*** The Hood (Classic) ***

Unknown

Celerity wrote:

Rorex wrote:

The Cloak of Shadows idea looks good. Any sort of damage mitagation would be acceptable if it seems at least somewhat relevant to the character. Its really about how the Hood acts in the comics. Take when he first gets the hood and boots for example. He comes across a couple of thugs, what does he do? Does he stand his ground and fight? No he runs, finds out the boots let him walk on air and gets away. My point being he is very much a hit and run fighter. Also that the majority of his powers are related to stealth and avoidance. He is more an assasain not the King Pin they have him made out to be.

To be honest I didn't have trouble beating The Hood in thick as thieves and also as a note your were likely fighting a level 230 The Hood which is like fighting him with a 50% buff at max level. I am pretty sure I just stun locked him with Spidey. Obviously thats kind of a bad example of how easy his to beat as that ability is overpowered and undoubtably going to be changed in the near future. But essentially any decent stun or good board control is going to be the end of him. I mean even getting off MBW stun (the five turn) or Classic Storms (4 turn) will likely kill him.

When fighting Hood, right away you're forced to focus heavily on one color in order to gain any ground. If you get unlucky and that color starts getting split, you will eventually lose all of it and focus another color. Meanwhile, every incidental AP you gain from 4-matches is stolen. The only character I've ever found more dangerous on defense was Ragnarok, pre-nerf. And I do think this method of defense gives him an "elusive" quality in line with the comics.

I guess it can be seen as an "elusive" skill but really given the name "Dormammu’s Aid" and the description its really more of a leaching ability that is supposed to represent Dormammu tilting the battlefield in the Hood's favor. If it were named "Petty Theif" or something I would agree with you.

It does alter play style but so does a lot of skills. Most of the time your trying to starve your opponent of a paticular color so they don't get a nasty skill off. A perfect example of this is OBW's purple which could steal as many as 24 AP. Or how Dakens strike tiles and Bullseye's protect tiles deter you from match certian colours. IMO it doesn't really matter who your playing your strategy should adapt. Other examples is not killing Patch last, not leaving Ares below 20% health, starving wolverine of yellow when below 50%, eliminating web tiles when fight spidey or venom, etc. I really can't think of a regularlly used charecter that you should be adjusting your stategy for.

Again given his abilites in the comics I am just surprized they didn't play up what is clearly one of this main abilities. Especially given intimidation doesn't seem to fit. Intimidation really seems to me like something you would use as an ability for a character like Kingpin not the Hood. Alternatively intimadation could have been "Possesion" whith something to the effect that when the Hood is near death Dormammu steps in taking possesion of him. Though that might too closely represent the skill given to Ares.

Unknown

The Hood isn't strong by himself. He's strong because of his ability to synergize with every other member on his team. Usually, if you see someone with a strong red you just deny red. It's generally pretty easy to figure out the two strong colors your opposing team has and just do your best to stop it. Well, you can't do that with The Hood around. You have to match those colors instead of just turn tiles away so that they can't match it, and if those colors aren't your colors, it's going to be pretty rough.

I'm sure his lack of HP is intentional, because his support ability is one of the most powerful in the game so he has to be dealt with quickly.

As a side note, the level 230 The Hood solo fight is pretty trivial, precisely because The Hood has no strong abilities on his own. You can just match 3 your way and still outpace his relatively weak skills. Sure he can steal all your APs but it's not like you're quaking in fear to the power of the Twin Pistols.

mischiefmaker

Also worth noting that the Hood/Magneto fight in TaT wasn't particularly representative either, because Magneto didn't have his purple power (and thank goodness for that).

Polares

What level do you think is the minimum level to start using The Hood in PvP ? I have him right now at level 31 and I was waiting until I get him at least at level 60 or something like that.

Puritas

On offense just stick him in when you hit five blue
Otherwise around 100?

Just realized today that hood won't really work with patch, cause it drops patchs best there is down to 2 colors
Somewhat upset.

eidehua

Puritas wrote:

On offense just stick him in when you hit five blue
Otherwise around 100?

Just realized today that hood won't really work with patch, cause it drops patchs best there is down to 2 colors
Somewhat upset.

Well if you keep patch ahead in levels he should get yellow back unless you were saying something else? . 2 colors isn't that terrible with 5 red, either.

