*** Sentry (Dark Avengers) ***

Unknown

Don't preach to deaf. They can't play without sentry. Or mags. Or rags. If it ain't op it's no good.

Unknown

locked wrote:

kthunder wrote:

I don't see how sentry is a problem.

He makes people buy more HP for shields, 1+ to all AP boosts and health packs.

I have never spent so much on HP for PVP events to reach +1500 scores before I was able to max out Sentry and Hood to shield hop.

Sentry and Hood combo is only good for shield hopping, good luck using them as your main team as they will rarely last more than 2 pvp matches, they are even worse if you don't boost.

I am able to reach 1500 with 2-3 shields, maybe 1 if lucky (1 to 1400, unshield at the end and get 100 points in 2 fights), provided I have a maxed featured that works decently enough as a deterrent and doesn't screw Sentry/XF on defense badly (looking at you, Beast and Mohawk). No need to spend on HP boosts either, I only try to use them once or twice per event, never ever buy them or healthpacks and do most of my hops with ISO boosts only (3 green/black, 3 red/yellow, no maxed Intimidation). Of course I'm going to somewhat miss being able to go for 1500 scores easily enough, but rewards - ta da! - stop at 1300, and it would actually be a good thing if 1st places could still be won with that kind of score and not 1600-2000.

And I believe you could do so because there are others that are sentry bombing and create big q for you. In other words, without sentry it'll be a hell of a trip for you to make it even till 1300. So I assume you are big supporter of not nerfing sentry then? lol.
In my personal experience every time I unshield at 1700 i give out about 300 pts on average. Imagine the triggering down effect.
About nerfing sentry, I personally don't think it matters. If it makes the game longer/more expensive, people will stop playing / slowing down since sentry obviously set an expectation on game speed. D3 will also get less $$, so that's not a good move on their end neither.
I also think that making all tiles go off at once could have an upside since it actually decreases the risk of strike tile being matched.
On an unrelated note, Xforce and Fury seems to be able to perform quite well, you just need to be more conscious when matching tiles. But then again how many of us have maxed both of them?

c101nguyen wrote:

Let's be honest here... What team will u see once sentry is nerfed? Chances r u will see a bunch of x-force/hood or daken teams monopolizing the game and upper 900+ pvp boards. This is going to be an endless cycle... People will then complain about x-force and so on and so forth...

Do I think sentry needs a nerd? Probably so but I think it should be a minor tweak like having all te bombs go off at once so that it doesn't have compound accumulation of strike tiles or increasing the cost of wr to maybe 10 to slow him down a bit but who really wants to play a 5-8 min battle? Yes people complain it gets monotonous playing the same team but playing 395 goons in pve is te same thing and wait until u have longer battles then that will be even worse. To me longer battles make me lose interest faster, gets a bit too boring.

It's a double edged sword we r playing with fellas!

I agree with this completely. Already prepping to max xf and lady thor

Unknown

NorthernPolarity wrote:

c101nguyen wrote:

Let's be honest here... What team will u see once sentry is nerfed? Chances r u will see a bunch of x-force/hood or daken teams monopolizing the game and upper 900+ pvp boards. This is going to be an endless cycle... People will then complain about x-force and so on and so forth...

Do I think sentry needs a nerd? Probably so but I think it should be a minor tweak like having all te bombs go off at once so that it doesn't have compound accumulation of strike tiles or increasing the cost of wr to maybe 10 to slow him down a bit but who really wants to play a 5-8 min battle? Yes people complain it gets monotonous playing the same team but playing 395 goons in pve is te same thing and wait until u have longer battles then that will be even worse. To me longer battles make me lose interest faster, gets a bit too boring.

It's a double edged sword we r playing with fellas!

1. Do you see X-Force teams literally taking 45 seconds to finish a match? Even if the meta shifts to X-Force, at least the winningest team won't be 3x faster than the second winningest team. This is why characters like X-Force and LadyThor are fine. They're strong, but they take some time (say 2-3 minutes per match) to win the game for you. Sentry is literally, all AP boosts, green match, yellow match, WR Sacrifice, gg. 4 turns to deal 30+k damage to the enemy team, which LadyThor or XForce doesn't even come close to matching.
2. Your suggestion of having all the bombs go off at once is hardly a minor tweak (since it would basically destroy the current form of the character), and implies to me that even you think he's way above anyone else.

