*** The Hood (Classic) ***

Nonce Equitaur 2

I'm thinking he might get a slight change.

1. He'll also drain Team-Up AP.
2. His Blue power will change to a Purple power.

Unknown

I've got to be honest, the more and more I use Hood, the less and less I am impressed with him defensively. He reminds me of MStorm - he seems terrifying in theory, but in practice, one or two small adjustments eat him alive.

For one, his lack of offensive punch, while not spiderman level, its pretty close. What makes him scary is rally just his blue- his yellow is effective, but cost almost as much as Captain America's and we know how much people use that, and hey Cap has more health, so at least you have a better chance of getting it off with Cap. His black is 'meh' damage wise, and the effect of helping to fire off CDs is great, but the few useful people with CDs like Sentry are being played wrong if you can fire off black in time to match his yellow/green.

Then with his health levels, he gets eaten up by AoE type attacks.

Then the meat and potatoes of his defense is his ability to steal AP, the problem is the worthwhile stuff to steal, you are going for YOURSELF. Let's be frank - green is pretty much universally seen as the most important color outside of a few teams, often followed by or matched by red...it's infrequent that there are mosre than 8-9 of these on the board at the end of a turn. I mean its great to get fat off the often ignored yellow and purple *depending on m/u*, but the time it takes for that to happen, CMags has translocated you to oblivion, Sentry has blasted or blown you to pieces, Patch has cut you to shreds, etc.

I mean I'd compare it to Psylocke's blue power in fact.

So to nerf Hood would be erroneous...he's a glowing LED that screams 'free points' like any team I see with MStorm/MMags. The only time a character should be nerfed is if there is a reason to consistently skip them, and Hood doesn't fit that mold like Sentry/Daken/Magneto do.
- Unreall

Unknown

Unreallystic wrote:

I've got to be honest, the more and more I use Hood, the less and less I am impressed with him defensively. He reminds me of MStorm - he seems terrifying in theory, but in practice, one or two small adjustments eat him alive.

For one, his lack of offensive punch, while not spiderman level, its pretty close. What makes him scary is rally just his blue- his yellow is effective, but cost almost as much as Captain America's and we know how much people use that, and hey Cap has more health, so at least you have a better chance of getting it off with Cap. His black is 'meh' damage wise, and the effect of helping to fire off CDs is great, but the few useful people with CDs like Sentry are being played wrong if you can fire off black in time to match his yellow/green.

Then with his health levels, he gets eaten up by AoE type attacks.

Then the meat and potatoes of his defense is his ability to steal AP, the problem is the worthwhile stuff to steal, you are going for YOURSELF. Let's be frank - green is pretty much universally seen as the most important color outside of a few teams, often followed by or matched by red...it's infrequent that there are mosre than 8-9 of these on the board at the end of a turn. I mean its great to get fat off the often ignored yellow and purple *depending on m/u*, but the time it takes for that to happen, CMags has translocated you to oblivion, Sentry has blasted or blown you to pieces, Patch has cut you to shreds, etc.

I mean I'd compare it to Psylocke's blue power in fact.

So to nerf Hood would be erroneous...he's a glowing LED that screams 'free points' like any team I see with MStorm/MMags. The only time a character should be nerfed is if there is a reason to consistently skip them, and Hood doesn't fit that mold like Sentry/Daken/Magneto do.
- Unreall

World Rupture is way overpowered and can be considered a game over skill so it hardly matters it kills Hood because it also kills eveyone else. Molotov's damage is significant but easily surviveable even with The Hood's low HPs. All other usable AE attacks require at least 4 matches which is an eternity when playing against The Hood, and it usually becomes 5 matches if he steals any AP at all. A Berserker Rage is likely in the 4 match territory when facing The Hood, and Magnetic Translocation is definitely a 4 match move. The only person who matches up well against The Hood is Daken, though Daken matches up well against virtually anyone in a 1on1 basis (either he or Patch is likely the champ of 1on1).

