*** Daken (Classic) ***

inEden

lol. What a lucky prick. I haven't even got a single blue hood cover. All blacks and 1 yellow.

ErikPeter

Anyone else feel like Daken's blue is a little too cheap? I hate getting hit by a 2k damage Chemical Reaction on turn 3 of the battle. After Headbutt it's the power I wish they would nerf most.

Unknown

I think it's balanced a bit by removing strike tiles. Having the AI has actually saved me before when it's killed a sacrifice or berserker rage strike tile I couldn't get to.

Phaserhawk

I'm suprised at the large amount of 5/5/3 builds. I was 5/5/3 for, forever and when the last Daken PvP hit I tried 5/4/4 while saving a black cover in case I didn't like it. Pre strike tile nerf I felt that 5/5/3 was the better build, but now with the damage value of strike tiles going down hitting people for an extra 420 damage which would take having a strike tile out 9 turns isnt' very plausable and I have not noticed a health decrease, especially with the demise of old C.Mags and the blue spam there is always enough blue on the board unless Surgical strike removes it, that I am very happy having respeced to 5/4/4

MojoWild

So today, I watched as my Red AP was reduced by 2 or more when I launched Daken's Chemical Reaction. I meant to take a couple screen shots, but ended up winning the match with a timely cascade. It didn't happen on my next match when I wanted to capture it.
This was not an AP steal by OBW or anything, it happened when I launched CR. I know because I was going to follow up with Psylocke's Red punch and then I couldn't...
Anyone else noticed this?

mags1587

This isn't a bug. Remember, the cost of Psylocke's red varies depending on how many red strike tiles are on the board. After you removed a couple with Chemical Reaction, the cost of red went up.

MojoWild

mags1587 wrote:

This isn't a bug. Remember, the cost of Psylocke's red varies depending on how many red strike tiles are on the board. After you removed a couple with Chemical Reaction, the cost of red went up.

Fair point. I don't remember how much red I actually had at the time, I just remember seeing the bar decrease, which would show the progress of being able to cast that ability or not.

inEden

Hi,

Finally got Daken black from the gauntlet. And then got a black from token which is kind of infuriating they would come both at once like that but very happy I finally got it. So I bumped him up to 4 black by buying two covers.

I have 5 purple and 4 blue. My favourite build is 5/4/4. I've been using Daken nearly every match and I've been counting blue tiles. Situations where there are 7 blue vs 8 blue where I really need his healing to kick in is literally three times in 60 matches.

I don't use any blue users with Daken so I find having 4 in black is sufficient. That being said bumping blue from 3 to 4 doesn't give you a massive damage increase but it helps to just finish characters off to stop their passives from kicking in like Storms Yellow or Captain Marvels or Hulks.

If I felt I needed it, I would not hesitate to put 5 in black as the damage increase from 3 to 4 blue isn't overwhelming but I find I use the extra damage from 4 blue much more than I need the safety net of 5 black.

I also feel Daken's blue is underrated. I could be wrong though. I am not afraid of matching blues if Daken's health is over 60%. His blue is awesome once the board dries up of colours you want and at that point there should be weakened characters to finish off before they can get off expensive abilities.

Edit: I completely agree with phaserhawk. Characters who match blue are very rare in pvp.

Unknown

I'm always rather ambivalent toward 5/4/4 or 5/5/3. The extra bonus for black at 5 is negligible and the bigger consideration is to not get rid of 4 strike tile at level 4 for blue back when his strike tiles are stronger. Now that they've been weakened it is worth burning the extra strike tile provided they're Daken's. I don't like converting 4 strike tiles because it's a higher chance of hitting a Sacrifice tile when you do pair Sentry with Daken (which is a decent team still) but it's certainly not a character breaking issue. However I don't see where you can possibly get the 5th cover for blue, even though the upgrade is pretty significant, because the 4th black has a very significant increase in regen and it's borderline crazy talk to not have 5 in Phermone Rage.

