**** Wolfsbane (Rahne Sinclair) ****

DAZ0273

She didn't really live up to expectations, the invisibility is probably the saving grace. I'm thinking she is fairly mid-tier.

Thanos

I was gonna make some videos with her but there's nothing new or exciting about her or her abilities. She's mediocre and i'm feeling uninspired.

Yepyep

spidyjedi84 said:.

she isn't going to be joining my must use teams the way 4 Juggs has.

So you have mentioned Juggs as has @TPF Alexis and I could really use some help on how he fits in and gets used. I’m a transitioning-to-5* guy and am a little at sea trying to get/keep my head around all the powers and options. 

I’m not looking to hijack this thread, but would you (or others) mind pitching out some ways Juggs 4* is fun and useful? I’ve got Okoye, BB, Kitty, DD, Wolverine, and JJ champed of 5s. Most 4s are champed or immediately ready to be. I could really use some starter ideas — for pve especially. 

KGB

OJSP said:

Yepyep said:

I could really use some starter ideas — for pve especially. 

Kitty Rocket Juggs will make a lot of nodes over in a few turns.

Gamora/Rocket/Juggs (with a support that increase black match damage) will do it even faster because Juggs will tank more colors and thus his AOE fires more often. In CL7 I can clear every bit as fast as full 5* teams using 5* Thanos or Thorkoye or Gritty.

KGB

Dogface

I'm just glad I could get her in ST. It's been a long time since i had all essentials at 209 or above.

Vhailorx

Yepyep said:

spidyjedi84 said:.

she isn't going to be joining my must use teams the way 4 Juggs has.

So you have mentioned Juggs as has @TPF Alexis and I could really use some help on how he fits in and gets used. I’m a transitioning-to-5* guy and am a little at sea trying to get/keep my head around all the powers and options. 

I’m not looking to hijack this thread, but would you (or others) mind pitching out some ways Juggs 4* is fun and useful? I’ve got Okoye, BB, Kitty, DD, Wolverine, and JJ champed of 5s. Most 4s are champed or immediately ready to be. I could really use some starter ideas — for pve especially. 

I think the basic idea is that juggs does passive aoe.  So add some beefy strike tiles *cough* grocket *cough* and the damage mounts up extremely fast.

jamesh

It's nice to see they adjusted the cover colour offered in the PVP tournament.  So now getting top 100 in Strange Sights, progression in The Hunt, and 900 points/40 wins in the PVP tournament results in one of each colour.  That's a big improvement over previous character releases where the top cover seems to be rare as hens' teeth.

DarthDeVo

DAZ0273 said:

She didn't really live up to expectations, the invisibility is probably the saving grace. I'm thinking she is fairly mid-tier.

Oh, i don't know about that. She seems fairly versatile to me, and works really well with either of the two 5* meta teams.

Okoye boosts all of her powers quite nicely. And with her placing strike tiles as part of her red, she also has a nice spot on Gritty teams as well. 

Will I be using her outside of essentials? With 25 champed 5*s, of course not. But I'm at least enjoying using her in her release PVP.

spidyjedi84

Vhailorx said:

Yepyep said:

spidyjedi84 said:.

she isn't going to be joining my must use teams the way 4 Juggs has.

So you have mentioned Juggs as has @TPF Alexis and I could really use some help on how he fits in and gets used. I’m a transitioning-to-5* guy and am a little at sea trying to get/keep my head around all the powers and options. 

I’m not looking to hijack this thread, but would you (or others) mind pitching out some ways Juggs 4* is fun and useful? I’ve got Okoye, BB, Kitty, DD, Wolverine, and JJ champed of 5s. Most 4s are champed or immediately ready to be. I could really use some starter ideas — for pve especially. 

I think the basic idea is that juggs does passive aoe.  So add some beefy strike tiles *cough* grocket *cough* and the damage mounts up extremely fast.

Grocket, Kitty and Juggs is a train rolling through PVE. Juggs tanks in quite a few colors and does Passive AOE on each of his matches, Kitty buffs Grocket's strike tiles beginning on turn 2. If there are no tile movers on the other team, most matches are done in under 7 turns. Wave nodes with no tile movers are insanely quick, too. If you have Carol's Communicator Support on Kitty at tier 3 or higher, the only people you're worrying about healing are Juggs and Grocket, as Kitty gets true healing when special tiles are matched, and Grocket only hits the front lines if Juggs is stunned. Plus, Carol's Communicator also gives chances for Defense tiles Kitty can boost at the beginning of a match. It's a team that steamrolls damages without the health pack usage of Thanos or the Silver tiles balancing and health monitoring needed to keep ThorOkoye's steamrolling going.

