Green Goblin is finished!

Venomous

Rant Incoming! I have been playing this game for a long time now. Honestly don't know when I started but it was when Ghost Rider (Johnny Blaze) first got added. Only last year have I worked on VIP and spending money on the game, so I haven't really caught up until recently. Right now, I have 24 Championed 4 stars consisting of a roster of nothing but characters I like. I don't build meta or whose powerful and instead play this game for fun and to collect the characters I like. What matters, is I have been working hard to championing my very first 5 star. I knew I wanted it to be my Gobby. I have said across a few threads now how I played and my hopes for Norman and soon, years of effort are about to come. A huge thanks for this goes to the shard system who helped tremendously and the deals that appear in the store. Then the champion system, and probably the most important addition in finishing him came from Milestones. Right now he is at approximately 200 shards and at 5/4/3. I am just 300 away from finishing him with 2 more finished 4 stars I'll be right there. This is a day I never thought would happen and I am just so excited and proud to call him my first championed 5 star. However, this long rant isn't just to spread my excitement over his completion. 

I never thought I would need to consider what 5 star to do next and now that he is nearing his end, the question of who is next has come to mind. I know there isn't too much help many can do regarding who to pick because of a picky roster but I decided I would ask anyway. There is just so many to choose from that I thought maybe some feedback would help in choosing who I commit to next. Among those I have, the ones most tempting are Spider-Man (Peter Parker), Daredevil, Killmonger, or Rescue. Peter is at 2/1/2 while Daredevil, Killmonger, and Rescue have 2 moves each. If anyone has any other suggestions however, I am open to them. I am hoping to do someone I like as I stated above, however I am lenient on characters who are different to how Norman plays or maybe those who would synergize well with him. 

While it hasn't happened yet, I am just so unbelievably excited to see my Gobby finished. Thanks to those who encouraged me along my path to building him and rooted me on whenever I mentioned him. It won't be long now! 

KGB

Given your penchant to only build characters you like (rather than meta) my 1st suggestion would be not to actually champ Gobby. Only level him up to the level of your highest 4*. Otherwise you'll find PvP to be almost impossible to play with him as your only champ and no other 5* with more than a handful of covers.

KGB

Daredevil217

1st, congratulations!

2nd, KGB is absolutely right.

3rd, you can see how many days you’ve been playing by looking at the shield resupply.

4th, I strongly feel Green Goblin is one of the top 2-3 candidates to get a Jean Grey style buff. His kit is actually good, he’s just outclassed by power creep and so just needs better numbers. Let’s hope the next character to get rebalanced is Normie here (as he’s also one of my favorite villains).

5th, I don’t know how you feel about Iceman, but he’s probably the most synergistic partner Goblin has. He’s not meta. He just spams the board with countdowns that stun the opponent when matched and Goblin fortifies them passively so they remain on the board. Super easy to stunlock the opponent this way. Also a very fun team.

6th, idk if you’ve seen my 5* guide, but here’s my breakdown on Osborn. He ranked 37 out of 62 5*s. So middle of the pack. 

Recommended Build: 5/5/3

Norman Osborn is like the Steph Curry of MPQ. He can drop huge bombs on you that will annihilate your team. But he’s also frail as heck, god awful on defense, and needs a good team around him to rack up wins. If ever there was a powerset that screamed “offense-only”, this would be it. However, he also has a niche specialty that helps propel him higher in the rankings than he otherwise would be. 

Despite being old as dirt, Goblin’s black (Goblin Glider) holds up with some of the best single target nukes in the game. For 8 AP he does a whopping 22k+ damage. The drawback for such a big hit is he places a 2-turn countdown that disables the power if it doesn’t resolve (meaning if destroyed, I hope you enjoyed that one use). This is easy enough to work around on offense, but the AI will cast it ASAP, rather than looking at potential black matches on the board first. Also of note, while this is a good power, we are not at a loss for black nukes in the tier (God Doom, Jessica Jones, Electro, Deadpool, Ghost Rider, Apocalypse, Yellowjacket, etc.). 

