Who can make a good team with Angel/Archangel?

Daniel2121

So, (as I've said in another post elsewhere) I'm still fairly new, currently login day 35 in the game, as I'm typing this.

I've figured out some things, some by trial/error, some by doing my research. I'm aware that Angel/Archangel is/are kind of bad in this game. Or at least Archangel seems a niche hero (because of his blue passive that counters airborne enemies) but the 3* version aka Angel (that doesn't have the passive) seems kind of subpar. But regardless, I want this guy in my roster, because I'm a fanboy of the character, and though I'm still in 2*/3* land by now I intend to aim for Archangel, no matter how long it takes. Plus I've had already a few encounters with Vultures in both PvE and PvP and that guy is most definitely annoying and it doesn't seem like there's a way to stop Vulture once he gets going. So that helps me with the motivation for grinding Archangel shards too.

So, that's my question, what other heroes go well with him? Both the 3* and the 5* versions. Is the 3* Angel good with something like IM40 + Thor? I want to try that, but I have both IM40 and 3* Thor at low levels for now as I don't have all the ISO to put into them.

On a side note, I want also to look for other X-Men members to go with him, if possible.

DAZ0273

Unfortunately there never really were any strong teams that he fits on at either tier level.

Archangel received a mild buff not to so long ago which did nothing really to move him up the ranks. When released he was both an attempted counter to Gambit's AP generation (who was then top dog) which didn't really work and a 5* solution to the 4* problem of airbourne via Vulture. There are more airbourne characters in the game now but Elsa Bloodstone, a 4* character can also deal with airbourne so Archangel is no longer the only go to character. Archangel & Angel's black stop AP production which was more relevant when the meta wasn't mostly passive but might be useful in 3* land against Dr. Strange stuns or nukes, the drawback is they also block your own team so you have to use this with care if you are trying to fire a power in the same colour, unless you get it to 4 or 5 covers when talking about Archangel. Riri can throw opponents airbourne under certain circumstances and Nova can take airbourne also to trigger AA's passive. On a 3* team he is going to basically be a meat shield and there are much better 5* meat shield options at low amounts of covers - Colossus (Phoenix Five) yellow for example which reduces allies damage taken.

I wouldn't really use 3* Angel's powers over other 3* equivalent. The only thing that Angel brings to the table really is a stun but at 11ap for blue, Dr. Strange is much better 3* option as you can destroy enemy AP too and cause damage per turn for 2 AP less cost. His green gives attack tiles but 3* Storm gives more with her black. He doesn't really even feed a meta 4* either although Jean Grey is not awful. If you have nor or are not already - Dr. Strange should be your shargeted 3*.

Sadly he doesn't really bring anything to the table that Thor/IM40/Strange/Kamala etc don't do better. I guess if you don't have Strange then his stun might be useful with IM40's recharge but I think I would rather use Hawkguy to soak up the blue for multiple effects.

Sorry - not really much help.

Daniel2121

DAZ0273 said:

Unfortunately there never really were any strong teams that he fits on at either tier level.

Archangel received a mild buff not to so long ago which did nothing really to move him up the ranks. When released he was both an attempted counter to Gambit's AP generation (who was then top dog) which didn't really work and a 5* solution to the 4* problem of airbourne via Vulture. There are more airbourne characters in the game now but Elsa Bloodstone, a 4* character can also deal with airbourne so Archangel is no longer the only go to character. Archangel & Angel's black stop AP production which was more relevant when the meta wasn't mostly passive but might be useful in 3* land against Dr. Strange stuns or nukes, the drawback is they also block your own team so you have to use this with care if you are trying to fire a power in the same colour, unless you get it to 4 or 5 covers when talking about Archangel. Riri can throw opponents airbourne under certain circumstances and Nova can take airbourne also to trigger AA's passive. On a 3* team he is going to basically be a meat shield and there are much better 5* meat shield options at low amounts of covers - Colossus (Phoenix Five) yellow for example which reduces allies damage taken.

