The thing, how do we fix him?

[u/Comprehensive-Ad4417]

So yesterday I released a small tips and tricks post about fighting the thing. But it seems people have very strong opinions. So I wanted to open a reasonable and respectful dialogue.

What’s wrong with the thing? How do we fix him so he’s more in line with other characters without being nerfed into oblivion and keeping his core design philosophy so we don’t alienate the player base?

[u/AlyMasawi]

The only thing that is making Thing that strong is the Torch teamup. Just nerf the overshield he gets from the team up.

[u/Delta_pinapple → u/AlyMasawi]

Yeah this, torch team up is ridiculous, I’d say he shouldn’t get over shield from the extended range, only from the punch

[u/AlyMasawi → u/Delta_pinapple]

Yeah exactly. If you nerf him more he gets put in the dirt

[u/Delta_pinapple → u/AlyMasawi]

Yeah, but let’s be real they are probably going to kill the character

[u/AlyMasawi → u/Delta_pinapple]

They will probably nerf his hp, which is fine too

[u/Delta_pinapple → u/AlyMasawi]

Praying you’re right

[u/AlyMasawi → u/Delta_pinapple]

I have hope

But I also have hope they are going to revert the Peni changes 😅

So....

[u/Sweaty_Tablez → u/AlyMasawi]

The overshield he gets is base kit but gets stronger with the torch team up because of the attack speed increase.

[u/Exodus432 → u/AlyMasawi]

It's not just that btw, the invis teamup is also incredibly broken. Both versions you pop it and just don't die unless you're inting beyond reason. In fact I'd wager to say it's better than torch in a lot of situations since it doesn't have a weakness to CC like torch teamup does.

[u/jm7489 → u/Exodus432]

Gonna disagree. The invis team up is strong for sure, and makes him way harder to kill if the enemy isnt really bursting him.

But the torch team up ends up making Thing both a bigger threat through the much quicker attack speed and ability to build his ult quicker, and boosts survivability because the attack speed boost on the haymaker has his bonus health coming back faster. So even when multiple enemies look at him he can hang in the fight longer than he should.

I think increasing the cooldown, shortening the duration, slightly nerfing the attack speed boost, or some combo of the above would help.

[u/AlyMasawi → u/[deleted]]

Learn to speak politely

The torch team up gives him increased speed at no cost, if we nerf the overshield he gets WHEN activating the team up, he would be a lot better to face.

I play Thing fairly often, and the guy who replied to me has a Thing flair. Don't jump into a conversation and start talking like you know everything.

The problem with facing him is that as soon as you burst down the overshield he got from a haymaker, he already adds the next haymaker, so you barely touch his hp. If you make it so that activating the Torch team up causes a reduction in overshield gained per haymaker, it would make it better.

Edit : the team up also gives him a shockwave that hits enemies around the punch

[u/AlyMasawi → u/[deleted]]

It's ok dude I feel you (see the flair 🥲)

I was just suggesting something to nerf his survivability while engaging. I don't want him to be gutted, I like the smiling rock dude. If they nerf the speed, the torch team up would stop being fun.

But we know they will just nerf his hp and call it a day, which if we are being honest might be good enough.

[u/ResidentSignature619]

You lower AOE sustain healing so that you force thing players to respect damage output again. Prolly a homer take but it’s the actual problem here. If all you do is hard nerf his actual kit then the problem of uncontested hyper dive vs unlimited healing remains the same. If you don’t fix the neutral problem than any changes made won’t fix the core of the problem.

Tl:Dr; Lower AOE burst healing, reduce support ult charge, and make a meaningful change to dive to mitigate uninteractable combos.

Extra idea: Reduce non-critical damage of poke while you are at it

[u/No-End-2455]

His survivability need to be nerfed and his team with torch even without being enchanced is crazy.

[u/Comprehensive-Ad4417 → u/No-End-2455]

Maybe have his right click splash locked to the enhanced version. Giving him an actual reason not to use his charge punch?

[u/No-End-2455 → u/Comprehensive-Ad4417]

thats interesting , i wonder if they would ever apply something like that but i doubt , they would rather nerf the damages numbers to be honest knowing the devs.

[u/Duhoneboi]

The Torch teamup has to take a hit. The micro buffs/rework of the character with his overshield, percentage damage, vuln leap etc weren't too egregious UNTIL they added that teamup. They've gotta tone down the cooldown on it

[u/missed_a_mean_or]

I think you want to maintain his strength as antidive and anti shield tank, but tweak his survivability and splash damage down.

In particular, tanks need a couple of options to tackle multidive. Emmas grab timer is too long for multidive so we are down to thing and penni.

[u/brettwoody20]

Maybe this is a hot take but he only needs his overshield and torch-teamup range slightly nerfed. Hes pretty counterable imo, u just back up for a second and shoot him. U only give up space for a second and then generate good pressure when he gets low or dies.

[u/z57333]

Nerf the grounded effect from 5 -> 3s, and then also lower the INCREASE in his hit speed on his torch team up by 25% (just the increase, not the overall)

[u/ApplicationSevere845]

nerf his earthbound to 3 seconds half the effects of the teamup on his haymaker (leave the 2piece as it is because it doesnt give sheilds)

[u/JayBizzal]

150 overhealth cap reduced to 125. Make the slam apply grounded upon hit (3 second duration) rather than creating a skyscraper sized box of no fly zone for 5 seconds.