Spiderman doesn't contribute any offense to the team. The Hood most definitely does as long as anyone else on the team can use the AP he stole. Comparing Dormammu to Bewilderment is ridiculous. I guess you wouldn't mind if they swapped Dormammu with Bewilderment if you really think those abilities are equal? There's a reason why most advice on how to fight The Hood boils down to using boosts. He's not that strong on offense, but he's by far one of the top defensive character in the game. It's true that since you need shield hopping to get anywhere this game this implies you'll also be boosted which negates The Hood's strengths, but just because one broken mechanism makes another broken mechanism sort of balanced isn't the way to go.

Katai

He's support. His offensive contribution is his AP stealing. His defensive contribution is his AP stealing. A full team of offensive powerhouses is definitely a strategy, but if you're considering hood at all, clearly you're not interested in a Thor/Sentry/Black Panther team.

A hood nerf isn't really needed. He's powerful, but is also one of the squishiest 3*s in the game. There aren't many good AP-stealers in the 3* realm, so he's powerful because he's the only one who fits the niche (Psylocke and She-Hulk do not steal reliably enough for it to matter). He's also primary target #1. Even though you lose efficiency with DeadPool's red, doing 3300hp damage on 6 red is still a perfectly good use of the skill.

Phaserhawk

Unreallystic wrote:

I've got to be honest, the more and more I use Hood, the less and less I am impressed with him defensively. He reminds me of MStorm - he seems terrifying in theory, but in practice, one or two small adjustments eat him alive.

For one, his lack of offensive punch, while not spiderman level, its pretty close. What makes him scary is rally just his blue- his yellow is effective, but cost almost as much as Captain America's and we know how much people use that, and hey Cap has more health, so at least you have a better chance of getting it off with Cap. His black is 'meh' damage wise, and the effect of helping to fire off CDs is great, but the few useful people with CDs like Sentry are being played wrong if you can fire off black in time to match his yellow/green.

Then with his health levels, he gets eaten up by AoE type attacks.

Then the meat and potatoes of his defense is his ability to steal AP, the problem is the worthwhile stuff to steal, you are going for YOURSELF. Let's be frank - green is pretty much universally seen as the most important color outside of a few teams, often followed by or matched by red...it's infrequent that there are mosre than 8-9 of these on the board at the end of a turn. I mean its great to get fat off the often ignored yellow and purple *depending on m/u*, but the time it takes for that to happen, CMags has translocated you to oblivion, Sentry has blasted or blown you to pieces, Patch has cut you to shreds, etc.

I mean I'd compare it to Psylocke's blue power in fact.

So to nerf Hood would be erroneous...he's a glowing LED that screams 'free points' like any team I see with MStorm/MMags. The only time a character should be nerfed is if there is a reason to consistently skip them, and Hood doesn't fit that mold like Sentry/Daken/Magneto do.
- Unreall

Much like Phantron already said, Hood in himself is not overpowered, but oh what he does. He steals you something pretty much everyturn, and as Phantron said, if he's on defense and you boosted, he's gonna steal some of that. There are a few numbers you need to look at 7, 10, 13. Those are AP costs that easily move closer by one turn as 7 becomes 6, 10 to 9 etc. He subtlely delays while on defense and slightly accelerates on offense. And he was oh so good with Thor recently because he helps thor get yellow, which in turn gets green and it puts lots of green back on the board for him to steal from you. You have to deal with the Hood first, it's an MPQ rule. He will slowly eat you alive, no he's not going to win you games outright, but much like any good team, he serves his role and when you go against a Hood unboosted, and wonder how they got off a skill so quickly, or why you don't seem to have enough AP for Thunder Strike, he's the answer.

Unknown

My main concern is going up against Hood/Deadpool teams on defense. Hood helps to fuel Deadpool's cheap red, meaning that it's unlikely you'll get through the battle without taking a 3k damage nuke, and you won't be able to burn down Hood as quickly with Deadpool getting in the way. Also, between Hood stealing purple and the fact that most teams don't bother to match purple, you have to be careful of Whales.

OzarkBoatswain

I think he's a great character, but there are 5 or 6 characters I would nerf before him. Start with CMags and Sentry's World Rupture.

