***** Kitty Pryde (Uncanny X-Men) *****

spectator

*cough*daredevil*cough*

tiomono

fork1977 said:

She is fun. Been waiting for a 5* tile buffer for a while. However, I'll answer the primary question: No, she does not change the meta. If you are hoarding CP/latest legends, I'd strongly encourage you to get the meta-changing Okoye while you can, or wait for a few months. She is a character that takes some strategic planning, which is part of why she isn't pvp meta; she is slow both in damage and moves. I will also say she is so well designed. Just like Loki, she's got a unique mechanic and abilities that tailor with the character. Unlike Loki, her abilities synergize with others and she does't need to die for one of them to possibly happen.

Why is Kitty good?

1) Abilities are relatively cheap. 6 red, 8 yellow, and 0 purple

2) Her purple is unique. She is not a pvp all star, but dang will she help with any special tile generators in PvE, especially those like Mindless ones. In two turns you start removing specials and the explosion damage after they are gone is outstanding for a passive. It's like a no-cost Eye of Agamatto with damage

3) She buffs specials. You want someone with very quick strike tiles. OML is the obvious 5* for the benefit to her yellow buff threshold, but Grocket, Medusa or Carnage work well too.

4) The red does not require actual damage received, just damage dealt. (This is a longer explanation). Say you are fighting Thor, and you get her yellow out second turn (yellow boosts and 2 yellow matches), and have another strike tile from somewhere. She keeps buffing the yellow. You wait until Thor is read to fire his green before dropping the red. His green goes off and hits you for a lot less than normal, but you still receive the trigger on the red for each teammate. So you get 9 strength 469 attack tiles. If you had two of those CD tiles out, you would have the effect for each (18 attack tiles).

Why is Kitty bad?

1) Limited damage. Like PX or Nico, she exists to make others better.

2) Protection tiles slow down matches rather than speed them up. You need to fire her yellow AND have another special to get the buff effect. Thus, her yellow is too slow to make her an effective pvp climbing toon.

3) The yellow prot effect isn't that great until they start receiving buffs

4) The red has some limitations. It really shines against AOE users, but it needs to be deployed right before a power drops since it is easily matched away. You will want at least 6 of those attack tiles out to get the buff effect, so consider waiting for an AoE or until you have 12 red AP and drop it twice.

5) Not a lot of 5*s have att/str/prot tiles. She wipes out grocket/gamora teams, and pairs well with both of them. But other than Phoenix, OML or JJ, no 5*s make strike tiles out of the gate, and Kitty's red overlaps with all of them. This is her big limitation IMHO

Nearly half of the 5*s have some form of special tile that is not countdowns. I would say that counts as more than not a lot.

Otherwise good points and well put together.

fork1977

spectator said:

*cough*daredevil*cough*

Only when he’s hurt.  Kitty needs strike tiles put out quickly. 😀. But get him at 50% to start a match...

DeNappa

For my understanding, will her repeater tile jump around replacing special tiles until none are left? The way the power is described, it wouldn't. Because after she places the tile, one will be on the board already and it won't trigger again?

fork1977

DeNappa said:

For my understanding, will her repeater tile jump around replacing special tiles until none are left? The way the power is described, it wouldn't. Because after she places the tile, one will be on the board already and it won't trigger again?

It starts with a purple repeater, then it jumps to enemy special tiles and replaces one each turn until none are left.  Hers doesn’t count. And her power can’t target repeaters, only attack/strike/prot or CD. 

Let’s say the enemy makes two attack tiles.  Start of turn one: Kitty makes purple repeater. Start of turn two: that repeater moves and replaces one of the attack tiles, one left. Start of turn three: that repeater moves and replaces final attack tile and explodes for damage. 

scottee

She's a perfect buff to Phoenix (though still not a big enough buff). Phoenix red creates 4 strike tiles, and then because she's an X-Men, she lowers Kitty's threshold to 4 tiles.