It's actually pretty interesting to pair Patch with Hood on defense, since they usually need to focus on taking hood out first, or suffer ap loss, giving Patch more colors for his red.

Nonce Equitaur 2

Hood works rather well with Daredevil. That covers 5 colors.

But how should green be covered? Everyone with a green power, except for C.Storm, also has a red power.

Puritas

eidehua wrote:

Well if you keep patch ahead in levels he should get yellow back unless you were saying something else? . 2 colors isn't that terrible with 5 red, either.

Hrrm. Problem is that Hood really needs to be maxed to survive long enough to use him. To leave Patch's yellow ahead of Hood's would mean leaving Hood at lvl 100, aka. 70% hp
And considering green and red are such prime real estate, every time I use best there is a good half of Patch's damage is coming from yellow tiles
Although I just realized that buy the time Patch would use red in defense, hood would be dead so no major problem!

Nonce Equitaur 2 wrote:

Hood works rather well with Daredevil. That covers 5 colors.

But how should green be covered? Everyone with a green power, except for C.Storm, also has a red power.

I was thinking about this too.
3/5/5 Hood/Daredevil/5/5/3 Invisible Woman

Dual pistols at 3, invisibility at 5 to maximize chances that invisibility gets fired off onto Hood
Since nobody matches yellow anymore every turn you're guaranteed 1-3 yellow
Then gg traps everywhere nothing can stop you except daken or storm

The question is whether force bubbles set off trap tiles or disarm them

NorthernPolarity

What do people think about this guy as a core team member in the current meta? With everything slowing down, he seems to be well positioned to steal a ton of AP. I'm debating whether or not to level this as my 3rd level 141 character: Hulk/Punisher is my current lineup, and I'm trying to figure out if there are any other 3* characters that I should focus on instead.

mischiefmaker

At the risk of increasing competition for his covers in next week's LRs, I'm really warming up to the idea of working Hood into my regular rotation. I'm not sure exactly how, since I loves me some Patch, and as pointed out above, Hood would have to be at <L100 to not be tanking yellow, which is squishy even by 2* standards, but the AP steal and generation look awesome. Plus he's not that well-known and not very intimidating, so maybe he gets you some wins on defense until people wise up?

NorthernPolarity

mischiefmaker wrote:

At the risk of increasing competition for his covers in next week's LRs, I'm really warming up to the idea of working Hood into my regular rotation. I'm not sure exactly how, since I loves me some Patch, and as pointed out above, Hood would have to be at <L100 to not be tanking yellow, which is squishy even by 2* standards, but the AP steal and generation look awesome. Plus he's not that well-known and not very intimidating, so maybe he gets you some wins on defense until people wise up?

Yeah, Celerity convinced me in the general discussion thread. Since I'm a Hulk/Punisher user, I'm going to get Hood up to 141 once I'm done with Hulk/Punisher to 141 (which is probably going to be another 80k iso, sigh. Where are you PvE events!).

Unknown

NorthernPolarity wrote:

What do people think about this guy as a core team member in the current meta? With everything slowing down, he seems to be well positioned to steal a ton of AP. I'm debating whether or not to level this as my 3rd level 141 character: Hulk/Punisher is my current lineup, and I'm trying to figure out if there are any other 3* characters that I should focus on instead.

The Hood will undoubtably become a major part of alot of teams with the changes coming (assuming spideys blue and mags classic red get nerfd). Essentially if you don't have cheap abilities its going to take more time to pull off skills as they cost more AP. This will of course make some characters with extremely expensive AP abilities more usable. It will also mean most people will start using "batteries" (characters that steal or generate AP) which essentially means working in either OBW, IM40 or The Hood into the line up.

However until those last few cheap abilities get done away with I am not so sure anything short of a max level Hood is really worth it. Personally OBW seems much better around the lvl 85 mark. Great steals for reasonably cheap depending on how far you lvld her purple, a heal ability, and extra damage. OBW lvl 3 purple is going to cost 8AP (3 turns) and steal up to 15 AP. Hood lvl 5 blue is going to steal at most 18 AP in 3 turns. So the real question becomes is that possibility of up to 3 purple AP worth lower hitpoints, no heal, and no extra damage on blue, purple and black matches?

