I think the most important aspect of the Kingpin change is being overlooked... It doesn't matter if Kingpin is good or bad. It doesn't matter if the devs added enough, or not enough. The real problem is that Kingpin's update reflects a toxic design philosophy, and I don't use that word lightly. The philosophy is basically this: we can take away anything we want, as long as we put more stuff back.
This game doesn't work that way, and in fact is moving farther and farther away from that.... we live in a world where Kingpin had very specific capabilities to cope with debuffs that were weakened in some aspects, and then had other stuff added. We cannot simply say the stuff added is "better" than the stuff removed, because for the players who were relying upon Kingpin to do those things that were removed, the champ no longer functions as desired in their specific roster.... For some people, Kingpin was their best options for certain things, and they invested in Kingpin because of that fact.
With apologies to DNA for borrowing his words*, as one of the (not very many) people who had taken Kingpin to R4 and used him in a variety of content, I read DNA's original thoughts and thought they related equally well to Kingpin's buff; so thought it was worth responding in kind, to note that this 'design philosophy' is something Kabam did with his buff as well.
*In case it's not obvious, I've replaced 'Hood' with 'Kingpin'
There's no doubt that Kingpin is objectively better all-round than he used to be. But as someone who was already making use of him, I can't just him as well against many of the match-ups I used to use him for. He used to shine against opponents or nodes who remotely inflict and then punish debuffs; mostly Science champs he's supposed to be strong against. Electra, Void, Wasp, Luke Cage, Invisible Woman and Mr Fantastic all punish the opponent for carrying debuffs. Kingpin now carries more (rather than fewer) debuffs, as his Rage is a debuff rather than a Passive.
Nodes like Blood in the Water, While They're Down, and Insecurity all punish you for carrying debuffs.
Kingpin is no longer a good option against any of these opponents or nodes: He's a better champ all-round, but his place in my roster has changed. I guarantee more people will use him post-buff. But like DNA said, will that use all reflect new users? And will other people who used to use him, find that he's no longer as useful for the things they ranked him up for?
I don't mean to trivialize the changes you're describing, because when things like that happen to someone directly they are never trivial to them. But there's a continuum of impact from very low to very high and I think the change to Hood is of a higher degree because of the directness of impact. The change you're describing adds a weakness to Kingpin he didn't originally have, but given the complexity of the game almost any change will add a weakness of some kind, since everything has counters. Gaining anything makes you vulnerable to the Kryptonite of that thing. Gaining buffs makes you weaker to things strong against buffs. Having self-debuffs makes you more vulnerable to things that punish debuffs.
That does not mean we shouldn't be thinking about Kingpin also, I think that conversation should happen as well. But with Hood the changes don't have the side effect of adding more counters to Hood, they act to completely remove one of his core capabilities. I personally think Kingpin is more of a grey area case, whereas I think Hood is more of a black and white case. With Kingpin I think the discussion is whether the devs are drawing the line in the right place, and everyone has different options about that, both for and against. Reasonable players could disagree. But with Hood it seems clear that Kabam is not honoring any line at all, and I think that should be troubling to everyone.
I'm not going to agree with Kabam, or even with other players, where the line should be drawn exactly. But I think we can all agree there should be a line somewhere. Honoring player investment isn't the only thing, but it should be an important thing. Hood either says there's no line at all, or the line is so far to the right that Player Investment comes after "but this is more cool looking." I think that's way too far to be comfortable to anyone who thinks about the game.
Wow where did all the hood players come from, even if they gave hood his fate seal back I still wouldn't use him.
I dont really use him but I hate the precedent it sets and feel for those who do use him. His buff, like all the others, should strengthen the character and support his abilities, not remove possibly his best piece and replace it with something tons of champs do better (damage) leaving him no place to his current fan base in order to have him more widely used by beginning and intermediate players. This sets the tone that core abilities aren't safe and with most endgame players ranking for niche uses what's the point when they use can go at any time without reason.
Exactly this for me as well. I don't use Hood a lot, even though I really like him. I have champs that do what he did either a bit better, or slightly worse but faster. I don't think this update will change that much. But the precedent is a scary thought.
