**** Mantis (Guardians of the Galaxy) ****

TheRiddler

KGB said:

Now that the numbers are up we can see her Purple will hit quite hard against an already stunned opponent (6100 when champed). It also means the 1 turn stun (at 5 covers) will obviously hit already stunned characters so there is a reasonable chance you won't stun the enemy Polaris until you match quite a few specials and manage to have the CD's resolve. As someone who uses Polaris/Grocket on offense, she won't really scare me since her low health means she can be killed on turn 2-3 in most matches.

I still don't get the reason you ever want to use her Green. Yes, you get an initial 3 turn stun (5 covers) but if the CD/repeater goes off, you give an enemy a free heal (along with the stun) and if the CD/repeater gets matched your Mantis gets stunned and damaged. Not such a great power so I think that 3 covers max and hope you have a better Green outlet.

In Shield Training Valkyrie won't be useful since her strongest color is a passive so it will be 4/5* Carnage as your 3rd character and match those enemy specials for stuns and damage.

Now for the really important question. Is there anyone obvious that she could feed?

KGB

I'm thinking that Green could be valuable in PVE for BRB and Polaris teams. Because you would have BRB generating Blue and Green AP to fire off 2 different stuns and that isn't counting the passive on her purple that can trigger off of Polaris firing her Blue. By the time the enemy comes back on line you are ready to fire off more stuns.

ThaRoadWarrior

Ronan seems next most natural

KGB

TheRiddler said:

KGB said:

Now that the numbers are up we can see her Purple will hit quite hard against an already stunned opponent (6100 when champed). It also means the 1 turn stun (at 5 covers) will obviously hit already stunned characters so there is a reasonable chance you won't stun the enemy Polaris until you match quite a few specials and manage to have the CD's resolve. As someone who uses Polaris/Grocket on offense, she won't really scare me since her low health means she can be killed on turn 2-3 in most matches.

I still don't get the reason you ever want to use her Green. Yes, you get an initial 3 turn stun (5 covers) but if the CD/repeater goes off, you give an enemy a free heal (along with the stun) and if the CD/repeater gets matched your Mantis gets stunned and damaged. Not such a great power so I think that 3 covers max and hope you have a better Green outlet.

In Shield Training Valkyrie won't be useful since her strongest color is a passive so it will be 4/5* Carnage as your 3rd character and match those enemy specials for stuns and damage.

Now for the really important question. Is there anyone obvious that she could feed?

KGB

I'm thinking that Green could be valuable in PVE for BRB and Polaris teams. Because you would have BRB generating Blue and Green AP to fire off 2 different stuns and that isn't counting the passive on her purple that can trigger off of Polaris firing her Blue. By the time the enemy comes back on line you are ready to fire off more stuns.

Obviously your speaking of pick 3 (Shield Sim) where you can run BRB/Polaris/Mantis. But in pick 2, you can't do that.

Also the more you stun the enemy the fewer special tiles they will have for you to match for her Purple.

KGB

ThaRoadWarrior

Polaris creates 2 friendly and 2 enemy strikes, so if you’re using her, it won’t matter that the enemy is stunned

jp1

DAZ0273 said:

We should drag this back on topic. Is Mantis a must have or not?

Agreed. They are all must have for me. Her value for my roster is pretty limited same as 99 percent of the 4*s released. Which is unfortunate because her kit looks interesting and fun.

Bad

Having a stun on green increases the value of that power. Actually is a permastun, if no one matches that tile. Healing him is a minor effect if the partner is gathering AP for to stomp him later.
His yellow is super cheap and she can give special tiles just before matching them.
This is another 4* really funny to play and a must have because of that.
The art is another time good. She could feed Ego, if we continue at this pace.

furbear00000

KGB said:

TheRiddler said:

KGB said:

Now that the numbers are up we can see her Purple will hit quite hard against an already stunned opponent (6100 when champed). It also means the 1 turn stun (at 5 covers) will obviously hit already stunned characters so there is a reasonable chance you won't stun the enemy Polaris until you match quite a few specials and manage to have the CD's resolve. As someone who uses Polaris/Grocket on offense, she won't really scare me since her low health means she can be killed on turn 2-3 in most matches.

I still don't get the reason you ever want to use her Green. Yes, you get an initial 3 turn stun (5 covers) but if the CD/repeater goes off, you give an enemy a free heal (along with the stun) and if the CD/repeater gets matched your Mantis gets stunned and damaged. Not such a great power so I think that 3 covers max and hope you have a better Green outlet.

In Shield Training Valkyrie won't be useful since her strongest color is a passive so it will be 4/5* Carnage as your 3rd character and match those enemy specials for stuns and damage.

Now for the really important question. Is there anyone obvious that she could feed?

KGB

I'm thinking that Green could be valuable in PVE for BRB and Polaris teams. Because you would have BRB generating Blue and Green AP to fire off 2 different stuns and that isn't counting the passive on her purple that can trigger off of Polaris firing her Blue. By the time the enemy comes back on line you are ready to fire off more stuns.

Obviously your speaking of pick 3 (Shield Sim) where you can run BRB/Polaris/Mantis. But in pick 2, you can't do that.

Also the more you stun the enemy the fewer special tiles they will have for you to match for her Purple.

KGB

At that point you should have enough protect tiles to match to keep feeding blue to keep stunning. So by then, it’s pretty much over for the enemy team even if there are no more enemy tiles to match. 

