Marvel Avengers Alliance: Best Team PvP season 15, review of The Warrior 3.

This is what you get if you google Warrior 3 thats how popular marvel characters they are.

 

Really who wants to play anyone of these unknown failures?

Worse so, they have to be played together. I feel I have to write this review a little different than others. I really have to stitch together them as a 1 team review more then as individual characters.

 AS they are 3 and the player picks 2 its a 3!/2! = 3 different team they can be in.

Arguably there exist a few other teams with them, well first of all not with Volstagg is the weakest by far on his own. Hogun got a few other teams because of his skirmisher buff from his elixir which boosts his 2 classes, scrapper and infiltrator = follow up attack and counter attacks. Obviously Hogun then can be combined with other scrapper mainly and a countering tank for example Captain America.

 However it is not very great so he is limited to synergy like him and Quicksilver is pretty decent. Fandral can be combined with other preemptive teams, with evasion teams (bad but ok its possible) and bleeding team (also bad because he only applies bleeding). Really if anything doesn’t try bleed with Fandral I see this 1 game per day roughly, not only am it easy to remove bleeding but as he got no moves that exploit bleed. He can’t actually use the bleeding he set up with his ultimate (which is what people like with him) so when facing a Fandral + Bleed character. By killing the Bleed first Fandral is left pretty useless.

 Well, that all being said to play any of them in any team the player need the tankard. Without the Tankard the Hogun + X won’t work. As the Agent has to give the scrapper bonus to both of them. Really Hogun is unplayable without Tankard on Agent 100%. Fandral is the same as the player need 2 turn to set him up and he cant use the Snappy Service iso, both of them need the Tankard. Volstagg needs it less both as he is only playable with either Hogun or Fandral clearly he will also only appear in a team with Tankard.

SO TANKARD
Worst item ever to farm in the game, good job Playdom, truly atrocious design there.
 But ignoring that what is so bad with Warrior 3 is clear. Not only do they have to played in pair. The agent will lose 1 slot to play them.
 If there has ever been a limited character who should be cheaper to buy game wise it’s these 3.
Some games balance the cost of characters based on their option and freshness. Ok this guys are fresh(but super unknown so shouldn’t count) but they got the worst option in well I would go so far and say maybe the most limited characters ever in a RPG.
Suikdon for example have a bunch of characters who have to be played together to be really strong (out of 108 per game) but at least any character can still fight on their own 


OK, so what does this mean? I am only sitting here and hating on a limited costly design approach?

Well it means super bad pvp team. Super bad trust me.

For a game that is heavy on the Meta like all these kind of games are of this genre. It’s really bad being so easily countered.

For example, Iron Patriot a good class canon AoE dps character. He is good with Emma, Magneto, War, Iceman etc. He’s good with a lot of characters. So if you have issues with him it’s much harder to anticipate what kind of team will I have to counter. If he was very popular you would have to maybe have a specific character just for him.

If the warrior 3 team would become popular (they are decently right now) its soooo sooo easy to counter them.
 They are all weak to removal. They are all weak to X and Y etc. Right it’s not like you have to say, well I got issues with Hogun but if has played with Z and W its 2 completely different issues. Nope it’s the same strength. Already from here they make for bad team in PvP. Then that the Agent has to use tankard further limits of the variation of the team.

 

 (can they at least make him look the same in different series...)

Team wise, both Hogun team are much stronger then without him.
 Hogun is a massive class canon with high damage but no defense. He also support the teams damage both with his skirmish and with his second move that gives all enemies flanked (follow up attack) and fumbling (counter attack) with a Quick Action move.

 Hogun is truly strong so he can be used with other characters because of this. If his second move had not started with a 1 turn cool down he would easily be one of the best character in the game damage wise at least. Because even do he can many games kill someone turn 1 he is still only doing damage he got no debuffs(well he has both they do damage-_-) and so on.
 Another big drawback he has it’s the same with all the warrior, let say the agent goes first to use Tankard. This will give everyone their elixir buffs. But if it’s then an enemy remover in between he won’t get to utilize it and has an almost useless performance turn 1. Volstagg is the same, while Fandral will get a turn so it’s depending on if Fandral is the first one to get a turn and so on.

While we are on the subject of Elixir they are good but also bad.
 For Hogun most of all this really bad if he is the first to get as turn as you want him with Elixer buffs his first one. But another issue with the Elixir which is a huge issue for all of them and the agent is:

HEAL+ Cleanse is almost useless as well.
 When any of the characters uses the Elixir (tankard for the agent) they all drink right. When this happens they also heal them self and cleanse all bad stuff.
 That should be pretty good but, as the player has to do this as soon as possible to get any effect from the characters. First of all Agent need to have Tankard so all get their class bonus and then someone has to do ASAP. This will mean that the heal is useless as everyone will 50% of the games be at full life, or maybe someone has lost some life. The cleanse will 50% be useless and the other 50% of the time usually do nothing.

Then it gets 3 turn CD, running a Hogun team the game is over before the Elixir can be used again.

Ok so Hogun got some options but they the other 2 I won’t even bother going into.

Fandral - Bleeding team don’t work limited to use of Preemptive and follow up guys like Union Jack.

Volstagg - Completely useless except with another warrior.




