With the caveat that I’d still prefer a way to leave Bishop alone, and solve the problem the 5* players have with seeing too much of him in PvP another way, here’s another option in case that isn’t feasible (or is too risky).
What about a way to nerf Bishop only in PvP, without affecting how the character behaves in PvE?
Say there was a companion support that restored whatever behavior you take away from him in the nerf, like the “jump in front” mechanic. Remove that ability from his base power set, and then add it back in as a companion support perk – and give everyone that support, gratis.
Thus, anyone who relies on Bishop for boss events or high-level PvE can still get essentially the same behavior, but the PvP experience, without the support, is addressed.
Note that if the devs consider this concept of “restore nerfed behavior via support”, it would be a great idea to check on the most commonly used support[s] for him right now, and include some of those capabilities as well. The idea being, the companion support is likely a permanent fixture, so including the benefits players are typically already getting with current supports helps more and more people swallow the nerf pill with less penalty against them.
Devs might also want to consider a matchmaking adjustment to reduce the incidents where champed-5* teams can beat down 4*s, if you’re taking away one of the best weapons to retaliate against such attacks. Or perhaps, allow support use in retaliation fights only (and those supports aren’t part of that team when attacked on defense thereafter).
all they need to do is increase the damage threshold so that the strongest 5* match 3 doesn’t trigger his mechanic, but anything more will. problem solved. do the same with cap. done.
That will make them useless. A 450 deals about 2400 match-3 and a 550 deals about 4500 match-3 damage. So, which level of 5* match-3 should his threshold be based on?
Even a 370 XFDP takes only 2789 to trigger…
Just stop him from gaining past 10 blue ap when cascades occur.
The point, is that the mechanics as they are can be very useful to a 4* player when we’re up against high-level content like late round boss events, or SCL9 PvE.
I get that the characters are annoying to fight as a 5* player, and that they are disproportionately effective against them. A nerf however is a very one-sided response to that scenario. The 5* player gains everything, and the 4* player loses everything, including a valuable tool against PvE content that doesn’t hurt anyone (when used in PvE).
Any solution that results in removing the “wall of Bishops” is a ‘win’ IMO for the 5* player, no matter how that’s accomplished. So if it can be done in a way that doesn’t hurt the 4* player, or at least lessens the blow, that’s worth exploring.
A meta that never changed would be boring, certainly. On the other hand the dominance of a certain set of teams doesn’t preclude discussion about people’s opinions of those teams and characters. Countering someone’s position is reasonable debate but telling people to change their minds isn’t fostering discussion, it’s shutting it down. Disagreement and contention are normal in an environment such as this and, to an extent (namely where language and content fall within the bounds defined on the forum as acceptable), should be encouraged.
here here is the simple fix. Make it if an ally is going to take X damage Bishop jumps in front and generates 5 blue AP.
if Bishop is in front already he will not generate any any AP. This would make it so you could target him first like DP, Thing and players could still use him offensively in boss events and in PVP by keeping him in back.
you could also make him the opposite if he just takes X amount of damage he will generate 5 blue AP so if he is in back you can save him till last and one shot him.
the issue is he and hammer cap do both. Jump in front and if they are in front will activate their OP passive powers
I think @wymtime is onto something. Bishop is undiminished if he doesn’t jump in front. Offensively, you can select his colors for him to tank and in doing so, let him generate his blue AP.
it takes nothing away from people trying to punch up. It will stop 5* teams from putting bishop in their teams to float.
as I mentioned in the first few posts of the feedback thread, I really dislike the jump in front mechanic coupled with passive AP generation or countdown tiles generation designs. It makes matching 3 in a match 3 game impossible under circumstances where people are punished for leveling their highest tier characters.
I thought of Iceman’s passive ability. Instead of generating blue ap immediately, he creates a 1 or 2-turn CD tile that gives him up to 5 blue ap after the CD processes. There can only be a maximum of 1-2 CD on the board. You can play around with the number of blue ap gained, no of turn and max no. of CD tiles on the board.
5Thor is clearly broken, and should be nerfed. Players are exploiting a half-health mechanic by entering a fight that way, which allows him to be OP from turn 1. The developers never intended that behavior, and should fix it.
Unless I’ve missed something, this argument is not being made. (And I’m not making it either, other than to illustrate a point). It’s a defensible argument from the standpoint of exploited behavior and an OP turn 1 dynamic. So WHY aren’t lots of people crying to nerf Thor?
The reason, is because this clearly broken behavior doesn’t hurt anyone else. In fact, the opposing player in PvP doesn’t even experience that anomaly, because the opponent Thor is always full health, and therefore doesn’t even have the broken behavior when being faced in PvP.
This kind of outcome is what the proposal here attempts to achieve. Bishop could maintain the same capabilities for the player who wants to use him, as long as those capabilities aren’t felt in large numbers by opposing 5* PvP players.
Fix the actual problem. And that problem, is a queue-full of Bishop teams that are annoying to play against for one segment of the player base.
Any solution that clears the multitude of Bishops out of their queues is a good solution for those players. Any such solution that also happens to maintain all of the current OP capabilities, is a good solution for everyone.
More or less agree froggerjohn, this is why I tend to think that glass cannon teams that excel in offense but aren’t quite as scary without a human using them are an ideal meta team for mpq.
I’m not sure I would agree that Thor is broken.
However, I suspect that the reason many don’t complain about him is that even when he starts a battle with 1/2 health on offence, this does not affect him on defence.
The fact that Thor collects at least 5ap just by beginning the turn doing nothing makes him broken. The only difference is that defensively, he’s a dud and he doesn’t begin with 50% health at the start of the match when you face him. If he starts the match with 50% health when you face him, he will be nerfed along with Gambit.
Some whine about characters gaining ap because they made a match-3 that triggers their passives but they are against nerfing Thor when they are gaining 5ap every turn.
I was a strong proponent of nerf Thor as I feel auto gain of 5AP per turn is broken and allows people to get away without thinking about the match 3 they’re making.
I’m also a strong proponent of bishop as he is not match 3 friendly.
He may or may not be broken. But he’s subtly nerfing much of the rest of the 5* tier. He’s doing that because everyone is exploiting the half health mechanic to generate tons of free AP. So what happens virtually every time a new 5* is released is you see the inevitable comments of ‘they are not as good/fast as 1/2 health Thor so they are useless/non-meta’. If this exploit didn’t exist, how many 5* characters would be a lot more relevant?
It seems to me this exploit is a lot more likely to get fixed in some future release than any other nerf to Okoye/Kitty or whomever else is a a supposed nerf target because this isn’t intended behavior.
The complaint’s about Bishop go far beyond him gaining 5ap every turn (which is not even true, depending on cascades or the presence of Defense tiles on the board, he can make 7, 10 or even more). Vulture generates 10 AP every turn, and nobody is calling to nerf him. Because there is a counter. Same way there is a counter to 5* Thor: kill him last. Beat him up to 51% health then nuke him outright.
The problem with Bishop is the entire set combined that makes it impossible or at least very frustrating to beat. He jumps in front, generate blue, uses blue to deal damage and stun and destroy the little AP you managed to gather from that match. If you make a match with any of your 5*s, you will trigger a chain of events that results in your team being retaliated so bad that it was not even worth fighting.
There is a smart way to fight Thorkoye, there is a smart way to fight Gritty, there is a smart way to fight Vulture, XFDeadpool and Thing. I don’t know if there is a smart way to fight Hammercap+Hawkeye. But Hammercap, by himself, is not as broken as Bishop.
But any team that has a Bishop in it is a frustration. And there is just no way around him.
