**** Ant-Man (Scott Lang) ****

Unknown

Phaserhawk wrote:

no more nerfs. As strong as Fistbuster is, by themselves they aren't scary. I mean Thor and X-Force could hands down dominate by themselves, but have you played against a Hulkbuster without any accelerators? He's not that great. I went against a Hulkbuster/Jean/Deadpool not too long ago. I left Hulkbuster for last, he only got his blue off against me, and his red after a cheating AI last ditch effort to win. Without black and attack tiles he's pretty tame

The point wasn't about defense. This game isn't about defense I am talking purely offensive here.

You don't see as much diversity at the top end of PVP because of fistbuster (which is funny, many people at the top have much bigger rosters than everyone else, but less diversity). Need to get points quick? Fistbuster. Need to shieldhop? Fistbuster. If we want more characters to see play at the top end, then they would have to do something about fist buster (more likely iron fist, 5 purp for 8 black? sheesh!).

Again, on defense it isn't an issue. Just feed off those guys for massive points. Even if you keep everything status quo, it won't hurt the game, it just makes it less diverse.

Phaserhawk

simonsez wrote:

Phaserhawk wrote:

no more nerfs.

Who are you, and what have you done with Phaserhawk?

lol

Now don't get me wrong, I'm all for balancing. To me there are very few characters that need an overall power decrease, if any. Let's say Hulkbuster is determined to need a fix. I would rather see them decrease some red, but increase blue tile conversion and strength tile, or have black do less dmg. In other words take some strength out of one skill and give it to the others, so the character's power remains the same. As for Ironfist. His purple is problematic to balance, but say you slap 2 AP onto it, I would then like to see green have stronger tiles and 1-2 less AP, that way he is kept at the same power level.

As for Antman, I would like to see blue and purple go down 1 AP, however I have been having loads of fun running him with Star Lord. 14 AP for instadeath is fun.

Polares

Phaserhawk wrote:

...

As for Antman, I would like to see blue and purple go down 1 AP, however I have been having loads of fun running him with Star Lord. 14 AP for instadeath is fun.

I really want to play Antman with Carnage (a 5/5/3 Carnage), even though some people says they are not that great together. But I still need A LOT of Antman covers, and some Carnage too so I need to wait.

Unknown

Finally maxed my antman (lvl 200 but fully covered 5-3-5). Im having trouble pairing him and finding a good team for him. Any suggestions? Been playing around in the simulator with hulkbuster and scarlet witch, and its a good team.

dkffiv

So I think I've decided on a 3/5/5 build, here's some thoughts:

Purple is good but its problem is that it can only target Purple tiles and you run out of them very quickly, especially if he's paired with Carnage. His other best friend is Patch and you're either matching away purple to get this rolling of leaving it up so blue can steal them back, so the rate the board fills shouldn't make much of a difference. 5 covers floods the board faster but the tiles are only 62 strength stronger at 270, a generous estimate would be +496 damage in tiles per turn once saturated (8 attack tiles + the trap tile = 9 purple on board). The main reason to go 5 covers in purple is that the trap lasts forever and its possible to gather up another 9 ap to cast Grow, something that I haven't really done b/c 18 AP is a ridiculous amount.

Blue is like She-Hulk/Elektra, the only time I'd consider using these characters is if I can make use of tile stealing. Extra 2 covers make him great with Carnage (those 2 are a legitimate PvP threat, especially when boosted) and Patch, pretty useful against Daken/Bullseye/Blade in PvE. Extra covers are wasted against IF but I'd rather get a much stronger use out of blue in some situations over a minor increase in purple strength.

Yellow goes from (up to) 567 to 1305 damage per turn, a 738 damage increase plus up to 450 in strike tiles (189 with 3 covers, 261 increase). In practice most of them don't seem to survive but the ability is cheap enough to use multiple times(downside is you need to need to wait for the board to fill with yellow again before recasting).

There are very few good yellow/blue users besides Nick Fury and Fury feels too slow unless you're bringing Hood along to accelerate. Plenty of great purple users though.

Unknown

dkffiv wrote:

Extra 2 covers make him great with Carnage (those 2 are a legitimate PvP threat, especially when boosted)

and so the forum-sage disagrees with the other forum-sage....who will come out on top?

Polares

dkffiv wrote:

.

...

There are very few good yellow/blue users besides Nick Fury and Fury feels too slow unless you're bringing Hood along to accelerate. Plenty of great purple users though.

