*** Storm (Mohawk) ***

Pylgrim

It's cool that some people find an use for her, and I guess that as long as you don't have a high levelled character with a better yellow ability (i.e. every character with an active yellow ability) and you happen to have her, she'll do some heavy lifting for you. That's cool. My point keeps being the same. She was better before, worse now, by a degree that changes according with each person's measure. Arguably, it seems, she's still somewhat usable. Fine. I still believe that "incidentally" nerfing a character that was not overpowered by any stretch is not cool, especially when blatantly overpowered characters have remained untouched almost for half a year despite all the promises from the devs. That's all I am arguing here.

I guess people always adapt and roll on, which is good until certain extent. However, from time to time it would be nice if we all stood up and say "no, this is not ok". Perhaps then, the developers wouldn't dismiss discontent as "reluctance to change" and actually do something to fix it. It is also true that not many people cared about Storm at all to begin with, so even if they would acknowledge that they unfairly nerfed her, a fix would drop right to the bottom of their list. I guess I'll just stop caring about her as well and move on.

OnesOwnGrief

If you're referring to Magneto, he's only good on offense. Defensively, he's to easy to actually care about anymore. If you can't defeat him, reevaluate your strategy. Daken is set for a nerf (which I'm waiting for) really soon as we have already seen what that will be. This will reduce the Sentry/Daken team considerably. Sentry is also easy to work around as all you need is an immediate answer saved for his strike tile if he casts it and defense tiles to completely mitigate World Rupture. Most Sentry builds don't even run 5R which is far better on defense than 5G and 5Y.

Unknown

Pylgrim wrote:

First off, being completely honest, have you actually played with her extensively and find her satisfactory? The way you word things sounds as though you are coming from a completely theoretical (and wishful) place, rather than from having experienced it.

See my original qualifier. Not fully covered or leveled, playing devil's advocate here. I have played with her some the way I have her (3/4/5, level 125). Any opinions I express are based on my experience with the character, with the game, and a bit of theory crafting, all in the name of fun. Feel free to ignore it completely if it so pleases you.

Pylgrim wrote:

You must understand that the Dev-lauded ability to accelerate T-U acquisition comes as the trade-off for literally thousands of damage AND coloured AP acquisition from cascades. If T-U is not important to you in a given fight (and you don't seem to disagree with me that the times when T-Us are relevant are far less frequent than the times when they are not) you are getting much, much less from that skill than from her previous Red skill.

TUs are as important to your attack strategy as you make them, and, since her power fuels them, neglecting them while using her is not using her to her full capability. With the current system, using them is difficult. Presumably this will get better with the addition of management tools, i.e. a delete button, and using more powerful TUs more frequently will be easier. Rage of the Panther at level 166 does the same 4000ish damage to the enemy team whether you spent 12 black or 12 TU AP to activate it. A power that gets you more than half way there while doing some damage and potentially causing cascades on a color that is rarely used for active powers has some merit. How much value were you getting out of those hot dogs? Om nom nom.

Pylgrim wrote:

Alright, please explain to me how is she going to facilitate someone else's ruining anyone's day (under the caveat that T-U is not going to be relevant every battle.) Her green is super bad along strike tile users because it randomly destroys the tiles, I really don't know how you may think for a second that she and LDaken should be in the same team (and reinforces my belief that you are being purely theoretical).

I do not agree to your caveat that TUs are not relevant. See above. She facilitates by acting as a battery for other powers on other colors, including TU AP. Her yellow generates that directly and can cause cascades. As for her green, you are the one who seems dead set on featuring it. I'm the one advocating only investing three covers in it. But even so, saying it is "super bad" with strike tiles is false. There is a component of risk/reward to using them, as there is to many things in this game. You could hit every one of your strike tiles with her green, or you could hit none of them and cause a cascade, each match of which adds the strike tile damage. If you've never been violated by a Daken fueled strike tile cascade caused by someone like Rags you can't possibly have been playing this game for very long. This is very much the same thing.

Pylgrim wrote:

Again, you're comparing thousands of additional damage, massive board reconfiguration, and much coloured AP from cascades to crummy, half-the-time-useless 7 T-U AP. The fact that you try to pretend that this is a "debatable" fair trade betrays the idea that you are too invested in being the devil's advocate to consider hard facts.

I am playing devil's advocate, and I stated up front that I don't think she's very good. But that said, I see nothing wrong with my facts. If there are factual errors by all means point them out and I will stand corrected. What I've stated here is an opinion for the purpose of conversation, and I contend that it has merit even if I don't completely agree with it myself. Nothing more, nothing less. Take it for what it is.

Unknown

OnesOwnGrief wrote:

She does still have an AP generating green that's good and can be used to get those high cost non-greens off the ground like "Whales! Whales! Whales!" and "Rage of the Panther." You don't have to focus her on Team-Up AP generation but she still has some worth for cascades and generating AP. You also still have the option of burning people down if this get hairy.

Or I could just Berserker Rage, win in a handful of turns, and have the advantage of my character having far greater health and health regen...

