New Character - Arnim Zola (Digital Scientist) 4*

@entrailbucket said:

@Blackstone said:
Even his team ups (which I just inexplicably have) are tiny kitty useless.

I generally try to find a positive perspective to things, but this guy is just a blight upon my roster.

Worse...I spent years asking for Zemo and when we finally get him this piece of trash is immediately attached to Zemo which only makes Zemo worse by association.

This seems excessive. Currently, he's a good 3rd for the Nova/Hulk team because he'll die fast and generate green AP while he's dead. That is at least one use, even though it's kind of a silly one.

But what is anybody going to do with any unascended 4* ? There's 3* Aunt May and 3* Namor, and I guess 4* Moonstone? Otherwise they're basically all dead weight until they hit 5* and get some levels or a boost.

When they gave us Sidewinder that was a total disaster, so I prefer it this way.

I'll cover him for the sake of covering him. There's zero reason to chase or prioritize him though. And I'll hate using him when he's required, but not as much as I hate using oscorp Spidey, so there's that.

Even your silly useful when he's dead idea means he's better off unascended, so I'm not sure what you're saying is excessive.

Obviously not every character is going to be meta, and I don't expect them to be. Moonstone is useful, but isn't meta. I like moonstone. Just saying that to inform that I'm not saying every character needs to be OP. That would be ridiculous. I just don't like using Zola. He slows down play and just doesn't do anything worth the time.

One green AP per turn to feed Nova, after he dies? Go for it if that works for you. Doesn't seem worth it to me.

I guess I'm not disagreeing with you that he's useless (at least until you pile a million covers on him to ascend).

I'm just questioning how he's uniquely useless and worthy of scorn, because basically every other 4* is the same way.

@entrailbucket said:
I guess I'm not disagreeing with you that he's useless (at least until you pile a million covers on him to ascend).

I'm just questioning how he's uniquely useless and worthy of scorn, because basically every other 4* is the same way.

The fact that he converts strike tiles to attack tiles then attack tiles to CDs is kind of bad, actually. In generally when you make a team based around SAP tiles you kind of want to keep them around. He even has a "Fortify/improve" power, which is really weird. Sure, he then generates strikes when they expire, but I think he's a liability to your average SAP team.

OTOH both he and Zemo benefit from these Hydra tiles, so there's that. He may be interesting to build a team around when you ascend him, but he definitely runs counter to a lot of the strategies in the game.

@GrimSkald said:

@entrailbucket said:
I guess I'm not disagreeing with you that he's useless (at least until you pile a million covers on him to ascend).

I'm just questioning how he's uniquely useless and worthy of scorn, because basically every other 4* is the same way.

The fact that he converts strike tiles to attack tiles then attack tiles to CDs is kind of bad, actually. In generally when you make a team based around SAP tiles you kind of want to keep them around. He even has a "Fortify/improve" power, which is really weird. Sure, he then generates strikes when they expire, but I think he's a liability to your average SAP team.

OTOH both he and Zemo benefit from these Hydra tiles, so there's that. He may be interesting to build a team around when you ascend him, but he definitely runs counter to a lot of the strategies in the game.

I think I'd try building him (and probably Zemo) as a CD spam team that happens to make some special tiles too. Is it good? No idea! I don't have either of them anywhere close to usable yet. I think one of the problems with both guys is that none of the usual combo-testers has them right now.

@LavaManLee said:

@entrailbucket said:

@GrimSkald said:

@entrailbucket said:
I guess I'm not disagreeing with you that he's useless (at least until you pile a million covers on him to ascend).

I'm just questioning how he's uniquely useless and worthy of scorn, because basically every other 4* is the same way.

The fact that he converts strike tiles to attack tiles then attack tiles to CDs is kind of bad, actually. In generally when you make a team based around SAP tiles you kind of want to keep them around. He even has a "Fortify/improve" power, which is really weird. Sure, he then generates strikes when they expire, but I think he's a liability to your average SAP team.

OTOH both he and Zemo benefit from these Hydra tiles, so there's that. He may be interesting to build a team around when you ascend him, but he definitely runs counter to a lot of the strategies in the game.

I think I'd try building him (and probably Zemo) as a CD spam team that happens to make some special tiles too. Is it good? No idea! I don't have either of them anywhere close to usable yet. I think one of the problems with both guys is that none of the usual combo-testers has them right now.

