**** Venom (Eddie Brock) ****

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Comments

  • notamutant
    notamutant Posts: 855 Critical Contributor
    How many characters in 4 star land create special tiles?

    Miles - web tiles from purple and yellow
    Prof X - creates tiles when another character uses a skill
    Jean Grey - green creates random tiles
    Hulkbuster - black and blue create strike and protect tiles
    Carnage - creates attack tiles with his black
    Elektra - kind of creates strike tiles with purple
    Kingpin - can kind of create strike tiles with his yellow
    IW - can create protect tiles with blue and yellow
    Thing - yellow passive can create protect tiles
    NF - theoretically yellow and purple can create special tiles
    Ant-Man - purple and yellow create special tiles
    Failcap - Yellow creates protect tiles all over
    X-23 - With specific conditions, green can make strike tiles
    Ghost Rider - red and green can create special tiles
    MF - blue creates protect tile

    I am assuming countdown tiles can also count, so throw in Star-Lord and Kingpin yellow a second time.

    Okay, so, that makes Venom's green look like it has a lot of potential, right?! Look at all those characters creating special tiles to boost his board destruction! But wait! Going from top to bottom now:

    Miles can get out a bunch of web tiles, so this is actually useful against him.
    Prof X doesn't get out that many special tiles, so irrelevant.
    Jean Grey isn't going to get green off more than once a match, so only 4 special tiles is nothing. Useless to use Venom's green against her.
    Hulkbuster also will only get tops 4 special tiles a match, useless.
    Carnage creates attack tiles, which will kill Venom, so you don't want his special tiles out. Useless.
    Elektra is never used and only creates tiles if ones are not currently out, and only 3 anyhow. Useless.
    Kingpin is not a common PvP enemy, and rarely gets special tiles out except for short term countdown, same with Star-Lord.
    IW is never used, so useless.
    Thing, most people get around his passive by attacking Thing first. Useless.
    NF never actually creates special tiles in practice, and only one or two. Useless.
    Ant-Man has the potential to create a bunch of special tiles if left alone. It might actually be useful to use green against him later in the match. Except Ant-Man creates attack tiles, which Venom is weak against. So it cancels out.
    Failcap - Creates protect tiles on all yellow tiles. A large enough number to destroy 9-13 tiles when using green. Finally! The counter we have all been waiting for against the invincible Failcap! We finally have not just one, but two moves on a single character that can take on the incredible Birdman.
    X-23 rarely gets off green with strike tiles due to secondary AP condition.
    Ghost Rider - too early to tell, but he may actually end up creating enough special tiles to make it worthwhile to use green against him.
    MF - HA! No one uses him.

    So in summary, green is only useful against Miles, Failcap, and Ghost Rider. And as we all know, these were the characters most in need of a direct counter to keep them from dominating PvP.
  • On the marvel.com article, there's 3 seperate AP values for his green (7, 11 & 13). Is it possible you've missed a bit about the AP cost going down?
  • turul
    turul Posts: 1,622 Chairperson of the Boards
    On the marvel.com article, there's 3 seperate AP values for his green (7, 11 & 13). Is it possible you've missed a bit about the AP cost going down?

    "Maybe" it costs 1 AP less for each enemy spectile?!
  • ThatOneGuyjp189512
    ThatOneGuyjp189512 Posts: 543 Critical Contributor
    His green seriously needs a damage buff, 13 ap for 3k damage? like seriously one of the worst skills in the game, you guys seem to put wayyyy too much value into board shake ups when most of the community would rather have a damage buff(I.E. the difference between Thor's Call the Storm vs. Ragnorak's Godlike Power) for the same cost rather than a **** board shake which has potential to literally do nothing.
  • Do want to know: If Venom here is out, and the enemy only has attack tiles, and not protect tiles, does it still power them up?

    Seeing as how it's flat and doesn't seem to activate off anything specific, it sounds like it.

    May have niche PVE uses. It's cheaper to use him instead of a 5 red Captain Marvel, at least.
  • IceIX
    IceIX ADMINISTRATORS Posts: 4,308 Site Admin
    turul wrote:
    On the marvel.com article, there's 3 seperate AP values for his green (7, 11 & 13). Is it possible you've missed a bit about the AP cost going down?

