***** Elektra (Woman Without Fear) *****

Bad

HoundofShadow said:

Unless you are using boost, all their powers require 3 match-3. Besides, we are comparing just the red power.

If we want to add in Apocalypse's yellow boost, then we need to throw in Elektra's yellow to even out the field.

450 Apocalypse's red will deal 12886 x 4 or 51, 544 damage. So, the first 3 hit of Apocalypse's red will be reduced by 50%. So, we have (6443 * 3) + 12886 = 32, 215 damage. So, his damage per ap will be 32315/14 = 2301.07

Elektra, on the other hand, would have dealt a total of 20851 + (8688*3) = 46915 damage. Her damage per ap would be 3127.66.

As you can see, Elektra's damage per ap on a level playing field is even better than Apocalypse and his boost. 

What can be seen is that they have different roles. Apocalypse is an all out offense character, whereas Elektra is a tactical/defensive character. In 1 v 1, Elektra can be better than Apocalypse.

Now you need to specify which one is the AI and which one is the player. 
Because apoc wouldn't be so dumb as to fire his red knowing that it will be reducted, he will be damaged and she will get 3 yellow. 
That example doesn't satisfy me.
And elektra red is meh. If you have a fortifying partner, ok. If not you possibly will waste 9 red just for stunning someone 2 turns. 

entrailbucket

Apocalypse does all his damage immediately and it's guaranteed.  Elektra places an unfortified CD tile that does damage.  If her tile is destroyed it does 0 damage.  Calculations need to include that variance.

Performance in 1v1 isn't really valuable.  1v1 events are what, like, 1% of the game?  Less?

bbigler

I would like a mod to confirm if her passive steals 1 or 3 tiles.  Reading the description: at level 1, both the active & passive steal 1, the description for higher levels simply says Steals 2 or Steals 3 which could refer to both active & passive OR just the active. 

It looks like an assumption that it’s only for the active, which could be true, but I want a confirmation please.  

If she passively steals 1, then it’s not as useful against Grocket or Polaris, but the strike tile nerfing still is. Nevertheless, stealing 1 strike at a time is still very useful against a large variety of 4* & 5* characters.  

10 AP is mighty pricey to steal 3 Attacks or Protects though and I doubt she will be used for that.  I bet she could steal all protects from BRB’s Clash of the Worthy. 

I would say she’s going to boil down to being a character that passively steals strikes plus her yellow protect & hit traps. Her Red is a bonus, but also shouldn’t be ignored.  

KGB

HoundofShadow said:

Unless you are using boost, all their powers require 3 match-3. Besides, we are comparing just the red power.

Don't forget to consider that a match 4 can get you there in just 2 matches. Also you can get there with 2 match 3's and a match 4 in another color that nets you +1 AP from another destroyed tile in that row/column.

I often get 7 Blue for Polaris in this manner so I know the value of a 7 AP power.

KGB

dianetics

Just look at wording, its pretty clear that it only steals 3 during the active use of it.


Choose the type of enemy tile Elektra is targeting next: Attack / Strike / Protect. Steal 1 tile(s) of that type and increase strength by 17. 

(PASSIVE) Elektra knows what her enemies are about to do. When an enemy creates tiles of the chosen type tiles, Elektra steals 1 of those tiles.

• Level 5: Steals 3, increases strength by 31. When an enemy creates a tile of the chosen type, reduces the strength of remaining enemy tiles by 22.

Only the active portion of the steals and increases. The passive only steals when 1 is created and reduces.

**edit, As far as Rocket and Polaris there are far more effective pairs or even single characters to go after them. I'd probably just take Blob and Polaris against them.

HoundofShadow

There's always match-4, but none of us can guarantee a match-4 of the colour of our choice right at the start of the turn, unless we are using certain characters. Generally, it's all RNG. 

Apocalypse red deals damage immediately but you can't choose who you want to deal the damage to because it's default to the lowest health enemy. And he can't stun opponents. As for Elektra's red getting matched, it's up to the player's skills to ensure the success of her red power. If you fire her power when there's a red match-3 available and the AI is likely to chase red, then it's on the players. 

Since we are comparing Apocalypse with Elektra, using 1v1 will be easier. If we start using 3v3, there are a lot of possibilities to discuss and it will never end.

