*****Heimdall (The Gatekeeper) *****

Polares

Vhailorx said:

Polares said:

I think this is probably the first 5 char in a while really worth getting, and it is of course because of his blue. Powers like this one are extremely rare and I am sure at some point it will be "exploited" in some very bonkers/op combination.

I certainly agree that Heimdall is likely to have some value at some point in the future when someone discovers the perfect way to leverage his blue.  So I am planning to try to get him champed myself.  But I think it's a bit of an overstatement to say he is the first desirable 5* "in a while"  Apoc only just left the LT pool a couple of weeks ago, and he is definitely meta relevant.  So it's just 3 characters in between that may not be 'worthwhile,' though ymmv (Onslaught, KM, and ODM).

Overall, I would say that the character design team has been more or less on point for the past year or more.  not every character (4* or 5*) has been great, but very few have been truly terrible, and there have been several standouts (Karnak, polaris, legion, even modok, black cat, and hellcat are all solid or better 4*s, and BRB, IH, apoc, and now maybe heimdall are all meta or very interesting, and several other new 5*s are niche useful or better, like yelena or KM).  the frequency of the 5* releases has gone up, but I think the 'replacement level' for an average 5* (MPQ's Value-over-replacement-5* [VOR5*]) has also gone way up. That hurts people with older 5* benches, but is good for new transitioners.

I was referring to everyone after Apoc of course, I agree Apoc is great, and I am going to miss him dearly as a featured char in scl10

The new 5s  after him (Onslaught, KM, and ODM) have some interesting new mechanics (at least for 5 land), all of them have something, but because of their final damage numbers or because the set of powers dont compliment these special abilities they have (Onslaught as an example could have been much better with a way different purple) they are not really worth getting for someone like me. In the end, they are interesting chars but not that useful in any mode.

At this point, Heimdall doesnt look amazing, but at least his blue looks pretty good, and as you mentioned, he also has true heal, so if the next 5s are good I think he would be worth getting, but in some ways I think Devs are missing the point of giving us exiting new 5s.

At this point, I have enough CPs/LTs to pull again after I pulled for iH/Apoc, but I dont see the point with the current batch in latest, so I am just going to wait and see who comes next (I am actually surprised I already have enough, last time I had to jump two 5s released before I was ready). 

atomzed

At this point, I have enough CPs/LTs to pull again after I pulled for iH/Apoc, but I dont see the point with the current batch in latest, so I am just going to wait and see who comes next (I am actually surprised I already have enough, last time I had to jump two 5s released before I was ready). 

I am in a similar boat. I managed to champ Apoc, Onslaught and KM, and I had been saving up CP. I currently have 1 OMD (first pull from latest, how lucky) and 1 Heimdall. Will be dipping my fingers into the Heimdall store for JJ mainly, but if my pulls are bad I am probably going to just hoard after KM leaves. 

Your CP acquisition rate is also determine by the “phase of your 4* farm”. You realised that the 4* gives out much greater Cp towards the end. So your farm may be maturing more and giving you greater dividends. 

Vhailorx

Anyone have him up and running yet?  It's a bit of a long shot, given the current reign of fast, passive damage, but I think that the ap cost reduction effect is strong enough that he might become meta for longer matches if we can find the best way to exploit it quickly. 

HoundofShadow

I tested IM40, Shuri and Heimdall in his 5* node, and my game was lagging for a sec or two every time I fire Shuri's red power when the board is about 50% filled with fortified tiles. I suspect that Heimdall's passive take a longer time to add and check the number of fortified tiles of each colour if the fortification occurs randomly. This lag doesn't occur when I use Heimdall's blue to create fortified tiles. I doubt this is my phone problem because it has never happened with Mysterio, where over 80% of the board is fortified. Maybe someone can use this team too see if this lag under this specific scenario happens to them?

Jacklag

After enough time to test him out, can anyone confirm if Heimdall's Yellow passive is in effect while his allies are Airborne?

ThaRoadWarrior

I’ve only just champed him today; seems like it works.

offensively I like him so far in Pick 2 with BRB, but it doesn’t float very well.

ThaRoadWarrior

The yellow passive is the damage reduction no?

HoundofShadow

There's only one passive power for his yellow. There's a passive tag for passive power. If allies' ap gains while airborne are passive, it will have a passive tag. Also, the sentence structure of his yellow power would look similar to OMD's Lawless Warrior, where there are two passives.

Daredevil217

I champed Heim this PVE and have been having an absolute blast with him. Some highlights.

Paired him with Thorpocalypse in the 5E nodes and firing off multiple 3 AP Survival of the Fittests was very enjoyable. I was able to cut through that Thorkoye/Maria node like a hot knife through butter. 

In RG’s PVP I decided to play wins to test him out with some random peeps. So far Green Goblin is my favorite. Using Gobby’s purple to spam red countdowns (the best ROI for that power) means they will get passively fortified next turn, making Heimdall’s red 3 AP cheaper. Goblin is squishy, so it’s not the best for sustained climbing. But it’s fun to chain powers together for huge damage on the cheap. 