I wouldn't really use 3* Angel's powers over other 3* equivalent. The only thing that Angel brings to the table really is a stun but at 11ap for blue, Dr. Strange is much better 3* option as you can destroy enemy AP too and cause damage per turn for 2 AP less cost. His green gives attack tiles but 3* Storm gives more with her black. He doesn't really even feed a meta 4* either although Jean Grey is not awful. If you have nor or are not already - Dr. Strange should be your shargeted 3*.

Sadly he doesn't really bring anything to the table that Thor/IM40/Strange/Kamala etc don't do better. I guess if you don't have Strange then his stun might be useful with IM40's recharge but I think I would rather use Hawkguy to soak up the blue for multiple effects.

Sorry - not really much help.

So there are other counters to airborne opponents... but still Archangel's passive is the best for that job, right? I mean, it's a passive, it should trigger always... unless he's stunned of course...

What do you mean by 3* Angel not even feeding a good 4* meta? You mean Bamfboy aka Nightcrawler is also awful in his own right? Aw man...

So I'm really at a dead end here huh... I really hoped to salvage something out of my 3* Angel... I do have Strange, but he's sitting there at 3/2/2 or something, not very high, of course I'm using him for PvE but not for PvP really, I've been using 3* Spidey + Witch for PvP (plus the event's loaned hero, whatever that is, not playing a lot of Danger Room right now, just events with loaned heroes), I have both of them champed... also have Patch and Daken champed, so if things are really this bad, looks like I'll have to aim for Polaris or something... but ugh cmon, Angel can't be this bad lol

Daniel2121

BlackBoltRocks said:

Since you mention you like Archangel (high five!), one recommendation is to chase Nightcrawler sharts and covers, since Nightcrawler feeds Archangel.

Yeah, I noticed champed Nightcrawler gives Archangel shards. That's why I was asking if Bamfboy was a bad hero on his own right.

I don't want 2* Mags as a partner for Angel, he's just a 2* character lol. I'm trying to champ all the 2* guys now but doesn't mean that I will use them. I do want to try Angel + IM40 though.

DAZ0273

Daniel2121 said:

DAZ0273 said:

Unfortunately there never really were any strong teams that he fits on at either tier level.

Archangel received a mild buff not to so long ago which did nothing really to move him up the ranks. When released he was both an attempted counter to Gambit's AP generation (who was then top dog) which didn't really work and a 5* solution to the 4* problem of airbourne via Vulture. There are more airbourne characters in the game now but Elsa Bloodstone, a 4* character can also deal with airbourne so Archangel is no longer the only go to character. Archangel & Angel's black stop AP production which was more relevant when the meta wasn't mostly passive but might be useful in 3* land against Dr. Strange stuns or nukes, the drawback is they also block your own team so you have to use this with care if you are trying to fire a power in the same colour, unless you get it to 4 or 5 covers when talking about Archangel. Riri can throw opponents airbourne under certain circumstances and Nova can take airbourne also to trigger AA's passive. On a 3* team he is going to basically be a meat shield and there are much better 5* meat shield options at low amounts of covers - Colossus (Phoenix Five) yellow for example which reduces allies damage taken.

I wouldn't really use 3* Angel's powers over other 3* equivalent. The only thing that Angel brings to the table really is a stun but at 11ap for blue, Dr. Strange is much better 3* option as you can destroy enemy AP too and cause damage per turn for 2 AP less cost. His green gives attack tiles but 3* Storm gives more with her black. He doesn't really even feed a meta 4* either although Jean Grey is not awful. If you have nor or are not already - Dr. Strange should be your shargeted 3*.

Sadly he doesn't really bring anything to the table that Thor/IM40/Strange/Kamala etc don't do better. I guess if you don't have Strange then his stun might be useful with IM40's recharge but I think I would rather use Hawkguy to soak up the blue for multiple effects.

Sorry - not really much help.

So there are other counters to airborne opponents... but still Archangel's passive is the best for that job, right? I mean, it's a passive, it should trigger always... unless he's stunned of course...