    "Maybe" it costs 1 AP less for each enemy spectile?!
    Heh, you picked this up the same time I got my answer, *knew* there was something off about it! About to fix the description. That's exactly correct!
  • zonatahunt
    zonatahunt Posts: 250 Mover and Shaker
    I like him. I'd run him at 355. 13 AP for a weak damage cost for his green isn't worth 5 covers; seeing as how the tile destruction occurs with even a single cover.

    Regarding his black passive....don't run him against attack tile generators if you don't want the damage value to increase by 15% at 5 covers. It's your choice when you want to run him and who against. Personally, at five covers he's a great L. Cage solution!

    As for his yellow power...nice damage for only 9 AP. There are very few toons that offer that kind of damage with yellow.

    I think he's solid, and will play well. Just my 0.02 cents.
  • SolidQ
    SolidQ Posts: 247 Tile Toppler
    IceIX wrote:
    Heh, you picked this up the same time I got my answer, *knew* there was something off about it! About to fix the description. That's exactly correct!
    7AP on screen it's old?? and 8AP is right in description? icon_rolleyes.gif
  • Pylgrim
    Pylgrim Posts: 2,296 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited December 2015
    He super needs a buff, hopefully pre-release. The Yellow Nuke deals shy of 7k for 9 AP which is not particularly awesome for a 4*... and it has a drawback on top of it? Green is interesting and can scale nicely, but even if you are obliterating the board following an enemy Storm's Hailstorm, 13 AP is way too much, especially given the paltry damage. Not to mention that most of the times he'll be destroying 0-3 tiles only. And the passive could be nice, but with a extremely niche usefulness plus a drawback that outright will force you to bench him if you are facing certain enemies.

    That said, I applaud the decision of hiring an Elder God to make these announcements.

    EDIT. Green is decent now. 3k damage and destroying 7+ tiles for 7 AP is quite good. However, it cements him as a niche character. You only want to bring him against a few certain characters while you definitely want to keep him away against certain others.
  • turul
    turul Posts: 1,622 Chairperson of the Boards
    IceIX wrote:
    turul wrote:
    On the marvel.com article, there's 3 seperate AP values for his green (7, 11 & 13). Is it possible you've missed a bit about the AP cost going down?

    "Maybe" it costs 1 AP less for each enemy spectile?!
    Heh, you picked this up the same time I got my answer, *knew* there was something off about it! About to fix the description. That's exactly correct!

    Maybe not exactly true though, if the AP reduce only counts specific enemy special tiles....
  • IceIX
    IceIX ADMINISTRATORS Posts: 4,308 Site Admin
    turul wrote:
    Maybe not exactly true though, if the AP reduce only counts specific enemy special tiles....
    The decrease from Black is specified. The Green AP cost decrease is for any enemy special.
  • So the enemy needs 6 special tiles out so green becomes less ****? Yay, a second confirmation of Falcap counter right here!
  • udonomefoo
    udonomefoo Posts: 1,630 Chairperson of the Boards
    He's a direct counter to those lvl 300+ 2* Bullseyes in pve, so that's something.
  • zonatahunt
    zonatahunt Posts: 250 Mover and Shaker
    Pylgrim wrote:
    He super needs a buff, hopefully pre-release. The Yellow Nuke deals shy of 7k for 9 AP which is not particularly awesome for a 4*... and it has a drawback on top of it? Green is interesting and can scale nicely, but even if you are obliterating the board following an enemy Storm's Hailstorm, 13 AP is way too much, especially given the paltry damage. Not to mention that most of the times he'll be destroying 0-3 tiles only. And the passive could be nice, but with a extremely niche usefulness plus a drawback that outright will force you to bench him if you are facing certain enemies.

    That said, I applaud the decision of hiring an Elder God to make these announcements.

    EDIT. Green is decent now. 3k damage and destroying 7+ tiles for 7 AP is quite good. However, it cements him as a niche character. You only want to bring him against a few certain characters while you definitely want to keep him away against certain others.

    Comparing his yellow to Iceman's blue, it does about 1k less in damage for 3 fewer AP. I don't remember hearing a ton of gripes about the cost of that power, and IM is one of the game's best 4*. Yes, IM does have that awesome 4-turn stun too, but talking damage, it seems fair. As for his yellow, if you've got his black at five covers, then the two enemy protect tiles he generates will be inconsequential.

    His green I'd still keep at three, as I'd use it mainly to rid the board of tiles and to shake things up a bit...especially if it only costs 7 AP.

