**** Northstar (Classic) ****

135

Comments

  • bluewolf
    bluewolf Posts: 5,247 Chairperson of the Boards
    Warbringa said:
    He will be great for certain boss events with that destroy row ability.

    That ability is also very good against goons in PvE.  

    Should pair well with Vulture. Can keep Vulture airborne nearly infinite while Vulture generates a ton of blue.  


    Northstar sends an enemy Airborne, which is definitely not something you want to do when facing Vulture.  There's no synergy with a Vulture on your own team that I can see other than if you can target rows and collect the black AP a little more easily.
  • Kingart813
    Kingart813 Posts: 46 Just Dropped In
    So the "acid wash jeans" clue was NorthStar!?  I don't get it...
  • DAZ0273
    DAZ0273 Posts: 9,580 Chairperson of the Boards
    @IceIX

    Hi Ice is there any particular reason that Northstar doesn't have the X-Men affiliation?
    Because Wolverine killed him. Sasquatch only doinked his sister. Pretty close to be fair but I can see his choice here as understandable.
  • IceIX
    IceIX ADMINISTRATORS Posts: 4,312 Site Admin
    So the "acid wash jeans" clue was NorthStar!?  I don't get it...
    Karolina Dean. A dual reference to one of her aliases (LSD), and the fact that she is almost always wearing jeans or jean shorts.
  • purplemur
    purplemur Posts: 454 Mover and Shaker
    edited January 2020
    Some of the upside that I see:
    1)Cheap- 8 is his most expensive but at 4 covers is treading close to AP Neutral. Blue/Black/Yellow come back and I am hoping that a M4 or better results from the line clear. BRB/Medusa could be stacking up AP quick. If your not using it to gain AP it is a pretty tremendous removal on its own. We will have to see how it plays with Mysterio traps but that could be fun.
     5 TU for 6 is good rate compared with Toot the sub mariner,Hotdog cart,supernatural sense. 
    2) Invisibility. Does it ever affect himself? The random part sucks. Should have been lowest health or level. With the wording I am not sure if every turn someone gets turned invis+burst, then next turn random or when the CD is assigned its on a random player who gets a one turn proc of invisibility+burst? Either way It’s fun to give the ability easily. Maybe somehow this cheap ability+quantum realm will somehow be broken?
    3)Flight is the hawtness. Knock them out of the way and remove the AP needed to cast whatever bomb they were about to drop, and make the board more hostile. 
    4) Defensive minded Point guard. With his abilities to remove both sides from the battle he allows you to manipulate who tanks. He seems to slot in nicely to facilitate Okoye and with his ability to hide your team mates you can keep her in the front(unless everyone is invisible). He can remove himself from AoE, he can remove opposing bishops without triggering. 
    5) Good color scheme. I think his TU conversion is because silver hair, or Canada is all ice and snow n stuffs, but black and white costume, and blue for speed= good choices. 

    He seems like a good quick fire man who adds a bunch of chaos while letting you manipulate the character change-up. He’s not bad, I think he will be fun to play for all the targeting shenanigans.
    Basically he is 4*Quicksilver and I am fine with him as the character choice. I chuckled over the hero tag because I liked him less than most villains growing up, give me Dr Conners anyday! If they are going to do some AlphaF releases: can we start a petition for Puck to be a Limited 3* but give the covers away like moonstone candy during some events and his reward table would be lame. Kinda of like the character- all up in your face but good for nothing....? If we were going to be real the whole team would be a bunch of 2 and 3*s but power doesn’t equal rarity and all that. 
    While I think he is good enough to chase he doesn’t get to cut in line in front of modok
  • MoosePrime
    MoosePrime Posts: 946 Critical Contributor
    bluewolf said:
    Warbringa said:
    He will be great for certain boss events with that destroy row ability.

    That ability is also very good against goons in PvE.  

    Should pair well with Vulture. Can keep Vulture airborne nearly infinite while Vulture generates a ton of blue.  


    Northstar sends an enemy Airborne, which is definitely not something you want to do when facing Vulture.  There's no synergy with a Vulture on your own team that I can see other than if you can target rows and collect the black AP a little more easily.
    At level 3, his blue collects the black AP from the row destroyed.  If you can find a row with 2 black tiles, Vulture can stay airborne without needing a black match.
  • Omegased
    Omegased Posts: 558 Critical Contributor
    bluewolf said:

    It would be nice if the game offered more puzzle-y stuff and less speed-clear stuff. Maybe would make it interesting to develop some characters more but even then your resources are far too limited in comparison to potential use.

    I am totally with you on this one. The events that are a little different are always the ones i love the most. Whilst the most recent PVP season wasn't loved, I really enjoyed the attempt of trying new things (the 1v1, evergreen etc). we need new stuff like this to keep it fresh.

    Only concern is, I think a lot of people don't like it. They just want to smash thru the levels as quick as possible, which I just don't get. using gritty is BORING. 

    My only guess is that the rewards are so heavily diluted, that people value a reward over having fun. 



  • DAZ0273
    DAZ0273 Posts: 9,580 Chairperson of the Boards
    DAZ0273 said:
    @IceIX

    Hi Ice is there any particular reason that Northstar doesn't have the X-Men affiliation?
    Because Wolverine killed him. Sasquatch only doinked his sister. Pretty close to be fair but I can see his choice here as understandable.
    Hasn't wolverine killed everyone at some point or another? 
    Actually Wolverine is surprisingly bad at killing people despite his stabbiness. Remember that time he sliced up those Hellfire Club dudes? They simply came back as super cyborg reavers who then crucified him in the Australian outback. Nice job Logan.
  • HoundofShadow
    HoundofShadow Posts: 8,004 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited January 2020
    Build: 4/4/5 

    I thought this was a bad team up because you have both blue and black being active colours for all three characters. Because the focus was on Northstar, the match took quite some time because:

    1) I wanted to see all animations of Northstar
    2) I was either getting my blue or green ap drained away
    3) the AI happens to match all the black tiles.