What if they buff Maw next and take away his falter and pg steal? Would they take away Ronan's stuns in a future update? Could they just rework Vulture out of incinerate immunity? Or his special brand of power control? Will Dormammu remain immune to poison, or will I one day login and he's suddenly immune to incinerate and rupture? When I rank my Magik to 5/65, can I trust she will always have power control, or will I have ranked 3 Buff Control champions and no power control to rank 5, just because Kabam felt like it?
Guys, they won’t change hood back lol Daredevil Hell’s Kitchen, immortal hulk, Yellowjacket... Everyone cried to kabam saying don’t let these go live, make the change before release lol months later and guess what, no changes and these champions still aren’t used by most of the community (besides immortal hulk, fun rank up but mainly useless IMO)
That's a totally different scenario than this. Immortal Hulk was just an underwhelming champ, YJ and DDHK are still WAY better than they were before, they didn't lose anything that made them viable. The Hood was better than YJ or DDHK, so people actually used him for content, now they most likely can't use him for that original niche content they used him for.
I haven't used hood in ages, he was one of my first duped 5*s and he was a great buff counter and crushed Medusa in AW when she was often a boss. Now there are much better options in my opinion, but not everyone has those options. I don't have a specific issue because I haven't used that form of utility for him in years, heck, I may actually start using him for the first time since those Ole AW matchups, but I totally get why people are so pissed. Rank down tickets should be handed out for sure.
Guys, they won’t change hood back lol Daredevil Hell’s Kitchen, immortal hulk, Yellowjacket... Everyone cried to kabam saying don’t let these go live, make the change before release lol months later and guess what, no changes and these champions still aren’t used by most of the community (besides immortal hulk, fun rank up but mainly useless IMO)
That's a totally different scenario than this. Immortal Hulk was just an underwhelming champ, YJ and DDHK are still WAY better than they were before, they didn't lose anything that made them viable. The Hood was better than YJ or DDHK, so people actually used him for content, now they most likely can't use him for that original niche content they used him for.
I haven't used hood in ages, he was one of my first duped 5*s and he was a great buff counter and crushed Medusa in AW when she was often a boss. Now there are much better options in my opinion, but not everyone has those options. I don't have a specific issue because I haven't used that form of utility for him in years, heck, I may actually start using him for the first time since those Ole AW matchups, but I totally get why people are so pissed. Rank down tickets should be handed out for sure.
You are spot on. DDHK and YJ were "successful buffs", as they took those champions from COMPLETELY unusable (F tier) to at least C tier, being usable (I'd argue YJ is situationally B tier even). To date, every single champion buff has been successful in some way, as it has elevated the champion to become more usable.
That is, until yesterday. The Hood had parts of his utility kit removed, in fact the most important parts at that. His fate seal removed, stagger duration nerfed, invisibility changed, heavy attacks no longer refresh bleed debuffs. He also got a Diablo-like mechanic which is reliant on the opponent having a lot of buffs to nullify to keep up the damage detonations. Strong utility was exchanged for situational damage.
I don't like to use the word nerf, but as others have said, exchanging strong utility for *possibly* strong damage is in NO way a buff. Removing the reason why people ranked up The Hood in the first place (Very powerful buff control) and replacing it with solid damage is not a buff, it's a change, and a negative change. It is a nerf to his previous kit.
Why noone talks about his bullets mechanic? If you use him against an opponent which doesn't proc any buffs (for example Deadpool in which you will use Hood to nullify his regeneration buff), you will be able to place upto 28 staggers (without using your sp2). Let's say that this is 14 combos (M-L-L-L-M). That's about 70 hits (14 combos * 5 hit each combo). What that means? If there is a 400K Deadpool you will probably lose all your staggers before you push him to 20% health. And if you can still somehow nullify his regeneration buff (you were boosted for example), in the next fight you won't be able to use Hood as a reliable nullifier cause he won't have any persistant charges
Imagine if they try to buff ronan in the future and take away his sig Ability for a "stronger " sig.
They actually didn't mess up on Gambit.i was afraid they'd take away his stun lock. His stun lock was only slightly changed but that made sense even to not be guaranteed against techs.
I took him to r5 to stun cheese that would annoy me.
There's no guarantee that Champs will do the same thing they used to when you change them.
But perhaps there should be, at least to some degree.
The great irony here is that we want players to think about champions in terms of what they CAN do, not what they CAN'T do. We want players to think about champions in terms of their usefulness, not in terms of their tier. If you pull a champ, and it works, use it. Rank it. Don't wait for the optimal champ, go with the useful ones.
