Explain why C4ge is good

UnsmashableTim

I'm just wondering if someone can tell me why 4* Luke Cage is good.  The shield he puts down is decent, but his attacks seem expensive and hard to pull off. 

Please don't post why you don't like him because I'm already there haha

Also, has anyone used him with 4* Iron Fist and if so, what's the benefit? 

Tiger_Wong

The yellow isn't expensive and hits very hard the more covers you get and especially the more fortified tiles on the field. Plus it counts the damage AFTER you fortify a couple friendly special tiles. 

Teaming him with GG, MrF, and 4* Fist makes his yellow very dangerous to take. 

His is black is ok but awesome vs goons who fire off CDs almost every turn. 

His is red is kinda weird. Expensive like C3ge but with a catch. Just hold on to it or have a better red user. There's a bunch of those. 

I like him on PVE. Him/Wasp/ProfX are magic together. Or so I've heard (not enough prof X covers)

As soon as I get another blue cover for MrF, I'm gonna make an anti-Peggy/anti-Carol team starting C4ge/GG/MrF. 

When i I get a few more I4ist covers, I'm gonna rock them with Elektra. 

Jarvind

He's mostly good for his black and yellow. I run him at 5/5/3 and either bring another red user or just treat red as gravy if I happen to end up with enough to fire it. It does do crazy damage if you can fulfill its condition, but the need to wipe out all specials plus the crazy cost means you won't get that opportunity too often.

Against goons he'll either negate or greatly reduce all incoming damage because of the insane number of shields he'll throw out. Against tile movers he's not as great, but even one or two shields is plenty to negate match damage, plus he'll wipe out enemy specials if you can keep him in front.

I like yellow mostly for the tile fortification, but it does respectable damage on the first cast and quite a lot on subsequent casts, and is fairly inexpensive.

He also pairs SO GUD with Wasp. Both of them plus a tile buffer (I like Carol) is magical, despite only having three active colors.

Vhailorx

Red is his worst power.  Too expensive for the damage, especially the low damage.  

Black is very strong against goons, but decent againsy enemies with cheap power.

Yellow is an awesome power.  Cheap at only 8 ap.  Does almost 6.5k on first cast (if you can get 3 tiles out which is easy), and has a beneficial effect of fortifying friendly tiles.  Plus if you can save up enough to multicast, or bring along someone else who fortifies tiles (e.g. hawkeye or GG) it can do massive damage.

Straycat

I agree with everyone's assessment, I'll just add Cage's yellow has no upper limit, so it can be one of the strongest nukes with some setup.

His passive is pretty good for creating protect tiles, and it also lowers or removes enemy special tiles if he's in front.

4* Fist helps Cage by putting fortified tiles on the board to up the damage on Cage's yellow.  Fist can also use black to turn a board full of protect tiles into strike tiles. That the main way they synergize, they do extra things when together but thats pretty negligible.

I imagine a Fist, Cage, Starlord team would be good. Starlord and Cage provide special tiles to fortify. SL purple can overwrite any special tiles to get max damage on Cage's red.

I have Cage at 5/3/5 lvl 152. I used him with Mr.F and War Machine for the extra fortified tiles. Cage is pretty good, can be great with certain teams, still good as a bit player on other teams

abominatrix

Jarvind pretty much hit it. Yes, his red is at best situational, but his black is incredible against goons; if a muscle is about to go off, I try to make sure he's in front; I can't count the number of times that the strike tiles go down, but 2 goon powers fire giving 2 more protect tiles and removing the strikes. For a 4* transitioner (which I still am), Cage, Strange and 3* fist make short work of them (although since I champed Carol today and Wasp is next, I'm going to try the Cage/Carol/Wasp team in Prodigal sun since Wasp is boosted). 

EDIT - I've been running my barely champed Carol/Cage along with my boosted 5/3/3 Wasp in Prodigal Sun today, and it's been astoundingly good, and will be even better once I can get to 5/5/3, Thanks Jarvind!

