*** Psylocke (Classic) ***

Unknown

Renaldoo wrote:

Psylock is my only level 141, and she has served me well! I have only gotten exactly 13 covers for her though, and they are 5/4/4. So, I am trying to decide if I should go for the full black or full blue. Not a lot of people seem to run her though, so I haven't fought her much, but she seems to do pretty decent for me on the defense. When she kills you, is it usually just a combination of red/black, or is it a lucky blue?

Thanks for your help!

I'm not sure if I've ever encountered a high level psylocke in pvp but her red and black are deadly, cheap powers that will kill you over time if you can't match her special tiles. At least it takes a couple turns for that damage to add up... oh wait, she deals good/great initial damage with them too and uses any of your teams strike tiles on the board twice per turn (if an attack tile is out).

I'm a kill them as fast as you can type player and given what her blue skill is I'll take any increase in damage from red and black over it.

Bacon Pants

Who is Psylock? Is she a new character? I have Psylocke at 110 and she rocks.

Sorry, I had to. Having a good night and felt like rabble rousing.

Anywho...Go with black, the blue is such a crapshoot with the AP color returning to you. It's usually purple for me...and if I ever max out Psylocke, her and GSBW are going to become best friends.

Renaldoo

Yeah, usually when her blue goes off, i get 19 of some mana color I can't use, but that's not really Psylock's fault, it's mine for not haveing a full rainbow of actives. I thought that perhaps a 2-countdown blue might be super nasty if I could actually use all colors. But extra 2 points in black is a surprisingly large amount of damage. I just don't know!

Unknown

Renaldoo wrote:

Yeah, usually when her blue goes off, i get 19 of some mana color I can't use, but that's not really Psylock's fault, it's mine for not haveing a full rainbow of actives. I thought that perhaps a 2-countdown blue might be super nasty if I could actually use all colors. But extra 2 points in black is a surprisingly large amount of damage. I just don't know!

Sounds like you do

Unknown

My Psy is only 5/3/2 at 102 but I think I really want 5/5/3 as my final build. Having the attack tiles to double dip on the strikes is great but I can spare the extra pure damage. 5 in blue seems like it will actually make her blue into something with functional utility which I tend to value over raw damage.

Unknown

5 in blue is pointless at this point because of the two game breaking blue skills in the game (Magnetic Field and ATU). Unless you're just trying to be different or there's some kind of roster limitation there's just no reason to go for anything cute when you got two blue abilities that are simply way better. In a hypothetically balanced world, 5 in blue would actually be pretty useful, but I'm not sure where you can give up the point. Putting 4 in red is a safe bet (don't need the extra initial damage because red is hard to spam), but dropping one more on red reduces the strike tile damage, and dropping 1 on Psi-Katana reduces the initial damage, and Psi-Katana is relatively spammable so that's a hard choice to make.

I have yet to see Psylocke done anything that'd win a game by herself, though sometimes an early Psi-Katana on a particularly vulnerable third leg (OBW, Modern Storm, The Hood) can greatly change the way your opponent approaches the game, forcing them to make sub optimal matches to keep one of those 3 characters alive.

Unknown

100% Black and Red.

Psylocke is my favorite character. I just love how fast she is although I dont think she is much of a defensive threat. mine is currently at 125, I decided to level my fathor to 141 first because I feel like his 141 would be much more of a defensive deterrent than the extra tile strength I would get from Psylocke. I tend to use her at the start of an event so I can crank through wins quickly, but as soon as I get to the area where losses really hurt I swap her out with fathor and chug along to 1100.

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

5 in blue is pointless at this point because of the two game breaking blue skills in the game (Magnetic Field and ATU). Unless you're just trying to be different or there's some kind of roster limitation there's just no reason to go for anything cute when you got two blue abilities that are simply way better. In a hypothetically balanced world, 5 in blue would actually be pretty useful, but I'm not sure where you can give up the point. Putting 4 in red is a safe bet (don't need the extra initial damage because red is hard to spam), but dropping one more on red reduces the strike tile damage, and dropping 1 on Psi-Katana reduces the initial damage, and Psi-Katana is relatively spammable so that's a hard choice to make.

