****Psylocke (Uncanny X-Force)****

ErikPeter

Psylocke (Uncanny X-Force)

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At Max Level: HP: 13934 Tile Damage: 11/82/73/64/10/11/3.5x
npxo

Psychic Immunity Passive
(PASSIVE) Psylocke can predict her opponent's critical maneuvers and withstand psychic attacks. When either team makes a Match-5 or greater, creates a random purple 0-turn countdown tile. While this tile is on the board, Psylocke takes 50% less damage and cannot be stunned.
Level Upgrades

Level 2: Psylocke takes 90% less damage. Level 3: Countdown increases to 1 turn. Level 4: While at least one Countdown tile remains, Psylocke confers its benefit to her teammates. Level 5: Creates 3 Countdown tiles.

Max Level: When either team makes a Match-5, creates 3 1-turn Countdowns which reduce damage to her team by 90% and prevent stuns.
Perfect Edge 10 AP
Psylocke empowers her attacks with telekinesis, assaulting her most vulnerable enemy in a whirlwind of deadly strikes. Deals 400 damage and creates 2 1-turn countdown tiles that deal 400 damage to her enemy with the lowest Health.
Level Upgrades

Level 2: Deals 520 (initial)/520 (CD) damage. Level 3: 675 / 675 damage. Level 4: Creates 3 tiles. Level 5: Creates 4 tiles.

Max Level

Level 3: Deals 1325 damage and creates 2 1-turn Countdown tiles that deal 1325 damage to the enemy with the lowest Health. Level 4: Deals 1325 damage and creates 3 1-turn Countdown tiles that deal 1325 damage to the enemy with the lowest Health. Level 5: Deals 1325 damage and creates 4 1-turn Countdown tiles that deal 1325 damage to the enemy with the lowest Health.

Precognitive Strike 6 AP
Psylocke slashes with her katana, targeting her enemies' weak points. Deals 310 damage and converts 1 random enemy special tile to a basic tile.
Level Upgrades

Level 2: Deals 500 damage. Level 3: Deals 620 damage. Level 4: Converts 2 enemy special tiles. Level 5: Deals 906 damage and converts 3 enemy special tiles.

Max Level

Level 3: Deals 1200 damage. Level 4: Converts 2 enemy special tiles to basic tiles and deals 1200 damage. Level 5: Converts 3 enemy special tiles to basic tiles and deals 1772 damage.

Notes:
Numbers and colors are speculative, of course. I'd have called her Psylocke (X-Force) if there were any good covers with her for that series. I really like this build and as always, provide these ideas free without need for attribution or compensation or credit of any kind. Okay then.

Dat Blue! Yes, Psychic Immunity is an anti-Jean, anti-Xavier power that means those teams will have to contend with her first. At high ranks she makes your team all but invulnerable to the match-5 passives, as well as providing a great benefit (and possibly extra purple AP) when either team matches 5 or more tiles (I.e. she's pretty good with Jean/Xav as well, but at the cost of overlapping on two colors and locking out an active blue).

The CDs are placed randomly (on any basic tile), but when the enemy matches-5 these tiles should be created on existing purple tiles only, so it isn't a drawback; e.g. the enemy makes a Match-5 and get a free cascade of purple AP.

At ranks 1 and 2, the 0-turn countdown would only last until matches are evaluated, so besides dampening psychics she'd usually prevent the bonus damage from an ensuing critical cascade. At rank 3, the tile and damage reduction will stick around until your next turn, making it very potent offensively and defensively, especially at ranks 4 and 5 when it protects your whole team. In PvE you could save an outstanding Match-5 until the turn before a powerful enemy attack. It's strong but not 100% reliable since it could just get you some purple and go away.


Perfect Edge: A pretty basic power, decent damage per AP, and great on offense as the countdowns target the weakest foe, not the guy in front. Of course they can try to destroy some of the CDs to lessen the damage.

The CD's could be purple, but depending on power level they could be blue (she doesn't need blue, after all, adding some passive acceleration) or even another color you want to reduce.

I like multi-CD powers because they are stronger with Strike tiles, but also multiply your enemies' Protect tiles as well. It might be good to up the initial damage at rank 5 a tiny bit, so it would trigger Thing's Rock Solid passive (and he'd just hop in front and then block all the damage from the CDs, which is funny and a good interaction).


