**** Karnak (The Shatterer) ****

Thanos said:

A taste of him in action. I'm open to any team suggestions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBQ7gykx0EY

The blog post suggests he'd be good with 1* Hawkeye and 1* spider-man...

Anon said:

Thanos said:

A taste of him in action. I'm open to any team suggestions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBQ7gykx0EY

Yikes

I mean sure.  He looks well designed, and will have especially high value to 4*/5* transition players (like Ghost or now Juggs) thanks to his high match damage.  But playing someone with 5X and bishop (especially someone with a good blue power that does boardshake) and claiming that the third wheel is beastly  is kinda missing the point. . . I bet quake would also be pretty damn good with 5X and bishop fueling her. . .

Karnak's passive black is awesome bait for a well covered purple Kitty.

Perhaps of note: Karnak's red, even being a power that does targeted tile destruction, receives the benefit of Wakanda Forever!

Presumably this is due to order of operations having the power do fixed damage first, but other characters who have powers written this way like Grey Suit Black Widow do not get to take advantage of it.

Even with just the 1/1/1 loaner, he's a pretty fun character. I usually only play to about 600 or so in PvP, but I was surprised to see that I climbed up to 816, just enjoying slinging Karnak's powers around. Even though an enemy Kitty will slurp him down for lunch with that one "regenerating" protect tile, he also works well with Kitty, as even one buff-pass on his protect will probably knock match damage down to nearly nothing. Also, I liked the way his red could be used to safeguard friendly strike tiles, by getting rid of dangerous matches. 

Same, I have a black cover that I can’t account for.

I am 50 shards shy of 9 covers for him myself (without being in a top 100 alliance). Cl 10 seems likely to make shield training a fair bit more manageable for mid-to-high-end rosters.

@IceIX Karnak's black seems to be boosting base damage (meaning it changes who tanks what color) rather than just damage (when he's already tanking that color) as the power write-up suggests. Can you let us know if this is intentional (and possibly fix the power write-up if so) or whether we should expect it to be fixed as a bug in the future?

Have to agree, shards from all sources made Karnak the highest level I've ever gotten a character to during their Shield Training. And what an excellent character to achieve that with.

So far, I'm trying to figure out how to spec his black vs red. Typically I'll settle on 5/3/5 if his match damage will be a factor in the team, or if the protect tile is important to be strong from the beginning.

Otherwise, his red has so much damage potential it's tempting to go 3/5/5 sometimes. I definitely like how the Crit tile is actually spared from being destroyed from his Shatter ability when one is chosen. I had originally assumed that the crit itself would be lost along with the surrounding tiles.

Doubt there's usually much reason to reduce his blue down from 5 to increase the other abilities. In most team considerations, you will certainly want all 3 crits (available at level 4-5). The damage difference from 4 to 5 isn't huge though, so maybe 4/5/4 makes sense as well when he's brought along to be your red-blue user.

And by the way, anyone who has a 4*+ roster and wants to get into a motivated but chill T100 PvE alliance please message me here. (Or pend to Alliance: Medusas Gaze)

{@KGB , @Vhailorx , @spidyjedi84}

Karnak as an ascended 5* is unbelievably strong. After turn 4, his match damage escalates to ridiculous levels.

As you can see, my Karnak is only at level 455 but that match damage can only be duplicated by maybe a champed Shang Chi after Combo Point 8+.

And because he makes 2 crits on the same turn his match damage increases to 560%, the match is usually essentially over as the first enemy character dies immediately right then and there. He overpowers Colossus’ match damage defense passive easily.

I team my Karnak with Killmonger and a tank or defensive character (usually ascended rogue or Wanda or Chasm). Their crit-making and crit-punishing team together to make a DEVASTATING duo after turn 4.