***** Killmonger (Erik Stevens) *****

wymtime

ammenell said:

not sure about his kit, but I'm going to break my hoard for apoc and just wanted to wait if the next 5 is better than yelena - and they release one of my favorite mcu villains, I'm all in.

first partners I can think of are sinister to spam traps (i don't even know if sinister works that way) and karnak with America, but there is a lot overlap

I think America Sinister could work because if you deny red when America drops a critical tile you just leave it alone.  Then the AI matches the critical and Sinister blocks the damage and Killmonger does 28k damage.  It would be super slow to get going but interesting.

also Killmonger trap tiles will help Sinisters blue power.  The problem is too many trap tiles makes it hard to know which is which

ZeiramMR

So to confirm how a locked critical tile will work:

Obviously AI won't be able to move the crit tile while locked, but can it be used as part of a match while locked?

If so, I would expect it to not be used in damage (a match-3 would be treated as 2 tiles at normal damage) based on how Quicksilver's locked TU tiles work. But also if so, that also means it could become unlocked and still get used up by the AI in a cascade.

KGB

wymtime said:

ammenell said:

not sure about his kit, but I'm going to break my hoard for apoc and just wanted to wait if the next 5 is better than yelena - and they release one of my favorite mcu villains, I'm all in.

first partners I can think of are sinister to spam traps (i don't even know if sinister works that way) and karnak with America, but there is a lot overlap

I think America Sinister could work because if you deny red when America drops a critical tile you just leave it alone.  Then the AI matches the critical and Sinister blocks the damage and Killmonger does 28k damage.  It would be super slow to get going but interesting.

also Killmonger trap tiles will help Sinisters blue power.  The problem is too many trap tiles makes it hard to know which is which

Problem is Killmonger only does his damage when the enemy team has <5 Red AP. Otherwise he just steals 5 Red. Eventually after enough crits he will drain all the enemy AP but you still have to eat a few (assuming Sinister doesn't have the Black for his own passive).

That's the weakness with his passive in that he doesn't always do the damage component.

KGB

IIAlonditeII

IceIX said:

Repatriation -  PASSIVE

(PASSIVE) Killmonger takes back what rightfully belongs to his people. When the enemy makes a Match-5, Killmonger locks the generated Critical tile. At the start of your turn, all Critical tiles become unlocked.

When the enemy matches a Critical tile, Killmonger takes 5 Red AP as payment. If the enemy cannot afford that, Killmonger deals 3579 damage to the target instead. (Max level 14385 damage)

• Level 2: Deals 4028 damage. (Max level 16190 damage)
• Level 3: Deals 4477 damage. (Max level 17994 damage)
• Level 4: Deals 5375 damage. (Max level 21604 damage)
• Level 5: Deals 7171 damage. (Max level 28823 damage)

@IceIX

@LakeStone

As written, it looks like if the enemy doesn't have 5+ Red, they take the hit. Can you confirm this is correct? 4 or less = no steal, damage dealt; 5+ = steal?

Bad

I agreed his best set is 3/5/5 given that AI match criticals almost by accident.
I think this character is similar to yelena in the way that has one passive so good that worths to chase him.
And here we have the 5* traps team at complete. Being traps really fun to play by the fact.

wymtime

KGB said:

wymtime said:

ammenell said:

not sure about his kit, but I'm going to break my hoard for apoc and just wanted to wait if the next 5 is better than yelena - and they release one of my favorite mcu villains, I'm all in.

first partners I can think of are sinister to spam traps (i don't even know if sinister works that way) and karnak with America, but there is a lot overlap

I think America Sinister could work because if you deny red when America drops a critical tile you just leave it alone.  Then the AI matches the critical and Sinister blocks the damage and Killmonger does 28k damage.  It would be super slow to get going but interesting.

also Killmonger trap tiles will help Sinisters blue power.  The problem is too many trap tiles makes it hard to know which is which

Problem is Killmonger only does his damage when the enemy team has <5 Red AP. Otherwise he just steals 5 Red. Eventually after enough crits he will drain all the enemy AP but you still have to eat a few (assuming Sinister doesn't have the Black for his own passive).

That's the weakness with his passive in that he doesn't always do the damage component.

