Overused characters

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Nonce Equitaur 2
Nonce Equitaur 2 Posts: 2,269 Chairperson of the Boards
edited June 2014 in MPQ General Discussion
There are infamous examples of overused characters in the history of the game.

Ragnarok + cStorm. Used to be, hurting anyone but Storm would trigger massive retaliation damage and generate 6 Red AP. Rags power cost only 2 and did appreciable damage while littering the board with green tiles, which meant he could spam it three times. In many tournaments, 90% of teams were these two. Outcome: both nerfed.

2*Thor + 2*Wolverine. They used to be a bit more powerful. Still quite a formidable team. Very common, especially in 2* teams. Both nerfed.

Spiderman. He was the best character for offense and defense. Slow to play, but most 3* teams would use him. Nerfed, then nerfed again.

OBW. If it was a 2* team, it had OBW. Nerfed.

Punisher. A fast character, I used to see him on most teams. Nothing was changed about him, he's still a good character, but introducing Psylocke and others took his overuse.
So who is still overused?

2* Thor + 2* Storm. I see this team constantly when I see 2* teams. The playerbase-accepted solution is to buff some of the other 2*, especially Hawkeye, who was promised a buff 6 months ago.

Hulk. More health than anyone, and Anger is dangerous. He's mostly put on teams as a "special handling required" warning when a person is finishing out a round of play. He's an effective deterrence.

Lazy Thor. Perhaps the most dangerous defensive character, combined with lots of health.

That's it for characters I see overwhelming numbers of. Hulk / Lazy Thor is the most common 3* team. Frequently I see Sentry, Hood, Mags, Patch, Daken, Panther, BWGS, Spiderman, Punisher. Rarely I see Psylocke, IM40, Torch, Lazy Cap. I never see Daredevil or Falcon.

And the takeaway ... Magneto's nerf should be minor. He's not being overused right now, and the player base can't handle another supernerf right now. 2* land seriously needs some buffs for Bagman, Moonstone, M Hawkeye, Bullseye, and now OBW. Most of these buffs should just be changes to AP costs.

EDIT: Another takeaway -- Punisher was being overused, but he didn't need any fixes at all. He's not overused any more.
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  • Unknown
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    Nonce Equitaur 2 wrote:
    And the takeaway ... Magneto's nerf should be minor. He's not being overused right now, and the player base can't handle another supernerf right now. 2* land seriously needs some buffs for Bagman, Moonstone, M Hawkeye, Bullseye, and now OBW. Most of these buffs should just be changes to AP costs.

    Agreed. +1000
  • Unknown
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    Nonce Equitaur 2 wrote:
    Ragnarok + cStorm. ... In many tournaments, 90% of teams were these two.

    I'm sure it was nothing near the case. Maybe you meant 90% of game offers in certain MMR niche? Or tournament top10?
  • Unknown
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    Nonce Equitaur 2 wrote:
    And the takeaway ... Magneto's nerf should be minor. He's not being overused right now, and the player base can't handle another supernerf right now. 2* land seriously needs some buffs for Bagman, Moonstone, M Hawkeye, Bullseye, and now OBW. Most of these buffs should just be changes to AP costs.

    OBW is STILL the best 2* char by far. Why on earth does she need a buff?
  • Unknown
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    Her healing isn't why she is the most used 2* so the temp healing probably won't change that any
  • Nonce Equitaur 2
    Nonce Equitaur 2 Posts: 2,269 Chairperson of the Boards
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    pasa_ wrote:
    Nonce Equitaur 2 wrote:
    Ragnarok + cStorm. ... In many tournaments, 90% of teams were these two.

    I'm sure it was nothing near the case. Maybe you meant 90% of game offers in certain MMR niche? Or tournament top10?

    The tournament that released Invisible Woman, which I placed #1 in, was a slog of Ragnarok + cStorm teams. I got so good at destroying them that I eventually started skipping the rare team that was anything else. I should maybe say "some" tournaments, but they used to be overwhelmingly common before Storm was nerfed.
  • Nonce Equitaur 2
    Nonce Equitaur 2 Posts: 2,269 Chairperson of the Boards
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    gamar wrote:
    Nonce Equitaur 2 wrote:
    OBW is STILL the best 2* char by far. Why on earth does she need a buff?

