***** Apocalypse (Classic) *****

thedarkphoenix

lol the pendulum swing from "This is too defensive and takes to long to, "This is to offense and does too much damage" is funny and happens quick.

Lets keep it 100, 6 years into the game no one wants a "average" or mildly quick meta or character.

fight4thedream

HoundofShadow said:

Time to load up on Punisher's retribution.

There are already existing 5* who can deal with enemy SAP tiles or protect tiles. It's up to the players to decide whether they want to use them. 

It would be more fruitful if you could explain which characters you believe will be effective against an Apocalypse + Beta team and what strategies you expect to use against them. I'm genuinely interested and would like to know what other players are thinking will make a strong counter. 

ThaRoadWarrior

brb isnt a mutant, so in pick 2 the stunability (or not) of Apocalypse is going to hinge completely on whether or not the required 3rd has that tag. BRBishop is going to be your counter here, or Bishocalypse perhaps.

I think you'll see a lot of Apocalypse/Profe$$or X teams attempt it, since Apocalypse's red is both cheaper and ostensibly better than Havok's protect-ignoring red. As a counter, this team would be even better if Apocalypse had the X-Men affiliation like some other x villains do, so you could use Xavier Protocols to delay his ability to fire off his yellow and BRB's green.

In pick-3, It may be worth the attempt to try X/Havok/Phoenix to see if Xavier Protocols can help you - just leaning into whatever you can do to feed red while hoping Xavier Protocols will save your bacon. If Apocalypse does just about anything though, this team has fairly low health. 

Or if you want the match to take forever you might be able to overwhelm the board with BRB/Carbage - if there just isn't any room for them to put their own protects down, I guess you're safe? It doesn't take that long to get there really.

I have to say, it's good to see this villain seeming like dire threat, but man this threat is dire lol. He's dangerous on every color...

bluewolf

Aside.....way back when 5's were introduced, the "when will 6's appear" conversation started pretty quickly.

If you pulled Apocalypse off the shelf back then and presented it to players, and didn't say what tier he was.....how many would have assumed he was the first 6*?

Just random musing, but he's basically twice as powerful as the earliest 5s.

Polares

HoundofShadow said:

Time to load up on Punisher's retribution.

There are already existing 5* who can deal with enemy SAP tiles or protect tiles. It's up to the players to decide whether they want to use them. 

The problem is that some of those have been super mega power creeped. 

5BW is a great example. If she was buffed a bit (more match damage, hitpoints and made her powers slightly cheaper) she would be a great option, but in her current state, before you get enough AP she would be dead 3 times :S

Strange purple is also too slow, before you get to 11, he will be dead for sure. And even if you get to 11, these guys will probably produce protect tiles faster than one per turn.

Gambit is another char that Devs need to pay attention, and un-nerf some of his powers (both red and purple).

Almost the best option seems to kinda suicide Doom :S

So, other than Kitty, who can really deal with Apo+BRB protect tiles? I am VERY confident there is someone (a 5) in the pipeline that will deal with SAP tiles better than those.

wymtime

so I with reading these powers again it looks like if Apocalypse fires his yellow first then his powers will get the bonus damage as well.  This leads me to think 3,5,5 might be his best build.  Here are the numbers for black and red when his yellow repeater is on the board.

3,5,5
black destroys 4 protect tiles deals 9522+8784 per tile destroyed.  Total damage 73,224
red 4 strikes of 4102+8784.  Total damage 51,544.

combined damage 124,768

5,3,5
black 11572+8784 per damage destroyed.  Total damage 81,424.

red 3 strikes of 3956+8784.  Total damage of 38,230.

overall damage is 119,644.

lastly since red hits the lowest health enemy i would also assume if hit one through 3 downs an enemy the next hit will go to the new lowest health charter.  You should be if you kill off one enemy then red to black could down 2 characters fairly quickly.

edit: for partners to take advantage of Apocalypse yellow look for characters that do multiple hits of damage like BRB green, Peter Parker green, Iceman green.

the extra 9K damage will also be nice on AOE.  

