Emma Frost (Astonishing X-Men) (7/23/18)

DarthDeVo

broll said:

The rockett said:

broll said:

No boss event release 

You said that wrong,  no boss event!!! WOOOOOOO!!!! 😊

I said exactly what I meant to say. 

DarthDeVo said:

Can't believe I didn't notice this before, but the requireds for S.H.I.E.L.D Training are Ant-Man, X-23 and... Iron Spidey. 

For Ghost it was Nightcrawler. For this, if they continued the pattern, it should have been MEHulk.

Looks like too many people had the newer Classic covered. Back to putting the pressure on by having a more recent 4* that has a better chance of being undercovered. Break open the hoards (and wallets).

I didn't notice this at first either, too focused on the lack of boss events.  Woof...  So SHIELD Training is back to being terrible again if they go back to requiring one of the newest that are once again hard as nails to cover quickly.  The more things change the more they stay the same....

It's not quite as bad as before, since they aren't requiring Ghost at 209. But yeah... not good, either. The previous change to the 4* that was about to rotate out of the Latest 12 (when that was a thing) was quite welcome, but clearly that was getting too many free covers into people's hands. 

I got my 10th Iron Spidey from the current PvP, so just need to level him. I've already made Wiccan my sole BH in the assumption he'll be the next required. I only need two covers for him to get to 10, so should be OK. Ghost will be after that. 

DAZ0273

I have the covers and iso to take Ant-Man to 209 to join my champed X-23 but with Infini-Spidey being the other there isn't any point as mine is only 3/1/3. Ah well, I'll get what I can get.

n25philly

Wonko33 said:

Wish she was a vilain. Yeah I know, I haven’t read comics in a very long time. Didn’t even know she switched teams. 

They are on top of things as she is supposed to be a villain again now

Shintok17

No Boss event new 4* character release. It was good while it lasted. Now we have to rely on luck and RNG to get the covers. Me and my Alliance mates were really enjoying the more frequent Boss events since they break the monotony of PVE events. Specially since they seem to have stopped 7 Day events. I miss the "Enemy Of The State" 7 Day event. PVE is becoming so repetitive and boring as of late. 

HoundofShadow

One group of players prefers getting new covers through boss events and the other group through PvE. I think it's a fair deal to rotate between PvE and boss events to satisfy two sides. 

Yepyep

ZootSax said:

As a totally unimportant detail, based on the artwork she appears to join Teen Jean, Mystique, CStorm and MN Magneto in the ranks of “white clad X-Men”. Therefore if, like me, you want to run a themed team in matching costumes, now Stormneto plus Emma lets you have active abilities in all colors.  ...speaking of which, I may have just found my seed-clearing team for her PVP.

This is my candidate for comment of the month — love it! 

RickOShay

mega ghost said:

1) FINALLY, EMMA FROST.
2) Her powers are not very exciting. Or rather, they could be, but seem incomplete. Her purple is too expensive for what it is, at 5 covers it should be fortified and she should be able to place it, otherwise it's going to get matched away in a cascade too quickly. Her black is also too expensive for what it is, and the fact that she's stuck in this form and can't fire any powers while she's in it makes it seem terrible. There should be another half to it where she destroys all of the fortified tiles for damage, thereby giving her more utility and a way to transform back. Her yellow is priced right, but at five covers the tile should also be fortified and she should be able to place it as well. 
3) @Brigby Any chance we could change out Spider-Man (Infinity War) from being the third required character in her S.H.I.E.L.D. Training? The move away from using relatively brand-new characters as required characters was an overwhelmingly positive one, and now that the Latest pull bonus is gone and new characters are even harder to cover, this requirement becomes prohibitive to most players.

It's easy for us to withhold some design credit on new characters. Meaning, they purposefully designed Emma for us to play her yellow and purple, then her black. In that order, she will fortify her own repeaters. By the time you do this.
Now, that will take way too long to get all that AP ready to fire off, but I'm sure that order was the design intention. Agreed, she will be a good partner for P4nther and Shuri.

Again, it's not fair to judge a character's value according to how helpful they will be to your 5* roster. Posts like that convey negativity to 3* and 4* players that may find Emma to be quite good (with Grocket, Nico, etc).
*Immediate above does not pertain to quoted comment. 

