*** Loki (Dark Reign) ***

AaronTheLuigi

Several characters share Loki's design and we don't know why. Beast, Black Widow (Grey Suit), both Captain Marvels, both Dakens, Deadpool, Doctor Doom, Hawkeye (Modern), Iron Man (Model 40), Magneto (Classic), She-Hulk, and Spider-Man (Classic) all have this issue.

Despite several inquiries about this on the forums (mainly by Nonce) there is no official word on why these characters are set up this way.

Scoregasms

I take back what I said Phaser, Loki was clutch during TaT, he made the Hood Nodes much easier since I was stealing back the AP and slowing them down. Even at level 100, he was pretty much mandatory on any non-goon nodes.

Maybe instead of a damage move (which would be overpowered), it's too bad his black doesn't also convert CD tiles (though, probably also overpowered), at least he'd be more useful in all goon nodes too.

Unknown

I just got my 4th and 5th covers for Loki's Green (1 from PVE, 1 from top 5 finish giving out the cover, 1 from getting 1100 the following PVP) by placing in the top 100 and having a top 100 alliance.

As far as I know, without any tokens or purchasing of covers, that is the fastest possible way to get his covers.

And with the 3 consecutive double ISO events, I already have leveled him from 40 to 131. I can't wait to unleash him. Because not only is he a strong PVE character, he is also a top tier support in PVP when you don't have both Xforce and Thor.

He isn't quite as good as Hood, but he has just as much skip power as Hood, since no one has to deal with all that AP steal.

I'm really really excited about getting him to level 166 and putting him into my B team line up, behind Xforce Hood.

NorthernPolarity

onimus wrote:

I just got my 4th and 5th covers for Loki's Green (1 from PVE, 1 from top 5 finish giving out the cover, 1 from getting 1100 the following PVP) by placing in the top 100 and having a top 100 alliance.

As far as I know, without any tokens or purchasing of covers, that is the fastest possible way to get his covers.

And with the 3 consecutive double ISO events, I already have leveled him from 40 to 131. I can't wait to unleash him. Because not only is he a strong PVE character, he is also a top tier support in PVP when you don't have both Xforce and Thor.

He isn't quite as good as Hood, but he has just as much skip power as Hood, since no one has to deal with all that AP steal.

I'm really really excited about getting him to level 166 and putting him into my B team line up, behind Xforce Hood.

I like him a lot better than Hood: he's by far better when the featured character has a good active yellow (LazyThor cough cough), and is still better in general probably. Since cascades are the AI's main path o victory, having a passive that denies that isn't that much worse than Dormammu's Aid. Coupled with the fact that Loki hides behind X-Force much better than Hood, as long as illusions is the only purple on your team, I can't see a scenario where I'd play Hood over Loki anymore.

Unknown

NorthernPolarity wrote:

onimus wrote:

I just got my 4th and 5th covers for Loki's Green (1 from PVE, 1 from top 5 finish giving out the cover, 1 from getting 1100 the following PVP) by placing in the top 100 and having a top 100 alliance.

As far as I know, without any tokens or purchasing of covers, that is the fastest possible way to get his covers.

And with the 3 consecutive double ISO events, I already have leveled him from 40 to 131. I can't wait to unleash him. Because not only is he a strong PVE character, he is also a top tier support in PVP when you don't have both Xforce and Thor.

He isn't quite as good as Hood, but he has just as much skip power as Hood, since no one has to deal with all that AP steal.

I'm really really excited about getting him to level 166 and putting him into my B team line up, behind Xforce Hood.

I like him a lot better than Hood: he's by far better when the featured character has a good active yellow (LazyThor cough cough), and is still better in general probably. Since cascades are the AI's main path o victory, having a passive that denies that isn't that much worse than Dormammu's Aid. Coupled with the fact that Loki hides behind X-Force much better than Hood, as long as illusions is the only purple on your team, I can't see a scenario where I'd play Hood over Loki anymore.

I agree that on offense Loki is arguably superior, especially since the AI never focus farms enough to get many abilities off in the first place, outside of cascades.

The difference is, on defense a non Loki team can still beat a Loki team with relative ease. Just avoid 4 matches when possible and kill him first.

A non Hood team will almost never even bother with a Hood team. Unless it's a Thorverine team. They don't care what they're facing for the most part.

