Best 2 star?

Buret0

I have always loved Bullseye. His purple passive pairs well with a lot of the purple actives in 2* land, his absurdly expensive black can deal more damage than a boosted 3* Cyclops black (and when paired with a high level 5* like Surfer, Phoenix, or BSS...) and his addition of a green that adds a puzzle element to the puzzle game? He's great!

Too bad his protect tiles tail off, making them useless in the higher levels. But tell me they don't scale well with damage when you play a 395 Bullseye in PvE. I hope you like doing 1 match damage.

I don't have the hard-on for OBW that many others do. Her purple AP theft is only really great when you need certain colors. At 4 and 5 covers, it gets very expensive, so most people build 3/5/5. Espionage doesn't deal much damage in the absence of strike tiles, forces OBW to tank, and only steals a few colors. Her blue is non-true healing, doesn't scale well outside of 2* land (unless you are talking about BoP), and pretty much relies on CD tiles to be of use.

I've tried using her for the last three months in event 2 and 3 of DPD with Bullseye and Thor, but I think I'd prefer to go back to 2Storm and 2Mags with Bullseye (purple to protect tiles to blue tiles to AoE stun).

2Mags holds up real well, because his purple/red AP generation moves remain useful as a battery long after the damage falls away compared to 3-5* health. 2Storm's stun and green AP generation also hold up well (but health issues and AI failures prevent their use beyond 2* realm).

Malcrof

azmadu wrote:

MOONSTONE lvl 144 - HEALTH 10123 WHAT THE ****?????????

These are all the stats for maxed 2* characters, but how the heck does Moonstone end up with more HP than Ares and Thor???

Think of when you fight her in PVE at whatever obsurd level she is, her character has those kinds of HP in PVE as well, so scaling like that was to be expected.

Counter to that though.. i always thought Ares scaled with Higher HP than her though?

Quebbster

azmadu wrote:

I was checking rosters in the recent punisher tournament, as you do, and the top dog had all his guys championed, including Pheonix, OML, Surfer (too much time and money) and then I went through to see his two star characters and this is what I saw:

Ares lvl 144 Health - 7992
OBW lvl 144 Health - 4144
Bullseye lvl 144 Health - 7245
Captain Marvel lvl 144 Health - 9280
Daken lvl 144 Health - 6512
Hawkeye lvl 144 Health - 6586
Human Torch lvl 144 Health - 6586
Magneto lvl 144 - Health - 7548

MOONSTONE lvl 144 - HEALTH 10123 WHAT THE ****?????????

Steve Rogers - lvl 144 Health 9280
Storm lvl 144 Health - 3552
Thor lvl 144 Health - 7992 (same as Ares as expected)
Wolverine lvl 144 Health - 6793

These are all the stats for maxed 2* characters, but how the heck does Moonstone end up with more HP than Ares and Thor???

And why do Captain A, and Captain M also have more health than the two heavy hitters pre championing???

So because I saw these stats I cast my vote for Moonstone, otherwise I'd have voted for Ares, then Thor then OBW followed by Storm.

Huh. Maybe I should put some ISO into Moonstone to champion her...

TxMoose

voted obw, but as others have eluded to - I use mnmags more than any of them, for cap, 4thor, etc. truthfully I rarely play obw any more but I might start again now that she's nearing 140 and has some meat on dem bones (still not much)

Jarvind

Buret0 wrote:

I don't have the hard-on for OBW that many others do. Her purple AP theft is only really great when you need certain colors. At 4 and 5 covers, it gets very expensive, so most people build 3/5/5. Espionage doesn't deal much damage in the absence of strike tiles, forces OBW to tank, and only steals a few colors. Her blue is non-true healing, doesn't scale well outside of 2* land (unless you are talking about BoP), and pretty much relies on CD tiles to be of use.

I've tried using her for the last three months in event 2 and 3 of DPD with Bullseye and Thor, but I think I'd prefer to go back to 2Storm and 2Mags with Bullseye (purple to protect tiles to blue tiles to AoE stun).

