*** The Hood (Classic) ***

eidehua

^ During the Hood pvp he meant (that's when he posted it, context )

Unknown

Hello,

I have Hood 5/3/5 level 60 for the moment, and i want to put some iso in this character...I can spend some HP to have him 5/5/3...

Do you advice me to do that knowing :
I play most of the time with X-Force 270 (5/5/3), Daken 166 (5/5/3) and lazyThor 166 (5/5/3) in PvP...

Does Hood/X-force is more efficient in PvP ? PvE ? For offense ? Defense (better Daken/X-force , LT /x-force or Hood/x-force?) ? Does it worth it to invest 150 000 isos and to improve his blue ?

Thanks for the advices.

Quebbster

Darek wrote:

Hello,

I have Hood 5/3/5 level 60 for the moment, and i want to put some iso in this character...I can spend some HP to have him 5/5/3...

Do you advice me to do that knowing :
I play most of the time with X-Force 270 (5/5/3), Daken 166 (5/5/3) and lazyThor 166 (5/5/3) in PvP...

Does Hood/X-force is more efficient in PvP ? PvE ? For offense ? Defense (better Daken/X-force , LT /x-force or Hood/x-force?) ? Does it worth it to invest 150 000 isos and to improve his blue ?

Thanks for the advices.

Simply put, Hood with 5 Blue is amazing. He slows your opponent down to a crawl and speeds up your own moves. He goes pretty well with any heavy hitter too since they can always use more AP. X-force is particularly mean since he hits very hard for comparatively few AP. Hood/X-force is probably the setup most likely to get skipped on defense in PvP.
On the other hand, the covers are what is really important. The only real reason to level him up is to give him more health (though the extra damage from yellow and black is a nice bonus) so you may not want to level him all the way up to 166 immediately. I know when I play with Hood I get annoyed that he tanks so many colors since ideally I want him hidden in the back. Then again, underleveled Hoods die quicker...

vudu3

Quebbster wrote:

Hood/X-force is probably the setup most likely to get skipped on defense in PvP.

I'll beat up on Hood teams all day long. Hood really took a nosedive in PVP-worth once they buffed X-Force. He was dangerous because there was no quick way to down him. Now, you can take him out by turn 3 with X-Force if you boost green/black. Match green twice and an X-Force to the face is usually enough to make Hood go away. Hood's still really good on offense but he's not very good on defense anymore.

Phaserhawk

vudu3 wrote:

Quebbster wrote:

Hood/X-force is probably the setup most likely to get skipped on defense in PvP.

I'll beat up on Hood teams all day long. Hood really took a nosedive in PVP-worth once they buffed X-Force. He was dangerous because there was no quick way to down him. Now, you can take him out by turn 3 with X-Force if you boost green/black. Match green twice and an X-Force to the face is usually enough to make Hood go away. Hood's still really good on offense but he's not very good on defense anymore.

Hood is still very dangerous even with X-Force, and if you boost green and black, unless the board is perfect the other teams Hood just got green and black for their X-Force. I will agree that he is easier to deal with since X-Force but to say he's not PvP worthy is just wrong. If anything it's Loki that has created a lesser use for him, since Loki can create problems just like Hood.

Unknown

vudu3 wrote:

Quebbster wrote:

Hood/X-force is probably the setup most likely to get skipped on defense in PvP.

I'll beat up on Hood teams all day long. Hood really took a nosedive in PVP-worth once they buffed X-Force. He was dangerous because there was no quick way to down him. Now, you can take him out by turn 3 with X-Force if you boost green/black. Match green twice and an X-Force to the face is usually enough to make Hood go away. Hood's still really good on offense but he's not very good on defense anymore.

Unless you have 4hor, Hood is still the best teammate for Xforce.

Deadpool, Thor and Daken are good as well, but Deadpool takes more attacks, Thor doesn't synergize perfectly and Daken is more for climbing than top tier gameplay.

I can't think of many 3 stars I'd pair with Xforce over Hood.

Trisul

onimus wrote:

I can't think of many 3 stars I'd pair with Xforce over Hood.

Just CMags really. If Daredevil was a little better he'd have rainbow with XF, but alas.

Unknown

Trisul wrote:

onimus wrote:

I can't think of many 3 stars I'd pair with Xforce over Hood.