Precog Strike: Another cheap utility power, a special tile destroyer. It's thematic that Psylocke kind of has to keep herself focused on one thing or another--telepathy, telekinesis, etc--and so it destroys only one tile until rank 4. But note that there's no type restriction, so if there's just one enemy CD on the board, you can remove it easily. Sort of an active Redwing. On a board littered with enemy special tiles, it's not as useful, so hopefully you brought another Red user to the fight. I love powers that are dynamic in that way. But at least it will always do some damage.

If testing proved it is too weak, the first change I'd suggest is making it destroy the tiles instead of converting them. A tiny bit of board shake may make up for the low damage (unless there's no enemy specials on the board... Then, you're out of luck.) I'm guessing it's pretty solid though.

What do you think?

ErikPeter

I think she'd be a good addition to the game meta for a couple reasons.

First, she'd be desirable as a counter to Jean Grey, usable right away in that capacity but becoming much stronger as she levels up.

Her powers work at face value (no restrictions like Cho and Ghost Rider's black) and hopefully/ideally she's roughly even in power level with other 4-stars without having to be "super strong". E.g. Red Hulk just had to have huuge team damage to stand out from the crowd, but he's really one-note. Without Psychic Immunitry, Psylocke (UXF) would be just another utility damage dealer but with it she could find a place in the current meta without having a 10k+ attack.

Additionally, since she probably would find her way into the meta, she has a decent weakness. The multiple, smallish hits of Perfect Edge can be greatly diminished by Protect tiles, giving Thing and FalCap an advantage against her, and anything that shifts the game toward Protects (like the devs always seem to be trying to do) would be a pretty cool change.

Since I specced her I noticed one potential issue, in that her power at rank 5 could trigger on her team's turn, create 3 purple tiles which create a 5-match, triggering it again, which sometimes could be matched for another 5-match, and so on, leading to some offensive ProfX combos. It would need some testing. If it happened too often, maybe instead of 3 tiles the CD could last two turns. Or the purple generation aspect could be removed from the power (it could just overwrite random basic blue tiles), or something else.

Arondite

To my knowledge, a countdown tile can't be "0-Turns".

ErikPeter

Sure it can. At 0 turns it would resolve immediately after the triggering 5-match finishes cascading. Just like a CD that is reduced to 0 by Hood's Intimidation, or Falcap's Aerial Avenger, for example. The reason it's a 0-turn countdown is to last long enough to exist during any triggers of Psychic Convergence or Psychic Feedback, mitigating their effects somewhat, and then go away. And of course, at higher level it'll last 1 turn making it much more potent protection.

Malcrof

The biggest issue i can see is the , since it targets the enemy with the lowest health, DP and Thing will always jump in front. her helps with Thing, but not with DP

Arondite

Seems to me there's a pretty significant difference between a 1-turn countdown having a tick taken off early by hood and just producing a countdown with no turns to begin with.

Countdowns sweep top-left to bottom-right at the change-of-turn, reducing the number by 1 as the sweep passes the tile. Hood's ability performs that sweep, skipping tiles at random to affect the appropriate number of countdown tiles.

The "sweeps" are not conducted mid turn without a specific trigger pulling the sweep; so a 0-Turn tile would require te coding be changed to have tiles constantly be checked for what their timer is on.

Kolence

1-turn CD is all that is necessary for blue to work. Adding covers can give better protection, but more gradually - it's weird that it jumps from 50% to 90% from 1 to 2 covers. Maybe at 3 or 4 covers make the CD 2-turns when the enemy makes a match 5. Also, protecting her team sounds like a 5th cover benefit to me.

I'm sad there's no active blue so she can make a rainbow with the other two xforce members in the game already...
And no synergy with either of them really, other than she can hide behind those true-healers and only tank blue. And possibly making purple matches for Deadpool. But even than it depends on positioning.

Hope red still works if enemies have no special tiles (unlike Daredevil's purple)?

ErikPeter

Yeah, it would work without special tiles, just be a bad deal for the AP.

If her colors are wrong, what do you think would be better? I'm not beholden to them and honestly didn't put too much thought into overlap with other characters. Her red could be blue, and her purple could be black, and her blue could be purple/yellow/whatever, as it's a passive, mostly it's blue to match Jean's and ProfX's.

Kolence

Well, if it's just about her strongest colors, then 82/73/64/11/11/10 would be best for letting Wolverine or Deadpool tank everything but blue. And with just one of them she'd still be tied even on the weak colors so it would work with proper positioning.

I'd say blue/red actives, black passive. purple -> blue and blue -> black.
Maybe even add to her red an 1-turn target stun when there are no enemy tiles? It might help with recovery CD occasionally. Pretty please?