**** Riri Williams (Ironheart) **** Updated (8/7/17)

Jaedenkaal

I deliberately did not include those characters because it is doubtful that they will create enough tiles to make a match likely, as you yourself have noticed. The other characters make quite sizable numbers of A/P/S tiles of one color, with my one caveat for Ant-Man.

himatako

Jaedenkaal wrote:

Ultimately I think this power would be a lot more useful (although less interesting) if it affected tiles of the enemy's strongest color instead. At least then it would be potentially useful against any opponent, even if individual board states don't support it, and additionally would provide some improved combo potential (with Xpool at the very least, although I'm sure there are other characters who would benefit from having one color concentrated in the center of the board)

I really like this idea. It has potential and stay true to the flavour text (disarming her opponents). You could even add "convert enemy's special tiles to enemy's strongest color" before moving them to the center of the board.

This will make her blue much more versatile. Moving more tiles mean higher chance of special tiles being moved to the center. Converting enemy's special tiles to enemy's strongest color could also result in free matches. Carol's green passive will get benefits from this too, since more enemy's strongest tile = more likely it will be matched and activates her passive.

Black Duke

After testing my 2/2/2 Riri out in the second Sub of HoD I have to say that her blue ability isn´t utterly useless.

Situation: Riri-Essential with Muscle, Konran, Muscle

Muscles spawning their CD tiles in a ridiculously high rate, a yellow CD tile resolve adding two overpowered blue Strike tiles to different corners of the board. Another blue CD tile is about to resolve which would down my whole team. I used Riri´s Magnetic Repulsors which attracted the two blue Strike tiles to the center of the board where I could match them. That saved my day!

Medusa would be a good partner for her (especially when you play Riri with blue at 5). Riri attracts the enemies` special tiles, matches them eventually and Medusa gains the AP (which would also fuel Ironheart`s blue and green). I´m looking forward to use them together in the upcoming "Venom Bomb" event.

Polares

Black Duke wrote:

Medusa would be a good partner for her (especially when you play Riri with blue at 5). Riri attracts the enemies` special tiles, matches them eventually and Medusa gains the AP (which would also fuel Ironheart`s blue and green). I´m looking forward to use them together in the upcoming "Venom Bomb" event.

Why would anyone want to match those tiles away when Medusa is around ???? Just fire Medusa's purple and steal those tiles!!!

Thing is, Medusa makes this character obsolete/useless most of the time, she might be good creating cascades but as a special tile specialist, Medusa is better. This is one of the reason's it is so sad Riri was released just a month (maybe two?) after Medusa.

Black Duke

Polares wrote:

Black Duke wrote:

Medusa would be a good partner for her (especially when you play Riri with blue at 5). Riri attracts the enemies` special tiles, matches them eventually and Medusa gains the AP (which would also fuel Ironheart`s blue and green). I´m looking forward to use them together in the upcoming "Venom Bomb" event.

Why would anyone want to match those tiles away when Medusa is around ???? Just fire Medusa's purple and steal those tiles!!!

Thing is, Medusa makes this character obsolete/useless most of the time, she might be good creating cascades but as a special tile specialist, Medusa is better. This is one of the reason's it is so sad Riri was released just a month (maybe two?) after Medusa.

It was just a suggestion. I guess it's a suboptimal pair since they are both characters of the same niche (special tile manipulation). But Riri has an advantage over Medusa because she has a strong red nuke and decent green ability. So if you want to build a team of special tile manipulators Riri could play the part of the damage-dealer.

Skygazing

Black Duke wrote:

But Riri has an advantage over Medusa because she has a strong red nuke and decent green ability. So if you want to build a team of special tile manipulators Riri could play the part of the damage-dealer.

I wouldn't say she has an advantage at all. Medusa's Red is awesome damage for free, that after just one match becomes ~1200 per turn. In the time it takes to gather enough AP for Riri's Red to fire (3-4 turns on average, assuming you can get at least 3 red per turn) you'll have dealt anywhere between approximately 1200 to 6000 damage for free. On top of that you could've gathered enough AP for another character's power.

