Quality Maniac: Final Fantasy 15 Costlemark Tower Teleporting Bug to the last boss

So apparently this place got a lot of random glitches, after having done the dungeon the HARD way, doing at like 20 levels lower then one should be I finally had killed each extra boss to clear it and got teleported to the boss by using regroup with Ignis, but it was no boss there...

I managed later to actually face the boss and even get the sword, I read afterwards that a lot of people do not even get the sword doing the dungeon with no bug or glitch before coming to the boss.

Unfortunately I pulled my power cord while moving over to my PC,,,,,,,,because there is no way in hell I am redoing this dungeon again when this thing can happen + a lot of other bugs when its such a dam hard place to fight in. Gotta have to be super over leveled before one gets here if one has to redo it. Which is sad I really wanted to have this weapon before I met Inis, most people seems to have beaten the game lol before getting this sword as the last possible sacred sword, so would be really cool to have it before doing the level 10 story quest :)

Bah, might go back there but I will go Berserk if the dungeon glitches again.

Starting a Retro Japanese RPG series.

Hi, Everyone I am gonna start doing some videos about some good old JRPGs, waiting in for Final Fantasy 15 really got my brain surging on all of my years of experience of RPGs and especially JRGPs.
 I wrote my master thesis about rpgs (which you cant find on my portfolio website) published papers on it, I worked as a game designer at Nectar Studios where we of course developed a RPG and so on. I am playing Pokemon Moon (always bought the dark color) while writing this. Anyway I have dedicted a lot of my life for my love of RPGS.

 RPGs are so good as it can both be an amazing story far superior to books or w.e if you ask me, while they can also really challenge you on an intellectual level and really reward you on a emotionell level.

I want to simple talk about some of the games I think everyone should play in this genre, if 1 person get this game and experience the joy the bring I am happy:)

Here are my first 2 videos in this series, the first one just covers some of my thought about single player games future, I had a similar ideas when it comes to save/checkpoints in my action game research back in 2010, I dont mention that in the video but its actually something I been analysering and observing for quite some time.

The second video is my start of talking about games that I think people have missed and should check out, in this case Soul Nomad and the World Eaters

Quality Maniac:Civilization VI Part 2: AI

So as I mentioned in my last article I have found huge numer of bugs in Civ 6, but the game is still really, really addictive so I don't feel I have time to talk about them:)

The game is really, the way the map now works with units having "half movement" or w.e you wanna call it (which is that they have to pay more movement to cross rivers/enter forest/jungle) makes the strategic element more interesting, supports units is a great addition to the war.

The district parts are amazing, it just gives the game so much more depth, I can easily sit 10+ min per city just to decide where to place my districts. Usually I plan out all of them but its often built around the first one so if e.g campus is to the left of a mountain the industrial zone likely will be next to this campus etc. This very far planing is really fun and really rewarding, you sat up your next city close just to get al the districts close to each other, or do you go far away to get an extra luxury etc. Japan is a big favorite of mine as I love build everything condensed. The only real gameplay problem (Except the bugs) is how it does not feel balanced at all, military civ in general feels way stronger even on higher difficultly its quite easy to demolish 1 close civ + take a 1 or more city states with any early military civ such as Sumerian, Scythia or Aztec. Several Civ feels very meh on their abilities. I am probably gonna write/do a video about how I feel each civ plays.


Anyway now I have to again talk about the AI. I want to try and skip to go over the general AI issues as much as possible as its so obvious but after playing a recent game its behavior yet again surprised me how bad it is.


 There is a general issue in how the AI is very binary, e.g have a religion. Meet Kongo, he will instantly hate you if you dont give him your religion, when this was first talked about it sounder interesting and great but its just no depth to it.

So if you are on the other side of the world he will complain, already this is annoying as you just met him and its like 100+ tiles to him....so yeah thanks for never trading with me.

But I actually found it even more annoying and how evidently binary it is when you found a religion.
 I was playing a game as Tomyris(Scythia) and I have meet everyone on my continent which included Kongo, which was on the far eastern coast while I was on the west coast. I build Stonehenge and am the first to found a religion. BAM instantly hated for the rest of the game by Kongo. This is frankly just stupid, the very next turn after I founded my religion he hated me. There i literally 0% chance for the player to give anyone even the closest civ the religion the turn they found it let alone the civ which is the furthest away.

The AI needs to have way more len way in how it reacts, it took me like 200 turns to give him my religion, could I have speed that up, yes probably could give him it in under 50 or so, but that is still very long time for him to refuse to have any trade with me etc. And after I gave it to him he still was on bad terms so...

 This is the basic issue of the Civs, build 1 wonder and China Qin hates you. Have 1 city ally and Germany Barbarosa hates you and so on.
 It should be more like, have 3-4 city allies depending on map and number of city states he and you are close to and depending if he aims to conquer them, not just a very strict border. Well even if it was just a border that needs to be set way higher, as in Kongos case he cannot instantly hate anyone with a religion should give them at least the number of turns  to walk between your capitals or something similar.


But I think most are aware of this, now what really pissed me of was this:

This image clearly dont say much without context

So what happened here is that I was on very friendly terms with Tomyris, we where not just friends but even allied.

Already at this stage of declared friend the AI is really stupid, it still will refuse fair trade deals like I talked about in my article before this, which just makes no sense, now Alliance is the next step higher, the highest step in the game of cooperation between 2 Civs.

Here the AI still acts like they hate you...whatever one can just guess that issue will remain.

But this image is after Joint War so Tomyris has asked me, Yes SHE asked me. If I wanted to join in  war versus Peter of Russia. Please note again that SHE wanted this and asked me even payed for me to join her war with gold and luxuries.
 Clearly then this next action of her makes zero sense. I was really pissed of at this, the thing is that its hard to even get some deals with the AI and as we where were close friends the whole game and she was in lead tied with we had a lot of deals back and forth. Now after I attacked Russia with her...for her she is angry at me is just wtf.
 This is truly brain dead. So I just my ally for the last 2000 years because I did what she wanted. Its one thing that the other Civs got pissed at me and her for being warmongers, as we allied to attack 1 other civ but she should be even more happy with me.

This would be a horrible AI actions from any civ. BUT, its also important to note that this is Tomyris, which is why I was even more shocked when this happened. They all have their basic personality + 1 random e.g she was this game into people with high science, so she liked me from that as I was aiming for very science at start. That trait is sometimes a little less binary then their primary one but also much static like their base persona.
 And her basic trait is that she is very, very loyal. As we had declared friendship a few times than later having 2 alliance and then during the second alliance I followed her into war. She really should be extremely binary in favour of me as we have had super, really super loyal friendship.

But no apparently warmongering trumps their otherwise strict binary personality. SO really how are you supposed to figure out how to please them. I get that other AI civ will hate me regardless becasue of warmongering (note that I never even conquered a single city this game, they all including her instantly hated me the next turn after I joint her war), but as I joined her she should have 0 hate towards me war and in actually I should get massive bonus in our relationship both from simply joining her, from having a new deal with her(Joint war + luxury trading etc) and lastly a major bonus as its specifically with Tomyris.
 If this was another grand strategy game I would expect a marriage proposal after joining her war, here instead she completely flipped flopped on our extremely long loyal relationship which every AI should like you for but Tomyris should extremely like you for this. I never built any citys next to her etc always did what she wanted,  which is the one reason I joined this war to please her and she just instantly hated me for it the next turn and then permanently for the rest of the game.

