**** Nightcrawler (Classic) **** Updated (1/4/19)

Daredevil217

Anyone else feel that Vulture Black should have gone to Crawler?  Once Vulture gets going he plays just like Kurt. Touches down, smacks you, then disappears again for a couple turns. I care so little about MCU Vulture as a character while Nightcrawler is so iconic. I’m just wish the latter played better (like Rogue). I just can’t see a way to make him competitive. Yeah there’s winfinite. But there’s options for that and like all Winfinite, it’s squishy and so can only work in PVE.

broll

Daredevil217 said:

Anyone else feel that Vulture Black should have gone to Crawler?  Once Vulture gets going he plays just like Kurt. Touches down, smacks you, then disappears again for a couple turns. I care so little about MCU Vulture as a character while Nightcrawler is so iconic. I’m just wish the latter played better (like Rogue). I just can’t see a way to make him competitive. Yeah there’s winfinite. But there’s options for that and like all Winfinite, it’s squishy and so can only work in PVE.

Are you serious?  Michael Keaton made him epic.  Before the movie I felt the same, but wow that guy can act.

But to your main topic, that's a pretty good point, the only problem with it is I feel Nightcrawler's would be less about being airborne and more about just being agile/teleporting away.  What I think would have helped spice up Nightcrawler was you put down a countdown tile (preferable fortified) and while it's on the board if someone were to damage Kurt, he teleports away evading the damage and hits his attacker for x damage (maybe even steals some AP in the process).

Daredevil217

broll said:

Daredevil217 said:

Anyone else feel that Vulture Black should have gone to Crawler?  Once Vulture gets going he plays just like Kurt. Touches down, smacks you, then disappears again for a couple turns. I care so little about MCU Vulture as a character while Nightcrawler is so iconic. I’m just wish the latter played better (like Rogue). I just can’t see a way to make him competitive. Yeah there’s winfinite. But there’s options for that and like all Winfinite, it’s squishy and so can only work in PVE.

Are you serious?  Michael Keaton made him epic.  Before the movie I felt the same, but wow that guy can act.

But to your main topic, that's a pretty good point, the only problem with it is I feel Nightcrawler's would be less about being airborne and more about just being agile/teleporting away.  What I think would have helped spice up Nightcrawler was you put down a countdown tile (preferable fortified) and while it's on the board if someone were to damage Kurt, he teleports away evading the damage and hits his attacker for x damage (maybe even steals some AP in the process).

No he was great in the movie but he was still Vulture. He did good in that one role but he’s not iconic. We’ll also probably never see him again. Whereas someone like MCU Loki has became iconic by reprising his role so many times (plus the comic book character Loki is cooler than Vulture).

To your second point they are already using the airborne mechanic to represent his bamfing.  When he gets hit with an AOE attack he bamfs away (goes airborne).

Punisher5784

Daredevil217 said:

broll said:

Daredevil217 said:

Anyone else feel that Vulture Black should have gone to Crawler?  Once Vulture gets going he plays just like Kurt. Touches down, smacks you, then disappears again for a couple turns. I care so little about MCU Vulture as a character while Nightcrawler is so iconic. I’m just wish the latter played better (like Rogue). I just can’t see a way to make him competitive. Yeah there’s winfinite. But there’s options for that and like all Winfinite, it’s squishy and so can only work in PVE.

Are you serious?  Michael Keaton made him epic.  Before the movie I felt the same, but wow that guy can act.

But to your main topic, that's a pretty good point, the only problem with it is I feel Nightcrawler's would be less about being airborne and more about just being agile/teleporting away.  What I think would have helped spice up Nightcrawler was you put down a countdown tile (preferable fortified) and while it's on the board if someone were to damage Kurt, he teleports away evading the damage and hits his attacker for x damage (maybe even steals some AP in the process).

No he was great in the movie but he was still Vulture. He did good in that one role but he’s not iconic. We’ll also probably never see him again. Whereas someone like MCU Loki has became iconic by reprising his role so many times (plus the comic book character Loki is cooler than Vulture).

To your second point they are already using the airborne mechanic to represent his bamfing.  When he gets hit with an AOE attack he bamfs away (goes airborne).