Riri's Green is very mediocre damage and a small effect given the cost, and even against special tiles her Blue is incredibly lackluster (especially since you'll need 5 in both Red and Green for decent damage) for its cost. Meanwhile Medusa's Purple is crazy against special tiles and a way better effect for just one more AP, and her Yellow is just the cherry on top.

Medusa slots nicely into almost any team and becomes crazy with or against characters like Carnage. Riri performs at a moderate level in very niche scenarios and is subpar outside of that. I don't think there's much comparison really.

purplemur

gotta mirror everybody else: CD tiles!
this should really hit the rear opponent. not only for flavor but for unique strategy play too.
this stun is wicked good! airborne is a good thing: use it to your advantage.
I her tile symbol. I like that she is stand-alone and can be teamed with ironman. Her animations are just okay. Her hp is low but she is a kid not a soldier or flexing dude, you can't actually expect her to compare to a hulk buster or cap'n.
I agree with teaming her with prof. and a reactive tank like R/hulk or CapM. maybe with IW for a can't touch this;but you do away with big green for her. Riri/prof/Electra so Mizz nachos is always sidestepping the damage?

It must be boring to only play with the same 3 chars all the time(oops sorry to rub in it 5*s) so it becomes regressive comparing to Ice/clops/teenjean/rhulk. EVERY time we evaluate a new char?-BUT-
I keep thinking she would be a playable 3*; there is only one suit in the tier and so would be a good iron alternative. and she is flat outclassed at the higher level.

It is also telling how reactive to her race people are. The Marvel universe is still quite the white mans world. In-game we have:
Luke cage,Storm,Blade,J.Rhodes,S.Wilson, Fury,KK,Miles,Quake,cho, and now Riri.
-I know my paradigm isn't getting threatened with all this new diversity.
Let's give Ironheart a chance.

seraphiel

Straycat wrote:

Mr_Sinister wrote:

Straycat wrote:

I have to agree with Vhailorx, I think health is incorporated to the character balance and design. Its not directly related and not consistent for all characters, but its there. Hulkbuster has a self damage ability, so his health could be a balance to that. Red hulk has a passive that helps if he takes damage. Thanos has an ability that puts him in front, and he can kill his teammates so he might be alone more often. Yes, they should be durable according to the comics, but they are probably designed with that in mind. If you look at just their health, you will see they mostly line up with their comic durability, but that doesn't mean they have no correlation to their moves.
In general, true healers (wolverine family), invisible characters (prof x, miles), or strong passives (Dr strange, Hood) will have lower health. There are exceptions and its not completely balanced, but I think they put some thought into overall design. And as you say, she has armor and should have more health, but she also doesn't have an awesome kit, so she should have more health.

Also, for all the complaints about having variants, the all new all different Marvel is pretty explicitly making variant characters. Its a way of keeping the audience with built in fans of a character while also updating it and being more diverse. If you are upset about diversity... I'll just say thats not cool.

"If you don't like this character, you're a racist..."

Good first half of your post, atrocious, childish second half.

Well, thanks for saying the first half was good!

My main point on the second half is that we can't really complain about getting variant characters in the game since the only new characters they are making are variants themselves. But I took exception to the "all tokenism" remark so I got a little preachy at the end. I'll stand by it tho, its not cool to be upset about diversity. I don't think that is atrocious or childish to say. All of the new heros are either women or non white, so if you are upset at the entirety of the All New All Different direction, there's probably a reason.

You have misconstrued the original remark. I'm not upset about diversity. Tokenism and diversity are definitely not the same thing.

Marvel already had an interesting and diverse set of characters. Just in X-Men they had pretty much the whole scope of humanity covered and that was the whole point: it didn't matter where anyone came from or what they looked like. An African woman could lead the team just as well as the white prettyboy, and probably better because she wouldn't be whining all the time. They could build on that.

But instead, with some rare exceptions, they're just reusing the same powers, the same superhero names, the same costumes, and doing a clumsy (often offensively stereotypical) race-lift on them. As if these non-white non-males weren't creative enough to come up with their own superhero identities and had no choice but to assume someone else's.

