*** Blade (Daywalker) ***

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  • Phaserhawk
    Phaserhawk Posts: 2,676 Chairperson of the Boards
    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.
  • NorthernPolarity
    NorthernPolarity Posts: 3,531 Chairperson of the Boards
    Phaserhawk 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.

    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.
  • 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

    Deadpool's Purple.
  • Sandmaker
    Sandmaker Posts: 208 Tile Toppler
    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.
  • NorthernPolarity
    NorthernPolarity Posts: 3,531 Chairperson of the Boards
    Sandmaker 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.
  • MarcusGraves
    MarcusGraves Posts: 495 Mover and Shaker
    gotta say 3/5/5 because in this game, anything that boosts a character's consistency is highly valuable to me.

    spending 10 purple AP to get just 1 attack tile is very risky, especially since its only being dropped on the same color tiles as said power. Being able to get two out on the first shot increases your chances (even if it is small) of getting one of the tiles placed in a fantastic spot where it can last for multiple turns or at least let you keep one out if you have no choice but to make a purple match that has one of the attack tiles on it.

    same argument for green, 2 is always better than 1, for this power though we get two ways to boost its consistency. one is obviously the double strike tiles at rank 4 but then we get the proc chance requirement lowered by 1 at rank 5. I see people thinking don't max it because red is a hotly contested color, I say max it because it is a high demand color to increase your chances of getting strike tiles out before you or the enemy can make the board have 9 or less red tiles out. of course there is also the chance a big ol cascade happened and bunch of red tiles landed on the board, ding ding, come forth strike tiles. also it just goes hand in hand with the purple not just cause attack + strike tiles is yummy extra damage, but also since the purple gains bonus damage for up to 6 strike tiles which means you would only need Thirst to proc 3 times instead of 6.

    black doesn't have any way to boost its consistency, just more damage and the steal going from 2 --> 3 at rank 5. 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
    simonsez Posts: 4,663 Chairperson of the Boards
    Phaserhawk wrote:
    Lets also assume that you can match 10 purple in 4 turns.
    That's very optimistic. Vs. goons, while trying to get mnmag's purple going to feed lcap's blue, I can get hung up way too long just trying to match 6 purple, much less 10. Would love to see numbers with typical assumptions, rather than best case scenario assumptions.
  • simonsez
    simonsez Posts: 4,663 Chairperson of the Boards
    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.
  • NorthernPolarity
    NorthernPolarity Posts: 3,531 Chairperson of the Boards
    simonsez 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.

    Against 3x goon, those matches are probably easy enough that you don't really need that much more help. Against goons + characters, if you end up stealing the characters main strength, then theres a chance that you need to kill the characters before the goons, in which case the steal isn't that great. It feels very conditional on the matches working out.
  • MarcusGraves
    MarcusGraves Posts: 495 Mover and Shaker
    simonsez wrote:
    This is one good reason why I'm starting to see Blade as mostly an anti-goon.

    speaking of goons, Dracula + vamp goons featuring Blade for a Halloween PvE please D3
  • Phaserhawk
    Phaserhawk Posts: 2,676 Chairperson of the Boards
    Sandmaker 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.

    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.
  • NorthernPolarity
    NorthernPolarity Posts: 3,531 Chairperson of the Boards
    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.

    Blade is probably faster than X-Force when climbing due to his green getting almost instant value.
  • Phaserhawk
    Phaserhawk Posts: 2,676 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited October 2014
    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 icon_thor.png 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.

    The way I see it if you have 5 purple you don't need 5 green but if you have 3 purple you do need 5 green. In short 5/5/3 will probably get you as much damage as any other build but if you opt for for another build, 5/3/5 is the way to go. I think 3/5/5 is overkill on the purple.
  • wymtime
    wymtime Posts: 3,757 Chairperson of the Boards
    The biggest thing with Blade is you have to make purpleflag.png and blackflag.png your priority. Right now greenflag.png and blackflag.png and yellowflag.png are the big priority colors. In order to fully utilize him you really need to change your mindset and focus on blackflag.png and purpleflag.png

    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.
  • The only scenario where the AP steal will open up new possibility is if it's goon + villian and the color being generated is the villian's strongest color, like say Ares + Pyro will generate green which you can steal and that'll make the fight way easier. If it's say, Ares + Muscle, he'll get yellow AP but you'll be stealing green AP which does nothing to stop the Sunders.

