Let me get this straight: you are using Ultron on Power Snack, and you’re blaming the map for this…? Boy, you’re doing something wrong.
I have 11 tech champs at 5/65 or higher. Four are poison immune. Ultron is the one with the most sustainability. Vision doesn’t generate his own buffs but you’re also forced to either dex or take block damage on certain specials if they’re activated.
I have 11 skill champs at 5/65 or better. None are immune. Several can shrug, but some of those also miss out on things (Kingpin overpower, for example).
Anyway, in terms of strategy for nodes like power snack, buffet, masochism and conflictor, you can either lean into it or avoid it altogether. Ultron is definitely a “lean into it” and you can use you parry and dex to trigger power snack while trying to keep you mr other buffs. Warlock and G99 still lose their armor. I didn’t feel like they were better choices.
If the path allowed science/cosmic instead of tech/skill, it would be much more palatable.
My alliance has had no problem with Map 6. Hell by the time I wake up the map is cleared.
I second this. I’ve been using the same team (Ghost, Wasp, Havok) and have not had any problems with any paths.
Who do you use for the boss? Or mini bosses rather.
Wasp does pretty well against Maw. I don’t remember the other mini bosses are. I think the trick is to bring three different classes so you’re able to take any of the reduced damage paths.
smart... oh, wait... 3 different classes are not enough... also need unique ability like power control or immune to nullify... oh, wait... also not enough.. also need unique immunity like poison... oh, wait... also need amazing block proficiency to bait heavies and remove protection... oh, wait... there are also global nodes \ modifier... oh, wait... there are also some defenders that require unique counter...
6 paths in section1, 6 paths in section2 and 8 in section3. less paths than in the old map6 map but with all the restrictions due to nodes\modifier\defenders it feels like we have less options to utilized our floater... meaning, not really a floater...
Really sounds like you’re not ready for Map 6. Literally none of that is a problem if you plan for it.
LOL. you think I'm new to map6? I run it for many years. Also ran map7 for few months until I got sick from the planning and the cost, so overall I can say I have enough experience to compare between the old and the new map according to kabam, the idea was to make map5 and 6 easier to help pushing them to map7... so now you are suggesting to step down to map5? lmao
Yeah, I am telling you to step down if you can’t deal with the most basic nodes on a watered down map. Either plan better or change map. It is not hard.
Are u a leader of an alliance?
I don't think so... leaders (at least the good kind) don't let their teammates to complete a whole section while they are sleeping and then say "map is easy" or "easy to plan" while you have to counter only 2 sections...
The funny thing is, you think that it’s because I’m slacking off. The reality is that timezones exist and I have competent alliance members who don’t need need me to be there to hold their hand.
But keep making your silly assumptions, it’s really amusing.
My alliance has had no problem with Map 6. Hell by the time I wake up the map is cleared.
I second this. I’ve been using the same team (Ghost, Wasp, Havok) and have not had any problems with any paths.
Who do you use for the boss? Or mini bosses rather.
Wasp does pretty well against Maw. I don’t remember the other mini bosses are. I think the trick is to bring three different classes so you’re able to take any of the reduced damage paths.
smart... oh, wait... 3 different classes are not enough... also need unique ability like power control or immune to nullify... oh, wait... also not enough.. also need unique immunity like poison... oh, wait... also need amazing block proficiency to bait heavies and remove protection... oh, wait... there are also global nodes \ modifier... oh, wait... there are also some defenders that require unique counter...
6 paths in section1, 6 paths in section2 and 8 in section3. less paths than in the old map6 map but with all the restrictions due to nodes\modifier\defenders it feels like we have less options to utilized our floater... meaning, not really a floater...
Really sounds like you’re not ready for Map 6. Literally none of that is a problem if you plan for it.
