*** Blade (Daywalker) ***

Phaserhawk

ThatOneGuyjp189512 wrote:

i have him maxed at 5/5/3 if anyone wants to see his purple at 5(jp189512/5DeadlyVenoms) and his black is absolutely insane, at 5 covers it definitely is a AP steal, not just drain, i had a game where i had two CD's out and it was draining Ares green like there's no tomorrow

So it's confirmed? It actually does steal? Wow, this guy could actually mess up Sentry bombing in PvP if the the featured Champ has green or yellow as his main color and the AI gets off Nightstalker early, and if you are running boosts against another Hood, you are giving them access to Black

CrookedKnight

Just to emphasize, it steals at all levels. Obviously it'll be more noticable at 3 AP, but even at level 1 you can see the AP bar jump up a bit at the start of your turn.

Phaserhawk

CrookedKnight wrote:

Just to emphasize, it steals at all levels. Obviously it'll be more noticable at 3 AP, but even at level 1 you can see the AP bar jump up a bit at the start of your turn.

Is it a Damage upgrade at 2, AP drain upgrade at 3, damage upgrade at 4, and AP upgrade at 5?

Because I could maybe see leaving him at 4 or even 3 and going 3/5/5 as well.

From the numbers and talk I'm seeing it appears to be this.

5/3/5---PvP build

5/5/3 or 3/5/5 PvE build

Unknown

On offense, a 3AP drain vs a 2AP drain isn't that noticable; their AP is going to be be all gone in a few turns anyways. On defense, it could make a difference. Only appears to be a sure 5 covers for now.

Also 'drain' is a semantic thing. Where is it draining to? In the case of a vampire, they drain your blood -> and they now have your blood.

Unknown

daibar wrote:

On offense, a 3AP drain vs a 2AP drain isn't that noticable; their AP is going to be be all gone in a few turns anyways. On defense, it could make a difference. Only appears to be a sure 5 covers for now.

Also 'drain' is a semantic thing. Where is it draining to? In the case of a vampire, they drain your blood -> and they now have your blood.

Really?
I'm not convinced on Green.

10 red tiles is still not guaranteed.

Daken's strike tile generation is much more reliable.

Honestly, I think 5/5/3 is best. Pair him with Daken and farm purple. At level 5, his purple does 382 damage plus 105 per strike tile on the board. If you get 6 strike tiles (3 green matches with daken), you'll deal a lot damage. Daken's strike tiles add 46 damage, plus the 105 damage for modifying his purple. So with just 3 green matches and 1 purple cast he can do 2576 damage per turn (46*6*2 + 382*2 + 105*6*2).

The green seems superfluous.

The only problem with that match up is there is nowhere to use the green that Daken matches.

CrookedKnight

5/3/5 is going to be way better in PvE than PvP, because you can completely shut down a team of goons if you nullify their AP generation on a single color (since their strongest color is almost always the color used for their most dangerous countdown tile) and you can keep the board more stable to pump out strike tiles. It'll be less useful in PvP where board-shaking is something you have to plan for.

Unknown

nice blade offers an outlet paring ap stealing like hood or strike tile generator like Daken. I rather see this type of balancing then out right nerfing of hood in itself for example.

jojeda654

CrookedKnight wrote:

5/3/5 is going to be way better in PvE than PvP, because you can completely shut down a team of goons if you nullify their AP generation on a single color (since their strongest color is almost always the color used for their most dangerous countdown tile) and you can keep the board more stable to pump out strike tiles. It'll be less useful in PvP where board-shaking is something you have to plan for.

Actually, goons don't have a strong color. Since they don't match tiles, they have the same values for all 7 tiles.

CrookedKnight

There must be some kind of tiebreaker, then. My tests were all against goon-only nodes and I always got a color they placed countdowns on. Only purple from spies, only green from grenadiers/soldiers.

Unknown

CrookedKnight wrote:

There must be some kind of tiebreaker, then. My tests were all against goon-only nodes and I always got a color they placed countdowns on. Only purple from spies, only green from grenadiers/soldiers.

Yeah I've always gotten yellow from Lieutenant, Maggia Muscle & Don despite the fact that their match damage appears to be the same and they have multiple skills. I think there might be a hidden decimal point for a goon's strongest color. However with Ragnarok I have gotten Red or Green with Surgical Strike so he really has two strongest colors.

simonsez

For goons, it's the color of the first listed ability

Phaserhawk

onimus wrote:

daibar wrote:

On offense, a 3AP drain vs a 2AP drain isn't that noticable; their AP is going to be be all gone in a few turns anyways. On defense, it could make a difference. Only appears to be a sure 5 covers for now.