Instead let’s review how the 3 different team composition works in the game.


Let’s start with the weakest team. Volstagg and Fandral.

This team is actually the best one to go with if you have bad stats. Because the team is both focusing on Damage over time and healing/reducing damage taken.
 So in a way it’s the safest team to use, but the wining is slow and it’s only efficient when you lack enough power to use Hogun.
 It’s also really bad in defense.

And I really want to emphasize on that, because it’s a pretty popular AFK team right now. Which is not weird as: 1 new characters 2 people don’t have Hogun.
 But like all other DoT teams they work horrible in AFK. The longer time your team takes to wins the more the AI will screw you with their horrible decision making.
 I been saying this for years and I went over why Pestilence is bad in defense and why it made no sense that he was so overall used and how he was not used by anyone over 1600 rating pretty much. Same with Fandral AND Volstagg this team is slow wining heal and got reduction from Dots and from attacks. So yeah hard to kill them but their damage is measly. Measly damage means the AI can’t get lucky and win. Anyone with good stats won’t lose to this team as with a Pestilence team.

The team strength is that it actually uses Fandral Bleeding in a good way, by giving everyone 3 bleed stacks and then attacking with Volstagg who has 2 attacks from the agent Tankard(scrapper bonus) he will trigger hemorrhaging 6 times and give them ravage.
 Meaning it’s a very stable damage based on their level not on their defense / your attack power.
 Then Fandral gives reduces damage taken from follow up attacks etc. and Volstagg reduces dot damage(which is a shitty thing as Agent can already do that but w.e) You won’t die easy and can then chip the enemy down.

However, this is not just horrible for defense AFK but also for attacking. Like I have writing many times before when attacking especially on the last day wining fast and efficient is one of the key factors for Adamantium. Wining slow should only be used when you lack stats.


To the Hogun teams.


Hogun AND Volstagg.

Only good thing with this is that Volstagg gets the Scrapper double attack from Agent and the Skirmisher from Hogun so he does deals some high damage. That’s it pretty much. Sometimes this team does kill them faster than Hogun AND Fandral but it’s in almost all cases it’s the weaker team.

Hogun AND Fandral.


So this is the Money team.
 They do not immediately kill the enemies sometimes like with Volstagg. But Fandral with Skirmisher deal really high damage to as he will counter attacks. Because he gains Infiltrator bonus, also well I could have noted on this earlier but. Fandral is Tactician with Stealth as he always get Inf Stealth from Agent Tankard that pretty nice as well

--- And this is also true for Hogun. Hogun deal huge damage can often 1 shot (2 shot but with 1 attack) someone at turn 1 and he got Stealth too. So you can always get the right target.
 Having both Fandral AND Hogun doing high damaging counter attacks and Fandral doing preemptively attacks. This team does the highest damage in the long run(which is like 2 turns I just mean they can’t always insta kill someone)
 So this team got 2 stealth attackers easy to kill anyone, they counter AoE attacks and kills them.

At turn 2 when Hogun has used his presence move(second) having 2 infiltrator counters with extra damage on that its very massive(this is the same for Volstagg as well but less damage in total but more controlled). Anyway its awesome damage, this team wins at turn 2 always.


MY main point is that Agent NEEDS to have Tankard!

And

Hogun is the Key character.

So Meta wise its horrible get a character/item that counters Hogun counter 3 characters/teams.


But well The Hogun AND Fandral is a strong team I just can’t see it ever being strong in a PvP Setting as the more popular it gets the worse it gets.

Bottom line is that all these characters have an amazing shitty game design behind them. They are just Double class with abilities that boost classes. Making them super straight forward with no real brain behind it. And the game already runs on the point on how overpowered removal is. All their skills can be easily removed making them be useless. And everyone is already running removal so.....


Side Note: 0/10 All 3 Creative design wise.

Gameplay Design wise: Horrible as well most limited characters in a game ever with no bearing to affect the game.

Quality Maniac: Hearthstone logical rule issue, Molten Giant

First of all, I am cool okey, I was playing deck X before X was popular.

 Really, in this case I was actually playing the Molten Giant Warrior deck, with charge when you have no life. I was running azure drake and Sylvanas etc. I was seriously one of the first with that deck.
 I played Molten Giant a lot ( I am super original/creative). And still I did not see the issue with the text on Molten Giant.

I might have realized this as I have been playing a lot of Super Street Fighter 4 (Arcade Edition) lately. And when you think about it the way Molten Giant text rule says is that it become easier to play as the player take damage, this is the same as with Ultra attacks in Street fighter and a lot of other fighting games.

 So what is the issue with Molten Giant?

If you look careful you can see Deathwing and Nozdormu in the background the 2 best Legendary Dragons.

Well the text of Molten Giant is describing an effect that is the exactly the same as gathering Ultra Energy in Street Fighter.

I main Adon these days, and I like how the guy who made this video took Sagat as the Uke, Great RP.

There is a difference between Ultra and Super Energy in the game. Super is gathered by pretty much everything, while Ultra is only gathered by taking damage. Just like with Molten Giant. I guess Sea Giant is kinda similar to Super energy, if the opponent gets board control /attack you a lot in Street fighter or if its you who get board /or  you deal a lot damage. Either way you can play Sea Giant easier / you get Super energy.

