Black Widow (Original) - 2*

over_clocked

Pwuz_ wrote:

KevinMark wrote:

I never have any problem with beating her and I don't own any maxed 3* chars. My favorite pairs are MN Mags-Mawkeye(I think this pair is even stronger than CStorm pair), MN Mags-CStorm, Ares(Thor)-OBW. There are other pairs that I can use but usually I run out of energy after using these. Just don't let her collect purple and kill her first and fast. I don't think she needs a nerf. You need to get your guys leveled.

I'm out of the 3* transition and fully into a maxed 3* roster, and OBW still causes problems if she is left to her own devices. You are right, if you deny Purple and focus on her first, she can be defeated before she becomes too much of a problem. Sometimes purple denial isn't an option though (Bullseye), and Anti-Gravity shouldn't be ignored either.

M.Hawkeye's new abilities work very well with M.Mags, and that pair can be very effective together. But that is a bit of an exception of a particular pair working exceptionally well together, & being a color combo that works well to take away the Purple and Blue lifeblood of OBW.

I am glad you have found such a powerful combo to take down OBW, what will you do in PvE when you face M.Mags, M.Hawkeye, & OBW?

Bullseye? What's up with that? You always ignore Bullseye and just collect AP for abilities. If his teammates are even less threatening, I might go after Bullseye first since he's annoying, but still, one shouldn't be timid to match purple around the joke that is Bullseye.

mHawkeye/MMN/oBW are a terribly soft trio. I would just kill oBW first as usual and then have a hard time choosing between MMN and mHawkeye since both of them are harmless on defense.
Edit: noticed the PvE part. Doesn't change much; down oBW with anything you got (Psylocke/Ares/Daken+Falcon/HT/XF/Hood/Deadpool/Punisher/whatever), have all the time in the world to deal with MMN/Hawk.

FierceKiwi

locked wrote:

Bullseye? What's up with that? You always ignore Bullseye and just collect AP for abilities. If his teammates are even less threatening, I might go after Bullseye first since he's annoying, but still, one shouldn't be timid to match purple around the joke that is Bullseye.

mHawkeye/MMN/oBW are a terribly soft trio. I would just kill oBW first as usual and then have a hard time choosing between MMN and mHawkeye since both of them are harmless on defense.
Edit: noticed the PvE part. Doesn't change much; down oBW with anything you got (Psylocke/Ares/Daken+Falcon/HT/XF/Hood/whatever), have all the time in the world to deal with MMN/Hawk.

I'd be more timid to match Purple because of OBW than Bullseye the last thing I want to do is speed up her Aggressive Recon when she Espionages all my Purple away.

You kill Hawk...he's mostly harmless but on the off chance a cascade turns into a match 5 Speed Shot hurts alot.

Pwuz_

locked wrote:

mHawkeye/MMN/oBW are a terribly soft trio. I would just kill oBW first as usual and then have a hard time choosing between MMN and mHawkeye since both of them are harmless on defense.
Edit: noticed the PvE part. Doesn't change much; down oBW with anything you got (Psylocke/Ares/Daken+Falcon/HT/XF/Hood/Deadpool/Punisher/whatever), have all the time in the world to deal with MMN/Hawk.

I was referring to the idea of trying to field a 2* team against that type of PvE team which prevents the OBW counter to OBW.

I agree, that once you reach 3* range, OBW stops being a huge threat. I am referring to the fact that OBW is so much more powerful than every other 2* on their own. The combo of the new M.Hawk & M.Mags is a good counter without OBW. The game needs more counters to OBW.

IF they release more 2* characters that work well against OBW, I think her ranking will fall back into line with the rest of the 2* characters. A 2* Colossus would go a long way towards that.

Unknown

Pwuz_ wrote:

KevinMark wrote:

I never have any problem with beating her and I don't own any maxed 3* chars. My favorite pairs are MN Mags-Mawkeye(I think this pair is even stronger than CStorm pair), MN Mags-CStorm, Ares(Thor)-OBW. There are other pairs that I can use but usually I run out of energy after using these. Just don't let her collect purple and kill her first and fast. I don't think she needs a nerf. You need to get your guys leveled.

I'm out of the 3* transition and fully into a maxed 3* roster, and OBW still causes problems if she is left to her own devices. You are right, if you deny Purple and focus on her first, she can be defeated before she becomes too much of a problem. Sometimes purple denial isn't an option though (Bullseye), and Anti-Gravity shouldn't be ignored either.

M.Hawkeye's new abilities work very well with M.Mags, and that pair can be very effective together. But that is a bit of an exception of a particular pair working exceptionally well together, & being a color combo that works well to take away the Purple and Blue lifeblood of OBW.

I am glad you have found such a powerful combo to take down OBW, what will you do in PvE when you face M.Mags, M.Hawkeye, & OBW?

If Bullseye and OBW are paired, I'd still deny her purple and try to get rid of the protect tiles later. His protect tiles are not powerful unless he is grossly scaled. You gotta have some form of tile destruction and/or board manipulation in your team. It is not difficult to deny more than a color and change your denial once a target has been downed.

