Preface
First, I think it’s important to preface this essay by stating that everything I am about to talk about is simply based on assumption and 100% conjecture, intermixed heavily with my own personal opinions and ideas. So take it with a grain a salt. Or feel free to ignore it as I have a feeling this is going to be a long one. I will have to remember to include a tl;dr at the end. (Please remind me if I forget)
Anywhoo, on to the point of discussion. The PvP meta is changing. We are shifting from an “offense is the best defense” to “defense is the best defense” meta. Long ago, when a new user would ask what a good defensive team was the answer was often your best offensive A team. But that has certainly changed, hasn’t it?
In the beginning of the 5* era, when OML/Phoenix reigned king and queen, it was a rather simple calculus: the higher the level of the of a 5*meta elite character the riskier the proposition in challenging that team. It was common for many high end players to float quite high for long lengths of time. That remained mostly true until that legendary heart breaker Gambit was introduced. But for the sake of brevity, I am going to skip going into the details of that most controversial age and jump into the Thor/Okoye meta.
The Wakandan/Asgardian Connection
In terms of pure offensive power and speed for PvP, there is no better team than Okoye/Thor. Many quickly realized that if you are able to have Okoye tank red and yellow, you could not only better ensure Okoye’s ability to retain TUs to enhance Thor’s power set but also have her soak up damage and heal it off at the end of the match, allowing players to play PvP without exhausting their health pack limit. Furthermore, this team hits with such force that very few 5* teams, regardless of their champ levels, are safe.
Of course, there were calls for a nerf. Those calling for the nerf argued the team had too much power, was too fast and immediately rendered newer 5* obsolete. Those that defended the team pointed out that while powerful on offense, Okoye/Thor were relatively easy to beat on defense and unlike the Gambit meta, players could use a variety of teams to beat them. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your point of view, Okoye/Thor has been left untouched.
Enter: Kitty Pryde
Up until the arrival of Kitty Pryde, PvP played at the highest level was mainly a sea of Thor/Okoye with the occasional Thanos/Black Panther and other random 5* pairings here and there. As is the case when you have one team dominating the meta, most players choose to run with that team but to be frank, it was quite monotonous. However, this changed with the arrival of Kitty Pryde.
Simply put, the Kitty/Grocket pairing revolutionized the PvP meta. Here is a team that forces a player running Thor/Okoye to take a gamble: do I risk it and hope I can remove enough strike tiles before things get out of control or do I skip? While Jessica Jones was a significant precursor to this, Kitty/Grocket took it to a whole nother level. With Jessica, you can see her trap tiles and can work around it somewhat or have Okoye take the damage and heal it off if all goes well. But with Kitty, the damage stacks. The longer it takes you to remove the tiles or down her, the more dangerous it gets.
And once again, a significant section of the forum community called for a nerf.
Why the community calls for nerfs
I think it’s important to keep in mind the reason why forum members request nerfs: their enjoyment of the game is being hindered by a character, or more precisely, a specific mechanic a character has that impedes their ability to reach satisfaction, most usually winning. In the case of Kitty/Grocket, it’s the inability to win such a match up without great luck or having specific characters who can counter their skill set, specifically Black Suit Spider-man.
I imagine the Kitty/Grocket pairing affected a significant portion of the player base since the dev teams released two 4* characters to help deal with strike tiles, Thanos and Sabertooth, about half a year since her release. While it is certainly debatable how effective these two are at dealing with Kitty/Grocket, I think we can take it as a sign that the Dev team is at least aware of the frustration that this particularly team is causing.
However, for me personally, what I find rather fascinating is this move to more defensive mechanics.
Does “defense” have a place in the PvP meta?
By its very nature, any worthwhile defensive mechanic is bound to cause the player some degree of frustration. The more effective the mechanic, the more frustration it will cause. And without question, the strongest defensive mechanics are passive since the AI cannot be trusted to use an active defensive power reliably.
