**** Sandman (Flint Marko) ****

Rick_OShay

Just champed Sandman last night, so I hope to get at least some good use out of him. 
I agree with the few that he will be better than has been reported by many. I typically like tile swap abilities, even when random. Even if you don't get automatic matches, at least you will certainly get additional yellow on the board.

Comparing Sandy's green to Bl4de's, which have similar damage, I believe SM's will be better due to the certainty of the stun, where Blade's is often needed to be fired without being able to take advantage of it's healing. 

I have little intention of using his own yellow, he will almost always be a battery for another teammate - except for when SM is boosted of course.

jamesh

I guess I'll be giving Sandman a play in the next versus tournament.  I just realised that out of 23 champed 4* characters I've got only three villains, so lets see how he pairs with Vulture and Mordo.

Anon

mexus said:

jamesh said:

I guess I'll be giving Sandman a play in the next versus tournament.  I just realised that out of 23 champed 4* characters I've got only three villains, so lets see how he pairs with Vulture and Mordo.

Can't state it enough. He's awesome with Vulture.

I'm not knocking that at all, but A LOT of characters are awesome with Vulture. I love Sandmans character but if you'e using Vulture, wouldn't you rather use Hobofist or Red Hulk? Sandman might not be terrible, but he takes way to much to be great. Sure his Green is nice, but Rulk will decimate an entire team in no time with Vulture. Once Vulture gets into his groove even Hobofist will start getting nasty.

I love Sandman, but an ok green is not a ringing endorsement. D3 needs to take another look at him.

aa25

Anon said:

mexus said:

jamesh said:

I guess I'll be giving Sandman a play in the next versus tournament.  I just realised that out of 23 champed 4* characters I've got only three villains, so lets see how he pairs with Vulture and Mordo.

Can't state it enough. He's awesome with Vulture.

I'm not knocking that at all, but A LOT of characters are awesome with Vulture. I love Sandmans character but if you'e using Vulture, wouldn't you rather use Hobofist or Red Hulk? Sandman might not be terrible, but he takes way to much to be great. Sure his Green is nice, but Rulk will decimate an entire team in no time with Vulture. Once Vulture gets into his groove even Hobofist will start getting nasty.

I love Sandman, but an ok green is not a ringing endorsement. D3 needs to take another look at him.

Boosted champed Sandman is far better than unboosted Hobo or unchamped Rulk.

Anon

aa25 said:

Anon said:

mexus said:

jamesh said:

I guess I'll be giving Sandman a play in the next versus tournament.  I just realised that out of 23 champed 4* characters I've got only three villains, so lets see how he pairs with Vulture and Mordo.

Can't state it enough. He's awesome with Vulture.

I'm not knocking that at all, but A LOT of characters are awesome with Vulture. I love Sandmans character but if you'e using Vulture, wouldn't you rather use Hobofist or Red Hulk? Sandman might not be terrible, but he takes way to much to be great. Sure his Green is nice, but Rulk will decimate an entire team in no time with Vulture. Once Vulture gets into his groove even Hobofist will start getting nasty.

I love Sandman, but an ok green is not a ringing endorsement. D3 needs to take another look at him.

Boosted champed Sandman is far better than unboosted Hobo or unchamped Rulk.

A character that is boosted and champed is better than characters without those buffs? Shocking.

jamesh

mexus said:

jamesh said:

I guess I'll be giving Sandman a play in the next versus tournament.  I just realised that out of 23 champed 4* characters I've got only three villains, so lets see how he pairs with Vulture and Mordo.

Can't state it enough. He's awesome with Vulture.

From what I've played so far, I prefer Vulture's green: while it comes with a delay and no stun, it does double the damage.  The protect tiles from his yellow are nice, but I hardly ever use it because I usually end up using my purple AP on Mordo rather than having Sandman generate yellow tiles.

His relatively high health is nice , but maybe I'd be better off with a boosted 3* to complete the team.

Rick_OShay

Sounds like something needs to be clarified. 
UNboosted Vulture works well to fuel green for ANY BOOSTED Green user: Sandman, Red Hulk, etc.

BOOSTED Vulture needs to use his own green, undoubtedly. 

UNboosted Vulture and any UNBOOSTED green user you should use Vulture green in almost all cases. The CD could be matched away, but it remains way over half the time. It does nearly double the damage of other green AoE users on a per AP basis. The math points to Vulture. 

Please reconsider if using Vulture to fuel green for Red Hulk (both unboosted). That's 18 AP for ~7K team damage, where Vulture would get 6K for 9AP up to 12K for 2 casts at 18 AP; yes you can have 2 CD's out at once. 

I'm liking some of Sandman so far, but the 2 turn stun on his green is not worth the difference of ~2500 damage to each enemy compared to Vulture (3500 AoE plus stun vs 6K+ AoE).

jamesh

mexus said:

jamesh said:

mexus said:

jamesh said:

I guess I'll be giving Sandman a play in the next versus tournament.  I just realised that out of 23 champed 4* characters I've got only three villains, so lets see how he pairs with Vulture and Mordo.

Can't state it enough. He's awesome with Vulture.

From what I've played so far, I prefer Vulture's green: while it comes with a delay and no stun, it does double the damage.  The protect tiles from his yellow are nice, but I hardly ever use it because I usually end up using my purple AP on Mordo rather than having Sandman generate yellow tiles.