    I think the main problem isn't that his powers are to weak, but that the new 4*s they're creating are simply nowhere near the ludicrous health and power levels of the game's three 5*s. Honestly, they should be reducing the values of 5*s (seeing that the game only has three, and that the proportional increase in power breaks from 4-5*), instead of considering 24+ buffs for the game's current and future 4*s.
  • OzarkBoatswain
    OzarkBoatswain Posts: 684 Critical Contributor
    edited December 2015
    His yellow is the best 4* yellow damage dealer at 730/AP, not that there's much competition. In fact only 5* Logan beats it (edit: and Kingpin, if all the CDs go off, which they won't). The enemy tiles are so small that they don't matter, and they even help his green.

    Green has underwhelming damage (431/AP max) but does have some board shake. It could have been good with/against Carnage, but then there's Venom's passive...

    Passive: I think this sucks. Who cares about protect tiles? The game is designed to make them weaker than the other tile types (a good design decision IMO). The only ones that matter come from The Thing's passive which can be avoided or mitigated, and maybe 3* Cap's blue, which doesn't matter in PVP. Also, at 1 cover it is usually a detriment with 50% stronger enemy attack tiles and a negligible protect tile reduction.

    I'd go with 5 yellow covers and I don't think the other ones matter much. Probably 3/5/5.
  • Raffoon
    Raffoon Posts: 884
    So, a terrible passive, a decent yellow and a situationally either terrible or ok green.

    So disappointed.

    If his passive didn't have a drawback, it and he would still be bad.
  • babinro
    babinro Posts: 771 Critical Contributor
    Initial impressions from on paper stats:

    Green:
    Awful. The BIG problem with these skills designed around AP cost reduction conditions is that they seem to be build around the optimal condition. In this case it's 7AP destroying at least 6 random tiles and dealing 3020 damage to one target. That alone would make for a decent skill comparable to XF's green but the fact that you have to jump through hoops just to get that situation is horrible. The design of these skills should make it so that the optimal casting of them feels borderline OP. You want to make your setup feel like it's truly worth the effort. If this skill also destroyed an enemy special tile for each AP reduced in addition to everything else we might have something. It would punish over extending and act as a genuine counter to certain characters.

    Black:
    Useless. For the record I kind of love the design of this skill. It would be wonderful in a game that had a heavy defensive focus. Unfortunately that's NOT MPQ. We aren't in a meta where everyone is running Mags at 5 yellow and Thing are at 5 yellow. People aren't running 3* and 4* Falcons. This skill feels like it was made by people who are not familiar with MPQ's actual gameplay but rather just it's core mechanics. It desperately needs to do more than just this to be remotely worth considering.

    Yellow:
    Good. This game lacks good yellow damage skills and Veom brings that to the game. The drawback isn't bad at all especially with his passive further reducing their impact. This damage feels right for the cost as well. Good job!

    Initial Build:
    5/3/5 without question.
    Edit: FaustianDeal brought to my attention that 3/5/5 is viable simply to lessen the drawback of his black passive from 25% to 10%. While this is a sad excuse to max out a colour I can see it as a valid alternative build seeing as attack tiles are FAR more common than protect tiles.

    Overall:
    Trash tier. One good skill doesn't make a character viable. The fact that he has a useful offensive yellow makes him better than IW and maybe even Electra but that's about it. If the green manages to play better than it looks on paper than maybe this character will elevate himself to Star-Lord's low tier.

    Edit: On a personal note I'm disappointed he doesn't have a focus on web tiles to promote use alongside Spider-Man. I realize they are enemies but it's one of the few opportunities to use web tiles at 4* tier so I say embrace it. Make Venom+Miles the next XF+xDP.
  • spectator
    spectator Posts: 395 Mover and Shaker
    Venoms yellow will create protect tiles for you to reduce the cost of green. The way I see it, use yellow twice then use green at 9 ap to get rid of the protect tiles
  • stochasticism
    stochasticism Posts: 1,181 Chairperson of the Boards
    spectator wrote:
    Venoms yellow will create protect tiles for you to reduce the cost of green. The way I see it, use yellow twice then use green at 9 ap to get rid of the protect tiles

    Green doesn't destroy specials, it destroys a random (presumably basic) tile for each special on the board. They are so weak that they don't really matter though. What matters is all the ap you could be spending in better ways.
  • SangFroid
    SangFroid Posts: 177 Tile Toppler
    What is the max level on a 505 build 4*?