mThor dillemma.

Warbringa

In my experience it isn't mThor that is usually the main issue, it is mThor paired with BRB/Polaris or a few of the other popular combos due to the synergy she creates with those teams. My go to for smashing the mThor/BRB/Polaris is Okoye/iHulk/Chasm. Stunning BRB at the start allows you to easily pick off Polaris first and then handle BRB and mThor at your leisure. I believe the best nerf they can make to mThor is reduce the number of tiles she can destroy near charged tiles and limiting the number of special tiles that can be destroyed to 1 or 2 per round (based on your level in that skill for her). Just slowing her cascade and special tile destruction by a certain % would still make her good, playable and useful but nowhere near as meta dominant. She isn't near the Bishop (pre-nerf) annoying level but her tile destruction does itself nerf 75% plus of the other characters in the game that do rely on special tiles. In that sense, I do believe a modification to remove a large part of her special tile removal ability is the best solution to keep her strong but not so OP meta as she is now. One option is to not let her destroy allied special tiles. That will really destroy the most used Polaris synergy for example. Another novel approach is that perhaps whenever she destroys an enemy special tile, the opposing team gains 1 AP in that destroyed special tiles color? Just spit balling ways to make her special tile destruction less impactful without destroying her as a character.

KGB

@Borstock said:
At this point, I would be disappointed in a nerf for two reasons:

1: I think she's the most fun character in the game.

Out of curiosity, can you elaborate on what makes her the most fun character in the game?

Shang is a very popular choice for most fun because of the puzzle element of the player picking the tiles to destroy with his Red and placement of his crit with Purple to create cascades so it's easy to see why he gets that nomination. Haven't really seen anyone state MThor is the most fun so interested in your take on why randomness is fun (unless you just love Chaos in general).

KGB

Scofie

The madness of epic cascades are fun to watch. When one of them leads to a random second-turn downing of an opponent, it's definitely endorphin-releasing. It's also slightly panic-inducing to watch from the other side, like a rapid upwards climb of a tall, steep rollercoaster where the harness is broken.

BriMan2222

@Scofie said:
The madness of epic cascades are fun to watch. When one of them leads to a random second-turn downing of an opponent, it's definitely endorphin-releasing. It's also slightly panic-inducing to watch from the other side, like a rapid upwards climb of a tall, steep rollercoaster where the harness is broken.

This. 5 star Magneto, with northstar, and onslaught are a fun team I like to mess around with in Sim just because the cascades they can create can get down right silly.

Mr_F

Let's back to the topic, shall we? Ya know - anniversary brought back my old nemesis in new form.

Experiment 1: Anniversary PVPs with boosted 5* only.
Experiment 2; 16 wins in pick 2 PVP without using boosted 5* (Kain was my only option and I ised him only once).

Findindgs/Confirmation of know facts after that

1. 90% of enemies are boosted 5* or mThor with SC/ascended Polaris.
2. Many pople has mThor/SC leveled so high that matchmaking algoritm can have trouble finding me one's closer to my roster lv. It's not uncommon for me to see those two at lv 510+ or maxed despite my top 5* being "only" lv 486.
3. Thanks too no 2, mThor/SC can defeat ANY boosted 5* way to easily. Way too often I could not even down one enemy before them bringing me to half health of defeating completly. And health difference was 200k+.
4. mThor cascades way to easily.
5. Lovestruck support is WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY TOO STRONG.
6. I tried to use some outdaded or underleveled (below 460) 5* in experiment 2, like Hela, Ronan, Killmonger or Ghostpool. Result is same most of the time: downed by mThor/SC before firing any power or, if not facing mThor, too badly injured to be usable anymore. On rare occacion could use them twice. That rare occasion are Yellowjacket, Apoc and Storm (vs mThor/SC) and Venomsaurus (vs. non mThor team).
7. Most of 5* can be downed before firing single power due to mThor cascades. Those include boosted 5*.
8. Colossus can die due to Shang Chi. It's just much slower than anybody else. It's not uncommon for me to see similar lv. SC doing 30+k damage to Piotr. All of that without mThor damagaing him with abilities.
9. I can't even imagine what problems people with less developed roster can have. I ended up with no healthpacks and half of 5* downed/badly injured in experiment 2 before I managed to get 16th win.
10. Yellowjacket is hidden op with his invisibility.

