*** Sentry (Dark Avengers) ***

mohio

Im not gonna say that eliminating boosts is a bad idea, but it doesn't "fix" the sentry issue. Teams with him would still be the fastest killing team since 7 green and 8 yellow is generally easier and faster to get than whatever other ability combos might win the game quickly. It will maybe keep scores a little lower since shield hops might have to be shorter, but you'll still see a sea of sentry/daken or sentry/hood at high point totals.

Additionally changing his yellow doesn't seem like it really fixes the problem either. You might not see hood anymore since sentry will need additional strike tile support. Instead you'll see daken against lower health teams or BP to create huge strike tiles against higher health opps.

So, I think something has to be done about world rupture itself. Maybe fewer tiles but higher damage? Or as mentioned, find a way to make them all go off at once (maybe turn it into something more like demolition with traps or something). The other possibility is a wholesale change to the ability that keeps a "watch the world burn " flavor but eliminates the synergy with strike tiles (outside of maybe keeping the cascade potential perhaps).

IamTheDanger

Something that might work is if WR only affected the targeted enemy and not the whole enemy team.

Unknown

Please don't start again people, I'm not a fan of nerfing because once a character is nerfed it'll be ruined. Another reason that I oppose nerfing it's because once he his nerfed than some other (broken character) will be next "lazy Thor","Laken" and even worse X-Force.

On another note every time a new character comes out people complain because the character is no good like beast, doc cot, she hulk ect ect, and then they ask the devs to buff it. Is there no end to this? some characters have to be stronger than others everyone has to understand that, there are many solutions to this problem one that I like the most is if you think the character is good "Buy it"!!!!. 20$ is like three packs of cigarets or two play boy magazines or a porn DVD you guys can afford it right? Plus if you're gonna play the game for more than a year it'll be money well spent, I think.

I_am_Zero

Remember what d3 thinks, it's not a nerf to 1 character, it's a boost to all the rest of your characters!

But yeah, it's been hashed out on this forum plenty of times. The only time that d3 will think about nerfing Sentry, I mean boosting all the other characters, is when it's no longer profitable. Sure, there are people who say they shield hop without spending real money, but for every 10 people that don't spend money, there is 1 that does, and probably a lot. So to d3, it's a good investment to keep his WR and Sacrifice the way it is.

mohio

Teno1 wrote:

Please don't start again people, I'm not a fan of nerfing because once a character is nerfed it'll be ruined. Another reason that I oppose nerfing it's because once he his nerfed than some other (broken character) will be next "lazy Thor","Laken" and even worse X-Force.

On another note every time a new character comes out people complain because the character is no good like beast, doc cot, she hulk ect ect, and then they ask the devs to buff it. Is there no end to this? some characters have to be stronger than others everyone has to understand that, there are many solutions to this problem one that I like the most is if you think the character is good "Buy it"!!!!. 20$ is like three packs of cigarets or two play boy magazines or a porn DVD you guys can afford it right? Plus if you're gonna play the game for more than a year it'll be money well spent, I think.

I understand this argument and actually sort of agree. There will always be a best character and top tier, low tier, etc. so there is no point in nerfing to death the broken character du jour.

The problem is that sentry is making the game unfun (or at least a good portion of it). Not to mention the devs have a fairly explicit goal of fostering diversity and high end pvp is anything but diverse.

Unknown

Ok nerf Sentry!
Then u know what will happen??? Goodbye 1300 scores for most ppl.. Then everyone will start complaining that almost no one except the "big" alliances like x-men get to 1300..
All this complaining and no one tought that it could impact in a big way the scores...
Then it will always be the same ppl at the top...
But hey nerf sentry...

I_am_Zero

mohio wrote:

Not to mention the devs have a fairly explicit goal of fostering diversity and high end pvp is anything but diverse.

No, their goal is to make money and Sentry is making them money. Will it matter to them if some people quit if they were f2p anyway? No. It will only start mattering if they see their revenue start slowing down. Then they'll think about "fostering diversity" by creating another Sentry. I hear the Void is on the horizon...

Unknown

For green, one CD tile... When it hits zero destroys X number of random tiles...X goes up with the number of covers.... Damage base of the ability goes up with more covers... Only one proc of strike tiles for the CD tile reaching zero. Then any matches from the tile shake up aftermath could result in more triggers of strike tiles or strike tiles could get match away depending hire the time shake up goes.... Sort of like storm green but without gaining ap from the destroyed tiles.

