JUSTICE FOR PHOENIX

@KGB said:

@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

Eh. PvE is way too easy as it is, and it's still like 80% goons.

If they turned 5* Black Widow into pre-nerf Chasm then that would be awful, but making her mediocre/usable when boosted doesn't change things all that much.

@DAZ0273 said:
Yelena! Add to the list!

Another reason why counters to specific characters are a terrible idea.

She was made to counter Gladiator Thor (and wasn't even all that great at it) and now that he's no longer used, she has zero reason to exist. They can't fix her just by dialing up her numbers, because the guy she was meant to counter is also mostly useless.

Yelena was really a Thor counter? She came out like years after he was relavent. What is she doing that punishes him specifically?

Huh. seems like that wouldn't even have worked since he is always in the back and it's passive, so it's not like you can decide who gets it. I always thought Hela had a cool concept, I wish her numbers were better. She could have been a cool hulk counter if her specials landed on green too.

sadly, she's THE OG Phoenix, but all of the Phoenix 5 are more playable...

I took some screenshots of 550s, for comparison.

Phoenix:

Black Widow:

@Bustapup said:

@JoeHandle said:
In-game utility / efficacy not resembling in-universe lore is a long-running bugaboo in MPQ, and probably other IP-themed roster games, further complicated by power creep. Is Phoenix the poster child for this phenomenon?

No, after her rework, not even close! Sure, I agree her ingame self doesn't give the player the feeling of having the Phoenix Force at your fingertips, but there are worse examples in game.

Like Blackbolt.

And Surfer.

When Surfer was rolled out, it was a world before champing, ruled by lvl 270 4* s. Surfer was our first glimpse of 5* match damage, and our first chance to drive anything at level 450, outisde of Balance of Power. Using him absolutely felt like Cosmic Power. Just slapping aside those lvl 270s, no problem. A one .... uh .... man? wreckin' machine.

Well, that was 10yrs ago ( .... ummm .... yep .... 10. Yeesh.) Even after a now quite dated buffing, Surfer needs help.

But, hey ... he stills looks super-cool

I actually think surfer is still decent lol
Immune to Stun, a big self heal and a black that can insta-kill? Definitely better than some of them!

Surfer was redone fairly recently, before that he was one of the worst.

Seeing Black Bolt mentioned so many times just makes me sad. Relating this to the OP: Phoenix is like 10 times better than him. Namor and Storm do boardshake much better; Storm and Jane (and now Frankie) do Charged tiles much better. Even Odin does the "boost allies' ability levels" better. That said, if the devs are reading this and would like to release Black Bolt in a 1:5 or 1:6 store during anniversary, I'd gladly blow my resources to 550 him just like @MegaBee 550ing Juggerduck, Black Bolt will be my magnum opus in this game.

I haven't seen any mention of Wasp yet (unless I missed it). Even after her "buff" she's useless.

Surfer is actually pretty decent. Just lower his Black to 8 AP and he's fine, around Moon Knight's level.

As for Okoye...yes I was just musing that she's fallen off significantly. I thought of commenting, in relation to the OP, that normal humans like Okoye, Killmonger, and Jessica Jones are 5* , so that particular argument about Phoenix is invalid. Anyway, I've gone from using Okoye to using Emma as a support to Omega Red, because Emma is more consistent, and I don't have to worry about gaining or losing Teamup AP.

There are over 100 5* in the game. It's a fact that only a handful will be good, and out of that, you can only use 2 or 3 per match. Players will gravitate towards those that are competitively viable or their personal favourites. It's inevitable that the vast majority will fall by the wayside. Add to that ascension, which means a good number of 1s, 2, 3s, and 4s, are much more viable than natural 5s, and that exacerbates the problem.

I'm of the view that the minimum for every single 5* should be "very good when boosted", because it allows players to target and use their faves (me with Black Bolt, Bustapup with Phoenix, MegaBee with Juggerduck etc). Not everyone cares about the competitive aspect, and even if they do, once again, how many players can realistically compete for top 10 or top spot in every single PVE and PVP event? How many players religiously follow the bracket flips and optimise PVE clears? Having most of the meta characters is usually enough to get decent placement like top 100.