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

Unknown

ronin-san wrote:

Piss off with the "OBW is overpowered" nonsense. She's situationally brilliant. She's easily neutralized, and has no big attacks. She is a good chiseler. She can be almost be taken down with one wolverine red attack. That means, you attack her first to whittle her down and throw big damage at her.

In any fight, there's one character you need to kill of first. M Storm. Punisher. Thor before he damages all w/ that Call the Storm. GSBW before she gets 19 green. etc...

But to say that a 2 star is so OP, especially when she's so easily defeated? Nonsense.

Probably you're far off in 3* territory already and are capable of shutting her off quickly. If you're playing with a 2* roster and focus on any other character first you'd get AggressiveReconned to death before you can fire any of your big abilities. Adamantium Slash is 12 red AP, Call of the storm 14 green, Sniper rifle 19(!) green. While you get there I can fire a 8 AP Aggressive Recon and use it to fuel MY own big shots. Modern Storm is even easier to shut down with OBW since I steal a blue AP every time I do a blue match.

Unknown

Tired of seeing her because it's so repetitive but she is so easy to kill.

Unknown

nicobile wrote:

Original Black Widow is OP, she should be a 3* character.

So you think giving her a higher maximum level and with that more Health Points and an even stronger healing ability makes her less overpowered?

There are a lot of 2*-characters who have better avilities than the 3*s.
The reason why at Level 141 3*s are better is that they are 3*s and so can reach Level 141.

There is no "have one more star and get better skills"-rule in this game.

OBW has great skills but can be killed easily - because she is a 2*-character.
Making her 3* - THAT would make her overpowered... a 3*-steal-healer sounds to me like the bigger-better-pre-nerf-spidey.

Unknown

Let's face it. If you could heal your characters more easily through health packs you wouldn't need to use a healer.

Fact is you can't. Therefore your healer options are Spiderman.. who most mid rank players don't have leveled or OBW which is much more common.

I'm not saying she isn't OP because she is (heals better than wolverine?!?!?!) but until they buff other characters (make cap's abilities cheaper, make moonstone's abilities more useful) AND make it as easy to heal your team as it is with OBW then you'll just have to deal with it.

Let's face it though, they won't buff other characters or make healing easier they will just continue nerfing the good ones until it's better to have a hobo wielding a shopping cart than it is to have a super-hero.

Unknown

locked wrote:

I run a 3/5/5 oBW and keep getting purple covers that I eventually discard. I just don't know what I could possibly give up to have 5 in purple, I don't want to sacrifice neither 5 blue nor 5 black, especially not black as I want to get some mileage out of Patch + oBW first.
3 purple is usually enough to tinykitty the opponent anyway (definitely enough to tinykitty their oBW). I don't see in what way 5 AR is superior - it does steal more, it does steal purple, but it costs more (one match away), so it's kinda even in my eyes. For me, a 5-5-3 mStorm is galaxies away from a 5-4-4 mStorm who only needs one red AP more for Mistress.

When I played OBW I definitely didn't shoot recon the moment I got the AP -- but did that when either the stolen AP was needed right on or the opponent was about to shoot. (unless all stock over 4). Yes there are cases I'd want to recon and look at 8-10, but they are rare. More importantly, they are more rare than instances where difference between 3 and 4 steal manifests. Yes, you can get 8P fast -- but by the optimal moment you normally have the 11.

And you do it right the next recon only costs 7.

Storm is a different matter, I always want to shoot first red on first opportunity, no delay, no nothing. As that will give me most of the deserts, roses, hitechs. (the recent counter-example with Oscorp in the city where it was used for damage after bersesk doesn't count

And for restructure as black is obviously needed you go down with blue, losing really little for actual practice.

EDIT: I see BearVenger provided a great detailed analysis little below.

Unknown

BearVenger wrote:

Facing Hood, on the other hand, is like skateboarding uphill in a mudslide.

If you plan for it it's not that bad really as the tile count goes down from collecting it -- you're only hosed badly if your wanted color is sprinkled all over the board. The strategy to go on Hood is to pick just a few colors (1, maybe 2) -- a non-rainbow team may be better help here and obviously cheaper abilities.

The real utility of hood is to hose the wimps who play with AP boosts, as if they keep them, he steals all that AP over, and if they unload they play with cold turkey . Boost-neutral players pick up a few damage boosts that sit close to 30 and see hood dissolve. OTOH one probably need the experience to be brave enough -- a deal of people refuse to go for the unknown if can use the skip, so that team works. (and I bet the numerous defensive wins would show AP boost users there...)

