**** Star-Lord (Legendary Outlaw) ****

Unknown

I mean honestly, this isn't even Elektra level. This is close to IW levels of crappiness

morph3us

ark123 wrote:

Here's the only way he's even remotely playable:

Lvls 3 through 5 of his abilities make them better and are - 1ap.

Countdowns? Seriously? I mean sure we always talk about how goons would be good characters, but this isn't what we meant.

Agreed. I'm also concerned that he's too slow to make an impact. You need to gather 7 yellow AP or 8 red AP before he effectively becomes Hood across all colours (presuming the ability adds full colour spectrum coverage at 4-5 covers), and even then, he's dependent on that randomly placed countdown tile. Given that Dormmamu's Aid is active from Turn 1, Hood's much better. Star-Lord's only advantage is his potential maxed health, presuming he has Fury level health.

It depends on what that fifth cover does in yellow and red.

Unknown

I mean jesus, they even made it so him dealing damage means you're losing the ap increase/decrease. This guy just doesn't do anything well. Is that the joke? That Starlord kinda screwed up constantly?

Unknown

His yellow is a disaster waiting to happen. Either it goes to -2 or even -3 AP cost leading to all kinds of crazy infinite combos, or it doesn't do that and stay at -1 so why would you want to use 7 AP to decrease the cost of an ability by 1? Are you really planning to use 8 AP consuming moves in 3 turns to come out ahead by 1 AP? It'd be much better if it's something like 'increases the effectiveness of (insert color) by (some #)', as that'd be way easier to tweak to get the desired effect. I don't have too much of an opinion on the other two abilities since it's hard to say how good they are without seeing the numbers, but I don't see how his yellow not end up either totally overpowered or totally useless.

Trisul

Phantron wrote:

His yellow is a disaster waiting to happen. Either it goes to -2 or even -3 AP cost leading to all kinds of crazy infinite combos, or it doesn't do that and stay at -1 so why would you want to use 7 AP to decrease the cost of an ability by 1? Are you really planning to use 8 AP consuming moves in 3 turns to come out ahead by 1 AP? It'd be much better if it's something like 'increases the effectiveness of (insert color) by (some #)', as that'd be way easier to tweak to get the desired effect. I don't have too much of an opinion on the other two abilities since it's hard to say how good they are without seeing the numbers, but I don't see how his yellow not end up either totally overpowered or totally useless.

I don't see too much potential for infinite combos, considering that AP generation via tile destruction (this includes matching) will destroy countdown tiles that he's reliant on. If the AP discount was passive, I'd be more worried.

CrookedKnight

Here's what I'd do to make his yellow and red worthwhile:

Level 3: Increases AP cost reduction/penalty to 2. Affects four colors.
Level 4: Countdown duration increased by 2. Affects five colors.
Level 5: When the countdown tile resolves or is matched/destroyed, it replaces itself with another countdown of the same color and duration that reduces friendly costs/increases enemy costs by 1. When that tile is matched/destroyed or resolves, it disappears as normal.

Unknown

Trisul wrote:

Phantron wrote:

His yellow is a disaster waiting to happen. Either it goes to -2 or even -3 AP cost leading to all kinds of crazy infinite combos, or it doesn't do that and stay at -1 so why would you want to use 7 AP to decrease the cost of an ability by 1? Are you really planning to use 8 AP consuming moves in 3 turns to come out ahead by 1 AP? It'd be much better if it's something like 'increases the effectiveness of (insert color) by (some #)', as that'd be way easier to tweak to get the desired effect. I don't have too much of an opinion on the other two abilities since it's hard to say how good they are without seeing the numbers, but I don't see how his yellow not end up either totally overpowered or totally useless.

I don't see too much potential for infinite combos, considering that AP generation via tile destruction (this includes matching) will destroy countdown tiles that he's reliant on. If the AP discount was passive, I'd be more worried.