Also, she's not far from defining the meta. Yes, currently she doesn't have a great 5* pair. But if a new 5* comes out that starts with specials on the board, or creates special tiles automatically, she instantly becomes more powerful than Okoye. Kitty buffs by 3000 per turn with 5 specials, and Okoye only outpaces that if she can match 3 TU tiles every single turn.

Also, if Kitty is buffing strike tiles, you utilize those when you make match damage AND can double dip with an attack tile.

With any auto-special tile creator (like Carnage or Grocket), she truly is a timelimit on the match. If you leave her alive, the damage automatically ramps until you die with a set amount of turns. bbigler is right that in Sim or BOP, Kitty/Carnage/Grocket teams are going to run rampant on everyone. It'll hurt more than Medusa/Grocket/Gamora or anything with Okoye.

Also, she potentially also creates a Gambit meta, where if she gets a strong enough of a 5* partner in the future, her main counter is to bring your own Kitty to remove the special tiles she can buff.

Yes, she has crazy PVE power.
No, she doesn't change the current PVP meta.
But, she can easily upset the future PVP meta with a new 5* buddy.

zodiac339

5/5/3

OJSP said:

scottee said:

bbigler is right that in Sim or BOP, Kitty/Carnage/Grocket teams are going to run rampant on everyone. 

BSSM Kraven says hi.. insert a random 3rd.

Okoye to make that Kraven passive even more stupid. Phoenix for randomly boosting your tiles and throwing down strikes while making enemy attacks that quickly become irrelevant. Kitty, adding yellow and red and boosting gifted attacks. Even classic Medusa to generate blue and green for BSSM and Kraven while bandaging what damage you take.

RickOShay

Meant to bring this up the other day, but small Caltrops damage with Kitty's red in play can do some amazing things. 
All 3 allies take damage at once, and she procs the attack tiles for each. Kitty then buffs their damage value each turn. Cool.

Now for a more common setup, Kitty's red plays very well versus Medusa teams. With Practiced Offense in play, any hit that your teammates take from Medusa's CD will prompt Kitty to place attack tiles. So, for nearly every turn for potentially 9 plays in a row, she will continue adding attacks and also increasing their damage value. 
Having so many attack tiles out means that your own Medusa can constantly heal your team as they are matched away. The only real danger is the AP the enemy Medusa will be gaining for their team when friendly attack tiles are matched as well. 

System

This discussion was created from comments split from: Kitty Pryde (Uncanny X-Men) (9/17/18).

fork1977

scottee said:

She's a perfect buff to Phoenix (though still not a big enough buff). Phoenix red creates 4 strike tiles, and then because she's an X-Men, she lowers Kitty's threshold to 4 tiles.

Also, she's not far from defining the meta. Yes, currently she doesn't have a great 5* pair. But if a new 5* comes out that starts with specials on the board, or creates special tiles automatically, she instantly becomes more powerful than Okoye. Kitty buffs by 3000 per turn with 5 specials, and Okoye only outpaces that if she can match 3 TU tiles every single turn.

Also, if Kitty is buffing strike tiles, you utilize those when you make match damage AND can double dip with an attack tile.

With any auto-special tile creator (like Carnage or Grocket), she truly is a timelimit on the match. If you leave her alive, the damage automatically ramps until you die with a set amount of turns. bbigler is right that in Sim or BOP, Kitty/Carnage/Grocket teams are going to run rampant on everyone. It'll hurt more than Medusa/Grocket/Gamora or anything with Okoye.

Also, she potentially also creates a Gambit meta, where if she gets a strong enough of a 5* partner in the future, her main counter is to bring your own Kitty to remove the special tiles she can buff.

Yes, she has crazy PVE power.
No, she doesn't change the current PVP meta.
But, she can easily upset the future PVP meta with a new 5* buddy.

I love this post.  Boosted Carnage and Kitty is a hard timer on the match.  And yes, as soon a 5* with quick specials comes out, they are an annoying team to face.  I cannot wait for sim to start testing KCG, especially how well Kraven counters it.

