Buff List Needs To Be Changed

V1PER1987

Kabam released a list of champs the community could vote for Kabam to buff in the future. Colossus won with an overwhelming majority, but there are a few champs on that list that really don’t need a buff as badly as others.

Venompool - I’m not sure where this “vote” came from but Venompool is not a champ I often hear people crying out to buff. Heavy bleed, heal block, and buff nullify + regen is very solid. Plus newer synergies make him that much better.

Old Man Logan - it’s been hinted at that he’s part of a current buff beta, but let’s pretend that doesn’t exist. I know people talk negatively a lot about him but once he goes berserk and unleashes specials, he does some respectable damage with his bleeds and the consistent regen is better than you think. Best part is it can’t be nullified, only heal blocked/reversed.

Howard the Duck - I know he’s been a meme champ for a while and most people just don’t really like him. However there is a video out there showing that he can take down X-23 in LOL which is more than you can say about most champs, even if it did take a huge ramp up. Double regen plus some hefty damage and random effects on L2 is still better than the champs I will suggest below.

Iron Patriot - One of the great meme champs of our time. Iron Patriot could use a little something extra special but he still has the ability to armor break and trigger decently long stuns. His sig also allows him to regain health and gain power giving him some additional survivability and firepower. Yeah he could use a buff, but not as desperately as others.

Kamala Khan - Alright so this is where it starts to get bad. She does have the ability to stack quite a few fury and increase the potency and duration of them, but it still feels like she doesn’t hit hard at all. She can also nullify some buffs under the right circumstances, but I will admit she could use a buff, albeit not as bad as others.

Groot - Okay, we’ve hit the bottom. It’s really confusing how a champ that can proc so many fury and cruelty buffs still hits for next to nothing. And the regen he has is a pitiful joke. No redeeming synergies or anything to make him close to being viable.

The champs I am about to recommend for expedited buffs are champs I’m sure everyone has mentioned or would agree with. I personally believe they have been cried out for buffs far more than any of the champs above, maybe save Groot or Kamala.

Magneto - I believe this is the number 1 buff request if I’ve ever seen it. I see people asking for Magneto buffs all the time and it always seems to fall upon deaf ears, especially after seeing the buff list. How could one of the most recognizable and powerful mutants in the universe be one of the worst champs in the game. It’s so insulting and disgusting how awful of a champion he is when you can do so much with him. How he never made it on the list of champs to be buffed I’ll never know.

Hulkbuster - There’s really not much to say about him because there’s really not much to talk about. He doesn’t do anything. He’s a trash can that piles on the armor and has virtually zero offensive value, short of his sad armor breaks. He also has zero defensive value. I am a bit biased because I’ve pulled him so many times I can’t even count from featured 5* and I currently have a 6* that makes me depressed and angry every time I see him. He is probably one of the worst champs in the game currently if not the worst.

Rhino - I know people will say he already got buffed with unstoppable and unblockable, but that’s not really a serious buff. Rhino is a force to be reckoned with and deserves better than to be benched. He should have some more offensive force. Maybe raise his attack with successful unblockable attacks or something. I’m not a character developer but I know he should be better.

Juggernaut - In the same vein as Rhino, Juggernaut has gotten a “buff” but not really. Just like Rhino, Juggernaut is a powerful monster that should be able to dish out some serious damage and leave champs in a world of hurt. Instead he hits about as hard as a branch slapping against you. I used to watch X-Men all the time and Magneto and Juggernaut were such strong characters and always created a huge obstacle for the X-Men. I would love to see Magneto and Juggernaut reflective of their status in the comics/shows instead of being a huge joke that people walk all over.

I would love to hear back from Kabam and get a response as to why these champs were left off the list. Is it simply because you don’t want to buff anymore 6* champs after LC, Rulk, and Gamora? Because I am fairly certain these champs were requested to be buffed more than anyone else on your buff list.

To you summoners out there, do you agree these 4 should be expedited on the buff list or is the list fine as is? Or is there a different champ I didn’t mention that you think should be at the top?

Comments

Kabam Miike

The list was based on Data that we collected. The Champions we had listed were statistically performing worse than others in game. This includes factors like Damage Dealt vs.Damage Taken, as well as their utilization.

The Champions you've listed may get a lot of conversation, but are statistically performing better than other Champions. We haven't released any Champions as 6-Stars that were performing/being utilized as low as those were.

Statistically speaking, they're not doing as bad as the others that were on that list. That's not to say that they won't be buffed in the future, but they're not as high as a priority as these were.

Jaded

Would love to see these stats for interest purposes.

