*** Sentry (Dark Avengers) ***

CrookedKnight

You've got a point, although I think two countdowns is too few. Maybe 3-4 countdowns that destroy four random tiles each?

Unknown

CrookedKnight wrote:

You've got a point, although I think two countdowns is too few. Maybe 3-4 countdowns that destroy four random tiles each?

Yea, splitting the damage a little bit more would keep it good with strike tiles without being op

Zen808

I kind of like (2). Would require some play-testing, to decide whether 1/2 tiles at 2x damage is better, or maybe 2/3 tiles at 1.5x damage.

(1) has the potential to over-nerf. (3) will only ruin Sentry for PVE; it won't really affect the Sentry-bombing PVP strategy at all.

In the meanwhile, I wouldn't mind seeing WR cost increased to 10AP, to bring it more in-line with Rage of the Panther.

Unknown

MPQ will henceforth be called "Sentry vs. Sentry: 24/7"

It'll take some getting used to, I guess.

They also released a new promo blurb:
"You and your friends can experience wild team-up possibilities across the Marvel Universe! Just imagine: Sentry & Hood! Sentry & Daken! Sentry & Hulk! The possibilities are ENDLESS!"

Unknown

agree.
More than a month using him on every PVP i say **** sentry, **** his 8+7 combo, i hate him alot.
He makes all other char rendered useless on PVP also make PVP itself soo boring. He's OP and overused.
Lucky D3, X-Force change kinda hold mass quit after S6.

wymtime

At least you don't see Sentry until about 800 or the last 3-8 hours of the PVP. Imagine if we did not have true healing and could heal Sentry after every match in the prologue. Then it would be Sentry at 0 points to 2000.

Unknown

wymtime wrote:

At least you don't see Sentry until about 800 or the last 3-8 hours of the PVP. Imagine if we did not have true healing and could heal Sentry after every match in the prologue. Then it would be Sentry at 0 points to 2000.

That's about exactly what I experience every single PVP

Phaserhawk

He's not broken if you take boosts out of the game as he would be high risk high reward. He still though would be terribly overpowered since you could effectively destroy a team at the start of your 8th turn without boosts. 1.) Match 3 Green 2.) Match 3 Green 3.)Match 3 Green 4.) Match 3 Yellow 5.)Match 3 Yellow 6.) Cast WR Match 3 Yellow 7.)Cast Sacrifice try to not destroy CD's or strike tiles 8.)Start of turn they are dead.

This can happen sooner with Match 4's and 5's etc. The only way to fix him without gutting him is to have World Rupture tiles all explode at the same time thus only triggering strike tiles once. However this would also require an increase in World Rupture damage by itself potentially as the skill would be siginficantly weakened without the multiple strike tile interactions and cascades. This however all but forces you to build Sentry as 5/5/3 since the sacrfice tile becomes less valuable.

The issue of Sentry is even more exacerbated by the fact you have the Hood which can effectively 1.) slow you down so Sentry can go off 2.) Steal your AP so Sentry can go off 3.) Accelerate an already fast combo with his Intimidation.

So when you combine boosts plus the hood to an already insane character, yeah this guy is a massive problem.

To me the biggest problem out of all of this are the AP boosts, damage boosts I'm okay with as they will let you win a little faster, but not insanely fast. AP boosts basically put you 4 turns ahead or more. If they use TU's to generate AP I'm cool with this as well, since you would get the acceleration but not until you do something first.

To anyone that has ever played Magic the Gathering, they had 0 cost artifacts that allowed you to use the colored mana for a spell. They found that this so warped the enviornment and caused 1st turn kills which were not fun for the player that went second, that they banned them, and then restricted them to 1 of each per deck if playing a legacy where all cards are accessible. AP boosts are the same thing. It so warps the enviornment that the defending player or those that don't have the $ to keep up with the boosts have no chance. AP boosts need to go, when these are gone give the game a bit and then see where we need to hit Sentry. Yes this will change PvP and you won't be able to score as high or as fast but they can just adjust the prize output accordingly.

In short, AP boosts need to go.

MarvelMan

For FFW, every match after I hit 601 had Sentry.


Edit for the previous post: I dont use boosts and I still end up using Hood/Sentry. Its not about boosts. I probably take more damage than others, and matches take longer, though.

Unknown

I wouldn't be sad about a WR that goes off simultaneously and only adds in strike tiles once. It is still quite a bit of damage and cascade potential for 7 AP.

Off the wall suggestion. What if the countdown timers were all variable. so the ones at the center are 2 turn, 3 turn a little farther out, 4 turn after that and the ones in the corners can be 5 turn timers.
This makes all the damage come in waves instead of all at once, keeps it a fearsome combo capable of crazy damage but also makes it take more turns to complete, and easier to defend against.

