**** Ghost Rider (Johnny Blaze) **** Updated (8/22/17)

CrookedKnight

Green and to a lesser extent red cry out for strike tiles to make them worthwhile. Problem is, good strike tiles aren't easy to come by in 4* land. Hulkbuster makes them, but you've got lots of overlap there; better red, arguably better black, and his blue removes green from the board. Jean, but not reliably and she uses green to do it. X-23 uses green again, and you need at least 16 to start making them. Ant-Man?

SolidQ

Look like he's 2.5*. Seriously you need Improve Green Dmg, make red every turn(reduce dmg)

Talahamut

OBW is a villain???

fight4thedream

Definitely stoked to have Ghost Rider in the game but I agree his green and red abilities seem rather underwhelming. A bit stumped about why they gave him a green power, would have preferred it to be yellow and act more in line with the character. I think they should have stuck closer to the concept of the Spirit of Vengeance and gave him a passive ability that activated with damaged received a la X-Enforcer:

Spirit of Vengeance- Passive
(Passive) Ghost Rider unleashes Hell's fury upon the wicked who would dare do harm against his allies. Whenever an ally takes more than 685 damage, Ghost Rider creates a 1-turn Countdown tile that bursts dealing 250 damage and creates a 77 strength strike tile. If an ally is downed, he also creates one 18 strength attack tile.
Level Upgrades
Level 2: Ghost Rider creates two countdown tiles that burst for 311 damage, and creates 99 strength strike tiles, and two 25 strength attack tiles if ally downed.
Level 3: Ghost Rider creates three countdown tiles that burst for 402 damage, and creates 150 stength strike tiles, and two 32 strength attack tiles if ally downed.
Level 4: Ghost Rider creates three countdown tiles that burst for 510 damage, and creates 202 stength strike tiles, and two 47 strength attack tiles if ally downed.
Level 5: Ghost Rider creates three countdown tiles that burst for 666 damage, and creates 288 stength strike tiles, and three 88 strength attack tiles if ally downed.
Max Level
Level 3: On over 1220 damage, deals 520 damage (if all three countdown tiles go off = 1560 damage), 3 x 180 strike tiles, and 2 x 65 attack tiles.
Level 4: On over 1220 damage, deals 715 damage. (if all three countdown tiles go off = 2145 damage), 3 x 250 strike tiles, and 2 x 94 attack tiles.
Level 5: On over 1220 damage, deals 1248 damage. (if all three countdown tiles go off = 3,744 damage), 3 x 340 strike tiles, and 3 x 151 attack tiles.


The basic idea is that you are going to want to target Ghost Rider first because leaving him last will result in a lot of strike and attack tiles as well as the Penance stare. This passive ability will also hopefully open up gameplay to allow using characters with lower health pools like Prof X, the Hood (yes, I know ironic lol) and so on. You are also going to want to think twice before using an AoE with Ghost Rider on the team. My numbers may be off since math is not my strong suit but I think this is keeping line with the power levels of the character and staying true to flavor that is the Spirit of Vengeance.

babinro

Initial impressions from on paper stats:

Green:
Awful. Granted you can't have great AoE damage on a 7 AP skill but this damage just won't make a meaningful difference in the match. Most characters have 13,000+ health these days. The attack tile kicker is nice because soo many characters have strikes these days but the kicker AoE damage is both difficult to obtain and not impressive.

Red:
Probably Awful. I say this because of my history of using The Punisher's Black and Black Panthor's Blue. These tiles don't impress and frankly they often get destroyed before their first trigger (let alone 2 or more triggers). This skill really needs damage on cast to be considered worth the risk IMO.

Black:
Interesting and tough to judge (probably decent). I say this because who wants to base a strategy around how badly you get schooled? I love that they took the damage up to 200%. In PvE it should be easy to deal 10k+ with this against high level Daken or Ares. It's especially powerful if it looks at all AoE damage dealt to the team. That said, one solid skill doesn't make a character viable.

Initial Build:
5/3/5 - I feel as though the red can't be relied upon especially if the game places the tile for you which I believe is the case. I'm really not impressed with green though so 3/5/5 is also viable.

