Predator and Prey - 6/4 - 6/7 How does it feel to be hunted?

Rusalka

I just wish - as a general rule - they were better at rotating them. I had my Lazy Thor at 0/4/5 before I pulled my first red from a heroic.

Yeah, my LazyCap has been sitting at 5/5/2 for weeks, and both his blue covers came from token pulls. It's sad.

Speaking of which, I've been running BP/LCap/Hulk for this event, but I'm wondering if it's worth subbing in Patch for Hulk. Neither one of them has a great build -- my Hulk is lvl 115 with 5/4/2, and Patch is lvl 102 with 4/4/2. What do you guys think?

Unknown

I'm hoping I might get lucky with the Progress Reward Pack and get a Black or Yellow cover for my BP. After the PVE event, mine will be 1/3/2.

Unknown

Rusalka wrote:

I just wish - as a general rule - they were better at rotating them. I had my Lazy Thor at 0/4/5 before I pulled my first red from a heroic.

Yeah, my LazyCap has been sitting at 5/5/2 for weeks, and both his blue covers came from token pulls. It's sad.

Speaking of which, I've been running BP/LCap/Hulk for this event, but I'm wondering if it's worth subbing in Patch for Hulk. Neither one of them has a great build -- my Hulk is lvl 115 with 5/4/2, and Patch is lvl 102 with 4/4/2. What do you guys think?

You can sub in hulk for your defensive team but for quicker fights, I would try patch and collect the needed green and black and fire Bezerk, then BP black for extra damage to all enemies.

Unknown

Emeryt wrote:

But in the game? 1 strong power which costs quite a lot. good hp. anything else?

Come on Emeryt, in a world where 30 seconds of playtime is the difference between reshielding and getting hit for -200, high hp and a power that makes you dead after an unlucky cascade is enough!

Kelbris

Emeryt wrote:

The moment I realised BT tourney is coming soon, I started feeding him with ISO. He's 535 now at lvl115 (got 35lvl recently), will probably get another 5-15lvls till the end of Predator and Prey.

...and I still don't understand the phenomenon of Black Panther. Sure, he's awesome in the comics. Sure, this motion comic drawn by my favourite John Romita JR was amazing and I watch it once a month.

But in the game? 1 strong power which costs quite a lot. good hp. anything else?

Oh yeah, the animations. I realized today that he's trying to scratch me. Before that I was all "why the hell he keeps on throwing some discs at me?" :?

I'll stick to Patch + CMags/Hulk.

High HP, tanks EV, gives a good black power (which is generally a less-matched color) since Punisher is irrelevant if you have Thor, Yellow and blue are decent enough

Thor/Mags/BP is one hell of a team: a spammy red (with a decent damage alternative), a great nuke on green and black, good single target attacks for yellow and purple... And well, Mags blue. Hell, I ran Patch/Mags/BP least tournament because BP filled out use for yellow and black.

I'll probably replace Mags with Steve after the Nerf.

Patch/CMags/Hulk is quite possibly my favorite team to pound in PvP.

over_clocked

Kelbris wrote:

High HP, tanks EV, gives a good black power (which is generally a less-matched color) since Punisher is irrelevant if you have Thor, Yellow and blue are decent enough

Thor/Mags/BP is one hell of a team: a spammy red (with a decent damage alternative), a great nuke on green and black, good single target attacks for yellow and purple... And well, Mags blue.

I'll probably replace Mags with Steve after the Nerf.

Patch/CMags/Hulk is quite possibly my favorite team to pound in PvP.

Would you say then that BP/Mags/LT is scarier than BP/LT/Hood and definitely scarier than Patch/BP/Hulk? My Mags is 5/5/3 and LT is lvl 128 3/4/5 (thinking of buying the last yellow).
I maxed BP just in time for this tourney and I only barely hope not to be pounded on to minus 500 pts after each climb by everyone else with 5+ 141s

franckynight

The scariest team will be sentry/daken/bp on defence.. No nonsense for the ai. With LT/bp/Mag, the ai uses bp yellow instead of saving 4 more for thunderstorm.. And there are the strike tiles..the quick nuke.. World rapture.. Oh well..

Bowgentle

franckynight wrote:

The scariest team will be sentry/daken/bp on defence.. No nonsense for the ai. With LT/bp/Mag, the ai uses bp yellow instead of saving 4 more for thunderstorm.. And there are the strike tiles..the quick nuke.. World rapture.. Oh well..

Yeah, but outside of whales, no-one has a Sentry. So that is out.

I'll be running LT/Hood. We'll see how far that gets me.

over_clocked

franckynight wrote:

The scariest team will be sentry/daken/bp on defence.. No nonsense for the ai. With LT/bp/Mag, the ai uses bp yellow instead of saving 4 more for thunderstorm.. And there are the strike tiles..the quick nuke.. World rapture.. Oh well..

