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

Dayv

If you absolutely can't get more cover slots (nine is really not enough, IMO), you're going to ask yourself this again and again.

OBW is a solid 2* character who plays well with the red/green-centric heavy hitters, especially 2* Wolverine. If you could go back in time, I'd tell you to get rid of Venom before selling any of her, but only after first telling you to get more cover slots instead of selling either.

DirigiblePilot

Well... yes. OBW is a high-end 2* character because of her synergy with Wolverine and her (albeit limited) healing capacities. But she is only 2*, so you'll be bound to get more.

Unknown

Short answer: Yes

But not too bad. OBW is becoming one of the best ** characters. I think most would agree that one of the best 2 star teams is 5/5/3 Thor, 5/3/5 Wolvie (although I like my 5/5/3 just fine, especially when buffed in PVE event) and Original Black Widow. I like her build at 3/5/5 but opinions may vary. The good news is that she semms to have been featured as a reward a lot lately so you probably have a decent chance of getting her cover's again.

Unknown

She's one of the better 2*s out there.

Save your HP, buy more cover slots. Nine is simply not enough.

Unknown

Only if you want to use her. While she's very good there are alternatives.

Unknown

At your state in the game I honestly see less than 0 point in saving that IW cover. It's being quite counterproductive. The only real use is an occasional unlock mission with her but that's no reason for wasted space.

Unknown

I can't see playing effectively with only 9 slots. Less than 15, even, and more comfortably 20.

Unknown

She's one of the best 2* support characters. I've been using her a lot since Widow tournament. She synergize so well with Wovlie & Thor.

Unknown

IMHO Wolvie/Thor/OBW is the best ** team in the game at the moment.

Unknown

I used 2* black widow with wolverine to kill the least node in the hunt event with the lvl 200+ ragnarok. They are not even fully leveled either.

areacode212

There have definitely been times when being able to steal more than 3 AP from the opponent would've come in handy during the Widow tourney, but a lot of that was because I was almost exclusively playing in the forest level where you or the CPU can get 5AP for 100 health. But in general I don't want to have to make too many purple matches when I could be matching colors that fuel more direct damage-dealing skills.

Phaserhawk

Here's the skinny.

You can argue what you will on purple skill vs. blue, but black must be maxed. The extra damage from this especially when paired with a wolverine with strike tiles is amazing. I'm not sure if it's a bug or not, but...say you have 100 damage of Wolverine strike tiles out, you make a match for 100 damage on black. you trigger the strike tiles so you do 200 damage, then your passive triggers, witch maxed is 112 damage, plus you trigger the strike tiles again, for another 100 damage. That's why her black is insane, always, i mean always pair her with Daken or Wolverine. So we now have her at X/X/5. What to do with the other 8 skill points.

The positive for maxing out blue is being able to heal and put counters on countdown tiles, the extra counters plus heal are great against the AI, in PvP you generally don't see this, however lets look at purple.

3 points - Steal 3 AP of colors, not purple, and it costs 8 AP
4 Points - Steal 4 AP of colors, not purple, and it costs 10 AP
5 Points - Steal 4 AP of colors now purple, and costs 11 AP

A tip is to evaluate AP cost in multiples of 3. Why? Because you generally are going to make only 3 tile matches. Now the one thing to remember with widow is that you steal 1 purple, blue, or black if they have it when you make that match. Assuming they always have purple, you only need to match purple twice at level three to activate the skill. At lvl 4 you have to make 3 matches, same for lvl 5. If they don't have purple, then you need 3 matches to activate lvl 3, 4 to active lvl 4 and 5, that's why going past lvl 3 IMO is a waste. If you decide to put 4 into purple, you may as well put 5 as for once extra AP the ability to steal purple is too beneficially. However, I find lvl 3 to be superior, it's quicker to activate, and denies them a full tile match of every color but purple