This was the most irrational illogical decision I have seen in Civ 6 so far and that says a lot becasue the AI does a lot of crazy stuff all the time. The last thing one should not forget here too is that this was also in no way beneficial for her. Pretty much no other civ in the game liked me or her even before this war so after it they all hated us, so they wont trade with her, while I got like 5-6 luxuries that I can trade for her 4-5 abundance of luxuries, the effect is that we both just lose a lot of amenity (happiness). Its simply illogical on all fronts and it goes extremely against her persona. IF Ghandi did it or something it would at least makes kinda sense that he hates you because he got bribe you into a war or something. But She is for the first obsessed with loyalty, secondly she is a warmonger and does not normally become angry for this until you take a lot of cities, thirdly, she was the beneficiary of me going to war as I just helped her troops and sank Russian units, fourth she than had a huge abundance of resources that no one wanted to accept from her and she refused to trade to me...

The 3-4 I can kinda ignore as just bad AI overall. But 1-2 really, really annoys me as that as I said several times goes against her core personality. So yeah please fix.. I have no idea how the AI is gonna act after 120 hours of game time.

Quality Maniac:Civilization VI

So I have been a Civilization fan for years, I even played Civ 1, got 1000 hours logged for 5. I have already played Civ 6 for over 100 hours and yeah.....

its the most bugged Civilization game so far. The most obvious issue is that the AI is crazy bad when it comes to doing fair trades, but I wont go into that because I feel its so obvious that I think everyone knows about it right away.


I will say 2 things about it, first of all, it makes no sense that the AI is so against fair trades when they are even allied with you, e.g Tea for Diamonds, but are luxuries with no extra benefit, its understandable if the specific AI hate you for some reason that they dont want a fair trade but when you are good friends,,,why is it not fair to do X for X type of deals.

Secondly, why cannot it find an even gold deal. Its really weird how it works right now, so for example let say that I have the special amenity resource Jeans, from a great person. And I want to trade it away, I ask for 100 gold they refuse, here then in the other games I could say, well what is fair than, and the AI would say like 55 gold or something.

 But in the 6th game, they say like FUUU Give me Jeans + 300 gold. Is really just wtf moment, why would I ever give them gold to take my luxury. Here the AI should just determine from different factors, such as friendship, size of country, how much they need the amenity etc. And then say well I could pay X value, which is 25 less then your Y value is that fair.
 Instead they just go completely high wire on some weird pricing, The thing is that if you keep asking for a new price by lowering some increment each time, you will find this value. So if you first ask for 100 where they actually can give up to 355, you have to sit there and try and find the value. E.g I first ask for 500, they refuse, then I ask for 300, that is fine, then I ask for 400, they refuse, etc until I can find the actual value. So there is a determined value they have the AI just cannot find it them self.

 I think most are well aware of the trade issues so I will go into some random bugs I have found so far, I just want to note again that the weird part with the trade is that they do have a Cap price just like in 5th game, they clearly calculate it by a lot of hidden factors however they just cannot find automatically tell you the price.

Here¨s(I am sitting on a Japanese keyboard and cannot find the apostrophe button lol) a simple UI bug, these are usually my kind of favoritte bugs to find in a game as how just simplicity it is. The bug here is that the pop up text when hovering over Theocracy is clearly in ALL CAPS. No other text for government systems are displayed like that. ( I checked all)
 The charm with this kind of issue is that its clearly a bug, no discussion needed.

Because a lot of other times you run into this wired issues, or states where you are like, maaaaybe this is intentional and you have to go and talk to a producer etc to actually figure out what the intentional behavior of the game should be. My favorite bugs are those that are super complicated to actually find and they crash the game or like remove the games memory file or something so even if they are hard to trigger if anyone ever would they would not be happy, so even if its an edge case it has to be fixed. But my second fav is these kind of super simple, well this is a bug, bam done.

For example compare it to this

Me and a friend discovered  that you can play as the same civilization and even the same leader, see I would not mind if you can play Gorgo and Pericles, they both ruled 2 different city states in Greece so they could share the basic civilization abilities from a shared culture etc but have different leader aspects, which is of course what they currently have but I mean that they are in the same game actually is not wrong, its actually kind of interesting.
 However, the game does not seem to randomize that by itself, which I actually think is a mistake I think it should be able to random leader picks for player or the AI of different leaders like that, where its a clear shared culture of a civilization both different places of the leader. Now only Greece have 2 leaders, but if we had e.g Washington and Roosevelt that would feel weird to have 2 american empire civilization when it feels like they are clearly on the same team.

See I could not figure out if this was a real bug or not until I found that the game actually have an achievement that requires you to play with a the same leader as you are and win with a cultural victory.
 So it has to be international to be able to play as 2 of the same leader, but then I would argue that its a bug that the game cannot randomize both Gorgo and Pericles for a game, well maybe it can I have just not seen it but I have seen all other 2x combos of leaders. (I am checking the game settings when writing this feels like it should be an option for that but I cannot find it). You can set this up manually which I found really boring, yeah I would say that is a bug.

As a last point for this double leadership questions I would like to point this out which I just think makes no sense:

You can play all leaders as the same person,,,they just feels so wrong, ok its more balanced if everyone can play the same leader and civilization but Civ really is not about min/max balancing the different leaders. Of course you want each leader to be equally good, but each leader has their own way to win, the game has several different clear wining conditions etc. So a game with everyone being the same leader just means everyone is likely trying the exact same wining strategy which is very boring and actually kinda makes it the game extremely imbalanced, becasue for example here with Cleopatra is a good wonder builder. And tries to get a lot of wonders, well if everyone has the exact same bonus to build wonders, the game actually becomes luck based, having the best start position or general good city placements for the first few cities will make 1-2 Cleopatras beat the other ones each time  for the same wonder, so this would just end up having a few number them doing the actual game plan for her leader prioritizing and the rest trying to make war or something and not playing into the abilities.
 Basically I don¨t it makes much sense, seems like the only value is to play all as the same war based nation and just fight, still then start position would make a few of clearly be stronger and it would be to much luck based, well it the end some massive collection of the same leader could be a fun game to test to play, but it really feels like something I would do once and never again :)

Quality Maniac: World of Warcraft Legion App - Research Notification Spam Bug

I am so happy to get the Legion app, I mean honto no happy.

Its extremely convenient, in WoD I used to log in on my computer before going to work, so I could send followers / get followers back, pick up work orders etc. Queuing up new ones and so on.

This was quite tedious to always have to start the whole computer just for this, I play a lot of other games with similar retention design, for example Marvel Avengers Alliance (well until it closes down this month :() while MAA got the same kind of daily routine (just simpler) its a flash game. I can easily go into that for 1 minute once an hour kinda where ever as it runs on laptop etc. And of course it takes just a few second to start on an a good computer.

SO this Legion app is amazing, you can just use it while going to work, or quickly look at it for 1-2 mins every 2-4 hour and so on. Very, very efficient. Its actually kinda funny how its also makes the dam garrison/class gall be shit in comparison. I mean so much easier to use the app as you don¨'t have to walk in between the locations at the class hall is simpler to just always use the app.

However, it is kinda clunky on its UX at times and it cannot be used while logged to the game, which I see as a HUGE, really Huge drawback.


Anyway, the bug I have is really annoying, it happens to me pretty much every time I use the app, as long as I end using it on a character who have research going.

This is 100% Repro on my iphone 6s, 9.3.5

The steps are easy:

1. Research any class hall skill on character A
2. Minimize the app while being on character A
3. Observe that the app sends the notification of research being finished, this is also with a phone vibration.
4. Go to the phones main hub.
5. Observe that there is a red 1 notification - indicating something is done in the app, while it is not.

Basically every time I minimize the app to use another app and this is something I do with most apps. I will minimize them go to e.g turn on music and go back to it, or maybe I am playing a Hearthstone game while also doing legion class stuff so I go back and forth between these 2 apps to see if its my turn in HS.
 And every time I do this, I get the app sending me an notification and I want to say its noteworthy that it does it with vibration to so I can spam vibrate my phone.