This is one of the best things about him, a good CHEAP yellow. Now that I have an usable Jean to pair with IMHB I was looking for someone with a good yellow for the third guy for shield and for now my best options are Luke and Fury, but in the future when I get to cover Antman with also a good blue he will maybe fit the third man position...

Unknown

barrok wrote:

The point wasn't about defense. This game isn't about defense I am talking purely offensive here.

You don't see as much diversity at the top end of PVP because of fistbuster (which is funny, many people at the top have much bigger rosters than everyone else, but less diversity). Need to get points quick? Fistbuster. Need to shieldhop? Fistbuster. If we want more characters to see play at the top end, then they would have to do something about fist buster (more likely iron fist, 5 purp for 8 black? sheesh!).

Again, on defense it isn't an issue. Just feed off those guys for massive points. Even if you keep everything status quo, it won't hurt the game, it just makes it less diverse.

I am personally against nerfs, think of all the players who invested their time/money/efforts into a character, just to have it thrown away, that isn't fair for them. It looks like the way they are doing it now is releasing counters, which is a lot better, your character is still strong, just not all the time against certain teams.

Your problem isn't FistBuster, but the current system which favors speed to avoid losing points. You want to see more variety in teams.... even if you nerf FistBuster, something else will rise which will be the new "speed team", and all you will see are those teams. I don't see this as a solution since it will rinse/repeat, that's not an answer.

dkffiv

sagapo wrote:

barrok wrote:

The point wasn't about defense. This game isn't about defense I am talking purely offensive here.

You don't see as much diversity at the top end of PVP because of fistbuster (which is funny, many people at the top have much bigger rosters than everyone else, but less diversity). Need to get points quick? Fistbuster. Need to shieldhop? Fistbuster. If we want more characters to see play at the top end, then they would have to do something about fist buster (more likely iron fist, 5 purp for 8 black? sheesh!).

Again, on defense it isn't an issue. Just feed off those guys for massive points. Even if you keep everything status quo, it won't hurt the game, it just makes it less diverse.

I am personally against nerfs, think of all the players who invested their time/money/efforts into a character, just to have it thrown away, that isn't fair for them. It looks like the way they are doing it now is releasing counters, which is a lot better, your character is still strong, just not all the time against certain teams.

Your problem isn't FistBuster, but the current system which favors speed to avoid losing points. You want to see more variety in teams.... even if you nerf FistBuster, something else will rise which will be the new "speed team", and all you will see are those teams. I don't see this as a solution since it will rinse/repeat, that's not an answer.

For Vision I used kk kp and for KK I use kp and 4hor. Fistbuster works pretty well in all matches but if you have the super buffed characters of the week it's usually worth using them.

raisinbman wrote:

dkffiv wrote:

Extra 2 covers make him great with Carnage (those 2 are a legitimate PvP threat, especially when boosted)

and so the forum-sage disagrees with the other forum-sage....who will come out on top?

A few PvE's ago there was that (Ares?) essential against Ant-Man and IF and it was a total ****. Ant-Man is fast and his damage adds up quickly, his purple would go off in a corner and the entire board would flood with purple attack tiles (generating more every time something would drop from the top). That with some yellow spam and it wasn't hard to wipe even with him unable to utilize his blue. If you get a stale board where you're forced to make a 3 match on a different color every turn you'll probably lose someone before you have enough AP to do something. Even unbuffed he poses a moderate threat to Fistbuster because if he cascades into blue you're going to eat a lot of attack tile damage.

He's not dangerous enough to warrant killing first but he has the potential to turn a match against you. If he and Carnage are boosted they'll have so much life that at least one of their abilities is going to go off and the AI doesn't care how much damage it takes trying to kill you.

Phaserhawk

So I've been messing around with Ant-Man and changed my thoughts on best build. I was originally 5/5/3 but yellow is cheap enough and decent enough to be maxed, plus I found the problem with blue. A 5 turn CD tile. While this can't be overwritten with another special tile like his purple, unless you saved the 18 AP prior to using, there is almost no way you are going to get the extra bonus out of it, because getting 9 blue in 5 turns isn't easy without A. matching that CD tile, and B. without the AI blocking you if you start chasing blue. Purple on the otherhand can remain out, so while you have to match away some of your attack tiles, you will pretty much get them back as the board fills with purple, and there is no timer on the trap tile, thus it can remain out much, much longer.

In terms of not utilizing the dmg from blue or purple, 5/3/5 is the strongest AI useable build and will probably do most damage overall.

