*** Blade (Daywalker) ***

simonsez

locked wrote:

Fine, max your Blades' black. Can't wait for his PvP (we are overdue one) so that our 3/5/5 Blades rip yours apart.

That's cool. I'd rather build him for goon nodes I'll hit a couple dozen times a day, rather than build him for a PvP that might happen once every 18 months.

Unknown

locked wrote:

Ragnarok's strongest colour is red as evidenced by BP and X-Force. So at least red should be drained first from Rags by Blade.

Fine, max your Blades' black. Can't wait for his PvP (we are overdue one) so that our 3/5/5 Blades rip yours apart. He's also a good support in a pinch, better than Daken outside of true healing.

His strongest color doesn't work like any other guy's 'strongest color' does. He chooses at random from any ties from strongest color amongst all characters. If there are two goons of equal level that covers all 6 colors and are highest matches overall, you have an equal chance of getting any of the 6 colors. No idea where people get the idea he starts on the strongest color first because even a fairly casual observation will show this is not the case.

over_clocked

I guess I really rarely pay attention to what Nightstalker drains since it's my throwaway skill at 3 covers and I usually use it for damage and early random AP steal. It rarely lives for longer than 2-3 turns against *actual* non-goon nodes. And pure goon nodes, there are plenty combos for them, no need to **** Blade's damage for those. Survival? LC/GSBW/Hood or LC/XF/Hood or LC/Hood or just LC by himself are what you need for Survival, lol. Blade only if you run him with Spidey maybe or Daken to have protection on purple, but then you want an A grade purple user, which Blade is. His purple is about as stronger than his black as GSBW's green is stronger than her red. Overstatement? Yes. You get the drift, though. Blade's PvP is simply a nice touch to further confirm 3/5/5's sheer superiority for general purposes.

Kolence

Phantron wrote:

locked wrote:

Ragnarok's strongest colour is red as evidenced by BP and X-Force. So at least red should be drained first from Rags by Blade.

Fine, max your Blades' black. Can't wait for his PvP (we are overdue one) so that our 3/5/5 Blades rip yours apart. He's also a good support in a pinch, better than Daken outside of true healing.

His strongest color doesn't work like any other guy's 'strongest color' does. He chooses at random from any ties from strongest color amongst all characters. If there are two goons of equal level that covers all 6 colors and are highest matches overall, you have an equal chance of getting any of the 6 colors. No idea where people get the idea he starts on the strongest color first because even a fairly casual observation will show this is not the case.

He steals from goons only from colors they have powers on or maybe which they generate. After I killed the maggia and hand goon and only the hammer goon was left standing, Blade would steal only green even though the AI had some of other colors still left in reserve. With more than one Nightstalker CD. Also it might be that when he can steal multiple colors from goons and has several CD's he starts in the order the AI casts powers: -> -> -> -> -> .

Unknown

Kolence wrote:

Phantron wrote:

locked wrote:

Ragnarok's strongest colour is red as evidenced by BP and X-Force. So at least red should be drained first from Rags by Blade.

Fine, max your Blades' black. Can't wait for his PvP (we are overdue one) so that our 3/5/5 Blades rip yours apart. He's also a good support in a pinch, better than Daken outside of true healing.

His strongest color doesn't work like any other guy's 'strongest color' does. He chooses at random from any ties from strongest color amongst all characters. If there are two goons of equal level that covers all 6 colors and are highest matches overall, you have an equal chance of getting any of the 6 colors. No idea where people get the idea he starts on the strongest color first because even a fairly casual observation will show this is not the case.

He steals from goons only from colors they have powers on or maybe which they generate. After I killed the maggia and hand goon and only the hammer goon was left standing, Blade would steal only green even though the AI had some of other colors still left in reserve. With more than one Nightstalker CD. Also it might be that when he can steal multiple colors from goons and has several CD's he starts in the order the AI casts powers: -> -> -> -> -> .

I sort of assumed that people already know it's from colors that the goon has a power in since goons normally already have every color at the same strength, but my bad if that wasn't clear. Obviously if only a Grenadier is left, since his only power is green then you can only steal from green.

