*** Mystique (Raven Darkholme) ***

Unknown

ThatOneGuyjp189512 wrote:

NorthernPolarity wrote:

HawkeyeSucks wrote:

5/3/5

Like Captn Marvel, having 5 giving an extra turn of stun is a very good thing to have.

the difference on 3 - 5 is 3 more tiles? I'm sorry but this ability should be more like Dooms where 4 converts X-tiles and 5 converts ALL tiles. Only then would it be a real debate.

I dunno, 3 -> 5 increases the cascade potential by 17% and almost doubles the amount of tiles / ap generated / gained from the ability. It's a lot better than it seems.

^^^^this is the reason i went with 5/5/3 for my mystique, having played her for a bit, she is insanely good at fueling X-Force with her blue at 5, 10 tiles of THREE colors changing to tiles of TWO colors makes a ton of cascade potential.

I really think it depends on how you want to use her. If you want her to be a feeder, then 5/5/3 is the way to go. If you want to play the meta-game of board control and denial, then 5/3/5 is the way to go.

I have used both and she can be effective either way.

In the meta-game, my goal is to deny and control the board with and . To do this, I usually use Mystique/X-Force/Hood. Hood helps keep the other team's AP low while Mystique's and along with X-Force's controls the board. I have the choice of Mystique's or X-Force's once I reach 11 AP and I will use either one according to the situation. The key is not always about power. Mystique's also reduces the of the other team by 2 AP. This could be the difference between them hitting you hard or not hitting you at all. I should also add that once the board has shifted in my favor (a lot of and ), surgical strike can be a dud. Many of the big hitters are usually strongest in and if there are only, say 3 , then the damage is minimal at best. Also, this team does not use so gaining any AP is useless. The beauty of having both Mystique's and X-Force's on my team is that I can choose to use which one I want.

Another aspect is her stun. Having one extra stun on a heavy board has gotten me into situations that was a near stun-lock for the opposing team. I would stun one character, one shot another with her , use her to set up some more and then stun the second person. Her AP drain from her and the cascade potential from her is seen as a bonus to me, not a necessity. Once I have control of the board, good things usually happen.

Personally, I have found the meta-game of AP denial and board control to be more fun and engaging. I realize that one bad cascade will destroy the bulk of my team, but that only makes this team more daring and interesting. If I just want to nuke everyone, then I would just Sentry-bomb every game and take the fun out of it (for me).

This is why I ultimately chose 5/3/5.

Unknown

Turns out, as demonstrated in the PvE, Mystique, Deadpool, Collosus is a pretty good team. No green, but her blue feeds fastballs of Deadpool and also whales. Colossus yellow keeps you safe-ish. Priority is blue here and you would almost never ever use mystique's purple (favoring whales) so a 3/5/5 build would be supported.

The only seeming counter to them is take the blue, which you then have to use somehow.

Unknown

Purple is broken (either description or the ability). If you make a second CD tile, it deletes the first one.

Unknown

Purple is broken (either description or the ability). If you make a second CD tile, it deletes the first one.

Dayv

It would probably be really overpowered to be able to have more than one countdown out, but it should either tell you in the description or it should fail to fire the power when you already have a shape shift tile out.

edit: it's probably better to put this limitation in the description, so you still have the option of using it for the stun.

Unknown

Its also good for resetting the timer when its starts to get low.

Pwuz_

stephen43084 wrote:

Purple is broken (either description or the ability). If you make a second CD tile, it deletes the first one.

I noticed that too, but I'm not sure it wasn't intentional. It's not like she can Shapeshift into 2 characters at once. From a practical standpoint, multiple tiles would potentially stack & double the AP drain as well, effectively cutting off all AP generation for her opponents fairly quickly.

turul

Pwuz_ wrote:

stephen43084 wrote:

Purple is broken (either description or the ability). If you make a second CD tile, it deletes the first one.

I noticed that too, but I'm not sure it wasn't intentional. It's not like she can Shapeshift into 2 characters at once. From a practical standpoint, multiple tiles would potentially stack & double the AP drain as well, effectively cutting off all AP generation for her opponents fairly quickly.