I believe we will see Vulture again. He did not die like most villains. Spider-Man will likely be the main attraction for Phase 4 and on (until they figure out F4 and X-Men). Marvel/Sony would be crazy not to do Sinister Six for the third movie.

maguirenumber6

I need to get about 190k iso by Jan 20th to make him my next champ and avoid wasting the cover I have waiting on the vine. Looking forward to seeing what a champed Kurt can do.

Daredevil217

mexus said:

maguirenumber6 said:

I need to get about 190k iso by Jan 20th to make him my next champ and avoid wasting the cover I have waiting on the vine. Looking forward to seeing what a champed Kurt can do.

He can bamf. He's one of my favorite characters from the second half of 2017 which is saying a lot considering how good Chavez and Vulture and Nico are.

I’ve been sort of underwhelmed by him. I find Crawler and Professor to be too squishy. Maybe Rogue (who I know  you dislike) as a meaty third to protect them? Though that wouldn’t work as she’d be my highest level (277), Kurt and X are tied at 274. 

Just curious what other teams you’ve ran him on. 

hopper1979

I was using him with Chaves, both with no levels in them and OML and was doing very well with them.  He feeds Chaves yellow power or match damage depending on how you use his purple, once I can get some covers in them I will be revisiting this team but it was very solid at low level which gives me hope for the the high ones

sinnerjfl

5/5/3

Nightcrawler can fit with any team and that's mostly because of BAMF, do not underestimate the effect of adding 8 tiles to a board already rich in a specific color (if its purple, yes you can winfinite but he can be more useful).

You can bring him with another board changer and BAMF to tack on even more of that color (C&D, Phoenix, SL, etc). Charged tile makers can work too.

You can use him with 5*'s for the cascades and crits he tends to generate. You almost always get at least a match-4 with a single cast, double casting it is even more effective.

You can use him to fuel any high-cost abilities pretty quickly and he's not tied to a specific color, only what's on the board.


Otherwise, red is rather dissapointing unless you plan ahead and pair him with someone who can actually use that 12 AP you need for maximum damage (or someone with strongest as red ideally... hmm only Iron Man in the 5* tier).

Blue is expensive (you can speed it up with BAMF) but the damage is rather good + you steal a tiny amount, can be useful.


My main gripe for now using him is there's still no indicator to what color is most present on the board yet Lockjaw has that info in one of his abilities...  *grumble*

Punisher5784

Brigby said:

Punisher5784 said:

Can you ask the devs to add an indicator to his Purple? This way we don't have to count tiles to see what basic tiles will be created. They can use the recent Lockjaw as an example. His blue also uses the most color tiles on the board and the ability tells you, so they should be ability to code it.

Sure thing! I'll pass that feedback along to them, and see if that's something they can include.

Hi @Brigby! Any update? More players are starting to champ him and use him more, so an indicator on his Purple would make him much easier to utilize.

Daredevil217

Punisher5784 said:

Brigby said:

Punisher5784 said:

Can you ask the devs to add an indicator to his Purple? This way we don't have to count tiles to see what basic tiles will be created. They can use the recent Lockjaw as an example. His blue also uses the most color tiles on the board and the ability tells you, so they should be ability to code it.

Sure thing! I'll pass that feedback along to them, and see if that's something they can include.

Hi @Brigby! Any update? More players are starting to champ him and use him more, so an indicator on his Purple would make him much easier to utilize.

Yeah I’d like him much better with this.

I tried him on a full rainbow. I think Moon Knight and Cyclops or something like that so no matter what color came I could use it. It was better but still nothing amazing. Crawler is just really squishy without the evasiveness of a Vulture or invisibility of a professor to keep him alive. 

Brigby

@Punisher5784 said:

Brigby said:

Punisher5784 said:

Can you ask the devs to add an indicator to his Purple? This way we don't have to count tiles to see what basic tiles will be created. They can use the recent Lockjaw as an example. His blue also uses the most color tiles on the board and the ability tells you, so they should be ability to code it.

Sure thing! I'll pass that feedback along to them, and see if that's something they can include.

