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

kensterr

Mooseman22883 wrote:

But we do not need a gold OBW!

We need Platinum or Diamond OBW. Shine bright like a diamond! Lol

Unknown

I have quite a perspective on her.

Without 3*** broken 2 AP abilities, or the raw damage output of 141s, OBW to most players is the bane of all players in the 2** and 3*** transition range. She is outright feared by the populace, and for good reason.

Aggressive Recon is a crazy overpowered skill. At the sweet spot of 8 AP for a potential 15 AP steal, coupled with the general lack of low-AP abilities in the 2** range, most rosters simply do not have the firepower to down her before the computer gets lucky enough to make 3 purple matches through cascades. Count in Purple steal from Espionage, and OBW can fire Recon off in as little as TWO purple matches.

Playing against her in this range means pure defense to deny her purples at all costs. However, as there no purple damage abilities in the 2** range, you are gimping your team by grabbing purple while the enemy team powers up. Every round of defense is another chance for the AI to pull off a cascade, and at only 3 purple matches, it does not need a miracle cascade to gather the required AP. If the board starts out bad, the odds are greatly stacked against the player to be able to defend against her long enough to prevent her from firing off recon through sheer luck.

If she gets recon off even once, the game is over. Period. Without most characters lacking low AP abilities in the 2** range (Exception: Ares Onslaught), the player will fall far enough behind in the match to never recover, outside of a miracle cascade on the following turn to recover the lost AP.

Ares is a good counter to her to down her quickly, but he is still quite rare amongst those who did not win him at his initial reveal. Further, half the time, the player cannot use him in tournaments, as he is a villain. OBW is her own counter as well. With opposing OBWs, the match will always go to the OBW that can gather and fire off Aggressive Recon first.

She is the only 2** character I still fear and causes me problems. CStorm does not bother me much, and Ares is rare enough to not be much of an issue. But, if I am looking at an 85 OBW, she is mandatory required boosts before I will engage her. Without Punisher strike tiles, 3k is a lot of HP that is unlikely to whittled down before she can cast Recon. Heaven help those that have to burn down her 3k health with only Astonishing Wolvie strike tiles.

Too many times has a lucky AI cascade or a bad board with her ruined late tourney runs. There is a good reason why Psylocke's blue was shifted from 7 to 10 AP. Defending against 4-match abilities is generally feasible. But, for 3-match abilities, bad luck or a bad starting board can end a player's match regardless of the differential in strengths between most 2** and 3*** transition teams.

Unknown

I have mixed feeling about OBW. I think Im leaning more towards the nerfing side for her though...

As someone above pointed out, her HP isnt that terribly low for a 2* character. Also regardless of how low her HP is, anti-gravity device can easily make up for that (Unless you have enough AP to use a countdown attack... like maybe Marvel Now Magneto, but his quickest Iron Hammer costs 9 blue which you probably wont be able to use if OBW has enough AP for Anti-Gravity due to Espionage). Color denial and immediate targeting works pretty well, but if theres more then 1 purple match on the board your effectively just giving her 4 AP for Agressive Recon instead of 3 if she makes a purple match, while also taking damage from Espionage.

Of the some 10 attacks I responded to in the current PvP tournament, I think 8 of the teams had OBW on them... which is alright I guess. Nothing wrong with a good character. But considering that espionage makes it incredibly easy to activate Aggressive Recon and Anti-Gravity Device, maybe they could increase the AP cost of both? The only way I can see her being a little unfair is how easy it is to quickly activate both abilities.

Unknown

OBW is still a problem for level 141. It's just that by the time you hit level 141 you probably have your own bag of tricks in case of emergency. Denial is ineffective because Magneto is the only strong 3* character with a decent purple AP consuming skill (Spiderman is decent too but your purple AP is literally asking to be taken by Espionage there since he cannot consume purple AP by himself), which means you're matching a useless color to 'deny' OBW unless you have Magneto so you're also denying yourself of any useful AP if you don't have Magneto.

