** Moonstone (Dark Avengers) ** [PRE 2015-05]

Unknown

Because when I look to take out an xforce team i look for a 2*

wymtime

I personally had max leveled Moonstone and would use her with Ares in PVP if OBW went down. At the time Gravity warp was a good damage dealer becuase most 2* were not throwing out special tiles except Daken and Wolvie. No one really used Daken so if I was facing an occasional wolvie. Most of the time it was Thor/OBW/Ares. I walways thought she had promise as a rainbow combination with Ares/Thor. I would use her red and purple and use Ares/Thor yellow and green. She was horrible on defense. I felt like I put a big bullseye in PVP saying free points. Her red can be awsome, her purple decent, her black just cost's too much and you have no control. Overall she was about 15 degrees off being a very good character. Lower the cost of black, and let the player choose which special tile to warp she would be very solid.

Tweek her and she will be good. As is when she is buffed in PVE just bring Daken and she is usless.

Unknown

wymtime wrote:

I personally had max leveled Moonstone and would use her with Ares in PVP if OBW went down. At the time Gravity warp was a good damage dealer becuase most 2* were not throwing out special tiles except Daken and Wolvie. No one really used Daken so if I was facing an occasional wolvie. Most of the time it was Thor/OBW/Ares. I walways thought she had promise as a rainbow combination with Ares/Thor. I would use her red and purple and use Ares/Thor yellow and green. She was horrible on defense. I felt like I put a big bullseye in PVP saying free points. Her red can be awsome, her purple decent, her black just cost's too much and you have no control. Overall she was about 15 degrees off being a very good character. Lower the cost of black, and let the player choose which special tile to warp she would be very solid.

Tweek her and she will be good. As is when she is buffed in PVE just bring Daken and she is usless.

That's another point - the AI is AWFUL with Moonstone because it has no concept of how to use her powers. I've always theorized based on their comments and feedback that most of d3p's testing is done in pve, where she isn't AS bad.

Dayv

Steal Beast's countdown! This should trigger an easter egg of chibi Monstone crying.

Unknown

DayvBang wrote:

Steal Beast's countdown! This should trigger an easter egg of chibi Monstone crying.

Also chibi Beast. They cry together.

Unknown

Demiurge_Miles wrote:

Jimilinho wrote:

Well I find it hard to believe ANYONE has ever done this, ever, in the history of the game.

So I'm challenging anyone to pull this of , just to see a screenshot of this would be impressive and I will have some serious respect to whoever manages to make this happen.

If you can please post it here!

Thank you for the challenge! I played with my Moonstone and Iron Man Model 40 in the Hulk event this morning and snagged these screenshots. Not only did I steal Wolverine's Recovery tile, but I also used Gravity Warp to set up match-4 Yellows to get him to charge it

I'll be the first to admit that this is not the most practical strategy, but boy was it satisfying. (the look on his face!)

We've been really enjoying this conversation in the office and I certainly didn't expect my off-the-cuff Q/A response to be so controversial. So, let me qualify my answer by saying: "No, she is not a top-tier character, but I think she's a little bit better than folks give her credit for." I kind of want to make T-shirts that say 'I think Moonstone is underrated.'

I challenge anyone to find the craziest tile to steal with Moonstone, lets see 'em!

See, I can agree with "I think Moonstone is underrated." What I CAN'T agree with is that she is the MOST underrated character. Not when IM40 keeps getting laughed at all the time.

CNash

I'm enjoying this thread; decent in-depth discussion about Moonstone is hard to come by these days.

From my perspective, it's true that she used to be underrated in the 2* sphere, but recent changes and new characters have made her practically obsolete aside from when featured in PVEs. 2* Human Torch pretty much does that all by himself; Flamethrower does 1654 damage at max, which Photon Blast needs at least six red tiles on the board to match, and it costs 3 AP less to cast. Meanwhile, even with the AP depletion side effect, Inferno is generally more reliable than Control Shift (far fewer variables) and - again - cheaper too. And doesn't have a weird interpretive-dance animation.

As has been said, the ubiquity of OBW means that you probably won't be using Gravity Warp; even if you're not running OBW for some reason, the fact that you can't target specific CD tiles makes it a total crapshoot against PVE goons and characters like Mawkeye and MN Mags. It could really be helped by either allowing manual targeting, or letting it do damage as well as swapping a tile.

