***** Kingpin (Spider-Verse) *****

HoundofShadow

5/3/5

Forced Hand -  7  AP
This power is cheap, but it require precise gameplay in order for this power to deal damage.

First, there must be friendly special tiles on the board. Secondly, the opponent must have 4 ap or less in your strongest colour.

The Harder They Fall - 11  AP
This reminds me of Wiccan's power, without the healing or Iron Spidey's power. Enemy's matches are reduced by as much as 90% for 6 turns. 

Break Their Will - 9  AP
This immediately reminds me of God of Mischief's green power: 11 green ap, creates 3-turn fortified tile, destroys a random row and deals AoE. But this one has cheaper ap cost, faster repeater countdown, possibility to create attack tiles and deal single target damage.

What I like about all his powers is it tells a story that is easy to visualise, that is how the order of his power I would play

1) The Harder They Fall
2) Break Their Will
3) Forced Hand

You make your opponent falls hard, break their will and force them to shake your hand.

Edited: thanks to @zodiac339 for the catch.

He's almost a perfect match for Green Goblin, covering 5 colours (no red) and has some synergy going on. Green Goblin can create special tiles, destroy aps with his bombs, and fortify countdown and repeater tiles.

zodiac339

5/3/5

HoundofShadow said:

He's a perfect match for Green Goblin, as far as rainbow team and synergy goes.

Not a rainbow. No red between them. And competes for black.

jamesh

If blue is your team's strongest colour (e.g. if Kingpin is the highest levelled character), then Forced Hand effectively only costs 2 AP and a special tile.  If you've got a ready supply of weak special tiles you don't mind giving to the enemy, then that makes it pretty cheap to switch it to it's damage dealing mode.

wymtime

babinro said:

Initial thoughts on Kingpin:

Blue: Below Average?   This skill is tough judge and its the one that could best trip up my initial impressions on the character as a whole.  The requirement component means that you'll either have to find a good syngery partner to use with Kingpin or you'll have to gather 9 green, 7 blue, and ensure you have the most 'strongest color' AP prior to firing...that's a BIG ask. Especially when you consider that you could just use OML (a character whose largely obsolete and needs a buff) and build up similar mass AP demands then transform him and basically win the match shortly after.   With all that said, this skill does a lot at a reasonably low cost and could be pretty sweet with a reliable partner. 

Black: Poor.  A really interesting and rather powerful skill stuck behind an AP cost that's just far too high in my opinion. This is a tough skill to balance because if made too low cost it would be downright frustrating to play against especially defensively. As is the cost is so high that I really don't think you can make strong use of the skill outside of survival nodes since the CD tile will carry over from wave to wave.

Green: Average.  The game has a lot of strong green options at 5* tier and so it takes a lot to stand out.  This skill has a low cost but is somewhat slow.  Its attack tile kicker should trigger easy enough I'm thinking given kingpin's design but we're still comparing this to the likes of Thor and Cable who can deal more damage as an AoE for just 3 more AP. I'm glad to see the synergy between this and his blue as well.

Build:  5/3/5 seems like the only competitive build if there's a duo or trio team that can really exploit what Kingpin does.

Overall: Low tier. Kingpin is a rather complex character in what he's asking of the player and the fact that his primary offensive color is green in a 5* tier that's filled with too many green spenders really hurts him.  If that skill were purple or yellow it could have really opened up some build options. As it stands a GOOD blue+black skill 5* is something the game really needs right now and unfortunately that answer isn't going to be Kingpin.  His colors do go reasonably well with the likes of OML, Phx, DD and even Thor as a characters who can help fuel Kingpin's blue but its hard to picture any of that being 'competitive' in any form of play. Kingpin is probably on par with Doc Oct and AA...while being leagues ahead of Wasp.

I will say that DD will be a great partner for him. 1/2 health DD spitting out strike tiles will let KP blue do some damage if you can deny the strongest color.  If you want to use his black 1/2 health Thor will be a great 3rd as you can mitigate match damage with his black.  For his green in wave nodes it actually is not bad at all especially if you compare it to Loki’s green which is a 3 turn CD.  Thors green and BB green are much better, but remember with his green it is the teams strongest color so that does not have to be blue.  If you bring along DD yellow might be the strongest color.  I would put him mid tier over low tier.  He will not be game breaking but will partner well with some different characters.   In PVE when essential he will be far from useless, but will require a special tile generator so blue can fire and be useful.

sinnerjfl

5/3/5

Break Their Will - 9  AP
Kingpin loses his composure and launches into a relentless wave of pummels. Creates a Fortified 2-turn Repeater tile that deals 8316 damage. If you have more AP than the enemy in your strongest color, this power also creates 3 strength 127 Attack tiles.

Does this power create the attack tiles upon casting the power or every time the repeater reaches 0?