This also gives me the standard red 1 that something is finished/returned in the app.
 If I minimize on e.g my shaman who has no research currently I get no notification when minimizing nor any red icon, so I can actually control if I want a fake notification to be in the main hub or not.

Minimize to closing will also trigger it e.g

So its brothers in Arms for my Death Knight.

Here its the actual time left:

Here I have managed to even get the notification while it clearly shows in the app that is not finished:

Here I have a notification icon but entering the app shows me that nothing is actually finished. 

(Edited out apps for ndas-_- NDA is actually topic I planned to do a video about for ages, as most people never read their dam contracts)

You can of course push it to the whole notification notice (and no I wish sliding it here would make it be instantly finished, would be a nice abuse)

I love this app but this thing is really starting to annoy me, now it feels like I can never trust if something is actually finished or not as it I know that I can manipulate If I leave a notification icon on the app or not. 

Marvel Avengers Alliance is closing down !!!

Wow here I am sitting and thinking about a recap for the latest pvp season which I guess now also is the last, it was filled with Faiza Hussiens and Cloak/Dagger. And suddenly I get the message that the game is closing down. - http://help.disney.com/en_US/Marvel

Wow I really did not expect this, I get that some of their games, most noticeable Marvel Avengers Tactics sucked incredible much and they canceled it, but MAA?

Classic Marvel Avengers Alliance has been their golden cow for a long time to my information, I am not surprised at all that they would close of the second (which is more like the third version) and the mobile platform.

Back a few years I was actually writing on a piece on why Tactics would be cancelled as it had so, many,many faults, TRPGs are one of my specialties so I was working on this long article about it and before I finished lol the game was canceled, I think that game was only up for like 2 weeks...

 So that game was just utter crap.


Than the Mobile game, why this is failing is obvious, they want you to start a new account. I can see that they would like you to pay twice the amount but not many people are gonna do this, it would likely give them more revenue if the mobile was just an extension of your FB account, MAA is definitely a game I could sit and play on the buss, doing some pvp fights, getting a boss etc. But no fucking way I will do it with a fresh new account when I already had like 100+ characters when the mobile version was released. Forcing the mobile to be a new account doomed it from the start.
 So instead of increasing their revenue from established users, they probably only got a very few of big whale spenders to buy in both, then I guess got a few new users, same account would likely instead have increased their revenue from a lot of established users, while probably getting no new users(more or less) and while they would not increase their total user I think that would be way better for them.

And of course it not just about money, the established users, would also be happy. I would be happy being able to play it on the move every now and than. Bad decision in both ways, make the established users angry and did not even go for the best money option.


That game is canceled no wonder.


Marvel Avengers Alliance 2, well mobile again, weird faults like tactics, so not actually supporting old users, not having actual good gameplay. Yeah insta death.


But yeah, I did think that MAA was save from being closed, so this really come as a shock. I had personal planned to record videos again following up on my character reviews but I probably will not spend my time doing that now.
 This definitely feels sad, Marvel Avengers Alliance has been a great JRPG type of game with some decent PvP gameplay and of course a lot of cool Marvel characters to play with, the game has used a great variation of characters from the marvel universe which really has been very fun to play with. Already from the start they had characters like jack o lantern etc.


Overall the game has been one of the most advanced Facebook games if not the most, so that is tragic as well that its ending.

For me I guess I will start writing/recording other games more like Hearthstone.

Thanks to all my readers and fans over the years.

Best Regards
/Myrmonden

Pokemon Go truly is the worst balanced game ever

The pokemon blue/green/red where better balanced then GO is. And they are over 20 years old and yet they manage to just make this worse then them, HOW. They could have just done the exact same thing and it would been 10x better,
 Just look at Flareon, Vaperon and Jolteon. Why is Vaperon so much stronger? Why can it beat the its weakness to lighting easily. The game is just so bad.

Pokemon GO: Explaining IV values, why some Pokemons are better then others. And what Pokemon to Evolve.

Here's a quick text that I hope will explain the different strength level of the same pokemon, I wrote this originally for my Mom, so I hope its easy to understand. 

So here we see a bunch of Eevees I caught last week, I have marked each one with good IV stats as favorite. 

Marking good IV stats pokemon as Favorite is something I would definitely recommend it has helped a lot for me to save time when I want to mass evolve(during a lucky egg) and so on. It also will help later on when trading comes as for example that 419 Eevee has amazing stats, but I already have a lot of Vapereon (and 1 Jolteon) that I want to spend Eevee Candy on, so I wont likely level it up any time soon. But I still noted it as my assumption is that people are not just gonna trade to get all pokemons but to get those specific high stats ones. 

Because its not all about where the pokemon is on the CP scale bar.

For example here are 2 images comparing my 580 with my 572

The 580 would appear to be stronger, as its 8 higher then 572 but if we now look at the 572.

Its CP bar is actually a bit further away form max, this can also been seen at the cost for "power up".

Power up the 572 CP one cost 2500 stardust while the 580 cost 3000, this means the 580 is at least 1 level higher. 

The 572 also has higher Health Points. 

What this means is that the second here is way better to evolve, it got quite the better stats actually, its power upped it will gain something like 20-30 more cp and 1-2 hp, this will put it at roughly 20 more cp and 6+ more HP. Of course this also scales later for a Vaporeon,or other eeveelutions, but Vaporeon got the best stats, so the effect of good IV create a bigger difference. If they would both be evolved (staying at this CP Curve stat) the second Eevee here can have more then 100CP, mainly becasue of Vaporeons insane base stats, then investing Stardust in them and getting them to max Level they will end up having several hundred difference in CP. On this level(20) when I took these images, a top pristine Vaporeon will have almost 300 more cp then a the weakest ones. 

Please note that this 580 one, does not have terrible stats, so the difference is not a clear as it could be. 

In this case its quite easy to spot with your eyes right away that the 572 is clearly stronger, otherwise there are several different IV calculators out there that can be used to determine a Pokemons value. 

 My main point is that just a quick glance can help you in avoiding evolving weak IV Pokemons. 

 My  recommendation is to save your Candy at higher levels (15+) and only evolve actually good pokemons, except for the EXP grind ones like Drowsee, Zubat etc. Already at 20 I had a very strong team as I had saved up e.g 125 Nidoran Candy until I caught a max IV Nidoran.

However, you don't have to farm like crazy and just save up candy, but I would say that just get like 3-4 on a good CP bar level, e.g 80% or above these are the ones you want to evolve, You don't want to spend time evolving a 10% CP one just because it has good IV stats, that will cost to much Stardust to get to 100% and its not worth it by a long shoot. 

 So after you got those 4 on a good CP % you should be able to compare their HP and CP value on the actual bar, this will tell you who to evolve. Going and doing the tedious calculator sites is something I would say its only needed when you have a hard time finding any pokemon of that type at high CP % but you can still evolve it (maybe from a good candy egg etc). 

 For example this would be like having caught 50 slowpokes, but only one slowpoke at 80% CP, Slowbro is really strong so I would then go to a site and compare if that specific slowpoke is worth the 50 candies. 

This is currently my best Slowpoke, it has pretty high on the CP Bar. It has 616 which looks great, but its actually very weak for my trainer Level, it can have like 750 which will be x2 as a Slowbro at least. So I have not favorite marked this Slowpoke instead I am waiting to get a better one. 

 But if I had like 200+ candy sure, then I would evolve it just for the exp alone.  

Marvel Avengers Alliance Season 31 Recap

Songbird is pretty crappy so far which I am not surprised by just reading her skills and passive before playing her it did not look very promising.
 She is another toolbox character with only bad tools.

