Is crystal worth moonknight?

Vhailorx
Vhailorx Posts: 6,085 Chairperson of the Boards
in MPQ General Discussion
I have about 6 crystal covers now, and only 3 moonknights.  I like Crystal's kit a fair bit and think she is around as good as Heimdall: good and exploitable to great effect, but not quite meta.

Is it worth pulling for her if it means eating a bunch of moonknight covers?  Waiting for a crystal feeder to champ her could take a very, very long time, but every moonknight cover is one that would otherwise, presumably, be a new 5* (Thor?) cover.  And new charged tile 5* seems likely to be very good (assuming the numbers aren't ****).
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Comments

  • revskip
    revskip Posts: 1,010 Chairperson of the Boards
    Crystal is my new third for shield sim with Colossus and Scarlett witch.  She's fun to play with and annoying to play against.   

    She also slots on to a couple different team builds with her green power.  She's a super effective healer.  I can't wait to use her in a boosted week,  her red has great chip damage while you save up the AP and then another little burst of damage once you fire the power assuming you don't fire green first and change the element.  
  • WilliamK1983
    WilliamK1983 Posts: 978 Critical Contributor
    I champed her about 2 weeks ago, my first 5* champion.  I like her a lot, a complex skill set that's intriguing to me..  Still figuring out her nuances and all the rest like who she pairs well with, her slash line, etc.

    So I say yes but not because of Crystal.  Stick with me...you would also be potentially getting Gargantos covers.  I've been playing a little over a year and a half and having 2 of 3 in LLs who are very good or better is about as good as it gets.  If you pull for Crystal now, I would build up resources again until MK leaves and the new unnamed character arrives..  Then 2 if not all 3 (Garg, KK, newb) characters in LLs are very good or better again.  And who knows how long, if ever, it'll be for Crystal to get a feeder.  So yea I do like Crystal a lot but it's also about timing and best use of our scarce resources.   
  • TheEyeDoctorsWife
    TheEyeDoctorsWife Posts: 829 Critical Contributor
    How many times is Moon Knight still going to be in PvE? (1 or 2). With 10.5 covers (433) I probably need 1 cover to pull. I suppose I’m done as soon as I pull one cover .
  • meteor0905
    meteor0905 Posts: 62 Match Maker
    If you play SIM, go for it
  • dianetics
    dianetics Posts: 1,641 Chairperson of the Boards
    I use Crystal a lot now. She is very good as a third on a lot of different teams. She works well in pve and pvp when she is paired with a booster.

    My sim team right now is Crystal, Apoc, and 5witch. It's pretty fast and usually by the end of the match everyone is at or near full health.

    If you pull for her now you will end up with Moonknight and Gargantos covers. 2/3 good to great characters at the same time usually ends up as a sign for me to pull.

    If you want her you should probably pull for her now before she enters the classic legends abyss.
    If you are completely against having moonknight with potentially a lot of covers skip it.
  • Notepaddy
    Notepaddy Posts: 22 Just Dropped In
    She'll be a menace when boosted. Great third pick everywhere else. MK's stupid ap costs aren't the worst after playing with him a bit, black was 80k in pve the other day.
  • LavaManLee
    LavaManLee Posts: 1,434 Chairperson of the Boards
    IMHO, she is definitely worth it.  I think you will regret not having her champed.  MK is kind of a throwaway but you never know when he will come in handy.
  • jsmjsmjsm00
    jsmjsmjsm00 Posts: 268 Mover and Shaker
    MK eats most God-boost 5s. Running Valk next to him gets the green going and then you just win the match damage trades. The healing off his black is easier to get than you think. Matches where moon knight doesn't just die, he is ending at full health in my experience. He saves so many health packs vs boosted 5s.

    He won't beat every comp, but that's an unreasonable expectation. 
  • Xception81
    Xception81 Posts: 426 Mover and Shaker
    TheEyeDoctorsWife said:
    How many times is Moon Knight still going to be in PvE? (1 or 2). With 10.5 covers (433) I probably need 1 cover to pull. I suppose I’m done as soon as I pull one cover .
    Definitely one with a low probability of having a second. It depends if they’re planning on using Gargantos as the featured 5 in the next release event (which means he loses shards) or go with a Classic character instead. Since they gave out two covers during the prior boss event, it wouldn’t surprise me if they do use him as the “miss”, and if they do that, then MK has a chance of getting one last event right before he leaves the latest trio. 

    But if they throw in another boss event before then, or they use a Classic as the featured “miss”, or they reorder/redo the structure because they prefer something else now that they’re taking over, then he’ll probably miss his second. So many things up in the air until we get another week down the road or so. 
  • tonypq
    tonypq Posts: 557 Critical Contributor
    edited June 2022
    She's a nice change of pace for sure. I feel like with her abilities we might very often find that she pairs well with some newer characters down the road, also characters we have now once more people try her out in different teams. 

