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

wymtime

After testing him out in the heroic I like the fact that his strike tile is on a random color. This makes it easier to match an occasional red without destroying your own strike tile. I also see him pairing well with a WS at 5,5,3 or War Machine. If there is a lot of red on the board it could be ok to fire WM red to get attack tiles to double off of blades strike tiles. Also if the board is light on red WM green can create a lot of board shake. There is color overlap but it is not that bad. I can also see him pair well with SS who can charge red tiles to speed up blades passive.
Overall he will be strong and by the October 2017 I hope to have him with 13 covers and leveled!!

CrookedKnight

Bloodlust really wouldn't work if it was red strikes -- Even when Thirst gets going it's a tightrope to keep enough red on the board to generate strike tiles without eventually leaving so many easy red matches that there's a big cascade and suddenly all your strikes are gone. If you had to actually try to gain red for his other powers, while still leaving as many strikes on the board as you can to maximize damage from Bloodlust and his AOE, it'd be too fiddly.

Cthulhu

wymtime wrote:

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?

yes red tiles are placed at random.

fanghoul

As someone firmly in 3* land, and trying out 4* Blade, I'd give him mixed reviews. On the right board, those strike tiles really add up to do a ton of damage quickly. One the board without red, Blade really just doesn't do much. His secondary effects all depend on having red AP, and his black "accelerator" requires 3-4 black matches to use, plus another 2-3 red matches to generate the red tiles. Maybe if you paired him with the right character he's better, but at the moment he's a bit unreliable.

His black really is his weakness. If it did more for it's cost, or better, just cost less, then he would be a much more generally usable character.

Edit:
Another thought, Blade seems to rely too heavily on his red power. I had Peggy for awhile at 4/0/5, and that was a pain, but she still functioned. I have trouble imagining Blade being any real use if he was 0/4/5.

elwhiteninja

His true value is pinging captain peggy down quick without needing to spend ap well played d3

TLCstormz

Ugh, I have a black and a green sitting in my queue, and ONLY 1,000hp.

He is AWFUL at this point, correct? Moreso than most in the undercovered stages, I guess?

zodiac339

TLCstormz wrote:

Ugh, I have a black and a green sitting in my queue, and ONLY 1,000hp.

He is AWFUL at this point, correct? Moreso than most in the undercovered stages, I guess?

Question about the HP you have; were you going to use it for something besides a roster slot anyway? I mean, roster 1 cover, leave the other in queue, then when you have Dr. Strange, sell Blade if you don't want him.
Heroes tend to be awful when you only have 1 or 2 covers, and it depends on the cover you have. Peggy Carter at 1 red cover isn't worth much, but 1 yellow, and maybe blue, make her a decent support. 1 red for Old Man Logan is just bad, but as soon as you get yellow, he regen tanks like a boss. Well, like a supervisor maybe, but he tanks. Red Starlord does nothing, but purple (in PVE) and yellow are okay at lower levels.
Demiurge denied the majority of us the only Blade cover that does anything decent at low levels, so for most of us, Blade is going to be worthless. The "winners" during The Hunt mostly got stuck with the massively overpriced Slightly Miffed Charge with the conditional red tile creation. Progress got the green AOE that (checks roster) can take out level 1 heroes, and that's about it. Perhaps play testers determined that red ability was too strong when black was used without a barrier, but I find that hard to believe. 11 black is a lot. it's an Overdrive that you aren't using. It's a Surgical Strike that you're not bursting the enemy down with. 11 black is enough to warrant not having a barrier to the tile generation. Demiurge sometimes misses the mark with 4 star characters. They're Legendary. They are supposed to be strong. And for most of us, Blade is very much not strong.

Pylgrim

I liked playing with the loaner in Venom Bomb. Even at its relatively low level, the strike tilesa are quite sizable and "free" damage per turn is quite good too. Green is decent for the cost, especially with strike tiles out. Black does suck, but it's not an entirely terrible thing to do if for some reason you couldn't bring someone with a better black power.

Gari

Pylgrim wrote:

I liked playing with the loaner in Venom Bomb. Even at its relatively low level, the strike tilesa are quite sizable and "free" damage per turn is quite good too. Green is decent for the cost, especially with strike tiles out. Black does suck, but it's not an entirely terrible thing to do if for some reason you couldn't bring someone with a better black power.