Unknown

In my mind, I play daken because of his sustainability. From 0 to 600, I run patch daken and use maybe 1 health pack on the featured character.

So if I play him exclusively for his sustainability, why would I decrease that for a little bit more damage.

It all depends on your playstyle. From 0 to 600, I face teams that aren't even 166, so there's no threat of losing anyway.
And from 600 to 1300 and beyond I'm just sentry bombing, so I couldn't care less what daken is doing with his blue.

That's why 553 is the best build for me.

ErikPeter

I've got 5 covers for LDaken and still no Pheromone Rage. He's pretty **** without it.

inEden

Without his purple he is just a normal match tile damage guy with a weak nuke. He is my MVP though. The guy never dies or needs health packs. If he is low you can always take him to an easy pve and get his health back up.

Phaserhawk

I don't understand the love of 5/5/3 Daken anymore since the death of C.Mags blue spam and the nerf of Daken strike tiles. I agree that Daken needs 4 in Heal/Heat so he gets the 7% but the rate of heal is 71.14% of the time vs. 82.66% of the time, and it means losing 420 damage. The only arguement I see is that you won't always have 4 strike tiles out to take advantage, if this is the rationale, well then I can understand that, but assuming you can get those 4 tiles, which is fairly easy, it would take 9+ turns of match damage with that left over strike tile to catch up with the loss of that upfront 420 damage. Now I was an exclusive 5/5/3 user but after C.Mags having 8 or more blue on the board was never a problem.

over_clocked

Yeah, might respec to 5/4/4 when I get another blue. Definitely not a priority and not hurting my Daken games much.

Unknown

I had 5/4/3 for quite some time before getting his final black, and really the heal was pretty good. The only downside is if you spam Chem Reaction for damage you can eat all your blues matching them and converting them to green. Daken is the only character to convert a color he doesn't need and actively seek to make matches outside his color schema. I can see 5/4/4 but the biggest argument I've heard for 5/5/3 is you can use Chem Reaction with only 2 strike tiles on the board and not feel like you are wasting it.

5/4/4 will eat a health pack now and then too, something you don't want your True Healers to be doing.

inEden

Daken really shouldn't be using health packs. Just like when OBW had true healing all you need is a couple of minutes in low level pve and you heal right back up.

That may be an issue when there is 30mins left in PVP events but 5 black or 4 black at that point won't matter because Daken really shouldn't get low on health from match damage. Only when he is getting nuked.

At least Daken has some variation in his build which can only be a good thing. 5 black or 4 black/3 blue or 4 blue really depends on your style but isn't major enough that you can say either isn't his optimal build. I like that in a character. That they have an optimal build but small variations depending on taste and style.

simonsez

inEden wrote:

Daken really shouldn't be using health packs. Just like when OBW had true healing all you need is a couple of minutes in low level pve and you heal right back up.

I think he meant once in a while, he'll actually die

Unknown

I can't remember the last time Daken died in PvP that wasn't either a one hit kill or taking multiple strong moves in a short period of time (like 3 turns). Maybe in PvE that very slight extra regen matters against enemies higher than level 200 or against goons that put CDs on blue (which either forces you to match it or it eliminates the blue tiles anyway even if you don't match it), but for PvP the difference between 4/5 black is negligible for grinding.

simonsez

Phantron wrote:

I can't remember the last time Daken died in PvP that wasn't either a one hit kill or taking multiple strong moves in a short period of time (like 3 turns). Maybe in PvE that very slight extra regen matters against enemies higher than level 200 or against goons that put CDs on blue (which either forces you to match it or it eliminates the blue tiles anyway even if you don't match it), but for PvP the difference between 4/5 black is negligible for grinding.

Not going to disagree, but I don't think the original comment was intended to be PvP-specific.

Unknown

Isnt Daken instead of ?

Also they should either change his to or put as his highest damage color, as its the only color he has an active. This way he would be , making his heal the last ability just like his father (which heals off as third power in all variants).