If they do make his passive worse, I hope they make his actives better as compensation.

Unknown

I'm not sold on him sorry.

I truly do understand his benefit, I just feel like they are overstated in function.

I 'just' started shield hopping and boosting so I'm not even looking at it from that point. I'm thinking

Does he beat hearty teams with the like of Hulk/Sentry/Thor/Daken/Patch? No. Sentry gets his jollies off quickly, Daken does as well, Thor can get his jollies via 'over time' or through building to it quickly with yellows->green. Maybe its the way I play, but i I have Patch or Thor or some other character with a strong color, I go hard trying to collect all those matches, so there are rarely enough on the board for it to trigger the steal effect.

Does he stop game ending or near game ending powers? Not really, between Sentry/Thor/BP, etc - those powers the players are going to rush too, pretty much again, negating the number of tiles on the board. sure you'll get one or two from what falls down as a new tile or via cascade, but ultimately it doesn't 'really' stop or prevent those attacks, or feed into yours.

Maybe the tell tell sign to me is the fact that I've actually gone 'back' to OBW for support. Her AP stealing is WAY more consistent and cna be triggered before something bad happens in all instances except a bad cascade...AND she has a still useful heal. As it stands it feels like Hood is good for just AP stealing - just like Hulk seems to only be good for Anger...sure they are good skills, but it feels like you're holding back your roster with either character. I am at the point now where Falcon's passives - yellow and blue - are more beneficial than Hood.

I guess my thing is mos def he shouldn't be nerfed - if anything he needs a buff to intimidation's effects (simply due to the lack of useful CDs @ the 3 star level)
Cap A...meh
Sentry...don't need it
X-Force *har*
Punisher...don't need it
Falcon...meh
IM40...:thumbsup:
Psylocke...meh
BP...meh

Or the AP on Twin Pistols needs adjustments
- Unreall

OnesOwnGrief

Actually, Hood is highly effective at shutting down 10+ AP abilities with proper AP denial. I've been using him for a while as he was one of my first nearly full covered 3* and he's been the main determining factor in downing Fat Thor's, Lazy Caps, Black Panthers, and etc since. Of course he's not going to do much against low AP abilities but he can surely block out high cost ones as the only AP thief on a team.

Unknown

Unreallystic wrote:

I'm not sold on him sorry.

I truly do understand his benefit, I just feel like they are overstated in function.

I 'just' started shield hopping and boosting so I'm not even looking at it from that point. I'm thinking

Does he beat hearty teams with the like of Hulk/Sentry/Thor/Daken/Patch? No. Sentry gets his jollies off quickly, Daken does as well, Thor can get his jollies via 'over time' or through building to it quickly with yellows->green. Maybe its the way I play, but i I have Patch or Thor or some other character with a strong color, I go hard trying to collect all those matches, so there are rarely enough on the board for it to trigger the steal effect.

Does he stop game ending or near game ending powers? Not really, between Sentry/Thor/BP, etc - those powers the players are going to rush too, pretty much again, negating the number of tiles on the board. sure you'll get one or two from what falls down as a new tile or via cascade, but ultimately it doesn't 'really' stop or prevent those attacks, or feed into yours.

Of the three star characters you listed here, he can be quite effective in delaying Patch, BP, and Thor. Of course he can't really stop Daken and Sentry but they are about the most powerful anti-Hood combo available as Daken requires 0 AP to spin up his damage dealing and Sentry only required 7 green. In terms of defensive utility, I cringe way more over seeing the Hood on any team over Hulk. Hulk is really pretty pathetic as you can generally leave him til last and just down him with a couple powers while he flails at you with his. Hood, on the other hand, has to be dealt with first or you risk being downed by his companions' powers.

Unknown

I think a lot of frustration comes from a player failing to notice that Hood was one of the opponents. It's no different than failing to change the target. There's wasting match damage on Daken or Wolverine, getting nailed by Classic Storm, or angering Hulk.