The thing is, in Street Fighter 4(this is a new mechanic for SF4 and it is actually kinda semi unique to Street Fighter 4 and its expansion. Does not exist in Street Fighter X Tekken for example).
 Its the focus. My personal biggest weakness is actually that I rarely use Focus in Street Fighter which is bad by me because it has some great effects.

 The important mechanic in this case is that Focus has the increased defence mechanic which means that the player can take 2 hits before they are canceled(it also has unblockable attack if its charged long enough, well it has charge mechanic as well -_-, slow take down etc).

What happen in the game is that if the player takes an attack with increased defence, this effect is also granted by some EX(using a quarter super meter) attacks etc. Is that the player get gray life instead of the normal yellow.

Gray life will regain over time. Unless if the player is damaged during before it has finished. IF damaged the player loses all gray life right away + loses yellow life based on the damage of the attack.

What this means in regarding to ultra attack is very important(at least on higher levels). Normally a person can use 1 ultra attack after losing  50% health and if they use it at that health they can gather enough ultra for another one when at 0%(character is a live but with no Health shown).
 Its also possible to not ultra at 50- and then later at when one hit left, do an extra strong ultra move not a double in damage wise but it indicated as a double energy bar filled.

 That all being said. How does it work.

Damage taken 1 = 1 ultra energy

Damage taken 10+20+15+5 = 50 = 50 Ultra Energy = 1 Ultra attack. Something like this(character do have different total life and so on).

SO back to Molten Giant it says the same right.

"Cost (1) less for each damage your hero has taken "

So Molten Giant starts at 20 mana and after the player has lost 20 life it cost 0.

However, this is not how Hearthstone work. 

In Street fighter it works exactly like the text on Molten Giant. If the player uses Focus or an EX move, to take an attack but then get gray life. What happens is that this life will be regained, but it will still record the damage.

So the actual situation can look like this.

10+20(gray)+15+5 = 50 damage taken, but only 30 life lost.

Which will leave the player at 70% life and still be able to do an Ultra attack. The player can also then use a "double ultra" at higher life then at the 0% border etc.

Following that Molten Giant has the same rule text.

What should happen in Hearthstone is that each time the player takes damage this is recorded and after taking 20 damage or more Molten Giant is free (the player can of course play it after losing 10 life for 10 and so on).

But how the game actually is, that if the player is healed they cant play out Molten Giant!!!

I even had games as Priest back before Warsong Commander was nerfed were I would heal my opponent warrior who was trying to lower their life to play Molten Giant.

 If the card text was followed exactly restoring life would not matter as it would be 20-3-3-5-6-3 =0 But as I was healing him it went like 20-3-3-5+2-6+2+2-3 = 6 so it still cost him 6 mana to play one and he could not to the Molten Giant one turn kill combo.
 If the card followed the text he would have been able to as he had taken 20 damage. So what the card should say is lack of health not damage taken.

 Given that this card is not very easy to spot.


I would suggest the card text change from

"Cost (1) less for each damage your hero has taken "

to

"Cost (1) less for each health your hero lacks "

Quality Maniac: Candy Crush Saga

OK so I have not played Candy Crush Saga for like 2-3 weeks so maybe this bug is fixed. I to god hope it is, because this bug is on every stage after stage 20+(around there). I have sent a bug report with images etc to King.com about it. I even mentioned it briefly last time I talked to the producer of Candy Crush Saga.


So I have played the start of the game a lot .... because I had this consulting design thing I did for a company(which I cant name) that simply wanted me to copy Candy Crush Saga and design a knockoff for them. Which is why I cant name what company :) Not that Candy Crush Saga in itself is super original but yeah that job felt a little weird.  Mainly because its so boring, when someone tells you watch X change 10% of X and create Y. Yeah that don't feel very worth your time.

Anyway so this bug is something I have seen a lot and its really annoying because its the fundamental help mechanic that is bugged. That is also the reason why I write this now even do it might have been fixed (I doubt it because its been live for a like a year), because it is so prominent if you think about it. This is something any developer should think about is my point.

SO what is the bug?

When the player waits for a while without doing a match(move) in the game. The game will indicate movable candies to create a 3 or sometimes a better combo.
 So this is a very important user friendly mechanic. And the problem is that it can give indication of tips that cannot be done, really bad bug.

In this image. The indication is that the player is supposed to move the orange candy to the right. If the player moves it one step to the left it would create a 3 match. This is true, but the player cannot move the bottom right as its stuck behind bars.
 Given that the game is not to hard but still this bug nullifying the games supposed user friendly mechanic in some situations. Because right now the player gets no help.

But ok, that image it was just a small hiccup one candy could not be moved.

Its not so easy to spot this bug in an image. And is also freaking hard taking an image of it as its only for a second. Its a little easier with the classic red marking:

Those 3 purple candies are flashing indicating that they should be moved.

When it act like this...OOOOOK the player cannot move a single of the proposed candies.

