The great potential of supports

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ General Discussion
1

Given that Brigby has confirmed the plans to improve support acquisition sometime in the future, the tactical advantage of high level supports will become a real thing for many players. So, I wanted to discuss the potential killer combos we could have. I’ve looked over all of the supports at level 250 and found these perks to be the best of the best for speed, which means AP production. Of course, you can also combine AP boosts with these supports to get really crazy. With this amount of free AP at the start, it’s possible to get 1st turn wins, especially with winfinite teams. There are many good support perks, but I wanted to explore the possibilities when these are combined together:

At Battle Start:

(Any Char) Yaro Root – 80% to get 6 Green AP

(Villains) Cull Obsidian – 75% to get 3 Green AP

(Spidey) Spider-Sense – 70% to get 3 Green AP

(Heroes) Kimoyo Beads – 75% to get 4 Yellow AP

(Any Char) Vintage Shield – 75% to get 3 Yellow AP

(Heroes) Korg – 70% to get 3 Yellow AP

(Any Char) Quantum Realm – 72% to get 6 Purple AP

(Villains) Corvus Glave – 75% to get 3 Purple AP

(Guardians) Milano – 75% to get 3 Purple AP and 70% to get 3 Black AP

(Villains) Tinkerer – 80% to get 6 Black AP

(Villains) Ebony Maw – 75% to get 3 Black AP

(Villains) Proxima Midnight – 75% to get 3 Red AP

Other Notable Supports:

(Any Char) Soul Stone – when you down an enemy, gain 5 AP in your Strongest color

(X-men) Hope Summers – when supported char fires a power: 80% to gain 4 Green AP

Some Killer Combos:

5Thanos + Cull Obsidian, Cable + Yaro Root, 5Spidey + Spider-Sense = Potentially 12 Green AP at Start → Cable’s Plasma Barrage for 22K+ to down an enemy and trigger Thanos for a 15K+ AOE on the 1st or 2nd turn.

5*Thor + Soul Stone, Anyone with Yaro Root, Villain with Cull Obsidian = Potentially 9 Green AP at Start (make sure Green is your strongest color) – This combo can clear wave nodes really fast since Thor’s AOE can kill one wave, then generate 15 Green AP from Soul Stone to kill another wave, again and again.

Vulture + Tinkerer, Okoye + Kimoyo Beads, IM40 + Vintage Shield = Potentially 6 Black & 7 Yellow at Start → Send Vulture Airborne and IM40 Recharge to generate tons of Green, Blue, Red; gather TU AP while waiting a couple turns, then hit with Vulture Green & Blue and Okoye’s Red with the TU damage boost.

Cable + Hope Summers, 5*Thor + Soul Stone, Okoye + Yaro Root = Potentially 6 Green AP at Start → Gather more Green and TU AP, then down an enemy with Plasma Barrage, which should give you back 9 Green AP. Then continue firing Plasma Barrage until everyone’s dead.

Loki + Corvus Glave, Thanos + Quantum Realm, Guardian + Milano = Potentially 12 Purple AP at Start → You could fire Loki’s shadowplay ASAP for 27K+ to kill someone and trigger Thanos, or gather more purple AP and try to propagate his shadow play tiles to fire it twice.

2

More reason to hope that they never add Support features to PVP.

3

Or more reason veterans take Supports as a serious potential game changer that will upset the meta of their favorite new 5-star characters and have to rethink how they play instead of burying their heads in the sand and complaining about a feature of the game they don’t like because they can’t immediately climb to the top of that roster.

4

Or more reason for newer competitive players to pay ridiculous amounts to catch up or never touch pvp at higher tiers

5

I’m fine with supports speeding up PVE play. Don’t think they have a place in PVP. I have a couple supports that really help with PVE right now given I am a 4* player. Not sure they would do as much for a 5* player.

Should be easier to get supports.

6

People already complain about pull percentages and cascades, last thing we need is a new thread every week that amounts to “60% chance for (X effect)? More like 100% when the AI uses it!” Or “(X number) of pulls and still no 5* support!” More RNG on top of the already overwhelming RNG isn’t going to help this game or this place much.