Unknown

Bugpop wrote:

I think a lot of frustration comes from a player failing to notice that Hood was one of the opponents. It's no different than failing to change the target. There's wasting match damage on Daken or Wolverine, getting nailed by Classic Storm, or angering Hulk.

That only matters if you forgot to load your boosts, but if you need to load boosts to deal with Hood that kind of says a lot about his power. Seeing him on the other team offers no meaningful way to deal with Dormammu unless you want to take a ridiculous amount of time each turn to figure out how many tiles of each color is available. There are only 3 characters that match up well against him: Sentry, Daken, and Magneto, and those guys match up well against anyone else to begin with so it's hardly a counter.

over_clocked

Pft, I would smack Black Panther/lazy Thor/lazy Cap teams all day long over oBW/Hood teams if I'm allowed to bring my own Hood.
If someone's 'not sold' on Hood and relies on oBW more instead, all the better for the rest of us, really.

OnesOwnGrief

locked wrote:

Pft, I would smack Black Panther/lazy Thor/lazy Cap teams all day long over oBW/Hood teams if I'm allowed to bring my own Hood.
If someone's 'not sold' on Hood and relies on oBW more instead, all the better for the rest of us, really.

This, all day. OBW/Hood teams are no bueno, especially so if the required is tanky. I give that team a most definite skip unless they are worth 40+ points. One cascade and you have no recovery options at all.

NorthernPolarity

Unreallystic wrote:

I'm not sold on him sorry.

I truly do understand his benefit, I just feel like they are overstated in function.

I 'just' started shield hopping and boosting so I'm not even looking at it from that point. I'm thinking

Does he beat hearty teams with the like of Hulk/Sentry/Thor/Daken/Patch? No. Sentry gets his jollies off quickly, Daken does as well, Thor can get his jollies via 'over time' or through building to it quickly with yellows->green. Maybe its the way I play, but i I have Patch or Thor or some other character with a strong color, I go hard trying to collect all those matches, so there are rarely enough on the board for it to trigger the steal effect.

Does he stop game ending or near game ending powers? Not really, between Sentry/Thor/BP, etc - those powers the players are going to rush too, pretty much again, negating the number of tiles on the board. sure you'll get one or two from what falls down as a new tile or via cascade, but ultimately it doesn't 'really' stop or prevent those attacks, or feed into yours.

Maybe the tell tell sign to me is the fact that I've actually gone 'back' to OBW for support. Her AP stealing is WAY more consistent and cna be triggered before something bad happens in all instances except a bad cascade...AND she has a still useful heal. As it stands it feels like Hood is good for just AP stealing - just like Hulk seems to only be good for Anger...sure they are good skills, but it feels like you're holding back your roster with either character. I am at the point now where Falcon's passives - yellow and blue - are more beneficial than Hood.

I guess my thing is mos def he shouldn't be nerfed - if anything he needs a buff to intimidation's effects (simply due to the lack of useful CDs @ the 3 star level)
Cap A...meh
Sentry...don't need it
X-Force *har*
Punisher...don't need it
Falcon...meh
IM40...:thumbsup:
Psylocke...meh
BP...meh

Or the AP on Twin Pistols needs adjustments
- Unreall

Whenever i face hood with another that has 10ap+ powers, heres what typically happens. I do exactly like you say, prioritizing one color like yellow if im lazythor, get maybe 6-9 ap before i cant make any more yellow matches. Now im scrambling to make a yellow match, so i start matching other colors which hood slowly steals. Sometimes i get there and kill him before anything bad happens, other times h steals enough ap to cripple my offense and feed his team enough ap to kill me. He doesnt stand up to daken sentry but who really can? The character is significantly better than obw on defense and in pvp.
Also, how can you say that "all he does is steal ap?" Ap is the most important thing in this game: if obws only had 1 ability ( her purple), shed be top tier still because thats just how good ap stealing is in this game.

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

Bugpop wrote:

I think a lot of frustration comes from a player failing to notice that Hood was one of the opponents. It's no different than failing to change the target. There's wasting match damage on Daken or Wolverine, getting nailed by Classic Storm, or angering Hulk.