V1PER1987

Yes I would like to know the data being collected because if you’re talking about damage dealt, Venompool, OML, and HtD dish out more damage than Magneto, HB, Jugg, and Rhino. Damage taken isn’t really a great factor because Magneto has a sig ability that is essentially a weak safeguard (terrible sig), and 3 tanks with above average armor. What modes are you looking at for utilization? Arena isn’t a great factor. AQ and AW are really the only modes that data should be gathered on and people aren’t taking Rhino and HB to Map 6 and 7. Even Luke and Rulk are being taken after their buffs. I’m just curious what the “data” entails exactly.

DTMelodicMetal

Ideally the statistics on OML weren't taken before the MD rework

Kobster84

If you watch any gameplay you’d see magneto or hulkbuster preform much worse then oldman Logan and venompool just feels you didn’t want to buff any champion that was a 6*

DNA3000

In my direct experience it is easier to get source code than the datamined performance reports.

Neotwism

Id like to see Cyclops get a buff. He is one of the stronger X-Men and both versions are just bad. I've only heard of him being a cohnter for Havok, but there are other options that are better to use against him. I do agree with your list. All these champs could use a buff. I would even be fine with new versions of these champs added to the game if buffing them is difficult. I'd definitely prefer the older versions buffed but I just want useable versions of these classic champs.

DNA3000

Damage taken verses damage delivered is an extremely common measurement metric. It often underlies some of the balancing design guidelines used to create things in the game in the first place. Although it has some flaws, I've used it myself as a balancing metric for reward generation systems.

Zeronaut81

I think that Magneto & hulkbuster are certainly in dire need for buffs. Of all of the lower tier champs, these two (along with Colossus, who I’m so happy to see is getting some love) are pretty much the worst. Hulkbuster is just meh. He is weak, lacks any utility beyond armor up/armor break (both are awful), and he has no synergies that make him remotely fun to play. He’s a great snack for Corvus. That’s it.

As for Magneto, he is just disappointing. His abilities could be great if he was tweaked. He should destroy tech/metal/robot champs, but his magnetized AAR isn’t very strong or reliable. His bleed on special 1 is fine, but it doesn’t proc often enough. At 55%, it seems like bleeds proc at a much lower rate. And while doing energy damage as his base attack is great for niche encounters, his attack, crit rate, and crit attack rating are all underwhelming. His heal block on sp2 and armor break on sp3 are decent, but are way too short to matter in today’s meta (8 sec armor break after a sp3, 10 second heal block on sp2).

As the proud owner of a 6* magneto, I can say with certainty that Hulkbuster is the only other champ in the basic 6* pool I would have been as disappointed in pulling. At least DPX has reliable bleeds on his special attacks. Magneto and HB are duds.

While I appreciate the devs looking at usage statistics to determine champion reworks (which in and of themselves are greatly appreciated), it would have been really awesome to have allowed the community to vote for the potential candidates in a write-in format. As OP said, most of the recent buff candidates have at least some redeeming quality. But these two are just bad, especially considering who/what they are.

Magneto is one of the most interesting, powerful characters in the marvel universe/mcu. And Hulkbuster is an Iron Man suit that iron man (playboy/billionaire/philanthropist/genius Tony Stark!) wears over his regular armor to fight the Incredible Hulk, the strongest there is. They should be cool champs, & fun to play. As they are, they are just blah.

G0311

I'll be honest I didn't read the posters whole post it was too long and it just sounds like a post about whining. lol

V1PER1987

Well then I guess you should’ve read it then. It’s a post detailing reasons I believe some champs should be buffed before others. Not sure why you decided to even comment if you’re not going to read it.

Fhfjghhggggjfhfjg

Lmao how is hulkbuster and magneto performing better than venompool, old logan and howard??

V1PER1987

I was debating whether or not to respond to this but I figured why not. I don’t see how that would be an extremely common measurement metric. It doesn’t really give any meaningful data. You are going to tell me that the less damage taken equals a good champ? I have an even better metric. It’s called play the game. Or even ask the community. I will concede that they did ask the community who we wanted buffed first, but the players should’ve voted on that list in the first place. The easiest measurement metric is maybe, I don’t know, playing the game? Anyone who plays the game for any period of time will quickly see which champs are better and which desperately need help. I guess the players don’t know what’s best for them though right?

DNA3000

Sure, players always know what's best, as long as that player is me. You, not so much.

The idea that players all agree on what's best, or even know for sure when they agree, is pretty amusing. You can only believe this if you haven't actually seen it from the other side. I've discussed the weaknesses of datamining in depth many times, but for all its flaws opinion polls are far worse. I would rather play the game the developers would make blindfolded than the game the forums would generate by committee.