    Her healing is much less effective, so it should be made cheaper. I'm already seeing less of her on 3* teams.
  • Unknown
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    One problem is that the most overused characters aren't necessarily the most overpowered. See Sentry, for example. You'd have to either have extraordinary luck or be a spender to have him fully covered right now, so he isn't overused, but he's off-the-charts-stupid overpowered.
  • Unknown
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    I agree on the point about cmags. In my opinion, only his blue is op. They can fix that by not allowing it to generate ap if you place the blues to form a line. Only the initial blue match wouldn't generate ap, any cascades or stuff cleared by match 4 or 5 would still generate ap.
  • Nonce Equitaur 2
    Nonce Equitaur 2 Posts: 2,269 Chairperson of the Boards
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    ZenBrillig wrote:
    One problem is that the most overused characters aren't necessarily the most overpowered. See Sentry, for example. You'd have to either have extraordinary luck or be a spender to have him fully covered right now, so he isn't overused, but he's off-the-charts-stupid overpowered.

    I agree. He's killed several of my teams -- I haven't figured out a foolproof approach to maxed Hulk + Sentry + Hood teams yet. But he's still a rare sight, so I can't classify him as overused.
  • HairyDave
    HairyDave Posts: 1,574
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    Nonce Equitaur 2 wrote:
    And the takeaway ... Magneto's nerf should be minor. He's not being overused right now, and the player base can't handle another supernerf right now. 2* land seriously needs some buffs for Bagman, Moonstone, M Hawkeye, Bullseye, and now OBW. Most of these buffs should just be changes to AP costs.
    I agree but I'm often the beatee for many L130+ teams and I see attacks from Patchneto more than just about anything else. He's being used plenty.
  • FierceKiwi
    FierceKiwi Posts: 505 Critical Contributor
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    Nonce Equitaur 2 wrote:
    gamar wrote:
    Nonce Equitaur 2 wrote:
    OBW is STILL the best 2* char by far. Why on earth does she need a buff?

    Her healing is much less effective, so it should be made cheaper. I'm already seeing less of her on 3* teams.

    That's to be expected though her primary purpose on my 3* teams was to heal so I could play continuously. In 2* land OBW + Ares/Thor/Wolvie is still the default choice.
  • OnesOwnGrief
    OnesOwnGrief Posts: 1,387 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Bullseye black is really strong for a 2* in terms of damage and he doesnt even cap at 85. Any change to that particular skill will cause some serious problems. Third ability might be fine but they should not touch his black.
  • FierceKiwi
    FierceKiwi Posts: 505 Critical Contributor
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    OnesOwnGrief wrote:
    Bullseye black is really strong for a 2* in terms of damage and he doesnt even cap at 85. Any change to that particular skill will cause some serious problems. Third ability might be fine but they should not touch his black.

    Huge damage is pretty irrelavent if you never get enough AP to use it (or it never triggers see Daredevil)...of course I'm convinced characters like Bullseye and Yelena have huge AP costs because they were designed assuming goons would be feeding them free AP each turn.
  • Spoit
    Spoit Posts: 3,441 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Nonce Equitaur 2 wrote:
    gamar wrote:
    Nonce Equitaur 2 wrote:
    OBW is STILL the best 2* char by far. Why on earth does she need a buff?

    Her healing is much less effective, so it should be made cheaper. I'm already seeing less of her on 3* teams.
    Eh, even without the healing, 9 to basically stop all countdowns is probably fair
  • Unknown
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    Some characters are not overused due to availability. For example Magneto is plenty broken but his cover is hard to get for any new player since the LR changes, so you don't see him as much even though he's a guy that can often kill an entire team by himself with 5 blue.

