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

Arondite

Phantron wrote:

Arondite wrote:

Flare808 wrote:

Arondite wrote:

Are you telling me that Luke Cage will do 8,400 damage on 5 yellow? Holy, jesus.

Negative- Cage will do about 7100 at max. He only does extra damage for each ally of his still alive, meaning he can get the bonus 1300 twice.

Erm, every other "for each non-downed ally" we've seen, like ninjas and whatnot, count the user as well.

All the ninja abilities says 'do X, plus X for each non-downed ally' as opposed to just 'X for each non-downed ally'. Only Gorgon breaks this as Awaken the Hand says 'does X damage for each non-downed ally' but clearly counts himself.

"For each non-downed ally" remains the same in both examples you gave, though, and I don't see how the rest of the wording would change what that means unless it was "not counting [caster]".

Colognoisseur

I initially specced Luke Gage at 3/5/5. My reasoning was I liked the flexibility of black being able to take down two targets for 12AP. At three the yellow still hit for 3800 which seemed good enough.

Then I played with him in Combined Arms, Earth's Mightiest Heros PvP and the Hulk PvE. I've been playing him with x-force and 4hor and in that line up yellow is very very good and the black is hardly ever played. After the current pvp is over I will be immediately respeccing to 5/5/3 because Caged Sex Goddess will be my Season Simulator team.

Now to the red; at max it is completely amazing. It is bad board insurance because you can afford to cut off a dangerous color even though you can't use it because you take no damage in return. It is cascade insurance as I've had massive cascades go off for 6 damage. Yes you have to deal with all the AP the opponent has but you also don't have a character who took lot of damage too. Team-ups don't hurt as much anymore. The lack of match damage means way less health packs and sessions can go on much longer. i haven't tried it yet but a daken luke cage patch team might be as annoying as it gets.
Finally personally it is the anti Moonstone PvE Gravity Warp. I jate hate hated getting tagged by that for 2K or more in high level PvE...not anymore. Sweet Christmas that felt good with every moonstone node in The Hulk PvE.

I think the posters above who advocate 5/3/5 for transitioners might have it right as Luke cage might be the 3* version of ares as a damage dealer and in the early days of 3* transitions with the covers available there are worse characters to be going after.
I think I will be using him a lot in the near future especially once he is 5/5/3.

Quebbster

A little disappointed that Jab only stuns when the countdown is already on the board. I'm definitely leaning towards 5/5/3 as well, since in practice I tend to save up at least 12 black AP before Jabbing anyway.
Cage is lots of fun with Mystique and MN Magneto though.

Phaserhawk

Colognoisseur wrote:

I initially specced Luke Gage at 3/5/5. My reasoning was I liked the flexibility of black being able to take down two targets for 12AP. At three the yellow still hit for 3800 which seemed good enough.

Then I played with him in Combined Arms, Earth's Mightiest Heros PvP and the Hulk PvE. I've been playing him with x-force and 4hor and in that line up yellow is very very good and the black is hardly ever played. After the current pvp is over I will be immediately respeccing to 5/5/3 because Caged Sex Goddess will be my Season Simulator team.

Now to the red; at max it is completely amazing. It is bad board insurance because you can afford to cut off a dangerous color even though you can't use it because you take no damage in return. It is cascade insurance as I've had massive cascades go off for 6 damage. Yes you have to deal with all the AP the opponent has but you also don't have a character who took lot of damage too. Team-ups don't hurt as much anymore. The lack of match damage means way less health packs and sessions can go on much longer. i haven't tried it yet but a daken luke cage patch team might be as annoying as it gets.
Finally personally it is the anti Moonstone PvE Gravity Warp. I jate hate hated getting tagged by that for 2K or more in high level PvE...not anymore. Sweet Christmas that felt good with every moonstone node in The Hulk PvE.

I think the posters above who advocate 5/3/5 for transitioners might have it right as Luke cage might be the 3* version of ares as a damage dealer and in the early days of 3* transitions with the covers available there are worse characters to be going after.
I think I will be using him a lot in the near future especially once he is 5/5/3.

Thanks for the update, good to know hands on experience, sorry you made the wrong turn at 3/5/5 first, but thanks for sharing the right way. I can't wait to get some more covers and get him 5/5/3, now I just need 4hor covers.

Unknown

Many thanks to Colognoisseur for your updates. It really helps in knowing what I want to spec him to. Thank you!

