Fix a 5* -- Episode 4: Wasp Stings

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ Character Discussion
1

When will this stop? Hard to say, but having only a handful of readers isn’t helping my ego! I love you guys though.

5* Wasp (Hope Van Dyne)

Quick Recap:

Blue - Spend 6 AP and steal random AP and put a countdown that will create 2 swarm tiles.

Yellow - Spend 10 AP and turn an ally invisible and drop more swarm tiles out there.

Black - Spend 10 AP to steal burst health from the target, more for each swarm tile.
Passive - when she is healed for an amount place some swarm tiles out there.

All colors: When there are 4 swarm tiles on the board (or more) her match damage is increased per swarm tile.
Also spend 12 AP in one of her 3 colors to deal the target damage and then destroys the swarm tiles and a few tiles around each.

My Suggestions:

Hope suffers all over the place. Her match damage isn’t really on par (though not outright terrible). Her powers don’t accelerate her AP generation. The swarm tiles don’t really do anything useful. Once there are 4 she can’t generate more swarms, so reasonably at most she’ll have maybe 6 swarms on the board, which certainly brings her to the front with her match damage boost, but then she can’t do the health steal until the swarms are removed or brought down.

Blue - Maybe if the countdown was a repeater and would steal and generate swarms every couple turns? Would that help anyone? As long as her powers are dependent on swarms, it’s rough. If you ditch swarms, I’d like to see powers more like 4* Ant-Man, but with a little more direct damage.

Yellow - She should turn herself invisible. She should stay invisible as long as there are swarms on the board. And then potentially make other teammates invisible.

Black - Why is the healing burst healing? WHY? Make it true healing, make it cost less, and make this the one color that doesn’t change over to the Call the Swarm (if that has to stay, too).

And speaking of Call the Swarm, let’s buff that damage SIGNIFICANTLY. If you’re spending 12 AP (after spending whatever it took to get the swarms on the board) that damage needs to really worthwhile.

And let’s throw on more passive swarm generation… IF we’re keeping swarms.

As a character, I enjoy Hope in the movies. I don’t think this representation is fair and she deserves a re-build.

How would you help fix 5* Wasp? I won’t even ironically ask anyone to try and make her worse. It’s not fun. It’s sad.

Previous Episodes:
Black Widow
Jean Grey
Green Goblin

2

Honestly, I think she needs to be started over from scratch. The whole Swarm tile mechanic feels like it would be a much better fit for Scott, even before looking at the power level issues.
The big thing that stuck in my mind from her performance in the second flick was how good she was at shrinking for just a moment to avoid hits and then striking back as she returned to normal size. So maybe something along the lines of “when targeted by (some amount unlikely to be regularly triggered by match damage) or more damage, instead Wasp becomes Invisible for 1 Turn. Whenever she stops being invisible, she deals (a bunch of) damage.” Probably make it an active that places a Countdown or Trap and it works while that tile is on the board, otherwise she’d take forever to beat without some really good AoE. Might be too similar to 5* Panther, but I can’t think of anything else that captures that feel right now. Alternatively, maybe rather than doing damage when returning, she places Strike and/or Attack tiles each Turn while she’s invisible.

She should definitely have some sort of Health/AP/Tile theft power, but I don’t have any particular ideas at the moment.
Maybe just a fairly simple damage power for her blasters to round it out. Have it do more damage if she’s invisible when firing it.

3

I’m liking a lot of both @jackstar0 & @TPF_Alexis ‘s ideas. I have liked Hope’s artwork since she was released, but didn’t feel the powers reflected the character in the movie. Both of your suggestions do a better job.

I was trying to come up with a rework that kept the core powers the same (for ease of coding a rework), but modified them to make her more playable and better represent the film. I also based most ‘new’ abilities on ones other characters already had to keep the costs in line (and make theoretical implementation easier).

Blue is mostly unchanged, yellow and black get new passives and “call the swarm” is mostly reworked.

What do you think?