    Her red is fun for the extra damage on red matches and is fun when used with damage boost characters. Yellow heals a ton which have it's uses. If you use her green to pick air you can heal her back up and never need health packs with her which is nice. With her green I really only use fire or air, earth and wind are a bit underwhelming to me but it's nice having the options those elements provide regardless if needed. She's really fun boosted of course.

    I've used her quite a bit in a few different teams. She's fun with Okoye, also like using her with Polaris sometimes, Crystal's red is cheap and once used doesn't take long for Polaris to start piling up specials. She's ok probably good with 5SCARLET as well being able to use purple for more red tiles and she boosts damage as well. I've used Crystal boosted and non-boosted, she's fun either way. She might not be Apoc or Shang-Chi, but I feel like she's one of the better and fun 5s we've gotten in a long time. 

    As far as not wanting Moon Knight covers, I really hated him when he was released. After using him boosted he's decent enough when boosted, wasn't bad using him with Valkyrie as you're able to use his green fairly often. When not boosted I don't think I'd really ever use him much who knows. For me he's in a odd place where I actually enjoyed using him boosted quite a bit, but when not boosted probably towards the end of my 5s list for a character I'd use. When boosted and paired with Valk he was pretty fun firing off green a bunch and in the process seemed I usually was able to collect enough black to use it least once, which hits hard boosted. While boosted it was nice pairing him with characters he'd tank all the damage, then be able to heal up with his black. 

    Just sucks Crystal had to have MK in LLs with her. I wish MK was released before her so we could for Crystal, Gargs and Kamala instead of having to possibly end up with too many MK covers. When I pulled of course I just had to get more MK covers than Crystal or Gary's heh. But I was lucky enough to finish Crystal and not have to blow too many tokens and CPs, I had really good RNG for a change which was nice. 
  • Zalasta
    Zalasta Posts: 285 Mover and Shaker
    I don't have enough covers on MK to make an assessment, but I've already got Crystal covered, so I'll be pulling my hoard for MK/Gargantos/Kamala once she rotates out.  At this point, I've been able to use my earned LT & CP to keep up with champing latest 5-stars. It might be tight with MK, since I don't have as many covers for him as normal with him being next out.

    As for Crystal, I'd say she's worth having. Probably not meta, but definitely a solid 3rd that can help in unexpected ways. I've started using her more with various teams, and she's a solid contributor. I could live without her (I have almost 40 5-star champs), but I think she'll find a spot in my regular rotation.
  • gmp72
    gmp72 Posts: 164 Tile Toppler
    What’s the best cover config for Crystal ?
  • tonypq
    tonypq Posts: 557 Critical Contributor
    gmp72 said:
    What’s the best cover config for Crystal ?
    I think most go 553, for maximum damage. I've found yellow to be decent enough with 3 covers, but if there was a situation you need to boost of the team healing of course you can switch yellow to 5. I haven't actually tried my Crystal at 5 yellow covers but even at 3 it feel svery effective.
  • dianetics
    dianetics Posts: 1,641 Chairperson of the Boards
    I run her 355 since I pair her with apoc.
    her red is okay but apoc does a lot more damage. The extra healing is key when you are using her as a third.
    If she is the primary then probably 553
  • DAZ0273
    DAZ0273 Posts: 10,275 Chairperson of the Boards
    RNG decided I would not be covering Crystal but that I could have a bunch of Moon Knight covers although I dunno if I will be able to champ him, so I had better figure out how to use him I guess.
  • rainkingucd
    rainkingucd Posts: 1,419 Chairperson of the Boards
    DAZ0273 said:
    RNG decided I would not be covering Crystal but that I could have a bunch of Moon Knight covers although I dunno if I will be able to champ him, so I had better figure out how to use him I guess.
    Mine's the same.  I got her at 11 covers, but MK up to L456 already.  I like her and want to champ her but not sure I'll make it.  
  • Vhailorx
    Vhailorx Posts: 6,085 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited June 2022
    Well, since I got her champed I decided to try running the current events with her a bit to see how she works.  here are my initial crystal thoughts:

    (1) 5/5/3 and 3/5/5 are both viable, depending on what you want to do with her.  

    (2) Her green surprised me a bit as I found it was definitely a power that I would hold, even though it was cheap.  The best analogy I have is Iceman's blue; super valuable because the cost is low, but actually has a much higher ceiling if you hold on to it for the opportune moment. I typically found myself holding on to 6 or even 12 green so that I could swap passives on demand. It's about as efficient as Thor's green, and more flexible too due to the lower cost. A very good power, but also one where you want her to be the only green outlet on your team, I don't think you want this power competing for AP with some other nuke, even though the cost is low.

    (3) as one might expect, she works extremely well with valkyrie if you want to use crystal as the main damage dealer.  I suspect MODOK would also be a viable battery, but haven't tried it yet.  Halfthor would also be a great source of red and green, but I didn't absolutely love that synergy as thor also prevents her from making red matches and they compete for green. He does make it easier for her to heal by matching blue though, so that is nice.  Maybe I just haven't found the perfect third for them yet.

