Gritty - nerf, or counter?

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ General Discussion
1

Do you need to climb to 900 for a 4-star cover in PvP? Run Gritty. Do you want to quickly clear out some PvP seed teams? Use Gritty. Need to hit 2000 in SHIELD Sim? Gritty is your team. Want to place higher in PvE? Don’t bother with the boosted 5-star, just put Gritty with your Thanos. Basically, if you want to play faster and easier in MPQ, kitty and 4-star Rocket & Groot are the ideal choice in almost all aspects of the game.

That’s a problem, for some. (Others like it, or don’t care.)

We’ve had problems similar to this in the past. I don’t need to explain to anyone who has played MPQ for any significant time about the Old Man Logan and Gambit situations. But this time around is a little different, especially in how the developers are reacting - specifically hard counters. OML has his healing nerfed because he was saving players from the use of health packs. Simple as that. There was nothing to really counter with him. The developers tried a couple characters, like Archangel, to counter Gambit. But he was so bad the only thing Archangel countered was the player’s desire to open legendary tokens. In the end, the only thing that could counter Gambit was Gambit, so he got nerfed.

It’s obvious to everyone involved that Gritty is everywhere. That’s a good and bad thing for both players and developers alike. For us players, it means less grind and easier rewards (the good) if you have Kitty, but far less variety in PvP (the bad). And if you don’t have Kitty, you want her - which is good for developers because they can continue plugging her into these special stores and make some coin, but if you don’t have Kitty as a player it can be tougher to compete at a high level - which is bad for developers because players start crying foul.

It has become clear that the developers want to avoid nerfing Kitty (or Rocket & Groot) at all costs based on many of the recent new releases. Rather than resort to what would be an undoubtedly unpopular nerf and avoid making the forums explode (as fun as that might be to watch), they’re scrambling to give us counters. Tools to use against Gritty. Consider some of these recent releases:

Bishop If enemy is running Gritty, he’ll stun
Dazzler Black removes enemy special tiles
Hela Red replaces enemy special tiles
Magik Red ability removes specials
Prowler Purple steals specials, blue damages based on enemy specials
Rescue Blue and red abilities affect enemy specials
Sabretooth Green and black abilities damage based on enemy strike tiles
Thanos Blue removes specials, green damages based on enemy specials

Some of these characters (specifically Prowler, Thanos, & Sabretooth) blatantly scream, “Use me against Gritty!”

I’m wondering what you all think. Is this the better tactic to deal with the ‘Gritty Situation’ - a constant flow of attempted counters? Or do you think a re-balance (see: nerf) should be the solution? Or do you feel like the situation doesn’t need a response - let things be and wait for the new flavor-of-the-month to roll around.

2

Leave Grocket and Kitty alone. I’ve made this abundantly clear too many times to count. It’s my hill to die on. Gritty is INTEGRAL for non-5* rosters to make PVE tolerable, and it is easily counterable in PVP. If I had to start playing PVE with a nerfed Grocket and Kitty… I’d really rather quit MPQ at this point.

Counters are fine. Don’t nerf them.

3

I’m all for introducing effective counters. I think it is the best possible way to compromise between those who wish a team would just go away and those who love/rely on them.

I hate nerfs. Buffs/reworks are just as bad because usually they just end up worse than before.

New interesting characters who are fun to play is always a good thing. I don’t see any real shots fired on this front for Thorkoye which is a bit disappointing, but I understand the reasoning for it. In any case I couldn’t be much more satisfied with the way the situation was handled. My Gritty is still just as good for PVE and I will still have a viable option for PVP moving forward.

4

Shall I point this out again…?

In the age of MegaDilution, you CANNOT reasonably nerf the single most used character in the game…the one that speeds clears, one of the 2-3 4’s that everyone tries to level up as much as possible…without destroying a large portion of the remaining goodwill among your players.

The game requires a mind-numbing amount of repeated clears and Rocket makes them go by more quickly. Nerfing him will not fly.