ICEIX had said Sentry is supposed to be OP, that's his thing. I think that should be in the form of his red power. It has a higher ap cost and is so powerful it ends the turn.

This way he's still powerful and a damage machine (to both teams). However, he's no longer 2 minute or less instant win machine.

acescracked

Raffoon wrote:

Instead of just saying there's a problem, let's say how it could be fixed.

You're assuming there is a problem that needs to be fixed. I don't see any issues with how the character is currently setup. Seriously, not being sarcastic. Nothing broken for me.

acescracked

Teno1 wrote:

... "Buy it"!!!!. 20$ is like three packs of cigarets or two play boy magazines or a porn DVD you guys can afford it right? Plus if you're gonna play the game for more than a year it'll be money well spent, I think.

Wait, what?!?!?!?!? Who still buys porn? Even crazier, who still buys porn on DVD? Nobody is still doing that are they?

turul

Simply changing sacrifice would fix him.

This way WR would still work with other strike tile generators which is good.

Either make sacrifice a bit more expensive (but it should be more strike tiles generated, with slightly higher overall dmg)
or even better, make yellow a more casual damaging ability, making him playable casually (not self-sacrifising way)

Spoit

turul wrote:

Simply changing sacrifice would fix him.

This way WR would still work with other strike tile generators which is good.

Either make sacrifice a bit more expensive (but it should be more strike tiles generated, with slightly higher overall dmg)
or even better, make yellow a more casual damaging ability, making him playable casually (not self-sacrifising way)

Sacrifice is fairly balanced, BP's yellow only creates marginally less s for 1 AP more, and doesn't require the massive HP loss (If you don't use sacrifce, WR actually doesn't do that much self damage).

The one little trick to fix him would be to simply reduce/remove the double dipping on WR. Either make it 1 tile that did massive board destruction (ala Mn mags) or remove the countdown and just make it an X, like X-force wolvie

Unknown

If you make striketiles effect the dmg of world rupture on the team thats using it.
There will be a alot of characters that could counter sentry.

And if you make sentrys sacrifise also summon a striketile for enemy team would be good.

Rusalka

Maybe they could tweak WR so that every CD tiles destroys a friendly strike tile after it goes off. That way, if all you have is one Sacrifice tile, it triggers once and then it's gone. If other characters put up a bunch of tiles, you still get diminishing damage with each CD tile.

turul

Spoit wrote:

turul wrote:

Simply changing sacrifice would fix him.

This way WR would still work with other strike tile generators which is good.

Either make sacrifice a bit more expensive (but it should be more strike tiles generated, with slightly higher overall dmg)
or even better, make yellow a more casual damaging ability, making him playable casually (not self-sacrifising way)

Sacrifice is fairly balanced, BP's yellow only creates marginally less s for 1 AP more, and doesn't require the massive HP loss (If you don't use sacrifce, WR actually doesn't do that much self damage).

The one little trick to fix him would be to simply reduce/remove the double dipping on WR. Either make it 1 tile that did massive board destruction (ala Mn mags) or remove the countdown and just make it an X, like X-force wolvie

Sentry depending on BP is somewhat better than Sentry+Hood+mandatory hero.

I think Sentry's WR is his signature move (as the way it resolves now), and should not be messed with.
Maybe a few AP cost increase, but more change would ruin the fun.

Unknown

I don't have a maxed Sentry yet to give any ideas. But, I can assure you that the nerf will take enough time for me to max Sentry and get bored of him as he is now.

Raffoon

Teno1 wrote:

Please don't start again people, I'm not a fan of nerfing because once a character is nerfed it'll be ruined. Another reason that I oppose nerfing it's because once he his nerfed than some other (broken character) will be next "lazy Thor","Laken" and even worse X-Force.

On another note every time a new character comes out people complain because the character is no good like beast, doc cot, she hulk ect ect, and then they ask the devs to buff it. Is there no end to this? some characters have to be stronger than others everyone has to understand that, there are many solutions to this problem one that I like the most is if you think the character is good "Buy it"!!!!. 20$ is like three packs of cigarets or two play boy magazines or a porn DVD you guys can afford it right? Plus if you're gonna play the game for more than a year it'll be money well spent, I think.

Do you think the ideas that I mentioned would ruin the character? I think that he would still be quite useful and even keep him useful in the same team lineups, unlike the Magneto changes.

It should be possible to lower the power of a character without making them obsolete or changing their roles and team synergies completely.

A world where you can pick between Thor, Xforce, Sentry, and others without having a clear winner seems better than a world where Sentry is the undisputed best option.