    (4) If you want to run her as support and focus on healing, then she works great with apoc.  I imagine apoc/cystal/thor is a very solid team, but haven't tried it yet. if only one of crystal/thor was a mutant to make apoc immune to stun.

    (5) Her healing procs less as the match goes on and the player AP pool increases, but it's quite efficient (especially against enemy teams that have passives and will frequently have big stacks of unusable ap). I was generally impressed with the efficacy of this ability, and have not seem passive burst heal this reliable since the halcyon days of carnage/medusa/pre-revision Mr. F (not that I don't have rescue champed), but it was occasionally unreliable.  It's a viable healthpack saver though, even as burst healing, because you can much more easily go into matches with damaged characters.

    (6) Her healing also gives her a little viability as a PVP defensive option because she drags matches out

    (7) her damage output is quite good for 1:1 level matches, but lags a tiny bit against boosted 5*s or cl10 challenge nodes. So bringing a damage booster like apoc or switch helps.  When boosted I expect her to hit very hard. 

    (8) I haven't yet found a support I like on her, so still experimenting with that and would love to hear any suggestions.

    (9) I would like to build a team completely around her red-match passive, with a damage booster + a red tile spammer. maybe something like 5witch + 5* storm or Modok?

    (10) I haven't tried her with SC yet, but I suspect there is some real promise there (but maybe too much damage for it to actually show?)

    My first impression is that she is more or less what I expected: a very solid character, but not quite meta because she is a tiny bit too clunky to use, and a little slower than the current best-in-class options.
  • meteor0905
    meteor0905 Posts: 62 Match Maker
    You may try pair crystal with melida may and surprise

    Vhailorx said:
    Well, since I got her champed I decided to try running the current events with her a bit to see how she works.  here are my initial crystal thoughts:

    (1) 5/5/3 and 3/5/5 are both viable, depending on what you want to do with her.  I was surprised at how well. 

    (2) Her green surprised me a bit as I found it was definitely a power that I would hold, even though it was cheap.  The best analogy I have is Iceman's blue; super valuable because the cost is low, but actually has a much higher ceiling if you hold on to it for the opportune moment. I typically found myself holding on to 6 or even 12 green so that I could swap passives on demand. It's about as efficient as Thor's green, and more flexible too due to the lower cost. A very good power, but also one where you want her to be the only green outlet on your team, I don't think you want this power competing for AP with some other nuke, even though the cost is low.

    (3) as one might expect, she works extremely well with valkyrie if you want to use crystal as the main damage dealer.  I suspect MODOK would also be a viable battery, but haven't tried it yet.  Halfthor would also be a great source of red and green, but I didn't absolutely love that synergy as thor also prevents her from making red matches and they compete for green. He does make it easier for her to heal by matching blue though, so that is nice.  Maybe I just haven't found the perfect third for them yet.

    (4) If you want to run her as support and focus on healing, then she works great with apoc.  I imagine apoc/cystal/thor is a very solid team, but haven't tried it yet. if only one of crystal/thor was a mutant to make apoc immune to stun.

    (5) Her healing gets less efficient as the match goes on and the player AP pool increases, but it's quite efficient (especially against enemy teams that have passives and will frequently have big stacks of unusable ap). I was generally impressed with the efficacy of this ability, and have not seem passive burst heal this reliable since the halcyon days of carnage/medusa/pre-revision Mr. F (not that I don't have rescue champed), but it was occasionally unreliable.  It's a viable healthpack saver though, even as burst healing, because you can much more easily go into matches with damaged characters.

    (6) Her healing also gives her a little viability as a PVP defensive option because she drags matches out

    (7) her damage output is quite good for 1:1 level matches, but lags a tiny bit against boosted 5*s or cl10 challenge nodes. So bringing a damage booster like apoc or switch helps.  When boosted I expect her to hit very hard. 

    (8) I haven't yet found a support I like on her, so still experimenting with that and would love to hear any suggestions.

    (9) I would like to build a team completely around her red-match passive, with a damage booster + a red tile spammer. maybe something like 5witch + 5* storm or Modok?

    (10) I haven't tried her with SC yet, but I suspect there is some real promise there (but maybe too much damage for it to actually show?)

    My first impression is that she is more or less what I expected: a very solid character, but not quite meta because she is a tiny bit too clunky to use, and a little slower than the current best-in-class options.

  • dianetics
    dianetics Posts: 1,641 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited June 2022
    I am inclined to believe she is Apoc’s best partner.
    As for supports for her, when she is paired with Apoc throw on Cap’s Vintage Shield or SP//DR (whichever is higher) for the bonus yellow at the start of the round.
    If you pair her with another hero throw on a support that helps her partner. Or a support that creates special tiles like Chewie.

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