Marvel Avengers Alliance recap of PvP tournament 14.

soo happy to have Hogun.

I have cached them all again.

And really what an annoying day yesterday, as we all now its a horrible pvp system and to go throughout those hours of farming points to get Hogun, the worst weapon ever as a price and the worst class armor(well I will admit to it being the best Blaster suit ever but...still blaster) Yeah......feel like I wasted my day yesterday.

Anyway, no I mean I really hate Hogun. Such an unknown cahracter as a price what were they thinking look at this image
                                         
                                         

This is Hogun from Hulk Agent of S.M.A.S.H which is a good show I think and they put in Hogun and the other warriors of no one cares.

                                         

Hes similar to the Movie Hogun but he got a beard etc and dont look as much Japense as they Japense actor did in the movies....I just want to point how how little sense the movie THor universe is where the nordic gods have black and Asian people in their pantheon....I fully expect when tney make a Hercules movie that Zeus is gonna be a Native American.


 Also note how shitty his line was. Such a boring addition to the game in every way imaginable.

Not only are their 1000 characters would should be in the game before for many reasons but they cant even make him look the same as the media appears in. Of course I cant judge how accurate his design is to how comic self as he basically got no powers in the comic to begin with, hes an asgardian with a mace....that's Hogun's biggest issue if anything hes from the start a bad comic character. 

Ok
 Fast recap of meta in season 14 of marvel Avengers alliance.

Pestilence was abundant in low adamantium and outside of it. When I got higher it was all about instantly wining and lucky preemptive teams.
 Basically the only teams I saw was Havok and Quicksilver. And another team Quicksilver and Havok.
 There were some Magnetos and Grey Hulks to.

The Havok team was really easy to beat as he 50% of the game starts with doing his AoE activating my Emma and Magnetos turn, while he does give exhaust having mystic which I put into to counter him made all those games a free win turn 1 insta KO.

I actually noticed that Magneto can polarization other Magnetos while I have been running his new E-iso since the day it come out in defense I had not actually used him in attack until yesterday so that was really smooth. Actually makes a huge difference towards other Magneto who dont have it.

 I upgraded my Emma and Magneto with the new Augmented isos. Like I wrote in my guide the best Aiso is really the maddening boosting Emma's ultimate. Then I used 2 ionizing on Magneto for some extra damage pretty expansive to have another 20 gold on him(20 from snappy services before) but yeah a 40+ gold Magneto with the Empowered iso is pretty much the best character in the game.

Marvel Avengers Allience PvP Tier List Season 14. Guide for best characters for PvP

So season 14 wee have seen the rise of Pestilence, the new Beast version which ridicules as in how mediocre he is.

Top 20 characters in Marvel Avengers Alliance Player vs Player:

The winners are War(Laura) and Magneto which are better now in this season especially War. As I mentioned in yesterdays article they are my go to defense team right now.

The new characters like Agent Venom and Death just like Spiral last season are all very formidable and up and coming strong meta characters. Which is typical power creeping effect as Playdom constantly does exactly that, they constantly power creep. So this is no surprise.

Famine is I keep telling people all the time,,,she has barely moved in this list.

But more so Pestilence is just a liability. For example Agent Venom hard counters him anyone with exploit does(I guess his best team mate is new Ms.marvel, really the only use of her passive is to defend your team with pestilence/Satanna on it).
 Note that the list does not count the Agent. If it would that would mean Pestilence would be further down as Agent hard counters him as well, while Agent is countered by War and Magneto. That would just enforce the current meta Overpowered characters.
 Spiral also counter him btw as she can so easily buff her team - while you cant remove debuffs you can gain the opposite effect and in that way get rid of them.


So there is a lot of Havok + Quicksilver teams. And I get it I am surprised Havok is not higher yet in the list might be some issues there. But still Iron Patriot does what he does but against everyone.


The top 11 characters is what one should focus on using, of course there are other good niche teams but those characters have the best overall win chance. Preferably  then Match them together like Death + Emma Frost, Magneto + War etc.


