I'm not sure if I like him. His blue seems too slow to stop Gritty as it won't fire on your first turn when you're on an offense. 12 green is also a lot to collect before you can fire it to get rid most of the special tiles.
It's also weird that Okoye won't boost his green. I understand the damage from destroyed tiles but the additional damage with a cap sounds like a direct damage dealing power which should be boosted by Okoye. But then again if his green damage isn't considered a power damage, then I suppose you can safely use this against Kitty when her red CD tile is out without being afraid of it spawning attack tiles.
I have a mixed feeling about him. Guess I have to try using him first.
I'm not sure if I like him. His blue seems too slow to stop Gritty as it won't fire on your first turn when you're on an offense.
Why would you say that? Rocket's Strikes are placed 'at start of battle'. 4Thanos power is 'start of turn'. So the strikes will already be placed and thus Thanos *will* remove 1 at the start of your turn when you are on offence.
Combine that with his passive ability to create green tiles (cascades) and your own movement on turn 1 you have a great chance to remove at least 2 strikes per turn and stop Gritty from boosting more than 1 time (AI 1st turn) and certainly more than twice (AI 2nd turn).
The extra green tiles he creates also makes it easier to accumulate 12 green similar to how C&D make it easy to accumulate lots of black.
Generally "start of turn" powers don't fire at battle start - see 3* Fist's attack tile placement, Cag3's defend tile placement, Medusa's Entanglement placement, etc. Those appear on the player's second turn for some reason. For a very explicit example of the distinction between "start of battle" and "at the start of the turn" see Main Event Hulk: Grand Entrance that has both conditions. At start of battle, break a bunch of tiles. then take your first turn, followed by the enemy turn. THEN, at the start of your second turn, the passive tile swap happens for the first time.
I think he would make a solid anti-Gritty with Main Event in the picture to get that initial board-blast going, but you're definitely going to eat whatever they serve up on the actual first "start of battle" turn.
another Thanos, and more character repetition, damn it!
Well considering the only "new" character we know about in Endgame is Ronin who we are getting, who were you expecting other wise?
There really is a question. Why did not they put Ronin in? But they decided to put another character repeated, which in my view, if it was to promote the film, could promote otherwise, as making alternative costumes for the existing characters as they have done lately. But wanting to push another Thanos, with the absence of countless heroes and villains still, is very difficult to put up with.
Thanos' ability will kick in after the player ends his "first" turn. That was why nerfed Gambit had a minor buff to his nerfed passive, as explained here:
Casey Malone, Lead Designer said: The repeater tile is a key part of the new, rebalanced Gambit, but 'at the start of your turn' doesn't include the start of battle, giving you a turn without the Stacked Deck tile. After further testing, we determined that Gambit could start generating AP more quickly and still have a balanced power. So now Gambit will make that tile for you at the start of the fight.
There really is a question. Why did not they put Ronin in? But they decided to put another character repeated, which in my view, if it was to promote the film, could promote otherwise, as making alternative costumes for the existing characters as they have done lately. But wanting to push another Thanos, with the absence of countless heroes and villains still, is very difficult to put up with.
Ronin is coming. It was in a comment on another site.
Edit: Apparently it was the D3 newsletter:
"These new Marvel characters include an all-around ferocious 4-star
Thanos (Endgame) coming 4/18! And don’t miss an all-new 4-star Hawkeye
(Ronin) coming soon! Additionally, we’ll have an Endgame-themed,
limited-time only Vault 4/25 - 4/30."
another Thanos, and more character repetition, damn it!
Well considering the only "new" character we know about in Endgame is Ronin who we are getting, who were you expecting other wise?
There really is a question. Why did not they put Ronin in? But they decided to put another character repeated, which in my view, if it was to promote the film, could promote otherwise, as making alternative costumes for the existing characters as they have done lately. But wanting to push another Thanos, with the absence of countless heroes and villains still, is very difficult to put up with.
So another Thanos is bad, but another Hawkeye is okay? I'm not following.
So another Thanos is bad, but another Hawkeye is okay? I'm not following.
I was about to draft a joking response to this, but realized that another Hawkeye should ALWAYS be welcome in this game because all five (including Kate) existing versions of Hawkeye are solidly mid-tier-or-above characters with at least one truly unique ability relative to the rest of their tier, if not the entire game.
