Sundance2112 wrote: I've done a lot of reading and although the characters below are often mentioned as powerful, I haven't seen them recommended as strongly as I believe they should be. In fact, I still see some comments about how Cap is good for long goon grinds and such, which might be true but can't possibly be as good as never giving the other team a move. This post is relevant for early transitioners or those who have accidentally messed up their PvE scaling by over-leveling a character before the rest of their roster is ready. The trio is of course Thor (355), Mags (355), CStorm (553). Mags/Cstorm is mentioned very often for blue/red stun/dmg and board churn, but what I have not seen stressed is the Mags/Thor/Cstorm combo to feed Cstorm's green. If you just wait to get ~30 green, then from that point on I've never had the computer take another move, even with 7 waves of 4+ enemies each: Mags 9 purple => 7 blue (on average, given matches with existing blues) + 5 red + cascades Thor 8 red => 3 Yellow (whenever you don't have a better move and don't have 30 yellow) Thor 12 yellow => 9 Green + cascades Storm 12 Green => 30 rainbow + cascades (feeds purple for Mags) Each cycle of skills costs 41 AP and earns 54 AP + cascades. Of course you won't do them in exact sequence, but rather use whichever skill is maxed and will provide AP of colors that aren't maxed. As you go you can use accumulated blue to stun and damage the entire enemy team. In the worst case you just stun all 3 of them for 4 turns (if the AoE damage hasn't killed them yet), and then do some matching as needed to get your skills going again. If you're going to do that (or just want to let them take a turn in case they're pure goons) then you can also use Mag's red instead of Thor's to do a big chunk of damage and earn more rainbow AP while doing more board churn, but feeding Thor's yellow should take priority over Mag's rainbow churn in most cases. I know this isn't any kind of revelation to experienced players, but in my research while going through my first few months of playing I didn't see this pointed out (and it would have helped me especially with the DDQ waves for 3* covers), and I'm curious to hear from vets why they think any other 2* PvE team should be used by a transitioner. In short matches that won't build to infinite AP, there is so much firepower that the team basically can't loose without insanely bad board luck. In longer matches, things like strike/attack tiles, regen, AP steal, healing, and stun are irrelevant because this team just keeps spamming skills without ever ending its turn (and does some stun along the way, which helps to get started in the common case of 1 real enemy + 2 goons).
aesthetocyst wrote: Unfortunately, this dev's forum is not the place to be offering up useful advice.
Sundance2112 wrote: aesthetocyst wrote: Unfortunately, this dev's forum is not the place to be offering up useful advice. I guess I just learned this the hard way. I had no idea that trying to add an as-yet-undocumented tip to the collection of guides and tips would spread such discontent. Of course I have to ask: what is the place(s) for offering up (and receiving) useful advice? As for theory crafting: I believe Thor is important for this team because without him you don't get infinite AP/skills. Mags doesn't just feed blue Cstorm here, but also Red Thor-> Yellow Thor -> Green Cstorm, which is really the key. Ninjas and others are no threat whatsoever because the turn never ends so attack tiles never hit thanks to that string. Even though Thor Red is weak in general vs. Mags red in terms of total AP, it creates consistent yellow to be farmed by Cstorm Green, which again is why the turn never ends. For those saying "this isn't infinite, it's just good luck", I guess you just haven't actually tried it because although it is statistically possible to not keep going, it's never happened to me in the last month of playing. The startup delay is the only real issue, and is definitely a big deal against stronger teams that don't give you time. There are lots of teams that can do a lot of damage, good ones suggested in the guides and in this thread. But as far as I know this is the only 2* team that can do infinite damage.
TxMoose wrote: I think the right location would be the tips subforum, but here is ok too.
TxMoose wrote: this team takes a considerable amount of time to get going and unless you have a wave node like big enchilada you are likely taking abilities too soon to survive. especially storm's low health...
TxMoose wrote: however, this team would not stand a chance against a daken/ares/obw team head-to-head.
Sundance2112 wrote: I guess I just learned this the hard way. I had no idea that trying to add an as-yet-undocumented tip to the collection of guides and tips would spread such discontent.
GothicKratos wrote: Sundance2112 wrote: I guess I just learned this the hard way. I had no idea that trying to add an as-yet-undocumented tip to the collection of guides and tips would spread such discontent. You're facing the unfortunate backlash of a recent event with another user talking about Scarlett Witch giving more AP than it's supposed to when she uses Hex Bolt, which lead her to be quickly adjusted to do what she was supposed to do to begin with, and large bit of discontent within the community, because they were now facing playing with the character the way she was supposed to be.
TxMoose wrote: which made sense to nobody since what they fixed worsened her worst ability. took an ability that had minimal use and gave it less use.
aesthetocyst wrote: GothicKratos wrote: Sundance2112 wrote: I guess I just learned this the hard way. I had no idea that trying to add an as-yet-undocumented tip to the collection of guides and tips would spread such discontent. You're facing the unfortunate backlash of a recent event with another user talking about Scarlett Witch giving more AP than it's supposed to when she uses Hex Bolt, which lead her to be quickly adjusted to do what she was supposed to do to begin with, and large bit of discontent within the community, because they were now facing playing with the character the way she was supposed to be. Now, Gothic, don't pretend this is a problem that new or that narrow.
GothicKratos wrote: TxMoose wrote: which made sense to nobody since what they fixed worsened her worst ability. took an ability that had minimal use and gave it less use. Does it really need to make sure from that perspective? It was supposed to work a specific way and it wasn't. That being said, this isn't the thread for that discussion, so I'll agree to let it be.
aesthetocyst wrote: Well, there's general gameplay advice, and then there's "hey, I think this may have been overlooked in testing (they do test, don't they?)" advice. Your advice is more of the latter variety. The MPQ player base tends to feel worked over, and unfortunately often has an adversarial relationship with the dev, leading to a feeling of "why do their job for them?" in place of a spirit of collaboration.
Lemminkäinen wrote: metallion wrote: 3 unguaranteed yellow vs 25 guaranteed random tiles, I'll pick the random tiles any day, thank you very much, on a good strike I can get more than 3 yellows. Your Red Mags seems to work differently from mine if it guarantees 25 random tiles
metallion wrote: 3 unguaranteed yellow vs 25 guaranteed random tiles, I'll pick the random tiles any day, thank you very much, on a good strike I can get more than 3 yellows.
Sundance2112 wrote: aesthetocyst wrote: Well, there's general gameplay advice, and then there's "hey, I think this may have been overlooked in testing (they do test, don't they?)" advice. Your advice is more of the latter variety. The MPQ player base tends to feel worked over, and unfortunately often has an adversarial relationship with the dev, leading to a feeling of "why do their job for them?" in place of a spirit of collaboration. Interesting, I didn't intend it that way. I don't view this as an exploit that should be patched because of the weaknesses discussed throughout this thread (so no real impact on intermediate play - much less advanced play), but rather as the most powerful 2* PvE team available (especially for long fights) that I didn't see discussed in the guides and tips. Regardless, I'm happy that maybe 25% of the thread was very useful for me, and hopefully will be for others. I suspect there's some paid-for-multiplayer-constant-balancing mojo happening that I'm not used to when discussing games. I'll do more meta-thinking if there's a next time.