LOL. you think I'm new to map6? I run it for many years. Also ran map7 for few months until I got sick from the planning and the cost, so overall I can say I have enough experience to compare between the old and the new map according to kabam, the idea was to make map5 and 6 easier to help pushing them to map7... so now you are suggesting to step down to map5? lmao
Yeah, I am telling you to step down if you can’t deal with the most basic nodes on a watered down map. Either plan better or change map. It is not hard.
Are u a leader of an alliance?
I don't think so... leaders (at least the good kind) don't let their teammates to complete a whole section while they are sleeping and then say "map is easy" or "easy to plan" while you have to counter only 2 sections...
The funny thing is, you think that it’s because I’m slacking off. The reality is that timezones exist and I have competent alliance members who don’t need need me to be there to hold their hand.
But keep making your silly assumptions, it’s really amusing.
We also have mixed time zone (two from Australia, three from UK, five US). Me and all my teammates are active through all sections, but that is not the point... if you personally do not experience the entire map, with all sections, and also look at other paths (because maybe you got lucky being on easier path), you cannot dismiss other players feeling about this map being harder that it used to be
I think it's a mess. And this variant of the map was yet ok. Wait till variant 1 with Scarlet, Prof X, Man-Thing, Sauron on this lane... I was very happy when the update was announced and now I'm just disappointed, thinking about playing alone without alliance for the first time after 7 years...
It’s awful. Less paths is the only good thing about it not sure why they couldn’t just leave it at that? Most people find AQ an absolute chore anyway so it would be a pro player move to just have less pass and leave the rest as it was.
Our alliance has burned through all the AQ compensation potions and were only on day 4 we used to run 6,6,6,6,5 without any issues now it looks like we will need to do 6,6,5,5,5 and most of our alliance members are good players who are thronebreaker+
Glad that the feedback here is generally the same across the bored and it’s not just us feeling it
Same with my ally, old map 6 was easier, we did 4 days of this and will do map 5 for the final day, many longstanding, deep roster TBs burning through items and getting annoyed. Rather happy members than missing members.
It’s awful. Less paths is the only good thing about it not sure why they couldn’t just leave it at that? Most people find AQ an absolute chore anyway so it would be a pro player move to just have less pass and leave the rest as it was.
Our alliance has burned through all the AQ compensation potions and were only on day 4 we used to run 6,6,6,6,5 without any issues now it looks like we will need to do 6,6,5,5,5 and most of our alliance members are good players who are thronebreaker+
Glad that the feedback here is generally the same across the bored and it’s not just us feeling it
Anytime an AQ map is changed, there’s going to be an adjustment because changing a routine is disruptive. With that said, the nodes are objectively harder/narrower AND the PIs appear to be way worse. My first fight on map 6 had 141,000 hp (Antman glancing glancing glancing). I don’t think I had a single fight that high on old map 6. Attack values and block damage seem worse as well
My alliance has had no problem with Map 6. Hell by the time I wake up the map is cleared.
I second this. I’ve been using the same team (Ghost, Wasp, Havok) and have not had any problems with any paths.
Who do you use for the boss? Or mini bosses rather.
Wasp does pretty well against Maw. I don’t remember the other mini bosses are. I think the trick is to bring three different classes so you’re able to take any of the reduced damage paths.
smart... oh, wait... 3 different classes are not enough... also need unique ability like power control or immune to nullify... oh, wait... also not enough.. also need unique immunity like poison... oh, wait... also need amazing block proficiency to bait heavies and remove protection... oh, wait... there are also global nodes \ modifier... oh, wait... there are also some defenders that require unique counter...
6 paths in section1, 6 paths in section2 and 8 in section3. less paths than in the old map6 map but with all the restrictions due to nodes\modifier\defenders it feels like we have less options to utilized our floater... meaning, not really a floater...
Really sounds like you’re not ready for Map 6. Literally none of that is a problem if you plan for it.
LOL. you think I'm new to map6? I run it for many years. Also ran map7 for few months until I got sick from the planning and the cost, so overall I can say I have enough experience to compare between the old and the new map according to kabam, the idea was to make map5 and 6 easier to help pushing them to map7... so now you are suggesting to step down to map5? lmao
Yeah, I am telling you to step down if you can’t deal with the most basic nodes on a watered down map. Either plan better or change map. It is not hard.
