*** Sam Wilson (Falcon) *** (Updated)

Unknown

I think it's the most interesting new ability they've introduced in a while. It adds a nice strategic element of having to destroy your own countdown tile.

I tried it once in Prologue and it was fun. Patch gave the enemies 2 Strike tiles, then Falcon turned 1 of them into CD tile next turn

HailMary

I love this mechanic. Flipping the CD tile dynamic so that you want to match your own away ASAP and protect the enemy tile? Very cool.

Unknown

I can see the confusion because the tile does say 'protect this tile for X turns blah blah' when you mouseover the actual CD tile. But every CD tile of yours says 'protect this tile for X turns' so I assume they just had a standard copy & paste description, and maybe it'll lead to people to think if that tile was destroyed then you can't use Redwing for a longer period of time. It really should say 'Redwing returns when this tile is matched or expires' on the tile itself.

Unknown

This ability isn't explained very well. I too was wookied by the prompt to protect the tile, but without understanding why? Would Redwing die? Would he fly away? Would the enemy tile return? It would now seem that protecting the tile has no benefit whatsoever. The sooner it goes, the sooner Falcon overwrites a new tile.

Unknown

On one hand it's nice because you won't get screwed out of a potential removal that you could have matched away anyways (when Redwing replaces a tile already set up to be matched). On the other hand it would be a bit more balanced to have the countdown tile placed somewhere else on the board (when matched) with a new/continued counter since we're talking about a zero cost tile replacement mechanism. That makes the 5th cover point a bit more relevant.

Unknown

So far in the Top Gun tournament, I have only ONCE not been able to match or otherwise destroy Redwing's countdown tile before THREE turns have elapsed. I feel that shaving that fourth turn would be such a rare benefit that it's not worth giving up the three extra protect tiles you would get with 5/4/4.

nihilium

****...

We get a new char, again without even one dmg dealing ability, and ppl already scream broken and nerf..

x.x

Unknown

Sorry for the stupid question, but I just want to make sure I understand his blue ability correctly. Removing the countdown tile resets the cooldown, right? In other words, if you destroy it immediately, Redwing can keep coming back every other turn?

Phaserhawk

Celerity wrote:

Sorry for the stupid question, but I just want to make sure I understand his blue ability correctly. Removing the countdown tile resets the cooldown, right? In other words, if you destroy it immediately, Redwing can keep coming back every other turn?

Correct

Phaserhawk

I know the favoured build right now seems to be 5/4/4, but after playing with Falcon a bit, I'm not sure 5/5/3 wouldn't also be decent.

Yes I know that you can destroy the tile any old time you want to reset the skill, but there have been quite a few times already I have not been able to, and having the CD timer one turn less would have been nice. Now you would give up 3 extra defensive tiles for the CD timer being one less and that is where I fear it's not that big of a trade off, however, if you pair Falcon with hood you can use black to reduce the timer cost.

I know 5 in yellow is mandatory and 4 in blue is almost mandatory since being able to freely destroy CD tiles is, well, awesome. So 5/4/4 or 5/5/3?

Anyone strongly agree that 5/4/4 is the best. So far I have just not found a reason to use Falcon's purple, and wishing the CD timer was less because I wasn't able to clear it as easily as I thought. I will more than likely still go 5/4/4 but was just wondering everyone else's thoughts?

Dormammu

Pairing the Falcon with the Hood sounds like a scary-squishy combination to me. Too much support.

Unknown

Phaserhawk wrote:

I think people are forgetting he is support. He's beefy when you think about avg supports, but support nonetheless. Falcon IMO is designed to get you to the long game, where LT's and LC's dominate. If you want to use him as a early game dominant support then you are gonna have to run him with very cheap strike tile, or attack tile personnel. I would run him offensively with either Frank, or Psylocke and then LT or LC if you don't have LT as the yellow recipient. If you run Frank, then I would go CAP just for defensive purposes as the AI will use your judgement over COTS, where as with Cap it doesnt' matter. When Lazy Daken comes out he will be an obvious choice to pair with Falcon and LT as those green matches are very nice, or you can go full offensive and combo Daken with Psylocke or Frank and Falcon. but you will have empty yellow matches.

But I say as of right now, the best pairing for Falcon offensive is

--Off:--Psylocke, Lazy Thor
--Def:--Lazy Thor, Lazy Cap
50/50--Punisher, Lazy Cap

Future
--Off:Lazy Daken, Lazy Thor

I disagree with Psylocke/LT/Falcon being the best offensively currently. Patch/cMags/Falcon is way better assuming a 3/5/5 Patch build. With 5 blue cMags and Falcon can remove the 3 enemy strike tiles created. Punisher and Patch are both way better then Psylocke for Falcon synergy with all similiar ability costs.