The Hood does have other skills but Intimidation is going to be almost worthless when teamed up with Hulk and Punisher. I mean do you add another Molitov or use intimdation? Molitov makes more sense and intimadation doesn't help Hulk at all. The Hoods Yellow is useful but 15AP is steep and it really doesnt do much damage just generates AP and helps with board control.

IMO Hood and fix 4* wolverine make an interesting mix (once fixed). The intimidation is good for helping wolverine heal faster, all the leaching will slow the game giving more time for the build up of strike tiles (hopefully dramatically improved). I also plan on using Doctor Doom which will limit my Hood to lvl 115. The key here is with Hood's **** hit points you never want him to end up in the front during fights so you have to ensure that black, blue and yellow all have someone elses symbol on it. You also want to ensure you are eliminating anyone with AOE attacks first. Ideally they will create another evil 3* similiar to Wolverine so I can make a decent bad guy team. Maybe Deadpool.

Another option is IM40, Hood and someone with a black ability (I think Hulk and Punisher are the only other 3* that have a black and max level 141). Personally I would stay away for Hulk in combo with the Hood. The idea of Hulk accidently killing him is a serious cause of concern and Punisher is more well rounded.

Unknown

Good lord, yellow Hood cover on the horizon in daily reward. I'm one step closer to being able to use him.

Copps

I've been using my 5/5/3 hood quite a bit in the last few. Tourneys I've played and loving him. In no holds barred I ran him with pi demand mags. I didn't play a lot but ran up the rankings from defence wins. In the im40 tourney running him with spidey and im40 while not fast made any team I fought trivial long term. Have enough to double his black when Iron man pops his yellow is great fun.

eidehua

If you don't want to use boosts, Hood will be a pain to fight, especially after spidey is nerfed. Either he prevents you from getting you abilities out, or he at least stalls you. While his health is not amazing, it's still thousands of HP to go through which is quite hard without using skills.

The fact that boosts cost more now (and +3 all is HP), and balance is shifted to skills ~ 5 -6 ap min helps Hood a lot.

Hood and Patch on defense will be especially annoying. If you focus Hood first, Patch gets more colors for his red. Focusing Patch first is probably a no-no considering his regen.

Phaserhawk

What is the damage done 5/5/3 Hood, by his yellow active? I can't seem to find a damage listing, say you pop the max amount of tiles, is it just his per tile damage normaly for each tile?

Unknown

It's tile damage so it will scale as he grows in levels. The main purpose is to remove special tiles (countdown, strike, defense) as well as generate AP (18 total). And if you maxed out his yellow you can use it to generate AP to use another skill. It's not a game ending skill but a very good utility skill.

Phaserhawk

mischiefmaker wrote:

At the risk of increasing competition for his covers in next week's LRs, I'm really warming up to the idea of working Hood into my regular rotation. I'm not sure exactly how, since I loves me some Patch, and as pointed out above, Hood would have to be at <L100 to not be tanking yellow, which is squishy even by 2* standards, but the AP steal and generation look awesome. Plus he's not that well-known and not very intimidating, so maybe he gets you some wins on defense until people wise up?

I'm liking him paired with Ares at the moment, he steals me AP, Ares sill takes the yellow, and using The Hood's black I'm able to do some rapid damage off of Ares' sunder as I can make it go off 1 turn sooner, and if I use Ares Green, which gives green AP, The Hood helps start to take some back. Currently though, no one has a higher yellow attack than The Hood, so if you max him out he will always be out on yellow, unless.....boosted tourney's, that's where you can really shine as The Hood can stay in the background, say a boosted Patch tourney, ouch and considering he's stealing prbably 2-3 AP per turn, if you have a full rainbow team, I think this guy is invaulable. Now all The Hood needs is a yellow AP battery generator, akin to Magneto MN, BWGS, Thor,

Unknown

I finally got 5 yellow skill on my hood. 5/4/2 currently. Hoping to be able to finish my 5/5/3 soon and Max level him. I'm just trying to figure out who I should make my team with. I have lvl 110 iron man, lvl 100 Grey suit, and 85 storm.... As my highest. I'm thinking marvel now magneto though. I think he is currently 50

Unknown

For me...Hood needs to stay in the back and away from battle as much as possible meaning to have characters be strong in blue, yellow and black. I find having Doom covers blue and black and a strong hello like Iron man 40, ares, or thor helps as they have more tanky health than hood.