OML discussion

TxMoose

so after my hoard pull earlier this week (https://d3go.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=44689), I now have a level 330, 4/1/5 OML. sounds awesome. he heals, spits out strikes, and has nice, high, match damage, and if he transforms, can become a killing machine, especially if more than 1 opponent is still alive. so, I'm still a noob playing him and frankly, I've lost more times with him this week than probably the last couple of months combined. I have a few questions that I'd like those with more experience with him to answer:

1) is 1 yellow cover just enough to barely get him usable? my guess is as 2 and 3 the healing becomes much more pronounced. I see tons of 1 yellow OMLs at the 330 range and don't hear about any "problems" with him, so...
2) maybe more likely, I'm just not efficient at using him yet. what are the tricks of the trade with him?

I've tried him with fist, and that's good up to a point. in pve against level ~300 jugs/ares/doom and such, they aren't really super powerful, but they can win most of the time. I've tried him with x23 and they are ok up to a point too. my best matches were in simulator where I ran him with iceman/im40 and just did my normal stuff with them and let OML take hits and heal. with 1 yellow, his transformed yellow is ok with 2 or 3 opponents standing (especially since you have strikes out from transforming), but at 1 cover, its not the game ender that higher covers would be. transformed, obviously my red and black are very strong (although not as strong as boosted thing or Cyclops). and I cannot imagine him being better than a boosted meta-4*, but everyone says he is, so I need to learn how to use him apparently and his character thread just doesn't have just a ton of team/gameplay tips in it.

from what I've read, 330 is a good level to get him usable but not mess with scaling and mmr too much. do I need to go higher? I can go to 405 but I'm not sure I'm ready for that yet with 1 yellow. after running him in the daken event with thing, they got hit about as much as I would have before, but my push was painfully slow. part of that is relying on thing, who is a slow character anyway. and part is relying on OML, who, until transformed, is a match damage character whose only ability ends the turn.

how do I use this guy to have him play like the uber-power that I've heard about? thanks.

mods - I know this could go into either tips/guides or character, but give me some exposure please thanks.

tanis3303

My OML is 360, 5/1/2, and here's how I play him: First off, transforming him should NOT be your primary goal. He is good for one thing, and only one thing - making things die by simply matching tiles. Iron fist is indeed his best buddy. I usually save up 10 purple, fire IFoKL 2x, which often creates a black match 5 or at the very least an opportunity for a black match 5 to be made by you. Make said match, but only cast Living Legend when you have removed the majority of the black matches from the board and the remaining tiles are spaced out a bit. Then cast it, wait a turn, and start watching everything melt. 2K+ per match, 2Kish at the end of the turn from Fist's attack tile. Let Logan tank as much as possible as he'll heal like 1,200/turn anyway. Yes, sometimes he tanks TOO much and he dies. 1 health pack is better than 3. Also, don't be afraid to bring him into a match at ~half health...the early stages of most matches provide plenty of time for him to heal up before anyone takes any big hits.

Pro Tip: Antman is a FANTASTIC partner for OML. You can triple-dip on his strike tiles - Beginning of turn from Ants!, match damage, end of turn from purple attack tiles. Gives you something to do with yellow AP as well.

Chief270

have a 2/5/1 level 375 version here. Which essentially means less damage output, but a better tank.

IN PVE/early rounds of a PVP, I use him with IF. Getting that black ability fired off is key to making quick work of a match while taking minimal damage. I occasionally get the yellow ability off, but I don't go into a matchup with that expectation. Note - don't fire your black off until you've cleared any would be match 3 blacks from the board. Nothing will infuriate you more than firing off your black and they immediately match two of your strike tiles away.

Problem with PVP is, this is a terrible defensive team. So when I reach shield hopping areas, I'll switch out IF with someone that can cause annoyance/slowness to a would-be attacker. Depending on weekly boost.. someone like Jean, Rulk, Carnage, DP, possibly Thing once I get him championed. If you get to the cake areas, its smooth sailing from there, as OML makes quick work of any of those teams.

westnyy2

Another great partner is XFDP. Make sure Deadpool has 5 black.

xidragonxi

tanis3303 wrote:

My OML is 360, 5/1/2, and here's how I play him: First off, transforming him should NOT be your primary goal. He is good for one thing, and only one thing - making things die by simply matching tiles.