Are u a leader of an alliance?
I don't think so... leaders (at least the good kind) don't let their teammates to complete a whole section while they are sleeping and then say "map is easy" or "easy to plan" while you have to counter only 2 sections...
Exactly that's why i raised the question. His attitude seems like planning maps are so easy. U either have to be a leader or well responsible officer to know how much time consuming planning is. Main aim of this aq change was to make the map easy and from the discussions and opinions in here it is quite clear that at least with map 6 it was a complete failure.
I run map 5 in my alliance. Was planning to start map 6 but not after this thread lol.
Map 6 is a mess. The majority of our guys are burning through potions. The class disadvantage punishment isn’t fair at all. Where as the class advantage doesn’t seem like it’s much benefit either as these fights are way longer and don’t even get me started on getting hit. I’m sorry-but if a 6*R3 gets KO’d by a special 1 with 90% health is a thing…then what’s the point here? Please do something about this…
Is more planning required for map 6 a good thing? Is more restriction on what champs you take a good thing?
Neither of thse are good.
Most alliances are just random groups of people who do AQ as its the best source of rank up materials. They don't want to and shouldn't have to plan how to tackle the map. The players want to log in, do their stuff, and log out and not think too hard about AQ. Its something you can do so you can rank up your champs, not something you look forward to.
Map 6 has gone backwards in that play style. Less paths is no good if they are harder and more restrictive.
Here's my perspective after (almost) a week of Map 6. Our alliance was doing Map 5.4.1. We stepped up to Map 6.4.1 with the intent of going Map 6.5.1 once things settle down. My observations are from someone who was doing OG Map 5 for years and is now doing updated Map 6.
The good news is my group is 100% Map 6 every day so far. We're doing that without strict path assignment, and while item usage started off high, it has comfortably dropped off substantially across most of the group as players make adjustments. We have some people moving up to Map 6 and some moving down to Map 4, but overall things should stabilize fine.
The lowered mandatory pathing is helping my alliance greatly. We don't lack for players, but we do have people who sometimes can't enter or sometimes get distracted by real life issues, and Map 6 seems to allow for such things in general. In terms of a semi-casual alliance attempting Map 6, it seems doable.
However, I have noticed that while the pathing is lower, the fight difficulty is uneven and dramatically higher. I'm running this map with both my main and a much lower (early Cav) alt. There are a lot of fights that either require extremely high skill levels (relatively speaking) or very specific counters, and not all players are going to have sufficient amounts of both for a map that is supposed to now be more of a mid-tier map. Punisher 2099 on a cosmic/skill path with extra power gain and a poison node, for example, is an order of magnitude more tricky to deal with than the average fight. Because Map 6 has no minion class fights, there's no rests for the weary: a single bad fight can weaken a player to the point where completing the rest of the map requires significant potion usage. And the higher need to bring specific counters for specific fights means a mistake is more punishing: you can't as easily just use something else. On OG Map 5, if I died, I could go to a back up. On update Map 6, that works on my main who has a roster that can kneecap Galactus, but on my lower alt that's often not a viable option. Overall, I would say that while the reduced pathing helps a lot because there's more backup, the actual difficulty of clearing paths is at least twice as hard as OG Map 5, and more likely three times harder. That's a sizeable jump for anyone wanting to step up.
Finally, my impression of Map 6 AI is that it is dramatically more conservative with specials and more defensive when compared to the previous Map 5. I have taken more SP3s between two accounts in four days of Map 6 than I have taken in two *years* of Map 5. I don't know what is causing this: unfamiliarity with the fights, different champions, or something about the AI scaling with the map difficulty, but it isn't a marginal thing. It is a night and day difference.