Before Yellow Match: Patch 3x148 (444), Punisher 3x104 (312), Psylocke 192
One Yellow Match: Patch 3x192 (576), Punisher 3x135 (405), Psylocke 250
Two Yellow Match: Patch 3x250 (750), Punisher 3x176 (528), Psylocke 325
Three Yellow Match: Patch 3x325 (975), Punisher 3x229 (687), Psylocke 423

Not only do Punisher and Patch do more strike damage but at 2 matches Patch can lose one and still do more and Punisher can at 3 matches. So there is less risk in losing all your buffing progress.

I do agree that in the near future Daken/Falcon/LT will be the way to go given Falcon's static buff damage and Daken's ability to create strike tiles.

Unknown

Rorex wrote:

Phaserhawk wrote:

I think people are forgetting he is support. He's beefy when you think about avg supports, but support nonetheless. Falcon IMO is designed to get you to the long game, where LT's and LC's dominate. If you want to use him as a early game dominant support then you are gonna have to run him with very cheap strike tile, or attack tile personnel. I would run him offensively with either Frank, or Psylocke and then LT or LC if you don't have LT as the yellow recipient. If you run Frank, then I would go CAP just for defensive purposes as the AI will use your judgement over COTS, where as with Cap it doesnt' matter. When Lazy Daken comes out he will be an obvious choice to pair with Falcon and LT as those green matches are very nice, or you can go full offensive and combo Daken with Psylocke or Frank and Falcon. but you will have empty yellow matches.

But I say as of right now, the best pairing for Falcon offensive is

--Off:--Psylocke, Lazy Thor
--Def:--Lazy Thor, Lazy Cap
50/50--Punisher, Lazy Cap

Future
--Off:Lazy Daken, Lazy Thor

I disagree with Psylocke/LT/Falcon being the best offensively currently. Patch/cMags/Falcon is way better assuming a 3/5/5 Patch build. With 5 blue cMags and Falcon can remove the 3 enemy strike tiles created. Punisher and Patch are both way better then Psylocke for Falcon synergy with all similiar ability costs.

Before Yellow Match: Patch 3x148 (444), Punisher 3x104 (312), Psylocke 192
One Yellow Match: Patch 3x192 (576), Punisher 3x135 (405), Psylocke 250
Two Yellow Match: Patch 3x250 (750), Punisher 3x176 (528), Psylocke 325
Three Yellow Match: Patch 3x325 (975), Punisher 3x229 (687), Psylocke 423

Not only do Punisher and Patch do more strike damage but at 2 matches Patch can lose one and still do more and Punisher can at 3 matches. So there is less risk in losing all your buffing progress.

I do agree that in the near future Daken/Falcon/LT will be the way to go given Falcon's static buff damage and Daken's ability to create strike tiles.

You could alway forget about Falcon and just use 5/5/3 C.Mag + 5/3/5 patch. Zerker rage, = 888 damage worth of strike tile with no yellow match then just Mag spam them to death. Still the most lethal combo know to date.

Unknown

Phaserhawk wrote:

I know the favoured build right now seems to be 5/4/4, but after playing with Falcon a bit, I'm not sure 5/5/3 wouldn't also be decent.

The purple sounds fun on paper but as long as we have Mags and OBW around I just don't see it used like ever... Especially for 12. If it was 8 maybe.
So it is like Cap's yellow, awesome protection -- that keeps sitting in the box. Turning point allocation to waste.

DrNitroman

Rorex wrote:

I disagree with Psylocke/LT/Falcon being the best offensively currently. Patch/cMags/Falcon is way better assuming a 3/5/5 Patch build. With 5 blue cMags and Falcon can remove the 3 enemy strike tiles created. Punisher and Patch are both way better then Psylocke for Falcon synergy with all similiar ability costs.

I took the opportunity of the recent simulator with highly buffed Falcon to test Falcon/Patch pairing.
The objective obviously being to quickly remove the 3 enemy strike tiles offered. I must say that it may work, very risky, but doable.
You have to wait enough blue before using berserker rage. Then one have to be aware that redwing is not triggered just after launching berserker rage but one turn later. Thus the ideal sequence is to launch berserker rage, match some enemy's purple tiles, wait a turn (with enemy's buffed damages) then the second turn, redwing can suppress a supplementary unreachable purple tile while Falcon match yellow tiles to trigger Falcon's buffing ability.

High risk high reward.
When successful, you have some buffed Patch's strike tiles without any enemy's strike tiles.
When failed, well... as usual with Patch, you give to the enemy the weapon to quickly kill you.

PS: be warned that I spend some iso to level Daredevil so I may be a sort of gambling fool

edit: I made an error, when buffed at level 120 Falcon yellow is at 59, more than Patch (52), so Patch can't tank yellow for Falcon. corrected

Unknown

Team_Xtreme wrote:

I think it's the most interesting new ability they've introduced in a while. It adds a nice strategic element of having to destroy your own countdown tile.