KGB

True and I don’t think this is a team I would count on being good for more than one fight. Also if you feel it would be hard to deny red AP how hard is it to get 3 black AP for Sinister especially when there are no active black powers?

as a team better suited to deny red I would say a 1/2 health Tho since Thor destroys red tiles and would help deny the AI.  In a pick 3 he could also be good with BRB/Kitty giving a  purple outlet and a better red than Kitty’s red.

i am also interested in running him with Apocalypse or IHulk where his black could steal 5 red letting Apocalypse/IHulk wipe out an enemy with his red

Bad

Its an amazing skill design. Really fun and original.He is a true trap user.
He can leave critical tiles as a trap and AI will match or not( unless AI could use it for a match4). But the extreme  damage he deals will worth the effort. His sinergy with yelena here is great for decreasing red AP.
He can be used as a great partner with sinister. Theorically on the 5th turn one behold will reach its maximum.
And finally like I said before his great passive, increasing friendly match damage.
Huge nukes here using a rainbow team.
Always hitting maximum in the case of a revived ihulk.

Vhailorx

Seems like a decent kit on paper, and the type of passives that can enter the meta.  Seems like he may play a JG type role in defensive pvp, punishing all teams that frequently generate criticals or don't cast often (if the purple plays well).

He also absolutely counters Chavez and karnak in the 4*/5* mixed play zone.

Michael1957

This maybe the strongest color denial, red only , since the B-word . I didn’t think Chavez/ Karnak was such a meta level threat they immediately had to counter it . 

Vhailorx

Michael1957 said:

This maybe the strongest color denial, red only , since the B-word . I didn’t think Chavez/ Karnak was such a meta level threat they immediately had to counter it . 

Only if the opponent actually matches criticals though.  It's going to be useless in quite a few matches.  But it certainly is a hard counter to lots of strong teams (anyone that relied on tileswapping powers or crit-generating passives. If you just want to suppress enemy ap, Yelena's red seems better.

Questions I have about order of operations:

Will his black passive kill half-thor on a cascade-->red/green match5 if he is tanking those colors?  Or does it always strike the target character?

Against thorkoye or apoc, Willi he really have black match damage ~2200 thanks to his red passive? That will be a little threatening, like facing 650s in pve.

When does the crit-tile locking happen?  If the opponent makes a match5 and the resulting cascade makes another match5, are there one or two locked crit tiles left? Does the opponent still get another turn (he doesn't seem to stun like 4* jg).

I think 5/5/3 may be the way to play him.  Purple looks like it might hit hard, but only if a lot of things go right and you get 10 purple.  Maximizing the other two colors makes his passives quite punishing, and I expect that when he is useful, it will be because he is fueling that red fairly often.

Also, yet more match damage creep. At least he doesn't also have 80k health.  I think his downside is something like JJ, hard hitting and a bit hard to play around, but not quite meta.  And his upside is a meta defensive character.

wymtime

Vhailorx said:

Michael1957 said:

This maybe the strongest color denial, red only , since the B-word . I didn’t think Chavez/ Karnak was such a meta level threat they immediately had to counter it . 

Only if the opponent actually matches criticals though.  It's going to be useless in quite a few matches.  But it certainly is a hard counter to lots of strong teams (anyone that relied on tileswapping powers or crit-generating passives. If you just want to suppress enemy ap, Yelena's red seems better.

Questions I have about order of operations:

Will his black passive kill half-thor on a cascade-->red/green match5 if he is tanking those colors?  Or does it always strike the target character?

Against thorkoye or apoc, Willi he really have black match damage ~2200 thanks to his red passive? That will be a little threatening, like facing 650s in pve.

When does the crit-tile locking happen?  If the opponent makes a match5 and the resulting cascade makes another match5, are there one or two locked crit tiles left? Does the opponent still get another turn (he doesn't seem to stun like 4* jg).

I think 5/5/3 may be the way to play him.  Purple looks like it might hit hard, but only if a lot of things go right and you get 10 purple.  Maximizing the other two colors makes his passives quite punishing, and I expect that when he is useful, it will be because he is fueling that red fairly often.

Also, yet more match damage creep. At least he doesn't also have 80k health.  I think his downside is something like JJ, hard hitting and a bit hard to play around, but not quite meta.  And his upside is a meta defensive character.

I think you are sleeping on his Purple.  23k direct damage plus 2k per trap tile.  No in PVE against goons you might not get many trap tiles out but against active opponents I can see 4-5 trap tiles out easy giving an extra 10k damage.  

With his red you can use it for its passive but the active is good not great.  There are a lot of quality red powers over Killmongers.  Also with 100% more damage at level 3 the passive is still good.

lastly with the top 5* in the game only Professor X has a quality purple ability.  This means with Britty or a Thor team Purple is Killmonger purple is a very open power Killmonger can fill

HoundofShadow

Gritty doesn't spam powers, but Killmonger will probably be half-dead by then via match damage. 