Crowl

purplemur wrote:

It must be boring to only play with the same 3 chars all the time(oops sorry to rub in it 5*s) so it becomes regressive comparing to Ice/clops/teenjean/rhulk. EVERY time we evaluate a new char

Almost all the comparisons to her seem to be to other support characters, other than when comparing the dmg of her red.

Jarvind

seraphiel wrote:

But instead, with some rare exceptions, they're just reusing the same powers, the same superhero names, the same costumes, and doing a clumsy (often offensively stereotypical) race-lift on them. As if these non-white non-males weren't creative enough to come up with their own superhero identities and had no choice but to assume someone else's.

There's something to be said for brand recognition. It's a lot easier for a character to catch on if they take up the mantle of one that's already recognized. Just click around the Marvel wiki for a bit and look at how many hundreds of throwaway characters are in there that get axed after a few issues, never to be heard from again.

I agree that Marvel has probably gone a bit overboard on the whole "let's make a black/female/anythingotherthanwhiteguy version of every character" thing, but it does make sense to do it the way they are if they want to be sure the more diverse set of characters have an automatic baseline audience and don't just get dismissed and forgotten.

bigsmooth

I have to agree with those saying that blue should also attract CD tiles, especially at 5 covers. Right now the blue is incredibly situational. Add in CDs and at least she would work well against goons and a few other characters.
She's already a bit of a glass cannon so I don't think making the blue a bit stronger would throw anything off balance.

seraphiel

bigsmooth wrote:

I have to agree with those saying that blue should also attract CD tiles, especially at 5 covers. Right now the blue is incredibly situational. Add in CDs and at least she would work well against goons and a few other characters.
She's already a bit of a glass cannon so I don't think making the blue a bit stronger would throw anything off balance.

There was a very good suggestion up there to add an alternate effect if there aren't any tiles for it to work on.

They should probably go back through every active power with a requirement like that and adjust them the same way. Or at least make the bar stop blinking like you can use it when you actually can't.

Straycat

seraphiel wrote:

Straycat wrote:

Mr_Sinister wrote:

Straycat wrote:

I have to agree with Vhailorx, I think health is incorporated to the character balance and design. Its not directly related and not consistent for all characters, but its there. Hulkbuster has a self damage ability, so his health could be a balance to that. Red hulk has a passive that helps if he takes damage. Thanos has an ability that puts him in front, and he can kill his teammates so he might be alone more often. Yes, they should be durable according to the comics, but they are probably designed with that in mind. If you look at just their health, you will see they mostly line up with their comic durability, but that doesn't mean they have no correlation to their moves.
In general, true healers (wolverine family), invisible characters (prof x, miles), or strong passives (Dr strange, Hood) will have lower health. There are exceptions and its not completely balanced, but I think they put some thought into overall design. And as you say, she has armor and should have more health, but she also doesn't have an awesome kit, so she should have more health.

Also, for all the complaints about having variants, the all new all different Marvel is pretty explicitly making variant characters. Its a way of keeping the audience with built in fans of a character while also updating it and being more diverse. If you are upset about diversity... I'll just say thats not cool.

"If you don't like this character, you're a racist..."

Good first half of your post, atrocious, childish second half.

Well, thanks for saying the first half was good!

My main point on the second half is that we can't really complain about getting variant characters in the game since the only new characters they are making are variants themselves. But I took exception to the "all tokenism" remark so I got a little preachy at the end. I'll stand by it tho, its not cool to be upset about diversity. I don't think that is atrocious or childish to say. All of the new heros are either women or non white, so if you are upset at the entirety of the All New All Different direction, there's probably a reason.

You have misconstrued the original remark. I'm not upset about diversity. Tokenism and diversity are definitely not the same thing.

Marvel already had an interesting and diverse set of characters. Just in X-Men they had pretty much the whole scope of humanity covered and that was the whole point: it didn't matter where anyone came from or what they looked like. An African woman could lead the team just as well as the white prettyboy, and probably better because she wouldn't be whining all the time. They could build on that.