HoundofShadow

In a pick-2 PvP,  Apocalypse/BRB relies on protect tiles to be offensive. Kitty is the MVP to gobble up those protect tiles and cd tile without letting BRB gain blue and green ap. Without friendly protect tiles on the board, Apocalypse's black will merely heal lowest health ally and put out 2 protect tiles, which will be gobbled up Kitty again. The next power to worry is his repeater tiles because it's going to appear randomly, and it will churn out up to 8 protect tiles every 2 turn. 

Because Kitty doesn't have much offensive power, Dr Doom could team up with her to provide the offensive power and to keep enemy's black and yellow ap in check. Dr Doom can also provide healing to his team and free matches with his board shuffle. I will also let opponent gain red ap and put Practiced Offense before Apocalypse fire his red. This will allow Kitty to put up to 12 Attack tiles on the board, triggering her passive buff. 

Kitty and Daredevil can work. While Kitty gobbles each protect tile per turn, Daredevil puts out a strike tile per turn. At the fifth turn, Kitty will be buffing strike tiles and Daredevil can act as another check against the enemy protect tiles,
without triggering BRB's ap gain.Let enemy gain black and red ap. Since BRB is not a mutant, you can stun BRB or Apocalypse if you need to unless the third is a Mutant.


Edit: Thanos works too: his purple. I think it's actually cool to see Thanos vs Apocalypse.

Come to think of it, BRB doesn't seem irritating/intimidating without Kitty or Bishop. 

You can Thorokoye this team away or Thor + other characters.

I think there are a lot of teams to deal with Apocalypse/BRB. They give me the feel of facing against Thorokoye. 

Bad

fight4thedream said:

HoundofShadow said:

Time to load up on Punisher's retribution.

There are already existing 5* who can deal with enemy SAP tiles or protect tiles. It's up to the players to decide whether they want to use them. 

It would be more fruitful if you could explain which characters you believe will be effective against an Apocalypse + Beta team and what strategies you expect to use against them. I'm genuinely interested and would like to know what other players are thinking will make a strong counter. 

Well he is totally OP but in fact he is really conditioned by his allies. On normal pvp his efficacy will depend a lot if the loaner is a mutant.
If comes with BRB then denying blue. For stun based teams then killing his mutant allied is the priority. Like I said his powers require great building and his black hurts a lot but destroys his tiles.
I think he is a really fun powerhouse for to crush some pve goons

RickOShay

@HoundofShadow
You're missing a huge point though.
Not one of those characters who handles special tiles will be fast enough to beat BRBocalypse to hop safely from one shield to another. 
Thorkoye doesn't really handle SAP's, but still stands a chance.
Maaaaybe DD Thor, which I like vs BRBitty during climbs, not hops though.

HoundofShadow

I don't do shield hopping, so I don't take speed into account. The more criteria that you place on a counter-team, the fewer the choices that you have. I think iHulk can get things done quickly, but if healthpack is another factor, then I think you need the dev to release some broken characters in the future to deal with them if you want to satisfy both speed and healthpack usage.

Edit: Thor/Hela could be fast. Hela can overwrite 4 protect tiles quickly, has cheap powers and can boost friendly SAP tiles.

If you add the scarecrow factor. Then your choices get narrower and narrower. 

It's difficult to come up with a team that needs to satisfy speed, healthpack usage and scarecrow factor. 

ThaRoadWarrior

I don't believe Kitty is in fact any sort of anti-BRB scarecrow. It's way too easy to get multiple CDs in play, it takes her too long to get moving. On top of that, if you bring your own Apocalypse, she doesnt' have any defense against repeaters unless they are matchable. What she does is make it very painful to punch through the protects, which is a problem Apocalypse won't have for 7 red. And her health is probably going to be lower than BRB's, so if you want to start with +4 to red, make a single red match, and on turn 2 you can stomp her out of play pretty fast using your own Apocalypse, she won't matter much.

RickOShay

ThaRoadWarrior said:

I don't believe Kitty is in fact any sort of anti-BRB scarecrow. It's way too easy to get multiple CDs in play, it takes her too long to get moving. On top of that, if you bring your own Apocalypse, she doesnt' have any defense against repeaters unless they are matchable. What she does is make it very painful to punch through the protects, which is a problem Apocalypse won't have for 7 red. And her health is probably going to be lower than BRB's, so if you want to start with +4 to red, make a single red match, and on turn 2 you can stomp her out of play pretty fast using your own Apocalypse, she won't matter much.