I don't agree with every single tiny point in @Cat_Murdock 's very extensive report on the Hood changes, but I do agree with the vast majority of it, particularly its central points. But I encourage everyone to set all of that aside and just read it, all nine pages of it. You should read it. Here it is again: https://docs.google.com/document/d/11IuBRhchjyTiQDKSIJ5d7Aad6NfqQO0Cs19I_UBH-xk. What do you see?
I see a player passionate about a champ most people consider to be a below average champ (Seatin for example has Hood in tier five of eight tiers, and if anything he's valuing Hood higher than most players). And passionate for all the right reasons. This player looked at the champ, found a strong use case for the champ, and invested time and resources to play the champ and rank up the champ. Cat probably knows more about Hood than I know about my own refrigerator contents. We WANT players to do this. Cat is playing the game the way we want everyone to play the game: to see the champions for what they can do for them, and not focus what other champs might be better.
The Hood update *punishes* those players for investing in suboptimal champs. If you're investing in Doom, you're safe. The devs aren't going to be rebalancing him any time soon. If you're investing in Claire, I'm pretty sure the devs aren't going to be tweaking her abilities this year. But if you want to invest in the Hoods of the game, you're taking a huge risk, because the devs have just signaled that since those champs are not the best at anything, everything they do now can be tossed away at any time.
That's why I called this a toxic design philosophy. It is one thing to nerf an OP champ because you have to, even if you incur the wrath of the playerbase. What are we going to do: stop ranking top tier champs? But when you feel free to scramble the lower tier champs that actually have strong use cases you're telling the playerbase that the best is the only safe thing. You can rank up Hood, but you're an idiot if you do. You should save for Claire, because she's the safe option. Claire is not waiting in line for the devs to take a scalpel to her.
You of all people should be up in arms over this change. A month ago you would probably be telling people Hood is not a poor champion, that he has uses, and people should be ranking up Hood and using him if they need those things. They should ignore spreadsheets, because they are irrelevant. Now, are you going to tell people that if they did that, it sucks to be them because while they should be investing in Hood, they should also be expecting that investment to disappear randomly without any game balance requirement for it to do so? That's ludicrous. We can only expect people to stop focusing on "the best" champs if it is reasonably safe for them to focus on the not-best champs. The Hood update says it is not safe to invest in champs that are underperforming, because they are coming for those champs. And some will see that investment become much better. And some will see that investment become worthless. And if you're one of the players who sees that investment become worthless, they don't care, as long as you're in the minority.
That should be untenable for any ethical game designer. But it is also bad for the game. Because it tells the players that tier lists matter. If you invest in a low tier champion, even if you think the champ is fine, the devs don't care about you or your investments. You picked wrong. That's a horrible message to send, but Kabam unambiguously sent it with this update. Maybe you didn't hear that, but I can assure you the Cat Murdocks of the game heard it loud and clear.
If anyone disagrees that this is a bad decision to update hood like this, imagine if Gladiator hulk’s face me was removed and replaced with burst damage. Nobody would use him, because there’ll be better damage champions and his face me utility (the reason people rank him up) would be gone.
Guys, they won’t change hood back lol Daredevil Hell’s Kitchen, immortal hulk, Yellowjacket... Everyone cried to kabam saying don’t let these go live, make the change before release lol months later and guess what, no changes and these champions still aren’t used by most of the community (besides immortal hulk, fun rank up but mainly useless IMO)
There's no guarantee that Champs will do the same thing they used to when you change them.
But perhaps there should be, at least to some degree.
The great irony here is that we want players to think about champions in terms of what they CAN do, not what they CAN'T do. We want players to think about champions in terms of their usefulness, not in terms of their tier. If you pull a champ, and it works, use it. Rank it. Don't wait for the optimal champ, go with the useful ones.
I don't agree with every single tiny point in @Cat_Murdock 's very extensive report on the Hood changes, but I do agree with the vast majority of it, particularly its central points. But I encourage everyone to set all of that aside and just read it, all nine pages of it. You should read it. Here it is again: https://docs.google.com/document/d/11IuBRhchjyTiQDKSIJ5d7Aad6NfqQO0Cs19I_UBH-xk. What do you see?
