Marvel Puzzle Quest: Character Rebalances - Batch #1

I just hope for a Little Nerf, not Made Polaris completly useless as sidewinder, just to name a character

@dokiy said:

@Scorpion201 said:
Way to kill the game with Polaris nerf, yet doesn't mighty Thor doesnt get touch . Ridiculous, one foot out the door this game is a mess . It's funny you allow 5 star characters pound on the lower rosters, but don't allow any 4 star characters punch their way up.

MThor and Polaris are easy kills. Yes things can get out of hand, but smart play can knock out Polaris on a few turns and MThor can be countered a few different ways. Granted I will admit, I am not at a level of PVP play where I have ran up against a 550 Ascended Polaris, but I do see some 550 MThors, and have had success even with my MThor at level 508 (I think)

550 Polaris only has 130k health, so it's easy to kill her turn 0 with support AP (this was not the case when Leapfrog was allowed, though). But 550 Polaris/m'Thor trivially beats any team of any level on offense.

I knew this would happen when I'm finally in touching distance of getting polaris to 550 😂

@S0kun said:
If you’ve been playing Marvel Puzzle Quest lately, you’ve probably noticed the same handful of characters dominating nearly every match. While strong characters are fun, when the meta feels predictable, creativity and strategy take a hit. To keep the game exciting and strategic, we’re planning a shake up with batched rebalances. Rather than making sweeping changes all at once, each batch will feature a variety of buffs for underused characters and carefully considered adjustments to one dominant character.

These tweaks aren’t about punishing players who’ve invested time building top-tier teams, they’re about creating more opportunities for strategy and variety across the roster. By carefully nerfing some of these top characters, we can reduce overreliance on a single character while keeping them strong and viable. At the same time, buffs for underused heroes and villains will encourage experimentation and make the game feel fresh.

Set to roll out with the start of the next PvP season on October 16th, here’s the first batch of characters we’ll be adjusting in this initial wave of rebalances.

Rebalance Batch #1

Nerf

4-Stars: Polaris (Lorna Dane)
Easily the character that comes to mind for the first nerf is Polaris as she consistently dominates across nearly every aspect of the game. We want to make sure players got a deep dive into Polaris’ nerfs since there’s a ton to digest so IceIX has put together an in-depth overview of all the rebalances that went into Polaris with numbers and a few notes into how we landed on these changes.

Head on over to our Character Rebalances - Polaris (Lorna Dane) 4* forum post for full details. [Link incoming]

Buffs

These buffs will primarily be delivered through direct numerical adjustments. In certain cases, additional changes may be made, but to efficiently strengthen multiple characters at once, adjusting the numbers proved to be the most effective way for our development team to implement large-scale buffs.

5-Stars: Iron Man (Mark XLVI), Jeffrey (Symbiote), Peggy Carter (Worthy), Rescue (Pepper Potts)
4-Stars: Devil Dinosaur (Gigantic Reptile), Doctor Bong (Lester Verde), Drax (The Destroyer), Peni Parker (Spider-Bot BFF)
3-Stars: Miles Morales (Spider-Fit), Peggy Carter (Iron Carter), Ragnarok (Dark Avengers), Sentry (Dark Avengers)
2-Stars: Captain America (Steve Rogers), Moonstone (Dark Avengers)
1-Star: Hawkeye (Classic)

We’ll have more news on Batch #2 after we see how the current set of changes play out in the post-rebalance meta. Our goal is to ensure these meta reshuffles are fair, thoughtful, and ultimately lead to a better Marvel Puzzle Quest experience for everyone so please let us know your thoughts about other characters or team compositions you think need a tune-up!

Abomination is horrible. He needs a total overhaul. His numbers at max level are mid 4 damage. His kit makes very little sense and the return mechanic has little to no value

Infamous Ironman. The bots are cool in theory but in reality they die easily and restrict team composition tremendously in order to get any value. No team aoe, no random damage, just straight match one single target. His red power…his “budget” was clearly eaten by the fact he can use attack tiles to heal but you over valued that aspect by a lot. If the bots 1) had much higher health 2) were immune to damage from the team they are assisting it wouldn’t be a terrible power but under current conditions he only really has 2 powers.

Miles Carnage. This guys entire kit is a **** meme. Why does he use charged tiles for red while creating web tiles with purple? And does neither well? 8 charge tiles for max damage and he kicks himself in the face to be stunned for the effort? At 5 purple he creates a whole 3 web tiles. Sure he increases match damage but others do that better with less conditions so why bother? His green power is okay but we have characters that do the same exact thing, where’s the spice? The other 5 Carnage has an extra match mechanic, so why was this left as is? Make him immune to attack tiles, that’s unique and fits with BSSM lowering strike tiles 100%.

5 Panther. The stun to return with damage was interesting in theory but totally fails in practice. He just ends up being a liability. His yellow is just bad, it’s too conditional for very little payoff. His black is okay ish? But Angela does about the same thing except passively AND reduces damage AND has an active component while not the best damage is actually decent value. White Tiger is a better Black Panther than Black Panther. If the idea is to punish stunning him, it needs to be punishing. The first half of reducing damage 60% is fine but the second half might work better if he was immune to damage while stunned and any damage he takes while stunned is returned x2.

Whilst a nerf might be necessary for pvp, is it necessary to change for pve? Do anything to make matches longer! It's getting more mpq is life.

@BriMan2222 said:

@WilliamK1983 said:
Curious to find out if the rebalance will fix Iron May's ascension issue. Will the 5* be better(like you would think) than the 4*?

That's not an issue, that's balance.
They said from the beginning that characters would change to compensate for being 5 star.

Iron May gives that huge buff, but she is easily killed by 5 star match damage. If she kept that big buff AND got upgraded health, match damage, and power damage she would be extremely OP.

I get what you're saying. I just don't understand why they can't(at some point) rework her at the 3* lvl so the damage and health at ascended levels are more in line? Why can't the 4* get a health bump and match damage decrease? That way the 5* then has an appropriate match damage to health to not be extremely op.

I really feel like it is bad to only announce one nerf at a time. Pretty crummy to keep people guessing. You want to deliver “bad news” all at once if you have it, not leave people in anticipation. You’re just going to make people angrier by keeping them in the dark. Spreading the nerf announcements out just makes lots of little moments that invite negativity.So as is, still not safe to spend resources. These guys need to go read some Simon Sinek, Stephen Covy (who I didn’t like much actually), something…just learn to communicate.

@Scorpion201 said:
Disagree their plenty of good Polaris counters, cheap wins can be said about mighty thor. Polaris and juggernaut, rocket help me make quick work in pve.

But there actually isn't.....characters have definitely been brought in as being intended to help counter her but they're useless in practice. The only one I find regularly useful is Morbius and (sometimes) Gorr but anyone else designed to counter her fails miserably because she synergises too well with Thor and Bill

1 at a time is fine , but a list of upcoming nerfs would be handy , as someone said earlier, it would help us plan what to spend our resources on