**** Wasp (Janet Van Dyne) ****

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  • Vhailorx
    Vhailorx Posts: 6,085 Chairperson of the Boards
    wymtime wrote:
    People have been saying pair with Thing, but I think her best partner is Mr F. He can provide the cheep shields to flip and can then fire off extra strike tiles. A Mr F carnage wasp team would be a strong pairing for her. u can stun then flip the protect tiles. This will allow you to double dip on the strike tiles. Overall her black is average and her best ability is probably her AP steal. She is a third wheel at best. Everyone thinking gather enough AP to fire yellow 2 times is nuts. 18 AP in any color is just too much to gather on a consistant basis to make a character viable without a massive AP generator. I just don't see her steal based on a CD generating AP fast enough. How many times will that CD be matched? From the new characters released she is with Spider Gwen and Cho and will sit at min level on most rosters.

    Much better than cho. But I don't think Gwen isn't the right analogy either. Gwen has some nice synergy with her purple/red. But her yellow is straight up terrible. Wasp doesn't have anything that bad, and maybe not anything that good. Perhaps someone like miles is a better analogy? Fairly cheap, passive ap generation, decent damage output.
  • wymtime
    wymtime Posts: 3,757 Chairperson of the Boards
    Vhailorx wrote:
    wymtime wrote:
    People have been saying pair with Thing, but I think her best partner is Mr F. He can provide the cheep shields to flip and can then fire off extra strike tiles. A Mr F carnage wasp team would be a strong pairing for her. u can stun then flip the protect tiles. This will allow you to double dip on the strike tiles. Overall her black is average and her best ability is probably her AP steal. She is a third wheel at best. Everyone thinking gather enough AP to fire yellow 2 times is nuts. 18 AP in any color is just too much to gather on a consistant basis to make a character viable without a massive AP generator. I just don't see her steal based on a CD generating AP fast enough. How many times will that CD be matched? From the new characters released she is with Spider Gwen and Cho and will sit at min level on most rosters.

    Much better than cho. But I don't think Gwen isn't the right analogy either. Gwen has some nice synergy with her purple/red. But her yellow is straight up terrible. Wasp doesn't have anything that bad, and maybe not anything that good. Perhaps someone like miles is a better analogy? Fairly cheap, passive ap generation, decent damage output.
    I Agree better than Cho, but I think miles is much better. If you look at the above post by fierce kiwi her blue does not kick in until 9 blue AP. I was hoping this would go down to 5-6 AP. It will also create a random CD and steal 2 AP of that color so you could get a color you don't need. Miles is self sufficient and the fact he can turn invisible is actually something that Wasp should be like when she shrinks. Conceptually it works for her and Ant Man. From new characters she is better than Cho, worse then Miles. Spider Gwen I have not played with enough, so I would put Wasp just above her. Her black is a good ability, with the strike tiles but it really counters her stealing. After seeing the numbers she had an expensive random AP steal(9 blue), a cheep black damage(7AP+ 9 blue for strike tiles) that can eliminate your AP steal, and a special tile flip that will be very situation specific. If her yellow took enemy and friendly her yellow would be much better even if it cost 10AP. Strike tiles are way more abundant in the game and the powers that create protect tiles are normally yellow powers. If her yellow converter attack to strike, strike to protect, and protect to attack it would be a much more useful power as she would combo with many more characters and really be good.
  • Vhailorx
    Vhailorx Posts: 6,085 Chairperson of the Boards
    If I am reading FierceKiwi's post correctly, the stun on black happens at 7 blue (with 5 covers) and drains some blue as well.

    Her passive triggers at 9 blue ap, but I don't think it actually costs an AP, so whenever you have 9+, she spawns a CD every turn that will steal 2 random AP, or do modest damage if matched by the ai. I happily concede that I don't have a perfect sense of just how good this power will be (especially given the tension with her black), but I think it might actually be pretty good. Loki steal's 8 AP after 2 rounds, but only triggers when the ai makes a move, and that power is quite strong.

    her yellow seems likely to be a power like trickery or elektra purple: VERY good in specific situations, but of almost no value at any other time.

    You are talking me down from my opening 'upside not quite as good as nova.' That may have been ambitious. But I think somewhere in that Mile/War Machine mid tier seems more reasonable.
  • Polares
    Polares Posts: 2,643 Chairperson of the Boards
    Vhailorx wrote:
    If I am reading FierceKiwi's post correctly, the stun on black happens at 7 blue (with 5 covers) and drains some blue as well.

