Never seen a useful Phoenix who did any more DPS than a defender char.
I am sometimes confused by when the community calls for nerfs on a strong but not necessarily OP character. Perhaps HHG can provide win rates and use of different heroes like MOBAs do to help people see what the current meta is and what heroes truly are OP (so everyone isnt just assuming things from their small microcosm)
IMO, it just means everyone else should get buffed. Nerfing everyone makes everyone mediocre and the meta move toward the couple of heroes that have any ācharacterā (lol). If you buff enough heroes,it makes more strats viable since there are too many āOPā heroes for a single 5 member team.
Basically I do agree that 4-cep is very strongā¦almost OP, but Iād rather see more heroes come out that are similarly powered (while buffing other ones) so that multiple strats are possible (and by multiple strats i dont mean 10 different teams of weak heroes)
If we provided stats, it would just sway people even more towards certain Heroes. We leave it up to the community to figure out the best combinations that work for them, and we encourage you to try new Hero combinations out to find new, emergent tactics. Thereās more than one way to play!
5 Likes
Personally mauler and cinder are my go to. With that being said any bio hero that has decent DPS can get the job done.
You canāt have the stats because @LordNikon canāt figure out how they work, he can only load stats from October, the silly lad 
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My Cinder is 10 Star, 3 bars. My 4-Cep is 10 Star, 5 bar.
4-Cep: 983k health and 62641 dps rating
Cinder: 565k health and 54755 dps rating
Salt the Earth: 1509 increased bio elemental damage / 56639 increased health per cover destroyed up to a maximum of 10 charges that lasts until the next wave. Of course in PVP there are no waves so it lasts until victory or death.
Regardless, with 3 pieces of cover destroyed (about 4 seconds of time) she gains 4527 bio damage increasing her dps to 59282. Her health is increased by 169,917 with the same action. With 6 pieces of cover destroyed (about 9 seconds of time) she now does 63809 dps and has a health of 904.8k (almost as much as my 4-cep, but not quite.
Now, you might be thinking, thatās a lot of work to get her up to where 4-cep already is and by then 4-cep has already killed someoneā¦9 seconds is a lot of time right? Butā¦thereās a lot more going on in the big picture than you might think while that cover is being broken. Itās not a magic bullet by any means, but, it works better than you might think.
P.S. I donāt know what cinder would be like at equal bars as 4-cep, but I think I can safely say her dps would be higher with 6 cover breaks, and significantly higher at 10 cover breaks which is her max. And by the end of the match I have almost always broken 10 pieces which at her current level brings her to 69,845 dps bio.
I donāt disagree that Cinder has some interesting applications on a strong coverbreaking team, but the fact is that you need at least 3 specific heroes (Cinder, Keel and Matador/Baron) to get her combo going, and even then you need 4-5 pieces of cover broken (10 seconds?) to get her up to 4-CEPās level of strength, during which time youāre not piloting your DPS character and the opponent has a good chance of killing one of your guys.
Meanwhile, 4-CEP comes out of the gate doing a really good amount of damage, and you have increased flexibility to do whatever you want with the rest of the team, since he doesnāt have to rely on any particular synergies.
The problem with this comparison is that Cinder has abilities that are easily dodged, making them essentially useless, and it takes time for her to ramp up to that sort of damage. Your 4 seconds to destroy 3 pieces of cover is a gross exaggeration. Even using heroes like Panzer or Matador who excel at destroying cover, and JUST focusing on destroying them and not an enemy hero, it would still take several second to get 3 pieces of cover destroyed. 6 pieces of cover is well over half the cover on most maps. You are realistically looking at 30 seconds or more to get 6 pieces of cover destroyed, and by then a match is almost over. That is unless you go with a team that focuses on cover destroying, which most heroes that do this arenāt top tier so you will suffer.
I can tell you right now a 4 bar, 10* Cinder has 22k more hp than your 3 bar, 10*. She also has 57,489 DPS which is only 2,734 more DPS. So adding another bar and making her 5 bar would give her roughly 609k hp and 60,223 DPS. Thatās still almost 400k less hp and 2,500 less DPS than 4-Cep. Also, 4-Cep can heal block and takes reduced damage from all damage except head shots. He also can self revive. Combine this with his burst damage from the second a match starts and itās no wonder he is so deadly.