If it's -3 AP, you can probably get pretty close with just multiple Thunderclaps and then use the green to try to loop back to something (green has all sorts of massive random AP generation abilities). You can already do something like Polarized Force -> Surgical Strike (a color that isn't red or green or black) -> X Force and there's a decent chance it'll somehow loop back to itself even when Surgical Strike is on the wrong color and none of these abilities generate any specific color AP that you need in the combo (if Surgical Strike is on green or red this combo will very easily loop itself in about 1-2 turns for red while green would usually be immediatelly loopable). I'm sure there's something else I haven't thought of at this point, and if it's less than -3 AP I'm not seeing how this would even make sense because at -2, you'd still need to use 4 moves to gain +1 AP and that just doesn't seem likely, but at -3 you start having quite a few moves that are down to 1 match range and the potential for abuse is definitely there.

Vhailorx

I have to agree with Phantron. Either he ends up reducing the cost of skills too much, in which case we are back to the old days of 2ap ability spamming, or he doesn't reduce the cost enough, in which case there is no reason to waste 7 yellow AP just to save 1 ap of some other color (or maybe 2 ap if it's a cheap, spammable skill).

On top of that, his purple is on par with Fury (he doesn't create a nice giant strike tile, or do direct damage on casting, but he does get to choose the location, so it will resolve more often), which means its fine but not great. And his red just seems less good than an AP denying power like Hood's blue, which effectively increases the cost of enemy skills (by stealing AP) AND gives them to the player.

Obviously his 5 cover powers could have secret cookies that turn things around, but first impression is that this is a colossus style character. Some interesting game mechanics, but nothing good enough to actually use. Not even as interesting as elektra.

Infrared

Looks like Spider-man's stun lock could become viable again.

Sleight of Hand sounds like it will let you target enemy special tiles at higher levels.

CrookedKnight

It lets you target enemy special tiles off the bat. If the description's correct, it'll overwrite anything but a countdown tile at level 1 (and hopefully will upgrade to either overwriting any tile, placing more countdowns, or both)

Spoit

Not even remotely impressed but I mean, he's already streets ahead of where elektra is, so he has that going for him at least?

And yeah, the 5th covers for 4* powers are usually way more transformative than normal

Unknown

Ben Grimm wrote:

He also looks like he probably needs to be */5/5 to be usable.

Unless 5 in yellow does something bonkers, I can't imagine going anything but 535. His yellow looks awful, his purple looks good, and his red looks useable with a chance to be good depending on cover upgrades

Vhailorx

Spoit wrote:

Not even remotely impressed but I mean, he's already streets ahead of where elektra is, so he has that going for him at least?

And yeah, the 5th covers for 4* powers are usually way more transformative than normal

I disagree on his value relative to elektra. As phantron says, his key power seems certain to be either wildly game breaking, or basically worthless.

Elektra's marquee ability at release was true damage avoidance, which was really intriguing until we saw the final build. In the end that power is good, but not on par with xforce or 4* thor (if you don't believe this power is good, try to fight a high level elektra when she is the last character and has 10 black. It can get quite painful). And it can be argued that purple actually ends up being her most useful power (even if it is only truly great in certain circumstances.

Both are underwhelming compared to the premier 4*s, and were so even upon first viewing. But I think elektra was more interesting that starlord at first, and may well remain so if his powers don't scale very well.

simonsez

Trisul wrote:

He'll help against Ragnarok, Juggernaut

Countdowns vs. massive board shake seems like an iffy idea...

NorthernPolarity

ark123 wrote:

I mean honestly, this isn't even Elektra level. This is close to IW levels of crappiness

That's just low. Purple alone is probably gonna be like 7k at the lowest at level 5 for 10AP, which is miles better than anything that IW can do.

Regarding his yellow, I dunno. I'm thinking about what would happen if it reduced everything by two, and would that really be that OP? I think 1 AP would be worthless, and 2 AP would be good, but not completely broken.