People will simply quit since there are no other good options for achieving similar speed results. EVERYONE bonuses him and nothing would hurt more in the current game environment than to have the rug pulled out from you as a developing player than seeing that progress be worthless, as you know any nerf would destroy Rocket, not simply “tone him down.”

Counters, counters, counters…do we have enough now? Sabretooth seems to be about the best one they’ve come up with.

I honestly didn’t think the design trend at this point in the game would be “Rocket counters” yet here we are.

Do you have anything else up your sleeves to keep things interesting, devs?

5

I’m in a weird place with it.

I have champed grocket. I have a kitty at 420. I love the speed I have when doing PvE, for sure!

But for a while there, I didn’t have Bishop champed. And let’s be honest, if you’re going against Gritty Bishop in PvP, you lose unless you bring your own, and play smart.

That month, when I had gritty as I describe them, but no Bishop, I couldn’t complete the Shield Sim for the 10 pack. The last 200 points is just a field of Gritty bishops. Nothing I could do could come close. I even tried to use DP whales with boosted purple AP… Couldn’t get it in time.

Can you imagine a player coming in, champs a 4*, and he starts seeing even LOW LEVEL Gritty Bishops? That’s enough to make you throw your device. What do you do?! Pretty much nothing… Cause you can’t win.

I don’t have a single black Okoye cover… That option is out. My half health Thor is only half done… Not an option. All I got is basically a mirror match. For all those counters up there, it doesn’t stop that train from rolling, because most of the options require AP, or specific tile matches, or whatever the requirement is. Whereas Gritty Bishop starts working as soon as the match starts.

Sure, you can luck into a win, but let’s do it consistently. I’d love Dazzler to work, but she’s gotta tank AND survive, and to do that, she needs to tank more colors than her teammates. Which means you’re picking weaker teammates in her colors, or teammates that don’t cross colors with her.

Prowler is nice idea, but you gotta match those tiles. And that isn’t necessarily in a place that’s matchable.

Sabretooth is fun and cheap, and may be a decent solution, but I need to champ him to find out more.

Obviously Bishop is nice, however, you pretty much sacrifice him so that your teammates win. So pick two people that can abuse blue AP after he dies. And even then, make sure it’s enough to take care of a champed 5*.

What I’m getting at after all of this is that it’s a giant obstacle for anyone who doesn’t have Gritty, and preferably Bishop as well. …well, unless that player doesn’t care about PvP rewards of any sort. Then it’s no bother at all.

And to reiterate… I love my Gritty. I just think it’s overly silly that 4* Rocket is the keystone to a lot of teams. Such a large roster, but really so few options when you look at them all.

EDIT:. I still say that a great solution is a character that has a passive that blanks the text/ability of an enemy passive every turn. I wrote about this a time or two, and just make the character a defensive support character. Blanks a passive each turn, at random… Maybe a stun power can be thrown in for 6+ AP, but no offense. Now you have a character that can stop gritty potentially. Since the ability randomly blanks a passive each turn, it could choose Rocket’s yellow and do absolutely nothing, but if it stops Bishop or Kitty, that’s a positive outcome. Also, blanking the passive text on Thor’s green would be nice. …I’ll stop there. My entire write up under the other topics covered this already.

6

No one should want to mess with this:

7

They just need to change Groot to make 5 tiles at 210 strength instead of 7 tiles at 150 strength. The total is still 1050 strength so it doesn’t effect the 4* combos you just have a chance now to stop Kitty.

8

In other games, I don’t mind re-balances. They can be very healthy for the game. In another game, I’d be totally in favour of Gritty getting adjusted for balance.

But MPQ’s nerfs have this tendency to murder the nerfed characters into the ground and stomp on their remains. So I’m 100% for avoiding nerfs if possible. (Sometimes it may still be necessary if a case it particularly bad-- see Gambit.) Counter-play is great. Not every counter works out (Bishop just made Gritty even better, for example), but counters are awesome-- if the top tier teams have counters and become more beatable that allows more variety without taking anyone’s toys away (necessary anti-grind PvE speed clear tools, in the case of Gritty). Sabertooth looks good, I’m in favour.