I disagree. I have a level 400 5/2/4 OML. OML is the perfect "don't worry about it" character. You can't play him wrong. Either do what tanis3303 says above and match damage people to death, OR transform him and end the round quickly. Basically when I play OML, i prioritize matching black to get enough AP to cast Living Legend. I don't generally pay attention to whether I have 12 yellow AP. If i don't, great, i have 4 strong black strike tiles. If i do, even better, I probably just won the match. (Sometimes if I have 10 or 11 AP and there's a yellow match available, I'll take the match and pop claws. Generally, I don't care.)

My point is - collect black, cast Living Legend, repeat. You're gonna win whether you transform or not - it'll probably just go faster if you transform.

Bonus point - pair OML with a Kingpin who has 5 covers in purple. He creates Yellow AP very quickly, which lets you pop your claws even faster. Matches end in no time.

TxMoose

westnyy2 wrote:

Another great partner is XFDP. Make sure Deadpool has 5 black.

I used xp with thing in rd 7/8 on team cap side (cw1) the same way with 5 black. I may try that on team IM side this time with OML since we don't have hb. been leaving oml/xp/thing in shield sim still got hit once, but floating at a much higher level.

BlackSheep101

One yellow is fine. At some level he starts regenerating more than he loses when his red triggers. Mine is 345 and gets back a little more than 1100 per turn. It's plenty unless the enemy drops 3 or 4 powers in a turn.

Transforming him quickly is, as you're probably learning, not ideal. You can fire yellow once and you've got your strike tiles, but now you don't regenerate. He's good enough as a force multiplier without transforming, and if you do cascade a ton of AP, you win.

msp2211

The day they released OML, I opened 5 legendaries and pulled a yellow and black. I have a 3-4* transition roster, so my experience may be different.

I always pair him with an active yellow user. I can control when he switches. Mags has been a reliable use. Working on Antman for this role as mentioned before.

Fist is great for the attack tile and black generation. Probably squishy for 4* play. Jean plays well too.

Boosted Vision is great in the Civil War event. I'd love to have a championed 4* cyclops and see how they fit.

morph3us

Agree with most of what has been said here. A couple of points.

Firstly, OML has relatively low health, particularly at lower 5* levels. You only have one cover in his healing factor, so I think level 330 is probably too low to make best use of him, particularly given that he self damages every time you fire an allied power. I'd level him to 360-375 as a starting point.

Secondly, it's easy to get tunnel vision about transforming him. Ideally, if you're going to transform him, you want enough AP for a red or black cast in addition to his yellow cast (which you get by default post-transformation). In addition, following on from point 1, he doesn't have a great deal of health, so losing his healing factor is a big deal post-transformation, so don't transform him unless you have enough AP to wreck the majority of the enemy team.

Thirdly, his black is relatively cheap, and the value of the strike tiles is enormous, and well worthwhile losing a turn over. If you get enough to use his black, and are far away from a transformation, use his black. The additional damage will end the game quickly enough.

zodiac339

Say, no suggestions here, just an opinion. Living Legend transformation animation is one of the best in the game. Not spectacular like Cyclops Full Blast, but Dear God is it satisfying to watch those claws come out. Sorry, just felt like saying that.

mpqr7

My lv 405 oml only has 1 yellow as well. He's 514. He'd be completely useless without the yellow. But he's been good enough to make my rises to 1300 in pvp and 2000 in sim, plus everything in pve relatively easy, so I'm happy with him.

morph3us

zodiac339 wrote:

Say, no suggestions here, just an opinion. Living Legend transformation animation is one of the best in the game. Not spectacular like Cyclops Full Blast, but Dear God is it satisfying to watch those claws come out. Sorry, just felt like saying that.

What, this animation?

viewtopic.php?f=15&t=41787#p503412

zodiac339

morph3us wrote:

zodiac339 wrote:

Say, no suggestions here, just an opinion. Living Legend transformation animation is one of the best in the game. Not spectacular like Cyclops Full Blast, but Dear God is it satisfying to watch those claws come out. Sorry, just felt like saying that.

What, this animation?

viewtopic.php?f=15&t=41787#p503412

Awwwww, yeah. That's the stuff.

Pants1000

The number of covers isn't nearly as important for 5*'s as it is for others. Levels make a bigger difference than another yellow cover will.

My OML is 0/2/3, so I can't even transform him, and he's still awesome. I like pairing him with IF and Cyclops or HB, but he works well with lots of teams. In the last PVE I paired him with Thor and KK. With both OML and KK healing I rarely ever used any health packs, and it does plenty of damage with OML's matches and Thor's abilities.

