**** Karnak (The Shatterer) ****

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  • ThaRoadWarrior
    ThaRoadWarrior Posts: 9,166 Chairperson of the Boards
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    DAZ0273 said:
    So about that Lockjaw blue cover update...
    @IceIX is Lockjaw’s Cull the Weak power going to be updated to reflect one of Karnak’s actual abilities or will it remain low damage and a stun?
  • wingX
    wingX Posts: 252 Mover and Shaker
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    ThaRoadWarrior said:
    DAZ0273 said:
    So about that Lockjaw blue cover update...
    @IceIX is Lockjaw’s Cull the Weak power going to be updated to reflect one of Karnak’s actual abilities or will it remain low damage and a stun?

    I will love it if they updated Lockjaw's Blue power to reflect one of Karnak’s blue abilities.
    I am actually surprised that this 4*Karnak don't have abilities that similar to that of his from Lockjaw's blue ability as all other Inhuman have their own abilities similar to that.

  • Captain_Carlman
    Captain_Carlman Posts: 208 Tile Toppler
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    Anon said:
    I'm not as knowledgeable about comics as some others, but Karnak seems like a mutant Iron Fist
    Karnak is one of The Inhumans (like Black Bolt, Medusa, etc) that was never exposed to the Terrigen Mists that cause others to develop superpowers, so his abilities are the result of intense training with the ability to "sense" weaknesses in his targets.  

    So you could say he's pretty similar to Iron Fist in a sense.  Thematically, Karnak's power set fits very well for a character with his abilities.
  • HoundofShadow
    HoundofShadow Posts: 8,004 Chairperson of the Boards
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    His Shield Training is straightforward. Chase blue, and if you bother to chase black, check who is targeted by Valkyrie.

    When I fired his blue, he dealt ~15k damage. I have played 4 matches and his critical tiles were beside each other 2 out of 4 matches. I only fired his red once out of 4 matches.

    There's nothing much to write about this character.  :|



  • RickOShay
    RickOShay Posts: 452 Mover and Shaker
    edited February 2020
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    Whoa, this guy is amazing. 
    I had assumed the 560% match damage would kick in after the criticals are placed on turn 4, but is happens just prior, for 'free'.
    That's nearly 5* Champ match damage happening with those Crits. I got 15K+ damage when they spawned adjacent to each other in Shield Training, downing ME Hulk.  

    As others have stated, Karnak is definitely worth chasing among 4* rosters, but also will play up in the 5* game quite well.
    With 5*'s, you'll probably want to avoid Karnak's red, or at least aviod destroying crits with it. Crit matches will almost always do more damage on 5* character colors than Karnak will earn from destroying them. Just set up more match-5's by destroying basic tiles.


    PvP: can you down enemy Karnak before turn 4? You'd better try. 

    Even on defense, your AI team may be a Bishop killer. If for example your Professor X isn't stunned when Karnak places the crits at turn 4, enemy Bishop will jump to take any automatic crit-caused damage. Hopefully he'll get downed, especially if there happens to be a match-4+ for added Signal Boost damage.
  • HoundofShadow
    HoundofShadow Posts: 8,004 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited February 2020
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    I noticed something new. After his match damage was increased by 560%, he was tanking every colours on the board. 

    I wonder if this is a bug or part of his ability.
  • RickOShay
    RickOShay Posts: 452 Mover and Shaker
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    HoundofShadow said:
    I noticed something new. After his match damage was increased by 560%, he was tanking every colours on the board. 

    I wonder if this is a bug or part of his ability.
    That's simply due to the 560% causing even yellow, purple, and green to have higher match damage than the other characters (on top of his black, red, and blue certainly being strongest). 
  • Kletvar
    Kletvar Posts: 91 Match Maker
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    When can we select him as favorite for shards ? Does someone know ? 
  • RickOShay
    RickOShay Posts: 452 Mover and Shaker
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    Kletvar said:
    When can we select him as favorite for shards ? Does someone know ? 
    He will not be available in Tokens until the next PvP season, so around 20-24 days. Usually once the new event of the following season is posted up for registration (or, during the final hours of the 2nd off-season event).
  • Kletvar
    Kletvar Posts: 91 Match Maker
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    RickOShay said:
    Kletvar said:
    When can we select him as favorite for shards ? Does someone know ? 
    He will not be available in Tokens until the next PvP season, so around 20-24 days. Usually once the new event of the following season is posted up for registration (or, during the final hours of the 2nd off-season event).
    That's too long  :( I wanted to set him as favorite, but i guess i'll have to wait for 3-4 more weeks. Until then, it's gonna be super hard trying not to open any tokens rewarding 4* shards. 