I have yet to see Psylocke done anything that'd win a game by herself, though sometimes an early Psi-Katana on a particularly vulnerable third leg (OBW, Modern Storm, The Hood) can greatly change the way your opponent approaches the game, forcing them to make sub optimal matches to keep one of those 3 characters alive.

Pretty much this. I have her at 4/5/4. If you go the Blue route, 5 in Blue is mandatory.

That said, as Phantron mentions, a 5 Blue build is a bet that a character will eventually will be released that can capitalize on a Purple steal. The Bewilder CD tile is too difficult to maintain at a 3 CD, but is quite manageable at 2. The problem with Bewilder arises in regard to the colors that Psylocke will steal. The vast majority of the time, she steals Black, Yellow, or Purple. Psylocke covers black by herself, and Modern Thor covers Yellow quite nicely. However, Purple is currently a very awkward situation. There are only 2 3*** Purple users currently, CMags (which is a no-go because of the reasons Phantron states), and GSBW (which is awesome on offense: Bewilder --> Deceptive Tactics --> Sniper Rifle, but embarrassingly hideous on defense). Until a strong 3*** active Purple active user is releases that does not conflict with Psylocke's Blue, she cannot truly leverage the maximum potential of Bewilder.

Falcon does raise an eyebrow though... active purple and a passive yellow that IceIX implies is a strike/attack tile buff. There could be some synergy here. Will have to wait and see in Falcon's active purple passes muster or not.

Unknown

Got one at 141 5/3/5. She is a bad **** that will destroy you if the game goes on for a long time. Hoping she will pair nicely with lazy daken.

over_clocked

TropicYeo wrote:

the biggest problem i have with psylocke is that the placement of her strike and attack tiles are somewhat random, you cannot control where they're placed. It always annoys me when i place a strike/attack tile to have the AI make a match the next turn.

Try to hold it until available red/black matches are eliminated. Many characters demand some manner of timing before using their abilities, even AI-friendly Thor (you don't want to use Thunder Strike if the board is lacking in green).

Unknown

Another vote for 5 black here. The ~900 damage for 2 matches plus attack tile will let you burn down pesky support characters like OBW, Hood, and Spidey, before they have a chance to stop you from launching a nuke. Also lets you focus on denying their colors early while still doing damage.

reckless442

Also, paired with Patch, if you have a foe who you need to take down within a certain time period, 9 green, 8 red, and 6 black can be a lethal combo. At max level, the 9 green does 1780 base damage (not including match damage), sets out six green strike tiles. The 8 red does 965 base plus 900 from Patch's strike tiles, and adds another 192 strike tile. Then the 6 black does 965 base + nearly 1,100 damage from strike tiles, and sets out an attack tile. Then you get your move and the attack tile triggers for 231 + up to 1,100 from the assorted strike tiles. Without even counting match damage, those three powers used in proper sequence can do more than 7,000 damage.

Unknown

compared to 5 blue 10 purple and 9 green for even more OPness with c.mags.
purple can do upwards of 7k by itself then rage + free blue matches to take down the other 2.

over_clocked

Psylocke is great but not the greatest. What I love about her is her decent health though. I had a horrible run-in in a LR against oBW/Ares/Rags, went with my own Ares-Rags and Psylocke instead of oBW. The enemy got ridiculous cascades on purple and blue and cast their maxed out Recon on me THRICE, while I could not for the life of me match blacks to burst down their oBW. Thankfully all the greens and reds went to their Rags instead of Ares, or I would have lost after the very first Recon. Psylocke survived the abuse by oBW and Rags and managed to finish oBW (who healed twice) before dying. After that Ares and Rags were easy pickings...

I do wish Psylocke's Bewilder would be purple, so, so much. It doesn't make sense for me, I'd prefer Dormammu's Aid being the only blue AP steal skill (it's passive so it could be any colour, frankly).

2Lyrian:
You forgot purple users Daredevil and Loki (hides in shame).

Unknown

Red strike tiles are hard to protect since red is usually pretty valuable so any red matches is going to be gone relatively quickly. I think Psylocke's strike tiles were designed under the assumption that red = easy to protect and thus weak (or at least weak compared to Punisher), which is only true because Wolverine and Daken spews out so many strike tiles that you're bound to have quite a few left no matter what happened to the board.

reckless442

Jeremychen wrote:

compared to 5 blue 10 purple and 9 green for even more OPness with c.mags.
purple can do upwards of 7k by itself then rage + free blue matches to take down the other 2.