I see a player passionate about a champ most people consider to be a below average champ (Seatin for example has Hood in tier five of eight tiers, and if anything he's valuing Hood higher than most players). And passionate for all the right reasons. This player looked at the champ, found a strong use case for the champ, and invested time and resources to play the champ and rank up the champ. Cat probably knows more about Hood than I know about my own refrigerator contents. We WANT players to do this. Cat is playing the game the way we want everyone to play the game: to see the champions for what they can do for them, and not focus what other champs might be better.
The Hood update *punishes* those players for investing in suboptimal champs. If you're investing in Doom, you're safe. The devs aren't going to be rebalancing him any time soon. If you're investing in Claire, I'm pretty sure the devs aren't going to be tweaking her abilities this year. But if you want to invest in the Hoods of the game, you're taking a huge risk, because the devs have just signaled that since those champs are not the best at anything, everything they do now can be tossed away at any time.
That's why I called this a toxic design philosophy. It is one thing to nerf an OP champ because you have to, even if you incur the wrath of the playerbase. What are we going to do: stop ranking top tier champs? But when you feel free to scramble the lower tier champs that actually have strong use cases you're telling the playerbase that the best is the only safe thing. You can rank up Hood, but you're an idiot if you do. You should save for Claire, because she's the safe option. Claire is not waiting in line for the devs to take a scalpel to her.
You of all people should be up in arms over this change. A month ago you would probably be telling people Hood is not a poor champion, that he has uses, and people should be ranking up Hood and using him if they need those things. They should ignore spreadsheets, because they are irrelevant. Now, are you going to tell people that if they did that, it sucks to be them because while they should be investing in Hood, they should also be expecting that investment to disappear randomly without any game balance requirement for it to do so? That's ludicrous. We can only expect people to stop focusing on "the best" champs if it is reasonably safe for them to focus on the not-best champs. The Hood update says it is not safe to invest in champs that are underperforming, because they are coming for those champs. And some will see that investment become much better. And some will see that investment become worthless. And if you're one of the players who sees that investment become worthless, they don't care, as long as you're in the minority.
That should be untenable for any ethical game designer. But it is also bad for the game. Because it tells the players that tier lists matter. If you invest in a low tier champion, even if you think the champ is fine, the devs don't care about you or your investments. You picked wrong. That's a horrible message to send, but Kabam unambiguously sent it with this update. Maybe you didn't hear that, but I can assure you the Cat Murdocks of the game heard it loud and clear.
Why can't hood have both??? Above average to good damage and good utility.
Why others champs are allowed to have both then and in greater quantity and quality??
Doom - damage is very good and utility is superb.
Magik - damage is above average and utility is top notch.
BWCV - damage is above average and utility is 2nd to none.
Tigra - great damage and utility.
List goes on and on.
Why can't hood have his sp2/hex seal back ??? And longer stagger duration??
The proposed and intended damage increased is not cream of the crop damage wise like red magneto or CGR.
Pls kabam don't nerf Hoods utility.
They didn’t want to create another doom, do you not understand with his new kit and old kit , he would be a combo of Claire and doom, and you wouldn’t need MD . Doom has created a problem in the meta and makes it hard to create future champs. They have to keep the game balanced.
A simple tune up by 100% to all of his abilities wouldn’t have taken him out of his hole.
People argue they want utility, but then complain about psycho man although he is probably the best champ released from a kit stand point.
Hood , had some matches he dominated, but overall out the scope of that, he was below average .
Combo of Claire and doom??? LMAO.
Please don't make me laugh.
Proposed Hoods buff (actually a Nerf)
Immunities? None
Fate seal? What's that?
Power control? Huh?
I called it a Re-balance. Or Nerf. Not a buff whatsoever. Why mess with the core ability of such a old champ? Totally uncalled for. Nobody complained and asked for him to be rebalanced. I'm completely perplexed at their thinking process. The increased in damage doesn't justify the removal of his main utility.
There's no guarantee that Champs will do the same thing they used to when you change them.
But perhaps there should be, at least to some degree.
The great irony here is that we want players to think about champions in terms of what they CAN do, not what they CAN'T do. We want players to think about champions in terms of their usefulness, not in terms of their tier. If you pull a champ, and it works, use it. Rank it. Don't wait for the optimal champ, go with the useful ones.
