*** Black Panther (T'Challa) ***

HailMary

locked wrote:

Can anyone tell me if my 4-3-3 Panther is worth leveling all up to the level 102 cap? What's the black like at level 3 at this level? It's just he's the next one after Psylocke I can potentially push over 100 levels.

I'm pushing my 3/3/4 BP to L102 (my Iso only gets me to L101 for now ). I think that, at L102, the 3K -> 4K difference is a couple hundred damage. For reference, 4K -> 5K has a 372-point damage differential.

Phaserhawk

The more I think about it. Until they fix BP's yellow. Is 3/5/5 the stinger build on him?

NorthernPolarity

Phaserhawk wrote:

The more I think about it. Until they fix BP's yellow. Is 3/5/5 the stinger build on him?

Doubt it. 40% increase damage buff from 3->5 yellow vs a 25% defense buff 3->5 blue. The extra blue defense tile upgrade from 3->4 doesn't matter because the odds of you getting more than 4 defense tiles out are incredibly low. The damage, on the other hand, is always useful and has been amazing for me in the current heroic.

Unknown

I'm 5/3/5 and I almost never get max defense tiles out. I often have trouble getting one. Usually his black kicks in and downs most of the enemy team by then. Or the generator just gets matched. I think 5/3/5 is probably the most useful spec.

Phaserhawk

Thanks for the advice. Btw experimenting with builds, two odd bed fellows are BP and Ragnarok. While not the Rags of old, and u run the risk of green blowing up your stuff. Rags gets cascades and really feeds BP. A very good defensive team

Unknown

For Heroic Venom 5/3/5 would be best, but generally speaking I see no value in his yellow. All of Heroic Venom's fights take place in city so you might as well convert the environmental AP to strike tiles. In normal events, you'd still always be better off converting them to Thorned Rose or Oasis. You normally wouldn't be pairing him up with Modern Storm, and if you do you'd probably be fighting in desert or forest so you'll still never use his yellow ability.

Defense grid needs to be out early to have a significant impact. It's easy to lose it but if it stays alive for generate 2 tiles, it makes a rather big difference when you don't have access to the other broken blue characters.

Unknown

His yellow can be pretty gruesome, but it takes a ton of environmental tiles to get it working well. His blue is pretty good as well, but the main problem for me is that it usually gets destroyed before it even gets 1 defense tile out. It can be useful, but you'll have to be careful and play the waiting game if you want to take advantage of its full capabilities.

over_clocked

Between an immediate effect of having strike tiles out or a delayed effect of having protect tiles while also having much better blue skills (even if no Magneto/Spider-Man anyone would choose Cap/oBW/cStorm/Doom/and even Psylocke over Panther), it's 5/3/5 for me. Protect tiles are nice and all, but I'd rather have a decent yellow because yellow powers are in short supply.

Unknown

even if you're in desert or jungle, just use his yellow after using your env tiles, you'll still get a strike tile, and yellow is a dump color anyways, so it's doubtful you be able to use it better anyways (unless you're running IM40).

Unknown

bloodwars wrote:

even if you're in desert or jungle, just use his yellow after using your env tiles, you'll still get a strike tile, and yellow is a dump color anyways, so it's doubtful you be able to use it better anyways (unless you're running IM40).

Exactly. The area really depends on his usage, and chances are that the environmental ability will be a lot more useful than BPs yellow.

Meto5000

I posted this in the LazyCap thread but it may be more appropriate here since it's a discussion about how to best cover BP and pair him with other characters.

Phantron wrote:

Color interference is not a big deal unless you've some kind of game over ability.

First I'm going to assume if you're running a strong character with a game over move, you absolutely can win with him on offense so the fact that your team isn't the most ideal offensive team should not matter so I'm only going to be talking about defense.

For example suppose your team is Hulk/Patch/Punisher. You got a 8, 9, and 10 green AP ability, so you basically have no idea what your defense team will do with green. But that's okay because these abilities are roughly equally powerful when used by the AI (remember AI is not capable of doing the usual cheap tricks with Berserker Rage that a human can), so a team like that works okay even with 3 abilities on green (it probably has other problems beyond that though).

Currently the game over abilities are pretty much:

Red - Star Spangled Avenger
Yellow - Thunder Strike
Green - Call the Storm (there's almost no circumstance where Sniper Rifle would be a game over ability on defense but Call the Storm wouldn't be).
Black - Rage of the Panther

For example, if you have The Hood and Black Panther on the same team, your AI is likely to use Intimidation at 9 AP instead of saving up 12 AP for Rage of the Panther, and there's no way you'd ever want to do that. You're literally throwing away a move that can quite possibly put the game away, so they make a bad team together.