Plus, I barely remember what half the characters do. Gun to my head, I couldn’t tell you what any of 5* BW powers are, I just know I can beat her fairly easily in PvP. I don’t want to have to learn a whole new list of crap and worry about it when all I want to do is 900 and shield.

Also, if some of the killer combos bbigler listed are viable, veterans aren’t going to have rethink much. They will just shift who can stack their teams to fire powers quicker and the result is going to be a bigger mess than ever. Thor/Okoye is a very beatable team. Annoying and can quickly get away from you, but beatable. Being able to stack 12 green right at the start and have added roulette on top of that could break the game more than Gambit ever did. Except he just broke the 5* game, supports could break every level of PvP.

7

This whole thing is pointless when based solely on R5, level 250 supports. This is like giving retirement advice of, “just win the lottery”

8

RE: Supports in PVP…Do you think your available opponents are a mess now? Imagine what things look like if Supports are part of it. Although the potential for trolling is great. Max one of the Supports that fortify tiles all the time and toss it on a defensive troll team. Watch on Line as your opponent’s matches drag on. They get hit a bunch of times while waiting for the *&$! match to get over with. Such fun! “Look, I left a grill out. Hee hee hee…”

9

Right now, the potential is to speed up PVE play, but the better benefit is that with lots of free AP, certain characters that are considered “slow but powerful”, become viable options, thus increasing gameplay variety. They can help you compete even without the top meta characters.

When I did this analysis, I was using a 5* player’s point of view, since they are most likely to have these high level supports. 5* players can already clear SCL 7 and 8 very fast without the help of supports. But supports could make it faster for harder nodes. In SCL 9, I think these supports would make a big difference since those battles take longer, especially the 5E node.

If supports were enabled in PVP for both sides, then there would be an uproar, I think. You can argue that it would still be fair, but the knee-jerk reaction is to complain that battles are harder, even though you have your own supports to help you. If supports were only enabled on your side, then I don’t think anyone would complain. Basically, supports are like adding additional allies to your team who have passive abilities. It really opens up new strategies and ideas.

10

Or veterans finally say I’m done and quit paying and/or playing.

Back to the OP. I don’t like those at all. One of the major issues I have with supports is the % chance to do anything at all. I want to see them make support bonus to be always on bonus that aren’t based on more RNG. Stuff like:

  • x% damage increase of all moves (or a particular move if tied to the character boost)
  • x% increase to match damage
  • Powers for this character cost x less AP
  • Add’s the option to use x move on this character (similar to the Task Master new feature to pick powers or adds a 4th move)

I don’t want 8 layers of RNG. As long as the moves continue to be RNG based I refuse to take them even remotely seriously.

11

I shudder to think of how supports are going to factor into MMR - there is no way to sell them off if you “over level” them the way you can with a 5*, so if you make that mistake, you are just full on done.

Unless something really dramatic happens to rates of riso and token acquisition, the delta between haves and have nots is going to be extreme as well.

Choosing matches is going to be a nightmare also unless something is done about the Support UI - how do I know if an opponent has a support equipped, what it does, what level it is…

That being said, maybe it’s because I’m a 4* player, but I think there are going to be some other special tile effects that could change the PVP meta - on the reverse of those speed games delivered by AP at the start, there are loads of supports that could slow down a match on defense. Anything that fortifies friendly specials for instance - I have a lvl 150 3* Elemental Guns on my 5* Lord that goes a long way to preserve 4ocket strikes against tile movers. Hydra Henchman can do that at the start of the turn. Wiccan may suddenly become a player if Hulkling is allowed in PVP. There are quite a few that increase critical tile multipliers, which can really factor in on ghost or MEH teams. In a post-animation world, leaving in a defense team that is guaranteed to be a slow match is potentially just as strategic as having loads of AP available at the beginning of an offensive push

12

Not all supports are % chance. There are some that increase all damage from powers by X or decrease enemy powers by X, and many, many increase match damage, which is gauranteed. I don’t mind luck being a part of a game, I think it makes it more interesting, even though it can be frustrating at times. This isn’t chess…it’s match-3 gambling. I like the game because the randomness gives me a puzzle to solve.

