*** Human Torch (Classic) ***

Unknown

entropic01 wrote:

I'll take my Patch + Classic Mags over any HT team you can field for kill speed.

HT + Lazy Daken would be faster for sure. And I should point out that in your team its Patch that makes kills fast not cMags. Especially after the last slight nerf. I would even argue that going up against a HT team cMags is going to be at least somewhat neutralized due to the lack of red tiles available (since his purple now requires them).

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

It takes 14 red AP to throw 2 Fireballs, while 14 AP gets you 4 Star Spangled Avengers.

Yes Captain's red can be killed and it takes time but 14 red AP takes a while to build anyway, and it's really not rocket science to put it in a corner with no red anywhere near it. Captain can also stun on the side which should make it easier to keep the said tiles alive.

Again I get what your saying and it works in a vaccum but in reality its not that good. Also you can hide the tile all you want its miracle cascades and board control abilities that make it risky. Here is a list of characters that have at least one ability that could destroy the countdown: Hood, BWGS, MMN, Juggernaut, Hulk, Punisher, cMag, Thor, Lazy Thor, Hawkeye, Captain America (modern), Loki, Moonstone, Storm Classic, Storm Modern, Wolverine X-force, Invisible Woman, HT and of course lazy Cap. That is a huge list of more than half the characters in the game. And there are even more that could theoretically do it. Like Dooms blue setting of a small cascade or making a 4 match in the same row, Yelena Belova placing the crit tile to do the same, Venom turning it into a web tile, etc. Its a huge risk. Essentially your counting on the AI being dumb and unlucky which is a bet I wouldn't make given the rediculous number of miracle cascades I have seen.

Unknown

Rorex wrote:

entropic01 wrote:

I'll take my Patch + Classic Mags over any HT team you can field for kill speed.

HT + Lazy Daken would be faster for sure. And I should point out that in your team its Patch that makes kills fast not cMags. Especially after the last slight nerf. I would even argue that going up against a HT team cMags is going to be at least somewhat neutralized due to the lack of red tiles available (since his purple now requires them).

Agree to disagree then. Saying cMags has no part in fast kill speed is insane IMO.

Polares

entropic01 wrote:

Rorex wrote:

entropic01 wrote:

I'll take my Patch + Classic Mags over any HT team you can field for kill speed.

HT + Lazy Daken would be faster for sure. And I should point out that in your team its Patch that makes kills fast not cMags. Especially after the last slight nerf. I would even argue that going up against a HT team cMags is going to be at least somewhat neutralized due to the lack of red tiles available (since his purple now requires them).

Agree to disagree then. Saying cMags has no part in fast kill speed is insane IMO.

HT is fast, but Mag Blue after Patch green is a really fast way of killing enemies...

Unknown

Polares wrote:

entropic01 wrote:

Rorex wrote:

entropic01 wrote:

I'll take my Patch + Classic Mags over any HT team you can field for kill speed.

HT + Lazy Daken would be faster for sure. And I should point out that in your team its Patch that makes kills fast not cMags. Especially after the last slight nerf. I would even argue that going up against a HT team cMags is going to be at least somewhat neutralized due to the lack of red tiles available (since his purple now requires them).

Agree to disagree then. Saying cMags has no part in fast kill speed is insane IMO.

HT is fast, but Mag Blue after Patch green is a really fast way of killing enemies...

I agree but I guess the point I was trying to make is Its the strike tiles in combination with criticals that make it fast in this situation. The critical its self might generate you 800-1000 damage but its the fact that for each of the matches including creating the critical and the resulting cascade getting an additional 888 damage each that makes it fast. Sure Mags plays a part and makes it easy to both generate the AP quickly and consintently create cascades but its Patches ability to create so many strike tiles for so cheap that is doing the majority of the damage.