Phaserhawk

Are people seriously trashing him already? First off his red is godly, delaying skills just 1 turn is massive and has no one thought how his yellow will be amazing with 4hor? I have a very strong feeling this guy is going to be top tier, mark my words, this is the new Hood of 4*'s

NorthernPolarity

Phantron wrote:

Trisul wrote:

Phantron wrote:

His yellow is a disaster waiting to happen. Either it goes to -2 or even -3 AP cost leading to all kinds of crazy infinite combos, or it doesn't do that and stay at -1 so why would you want to use 7 AP to decrease the cost of an ability by 1? Are you really planning to use 8 AP consuming moves in 3 turns to come out ahead by 1 AP? It'd be much better if it's something like 'increases the effectiveness of (insert color) by (some #)', as that'd be way easier to tweak to get the desired effect. I don't have too much of an opinion on the other two abilities since it's hard to say how good they are without seeing the numbers, but I don't see how his yellow not end up either totally overpowered or totally useless.

I don't see too much potential for infinite combos, considering that AP generation via tile destruction (this includes matching) will destroy countdown tiles that he's reliant on. If the AP discount was passive, I'd be more worried.

If it's -3 AP, you can probably get pretty close with just multiple Thunderclaps and then use the green to try to loop back to something (green has all sorts of massive random AP generation abilities). You can already do something like Polarized Force -> Surgical Strike (a color that isn't red or green or black) -> X Force and there's a decent chance it'll somehow loop back to itself even when Surgical Strike is on the wrong color and none of these abilities generate any specific color AP that you need in the combo (if Surgical Strike is on green or red this combo will very easily loop itself in about 1-2 turns for red while green would usually be immediatelly loopable). I'm sure there's something else I haven't thought of at this point, and if it's less than -3 AP I'm not seeing how this would even make sense because at -2, you'd still need to use 4 moves to gain +1 AP and that just doesn't seem likely, but at -3 you start having quite a few moves that are down to 1 match range and the potential for abuse is definitely there.

I seriously doubt -2 AP does this: any combo is going to involve board shake up, which probably results in your CD tile being destroyed.

Phaserhawk wrote:

Are people seriously trashing him already? First off his red is godly, delaying skills just 1 turn is massive and has no one thought how his yellow will be amazing with 4hor? I have a very strong feeling this guy is going to be top tier, mark my words, this is the new Hood of 4*'s

You're on the other end of the spectrum bro. Hood is good because his support abilities are all passive. Starlord's abilities aren't. I don't see the point with his yellow and 4or: by the time you surge and smite, the game's already half over: the most important part of the game is getting to surge+smite in the first place: using starlord's yellow after that point is pretty much a moot point. It accelerates the initial surge / smite, but meh, doubt it's even half as good as Loki is at doing that.

Unknown

NorthernPolarity wrote:

I seriously doubt -2 AP does this: any combo is going to involve board shake up, which probably results in your CD tile being destroyed.

Err, that's why I said at -3 AP it'd be broken. I can't think of any broken cases at -2, but at -2 you'd need to be able to use 4 abilities in 3 turns to get your value back. Now if the ability turns to something like '-2 AP cost plus some other stuff' that might work out, but that's impossible to predict based on its current powers. The fact that the tile itself will probably get destroyed eventually doesn't really matter because let's say we've a hypothetical -3 AP yellow, so say you have 9 red and you do 3 Thunderclaps, adding 12 green to the board, which is going to be an absolutely monstrous cascade and you should be able to assemble whatever nasty combo you're trying to do from there. You're talking about adding an amount of green equal to 2 Deceptive Tactics for 9r + 7y here, and sure it's not targeted but it probably doesn't even matter because you're adding so many green, it's bound to overload the board. For PvP you won't even need to try to infinite at this point because with a third decent green user that should immediately end the game (though fielding this team might be difficult under the current format). Okay maybe 9r + 7y isn't that unbelievably fast for PvP, but I doubt Thunderclap is the most broken thing you can do with this. It's just the first thing I'd like to try if it is indeed -3 AP. Another thing that comes to mind is that you can do Psychic Knife for 2 red AP after 3 strike tiles are up, and while Psylocke is pretty weak so that this might be sort of okay, that just doesn't sound right at all. Chemical Reaction at 2 blue AP would be quite broken too (if it applies to blue with some upgrade). There are just so many things that can go wrong at -3 AP, but -2 AP just doesn't seem like it'd be enough to justify the cost.