    Her passive triggers at 9 blue ap, but I don't think it actually costs an AP, so whenever you have 9+, she spawns a CD every turn that will steal 2 random AP, or do modest damage if matched by the ai. I happily concede that I don't have a perfect sense of just how good this power will be (especially given the tension with her black), but I think it might actually be pretty good. Loki steal's 8 AP after 2 rounds, but only triggers when the ai makes a move, and that power is quite strong.

    her yellow seems likely to be a power like trickery or elektra purple: VERY good in specific situations, but of almost no value at any other time.

    You are talking me down from my opening 'upside not quite as good as nova.' That may have been ambitious. But I think somewhere in that Mile/War Machine mid tier seems more reasonable.

    I agree, looks like 3/5/5 is her strongest build.

    Blue may be REALLY good, as you said, once you get 9AP if you dont spend that AP you get a 1 turn countdown that steals 2AP EVERY TURN (or it does some damage if matched). You need to get the 9 AP, but after that, you basically get 5AP every turn! So if you use a rainbow team this will be the best accelerator power in 4 land!

    Yellow is too situational. Good enough at 3 if you want to pair her with any other shield/strike generator.

    Black is just good, 4k+strike tile+stun is a good power.

    She is good, but not great (she might be better than good, if blue works as well as I expect). But again, she is released to late. Another 4 I wont be able to level...
  • notamutant
    notamutant Posts: 855 Critical Contributor
    Polares wrote:
    Vhailorx wrote:
    If I am reading FierceKiwi's post correctly, the stun on black happens at 7 blue (with 5 covers) and drains some blue as well.

    Her passive triggers at 9 blue ap, but I don't think it actually costs an AP, so whenever you have 9+, she spawns a CD every turn that will steal 2 random AP, or do modest damage if matched by the ai. I happily concede that I don't have a perfect sense of just how good this power will be (especially given the tension with her black), but I think it might actually be pretty good. Loki steal's 8 AP after 2 rounds, but only triggers when the ai makes a move, and that power is quite strong.

    her yellow seems likely to be a power like trickery or elektra purple: VERY good in specific situations, but of almost no value at any other time.

    You are talking me down from my opening 'upside not quite as good as nova.' That may have been ambitious. But I think somewhere in that Mile/War Machine mid tier seems more reasonable.

    Blue may be REALLY good, as you said, once you get 9AP if you dont spend that AP you get a 1 turn countdown that steals 2AP EVERY TURN (or it does some damage if matched). You need to get the 9 AP, but after that, you basically get 5AP every turn! So if you use a rainbow team this will be the best accelerator power in 4 land!

    Where are you getting 5 AP stealing every turn? It would be 2 AP a turn, or 0 AP a turn if the random tile is on a color the enemy has no AP of, or if it is matched away. Hood can steal rainbow in much easier conditions, although he is too low health for the modern era. I have to say, after some more consideration, I think she is horrible. I cannot think of any situation I would use her over anyone besides Cho and Mr. F in 4 star land. Her moves literally work against each other. You have a passive which will literally do nothing for minimum 3 turns, and a black that you can't use unless you want your passive to disappear. Her moves are also really low damage. Really bad character, although I think thematically it is fine. Most characters I level for their battle of whatever, except for Cho and Mr. F. Wasp is being added to the list of characters I won't add a single level to.
  • stochasticism
    stochasticism Posts: 1,181 Chairperson of the Boards
    notamutant wrote:
    Polares wrote:
    Vhailorx wrote:
    If I am reading FierceKiwi's post correctly, the stun on black happens at 7 blue (with 5 covers) and drains some blue as well.

    Her passive triggers at 9 blue ap, but I don't think it actually costs an AP, so whenever you have 9+, she spawns a CD every turn that will steal 2 random AP, or do modest damage if matched by the ai. I happily concede that I don't have a perfect sense of just how good this power will be (especially given the tension with her black), but I think it might actually be pretty good. Loki steal's 8 AP after 2 rounds, but only triggers when the ai makes a move, and that power is quite strong.

    her yellow seems likely to be a power like trickery or elektra purple: VERY good in specific situations, but of almost no value at any other time.

    You are talking me down from my opening 'upside not quite as good as nova.' That may have been ambitious. But I think somewhere in that Mile/War Machine mid tier seems more reasonable.