Also 'drain' is a semantic thing. Where is it draining to? In the case of a vampire, they drain your blood -> and they now have your blood.

Really?
I'm not convinced on Green.

10 red tiles is still not guaranteed.

Daken's strike tile generation is much more reliable.

Honestly, I think 5/5/3 is best. Pair him with Daken and farm purple. At level 5, his purple does 382 damage plus 105 per strike tile on the board. If you get 6 strike tiles (3 green matches with daken), you'll deal a lot damage. Daken's strike tiles add 46 damage, plus the 105 damage for modifying his purple. So with just 3 green matches and 1 purple cast he can do 2576 damage per turn (46*6*2 + 382*2 + 105*6*2).

The green seems superfluous.

The only problem with that match up is there is nowhere to use the green that Daken matches.

Daken won't be matching green, Blade will.

Unknown

Phaserhawk wrote:

onimus wrote:

daibar wrote:

On offense, a 3AP drain vs a 2AP drain isn't that noticable; their AP is going to be be all gone in a few turns anyways. On defense, it could make a difference. Only appears to be a sure 5 covers for now.

Also 'drain' is a semantic thing. Where is it draining to? In the case of a vampire, they drain your blood -> and they now have your blood.

Really?
I'm not convinced on Green.

10 red tiles is still not guaranteed.

Daken's strike tile generation is much more reliable.

Honestly, I think 5/5/3 is best. Pair him with Daken and farm purple. At level 5, his purple does 382 damage plus 105 per strike tile on the board. If you get 6 strike tiles (3 green matches with daken), you'll deal a lot damage. Daken's strike tiles add 46 damage, plus the 105 damage for modifying his purple. So with just 3 green matches and 1 purple cast he can do 2576 damage per turn (46*6*2 + 382*2 + 105*6*2).

The green seems superfluous.

The only problem with that match up is there is nowhere to use the green that Daken matches.

Daken won't be matching green, Blade will.

I meant the green that will be matched because Daken will be matching green for his passive.

I didn't mean to imply that Daken was the one who tanks green.

Unknown

So with double tiles at 5 purple 5/5/3 seems pretty much the way to go, and with black actually stealing I think he's actually very good

Unknown

You know, after examining all of his abilities, you could make a case for almost any build.

The only necessity, in my mind, is 5 purple.

But 3/5/5 seems good, 4/5/4 seems good and 5/5/3 seems good.

It all depends on who you're planning on matching him with.

If you want to match him with someone who does not generate strike tiles, then 3/5/5 is a very good option. Or if you want to match him with someone who already is going to suck up all the black, like BP or Xforce, 3/5/5 is best.

If you want to match him with someone who creates strike tiles, like Daken or Patch, then 5/5/3 is nice.

If you kind of want diversity in who you can match him with, 4/5/4 seems like the way to go.

But the 2 attack tiles just seems too good to pass up, especially on a color as weak as purple.

The only real question would be, is his purple ability, even at level 5, going to make farming purple worth while? Especially considering, since purple is not a priority color for anyone in the 3 star range, that farming purple would essentially mean you are ignoring denying the enemy what he needs to get going.

If it doesn't justify farming purple, then suddenly 5/3/5 becomes an attractive option as well. Although then he'd be purely a support character, rather than a big hitter, like the 5/5/3 build would generate.

Blade's abilities actually generate discussion on what is the best build.

Those are the best kind of characters in my mind.

Too many characters have obvious build paths that should only be deviated from if you don't get the covers. Like 3/5/5 for LThor, 3/5/5 for Sentry or 5/5/3 for Xforce (among many many others.)

Unknown

if hood and daken was to have a baby, it would be blade lol

Unknown

Is this the best purple in 3* land? 10 ap for 2 tiles that tick for 1300+ each turn seems pretty difficult to best

Unknown

ark123 wrote:

Is this the best purple in 3* land? 10 ap for 2 tiles that tick for 1300+ each turn seems pretty difficult to best

I would still rank Whales above it.

But with 14 AP cost for Whales, it would be close.

NorthernPolarity

Alright, I'm convinced 3/5/5 is probably optimal in general.