Also I guess my assumption with Lazy Daken is that his strike tiles would be similar to Patches. I mean at 69 he is creating two 38 damage strike tiles per match which are almost as good as the stike tiles 2* Wolverine creates at lvl 85. So if a green match made with a max lvl Lazy Daken present creates two 148 strength stike tiles. Then after making two matches playing flame jet at the start of the 3rd turn your generating in theory 231+592 damage= 823 Damage. And thats assuming the AI does match green as well. In paticular enviroments the damage generation will be insane. Not to mention adding cMags into that team. Of course I am making alot of assumptions. So I guess I concede your point.

Unknown

The longer it takes to collect red the more favorable it is for Captain because it takes time for Star Spangled Avenger to recycle.

In your first 3 red matches you'd get a Fireball off, but nobody is doubting that the first Fireball is faster. It's also nowhere enough to win the game by itself.

By the time you get your 4th red match you can do 2 Star Spangled Avenger, and as long as you don't have your 5th red match in the next 4 turns, you'll have 2 Star Spangled Avengers but you can't even have 2 Fireballs at that point. And usually by the time you have 12 red AP, that 5th match is going to take a while because you're running low on red tiles to match.

The AI makes no attempt to actually destroy the CD tile. If an enemy has an ability that has a high chance of destroying the CD you can either wait or just take a chance. Star Spangled Avenger does 3600 damage on level 141, which is also often enough to simply kill one wounded character. Certainly the second time you use Star Spangled Avenger somebody is most definitely going to die if you need to take out someone first.

In the First Avenger so far the only two times my Captain tiles got destroyed was from Oasis. You must not be studying the board at all to have a placeable CD destroyed so easily. Putting it at bottom left or right corner is nearly 100% safe, and Oasis is the only ability you can't predict when the AI uses (because they're saving up for Sandstorm which costs way more, so the chance of using Oasis each round is small but nonzero and thus impossible to predict). Normal board clearing moves gets is used with high predictability.

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

The longer it takes to collect red the more favorable it is for Captain because it takes time for Star Spangled Avenger to recycle.

In your first 3 red matches you'd get a Fireball off, but nobody is doubting that the first Fireball is faster. It's also nowhere enough to win the game by itself.

By the time you get your 4th red match you can do 2 Star Spangled Avenger, and as long as you don't have your 5th red match in the next 4 turns, you'll have 2 Star Spangled Avengers but you can't even have 2 Fireballs at that point. And usually by the time you have 12 red AP, that 5th match is going to take a while because you're running low on red tiles to match.

The AI makes no attempt to actually destroy the CD tile. If an enemy has an ability that has a high chance of destroying the CD you can either wait or just take a chance. Star Spangled Avenger does 3600 damage on level 141, which is also often enough to simply kill one wounded character. Certainly the second time you use Star Spangled Avenger somebody is most definitely going to die if you need to take out someone first.

In the First Avenger so far the only two times my Captain tiles got destroyed was from Oasis. You must not be studying the board at all to have a placeable CD destroyed so easily. Putting it at bottom left or right corner is nearly 100% safe, and Oasis is the only ability you can't predict when the AI uses (because they're saving up for Sandstorm which costs way more, so the chance of using Oasis each round is small but nonzero and thus impossible to predict). Normal board clearing moves gets is used with high predictability.

Again I see your points just not 100% convinced. I guess time will tell. Also I don't think that the First Avenger tourney is a good testing ground as everyone is using Cap so people won't probably be using characters with random board control abilities in conjuction with him for fear of destorying their countdown. Thus when you fight their AI controlled team the risk is not necessarily as prevelant as it would be in say a no holds barred tourney for example.

Phaserhawk

Phantron wrote:

The longer it takes to collect red the more favorable it is for Captain because it takes time for Star Spangled Avenger to recycle.

In your first 3 red matches you'd get a Fireball off, but nobody is doubting that the first Fireball is faster. It's also nowhere enough to win the game by itself.

