New Character - Doctor Doom (Infamous Iron Man) 4*

@dianetics said:

@entrailbucket said:
Yep. She's awesome. Goose is killer, and part of some excellent teams. Hunter has an amazing match damage boost for super cheap, and her yellow is cheap direct damage. Aunt May wins fights turn 0. I think Victor is better than he seemed -- haven't used him a ton yet. Phylla Vell hits very hard too.

The narrative that all the new 5* are bad is just wrong. Peggy was the last real miss, and even she isn't awful.

I really like X23 and Phyl, they both can put out great damage. Hunter can be pretty awesome or a complete dud. She has the best true heal in the game with Dark Heal.
I have not really found a use for Victor, so I am indifferent. Next time he is boosted I'll force myself to use just him.
Old Peg is just bad.

So as it is going now I'm just not hoarding anymore, and I'm throwing all my CP into classics.

I mean they’re fine. X-23 specifically I think is cool but they’re pretty much just damage sticks that you have to jump through a few hoops to get said damage. No different than Apoc (fire yellow first) or or Shang (make red/purp matches). Except the latter does way more damage. So they’re not better than the tools we already have and they’re not providing a unique niche. Goose was the only character I got really excited about and even considered 550ing because she’s unique enough but I held tight. While I rarely see her in the wild, I do see her and she is super easy to dispose of. Others I don’t really see at all. I’ve seen way more 3* May than most of the 5*s that have dropped the last year.

I like Doom for the same reason I don’t like most of the new 5s. Damage stick is boring to me, especially when it does it less efficiently. Even with all the “tools” I’d struggle with an ascended moondragon / iHulk personally. And I fully expect to see more of those if people choose MD as their one max ascended character of the year to focus on. Doom at least deals with that. He also has a special tile spamming and true healing as part of his kit, and while those aren’t unique, do provide utility as well. There is also Court Death Shenanigans.

@LavaManLee said:

@liminal_lad said:
Are the infiltrators bugged? It seems like bots on the other team are draining my teams AP.

I noticed that also. I'm using 5Aunt in the PVP and I was all set to fire her red on my next turn when my Red AP went from 6 to 5 during the AI's turn and I couldn't fire it on my turn. Maybe it was something else, but I thought it was odd.

@S0kun

Can you please tell us if this is a glitch?

@dianetics said:

@JoeHandle said:
"Niche" character is hardly an insult, it's to be expected. How many "general purpose" characters MPQ characters are there? Unless you're playing direct dmg only, there are zero. All abilities fall into one or another meta, which is ... a niche.

He is quite useful in attack tile meta, so has lots of punchy friends, and a few spammy friends.

"The revive meta was handled with the Chasm nerf ... iHulk isn't around anymore ..." Ha. Come hang out in my sim for a few minutes. Chasm is on every node. iHulk isn't as common as Chasm but on 10-15% of the queues, usually partnered with She-Hulk or MoonDragon. Another tool for the Zombie-Fightin' toolbox is welcome ... unfortunately he'll have to be ascended and ideally levels piled on top of that, to be viable.

Niche is not an insult at all. He's not useless. He has a role and he fills it well.

Attack tile meta? What game are you playing? I have not seen an attack tile team in years. Strikes yes, protects yes, but attacks no. CarMiles was doa mostly because of his attacks.

As for SIM, SIM is like the least important part of the game (maybe even less than lightning rounds). There is no benefit to farm it, and the rewards dog****. I want SIM to be more important because I like the mode, but currently there is no reason to do it.

DooDooDoom isn't useless he just came around too late. As a 4 there aren't any revivers. As an ascended 5 his niche was killed by the devs. If he came before the Chasm nerf this whole point would be completely different.

If you want to target him, ascend him, and main him good on you but in the current game you wont see a ton of benefit.

Thanks for the morning laughs

@dianetics said:

@Daredevil217 said:
I like Doom for the same reason I don’t like most of the new 5s. Damage stick is boring to me, especially when it does it less efficiently. Even with all the “tools” I’d struggle with an ascended moondragon / iHulk personally. And I fully expect to see more of those if people choose MD as their one max ascended character of the year to focus on. Doom at least deals with that. He also has a special tile spamming and true healing as part of his kit, and while those aren’t unique, do provide utility as well. There is also Court Death Shenanigans.

