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

Unknown

locked wrote:

I have been fighting teams of oBW and Thor/Wolverine/Ares (usually Thor though) in every PvP event for quite some time now, same roster after all.
And the 3-5-5 oBW is as more dangerous than 5-5-3 oBW as 5-5-3 mStorm is more dangerous than 5-3-5 mStorm: the build is faster, more aggressive, harder to deny. If I notice enemy oBW having a level 5 recon, I can even relax and stop watchig purple like a hawk which is nice. Even if she miraculously acquires 11 purple (it's A LOT in a oBW vs. oBW battle!) she's dead by the next turn.

As I said earlier IME the 3P version is not more dangerous just more annoying. Yep, it is a nuisance if she finds purple to shoot. But will not kill me and I steal the lot back in few turns. While if the 5P one goes off (certainly harder chance to get), it may be good idea to retreat right there. I recall at least one game of overconfidence having 11P and wait up with steal, board looked safe enough. AI makes a match filing in all purples plus takes one of mine, next turn recons me and I never see a purple tile for next whatever turns. O,O Forgot how that one ended, but not the point really.

over_clocked

pasa_ wrote:

locked wrote:

I dunno, anything less than 5 in blue seems **** to me. What do these people run for 'villain + minions' types of battles? In the current PvE, every fight that has both a villain and a minion always has CD tiles on the board and always makes you take at least some match damage.

And does that halved heal make any difference for that situation? Those mixed fights require the most speed to kill someone, either the goon that feeds AP or the active villain to leave you alone. You very likely need spidey or mags to help you out and put the blue to actually good use. Or resort to different tactics that leave blue-collecting on back burner, as you need red/green/black for damage or purple to steal or just collecting the enemy colors, red for jug/rag, green then yellow for ares, purple for moonie, black for venom. Quite rare when you go for blue fast with just for OBW. As it leaves you likely quite dead quite soon.

Of course no one should go after blue only for the healing's sake. Purple and other special abilities should be prioritized.
What Magneto, what Spidey? Spidey and oBW on the same team are overkill (paranoid). For PvE I run mStorm, oBW and some damager (Panther, Punisher, Psylocke, or Daken when no one special is required) and I couldn't be happier. They can dispatch practically any enemy barring lvl 230 Ares or Juggernaut with minions feeding them, and there is enough blue to heal afterwards.

edit. Magneto is one of the most difficult characters to obtain, if you have him you probably don't need oBW in the first place.
Sheesh like you're from a different planet. For a 2**, oBW puts her blue to a *very* good use. Don't like it, don't use her. Why run a character for one ability only (Recon)? Espionage is great but if you mention Magneto it's just weird. Just run the Hood instead, he doesn't even require any AP to steal enemy AP, he doesn't have any 'irrelevant' healing, but can deal with CD tiles if granted 15-18 yellow, it's a win-win.

over_clocked

pasa_ wrote:

locked wrote:

I have been fighting teams of oBW and Thor/Wolverine/Ares (usually Thor though) in every PvP event for quite some time now, same roster after all.
And the 3-5-5 oBW is as more dangerous than 5-5-3 oBW as 5-5-3 mStorm is more dangerous than 5-3-5 mStorm: the build is faster, more aggressive, harder to deny. If I notice enemy oBW having a level 5 recon, I can even relax and stop watchig purple like a hawk which is nice. Even if she miraculously acquires 11 purple (it's A LOT in a oBW vs. oBW battle!) she's dead by the next turn.

As I said earlier IME the 3P version is not more dangerous just more annoying. Yep, it is a nuisance if she finds purple to shoot. But will not kill me and I steal the lot back in few turns. While if the 5P one goes off (certainly harder chance to get), it may be good idea to retreat right there. I recall at least one game of overconfidence having 11P and wait up with steal, board looked safe enough. AI makes a match filing in all purples plus takes one of mine, next turn recons me and I never see a purple tile for next whatever turns. O,O Forgot how that one ended, but not the point really.

Cascades can happen to any enemy roster, the enemy doesn't have to have specifically lvl 5 recon oBW to win in such a case. I kinda almost see your point but enemy oBW simply shouldn't live that long! Kill it with fire, anything, then you can relax and be overconfident all you want. I know I relax after killing enemy oBW.