Marc_Spector

Likewise, Colognoisseur! Long time player, first time poster -- thanks so much for your thoughts and review, here and elsewhere. Glad to hear Luke Cage has such good endgame potential (although, I do wish one of his moves was actually called "SWEET CHRISTMAS!!!" )

Unknown

So I have a board full of charge tiles, zero red normal tiles.

Then Luke's unbreakable animation keeps popping up every turn even though he doesn't place any protect tile.

Anybody else experience this? Might be able to test with daken to see if it's a problem with Luke or with Thorina's charge tiles.

SolidQ

Arondite wrote:

Negative- Cage will do about 7100 at max. He only does extra damage for each ally of his still alive, meaning he can get the bonus 1300 twice.

He's does 7796 dmg at max lvl

4531 + 1310 + 1310 + 655 Don't know why luke count himself twice lesser

Unknown

Deadpooool wrote:

So I have a board full of charge tiles, zero red normal tiles.

Then Luke's unbreakable animation keeps popping up every turn even though he doesn't place any protect tile.

Anybody else experience this? Might be able to test with daken to see if it's a problem with Luke or with Thorina's charge tiles.

I don't really have a viable 4Thor to playtest but could you please test to see if the issues happens with Blade's Thirst on a board with sufficient red but all are charged tiles. Thanks!

Vhailorx

Colognoisseur wrote:

I initially specced Luke Gage at 3/5/5. My reasoning was I liked the flexibility of black being able to take down two targets for 12AP. At three the yellow still hit for 3800 which seemed good enough.

Then I played with him in Combined Arms, Earth's Mightiest Heros PvP and the Hulk PvE. I've been playing him with x-force and 4hor and in that line up yellow is very very good and the black is hardly ever played. After the current pvp is over I will be immediately respeccing to 5/5/3 because Caged Sex Goddess will be my Season Simulator team.

Now to the red; at max it is completely amazing. It is bad board insurance because you can afford to cut off a dangerous color even though you can't use it because you take no damage in return. It is cascade insurance as I've had massive cascades go off for 6 damage. Yes you have to deal with all the AP the opponent has but you also don't have a character who took lot of damage too. Team-ups don't hurt as much anymore. The lack of match damage means way less health packs and sessions can go on much longer. i haven't tried it yet but a daken luke cage patch team might be as annoying as it gets.
Finally personally it is the anti Moonstone PvE Gravity Warp. I jate hate hated getting tagged by that for 2K or more in high level PvE...not anymore. Sweet Christmas that felt good with every moonstone node in The Hulk PvE.

I think the posters above who advocate 5/3/5 for transitioners might have it right as Luke cage might be the 3* version of ares as a damage dealer and in the early days of 3* transitions with the covers available there are worse characters to be going after.
I think I will be using him a lot in the near future especially once he is 5/5/3.

Thanks as usual for taking the first stab at a new character and reporting your result colog!

With respect to 3/5/5 v. 5/5/3, what is your recommendation for players that don't have 4* thor? It does seem as though his yellow is among the stronger 3*/4* yellows, and is therefore a good outlet for all the yellow charged tiles that 4* thor produces, but there are still lots of players that don't yet have viable 4*s, but are solidly playing in the 3* space. That means no extra yellow harvest from 4* thor and no surgical strike to eat all the black. is 5/5/3 still the best choice? i think the lower cost of black makes it more attractive (you can split targets, and double up on strike tiles). Plus, if you do manage to collect lots of AP, 18 black (3 casts) will do more damage than 18 yellow (1 cast).

No matter how you slice it though, Cage seems like a very worth addition (without any obvious game-breaking exploits). Much closer to blade and mystique than gamora and doc oc. Well done devs!

Unknown

In case anyone's wondering, an enemy's Jab Jab Cross CD doesn't count for you when you use it. I figure it wouldn't work but the description didn't say it had to be yours...

For his build, it depends on who you already have. His yellow is a bit better than black but if you already have say Thor (3*) then you don't need to double up on yellow either and might as well go for 3/5/5. In general it seems slightly easier to find a great black power than a yellow one given X Force sits at the top of the power curve and definitely covers black, but your individual scenario might vary. Since the AI plays the black terribly (they'll just spam it for next to no damage) yellow is likely a better choice unless you already have a lot of guys strong on yellow, and the only guy I can think of that fits that description would be Thor (3*), NIck Fury, and possibly Sentry. Black Panther doesn't count because he also covers black just fine and if you're running the two together it's far more likely you'll have some scenario you use a Righteous Uppercut over Battleplan as opposed to using Jab Jab Cross over Rage of the Panther.