The top passive defensive abilities that come to mind are:
Black Bolt’s Energy Channeling (black power)
Dr. Strange’s Flames of the Faltine (yellow power)
Thanos’s Court Death (black power)
Jessica Jone’s Damning Evidence (blue power)
Kitty Pryde’s Phase and Conquer (yellow power)
Bishop’s Overclocked and General Reserves/Energy Conversion (red and blue powers)
There are primarily two effective types of defensive abilities:
-
Damage dealing
a. direct such as Flames of the Faltine or Energy Channeling
b. indirect such as tile enhancement or AP generation -
Match delaying
a. stun
b. AP theft/burn
c. jump to the front
d. damage reduction
Notably, Bishop has both damage dealing and match delaying powers in almost all sub-categories with the exception of damage reduction but more on this point later.
In terms of game design, ideally the conditions that activate the passive defensive mechanism are such that a player feels they have some level of control or ability to reduce the risk of or avoid the mechanic entirely. I think Jessica Jones captures this perfectly. The attacking player sees where her trap tiles are and can make choices they feel are to their benefit when fighting such an opponent. In theory, it is totally possible to go into the match an escape unscathed by her passive defensive mechanism (although often not the case in practice).
It was with the arrival of Kitty/Grocket where this semblance of damage control was lost and thus the forum outcry. The reason: the damage stacking accelerates at such a high degree that a player was almost guaranteed to take significant damage or lose, leaving the attacking player to feel helpless. A players ability to negotiate this battle was tied specifically to the opening board, or to put it more simply to luck: A lucky attacking player will be able to have a board that will allow them to match away enough tiles within the first two or three moves. A not so lucky player will have been able to manage a win but at the loss of one or two members. And a player with bad luck will have to watch in horror as their whole team is taken out since they couldn’t match away enough strike tiles or counter the ability in time.
Any good defensive team is bound to cause player frustration
There is no escaping this fact. The reason for the outcry on the forum is simple: people are not used to losing anymore. In no uncertain terms, Okoye/Thor was basically an insta-win, especially if you have the ideal build of having Okoye tanking for Thor. The pairing allows players to punch way above their weight class. Before the arrival of Kitty/Grocket and Bishop, high level PvP was basically a sea of Okoye/Thor teams with the occasionally sighting of Thanos/Panther and sometimes a rare non-meta pair.
This is no longer the case.
Now, many players will use Thor/Okoye for their initial climb and switch to Kitty/Grocket when going to shield and hop. Recently, I have seen players use Bishop/Jessica Jones as well once they have finished their climb. Finally, defense is an actual facet of PvP meta play. Before the arrival of Kitty/Grocket and Bishop, the best defense was to simply add champ levels to your best A team. But this has changed to a great degree.
Is this not what we have been asking for? More variety at the top level of play? The ability to use more of your roster?
I understand that Kitty/Gritty and Bishop are very frustrating to fight against, particularly when the three are teamed together in S.H.I.E.L.D. Simulator, because the odds of winning are not certain and the risk of taking significant damage is high. But isn’t that what a good defensive team should be?
I am not saying this to belittle the very real frustrations of many who have posted about the current issues they have with PvP. I think it is important to communicate what you find unenjoyable about the game. However, I do feel many high end players have gotten used to going through PvP without facing much risk because Okoye/Thor enabled them to do so.
Bishop is the Okoye/Thor nerf
Looking at the design of Bishop, it seems rather clear to me that he was purposefully designed to disrupt the Okoye/Thor meta and serve as a bridge between the 4* and 5* tier. He self-generates AP from 5* match damage, on defense stuns whichever character is out front and passively doles out damage. He also has a pretty decent health pool meaning he can potentially stun lock a whole team before going down.
Now the idea of a 4* character outshining the whole 5* tier in terms of defensive capability might strike some as odd but I think he serves his intended purpose well. He is not a character many are likely to climb with since he basically eats a health pack after each match. He does not adversely affect the lower tiers and he has given value to Jessica Jones, Dr. Strange, Daredevil and even to Silver Surfer. He also is effective against Kitty/Grocket teams.
I believe the dev team are working to diversify the PvP play experience and Bishop is intended to play a significant part in that move. Up until recently, the meta has always been dominated by one team or character and meta changes were often the result of nerfs. I think the devs realize the potential backlash they would receive if they did nerf Okoye/Thor and so they are trying a new approach that deals with the issues that Okoye/Thor poses to the PvP without having to nerf them outright.