(Abilities, Match Damage, and Health listed at level 450)
50,383 Health
**bluetile.png
**695 | **yellowtile.png
**618 | blacktile.png
540 | image.png
349 |

88 | **purpletile.png
**81 | **greentile.png
**74 | image.png
4.3x

Sting Operation - 6 **bluetile.png
**AP
The Wasp uses her influence to take the enemy down from within and expose their plans. Steals 2 random colored AP from the enemy and create a 3-turn Repeater tile that creates 1 Blue Locked Swarm tile(s).
(PASSIVE) When there are at least 4 Swarm tiles on the board (max 12), this power becomes Call the Swarm.

  • Level 2: Steals 3 random…

  • Level 3: …and create a 2-turn Repeater tile…

  • Level 4: …that creates 2 Blue Locked…

  • Level 5: Steals 4 random… and …create a 2-turn Fortified Repeater tile…
    Shrink Tactics - 10 **yellowtile.png
    **AP
    Taking perfect aim, Wasp shoots a Pym disc to shrink her teammate so they can infiltrade the enemy base. Turns a selected ally Invisible for 2 turn(s) and places 1 Yellow Locked Swarm tile(s).
    (PASSIVE) When Wasp would take at least 5,038 damage, turn one random Swarm tile into an Invisibility tile, targeting Wasp. If the Swarm tile is locked, turn it into a Fortified Invisibility tile instead.

  • Level 2: …places 2 Yellow Locked Swarm tile(s).

  • Level 3: …ally Invisible for 3 turn(s) and…

  • Level 4: …places 3 Yellow Locked Swarm tile(s).

  • Level 5: …ally Invisible for 4 turn(s) and…
    Pain Index - 10 **blacktile.png
    **AP
    Wasp blasts her enemy to send them reeling. Steal 3087 health from the target, and an additional 1235 health per Swarm tile on the board.
    (PASSIVE) When the Wasp is healed for 1383 or more health, place 1 Black Locked Swarm tile(s).
    Deal 4,032 damage on return from being Stunned or Invisible.

  • Level 2: …3704 health…

  • Level 3: …4322 health..

  • Level 4: …place 2 Black Locked…

  • Level 5: …5557 health..
    Call the Swarm - 8 **bluetile.png
    **AP
    With the might of the swarm at her will, Wasp deals 20,000 damage and grows her Swarm tiles, destroying all of them and three tiles around them.
    (PASSIVE) Wasp’s match damage is increased by 10% per Swarm tile. If there are less than 4 Swarm tiles on the board, this power reverts to Sting Operation.

4

Wasp current powers definitely read like she ended half baked, so to speek. For instance, the maximum number of 12 swarm tiles. I’m not sure anyone has managed to have as many on the board? It could be, each of her abilities was meant to switch to call the swarm if there were 4 swarm tiles on their respective colors. But that sounds also very hard to achive?

And that, to me, is one of the biggest problems with her current mechanics - swarm tiles are locked. But just in place, they are still destroyed with one hit or one match, unlike other “true” locked tiles. It seems like she is intended to become more dangerous as more swarm tiles are on the board, but instead, as more of them are on the board, the harder it is to make matches on those colors. Plus, many locked tiles on the board in general make finding a good (or in severe cases, any) match to make super slow. And that’s just unfun for the player. While the AI will still play instantly, and in case there are only 1 or a few matches available on the whole board, the chances of AI stumbling into the best available one go up, I think?

I’d like to see swarm tiles changed into another special type of neutral tile, like web tiles are. That could give her utility fighting characters that rely on making/exploiting/countering the “usual” strike/attack/protect/countdown special tiles, maybe contribute to the rock-paper-scissors type of balance some think is worth striving for.

But, if that’s too much work (sigh), she should at least have some passive effects if they are matched. Maybe generate AP in the color of matched swarm tile on enemy matching it and/or making new swarm tiles on other tiles of that color if her team matches it. She needs to have some way of making more of swarm tiles if all her powers are staying tied to them.

Anyway, I’ll repost an idea about her rework here.