I'm so glad someone else said this. Everyone always raves about how amazing she is and I can't really get behind using her for anything other than goon nodes, for the countdown shenanigans. Granted the double dipping on strikes is nice, but it only works if she's tanking, and she is super squishy.

I voted for Ares btw. I love that all his abilities are just straight up raw damage, and they all do a respectable amount. The only 2* I've championed so far is Magneto, because I'd leveled him nearly to max anyway so he'd tank blue for Storm, but Ares will definitely be #2.

Azoth658

I opted for Ares as even pre championing you could quite easily build a huge pool of green up and KO a 3* character, with championing he is doing some pretty tasty damage.

OBW is useful in 2* land but with her squishy nature and useless espionage unless tanking she isn't as good as Ares even with championing to enter 3* land.

I never had a strong Moonstone but now I've reached somewhat higher level PVEs I am looking forward to getting her and Hawkeye leveled and championed. I want that Board control and stealing tiles from AI etc.

jordanix

In the upcoming re-run of the Galactus event OBW will rule all.

Buret0

jordanix wrote:

In the upcoming re-run of the Galactus event OBW will rule all.

If you've got enough time to get that much blue to slow Galactus' (current) tiles by a few turns, you haven't been gathering the AP required to quickly down him. If you've been gathering purple to slow him down by stealing some AP, you haven't been gathering the AP required to quickly down him.

If she is tanking, it means you don't have anyone decent in Purple, Blue, or Black, so gathering that AP is a waste of your time.

Too bad my Exploding Heads combo is done. I'm not starting a duplicate PX just to have a low enough level for him to go winfinite. I'll have to go back to just hitting him hard with blue/red/black/yellow match damage or using the XFW/4Pool CD4W combo.

Vhailorx

Jarvind wrote:

Buret0 wrote:

I don't have the hard-on for OBW that many others do. Her purple AP theft is only really great when you need certain colors. At 4 and 5 covers, it gets very expensive, so most people build 3/5/5. Espionage doesn't deal much damage in the absence of strike tiles, forces OBW to tank, and only steals a few colors. Her blue is non-true healing, doesn't scale well outside of 2* land (unless you are talking about BoP), and pretty much relies on CD tiles to be of use.

I've tried using her for the last three months in event 2 and 3 of DPD with Bullseye and Thor, but I think I'd prefer to go back to 2Storm and 2Mags with Bullseye (purple to protect tiles to blue tiles to AoE stun).

I'm so glad someone else said this. Everyone always raves about how amazing she is and I can't really get behind using her for anything other than goon nodes, for the countdown shenanigans. Granted the double dipping on strikes is nice, but it only works if she's tanking, and she is super squishy.

I voted for Ares btw. I love that all his abilities are just straight up raw damage, and they all do a respectable amount. The only 2* I've championed so far is Magneto, because I'd leveled him nearly to max anyway so he'd tank blue for Storm, but Ares will definitely be #2.

Just to push back a bit on both of you:

Absolutely concede that obw is very squishy. Its easily her biggest weakness. But the blue power significantly mitigates that weakness since you can heal her up when she gets low (this was even more true before true healing). And there are plenty of other ways to keep squished alive now too, from cage or bullseye protect tiles thing's rock solid.

And you are completely underselling her purple and black powers. "Ap theft is only really useful when you need certain colors. . ."!?!? When do you not need certain colors!? She steals everything except purple (since as you say, 5 covers isn't worth the price increase). What team couldn't benefit from more or any color but purple? And what's more, it's not just ap generation, it's also theft, so you are weakening the other team. There is a reason that ap theft isn't really used any new characters anymore (no one since blade, right?): it's really powerful.

And black is almost as strong. It does force you to let her tank, which sucks but can be mitigated with protect tiles). But it provides both more so theft (yay!) and double dipping on strike tiles for free. This power is extremely useful whenever the meta favors strike tiles (as it does now with ink and Phoenix).