In the first example is a kinda annoying and overall bad that this has existed in the game for so long.
 But in the second example........... all the candies are stuck in bars so the game clearly take no consideration how the play-field is. I always thought it was obvious the hint help mechanic was bad from the start as it don't really say good matches. It does sometimes by random luck but it almost like it go for the worst(I am probably just experience a illogical fallacy but still).
 The game might give some almost possible matches, that would still be a bug and decently severe. But then the player can come to this kind of situations its truly something that should be fixed in the code(its clear its a code issue and nothing else, they need to add a conditional statement that checks if the candies can be moved or not, which is a little tricky as it can be that the 2 others can be moved and by that be moved into a stuck candy creating a match. I guess thats why they ignored to have a check from the start. So they need 2 checks actually 1 that check if a match can be made and then a second that checks if the specific proposed candy(so they have to find what candy is to be moved should have that when they search for matches) and if it cannot be moved search for another match instead)

Yeah the game really need to check the available of the candies and not just search for 3 candies close to each other. 

Quality Maniac: Hearthstone logical rule issue/inconsistencies part 2 Shadow Madness

Shadow Madness has an added effect on what it says on the card. This is actually both a rule issue because if I had played the game IRL like with freeze I would not play it like the game does. And its also inconsistence with other similar cards in the game.

I have actually had several friends ask me how it works, meaning does it add charges

In other card games for example Magic the gathering card who take control of cards and make them be able to attack right away will say that it gives them haste. Usually it says untap(so it can attack/block) and give it haste.

And yes yes, Hearthstone is not magic. But Priest do have 2 more take control over cards. Cabal Shadow Priest and Mind Control

So when a player take controls with Cabal Shadow Priest can they attack with the minion right away? Yes if its a Bluegill Warrior as it has Charge. Otherwise no, same with Mind Control

Here for example a Priest toke control of my King Krush and attack with it right away as it has Charge otherwise he could not have done that. (He also managed to kill himself doing it ;)

So Cabal nor Min Control has that they add charge.

However, Shadow Madness does add charge to the minion the player takes control of.

 Its not cut clean that it has to do that, sure it would be a pretty shitty card otherwise but given priest has a lot of bad cards would anyone be surprised? It woulds still has some use for e.g removing a taunt to win the game etc.

But yeah I am not debating that Shadow Madness works like it should but the text is incorrect.

And like I said in the start, really a lot of people has asked me how it works as most of them come from a magic the gathering background and then they would not expect it to give charge on the same time they are intelligent enough to assume that a 4 mana temporary control with no charge seems of.

Lastly

The card text is pretty long on Shadow Madness so one might argue and say how can they fit this added text. Well I compared my change to the card text on Void Terror card, will still have 5 more characters in its text even after my suggested change to Shadow Madness. As one can see on Void Terror they can just use smaller font.

Change from:

"Gain Control of an enemy minion with 3 or less Attack until end of turn"

to

Gain Control of an enemy minion with 3 or less Attack, it gains Charge until end of turn

Quality Maniac: Hearthstone logical rule issue, Freeze vs. Windfury

Ok so this is a tool tip bug. Because while it is not hard to get what is happening in the game based on the animations and so on.
 If I was to play Hearthstone for the first time IRL with cards. I would read the Freeze ruling and then the Frozen status on a character as it can't attack once, but what about windfury it gives 2 attacks?

Freeze says that Frozen character lose their next attack.

Windfury says can attack twice each turn.

If this 2 effects would be on the same character.
 That should result in the character having 1 attack.

1 -1 + 1 = 1.


This however is not how the game acts it out.
 So its another bad wording issue in Hearthstone

Freeze tool tip should be changed from:

Frozen characters lose their next attack

to

Frozen characters cannot attack


Cannot versus next implies a huge difference.

Quality Maniac: Hearthstone inconsistencies Part 3 Ice Barrier

You know what Mage card annoys me even more then Cone of Cold. Ice barrier. It is just horrible worded.

Every Mage secret, EVERY is worded the same except Ice Barrier.

(Yes I got like 9+ on all uncommon cards:)

Ice Barrier says "As soon as" All other card says When. Not just all the mages secret no all secrets says When except this card. Major Inconsistency.

For example:

One could argue for the urgency of ice barrier.

That it is important that it clearly says AS SOON so that the player wont think the enemy first deal damage and then they get 8 armor etc. As that would mean they wont survive a 2 attack at 1 life.

 So for example understanding the urgency of when Snipe trigger is not as urgent right.

But then there are cards like

Freezing Trap is as urgent effect like Ice barrier as it also means the player wont die at 1 life if attacked. Here it still says When not as soon as.

 Like I said its the same for all secret except just Ice Barrier, Explosive Trap is also as urgent and it says When and so on.

Lastly

Vaporize another Mage Secret. Also use when. This card has almost the exact same condition as Ice Barrier, Explosive trap actually has the exact same condition but I want to illustrate the inconstancy in just the mages cards.

Vaporize also has the same urgency like Ice Barrier as it will save the player from death if it destroys a minion that otherwise would kill the player.

Secret: As soon as your hero is attacked, gain 8 armor

change to

Secret: When your hero is attacked, gain 8 armor.

Quality Maniac: Hearthstone inconsistencies Part 2 Cone of Cold

This has started to really bug me. I have not actually thought about the wording on Cone of Cold. But after writing the part about Stealth. I went breifly went over the cards. And then I saw that Cone of Cold get some really wierd text compared to otehr cards and now when I have seen it. It litterly cannot be unseen each time I see someone play the card I am like ---- fix pls blizz.