The easiest way to deal with her is just use your match +10% boost X 5 and kill her with match 3s, because matching purple without Magneto is a waste of resources. These boosts aren't too expensive nor valuable so you probably have enough of them sitting around and adding 50% to basic matches is usually enough to kill OBW without compromising your AP gain.

nihilium

I really dont get what ppl want to nerf about a character with NO REAL OFFENSIVE SKILL.
To not make her OK they already gave her no attks, so now u want to take away her some HP too? o.o

Imho its not her thats the problem but the lack of alternatives.
Give us 2-3 more 2star support characters and ppl will replace her. I mean u just dont need 3 chars with red&green skills, so any change is actually awesome. But in lack of alternatives everyone runs their team with her.

WTH is everyone thinking 2* characters have to be completely useless anyway? o.o

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

OBW is still a problem for level 141. It's just that by the time you hit level 141 you probably have your own bag of tricks in case of emergency. Denial is ineffective because Magneto is the only strong 3* character with a decent purple AP consuming skill (Spiderman is decent too but your purple AP is literally asking to be taken by Espionage there since he cannot consume purple AP by himself), which means you're matching a useless color to 'deny' OBW unless you have Magneto so you're also denying yourself of any useful AP if you don't have Magneto.

The easiest way to deal with her is just use your match +10% boost X 5 and kill her with match 3s, because matching purple without Magneto is a waste of resources. These boosts aren't too expensive nor valuable so you probably have enough of them sitting around and adding 50% to basic matches is usually enough to kill OBW without compromising your AP gain.

I use the purple to power my black widow grey suit purple and then use the green from there to murder the **** out of her

Isay_Isay

nihilium wrote:

I really dont get what ppl want to nerf about a character with NO REAL OFFENSIVE SKILL.

If there are strike tiles on the board, then Espionage damage can really add up, but I agree she is primarily there to steal or heal.

nihilium

I know, IF there are tiles shes great..

But ever tried to win a match with just her left standing?
Its pretty much impossible. Even Captain America, MHawkeye.. everyone would kill her ... well maybe not Bagman lol

Unknown

nihilium wrote:

I really dont get what ppl want to nerf about a character with NO REAL OFFENSIVE SKILL.
To not make her OK they already gave her no attks, so now u want to take away her some HP too? o.o

Imho its not her thats the problem but the lack of alternatives.
Give us 2-3 more 2star support characters and ppl will replace her. I mean u just dont need 3 chars with red&green skills, so any change is actually awesome. But in lack of alternatives everyone runs their team with her.

WTH is everyone thinking 2* characters have to be completely useless anyway? o.o

No, Spidey has no offensive skill whatsoever. OBW on the other hand has incredible offensive utility. Her purple contributes directly to your damage abilities, while also denying the opponent their abilities. At 5 black covers she also becomes the #1 dps from tile matches in the game even without strike tiles on the board. This is made even more apparent by espionage proccing even when there's nothing to steal, and the "double dipping" with strike tiles makes her matches just insane.

nihilium wrote:

I know, IF there are tiles shes great..

But ever tried to win a match with just her left standing?
Its pretty much impossible. Even Captain America, MHawkeye.. everyone would kill her ... well maybe not Bagman lol

With ap steals, heals that increase countdown timers, and 219-252 damage per match, I'm pretty sure she'd do just fine against Cap or Hawkeye. Still, it's not a 1v1 game, so evaluating her usefulness this way isn't very relevant :]

Phaserhawk

Bah, she's nothing to deal with and I run her alot. The reason you see her enmasse in PvP is simple, she gives access to heal for low level teams and she can dish out damage to boot. Seeing as how I run her, I basically target her first, but don't prioritize getting purple unless they do, just to keep her from going off, At that point I've usually widdled her down, I cast Judgement or Berserker Rage, make one purple, blue, or black tile match trigger OBW's black passive and now there's is gone. By that time I have enough AP in the bank that I can go off on the big damage dealer, leaving me with the tank. It's repetitous, and sometimes they get a crazy cascade and it becomes an issue, but no, she's easy to deal with.

