**** Namor (The Sub-Mariner) ****

TPF Alexis

Doesn't look great, but he does seem potentially fun. Very characterful powers, too. Using Namor's Mercy on a team whose strongest colour is black amuses me.

bbigler

3/5/5

This is so underwhelming for a cool character that I don't even want to bother with an in-depth analysis.  Like many others in the 4* tier, he has 1 good power, 1 OK power and 1 bad power and is generally slow because they're too expensive. 

Plus, we have ANOTHER character that drains the enemies Strongest color. When is Demi going to learn that their strongest color may not matter at all! Draining the strongest color is not legit defense. I would rather drain their highest color pool or better yet, DRAIN A CHOSEN COLOR. I'm tired of all these drain their strongest color powers..... they're so dumb. 

If you're going to purposely make an average character, then at least make them fun to play. In a tier with 78 characters you need to try harder than this. He's the submariner! He should do some fun blue tile antics, like passively turning tiles blue and then doing a small AOE when there's 10 or more of them. And then he has a "Flooding" blue power to destroy all green tiles and drain green AP. And how about a black power that takes an enemy prisoner underwater for X turns (like being airborne). That would be fun. 

Dogface

Shintok17 said:

Dogface said:

May have missed it, but who are the essentials for Shield Training? 

Cloak & Dagger, Domino, and Mordo.

I was afraid of that. It was to be expected that someone like Domino would be essential. Still got some days left to get her to 209.

HoundofShadow

It looks like the order of his power is Purple, Green and then Black.

Atlantis Trigger mechanic seems to be quite interesting. The animation for Imperius Rex! should look good.

Note: He reminds me of Iceman as well.

3/5/5/  For me.

jamesh

I'm a little surprised that they didn't save his budgie smugglers for an alternative monetised costume.  Or do they think people would pay more for him to cover up?

Anon

3/5/5

I find his colors weird. I'd have figured he'd be blue/green/yellow or something similar.

gentgeen

My first comparison was off, since I had not noticed that Namor's black is a Team Nuke.   So I decided to look again, and POOFED my first post.

[EDIT ... and I messed up the 2nd time too - Namor's Nuke is his purple not his Green.  All the math is good, and I don't feel like doing this again just to say "Bobby is better, and Namor seems unexciting"]

Both Bobby and Namor have a target damage, a nuke damage, and a tile convert.  Both of the target and nuke damages cost the same.  So it pretty easy to compare these two.  All numbers below are at level 5 to make the comparisons easy.  

Namor's target damage (Green) cost 12 and has a board shake.  Bobby's target damage (Blue) costs 12, and has a 4-turn stun.   Bobby will do 8,334 damage, while Namor will need to have 11 blue on the board to hit 8k.  There is no min, or max limit on Namor - so it could be as low as 740 damage, or off the charts.  

Target Verdict:  I would call this Bobby's win - that 4 turn stun is nothing to sneeze at.  

Namor's team damage (black) costs 12, and steals 2 AP (Steal 3, but gives 1).  Bobby's team damage (green) costs 12.  Namor will do 5,519 damage.  Bobby needs to have 8 blue on the board to match that.  If we go with 11 blue on board (to keep things equal) Bobby will do 6,275 damage.  Bobby does have a min of 3k damage, and a max of 7k (unlike Namor's unlimited max and min)

Nuke Verdict: I would call this Bobby's win - it is close, but I would rather have the 1k per target more damage.  The min damage of 3k also takes away some randomness to the damage which is nice.  Stealing the "strongest AP" in a passive heavy tier rarely results in anything of real benefit, and I really hate giving the other team anything, even if it is only 1 AP. 

Namor's convert will change any 5 basic tiles to blue, and has potential for 5k damage for a cost of 9.  Bobby's convert will change any 7 red to blue, and steals 4 red for a cost of 8.  

Convert Verdict: I would give this to Namor.  There is almost no chance that you will not have 5 basic tiles to convert, but I have definitely been forced to hold off firing Bobby's power because there was only 3 or 4 red tiles on the board.  Namor's added damage is also a nice bonus here. 

Another thing I think worth noting is that Bobby has the benefit of making blue, and then being able to use that blue.  Namor makes blue, but it just sits on the board for the other team to take.  

Maybe Namor will be better than I first thought -- Bobby is usually considered a "Top Tier", and by the numbers Namor seems pretty similar.   Although all the little things that make Bobby fun (to me at least) are missing from Namor.   (4-turn stun can be a game changer, and I really hate giving the other team anything :-)  )

Vhailorx

Gentgeen: I think you still have it backwards.  Purple is an aoe attack, and black is single target damage.

And Iceman blows namor out of the water (pun intended!).

Bobby has 2 awesome offensive powers, one a slow, but very powerful aoe (the most powerful in 4* land when released, but still very good more than 3 years later), and his blue which is on the short list of very best active powers in the game (controlling for tier power).  Blue is really perfect.  A 6ap 4-turn stun by itself would be great.  But it also has amazing versatility because of the nuke mechanic.  You can stun multiple opponents by removing the CD (e.g. with Carol), or dish out very efficient damage, that is only slightly outclassed by newer characters.  And while his purple power is not great by itself, it supports both of his other powers (actively making blue ap, and indirectly strengthening green by putting more blue on the board.).

