*** Psylocke (Classic) ***

Unknown

Nothing gets placed if you have 3 or more red strike tiles. Otherwise Daken/Wolverine combo with Psylocke might be even a bit broken when you just keep on pop out 180 strength strike tiles for 5 red AP.

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

Nothing gets placed if you have 3 or more red strike tiles. Otherwise Daken/Wolverine combo with Psylocke might be even a bit broken when you just keep on pop out 180 strength strike tiles for 5 red AP.

That's what I'm saying. If, then broken, yes. Saying no, then it would be broken doesn't mean it doesn't happen. So, I'll test eventually. I mean it's likely you guys are right, but I don't think Psylocke is supposed to work nicely with Wolverine at all on purpose so why waste energy making sure this one smooth move that happens when they do team together works?

Unknown

I use Psylocke pretty avidly so I suppose I should chime in based on my experience using her. I admittedly am not a numbers cruncher so I won't be offering any math here if you are into that.

My current usable roster is:

141 5/3/5 GSBW
141 5/5/3 IM40
141 5/3/5 Psylocke
141 3/5/5 Spidey
141 5/5/3 Punisher

If you're wondering I funnel all my iso into 3* characters that I have max covers for instead of spreading it all over my roster which is why I have 5 maxed 3*s and no 2*s (I sold Wolverine and Thor during the inflated price promotion). I also place well in every event which helps a ton and I'm sure joining the 5 Deadly Venoms will help tons

After a bit of experimentation my favorite roster at the moment is Psylocke, Spidey, and Punisher. I know a lot of the discourse on the forums argues that you should use Psylocke OR Punisher but I've actually found that using both works well for me.

1.) Max Match Damage

Psylocke 67 Red 60 Blue
Spidey 67 Yellow 60 Purple
Punisher 67 Black 60 Green

The damage is nice and even. Since they all have 5800 health there isn't really a need for a single tank and of course Spidey can heal.

2.) Strike Tiles

I like having both Psylocke's red and Punisher's green available as they are both cheap and allows for more board flexibility. Also, sometimes Punisher's green will create red tiles making Psylocke's red cheaper.

3.) Attack Tiles

This is where there could be some debate but I like having both Psylocke and Punisher's black skills because they both can be useful depending on the situation. Psylocke does instant single damage along with dropping an instant attack tile while Punisher can do massive AoE damage if there are already a ton of strike tiles on the board.

4.) Flexibility

I really like the board flexibility. No matter what color dominates the board there is usually a pretty easy path to victory whether it be spamming strike/attack tiles or stun locking. Although I prefer using Psylocke's red, it is nice to have Punisher's red for those pesky 230s. Her blue however is essentially useless, so I'm fine with stun locking instead.

I would assume the team works well on defense since all three characters essentially have AI friendly cheap spam attacks but I don't get attacked enough to know since I think people skip me because of my 141s. Do you guys think she is a good character to have on defense in general?

Anyway I am open to any feedback, thoughts, or suggestions. I like tinkering with my team but it seems my 141 GSBW and IM40 have fallen out of favor. My next ISO project will be Black Panther, The Hood, or Patch mainly because I have most their covers. Advice on who to invest in will be greatly appreciated as well, thanks!

Unknown

Patch pairs well with her as well, bti allows for you to kill them and get knife down to 6.
The thing lacking between them is defence but spidey should help things along with webs once rage is out.
I like OBW with her as well since she can double tap as well as now you can make use of the stolen black ap.

Unknown

Psylocke is simply inferior to The Punisher unless you absolutely need an attack tile out as fast as possible, and having Psylocke on a team when The Punisher is already there is pretty redundant. After all is said and done, you just can't beat someone who generates 300 damage worth of strike tiles for basically the same cost as what it takes you to generate 180 damage worth of strike tiles. I don't see this changing anytime soon, because it took me a long time to realize that Judgment has no weaknesses since the computer doesn't care about destroying strike tiles or protecting them and I'm sure that's the rational for The Punisher having exceptionally strong strike tiles.

over_clocked

Judgement rarely destroys your own strike tiles to boot, at least in my experience. It brings more utility than Bewilder because board shakeup is always good, and Bewilder is more often useless than not. But Psy is still very close to the Punisher and offers faster damage output (benefits more from the shorter games), she made the first Round of the Sim a joke and caused insane scaling for her followers (Doom and Panther)

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

Psylocke is simply inferior to The Punisher unless you absolutely need an attack tile out as fast as possible, and having Psylocke on a team when The Punisher is already there is pretty redundant. After all is said and done, you just can't beat someone who generates 300 damage worth of strike tiles for basically the same cost as what it takes you to generate 180 damage worth of strike tiles. I don't see this changing anytime soon, because it took me a long time to realize that Judgment has no weaknesses since the computer doesn't care about destroying strike tiles or protecting them and I'm sure that's the rational for The Punisher having exceptionally strong strike tiles.