Take the current hard sub, assuming all goons are equal level (if one is higher, he'd take precedence over others) we have Konran (red/black), Muscle (yellow/blue), and Grenadier (green). Red, black, yellow, blue, and green are all possible colors to steal from and there's no preference on them. Keep in mind enemies usually have a mysterious 'off by 1' in their level so this doesn't always work. If you get a Nightstalker out early enough you'll see that you're picking up AP in a fairly random order, and if you've more than one Nigthstalkers out you'll also start seeing the second one stealing from a color that's already drained randomly. In the Kishu node on the first sub when they're all 395, it's random when you finally steal the red but stealing the red at all is huge since that delay Caltrops which is the only goon move you cannot handle reliably.

Now if it's 3 characters that are equal tier/level, like say Thor (3*, red), Captain America (3*, yellow), and Patch (3*, green), it is equally likely to steal from any of those 3 colors. Again, this doesn't happen as often as you'd expect because in PvE we often have mixed rarity (2*/1* have higher match per given level than 3*, and same with 3* vs 4*) and a random guy who happens to be 1 level higher, and on PvP, usually the highest match is going to be a 4*, unless someone has two of them, but in that case you'd usually be expecting an even higher match from the featured character against such an opponent.

wymtime

So I just got Blade up to 13 covers from combined arms and I took him to 5,4,4. I have 1 more purple sitting in my que if I want to use it and I am using him a lot in this Hulk PVE to finalize my build. My First impression was 5,3,5 was the best build becuase Purple takes 10 AP to fire. Green is obvious a strong passive at 5. The question is do I want direct damage and more AP steal with Black, or 2 really string attack tiles. it might have only been 2 days worth of PVE, but I find myself only getting 10 purple after I fire black, so when I steal purple. I am also running him with LDaken and Patch. I find the best thing about the attack tile is that it can double dip off of strike tiles and with that I only need 1. After playing him at 5,4,4 I feel my personal play style fits 5,4,4 and 5,3,5 more so than 3,5,5. At 5 purple it does more overall damage, but it takes 4 match 3's to fire where Black takes 3. Purple also needs to have a lot of strike tiles out to be great so it is also conditional. Waiting on conditional is not my favorite where Black, Like purple you want to just make sure there is not an easy match 3 on the board. Since I am bringing a green user with me there is usually less green on the board so the black CD stays on the board longer for me fueling other abilities.

Blade is very balanced in the fact that each build is good, as of now I am just not a big believer in the 3,5,5 build becuase purple is just too conditional for me, and it has taken too long to get 10 purple AP.

Unknown

We've been chatting a lot in alliance chat about Blade builds, specifically if you need 5 in green so I decided to science it to find out the impact 8).

I recorded how many red tiles were on the board on each occasion where I gained strike tiles from Blade. I was intentionally avoiding red matches unless theyere were 4/5 matches or cascades (as you generally will with Blade) or if I needed to deny red. SO basically this is a look at how useful that 5th cover is is when playing normally with the hero...

I recorded 264 instances of Blade generating strike tiles. Of those 31% were when there were exactly 10 tiles on the board. I also recoded goon only nodes vs nodes with enemy characters because I assumed I would more easily preserve reds on goon only nodes BUT there was only a slight difference. 30% of goon only node strikes were 10 red, 32% when the enemy had a hero, meaning it's slightly more important/useful to have 5 green vs heroes than simply goons.

So, in summary, getting a 5th cover in green will increase Blade's strike tile generation by about 45%... up to you to rate the importance .

simonsez

bonfire01 wrote:

So, in summary, getting a 5th cover in green will increase Blade's strike tile generation by about 45%... up to you to rate the importance .

Your number is inflated because you're not factoring in the board states in which neither generates a strike tile. The metric you want to look at is strike tiles created per move, not gross tiles created, so all of the instances of (0,0) should be considered also.

Unknown

I may be alone in saying this, but I'd actually prefer the one stronger strike tile than the two weaker ones. Admittedly, a large part of the reason for this is that I've generally been pairing Blade with Lazy Daken, and red is generally getting filled up one way or another, so I'd rather have it have stronger tiles. I decided to go 5/5/3 for that reason.

simonsez

Ben Grimm wrote:

I decided to go 5/5/3 for that reason.

Same here, for the same reasons.

SangFroid

Same 553 and finding it much stronger than my old build. When I fire purple I always have at least 4-6 tiles on the board regardless, the only drawback is that it somewhat nerfs Daken Blue as I am firing it less to preserve the tiles. Overall though having the advantage or 5 purple AND 5 black has been awesome.