DAZ0273

DarthDeVo said:

DAZ0273 said:

She didn't really live up to expectations, the invisibility is probably the saving grace. I'm thinking she is fairly mid-tier.

Oh, i don't know about that. She seems fairly versatile to me, and works really well with either of the two 5* meta teams.

Okoye boosts all of her powers quite nicely. And with her placing strike tiles as part of her red, she also has a nice spot on Gritty teams as well. 

Will I be using her outside of essentials? With 25 champed 5*s, of course not. But I'm at least enjoying using her in her release PVP.

Sadly my Gritty team is missing a Kitty yellow cover shaped hole of an otherwise would have been quite useable 0/5/4 and for the timebeing at least Sabretooth will be a better option for me with Okoye. So she sits on the bench. Still these things can always change.

PuceMoose

I just pulled her final cover this evening, with one saved, so I plan on champing her this season (I tend to champ just one 4* each season, to give a better chance to play around with a new character). I hope to set her loose in the seasonal Sim with Gritty (once I enter it), so I'll try and report back with my findings on how she does with the usual suspects. Will she warm the cockles of my heart like Ronin did, or will she get sidelined quickly while I call 4* Juggs back over and apologize for not using him for five minutes? Time will tell!

PuceMoose

I did the deed and champed Wolfsbane today. I spent a good hour and a half over a nice long lunch playing the seasonal Sim, and made it up to 1100 with Gritty + Wolfsbane. For reference, here's the team I used:

Kitty: 5/5/3, level 375
Grocket: 3/5/5, level 291
Wolfsbane: 5/5/3, level 271

Holy cow Wolfsbane was on FIRE! I haven't had so much fun in Sim in quite a while. Here's a rundown on her skills and how I used them, and my impressions on them with this team.

Rend / Silent Retreat - 8  AP /  PASSIVE

Straight up murder with this thing. What the description doesn't mention is that the FIVE slashes it does continue even after the target is downed. Unlike Sabretooth, friendly strikes add to the damage. I boosted +2 G/B AP so that I could get this skill rolling on turn three or four, if was able to make two black match-3 matches. Assuming I managed to keep four or five of the strike tiles alive, that ended up being about 4k in strike tiles, meaning Wolfsbane did about 26,500 damage for eight black AP. I was able to down a full-health champed Karnak (270) and a full-health champed America (271) with one cast. 

Considering how squishy she is (only 11k health at 271, eep!) I wish she would heal for a small amount when invisible after the skill goes to silent retreat based on the number of black tiles on the board (hiding in the shadows to recover as she stalks her prey). 

Go for the Throat - 6  AP

The damage on this one isn't amazing by itself, but the strike tiles more than make up for it. Best used to revitalize Kitty's buffing if her strike tiles fall below four, and they're not too shabby even on their own - about 360 total spread over four tiles. I used it to kill a weakened enemy after making sure there were no blue matches on the board. 

I'd love to see this skill heal Wolfsbane a bit if it downs the foe, similar to a weaker version of Moon Knight's black. 

One Woman Wolf Pack - 7  AP

At three covers each countdown didn't do much damage, but with Gritty's strikes it added up. I used it in maybe 50% of my battles, and I think on average two of the countdowns managed to survive long enough to resolve. With strikes on the board, that averaged about 10k damage for 7 purple, which wasn't shabby. 

This ability could shine with someone like 4Carol who buffs on countdown resolution.

I think it would have been a neat touch if each successful resolution increased the damage of each remaining Wolf pack countdown - "blood is in the air, and the pack is getting hungrier" kind of thing.


Other thoughts:
Even though I didn't specifically plan it that way, I was pleasantly surprised to realize this combo had the full rainbow of active abilities. 

On the downside, Wolfsbane will tank black with this team, meaning she will probably take some serious damage if you race to get her black online. While she has a fast heal timer, it's still a bad idea to have in front if you can help it. She will get straight up slaughtered by a Juggs+Gritty combo in a couple of turns if she's in front. Also as a negative, her invisibility tile lands on a black tile, and since you're probably going to be racing to collect black, it's more likely to land in an unmatchable location. On the other hand, being invisible can save her from more non-AOE damage, so...

Will anyone be deterred by a Gritty+Wolfsbane team? I sort of doubt, but I'll keep track of retaliations and defensive wins/losses, and update this post tomorrow evening with information on how badly the team got hammered over a period of 24 hours. 

***24 hour update***
Okay, during the last 24 hours I got hit a total of twelve times, and out of those twelve I had three defensive wins. It knocked me down from 1100 to 960. She's definitely not scaring people away at all, but neither has it been a complete open season on my team.