If players start using their feelings to gauage how much damage should be dealt, then it's as good as saying you want more power creep faster. Her red deals 2316 damage ap, which is better than many other powers, using damage per ap as a comparison. Reduce her power to 7 ap and it's 2978.71, which would be higher than meta's. 

TheRiddler

Maybe we should just stop comparing characters to Apocalypse? I seem to remember Ronan, Odin and Gamora all getting compared to him as well.

entrailbucket

HoundofShadow said:

There's always match-4, but none of us can guarantee a match-4 of the colour of our choice right at the start of the turn, unless we are using certain characters. Generally, it's all RNG. 

Apocalypse red deals damage immediately but you can't choose who you want to deal the damage to because it's default to the lowest health enemy. And he can't stun opponents. As for Elektra's red getting matched, it's up to the player's skills to ensure the success of her red power. If you fire her power when there's a red match-3 available and the AI is likely to chase red, then it's on the players. 

Since we are comparing Apocalypse with Elektra, using 1v1 will be easier. If we start using 3v3, there are a lot of possibilities to discuss and it will never end.

If players start using their feelings to gauage how much damage should be dealt, then it's as good as saying you want more power creep faster. Her red deals 2316 damage ap, which is better than many other powers, using damage per ap as a comparison. Reduce her power to 7 ap and it's 2978.71, which would be higher than meta's. 

I see!  So Elektra is actually *better* than Apocalypse! 

I expect that she'll completely take over the meta based on these calculations.

bbigler

Only time will tell how good a character is, but I compare characters by how many and how good their powers are.  For example: 

Power assessment: 

Shang - 3 Great powers
Ultron - 1 Good
Gamora - 2 Good
Sersi - 1 Great + 2 OK
Big Wheel - 1 Great + 1 OK
Abby - 2 OK powers
Elektra - 1 Great + 2 Good

For comparison: 
Apocalypse - 3 Great
BRB - 3 Great
Thor - 1 Amazing power + 1 Good 
Okoye - 1 Amazing power + 1 Good
IHulk - 1 Amazing power
Kitty - 2 Great + 1 OK
Wanda - 1 Amazing + 1 OK
Colossus - 1 Great + 1 Good

entrailbucket

TheRiddler said:

Maybe we should just stop comparing characters to Apocalypse? I seem to remember Ronan, Odin and Gamora all getting compared to him as well.

Why isn't that a fair comparison?  Does Apocalypse have more stars than those characters?  Is he more rare than they are?

In fact, Apocalypse is a super old Classic legend, while those characters are much newer.  If you believe there's power creep, we should expect the newer characters to be much better than he is.

TheEyeDoctorsWife

HoundofShadow said:

There's always match-4, but none of us can guarantee a match-4 of the colour of our choice right at the start of the turn, unless we are using certain characters. Generally, it's all RNG. 

Apocalypse red deals damage immediately but you can't choose who you want to deal the damage to because it's default to the lowest health enemy. And he can't stun opponents. As for Elektra's red getting matched, it's up to the player's skills to ensure the success of her red power. If you fire her power when there's a red match-3 available and the AI is likely to chase red, then it's on the players. 

Since we are comparing Apocalypse with Elektra, using 1v1 will be easier. If we start using 3v3, there are a lot of possibilities to discuss and it will never end.

If players start using their feelings to gauage how much damage should be dealt, then it's as good as saying you want more power creep faster. Her red deals 2316 damage ap, which is better than many other powers, using damage per ap as a comparison. Reduce her power to 7 ap and it's 2978.71, which would be higher than meta's. 

How dare you, sir ! No one here likes statistical data or facts. Today’s player understands only one thing , AP cost. We don’t want to wait for 1 extra color match for an active power. Any character the devs have the audacity to give us with 9+ AP is instant trash. 🤣

HoundofShadow

It's difficult to compare characters if they aren't in the same category.

Odin is a tank for allies, and creates fortified and strong strike tiles when certain conditions are met. He heals allies. He also has some ap controls with his red. His red deals 1420 damage per ap.

Gamora counters defensive characters and she's anti-Elektra. Her yellow repeater will override Elektra's trap tiles.  You can even bring Valkyrie in against Elektra and all her trap tiles will be overwritten with yellow strike tiles. 

As for Ronan, he's probably the closest to Elektra since both are kind of tactical, but Ronan is much more offensive than Elektra.