I mostly agree with you here, but honestly I think I'd rather just Electro Evo any time I see iHulk. Grow him to the moon and save the health packs. I guess you could Electro 4Doom them and get through it quicker, but the point remains iHulk really has not been consistent in PvP for like 3 years and we have tools to take care of him. Switch and Electro.

Chasm was nerfed so he is far less problematic now. If this character arrived 1 year ago my opinion would likely be far different.

I get it, he is good, but I'm not excited for him like I am for Shaw. I don't think Doom will ever be an option for me in PvE and that is the majority of the game I play.

Whether or not he's good, his Welcome to Shield event where we had to use Strange on the 5 star node was a total troll because Strange as a Technologist has to eat 8K damage every time he fires Black. To me, he's another character to avoid if you use Technologists because team self damage is an awful mechanic. I ended up just boosting +4 Purple, using Deadpool with a +5 more starting Purple AP support and Whaling the node both days.

KGB

@entrailbucket said:

@KGB said:

@dianetics said:

@Daredevil217 said:
I like Doom for the same reason I don’t like most of the new 5s. Damage stick is boring to me, especially when it does it less efficiently. Even with all the “tools” I’d struggle with an ascended moondragon / iHulk personally. And I fully expect to see more of those if people choose MD as their one max ascended character of the year to focus on. Doom at least deals with that. He also has a special tile spamming and true healing as part of his kit, and while those aren’t unique, do provide utility as well. There is also Court Death Shenanigans.

I mostly agree with you here, but honestly I think I'd rather just Electro Evo any time I see iHulk. Grow him to the moon and save the health packs. I guess you could Electro 4Doom them and get through it quicker, but the point remains iHulk really has not been consistent in PvP for like 3 years and we have tools to take care of him. Switch and Electro.

Chasm was nerfed so he is far less problematic now. If this character arrived 1 year ago my opinion would likely be far different.

I get it, he is good, but I'm not excited for him like I am for Shaw. I don't think Doom will ever be an option for me in PvE and that is the majority of the game I play.

Whether or not he's good, his Welcome to Shield event where we had to use Strange on the 5 star node was a total troll because Strange as a Technologist has to eat 8K damage every time he fires Black. To me, he's another character to avoid if you use Technologists because team self damage is an awful mechanic. I ended up just boosting +4 Purple, using Deadpool with a +5 more starting Purple AP support and Whaling the node both days.

KGB

How much HP does your Dr Strange have? When he got buffed they made it pretty respectable -- it was definitely awful before.

Unless things have changed with his roster KGB is a renowned softcapper so his Strange wont be champed.

A champed Strange can handle the damage no problem.

@entrailbucket said:
I wish the Q&A was open (I will definitely forget to ask this). I'd like to know what roster levels those fights are meant to be gated for. It's clear they aren't meant to be won by everyone, since there are 5* required characters.

Obviously any sort of gating mechanism has become worthless over the years -- some new player can easily build an instawin team that'd beat lvl800 opponents -- but they must have SOME idea.

Soft capping always seemed odd to me. Like it would give you a benefit for PvP, but it hurts you in PvE. I guess it does help for Puzzle Gauntlet a little bit.
But, the PvP benefit is more or less gone now right? I would guess some pairs of 4's now do really well against the traditional softcap 5s.
I haven't seen the 4* tier in more than 3 years, but I would like the option to actually play in that tier with 4s only.

@DAZ0273 said:

@entrailbucket said:

@KGB said:

@dianetics said:

@Daredevil217 said:
I like Doom for the same reason I don’t like most of the new 5s. Damage stick is boring to me, especially when it does it less efficiently. Even with all the “tools” I’d struggle with an ascended moondragon / iHulk personally. And I fully expect to see more of those if people choose MD as their one max ascended character of the year to focus on. Doom at least deals with that. He also has a special tile spamming and true healing as part of his kit, and while those aren’t unique, do provide utility as well. There is also Court Death Shenanigans.

I mostly agree with you here, but honestly I think I'd rather just Electro Evo any time I see iHulk. Grow him to the moon and save the health packs. I guess you could Electro 4Doom them and get through it quicker, but the point remains iHulk really has not been consistent in PvP for like 3 years and we have tools to take care of him. Switch and Electro.

