*** Mystique (Raven Darkholme) ***

Phaserhawk

I get you now. Yes in PvE and SHIELD I 100% agree with your strategy and it makes sense, I play PvP primarily so I'm a bit skewed and favor speed, however the lockdown you describe is very intriguing. With some success in the recent Mystique tourney, and mine was only 3/4/1, I was massively accelerating into Surgical Strike with Infiltration to where I was winning games close to Sentry bomb speed, especially when I boosted her and X-Force. It was match blue, Infiltration, cascade into Black and Purple, I had BWGS she ate the purple to create green for X-Force or Sniper Rifle, if there Mystique was high enough I stole more purple, it was just mass destruction on a fun scale.

Phaserhawk

I may have to change my vote of 5/5/3 or 5/3/5 being the best builds, I actually think 3/5/5 might be the best of all and here's why and shred me if you disagree.

Masterstroke if it goes off is pretty much instant death and the fastest way to get Materstroke to go off is with Infiltration. So what you are giving up with Shapeshift is a tile that does not remain on the board very long and if it does you get 1 turn extra stun and the ability to get purple and black and TU's off of matches, to me the only thing worthwhile is the extra turn because why do I need purple and black when I can get all I want from Infiltration. The weakness of Masterstroke is that in order for it to be effective you need Shapeshit tile out, and from what I saw in the Groot PvE was that the Shapeshift tile was never my problem. If shapeshit remains out it still does what it needs to do and that's to delay red/gree/yellow and with 4hor also blue and it does that at level 3. Max infiltration allows me to feed Masterstroke, Surgical Strike, Rage of the Panther, Whales!!, and since giving up blue to 4hor is a bad idea now, having a Mystique on your team to slow 4hor matches with Shapeshift, or accelerating into a Masterstroke or surgical strike seems like a better way to go than trying to control the game with a 5/3/5 build and hope you get enough of the colors, or to blast your way into black and purple by going the Infiltration route. I think 3/5/5 Mystique when paired with X-Force plus feature is a hell of a combo as long as the featured character has an active red 4hor is no problem.

over_clocked

Phaserhawk wrote:

I may have to change my vote of 5/5/3 or 5/3/5 being the best builds, I actually think 3/5/5 might be the best of all and here's why and shred me if you disagree.

Maxed blue was never in question really (come on, cascades + feeding AP), but I agree, I am starting to think 3/5/5 could be generally better than 5/5/3. She would still pack a nice punch of her own and having options is nice even if you run X-Force a lot.

over_clocked

Just looked at the poll again. So many 5/3/5 votes? Who are you people

hurcules

locked wrote:

Just looked at the poll again. So many 5/3/5 votes? Who are you people

*sheepishly raise hand*
That was voted based on descriptions alone. Having played around with her even with my **** 1/3/3 build, I've come around now and think 3/5/5 is best build too.

MarcusGraves

im still for 4/4/5 to have the flexibility of shapeshift stealing black AP + infiltration for getting a masterstroke off, which really is the goal of the character. if the board is dry on blue i'm not going to be getting infiltration off and shapeshift won't really be gathering blue either because there's not enough on the board for AI to match. rank 4 shapeshift, now I can get all 3 of mystique's colors and if the board is crapped out on blue but theres plenty of black with my SS tile out then i can still get closer to popping masterstroke if AI matches black.

I'd also want the ability to slow down enemy black users since black powers have really been on the rise lately.

Phaserhawk

MarcusGraves wrote:

im still for 4/4/5 to have the flexibility of shapeshift stealing black AP + infiltration for getting a masterstroke off, which really is the goal of the character. if the board is dry on blue i'm not going to be getting infiltration off and shapeshift won't really be gathering blue either because there's not enough on the board for AI to match. rank 4 shapeshift, now I can get all 3 of mystique's colors and if the board is crapped out on blue but theres plenty of black with my SS tile out then i can still get closer to popping masterstroke if AI matches black.

I'd also want the ability to slow down enemy black users since black powers have really been on the rise lately.

Intersting, so you like the 3/5/5 philosophy but hedge your bets a little going 4/4/5. Not bad, the only negative is that you lose out on the speed if there is enough blue on the board, because you won't get the ensuing cascade like 3/5/5 but you are able to deal with an unfavorable board slightly better. While I'm not sold as I prefer the speed of 3/5/5 I cannot argue against your build as it's essentially just a variation of 3/5/5.

