*** Colossus (Classic) ***

Polares

Phaserhawk wrote:

While Daken is okay with X-Force, I have found Magneto to be far superior. Polarizing Force combos so well with X-Force, you can maximize a Surgical Strike with it and Surgical Strike can Maximize Polarizing Force. If the opposing team has red as strongest, I will go Surgical Strike into Polarizing Force, if they don't I try to Polarize into Surgical Strike. Hood is just annoying and always fits in any comp. I have also used X-Force/Mags/Hood to much success depending on the comp I can rotate Daken in and hopefully someday Fury once I get him more covered, but X-Force and Fury aren't super awesome together just for the fact Fury is there just to hopefully use Purple

I have been saying this for a while too but I think Magneto is XForce new best friend. Red is Mags new best ability, a 'cheap' strong red ability, with good chance of creating a cascade. And if it is blue the strongest color of the opposing team, then you can launch a Magnetized Projectiles without having to match blue so you can launch it for max effect (but I think there are not a lot of characters with blue as their strongest color a part from Magneto so I don't know if this is a important...). And you have another different yellow ability to choose if your XForce has not endured a lot of damage. Of course The Hood and Daken are very strong characters, but if you want to try something different Magneto is your pal wolvieX

Colossus red is very good, but a bit expensive, it is similar to Steve Rogers red, both very good abilities but a little bit expensive. And of course you have to be really carefull that he is in front, because if it is not then red is mediocre :S (so on defense it is going to be played mediocrely allmost allways)


PS: Why oh why I had to respec my Magneto from 5/4/4 to 5/3/5 before trying his new red !!! :_(

NorthernPolarity

C. Mags blue seems awkward with surgical, since if you surgical blue, then theres probably no more blue tiles left on the board... In practice you probably just go surgical -> C. Mags red or X-Force and thats probably good enough so yeah, that combo seems pretty good for pure offense. Cap's stun is actually pretty good insurance for getting off recovery though, but I could def see C. Mags being just as good. Not to mention that with 2 skills destroying all of one type of tile on the board probably leads to a ridiculous amount of cascades.

over_clocked

Edit: (Magneto as well) Only Beast, Doctor Doom (handicapped at lvl 140), and She-Hulk have blue as their strongest colour, meaning this many opportunities to Surgical blue. Whereas red is the strongest colour for Sentry (woo - Sentry/Hood are more popular than Sentry/Daken), Human Torch, Thor, Psylocke, Iron Man, Captain Marvel. Yellow wins by a landslide being the strongest colour of 10 3*s and 4*s, but hey, not like a decent team can't use yellow.

PS. I want to play XF/cMags so much

CNash

The Soviet imagery amuses me - not least because in about ten years or so, due to comic book time slip, it's going to be difficult to reconcile Colossus's backstory with actual history. He'll be too young to have grown up in the Soviet Union (in fact, he might already be a little too young to really remember that period), similar to how Magneto has to be de-aged every so often in order to preserve his origins as a Holocaust survivor, or how Cap's excuse of "frozen in ice" is now wearing thin considering that he was thawed out in the sixties.

Unknown

NorthernPolarity wrote:

C. Mags blue seems awkward with surgical, since if you surgical blue, then theres probably no more blue tiles left on the board... In practice you probably just go surgical -> C. Mags red or X-Force and thats probably good enough so yeah, that combo seems pretty good for pure offense. Cap's stun is actually pretty good insurance for getting off recovery though, but I could def see C. Mags being just as good. Not to mention that with 2 skills destroying all of one type of tile on the board probably leads to a ridiculous amount of cascades.

You'd only Surgical Strike on blue if their highest level guy is She-Hulk, Beast, or Doom. Those are very unlikely opponent to face at all let alone the highest level.

Daken is still easily top tier just due to his resilence, but his strike tiles compliments X Force pretty well. Yes X Force can destroy those but you usually get pretty decent cascades and Chemical Reaction is good as a finishing move because both X Force and Surgical Strike usually don't quite kill someone outright.

