**** Talos (Skrull Warlord) ****

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Comments

  • StevO-J
    StevO-J Posts: 751 Critical Contributor
    3/5/5
    bluewolf said:

    HOWEVER:  Please make more untimed content available!  Just toss out the already shipped one offs like Amadeus' Inferno, Growth Industry, etc.  System Reboot even.  Then we can play with these slow characters if we want to try new things.  Just make the nodes repeatable, please.

    I wholeheartedly agree, I'm fine with niche and slow characters but there is hardly any place in the game to ever enjoy or even try out these characters. I disliked Kraven at first, but after some time I must admit I was wrong about him... he's just very niche, but useful when his abilities can be applied. Talos might be in the same vein, but I think it will be a long time before anyone can say for certain. But I must admit it looked pretty grim on first reading his stats.

    I was never a big fan of the Gauntlet when it was introduced, but a lot of people have proposed the idea to run a Gauntlet PVE alongside each season of PVP just for the sake of the challenge and being able to just play something. This as a concept, again not mine, makes so much sense it is straight up weird we don't have anything like it already in my opinion.

    Now my roster has advanced quite a bit since its first introduction, and I would really like to see how I would do now. As Bluewolf just said, this would make for an excellent untimed event where even just winning a node once can get you some progression, and since it is entirely progression based the speed of characters doesn't matter. Even the rewards would hardly need updating since they were not updated after the whole introduction of Clearance Levels, so it's not like we'll all be drowning in 3* and 4* covers or something.

    Too bad this all seems like talking to a wall, because you can almost guarantee that nothing will come of this.
  • HoundofShadow
    HoundofShadow Posts: 8,004 Chairperson of the Boards
    3/5/5
    What spec would you put Talos at if you team him up with NightCrawler (NC)?

    I thought Talos doesn't gel well with NC because they have two active colour overlaps (purple and blue) and their abilities move away from each other. I'm looking at things where I'm trying to maximize Talo's black passive match damage increment early.

    Talo's purple steals enemy's ap based on the targetted enemy strongest colour, whereas his two other abilities focus on enemy team's strongest colour.

    NC's blue is most damaging the more aps the enemy has in its team's strongest colour. However, Talo's black passive will be less useful.

    I guess the other way is to ignore Talos' passive in the beginning and go for the quick ending when the last enemy is left?
  • DarthDeVo
    DarthDeVo Posts: 2,178 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited March 2019
    Razuhlui said:
    DarthDeVo said:

    Not to mention the fact that if the enemy has no AP in their strongest color yet this does... nothing. 

    He got the difference in Ap as %-scale, if the enemy has 0 and you have 5 its  (5-0) * (match damage increases by 13%/ 18% (max 270%) at Level 3:).
    Its like America Chevaz, were the ap-bonus scale doesnt let her/him tank after getting behind the break even for tank dmg.
    The difference is Talos gets his whole dmg riced by one ap pool, and Chevaz is riced individually.
    I was commenting on his purple power, and that when he's shapeshifted, he steals from the enemy's strongest color only, and only when you make a match in that color. 

    If the enemy has zero AP in their strongest color, then that part of his power is essentially useless. If they do happen to have AP in that pool but there are no matches in that color available to you, nothing happens.

    I'd rather use 3* Mystique, who takes one AP of the color the enemy matches while she's shapeshifted. That's at least guaranteed AP theft. 

    It's also lamenting the fact they have this weird fascination with designing kits based on stipulations tied to AP of the strongest color, whether it's yours or the enemy's. 

    The only thing I can think of is that it adds an element of strategy/puzzle to the game. I *would* say that isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it's been pointed out before on many occasions: the game isn't really built that way for high end play.

    In my opinion, if they didn't want us playing as fast as possible, they wouldn't have designed a competitive system with placement rewards based on who can clear and grind the most efficiently, or who can do the quickest shield hops.

    So to design characters with all these caveats and stipulations that slows people down seems to be clashing with the fundamental design of the game as it stands. That's the way I see it, anyways. That's a big part of why 5* Kingpin is so terrible. Literally every single one of his powers to be maximized depends on AP pools, either your strongest color, the enemy's strongest color, the enemy's highest  AP pool, or some combination of those three. It's overly complicated and needlessly difficult. Thus, he rides the pine and I've been hoarding until he's out of LTs ever since I champed him and Cable shortly afterwards. 
  • TPF Alexis
    TPF Alexis Posts: 3,826 Chairperson of the Boards
    Using him in the Loaner Node in the Shield Training, I did actually find one thing he does really well: Make Namor look better ;)
  • Smashton
    Smashton Posts: 4 Just Dropped In
    It's been said before but I think dilution is distorting our perception of new characters. At this point it's a bit silly to hold high expectations for new releases. That said, I think rather than expecting every new release to be top tier it's way more fun to theorycraft what teams the char IS actually good with.

    Personally, I'm pretty shocked no one has mentioned the obvious synergy Talos has with c4rol (by design ofc). It's niche, but he brings two colors she doesn't use, combos on her AP manipulation, and brings a stun with a 1-turn CD to proc her yellow passive. Together they'd give teams with the same strongest color (black ideally) absolute hell with some cool interplay between their passives. Not a game changer by any means and probably worse overall than Coulson as a partner, but interesting nonetheless
  • Daredevil217
    Daredevil217 Posts: 3,959 Chairperson of the Boards
    Blue is a lengthy stun. There are better stuns for the AP cost in the tier but it’s definitely not a bad power. Sadly, “not a bad power” is his best power. Stun is always useful and for that reason Emma remains the worst character imo. 

