Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Marvel Avengers Alliance: Best Team PvP season 9 and reviews of new characters

In season 9, we will see a lot of Juggernauts this will reduce the Emma % even more. Another character which likely will be played a lot is Simon Williams Aka Wonder Man who is the first real tank in the game, but lets go through each new character to understand why.



Wow, this one was a close call much more than last season. I am in the process of moving to another country and my brother picked me up they day before the end of the season to get my stuff, so I did not have time to create any buffer. Yet again reminding me how bad the PvP system is in Marvel Avengers Alliance.


Anyway I manage to get Red Hulk of course, as I actually like Thunderbolt Ross as Red Hulk, especially his appearance in the Avengers(vol 4) hes definitely better than ....armor wearing Green Hulk.





I like how Red Hulk looks all mean-_-


Before I go into Red Hulk Review, note I used Iron Patriot, thats because at my level the last day was so full of Juggernauts. But especially there was one 60x64 wallet warrior who was running Bruiser Agent with Juggernaut and was the only hard battle of course I would face over and over again. To beat him I pretty much needed a Blaster, thats why I used IP Blaster. Which is much worse then Tactician IP especially as it was around 80% Tactician in my enemies teams(mostly thanks to all the Rescues).


Back to Rulk. I like Rulk he got good animations, one of the best in the game. As I mentioned his text he looks pretty mean and he does that in game as well, overall I think he got one of the best visual in the game.


His concept design is good as well as any real Marvel fan now. Rulk generates Heat when he gets angry instead of becoming stronger, which also can lead him to overheat in the end. Rulk definitely got one of the most true design to his comic powers. His move set becomes more powerful the longer the game takes as he generate more heath. And he can overload causing decent damage to the enemy team but this also stuns him.


However as I predicted in an earlier article this of course means Rulk takes time to set up. This is true so hes not that great, still as he is a tank(pretty much) the games with him should be longer then the average game so it might be some use there. Also his ability to critical everything who is burning and that he got the pyro ability to spread burning etc. Makes him have some synergies with Human torch, Ghost Rider etc. That also has some value.


One thing that  I felt was so retarded from Playdom is of course how all tanks can lose their tank ability(expect Simon coming to him last). The thing is, Rulk couldn't lose his Bulwark according to a path note this was fixed(before his release)-_- yeah thx for this fix another tank that don't work.


Rulk pretty much got the best activated tank ability in the game. He takes both Single and AoE so already there he obviously is better then Colossus etc but he also got a damage reduction and he drains health from attackers. So hes really, really tanky. But as with all other tanks he will lose his Bulwark and with the abundance of stealth and Psychic he wont be able to tank much anyway.


His ultimate is really good actually, not the greatest but it gives a couple of debuffs and cannot be protected etc so a good start attack in a game.
I will try to use Rulk in Season 9. But I don't he will do that great.


The recall issue with Rulk is kinda boring is it not? I think hes a really solid designed character expect that he will only work in PvE in how the game is right now. Tank abilities really need to be unremovable also when you think about it, you realize that how bad Beat and other people with cornered is when its easier to just remove the tank ability instead.



8/10, I like Rulk a lot just bad he is not very well suited for PvP.





Thundra
 


I don't get why Thundra did not appear as a villain and latter as lockbox character but whatever.


Thundra is a great character with a nice concept design,,,which then got sodomized hard as the next new Bruiser, Wonder Man got the exact same concept(+ hes at tank).


Thundra is a bout the concept of buffing herself and then using an ability with Finest hour do deal increased damage, its true that Omega Sentinel had this already but with her its much slower as she don't have Rising up. Rising Up grants several of the standards buffs(str def etc) at random. Then Wonder man got this in one ability....and the Ionic weaponry has this as well.
Well Thundra also has Paragon Exploiter(increased damage if enemy is debuffed) with her first attack having pressure point(randomizing debuffs), so he deals ridicules damage. As her third attack got both paragon and Finest hour + high critical chance. With her buffing herself to deal more damage and lowering their defense and she might be enraged. She also has Bastion a passive making her take less damage.
But its really about her other passive, Wallbreaker which makes her attack with her first attack if they got a shield on them or are a protector(tanking). She performs excellent especially with so many Rescue and other shielding/tanks in the meta. Absolutely one of the top meta characters right now, her second ability also impairs the target, making it weaker and it cannot critical. Lastly her ultimate is really boring but gives intimation further reducing the target damage.