Only a percentile has all three maxed, namely whales, namely those who usually shield 90% of the time, so not that visible at all.
In a month or two, maybe.

franckynight

if i got them all maxed.. i stay unshielded all event long.. that'll get me a lot of defensive wins..and in the last occurence of star fall i saw a zillion maxed sentry already..

Mawtful

I've been trying out BP/Hulk/Mags in the early stages of this event - since my Mags is currently only L55 (and can only soft cap at L89) and my LT is soft capped at L66.

It's a nice enough team - a little slow, but it's got rainbow actives and two moves for disrupting the board. I think I'd definitely give it another shot when/if I ever get more covers for Mags.

Unknown

Black Panther's Battleplan is 9 AP, versus 8 AP for Sacrifice, so there's an extremely high chance that a team cannot pull off the Sacrifice + World Rupture combo on defense even if they happen to have the AP for it, because the only way this is possible is if the other team have exactly 8 yellow AP and 8+ green AP. Yes Daken strike tile hurts too, but you're obviously still hoping the AI would drop a Sacrifice to augment World Rupture for the sure kill. In fact this combination of AP would almost be like playing without ever being able to Sacrifice at all, which greatly hinders Sentry.

On the opposite end The Hood's Intimidation at 9 AP is one less match than Rage of the Panther at 12 AP. That said, in the limited games I encountered this combination The Hood didn't use Intimidation for a few turns. I cannot say if the AI has been tweaked or if this is just bad luck (there's always a chance the AI saves up for Rage, just not often) but I've noticed some different behavior on same color ability selection in the Simulator Basic too. If there's some secret tweaks to make the AI better at saving up, then BP/The Hood/LT is strictly a better defensive team than BP/Mag/LT. Of course Magneto is still way better on offense, but The Hood is probably good enough to win on offense for you. I might switch to that team if I continue to see AI skipping Intimidation.

franckynight

i run with bp/cmag/patch for my climb.. and Lt/Bp/mag on defence.. maybe i rotate with Lcap/Bp/hulk.. it depends on what seems the scariest for the hordes.. (i know cmag/patch eat them alive but still..)

Bowgentle

Phantron wrote:

On the opposite end The Hood's Intimidation at 9 AP is one less match than Rage of the Panther at 12 AP. That said, in the limited games I encountered this combination The Hood didn't use Intimidation for a few turns. I cannot say if the AI has been tweaked or if this is just bad luck (there's always a chance the AI saves up for Rage, just not often) but I've noticed some different behavior on same color ability selection in the Simulator Basic too. If there's some secret tweaks to make the AI better at saving up, then BP/The Hood/LT is strictly a better defensive team than BP/Mag/LT. Of course Magneto is still way better on offense, but The Hood is probably good enough to win on offense for you. I might switch to that team if I continue to see AI skipping Intimidation.

Thanks for that insight and testing!
I'll be sticking to LT/Hood then, wonderful.

franckynight

Phantron wrote:

Black Panther's Battleplan is 9 AP, versus 8 AP for Sacrifice, so there's an extremely high chance that a team cannot pull off the Sacrifice + World Rupture combo on defense even if they happen to have the AP for it, because the only way this is possible is if the other team have exactly 8 yellow AP and 8+ green AP. Yes Daken strike tile hurts too, but you're obviously still hoping the AI would drop a Sacrifice to augment World Rupture for the sure kill. In fact this combination of AP would almost be like playing without ever being able to Sacrifice at all, which greatly hinders Sentry.

On the opposite end The Hood's Intimidation at 9 AP is one less match than Rage of the Panther at 12 AP. That said, in the limited games I encountered this combination The Hood didn't use Intimidation for a few turns. I cannot say if the AI has been tweaked or if this is just bad luck (there's always a chance the AI saves up for Rage, just not often) but I've noticed some different behavior on same color ability selection in the Simulator Basic too. If there's some secret tweaks to make the AI better at saving up, then BP/The Hood/LT is strictly a better defensive team than BP/Mag/LT. Of course Magneto is still way better on offense, but The Hood is probably good enough to win on offense for you. I might switch to that team if I continue to see AI skipping Intimidation.

i will test it.. i was annoyed cause hood and bp tank the same colors and i thought intimidation will be casted first.. i ll take a look..

Unknown

Oh yeah although this is only anecdotal evidence, I saw the AI got 9y, skipped Battleplan, then got 12y, and skipped Thunder Strike, until it had 15 for a Twin Pistols. I don't think I've ever seen the AI saved all the way up to 15 yellow when it has two cheaper abilities. Again, this is no proof because there is always a chance, but I think this is the first time I've seen a Twin Pistols used with any cheaper yellow power reached earlier (the AI obviously would use Twin Pistols if it did collect 15 yellow in one turn). Of course I still also see the AI use Battleplan over Thunder Strike (Thor + BP is a pretty common team). It makes me wonder maybe the AI now just picks an ability to save up (or not) once and then sticks to the plan, rather than the old way where each turn it makes a roll to decide if it'll save up and invariably ends up not saving after enough turns.

