Best Active Abilities by Colour - Black RESULTS IN

Pylgrim

Following on the steps of viewtopic.php?f=7&t=17361 we've arrived to the final batch of polls! Back to Black! Is it me or there is actually no bad black power?

Unknown

Voted easily for X-Force and Panther, and settled on Summon Demons for the third, though I could see picking a different one. There are two fantastic ones and a bunch of pretty good ones.

wymtime

Surgical strik Rage of the Panther are the obvious ones. At level 5 hailstorm is just nasty with 32 attack tiles. Add in some strike tiles and you are lucky to survive. Too bad storm has such little health. Hyper sonic Punch is also very powerful and has a stun as well, but I thought storm needed some love.

IamTheDanger

BP and Xforce, no question. As for the 3rd, I chose Colossus Fastball. It's just too much fun not to use.

HairyDave

JCTthe3rd81 wrote:

BP and Xforce, no question. As for the 3rd, I chose Colossus Fastball. It's just too much fun not to use.

I went with Trickery for much the same reason. It's even helpful in PVE at times

Unknown

Really? Nobody else things Intimidation is worth taking note of, given that it's part of the "I win the game right **** now" combo?

Spoit

Budget Player Cadet wrote:

Really? Nobody else things Intimidation is worth taking note of, given that it's part of the "I win the game right tinykitty now" combo?

It makes it marginally safer, but it's an extra black match and you have to use a full +3 AP all instead of just 2, which does add up.

Unknown

Budget Player Cadet wrote:

Really? Nobody else things Intimidation is worth taking note of, given that it's part of the "I win the game right tinykitty now" combo?

Not only that, but even with only three covers it speeds up anyones countdown.

Get IM40s recharge faster.
2 hits in one turn with HTs Flame Jet.
Return Caps shields faster

and more.

poomermon

I had not realised how good black abilities are nowadays. I remember when punisher black was the cream of the crop back in the day. I chose the obvious rage of the panther and surgical strike. There are lots of good candidates for third one and I chose psi-katana. Individually hailstorm is actually really good too but too bad Storm sucks otherwise.

Unknown

I'm not gonna say Intimidate is a top tier black skill. But it's worth mentioning. It's pretty darn good.

over_clocked

As much as I like Intimidation, it's pretty narrow and has mediocre damage, so I voted for Hypersonic as 3rd. That skill is good.

Unknown

Intimidation is very good in a very narrow sense, pretty good overall. It's not a match-ender like some of the others can be on its own, only in combination with two other skills. Some of these others ones can win a match solo.

Unknown

Funny story: In the last sim, where there was that 395 super thor node, I was running OBW+Hood+Someone. Patch, I think. What kept happening was that before I could get the steal machine up and running, Thor would hit 8 red and down my Patch. I'm reminded of some old post on the forum which contained the quote, "Well, whatcha gonna do, Intimidate them to death?"

Yes. Yes, that is exactly what I did.

That said, overall RotP and Surgical Strike are both probably better.

Unknown

Budget Player Cadet wrote:

Funny story: In the last sim, where there was that 395 super thor node, I was running OBW+Hood+Someone. Patch, I think. What kept happening was that before I could get the steal machine up and running, Thor would hit 8 red and down my Patch. I'm reminded of some old post on the forum which contained the quote, "Well, whatcha gonna do, Intimidate them to death?"

Yes. Yes, that is exactly what I did.

That said, overall RotP and Surgical Strike are both probably better.

I once killed a 10k+ HP Hulk with nothing but Ragnarok's green, but I wouldn't call it the best green power either.

Unknown

That sounds like a long, arduous journey. Like, even worse than killing Omega Thor with intimidate.

Unknown

Rage of the Panther and Surgical Strike will run away with this one.

They are the only truly elite black abilities.

I prefer Rage of the Panther because it just does insane damage to the whole enemy team.

Unknown

Budget Player Cadet wrote:

That sounds like a long, arduous journey. Like, even worse than killing Omega Thor with intimidate.

It was all in the same turn. Once you get about three out it starts feeding itself; I think I had enough AP to cast everything at the end of the turn.

Dartmaster01

Surgical stike wins this hands down for me. Yesterday I dropped a 10k hulk in one turn SS for 7k then green cascade, xforce/xforce=Dead. Board shake and ap steal-Priceless

babinro

Surgical Strike (SS) is the easy winner here.

It's what makes X-Force a powerhouse and allows him to team up with a multitude of characters in your roster and have a devastating team.

Examples:
Hood LR? SS = yellow most of the time so lets bring in Thor as a 3rd to take advantage.
Daredevil PvP? SS = purple most of the time so lets bring in Fury, Deadpool or GSBW to take advantage.
Sentry PvP? SS = red most of the time so lets bring in Captain America to overwrite sacrifice tiles and deal heavy damage. (assuming you don't just boost sentry bomb every battle)

I'd go as far as to say that this skill is just flat out OP for it's cost. It deals crazy damage and typically triggers an immediate follow up skill while draining an important AP colour from your enemy. I'd argue that this skill either shouldn't generate AP or shouldn't drain it. The fact that it does both makes it over powered in play.

Note: BP's black is amazing and situationally better than this skill but it's far less reliable. How often are all the threats below the damage threshold? Meanwhile, X-Force can easily take down Hulk on his own because SS will follow up with one if not 2 green attacks.

Unknown

Weaknesses of Surgical Strike:
1. Defense. There are so many ways to limit the damage against AI. If you see one coming, you match your strongest color, and use your AP (if needed).
2. (conditional) On offense, often the enemy isn't matching the same color as you, or the color they're strongest in is completely useless to you.
3. AI gains AP slower than you.
I still voted it 2nd behind Rage. I was one of the few who voted for Hailstorm, but I really like board control and mitigating annoying things like Redwing, enemy Dakens or other tile generators. Also works well with strike tiles.

Unknown

Reading that list, black is a really strong color. x-force and panther are obvious winners but everything else on that list is usable and or situationaly helpful. I would almost call molotov one of the worst 3* black abilities and I have nothing bad to say about molotov.