As a design concept I really do like Thundra(excluding that her ultimate is horrible) but now it really feels less good as Wonderman got the same Rising up combo and those ionic weapons, just a really good way to make a new character feel less fun.
Ignoring that, Thundra is very solid, first you use her second ability on a tank/shielded. This will give her buffs and debuffing them and then they will die the second turn of her third ability. And seriously there are sooooooo common you get a free attack in this meta. Thundra is not the best character overall but in this meta she will almost always have a double attack.


If the meta in season 9 is the same as in season 8, and also with more tanks(coming to this but I definitely predict a lot of Wonder mans) she will be awesome.


7/10. Overall I like Thundra Design but it falls a lot on her ultimate. Its just there, it reminds me of Nasus third ability(spirit fire read my nasus review for detail why I hate it), that is just exist it does not at all function with her other abilities, worst of all the animation... is that freaking debris thrown by her chain... so dam ugly.






Juggernaut


(This will be his alt suit)


Juggernaut is another character with good design, I actually would say all these 5 latest characters and kinda Shatterstar to has good design. So while some of the might not work in PvP some might be Op and so on it Playdom has started doing much more interesting character design. Thats really good.


Juggernaut I like in how hes immune to mental which is correct as in how hes helmet protects him then hes immune to stun which makes sense as hes the Juggernaut he also regains stamina so he never has to miss a turn very solid concept design on him.
In game balance its great as he is a super hard counter to Emma Frost and protected AoE Stun overall he works very good against most strong characters in the Meta.


There is 2 things I don't like with Juggernaut, his standing sprite is Fugly but much worse his Second attack is a freaking ground attack but its not a ground attack....it hits flying and its not grounded(meaning it can be tanked). Feels like they put the wrong animation on him.


Juggernaut do have one unprotectable attack when his momentum is fully charged which makes sense. And its a good game balance as it takes time to charge it up(not to much time but still) and deal high damage, his ultimate is really good as its a damage increase of 25% for the team but its a quick action so like 1000x times better then Thors. It also gives the team bonus to unarmed attacks which is why he is so popular with Kitty and one thing that is really good with him, something I had planned from the start before I even realised to bonus of his ultimate.
! Techo organic skeleton, it gives the Agent Immunity to physic attacks which of course its awesome with Juggernaut if then used with e.g Magneto Emma cant do shit. But even better the actual attack of that item is a unarmed attack which deals pretty high damage which can deal huge damage with the buff from Juggernaut.
That item is ridiculously good used in synergy with Juggernaut.
However, the ability to give everyone more damage is at its core really broken as in how the damage output is(compared to the defense) there will be a lot, a lot of Juggernauts in Season 9.


Juggernaut is really good and one thing people probably wont think about so much is that stamina free recharge is actually very good as well. Especially with all the Signpost, if there is one thing I have won games in its how I can leach away their stamina and get a win as they cannot move. This wont ever happen to Juggernaut. Furthermore, he is 100% straight forward and his ultimate has has a decently shorted CD so it can be reused again if removed(which it likely will be). And the AI always does it when it can. So he works great in AFK.
Lastly if Wonder man is played a lot, characters with Catastrophic attacks are even better(as he cant remove their way to go pass him).


10/10 I really like his overall design and he is a very good addition to the meta. Hes not in anyway imbalanced but he counters mainly Emma in a imbalanced way which might finally get some more characters to be played(especially when people realise how worthless Rescue is).