Unknown

In his pvp I've been using him underleveled hiding behind Patch and Daken. Amazing for climbing without taking any damage. 2 regen guys taking all hits and soaking occasional special, protect tile that makes sure they go back up faster after that, Jab works wonders with Strike tiles Patch brings and active nukes on 5 colours. Just wow.

Xenoberyll

I'm probably going 5/5/3 but i'd like to see the stats for 5/4/4 before committing

Quebbster

I find it amusing that the protect tile stays on board after Luke is downed. I get a mental image of his teammates using his unconscious body as a shield.

NorthernPolarity

Nivrax wrote:

In his pvp I've been using him underleveled hiding behind Patch and Daken. Amazing for climbing without taking any damage. 2 regen guys taking all hits and soaking occasional special, protect tile that makes sure they go back up faster after that, Jab works wonders with Strike tiles Patch brings and active nukes on 5 colours. Just wow.

Ive been thinking about the defense tile / true healing combination, and i thought it was unnecessary: both abilities negate match damage so the main benefit is to heal up after a string of large blows that would kill you otherwise: are you finding that it actually increases survivability to a noticeable difference than without? Active abilties seem great on this team, but i feel like 5/3/5 would be optimal for this team comp due to you not really needing the def tile due to true healing.

Unknown

NorthernPolarity wrote:

up after a string of large blows that would kill you otherwise: are you finding that it actually increases survivability to a noticeable difference than without? Active abilties seem great on this team, but i feel like 5/3/5 would be optimal for this team comp due to you not really needing the def tile due to true healing.

I can't say how this will work at max level as I only have access to 94 leveled version of characters (though full covered Patch), but way I see it that after one of your true healing guys eats big nuke or two small in short timeframe, defensive tile makes sure that you continue to heal instead of having match damage negate it, and you have chance to get up in life in same match. It certainly saved me from death when Ares get two cascades in match, stabilized fine after Onslaugh and Sunder and could survive second Onslaugh + Rampage. If I were only to use him on this team, yeah, 3 Red should be enough. But general consensus seems like it's good skill to max just to have versality to use him elsewhere.

Unknown

Has anyone faced a fully leveled/covered luke in pvp yet? It seems like he might be a good defensive character to keep the game going a bit longer so you defensive characters can build up the ap they need. For example with lady Thor he might increase the chances of her getting blue and red off in a match rather than just one. Of course the tile does not to much about abilities so maybe it actually all that relevant. I would also say he needs to be 5/5/3 for a defense oriented build because the AI uses jab poorly.

Just curious if anyone had some experience fighting him and could weigh in on his defensive abilities.

NorthernPolarity

mageofshadow wrote:

Has anyone faced a fully leveled/covered luke in pvp yet? It seems like he might be a good defensive character to keep the game going a bit longer so you defensive characters can build up the ap they need. For example with lady Thor he might increase the chances of her getting blue and red off in a match rather than just one. Of course the tile does not to much about abilities so maybe it actually all that relevant. I would also say he needs to be 5/5/3 for a defense oriented build because the AI uses jab poorly.

Just curious if anyone had some experience fighting him and could weigh in on his defensive abilities.

He seems fine on defense. I don't think yellow or black can be reliably cast on defense because the AI can't use black well and yellow is expensive, but his red alone makes him a reasonable deterrent since fighting him is extremely annoying. I don't think optimizing for defense is ever a good idea since your opponent has too much of an advantage on offense for it to really make too much of a difference. In the current metagame, you can only bring two guys counting the featured, so Cage has no place because XF / LadyThor is basically non-negotiable unless the featured really, really overlaps with one or the other. DIscounting XF / LadyThor, he's probably among the best defensive guys you can bring, just because of how his red is incredibly annoying at slowing down the match.

Unknown

Something I just noticed in the Luke PVP is that x-force is hilariously bad with luke on defense. Since jab only costs 6 it will almost always be cast before surgical strike. This makes xforces green the only ability of note he will use on defense. In this pvp xforce is actually pretty easy to beat even with a lower level roster if the cage has his black cover because of this.

Unknown

On offense his black is amazing, especially if teamed with Mystique or Doom. In PVP it looks to be a negative. Most of the time the computer will fire it off with only 6 black AP, but even if the computer had 30 black it can still only use a power once per turn. (IIRC) This seems to neuter both his power and any other powerful black user he is teamed with. I still love the design & will use him heavily in PVE & might use him to climb in PVP.