*** Luke Cage (Hero For Hire) ***

Infrared

Quebbster wrote:

Now I want to run Cage, Deadpool and Grocket together. Full rainbow, one active skill in each color, and should be a nightmare to take out.

I ran them in PVE. It was fun. Only thing is Deadpool jumps in front of Groot before he can get to the 25% health point.

Unknown

luke and ironfist passive doesnt make sense, unbreakable skin supposed to him only not for whole team also when he downed the "unbreakable skin" still there lol, it is supposed to be removed or the decreased damage apply on him only(same apply with IF). falcon need blue to trigger his ability which is make sense to me.

or let just put unbreakable thing aside at the moment, let just say he jumpt to the front and protect the team and then got downed but still protecting the team.....(that awkward moment) perhap LC is the true protector after all lol.

anyhow i feel pity for colossus and cap there, especially cap

Phaserhawk

NorthernPolarity wrote:

vudu3 wrote:

Two over-leveled Daken strike tiles will negate a 3 red Cage protect tile. Given how much Daken is an enemy in Heroics 3 red Cage isn't going to protect your team very much. If you under-develop the one thing that makes Cage unique it seems like a missed opportunity.

Meh, if boosting the thing that makes him unique is suboptimal to me, I won't do it. I decided to dig deeper on how much his red at 3 vs 5 actually matters. The highest level we'll see in a heroic is ~300, with a standard node being say 160-200. If you look at the link with updated match damage since that match damage nerf for scaled 2*/3*s we had a while back (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... d=64247071), here's what we see:

Level 140 - Roughly 70 / 60 / 50 for all stars.
Level 200 - Roughly 80 / 70 / 63 for all stars
Level 300 - Roughly 90 / 80 / 70 for all stars.

Finally, we can expect Cage to be boosted by 30 or 90 depending on minor or major boost in PvE. Lets take a look at his red boosted.

Level 196 Cage -
Level 3 - 166 Defense
4 - 214 defense
5 - 316 defense

Level 256 Cage -
Level 3 - 217 defense
Level 4 - 280 defense
Level 5- 413 defense

Since you can't really expect the enemy to always match their best color strength, we'll take the secondary strength and how much damage you end up taking.

Level 196 Cage -
Level 140 - 14 damage for level 3, 1 damage for level 5.
Level 200 - 44 damage for level 3, 1 damage for level 5
Level 300 - 74 damage for level 3, 1 damage for level 5

Level 256 Cage
Level 140 - 1 damage in both cases.
Level 200 - 7 damage for level 3, 1 damage for level 5
Level 300 - 23 damage for level 3, 1 damage for level 5.

Lets assume a worst case of say 20 turns of damage for each match. Each heroic has 1 level 300 node, roughly 3 level 200 nodes, 4 level 140 nodes, and a bunch of other low level nodes that don't really matter.
One single clear of a heroic would therefore be: 20 * (74 + 44 * 3 + 14 * 4) = 5240 damage for a 196 Cage with 3 red, and 960 damage for a 256 Cage with 5 red.

Now you could argue "5.2k damage for a single clear is a lot of damage!", but you also have to account for the fact that you have 3 black. So now the question becomes "what percentage of the time will the difference between 3 and 5 black prevent 5.2k damage by killing the enemy sooner than I otherwise would have". Well, given that 5.2k damage is a single Headbutt, or two onslaughts / gravity warps, I don't think it's that farfetched to say that over the course of one clear, having 5 black will probably end up saving you far more ability damage by just killing them faster. Based on this analysis, it still seems like the offensive power of 5/3/5 more than makes up for the defense tile. Also remember that this analysis is considering the worst case of 20 turns per match: obviously matches involving level 140s will take less time, so it ends up doing even less. If you have a 256 Cage, 5 red is complete overkill for obvious reasons.

You could argue that Daken is common in Heroics thus making higher levels of red more important, but optimizing a build for a character that appears in 1/3rd of the time in relevant heroic nodes probably isn't that important.

Thought I would bring Cage conversation into Cage discussion instead of Iron Fist.

