*** The Hood (Classic) ***

Unknown

Thanks Rorex, these are interesting observations!

I finally went ahead and max-leveled my hood, and do not regret it (he is amazing on defense and in mid-game in attack). I agree with you, he must be awesome, lined up with Black Panther (whose covers elude me, alas). I also do not play as much as I used to, so health packs are not an issue, otherwise I again agree: leveling him up to 141 would not be the best choice.

Unknown

Black Panther and The Hood makes a poor team on defense because The Hood has a lower costing black, which prevents you from winning with Rage of the Panther on defense.

While defense is not a huge priority, when you have a character that can actually win on defense, you really don't want to pair him up with characters that can screw it up. This is same with lazy Thor. He can definitely win a game on defense if he has enough for Thunder Strike or Call the Storm, so you don't want to give your AI the possibilty of doing something else instead with that green AP. At least, you shouldn't have anyone with cheaper costs. Having people with more is usually workable, so Thor 3* + The Hood is fine. Unless you went from like 11 yellow to 15 yellow in one turn, you'll still get Thunder Strike.

Unknown

Sounds like D3 is continuing their "lazy character" design. If OBW becomes a gold *** star, would you rather have Hood or a gold OBW?

Unknown

WesFaram wrote:

Sounds like D3 is continuing their "lazy character" design. If OBW becomes a gold *** star, would you rather have Hood or a gold OBW?

Let's assume the abilities are still the same and their HPs are exactly equal to not have to worry about durability. Both will be fine on offense. The Hood is still better right now because he can consistently deny the '5 blue wins the game' on defense when facing Magneto, or '6-10 blue almost always wins the game' by Spiderman. OBW is stronger in terms of consistent AP stealing, but she generally cannot stop a particular color (blue) on time when controlled by AI.

If you assume at some point there's no more of this ridiculous '5 blue wins the game' criteria you've to worry about, OBW has a better overall set of skills compared to The Hood if both have identical HP.

Phaserhawk

Phantron wrote:

Black Panther and The Hood makes a poor team on defense because The Hood has a lower costing black, which prevents you from winning with Rage of the Panther on defense.

While defense is not a huge priority, when you have a character that can actually win on defense, you really don't want to pair him up with characters that can screw it up. This is same with lazy Thor. He can definitely win a game on defense if he has enough for Thunder Strike or Call the Storm, so you don't want to give your AI the possibilty of doing something else instead with that green AP. At least, you shouldn't have anyone with cheaper costs. Having people with more is usually workable, so Thor 3* + The Hood is fine. Unless you went from like 11 yellow to 15 yellow in one turn, you'll still get Thunder Strike.

I never thought about setting up a team with how the AI would play it. Wow, now I might have to think of a better defensive team when I go offline. LazyThor, C.Mags, and OBW seem like a decent team right now for Defense

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

Black Panther and The Hood makes a poor team on defense because The Hood has a lower costing black, which prevents you from winning with Rage of the Panther on defense.

While defense is not a huge priority, when you have a character that can actually win on defense, you really don't want to pair him up with characters that can screw it up. This is same with lazy Thor. He can definitely win a game on defense if he has enough for Thunder Strike or Call the Storm, so you don't want to give your AI the possibilty of doing something else instead with that green AP. At least, you shouldn't have anyone with cheaper costs. Having people with more is usually workable, so Thor 3* + The Hood is fine. Unless you went from like 11 yellow to 15 yellow in one turn, you'll still get Thunder Strike.

While I agree on Defense that the AI wont use Rage of the Panther this is where the third Character of your chosing comes in. Basically insert buffed character or major damage dealer and you dont need Black Panther to win fights that what they are for. Also while its nice to win on defense, an annoying team can be a good deterent. Even adding a healer like OBW to this combination is likely going to deter heavy hitters looking for quick wins. Also low HP like Hoods isn't normally equated to a strong defense.

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

WesFaram wrote:

Sounds like D3 is continuing their "lazy character" design. If OBW becomes a gold *** star, would you rather have Hood or a gold OBW?

Let's assume the abilities are still the same and their HPs are exactly equal to not have to worry about durability. Both will be fine on offense. The Hood is still better right now because he can consistently deny the '5 blue wins the game' on defense when facing Magneto, or '6-10 blue almost always wins the game' by Spiderman. OBW is stronger in terms of consistent AP stealing, but she generally cannot stop a particular color (blue) on time when controlled by AI.

If you assume at some point there's no more of this ridiculous '5 blue wins the game' criteria you've to worry about, OBW has a better overall set of skills compared to The Hood if both have identical HP.