Constrictor
 


Really,,, I don't get who wanna get Constrictor. Obviously a character they added so they did not have to work any any new animations. Every time I see Constrictor I think of


Were is my dear Tasky. Taskmaster, the master of task would make more sense. What I would have done is set Taskmaster as the boss on special operation mission 1, hes hired by Hydra or Aim etc. Then he loses, you as the agent capture him. During the mission 2 hes being interrogated and so on. During mission 3 Taskmaster has done what he always done and decided to work for the government for lower sentence and is a team up one the mini bosses, while the special op guy, in this case Simon is still there for the final boss.
Or the epic boss is on the third mission and Taskmaster is hired by shield specifically as he is to find/counter the epic villain.


Ok, before I go into Frank. Were are my dam Red skull battles!!! not that I need boxes that much but I want to get free CP, free items etc. From beating him and later when opening boxes more free stuff. I got a huge number of FB friends which i solely have for this game but I still get very few Red skull invites, which is another douche move from Playdom. So if anyone reliable want to add me message me and we can send to each other... god I had a guy asking me to to send him my skull today and he would send me his. I sent he did not send to me, that person is now removed from my FB of course.(Update I got some battles this day but still a low of what I had comparing it to Ultron)


Anyway Constrictor, I predict not many will use. In the sole reason because like no one knowns who he is and he got really boring animations. And skills, yeah boring.
However, hes a really good character. Simply because he can heal and got a lot of luck.
Hes passive is great as it can randomize different good stuff(as mentioned mainly heal is awesome). And this happens a lot and will happen even more in afk defense. Basically he could have kinda whatever skills but still work kinda.
But, he of course has a lot of good abilities. I really feel this is purely as hes a sucky character(comic wise and fame wise) so Playdom compensate this by making him really good in game so people will get him anyway, I would say it was the same with Omega Sentinel.


His first move got the generalized ability which overall is a great debuff and great to have on a tactician as he can then attack into a infiltrator and not get countered(as the debuff will remove the ability to counter, and get stealth etc). It also gives Disabled same debuff as Psylocke has, wont matter much but still makes the attack better.
The second move has the incapacitation, a debuff I would say is stronger then stun(also works on bosses in PvE) and it gives the target an unique debuff to constrictor which makes the next attack on them critical so kinda like weakpoint(but it last 1 more turn). This further makes Frank a really good support character as many Tactician are. He got the heal and other stuff from his passive, the first ability lowers the utility of the enemies while the second one enchanted on team members damage and might stun the enemy.
His third move is pretty shity.


His ultimate is the distress call, which was always a funny move he had in PvE. This is a quick action and can only be used once per battle. In PvE its not very good. But as PvP is so fast its not an issue that is limited to once, its a QA so it always good ot use right away and the AI in defense will use it right away(limited data of this  I guess but I dont see why he wouldn't so), not the greatest multimedia but good enough for PvP.


Constrictor Isa good character, but as a game design work....


1/10. Hes so pointless, a character who random items and the rest of the moves already exists. Purely a character made as they couldn't come up with anything better as a lockbox.




Wonder man
 
hmm I would prefer him in constant ion or is that just me?


Some people seem too think he sucks, these people are retarded. Simon got like the best base stats of any tank in the game, Higher def then Rulk etc but still has a 2 in evasion so he got more in that as well and the highest shared max hp.


Of course his real strength lies in that he will always tank, hes not a buffed tanker like everyone else in the game is. Or like Wolverine were they might tank. His the first character in the game that will tank no matter what, the agent has been able to do this for a while and has always been very good.
Simon finally makes character who have cornered better then removers. Furthermore, his second attack has the really good new debuff Hobbled, which makes the afflict be unable to stealth. The abilities can still be used but they cannot be target past Simon(as he always tanks). Great idea for an ability its also a stealth move so that Simon always can reach the enemy he went to Hobble. However, it is still only half good design as physic attach still works perfectly fine and Rulk also dont gain hp from being attacked by Psychic,,,, so yeah Emma and so on is still broken.
I predict this team: Tactician Agent with Juggernaut and Wonder Man team then Agent can be a glass canon to as Wonder Man will tank most stuff and all of Wonder Mans abilities are unarmed melee so he gains a great damage increase from Juggernaut.


