**** Iron Fist (Danny Rand) ****

Dayv

OneLastGambit wrote:

DayvBang wrote:

Danny, Sam, and Phil (Coulson). Check it. Only downside is you need to get Phil's yellow off for strike tiles before using Danny blue.

I'm still playing with this a bit, but the core idea is Danny, Sam, and someone that can generate strike tiles early to kickstart Danny's blue and generates countdowns frequently to get benefit out of that part of Sam's blue passive. Active purple would be a bonus. Trying to keep it to 4*, or Green Goblin would be obvious.

Nova is an obvious choice for you here Davy. Strike tiles at 6 red or 7 yellow AP.

It's a solid pairing, but it kind of kills my "let's find actual synergy for Sam Wilson" idea.

Jarvind

OneLastGambit wrote:

I disagree here. Why not make the bonus the exact same as Cage's?

When they are on the same team Danny creates a strike tile equal in strength to his best strike tile.

When you pair cage and use cage yellow cage creates an extra protect tile equal in strength to the ones he creates passively. No reason we can't do the same with strikes. The fact the devs didn't do this simply highlights what we all know - Strikes are valuable and protects are not.

I mean, there's nothing inherently wrong with one tile type being better than another. I suggested a weaker tile since his blue already makes a pretty powerful strike, and adding another powerful strike on top of it would pretty much lock you into only using him with Cage.

Punisher5784

I will likely pair with SL and C4rol. SL will reduce IF's blue to 3 and green to 6 to fuel C4rol.. although I might still prefer my current combo of SL, C4rol and 3IF instead, at least this version gives the full rainbow.

notamutant

Punisher5784 wrote:

I will likely pair with SL and C4rol. SL will reduce IF's blue to 3 and green to 6 to fuel C4rol.. although I might still prefer my current combo of SL, C4rol and 3IF instead, at least this version gives the full rainbow.

SL yellow only drops skill cost by 2, so blue would cost 4 AP. Still pretty cheap for an AP accelerator. 4 blue AP gives a strike tile and 4 green AP. The green only costs 6 instead of 8 AP with SL, so you just need 4 blue and 2 green to get the strike tile and do 5ish thousand damage and get 4 black. Still better teams out there for PvE though, but this is definitely a fast damage team. Of course you need to have the Carol black out already for this to work, or blue will just create a strike tile.

Peelman

Cthulhu wrote:

Iron Fist (Danny Rand)

Chi Focus 6 AP
Danny concentrates his energy to augment his physical power. Creates a strength 56 Purple Strike tile. Then, if there are at least 3 friendly Strike tiles on the board, Fortify up 1 of them and gain 2 Green AP.

Level 5: Creates strength 166 Strike tile, if there are at least

3 Strike tiles Fortify 3 and gain 4 Green AP.
Max Level:

Level 5: Creates strength 320 Strike tile, if there are at least

2 Strike tiles Fortify 3 and gain 4 Green AP.

Which one is right? At 5 covers does it require 2 or 3 Strike tiles to hit the additional effects? I don't imagine it would change at Max Level.

I'm guessing the Max Level should read 3, but I'm hoping it drops down to 2 at five covers. If it was only 2, the power would only be "wasted" if there were no Strike tiles on the board. I'd be less concerned with bringing another Strike tile generator out in that case.

DrDevilDinosaur

At a glance,

I like seeing some cheap abilities
I like that nuke
I love the chained AP acceleration between abilities
I'm ok with the colour combination
I'm surprised at the mechanics for Rank 5 of his Blue - if there's 2 strike tiles, fortify 3 of them... that's a discussion for another time.
And I'm not really won over by his Luke Cage team-up bonus.

Overall, I think I'm pretty happy.

DayvBang wrote:

It's a solid pairing, but it kind of kills my "let's find actual synergy for Sam Wilson" idea.