 I used to have like 3 golden but I disenchanted them when Cone of cold got nerfed.

So what is the issue?

Its the lakc of proper word, it says and the minion next to it. This is so ugly. Espeically when other card used the term Adjacent.

So first of all there is a bunch of cards taht dont work exactly like Cone of Cold but they are still about card being "next to them" so they use the proper Adjacent term.

Ok so this a few cards that are about a minion in hte middle and using the term adjacent.

However, I can admit if this was the case that we could only compare to them writing next to might be ok.

But then there is this card:

Explosive shot works exactly like Cone of cold. The outcome is different in that it deals 2 damage were cone of cold deals only 1 damage to the adjacent ones and freeze them but mechanical wise this 2 cards clearly works the same.

"Freeze a minion and the minion next to it, and deal 1 damage to them"

I would change this to

Freeze a minion and its adjacent minions, and deal 1  to them.

Quality Maniac: Hearthstone inconsistencies Part 1 Ancestral Spirit

So there has been a lot of talk about this specific card right now on the Hearthstone Forum were I have participated.
 I was gonna write about a bug in Candy Crush Saga but I will go into this great card in HS instead(even do that Candy bug is so dam annoying).

There is a clear wording issue on the card of Ancestral Spirit, while the text of it describes Deathrattle it does not say Deatrattle on it. And when it is played the minion will gain Deathrattle.

So the card text on Ancestral Spirit clearly is a Deathrattle effect. But it does not say it on the card, this is the bug.

When used ingame the card will buff a minion and that minion will display Deathrattle both on the side like taunt here for Earth Elemental and it will display it in the bottom clearly indicating its a Deathrattle effect.

The major inconsistency comes when we compare Ancestral Spirit to Soul of the forest.

Which I don't have more then 9 but not a single on on gold, slightly embarrassing.

So in Soul of the Forest the card text clearly has Deathrattle.

Ancestral Spirit should be changed to have its card text changed to something like this:
Give a minion "Deathrattle: When destroyed return it to the battlefield"

Hopefully Blizzard can change this cards text especially now when its been going on the forum discussion about it.



This all being said. I would like to talk a little about my Shaman deck.

As you might know I pretty much never play Ranked but when I do. I play Shaman.
 And the deck I play is actually heavily focused on Ancestral Spirit and Far sight. That's right a freaking deck that runs 2 Far sights. This deck is actually great I got good win ratio I just dont play enough to go anywhere best I got I think si rank 6 with it and thats just playing a little on and off.

However, the deck is really expansive its composed of huge amount of Legendaries.
 Because that is what makes both those cards so great.

Ancestral spirit is a great trade value card if you only got fat guys.
 Throw it on a bad ass legendary get a new one when you trade it of. One of my favorite target is on The Beast so if anyone silence it to remove the Deathrattle they will also remove the 3.3 Finkle.

The card only cost 2 mana but usually ends up giving you another 6+ legendary or another fatso.

Even more so as the deck of course runs Faceless manipulator. Which means you can copy the card with Deathrattle on it.
 It also works great with Divine shield characters, like how the old Redemption worked.

This is me getting 2 Hogger by doubling Ancestral Spirit on Hogger.

But this is even more fun

Here I doubled Buffed an Argent Commander, then copied him with Faceless traded them both got 4 new Argent Commanders and played a fifth one from my hand.

Ancestral Spirit is great in expensive big guy deck. Especially with trade value cards like argent Commander and as it empowers trade, you get huge card advantage late game.

Ok so Far Sight, is actually a great card when you have a bunch of expensive cards.
 Sure you wont hit Ragnaros every time, but I actually always coin Far Sight at turn 2 if I can.

Bam, turn 3 Fire elemental, turn 3 argent commander turn 3 sylvanas or then turn 5 rag, turn 6 ysera and so on.
 Another great interaction with Farsight for Shaman is Frostworlf Warlord. The warlord is a great card as he so easily combos with cards like Totem, spirit wolf and Onyxia(which I play because of Bloodust) and Hogger(which I also play for bloodlust).
 Lastly, he is awesome with Farsight. If u get him cheaper its easy to for example turn 5 play spirit wolf and then play him.

 Another key with Farsight is to not have to many cheap cards and focus on good 3 cards like spirit wolfs/unbound elemental and neutral value cards like harvest golem so you can drop them right away if you far sight them. 

-Well this deck do have issues with super aggro deck unfortunately but it works great against mid and lte game control decks.

Taskmaster: How they should have designed it in Marvel Avengers Alliance

 


If anyone is wondering should you pay money for gold for Taskmaster the answer is no no hell no. Hes bad and hes a horrible made by playdom dont support their failure.

First of all Taskmaster comic powers has alreayd been used.. for 3 characters which has always been such an obvious fail.

mocking bird - bad idea here they just stole Taskmaster power set for her people already back then said well what will happen to taskmaster when he is finl in the game?
 Playdom did this so blatantly not suiting her comic self at all. They just wanted a cool looking first Generalist as she was the first new cahracter in the game ever. Clearly they dropped the ball in more then 1 way here.