I don't agree with every single tiny point in @Cat_Murdock 's very extensive report on the Hood changes, but I do agree with the vast majority of it, particularly its central points. But I encourage everyone to set all of that aside and just read it, all nine pages of it. You should read it. Here it is again: https://docs.google.com/document/d/11IuBRhchjyTiQDKSIJ5d7Aad6NfqQO0Cs19I_UBH-xk. What do you see?
I see a player passionate about a champ most people consider to be a below average champ (Seatin for example has Hood in tier five of eight tiers, and if anything he's valuing Hood higher than most players). And passionate for all the right reasons. This player looked at the champ, found a strong use case for the champ, and invested time and resources to play the champ and rank up the champ. Cat probably knows more about Hood than I know about my own refrigerator contents. We WANT players to do this. Cat is playing the game the way we want everyone to play the game: to see the champions for what they can do for them, and not focus what other champs might be better.
The Hood update *punishes* those players for investing in suboptimal champs. If you're investing in Doom, you're safe. The devs aren't going to be rebalancing him any time soon. If you're investing in Claire, I'm pretty sure the devs aren't going to be tweaking her abilities this year. But if you want to invest in the Hoods of the game, you're taking a huge risk, because the devs have just signaled that since those champs are not the best at anything, everything they do now can be tossed away at any time.
That's why I called this a toxic design philosophy. It is one thing to nerf an OP champ because you have to, even if you incur the wrath of the playerbase. What are we going to do: stop ranking top tier champs? But when you feel free to scramble the lower tier champs that actually have strong use cases you're telling the playerbase that the best is the only safe thing. You can rank up Hood, but you're an idiot if you do. You should save for Claire, because she's the safe option. Claire is not waiting in line for the devs to take a scalpel to her.
You of all people should be up in arms over this change. A month ago you would probably be telling people Hood is not a poor champion, that he has uses, and people should be ranking up Hood and using him if they need those things. They should ignore spreadsheets, because they are irrelevant. Now, are you going to tell people that if they did that, it sucks to be them because while they should be investing in Hood, they should also be expecting that investment to disappear randomly without any game balance requirement for it to do so? That's ludicrous. We can only expect people to stop focusing on "the best" champs if it is reasonably safe for them to focus on the not-best champs. The Hood update says it is not safe to invest in champs that are underperforming, because they are coming for those champs. And some will see that investment become much better. And some will see that investment become worthless. And if you're one of the players who sees that investment become worthless, they don't care, as long as you're in the minority.
That should be untenable for any ethical game designer. But it is also bad for the game. Because it tells the players that tier lists matter. If you invest in a low tier champion, even if you think the champ is fine, the devs don't care about you or your investments. You picked wrong. That's a horrible message to send, but Kabam unambiguously sent it with this update. Maybe you didn't hear that, but I can assure you the Cat Murdocks of the game heard it loud and clear.
There's no guarantee that Champs will do the same thing they used to when you change them.
But perhaps there should be, at least to some degree.
The great irony here is that we want players to think about champions in terms of what they CAN do, not what they CAN'T do. We want players to think about champions in terms of their usefulness, not in terms of their tier. If you pull a champ, and it works, use it. Rank it. Don't wait for the optimal champ, go with the useful ones.
I don't agree with every single tiny point in @Cat_Murdock 's very extensive report on the Hood changes, but I do agree with the vast majority of it, particularly its central points. But I encourage everyone to set all of that aside and just read it, all nine pages of it. You should read it. Here it is again: https://docs.google.com/document/d/11IuBRhchjyTiQDKSIJ5d7Aad6NfqQO0Cs19I_UBH-xk. What do you see?
I see a player passionate about a champ most people consider to be a below average champ (Seatin for example has Hood in tier five of eight tiers, and if anything he's valuing Hood higher than most players). And passionate for all the right reasons. This player looked at the champ, found a strong use case for the champ, and invested time and resources to play the champ and rank up the champ. Cat probably knows more about Hood than I know about my own refrigerator contents. We WANT players to do this. Cat is playing the game the way we want everyone to play the game: to see the champions for what they can do for them, and not focus what other champs might be better.