A non Hood team, with an unlucky board, can be totally destroyed by Hood, and he will suppress your AP so bad that it takes forever just using match damage to kill him.

The only teams I know that would attack a Hood team without bringing their own Hood is a Thorverine team or possibly a Daken/Blade team, since they can murder people with just match damage.

But you and I are in complete agreement that Loki is incredible and, in my opinion, worthy of top tier 3 star status, right next to Black Panther, Hood, Daken and a declining Lazy Thor.

Arondite

Just so that his black can't go off on defense instead of surgical strike?

Gowaderacer

I wouldn't. It really would only matter with special tile generators like Blade or Daken and its a pretty niche build. At 5 black he's a beast with Patch.

Quebbster

Trickery and Surgical Strike are both 11AP moves, so you'll always have a 50/50 chance to use Surgical Strike. Trickery can only be used when there are strike or defense tiles on the board, so a lot of the time the chance to use Surgical Strike is 100%.
Tl;dr - I don't think it will matter much.

Unknown

Since there aren't any incredibly strong characters that also generate protect/strike tiles there's no need to worry about using Trickery on accident on most cases. If you happen to be able to use Trickery the opponent's team isn't that strong to begin with.

Arondite

Just so that his black can't go off on defense instead of surgical strike?

Scoregasms

Trickery is also a badass ability and won't fire anyway if there are no special tiles to convert. IIRC, I hit it by accident once and nothing happened since there were no special tiles to swap out and was able to Surgical Strike like I intended.

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

Since there aren't any incredibly strong characters that also generate protect/strike tiles there's no need to worry about using Trickery on accident on most cases. If you happen to be able to use Trickery the opponent's team isn't that strong to begin with.

Um... Daken disagrees with you.

Because Trickery can only be fired if there is a valid target, no need to bother with the no black build. If you fire off Trickery on defense, you can bet your opponent will be cursing just as bad as if you fire SS. I know I am always pissed off when Loki uses Trickery on me.

Varg138

These have become even more impossibly slow with the latest update. I know that you have replied to the concern about the latest update/goon AP gain, stating that there will be an option to turn it off, but why not get rid of it all together instead? As you can see from the numerous complaints, this has to do with speed. Additionally, the complaints about Goon AP gain was never really about knowing how many they had, but instead about HOW MANY they were getting each turn.

Please make part of the next update not only to nix the Goon AP notifications, but address the other features mentioned in this thread (e.g., unnecessary or slow animation) to speed up the game.

Colog recently posted something about how developers do not play how we play. Very true indeed, otherwise all of these aspects of the game would never have been included.

Unknown

I think loki's countdowns should also be created when enemy 4 matches teamups

hurcules

Nope. His level (and consequently health) will not go very high with only 8 covers and that means he will probably die to match damage alone on defence.

dkffiv

He can't cast black unless there's a tile to target. The only high level team you should probably see that against is an LDaken and if you see him, you're facing someone who is probably only climbing. If you're facing an enemy Patch and Loki uses that I wouldn't necessarily be pissed.

dkffiv

hurcules wrote:

Nope. His level (and consequently health) will not go very high with only 8 covers and that means he will probably die to match damage alone on defence.

10 cover level cap is 140 which equates to a little over 5k hp (that's the level mine is at, I hard capped him when he only had 2 colors). Mine is 5/3/5 but I'm leaving him at 140 so he doesn't tank purple with Xforce/Patch + Daken. The extra levels only give him a little over 900 more health and no increase in the effectiveness of his abilities.

Unknown

I just found out that this issue of color mismatch came up during the MPQ Community Q&A #4 (January) just 5 hours after your post. Looks like fixing the power orders is a non-trivial procedure, so it may not be corrected in the short term, if ever at all.

Unknown

Who do you suspect is the better defensive deterrent: Loki or Hood?

Also, if you collect 11 black AP, how does the computer decide on whether to use XF surgical strike or Loki trickery? Is it just a random 50/50 chance?

Quebbster

WesFaram wrote:

Who do you suspect is the better defensive deterrent: Loki or Hood?

Also, if you collect 11 black AP, how does the computer decide on whether to use XF surgical strike or Loki trickery? Is it just a random 50/50 chance?

Really depends on the level, but a Loki with many ranks in Mischief is probably a better deterrent than a Hood, since Illusions tends to draw the games out.
Trickery will only trigger if there are strike/protect tiles on board. If there are, I assume it's a 50/50 chance.