    I think needing 10 red to generate tiles is a bit too much. Red is not as powerful as it used to be but it's still something I'd not feel comfortable just letting a pile of them sit around and wait for your opponent to collect them, so 5/5/3 wins by default because I just can't too many games where I'll ignore red the whole time unless my opponent doesn't have a red power. I guess it'll work if their strongest power is red (Thor/Sentry), but even then, I probably don't want them to take the reds too early before I can have enough for black.
  • NorthernPolarity
    NorthernPolarity Posts: 3,531 Chairperson of the Boards
    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 icon_thor.png 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.

    Blade as a character works under the assumption that you will be able to use his green to get out strike tiles. Like you said, if you're under the assumption that you're going to deny LadyThor red, then why are you even playing blade? Purple without any strike tiles out gives you like 2 380 attack tiles for 10AP which is really poor, so you would only be bringing blade for his black, which just seems weak if thats his sole function on your team.
  • Nellyson
    Nellyson Posts: 354 Mover and Shaker
    wymtime wrote:
    The biggest thing with Blade is you have to make purpleflag.png and blackflag.png your priority. Right now greenflag.png and blackflag.png and yellowflag.png are the big priority colors. In order to fully utilize him you really need to change your mindset and focus on blackflag.png and purpleflag.png

    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.

    Yes, it will take me many months to max him. I haven't even maxed icon_caroldanvers.png yet! Super happy to have this **** icon_beast.png event to get her covers. But I'm very torn on Blade. The Thirst animation is kinda cool. I like how he just pops up at the bottom of the screen. But I think I want to maximize his purpletile.png. At first I thought 5 blackflag.png was the way to go, but I don't know anymore. I think 3/5/5 for the maximizing of Enemies and Thirst is best. His blacktile.png damage is immediate and cool along with that drain, but I think it'll do the trick at just 3. Hopefully covers come quickly for him cause I do want to enjoy playing with him!
  • ThatOneGuyjp189512
    ThatOneGuyjp189512 Posts: 543 Critical Contributor
    playing him in the falcon PVP for a bit, i found that his green only activates in maybe half the matches that i played, and i like having a strength 89 tile over 2 58's any day, the difference between 3 and 5 green is only 33 total damage. Also i'm calling his black home run cause of his animation for the power.
  • I think I will be going with 5 Black for sure. Stealing 3 AP is nice, because if the AI is matching that color they are just treading water (or gaining 1 - as the AI only lucks into match 5s), which means they are just doing match damage with that color.

    I look forward to getting more covers and leveling him up. I think he will be fun to play, even if not top tier. Hood will always be better for defense, as the AI can't mess up his blue, as it happens or it doesn't. On offense though, stealing multiple AP of a particular color can be better than stealing one from all. Thanks to the AI not prioritizing matching away countdowns, it can go on for some time, to make up for the "lost turns" of the build up.
  • Phaserhawk
    Phaserhawk Posts: 2,676 Chairperson of the Boards
    Here's a question for everyone. How many times in PvP do you have Xforce and Hood plus whoever against a sentry and hood and all of a sudden you eat a supernova because you weren't paying attention because you were focused on green and black? Now if whoever character has red as their main you may be able to protect yourself with night stalker but you leave lots of red. so if you go 3/5/5 you are gimping the most useable skill, and beefing up 1 skill you probably won't cast that's not reliable damage and a skill you can't controll I hopes of pping up a skill you probably won't cast. And if you are collecting purple you are definetely giving up a color you shouldn't
    Be. Sure purple is strong but it's next turn damage and single target. Maybe 5/3/5 is the way to go?