I would quibble with the "faster" bit.  Okoye + passives are super-hurtful.  Add to that her self-heal for only 7 yellow and she remains the preferred climbing meta toon, even as the AI doesn't use her well.  But if you start her match with 2 TU and 2 Yellow, and make 2 yellow matches, any Jessica Jones Damning Evidence can hit for upwards of 20k from that point forward.  Having run that combo in the recent Medusa pvp was the fastest I've ever run since before Thor's board shake and Okoye's Wakanda passive were patched (those were 30-40k hits by turn 3).

himatako

Even with 1 cover in yellow, she's been really useful during these past events. Teaming her up with 4* R&G and 3* Cage, and you boost both your offense and defense starting from your next turn. If you play carefully, you can end the match quickly while saving your health pack. It's probably not the best team on defense, but I used it to climb in shield sim and it was so much fun.

LLohm

5/5/3

I would’ve tried 3* Iron Fist instead for a double dip instead of looking out for defence.

try it?

RickOShay

Just champed Kitty last night and wow she can be fun. Her red takes a bit of timing (and someone taking damage from an enemy power), so I set it at 3. 
Many have stated teams that work well with her and I agree on most. 

The one matchup I wanted to point out primarily is when versus Medusa teams. Kitty's passive purple takes out Medusa's CD, and does tons of damage every other turn potentially. I try to ensure that Medusa stays until last so this process can knock out her allies quickly. And of course, getting Kitty's red CD out will just add tons of attack tiles each turn while your teammates take the Entanglement damage. 

barrok

5/5/3

Thanks for the post @RickOShay. I just got my 5th purple tonight and started hunting Medusa with Kitty/Medusa/ 9 cover okoye... And well I finished at full health on okoye and no damage to anyone else. Feel like I could have auto played it.

himatako

Some observations regarding how her purple work. Her repeater tile's power consists of two effects, each effect is activated during a different time.

1. Replace Special Tile
Timing:
When the repeater tile reaches 0.

What it does:
Randomly replaces an enemy special tile with a repeater tile of the same color. The previous repeater tile is converted to a basic tile. If there is no enemy special tile to replace, the repeater tile stays in the same position.

2. Destroy Itself and Deal Damage
Condition:
There is no replaceable enemy special tile on the board.

Timing: 
Before the player makes a move.

What it does:
Destroys the repeater tile and deals damage to the enemy. 


The timing of the second effect is important, as the condition of the effect is checked whenever you get to make a move. This means, it's possible to get the nuke to go off without having to wait for your next turn if you use a power that removes enemy special tiles. After you use a power, the game loop goes back to waiting for you to make a move, which means the repeater tile will check its condition again. 

barrok

5/5/3

You also get AP from the tile you destroy

tonypq

Anyone tried Kitty 4rocket Nicco team ?

Was curious how that plays out with Kitty and Nicco buffing strike tiles.

hopper1979

I would if I could, I have been thinking about that group as well just to see how buffed you can get the tiles.  I don't have enough levels in Kitty to give a informed opinion on the grouping.

RickOShay

tonypq said:

Anyone tried Kitty 4rocket Nicco team ?

Was curious how that plays out with Kitty and Nicco buffing strike tiles.

It can be very good. What makes it great is when you get the attack tile out from Nico's purple. This essentially doubles the amount of strike tile damage per turn.
**Note, you cannot even play Nico's active purple unless you get her to take damage to proc her CD. This can be difficult since Grocket likely tanks blue, and Kitty will tank yellow and purple.**

That said, anyone who easily produces attack tiles (more) easily can be good/better here, or passive damage abilities, since you may get more out of them than the damage increase that Nico adds per turn.

HoundofShadow

5/5/3

I took on Gritty in PvP with 2* Storm and another 3* or 4* character. I stopped Kitty's passive by turn 3 and victory seems to be on my way. At this point, Kitty had her red countdown out.

My Storm made a match to end my turn and she got hit by opponent's match-3 next, which triggered her passive AoE, which in turn caused Kitty's red cd to throw out 9 attack tiles and I lost subsequently. I thought this power is her most useless power and this match proved me wrong.