BoyWonder1914

I feel like she's another one of those characters that people are gonna sleep on heavily until they see what she can REALLY do with the right team. America Chavez and Nico Minoru were characters that people didn't seem too big on due to not having direct damage abilities, and now they are seen as absolute monsters. I'm honestly pretty excited to try her with Cloak & Dagger and Shuri, or to use her against Mindless Ones and Symbiotes. With how diverse the 4-star tier is, I don't necessarily care if another character may do a particular thing "better" or for cheaper. Is the new team combinations that get the juices flowing. 

It's definitely a bummer to see them suddenly break away from the boss event release type, I now have to make T10 if I hope to get the character off a 1/1/1 start again and experience a more full range of their abilities. It's also The Hunt of all things, but I suppose I'd rather endure that annoying 2nd sub, than the third sub of HOD for placement. HOD will also give a nice amount of tokens to the Emma & Friends Vault, so hopefully it'll lead to some luck on one of these vaults for once. 

thedarkphoenix

In 4 land she seems like she can be ok, just slow. For 5 player she isn't remotely useful

GrimSkald

thedarkphoenix said:

In 4 land she seems like she can be ok, just slow. For 5 player she isn't remotely useful

Who is?  The simple fact of the matter is that since they ended the partial vaulting system (i.e. the tokens particularly the LTs, have full 4* dilution,) you're unlikely to cover a 4* in less than six months now, and even when they're covered, they're going to be 20-30 levels behind most of your roster.  New 4* characters are almost completely irrelevant to 5* players, unless they have some great utility power that works well in the back (e.g. Black Widow's yellow.)

Jarvis_Jackrabbit

GrimSkald said:

thedarkphoenix said:

In 4 land she seems like she can be ok, just slow. For 5 player she isn't remotely useful

Who is?  The simple fact of the matter is that since they ended the partial vaulting system (i.e. the tokens particularly the LTs, have full 4* dilution,) you're unlikely to cover a 4* in less than six months now, and even when they're covered, they're going to be 20-30 levels behind most of your roster.  New 4* characters are almost completely irrelevant to 5* players, unless they have some great utility power that works well in the back (e.g. Black Widow's yellow.)

This is especially problematic with a new character like Iron Spider, whose blue requires him to tank his colors to be useful.

Even as a player still firmly in 4* land and in no hurry to jump into the 5* tier, I'm finding it a lilt too easy to forget about the newer 4*s like Blonde Widow and Ghost because it's not feasible for me to be planning on using them any time soon.

ThaRoadWarrior

I think if there is a specific 4* you like, you could BH your way to champ faster than 6 months, assuming you're pulling and not hoarding. I pull as i go, cp in classics, and have had Wiccan set as my BH since his addition to tokens. I started tracking my legendary pulls on 6/26, and since then i've gotten one organic pull for him and 3 bonus heroes. I also got a BH for him out of heroic, though i'm not tracking that. I came out of his release with a 1/1/2, and have him at 3/2/4 now. It certainly isn't like it was with 4X latest when you look at all the new releases though. Playing the way I played in those days, I was generally able to champ characters right as they were about to leave latest on average.

zodiac339

I’d like to see a character that can change affiliations. Say, a character that is normally a villain, but with a passive “If this character has 2 active Hero allies, this character’s affiliation becomes Hero.” Then one or two powers have an effect when Villain, such as “steals enemy AP”, and an alternative when Hero, such as “creates Countdown/Special Tile that negates damage from one enemy ability when it exceeds X damage”. Something like that would work for Emma Frost, Magneto, Red Hulk, and Loki (at least in MCU). I mean, not all of them work with the specific examples, but it could really make team building that much more interesting.

mega ghost

RickOShay said:

mega ghost said:

1) FINALLY, EMMA FROST.
2) Her powers are not very exciting. Or rather, they could be, but seem incomplete. Her purple is too expensive for what it is, at 5 covers it should be fortified and she should be able to place it, otherwise it's going to get matched away in a cascade too quickly. Her black is also too expensive for what it is, and the fact that she's stuck in this form and can't fire any powers while she's in it makes it seem terrible. There should be another half to it where she destroys all of the fortified tiles for damage, thereby giving her more utility and a way to transform back. Her yellow is priced right, but at five covers the tile should also be fortified and she should be able to place it as well. 
3) @Brigby Any chance we could change out Spider-Man (Infinity War) from being the third required character in her S.H.I.E.L.D. Training? The move away from using relatively brand-new characters as required characters was an overwhelmingly positive one, and now that the Latest pull bonus is gone and new characters are even harder to cover, this requirement becomes prohibitive to most players.