Unknown

Budget Player Cadet wrote:

OnesOwnGrief wrote:

She does still have an AP generating green that's good and can be used to get those high cost non-greens off the ground like "Whales! Whales! Whales!" and "Rage of the Panther." You don't have to focus her on Team-Up AP generation but she still has some worth for cascades and generating AP. You also still have the option of burning people down if this get hairy.

Or I could just Berserker Rage, win in a handful of turns, and have the advantage of my character having far greater health and health regen...

Berserker Rage tends to be heavily in the AI's favor when you don't have Magneto to hide behind, and Magneto is plain overpowered so the fact that he makes Berserker Rage an instant win button isn't any more broken compared to how he can virtually win games with 5 blue AP.

Note that if you wimp out with 3 in Berserker Rage you'd be better off running Black Panther in the first place who also uses 9 AP to generate roughly the same strength of strike tiles without any drawbacks.

over_clocked

Phantron wrote:

Note that if you wimp out with 3 in Berserker Rage you'd be better off running Black Panther in the first place who also uses 9 AP to generate roughly the same strength of strike tiles without any drawbacks.

If you went kamikaze with your 5/5/3 Patch, doesn't mean other people 'wimp out' by giving their Patch only 3 in green. Do I need to remind you that Patchneto are not for the fastest wins anymore, but for sustained pushes? Having either 3 or 5 in green matters little, then. BP's yellow is amazing now, but he is really hard to fit onto a team outside of same ole Patchneto.

y2fitzy

I know she's far from amazing but pretty chuffed I just got her from a standard recruitment token Been playing less than a week and managed to get two 3* characters.

Be a lot longer before I can use her properly, obviously...

vudu3

Phantron wrote:

Note that if you wimp out with 3 in Berserker Rage you'd be better off running Black Panther in the first place who also uses 9 AP to generate roughly the same strength of strike tiles without any drawbacks.

You're overlooking the 2K+ initial damage from Berserker Rage.

Professa D

I'm hoping that once they allow us to sell unwanted T-Ups for ISO her yellow will be much more utilizable (<-- is that a word? if not it is now ). If we can manage our teamup library to only keep heavy hitting abilities, then her yellow has the dual purpose of collecting TUAP while doing immediate damage for only 2 AP since we're spending 9 yellow to get 7 TUAP back. It's really the only viable way that I can think to collect TUAP since matching it feels like such a waste of a turn at the moment. Plus, you know, cascades.

Still barely bottom 2nd-3rd tier tho so won't be using unless forced/buffed.

atomzed

I got a black cover for Punk storm and I wondering whether I should respec her.

Currently my Ororo is 5/5/3.

I am not sure whether to respec her to 4/5/4 or 5/4/4 (with eventual aim of 5/3/5).

While I don't like the current yellow, it's the only reliable way of getting TU tiles. It's a huge change from 4 cover to 5 cover, so I am inclined to keep it at 5 yellow.On the same note, the green cover only increase by 2 tiles which I can live with it.

On the other hand, there is a argument to keep her as 5/5/3 as an AP generator. But I like her black as it also block off World Rapture.

Comments anyone?

Unknown

atomzed wrote:

I got a black cover for Punk storm and I wondering whether I should respec her.

Currently my Ororo is 5/5/3.

I am not sure whether to respec her to 4/5/4 or 5/4/4 (with eventual aim of 5/3/5).

While I don't like the current yellow, it's the only reliable way of getting TU tiles. It's a huge change from 4 cover to 5 cover, so I am inclined to keep it at 5 yellow.On the same note, the green cover only increase by 2 tiles which I can live with it.

On the other hand, there is a argument to keep her as 5/5/3 as an AP generator. But I like her black as it also block off World Rapture.

Comments anyone?

I feel like 5 black for her is a must. As a WR blocker alone it's worth it, and if you have any strike tiles out you'll be double dipping forever because they won't be able to clear all of them. As for green vs. yellow, it's up to playstyle. I'm a huge fan of board shakeup and AP gen skills so I went 5 green. But 5 yellow will get better once they fix team-ups a bit.

mags1587

I need black covers -- mine is at 5/5/3 right now. I think I'm going to go 3/5/5 with her. I like her green a lot but I'm thinking I won't use it much since there are so many other good green powers. Whereas getting team-up AP might prove very valuable down the line.

Phaserhawk

mags1587 wrote:

I need black covers -- mine is at 5/5/3 right now. I think I'm going to go 3/5/5 with her. I like her green a lot but I'm thinking I won't use it much since there are so many other good green powers. Whereas getting team-up AP might prove very valuable down the line.

If you want her to be a team up AP generator then you should leave her 5/5/3. If you want her for damage then go 3/5/5. Go 4/5/4 for a hybrid, but 5 yellow is a must, being able to spend 9 yellow to get 7 TU is pretty powerful, especially when it can catapault you into a World Rupture or something.