My experience with supports has been this: I bought a HFH offer one day and got a level 4 Vibranium Ore, which I leveled a bit and attached to Strange. It worked great and made a real difference in pve. I kept leveling it to 200 and now it’s on Medusa, which adds 709 damage to her CD tile. Now with my Kitty + Grocket + Medusa combo, I use Chimichanga at level 150 and Avengers Tower at level 100 to fortify those Strikes. It’s a 35% and 32% chance each turn, but it works! Despite the RNG.

13
  1. First turn IM40’s Recharge / Vulture’s Circling Prey = 12 red, 12 blue, 9 green, 3 purple / 8 green, 6 blue, 4 black, 2 red.

Total after 3rd turn: 14 red, 18 blue, 17 Green, 3 Purple, 4 Black.

2a. First turn Team Invisibility with Invisible Woman (7 yellow ap)Then, slap a Quantum Realm on Medusa to increase her CD tile damage by 5567.

Assumption: Vibranium Ore adds damage to Medusa’s CD tile, so I infer that Quantum Realm adds damage to her CD tile too due to similar wording.

2b. (Theoretical) Howard the Duck + Quantum Realm: First turn Duck, Duck, Loose! and deal ~7000 damage at the start of your turn.

  1. First turn Infinite Power. No more destruction of bottom tiles.

  2. Increase chosen X-Men’s critical damage multiplier by 2.7 with Stepford Cuckoos.

Using Cable as an example:

bluetile.png
713 | greentile.png
634 | yellowtile.png
555 | image.png
353 |

91 | blacktile.png
84 | purpletile.png
77 | image.png
4.3x

His critical blue Match-3 damage before Support boost is: (713 * 3) * 4.3 = 9197

His critical blue Match-3 damage after Support boost is: (713 * 3) * 7.0 = 14973.
That’s like firing off a power.

There are a lot more interesting combinations…

14

Supports seem potentially interesting but I still don’t get how we are supposed to get them. With the initial release of supports I had a high level support token and got a 4 star support, but aside from that all I’ve gotten are 1 and 2 star ones, which are not very interesting. I would spend hero points to get more but it doesn’t work. I’m just puzzled by them.

15

If the rarity of supports remains then the more likely level to be faced is 3*/lvl150 and 4*/lvl200. It softens the OP analysis of how game breaking they can be.
I have been using them to make the PvE 5e easier by giving the appropriate boost to the team I use to find a good synergy.
The potential is in at the lower levels I have seen them make big differences to my PvE play.
if Demiurge will loosen distribution, supports will become a much used part of the game.

16

@bbigler where did Brigby say that they plan on making Supports more available??? Not to take away from the rest of your post just curious

17

Am a baby 5* player (seven 5* champs, none higher than 456, play in SL9), but my draw rate on supports is horrendous and I routinely buy into support heavy vaults.

I have ZERO 4* or higher supports and only five 3* supports, of which, the only remotely useful one to my gameplay is Shuri’s Lab for the potential of add’l red AP. The rest are Chimi, Cull Obsidian, Proxima, and Wasp Gauntlets. Have a total of 25/45 supports.
I’m sitting on 1.2M red ISO, with nothing to spend it on because it’s just not worth investing into my current support lineup.
There needs to be more routes to acquire decent supports. Right now, supports like 2* Korg on my 5Thor actually slow my clears down when his protect tile perk fires.

18

Here’s where Brigby stated most recently that they are looking to increase the availability of supports.

The flip side of that is I think even if they do increase the availability of supports, Level 5 supports will be rare. I think the most optimistic of estimates is that your average player will score 1 or 2 Master tokens per season - which mean you’ll get a level 5… probably 3 or 4 times a year. No joke, that’s tough.

19

A level 5 three or four times a year would still be more interesting than now.

20

What I meant by this is that when support distribution is improved in the future, then 5* players will likely be the first group to get them to high levels.