Punisher should have been blaster or tactician not all 5 at all. Hes again another try for a "COOOOL" Generalist, hes a really bad character and when eh was first implemented he was so, so, so slow to use as you had to press 5 times to swap trough classes, see all the animation etc. And almost all of his moves are horrible, he is a classic 20 bad moves instead of 4 good moves.


If there is any character that should be able to change class at will its Taskmaster. I am truly insulted by Playdoms lack of skill in coherent design to the comics.
 WTF Taskmaster only change class after being attacked by an enemy such utter bullshit. His whole power is that he has memorized expert fighters and weaponry way before you fight him.
 Sure he will copy you to during the fight but, why would he run around with a sheild, a bow, a sword etc. If he cant use that memory.
 Of course he should at any time be able to fight like Captain America - ergo as a tactician. there should be no need for him to be attack in this specific battle.

However, he should have a passive were he can analyze attacks of course coming to that.

Then...to make it even worse it could not have stopped with Mockingbird and Punisher. Playdom had to add in Moon knight,.
 Not only is Moon knight one of the absolute utterly useless in PvP (he is one of the worst characters in the game by far). But hes abilities are as you can guess by now also more suited for Taskmaster!

His design also makes no fucking sense. He is supposed to be insane and have multi personalities etc. But he never believed he was a bunch of other super heroes or emulated their abilities.

On the other hand there is one guy in Marvel who has always pretty much emulated a bunch of super heroes and acted exactly like them (physically wise) Taskmaster.......
 Taskmasters thing has always been that he turns into Captain America when he uses his sheild, then turns into Hawkeye when he uses is bow etc. This is why is so dam strong in the comics(on a "normal sane level" then of course there are a bunch of reality god uber characters in Marvel universe).
 Because he can instantly swap between these masteries, the thing with copycatting like he does is that its reasonable to say he also emulates their personalties to further make the move works much much more then something Moon knight has ever done.


So in all its really sad, first Mockingbird base powers - Taskmaster
Become chosen class for Punisher - Taskmaster
Emulate other characters like Moon knight - Taskmaster


One can really say that Playdom shoot themself in the foot for ever having Taskmaster playable after all this.
 However, they could still copy most of what the others have and create him. I mean really normally thats a really lazy way out of things and is also what they usually do. But for once it would make perfect sense if they just copied a bunch of moves and passives and give it to him. Instead they have dome something half hearth to me its atrocious

I am gonna state this and this is gonna sound way arrogant(or some other bad adjective) but seriously, the persons who designed him should be ashamed of themself. A character which so much potential to come up with cool passives while reusing other characters in a good way end up like a bad mockingbird and a bad/good Moon knight.

Just look at poor Taskmaster, he don't turn into the counter class like Mockingbird which makes some sense in a way but not when he lacks other defence passives. One of His major strength is not to simply copy but it understand and therefor avoid enemies next attack.
 So if a tactician attacks him he should in fact become both Tactician and Infiltrator its a little like that. But I would say its better to make him tactician + a defence against that specific character.

I know Taskmaster is not a super famous marvel character. A good comparison to him is Sharingan and the ninjas who uses that in Naruto. If you see a move once and perfectly mimics it right away its gonna be really hard to get hit by it.

What we get instead is a character who just like Moon knight got an shitty uncontrollable class swap, he don't have the initiative class swap like Mockingbird so the player can never control it just pure luck nor does he have the swap to any class like Punisher. This leaves him at a horrible weak state as with Moon knight,

Furthermore he got the typical, a lot of half ass moves instead of a few good moves. He got a ton of moves but none of them pack a punch. Which is just simply a stupid mistake on their part. He got a lot of moves with little value overall and then eh don't have any ultimate just a class gain+ so he deals almost no damage.

Hes boring and hes weak truly a completely atrocious design. In the end only way hes gonna be good ever is if they release E-iso that grant him serious good passives + give him some kind of actual high attack damage move(s).


All that being said, I wanted to have this as a Quality Maniac. But I dont do that. Especially not on as I want those articles to be factual bugs. Not Design as a Design can be good and less good, but as this design of Taskmaster is so extremely not good I would say it is still an underlaying Quality issue and  this but its actually for me mainly a revenue issue. Do they not want money?  Playdom make a character weak and bad? Hope people pay anyway, well they just did 3 warrior no one gives a dam about so.....


 Note I spend like 2-3 hour top coming up with this, sure I have thought about Taskmaster before and I have played him a lot in Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 but still really is it so hard doing a good design when you are getting paid for it. Best part I think is that my design would make him a lot better character, almost to the degree of obvious power creeping. Well, that is actually the point if I worked at Playdom. My goal would be to power creep to get people o invest money for gold to get Taskmaster. Just making a weak lockbox hero is fail on several accounts. Just like when I talked about Iceman how his suit was not 100% better that is one dam revenue stream mistake.

I don't think I have actually really done this before, I have noted and said well this ability should been like this to be more in tune with the comic sometimes or this character does not fit their comic self etc. But yeah time to school Playdom in how it should been done.






TASKMASTER CHARACTER DESIGN How it should have been:

Stats: Balanced 3 in all. This is the only thing they managed to right.


Passive:

I see right through you.
 Taskmaster preemptively change to the counter class of an attacker.