Her primary is the anti range debuff, which really sucks. I was hopeing her primary would be smart like for example Emmas. When Emma counters her mental tap is not used if the enemy is already under the effect of mental anguish then she uses her stun instead, I hoped that Songbird would counter in a smart way, her first ability has 2 different debuff themes, one is anti melee other is anti range. It would make sense if her primary attack than would counter range attacks with the anti range and the ant melee with anti melee. But instead she always just counters with anti range, this is of course horrible against any character who only has melee attacks. I found this just blatantly lazy to be honest. I been over that a lot of times before but, pvp reward heroes need to be strong to motivate people to actually want to win, now Songbird is one of my personally favorite marvel characters, so sure I would play anyway(and to just win of course...) but it leaves you with a bad taste in your mouth getting a hero that just has no use.
 Her second ability has 4 different moves, so a lot of tools, while its all Quick action so you can use one of them each turn, they are just all pretty bad. A toolbox character should work in this way, they should have 4 moves that are all really horrible, but in certain situation its amazing to have it, then having 4 of those extremely good or bad abilities in total would make it a good let say each of them would be good in 10% of the matches, that's 40% in total where you have a super good counter ability to a team(a little fake math but I think my point is reasonable) she instead have 4 meh, mediocre QA moves that are all kinda ok they do something but they will never be amazing, that just leaves her with a bad QA for 100% of the games. Where other characters who have zero options but have an amazing QA will always outperform her mediocre moves.
 They should give her way more hit or miss tools, if it Hits is great if it does not hit its useless. Now instead they chickened out and just gave her 100% average effects.

So far the good part with her is that her passive to get more turns and to avoid attacks have a really high chance to happen, unfortunately her counter attack from her passive is also of course only the anti range one.

So, I was thinking of writing an article earlier but I did not find time, on how the meta is gonna go crazy on psychic users. It was clear that both Mantis and Moondragon are pretty good and that the new agent set is amazing.

I actually did not think that the meta psychic set would be this broken but it is the first item in 3 years that made me swap out signpost!!!


However, in the end I swapped back to my classic agent set up as it was easier to win with that not saying that the mind set is bad but let me explain, why it stopped being as OP and I have to say this is just what I expected would happen as well.

Just like most stuff in the game the meta can easily shift into something that most people just follow the band wagon, like classic Nul + Kuurth, even do that team sucks people kept using it and it made it suck even more as if everyone is using that exact same team you can go with a counter to that and win extremely easily.

Back when Nul + Kuurth was the absolute staple team for 4-5 season for a while it was played in 90%+ of the defences, that means you should have 90% win ratio. Even if the attack team you use will lose to all other teams in the game, wining 9/10 is pretty good.

The meta psychic mind set is so broken that everyone started using it, eventually everyone that countered with anti psychic just that guessed would happen, so when I reached about 1800 or so the few days before suddenly it was only kuurths. And I loath kuurth so seeing her resurgence was not fun, then either agent with mind immune or  the classic transcranial stimulator to counter all mental moves, some even used both. Than it went even further and people started using Juggernaut and Destroyer lol to get 3 mind immune. However, these teams likely sucked to much as sure those characters are mind immune but otherwise they are horrible so people kinda swung back a bit into 2 mind immune + Cloak and Dagger as CD is broken.

Because of this,,,it was still easy to win in attack as 7-8/10 was using Kuurth + CD instead. So it was still TO much staple team set up. Now I use CD in defence as well as they are the best character in the game but at least I change the rest of the team around.

It was very clear and very interesting (at least for me personally as a game balance designer) to see how the utter broken new set was so broken, that 90% where using it and then 90% would auto counter it, so in the end it become bad to use.

It really was this huge swing back and forth, that's why I would of course(if you read my game theory philosophies before) recommend using the safe route.

I went back to Signpost+Sprit Blade to just go with the debuff/dot/life/stamina drain, super safe, of course cube as always then I went with Scroll of Angolob instead of mental immune so that I could remove the mental anguish on my team as I used CD+NUL or CD+IP or CD+Emma Frost, mainly Nul. That's enough to create a very safe damage team that would just demolish all these mental immune teams as even if they used a lot of mental immunity the mind set itself also grants that so most people would have kuurht + agent with mind set + CD or Destroyer.

Then it was a few other teams like Spitfire+CD+agent with mind set(as it does sick damage and reduce your damage and so on so dam good).

All of that was very interesting, but lets talk a little about why the mind set is the best set in the game for the agent!


Why does the mind set work?


 I really want to emphasize how the best set has been Demon set, which was released in 2012...that's a season 2 set(that's 29 seasons of no good set items), pretty much all other sets in between was never worth using as they took up to much space for good items, often its a need for 3 or even the whole set of 4 and the mind set is the only set in the game right now where its worth locking away 4 slots.
 First of all lets not forget that the demon set got nerfed at least once that made the grief weapon not even halv as good that is a reason why it was not used anymore, but signpost stayed as the single best weapon even without the rest of the parts. (Signpost was of course a big reason why the demon set was so good in the first place as it would fill 1 slot regardless).

The other sets struggle with that it takes up all slots(until the 5 was released) but only 1 item is good. That is the most common problem, this menas you have 3 slots that are just there for passively boosting the last one. Demon set has as mentioned signpost which is a quick action, that means it can be used each  turn(as it also has zero cooldown) while buffing the set pieces. That makes it a lot better and while many sets have had QA items most of them have been way to underpowered.

Here instead mind set has completely broken QA, Staff of Agony, which becomes QA if you have the whole set, this is easily  the strongest QA ability in the game (given all 4 as otherwise its not qa:), easily the best. Not only can it be used right away with other items from the set, its also the best, but before I go into it, the set has 2 more thing that makes it so viable regardless of their actual power.

Secondly the meta defence item is also QA, so it can be used instead over staff or when staff is on cooldown and both can be used turn 1 for a more defensive tactic.

But lastly and most importantly the psyche operator is a Free action! This is huge as it means it can always be used + 1 QA item and then a third item, this means you can actually use 3 out of 4 parts(or the last item, which likely is the cube) on the same turn. This right away makes this set so much better as the agent can utilize most of it right away.

Then of course each part is also insaly good on its own except the pscye operator I geuss but as its Free action and its debuff, weak mind is super importnat its still a needed part.

So first you use the operator, it does no damage and hit everyone with weak mind. Weak mind makes the target take more damage from psychic attacks and is especially important for mental anguish as with old good Emma Frost asios tactic. It also gives manipulated which stops buff so not to shabby, it would be insanely broken if it instead give maddened as that helps to trigger mental anguish.
 This item is bascialy -have 4 set buff, and everyone to have weak mind.

Then we use teh staff of agony, staff as I mentioned is the most broken shet ever. This is the thing that really breaks the game, it does mental anguish to everyone. Which menas they will lose more then 50% of their life when they attack (as with mind weakness) it also does really high damage, this is really unnecessary, just giving everyone mental anguish unblockable would be a good enough for any move. And its QA! with that,,but yeah it also does really high damage for being a QA move + lastly it also gives a new mental dot,,,,this item is just so broken. On low rating when climbing I can easily kill their whole team with this item alone. They will have die as soon as they attack as the dot damage + actual impact damage easy get them into the mental anguish range of death(which is higher on low health opponent 60% roughly)
 You always want to use this item over any item.

Then if the opponent have high stats the second QA item can easily solve that, it gives everyone a chance to preemptive interrupt attacks, higher chance if they have weak mind.
 This is actually, really important to beat wallet warriors at high rarings as interrupt a big attack from especially Cloak and Dagger can safe the team from losing 50% life. So when I faced someone with about my stats or higher I will always go operator-staff-mental defence.

While if they are weaker I will go and use the rifle.