Purple (Trick or Treat) costs 10 AP and it places three 2-turn countdowns of a chosen color (choose red) that have various effects based on the color you choose (again, choose red). EACH tile does the following:
Red: ~10k damage
Blue: stuns a random enemy 2 turns
Green: destroys 4 random tiles and deals damage
Purple: steals 3 AP of 3 random colors
Yellow: Creates a strength 1400 protect tile
Black: Creates a strength 1400 strike tile

Finally, Goblin King (Yellow) is an awful active ability (9 AP to reduce countdowns by 1 turn) but an amazing passive ability (fortify 3 countdowns or repeaters every turn). He is the only character who fortifies repeaters passively, which is huge. Especially given that the game is shifting more toward repeaters and away from countdowns.

So while Goblin has mechanics that make him laughably bad on defense, he is a wrecking ball in the players’ hands who can bump the utility of the many countdown/repeater users in the game through his fortification. More often than not, he’ll be a quick out on defense, where the AI will undoubtedly pick the wrong color with purple, waste AP on yellow, and cast black when there are plenty of black matches on the board. Couple this with laughably bad health and match damage, and you can see why he has the offense-only label. Along with Surfer, Jean, Logan, etc. you can easily add Norman here to the list of those who could most benefit from nothing more than a health/match damage boost!

Pairings:
Goblin pairs well with CD/repeater users that don’t utilize black/purple AP (as he wants that for himself). Iceman is a dream pairing (one of my favorites in the whole game), as Bobby spams the board with all sorts of protect/repeater tiles and can deflect some hits on defense. Beta Ray Bill can benefit from the countdown fortification while also giving some protection to his frail partner. Heimdall provides red, green, a better yellow outlet and is another Asgardian that can tank for frail Norman. Not to mention that AP costs passively get cheaper when Goblin fortifies stuff.  Captain Repeater and Mehneto both absolutely benefit from the purple/black coverage and fortification Goblin provides.  Ronan can tank black, provide red/blue outlets, and benefit immensely from Gobby’s fortification.  Finally, Parker Spidey or Havok isn’t a bad play due to the full rainbow coverage and both characters sort of having self-synergy. 

What to expect when boosted:
Green Goblin will absolutely hold his own when boosted as a black/purple outlet, even without repeater/countdown characters as his partners.  If he happens to be boosted with one of his naturally synergistic partners (like Iceman or Ronan), all the better.  But unlike other characters, he doesn’t necessarily need them to shine.  He still will likely cost you healthpacks once you start queuing other god boosted characters, so you might be selective about when you run him, but he’s good enough to see use despite his age

Venomous

1st. Thanks! 

2nd. While I understand the worries, I am truthfully not. I have always played this game for fun. I have never even attempted to place high for ranking rewards and instead do mostly just PvE to get the shards or command points from wins. I will say it has become more difficult but I'm not worried. 

3rd. 2170 

4th. And I completely agree and am hoping on it. His passive fortifications are great but the one thing I want most from him is more versatility from Trick or Treat. You kinda just have to pick Red every time since the others can't even compete with it. Mostly green being the trashy one among it. The black honestly can maybe just decrease the countdown to 1 instead of 2 and for goblin king.... Honestly, it's pretty good already. Mostly the passive. 

5th. Oh! I'll certainly consider it. I do know while not meta, he is a powerhouse. Mostly because of the damage negation that comes from his passive as long as he has team ups. 

6th. I did actually! Of course, I had to. Obsessed with my Normie. What he does well is the raw damage. Both from goblin glider and from Trick or Treat. 

Final note.... I do find it funny how gobby is so easy to fight but when you fight him with hammer units or something, he becomes so difficult to actually fight because of the protected cooldowns. Honestly, could be good to take notes there for how to build him. Maybe find a way for him to add countdowns passively that pose a threat. Think Trick or Treat but after using it the first time, it continues to make countdowns based on the color you chose whenever one of the tiles expires. 

ThaRoadWarrior

Goblin is strong with a lot of characters I find. Anyone who cares about fortifications, countdowns, stuns, or enormous strike tiles can have fun with Goblin.

atomzed

If your goblin cover distribution is great (i.e. you don’t need to change the covers), then really you should pay heed to KGB advice. You can still have fun with the 5* GG at that level, as the mechanics are still there. You save yourself a lot of headache from PVP, bec trust me, it’s no fun if you have to face other teams with multiple 5* and you only have 1. 