By the time you get your 4th red match you can do 2 Star Spangled Avenger, and as long as you don't have your 5th red match in the next 4 turns, you'll have 2 Star Spangled Avengers but you can't even have 2 Fireballs at that point. And usually by the time you have 12 red AP, that 5th match is going to take a while because you're running low on red tiles to match.

The AI makes no attempt to actually destroy the CD tile. If an enemy has an ability that has a high chance of destroying the CD you can either wait or just take a chance. Star Spangled Avenger does 3600 damage on level 141, which is also often enough to simply kill one wounded character. Certainly the second time you use Star Spangled Avenger somebody is most definitely going to die if you need to take out someone first.

In the First Avenger so far the only two times my Captain tiles got destroyed was from Oasis. You must not be studying the board at all to have a placeable CD destroyed so easily. Putting it at bottom left or right corner is nearly 100% safe, and Oasis is the only ability you can't predict when the AI uses (because they're saving up for Sandstorm which costs way more, so the chance of using Oasis each round is small but nonzero and thus impossible to predict). Normal board clearing moves gets is used with high predictability.

what Phantron said

Phaserhawk

There is no doubt Human Torch is really good, but comparing him to Captain is just not a good comparison. Much like a flame, HT is about quick offense, he's not designed to go the long haul which Cap is. Cap has the hp to weather the early rounds of matching, HT is about quick matches and/or board counter to red strike tile creators. And the damage is somewhat accordingly to their character. But in drawn out games HT will never out damage Cap, but the same is true in opposite games, shorter games are going to heavily favor HT as he will pump out large amounts of damage early. HT is truly a counter character IMO, in fact I'm almost wondering if he was designed to counter the upcoming 3*Daken. HT's red counters strike tiles, Ht's Black is a good dmg that negates the healing factor. The only plus is that HT requires green which feeds strike tiles, so there is some balance, but with enough Green HT can burn away at Daken. HT's kit just screams counter. Cap though, he's an anchor, he's going to be there late game if you need it, he's designed with inherrant weaknesses, ie high AP costs and CD tiles to counteract his very heavy dmg.

Puritas

wait
how on earth do you go from "Cap's read does more damage than HT's red in the long run" to "In drawn out games HT will never outdamage cap"
HT has three high-damage attack skills, of course he's going to outdamage cap if you're not for some inane reason using only his red the entire game

NorthernPolarity

Puritas wrote:

wait
how on earth do you go from "Cap's read does more damage than HT's red in the long run" to "In drawn out games HT will never outdamage cap"
HT has three high-damage attack skills, of course he's going to outdamage cap if you're not for some inane reason using only his red the entire game

I think the idea is that you have another green/black outlet on your team to go along with Cap. The point of the discussion was to compare their red abilities as those are probably the main reason why you would use them on your team in the first place, not to discuss their 1 on 1 potential.

Unknown

Captain probably goes best with Thor and The Hood, who covers green and black more than adequately.

Puritas

NorthernPolarity wrote:

I think the idea is that you have another green/black outlet on your team to go along with Cap. The point of the discussion was to compare their red abilities as those are probably the main reason why you would use them on your team in the first place, not to discuss their 1 on 1 potential.

Ahh, I see.
I wouldn't even consider HT over Cap unless I was planning on using HT's green, which I like quite a lot (combined with hood it's pretty silly)
Oh what I'd give for characters with more color combos

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

Captain probably goes best with Thor and The Hood, who covers green and black more than adequately.

Really Lazy Thor and Lazy Cap? Isn't that going to mean the AI uses Mjolnir’s Might on defense instead of Cap's much better red? I mean its 8ap vs 11ap the odds are not good that you will generate 11ap at the same time you get 8. Plus on defense you know the AI will thunderstrike and destroy it own countdown tile.