This really puts it into perspective. I started to think more, well what about featured PvP? Well in that as you said only yellow really matters, but so does black, because let's face it, the way the AI will play him they will use black as soon as possible in which case having it do as much as possible is probably a good thing, and the shield you get is going to protect you from pretty much all the match damage you need and as you said him, plus xforce plus thor are tanky so match damage won't do much anyway, this is going to be an all skill battle

Unknown

I am actually really torn on 3red or 3 black. In the case of a boosted LC clearly 3 red and 5 black is better but I dont have an xforce so I actually use LC as my sim 3rd(next to 4thor and loki) which means that I use him to help me save health packs on loki and 4thor. This is actually very effective and I generally only have to use 1 or two helath packs for every 5-10 matches. In pvp's where i get to use all three it also helps me climb and sustain really well. of course the match damage at higher levels is not super significant so it might be just better to have the 5 in black. Really not sure

Arondite

You mentioned Gravity Warp as a damage source, but if Cage's tile is out Gravity Warp will move it instead of doing damage.

hesjingixen

Yeah, I've been pondering this a lot lately too, especially with the addition of Iron Fist. On one hand, you could just stick with 3 black, with the idea of only using it in an emergency so that you can permanently retain 12 black to keep Iron Fist's purple hitting really hard. On the other hand, if you could constantly fuel your black supply, the idea of using the combo over and over while keeping the tile out makes it seem a lot stronger, and the possibility of getting a full 18 is more likely with Iron Fist's help. Thus, what it really comes down to is 141 vs 268 and how often that would really make a difference.

Things to ponder......

Unknown

The sole reason I feel Jab Jab Cross isn't great: using it while a tile is already out does not put a tile out. So, after first use, you have 4 turns to throw the Cross punch as frequently as possible. It's not a chain you can keep going, as it's wording would imply, but simply a massive damage dump for 12 or 18 or 24 black, and many other characters do that far better than Cage.

His yellow, on the other hand, is right on the border of being truly great. In a sea of mediocre powers, Righteous Uppercut stands above, but just barely. The only thing holding Luke Cage back from being a top 10 3* contender is the cost of his . If it was 10 and not 13, bringing it up to 714 damage per AP from 550 damage per AP, then he'd have the best in the game for damage and one of the best in the game period. Hell even if it were 12 and not 13 would make a huge difference.

For reference, maxed IF with 12 black AP does 822 damage per AP with and Thor does 645 per AP with .

NorthernPolarity

Lerysh wrote:

It's not a chain you can keep going, as it's wording would imply, but simply a massive damage dump for 12 or 18 or 24 black, and many other characters do that far better than Cage.

People keep on saying this, but I feel like this is the X-Force bias showing. Which characters can do this better than Cage? Looking at my roster, I see Black Panther, X-Force who are clearly better than jab jab, and Cyclops / Mystique who are on the same level. Two characters having a better damage dump black skill than Cage, one of which is a 4*, is not what I would consider "many other characters".

atomzed

After Fist Bump pvp, I will be able to respec cage to either 553 or 535.

I'm still undecided about him... On one hand I love the protect tile, but on the other hand, NP makes a good point that I'm sacrifice a lot of dmg from black.

Sigh, tough decision... If I have a max IF, it would be an easier decision, but it is going to be months before I max IF.

Arondite

atomzed wrote:

After Fist Bump pvp, I will be able to respec cage to either 553 or 535.

I'm still undecided about him... On one hand I love the protect tile, but on the other hand, NP makes a good point that I'm sacrifice a lot of dmg from black.

Sigh, tough decision... If I have a max IF, it would be an easier decision, but it is going to be months before I max IF.

It's 5/5/3.

NorthernPolarity

Arondite wrote:

atomzed wrote:

After Fist Bump pvp, I will be able to respec cage to either 553 or 535.

I'm still undecided about him... On one hand I love the protect tile, but on the other hand, NP makes a good point that I'm sacrifice a lot of dmg from black.

Sigh, tough decision... If I have a max IF, it would be an easier decision, but it is going to be months before I max IF.

It's 5/5/3.

If your main PvE or PvP team involves Cage, then you can consider keeping him at 5/5/3. In PvP since he's unbuffed, level 3 defense would make you take roughly 100 extra damage per match against a 249 / 270 / 270 team. This means that if each PvP match lasts say 10 turns, you would take an extra 1k damage so per match its relevant. Then again, you can make the argument that pushing to 500 doesn't matter anyways, and that since high level PvP with a non xor team requires a lot of hops, saving 1k damage per match is completely irrelevant when you're only hopping at most 3-4 matches to begin with. Granted, black is 100% worthless for any team involving X-Force, but its not like 5 red is doing that much either.

The more I think about it, the more I think Cage's 5 red is like Psylocke. The only times that it is truly useful (pushing from 0 to 1.5k in SSIM) are times that just don't really matter in the first place. In heroics I've proven that 5/3/5 is better, and in normal PvE / PvP he gets out classed by xor / loki. At least for a maxed out roster with xor, 5/3/5 is a no brainer.