I have generally used a core of Flaptain + Punisher, with Kingpin and X-23 as common 3rd members. I liked the fact that Flaptain could tank blue for Punisher (keeping him healthier for when I use his Green) and Pun's relatively cheap Blue meant I could easily get some strong Strike tiles built up.

I definitely think Flaptain + Danny (Can we please call this duo Falcon Punch?) have a pretty similar synergy. This time it will be Danny tanking Blue for Sam and since you should be matching blue for that tile inspiration, I don't have too much of a problem in using Danny's blue to get Strike tiles started. Sam's Yellow laying down Protect tiles for Danny's Black is clearly the power combo that this pair are going to be aiming for. Professor X might be the best Purple active to add to the team. Big Head Mode will generate Blue AP as long as either Danny or Chuck are the strongest on the team, and accelerating blue helps to accelerate green, which helps to accelerate black. When PX is invisible, Blue matches should double dip on the special tile inspiration, which should result in some big numbers on those Strikes.

Edit: Also realised that with PX's Yellow passive, Danny's Blue will net you 2 Strike tiles with each cast. If you are running Blue at Rank 5, you'll always get the bonus AP.

Polares

He looks decent, but I would have preferred a stronger interaction with Luke. Adding extra strikes would have probably been much better.

notamutant wrote:

Punisher5784 wrote:

I will likely pair with SL and C4rol. SL will reduce IF's blue to 3 and green to 6 to fuel C4rol.. although I might still prefer my current combo of SL, C4rol and 3IF instead, at least this version gives the full rainbow.

SL yellow only drops skill cost by 2, so blue would cost 4 AP. Still pretty cheap for an AP accelerator. 4 blue AP gives a strike tile and 4 green AP. The green only costs 6 instead of 8 AP with SL, so you just need 4 blue and 2 green to get the strike tile and do 5ish thousand damage and get 4 black. Still better teams out there for PvE though, but this is definitely a fast damage team. Of course you need to have the Carol black out already for this to work, or blue will just create a strike tile.

Devs have spoiled me, every time I see someone say I will use Carol, Starlord and X, I don't really see no reason at all so it would be just better to remove X and use Coulson (Or even Carol, X, X or Starlord, X, X ). This team is so stupidly strong for PvE at least, it doesn't even matter that none of them is buffed. The only team that might be better is basically changing Starlord for 5 Hawkeye. But both teams are basically the strongest team in PvE. Once it starts going you can't lose, even against stronger enemies.

GrumpySmurf1002

notamutant wrote:

Nova or Captain Marvel are actually the best PvP teammates for him, not Cage. The problem with this self-accelerating character is, his blue is useless unless he already has 3 or 2 strike tiles out. Spending 6 AP to just get a single weak strike tile is bad. Saving up 12-18 blue AP to get the additional green AP is even worse. You NEED to use him with a strike tile generator if you intend to use his blue at all. Obviously Punisher doesn't work because his main strike generation comes from his blue, and his black and green are better anyhow. So that means we need to find other strike tile generators that don't use blue. You have Ant-Man, which is an option, but a bit slow since you need to wait several turns to get the strike out even after gathering the AP. Still not a bad choice. Nova can put out 3 strikes with his black or 2 with his yellow, so depending on your plan, you can go with 3 or 5 blue Danny. If you go with a 5/5/3 Danny, you can throw down CM black, wait 3 turns, and then go from blue to green to another black CM, and deal a lot more damage than straight up using IF black. Plus, a there is a lot more AP generation potential. Your strike tiles would stay out once they are fortified. So get 8 black for CM, then use 6 blue AP and 4 green, so 18 AP total, and deal (11674 CM black + 4748 IF green) 912 damage per AP plus get back 4 more black to have a half priced CM black for a second cast. Not to mention you can buff all of those fortified strike tiles.

Nova wouldn't be quite as good of a teammate, but you would probably go with 3/5/5 Danny and save up his blue until you can get the free AP from his blue.

Overall, the character is too limited by teammates to be outstanding, but he is a good character, and will be crazy good boosted.

