***** Elektra (Woman Without Fear) *****

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Comments

  • entrailbucket
    entrailbucket Posts: 7,058 Chairperson of the Boards
    Smart players assess abilities based on their floor, ceiling, and the relative probability of either outcome.

    Elektra's red has a floor of "2 turn stun for 9ap." This ability is not playable.  The ceiling is "2 turn stun plus 20k damage for 9ap."  It's a bit more complicated than that because the damage is delayed 2 turns and that's always less valuable than immediate damage.

    What's the probability of either outcome?  Based on tens of thousands of matches, I've found it to be quite difficult to protect an unfortified CD tile that's randomly placed.  I'd say it's no more than a 50/50 shot that the CD resolves, and maybe lower.


    Compare this power to Dr. Strange.  The floor on his blue is a 3 turn stun for 9ap.  This is ok, if a bit weak.  The ceiling is a 3 turn stun plus X damage (30,000 for me) plus 0-9 enemy AP destroyed.  This ability is very good.

    What's the probability?  Well, I can place Dr. Strange's CD tile, so I can stick it in a corner where it's less likely to get blown up.  I'd estimate it at 75% or higher because of this.
  • HoundofShadow
    HoundofShadow Posts: 8,004 Chairperson of the Boards
    This is what I remember about the state of meta game over the years:

    1. Thorokoye: pvp was boring seeing them over and over again, even though they are glass cannon
    2. Kitty/R4G: healthpack eating machine unless you have SMBiB
    3. Bishop: stunlock hell and impossible to beat
    4. Kitty/BRB: matches are very slow and boring
    5. IHulkoye: healthpack eating machine and "impossible* to beat, if you are using BRB/Kitty, matches are slow.
    6. Colossus/Wanda: slow meta

    For pve, it was Thanos. Then SCL 10 came and it's iHulkoye + Adam Warlock + some other 4* like Scorpion.

    Abilities are considered well designed because it fits a certain personal preference of what should be based on past data or stats. And this stats were built up from comparison of damage/ap, ease of use and speed over the years. The way I see things, many are risk averse and impatience. That's why almost every cd or repeater based power damage got to be 1 turn and fortified. If not, it's not good. Likewise, support characters the likes of Abigail Brand/Ultron are bottom tier because they aren't playing the role similar to Kitty/Okoye/Apocalypse. Also, trap tile mechanics are also typically disliked.

    Just imagine, if the dev made every powers to have the same minimum typical charactertistics of each class of "good design", the game would get stale quickly because the final comparison will be down to damage/ap and strenghts of effects. If every character's powers design start to become good, this "good design" will turn to a norm. When things are the norm, people get bored quickly and want something more exciting. This extra excitement are likely going to come from higher damage or increasing more effects. Then players complain about power creep. We already have people wanting all hp and match damage to be updated due to power creep. If this "good design" becomes a norm, I won't be surprised that every cds and repeaters both in the past and future got to be 1-turn and fortified.

    Meta characters like Apocalypse and Okoye has twisted the critieria of what is good design because they are overpowered. And just so you know, I'm in the nerf Thor/Okoye/Apocalypse camp because of this.
  • HoundofShadow
    HoundofShadow Posts: 8,004 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited February 2022
    Look at Ultron thread, you'll see who they are.

    There are other characters that have abilities that feed each others as well, but they are not considered good because it doesn't fit that certain criteria.

    Apocalypse power are good even though his repeaters are 2 turns. It's because he has 3 backup to maintain his power boost. Let's imagine his power buff is based on the number of repeaters on the board capped at 4 each. For example his 9k buff is split among 4 repeaters at 2.25k each. I believe his rating will get a downgrade because of this.
  • entrailbucket
    entrailbucket Posts: 7,058 Chairperson of the Boards
    Yeah I just picked something at random to do floor/ceiling on it and explain how we evaluate stuff based on those characteristics plus probability.

    Gamora's stun is weird because the floor on that is "do 10,000 damage for 7ap."  The ceiling is significantly higher and involves the damage reduction and repeatable stuns, but like I said, one nice thing they've been doing is raising the floor on most abilities.  If that tile gets blown up right away, well, at least you got a decent shot of damage out of it.

    We all do this analysis without thinking about it.  Players like abilities where the floor *is* the ceiling, but that's kind of boring. 