Yes, she can cost you games, but if they are running her, especially in this Thor tourney, essential you have to deal with 1 character as she's easy, their Thor isn't high levled

nihilium

mjsko wrote:

With ap steals, heals that increase countdown timers, and 219-252 damage per match, I'm pretty sure she'd do just fine against Cap or Hawkeye. Still, it's not a 1v1 game, so evaluating her usefulness this way isn't very relevant :]

Imho it is o.o

I understand that balancing chars that are the sole reason why someone wins a match (stunlock, dmg etc) may be necessary.
But if u win a fair PvP match (not beating up team with 20lvls less on each char or more) while using a OBW ur very likely to still be able to win the match if she gets taken out in a cascade in the 2nd round.
So she makes battles faster and easier, like every char in ur team should (since otherwise there is no use of having him/her on the team) but she doesnt lets u miraculously win matches against downright impossible odds.


Honestly?
**** are we supposed to put into a team?
Slot1: Dmg Dealer -->Punisher/Patch/Thor etc
Slot2: More dmg/Support
Slot3: Support.

So who is support?
Spidey? --> nerf
Mags? --> nerf
OBW? --> nerf
Hood? --> nerf (yes, this was demanded as well!)
MBW --> if she had higher lvl cap ppl would want a nerf
MStorm --> if she had higher lvl cap ppl would want a nerf as well
CStorm --> nerf


Ok, spidey and mags may be a bit broken, but does noone see that every single support character that has a max lvl over 69 (=usefell for more than low lvl) immediatly gets nerfed/is put on a nerf list and if not has ppl screaming nerf after them? o.o
And ppl would want a nerf of Daken as well, if he had a 3rd skill. v.v


... everyone plox only make Thor/Punisher/Patch Teams and we will remove colors like blue, purple and black from the game!

Unknown

dubmethod20 wrote:

This character is obviously too powerful for a two star character. Because of her abilities this character crushes much more powerful foes and that's great but I'm sick of seeing her face in the PvP arena. This character has completely killed the diversity of opponents teams. Just see how much iso you spend skipping matches before you find one without Black Widow Original in the mix

Indeed she's on majority of teams but how is that ruining the fun? And who forces you to skip really?
If you also use her she is perfect counter in a mirror (especially with 5 purple).

Today I fought without her in LR and Thor -- really quite a difference, I was robbed almost every game and even had one retting robbed 3 times and the op used a Rose on top. But I won all the games anyway. And it was excessive fun to shoot an OBW with Mags purple on 3rd turn (started with a 4-match and the AI was picking some unrelated 4-ers elsewhere).

So if you have something *better* use that, especially something that kills her really soon.

And it's not hard to learn form experience, if you'll get robbed make sure to not pick 1 of each color but stick to one.

Phaserhawk

Agreed. Just because a character is really good at what they do doesn't make them OP, sometimes, in fact a lot of times, its' that the rest of the characters are UP. Just look at the current 2*'s there are only 5 that are playable in PvP

OBW, Ares, Thor, C. Storm, and Wolverine and of those C. Storm and Wolverine are severely ****. You can maybe argue Magneto MN, but for the most part you are only going to see OBW, Ares, and Thor for 2*'s

So, if you are only looking at 3 characters from the 2* realm that are remotely playable, you can't be upset when you see a lot of OBW considering in most tournaments you have a featured guy, like in this Thor, boom, you only have 2 characters now to add, say you have a decent Patch or Punisher, well they are in, and since most people like to complete the rainbow OBW is a great fit.

I bet money, money, that if they ever gave Dr. Doom or Loki a third color you would see OBW's numbers drop as people would finally have another outlet for purple, blue, and black and therein is another reason, colors, she fits perfectly into a lot of decks as most playable characters don't have the purple, blue, black combo

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

OBW is still a problem for level 141. It's just that by the time you hit level 141 you probably have your own bag of tricks in case of emergency. Denial is ineffective because Magneto is the only strong 3* character with a decent purple AP consuming skill .

