POLL: Worst fifth cover

Nonce Equitaur 2

I'm trying to rebuild the Characters and Skills Compendium to adjust for the Level Shift, and some characters just never seem to have a particular fifth cover. Here are some unpopular powers for five covers. Most have 3 or 4 covers in this power. For those with ***, let me know if you can find an Alliance/Name for someone that has this fifth cover.

Recovery - Wolverine X-Force. Countdown 7 tile?
Sentinel of Liberty - Captain America. Too expensive. ***
Recharge - Iron Man 40. Extra AP cost.
Web Bandages - Spider-Man. Doesn't actually heal.
Raging Tempest - Storm Classic. Extra damage insignificant.
Pistol - Black Widow (Gray Suit). Extra AP cost.
Smash - Hulk. Other powers are better. ***
Mjolnir’s Might - Thor. Other powers are better. ***
Best There Is - Wolverine (Patch).
Defense Grid - Black Panther. Too slow. ***
Bewilder - Psylocke. Usually not useful.
Aggressive Recon - Black Widow (Original). Extra AP cost.
Magnetic Translocation - Magneto (Classic). 13 Red/Blue unlikely.
Control Shift - Moonstone. Too expensive.
Intimidation - The Hood. Excellent with Sentry only.
Molotov Cocktail - Punisher. Minor countdown goes from 3 to 2.
Reprieve - She Hulk. Too random.

Hood's Intimidation works great with Sentry. Patch's Best There Is works great with a carefully honed team. Which other maxed powers from the list above are actually more useful than their usage suggests?

Unknown

Nonce Equitaur 2 wrote:

Bugpop wrote:

I don't think punisher's 5th moltov cocktail cover is that great.

It's almost guaranteed damage in a match. I have Molotov maxed as a deterrence.

4/5 Level 166
783 AoE + Red Countdown that spawns red 78 damage attack tile every 3 turns
5/5 Level 166
783 AoE + Red Countdown that spawns red 78 damage attack tile every 2 turns

Spoit

There's a some covers on this list that are ONLY useful when they have 5. Like TBTI, and to a lesser extent MT (which actually does get a base damage boost in addition to more shifts) and molotvs (if you want to actually have more than a cheap area attack to use with strikes).

And on the other hand, there are a lot of powers on this list which are simply terrible, regardless of how many covers they have. Like bagman, control shift, or Shehulk/Psylocke's AP drains.

IMO, the only right answers for this poll would be ones that are actively harmful to the character's gameplay when you level them up: namely Recharge and agressive recon

Also, I'd nominate Ares' green over a bunch of these powers, that 1 AP cost reduction for the 5th is pretty redundant.

EDIT: Oh, also, Laken's blue is actively harmful, and Falcon's shorter cooldown for 5 blue might be of questionable usefulness. And venom's purple as well

Unknown

I guess if you want to look at my GSBW go ahead, alliance is in the sig, she is far from max level but has 5 covers in pistol (cant find the purple covers)
Same goes for my 5 blue psylocke
Weird I just now noticed that both of the girls are at 5/5/2 in not optimum builds

Unknown

I think X-Force's Recovery takes the cake. It goes from a not-great but usable regeneration to being utterly unusable. Nothing else's fifth cover undermines it as much.

Unknown

I have 5 in Molotov, 5 in Bewilder (actually find 4/5/4 incredibly useful against Thor, steal 11 Yellow or Green and follow with Thunder Strike/Call the Storm of my own)

Unknown

I've got Patch's TBTI at 5.

253 damage per tile, 2 red strike tiles per team at 174/87

Talahamut

I've got XF's yellow at 5. Not cause I'm gonna use him now anyway, but post-TrueHealing it seems like a safe bet that his yellow heal is gonna be important whenever his buff actually comes through...

Spoit

Ben Grimm wrote:

I think X-Force's Recovery takes the cake. It goes from a not-great but usable regeneration to being utterly unusable. Nothing else's fifth cover undermines it as much.

At 10 base AP, even if it healed that much with with no cooldown, it'd still be pretty unusable

Unknown

All fifth cover for characters are great! How could they be otherwise after going through stringent testing over and over again before the character is released?

In all seriousness, it's X-force's yellow. 7 turns? I always want my healing to come after my character is dead anyway.

HairyDave

That 5th cover of Bewilder is actually pretty good. Dropping countdown timers to two can make a huge difference.

ErikPeter

Pistol level 5 is great, maybe a bit pricey, but it's just not as good as GSW's Green or Purple at level 5. Same can probably said for Thor's red (my LazyThor is 0/5/5 so I wouldn't know ). Punisher's Molotov at 5 is excellent, esp. with his strike tiles, dunno what it's doing on this list.

Instead of generating black, IM40's level 5 Recharge should create an additional CD.

Cap's Sentinel of Liberty is too expensive at every level but if you can get there it's worth the cost. Really they should just lower the AP cost and defense by 50% so that you can get 300 defense for 9 AP instead of 600 for 19. I am a proponent of that power as is, as it has saved me on occasion, but being able to kill CDs (on the cheap) makes both his red and blue more useful at 5.

CStorm's Raging Tempest is pretty weak. They should double the damage from 4/5 or something, make it really noticable.

