First, I’m definitely in favor of creating counters to “overpowered” characters rather than nerfs, but can appreciate the uphill battle the developers were in on this one. When trying to give a player an edge against a character that can generate AP independent of the board, not many options readily come to mind (a passive power that leeches/drains specifically red/purple AP seems like the only thing that could have reliably slowed him down). However, I would be really interested in hearing the logic behind the approach of using countdown tiles to counter a character who can overwrite them. Admittedly, they made them relatively cheap so you had a better than average chance (that could be substantially improved using boosts) of getting your CDs out there before Gambit could collect enough AP to overwrite them, but that meant you had to pick purple if you wanted any shot at keeping them out there still leaving you vulnerable to red. Furthermore, they weren’t even fortified (not that it would have helped on the overwriting front), but at least it would have helped them from getting matched away. At any rate, I have to think one of the main reasons neither of these characters really gained traction was because from the outset the best counter against Gambit was always Gambit (this became even more true after Gambit’s initial “nerf” that introduced random AP destruction) and either of these characters would be one you’d love to come across in your queues because you didn’t have to worry about the AI playing them in any sort of intelligent manner that would actually impede your Gambit from destroying them.
At any rate, with this upcoming Gambit nerf both these characters will work better than ever at keeping him in check. However, given the severity of the nerf I think a compelling case could be made that neither of these characters are really necessary to counter him and in fact you’re better off (as pretty much is always the case) with something that can dish out a lot of damage. I honestly don’t think we’ll be seeing very much of him any more at least as far as top end PVP play is concerned. It seems a shame that two characters who had powers tailored specifically with the intent to counter Gambit never seemed to get their day in the sun and now that Gambit has been nerfed they have arguably even less utility than before.
Sure the argument can be made that power suppression or AP gain suppression could be used to inhibit a wide number of characters and not just Gambit, however, the characters I see filling the Gambit void all have passives that worry me more than any active powers (one passive in particular that makes long term unfortified CD tiles not long for this world).
As many have said characters in the 5* tier take so many resources (time/money) to develop there really isn’t room for any duds (and yet there are). I know there are some who have been in need of rework far longer, but I think it could take some of the sting out of the Gambit nerf and promote the variety so many people long to see in PVP if some of these 5* could be looked at in light of the new meta and made viable. I think there are subtle changes (tile fortification, increase damage, decrease costs, increased stun length, etc) that could be implemented with a minimal amount of programming effort that could yield significant improvement in a players experience. It would promote having roster breadth that I think would be beneficial to the company’s bottom line. Having characters in the 5* tier that many want/choose to bypass is not a good thing for anyone.