**** Blade (Modern) ****

simonsez

Cthulhu wrote:

Pylgrim wrote:

Black seems super overcosted at 11 AP. Unless the placement of the tiles is not random? The description doesn't say random, could you please confirm, Chthulu?

Yes, it's 11 AP for the Black power.

I think he was asking if the tile placement was random, not a confirmation on cost.

GrumpySmurf1002

simonsez wrote:

But you wouldn't use IMHB with him. The whole point of Blade is to NEVER use a red power. It'd be silly to waste a slot just to get an incrementally better battery. You're way better off adding a battery on a non-redundant color.

HB should would work fine with Blade, in basically any build.

@553 he gives you a finisher on red when you can't wait for Bloodlust to end the match, and a better black.
@355 he's a giant red battery, with his blue helping along his strike tiles while you wait for Bloodlust.
@535 Blade black in combination with HB blue to create red cascades, while still having the big nuke for the end.

simonsez

GrumpySmurf1002 wrote:

simonsez wrote:

But you wouldn't use IMHB with him. The whole point of Blade is to NEVER use a red power. It'd be silly to waste a slot just to get an incrementally better battery. You're way better off adding a battery on a non-redundant color.

HB should would work fine with Blade, in basically any build.

@553 he gives you a finisher on red when you can't wait for Bloodlust to end the match, and a better black.
@355 he's a giant red battery, with his blue helping along his strike tiles while you wait for Bloodlust.
@535 Blade black in combination with HB blue to create red cascades, while still having the big nuke for the end.

I agree, being able to finish a match 3 moves sooner can be a big help... I just don't see the wisdom in building a team around that option. A different battery and/or someone in the Rhulk/JG color family feels like it gives you way more options.

Blahahah

So is the healing true healing or burst healing?

zodiac339

Blahahah wrote:

So is the healing true healing or burst healing?

Reads as "heal" not "burst of health"

Blahahah

zodiac339 wrote:

Blahahah wrote:

So is the healing true healing or burst healing?

Reads as "heal" not "burst of health"

True but lately they've been suffixing "th" onto the end of healing numbers to indicate it's "true healing" so I wanted to make sure

zodiac339

Blahahah wrote:

True but lately they've been suffixing "th" onto the end of healing numbers to indicate it's "true healing" so I wanted to make sure

Oh, is that what that was about? I thought it was some weird error the proofreader didn't fix.

cardoor

His red is going to be tricky. If you have 6 red ap and then make a red match 3 to get to 9ap, the next turn it will drop down to 8 again.

I almost think he is better paired with 4clops than HB because there is no black overlap and if Blades black places red randomly, then 4clops blue (or even red) might be able to pick them up.

cardoor

...another thought, paired with WS you can increase the chances of hitting moving target by using WS purple to fuel black and hopefully hit your grenade when you then fire black (the AI would never do that though of course - more of a PVE thing).

simonsez

cardoor wrote:

His red is going to be tricky. If you have 6 red ap and then make a red match 3 to get to 9ap, the next turn it will drop down to 8 again.

I almost think he is better paired with 4clops than HB because there is no black overlap and if Blades black places red randomly, then 4clops blue (or even red) might be able to pick them up.

I agree that 4clops would be a very effective battery via his blue and yellow, but again, you do not ever want to cast a red power (except as a finisher) if you're using Blade.

wymtime

Cthulhu wrote:

Pylgrim wrote:

Black seems super overcosted at 11 AP. Unless the placement of the tiles is not random? The description doesn't say random, could you please confirm, Chthulu?

Yes, it's 11 AP for the Black power.

The question was do you get to place the red tiles or are the red tiles random.

Please let us know if we can choose which tiles are transformed to red?

wymtime

So I looked at other characters and blade will the 3rd strongest strike tile in 4* land behind HB and Fury. A couple of people he will also work well with other than what has been discussed is Phoenix. Her purple can spam red and buff his tiles, and if she matches them away can then fire her own red to let blade create more.
He can also pair well with War Machine to double dip on strike tiles with attack tiles. professor X is someone who can buff his strike tiles even more. Because red is more of a passive he can work well on a lot of teams. I see bringing him as a green active user and if red gives me some damage over strike tiles it will just be a bonus. As much as I think black is way too expensive he will fit nicely on many teams.

