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

Phaserhawk

There has/is much debate on the forum about the "best build' for OBW, I am currently a 3/5/5 OBW user and she has served me well, very, very well. But as my roster is improving and growing, I'm finding her more and more obsolete. I primarily use her as a healer but when you can't utilize her black passive to steal that extra blue, she becomes a lot slower to play and to heal. Now doing the math, unless buff's are involved, no one will match purple other than OBW, except Spiderman, Daredevil and Loki, of those 3 Spiderman is the only one playable and if you are running OBW and Spiderman you have some issues about losing health. So, having recently lost quite a few matches to a 5/x/x OBW, I have realized the power of 5 in purple, no matter how quickly I go off, I can't steal purple except for matches, and with those matches I expose OBW to damage which I cannot do. So, I am seriously thinking of moving my lovely 3/5/5 OBW to 5/4/4, 5/3/5, or 5/5/3. Does anyone have advice on which way to go, I would love arguements on builds, nothing nasty by people, just opinions and preferably strong examples as to why your build is superior.

***
Edited to add final poll results.

Item - Votes - Total % of Votes

I have/want 5/3/5 - 8 - 5%
I have/want 3/5/5 - 122 - 73%
I have/want 5/5/3 - 18 - 11%
I have/want 5/4/4 - 4 - 2%
I have/want 4/5/4 - 9 - 5%
I have/want 4/4/5 - 3 - 2%
other - 3 - 2%

Puritas

actually it's "insightful"
unless you're trying to incite civil unrest
in which case keep right on

Phaserhawk

Puritas wrote:

actually it's "insightful"
unless you're trying to incite civil unrest
in which case keep right on

Phaserhawk

I am also hoping to see what the majority of the community supports. So far the 3/5/5's are winning, which I can see why, she's very quick with stealing and can shut teams down early.

mischiefmaker

I run mine 3/5/5 and in my roster she tanks both blue and purple all the time. I don't have a problem with exposing her to damage; I'm careful to only have her take match-3 damage, and her teammates are strong enough that usually one (or sometimes no) AR is all it takes before the opposing OBW is dead. After that, you don't care if you're stealing purple or not, because there isn't anyone else with a purple worth using -- CMags, sure, but nobody runs OBW and CMags together, and BWGS, but the AI is terrible at using her purple and of course you can't run OBW and BWGS on the same team.

I also strongly prefer facing 5-purple OBW as I find her much easier to kill than 3-purple OBW.

I think that if you're losing to 5/x/x OBW, the problem isn't your OBW build -- the problem is that you need stronger/faster (harder/better) teammates.

All that being said, if you're set on switching to 5-purple, I think 5/3/5 and 5/4/4 are basically the same, and both are superior to 5/5/3.

Unknown

1/5/5 - for the lowest costing aggressive recon.

Phaserhawk

mischiefmaker wrote:

I run mine 3/5/5 and in my roster she tanks both blue and purple all the time. I don't have a problem with exposing her to damage; I'm careful to only have her take match-3 damage, and her teammates are strong enough that usually one (or sometimes no) AR is all it takes before the opposing OBW is dead. After that, you don't care if you're stealing purple or not, because there isn't anyone else with a purple worth using -- CMags, sure, but nobody runs OBW and CMags together, and BWGS, but the AI is terrible at using her purple and of course you can't run OBW and BWGS on the same team.

I also strongly prefer facing 5-purple OBW as I find her much easier to kill than 3-purple OBW.

I think that if you're losing to 5/x/x OBW, the problem isn't your OBW build -- the problem is that you need stronger/faster (harder/better) teammates.

All that being said, if you're set on switching to 5-purple, I think 5/3/5 and 5/4/4 are basically the same, and both are superior to 5/5/3.

I'm not set on switching, I just have run into a series of bad OBW matchups, part of it is they got hot on the purple, (btw I think the AI is getting smarter about searching for colors) the other part is yeah, I couldn't do enough damage sufficiently to kill their OBW, even after having mine go off. I was running Thor, OBW, and the Hood at the time, I thought I could shut down AP enough to have Thor go all bad **** on them, and it did work, but there were times I just couldn't stop it

Unknown

I'm a 5/4/4 guy but my OBW only gets used in very specific situations. Basically, in hero only tournaments or when she's buffed for PvE. The rest of my team will almost always tank everything but purple for her, and I try to heal in PvE as rarely as possible due to scaling. I prefer the big steal, and as long as she gets double strike tile damage on purple, I'm not really worried about the extra 60 or so damage. 60 damage is not much when you're already adding on Patch or Punisher strike tiles. I do not factor defense into my OBW at all. It really is a non factor.

