The wording on killmonger's black passive

jredd

not sure if there is a bug or if the wording is incorrect, but it says:

"When the enemy makes a match-5 or greater, Killmonger locks the generated critical tile. At the start of your turn, all critical tiles become unlocked"

that wording says to me that an enemy generated crit should remain locked until their turn is over. however, when the enemy makes a turn and generates a crit it only stays locked at the moment it is created. if there is a cascade it becomes unlocked after the first match and is then available to be matched by the enemy team afterwards. 

please fix or clarify...

HoundofShadow

This is one of the rules of locked tile from MPQ official help page:

Matching or destroying a tile that is Locked removes the Locked effect leaving the tile on the board.

Daredevil217

Yep. Wording is right. The power is just not good. He actually does two things. 

1) He locks enemy generated crit tiles. These tiles can be unlocked just like any other locked tiles, and since they are easier to match they often are unlocked the same turn they’re locked. 

2) He unlocks any locked crit tiles at the beginning of your turn. This is a separate sentence in his power description because it’s pretty much a second passive independent of  #1 above. If a crit tile was locked due to some other ability, it’d still unlock on Killmonger’s turn due to how the power is worded. 

abmoraz

In my experience, this power is mostly awful.  If the enemy makes a crit tile, KM locks it, and the resulting cascade gives the enemy 2 follow-up crit matches instead of 1.  They get to do twice as much damage against me.

Wonko33

Yeah so basically he gives the enemy a chance to use the critical tile twice . It would be cool if it became. “Non-tile” that matches with nothing until the beginning of your turn 

Loosie

It does lock the crit tile, the issue most times after a match-5 you can usually match the crit tile right away which unlocks it, then you can use it again.

It's pretty decent if there are no cascades after the match-5, but we all know how well the AI is at generating cascades.

Taganov

Loosie said:

It does lock the crit tile, the issue most times after a match-5 you can usually match the crit tile right away which unlocks it, then you can use it again.

It's pretty decent if there are no cascades after the match-5, but we all know how well the AI is at generating cascades.

I think they already considered this with the passive part of black. The enemy team either pays 5 red or gets hit for 18k damage (level 3) every time they match the crit tile. Cascades can be devastating for them too.

Omegased

abmoraz said:

In my experience, this power is mostly awful.  If the enemy makes a crit tile, KM locks it, and the resulting cascade gives the enemy 2 follow-up crit matches instead of 1.  They get to do twice as much damage against me.

Not Quite. Sure, it's a Crit tile, but it doesn't do the damage of a crit tile (since it's locked). You're still likely to get a cascade from it, but it doesn't do as big damage as it might seem.

DrDevilDinosaur

I do think that there's a bit of "confusion" with regards to what constitutes matching the tile - since the tile has to be included in a match in order to become unlocked. I think the expectation is that, surely if it gets matched but not used up, it still counts as being matched.

I think the general intent of the ability is - either you forfeit the crit over to Killmonger's team or you use it and pay the repatriation cost (AP or damage). In this sense, I think that the locking of the tile seems to be adding an unnecessary step. Especially since the way it has been implemented essentially allows the opposing team to still make use of it in a match without drawing this cost.


I'm not entirely sure what the best solution is, but since he's not going to be buffed within the foreseeable lifecycle of the game we are free to speculate however we like.


I like the idea of converting generated critical tiles into blank/colorless tiles and then converting those into Critical tiles at the start of Killmonger's turn. That effectively gives Killmonger a pseudo- protection against crit damage and really helps to define this as "you can make match-5's all you like, but Killmonger gets first chance at the crits". 

HoundofShadow

Making a match means matching at least:

1) 3 tiles of the same colour (including locked tile)

2) 2 of the same colour and a critical tile.

Locking a critical tile nullifies its damage multiplier effect. 

There are two functions to Repatriation:

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 28823 damage to the target instead. 

If the enemy creates a match-5 and a cascade happens that causes the critical tile to be unlocked, you will first take normal match damage. However, you will take full damage with damage multiplier for unlocked critical tile or from the second cascade onwards.

Secondly, if the opponent has fewer than 5 red aps and they make a critical match, they are going to take 28, 823 damage. So, the question is, is it worth taking 900*3*4.0= 10800 critical match 3 in exchange for 28, 823 damage or for 5 red ap?

Note: I'm using the highest match damage available for 450 and an average of 4x multiplier for the above example.

Another way to look at this power is to think of it as a passive Penance Stare. Assuming they have fewer than 5 red ap, is it worth dealing at least 266% damage back to the opponent when they make a critical match-3?