***** Abigail Brand (Commander of S.W.O.R.D.) *****

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Comments

  • Bad
    Bad Posts: 3,146 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited January 2022
    Shang-chi is much better than abigail and they are totally opposite types.
    You could compare SC to BW as they share similar concepts and both are offensive.
    Supporting type like abigail should be compared to odin, or medusa on 4* tier, perhaps rambeau too.
  • ThaRoadWarrior
    ThaRoadWarrior Posts: 9,567 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited January 2022
    Medusa was a terror when she was released, she is a good example of a support that you would absolutely take into pick-2 on purpose, and potentially not retreat if your big hitter gets taken out in the mid battle (4* tier that is, if you are in a 5* battle that isn’t going to work). I think Abigail looks like Odin to me - weak damage and support stuff you don’t need or that doesn’t work consistently enough to rely on.
  • Bad
    Bad Posts: 3,146 Chairperson of the Boards
    Playing on her pvp, and being SW a partner, if the enemy team has 3 strongest colors it's possible to switch foes and keep their AP in check, kind of like ghostpool does, but abigail does it easier.
    By the way, ghostpool and SW could be a solid team for her, as deadpool steals AP and he could finally crush the enemy with penance fare after all the healing. 
  • ThaRoadWarrior
    ThaRoadWarrior Posts: 9,567 Chairperson of the Boards
    I’m running her with Ronan and Odin in her PVP, and in this specific scenario it is working fine I suppose. The health is negligible and she is mostly just there being a required third at 1/1/1 (5/5/5 but low level assuming Odin eats a couple hits).
  • entrailbucket
    entrailbucket Posts: 7,039 Chairperson of the Boards
    So, if you work hard enough you can find a team for her that's fun, but she's not good enough to compete with the top characters?

    That's exactly what I've been saying this whole time.
  • Daniel2121
    Daniel2121 Posts: 280 Mover and Shaker
    edited January 2022
    So Abigail's best partner is 5* Witch. Great. Another Switch partner. Gogogogo Switch meta.  :s

    Another one is Ronan. He has a passive countdown and repeaters that multiply and fill the board. But Switch is the best as she has a ridiculous 1-turn repeater.
  • Daniel2121
    Daniel2121 Posts: 280 Mover and Shaker
    HoundofShadow said:
    I tested Abigail, Odin and Wanda and it's fine. The amount of banners popping up is crazy. :D

    I replaced Wanda with Lizard and it was much better. Lizard creates 4 repeater tiles, and self fortifies them every single turn. This in turn helps Odin to create his cds that heal his allies and turn their builds to 5/5/5 and then creates strike tiles, and it also triggers Abigail's team heal thrice. On top of that, he turns blue tiles into red tiles, and many times, he creates free matches. 

    Lizard/Odin > Wanda/Odin.

    Well... maybe. But you need to fire Lizard's purple for this to work. Wanda's repeater is a passive, it's always there.

    What about Human Torch. I mean the 4* Torch guy. Doesn't he have a bunch of repeaters as well? Could be useful.
  • HoundofShadow
    HoundofShadow Posts: 8,004 Chairperson of the Boards
    Of course! That has been the way RPG games has been like for decades. A support team, rarely can compete with aggressive team. If you bring a cleric or bard vs bringing barbarian or assassin into a non-undead boss fight, chances are, the latter will take down them much quickly. 

    Or, if the first class you choose is support/healing character at the start of the game, generally speaking, you will have a hard time leveling up or killing opponent because their attack powers are weak. 

    I think what your vision for these characters is that support/healing characters should be as powerful as melee characters, but it's rarely going to be the case. So, if you really want to compare Abigail or other support characters, you need to compare her with someone who does similar things as her, and not compare her with the Shang Chi or Apocalypse.

    It's like comparing the dps of cleric vs fighter. Cleric will always lose to fighter unless the enemies are undead.
  • HoundofShadow
    HoundofShadow Posts: 8,004 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited January 2022
    I didn't see your post initially. Yes, Wanda's repeater is alway there passively and does damage, and you need to gather 7 purple aps for Lizard. But she can't do what Lizard can do: synergise with Odin regarding abilities related to fortification and maximise Abigail's healing more easily. On top of that, he has a 3-turn black stun which can be helpful. Again, Wanda can be better than Lizard in certain scenarios, like against iHulk, Juggernaut or any other AoE teams. When your board is full of foritified tiles, Odin is taking 1 damage per nuke.

    I haven't tried 4Torch yet and he could be good too because he can fortify friendly repeater tiles and create strike tiles.
  • TheRiddler
    TheRiddler Posts: 291 Mover and Shaker
    HoundofShadow said:
    I didn't see your post initially. Yes, Wanda's repeater is alway there passively and does damage, and you need to gather 7 purple aps for Lizard. But she can't do what Lizard can do: synergise with Odin regarding abilities related to fortification and maximise Abigail's healing more easily. On top of that, he has a 3-turn black stun which can be helpful. Again, Wanda can be better than Lizard in certain scenarios, like against iHulk, Juggernaut or any other AoE teams. When your board is full of foritified tiles, Odin is taking 1 damage per nuke.