Conclusion 3/5/5 is probably the best for damage and early denial of AP, not to mention you always heal
5/5/3 is a decent build, but this is saying you do not plan on ever attacking with Widow and you are only using her to heal and steal AP. Edit: I have found that this version can be superior if your other 2 characters are quick and semi tanky, this build, once you are ahead, keeps you ahead as you are massively denying AP. Spiderman and Wolverine are the most insane combo with this build, they will never move, and you are so shielded with Spiderman.
5/3/5 is also okay if you don't care about always having to heal
Only putting 4 into any of these colors is a waste as with this widow, her lvl 3 and lvl 5 are all superior to lvl 4. Why?
4 in purple only added the ability to steal 4 AP, at the cost of once turn basically, where lvl 5 offers the ability to steal purple, and the 1 AP in the (10-12) AP tier is nothing.
4 in blue lets you add 4 counters, vs 1 more in blue allowing you to always heal
4 in Black, for 1 extra AP you double your damage on the passive, so NEVER,NEVER, NEVER put a skill to lvl 4 for Widow (Classic)

Unknown

I built her 4/5/4 simply due to the fact that her lvl 4 espionage stacks with strike tiles (and wolvie is my main). So essentially when strike tiles are out and you match a purple, blue or black, you do double damage. It's pretty crazy and her kit is very good for support (1218 heal at lvl 85).

Unknown

5 point in purple make her steal purple.
Steal purple is useful against black widow (all versions), venom, c. Mag, moonstone.

I don't really see the point of 5 in black, 4 is enough for the synergy with hero strike tile.
Is lvl5 doubling the strike tile dmg as well? I doubt it will.

As for blue, lvl5 only leads to a half heal with count down tile on board.
It's useful in Pve, not very useful in PvP due to count down characters not being popular.

Anyway, not a big deal on how to lvlup, only thing that is a must is lvl4 black.

Phaserhawk

xinyucao wrote:

5 point in purple make her steal purple.
Steal purple is useful against black widow (all versions), venom, c. Mag, moonstone.

I don't really see the point of 5 in black, 4 is enough for the synergy with hero strike tile.
Is lvl5 doubling the strike tile dmg as well? I doubt it will.

As for blue, lvl5 only leads to a half heal with count down tile on board.
It's useful in Pve, not very useful in PvP due to count down characters not being popular.

Anyway, not a big deal on how to lvlup, only thing that is a must is lvl4 black.

But the increase of cost in AP is so high, that it makes the skill useless IMO, I steal purple anyways with matching it, I see your point, and don't disagree that it's a good skill, I guess I choose to go off as quickly as possible before the other team can mount their offensive, thus I like a lvl 3 OBW to prevent them early

Nonce Equitaur 2

When the top 6 characters are nerfed, I believe OBW will become the most useful character.

The game will revolve around slowness, and the fast characters will be gone. OBW can focus on getting some purple while the opponent gathers other colors ... then YOINK, and the OBW team has double the action points.

Hood, Hulk, OBW seems like a strong team. I used it against level 240 Ares Rags Venom and won. After the upcoming character adjustments, I believe this will be the team to beat.

Unknown

It seems that I messed my OBW when I in haste attached two purples to her and now I got 5/4/3. Is there any viable reason to favor 5/5/3 over 5/4/4 since those are my last options?

EDIT: Phaserhawk already answered this only few posts ago. It would seem that since I already maxed out purple I should probably do the same with blue.

Unknown

IMO the 4th black is much more useful than the 5th blue. It depends how much you care about abusing strike tiles, and stopping countdown tiles, though.

Unknown

5/5/3 means she runs support. It doesn´t make her worse but you will avoid to put her up front / match her colors. But if you were to rank colours in terms to priority to match think about the value of espionage damage.

In practice they are low since her abilities work better "late" or rather reactionary to matchprogress anyway. Higher level espionage does synergise with Wolverines strike tiles but ihmo what synergises even better is even more strike tiles ergo matching more green and red. Often even Yellow is better in order to keep Wolv with his free healing factor up front.

Unknown

During lvl240 fights I learned that I will never get her purple above 3. The ability to steal AP so often is crucial. I understand the benefits of lvl4 or 5, but the cost is just too high to effectively use it more than once per battle.
stealing purple AP? She already does it with Espionage. of course Venom sometimes triggers his stun, but honestly I prefer to be stunned by lvl240 char than to be hurt by some power dealing dmg.

Mine sits at 343 and I will get her to 355. It's all about costs really.