If she cant shapeshift into 2, she cant shapeshift into/against Rocket&Groot?

himatako

Found a bug. If you use Shapeshift when none of the purple gems are available, the skill is activated but nothing happened. You basically waste your AP

atomzed

himatako wrote:

Found a bug. If you use Shapeshift when none of the purple gems are available, the skill is activated but nothing happened. You basically waste your AP

That's not a bug. It is the same for all CD ability, if there are no color tiles, you can't place the tile. It's the same for MMN, and all other heroes.

himatako

atomzed wrote:

himatako wrote:

Found a bug. If you use Shapeshift when none of the purple gems are available, the skill is activated but nothing happened. You basically waste your AP

That's not a bug. It is the same for all CD ability, if there are no color tiles, you can't place the tile. It's the same for MMN, and all other heroes.

Really? I remember there will be a popup window saying you can't use this ability because there is no gem available if you try to do that. Is that not the case anymore?

Kolence

himatako wrote:

atomzed wrote:

himatako wrote:

Found a bug. If you use Shapeshift when none of the purple gems are available, the skill is activated but nothing happened. You basically waste your AP

That's not a bug. It is the same for all CD ability, if there are no color tiles, you can't place the tile. It's the same for MMN, and all other heroes.

Really? I remember there will be a popup window saying you can't use this ability because there is no gem available if you try to do that. Is that not the case anymore?

Did it stun? If it had more than 1 cover it still can stun even if it can't place a CD and the game won't warn you or prevent you from using the ability.

himatako

Kolence wrote:

himatako wrote:

atomzed wrote:

himatako wrote:

Found a bug. If you use Shapeshift when none of the purple gems are available, the skill is activated but nothing happened. You basically waste your AP

That's not a bug. It is the same for all CD ability, if there are no color tiles, you can't place the tile. It's the same for MMN, and all other heroes.

Really? I remember there will be a popup window saying you can't use this ability because there is no gem available if you try to do that. Is that not the case anymore?

Did it stun? If it had more than 1 cover it still can stun even if it can't place a CD and the game won't warn you or prevent you from using the ability.

No, I only have one purple cover so it didn't stun. That's a good point though. I guess they think it will at least stun the enemy, but forgot that the stun effect isn't there on the 1st level.

famousfoxking

Ben Grimm wrote:

We used Sentry to win...

Well, now you're just showing off.

Phaserhawk

maxman wrote:

ThatOneGuyjp189512 wrote:

NorthernPolarity wrote:

HawkeyeSucks wrote:

5/3/5

Like Captn Marvel, having 5 giving an extra turn of stun is a very good thing to have.

the difference on 3 - 5 is 3 more tiles? I'm sorry but this ability should be more like Dooms where 4 converts X-tiles and 5 converts ALL tiles. Only then would it be a real debate.

I dunno, 3 -> 5 increases the cascade potential by 17% and almost doubles the amount of tiles / ap generated / gained from the ability. It's a lot better than it seems.

^^^^this is the reason i went with 5/5/3 for my mystique, having played her for a bit, she is insanely good at fueling X-Force with her blue at 5, 10 tiles of THREE colors changing to tiles of TWO colors makes a ton of cascade potential.

I really think it depends on how you want to use her. If you want her to be a feeder, then 5/5/3 is the way to go. If you want to play the meta-game of board control and denial, then 5/3/5 is the way to go.

I have used both and she can be effective either way.

In the meta-game, my goal is to deny and control the board with and . To do this, I usually use Mystique/X-Force/Hood. Hood helps keep the other team's AP low while Mystique's and along with X-Force's controls the board. I have the choice of Mystique's or X-Force's once I reach 11 AP and I will use either one according to the situation. The key is not always about power. Mystique's also reduces the of the other team by 2 AP. This could be the difference between them hitting you hard or not hitting you at all. I should also add that once the board has shifted in my favor (a lot of and ), surgical strike can be a dud. Many of the big hitters are usually strongest in and if there are only, say 3 , then the damage is minimal at best. Also, this team does not use so gaining any AP is useless. The beauty of having both Mystique's and X-Force's on my team is that I can choose to use which one I want.

Another aspect is her stun. Having one extra stun on a heavy board has gotten me into situations that was a near stun-lock for the opposing team. I would stun one character, one shot another with her , use her to set up some more and then stun the second person. Her AP drain from her and the cascade potential from her is seen as a bonus to me, not a necessity. Once I have control of the board, good things usually happen.

Personally, I have found the meta-game of AP denial and board control to be more fun and engaging. I realize that one bad cascade will destroy the bulk of my team, but that only makes this team more daring and interesting. If I just want to nuke everyone, then I would just Sentry-bomb every game and take the fun out of it (for me).

This is why I ultimately chose 5/3/5.