That's true. That's true and there are plenty of big scores that you can get with Patch. I did 7500+ to all three opponents from one rage of the panther using buffed BP between Patch, six yellow BP strike tiles, and BP's black, i.e., 22,500 total damage in one move. The nice thing about Psylocke is that her red and black are cheap and don't require more than three matches max. With C. Mags' purple, unless you get a match-4, cascade, or are using boosts, you need four purple matches it to work. And if you've built up your blue at the same time, there may not be a lot of blue on the board to use for his purple.

Unknown

Patch's amazing numbers generally need some kind of lockdown mechanism since the amazing numbers get applied both ways, and if you can lockdown the other side the game is over anyway. If anything Psylocke is a reasonably good defense against Patch because attack tiles continue to function even while you're locked down, so Psi-Katana can prevent a Berserker Rage from hitting the board even if the opponent have stun lock since they'd still be getting punched for close to 1K each turn, though 'reasonable defense' against lockdown isn't really saying much. 99% of the time you're still dead.

It's hard for me to figure out a build that incorporates a level 5 Bewilderment because Psi-Katana is actually very good on defense against the 3 extra low HP support characters (The Hood, OBW, and Modern Storm). Two Psi-Katana can often be obtained relatively quickly since black is generally uncontested on defense unless the opponent is using Black Panther (The Punisher needs green more than black since you can have an early Judgment on and do a Molotov later, but the other way around doesn't work out well) and if a low HP character takes both Psi-Katana they'd be down to about half health, and now suddenly that 200 a turn attack tile also looks pretty nasty to a guy with only 2K health remaining. The alternative is giving up red and losing the strike tile seems like a pretty bad idea unless you don't plan on using her red at all. This might be workable if you've a team like say, Captain America or Human Torch + Psylocke, at least for offense.

Unknown

IMO 5 black is kinda mandatory. The rest depends on what you use -- if you actually use blue, 5 is much much better than 3 due to less CD. But if just sitting there as an afterthought, better put the levels into red. Which may suffer from similar problem. So it all depends on your team composition and habits.

Unknown

Lyrian wrote:

The problem with Bewilder arises in regard to the colors that Psylocke will steal. The vast majority of the time, she steals Black, Yellow, or Purple. Psylocke covers black by herself, and Modern Thor covers Yellow quite nicely. However, Purple is currently a very awkward situation. There are only 2 3*** Purple users currently, CMags (which is a no-go because of the reasons Phantron states), and GSBW (which is awesome on offense: Bewilder --> Deceptive Tactics --> Sniper Rifle, but embarrassingly hideous on defense).

It's so funny how everyone ignores that Daredevil exists as a purple 3* I do wonder if Daredevil would work with Psylocke but I don't know who's red and blue the AI would prioritise.

I have Psylocke at 127 (5/5/2 - Not by choice). She's my only level 100+ character at the moment so I run her with OBW and featured hero. This works ok when the featured hero has a green skill.

I would love to have the covers for GSBW to partner with Psylocke.

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

5 in blue is pointless at this point because of the two game breaking blue skills in the game (Magnetic Field and ATU). Unless you're just trying to be different or there's some kind of roster limitation there's just no reason to go for anything cute when you got two blue abilities that are simply way better. In a hypothetically balanced world, 5 in blue would actually be pretty useful, but I'm not sure where you can give up the point. Putting 4 in red is a safe bet (don't need the extra initial damage because red is hard to spam), but dropping one more on red reduces the strike tile damage, and dropping 1 on Psi-Katana reduces the initial damage, and Psi-Katana is relatively spammable so that's a hard choice to make.

I have yet to see Psylocke done anything that'd win a game by herself, though sometimes an early Psi-Katana on a particularly vulnerable third leg (OBW, Modern Storm, The Hood) can greatly change the way your opponent approaches the game, forcing them to make sub optimal matches to keep one of those 3 characters alive.

Well my c.mags is soft capped at 41 and I have no spidey covers at all, so I feel pretty good about choosing 5 hypothetical 5 blue for Psylocke, and if I do manage to get either of the "way better" blue skills in the game up to strength I can look into a respec then.