*** Mystique (Raven Darkholme) ***

vudu3

locked wrote:

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

I've thought more about this and while I'm currently favoring 4/4/5 I may change my vote to 5/3/5.

3/5/5 is definitely not for me. Mystique is never going to be the primary damage dealer on my team. She's always going to play second fiddle to a RGY user. So while 5 in Infiltration will help Mystique gain purple and black AP it's really going to hinder my ability to collect RGY AP which will ultimately hurt my team. I think the only reason to go 3/5/5 is if you plan to generally run her with X-Force and want to use Infiltration to gain black AP for Surgical Strike while a the same time not completely nerfing Masterstroke for the rare cases when you may use it.

NorthernPolarity

vudu3 wrote:

locked wrote:

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

I've thought more about this and while I'm currently favoring 4/4/5 I may change my vote to 5/3/5.

3/5/5 is definitely not for me. Mystique is never going to be the primary damage dealer on my team. She's always going to play second fiddle to a RGY user. So while 5 in Infiltration will help Mystique gain purple and black AP it's really going to hinder my ability to collect RGY AP which will ultimately hurt my team. I think the only reason to go 3/5/5 is if you plan to generally run her with X-Force and want to use Infiltration to gain black AP for Surgical Strike while a the same time not completely nerfing Masterstroke for the rare cases when you may use it.

Your post suggests that mystique is "not going to be the primary dmg dealer on your team", so whats the point of going 5 black if you arent going to use it as a main source of damage? Actually, if you are thinking this way then what purpose does mystique have on your team at all? Mystique is first and foremost a blurple generator: shapeshift is cute but its proven to just not be an ability that you really care about or prioritize highly on most, if not all teams. Masterstroke is an okay damage generator but there are obviously better options for that as well: infiltration is really the main reason youre bringing mystique along since no other character can generate blurple and cause cascades that efficiently. 5/3/5 under your logic doesnt make a lot of sense to me: you can just collect all the rgy ap before casuing infiltration if you are that worried.

Phaserhawk

NorthernPolarity wrote:

vudu3 wrote:

locked wrote:

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

I've thought more about this and while I'm currently favoring 4/4/5 I may change my vote to 5/3/5.

3/5/5 is definitely not for me. Mystique is never going to be the primary damage dealer on my team. She's always going to play second fiddle to a RGY user. So while 5 in Infiltration will help Mystique gain purple and black AP it's really going to hinder my ability to collect RGY AP which will ultimately hurt my team. I think the only reason to go 3/5/5 is if you plan to generally run her with X-Force and want to use Infiltration to gain black AP for Surgical Strike while a the same time not completely nerfing Masterstroke for the rare cases when you may use it.

Your post suggests that mystique is "not going to be the primary dmg dealer on your team", so whats the point of going 5 black if you arent going to use it as a main source of damage? Actually, if you are thinking this way then what purpose does mystique have on your team at all? Mystique is first and foremost a blurple generator: shapeshift is cute but its proven to just not be an ability that you really care about or prioritize highly on most, if not all teams. Masterstroke is an okay damage generator but there are obviously better options for that as well: infiltration is really the main reason youre bringing mystique along since no other character can generate blurple and cause cascades that efficiently. 5/3/5 under your logic doesnt make a lot of sense to me: you can just collect all the rgy ap before casuing infiltration if you are that worried.

For me it's a debate of 3/5/5 or 5/5/3. The former is more about damage and the later is about control, either one is decent as it has infiltration maxed which is really where her power lies. To me she plays very similar to C.Mags where her blue/his red cascade you hope to build up enough to generate enough to launch mag projectile or master stroke. The fact that infiltration accelerates her into the other skills is just too important to ignore

Unknown

Phaserhawk wrote:

For me it's a debate of 3/5/5 or 5/5/3. The former is more about damage and the later is about control, either one is decent as it has infiltration maxed which is really where her power lies. To me she plays very similar to C.Mags where her blue/his red cascade you hope to build up enough to generate enough to launch mag projectile or master stroke. The fact that infiltration accelerates her into the other skills is just too important to ignore

I'm not sure how other people are using infiltration, so am confused by why people are underrating it. In one move, you've got:
1. Green/Yellow/Red denial.
2. Black/Purple AP generation
3. Cascade/Crit generation.
all for 9 AP!
Generally, you're denying green and either red/yellow from the enemy, so your board distribution looks somewhat like 11 each 6 13. After infiltration you've got something like 16 11 3 2 13.

