Please nerf 5* Thor

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ General Discussion
1

I’m back! So we got a change to Gambit (and even though I don’t think it goes far enough, it seems to be enough that people are selling/not using him, so mission accomplished!). Thor needs to be dealt with next, as he’s going to take over the meta in Gambit’s absence.

He’s not nearly as overpowered as Gambit which makes him far, far easier to fix. I actually thought he wasn’t very good at all until I found out what people are doing with him. Basically, players are intentionally damaging Thor by retreating from fights, and manipulating his covers/match damage so that he tanks as few colors as possible. Thor just sits in the back and generates free AP/cascades from the beginning. If players have to heal him for some reason, they would go off and hurt him again before using him.

This reminds me quite a bit of an old tactic called “prologue healing,” which was the reason that true heal and burst heal were created. In that tactic, players would take their damaged characters into a prologue fight with 2* Black Widow and cast her blue to heal them back up to full (back then there was no burst heal, it was all “true”). This had to be dealt with because the devs typically address anything that’s repetitive and not fun but also optimal (witness the death of tapping).

The Thor thing I’ve termed “reverse prologue healing,” because it’s the same idea backwards, and it sounds complicated and silly enough to represent this very complicated and silly strategy. It’s actually really easy to fix too – I’ll offer two ideas:

First, you could keep everything exactly the same, but only allow the passive to fire if Thor is below 50% health and in front. This fits the character better, as Thor is generally not known for hiding in the back row while his teammates fight villains. It also creates some danger that your half-health Thor will die. And in the best news of all, it really angers those guys who sold off Thor covers to avoid him tanking colors over someone else.

The second fix would be to reduce the power of the passive but add a small heal to it, like Daredevil does now. This has the unfortunate side effect of making him a little harder to kill when you’re fighting him, but you’d presumably reduce the passive’s effect so it wasn’t such a big deal.

I’m not calling for the kind of massive across-the-board demolishing that Gambit needed, but Thor’s passive is way too good as it stands, and its presence is forcing your players to do un-fun things. Time to re-aim the nerf cannon.

2

I can’t deny that Thor is overpowered entirely due to his passive and how easy it is to abuse. I also wouldn’t complain if the devs felt compelled to nerf Thor at some point due entirely to the fact that he’s ‘over played in all formats’.

However, I would argue that while Thor is overpowered, he’s not actively bad for the game. Thor presents a powerful character whose TERRIBLE on defense and allows for a ton of teams to play against him. Thor doesn’t impact failure chance like Gambit did. In fact, I’d argue that Thor is the least threatening 5* we’ve seen as the king of the hill so far. With Thor on top we’re in a golden age of roster diversity until which time he’s nerfed or we see a new meta changing character release. It’s hard to really complain about that state of the game.

For the sake of discussion…if I were forced to nerf Thor I would probably just rework the passive. Entrailbuckets suggestion of forcing him up front would be VERY effective but screams ‘not fun’ to me. I’d rather replace the whole health condition thing and just give him a skill similar to Wasp blue, IM40’s yellow or Vulture’s black. A relatively low cost requirement that results in the identical effect starting up which enables time for counter play.

Edit: Fun fact: Any nerf to Thor’s passive is a direct and severe nerf to Okoye who depends on a passive AP generator like a crutch to be truly successful.

3

This is already the worse.

4

Nerf JJ traps. Too powerful.
Nerf DD heal at 50% with Strike tiles.
Nerf Thanos death by making him be in front for Death to fire.
Nerf PHX green from ashes
Nerf Okoye TUs extra damage and true heal.
Nerf BP moves or be moved that Thanos death doesn’t do the extra damage.
Nerf Dr Strange on how you cannot fire an ability.
Nerf BB that he has to be in Front for his passive to go off.
Nerf PP Green with web tile boost
Nerf SS blue heal and can’t be stunned
Nerf Hawkeye Can’t seem to miss that it doesn’t bring back AP and Fortify Tiles
Nerf Cap IW with his Coup de Grace
Nerf SL so he doesn’t boost RG stike tiles

5

You guys really think they’re totally cool with players hurting Thor on purpose and having his passive fire from the beginning of every match?

6

sigh Well, at least people have moved on from calling for Grocket’s head…

7
I have to agree with everything said in this thread. EVERY 5* should be nerfed until the new top character is... **Banner**! Because, everyone knows, Hulk Is Strongest One There Is. If that's true, how can anyone else be better than him?

Really though, there is always going to be a top character and lots of us won’t have him fully covered. While I agree that the Gambit nerf was justified, why can’t we just stop there for the time being?

-Croak.

8

So DD needs a nerf too then?

9

Daredevil heals himself, so it’s much harder for players to keep exploiting his passive like they do with Thor’s. I suggested adding a heal to Thor’s to fix him.

10

Lol at Gambit Nerf not going far enough. He’s OML/Phx tier now..

11

I have to think the devs brought up this point when creating Thor so yes, I’d say they are cool with it.

12

I very much doubt that. Sounds similar to what people said about OBW during the days of prologue healing…

13

All aboard the nerf train!!! Choo-Choo, brahs.

Hiw about we just nerf everyone and get it over with so more threads.

14

In what part of my post do I call for nerfs to every character? Now that Gambit isn’t the best any more, Thor is going to be in every single team every time, because players are exploiting a mechanic in his passive. Fixing that exploit (via a fairly gentle correction that I suggested) brings him back in line.

15

“I say we nerf Yelena, she’s totally ruining my game experience.”

This is why we can’t have nice things, maybe give it more than 24 hours before we start calling for the next guy’s head. Also, Thor works this way by design not an exploit. He’s not even hard to beat, I really don’t see what the problem is.

16

I’m actually seeing lots of variety in pvp now. Thor is definitely not on every team. Probably not even 50% of the teams I’ve seen so far personally.

17

I really like Thor ( I don’t even have him champed yet ) but definitely agree a gentle nerf is in order / exploit correction.
okoye/Thor was already a “ thing “ before gambit baby-nerf and is even more of a cheap annoyance being abused now.

18

Seriously!!! Just nerf everyone

19

Again, do you really think their intention when they designed Thor was for players to lose fights on purpose to hurt him, and then have him hide in the back the whole time?

20

Give it some time to settle. Eventually players will decide on Thor’s “best” partner and then only run those two.