What do you mean by 3* Angel not even feeding a good 4* meta? You mean Bamfboy aka Nightcrawler is also awful in his own right? Aw man...

So I'm really at a dead end here huh... I really hoped to salvage something out of my 3* Angel... I do have Strange, but he's sitting there at 3/2/2 or something, not very high, of course I'm using him for PvE but not for PvP really, I've been using 3* Spidey + Witch for PvP (plus the event's loaned hero, whatever that is, not playing a lot of Danger Room right now, just events with loaned heroes), I have both of them champed... also have Patch and Daken champed, so if things are really this bad, looks like I'll have to aim for Polaris or something... but ugh cmon, Angel can't be this bad lol

Yeah, Archangel's passive is the best (although Elsa's double team Invisible characters too) and as BBR says above, you only need 1 cover.

Nightcrawler is OK - you can have a lot of fun with his purple but you wont be building teams around him.

Angel isn't necessarilly bad, he just doesn't really excel at anything. He is a solid benchwarmer. When we first got the dual released 5* & 3*, things were pretty good. Dr. Strange was excellent, Thanos was very good and Hawkguy was pretty useful. Sadly by the time they made their way to Angel (the final dual release), it was pretty obvious they had gone cold turkey and so they just gave him very watered down versions of Archangel's power and removed the two key factors that gave Archangel any playability at all - his passive airbourne takedown and his ability to block enemy AP generation without affecting his own team. You can of course run Angel for Rainbow teams but if I am honest you would be doing so more for the sake of doing it as opposed to because Angel is a key component.

IM40 + Patch + Angel might work nicely - you have the option for strikes or attack tiles + damage on green, stun on blue and either IM or Patch's red nuke. That is pretty decent. Hey, who said Angel wasn't great?!?!?

Daniel2121

Well, it would have been kind of stupid to give Angel the same passive effect from Archangel's blue, I mean it would mean a 3* character effectively being able to counter a handful of 4* and 5* chars. HOWEVER, I think that to compensate for Angel not having that, they should have improved Angel's black skill, to make it not block his own team's AP gain, only the enemy's.

Patch + Angel doesn't look very good to me, the only thing that this has in common is that they're both X-Men, which is useful for a certain PvP event (that I have already seen), it could work but don't see it as particularly great. But both chars will be competing for that green AP generation, it's not like with say Angel + IM40 I think which the blue AP gain here is almost certainly going to be spent into Angel's stun. With Patch + Angel, where would you spend the green AP? Both do similar things (nuke + offensive special tile generation) and both have a similar cost. Which one is better, Patch's green, or Angel's? If one of these could possibly be considered better, then the other is basically useless.

BlackBoltRocks

Daniel2121 said:

But both chars will be competing for that green AP generation,

Which one is better, Patch's green, or Angel's? If one of these could possibly be considered better, then the other is basically useless.

Trust me, in 4* and 5* land there are A LOT of colour overlaps. A LOT.

One of the common duos in 5* land is Thor and Okoye. Both have active Yellows and Reds. Doesn't stop them from being a formidable pair.

Likewise Thor and Apocalypse. Again, both have active Yellows and Reds. Does that mean we don't use them together?

Example 3: 5* Professor X and Onslaught. Both have active Purples, and the only other active colour is Blue.

Granted, in 4* and 5* land, passives are omnipresent. Thor is used because of his Green passive; Okoye has her Black passive; Prof and Onslaught go well together because of Prof's Blue passive and Onslaught's Green passive. But don't let active colour overlaps narrow your view of what makes good teams.

Even in 3* land. A lot of characters that IM40 powers up clash with his Red and Blue. Is that going to stop you from pairing IM40 up with them? IM40 is primarily a battery that costs 6 Yellow (and 2 turns). In my 3* and 4* days I used IM40 to fuel 3* Captain America and 4* Thor.

Back to the topic of Patch + Angel. It's not so much whose Green is better. It's more that Angel provides a Blue and Black outlet (of course, that's dependent on the 3rd member), so you'll be using Angel primarily for his Blue stun (unless you decide to use another stunner like Dr Strange).

