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

over_clocked

^ Who do you pair with 5-3-5 oBW and against whom? Not on the same team with cMagneto, I hope? (What's the point?)

Unknown

locked wrote:

If anyone can share their experience with the 5-3-5 oBW, I'd gladly listen. But one thing I'm sure of - it's not a starter/transition player's build.

People are obsessed with blue -- but if you read through all the threads the explanation is lacking.

I built OBW during No Men Land and she was my main character up until recently (a month maybe) getting replaced by close-to-max ***s. Playing with Wol**, then punisher, patch, and really whatever goes. I considered the build all too many times up front and again when respec arrived and it is still the best. Lack of healing with CDs is real pain an a small (under 2%) percent of matches but the benefits of the other 2 abilities made difference in more than half. You can see my roster in the snapshots thread, the oldest version is mostly produced by OBW -- from there it was Mags.

Unknown

locked wrote:

^ Who do you pair with 5-3-5 oBW and against whom? Not on the same team with cMagneto, I hope? (What's the point?)

I actually played that combo too for some period, when Mags was lower on blue and heavy on purple.
In current Hunt patch/mags/obw is the absolute cheat team with OBW buffed and processing blue...

But for regular play you're right, Mags/Patch usually gets some other team-mate for me lately, not OBW.
Because espoinage stops working as others grow and healing becomes irrelevant due to speed of kill. AR less important for same reason if the 3rd guy provides good utility with more health or is simply forced.

But until you have a portfolio of 100+ ***s OBW is really good with almost anything == preferably 2 damage dealers that can convert the stolen AP to a fast win. I call caution for 2 support character teams and 3 supports is plain bad. (usual approach is to go after OBW early, I noticed if there's only one damager, it can be simpler to kill that one, then you kinda won. Especially with OBW that can heal up your team faster than the loss from just tile damage.)

NorthernPolarity

pasa_ wrote:

locked wrote:

If anyone can share their experience with the 5-3-5 oBW, I'd gladly listen. But one thing I'm sure of - it's not a starter/transition player's build.

People are obsessed with blue -- but if you read through all the threads the explanation is lacking.

I built OBW during No Men Land and she was my main character up until recently (a month maybe) getting replaced by close-to-max ***s. Playing with Wol**, then punisher, patch, and really whatever goes. I considered the build all too many times up front and again when respec arrived and it is still the best. Lack of healing with CDs is real pain an a small (under 2%) percent of matches but the benefits of the other 2 abilities made difference in more than half. You can see my roster in the snapshots thread, the oldest version is mostly produced by OBW -- from there it was Mags.

People aren't obsessed with blue, it's that people prefer 3 purple to 5 purple. 8AP is a pretty big deal since it means that 2 matches lets you recon the enemy if they already made a purple match. Having extremely fast recons matters more to people than the extra purple steal from level 5 purple, so thats why you see most people going 3/5/5. The 5 blue is only there because you want to stay at 3 purple and need to put those extra levels somewhere.

Unknown

For what it's worth since I made the transition to 3*s the only time I've lost a PVP match after going in with full health was to a buffed Hood, max cMags and max OBW.

And it was more so OBW gobbling up purple with her passive that got me, as opposed to recon or a crazy cascade (but of course that was involved too). Mags got translocation off twice.

over_clocked

Well, pasa, you are one of the very few then who's comfortable with the pain. There are more and more CD tiles characters and level 5 blue will save the player's butt countless times.
For level 5 recon to be ready soon enough though you have to assume that the enemy makes the first purple match and you the next three. Alternatively you have to make 4 matches yourself. It means 4 matches of one colour, and it's... not little to ask of the board, and many of the characters out there only need 2-3 matches to start hurting you really bad.
When choosing an oBW build, you have to ask some questions to yourself.
What does it matter if you can steal their oBW's purple mid-game when you can't steal their Big Damage AP in time? Are you ready to give up healing when a single enemy CD tile is present?
(Some characters just spam CDs while also spamming damage, see Punisher, oh and he's gonna be buffed in his tomorrow tourney. Did I mention that his CD move is also his cheapest and starts hurting your entire team out of the gate? Good luck matching away all those Molotovs so that you can heal. Oh of course you don't actually need that minuscule amount of healing (600+ with CDs present) because hey, you run an LT/BP/Hulk team, always.)