Basically, I believe that Map 6 is now a bit of a schizophrenic combination of targeting moderate difficulty as a mid-tier map via lowered pathing, but with fights that target a high level of difficulty more appropriate to when it was more of an end game map. It is probably tuned a bit too high.
Here's my perspective after (almost) a week of Map 6. Our alliance was doing Map 5.4.1. We stepped up to Map 6.4.1 with the intent of going Map 6.5.1 once things settle down. My observations are from someone who was doing OG Map 5 for years and is now doing updated Map 6.
The good news is my group is 100% Map 6 every day so far. We're doing that without strict path assignment, and while item usage started off high, it has comfortably dropped off substantially across most of the group as players make adjustments. We have some people moving up to Map 6 and some moving down to Map 4, but overall things should stabilize fine.
The lowered mandatory pathing is helping my alliance greatly. We don't lack for players, but we do have people who sometimes can't enter or sometimes get distracted by real life issues, and Map 6 seems to allow for such things in general. In terms of a semi-casual alliance attempting Map 6, it seems doable.
However, I have noticed that while the pathing is lower, the fight difficulty is uneven and dramatically higher. I'm running this map with both my main and a much lower (early Cav) alt. There are a lot of fights that either require extremely high skill levels (relatively speaking) or very specific counters, and not all players are going to have sufficient amounts of both for a map that is supposed to now be more of a mid-tier map. Punisher 2099 on a cosmic/skill path with extra power gain and a poison node, for example, is an order of magnitude more tricky to deal with than the average fight. Because Map 6 has no minion class fights, there's no rests for the weary: a single bad fight can weaken a player to the point where completing the rest of the map requires significant potion usage. And the higher need to bring specific counters for specific fights means a mistake is more punishing: you can't as easily just use something else. On OG Map 5, if I died, I could go to a back up. On update Map 6, that works on my main who has a roster that can kneecap Galactus, but on my lower alt that's often not a viable option. Overall, I would say that while the reduced pathing helps a lot because there's more backup, the actual difficulty of clearing paths is at least twice as hard as OG Map 5, and more likely three times harder. That's a sizeable jump for anyone wanting to step up.
Finally, my impression of Map 6 AI is that it is dramatically more conservative with specials and more defensive when compared to the previous Map 5. I have taken more SP3s between two accounts in four days of Map 6 than I have taken in two *years* of Map 5. I don't know what is causing this: unfamiliarity with the fights, different champions, or something about the AI scaling with the map difficulty, but it isn't a marginal thing. It is a night and day difference.
Basically, I believe that Map 6 is now a bit of a schizophrenic combination of targeting moderate difficulty as a mid-tier map via lowered pathing, but with fights that target a high level of difficulty more appropriate to when it was more of an end game map. It is probably tuned a bit too high.
You're correct on the varying difficulties. I can doom/black widow the mystic paths in my sleep but that tech/skill one in the 2nd section is a nightmare. Tried that a few times and couldn't come up with a team that did it easily.
I think the initial goal of having players play higher maps isn't going to work. We ran 654 for a long time. With the map changes we are running 665. We split up the original map 6 team into two in order to transition the map 5 players better. It's only sustainable because of the weekly compensation. The original map 5 players were a little shell shocked but with pots were able to get through it. If weekly pots were a permanent thing then it would be fine but as soon as that stops we'll have to revert back I believe. As far as the jump from map 4-5 it's been ok. Kind of the same as from 5-6 but with one or two good players the map is explored with little to no hiccups.
As an alliance leader we use to run map6 many players want to move back to map5 because of these uncreative changes to the game, it doesn't fit with us trying to improve gather more resources ranking up better champs and complete new content. This is obviously not what kabam wants , basically my path that I run science mutant then path1 in section 3 is okaybut the power snack tech seems stupid again kabams quest to get us to rank up 1 or 2 champs that are irrelevant in the broader game, or worse champs we don't have as paths are so niche. Anyone who has found this easy could you please post your selected champs Path1 Path2 Path3 Path4 Path5 Path6 Path7 Path8 apoc/AA/capiw
I don't mind class restrictions. My problem is all the passive damage reduction debuffs. They make the fights so long, even when you are playing to not trigger them.
