**** Mr. Fantastic (Reed Richards) **** Updated (1/10/19)

Black Duke

The 'improved' Mr. Fantastic is nearly as bad as he used to be before his first update.

In order to do damage you have to collect 10 black AP (4 turns) and 8 blue AP (3 turns). Furthermore you can only hope that Reed's 2-turn Repeater tile has created Special tiles while you're trying to gather blue AP. So you have to wait for at least 7(!) turns to eventually deal some damage.  Sorry, but that's just a stupid design!

It took me three tries to beat Doom with my level 330 Reed in today's crash (and I barely made it on my third attempt) because I wasn't able to trigger his blue damage. 

RickOShay

I don't think the dev's used the word 'improved' anywhere in the rebalance post lol. 
Well, he wasn't improved much as a stand-alone character, especially when versus Doom in the Crash. He is designed as a support character, and many of these characters have difficult crashes (Coulson, Prof X, etc.).
The Crash of the Titans is supposed to be a challenge, and that it is.  While the re-design might make this 1v1 battle more difficult (for many in my alliance it was not harder than before), I don't think it's fair to say it's a stupid design.

How many turns did it take to do any real damage in his last crash? 

hopper1979

I am sorry this is an improvement.  The yellow alone is insane paired with Carnage and in the current meta even without Carnage makes him a viable character now, any power that cast something for free is extremely useful, he is a Kitty counter running him with Carnage and Medusa will be the new team to beat in 4star pvp.  The yellow is the game changer.  Blue is probably a little weaker but a 3 turn 3-10K stun is nothing to laugh at and his black is much more useful now.  This was a big step up for him.

Gold_Dragon

It’s not an improvement. He was always good with Carnage and Medusa. That didn’t change. 

His synergy with Shuri is no more and that is heart-breaking. 

hopper1979

Yes he was good with them now he is insane with them.  You have to broaden you view outside of them as well, we have so many tile generators at this point his yellow will be now be game changing, he is a viable counter to R&G, Kitty, 5Thor, Captain Marvel etc.  He is better than Mockingbird and he auto cast because you can now control the matches instead of hopping for a match 4 to show up.  Yes he got worse with Shuri but he is now viable against a large percentage of characters which he was not before you do not have to pair him with Carnage and Medusa to be useful he is good against any team that generates tiles.  People are getting caught up in the change to his blue and missing the bigger picture.  

Gold_Dragon

Matching 4 enemy tiles to get that free power is more or less a wash to getting a match 4 unless you’re rolling Carnage. 

He is not a counter to R&G/Kitty. That’s absolutely, 100% board dependent. And you’re still taking chunks of strike pumped match damage each turn in the hope to heal a little bit of damage unless you run his yellow at 5 (which I’m considering since his black is lol random) and it’s still not really a counter. 

Hes not a counter to CM unless her strikes magically are put on a tile you can match.

Honestly the better choice vs tile creators is Prowler and he has MUCH better self synergy than Reed thanks to the randomness of Reed’s Imaginaut. 

Im looking for other characters new Mr.F has synergy. So far I’m not really finding many. Gonna try him Valkyrie and someone soon. 

hopper1979

Carnage is a must for him now you need those enemy tiles on the board asap.  I have been messing with him a lot since the change.  His yellow power is central to him being effective now, you need those enemy tile matches for him to shine, I do think he would be useful against Rocket/Kitty but I would not bring a 4 into pvp at this point and I detest pvp do I do not really care on that counter.  

He has two main strategies now focus on his yellow and get his passive to fire as much as possible or flood the board with your team up and drop the blue stun bomb.  I have not messed too much with his second strategy yet since Medusa is boosted and Carnage/Medusa/Mr F are even better now than before. 

On average I would say I have activate his passive 3-5 times a match and loose less than 1000 hp a player, if you max Carnage's red you might take a little bit more of a ding but it is still minimal.  Kitty is the realistic 5 to be paired with carnage and Mr f once Medusa is not boosted but franky any 5 will work because of that passive.  That yellow is killer and can stay at 3 to maximize the other powers at the expense of a little healing but he heal even at 5 is not that good so it is not much of a loss. 

I am trying to decide if I like his new black or not, when you get 2 or 3 on the board at once it is nothing to sneeze at and it feeds his blue damage, I just hate when tiles get locked, your remove the locking choice and it would be an upgrade.  His previous black was just not a consistent enough damage dealer to be effective (it had the same issue as Visions Blue).  I would rather have strike tiles or charged tiles than hope for the correct color match to occur to get 900 extra damage.  Yes, this can be maximized by selecting the correct teammates but that argument is pointless because that is the argument we make for all mid tier characters. I think his black is a push it all depends on who he is paired with.