2 of Bobby's powers are cheaper than namor's cheapest power.  Namor has worse synergy, because his converter generates ap that he can't use.  Namor's aoe nuke cannot be spammed as effectively as Bobby's because of the random board shake. and he has nothing close to the utility of a 4-turn stun for just 6ap! Namor's only real advantage is  1k health.

jamesh

gentgeen said:

Namor's team damage (black) costs 12, and steals 2 AP (Steal 3, but gives 1).  Bobby's team damage (green) costs 12.  Namor will do 5,519 damage.  Bobby needs to have 8 blue on the board to match that.  If we go with 11 blue on board (to keep things equal) Bobby will do 6,275 damage.  Bobby does have a min of 3k damage, and a max of 7k (unlike Namor's unlimited max and min)

I don't see anything in the power description to indicate black deals damage to the whole enemy team: it looks like another single target attack.

Only his purple power has a mention of team damage, so that's the one you'd probably want to compare to Iceman's green.

mega ghost

His purple is formidable, but his other two powers are way too overpriced. If one of them was blue, he'd at least be somewhat self-feeding. His green should be a blue power, and his black should either let you target the color of your choice, focus on their highest AP pool, or drain it completely.

himatako

He looks so bad and boring And seems like he doesn't really synergize welll with any character at all? Of the top of my head, the choice for blue tiles generators are either Magneto 2*, Ragnarok 3* and Iceman 4*. Other *kind of* blue tiles generator are Scarlet Witch 3* (making a free blue CD tile) or Jubilee 4* (changing tile colors and pray for blue tiles).

If you're going to use Iceman you might as well use his green instead of Namor's. Iceman's purple also makes blue tiles and cost less than Namor's, which even beg the question of if you're going to bring Iceman, why even bring Namor at all.

So there is not much you can do to maximize Namor's green damage. Looking at his purple, there is nothing that allow you to control the board in a way that after you fire this power it guarantees you that the board will be left at the state where there are 10+ blue tiles. Perhaps you could lock blue tiles or fortify them, but we don't have a character that does that yet, and it still doesn't guarantee leaving 10+ blue tiles behind.

Looking at his design, it seems to me that the purple damage is a way to signal the player that this is a good time for you to fire his green, since you'll get to deal at least 7,400 damage, making it a combo of 5189 team damage + 7400 single target damage  for 21 AP. 

The only synergy I can think of right now is Namor + Thanos 5*. After you use Namor's purple and get 10+ blue tiles, use Thanos' purple to lock the board. Then you can spam Namor's purple or green without worrying about changing the state of the board. But this doesn't seem practical.

And gosh, targeting "strongest color" ap pool again. Please stop this already  

Chrono_Tata

Well this is an interesting way to make an Aquaman movie tie-in.

DeNappa

On another note, I kinda hoped a little bit he would have some synergy with IW. But while they only share green in active colors, there's not much chemistry there besides some blue AP gen that IW could use. Missed opportunity!

Would've been cool to see (for example) '(Passive) While Namor is invisble, convert 2 basic tiles to blue or green'

ammenell

a power with 11ap, another with 10ap, no passive.

suddenly its not that bad my domino can reach 209.
looks like a slow completionist character

DAZ0273

I don't think it is necessarily a bad thing he doesn't have a passive because those are the powers that more often than not lead characters to being OP.

However, on the flip side, not having a passive should mean his AP costs are cheaper to counter-balance things.

gentgeen

jamesh said:

gentgeen said:

Namor's team damage (black) costs 12, and steals 2 AP (Steal 3, but gives 1).  Bobby's team damage (green) costs 12.  Namor will do 5,519 damage.  Bobby needs to have 8 blue on the board to match that.  If we go with 11 blue on board (to keep things equal) Bobby will do 6,275 damage.  Bobby does have a min of 3k damage, and a max of 7k (unlike Namor's unlimited max and min)

I don't see anything in the power description to indicate black deals damage to the whole enemy team: it looks like another single target attack.

Only his purple power has a mention of team damage, so that's the one you'd probably want to compare to Iceman's green.

@Vhailorx and @jamesh ... Thanks.  Yes, you are right and I messed up (again) .... :-(  I would blame it on the coffee, but it was way too late in the day when I did it.   

Lukeslad

MPQ logic be like:
A shirtless dude? Sure, have some Iron Fist and Namor. More to come soon.
Showing a female midriff? GOD FORBID

Vhailorx

Lukeslad said:

MPQ logic be like:
A shirtless dude? Sure, have some Iron Fist and Namor. More to come soon.
Showing a female midriff? GOD FORBID

Really? Are you, by any chance, familiar with the history of female objectification in comic books? A bit of prudence when it comes to new mpq characters is probably a good idea.  We already have moonstone and Yelena if you really want to oggle some drawings but bizarrely don't have access to Google.

n25philly

Dogface said:

May have missed it, but who are the essentials for Shield Training? 

Cloak and Dagger, Mordo, and Domino

//Removed Insult -Brigby

Malcrof

Looks like Namor will be fun with reed, all those free powers!