Wasp (Hope Van Dyne)

(Swarm tiles are not locked here, just a unique special tile for Wasp, and can be fortified. Also, still neutral.)
(matching fortified tile still counts as a match, just sayin’)

Sting Operation - Places a fortified swarm tile on a chosen color (random basic tile).
(PASSIVE) - When you match a swarm tile, steal 1 AP of its color. If your team now has more AP than the enemy in that color, deal (tiny) damage for each swarm tile on the board (all in one tick).

Shrink Tactics - Turns Wasp invisible for 3 turns and places 2 swarm tiles. Then, sends her allies airborne for 1 turn, plus 1 more for every 4 swarm tiles on the board.
(PASSIVE) - While Wasp is invisible, her matches do X% more damage for each swarm tile on the board.

Pain Index - Steal a burst of X health plus Y more per swarm tile on the board.
(PASSIVE) - Whenever a friendly special tile or a swarm tile is matched during Wasp’s turn, at the start of her next turn she grows up to 3 swarm tiles creating another one on an adjacent basic tile to them.

(ALL 3 POWERS PASSIVE PART) - When there are swarm tiles on each of the 6 colors or there are 12 swarm tiles on the board, all Wasp’s powers become Call the Swarm.

Call the Swarm - Does X damage and destroys all the swarm tiles and 3 tiles around them (destroyed tiles do damage but no AP).
(PASSIVE) - Revert powers back when there are fewer than 12 swarm tiles and there’s a color without a swarm tile on it.

5

Her 3 powers are ok with Sting Operations being real good and the other 2 being pretty meh.

The big problem is the payoff for Call of the Swarm is pretty horrible. She deals some damage, shakes the board and destroys the tiles you’ve been trying all match to keep on the board. Btw, has anybody ever gotten 12 wasp tiles on the board? How is that supposed to happen? All of her powers switch to CotS after 4 Wasp tiles are on the field.

Anyway…

my change.

Call of the Swarm - destroy all tiles surrounding the Wasp tiles, generating double AP and dealing triple damage. Match damage is increased by 10% for each Wasp tile on the board.

Bottom line, the wasp tiles shouldn’t leave the board by Hope’s own hand.

6

Here’s an idea for Wasp rework with swarm tiles, as similar to the original as I could think of? Steal AP - check, ally invisible - check, match damage increase - check.
Also looked to create synergy with Ant-Man (his 2nd color is blue…) and also try to help with a jumpy 4* or two. :smiley:

Wasp (Hope van Dyne)

Sting Operation (6) - place a fortified 3-turn Blue Sting Repeater tile which creates an enemy Bait 1-turn Countdown tile (it does nothing) and jumps to a new tile targeting enemy Strike, Attack or Protect tiles first, while leaving a Swarm tile behind.
(PASSIVE) - every time an enemy Countdown or Repeater tile reaches 0, steal 2 random colored AP.
If there are 4 Swarm tiles of this power’s color or 12 total, this power becomes Call the Swarm and all friendly Sting Repeaters are removed.

Shrink Tactics (8) - turn a selected ally invisible for 2 turns and add 3 Swarm tiles of ally’s 2nd strongest color.
(PASSIVE) - When an ally of Wasp takes Z damage she turns them invisible for a turn. While Wasp has an invisible ally, she is immune to stun.
If there are 4 Swarm tiles of this power’s color or 12 total, this power becomes Call the Swarm.

Pain Index (10) - Wasp steals a burst of X health from the target plus Y more per Swarm tile on the board (up to number).
(PASSIVE) - When Wasp is healed for Z health, add 2 Black Swarm tiles. When Wasp is hit for Z health, add 1 Blue and Yellow Swarm tile.
If there are 4 Swarm tiles of this power’s color or 12 total, this power becomes Call the Swarm.

Call the Swarm (12) - deals X damage to the enemy team and destroys up to 6 Swarm tiles and 3 tiles around them. No AP gained.
(PASSIVE) - if any powers are Call the Swarm, Wasp’s match damage is increased by 10% per Swarm tile and she gains 1 Blue, Yellow and Black AP whenever one is matched away.
If there are fewer than 4 Swarm tiles of this power’s color and fewer than 12 total, this power reverts to its previous form.