I 100% agree with Hood but was thinking Patch over Thor. Same colors, strike tiles that aren't on Cap's colors and pretty much forced kill order for enemy attackers. Have to get rid of Hood to use abilities and not just match damage, don't want to leave Patch till last meaining in theory Cap should be the last killed on defense. So tons of time for his damage and stunning to grow.

---

Back on topic though. as much as Torch is going to be a decent counter for 3* Daken they will also work good together if your using a 5/3/5 build. Sure some of your fireballs will destory your strike tiles but because fireballs shouldn't be your main objective that shouldn't be an issue. It will simply be a match green and feed flame jet set up. I might even consider a 3/5/5 build based on that premise.

Phaserhawk

Rorex wrote:

Phantron wrote:

Captain probably goes best with Thor and The Hood, who covers green and black more than adequately.

Really Lazy Thor and Lazy Cap? Isn't that going to mean the AI uses Mjolnir’s Might on defense instead of Cap's much better red? I mean its 8ap vs 11ap the odds are not good that you will generate 11ap at the same time you get 8. Plus on defense you know the AI will thunderstrike and destroy it own countdown tile.

I 100% agree with Hood but was thinking Patch over Thor. Same colors, strike tiles that aren't on Cap's colors and pretty much forced kill order for enemy attackers. Have to get rid of Hood to use abilities and not just match damage, don't want to leave Patch till last meaining in theory Cap should be the last killed on defense. So tons of time for his damage and stunning to grow.

---

Back on topic though. as much as Torch is going to be a decent counter for 3* Daken they will also work good together if your using a 5/3/5 build. Sure some of your fireballs will destory your strike tiles but because fireballs shouldn't be your main objective that shouldn't be an issue. It will simply be a match green and feed flame jet set up. I might even consider a 3/5/5 build based on that premise.

The which red the AI will use is debateable sometimes. If the AI decideds to hold red because it knows it will get another match, it may do that. Because, assuming 3 tile matches, 3, 6, 9. If they AI gets 9 I think it will cast Mjolinir' Might, but if it hit 10 due to a 4 match, I think it may hold for Cap's shield. I have seen the AI pass up a Punisher Judement for a next turn Call of the Storm, because it could make a 3 tile match to put it into 14 range at end of turn so instead of casting Judgement when it had 11AP off of Thor's yellow, it held, matched,Green and CotS the following turn, (wished it hadnt' )

Phaserhawk

NorthernPolarity wrote:

Puritas wrote:

wait
how on earth do you go from "Cap's read does more damage than HT's red in the long run" to "In drawn out games HT will never outdamage cap"
HT has three high-damage attack skills, of course he's going to outdamage cap if you're not for some inane reason using only his red the entire game

I think the idea is that you have another green/black outlet on your team to go along with Cap. The point of the discussion was to compare their red abilities as those are probably the main reason why you would use them on your team in the first place, not to discuss their 1 on 1 potential.

This, thanks NP!!!

I suppose in some instances Cap could out dmg HT, in a game, just for the sheer fact that Cap will be around longer to do more dmg, but correct I was speaking of red's only, I feel HT's black and green are better left to somone else,

Unknown

The problem with the AI's saving up mechanism is that it has to make that roll every turn.

Let's say for the sake of argument there's a 75% chance it'll save up for 11 red AP (Star Spangled Avenger) when it has 8 red AP. So that sounds like a pretty good chance it'll save up, right? No, because it has to do that every turn.

Assuming you have any idea of how the AI operates, you'd obviously want to deny red matches at this point (Star Spangled Avenger does more damage straight up and if that CD tile survives, you're going to take way more total damage). Let's say you're able to keep the AI from making another red match for 5 turns, which isn't even very hard because there shouldn't even be very many red left by the time this happens. The chance it wouldn't use the 8 red AP move in 5 turns is (0.75)^5 = 24%. And I'm pretty sure the chance of AI saving up is significantly lower than that, but even at these optimistic numbers, the AI will only save up to 11 24% of the time when starting with 8.