I agree. I was very sceptical about the ability at first, but after using it during the Simulator I think it's pretty useful. I still don't think it makes Falcon a top tier 3*, but he's certainly a very useful support character in the right situations. I could imagine he'd do very well in matches against goons to remove all the CD tiles you can't easily reach.

user311

Is there a kindergarten version of the explanation for this ability? If I have 18 purples are you all saying that I cannot use this ability twice in a row; or make 2 yellow matches in a row? I just dont get it. Why would someone use this red ability if it creates a CD where the other abilities are unusable? I guess I need to move over to the character thread and read everything. I previously just thought this tile blocked the opponents Falcon abilities.

Unknown

user311 wrote:

Is there a kindergarten version of the explanation for this ability? If I have 18 purples are you all saying that I cannot use this ability twice in a row; or make 2 yellow matches in a row? I just dont get it. Why would someone use this red ability if it creates a CD where the other abilities are unusable? I guess I need to move over to the character thread and read everything. I previously just thought this tile blocked the opponents Falcon abilities.

Redwing is a passive ability - it triggers at the beginning of your turn and only if a) you have 8+ blue mana, b) there is an enemy tile that could be targeted by the ability, and c) you do not control a Redwing countdown tile. When it triggers, the valid tile in question is converted into a Redwing countdown tile, which acts as a cooldown (the ability won't trigger until that countdown expires). The cooldown can be reduced by removing the Redwing countdown tile (i.e. matching it away, Hood's black, Captain America overwriting it, etc.).

I'm not sure why you mention the matching of yellows - that's a separate ability and can happen as often as you match yellows (if you use Cap's yellow to place 3 shields and immediately make 2 of them into matches, Inspiration will trigger twice and will buff that third remaining shield twice).

Edit: I think I mis-read part of your question. The cooldown created by the Redwing ability only affects the Redwing ability; it has no effect on Falcon's other 2 abilities.

Unknown

I've actually been using Patch, Spidey and Falcon in the Top Gun and Simulator and even though Spidey shares the same colors as Falcon, it works pretty well. Spidey has Defense Tiles and Patch has Strike tiles so why not? It was pretty funny watching Hulk's anger just trigger a cascade of -1's.

Unknown

Justdangit wrote:

Rorex wrote:

Phaserhawk wrote:

I think people are forgetting he is support. He's beefy when you think about avg supports, but support nonetheless. Falcon IMO is designed to get you to the long game, where LT's and LC's dominate. If you want to use him as a early game dominant support then you are gonna have to run him with very cheap strike tile, or attack tile personnel. I would run him offensively with either Frank, or Psylocke and then LT or LC if you don't have LT as the yellow recipient. If you run Frank, then I would go CAP just for defensive purposes as the AI will use your judgement over COTS, where as with Cap it doesnt' matter. When Lazy Daken comes out he will be an obvious choice to pair with Falcon and LT as those green matches are very nice, or you can go full offensive and combo Daken with Psylocke or Frank and Falcon. but you will have empty yellow matches.

But I say as of right now, the best pairing for Falcon offensive is

--Off:--Psylocke, Lazy Thor
--Def:--Lazy Thor, Lazy Cap
50/50--Punisher, Lazy Cap

Future
--Off:Lazy Daken, Lazy Thor

I disagree with Psylocke/LT/Falcon being the best offensively currently. Patch/cMags/Falcon is way better assuming a 3/5/5 Patch build. With 5 blue cMags and Falcon can remove the 3 enemy strike tiles created. Punisher and Patch are both way better then Psylocke for Falcon synergy with all similiar ability costs.

Before Yellow Match: Patch 3x148 (444), Punisher 3x104 (312), Psylocke 192
One Yellow Match: Patch 3x192 (576), Punisher 3x135 (405), Psylocke 250
Two Yellow Match: Patch 3x250 (750), Punisher 3x176 (528), Psylocke 325
Three Yellow Match: Patch 3x325 (975), Punisher 3x229 (687), Psylocke 423

Not only do Punisher and Patch do more strike damage but at 2 matches Patch can lose one and still do more and Punisher can at 3 matches. So there is less risk in losing all your buffing progress.

I do agree that in the near future Daken/Falcon/LT will be the way to go given Falcon's static buff damage and Daken's ability to create strike tiles.

You could alway forget about Falcon and just use 5/5/3 C.Mag + 5/3/5 patch. Zerker rage, = 888 damage worth of strike tile with no yellow match then just Mag spam them to death. Still the most lethal combo know to date.

I agree that this strategy works however, given that outside the nerf list no-one has an ability that costs less than 5AP, I think we can safely assume that when cMags does get nerfed it will be his red that gets hit. So the strategy isn't really long term. It is possible his blue will be nerfed too however given how bad the AI plays it I personally don't think they will nerf it.

That said you could still run a 5/3/5 Patch with cMags and Falcon. You will just likely want to wait a little more, perhaps to you get 10 Blue Ap, so that you can remove the strike tiles. Even with out cMags I think that Falcon and Patch have some good synergy. Patch creates offense at a cost, falcon creates defense and lowers the cost. Could be a good PVE Team.