I think it's time to "fix" IM40.

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ Character Discussion
1

Hey guys. Anyone else getting tired of using IM40 in like 90 percent of fights, even when he’s not powered up? His AP gain is just so powerful on so many teams.

I think it’s time to tap him with the nerf bat. And my italics above point the finger at why. The 8 AP Recharge “bug” wasn’t so bad as a test case. I don’t think the low cost is the problem, in fact I think the low cost is what makes him so fun to use, two matches and done. 8 AP just makes it 2R/2Y boosts, two matches and done.

The real problem is that he generates too many colors of AP, making him too all-around good; too universally usable. His niche is great. 4Thor/IM40 and Peggy/IM40 are fun combos that shouldn’t be broken up. But look at the other top characters in the 3-tier; purple battery SWitch and black battery Iron Fist. They’ve got their thing. But then there’s Red Blue Green megabattery IM40. No other character can come close.

The basic solution I support would be to cut the Green AP gain from each tile. Instead of 3, how about 1, or even 0? Keep the 1 Purple perk, or not.

Now this change could destabilize things because you’d be killing the best Green battery in the game, except Hulkfinite which only works well against super bosses, and so along with an IM40 nerf we should change a few other characters to fill the role of “optional cross-color battery”.

Tl;Dr (Part 1): IM40 doesn’t need to make Green AP to be awesome, and the game would be improved if he wasn’t such a powerful AP battery. Keep him awesome at what he does best: Blue/Red AP gain on the cheap.

Part 2: So what to do.

Everyone’s favorite buff request, 3-star Spider-Man is a great target for a new AP battery option.
yellowflag.png
5 yellowtile.png
Create (1-3) Yellow Web tiles and heal your team. Generate 2 Green and Blue AP per tile created.
blueflag.png
5 bluetile.png
Unchanged
purpleflag.png
Same defensive effect, plus if you have (8-14) Green AP when Spidey is attacked, spend (5) Green AP and deal damage with a counterattack.

Then there’s Psylocke; another underpowered character with good leadership skills whose powers could justifiably make AP.
Instead of converting one of her powers to Yellow, I think you could amp up her existing play-style, make her pump out strikes and give her a strike-dependent battery that can help her or her X-Men allies (but also find uses elsewhere–RHulk says Hi).
purpleflag.png
3 purpletile.png
Psychic Knife generates (2-4) weaker strike tiles, but costs 1 more AP per friendly strike tile (max 8)
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7 bluetile.png
Bewilder generates 1 Purple, 1 Green for each friendly strike tile (max 2-6), or if none, stuns enemy team for 1 turn.
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6 blacktile.png
Psi-Katana Attack tile damage increases based on Green AP.

Thoughts? I like AP batteries in the 3-star tier because they’re pretty easy to take out but still usable on 4-teams, and they’d give options to more players than futzing with 4’s.

2

I feel the same way about IM40 lately. He’s good but he seems to be too good that you just have to put him in almost every team. Nerfing him and buffing other 3* characters by making them new batteries sound like a great idea and would open more options to new teams.

Considering Miles Morales is more of a offensive battery-type Spider-Man, turning 3* spidey into a defensive battery doesn’t sound like a bad idea. I also like your Psylocke’s changes. I like her and all, but I never put her in my team because she just sucks so bad. She really needs a buff and turning her into a battery would really help.

3

just don’t play him.
or only fire his yellow with 8 instead of 6ap.

4

IM40 is fine and not overpowered. His AP generation is great, but it comes with costs. His other abilities are really expensive and drain AP, while Recharge is mitigated by its use of countdown tiles which can be a risky proposition. IM40 is good on offense and against goons, but on defense he’s easy to counter and shut down.

5

Got to agree there. If I’m facing IM40, I just match yellow until I kill him. He’s an easy target really as his other powers are that expensive that he never gets them off before dying.

6

I was starting to feel this way, but I just switched from using him all the time to using the boosted characters for the week instead. It doesn’t take long to get used to not leaning on him all the time. You also take fewer hits in PVP since an unboosted 3* paints a huge target on your back.

I’ll still bust him out when he’s boosted or if I really need to clear a few matches quick, but otherwise he mostly just accumulates champ levels these days.

7

LOL this is one of the worst posts I’ve ever read, if you don’t want to use him because he is powerful LOL don’t use him plain and simple as far as I am concerned Dr Strange is the most over used character I have going I only use IM40 when needed, WHEN NEEDED

8

If you read the post, you’ll see that the OP didn’t think the problem is the cost.

He himself isn’t overpowered. His skill as a battery, however, makes current team composition boring. As the OP pointed out, the problem lies in how his yellow generates 3 greentile.png
per CD tile.

His abilities drain AP, but they drain blacktile.png
and purpletile.png
. He generates 4 redtile.png
4 bluetile.png
3 greentile.png
and 1 purpletile.png
per tile at 5 cover. He generates a lot of green AP and it is untouched by any of his powers.

Yes, you can choose not to play him, but this doesn’t solve the problem in the game when there is no alternative battery that is as good as him. He’s the only battery who can generate green very quickly right now in 3* land. Other 3* green batteries are KK ( 8 purpleflag.png
) and Grey Suit BW ( 11 purpleflag.png
), neither of them can generate green AP in 2 matches.

Making him generates only 1 or 2 AP per CD tile won’t make him much weaker and it opens more options for other batteries to shine.

9

Disagree.

I think his current state is essential for those trying to transition from 3*-4*. You need that crazy ap generation to even be able to have a chance.