Phaserhawk

You are correct, when paired with Daken 5/5/3 is the stronger build, but what about when he's not? Numerous times in PvE I am going against Daken, and having been 4/5/4 for how covers fell, I was struggling to get enough strike tiles to get full purple, and being unable to use Daken happens alot in PvE.

So I cannot argue with you logic, if you pair Blade with Daken exclusively then yes 5/5/3 is the stronger ability, but I like to use Blade outside of just Lazy Daken and that means 3/5/5 for me, the ability to trigger his green goes up a lot from 11 to 10, just look at prior posts.

Unknown

Ben Grimm wrote:

I may be alone in saying this, but I'd actually prefer the one stronger strike tile than the two weaker ones. Admittedly, a large part of the reason for this is that I've generally been pairing Blade with Lazy Daken, and red is generally getting filled up one way or another, so I'd rather have it have stronger tiles. I decided to go 5/5/3 for that reason.

5/5/3 is definitely the optimal build if you're pairing him primarily with Daken.

But when he's the only tile generator, 3/5/5 is the optimal build because you want as many strike tiles as possible to bolster his purple.

NorthernPolarity

onimus wrote:

Ben Grimm wrote:

I may be alone in saying this, but I'd actually prefer the one stronger strike tile than the two weaker ones. Admittedly, a large part of the reason for this is that I've generally been pairing Blade with Lazy Daken, and red is generally getting filled up one way or another, so I'd rather have it have stronger tiles. I decided to go 5/5/3 for that reason.

5/5/3 is definitely the optimal build if you're pairing him primarily with Daken.

But when he's the only tile generator, 3/5/5 is the optimal build because you want as many strike tiles as possible to bolster his purple.

I'm not really sold on 5/5/3 being better than 3/5/5 even with Daken.
1. 5 black doesn't really matter that much with Blade / Daken. We've established before that the 1 AP drain isn't really essential, and 700 extra damage is like 1 match 3 when the board is saturated with strike tiles.
2. 4 green still puts out an extra 24 strength per turn compared to 3 green (82 vs 106 total strength). This means that if both abilities are going off, 3/5/5 is putting out more damage per turn until the board is fully saturated with red, at which point 3 green starts to pick up steam and out damage 5 green. However, this doesn't account for the times where 3 green doesn't go off at exactly 10 tiles (which people have shown to be a pretty large amount of the time), in which case 5 green outdamages 3 green by a huge margin in the interim. Furthermore, I normally use Daken / Blade when I want a quick team to kill guys below level 130. In this case, the game is pretty much over once the board is saturated with strike tiles, which means that 3 green doesn't even have time to outvalue 5 green. Being able to get the strike tiles out in the first place is much more important in that case, and 5 green is much better for that than 3 green.
3. What phaser said about 5 green making Blade gimpier in all other, non Daken team compositions.

I don't see it making a huge difference in the typical use case of "Blade daken to steamroll level 120s or less", so I'm inclined to keep Blade 3/5/5 to make him much more usable without Daken.

Unknown

simonsez wrote:

bonfire01 wrote:

So, in summary, getting a 5th cover in green will increase Blade's strike tile generation by about 45%... up to you to rate the importance .

Your number is inflated because you're not factoring in the board states in which neither generates a strike tile. The metric you want to look at is strike tiles created per move, not gross tiles created, so all of the instances of (0,0) should be considered also.

Nope, I am only interested in how many additional strike tiles a 5th cover would generate and it was an increase of about 45% over having just had 4 (or less) covers. The only thing that would actually matter is if every single red tile had a strike/special on it, the board would generate strikes on more than 10 red AND I had generated some of the existing strikes whilst only 10 reds was present. This happened 3 times total so I pretty much ignored it because it barely alters the bottom line.

Just to prove my point...

lets say that whilst I generated instances of strikes I had, say, 1000 times I made none. That still means that 31% of my strikes were generated on 10 tiles. It also still means having a 5th cover increased generation by 45%.
Now lets say 10000 times I didn't generate any strikes.... I still generated 31% of my strikes on 10 tiles. It also still means a 5th cover increased generation by 45%.
Now lets say ....... it's an irrelevant number.