Phaserhawk

dlaw008 wrote:

I'm a 5/4/4 guy but my OBW only gets used in very specific situations. Basically, in hero only tournaments or when she's buffed for PvE. The rest of my team will almost always tank everything but purple for her, and I try to heal in PvE as rarely as possible due to scaling. I prefer the big steal, and as long as she gets double strike tile damage on purple, I'm not really worried about the extra 60 or so damage. 60 damage is not much when you're already adding on Patch or Punisher strike tiles. I do not factor defense into my OBW at all. It really is a non factor.

I'm curious if you choose to run her in PvP what would you use or would you keep the 5/4/4?

Unknown

She's the best 2-star character, but I wouldn't re-spec her just so I can try to fit her onto a 3-star team.

Unknown

Phaserhawk wrote:

dlaw008 wrote:

I'm a 5/4/4 guy but my OBW only gets used in very specific situations. Basically, in hero only tournaments or when she's buffed for PvE. The rest of my team will almost always tank everything but purple for her, and I try to heal in PvE as rarely as possible due to scaling. I prefer the big steal, and as long as she gets double strike tile damage on purple, I'm not really worried about the extra 60 or so damage. 60 damage is not much when you're already adding on Patch or Punisher strike tiles. I do not factor defense into my OBW at all. It really is a non factor.

I'm curious if you choose to run her in PvP what would you use or would you keep the 5/4/4?

I think I would keep her like that. I would lose a fraction on her heal, but I would need to worry about countdowns killing it less often. Of course I would have to take more care when I was facing a countdown placer, but it's workable. The espionage damage is really just a strike tile abuser so I don't really worry much about the extra 60 damage. I still want the big steal, particularly for the mirror match, stealing her purple can stop the other OBW in her tracks. The higher cost is really just the price of doing business, as far as I'm concerned. It should only be one extra match, in any case.

I tend not to worry about how well my characters will perform defensively. I just assume that they all will perform abysmally. I think this is particularly the case when considering OBW, since every opponent is likely to concentrate on her exclusively until she is downed. I suppose if you pair her with Classic Storm she might be the second character downed sometimes and have time to get a recon off. I figure your defensive team is pretty unlikely to do what you want them to do so you might as well spec your guys to be played on offense.

Unknown

At what level does OBW become viable? i.e. when is she approximately equal in value to, say, a level 50 IM35 or MStorm? I've got got enough covers for a level 48 (? I think. Somewhere around there) cap and trying to decide whether to level her up or not.

(As a side note, missed one of the damn black covers in the lazyCap PVE event by like 30 seconds. Thought the event ended at 1pm EST rather than noon, and I just missed finishing my last match in time to put me top 100. Grrrrr.)

HailMary

I'm running 3/5/5 (only recently bumped up from 3/4/5), and I love it for my current pseudo-L85 team. My current LThor + AWolv + OBW works wonderfully with 3/5/5. However, I have a newly leveled L102 BP, who just barely tanks black and blue over OBW. If I run LThor + BP + OBW, then Espionage only triggers for purple, and there are no strike tile users for it to synergize with.

If I fully transition to 3* teams that don't spam strike tiles, then I might consider respeccing to 5/5/3. I just love that "heal no matter what" power too much.

Unknown

Bugbear81 wrote:

At what level does OBW become viable? i.e. when is she approximately equal in value to, say, a level 50 IM35 or MStorm? I've got got enough covers for a level 48 (? I think. Somewhere around there) cap and trying to decide whether to level her up or not.

(As a side note, missed one of the damn black covers in the lazyCap PVE event by like 30 seconds. Thought the event ended at 1pm EST rather than noon, and I just missed finishing my last match in time to put me top 100. Grrrrr.)

It kind of depends on your other heroes.