So for example if Captain America(tact suit) attacks Taskmaster. Tasky would become an infiltrator and then counter the attack(with his specific infiltrator counter).
 If a Blaster attack him he would turn into a Tactician and gain a turn and so on.
 This will also count for AoE attacks.

Memorized.
Taskmaster takes 20% reduced damage from the same attack again for 3 turns. This ability stacks.

After Taskmaster has been attacked by an enemy. Regardless if the attack hits or not he gains a buff that cannot be removed and can stack up to 3 times, the buff last for 3 turns. The buff is that if the same attack hits him again he will take 20%/40%/etc less damage. This means he will gain a specific Memorized buff per attack done to him.  He can have several buffs from this on the same time

You are so Predictable
Taskmaster has 20% chance to evade any attack except Psychic attacks

Character emulate
Taskmaster can also change his class like with Punisher by scrolling over his recharge button the player can at his turn change to another class from any class. However, I would call this change character/personality something in that order, like become Captain America which then is to become a Tactician + Caps skill set.



Generalist Skill set:

Taskmaster starts as a Generalist and the player can change back to it when its their turn with him if they would like to.

Perfect Slash

High damage attack
Primary attack - used for counter and follow up.

Bullseye

Taskmaster throws small debris distracting his enemies.
 
All enemies ranged physical

Quick Action

Distraction ( 50% to miss next attack)
50% chance to hit
No damage
3 Turns Cooldown.

I saw that
Taskmaster can use the latest attack used in the battle, includes both ally or enemy. Taskmaster cannot copy magical, tech or psychic attacks

Quick action

3 Turns Cooldown after using the ability(the player can use I saw that and store the ability) Reverts back to I saw that after used once

Example: If enemy  Agent Venom used Go Long the turn before Taskmaster. The player can now use I saw that which will turn into Go Long which they can then use.

Nothing Personal

Taskmaster kills target ally.

Taskmaster is healed to 100% life and remove all debuffs on him. 



The 5 classes:

The way Taskmaster incorporates a Class is that he should emulate 1 or more other game characters with a little twist. For example Infiltrator as Spider-man but he cant have Spider-man's reflexes so here he should have an assassin move. I would give him his trusted snipe ability as he has copied expert marksman abilities from others most notorious copy is from Cloud 9. Because that also suits the infiltrator class while making him not have Spider-man's 2 unique synergies, super high evasion + AoE tank(...if we ignore Nightcrawler, well Taskmaster basically gets the Spider-man offensive traits and has his own passive instead).

Sidenote: I would also first buff Spider-man thats why Web Swing will look better for Taskmaster here but its because Spider-man is underpowered. I will pimp up some other moves as well. And yes in all cases this is an indication of underpowered character ability.


Infiltrator: Emulating Spider-man and Cloud 9

Web Shot

Webbed: Reduce targets Attack and Defence
Primary attack - used for counter and follow up.

Snipe

Stealth
 High Critical, Deadly Critical.
No Cooldown.

Web Shield
Taskmaster protects his team with a web sheild

25% Max Hp based shield. Attackers becomes Webbed.

3 Turn cooldown

Web Swing

Stun 60% chance
 Winded(cant follow up on attacks)
 Off-balance(cant counter)

Tactician: Emulating Captain America, Black Knight and Swordsman

Shield Bash

Dizzy (25% reduce accuracy)
Weakened (25% reduced attack power)


Shield of Night

Hemorrhaging Attack(triggers bleeds)

Weak Point(next attack critical and cant miss the target)
Primary attack - used for counter and follow up.

Shield Throw

Stealth


Lock-on (Target take increased damage from ranged attacks)

Dance of Blades
Using his sword Taskmaster uses deadly accuracy to weaken and bleed all enemies.

All enemies. Physical melee

Bleed x 2
Exhausted (Cant gain extra turns)
2 turn cooldown


Blaster: Emulating Hawkeye Domino and - Punisher if he had been like he should be

Trick Shot

One enemy
Guaranteed Hit ( cannot miss)
True Strike (ignore avoidance effects)
Cornered (Target cannot protect anymore)
Primary attack - used for counter and follow up. 

Bullet Rain

All enemies ranged physical attack.
10 Hits

Just a high damage all enemy attack no buffs/debuffs.

Around the world

Pressure point all enemies (chance to cause dizzy/weakened/slowed/exposed)
Rising up chance to buff team with agile/strengthened/focused/fortified

Pinpoint Target


Quick Action
Subtle

Single target against target cant miss and will critical


(I want Taskmaster to be able to do this and then swap to infiltrator for a sure deadly critical with snipe, because that is how he is in the comics using one hero and then another hero for combos)


Bruiser: Emulating Iron Fist, Shang-Chi, Captain America(and other shield guys--- he kinda need to copy those guys twice).

Shield Bash
Primary attack - used for counter and follow up.

Breaker

Self buff
Taskmaster intercepts follow up and counter attacks for 2 turns canceling the enemies move and damaging them
Enemies affected gains the debuff disoriented(50% chance to attack allies)

3 Turn Cooldown

Shield Block

Quick Action

Taskmaster gains 20% chance to block attacks reducing damage taking for 2 turns

Focused Mind

Taskmaster gains agile/strengthened/focused/fortified and restore 30% max life

3 Turn Cooldown

In it for the Money
Taskmaster retreats for the time being.