The number of non-events only matters if I was trying to give an absolute number of tiles per move you gain for a 5th cover or if I wanted to try to calculate the extra damage overall done by an extra cover... I didn't want to do either and the relative increase in strike generation incidents is as I stated.

simonsez

bonfire01 wrote:

I am only interested in how many additional strike tiles a 5th cover would generate and it was an increase of about 45% over having just had 4 (or less) covers.

Then like I said, you're interested in the wrong metric. Let's try an exaggerated example: let's say there's an ability that 999,999 out of a 1,000,000 doesn't generate anything, but when it triggers one in a million times, it generates 1 strike tile at 4 covers, and 2 strike tiles at 5 covers. Hopefully you would not say that the 5th cover makes it twice as good; the correct answer is that the difference is negligible.

In the case of Blade, about 57% of the time neither 4 covers nor 5 covers will generate any strike tiles (due to less than 10 reds, not because there are no more free tiles left). It's incorrect to ignore these instances when there is no difference between the two.

Spoit

I disagree with the 553 argument. If you're concerned about strike tile saturation, and you can't be bothered to use laken's blue to clear some out, you should be going with a 355 laken. 1) blade's tiles are stronger, and 2) if you need to clear strikes because of saturation, then you'll have the much stronger laken blue to use it better.

simonsez

Spoit wrote:

I disagree with the 553 argument. If you're concerned about strike tile saturation, and you can't be bothered to use laken's blue to clear some out, you should be going with a 355 laken.

Maybe I missed something, but I didn't notice "strike tile saturation" as one of the arguments. And since Daken will be used in many situations that don't include Blade, I'm not sure I'd want to build Daken specifically to pair with him.

Unknown

simonsez wrote:

bonfire01 wrote:

I am only interested in how many additional strike tiles a 5th cover would generate and it was an increase of about 45% over having just had 4 (or less) covers.

Then like I said, you're interested in the wrong metric. Let's try an exaggerated example: let's say there's an ability that 999,999 out of a 1,000,000 doesn't generate anything, but when it triggers one in a million times, it generates 1 strike tile at 4 covers, and 2 strike tiles at 5 covers. Hopefully you would not say that the 5th cover makes it twice as good; the correct answer is that the difference is negligible.

In the case of Blade, about 57% of the time neither 4 covers nor 5 covers will generate any strike tiles (due to less than 10 reds, not because there are no more free tiles left). It's incorrect to ignore these instances when there is no difference between the two.

At 4 covers it would make 2 tiles in your description, the only difference is trigger threshold hence me comparing the 2 in that manner.

Time for some math.....

I'll assume the 57% is correct although it probably relies on assuming everything including matches is random, which is not the case, but it'll do.

Lets assume exactly 1000 moves (for ease). 570 (57%) generate no tiles. By my testing, of the remaining 430 moves 31% of the time it will be strikes being generated on 10 tiles, 69% of the time it will be strikes generated on 11 or more tiles.

430 x 0.31 = 133 instances of generating 2 tiles on exactly 10 red if you have 5 green for a total of 266 tiles.
430 x.69 (or 430 -133) = 297 instances of generating 2 tiles on 11+ red tiles if you have 5 green OR if you have 4 green for a total of 594 tiles.

266/594x100 = 44.7. So there is an increase of 44.7% in the number of generated tiles by going from 4 to 5 green.

Now we'll say you make no tiles 80% of the time (to show it doesn't matter).

1000 moves again leading to 800 moves with no tiles generated.

200x0.31 = 62 instances of 2 at exactly 10 tiles (5 only) for 138 tiles
200x0.69 (or 200-62) = 138 instances of making 2 tiles at 11+ red (4 or 5) for 276 tiles

138/276x100 = 44.7. So there is in increase of 44.7% in generated tiles by going from 4 to 5

and so on.

Spoit

simonsez wrote:

Spoit wrote:

I disagree with the 553 argument. If you're concerned about strike tile saturation, and you can't be bothered to use laken's blue to clear some out, you should be going with a 355 laken.

Maybe I missed something, but I didn't notice "strike tile saturation" as one of the arguments. And since Daken will be used in many situations that don't include Blade, I'm not sure I'd want to build Daken specifically to pair with him.

"red is generally getting filled one way or another"