None of The Hood's AP-consuming ability can be considered anywhere near a game over move, so it hardly matters for any conflict there. In the case of Captain America, if you're giving up Captain America's game over move on red, you got to get at least one more game over move in return. This is only possible with Thor. Black Panther loses his black to The Hood. I suppose you could do Captain America/Black Panther/OBW, but The Hood's synergy with Captain's abilities seems overwhelmingly superior for the support role. Note that if you have Captain/Thor/Black Panther, you'd still only have 2 game over attacks, because Thor's red prevents Star Spangled Avenger from being used, and Black Panther's yellow prevents Thunder Strike from being used.

My black panther currently only has blue and black covers - and I am considering never getting a yellow one. What would people think about pairing lazy thor, lazy cap, and BP 0/5/5 at level 115. The black would still probably do ~2640/7922 single target/team damage instead of 3238/9714 and you will never overwrite Thor's Thunder Strike on defense. Without the ability to fuel his own green, Thor is significantly weakened. At 5900 HP BP would be the weakest hero with more health than most other 3* covers and a team health pool of 21,850. Each character can end the game on his own if they're the last one standing. Essentially, you're giving up a bit of health(1,336) and ~600/1800 damage on RotP, but gaining the ability to always use Thor's Thunder Strike which enables you to CtS more often.

The biggest negative is that Cap is pretty much just a huge meat shield on defense as each one of his powers costs more than his teammates powers that share a color. But once BP or Thor goes down Cap will start to shine. I think most teams will target BP -> Cap -> Thor, but I have to imagine against any fair team composition this means by the time you start targeting Thor you're about to eat or have already eaten a CtS and are in pretty bad shape health wise.

The no support, big damage, high health team.

Team Fat.

Puritas

Hang on a second, I think you're on to something

3/5/5 Cap at level 141
0/5/5 Thor at lvl 115
0/5/5 BP at lvl 115

You're giving up 2k team hp and a little bit of damage for the assurance the AI will use your skills well every time

...or I mean they could just implement skill priority

Unknown

I think Thor + Captain works okay because Thor has a massive amount of HP and a ton of potential. If they leave Thor for last, you won't get Captain's red, but Thor's yellow or green can both end the game so it's okay to give that up.

Of course if they go for Thor first, he's still got more HP than anyone else but Hulk so you can't really expect better.

I'm less sure about how Black Panther fits, because giving up yellow is a bigger issue than even green. Thunder Strike almost always leads to a massive cascade that gives you enough for Call the Storm and plenty of other APs too.

Meto5000

Phantron wrote:

I think Thor + Captain works okay because Thor has a massive amount of HP and a ton of potential. If they leave Thor for last, you won't get Captain's red, but Thor's yellow or green can both end the game so it's okay to give that up.

Of course if they go for Thor first, he's still got more HP than anyone else but Hulk so you can't really expect better.

I'm less sure about how Black Panther fits, because giving up yellow is a bigger issue than even green. Thunder Strike almost always leads to a massive cascade that gives you enough for Call the Storm and plenty of other APs too.

Right, but the whole point was using a Black Panther that has 0 in yellow so he'll never steal Thor's priority.

Phaserhawk

Meto5000 wrote:

Phantron wrote:

I think Thor + Captain works okay because Thor has a massive amount of HP and a ton of potential. If they leave Thor for last, you won't get Captain's red, but Thor's yellow or green can both end the game so it's okay to give that up.

Of course if they go for Thor first, he's still got more HP than anyone else but Hulk so you can't really expect better.

I'm less sure about how Black Panther fits, because giving up yellow is a bigger issue than even green. Thunder Strike almost always leads to a massive cascade that gives you enough for Call the Storm and plenty of other APs too.

Right, but the whole point was using a Black Panther that has 0 in yellow so he'll never steal Thor's priority.