Maybe people are just so used to collecting for Sentry or are hooked on other RGY users (LThor) The only other weakness of the move is feeding Black moves to the AI, but you should be able to pick up most of it. This is one of the most underrated moves in the game right now.

zonatahunt

For me it's pretty simple: is Mystique a leading lady, or instead a supporting cast member?

Personally, I wouldn't run Mystique out there as the one I'm building a three-character team around. She will always be a support character to me. With a 3/5/5 build she is a terrifyingly intense black-purple generator (yellow-, green-, red-denyer) for any other characters with powerful black and purple attacks. I see her as essential if you want to run X-Force and Deadpool in the same team. With Infiltration at 5 covers you need only three blue matches to alter ten red, green, and yellow tiles to purple and black. All of you know from painful experience that the first team to use Surgical Strike generally wins. Furthermore, an accumulation of purple tiles leads to an AoE of over 4000 pts per enemy team member with Deadpool's Whales. She only tanks blue, so generally she's the last to be hit.

Lastly, Shapeshift has three key elements to it: 1) an AP drain, 2) a stun (2-turn max), and 3) an initial step to a 6000+ point attack when coupled with Masterstroke. As an AP thief she's "whatever" (the color of the AP she steals is # of covers dependent). As a stun, that can be useful, but there's better (the number of turns stunned is also # of covers dependent). As a lead-in to Masterstroke her cover build for Shapeshift can be at any number of covers. That's a huge advantage for such a powerful 2-ability combo attack.

For me, 3/5/5 is a no-brainer.

Unknown

You put "run her with X-Force" and "Lead in to Masterstroke" in teh same paragraph. Those are divergent ideas. They both can't use the 11 black. As a partner to XF/Deadpool 5/5/3 would be superior to 3/5/5 no?

Quebbster

Lerysh wrote:

You put "run her with X-Force" and "Lead in to Masterstroke" in teh same paragraph. Those are divergent ideas. They both can't use the 11 black. As a partner to XF/Deadpool 5/5/3 would be superior to 3/5/5 no?

That depends. If Surgical Strike hits the black AP it can be very convenient to have another outlet for it since the board will now be dry of black AP and another Surgical won't have much effect.

turul

Quebbster wrote:

Lerysh wrote:

You put "run her with X-Force" and "Lead in to Masterstroke" in teh same paragraph. Those are divergent ideas. They both can't use the 11 black. As a partner to XF/Deadpool 5/5/3 would be superior to 3/5/5 no?

That depends. If Surgical Strike hits the black AP it can be very convenient to have another outlet for it since the board will now be dry of black AP and another Surgical won't have much effect.

applies to any color if storngest-color-enemy remains alive.

Quebbster

turul wrote:

Quebbster wrote:

Lerysh wrote:

You put "run her with X-Force" and "Lead in to Masterstroke" in teh same paragraph. Those are divergent ideas. They both can't use the 11 black. As a partner to XF/Deadpool 5/5/3 would be superior to 3/5/5 no?

That depends. If Surgical Strike hits the black AP it can be very convenient to have another outlet for it since the board will now be dry of black AP and another Surgical won't have much effect.

applies to any color if storngest-color-enemy remains alive.

Yes, but if Surgical Strike is your only black outlet you can't use it. If Green is the strongest color you can unleash a barrage of X-forces instead and so on. I think the point is that on a board that is starved in black it's nice to pull off a Masterstroke instead of Surgical Strike.

Phaserhawk

Lerysh wrote:

You put "run her with X-Force" and "Lead in to Masterstroke" in teh same paragraph. Those are divergent ideas. They both can't use the 11 black. As a partner to XF/Deadpool 5/5/3 would be superior to 3/5/5 no?

