JUSTICE FOR PHOENIX

Bustapup

Man, playing the recent "Class of..." has only highlighted the fact that, as far as 5* characters go, Phoenix has been done dirty!!!

Canonically she is the strongest character in the game and yet she's pretty pants to use!

Give her a complete overhaul and a new costume ASAP pleeeeeeease? Every ability is underwhelming! Even her resurrection which, I guess in the olden days seemed OP, isn't really effective in the modern game.

Please save her!! Justice for Phoenix

Thoughts for new/improved abilities?

DAZ0273

Didn't she get a rebalance already? Her green can hit quite hard but she is like the second (or third?) oldest 5* in the game and things have moved on a bit. I suppose it would have been quite cool if they had a power where she transforms into Dark Phoenix (including change of costume colour) and her damage numbers went upwards.

Blazpheme

How about something similar to Wiccan's passive - if you get 30 AP in all colors, she transforms into the Dark Phoenix and nukes everybody. They could even crank up the difficulty and borrow Okoye's passive where if she is not in front at the start of the turn, you lose AP.

KGB

@Blazpheme said:
How about something similar to Wiccan's passive - if you get 30 AP in all colors, she transforms into the Dark Phoenix and nukes everybody. They could even crank up the difficulty and borrow Okoye's passive where if she is not in front at the start of the turn, you lose AP.

30 AP in all colors is 180 AP (assuming you didn't mean TU). If you collect 6 AP a turn that means you need 30 turns (assuming perfect AP collection in that you never have to collect something you don't need) to hit the win condition (assuming you also never fire any powers). Not sure many battles go 30 turns so no need to 'crank up the difficultly' as I highly doubt you'd reach this win condition.

One thing they could do is give her some bonus's when playing with other Phoenix Force team mates (maybe lower AP cost of all her powers by 1 per Phoenix Force team mate) even if they aren't affiliated in the comics.

KGB

entrailbucket

@DAZ0273 said:
Didn't she get a rebalance already? Her green can hit quite hard but she is like the second (or third?) oldest 5* in the game and things have moved on a bit. I suppose it would have been quite cool if they had a power where she transforms into Dark Phoenix (including change of costume colour) and her damage numbers went upwards.

She did get buffed. They just increased all her numbers, basically. She has modern health and match damage now, and she's perfectly usable when boosted. I wouldn't mind another buff but I'd rather have them give everyone a first rebalance before they start doing second ones.

DAZ0273

Yeah I don't find her terrible and her revive can actually be pretty useful. One thing they could do would be remove the damage caused to her team mates when firing green.

ThaRoadWarrior

Maybe they could have some sort of multi-conditional instant win, like 5* Doc Ock launched with. In his case if you fired his green 3 times, and then matched the countdown when it hit turn 1, you would immediately win the fight. It was so silly but pretty on brand, I wish that hadn't been "balanced" away. When it very first launched it would even end a wave node, but that lasted like some weeks maybe.

"Cunning Scheme 13 Green AP:
Doctor Octopus generously creates a nuclear reactor to power the city, but secretly rigs it to blow. Place a 10-turn Nuclear Reactor Countdown tile not eh board that deals 3974 damage to each enemy. This power becomes Phase 2.
Phase 2 costs 8 Green AP: Doctor Octopus’s generator powers hospitals. Upgrade the Nuclear Reactor tile to give a burst of 514 health to each friendly character each turn. This power becomes Phase 3. (PASSIVE) If the Reactor is matched, gain 11 Green AP. If it’s destroyed, this power becomes Cunning scheme.
Phase 3 costs 6 Green AP: Upgrade the Nuclear Reactor tile so that it deals 457 damage to each enemy each turn. This power becomes Final Phase. (PASSIVE) If the Reactor is matched, gain 14 Green AP. If it’s destroyed, this power becomes Cunning Scheme.
Final Phase costs 0 Green AP: (PASSIVE) All his work has led to this perfect moment. If Doc Ock’s Nuclear Reactor is matched away when it’s timer reads “1” he wins the battle! If Doc Ock’s Nuclear Reactor is matched at another time, gain 18 Green AP. If it’s destroyed, this power becomes Cunning Scheme.
Level 2: Cunning Scheme: Nuclear Reactor explodes for 4371 damage."