And his yellow is pretty good. The first fire is good, but the second one is awesome, and gets better if you have a tile fortifier.

At where I am in the game (still focussing on PVP and getting to 575 PVE), I find I use Cage more than the traditional heavy hitters I have champed (4Clops, IMHB, etc.).

darkwatcherDEZ

Our covers landed 4/3/5 so far, but at lvl 250 his dealing 8463 damage with 13541 damage with situational clearance. It shouldn't be second guessed (though it is expensive)

Black out front is tamping down enemy specials and the protects are decent. Let him run with our little 2 cover yellow wasp and cause major chaos.

Yellow fortification and damage get better each time it gets used.

granne

He and Strange are now my go-to PvE team, at least for goon nodes. I usually take Carol along as the third. There are few things more satisfying in MPQ than a lvl 250+ Muscle's Tommy Gun going off and doing no damage.

His yellow stacks brilliantly, and Carol's fortified countdown adds to its power. It probably works well with the littlest hobo, but I haven't tried yet.

His red is expensive, but it's worth it. When he was boosted a couple of weeks ago, I'd just champed him and Peggy, so was running with them in PvP with her red at three and his at five. He hit like a train, and one-shot a lvl 330 OML. That was immensely satisfying.

bob554

as above, his yellow hits big for 8AP and has no upper limit. his black at 5 covers removes enemy special tiles, and his red is situational but can hit hard when needed.

I run a 5/5/3 with a 4/5/4 Teen Jean and a 5/3/5 Mr F.

Teen Jean purple removes enemy special tiles and is good right before a C4ge red, her green makes special tiles for C4ge to fortify. Those two alone make a rainbow.

Mr.F adds fortified tiles, stun and a heal on enemies matching away your own special tiles. If an enemy matches your fortified tile, you keep the tile and get the heal! Add Mr F and you have a rainbow of active powers too!

EDIT: now changed to 5/3/5 based on Vhailorx suggestion below. Much better!

Vhailorx

Why the hell would you run jg at 4/5/4?!  5/3/5 all the way. 

bob554

Vhailorx said:

Why the tinykitty would you run jg at 4/5/4?!  5/3/5 all the way. 

Having a closer look at the character, I agree (now)! Don't much know why I was running 4/5/4, most likely I never re-specced her after champing her (she's quite a recent Champ for me) and got away with not changing. Thanks!

and 5 in the purple is especially useful for clearing the board to enhance C4ge's red. gee what was I thinking

Jaedenkaal

mexus said:

I still haven't used him so this is based upon my expectations on him.

Use him against teams that don't generate special tiles and you have a 14000 damage nuke, 
how is that not good? It's double the damage of the yellow 3* Luke Cage which is considered a top-tier attack.

Also his constant defense tiles seem sick, and fortification of special tiles is a rarity even in the 4* realm. To me, he seems like a beast-dude and I will try to have him champed next after Carol (he's currently at 11 covers).

Because you can't always actually get 13 Red AP. And then some of the time you do have 13 Red AP, there will be an enemy special tile on the board somewhere you can't match it.

And imagine trying to get this off against Symbiotes or Sentries?

/shudder

Edit: sorry. 13 AP. 

Tatercat

Here's something I wrote 2 months ago, not long after I champed him and during a week he was boosted:

Tatercat wrote:

"For those on the verge of champing 4* Luke Cage and needing motivation, I champed him Tuesday and here’s his numbers for yellow and red at 5 covers while boosted (from lvl 271 to 376) in the event:

 Fortifies up to 3 friendly special tiles, then does 4439 damage for each fortified tile on the board. Iron Fist partner creates a 712 protect tile.

 Does 18997 damage, or 30395 if there are no enemy Strike, Protect, or Attack tiles on the board.