Hi Brigby! Any update? More players are starting to champ him and use him more, so an indicator on his Purple would make him much easier to utilize.

I spoke with the developers, and they've informed me that adding this specific dynamic display requires a significant amount of work to implement, so unfortunately they are unable to work on it at this moment in time. Having said that though, they've added it to a backlog list, and will see if they can revisit it once there is more bandwidth to address it.

DarthDeVo

Brigby said:

@Punisher5784 said:

Brigby said:

Punisher5784 said:

Can you ask the devs to add an indicator to his Purple? This way we don't have to count tiles to see what basic tiles will be created. They can use the recent Lockjaw as an example. His blue also uses the most color tiles on the board and the ability tells you, so they should be ability to code it.

Sure thing! I'll pass that feedback along to them, and see if that's something they can include.

Hi Brigby! Any update? More players are starting to champ him and use him more, so an indicator on his Purple would make him much easier to utilize.

I spoke with the developers, and they've informed me that adding this specific dynamic display requires a significant amount of work to implement, so unfortunately they are unable to work on it at this moment in time. Having said that though, they've added it to a backlog list, and will see if they can revisit it once there is more bandwidth to address it.

 Thanks for the update @Brigby.

I'm not doubting them when they say this could be a hard or time-consuming thing to implement, but we already have a seemingly very similar feature with Lockjaw's blue.

I'll be the first to admit I'm not a programmer or developer, so it very well could be that this is much harder than I think. It's just from our perspective we already basically see this feature with a different character, yet for some reason its absent with Nightcrawler, where it could be a huge help. 

Daredevil217

I tried Bamfinite again in sim.  In my pairings Crawler was my highest leveled and so Purple was my strongest color.

Professor/Crawler/Switch. I collected a lot of Purple before Switch’s countdown even went off. Started a chain reaction of Black Match 5s everywhere. Even though it’s a color I can’t use, cascades, crits and Professor big head took out two characters alone.  Coulson was left staring at three people with a board full of useless black and eventually fell. 

Since switch did nothing I replaced her with Rogue and siphoned someone with a Purple strongest. Now THAT was fun. I think the color spam ended up being Green (again useless once I used siphon). Since I was fighting 3Hulk and Kamala that wasn’t good and it cost me some packs. 

I think Bamf and and Professor play very very well together but you are bringing to the table a strong but random purple and weak red/blue.  That’s it.  So you need a heavy lifting third to cover as many colors/weaknesses as possible or you need someone to fuel Purple because you will struggle immensely with a Purple starved board.  Plus Prof and Kurt are very squish. I felt after winning with them I immediately needed to play another but match not to leave them on defense. 

I definitely had fun with Crawler much like I do meh Hulk, but they are pretty weak on defense and I can’t see them being competitive yet. Still, they are very fun characters and there’s nothing wrong with that. If ever we get a Black/Yellow/Green character who fuels Purple, I think these two could be lethal. 

broll

Daredevil217 said:

mexus said:

maguirenumber6 said:

I need to get about 190k iso by Jan 20th to make him my next champ and avoid wasting the cover I have waiting on the vine. Looking forward to seeing what a champed Kurt can do.

He can bamf. He's one of my favorite characters from the second half of 2017 which is saying a lot considering how good Chavez and Vulture and Nico are.

I’ve been sort of underwhelmed by him. I find Crawler and Professor to be too squishy. Maybe Rogue (who I know  you dislike) as a meaty third to protect them? Though that wouldn’t work as she’d be my highest level (277), Kurt and X are tied at 274. 

Just curious what other teams you’ve ran him on. 

Yeah, I BH'd Nightcrawler for a while to get him high enough for purple to surpass blue for this team to work and it's super underwhelming.  Both Prof X and NC feel like their made of tissue paper and one typically dies before you can get the process start.  Granted I'm in the 5* MMR now so it was two squishy 4*s and a 3* vs 2-3 champed 5*, it's just a blood bath.  I still think it could have promise for someone with a younger roster to have a better version of winifinite with them, but I don't think it will ever be usable by me unless Prof X or NC get significant buffs, probably not even then.  Oh well.  Still look forward to trying this next time NC get's boosted in PvE or get's a PvP run.  I'll probably give it a try on switch's PvP also but yeah it's probably not gonna be good enough (certainly not if Gabmit still rules MPQ)

Dormammu

What I've discovered is that Kurt is a weak character. He has one decent-ish power that people keep pointing towards as justification for his use, but BAMF is unreliable at best. It can get you a winfinite, or it can fizzle into nothing. 50/50.