BRB is an awesome pair. If I have 9 bIue, I will sometimes use my first cast of blue to fortify three blue tiles, then fire off COTW for three AP. 

Other Asgardian pairs I liked were Thor whose passive battery fuels Heimdall’s active battery with yellow. With RG being essential you will also be flush with red for Heimdall chops. Loki was also great. I focused on spamming his purple for 3 AP. 

I played one match with Professor and it was a promising pair, but needed to stop playing so I could get ready for work. 

I had one match vs. Thorkoye where Heim was at 20k health with only Okoye left (not much of a threat). I had a blue heavy board so kept fortifying 3 blue, matching them, getting 6 blue back (enough to fire again next turn and repeat). Eventually he healed to full this way. 

ThaRoadWarrior

I ran him boosted in this Widow PVE flanked by unboosted P4nther and Shuri, and it was awesome. Every power costs 3Ap after a very short while since the AP coupons stack, every match is doing crazy bonus damage from both matched protects and matched fortifications, and then when you do that big sword swing you just wreck everything. 

Using him with hawkeye took longer to get started than I'd have expected, but it was cool being able to reduce the cost of blue by firing red, but there is a lot of overlap. I think it would work better in pick-3 with Coulson to speed up the countdown proc.

I tried running him with Fi5k also, on the premise those green fortified repeaters might be cool, but it remains too slow to get started. 

Jacklag

ThaRoadWarrior said:

The yellow passive is the damage reduction no?

Yes, I was hoping to know if Heimdall's damage reduction protects him after he uses his power to send both allies airborne.

Glockoma

So I have been trying to find clutch teams with the latest 3 Legends: DP, Heimdall, and Daken. Heimdall has the most potential in my opinion, and he has so many fun partners. 

In this Naughty or Nice event though, he has a slam dunk set: Black Cat and Jessica Jones.

This has been my new favorite team so far. Incredible synergy with proccing of passives that support one character to another. 

Heimdall can send both teammates airborne and they come down to generate 2-3 in their strongest (purple and red). 

Anytime Black Cat returns from airborne she stuns for 4 and can send herself on Purple. She has a strong and cheap green and purple; steals ap on black.

Match one of JJ’s traps and of course do damage, but also generate 3 in your strongest color, Blue. Use her black outlet and save red for Heimdall’s nuke.

Heimdall true heals for 6 Blue, can send his folk flying and reduce damage from 25-33% (!!) and reduce power cost to a minimum of 3AP for every color of the tile the power is!

Love finding these unions!

ThaRoadWarrior

I was running Shuri/Heimdall/BRB for the fortification spam and blue/green acceleration and then Magik/Heimdall/BRB for the passive protect and fortification spam anytime someone uses a power. They were both pretty fun as long as Apocalypse or iHulk didn’t stomp out your 4* for you. 

I may try running To4ch in third for yet another free fortifier. He may work well with Daken with all that repeater spam between them.

Vhailorx

Ok, I have now had heimdall up and running for a while now, and have had time to use him both at base and now while boosted in pve.  Overall, I think I was more or less right about him on release.  Here are 10 thoughts on his PVE utility.

(1) He has a lot of appealing features as as a third wheel (true heal, damage mitigation, tile fortification, and ap shenangians).  targeted fortification is great for a whole variety of things (protecting key tiles, board control via manipulating cascades, and even harvesting ap by fortifying all 3 tiles in a match (remember that if you have 6 blue ap and are going to make a blue match, you can fortify them first to get some ap-neutral healing).

(2) his red is (just barely) strong enough to build around for most matches, though he will be a bit underpowered against level 600+ opponents without a damage booster or the strength that he will get from being 500+.  While featured in PVP he is strong enough to do almost the entirety of a very challenging event like the Simulator, as the player-team anchor.

(3) He needs a battery, red is nice, but blue for sure.  He is quite slow to get going without one.  This is probably his main drawback.

(4) I love me some true heal, but Heimdall's is weak.  it's mitigated a bit by his high health and cheap blue, but he is not the sort of healer to go from death's door to full health all at once.  He is less like OG OML, DD or thor-fueled-Okoye, and more more like okoye in PVP and without thor: able to tank a decent chunk of damage, but rarely able to heal for more than 50% of his health all at once, and thus vulnerable to sustained damage (e.g., prof X cascades, or JJ traps, etc).

(5) I didn't time my matches, but my impression is that he is a bit slower than the meta teams.  But I will say that the perception of slowness with him is probably not as bad as it feels.  Like most true healers, the optimal strategy with him is to save up AP and then go nova with a burst of healing and damage to finish the match.  And heimdall is slow to gather resources.  But because of the stupid levels of efficiency you can reach via his blue (and the benefits of going all at once to minimize the risk of losing any fortified tiles), the 'endgame' of heimdall matches tends to be 1 turn, rather than the 3-5 turns that I find more typical of thorkoye/apoc style teams. 