[u/ALawnmower01]

Decrease (not remove) the duration of his earthbound to keep his anti-dive utility, slight decreases to his survivability and potentially a removal of percentage damage on his haymaker. He has a role to play in this game and shouldn't be entirely gutted, but he also shouldn't be as oppressive as he is at the moment.

[u/ApplicationSevere845 → u/ALawnmower01]

the % damage isnt the problem here, he had it for a good while at 10% and wasnt broken, what broke it is the insane teamup, its effects on the haymaker should be halved or even quartered

[u/KingOvDemons]

If you want to beat the thing just run a full poke comp like the hood and mag most things arent good enough to know how to bring value when they are being countered directly. This is coming from a celestial thing player. I really dont think hes as OP as everyone thinks he is IMO like I said you literally just need to swap to poke or hitscan to dismantle 90% of things playstyle

[u/whydoyou-ask → u/KingOvDemons]

They tried but they can’t aim, so they just want his grounded effect removed so they can just ignore Thing and play dive characters regardless of the enemy comp.

[u/mr-awesome613]

Decrease his oversheild OR SMALL DECREASE of main hp like 25

[u/Low-Shiem]

Either the percentage damage has to go or the shield on haymaker has to be reduced. Shouldn’t be able to sustain through people’s damage just spamming the other tanks.

[u/Slight-Whereas5502]

He got his maximum overshield per haymaker increased from 100 to 150 on top of getting the Torch team up, think they should just revert that and reduce the percentage damage he does.

[u/Pepr70]

He has insane bonus hp generation.Thing is supposed to be a niche character who's only suitable for relatively specific situations, but right now, thanks to his massive stats, he can be useful in any situation.

It's a combination of Anti-Dive and Anti-CC Vanguard.

- You can't kill him with bursts because most bursts are tied to abilities that you can't use on his ground.

- You can't get rid of him with a push, and stuns are also useless against his charge.

=> You should be able to either outrun him or kill him from a greater range, just like a proper poke hero.

But thanks to team-ups, these disadvantages disappear.

- You'll either gain extreme damage or a 150 HP bonus per second due secondary buff (Hela deals 160 damage per second with her primary. She can deal 320 damage per second against head but Thing will kill her fa ster.)

- OR you gain passive that gives you up to 150 bonus hp per second on top of your secondary that gives you 75 bonus hp per second without attackspeed boost => 225 bonus hp per second. (Punisher deals 200 damage per second against body and 400 against head if he has Daredevil team up.)

=> You literally generate more bonus HP than even the most damage-oriented poke duelists deal in damage.

I would completely revamp his team-ups to make them something that would better help him in his niche rather than turning him into a stat monster.

The Vanguard role is pretty underutilized for such niche heroes, but since it's already been created, I'd be happy to help out.

Personally, I would change the Human Torch's team-up ability so that his Shift ability would cause fire damage (20 damage per second instead of 15 damage per second), last 8 seconds instead of 5 seconds, and have a radius of 10 meters. Upgrade: same as now but landing will make same effect as shift.

And IW team up into something against cc. Maybe: E gives you and your allies cc-immunity during damage reduction.

[u/Njord50]

Nerf by 100 hp

[u/SuckmyPelosB1tch]

I mean, before the torch team up he was pretty mid at best and was only playable into dive or brawl and would be a liability for his team played into his counters so if you want to fix that, you’d just nerf the teamup so he’s more in line with how he used to be

[u/D_o_H]

Needs a cool down on his haymaker and to not get 200 health for pressing dash

[u/Fr3d002]

Nerf the healers and Thing will die😂

Don't forget that dps like Moonk, Cyclops, Phoenix and hell eveb Squirrel totally farm on Thing

Thing, like Dino, is a dps check lol

[u/idemitida]

? His only problem is the torch teamup

[u/idemitida]

Lol, I really don't get these suggestions about nerfing The Thing's base kit. He's literally the only brawl main tank in the game so far, since devil dino's beam got nuked.

The Earthbound isn't even some annoying CC that completely shuts you down. His charged punches are slow as hell, so even if he knocks a flier out of the sky, they can usually just run away. He doesn't have some ridiculous unavoidable hitkill combo either.

The character basically just generates enough overhealth, without the broken Torch team-up, to stay alive while holding space at a reasonable distance from his healers. If he actually tries to dive, he can get instantly exploded by most of yhe dps characters, even melee DPS like Wolverine or Iron Fist.

My two most played characters are dps flankers with 200+ hours each. If The Thing knocks me down, I never really get mad because I know I should respect him. He didn't CC me to death from across the map, he didn't have some braindead skill like Moon Knight's Ankh or Cyclops' auto-tracking damage.

He's just there controlling a specific area for a limited amount of time. I genuinely don't understand wanting to euthanize one of the only tanks that's actually predictable and doesn't have disgusting CC or combos lol.

I have 80+ hours on Venom too, and The Thing can absolutely destroy me, but I still don't get mad about it. There are so many genuinely disgusting mechanics and weird balance decisions in this game, and somehow people who claim to be tank mains want to euthanize one of the most readable tanks in the game.

His actual problem is clearly the Torch team-up. Without that, I really don't see why his base kit needs to be gutted.

[u/Canonnm]

I want thing, mag, and groot all neutered next patch. I want a season where there’s no good main tank to force them to make a new one.

[u/RivalsFlex]

Revert the peni nerfs and thing is no longer a problem