1* Hawkeye only has two abilities (which perhaps makes his inclusion in the "mid-tier" statement debatable), but one is the only targeted tile destruction in the tier and the second is the only ability where a critical tile can be placed by the player in the entire game. (edit: forgot 2* Bullseye, so it's one of only two characters with the ability...and tinykitty Bullseye )
2* Hawkeye has the only two countdown tiles abilities in the tier which allows the player to place the countdown tiles (thus making them resolve more often than not) and a fun third ability which can potentially out-damage almost any ability in the tier. (edit: forgot 2* Cap, but again, I'm not sure I feel too bad about that)
3* Hawkeye is the only character in the 1*-3* tiers which can gain AP through matching special tiles and (along with the 5* variant) has a blue ability which contains the most different effects of any other single ability in the game (albeit where all but one effect can only be used once per game).
Kate Bishop in the 4* tier has the only ability in the entire game which prevents opponent's health gain, including for bosses like Apocalypse.
And finally, 5* Hawkeye has the afore-mentioned blue which combines with his purple for a fairly unique self-acceleration for other two abilities (other characters, like Coulson, can gain AP off countdowns, but not as predictably or as consistently as Clint).
While admittedly none of them are top tier, much less remotely approaching the meta, all of them are quite interesting characters and playable in their own right. I wouldn't have said so before typing this, but the bar for Ronin may actually be quite high when it comes to being an interesting character, based on those who came before him...
His green to me is a more expensive version of Carnage’s. At 270:
Carnage Green: 6 AP, destroys 16 tiles (no AP), 651 per special Thanos Green: 12 AP, destroys 32 tiles (no damage or AP), 1576 per special
Carnage’s extra 16 tile damage adds an average of 693 damage to Carnage’s expected output. Thanos’s passive will be removing enemy special tiles but he only needs to hit 6 specials (enemy or friendly) to exceed double Carnage’s expected output. So I guess I’ll try him with Cardusa. It will be interesting to see if the green generation accelerates the team enough to outweigh the slow animation and make it viable.
My comparison makes one assumption I don’t actually know is true: if Carnage’s green power destroys a color where he is not the strongest user on the team, is the damage generated his damage or the strongest user’s damage? If the latter, then a Thanos is never better on a per AP cost basis because of the damage cap.
You might want to rework your math a bit. When 4Thanos green is at 4 covers or more, he does damage for *all* tiles destroyed just like Carnage. Only he destroys 32 tiles instead of 16.
KGB
Thanks @KGB , I did miss that. I also realized after the fact that I should compare Carnage hitting half as many special tiles since he's hitting half as many tiles overall. This does ignore the fact that with Thanos around, there are likely to be fewer specials on the board since he'll be removing the enemy ones, but regardless, I recognize now that Thanos's damage per AP is higher than Carnage's.
I am now curious to see how Cardusa + Thanos work as a team. I'd likely run Carnage at 5/5/3 and Thanos at 4/4/5.
So another Thanos is bad, but another Hawkeye is okay? I'm not following.
I was about to draft a joking response to this, but realized that another Hawkeye should ALWAYS be welcome in this game because all five (including Kate) existing versions of Hawkeye are solidly mid-tier-or-above characters with at least one truly unique ability relative to the rest of their tier, if not the entire game.
Real talk? Back when we only had 1*/2* Clint, and were starting to recognize that the MCU characters were getting a 5*, I really hoped we would get a 5* version of the 2*s Speed Shot. Because a 5-star version of that power would be amazing. (well, it have been amazing then, now it would probably be anchored to a repeater that takes a turn or two too long to be useful, but still)
Does his green benefit from Wakanda Forever? Or does it fall under the Gho5t Rider clause of being a tile-destruction power even though it does different damage than a basic match?
I gave it a try, and it doesn't seem like his green benefits from Wakanda Forever.
Bummer. Given that Domino's Knock Them Down power DOES benefit from Wakanda forever (just tested it in Simulator), it can be hard sometimes to predict which ones are and are not going to benefit from it.
The difference is Domino does damage than destroys while this power destroys than calculates damage.