I did a similar comparison to Panzer and 4-Cep using ALL stats. 4-Cep was better in literally every category. The only thing Panzer had was more burst damage up front with her Assault Breacher and Breach and Clear abilities active. After the first 20 seconds her damage plummets while 4-Cep stays the same, 4-Cep has way more survivability, and his damage isnāt a widespread shotgun so he can kill mid and backline heroes MUCH better. Panzer is only better at killing big bulky front line energy heroes like Butters, Hive, and Baron. Thatās very specific and only in the first 20 seconds.
For the last tournament 4-Cep was easily in 80% of the teams I faced. This is the highest tournament brackets. He has a ton of front loaded burst damage that stays active an entire match, he has decent survivability, and he is easy to play. You donāt have to really use or time any of his abilities, just aim and shoot. His heal block only comes into play once in awhile, usually on the second target so you can burst them down as well before a heal goes off. His Thermal Lance is total garbage now and not worth using over his regular attack.
The crazy thing to me about 4-CEP is that heās such a weird character. He has so little imagination required to play him, and heās just crazy powerful. His bronze actually hurts his DPS rather than improves it, so generally youāre best served not using it. His base stats are also just off the charts compared to any other DPS character, and he doesnāt need to do anything to activate that insanity. It just screams imbalanced hero development to me.
Screams can mean a lot of different things.
I actually kind of like this about him. We have tons of heroes who have great abilities and rely heavily on them. In fact that is most of the heroes in the game. Itās kind of nice getting a more simple hero who just has really good base stats.
My problem with him is that the base stats are too good. He almost has the burst of Dogface when he has both his silver and bronze active, but thatās just 4-Cepts regular attack.
Thatās a valid counterpoint. I do still think the hero dev process in this game could use a serious overhaul, though.
No disagreement there. With nearly 100 heroes now, a lot of them are starting to feel redundant and unused. This is especially bad considering we never have really had more than 10-20 heroes that were powerful in the PVP meta anyways. Some are good in PVE or AW, but a good 50 or so are terrible all around. Then you have 4-Cep who is good at everything.
Itās understandably difficult to keep cranking out really unique abilities when you have so many heroes and abilities. I just wish HH would focus on the long term instead of short term money grabs. Instead they have started to push out 2 heroes most months all the while leaving a ton of other aspects of the game untouched. No one was asking for more heroes, they want new PVP maps, Gauntlet maps, missions, raids, etc. Those things donāt make immediate money though. I think we could get some new VIP ranks and really cool skins for hundreds of gold and people would eat that up.
Regardless, Caine is a good example of the development process. They buffed him about six months ago when no one was really asking for buffs on him, and then just nerfed him pretty hard this last patch. Other heroes like Panzer and 4-Cep should have never been released like they were. Panzer needed several nerfs almost immediately, and so does 4-Cep. Panzer eventually got them months later, and then the devs kept going, and going, and going with them to the point she isnāt really used that much anymore. 4-Cep is used 10x as much and he still has yet to be nerfed. I know my personal experience isnāt everyoneās, but almost everyone in my top ranking Alliance has said the same thing and that is that 4-Cep is in 4 out of 5 matches they play. If HH is really looking at data they should have already seen a HUGE spike in his usage. Iām not sure how there data could say anything else when you have pretty much everyone seeing him used.
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Yeah, I feel like the nerfs just take forever to come down, even when itās absolutely obvious that theyāre needed. I first started playing shortly before Ronin became a total cancer, and in his cancerous heyday it still took them months and months to bring him back down to earth. It was just a slap in the face to see update after update come out with no one addressing his obvious dominance. And donāt even get me started on Kurtz - it seems obvious to me that heās being left as a broken character so everyone can be incentivized to get him via AW or 7 star crate pulls. And the Ruby class? When I look at that I donāt see a well thought out plan that enhances player experiences, all I see is HH looking at all the whales that have maxed their accounts and no longer need to spend big money on the game, and trying to figure out a way to extract more. The game is an interesting concept with a lot of potential, but I feel like there are some real shortcomings in execution.
2 Likes
I couldnāt agree more. And the worst part is the game doesnāt foster growth at all. I can only imagine what new players go through. How fun is it for them to come into a match with a balanced team of all gold 5 starts and face a team like a maxed 10* 5 bar Ronin with a bunch of lower levels? Or a maxed Shiv, Pahalanx, and Fran? Or a maxed 4-Cep? Then you have to factor in they probably arenāt using one of the top 15 heroes and their team is more rag tag. I am sure they get obliterated and stop playing, never to come back.
