Rework discussion: Riri self-sustain red AOE & Mordo the purple Hulkbuster

D4Ni13

So after we saw the numbers of Riri's & Mordo's reworks, time to draw some initial conclusions. 

Riri

15.641 HP (1600 more HP than the average)

Magnetic Repulsors - 9 Blue AP

The difference in damage from 3 to 5 covers is only 541, so nothing special. The change that would make anybody want more covers in blue could be charge tiles. Are they worth it, most of the time ? Well it depends how often you have red tiles near the center of the board. You can potentially make a 6 match and gain a lot of red AP if that is the case. 

My opinion: 3 or 4 covers suffice. (Green power is the deciding point here). 

Remote Control Gauntlets - 11 Red AP

This is a 5 cover ability no doubt. More versatility than the old iteration, with the same damage of single target. 

Selfless Intervention - 8 Green AP

The question here is how often do you want your opponent airborne ? The damage is also something to consider, but the other question is more important. Being airborne is similar to stunned, but the enemy is not targetable. That means that you can buy time to gather AP against an enemy who has some powers ready to activate and you want a delay. But if that is not the case, you may want a smaller time to have him airborne. Also, if the board has more than 4 enemy special tiles, with 4 covers you would get only 1 turn more than the opponent to act if Riri is the last one in your team, as opposed to 2 turns for 5 covers. So I think the choice here depends on the amount of utility you want & need. Ultimately, you can use the ability as X-23 green, just for 4k in the face. 

That being said, my initial build would be 3-5-5, simply because charge tiles are a double-edge sword, but if I find that the potential of being a red battery is higher than expected, I would change to 4-5-4. Overall, I think this is a good rework for Riri. 

Mordo 

Has the average HP now (13,995)

Staff of the Living Tribunal - 8 Black AP

This power became his worst in my opinion, or may I say the least reliable one. The cost increased with 1 AP, and while the damage can potentially rise to 10k, you need to use it twice for that and have all 8 charge tiles on the board. 

Judging by the numbers, this power is almost useless at 3 covers, and only good at 5 covers. The problem is that his other colors are just better, and in the 4* land there are better black powers. 

Vaulting Boots of Valtorr - 10 Blue AP 

Decent ability, like before, and more damage. Nothing changed here. 3 or 5 covers (depending if you want to use his black or not). 

Power with Purpose - 9 Purple AP

This has become the best purple ability in the game (in 4* land) in my opinion, and transforms Mordo in the new Hulkbuster. This is a 5-cover must. There are a lot of teams that don't use a rainbow color scheme and gather lots of unused AP. 10 enemy AP translates into 7830 damage, and you can go from that to a max of 23,490 damage for 30 enemy AP. This is crazy. A boosted Mordo can easily one-shot a 5* with the max AP pool. I'm not saying that you will consistently fire that much damage, but 10k is something more easily achievable with most of the enemy teams. 

That being said, my initial build would be 3-5-5, because of the poor black and awesome purple. The only time I see anybody use more covers in black is if you pair Mordo with Black Bolt or other charge tile generator and you compromise the damage of blue: 5-3-5. (A 4-4-5 build is a loss on both black & blue in my opinion). 

So what are your thoughts on the reworks, and how do you plan on using the two ? 

UPDATE:

Well, after playing with her new kit in the Simulator, I must agree Riri's best build is 4-5-4. She is a very good red battery and synergize very well with her own red ability. 

I really like her kit now. She is very fun to play and even better as a boosted hero.

And yes, if it wasn't enough already, Mordo's purple steals the destroyed AP. Sick ability. 

Carol, Mordo & Riri is a thing from now on.

himatako

I'm sad that from the description, Riri's new blue doesn't seem like it will prioritize special tiles over basic tiles. We'll probably get something like R&D's green or SW's green or Magneto's yellow that it has a chance of targeting special tiles, but nothing guarantees that. 

Still, over all it's a buff and I'm excited to use her since I just got all 13 covers of her. I haven't champed her yet, so the build is 3/5/5 right now. I'll find someone to feed red to her and use blue power of other characters instead. 

As for Mordo, I don't think I have many covers of him yet, but I'm really excited for his purple power. From the past PvP with so many Bl4de and Red Hulk, we seriously need a 4-star character that can effectively destroy or steal the opponent's AP.

Before Mordo's new purple, most of the powers that destroy enemy's AP pool can only target opponent's strongest color. This is good and all, but sometime the opponent's strongest color isn't the same color of their deadly active power. Red Hulk is probably the best example for this, since his green is super deadly when boosted, but his strongest color is red. This basically means there is no way you can stop him from getting green or purple, unless you use Red Hulk as well. 