This is exactly my point... Although the standards change the results will be the same. So instead of 1-2 min sentry bombings, u exchange it for xf (lady thor is not wen in the picture for a few months until the other colors r available) that can take 2-3 mins. Does it matter? I don't think so cuz only the ppl with xf can win that fast and they will shield hop the same. All u do is change the bar but the next player will just do the same thing... People are already suggesting tweaks to xf after the sentry nerf... Like I said, it's an endless cycle.

Unknown

I'm pretty sure the good old 2 AP Thunderclap Ragnarok set the record for the fastest wins, not to mention that was back in the days where boosts didn't cost HP to buy. Even if you're just running Wolverine with 6g + 6r, it's not unusual to put the game away in under a minute with a standard 2 Feral Claw on turn 1 opening. That was a time where The Hood wasn't that strong because Wolverine usually killed him on turn 3. The game did fine transitioning from a hyper paced game to where it is now. I don't know why people keep on think D3 won't touch Sentry on a revenue basis. Sentry bombing at most gets you HP spent on shields/boosts. We know this isn't an amount that's significant and if you look at their daily revenue it simply doesn't add up. Sentry bombing greatly lowers the incentive to get newer characters. X Force is definitely not faster than Sentry and I don't see how Thor will be either, so why would you want to sink several hundred dollars worth of resources to those characters who are still slower than a 3*?

There will always be a 'fastest' team but fastest is only the best if it is fast enough. WYP's team in the first elite tournament used IM40, who was never a strong character even back then, but he used him because IM40 slowed down the opponent more than it slowed himself which made his shield hops safer. For example if the best offensive team wins in 3 minutes and also loses in 3 minutes, then even your first game after a shield hop can be a coin flip as to whether you can avoid being hit, but if it takes you 5 minutes to win but it takes 6 minutes for someone beat you then you first game has to be safer. Currently it only takes about a minute to win and adding the time it takes someone to find a specific player it's plenty safe, but that's because the time to win is too fast. Even at 3 minute per win you're going to get hit if your game went slower than expected or if the attacker's game went faster than expected.

Unknown

There's a thread somewhere where a guy says the first version of Loki didn't need nerfing - his purple used to turn 10 red and 10 yellow tiles purple.

So yeah, these threads are just comedy fodder.

over_clocked

infinityblade wrote:

locked wrote:

kthunder wrote:

I don't see how sentry is a problem.

He makes people buy more HP for shields, 1+ to all AP boosts and health packs.

I have never spent so much on HP for PVP events to reach +1500 scores before I was able to max out Sentry and Hood to shield hop.

Sentry and Hood combo is only good for shield hopping, good luck using them as your main team as they will rarely last more than 2 pvp matches, they are even worse if you don't boost.

I am able to reach 1500 with 2-3 shields, maybe 1 if lucky (1 to 1400, unshield at the end and get 100 points in 2 fights), provided I have a maxed featured that works decently enough as a deterrent and doesn't screw Sentry/XF on defense badly (looking at you, Beast and Mohawk). No need to spend on HP boosts either, I only try to use them once or twice per event, never ever buy them or healthpacks and do most of my hops with ISO boosts only (3 green/black, 3 red/yellow, no maxed Intimidation). Of course I'm going to somewhat miss being able to go for 1500 scores easily enough, but rewards - ta da! - stop at 1300, and it would actually be a good thing if 1st places could still be won with that kind of score and not 1600-2000.

And I believe you could do so because there are others that are sentry bombing and create big q for you. In other words, without sentry it'll be a hell of a trip for you to make it even till 1300. So I assume you are big supporter of not nerfing sentry then? lol.
In my personal experience every time I unshield at 1700 i give out about 300 pts on average. Imagine the triggering down effect.
About nerfing sentry, I personally don't think it matters. If it makes the game longer/more expensive, people will stop playing / slowing down since sentry obviously set an expectation on game speed. D3 will also get less $$, so that's not a good move on their end neither.