    Likewise I think Hulk being overused is just because people are too comfortable with his massive health pool. Sure you have to pay a bit of attention to deal with Anger, but that's not much to pay for a guy that does almost nothing the entire game on defense. In fact you can argue that if Hulk did anything at all it's likely hurting his own team, because for 14 red or 10 green you can usually get a far better ability than what Hulk has due to the abundance of powerful red/green abilities.

    Thor is overused for being way too good.

    Punisher is also overused for similar reason as Thor, and he's more easily available too, at least if you played during the time when it was raining Punisher covers.

    I think Daken is likely to become overused but he'll be limited by covers, same with Sentry. Patch is probably slightly overused, but since a lot of people wimp out with 3 green it's basically fighting Punisher with more HP but only one good skill (Judgment > Berserker Rage if Berserker Rage is only at level 3).
  • Unknown
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    They made Lazy Thor with the same moves as the 2* and now they are going to consider nerfing him? What did they expect making a good 2* into an epic 3*? Of course he is going to be powerful, but what's the point in making him the exact same (which is your own decision) just to take it away. If you thought this was going to be an issue, then you should have considered changing his powers before you released him.
  • OnesOwnGrief
    OnesOwnGrief Posts: 1,387 Chairperson of the Boards
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    FierceKiwi wrote:
    OnesOwnGrief wrote:
    Bullseye black is really strong for a 2* in terms of damage and he doesnt even cap at 85. Any change to that particular skill will cause some serious problems. Third ability might be fine but they should not touch his black.

    Huge damage is pretty irrelavent if you never get enough AP to use it (or it never triggers see Daredevil)...of course I'm convinced characters like Bullseye and Yelena have huge AP costs because they were designed assuming goons would be feeding them free AP each turn.
    I wouldn't state it was huge damage if I could never get it off to begin with. The AP cost isn't hard to get and it isn't something you should shoot for at the very beginning. It is a game ender. It does really good damage even without the effect just off of a match 5 or 6 with it.
  • FierceKiwi
    FierceKiwi Posts: 505 Critical Contributor
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    OnesOwnGrief wrote:
    FierceKiwi wrote:
    OnesOwnGrief wrote:
    Bullseye black is really strong for a 2* in terms of damage and he doesnt even cap at 85. Any change to that particular skill will cause some serious problems. Third ability might be fine but they should not touch his black.

    Huge damage is pretty irrelavent if you never get enough AP to use it (or it never triggers see Daredevil)...of course I'm convinced characters like Bullseye and Yelena have huge AP costs because they were designed assuming goons would be feeding them free AP each turn.
    I wouldn't state it was huge damage if I could never get it off to begin with. The AP cost isn't hard to get and it isn't something you should shoot for at the very beginning. It is a game ender. It does really good damage even without the effect just off of a match 5 or 6 with it.

    I think I've gotten the AP for that move exactly once and by that time the match was effectively done anyway. As it is I'd rather it cost less only create one critical tile and never do damage other than the match damage (you'll probably only ever get the match damage anyway) at least then it might get used once or twice.
  • Unknown
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    c mags Nerf is easy, I hope they don't overthink it. they just need to line his AP with mmn. just need to switch his purple and blue. so purple making blue is no longer spammable. translocation is more in line with mmn blue ability as well.

    they will probably alter the red based on other nerfA.D. they will increase the red ap cost, hopefully to just 5 or.6. as a trade off they should make it more powerful like mmn red but without a CD.

    it is that easy.
  • Kiamodo
    Kiamodo Posts: 423 Mover and Shaker
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    Nonce Equitaur 2 wrote:
    pasa_ wrote:
    Nonce Equitaur 2 wrote:
    Ragnarok + cStorm. ... In many tournaments, 90% of teams were these two.

    I'm sure it was nothing near the case. Maybe you meant 90% of game offers in certain MMR niche? Or tournament top10?

    The tournament that released Invisible Woman, which I placed #1 in, was a slog of Ragnarok + cStorm teams. I got so good at destroying them that I eventually started skipping the rare team that was anything else. I should maybe say "some" tournaments, but they used to be overwhelmingly common before Storm was nerfed.

    He speaks the truth. The whole MPQ community was on the Rag.

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