This is unfortunate. Nightcrawler is a great character and he'll likely be my next champ due to Galactus event covers ripening on my vine. I'll probably champ him and then let him warm my 4-star bench next to Electra, IW, and other rarely used fours. Normally that doesn't bother me. With 60+ 4-stars they can't all be rock stars.

But dangit, it's Nightcrawler. I want to use him.

hopper1979

He is fun but you are right, overall he is under-powered.  His red is fine especially when boosted but underwhelming normally.  His blue is bad.  His passive and Bamf are his selling points.  Bamf is a double edged sword it can be phenomenal or it can bring your team to a halt if you do not bother to count.  I have been having a blast playing him in this event with Mordo and Cloak and Dagger, C&D make sure black or yellow is always the dominant color, blue goes to Mordo to increase the odds of black even more and than you spam Mordo's black and Bamf.  You are safe if you spam Bamf for blue early as well because that will get you to black quickly as well.  The problem is you need somebody to push the balance towards a color you want and without that push he is too dependent on the board which makes him underpowered.

Scarlet Witch, C&D, Sandman (but then you a casting the wrong pink to push the board to yellow), Quake (she eliminates colors instead of adding) he is limited in his partners if you are trying to exploit Bamf.  I did find he works very well with Chavez when she is slotted for her traps but frankly there are better partners for her, Prof X is another good partner but then you have two frail characters on your team who can be one-shot easily.

Fun but flawed, but when he works it is a sight to behold, a few minor tweaks and he would be a great support.

 

Daredevil217

Dormammu said:

What I've discovered is that Kurt is a weak character. He has one decent-ish power that people keep pointing towards as justification for his use, but BAMF is unreliable at best. It can get you a winfinite, or it can fizzle into nothing. 50/50.

This is unfortunate. Nightcrawler is a great character and he'll likely be my next champ due to Galactus event covers ripening on my vine. I'll probably champ him and then let him warm my 4-star bench next to Electra, IW, and other rarely used fours. Normally that doesn't bother me. With 60+ 4-stars they can't all be rock stars.

But dangit, it's Nightcrawler. I want to use him.

I agree and have been saying exactly this. I will say that while not good characters, he and MEHulk are both at least fun characters. So I use them a lot in sim.  

Someone actually put Crawler in their T10 4* list. Floored me. I have him right around the middle in the “solid” tier but even that might be generous. But again I find him fun. It’s rough that his only power of note doesn’t boost at all so even on boost weeks he’s not much better. 

sinnerjfl

5/5/3

Im not saying you're wrong but you might need to play with Nightcrawler a tad more before evaluating him, he obviously needs the right teammates but Im having tons of fun with him since he's boosted and he seems to be pretty strong to me.

BAMF is so damn versatile, its like having Phoenix's or Iron Fist's purple except you can make whatever color you need and the board is already rich in that color. He is a cascade and AP generating machine. Finding blue to be quite serviceable boosted and at 5 covers, hits goons hard because they always generate their strongest color.

 

Daredevil217

sinnerjfl said:

 you can make whatever color you need 

How?

It really bothers me that the power doesn’t indicate the most prevelant color in its description. It’s annoying. I usually just get a random color that half the time I can’t use. The cascades and crits are nice though. I think he’s solid/serviceable. But there are still at least 30 characters I’d take over him. I also believe there will one day be a broken combo with him and he’ll shoot up the meta down the road. 

Quebbster

The problem with Nightcrawler, as I see it, is that the Power you need is often the color you have matched away, and thus not the most prevalent on the board... When I have tried BAMFing I usually end up with a dud color as the BAMF target.

You can obviously try to flood the board with a needed color, but most Powers like that are Purple too. I suppose you could run him with Riri Williams and Bl4de to get two non-Purple red-spamming colors though...