Also, I'm not sure if you really believe any of that, or just trying to start an argument, because it is so blatantly obvious that champions that deal more damage relative to the damage they take are intrinsically performing better. The *definition* of performing better for most players is kill quickly while not dying.

V1PER1987

I am not intentionally trying to start an argument but my whole point is the 4 champs I mentioned don’t kill quickly. They may die slower than most other champs but outlasting another champ just because they can absorb more hits doesn’t make a great champ either. Show me where Mag, Rhino, HB, and Jugg kill anything quickly. That’s the whole point is their damage output is garbage and it’s really hard to believe their datamining shows them having higher damage output than Kamala, Old Man Logan, or Venompool.

DPXFistheGOAT

"[They] statistically performing better than other Champions."

* That's incredibly vague. The champions that are "performing statistically better, such as Magneto and Juggernaut, are often found in permanent content. For example, 4.2.6 Magneto is on a node that gives him +1% HP every second. That node rarely appears anywhere else and would give basically any defender a ludicrous advantage. The same is true for Juggernaut/Rhino who are always put on unique and ridiculous nodes. They're also both in RoL. So these things would skew the data.

* Now OML and Venompool, as far as I can remember, rarely show up in weird nodes. So them performing statistically worst would make sense. However, this doesn't mean their "base versions" are better.

DPXFistheGOAT

@Fhfjghhggggjfhfjg 4.2.6 Magneto alone (+1% HP/sec) alone would skew his statistics.

DNA3000

The metric being discussed is damage output vs damage taken; basically the ratio between how much damage a champion delivers and how much they take. I agree that either data point taken alone is nearly worthless: knowing that a champion outputs a lot of damage or takes very little by itself has no context: something that delivers a lot but also drops dead halfway through the fight is bad; something that takes almost no damage but also can't generate any damage is also bad. But taken together they represent one valid metric for comparing champions. The primary factor that clouds the issue is healing. X-23 could take a lot of damage relative to the damage she deals but still be great. You'd need other metrics to deal with those kinds of champs.

The thing about not believing statements about datamining is that since they are unlikely to be able to sit down and discuss the raw data with you, if you choose to not believe them then either they are lying in which case they will simply ignore you, or they are telling the truth in which case they have no choice but to ignore you. And even though there are a lot of ways for datamined metrics to be misleading, straight up simply not believing them gives the discussion nowhere to go. That's no different than me telling you that one of your anecdotes is impossible. If you're lying you're going to double down, and if you're telling the truth your only conclusion is that I'm an idiot, because nothing can be impossible that you actually saw with your own two eyes.

Wakala

Even better I will provide the list of my bad champions and you decide wish one to super buff

DPXFistheGOAT

You seem to know a lot about programming @DNA3000 so I'll ask you out of curiosity; how would you factor in "utilization" when determining how well a certain champion statistically performs?

DNA3000

That's not a programming question, but the answer here is that you don't, at least not in the way I think you mean. What I assume Kabam is doing (because this is how it generally is done) is the champions are datamined and ranked based on different metrics separately. So one metric might be damage output vs damage taken. That might be on a "damage efficiency" or "damage effectiveness" report. A completely different report might have usage: how often is each champion actually played by the players, which is a measure of how much players think the champion is useful to them. There's almost certainly a report that measures how much rewards each champion earns during play, how often they are placed on defense in AW, how often they die in combat (or kills per death, which I've seen), and so on.

When a champion consistently shows up at the bottom of too many of those lists without a reasonable explanation (for example, if the champ was just released last week, the data for that champ will be artificially lower than it will eventually become), that's probably when they get added to the list of potential targets to buff.

DPXFistheGOAT

Wouldn't that help someone like Juggernaut who is always on some annoying node for some reason? Because based on this, it seems like not everything can be quantified (ie. How putting Juggernaut on a stun immune node can ruin the rhythm of someone who likes to parry). Or at least, it's effects are "spread out" (ie. Juggernaut on stun immune node K/D ratio would be in a different report than Path A, which has, Juggernaut completion/fail ratio)

DNA3000

Re: what's quantifiable. I'm not saying I fully agree with this, but I can say what I think most game developers would say if pressed. The first is that datamining quantifies results, not methods, and results are always quantifiable. The ultimate quantifiable metric is rewards: all the combat ultimately generates a specific basket of rewards. Kills, completions, those things are all quantifiable and game balance is about ensuring that all advantages exist within reasonable boundaries, and those advantages are judged based on results. This is basically a fundamental principle of data-driven game balance.

