***** Abigail Brand (Commander of S.W.O.R.D.) *****

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Comments

  • Bad
    Bad Posts: 3,146 Chairperson of the Boards
    Colossus is always useful as he shelters from heavy match damage, CNs and dangerous Shangs. Take colossus and magneto and kaecilius LIT pve won't make a single scratch.
    He is a health pack saver like Shang, only that he doesn't need to do a thing, just to be standing there.

    Cyclops has been revalued, however for me he didn't move from my rank: a 5* for to design a funny team. Imo actually shang doesn't need him: he doesn't need a guy rising his match damage, nor a guy with a minor shuffle, nor a guy stunning foes.
    I think half health thor is better partner, as a battery and because destroys 2 colors Shang doesn't need, increasing cascades.
  • HoundofShadow
    HoundofShadow Posts: 8,004 Chairperson of the Boards
    Colossus, at release, was boring to me because he's too straightforward, unlike other characters with more interesting abilities, like Storm or Mr Sinister. There wasn't much to think about his abilities. Even Adam Warlock was more interesting. I remember him getting a lot of flakes too. But now, he's part of the scl 10 speed teams.

    As it stands, Abigail fits right into the kind of "bite size damage every turn" strategy. I can't wait to test her out against meta teams this February.
  • HoundofShadow
    HoundofShadow Posts: 8,004 Chairperson of the Boards
    Her bite size damage comes from her attack tiles, and I'm teaming her up with Wanda and Odin as well. So, Odin will boost damage with his strike tiles. Then, two of them provide ap control against Polaris, BRB, Apocalypse or Colossus.  

    It would be great to pair her with someone who can trigger her healing ability on turn 1, like Wanda. 
  • HoundofShadow
    HoundofShadow Posts: 8,004 Chairperson of the Boards
    As long as it can get one attack tiles out, it'll hit harder over time, due to Odin's strike tiles and he fortifies tiles randomly when the condition is right. In a team of Odin/Wanda, only Wanda uses blue. Since Abigail's tiles are fortified, she actually helps Odin to hit team heal faster.

    Anyway, we can give it a run in her pvp since Odin can turn allies' builds to 5/5/5.
  • Bad
    Bad Posts: 3,146 Chairperson of the Boards
    If you want fortifying, remember sersei. She fortifies all special tiles in a choosen color, and being abigail there can be a lot. Also if by any chance a match 5 is made she will add extra nuisance to the team. Sersei is a character who is tougher than one can think.
    Being the third odin or wanda possibly it would be an annoying team.
    Not sure if I would like to try it. Not sure if I will chase abigail or not.
  • TheRiddler
    TheRiddler Posts: 291 Mover and Shaker
    Thanos said:
    Sorry folks, no videos this time. Her yellow was her one chance at greatness and it's total ****. I don't understand why Demiurge insists on releasing characters that are D.O.A.

    Thanks. I always look forward to your comments/videos they end up being on the money more often than not.
  • entrailbucket
    entrailbucket Posts: 7,001 Chairperson of the Boards
    I think she's basically handcuffed to Hawkeye.  She can use some of the approximately 1 million blue Hawkeye generates on her attack tile power, and her yellow will always hit something useful if it's one of his CDs.  I'd probably stick to 4* Carol as the 3rd (at 5/5/3, ignoring her active yellow) to create another decent CD and buff strikes/attacks.

    I'm not sure Abigail really works with Odin because you don't necessarily want his CDs going off early.  Same with Iceman.