Not to mention what if you are running, X-Force, Mystique, Daken. You have a Shapeshift tile on the board and enough for either Materstroke or Surgical Strike, if the other team has red, green, black, or purple as their strongest you are not going to be getting a color back that is instantly useable. If you hit them for red you have nothing, for black without Mystique, nothing, yellow will get you recovery but that doesn't end a match. Even with Mystique purple only stuns, but....if you can pop them for 7K you did more damage than Surgical Strike, just make sure they can't kill you next turn with the AP you couldve denied.

Unknown

Just peeked into the thread and I agree everyone without 5 in blue is insane. INSANE

As for purple vs black, purple at 5 gives you a turn of stun and a low chance of getting a color you probably aren't looking for because you just used it and a low chance of getting a color you probably want. Meanwhile, 5 in black gets you what, 4000 extra damage? 355 seems the way to go

Unknown

Playing around with 355, 445 and 535 (seem to be getting a lot of her covers lately so was able to transition around)... come to the conclusion she is viable regardless how you build her, it all depends on which strategy you most perfer. As a feeder for black and purple attacks then her infiltration is a must...

however in certain situations like story events where you are denied the use of xforce, her black is rather powerful, base damage is ok, charged up with shapeshift the damage can pretty much take out a fair number of the range of characters available aside the obvious 3 star high health characters... but the real bonus is the fact it also drains the opposing team of AP.

don't rate the purple AP drain that great because that countdown tile can get matched pretty quickly more often than not... However the 2 turn stun at rank 5 can't really be sniffed at. great for dealing with the likes of 3* Capt Marvel or Hulk...

With xforce available her viability is kinda meh, but there are some situations where a broader colour Ap drain from masterstroke is better than a primary highest damage drain xforce's surgical strike...

Soo all in all, she's got a few viable builds for varying situations...and not a be all and end all single build

hurcules

skydivearcher wrote:

Playing around with 355, 445 and 535 (seem to be getting a lot of her covers lately so was able to transition around)... come to the conclusion she is viable regardless how you build her, it all depends on which strategy you most perfer. As a feeder for black and purple attacks then her infiltration is a must...

however in certain situations like story events where you are denied the use of xforce, her black is rather powerful, base damage is ok, charged up with shapeshift the damage can pretty much take out a fair number of the range of characters available aside the obvious 3 star high health characters... but the real bonus is the fact it also drains the opposing team of AP.

don't rate the purple AP drain that great because that countdown tile can get matched pretty quickly more often than not... However the 2 turn stun at rank 5 can't really be sniffed at. great for dealing with the likes of 3* Capt Marvel or Hulk...

With xforce available her viability is kinda meh, but there are some situations where a broader colour Ap drain from masterstroke is better than a primary highest damage drain xforce's surgical strike...

Soo all in all, she's got a few viable builds for varying situations...and not a be all and end all single build

2 turn stun is useful for that stun-before-massive damage skill on Hulk and Cap Marvel, as you said, but 1 turn stun at 3 purple can achieve the same effect. And I do agree that Masterstroke came in handy especially when Surgical Strike against black strongest colour teams. Which why I still think 3/5/5 is the better build.

Phaserhawk

hurcules wrote:

skydivearcher wrote:

Playing around with 355, 445 and 535 (seem to be getting a lot of her covers lately so was able to transition around)... come to the conclusion she is viable regardless how you build her, it all depends on which strategy you most perfer. As a feeder for black and purple attacks then her infiltration is a must...

however in certain situations like story events where you are denied the use of xforce, her black is rather powerful, base damage is ok, charged up with shapeshift the damage can pretty much take out a fair number of the range of characters available aside the obvious 3 star high health characters... but the real bonus is the fact it also drains the opposing team of AP.

don't rate the purple AP drain that great because that countdown tile can get matched pretty quickly more often than not... However the 2 turn stun at rank 5 can't really be sniffed at. great for dealing with the likes of 3* Capt Marvel or Hulk...

With xforce available her viability is kinda meh, but there are some situations where a broader colour Ap drain from masterstroke is better than a primary highest damage drain xforce's surgical strike...

Soo all in all, she's got a few viable builds for varying situations...and not a be all and end all single build

2 turn stun is useful for that stun-before-massive damage skill on Hulk and Cap Marvel, as you said, but 1 turn stun at 3 purple can achieve the same effect. And I do agree that Masterstroke came in handy especially when Surgical Strike against black strongest colour teams. Which why I still think 3/5/5 is the better build.

