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

over_clocked

^ Might as well respec her to 3/5/5 then (pros: always heals, 2 turn recon (3 turn if you hog all the purple yourself); cons: none that I can think of. Oh yeah you won't have to wait for the opponent to get 4 of every colour so as not to waste your level 4 recon. I GUESS IT'S PROS TOO).

HailMary

locked wrote:

Also her healing will be ****.

This afterthought is the primary reason I don't see myself ever running a 5/4/4 OBW. 3/5/5 or 5/5/3 OBW FTW.

Unknown

Any takers for 4/2/2? That's what I have right now.

I'm aiming for 3/5/5, but I felt that it made more sense to use the cover I had so that she was strong a bit stronger and I have no real regrets right now. I will respec when I get the covers.

over_clocked

Well, an afterthought for classic Magneto: even if he acquires 10 purple, it's not the end of the world yet, I was fighting in one of the LRs against uber-buffed Magneto with my uber-buffed Doom, so when Magneto got ready to translocate my sorry butt, I converted most blues to blacks. His translocation did some really pitiful damage (I lost anyway but it wasn't thanks to Magneto's purple by any means when he has spammable blue and red). The points is, most purple powers are really not very damaging or are countered somewhat easily enough: e.g. Moonstone ready to warp? Place a special tile, be it a web tile, a CD, a strike tile, a protect tile, an attack tile, a locked tile, anything. Magneto ready to translocate? Get rid of some blues on the board fast. GSBW ready to fire off Deceptive tactics? Match green so that she's less likely to get cascades.
Max recon oBW ready to steal your precious purple? You were too smug and let her live long enough, can't blame the game for punishing you.

NorthernPolarity

locked wrote:

Well, an afterthought for classic Magneto: even if he acquires 10 purple, it's not the end of the world yet, I was fighting in one of the LRs against uber-buffed Magneto with my uber-buffed Doom, so when Magneto got ready to translocate my sorry butt, I converted most blues to blacks. His translocation did some really pitiful damage (I lost anyway but it wasn't thanks to Magneto's purple by any means when he has spammable blue and red). The points is, most purple powers are really not very damaging or are countered somewhat easily enough: e.g. Moonstone ready to warp? Place a special tile, be it a web tile, a CD, a strike tile, a protect tile, an attack tile, a locked tile, anything. Magneto ready to translocate? Get rid of some blues on the board fast. Max recon oBW ready to steal your precious purple? You were too smug and let her live long enough, can't blame the game for punishing you.

I think thats more of Doom being a counter to mags purple than anything. Situations where you have 6 blue tiles randomly scattered across the board and you can't match any of them are pretty common from my experience playing with mags.

over_clocked

I guess my point was that you can still counter Translocation with something else besides maxed Recon. 6 scattered blue tiles mean 3 836 damage, which even Hood can survive (albeit against Hood, Magneto won't ever get to translocate anyway).

Edit: all in all, you want a 5/5/3 oBW to counter enemy oBW better, since her purple is the most used purple power in the game. The catch is that a 3/5/5 oBW can counter her too just as well.

Unknown

So, my OBw is lvl 46 and 3/1/4 at the mo. I have 2 purple covers waiting to be used/ tossed. I'm aiming for cookie cutter 3/5/5, but am I better off going to 5/1/4 and higher level then respeccing when I get blues or stick with purple at 3?

Otherwise I have 2* Thor, wolvie, daken and cStorm max cover and level.

Cheers

over_clocked

Personally I wouldn't max Recon, there are not that many purple powers in the game. 11 purple is just hard to get against another oBW. It's like going with a 5/3/5 mStorm who has a 7 red Mistress of the Elements, which, well, isn't as scary as the 5 red Mistress.

Phaserhawk

The issue I think most people forget is while activating recon if you are 3/5/5 sure you cant steal purple, but you stole more than likely 2 to 3 purple on the way to getting 8 AP, that's part of the reason I went 3/5/5, If I steal 2-3 purple enroute to casting recon, i'm really not losing much since there isn't going to be a whole lot of purple to steal anyway.

Unknown

I see everyone (else) builds the lamest variant... (ATM: 53/69

Interesting that in tournament encounters the ratio is way different.

I think we discussed the variants to death in previous threads.

Phaserhawk

According to my stat proffesor you need a minimum sample size of 100 to even be consider viable, but at the current rate I cannot believe the 3/5/5 is that popular.

Unknown

locked wrote:

Also her healing will be ****.

1050 (L3) vs 1139 (L5) hardly deserves be called "****". Either with ** or *** teams.

While I agree with observation that espionage gets mostly unused as you go ***. But many environments force team composition so it still have plenty of opportunities to surface.

Unknown

quigg wrote:

So, my OBw is lvl 46 and 3/1/4 at the mo. I have 2 purple covers waiting to be used/ tossed. I'm aiming for cookie cutter 3/5/5, but am I better off going to 5/1/4 and higher level then respeccing when I get blues or stick with purple at 3?

5 purple is definitely much better than 3 if you use it right. While the 5 blue is not needed for practical purposes, so I suggest you apply those purples for good. And keep them even later. Do you really want to leave to opponent's OBW with the purples? Or Mags?

And if you're behind in power to kill opponent in a blink more steal is even more important. With good timing espionage gets you the 11 with the same 3 pulls as you get the 8. And taking 4 instead of 3 makes a huge difference. If they happen to sit on purple you win even more and can repeat steal for just 7 more while preventing to get robbed back next turn.

Unknown

locked wrote:

Personally I wouldn't max Recon, there are not that many purple powers in the game. 11 purple is just hard to get against another oBW. It's like going with a 5/3/5 mStorm who has a 7 red Mistress of the Elements, which, well, isn't as scary as the 5 red Mistress.

Well, head-to head is the very situation 5AR wins over 3AR in majority of cases, as even if the other was faster you can take most of it back.

And in most PVEs we need to fight Mags at least once -- and too many goons produce purple too, while moonie also happily kill you in that 30% of games yo failed to produce the special at the right moment.

over_clocked

Okay, 5/5/3 is probably just as good or maybe even better. Can't try it out myself unless I get 2 purple covers in a row.

over_clocked

Healing scales, so my maxed 3-5-5 oBW heals for 614 and for 614 more if there are no CDs, which gives us 1200+.

over_clocked

Well come on you don't even see oBW often when transitioning to 3*, and at 2* stage 3-5-5 is the best build hands down. When transitioning from 2* to 3*, then maybe, probably, 5-5-3 is equally good (also for PvE). I'm at this stage myself but I don't want a more expensive Recon. It pays for itself, but Captain** isn't that popular among forum goers, is he?

OzarkBoatswain

Anybody voting for 4/*/* is flat wrong, sorry. 4 purple is worse than both 3 and 5. Compared to 3, it takes an extra turn to build up the AP, and the enemy rarely has enough AP past 3 to make it worthwhile. Compared to 5, it doesn't steal any purple, and it usually takes the same number of turns to build up.

My vote: 3/5/5, although certain teams do well with 5/5/3 too.

Unknown

Just a reminder folks...

OBW's healing on less than 5 is only "****" if cooldowns are present. The change is very minor in the vast majority of PvP situations and only really creaps in during PvE hammer/maffia.

Ozark Boatswain wrote:

Anybody voting for 4/*/* is flat wrong, sorry.

Oz, the AI often has more than 3 in a color,In most situations you will be reconing for denial 4v3 means the AI now requires an extra match / 4 match to get back within cast range.

Unknown

I think OBW is one of the few characters where you can't really go wrong with builds. The polls are an example of this as every option has a vote on it, but of course, their will always be a "popular" build.