Just make them non-passive. Make them normal debuffs so they can be managed or shrugged. 50% of the fun of this game is getting to use unique champs your acquired and spent resources ranking. I mean what is the point of having these champs with unique abilities like Xbones or Agent Venom if you don't even have a space to play them?
Example: T1 path A applies a stackable *PASSIVE* 70% damage redux for Parry Stun, later it applies a stackable 30% damage redux for using same basic attack. Especially with all the input issues, players mess up. Accidentally Parry or L,L. Additionally, path restrictions are set to Tech and Skill. If only Skill champs could shrug you'd have a possible 7 great options.
In T2, path A has Poison. Again Tech and Skill restrictions. Not many Tech and Skill poison immune. So Robots? Right, but 2nd debuff is power snack 2, so virtually all Robots Armor and Regen buffs cause non-stop power gain. Again, almost no Skill champ can be used because debuff is applied at start of fight (like Liquid Courage) and can't be shrugged. Hit Monkey, Shang Chi, Agent Venom (H SIG), and maybe Aegon are exceptions. So 4 Skill and 2 Tech can be used.
All in all class restrictions are not problem. It's the secondary debuffs.
My alli was transitioning to map 6 all bgs lately and it's become impossible now coz the class restrictions make it an absolute nightmare to organize. There is a lot less flexibility for members to just "go smash".
People who've tried it also have found it a lot less enjoyable. AQ is already a chore, but now it's a chore that gives you a headache.
To the question of difficulty: yes. It's noticeably harder.
Map 5 I used to chuck in some alternative 5* I never use in general questing and I struggled hard all week. I switched to my strongest 6* which before was overkill for a map 5. So I'd say it's very out of balance right now.
We all appreciate the reduction in paths in both maps but the class restrictions have to go away and difficulty has to be decreased a notch to match what it was before.
As a general response to various comments read above, I would certainly say that the new map 6 is NOT for those that want to “go smash”, not for those that we’re accustomed to unassigned lanes or those that wish to run it with 5R5s. People had huge opportunities with the latest events to get their first 6R3s or expand their roster in that rank. These should be used here.
Just in case it helps anyone, I personally run: Section 1 Lane 5 Section 2 Lane 5 Section 3 Lane 6
Which are the Cosmic & Tech lanes. My team is: Doom, Mr Fantastic and Guillotine 2099, all 6R3s. Same team I had been using in the old map 6. I never said it’s easy, by the way. Just doable and worth the effort IF you are running a suitable team.
The question is if they (kabam) listen. Most YouTubers and contest creators I know are running map8 so there is not a lot of noise around it like on other topics.
Here's my perspective after (almost) a week of Map 6. Our alliance was doing Map 5.4.1. We stepped up to Map 6.4.1 with the intent of going Map 6.5.1 once things settle down. My observations are from someone who was doing OG Map 5 for years and is now doing updated Map 6.
The good news is my group is 100% Map 6 every day so far. We're doing that without strict path assignment, and while item usage started off high, it has comfortably dropped off substantially across most of the group as players make adjustments. We have some people moving up to Map 6 and some moving down to Map 4, but overall things should stabilize fine.
The lowered mandatory pathing is helping my alliance greatly. We don't lack for players, but we do have people who sometimes can't enter or sometimes get distracted by real life issues, and Map 6 seems to allow for such things in general. In terms of a semi-casual alliance attempting Map 6, it seems doable.
