Looking for Team Critique: Hood, Lazy Cap, Grey Suit Widow

Unknown

Hey Everybody, I'm looking for a team critique for a group I'm planning to put together as my A-team.

1. Hood (Either 3/5/5 or 5/5/3, I'm still debating.)
2. Lazy Cap (3/5/5)
3. Grey Suit Widow (either 5/4/4 or 5/3/5, I'm still debating.)

I tend to prefer PVE over PVP lately, so that's partly coloring my choice of builds.

Right now, I have
1. Hood 3/5/5 with a yellow cover I may or may not use.
2. Lazy Cap 1/3/5
3. Grey Suit Widow 3/4/3


Rationale:
First off: Rainbow color coverage. Yay!

Hood is the easy one. The 5 blue covers means he steals something from the other team almost every turn. Probably 50% of the battles I do, the opposing team never fires off a single special attack because I keep stealing their AP. Not to mention he makes all of my teams attacks marginally cheaper as a result. Plus, twin pistols is a life saver in PVE goon fights, and getting 18 rainbow AP is pretty nice too. Also, love the crit multiplier.

Lazy Cap: Ridiculous power on Star-Spangled Avenger. 4000 damage at max level for 11 ap => 350+ damage per AP, and ever three (sometimes two) turns thereafter, 4000 damage for just 1 AP!!! Also, both Star Spangled Avenger and Peacemaker can be placed over opposing special tiles, which is a lifesaver in Goon fights, and against strike tiles. Also, Lazy Cap gets quite a bit stronger with the synergy provided by the Hood. 3-turn countdown tiles turn into 2-turn, and sometimes even 1-turn countdown tiles. Since Peacemaker stuns for 2 turns, this is the difference between the target waking up or not before you cast peacemaker again.

Greysuit Widow: One of the few 30-star characters with a decent purple makes this a no-brainer. Also, 4000 damage per target sniper rifle, and the ability to knock out at least 2, if not more, special tiles at the same time, is huge. The attack is expensive, but using deceptive tactics can reduce the cost significantly. Deceptive tactics itself is also pretty awesome. Generate a lot of green fast, and usually generate at least one crit tile, and Hood has an amazing crit multiplier. Most people think pistol is pretty weak, but it hits decently hard and can remove minimum three special tiles, sometimes more, from the board at once. Rarely more useful than cap's Star Spangled Avenger, but there are times where it really comes in handy.

The Downsides:
- Hood and Widow don't really get great health.
- All of the attacks are expensive. Cheapest attack across the entire team is 11 AP.

The Debates:

The Hood: I'm trying to decide between 3/5/5 and 5/5/3. The traditional argument is you never really need to effect more than 3 count down tiles with hood's black power, generally the hood's black power isn't the strongest black on your team, and it's really nice to be able to use the API you get from twin pistols in the same turn. However, on this particular team, the hood's black power IS the strongest black on the team, AND I'm using it A LOT, so the extra 30% power is nice, although it's only about 350 per use. Also, since all of the other attacks are so expensive, I'm rarely getting enough yellow to cast twin pistols, because I spend all my time gathering other colors. Anybody have any advice for tailoring the hood to this team?

Widow: Generally, people recommend going with 5 purple and 3 red, because that's potentially an extra 3 green from deceptive tactics, and the extra shot of the pistol doesn't make it hit that much harder, and you usually have a better red, anyway. So all of that is true, but since I play a lot of PVE, the extra shot of the pistol in goon fights makes a big difference in how many special tiles I can wipe out with this attack. Anybody else found that the 5/4/4 build was useful in PVE?

Anybody have any other opinions about this team in general?

Unknown

If you're using LCap you're never going to waste your red AP on Pistol so go 5/3/5 for Grey Widow. You may want to consider using IM40 with ONLY 1 or 2 yellow covers if you're focusing on PVE since that'll get LCap going much faster and Hood can use intimidation on those CD tiles too.

Grey Widow tends to work best if paired with green AP generators like Thor, Hulk or Ragnarok

Regarding Hood, I prefer 5/5/3 since you your turn doesn't end after using Twin Pistols. Before I had 5 yellow covers I sometimes regretted using the skill and then having Hood stuck in front as the enemy gets a huge cascade. Until your LCap has 5 red covers to overwrite any tile, you may need Twin Pistols to shoot down an enemy special tile, and getting to use the collected AP right away will end the match faster. If you get to the point where you actually fire the skill, your team has probably taken some damage so you want to avoid giving another turn to the enemy, to reduce the need for health packs.

NorthernPolarity

amnace wrote:

Hey Everybody, I'm looking for a team critique for a group I'm planning to put together as my A-team.

1. Hood (Either 3/5/5 or 5/5/3, I'm still debating.)
2. Lazy Cap (3/5/5)
3. Grey Suit Widow (either 5/4/4 or 5/3/5, I'm still debating.)

I tend to prefer PVE over PVP lately, so that's partly coloring my choice of builds.