Here is the full Tier List

Marvel Avengers Alliance: Best Team PvP season 14, review of new character: Iceman

Before we go into Iceman, there is 3 topics -----
 PLAYDOM IS SHUTTING DOWN MARVEL AVENGERS ALLIANCE....
 On their site

So I got away from this as I am on facebook. But, yeah its not fun if you have invested in the playdom version. Furthermore, it really bugs me that they would end the game on playdom but not on FB or vice versa. Because they money they save on that is very little, the same design etc would have to be done for both games. So they are making some more time for programmers and QA people by doing this. However, I am pretty sure while they claim this will mean better game experience for us on FB the likely-hood is more that they will just fire those poor people and the quality will stay the same on FB. So bad news.
 I would like to say dont invest in the game both on the same time then the game will die? Actually I would wonder about that as the is not nylon to make its own money but also to make people go and watch the movies by the comics etc. Its like Hearthstone by Blizzard, that game makes some money(I dont there is any figures for it) but it also is entwined with the other Blizzard games mainly then of course World of Warcraft and then Blizzard hopes people will pay for the monthly subscription again.
 With Marvel Avengers Alliance having a lot of tie in special events with the movies particular but also to comic major cross over like the Avengers vs X-men they are not only to make their own money.
 And the Facebook one is much more lucrative for spreading information viral then their own website. Also it was easier to farm on the website etc. So I actually think the Facebook version its safe for now mainly trough its Virality.

Ok Second topic.
 People always ask me whats your team. Very standard very normal to ask(same in otehr games like Soul-arena).
 While I had been using Magneto and Emma for several seasons in a row. My current defense team is Magneto and War replacing Emma. 
 My agent runs the same items except one item change from the previous seasons:
 Mystic over Waraxe(as War gives this ability anyway) and then the same
 Scroll of Angolob
 Cube
 Sheppard's Staff.

Note that my Magneto has the E-powered iso, Polarization instead of relentless now(Agent and War has Relentless)

This team jumps in and out of Adamantium league so its pretty good someday I come back to a +70 etc.
 The thing is that while this is bad compared to last season of Magneto and Emma. This season that team seems to loses much more.
 And overall this season has become very hard to defend, as dot strategies has always been the best ensured win in attack.
 The result of the heavily used pestilence and the new item set makes defending harder then previous seasons. Of course its rather stupid if you ask me, dot(damage over time) strategy would have bene as effective last season as well with otehr teams for that. But because Pestilence is the new thing everyone uses him. Very classic human mentality. Because Pestilences oriented team still has the typical drawback of slow wins. So safe but slow wins, absolutely not the best way to farm ladder points.

 Anyway bottom line is this seasons if freaking hard to defend and  thats why a lot of people are using the extreme glass canons in the game like Quicksilver and Havok.

 And I think that those teams are pretty good but they are a little limited in the way that if everyone uses them you can be sure the attackers will counter it(also limited that they dont work if people have high hp/def and/or characters with defensive abilities), thats why I go with this high attack but also high health/defensive oriented team. Note: That I have not used any gold etc this season I have decent armory bonuses I could easily increase my def win ratio purely from upgrading my stats.


Third topic
 I have tried to tell them they have to either extend the pvp task or change the drops. PvP roulette is dam useless now, bad planning and a typical refuses of Playdom to admit they have done something wrong.


ICEMAN



Finally we got all the original X-men to play with(if we ignore that Angel is not really how he used to be...well when you think about it he basically just flied around in the original so..I mean he got a real bad mutant power, also Beat was not blue back then)

its very interesting to look at Iceman's design.

Because its actually one of the best designs in the game if not the best in a gameplay perspective.

 But on the same time I feel its a huge blunder from a revenue perspective( you know money hungry company like Disney who just fired people--)

The thing with Iceman is that I am unsure if its an intentional good design part from Playdom or you know a lucky break.
 But lets go from that its a good idea from them.
 Because Iceman is actually very well made in the way that first of all his suit does not make him 100% better. I was actually very thorn in what character is best Iceman or Death(Bruiser of course). I have done like 50+ games with each of them and I have reached the conclusion that Death is still narrowly better. But there are teams were Iceman is better.
 And this is what other suits should be, the alternative costumes should give the player some hard decisions to make.
 Death has better abilities at the start of the battle. Iceman instead gets much better abilities when he has died once and resurrected.

And here is my question of Playdom's intention of doing this. Because Death ahs the same passive as Iceman but it does nothing. SO either its a Quality issue were they forget to remove it or they forget to add his passive effect on both normal and Death alternative.
 So yeah something is wrong at least.

Also Iceman's ultimate is better then Death in many cases except the best team up for Death. Emma Frost. Here is one of the kickers with Death he is great overall and he is a great team synergy with Emma's Mental tap.
 His ultimate is like a weak Mental tap but it always does damage and it gives them despiear(no heal no resurrect) combine those 2 attacks and you can easily kill any enemy.