It's not that there aren't any other good 2*s (ares is strong, and mnmags is a great board controller), but no one else in the game can match one's ability to frustrate the enemy team's ap generation across the board. If she were a 4* or 5* tier character she would be all over pvp, more so than any other 2*

Buret0

Vhailorx wrote:

Just to push back a bit on both of you:

Absolutely concede that obw is very squishy. Its easily her biggest weakness. But the blue power significantly mitigates that weakness since you can heal her up when she gets low (this was even more true before true healing). And there are plenty of other ways to keep squished alive now too, from cage or bullseye protect tiles thing's rock solid.

And you are completely underselling her purple and black powers. "Ap theft is only really useful when you need certain colors. . ."!?!? When do you not need certain colors!? She steals everything except purple (since as you say, 5 covers isn't worth the price increase). What team couldn't benefit from more or any color but purple? And what's more, it's not just ap generation, it's also theft, so you are weakening the other team. There is a reason that ap theft isn't really used any new characters anymore (no one since blade, right?): it's really powerful.

And black is almost as strong. It does force you to let her tank, which sucks but can be mitigated with protect tiles). But it provides both more so theft (yay!) and double dipping on strike tiles for free. This power is extremely useful whenever the meta favors strike tiles (as it does now with ink and Phoenix).

It's not that there aren't any other good 2*s (ares is strong, and mnmags is a great board controller), but no one else in the game can match one's ability to frustrate the enemy team's ap generation across the board. If she were a 4* or 5* tier character she would be all over pvp, more so than any other 2*

To push back once more (thus turning this into a legit shoving match), her main use is to increase CD tiles with her blue in goon nodes. Her purple and black AP steals do not work well in goon nodes, since they rarely produce more than a couple of types of AP.

Her ability to deal a second attack when she matches colors she tanks sounds a lot like another ability: Mr. F's giant **** black ball of doom. He doesn't even have to tank (but doesn't get the AP steal). My extra damage on a 5 black cover level 106 championed OBW is 136. Without strike tiles, all this does is steal a free AP. I assume "ink" is OML in your post. The problem with using the good strike tile generators with OBW (aka IVQ) is that they would start to tank (as in OML tanking black), so espionage would not fire (or you risk putting a 3,500 health character in the path of a character that does more than that with a match 3 crit). You can't really use high level strike tile generators with her without putting her at risk unless you design your whole team to make use of her tanking. Like a low level Loki (so he doesn't tank) with a high level Patch and a OBW to get your strike tiles and negate your enemy strike tiles, while still permitting OBW to tank. It's just way too much work for what you are accomplishing, which could have just been accomplished by bringing along a battery to power up the moves that actually do all this damage without the necessity of strike tiles.

You have to actively acquire purple to use her 8 AP steals 15 AP move (at 3 covers). Sure, that's only 2 purple matches if your opponent has 2 purple AP and OBW is tanking to steal those 2 AP. However, with that same two matches you could have acquired 6 AP in a color you needed without the necessity of making OBW tank.

Again, she was fine when boosted when all we had were 1/2 of the 3*s and a couple of 4*s, but I think people remember OBW the way that they remember how good cartoons were when they were kids, through rose colored glasses. Trust me, most of those old cartoons don't hold up either.

BlackSheep101

Saying AP theft is only useful when you need colors is missing half the point. They even give you the point right in the ability description:

Natasha goes undercover to find her opponent's secrets - undermining the enemy's plans and setting hers into motion.

Unknown

Buret0 wrote:

jordanix wrote:

In the upcoming re-run of the Galactus event OBW will rule all.

If you've got enough time to get that much blue to slow Galactus' (current) tiles by a few turns, you haven't been gathering the AP required to quickly down him. If you've been gathering purple to slow him down by stealing some AP, you haven't been gathering the AP required to quickly down him.

That's where MnMags comes in. Prioritize purple and fuel OBW blue and MnMags red. Third didn't really matter, I wouldn't have had a chance last time around without them.

Now I've got max 3clops, IF, and winfinite (with a **** SW still) I suspect I'll try them instead of OBW, but while transitioning, she absolutely rocked! (MnMags, OBW, and 3clops sounds like fun to me...)

