NorthernPolarity wrote: Alright, I'm convinced 3/5/5 is probably optimal in general. 1. 3->5 black is an extra 800 damage and 1 AP / turn stolen. This actually isn't that important: 2 AP / turn is more than enough, especially cause its situational in that if the enemy is out of AP, then all you got was an extra 800 damage. 2. 3->5 purple more than doubles the damage. 3->5 green almost doubles the damage, AND gives you 2 tiles a turn to fuel purple. Looking at 3->4 vs 3->5, its easy to see that you need to go 5 in any ability since each one has a significant upgrade, so any build involving a 4 probably doesn't make sense.
Phaserhawk wrote: NorthernPolarity wrote: Alright, I'm convinced 3/5/5 is probably optimal in general. 1. 3->5 black is an extra 800 damage and 1 AP / turn stolen. This actually isn't that important: 2 AP / turn is more than enough, especially cause its situational in that if the enemy is out of AP, then all you got was an extra 800 damage. 2. 3->5 purple more than doubles the damage. 3->5 green almost doubles the damage, AND gives you 2 tiles a turn to fuel purple. Looking at 3->4 vs 3->5, its easy to see that you need to go 5 in any ability since each one has a significant upgrade, so any build involving a 4 probably doesn't make sense. Green only increases damage by 30% you get two 58 strike tiles, not two 89 strike tiles.
ark123 wrote: Is this the best purple in 3* land? 10 ap for 2 tiles that tick for 1300+ each turn seems pretty difficult to best
NorthernPolarity wrote: Phaserhawk wrote: Fair enough. It also doubles the rate at which purple grows though, so that is mitigated somewhat by the fact that purple gets online a lot quicker than with 1 tile / turn. Basically the question is, is getting 1 extra AP a turn and 800 damage worth what looks like halving purples potential damage output? Even though black is probably gonna be used more cause its cheaper, it's probably not worth gimping purple by such a huge amount.
Phaserhawk wrote: Fair enough. It also doubles the rate at which purple grows though, so that is mitigated somewhat by the fact that purple gets online a lot quicker than with 1 tile / turn. Basically the question is, is getting 1 extra AP a turn and 800 damage worth what looks like halving purples potential damage output? Even though black is probably gonna be used more cause its cheaper, it's probably not worth gimping purple by such a huge amount.
Sandmaker wrote: NorthernPolarity wrote: Phaserhawk wrote: Fair enough. It also doubles the rate at which purple grows though, so that is mitigated somewhat by the fact that purple gets online a lot quicker than with 1 tile / turn. Basically the question is, is getting 1 extra AP a turn and 800 damage worth what looks like halving purples potential damage output? Even though black is probably gonna be used more cause its cheaper, it's probably not worth gimping purple by such a huge amount. I think this is the right way to look at it. One extra ap drain is almost nothing in the long run. Your opponent can either fire the ability or it can't. A 2p drain will do almost the exact same job as a 3ap drain at preventing him from casting the ability. The number of turns to drain to empty isn't that different either: 12 AP - Lvl3=6turns, lvl 5=4 turns. 11 AP - Lvl3=6turns, lvl 5=4 turns. 10 AP - Lvl3=5turns, lvl 5=4 turns. 9 AP - Lvl3=5turns, lvl 5=3 turns. 8 AP - Lvl3=4turns, lvl 5=3 turns. 7 AP - Lvl3=4turns, lvl 5=3 turns. 6 AP - Lvl3=3turns, lvl 5=2 turns. 5 AP - Lvl3=3turns, lvl 5=2 turns. You see that in general the difference is 2 turns at max, with most cases being 1 turn. The only other factor is the 800 damage, which 5 purple or 5 green makes up for in spades. Add in the fact that black is starting to become a crowded color, while purple is the rarest color in the game, and green is a passive. I think 3/5/5 is definitely the way to go.
Phaserhawk wrote: Lets also assume that you can match 10 purple in 4 turns.
MarcusGraves wrote: stealing is awesome, but its only for strongest color which could potentially be worthless depending on you or the enemy's team comp. also if they've been completely drained of that color then the CD tile becomes worthless until they make a match with that color and black just becomes an okay damage power. there is a case to be made where a rank 5 Nightstalker will keep the enemy drained if they ever make a 3 match of that color but then again the potential for the CD tile to just sit there and do nothing doesn't really excite me.
simonsez wrote: MarcusGraves wrote: stealing is awesome, but its only for strongest color which could potentially be worthless depending on you or the enemy's team comp. also if they've been completely drained of that color then the CD tile becomes worthless until they make a match with that color and black just becomes an okay damage power. there is a case to be made where a rank 5 Nightstalker will keep the enemy drained if they ever make a 3 match of that color but then again the potential for the CD tile to just sit there and do nothing doesn't really excite me. This is one good reason why I'm starting to see Blade as mostly an anti-goon. They'll never run out of their strongest color, so they'll keep feeding it to you. It'd also be easy to keep reds on the board, since most goons don't use red for their countdowns. If used as anti-goon, red 3 is actually better than 5, since the strike tile is stronger. Having it take 5-6 more turns to fill up the board with strike tiles isn't much of a downside when you're in full control of the board.
simonsez wrote: This is one good reason why I'm starting to see Blade as mostly an anti-goon.
