Ok Sandman, was anyone happy to see him be playable? I think not. I don't know anyone who is a fan of Sandman, maybe I am bias because growing up with Spider-man the animated series and they did not include Sandman, instead Hydroman usually filled his spot.
But I think its more because he is so dam lame, hes lame in the comics, lame in movies ( I disliked how he was the one who called uncle Ben in spider-man 3 ofc) and so on right. His issue is that hes fundamentally using is power in such as stupid way. While Playdom usually get 0/10 in creative design scorings. T cant blame them in how horrible sandman is. His first move is hitting with his sandhammer hand yeah. AAAAAnd his third move is hitting with his sandhammer hand but in a different angle and now it makes like 100x more damage.
His second move is to become more sandy or something. And the fourth move is throwing sand around him. He has the ugliest move set in the game but lets face it, hes like that in the comic a well. So its actually not Playdom's fault. But they made him sickly overpowered.
On a personal level I hate to play with him but he gets the job done. Its not much to say really on why hes so good, hes like a super version of Wonder man. there is not much to say about why Sandman is such a strong character in PvP as he is one of the most simplistic characters ever. Its not truly Playdom's fault but they could be better at design regardless and as combat designer (thats my primary domain) they have failed miserably in how imbalanced he is.
So I just want to talk a little on why I thin Sandman is such a bad character (comic wise)
Enter: Sir crocodile
For you who have not read/watched One Piece Crocodile eat the sand fruit, and got pretty much exactly the same powers of Sandman.
He is made out of sand so he is immune to conventional weapons just like Sandman.
So while they should be same, in power at least he uses them 100x more intelligent. This is one thing that Oda does really good, using powers which are already established in other media but using them better.
Crocodile first of all can dry people out by touching them. Sandman has never really used his sandpower except throwing sand it into peoples eyes....Like he never uses his sandpower good in close combat he just kind of try to punch people most of the time.
And if there is anything lame with Sandman its how he transforms his hands to hammers etc, his name could have been hammer hand.
I like this picture form Wikipedia on sandman and it says "Sandman shows off new powers" Oh he can become more of him and he can transform one of his hands to a knuckle morning star instead of a hammer. Sandman is such a ridiculously limited character in marvel.
Crocodile uses sand like a true weapon shooting out in different type of attacks, he don't just kind of send sand towards people. He uses a very lethal close combat sand attacks and create storms etc. he also uses poison and other stuff not related to his powers of course one of the biggest issue overall in Marvel is how retarded most of the villains are its like they have to follow some kind of loser codex.
That brings me to one thing I really hate with Sandman, why does he not cover his face? What I mean with that cant he just alter how he looks? Why would he commit crime with his normal face, it makes absolutely no sense especially when he aim is to help is daughter with the money, getting fame is only gonna work against him in every regard.
Sandman or Flint Marko as he is usually called is made to be this sympathetic villain who is forced to do crime for his family. so that means he is to used the money he gets to pay for stuff at normal places...Some villains are just crazy like Carnage. Some villains like Green Goblin (also crazy but at start at least...) let say Hobgoblin then, they can do crime and get money live a bad ass life. This is pretty much exactly what Hobgoblin does and what his aim is. He don't have to alter his face to look like someone else, its enough if he just kept it Sandy all the time.
Even being captured should be hard to know who he really is, after Spider-man catches him why would he revert to his basic face? Not like Spider-man is gonna torture him.
(in Crocodile case its funny enough the reverse being so uber exposed as he is has made him immune to go to jail).
Of course for Marvel Avengers Alliance they just copied Wonder man but buffed him severely. Sandman is a lot like Wonderman, they have the same third attack a powerful finisher based on number of buffs it does more damage. Both bruisers, Sandman reduces the damage he takes and has am increase dodge ability taking less damage while Wonderman has heal and immunity to damage over time effects.
They have the same strength and weakness, mainly neutralize. There are more Bruiser like this, e.g Thundra. Heimdall.They all buff up them self and try to finish with a finest hour attack, This is why they are all weak to the anti bruiser debuff given by disadvantaged attacks or by some attacks who has neutralize ofc. As it both removes enrage, the class bonus and the buffs they need to do their finish attacks. But Sandman has the strongest finest hour attack in the game.
As he can easily use his second ability which right away gives him the rising up effect, which is that the character gains the basic buff at random.
The other characters like Wonderman gains this by attacking.
Sandman is tremendously much better because of this. Not only can he attack right away the first turn with a super strong attack that often one shot people. He is also not very weak towards neutralize or other similar effect as he gains his buffs the same turn he attacks and does not have to prep up for the next turn which the others are doing which leaves them week to removal and preventing effects. Note, not only his he not so weak to neutralize but also stuff like Scroll of angolob.
Sandman also gains a self buff called Grit, just like Quicksilver gains Quickness from his first attack. But Grit is better.. as it increases all the base stats. This can also be removed and is also blocked by neutralize. So removing and preventing stat increase is still good versus him but a much lower scale then to other similar characters.
