** Black Widow (Original) ** [PRE 2014-06]

Unknown

I know ill never use her, but should I go 5/5/3 or 3/5/5 or 4/5/4? I have two purple in my.cache already..otherwise my.goal would be 3/5/5. Black.doesn't.drop too.often...but I am also.in no hurry to finisher her.

Edit: I think I'm going to either go 4/5/4 or 3/5/5. The bonus from strike tiles just seems too helpful with 4+ in black. Wolverine/widow/magneto seems like a decent team. Mag will make her blue matches useless but most good teams will likely have black blue or purple covered by someone stronger anyway. She covers mags purple which means you can.help build towards his purple a little faster. I still.think she is mostly a pve character though and works well at keeping the team's hp up while keeping the machine's ap down. Still, punisher or wolverine +herself and someone else would work well in the current pve event for example.

That said, she still isn't "for me" as her PvP utility I feel has already been passed once you are running 2 2** and 1 3*** or better teams for the most part because wanting a strike tile character on the team.pigeonholes her and most abilities where you would want to accumulate blue/purple/black tiles will have a character with a higher stat making her black useless. Magneto is one of the few 3 *** that is weak in one of his ability colors.

Spoit

I did 5/5 back before her black was out, but am seriously considering making a 2nd for pvp. The blue really is very useful for spammy PvE enemies, like some of the mafia missions in red ISO

Unknown

I really don't see what the big deal is with having Black at 5. You truly only need black at 3, and she will be able to steal AP. Raising to 4 and 5 only increases the damage when she makes a match.

112 extra damage per match at 85 is a lot? I beg to differ. Characters like Thor deal 1k to 2k easily. And Daken and Wolvie can easily up the damage per match in large amounts. How important is that paltry amount of damage?

In fact, the only reason to go to 3/5/5 ever, is because you want to keep Aggressive Recon at a low cost while being able to hit the level cap. Aggressive Recon has high spammability at Rank 3. At Rank 5 it has much lower spammability, but higher profit ratio.

There is absolutely no reason why Espionage has to be at Rank 5, unless you want to keep Aggressive Recon low cost.

Unknown

Celerity wrote:

Her black is her best skill, so it doesn't make much sense to me to leave it at 3. The incidental damage really adds up, even without strike tiles, and it costs nothing. The only reason I could see to not level black is if you only plan on letting her tank 1 color.

I have nothing to disagree on with what you said on purple. But Black? How exactly is it her best skill? While I don't deny it's usefulness, I dare say there is very little difference between Rank 3 and Rank 5.

Furthermore, just because it costs nothing, doesn't make it the best power. For example, Modern Hawkeye's passive is moderately useful, but you don't HAVE to have it at Rank 5. And Classic Storm's Passive after the nerf? Just because it's free doesn't mean it has to be at rank 5.

Celerity wrote:

Overall, this led me to choose 3/5/5, which I guess is what most people here also arrived at.

SOME people arrived at this. NOT MOST.

KholdStare88 wrote:

The main reason though is I love the extra damage. I know 112 max extra damage may not sound enticing, but if you manage to chain together a lot (which I do with Lightning Storm and Thor), Espionage will start feeling pretty useful.

So will just about any kind of strike tile. Which tend to deal more damage by the way, and are not limited to just 3 colors.

Rank 3 is good, I get it. But Rank 5 is just not that great.

Unknown

mechgouki wrote:

Celerity wrote:

Her black is her best skill, so it doesn't make much sense to me to leave it at 3. The incidental damage really adds up, even without strike tiles, and it costs nothing. The only reason I could see to not level black is if you only plan on letting her tank 1 color.

I have nothing to disagree on with what you said on purple. But Black? How exactly is it her best skill? While I don't deny it's usefulness, I dare say there is very little difference between Rank 3 and Rank 5.

When you compare the differences between each of her ranks 3 and 5 (at max level), you've got blue which is ~300 extra healing and some countdown control, purple which is arguably or at least situationally worse the more you level it, and black which is 1-2k damage for no AP cost, plus the ability to synergize with things like strike tiles or Magneto blue. Ok, none of these upgrades are game-changing, but it seems like a no-brainer to me that black is the most efficient, except for a few PVE cases where the blue upgrade really shines. OBW is best played on teams that want to match her colors often, so it's only natural to increase the effectiveness of that.

Unknown

Celerity wrote:

mechgouki wrote:

Celerity wrote:

Her black is her best skill, so it doesn't make much sense to me to leave it at 3. The incidental damage really adds up, even without strike tiles, and it costs nothing. The only reason I could see to not level black is if you only plan on letting her tank 1 color.

I have nothing to disagree on with what you said on purple. But Black? How exactly is it her best skill? While I don't deny it's usefulness, I dare say there is very little difference between Rank 3 and Rank 5.

