**** Drax (The Destroyer) ****

Cthulhu

Updated with stats, this one was annoying since auto correct always wants to change his name to Draw.

BigRussian

That's quite some damage at max level. /me wants one.

Optimal cover 5/5/3

Vhailorx

Huh, interesting build options. I think all 3 primary builds are viable.

Red is probably the weakest, except in survival nodes. Back needs countdowns to fuel it, and purple needs allies and luck.

5/5/3 against goons, but 3/5/5 for survival nodes (bring im40 and enjoy using all that red to do 8k a pop to each new enemy as they show up.) and switch to 5/3/5 for the ddq node or when fighting active opponents (making purple to risky).

Seems like an ok character. I might enjoy using him in 2017 when covered (after I finish trying out nova, quake, and punisher max who all seem more compelling).

Edited because I didn't see that purple ends the turn when cast. That really hurts his overall value.

Jathro

I liked it better when his purple went off when an ENEMY (not ALLY) fired a power; seems to fit that whole revenge theme better that way.

xx5 for me. At least with red I know what I'm getting

Melevorn

[soapbox rant]

The power creep on display here is astonishing.

All three of Drax's powers have in the vicinity of 1000 damage / AP at max. Remember when HB was (arguably) over-powered at around 650 damage / AP?

Punisher MAX's is at a similar power level, but at least his and are sane.

There is nothing at all compelling about Drax - his colour combination is the same as 4Pool (who's a decent character) and Elektra (who's not), his powers are not novel (KP does great damage at a much cheaper AP cost by burning countdowns), the only reason D3 are counting on people to throw money at champing/maxxing Drax are his ridiculously high damage numbers (for a 4*).

When a game goes this far down the power creep curve it's a very bad sign for its longevity. If they upgraded, ohhh, everyone else (XFW, Fury, GoT, etc) to the same power level (plus fixed Mr F, Chulk, etc), that would be OK. Hands up who thinks that D3 will do that...?

[/soapbox rant]

JD Geek

Will his purple fire on a passive being used?

dkffiv

Seems pretty terrible. A cheap purple that ends your own turn with no guarantee of going off is bad for pvp. Black is horrible, for the same cost Ghost Rider will straight up kill someone. Red is mediocre, 90% of the time it's straight up worse than Hulkbuster (and terrible for finishing people off).

Dayv

JD Geek wrote:

Will his purple fire on a passive being used?

I doubt it. It sounds like it will trigger the way OML, Professor X, or Kamala Khan's passives do.

Vhailorx

dkffiv wrote:

Seems pretty terrible. A cheap purple that ends your own turn with no guarantee of going off is bad for pvp. Black is horrible, for the same cost Ghost Rider will straight up kill someone. Red is mediocre, 90% of the time it's straight up worse than Hulkbuster (and terrible for finishing people off).

Oops, didn't see That purple ends the turn. That does make it much less compelling. But there is still a somewhat small chance that it wouldn't go off. You control when you cast abilities, so just don't use it unless you have ap cast another ability right after. If the countdown is on a random tile though, then it's like fury's purple and relatively hard to protect. 5/3/5 then.

As for black, it's almost as good as GR's black. It has a max damage, which GR doesnt, but it also doesn't require you to take any damage in order charge it up. If you get 12 black early with GR, woohoo, you have to wait to use it. If you get that much with drax, you can at least dish out some damage.
But the fact that it keys off countdowns is annoying. It suggests that this guy is meant to be played with goons. He will suck to fight when paired with a couple of thugs or maggia dons.

As for power creep, i agree that his damage/ap ratios are high. They are also very contingent, which is likely how they were justified internally. But in general the 4* tier is reaching the density level where power creep is the only way to induce players to chase the new releases. Expect some very strong 4*s to come out this spring/summer (a la cage, cyclops, khan, switch, and iron fist a little over a year ago), and then the tier will close and 5*s will be made slightly more accessible and become the "elder game" play space. Then 6*s will be rolled out in early 2017?

FierceKiwi

Vhailorx wrote:

Where does the description say purple ends your turn? That would make it much less compelling. But there is 0 chance that it wouldn't go off. You control when you cast abilities, so just don't use it unless you can cast another ability right after.

