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

Vhailorx

FlaDoc wrote:

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.

I think this definitely the case with most abilities. The AI is dumb as a rock, so it really benefits from abilities that should be cast as soon as the ap is available, and from passives. This is why characters like ares and black panther are solid defensively: there isn't much art or synergy to their powers, you just cast them as available and enjoy. Same with Daken and hood, you just piggy back on the fact that their passive abilities will work appropriately in spite of the ai.

So Cage's black definitely doesn't fit that bill. His other two powers are pretty good defensively though, a fairly strong nuke in a relatively open color, and a great passive that will make him a real pest to fight.

Unknown

NorthernPolarity wrote:

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.

Yellow can totally be used on defense. It will often straight up kill a character, it's that good.

Black, however, is horrendous and cheaper than SS, meaning xforce is a bad pairing, which means he's probably better for people without maxed 4*s.

Phaserhawk

NorthernPolarity wrote:

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.

I'm not so sure. If featured had a strong green, a 4hor/Cage/featured could be a very strong team and more likely to deter someone attacking you since this becomes a skill useage game and match damage is gone, this will easily add 10-15 turns onto the match unless you alpha strike cage. Cage's yellow combos well with 4hor, so once Power Surge goes off, you now have 2 alpha strike skills in Uppercut and Smite.

Trisul

For transitioners, Luke Cage is the perfect hero to pair with MNMags/CStorm in PvE and during PvP climbing. Rainbow colors, double stun, big nukes in multiple colors, protected from match damage, the giant cascades will feed all your abilities. Switch em out with OBW and Ares/Thor for defense.

Unknown

I would switch the color scheme around. It looks a bit dark for a jokester hero.

Unknown

ArciaWOTH wrote:

I would switch the color scheme around. It looks a bit dark for a jokester hero.

You've never read even one comic with luke in it, have you

ClydeFrog76

Well spank my bottom and call me Wilbur, I just pulled a Jab, Jab, Cross from a Standard

Unknown

The change to high level opponent match damage made Luke Cage significantly better because now you can reduce a significant portion of the incoming damage.

Pylgrim

Can we have a poll on preferred build or are we waiting for final ability descriptions at all levels? We need Ice, stat!

Trisul

Pylgrim wrote:

Can we have a poll on preferred build or are we waiting for final ability descriptions at all levels? We need Ice, stat!

5/3/5 for transitioners (they need the extra damage on both abilities)
5/5/3 for teaming up with 4* (XF black is better, LadyThor feeds yellow) <---- likely to be most popular build
3/5/5 for comboing with black feeders (Doom, MNstique combo)

Unknown

Trisul wrote:

Pylgrim wrote:

Can we have a poll on preferred build or are we waiting for final ability descriptions at all levels? We need Ice, stat!

5/3/5 for transitioners (they need the extra damage on both abilities)
5/5/3 for teaming up with 4* (XF black is better, LadyThor feeds yellow) <---- likely to be most popular build
3/5/5 for comboing with black feeders (Doom, MNstique combo)

Having seen what 5 cover black and full cover yellow can do on a 166 cage I'm gonna say the 5/5/3 build is the correct one unless you literally have nothing else to do with black ap. Yellow does a ridiculous amount of damage and the difference between 4 and 5 covers is almost 2k damage. When paired with Falcon and another tile producer (daken, blade, whatever), this combo just chews through pve.

Pylgrim

It's too bad we don't have the complete skillset, but I'm wondering if 5/4/4 would be good? If the strength of the protect tile doesn't jump that much from 4 to 5 covers, I think it would be nice to get the stun on the black ability at 4 covers instead.

Phaserhawk

Pylgrim wrote:

It's too bad we don't have the complete skillset, but I'm wondering if 5/4/4 would be good? If the strength of the protect tile doesn't jump that much from 4 to 5 covers, I think it would be nice to get the stun on the black ability at 4 covers instead.

The jump from 4 to 5 black is about double the damage, so it's pointless to only go 4. Pretty much the consensus is, if you are a transition roster with 2*'s then cage 5/3/5 is the better build as he can be your primary source of damage and protector, as you get a more diverse roster, you then want to specialize him and either a 5/5/3 or 3/5/5 build is recomended, they both do darn close to the same amount of damage. At this point and others discussed, if you have a maxed X-Force then you want 5/5/3 as Colongneissur stated he went 3/5/5 and didn't like it, if you say are more in the 3* range and you have a 3* Thor, then I 3/5/5 would better serve you until you get a stronger black since you would rather use Thor's yellow.

In summation

2*to 3* transition go 5/3/5

4* roster go 5/5/3 (X-Force and 4hor really want Cage to be 5/5/3)
Solid 3* go 3/5/5 (Thor, Deadpool, Daken want Cage to be 3/5/5)

Unknown

Phaserhawk wrote:

Solid 3* go 3/5/5 (Thor, Deadpool, Daken want Cage to be 3/5/5)

Disagree. There are plenty better 3* blacks (blade, bp, hell, even mohawk) and very few better yellows (BP is about as good, Lthor is better, and that's it)

Unknown

ark123 wrote:

Phaserhawk wrote:

Solid 3* go 3/5/5 (Thor, Deadpool, Daken want Cage to be 3/5/5)

Disagree. There are plenty better 3* blacks (blade, bp, hell, even mohawk) and very few better yellows (BP is about as good, Lthor is better, and that's it)

If you have BP you have a better black by definition.

Phaserhawk

ark123 wrote:

Phaserhawk wrote:

Solid 3* go 3/5/5 (Thor, Deadpool, Daken want Cage to be 3/5/5)

Disagree. There are plenty better 3* blacks (blade, bp, hell, even mohawk) and very few better yellows (BP is about as good, Lthor is better, and that's it)

If you have a BP then yes that changes things, but Blade? I agree his black is nice but Cage's hits harder and cheaper, sure you don't get the AP steal, but sometimes that's moot depending on the color. I think 5/5/3 is better overall but depending upon your 3* make up, and I chose a few of the top 3*'s most of them want Cage 3/5/5

hesjingixen

I've been pondering a build for this guy, and I was curious if anyone had the stats for a rank 3 red at max level. I've seen that it's 268 at 5 ranks, but I'm pondering a 5/3/5 build for him, and I want to know how much worse 3 covers is than 5 with regards to his red shield tile at max level.

Unknown

My 40 lvl Luke Cage:
_4_ -> 986 + 286
_5_ -> 1425 + 413
_3_ -> 45
_3_ -> 246 or 818

Unknown

Phaserhawk wrote:

ark123 wrote:

Phaserhawk wrote:

Solid 3* go 3/5/5 (Thor, Deadpool, Daken want Cage to be 3/5/5)

Disagree. There are plenty better 3* blacks (blade, bp, hell, even mohawk) and very few better yellows (BP is about as good, Lthor is better, and that's it)

If you have a BP then yes that changes things, but Blade? I agree his black is nice but Cage's hits harder and cheaper, sure you don't get the AP steal, but sometimes that's moot depending on the color. I think 5/5/3 is better overall but depending upon your 3* make up, and I chose a few of the top 3*'s most of them want Cage 3/5/5

I'm ready to call Blade's black better than Cage's, yes. Easily better. Specially factoring in that the first 6 black do pretty close to nothing. So if you really want it to do something, you need 12 black. I'm not gonna list what you can do with 12 black because you know. Now it might get better if you somehow got your hands on 18 black all of the sudden.

So yeah. Lets call it that. Blade's black is worse if you start off with 18 black. And only then.

simonsez

ark123 wrote:

Now it might get better if you somehow got your hands on 18 black all of the sudden.

Mystique/MNMag?