**** Nico Minoru (Runaways) ****

fork1977

Sure, she's the 60th 4-star. And to be fair, Reed doesn't really do actual damage either. And she does make and (potentially) boost both Attack and Strike tiles, so it's not like she literally does match-only damage.
Boosted to 366 she should strengthen tiles you have the most of by 139 each, every turn (until your opponent has more, I suppose). It's not insane, but could combine well with characters that make tiles on most turns pretty well, like Blade or Cloak and Dagger. And the obligatory Cardusa reference, of course.

Sandmaker said:

I find it curious that 5/3/5 is the leading vote right now.

I just don't see the value of 5 into blue. While the staff is not on the board, 5 blue does nothing. With the staff out, it adds 2 turns of stun, which is nice, but not that impressive for two covers into a 9 Blue AP ability. 

Whereas 3->5 in yellow gives more/stronger protect tiles, gives an additional 30% across the board increase to protect tiles, and more than doubles the true heal. 

Not mention that active yellow are still pretty rare, whereas there are a ton of better active blues. 

Actually, there are plenty of Yellow actives. There just aren't many good Yellow actives. And I don't think this would make the list over Hero for Hire or Call the Cavalry or whatever. I'm also really wary of active abilities that (mostly) only heal. If you don't need the health, firing the power is pointless (sure, this one also makes some small-ish Protect tiles that she also buffs). When you need the health, you might not have the AP.

Jaedenkaal said:

notamutant said:

This is going to be the first 4 star I will intentionally not spend any iso on since I ran out of iso for my five stars. Despite others positive comments about her, I can never see using her even when boosted. Other characters provide support better along with actual damage. I have every 4 star champed except Prof X, MEH, Devil Dino, and Howard. So she is going into the never champ bucket while I focus on 5 star catch up. 2 4 stars equals 1 5 star about for iso cost, so that 4 star better be worth it, and she doesn't seem like she is.

Sure, she's the 60th 4-star. And to be fair, Reed doesn't really do actual damage either. And she does make and (potentially) boost both Attack and Strike tiles, so it's not like she literally does match-only damage.
Boosted to 366 she should strengthen tiles you have the most of by 139 each, every turn (until your opponent has more, I suppose). It's not insane, but could combine well with characters that make tiles on most turns pretty well, like Blade or Cloak and Dagger. And the obligatory Cardusa reference, of course.

vinsensual said:

Punisher5784 said:

I've never seen anyone complain about OBW either. She is full support and she's the best 2* that greatly helps you reach 3* land.

Espionage allows you to double tap, it's  very good offensive passive.  

Sure. You still need someone else to actually make the Strike tiles, though.

Sandmaker said:

I find it curious that 5/3/5 is the leading vote right now.

I just don't see the value of 5 into blue. While the staff is not on the board, 5 blue does nothing. With the staff out, it adds 2 turns of stun, which is nice, but not that impressive for two covers into a 9 Blue AP ability. 

Whereas 3->5 in yellow gives more/stronger protect tiles, gives an additional 30% across the board increase to protect tiles, and more than doubles the true heal. 

Not mention that active yellow are still pretty rare, whereas there are a ton of better active blues. 

Actually, there are plenty of Yellow actives. There just aren't many good Yellow actives. And I don't think this would make the list over Hero for Hire or Call the Cavalry or whatever. I'm also really wary of active abilities that (mostly) only heal. If you don't need the health, firing the power is pointless (sure, this one also makes some small-ish Protect tiles that she also buffs). When you need the health, you might not have the AP.

As always, Jaedenkaal posts insightful stuff.  I think the big misnomer is that people see her tile strength improve as a one time passive (a la PunMax) rather than the cumulative buff that happens every turn. I ran her with 4* Grocket and the strike tile increase was fairly rapid. Tiles were in the 400s and 500s before I knew it.  

He also rightly indicates the relative benefit of yellow. Stun is one of the best board control elements in the game, and while the yellow is a true heal, it is small and expensive enough to be relatively challenging use of AP.  Two extra turns of stun is soooo much more valuable than protect tiles and healing. 

But her true value is as a passive buff machine with an occasional active AP power.   

zodiac339

fahq1977 said:

zodiac339 said:

Interesting notes:
Mystical Affinity/Trifecta. By “if you have more A/S/P tiles, increase strength of those tiles”, it means if you have more attack, but enemy has more strike, your attack get increased, but enemy’s strike get increased, rather than taking the sum total of special tiles.
This is the fist character to benefit from being stunned before an attack. Say you have a big, heafty protect tile out there and she’s about to take a decent nuke. If she’s stunned first, her passive “doesn’t gain benefit of protect tiles” gets turned off. Was hit by a wind storm team up shortly after realizing this and smiled that she took the same damage as allies rather than more damage.

Fairly certain she does NOT increase enemy tiles at all, regardless of the count on the board.  

That’s not the way I meant it. The only way I’ve played is the Nico PVP, so I was thinking of it in relation to that. Outside of the PVP, if you had Nico, and Enemy didn’t, if you have more strikes but less attack, only your strikes get boosted.

fork1977

zodiac339 said:

That’s not the way I meant it. The only way I’ve played is the Nico PVP, so I was thinking of it in relation to that. Outside of the PVP, if you had Nico, and Enemy didn’t, if you have more strikes but less attack, only your strikes get boosted.

Gotcha!  Just making sure I read right.  You called it.

Tiger_Wong

Hmmm.... she might be one of the few characters that team decently with Kingpin as he’s presently constructed. 