Right now, I have
1. Hood 3/5/5 with a yellow cover I may or may not use.
2. Lazy Cap 1/3/5
3. Grey Suit Widow 3/4/3


Rationale:
First off: Rainbow color coverage. Yay!

Hood is the easy one. The 5 blue covers means he steals something from the other team almost every turn. Probably 50% of the battles I do, the opposing team never fires off a single special attack because I keep stealing their AP. Not to mention he makes all of my teams attacks marginally cheaper as a result. Plus, twin pistols is a life saver in PVE goon fights, and getting 18 rainbow AP is pretty nice too. Also, love the crit multiplier.

Lazy Cap: Ridiculous power on Star-Spangled Avenger. 4000 damage at max level for 11 ap => 350+ damage per AP, and ever three (sometimes two) turns thereafter, 4000 damage for just 1 AP!!! Also, both Star Spangled Avenger and Peacemaker can be placed over opposing special tiles, which is a lifesaver in Goon fights, and against strike tiles. Also, Lazy Cap gets quite a bit stronger with the synergy provided by the Hood. 3-turn countdown tiles turn into 2-turn, and sometimes even 1-turn countdown tiles. Since Peacemaker stuns for 2 turns, this is the difference between the target waking up or not before you cast peacemaker again.

Greysuit Widow: One of the few 30-star characters with a decent purple makes this a no-brainer. Also, 4000 damage per target sniper rifle, and the ability to knock out at least 2, if not more, special tiles at the same time, is huge. The attack is expensive, but using deceptive tactics can reduce the cost significantly. Deceptive tactics itself is also pretty awesome. Generate a lot of green fast, and usually generate at least one crit tile, and Hood has an amazing crit multiplier. Most people think pistol is pretty weak, but it hits decently hard and can remove minimum three special tiles, sometimes more, from the board at once. Rarely more useful than cap's Star Spangled Avenger, but there are times where it really comes in handy.

The Downsides:
- Hood and Widow don't really get great health.
- All of the attacks are expensive. Cheapest attack across the entire team is 11 AP.

The Debates:

The Hood: I'm trying to decide between 3/5/5 and 5/5/3. The traditional argument is you never really need to effect more than 3 count down tiles with hood's black power, generally the hood's black power isn't the strongest black on your team, and it's really nice to be able to use the API you get from twin pistols in the same turn. However, on this particular team, the hood's black power IS the strongest black on the team, AND I'm using it A LOT, so the extra 30% power is nice, although it's only about 350 per use. Also, since all of the other attacks are so expensive, I'm rarely getting enough yellow to cast twin pistols, because I spend all my time gathering other colors. Anybody have any advice for tailoring the hood to this team?

Widow: Generally, people recommend going with 5 purple and 3 red, because that's potentially an extra 3 green from deceptive tactics, and the extra shot of the pistol doesn't make it hit that much harder, and you usually have a better red, anyway. So all of that is true, but since I play a lot of PVE, the extra shot of the pistol in goon fights makes a big difference in how many special tiles I can wipe out with this attack. Anybody else found that the 5/4/4 build was useful in PVE?

Anybody have any other opinions about this team in general?

This is one of the strongest PvE teams in the game, due to rainbow color coverage on all relevant abilities and strong tile clearing capabilities. (With the downside being poor tanking and hp). The only team thats better at sustained damage than this one in PvE is probably X-Force / C. Mags / Hood. This team is unfortunately mediocre in PvP because GSBW is such a huge liability on defense. My advice to you is:
1. You are never ever using GSBW's red over LCap's red, so 5/3/5 is definitely the way to go.
2. 5/5/3 for Hood is optimal for this team. You don't care about the extra 300 damage when your main path to victory is recurring Cap's red or casting sniper rifle, and you don't care about speeding up more than 3 CD tiles because if you have more than 3 cap shields out already, you're already winning the game, and it's pointless under that. 5 yellow is very good for turning twin pistols into a really good skill, and since twin pistols is pretty damn good at accelerating GSBW/LCap, I think you'd be crazy to not go 5 yellow.

Unknown

I'm using Hood, GSBW and CMags as my " -I'm bored of 2*s- team". CMags has same colors as Steve. His red pumps up Hood's steal. His blue does good damage and yellow is meh because it's defensive. Steve is a better compliment for the team though. I don't have enough of his covers.

I think for Hood 5/5/3 is better. Even if you're only playing PvE, there are hero/goon mixed teams and only hero teams and not losing your turn after using Twin Pistols matters. I recently had 4 yellow Hood covers and I never wanted to use it due to losing the turn. Now I got the 5th cover for it. And with 3 black covers you will still reduce 3 countdowns which is more than enough for your Steve. Also, keep in mind you won't be collecting primarily in any game. It should be a side plan. 5 black for Hood is sometimes preferred if you have a good enough Sentry and you plan to use it for Sentry bombing with Hood.

I also agree with 5/3/5 GSBW suggestion for the same reason with Red Panda.

HariSeldon

In looking at Hood's configuration, it's worth noting the proposed rebalancing they just proposed for Hood, including not getting AP from yellow (in exchange for more damage) and ending the turn when you've used it. Here's the source post:

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=19157