In the past few 5* character blogs, the devs recommended 3* and 4* characters as part of the teams that synergise with 5*. This seems to imply that they do think about these groups of players as well. 

Another theory I suspect is that Onslaught might get similar "boost" to 5* Prof X: increased rates of making match-5*, like how Prof X has increased rates of making match-4.In the past Onslaught event and PvP, I noticed a higher rate of match-5 which came out of nowhere.  Give it a season or two to see if people are complaining about how after you make a match-3, it turns into a cascade, which somehow give the opponent an unavoidable match-5 the next turn, or how this team makes match-3 and cascades into match-5.

Anyway, I like the idea about using Sinister to reduce those critical tile match damage by opponents. Icemen could work too. Britty could work too because by then, critical match damage by opponents will likely be dealing 1 damage. Unfortunately, it won't be fast. America Chavez/Killmonger/Sinister or Icemen with ap boost should be fast. Coincidentally, Icemen and Killmonger is a rainbow team.

This could be a fast offensive team with Chavez, as long as you can get someone out to mitigate the critical match damage. Alernatively, it fits well with Thorokoye too. Collect red with Thor and let Okoye soak up the damage.

VizMantis

How does Killmonger look as compared with Yelena in terms of hoard pulling?

For a bit more detail, I broke my hoard a couple weeks ago for iHulk and Apocalypse.  I can't hope for much better than baby champ 5*s given my level of play, so once I champed iHulk, I stopped pulling, figuring I'd wait and see if the next 5* after Onslaught was better than Yelena.  I'm having a hard time deciding if Killmonger is indeed better, especially since Yelena has an 8 cover head start from my initial pull.  Anyone have any advice on the subject?

Vhailorx

wymtime said:

Vhailorx said:

Michael1957 said:

This maybe the strongest color denial, red only , since the B-word . I didn’t think Chavez/ Karnak was such a meta level threat they immediately had to counter it . 

Only if the opponent actually matches criticals though.  It's going to be useless in quite a few matches.  But it certainly is a hard counter to lots of strong teams (anyone that relied on tileswapping powers or crit-generating passives. If you just want to suppress enemy ap, Yelena's red seems better.

Questions I have about order of operations:

Will his black passive kill half-thor on a cascade-->red/green match5 if he is tanking those colors?  Or does it always strike the target character?

Against thorkoye or apoc, Willi he really have black match damage ~2200 thanks to his red passive? That will be a little threatening, like facing 650s in pve.

When does the crit-tile locking happen?  If the opponent makes a match5 and the resulting cascade makes another match5, are there one or two locked crit tiles left? Does the opponent still get another turn (he doesn't seem to stun like 4* jg).

I think 5/5/3 may be the way to play him.  Purple looks like it might hit hard, but only if a lot of things go right and you get 10 purple.  Maximizing the other two colors makes his passives quite punishing, and I expect that when he is useful, it will be because he is fueling that red fairly often.

Also, yet more match damage creep. At least he doesn't also have 80k health.  I think his downside is something like JJ, hard hitting and a bit hard to play around, but not quite meta.  And his upside is a meta defensive character.

I think you are sleeping on his Purple.  23k direct damage plus 2k per trap tile.  No in PVE against goons you might not get many trap tiles out but against active opponents I can see 4-5 trap tiles out easy giving an extra 10k damage.  

With his red you can use it for its passive but the active is good not great.  There are a lot of quality red powers over Killmongers.  Also with 100% more damage at level 3 the passive is still good.

lastly with the top 5* in the game only Professor X has a quality purple ability.  This means with Britty or a Thor team Purple is Killmonger purple is a very open power Killmonger can fill

Purple will definitely hit hard when played well.  But there are already powers that do more damage for less ap (GED black, IH red, many 4* nukes when boosted) and it's not particularly make or break. 

I generally try to win without letting my opponent fire any 10+ap powers, especially in cl10. 

If black fueled purple, I would say 5/3/5.  But as is, the only time I would ever see myself wanting to use him is when I thought the opponent was likely to get some crit tiles, in which case I would rather maximize the value of that black passive (damage) and make the best use of the generated ap.  So sure, 5/3/5 makes sense when you run him with a higher value red power.  But in the abstract, I think 5/5/3 still makes sense to me on paper.  Maybe the purple will play up in practice.

wymtime

VizMantis said:

How does Killmonger look as compared with Yelena in terms of hoard pulling?

For a bit more detail, I broke my hoard a couple weeks ago for iHulk and Apocalypse.  I can't hope for much better than baby champ 5*s given my level of play, so once I champed iHulk, I stopped pulling, figuring I'd wait and see if the next 5* after Onslaught was better than Yelena.  I'm having a hard time deciding if Killmonger is indeed better, especially since Yelena has an 8 cover head start from my initial pull.  Anyone have any advice on the subject?