I think nerfing your character just so Thor can cast yellow isn't the best idea. I understand what you are saying. But if I cam across your team, I would be like sweet, easy pickings. If you want to maximize Thor I suggest swithcing BP with IM40 and have your IM40 at minimum 5/4/4, at worst IM40 casts Recharge and gets you 0-6 Green AP, or the AI more than likely casts Thunderstrike, you could go IM40 5/3/5 and guarentee it won't. You can still put Cap in there as back up, and the AI will use Cap's shield instead of IM40's Balistic Salvo, or you could put Psylocke in there, the AI will either cast her's or Thor's red, you still get a very deadly Black, you will lose Cap's blue still but you always were. You have the same number of hp roughly, but much more damage. Your rely too much on casting BP's black, at half the cost Psylocke can do in theory as much damage assuming her attack tile doesn't get taken out right away, and you can get strike tiles out. Not saying it's better, but it could be another option.

Arogntbastrd

If you have a max BP and fat man no one's going to attack you anyways. Ive been sitting all first avenger tourney unshielded with over 800 pts, hardly been attacked and haven't lost a defense since I put in my patch/ BP team to scare people away. I think it's a bad idea to neuter a character just so that it might play slightly better on defense.

The logic is all sound, but not worth it in my opinion

Meto5000

Phaserhawk wrote:

I think nerfing your character just so Thor can cast yellow isn't the best idea. I understand what you are saying. But if I came across your team, I would be like sweet, easy pickings. If you want to maximize Thor I suggest switching BP with IM40 and have your IM40 at minimum 5/4/4, at worst IM40 casts Recharge and gets you 0-6 Green AP, or the AI more than likely casts Thunderstrike, you could go IM40 5/3/5 and guarantee it won't. You can still put Cap in there as back up, and the AI will use Cap's shield instead of IM40's Ballistic Salvo, or you could put Psylocke in there, the AI will either cast her's or Thor's red, you still get a very deadly Black, you will lose Cap's blue still but you always were. You have the same number of hp roughly, but much more damage. Your rely too much on casting BP's black, at half the cost Psylocke can do in theory as much damage assuming her attack tile doesn't get taken out right away, and you can get strike tiles out. Not saying it's better, but it could be another option.

I'm curious as to why you'd think easy pickings for this team. Unless you're stunlocking or turnlocking, you're probably eating at least Thunder Strike, Call the Storm, Red Shield, or Rage of the Panther. With my playstyle, I like to find fights where I'm not going to have to health pack after every fight so a team like this would be an instant skip. This isn't a team focused on speed, it's a team that uses high health pools to gather enough AP to pull off devastating AoE finishing moves. Even if you have Hood in your party all it will take is a lucky cascade or two and the AI will take a chunk of your entire teams health.

Additionally, I don't think IM40 offers anything to the equation. Cap's shield on defense is usually not a huge issue to deal with so I'm not concerned about making sure it has cast priority. Psylocke has 100 less HP than a 115 BP, and her black, while half the cost, is not quite the game ender that even a **** RotP can be. Let's say it takes 5 extra turns to get to 12 black ap from 6. In the time it takes to get to 12, Psylocke would do (965+231+231+231+231 + 231 = 2120 + (965+462 = 1427) = 3547 damage under optimal conditions. BPG (Black Panther ****) would do a minimum of 2640 single target damage, and up to 7920 team damage. I like Psylocke a lot and was originally my first choice to join, but I don't think she's fits into Team Fat better than the ****.

I agree with Phantron that the game currently has 4 moves that are basically game over. This team composition basically guarantees that at least one of them will go off per match even on defense.

Arogntbastrd wrote:

If you have a max BP and fat man no one's going to attack you anyways. I've been sitting all first avenger tourney unshielded with over 800 pts, hardly been attacked and haven't lost a defense since I put in my patch/ BP team to scare people away. I think it's a bad idea to neuter a character just so that it might play slightly better on defense.

The logic is all sound, but not worth it in my opinion

I guess I'm just arguing that it's not the neuter you'd expect it to be. I imagine that getting a Thunderstrike off instead of BP's yellow makes your win percentage a hell of a lot better. Without Thunderstrike, Call the Storm is substantially weakened. I regularly go from 8 Green AP to 14, or 14 after one more match (usually at least a match 4). 1800 less max damage on RotP, 1300 less HP, and **** Panther is still a better option for Black AP than anyone else in the game currently (other than a 141 BP), except now he doesn't ever steal Thor's Thunder(strike). To be honest, there's probably a better choice on defense than Lazy Cap in this setup, but I think the **** and FaThor make a ton of sense.