MN Mags, OBW and Mawkeye is a very weak team on defense. First of Mags AI doesn't know how to use Polarity Exchange properly. Both OBW and Mawkeye have low HPs. Mags is not a tank either. His other skills are either useless or too expensive to use consistently. You need a quick damage dealer and/or a tank (Ares, Thor, Wolverine) and two other chars to fill unused colors by those (DA Daken, Moonstone, DD...) and a filler (CStorm or any other char you have maxed).

edit: My usual tactics against OBW: Before latest funbalancing: Ares+OBW. Wait till enemy matches purple and passive steal her purple. Get 8 purple with two matches. Wait till enemy is about to use an ability and Aggressive Recon or keep collecting purple until enemy OBW dies. Get 6 or 9 green and down her with Onslaught in one strike. After funbalancing: Charge up Polarity Exchange. Down OBW with Mawkeye's Speed Strike in a jiffy. Previous method still works but this is easier. You could also exchange Mawkeye with CStorm and stun, damage and kill her.

yogi_

There are a lot of threads about the balance of OBW all over the place.

Just want to add a note.

The whole True Healing nonsense was introduced as a way to stop the use of OBW (and to a lesser degree Spidey) to heal everyone in the repeatable missions in the Dark Reign permanent PvE (formerly known as Prologue Healing).

So, OBW had her skill swapped to temporary shielding - it was the lazy / easy way out; were they designing the character from the start now, I can not imagine they would give her a healing anything. Why healing still works for her, is that the numbers are genuinely decent (compared to everyone else with False Healing) and you can extend a game and save your teammates. It's still a good (but theoretically flawed) ability.

I would love for this whole in game healing thing to be fixed up (properly integrated for all characters, including a shielding / damage resistance system) but in terms of currently, the most obvious outcome for her blue would be to turn it into a stun like her 1* sister.

I love OBW a lot, but at some stage, the blue has to change.

Unknown

yogi_ wrote:

I love OBW a lot, but at some stage, the blue has to change.

Nope, it doesn't. Deal with it.

Pwuz_

KevinMark wrote:

yogi_ wrote:

I love OBW a lot, but at some stage, the blue has to change.

Nope, it doesn't. Deal with it.

For her level, that blue really is overpowered. Compare her to Spiderman. Yes, at max level and under ideal conditions (with 3 web tiles) Web Bandages does about the same % of healing. The difference is that Web Bandages takes MORE AP, and it's conditions for maximum healing are limited based on consumed web tiles. Anti-Gravity is limited by the existence of Count Down tiles.

That doesn't even touch the fact that Anti-Gravity has a secondary effect when it is not healing to maximum effect. What does Web Bandages do when it doesn't heal to it's max effect?

Either Anti-Gravity is overpowered or Web Bandages is underpowered. Though if you compare to other healing moves, Web Bandages is the norm, while Anti-Gravity is the outlier.

Unknown

maybe she seems a bit overpowered, but as a beginning player she is really valuable. I have been playing a bit now and I think it is great that you don't need all the 3 and 4 star characters to be be able to participate in all the events with characters like these.

Unknown

Hey guys! Just seen that enemy protect tiles are cutting the healing amount of Anti-Gravity Device.
Is it a bug or this is the strange way how it works? Lost my match because of that...

over_clocked

aelkoa wrote:

Hey guys! Just seen that enemy protect tiles are cutting the healing amount of Anti-Gravity Device.
Is it a bug or this is the strange way how it works? Lost my match because of that...

Were you fighting Black Panther by any chance?.. For all we know, only enemy CDs halve oBW's healing at 5 covers.

Unknown

locked wrote:

aelkoa wrote:

Hey guys! Just seen that enemy protect tiles are cutting the healing amount of Anti-Gravity Device.
Is it a bug or this is the strange way how it works? Lost my match because of that...

Were you fighting Black Panther by any chance?.. For all we know, only enemy CDs halve oBW's healing at 5 covers.

I was in a PvE Sub-event fighting that incredible Bullseye. His defense tiles cuts nearly 300 damage and by such amount was reduced my healing too!

Kolence

In this Heroic PvE, where we fight ( ), and ( ), I've found a 1/5/5 OBW very useful. She can heal quicker since she's under leveled, still triggers on , even has synergy with , making it more probable to steal .

Unknown

Pwuz_ wrote:

For her level, that blue really is overpowered. Compare her to Spiderman. Yes, at max level and under ideal conditions (with 3 web tiles) Web Bandages does about the same % of healing. The difference is that Web Bandages takes MORE AP, and it's conditions for maximum healing are limited based on consumed web tiles. Anti-Gravity is limited by the existence of Count Down tiles.

That doesn't even touch the fact that Anti-Gravity has a secondary effect when it is not healing to maximum effect. What does Web Bandages do when it doesn't heal to it's max effect?

Either Anti-Gravity is overpowered or Web Bandages is underpowered. Though if you compare to other healing moves, Web Bandages is the norm, while Anti-Gravity is the outlier.

