**** Devil Dinosaur (Gigantic Reptile) ****

wymtime

What I think of when I use Purple

Fury: Now, Dino Devil, Grab the enemy!
[Devil Dino misses the enemy and swaps random tiles to the top left corner]
Fury: What's going on? Why aren't you seizing the enemy?
Dino Devil: I have a big head and little arms. I'm just not sure how well this plan was thought through.
[Fury glares into his hands]
Dino Devil: Fury?

loroku

Kappei wrote:

In the current metagame the shield-hopping techniques are basically reduced to just one: Sentry+Hood(or Daken if you want to risk a little more)+nobodyCaresWhosThird. With this setup you can end the game in 30 seconds-one minute (with the aid of boosts) against ANY team composition, even with a maxed Hulk (the only exception is a boosted Hulk and even that can be quickly dispatched). Simply +3R/Y, +3G/B, +2(or +3) all. All you need is a green and a yellow match (with a black one if you're running Hood). World Rupture + Sacrifice + Intimidation(again, if you're running Hood). Rinse and repeat.

Now, with a Health of 20k hit points, Devil Dino could be a problem for this tactic. Every second matters when you're shield hopping and even with a great starting board you're probably not going to do 20k damages with a single World rupture use. Are you going to win the match? Sure, the rest of the team is dead, DD has probably a third of his health remaining and your Sacrifice tile is still on the board, but YOU CAN'T AFFORD to lose those 30 seconds to finish him. In those thirty seconds you could have won another match, or maybe 3 other top rankers have you queued and are just waiting to snipe you. Devil Dino's health doesn't make him the best defensive character because it's going to make you win defensive matches, but because it's going to make your enemies totally skip those matches.

As someone who has just started out, I've seen this idea referenced several times and sort of pieced it together from bits and scraps myself, but thank you for spelling it out so completely.

It's amazing that the meta is so completely focused on a single tactic. But I guess that's how these games always end up: the most efficient tactic wins.

It also may explain why this last PvP was so insane - people WANTED that character because it's going to be a dominating force in PvP to counter this, I am guessing. So now "nobodyCaresWhosThird" is replaced with Dino. Sentry + Hood/Daken + Dino seems like the #1 team going forward, then?

JamieMadrox

Wolarsen wrote:

Uh... so long I still do not know what the power actually does ><
¿At lvl1 just swaps a random black with the tile on top left?
¿What about higher levels, does it swap a line of top-left 2-3-4-5 tiles, or keeps replacing same top-left tile, rotating colours?

Basically yes. At 5 purple covers it takes one of each colour tile (randomly) and moves them to the top row from left to right. The power is cheap, It's an active purple (pink!), and it can serve a purpose (protect a Sentry strike tile by moving it).

Unknown

loroku wrote:

Sentry + Hood/Daken + Dino seems like the #1 team going forward, then?

It's a relatively rare PVP you could use that combo, so my suspicion is that what we'll see a lot of is people putting up a Sentry/Dino/Featured team right before they shield, or possibly try to use that to avoid having to shield hop (trading slower matches for hopeful skips). Dino may only disrupt the very upper-level PVP for a while, but he's being given out enough that - if a ton of people start using him - he could be transformative. But I doubt it, in the short term especially.

Unknown

Ben Grimm wrote:

loroku wrote:

Sentry + Hood/Daken + Dino seems like the #1 team going forward, then?

It's a relatively rare PVP you could use that combo, so my suspicion is that what we'll see a lot of is people putting up a Sentry/Dino/Featured team right before they shield, or possibly try to use that to avoid having to shield hop (trading slower matches for hopeful skips).

More like Hood / Dino / Featured? I'd think that an opposing Hood might be a pretty big problem for a shield hopper. Could be a disaster, really, with a bad board.

Unknown

Use the ability with Classic Hawkeye. During a World Rupture, pull 5 tiles in the upper row, then destroy the row with Arrow Stab.

Unknown

kalirion wrote:

Ben Grimm wrote:

loroku wrote:

Sentry + Hood/Daken + Dino seems like the #1 team going forward, then?