The "no special tile" gimmick is a step in the right direction. If they had done this for vision for example, that would have change his tier. I think they are too afraid to break the strike tile meta. Black sucks bad. Forgo the ap destruction, lower the cost and just give me the battery. In a though way they are admitting that random tiles dont match very much lol

Blahahah

I rather like Blade. As it happens, he makes a perfect rainbow with Ant Man, and both of them triple-dip with strikes.

Also both of them make strikes, and the damage scales up rather nicely. Also opens a lot of room to pair others in the spot.

3* wise, Ironman is an obvious good choice since he can bring you to the 9 red threshold easily. Patch Wolverine is another good one, since Ant can clog the purple or steal the opponent's tiles, and both Blade and Ant benefit from the 1k in strikes dropped. Daken isn't ~too~ bad for this role, but he makes himself a punching bag since his low HP almost always means he gets gibbed instantly.

4*, Peggy makes a good team mate thanks to her ability to slow down the game and, if you're rolling 5 purple, she provides a very respectable blue that gives you time to ramp. Surprisingly, Mr. Fantastic is also decent as a team mate (if only for the sake of more tile dipping) thanks to imaginaut giving even more dipping power and him becoming a very respectable tank and support. And then of course Nova is good for spewing out strikes and covering the weak early game.

5*, GG works surprisingly well. Goblin King allows you to use Ants Ants Ants as a means for fortifying the red tiles on the board, allowing for Blade to start barfing out his damage. The bombs allow for huge strike tiles, and his black becomes a very efficient means to an end. Phoenix is another good one to bring along, since both Blade and her just cover the board in extra red tiles, which can only benefit Phoenix's red and passive.

monsieurmojo

Got three covers from the Blade 10-pack to put him 2/1/3. With a few strike tiles on the board, Bloodlust starts doing level 255 Energy Channeling damage pretty quickly. It reminds me of a mix between EC and Flame Jet. He's definitely support, but with a red battery, he does a ton of damage. Like Torch, though, he's built for a long match, and that's just not what the current meta rewards.

Nick441234

He'll be great for goon nodes. I always use his 3* equivalent for those so looking forward to eventually getting all the covers for the 4* version.

vinsensual

People have already complained about this in a specific thread, but it's pretty aggravating to have his bloodlust burn a red AP, taking you under the cost of another character's red ability. There was times where I was stuck in a loop of bloodlust and red matching where I couldn't find a red match in time before I get under 7 red. So my next red match brings my stock from 6 -> 9 red AP and it's an automatic (-)1 red at the start of my turn and I'm stuck not being able to cast anything that costs 9 red AP.

This is my idea for his hunger/bloodlust, just off the top of my head. After you have the red and it transforms to bloodlust, turn it into an active that costs 1 red AP. That way you can choose to expend it or save it for a more lethal ability.

It is more flavorful to have a half vampire lose some control and cost your team some ap. But there is already a precedent with his 3* red, and it's like he's devolved going from a 3* to 4* character.

hopper1979

I have been working to figure him out I think the most obvious choice if you bring him on you team is you don't bring somebody who requires along or if you do make sure the cost is less than 8, so Carnage, Star Lord etc. He is different, I like when the game introduces new strategies and ideas into the game. I also made the mistake of bring higher costing red castors along with Blade and it was extremely difficult to get those powers off. His red is very solid except it screws up everybody else. The real issue is that black, I do not think I have even used it yet, it is too expensive and does not generate enough red to be useful. I think Blade has some potential but we will have to select his partners very carefully but that black needs tweaking more than anything else.

GrumpySmurf1002

vinsensual wrote:

People have already complained about this in a specific thread, but it's pretty aggravating to have his bloodlust burn a red AP, taking you under the cost of another character's red ability. There was times where I was stuck in a loop of bloodlust and red matching where I couldn't find a red match in time before I get under 7 red. So my next red match brings my stock from 6 -> 9 red AP and it's an automatic (-)1 red at the start of my turn and I'm stuck not being able to cast anything that costs 9 red AP.

This is my idea for his hunger/bloodlust, just off the top of my head. After you have the red and it transforms to bloodlust, turn it into an active that costs 1 red AP. That way you can choose to expend it or save it for a more lethal ability.

It is more flavorful to have a half vampire lose some control and cost your team some ap. But there is already a precedent with his 3* red, and it's like he's devolved going from a 3* to 4* character.