Not to mention they are hinting at Wolverine being an enemy which means we may see him a lot more in PvE nodes which means no X-Force so Masterstroke looks even more promising. I 100% agree on Shapeshift, to me it's about the 2 turn stun not the steal because thats very iffy. However, when you do look at her other skills you start to realize the overlap and not in a bad way.

Shapeshift--As you level it it steals more colors to the point of every single one. This isn't bad and the stunning is just helpful.

Infiltration--While this looks like a simple charge up skill to boost purple and black, what it also is, is a red/yellow/green destroyer.

Masterstroke--While this looks like a simple black damage skill, its is also a red/yellow/green destroyer.

So when I see Mystique and my plans of going 3/5/5, I view her as an accelerating/denying powerhouse. She essentially shuts down the red/yellow/green users her true weakness is that she can feed the other team purple and black but, every character needs some drawback.

wymtime

Here is one thing not a lot of people are talking about. In PVP Speed is the key and after X-force who can kill someone fast. If you look at the 3* Deadpool can do good damage fast with ALOT but needs someone else to kill people. Mystique can be a fast cold blooded killer in PVP. at 3,5,5 she can generate the purple and black to max out masterstroke and down a target, while depleting the board of red,yellow,green. This is why I am moving her up on my priority list for ISO and going 3,5,5 for a build.

Unknown

wymtime wrote:

Here is one thing not a lot of people are talking about. In PVP Speed is the key and after X-force who can kill someone fast. If you look at the 3* Deadpool can do good damage fast with ALOT but needs someone else to kill people. Mystique can be a fast cold blooded killer in PVP. at 3,5,5 she can generate the purple and black to max out masterstroke and down a target, while depleting the board of red,yellow,green. This is why I am moving her up on my priority list for ISO and going 3,5,5 for a build.

Who would you pair her with? Hood maybe?

I think her issue is the lack of synergy with others. Captain Marvel can feed her black and Colossus could help her with his yellow.

vudu3

Because Mystique's abilities have great synergy with each other you ultimately want to pair her with a strong RYG users to cover the other half of the spectrum.

Or you can say 'the hell with RYG' and go all in on purple/blue/black. Pair her with MN Mags and use his purple to create loads of blue. Use her blue to create loads of purple and black. Rinse and repeat or use Shapeshift into Masterstroke for a boat load of damage.

Ryz-aus

vudu3 wrote:

Because Mystique's abilities have great synergy with each other you ultimately want to pair her with a strong RYG users to cover the other half of the spectrum.

Or you can say 'the hell with RYG' and go all in on purple/blue/black. Pair her with MN Mags and use his purple to create loads of blue. Use her blue to create loads of purple and black. Rinse and repeat or use Shapeshift into Masterstroke for a boat load of damage.

Number two is the way to go IMO. Pair her with MN mags, and then throw in black panther to use the black so you don't slow down your ap generation. This team is ridiculous in pve - I have no trouble taking down the gorgon nodes in current pve before he gets off any abilities, even when fed by goons.

5 purple or 5 black doesn't matter nearly as much - blue is the killer ability. I would go with black second in case you want to use masterstroke against a high level enemy or you can only choose two of the characters and.

turul

Dat board control

wymtime

Mau-- wrote:

wymtime wrote:

Here is one thing not a lot of people are talking about. In PVP Speed is the key and after X-force who can kill someone fast. If you look at the 3* Deadpool can do good damage fast with ALOT but needs someone else to kill people. Mystique can be a fast cold blooded killer in PVP. at 3,5,5 she can generate the purple and black to max out masterstroke and down a target, while depleting the board of red,yellow,green. This is why I am moving her up on my priority list for ISO and going 3,5,5 for a build.

Who would you pair her with? Hood maybe?

I think her issue is the lack of synergy with others. Captain Marvel can feed her black and Colossus could help her with his yellow.

Hood goes well with everyone so that can work. In PVE I agree with Vudu and Ryz-aus with MNMags. If you don't want to run a 2* you can also add Deadpool as well and run Msytique's blue to whales and masterstroke to finish people off.