Blazpheme

@KGB said:

@Blazpheme said:
How about something similar to Wiccan's passive - if you get 30 AP in all colors, she transforms into the Dark Phoenix and nukes everybody. They could even crank up the difficulty and borrow Okoye's passive where if she is not in front at the start of the turn, you lose AP.

30 AP in all colors is 180 AP (assuming you didn't mean TU). If you collect 6 AP a turn that means you need 30 turns (assuming perfect AP collection in that you never have to collect something you don't need) to hit the win condition (assuming you also never fire any powers). Not sure many battles go 30 turns so no need to 'crank up the difficultly' as I highly doubt you'd reach this win condition.

One thing they could do is give her some bonus's when playing with other Phoenix Force team mates (maybe lower AP cost of all her powers by 1 per Phoenix Force team mate) even if they aren't affiliated in the comics.

KGB

Sure, it would probably never happen in PVP mode, what with all the "Turn Zero" fanatics out there. I was thinking more in regular gameplay, say with a protect-tile spammer team so that the enemy team is doing practically zero damage while you collect AP to reach the magic number.

I mean, it could be any number they choose to set it at. I was just reaching for something that would make it an uncommon occurrence, as opposed to some other characters that players gripe about who have these easy to obtain "Kill Everybody" powers. The idea was just to make it more challenging to execute...and maybe a smidge on the fun side trying to solve the puzzle.

Besides, we all know that they would probably give a menial upgrade to Rhino or Daken before taking any of our suggestions to heart, so it's all a bunch of smoke anyway. I'm just having some fun with the premise.

BriMan2222

@Bustapup
She's actually very good when boosted, but also I just played your team in the 2015 pvp and I didn't inspect your Phoenix closely, but she only had 40k hp. Given that even a 450 boosted Phoenix has like 200k hp obviously yours is way under leveled. When I killed her she created a 3 turn count down tile instead of only 1 turn, so clearly under covered as well.

Maybe you shouldn't judge her too harshly when you don't have her in a usable condition.

Bustapup

She just doesn't seem to do very much or have much utility by modern standards and considering this is Phoenix it's a bit meh

DAZ0273

Purple fuels red, red does decent damage, you can’t kill her first without risking the revive which opens up unleashing her green nuke. She also makes strike tiles. Not terrible.

DAZ0273

You do need the 1 turn revive though, 3 turn countdown is too vulnerable.

Bustapup

Yeah but she also makes strike tiles for the enemy team and her revive is on a countdown tile.

If you look at Hulk who revives instantly, chasm who can revive multiple times AND do a team wide stun, she hulk multiple revives and increased damage, and nova who has SOOOO much utility (personal damage bonus, charges tiles, damage based on charge tiles, AP reduction, flight etc) and various ways to do damage, Phoenix is very underwhelming

Phoenix does and if you can destroy her tile then that's its, she's gone

entrailbucket

@Bustapup said:
She just doesn't seem to do very much or have much utility by modern standards and considering this is Phoenix it's a bit meh

She would probably do more if you levelled her up.

If you really want to talk about lore/importance power mismatches, Loki is literally a god and is beyond awful, even at 672. Black Bolt is one of the most powerful characters in the Marvel Universe and is completely unusable even at 672. Black Widow is an original Avenger who had her own movie and is completely unusable at 672.

I can keep going. I have all these guys at 550 and they have terrible HP, match damage, and power damage.

DAZ0273

@Bustapup said:
Yeah but she also makes strike tiles for the enemy team and her revive is on a countdown tile.

If you look at Hulk who revives instantly, chasm who can revive multiple times AND do a team wide stun, she hulk multiple revives and increased damage, and nova who has SOOOO much utility (personal damage bonus, charges tiles, damage based on charge tiles, AP reduction, flight etc) and various ways to do damage, Phoenix is very underwhelming

Phoenix does and if you can destroy her tile then that's its, she's gone

All of those characters have years of power creep.

DAZ0273

And I’m not say she couldn’t be better. She could. But I have her champed and have used her boosted and my experience is different to this.

DAZ0273

@entrailbucket said:

@Bustapup said:
She just doesn't seem to do very much or have much utility by modern standards and considering this is Phoenix it's a bit meh

She would probably do more if you levelled her up.