Unknown

Spoit wrote:

Really, it only takes her getting 2 purple matches to be a threat, which you can't always prevent before killing her, even without a cascade

8AP us 3 matches. The player must mess up picking purple to allow the 2 pulls. Leave the first purple pull to AI unless you're sure to fill yours faster -- even then it's better to have them the first as with your OBW you will be at 4-2 on your next instead of the other way around. Ah, and if you started with stockpiles of espionaged colors you probably deserve what you get too

Unknown

*Goes into Krakadoom tournament*

*All three nodes are Rag, OBW, Thor*

*chuckles*

Healing in this type of game is a flawed mechanic unless made more widely available. Look at pretty much every 'party based' game made since 1983 and you'll see a mix of tank / damage dealer /healer achetypes used extensively. There's a reason for that, and if this game insists on using a healing mechanic then people will continue to make use of it to sustain their ability to play continuously.

Unknown

when both side has OBW, it never been a problem to me.... just tracking purple first, when I don't use OBW, same, just denies purple, or use hero like Astonishing X-Men green/Ares yellow green kill her first with low cost skill, and when you has 3* team, just one shoot her....

Unknown

DrUnpleasant wrote:

*Goes into Krakadoom tournament*

*All three nodes are Rag, OBW, Thor*

*chuckles*

Healing in this type of game is a flawed mechanic unless made more widely available. Look at pretty much every 'party based' game made since 1983 and you'll see a mix of tank / damage dealer /healer achetypes used extensively. There's a reason for that, and if this game insists on using a healing mechanic then people will continue to make use of it to sustain their ability to play continuously.

Since the game is a grind, you must play continuously as well. At first I thought that having a wide roster would let you avoid healing. Quickly realized that most other characters are not useful enough for this. I've actually lost occasionally to Thor and OBW. A good cascade will make OBW outsteal you or allow Thor to get yellow and green for the ko (especially in desert). I've never lost to mags storm, Wolvie and whoever, Thor storm, or any team with captain America in it. Ares OBW is the only combo that can sometimes give me trouble and even then I usually win

Unknown

Yeah, I think most 2* to 3* transitional teams can have issues with OBW / Thor on desert nodes IF the fates conspire to give the opponent some fortunate cascades early on. I don't think they're really any threat for a team with tanky health like BP, LThor, LCap, Hulk etc though.

Personally I still use OBW all the time on the grind up to 900 points. I'd love to use my lv100 Punisher more, but his smaller health pool combined with lack of healing if I don't use OBW means my grind would be pretty short lived if I did.

Unknown

Nellobee wrote:

I seriously just signed up for a forum account to complain that OBW is ****. I'm at the 2* level, and I can win against almost everyone else at that level consistently. Against OBW I'm maybe at a 40% win rate. And that's if I focus-fire her, try to deny her both blue and purple, etc.

Obviously, I don't have her covers or I'd use her, but this is ridiculous. I feel like I'm massively underpowered in comparison to any other 3x85 team that has her.

Resembles the joke on definitions: wh-ore: woman who sleeps with everyone. terrible wh-ore: sleeps with everyone but me. (the translation may be inaccurate).

So a character is **** because you don't have it, and because you have to apply actual play for a victory instead of just spamming the A button. Great.

Lately every couple games drop a ** cover so if you just play on -- select some arena with easy games -- you can have all **s fully covered in no time including her. Then we'll resume the conversation.

Unknown

locked wrote:

Firstly, if you cannot shut down oBW without your own oBW, you probably need to choose your characters more wisely (Ares is great at downing oBW from what I hear, cStorm/MMN utilize blue and purple and can stun>kill oBW), secondly, you will eventually get her too, as 2* covers drop like rain now.
Yes, oBW demands being focused early, but there are other similar characters (both Storms, the Hood).

Referring an old discussion with Phantron, the problem here is color imbalance -- in order to deal with OBW you are likely forced to pick purples at some point to some extent. That is okay if you use the color but otherwise put you at disadvantage. Now in the up-to** roster what purple users we have that are good for the team? Nuff said. Unfortunately it quite extends to the rest of the game. Even obvious-looking design path like Bewilder should be purple was not taken.

Unknown

Nellobee wrote:

I do not have Ares yet, but I am running MNMag/CStorm. Frequently before I can get the blue required for the stun, I get AggRecon'd.

And I have been stuck at three 85's for several months now.

