The ChaHulk meta

@Bowgentle said:
iHulk isn't a 15, though, he does exactly what he's supposed to do.
You don't nerf all previous characters because a new one creates toxic interactions.

Which was your point, I know, congratulations for getting me to make it for you.

I'd never do such a thing!

I actually think there are some characters who do stuff that's just too good, and they limit what kinds of things new characters can do without being broken.

Take Hawkeye. Nobody thinks Hawkeye is overpowered as a whole, but his AP generation ability absolutely is. Whenever they make a new guy who does anything with CD tiles, you have to do really extensive testing to make sure you haven't created an infinite or broken combo with Hawkeye. Like objectively the old 4cap design was fine, it's just that Hawkeye exists, so now you can't do that anymore without it being broken.

In Hulk's case, you've got a guy who might be ok on his own, but he has a small every-turn passive AOE and he resurrects forever unless you kill him last. That means you have to be really careful about making other mass-resurrectors, and also anybody who can provide a big, flat damage boost. A character like Chasm might be ok in a vacuum, but you just can't do him and Hulk in the same game.

As they make more characters, and especially more novel designs, a few of these older guys just really restrict their design space.

He's one of the extremely rare cases where the game rewards you for casting stuff. If you use his powers in a puzzley way, you can get, like, 150,000 damage for 7ap. This is how it should work.

The problem isn't that all these passives exist, necessarily, the problem is that they're way better than every active ability. Why am I saving up 8ap to cast some power for 40,000 when Chasm does that much passively in 2 turns? Why bother powering up for an AOE power that does 30k when I can bring Okoye/Hulk, make 1 team up match, and get the same for free?

Always-on (or conditional passives where the condition is very easy to meet) need to be weaker than all active powers, or there's no point in having active powers at all.

@Tony_Foot said:

@entrailbucket said:
He's one of the extremely rare cases where the game rewards you for casting stuff. If you use his powers in a puzzley way, you can get, like, 150,000 damage for 7ap. This is how it should work.

The problem isn't that all these passives exist, necessarily, the problem is that they're way better than every active ability. Why am I saving up 8ap to cast some power for 40,000 when Chasm does that much passively in 2 turns? Why bother powering up for an AOE power that does 30k when I can bring Okoye/Hulk, make 1 team up match, and get the same for free?

Always-on (or conditional passives where the condition is very easy to meet) need to be weaker than all active powers, or there's no point in having active powers at all.

In the rare cases I’m using chasm I’m clearly doing it wrong. Explain how I do 40k passive damage.

Put 100 more levels on him?

Ah, finally we have our rock-paper-scissors metagame. Kang beats Chasm, except Chasm beats Kang (and also literally everyone else).

What's the game called where you throw rock every time and win every time? Is it just "Rock?"

@Codex said:
It is difficult to tell on paper. But hit-monkey Kang may be the paper to your rock problem.

The problem with that pair is no damage reduction.
So you will win with that pair, but you will still end up eating a ton of damage, and using 1-2 health packs per match.
Wanda Kang might be a better pair since she does retaliation damage, has damage reduction, and can help generate blue for Kang.

@Codex said:

@entrailbucket said:
Ah, finally we have our rock-paper-scissors metagame. Kang beats Chasm, except Chasm beats Kang (and also literally everyone else).

What's the game called where you throw rock every time and win every time? Is it just "Rock?"

It is difficult to tell on paper. But hit-monkey Kang may be the paper to your rock problem.

Seems like Chasm/Hulk would be able to trivially beat Hit-Monkey/Kang, what am I missing?

In the game "rock/paper/scissors," each player chooses rock, paper, or scissors. Rock beats scissors, scissors beats paper, paper beats rock.

Chasm/Hulk is rock, and it beats literally any team that the opponent can choose, in any circumstance. There is no team that Chasm/Hulk cannot beat, which is why I said it's akin to throwing rock every time and winning every time. That's not how that game works.

The other poster suggested that Chasm/Hulk couldn't beat Hit-Monkey/Kang (ie that it was "paper") and I asked what he was seeing that I wasn't seeing.

Do you need me to break it down further for you?

@killahKlown said:
entrailbucket can be a little aggressive with his opinions but that's no reason to go off on him like that.

Thanks. It's a goofy superhero match-3 game, not life and death. This is all speculation/theorycrafting anyway, since there's very few champion Kangs out there. I'd be glad to be wrong about him!