Phantron wrote: I use Loki for PvE just because The Hood bores me to sleep, though Loki's higher HP does matter a lot for PvE too when your enemies can drop 4 digit matches on you. For PvP will probably still have to consider the team restrictions. Loki covers purple strongly which is usually more useful than The Hood covering yellow weakly but The Hood is probably still better overall. If Trickery isn't extremely situational they'll have to nerf Illusions by a lot. As is right now Illusions is sort of roughly equal to two top tier but balanced ability while Trickery usually has no use at all so it sort of works out. One thing I thought might be interesting is if you have Intimidation at level 5 and do an Intimidation after the opponent has a huge cascade, as that'd immediately trigger all your Mischief tiles which is pretty much like getting that mega cascade yourself, since the AI never uses any moves after they moved a tile regardless of how much AP or how many extra turns they get. Wouldn't make sense to try to play with this strategy, but it'd be unbelievably cool when you pull it off.
NorthernPolarity wrote: At least purely considering the team composition of XF / LadyThor, Loki has definitely replaced Hood for me. Most of the time, you end up losing with XF / LadyThor because the AI gets some sort of insane match-4 cascade on you, or if the board is not cooperating with blue / red tiles. Well, Loki solves both those solutions in one go. Mischief has even more subtle value than I thought it originally did: since it turns the same colored tiles that the match-4 occurred on, it effectively drains the board of most of that one color, giving you increased chances at favorable match 4/5s. Also, it does just randomly cause cascades by itself which is really nice. Since Loki only tanks purple in this team comp as well, it's far more sustainable than XF / GT / Hood, where hood tanks yellow and blue and is a health pack drain. The only issue is that vs XF / GT / Hood, XF / GT / Loki is worse because Hood randomly still just wins you the game in an unfavorable board. I would say that vs any other team composition, XF / GT / Loki is superior in pretty much all possible ways, but XF / GT / Hood beats out this team on defense.
NorthernPolarity wrote: Mischief has even more subtle value than I thought it originally did: since it turns the same colored tiles that the match-4 occurred on, it effectively drains the board of most of that one color, giving you increased chances at favorable match 4/5s.
vudu3 wrote: NorthernPolarity wrote: Mischief has even more subtle value than I thought it originally did: since it turns the same colored tiles that the match-4 occurred on, it effectively drains the board of most of that one color, giving you increased chances at favorable match 4/5s. Isn't this also a negative if the AI matched a color that you're trying to collect? The AI steals your red match-4 and then Mischief creates 4 red CD tiles. There's suddenly a lot less red tiles on the board than there were 2 turns ago. If you're lucky Mischief might steal back 2 or 4 red AP but it's not going to get you to the 10 needed for Smite.
Switchman wrote: How are people figuring not much of a difference in terms of cascades between 3 & 5 purple? Isn't it something like 26 tiles vs. 32? That sounds like a big difference? Especially when black is a meh ability mainly used on specific PVE matchups?
simonsez wrote: Why would 6 more switches necessarily mean more cascades? There are plenty of times I see a match-5 set up, but by the time all the switching is done, the match-5 gets switched out. And NP's simulator also says the difference is minimal.
scottee wrote: For the record, I don't think the simulations and current theories are correct. I've been observing the swaps a lot more now that I use Loki regularly. 32 swaps doesn't mean that it selects 64 tiles at the beginning (32 pairs) and then switches them. And that if there are less than 64 colored tiles then the swaps are wasted. At Illusions level 5, some tiles get swapped more than once (I've seen a countdown tile move 3 times in one Illusions). And also, when there are clearly less than 64 colored tiles on the board, I've seen a colored tile never get swapped. What I think is happening is, at the beginning of the cast, it selects 32 tiles only. Then it processes through each individual tile. For the first tile, it finds another colored tile and switches the pair. Then it moves on to the 2nd tile, and finds a tile to swap with, regardless of whether either tile has moved yet. This would explain how some tiles can move three times, while others move none.
scottee wrote: I'm planning to keep level 5 though, as I see no need for level 5 in black.
scottee wrote: Yeah, I think for cascades, the increased chance is minimal, though there is an increase. Before, the thought was, if there's only 52 colored tiles, level 4 and 5 make no difference. I think it's more accurate to say, if there's only 52 colored tiles, level 5 does make a difference, but it's small. I'm planning to keep level 5 though, as I see no need for level 5 in black.
MarcusGraves wrote: scottee wrote: I'm planning to keep level 5 though, as I see no need for level 5 in black. you want 5 in black if you're using him with patch (who is arguably his best partner still) to make sure the enemy gets no strike tiles with rank 5 BR.
scottee wrote: I have level 5 berserker rage. Level 3 black from Loki changes 5 of 6 tiles. They still do no damage.