure why they're calling it a nerf at all. Rocket definitely doesn't need a nerf, but he does need some fixing.

Sayidz

"great and constructive feedback"?
All I'm seeing is negative comments and watching loyal players complaining and leaving the game.
You are clearly choose fan favorite/powerful characters for nerf, and you change them to garbage. From today, I won't buy anything from the game anymore. It's not fun anymore and there's no point to level up your favorite characters or even have a favorite team.

Let me tell you this: YOU'RE DELIBERATELY RUINING THE GAME!
keep making these bad and wrong decisions, and soon you will lose all of your fans, your benefits and players who loved this game someday. Then couple years later, you sit and think about: O, what went wrong?!

pepitedechocolat

simple data point, yesterday I could, with many packs, clear SCL9, today I cannot. I wont spend months recovering from devs sadistic attitude.

Was fun while it lasted lasted

skittledaddy

entrailbucket said:

Agreed, I'd hope that this one is a rebalance to make his other powers more useful. I'm not sure why they're calling it a nerf at all. Rocket definitely doesn't need a nerf, but he does need some fixing.

>

GRocket's usage is still too high. That's all that matters.
It's not that they are OP, they just want to drag their usage back to mediocrity.
If not that, then this truly feels like a target on the 4-5* transitioners - telling us to move up or ship out. Every char they are focusing on right now are the mainstays for those making that transition.

I acknowledge that as the soft-capping king I am artificially still in this transition, while many others are in it far more "legitimately", but I can't help notice how directly these nerf bats impact one tier of gameplay far more than others. Further evidenced by those with ascended Polaris' saying "she's still fine, almost still OP". Down here in 4*Land she is FAR FROM fine. She is legit benchwarmer status now.