Cthulhu wrote:

Secret Weapon - 8 AP
Drax hides around the corner as his team’s ace in the hole, waiting to spring a vicious attack when he sees the signal. Places a 3-turn Countdown tile on the board and ends the turn. If this tile is on the board when an ally fires a power, remove it and deal 1269 damage to the target enemy.
Level Upgrades

Level 2: Place a 3-turn countdown tile on the board, if ally fires a power, remove countdown tile and deal 1630 damage to target enemy. Level 3: Place a 3-turn countdown tile on the board, if ally fires a power, remove countdown tile and deal 2001 damage to target enemy. Level 4: Place a 3-turn countdown tile on the board, if ally fires a power, remove countdown tile and deal 2658 damage to target enemy. Level 5: Place a 3-turn countdown tile on the board, if ally fires a power, remove countdown tile and deal 3890 damage to target enemy.

Max Level

Level 3: Place a 3-turn countdown tile on the board, if ally fires a power, remove countdown tile and deal 3897 damage to target enemy. Level 4: Place a 3-turn countdown tile on the board, if ally fires a power, remove countdown tile and deal 5179 damage to target enemy. Level 5: Place a 3-turn countdown tile on the board, if ally fires a power, remove countdown tile and deal 7578 damage to target enemy.

While maybe since it doesn't mention ending the turn on covers 2-5 it loses that at 2 covers it seems more likely it still does and that part is omitted (especially since the in game description for the next level makes no mention of it no longer ending the turn only more damage).

Edit: Bolded purple next is next to impossible to notice so made it red instead.

Cthulhu

Every level ends the turn for that power.

Der_Lex

Are those max stats l270 stats, or are they maxed champed stats again?

Figure15

Can you get the purple to trigger if you cast black?

dkffiv

Pve wise black is terrible. The only characters that spam cd tiles Sentry and Kingpin. Color overlap means you aren't playing him with Kingpin, Sentry "combo" takes 24 ap and like hell you're eating Green Goblin, Starlord or IM40 tiles for minimal bonus damage.

Purple is okay (though you have to line it up on a turn where the board is bad), red is weaker than most other reds (I'd take Cyclops red over his any day of the week. I'd consider a non boosted Cyclops over a boosted Drax purely for the utility).

PVP wise he's terrible. Black is too expensive for what will amount to 6-9k damage on average. Hulkbuster or GR black will mess up your day much more.

Purple is virtually unusable. The AI will spam every other ability except black or TU first, then end its turn. Next turn the CD tile is down to 2 and the ai needs to get enough ap to cast something the following turn or its whiffing.

Red is decent but the average case means it's 20% weaker than Hulkbuster red.

He is far less threatening than Hulkbuster or Gwen and will draw attacks if you use him.

Polares

dkffiv wrote:

Pve wise black is terrible. The only characters that spam cd tiles Sentry and Kingpin. Color overlap means you aren't playing him with Kingpin, Sentry "combo" takes 24 ap and like hell you're eating Green Goblin, Starlord or IM40 tiles for minimal bonus damage.

Purple is okay (though you have to line it up on a turn where the board is bad), red is weaker than most other reds (I'd take Cyclops red over his any day of the week. I'd consider a non boosted Cyclops over a boosted Drax purely for the utility).

PVP wise he's terrible. Black is too expensive for what will amount to 6-9k damage on average. Hulkbuster or GR black will mess up your day much more.

Purple is virtually unusable. The AI will spam every other ability except black or TU first, then end its turn. Next turn the CD tile is down to 2 and the ai needs to get enough ap to cast something the following turn or its whiffing.

Red is decent but the average case means it's 20% weaker than Hulkbuster red.

He is far less threatening than Hulkbuster or Gwen and will draw attacks if you use him.

I think you are too harsh.

black
This one is tricky. It is very good BUT you need to play with somebody who has the ability to create countdown tiles. It is a pity that the best candidate has exactly the same color set.

Purple
Yeah, I guess it was too good to be true if it wasn't ending the turn. Still decent. But this is probably the power you need to leave at 3.

red
I think this one is really good, you can start damaging one guy, and then when you have AP for red, you change target and you attack a new target (imagine playing against whatever and OML, you kill the other guy first and when you go against OML, which is going to have 100% life, you start with Drax red), so I think it is very usable, and you will be doing max damage very easily. You can then use an AoE and kill the first and the second target In the worst case scenario it is as good as x-23 green, 4k for 8AP, which is still the best you can do for 8 AP in 4 land. And I think this power is going to be almost OP when Drax is buffed, 16k for 8 AP ? Crazy good.