Death's third are far better then Iceman as it got fatal blow which makes it so easy to kill people in PvP. The thing is that deaths fatal blow is like Thane's is not like War or Elektra were they do no damage and basically only works if the enemy has low life. Death Does decent damage with his attack high if he got engage stacks so with average comparable stats he kills any enemy with around 50% hp more if they got stacks. Its also as 3 hits making it hard to miss when killing someone with low life.

 His second ability do have deathfrost over chilled which also removes stamina but this move is much worse then Iceman's. Because here lies Iceman major strength when he dies and comes back this move will be the most improved. It now gives everyone frostbrand. This means that all moves agaisnt them will shatter them dealing something around 10-20% max hp average 15%. This happens on his attack, so he will do around 30-40% damage easily.
 Then...everything trigger this like Emma's Ultimate, but it also triggered by aoe QA. If you use the scroll after this they all take 15% max hp damage :). As soon as Iceman has hit everyone with his second ability when he has resurrected the game is over. The shatter also triggers if you miss with your aoe attack on them(not his but the next coming one). 

This ability is the main reason I could argue for Iceman > Death but otherwise Death is better.

Ok so lets ignore that Iceman exist and only focusing on more of Death skills.

Death will resurrect when he dies its a 100% chance. But he only gets 10% life back. However, he can have more stacks and gain up to 3 so 30% max life. And he removes all shit on himself. All even against a Pestilence. So its the best resurrect effect in the game(ignoring the low health gained) its pretty easy getting in at least one attack after you die once.

His first ability is a decent attack with high critical damage when they are chilled(or Deathfrosted) and he can self coordinate against chilled enemies, attacking after ally attacked one or is attacked by. It does pretty high damage if he gets his enrage on so its an ok attack.

The way Death is played is to spam his second ability the AoE to give everyone Deathfrost and disabled which I have noted actually is good agaisnt some characters in the meta. Then he can coordinate on everyone, everyone is doted as well.

And then you finish them of wit the third ability.

As mentioned earlier if they got good stats or a heavy tanker you use the ultimate to wither omeone down.
 Death is a strong and he is surprisingly good in the current meta.

I definitely recommend tinkering with Death.

But I am --- Well Confused on what they actually intended with the character I am always baffled on how Playdom keeps making that happen.

Augmented Iso guide Marvel Avengers Alliance

Before I rank the isos I want to just point at this Pinnacle of bad user experience design.

You know I think this is funny sad. Because in the game biz, its really hard to get a job specially as a UX designer it usually requires the most work experience. So I really wonder who does the Marvel Avengers alliance UX design as,,,,its so bad, I mean really how the fuck were they thinking.

This filter thing is so badly designed I don't know what to say.
 First of all these new augmented iso both share colors and symbols making it really hard to find the one you want in the inventory.
 Why is it sword symbol for magic attack or range btw...

Update: looking at this again ... its even dumber then I fist thought. For example 
 the unarmed 3 CPs isos are blue, they got a sword like the other as a symbol which makes no sense, even dumber then its that there is a blue fisted iso why not use the same symbol? For unarmed. I mean sure the color could be different but clearly they already have had someone done the graphics for other symbols then explosion, cross-hair and sword.
 Note: That there is a red sword iso for gold(Vorpal) so not like they wont mix symbols for gold/Cp

It really makes no sense its 2 brown...(and 2 red etc)

Also

Ground attacks cant cit or something? I know they can in-game seems they just forgot to add the 20 CP that would increase critical hit for ground attacks?


But the really issue is this this filter system, they show case they don't understand how humans interact with this game at all.

Really, now look careful on this 2 images.  Why the fuck cant I search for Iron Fist isos, when I know one to exist. Even worse why cant I filter the system and get all the Generalist isos or other classes.

This filter system don't let the user get  specific characters to find and not even classes, truly retarded works here.

What you have to is filter by the specific name if the iso.

There is no way, just no way that a normal sane person will remember the specific name of Iron Fist iso, that it starts with Masterful. Yes the Iron First example right now is bad because its so few character specific but let say each had on. Thats almost a 100 isos and then it could be another 100 isos who are class based..ye easy to remember the specific name. But really, the user will not remember it because they don't know it in the first place. Let say you want to buy the Iron Fist one, you write in Iron likely to filter the Iron Fist and Iron Man isos... you don't try and find the name of their specific isos. Also, there is no filter in the equipment place only at the shop, ok the filter wouldent have helped much anyway but if it was a good filter system why not have it at the equipment place and for god sake one at the team page so when I want to go to Agent Venom or w.e I don't have to scroll trough 11 pages.