The mental rifle is actually very good as well. First I thought it was just gonna be an ok addition that was needed to be equipped to get the 4 set bonus. But it does insanely high single target damage, its unblockable/uncounterable as its psychic it also has its own counter/interrupt passive with a higher chance if they have mind weakness.
 It becomes extremely buffed if the opponent has weak mind on them, when it attacks, it does more then 200% damage! If that its the case, which it will be turn 1 as you can free action that.

See first of all it does higher damage as they are mental, then it always has a follow up chance this almost become 100% chance to happen when they have the debuff, so at average it does easily 200% more damage. As when it hits a follow up attack that is 125X2 = 250% base damage, which again to emphasize is unblockabe etc. So you can always just shoot down anyone, the counter damage from it also ofc course increased and so on.


This set is easily the best set by a long mile, each part is extremely strong on its own and almost the whole set can be used each turn, while they also buff each other. Many other set do not set up the other parts. With this set you can get everyone down to 50% hp turn 1 and then kill 1 of them with the rifle alone by just using the agent.

However in the end this kind of agent showed up constantly, this  guy is both immune to all mental attacks while he also will counter all mental moves.


From this I would say the set should be used like this - Climb to adamantium and then change. Its increidable easy to win with it on the way up there but after that everyone will go mental immune, with Kuurht so extremely common it losses 33% of its effect right away(she can still be hit with the rifle but she cannot have weak mind etc, making it be just low damage uncounterable on her)




Another character that appeared in the top meta was Faiza Hussain. 


 Even do she sucks. IF she goes first and can set up her blocks shes good but if she ges after ur despair character ( I run 2 on of) she is absolutely useless, one aoe despair form either Cloak and Dagger or Nul (my team) but my CD usually runs endemic that also stops removing debuffs etc, making her 100% useless. She has no offence at all, she is just like Rescue, yes she is a lot better then Rescue but how can she win a 1v1? Its absolutely impossible for her and the agent is usually the one who is left to fend in a 1v1, if you then plan out so she is the last defender. Yeah she has 0% chance to win, no way she can ever beat the agent in 1v1, not that she can beat anyone else really but a drainer/Healer agent with 10% hp and she at 100% will still win easily.

 Her passive is pretty cool that it deflects instantly kills so you cannot kill them over her other passive, however she is not protected by it, which is a huge hole in her defence so if she actually manage to set up her buffs(which is happens but like every 1/5 games) you can then just kill her first instead as she does not protect herself.
 But usually I just throw aoe despair and ignore her for last. Her design is so flawed, her passive should be that her team is immune to stuff like despair or else she wont work. She has the ability to set up immunity to it but that buff in itself is easily removed by the agent or a character with the right isos/aoe remover.

Only people with full 64x gold weapon in stats boost can use her as they don't die fast enough and then she can actually heal. Otherwise to make her be able to heal you need 2 more defensive characters and those teams are even easier to beat, I saw a few of those like Her and Invisible women etc, they have insanely low damage output. 0% chance to ever win with that in defence. Note that I also have shield breaker on Cds first attack, someone should have shield breaker and on their primary attack its the best aiso for that attack by far (as rest are pretty much nonsense )- second note, even with no shield breaker invisible+hussain will still do zero damage and will eventually die to a signpost agent,,,I am 100% confident I would win that battle with my agent vs them and their defensive agent from the start. 1v3 never having the other 2 characters, really the agent with spirit blade,cube and signpost can beat any super defensive team 1v3 . For that matter the agent with the new mind meta set would also likely win that easy, just set up the mental anguish aoe and counter them every now and then. The staff life drain +cube heal/signpost will be enough to survive.

Review Colleen Wing Marvel Avengers Alliance, Guide for best characters for PvP

Colleen Wing for me is a little more interesting than Misty Knight, but you know she is also very stereo typical, where Misty is classic Sassy black women.
 Colleen instead is the classic Ninja/Samurai broad with a sword that is also very Zen and Cool, I think its even further emphasized because she is white.
  Which just screams the 80s, so much Karate Kid etc.

Passive:

Colleen Wing is kinda weird character she is a tankish character, with her passives and she can heal herself, so if tanking work she might be strong. She also has a interrupt turn on passive like Boomerang with less chance him that is really strong and when writing this, I been playing just these 2 characters together on the current pvp and they together are actually super strong you keep interrupting everything and I got got the agent with interrupt as well so :).


Way of the samurai is her first passive is a very simply and good tank passive. She can cover for anyone that has low health, the lower the higher chance. And she also has a chance to block the damage. In a sense its both damage reduction and tanking which of course is great.  I wont bother again to explain why tanking it itself is shit. Otherwise this a good passive.

Followed by this she also has Zan Trance which gives her a chance to follow up on any single attack she does. When this happens she also heals herself. And it also removes all debuffs on her! This is actually a really good passive. High chance for a second attack, regaining life and more importantly cleaning herself from all shit.
  And it then stacks with "tanking".

If tanking was good she would be a good off tank type of character with damage dealing, she has 1 really good offence ability + then having good tank utility on her own. Would make her a good mix up type of character with bot offence and defence.

But,,,tanking is crap.

So her passive is worth around 3+7 = 10.


Abilities:

Colleen has good abilities, shes another character who is way better then what people believe I would say. Sure she is not a top character, but I will put her a bit above middle.

So first of all she has this really good aoe remover, which is her second ability Metio Massacre.

Its stealthy so it cannot be blocked (yeah tanking is shit...) which is great so you can always for sure remove on all. It also triggers bleed stacks which is ok, she has some bleeding moves and clearly she works best with other bleeders, she is one of those typical bleeding team characters. And as that is aoe, and unblockable its good for triggering that.

Then bam, it removals all their buffs. Just like e.g Gambits ultimate just that this is better as its Stealth always. Where he is stealth only if he has his infiltrator class bonus, while he has that easily on level 15. Its still times when he does not and he can be generalist etc. And that is the only thing he has going for him really. So right away her she is better then Gambit, oh yeah it also gives everyone weak point so that the next attack will critical on them.

I usually go over the first kind of move you will utilize with a character. Which for Colleen is her third but I wanted to mention this first as its a "ultimate" level of move really. Its generally used the 2-3 turn of course when they have a lot of buffs on them and to trigger the bleeding stacks. Its simply a really, really good ability. And she then still has an ok finisher ultimate as well.

10/10

So what to start of with Colleen is her third ability which is another turn of on passive. If it was QA it would be amazing but that would be broken. The way it works now is that its an attack, that also turns on an interrupt passive like what Boomerang has but lower chance for it to happen. It combos with her being a defensive and a offensive character.
 The attack in itself is crap, which is a downer. This is basically just turning on a third passive, the attack does low damage and the single target opponent gets tenderized and wide-open 2 really low tier debuffs. But this is still the ability you should start with as this third passive is her best passive. And doing this attack may trigger her second passive which puts on her primary attack and that one is a really strong primary attack then this become an excellent turn 1 play.

7/10 (the attack itself its to weak, would be 10/10 if the follow up triggered always)


Her primary attack Keen Kenjetsu, is extremely strong. I would go so far to say its one of the absolute top primary attack in the game!

Its very simple, it does open wound, which is bleed stack 1-3 and ravaged. That means she can easily spread high amount of stack bleed as if she follow up attack from a coordination attack or counters because someone has granted her counter and so on(like new mental set for agent) she will set up high stack of bleed + ravage that is a lot of damage over time and easily help the other to exploit bleed if you play her in a bleed team.
 That would be enough to make it a great move. But it also does pressure point, which randomize the 4 basic debuffs. To have this as follow up attack on all her abilities except the aoe remover its extremely strong, the effect is clear that they will have a lot of bleeding. Which you than later can aoe trigger or use for the ultimate. But even if her other move did not use bleeding, this would still be a good move to have as a basic primary attack.
 Now of course the rest of her is also about bleeding so she can very easily use her ultimate turn 2 and/or possible removal a lot of stuff while trigger 3-9 bleed stacks.

