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

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Comments

  • atomzed
    atomzed Posts: 1,753 Chairperson of the Boards
    ark123 wrote:
    NorthernPolarity wrote:

    Once you get a 4* roster, you are not really going to be using Cage outside of when he is buffed.

    Incorrect. I use him in lightning rounds all the time to use my GT without damaging her. I also use them when I need to climb in pvp quicker than using regenerators. And he makes it so you take no damage on trivial nodes in pve - this is where having 5 red is useful, as it soaks a large amount of skill damage also.

    Me too. I use him in LR too.

    And really, he has been a great help in normal pvp. I am able to get up to 600 points without using health packs. At higher levels I will swap out cage for a more offensive option at the higher points nodes.
  • NighteyesGrisu
    NighteyesGrisu Posts: 563 Critical Contributor
    Is Cage's healing timer somehow broken or is that deliberate?

    My Cage took some damage and went down to roughly 6k health points (out of the max 8500). The healing timer says he's going to be back at full health in 9.5h? That can't be right, or can it?
  • Trisul
    Trisul Posts: 887 Critical Contributor
    ark123 wrote:
    NorthernPolarity wrote:

    Once you get a 4* roster, you are not really going to be using Cage outside of when he is buffed.

    Incorrect. I use him in lightning rounds all the time to use my GT without damaging her. I also use them when I need to climb in pvp quicker than using regenerators. And he makes it so you take no damage on trivial nodes in pve - this is where having 5 red is useful, as it soaks a large amount of skill damage also.
    Isn't X-Force a better alternative than LC (assuming XF is maxed)?
    NighteyesGrisu wrote:
    Is Cage's healing timer somehow broken or is that deliberate?

    My Cage took some damage and went down to roughly 6k health points (out of the max 8500). The healing timer says he's going to be back at full health in 9.5h? That can't be right, or can it?
    It's a display bug in the current patch.
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    Trisul wrote:
    ark123 wrote:
    NorthernPolarity wrote:

    Once you get a 4* roster, you are not really going to be using Cage outside of when he is buffed.

    Incorrect. I use him in lightning rounds all the time to use my GT without damaging her. I also use them when I need to climb in pvp quicker than using regenerators. And he makes it so you take no damage on trivial nodes in pve - this is where having 5 red is useful, as it soaks a large amount of skill damage also.
    Isn't X-Force a better alternative than LC (assuming XF is maxed)?

    Your xforce tanks for your goddess? teach me your ways
  • Trisul
    Trisul Posts: 887 Critical Contributor
    ark123 wrote:
    Trisul wrote:
    Isn't X-Force a better alternative than LC (assuming XF is maxed)?

    Your xforce tanks for your goddess? teach me your ways
    My way is simply matching green/black and killing everything with XF. True heal at the end of match if needed. Seems faster than Cage/4hor against most teams.

    NP's point is that if you have maxed XF/4hor, using Cage is not necessary. You seemed to imply that Cage/4hor > XF/4hor for lightning rounds.
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    Trisul wrote:
    ark123 wrote:
    Trisul wrote:
    Isn't X-Force a better alternative than LC (assuming XF is maxed)?

    Your xforce tanks for your goddess? teach me your ways
    My way is simply matching green/black and killing everything with XF. True heal at the end of match if needed. Seems faster than Cage/4hor against most teams.

    NP's point is that if you have maxed XF/4hor, using Cage is not necessary. You seemed to imply that Cage/4hor > XF/4hor for lightning rounds.
    It's not better, it just doesnt spend any health packs because you don't lose health.
  • simonsez
    simonsez Posts: 4,663 Chairperson of the Boards
    Trisul wrote:
    My way is simply matching green/black and killing everything with XF. True heal at the end of match if needed.
    If you're not making any matches for GT anyway, then why not bring Cage along so you don't even have to worry about healing?
  • Trisul
    Trisul Posts: 887 Critical Contributor
    simonsez wrote:
    If you're not making any matches for GT anyway, then why not bring Cage along so you don't even have to worry about healing?
    1. 4hor carries team harder than Cage if XF dies.
    2. Bad boards hurt less since I pick up plenty of blue/red as secondary color priorities and/or surgicals.
    3. Stunlock guarantees heal at end of match.
  • atomzed
    atomzed Posts: 1,753 Chairperson of the Boards
    My experience with Cage in the gauntlet confirms my preference of 553.

    That huge protect tile allows me to compete against highly scaled enemy. In node 40, I was up against a level 314 GT, Dino and Hulk. I was using doom, Xforce and Cage, with less than 80% health. I could compete becAuse I took minimal match dmg.

    Cage black is good, but I can find characters with better black. However his red is one of a kind. To me, I value his red protect tile more than his black.
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    Ok So i had full board with red strike tiles from Blade. After I matched away Luke's protect tile there weren't any red basic tiles on the board anymore. And his unbreakable animation still pops up every turn.

    So its not just charge tiles.

    Can anyone verify this?
  • Alucard_I_Am
    Alucard_I_Am Posts: 232 Tile Toppler
    I have also had this happen to me.
  • moogles85
    moogles85 Posts: 187 Tile Toppler
    Yes - if all the red tiles are taken, Luke Cage's animation still goes off but no protect tile is created because there are no available tiles to use.
  • Joey Jellico
    Joey Jellico Posts: 103
    I'm torn at what to spec mine at.