So all in all I think he is good, you need to configure your team around him to maximize his use, but if played properly he can be very good, maybe not as good as last bunch (Nova/Quake/Punisher) which are easier to play. And even though he has the same color set than Xpool, they are probably best friends (wow xpool has a lot of BFFs ). Leave purple to xpool and black for Drax, so 5/3/5 for Drax and any xpool works (but probably 5/5/3 or 3/5/5 are the best options). If played without a team around him then I guess 3/5/5 is the best option.


Again, I think he is going to be very good when buffed, his numbers are so high that when scaled to 350-370 he will have 5 level damage ratios for his powers (red can do 2k for every AP !!!!). And I think this is the only thing that matters anymore for any new 4, how good is a 4 when buffed. We have so many good 4s now that the only thing important is, can you play him when buffed in PvP as teammate for your other buffed 4 or 5? And this one is definitely a yes.

PS: But I agree that if the same week you can chose Cyclops or IMHB, you will probably chose either of them instead. BUT if they are not buffed, then he is a good candidate.

babinro

Initial impressions from on paper stats:

Black:
Below Average. This skill can potentially deal big damage but it's genuinely challenging to generate the CD's to make this pay off. I'd want to pair him with xforce deadpoool but then you have a colour overlap issue with red and purple. This skill suffers from the problem of the base version not being worth the AP cost. In addition there's just not many characters out there who have CD's worth sacrificing for a measly 2000 single target bonus damage.

Purple:
Below Average. 7578 damage for just 8 AP is pretty great damage. Losing a turn for this damage is probably asking a bit too much. If you aren't under a time crunch to fire this skill then simply waiting for a turn where your tile match isn't a strong one isn't THAT bad. The fact that this skill can fail with the AI matching your CD puts this skill into below average territory. Also the skill doesn't work if Drax is your last man standing. The risk is a little too great especially when you have someone like Jean dealing up to 12000 damage and destroying special tiles for only 2 more AP. It's a shame this skill doesn't fully fuel the black skill.

Red:
Strong. 8009 conditional damage to someone who hasn't been hit is very easy to achieve. I could see trying to push for this skill twice using a team of single target damage dealers. 4004 damage for 8 isn't completely worthless either if it comes down to that. Here's hoping the game tells us if this condition is being met in the skill description.

Initial Build:
3/5/5
There are definitely problems with both black and purple skills. I think the one you choose to focus on comes down to personal preference and team of choice. On paper I'd lean towards 3/5/5 because it's high damage at a low cost with minimal hoops.

Overall:
Low tier. I'd probably rank this character just below Nick Fury. His spike damage offers potential but the hoops and drawbacks are rough. That said these skills will probably become impressive when boosted. The fact that he has an excellent 17,288 health shouldn't be dismissed either.

Blahahah

As a question:
If he has his countdown tile placed, and Kingpin uses his Black ability on it, does Drax trigger first, negating Kingpin's extra damage? Does Kingpin destroy it first, preventing Drax from following up? Do both of them activate? Do neither of them activate?

Der_Lex

Despite the color overlap, I think he could still make a pretty good team with XFDP if you spec them right, ie 3/5/5 for XFDP and 5/3/5 for Drax. You lose out on Drax' purple that way (and DP's red, but that isn't that great anyway), but you do get the most out of that combo that way.

Blahahah

babinro wrote:

Purple:
Below Average. 7578 damage for just 8 AP is pretty great damage. Losing a turn for this damage is probably asking a bit too much. If you aren't under a time crunch to fire this skill then simply waiting for a turn where your tile match isn't a strong one isn't THAT bad. The fact that this skill can fail with the AI matching your CD puts this skill into below average territory. The risk is a little too great especially when you have someone like Jean dealing up to 12000 damage and destroying special tiles for only 2 more AP. It's a shame this skill doesn't fully fuel the black skill.

I think Cthulu just verified it doesn't cost a turn outside of entry level.

Der_Lex

Blahahah wrote:

babinro wrote:

Purple:
Below Average. 7578 damage for just 8 AP is pretty great damage. Losing a turn for this damage is probably asking a bit too much. If you aren't under a time crunch to fire this skill then simply waiting for a turn where your tile match isn't a strong one isn't THAT bad. The fact that this skill can fail with the AI matching your CD puts this skill into below average territory. The risk is a little too great especially when you have someone like Jean dealing up to 12000 damage and destroying special tiles for only 2 more AP. It's a shame this skill doesn't fully fuel the black skill.

I think Cthulu just verified it doesn't cost a turn outside of entry level.

Um.

Cthulhu wrote:

Every level ends the turn for that power.