So yeah, I'm excited for Mordo's new purple. You can either use it to punish AP hoarder or you can use it to interrupt your opponent plan. It's flexible and can be used both offensively or defensively, so this seems like a must 5 like you said. 

JarvisJackrabbit

Great breakdown, D4Ni13. I'm excited to be able to give champed Riri some genuine play time after her update. I've actually been using champed Mordo regularly with 5* BP and 3* IF (holy self-sustaining black AP generation), so that particularly fun team will be less useable with his new kit, but the change to 5 purple covers should clearly make him far more useful in a general sense.

Straycat

So far, its been very easy matching at least 2 of the charged tiles after using blue at 4 covers. She's definitely a 4/5/4 for me. Since she's boosted I haven't felt the downside of her red's conditions, but since blue is a decent battery for her, I think she's pretty good now.

If Mordo could make more charged tiles I could argue a 4/4/5, but I'm going 3/5/5 mainly. His blue hits hard, so its not like there's an easy blue to replace it. Maybe if I'm running with Dr Doom for max black I would change it to 5/3/5.

His purple is stealing ap too, but that'll probably be fixed soon

Edit: Riri matches red, then changes the middle 4 for possible additional matches. Its potentially devastating.

Elric_VIII

I don't like that Riri cannot use her red at all if all the non-targeted enemies are airborne. This seems like an unreasonable lack of synergy. Just looking at her kit I'd expect her green to be able to set up and manipulate how her red acts. I can't really speak to her power level as she's 4/4/5 level 150 for me right now, but I don't like this decision on her powers' ability to work together.

D4Ni13

Well, after playing with her new kit in the Simulator, I must agree Riri's best build is 4-5-4. She is a very good red battery and synergize very well with her own red ability. 

I really like her kit now. She is very fun to play and even better as a boosted hero.

And yes, if it wasn't enough already, Mordo's purple steals the destroyed AP. Sick ability. 

Carol, Mordo & Riri is a thing from now on.

Landale

I noted a couple of tweaks I would love to see later with her redesign.  For example, with her Red power, if there are just 2 enemies left, she doesn't also hit the front target, and she doesn't hit the back target for double...the "other gauntlet" from the power just doesn't hit anything.

I would have liked to see her Red power be similar to that of Gwenpoole's Chekov's Gun.  GPs Green performs three hits that may or may not affect the same targets, regardless of the number of enemies left.  

So, my wish for Riri's red would be:
- If there's 3 enemies, hit the back two enemies once each
- If there's 2 enemies, hit the front and the back once each (or hit the back twice)
- If there's 1 enemy, hit the front twice
- Let it hit Airborne enemies as well

Also, if her blue would prioritize swapping special tiles first, and then choose random basic tiles if there are no more special tiles to select, then that would be awesome.

However, despite my critiques, she is pretty great now, IMO.  I love the charged red tiles she makes, and the green sending enemies airborne for 2-3 rounds can get pretty awesome.  Plus, the red does a bunch of damage still.

Edit: Also, I noticed that if I use the Green while there are 4 enemy tiles on the board, it sends her Airborne, but it didn't send the enemy Airborne as well.  Is this a bug?  It doesn't say that it sends her Airborne "instead" on the power description, so it kinda threw me for a loop.

Pongie

I'm running hawkeye (my lone 5*), so pretty much avoid another blue user. Would respec both to 3 blue

hopper1979

I will have to look closer at his purple now you all have me convinced to switch over, I tried 5/5/3 and was not overly impressed, the fact that the black charged tiles stay is a great upgrade but it is still difficult to get that bonus damage consistently even casting his blue first.  I think x/x/5 is going to be the way to go and switch up between blue and black depending on team.  Can't comment on ironheart year I am in the middle of leveling her now I always liked the idea behind her blue but the tile lock killed the power now she looks real solid.  Thanks for the breakdown it was very useful. Oh yea my one complaint with the change the hp nurf for mordo is annoying.

Anon

So glad I finally decided to level and champ Mordo (I got sick of selling his covers) and hear this great news!

D4Ni13

Landale said:

Edit: Also, I noticed that if I use the Green while there are 4 enemy tiles on the board, it sends her Airborne, but it didn't send the enemy Airborne as well.  Is this a bug?  It doesn't say that it sends her Airborne "instead" on the power description, so it kinda threw me for a loop.

It may have been a special situation or a bug. Who did you try to send airborne and didnt work ? I even sent Colossus airborne, while he had his yellow on the board and cancel its effect during that time.
Maybe it was a target that cannot be stunned or sent airborne ?

Also think her red is fine with the caveats you described. What you propose would make her skill OP, because she can make red AP very easy with her blue now. I often make enough AP for 2 swings with only one good timed blue... so I don't know what to say. She is pretty good right now.