Blue is his most controversial and I have to go with a push again.  I was a huge fan of the switch ability and getting those charged tiles on the board either for Shuri or Cage.  It also allowed you to get a little more use out of his black but then you mess with his partners effectiveness.  I will never complain about board control and the stun was excellent for the cost as well.  Now the power costs more for the same length stun but it deals damage on average it does 3-10 k damage (I have yet to get enough tiles on the board to do more than 10K).  As it sands no his blue reminds me a lot of Sandman's stun minus the aoe, same cost, longer stun and possibly higher damage potential to a single target.  His blue was not the best stun in the game before the change it is still not the best in the game I would still put it between the 4-7 best stun.  But we all know the current meta is speed so a stun that deal no damage is not as useful as a stun that can potentially do 10k mid game.  This one comes down to play style hence the push.

I am treating him like a new character and I am having fun with him, frankly I would have liked to see a buff to the Thing.  He was a very solid niche character before he is still a very solid niche character now he has just move his niche.  

ammenell

the lost synergy with shuri hurts.
playing with medusa and carnage I don't even like that random power firing, except reeds blue.

carnages red, IF you have that 10ap, otherwise he damages his own team but is the sole active damage dealer
carnages green and medusas purple lower the amount of enemy tiles.

hopper1979

I max Carnage green and min his red for this reason.  I average about 6k when Carnages green fires minus good board shake up.  I did try maxing his red but not worth doing until you team has taken some damage, let them burst hear then try spamming the red then it does not matter if you have 10 or not.  it is not a speed team for kills but they have even better synergy now than before.  I think the prowler might work very well with Medussa and Mr Fantastic I just dont have enough levels in him to test this out effectively yet.

MarcusGraves

hopper1979 said:

 He is better than Mockingbird and he auto cast because you can now control the matches instead of hopping for a match 4 to show up.   

Sorry, I saw this and that's just a hard no. VS goons (since CD tiles count + like only ultron bots match) and HEAVY special tiles makers okay, but in general her passive is so much better.

Opportunist fights back hard against enemy AI RNG getting 4/5 matches and that's a pretty big deal. What would've been a sour outcome can get flipped because you can gain one or a couple +3's in AP, fire that free power (or multiple), or have both happen at the same time. The fact that it also works off of TU AP is hilarious, TU AP is fairly useless for the AI most of the time, and odds are you're sitting on 6+ of it pretty quickly since the garbage builds up while you're going for colored AP. If a 4/5 match of it comes up you can just let AI have it on their turn because it's stupid and doesn't know better, saving you from it building the more important colored AP of whatever it might be chasing, and you rolling a free power off of it.

Also in terms of the 2 characters rolling their own powers through this effect, I'd 100% rather have MB rolling her -5 strongest destroy/+4 strongest gain or the 12k death bomb (photonic barrage blast is similar damage just for reference) than Mr. situational's tickle damage stun or the slow, random magic 8 ball of effects he pops out.

hopper1979 said:

I am sorry this is an improvement.  The yellow alone is insane paired with Carnage and in the current meta even without Carnage makes him a viable character now, any power that cast something for free is extremely useful, he is a Kitty counter running him with Carnage and Medusa will be the new team to beat in 4star pvp.  The yellow is the game changer.  Blue is probably a little weaker but a 3 turn 3-10K stun is nothing to laugh at and his black is much more useful now.  This was a big step up for him.

He is not a Kitty/grocket counter in any real way, Kitty actually dumps on that team. I wouldn't dare bring him and carnage vs them because the second they get 4 friendly tiles (which carnage is helping them with) you're going to start MELLLLTING and her purple is removing your specials every turn. Even if she's only raising them by 400-500 that's a x5 boost, you'll barely be able to keep up with the incoming damage before characters start falling to it.

It's also not as scary a team as you might think because you can just run Bishop now and he alone can shut the entire team down with his 4 turn stun + -6 strongest destroy which is most likely going to be red for your Carnage. Bring Medusa along as well and the enemy team will be at his mercy because he'll just keep stunning, healing and throwing out Overclocked damage here and there while still having a wide window of colors to plug into the 3rd slot (red/yellow, his yellow is only emergency/green/black/maybe purple if you don't need hair meddle).

hopper1979

hopper1979 said:

I am sorry this is an improvement.  The yellow alone is insane paired with Carnage and in the current meta even without Carnage makes him a viable character now, any power that cast something for free is extremely useful, he is a Kitty counter running him with Carnage and Medusa will be the new team to beat in 4star pvp.  The yellow is the game changer.  Blue is probably a little weaker but a 3 turn 3-10K stun is nothing to laugh at and his black is much more useful now.  This was a big step up for him.