Unknown

locked wrote:

Well, pasa, you are one of the very few then who's comfortable with the pain. There are more and more CD tiles characters and level 5 blue will save the player's butt countless times.

I'm the one who feel it the hard way -- so see when it happens (especially as I have tendency to shoot recon for heal and realizes there was a CD after...) I massively hate it. But take it for all the benefits on the other side. Similar story for the 'want recon NOW but short on purple', yes had 2-3 games lost or seriously wounded looking at 10 purple and no more offers.

But for each of those pains I can pair 10-20 games won on having 5 recon and 4+ espionage. (we discussed 4/5 espionage in length earlier.)

From my zillion games I just fail to see the "countless" instances of getting saved by 5 blue. just the mentioned count of handful games overall. Even those in my head would require full heal mostly, and being helped out by half is doubtful. NP's position makes more sense about aiming for the 8AP recon and rest comes from that -- I accept that as a sensible aim despite IME it is suboptimal.

But big part of recon is serving offense, people may run different members where just grabbing one triplet in exchange for 8 pur makes sense -- sounds doubtful yet I can't rule it out.

locked wrote:

For level 5 recon to be ready soon enough though you have to assume that the enemy makes the first purple match and you the next three. Alternatively you have to make 4 matches yourself. It means 4 matches of one colour, and it's...

But why aim recon for "soon" in the first place? For me it must come 1/ just before op shoots an ability as defensive measure and 2/ when op has AP I need and will use.
IME getting 11P quite coincides with the good time to shoot it actually.

For low-cost abilities I doubt recon will save you realisticly, I definitely pick reds, greens first from juggs and alikes instead of hoping to steal them. And probably use a matching team so that those defensive early picks are also serving my offense. Also AI is easily tricked to take env and offcolor 4s while I pick actually useful material.

locked wrote:

What does it matter if you can steal their oBW's purple mid-game when you can't steal their Big Damage AP in time?

That is the major point of experience, stealing 3 or 4 makes tremendous difference. i thing I put much attention to. That was the major decision point really: my figures clearly showed that taking 3 did not save me while 4 did for good. As 3 is compensated by just 1 match but 4 needs 2 -- and denying 2 matches is that much easier obviously.

And I repeat what I said, healing 600 for 9 blue is not really helpful IME, if it was full heal at 5 blue I might come up with different evaluation, but that figure puts the feature to gambling range rather than science. Certainly I would take it for free, but not if I have to sacrifice from other abilities.

As they say best defense is offense, if you can kill the opponent a few times earlier that makes up for more points of damage NOT taken. So needs not getting healed.

Unknown

Losing 3 versus 4 AP has a 33% chance of delaying an ability by 1 more match.

Likewise gaining 4 AP instead of 3 AP has 33% chance of shortening an ability by one match.

For example let's say opponent has 6 green AP. If the green ability they have is Judgment (8) or Thunderous Clap (10), stealing 3 or 4 doesn't matter, but if the green ability they have is Berserker Rage (9), you buy 2 matches of time for stealing 4 instead of 3 instead of 1 match of time.

Likewise if you have 3 green AP and you stole 4 instead of 3 green, it doesn't matter if your green ability is Berserker Rage (9), but it does if your green ability is Thunderous Clap (10) as it'd take one less match to get there.

So while you can't say over any particular game whether the exact AP you have will matter for 3 vs 4, over the long run it most definitely matters.

over_clocked

Why would you want to deny Patch his Rage??? It's the one enemy ability that can help you on offense. Besides Snarky Remark. I usually try to deny Patch both green and red but when I have a tank, I actively hope for Patch to gather green in time before red.

Unknown

locked wrote:

Why would you want to deny Patch his Rage??? It's the one enemy ability that can help you on offense.