But instead, with some rare exceptions, they're just reusing the same powers, the same superhero names, the same costumes, and doing a clumsy (often offensively stereotypical) race-lift on them. As if these non-white non-males weren't creative enough to come up with their own superhero identities and had no choice but to assume someone else's.

Maybe I did misinterpret it. But to me, saying "its just tokenism" is like saying "why does she have to be black?" That makes me think "why shouldn't she be?" but also that you'd rather she not be. So that's where I am coming from, glad to be wrong.
I don't have an issue with them keeping character names and giving them to someone else, but I can see if others do.

I think of it more as a reboot, so of course they have the same name/power/costume. They wanted to reboot the Avengers because that is a name that means something. And the back catalogue for the original characters are impossible to get thru. Thats why they stop numbering sequels at some point. Fomo is real. I just recently started reading comics, and I read all of Kamala Khans first series. I enjoyed it, and I enjoyed that I had read basically every story this character was in. And I heard about her because the headline was "Ms Marvel is now a pakistani girl"

It gives weight to the character and it allows the original characters to have new storylines based on how they've changed after giving up the mantle, I think

Straycat

Do we know if the tiles are matched after they get locked? I thought they move and lock once the board settles, but I haven't been able to confirm. Also, does the countdown remove non locked tiles?

Omega Red

Jarvind wrote:

seraphiel wrote:

But instead, with some rare exceptions, they're just reusing the same powers, the same superhero names, the same costumes, and doing a clumsy (often offensively stereotypical) race-lift on them. As if these non-white non-males weren't creative enough to come up with their own superhero identities and had no choice but to assume someone else's.

There's something to be said for brand recognition. It's a lot easier for a character to catch on if they take up the mantle of one that's already recognized. Just click around the Marvel wiki for a bit and look at how many hundreds of throwaway characters are in there that get axed after a few issues, never to be heard from again.

I agree that Marvel has probably gone a bit overboard on the whole "let's make a black/female/anythingotherthanwhiteguy version of every character" thing, but it does make sense to do it the way they are if they want to be sure the more diverse set of characters have an automatic baseline audience and don't just get dismissed and forgotten.

There's plenty of incentives for Marvel to play the diversity game. It's just so convenient, it pushes forward so many agendas at the same time: political, comercial, PR, movie development, brand awareness outside geek circles, etc.

Eventually Robert Downey Jr. will stop playing Iron man and when that happens they'll be able to plug in any token black girl in his place. Biggest reason to use established mantles over new characters. Actors will pass the mantle of their movie franchises.

Tilesmasher

Using the loaner in her pvp event, I tried using the centering tiles power twice in a row while there was 5 yellow and 4 green special tiles on the board, not a single match.

She's dead weight. Her red is efficient but so is the human torches.

TLCstormz

Mr_Sinister wrote:

Straycat wrote:

If you are upset about diversity... I'll just say thats not cool.

"If you don't like this character, you're a racist..."

Good first half of your post, atrocious, childish second half.

No one what find this extremely disgusting?

And scary? lol

Quebbster

I got a Selfless Intervention teamup in PvP last night. Looks like a good option - for 8 AP, you deal some damage and send an enemy Airborne without having to send one of your team Airborne too.

notamutant

Quebbster wrote:

I got a Selfless Intervention teamup in PvP last night. Looks like a good option - for 8 AP, you deal some damage and send an enemy Airborne without having to send one of your team Airborne too.

Or for the same amount of AP, you can stun the entire enemy team for a turn, and another guy for 5 turns. And be able to send the team up out again just a few hours later.

Vhailorx

notamutant wrote:

Quebbster wrote:

I got a Selfless Intervention teamup in PvP last night. Looks like a good option - for 8 AP, you deal some damage and send an enemy Airborne without having to send one of your team Airborne too.

Or for the same amount of AP, you can stun the entire enemy team for a turn, and another guy for 5 turns. And be able to send the team up out again just a few hours later.

At least gwen pool give's 3 XP each time you ship her out. Though the shorter cool down on mbw probably makes her more xp efficient overall.