    Blue may be REALLY good, as you said, once you get 9AP if you dont spend that AP you get a 1 turn countdown that steals 2AP EVERY TURN (or it does some damage if matched). You need to get the 9 AP, but after that, you basically get 5AP every turn! So if you use a rainbow team this will be the best accelerator power in 4 land!

    Where are you getting 5 AP stealing every turn? It would be 2 AP a turn, or 0 AP a turn if the random tile is on a color the enemy has no AP of, or if it is matched away. Hood can steal rainbow in much easier conditions, although he is too low health for the modern era. I have to say, after some more consideration, I think she is horrible. I cannot think of any situation I would use her over anyone besides Cho and Mr. F in 4 star land. Her moves literally work against each other. You have a passive which will literally do nothing for minimum 3 turns, and a black that you can't use unless you want your passive to disappear. Her moves are also really low damage. Really bad character, although I think thematically it is fine. Most characters I level for their battle of whatever, except for Cho and Mr. F. Wasp is being added to the list of characters I won't add a single level to.

    2AP steal + 3AP from a tile match.
  • Vhailorx
    Vhailorx Posts: 6,085 Chairperson of the Boards
    notamutant wrote:

    Where are you getting 5 AP stealing every turn? It would be 2 AP a turn, or 0 AP a turn if the random tile is on a color the enemy has no AP of, or if it is matched away. Hood can steal rainbow in much easier conditions, although he is too low health for the modern era. I have to say, after some more consideration, I think she is horrible. I cannot think of any situation I would use her over anyone besides Cho and Mr. F in 4 star land. Her moves literally work against each other. You have a passive which will literally do nothing for minimum 3 turns, and a black that you can't use unless you want your passive to disappear. Her moves are also really low damage. Really bad character, although I think thematically it is fine. Most characters I level for their battle of whatever, except for Cho and Mr. F. Wasp is being added to the list of characters I won't add a single level to.

    I think you might be undervaluing 2 extra ap (and stolen ap, which is even better) every turn, even if it does take a while to get going. Not counting cascades or match4/5s, you will be getting 5ap a turn, and the AI will be getting only 1. That starts to approach Hood levels of suppression. The tension between black and blue is a pretty big drawback though (and undoubtedly the design intent).

    And I will definitely agree that her overall damage numbers are a big step back from the eye-popping totals we saw in recent 4* releases like Kate Bishop, Moon Knight and Drax.
  • GrumpySmurf1002
    GrumpySmurf1002 Posts: 3,511 Chairperson of the Boards
    notamutant wrote:
    I have to say, after some more consideration, I think she is horrible. I cannot think of any situation I would use her over anyone besides Cho and Mr. F in 4 star land.

    She's niche, and in MPQ, niche = bottom tier/bad.

    That said, here's the mild defense of her:

    Her black and blue are only at odds when 7 < blue AP < 12. That leaves a lot of room for her to still add damage and decent strike tiles for relatively cheap. It's only slightly weaker than Nova's yellow, which is a decent power. The stun is basically an after thought.

    Her blue should be pretty nasty once ramped up. Yeah, it's not as good as Hood but as you pointed out, he doesn't have the health to sustain that Wasp does.

    I got nothing for yellow. It stinks, except with TUs or 3* Falcon, since all the other protect spammers use yellow also.

    A color change on her yellow would give her a lot more use, making her and FalCap pretty deadly together, at least for PvE.

    Instead, good incentive to take the weekend off.
  • wymtime
    wymtime Posts: 3,757 Chairperson of the Boards
    Vhailorx wrote:
    notamutant wrote:

    Where are you getting 5 AP stealing every turn? It would be 2 AP a turn, or 0 AP a turn if the random tile is on a color the enemy has no AP of, or if it is matched away. Hood can steal rainbow in much easier conditions, although he is too low health for the modern era. I have to say, after some more consideration, I think she is horrible. I cannot think of any situation I would use her over anyone besides Cho and Mr. F in 4 star land. Her moves literally work against each other. You have a passive which will literally do nothing for minimum 3 turns, and a black that you can't use unless you want your passive to disappear. Her moves are also really low damage. Really bad character, although I think thematically it is fine. Most characters I level for their battle of whatever, except for Cho and Mr. F. Wasp is being added to the list of characters I won't add a single level to.

    I think you might be undervaluing 2 extra ap (and stolen ap, which is even better) every turn, even if it does take a while to get going. Not counting cascades or match4/5s, you will be getting 5ap a turn, and the AI will be getting only 1. That starts to approach Hood levels of suppression. The tension between black and blue is a pretty big drawback though (and undoubtedly the design intent).

