Forget Gambit, Let's Talk 5* Archangel

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ General Discussion
1

With all the nerf 5* Gambit talk, the fact that 5* Archangel is garbage and needs to be revisited has been lost. To lay it out here, his powers are weak, cost too much, and are not well thought out. To this last point I ask, why have the character have a passive that targets airborne opponents without any ability to send them airborne? If other 5* went airborne with some regularity this might make some sense, but it seems like the developers were more concerned with creating a character that can counter Vulture, a 4*, than creating a balanced 5* character. All this said, I really think he could be reworked quite easily and there are changes that can make him a much more interesting character to play.

Current Powers (to keep discussion manageable, let’s just talk generally, but here they are at level 5):

Angle of Attack - 11 **bluetile.png
**AP
Angel dives and swoops, picking off his foes before they can get a bead on him. Deal 351 damage and stun the target for 1 turn. (PASSIVE) At the start of turn, deal 351 damage to any Airborne enemies and stun them for 1 turn.

  • (Level 5) Deal 6,702 damage and stun the target for 2 turns. (PASSIVE) At the start of turn, deal 7,055 damage to any Airborne enemies and stun them for 2 turn.
    Enemy Down - 10 greentile.png
    AP
    Angel lets loose a flurry of cosmic flame feathers, paralyzing his enemies. Deals 2,604 damage and destroys 2 AP in 2 random enemy AP pools.

  • (Level 5) Deals 14,701 damage and destroys 4 AP in 2 random enemy AP pools.
    Aerial Superiority - 7 **blacktile.png
    **AP
    Angel soars overhead, isolated from his team, where he can control the flow of battle. Creates a 4-turn Countdown tile of a chosen color which deals 2,633 damage. While an Aerial Superiority tile is on the board, neither team may gain AP in its color.

  • (Level 5) Creates 2 5-turn Countdown tiles of a chosen color which deals 7,998 damage.
    Suggestions for a more creative/effective Archangel:

Angle of Attack - 11 **bluetile.png
**AP

Angel dives and swoops, picking off his foes before they can get a bead on him. Deal 351 damage and SENDS THE TARGET AIRBORNE for 1 turn. (PASSIVE) At the start of turn, deal 351 damage to any Airborne enemies and stun them for 1 turn.

  • (Level 5) Deal 6,702 damage and SENDS THE TARGET AIRBORNE for 2 turns. (PASSIVE) At the start of turn, deal 7,055 damage to any Airborne enemies and stun them for 2 turn.
    Commentary: Above all else, please just make this change. I think it makes no sense for him not to send a target airborne. For the 11 AP cost, the damage stun of the current power is woefully underpowered and expensive. Consider what Dr. Strange’s does for 9 AP… 11 AP is a high cost, this change will make the damage commiserate with the power. You could also reduce the AP cost and reduce the damage of the passive, if you think this is too much damage, but 11 AP is a lot no matter how you cut it.

Aerial Superiority - 7 AP
Angel soars overhead, isolated from his team, where he can control the flow of battle. Creates a 4-turn Countdown tile of a chosen color which SENDS THE TARGET AIRBORNE FOR 1 TURN IF DESTROYED. While an Aerial Superiority tile is on the board, neither team may gain AP in its color.

  • (Level 5) Creates 2 5-turn Countdown tiles of a chosen color which SENDS THE TARGET AIRBORNE FOR TWO TURNS IF DESTROYED..

Commentary: The power is just meh as is and rarely do those tiles go off and the cost per damage given that is thus overestimated. By removing the damage component if they countdown to zero the power is still effective in stop AP gen, but if the other team destroys the tile somehow, there is a penalty in terms of damage and taking a character out of play for 1-2 turns. I could live with a slight increase to 9 AP if deemed necessary, but not sure its merited given the gimmick of needing the tile to be destroyed to do damage.

Another Aerial Superiority - 7 **blacktile.png
**AP
Angel soars overhead, isolated from his team, where he can control the flow of battle. Creates a 3-turn Countdown tile of a chosen color which deals 2,633 damage. While an Aerial Superiority tile is on the board, neither team may gain AP in its color.

  • (Level 5) Creates 2 4-turn Countdown tiles of 2 CHOSEN COLORS which deals 7,998 damage.
    Commentary: This is pure and simple a much more effective way to combat Gambit. Right now, you can only use this power effectively against Gambit’s Purple, but the Red still does crazy damage in the meantime. Instead, allow Archangel to neuter Gambit for a few turns. We can quibble about the amount of turns, but allowing the player to chose two colors is the crux of this change. I don’t recommend increasing the AP beyond 8 in this scenario as Gambit burns you down to quick and you need top his AP gen fast.