Have you only read that last message? No, I support the Sentry nerf, but of course I already selfishly used him to get XF/Nick Fury covers - sue me Yes, I understand the consequences of scores getting lower; but I don't think it will slow you, X-Men, or similar alliances much, you are too used to getting insane scores and Sentry nerf won't register outright. It might influence the scores down the road but people will probably just switch to XF/cMags or XF/Hood who are the next fastest teams.
Sentry nerf would be better for revenue since other 3*s will be more viable, especially decent ones like BP, LT, cMags, HT, Patch, Deadpool, etc. Shieldhopping is a drop in the bucket in terms of revenue.

Unknown

Spoit wrote:

daibar wrote:

Re: Making World Rupture hit one target: If you still calculate each countdown separately, at 7 and 8 you're still getting about 15-20 attacks at 858 damage, eg about 13-17k damage in total (for about 2k dmg to Sentry), making it still way better than GSBW's Sniper Rifle, which costs 19 . Seems vastly out of line for the cost.

Ummm...what? He maxes out at 16 tiles, and that's assuming none are matched or filled with . Which is "only" 13.6k damage, which yeah, is a bit higher than other 15 AP moves, but considering the self damage and the fact that you wouldn't get all the tiles out unscathed, single target damage for it would put it a lot closer to the normal ranges (e.g. losing 2 tiles (11.9k) would make it less net damage than DP's whales for 14 at 3x4069 = 12.2k)

I was counting cascade damage, but forgot about teamup tiles. Say 13-17 attacks then; closer to reasonable, but still overpowered.
Also, 14AP is way harder to get than 7 + 8, especially with boosts.

Unknown

locked wrote:

Have you only read that last message? No, I support the Sentry nerf, but of course I already selfishly used him to get XF/Nick Fury covers - sue me

And this is what busts my chops the most about this whole thing. I finally have a usable sentry and can actually hit 1300. Finally. I can start getting 1300 and covering my fury and XForce. Which is mandatory now, given that the top tier metagame has shifted to the incredibly overpowered 4*s (beyond Sentry, if anyone wants to claim that any 3* compares to XForce, I'mma whack you with a fish). It just feels like the endgame is running further and further away. At least with 3*s, the end was in sight - per event, you could get 2-3 covers, and that adds up. With 4*s, you have to win.And how the **** do you win with 3*s against maxed 4*s? What 3* team without Sentry even compares to XForce/Fury?



Say what you will about broken characters, at least they even the playing field.

GrumpySmurf1002

My primary vote is still #6, which is turn WR into 3* Headbutt with Countdowns, leaving Supernova as the legitimate AoE nuke.

That said, I really like the stun idea. With how powerful strike tiles are in the game, I think all of them should have a downside. For instance: Daken should convert blue tiles to red strike tiles when matching green. Patch's is already built in (giving the other team their own on a non-productive color).

Sacrifice does have the self damage, but it's a moot point as far as shield hopping goes.

Unknown

to be honest - hood with sentry is as big problem

hood mostly requires anyone else speed hopping to use hood

If sentry's yellow wasn't a strike tile - this would solve the problem

If sentry rupture wasn't aoe, hood would take too much damage to sustain in the long run.

The problem with sentry is not power - granted doing 12-15k AOE is completely ridiculous — the problem is speed. His abilities are too fast for that power.

The dev approach needs to dissect whether they want Sentry to be powerful OR fast but he can't be both — either increase green and yellow by 3+ both or change green to be fewer timers or single application of strike tiles -a la every other big AOE.

Clearly just changing his yellow would mean people can still use daken/bp to get the same effect - this would reduce hood greatly because you wouldn't need him as much on offense or defense. The goal should be to keep sentry fun and effective but bring him back down to earth.

And so make it so hood isn't mandatory against other hood teams

Unknown

Question regarding stunned countdowns.

If all world rupture timers are at 1 and Sentry is stunned, does Intimidation still set off the timers?

If it does, then a self-stun with Sacrifice would not slow the game down, just make a 355 Hood mandatory.

