**** Cloak & Dagger (Classic) ****

D4Ni13

I think C&D is the most versatile support we have so far in terms of build options. I've seen people say they use them as 5-5-3 or 4-4-5, but it really depends on what you want from them. 

Because I'm thinking of a black battery for Captain Marvel, I actually want a 5-3-5 C&D. Having the attack tile pop up at 11 black tiles instead of 9, allows them to be a better battery in black, while suffering no damage from yellow and purple.  The idea is that, you would almost everytime use Carol's black instead of Cloak's demotion tile, but even at 3 covers, a 5-turn CD is not that bad if you actually need it. The power of the attack tiles don't matter to much, because Carol's strike tiles will up the damage anyway, and without them, they are not that powerful. 

DesertTortoise

It's 10 black tiles at 3 covers, not 11. The description on page 1 is wrong.

D4Ni13

DesertTortoise said:

It's 10 black tiles at 3 covers, not 11. The description on page 1 is wrong.

I'm close to champing them and I will see then. But right now (3-5-5) it seems I always have 9 black on the board...

D4Ni13

Hmm the description on first page is off. It seems you get only 2 black at 3 covers, which is not that good of a trade-off... so there goes my 5-3-5... eh.

D4Ni13

Ok, so after championing C&D and play-testing them, I can surely say that the best build is... 5-4-4.

Why is 5-4-4 better than 5-5-3 (the popular build) or 4-4-5 (the alternate) ?
The popular build has a caveat in purple. While you need only 9 black/purple AP to switch from battery mode to attack or heal mode, you actually need 10 AP to make purple cost only 3 AP. This means that you may end up in a situation that you have exactly 9 black/yellow on the board, but won't have the reduce cost in purple.   

On the other side, in the alternate version, you lose more damage from yellow than you gain from purple, just to fix this caveat.

5-4-4 build fixes both the caveats of the popular build & the alternate. You have maximum damage in yellow and you have reduce cost for purple anytime you make an attack tile or you heal yourself.

Why is this reduce cost so important ?
Because it gives your strategy on an whole new level. C&D are made to be constantly swapping and 6 AP for a double swap is duable, while more than that can be harder to get, especially since your main focus would be black or yellow. There are times when you are in black battery mode and you managed to gather 5-6 yellow AP. By switching on the other side, you can generate yellow and gather the needed AP and then switch back and attack. This work viceversa as well. This build gives you the liberty to switch from one side to another as fast as possible. The loss in black is more than worth it, also insured by the fact that you will probably use another black power anyway. While purple wins 500 dmg from 5-5-3 and loses 500 dmg from 4-4-5. So a good compromize.

Other things to note:
While boosted C&D have a 7166 potential AoE (at level 271) and a 3300 or so purple damage. Add R&G or Captain Marvel and you can hit more than that for only 8 or 3 AP in the correct colors, while acting as a battery for a better black user. 

If you still want to use C&D's black you would lose the fortified status, but still get a whopping 6 turn timer.

All in all, I think 5-4-4 is their best build for both battery & utility purposes.

sambrookjm

Using the Boosted Cloak and Dagger in the Unstable ISO event now, just a few days after Champing her. I've been using her as a 5-3-5. Light Knives removing 5 special tiles is really nice, and against the nodes where there aren't any tile generators, the AoE is deadly. My only question about her Pocket of Darkness is why doesn't it affect goons? Couldn't it just lessen the damage/effect of their abilities?

As an aside, combined with (an also boosted) She-Hulk, you get active abilities in all six colors, although not all at the same time. The two of them make a great meat shield for Hood/Strang3 to really punish your opponents.

Jaedenkaal

sambrookjm said:

Using the Boosted Cloak and Dagger in the Unstable ISO event now, just a few days after Champing her. I've been using her as a 5-3-5. Light Knives removing 5 special tiles is really nice, and against the nodes where there aren't any tile generators, the AoE is deadly. My only question about her Pocket of Darkness is why doesn't it affect goons? Couldn't it just lessen the damage/effect of their abilities?

As an aside, combined with (an also boosted) She-Hulk, you get active abilities in all six colors, although not all at the same time. The two of them make a great meat shield for Hood/Strang3 to really punish your opponents.

Well the short answer is because goon abilities don't have cover levels. Could they go back and add them? Maybe. Would that be worth it to add extra utility to one (half?) 4* ability. Maybe not.

In any case, the extra 2 covers in Child of Darkness is easily worth it for the massive (92%) jump in Attack tile strength, even if you never fire Darkness Hungers. At 380 (boosted from 275) jumps from 266 to 512. Auto-damage is always good, and auto-damage that can start on turn 2 and can ramp up every turn, even more so.

Jesus Jones

I had them at 5-2-5 and used CP to buy the black cover because I had 3 covers on the vine.  Very fun to use boosted!!

D4Ni13

Jesus Jones said:

I had them at 5-2-5 and used CP to buy the black cover because I had 3 covers on the vine.  Very fun to use boosted!!

I agree, they are very fun. Just played them unboosted in the CL9 missions, and they saved me  from redoing the last mission, after both Carol & Medusa were killed. I really like the fact that you can use them with different builds acording to preferences. I use them as 5-4-4, and in this martch that really paid off and  made the difference between winning and losing.

Dormammu

I just champed C&D (saving 3 covers on the vine ) and I'm wondering how y'all play them. Do you use them as a yellow battery? Black battery? Any good friends out there to team them up with? They seem a little tricky to play so any cool strategies you've come up with is appreciated.