The Hood update *punishes* those players for investing in suboptimal champs. If you're investing in Doom, you're safe. The devs aren't going to be rebalancing him any time soon. If you're investing in Claire, I'm pretty sure the devs aren't going to be tweaking her abilities this year. But if you want to invest in the Hoods of the game, you're taking a huge risk, because the devs have just signaled that since those champs are not the best at anything, everything they do now can be tossed away at any time.
That's why I called this a toxic design philosophy. It is one thing to nerf an OP champ because you have to, even if you incur the wrath of the playerbase. What are we going to do: stop ranking top tier champs? But when you feel free to scramble the lower tier champs that actually have strong use cases you're telling the playerbase that the best is the only safe thing. You can rank up Hood, but you're an idiot if you do. You should save for Claire, because she's the safe option. Claire is not waiting in line for the devs to take a scalpel to her.
You of all people should be up in arms over this change. A month ago you would probably be telling people Hood is not a poor champion, that he has uses, and people should be ranking up Hood and using him if they need those things. They should ignore spreadsheets, because they are irrelevant. Now, are you going to tell people that if they did that, it sucks to be them because while they should be investing in Hood, they should also be expecting that investment to disappear randomly without any game balance requirement for it to do so? That's ludicrous. We can only expect people to stop focusing on "the best" champs if it is reasonably safe for them to focus on the not-best champs. The Hood update says it is not safe to invest in champs that are underperforming, because they are coming for those champs. And some will see that investment become much better. And some will see that investment become worthless. And if you're one of the players who sees that investment become worthless, they don't care, as long as you're in the minority.
That should be untenable for any ethical game designer. But it is also bad for the game. Because it tells the players that tier lists matter. If you invest in a low tier champion, even if you think the champ is fine, the devs don't care about you or your investments. You picked wrong. That's a horrible message to send, but Kabam unambiguously sent it with this update. Maybe you didn't hear that, but I can assure you the Cat Murdocks of the game heard it loud and clear.
Excellently put. Now I’ll be thinking twice about ranking my mysterio for his poison immunity, what if kabam think that’s too OP with whatever buff they give him. I’ll think twice about ranking my hulk Rag for his face me, that could be too OP. Same with ronan’s stun lock.
That is a terrible way to have to think about a game with such investment necessary as Mcoc, I’d better not rank any champ but the best, just Incase kabam take away the bit of utility I ranked them for.
Wow where did all the hood players come from, even if they gave hood his fate seal back I still wouldn't use him.
I dont really use him but I hate the precedent it sets and feel for those who do use him. His buff, like all the others, should strengthen the character and support his abilities, not remove possibly his best piece and replace it with something tons of champs do better (damage) leaving him no place to his current fan base in order to have him more widely used by beginning and intermediate players. This sets the tone that core abilities aren't safe and with most endgame players ranking for niche uses what's the point when they use can go at any time without reason.
And that’s the main problem of this buff: changing a reliable core utility of an old champ. This might open the Pandora’s box on other old champs upcoming buffs. With the excuse of damage upgrade and the cover up of buffing, great utilities taken away. Who’s next on this new buff trend? Ronan? Rogue? or even Magik? The game is moving on a very dangerous v.12 like route with buffs like this, if we can even call it so.
While I know a lot of work goes into these champion buffs and I’m not sure of the timeline they work on, I personally think that before the buffs are finalized, there should be a small beta to let some players test the champ and provide feedback. I don’t really know how feasible this option is with their timelines, but I think it would greatly help in avoiding instances like this, where they present a buff, only for a large amount of the community to react negatively towards it because they made mistakes in the things that were changed.
Why noone talks about his bullets mechanic? If you use him against an opponent which doesn't proc any buffs (for example Deadpool in which you will use Hood to nullify his regeneration buff), you will be able to place upto 28 staggers (without using your sp2). Let's say that this is 14 combos (M-L-L-L-M). That's about 70 hits (14 combos * 5 hit each combo). What that means? If there is a 400K Deadpool you will probably lose all your staggers before you push him to 20% health. And if you can still somehow nullify his regeneration buff (you were boosted for example), in the next fight you won't be able to use Hood as a reliable nullifier cause he won't have any persistant charges
The Hood doesnt need bullets to place a stagger on the opponents, he places stagger on critical hits even with 0 bullets. The bullets only places hex chargers from medium and special attack 2.