Unknown

AP boosts are a lot better than just taking an extra (AP/3) turns. I've been running Sentry and Daken without boosts and you see plenty of boards that start with no green matches available on the board let alone 3. Let's not forget the AI could get those matches too. Sentry would still be overpowered without boosts but it'd at least slow things down.

But if you get rid of Sentry the game will take much longer and a longer game overwhelmingly favors The Hood. You'll probably get into a MAD situation where people run Patch + Daken to counter Hood with the intention of not actually winning games but making it hard for other people to win (Patch + Daken doesn't work well on offense unless you wimp out on Berserker Rage, but in that case BP + Daken probably works better). For that matter, The Hood wouldn't win games very well without Sentry either unless you have X Force, and even then this team is not built to win on defense (Intimidation gets in the way of Surgical Strike) but rather make it painful for anyone to attack you. And I think that's a very bad design when you end up building teams that aren't trying to win but to slow other people down, and right now Sentry is probably the only thing that stops people doing this since he can demolish anything.

Unknown

Ok, so this is not a thread demanding nerfing Sentry but more about how hard it has become for D3 to nerf him and some ideas of what to do about it....

PvP has gone through a few separate stages (in my mind) you had the pre shield times where it was all about luck and a mad dash at the end, then the time when there were shields but not many developed rosters so certain ppl could do well on a roster advantage, then a larger population of 3* rosters and differentiation through shield hopping.

So what does this have to do with Sentry? Well i'm glad you asked (ok, I know you didn't but.....)

When I first experienced shield hopping there were a lot less ppl with rosters that could safely hit me than now but I could only safely do 1 or 2 matches between shields if it was nearer to the end of the event and my score was high. Sometimes on 2 matches, if they were slow due to **** boards, i'd get the dreaded defensive loss screen and swear at the game for a while.

Sentry has changed that. If i'm willing to boost I can win 3 games between shields perfectly safely, if the first three are particularly quick a 4th is easy to fit in and if a bit slower I can still risk a 4th and it is ALL because of sentry. I could pair him with a lvl 1 Yelena and a loaner hero and still do it.

THAT is the problem D3 will have with nerfing Sentry. You suddenly remove the ability to do something AT ALL. Nerfing C.Mags may have hurt people's ability to climb in PvP easily (especially if they only have a vianble Patch + C.Mags or were using an over-covered under-levelled C.Mags with a more beefy Patch etc) but you can obviously still climb in PvP. You can still climb using a whole load of heroes.

Nerf Sentry, on the other hand, and you suddenly tell people that they will get less for their money (less points between shields because you can't squeeze in the wins) and that is a REALLY tough sell, regardless of the general opinion on balance and diversity people won't like getting less for the same cost.

IMO, in order to not annoy a LOT of ppl (including the guys actually spending on the game since most willing to put cash in probably will have done it to get a Sentry once his usefullness became apparent) I think they need to ensure you can still do similar shield hops in a different way. Don't combine nerfing a hero ppl own (and may have paid for) with gimping people's scores and reducing the value they can get from shields when hopping basically.

So my solution.....

I think THAT when you unshield in PvP you shouldn't be visible as a target for 15 minutes or 2 matches, whichever comes first. I think this alone would do a LOT for diversity. I don't think it gives players something they don't have now as a freebie because you can triple hop with Sentry anyway and I think it would massively soften the blow of a Sentry nerf.

If you were to remove the ridiculous time pressure in PvP then SO MANY HEROES become viable. You can actually use heroes that make protect tiles or are just that little bit slower to get going and not get thoroughly **** for doing so.

Yes... it remains P2W because more shields = more points but even nerfing Sentry doesn't change that. You just get less for your cash but can still buy points.

As far as looking at it from D3's perspective they might sell less boosts in shield hops because 2/3 of your matches would be under less pressure but I don't know what that comes to (how much do they make in sentry bomb boosts?) and I can't swear people wouldn't buy less covers when there isn't only 1 gig in town and you feel outclassed without him (Sentry) but I feel it's possible. I guess the question is how much are ppl spending on Sentry covers?

scottee

Everyone does it up in the high point areas because it's quick when trying to win more than you lose. But it's also part of people's lack of creativity. I purposefully try to mix it up just because the game's funner to me that way. So Hood/Thor, Daken/Falcon, Daken/Psy, with the occasional Sentry/Hood and Sentry/Daken give me more variety. You don't HAVE to taken Sentry into every fight. You're choosing to.