I am sure that a 3* OBW would have more HP than Hood. I base this rationale on Characters with 2* and 3* versions. OBW has 87.5% the health of either 2* Mags or 2* Spidey while Hood has 75% the health of 3* Mags or 3* Spidey. Given that and assuming the same relationship I would guess that a 3* OBW would have 5075 HP or 725 more HP just like BWGS. I am pretty sure this relationship will hold as it did for Thor. 2* Thor has 5340 HP which is 150% 2* Mags or 2* Spidey, while 3* Thor has 8700HP which is 150% of 3* Mags or 3* Spidey.

I have to agree that its really lazy programming. I will need to see max 3* Captian America stats to be sure but so far its seems the gold characters have 162% the HP and 192% the damage of their 2* counter parts at max level. The 162% HP relationship is the same for the non gold 2* and 3* duplicates (ie black widow, wolverine, spidey, mags) . Assuming this 192% buff holds true for heals you could expect 3* OBW to heal for 1179 with countdown tiles, 2358 without.

Essentially 1* to 2* (164% HP increase), 2* to 3* (162% HP increase), 3* to 4* (160% HP increase). What will they come up with next platinum characters like 4* Hulk 15,661 HP or 4* Thor 13,920 HP

Unknown

The Hood is in a lower HP classification than OBW so a hypothetical OBW 3* would have more HP, but it's just something I didn't want to think about it complicates things.

You can't count on having your weakest character alive for extended time on defense. If the opponent uses match boosts (and those are very abundant) a character in the less than 5800 HP classification isn't going to survive very long, and it's unrealistic to assume you'd ever be able to take blue on defense because blue is the most broken color in the game (Spiderman/Magneto both uses it for nearly guaranteed instant wins). In the current metagame there's no point to think about what if your defense can drag out a win. That doesn't happen because the game ends in 5 turns when Magneto has collected 5 blue, or immediately whenever Spiderman has about 10 blue. There's no point to think about the long run in defense, because in the long run your team is dead. Therefore right now defense is skewed toward preventing Magneto and Spiderman from ever collecting blue, and in this respect Dorammu's Aid is likely better than Aggressive Recon. Although the latter is far more dependable in general, you usually can't count on collecting enough purple before the enemy has a critical mass of blue to put the game away. While The Hood is by no means guaranteed to accomplish this, his ability is a passive so it at least gives you a chance. This also means defense favors guys who have an instant game over skill, like Black Panther, because again you can't count on being able to cast a powerful skill but not instant game over skill multiple times to take advantage of it, because the game is usually over by then. Your defense strategy basically is hoping your team for whatever reason collected enough tiles for a big boom and that big boom takes out the enemy team before they can stunlock/infinite combo you to death.

In a more balanced world where 2 matches in blue doesn't win you the game, a 3* OBW is likely better for consistency.

Unknown

You guys know the ai does often save ap for a higher cost move right? Though it usually only does so for a couple of turns, getting from 9-12 doesn't take long with the hood on your team.

Obw, hood, BP would be an interesting defensive team ifBP were at a level where obw's blue hit harder than his. My thinking is, you have to assume you're getting attacked by spiderman. The attacking team's first order of business is to take out the hood and obw. Assuming his team can only stun the hood, that frees obw up to use espionage and steal blue anyway. Interesting idea anyway, like to see it in action.

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

The Hood is in a lower HP classification than OBW so a hypothetical OBW 3* would have more HP, but it's just something I didn't want to think about it complicates things.

You can't count on having your weakest character alive for extended time on defense. If the opponent uses match boosts (and those are very abundant) a character in the less than 5800 HP classification isn't going to survive very long, and it's unrealistic to assume you'd ever be able to take blue on defense because blue is the most broken color in the game (Spiderman/Magneto both uses it for nearly guaranteed instant wins). In the current metagame there's no point to think about what if your defense can drag out a win. That doesn't happen because the game ends in 5 turns when Magneto has collected 5 blue, or immediately whenever Spiderman has about 10 blue. There's no point to think about the long run in defense, because in the long run your team is dead. Therefore right now defense is skewed toward preventing Magneto and Spiderman from ever collecting blue, and in this respect Dorammu's Aid is likely better than Aggressive Recon. Although the latter is far more dependable in general, you usually can't count on collecting enough purple before the enemy has a critical mass of blue to put the game away. While The Hood is by no means guaranteed to accomplish this, his ability is a passive so it at least gives you a chance. This also means defense favors guys who have an instant game over skill, like Black Panther, because again you can't count on being able to cast a powerful skill but not instant game over skill multiple times to take advantage of it, because the game is usually over by then. Your defense strategy basically is hoping your team for whatever reason collected enough tiles for a big boom and that big boom takes out the enemy team before they can stunlock/infinite combo you to death.

