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

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Comments

  • Unknown
    Unknown
    simonsez wrote:
    ark123 wrote:
    Now it might get better if you somehow got your hands on 18 black all of the sudden.
    Mystique/MNMag?
    If you have 18 you already won. Plus you don't need a different outlet, just use mq's black and bring in someone who actually does something for the combo (strike tiles, more ap steal, etc)

    Edit - but assuming you didn't bring one of those, you got the combo off until you got 18 black, you don't have xforce and somehow mystique got killed, then yeah, cage is better than blade.
  • simonsez
    simonsez Posts: 4,663 Chairperson of the Boards
    ark123 wrote:
    If you have 18 you already won.
    Not if it's one of those ridiculous PvE nodes where everyone has 24k-27k health. A niche application for sure, but other than as a black outlet and damage shield for Mystique/MNMag, I'm not sure what else I'd want to do with him. Given the option, Hood is my preferred yellow outlet for GTs charged tiles.
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    simonsez wrote:
    ark123 wrote:
    If you have 18 you already won.
    Not if it's one of those ridiculous PvE nodes where everyone has 24k-27k health. A niche application for sure, but other than as a black outlet and damage shield for Mystique/MNMag, I'm not sure what else I'd want to do with him. Given the option, Hood is my preferred yellow outlet for GTs charged tiles.

    I use him paired with falcon and blade to do every easy node taking zero damage, and really really fast.
  • NorthernPolarity
    NorthernPolarity Posts: 3,531 Chairperson of the Boards
    simonsez wrote:
    ark123 wrote:
    If you have 18 you already won.
    Not if it's one of those ridiculous PvE nodes where everyone has 24k-27k health. A niche application for sure, but other than as a black outlet and damage shield for Mystique/MNMag, I'm not sure what else I'd want to do with him. Given the option, Hood is my preferred yellow outlet for GTs charged tiles.

    I hate Hood with XF / GT: since his color priorities suck, he ends up tanking blue and yellow for GT, meaning that he needs a health pack every 3 fights because you prioritize blue for GT. It's pretty obvious that Cage is much better for sustained pushing than Hood is: the defense tile means that no one takes any match damage ever, and the yellow outlet is as good or better than Twin Pistols. Hood might randomly win you more games on defense, but Cage is incredibly annoying on defense as well, and it seems like a no brainer to take him over Hood considering all of these factors. IMO, the best third for XF / GT now goes Loki -> Cage -> Hood. It's kind of sad really, the only time I ever feel like I need Hood is against other Hoods: versus any other team composition Loki / Cage are so much better than Hood.
  • simonsez
    simonsez Posts: 4,663 Chairperson of the Boards
    I see your points, but exposing Hood for a couple of blue matches isn't going to waste him after just 3 fights. And the AP steal that slows down the AI from getting off any abilities (while accelerating your own) might save you more health than avoiding match damage. And I like Twin Pistols during a stun because it can shake up the board and give me red/blue matches if there aren't any there. And given how much harder PvP points are to come by after the shield changes (at least for me), I would place more value on the possibility of getting defensive wins.

    But I do agree that Loki is a bigger pain in the **** than either of them.
  • Gowaderacer
    Gowaderacer Posts: 310 Mover and Shaker
    Squirrel Girl and Star-Lord had their full stats posted, how about showing Luke some love Ice?
  • IceIX
    IceIX ADMINISTRATORS Posts: 4,322 Site Admin
    Squirrel Girl icon_squirrelgirl.png wasn't the only one missing stats. Luke icon_lukecage.png here was also fixed up. Star-Lord icon_starlord.png already has his preview stats, so he's good to go. Should be caught up!
  • turul
    turul Posts: 1,622 Chairperson of the Boards
    IceIX wrote:
    Squirrel Girl icon_squirrelgirl.png wasn't the only one missing stats. Luke icon_lukecage.png here was also fixed up. Star-Lord icon_starlord.png already has his preview stats, so he's good to go. Should be caught up!

    Very unsmooth edges for newish icons!
  • vudu3
    vudu3 Posts: 940 Critical Contributor
    What turul means to say is Thanks!
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    I like how Cage is the most straightforward new character. No match damage and 7k damage for 13 yellow. Simple and ridiculously powerful
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    ark123 wrote:
    I like how Cage is the most straightforward new character. No match damage and 7k damage for 13 yellow. Simple and ridiculously powerful

    I think he's strong because his abilities are so simple it's impossible to mess them up in terms of design. This game has a very bad history of massively overestimating or underestimating the power of complicated mechanisms.
  • Wobby
    Wobby Posts: 286 Mover and Shaker
    Phantron wrote:
    ark123 wrote:
    I like how Cage is the most straightforward new character. No match damage and 7k damage for 13 yellow. Simple and ridiculously powerful

    I think he's strong because his abilities are so simple it's impossible to mess them up in terms of design. This game has a very bad history of massively overestimating or underestimating the power of complicated mechanisms.