While not a guaranteed generates, I'd guess if you want to a strike generator, 4blade is your best bet. (aside from OML/PHX type obviousness)

Jaedenkaal

Cage, Danny, and Prof X seems like they'd work out pretty well.

Rick_OShay

With Rand & C4ge versus strike-tile making enemies, perhaps the purple user you need is Elektra (dodges thrown tomotoes).
Seriously though, for 7 purple you would steal/buff two strikes to decently strong levels. For as often as we are against Daken in PvE, his strikes are produced with any green match, so prioritize purple and flip them as soon as you have some blue & green accumulated.
Of course this works vs strong strike makers OML/PHX etc.
Btw, if Cage's red is taking too long to build up as it usually does, Elektra's red can help you out since it hits pretty hard when you have strong strikes on the board.

Straycat

2* Bullseye, 3* Daken, and 4* Fist would be an interesting combined arms team. You'd only use Fist's powers and not have a yellow or red, but quick strike tiles lets you use his blue effectively, Bullseye can throw out protect tiles to switch.

The explicit bonus to pairing Fist and Cage isn't that great as everyone has noted, but Fist's blue and Cage's yellow go together great. At 5 each, Fist can fortify 3 and Cage can fortify 3 and then you're doing 1978*6=11868 damage plus the strike damage. If you can get Fist to fortify 3 Cage will always fortify the free protect he makes when they are paired, so thats still almost 8k damage.
Problem is getting strikes and other specials on the board. Nova red can get 3 out, Fist blue can then make that 3 fortified. If the enemy has fired off a couple powers you'd be set. Kate Bishop for 10 purple, Fist 6 blue, and Cage 8 yellow would do it to.

Edit: Nova puts out 3 strikes. Even better

Peelman

I'm wondering how Medusa would work out with C4ge and Danny. You don't have additional strike tile generation, but you would steal any enemy tiles and get the healing benefits from Medusa. As you do get more strike tiles out, it makes her damaging countdown more effective, and if it gets matched where you get the attack tiles, those would also get the benefits of the strikes.

I haven't used her much and couldn't find the answer, but do you still get the health bonus trigger when an enemy matches a fortified tile that doesn't get destroyed? From the wording on the power, I would think yes, since it says the special tiles must be matched and doesn't mention that they must be destroyed. If she wouldn't get the healing bonus then it would be less attractive as a third.

Wouldn't be a fast team, but imagine a very annoying one to fight. The protect tiles would keep damage down, Medusa would heal it back, and as the match goes on the mass of strike tiles and AP accumulation for Cage's red nuke and Danny's black, it would be a pretty tough team.

Polares

Truth to be told, I think the bigger synergy with Luke is that Luke creates shield tiles with his passive black and then Danny converts those 'useless' shields to strike tiles with his active black. The extra part of the green ability doesn't really add anything else, but the shield/strike part is in fact a good synergy between two chars (the other one is obviously FalCap). So while IF builds his black pool, Luke has some time to create some shields, and then the black delivers a strong hit and converts some shields to strikes.

notamutant

GrumpySmurf1002 wrote:

While not a guaranteed generates, I'd guess if you want to a strike generator, 4blade is your best bet. (aside from OML/PHX type obviousness)

Too much color overlap for actives. Green and black for both characters. And IF is probably better to use for both. Also in PvP, Bl4de would be bad, but Nova or Carol would be more likely to work out.

OneLastGambit

I think the interaction between Danny blue and like yellow is probably the best reason to use this pair. Makes it a pretty high damage yellow and cheap.

Vhailorx

Haven't read through the whole thread yet, so just throwing out my initial thoughts.