In a more balanced world where 2 matches in blue doesn't win you the game, a 3* OBW is likely better for consistency.

Fair enough, when your looking at stealing enemy AP HP isn't so much of a factor. It seems like the developers have shifted their priority from funbalancing to character creation with the two "lazy" three stars and supposedly a new 4 star coming. However I personally think the funbalancing should be taking a priority. I mean not only do you have the broken Spidey and Mags but also 4* Wolverine which along with IW is the common 1st place reward. While I realize eventually they will funbalance I really have yet to be so tempted by that 1st place prize to really make a push to get it.

Back on topic. I have personally been using Hood, OBW, and BP on Defense with some success. Generally speaking I have been winning like 1 in 5 fights which generally cuts the total loss in half. I realize this could be just dumb luck, ie that 1 in 5 fights the opponent is getting miracle cascaded and loses, but it seems like decent defense given how horrible the AI can be. Also I certianly don't lose 1 in 5 fights when attacking so it seems to be working. That said has anyone else got a great defensive line they would like to share? I have also tried running Hood, OBW and Punsiher/Psylocke with less success. Of course my Punisher and Psylocke aren't max level so perhaps thats the issue (both are just over 100)

Unknown

Part of the idea with usign Psylocke would be that it gives the third steal ability on top of strike tiles, attack tiles and some HP. The question is will the AI use it, Psylocke's steal cost 10 blue AP, OBWs heal cost 9 blue AP. There is a good chance with OBW and Hood that at least some of the time you are going to get 10 blue AP at the same time as 9. Assuming between the three steals you can prevent all but the cheapest moves (ie one of spideys stuns, one of mags red attacks) there is a good chance of winning as the opponent can only do match damage. In addition Psylocke's black gets used not Hoods and the only color not used is green. Of course if switch out Psylocke for Punisher then you get green as well.

I wish their was a training area where you could fight your own team on defense controlled by the AI.

Copps

In both the nhb tourney and the divine champs I was running with spidey hood and lazy Thor. This team had a pretty good win ratio for me. Defensively getting up a blue match can cascade the game out of control for the enemy team pretty quickly. And on offense it's really just feeding lazy Thor till he wrecks and hood only tanks black. Once the fun balance comes through I could def see running Thor hood and bp assuming I can actually get some more of those bp covers.

Unknown

Thor/BP/The Hood has an interesting negative synergy on defense, though. In general, you'd get:

Intimidation will be used over Rage of the Panther
Battleplan will be used over Thunder Strike

And that shuts off two out of your three major attacks.

Spencer75

Phantron wrote:

Black Panther and The Hood makes a poor team on defense because The Hood has a lower costing black, which prevents you from winning with Rage of the Panther on defense.

While defense is not a huge priority, when you have a character that can actually win on defense, you really don't want to pair him up with characters that can screw it up. This is same with lazy Thor. He can definitely win a game on defense if he has enough for Thunder Strike or Call the Storm, so you don't want to give your AI the possibilty of doing something else instead with that green AP. At least, you shouldn't have anyone with cheaper costs. Having people with more is usually workable, so Thor 3* + The Hood is fine. Unless you went from like 11 yellow to 15 yellow in one turn, you'll still get Thunder Strike.

That's if the other team doesn't eliminate the hood before he gets to 9 black. Any team worth their salt will get rid of him first, but by then the damage is usually done. And if they don't get rid of him first it won't matter, the attacker will be hard pressed to get any attacks off.

All this is assuming the AI uses the cheapest power which I don't think is the case, it's more haphazard than that.

Unknown

Spencer75 wrote:

Phantron wrote:

Black Panther and The Hood makes a poor team on defense because The Hood has a lower costing black, which prevents you from winning with Rage of the Panther on defense.

While defense is not a huge priority, when you have a character that can actually win on defense, you really don't want to pair him up with characters that can screw it up. This is same with lazy Thor. He can definitely win a game on defense if he has enough for Thunder Strike or Call the Storm, so you don't want to give your AI the possibilty of doing something else instead with that green AP. At least, you shouldn't have anyone with cheaper costs. Having people with more is usually workable, so Thor 3* + The Hood is fine. Unless you went from like 11 yellow to 15 yellow in one turn, you'll still get Thunder Strike.

That's if the other team doesn't eliminate the hood before he gets to 9 black. Any team worth their salt will get rid of him first, but by then the damage is usually done. And if they don't get rid of him first it won't matter, the attacker will be hard pressed to get any attacks off.