She is a character that can literally die in 3-4 turns of a game if you properly deny her colors and target her. Her blue is nice, as well as purple. However, put her alone in a game and you are left with a passive AP stealer that can heal. What I'm trying to say is that OBW does almost 0 damage to the opposing team. She is a full support character. So that is the downside of using her. Especially when you go in fights where one of your chars is a featured one and the other one is OBW, you are left with only 1 choice of a good damage dealer. So you are sacrificing one thing for another.

She works with many characters very well, but she can be problematic with others. Example: If you match her with CStorm, MNMags you have the worst combo ever. This combo needs purple and blue to destroy you, so OBW is completely useless here. Not to mention that by completely relying on fueling her AP is not the best strategy as you are starving the rest of the crew for AP. Not always the enemy will have AP that you can use. She is good, and I mean GOOD. But, you have to use her with caution.

IMHO she is best in defense as in offense you want something faster to get you going. But she is very fragile even if she's maxed.

Pwuz_

Okin107 wrote:

She is a character that can literally die in 3-4 turns of a game if you properly deny her colors and target her. Her blue is nice, as well as purple. However, put her alone in a game and you are left with a passive AP stealer that can heal. What I'm trying to say is that OBW does almost 0 damage to the opposing team. She is a full support character. So that is the downside of using her. Especially when you go in fights where one of your chars is a featured one and the other one is OBW, you are left with only 1 choice of a good damage dealer. So you are sacrificing one thing for another.

She works with many characters very well, but she can be problematic with others. Example: If you match her with CStorm, MNMags you have the worst combo ever. This combo needs purple and blue to destroy you, so OBW is completely useless here. Not to mention that by completely relying on fueling her AP is not the best strategy as you are starving the rest of the crew for AP. Not always the enemy will have AP that you can use. She is good, and I mean GOOD. But, you have to use her with caution.

IMHO she is best in defense as in offense you want something faster to get you going. But she is very fragile even if she's maxed.

I'm skeptical that with a team of only 2* characters, OBW goes down in 3-4 turns. When using a maxed 3* team, it sometimes takes me longer than that to take her down, especially if I'm denying her Purple (there are not enough good purple powers in 3* range, but that's another rant.)

My point in the previous post was that Anti-Gravity is overpowered compared to other healing powers. Her fragile health doesn't balance against that. She actually has some of the best match damage in the game considering Espionage, even more so when coupled with strike tiles. Though that's not as bad of an overpowered skill considering it puts her at more risk.

Unknown

Maybe it was wrong of me to call it a nerf to begin with. More like a reworking of her powers. I still feel that it's not correct for two of her three abilities to be stealing AP. A stun + damage would still be powerful, but not as oppressive.

Edit: after rereading through this thread, it appears as if most of the people posting in here didn't even read my OP. Well let me answer some of those questions.

Yes, I target OBW first. Every time. Every single time. Oh, is that Lazy Thor? Well he takes forever to get his abilities off, so OBW is the more immediate threat. Kill her first.

No, I don't always like matching purple just so she can't generate the AP. If I match first, she only needs to match twice to get her purple off, thanks to her passive ability. I don't always have a toon who uses purple either, so matching purple just because OBW is on the opposing team is somewhat detrimental to my own game plan of killing OBW.

Sometimes it's just not possible to kill her off before she can activate her purple ability, even with *** guys. Yes, I have a 166 Lazy Thor, and I've gotten wiped by her more than once. Imagine this situation: you are working on killing OBW. You just got enough AP to use your power to finish her off. She uses her purple, stealing that AP that you just matched which sets you back a turn. The other AI toons now have enough AP to use their powers, and you still need to match those last three tiles for your power. You make the match, putting your now near dead character back to the front of the squad. The following turn, OBW uses her blue, putting her out of lethal range of your power. But that doesn't matter, because the opponent is still loaded up on your AP from the previous turn. They use another power and the guy that you had planned on using to kill OBW is now dead, meanwhile the enemy team is way ahead.

Unknown

Thor is the worst to use against OBW, both because he starts so slow and she can steal all 3 of his colors even at low level steals. A better counter to OBW is any character that lets you collect a low amount of AP to kill her, as others have already commented. CStorm/MNmags is probably one of the best counters, as you're specifically collecting , thus denying her while you power your own attacks.

Unknown

Some days I wish I could lower the level of my hulk just enough for espionage to trigger anger and see what happens when fighting OBW.

Unknown

Ares (optimal build 4/4/5) downs OBW pretty quickly. Usually she comes into OHKO range till you collect 6 green which is then used to Slaughter her.

Lystrata

I don't know about this... on offence she's awesome. On defence, she's... terrible. Which makes her awesome to play against. Unless it's to win a ridiculously small number of points, I will never 'skip' a team with her on it. As long as you deny purple, she's down in seconds. Particularly, as others have suggested, if you use CStorm/Cmags.

Use her on offence, then change your team for whatever your 'final' attack will be, so she's not on your defence, and I really don't see a problem with her.

over_clocked

@Lystrata: apparently you never had AI oBW cascade purple on you yet
You just wait for it, young padawan! I have wiped on a 3/5/5 oBW with maxed 3*s - with pre-nerf classic Magneto and Spider-Man, to boot!