locked wrote: Great topic, may I pile on a bit? -snip-
Lystrata wrote: locked wrote: Great topic, may I pile on a bit? -snip- That's quite a bit more than a bit, isn't it? It looked like this was going to be done in an order/
Trilateralus wrote: I have to strongly disagree with your assessment of Daredevil. His blue is too short a stun for the price and depends on an unreliable CD tile to be any use and if you're waiting for your opponent to match your ambush tile you're doing it wrong. Ambush is at its best when you can match it, ideally more than once. That's why I'm excited to try pairing him with Cyclops' yellow.
Pylgrim wrote: Trilateralus wrote: I have to strongly disagree with your assessment of Daredevil. His blue is too short a stun for the price and depends on an unreliable CD tile to be any use and if you're waiting for your opponent to match your ambush tile you're doing it wrong. Ambush is at its best when you can match it, ideally more than once. That's why I'm excited to try pairing him with Cyclops' yellow. Hey, it's cool, I definitely invite discussion. I was down on blue initially as well, but it's grown on me. There's something nice about a power that you cast once and then it kind of keeps going on, even if every three turns you don't get it. Once you have one going on, you can try to gather more blue. If you manage to have two of them going alternately, that's one character permastunned as long as the CDs are around. On the other hand, I am very much aware that the best use of his red is to match it yourself (unless there's a super-obvious spot for the AI, such a 4-match). However, more often than not, I've found that after one match or even from the start, the trap goes to a red tile on a bottom corner where no one can ever match it and there it remains until the end of the game. Moreover, Daredevil is, generally speaking not the strongest character so you don't really want to make him your front-liner. He's better used in a supportive role against special-tile spammers or along Patch, filling the very common blue and purple hole. You surely will have a better, more reliable red ability in your team, so it's better to maximise his support abilities, in my opinion.
Grizzlegom wrote: :devildino: is sad you left him off Red/Green.
locked wrote: Time to comment now! Again, terribly sorry about being inconsiderate at first.
Star-Lord feels like a weak yellow/red user: yellow is pure support, and not as good as anything oBW, Loki and Hood offer, at that, although probably fine for longer PvE games. Red is 3 turns past 2 covers, and you can't place it, so it might hinder the enemy a bit but not actually resolve. It's comparable to Recovery/lvl 3 Escape Plan/Bewilder/other unplaceable 3-turn CDs. Which are wildly unreliable and are often used under staged conditions, or as an afterthought if at all. Purple is most definitely Star-Lord's best skill.
Falcon is a weak purple user. I don't remember when I last used his purple over Blade who's usually the logical third on Falcon/Daken or Patch/Falcon teams. Or over most other purple users. I also left mine perpetually underleveled so that oBW would have purple over him, but again, having both oBW and Falcon does nothing terribly exciting and is overkill against goons except the very fastest ones. Star-Lord feels like a definite #2 behind Fury if not #1 due to being faster. SG is likely a solid #3 due to even her weakest skill, yellow, being decent at 3 covers. Ending the turn is not that bad when the same character has a damaging CD skill.
As I already mentioned in the PM, Mohawk Storm is actually a very strong choice for this combination, only for PvE of course. She's as good if not better than even the best there is, X-Force, to combo with 4or. Bring Loki as 3rd and you are all set: Mohawk yellow to clear away pesky TUp tiles (surprisingly, her yellow is actually worth maxing just for this), then 4or blue, then Mohawk green to collect as much AP as possible, and Loki purple to get you out of bad boards. Loki purple looooooves skills that remove TUp tiles. 4or is the single most powerful character in the game, so enabling her is the best thing you can do if you have her, and Mohawk excels at that. Other PvE teams I like Mohawk on: cMagneto/GSBW/Mohawk (two skills to remove TUp tiles to better enable game-winning Deceptive Tactics? Sold!); 4or/GSBW/Mohawk. LoreNYC used to promote She-Hulk/GSBW/Mohawk (and probably still does, although he replaced She-Hulk with 4or too). Black is the weakest, least usable and least wanted colour on all these teams since it suffers from Mohawk's own green and hinders friendly DecTactics/Power Surge which are way to strong to treat like that. I used to hate Mohawk due to trying to find a use for her in PvP, and I used to have her at her 'most damaging' build, 3/5/5. She was kinda almost alright with old cMagneto who had strong blue, red, purple, and Patch to actually use green AP. She provided a way to clear away TUp tiles, black was awesome with strike tiles (still is btw), and Patch tanked green/yellow for her. But then 4or arrived, I accepted that black is not, indeed, Mohawk's best ability at all, respecced her to 5/5/3 ASAP and couldn't be happier with her now. Black is fine as a trap remover but her true potential is not there. Do try cMagneto (3/5/5), GSBW (5/3/5) and Mohawk (5/5/3) in PvE sometime if you don't have 4or. With slight ISO boosts, they are nigh unstoppable, and without boosts, still accelerate themselves with incredible speed. She doesn't need to be maxed for PvE at all, only enough to tank occasional AoE powers.
