**** Kate Bishop (Hawkeye) ****

Thanos

eckorock wrote:

Does anyone know if this character will be a junk / trophy 4* like Howard or Devil Dino, (specifically that you can't draw covers for them or acquire them during normal play)

If so, is there any point in keeping her?

I have to recruit Winter Soldier and need to decide between selling Kate Bishop, Devil Dino (2/2/3) or my Vision (3/4/5)

This is a regular character.

Polares

I have been using in the easy nodes of the Oscorp: Heroic my 0/3/2 Kate buffed to 145 and I am surprised of how strong she is. Her black and purple are super strong even at this level. I could just imagine having a maxed and buffed Kate (At 270 her black does 7k, at 350 14k and at 450 it will probably be doing around 24k. Those are GG black power level !!!! In balance of power she might be one of the strongest chars in the whole game).

She might be the GG of the 4 land with really strong powers. She has no self acceleration, but all her dmg/AP ratios are so nuts, that it probably doesn't matter (and black and purple are quite cheap).

We might be entering in the Luke, IF, 3cylops era in 4 land... (MoonK numbers also looks really strong).

Vhailorx

Polares wrote:

We might be entering in the Luke, IF, 3cylops era in 4 land... (MoonK numbers also looks really strong).

I said the same thing in the moon knight thread. Very heavy powercreep taking gold in the 4* tier. And yet 4* rewards are still only available to the top 1% in pve and the top .2% in PvP. And maybe 20% of the total player base can get the 1k PvP prog cover? Why does demiurge keep on treating 4*s as ultra-rare rewards on the one hand, and regular end-game content with the other. They are somehow managing to have it both ways.

But back in topic with Kate: yes, i think she will be strong. Don't know if she will be top tier, but if not she's only a tick below. The thing we all seemed to miss in early reviews is that despite the cooldowns And other quirky mechanics of her design, 2/3 if her powers do heavy direct damage, and the third immediately placed several strong strike tiles at worst. She is similar to nova with more damage and no enemy disabling attack. And nova is quite strong.

Polares

Vhailorx wrote:

Polares wrote:

We might be entering in the Luke, IF, 3cylops era in 4 land... (MoonK numbers also looks really strong).

I said the same thing in the moon knight thread. Very heavy powercreep taking gold in the 4* tier. And yet 4* rewards are still only available to the top 1% in pve and the top .2% in PvP. And maybe 20% of the total player base can get the 1k PvP prog cover? Why does demiurge keep on treating 4*s as ultra-rare rewards on the one hand, and regular end-game content with the other. They are somehow managing to have it both ways.

I don't think getting 4 covers is that bad now, it is still too dependent on your luck, but even though it is not great I think it is ok. For me the biggest problem is iso. I just maxed Nova, and my Quake is just one cover shy, so soon I will need 600k to champ them. And probably before I get this I will also need iso for my Phoenix, and then for my Punisher, etc, etc. It is impossible to get enough iso to max all the chars I want (and I would like to champ others like Miles or Antman, but it is impossible to keep up, so I decided I wont champ them ).

Vhailorx wrote:

But back in topic with Kate: yes, i think she will be strong. Don't know if she will be top tier, but if not she's only a tick below. The thing we all seemed to miss in early reviews is that despite the cooldowns and other quirky mechanics of her design, 2/3 if her powers do heavy direct damage, and the third immediately placed several strong strike tiles at worst. She is similar to nova with more damage and no enemy disabling attack. And nova is quite strong.

I think Nova in fact is a perfect team mate, almost rainbow, and works well with Nova 5/5/3 build (which is the most popular) and both have very cheap powers. She is probably in the same tier than him, stronger attacks for Kate but Nova can send airbone targets when he needs to, so both are really good.

At first I though she was going to be really meh, but her numbers are so strong that she might be in the same tier than xpool, nova and punisher. I would love to hear from someone who already has her maxed (maybe Colog?)

PS: Again, it is a pity that now 5s are the only thing that matters...

Vhailorx

Polares: I think you are right that iso is the biggest problem, but only for veteran 4* players who have already maxed at least one or two of the best 4*s. Once you reach that stage iso is by far the most restrictive resource. LTd and 4* covers will come steadily (if never fast), and HP needs can be met by consistent, steady play. But iso will never come faster than covers. So to that extent I agree with you.