NorthernPolarity

Phantron wrote:

NorthernPolarity wrote:

I seriously doubt -2 AP does this: any combo is going to involve board shake up, which probably results in your CD tile being destroyed.

Err, that's why I said at -3 AP it'd be broken. I can't think of any broken cases at -2, but at -2 you'd need to be able to use 4 abilities in 3 turns to get your value back. Now if the ability turns to something like '-2 AP cost plus some other stuff' that might work out, but that's impossible to predict based on its current powers. The fact that the tile itself will probably get destroyed eventually doesn't really matter because let's say we've a hypothetical -3 AP yellow, so say you have 9 red and you do 3 Thunderclaps, adding 12 green to the board, which is going to be an absolutely monstrous cascade and you should be able to assemble whatever nasty combo you're trying to do from there. You're talking about adding an amount of green equal to 2 Deceptive Tactics for 9r + 7y here, and sure it's not targeted but it probably doesn't even matter because you're adding so many green, it's bound to overload the board. For PvP you won't even need to try to infinite at this point because with a third decent green user that should immediately end the game (though fielding this team might be difficult under the current format). Okay maybe 9r + 7y isn't that unbelievably fast for PvP, but I doubt Thunderclap is the most broken thing you can do with this. It's just the first thing I'd like to try if it is indeed -3 AP. Another thing that comes to mind is that you can do Psychic Knife for 2 red AP after 3 strike tiles are up, and while Psylocke is pretty weak so that this might be sort of okay, that just doesn't sound right at all. Chemical Reaction at 2 blue AP would be quite broken too (if it applies to blue with some upgrade). There are just so many things that can go wrong at -3 AP, but -2 AP just doesn't seem like it'd be enough to justify the cost.

Meh, depends on what you consider "justify the cost" to be: it's obviously no Smite, but a 2 AP reduction on say 3 abilities more than justifies the cost. Remember that not all colors of AP are created equal, so doing something like going Starlord yellow into surge / smite or surgical could be decent. Certainly not game breaking or something to prioritize, but if you incidentally get yellow through a cascade, it would definitely be worth matching another yellow to get the AP cheapening on your other abilities. It's not crazy good, but its certainly at least average.

Vhailorx

NorthernPolarity wrote:

Meh, depends on what you consider "justify the cost" to be: it's obviously no Smite, but a 2 AP reduction on say 3 abilities more than justifies the cost. Remember that not all colors of AP are created equal, so doing something like going Starlord yellow into surge / smite or surgical could be decent. Certainly not game breaking or something to prioritize, but if you incidentally get yellow through a cascade, it would definitely be worth matching another yellow to get the AP cheapening on your other abilities. It's not crazy good, but its certainly at least average.

There is definitely some value in shifting ap from one color to another (i.e., a 10 ap move that generates 7 ap in another color might be worth it, depending on the other color), but there is definitely a tipping point to this kind of arbitrage.

I have a hard time thinking that a -2 modifier for starlord's yellow will be worth it most of the time. Assuming it still costs 7 ap, and assuming that you can cast 3 abilities during the countdown period, that's effectively turning 7 yellow ap into 6 ap of other colors. that's not a bad ability. But I don't think it's good enough to be premier (look at some of the other best ap generation skills like mnmags, GSBW, or the old gold standard of pre-nerf cMags). And I expect that waiting until you can actually get 3 abilities off during the countdown will be a better than average scenario.

Maybe there is some hidden value to effectively generating ap of any color, rather than one particular one, but I remain somewhat skeptical.