DD-The-Mighty

CNash wrote:

...or how Cap's excuse of "frozen in ice" is now wearing thin considering that he was thawed out in the sixties.

You may be "bored" with caps Thawed out origin, but it is easily the best era sensitive origin setup in all of comicdom.
You never need to change his origin, just lengthen the time he was frozen to however long ago WW2 is. And that's what they have done all the time. Cap hasn't been "thawed in the 60's" for QUITE some time now. He will always be from WW2 just when he was revived will shift with the times. So simple and elegent.

Phaserhawk

DD-The-Mighty wrote:

CNash wrote:

...or how Cap's excuse of "frozen in ice" is now wearing thin considering that he was thawed out in the sixties.

You may be "bored" with caps Thawed out origin, but it is easily the best era sensitive origin setup in all of comicdom.
You never need to change his origin, just lengthen the time he was frozen to however long ago WW2 is. And that's what they have done all the time. Cap hasn't been "thawed in the 60's" for QUITE some time now. He will always be from WW2 just when he was revived will shift with the times. So simple and elegent.

No to mention they are hinting around the fact that it may not have been the freezing that kept Captain America young. They are starting to toy with the fact that Captain America's aging much like Wolverine has stopped once he was imbued witht he super soldider serum. They always thought it was the serum that allowed him to survive the freezing, which it did, but the hinting is that may not why be why he didn't age.

simonsez

"Upon landing, they activate one power at no cost... "

So, I tossed Ares, and when he landed, he cast Onslaught, and it drained my green anyway. So aside from costing me 13 extra black AP, and costing Ares 710 health, what was the point? If this is "working as i intended", this looks like another character I won't have to worry about pumping ISO into for a long time. Seems like every day we find a new quirk that makes his abilities less and less appealing.

Phaserhawk

simonsez wrote:

"Upon landing, they activate one power at no cost... "

So, I tossed Ares, and when he landed, he cast Onslaught, and it drained my green anyway. So aside from costing me 13 extra black AP, and costing Ares 710 health, what was the point? If this is "working as i intended", this looks like another character I won't have to worry about pumping ISO into for a long time. Seems like every day we find a new quirk that makes his abilities less and less appealing.

Did you not think it was going to? All the abilties work the same, IM40 will drain your AP, Ares will take Green, Sentry would still lose life on Sacrifice. You just don't have to pay the up front cost. Black is a cool skill, but it's more of a bailout then one you aim to cast. Why would you want to do Fastball Special when you have Surgical Strike, Rage of the Panther, Hypersonic Punch all of which are better and cheaper. Fastball works awesome when you throw Thor or Patch, but for the most part it's not a skill you want. Colossus is desgined to protect your team, not win you matches. I plan on going at the very least 4/5/4 but I am strongly leaning towards 5/5/3.

Unknown

simonsez wrote:

"Upon landing, they activate one power at no cost... "

So, I tossed Ares, and when he landed, he cast Onslaught, and it drained my green anyway. So aside from costing me 13 extra black AP, and costing Ares 710 health, what was the point? If this is "working as i intended", this looks like another character I won't have to worry about pumping ISO into for a long time. Seems like every day we find a new quirk that makes his abilities less and less appealing.

it works like in mtg anything thats not the cost of the card stil happens in this case it devours all green because its one of the effects of his abilitys

simonsez

Phaserhawk wrote:

simonsez wrote:

Did you not think it was going to?

I didn't give it any pre-thought, because I was just screwing around with low level characters in PvE. My point wasn't "onslaught should be a great use of Colussus' black, and boy did I feel cheated", my point was that this sort of implementation of the skill is pretty ridiculous. It shouldn't trigger in such a way that leaves you substantially worse off than you would have been just casting the original skill in the first place. I'm not necessarily saying it should do Onslaught differently, but if this is going to be the outcome, it shouldn't do it at all, and just select from Rampage or Sunder.