NorthernPolarity wrote: Sandmaker wrote: NorthernPolarity wrote: Phaserhawk wrote: Fair enough. It also doubles the rate at which purple grows though, so that is mitigated somewhat by the fact that purple gets online a lot quicker than with 1 tile / turn. Basically the question is, is getting 1 extra AP a turn and 800 damage worth what looks like halving purples potential damage output? Even though black is probably gonna be used more cause its cheaper, it's probably not worth gimping purple by such a huge amount. I think this is the right way to look at it. One extra ap drain is almost nothing in the long run. Your opponent can either fire the ability or it can't. A 2p drain will do almost the exact same job as a 3ap drain at preventing him from casting the ability. The number of turns to drain to empty isn't that different either: 12 AP - Lvl3=6turns, lvl 5=4 turns. 11 AP - Lvl3=6turns, lvl 5=4 turns. 10 AP - Lvl3=5turns, lvl 5=4 turns. 9 AP - Lvl3=5turns, lvl 5=3 turns. 8 AP - Lvl3=4turns, lvl 5=3 turns. 7 AP - Lvl3=4turns, lvl 5=3 turns. 6 AP - Lvl3=3turns, lvl 5=2 turns. 5 AP - Lvl3=3turns, lvl 5=2 turns. You see that in general the difference is 2 turns at max, with most cases being 1 turn. The only other factor is the 800 damage, which 5 purple or 5 green makes up for in spades. Add in the fact that black is starting to become a crowded color, while purple is the rarest color in the game, and green is a passive. I think 3/5/5 is definitely the way to go. Talking with Colog who has him at 5/3/5, I would say that 5/3/5 can be okay if you intend to use Blade solely for climbing PvP/ easy nodes in PvE. The thing about purple is that when you're climbing or in fast matches, you wont have the AP to cast it. On the other hand, you're gonna cast black basically every game cause its so cheap, so getting that extra 700 damage out is better than an ability that you're never gonna cast. I still think that 3/5/5 is better since it makes him infinitely more viable in longer matches, but if your roster is so good that all you see Blade as is a Daken style, really fast climber that you aren't gonna use for any other purpose, then 5/3/5 is probably best in that case.
Phaserhawk wrote: I also thought this, but then I remembered, why would I run Blade over X-Force? I generally run X-Force/Hood, or X-Force/C.Mags for quick runs up the the PvP ladder, than just shield hop with Sentry/Hood. I very rarely run Sentry/Daken since the Daken nerf as the strike tiles aren't good enough, I prefer Sentry/BP to that so for me, running Blade/Hood would be dumb and Blade/X-Force would be even dumber. Now if X-Force, Hood, and Sentry all see the nerf bat, perhaps Blade would bare another look, but face it, unless anything comes close to the power of X-Force/Sentry/Hood just create a build you like. Now if you took those three out of the game I see Blade being a top notch character, and you probably then want him 5/3/5 or 5/5/3 since black would be very valuable, then adjust your partner to utilize the strong colors of the other team. PvE having 5 purple is a must and in fast PvP 5 black would be better assuming no other use, yeah, I don't know, this guy is frustrating to find a right build but that's usually a sign of a well balanced character.
Phaserhawk wrote: Just came to a realization on his build and why I now think 5/5/3 is the way to go. 1.) Has anyone else noticed their Hood just doesn't seem to be stealing as much AP as he used to? I have, it's not that he doesn't, he just doesn't seem to do it as often, and I realized that it was because I ran him with X-Force and what does X-Force do? He resets the board, and becaue he resets the board he increases the drops which overtime evens the board back out. Couple this with the fact that I love running C.Mags with X-Force and Hood when I can and I always have a board that roughly has the same number of tiles out. 2.) Along the X-Force line, because his Green X-Force is indiscriminate, any time he casts it it runs the chance of blowing up everything, not to mention when you add C.Mags as well. 3.) And maybe the biggest factor, we keep saying how there really isn't a reason to worry about red, it's not a color that we have to worry about. And then I remembered and I'm not talking about the male version. We will see 4* Thor soon enough and when you start leaving red on the board for her to pick up, ummm, yeah not planning on doing that anytime soon. Because even if you manage to get a Nightstalker CD tile out on her but you are a 3/5/5 build, she has the ability to gain AP faster than you can drain it, not all that likely but she still has the chance, especially after a Power Surge. and to quote Northern Polarity "I never really understood why people think that not matching red is "very bad". What characters in the game actually have GOOD reds? C. Mags, DP, Torch, Colossus, of which only C. Mags sees some play in high end PvP. Look at like every single top tier PvP character: LazyThor, Sentry, X Force, Hood, BP: NONE of them have a red that you actively want to match: why is not prioritizing red bad again?" 4* Thor is why not prioritizing red will be bad and that is why I plan on going 5/5/3 or 5/3/5 if I need the strike tiles out I'll just use Daken. Further more 3/5/5 to 5/5/3. Assuming you want to cast Nightstalker, which, why wouldn't you, you would have to activate that extra damage from the 3/5/5 strike tile to the 5/5/3 strike tile 29 times to make up the difference of damage froma level 3 Nightstalker to a level 5 Nightstalker.
wymtime wrote: The biggest thing with Blade is you have to make and your priority. Right now and and are the big priority colors. In order to fully utilize him you really need to change your mindset and focus on and I think the 2 best builds are 5,3,5 and 3,5,5. It will come down to how much you can focus on Purple. 2 attack tiles at over 1k damage each can cut anyone down in a couple of turns, the question is how long will it take you to get 10 purple? When you you do will you have enough strike tiles out? I think his health is what will keep him from being a top 5 character but will be a nice change from Hood/Daken. He will work in both PVP and PVE. Too bad it will take 3 months for a FTP player to max cover him.