However, I have noticed that while the pathing is lower, the fight difficulty is uneven and dramatically higher. I'm running this map with both my main and a much lower (early Cav) alt. There are a lot of fights that either require extremely high skill levels (relatively speaking) or very specific counters, and not all players are going to have sufficient amounts of both for a map that is supposed to now be more of a mid-tier map. Punisher 2099 on a cosmic/skill path with extra power gain and a poison node, for example, is an order of magnitude more tricky to deal with than the average fight. Because Map 6 has no minion class fights, there's no rests for the weary: a single bad fight can weaken a player to the point where completing the rest of the map requires significant potion usage. And the higher need to bring specific counters for specific fights means a mistake is more punishing: you can't as easily just use something else. On OG Map 5, if I died, I could go to a back up. On update Map 6, that works on my main who has a roster that can kneecap Galactus, but on my lower alt that's often not a viable option. Overall, I would say that while the reduced pathing helps a lot because there's more backup, the actual difficulty of clearing paths is at least twice as hard as OG Map 5, and more likely three times harder. That's a sizeable jump for anyone wanting to step up.
Finally, my impression of Map 6 AI is that it is dramatically more conservative with specials and more defensive when compared to the previous Map 5. I have taken more SP3s between two accounts in four days of Map 6 than I have taken in two *years* of Map 5. I don't know what is causing this: unfamiliarity with the fights, different champions, or something about the AI scaling with the map difficulty, but it isn't a marginal thing. It is a night and day difference.
Basically, I believe that Map 6 is now a bit of a schizophrenic combination of targeting moderate difficulty as a mid-tier map via lowered pathing, but with fights that target a high level of difficulty more appropriate to when it was more of an end game map. It is probably tuned a bit too high.
For those with limited time, let me summarize: the changes are no good.
AQ Map 6 is a veritable mess. Try doing poison path power snack with skill or tech only, especially with the passive AI not throwing specials -- not fun or easy, few options, and the only intent is to sell more health potions. So many bugs also. Multiple fights opponent damage not registering after timeout or KO; opponent returns to 100%. Class-specific paths say attack damage is limited to class only but try using fully evade-style Quake on a non-science-class path: damage from concussions and aftershocks -- remember, zero contact so no attack has occurred -- is also reduced by 50%, which results in a timeout, and then the timeout bug kicks in, and the opponent goes from less than 10% health to full 100% health. Kabam really expects players to pay for this by buying revives? NFW. Back to map 5, boring as it is, until the bugs get fixed and class restrictions get eliminated. Horrible as is, and I was running the poison paths on the previous map 6 never having to use any resources for full completion.
I’ve been using a team of Kingpin plus hood and mr sinister for the skill lanes.
Kingpin takes every fight easily with this team. Hood allows KP to shrug off all debuffs, including the poison on the poison lane.
Mr Sinister allows KP to power lock the opponent after they use a special, allowing you to dash in and spam heavies. Helps immensely with the power snack node. Just get them to 1 bar, bait the special and they are locked up.
AQ Map 6 is a veritable mess. Try doing poison path power snack with skill or tech only, especially with the passive AI not throwing specials -- not fun or easy, few options, and the only intent is to sell more health potions. So many bugs also. Multiple fights opponent damage not registering after timeout or KO; opponent returns to 100%. Class-specific paths say attack damage is limited to class only but try using fully evade-style Quake on a non-science-class path: damage from concussions and aftershocks -- remember, zero contact so no attack has occurred -- is also reduced by 50%, which results in a timeout, and then the timeout bug kicks in, and the opponent goes from less than 10% health to full 100% health. Kabam really expects players to pay for this by buying revives? NFW. Back to map 5, boring as it is, until the bugs get fixed and class restrictions get eliminated. Horrible as is, and I was running the poison paths on the previous map 6 never having to use any resources for full completion.
I’ve been using a team of Kingpin plus hood and mr sinister for the skill lanes.
Kingpin takes every fight easily with this team. Hood allows KP to shrug off all debuffs, including the poison on the poison lane.
Mr Sinister allows KP to power lock the opponent after they use a special, allowing you to dash in and spam heavies. Helps immensely with the power snack node. Just get them to 1 bar, bait the special and they are locked up.
Interesting. The Poison in poison lane applies at start of fight. Kingpin can only shrug debuffs after start of fight. Much like Liquid Courage. I brought Kingpin with Hood too and he didn't shrug the poison.