On top of that, I still am asking myself same question every 5* release: can it survive mThor?

Also:

Why Shaw is not a solution to mThor in pick 2:

1. He has to be ascended. Even Max-min takes too much time. As 4* he is still too squishy.
2. She still can down him with just ability damage.
3. He just slows her down. Even one fired ability from mThor can lead to disaster.
4. You are left with one slot left.
5. It's same casus when Deathlock or AuntMay: focus-kill them and proceed as usuall.
6. So far I saw him ONCE in enemy teams. While not-ascended Polaris and Deathlock are still more common.

Proposed solution would be either - once again - a character at 5* land with kit similar to what Electro is doing to Omega Red or nerf to mThor AP generation potential. I prefer 1st option as more safe one.

entrailbucket

Good luck.

This is the game that a lot of folks want to play. I still don't understand it. They'll throw the "characters can never be truly balanced!" and "why do you want to take away our fun toys!?" at you when the gulf between the good characters and everyone else is like 200 levels.

Most players here seem to want to play whatever the minimum amount required is, as quickly as possible, using only the strongest characters. An extremely unbalanced metagame enables that.

There won't ever be an effective counter to m'Thor, fwiw -- they tried, pretty hard, several times, and absolutely nothing works.

KGB

Maybe you should float the idea of the community rebalance being MThor. No one said the rebalance had to be a buff to an old 5 (assuming it is a 5 and not a 4 that gets rebalanced).

A rebalance to her that weakened her (even if it was just something as simple as making all her powers cost +2 more AP) would in effect be a buff for literally every other 5 star character.

KGB

entrailbucket

@KGB said:
Maybe you should float the idea of the community rebalance being MThor. No one said the rebalance had to be a buff to an old 5 (assuming it is a 5 and not a 4 that gets rebalanced).

A rebalance to her that weakened her (even if it was just something as simple as making all her powers cost +2 more AP) would in effect be a buff for literally every other 5 star character.

KGB

LOL, I would love this just to watch the forum implode.

(This is not happening -- the devs would probably prefer to keep their homes un-arsoned and their pets un-kidnapped)

kuntilanak

To me, the issue with facing mThor is that her start-of-turn cascade is often massive and collects tons of AP, this damaging your team and wipe them the next turn (she always collects tons of yellow). However, when i use her, the cascade is usually miniscule. Making her powers more expensive seems ok, but it will make using her on offense more frustrating, but on defense still not much difference (see reason above). Any other changes will surely get folks marching with pitchforks...

DAZ0273

They could always limit cascades that the AI can get in PvP just like they did in PvE, it would be a nerf without even touching her but of course would affect some others too.

Kross

It is interesting which character bothers which player. Unless MThor is boosted I have no problem fighting here, but if I see an OR I usually skip it.

Mr_F

@entrailbucket said:
Good luck.

There won't ever be an effective counter to m'Thor, fwiw -- they tried, pretty hard, several times, and absolutely nothing works.

Well... Name them. Can't think about anybody else than Shaw and Peggy.

Let me intodruce ya deeper into the concept.

Colossus counters SC but SC still can kill him. Either due to fact that he can survive thanks to his healing or the fact that ecentually 17% of 200 000 is 34 000. My Colossus needs only 3 such hits to be down. I've seen SC doing 200k+ on critical tiles many times.

Electro (Francis) counters Omega Red. Yet still he can kill her either due to fact that he has red ability to damage her too or the fact that she is low health compared to him.

And yet I still see many OR and SC in any kind of PVP. I have few ideas for such character vs mThor but without testing there is no confirmation that it will work.

We need such counter. She is so good that people chase her and lv her up leading to situaton where there is lack of enemies with mThor/SC at my roster lv so I have to face way too often with oversized enemies. Right now, I'm back to the beggining. If I do not have boosted 5* to back me up, then immediatly my roster is **** and I need more luck than usuall.