I’ve been doing 5/3/5 so far and he’s been fun, though he’d be more effective in a pvp with lots of Goon nodes, to constantly be triggering his black to generate protect tiles, which in turn he could then fortify. But there’s barely any goon nodes in DP vs MPQ, so there’s been lots of times when I’ve got yellow ready but can’t fire it. (Bring a special spamming partner).

But that red is a lot more impressive than I thought. Even if there are enemy special tiles out, 18997 damage at 13 red ap is actually more cost effective than a comparable level Hulkbuster at the same ap cost. Even my lvl 281 Hulkbuster (boosted to 379) came up short, with 1386 per red ap for a total 18018 damage for 13ap."


Still use C4ge a lot, boosted or not.  He's the most reliable special tile producer against goons, and makes him very popular with the ladies (Wasp, 4* Carol, Medusa)  Even if he's just there to spit out a defense tile and just tank, he's very good at that.  With all the buffers in the game, you don't even have to have black at 5.  I respec him a lot, depending on the situation.

I should have 4*Iron Fist champed in the new few days, so I'll see how/if they work as a duo.  So far it looks like they compliment each other well, you never have to fight over the same color ap.  Thinking Medusa would be a good 3rd for that team.

Borstock

C4ge + Wasp in PvE has changed the way I play the game. Awesome synergy against goon nodes. 

MaxxPowerz

As far as his red is concerned it's underrated. It does comparable damage to HB. The only problem is that he doesn't generate red ap and it is dependent on no enemy special tiles being present. 

You can probably get more bang for your buck out of other red users, but as far as nukes go it is fine. I still run with a 3/5/5 cage.

DFiPL

Borstock said:

C4ge + Wasp in PvE has changed the way I play the game. Awesome synergy against goon nodes. 

I was trying to talk myself into this team after I championed Wasp the other day, but the yellow overlap was giving me pause, partly because I feel like yellow is the best active skill for each.

Maybe it's, as you say, beneficial against goons but not so much against board movers?

Vhailorx

Depends on the board mover.  4* cage is great against ability spammers like daken, but less useful against someone like fury or gsbw who will only cast a few times during a whole match.

BoyWonder1914

I don't understand the complaints on his red. The damage is insane, especially boosted, and if you just simply don't bring him against people that produce special tiles, you never have to worry about whether or not you'll get the conditional damage. Furthermore, without the conditional damage, it still does as much if not more than a lot of red abilities at the 4-star level. 

As far as the black goes, I enjoy the benefit whether its a 3 or 5 covers. Even 3 covers is enough to stave off most match damage with one protect out, and at 5 covers I've had certain nukes hit like a wet noodle because I had spammed so many. And despite my note about his red, his black at 5 covers is remarkably effective against special tile spammers. 

His yellow drops an extra protect if he's with D4nny, and D4nny's green ignore's protects if you have C4ge with him. It's a little more trivial on D4nny's side of it. 

Tagstar87

Most suggestions assume the player has a variety of 4* characters. If you're not quite there but gained enough covers for C4ge, this is what I recommend:
 
C4ge, Dr. Strange (3*), and Human Torch.

C4ge (441) and Strange (255) are beasts in PVE since they automatically fire powers at any countdown, I bring along HT (535) for easy red/green damage. Just make sure C4ge is front and center and (hopefully) tanking his 3 colors. This allows him to diminish the enemies special tiles, very useful in wave nodes.

Vhailorx

4* Cage would be an excellent 3*-->4* transition character.  He saves a bunch of healthpacks with his passive, is tough enough use even unboosted, will eliminate enemy specials when he tanks, and has decent damage powers on yellow and red.  

WalrusBrigade

I have been using C4ge with Wasp to convert the spammed protect tiles.  That work's ok, but not great.

I also have used him (5/5/3) with Mr. F. and War Machine.  It is almost rainbow (no purple) and starts churning out lots of specials for healing, fortifying, or just using their effect.

Still, neither of these is great.

It is nice when the AI uses a power that creates a tile to just watch it disappear when his black is at 5.