NorthernPolarity

simonsez wrote:

Phaserhawk wrote:

simonsez wrote:

Did you not think it was going to?

I didn't give it any pre-thought, because I was just screwing around with low level characters in PvE. My point wasn't "onslaught should be a great use of Colussus' black, and boy did I feel cheated", my point was that this sort of implementation of the skill is pretty ridiculous. It shouldn't trigger in such a way that leaves you substantially worse off than you would have been just casting the original skill in the first place. I'm not necessarily saying it should do Onslaught differently, but if this is going to be the outcome, it shouldn't do it at all, and just select from Rampage or Sunder.

I disagree. The skill is meant to challenge you and make you think about what characters you pair with colossus on your team and who you want to throw. If you throw ares, you should expect a 33% chance of it doing nothing because thats the downside of throwing ares in the first place. Having random exceptions thrown in everywhere is also extremely inelegant: theres no way to tell the player in the first place: "oh btw if you throw ares you wont cast onslaught". It feels much better from a design perspective to leave the skill be and keep those weaknesses in the skill.

simonsez

NorthernPolarity wrote:

It feels much better from a design perspective to leave the skill be and keep those weaknesses in the skill.

Fair enough... but in general, from a risk/reward perspective, it feels very unbalanced. I agree with previous comments that this isn't a skill I'd ever want to bother with, unless there were no other option.

NorthernPolarity

simonsez wrote:

NorthernPolarity wrote:

It feels much better from a design perspective to leave the skill be and keep those weaknesses in the skill.

Fair enough... but in general, from a risk/reward perspective, it feels very unbalanced. I agree with previous comments that this isn't a skill I'd ever want to bother with, unless there were no other option.

Yup, its a bonus skill as opposed to a main reason to use colossus. They cant all be winners i spose.

Unknown

Nonce Equitaur 2 wrote:

I made a change.

Immovable Object - Yellow 8 AP
Colossus protects his team by standing in front of any force that comes their way. Turns a chosen basic Yellow tile into a 3 turn Countdown tile. While active, Colossus moves to the front at end of turn, and resists 25% of the damage dealt to him. If the team has 0 AP in all colors, the power can be cast for free.
Level Upgrades

Level 2: Damage reduction up to 35% Level 3: Damage reduction up to 45% Level 4: Lasts 4 turns Level 5: Damage reduction up to 50%, lasts 5 turns

0 AP = free casting. This makes Colossus immediately useful at the start of a match, protecting the team during the initial rounds. It matches his comic persona of immediately armoring up when the team is caught flat-footed. It gives some time for the rest of his team to rally behind him. This would be a block against fast Sentry wins.

I thought this was a real thing, and not a desired change. Why isn't this a real thing? This should be a real thing.

OnesOwnGrief

Lerysh wrote:

Nonce Equitaur 2 wrote:

I made a change.

Immovable Object - Yellow 8 AP
Colossus protects his team by standing in front of any force that comes their way. Turns a chosen basic Yellow tile into a 3 turn Countdown tile. While active, Colossus moves to the front at end of turn, and resists 25% of the damage dealt to him. If the team has 0 AP in all colors, the power can be cast for free.
Level Upgrades

Level 2: Damage reduction up to 35% Level 3: Damage reduction up to 45% Level 4: Lasts 4 turns Level 5: Damage reduction up to 50%, lasts 5 turns

0 AP = free casting. This makes Colossus immediately useful at the start of a match, protecting the team during the initial rounds. It matches his comic persona of immediately armoring up when the team is caught flat-footed. It gives some time for the rest of his team to rally behind him. This would be a block against fast Sentry wins.

I thought this was a real thing, and not a desired change. Why isn't this a real thing? This should be a real thing.

I could see that being a problem on a really bad board. Great for the user, not so great for the enemy since they'd queue up Immovable Object on the first turn unless there's another active yellow in the group (if AI stays the same). Pretty sure nobody want's to see a five turn 5 on the first turn just because.