Just to give ya idea: this is lucky. Usuall outcome from yesterday: EVERYBODY needed a healthpack after EACH fight,

@Kross
It's not a problem of "I can't deal with her". the mThor problem is "You need more luck than usual to deal with her". Cause if not luck, then heathpacks. Sometimes both. And the problem will just simply grow with time as more people will have her to the point "average lv of mThor and SC in individual roster of each player is 550". And ya can skip her forever, cause there is too many of her.

This topic got me to the point when I have few teams capable to deal with her. Crystal/Colossus, Emma/OR, Kang/Chasm, Kang/Deathlock. More if I'm gonna use boosts. But i want something like OR case: whenever i see him, I pick Electro + whatever. Right now I lack this and am forced to specifing pairings.

Omega Red is easily copuntered by Electro and Ascended Quake. If you have problem with him, consider them. Kitty and (sic!) mThor are doing ok too.

P.S. Let's apreciate the fact I resurected old thread and did not make new one. Maybe its worth sticking it for a time being?

Timemachinego

I pretty much just always answer with Colossus + Someone (boosted, probably) and have no issues with mthor whatsoever. There are the rare fluke losses but that can happen against just about any team now that supports are in play. Col and 1>5* Spidey and some purple supports can nuke her before she even gets a turn to go nuts with cascades and once she's down, SC is trivial. I actually find the Mthor/Polaris pair a little more threatening since they can both get out of hand and it's usually best to eliminate Polaris first.

pepitedechocolat

@Mr_F said:
Let's back to the topic

First necro-ing thread is bad, although it may be tolerated here.
Second I am convinced your "experiment" took place in your head, or you deliberatly did not play well.
mthor is strong, but without omni she takes several turns before reliably cascading the board, and you can usually disrupt her before that.
the real difficulty would be polaris w/LLAI + mthor w/omni because yeah that can get out of hand too often t1 or t2, but I would see the issue as the supports and not the characters themselves.

nerfing mthor will NOT turn any old 5* into "good" one, it will just make ppl unhappy

(I wonder why no-one is talking about omnipotence city stealth buff, I guess because everyone is busy taking advantage of it)

Mr_F

@pepitedechocolat

No, It was not in my head. Those were actual, unscewed fights. With a bit of bad luck involded. and since it was experiment, I also have tried other characters to expand my solution list. Just maybe, maybe i will find something else to use not just the usual ones. So yes, this is part of the why it took me so much effort to do. Even though, some fact are still valid no matter how much you approach mThor dilemm:

1. mThor/SC can casually destroy health pools 3 times+ bigger than their.
2. I'm already seeing way too oftent hose two WAY above TOP LV of my roster, This will get even worse with time.
3. mThor/SC is good in PVP and PVE = they are universally versitile.
4. mThor is only 5* that makes 2/3+ of my 5* roster unusable. She is only character that requires for me a specific pair to be able to beat her instead of "anybody" or John Doe + whatever I want. any other 5* I see does not have this quality.
5. Nerf is bad idea here, considering how popular she is. I do not want Chasm treatment here, I want a solution on e level Colossus-> SC, Electro->OR. No Ascension required.

We all can see Aunt May/OR/Chasm in simulator. and I've seen people posting several solutions but each of them has Electro in it. That how strong counter it is. But still not that much strong so people stopped using that trio. That is what I want.

DAZ0273

@Timemachinego said:
I pretty much just always answer with Colossus + Someone (boosted, probably) and have no issues with mthor whatsoever. There are the rare fluke losses but that can happen against just about any team now that supports are in play. Col and 1>5* Spidey and some purple supports can nuke her before she even gets a turn to go nuts with cascades and once she's down, SC is trivial. I actually find the Mthor/Polaris pair a little more threatening since they can both get out of hand and it's usually best to eliminate Polaris first.