Side note, it's hilarious taking Daken/Falcon against Sentry. I ended up with a lot of people and I was basically daring him to set off world rupture. I was actually trying to leave green for him to match, but it never came about and I killed him too fast.

Nonce Equitaur 2

I just posted a similar suggestion -- Nerf the 1 minute game

Unknown

In terms of placement the difficulty of doing shield hops doesn't really matter. Back in the time where it's risky to even get 2 wins in a shield hop a lead of 50 is quite significant. A lot of time you see people do a shield break and end up with a negative score to show, so your 50 lead point may indeed hold quite well. The only concern is the progression rewards and I don't think D3 ever intended the 1300 stuff to be easily obtained for significantly less than 2500 HP, not to mention those 2XXX scores. Just because players like to hit progression rewards easy doesn't really matter, and as we've seen in the era where you can hit shielded opponents there's nothing stopping D3 from putting the 1300 cover at 2600 if they think it's too easy to get, so Sentry bombing doesn't actually make progression rewards any easier, because even such a broken mechanism is still easily within D3's ability to shut down, and indeed they did shut it down before with the 2XXX 4* covers in the 'can hit shielded opponent' era, which makes anything Sentry can do look like child's play in terms of getting a high score.

NotYou13

Just curious: Has anyone suggested making all World Rupture countdowns explode simultaneously so that they only use strike tiles once instead of per countdown? Seems like that would solve a lot of the problems with the ability.

Unknown

I agree that the ability to get higher scores doesn't effect relative placement but there is an issue with how people perceive having something and THEN having it taken away.

People have a powerful hero, possibly one they spent real money on AND the ability to get 1300 points+ with a moderate investment of HP and ISO. To nerf the hero (and on track record there is a very good chance they will make him ****) AND suddenly slash the scores they can get with the double whammy of far less profitable shield hops AND much less impressive scores to feed off just increases the anger AND it's likely you are going to annoy your big spenders the most.

Also, is there a reason NOT to give a grace period to unshielding? After all, simply nerf Sentry and everyone would simply play the next fastest hero/combo because speed of win is all that matters. Then the cries of all I ever see is this new hero/combo... nerf them!!!

Unknown

AJBCLF wrote:

MPQ will henceforth be called "Sentry vs. Sentry: 24/7"

It'll take some getting used to, I guess.

They also released a new promo blurb:
"You and your friends can experience wild team-up possibilities across the Marvel Universe! Just imagine: Sentry & Hood! Sentry & Daken! Sentry & Hulk! The possibilities are ENDLESS!"

You missed the name change last month. Have you enjoyed playing the all new

Team-Up Tile Quest

Unknown

For progression it's ultimately in D3's hands. Of course I'd like to hit 1300 for a 4* cover too but as we've seen D3 can shut that down easy if they don't like it. I suspect 1300 is as easily obtained right now because while they can easily throw a '2600 for Nick Fury' deal like they did in the past, they're not really sure why even have the 4* covers if they end up having to do that. I'm sure the currently HP needed to get 1300 is undercosted for the cover, but D3 just haven't thought of a solution that wouldn't be the equivalent of 'nobody ever gets those cover'. At any rate all progression reward is up to D3 to decide and I really have no idea what they're shooting for there.

For the relative placement, on one hand it can be frustrating to see a guy at say 1000 and then you're at 900 and 5 shield breaks later you're at 850 which happened a lot back then. On the other hand it'd also be pretty frustrating if you're sitting at 1500 and see a guy that's at 2XXX and I think those two scenarios are roughly comparable. Without some kind of thorough market study I really can't say which of those scenario is better for players. It seems like there's got to be a medium between the old days where if you shield break without losing points that's a cause for celeration, versus now where the guy ahead of you has 2XXX points. I prefer the days where you can play early and hit 900 and sit on a 24 hour shield and watch everyone else annihilate themselves while you hold your place fine. That actually gives people an incentive to play early, and of course this strategy can only work if most people are trying to snipe at the end because if everyone played early then nobody would be able to sneak ahead. Right now there's very little incentive to play early unless you're just trying to keep on pile increasing bigger scores in some kind of coordinated shield hop, and those guys are fairly incentive to when to play. An early lead has no chance to hold up, so why even bother? An early lead usually won't hold up prior to Sentry too, but at least it could, so it doesn't feel like playing early is just a waste of time.

Nonce Equitaur 2

He can be fixed by giving him extra animations when he's on Offence.
For Sacrifice, a 40 second animation.
For World Rupture, each time a tile goes off, he'd give a ten second animation.
For Supernova, it shows a 90 second animation of the world exploding.

When people are facing him on defense, no animations.