DAZ0273

MPQ was never shy of having a character from a tier below completely mess with the tier above - the reign of Bishop testifies to that! The fact that 1* Juggernaut can feature in a Winfinite Combo is staggering!

Vulture was not much of an issue for 5* players though, so that power really needed to belong to a 3 or 4* character at that time (you could have also shot down Colossus black for example and stop the free power firing). There were no 5* players worrying about Vulture because they could pretty much one-shot him before he even got going. I guess the black power was meant to be a direct counter to 5* Gambit and that is why the 3* version didn't get it but it would have improved Angel a lot.

As I said Angel + anybody doesn't really look good to me! Strike tiles are normally considered the best type of the 3 special tiles. Patch green does more damage and the value of his strike tiles is worth more than Angel's attack tiles, so he is the better damage dealer but his green does come with a drawback that it gives the other side strike tiles too. Angel is there for the stun but to be honest when I was a 3* player a long long time ago, my favourite go to team was always IM40/Thor/Cap because Cap would often give you back enough blue to stun again once his countdown expired.

Anyway - back to Angel. Yeah - get Polaris! Then you really don't need Angel! Her stun is great. Seriously - I just don't really see the need for Angel on any regular team. Thor & Kamala Khan have better green which are aoe's to boot, 3* Storm's black is better than Angel and as already said, Doc Strange has the best stun in the 3* tier. I wish I was coming up with something here to help you but clearly not!

Daniel2121

IM40 + Thor + Cap? Lol a main Avengers team? How solid is this one?

Funny, I just got a green Riri cover. It's the skill that launches foes into the air... I think I'll keep this one lol

And what is this Juggernaut winfinite you talk about? Is it worth keeping Jugs as the 1* hero instead of 1* Spidey?

Sekilicious

IM40 and Cap make a great combo, especially when the Ultron event comes around. Grey Suit Black Widow or Kamala Khan make a better third though. 

The winfinite is with Beta Ray Bill, Polaris, and Juggernaut. Juggernaut is 1b for best solo 1* characters, but if you don’t have BRB or Polaris and already have Spidey there is no real point to sink resources into Juggs. Unless you want speed up the 1* node of the DDQ and have the spare roster spot of course.

DAZ0273

If your Kamala is decently levelled I would go with her for the burst heal. However you get Thor covers organically through 2* champ levels so getting him to high levels is faster. Thor and Cap both have self fueling powers - IM40 is a battery who powers them both up in blue, red green. Stun, AP generation/return, nukes, aoe. Not bad for a 3* team.

And I wasn't suggesting going after 1* Juggs - I was just saying that MPQ is a game that with any new release can bring you surprises.

Daniel2121

But how does this winfinite work? Polaris works with special tile generators and BRB is one of such guys. But then 1* Jug is a board clearer/shaker? What does he do here?

KGB

Daniel2121 said:

But how does this winfinite work? Polaris works with special tile generators and BRB is one of such guys. But then 1* Jug is a board clearer/shaker? What does he do here?

His Green destroys 16 tiles. If those happen to have shields on them then it triggers Polaris's passive (create 3 more shield tiles) AND BRB's passive (Green + Blue AP again). Since his power is cheap (6 ap) it can create a winfinite once the board is ~half full shield tiles so that using his Green returns more than 6 Green via BRB's passive (16 tiles at half filled with shields would return 8 Green)  so you can spam it until you win.

KGB

DAZ0273

It works with other board destruction characters also, notably 4* Thanos green.

Daniel2121

Does it work with X-Wolverine? I have a few covers of him already. It should work with him... his green at max covers destroys 15 tiles and costs 8 AP, and then he also has his black.. 

DAZ0273

I just tried it out and it was a bit too slow for this events SCL10 Challenge node Goblin/Hood/5pin with Wolverine as board destroyer but I don't see why it wouldn't work. 3* Storm should be able to get it going too.