Dragon_Nexus

Jarvind wrote:

I'm so glad someone else said this. Everyone always raves about how amazing she is and I can't really get behind using her for anything other than goon nodes, for the countdown shenanigans. Granted the double dipping on strikes is nice, but it only works if she's tanking, and she is super squishy.

I voted for Ares btw. I love that all his abilities are just straight up raw damage, and they all do a respectable amount. The only 2* I've championed so far is Magneto, because I'd leveled him nearly to max anyway so he'd tank blue for Storm, but Ares will definitely be #2.

She has her uses. She was more useful before they made types of healing, so a lot of vets simply forget she's less useful now.

However, in the times when she's boosted I like pairing her with Thor and Patch so there's no overlap with her colours. She's amazing against goons like this, her black will do double damage if you've put Patch's green down. You can do 2000-3000 damage per match. Stealing AP is always fun, and having putple at 3 covers makes it a pretty quick stealer.

She's nichey when you get to 3* land, but she still has uses. She can also accellerate Storm's blue. Normally you'd need 4 matches to set it off, but if the enemy has blue you only need 3, and you'll be doing extra damage along the way.

She's very much a glass cannon capable of some of the best and most consistent DPS (so to speak) in 2* land.

TLCstormz

Aren't they just going to use this info to nerf another 2*? lol

hex706f726368

Dragon_Nexus wrote:

Malcrof wrote:

Hawkeye is getting my vote.. championing forced me to max him, had never used him or considered him before.. now he is lvl 122, and i have been pairing him with SW in PVE.. using him over 4*s is odd.. but one speed shot, can end a trivial node completely. Add in a stun, and an aoe'ish.. Hawkeye, SW, Hood = fun!

Shame, you missed out on him pre-nerf. Dude was stupidly over powered. When boosted he did something like 4K to the enemy team with his red. His purple was useless, if I recall, though now it's pretty good.

He was truly god-like when they boosted him and his crit multiplier went up. I remember doing 11x or more until they patched that one.

Unknown

My first thought was, "Well, obviously it's got to be OBW."

I then thought about cStorm, Mags, Ares, Daken, Wolvie, 2hor, all respectable heroes by any measure, and each worthy of praise within 2* play...

And then I chuckled a bit and thought, "Yeah, no. OBW"

Despite being what I would call a "defensive" hero, with a defense that potent, is she even actually a defensive character?

And then you pair her with an active black or purple user... Oh my.

DBC

ErikPeter

OBW is really good. Probably the best, really. But I've been playing a second account in 2* land and Storm fits on more teams. She has more to do. Her green is nice AP gen, especially hoarded during goon waves. Her blue shuts down one guy and teamed with Magneto can wipe whole waves of baddies. Looking at the best 2-star teams, on OBW/Storm/Mags, OBW is just there for utility--maybe use blue if you need to heal or stop an otherwise deadly CD, maybe get a couple more AP with black--you usually don't need her powers at all since MNMags' purple and Storm's Blue are your go-to. Which is why Thor is so much stronger in that spot, with higher health and damage generation with his Y/G. So if the "best" 2* team doesn't even have OBW, can she be the best?

So I voted Storm. Picking any 2* and asking "who goes best with them", it's usually her.

OBW is the worst to face in PvP by a good margin. Nothing like beating her down only to have her steal and heal back to full. Looks like her HP has been lowered a bit though.

In 6 months, when people've started to fight 144/boosted to 200+ Moonstone, with her huge HP, she might have a better reputation. Strike tiles are prominent in the 3-star meta and 8 black is usually a pretty good price to steal them. Other specials too, "Oh IF/Cage? Thanks guys." And her Red does unparalleled damage.

lymang

Buret0 wrote:

Again, she was fine when boosted when all we had were 1/2 of the 3*s and a couple of 4*s, but I think people remember OBW the way that they remember how good cartoons were when they were kids, through rose colored glasses. Trust me, most of those old cartoons don't hold up either.

