The continuing series continues. Decided to take a crack at a couple of maligned heroes and see what I could do. Let's start with a guy I actually like, Quicksilver. Then, we'll move to someone I'm using out of necessity, but who I don't particularly care for, Nightcrawler. I understand that these aren't in the highest demand. So what. I'm giving love to the loveless. Who needs love more?
Quicksilver[]
As my regular readers know, I like speed and aggression. Quicksilver is very intriguing for me, because he's fast. Not just in the comic books, but extra turns are the holy grail of speed. The problem is, his damage potential is limited by his very low attack number. But, with "go first" potential, extra turns and Stun potential... temptation.
Default Build[]
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Now, before you say this is a very weak build, let's consider. High accuracy (and he builds his own accuracy with each charge of Speed) and high evasion (ditto). With one stack and no crystals, he's five bar in two skills. That's not that common. Pretty solid. He has high stamina and only one high stamina move, Vortex Punches. His base stamina is enough to run the Vortex 4 times over without recharging. Oh, and with his extra turns, he can recharge AND do something. The health, attack and defense, on the other hand, are all various shades of terrible. We also have stealthy attacks, so he can get where he needs to go without help. There's a lot to build on.
The Logic[]
The logic here is pretty straight forward. If we were spending gold, Refined Stalwarts would push his Health by 1344 (up past 5K for me) and his attack and defense by 272 (North of 900 and 1000 respectively... 4/5 bars). I like Quicksilver, but I'm not gonna spend money on him. Sorry. So, I'm going to pick a poison. In this case, with the high evasion, I don't need defense as much. Without auto-crits, he will not be critically hit. Sometimes, the logic is really straight forward. This is one of those cases.
The Build[]
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This is achieved with:
- 8x Powerful Shard (Health + Attack)
I want the health up to create more survivability. But the attack is paramount. I don't carry pure support characters. You must have at least some secondary damage potential if you want some play in my roster. With his attack there, he doesn't one shot people. I don't expect that of him. But he chips them down and sets them up for melee attackers. Very useful at this level, largely because of the extra turns, but the damage is a bonus.
Nightcrawler[]
Can we make one of the most disliked characters in the game useful? I dunno. Let's see what we have to work with:
Default Build[]
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The Logic[]
Same as Quicksilver's base. The differences are hidden a bit. For one, Quicksilver boosts his own accuracy and evasion. Nightcrawler does not, so we might invest something in his strengths. NC doesn't have a single attack that takes 20% of his base stamina, so there's no point in building that. He should be good to go. The attack remains disastrous. Even with the high crits (which should be deadly crits... in my opinion) on his L6 attack AND the 30% bonus to damage with Combat Reflexes, we still need to raise the base damage as much as possible. And since his Shadow Guard works like a personal Digital Decoy, and takes a turn, we can't ignore the health question all the way.
The Build[]
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This was achieved with:
- 7x Powerful (Health, Attack)
- 1x Dexterous (Accuracy, Evasion)
As a result, we have a dodging, accurate machine, who can go forever and not do much damage. More than he would normally do, but he has some survivability. What we've really done is enhance the survivability while giving him a base of attack that a boost will function upon to make him fairly deadly. The number of stealth attacks and the crits... what I am talking about. He's still weak. Less weak, by a wide margin, but the skill set is weak. Here, let's do something new:
The Fixes[]
I could fix Nightcrawler a few different ways. Here are some ideas:
- Make Shadow Guard a quick action.
- This would allow him to play some hide away while remaining aggressive. Right now, I don't use Shadow Guard because it's slow.
- Make Shadow Guard a random evasion passive like Invisible Woman's Invisibility.
- Replace it with a sword or tail attack. Or both! Both are in line with the character, would certainly make him more interesting.
- Replace it with a move where Nightcrawler teleports an enemy, creating a new stun tactic.
- Add a deadly crit with a 3x multiplier to his L6 move.
- Would instantly make him much deadlier.