Why would you ever use Masterstroke over Surgical Strike? In addition X-Force is gonna be shattering the board so you can't guarentee you have a Shapshifter tile out to do the massive damage. Running her with X-Force and having her 5/3/5 doesn't seem to make sense.

Unknown

Why would you ever use Masterstroke over Surgical Strike? In addition X-Force is gonna be shattering the board so you can't guarentee you have a Shapshifter tile out to do the massive damage. Running her with X-Force and having her 5/3/5 doesn't seem to make sense.[/quote]


Because game situations are not as absolute as you want them to be. If I have control of the board and there are only not many tiles of the opposing teams color, then you will do minimal damage. Also, there will be next to nothing from a cascade and you may be stealing little to no AP from them. Here is a common example that I have come across many times:

I have control of the board with and against Sentry and others. (Usually Hood and some nameless third character)

Sentry is a character. His strongest color is . There are literally 3 's on the board. I have no need for AP. Surgical Strike only does 3 x 522 or 1566 points of damage and creates a weak cascade if any. If I choose Masterstroke, then I would do 3130 minimal damage (plus 4172 if a Shapeshift tile is down) PLUS I would deny 2 AP of his . This would hurt his chances of hitting me with a Super Nova, World Rupture and a Sacrifice. I effectively did more damage and hindered him from really going off on my team.

Also, I would like emphasize that I have a choice of either one. I choose the best one for each scenario. Hence, I have chosen Surgical Strike over Masterstroke and vice versa.

As far as X-Force goes, I know it will shatter the board. I use it to shake up the colors while doing strong damage. For me Shapeshift is primarily a stun mechanism. The countdown tile is a bonus. IF I want to maximize the damage, I will combo a Masterstroke immediately after a Shapeshift. I do this to one-shot one character (ie Hood) while stunning another (ie Sentry) and I get to deny them 2 AP from their pool of .

Phaserhawk

maxman wrote:

Why would you ever use Masterstroke over Surgical Strike? In addition X-Force is gonna be shattering the board so you can't guarentee you have a Shapshifter tile out to do the massive damage. Running her with X-Force and having her 5/3/5 doesn't seem to make sense.

Because game situations are not as absolute as you want them to be. If I have control of the board and there are only not many tiles of the opposing teams color, then you will do minimal damage. Also, there will be next to nothing from a cascade and you may be stealing little to no AP from them. Here is a common example that I have come across many times:

I have control of the board with and against Sentry and others. (Usually Hood and some nameless third character)

Sentry is a character. His strongest color is . There are literally 3 's on the board. I have no need for AP. Surgical Strike only does 3 x 522 or 1566 points of damage and creates a weak cascade if any. If I choose Masterstroke, then I would do 3130 minimal damage (plus 4172 if a Shapeshift tile is down) PLUS I would deny 2 AP of his . This would hurt his chances of hitting me with a Super Nova, World Rupture and a Sacrifice. I effectively did more damage and hindered him from really going off on my team.

Also, I would like emphasize that I have a choice of either one. I choose the best one for each scenario. Hence, I have chosen Surgical Strike over Masterstroke and vice versa.

As far as X-Force goes, I know it will shatter the board. I use it to shake up the colors while doing strong damage. For me Shapeshift is primarily a stun mechanism. The countdown tile is a bonus. IF I want to maximize the damage, I will combo a Masterstroke immediately after a Shapeshift. I do this to one-shot one character (ie Hood) while stunning another (ie Sentry) and I get to deny them 2 AP from their pool of .[/quote]

Unfortunately your example would only happen if the featured PvP character is Hood or Mystique further more my chance of not being able to use red/green/yellow is very slim since any featured character would always be strongest color and required thus I would always be able to use red as in your example since I too would have a Sentry/Thor etc the other option is you don't have featured PvP character leveled up enough to outstrip Sentry's red. In addition you can only run Mysique/Hood/Xforce in 2 scenarios (unless they do another wolvie tourny). Given there are a fair amount of chracters with red, you aren't going to be able to run Mystique/Hood/X force very often in PvP. So while your scenario may occur in S.H.I.E.L.D. training or PvE it's not a very common occurance in PvP

Now assuming we are not in PvP your strategy makes sense, however, going 5/5/3 I would come at the game differently than you. You speak of board control, well Infiltration does that as well, in addition and per Polarity's guide, the chances of cascades and AP from level 3 to level 5 blue is massive. 54% chance of cascade vs. 71% chance. In addition I'm goin to be netting lots of purple and black. Now a level 3 Masterstroke isn't instant death that a lvl 5 is, doing 3825 after a massive cascade is more than enough to finish off the Hood and have Sentry stunned. Any red remaining is few and he's locked down. At this point the game is in hand, they have no use of a board filled with purple and black and I'm taking AP from any matches they do make and X-Force will quickly clean up.