Nylarx

Just for reference (copied from the forums)

Targeted changes

Deceptive Tactics - Purple 11
Black Widow eliminates potential enemy assets while preparing her own attack. Converts 2 basic color tiles (except for Green) into Green tiles.

Polarity Shift - Purple 11 AP
Magneto uses the sheer force of magnetism to reconfigure the battlefield. Changes 3 selected basic color tiles to Blue.

Random changes

Iron Fist of K'un-Lun - 5 AP
Daniel Rand focuses his chi to make his fist like a thing unto iron and strikes. If the team has less than 12 Black AP, converts 5 basic tiles to Black. If the team has 12 or more Black AP, deals 498 damage instead.

Psychic Rapport - 8 AP
Jean's telepathic abilities create an intense bond with the people she cares about. Converts 3 random Basic tiles to Red.

Strategic Command
Power Cost - 8
Ms. Marvel uses her military and Avengers expertise to lead her teammates into battle.

Power Level 1 - Changes 5 random tiles into .

All I learnt is that power descriptions have wildly inconsistent nomenclature - it should be random? (Has anyone seen Created used elsewhere?)

ErikPeter

I don't think Blade's value is at face value. You definitely shouldn't compare powers side by side in a vacuum. His active powers look overcosted and weak to make up for his potent red power. A free 300+ strike tile every turn is great; 3k/damage a turn is great.

• So Black, especially, isn't too bad if you look at it from the perspective of "If you have 7 red AP, deal damage or get a free Strength 288 Strike tile every turn until 4-6 red get matched away." It's not a red generator (8-9 tiles would be way better for that), it gets red tiles on the board (probably spread out) to trigger Strike generation (or, if it happens to make a match, bloodlust.)

Turnover vs Accelerate is the main meta in MPQ and accel always wins; Blade looks bad because he's a turnover character. Black steals some AP to slow the game down, give him more time to do his thing. Green's overcosted heal serves the same purpose. It's possible with a couple other turnover guys he'd be pretty solid; Ant-Man, an updated higher-tier Psylocke, maybe. Rider would be good except he uses Red. (Or just forget it and team him with Iceman and build up strikes by ignoring while you gather )

In addition the devs have been pushing a new passive vs. active meta. Recently active defense has gotten a very strong push; Peggy makes your actives cost 2 more. C4ge makes a bunch of free protects when people use actives. Star-Lord redux gets a huge momentum shift when you use a power against his team.

Blade seems like a very pointed counter to that. All you have to do is keep matching Red and you'll whittle them down without all the passive triggers. Blade + Bolt? Even better. Peggy will be under 30% health in no time. Looking at the numbers I think the initial trigger values might be a bit hard to deal with (think Chulk's original black) but with the right team he could be a lot more scary than he looks right now. (Not sure that team exists at this point in time but I bet it will someday.)

The best 4 star team I can come up with right now is Chulk/Falcap. Good rainbow, mostly slow powers, Sam puts out protects and has an expensive nuke (saving the Red for Blade); Cho also deals passive damage (+AP), faster with Sam's blue speeding the CD, which saves up to make Cho's nuke hit harder. It'd be a slow build with a couple one-two punches at the end.

Vhailorx

ErikPeter wrote:

I don't think Blade's value is at face value. You definitely shouldn't compare powers side by side in a vacuum. His active powers look overcosted and weak to make up for his potent red power. A free 300+ strike tile every turn is great; 3k/damage a turn is great.

• So Black, especially, isn't too bad if you look at it from the perspective of "If you have 7 red AP, deal damage or get a free Strength 288 Strike tile every turn until 4-6 red get matched away." It's not a red generator (8-9 tiles would be way better for that), it gets red tiles on the board (probably spread out) to trigger Strike generation (or, if it happens to make a match, bloodlust.)