That only matters if you forgot to load your boosts, but if you need to load boosts to deal with Hood that kind of says a lot about his power. Seeing him on the other team offers no meaningful way to deal with Dormammu unless you want to take a ridiculous amount of time each turn to figure out how many tiles of each color is available. There are only 3 characters that match up well against him: Sentry, Daken, and Magneto, and those guys match up well against anyone else to begin with so it's hardly a counter.

The team I use against troublesome Hood teams is Daken, Falcon, and Spider-Man. Of course things can go wrong, but I believe I get sufficient mileage from that lineup to suggest checking it out.

IReallyHatePVP

A: No.

Next Q.

over_clocked

Unreallystic wrote:

I've got to be honest, the more and more I use Hood, the less and less I am impressed with him defensively. He reminds me of MStorm - he seems terrifying in theory, but in practice, one or two small adjustments eat him alive.

For one, his lack of offensive punch, while not spiderman level, its pretty close. What makes him scary is rally just his blue- his yellow is effective, but cost almost as much as Captain America's and we know how much people use that, and hey Cap has more health, so at least you have a better chance of getting it off with Cap. His black is 'meh' damage wise, and the effect of helping to fire off CDs is great, but the few useful people with CDs like Sentry are being played wrong if you can fire off black in time to match his yellow/green.

Then with his health levels, he gets eaten up by AoE type attacks.
- Unreall

locked wrote:

Well. I just had a very *exciting* fight.
I use LT/Mags to push but both Hood and LT took some damage (maybe at 60% health) and I decided to find an 'easy' match and heal them both with oBW instead of just using healthpacks on them. Had a matchup with oBW/non-maxed Hood and LT, charged in happily.

Cue an enemy purple cascade on the second turn. Enemy Recon, eating a Thor red, then a Thor yellow... My LT couldn't take the abuse, not being at full health.
It was then oBW/Hood against enemy oBW, Hood and LT. I managed to down oBW with an Intimidation and then proceeded to take out the Hood, but it was still my badly hurt oBW/Hood against a fully healthy LT with 12 green.
That's what happened next.



Thor gets 14 green, I use Pistols to charge purple and steal 3 green. Thor proceeds to make a green match next
I sacrifice Widow. It's Hood who's buffed and has **** handguns, not you, Natasha!



Managed to deny Thor his strong match colours long enough for charging Pistols into charging boosted Intimidation *whew*

I just wanted to heal, goddammit!

From Unholy Outlaw, June 16-18.

Unknown

Bugpop wrote:

The team I use against troublesome Hood teams is Daken, Falcon, and Spider-Man. Of course things can go wrong, but I believe I get sufficient mileage from that lineup to suggest checking it out.

Of course that team works since I use Daken + Falcon + anyone in PvE all the time and it works on basically everything and is a lot of fun to play, but although I'm ambivalent toward PvP I'm not so ambivalent that I don't mind getting lit up for negative 400 points for throwing an oddball lineup, and I certainly don't care enough PvP to use shields at this point. The threat of losing crazy points on defense prevents you from using specialized team to deal with a character like Hood unless you always shield or you don't care what happens to your rating.

Unknown

The Hood is pretty weak on offense because in the current PvP events, about half of the time the structure of the event is deadweight + 2 guys. If one of those two guys is The Hood, your third guy is responsible for 100% of the damage output. This is also why OBW + The Hood team doesn't work at least 50% of the time because you literally have no way of winning if your team is say Rag + OBW + The Hood. The usual powerful characters that can provide all the offense for The Hood do not cover any of his colors, which leads to a significant drain on your health pack. Black Panther can tank for all of The Hood's colors, but this team is completely unusable if the featured character doesn't have a strong red/green, since playing without a red/green is an incredible handicap. Realistically you can only form a strong team with The Hood when he is the featured character or when the featured character strongly covers red/green. While red/green is a very common coverage, it's still way less than 50% of the featured characters. Alternatively you can have your second guy cover green/red, but this usually ends up with The Hood tanking at least 2 colors.