I Really Hope this is another one of the occasions where they listen to the Community and go back to the drawing board, there's the big changes but then also little changes that Completely Screws the Character... Small things being the Shorter Staggers and the Heavies not refreshing All Debuffs and Passives anymore for example, big things for example being the Removed Fate Seal and the absolutely moronic Diablo Ability where the Character has a Limited Use on a certain set of Abilities through Quest... That Ability makes Diablo One of the Worse Champions in the game, why do they keep trying to make it work...
I have a suggestion for his update. "The Hood's attack has now been increased by 50%." Done. 👍 Who's next?
Increasing base attack may not be the best solution, but flat increase in sps damage would be enough. Maybe shock stacks. I mean storm with apoc can stack those, why not allow hood stack debuffs up to 10-20-whatever is 'balanced'? And his invisibility is even more unreliable, than it used to be. Idk, maybe all these nerf changes are fabricated by kabam so we all were happy when we get a real one?
I do see some players going to the other extreme - denying The Hood needed a buff. He does, and it is just not damage. His base utility kit is more than fine, but needed a tune-up to make him viable for more than just some fanboys/girls.
I always liked Hood, but I felt he needed a little tweak here and there for me to push me to R4 my 5* and use him in specific match-ups. Like, reliable way to parry while invisible, pausing invisibility during special attacks, increase the chance to miss for non-contact attacks to at least 100%, start the fight invisible in his base kit, increasing the duration of the hex seal to match the invisibility, etc.
If you're interested what I have in mind, check this out.
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That does not mean we shouldn't be thinking about Kingpin also, I think that conversation should happen as well. But with Hood the changes don't have the side effect of adding more counters to Hood, they act to completely remove one of his core capabilities. I personally think Kingpin is more of a grey area case, whereas I think Hood is more of a black and white case. With Kingpin I think the discussion is whether the devs are drawing the line in the right place, and everyone has different options about that, both for and against. Reasonable players could disagree. But with Hood it seems clear that Kabam is not honoring any line at all, and I think that should be troubling to everyone.
I'm not going to agree with Kabam, or even with other players, where the line should be drawn exactly. But I think we can all agree there should be a line somewhere. Honoring player investment isn't the only thing, but it should be an important thing. Hood either says there's no line at all, or the line is so far to the right that Player Investment comes after "but this is more cool looking." I think that's way too far to be comfortable to anyone who thinks about the game.
What if they buff Maw next and take away his falter and pg steal? Would they take away Ronan's stuns in a future update? Could they just rework Vulture out of incinerate immunity? Or his special brand of power control? Will Dormammu remain immune to poison, or will I one day login and he's suddenly immune to incinerate and rupture? When I rank my Magik to 5/65, can I trust she will always have power control, or will I have ranked 3 Buff Control champions and no power control to rank 5, just because Kabam felt like it?
I haven't used hood in ages, he was one of my first duped 5*s and he was a great buff counter and crushed Medusa in AW when she was often a boss. Now there are much better options in my opinion, but not everyone has those options. I don't have a specific issue because I haven't used that form of utility for him in years, heck, I may actually start using him for the first time since those Ole AW matchups, but I totally get why people are so pissed. Rank down tickets should be handed out for sure.
That is, until yesterday. The Hood had parts of his utility kit removed, in fact the most important parts at that. His fate seal removed, stagger duration nerfed, invisibility changed, heavy attacks no longer refresh bleed debuffs. He also got a Diablo-like mechanic which is reliant on the opponent having a lot of buffs to nullify to keep up the damage detonations. Strong utility was exchanged for situational damage.
I don't like to use the word nerf, but as others have said, exchanging strong utility for *possibly* strong damage is in NO way a buff. Removing the reason why people ranked up The Hood in the first place (Very powerful buff control) and replacing it with solid damage is not a buff, it's a change, and a negative change. It is a nerf to his previous kit.
The great irony here is that we want players to think about champions in terms of what they CAN do, not what they CAN'T do. We want players to think about champions in terms of their usefulness, not in terms of their tier. If you pull a champ, and it works, use it. Rank it. Don't wait for the optimal champ, go with the useful ones.
