Best Active Abilities by Colour - Yellow

mags1587

Spoit wrote:

Budget Player Cadet wrote:

Wait, how is this a discussion? Sacrifice is, at this point, virtually the MVP of MPQ. It ends games pretty much on the spot. Throw one down, world rupture goes off, GG. On its own it's solid, but paired with another skill self-contained within the same character, it is the most broken tinykitty in the game. Okay, sure, it's WR's fault, but Sacrifice makes the one-character 60-second kill a thing.

Beyond that, Thunder strike comes in a clear second - standalone, one of the best skills in the game.

Third place... I have to give it to Recharge, because 9 red AP for 6 yellow AP is one of the best trades ever.

That's because of WR more than sacrifice. If you resist the urge to sacrifice every game, WR actually doesn't do that much self damage. And BP does almost as much s for only 1 more AP with no self damage

BP also creates 3 strike tiles so less chance of all of them being matched away.

Unknown

Yellow is hard to do without the context of the characters themselves and once you do it gets messy too. For example Thunder Strike depends on having a good green power (though Thor supplies a respectable green power by himself), and likewise Sacrifice requires something that can interact well with strike tiles (though Sentry supplies the WR). If you're talking about abilities completely in a vacuum Battleplan might even be better than Sacrifice, but BP can't supply the move that interacts well with strike tile while Sentry can. I'd vote Thunder Strike because even in a vacuum, it can always create a huge cascade which is always going to lead to something useful later even if we make no assumptions on what any ability your team may have (including Thor's own abilities).

Unknown

mags1587 wrote:

BP also creates 3 strike tiles so less chance of all of them being matched away.

That just means there's a smaller variance on Battleplan, because there's also a higher chance of losing some of your strike tile immediately when you place more of them as some of them are bound to be in position difficult to protect, versus Sentry which places one that has a lower chance of being in a bad spot but losing that one loses all your strike tile strength.

Pylgrim

So it's official: Mistress of the Elements is one of the worst yellow powers, in the prestigious company of Medical Marvel and Grant Invisibility. I remember that when the ability was first introduced, replacing the old effect, I bemoaned it was a huge nerf (for a character that not only didn't need it, but had also already been nerfed) and the Pollyannas of the forum were quick to answer that it wasn't that bad, that 7 T-U AP was "massive" and that it still dealt damage and had some chance for cascades. Fast forward a few months, no one uses Storm, the ability is regarded as one of the worst in yellow, and to rub salt in the wound, the old effect of her ability is given to c.Magneto, and made cheaper! Sure enough, that power of Magneto now ranks 6th in the Red poll.

Mind still reels when thinking that some people believed that 7 T-U AP was a fair replacement for over 2000 damage and massive board shake.

Pylgrim

Let's take a look at the results

1. Thunder Strike (Thor) 106
2. Battleplan (Black Panther) 66
3. Sacrifice (Sentry) 40
4. Avengers Assemble! (Nick Fury) 32

5. Twin Pistols (The Hood) 17
6. Recharge (Iron Man M40) 13
7. Recovery (Wolverine X-Force) 13
8. Immovable Object (Colossus) 6
9. Coercive Field (Magneto, Classic) 4

10. Web Bandages (Spiderman) 1
11. Sentinel of Liberty (Captain America) 1
12. Medical Marvel (Beast) 0
13. Mistress of the Elements (Storm) 0
14. Grant Invisibility (Invisible Woman) 0

An expected landslide victory by Thunder Strike, a clear top 4 and a very clear bottom 5. Unsurprisingly, the top abilities generate tons of damage either immediately or in the long term, while the bottom abilities either "untruly" heal or do almost nothing.

Unknown

Pylgrim wrote:

An expected landslide victory by Thunder Strike, a clear top 4 and a very clear bottom 5. Unsurprisingly, the top abilities generate tons of damage either immediately or in the long term, while the bottom abilities either "untruly" heal or do almost nothing.

Slight correction: 2 of the bottom 5 abilities (Cap and IW) are unbelievably expensive. Hence why they are down at the bottom (not the "do almost nothing" reason). Twin Pistols, while expensive, returns you 18 AP, destroys enemy tiles and/or shakes up the board a bit which those 3 factors should serve to separate it from the other expensive abilities.

The only other thing I'd mention on your results analysis is that most people probably don't have Beast and Colossus fully covered/leveled yet, especially given that they haven't really been offered outside specific events. So usage and exposure for those two are probably much lower than the other abilities (though I too doubt that Beast's ability will move much in the ranking).

Pylgrim

Riggy wrote:

Pylgrim wrote:

An expected landslide victory by Thunder Strike, a clear top 4 and a very clear bottom 5. Unsurprisingly, the top abilities generate tons of damage either immediately or in the long term, while the bottom abilities either "untruly" heal or do almost nothing.

Slight correction: 2 of the bottom 5 abilities (Cap and IW) are unbelievably expensive. Hence why they are down at the bottom (not the "do almost nothing" reason). Twin Pistols, while expensive, returns you 18 AP, destroys enemy tiles and/or shakes up the board a bit which those 3 factors should serve to separate it from the other expensive abilities.