(And it is often the source of great player confusion. Sometimes apparently overwhelming combat advantages are allowed to exist in some games for what seems to be no reason, but the reason they exist is because they don't translate into actual net advantages in rewards. For example, suppose a champ existed that had an ability where if you performed some specific sequence of moves absolutely perfectly the target just dies. That would be a huge combat advantage in theory. But suppose the devs datamined the game and discovered that on average most players using that champion were actually taking longer to complete event maps, maybe because the tactic was extremely difficult to pull off and players just kept trying. The datamining might suggest that this huge combat advantage wasn't translating into actual player reward benefits, which might be a point in its favor to remain in the game even if there were tons of Youtube videos showing how "OP" it was).

Then there's the inside ball. Every game developer has that thing they would like to change. And every game developer will tell you that there's generally two ways to get it changed. One: find a metric everyone agrees is reasonable then prove the thing you want to change fails the metric quantitatively. Two: try to convince everyone else you're right by arguing with them until all of them say you win.

Quantitative metrics are like referees in that regard. No one thinks they are always right, many think they are almost always wrong, but without them there's just chaos. Without them developers would just be arguing with each other constantly and never actually creating any content.

Djkrdjj

It’s probably based on who they have the best ideas on who to buff

DPXFistheGOAT

Isn't that why they test the game? I would think that regardless of all these statistics, they can unanimously agree that someone like Magento is absolute garbage (despite being insanely an popular Marvel character). If they rely so much on stats that they couldnt figure that one out, then it seems like they dont test it regularly at all (which makes sense. Theres well over 100 characters)

Werewrym

This makes it sound like the trash champs in the 6* pool are good... Does this mean you only looked at data that was taken before 6* were released? Because a reason for the "statistically better performance" could be that they exist as 6* in the game and people can actually play them at a rank they wouldn't normally take those garbage champs to.

This topic gets me a bit frustrated because my 6* champs are so bad that I never use any of the 8 that I have. It's frustrating when all of your buffs are happening to champs that aren't in the 6* pool. It's high time that the pool of 6* champs got a buff because it is SO bad.

DNA3000

You can't get complete agreement on the forums that Magneto is absolute garbage, except by shouting down everyone who disagrees. In a game developer studio, you don't have the luxury of being in an environment where one point of view gets amplified above everyone else. The opposite, in fact. There are a ton of people who probably think Magneto is not garbage, but are afraid to state that fact on these forums. And then some of them become game developers. How do you think those developers view "forum wisdom?"

One of the most hilarious questions I keep seeing, not just on this forum but practically every game forum I've been on, is "don't the devs play this game, or any game?' Yes, yes they do. Professionals though they are, they are just as good at knowing how everyone playing the game behaves and sees the game as, well, any other game player you know. Which is to say: not very.

In some games the developers have a responsibility to be on the forums. In some games they are actually banned from participating on the forums. Most games make it optional. Wanna take a guess as to what percentage of game developers agree to participate on game forums when given the choice? I don't know precisely, but I can tell you how many digits are in that percentage, and it isn't two. And believe me: that's an informed decision.

The question people should be asking isn't why their datamining is so wrong, it should be why my intuition doesn't match the actual data. That's a learning experience that directly leads to better understanding game development, and how to talk to game developers. Everyone I know whose opinion about gaming I give any value to at all can ask that question of themselves honestly.

DNA3000

I doubt if that is the problem because most datamining accounts for that kind of effect. However, one of the ways that people's intuition about performance can vary wildly from what actually happens in online games is that most people assume that either everyone else is like them, or the related idea that the game should be balanced around a hypothetical standard group of players that has vastly higher skill than the actual players of the game do.

For example, "most people" and by that I mean most people on the forums, think Stark Enhanced Spiderman is a top tier champion. But I would bet that he isn't one of the top performing champions in the game in actual fact when played by actual players. That's because he has a high skill level threshold. You need to know how he works - and most players do not read descriptions or bother to learn or bother to remember how all the champions work. You need to build poise charges. Remember that many if not most players have to be taught to evade and told to take the dexterity mastery (that was one of the reasons for the mastery swaps made not long ago). You have to not get hit too often or you lose your increased crit and can even die because he's such a glass cannon.

Conversely, consider everyone's favorite semantic punching bag, Cyclops. It is actually easy to see how his effectiveness in the game would be far higher than most people give him credit for. He's easy to play. He has armor break. He has unblockable attacks. For a huge swath of the players in the game I would bet Cyclops generates better results than Sparky, if for no other reason than Cyclops doesn't encourage players to take dangerous risks like Sparky does.

If you want to argue that we shouldn't judge champions based on how everyone does, but rather how the top players use them or how players with a certain skill level does with them or whatever, that's all debatable. The problem is that debate has no end to it. It is a matter of judgment, not fact.

unknown

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Fhfjghhggggjfhfjg

Well to be fair magneto needed that buff more than logan imo