I'd like to use Moonstone's Control Shift every once in a while. For a situational power it sure costs a lot... (Along those lines I know you're stuck with 5/5 for Bullseye but if they made a 3-star version of him, I sure hope they'd give him a Black AP generator as a third power, Murderous Aim is great if you prioritize black to the detriment of every other color, which only wins matches in Snow enviroments.)

For one that isn't on this list I nominate Marvel NOW! Magneto's level 5 Iron Hammer. Slow, and if it goes off it's only great against CDs/strike users, preventing you from using any of your own. Maybe with Hood+Hulk or something it'd combo well but most characters I play add tiles to the board.

IamTheDanger

I have 5 covers for C Storm raging tempest. (alliance name below). The reason for this is not because it is powerful, but because I almost always have another, better, green ability. Like Thor's or Patch's. I prefer to use C Storm for her blue ability most of the time anyway.

JJ

Unknown

Check my mag c for alternate build. The x-men

Mawtful

I've been thinking about taking BP to 3/5/5 for a while now (mine is currently 5/4/4 thanks to applying covers as I got them). The reasoning is as always - both of Panther's Yellow and Blue abilities are somewhat lackluster. Previously I would have considered 5/3/5 or even 4/4/5, but in a post-Sentry metagame, it's harder and harder to justify Battleplan.

Meanwhile, I've often found Defense Grid useful for countering OBW (although my roster has finally reached a point where I am 99% in the full 3* tier now - and then True Healing kicked in), and can also be useful against Moonstone (PvE) and Falcon (with a bit of luck he'll Redwing the defense tiles and not the CD). Also, in the rare occasion that the countdown sticks around and keeps pumpin out defense tiles, well, they're actually not terrible.

Still, I can appreciate the argument that there are better uses for blue AP - even using Mag's blue for defensive purposes gets you about 66.67% of the protection for about 66.67% of the cost, just ~300% faster.

On topic, X-Force Yellow is definitely the worst.

If only boards could get covers, then Hot Dog Stand would have the Wurst.

Unknown

C.Mags' 5th cover also increases the damage per swap, significantly. Purely based on the order I got covers I had a 5/3/5 Mags for quite a long time and now have him at 5/4/4 and losing that 5th cover makes a real difference (on the other hand, so does reducing the cost of his red). There's a real case to running him 5/3/5 to maximize the power of his purple as a nuke (especially since it's his most dangerous ability on D, and very handy for taking out the Hulk especially but all high HP guys and regenerating guys too).

There's no way it should even be on the list.

Abilities which actively get worse with 5 covers- X-Force's yellow, Recharge, Aggressive Recon- should top the list.

Spoit

Honestly, IMO having powers that suck in general muddies the poll objective. Is it about powers that are bad *at 5*, powers that are bad *because the other 2 are so much better that you wouldn't bother taking it to 5*, or powers that are just flat out bad *in general*

HairyDave

Spoit wrote:

Honestly, IMO having powers that suck in general muddies the poll objective. Is it about powers that are bad *at 5*, powers that are bad *because the other 2 are so much better that you wouldn't bother taking it to 5*, or powers that are just flat out bad *in general*

That's probably the most common reason.

Mjolnir's Might isn't terrible but compared to Thors other abilities the only reason you'd ever max it is because you can't get the yellow or green covers.

Unknown

i dont know why cmag purp is there...that thing hits like a truck and is pretty much kill or at least gunna do massive dmg to characters with high hp

Spoit

Too Easy wrote:

i dont know why cmag purp is there...that thing hits like a truck and is pretty much kill or at least gunna do massive dmg to characters with high hp

I'm just glad no one is voting for TBTI. While I personally do 5/3/5, 3/5/5 would totally be viable once cmags is nerfed. Or 4/5/4 for that matter

Unknown

ErikPeter wrote:

Pistol level 5 is great, maybe a bit pricey, but it's just not as good as GSW's Green or Purple at level 5. Same can probably said for Thor's red (my LazyThor is 0/5/5 so I wouldn't know ). Punisher's Molotov at 5 is excellent, esp. with his strike tiles, dunno what it's doing on this list.

Instead of generating black, IM40's level 5 Recharge should create an additional CD.

Cap's Sentinel of Liberty is too expensive at every level but if you can get there it's worth the cost. Really they should just lower the AP cost and defense by 50% so that you can get 300 defense for 9 AP instead of 600 for 19. I am a proponent of that power as is, as it has saved me on occasion, but being able to kill CDs (on the cheap) makes both his red and blue more useful at 5.

CStorm's Raging Tempest is pretty weak. They should double the damage from 4/5 or something, make it really noticable.

I'd like to use Moonstone's Control Shift every once in a while. For a situational power it sure costs a lot... (Along those lines I know you're stuck with 5/5 for Bullseye but if they made a 3-star version of him, I sure hope they'd give him a Black AP generator as a third power, Murderous Aim is great if you prioritize black to the detriment of every other color, which only wins matches in Snow enviroments.)

For one that isn't on this list I nominate Marvel NOW! Magneto's level 5 Iron Hammer. Slow, and if it goes off it's only great against CDs/strike users, preventing you from using any of your own. Maybe with Hood+Hulk or something it'd combo well but most characters I play add tiles to the board.

I find MagNow's Red and Purple are better, but his Blue is a full board wipe. Lots of cascades and a strategic reset against Daken, Wolverine and characters like that. I don't think it's a bad 5th cover, just not as good as the other 2.