Psylocke does more damage faster, Punisher does more damage over time, it's as simple as that. It takes roughly 8 attacks for Punisher's green damage to match Psylocke's red, in addition to the massive spike damage difference on her black. She is extremely good in the current meta where every team has Spider-Man and Patch, because fast single target damage is the quickest way to win in PVP, and it also means you'll take less damage because you'll be able to stunlock with Spider-Man sooner. She's not as good in PVE against lv230 targets, obviously, that's Punisher's domain.

Also, with Thor and Patch being the most damaging 3*'s, red abilities are better to have than green abilities right now. Punisher works fine on any team, but he doesn't really shine when paired with the other top tier characters, unlike Psylocke.

Unknown

Red abilities are going to be even more valuable when 3* Dakan shows up and starts throwing down strike tiles on every green match.

Unknown

Psylocke is not faster than The Punisher. I'm not sure where people got this idea. Their strike tile generator is same cost (8 vs 8). The Punisher's black is 1 more but it's considerably better than Psylocke's black, especially given how effortlessly Molotov combos with his own ability (Judgment). Retribution is not intended to be fast due to its unique nature, and it's not like it's slower than Bewilderment, which is relatively useless. Judgment usually passes up Psychic Knife immediately if the initial blast causes any cascade, because with The Punisher around there are at least 3 colors that are worth 200 damage per AP (red/black/green). You can generally throw in blue in there (a stun is worth a lot more than 600 damage). Purple and yellow is more iffy, but still can be valued at around 100 damage per AP if you have someone who can use those colors. I think people really drink too much cool aid on the '5 AP Psychic Knife', which requires using characters that aren't very good (Daken/Wolverine) and you still need pretty good luck to pull it off. This doesn't mean Psylocke is weak. It just means she can't compare to The Punisher, who is clearly the most powerful character amongst the 'not totally broken' tier. In fact The Punisher is pretty much at the limit of what can still be considered as balanced, and there shouldn't be very many characters even at this level.

NorthernPolarity

Phantron wrote:

Psylocke is not faster than The Punisher. I'm not sure where people got this idea. Their strike tile generator is same cost (8 vs 8). The Punisher's black is 1 more but it's considerably better than Psylocke's black, especially given how effortlessly Molotov combos with his own ability (Judgment). Retribution is not intended to be fast due to its unique nature, and it's not like it's slower than Bewilderment, which is relatively useless. Judgment usually passes up Psychic Knife immediately if the initial blast causes any cascade, because with The Punisher around there are at least 3 colors that are worth 200 damage per AP (red/black/green). You can generally throw in blue in there (a stun is worth a lot more than 600 damage). Purple and yellow is more iffy, but still can be valued at around 100 damage per AP if you have someone who can use those colors. I think people really drink too much cool aid on the '5 AP Psychic Knife', which requires using characters that aren't very good (Daken/Wolverine) and you still need pretty good luck to pull it off. This doesn't mean Psylocke is weak. It just means she can't compare to The Punisher, who is clearly the most powerful character amongst the 'not totally broken' tier. In fact The Punisher is pretty much at the limit of what can still be considered as balanced, and there shouldn't be very many characters even at this level.

Your argument hinges on the assumption that judgement causes a cascade, which I don't think happens a majority of the time. Damn it, where is monte carlo guy when you need him... I might code something up that simulates cascades so that I can test this out.

Unknown

NorthernPolarity wrote:

Phantron wrote:

Psylocke is not faster than The Punisher. I'm not sure where people got this idea. Their strike tile generator is same cost (8 vs 8). The Punisher's black is 1 more but it's considerably better than Psylocke's black, especially given how effortlessly Molotov combos with his own ability (Judgment). Retribution is not intended to be fast due to its unique nature, and it's not like it's slower than Bewilderment, which is relatively useless. Judgment usually passes up Psychic Knife immediately if the initial blast causes any cascade, because with The Punisher around there are at least 3 colors that are worth 200 damage per AP (red/black/green). You can generally throw in blue in there (a stun is worth a lot more than 600 damage). Purple and yellow is more iffy, but still can be valued at around 100 damage per AP if you have someone who can use those colors. I think people really drink too much cool aid on the '5 AP Psychic Knife', which requires using characters that aren't very good (Daken/Wolverine) and you still need pretty good luck to pull it off. This doesn't mean Psylocke is weak. It just means she can't compare to The Punisher, who is clearly the most powerful character amongst the 'not totally broken' tier. In fact The Punisher is pretty much at the limit of what can still be considered as balanced, and there shouldn't be very many characters even at this level.