    I am seriously considering spending the 3900 hp to get him to 5/5/2 and leveling him up.
    His next cover offer is months away, and he is a brick house. I'd love to get out ahead of the curve, especially as I don't have a playable 4hor.
    Match him up with Blade and Loki and bring onslaught TUs. That will ruin most folks day I feel. I wouldn't fight that without boosts.
  • Trisul
    Trisul Posts: 887 Critical Contributor
    Phantron wrote:
    I think he's strong because his abilities are so simple it's impossible to mess them up in terms of design. This game has a very bad history of massively overestimating or underestimating the power of complicated mechanisms.
    *cough* Doc Ock, Beast *cough*
  • Phaserhawk
    Phaserhawk Posts: 2,676 Chairperson of the Boards
    Been messing around with him, at his limited level that I have him, he pairs very well with Fury as he really reduces that match damage.
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    I'm a new player and use him in every team. He's ridiculously powerful even at 3/3/1 and he pairs really well with 2* Wolverine and 2* Magneto/2* BW.

    4 nukes in the team (3 with BW): (Yellow/Black for Luke, Red for Wolverine, Purple for Magneto).

    Most matching damage is negated, Polarity Shift takes care of Countdown tiles and creates Crits/Cascades, which in turn build up AP for the nukes. This guy is invaluable for a transitioning player like me and pairs really well with Wolverine. In the current sub of MR&G I only need one health pack to clear all nodes.
  • Scoregasms
    Scoregasms Posts: 373
    I know it's been stated already in this thread, but paired with 4hor and having a nuke outlet for charged yellows is pretty nice, dropping a 7k+ uppercut that doesn't end the turn on someone is pretty satisfying and helps to end matches more quickly. It's a great finisher when you've got someone down to 6K and the other is at 10K to uppercut the 6K target then charged smite the other down while keeping the third goon locked down via power surge.

    At first I didn't bring Cage to Goon Nodes because they don't do match damage and figured his red was useless, but I've recently changed that and started to bring him to those all goon nodes instead of Falcon or Daken and seen much faster matches mainly for his yellow and the occasional mitigation against match damage from tiles resolving and causing cascades.
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    Just adding in the Cage love. I have him at 2/3/2 and can't wait to get him up to 5/3/5. He's such a great character for transitioning. I've found he pairs really well with Dr. Doom because he fuels black and with Diabolical plot, uppercut, and jab you get a great mix of nukes and defense.

    On another note, when do you think we will see another Cage PVP or PVE so we can get more covers?
  • Trisul
    Trisul Posts: 887 Critical Contributor
    I think he'll eventually be #1 on NorthernPolarity's list of 3* transition characters, simply because of how much better he makes 2*s. He basically makes OBW and MNMags into 3*s.

    Transitioners could use HP a lot worse than buying covers for Cage.
  • NorthernPolarity
    NorthernPolarity Posts: 3,531 Chairperson of the Boards
    Trisul wrote:
    I think he'll eventually be #1 on NorthernPolarity's list of 3* transition characters, simply because of how much better he makes 2*s. He basically makes OBW and MNMags into 3*s.

    Transitioners could use HP a lot worse than buying covers for Cage.

    Well that's why he's high tier right now. My main beef with him is that he isn't that great at carrying a team with damage: uppercut / jab are relatively efficient, but fall short compared to stuff like thunder strike into CtS, or RotP. His defensive capabilities is pretty impressive, but OBW + Cage would probably take far more time to take down a team than OBW + LazyThor, for instance.
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    Trisul wrote:
    I think he'll eventually be #1 on NorthernPolarity's list of 3* transition characters, simply because of how much better he makes 2*s. He basically makes OBW and MNMags into 3*s.

    Transitioners could use HP a lot worse than buying covers for Cage.

    OBW double hitting with Patch tiles is filthy. My entire transition was done on the back of those characters - zerker rage and match some opposite strike tiles for a 2k nuke. Luke is really good but he doesn't ramp up your damage to a point where you can reliably take down big targets.

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