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

Unknown

i prefer 3/5/5 because it lower the random of the purple. And a stun is always nice.

But her red is her only useful ability.

Unknown

To put it simply, it doesn't swap Invisible Woman's invisibility tiles, even though the description says "a random enemy <colour list> Special tile".

Shouldn't it swap them? Why aren't they considered a special tile? What kind of tile are they if special (non-basic)?

I checked and double-checked before using the ability, there was only one special enemy tile and that was IW's yellow invisibility tile (I can swap Yellows).

Sorry for such a short post but I'm in a hurry right now. Will add more details later if needed.

Unknown

What level is your Gravity Warp? It can't pull every color of special tiles until it's maxed.

Unknown

Yup, I can swap Yellows. It's level 3 and it says "a random enemy Purple, Back, Red or Yellow Special tile".

EDIT: Also, when I used it, it just destroyed the selected tile, nothing was swapped (there was no special tile apart from that yellow one and some bubbles)

Dayv

I think Moonstone might take the cake for the most broken power set with potential to be great if they work the kinks out and tweak it slightly.

Unknown

I do recall sometimes Gravity Warp just don't seem to warp a tile at all. Perhaps not all tiles are 'special' after all.

Unknown

I had a similar problem with Moonstone not moving a yellow strike tile that she should have warped. Maybe the problem isn't with invisibility tiles as a type? Has anyone had this problem with tiles other than yellow?

Unknown

Moon 17 wrote:

I had a similar problem with Moonstone not moving a yellow strike tile that she should have warped. Maybe the problem isn't with invisibility tiles as a type? Has anyone had this problem with tiles other than yellow?

Pretty sure I have warped Morale Boost tiles before, which are yellow.

I'm pretty sure I have warped countdown and strike tiles of every color in the game, so it's definitely not like one color just doesn't work. It's probably related to the type of the special tile.

over_clocked

Moonstone hasn't been touched in ages probably and IW's types of tiles are relatively new, non? So that the game doesn't recognize Invisibility tiles as Moonstone-warpable.

Unknown

Possible. Doesn't resolve the issue I had with a yellow strike tile, though.

Unknown

So... How should I respec my moonstone? She is currently at 5/4/4. My only use for her is when she is buffed or a required character.

Phaserhawk

pandaberry6 wrote:

So... How should I respec my moonstone? She is currently at 5/4/4. My only use for her is when she is buffed or a required character.

5/5/3. Black is so expensive and so dependent it's not worth it. IMO

Unknown

Honestly, she's a character that I really want to like and use. I tried her out and leveled her up to the mid 70's during the recent Simulator and Nefarious Foes events.

BUT SHE'S POSSIBLY THE MOST CONFUSED CHARACTER IN THE GAME!

First off, is she a PvP or a PvE character?

Control Shift is at its "best" (i.e. potentially only moderately overpriced) against powerful, expensive, long-timer countdown tiles. Let's face it, this is PvE. People don't really use cooldown tiles in PvP in the current meta, and for good reason. Even then... Hawkeye can Avoid. IM40's Recharge stuns you. Ares' Sunder does most of its damage in the main attack. Punisher's Molotov Cocktail is a cheap irritant. Etcetera, etcetera. Most of the time it would just be 17AP for a two-turn stun. Yuck!

Let's also forget that you're paying more AP than your opponent to gain a random countdown tile, that can then be matched/destroyed anyway before going off. And the countdown tile's more likely to synergise with your opponent's team than your own.

Ok, so it's a PvE skill?! Buuuuut... Moonstone is a Dark Avenger. She doesn't really get buffed for PvE events. And you often can't use her anyway as you'll be facing off against her.

Gravity Warp is just as messed up. Being able to match up additional colours is meant to be a bonus, right? Except in PvE when you have several countdown tiles of several different colours on the go, it's really pot luck whether you get the right match up. I ended up not leveling up this skill because it was too counter-productive.

The vast majority of the time I'd just prefer the certainty of destroying a basic tile and doing the damage. Losing out on the damage AND not getting any control over which special tile gets swapped really neuters its usefulness. Remember that you're spending 8AP just to try to get rid of a special tile that probably cost your opponent a bit less. Not too bad in PvP where it has more consistent results. It's just bizarre to have a skill where the "main" effect is so inferior to the "alternative" effect.

Photon Blast is actually pretty alright. Yeah, you've taken a fair bit of red from the board to be able to cast it, so you might have to wait a few turns till it's worth casting. But it's much less messed up than the other two.

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Thing is she's a pretty low-tier character, so people don't really use her unless there's a compelling reason. In PvP that's basically villain/women tournaments. Best build 5-5-3. But as time goes on there'll be more women/villain options available for these. Plus how often will these come by? Once every couple of months?

And what about PvE? Well a good chunk of the time you won't be able to use her. And even when you can, she probably won't be buffed. Best build is arguably 3-5-5, not because you want to max black, but because you want to limit the number of tiles she can randomly swap!

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It's very frustrating. I like the concept of finesse/saboteur characters. But this game seems to punish using them, and reward using straight up damage dealers. The best idea is probably to build her as 5-5-3 for women/villain tournaments. But if you have better trios for these, then you might only use her on the rare occasions she's buffed in PvE. In which case I'd recommend considering 3-5-5, to reduce the chance that Gravity Warp (in its current state) does nothing useful.

Unknown

IMO 5/5/3 is still the only viable build because the best scenario for using Gravity Warp is when there's nothing in play for it to hit, which means you're getting a cascade for very nice damage and AP gain from an 8AP skill. Warping a countdown tile hurts my soul, because the damage potential of the skill is wasted. It should deal damage either way, or allow the target to be selectable.

Unknown

That thing is off the CHAIN!! Am I right?

Unknown

You could put a fitted kitchen in there.

Unknown

Target's Photoshop pros would weep with envy.

Unknown

She has a gap? O.o . Pictures please.

Unknown

I try to give her matching tiles just so I can see it.. even if it is only for a brief second

Unknown

I use her a lot in PVE against countdown opponents, where I swear by her abilities.

I can admit here that the quality of her abilities is probably secondary to the quality of her animations.