    I haven't tried 4Torch yet and he could be good too because he can fortify friendly repeater tiles and create strike tiles.

    I just beat a couple champ 5 teams with Apocalypse and 4Torch. Interesting team. Torch puts his green replicating repeaters out. Apocalypse yellow boosts the damage of those repeaters plus his red and black attacks and creates his own repeaters to put out protects. You are getting Abigail triggering her passives. Abigail can use her purple for boosted damage and targeted AP reduction. And her blue is putting out attack tiles.

  • Srheer0
    Srheer0 Posts: 510 Critical Contributor
    When I champ Abigail in like 3 months (and yes I will), I am sure there will be some combination that makes her useable.  

    She has a typical supporter powerset. Fortifying countdown / repeaters against destruction or matching. Healing or burst healing allies and no big nuke. Maybe similar to Antivenom in terms of how they can work with the healing focus. 

    I could see her maybe working with m5gneto and or b5nner. Just because she can fortify or accelerate the repeaters / countdown tile that makes them function well. 

    Obviously she lacks the damage and damage boosting ability of Apoc, the damage reducing abilities of W5nda + Colossus or the big match damage of Shang Chi. She's a support character. 


  • Bad
    Bad Posts: 3,146 Chairperson of the Boards
    I think I will champ her too. She fits in my main team apoc and SW. A lot of repeaters, she can keep in check AP'foe, minimize first damage taken by wanda thanks to all the healing, and after WTMR she even can fire her purple for more AP destroyed.
    For relaxed pve clearing nodes, and for pvp SIM.
    She is not like odin who works eating a health pack per battle.
  • DAZ0273
    DAZ0273 Posts: 11,516 Chairperson of the Boards
    entrailbucket said:

    The power level of new characters is random.  It's the only way this adds up.

    Not necessarily. I can't speak for all releases but when Captain America (Worthy) was released, Ice specifically said that he might be broken and so it proved. I found that interesting that they knew and let it happen anyway. It was a very rare admission which is what makes it so intriguing.
  • entrailbucket
    entrailbucket Posts: 7,039 Chairperson of the Boards
    There are good support characters and bad support characters.  A good support character provides exactly as much value as a good damage dealer.  "Well, it's a support character! Of course they don't do anything!" is not an excuse to release bad characters.

    Abigail is a bad support character.
  • HoundofShadow
    HoundofShadow Posts: 8,004 Chairperson of the Boards
    Support characters can be sub-classified into different areas of supports. In the case of Abigail, she's specialises in repeaters/cds based healing, and minor in some aps controls and attack tiles creating repeaters. She's bad because she doesn't fit your idea of what a support character should be. That's fine because usage of such characters are subjective.

    Players have been complaining about "DOA" or underwhelming characters for years and the dev continues to release them. So, in the future, we'll be talking about this topic again. Anyway, you can simply roster just one cover of her without using any cps and save your cps for other characters. 
  • entrailbucket
    entrailbucket Posts: 7,039 Chairperson of the Boards
    Again.  Again.  Again.  I will roster her, champion her and use her.  I *want* to use these characters.  I *always* use the bad characters because just using the good characters all the time is not fun.

    The difference is that I choose not to lie to myself and convince myself that a bad character is good.  When I use bad characters I am well aware that they are bad and I choose to use them anyway.

    Many, many other players will ignore her, never use her for anything, and will miss out on absolutely nothing.  For a 5* character who requires so many resources to acquire, that is unacceptable.
  • ThaRoadWarrior
    ThaRoadWarrior Posts: 9,567 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited January 2022
    "DOA" characters are just champ reward factories for me. I like weird support characters more than some, I like this particular one less than I wanted to. We know that somebody up there knows how to design compelling 4* characters still, but the 5*s have been in a strange state. Abigail and Odin have very comparable damage output, only around 10k active damage. Those are 4* numbers, and I'm just curious why those choices get made.
  • entrailbucket
    entrailbucket Posts: 7,039 Chairperson of the Boards
    It's not just damage output though.  A support character can do things that don't do damage at all and still be good.  Kitty doesn't directly do damage and she's very good.  Thor is a support character at this stage in the metagame and he's very good.

    The difference is that buffing tiles passively or generating AP and cascades passively are things that are good.  They help you win matches.  Passive burst healing and AP drain are not.  The additional fact that Abigail is limited to supporting CD/repeater teams makes her even worse.
  • HoundofShadow
    HoundofShadow Posts: 8,004 Chairperson of the Boards
    Basically, you prefer support characters who buff other characters, whether it's increasing the strengths of friendly special tiles or increase ap gains. Obviously, both are meant to help to win matches faster. 

    I enjoy the different mechanics that the developers bring into the game instead of focusing on only offensive tactics. To me, all characters have the potentials to be good in their respective ways. The only thing that stops them from actualising their full potentials is the number of available partners in the game.

    With that being said, are there other teams being used with Abigail? 



  • Breadsticks
    Breadsticks Posts: 85 Match Maker
    The problem isn't Abigail. The problem is lack of modes and characters that allow that style of play. 

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