But 4* covers are much too hard to get for 3* players and 4* transitioners without maxed 4*s. 1K in pvps is increasingly hard to reach without strong 4* (try reliably defeating a boosted iceman without a decent 4* at 250+). And top placement in pve or PvP is basically impossible for 99% of the player base. So other than whaling vaults, the only way to build 4*s is RNG via lucky heroic/event tokens and grinding out prog rewards in pve. There is basically no way to target any 4* with those methods. So transitioners just have to hope that rngesus is kind and drops lots of covers for the same (good) 4*.

I think demiurge is banking that most players value covers more than iso, and will therefore willing to buy VIP (which is a relative value for LTs and CP, but woefully short on iso). And the continued lack of iso (despite months of steady griping from the forum/vet class) seems more and more calculated to keep vets grinding away for iso to champ their 4* and 5 rosters. (i hate to be cynical, but is there some other, plausible explanation that I am missing?! Demiurge can't possibly claim to not know about the problem.)

TxMoose

Vhailorx wrote:

Polares: I think you are right that iso is the biggest problem, but only for veteran 4* players who have already maxed at least one or two of the best 4*s. Once you reach that stage iso is by far the most restrictive resource. LTd and 4* covers will come steadily (if never fast), and HP needs can be met by consistent, steady play. But iso will never come faster than covers. So to that extent I agree with you.

But 4* covers are much too hard to get for 3* players and 4* transitioners without maxed 4*s. 1K in pvps is increasingly hard to reach without strong 4* (try reliably defeating a boosted iceman without a decent 4* at 250+). And top placement in pve or PvP is basically impossible for 99% of the player base...

I have to catch myself sometimes because when I got hb and jean close, I bought a few covers to finish them with hp and I was off to the races. and things have gone really smoothly since then. that option isn't there any more and to do basically the same thing now would cost 360 cp, which is kinda crazy to do if you unless you have all the bottom half characters finished (and if you did, you'd probably have a couple of top guys finished too). I imagine it is pretty tough out there without viable 4s. I would hope that mmr would keep things reasonable, but no idea how effective it is down there.

Vhailorx

Same for me and my Hulkbuste, Moose. If I hadnt managed to max him very quickly last spring I think my experience in the fall and winter would have been very different (even without a usable JG)

Polares

TxMoose wrote:

Vhailorx wrote:

Polares: I think you are right that iso is the biggest problem, but only for veteran 4* players who have already maxed at least one or two of the best 4*s. Once you reach that stage iso is by far the most restrictive resource. LTd and 4* covers will come steadily (if never fast), and HP needs can be met by consistent, steady play. But iso will never come faster than covers. So to that extent I agree with you.

But 4* covers are much too hard to get for 3* players and 4* transitioners without maxed 4*s. 1K in pvps is increasingly hard to reach without strong 4* (try reliably defeating a boosted iceman without a decent 4* at 250+). And top placement in pve or PvP is basically impossible for 99% of the player base...

I have to catch myself sometimes because when I got hb and jean close, I bought a few covers to finish them with hp and I was off to the races. and things have gone really smoothly since then. that option isn't there any more and to do basically the same thing now would cost 360 cp, which is kinda crazy to do if you unless you have all the bottom half characters finished (and if you did, you'd probably have a couple of top guys finished too). I imagine it is pretty tough out there without viable 4s. I would hope that mmr would keep things reasonable, but no idea how effective it is down there.

Yeah I guess you are both right. I already have the top5 champed (and 5 other good 4s champed, soon Nova too), and a 420 OML, so I don't have problems to get to 1300 in PvP whenever I want (which lately is always, damn you 5 luck! or rather absence of luck ). So I guess for people still covering their first 4s is harder.

I also spend some money to max IMHB and Jean, It was obvious at that time that those were very good inversions that would help me getting to 1000 anytime I wanted to in the erqa after xwolvie+4hor. Now I would have also probably spend some money to max Punisher (which is probably the strongest 4 that has come out lately... kate is very close but a little behind), buuuuut now we can't and spending 360-600 CPs to max a 4 is completely out of the question. CPs are for 5s !