10/10 Open wound is one of the strongest effects in the game, this + pressure point is extremely solid.


Ultimate:

Her ultimate is very straight forward, its a typical finisher ultimate. It exploits bleed of course like all other bleeding characters with a finisher. It also exploits the old classic paragon which is good as her primary also sets that up, it also has deadly critical for more extra damage if it crits, which is quite standard its no a sure critical so I don't think that makes it so much better.
 But it has Brutal Strike, this is does not make it easier to kill anyone per say it just means they cannot resurrect from their death. Obviously this is a clear attribute to have on a finisher not only becasue it just means you can "truly" finish someone of but its really good in this meta, sure it would be better to have fatal blow so the opponent dies if they get below 20% from her damage but to have any anti resurrect is very strong in the current meta.

I should also point out that she has a very high base damage on this finisher, its easy to set up just from 1 turn by herself its actually of the far better ultimate single target finishers in the game.

Lastly, I think that people overlook her as well as they don't count for her high chance for a follow up by her own passive. So when you do this ultimate at least 50% of the time, I estimate it to around 66% she will than also do a primary attack adding in some more damage, her ultimate can easily kill someone from almost full hp if they have the exploits up, which can happen from herself alone if she gets lucky turn 1.


7.5/10 However, this is not a 10 out of 10 uber move. Its one of the best single target attacks and that is about it. There are way better ultimate which do damage and/or awesome debuffs or amazing supportive passives(well they are rare). This is just pure damage, but its a lot of pure damage so at least she is not like many other characters who just do damage on their ultimate where the damage is way to low to matter.


Verdict:

She lands on a 10+10+7/2+10+7.5 = 40/ 55

I don't do this math until I have went over each ability and passive so that number 40 is new for me here in the bottom of the review. And it do think its almost exactly what I had in mind at the start. She is not the best character in the game but she is clearly better then the average mediocre characters.

Shes a 7.5/10 and about 8/10 in a bleeding team and interrupt team.

Clearly her passive bring hers down, while its a cool tank concept it just has no value in the game. You are gonna tank so few attacks and its not even always active. But her second passive is good anyway as it cleans her from debuffs regardless and add some life.

All her ability are very good, I really do think she is underrated as all her 4 attacks are very strong. Sure she would be better of having 3 good attacks and 1 more utility based move. But her third ability that triggers her third passive is kinda like hat, but it would be safer if it was just a turn of passive type of thing, but it may trigger a quick ultimate turn 2 so, its a gamble move, less safe but chance for insane damage while also being really defensively annoying with interrupt and potential cover tanking. Just having a stealth aoe cleaner makes any character somewhat playable, then her primary is extremely strong and she is one of the few characters to have pure damage ultimate that has some worth. Most just have so mediocre damage that they would need +5 debuffs on it to make it viable.
 However, in the end she is to much damage to little utility, there are characters who can do her damage + better debuffs / or can heal/shields and so on. So she is kinda a tier 2 character. Not down in the gutter, not as weak as the middle but not a tier 1 or some broken god tier character. But she is probably tier 2+, like close to tier 1, with the right team she is really formidable.

Review Boomerang: Marvel Avengers Alliance, Guide for best characters for PvP

So Boomerang is one of those gems character, hes never played but he is a great character. Is he top 10? No, but he is quite the excellent character.
 And he is especially strong in defence as the AI will utilize his random effects greatly.


 I am not gonna go into his comic character, to me he is a very bland and boring character, one of those better then humans but not by a lot by using something weirdly good, in his case Boomerangs.

 But it does make sense that he is a Lockbox character as he just like Taskmaster and Constrictor(this actually is said in his Bio) are a villain for hire and he does not mind being hired for good. However, that is actually kinda generic, he is like most of the thunderbolts, not pure evil so well he rather good if it pays the same as evil.

 That is why hes not a very interesting comic character if you ask me, if he was the only one like that, but it same with most of the human villains, except those really crazy on some ideology like Red Skull.

 For example Kingpin, while super evil would rather do good, if it paid better then doing crime. Which is one of the traits I always liked about him in especialy Spider-man TAS where he would always help the good side if it was obvious it was the most profitable path.



 Gameplay:

 Boomerang as a game character is on the other hand really interesting.

 He lacks damage but has great utility and while he lacks high damage he has really solid damage.

 What I mean with that is that Boomarang damage is based around dots, so he does the same damage to everyone, he does not do any spike damage but he does equal damage to pretty much every character. Which its great, but its a little to low and that is his main issue from being a real top character.

 Boomerang also is based around a lot of random chance but these chances are very high to happen my data shows that his follow up attack is around 80% while his interrupt is a little lower on around 70%
  But both of these passive are insanely good in defence as the % is increased to his follow up to an almost 100%.


 Passive:


 Tactician +: First of all Boomerang has one Huge feature, he like some other Tacticians are not weak to infiltrators, this is just like with Emma etc so I have covered this several times before.

 Simple his first passive makes all his move stealth, this menas he will not be countered by infiltrators, which is of course their main thing to do.
  He also can reach Blasters over tanks etc, which gives him a 100% option to always do 2(often 4 attacks) each turn. At level 15, he can spread his debuffs around easily being stealth which is another bonus.

 Then he also has the same passive that Hawkeye has that gives all his attack a 100% accuracy and that they always critical on targeted enemies.

 Boomerang then also have that each of his attack have Desperation attack, which means that they all do more damage the less life he has. So while he does really low damage at start + dots, later on he can deal some moderate damage.

 This is one of the really good thing with Boomerang he has a lot of passive(2 more to go) and they are very straight forward. They just add hin his damage or reach nothing weird.

 Those are the 3 basic passive he always has, Tactician+, cannot miss and more damage the les life.

 He then further hav ea really interesting passive unique to him that his first ability is based around

 This is that each of his attacks have a very high chance to hit again. Basically he has an extremely high chance for a follow up on any attack.

 That sounds quite simple but its also that each of his 1.X move are self combed.

For example his 1.2 Does Burning but it applies scorching if the opponent is already burning. This means of course that Boomerang will combo with himself, the first boomerang does burning and the second one applies scorching, he got another one that puts on electric static charge and then the next one triggers it and so on.

Its a great passive for him especialy(its clear he is designed around this passive)

Then come what makes Boomerang of of the most intriguing character in the game and a major reason I did play him a few season back, his Ultimate

Ultimate:

Boomerang does not really have an ultimate like other characters, this is a weakness as he does lack a high end damage move. If this was his third ability instead and he had a finisher ultimate he would be a top 10 character.
 That being said, this passive is one of the best passives in the game!

From a first impression it looks really bad, its a very weird but super strong concept. His ultimate changes his passive, it turns of the follow up passive!

 This is really unheard of as not only is this very uncommon, his 8 attacks( yeah he got a lot of utility) is based around having a follow up, so why turn it of.

Well this new passive is broken, its just broken. It makes him intercept attacks and stop them, and its not like e.g Iron Fist where he stops follow up attacks.
 No Boomerang stops the first attack and the odds are very high.

Just this passive alone actually makes him one of the best defenders in the game because the AI got like a dam 100% chance to do this,
 of course one cannot intercept some type of attacks like psychic(which I guess will be even more common now with Mantis+Moondragon and new agent weapons) so its not the
 de facto go to passive but it completely stops many characters.

Playing Boomerang means one has to go between using more damage / more dot application or just utilizing his blocking of damage. Hes fun to play with and like I said he is very strong, much stronger then most people give him credit for because of this passives alone.