Brigby

sinnerjfl said:

Break Their Will - 9  AP

Kingpin loses his composure and launches into a relentless wave of pummels. Creates a Fortified 2-turn Repeater tile that deals 8316 damage. If you have more AP than the enemy in your strongest color, this power also creates 3 strength 127 Attack tiles.

Does this power create the attack tiles upon casting the power or every time the repeater reaches 0?

The Attack tiles are only created when the ability is initially activated.

zodiac339

5/3/5

Brigby said:

sinnerjfl said:

Break Their Will - 9  AP

Kingpin loses his composure and launches into a relentless wave of pummels. Creates a Fortified 2-turn Repeater tile that deals 8316 damage. If you have more AP than the enemy in your strongest color, this power also creates 3 strength 127 Attack tiles.

Does this power create the attack tiles upon casting the power or every time the repeater reaches 0?

The Attack tiles are only created when the ability is initially activated.

Aw, so no 5* Hellfire.

BlackBoltRocks

At the very least Kingpin combos well with Kitty: Use Kitty to create Protect and/or Attack tiles, then use Kingpin's Blue. Which will then trigger Kitty's Purple. If you're really lucky, Kingpin's Blue and Kitty's Purple will both hit for their 13k damage in consecutive turns.

MirrorKnight

3/5/5

So, just a couple quick questions from a balance/design perspective:

Why have him give away a special tile versus just creating one for the enemy? Aren't most 5 star special tiles probably valuable enough that you'd hesitate to give one away?

If you're really set on that mechanic though, wouldn't it make more sense for THTF to either make friendly protect tiles, or clear enemies' special tiles when the countdown expires?

STOPTHIS

I was full on expecting a 5* Miles given the way the game was giving me covers for him, so Kingpin was unexpected. He looks...okay. But what I'm really looking forward to is if he gets a feeder. 4* KP already gives 5* DD. We could be headed towards another GotG-like clusterfudge.

HoundofShadow

5/3/5

There's always Elektra if you can't think of anyone else to feed Kingpin.

4* Mile Morale makes the most logical choice since he's the main hero and Kingpin is the main villain in Into the Spider-Verse.

NotBAMF

Spiderverse? Where is my D’onofrio Kingpin?!

STOPTHIS

BlackBoltRocks said:

STOPTHIS said:

I was full on expecting a 5* Miles given the way the game was giving me covers for him, so Kingpin was unexpected. He looks...okay. But what I'm really looking forward to is if he gets a feeder. 4* KP already gives 5* DD. We could be headed towards another GotG-like clusterfudge.

We might very well get Miles to feed 5* Kingpin. Anyway, Black Suit Spidey and Peter Parker Spidey are already fed by Iron Spider and Vulture respectively.

Heck, Kingpin can be fed by any of the other Defenders like Fist or Cage, or even Elektra. I mean, we already have the nonsensical (objectively speaking) pairing of America feeding Jessica.

HoundofShadow said:

There's always Elektra if you can't think of anyone else to feed Kingpin.

4* Mile Morale makes the most logical choice since he's the main hero and Kingpin is the main villain in Into the Spider-Verse.

Elektra would make for the most entertaining stupidity.

3* Bullseye -> 4* Kingpin -> 5* Daredevil

3* Daredevil & 3* Elektra -> 4* Elektra -> 5* Kingpin

Lack of foresight, thought, and reluctance to change their picks is my favorite thing about feeders.

himatako

The Harder They Fall should have a passive component where the power cuts enemy's match damage by 50% as long as you have more AP than the enemy in your strongest color. Then the active component destroy enemy's AP and creates a CD tile that cuts the damage even further. 

It should be clear by now that a defensive power in this game is only useful when it's fast. 11 AP is just too much for a defensive power like this.

Zirtak_the_Second

With his black I think they misspelled 'power damage' where it says 'match damage' 

jamesh

MirrorKnight said:

So, just a couple quick questions from a balance/design perspective:

Why have him give away a special tile versus just creating one for the enemy? Aren't most 5 star special tiles probably valuable enough that you'd hesitate to give one away?

If you're really set on that mechanic though, wouldn't it make more sense for THTF to either make friendly protect tiles, or clear enemies' special tiles when the countdown expires?

Without the special tile part of the power, you've essentially got an AP drain ability with a net cost of 2 AP.  That'd be crazy without some drawback to balance it.

Vins2

Is that really what he's gonna look like?  The Spiderverse Miles and Gwen seem finely animated, this is a cartoon network version of Oddjob.

HoundofShadow

5/3/5

This is how the Kingpin in the latest Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse look like.

ZootSax

I could see Kingpin, Carnage & Kraven making an interesting villians team, but I'm not seeing as obvious of a 5* partner.  That might be more from my lack of 5* knowledge than anything else.

Pr0spect0r

I absolutely hate how he looks. It's just a bowling ball with a face and a fist. Or Strax from doctor who