So yes having Thor and Captain on the same team means you have to give up Captain's red, but Thor brings enough for me to make that sacrifice.

Phaserhawk

Phantron wrote:

The problem with the AI's saving up mechanism is that it has to make that roll every turn.

Let's say for the sake of argument there's a 75% chance it'll save up for 11 red AP (Star Spangled Avenger) when it has 8 red AP. So that sounds like a pretty good chance it'll save up, right? No, because it has to do that every turn.

Assuming you have any idea of how the AI operates, you'd obviously want to deny red matches at this point (Star Spangled Avenger does more damage straight up and if that CD tile survives, you're going to take way more total damage). Let's say you're able to keep the AI from making another red match for 5 turns, which isn't even very hard because there shouldn't even be very many red left by the time this happens. The chance it wouldn't use the 8 red AP move in 5 turns is (0.75)^5 = 24%. And I'm pretty sure the chance of AI saving up is significantly lower than that, but even at these optimistic numbers, the AI will only save up to 11 24% of the time when starting with 8.

So yes having Thor and Captain on the same team means you have to give up Captain's red, but Thor brings enough for me to make that sacrifice.

agreed. Rorex is mostly correct, but as you said it isn't always the case. I do think the AI looks at what it has and if it could get a tile match to bring it into the use of another skill, like my Judgment skipped for Call of the Storm. The AI knew it could make a match to get 14 Green AP and whatever it's program did, felt that was best. But I have many times been in the same situation where it could have done something similiar, like say Thor's Red vs. Cap, and it chose to go Thor's. I wonder if in that Judgement vs. Call of the Storm, it ranked the damage higher than the Judgement Strike Tiles? Hmm

Unknown

Phaserhawk wrote:

agreed. Rorex is mostly correct, but as you said it isn't always the case. I do think the AI looks at what it has and if it could get a tile match to bring it into the use of another skill, like my Judgment skipped for Call of the Storm. The AI knew it could make a match to get 14 Green AP and whatever it's program did, felt that was best. But I have many times been in the same situation where it could have done something similiar, like say Thor's Red vs. Cap, and it chose to go Thor's. I wonder if in that Judgement vs. Call of the Storm, it ranked the damage higher than the Judgement Strike Tiles? Hmm

The AI uses the difference between the two skills it's considering for saving up. If it is choosing between Judgment (8) and Berserker Rage (9), assuming it has exactly 8g, the chance of it saving up is very small, because the difference between the two skills is 1 AP. If it's looking at Judgment (8) versus Call the Storm (14), the chance of it saving up is higher because the difference is bigger (6). This is quite observeable on the 2 AP skills like Magnetized Particles or ATU.

But, the problem is that the AI has to make a check every single turn. It's not like the AI makes one check to see if it'll save up for Call the Storm and then focus on that goal. No, each turn it's basically asking 'Are we there yet?' and if you ask that enough times, eventually the AI gets tired of waiting and just uses the cheaper ability. Yes, it's more likely to save up for bigger abilities, but you also need a longer time to get to those abilities, so in general it still doesn't save up successfully.

Note that this is sometimes advantageous. For example, The Hood + lazy Thor creates a very nasty combo on yellow for a human opponent. Thunder Strike at 12 AP has a low, but nonzero chance, of saving up over the 15 AP Twin Pistols. This means when you see the AI hit 12 yellow, you'll probably put your most resilient guy in front, but suppose the AI makes the 'save' roll, then you're now usually stuck with either put someone more vulnerable out, or make likely sub optimal moves to keep your tank in front. This usually turns into a 'AI ninja patched to target only Spiderman' thread. Of course, you can try to hand the AI a yellow match and hope they take it, but anyone tried to set up traps with Daredevil should know that the AI pretty much never acts like how you think they should, unless you hand them a yellow match 4, which would be a pretty big risk too since they could just use Thunder Strike and then take your match 4.

Unknown

Still no info on levels beyond 2?