Unknown

Modern Storm can infinite by herself, especially on desert and forest. When you have infinite AP it obviously doesn't matter what level of AR you're using because infinite is still infinite. For that matter, using OBW at all with Modern Storm is a good way to bore yourself to death unless the third person on the team is Patch.

over_clocked

It's not your business how boring or exciting my playtime is, I deem Patch boring, eat it. He's boring to his own death.
mStorm and oBW have awesome board and AP control and colour synergy, some 3***s could learn from them.

Unknown

locked wrote:

It's not your business how boring or exciting my playtime is, I deem Patch boring, eat it. He's boring to death.
mStorm and oBW have awesome board and AP control and colour synergy, some 3***s could learn from them.

Sure, as long as you don't run The Hood/Modern Storm/OBW and complain that you kill enemies too slow because you made a team that's unbelievably wimpy with no trace of offense whatsoever, except you did. And despite the fact that you're running some of the unbelievably wimpy teams with no offense that's built on never letting the enemy take a turn (maybe because this is the only way you can win), you apparently still feel insecure enough to max out your blue even when your opponent has to be taking no turns for you to win at all.

The argument I've seen for 5 blue is rather hilarious lesson in irony. On one hand you're so insecure that you had to max out a marginal heal ability, but when confronted to why you didn't max out AR5, which is OBW's best offensive ability, you get these argument like "I'm a total offensive wizard and my opponents never live long enough for me to use AR3 more than once". Except that, if you're really an offensive wizard, you would know that the extra heal absolutely doesn't matter for an offensive wizard that wins a match while taking less than 1000 damage total.

Unknown

Anything other than 3/5/5 is severely ****. Hard. Try playing the mirror without 3/5/5. Lol. 2 purple matches and it's game over.

over_clocked

Phantron wrote:

locked wrote:

It's not your business how boring or exciting my playtime is, I deem Patch boring, eat it. He's boring to death.
mStorm and oBW have awesome board and AP control and colour synergy, some 3***s could learn from them.

Sure, as long as you don't run The Hood/Modern Storm/OBW and complain that you kill enemies too slow because you made a team that's unbelievably wimpy with no trace of offense whatsoever, except you did. And despite the fact that you're running some of the unbelievably wimpy teams with no offense that's built on never letting the enemy take a turn (maybe because this is the only way you can win), you apparently still feel insecure enough to max out your blue even when your opponent has to be taking no turns for you to win at all.

The argument I've seen for 5 blue is rather hilarious lesson in irony. On one hand you're so insecure that you had to max out a marginal heal ability, but when confronted to why you didn't max out AR5, which is OBW's best offensive ability, you get these argument like "I'm a total offensive wizard and my opponents never live long enough for me to use AR3 more than once". Except that, if you're really an offensive wizard, you would know that the extra heal absolutely doesn't matter for an offensive wizard that wins a match while taking less than 1000 damage total.

Dude, did you read that post or what. I specifically wrote, 'troll team of Hood, mStorm and oBW', I was curious and testing the offensive capability of that given team. Do you see me running around recommending that team as the best offensive team? My post had the exact opposite goal. I actually ran it once, that one time, and you now grab the facts without considering the context. It's not like you, or maybe it totally is.
My enemies take turns all the time, even when I run Spidey, and I don't run Spidey nearly as often as oBW. Please do not dare make any assumptions about my game style without seeing it. I never need a level 5 recon because purple isn't such a deadly colour usually anyway, what's so hard to understand? The only enemies that should die fast that I mentioned are Spidey, oBW, cStorm, the Hood, mStorm. Some of the easiest to kill characters. You try to justify your whatever build, it's fine, don't even try to convince me it's even a sliver better than mine, because I don't have lvl 141 dudes where 5 blue becomes irrelevant and level 5 purple suddenly becomes super viable even moreso than level 3 purple.
Would you please just stop being so ignorant and remember that there are 2** players and players in transition.

over_clocked

oBW's healing ability is so irrelevant, why you argue then that it shouldn't exist? Why you bother discussing such an irrelevant character with only one good ability, which is 11 purple? Your build is superior, in your own tiny universe, now don't interfere with players who recommend the true viable build which is 3-5-5. And then 5-5-3 if you care when you made the transition and don't care about Espionage anymore.
People choosing oBW builds don't listen to Phantron he actively hates the character and her abilities (maybe because of the build he chose).