Now if you are the cynical type, you might argue that they are trying to fix one broken mechanic with another broken mechanic. But I believe what we are currently witnessing is the growing pains to reach a healthier, more varied PvP experience. Obviously, the current state of affairs is not perfect. The existence of Bishop is creating a need for counter mechanics.
Counters Characters
Silver Surfer is one option when going up against a Bishop team and while not ideal he does get the job done if you have him at a high enough level. Yes, there is the potential risk that you may invite more hits running a Surfer team but then again what team is safe in the current Okoye/Thor and Kitty/Grocket meta? If you are worth a good amount of points, odds are you will get hit regardless of the team you run. One of the arguments for not nerfing Okoye/Thor is that they are easy to beat on defense so I fail to see why a player would worry about taking on hits running a Surfer/Thor team as opposed to Thor/Okoye. I suppose people might hit you just for the novelty of seeing Surfer or simply because a player’s Surfer is significantly lower in champ levels than a player’s Okoye.
Admittedly, there aren’t a lot of players running around with a high level Surfer and I do feel he needs to be buffed a bit because of power creep. It does bother me on a comic geek level that cosmic characters with the power to destroy planets are noticeably weaker than earthbound characters with less impressive feats. But that’s a topic for a different day.
Similarly, Black Suit Spider-man is a good counter to Kitty/Grocket and you will see some players occasionally bust out the black suit to deal with that specific team. Additionally, 4* Thanos and Sabertooth were added to give players more options, although honestly, I don’t think 4* Thanos is a great choice. But as with all things MPQ, these scale differently:
Viable Kitty/Grocket Counters:
Great: Black Suit Spider-man, Bishop
Ok: Sabertooth, 5* Daredevil
Poor: 4* Thanos
I personally would like the dev team to tweak the Black Suit Spider-man so that he and DD can be the go to team for dealing with Kitty/Grocket. Unfortunately, they are a bit too slow currently.
For 5* rosters, there are only four viable options for countering Bishop:
OK counter: Silver Surfer, Bishop
Poor counter: 5* Doctor Octopus, 5* Black Widow
I am hoping somewhere down the line, hopefully sooner rather than later, they will introduce a good character that passively reflects stun attacks.
Conclusion: The Current State of the PvP Meta
I think the meta is in a better place than it was last year, at least at the higher end of PvP. Last year, it was complaints about the monotony of having to fight Okoye/Thor teams over and over again. This year started off with calls for Kitty/Grocket being nerfed but I think many high level players have found ways to deal with that team. For example, Cloak and Dagger TUs have proven quite useful when fighting that team. Although I imagine Kitty/Grocket is more of a pain for 4* players than anyone else.
I imagine in time players will find ways to deal with Bishop, too. But I do understand if you don’t have counter characters for these high damage risk teams, it certainly isn’t fun having to deal with them. And you certainly have every right to voice your frustrations on the issue. For me personally, I do find the game more interesting because matches are no longer an insta-win, the new mechanics make for a varied play experience and I can use more of my roster but I understand that I am fortunate in that regard and for those who don’t have a means to deal with these defensive teams, it can be a wall of frustration.
But I do think it’s important that the dev team continue to move away from the “one team to rule them all” meta and hopefully achieve the ideal rock-paper-scissors-lizard-spock play experience. And I think strong defensive teams should have a place at that table, with proper counters of course.
I would like to conclude this think piece with the questions that spurred me on to write it in the first place: What is a good defensive team? Does defense have a place in the PvP meta?
Tl; dr (haha didn’t forget!): The current meta is currently undergoing growing pains to achieve a healthier, more varied play experience. Compared to last year, there are more viable options when playing PvP events (perhaps not so much in PvP Sim?). Bishop was designed specifically to deal with Okoye/Thor and as a bridge between 4* and 5* tier play. New counters are needed against Bishop or at least a decent Surfer buff. Finally, I left off with two questions: What is a good defensive team? Does defense have a place in the PvP meta?