Boring that they just plain refuses to fix Psychic, for example why not make Hobbled also means attacks are not longer Psychic.
Wonder Man is also immune to Damage over time affects which is an much more amazing then people give credit for. Run a full defense oriented team and see how damage you take with on a tank character. Its extremely low. The biggest issue is always that everyone has some kind of DOT attacks usually 2-3 at least. So you regardless of you max defense you will end up losing 20%+ max hp each turn. This wont happen to Wonder Man and hes a Bruiser with high evasion so one scrapper and he will avoid way to much and to end it of his ultimate heals him-_- He will be so freaking hard to kill.


At first glance I felt this ultimate was still a little weak as it don't have a Quick Action but Simon gains a turn when tanking if the buff is activated so most of the time it will result in more turns especially when attacking in PvP as the AI is so stupid.
Lastly as I mentioned earlier he got the Thundra Synergy abilities. With his first ability being exactly the same as Thundras second!!! YES its fucking exactly the same, such a fail design. Who ever did the full design should get faired, are you fucking kidding me its such a let down. Finally a character who cant lose his tank ability to removal but you give him the exact same synergy and even the the exact same ability as the latest character you realized? Talking about being lazy. Its like they could only come up with, lets have a tank character who cant be not a tank, oooomg we are awesome. And after that they forget to design more of his skill and ended up just taking Thundras set up.


...Anyway his first got Rising up as with Thundra,,,,and it got impaired as with Thundra.... if it had something else then Impaired it would be decent still boring to have a character with Rising up and then Finest hour just after Thundra but really. Giving it impaired just makes it such a blatant copy. Yeah so his third attack as with Thundra got finest hour, then it actually got an interesting debuff the exhausted meaning target wont be able to take extra turns.


Simon is so freaking good, his second ability the one with hobbled also got winded which removes follow up attacks. Winded pretty much turns of Scrappers(which he would beat anyway as a bruiser but still he beats them really hard then) + other characters can get really hard stopped by this. Than the third one have exhausted turning of Tacticians class bonus. And the first ability with Impaired turns of Blasters critical attacks.


So hes a tank who cant lose his tank ability, he cant be doted with is huge for a max defense guy like him, he can heal himself and gain more turns. Hes the only character in the game who can turn of stealth(unfortunately not psychic to) and then tank much better then anyone else in the game. He actually deals pretty high damage and he can turn of Scrapper, Tactician and half turn of Blasters class bonus as well.


There will be a lot of Wonder Man in Season 9 thats for sure. Especially the Cain, Simon team well see a lot of play.


4/10. I like that they finally got the constant tank guy, but why not make him turn of psychic? And even worse why just steal Thundras move set especially as she was just released if it was at least 6+ months between them it wouldn't be so obvious.



Summary start early-mid season 9:
Less Scrappers a lot of new good Bruisers and a lot of good new Tacticians. Blasters as I have gone over last month are nerfed in how Tacts are buffed. There has always been a lot of Bruisers and that will only increase now, so Blasters might be a viable option but most teams will probably be Tact+ Bruiser + X. So Blasters wont be that good.
But, what it means effectually is that Scrapper will have the hardest time right now. Especially Scrappers with no stealth abilities will be almost completely useless, not that it was many good nonstealthed scrappers.


Likely people will keep using Rescue(because people are stupid)  and people will be start using Juggernaut(now when most have him). Other characters that will be in the meta are Wonder Man and I like I mentioned earlier Jug + WM is really good. Then classic overused characters like Phoenix and Quicksilver will be played, some Emma. As I said last month I ma waiting for a surge of Infiltrators but one issue with that there are simply not so many infiltrators but this season at the start will 99% sure be heavy of Bruisers and Tacticians so infiltrators like Nightcrawler will be good, Psylocke. And Inf Phoenix(before I meant her in in general,po5 etc) will probably be a lot more common then Blaster, she was already this in season 8, while for example in season 3 it was around 90% Blaster Phoenix but now with the Tactician boost and a lot of Tacticians she is widely played as Infiltrator.