Agreed. It's interesting how tough they are making the last 5/4 to get with no feeders. Yet, their kit screams "so what?". But they make Frankie and Moonstone super easy to get and, especially Frankie, those two are world's better.

I don't play super competitively any more but Frankie/MT/IronMay (and all nonboosted) can make every PVE node in SCL10 over in no more than 3 turns with Yaro/Atlantis equipped and no AP needed. Usually it's just one turn. Sometimes the FU node takes three. But that's very rare.

My gut is that they have decided over the past few months to move to a "no feeder/new feeder" approach. They make plans and each character takes 12-16 weeks, they've said, to move through the process of development. So it took a bit to fully implement. This is all due to low revenue.

Moonstone didn't have a feeder, but they always put a whole lot of covers in for new 4s for 12 weeks and then you're favoriting them if you want more (or do it sooner). So yeah, easy to get covers up to a point.

Frankie, I mean they probably knew people would want her at a high level based on her kit so holding back feeders wasn't helpful to getting people to want her, and they probably have, like I said, decided to make us chase more just to roster people. Also she was the FF tie in 5* so maybe they wanted to make people who might have logged in when the movie came out have some covers waiting for them.

@bluewolf said:

@LavaManLee said:

@entrailbucket said:

@GrimSkald said:

@entrailbucket said:
I guess I'm not disagreeing with you that he's useless (at least until you pile a million covers on him to ascend).

I'm just questioning how he's uniquely useless and worthy of scorn, because basically every other 4* is the same way.

The fact that he converts strike tiles to attack tiles then attack tiles to CDs is kind of bad, actually. In generally when you make a team based around SAP tiles you kind of want to keep them around. He even has a "Fortify/improve" power, which is really weird. Sure, he then generates strikes when they expire, but I think he's a liability to your average SAP team.

OTOH both he and Zemo benefit from these Hydra tiles, so there's that. He may be interesting to build a team around when you ascend him, but he definitely runs counter to a lot of the strategies in the game.

I think I'd try building him (and probably Zemo) as a CD spam team that happens to make some special tiles too. Is it good? No idea! I don't have either of them anywhere close to usable yet. I think one of the problems with both guys is that none of the usual combo-testers has them right now.

Agreed. It's interesting how tough they are making the last 5/4 to get with no feeders. Yet, their kit screams "so what?". But they make Frankie and Moonstone super easy to get and, especially Frankie, those two are world's better.

I don't play super competitively any more but Frankie/MT/IronMay (and all nonboosted) can make every PVE node in SCL10 over in no more than 3 turns with Yaro/Atlantis equipped and no AP needed. Usually it's just one turn. Sometimes the FU node takes three. But that's very rare.

My gut is that they have decided over the past few months to move to a "no feeder/new feeder" approach. They make plans and each character takes 12-16 weeks, they've said, to move through the process of development. So it took a bit to fully implement. This is all due to low revenue.

Moonstone didn't have a feeder, but they always put a whole lot of covers in for new 4s for 12 weeks and then you're favoriting them if you want more (or do it sooner). So yeah, easy to get covers up to a point.

Frankie, I mean they probably knew people would want her at a high level based on her kit so holding back feeders wasn't helpful to getting people to want her, and they probably have, like I said, decided to make us chase more just to roster people. Also she was the FF tie in 5* so maybe they wanted to make people who might have logged in when the movie came out have some covers waiting for them.

This feels like confirmation bias -- you're inventing a theory and then looking for evidence to support it.

I don't think the devs are, or ever were, capable of devising and then implementing a scheme like the one you describe. All this stuff is basically random because they don't understand the metagame.

@Timemachinego said:

@entrailbucket said:

an the minimum research on any non 5* characters.

Her yellow power goes infinite by itself. You cast that power to make multiple black matches, and then the passive converts that AP to yellow. It's slow if you don't have any teammates that can speed her up, but there are lots of characters that can do that for you.

Ooh, that's actually kind of neat! Thanks for explaining! I'm thinking a team with ascended Mbaku, (3)Namor and Moonstone would be pretty gross.

Pair her with 5* Electro and 5* Winter Soldier for all kinds of fun.

On the final hard node of WTS I likewise found Zemo and/or Zola popping off stuff with no idea what but it was destroying the opposition. Intriguing.