11.1 Update Recap - Marvel Studios' The Fantastic Four: First Steps

Introduction

Many have pondered how Netmarble Monster would make this inevitable film update interesting given that the previous Fantastic Four update was only a year ago, and gave Tier-4s to the 3 most interesting characters. Perhaps unsurprisingly there was simply no attempt to do so.

• Characters

  Characters

  Where the baddest girls are from

  Groot [Planet X Palm]

  Groot [Planet X Palm]

  Might be planet X maybe. One of the most creative seasonal uniforms in a bit - Groot has always had very fun uniforms and his second seasonal outing may be the best yet.

  The main change here is swapping his support to provide +45% Damage to Bosses for Aliens, an improvement over the 40% for Guardians only on his previous uniform. He is also a decent main, and is a decent alternative for Hero Alien Male day in ABL if you don't have Gladiator. Pretty similar to Yondu's seasonal last year, but with worse support and better DPS potential.

  If you care about ABL he is worth getting, either as a main or upgraded support over Beta Ray Bill. However do note that it is only one ABL day and if that's not your priority, it can be skipped.

  All my ladies who don't get hyped enough

  Emma Frost [Summer Queen]

  Emma Frost [Summer Queen]

  With the way the rework poll characters were going it was not a surprise to see Emma Frost in the seasonal pool. Being Blast Female Mutant Hero, she both has to follow up Psylocke, who was last year's seasonal, as well as Storm's uniform from last update which is unreasonably strong.

  Cleverly this uniform leans more towards PvP potential because Storm was never going to be replaced in the next update - her PvE performance is decent but you'd never ever use her over Storm or even Psylocke. While she can't break through the Timeline meta, she is a strong reflect-based option for OWB/TBA. However keep in mind this requires you to spend Crystals to recruit her, real money to buy this seasonal uniform, and additional investment to get an (ideally high rank) Artifact for the Reflect passive.

  Not nearly as useful as the last few Summer paywall uniforms, but you can get some solid use out of her in a slightly-below-meta PvP niche. Also Emma Frost fans are different and will buy it anyway.

  Mister Fantastic [Marvel Studios' The Fantastic Four: First Steps]

  Mister Fantastic [Marvel Studios' The Fantastic Four: First Steps]

  Invisible Woman [Marvel Studios' The Fantastic Four: First Steps]

  Invisible Woman [Marvel Studios' The Fantastic Four: First Steps]

  Human Torch [Marvel Studios' The Fantastic Four: First Steps]

  Human Torch [Marvel Studios' The Fantastic Four: First Steps]

  I truly do want to write something about these three uniforms. Sadly although studies show that 400 terabytes of data is created every day, none of it has contained any traces of information on this lot. Videos by soy YouTubers don't count.

  It is assumed they are a little bit better than their uniforms last year - that is to say, not that useful outside of Invisible Woman's Otherworld passive, and niche Franklin-supported PvP teams. Their animations are mostly the same. Human Torch's animations get worse with each uniform.

  In terms of appearances: I like Reed's character portrait which looks a lot like Pedro! The same cannot be said for his character model, or any of the character models for the F4 this update. Invisible Woman's portrait is pretty good too. I don't like Human Torch's haircut. Like they wanted him to have spiky hair but realised spiky hair isn't cool anymore. But instead of coming up with a different hairstyle it's just spiky hair but without the spiky.

  If you've been done wrong then this your song

  The Thing [Marvel Studios' The Fantastic Four: First Steps]

  The Thing [Marvel Studios' The Fantastic Four: First Steps]

  The Thing has always drawn the short straw from the very moment the Fantastic Four were introduced to this game. This makes sense as the other core Fantastic Four have cool powers, and Thing is a orange rock man. Nothing but respect for the dedication to having him be absolutely useless each and every time he gets a uniform. That is all.

  Crystal

  Crystal

  Karnak

  Karnak

  Maximus

  Maximus

  They have picked some Inhumans to Transcend due to the connection between Crystal and the Fantastic Four. That is about all that can be said here. No supports to speak of and putting Maximus here instead of Gorgon is very strange. Perhaps they have big plans for the "Gorgon". More than likely not!

  Silver Surfer (Shalla-Bal)

  Silver Surfer (Shalla-Bal)

  Not often a Tier-4 is under the trio of Transcended Shitters but this is truly a momentous flop. Shayla Balls was one of the most hyped aspects of the film and definitely could have saved this dog water update if she was done right. However she was pretty lame in the movie and so much worse in the game.

  Let's begin by stating the obvious that this should have been a uniform. Yes I know that Shayla Balls and Norrin Radd are two different people. You can tell that by looking at them. They have added uniforms that have different government names in the lore before. Why would anyone want this to be a new character when it just means you have to build a different character from scratch that will probably never get updated again.

  Secondly if you were going to have a new character, perhaps her acquisition could be tied in to a reworked Galactus GBR, similar to how the normal Silver Surfer is recruited. This would make a lot of sense since the update is based around a film where Galactus is the main villain. So of course they are not doing this and instead sticking her in the shop for 6.6k Crystals, the 2nd ever character to get the Adam treatment, except Adam was insane in PvP for a long time and received two uniforms that brought him back to that status. How many do we see Shayla Balls getting? NONE!!!

  As alluded to in the previous paragraph, much like main Silver Surfer, Shayla Balls is a PvP character. She is Native Tier-2 like regular Silver Surfer but you have to pay way more to unlock her. She has a revive like regular Silver Surfer but you need to get her Artifact somehow in order for that to work. The key difference between them is that Silver Surfer is awesome in PvP and Shayla Balls is way more expensive and FUCKING SUCKS!!!

  Why go to all the effort of making this character only to have her just be a shit version of an existing character. It makes absolutely no sense. If she was going to be this expensive why not make her goated. If she was going to be this weak why not make her cheap. If she was PvE she could have replaced Loki and Thanos in that one ABL day that everyone hates using them in. People would have liked the character and maybe even liked the update.

  Some may say oh she's still a top x whatever PvP character. Useful in TBA and OWB when others are banned so you should have her ranked higher. I don't know you and I don't care to know you. Goodbye.