Unknown

It's not Luke Cage's red is that good at 5. It's that unless you're trapped on a deserted island where X Force and Black Panther can never be used you'd have no reason to use his black at all, and there are at least a few more guys who have a comparable black. Even 2 Psi-Katanas is likely to average more damage done over time considering the first Psi-Katana can come out much earlier than a Jab (Jab has the same cost, but use it early wastes its damage). By the way, in the heroics, you do not have Loki, The Hood, or Mystique, so you got to get your black AP the old fashion way and it's not exactly very fast. I've played plenty of Black Panther boosted heroics to know that 12 black AP isn't something you can just easily come up with in a heroic, and even then a single ROTP is usually not enough to win and it's a far stronger move than Jab.

NorthernPolarity

Phantron wrote:

It's not Luke Cage's red is that good at 5. It's that unless you're trapped on a deserted island where X Force and Black Panther can never be used you'd have no reason to use his black at all, and there are at least a few more guys who have a comparable black. Even 2 Psi-Katanas is likely to average more damage done over time considering the first Psi-Katana can come out much earlier than a Jab (Jab has the same cost, but use it early wastes its damage). By the way, in the heroics, you do not have Loki, The Hood, or Mystique, so you got to get your black AP the old fashion way and it's not exactly very fast. I've played plenty of Black Panther boosted heroics to know that 12 black AP isn't something you can just easily come up with in a heroic, and even then a single ROTP is usually not enough to win and it's a far stronger move than Jab.

Whoa there, i never said that 5 black cage would be your primary ability to focus. I mean think about the torch/blade/spidey heroic. Black was never a primary color to focus (green blue purple were), but a lot of the times since 200 juggs has so much hp, you just incidentally collect black and have enough for inferno (which i NEVER cast because it drained blue ap). Since 10 black was relatively easy to get and that we were indeed stranded on a desert island with no great blacks that heroic (blades was fine. But level 5 cage black woulda been wayy better vs non goon nodes), im inclined to believe that cages black would indeed be good. Not to mention that 18 black ap os a very real possibility in heroics where games tend to go really long.

vudu3

I was taking on the Iron Fist, Colossus, Daken node in Simulator Hard today with X-Force, cMags and Cage. Thanks for a bad cascade X-Force took two Chemical Reactions early on and fell. A Sting TU and Cage's black was the only thing that saved that fight. Even at level 3 it did fairly decent damage and I managed to get out 3 Jab, Jab, Crosses while the CD tile was out. I'll admit that I'm more torn between 5/5/3 and 5/3/5 than I was before. I'm currently 5/5/3 but with the two black covers I'll get from Fist Bump I can respec to 5/3/5 if I want to. Regardless, I don't have to make the decision until after Sticks and Stones is over because 5/5/3 seems like the best build for that event since I'll be running with X-Force.

NorthernPolarity wrote:

In heroics I've proven that 5/3/5 is better

While this may be true, it simply doesn't make sense any more to base your build around Heroics. As it's been pointed out, Heroics aren't run nearly as often as they were in the past. Basing your build on an infrequent event that may or may not even allow the character seems overly cautious. That's not to say that you shouldn't build your character in a vacuum--obviously take into account other characters as well as your personal roster--but Heroics just aren't as important/prevalent as they once were.

NorthernPolarity

vudu3 wrote:

I was taking on the Iron Fist, Colossus, Daken node in Simulator Hard today with X-Force, cMags and Cage. Thanks for a bad cascade X-Force took two Chemical Reactions early on and fell. A Sting TU and Cage's black was the only thing that saved that fight. Even at level 3 it did fairly decent damage and I managed to get out 3 Jab, Jab, Crosses while the CD tile was out. I'll admit that I'm more torn between 5/5/3 and 5/3/5 than I was before. I'm currently 5/5/3 but with the two black covers I'll get from Fist Bump I can respec to 5/3/5 if I want to. Regardless, I don't have to make the decision until after Sticks and Stones is over because 5/5/3 seems like the best build for that event since I'll be running with X-Force.

NorthernPolarity wrote:

In heroics I've proven that 5/3/5 is better

While this may be true, it simply doesn't make sense any more to base your build around Heroics. As it's been pointed out, Heroics aren't run nearly as often as they were in the past. Basing your build on an infrequent event that may or may not even allow the character seems overly cautious. That's not to say that you shouldn't build your character in a vacuum--obviously take into account other characters as well as your personal roster--but Heroics just aren't as important/prevalent as they once were.

For an end-game roster, building for heroics is the only thing left, as Cage does not replace Loki or IF as the ideal third for xor. 5/3/5 and 5/5/3 are basically interchangeable in Cage's PvP since the defense tile doesn't matter when you're xoring everything anyways so what else is there?

vudu3

Wolvie and/or Thor getting locked out of certain event nodes are much more common than Heroics. It makes sense to build a character to their individual best build, not some theoretical Heroic that may never come.