It's a relatively rare PVP you could use that combo, so my suspicion is that what we'll see a lot of is people putting up a Sentry/Dino/Featured team right before they shield, or possibly try to use that to avoid having to shield hop (trading slower matches for hopeful skips).

More like Hood / Dino / Featured? I'd think that an opposing Hood might be a pretty big problem for a shield hopper. Could be a disaster, really, with a bad board.

They still need to win a match, and those two would take an hour against a typical maxed 3* team, unless the featured does a lot of damage. But you may be right. I could also see Lazy Daken/Dino/Featured, since that could be another defensive nightmare team, and could shell out a lot of damage on its own as well.

simonsez

DrUnpleasant wrote:

Take solace in the fact that he's not very good, and it'll save you the temptation of throwing ISO at him.

With everyone trying to rack up 2,000 points in the pvp last night, I'm scared to see what will happen when the prizes ARE very good...

NorthernPolarity

While sentry hopping is the weapon of choice for people that can afford +all ap boosts, there is another, infinitely more sustainable character that exists, and his name is xforce. Yes, the metagame is full of sentry hoppers but i find that a maxed xforce team composition is more than enough to hit top 5 in pvp with pretty much no +all ap boosts and infinite amounts of shields. And given how dinos main color strength is green, xforce is a natural counter to him.

I think you guys are overstating the importance of dino: for the .1% of the population that spends hp +3 all ap boosting and leading the pack in terms of score, then sure, dino is probably good. To the other 99.9% of high end players that just care about top 5 placement, then dino probably doesnt matter at all: hes pretty much as bad as hulk on offense, and on defense he gets wrecked by xforce. I dont see him deterring that many more attacks if you dont push early.

Unknown

Paintsville wrote:

Use the ability with Classic Hawkeye. During a World Rupture, pull 5 tiles in the upper row, then destroy the row with Arrow Stab.

Would make more sense to just destroy the Sacrifice tile if there is one

Unknown

Ben Grimm wrote:

It's a joke power in part, and excuse for funny animation in part, and the cheapest ability in the game in part.

It's also something that makes him very effective as an anti-sentryhopping weapon on defense, since he slows down matches so much.

As someone with a 0/1/4 Dino, I am far from amused.

vudu3

It seems that his gigantic health pool is the only real saving grace for Devil Dinosaur. Green and Red powers are good but not great. Does this mean that you need to take him all the way to level 270--or at least really close to it--for him to even remotely worthwhile? A lot of us are advocates of leveling 4*s like X-Force and Fury to around 220 because ability damage quickly scales off beyond that--you get a bit of health benefit but it's not worth the ISO cost to most of us. However, since health is all Devil Dino has going for him, it seems like stopping at 220 will make him a complete joke. Anyone have any idea how large his health pool will be at 220?

babinro

ark123 wrote:

kalirion wrote:

onimus wrote:

kalirion wrote:

Wait, going from level 70 to 270 only doubles his ability damage? ****??

They've already announced that devil dinosaur is not meant to be ultra competitive.

The 20k health is nice though.

But if you expected an instawin character, you'll be disappointed.

So they just made a joke character instead? 19k health so he can what, tank for all those weakling Red/Green characters?

We needed a 4* joke character. We had yelena, bullseye/Bagman and Spider-man, but since they've made xforce good we've only had IW as a hilarious way to throw away all your iso.

To be fair...he's a strong sentry deterrent.

He's not good enough to actually WIN defensive battles but he will survive a sentry bomb.
This is enough to make me skip those battles when doing shield hops since time is everything.

Unknown

vudu3 wrote:

It seems that his gigantic health pool is the only real saving grace for Devil Dinosaur. Green and Red powers are good but not great. Does this mean that you need to take him all the way to level 270--or at least really close to it--for him to even remotely worthwhile? A lot of us are advocates of leveling 4*s like X-Force and Fury to around 220 because ability damage quickly scales off beyond that--you get a bit of health benefit but it's not worth the ISO cost to most of us. However, since health is all Devil Dino has going for him, it seems like stopping at 220 will make him a complete joke. Anyone have any idea how large his health pool will be at 220?