    Pairing her with SW seems unfair somehow.  Like, if you're going to bring Scarlet Witch, she's doing all the work anyway.  Wasp technically "combos" with SW because she can stand around while Wanda prevents all incoming damage and kills the whole enemy team.
  • Anon
    Anon Posts: 1,455 Chairperson of the Boards
    Wouldn't pairing her with SW be useless? If you do choose to use Wanda's blue, you want it up as long as possible. And after her repeater procs once it does no damage until the next turn right? 
  • Vhailorx
    Vhailorx Posts: 6,085 Chairperson of the Boards
    Seems like this character really needed a "small damage proc on CD or repeater hitting 0" passive.
  • entrailbucket
    entrailbucket Posts: 7,001 Chairperson of the Boards
    Anon said:
    Wouldn't pairing her with SW be useless? If you do choose to use Wanda's blue, you want it up as long as possible. And after her repeater procs once it does no damage until the next turn right? 
    I think the idea was that Abigail would destroy AP and burst heal every time the repeater ticked down, but honestly I'm not sure why you'd bother...that's such a small bonus compared to whatever damage the repeater is doing.
  • HoundofShadow
    HoundofShadow Posts: 8,004 Chairperson of the Boards
    The ability is there, but you don't have to fire her yellow power. It's like you don't have to use Thor's red over Apocalypse red when you pair them together. The concept is to generate consistent healing with the right partner. It's a waste of yellow ap but her yellow power is random anyway.
  • entrailbucket
    entrailbucket Posts: 7,001 Chairperson of the Boards
    Is the 2000 burst heal per turn really worth dragging Abigail along?  Wouldnt you be better off bringing, like, any other character?
  • HoundofShadow
    HoundofShadow Posts: 8,004 Chairperson of the Boards
    It will be up to 12000 per turn with the right team. It's just another way of having fun with characters. The concept is to have fun, and it is subjective. I'm already playing speed in most pvps and pves. Shield sim is where I have fun with different teams. 
  • tonypq
    tonypq Posts: 557 Critical Contributor
    Thanos said:
    Sorry folks, no videos this time. Her yellow was her one chance at greatness and it's total ****. I don't understand why Demiurge insists on releasing characters that are D.O.A.
    I don't understand either. Why release characters that anyone working on their team should clearly be able to see the glaring flaws in a lot of the 5s they release. Whether it's severe under tuning on ability damage, ability costs, or sometimes both. Or not allowing a repeater or countdown for some characters have a fortification component, even if it require X amount of covers. 

    I'm not upset Brand or a lot of the other duds aren't meta. Just aggravated waiting for all these 5s to come out and bring littlle to the party, or lack teeth because they're abilities weren't tuned correctly.  There are quite a few characters that just drain the enthusiasm out of many players, before they even rotate into the LL store which is really sad. Especially when LLs is occupied by a couple meh characters at the same time as it often is.

    New characters that are fun, functional, and pack an appropriate punch I feel are what keeps many of us playing. This is especially painful for a game with little to no new and meaningful  fun content being released. It's just wait for new characters and hope they aren't terrible. At the 5 tier it really hurts when they miss the mark by a mile. It's great they have taken rebalancing more seriously these days, hopefully. However brand new 5s that haven't even hit LLs yet, shouldn't immediately have to get in behind a long line of duds that desperately need rebalancing to be functional or fun.
  • entrailbucket
    entrailbucket Posts: 7,001 Chairperson of the Boards
    The only explanation that makes any sense is that they don't know what makes characters good (or bad). 

    People make the argument that they release "meta" characters very rarely, on purpose, so that people don't have to constantly chase new overpowered characters.

    If all the non-meta characters were average/mediocre that might make sense, but what would be their incentive to release terrible/underpowered/completely useless characters on purpose?

    The power level of new characters is random.  It's the only way this adds up.
  • TheRiddler
    TheRiddler Posts: 291 Mover and Shaker
    edited January 2022
    entrailbucket said:
    The only explanation that makes any sense is that they don't know what makes characters good (or bad). 

    People make the argument that they release "meta" characters very rarely, on purpose, so that people don't have to constantly chase new overpowered characters.

    If all the non-meta characters were average/mediocre that might make sense, but what would be their incentive to release terrible/underpowered/completely useless characters on purpose?

    The power level of new characters is random.  It's the only way this adds up.

    There is a term that I can't remember in marketing where you deliberately undersell a product to make another look better in comparison. So for example a brand might sell a 32 GB flash drive for $5.99 and right next to it on the shelf is a 64 GB flash drive for $6.99. The main reason that 32 GB product exists is to make the 64 GB look like a deal.
    I'm not saying that is the case. But I do think that could be a plausible alternative explanation.
    In my opinion the fact that the game is 8 years old (off the top of my head) and we will be close to a combined 200 4 and 5 star characters is a better explanation. It means from a development standpoint you have a bunch of things to keep in mind when creating a character.
    I also fail to see how developers on a 8-year old game can make a character like Apocalypse and give him higher health, match damage and do twice as much damage on cheaper powers and fail to realize he is considerably better than most other characters. For example he came out a year before Gamora and has 15k more health, cheaper powers, stronger powers, more consistent powers and skills that benefit most teams. In that example its just basic math there isn't much to figure out there.
    What has often made curious is how the top characters are released seemingly in groups. So going back and looking you had Black Panther/Thanos released back-to-back, Daredevil/Gambit/Thor released back-to-back, Jessica Jones/Okoye in the same store, Iceman/Professor X/Carnage/Beta Ray Bill all consecutive, iHulk/Apocalypse/Onslaught in a 4-month span, Colossus/Scarlett Witch/Knull etc.
    So I can see why people think that way because from time-to-time we get a group group followed by a mediocre group. In comparison to those above Kingpin/Doom/Marvel/Hela/Rescue all in a row. 
  • atomzed
    atomzed Posts: 1,753 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited January 2022
    Not trying to defend against Brand’s underwhelming launch, but I think that the player base assessment of a new 5* release has not exactly been stellar. 