Dormammu

I just champed Kate Bishop. I put her at 5/5/3 but would love to hear some arguments for other builds, and any advice on teammates in the 3 or 4-star tiers.

Vhailorx

Dormammu wrote:

I just champed Kate Bishop. I put her at 5/5/3 but would love to hear some arguments for other builds, and any advice on teammates in the 3 or 4-star tiers.

Blue is very expensive and it's special CD perk is fairly useless. Kate's black and purple are a bit faster, and since she doesn't self-accelerate that's a big deal. Plus purple is great at 5 covers because it will leave strikes on the board even after the CD resolves. There are also a ton of new characters with CD shenanigan passive powers to partner her with now.

Jaedenkaal

Vhailorx wrote:

Dormammu wrote:

I just champed Kate Bishop. I put her at 5/5/3 but would love to hear some arguments for other builds, and any advice on teammates in the 3 or 4-star tiers.

Blue is very expensive and it's special CD perk is fairly useless. Kate's black and purple are a bit faster, and since she doesn't self-accelerate that's a big deal. Plus purple is great at 5 covers because it will leave strikes on the board even after the CD resolves. There are also a ton of new characters with CD shenanigan passive powers to partner her with now.

Plus since she's champed, you can respec her to 5/whatever/whatever for the ~one fight where the Blue CD rider actually does something, and then change back afterwards.

Anon

In 4 land, Kate Bishop is truly my unicorn. She's my least covered character (Even Coulson has more covers than her!) I set her as one of my bonus heroes to no luck. I recognize the power she brings and I want her champed but RNG has forsaken me.

She's still only 1/1/1 for me.

DesertTortoise

Nothing that hasn't been said, but Kate is an unexciting but very solid character. All three of her abilities are great at five covers and once she's champed you can just boost the colors that you need her to use depending on the team. When she's boosted, a number of her skills are even really good at 4 covers.

kennn712

I've just champed my Kate but I'm struggling to find good team mates for her besides IF and SW. Any suggestions on some team comps?

VizMantis

I've just managed to champ Kate myself.  This thread is surprisingly short on post-release discussion.  Who does she pair well with?  What's the consensus on her best build?

With limited play, I'm guessing black generators?  C&D or Mordo perhaps?

Dormammu

I like Kate at 3/5/5, but really any configuration is valid. I have her blue at 3 because its so expensive and don't pull it off as much, but the damage difference between 3 and 5 is significant (4.3k vs 10k).

I haven't found any friends that make Kate really shine, she's just a solid damage-dealing character. I find that she makes a great third to fill out a rainbow, because of her color combination, as I'm often looking for damaging AP powers in purple/black.

aa25

Dormammu said:

I like Kate at 3/5/5, but really any configuration is valid. I have her blue at 3 because its so expensive and don't pull it off as much, but the damage difference between 3 and 5 is significant (4.3k vs 10k).

I haven't found any friends that make Kate really shine, she's just a solid damage-dealing character. I find that she makes a great third to fill out a rainbow, because of her color combination, as I'm often looking for damaging AP powers in purple/black.

C&D for black ap battery
Coulson for 2x cd tiles for ap rebate (4 ap)

Rick_OShay

Running Kate during her boosted week has been great. It certainly helps that St4r-Lord was also boosted, so that two of her powers cost a bit less. 
Her purple makes some beefy strike tiles, so I like to save her other powers to fire off for when they are all out there (before her CD removes some of them). Her blue is normally quite expensive at 12, but SL reduces it to 10 which becomes a very powerful shot for the cost. Naturally her black is cheap and hits hard, but I've holding it for when I will be ending the match, before it can do the potential self harm. 

I'll be looking forward to running her with Mockingbird since all 3 of Kate's powers deal good damage with few drawbacks - especially if they are 'free'.

Dormammu

I was running her with Rogue and punching that annoying black self-harm countdown tile with Rogue's red.

Rick_OShay

Yes that is a great way to avoid that self damage, earn 9+AP in one shot, and deal some decent damage all in one.

Plus, if the enemy has blue as a strongest color, siphon that, and then two simple blue matches now gains you the 12AP needed to use Ruthless Precision and usually down an enemy.