**** War Machine (James Rhodes) ****

Blue does stand out a bit in the 4* space (can't think of many other big blue nukes there).

And then once champed the other two powers can be swapped as necessary. Green is quite good as a cheap boardshake power that will do modest damage and generate some AP. So max that whenever he is playing with someone that doesn't care about special tiles.

As we know from Iron Fist, passive attack tile generation pairs really well with anyone who creates strike tiles. War Machine isn't quite as good as Iron fist, since his attack tiles require 9ap to get going. but once fortified that tile should last long enough to generate several attack tiles. So this is a great power to pair with someone like OML or Phoenix or Nova that makes plenty of strikes.

As for red + green synergy, it's clearly present, but it kinds seems like ant-man't various powers to me. Very nice when it works well, but generally too expensive/fragile/contingent to be a primary tactic.

He's interesting, but seems likely to be a mid-tier 4* overall. Special tiles are fairly ascendent right now, so I suspect that 5/5/3 is the right way to build him at the moment. But the value of special tiles has been fairly cyclical (not powerful early on when rags and spidey were dominant, then powerful with combos like punisher/obw, sentry/hood, patch/magneto, then weak again during the Thorverine era, then stronger again with the dawn of the 5* era (OML!)), so I wouldn't expect them to get rolled back a bit over the next 6-8 months (you can already see this with all the passive abilities that affect the value of various special tiles).

Tilesmasher wrote:

I feel like his blue is an "A" grade power, but in order to get it you have to hurt him way too much in green.. it has to be green at 3 because I'm not going to lose the fortified tile at 5 red. I'll have to see how he works in game, but I only see 5/5/3 or 5/3/5.

I'll say that it's better for his outlook to have some arguing about powers as opposed to everyone agreeing he plain sucks.

I'm of the opinion it's 3/5/5, because that's where the straight damage on all 3 powers is maximized. The parlor tricks around the powers are of less concern to me, because we've all seen that things revolving around Countdowns are not nearly as strong as they look on paper.

That said, at least at 5 green you're also maximizing the board shake, which should be more valuable than the attack tiles in a game that favors speed over slow bleeding death.

Skygazing wrote:

Vhailorx wrote:

Blue does stand out a bit in the 4* space (can't think of many other big blue nukes there).

That's because there's just one, and it's arguably way better. Bobby's blue is 664 vs 684 per AP so there's only a marginal damage difference, but in most situations his is just better. The stun is ridiculous, plus it's modular, so even if you can't make it to 12 AP you get a 4-turn stun for 6. I feel like that's going to be way more relevant in most matches, as opposed to protect and invisibility tile destruction.

It's good, but definitely more niche. Leaning towards 3/5/5 general use; red seems like it could be fun but for now I'd argue that spending that AP on some of the bigger threats like HB or Nova is the better way to go.

I don't really think of iceman's blue as a nuke since it's main value is as the very best stun power in the game!

The damage is just icing. . .


(and iceman is the best 4* there is. There is no argument, it's inarguably way better than War machine's blue, and possible superior to any other single 4* power in the game. Seriously, if I could have 1 4* cover at level 5, this is probably the one. It serves two purposes, does heavy enough damage to matter throughout 4* land and even for the beginning of 5* land, and only costs 6ap. Not really worth comparing him to War Machine, who looks to be second tier at best)

Vhailorx wrote:

I don't really think of iceman's blue as a nuke since it's main value is as the very best stun power in the game!

The damage is just icing. . .


(and iceman is the best 4* there is. There is no argument, it's inarguably way better than War machine's blue, and possible superior to any other single 4* power in the game. Seriously, if I could have 1 4* cover at level 5, this is probably the one. It serves two purposes, does heavy enough damage to matter throughout 4* land and even for the beginning of 5* land, and only costs 6ap. Not really worth comparing him to War Machine, who looks to be second tier at best)

Haha yeah my point was just that WM's blue doesn't stand out much given that Bobby's blue exists. Obviously there's not much comparison between the two, Bobby is an entirely cohesive character and every WM build has some measure of compromise to it.

I actually think Bobby is the best 4* too, don't know why people put Jean ahead of him.

KGB wrote:

Skygazing wrote:

I actually think Bobby is the best 4* too, don't know why people put Jean ahead of him.

Because the AI can't use Bobby correctly because it doesn't save 12 Blue or target the stun against the deadliest enemy.

Jean's passive against match-5 on defense makes her deadly against tile transforming characters that normally generate lots of match-5's. Her other 2 powers are AOEs that give her strike/attack/protect tiles or remove them from the enemy team so the AI can't mess up using them either

Against non-tiling moving goons in PvE Bobby is clearly the superior character.

KGB

It's true that jg is basically ai-proof. But so is 3* thor. Neither one is top of the heap anymore because they are just too slow on their own. And power creep has left their health and damage totals much less intimidating than they were 6 or 8 months ago.

Jg is still top tier but not best overall any more.

And moving back to war machine discussion: his blue does still stand out in the 4* space, but neither of his other powers really do. They seems functional and interesting, but hardly best-in-color material. Hence my speculation that he will be mid tier.

I assume you are talking about this ability:
Aerial Assault 9 AP
War Machine soars skyward to rain down bullets below! Creates a 4-turn Red Countdown tile that deals 741 damage if one does not exist. While this tile is on the board, new tiles have a 15% chance of being strength 41 Attack tiles on War Machine’s turn.


If so, I see no requirement for War Machine to make the match. Any new tile during his turn has a chance to be an attack tile.

Quebbster wrote:

I assume you are talking about this ability:
Aerial Assault 9 AP
War Machine soars skyward to rain down bullets below! Creates a 4-turn Red Countdown tile that deals 741 damage if one does not exist. While this tile is on the board, new tiles have a 15% chance of being strength 41 Attack tiles on War Machine’s turn.


If so, I see no requirement for War Machine to make the match. Any new tile during his turn has a chance to be an attack tile.

It says new tiles. It doesn't say anything about it being your turn. I would say if the AI gets a huge cascade, you might end up with 6 or 7 new attack tiles.

AsylumTKJ wrote:

Orion wrote:

Quebbster wrote:

I assume you are talking about this ability:
Aerial Assault 9 AP
War Machine soars skyward to rain down bullets below! Creates a 4-turn Red Countdown tile that deals 741 damage if one does not exist. While this tile is on the board, new tiles have a 15% chance of being strength 41 Attack tiles on War Machine’s turn.


If so, I see no requirement for War Machine to make the match. Any new tile during his turn has a chance to be an attack tile.

It says new tiles. It doesn't say anything about it being your turn. I would say if the AI gets a huge cascade, you might end up with 6 or 7 new attack tiles.

War Machine soars skyward to rain down bullets below! Creates a 4-turn Red Countdown tile that deals 741 damage if one does not exist. While this tile is on the board, new tiles have a 15% chance of being strength 41 Attack tiles on War Machine’s turn

Heh, that's what I get for trying to read before coffee.

Pylgrim wrote:

His red sadly suffers from the "it's a cool and potentially powerful ability, but why wouldn't I just use Repulsor Punch instead?" syndrome. Blue is definitely unique and will be an asset after the second run of Duck Season leaves lots of people with a max-covered Howard.

So we are getting a second run of Duck Season?

Maybe if they made his generate AP he wouldn't seem so awful...

His looks a lot worse than 's, about the same damage + tile generation and it comes back every other turn. Costs 1 more AP and you're relying on a CD + luck, yikes.

looks very good, big lack of damage abilities in that color. Still, he seems very weak overall.