Phaserhawk

Meto5000 wrote:

Phaserhawk wrote:

I think nerfing your character just so Thor can cast yellow isn't the best idea. I understand what you are saying. But if I came across your team, I would be like sweet, easy pickings. If you want to maximize Thor I suggest switching BP with IM40 and have your IM40 at minimum 5/4/4, at worst IM40 casts Recharge and gets you 0-6 Green AP, or the AI more than likely casts Thunderstrike, you could go IM40 5/3/5 and guarantee it won't. You can still put Cap in there as back up, and the AI will use Cap's shield instead of IM40's Ballistic Salvo, or you could put Psylocke in there, the AI will either cast her's or Thor's red, you still get a very deadly Black, you will lose Cap's blue still but you always were. You have the same number of hp roughly, but much more damage. Your rely too much on casting BP's black, at half the cost Psylocke can do in theory as much damage assuming her attack tile doesn't get taken out right away, and you can get strike tiles out. Not saying it's better, but it could be another option.

I'm curious as to why you'd think easy pickings for this team. Unless you're stunlocking or turnlocking, you're probably eating at least Thunder Strike, Call the Storm, Red Shield, or Rage of the Panther. With my playstyle, I like to find fights where I'm not going to have to health pack after every fight so a team like this would be an instant skip. This isn't a team focused on speed, it's a team that uses high health pools to gather enough AP to pull off devastating AoE finishing moves. Even if you have Hood in your party all it will take is a lucky cascade or two and the AI will take a chunk of your entire teams health.

Additionally, I don't think IM40 offers anything to the equation. Cap's shield on defense is usually not a huge issue to deal with so I'm not concerned about making sure it has cast priority. Psylocke has 100 less HP than a 115 BP, and her black, while half the cost, is not quite the game ender that even a **** RotP can be. Let's say it takes 5 extra turns to get to 12 black ap from 6. In the time it takes to get to 12, Psylocke would do (965+231+231+231+231 + 231 = 2120 + (965+462 = 1427) = 3547 damage under optimal conditions. BPG (Black Panther ****) would do a minimum of 2640 single target damage, and up to 7920 team damage. I like Psylocke a lot, but I don't think she's fits into Team Fat better than the ****.

I agree with Phantron that the game currently has 4 moves that are basically game over. This team composition basically guarantees that at least one of them will go off per match even on defense.

Well if I'm coming after your team, I'm focusing on Thor. I'm running Hood, Captain, and Patch. The way I have it set up, you will never cast Thunder Strike because Hood won't let you, and I have you locked down with Cap at that point. Obviously I could run C.Mags and keep you from going off, but as long as I play the board right your team wont' be able to cast those big AP costing spells. When running Hood against high costed abilties he essentially shuts off anything above 10, try him and see. Your deck can weather an early storm but if they can't cast their abilites they are easy pickings. In fact I ran into a team very similar to that in the Cap event, and yeah, it went down pretty quick.

And for those reading this, DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE THE HOOD!!! If you have a high AP costed team, he will eat you alive, this comes from someone who experinced that multiple times before I figured it out. If you dont' have an early damager, like a Punsiher, Psylocke, HT you are going to be very delayed into your late game. Even if you focus him with say this BP, L.Thor, L.Cap comp, he will have already done his damage, which is delaying your late game. While I agree you want fat guys, you can't sacrifice all your early game damage for late game superiority, because of situations like this, The Hood, or OBW can keep you from ever reaching your late game with their AP denial. The obvious counter to AP denial is a quick strike deck. I strive for 3 things in my comps, rainbow, AI playability, and balance of attack. It can be hard when there is a featured character, but these 3 things I find give you the best advantage in PvP.

Nonce Equitaur 2

Black Panther + Modern Storm is a useful combo in the Heroic missions. Storm collects all the environment tiles with her red, then BP uses his yellow. It's often good for four or five strike tiles.

Meto5000

Phaserhawk wrote:

Well if I'm coming after your team, I'm focusing on Thor. I'm running Hood, Captain, and Patch. The way I have it set up, you will never cast Thunder Strike because Hood won't let you, and I have you locked down with Cap at that point. Obviously I could run C.Mags and keep you from going off, but as long as I play the board right your team wont' be able to cast those big AP costing spells. When running Hood against high costed abilities he essentially shuts off anything above 10, try him and see. Your deck can weather an early storm but if they can't cast their abilities they are easy pickings

I mean, that comp is pretty good against mine regardless if BP is 141 or 115. However, I would feel pretty confident retaliating against you every time since once Hood goes down I have a big enough health pool to weather a few Patch hits until I get enough AP for something to take out the other two. If anything, I would consider replacing Cap with my own Hood on defense and leaving **** Panther and FaThor as the other two.