    Thanks for the info. Much appreciated.
  • Vhailorx
    Vhailorx Posts: 6,085 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited February 2020
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    Well, that team combo in shield training is total **** for him.  But with a good blue/red battery *cough*IM40, he/worthy*cough*, I think he could do some staggering damage for a 4* along with massive board shake.

    Without a battery I was board dependent on shield training, but when I finally got a board that fed me red and blue so that I could chain red to blue to red again right after the match damage bump, he did more than 25k to wipe the enemy team (with damage to spare). 

    I think he is a bit fiddly because of the need to wait a few rounds for match damage and turn sequence his powers properly, but his ceiling seems pretty high for a 4*.

    And as I always say with a new 4* release: even though he seems like a decent-or-better 4*, he is still unlikely to see much action for any established player because he can't compete with existing 320+ champs (and he isn't arguably broken like the stunner bros and juggs).  The return on investment (both in terms of dev resources making the character, and player resources chasing the character) is just so low on new 4*s (except for the rare meta-breakers).  Something needs to change about the end game (and given that cl10 is put and 5* seems like to become easier to cover, I think that may be happening later in 2020).
  • ThaRoadWarrior
    ThaRoadWarrior Posts: 9,166 Chairperson of the Boards
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    He's a good solid 4* if placed with similarly leveled characters, so see above post as to how one's mileage may vary on that front. I like the Bullseye-esque board shake, and anybody that can drop crits around the board is a good play-up character. I had a hard time not choosing Valkyrie's red over his though. 
  • Vhailorx
    Vhailorx Posts: 6,085 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited February 2020
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    ThaRoadWarrior said:
    He's a good solid 4* if placed with similarly leveled characters, so see above post as to how one's mileage may vary on that front. I like the Bullseye-esque board shake, and anybody that can drop crits around the board is a good play-up character. I had a hard time not choosing Valkyrie's red over his though. 
    His red is very meh (just like 3* bullseye green), UNLESS you cast it when there are lots of criticals on the board.  Then you can do something like 25-30k (maybe even more) damage plus gather tons of AP and clear out 1/2 the board.  (Just to keep expectations in check, though, we should remember that although his ceiling is pretty high, his variance is also quite high, which does hold him back compared to the true 4* meta characters).

  • TPF Alexis
    TPF Alexis Posts: 3,826 Chairperson of the Boards
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    I never got a chance to really try out his red, since the crits from his blue kept dropping in places where they immediately matched something. Quite pleased with his performance in that loaner node, even if I do feel that he might have been better on the other team ;)
  • Anon
    Anon Posts: 1,455 Chairperson of the Boards
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    I like how he plays and he does hit hard. Kind of squishy though, but I get its for balance reasons.
  • ThaRoadWarrior
    ThaRoadWarrior Posts: 9,166 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Vhailorx said:
    ThaRoadWarrior said:
    He's a good solid 4* if placed with similarly leveled characters, so see above post as to how one's mileage may vary on that front. I like the Bullseye-esque board shake, and anybody that can drop crits around the board is a good play-up character. I had a hard time not choosing Valkyrie's red over his though. 
    His red is very meh (just like 3* bullseye green), UNLESS you cast it when there are lots of criticals on the board.  Then you can do something like 25-30k (maybe even more) damage plus gather tons of AP and clear out 1/2 the board.  (Just to keep expectations in check, though, we should remember that although his ceiling is pretty high, his variance is also quite high, which does hold him back compared to the true 4* meta characters).