It's rarely about Kitty alone though. In fact, without BRB, Grocket, and maybe Apoc on defense, she's not scary at all.
It's her partners that make her very troublesome. Bill's blue is broken, Grocket should never have been allowed to start the match with strikes, etc. 

MrEd95

bluewolf said:

RickOShay said:

ABetalypse?
Billpocalypse?

"Death" will do.

Forget the mutants, Bill is quite literally Apocalypse’s greatest horse-man

RickOShay

We sorely need a 5* with a passive similar to 4* Thanos's Inescapable Destiny (blue): 
"At the start of the turn, if there are 3 or more enemy SAP tiles, remove 1 (or 2), and do xxxx effect."

Kitty tries to keep up against BRB teams, but it's not easy. Now when facing Apocalypse, you'll have to extremely deny yellow as much as possible. And I'm already trying to maniacally deny blue against Bill.

ThaRoadWarrior

Yes, that was a response to @HoundofShadow positing that Circuit Breaker could keep Clash of the Worthy in check. It has not been my experience that it does, only that she can grow Protects out to a degree that trivializes your own ability to get rid of BRB. Apocalypse takes that problem off the table with his red.

RickOShay

Thorpocalypse seems fun, especially if the required character has a useful blue or purple (like Mystique or 3Doom).

You'll play Apoc's yellow asap, and thankfully he will tank it and red for Thor. Thor's green will deal nice stacked AoE damage, and play the red that makes the most sense. 

Those blue's mentioned above build up black for Apocalypse for example.

thedarkphoenix

So what we've established is apoc is good but has counters.

he's biggest strength might be his tanky health, and ability to fight bishop

In Pve I'm not sure how much he is than anyone else that's good currently.

ThaRoadWarrior

It depends on how fast you can get his yellow in play - would Thor-Poca-Hulk cruise through on passive damage faster than some Okoye based Hulk team? (looking at maximizing green door here). I will say that this health pool makes him a pretty natural buddy to iHulk. That team is going to probably be pretty real.

wymtime

ThaRoadWarrior said:

brb isnt a mutant, so in pick 2 the stunability (or not) of Apocalypse is going to hinge completely on whether or not the required 3rd has that tag. BRBishop is going to be your counter here, or Bishocalypse perhaps.

I think you'll see a lot of Apocalypse/Profe$$or X teams attempt it, since Apocalypse's red is both cheaper and ostensibly better than Havok's protect-ignoring red. As a counter, this team would be even better if Apocalypse had the X-Men affiliation like some other x villains do, so you could use Xavier Protocols to delay his ability to fire off his yellow and BRB's green.

In pick-3, It may be worth the attempt to try X/Havok/Phoenix to see if Xavier Protocols can help you - just leaning into whatever you can do to feed red while hoping Xavier Protocols will save your bacon. If Apocalypse does just about anything though, this team has fairly low health. 

Or if you want the match to take forever you might be able to overwhelm the board with BRB/Carbage - if there just isn't any room for them to put their own protects down, I guess you're safe? It doesn't take that long to get there really.

I have to say, it's good to see this villain seeming like dire threat, but man this threat is dire lol. He's dangerous on every color...

The problem with running BRB/Bishop is it will eat a health pack each round.  In reality to beat BRB/Apocalypse you need Kitty and a big damage dealer.  Kitty removes to protect tiles adds her own protect tiles and then the big damage dealer will take down the others.  This could be Professor X, Havok(extra tile removal), Hela, or your own Apocalypse.

the issue will come around when Apocalypse fires his yellow and each friendly power now deals an extra 9K damage.  Plus every 2 turns more protect tiles go out.  With 4 protect tiles and his yellow repeaters going red to black will do 121k damage.  Add in BRB green for an additional 64K direct damage.  That will eat through a lot of health fast

ThaRoadWarrior

OJSP said:

ThaRoadWarrior said:

would Thor-Poca-Hulk cruise through on passive damage faster than some Okoye based Hulk team? (looking at maximizing green door here).

If we're trying to maximise Green Door, bringing Thor is not going to help because eventually he'll dry the board of green tiles.

Who is the next-best yellow battery?