Overall:
Low 4* tier. Ghost Rider strikes me as a character whose played strictly for fun. There's absolutely nothing competitive here in pvp. In PvE he'll have a lot more potential but I still don't think they pushed his bonus damage enough to make him better than other options. Trash tier. Easily worse than Star-Lord IMO. I'm torn on whether or not he's worse than IW though. It's a close call.

Xenoberyll

How does Penance Stare work with instant kill abilities like Punishers red? Is "downs that character" = dealing as much damage as that characters health?

I'd like to see Ghost Rider staring down Galactus after the big boom and a fastball special or whatever

Overall he's a little underwhelming though. His "best" ability isn't cheap and requires me to eat a lot of damage and the other two are on the weak side. I'd prefer if his green was single target (and yellow) and his red is just meh. Maybe he'll play better than he looks but for now i'm more exited to see the art than playing him.

Xenoberyll

IceIX wrote:

Quarg321 wrote:

Is penance stare based off damage the opponent has done to Ghost Rider, or Ghost Rider's team?

Dealt to anyone and everyone on Ghost Rider's team. Which also means that if he pops up as an opponent in a later round in a Survival Mode pin, you should probably stun him before he gets to stare at you.

If damage counts across waves, does the same thing apply to opponent characters, like when Gorgon appears in every other wave during the EotS event? Goons are different people every wave i guess, right?

dkffiv

babinro wrote:

Overall:
Low 4* tier. Ghost Rider strikes me as a character whose played strictly for fun. There's absolutely nothing competitive here in pvp. In PvE he'll have a lot more potential but I still don't think they pushed his bonus damage enough to make him better than other options. Trash tier. Easily worse than Star-Lord IMO. I'm torn on whether or not he's worse than IW though. It's a close call.

At first glance I'd put him at around Psylocke tier. Not viable for PvP but good at clearing easy nodes and hard node capable due to his color wheel. Way better than IW and my gut is saying much stronger than Starlord (outside of Iceman comboing).

Overall attack tiles suck, his tiles are similar in strength to Doc Oc's and we all know how bad those are. Problems will all 3 skills.

Green's bonus damage should be higher and he should produce 2 tiles at a time at 4+ covers. Ghost Rider alone will need around 4+ ability casts to satisfy the condition and I predict it will be difficult to maintain the required number of tiles without outside help. This feels like the exact same design flaw as X23. Green also has the problem of doing just enough damage to trigger Deadpool and Red Hulk so there are some hard counters for PvP.

Red's damage should probably be doubled. Its a gamble if it will survive at all so if there is no instant damage it should be fairly punishing if it sticks. Currently it needs to survive 6 turns to make it a better damage ratio than HB red (outside of strike tile help), that number should be dropped to 4. Would much rather it produce (weaker) strike tiles and have the Villains bonus create protect tiles rather than damage. My guess is the base damage is lowered to account for the potential villains bonus. If the tile gets stuck in a corner it will be potentially game winning (and one that the AI will beat you with as a TU).

Black is interesting but only gets value if you are getting destroyed. Too expensive to use in most matches and therein lies the problem. The most dangerous target on the enemy team is usually the one who will rack up damage the quickest (and the one you're using match damage on and trying to kill first), but in order for this to work you would need to save that person until you have the AP to cast this. If the damage / AP was halved this could work but a PvE Jugg or Ares will down your team before you can gather 12 black.

He might've been interesting with Carnage but they share all the same colors, he'll be decent with PX in PvE but he's going to skew the ratio of special tiles toward attack (which is bad).

SirLanik

Only real point/comment -
When Black Widow is introduced with the costume labeled as Original, she isn't a villain. Her appearances as an antagonist happened prior, when she had no costume. By the time she shows up with this outfit, she's come back and is helping Hawkeye, who is now an Avenger.

bobbyfish

Jarvind wrote:

IceIX wrote:

Ghost Rider (Johnny Blaze)
Penance Stare - 12 AP
Ghost Rider looks into his opponent's eyes and forces them to revisit all the pain they've inflicted a thousand times over. Deals damage to the target enemy equal to 50% of the total amount of damage they've dealt so far this mission.
Level Upgrades

Level 2: Deals 75% of the enemy's total damage back at them. Level 3: Deals 100% of the enemy's total damage back at them. Level 4: Deals 150% of the enemy's total damage back at them. Level 5: Deals 200% of the enemy's total damage back at them.

yes! The memories of that cave... *shudder*

SangFroid

Does black count damage as dealt or actually received. i.e opponent fires a power that does 2K Dmg, I have a shield of power 500. Does black count this as 2k (dealt) or 1.5k (received)?