Lidolas

Increase the damage of his . But when one goes off, it also destroys a certain number (4-6??) of . This means that unless you can destroy them all, at least one will go off for massive damage but it will prevent much staking of the tiles.

h4n1s

LoreNYC wrote:

The problem with sentry is not power - granted doing 12-15k AOE is completely ridiculous — the problem is speed. His abilities are too fast for that power.

Indeed. Even if (big if) blue ability would be cheaper (lets say 12 Blue), he still wouldn't be that scary/fast as mr. Sentry is now. And such buff to him would make him very powerful character...

Unknown

papa07 wrote:

Question regarding stunned countdowns.

If all world rupture timers are at 1 and Sentry is stunned, does Intimidation still set off the timers?

If it does, then a self-stun with Sacrifice would not slow the game down, just make a 355 Hood mandatory.

I believe the answer is yes. So it would typically only slow the game down by 1 turn since you now need to match 1 black, 1 green, and 1 yellow (assuming full boosts). So a minor slow-down at best, but it would also help to remove the consistency of the 4-5 turn win. I'm still a fan of the stuns, but it appears to not be a solution by itself.

GrumpySmurf1002

Riggy wrote:

papa07 wrote:

Question regarding stunned countdowns.

If all world rupture timers are at 1 and Sentry is stunned, does Intimidation still set off the timers?

If it does, then a self-stun with Sacrifice would not slow the game down, just make a 355 Hood mandatory.

I believe the answer is yes. So it would typically only slow the game down by 1 turn since you now need to match 1 black, 1 green, and 1 yellow (assuming full boosts). So a minor slow-down at best, but it would also help to remove the consistency of the 4-5 turn win. I'm still a fan of the stuns, but it appears to not be a solution by itself.

Self stun plus a 'drain x or all black AP' would do the trick.

xKOBALTx

Spoit wrote:

xKOBALTx wrote:

stephen43084 wrote:

I laughed so hard when I read this. I'm beginning to realize how many ppl don't want sentry nerfed and offer every solution short of fixing wr. Am I wrong? Are there genuinely ppl unaware how sentry works and sentry bombing for shield hopping works? If there are, why are they chiming in on this thread?

It's almost like there wasn't a discussion by a small handful of people about how altering Sacrifice wouldn't really work directly above this post. Oy.

...why are you +ing his point when you're directly contradicting him?

Pretty sure stephen was agreeing with those saying altering Sacrifice would be less successful than altering World Rupture. How is that contradicting? I could be wrong, though. Wouldn't be the first time. Just ask my wife.

LoreNYC wrote:

The dev approach needs to dissect whether they want Sentry to be powerful OR fast but he can't be both — either increase green and yellow by 3+ both or change green to be fewer timers or single application of strike tiles -a la every other big AOE

Agree right here. Someone like Thor you could argue is equal in power with the Yellow/Green combo, but he takes a decent chunk of time to get moving even if you were to use Hood and boost. Increasing the cost of WR might help more than Sacrifice, just because Sacrifice can be replaced as mentioned before. Maybe that's why Thor's power and cost work better (though arguably still OP), because his own Yellow can't be easily replaced by others.

I like all the discussion here, but it's got me thinking that the devs will probably go with the overhaul approach. It's a pretty tricky mechanic that's quite fun, but they may decide it isn't worth the hassle of trying to fix it while keeping it the relatively the same (a la CMags).

Nellyson

Almost all the buffs and nerfs needed for this game require a simple change to their AP costs. For the most part, the powers in the game are pretty good in fitting the characters.

just needs a lower cost for his and powers. Maybe 10 for Unicorn and 13 for Salvo.

with that sexy grey suit needs her to be at either 16 or 17, cause that piercing round is legit.

could honestly use a lower cost for his . Smash isn't that great, so I think like 12 or 11 would be good.

with that control shift was strong in theory, but it's not. It should only be like 13 or 14 max. I say 11.

could use a slight change to adamantium slash (maybe 11 instead?), but it's close to perfect. The only fault with him is that his healing needs to happen EVERY time you make a yellow match. Not just when he's below 50%.

needs another power, but if murder was at a reasonable 13 or 14, I would actually use him more.

has both his versions that need changes, but the 3 needs a rework. However, his stun could have the same stipulations but only cost 2 or 3 blue and he'd instantly become useful again without being overpowering. 5 is just too much nerf. His Bagman counterpart could definitely use an AP cost fixing. He's a great PVE character. I swear I'm not lying! But 18 for switcheroo??? Who gets 18 s???? This needs to be 9 cause he has no damaging powers. I'm good with his Webslinger at 13. But snarky needs to be 6.