For the record that is a pretty lame ** team, possibly responsible for your lack of progress. Since we have desert I'd bet even mStorm would get you more and faster victories, even with * company. Thor, Ares, OBW, Astonishing are all better both offense and defense.

Blergh

I dunno, I think there are other ways to make you more interested in using a wider range of covers, across star levels other than changing a cover. And a lot of them could make the game more fun.

The first would be to introduce some kind of teams bonus, like if all your character are members of the x-men you get some bonus damage to power usage or maybe a new combination attack, if power colours over-lap or something. It'd be interesting, and might be more beneficial to have different star levels then just three high cards. Or not. I mean, there are kind of enough characters now to start building these teams. A lot of people are complaining about facing the same teams as well, so this might offer some variation.

I'd also attach like achievement to cards too, that are activated through special conditions. This would also combat the repetitive team choice and prolong the life of use of covers for achievement hunters. Might also be fun to have specific challenges on the covers. Say like, bagman has to defeat venom so many times to get a hp/attack boost or something nearly impossible like do a certain amount of damage to a four star, for bragging right. Or Patches has to be partnered with one star storm for some many battles for some minor stat boost, or something. The cards remain the same, but there is an incentive to changing the team you field. So if people are getting bored of just using the same three stars, and getting 1200 in tourneys they could just achievement hunt instead.

You could even somehow turn achievements into alliance points, combat the problem that the three stars covers in pvp are going to people that do not need them but the alliance points - but dunno how that would work really - a bit iffy I admit. And any system there would most probably be open to exploitation. But might be worth thinking about - but I am getting off the point here.

The developers could even implement a system were these achievements with a specific iso level turn the character's cover into items that you can apply to any cover of that character. Say like, Bag-man, and one of his achievements and a certain iso level nets you his bag to be put on spidey for a slight damage reduction, and another the fantastic four suit so you can partner spidey with the fantastic four as a team which you can add to the covers, like a boost that doesn't expire with use. And soon as you convert him, you'd have to start collecting him again. I say a certain iso level - as not one would want to have to max three or four levels to convert, and they might not want to anyway. This could also be really annoying though, thinking about it.

It's not a perfect idea, I admit, but there's fun to be had with it - if you can get the balance right. So there are way to create more diversity in team selection, other then nerf-ing a cover. I bet there are thousand of ways that everyone posting in this topic can think of that are more fun then nerfing a character. The problem with that approach is there are always going stronger or easier to use covers that people will gravitate towards - the nerf's will never end.

Unknown

Spoit wrote:

Doubly so for GSBW, who I don't think ANYONE thinks is a legitimate threat

By itself isn't as AI has no clue how to use her excellent purple to get the shot. But in desert or company of Thor she caught me off-guard a few times, I better leave her alone in that arena. (Mostly good general idea to avoid it unless you're the one exploiting...

What's too bad, the game would be way better with even a simplistic bu sensible tile-picking algorithm improving on many characters with choice available.

Unknown

I've never used OBW. I still have her at lvl 15 or something - buuut with the recent decision to give spidey the nerf-bat it looks like I will be forced to max her out to be able to stay competitive. I believe OBW as a character would be more useful than equipping a crippled spider.

Unknown

The thing that would allow people to experiment with different teams would be to get rid of the candy crush style health kits and persistent damage. A lot of people use OBW because you can't play for a reasonable stretch of time without having heals. With this change OBW would still be good, just not as necessary as she is now. You'll get more teams tailored to take advantage of OBW's small health pool. It will never happen though because they view the health kits as a revenue stream.

Nellobee

pasa_ wrote:

Nellobee wrote:

I do not have Ares yet, but I am running MNMag/CStorm. Frequently before I can get the blue required for the stun, I get AggRecon'd.

And I have been stuck at three 85's for several months now.

For the record that is a pretty lame ** team, possibly responsible for your lack of progress. Since we have desert I'd bet even mStorm would get you more and faster victories, even with * company. Thor, Ares, OBW, Astonishing are all better both offense and defense.

I am using Thor as my third. I am close to having enough covers for AWolv to 85 as well.

Unknown

I'm currently trying to level my Ares to team up with OBW as well. Ares is at level 43 out of 54, not maxed for 85 yet

For his covers its currently 3/1/5.

And for her, I'm still trying to get her blue maxed, and I still need one more purple to put her at 3. All the PvP fights I've been doing lately have been giving me 2* covers I already have or ones I didnt want *glares at Bagman*