This beyond stupidity, Good Job Playdom. Really excellent design here.





But ok, Lets look into the augmented isos. As I expected most of them just like the empowered isos has little to no worth.

First of all

all the CP ares obviously pretty bad but the pure dmg one which also cost the most is clearly good to have then nothing as its a damage increase, however not that this increase is very very small so its absolutely not worth 30 cp unless if you have all characters.

Secondly, the unique augmentation are of course also in almost all cases(so far what we have seen yes) better then then the cp and gold ones.
 For example the new Union Jack one make him right away get 2 buffs as he can attack a flank target, gives teh same effect as facing an infiltrator.

Lets take a look at the gold ones.

I am gonna rank them here on which one should be bought first.


The top 2 are Sorcerous and Cooperative.

With Sorcerous you get stealth on a magic attack. This is great because it also counts for AoE attacks. So now even if the opponent has a tank you can still it all. Also of course you don't get countered, so its really good for magical tacticians for example Dr.Strange.

Cooperative, makes summon attack quick action which is great it does give them an increased cooldown but wont matter so much in PvP. So this is really strong its like the snappy services you can do 2 stuff the first turn. Really good for Dr.Doom, Satana, Daimon etc. Problem is - not so many good summoners so while a great Iso not the most versatile.


Erupting:
 Yes the 5 one. This one makes a lot bigger difference then the other more expansive one especially for your defence team. This Iso makes ground attack hit Air, which is a great bonus for moves like Capitan Brittania's aoe with stun.
 As with Cooperative this is a very limited iso so its not a great buy overall but its a most buy if you use a ground attacker in your defence team.



 Pulverizing and Ionizing

Pulverizing gives the attack wide open debuff, which makes the enemy take 20% more damage from melee. Which is a pretty good boost to any melee attack. This is is the best one to buy purely based on utility its not game changing like Sorcerous but it goes for any melee attack and the boost is always good and boost other melee users as well so its much more boost then a iso which only boost one characters attack. Because it goes to all melee its the most usable iso its not limited like the others.

Ionizing gives an energy attack the radiation dot. This like Pulverizing also boost energy attacks, so its boost the whole team(there are less energy teams then melee but still) it also gives the dot ofc. So this as well is a decent damage increase. You can set it on an AoE attack make the attack be like Iron patriot. And the radiation dot stacks, this is probably the best damage increase iso. 


Vorpal.
A slash attack now has ignore defence, this one is actually...really bad right now but in theory its decent at least. Because most good slashers like War already has Vorpal blades(adamantium), not a good buy at all but in theory its better then other isos.

Pugilist
Both Pugilist and Pulverizing boost martial artist. But puglist is more limited as it requires first another ability to have the combo set up attack. The iso would be much better if it set up Combos instead of exploitation.

Maddening.
Psychic attacks gain the debuff weak mind, which boosts later psychic attack. A great augmentation for Emma Frost ultimate(which kind of makes it the first buy). This one is a good damage boost iso but limited to only a handful of characters using  psychic

Aiming.
 Pretty much the same as maddening but for ranged moves instead of psychic more usable as there is a lot more characters who can use this. But the effect in itself is not as easy to use as with physic attack.
 Honestly I am little thorn, this could be a little higher in some teams. But like Maddening and Automation(below), Vorpal etc. Its a pure damage boost and this might be removed and so on. So its never gonna be a game changer like the best augmented isos. Its jut that its more damage then the CP ones.

Automated
 Better then the CP ones. Gives tech attacks grantinh the user tech upgrade like with Bishop. However, just like with Bishop its not a great boost.  If it at least was to allies it would be good.
 Not worth 15 gold. Unless you truly want to min max.

Sniping
Gives the attack cant miss. ..... ATTACKS can still miss. From the cube and other passive stuff, this makes this one by really bad as everyone uses the cube.
 Its also limited to Gun attacks.

Gracious
Gives a buff the energize effect of Emma's buff. Which is stamina for everyone.
 USELESS. Completely useless. I guess its better then the CP ones as they are all only made for attacks(gj on the creativity Playdom), how often do you go out of stamina? I have written a lot about how the stamina resource is so pointless for PvP.
  But yeah sure it usable in pve but ho want to pay gold for easier pve.