She has to be high enough level to take purple, blue, and black on matches so that her espionage works.

Also covers are important, kind of like with Spidey. With Spidey, if you have 5 blues, the levels don't matter as much.

With OBW, depending on how you want to play her, at least 1-3 in her purple ability, 3 in blue, and 3-4 in black.

Unknown

Bugbear81 wrote:

At what level does OBW become viable? i.e. when is she approximately equal in value to, say, a level 50 IM35 or MStorm? I've got got enough covers for a level 48 (? I think. Somewhere around there) cap and trying to decide whether to level her up or not.

(As a side note, missed one of the damn black covers in the lazyCap PVE event by like 30 seconds. Thought the event ended at 1pm EST rather than noon, and I just missed finishing my last match in time to put me top 100. Grrrrr.)

Depends entirely on your team, because OBW is a utility character, she has use on any team which
(1) lacks Purple/Blue/Black matches;
(2) utilizes Strike tiles;
(2) requires AP denying; and last but not least,
(3) requires a healer.

Personally, on my team of MNThor and Daken, IM35 and MStorm are less useful compared to being able to doing double damage with the **** ton of Strike tiles by Daken and denying AP.

Unknown

Phaserhawk wrote:

I am also hoping to see what the majority of the community supports. So far the 3/5/5's are winning, which I can see why, she's very quick with stealing and can shut teams down early.

It takes a 3* team before 5/4/4 starts to become better than 3/5/5, and the majority of the people are in the 2* or 2*-3* transition phase.

Naturally, we'll all prefer 3/5/5 over 5/4/4 because we need the increased damage and speedy AP denial.

I think you just hit the transition point where OBW is becoming more useful as 5/4/4 than 3/5/5, just gotta make the call for yourself.

EDIT: This will also explain your poll results, because most of us haven't hit 3x 141 characters yet.

Jathro

Doragon wrote:

It takes a 3* team before 5/4/4 starts to become better than 3/5/5...

Curious, what's your reasoning behind this statement? Is it because she tanks less colors for Espionage to kick in?

over_clocked

Might as well max the healing if you run a healer, e.g. always 5 in blue. Of course Spider-Man heals better but please scratch that, not everyone has a usable Spidey. Imagine oBW as your only healer.
Maybe 1200+ health healed (and 600+ with countdown tiles) for 9 blue doesn't sound much, but it can still be life saving and help you save health packs. 4 in black only gives you extra damage on purple (I assume blue and black are overtaken by 3* teammates), which is forgettable, strike tiles or not. There are only 2 viable builds, 3/5/5 and 5/5/3, imho. 3/5/5 is better defensively and a bit faster offensively, 5/5/3 is fool-proof offensively and more reliable (but weaker defensively if the opponent knows to kill oBW first). But you don't care about defense anyway so might as well choose the best offensive build for you, as it has been said above already.

Edit: mind you that the only person besides oBW herself that you always want to deny purple to is classic Magneto. Moonstone in PvE is easily countered if you can produce any kind of special tiles (check out her level of Warp though). Daredevil and Loki are negligible. GSBW and MMN can be tricky, but mostly negligible as well. Mooks are impossible to completely deny AP unless you stun them, so might as well not bother. Oh yeah there's Yelena with her 'Lethal' recon, and Bag-Man with his Deadly Switcheroo. 5/5/3 for these worthy opponents, I'm not sure. Against enemy oBW: yes.

over_clocked

Jathro wrote:

Doragon wrote:

It takes a 3* team before 5/4/4 starts to become better than 3/5/5...

Curious, what's your reasoning behind this statement? Is it because she tanks less colors for Espionage to kick in?

A lvl 85 oBW will practically always tank purple unless you run Loki/Doom/Spider-Man/Daredevil on the same team, but blue and black will invariably go to other people (Punisher, Psylocke, Panther, Hood, etc.). AFAIK both a 3/5/5 and a 5/4/4 oBW will only deal extra damage on purple if running with people who take blue and black, the only difference is that a 5/4/4 will deal less damage. Also her healing will be ****.

Bacon Pants

Turns out I am the only 4-4-5 vote so far. I'm happy with this set up...I don't use OBW too much these days, she fills a niche role now.