Define "most." What watched as a child in the 70's was primarily Looney Tunes and they hold up, with the exception of some of the later 1960's ones (which were already 10 years old when I was watching them).

Ok, ok, I admit, Battle of the Planets (1978) is TERRIBLE. I recall loving it, but by Thing's Rocky Nuts it's terrible if you watch it now. Let's not get into the early 80's stuff.

OK, maybe you make your point about cartoons, but truthfully I think you're talking to people who still do not have as broad a stable of 3 star or 4 stars. I stopped using OBW much myself once I realized I could not slow tiles but eliminate them entirely with 3 star Cap, but she is quite a powerful character. She's who I voted for.

Ruinate

To say who is the best, you have to look at all tiers of play. If you are a 3*-5* player, you won't be using a full 2* lineup, you'll mix and match. From my experience playing other games, damage dealers are the first to get pushed out. How fast did you ditch your baby Thor in favor of fat Thor? Then comes the tanks, followed by healers, and utility/crowd control stays relevant forever.

Like most here, my first thought was OBW is the best, but she really isn't because there is no place for her moveset in a fight against level 300+ Dark Avengers or a maxed 4*+ team.

Pink - Nothing too bad to say here other than that Hood's steal is better.
Blue - Casted flat healing is bad. % based healing or even a damage absorbing shield would make her better, but not by much. The reason is because 4*+ characters and overscaled enemies do too much damage. It's all about unloading your moves first and killing your opponents before they even get to launch a single move. Eat one ability and it is an automatic health pack. Using a health pack is a tragedy especially when there's still 2hr 57m left in your grind or when all you see are maxed out monster teams immediately after your first 3 seed matches. Her countdown control becomes irrelevant once you have access to Jean, or Winfinite, or Winfinite-like teams.
Black - Like mentioned earlier in the thread, she must tank. If she is tanking black or pink, then chances are you're not bringing in a higher tiered pink or black user. You really don't want to be missing out on those two colors right now.

If we were to fast forward to the future and we were playing with 7* characters, we'll still see characters like Loki, Scarlet Witch, Hood, 4* Cyclops being used. We won't see OBW. This is why my vote goes to Magneto.

Buret0

Exactly. If you are saying, "who is the best 2* if all you have are 2*s" then the case for OBW gets better. I'll still say the battery/AoE combo of 2Mags and 2Storm is better than the rainbow of OBW/2hor or OBW/Ares.

However, even then, I'm leaving OBW behind in second and third stages of DPD. I was running OBW/Bullseye/Thor, but: (1) OBW wasn't stealing much AP against the goons, so 2/3 of her abilities were wasted; (2) chasing blue AP to increase CD tiles takes longer than simply killing the goons; (3) Espionage doesn't do much damage without strike tiles and I'm not bringing Wolverine or Daken; (4) chasing purple to get red/yellow/green means that my enemies need to have red/yellow/green... faster to just get Thor to match and make whatever damage I need; (5) the enemies in round 3 don't have CD tiles, so her blue is just a throw away skill when speed would have killed them before I got hurt and needed healing.

So that leaves her as a supplemental second battery. OBW/2Mags/2Storm. Obviously you are going to use 2Mags' purple to power 2Storm's blue, so OBW is only there for Espionage to get those purples faster... but she has to tank. I'd rather bring Bullseye/2Storm/2Mags for when I'm chasing down the purples than OBW because you can nullify all of the match damage with Bullseye.

Obviously once you get to 3* land, you get Hood and Loki who steal AP, destroy tiles, board shake, and steal OML strike tiles. Tell me a situation where you would bring OBW with you instead of those two, unless she was a RC.

On the other hand, 2Storm's long stun is still good until you get to Iceman's cheaper stun with no AoE (but the opportunity to deal big damage). 2Mags' ability to place three blue tiles anywhere on the board (and to make a bunch of reds) is also the best blue battery until you get to 4clops, Iceman, or PX. His one turn CD that destroys up to 24 tiles and gathers AP for each is completely unavailable at any other star level.

Sure, you stop bringing him along because of his health and match damage, but not because his abilities are ever outmatched.