And finally the great debate! SENTRY Sentry

World Rupture needs to be 10 or 11. It's too fast and strong like others have said. If you want fast, it has to hit without using the effects of . If you want strong and be able to use , then it has to cost more. And at 10 or 11, it's not overpriced and might even be just slightly underpriced. As for his Sacrifice, it is more for the team. So maybe his powers can't be multiplied by his own ??? That sounds complicated. Instead, what if Sacrifice is the strongest you've ever seen??? I've seen that suggestion here and I liked it. Make it cause like 1500 per turn or something ridiculous. It at least has to be a little higher than

Spoit

Unless the synergy is changed, WR could cost as much as Sniper rifle and still be a good deal.

Nellobee

Spoit wrote:

Unless the synergy is changed, WR could cost as much as Sniper rifle and still be a good deal.

This. The. Sac+WR combo is essentially "wipe enemy team" ability.
SR is overpriced, but the Sac/WR might not be at that cost.

over_clocked

Budget Player Cadet wrote:

locked wrote:

Have you only read that last message? No, I support the Sentry nerf, but of course I already selfishly used him to get XF/Nick Fury covers - sue me

And this is what busts my chops the most about this whole thing. I finally have a usable sentry and can actually hit 1300. Finally. I can start getting 1300 and covering my fury and XForce. Which is mandatory now, given that the top tier metagame has shifted to the incredibly overpowered 4*s (beyond Sentry, if anyone wants to claim that any 3* compares to XForce, I'mma whack you with a fish). It just feels like the endgame is running further and further away. At least with 3*s, the end was in sight - per event, you could get 2-3 covers, and that adds up. With 4*s, you have to win.And how the tinykitty do you win with 3*s against maxed 4*s? What 3* team without Sentry even compares to XForce/Fury?



Say what you will about broken characters, at least they even the playing field.

I replied to you on LINE but the message probably got lost many times over. Surprised you rate Fury that high, he's easily countered by Espionage and his blue while powerful is only single target and I have had AI dismantle it and avoid all 7 traps like a pro. XF has better partners in Hood, cMagneto, Lazy Daken and Lazy Cap who are not 4*s. XF is very strong and fast, but he lacks the AoE bonanza that Sentry has, and he can never be as fast as Sentry which is not a terrible thing. While Sentry hasn't been nerfed, if you want to be competitive, you should try to get XF covers while ignoring Fury ones, Fury will come eventually and he should not be a priority anyway. I have a cover-maxed Fury, leveled to 200, I only run him in PvE usually.
Sentry is not leveling the field, he's making himself mandatory and everyone else unnecessary.
You can run a Sentry/Bag-Man team and win; you don't need XF right now to score 2000 points; you don't need to give 1 ISO to the featured characters as long as you have a maxed Sentry and can run support/deterrents of your choosing. This, needs to go and will go.
As for XF/Fury, they should be manageable for, say, LC/Hood/HT, Mohawk/Daken/Falcon (massive tile overwrite against Demolition, green/black denial to XF), Patch/IM 40 with 1 yellow cover/Hood, etc. I don't remember defeating XF/Fury without Sentry/XF of my own but it must have happened multiple times before I had XF and was too low to start Sentry-bombing. They are not as broken as Sentry, are not broken, period.
I understand your frustration about endgame but I doubt it that 4*s are the endgame right now; XF is but he's only one character so far and his best partners are 3*s or 2*s even (oBW) and Goddess is far away yet. Getting t5 in PvP would be easier once the Sentry nerf hits, even for Sentry users themselves since they could probably run other 3*s all the way to 800-900 points like before because there would be no Sentry OPness to make defense and team comps meaningless. At any rate, more people have Sentry than XF. And all covers come eventually when you're least ready and lack the ISO