Quebbster wrote: I tried him out in Combined Arms and I have to say it seemed the Protect tile seemed to be matched away a lot. Not sure if it happens enough to devalue the power though.
JVReal wrote: With him and Colossus and these Defensive CD Tiles, they need to identify these tiles as different from the rest of them in their coding, having Offensive and Defensive CD tiles separated, so they can be treated differently in coding. As it stands, OBW will extend the timer on all opponents CD tiles making them last longer (including these defensive tiles) which is the opposite effect you want on these particular tiles, and won't Hood's ability reduce the timer on these defense timers as well for your own team? If they code them as separate Offensive and Defensive CD tiles, then you can add to the code for OBW to lengthen enemy Offensive CD tiles and shorten enemy Defensive CD, and Hoods ability to shorten friendly Offensive CD tiles and lengthen friendly Defensive CD tiles.
Ozark Boatswain wrote: I'm thinking 5/3/5. Protect tiles still aren't that good. Match damage doesn't kill characters, nukes kill characters. Note that you shouldn't take XFW into consideration for Luke Cage's covers because you should never use them together.
Phantron wrote: I don't think his red is all that great but looking at the character from a standalone point of view, you got a 4 match black and a 5 match yellow, so that's already really slow and it'd be a pretty bad idea to hedge your bets on 2 very slow moves since it is quite possible you never get the AP you need so you should try to get some immediate value back on the red. Now if you're putting him in a team with Spiderman then you'll probably be fine at 5/3/5, but that team doesn't make a whole lot of sense either. I'm sure there's something clever you can do with a 5/3/5 but I can't think of anything at the moment so you might as well take the immediate value for 5 red, which is minor but it is always useful.
NorthernPolarity wrote: Phantron wrote: I don't think his red is all that great but looking at the character from a standalone point of view, you got a 4 match black and a 5 match yellow, so that's already really slow and it'd be a pretty bad idea to hedge your bets on 2 very slow moves since it is quite possible you never get the AP you need so you should try to get some immediate value back on the red. Now if you're putting him in a team with Spiderman then you'll probably be fine at 5/3/5, but that team doesn't make a whole lot of sense either. I'm sure there's something clever you can do with a 5/3/5 but I can't think of anything at the moment so you might as well take the immediate value for 5 red, which is minor but it is always useful. 5/3/5 seems better for transitioners that aren't blessed with the 4* powerhouses that we are. 5/5/3 seems optimal for us 4* people. The ladythor charge tile interaction with yellow is surprisingly huge, and I think that LadyThor / XF / Cage might actually end up being as good as Loki/Hood in PvE because of how much less match damage you take with Cage's red. I actually don't think it's that bad to hedge your bets on 2 very slow moves if you have support for Cage. The moves are powerful enough that Cage could carry the team with some AP support from OBW or something.
Flare808 wrote: Arondite wrote: Are you telling me that Luke Cage will do 8,400 damage on 5 yellow? Holy, jesus. Negative- Cage will do about 7100 at max. He only does extra damage for each ally of his still alive, meaning he can get the bonus 1300 twice.
Arondite wrote: Are you telling me that Luke Cage will do 8,400 damage on 5 yellow? Holy, jesus.
Arondite wrote: Flare808 wrote: Arondite wrote: Are you telling me that Luke Cage will do 8,400 damage on 5 yellow? Holy, jesus. Negative- Cage will do about 7100 at max. He only does extra damage for each ally of his still alive, meaning he can get the bonus 1300 twice. Erm, every other "for each non-downed ally" we've seen, like ninjas and whatnot, count the user as well.
NorthernPolarity wrote: Ozark Boatswain wrote: I'm thinking 5/3/5. Protect tiles still aren't that good. Match damage doesn't kill characters, nukes kill characters. Note that you shouldn't take XFW into consideration for Luke Cage's covers because you should never use them together. When you're doing a marathon session of like 10+ matches in a row, each match = 2k damage taken just from match damage if it lasts 10 turns (which most games do). Luke preventing match damage is huge in this case: it basically amounts to 2.5k true healing every match (obviously its not as good as that, but it's closer than you would think). You know that underleveled OBW that you bring along but always dies to match damage from tanking purple? Well, with Cage around, OBW takes 0 on match damage and can proceed to recon the enemy to death. I think two builds are going to emerge:you have the 5/3/5 build for transitioners who really need Luke to carry them damage wise and are willing to sacrifice some defense to do so. Then you have the 5/5/3 veteran build. Both 3/5/5 or 5/5/3 max out one ability at the expense of another, and it's becomingly increasingly obvious that yellow is the way to go for a multitude of reasons: 1. X-Force hogs black, so you never use Cage black. X-Force doesn't always hog yellow, so Cage is good to go there. 2. Yellow is pretty much the best outlet for ladythor charge tiles imaginable. Look at the yellow abilities in the game. The only comparable ones are like LazyThor (can't use with LadyThor), BP (LadyThor doesn't care about strike tiles really), Fury (eh....), etc. Cage is 6k for 13 yellow AP, and when you routinely get 20+ yellow AP from random charged tiles, Cage is looking pretty good with her. 3. In survival mode, Blade is one of the best guys there because of nightstalker doing stuff. You'd use that over Cage black, so yellow works better for that team composition. There are just better blacks than yellows in the game at this point on higher tier / more common characters (surgical, rage of the panther, masterstroke, nightstalker compared to thunder strike, battleplan, ... uh... mistress of the elements...?) so 5/5/3 seems better. Red is interesting in that the higher level the enemies are, the better it gets, and the lower level enemies are, the worse it gets. That's why I'm not sure if 5 red is even necessary since some times 3-4 red could easily reduce match damage down to 1 as well, which is the main case you care about. I think I want to optimize Cage for 166-250 PvE though, in which case 5 red is essential since match damage easily goes past 250.
captainwhimsy wrote: Anyone else noticed his Red passive doesn't trigger on your first round? A bug maybe, or design?