Anon

Dormammu said:

I just champed C&D (saving 3 covers on the vine ) and I'm wondering how y'all play them. Do you use them as a yellow battery? Black battery? Any good friends out there to team them up with? They seem a little tricky to play so any cool strategies you've come up with is appreciated.

I use them as a black battery. If you use them with Carol and Coulson, things get out of control pretty quickly, especially with that 3ap purple and frequent attack tiles.

D4Ni13

Dormammu said:

I just champed C&D (saving 3 covers on the vine ) and I'm wondering how y'all play them. Do you use them as a yellow battery? Black battery? Any good friends out there to team them up with? They seem a little tricky to play so any cool strategies you've come up with is appreciated.

I play them as 5-4-4, because I want to be able to switch between each side as easy as possible, and I usually play someone else with black, so I don't rely on children of darkness. I like this build so much because whenever you have enough tiles to meet the attack tile or heal condition, you always have 3AP reduction for the switch, and that makes a very strategic style of play in which you can play however you need all the time (given that you have purple AP). For me this advantage is better than 5 covers in black. 

As team-mates, I personally love to play them with Carol or Vulture, and the third accordingly to what I want to have as second win condition. When playing against Carol, you should be careful when using them, as you can feed her black and also can accidentaly match black in mirror matches, where AoE matters.  

I usually play them as a black battery, gather purple AP and switch them once if I need to heal, or switch them twice if I just want to deal damage. With Grocket her 3AP move would mean something in terms of damage. When boosted I always sought to deal yellow AoE damage (7k to everybody) as often as possible, so I can use them as yellow battery for themselves. Very flexible build, that I recommend (and also recommended in the past, despite not being popular). 

Rick_OShay

Totally agree. I've been at 5/4/4 and not looked back. 
To the question about a black or yellow battery? Yes. Both. 
Yellow to build up for their AoE is great as long as there are no enemy specials. Vulture works well here with all the black you are generating to go airborne, then his blue to remove enemy specials (and earn AP for them), prior to C&D yellow. 
Rarely is the black used for C&D themselves, it's better used for another teammate's power. However - and I think this prediction may actually be a thing sometime soon - as Rogue shows up on more and more teams, C&D black might be the key to dropping Rogue's defenses to level 1. Interested to look back at this over the next couple of months as SIM teams start to incorporate the newer characters.

D4Ni13

Rick OShay said:

Rarely is the black used for C&D themselves, it's better used for another teammate's power. However - and I think this prediction may actually be a thing sometime soon - as Rogue shows up on more and more teams, C&D black might be the key to dropping Rogue's defenses to level 1. Interested to look back at this over the next couple of months as SIM teams start to incorporate the newer characters.

This could indeed become a counter for Rogue, if she becomes that much of a threat. But I don't know how fast it would be. If she siphons black before you gather that AP, you're toast anyway. I'd say that the best counter against her would be a stun. Child of darkness could work as well in some matches, but would need some timing too. 

talleman

C&D the newest member of my 4* family. I got Carol champed and soon (hopefully) Vulture aswell. So C&D is a most welcome boost.

I will probably switch build depending on which enemies i face but a 5-4-4 build looks solid paired with Carol.

Any other good characters to pair C&D with?

DrDevilDinosaur

talleman said:

Any other good characters to pair C&D with?

C&D work great as a battery, of course - so they can pair well with just about anyone that you want to fuel Yellow or Black AP. Pairing with Carol makes sense, since she can make use of both colours even though there's not too much further synergy between them.

Coulson is an interesting partner .They can help keep a steady flow of Countdown tiles on the board by providing fuel for his Yellow active and spam Purple when it's at 3 AP to trigger the passive on his Blue.

C&D also make a good team member alongside Luke Cage and Iron Fist. You can fuel Yellow for Cage's Hero for Hire or Black for Fist's Like Unto Iron. The team will work better in PvP against goons who will activate Cage's passive more frequently, but otherwise C&D help to fuel the best parts of the Cage/Fist pairing.

C&D also have some decent strength outside of being a battery. Yellow is a strong AoE (comparable to Rhulk) and still a decent way to remove enemy A/P/S tiles if you have no other way; in it's Passive form, it provides True Healing which is a huge benefit. Black gets ignored, but I've used it to save tonnes of damage; keep in mind that it's ability level reduction will also be applied to any enemy CD's (or other unique tiles like Black Holes, Motivation, etc.) that are already on the board.

Dormammu

I find they fit on a lot of teams. Anyone with a slow yellow or black are greatly aided by C&D's presence. I've recently been using them to speed up MaxPun's black. He's a total terror with a feeder.

But Carol/Coulson/C&D are frighteningly quick. Carol is going to get her black countdown out fast. Then just start spamming C&D's cheap purple fliparoo and let Coulson pop out countdown tiles like popcorn. The three of them absolutely rip through even the hardest wave nodes like the enemies are made of wet paper.

sambrookjm

Two years later...someone finds the thread to ask a question.

Should Cloak's "The Darkness Hungers" be able to target an enemy who is airborne?  The final node in today's Simulator was Bishop/Cloak and Dagger/Mysterio.  I avoided Bishop's stun lock by using Silver Surfer/Psylocke/Vulture, which works in PvE but would get you absolutely crushed in PvP (see the 24+ pages of the "Nerf Bishop" thread for more details).  Anyway, C&D eventually transformed, and got their Darkness Hungers tile out.  I figured it would target Silver Surfer, but instead it hit Vulture while he was airborne.

I didn't think that airborne characters could normally be targeted.  Is this a special case for C&D, or should this not have happened?