All this is assuming the AI uses the cheapest power which I don't think is the case, it's more haphazard than that.

If you're using The Hood and Black Panther and The Hood dies before you have even 9 black, you probably just lost the game, because it's really not that long to hit 9 black since it's a color that's only useful for The Punisher amongst the popular high end heroes, and even then black is nowhere as high a priority as green for Punisher. In general green/blue/red is way more important than black too, so you should expect to get black on defense.

The AI saves AP for higher cost moves but it will randomly use the lower cost move, and it's more likely to do so if the difference in cost of the two moves is small, which is true in this case (12 versus 9). You don't even have to try to setup any real special circumstances to get the AI to use a 9 AP move over a 12 AP move as long as they couldn't match another black for a few turns. In the lazy Thor + 2 green generator fight, if you stunned lazy Thor for a few turns you'll see the goons use Rocket instead of saving for Call the Storm, and that's 14 vs 10, and human players don't exactly have helpers that pump out 4 AP a turn for free, but even in that case you can avoid Call the Storm some of the time by stunning at the right time (assuming stun lock is not available).

NorthernPolarity

After using the Hood extensively in the simulator and playing against him in his PvE node, I decided to max him to 141. He is probably underappreciated on offense because you don't really pay attention to how much the AP stealing screws over the enemy team, but it's pretty apparent when playing against him. I remember plenty of games where I just made a match to hit 9AP to use an ability, but then the hood steals 1 of that AP, and then I end up not being able to make another match and then just completely drained of the AP that I have. It also makes match 4s a terrible proposition, since the Hood is going to steal all of the 1-2 aps that you got for various colors.

While it might make sense to keep him at a lower level so that other characters can tank for him on offense, I think that maxing him out is pretty necessary for PvP so that he stays alive as long as possible. I can't believe I didn't realize this, but the Hood is actually the most dangerous character on defense in the game right now. Leaving him alive means that Dormammu's Aid has the potential to just completely mess you up, so your opponents are going to focus down the Hood first, which means that he needs as much as HP as possible in order to stay alive and be effective.

Team composition wise, I've been using the standard C. Mags / Punisher / Hood. C. Mags gives you a marginally relevant blue and a very relevant purple, Punisher gives you a spammable green/black and an okay red. The ideal defensive team composition is probably C. Mags / Hood / Lazy Thor, or C. Mags / Hood / Hulk. LazyThor/Hulk fill out the team by giving you a tanky red/green user. While LazyThor might seem better due to his yellow/green abilities, I think the Hulk has the potential to pull off a ton of unexpected defensive wins against the current metagame of strike tile users. The Hood demands that you burst him down ASAP, and so you would want to put out your strike tiles/attack tiles ASAP. However, this means that once you get to the Hulk, those strike tiles are going to mess you up because they trigger anger. Hood also makes it so that the typical conservative play of building up AP against the Hulk is significantly less effective because you can't build up AP against the Hood. Hmm... one thing that I didn't realize as I was typing this up was that since you don't have a purple tile damage guy (C. Mags has yellow tile strength, not purple), you wont actually match purple for C. Mags... back to the drawing board I guess.

Puritas

hood + obw is surprisingly hilarious
You finally get hood down low-ish
and then bam, aggressive recon into a 1500 hp heal, and you're back where you started

mags1587

Yeah, I've been running OBW-Hood-Punisher in the Hood tourney, for lack of any better options. I figure the combination of OBW and Hood is potentially annoying enough to get a few skips.

HailMary

Puritas wrote:

hood + obw is surprisingly hilarious
You finally get hood down low-ish
and then bam, aggressive recon into a 1500 hp heal, and you're back where you started

It really is hilarious. I'm running Hood + OBW + LThor, so most of the time, the enemy team just sits there twiddling its thumbs, doing match damage, and repeatedly taking a hammer to the face. Sometimes, the match goes on long enough that they take a Thor G in the face. I haven't encountered Patch, Psylocke, or Spidey yet in this tourney, so the only enemies that can get attacks in with non-negligible frequency are MStorm and Rags.

... and, I just won a 30-point retaliation from a guy who (judging from his roster) is likely fielding heavy hitters. Good times.

Arogntbastrd

The hood and I are besties now. I hope he asks me to prom. I was able to use hood obw and patch to get like 300 pts above everyone in the hood tournament then shield smacked me with a newspaper and said "no!"

One thing that wasn't obvious to me until I started using him is if you use twin pistols at less then 5 it ends the turn AND leaves him in front.

Also, this is where I have to include my obligatory boo'ing of the fat man. We're still cool though hail mary. *hugs it out*