I'm going to take a random guess here: beware pacify, assassin's, and all other ability accuracy reduction effects. Some nodes will malfunction in unexpected ways when you lower their ability accuracy, often to the player's detriment.
I’m not running LC/DE, so there is only one debuff to shrug off at the start of the fight from the node.
When there are multiple debuffs e.g. poison and bleed from LC and DE, Kingpin + Hood will only shrug the poison (applies first) as there is a cool-down on KP’s ability.
If you are running LC/DE it won’t work unfortunately.
Comments
I have 11 skill champs at 5/65 or better. None are immune. Several can shrug, but some of those also miss out on things (Kingpin overpower, for example).
Anyway, in terms of strategy for nodes like power snack, buffet, masochism and conflictor, you can either lean into it or avoid it altogether. Ultron is definitely a “lean into it” and you can use you parry and dex to trigger power snack while trying to keep you mr other buffs. Warlock and G99 still lose their armor. I didn’t feel like they were better choices.
If the path allowed science/cosmic instead of tech/skill, it would be much more palatable.
But keep making your silly assumptions, it’s really amusing.
Me and all my teammates are active through all sections, but that is not the point... if you personally do not experience the entire map, with all sections, and also look at other paths (because maybe you got lucky being on easier path), you cannot dismiss other players feeling about this map being harder that it used to be
Anyone from kabamm reading this feedback?
I was very happy when the update was announced and now I'm just disappointed, thinking about playing alone without alliance for the first time after 7 years...
Our alliance has burned through all the AQ compensation potions and were only on day 4 we used to run 6,6,6,6,5 without any issues now it looks like we will need to do 6,6,5,5,5 and most of our alliance members are good players who are thronebreaker+
Glad that the feedback here is generally the same across the bored and it’s not just us feeling it
Main aim of this aq change was to make the map easy and from the discussions and opinions in here it is quite clear that at least with map 6 it was a complete failure.
I run map 5 in my alliance. Was planning to start map 6 but not after this thread lol.
Is more restriction on what champs you take a good thing?
Neither of thse are good.
Most alliances are just random groups of people who do AQ as its the best source of rank up materials. They don't want to and shouldn't have to plan how to tackle the map. The players want to log in, do their stuff, and log out and not think too hard about AQ. Its something you can do so you can rank up your champs, not something you look forward to.
Map 6 has gone backwards in that play style. Less paths is no good if they are harder and more restrictive.
The good news is my group is 100% Map 6 every day so far. We're doing that without strict path assignment, and while item usage started off high, it has comfortably dropped off substantially across most of the group as players make adjustments. We have some people moving up to Map 6 and some moving down to Map 4, but overall things should stabilize fine.
The lowered mandatory pathing is helping my alliance greatly. We don't lack for players, but we do have people who sometimes can't enter or sometimes get distracted by real life issues, and Map 6 seems to allow for such things in general. In terms of a semi-casual alliance attempting Map 6, it seems doable.
However, I have noticed that while the pathing is lower, the fight difficulty is uneven and dramatically higher. I'm running this map with both my main and a much lower (early Cav) alt. There are a lot of fights that either require extremely high skill levels (relatively speaking) or very specific counters, and not all players are going to have sufficient amounts of both for a map that is supposed to now be more of a mid-tier map. Punisher 2099 on a cosmic/skill path with extra power gain and a poison node, for example, is an order of magnitude more tricky to deal with than the average fight. Because Map 6 has no minion class fights, there's no rests for the weary: a single bad fight can weaken a player to the point where completing the rest of the map requires significant potion usage. And the higher need to bring specific counters for specific fights means a mistake is more punishing: you can't as easily just use something else. On OG Map 5, if I died, I could go to a back up. On update Map 6, that works on my main who has a roster that can kneecap Galactus, but on my lower alt that's often not a viable option. Overall, I would say that while the reduced pathing helps a lot because there's more backup, the actual difficulty of clearing paths is at least twice as hard as OG Map 5, and more likely three times harder. That's a sizeable jump for anyone wanting to step up.