TheEyeDoctorsWife

Bad said:

Having a stun on green increases the value of that power. Actually is a permastun, if no one matches that tile. Healing him is a minor effect if the partner is gathering AP for to stomp him later.
His yellow is super cheap and she can give special tiles just before matching them.
This is another 4* really funny to play and a must have because of that.
The art is another time good. She could feed Ego, if we continue at this pace.

If you save the green until one enemy character remains then it is a permastun . Basically you then only need to defeat the weakest 2 characters . 

KGB

I guess all of you planning to run BRB/Polaris/Mantis are thinking of using this team for the Challenge Node in PvE?

In 4* land you definitely don't need that team to reach 2K in Shield Sim (the only real place to run them in PvP) and there are much better partners for Polaris than Mantis in pick 2 PvP that most 4* players will already have champed and potentially at L300+.

If she had come out a year or two ago she'd have been much more valuable in the 4* tier than she will be now minus the stunlock Challenge Node team aspect.

KGB

Kwahder

KGB said:

Now for the really important question. Is there anyone obvious that she could feed?

Mantis and Adam Warlock were both Guardians in the comics - in fact, Mantis led the team (really, the MCU did not do her character any favours). Adam seems a bit too new for a feeder, but he did get released last year - maybe that’s long enough?

shardwick

KGB said:

I guess all of you planning to run BRB/Polaris/Mantis are thinking of using this team for the Challenge Node in PvE?

In 4* land you definitely don't need that team to reach 2K in Shield Sim (the only real place to run them in PvP) and there are much better partners for Polaris than Mantis in pick 2 PvP that most 4* players will already have champed and potentially at L300+.

If she had come out a year or two ago she'd have been much more valuable in the 4* tier than she will be now minus the stunlock Challenge Node team aspect.

KGB

I don't really see how Mantis would be useful for a CN. You need to match an enemy special tile to get it going, then you need to hope that the enemy team doesn't match your countdown tile on their turn. You also need to hope that the person that it randomly stuns is the one that you want stunned. Versus if you go into a CN with 1* Juggs you go with +2 green and +2 all AP and you only need one green match to shake up the board to potentially have the match essentially over if you can get your stunlock going with a decent board. Mantis would have been more useful, and a lot more annoying, if matching or destroying any special tile would cause her to do something special like make a critical, stun, remove an enemy tile or destroy a random row/column. 

DAZ0273

You could run an interesting GotG team Mantis/Star-Lord/Gamora which should work pretty well against goons and the like. Let the enemy fire a power and Star-Lord's passive reduces costs so you get a 6ap Green stun, A 4ap blue stun which gives specials and a 3ap yellow power which you can use to give a special to the enemy to try and match for the purple passive stun if necessary. With 3 stun options on the board you would have a decent chance of pulling off a stun lock, especially if you brought some +2 boosts. Plus Mantis having countdowns on the board boosts Star-Lord's red damage.

Srheer0

Is she meant to be a counter or a check to Wanda? You match her repeater tile and maybe stun her.

Could maybe be ok against Kitty as well.

In4star land, I think she might work well with M.O.R.D.O.K. Nearly raindow coverage and mordok can give the enemy some special tiles and they both have relatively cheap AP costs.  

I still want to test her with BWIW. It would be incredibly annoying for her green to go down to 5AP cost and her yellow down to 3AP cost. You would get a lot of stuns with those two together.

DAZ0273

I like BWIW but at 10ap her yellow is a little pricey. I guess Shuri is an option - her red is cheaper and if you can fortify your purple or green countdowns that helps Mantis even more/reduces cost to get yellow/green powers in play for as much stunning as you can.

Going back to GotG teams - she actually would play fairly well with Drax (and I haven't been able to say that before) - his black destroys enemy specials which should trigger her stun, his purple creates specials for Mantis to give if wanted and his purple also triggers off of Countdown tiles.

HoundofShadow

I will try out OMD and 5Hawkeye with her. 
Each cd gives you 3 blue and 2 red ap. Let OMD destroys 4 enemy special tiles and create 8 blue strike tiles. As long as you have at least 4  cds  on the board, and Polaris is multiplying tiles, you will be firing his red power every turn. This is just a fun team I thought of.

Akoni

I would go 5/5/3 on this one. Her green at 4 is only good if I can prevent the tile from being matched so it can expire. At 5, it can wreak havoc, but becomes a repeater which makes it a permanent weakness requiring me to protect it constantly.

As far as being a feeder, she likely won't be one. The only connections I see thus far are Star-Lord, Thanos, Thor, Iron Man, and Captain America IW. I doubt she will be a feeder for any of those. Ego as a future release, maybe?

Sekilicious

They did tease Adam Warlock in the last GotG movie and someone else mentioned the comics, so there is potentially that connection as well. There hasn’t been a feeder since Be4st so it probably is more likely she doesn’t feed anyone though. 

Akoni

I would agree, but if they are using MCU connections, Mantis never actually interacted with Adam. She wasn't on the planet where he was teased, nor was she even introduced to the storyline until after they left that planet. I suppose it's a very loose connection, but that's better than no connection at all. If she does feed him, a lot of AW lovers will be pleased.

DAZ0273

I have AW ready to champ so there would be no complaints here.

ThaRoadWarrior

I wanted to like Adam Warlock, but he's just 5* Sentry to me - everything he does is a fast track to killing himself, so the juice isn't worth the squeeze.