I like new Daredevil! Of course nowhere near as strong as other choices, but his red and blue are practically free after the first use, so you can stack them for great profit. Just try him with Punisher/Gamora/Patch/lazy Thor as the main damage options and Hood to help cast his cheap skills even faster and/or establish a stunlock with Billy Club. If you play him against teams that do not overwrite or destroy red/blue special tiles, or maybe even have some of their own, he's a force to be reckoned with, and matching Ambush for repeated damage for no AP is one of the most satisfying things ever. Patch/Daredevil are just mouthwateringly powerful, especially if Patch is 5/3/5. Thor can help self-match Ambush due to the powerful board conversion he does. Gamora/Punisher have cheap, strong reds to use along with cheap Ambush. Refer to my post about beating lvl 395s with boosted Daredevil here.
As for Mystique, depends on what you use her for. However, there's NO argument that blue is her best skill and not using her blue is no better than using a loaner in PvP. If she is boosted, you likely want her Shapeshift-Masterstroke combo to deal insane amounts of damage, but her blue still gets you there. If she's charging other black or purple users (like Black Panther or Deadpool) you still need her blue to be maxed. Her purple is her weakest skill, and to enable the purple > black combo, it doesn't merit more than 3 covers. Teams that she gets to be used on: X-Force/MMN (she uses all her skills, depending on the exact situation); Black Panther/MMN (double ROTP will usually level enemy teams faster than tediously doing purple > black single target damage with Mq, so she's likely to only use her blue); Deadpool/X-Force (again, likely to only use her blue, although her own black and purple can still be usable in a pinch if you need to drain some of the enemy's RGY AP urgently or need to stun someone just for 1 turn while you get more green/black/red/blue AP). She's awesome (for PvE) and her blue skill is very similar to lazy Thor's yellow, which is widely regarded as one of/simply the best yellow skill in the game. Don't call it mediocre, since it can carry you even if your Mystique is built 0/5/0.
Pylgrim wrote: Also, while I agree that purple is strong and powerful, I'm not convinced it's his best. It's basically a Star Spangled Avenger that costs 1 less and deals 1k more, but doesn't return your AP, and more importantly, if the CD tile is destroyed, you don't get anything.
Pylgrim wrote: Definitiely agree that Falcon is in the lower end of the purple abilities, but this thread is planting the scenario where you don't have those two colours in your team (Punisher + Daken? Imagine the double duty Inspiration would be doing on those attack and strike tiles!). Fury is definitely number 1, but I cannot put any stakes on Star-Lord yet. SG's yellow is a Falcon's purple that ends the turn and that is easier to get rid of, so even with an attack ability, I'd not choose her over Falcon.
Pylgrim wrote: You'll have a hard time selling me Mohawk because I deeply resent her and what she stands for. ... However, in your scenario, you say that her main use is clearing away TU tiles, which is something that she does mediocrely. cMags would be much better in that role even if it is in red. It is cheap and you only need to cast it once after Thor's blue to then let Illusions go crazy. You'll get enough Smite red right away. And if it's her green what you want, wouldn't cStorm be better with her scalable green?
Pylgrim wrote: Similarly, I only very very infrequently have a situation with TU tiles that really cripples my Deceptive Tactics.
Pylgrim wrote: I haven't had that many really favourable Infiltration outcomes (and I have it at 5 covers) and in fact I've learned not to use it against teams with strong purple and black abilities because they end benefiting from the sudden wealth of those colours in the board as much as me. You cannot plan for it like you'd do with Technopathic Strike, and the fact that the tiles are split randomly in two colours make it less reliable than Thunder Strike. I think a 4/4/5 version is better, allowing her to also steal purple and black.
locked wrote: Well, I don't consider Falcon a user of yellow, since he has it on passive. He's a fairly weak choice compared to Squirrel Girl when you need actual board control or AP generation. They both benefit from strike tiles around, but SG actually has the game-winning potential and outlets for 3 kinds of AP.
No, Mohawk's best skill is still her green, but yellow is perfectly serviceable. cMags conflicts with 4or on all colours, and 4or's mediocre colour (yellow) is his worst, but Mohawk's second best. cStorm directly conflicts on blue, I hate the thought of using either cStorm or cMags with 4or (although I have to run XF/4or in Magneto's event just because the meta requires it). Besides, cStorm wants someone to charge green for her in the first place, since at 12 green AP it's strictly worse than Mohawk's. Come to think of it, old modern Storm was quite OP and people regularly used her to take on lvl 230 PvE enemies or much stronger PvP opponents in Desert and Forest environments. Mohawk is still one of the best PvE characters, you need to try her with teams I mentioned to see her potential (5 green, of course, and 5 yellow, preferably).
Please please no, 4/4/5 is destroying Mystique's true potential. If you feel you are unlucky with Infiltration, try saving 18 blue and then spamming it twice. It's an extremely efficient combo (5 blue Mystique, 5 purple MMN).
Arondite wrote: Bumping this thread for others to see, since it's been really helpful to me several times.
CrankyDay wrote: While Iron Fist and Kamala Khan may still be the best picks for filling a hole, I think GSBW was one of the top beneficiaries of the Hp increase, and I still a good choice.
stochasticism wrote: Why is this thread not stickied? It probably belongs in Tips and Guides but it is an amazing resource.