And here really is the issue with Sandman, he can so easily kill someone right away when the game starts. The attack also gains bonus from number of Grit stacks (just like QS, or Sunfire etc... did I mention how both in game Sandman is boring and uncreative and Sandman in the comics are as well).
He is super overpowered, if he dont kill them turn 1, he will get them down to at worst 20% hp left. And he still has his passive that makes him slightly harder to kill and he counter attack sometimes thats also kinda annoying his ultimate deals damage based on the Grit and can actually also be really devastating,.
But its not only that he has a super attack that goes of right away. His quick action is the best evasion buff in the game. 50%!!! That's just wtf, 50%!!! Comparing him to Wonderman agian, Wonderman is slightly hard to kill but Sandman is really hard to kill.
I really hate how good he is, I wish Sandman was bad in the game so I could just hide him away in a corner. Especially with Taskmaster, as explained in the last article Taskmaster right now is super good in the meta teaming him with Sandman is a 1 turn kill team. As Sandman often gets to attack twice while being buffed.
His quick action move is simply to good, even if he wont do as much turn 2, turn 3 bam another character dead.
He relly needs a nerf.
The only thing that so far is good vs Sandman is disoriented and mind control so he might one shot his teammates instead.
He works great in defence as he is so simplistic. There is no real intelligence to play him, just use QA then attack.
Summary: Horrible character - horrible game design (boring and uncreative), overpowered like crazy (bad multiplayer design). Nice as it forces players to use him even do hes so boring.
Anti-venom:
Just like Sandman is very similar (carbon copy more or less) of Wonder Man. Anti-venom is pretty much like X-23(laura).
This is pretty much why hes not a good cahracter, while Sandman is clearly better then Wonder Man having the same attacks but much much faster its not as simple to compare Anti-Venom to X-23 but its by far the easiest way to explain why he wont be played.
First they both have a passive heal they both have the chance to survive lethal damage.
Anti-venom is immune to some stuff while X-23 reduces damage from some stuff, so hes better at that regard.
But yeah similar.
Then their first attack is pretty much the exact same move. Bleeding and ravage, were Anti-venom might remove buffs X-23 instead turn of people from using buffs...
Yeppppp very similar.
Third move.
Exploit bleeding, exploit opportunity on anti-venom while X-23 instead has exploit paragon....he again has might remove buffs she instead got extra change for critical damage.
Anti-Venom do have hemrogh triggering bleeds but its a meesly damage especaily when he cant set up bleeding so well.
His ultimate removes all buffs, prevent new stuff from being applied and damage the target if anyone removes the blocking debuff, so it has as similar context to X-23 assassinate. Did I mention they were similar?
The second move is an aoe, just like with her and it sets up the third strong finish attack...
But here comes the problem with anti-venom. Hes not a weak cahracter. but hes not a very reliable cahracter. All his moves has a % chance of something being applied.
His aoe is very strong in theory it has opportunist a chance to apply a bunch of different debuffs, strong but you cant predict what you get.
Depower who removes status from abilities strong but only has a 60% chance to apply and it has remove buffs of a 30% chance.
His abilities 1-3 all has a 30% chance of removing buffs while he also has a passive that might remove buffs before an opponent attacks him.
Note, that his description is wrong in the game, IT says he will attack them and remove a buff, makes it sound like a quicksilver future punch etc. But he actually does nothing towards them expect remove 1 random buff, which usually means nothing.
Overall all his remove is bad, low chance and its only removing 1 single buff which the player cant determine which one and in the meta today a lot of people have 4+ buffs on them all the time, unless the player uses an AoE removal. Pretty shitty actually.
But going back to X-23 is the best way to explain why Anti-Venom wont see much play.
Their first moves are almsot the same, but she got a debuff which si actually very strong (read the horseman article about for details) other wise they have the same move, but her is clearly better.
Their third move is almost the exact same move but she got increased chance for critical this is huge on a build up move which works as a finisher her third move does way more damage then his.
Anti-venom's ultimate is his weakest move. Its quite bad were she got an instant kill instead. Here clearly Anti-venom is much worse then X-23.
His second move is better if we don't look at her passive.
With X-23 passive she can get off an aoe into her first attack on everyone making it far better then Anti-venom. While that require some luck, so its not 100% certain his whole second move is uncertain always on how much it will do.
They are so similar, same class as well(bruiser) the only difference is that he works better with opportunistic and spider-man and Venom. While she works better with all bleeders which is way more characters. So he is also limited.
And all of this is comparing Anti-Venom to X-23 not War. In her War suit she gains one of the strongest passive in the game.
That's pretty much it. Anti-Venom, I like how his design passive is the reverse of the other symbiotes in how they are weak to fire he is strong etc. But otherwise then that, hes just a god dam copy of X-23 just like Sandman is just Wonderman. But Anti-venom is even more of a carbon copy. Boring, really boring.
But in this case the original copy (which is kinda funny as shes a clone :) is better.
All that being said, hes still a decent character. Just X-23(war) is one of the best characters. He do have some kind of niche team maybe with other web users. If Playdom had made the web agent item set better he might been really good in a specific team set up.