Unknown

Careful using immovable object versus falcon. If red wings that tile, he's become immovable

Phaserhawk

OnesOwnGrief wrote:

Lerysh wrote:

Nonce Equitaur 2 wrote:

I made a change.

Immovable Object - Yellow 8 AP
Colossus protects his team by standing in front of any force that comes their way. Turns a chosen basic Yellow tile into a 3 turn Countdown tile. While active, Colossus moves to the front at end of turn, and resists 25% of the damage dealt to him. If the team has 0 AP in all colors, the power can be cast for free.
Level Upgrades

Level 2: Damage reduction up to 35% Level 3: Damage reduction up to 45% Level 4: Lasts 4 turns Level 5: Damage reduction up to 50%, lasts 5 turns

0 AP = free casting. This makes Colossus immediately useful at the start of a match, protecting the team during the initial rounds. It matches his comic persona of immediately armoring up when the team is caught flat-footed. It gives some time for the rest of his team to rally behind him. This would be a block against fast Sentry wins.

I thought this was a real thing, and not a desired change. Why isn't this a real thing? This should be a real thing.

I could see that being a problem on a really bad board. Great for the user, not so great for the enemy since they'd queue up Immovable Object on the first turn unless there's another active yellow in the group (if AI stays the same). Pretty sure nobody want's to see a five turn 5 on the first turn just because.

Agreed, furthermore, people also misread the original Colossus skill, they thought this would counter Sentry. It does...except only for Colossus, because AoE skills get around Immoveable Object. So while Colossus would take reduced damage from World Rupture, the rest of his teammates take the full damage.

I was impressed with his yellow though. In the free use of him in Deadpool event I purposefully brought in a very weak team just so I could try to cast all his skills. I cast Immoveable Oject 3 times and it had the 5 CD counter, every time I was able to keep it out all 5 turns by placing on th edge. While this was only 3 chances, it has giving me confidence that I could go 5/5/3. At the very least I think you have to go 4 in yellow. But 5 gave me enough time to pretty much keep a yellow CD tile out constantly, I even had 2 out at the same time. Red is a little difficult to get to use the full potential, but to not go 5 in red is really hindering this skill. Black was fun, I see the lure of wanting this to be at level 5, but...trying to speed cast a 13AP skill for random damage is not my cup of tea. Fastball works if you could have Thor or Patch, but not Patch and Thor because it would make Patch's TBTI very weak. Sentry wouldn't be bad either, worst case scenario you get a very large strike tile out of it. However I think 3 in Fastball might be too little as if you do get in that scenario you need it having to wait 3 turns is a long time. I think the most balanced approach might be 4/5/4. But with the difficulty red can create depedning upon the lineup, Yellow becomes very, very important and having it stay out as long as possible makes the casting of Colossus Punch that much easier.

Summation.

Colossuss has to be 4/5/4 or 5/5/3 anything else hurts his damage and defensive output. You could always buck the trend and go 5/3/5 and screw his red

Unknown

After using him on the test drive mission he's better than I thought but defensive characters still aren't likely to do anything useful as long as there are boosts. Nonce's suggestion of starting every game with a free Immovable Object highlights this problem exactly. If you started with an Immoveable Object every game you'd have a fairly minimal advantage. If you started the game with a decent 3 match offensive move, this puts you in an incredibly advantageous position. As long as you can boost into improved starting position, offense is always going to beat defense easily because there's just not much point to start with even fairly strong defensive moves like Coercive Force but there is definitely a huge advantage to start with a Judgment or a Battleplan.

orionpeace

It is hard to get excited about his Yellow when it takes 2 to 3 turns to get out, and has ZERO effect on strike tiles.

So, he can't effectively tank against Daken or Patch or even Sentry. He's going to eat the full effect of the strike tile on each match or rupture and at best 50% of the rest.

Meh.

Still, he is better than Beast. So that's something.