Your argument hinges on the assumption that judgement causes a cascade, which I don't think happens a majority of the time. Damn it, where is monte carlo guy when you need him... I might code something up that simulates cascades so that I can test this out.

Even a 3X3 in the middle of the screen only causes 12 new tile movements, which is considerably less than a column/row in the middle (16). But even without cascades, at 300 strike tile strength versus 180, it takes about 6 hits for Judgment to overtake the inital damage done by Psychic Knife, since the tile destruction itself does about 200 damage too. This isn't factoring in that on defense, it's likely easier for an opponent to destroy the one red strike tile by Psychic Knife than the 3 random ones from Judgment. Since Psychic Knife does a very low amount of damage for a red, there's not much advantage for the upfront damage part of Psychic Knife. 900 damage probably isn't going to be killing anyone so you're only interested in the long run, and it's pretty hard for Judgment to not beat Psychic Knife in the long run.

mischiefmaker

Phantron wrote:

The Punisher's black is 1 more but it's considerably better than Psylocke's black, especially given how effortlessly Molotov combos with his own ability (Judgment).

I can't say I agree with this.

At max level, Punisher's black does 557 per enemy, 113 per attack tile, assuming you have a L5 black. At L3, which many people have, it's something like 91 damage per attack tile.

1 more AP is actually quite a lot. The gap from 6 to 7 is pretty big because it's pretty common to get a board where you can match 2 of a particular color right away, but much less common to get 3 of the same color (I've been doing some research on this, and will publish full results once I have enough data -- it's slow going). Say it's one extra turn on average (it's more, but for the sake of argument).

OK, so at L5 you're looking at 557 damage per enemy, then 113 damage per turn 2 turns later. Psylocke's is 965 to a single enemy and 231 immediately. Factor in the extra turn you wait to get the 7th black and the 2 turns to get the countdown tile to trigger (and this is a bit generous since it assumes your countdown always survives), and by the time you get your first attack tile, Psylocke has done 965 + 231*3 = 1658 damage, and is doing 118 more damage per turn. I can't see any situation where I wouldn't prefer that over Punisher's black, and again this is considering L5 black.

You did say that Molotov combines effortlessly with Judgment, so let's take a look at how that compares. Let's start with the simple case: you wait until you can cast both. Punisher's black is 557+312= 869 to all targets, plus 425 every turn once the tile triggers. If we're going to allow Punisher to combo with his own green, it only seems fair to let Psylocke combo with her red, so we're looking at 965 + 192 = 1157 to a single target, plus 425 (funny how that works out!) for three extra turns as above, and then equal.

So that's 869 to all targets and 425 every turn, versus 2432 to one target plus 425 every turn. I still can't see how you'd take Punisher's black over Psylocke's black in this situation.

Now, if your countdown survives long enough to produce a second tile, then maybe you have a case, but we're talking about speed, and waiting to get 7 black plus 4-6 turns isn't exactly the fastest thing in the world (in that time you might as well be Calling the Storm or something similarly strong).

Also, consider that Psylocke has more early flexibility -- she can cast black as soon as it's ready and still get almost full benefit from her red later, whereas Punisher doesn't want to go black-> green because the green might destroy the attack tile or the countdown tile. That also contributes to the notion that she's faster.

All of which is not to say that Psylocke is necessarily better than Punisher (I think she is, but mostly because she plays better with Patch and Thor, but I think it's close and reasonable people can differ). Just that a) I think she is faster and b) her black is about as much better than his black as his green is better than her red.

Dormammu

I'm not fortunate enough to have many Punisher covers yet and I haven't taken a look at anyone else's leveled Punisher - do his strike tile attacks do as much initial damage as Psylocke's? I have her at lvl 120 and both her red and black attacks do 835 damage before dropping the strike tile. Granted, this isn't a nuke-bomb, but when coupled with strike/attack tiles that do near-200 damage per turn enemy health starts evaporating quickly.