I don't agree with every single tiny point in @Cat_Murdock 's very extensive report on the Hood changes, but I do agree with the vast majority of it, particularly its central points. But I encourage everyone to set all of that aside and just read it, all nine pages of it. You should read it. Here it is again: https://docs.google.com/document/d/11IuBRhchjyTiQDKSIJ5d7Aad6NfqQO0Cs19I_UBH-xk. What do you see?
I see a player passionate about a champ most people consider to be a below average champ (Seatin for example has Hood in tier five of eight tiers, and if anything he's valuing Hood higher than most players). And passionate for all the right reasons. This player looked at the champ, found a strong use case for the champ, and invested time and resources to play the champ and rank up the champ. Cat probably knows more about Hood than I know about my own refrigerator contents. We WANT players to do this. Cat is playing the game the way we want everyone to play the game: to see the champions for what they can do for them, and not focus what other champs might be better.
The Hood update *punishes* those players for investing in suboptimal champs. If you're investing in Doom, you're safe. The devs aren't going to be rebalancing him any time soon. If you're investing in Claire, I'm pretty sure the devs aren't going to be tweaking her abilities this year. But if you want to invest in the Hoods of the game, you're taking a huge risk, because the devs have just signaled that since those champs are not the best at anything, everything they do now can be tossed away at any time.
That's why I called this a toxic design philosophy. It is one thing to nerf an OP champ because you have to, even if you incur the wrath of the playerbase. What are we going to do: stop ranking top tier champs? But when you feel free to scramble the lower tier champs that actually have strong use cases you're telling the playerbase that the best is the only safe thing. You can rank up Hood, but you're an idiot if you do. You should save for Claire, because she's the safe option. Claire is not waiting in line for the devs to take a scalpel to her.
You of all people should be up in arms over this change. A month ago you would probably be telling people Hood is not a poor champion, that he has uses, and people should be ranking up Hood and using him if they need those things. They should ignore spreadsheets, because they are irrelevant. Now, are you going to tell people that if they did that, it sucks to be them because while they should be investing in Hood, they should also be expecting that investment to disappear randomly without any game balance requirement for it to do so? That's ludicrous. We can only expect people to stop focusing on "the best" champs if it is reasonably safe for them to focus on the not-best champs. The Hood update says it is not safe to invest in champs that are underperforming, because they are coming for those champs. And some will see that investment become much better. And some will see that investment become worthless. And if you're one of the players who sees that investment become worthless, they don't care, as long as you're in the minority.
That should be untenable for any ethical game designer. But it is also bad for the game. Because it tells the players that tier lists matter. If you invest in a low tier champion, even if you think the champ is fine, the devs don't care about you or your investments. You picked wrong. That's a horrible message to send, but Kabam unambiguously sent it with this update. Maybe you didn't hear that, but I can assure you the Cat Murdocks of the game heard it loud and clear.
Here, take 4 extra agrees from me.
Please don't make me laugh.
Proposed Hoods buff (actually a Nerf)
Immunities? None
Fate seal? What's that?
Power control? Huh?
I called it a Re-balance. Or Nerf. Not a buff whatsoever. Why mess with the core ability of such a old champ? Totally uncalled for. Nobody complained and asked for him to be rebalanced.
I'm completely perplexed at their thinking process. The increased in damage doesn't justify the removal of his main utility.
That is a terrible way to have to think about a game with such investment necessary as Mcoc, I’d better not rank any champ but the best, just Incase kabam take away the bit of utility I ranked them for.
This might open the Pandora’s box on other old champs upcoming buffs.
With the excuse of damage upgrade and the cover up of buffing, great utilities taken away.
Who’s next on this new buff trend? Ronan? Rogue? or even Magik?
The game is moving on a very dangerous v.12 like route with buffs like this, if we can even call it so.
"The Hood's attack has now been increased by 50%."
Done. 👍 Who's next?
That Ability makes Diablo One of the Worse Champions in the game, why do they keep trying to make it work...
Idk, maybe all these nerf changes are fabricated by kabam so we all were happy when we get a real one?
I always liked Hood, but I felt he needed a little tweak here and there for me to push me to R4 my 5* and use him in specific match-ups. Like, reliable way to parry while invisible, pausing invisibility during special attacks, increase the chance to miss for non-contact attacks to at least 100%, start the fight invisible in his base kit, increasing the duration of the hex seal to match the invisibility, etc.
If you're interested what I have in mind, check this out.