1. 3->5 black is an extra 800 damage and 1 AP / turn stolen. This actually isn't that important: 2 AP / turn is more than enough, especially cause its situational in that if the enemy is out of AP, then all you got was an extra 800 damage.
2. 3->5 purple more than doubles the damage. 3->5 green almost doubles the damage, AND gives you 2 tiles a turn to fuel purple.

Looking at 3->4 vs 3->5, its easy to see that you need to go 5 in any ability since each one has a significant upgrade, so any build involving a 4 probably doesn't make sense.

Phaserhawk

ark123 wrote:

So with double tiles at 5 purple 5/5/3 seems pretty much the way to go, and with black actually stealing I think he's actually very good

In a vacuum if the goal is to max purple, I think 4/5/4 is the best build. That way you get 2 tiles to help increase purple's damage, and the loss of a little bit of damage, and 1 AP per turn might be minimal.

that being said, you run a 14% chance that the game starts with 10 red on the board thus triggering The Thirst first turn. If we are assuming that Nightstalker is a must have at 5 then you run only 3 options on builds

5/5/3
5/3/5
5/4/4

The build that will give you the most damage?

Well lets assume a perfect world where nothing gets destroyed, ie. goon battle.

Lets also assume that 11 red tiles are on the board, and that you can match 10 purple in 4 turns.

I am under the assumption that The Thirst would trigger as soon as the game starts assuming board conditions met.

Turn 1
5/5/3--st 89
5/3/5--st 58 x 2
5/4/4--st 58 x 2
Match 3 Purple
5/5/3--299
5/3/5--326
5/4/4--326

Turn 2
5/5/3--st 89 x 2
5/3/5--st 58 x 4
5/4/4--st 58 x 4
Match 3 Purple
5/5/3--687
5/3/5--768
5/4/4--768

Turn 3
5/5/3--st 89 x 3
5/3/5--st 58 x 6
5/4/4--st 58 x 6
Match 3 Purple
5/5/3--1164
5/3/5--1326
5/4/4--1326

Turn 4
5/5/3--st 89 x 4
5/3/5--st 58 x 8
5/4/4--st 58 x 8
Match 4 Purple
5/5/3--1730
5/3/5--2000
5/4/4--2000

Okay, we have 12 purple, we cast Keep Your Enemies closer lets assume The Thirst triggers before the Attack tile does damage

Turn 5
5/5/3--st 89 x 5
5/3/5--st 58 x 10
5/4/4--st 58 x 10
Cast KyEC
Match 3 Purple (or any tile at this point)
5/5/3--2385
5/3/5--2790
5/4/4--2790

Turn 6
5/5/3--st 89 x 6
5/3/5--st 58 x 12
5/4/4--st 58 x 12

Okay, with how I read Keep your EC, the strike tiles increase the bonus damage, but the strike tiles will still trigger themselves so
5/5/3--(382 + 630) x 2 + strike tiles (89x6) = 2558
5/3/5--(260 + 630) + strike tiles (58x12) = 1586
5/4/4--(382 + 630) + strike tiles (58x12) = 1708

Grand total
============
5/5/3==4943
5/3/5==4376
5/4/4==4498

So obviously most of these numbers will never stand as the likelyhood you will have as many strike tiles with a 5/4/4 build over a 5/3/5 build is highly unlikely. And the difference in base damage from Lvl 3 to 4 on purple is 122, which isn't huge and can be made up rather quickly if the 5/3/5 or 5/4/4 builds can put more strike tiles on the table

Assuming the attack tiles don't get destroyed, you would need 4-5 strike tiles out on a 5/3/5 or 5/4/4 build in order to equal the damage from a 5/5/3 build with no strike tiles out. Yes the attack tiles are random, but at least they go on to purple which you can relatively protect by matching purple, similar to Psylocke or Punisher vs. Nick Fury where it goes wherever, so there is a decent chance you can keep them out for a short time, however, if you don't beleive you can keep the attack tiles out, then I think 5/3/5 is the better way to go since the only reason a 5/5/3 build is stronger is because of the 2 x attack tile. Again, I would like to see Phantron's analysis of the odds, but it's one of those builds where if a occurs then b happens which effects c outcome, like creating two attack tiles but losing one on the AI's turn essentially you nerfed your build going 5/5/3 over 5/3/5 because you double the chance of the AI matching an attack tile with 5/5/3 and halve their chance with 5/3/5 and you have a higher chance of strike tiles.

Best build comes down to 2 factors.
1.) the likely hood of getting strike tiles with 10 red and/or 11 red
2.) the likely hood of the AI matching your attack tile after you cast it