CrookedKnight

If you use Penance Stare on a team with Thing or 3* Deadpool and it triggers one of their passive powers, is the damage dealt based on the original target or the character who stepped in front?

BlackSheep101

IceIX wrote:

Damage is displayed and dynamically updated on the ability before you fire it, so you can always tell what it's going to deal at base.

Would love to see this on every ability!

GrumpySmurf1002

I think people are underselling how ridiculous his black can be offensively.

In most high-level matches (where you're using a 4*), you're looking at 150-200 match damage per turn, without accounting for crits, match-4, etc. So from the word go he's adding 300-400 per turn, with no ceiling and no reduction. It won't take much in the way of damage to get his black into quintuple digits.

He's going to be a wave node superstar for sure. Combine with Fist and strike generating damage eaters (Daken, Grocket, OML) and it'll be laughable how fast those clear.

He probably won't be part of the PvP meta, and maybe that's enough to say "eh whatever he sucks," but the damage potential on black is unmatched right now.

Coconut99

Question on Hellfire...does it only look at the current team, or the team as it started? Wondering about this for two reasons. First, with waves, will it judge the Heroes/Villains makeup based on the current team out at the time?

And second, when just fighting a static team, will the Heroes/Villains balance be determined when the mission starts, or when the power is fired? So if the team is 2 Heroes 1 Villain at the start, will there never be bonus damage? If both Heroes die and only the Villain remains, will the bonus damage for Hellfire go off? And by contrast, if the team starts off as 2 Villains 1 Hero and both Villains die (leaving only the Hero), will the bonus damage go off or no?

CrookedKnight

When his black works well it'll be amazing, but those applications are limited - in PvP you want to build a team that doesn't let your opponents deal 5000 damage, for starters. Plus it's only going to be a nuke against the specific character who's already nuked you, so it puts the player in the counter-intuitive, and likely counterproductive, position of leaving the best attacker on the enemy side alone so PS won't go to waste.

It'll be immensely useful in his DDQ fight, though.

simonsez

GrumpySmurf1002 wrote:

I think people are underselling how ridiculous his black can be offensively.

In most high-level matches (where you're using a 4*), you're looking at 150-200 match damage per turn, without accounting for crits, match-4, etc. So from the word go he's adding 300-400 per turn, with no ceiling and no reduction. It won't take much in the way of damage to get his black into quintuple digits.

Irrelevant. The character dealing all that damage isn't going to have quintuple health left, unless you specifically target a lesser threat, and let the main threat beat the **** out of you while you collect 12 black. To be useful, this ability needs to work off total team damage, not individual damage.

CrookedKnight

Also, it's not necessarily going to be the same character dealing match damage each turn. If venom hits you for 400 and Ares hits you for 500, that doesn't boost Penance Stare up to 900.

Phaserhawk

If/when I can get him covered, I think 5/3/5 or 5/5/3 are the 2 best builds. I think black is awesome, but in PvP, you are hopefully not taking the kind of dmg that would require you to need 200% return. However, PvE I think 5/3/5 would be stronger. Hmm tough call. Not super impressed.

Colorwheel wise he pairs well with Ant-Man, and you would have 6 actives. Honestly the best pairing I can think of for him is Daken

My final thoughts.

In current PvP I think 5/5/3 plays better. There's not a whole lotta guys that aren't going to be sufficiently damaged that 100% return back isn't going to down them. However, I think 5/3/5 better future proofs him since you could essentially one shot any 5* with this kind of turn around. Plus its a really good counter to AoE's

Pylgrim

I think red is a bit underrated. Around 2k every two turns is not that bad if you only paid once, and it was rather cheap to begin with. Green, on the other hand is savagely, desperately entangled with X-Force in a race to be the worst green power in 4* land.