moss04 said: This guy needs an immediate tweak to be more than awful. My suggestion is change minimum tiles converted to yellow by his purple power to 4 and increase the max to 7. And also, most importantly, reduce the cost of his yellow to 6 as well as having the damage trigger only remove 7 protect tiles instead of all of them.
hopper1979 said: I like shifting sands it is solid. Has anybody noticed if special tiles are converted to yellow I have not caught it happening yet but that would make it better.
I think that Shifting Sands is probably his best power. As other have indicated, it has pretty good potential for generating cascades.
I also wanted to give Sand Smash a chance. I tried to compare it to a few other powers in the 4* tier. As a damage dealing ability, Sand Smash deals 5542 for 10 AP (or ~554 dmg/ap)
Nova's Fingerguns hits a single target for 3068 (~438 dmg/ap) and then creates Strike tiles.
Cyclops' Combined Forces deals 5394 for 10AP (~539 dmg/ap) or 11851 for 20AP if you have 10 Team Up AP (~593 dmg/ap)
Luke Cage's Hero for Hire hits for 1978 per fortified friendly special tile. On first cast, assuming 3 friendly special tiles on the board, it hits a single target for 5934 (~742 dmg/ap).
The fact that Sand Smash damage is really close in numbers to Cyclops Red was surprising, and it made me feel a bit better about the ability. The problem with Sand Smash is the damage isn't guaranteed or consistent. Two attacks will bring it close to the damage of Cyke's Red powered up to max, but in order to get there with Sandman alone, will cost 40 AP instead of 20.
Since we know that Sand Smash creates the Protect tiles first, then deals damage if there's enough, it seems the best way to make use of the ability is to pair Flint with someone else who can reliably have a Protect tile on the board in advance - and right now, the list of candidates isn't great.
Luke Cage is probably the ideal partner, since he can potentially put out a Protect tile for free - but we can easily see that Cage himself is a better outlet for Yellow.
I could see some potential with Professor X - any other ability will trigger Psychic Convergence and generate a Protect tile to ready the board.
I guess my final analysis right now is that the ability is perhaps not as bad as I first assumed - it's merely average. But average just doesn't cut it in MPQ, not when there are options in the same (or similar) category which are considered outstanding. It think it's very likely that Sandman was designed alongside some other Sinister Six members who may not yet be in the game - if one of those brings a non-Yellow AP way of adding Protect tiles, then there will be an obvious synergy there. I also think that we're in the middle of a "meta-shift". When the Latest 12 first started, the meta was very clearly focused on countdown combos (Carol/Medusa/Coulson/Wasp) - and somewhat aided by the countdown 1dmg bug. The three most recent characters - Grocket, Gamora, Sandman - all appear to be designed around slowing the game down just a little bit. Grocket has early Strike tiles, yes, but they are really designed as a "damage over time" style character, delivering a death by a thousand cuts. Gamora has an insta-kill which requires achieving a specific board configuration. And we know all about Sandman. Demiurge have really wanted to push a slower metagame for a while, and 4* vaulting may finally be the way in which they can bring this into effect.
spiderpool said: Am I the only one dissapointed in the choice for sandman pvp title? Sandstorm, with so many popculture references to sandman to choose from.-Enter Sandman-Grain of sand-Exit light -Mr. Sandman-Bring me a dream -I hate sand. It's rough, and course, and it gets every where
himatako said: The only good thing about him is he's a pretty good third for Peggy and IM40 team, I guess. IM40's Recharge fill green & purple AP so you can use his powers faster. With his green and Peggy's blue, you can stun the whole team. If that's not enough and you need to recharge again, fire his purple to get more yellow.
hopper1979 said: Pick your green Sandmans stun or Fists aoe.