Unknown

acescracked wrote:

Teno1 wrote:

... "Buy it"!!!!. 20$ is like three packs of cigarets or two play boy magazines or a porn DVD you guys can afford it right? Plus if you're gonna play the game for more than a year it'll be money well spent, I think.

Wait, what?!?!?!?!? Who still buys porn? Even crazier, who still buys porn on DVD? Nobody is still doing that are they?

Seriously, go Blu-Ray!

Raffoon

acescracked wrote:

Raffoon wrote:

Instead of just saying there's a problem, let's say how it could be fixed.

You're assuming there is a problem that needs to be fixed. I don't see any issues with how the character is currently setup. Seriously, not being sarcastic. Nothing broken for me.

I'm not sure what levels or teams you're playing with (not being sarcastic either, my friend) but my experience, which is confirmed by many others, is that Sentry specifically and most popularly Sentry/Hood/Daken is a team that is so much better than others at high levels that it is the only viable option by a long shot. Yes, one team will always be the best, but the gap between this team and the rest is crazy. Things happen such as shield hopping Sentry/Hood/Daken teams hitting scores of 1800+ while shield hopping non-sentry teams are only able to get to 11-1300 in the same brackets playing at the same times.

One of the biggest issues here is the interaction that Sentry has with Shield hopping. Since he's quickly and consistently able to wipe out the entire opposing team, he allows teams using him to fit in something around twice the games per shield hop compared to another team. Add in the fact that he's one of the best on defense in addition to his supreme status on offense, and it warrants a change.

Currently, if you're not using Sentry your score will be significantly lower than if you were using him. Instead, he should be an option which is strong, but comparable to other characters.

Phaserhawk

Let's break Sentry down.

Supernova.

Massive AoE, everyone takes damage, your own team takes less, you get a bit of a board shakeup all for the price of 11AP. This skill feels right, obviously if you didn't take self damage this would be 12 to 13AP, so for the most part Supernova is fairly balanced.

World Rupture.

Create up to 16 CD tiles witha count down of 2. When they go off they deal AoE damage to all with your team taking less. Lots of board shakeup. With no strike tiles this skill is fine, painfully slow but fine. However the 7 AP cost is just a little bit on the cheap side

Sacrifice

Give up Health for a massive strike tile randomly placed on a yellow tile. This skill is as strong or weak as the placement, by itself it's just a damage accelator, it costs 8 AP and life so costwise It's not unreasonable, if it didn't cost life it would be 9 AP and probably be weaker, like BP's battle plan.

So where is Sentry overpowered? Each skill by itself is fine, but obviously the later two and specifically World Rupture and it's strike tile doubling dipping are causing massive warping of the game, and when a character or ability warp the game there is a fundamental problem. So how do you fix the problem without destroying the character?

Fix 1) Increase the AP cost of World Rupture, this would stop many of the problems, still allow the skill to work the same with strike tiles and create cascades, but not be so quick. This causes the least amount of problems, somewhat restricts the shield hopping. With the Damage this does it should at least be a 10-12 AP skill

Fix 2) Have all the World Rupture tiles go off at once. This fixes the strike tile problem, but completely nerf's this skill into the ground. You lose cascades and damage, this is suppose to cause a massive board shakeup and isn't what the skill was desinged to do.

Fix 3) Halve the number of World Rupture tiles, but double or triple the damage. This I feel works better than having the tiles go off at once, because you would still get cascades and strike tile interaction. The skill can still put out damage but you won't get all the crazy bonus strike tile damage. However, this would probably require the tiles to be created at random since it wouldn't work very well in an x pattern.

Fix 4) Massively reduce the strike tile damage on Sacrifice. This would limit some of the Sentry bombing, but actually reduce a lot of strategy.

Short of a redeisgn, I think the only 2 decent fixes for Sentry is to either increase World Rupture's costs, because lets face it, it is seriously undercosted, or you randomize the CD tiles, at 1/2 the number but increase the damage dealt. Once of these 2 easily fixes Sentry, still gives him massive power and fixes the problem he is causing. Personall I would make World Rupture cost 10 to 12. This is a Call of the Storm type skill and shouldn't be so cheap, CotS costs 14, WR and Sac cost 15 and do 10 times the damage. Since day one when I saw Sentry I loved his skills but knew they were severely undercosted, by simple raising the cost of World Rupture, you keep an insanely powerful character with all his skills and damage intact and have him go from crazy amounts of damage crazy fast, to crazy amounts of damage, at a good speed.