    Purple you play strategically. 1) if one of your enemies has a strongest AP that’s useful to you 2) If they have 2 AP in that color 3) if there’s a match lined up in that color on your turn... then you cast purple, match the strongest color and get a 7 AP swing (+5 to you, -2 to them) for the cost of 7 AP. That’s a decent deal and can swing a match. It’s just so damned conditional. 

    Finally, Black is trash. We’re tired of these increase match damage/reduce enemy match damage powers that are all the rage. Ghost did it best (because she gets the bump by default).  Chavez is okay (though most leave it at 3 covers, the idea of her is to hold AP anyway). Talos and Emma are both just throwaway garbage powers. 
  • jamesh
    jamesh Posts: 1,600 Chairperson of the Boards
    Does it really make sense to classify Talos as a villain?  It wasn't that cut and dried in the film.
  • himatako
    himatako Posts: 269 Mover and Shaker
    Here's the table for you to see how much damage he makes at different boost percentage. The damage boost formula is the same as Thanos which is  
    3 x tile value + 3 x tile value x boost percentage 


    		 Purple Blue Black TU Red Yellow Green
    Per Tile Dmg. 85 74 65 43 13 12 11
    No Boost 255 222 195 129 39 36 33
    150% 637 555 487 322 97 90 82
    210% 790 688 604 399 120 111 102
    270% 943 821 721 477 144 133 122
    375% 1211 1054 926 612 185 171 156
    585% 1746 1520 1335 883 267 246 226

    *At any cover, the amount of difference in AP you need to maximize his power is 21 AP or 15 AP when shapeshifted.

    His damage boost condition is much more complicated and more conditional than American Chavez, but even when you maximized his damage potential, it's still less than what Chavez could do (30 AP in red with 5 red covers will let her deal 2520 damage per one red match-3.) He's just... terrible.

    It's true that his power affects all of his match rather than per color like Chavez, I still don't think it's worth it. It would have been a little bit better if it's like a reverse version of Chavez, where his match's damage increase for every AP you have more than enemy in that color. He would have worked well with Chavez, since both character's game plan will be around stocking more AP than your opponent, but now Chavez focuses on increasing your AP pool while Talos focuses on destroying the opponent's AP pool. 

    At this rate, his blue is the only good power. But there are many better stunners out there. 
  • HoundofShadow
    HoundofShadow Posts: 8,004 Chairperson of the Boards
    3/5/5
    Talo's maximum match damage increase is capped at 15ap, whereas Chavez's match damage increase is capped at 30ap. Of course Chavez's match damage is going to be higher. 

    Her formula:

    (1 + (AP * .3)) * match tile dmg * number tile 

    If you make a fair comparison using Chavez match damage at 15ap, her match damage is only 1485, compared to Talo's 1746. Look whose match damage is better? Chavez has to gather 90ap to increase 3 of her match colour whereas Talo's has to gather only 15 aps to increase match damage of whatever colours he tanks.

    A very common flaw in comparison of characters' power in here is that the individual character's abilities are dissected and then compared against those characters who have the best type of abilities in that class. For example, a 4* X character has a stun abilility. So, he will be compared against Iceman, Gamora, or even Bishop. New characters who create strike tiles will be compared against R4G. It's like I compare someone's intelligence with Einstein, his running speed with Usain Bolt and his rapping skill with Eminem.  :o

  • Kolence
    Kolence Posts: 969 Critical Contributor
    HoundofShadow said:
    Talo's maximum match damage increase is capped at 15ap, whereas Chavez's match damage increase is capped at 30ap. Of course Chavez's match damage is going to be higher. 

    Her formula:

    (1 + (AP * .3)) * match tile dmg * number tile 

    If you make a fair comparison using Chavez match damage at 15ap, her match damage is only 1485, compared to Talo's 1746. Look whose match damage is better? Chavez has to gather 90ap to increase 3 of her match colour whereas Talo's has to gather only 15 aps to increase match damage of whatever colours he tanks.

    A very common flaw in comparison of characters' power in here is that the individual character's abilities are dissected and then compared against those characters who have the best type of abilities in that class. For example, a 4* X character has a stun abilility. So, he will be compared against Iceman, Gamora, or even Bishop. New characters who create strike tiles will be compared against R4G. It's like I compare someone's intelligence with Einstein, his running speed with Usain Bolt and his rapping skill with Eminem.  :o

    Those two characters are released as they are. Comparing their maximum possible match damage seems fair to me. Chavez may need more AP, but I'd say she has more ways to accelerate getting that AP - with free matches from crits and converting traps, than Talos does. And let's not forget the extra damage those crits and traps give too.
  • RickOShay
    RickOShay Posts: 452 Mover and Shaker
    Vhailorx said:
    What happens if you multi-cast his purple against different opponents?


    I finally remembered to revisit this question.
    Unfortunately upon the 2nd cast of his purple, this now becomes the targeted-enemy color he will steal when matches are made, even if you have the previous traps still in play. 
    I was hoping this would work on two different colors and the traps working independently, but of course he can only Shapeshift into one enemy at a time - so this stands to reason..
  • Vhailorx
    Vhailorx Posts: 6,085 Chairperson of the Boards
    RickOShay said:
    Vhailorx said:
    What happens if you multi-cast his purple against different opponents?


    I finally remembered to revisit this question.
    Unfortunately upon the 2nd cast of his purple, this now becomes the targeted-enemy color he will steal when matches are made, even if you have the previous traps still in play. 
    I was hoping this would work on two different colors and the traps working independently, but of course he can only Shapeshift into one enemy at a time - so this stands to reason..
    Thanks for the info, this is good to know, even if the upshot is that he is even less useful.
  • RickOShay
    RickOShay Posts: 452 Mover and Shaker
    The one upside about this is, you are not 'stuck' with the color you originally played it on. 
    If you run well on purple and need to change to a different target's strongest color, then you may have mulitiple traps to rely on going forward. But yeah. 

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