    And I will definitely agree that her overall damage numbers are a big step back from the eye-popping totals we saw in recent 4* releases like Kate Bishop, Moon Knight and Drax.

    For the 2 AP steal it is dependant on what color the CD tile lands on. If it lands on a color you and the enemy does not need you are stealing 2 empty AP. Also it sounds like you get 9 blue place a CD wait a turn, CD resolves steal 2 AP, wait a turn place a CD. That would be 2 AP steal every other turn and if you use you her black Blue goes away. It will need to be a really long match for blue to be really effective. Mind you it could save you from a big hit if it steals the right AP. I just don't see this power producing a CD every turn. I could be wrong but I am not reading it that way.
  • Pylgrim
    Pylgrim Posts: 2,296 Chairperson of the Boards
    Since passive abilities that trigger at the beginning of the turn tend to do so before CD tiles "count down" in an ordered sequence, I wonder if it may happen that she places a new CD tile below the one created the previous turn, and as a result both go off in that turn.
  • Vhailorx
    Vhailorx Posts: 6,085 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited July 2016
    wymtime wrote:
    For the 2 AP steal it is dependant on what color the CD tile lands on. If it lands on a color you and the enemy does not need you are stealing 2 empty AP. Also it sounds like you get 9 blue place a CD wait a turn, CD resolves steal 2 AP, wait a turn place a CD. That would be 2 AP steal every other turn and if you use you her black Blue goes away. It will need to be a really long match for blue to be really effective. Mind you it could save you from a big hit if it steals the right AP. I just don't see this power producing a CD every turn. I could be wrong but I am not reading it that way.

    We won't know for sure until we can test her, but for it to work like like Switch's tile, I would expect the text to read like switch (or IF or Cage): If X does not already exist, then at the start of each turn spawn X.

    Instead, the only contingency language is about blue AP. So I think it's possible that she will spawn a tile every round. If it's only every other round, well, that's 1/2 as good and would be a big blow to overall value.
  • FierceKiwi
    FierceKiwi Posts: 505 Critical Contributor
    Vhailorx wrote:
    wymtime wrote:
    For the 2 AP steal it is dependant on what color the CD tile lands on. If it lands on a color you and the enemy does not need you are stealing 2 empty AP. Also it sounds like you get 9 blue place a CD wait a turn, CD resolves steal 2 AP, wait a turn place a CD. That would be 2 AP steal every other turn and if you use you her black Blue goes away. It will need to be a really long match for blue to be really effective. Mind you it could save you from a big hit if it steals the right AP. I just don't see this power producing a CD every turn. I could be wrong but I am not reading it that way.

    We won't know for sure until we can test her, but for it work like like Switch's tile, I would expect the text to read like switch (or IF or Cage): If X does not already exist, then at the start of each turn spawn X.

    Instead, the only contingency language is about blue AP. So I think it's possible that she will spawn a tile every round. If it's only every other round, well, that's 1/2 as good and would be a big blow to overall value.

    Playing with her in BoP she definitely can spawn one every turn.
    Pylgrim wrote:
    Since passive abilities that trigger at the beginning of the turn tend to do so before CD tiles "count down" in an ordered sequence, I wonder if it may happen that she places a new CD tile below the one created the previous turn, and as a result both go off in that turn.

    Shockingly it's smart enough to not trigger both. For once the devs actually tested things...or just lucked out icon_lol.gif
  • jobob
    jobob Posts: 680 Critical Contributor
    I think she may be okay with Flaptain... You are going to want to gather blue... which is going to accelerate the AP steal by also triggering the steal on the turn it is created. And, even though the yellow protect -> steal will be expensive, there are a couple things that I like: first, getting the yellow protect out will help absorb damage while you build up AP to convert them to strikes... Second, all the blue you are going to be trying to collect will strengthen those tiles a good bit. The big confilct is going to be Flappy's red... which you will have to time right so you can use it BEFORE the conversion.

    Another possible pairing is GG if you put him AFTER Wasp in the rotation. I assume his fortify mechanic will allow him to fortify the same turn the tile is placed, and since the AI will then only have 1 turn to match it twice... you are virtually assured of having every steal CD tile go off.