I understand that the Punisher is awesome fun, that he has a good color-combo of non-stop damage, and his abilities synergize well. But can he really keep pace with Psylocke for speed? All I know is that there have been times where I can get Psylocke's black tile out in 2 turns, and then her red in another 2-3, and I've done 2000+ damage.

I'm not questioning Punisher users or making an argument for either, I'm asking because I don't know.

NorthernPolarity

Dormammu wrote:

I'm not fortunate enough to have many Punisher covers yet and I haven't taken a look at anyone else's leveled Punisher - do his strike tile attacks do as much initial damage as Psylocke's? I have her at lvl 120 and both her red and black attacks do 835 damage before dropping the strike tile. Granted, this isn't a nuke-bomb, but when coupled with strike/attack tiles that do near-200 damage per turn enemy health starts evaporating quickly.

I understand that the Punisher is awesome fun, that he has a good color-combo of non-stop damage, and his abilities synergize well. But can he really keep pace with Psylocke for speed? All I know is that there have been times where I can get Psylocke's black tile out in 2 turns, and then her red in another 2-3, and I've done 2000+ damage.

I'm not questioning Punisher users or making an argument for either, I'm asking because I don't know.

Judgement deals damage equal to the match damage of the tiles that it destroys, so its typically ~200 damage. I was about to post something along the lines of what mischief said (the black comparison, not the analysis of how 2 match 3s is a lot easier to get than 3 match 3s of the same color, which is really cool!), but he beat me to the punch: Psylocke's black is significantly faster than Punisher's black, and thats why she feels faster.

Unknown

Son't see many ppl prefer 5 blue, but I like it.
10 blue and 2 turns to steal all 10-15 ap seems a fair trade to me, unless you were unlucky and they either spread out such that theres only 6 each or an unused color for your team.
Still not very good compared to c.mags, but we'll see after his rebalance later.

Unknown

Punisher's black actually does 668 damage at max level. Wiki is wrong. Enjoy the new math comparisons!

Unknown

Ok I know everyone was on the edge of their seat so managed to test it and as you all suspected, I was wrong. WRONG! Psylocke's Psychic Knife does not overwrite itself, it just does the initial damage and doesn't replace the strike tile at all if she's maxed on them.

So Mischiefmaker's Option 2 is as viable as it was.

KaioShinDE

In Heroic Venom I just ran out of health packs and couldn't revive my BP, so I quickly dumped a bit of ISO into my 2/3/3 Psylocke and got her to level 50 and used her instead of him. And I must say, even at that low level (with enemies around level 50-60 too though), she felt pretty damn nice. It's just very satisfying to spam abilities every other move and see them augmenting each other higher and higher. I might just decide to feed her some more ISO. I don't especially need her to fill a hole in my team (I have a 141 Patch, 116 Cmags and 105 Punisher and 90 Hood), but I just liked using her. I don't always need the mathematically best team. Let's see if I can score another round of covers for her in an event soon.

Unknown

Even though I built her 5/3/5, I'm leaning more towards 3/5/5 now for two simple reasons...

1) There'll always be someone who can use Red better than Psylocke, especially with the addition of Lazy Cap/Thor.
2) Her Red is kinda lackluster for the amount of AP required to use it - I think a flat rate of 5 AP might make it more reasonable. As it is in Heroic Venom, A.Slash at 2.8K damage is infinitely more appealing than the pittance that it does. At least with 5 AP cost, I can think "Oh hey for slightly less damage, I get to throw out 3 really good strike tiles!"

Kinda regret selling those 4 Blue covers.

Dormammu

Doragon wrote:

Even though I built her 5/3/5, I'm leaning more towards 3/5/5 now for two simple reasons...

1) There'll always be someone who can use Red better than Psylocke, especially with the addition of Lazy Cap/Thor.
2) Her Red is kinda lackluster for the amount of AP required to use it - I think a flat rate of 5 AP might make it more reasonable. As it is in Heroic Venom, A.Slash at 2.8K damage is infinitely more appealing than the pittance that it does. At least with 5 AP cost, I can think "Oh hey for slightly less damage, I get to throw out 3 really good strike tiles!"

Kinda regret selling those 4 Blue covers.

The problem with her blue is that you'll struggle at times to get more out of it. I mean, at 3 it is already stealing 15AP - how often will you see more than that? My guess is rarely. More points in blue simply increases the amount of the AP steal. Better to have those points in Red, I feel, which is actually quite comparable to many of her 3* peers in damage-to-cost ratio.