    What they should do is give us more stuff with a low floor but a very very high ceiling, to incentivize risk-taking.  With Apocalypse red you take no risk whatsoever, so that ability should be much weaker than the ceiling of a high-variance power.  Unfortunately it's not, so there's no reason to use riskier stuff.
  • entrailbucket
    entrailbucket Posts: 7,058 Chairperson of the Boards
    Basically, it's not about players having low risk tolerance.  It's about the game not giving players any incentive to take risks. 

    Why am I going to choose a power that has a chance of doing nothing at all and a chance of doing 20,000 damage when I can choose a power that does 20,000 guaranteed damage?  It's totally illogical, nobody would ever make that tradeoff. 

    The bad characters have powers that are risks without commensurate rewards.
  • bbigler
    bbigler Posts: 2,180 Chairperson of the Boards
    I want to clarify what the term “meta” or “meta game” means, regardless of how people use it here…..
    When developers make a game, they’re creating a sandbox for people to play in.  They put toys in the sandbox and make rules for those toys, but there’s still lots of flexibility in playing with the toys. 

    Soon enough, players develop their own way of playing the game, which is usually different from the original intent of the devs.  For example, hoarding is a part of the meta game.  The devs may either allow this behavior or alter the rules to change it. For example, farming is now encouraged but tapping a node for 1 point was stopped.  
    The devs want us to use a variety of characters, hence the boosted list and required characters for every event, but most players choose to use the same ones over and over for every event.  That’s the meta game that players created.  And to be competitive, you have to play the meta game.   This is most evident in PVP where you can see what people are using and how they climb.  Grill teams and coordinated shield hops are a part of the meta game.  
    So, “meta” characters are characters that players frequently choose to use for specific situations.  Certain characters for PVP climbing and others for PVP defense, certain characters for PVE clearing, etc.  And of course, the meta game can change.  Wanda & Electro changed the Hulkoye meta game.  
    TLDR: Since players are at different power levels in this game, there are meta characters for every tier and MMR level too.  For newer rosters, Shang is a meta character, but for older rosters he may not be.  For 4* rosters, Polaris is a meta character but for 550 rosters she isn’t a part of the meta game. The general behavior of players at a certain stage of the game defines the meta game, and thus the meta characters at that stage.  
    So let’s understand this when arguing about who’s meta and who’s not. The meta characters at my stage can be different from yours.  
  • Bad
    Bad Posts: 3,146 Chairperson of the Boards
    HoundofShadow said:


    And I'm surprised that 8ap is not considered expensive and 9 is expensive. Do some really min-max ap usage/gain as well? I end up with excess aps most of the time at the end of each match. What's the standard for cheap power nowadays? 8 or even fewer? 
    In this game 1 AP is a whole different world.
    8 AP is still expensive but for the things it can do, it's a really good cost. Ghostpool only stuns for 1 turns and matching the cd for 2, still strategically you can stun 1 foe,swicht to another and match the cd: for 8 turns you can stun 2 foes on the same turn, plus the damage. That's a lot more interesting than a cd dealing just 20k in 2 turns that can damage or not, a lot on things can happen. 
    Also I really dislike powers which force the player to config on 5 for being decent. 

    SC is a meta character without any doubt. However if he was represented in a 5 points stadistics graphics his figure would be like a knife. It's a totally irregular character and that  is his strenght and his flaw. Also his combo points which only a player can achieve. He is too unique to be compared with any other character. And also he doesn't help his partners, except being in front taking hits.
  • HoundofShadow
    HoundofShadow Posts: 8,004 Chairperson of the Boards
    Just to clear the air, I'm aware that SC is a meta. However, he won't be considered meta in certain contexts, and I have stated the specific contexts. As a matter of fact, I'm the one who's super hype about SC in his thread. So, I'm aware that he's meta.

    My main point is using meta as a benchmark will result in most of the characters not measuring up to the benchmark of "good design".

    Here's the backstory:
    Over the years, the likes of Gambit, Thor, Okoye, Kitty, Apocalypse has twisted the perception of "good design". Because of how overpowered they are, a lot of new characters get compared to them, and a lot of them get crapped upon. It's because they can end matches much faster than your typical good characters.