When you compare the differences between each of her ranks 3 and 5 (at max level), you've got blue which is ~300 extra healing and some countdown control, purple which is arguably or at least situationally worse the more you level it, and black which is 1-2k damage for no AP cost, plus the ability to synergize with things like strike tiles or Magneto blue. Ok, none of these upgrades are game-changing, but it seems like a no-brainer to me that black is the most efficient, except for a few PVE cases where the blue upgrade really shines. OBW is best played on teams that want to match her colors often, so it's only natural to increase the effectiveness of that.

Healing, like Passive regens, their purpose more or less works towards long term. They will help save you health packs. But yeah, they are usually not critical towards the single match itself. Except Spidey's which can heal for extreme amounts.

1-2k damage for no AP cost? I think you are overestimating the damage. And Classic Storm's passive will probably also do that over a long battle. Doesn't make it any more useful. Just because it is free, doesn't mean it is the best.

Synergise with strike tiles, hm, yes, I haven't considered that fact before. With Strike tiles, I believe the strike tiles may activate twice. Once from the match damage, another from the passive damage. Of course, I can't prove that, since I don't have at least Rank 4. Maybe it just adds to the tile damage, so the Strike Tiles only activate once?

Is anyone able to test this?

How exactly does it Synergize with Magneto? 0_o

Unknown

mechgouki wrote:

Celerity wrote:

mechgouki wrote:

Celerity wrote:

Her black is her best skill, so it doesn't make much sense to me to leave it at 3. The incidental damage really adds up, even without strike tiles, and it costs nothing. The only reason I could see to not level black is if you only plan on letting her tank 1 color.

I have nothing to disagree on with what you said on purple. But Black? How exactly is it her best skill? While I don't deny it's usefulness, I dare say there is very little difference between Rank 3 and Rank 5.

When you compare the differences between each of her ranks 3 and 5 (at max level), you've got blue which is ~300 extra healing and some countdown control, purple which is arguably or at least situationally worse the more you level it, and black which is 1-2k damage for no AP cost, plus the ability to synergize with things like strike tiles or Magneto blue. Ok, none of these upgrades are game-changing, but it seems like a no-brainer to me that black is the most efficient, except for a few PVE cases where the blue upgrade really shines. OBW is best played on teams that want to match her colors often, so it's only natural to increase the effectiveness of that.

Healing, like Passive regens, their purpose more or less works towards long term. They will help save you health packs. But yeah, they are usually not critical towards the single match itself. Except Spidey's which can heal for extreme amounts.

1-2k damage for no AP cost? I think you are overestimating the damage. And Classic Storm's passive will probably also do that over a long battle. Doesn't make it any more useful. Just because it is free, doesn't mean it is the best.

Synergise with strike tiles, hm, yes, I haven't considered that fact before. With Strike tiles, I believe the strike tiles may activate twice. Once from the match damage, another from the passive damage. Of course, I can't prove that, since I don't have at least Rank 4. Maybe it just adds to the tile damage, so the Strike Tiles only activate once?

Is anyone able to test this?

How exactly does it Synergize with Magneto? 0_o

If you don't even know how the black works with strike tiles, maybe you should stop condemning it for being useless?

As for the black ability, it triggers separately from the tile match and the strike tiles do add to the separate hit as well as the original hit. So effectively you double the # of strike tiles when making a match with Espionage.

Unknown

entropic01 wrote:

If you don't even know how the black works with strike tiles, maybe you should stop condemning it for being useless?

I already said it only occurred to me now that it was possible that the passive would trigger Strike tiles twice. If it was mentioned prior to this, I did not see it. Are you satisfied with that explanation? Either way, I'm changing my opinion of this skill.

entropic01 wrote:

As for the black ability, it triggers separately from the tile match and the strike tiles do add to the separate hit as well as the original hit. So effectively you double the # of strike tiles when making a match with Espionage.

I see, thanks. That's good to know. So it would be advisable to have her black passive at Level 5.

Too bad I won't be able to change mine though....

Unknown

My thoughts on OBW Purple Vs Black:

Purple: Ranking it up makes it more expensive, and in return you get to steal 4 instead of 3, and you can steal Purple.

Black: Ranking it up will up your damage output, and assuming she is the matchmaker, you steal Purple when you match purple.

So, Black provides one of the advantages that ranking up Purple does (stealing purple AP), but doesn't make anything more expensive, and gives out extra free damage (that as a bonus triggers strike tiles a second time). The only reason to rank purple to 5 IMO is if you don't intend to make any use of her black at all (ie you are bringing another character who is going to match her primary colors). Otherwise, you'll steal the opponents purple AP making purple matches, leaving you less to steal with the rank 5 purple. (And less likely they'll be matching purple anyhow, given you are taking the purple matches).