I will say again, after that Rocket Groot PvE where Mystique was kicking my **** and I saw the power of Infiltration and Masterstroke first hand, ouch. Shapeshift never seemed to bother me even if someone was stunned 2 turns, because she always ended up killing that character with Masterstroke

MarcusGraves

Phaserhawk wrote:

Intersting, so you like the 3/5/5 philosophy but hedge your bets a little going 4/4/5. Not bad, the only negative is that you lose out on the speed if there is enough blue on the board, because you won't get the ensuing cascade like 3/5/5 but you are able to deal with an unfavorable board slightly better. While I'm not sold as I prefer the speed of 3/5/5 I cannot argue against your build as it's essentially just a variation of 3/5/5.

I will say again, after that Rocket Groot PvE where Mystique was kicking my **** and I saw the power of Infiltration and Masterstroke first hand, ouch. Shapeshift never seemed to bother me even if someone was stunned 2 turns, because she always ended up killing that character with Masterstroke

oh yeah, is total playstyle preference as in if i'm given the tools to avoid an unfavorable situation with a character then I will put powers at the appropriate ranks to do so.

NorthernPolarity

MarcusGraves wrote:

im still for 4/4/5 to have the flexibility of shapeshift stealing black AP + infiltration for getting a masterstroke off, which really is the goal of the character. if the board is dry on blue i'm not going to be getting infiltration off and shapeshift won't really be gathering blue either because there's not enough on the board for AI to match. rank 4 shapeshift, now I can get all 3 of mystique's colors and if the board is crapped out on blue but theres plenty of black with my SS tile out then i can still get closer to popping masterstroke if AI matches black.

I'd also want the ability to slow down enemy black users since black powers have really been on the rise lately.

I don't see too much value in going 4/4/5. The problem with this build is that if the AI doesn't match black, then 4 purple is basically wasted. On average you can expect the AI to match maybe what, black 1/7th of the time? This would translate to roughly 1 black AP per shapeshift activation, which just seems really mediocre given that many things could go wrong in the 8 turns that the tile is out. You should count how many times the AI matches black after you get the shapeshift tile out to test it out, I can't imagine it being more than 1-2 ap per cast, and thats if the game lasts the entire duration and the shapeshift tile doesn't get destroyed. On the other hand, 4->5 blue gives a pretty big boost, improving the cascade chances from 60% to 70% on an average board, and increasing the average ap gained by 2 immediately. So on average, you'd probably get 1-2 extra black AP from either case, but infiltration has the benefit of being an immediate effect, and not relying on there already being black matches on the board (since it generates black tiles as opposed to relying on the AI matching existing ones), the tile staying alive for the 8 turns, or even the game lasting 8 turns after using the yellow.

I really think it's a mistake to not go 5 blue Mystique. Time and time again, we've seen that AP generation / cascade moves are among the best moves in the game. Abilities like MNM purple, thunder strike, GSBW purple, prenerf C. Mags blue, etc have always been among the top abilities in those colors, and infiltration falls under the same category. As a black / blue AP generator, she legitimately does something very powerful that very few characters in the game can do, and that's gonna be your main motivation for playing Mystique in the long run, not some inconsistent ap drain / stun or damage move. Personally, I'm starting to lean towards 3/5/5: I was originally going to go 5/5/3 because XF exists, but I'm starting to see value in making Mystique self-sufficient.

One last thought about your hypothetical situation: this is really going to depend on who you're pairing with Mystique with. If you're running XF, then the situation of the board having black and the AI matching that is unlikely because you're going to be prioritizing black for XF. If you have a transition roster where MQ is the main focus of your team, then you'd probably want to prioritize black as well, leading to the same situation. Finally, one of my main beefs with purple is that you need to prioritize purple early in order to get full value out of the ap drain portion of the ability (the full 8 turns). This means that purple needs to be among the top say, 3 abilities in your team, which I feel is unlikely depending on your roster.

wymtime

NorthernPolarity wrote:

MarcusGraves wrote:

im still for 4/4/5 to have the flexibility of shapeshift stealing black AP + infiltration for getting a masterstroke off, which really is the goal of the character. if the board is dry on blue i'm not going to be getting infiltration off and shapeshift won't really be gathering blue either because there's not enough on the board for AI to match. rank 4 shapeshift, now I can get all 3 of mystique's colors and if the board is crapped out on blue but theres plenty of black with my SS tile out then i can still get closer to popping masterstroke if AI matches black.

I'd also want the ability to slow down enemy black users since black powers have really been on the rise lately.