Just CMags really. If Daredevil was a little better he's have rainbow with XF, but alas.

Cmags is a good one, thank you.

I don't have a max CMags, so I've never used them together, but I hear good things. And I can understand the synergy in theory.

But yes, other than that, Hood is basically your best option without 4hor.

Unknown

So it's a good idea to invest in the hood to put with Xforce...For the moment, i put Daken.
i hope i will be able to have more points...

but do you advice me to go until level 166 with hood or just less to let xforce fight with the yellow...
but in that case, Hood will have very few HP...

Quebbster

Darek wrote:

So it's a good idea to invest in the hood to put with Xforce...For the moment, i put Daken.
i hope i will be able to have more points...

but do you advice me to go until level 166 with hood or just less to let xforce fight with the yellow...
but in that case, Hood will have very few HP...

You can take Hood to level 125 without having him tank yellow for a maxed X-force. That gives him about 3800 HP, or 75% of his max. It probably doesn't matter that much if he tanks yellow when paired with X-force though as yellow shouldn't be prioritized. Try level 125 first and see how it works for you.

Unknown

i put my hood at level 135. He has his purple strength at 11 which is same as my Lcap, Lthor, and X-force. But I don't understand how come he is still taking damage for Purpler color no matter where I position him to (Left, Center, Right). How's that?

Unknown

deathprize wrote:

i put my hood at level 135. He has his purple strength at 11 which is same as my Lcap, Lthor, and X-force. But I don't understand how come he is still taking damage for Purpler color no matter where I position him to (Left, Center, Right). How's that?

There's actually a decimal value to all the match damage that you do not see. While for the purpose of the game they're all rounded to the nearest 1, for the tiebreaking purposes the game will consider someone's strength of say, 11.3 as always superior to 11.2 even if both looks like 11 to you. There's no way to what this value is except based on experience, though 4*s have exceptionally low values on their weak colors and almost always loses to a 3* if both are mutually weak on a color.

Jetness

I think I'm missing something. I tried playing XForce and Hood together, but don't see why they are such a good combination.

Both have yellow and black. Who's yellow and black are used?

I also wonder if my confusion is that they are not fully covered and not leveled. My Xforce is at level 112, 3/2/1, and Hood is level 68, 3/1/1.

Any suggestions are appreciated!

Unknown

Jetness wrote:

I think I'm missing something. I tried playing XForce and Hood together, but don't see why they are such a good combination.

Both have yellow and black. Who's yellow and black are used?

I also wonder if my confusion is that they are not fully covered and not leveled. My Xforce is at level 112, 3/2/1, and Hood is level 68, 3/1/1.

Any suggestions are appreciated!

Surgical Strike removes all of one color on the board. With one color removed, there is a very high chance Dormammu's Aid will trigger in the other 5 colors. Since your The Hood doesn't have Dormammu's Aid maxed you won't get much, if any, out of this combination. Your X Force is missing too many covers to be a viable character unless you're just trying to scare people who didn't know better. X Force's power for his green/black as a function of covers roughly goes like this:

3 covers - weak 2*
4 covers - strong 3*
5 covers - godlike

Jetness

Phantron wrote:

Jetness wrote:

I think I'm missing something. I tried playing XForce and Hood together, but don't see why they are such a good combination.

Both have yellow and black. Who's yellow and black are used?

I also wonder if my confusion is that they are not fully covered and not leveled. My Xforce is at level 112, 3/2/1, and Hood is level 68, 3/1/1.

Any suggestions are appreciated!

Surgical Strike removes all of one color on the board. With one color removed, there is a very high chance Dormammu's Aid will trigger in the other 5 colors. Since your The Hood doesn't have Dormammu's Aid maxed you won't get much, if any, out of this combination. Your X Force is missing too many covers to be a viable character unless you're just trying to scare people who didn't know better. X Force's power for his green/black as a function of covers roughly goes like this:

3 covers - weak 2*
4 covers - strong 3*
5 covers - godlike

Ah, so that's how XForce and Hood work together! And my characters have too few covers. Now it makes sense - thank you!

Arondite

Jetness wrote:

Phantron wrote:

Jetness wrote:

I think I'm missing something. I tried playing XForce and Hood together, but don't see why they are such a good combination.