Another Aerial Superiority - 7 **blacktile.png
**AP
Angel soars overhead, isolated from his team, where he can control the flow of battle. Creates a PROTECTED 4-turn Countdown tile of a chosen color which deals 2,633 damage. While an Aerial Superiority tile is on the board, neither team may gain AP in its color.

  • (Level 5) Creates 2 5-turn PROTECTED Countdown tiles of a chosen color which deals 7,998 damage.
    Commentary: Lowest common denominator change to simply help ensure these tiles last and help Archangel do at least some damage. I find mine get matched all to frequently.

Enemy Down - 10 greentile.png
AP
Commentary: If you tweak the two powers above, just leave the expensive green alone. If you don’t touch the other powers, you basically need to reduce the AP cost of it.

In any case, I’m sure folks have even better suggestions, but let’s share them with the devs. As of right now Archangel will rarely if ever be used (outside of Vulture, Riri, and Colossus fights). @Brigby maybe you can help share with them?

2

Can we get 5* banner fixed before worrying about AA?

The changes look decent though. In current form he’s an airborne counter only, which isn’t a power any 5* currently has. Seems odd choice in niche for a higher tier.

3

I like the ideas I think just making the adjustment to his blue would be huge. Right now that for comparison BSSM for 6 blue AP does 5263 damage and stuns for 1 turn. For 5 more AP AA does 1400 more damage and stuns for 2 more turn. You would be better off going for 12 blue AP and furring BSSM 2 times as his 2nd attack would give you over 10K damage for 6AP. With your change it is garunteeing 13k damage and a 3 turn stun for all intensive purposes. The damage to airborn characters might need to be reduced or the stun brought down to 1 turn as that is a lot of benifit.

edit for blue just have it cost 6 blue and it sends the enemy airborn for 2 turns this let’s the damage come from the passive and will work like some 4 stuns*

for his black I think fortifying the tiles would be best. I think blocking 3 colors from generating AP is a little OP for 7 AP. I would also reduce the CD to 4 instead of 5 so the CD tiles have more chance of fireing.

4

It’s too late for banner, he’s already dead in classics. I’m sorry for your loss.

5

I think another thing that could make him unique would be that Archangel can’t be sent airborne, much like Silver Surfer can’t be stunned. Not as versatile or necessarily useful as Surfer’s passive, but thematically makes sense and could be a bit of a counter to Riri and Nova. Any other characters knock their opponent airborne? Would be a slight nerf to Colossus, but I can’t imagine people using those two together all that much anyway.

6

In addition to sending opponent airborne on Blue color attack, I’d like a true 5* type ability where if he uses Black or Green attack, he goes airborne himself for the opponent’s next turn. Make him harder to damage - aoe won’t effect him and adds strategy to time it right. Similar to Gambit, another Arch would be needed to counter with an attack and stun back - or give the player the choice to send him airborne or not for the opponent’s next turn.

7

Blue green black. Like doc ock.overcosted badly designed skills. Like doc ock. Will be buffed modified…

I really hope they change the 5* needing it…but they really appear to want to have horrible 5* among their releases for some reason

8

Fix Phx First!

9

But Phx is awesome?!?

10

Phx has been my biggest 5 until Gambit. She’s so behind the times. And her latest PVE boost reinforced that. Boosted her red at level 589 does 25k damage, and has a drawback built in. That’s insanely low compared to even Boosted 4s. Her match damage is the lowest of all 5s, which is pretty bad since her best skill is her Purple which relies on dealing damage through cascades of matches, but she need a strong match damage partner to actually have it matter.
And her green is triple irrelevant now: it does low damage after a set up with self damage included to your team, its CD dependent so Gambit just overwrites it, and it requires death which Thanos punishes.
Much like OML before he was nerfed, she is very behind the times and in sore need of a boost.

11

Definitely agree with the above about Phx. She needs a big numbers boost to her damage along with SS.
my level 534 Surfers red at max does almost exactly the same damage as a 450 gambit without the bonuses of AP gain and board Shake etc of gambit. Same for my 526 Phx, her red pales in comparison to a baby champed gambit.

would love to see Banner, Phx, SS & BSSM get up to speed with some buffs to contend with the new meta (gambit) more appropriately.

12

Having thought it over a bit, I think if you are going to introduce an airborne mechanic it would make sense only if both Archangel and the target opponent were sent airborne. Although thematically speaking, I think Archangel’s fighting style falls primarily into raining down his razor feathers, using his wings both offensively and defensively and swooping down to knock over opponents.