9

I don’t have either of them anywhere near covered, and i have a feeling GED is the crux of “my” new meta, i don’t even skip gritty anymore.

10

I think your 420 Kitty has put you in another MMR bracket. I have 60+ 4* champed and some semi-functional 5* (Kitty, Okoye plus several others) with 6-10 covers but none of my characters are over L300.

I reach 900 in PvP easily without having to face Gritty teams as long as I don’t mind doing a few skips. I’ve also reached 2K in Shield Sim every season with no problems. The wall of Gritty/Bishop teams don’t start for me till 1800 so I only need defeat 4-5 and I’ve hit my 2K goal and even then I can eventually skip past them if I don’t mind doing 10+ skips.

I don’t think players new to the 4* tier have Gritty problems at all because those Gritty teams almost always feature massively undercovered Kittys. Plus, Kitty is regularly used in 3* PvP. I know this because every time 3* Blade or 3* Daken is boosted I see lots of Daken/Kitty or Blade/Kitty in PvP. So 3* players are familiar with dealing with Kitty in PvP so there isn’t any shock for them.

Gritty is most punishing to players with 1 5* champ, multiple low quality 5* champs because there they face fully covered Kittys that are high level (400+). 4* players thinking of making the transition to 5* have to be prepared for the challenge you’ve had to face.

KGB

11

Yes, OML saved players from using health packs - but you need to remember that the devs weren’t going to come out and say that. The stated reason ended up being his usage rate, where they claimed he was used in over 10% of all matches. Gritty sounds like it’s way more popular and prevalent than OML EVER was, especially considering how much it speeds up a match vs. OMLs strikes and match damage. If nothing’s been done about it up to this point, I’m hard-pressed to believe anything will change now. Given the way this Sabretooth PVP is playing out, it seems folks have realized that throwing Gritty at a loaner is a bad idea, let alone a fully covered/champed one. If a loaner is shutting folks down this much, I’d say the meta is going to take a dramatic shift once more people get Victor covered.

12

Pvp you can only pick 2 sabertooth and who

13

I rarely use Gritty… They’re really a last resort for me if I start getting mega hit on my 900 run.

14

Yes, health packs were the reason. But that doesn’t mean the developers were wrong when they stated usage. The big difference here is the amount of covers needed. OML was viable with one cover - the guy was everywhere.

15

Gritty makes PVE tolerable. I won’t go back to the Pre-Gritty grind. Counter, don’t nerf!

16

I will always prefer counters. Having a diverse amount of counters is even better. I believe they are there with gritty.

Bishop on the other hand… If you are a 5 star player one big cascade for yourself early on can rack up tons of damage against your team and 20+ blue for the enemy in a hurry.

17

I champed Sabertooth last night and then took him into Sim to take on Bishop Gritty. Those matches are now easy. Get the right cascade and you can win on turn 1; I did twice. Sabertooth is a complete counter to Gritty play the powers correctly paired with Okoye and the strike tiles will be gone then it is just a matter of getting six red to kill what’s left.

I much prefer this solution than nerfing. If you want to beat Gritty you have a couple of solutions now.

18

If you have a green cover for Sabretooth, he is terrific. So which cover am I still missing from him and probably won’t see until he enters vaults? Yep. D3, is there anyway we can make sure events we have a chance at nabbing at least one of all 3 characters covers before their release event ends? Like making the reward in his PVP event the green as opposed to another level of red?

19

Anyone who stuns is a godsend against Bishop, but yeah, that passive is insane with how easily it can be triggered. I have found counters that work for me in 4-star land that rely heavily on stunning Bishop early and stunning him often, including bringing my own Bishop into a match, but we could use a few more counters to him.

20

Nerf.