The only other thing I'd mention on your results analysis is that most people probably don't have Beast and Colossus fully covered/leveled yet, especially given that they haven't really been offered outside specific events. So usage and exposure for those two are probably much lower than the other abilities (though I too doubt that Beast's ability will move much in the ranking).

Yeah, I meant more like "do almost nothing for their cost" but I agree with you. I do agree on the matter of Colossus as well. I believe he's quite decent and I was afraid that he would do very poorly due low exposure, but I'm at least glad that enough people saw its value to push it out of the bottom 5. Beast is indeed irredeemable.

As a fun exercise, let's fix the bottom 5 abilities.

Web bandages 13
Currently worthless, and almost worse, not flavourful or in character. needs complete reworking. I propose

Web Swing 8
Spider-Man swings into the scene at great speed, barrelling feet-first into an enemy. His remarkable regeneration factor kicks in, preparing for the battle ahead. Deals X (Mjolnir Might-like) damage to an enemy and creates a Green Countdown tile that activates every turn, healing Spider-Man for 2% of his health.
Level 2: More damage
Level 3: Countdown tile activation heals Spider-Man for an additional 1% of his health for each web tile on the board.
Level 4: More damage
Level 5: Base healing increased to 4% of Spider-Man's health.


Sentinel of Liberty 19
SoL is, simply, way too expensive. It will completely blank all the match damage, even including the best strike tiles. But at that point the enemy will just destroy you with nukes while you have very little else to show for your efforts. I believe that the best way to make it relevant while preventing it from becoming OP is diminishing protect value along cost. That way it will become something of a middle point between what it is now and what c.Mags old blue was (in the sense that you can choose to use the tiles to make 5-tile matches instead leaving them around for the protect value)

New Sentinel of Liberty 12
Captain America courageously rushes to protect the team's flank. Transforms 2 basic chosen tiles into yellow protect tiles, each with a strength of 25 (22 is the base damage of BP's strike tiles at level 1, as a reference).
Level 2: Increases Protect strength to 30
Level 3: Transforms 3 tiles.
Level 4: Increases Protect strength to 35 (Max: 170)
Level 5: Transforms 4 tiles.


Medical Marvel 11
For a "marvel" Dr. McCoy heals much less and barely better than the non-specialist Spider-Man and OBW, respectively, and the super-conditional, **** protect tiles you sometimes get from the deal hardly make it any better. Non-true healing abilities are positively useless unless they are a rider on a more beneficial effect (see OBW) AND are strong enough to be relevant (see She-Hulk failing badly at this.) I think it's important for Beast to keep the healing ability, so let's see if we can make it good enough. (I know true healing is just never going to happen, so I'll make do somehow else.)

New Medical Marvel 11
Dr. McCoy uses his medical triage skills to patch up a teammate before they rush back into battle healing them for a 25% of their total health. The burst of healing reinvigorates that character. If there's a friendly Blue special tile on the board, two random yellow tiles become strength 20 protect and strike tiles.
Level 2: Heals for 35%
Level 3: Increase tile strength to 25
Level 4: Heals for 50%
Level 5: Transforms 4 tiles to 2 strike and 2 protect tiles.

Mistress of the Elements 9
This ability is near useless in its present state even if you don't compare it to her old red power. If you desperately want some extra Team Up, you might as well do two Team-Up tile matches instead of three yellow matches and bring to the battle a squishy, weak character as Storm and you'll get almost as much. Continuing with the "wind" theme that the old ability had and keeping the caring for T-U of the current, we can do something similar to what Doc Ock does.

New Mistress of the Elements 7
Fierce winds swirl, sending heavy weights aloft and turning them against the enemy. Nearby allies zero in into the commotion. Swaps 7 pairs of random tiles, destroying any swapped Team Up tiles, dealing damage and generating AP for each tile destroyed.
Level 2: Swaps 8 pairs of tiles.
Level 3: Swaps 10 pairs of tiles.
Level 4: Doubles damage and AP for each destroyed Team up tile.
Level 5: Swaps 12 pairs of tiles.


Grant Invisibility 18
GI is clearly overcosted and it's easy to imagine that the Devs want to err on the safer side. I cannot tell how broken could it be if we just arbitrarily reduce its cost, so I'll make it less absolute and rework it a bit following lessons learned from Colossus .

New Grant Invisibility 10
The Invisible Woman hides a chosen member of the team allowing him or her to attack stealthly. Converts a random basic Yellow tile into a 2-turn countdown tile. While it's on the board, the invisible character can't be targeted and whenever that character makes a match, it deals 25% more damage.
Level 2: Increases countdown to 3
Level 3: Increases damage by 35%
Level 4: Increases countdown to 4
Level 5: Increases damage by 50%. If the countdown tile is matched by the enemy, the chosen character activates one power at no cost.

Lystrata

Nice reworkings - certainly makes each of the yellows you go through there a bit more appealing.

I think the main problem with them though, is that even with those 'changes', the powers themselves are just vastly inferior to the ones that got the higher votes. (Or bettered by someone in a different colour.) Given that so many characters have a yellow ability, chances are you'd have someone else on your team who you'd certainly be using instead.

I mean, why on earth anyone'd use Beast's yellow when you could use BW and save your yellow for Sentry, Thor, Ares... etc.. is beyond me.