Bishop deserves to be in this game

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ Character Discussion Speculation and Concepts
1

He’s not just a walking capacitor. He’s a renegade. He could make anything an explosive. He’s not quite Gambit, but I have a fantastic idea for an ability of his, that’s a bit DC’s Parasite. It’s totally within the scope of his abilities.

http://www.firstappearanceof.com/images/bishop.jpg You might be thinking, is the best cover for him. No. It’s too on-the-nose.

This is X-Men Unlimited #2, and it’s Bishop doing his best impression of Blade from The Movies. It’s pretty good.

366×488 30.3 KB

But this has to be the Bishop cover, because all hail Jim Lee.

236×365 34.5 KB

star.png
star.png
star.png
star.png
13000 HPs
Bishop’s a four-star? Yeah. The guy lives on when all others have died off. He’s a survivor, like Cable.

Tap The Grid could be a charged tile draining ability that grants him the AP from the field and causes cascades. It’s a bit of a work in progress. If no charged tiles are in place, Maybe Bishop does a OBW-like AP steal whenever enemy abilities are fired. Oh. Now see, that’s dirty. You want that ability.

Covering Fire could be an attack that allows team-mates to capitalize on the enemy being pinned down. What’s that look like in this game? it means either you deal damage and create strike.png
tiles for your next attack. But really, covering fire more closely resembles attack.png
tiles. So maybe Bishop creates free attack.png
tiles each turn, similar to Iron Fist, to attack in tandem to his abilities. This is unabashedly a page from Iron Fist’s book. His kick and his passive strike tile generator are great.

Bringing The Big Guns could easily be a big blast, but we’ve seen that recently in the form of Thing’s greenflag.png
… so that’s out.

Cable had this really cool multi-grenade attack in Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 that peppered the battlefield and launched in two volleys. What if Bishop had a blackflag.png
sort of M-79 grenade attack that was infused with charged energy. Randomly targeted but two attacks. I am thinking a bit The Hood / GSBW, but could either damage all enemies, or generates charged tiles. I like that idea a lot.

But here’s the thing that’s awesome; would have him different, and just set him apart. Bishop can absorb energy. He’s the opposite of Gambit, in that regard. So what if we went a bit parasite from DC, and let Bishop grab someone and drain their AP, also stunning them if fully covered? He’s not a dart board for your abilities. I mean, I mentioned it before. There’s a huge precedent for Bishop just grabbing electrical cables and unleashing hell afterwards.

Anyway. Last thought. a Passive that generates any charged tiles whenever Bishop is attacked. You’re poking a bear whenever you hit him.

2

Couple of things. he needs an energy absorption.. similar to Capt marvels, but reducing damage and gaining AP. Since he is known for jumping in front of others to protect them and taking the blast himself, combine DP Black, Capt Marvel Yellow. Jumps in front, taking 50% damage, generating X ap, if already in front, takes 25% damage, generating slightly less AP.

greenflag.png
How about this, damage based on TOTAL AP your team has.. Bishop uses all the energy stored by his team, does X damage to the enemy team. X= total AP count times Y, with a min and a max damage, lose 3 ap in each color when used (ballistic salvo type but cheaper to cast). Covers lower AP loss and increase damage per AP. (could also use team up AP, since those are technically powers for anyone).

3

For his energy absorption, how about he places an 3-turn CD on the chosen basic tile that remains the same color. While the CD is on the board (there can be more than one, but if they are the same color they don’t add up effects) it reduces damage from abilities of that color by 10-30 percent. For each ability fired the CD becomes stronger (could be both friendly and enemy and even any color if it’s easier to balance) and deals damage when it resolves.

4

I love this because it’s a great way to represent his power and behaviour in the game, but it strikes me as overpowered.

What if we made damage reduction inversely proportional to current AP? After all there must be a limit to how much energy he can absorb?

Say this is his purple power to tie in with OP: If damage is over X Bishop jumps to the front to and generates 2 Purple AP. Reduces damage by 8% for each 1 Purple AP less than 10 that the team has. Increases damage by 5% for each 1 Purple AP more than 15 the team has. (At higher covers reduces damage by 8% for each 1 Purple AP less than 12 that the team has, giving a possible 96% damage reduction.)

It would be nice if there was also a way to differentiate between physical and energy attacks and only have it function on energy attacks, but I think my suggestion is already starting to push the borders of acceptably complex powers. I don’t see developers going back to existing characters and categorising all moves as either energy or physical.