**** Kraven the Hunter (Sergei Kravinoff) ****

DrDevilDinosaur

Conceptually, I think the abilities are actually on the right track, but each of the miss the mark just enough that I feel compelled to come up with a redesign. I only have a very basic knowledge of Kraven - I know that he's a hunter and a Spidey villain, but any nuance past that is unfamiliar to me. Regardless, I think there's enough that we can do with the idea of a master hunter/tracker. It would be easy to tweak some existing powers (5* Panther's Black and 3* Punisher's Red are both abilities that I think could fit the hunter template quite well) however I wanted to see if we could also use this as a chance to bring some love to Trap tiles.

Wounded Pride

I felt like there was a big disconnect between the ability and description here; it talks about Kraven lashing out when his ego takes a hit but it's an activated ability that destroys his own AP - is Kraven attacking his own ego?

Instead I imaged this ability as a Passive that is triggered whenever a friendly Countdown or Trap tile is destroyed or removed by the enemy. (That is, any way in which an enemy can get rid of a Trap or Countdown without activating it.) When activated, this creates a Wounded Pride countdown which targets friendly Black AP and enemy strongest colour.

I think the damage potential of the countdown in the original ability was decent enough, it's just the criteria for getting a countdown on the board that I wanted to modify. I've also changed the friendly AP portion to always target Black - so even though this is a Passive, you still want to make sure you've been collecting Black AP to fuel the damage that each Wounded Pride CD can deal. There's a little bit of inspiration from Chavez here, who is designed around retaining AP rather than spending it. This ability has a little self-synergy in that Kraven will create a Wounded Pride CD if the enemy manages to remove a Wounded Pride CD that was already in play (although a Rank 5, they will be 1-turn countdowns that activate as soon as the enemy turn ends)

Think Like the Enemy

Another ability with a disconnect between description and implementation. This ability is supposed to represent Kraven turning an enemy's strength against them, but I don't get that impression from reading the ability mechanics.

Change this into an activated ability. Purple, 11 AP - cost reduced by 1 AP for each enemy A/S/P tile on the board to a minimum of 5. Creates a Countdown tile (3/4/5 turns). At the start of each turn, this tile accumulates X damage for each enemy special tile; if there are more than 6 enemy A/S/P tiles, also reduce their strength.

I'm not sure I worded that very well, so let me explain. This ability creates a countdown that deals 0 damage, at least to begin. However, at the start of every turn, the amount of damage it deals is increased according to the number of enemy special tiles (A/S/P only) that are on the board. The tile strength debuff is linked to the CD being on the board as well as the threshold value.

Most Dangerous Game

Keep this as an activated ability. Blue 9 AP. The Trap is placed on a random Black, Purple, or Blue tile (instead of always Blue) and steals 1 Black, Purple, and Blue AP (see also: Elektra's Ballet of Death) per turn. If matched away by a friendly match, convert tiles to Blue and deal damage (that is, the similar to current effect). No effect if the trap is matched by an enemy (however it would still trigger the Wounded Pride passive).

I think this gives the ability a lot of versatility - the trap now helps fuel all of Kraven's abilities specifically and can me matched away by a friendly in order to deal some damage and potentially gain some more Blue AP to recast. This should reflect the idea that Kraven is always closing in on his target. There's no effect to the trap being matched by the enemy baked into this ability itself, but it would trigger Wounded Pride (which was the intent of my design).

D4Ni13

5/5/3

DrDevilDinosaur said:

Conceptually, I think the abilities are actually on the right track, but each of the miss the mark just enough that I feel compelled to come up with a redesign. I only have a very basic knowledge of Kraven - I know that he's a hunter and a Spidey villain, but any nuance past that is unfamiliar to me. Regardless, I think there's enough that we can do with the idea of a master hunter/tracker. It would be easy to tweak some existing powers (5* Panther's Black and 3* Punisher's Red are both abilities that I think could fit the hunter template quite well) however I wanted to see if we could also use this as a chance to bring some love to Trap tiles.

