Partially-covered Carnage and Medusa -- useful to a 3* player?

froggerjohn

After buying the SHIELD Level 9 pack, I find myself with a 3/3/3 Carnage and a 3/2/2 Medusa. I'm wondering if either of those are usable yet with a 3* roster that's mostly champed, with levels 170-185.

https://mpq.gamependium.com/rosters/froggerjohn/

One more Medusa purple cover will get me to the "improve stolen tiles", which sounds like a big deal. So she may or may not be usable yet, but I bet that would do it for sure. That's the first champ reward cover from KK, so I just moved my BH there.

Team suggestions with these characters are welcome (of particular interest are teams against three active tile-movers), or if they're not quite ready for prime-time, that info is welcome too.

Dormammu

Most 4-stars aren't going to be a better choice over champed 3-stars until they have at least 10 covers and leveled well north of 200. Medusa (and to a lesser extent Carnage) is one of the exceptions. Her yellow passive which generates AP doesn't care what level she is - it just works. So if you are fielding a team that generates friendly and/or enemy special tiles (like Carnage does) she becomes an invaluable battery of green, blue, and purple, or she'll help keep you healthy.

This becomes really useful against enemies like sentries, mindless ones, or symbiotes who spam the board with enemy tiles that Medusa can either convert to AP or outright steal. Against these enemies Medusa + Hawkeye + a Green user will give you great success.

TPF Alexis

Medusa was my first 4*, and I found her useful even with just a single cover (purple). She just got better and better as I got more covers for her, even tho she was trailing well behind my 3* in terms of level for most of that time. Definitely one of the few characters who can be good even when poorly covered.

Waddles_Pines

Bulls3y3 would work great with Medusa.  If Bullseye kills someone, you get all those strikes that add to her passive damage and also give back health when matched.  

ThaRoadWarrior

I used to ride Medusa/Patch pretty hard since she was my first (or maybe second? C4rol was right there) 4* champ. He's probably a safer choice for a 3* player besides Carnage because you don't have to eat the self harm at all. But you want to be matching enemy specials until you can use Hair Meddle to steal/buff them with her playing like that.

Warbringa

3* Blade works well by putting out strike tiles that really pump up Medusa's attack tile damage.  3* Hawkeye works great with Carnage since you get to match a ton of enemy tiles and gain AP from Hawkguy's passive.  3* Falcon can be a great buffer for both characters whenever he matches yellow, only problem is that none of the three (Falcon, Carnage, Medusa) actually use yellow lol.    Quicksilver black can be a sneaky way to get Medusa countdown tile matched fairly cheaply in a match.  She-Hulk with Carnage is a pretty nasty combo, she can steal tiles too as can 3* Star Lord.

froggerjohn

Thanks everyone, lots of terrific info. Looking forward to Bullseye/Hawkguy/Medusa next time I face Sentries. Will experiment with other combos in the meantime.

DAZ0273

Sorry - slightly off topic: I don't envy anybody eyeing up the 4* transition these days.

I transitioned right around the time of vaulting which should have meant that I got to champ all the meta 4* but I had terrible luck and didn't manage to champ C4Rol/Medusa/R4G/Gamora or Vulture during that period.

I do now have all of those champed (or fully covered with Vulture & Gamora) so at least take heart that it can be done even without increased pull odds. Hopefully you will get more covers for Medusa as she is excellent - she can handle Growth Industries wave missions like a dream.

ThaRoadWarrior

one of my alliance-bros that works with me IRL is right in the transition now - his first champ was Mockingbird, then Vulture, then Chavez. I think the most critical element of it at this point is going to be having the HP for slots, and being okay losing out on node access for awhile. I've been trying to bonus hero my way to a champion Wiccan since he was available in tokens just to see how practical it is. I came out of his release with a 1/1/2, and I'm up to 3/2/4 in whatever span of time that's been. So it's possible to target them one at a time, it just sucks that the latest 12 aren't quietly growing around that one you like. If I were giving advice to a transitioner (which I guess I sort of am in my alliance), I would say there is a short-list of 4* that will really make your transition easier. That list is:

Vulture -> stop everything and get your vulture to champ. He is a monster as a team player and as a solo character. Even un-boosted, he can lay out 5* teams if you can keep him in the air

G4mora -> Her stun is...maybe the best in the game. Paired with vulture, you can clear any node or team with some judicious stun locking. Set Vulture to 5/5/3, G4mora to 5/3/5. Use the blue to stun 2 enemies at a time, use vulture's green to slay everyone else. you can get to 900 in pvp with this team if you're motivated even if neither are boosted. You may have trouble past 700pts because they aren't that fast, but they can win if you're paying attention.

4ocket -> it can't be stressed enough what a force multiplier those strikes are. everything else he does is superfluos

Medusa -> battery, band-aid, bandit, medusa is a killer support character

RNG is surely going to be helping you out with others along the way, but in my mind those are the critical must-haves to punch above your weight. 

DAZ0273

I successfully champed Moon Knight from 0/2/0 with about 80% of the missing covers coming from bonus heroes, so it can definitely be done.

I did the same with Vulture but was helped on that one by him being an Alliance event reward.

TPF Alexis

Carnage might also pair nicely with 3* Daredevil. There's a bit of a gap there while you collect AP, but DD's purple can really put some hurt on Opponents, while keeping the opposing Attack tiles in check.

Waddles_Pines

TPF Alexis said:

Carnage might also pair nicely with 3* Daredevil. There's a bit of a gap there while you collect AP, but DD's purple can really put some hurt on Opponents, while keeping the opposing Attack tiles in check.

OP, you could leave Medusa with Carnage and DD.  Even though one more purple cover gets you "improve tiles", you need 4 purple covers to steal attack tiles.  So, with her AP generation from matching enemy tiles, that'll get you some purple which is better suited for DD as TPF_Alexis said.  

froggerjohn

Just got the 3rd purple for Medusa (and a bunch of other covers, courtesy of the 10th anniversary sale), so it seems like this is a whole new game:
https://mpq.gamependium.com/rosters/froggerjohn/revisions/112

I really want to try her with Patch.

ThaRoadWarrior

If at all possible, when you fire off Patch's green try and do it when you have match-able purples on the board, that way you can do a quick sweep of those just-as-good-as-yours enemy strikes and get some easy AP in the bank from Medusa's passive