Finally, my impression of Map 6 AI is that it is dramatically more conservative with specials and more defensive when compared to the previous Map 5. I have taken more SP3s between two accounts in four days of Map 6 than I have taken in two *years* of Map 5. I don't know what is causing this: unfamiliarity with the fights, different champions, or something about the AI scaling with the map difficulty, but it isn't a marginal thing. It is a night and day difference.
Basically, I believe that Map 6 is now a bit of a schizophrenic combination of targeting moderate difficulty as a mid-tier map via lowered pathing, but with fights that target a high level of difficulty more appropriate to when it was more of an end game map. It is probably tuned a bit too high.
I can doom/black widow the mystic paths in my sleep but that tech/skill one in the 2nd section is a nightmare. Tried that a few times and couldn't come up with a team that did it easily.
Anyone who has found this easy could you please post your selected champs
Path1
Path2
Path3
Path4
Path5
Path6
Path7
Path8 apoc/AA/capiw
Just make them non-passive. Make them normal debuffs so they can be managed or shrugged. 50% of the fun of this game is getting to use unique champs your acquired and spent resources ranking. I mean what is the point of having these champs with unique abilities like Xbones or Agent Venom if you don't even have a space to play them?
Example: T1 path A applies a stackable *PASSIVE* 70% damage redux for Parry Stun, later it applies a stackable 30% damage redux for using same basic attack. Especially with all the input issues, players mess up. Accidentally Parry or L,L. Additionally, path restrictions are set to Tech and Skill. If only Skill champs could shrug you'd have a possible 7 great options.
In T2, path A has Poison. Again Tech and Skill restrictions. Not many Tech and Skill poison immune. So Robots? Right, but 2nd debuff is power snack 2, so virtually all Robots Armor and Regen buffs cause non-stop power gain. Again, almost no Skill champ can be used because debuff is applied at start of fight (like Liquid Courage) and can't be shrugged. Hit Monkey, Shang Chi, Agent Venom (H SIG), and maybe Aegon are exceptions. So 4 Skill and 2 Tech can be used.
All in all class restrictions are not problem. It's the secondary debuffs.
My alli was transitioning to map 6 all bgs lately and it's become impossible now coz the class restrictions make it an absolute nightmare to organize. There is a lot less flexibility for members to just "go smash".
People who've tried it also have found it a lot less enjoyable. AQ is already a chore, but now it's a chore that gives you a headache.
To the question of difficulty: yes. It's noticeably harder.
Map 5 I used to chuck in some alternative 5* I never use in general questing and I struggled hard all week. I switched to my strongest 6* which before was overkill for a map 5. So I'd say it's very out of balance right now.
We all appreciate the reduction in paths in both maps but the class restrictions have to go away and difficulty has to be decreased a notch to match what it was before.
Just in case it helps anyone, I personally run:
Section 1 Lane 5
Section 2 Lane 5
Section 3 Lane 6
Which are the Cosmic & Tech lanes. My team is:
Doom, Mr Fantastic and Guillotine 2099, all 6R3s. Same team I had been using in the old map 6. I never said it’s easy, by the way. Just doable and worth the effort IF you are running a suitable team.
Most YouTubers and contest creators I know are running map8 so there is not a lot of noise around it like on other topics.
Kingpin takes every fight easily with this team. Hood allows KP to shrug off all debuffs, including the poison on the poison lane.
Mr Sinister allows KP to power lock the opponent after they use a special, allowing you to dash in and spam heavies. Helps immensely with the power snack node. Just get them to 1 bar, bait the special and they are locked up.
When there are multiple debuffs e.g. poison and bleed from LC and DE, Kingpin + Hood will only shrug the poison (applies first) as there is a cool-down on KP’s ability.
If you are running LC/DE it won’t work unfortunately.