Now that I have 12+ champed 4*s, I couldn’t even tell you the last time I used him. It’s been several weeks or longer.

10

Strongly disagree. He is so helpful to those of us lower level players who are in the 2* to 3* transition phase. The game would definitely not be improved for us if he were nerfed.

11

I see Scarlet Witch a lot more than I do IM40, especially on 4-star teams. She bores me, IM40 does not.

12

When IM40 was brought in the MPQ didn’t his recharge cost 8AP so can someone please tell me why they buffed his yellow from 8AP to 6AP,
Can I guess is it because his red and blue is expensive and drains AP,
Not long ago he was bugged his yellow cost was 8AP I used him and realized if he had stayed that way I wouldn’t waist my time playing him, he only his one good ability and it’s recharge for 6AP he’s fine for 8AP just not worth it

13

That is true it’s SC and Rulk, Jean Grey or professor X I Skip her all the time

14

“You don’t have to use him”, fine advice, but if I face him in half the PvP matches I go into, that’s dull too. He’s definitely OP–but that’s not really what I’m complaining about. Someone has to be the best. Fine. I just want some variety in PvP.

All I’m suggesting as a nerf is for Recharge to generate 0-1 Green AP, not 3. He’d still be top tier.

Additionally, nerf or no nerf, the game needs more battery options. IM40’s just always applicable. Every other character kind of comes and goes in waves based on who’s powered up; with Kingpin/Jean Grey/Rhulk, you’ll see a lot of Switch; Hulkbuster means Iron Fist. When those 3’s are powered up, you’ll see them more often, but not in every damn fight from level 166-330 like boosted IM40 seems to be. Good variety keeps the game from getting stale.

Adding a blue/green battery or a purple/green battery or just any other yellow power that generates AP as cost-effectively as IM40 would give players more interesting options, and options make the game better.

15

The pvp fights that I see him in he’s usually not paired with a strong green user. Barring x23’s boosted week. I agree with the guy who says Scarlet witch is more annoying, she’s the pair with green users like rulk more often than im40.

16

This is the more important bit about your post that is missed in the comments and title. The game needs more variety.

For me at least, up until 500-600 you face basically easy pick’ems. Usually the same characters, but still you won’t see a very varying pool of characters.

After that you finally start to see the better characters. But typically those are the weekly boosted characters. Sometimes it is 3 boosted characters and sometimes it is one with IM40 or other battery.

But nerfing IM40 doesn’t change that. Having a great balance of characters fixes that. If it isn’t IM40 team, it will be someone else.

17

Kind of a jerk response with little to add.

18

The 4-star and 5-star tiers are, fortunately, not tainted with an OBW or IM40 AP generator that’s so powerful they’re indispensable. I would like more clever AP generators/mitigator like Mordo’s purple, Medusa’s yellow or Star-Lord’s yellow. But man, I really don’t want another IM40. It’s someone I happily use all the time but it really limits team compositions in a lot of cases.

19

While I agree that we need more batteries, nerfing IM40 is not the answer. Until the devs find a way to calm down the scaling then nerfing IM40 will only make PVE harder. Do I use him a lot? Yes, I need to against enemies that are 100+ levels than me. Maybe if Juggs didn’t have a 6AP ability that wipes my health or Ares is equally deadly for his AP costs. I think of the IM40 rebalance as a way of the devs saying “We don’t know how to fix the scaling but we can give you the ultimate weapon to defeat it”.

As far as PVP, IM40 is easy to down. Who cares if you’re consistently facing him if he’s easy to kill.. I prefer to see IM40 than Peggy or Rhulk. Plus IM40 will help you reach 900 (or at least high points) in PVP.. so again, no point in slowing down the one thing we need to help us. Like scaling, match making isn’t going to get any better.

As for the batteries themselves.. we have plenty of green battery options: 3Thor, KK, Rhulk but ultimately you’re going to use their battery to fuel their own greens as opposed to another green user. The only blue battery I can think of is Iceman.. no point in fueling another blue over his OP stun. Making Spidey a “battery” using his webs is basically Miles and no one is using him at 5 yellow covers to gain the blue AP.

Overall, I understand why you feel this way but if you lost IM40, you would hate PVE/PVP.. I know I would probably quit (like many players did during the XFW nerf). With that said, scaling and matchmaking is the reason many players use IM40. Use him if you want but no need to ask for nerf bats, please. Thanks

20

I think I like the concept of what has been suggested here. That is, Recharge generates a lot of AP, even in colours that Iron-Man can’t use himself; that, of course, is the very definition of AP battery. And that is why he’s such a common pick. Literally, the question you have to ask is “does my team use AP?” if the answer is Yes, then Iron Man provides great support.

I don’t think the solution is to nerf Recharge. “No ability exists in a vacuum” - we’ve heard it all before. The strength of Recharge is tempered by the AP drain on his other abilities. And as much as I’d like to see a buff for Spider-Man, I don’t think it should be at Stark’s expense.

A possible option might be to prevent “double casting” Recharge. That is, after casting Recharge, the ability swaps to “Repair” - an ability which costs 9 Green AP, heals Iron Man, and then swaps back to Recharge. I think a change like this would still allow Iron Man to remain just as useful in the 3* tier, but it reduces his effectiveness in the 4* and 5* tiers just enough (unboosted, he’s already not too much of a threat, as discussed).

I’d also suggest that his Blue is still underpowered and overcosted, so if you want to buff that for a fix, then go right ahead.