20/20 Passive power !!! And it at least 25/20 for the AI as his best passive or the other mode follow up are both way better for the AI and are truly broken
 But even in attack he does really have remarkable passive, can ignore infiltrators, always reach blasters, cannot miss, does higher and higher damage, almost always do 2 attacks or almost always stops any normal attack

(I will note the ultimate as a 10/10 as its one of the best passives, it also adds in stuff like winded up(25% more damage on next attack) and it can be iso for more buffs etc)



BIG CHANGE ADD IN 3---

Abilities:

So Boomerang is one of the worst offenders of to much abilities. But in his case, its not like Jessica Jones. All of his first ability options are good, not the best but way better then hers.

However, he do have some lack of strength on his second multi function so he is not perfect. And he does just like her have to much Toolbox rather then having 1 strong ability.



1.X The first set of multi are all excellent with his follow up passives. As mentioned above they all combo with themself for great solid damage and he will always do 20% or so of any characters health.

The first one is bleeding, this of course stacks. Second is the burning, that gives the scorching effect on hit 2 and the third one is iso corruption, this debuff that reduces all stats and damage over time as well, also it stacks just like bleeding to up to 3, so great for 2 stacks of it right away. Its also a very uncommon debuff, which menas he can be set in with other dot users easier. Lastly he can put up static charge with an electric boomerang so then the second one triggers the chain lighting effect, not so good turn 1, but really strong if you already has static charge on the others as its 2 attack then that triggers the electric discharge twice.

Because of his Tactician class bonus he can do this twice when activating it(or right away vs a blaster)

When he does this his overall passives do make quite the good spread damage or high dot damage on one individual as he can do 2 attacks on 2 opponents or 4 on one.

This is further why his 2.X ability are way better on him then on Jessica Jones. Do not get me wrong, his 2.X are weak, they could add way stronger debuffs, But being a Tactician and having anti class moves etc is way better then being a Bruiser that he is also stealth then means he can debuff 2 (on level 15 or vs a blaster right away )different opponents, sure not a lot of damage from this but this is actually excellent utility.
 Doing this means you will turn of 2 classes, or prevent something like Iron Patriot ultimate while also debuffing someone else and so on.
 As he can set up 2 opponents on the same time and always reach them with stealth.

 Boomerang also features a huge set up for good isos, as he does double on each attack this some great isos can be very interesting.

He does also have extra utility as its double the attack, or than potential 4 if if you put it all on the same one, this works becasue he has abilities that can randomize many different debuffs. Because of this his 2.1 is actually quite strong but the others are just ok. 2.1 Does reduce potential which can lock out different stuff like melee or range, or buff actions etc. So then randomize at least twice will of course give the chance to lock out both melee and range, and so on.

However, his 2.2 has a clear unnecessary "balance" it has exhausted and neutralized so this move counters the Tacticians and Bruisers. But its only 75% chance to apply, sure he does 2 tries so the chance of applying both is very high. But it just feels so unnecessary. He should have both of this on 100% and than + some random debuffer move, so this is quite the weak ability to use. Except when just to turn of one of those classes (which might even fail, even due the chance is very low), as turning of classes is by itself just not strong enough.

2.3 works the exact same way but it turns of scrappers/infiltrator instead. So also pretty bad.

Than 2.4 is interesting its a stun 60% chance. Which is the common figure. But as he does apply 2 attacks it has a high chance for a stun, which is ok. It also does stun do, so it could be stronger. But on some occasions where stunning the agent just at the right timing could be very important, it clearly has potential.



While 1.X and 2.X are very similar its still mainly clear that the 1.X is always a solid move where 2.X can be really good sometimes, but these are some of the hardest abilities in the game to judge its freaking 4 moves each and they got so much variety, one of his other positive thing is his potential as he can e.g be used in a bleeding team but he can also support a electric character and so on.

 1.X : 8/10

 2.X : 5/10


 His third ability is a little on the weak side its another "passive" kind of thing but its not Quick Action and not very good to use over one of his attacks.

It puts a special targeted debuff on 1 opponent. This menas this opponent will always get hit by an extra boomerang. Its a very interesting ability but not so strong as his boomerangs are not so strong with just 1 hit. It works like this, put the mark on A. Turn 2 attack B, B get hit twice by the boomerang and then A get hit once as well. Its very unique but not very strong.
 The main problem is that is not Quick action, simply its better to use that turn to just attack someone twice. As it will take at least 1 turn(if using tactician bonus) to attack them twice (from targeted) or then 2 turns if exhausted or what not. It also does give them Fumbling but that just seems so insignificant.
 But sure there is a cool move to do it turn 1, on A. Than turn 2, take 2 turns and attack B and C. A will also be hit each time so you throw 2 boomerangs on each opponent this turn.

But keep in mind that A could have had 2 bleeding etc, turn 1 meaning it would go in and take more damage already on turn 2.

4/10.

If this move was QA he would be amazing. Than you could use it already turn 1 and attack 2 people spreading debuffs or dots with ease.



 Verdict:


 Boomerang as I went over is very strong, I mentioned this several times but his only real downside is that he has no finisher move at all, not even close.

  All of his attacks do very low direct damage but always add on good dots. but he still have problems finishing someone of then.

 He is very interesting as he can be played with such a variety and in many different teams, he is quite defensive as he turns of potential attacks while his passive of course turns of most attacks completely.

 He is also VERY, VERY SAFE. Not being countered is not only good versus infiltrator of course but a lot of characters, he never misses, as said always does the same damage, has no actual class counter and so on.

 He is by far one of the safest and most solid characters in the game.

And its important to emphasis how he like some other characters e.g Hawkeye is also then way better in AI Defence.



9/10


Its a lot of things that is just so right with Boomerang, he is an unknown character so they had to make some cool stuff up that's for sure.

If there is one thing I want to say again about him is that he is just Fun, he is fun to play with. I really think he features of one the most interesting gameplays not just when the battle is on, but also that there is so many teams he can be played in.

Review Jessica Jones: Marvel Avengers Alliance, Guide for best characters for PvP.

Jessica has 2 major issues and these are both classic design issues which often result in a negative outcome for the character, having both of course makes her unplayable.

1 - Licence character

The first one really annoys me becasue its a classic, "licence game issue". While she and the rest of all the characters are of course licence by Marvel-Disney. She is still really shows of a classic Licence game problems. By this I mean, that its generic and bad. As most licence games are horrible tryng to just sell on the licence alone, this is a very classic issue, Et being the prime example of the whole game industry crash, if anything I would say that bad licence game is probably the most iconic issue a game can have.
 So while all the characters are licence here by the same company, Jessica Jones clearly is still released to support her new netflix tv-series. Nothing wrong with that, as long as its not so obvious its just a cop out to have something with the tv-series. She is very boring, very weak overall a very generic and useless heroine.

But if there is one thing tat really shows of her as a prime example of this is that she cannot fly in the game. Canon Jessica Jones from the comics can fly and are overall psychical stronger then the Tv-series one.
 So its clear they are designing after the show and then they made another big mistake. Its balanced after the show...just WTF. The show is way more down to earth, like all the marvel films and especially these netflix shows. This means Jessica is by defualt is supposed to be just a little better than a normally trained human. And the are keeping it like that...

I truly make no logical sense on a gameplay level. Look at e.g Marvel Vs Capcom 3. If they had followed the comics literally, Thor would never lose to Spider-Man as he would just 1 shoot him with 1 punch. What you do instead is that Thor is a slow strong character, spider-man is fast but weak etc. OF course that game is not perfectly balanced, just like any other game. But it would make no gameplay if the characters where impossible to play in a 1v1 match up kind of game based on a literal adaption from the comics/movies.