    I like the idea of 5 red, but I also like 5 black. And EVERYONE says 5 yellow is a must.

    I'm 445 now with a 5th yellow in queue. What to do.... icon_exclaim.gificon_exclaim.gificon_exclaim.gif
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    The red doesn't matter much unless you're fighting goon + villain combination since goon still have unreasonably high match damage, though those tend to be the hardest nodes so even though it's specialized it does have a significant impact.

    With Surgical Strike's end of reign as the only black skill that matters, I think Luke Cage's black is pretty good. It's usable whenever he's on the weekly buffed list and Black Panther is not on the same list. Note that very few characters are viable when they're not on the buffed list compared to someone with the same colors that is on the list.
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    I don't really get people's obsession with yellow. Sure it's slightly more damage per AP than his black, but if you're using strikes, his black ends up being more timely and versatile. Eg, you can cast it 3 times with 18 black, but 18 yellow's not going to do you as much good. Further, in most cases I'd rather let the AI match yellow than match black. The number of times I've cast Righteous Uppercut twice in a match outside Ultron sentry nodes I could count on one hand. Further, there's no accelerators for yellow, whereas IF's got the best accelerator and it happens to generate black!
  • sc0ville
    sc0ville Posts: 115 Tile Toppler
    daibar wrote:
    I don't really get people's obsession with yellow. Sure it's slightly more damage per AP than his black, but if you're using strikes, his black ends up being more timely and versatile. Eg, you can cast it 3 times with 18 black, but 18 yellow's not going to do you as much good. Further, in most cases I'd rather let the AI match yellow than match black. The number of times I've cast Righteous Uppercut twice in a match outside Ultron sentry nodes I could count on one hand. Further, there's no accelerators for yellow, whereas IF's got the best accelerator and it happens to generate black!

    Kingpin... but you wouldn't use KP and Cage together, so it's irrelevant.
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    Yellow is generally a hard color to get a great hitter so there's a higher premium on a great yellow ability compared to a great black ability.

    With X Force's fall and the generally longer games I find that it is quite possible to pick up 18 black to throw out 3 jabs. It only loses to Rage of the Panther in this scenario and Rage of the Panther does have a drawback (though generally not relevant). At 12 black it's probably a bit worse than something like Full Blast but still quite usable. Being able to stun 1 turn turns out to be surprisingly useful, especially in heroics when matched against the dreaded 1 villain + 2 goon combos.
  • john1620b
    john1620b Posts: 367
    Joey Jellico wrote:
    I'm torn at what to spec mine at.

    I like the idea of 5 red, but I also like 5 black. And EVERYONE says 5 yellow is a must.

    I'm 445 now with a 5th yellow in queue. What to do.... icon_exclaim.gificon_exclaim.gificon_exclaim.gif
    I stuck with 4/5/4 for a long time (only because I can't seem to get a 5th yellow cover). I recently changed to 4/4/5, and the extra damage on black seems more useful to me than the extra protection on red, which is opposite of what I thought I'd like. Maybe it's just because you don't really see the damage reduction as much as the increase in damage, but I liked playing with him better at 5 black.

    Unless you're using Luke Cage every match for his protect tile, I think 5/3/5 is a more useful overall build.
  • PuceMoose
    PuceMoose Posts: 1,445 Chairperson of the Boards
    Tonight, after the ISO-8 leveling-price reduction, I welcome the fourth level 166 three star to my valiant stable of heroes! Take a seat next to Patch, LDaken, or Blade, Mr. Cage! Patch and LDaken have been a bit surly toward each other, so I'd suggest that you sit next to Blade, but it's your choice. You do have a big beefy neck and Mr. Blade might not have *quite* resolved all of those pesky vampire issues, so if you want to stand in the corner with your back to the wall, giving stink-eyes over your glass of punch, that's fine too. Your call.

    Hooray, serendipitous coverfall has earned me a 3/5/5 Mr. Cage! Combined with Blade and Falcon, the DDQ has become a fun competition of "How high can you go?" in regards to the power of protect, strike, or attack tiles. I also have been surprised how frequently that stun on the black power has saved my bacon. I suspect 5/3/5 is *probably* his best build, but I've had no complaints so far with 3/5/5. That black hits *hard* at 5 covers, and its especially nice if you don't really have any strong leveled black power users. Even at three covers the yellow can do some impressive damage at max level. The protect tile from five red covers definitely helped in the Ultron sentry fights, with strike/attack tiles gumming up the board constantly. It's very satisfying to see a bevy of attack tiles assault your hero, and then see -1 next to his or her image!
  • vinnygecko
    vinnygecko Posts: 245 Tile Toppler
    edited May 2015
    During the Black Hole survivor node of the X-mansion phase, I noticed towards the final rounds that Luke Cage's protect tile stopped deploying at some point after it had been destroyed. I managed to make it through but was heavily damaged from all those attack tiles that appear after killing some of the ninjas. There were plenty of red tiles for him to use the protect tile for, it just stopped working. The last time I think it was destroyed was when I used Power of Attorney with She-Hulk
    Has anyone else noticed this?

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