If we compare only one power of one character with one power of another character, there'll never be a fair comparison. 

entrailbucket

Except it's not at all difficult to compare characters from different categories.  There are at least two quite popular threads in the characters forum that rank all of the characters in order. 

Are you saying that any attempt to rank characters is invalid?  In a game with limited resources, players must decide where to spend those resources, and they often decide by comparing them.

Bad

As a stun power, 2 turns is meh. It finish too soon.
And as a damage cd, 20k is nothing. And in 2 turns anything can happen. 
So I fail to understand how it can be considered a good power, per 9 AP.

ThaRoadWarrior

Something to consider for those saying “both take 3 matches” is that that is the first fire; you have 2 AP banked up towards your second fire with Apocalypse’s 7 AP, and…0 banked up with a 9ap power. So it’s 3 red match’s followed by a 2-turn fingers crossed wait every time. That power is demonstrably not as good.

ThaRoadWarrior

I do think the purple is stealing 3 passively, and the active component is just so that it does the passive effect immediately when you change the type.

Seph1roth5

bbigler said:

I think people have gotten spoiled with 7 AP powers and think that 9 AP is too much.  Did we think Dr Strange’s 9 Blue AP stun & hit was too expensive? No, we thought it was great.  Any power between 7 - 9 AP takes 3 matches to get anyway (unless you’re constantly using AP boosts).  Elektra’s 9 Red AP stun & hit is not expensive, it’s priced correctly for what you get.  

Her yellow is an amazing bargain though.  With a yellow battery, this would be even better. 

I would bet her purple passive steals Grocket strikes on battle start, buffs them and reduces the enemies. Defaulting to strikes is more useful than attack or protect.  

That example is more my point lol.  For the same cost Dr. strange does damage, stuns, AND drains AP.

bbigler

Bad said:

As a stun power, 2 turns is meh. It finish too soon.
And as a damage cd, 20k is nothing. And in 2 turns anything can happen. 
So I fail to understand how it can be considered a good power, per 9 AP.

My assessment tier goes: 
Bad => OK => Good => Great => Amazing

So, “good” is in the middle, meaning it’s playable. OK powers are playable but weak. 

bbigler

entrailbucket said:

Except it's not at all difficult to compare characters from different categories.  There are at least two quite popular threads in the characters forum that rank all of the characters in order. 

Are you saying that any attempt to rank characters is invalid?  In a game with limited resources, players must decide where to spend those resources, and they often decide by comparing them.

Yes, we need to compare characters but comparing them is still difficult given the huge amount of variables involved.  We can compare individual powers but a character’s powers are meant to be played together.  We can try to compare similar characters such as offensive, defensive, batteries, board control, special tiles, etc …. but we’re still comparing apples to oranges.  

Many times character’s powers are a mix of the types stated above. This Elektra is a good example. Then it’s like we’re comparing a pasta salad with a stir fry.  

P.S. Colossus is a potato, he’s bland & boring, but gets the job done

Vhailorx

HoundofShadow said:

Unless you are using boost, all their powers require 3 match-3. Besides, we are comparing just the red power.

If we want to add in Apocalypse's yellow boost, then we need to throw in Elektra's yellow to even out the field.

450 Apocalypse's red will deal 12886 x 4 or 51, 544 damage. So, the first 3 hit of Apocalypse's red will be reduced by 50%. So, we have (6443 * 3) + 12886 = 32, 215 damage. So, his damage per ap will be 32315/14 = 2301.07

Elektra, on the other hand, would have dealt a total of 20851 + (8688*3) = 46915 damage. Her damage per ap would be 3127.66.

As you can see, Elektra's damage per ap on a level playing field is even better than Apocalypse and his boost. 

What can be seen is that they have different roles. Apocalypse is an all out offense character, whereas Elektra is a tactical/defensive character. In 1 v 1, Elektra can be better than Apocalypse.

This is a pretty poor comparison. You are ignoring a lot of variables that have a huge effect on the value of the powers (e.g., Elektra takes 2 turns to resolve and only does damage of the CD survives, and you are assuming that all 3 trap tiles are up when apoc's red is cast).  Plus you also ignore that apoc's damage boost can apply multiple times once cast, so it's value will go up as matches progress.

This is like claiming  5* Doc Oc's green is the most efficient power because it could do infinite damage for "just" 18ap.  Technically true if you ignore all the steps required to achieve that outcome.