I don't see too much value in going 4/4/5. The problem with this build is that if the AI doesn't match black, then 4 purple is basically wasted. On average you can expect the AI to match maybe what, black 1/7th of the time? This would translate to roughly 1 black AP per shapeshift activation, which just seems really mediocre given that many things could go wrong in the 8 turns that the tile is out. You should count how many times the AI matches black after you get the shapeshift tile out to test it out, I can't imagine it being more than 1-2 ap per cast, and thats if the game lasts the entire duration and the shapeshift tile doesn't get destroyed. On the other hand, 4->5 blue gives a pretty big boost, improving the cascade chances from 60% to 70% on an average board, and increasing the average ap gained by 2 immediately. So on average, you'd probably get 1-2 extra black AP from either case, but infiltration has the benefit of being an immediate effect, and not relying on there already being black matches on the board (since it generates black tiles as opposed to relying on the AI matching existing ones), the tile staying alive for the 8 turns, or even the game lasting 8 turns after using the yellow.

I really think it's a mistake to not go 5 blue Mystique. Time and time again, we've seen that AP generation / cascade moves are among the best moves in the game. Abilities like MNM purple, thunder strike, GSBW purple, prenerf C. Mags blue, etc have always been among the top abilities in those colors, and infiltration falls under the same category. As a black / blue AP generator, she legitimately does something very powerful that very few characters in the game can do, and that's gonna be your main motivation for playing Mystique in the long run, not some inconsistent ap drain / stun or damage move. Personally, I'm starting to lean towards 3/5/5: I was originally going to go 5/5/3 because XF exists, but I'm starting to see value in making Mystique self-sufficient.

One last thought about your hypothetical situation: this is really going to depend on who you're pairing with Mystique with. If you're running XF, then the situation of the board having black and the AI matching that is unlikely because you're going to be prioritizing black for XF. If you have a transition roster where MQ is the main focus of your team, then you'd probably want to prioritize black as well, leading to the same situation. Finally, one of my main beefs with purple is that you need to prioritize purple early in order to get full value out of the ap drain portion of the ability (the full 8 turns). This means that purple needs to be among the top say, 3 abilities in your team, which I feel is unlikely depending on your roster.

I agree with northern on this. When you bring Mystique you are bringing her for Blue and possibly Black. with 5 Blue you can bring along X-Force for sergical strike, BP for Rage, Deadpool for whales, or Blade for his purple ( a little competition for Black). You could also bring along BWGS for her purple to green ( squishy)
The main reason to drop her purple is to drop her black big time on someone, and her black on it's own is preety strong. Also if you send her out as TU 5 Blue is awsome as it does not need to be leveled to be usefull. Bring X-Force +3 to TU to excelerate infiltrate to Sergical Strike. This is an awsome combination by the way that I used to beat a maxed out 4thor and X-force.

Unknown

why does the pool only allow one choice and the other threads allow two?

Dauthi

One thing that should be noted is that her purple works on each match of cascades too, making an AI cascade less deadly. If you remove 3 of the 7 tiles she can absorb, you will feel it. I have been rolling max purple, and if you start off with a purple ap boost and get her purple off early, you really slow the opposing team while getting a great boost. So, to me at least 4 in her purple is worth it since adding 2 more ap to what it can take is a huge jump. 5 is unnecessary as her stun isn't what makes this ability shine, and TU ap is usually the least important.

Her blue is a must as well, which leaves me with black. Maxing it makes her a one man show rather than support, and she helped tremendously when I couldn't use XForce in the Gauntlet. Putting it at 5 does over double the damage when shape shifted it makes it regrettable to not go that way. If it weren't for XForce this would be an easy choice.

Her build is one of the hardest I think I have had to make, for me it is 4/5/4 or 3/5/5. I will probably go 4/5/4 since I never leave home without XForce, and she is great XForce support.

Unknown

I hadn't played the game since July because I was tired of all the bad decisions and I returned today, only to find many new heroes and some older heroes being changed. It was so long since I last played, it felt really strange not knowing who to choose for each matchup and having to read all the abilities again in order to avoid missing a change to how they worked.

Mystique looks interesting, but I wish they had used some interaction between her purple and blue, as they did with purple and black. Something that would buff her blue a little because right know the randomness hurts it, like +1 tiles in level 3 if she is shapeshifted and +3 tiles to level 5 for a total of 13 (at level 5)

Unknown

Narkon wrote:

I hadn't played the game since July because I was tired of all the bad decisions and I returned today, only to find many new heroes and some older heroes being changed. It was so long since I last played, it felt really strange not knowing who to choose for each matchup and having to read all the abilities again in order to avoid missing a change to how they worked.