His relatively high health is nice , but maybe I'd be better off with a boosted 3* to complete the team.

I also prefer Vulture using his own greens but it's hard to convince people about this. And that sweet stun from Sandman doed help a bit.

I played against a mirror of my team, and the enemy Sandman did manage to take a big chunk of health off of one of my characters using his yellow.  They only managed this because they had a team-up for Falcon's Bird Strike.

So far, I've only been using Sandman's green if (a) I actually need a stun, or (b) it can finish off the match.

Edit: I also got a little use out of Sandman when facing some low level 5* Thanos teams.  If he casts his purple, it neuters Vulture's green, so having a stun is quite useful in that specific case.

Daredevil217

Is 5/3/5 or 5/5/3 his best build?

zodiac339

Daredevil217 said:

Is 5/3/5 or 5/5/3 his best build?

Based on popularity, it seems 0/0/0 is preferred. I tend to 5/5/3 and find a better yellow user. 5/3/5 is probably better on PVP defense though, just in case the AI decides to use Sand Smash, so it actually does something.

Anon

I Champed Sandman a few days ago. I have him 5/3/5. His Green is ok. Purple is wildly inconsistent. You could get matches, but you also could get nothing. For his Yellow:the protect tiles are nice, but the actual damage is pitiful for the setup it requires.

I see what @mexus has been saying. Sandman isn't overall terrible. His problem is he needs plenty of setup to do things that other characters can do easily. 1 good power out of 3 isn't great. At least he has great health I guess.

VizMantis

Anon said:

1 good power out of 3 isn't great. At least he has great health I guess.

Which is the good power?  Seems like the most optimistic you were was green at “ok”, which seems sub-good. ;P

I was looking at Sandman today for champing and was pretty confused as to why everyone was so down on his yellow.  Sure, it required some setup, but it seemed like it did huge damage.  Then I realized I read it wrong and the damage it listed was flat, not per-removed defense tile.  Whoops, in that case I totally get it, the damage aspect is quite lame.  Shows how weak it is that I believed it was a per-removed defense tile thing.

jamesh

Maybe he'd get a bit more use if he used his protect tiles a bit more like how Daken uses strike tiles?  Do some base damage when you cast yellow and extra damage by consuming a set number of protect tiles, then have some passive condition to lay down new protect tiles.

sinnerjfl

2 of his powers are good in my book. Green is a decent AOE (and quite good when boosted) + a bonus stun. I'll agree that purple can be unreliable but heh, there are so few yellow generators in the game that you need to consider that when evaluating it. It's also better if you can double cast it.

Purple could be changed to making 7 yellows, Iron Fist adds 7 black and his skill costs 5 AP only (and he's a 3*).

Not like Sandman is top tier, he could use some tweaks (especially his yellow...   considering the cost and hassle of triggering the damage, better make it worthwhile and not the joke number they put in for now).

jamesh

And following on from my idea for a revamped yellow power, I'd make the passive component create protect tiles when there is more than N yellow tiles on the board.

This supports the idea of his purple power feeding his yellow, and adds a bit of strategy: do I match the yellow now so I can fire the active power, or leave those matches available to the enemy in the hope that it will net me a few more protect tiles?

Of course, a change like this would probably require the protect tiles be toned down somewhat.  The damage and AP cost would probably need to go down too.

DrDevilDinosaur

jamesh said:

And following on from my idea for a revamped yellow power, I'd make the passive component create protect tiles when there is more than N yellow tiles on the board.

This supports the idea of his purple power feeding his yellow, and adds a bit of strategy: do I match the yellow now so I can fire the active power, or leave those matches available to the enemy in the hope that it will net me a few more protect tiles?

Of course, a change like this would probably require the protect tiles be toned down somewhat.  The damage and AP cost would probably need to go down too.

I think I'd take it a step further and give Sandman something unique in the process. Give Yellow a passive component whereby Yellow tiles reduce damage for Sandman - effectively, every yellow tile is like a protect tile. Then make the active component destroy all yellow tiles on the board. This still gives synergy with purple to fill the board with yellow, and still creates that risk/reward choice in gathering yellow AP. Have the ability only count basic yellow tiles at first, then include special tiles through rank up, and increase the damage of the active portion.

iron-n-wine

I forget what his exact powers were in the sinister 6 event (passive that creates yellow tiles?) but that would be a better setup for him

Anon

iron-n-wine said:

I forget what his exact powers were in the sinister 6 event (passive that creates yellow tiles?) but that would be a better setup for him

I think he also had an ability that blunted damage.

iron-n-wine

Yes that sounds familiar, and a nuke once he had 18 yellow

talleman

I fooled around with Sandman in PvE this morning and i played: Sandman 5/5/3 - Vulture 5/3/5 - Cloak & Dagger 5/5/3 and it worked quite well.

C&D feed Vulture black, Vulture feed Sandman green and Sandman feed C&D yellow.

Sandmans green does AoE damage + stuns, C&D yellow does AoE damage or remove special tiles and Vultures blue does damage and remove special tiles.

+ Possible alot of AoE damage. Great special tile removal. They feed each other. An okey stun.

- No red user. Sandmans purple is a little to expensive.

Give it a try and tell me what you think