Err, I could think 1780 good reasons.

over_clocked

I kind of start to see the point with denying 2 matches instead of one with higher level Recon, but 5 blue is just invaluable imo even if only for oBW to live long enough herself. For her, 600+ health is nothing to sneeze at.

Unknown

locked wrote:

I kind of start to see the point with denying 2 matches instead of one with higher level Recon, but 5 blue is just invaluable imo even if only for oBW to live long enough herself. For her, 600+ health is nothing to sneeze at.

That's probably a bigger consideration for PvE than PvP, since very few CDs exist in PvP and even if one does get created, you usually can simply wait until you've a way to get rid of it and then heal and get the 100% value instead.

One thing I noticed is that level 125 OBW has a 65 blue strength while level 141 Magneto has 67 blue strength, so you need to keep Magneto at around 130ish so that you can get espionage when OBW is buffed. Espionage on Magnetic FIeld is literally cheating.

over_clocked

Why run oBW and cMags together? Overlap on 2 abilities' colour is too much for me, and cMagneto is usually better anyway so no reason to **** him because of a buffed oBW. He is perfectly able of sucking up all the available blue by himself.

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

One thing I noticed is that level 125 OBW has a 65 blue strength while level 141 Magneto has 67 blue strength, so you need to keep Magneto at around 130ish so that you can get espionage when OBW is buffed. Espionage on Magnetic FIeld is literally cheating.

Uh I didn't look at that figure, good thing I kept mags at 131 for ISO economy reasons -- now will make sure he stays under 65 blue. The advantage in current pve is just insane.

Unknown

locked wrote:

Why run oBW and cMags together? Overlap on 2 abilities' colour is too much for me, and cMagneto is usually better anyway so no reason to **** him because of a buffed oBW. He is perfectly able of sucking up all the available blue by himself.

You kidding? If OBW still gets the blue match it means every MF activation now steals one more blue and adds another 600+ damage from espionage. Like you had 6th blue for mags.

Even without OBW buff obw/patch/mags is probably best company for goon-only missions for the purple processing and additional choice to recon over translocation.

over_clocked

No srsly, **** a 3* because of a 2*? I understand that right now Espionage + Magnetic Field works wonders, but long term gimping Magneto?

Phaserhawk

But how **** is he really? Being able to hide Magneto behind another blue and further protect him isn't a bad idea. And it's not gimping him for a 2*, it's because of OBW's ability to steal blue on a blue match. You aren't gimping Magneto, you are pimping him, the question is it worth it between lvl 130 vs. 142

over_clocked

But oBW isn't always buffed and even with buffs her health is rarely more than 4,5k. How can you hide the freaking Magneto behind HER back lol? I need to seriously play some with oBW/cMags while she's buffed and he's not and see the hype for myself. But as it stands, Magneto is perfectly able of protecting himself without oBW.

Phaserhawk

locked wrote:

But oBW isn't always buffed and even with buffs her health is rarely more than 4,5k. How can you hide the freaking Magneto behind HER back lol? I need to seriously play some with oBW/cMags while she's buffed and he's not and see the hype for myself. But as it stands, Magneto is perfectly able of protecting himself without oBW.

The big thing is that you can 4 match and still get 5 back which allows you to do some very fun things. And for those C.Mags who only have 4 in blue, this is like having a 5/5/4 C. Mags.

I personally never like to expose Magneto if I don't have to. So if I can cover him in blue and have the added bonus of stealing blue, sweet!!! I personally feel that matching tiles is beneath Mangeto, thus he likes to have others do it for him and he just maniuplates the rest.

Unknown

Magneto's sort of like Spiderman, incredible on offense and not too special on defense, so I'm not too worried about maxing him out. I didn't keep him low level on purpose, but it happens to be advantageous in the current enviornment. Levels help characters who are good on defense, or do raw numbers on offense. Magneto does neither, as Magnetic Field is really an AP generator move, and he is actually pretty bad on defense due to the AI's inability to make any sense out of Magnetic Field.