Mystique looks interesting, but I wish they had used some interaction between her purple and blue, as they did with purple and black. Something that would buff her blue a little because right know the randomness hurts it, like +1 tiles in level 3 if she is shapeshifted and +3 tiles to level 5 for a total of 13 (at level 5)

If the board makeup is right (maybe after a surgical strike or polarizing force), you can often get a lot of criticals from a single use of Infiltration. Been using single cover Mystique/MNMags/MoStorm in Balance of Power and it has been amazing to frequently get 15+ actions in a row. I can only imagine how OP she would be if she was at 5 blue covers.

Am one of the odd ones that picked 454 as the ideal build.

vudu3

MarcusGraves wrote:

im still for 4/4/5 to have the flexibility of shapeshift stealing black AP + infiltration for getting a masterstroke off, which really is the goal of the character. if the board is dry on blue i'm not going to be getting infiltration off and shapeshift won't really be gathering blue either because there's not enough on the board for AI to match. rank 4 shapeshift, now I can get all 3 of mystique's colors and if the board is crapped out on blue but theres plenty of black with my SS tile out then i can still get closer to popping masterstroke if AI matches black.

I'd also want the ability to slow down enemy black users since black powers have really been on the rise lately.

I'm also in the 4/4/5 camp. While the boost from 4 to 5 in Infiltration is nice, I'd rather have Shapeshift steal purple and black AP. If Infiltration changed RGY tiles to a single color then it might be different but too often I see



changed into



instead of

Phaserhawk

vudu3 wrote:

MarcusGraves wrote:

im still for 4/4/5 to have the flexibility of shapeshift stealing black AP + infiltration for getting a masterstroke off, which really is the goal of the character. if the board is dry on blue i'm not going to be getting infiltration off and shapeshift won't really be gathering blue either because there's not enough on the board for AI to match. rank 4 shapeshift, now I can get all 3 of mystique's colors and if the board is crapped out on blue but theres plenty of black with my SS tile out then i can still get closer to popping masterstroke if AI matches black.

I'd also want the ability to slow down enemy black users since black powers have really been on the rise lately.

I'm also in the 4/4/5 camp. While the boost from 4 to 5 in Infiltration is nice, I'd rather have Shapeshift steal purple and black AP. If Infiltration changed RGY tiles to a single color then it might be different but too often I see



changed into



instead of

The issue with 4/4/5 is that the jump from 3 to 4 in either color isn't much of an upgrade. So for an extra 6% chance of cascade and almost 1 extra AP gained, you are willing to give up a 2 turn stun and the ability to steal all colors? The same the other way, so you want to give up a 10% increase in cascade and almost 2 purple or black AP gain for what, the ability to steal purple or black, which you are going to make in spades when you set off a fully leveld Infiltration?

4/4/5 is better served as either 5/3/5 or 3/5/5 as 4/4/5 doesn't really gain much fover 3 covers. Remember in 90% of the characters D3 wants you to go 2 colors maxed, one color at 3, that' s why so few character do well at lvl 4

vudu3

Upgrading Shapeshift from 4 to 5 will get you an extra turn of stun and allow you to steal TU AP. I generally don't care about TU AP so all it really gets me is an extra turn of stun. And while that's nice, I'd rather have the extra tile color change that comes with Infiltration.

That said, my Mystique is currently 4/3/5 so it's a moot point at the moment.

Phaserhawk

vudu3 wrote:

Upgrading Shapeshift from 4 to 5 will get you an extra turn of stun and allow you to steal TU AP. I generally don't care about TU AP so all it really gets me is an extra turn of stun. And while that's nice, I'd rather have the extra tile color change that comes with Infiltration.

That said, my Mystique is currently 4/3/5 so it's a moot point at the moment.

I would look at Northern Polarity's stats analysis, you will see that you aren't getting much by staying at level 4 in blue vs 3 in blue. And if you don't care about the extra turn stun then why aren't you 3/5/5 you'd get all you want. As I said earlier, after experiencing a high levled Mystique in the Rocket/Groot I have more respect for Masterstroke and less fear of Shapeshift except as the extra damage from Masterstroke, because when Infilatration went off, I knew I was going to be eating a Shapeshift/Masterstroke combo.

vudu3

Phaserhawk wrote:

And if you don't care about the extra turn stun then why aren't you 3/5/5 you'd get all you want.

3/5/5 doesn't let Shapeshift steal purple or black AP so I wouldn't get all I want with this build. It's only TU AP I don't give a hoot about.

orbitalint

The black purple steal is a nice benefit but it relies on the ai making the match. For off colors it is a nice way to stall and get you off the ground but for black and purple why not just make those matches yourself to "accelerate" those colors? With 5 in blue, you get a better chance of getting those colors on cascades too.

That's just my view but I do like the flexibility of self sufficient characters.