GSBW and Magneto Now

Unknown

mischiefmaker wrote:

While I don't really have a problem with facing OBW, it does seem like there's an awful lot of people using her, and she's probably better than all but a handful of 3* characters. I've always found it odd how much health she has, for someone who is clearly a support character with incredibly powerful abilities.

3k health is hardly much and is way less than usual ** characters, also less than the tiniest *** ones.

Those who are that much scared probably should pack up damage boosts and she's down in few turns just from tiles. Even if issues a heal once or twice.

Unknown

Toxicadam wrote:

She ruins PvP for bad players who don't understand the concepts of color denial and targeted damage.

Great summary. OTOH I'm all in for having more support-type or mixed characters and improving actual diversity by addition.

IMO OBW is pretty well balanced in power and health terms. It's absolutely not her fault we have a boatload of mostly useless ** characters and even a list of their buffs that is not being processed in last several months. Probably if Captn and Hawkie got their buffs as promised we'd see more of them in her place.

Phaserhawk

pasa_ wrote:

Toxicadam wrote:

She ruins PvP for bad players who don't understand the concepts of color denial and targeted damage.

Great summary. OTOH I'm all in for having more support-type or mixed characters and improving actual diversity by addition.

It's absolutely not her fault we have a boatload of mostly useless ** characters and even a list of their buffs that is not being processed in last several months. Probably if Captn and Hawkie got their buffs as promised we'd see more of them in her place.

Agreed, could you imagine if Hawkeye could place tiles or Cap, could do damage. Magneto MN is almost playable, he just needs something I don't know what, I think his blue could use a little rework, also if the gave C. Storm a tad more damage on her yellow, not what it was, but where it actually made you think a little you would see her numbers go down, also another healer

Polares

I think she is ok, she is not OP and she doesn't need nerfing. On the other hand a lot of 2* need to be buffed.

The real problem with OBW is that she is the only good 2* this is why you see her everywhere.

I would not nerf any other character in the game, even spidey and Mags are ok. But I would buf a lot of 3* and 2*

Unknown

GSBW is not a strong character in the 3* range and requires 5 green covers to be even somewhat viable. Magneto MN is not really a viable character on the high end unless you want to just stun your way through everything very slowly. Both characters are pretty horrible on defense as well.

If Psi-katana uses 6 purple instead of 6 black, OBW would actually have a strong counter, because after one Psi-katana there usually won't be enough purple left on the board for AR and there wouldn't be any to steal either. But since Psylocke doesn't have a purple power for some inexplicable reason, taking purple tiles is akin to skipping your turn if you don't have Magneto classic which is hardly a good idea. It's similar to how before Thor 3* showed up, taking yellow is the same as skipping your turn which makes Patch's 3y not a real weakness because they have to skip their turn (often multiple times) to shut down your regeneration, and the inclusion of Thor 3* greatly weakens the 5/5/3 build by making yellow a useful color.

I don't get what's with all the HP argument made by guys who don't actually look at character values. She has 400 HP less than say, Wolverine. Only Moonstone, Ares, Captain America, and Thor have more than 4K HP amongst the 2* and only one of these characters is commonly seen due to a combination of usefulness/availability. Then again I've heard people say Spiderman is easy to kill, despite him having the standard 5800 HP like almost any other 3*.

The problem with OBW boils down to that not only is AR extremely overpowered, there are exactly only 2 characters with a usable purple skill in terms of overall package: Magneto classic and OBW (note: Spiderman cannot consume purple AP even though his purple passive is decent). To stop AR you need to match purple, but if you don't have someone with a usable purple skill you're doing the equivalent of skipping your turn, which means you're locked into 2 characters. And if you've to use a marginal character just to consume purple you're still coming out way behind.

Unknown

She is really good, thing is, she fits a niche that other characters don't really provide. For healing there is only Spiderman and her. And she's the better option for general support. So in a game where healing is hard to come by, she's pretty much required on teams that don't roflstomp over everything.

If people could heal up easier without having to run Daken Wolverine type teams, you'd see less of her I think.