Blade's strength is in converting that AP to damage. Using him with a strong red user is at a detriment to both.

I know with the boosted options there's not much to be done about that during his PvP, but in general use it's better if he can just consume your red AP.

ErikPeter

I'm perplexed by the black. Except for weak theme reasons, why does it only generate Red if you already have 7+? For 11AP it should do both effects, always. I'm trying to think of a counterplay/defense reason and I really can't see ANY; 11 Black to just destroy 4 AP is, by itself, one of the worst AP-to-Effect ratios in the game. Compare Kingpin Purple (or She-Hulk!). It's nice to destroy an enemy's strongest color, but if that's all you're doing, it seems like this power is just "make Blade really really inefficient on defense". The AI might use this to destroy 1 AP!

If it always had the Red Generation it could be potentially worth using in place of any other black power. Slow start with no red to match? Match Black and you can get some to fuel the Thirst/Bloodlust. As is, there's no recourse for a weak red board, and at best black might stave off an attack for a couple turns (unless your enemy is one of many who have passives in their strongest color...)

monsieurmojo

Pulled a fifth red from a LL a couple days ago, and got him to 192 this morning. I can say this: the strike tiles are pretty insane. At 192, they're each 248 strength, and Bloodlust does 2536 base damage/turn. With a few of his strike tiles on the board, the damage starts piling up pretty fast. That kind of passive damage generation is going to be just disgusting on a boost week.

Unlike his 3* counterpart, he's definitely something of a one-trick pony. That trick *is* pretty awesome.

Sadly, like his 3* counterpart, the 10-red threshold makes him somewhat inconsistent. If there aren't enough red on the board to start generating those strike tiles, he's sort of useless.

Vhailorx

monsieurmojo wrote:

Pulled a fifth red from a LL a couple days ago, and got him to 192 this morning. I can say this: the strike tiles are pretty insane. At 192, they're each 248 strength, and Bloodlust does 2536 base damage/turn. With a few of his strike tiles on the board, the damage starts piling up pretty fast. That kind of passive damage generation is going to be just disgusting on a boost week.

Unlike his 3* counterpart, he's definitely something of a one-trick pony. That trick *is* pretty awesome.

Sadly, like his 3* counterpart, the 10-red threshold makes him somewhat inconsistent. If there aren't enough red on the board to start generating those strike tiles, he's sort of useless.

As far as I can tell, he is similar to 3* blade in that he is either awesomely dangerous or basically useless depending on board state. If you can get a lot of red either (1) on the board or (2) in your AP pool, then he is deadly. Those strikes are very strong, and the red passive damage is also very strong.

But if you can't meet those conditions, what does he do? he has a week green aoe (that won't heal him) and a crazy expensive ap destruction power in black.

So maybe he just needs to be played with a red battery all times, Something like im40 + medusa + blade? medusa generates attack tiles to double dip on the strikes (or her CD if that is ever fixed), im40 generates red and green to fuel blade (and blue for his own aoe in a pinch).

Even then, I tend to think that DoT characters are less useful than direct damage nukes in the current meta (e.g. 3* cyc and 4* pun are better than 3* torch and 4* antman respectively). DoT is only really effective when the characters are boosted. And I do not look forward to the first time balde is boosted after a critical mass of players get him maxed. It will be a bloodbath.

Jaedenkaal

Could be good 5/3/5 (on offense of course) with a 5/3/5 Hulkbuster. Use Hulk Proof to add extra Red to the board at which point the 6 Red tiles from Supernatural Sense might be enough to semi-consistently create more Red AP in matches and cascades than the flat 9 you'd get from a 5-cover Overdrive, plus you're not taking any self damage that way.
The loss of the Strike tiles probably doesn't matter since you'll get a bunch for free anyways.

Then you can use The Bloodlust to slowly drain your Red AP until you're just barely killing someone with Repulsor Punch, instead of totally overkilling them.

As a 3rd... Miles? Starlord? They can both generate Red AP in a somewhat roundabout way. Spider-Gwen to keep the enemy team stunned while you drain them down?

monsieurmojo

Was running him out there in the Colossus event with Black Bolt to see what would happen in the wild. It's really just broken damage.

The two were doing north of 5,000 passive damage/turn with Bloodlust and Energy Channeling both in their active modes.

Took out a 20k Colossus in four turns flat. That's pretty impressive.