Turnover vs Accelerate is the main meta in MPQ and accel always wins; Blade looks bad because he's a turnover character. Black steals some AP to slow the game down, give him more time to do his thing. Green's overcosted heal serves the same purpose. It's possible with a couple other turnover guys he'd be pretty solid; Ant-Man, an updated higher-tier Psylocke, maybe. Rider would be good except he uses Red. (Or just forget it and team him with Iceman and build up strikes by ignoring while you gather )

In addition the devs have been pushing a new passive vs. active meta. Recently active defense has gotten a very strong push; Peggy makes your actives cost 2 more. C4ge makes a bunch of free protects when people use actives. Star-Lord redux gets a huge momentum shift when you use a power against his team.

Blade seems like a very pointed counter to that. All you have to do is keep matching Red and you'll whittle them down without all the passive triggers. Blade + Bolt? Even better. Peggy will be under 30% health in no time. Looking at the numbers I think the initial trigger values might be a bit hard to deal with (think Chulk's original black) but with the right team he could be a lot more scary than he looks right now. (Not sure that team exists at this point in time but I bet it will someday.)

The best 4 star team I can come up with right now is Chulk/Falcap. Good rainbow, mostly slow powers, Sam puts out protects and has an expensive nuke (saving the Red for Blade); Cho also deals passive damage (+AP), faster with Sam's blue speeding the CD, which saves up to make Cho's nuke hit harder. It'd be a slow build with a couple one-two punches at the end.

I just dont find your agurments persuasive on first read. As you say, accel beats everything else in this game almost every time. And we dont need to guess about blade's baseline red power. We can tell exactly how it works and even experience it using 3*blade's green power at level 3. And it honestly isn't very good at that level. 1 strike a turn and needing 10 tiles on the board makes it a very unreliable power.

Its true that in some significant portion of matches he will go crazy, but the rest of time he won't do much of anything, given how bad his actives are. And there is also the tension between needing to keep red on the board for strikes, and to match it to keep the passive damage going.

I am still of the opinion that his basic design is interesting, but his implementation is weak. His powers cost too much and his contingent powers are too hard to proc for maximum effect.

And if the best team we can think of to pair with him is chulk and flaptain, i think that kinda proves my point.

Edited for terrible typing (wish i could blame my new phone, but i think it might be my thumbs!)

zodiac339

Initially, his best ally is going to be Cyclops. Acceleration from yellow lets you build your red pool without matching the red away. Black and purple could be covered by Kingpin (unless for some reason you actually want to use Supernatural Sense) and Fisk Defense is yet another AP destroyer in the same tier with superior destruction along with direct acceleration. You were quick to fix Sleight of Hand guys! Reduce cost or improve effect here. More AP destroyed, more AP pools affected, selected tiles (fewer created if you can select). Something.

Pylgrim

Added to the characters and skills compendium.

eidehua

For some reason i assumed his red would only place red strike tiles (like 3* blade), but actually placing it on random basic tiles makes it much better, as there is less that conflict of matching red tiles and keeping the strikes up

CrookedKnight

simonsez wrote:

cardoor wrote:

His red is going to be tricky. If you have 6 red ap and then make a red match 3 to get to 9ap, the next turn it will drop down to 8 again.

I almost think he is better paired with 4clops than HB because there is no black overlap and if Blades black places red randomly, then 4clops blue (or even red) might be able to pick them up.

I agree that 4clops would be a very effective battery via his blue and yellow, but again, you do not ever want to cast a red power (except as a finisher) if you're using Blade.

Or if you can cast it and still be well above 7 AP, and if anybody's going to put you in that position it's Cyke.

GrumpySmurf1002

Reading the Hunt thread in main discussion, looks like a lot of people are underselling Blade. He's best with a battery but his (expensive) black will help self-accelerate a bit.

A 288 strike tile is fairly big for that tier, especially if you get a couple out there. 2960 per turn per AP is similarly very nasty. That's like having a boosted Flame Jet that can't be matched away.

His green at base is basically equal to RHulk. With the strike tiles, he starts getting in Jean/Quake levels of damage.

Then you realize that at a certain point, 4* basically get used only when they're boosted. At roughly double, you have PHX+ level strike tiles getting created, and Black Bolt+ level damage being done each turn of Bloodlust.

Now maybe he plays slower because of all the conditions that need to be met, but I think he's easily in the top half of 4*, and probably slides into that 2nd tier with MK, KB, and a few of the other damage dealers who aren't quite 1st tier.