The developers donāt seem to care about the sand bagging though. Sure they put in some minor penalties to discourage it, but a 10k power disadvantage barely makes up for the huge advantage you gain with the teams above.
Then to make it all worse they let heroes go unchecked for months, like you said. Itās like they are one end of the spectrum or the other. They will let Panzer go unchecked for nearly 3 months, then its nerf after nerf after nerf. She is STILL getting them. In the last 4 months she has been nerfed twice. She went from being used non-stop to rarely used. 4-Cept is currently almost as bad as release Panzer was. He is used by EVERYONE. His basic damage is better than a lot of heroās burst with abilities. Itās almost like the data they look at is from months ago and not current.
Of course they will give us the same spiel about nothing is as simple as it seems and we should trust they know what they are doing and making the best decisions. If questioned at all they usually give snarky responses or will shut down a thread (as I am sure this one will be).
I disagree, the introduction of two bio dps that can possibl6 beat or debuff 4 cep was a good direction over just nerfing (although I agree that 4cep is very strong in the current state of the game)
As I previously mentioned, I would prefer this as this allows for more strategies (for example, once each element has its own 4 cep, elementals become way more important). Nerfing strong heroes causes every match to be a neutered 5 hero game. Might as well not have 70+ heroes if thatās the case.
There are a couple of highly rated non mobile gsmes that go this route and have constantly changing metas because of it. Imagine if we didnāt beg for the ronin nerf bomb, maybe the ronin team could stand up against this 4 cep team and you would have to choose which strat to plat. When there are more than just a couple of these heroes thatās when the game gets fun because you canāt just stack them anymore.
Then again itās early, I would like to see how 4 cep stacks up against irezumi and more specifically serial teams
Iām not really sure how either of those heroes will be a solution to 4-Cep. The problem with 4-Cep is his basic attack is so strong that he has incredible damage right out the gate and throughout an entire match. He can easily kill a hero before any others have their first ability up. He wittles the enemy team down before they have a chance to do anything.
Based on Irezumiās stats and ability descriptions she seems like an incredibly poor counter. Her dmg is mostly DOTs and will take time to ramp up. By the time she has them fully applied, 4-Cep will have half your team or more dead. Sheās like Astrix, but will take even longer to get the damage rolling. Look how effective Astrix currently is vs 4-Cep teams.
Serial is a little better, but he can mostly be ignored to avoid his abilities. By the time Oppresive Fire has gone off enough, it will be too late. 4-Cep will still have killed 1-2 enemies and itās pretty much game over. The bigger problem is most players wonāt have him for several months. Are we suppose to just deal with 4-Cep until everyone can unlock Serial?
Lastly what you describe is power creep and is a serious problem in games. You canāt just keep making new heroes that are stronger than the last and hope the game gets better. Doing that just leaves a greater divide between the top and bottom heroes. You are just trying to come up with the new strongest hero each patch. When you have 1 or 2 really powerful heroes that are blatantly OP itās almost always better to just address them and nerf them. It sucks, but itā's MUCH easier and better overall then buffing 70 other heroes to match their strength.
@HHHHH If 90 existing heroes are at like, an 8/10 in power, then 4-CEP comes along and heās a 10/10, I think it makes more sense to bring 4-CEP down to 8/10 rather than introduce 2 new heroes bio heroes that are 10/10 in power. I mean, I think thatās the best way to create balance in the force here and make the entire player universe playable.
@Deathleech Expanding on the point about fostering growth, imagine how hard it is for new players to actually decide what heroes to invest in and how hard it is to actually star up heroes from crate pulls now that thereās like 100 heroes. Thereās a certain point where less is more, and when you get to 100 heroes youāve gone well, well beyond that point. Adding new heroes at this point, IMO, is mostly to keep current players interested but it makes it more and more confusing for new players to get started. I couldnāt imagine starting the game now, especially since the major content contributors who gave you helpful information on character tiers have all retired. Itās just 100 random heroes out there, and you have so little information that can help you decide which are good and which are bad.
Also, Serial seems like a some sort of mashup between Steele and Mauler. Thereās not a lot of originality there, and fixing either of those two characters would have been better than making a new guy.