    A few things to note:

    Only 1 CD tile is allowed for Northstar's yellow power. It appears on random coloured tile. It can target himself.



  • ThaRoadWarrior
    ThaRoadWarrior Posts: 9,125 Chairperson of the Boards
    Animations were pretty good, his powers were fine in practice. Pairing with 2099 and Vulture wasn't necessarily a recipe to show him off, since both of those characters are very good. I had a very black-light board and wiped out first go around using loaner Northstar and 2099, mostly because i was looking at northstar's animations. Second go around I leaned in to Vulture and wasn't bad.
  • carlj64
    carlj64 Posts: 45 Just Dropped In
    I was unsurprised by the absence of black tiles. First go wiped, never even got vulture airborne. Second go, a slog but got there. Other than a single cover for essential, not one I'll chase.
  • Godzillafan67
    Godzillafan67 Posts: 497 Mover and Shaker
    From SHIELD Training I learned that Bishop is awesome.
  • HoundofShadow
    HoundofShadow Posts: 8,004 Chairperson of the Boards
    I decided to play Northstar for another 5 rounds to get a feel of him. Somehow, it was not easy to get black ap for 3 out of 5 match. I guess this is where his blue power shines. Use this to gain the hard to get black ap to bring Vulture to the sky, or use it to destroy enemies special tiles. Naturally, my first target was Kingpin because he will drain away blue ap.

    I find his yellow power is a good board control that could be a life saver, along with healing and invisibility. What's more, it's cheap.

    His black could work with other characters that destroy ap in target's strongest colour to deny AI from firing powers. With this combination, you have up to three more choices to see which ap you want to destroy. 

    If you like ap control against enemies, I think he could be fun.





  • RickOShay
    RickOShay Posts: 452 Mover and Shaker
    edited January 2020
    Have to agree with the others, the essential team members chosen to play along side Northstar do not offer him a good 'showcase'.  You really can't win this match without focusing on Vulture's or Spidey's abilities. 

    A character color combo including two of red, purple, or green would have been much better to show us what Northstar can do -for a team-. 
    Assuming Spidey 2099 was due and thus required for this Shield Training, someone like Mockingbird for 1 example would have been much better to show off Northstar than Vulture was here.
    Heck, she could have earned a free ability or two of his to be fired off. (or require Nightcrawler,, ME Hulk, Shuri, or 20 others. Let me destroy Medusa's or Deadpool's CD's with Northstar's blue, come on!).

    Outside of that, I find him to be quite tactical. This adds some enjoyment for many players to the puzzle side of the game.

    It's Marvel PUZZLE Quest after all, NOT Marvel 'Speed thru for top placement only and the 4* tier is dead' Quest. 

    I was hoping to be able to play him against Kaecilius for some board control / shake up fun. 
  • Captain_Carlman
    Captain_Carlman Posts: 208 Tile Toppler
    edited January 2020
    RickOShay said:
    Have to agree with the others, the essential team members chosen to play along side Northstar do not offer him a good 'showcase'.  You really can't win this match without focusing on Vulture's or Spidey's abilities. 

    A character color combo including two of red, purple, or green would have been much better to show us what Northstar can do -for a team-. 
    Assuming Spidey 2099 was due and thus required for this Shield Training, someone like Mockingbird for 1 example would have been much better to show off Northstar than Vulture was here.
    That's how I felt too.  I mean, it wasn't as bad as Mysterio's SHIELD Training, where not only did his partners have the absolute wrong colors to compliment him, but he also actively was a detriment to them as well.  Northstar didn't really get too much of a chance to shine when Vulture is generating all the AP and doing his own thing while airborne and 2099 had a much better stun to handle Bishop with.  

    He seems okay, I guess.  Not great, but able to do a bit of board control while his teammates do the heavy lifting.
  • RickOShay
    RickOShay Posts: 452 Mover and Shaker
    edited January 2020
    Northstar's eventual Crash will take 30 minutes to win btw lol.


    Similar to Vulture, Black Cat will have a tactical advantage when versus Northstar's black ability. When he sends her airborne, she will automatically stun her target enemy for 3 turns upon landing. Then in turn her green will qualify for the bonus damage on a stunned opponent.
     
  • DyingLegend
    DyingLegend Posts: 1,191 Chairperson of the Boards
    Hope he likes hanging out with Talos on the bottom.
    He is terrible, not a good way to start 2020. 

    I don't mind when a good 4 star is introduced and it's increases dilution, but it feels waaaaay worse when a bad 4 star makes dilution worse. 
  • himatako
    himatako Posts: 269 Mover and Shaker
    edited January 2020
    He's really underwhelming and boring. The only way to actually make him useful in the Simulator node is to use his blue to gather black, send Vulture flying, then when you have enough blue, use Spider's blue on Bishop then Vulture's green and black. You don't even need Northstar at all if you can collect enough black by yourself.

    His yellow power is terrible and once you fire it you can't fire it again, making a power that could have been less terrible by spammability  becomes useless. 

    His black is complicated and unintuitive. Should I send Bishop airborne for one turn but then dealing damage to Red Hulk and makes him angry, risking giving him more purple or green anyway? Or should I send Red Hulk airborne in order to reduce the enemy's green AP but I must not forget to switch target to someone else that isn't Bishop or otherwise his passive will be activated? It sounds interesting on paper but in practice it's unreliable and not fun to think about. It might help if this power has a direct damage component instead of just relying on number of tiles destroyed for consistency/reliability. 

    IMO, he's another character that you only need one cover just for the required nodes and you can move on :(