Taskmaster leaves the combat and returns 2 turns later.

5 Turn Cooldown


Scrapper: Emulating Daredevil, Elektra and Wolverine/X-23

Billy Club

Internal Bleeding (bleeding which cannot be removed)
Pressure points(chance to cause dizzy/weakened/slowed/exposed)
Primary attack - used for counter and follow up.

Ancient Art

Flanked (target is attacked with a follow up attack)
Wide-open (take additional damage from melee attacks)
Internal Bleeding (bleeding which cannot be removed)

Snikt

Ignore defence

Ravaged (Double damage from bleeding)
Internal Bleeding x2 (mainly because its a bug with bleeding and internal bleeding...)

Brutal Combo

Taskmaster Emulate several characters while increasing his speed beyond human limits, causing damage to himself.

Taskmaster loses 40% max life - He can die after this is used.
Taskmaster loses next turn

30 hits
unarmed melee attack

Catastrophic (cannot be protected or avoided ,cannot miss) 
Stealthy(does not trigger counter attacks)
Fatal Blow (Kills target if they have 30% or less life after damage)
Ignore Defence
Deadly Crits
Paragon exploit
Exploit Bleed


4 Turns Cooldown



Bam - Now Playdom copy this and make a good character for a change.

Quality Maniac: Marvel Avengers Alliance Part 4 Emma Frost

I have had some extreme headache today otherwise I was actually gonna write about Candy Crush Saga today.

So here instead is a fast Major quality issue with Marvel Avengers Alliance.

This bug concerns the queen of Pvp Emma Frost so its kinda interesting because if anyone needs a nerf its her.
 And this absolutely makes her a lot worse.

But it also again shows that Playdom never once play their own games.

Her third ability now literally does nothing.Quick Action? And then? Well it do cost you stamina.

What I can see is that they have somehow moved the code from the third ability to her first.

Her third move used to energize, it also should be a buff to an ally. Now instead her first attack is buffing that enemy and it does not give them the mental anguish debuff.
 So this is like one of the worst attacks in the game now, buff an enemy do super low damage give the team stamina which never matters anyway in PvP.

Yeah this clearly is not the nerf they were supposed to do.

However :) She is still actually uber powerful in attack just spam her ultimate and its still a win. But clearly using her in AI defense seems like a suicide the AI will just waste stamina using the third as it does nothing and buffing opponents.

Well then a bug that affects the strongest character in the game, wonder how fast they can fix this bug.

Quality Maniac: Marvel Avengers Alliance part 3 Venom

Venom is a little sad in Marvel Avengers Alliance he always get placed in the weirdest places and it always makes no sense.

I have touched on this before like how much I hate it was the Mac Gargan Venom over Flash Venom when they had taken the story from Agent Venom comics for the special operation 4.

But evne more so they should have used Eddie Brook before Mac Gargan.

This time they placed Venom as an epic boss in the new Wakanda stage(2.4.6). Which makes no fucking sense again.

Has Venom ever been to Wakanda? Maybe on some thunderbolt mission but his relation Man-Ape and the white gorilla cult does not exist nor is there any explain for it in the game they just randomly took him it seems.

What bugs me even more is, think about it, who would have made sense for a Wakanda epic boss.

Klaw of course

And what I mean is not only that it should have been Klaw, but when I think about what Klaw's power is. SOUND.

How is is background story, oh yeah harnessed sound from vibranium mound that is in Wakanda.

Not only does it make no sense story-wise for Venom to be in this mission, this is also the place on Earth were he is the most vulnerable. Wakanda with their vibranium based weapon and an abundance of vibranium in the landscape.

Ok that just the fundamental issue of having him there.


TO warrant it to be a single Quality Maniac there is of course also a technical issue,

 First of all we have recruited Venom so how can it be a Venom boss again. Yes the player can go back and face for example Magneto even after he was recruited but there has never been a new Magneto boss battle since we got him as that would make no sense.

Likewise if we have Flash with the Venom symbiote, Mag Gargan cant coexist with it(yes this is ignoring its an alternative reality Venom, but then why good dam is it Mag Gargan again then it would likelier be either Peter Parker or Eddie Brock, also this is not said in the story so its jut a bad mistake)

EVEN WORSE  is this:

Its possible to play Agent Venom on the stage and even fight Venom with Venom.....

Its one thing that they lazy out on the story, that can be addressed as just lack of ideas/budget.

But this is I would call is more that someone forget to flag a character. There are other stages where the player cannot take with all characters for example as mentioned a stage were Magneto is the boss like 4.4.
 So that the Player can fight Venom with Venom(yes they are different guys behind the symbiote but,,,) seems like just a major hiccup.

 And this is such a typical Playdom thing to. So quite annoying.



Also

I found a bug which is probably for every score battle

 

It clearly says "Defeat Venom with a Score over 45000". My score was 45000 not over it.

over 1 does not mean 1 but X>1

Another epic fail in basic math it seems.

The text can of course be changed to "Defeat Venom with a Score of 45000 or higher"

So yeah this bug is probably in every dam chapter for each Score based quest.