If you really want to talk about lore/importance power mismatches, Loki is literally a god and is beyond awful, even at 672. Black Bolt is one of the most powerful characters in the Marvel Universe and is completely unusable even at 672. Black Widow is an original Avenger who had her own movie and is completely unusable at 672.

I can keep going. I have all these guys at 550 and they have terrible HP, match damage, and power damage.

5* Black Panther. Awful.

entrailbucket

@Bustapup said:
Yeah but she also makes strike tiles for the enemy team and her revive is on a countdown tile.

If you look at Hulk who revives instantly, chasm who can revive multiple times AND do a team wide stun, she hulk multiple revives and increased damage, and nova who has SOOOO much utility (personal damage bonus, charges tiles, damage based on charge tiles, AP reduction, flight etc) and various ways to do damage, Phoenix is very underwhelming

Phoenix does and if you can destroy her tile then that's its, she's gone

You're not wrong at all -- those guys are significantly better than her, and that shouldn't be the case. It's a huge problem.

But for whatever reason they will only do one rebalance every month (on hold indefinitely until they fix this engine nonsense) and I'd much rather have them focus on the absolute dregs vs a character who's merely mediocre.

Phoenix isn't as good as m'Thor or Frankie, but she's way, way better than, say, Loki, Hela, Black Panther, Black Bolt, or Heimdall -- characters who have basically zero value even when boosted.

entrailbucket

@DAZ0273 said:

@entrailbucket said:

@Bustapup said:
She just doesn't seem to do very much or have much utility by modern standards and considering this is Phoenix it's a bit meh

She would probably do more if you levelled her up.

If you really want to talk about lore/importance power mismatches, Loki is literally a god and is beyond awful, even at 672. Black Bolt is one of the most powerful characters in the Marvel Universe and is completely unusable even at 672. Black Widow is an original Avenger who had her own movie and is completely unusable at 672.

I can keep going. I have all these guys at 550 and they have terrible HP, match damage, and power damage.

5* Black Panther. Awful.

I just added him to the list in my last post. I have 550s on my roster that are so bad I can't remember they exist when I'm making a list of the worst characters. Given that rebalances are so limited, that's where they should start.

bluewolf

In the Q&A or ask me anything with Ice, I think he said they could do rebalances more easily in Unity. At some point in the future, obviously, whenever they aren’t dealing with urgent bugs.

Hopefully they’ll address some of these older toons.

Phoenix is mostly fine but could be tuned up a bit. Comparing her to Hulk is a bit unfair because he’s meant to be chaotic and self-interested (dmgs his own team) as a tradeoff for the infinite revives, whereas she has the one team dmg element, but it’s controlled, and she can just be used to benefit her teammates or herself without the dmg.

KGB

@entrailbucket said:

@Bustapup said:
Yeah but she also makes strike tiles for the enemy team and her revive is on a countdown tile.

If you look at Hulk who revives instantly, chasm who can revive multiple times AND do a team wide stun, she hulk multiple revives and increased damage, and nova who has SOOOO much utility (personal damage bonus, charges tiles, damage based on charge tiles, AP reduction, flight etc) and various ways to do damage, Phoenix is very underwhelming

Phoenix does and if you can destroy her tile then that's its, she's gone

You're not wrong at all -- those guys are significantly better than her, and that shouldn't be the case. It's a huge problem.

But for whatever reason they will only do one rebalance every month (on hold indefinitely until they fix this engine nonsense) and I'd much rather have them focus on the absolute dregs vs a character who's merely mediocre.

Phoenix isn't as good as m'Thor or Frankie, but she's way, way better than, say, Loki, Hela, Black Panther, Black Bolt, or Heimdall -- characters who have basically zero value even when boosted.

One of the problems of rebalancing is that a LOT of these characters are in PvE nodes (often multiple nodes in multiple events). Half the time the rebalance does NOTHING other than make them semi-usable when boosted but ends up making PvE way more miserable because you face them all the time.

If they ever do get around to rebalancing all these characters I wish they'd specially code the PvE versions to all remain at their original stats (or be stuck at 1 cover versions). They did it for 4 star Carnage's Red back in the day due to being fed all the free AP from goons so there is precedent for doing so.

KGB