Unknown

franckynight wrote:

i will test it.. i was annoyed cause hood and bp tank the same colors and i thought intimidation will be casted first.. i ll take a look..

The AI used to work like this. Each turn, if they've enough for an ability they will decide whether to save up for the more expensive ability. They also do this EVERY turn. Let's say there's a 75% chance they'll save up for Rage of the Panther while having 9 black AP (which seems an extremely high estimate), but as long as you can deny a black match for 4 turns (which should be easy), chances are extremely good the AI will just roll 'don't save up' in the next 4 turns and use Intimidation.

Now, obviously I have no proof, but now it feels like the AI is much more persistent when it does decide to save up for an ability. That is, it is still free to choose to use Intimidation over Rage, but if it made the roll for Rage, it doesn't seem to change its mind (unless BP dies, of course). Earlier in Simulator Basic I saw Ares did Onslaught (5g) while Juggernaut is around (6g for Unstoppable Crash) with 9 green. That used to be impossible, and if I wasn't imagining things, that'd imply that the AI must have made a roll to use Onslaught and it will use that even when it has enough for a bigger ability. My guess is that the AI now simply picks an ability in a color, probably randomly but weighted by costs, and once it makes up its mind that's the only ability it will use unless the user of that ability died. If this is indeed the case, that'd make teams with multiple same color skill a lot stronger on defense. Yes the AI can still choose the wrong skills, but before there are some same color skills that will almost never be used.

over_clocked

How three games went just now.
1) low BP, maxed Hulk, some third - forget who
get blue for Magneto, get a crit on EAP, Thorned rose, Rage, finish the Hulk with leftover red and blue

2) decent BP with 5000 health, maxed Punisher/Magneto
get 5 blue, start chaining blue to get black, in the process get everyone to 4,667 health mark or slightly below
Rage and enjoy the sight of all three opponents dropping to dust

3) whatever BP, cStorm, maxed Hulk
get some blue, notice lack of black on the board, start chaining blue to land crits on EAP, use Thorned Rose twice
Rage (killing cStorm and BP), finish the Hulk with Call the Storm, Magnetic Translocation and some Mjolnir's Might

Even without Magneto, I could take Doom and/or MMN, charge black and lay waste. Bad for defense, sure.

That's probably how buffed lvl 212 Sentry games look like (only it's your health you trade for, not enemy AP).

morgh

Not really a fan of math and stuff but what the AI does is that if it has for example 3 available yellow skills (at 8 / 12/ 15), every time it has some AP, it does a roll, which can result in:
* at >=8 AP but <12 - either use the 8 AP skill or keep on playing (so a 50/50 chance)
* at >=12 but <15 - either use the 8 AP or use the 12 AP or keep playing (so a 33/33/33 chance)
* at >=15 - not sure but from what I have seen through my ~130 days of playing, this one has only one possible outcome - use the 15 AP skill

And the check/roll is done on every turn, which means that it IS POSSIBLE to forego all the cheaper skills for the more expensive one, but in no way can this be considered an act of conscious "saving" (ie - the completely random decision is made every turn instead of once, like we do for example at the beginning of the match)

Unknown

morgh wrote:

Not really a fan of math and stuff but what the AI does is that if it has for example 3 available yellow skills (at 8 / 12/ 15), every time it has some AP, it does a roll, which can result in:
* at >=8 AP but <12 - either use the 8 AP skill or keep on playing (so a 50/50 chance)
* at >=12 but <15 - either use the 8 AP or use the 12 AP or keep playing (so a 33/33/33 chance)
* at >=15 - not sure but from what I have seen through my ~130 days of playing, this one has only one possible outcome - use the 15 AP skill

And the check/roll is done on every turn, which means that it IS POSSIBLE to forego all the cheaper skills for the more expensive one, but in no way can this be considered an act of conscious "saving" (ie - the completely random decision is made every turn instead of once, like we do for example at the beginning of the match)

I think they must have tweaked this, or at least made the AI with much stronger willpower. I saw my first Twin Pistols used by AI with both Battleplan (9) and Thunder Strike (12) reached but not used. Of course everything is a chance, but the chance of the AI not giving in to the temptation of using Battleplan or Thunder Strike when it has enough AP for them is practically 0 based on my past experience. Then again, I saw 7 yellow tiles dropped in a row of 8, and I'm pretty sure that's the first time I ever saw it, so I cannot rule out freak accident either.