Puritas

+1 for 3/5/5

Waiting for 11 purple vs any team with hood or another obw is too painful
and by lategame if you ever break out obw it's as offensive heals to keep your games rolling quickly; not much reason to swap to her if blue gets nullified by countdown tiles

Phaserhawk

pasa_ wrote:

locked wrote:

I have been fighting teams of oBW and Thor/Wolverine/Ares (usually Thor though) in every PvP event for quite some time now, same roster after all.
And the 3-5-5 oBW is as more dangerous than 5-5-3 oBW as 5-5-3 mStorm is more dangerous than 5-3-5 mStorm: the build is faster, more aggressive, harder to deny. If I notice enemy oBW having a level 5 recon, I can even relax and stop watchig purple like a hawk which is nice. Even if she miraculously acquires 11 purple (it's A LOT in a oBW vs. oBW battle!) she's dead by the next turn.

As I said earlier IME the 3P version is not more dangerous just more annoying. Yep, it is a nuisance if she finds purple to shoot. But will not kill me and I steal the lot back in few turns. While if the 5P one goes off (certainly harder chance to get), it may be good idea to retreat right there. I recall at least one game of overconfidence having 11P and wait up with steal, board looked safe enough. AI makes a match filing in all purples plus takes one of mine, next turn recons me and I never see a purple tile for next whatever turns. O,O Forgot how that one ended, but not the point really.

You are not going to steal it back if she keeps matching purple, that's the thing. In a 1v1 3/5/5 OBW vs 5/3/5 or 5/5/3, the lvl 5 purples won't win and you won't be stealing anything back when you are either A. Dead, B. I blew all my AP on other skills so you have nothing to steal and yes 1/2 heal is better than nothing, since most guys are 5800 max health, getting almost 10% of your health back is really nice, and 20% if there are no tiles. I can tell you this, if the plan to buff Hawkeye, and Captain America, along with the lot of new CD tile characters, Punisher, Hulk, Ares, Psylocke and Black Panther, you are seeing the increase of CD tiles, losing that heal sucks. How many games have you won by the skin of your teeth?

I think you understimate the power of blacks' passive, I can deny your purple, blue and black and cast my purple faster. You can kill a 5/3/5 OBW before she can do anything, you can't always kill a 3/5/5 before she does, and when I'm on Defense and my 3/5/5 steals your other colors before you and my guys go off while your OBW is out, she's gone

Unknown

Okay, I took my 5/5/3 to 5/4/4 and healing strength dropped. Can anyone confirm if lvl3<->4 also have different healing strengths?

Btw, I have 2 OBWs because there didn't exist respec before so I have experience with both. I like 3 purple and it's good, but I prefer 5 purple more. It's really not as black and white as people make it to be. Both versions are good.

Imo the obw mirror has very little to do with build rather just luck of the board. But if we create a hypothetical situation where purple matches are always available, I'd say 5 purple wins.

Unknown

Sorry IHeartHawtHats but that is 100% incorrect IMHO. The mirror is 100% build dependent and not luck of the board. And your hypothetical situation is even more incorrect. 3/5/5 is the build that will get you to a 3 star roster. I will tell you and everyone how to play the OBW mirror.

1: wait til opposing OBW matches purple
2: match purple twice, stealing 1 purple ap both times in the process
3: steal all their ap
4: game

There is no luck to this. If you built your OBW correctly, you will always win the mirror match. Since in the 2 star bracket all you fight is OBW mirror matches, and since defeating OBW first in battle is how you win, it would seem that building her correctly might be the optimal choice, no?

Unknown

Here's a better strategy:

1. Make enemy only match enviornmental tile.
2. Win.

It's pretty incredible that people are talking about these strategy assuming everything happens to go your way, especially given the same guys can usually be found complaining about enemy miracle cascades. Because the AI is pretty much unpredictable you can't even try to let them match purple first (because they don't prioritize it). If you seriously try to give up the first purple match to the computer, you'll find that you're simply wasting your time at least 80% of the time simply because the AI doesn't care about purple over any other color. You'd think people would've learned their lesson from the Daredevil tournaments that the AI avoids any trap you setup simply because it doesn't care about the colors themselves.