The rate health/ability damage increase for 4* is all the same as a % of their total HP/ability damage. It only matters in the case of X Force because if he has the highest match damage it's pretty bad in a mirror match against another X Force. If there's no this special consideration you'd still want him at 270 if you can afford it.

vudu3

Phantron wrote:

The rate health/ability damage increase for 4* is all the same as a % of their total HP/ability damage. It only matters in the case of X Force because if he has the highest match damage it's pretty bad in a mirror match against another X Force. If there's no this special consideration you'd still want him at 270 if you can afford it.

It takes 166K ISO to raise a 4* from 225 to 270. Let's assume I can't afford it.

My question is, if Devil Dino is strictly "go big or go home" and I have no plans to level him to 270 (i.e. go big) should I just keep him as a level 70 trophy next to my IW? X-Force and Fury are perfectly acceptable in the level 210 to 225 range but I'm doubtful this is the case with Devil Dino.

I'm also toying around with the idea of building a 5/5/0 Devil Dino so his horrible purple doesn't block Fury/Deadpool/etc. I'm not sure of the level cap on a 5/5/0 build but it would probably be in the low 200s. But if a 225 Devil Dino's not going to cut the mustard then that plan's not going to work.

NorthernPolarity

vudu3 wrote:

Phantron wrote:

The rate health/ability damage increase for 4* is all the same as a % of their total HP/ability damage. It only matters in the case of X Force because if he has the highest match damage it's pretty bad in a mirror match against another X Force. If there's no this special consideration you'd still want him at 270 if you can afford it.

It takes 166K ISO to raise a 4* from 225 to 270. Let's assume I can't afford it.

My question is, if Devil Dino is strictly "go big or go home" and I have no plans to level him to 270 (i.e. go big) should I just keep him as a level 70 trophy next to my IW? X-Force and Fury are perfectly acceptable in the level 210 to 225 range but I'm doubtful this is the case with Devil Dino.

I'm also toying around with the idea of building a 5/5/0 Devil Dino so his horrible purple doesn't block Fury/Deadpool/etc. I'm not sure of the level cap on a 5/5/0 build but it would probably be in the low 200s. But if a 225 Devil Dino's not going to cut the mustard then that plan's not going to work.

The thing is, if the only purpose of Dino is being extremely annoying / tedious to fight against, then you WANT his purple to be used. The entire argument for his usage is that Sentry bombing is going to take longer. Well guess how much longer a fight becomes when dino flails his arms around every time you make a purple match, so I think it doesn't make any sense to not level his purple. It's not like Fury/DP get their purples off consistently on defense anyways. And yeah, I would consider Dino a go big or go home character: I'm guessing at 225 his hp will be roughly the same as Hulk, in which case wouldn't you just play Hulk instead?

Edit: Wait a minute, if this is the case then wouldn't 5 purple be optimal? If every second matters during shield hopping, and dino's purple at level 5 swaps 2 extra tiles, leading to an extra half second in animation time... I think I just broke the meta.

Unknown

I'd say X Force and Fury you can leave them at level 220 or so because they're very strong so you can afford to take a small hit in their effectiveness and save a bundle on iso 8 whereas the ceiling for Devil Dino isn't as high so it may be more of a go big or not at all deal. Not counting X Force's unique mirror matchup problem or the PvE scaling, a level 270 X Force certainly is still better than a level 220 X Force and same with Fury.

The purple at level 5 gets you 6/7 of a match of a non TU color back which isn't completely insignificant, though it's not clear to me how a team with Devil Dino can put this AP to additional use. There's also the issue that you got to win a game in the first place to even put Devil Dino on defense and since it's likely to take a pretty long time to win if the featured character isn't strong (and if he is the extra HP isn't much of a deterrent) you might lose a lot of points just in the time it takes you to win to put Devil Dino to defend against a shield hopper. At any rate D3 said he's meant to be more for someone who's transitioning and he seems about right with what's been said.

Unknown

Clearly you haven't actually used the power yet then. It's hillarious.

My Dino is also 0/1/4, about to be 0/1/5 from the anniversary progression dino. They could have made the progression reward a non joke power. That would have been nice.

Killinstinct

Wow, his is really useless. He could as well just have no third ability

Unknown

Yay, I'm part of something!

I don't have several other characters either. Does that make me more special?