    Because of them, players dislike delayed power or repeater based power because they are slow. Thus, players have biases against cd/repeater based delayed powers. Likewise, other bad designs are unfortified tiles and >1 turn cd/repeaters, power with a lot of effects but deal low damage. Trap tiles are also considered not good design and many steer clear of trap tile based characters. Abigail is another bad design.

    Also, the typical conversation goes like this when new characters' main powers shares the same colours as meta characters. For example,

    Why I should i use x's red or yellow when Apocalypse/Okoye's yellow is superior or Apocalypse's red more superior?

    I find that the problem with such comparison is that the role of new characters are almost always largely ignored. 

    Since majority of characters released did not replace meta from 2017 as new meta; therefore, what's the point of using meta as benchmark when majority are going to fail? Wouldn't it be more logical to compare characters of similar category, rather than use meta as a benchmark?

    As for many cd/repeaters based damage, I think it's down to skill, if it's not deal to low risk tolerance. In a normal 3v3 fight in shield sim, the total hp is about 220k. Firing a red power immediately on the third turn won't win you matches immediately. In terms of dealing damage, a delayed 2-turn 20k damage won't be any more different than a direct 20k damage. However if her cd is placed on a random colour, then the risk increased by many fold because the probability gets increased greatly.
  • tonypq
    tonypq Posts: 557 Critical Contributor
    As far as comparing new characters to the metas, it's a way for some to benchmark how good or bad new characters might be. If one meets or exceeds the meta floor great. But we shouldn't have so many characters crash through the meta floor landing miles below it.

    Every new release doesn't have to be meta, we all agree on that. However there also doesn't need to be such a gaping chasm or drop-off between how good one newer character is over other recently released ones. That's on top of how much worse older characters already are compared to newer ones.

    I'm not saying it's intentional at all, I personally feel the devs just aren't great at what they do lol. This game had some sort of vision years ago. However since then it's become a bull in a China shop and they have no idea how to reign things in and move forward with any consistency. Inconsistency is the only thing they are consistent at. 

    As far as Elektra or any other new 5*, they don't always have to be quite on par with said top metas to be good or useful. They should however be properly designed and tuned to do what they do well. They shouldn't be released with in some cases easily avoidable flaws that doom their functionality or fun from the get go. 

    The job they did with Elektra is middle of the pack for me. Her ability set has a decent fun factor to it. Her purple could be a bit cheaper. Red could have used and extra turn of stun IMO, also would prefer the damage up front and not tied to a countdown tile. Or maybe they could've added a component to her countdown tile that each turn it steals or generates a purple AP. A few tweaks like that would have made her quite a bit better I feel. 
  • Bad
    Bad Posts: 3,146 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited February 2022
    It's hard to find a player more hyped  for SC than me, look at his thread, I broke a hoard the first hours he appeared, and I recorded many videos. After finally watching the film I wonder why they design him like this , being just a martial artist with a mistical weapon( except if he fires his kameha- ring which, of course, it doesn't appear in the game. Even he got his rings at once, not gaining them one after another, or at least 5 of them at once).
    The reason apocalypse red is so good it's because is cheap and it's multi hit and it can be boosted by him, SW, or strike tiles, or all of that together. Its hard to find a better red power. 
  • Srheer0
    Srheer0 Posts: 510 Critical Contributor
    Let's make the most annoying team possible with Elektra..

    Elektra, Wanda and Sersei?

    Use Wandas pink to make yellows appear more often.

    Use Sersei's pink to make black or blues appear less often?

    Match as many yellows as you can and use traps and laugh as your opponents kill themselves against Wanda's repeater tile. 

    Any other suggestions? I wanted to maybe use Odin as a jump in front character, but not sure how he'd react with Elektra traps reducing incoming damage (maybe lesser than the jump threshhold). 
  • ThaRoadWarrior
    ThaRoadWarrior Posts: 9,570 Chairperson of the Boards
    If you clog all the yellow, Iceman will still reduce damage but not create a CD for himself. Maybe put Doom in the middle to further skim AP when enemies make a yellow trap match?
  • Vhailorx
    Vhailorx Posts: 6,085 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited February 2022
    Apocalypse power are good even though his repeaters are 2 turns. It's because he has 3 backup to maintain his power boost. Let's imagine his power buff is based on the number of repeaters on the board capped at 4 each. For example his 9k buff is split among 4 repeaters at 2.25k each. I believe his rating will get a downgrade because of this.
    Yeah. If you made apoc's powers worse, his community rating would go down.  You cracked the secret code!