Generally "start of turn" powers don't fire at battle start - see 3* Fist's attack tile placement, Cag3's defend tile placement, Medusa's Entanglement placement, etc. Those appear on the player's second turn for some reason. For a very explicit example of the distinction between "start of battle" and "at the start of the turn" see Main Event Hulk: Grand Entrance that has both conditions. At start of battle, break a bunch of tiles. then take your first turn, followed by the enemy turn. THEN, at the start of your second turn, the passive tile swap happens for the first time.
I think he would make a solid anti-Gritty with Main Event in the picture to get that initial board-blast going, but you're definitely going to eat whatever they serve up on the actual first "start of battle" turn.
Yeah, I thought this is a common knowledge but I suppose it isn't, as MPQ never really stated this explicitly. When you're on an offense, you get an advantage of being the player who goes first, but your "start of the turn" phase is skipped so no passive powers can be activated during your first turn. Kinda like how in most TCG games the player who goes first skips their draw phase and not getting to draw any card, or in some games you can't attack etc.
Although he starts removing special tiles on your second turn, I suppose it's still faster than Kitty where she'll just place a repeater tile so you have to wait at least another turn. You can team Th4nos up with Kitty to speed things up, but I'm not a big fan of "using the same character to counter" strategy, as it feels like it's a bad design and makes that character too important to the game.
To be honest, I wish there was a better way to counter Gritty while synergize with the revamped Mr. F. All these auto erasing enemy special tiles powers don't really go well with his passive. Mr. F yellow could be a great counter to Gritty if you can match those special tiles very quickly but it's super luck dependent and I wish new characters could help improve this somewhat, but Th4nos isn't going to be one of them, sadly. :-/
another Thanos, and more character repetition, damn it!
Well considering the only "new" character we know about in Endgame is Ronin who we are getting, who were you expecting other wise?
There really is a question. Why did not they put Ronin in? But they decided to put another character repeated, which in my view, if it was to promote the film, could promote otherwise, as making alternative costumes for the existing characters as they have done lately. But wanting to push another Thanos, with the absence of countless heroes and villains still, is very difficult to put up with.
So another Thanos is bad, but another Hawkeye is okay? I'm not following.
You're right. I put Ronin as a good option, but it really is not. Neither Thanos nor Hawkeye are good choices (in my opinion). Faced with the infinity of characters that are not contained in the game.
In my opinion, if it was to promote the film, they could have made alternative costumes for the characters, rather than fill us up (again) so often with repeated characters.
another Thanos, and more character repetition, damn it!
Well considering the only "new" character we know about in Endgame is Ronin who we are getting, who were you expecting other wise?
There really is a question. Why did not they put Ronin in? But they decided to put another character repeated, which in my view, if it was to promote the film, could promote otherwise, as making alternative costumes for the existing characters as they have done lately. But wanting to push another Thanos, with the absence of countless heroes and villains still, is very difficult to put up with.
They are putting Ronin in.
They also have to have something to tie-in with Avengers Endgame. I don't think that is much of a realistic expectation otherwise, sorry, so who else would you choose?
As for new characters:
2019
Hela, Talos, Namor, Magik. (Did I miss anyone?)
Then we had 5* Captain Marvel who would have been mandated by Marvel for her movie and God Emperor Doom who must be one of THE most requested variant characters.
Am I missing something or does that not seem quite a reasonable mixture?
another Thanos, and more character repetition, damn it!
Well considering the only "new" character we know about in Endgame is Ronin who we are getting, who were you expecting other wise?
There really is a question. Why did not they put Ronin in? But they decided to put another character repeated, which in my view, if it was to promote the film, could promote otherwise, as making alternative costumes for the existing characters as they have done lately. But wanting to push another Thanos, with the absence of countless heroes and villains still, is very difficult to put up with.
So another Thanos is bad, but another Hawkeye is okay? I'm not following.
You're right. I put Ronin as a good option, but it really is not. Neither Thanos nor Hawkeye are good choices (in my opinion). Faced with the infinity of characters that are not contained in the game.
In my opinion, if it was to promote the film, they could have made alternative costumes for the characters, rather than fill us up (again) so often with repeated characters.
So you want them to tie-in to the film Avengers:Endgame by releasing no new characters and just giving us costumes instead?
So another Thanos is bad, but another Hawkeye is okay? I'm not following.
