Fix a 5* -- Episode 7: Archangel Flops

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ Character Discussion
1

Whelp, dealing with some work and home extra stuff put this on the backest of burners on the backest of stoves in the backets of kitchens… so you get it now.

5* Archangel

Quick Recap:

Blue - 11 AP to deal damage to the target and stun. Passive element deals damage to enemies that are airborne and stuns them.

Green - 10 AP to deal damage and destroy some random enemy AP

Black - 7 AP to throw out some countdowns in a selected color. They deal damage when they expire and in the meantime, the enemy team can’t gain AP in the selected color.

The Breakdown and My Suggestions:

Niche. That’s the key here. In the right circumstances, Archangel can be helpful, though I’d never call him needed.

Blue - I like damage and stuns. What I don’t like is when they are crazy expensive. 2* Storm does AOE and stuns longer for the same AP and the damage dealt isn’t even substantially more considering he’s a 5*! Let’s let him stun the target an another enemy and up that damage. OR bring down that cost in a big way. Otherwise he’s being outshined by 2s, 4s (like Bishop) and even other 5*s like Cable. Otherwise it feels like you are kinda paying for that passive.

Green - The description says paralyzing, but there’s no stun here. AP destruction is almost pointless in this game. By the time a team is spending 10 green, the opponent is probably well on their way to whatever they are gonna do and because it’s random, it’s just not getting it done. The damage being single-target is 5* level, but at this cost doesn’t seem worth it. I’d rather see him do either an AOE stun and some damage, or do a thing where he grabs a target and drags them airborne with him. He goes up for 1 turn and the opponent goes up for 2 or 3 so when Warren lands, he then stuns+hits that same character with his blue passive.

Black - This probably needs fortified tiles. If you’re going to spend the AP for this effect and to get the damage you have to wait up to 5 turns, you gotta have some kind of protection for those things that doesn’t rely on a teammate. Let’s see another passive on this guy from black that creates a 3-turn repeater. When it hits 0, Archangel goes airborne for a turn. When he comes back, he smashes someone for free with either his blue or green. To get free firings of his powers, I’d say this is where a 3-turn repeater would be needed to avoid things getting straight crazy, but when I think about Thorkoye and Gritty, I think Warren and someone to protect his repeater (that I’ve laid out) would make him a really interesting character. And the delay between hits isn’t so slow to be pointless because he can fire his powers via AP should he acquire it.

Those are my ideas. So…

How would you help fix 5* Archangel?

Previous Episodes:
Black Widow
Jean Grey
Green Goblin
Wasp
Cap (Civil War)
The Hulk

2

Blue: To my mind, the passive is the core part of this power, so I’d keep the active not too powerful. But make it pretty cheap, probably down to 6. Or maybe have the active generate Strikes, if the green gets a stun.

Green: I don’t have any green covers for mine, so didn’t realize it was so different from the 3* version. To bring it closer to the description, I think I might go for AoE damage and a random stun, or Team damage and stun someone random. Angle of Attack’s Active would probably want to get changed in that case, tho, because giving him two different stuns seems like a bad idea to me.
I like the “cannot gain AP in this colour by any means” mechanic on his black, which I don’t think any other Character (bar his 3*, of course) has anything quite like. So I’d like to keep that in some form. Maybe shift to something a little more like Squirrel Girl’s green or Ant-Man’s yellow, where they do damage or something each Turn rather than a big hit when they expire. Those characters also get like 4-5 of the Countdowns, so maybe bump up the number of them for Archangel rather than Fortifying? Or would that make him pair too well with Characters who could fortify them?

3

I’d make Captain Marvel great, especially her airborne ability, so AA is worth bringing as a counter not only against Vulture… :smiley:

Seriously though, he’s almost fine, just a cheaper blue and fortified black CDs would go a long way. Though, with Kitty’s purple around…

For a more complicated tweak, I’ve seen an additional change proposed before to have him choose placement of both tiles on black ability, possibly two different colors.

I am a little disappointed he doesn’t go airborne himself.

Anyway, my dream AA buff might be something like this… :slight_smile:

blue 6 AP - deal damage and stun the target for 1 turn. If the target is already stunned, send them airborne for 2 turns.
(passive) - at the start of the turn, deal damage to any airborne enemies and stun them for 1 turn.

green 10 AP - same, only also sends AA airborne for 1 turn.
(passive) - AA is immune to stun while airborne.

black 8 AP - same, only CDs are fortified and upon reaching 0, in addition to the damage part, they generate 2 black AP.
(passive) - when returning from airborne, reduce a friendly CD to 0, targeting air superiority tiles first.

4

I think AA is fine. If you wanna tweak, I wouldn’t mind somehow making himself airborne. Otherwise, I think he’s fine.

5

I feel like you really get the point of the series I’m doing here.
:smiley:

6

your green idea with the airborne mechanic is fantastic.