    For example, 5* Carnage and Cyclops was nickname Carbage and Sighclops because they were universally panned as useless. But suffice to say, they are not as useless as we deem them to be.  Carbage is played often when he is god boosted and is an absolute terror in CN for SCL10. Sighclops has become a great partner to SC, a definite great 5*.

    There were also other 5* which we see as “‘meh”, but during god-boost weeks, are an absolute terror. Killmonger skew the play style, with players avoiding match-5. Ronan CD damage is crazy effective. Heck, as poor Odin is, he was crucial for me during its boosted week.

    Again, I am not saying that Brand is good. In fact I find her quite meh and mechanics are too complicated. But I seen enough to know that the value of a 5* is in a team. This is often shaped by the boost list for the week, the pvp (whether it is 3*,4* or 5*) and the opponents in CN.

    D3 has the benefit of foresight, in the sense that they know the upcoming characters. We don’t, we only look at how the new 5* mix with the current characters. This may explain the differing assessment of the 5* between D3 and playerbase.
  • entrailbucket
    entrailbucket Posts: 7,001 Chairperson of the Boards
    Abigail probably isn't going to be a lot better boosted, because she doesn't have a ton of relevant numbers to scale up.  She's always going to drain 1 AP, her yellow will always drop a CD to 0...her burst heal will increase, her purple damage will increase and her attack tiles will get bigger.  She would be much better when Hawkeye is boosted, though.

    As far as releasing good partners after the fact -- this makes no sense.  If Cyclops was created as a partner for Shang-Chi, why would they release Cyclops first, generate zero sales on him, then later release Shang-Chi, after everyone skipped Cyclops?  If there's a good partner for Abigail coming later... you'd release that character first so you can actually sell both characters.  Doing it out of order just costs you money for no reason.


    The good character groupings and the Apocalypse/Gamora conundrum are easily explained by my theory: they just have no idea what they're doing and power levels are random.  I also fail to see how that can possibly be the case after 8 years, but no other theory answers all of the questions.
  • HoundofShadow
    HoundofShadow Posts: 8,004 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited January 2022
    I think some players are spoilt by the likes of Okoye, Thor, and Apocalypse etc, or even characters like Magneto or Ragnarok from  the early era of MPQ. Coupled with the mindset that MPQ is all about speed and how precious their time is, majority of the new characters released are perceived to be underwhelming because they don't fit their frame of what new characters should be at the minimum. 

    Anyway, I'm glad the developers haven't give in to such demands yet, and they have stood by their beliefs or data for the past 7 years or more.

    In any multiplayer game, high-end competition is going to be a somewhat different game than what most people are playing. There are fewer viable strategies and they’re typically a little less expressive and creative. We’re comfortable with the fact that some of the characters we release won’t find a role in that environment and are just there to be fun and interesting for folks that are less focused on being at the top. We do want the top of the leaderboards to be an interesting place to be, and intend to continue shaking things up with new characters and balance changes when we see a single team composition dominating. But speed will probably always be more important at the top than it is for most players.


    High-end players continue to be a minority and appealing to the majority is what makes sense.

    .
  • Timemachinego
    Timemachinego Posts: 547 Critical Contributor
    Sadly, I do think they really just don't know what makes a character good for an actual player or they simply wouldn't be making underpowered characters anymore. There's the whole different player types argument, but if they don't want characters to be DOA they should at least be providing them with numbers that a Spike won't sneer at. High skill / glass cannon characters like SC can absolutely work and be well received, I think the team might just be overvaluing damn near everything else that a character can do. Big Wheel is really neat but I'm not going to spend my hard-earned resources on him.

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