Usually when he is carrying someone in the air, it’s an ally.

However, with that said, I was disappointed he didn’t have an airborne ability a la Vulture’s Circling Prey and I think there is a lot of interesting things they could have done with the character.

A simple buff

Include Archangel goes airborne for three turns condition when he uses his black. Considering that Archangel should be the superior flight expert in comparison to Vulture, 3 turns will give the player a chance to collect the necessary black to keep him in the air. I, personally, would drop the AP cost down to 6 since he doesn’t generate black AP, but that might be asking for much.

This buff alone would add a significant level of strategy to using the character.

Top tier buff

One of the major issues with archangel is the cost of his power set. If I were designing the character, I would mitigate this by having two modes for the character: Grounded and Airborne. Grounded would be archangel with his current stats and costs. In airborne mode, there would be a significant AP cost drop to demonstrate the increase of speed and advantage he has being in the air. Blue would be reduced to 6AP and Green down to 5AP. The blue would do a 3 turn stun at 5 covers, and the Green would see AP destroyed in 3 AP pools.

OP buff

In addition to the suggested top tier buff, his black can target 2 AP colors and each CD does damage each turn active on the board.

13

This dynamic would work well too!

14

Why was this heaping pile of tinykitty ever even released? He’d be bottom tier as a 4*. I can’t recall one request for a 5* release to counter Vulture.

Some times they are so out of touch with their own game… it’s absolutely amazing. At least Banner has a gimmicky mechanic with green generation. AA offers nothing but a counter to Vulture, who I NEVER see in PVE/PVP. Even if I did, I wouldn’t bring this garbage to fight it.

EDIT: Hopefully the metrics show that once Gambit leaves, everyone will be hoarding because everyone will be skipping this useless toon.

15

Metrics likely will show he’s never used. Which is more damning.

16

You say that like you’re saying we gots the runs… Which might also be true metaphorically speaking…

17

Maybe 2018 is the year of airborne 5* and they’re providing the counter up-front so they can say “What, character X seems unbeatable? Why didn’t you whale AA when you had the chance? He’s the perfect counter!”

Juggernaut 5* - his punch sends enemies airborne.
Colossus 5* - Buffed power of 3* to send teammates airborne.
Dazzler 5* - When her lights go off, you think you’re flying SO HARD that you actually go airborne.
Cannonball 5* - he can’t help but go Airborne.
Ms. Marvel 5* - likes to fly.
Ego the living planet boss fight - always airborne by definition.

And finally - new airborne boosts. Plays like a teamup but just sends a random character airborne. Because that’s arguably more useful than the character release damage boosts.

18

These are all the ways someone can go airborne in the game, right?

  • (Ally) 3* Colossus black

  • (Ally) 4* Gwenpool black (team)

  • (Self) 4* Nightcrawler purple (passive, against AOE)

  • (Self) 4* Riri green (contingent on opponent special tiles)

  • (Self) 4* Vulture black

  • (Opponent) 4* Nova red (contingent on black strike tiles)

  • (Opponent) 4* Riri green
    Admittedly, a couple of these are very good powers, but that’s a small list. Not only that, but the payoff is not as great as it should be given the difficulty involved in getting an opponent airborne.

I know he has other powers that are lacking, but the passive feels particularly frustrating because it seems fun in theory but will most often do nothing in practice. As a 5*, it seems really odd that he was not given any way to send an opponent airborne himself.

19

You are correct in all the airborne scenarios. No 5* has that ability so making a 5* have the only actual airborne counter seems strange.

20

Archie is another example of what I feel is the problems facing devs: Trying to introduce new ideas after many or most of the best ones have been done already. Stage 1 of character development: Gather AP and nuke. Stage 2: Create powers that use synergy to strengthen teams. Stage 3: Try to do something different to keep things interesting. AKA: Hey! We never had an Airborne counter before! People have been talking about that for years! Let’s do it! Nevermind that the counter wasn’t needed in the 5* tier…

Looking over your suggestions, I like the Airborne mechanics best. At least his blue needs to send someone Airborne, as you said. Or add it to the black. It seems illogical that you have a stun component and not an airborne effect instead. It is almost the same benefit for your team (Airborne folks can’t do anything except for Vulture), so… If you need to reduce damage numbers to change from stun to airborne, do that.

NOTE: I remembered, and verified, that Archie’s feathers when are/were fired, they have a paralyzing agent when hitting the target. So there is lore behind the stun mechanic, but this is a game, not a comic book…the logic should make sense inside the game. Maybe Marvel insisted on the stun effect and broke the character.