All ahe she has to do is get hit, and her CD hits the field. KP can remove it for the damage. Who’s purple power to use depends on the situation but, both powers are different enough that I would have no problem having both of them with the overlap in that color. 

Not it sure on a 3rd though. Hmmmmm.....

fork1977

Tiger Wong said:

Hmmm.... she might be one of the few characters that team decently with Kingpin as he’s presently constructed. 

All ahe she has to do is get hit, and her CD hits the field. KP can remove it for the damage. Who’s purple power to use depends on the situation but, both powers are different enough that I would have no problem having both of them with the overlap in that color. 

Not it sure on a 3rd though. Hmmmmm.....

Would need to be someone without blue, so she can take damage (assuming your KP or third is higher in yellow and purple). Blade would work well, rogue too

broll

5/3/5

Seems like she might pair well with 5* DD with a stun and some massive strike tile buffing abilities.

fork1977

broll said:

Seems like she might pair well with 5* DD with a stun and some massive strike tile buffing abilities.

The one downside to this pairing is that to get the strike tile benefit, DD must be at less than 50% health and stay there.  Better to pick someone who starts the match with lots of strike tiles, or creates them easily. 

That said, she could be a good pairing if boosted (she is a little squishy) and climbing with DD and he is already low on health to start a match.   

Punisher5784

5/3/5

I was wrecking havoc in her PvP with Gamora and Grocket. She was buffing strikes like a crazy lady.. she might replace Medusa when champed.. idk yet but the instant buff to all tiles is great

hopper1979

Yes she is easily one of the best supports in the game, I need to see he maxed so I can see how well she can tank, not sure how hard she will get hit without receiving protection from defense tiles but the true heal should make here very solid.

Rick_OShay

Oh cool, I like that speed!
I fought my first champed Nico today in PvP and I can tell you she will be a bit of a deterrent (boosted obv). It is very hard to prevent her from placing special tiles, especially protects. Her constant buffing soon made match damage irrelevant unless it was against her. I really wanted to take out Hulkbuster first though, but nope. I was busy trying to deny her more yellow and purple while their HB was gaining tons of red and black. 
Ultimately it was nice that her protect tiles don't protect her, so I finally got the one-shot in a very long match. That's not what you want to face in PvP, and she may turn out to be quite good on defense. Not sure what she will be like on PvP offense though.

Rick_OShay

Sounds great so far. I think keeping a Guardian on hand to accompany Grocket's immediate strikes is better than buffed strikes later with Pun. Plus with 4SL, he makes Grocket's good green cost only 8, so you get the extra turn damage and the big AoE after. 4SL's punch for 6 red AP is no slouch when you have 5+ CD's out, which is easy vs goons.

Anon

5/3/5

So what' the consensus on Nico? Is she worth chasing and Champing? The passive tile buffing definitely seems interesting but everything else about her is meh. Seems like a very niche character to me. Anyone else have better insight?

Spoit

3/5/5

She completely demolishes goon nodes, even when my softcap was only around level 270ish. You don't necessarily even need a second guardian, since she'll buff the equivalent of that boost in about 2 turns. Though gamora is pretty great at getting an attack tile out there for a double dip, and replenishing any matched strikes.

Rick_OShay

Played Nico in today's Big Enchilada on a whim, along with 3* Bullseye. Wow!
Granted I'm a bigger fan of Bulls3ye than most, but once I ensured he downed the first enemy, she kept buffing all of those strikes to crazy levels. Not to mention the few protect tiles she creates inexpensively.
 
Nico happens to play well with many 3* characters (which is good for newer players), so I'm still hoping that she will find her way into more 4* teams as people continue to get her toward champ status. 

Quebbster

I have put my level 250 3/4/5 Nico to good use this week. With all the other special tile generators that are boosted (Bl4de, Cloak and Dagger, Carol Danvers) it's not hard to get her to start buffing tiles, and once she does she keeps going or quite some time. Each tile gets boosted by about 100 points - it adds up when you have a lot o them.

Quebbster

mexus said:

Quebbster said:

I have put my level 250 3/4/5 Nico to good use this week. With all the other special tile generators that are boosted (Bl4de, Cloak and Dagger, Carol Danvers) it's not hard to get her to start buffing tiles, and once she does she keeps going or quite some time. Each tile gets boosted by about 100 points - it adds up when you have a lot o them.

(psst: rocket & groot)

I'm in the fivestar meta, so I rarely use unboosted fourstars. Might try them next week when G4mora is boosted though.

Daredevil217

She will be champ #50 for me.  I could champ her now, but usually try to hold out in case of an iso emergency and the cover still has six days on the vine.  Of the characters I have champed I think she could pair well with...

Grocket/Guardian combo
Carol
Cloak/Dagger
Cage/Fist (maybe too much color overlap here)
Medusa/Carnage combo
Blade
Nova
Professor X
Wasp
War Machine (for his red)
And then there's Vulture, Rogue and Mockingbird who pair well with everyone because of their specialties (battery, tank, and free powers respectively).

She fits so well in the current meta and plays so well with current characters it's hard to classify her as niche.

Trilateralus

Anyone tried pairing her with Storm’s Hailstorm? Seems like it could get out of hand quickly. 

Daredevil217

Just did that today, lol. I did those two with Carol against a team that had Carol as their strongest. I let them match all the black and the Carol AOE damage did most the work before I cast hailstorm. I think it got up to about 6K+ before they died. I’d like to try it again. Maybe with IF or Cloak and Dagger. 

ThaRoadWarrior

I just got my Nico to champion; did y'all know her blue will remove an Entanglement countdown without splitting it into attack tiles?