So while your stategy is solid, you can run it from a different angle to the same effectiveness going 5/5/3, however as stated the odds of you being able to run Mystique/X-Force/Hood is very small, in that case you would more than likely opt for replacing Hood or Mystique, but since this is the Mysique thread I'll drop Hood for C.Mags or quite possibly Deadpool, I'll cover the rainbow and be very dangerous. Hmmm Deadpool/X-Force/Mystique actually sounds fun, I might have to play with that one, I can already feel Whales being dropped constantly.

Unknown

Phaserhawk wrote:

maxman wrote:

Why would you ever use Masterstroke over Surgical Strike? In addition X-Force is gonna be shattering the board so you can't guarentee you have a Shapshifter tile out to do the massive damage. Running her with X-Force and having her 5/3/5 doesn't seem to make sense.

Because game situations are not as absolute as you want them to be. If I have control of the board and there are only not many tiles of the opposing teams color, then you will do minimal damage. Also, there will be next to nothing from a cascade and you may be stealing little to no AP from them. Here is a common example that I have come across many times:

I have control of the board with and against Sentry and others. (Usually Hood and some nameless third character)

Sentry is a character. His strongest color is . There are literally 3 's on the board. I have no need for AP. Surgical Strike only does 3 x 522 or 1566 points of damage and creates a weak cascade if any. If I choose Masterstroke, then I would do 3130 minimal damage (plus 4172 if a Shapeshift tile is down) PLUS I would deny 2 AP of his . This would hurt his chances of hitting me with a Super Nova, World Rupture and a Sacrifice. I effectively did more damage and hindered him from really going off on my team.

Also, I would like emphasize that I have a choice of either one. I choose the best one for each scenario. Hence, I have chosen Surgical Strike over Masterstroke and vice versa.

As far as X-Force goes, I know it will shatter the board. I use it to shake up the colors while doing strong damage. For me Shapeshift is primarily a stun mechanism. The countdown tile is a bonus. IF I want to maximize the damage, I will combo a Masterstroke immediately after a Shapeshift. I do this to one-shot one character (ie Hood) while stunning another (ie Sentry) and I get to deny them 2 AP from their pool of .

Unfortunately your example would only happen if the featured PvP character is Hood or Mystique further more my chance of not being able to use red/green/yellow is very slim since any featured character would always be strongest color and required thus I would always be able to use red as in your example since I too would have a Sentry/Thor etc the other option is you don't have featured PvP character leveled up enough to outstrip Sentry's red. In addition you can only run Mysique/Hood/Xforce in 2 scenarios (unless they do another wolvie tourny). Given there are a fair amount of chracters with red, you aren't going to be able to run Mystique/Hood/X force very often in PvP. So while your scenario may occur in S.H.I.E.L.D. training or PvE it's not a very common occurance in PvP

Now assuming we are not in PvP your strategy makes sense, however, going 5/5/3 I would come at the game differently than you. You speak of board control, well Infiltration does that as well, in addition and per Polarity's guide, the chances of cascades and AP from level 3 to level 5 blue is massive. 54% chance of cascade vs. 71% chance. In addition I'm goin to be netting lots of purple and black. Now a level 3 Masterstroke isn't instant death that a lvl 5 is, doing 3825 after a massive cascade is more than enough to finish off the Hood and have Sentry stunned. Any red remaining is few and he's locked down. At this point the game is in hand, they have no use of a board filled with purple and black and I'm taking AP from any matches they do make and X-Force will quickly clean up.

So while your stategy is solid, you can run it from a different angle to the same effectiveness going 5/5/3, however as stated the odds of you being able to run Mystique/X-Force/Hood is very small, in that case you would more than likely opt for replacing Hood or Mystique, but since this is the Mysique thread I'll drop Hood for C.Mags or quite possibly Deadpool, I'll cover the rainbow and be very dangerous. Hmmm Deadpool/X-Force/Mystique actually sounds fun, I might have to play with that one, I can already feel Whales being dropped constantly.[/quote]


I agree with most of what is said here except for the PvP aspect. I have been running this team exclusively in the SHIELD simulator and I think I have only lost once or maybe twice while collecting over 2500 points. This comb has worked well by denying the heavy hitters of their big moves. I realize that none of my characters have a red power but I am ok with that in this case. I just find this more fun than any other combination. I don't rely on any cascades from her Infiltration move and focus mostly on denial and board control.