Both have yellow and black. Who's yellow and black are used?

I also wonder if my confusion is that they are not fully covered and not leveled. My Xforce is at level 112, 3/2/1, and Hood is level 68, 3/1/1.

Any suggestions are appreciated!

Surgical Strike removes all of one color on the board. With one color removed, there is a very high chance Dormammu's Aid will trigger in the other 5 colors. Since your The Hood doesn't have Dormammu's Aid maxed you won't get much, if any, out of this combination. Your X Force is missing too many covers to be a viable character unless you're just trying to scare people who didn't know better. X Force's power for his green/black as a function of covers roughly goes like this:

3 covers - weak 2*
4 covers - strong 3*
5 covers - godlike

Ah, so that's how XForce and Hood work together! And my characters have too few covers. Now it makes sense - thank you!

Not to mention Hood works best against characters with expensive skills (by slowing a 4 or 5 match move into a 6 or 7 match) and works best WITH characters with low cost skills (by accelerating a 2 match with residual ap or a 3 match into a smooth 2 match).

[Deleted User]

I get that The Hood has relatively-low health points but I feel like the luck of the cascade has been in 'denial mode' lately; couple that with the Hood's theft ability and it's ridiculously challenging to finish an enemy team including him.

I think generating a +1 AP for the Hood's team is better than thieving from the enemy team's pool. The game is challenging as it is when the cascade denies you the AP needed to execute abilities, let alone this piece of ****'s thieving ability come in and steal what little AP you might have been fortunate enough to accrue when AP is scarce.

Am I alone in this or do people agree that the above would be a better practice?

over_clocked

It's not just you.
I, however, find the Hood balanced thanks to the lowest health imaginable. The character was rebalanced quite recently; his yellow was nerfed utility-wise and buffed damage-wise; the devs didn't even think it needed to touch his blue skill.
If you check out my counter thread in signature (self-plug), the Hood can be dealt with in a number of ways, even if you lack your own with at least 4 blue covers. He does feel oppressive on bad boards, but you are usually still able to win; but if pure DPS characters get a favorable board, you are usually that much more screwed. Any good character wins on a good board and Hood is no exception, he just does it both ways: slows you down and accelerates his own team, which can cause frustration for less weathered players.
The best strategy is to either go all out with match damage and counter stealing (oBW, Daken, Blade, Falcon) or boost one colour pair (boosting more than one is a heavy risk) and try to cripple Hood early with low cost skills (Deadpool, Psylocke, Ares, X-Force, Human Torch, Patch, Punisher, Black Panther, Devil Dino, Daken again). There are also stuns; if you boost blue and stun Hood early with mBW or cStorm, that gives you some breathing room.

GothicKratos

locked wrote:

There are also stuns; if you boost blue and stun Hood early with mBW or cStorm, that gives you some breathing room.

2* Magneto + 2* Storm can do this pretty easily, since boosting Blue/Purple will give you two avenues to gather for your stun.

Just make sure it's worth the retaliation.

morph3us

I was wondering if everyone thought Dormmamu's Aid was overpowered or not? There are two issues that I see.

Characters with comparable abilities
Every time a character with AP steal (Psylocke, Blade, Mystique, Loki) or effects on AP costs (Starlord) gets released, they inevitably get compared to Hood, and the general gist of the majority of the analysis is that "X ability is worse than Dormmamu's Aid", so the character tends to be downrated accordingly.

Countering Dormmamu's Aid
Most of the advice that is given about tackling Hood nodes in PvE, or facing a defending team with Hood in PvP is to "bring your own Hood", so they cancel each other out. Following on from the character comparison above, it's clearly not really a viable option to bring Loki, or Mystique, for instance, since they take time to ramp up, compared to Dormmanu's Aid, which is technically on from Turn 1. Clearly, Hood's low health is a factor to consider too, though, as fast characters can take Hood down relatively quickly (unless he's boosted up the wazoo).

Based on that, I was wondering whether more knowledgeable people here thought that Dormmamu's Aid is balanced as it is, or whether it would do well with a slight rebalancing (such as making it similar to Falcon's Redwing, still a passive, but requiring base AP before it becomes active), as that would make other methods of AP steal/manipulation more appealing.