You're supposed to have an advantage on the AI because they randomly match environmental tiles where the environmental effect is irrelevent, effectively giving you an extra turn. This, combined with the fact that the player always goes first, gives the player a significant advantage. It's got nothing to do with your strategy. The assumption that a single casting of AR3 wins the game is ridiculous, and if it's actually true OBW is unbelievably overpowered. Maybe if you played an extremely few number of games, you can actually have time to analyze every position and do it correctly. Of course playing at that pace ensures you'd never be competitive in PvP because playing quickly is key to a good placement.

Unknown

muffinmonger wrote:

Anything other than 3/5/5 is severely ****. Hard. Try playing the mirror without 3/5/5. Lol. 2 purple matches and it's game over.

Sure as hell I tried it a lot... OBW was my main worker since about the no mans land tournamnent.

And if taking a triplet of your AP is game over your team is hardly too good, especially if it should just sit around for 2-3 more turns till you steal most of it back with extras.

Unknown

pasa_ wrote:

ihearthawthats wrote:

Iirc blue has a hidden modifier that increases heal on lvl up? So 4 blue is not as bad as it appears.

Imo 5 purple is good. Right now I'm deciding between 5/4/4 or 5/3/5. If people start using CDs more in PVP, I might go 5 in blue.

Compendium states "Max Level: Heals 1139HP". That is consistent with what 3 blue with lvl85 does. What your 5 blue one does in reality?

I checked again, actually it heals 1050 with 3 blue, so indeed there is a 89 pt difference. In practice it was too small for me to notice and it does not change any of my opinion.

Unknown

Phaserhawk wrote:

You are not going to steal it back if she keeps matching purple, that's the thing. In a 1v1 3/5/5 OBW vs 5/3/5 or 5/5/3, the lvl 5 purples won't win and you won't be stealing anything back when you are either A. Dead, B. I blew all my AP on other skills so you have nothing to steal and yes 1/2 heal is better than nothing, since most guys are 5800 max health, getting almost 10% of your health back is really nice, and 20% if there are no tiles. I can tell you this, if the plan to buff Hawkeye, and Captain America, along with the lot of new CD tile characters, Punisher, Hulk, Ares, Psylocke and Black Panther, you are seeing the increase of CD tiles, losing that heal sucks. How many games have you won by the skin of your teeth?

I think you understimate the power of blacks' passive, I can deny your purple, blue and black and cast my purple faster. You can kill a 5/3/5 OBW before she can do anything, you can't always kill a 3/5/5 before she does, and when I'm on Defense and my 3/5/5 steals your other colors before you and my guys go off while your OBW is out, she's gone

Err, maybe we talk about different things. I talk about playing against the AI we actually have in MPQ. Not real human vs human. The AI has no strategy to go after some color or ability consistently. So denying you purple is just not happening in practice. And steal-back works alright. As I sad I did it not one time.

Also I know pretty well all the occasions when CDs are out and I want to heal or even shot it off by mistake . Yep, the latter happened a few times. The former is really painful. Still was not worth the switch by a huge margin. As the other kind of cases clearly dominate. It's pretty rare for me to lose characters due to no healing, and when they go down it's usually spectacular. Like a ton of strike tiles sitting around or abilities primed to shoot 2-3-4-6k damage.

Unknown

Not sure what you are talking about Phantron. DId you know that you can actually match OTHER colors while waiting for the ai to match purple? Pretty crazy!! Also, make the ai make only environmental matches? Have fun with that brah. I'm telling people as someone with experience with the correct build of OBW over hundreds of matches how to play and win with her correctly. Take it as you will. Nitpick away.

mouser

I can't speak for how other folks play, but I use OBW with CD's in play extremely frequently. If only in the PVE goon matches to interspace goon fights inbetween more difficult dark avenger fights where I can top off healing against the goons. Not to mention all the PVE fights we're seeing with goons and dark avengers together.

Maybe I'd play differently with a 5/5/3 Spidey, but mine isn't quite at that level yet.

Unknown

so I used the character thread post to find this thread to look at how each skill increases with levels and found that the black skill is not listed anywhere on the first page. I dont know if it was mentioned later, but since this is the "official" thread for OBW, can we get an update on the first post that includes her black skill?