My matches may take longer but they are ultimately more entertaining for me then using her as a feeder for other characters.

Phaserhawk

The PvP is restrictive to your build which does sound very entertaining.

Because you have to have the featured character you can never run your XForce/Hood/Mystique comination unless Hood or Mystique are featured character. And as I said before the strongest color is determined by the featured PvP character. If you are running XForce/Mystique and other you will always be able to use Green, yellow, purple, black, blue. Red is the only color you have no active for.

Of Red users we Currently have

Black widow --strongest is purple
Captain America--strongest yellow
Captain Marvel--Strongest red
Colossus--Strongest yellow
Daredevil--Strongest purple
Deadpool--Strongest purple
Human Torch--Stongest red
IM40--strongest red
Magneto--strongest blue
Psylocke--strongest red
Rags--green
Sentry--Strongest red
She-Hulk--Blue
Hulk--green
Punisher--black
Thor--red
Patch--green

16 of the 29 use red.
6 of the 16 have red as their strongest. So even if red is useable by featured X-Force will take something else. So the situation where red is the strongest will never be an issue because regardless I will have a red user. Now when Patch is featured I can't even use X-Force so it's really 16 of 28.

In PvP if you run X-Force/Mystique you will never run into an issue of not being able to use the color that X-Force steals assuming your full team is alive. With those two even if you stole black you could use Masterstroke instead, so while in SHIELD its an issue, I would say that the meta is defined by PvP and in PvP if you ran X-Force with Mystique you would never run into the problem or scenario you have said.

Unknown

Phaserhawk wrote:

The PvP is restrictive to your build which does sound very entertaining.

Because you have to have the featured character you can never run your XForce/Hood/Mystique comination unless Hood or Mystique are featured character. And as I said before the strongest color is determined by the featured PvP character. If you are running XForce/Mystique and other you will always be able to use Green, yellow, purple, black, blue. Red is the only color you have no active for.

Of Red users we Currently have

Black widow --strongest is purple
Captain America--strongest yellow
Captain Marvel--Strongest red
Colossus--Strongest yellow
Daredevil--Strongest purple
Deadpool--Strongest purple
Human Torch--Stongest red
IM40--strongest red
Magneto--strongest blue
Psylocke--strongest red
Rags--green
Sentry--Strongest red
She-Hulk--Blue
Hulk--green
Punisher--black
Thor--red
Patch--green

16 of the 29 use red.
6 of the 16 have red as their strongest. So even if red is useable by featured X-Force will take something else. So the situation where red is the strongest will never be an issue because regardless I will have a red user. Now when Patch is featured I can't even use X-Force so it's really 16 of 28.

In PvP if you run X-Force/Mystique you will never run into an issue of not being able to use the color that X-Force steals assuming your full team is alive. With those two even if you stole black you could use Masterstroke instead, so while in SHIELD its an issue, I would say that the meta is defined by PvP and in PvP if you ran X-Force with Mystique you would never run into the problem or scenario you have said.

What you are missing is the frequency of the characters. There may be only 6 characters that have red as the strongest but at least two of them are seen more (Sentry and Thor). When I play in SHIELD, it has been my experience that most teams are Sentry/Hood/third character. A large percentage of these team have red as the strongest color due to Sentry. The scenario I described is not some outlier. It happens more often than not. I have successfully stopped Sentry from bombing my team on many occasions and have amassed a large number of points using only this specific team.

With Hood as my third character, I do not have a red power and find it useless for this team. Because of this, if Surgical Strike stole red, it would indeed be useless. Besides damage, Surgical Strike would only help by reducing their red by 10. Then again, if they had 10 red, they would have most likely used Super Nova on me anyway.

As far as PvP is concerned, I will change my roster according to the featured character. I usually find a way to enter Hood and Sentry in there for a quick win. Honestly, though, I usually only play SHIELD and PvE.

I think what your missing is that I don't disagree with most of your posts. The teams and strategy you have mentioned are effective. I am just saying that Mystique, like Blade, has given us many options on how to play her and I find that it is more fun using 5/3/5 and using board control/AP denial than having her 5/5/3 and using her as a feeder for other characters.