Slightly off-topic, but very relevant at the same time, I've found that build I build characters around X-Force so much I don't have any strong green users besides X-Force and Patch. When Wolvie is locked out of a node I'm finding it hard to replace him with a solid green user. 3* Thor is generally my best bet but he's not the best against scaled PVE baddies because CotS spreads its damaged out against all 3 targets. Rocket & Groot (at 3 covers), Gamora, Sentry and She-Hulk all have mediocre greens. Hulk's green has never been that great and Punisher quickly gets scaled out. I suppose Iron Fist will now fill the roll of green user when I can't use X-Force but until last week that was a niche that hadn't been filled because it's always "this characters gets 3 green covers because X-Force exists".

NorthernPolarity

vudu3 wrote:

Wolvie and/or Thor getting locked out of certain event nodes are much more common than Heroics. It makes sense to build a character to their individual best build, not some theoretical Heroic that may never come.

Slightly off-topic, but very relevant at the same time, I've found that build I build characters around X-Force so much I don't have any strong green users besides X-Force and Patch. When Wolvie is locked out of a node I'm finding it hard to replace him with a solid green user. 3* Thor is generally my best bet but he's not the best against scaled PVE baddies because CotS spreads its damaged out against all 3 targets. Rocket & Groot (at 3 covers), Gamora, Sentry and She-Hulk all have mediocre greens. Hulk's green has never been that great and Punisher quickly gets scaled out. I suppose Iron Fist will now fill the roll of green user when I can't use X-Force but until last week that was a niche that hadn't been filled because it's always "this characters gets 3 green covers because X-Force exists".

My team for when Wolvie is locked out is 4or / mohawk / loki, and xf / cmags / loki when 4or is locked out. Personally Cage doesn't seem like he'd replace any of those characters I mentioned, so I don't see his utility even with XF / GT locked out. I would argue that the times he will be relevant for an end-game roster because XF / GT is locked out is as often as a heroic featuring him, except at least with the heroic you know that he's going to have a big impact based on his build, compared to the one node every once in a while where his build matters a lot less because your team is going to based on the 4*s that aren't locked out.

Also doesn't your tangent support 5/3/5? If XF is locked out, there aren't that many better blacks than Cage (BP and that's it), so I'd assume you'd want the 5 black over the 5 red.

vudu3

NorthernPolarity wrote:

My team for when Wolvie is locked out is 4or / mohawk / loki, and xf / cmags / loki when 4or is locked out. Personally Cage doesn't seem like he'd replace any of those characters I mentioned, so I don't see his utility even with XF / GT locked out.

I guess the difference is I don't use Thor as much as you do. I do use X-Force quite a bit in PVE but I like to try out different partners. In the last event I ran with X-Force, She-Hulk and Hood quite a bit and found it be a very effective team. Even with the change to 8 hour node refreshes I'm still fairly conservative with health pack usage so rather than use the same characters all the time I sub-in fresh guys every few fights. Some people will try to argue that using different characters adds variety to the game and while that's true to a point in the end you're still matching 3 (or more) like-colored gems in an 8 by 8 grid. For me, it's all about health pack conservation because when I get wiped by a nasty node I'm glad I have 3 health packs in reserve to try again.

NorthernPolarity

vudu3 wrote:

NorthernPolarity wrote:

My team for when Wolvie is locked out is 4or / mohawk / loki, and xf / cmags / loki when 4or is locked out. Personally Cage doesn't seem like he'd replace any of those characters I mentioned, so I don't see his utility even with XF / GT locked out.

I guess the difference is I don't use Thor as much as you do. I do use X-Force quite a bit in PVE but I like to try out different partners. In the last event I ran with X-Force, She-Hulk and Hood quite a bit and found it be a very effective team. Even with the change to 8 hour node refreshes I'm still fairly conservative with health pack usage so rather than use the same characters all the time I sub-in fresh guys every few fights. Some people will try to argue that using different characters adds variety to the game and while that's true to a point in the end you're still matching 3 (or more) like-colored gems in an 8 by 8 grid. For me, it's all about health pack conservation because when I get wiped by a nasty node I'm glad I have 3 health packs in reserve to try again.

Yeah, I haven't had as much time to play MPQ recently, so I've been going with the fastest way to victory, which is inevitably xor for scaled nodes, and daken / patch / blade for nodes under 100.

dkffiv

Honestly the only time I consider using him is with MMags and Mystique on ridiculous nodes. I feel he has a better AP dump for black than Mystique (since all the purple is going to mags anyway and I can easily store up 20+ black) but I'm wondering how 5 red vs 5 black will affect keeping the squishies alive long enough to get the infinity combo rolling. Mine is currently 4/5/4, moving him to 5/5/3 once the rewards go out and then I'll have 2 black available for 5/3/5.