He is not a Kitty/grocket counter in any real way, Kitty actually dumps on that team. I wouldn't dare bring him and carnage vs them because the second they get 4 friendly tiles (which carnage is helping them with) you're going to start MELLLLTING and her purple is removing your specials every turn. Even if she's only raising them by 400-500 that's a x5 boost, you'll barely be able to keep up with the incoming damage before characters start falling to it.

It's also not as scary a team as you might think because you can just run Bishop now and he alone can shut the entire team down with his 4 turn stun + -6 strongest destroy which is most likely going to be red for your Carnage. Bring Medusa along as well and the enemy team will be at his mercy because he'll just keep stunning, healing and throwing out Overclocked damage here and there while still having a wide window of colors to plug into the 3rd slot (red/yellow, his yellow is only emergency/green/black/maybe purple if you don't need hair meddle).

You make some good points but for the Mocking bird comparison I am strictly talking about their auto-cast power.  Against goons I would take Reed over her every day of the week especially if paired with Carnage.  Her red is not enough to offset the fact that her power rarely fires when the enemies are not matching.  If they can match I would take her as well for the simple fact that her red does excellent, consistent damage compared to anything Reed or Carnage can fire.

You are right she is not a good Kitty/Grocket combo, I was hoping he would be but he is not, you cannot match enough of the attack tiles to slow them down.  Frankly I have yet to see a good counter to that combo yet. As for the Bishop combo there are always combos that shot down teams, that is not a reason to ignore the entire team.  Frankly Bishop shuts down good 5star teams as well.  A specific counter to a strong group is a good thing but does not make it a bad team. 

With the the update to Mr Fantastic that team Carnage/Medusa/Mr Fantastic has improved from the previous version.  It is still going to get slaughtered by most teams with a max 5 and 2 mas 4s and definitely by any all 5 star team but is is a very flexible  team for 4 stars and definitely a top 5 4 star only team.

MarcusGraves

hopper1979 said:

You are right she is not a good Kitty/Grocket combo, I was hoping he would be but he is not, you cannot match enough of the attack tiles to slow them down.  Frankly I have yet to see a good counter to that combo yet. 

You have to run something like XF deapool with max black, Bishop to pin Kitty down quickly with stun while whipping her in the face with X enforcer+overclocked procs, and someone that deals decent damage while she's stunned and doesn't rely on specials. Probably one of the few times I'd consider pulling out Spider Gwen since she brings a cheap 2 turn double stun, red nuke that goes all the way down to 6 AP, and bit of team HP padding with her yellow.

Fighting the team is just a mad dash to bring the board under your control and get rid of the strike's before it's too late because Grocket's passive is stupid and you have no control over being able to stop it. The team should be pretty declawed after that depending on who the 3rd character is. Or you just happen to have Black Suit Spiderman with max purple and laugh all the way to the bank.

Tiger_Wong

I just want to say that Mr.F is not good since his latest re-tooling. He only works with Carnage (4 or 5) as that’s the only character who’s constantly putting out Enemy specials to feed his yellow, which is his best power. 

The change to his blue was TRAGIC. He and Shuri were magic together and with 5* DD, it was even better. It was a cheap stun that fortified the shields it made and you could place them anywhere. It was one of the best blue powers in the game, PERIOD. The change to chump damage unless the field is full of specials is a terrible downgrade and forces you to wait before you use it to get some damage.

and Imaginaut is worse than ever. My goodness man. Force bubbles?! Are you serious? FORCE BUBBLES?! Why not let it make Wasp tiles while you’re at it? The repeater is TOTALLY random. When I fire it I just want to throw my hands in the air in disgust. I get Force Bubbles and just say “yknow what? This is f’n trash.”

his yellow is better. Ok. I’ll give you that. 

I say, combine the blue of his 1st update, the black of his 1st update, with the latest update’s yellow and you have a solid character who isn’t led around by Carnages all the time. You could actually (gasp!) use him with someone else.

Daredevil217

Apparently rumor has it he was changed as to not make Bishop broken. 

They really sidestepped that land mine huh?