She's a very versatile character though, and if you don't care about the blue ability, I could see going 5/3/5. Personally, I like the heal & PVE utility, and feel the purple is more valueable staying lower rank to be cheaper.

Dayv

mechgouki wrote:

Synergise with strike tiles, hm, yes, I haven't considered that fact before. With Strike tiles, I believe the strike tiles may activate twice. Once from the match damage, another from the passive damage. Of course, I can't prove that, since I don't have at least Rank 4. Maybe it just adds to the tile damage, so the Strike Tiles only activate once?

Is anyone able to test this?

If you'd read the thread before diving in, you would have seen that these questions were already answered.

mischiefmaker

If you haven't tried playing Wolverine/OBW/Punisher in the current tourney (or in general), I highly recommend giving it a spin. Modern Storm will work if you don't have a Punisher with black, too.

Doing 3k damage off a single match-3 because your strike tiles triggered three times is a ton of fun.

Unknown

After careful reconsideration, I have to retract what I said. A 3/5/5 build would likely be faster and more practical.

I'll have to personally put it to the test though, just to double confirm. Sold all my black covers since I thought I didn't need them. >_<

Unknown

DayvBang wrote:

gnilow wrote:

is it only me or is my black widow having problems?
my espionage is at level 2 and I should be able to steal purple and blue.
At this point, it only takes purple but doesn't steal blue.

Does another character on your team do better blue damage? If Black Widow doesn't make the match herself, her Espionage won't trigger. In other words, the blue gems need to have her symbol on them.

understood, thanks!

Unknown

If you look at her in isolation then yeah, 3/5/5 is propably the best overall. However in practice she is in a team and there she propably won´t serve as damage dealer. Looking at what she can do for the Team there are several points against 5 black: Notably she is squishy and popular characterchoices don´t use purple or black - so in practice you don´t want to match them over other colours.

It was mentioned before that OBW benefits from teams that match her colours. I suggest looking at it the other way around: How would she best benefit teammates that avoid her colours? 5/5/3 is usefull since her abilities aren´t better the earlier you get them going so you don´t have to prioritize black, blue or purple.
Also keep in mind that even IF you have Teammates that want black, blue or purple it is possible that they have priority and disable her passive completely.

I´d like to see who people (want to) run her with.

Unknown

For me she would only see use in a two star tourney (with Wolvie and Thor) or in a heavily roster restricted pve event.

You're right about her being squishy but that essentially means you need to avoid aoe attacks so hopefully with her stealing that is easier to do anyway.

Unknown

unentschieden wrote:

If you look at her in isolation then yeah, 3/5/5 is propably the best overall. However in practice she is in a team and there she propably won´t serve as damage dealer. Looking at what she can do for the Team there are several points against 5 black: Notably she is squishy and popular characterchoices don´t use purple or black - so in practice you don´t want to match them over other colours.

It was mentioned before that OBW benefits from teams that match her colours. I suggest looking at it the other way around: How would she best benefit teammates that avoid her colours? 5/5/3 is usefull since her abilities aren´t better the earlier you get them going so you don´t have to prioritize black, blue or purple.
Also keep in mind that even IF you have Teammates that want black, blue or purple it is possible that they have priority and disable her passive completely.

I´d like to see who people (want to) run her with.

I am running her (3/5/5) with **wolverine, her purple is not only about your team, its a low cost ability that delay the other team,also the extra damage is buffed with the strike tiles of wolverine.

If you add a bulleye or a low level spidey a purple match will be like christmas, steal ap, double damage and a protective tile.

Unknown

I run mine as 5/4/4 for the tournament.

It's equally viable if not better than 3/5/5 in my opinion.

Unknown

I had firmly been on the side of 3/5/5 but now I am 100% on this side.

The extra damage is wonderful, but you pair her with Wolverine and she becomes a terror. I had been running a Wolvie/Thor/X team for the Hulk PVE event. Great, Thor is powerful, his attacks benefit from Wolvie's strike tiles. Very nice. But with OBW in place, which I just tried on the hardest mission of the set, it was a joke. She was taking down 2000+ HP per match with a few strike tiles on the board. Unreal.

3/5/5 is the way to go for sure.

Unknown

xinyucao wrote:

I run mine as 5/4/4 for the tournament.

It's equally viable if not better than 3/5/5 in my opinion.

Are you able to justify your reasoning?

Wobby

These came in a lot last week during widow maker... And it picked up two more just now in hulk...but I sold probably five of these already.
I have no money invested, but have 9 on my roster, 2* wolv, black/grey bw, 3* mags, Thor, rag, both storms, hulk, iw, and a full venom who I've left at level 1.

I think investing in these folks is the best way to go... But don't know how good this bw ends up being. Did I already shoot myself in the foot here?