Marvel’s Avengers War Table Weekly Blog Week #80

Welcome to our Marvel’s Avengers WAR TABLE Weekly Blog, where we’ll give you the scoop on news, patch notes, Marketplace updates, and more!
Back at it again with the Double XP! From 3/10 to 3/14, level your heroes twice as fast!
It’s the second week of the Cosmic Threat Event! Suit up and face off with the Scientist Supreme and take back the Cosmic Cube!
Digital Photography by AlvysAlvarez1
DEVELOPMENT UPDATES
Our Designer Alex Kende (also known as W Alex to our loyal stream goers) is here to give some more details on the upcoming changes, goals, and vision for Hero Gear!
Buffs
Melee and certain Heroics are in a state where they are not enticing enough to engage most players in many combat systems. This is a combination of the threat of heavy damage from enemies in melee range, lack of Perks that increase heavy damage, the lack of easy status effect application for melee, and the ease of ranged combat to do all those things.
The first steps to making this a more engaging area of combat will be to do a blanket update to many perks related to melee combat. These updates include general percentage increase from Perks, buff duration increases, and adding status attack types to signature attacks for Kate Bishop and Ms. Marvel. This is by no means the full extent of the changes; we are already taking steps to add in other melee-focused Perks and features. This is coupled with a huge influx of Hero-specific Perks tied to Hero Gear, adding many offensive and defensive options.
While these three examples may sound like a drop in the bucket compared to the scale of gameplay, the range of adjustments is indeed vast—and small changes everywhere add up to large gains overall. Note also that this is only on the player side of Hero mechanics. There are also factors around enemy composition, attack frequency, but that is a discussion for another day.
Changes
The Comic adjustment was not only required to prevent damage nullification, but was also important in preparing for the introduction of many defensive perks (which are coming in to making melee a less risky, more rewarding endeavor, as touched on above).
Comics allowed players to passively have comparable armor to those who sacrificed DPS for Perks and stats dedicated to defense. This not only reduced the need for builds, as builds require a trade-off that comics do not have, but also diminished any value some of the new Perks provide.
In addition to there being several new sources of Hero gear (including the set from Last Avenger Standing), status effects and stats overall have been added or adjusted. One of the most obvious examples will be the addition of Might to the Heroic slot’s possible attributes.
In the future, we will be looking over other Comics buffs, as some are far under-tuned or gain a negligible bonus over time.
Adjustments
Damage buff is over-tuned in three major areas.
The most obvious is the damage increase of 65% to all attacks, including Heroic attacks. There is very little in the game that can meet this level of damage increase.
The second is the increased critical chance while active. Damage buff also applies its bonus to critical damage, which results in larger damage spikes from the bonus critical chance increase.
Together they do the job of several attributes in vast numbers. This becomes a feedback loop, as most damage buff perks activate on critical hits. This means that once a damage buff is active, keeping it going becomes a passive effect of the buff itself.
The last is the high chance of staggering an enemy with any attack, which results from increased impact buffing the damage of attacks while the damage buff is active. This makes some Skills and Perks obsolete, as any light attack or volleyed ranged attack could stagger even the largest of enemies. This makes damage buff one of the best defensive tools, because causing your enemy to attack less means you need less armor.
These three aspects made damage buff a no-brainer because of raw output, self-sustainment, and practical survivability. It’s one reason that many players repeat area of effect or ranged attacks with it active to get all the benefits of heavier attacks without the risk of getting hit.
To that end, the current plan is to remove the critical chance and impact from damage buff. The 65% damage increase will remain, and its duration will not be changed.
The Norn Stone of Lethal Will’s buff, which stacks with damage buff, will retain its impact-increasing mechanic but will no longer add a flat 35% critical chance to all attacks. This gives the Norn Stone unique capability when compared to its standard counterpart. The damage buff from the Norn Stone of Lethal Will has been increased from 35% to 45%, and its duration will be increased by 2 seconds. The passive critical hit increase from the Norn Stone will also increase from 5% to 10%. This means that with both buffs active, players will be able to see a 105% increase in overall damage, but to sustain the buffs like before they will need to build into proficiency and critical chance.
MARKETPLACE UPDATES
You can’t trick him anymore. Inspired by the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the Stealth Outfit from Spider-Man: Far From Home shows Peter blending into the night.
For non-PlayStation players: the inimitable Black Widow is here. Inspired by the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Black Widow’s Marvel Studios’ Avengers: Age of UltronOutfit features a spy taking on an army of robots. This Outfit will be available for PlayStation players next week!
No one escapes the Hawkeye! Check out Kate Bishop’s new Thought You Got Away Takedown in the Marketplace!
The Marketplace is a place for us to feature purchasable cosmetics in the form of Outfits, Emotes, Takedowns, and Nameplates. The Marketplace’s Uncommon, Rare, Epic, and Legendary items rotate weekly, and can be purchased with Credits.
COMMUNITY SPOTLIGHT
Check out some awesome screenshots captured by our Community using our in-game Photo Mode. Share your artwork on social and tag us @PlayAvengers, and we may feature your epic photos in future blogs!
Digital Photography by Thanos_Almighty
Digital Photography by pari_fa_sho
Digital Photography by Masokur
Till next week, we’ll see you online, and in-game!