Agree with all this although I don't really even bother using Colossus. Pretty much any boosted character can handle her unless the AI gets lucky and I have found that even characters like Omega Red who are vulnerable can generally get enough free hits in to whittle her down. Things might be different up at 550 level of course but at my MMR which hovers around 500 she isn't a problem when not boosted.

pepitedechocolat

@Mr_F said:
@pepitedechocolat

1. mThor/SC can casually destroy health pools 3 times+ bigger than their.
2. I'm already seeing way too oftent hose two WAY above TOP LV of my roster, This will get even worse with time.
3. mThor/SC is good in PVP and PVE = they are universally versitile.
4. mThor is only 5* that makes 2/3+ of my 5* roster unusable. She is only character that requires for me a specific pair to be able to beat her instead of "anybody" or John Doe + whatever I want. any other 5* I see does not have this quality.
5. Nerf is bad idea here, considering how popular she is. I do not want Chasm treatment here, I want a solution on e level Colossus-> SC, Electro->OR. No Ascension required.

1 and 3 are true but unfair, as it is also true for many other pairs, could have cited kang/deathlock, brb/polaris, riri infinistun, yellowjacket infininvis SC with 1* venom ...
2. This is how the game is designed, I've been fighting 50-100 level above my roster in pvp forever.
4. This is an exageration. mthor is strong against tile spreader (25% of the roster?), and I prefer the evil mthor **** up tile spreader than tile spreader locking the game. you see mthor as an issue while actually she is a (maybe too good) solution against some chars.
5. you have a 4* hard counter already. U take for granted that mthor is hard to beat in PVP. In my experience she required a good support and her teammates have good supports to be an issue. In sim this is not the case.

Rejoinder

My biggest problem with MThor is that once the AI starts firing off her powers, my phone screen literally goes dark waiting for her to stop cascading. Even when it doesn't, I often lose track of whether or not it's my turn, since she makes match after match after match before properly taking her turn.

My second biggest problem is that she makes huge swaths of characters completely useless, since she is far too efficient at removing special tiles. Some characters can lean into that (like Kaine), but they're few and far between.

I don't think she's vastly powerful in terms of pure damage, but she drains all the fun out of PVP and disproportionately limits the number of viable teams in the game.

I'm honestly surprised she has gone this long without a significant nerf.

JoeHandle

"Bothered by mThor" is a phase in roster development. Keep building, you'll get over it. mThor is a speed bump.

Mr_F

To counter that, sir @pepitedechocolat :

1/3 Any of mentioned pairs are/can be terrible on defense (my offense) giving me many more option to defeat them. I just today casually did that to Deathlock/Kang with Ronan/Jessica. Or something like that. I do not memorize all of my fights. mThor/SC are exception to that.

And that is a cloue. You can't take anybody vs. mThor. How many options you have vs. Riri or Yellowjacket or Kang/Deathlock compared do mThor? Riri? I'll take Surfer, OR. Chasm. With whatever. Yellowjacket? "Everything" can work. Same for Kang/Deathlock. Good luck having same luck and WR vs mThor/SC (compared to above mentioned "way above punchers") with I dunno, Jeff, Elektra Ghostpool, Yellowjacket, Venomsaurus, Thanos, Jessica, Ronan...

2
As far as I know I should be matched based on average level of my top 3 characters. Which is 482. if so, I see way too many higher lv. roester than I think I should.

4
It is not. mThor does not counter only SAP (which includes CD, repetears) but also... active power users due tu her faster AP collecting. It is not uncommon for her to fire power or two before i fire one. On top of that, health difference. I just can't see being a viable option in many cases to pick even 70k vs 70k mThor. Not to mention lower healths. 110k mThor is no-no for most of my roster.

5
Which i explained why he is not good for me in the resucting post. I need (want?) counter at 5* land which does not requires me hard work of ascenion. Shaw is ok in pick 3. In pick 2... I find him lucklasting.

@JoeHandle

I have 63* 5 champions. I think every meta relevant 5* but Scarlet is included. I think I passed that point long ago. And I still consider mThor/SC to be a problem needed to be solved by devs not by developing my roster further.