3/5/5 works if you have another strong purple user, or you go up against teams without a special tile creator, then you can just slowly build up blue to KO someone, but you give up quite a bit of dmg on purple. On average 3v5 on purple, doing some number crunching. Assume the trap tile stays out 3 turns. You get 4 attack at level 3 and 6 attack at level 4 and 5. This averages 436----654----1026 dmg per turn respectively. Assume it drops by one tile every turn and you can see how 5 purple adds up a lot over time.

5/5/3. The only way this really becomes useable is with StarLord and he needs to be 3/5/5. This allows you to fire out purple and blue at full potential for 14 AP vs. 18 AP.

If you build him for PvP 5/3/5 is probably going to serve you better. For PvE I can see 3/5/5 or 5/5/3

Btw. The average math for yellow is that about 3/8th's of the board will have been destroyed by the time it resolves. Which means on average 1.1 tiles are destroyed lvl3 1.5 at lvl 4 and 1.875 at lvl 5. Meaning that on avg 1.9---2.5----3.125 tiles will be left at the end of 3 rounds. they avg 1077---1417---2446 dmg over the life of the skill and will generate an additional 100---180---281 worth of strike tiles at the end. Considering you can get 2 of these off before a double resolve of blue or purple and it's by far his most consistent dmg skill, but it's not huge by any means either. I have found double casting it to be much more dmg as you avg 2126---2835---4893 respectively.

Pure mathematics state that 5/5/3 does the most theoretical, but 5/3/5 does the most actual. I'm still playing around with him, but I just don't see the combo that we thought he and Carnage was.

IMO--blue needs the mechanic where if you match purple, blue, yellow it gets another counter, this would help this skill enormously, in addition both the purple and blue need to drop by 1 as well as yellow. This speeds him up, otherwise both purple and yellow can remain as is costed, but their dmg needs to go up as well,

simonsez

A couple points missed I think... purple will run out of basic tiles pretty quickly, negating a lot of its potential damage; you should wait to cast yellow until there's not a red match on the board. This will greatly help cd survival rates. And his damage output is low and slow, which means you're probably not going to want to use him if there's not an opposing tile spammer. I never like nerfing the niche ability in an attempt to make a niche character more all-purpose.

And the thing I hate most about his blue is that it should flip tiles as soon as you cast it. As it is, you either waste a turn by placing it in anticipation of tiles that you're going to want to flip, or you end up eating a turn of damage before it starts to do something. And don't forget it might end up getting matched away immediately if the AI hits a cascade. There should never be an ability that costs 9AP and has the potential to end up doing absolutely nothing.

dkffiv

I've been using antman quite a bit an he needs some buffing. He should have been perfect in the Blade pvp but he still fell behind.

Mine is 445 but I would rather have 355. I will only play him when blue is usable.

Purple - rarely a situation where this is useful. Partnered with Carnage and the purple tiles end up getting saturated by his passive, partnered with Blade and you will use his instead. With Elektra patch you usually want to use elektras instead. PVE wise I use him against Bullseye a lot and his passive ends up destroying the trap tile. This ability needs a 33-50% damage bump on the attack tiles, with 7 or 8 tiles out it should do around as much damage as Blade's purple.

4 blue isn't fast enough to keep up with Carnage, also can't keep up with Daken Bullseye nodes. I'm fine with it not stealing immediately but I would like for blue and yellow to interact with hood black and falcap blue. Currently reduces cd tile but the effects don't trigger.

Yellow could use double damage or bonus damage when it completes (like SG green). Strike tiles could be a little stronger too. Against Daken and Blade you usually don't get all your tiles and you run out of targets when double casting too. Ran a few pve nodes with antman gamora hood and ran out of yellow targets after gamora black.

notamutant

I think he is actually a perfect 4 star partner for Phoenix. You can use her red skill a bunch and not worry about those high damage tiles.

simonsez

notamutant wrote:

I think he is actually a perfect 4 star partner for Phoenix. You can use her red skill a bunch and not worry about those high damage tiles.

I'd say let's wait and see. We've already been burned by the idea that he'd be perfect with Carnage too, and that didn't really pan out.

notamutant

simonsez wrote:

notamutant wrote:

I think he is actually a perfect 4 star partner for Phoenix. You can use her red skill a bunch and not worry about those high damage tiles.

I'd say let's wait and see. We've already been burned by the idea that he'd be perfect with Carnage too, and that didn't really pan out.

That is because Carnage had uncontrollable creation of attack tiles, 4 every time. You just couldn't keep up. With Phoenix, you can pretty much choose when the attack tiles come out, and you can wait to use blue until after they are out. His purple also would go well with the strike tiles created.

simonsez

notamutant wrote:

you can wait to use blue until after they are out.