You can still pull off decent synergy with Daken, though - you're inclined to leave red tiles on the board for him to turn into strike tiles, and protect them thereafter (whether it's to keep the strike tile effect or fuel Chemical Reaction later), providing a source of power for Photon Blast. The problem is getting 11 red AP to cast it at the same time... which could be mitigated by running IM40 as described by Miles.

Unknown

gamar wrote:

Do we need THREE threads for complaining that the devs made the completely uncontroversial statement that Moonstone is, in a pinch, actually a fair damage dealer for the 90% of players running on 2*s and a couple of undercovered 3*s?

The statement isn't even controversial, it's just wrong.

Most of the time, Gravity Warp does nothing.
Photon Blast is decent but once you hit 11 AP the likelihood of the board being starved of red tiles is quite high, and considering how good Adamantium Slash, Mjolnir's Might, and Rampage are (and, you know, the character attached to them), you almost always should be running a better red skill.
Control shift is just... Ugh.

Moonstone is just bad. Every single one of her abilities is conditional and costs too much for what it does.

But you know what? If the devs had said "we think Moonstone is underrated", I wouldn't have faulted them. I would have just thought "Huh, weird" and moved on. But that's not what they said. They said that Gravity Warp was good at dealing with special tiles (it absolutely isn't), that running her with IM40 would make Photon Blast decent (so now you're running two lousy characters and would be better off using the red for Unibeam instead anyways), and that you can steal powerful tiles with Control Shift (nothing you can steal is actually worth 17 AP, if there are multiple tiles on the board it's a crapshoot on which you get, plus most characters with something worth that much will kill Moonstone long before she hits 17 black).

All of this screams of people who don't actually play the game, and who are sort of theorizing about it. That's incredibly worrying.

Unknown

See, Photon Blast is actually the second best red skill in 2* land, and comes on a tank instead of a waif; and nobody said control shift was good, just that it was occasionally satisfyingly hilarious

I agree that "extremely useful" is overstating gravity warp quite a bit but he's absolutely right that you can force a match-3 with it far more often than you'd suspect

You're reading a lot into this that isn't there

lukewin

Haven't read thru whole thread. Can't participate in challenge, no Moonstone. The devs aren't off by saying moonstone is undervalued and under rated. Look at the question. It's basically asking who is the best of the worst. All the characters that are used / valued can't be considered as an answer. A lot of the underused characters are horrible offensively, so they can't be considered.

I think if the question was changed, the devs wouldn't seem so out of touch. Who is the best of the worst? Moonstone. Decent answer. Who is undervalued and under rated? Moonstone is undervalued and underrated. The devs are NUTS!!!! MOONSTONE!?!?!?!

GothicKratos

I just want to say Will's post made my morning

Unknown

lukewin wrote:

Haven't read thru whole thread. Can't participate in challenge, no Moonstone. The devs aren't off by saying moonstone is undervalued and under rated. Look at the question. It's basically asking who is the best of the worst. All the characters that are used / valued can't be considered as an answer. A lot of the underused characters are horrible offensively, so they can't be considered.

I think if the question was changed, the devs wouldn't seem so out of touch. Who is the best of the worst? Moonstone. Decent answer. Who is undervalued and under rated? Moonstone is undervalued and underrated, also her purple is good for dealing with special tiles and you can run her with IM40. The devs are NUTS!!!! MOONSTONE!?!?!?!

Fixed that for you.

Again, it's not about Moonstone being underrated. It's that the devs spoke about it in possibly the most ridiculous way possible.

GothicKratos

Honestly, you're blowing this way out of proportion. The devs literally said they thought that Moonstone was underrated and stated a non-competitive/casual way you can use her more "effectively" that was outside the box and really proved their point. Nobody said she was top tier. Just because the devs aren't shield hopping with Sentry in their free time doesn't mean they're disconnected from the game. If anything, it probably means they're more connected with it's playerbase than not. Damn them for enjoying their own game how they want to in their free time! DAMN THEM!

Unknown

Once upon a time, on a partly cloudy, 62 degree day......

Little old lady: It's a pretty day.