Really interesting question.  Yelena’s red is really too for CL10 PVE in denying AP but overall I don’t think she is that great.  I think overall Killmonger is stronger and can do more damage.  I don’t know if Killmonger is meta but I think he is slightly better than Yelena 

Vhailorx

wymtime said:

VizMantis said:

How does Killmonger look as compared with Yelena in terms of hoard pulling?

For a bit more detail, I broke my hoard a couple weeks ago for iHulk and Apocalypse.  I can't hope for much better than baby champ 5*s given my level of play, so once I champed iHulk, I stopped pulling, figuring I'd wait and see if the next 5* after Onslaught was better than Yelena.  I'm having a hard time deciding if Killmonger is indeed better, especially since Yelena has an 8 cover head start from my initial pull.  Anyone have any advice on the subject?

Really interesting question.  Yelena’s red is really too for CL10 PVE in denying AP but overall I don’t think she is that great.  I think overall Killmonger is stronger and can do more damage.  I don’t know if Killmonger is meta but I think he is slightly better than Yelena 

Yelena is superior IMO if you are just looking for a 3rd wheel to do ap denial at the 5* tier.  She really mitigates the effects of big ai cascades and punishes certain ap-generating teams.  But she is a one trick pony, as her other powers are pretty weak (if only she could match her own purple trap tiles for some effect), and can even be detrimental against some opponents (e.g. BRB, where pushes ap into his best power). 

KM's overall kit is superior, but I am not sure he is as good at any one thing as Yelena's red, not until we see him in game.  My first thought is that he has a higher floor than her, but his obvious niche use (punishing enemy match5s and criticals) is more niche than hers (punishing enemies with a lot of ap in any color). But he likely has more PVP defensive value.  And with the right partners (chavez or karnak?) he might be very fast on offense.

HoundofShadow

I think how you intend to use Yelena and Killmonger make a difference. Looking at the big picture, they do different things.

Killmonger: focuses around punishing opponents for 1) creating or matching critical tile 2) not firing powers

Yelena: 1) punishes opponents whose power costs are at least 9 ap and reduces their ap colour pool with 9 or more ap by 4 ap
2) turns enemy team strongest colour to weakest colour via trap tiles or via destroying enemy SAP tiles.

Looking at this, I think they somehow work together because Killmonger punishes opponents for not firing powers while Yelena "prevents" opponents from firing powers. Throw in Peggy and you should have trap tile created every turn. The catch is both have active purple power.

VizMantis

I'm mostly focused on PVE, I really only play to 13 wins for the 10 cp in PVP.  I'm largely interested in making my CL10 PVE experience easier (just looking to speed up my progression, not looking for placement).  To that end, I mostly use Thorkoye with a PX third wheel for some bonus damage.  Since I've got iHulk now, I've been running some Hulkoye as well.  So I guess the question is, are Yelena or Killmonger likely to be a better third wheel (sounds like maybe Yelena) or likely to form part of a solid replacement team altogether (maybe Killmonger?). 

So far it sounds like its kind of a toss-up, so I'm inclined to just go for Yelena.  As I mentioned, she's got an 8 cover headstart, so I can almost certainly champ her faster than I could Killmonger, leaving me more resources for the next hoard.

Akroma

VizMantis said:

I'm mostly focused on PVE, I really only play to 13 wins for the 10 cp in PVP.  I'm largely interested in making my CL10 PVE experience easier (just looking to speed up my progression, not looking for placement).  To that end, I mostly use Thorkoye with a PX third wheel for some bonus damage.  Since I've got iHulk now, I've been running some Hulkoye as well.  So I guess the question is, are Yelena or Killmonger likely to be a better third wheel (sounds like maybe Yelena) or likely to form part of a solid replacement team altogether (maybe Killmonger?). 

So far it sounds like its kind of a toss-up, so I'm inclined to just go for Yelena.  As I mentioned, she's got an 8 cover headstart, so I can almost certainly champ her faster than I could Killmonger, leaving me more resources for the next hoard.

spiderman 2099, iceman 5*, if okoye can tank red, sabretooh. and 4* torch

of course if u have an usable ihulk its good too 

VizMantis

Akroma said:

spiderman 2099, iceman 5*, if okoye can tank red, sabretooh. and 4* torch

of course if u have an usable ihulk its good too 

Sorry if I’m being dense.  Are you naming good partners for Yelena or Killmonger?  Or are you suggesting good alternate third wheels for a Thorkoye team?