Wounded Pride

I felt like there was a big disconnect between the ability and description here; it talks about Kraven lashing out when his ego takes a hit but it's an activated ability that destroys his own AP - is Kraven attacking his own ego?

Instead I imaged this ability as a Passive that is triggered whenever a friendly Countdown or Trap tile is destroyed or removed by the enemy. (That is, any way in which an enemy can get rid of a Trap or Countdown without activating it.) When activated, this creates a Wounded Pride countdown which targets friendly Black AP and enemy strongest colour.

I think the damage potential of the countdown in the original ability was decent enough, it's just the criteria for getting a countdown on the board that I wanted to modify. I've also changed the friendly AP portion to always target Black - so even though this is a Passive, you still want to make sure you've been collecting Black AP to fuel the damage that each Wounded Pride CD can deal. There's a little bit of inspiration from Chavez here, who is designed around retaining AP rather than spending it. This ability has a little self-synergy in that Kraven will create a Wounded Pride CD if the enemy manages to remove a Wounded Pride CD that was already in play (although a Rank 5, they will be 1-turn countdowns that activate as soon as the enemy turn ends)

Think Like the Enemy

Another ability with a disconnect between description and implementation. This ability is supposed to represent Kraven turning an enemy's strength against them, but I don't get that impression from reading the ability mechanics.

Change this into an activated ability. Purple, 11 AP - cost reduced by 1 AP for each enemy A/S/P tile on the board to a minimum of 5. Creates a Countdown tile (3/4/5 turns). At the start of each turn, this tile accumulates X damage for each enemy special tile; if there are more than 6 enemy A/S/P tiles, also reduce their strength.

I'm not sure I worded that very well, so let me explain. This ability creates a countdown that deals 0 damage, at least to begin. However, at the start of every turn, the amount of damage it deals is increased according to the number of enemy special tiles (A/S/P only) that are on the board. The tile strength debuff is linked to the CD being on the board as well as the threshold value.

Most Dangerous Game

Keep this as an activated ability. Blue 9 AP. The Trap is placed on a random Black, Purple, or Blue tile (instead of always Blue) and steals 1 Black, Purple, and Blue AP (see also: Elektra's Ballet of Death) per turn. If matched away by a friendly match, convert tiles to Blue and deal damage (that is, the similar to current effect). No effect if the trap is matched by an enemy (however it would still trigger the Wounded Pride passive).

I think this gives the ability a lot of versatility - the trap now helps fuel all of Kraven's abilities specifically and can me matched away by a friendly in order to deal some damage and potentially gain some more Blue AP to recast. This should reflect the idea that Kraven is always closing in on his target. There's no effect to the trap being matched by the enemy baked into this ability itself, but it would trigger Wounded Pride (which was the intent of my design).

While your solution is quite ok in essence, it does make things more complex and it changes the inital design of the character. I think there are simpler solutions to bring his abilities where they should be. 

First off, his purple passive is currently the only ability that people like and is the reason they will ever use Kraven. So changing it is out of the question. Black and Blue are not terrible, but not great either, and with some small tweaks they can bring more quality to Kraven's gameplay. 

For black I simply suggest changing the conditon to take in account any number of AP, to a maximum treshold of 10, regardless of where it gets the AP(enemy or ally teams). This would ensure 2 important things: 

• It would work with any combination of friendly and enemy AP (5-5, 7-3, 3-7, and so on) which would add a lot more reason to play the ability in the first place. 
• It would deal a maximum of 15700 damage without strike tiles, which is reasonable for a 10AP ability that also rezolve around a CD tile. 
  

Another alternative here would be to let the current ability as it is, but make the CD fortified for 5 covers. 9500 damage is low, but if at least we know that we can fire it consistenly, than I guess it's ok. 