HxiiiK

I'm running a 513 OML at level 340, so far it has not messed with my scaling (fingers crossed) and swapping him back and forth to tank really reduces health pack usage

While he doesn't heal a whole lot, his strike tiles have been real game enders, dealing over 2k per match. I'm still hoping for more yellows but at the current cover level he's pretty servicable. I managed to greatly minimize my health pack usage during this PvE thanks to that yellow.

Like someone above said, he's there to tank and heal and match people to death. Transforming really doesn't give him too much of an advantage until you hit 5* levels of pvp

Polares

The problem is the level, not having just one yellow cover, you have soft capped him too early. You can level him to 360 (or even a bit more) without any scaling problems, and the difference is big. Mine is 405 and scaling and MMR is still tolerable (at least in the old PvE, in the new one scaling is worse, but I also think my 12 cover SS and 10 cover Phoenix, even though they are still unleveled are very detrimental for my scaling).

5s start to shine after level 350. In the first 100 levels they scale very slowly, but after you cross the 350 level (or somewhere around that level) the scaling starts to be much faster.


You can't use OML wrong, is just the level

Huatimus

I started using OML since he was 0/1/4, no regrets lol. Bring him up to max asap and welcome to OML Puzzle Quest cos you'll be using him in just about everything except certain events like Sharply Dressed.

And Iron Fist is still a great partner because:
1) Attack tile which benefits from OML Strike tiles.
2) Black Generator
3) Crit potential from generating Black. (Crits with a high level 5* really hurts)

Besides that are the usual partners like Jean Grey, Iceman, XFDP(Maybe better when your OML has more yellow covers).

TxMoose

ok, so several have recommended leveling him. can certainly do that. enough iso to take him to ~380 now. I just read snowcatt and petergibbons experience from https://d3go.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=44648 and it sounds like some of the experience was negative until very high levels were reached. I'm hesitant to do something detrimental that cannot be undone.

also, along those lines - my SS stands at 11 covers at 1/5/5. I could take them both to 375 or even 405 (will take some time, but its an option). what are the advantages/disadvantages there? was really hoping to further my phoenix but that isn't happening any time soon.

edit: ok, I've stepped him up to 360 and will see how things go. seeing his health cross 20K was nice.

tanis3303

TxMoose wrote:

ok, so several have recommended leveling him. can certainly do that. enough iso to take him to ~380 now. I just read snowcatt and petergibbons experience from https://d3go.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=44648 and it sounds like some of the experience was negative until very high levels were reached. I'm hesitant to do something detrimental that cannot be undone.

also, along those lines - my SS stands at 11 covers at 1/5/5. I could take them both to 375 or even 405 (will take some time, but its an option). what are the advantages/disadvantages there? was really hoping to further my phoenix but that isn't happening any time soon.

I've been VERY hesitant to take my 5*s past level 360. The horror show of a 5* MMR is a very real thing, and I want nothing to do with it. I can't say for sure when it all goes to kitty, but I know 360 is safe, as my phoenix and logan both sit at 360 and my MMR is still very reasonable and what I'd consider fair for my roster (mostly champed 4*s with the occasional 375 5* here and there). It still lets me play with my 4*s and usually OML, but still gives me the option to bench logan if there are better options at the 4* level. Moving to a 5* MMR would practically require Logan's use during EVERY. SINGLE. FIGHT...and that? That sounds boring as cat.

Bowgentle

405 Logan with 330 Phoenix still keeps me below 5* MMR.
I'm not going any higher on Phoenix until I can champ her and/or Logan, though (she could go to 405 too).

El Satanno

TxMoose wrote:

ok, so several have recommended leveling him. can certainly do that. enough iso to take him to ~380 now. I just read snowcatt and petergibbons experience from https://d3go.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=44648 and it sounds like some of the experience was negative until very high levels were reached. I'm hesitant to do something detrimental that cannot be undone.

also, along those lines - my SS stands at 11 covers at 1/5/5. I could take them both to 375 or even 405 (will take some time, but its an option). what are the advantages/disadvantages there? was really hoping to further my phoenix but that isn't happening any time soon.

edit: ok, I've stepped him up to 360 and will see how things go. seeing his health cross 20K was nice.

Don't level Surfer. He simply isn't worth it when you have Logan. Hell, no one except Phoenix seems to be worth it! (Disclosure: I have no Gobbo, Cap, or IM46 worth speaking about)