But congrats! I liked the story and glad to share in other ppl joy!

Daredevil217

atomzed said:

If your goblin cover distribution is great (i.e. you don’t need to change the covers), then really you should pay heed to KGB advice. You can still have fun with the 5* GG at that level, as the mechanics are still there. You save yourself a lot of headache from PVP, bec trust me, it’s no fun if you have to face other teams with multiple 5* and you only have 1. 

But congrats! I liked the story and glad to share in other ppl joy!

I believe the OP said 5/4/3 and finishing up with shards. So can go 5/5/3 which is optimal. Apparently they only care about PVE in which case there isn’t really harm in champing Goblin. But if they EVER decide they want to play PVP it will indeed be rough. 

Glockoma

@Venomous loved the anecdote!

Yeah, just softcap for now, you’ll always have the iso to change that decision later; there is, however, no way to back pedal those extra clicks. 

Get him to the highest level of your highest level 4* and wait until your second 5* is ready to champ. Mechanics intact and ready to fight alongside a strong cast of 4*’s without letting him take most of hits.

If you are truly invested in PVE as you say, healthpack conservation can be a bit avoided if Norman has a chance of hiding behind a few of your 4*’s by not overtaking all of the color matching.

Alfje17

Goblin was one of my first reasonably covered 5* so I used him a ton of times (and also becasue he's quite fun to use), I usually paired him with DD5: make sure he tanks most colors and he'll keep GG and himself alive.

Sekilicious

Johnny Blaze was added 11-26-2015 for reference sake. 

Captain_Trips88

He was my first champ, and used in pretty much every battle back in the long ago. Happy times. Has been fun getting him out again when boosted

HoundofShadow

Goblin is pretty fun with 5* Hawkeye because together, they can fortify up to 6 cd tiles. Coulson would be the perfect candidate for cd and ap storm.

Another team type revolves around fortificatiob. Characters like Heimdall or Shuri will be a perfect addition to reduce his ap costs. Throw in anyone from the above mentioned for some nice ap gains.

Alfje17

Sekilicious said:

Johnny Blaze was added 11-26-2015 for reference sake. 

That's one week after I started, looks like everyone who started then got GG as one of their first 5*

DAZ0273

Goblin was the 5* released after I came back to the game and started playing seriously. I remember people being exicted because he was pretty strong. Sadly I never really got that many covers on him but he is definitely one of the fun ones.

Srheer0

Daredevil - Good suggestion.

Killmonger - Very fun on offense and great when boosted

shardwick

My Goblin is almost finished as well. I just need two more Sandman covers to finish him off.

Venomous

Thanks for everyone's comments. As for the idea of softlocking him, problem there is it's kinda a bit late. I've been upgrading him as I get moves for him. As for the whole PvP being Hell, yeah, it already is. But honestly, I've managed. Still love the game and I've managed to still do good with PvP. If PvP does become impossible, then I'll just switch to doing PvE instead. 

While I prefer PvE, The rewards for PvP I find are way better. Way more command points for example for far less work compared to PvE. And strangely, I find it easier at times. While I likely will proceed and upgrading him and championing him, I will be considering the consequences of doing it. That is why moving forward for that next 5 star, I will likely lean towards a Meta character I like instead of just someone I like. Daredevil is still tempting because of the synergy but I know Killmonger is pretty good too. Because of his high level, I am considering Scarlet Witch, Yellowjacket, or Immortal Hulk for the next 5 star. That, or upgrading 5 star Peter Parker to use alongside Miquel in PvE instead. 

As I said, I understand it is and will be difficult, but I have never played this game to win or do good. I play because I genuinely really enjoy the gameplay and playstyle. I build the teams I want because my focus has never been to play competitively. 

Venomous

Well wanted to do an update. Close to finishing my next 4 star which gets me to 300 fragments for gobby. 

What matters however is what I said recently for the newest 5 star. I'm doing Elektra next. On par with how much I love my gobby. And for the first time, I'll be stockpiling my command points just to pull for her. Be it for the Latest Legends or her debut vault. Regardless, I am so excited for her. My next 5 star project.