7

Thinking a little more about making AA airborne, it would require quite a bit of extra work, because currently both his blue (passive part) and black (CD present on the board) are suspended while he’s airborne. (I’ve tested the 2nd one with Carol, reducing his black so it can block AP for both teams, then sending him up and matching a color with Aerial Superiority CD on it. He didn’t prevent AP gain.) It must be possible to make it work though, Team-up CDs already continue ticking even with the whole team incapacitated, and there’s the flying pig ability too. :slight_smile:

Anyway, here’s a revised version. No accelerating A.S. CDs this time, since they’d continue ticking whether AA is airborne or not. And their job is primarily AP denial (I think?), so better to leave them as long as possible. Instead he can help someone else’s CD (like Hawkeye or Goblin or Gambit). Also added ability to add attack and strike tiles to help interaction with Kitty or Carol for instance, which I feel is fine as both of those would take some time to produce. Green passive would also work with a lot of lower tier characters which could be fun for transitioning rosters with half covered 5*s.

Angle of Attack (8 blue AP) - stuns the target for 2 turns and deals damage.
(passive) - whenever an enemy goes airborne, AA goes airborne himself.
When AA goes airborne, he generates 5 blue AP and this power becomes Some_Other_Name.

Some_Other_Name (passive) - while airborne, AA is immune to stun or damage. At the start of the turn, if there are airborne enemies (other than AA), stun them for 1 turn and deal damage to them, otherwise consume 5 blue AP and generate 1 AP in non blue AP pools. When his team has less than 5 blue AP, AA lands and this power reverts back to Angle of Attack.

Enemy Down (10 green AP) - does damage and drains (up to) X AP from 2 random enemy AP pools.
(passive) - for every N total AP drained or stolen by your team from the enemy in a match, AA creates an attack tile and resets the counter.

Aerial Superiority (7 black AP) - creates 2 CD tiles of a chosen color that prevent the enemy from gaining AP in it while they’re on the board and sends AA airborne. These tiles continue to work and tick down each turn, even if AA is airborne. When the CD expire they deal damage and leave a strike tile.
(passive) - when AA returns from being airborne, reduce a friendly CD other than Aerial Superiority ones to 0.

8

I kinda like the idea that Angel goes airborne for 1 turn, then crashes to the ground dealing aoe damage and sending one random enemy airborne for 2 turns

9

If his green and blue were cheaper he would be pretty good (not meta, but pretty useful). Lower the cost of his blue by 2AP and his green make it 6AP, with a bit lower damage (7K ?). His green needs to be fast so those 4AP less can make a difference.

He would still not be great, because passives are too strong in this game (Gritty :frowning: ) but then he would be great with Okoye, or against very strong opponents in PvE.

10

Since we’re actually getting more 5-stars rebalances again after a while, I thought I’d share an updated version of my previous idea for giving Archangel airborne ability.

The main change is not outright stunning enemy airborne characters, but instead dealing damage to them and destroying their AP, as many characters use going airborne to make some AP out of thin air… :slight_smile: As much as I love having AA whenever I need to face an overleveled Vulture in PvE, it just felt weird to hope for a stronger Magneto only to then possibly have him thwarted by an Angel with metal wings?

Again, these are all powers at rank 5, and damage numbers just copied (or rearranged, or just made up, where needed) from my baby champ roster…

Archangel (Airborne)

Angle of Attack
POWER COST
9 Blue
Archangel dives and swoops, picking off his foes before they can get a bead on him. Deal 7078 damage and stun the target for 2 turns.
When Archangel goes Airborne, this power becomes Guardian Angel.

Guardian Angel
POWER COST
0 Blue
(PASSIVE) Archangel prevents the enemy from gaining advantage in the sky … At the start of the turn or when Archangel goes Airborne, deal 7450 damage to any Airborne enemies, and drain 4 AP from each of them, targeting their strongest colors first.
If enemy Archangel is also Airborne, suffer the same, then stun both Archangels for a turn and remove all Aerial Superiority Countdowns.
When Archangel is no longer Airborne, this power reverts back to Angle of Attack.

Enemy Down
POWER COST
9 Green
Archangel lets loose a flurry of razor-sharp feathers, paralyzing his enemy. Deals 15515 damage and destroys 4 AP total in 2 largest enemy AP pools.
(PASSIVE) At the start of the turn, if he’s not Airborne, Archangel creates a strength 212 Attack tile on the target’s strongest color for every 2 AP drained from the enemy since the last time he checked, then resets the counter.

Aerial Superiority
POWER COST
7 Black
Archangel soars overhead, controlling the flow of battle. Creates 3 3-turn Aerial Superiority Countdown tiles of a chosen color which prevent the enemy team from gaining AP in it. While one of these tiles is on the board, Archangel is Airborne.
(PASSIVE) When Archangel returns from being Airborne, he deals a blow of 2810 damage for each turn he was Airborne that time. These blows ignore protect tiles.

11

Lower the green and blue cost