    Targeted board control is pretty great with Profe$$or X and a number of other 5s I play though, so even without the big damage hits he can really help set you up for other things.
  • Yepyep
    Yepyep Posts: 952 Critical Contributor
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    Vhailorx said:
    ThaRoadWarrior said:
    He's a good solid 4* if placed with similarly leveled characters, so see above post as to how one's mileage may vary on that front. I like the Bullseye-esque board shake, and anybody that can drop crits around the board is a good play-up character. I had a hard time not choosing Valkyrie's red over his though. 
    His red is very meh (just like 3* bullseye green), UNLESS you cast it when there are lots of criticals on the board.  Then you can do something like 25-30k (maybe even more) damage plus gather tons of AP and clear out 1/2 the board.  (Just to keep expectations in check, though, we should remember that although his ceiling is pretty high, his variance is also quite high, which does hold him back compared to the true 4* meta characters).

    I don't understand what you mean in the part I bolded. Could you please explain "variance" in this context?
  • Thanos
    Thanos Posts: 722 Critical Contributor
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    A taste of him in action. I'm open to any team suggestions.


  • Vhailorx
    Vhailorx Posts: 6,085 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited February 2020
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    ThaRoadWarrior said:
    Vhailorx said:
    ThaRoadWarrior said:
    He's a good solid 4* if placed with similarly leveled characters, so see above post as to how one's mileage may vary on that front. I like the Bullseye-esque board shake, and anybody that can drop crits around the board is a good play-up character. I had a hard time not choosing Valkyrie's red over his though. 
    His red is very meh (just like 3* bullseye green), UNLESS you cast it when there are lots of criticals on the board.  Then you can do something like 25-30k (maybe even more) damage plus gather tons of AP and clear out 1/2 the board.  (Just to keep expectations in check, though, we should remember that although his ceiling is pretty high, his variance is also quite high, which does hold him back compared to the true 4* meta characters).

    Targeted board control is pretty great with Profe$$or X and a number of other 5s I play though, so even without the big damage hits he can really help set you up for other things.
    You aren't wrong. It's useful.  but it's especially board dependent, even more so than other board destruction powers, because you generally can't destroy enough tiles to really shake things up, so you have to get clever and plan for cascades, which requires certain tile layouts.

    3* bullseye is my case study showing that targeted tile destruction, by itself, is a bit lackluster.  Add in overwriting (4* star lord), or AP gen (4* cyc) or special tile destruction and/or damage (gsbw, okoye, rogue, even Karnak red etc), and things get noticeably more interesting.  But to the extent that people want to use 3*BE, it's not for his green.

    And yepyep:

    Sorry of any of this is redundant.  By variance, I mean the gap between his reasonably foreseeable floor (worst performance) and ceiling (best performance).  In general the more reliable a power is, the lower its absolute strength, and vice versa.  So something like 2* wolverine red is the ultimate example of a no-variance power.  It does the same thing every time, no matter what.  And something like captain marvel green is extremely high variance; sometimes it will do something amazing and clear the whole board, other times it will have almost no effect at all. 

    Because Demi uses something like a strength budget for character design and tries to keep most characters in a tier in the same general power band (with mixed success), having a high ceiling generally also means having high variance. Think of it is "how much stuff has to 'go right' for a power or skill set to be maximally effective?"  The more contingencies are necessary, the more variable the power will be in practice.  And fwiw, outlier powers with high ceilings and low variance, like okoye black, or kitty yellow, or Bishop's whole blue-ap-gen cycle, are the best powers in the game.

    Karnak strikes me as being a relatively high-ceiling character.  He can do in excess of 30k direct damage with just 18ap.  That's quite good for a 4*; it's actually better than the worst 5*s. But getting that result is fairly contingent (you must wait 4 turns and get good luck from both the blue crit tiles and the post-red cascades.  and his protect tile is quite hit or miss since you only have a a few chances for it to spawn on a safe place, and cannot replace it. So even though he is pretty well dedigned, I think his relatively high variance will keep him behind the best 4*s that offer similar power levels  with more certainty.

  • Anon
    Anon Posts: 1,455 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Thanos said:
    A taste of him in action. I'm open to any team suggestions.


    Yikes

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