As per my complaint above about the lag before his blue does anything, you're still going to end up eating 5x1301 damage before you flip all 4 (assuming the tile survives)

notamutant

simonsez wrote:

notamutant wrote:

you can wait to use blue until after they are out.

As per my complaint above about the lag before his blue does anything, you're still going to end up eating 5x1301 damage before you flip all 4 (assuming the tile survives)

4 red cover Phoenix creates 3 tiles. Also, taking 3k damage isn't as big of a deal for 5 stars, and you may even prefer that if you have Phoenix pre-revive. So survive just one turn and you now have like 5k+ in attack tiles every turn when you factor in the strike tiles too.

Phaserhawk

simonsez wrote:

A couple points missed I think... purple will run out of basic tiles pretty quickly, negating a lot of its potential damage; you should wait to cast yellow until there's not a red match on the board. This will greatly help cd survival rates. And his damage output is low and slow, which means you're probably not going to want to use him if there's not an opposing tile spammer. I never like nerfing the niche ability in an attempt to make a niche character more all-purpose.

And the thing I hate most about his blue is that it should flip tiles as soon as you cast it. As it is, you either waste a turn by placing it in anticipation of tiles that you're going to want to flip, or you end up eating a turn of damage before it starts to do something. And don't forget it might end up getting matched away immediately if the AI hits a cascade. There should never be an ability that costs 9AP and has the potential to end up doing absolutely nothing.

Agreed on Purple. That's why I said on avg you are only going to get 4-6 attack tiles before the trap tile is destroyed, then an exponential decay rate for those. You will avg 436-654-1026 per turn max, then it will decay about 10-20% per turn.

In regards to Phoenix, on paper they look good but as we said look at Carnage. I will say that if they do go well together, the dmg from 3-5 yellow is minimum since her strike tiles will smooth the curve.

As of now, assuming you had a maxed roster of everything, and assuming Pvp as is. Who would he pair well with?
IMHB--yes, the combo of overdrive and his yellow is solid as well as purple and overdrive. Best builds? Anything, although since you will be matching red, maybe 5/5/3?
Jean Grey--3/5/5--you aren't going to use his purple, and since there is nothing to steal for blue, blue is for dmg build up
Iceman--5/3/5, antman's purple is probably better, but blue goes to iceman
Kinpin--not a good pair, but anything with 5 yellow just to give KP more black targets
Carnage--3/5/5 you trap tile will get overwritten and blue will steal stuff albeit slowly, plus yellow is cheap to create attack tiles and you get stronger strike tiles
Thor--5/3/5 no question, her blue better
Cyclops--5/3/5 blue goes to Cyclops, and depeding on board AM's yellow could be better
XFDeadpool--3/5/5, you use DP's purple, period
PX--really any build works
Thing--not a great pairing since Thing's green counteracts all of AM's work, but they don't compete so colorwise they pair well, any build though
CapFalc--they pair decently, but their yellows compete. You need Falc yel to boost his red, but his blue helps AM's yellow. 5/5/3 probably works best
Fury--I would say 5/3/5 Fury's blue is the best of the 2
XForceWolv--much like Thing he kinda wrecks AM's purpose with the board destruction so any build really
Elektra--not a really good pairing but 3/5/5 would make them interfere the least
Mr.Fantastic--5/3/5. They overlap well give blue to Mr.F
StarLord--You want SL's to be 3/5/5 in this pairing so AM can go 5/5/3 and abuse SL's yellow to cheapen the dmg for AM purple and blue
IM--again, not a good pairing due to her board destruction, but I would say 5/3/5 for aM
DD--any build really but 5 yellow would be best.

Silver Surger--5/3/5 for AM
OML--Probably 5/5/3 if you want Logan to transform, otherwise 5/3/5
Phoenix--3/5/5 since you want her purple to feed her red

Quebbster

My Ant-man is 5/4/4 and I just got another blue cover, so I need to decide what build to go with. While I love attack tiles I also find the arguments here for 3/5/5 very completing. Opel to suggestiva though...

simonsez

Quebbster wrote:

My Ant-man is 5/4/4 and I just got another blue cover, so I need to decide what build to go with. While I love attack tiles I also find the arguments here for 3/5/5 very completing. Opel to suggestiva though...

3/5/5 is the only thing that makes sense to me. In a Carnage fight, you want to use JG's purple to clear out specials. Using him without a Carnage in play doesn't make sense, since he's way too slow and weak as a standalone. And his purple often runs out of tiles to flip, even at 3 covers, especially in PvE when you often get enemy purple protect tiles all over the place.