Budget Player Cadet: A pretty day? Are you kidding me? It was 70 degrees yesterday and clear skies. Do you have any idea how the perception of weather can influence a persons reactions? I'm going to start 3 threads and post in others that you, lady, have no idea what constitutes A PRETTY DAY!!!!!!!!!

The little old lady cries.

The end!

Unknown

Challenge was met.

D3 wins this round

Unknown

Paintsville wrote:

Once upon a time, on a partly cloudy, 62 degree day......

Little old lady: It's a pretty day.

Budget Player Cadet: A pretty day? Are you kidding me? It was 70 degrees yesterday and clear skies. Do you have any idea how the perception of weather can influence a persons reactions? I'm going to start 3 threads and post in others that you, lady, have no idea what constitutes A PRETTY DAY!!!!!!!!!

The little old lady cries.

The end!

Now let's modify that analogy to one that makes sense. First off, what does a little old lady know about nice days? What is she expected to know about it? Nothing.How 'bout this - change the little old lady to a semi-omnipotent being in charge of determining what the weather is (boy, this analogy fell apart really fast) based on the current weather patterns and how well-received they are. After all, I'm not going after some random nobody for saying something dumb. I'm going after the developers of the game - people who damn well should know better. Secondly, change it from "It's a pretty day" to "It's a pretty day because there's not a cloud in the sky, and furthermore if you go out with an umbrella, you won't get wet." That more encapsulates the degree to which the devs are simply wrong here. Finally, add some things to the analogy which more encapsulate the bizarreness of the statements made (IM40? Really?), and your analogy sorta works. Except that I made 1 thread. Not 3.

Yoxgix

Photon Blast works well as a team up provided you cascade/ match your way to 11 team up ap.

Spoit

gamar wrote:

See, Photon Blast is actually the second best red skill in 2* land, and comes on a tank instead of a waif; and nobody said control shift was good, just that it was occasionally satisfyingly hilarious

I agree that "extremely useful" is overstating gravity warp quite a bit but he's absolutely right that you can force a match-3 with it far more often than you'd suspect

You're reading a lot into this that isn't there

citation needed. The only 2* red I'd definitively rate below it is bagcap's, and provisionally tiny thor's. wolvie and HT's are pretty much strictly better, and mhawkeye and ares both do AoE damage, so are much more efficient. Mn mags deals a decent amount of damage, but it's secondary to the crazy amount of AP generation it does, 24 tiles collected for only 14 AP cost. If you want to talk underrated 2* powers, that's the one I'd choose

Unknown

Photon Blast is pretty average so far as 2* red goes. It is a very slow red power because even if you could just match red every move that wouldn't leave you with very many red left over for the criteria. Ironically it functions better as a TU skill since you don't have to match red to power it. I think only Adamantium Slash will beat it in damage in a somewhat favorable configuration (say 10 red on the board, more than the average but not unusual) but it can take a while for the board to replenish the reds. Compared to Hawkeye, anything that hits everyone is supposed to do more damage because otherwise it's almost always better to concentrate the damage on one person, and it gets a bonus for being a CD because it can be stopped the same way. Same applies to Magnetic Flux not to mention it's 5 matches to get it off. It's more like a power you use to take out the second person because you just won't have enough red replenished to take out the first guy in most games.

Pylgrim

Demiurge_Miles wrote:

Jimilinho wrote:

Well I find it hard to believe ANYONE has ever done this, ever, in the history of the game.

So I'm challenging anyone to pull this of , just to see a screenshot of this would be impressive and I will have some serious respect to whoever manages to make this happen.

If you can please post it here!

Thank you for the challenge! I played with my Moonstone and Iron Man Model 40 in the Hulk event this morning and snagged these screenshots. Not only did I steal Wolverine's Recovery tile, but I also used Gravity Warp to set up match-4 Yellows to get him to charge it

I'll be the first to admit that this is not the most practical strategy, but boy was it satisfying. (the look on his face!)

We've been really enjoying this conversation in the office and I certainly didn't expect my off-the-cuff Q/A response to be so controversial. So, let me qualify my answer by saying: "No, she is not a top-tier character, but I think she's a little bit better than folks give her credit for." I kind of want to make T-shirts that say 'I think Moonstone is underrated.'

I challenge anyone to find the craziest tile to steal with Moonstone, lets see 'em!

This was awesome Will. Could we have Control Shift slightly discounted so things like this can happen a bit more often?