**Mastery Loadouts**
Due to issues related to the release of Mastery Loadouts, the "free swap" period will be extended.
The new end date will be May 1st.
Due to issues related to the release of Mastery Loadouts, the "free swap" period will be extended.
The new end date will be May 1st.
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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.