JarvisJackrabbit

D4Ni13 said:

Carol, Mordo & Riri is a thing from now on.

Wow, you're not kidding. I have all three champed and hadn't tried them together prior to starting Simulator a couple hours ago, but that team absolutely steamrolled the first four clears.

D4Ni13

JarvisJackrabbit said:

D4Ni13 said:

Carol, Mordo & Riri is a thing from now on.

Wow, you're not kidding. I have all three champed and hadn't tried them together prior to starting Simulator a couple hours ago, but that team absolutely steamrolled the first four clears.

And it's also a very fun team to use

Starfury

You shouldn't insult Mordo by comparing him with Hulkbuster.

Boy the powercreep (or -leap?) is real.

D4Ni13

Starfury said:

You shouldn't insult Mordo by comparing him with Hulkbuster.

Boy the powercreep (or -leap?) is real.

Hey, Hulkbuster was very very good in his days. It wasn't an insult, but a compliment. 

And yes the power is crazy. My 277 Mordo does 810 damage on AP unboosted. 

DarthDeVo

Riri, Gwenpool and IM40 tore up the second round of Simulator for me. In most cases, as long as I had matched away the gun tile, when I got 6 yellow, it was pretty much over. Riri red to Gwenpool green. Done. Even if the gun tile didn't get matched, it was pretty much Riri red, then blue, and if that still wasn't enough, either red again depending on the outcome of her blue or Riri green. 

Khanwulf

Note for discussion: Mordo does not remove his charged black tiles anymore, so if you can get 8 out and keep the black coming he'll continue doing his maximum damage. 

--Khanwulf

Jaedenkaal

I think Smite is still better, though. Aside from being more expensive, it will count Charged tiles of any color, has no cap to the number it will count, and keeps generating Charged tiles until you run out of basic Red, Blue, and Yellow tiles on the board.

I guess Smite is less effective at self-accelerating because it makes 3 colors of Charged tiles? But matching away Black charged tiles to repeatedly fire an under-threshold Staff o/t Tribunal is still pretty underwhelming.

Landale

D4Ni13 said:

Landale said:

Edit: Also, I noticed that if I use the Green while there are 4 enemy tiles on the board, it sends her Airborne, but it didn't send the enemy Airborne as well.  Is this a bug?  It doesn't say that it sends her Airborne "instead" on the power description, so it kinda threw me for a loop.

It may have been a special situation or a bug. Who did you try to send airborne and didnt work ? I even sent Colossus airborne, while he had his yellow on the board and cancel its effect during that time.
Maybe it was a target that cannot be stunned or sent airborne ?

Also think her red is fine with the caveats you described. What you propose would make her skill OP, because she can make red AP very easy with her blue now. I often make enough AP for 2 swings with only one good timed blue... so I don't know what to say. She is pretty good right now.

The enemy I was trying to send airborne was just a goon - a Maggia Thug.  There were more than 4 CD tiles on the board so it sent me Airborne but not him.  And this has happened to me several times now during the Simulator and Meet R&G.

Also, I noticed that sometimes Riri's Blue doesn't swap out 4 tiles in the middle, just 3.  My guess would be that the power chooses the tile to swap with itself (i.e. not move).  Is this a normal thing for the random tile swappers (Loki, Medusa, Doc Ock)?  If it is that's fine, I'm just curious if anyone else noted this behavior?

And as I stated in the same post, I think she's awesome now with her rework - what I posted was more a wish-list than anything else.

Jaedenkaal

Landale said:

The enemy I was trying to send airborne was just a goon - a Maggia Thug.  There were more than 4 CD tiles on the board so it sent me Airborne but not him.  And this has happened to me several times now during the Simulator and Meet R&G.

Also, I noticed that sometimes Riri's Blue doesn't swap out 4 tiles in the middle, just 3.  My guess would be that the power chooses the tile to swap with itself (i.e. not move).  Is this a normal thing for the random tile swappers (Loki, Medusa, Doc Ock)?  If it is that's fine, I'm just curious if anyone else noted this behavior?

Both likely bugs.

Yepyep

Jaedenkaal said:

Landale said:

The enemy I was trying to send airborne was just a goon - a Maggia Thug.  There were more than 4 CD tiles on the board so it sent me Airborne but not him.  And this has happened to me several times now during the Simulator and Meet R&G.

Also, I noticed that sometimes Riri's Blue doesn't swap out 4 tiles in the middle, just 3.  My guess would be that the power chooses the tile to swap with itself (i.e. not move).  Is this a normal thing for the random tile swappers (Loki, Medusa, Doc Ock)?  If it is that's fine, I'm just curious if anyone else noted this behavior?

Both likely bugs.

Technically it's not a swap -- it says it converts the center four tiles to red. What happens if they are already red...?