I was about to draft a joking response to this, but realized that another Hawkeye should ALWAYS be welcome in this game because all five (including Kate) existing versions of Hawkeye are solidly mid-tier-or-above characters with at least one truly unique ability relative to the rest of their tier, if not the entire game.
Real talk? Back when we only had 1*/2* Clint, and were starting to recognize that the MCU characters were getting a 5*, I really hoped we would get a 5* version of the 2*s Speed Shot. Because a 5-star version of that power would be amazing. (well, it have been amazing then, now it would probably be anchored to a repeater that takes a turn or two too long to be useful, but still)
I love Speed Shot! Even a 4* version, copied exactly and ramped up would be great! Of course Ronin seems a bit sword-y so I'm guessing we will get some hack n slash.
Comments
It's also weird that Okoye won't boost his green. I understand the damage from destroyed tiles but the additional damage with a cap sounds like a direct damage dealing power which should be boosted by Okoye. But then again if his green damage isn't considered a power damage, then I suppose you can safely use this against Kitty when her red CD tile is out without being afraid of it spawning attack tiles.
I have a mixed feeling about him. Guess I have to try using him first.
Combine that with his passive ability to create green tiles (cascades) and your own movement on turn 1 you have a great chance to remove at least 2 strikes per turn and stop Gritty from boosting more than 1 time (AI 1st turn) and certainly more than twice (AI 2nd turn).
The extra green tiles he creates also makes it easier to accumulate 12 green similar to how C&D make it easy to accumulate lots of black.
KGB
I think he would make a solid anti-Gritty with Main Event in the picture to get that initial board-blast going, but you're definitely going to eat whatever they serve up on the actual first "start of battle" turn.
The repeater tile is a key part of the new, rebalanced Gambit, but 'at the start of your turn' doesn't include the start of battle, giving you a turn without the Stacked Deck tile.
After further testing, we determined that Gambit could start generating AP more quickly and still have a balanced power. So now Gambit will make that tile for you at the start of the fight.
So another Thanos is bad, but another Hawkeye is okay? I'm not following.
1* Hawkeye only has two abilities (which perhaps makes his inclusion in the "mid-tier" statement debatable), but one is the only targeted tile destruction in the tier and the second is the only ability where a critical tile can be placed by the player in the entire game. (edit: forgot 2* Bullseye, so it's one of only two characters with the ability...and tinykitty Bullseye
2* Hawkeye has the only two countdown tiles abilities in the tier which allows the player to place the countdown tiles (thus making them resolve more often than not) and a fun third ability which can potentially out-damage almost any ability in the tier. (edit: forgot 2* Cap, but again, I'm not sure I feel too bad about that)
3* Hawkeye is the only character in the 1*-3* tiers which can gain AP through matching special tiles and (along with the 5* variant) has a blue ability which contains the most different effects of any other single ability in the game (albeit where all but one effect can only be used once per game).
Kate Bishop in the 4* tier has the only ability in the entire game which prevents opponent's health gain, including for bosses like Apocalypse.
And finally, 5* Hawkeye has the afore-mentioned blue which combines with his purple for a fairly unique self-acceleration for other two abilities (other characters, like Coulson, can gain AP off countdowns, but not as predictably or as consistently as Clint).
While admittedly none of them are top tier, much less remotely approaching the meta, all of them are quite interesting characters and playable in their own right. I wouldn't have said so before typing this, but the bar for Ronin may actually be quite high when it comes to being an interesting character, based on those who came before him...
I am now curious to see how Cardusa + Thanos work as a team. I'd likely run Carnage at 5/5/3 and Thanos at 4/4/5.
Although he starts removing special tiles on your second turn, I suppose it's still faster than Kitty where she'll just place a repeater tile so you have to wait at least another turn. You can team Th4nos up with Kitty to speed things up, but I'm not a big fan of "using the same character to counter" strategy, as it feels like it's a bad design and makes that character too important to the game.
To be honest, I wish there was a better way to counter Gritty while synergize with the revamped Mr. F. All these auto erasing enemy special tiles powers don't really go well with his passive. Mr. F yellow could be a great counter to Gritty if you can match those special tiles very quickly but it's super luck dependent and I wish new characters could help improve this somewhat, but Th4nos isn't going to be one of them, sadly. :-/