For his blue ability, I don't mind its low damage, but more that it's a trap tile and it is so easy to destroy it without any effect. So the simplest solution here would be to just make a new trap tile if it is destroyed, and keep the rest of the effect. This way, at least we know that AP steal is consistent. 

They could also just remove the damage from matching the trap altogether and just convert more tiles. This way it would make one decide if he wants fortified CD at first ability, more reduction on passive, or more conversion on his blue. 

As he stands now, his only build is 5-5-3, because its not worth putting more covers in blue, and his black would be a situational skill used only when there is no other black user in the team. 

broll

Tiger Wong said:

He can’t ‘murder’ jack one on one. Unless you consider sitting behind an invisibility tile, praying for an almost impossible 5-match, and doing normal 3 match damage.

is water torture considered ‘murder’?

If the person dies from it then yes it is...

wingX

I think he actually work nicely with 3* Wolverine, Carnage and Nico. With 3*Wolv and Nico, his strike tiles are buffed and enemies strikes are lowered every turn, and his purple passive damage can double dip with the strike tiles created/buffed.

Tiger_Wong

5/5/3

3* Hawkeye
4* Venom (Eddie Brock)
Kraven

pve but will work and is fun. 

HoundofShadow

5/5/3

How does that team work? Using Venom's passive ability to throw out streams of protect tiles to fuel Hawkeye's passive ability that gives +2 ap to purple and blue?

Tiger_Wong

5/5/3

The shield tiles only need 466 or so damage to be created. That’s basically a match 4. Matching enemy tiles give Hawk 2 blue + purple to fire his blue and (most importantly) his purple. 

His purple is important because once you get enough enemy tiles out, Kravens Think Like The Enemy starts lowering enemy tiles and doing damage before you can match on your turn. The damage isn’t that great until Hawk’s strikes hit the field. Then the damage will look really good while you have no fear from enemy tiles. 

Hawks black makes enemy tiles too and is a true heal. 

HoundofShadow

5/5/3

I understand where you are coming from. Wouldn't Venom's ability reduce enemies' protect tile to 1 anyway? Hawkeye's black throws out 4 special tiles but it overlaps with Kraven's black. Whose black ability would you prioritise?

zodiac339

5/5/3

HoundofShadow said:

I understand where you are coming from. Wouldn't Venom's ability reduce enemies' protect tile to 1 anyway? Hawkeye's black throws out 4 special tiles but it overlaps with Kraven's black. Whose black ability would you prioritise?

No, go 5/3/5 on Venom when paired with Kraven. Kraven’s purple will reduce protects to 1 at the beginning of your turn.

Tiger_Wong

5/5/3

zodiac339 said:

HoundofShadow said:

I understand where you are coming from. Wouldn't Venom's ability reduce enemies' protect tile to 1 anyway? Hawkeye's black throws out 4 special tiles but it overlaps with Kraven's black. Whose black ability would you prioritise?

No, go 5/3/5 on Venom when paired with Kraven. Kraven’s purple will reduce protects to 1 at the beginning of your turn.

This 

also, use Hawks black when his health goes low or there’s no other yellow protect tiles out. Otherwise, Kraven. 

Tiger_Wong

5/5/3

I wonder why they made Wounded Pride a CD. I don’t get it. 

HoundofShadow

5/5/3

One reason could be since his ego is hurt, sometimes he is outsmarted by his opponents. That's why it's a countdown tile to show that his ego caused his downfall (when the tiles get matched).

Punisher5784

Tiger Wong said:

I wonder why they made Wounded Pride a CD. I don’t get it. 

Because Kraven is a villain and it feels like the devs purposely make them awful with weird powers.

clarey89

So I finally champed him and put him to the test with a few of the 4RG+Gamora+Medusa team......

SO BAD!!!

Firstly, the initial turn which the strike tiles is already out, it doesn't trigger his passive just yet, so with the medusa Red+ a double matches/4&5 match one team member is half dead just like any other team anyway... Which I mean most pvp matches u win anyway, all matters is how much HP/time it would take...  