Unknown

My biggest problem with using her as a TU generator is that TUs are unreliable. Each is a one-use item so you can't have a standard strategy unless you go out farming TUs for the particular ones(s) you want to use every couple of battles. I'm planning to spec her 5/3/5 but it will be while before I get there I think

Phaserhawk

adamLmpq wrote:

My biggest problem with using her as a TU generator is that TUs are unreliable. Each is a one-use item so you can't have a standard strategy unless you go out farming TUs for the particular ones(s) you want to use every couple of battles. I'm planning to spec her 5/3/5 but it will be while before I get there I think

5 green is a waste. I mean honestly, when are you going to want to wait to cast Lightning Storm when there is

Beserker Rage
Judgement
Call of the Storm
World Rupture
Flame Jet

And how often are you not running a Patch, Punisher, Thor, Sentry, or Human Torch in a lineup? The answer is nearly never so why go there?

Unknown

Okay, at the risk of being completely brutalized here, let me ask a question...

Why is Polarizing Force considered incredibly good, but Mistress of the Elements considered terrible?
Now, I promise I'm not trolling or trying to start a flame war here, but I'm asking this in all honesty, trying to understand if I'm missing something.

At 5 covers, max level:
Polarizing Force - Mistress of the Elements
8 Red AP - 9 Yellow AP
261 dmg/tile - 220 dmg/tile
All tiles destroyed
(avg 9, possibly more) - 7 tiles destroyed
No AP generated - 7 TU AP generated

So yes, Polarizing Force does more damage (approx. 378 more on average), and yes Polarizing Force has slightly more potential damage and potential cascading, but is Mistress really that bad? Yes, it costs 1 more, but I think the strengths of Mistress are not to be underestimated. For one thing, there are fewer yellow relevant skills than red (other than like the big 3, Sacrifice, Thunder Strike, and Battleplan). And for another, Mistress combos well with Lightning Strike to get you some more cascading action going, whereas Polarizing Force does not combo well with Magnetized Projectiles, because you're matching all the Red and Blue...

Anyway, I'm not trying to make a case that Mohawk Storm is better than Classic Magneto or anything. I guess I just want to know what everyone thinks!

NorthernPolarity

AznLyte wrote:

Okay, at the risk of being completely brutalized here, let me ask a question...

Why is Polarizing Force considered incredibly good, but Mistress of the Elements considered terrible?
Now, I promise I'm not trolling or trying to start a flame war here, but I'm asking this in all honesty, trying to understand if I'm missing something.

At 5 covers, max level:
Polarizing Force - Mistress of the Elements
8 Red AP - 9 Yellow AP
261 dmg/tile - 220 dmg/tile
All tiles destroyed
(avg 9, possibly more) - 7 tiles destroyed
No AP generated - 7 TU AP generated

So yes, Polarizing Force does more damage (approx. 378 more on average), and yes Polarizing Force has slightly more potential damage and potential cascading, but is Mistress really that bad? Yes, it costs 1 more, but I think the strengths of Mistress are not to be underestimated. For one thing, there are fewer yellow relevant skills than red (other than like the big 3, Sacrifice, Thunder Strike, and Battleplan). And for another, Mistress combos well with Lightning Strike to get you some more cascading action going, whereas Polarizing Force does not combo well with Magnetized Projectiles, because you're matching all the Red and Blue...

Anyway, I'm not trying to make a case that Mohawk Storm is better than Classic Magneto or anything. I guess I just want to know what everyone thinks!

1. I don't know about you, but TU AP isn't really useful given how I'm way too lazy to manage TUs efficiently. Is that just me or do other people do this as well?
2. The big 3 yellow skills are on like the best characters in the game right now (Sentry, LazyThor, arguably BP). The best reds (Star Spangled, fireball) are on mid-tier characters that you don't really see in PvP. This means that C. Mags is a far better compliment to most PvP teams than Mohawk.

In a vacuum, I think the skills are very comparable. It's just that mohawk's color strengths, low hp, and relative weakness of her 2 abilities make her a very weak character in general, which probably bleeds into peoples opinions of mistress being a bad skill.

Unknown

Thanks for your thoughts, NorthernPolarity!

Unknown

I really want to like Mohawk but she just isn't good in the 3 star range. All of her abilities are mediocre, if fun. In PvE where you have a bit more leeway and juggle teams I could see getting some use out of her, but she's definitely a tertiary character.

It sucks because all of her abilities need to be fully covered to be viable. I want her green to be good because I want to play like I did in the one star range but 3 star range is just so much faster that it's not totally reasonable. I could see her green maybe being ok in PvE against goons, but in that situation it's almost certainly better to fire off an ability that will cripple or end the game rather than rolling dice and hoping you get rid of some countdowns with otherwise little gain.

Yellow will also give you some board shake up, and TU can be powerful if used appropriately -- allowing you to bring a loki ability into the mix, a heavy hitter like wind storm (for 2 star) or something like World Rupture -- but as others have said, a lot of the time it's better to just bring that character. As a plus it's hard to disrupt TU abilities, and I don't think you can steal the AP at all? The downside is actually getting the abilities you want, and they're one use only.

Black? Yeah, it puts out some alright damage and can block a lot of tiles but it's not going to last long. Long enough, for sure. Black is probably her best ability

Unknown

I think changing her red power to yellow (I know Mohawk was never released with a red power) was a mistake as when it was red, you could at least use your yellow for Thor making them an ok team. They probably feared that it would be too powerful and changed her color to yellow to exactly prevent that.