It's easy for us to withhold some design credit on new characters. Meaning, they purposefully designed Emma for us to play her yellow and purple, then her black. In that order, she will fortify her own repeaters. By the time you do this.
Now, that will take way too long to get all that AP ready to fire off, but I'm sure that order was the design intention. Agreed, she will be a good partner for P4nther and Shuri.

I tend to lean towards optimism when assessing new characters and I love Emma Frost, so I'll be really happy if she plays better than she seems on paper (well, screen.) I guess my take is that if a character exists as a support character, their abilities need to be on the cheaper side or be passive for them to be particularly useful. Having to build up 10 purple AP, 8 yellow AP, and 11 black AP before she's reliable means the match will be over before you use her. Given that her abilities are based on repeater tiles and their cumulative effects, and a match damage boost from her black, they're even less useful later in a match. She might be a powerhouse on wave four of a wave node, but that's extremely niche. 

thedarkphoenix

GrimSkald said:

thedarkphoenix said:

In 4 land she seems like she can be ok, just slow. For 5 player she isn't remotely useful

Who is?  The simple fact of the matter is that since they ended the partial vaulting system (i.e. the tokens particularly the LTs, have full 4* dilution,) you're unlikely to cover a 4* in less than six months now, and even when they're covered, they're going to be 20-30 levels behind most of your roster.  New 4* characters are almost completely irrelevant to 5* players, unless they have some great utility power that works well in the back (e.g. Black Widow's yellow.)

I used Miss america right out the gate and still do from time to time. Even rocket and Groot, medusa now with Okoye and Captain marvel.

There are a handful. Not saying its meta (outside of MA) or top tier but useful. 

GrimSkald

Jarvis_Jackrabbit said:

This is especially problematic with a new character like Iron Spider, whose blue requires him to tank his colors to be useful.

Even as a player still firmly in 4* land and in no hurry to jump into the 5* tier, I'm finding it a lilt too easy to forget about the newer 4*s like Blonde Widow and Ghost because it's not feasible for me to be planning on using them any time soon.

Absolutely.  Or Wiccan - there's no point in transforming him to the Demiurge if he doesn't make any matches himself.

ThaRoadWarrior said:

I think if there is a specific 4* you like, you could BH your way to champ faster than 6 months, assuming you're pulling and not hoarding. I pull as i go, cp in classics, and have had Wiccan set as my BH since his addition to tokens. I started tracking my legendary pulls on 6/26, and since then i've gotten one organic pull for him and 3 bonus heroes. I also got a BH for him out of heroic, though i'm not tracking that. I came out of his release with a 1/1/2, and have him at 3/2/4 now. It certainly isn't like it was with 4X latest when you look at all the new releases though. Playing the way I played in those days, I was generally able to champ characters right as they were about to leave latest on average.

Yeeees, you can do that, but you kind of have to look at the value of it.  For me even a champed new 4* is, quite literally, 48 levels below my average 4*.  Even when boosted, they're so far below the rest of my roster I'd rather use someone else.  I'd much rather focus on the 4*s that lead to 5*s - right now I'm 20 levels of Peggy from a completed 5* Cap (old Cap, obviously,) or 13 Drax levels from a finished Star Lord.  Alternatively, I could put levels into Coulson, whom I still use even unboosted with Hawkeye.  Finishing a new 4* is just not a priority - I don't benefit from it particularly.  For someone with a newer 4* roster it may be worth it, but only if they fill a really good niche I think.

ThaRoadWarrior

everyone's priorities are going to be different for sure, just saying that if somebody hyper useful came out, it seems possible to chase them down on purpose if you were motivated to do so.

UNC_Samurai

I'm really disappointed D3/Demiurge.  You've been on an upward trend with releasing new 4*s in boss events, and yet we've reverted back to grinding for placement.  

ThaRoadWarrior

Don’t they alternate?

Richyyy

GrimSkald said:

thedarkphoenix said:

In 4 land she seems like she can be ok, just slow. For 5 player she isn't remotely useful

Who is?

America Chavez. But, um, yeah, my list just kinda ran out.