(6) as expected, vulture is probably his best companion right now.  that combo can generate momentum from any of three colors (blue, black, or yellow).  and in a pinch, vulture's blue offers some board control and green provides some aoe damage that heimdall lacks. They just play extremely well, and the biggest frustration is needing to use heimdall's blue to prevent unwanted casting of vulture's blue.

(7) Other useful companions are damage boosters, though he doesn't play well with okoye as he tanks too many colors for her, stunners/suppressors, and boardshakers.  apoc stands out a strong match, despite the color overlap.  And yelena is a surprisingly effective pairing against any opponent with expensive powers. 

(8) he is relatively week against enemy stunners and the most dangerous, passive fueled, pve opponents (though he is hardly alone in struggling against gritty or carbage challenge nodes.

(9) He is not meta right now. and he may never get an ideal partner, but he (along with a few other 5*s like KM) strikes me as a character that is lurking right at the edges of the meta and could leap into the highest tiers of play in the right environment (e.g., a new 5* with some useful support skills, like stun/suppression/board control, blue or red as the strongest color, and the ability to passively make red charged tiles). 

(10) In the meantime, he is a good 5* to add to one's bench, being useful as an easy third wheel to toss on to many other teams, a viable B-team anchor to be used while the A-team is resting for whatever reason, and a hard counter to any frustrating node featuring enemy tile fortification. 

Next I need to try him out in PVP.

atomzed

Thanks for the nice write up  I have similar opinions about Heimdall too. A good third wheel, And useful in a lot of situations. When he is essential he actually can carry the team... my fave is to fortify red tiles and drop apocalypse red to 3 ap... and watch those fist bashes

I am intrigued by your comment about KM. What makes you think that he is right at the edges? 

ThaRoadWarrior

I was running Thor/Heimdall/Shuri during his PVE feature, and that team was extremely effective. Boosted, after a couple reds from Shuri, he was swiping for about 115,000 damage per hit on red. You just have to watch out that Thor isn’t busting up your fortifications passively.

Vhailorx

atomzed said:

Thanks for the nice write up  I have similar opinions about Heimdall too. A good third wheel, And useful in a lot of situations. When he is essential he actually can carry the team... my fave is to fortify red tiles and drop apocalypse red to 3 ap... and watch those fist bashes

I am intrigued by your comment about KM. What makes you think that he is right at the edges? 

He has a unique (at the 5* tier) ability set that closely matches something we have already seen be meta in the olden days.  We know that a match-5 denial character can be meta from way back in the days of Jeanbuster taking over as a hard-counter to the previously dominant imhb/if.  right now, the top end meta is fast, passive damage (ih, polaris, X-slaught, etc) combined with damage boosters (okoye, apoc, kitty, etc), so KM is kind of left out in the cold.  But if the meta swings back to tile spammers (e.g., fist buster, or to a lesser extent thorkoye) or crit-tile production (i.e., 5* versions of america/karnak), KM will be the counter move because he is brutally punishing to those types of characters.  He will need a tank, since his red frustratingly provides no damage reduction whatsoever, and a superior red damage outlet would be good too, because his red won't quite cut it against the toughest pve opponents (I would note that Heimdall could do both of those things reasonably well, but that pair would still need a battery AND stun/board control/suppression rather badly). 

That is all contingent of course, and may never happen, but that's why I think KM has a little extra value as a bench stash as compared to someone like Havok who is just another damage stick. I think it's a lower probability than heimdall, because KM will only work in a very particular meta-environment.  Heimdall just needs better partners, and if he ever gets them he will be effective against just about any meta (doing 50k+ damage for 3ap will basically always work). 

Vhailorx

ThaRoadWarrior said:

I was running Thor/Heimdall/Shuri during his PVE feature, and that team was extremely effective. Boosted, after a couple reds from Shuri, he was swiping for about 115,000 damage per hit on red. You just have to watch out that Thor isn’t busting up your fortifications passively.

I have found thor frustrating to use with heimdall for this reason.  With that pair you want to fortify red and green to maximize damage output, but thor will make it impossible to keep a lot of those fortifications on the board.  That's why I preferred using vulture as a battery, even if he is not quite as good at gather red.  With vulture, if I had too much blue, I would just fortify some red/green/black tiles near the bottom corners, confident that they would eventually be useful even if they didn't do me much good right away.

ThaRoadWarrior

I found that with all the stacking cost reduction in play combined with Thor pulling down Red and Yellow it actually stayed pretty viable, except on that Carbage challenge node.

Vhailorx

ThaRoadWarrior said:

I found that with all the stacking cost reduction in play combined with Thor pulling down Red and Yellow it actually stayed pretty viable, except on that Carbage challenge node.

I didn't try it with Shuri, so maybe her fortification production was sufficient to overcome the boardshake from thor.  I will try it again in this PVE and see.