The design is okay in concept, but I don't see 4* IF being anything more than mid tier. Blue is cheap enough at 6, but you don't really want to use it at all until you have 2 strikes already on the board. And even then it only 1/2 charges his green. Green is ok, doing either about 7k damage, or 4.7k + 4 black ap, which is fairly solid. And black is a decently hard hitting power. But it's very expensive for what it does. Carol's black+yellow absolutely destroy this ability for general utility. for 1 more ap you can do almost as much damage without the tile conversion, and for just 8 ap you can generate tons of strike tiles and eventually do heavy damage AND boost the tiles.

So to be useful he really needs a strike tile generator, a protect tile generator, and preferably a battery. For a character advertised as having powers that chain into each other, he has very little internal synergy. He can't make enough of his own strikes to make his blue good, and he can never make protects to use with his black. So he's more than a little disappointing given how strong 3* IF is. I would much rather have seen a lazy port!

vinsensual

What's the interaction if c4ge fires off a yellow, fortifying some protect tiles, then danny fires off his black? Do the fortified tiles get converted or lose their fortify?

Quebbster

vinsensual wrote:

What's the interaction if c4ge fires off a yellow, fortifying some protect tiles, then danny fires off his black? Do the fortified tiles get converted or lose their fortify?

I think they would be converted to fortified strike tiles.

Forbush

Polares wrote:

Truth to be told, I think the bigger synergy with Luke is that Luke creates shield tiles with his passive black and then Danny converts those 'useless' shields to strike tiles with his active black. The extra part of the green ability doesn't really add anything else, but the shield/strike part is in fact a good synergy between two chars (the other one is obviously FalCap). So while IF builds his black pool, Luke has some time to create some shields, and then the black delivers a strong hit and converts some shields to strikes.

Agreed - and on top of that, with Danny's cheap blue fortifying strikes, it beefs up Luke's yellow considerably, even frighteningly.

It still brings up the initial problem - how to put out strikes faster than saving up a bunch of blue (defeating the purpose of blue's cheapness). May I suggest 3* Blade? He'll kick out two strikes quickly on all but the worst boards, he doesn't overlap the H4H like 4*Blade (or require constant red feeding), and provides the color and special tile they both lack, purple Attacks (which will be pretty nasty with all the big Strikes out). L&D tank all his other colors plus there's Luke's Protects, if one is worried about 3* squishiness. Just use him for his passive, and his purple as a nice rainbow bonus for lategame.

Polares

Forbush wrote:

Polares wrote:

Truth to be told, I think the bigger synergy with Luke is that Luke creates shield tiles with his passive black and then Danny converts those 'useless' shields to strike tiles with his active black. The extra part of the green ability doesn't really add anything else, but the shield/strike part is in fact a good synergy between two chars (the other one is obviously FalCap). So while IF builds his black pool, Luke has some time to create some shields, and then the black delivers a strong hit and converts some shields to strikes.

Agreed - and on top of that, with Danny's cheap blue fortifying strikes, it beefs up Luke's yellow considerably, even frighteningly.

It still brings up the initial problem - how to put out strikes faster than saving up a bunch of blue (defeating the purpose of blue's cheapness). May I suggest 3* Blade? He'll kick out two strikes quickly on all but the worst boards, he doesn't overlap the H4H like 4*Blade (or require constant red feeding), and provides the color and special tile they both lack, purple Attacks (which will be pretty nasty with all the big Strikes out). L&D tank all his other colors plus there's Luke's Protects, if one is worried about 3* squishiness. Just use him for his passive, and his purple as a nice rainbow bonus for lategame.

The best alternatives as some people already said are Nova and 4 Blade (I don't consider 5 alternatives because, if you have a couple of useful 5s, there are much much better alternatives in 4 land to go with them than IF).

I think 4 blade is a much better companion than 3 Blade. 4 Blade is ideal because then Luke can be used as 5/5/3 which I think makes the team ideal as a special fortified generator team. You can create some strong strike tiles (much stronger than 3 Blade) in the beginning of the fight for free with Blade and then when they are fortified you can start doing the passive damage. This way IF blue is usable almost from the beginning of the fight. Obviously you won't use his green or black almost never, but who cares, you are bringing him for his red