That only works in a game like Europa universallis where you can for example start as France and have a huge advantage over most countries or start as Byzantium and likely die from the Ottomans in a few years.
 This game follow real life history and it was unfair, life was unfair. But that works in a game as its a challenge to survive then as Byzantium. Other games that follow a book like the lords of the rings can e.g feature you playing the halfings "army" and trying to beat the orcs which will be way harder, maybe they have some cool passives and weird strategies one can use and so on.
 This particularity works because advanced strategy games ca feature other kinds of meta gameplay, alliances etc. n

 But a straight 1v1 game where the 2 sides will automatically fight each other the game has to try and be as balanced as possible of course to work. Marvel Avengers Alliance works a little better then MvC as is 3v3 and some characters can be really weak alone but good with certain teams etc. But a character that is just blatantly weak because of following a tv-series that is just bad.

And I don't really get it, why not make her sell. If you compare to Boomarang the next character, he is vastly better and he is a really uninteresting character so I guess they made him be better, while not caring about Jessica.
 But to me, it would make more sense that she is supposed to draw you into the show or be really cool that fans of the show needs to have her. And its not so dam hard, for example why is her fire hydrant attack debuffing waterlogged. That is one of the worst debuffs in the game, I get that she has to look street thuggy from hell's kitchen so she cannot have like Deathfrost, Deathfrost would make no sense as its a magical thing. But why not have chilled over waterlogged, they could even have waterlogged and chilled the ability would still be crap.
 Its all those mistakes on each of her ability, she could have had 1-2 debuffs on each ability and still not be a good character then she would be ok.

For me its clear licence cash grab with no brains behind it.


2 - To many abilities.

Second issue she has is something that is very common in games. I wrote about this in my old Elise and Jayce reviews in League of Legends like 3 years ago. This is something that is super common in games (Note that Elise is really good now in LoL but a lot of new items, map changes patch changes to her has happen since then), where the game characters has a set decided number of abilities
 normally.

In both LoL, Dota etc its 4 just like in Marvel Avengers Alliance. And then often when a designer works on creating more abilities for those few characters who have 5 or more, often what happens is that all these abilities are bad. Instead of having 4 great ability, the character ends up with 8 horrible abilities. There is a lot of games that do this, JRPGS where all characters have around 20 spells and then suddenly one has like 75 where 65 is useless and so on (Than we also have like Cid in Final Fantasy Tactics, who could do what all other knight class could do while also doing it better, he has like 40 abilities where the rest has 10 but all of his are also better then the ones with 10, that is what we call super broken).

 A good example to Balance this is e.g Akuma in Street Fighter where the otehr cahracter has 3 abilities he has 10 or more. But he the lowest health in the game and the ability who overlaps with others like Shouryuken (him and Ryu). Ryu does higher damage, but he still has it so he can use it as a close high prio move or as an Anti Air.
  This can work, but many games has this issue and its further really bad in a turn based game, as Marvel Avengers Alliance. Characters with multi functional abilities that are Quick Action aren't effected than but characters with just several crappy abilities that you can only pick 1 from is just really, really bad.

This is why tool box characters in general aren't good in MAA, you rather spend your turn doing 1 good attack then having 6 different to choice from where maybe 1 of them is good in some specific scenario.

To many abilities is a common issue in MAA but it especially bad on Jessica Jones.

Because she is a anti class toolbox options, which is probably the most crystal clear bad toolbox options to have.
 So Jessica has 4 abilities that each counter 1 class right, it gives them the counter debuff to that class + does some weak debuffs as well. Well the game has disadvantage, that debuff will auto set the correct debuff. Clearly its 10x times better to have disadvantage + good debuffs. That counters any class and you can then also have nasty stuff with it as well. She would have to have way, way better debuffs + the specific counter debuff to be good, for example her 3.1 has open wound this is a really good debuff so that is one is better then having like Generalist and nothing more like Silk has.
 But than we have an attack like the primary attack of Cloak and Dagger which has generalist and purged (which is really good in this meta), that counters any class + adds a very good debuff.
 When Domino was new her whole thing was that she uniquely had Disadvantage and that was years ago, Jessica has a worse version of disadvantage spread over bad combo debuffs, look at it compared to just the newest character when writing this - Nova (Richard) who has AoE disadvantage he has not seen any PvP play yet but that is clearly a really, really good attack. Which also shows how forgotten Domino is.
 Basically his 2.1 is better then any of Jessicas options (2 and 31.32.33), he counters any class right away, all enemies and adds in random debuffs which are equal or better to what Jessica does to 1 enemy + He also still got his 2.2.

She is terrible.

More abilities has never been a key for being good in this game and then to have it to around turning of a class where its an debuff that does that versus any class. Mind blowing bad.


Passive:


First she has this "Short Fuse" which is horrible. This passive is the chance to after being attacked gain counter to attacks.

 There are characters who just have counter on always (as passive not as infiltrator). Or like coordinated defence where everyone in the team can counter an attack.

This is a blatant example of under powered design that I am talking about where it seems its way to much focused on being like in the tv show.


Her other passive is that she at random puts Target focus which is UTTER CRAP. That is just to fit her tv character this does nothing in the game.

 However, it does also sometimes random that she gains fatal intel which means her next attack has fatal blow and that is actually strong.

The way I see it she has this passive to get Fatal intel on luck and the rest is just nonsense, a 4/20 in passive power


Abilities:


Her first ability is actually quite good is a good primary attack.

For example its pretty much the same thing Kamala has but it also adds in targeted (as well as combo setup and wide-open), that makes it automatically better. But it also adds Grit to her.

And this is great as Grit goes up to 5 stacks and gives a stat increase to all the 4 primary stats + is used for her ultimate, gaining a stack buff on a primary attack is strong as its then increased by each follow up attack, each counter each coordination attack etc. This is her only good move and it is quite important that its her primary but she cannot be carried only by this.
 6/10

Her second ability is just a part of her toolbox stuff, it might as well be called 3.4 or the 3.x moves could be called 2.2 etc. And that speaks volumes to it not being very good (as explained above).
 This one turns of infiltrators but its a little better then the other 3 moves, as is a stealth move. That is always good to have but on the same time its not like she has any real benift of that being a Bruiser. I gues its more like, if an infiltrator has counter on they cannot counter this ? I am pretty sure if you attack into someone who has counter on but you have an anti counter move like off-balance they don't counter anyway, so yeah. Its ok.
2/10

So her third ability are 3 moves split with a multi function option, the 3.2 counters 2 classes, while the other 1 counters 1 each.
 The only good move here is 3.1 which does open wound that randomizes bleeding + ravage which can be really strong, it also strangely does tenderize that increase slash damage even do she has no other slash abilities, it really looks like they just took a Wolverine or X-23 move and put it on her + anti Blaster.
 Its good do that as she is a Bruiser the anti blaster move is likely your first pick regardless.

But all the other options are really bad, and if you are facing a none blaster? or actually does not care about removing class buffs as its not usually such a big deal except for Tacticians that really can utilize having 2 turns.

3/10


Ultimate:

Her ultimate is the most generic thing she has as its the most generic and over used thing in this game.

Throwing an object, since the game was released several character has had the throw a car, satellite, ston etc for a stun effect. Always stun and bad damage.

This ultimate is no different it do user up her grit to do more damage but it has a horrendous base damage and it stuns that's it.

And I don't get why it cannot also have a debuff like intimidation, if its supposed to be more like in the series more down to earth, then intimidated would be a reasonable outcome if a normal criminal got a car thrown at them,

1/10



Verdict:

Her score is: 4+6+2+3+.5 = 15.5 of 55.

She is a generic license character with no interesting gameplay at all. She is weak and there is no combo character for her and so on, just boring and bland.

1/10 (Because I do like the jokes like car-astrophic and private eye passive name etc, the names are good but the effect of the abilities are just so weak and unimaginative)