Secondly, black is way more annoying to myself than I would have thought, since its the "STRONGEST" colour u usually would use that colour:

1. let say u spent it all/ u dont even have ap in that colour before using Kraven's Black, the damage of this power is reduced by half...

2. if u decided to let the ap goes with Kraven, it takes u another match to be able to use the other power, which majority of the power in 4* land are better than Kraven's Black...

ps. Also its opponent's strongest too, not all the time they have ap there... if u talk abt ap deduction, 3 ap is next to nothing for a 10ap active skill that comes with a cd...

Thirdly, @270@5 covers his blue does almost similar to 2* Thor, except Thor hits harder, u dont need to worry abt matching that tile (so it ends ur turn normally too) eg. Thor could be lucky to get some yellow matches and use the yellow skill right that turn, and Kraven cant... and Thor even takes less ap... and Im comparing a 4* with a 2*... and honest, even if this skill steals 2/3 ap Kraven is still not usable...

Rick_OShay

Kraven definitely has some drawbacks, many characters do unless you can plan their abilities out correctly/strategically, and have a team planned to take full advantage of his skills.
 
Yes he's mostly a niche character, the same can be said about a big part of your roster.
He's fantastic against Ultron or his Sentry nodes. They make lots of low-mid level special tiles. You will qualify Kraven's passive damage very quickly.  Also, the sentries gain AP that they cannot spend, this again works well for Kraven since his black needs the enemy to have 3 AP in their strongest color for full damage. 
His blue is too expensive, I think all agree. But consider that it reduces the enemy AP gains by as much as 33% per turn, and it starts to sound a lot better. 

Great partners (as many have stated): 

Carnage: Spawning enemy attack tiles each turn that get reduced to nearly 0 damage very quickly

Venom (Brock), since when you do enough damage each turn, you will proc a small enemy protect tile to help keep the automatic damage rolling and to make Venom's abilities more effective

Valkyrie: As long as you have Kraven's passive damage firing most turns, her Bounty Hunter passive will often earn you 3 AP in your teams strongest color (and reduce enemy AP), depending on who you are targeting.

Elektra: Cheap enemy strike tiles created with her purple ability. Decide who's black will be more useful. Take a chance on a fun team combo for once!

With 3-stars: Patch Wolverine, Doc Ock, Hawkguy, El3ktra. Against: Blad3, Daken, Storm, Falcon, Patch..

sambrookjm

Kraven and 4-star Venom work together pretty well, especially against those wonderfully annoying Daken+Bullseye Dark Avenger Nodes.  I've got him at 5/4/2 after my LT opening binge, so he's still not fully covered/leveled up just yet.  Can anyone recommend a good red/purple user to round out the rainbow team?

Seriously though ,I paired them up with Gambit for rainbow coverage.  His purple is actually a minor drawback here, since it gets rid of the strike/protect/attack tiles that help Kraven do his passive damage.  So in addition to being a niche character, Kraven is also hurt if you use the most popular/powerful character in the game.

BlackBoltRocks

sambrookjm said:

Kraven and 4-star Venom work together pretty well, especially against those wonderfully annoying Daken+Bullseye Dark Avenger Nodes.  I've got him at 5/4/2 after my LT opening binge, so he's still not fully covered/leveled up just yet.  Can anyone recommend a good red/purple user to round out the rainbow team?

St4rlord.

maguirenumber6

Just champed Kraven. Using 5/5/3 as suggested here. Who does he team well with?

Daredevil217

Pairs well with Carnage. Also with Eddie Brock. Basically he’s a one trick pony who does passive damage when the enemy has a certain number of special tiles out.  Since the above two make enemy specials they are a natural pair. Also all three are sinister syndicate so there’s that. 

Friarbundy

I’ve been using him with Carnage and Medusa to great effect.  I usually end the fight at full heath after healing.