  • entrailbucket
    entrailbucket Posts: 7,058 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited February 2022
    Nobody is saying Elektra has no use, or that she's awful or has no merit.  I think she's fine!  I'll definitely use her when she's boosted.  I am not overlooking her particular strengths.

    But to say it's unfair to compare her to the good characters makes no sense at all.  They both have five stars.  They both have the same draw rate in legendary tokens.  The game is telling players that they should be compared!
  • HoundofShadow
    HoundofShadow Posts: 8,004 Chairperson of the Boards
    @entrailbucket

    The show is over: episode 3, coming to you 8 March 2022.

    For now, how do you plan to use Elektra? What powers are you going to focus on?

  • entrailbucket
    entrailbucket Posts: 7,058 Chairperson of the Boards
    I posted that on page 1, before some people started making the same old tired arguments about a secret special class of unmarked characters that are purposely better than everyone else.

    It's only worth considering how you'd use her when she's boosted.  When boosted, her yellow will hit like a truck.  I wouldn't bother stacking it with the overpowered defensive stuff because 50% of 1 damage is still 1 damage. 

    Her red will play because it's a 5* stun, and even the worst 5* stuns are playable. 

    I don't see any particular value on her purple -- it's a counter play to a strike tile metagame that doesn't exist at the 5* tier.  It'd be fun to get it off against Beta Ray Bill, but how are you realistically going to get to 10 purple before he feeds himself to 6 blue?  It's probably playable against certain PvE goons.  Stealing Maggia Muscle strikes is fun!
  • bbigler
    bbigler Posts: 2,180 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited February 2022
    Everyone, don’t have such a limited perspective based on your level of play!  If you already champed the older meta characters, then Elektra may not add much to your existing play.  BUT if you don’t have them, then Elektra can be useful.  What really matters is when you started champing 5*s.  The “goodness” of Elektra is completely subjective based upon your current roster.

    If you started champing 5*s in 2020, then feel free to compare her to every 5* since then, like Apocalypse. 

    If you started champing 5*s in 2021, then feel free to compare her to every 5* since then, like Wanda.  

    If you just recently started champing 5*s, like me, then compare her to those recent 5*s, like Gamora.  
    ==================================
    I wish the conversations about new 5*s would go like this: 

    She’s not bad but I don’t need her
    OR
    She might work with my other 5* champs
    OR
    She’s better than any of the 5*s I have so far

    Instead, we get narrow-minded comments like “She’s trash because my other characters are better”.  She may be trash for you but gold to someone else.  Have you considered that?  Have you forgotten how difficult it is to champ Classic 5*s?
  • entrailbucket
    entrailbucket Posts: 7,058 Chairperson of the Boards
    Of course it's subjective!  I can only comment on characters from my perspective, because I don't play the game at any other tier.  That should go without saying though.  Anyone who says a character is trash is saying they're trash *for them*, and they're right.

    This is also why we desperately need regular commenters who aren't elder-game 5* players.
  • Vhailorx
    Vhailorx Posts: 6,085 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited February 2022
    entrailbucket said:
    Of course it's subjective!  I can only comment on characters from my perspective, because I don't play the game at any other tier.  That should go without saying though.  Anyone who says a character is trash is saying they're trash *for them*, and they're right.

    This is also why we desperately need regular commenters who aren't elder-game 5* players.

    It's almost as if comparisons between players at different stages of the game could use some objective measure of effectiveness as a foundation upon which to ground discussions about characters. Perhaps some sort of second order analysis about the game of playing the game of MPQ. . .
  • entrailbucket
    entrailbucket Posts: 7,058 Chairperson of the Boards
    I just don't get why anyone feels like they have to defend these characters.  Who cares about someone's subjective evaluation, especially if you think they're wrong? 

    If Elektra is gold to you then play her and have fun playing her. 

    If you want to argue about objective measures then those arguments have objective answers.  If you make a subjective argument (like "I like Elektra because she has the coolest costume") no one can objectively dispute that.

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