    An interesting combo may be Wasp/IF/Prof X.
    Iron fist has the cheap pink, which fuels Wasp's fairly cheap black. Both of these are going to be firing PX's passive which puts both protect and strike tiles on the board. IF is also going to generate crits, and because Wasp's strongest color is yellow, PX will generate +4... half the amount required for her to fire her yellow... which will flip-flop the protect/strike and strengthen them all. With IF crits fueling the PX passive +4, I think you'll be able to flip/strengthen a board full of tiles a few times a match.
  • Vhailorx
    Vhailorx Posts: 6,085 Chairperson of the Boards
    Wasp/Flaptain/3*Bullseye could be fun in survival nodes. Once bullseye's passive procs you will have plenty of raw material to use for wasp yellow. Whenever you have 14 red for flaptain you can flip the strikes over to protects for a massive dive bomb. Then then switch back when you get more yellow (and everything gets stronger with each flip too!).

    I think think this was the design intent for the character: allowing tactical flexibility. But sometimes they just don't seem to know their own game very well. 8AP is too expensive for that kind of tactical power in most matches. at 5 or 6 you could reasonably expect to flop several times a match to suit your current needs. But at 8ap it's not something you will do more than a couple of times outside of survival matches (or the odd PVE match against crazy over-leveled opponents).

    I also love the IF/Prof x/Wasp team idea, but that's an awful squishy lineup.
  • Cthulhu
    Cthulhu ADMINISTRATORS Posts: 410 Site Admin
    Hello, final getting back into things after going to a conference and getting some kind of conference plague. Sorry for not posting the stats earlier.
  • wymtime
    wymtime Posts: 3,757 Chairperson of the Boards
    Cthulhu wrote:
    Hello, final getting back into things after going to a conference and getting some kind of conference plague. Sorry for not posting the stats earlier.
    For her passive will she create a CD each turn or only if a CD does not exist?
  • Moon Roach
    Moon Roach Posts: 2,863 Chairperson of the Boards
    It's van Dyne, not Van Dyne.

    It's not like Rob Van Dam or **** Van Dike or Van Wilder or Van Halen or Lee Van Cleef, for flip's sake, it's like Vincent van Gogh, or A. E. van Vogt.
  • Polares
    Polares Posts: 2,643 Chairperson of the Boards
    Ok, now that we have description of the power, I have more doubts with blue. So the position of the tile is random but it is always in a blue tile, so it always steals blue AP, that is how it works? (at first it looked like it was completely random and then if placed in a red tile it would stile red AP). The descriptions are not very clear

    Main description:
    creates random 1-turn Countdown tile that steals 1 AP of its color

    Level 5:
    Requires 9 Blue AP instead of 10 AP, steals 2 Blue AP or if matched by enemy deals 694 damage.

    So is she always stealing blue AP?

    If this is the case then forget my previous comment, blue power is **** and therefore she goes straight to bad tier icon_e_sad.gif
    notamutant wrote:
    Polares wrote:
    Blue may be REALLY good, as you said, once you get 9AP if you dont spend that AP you get a 1 turn countdown that steals 2AP EVERY TURN (or it does some damage if matched). You need to get the 9 AP, but after that, you basically get 5AP every turn! So if you use a rainbow team this will be the best accelerator power in 4 land!

    Where are you getting 5 AP stealing every turn? It would be 2 AP a turn, or 0 AP a turn if the random tile is on a color the enemy has no AP of, or if it is matched away.

    I didn't say she was stealing 5, it is 3 AP of a normal match (as the very least) + 2AP of AP she steals, so with her, instead of 3AP you get 5AP every turn (well see my previous consideration).
  • mckauhu
    mckauhu Posts: 740 Critical Contributor
    Looks like a great pairing with CapFalcon and Daken. Can see how strike tiles and protect tiles becomes vice versa, but biggest problem is that Falcon needs protect tiles for his red attack so not so sure about that team on the other hand... At least he would got Dakens reversed protect tiles though... And maybe that could be timed correctly that before red smash, they are still protect tiles. Interesting character though! Very versatile.
  • BlackSheep101
    BlackSheep101 Posts: 2,025 Chairperson of the Boards
    If only we could see each power level's description as it appears in the game! Perhaps with a new feature making all power level descriptions available?
    (PASSIVE) Wasp shrinks down and flies around the battlefield, distracting opponents and gaining a tactical advantage! At the start of your turn, if you have at least 9 Blue AP, creates a random 1-turn Countdown tile that steals 2 AP of its color. If an enemy matches this tile, Wasp stings the target for 694 damage.
    The color of the countdown is random. The ap it steals matches the color of the countdown. Presumably it could be a wasted steal if the enemy team has no ap in that color.