Chasm was nerfed so he is far less problematic now. If this character arrived 1 year ago my opinion would likely be far different.

I get it, he is good, but I'm not excited for him like I am for Shaw. I don't think Doom will ever be an option for me in PvE and that is the majority of the game I play.

Whether or not he's good, his Welcome to Shield event where we had to use Strange on the 5 star node was a total troll because Strange as a Technologist has to eat 8K damage every time he fires Black. To me, he's another character to avoid if you use Technologists because team self damage is an awful mechanic. I ended up just boosting +4 Purple, using Deadpool with a +5 more starting Purple AP support and Whaling the node both days.

KGB

How much HP does your Dr Strange have? When he got buffed they made it pretty respectable -- it was definitely awful before.

Unless things have changed with his roster KGB is a renowned softcapper so his Strange wont be champed.

A champed Strange can handle the damage no problem.

In this case my Strange just isn't fully covered and so can't be champed. I think mine's 360. I was using Valk as my 3rd because her bounty powered up the cheap Black for 20K damage that would let me fire it once a turn. It doesn't take long at 8K damage a turn to Strange to kill him.

Strange is a bad choice for any player who doesn't have him champed because of the self damage from Doom. They could have picked any other 5 who isn't a technologist.

KGB

@KGB said:

@DAZ0273 said:

@entrailbucket said:

@KGB said:

@dianetics said:

@Daredevil217 said:
I like Doom for the same reason I don’t like most of the new 5s. Damage stick is boring to me, especially when it does it less efficiently. Even with all the “tools” I’d struggle with an ascended moondragon / iHulk personally. And I fully expect to see more of those if people choose MD as their one max ascended character of the year to focus on. Doom at least deals with that. He also has a special tile spamming and true healing as part of his kit, and while those aren’t unique, do provide utility as well. There is also Court Death Shenanigans.

I mostly agree with you here, but honestly I think I'd rather just Electro Evo any time I see iHulk. Grow him to the moon and save the health packs. I guess you could Electro 4Doom them and get through it quicker, but the point remains iHulk really has not been consistent in PvP for like 3 years and we have tools to take care of him. Switch and Electro.

Chasm was nerfed so he is far less problematic now. If this character arrived 1 year ago my opinion would likely be far different.

I get it, he is good, but I'm not excited for him like I am for Shaw. I don't think Doom will ever be an option for me in PvE and that is the majority of the game I play.

Whether or not he's good, his Welcome to Shield event where we had to use Strange on the 5 star node was a total troll because Strange as a Technologist has to eat 8K damage every time he fires Black. To me, he's another character to avoid if you use Technologists because team self damage is an awful mechanic. I ended up just boosting +4 Purple, using Deadpool with a +5 more starting Purple AP support and Whaling the node both days.

KGB

How much HP does your Dr Strange have? When he got buffed they made it pretty respectable -- it was definitely awful before.

Unless things have changed with his roster KGB is a renowned softcapper so his Strange wont be champed.

A champed Strange can handle the damage no problem.

In this case my Strange just isn't fully covered and so can't be champed. I think mine's 360. I was using Valk as my 3rd because her bounty powered up the cheap Black for 20K damage that would let me fire it once a turn. It doesn't take long at 8K damage a turn to Strange to kill him.

Strange is a bad choice for any player who doesn't have him champed because of the self damage from Doom. They could have picked any other 5 who isn't a technologist.

KGB

I don't know what other options you had, but you chose to lean into the black power by using Valkyrie. Yes, there is feedback, but there is also considerable bonus damage dealt. It's a net gain for the player. The challenge here is when facing high health enemies, that can eat plenty of nukes, how to keep strange going.

I played the node a dozen times with a variety of 3rd wheels. Try it with Medusa? Deathlok? Kitty Pryde? Polaris (probably needs to have the communicator, or some protects from another support, a/o be ascended). If you have a 1Yelena ascended high enough, she can be awesome in a fight like this.

It's a challenging node, and it IS a gate ... only in the past 6mos have I been able to clear it relatively easily (and still not always ...), and we know it's a gate because, if you can clear this node, the wave beyond it is a victory lap, a cakewalk around the bases after managing to hit the homer.