Been a while since I talked about PvP. I am still running the Need for Speed on offense, but the Chaos Slate has stopped working due to the change in the metagame evoked by the Special Ops 3 gear and the P5 uniforms (specifically Emma, the Belle of the P5 Ball). So, I've been hunting for something new that will work.
I have been using and tweaking Raggster's setup for AFK, Blade Rush but it has not been producing the results I like, and I found a very easy way to use my Need for Speed team to neutralize Blade Rush completely (assuming correct sequence of turns)... Force Cage. A reason that I don't like to use Power of Four in AFK PVP isn't so much that the AI will misuse it, it's that Invisible Woman will make the agent kill himself without attacking anyone. Since Blade Rush doesn't do anything for the teammates, except the extra turns from Quantum Jumper, the agent will run the stuff he can run while force caged, including Power of Four, Quantum Jumper, and the Arc Reactor Charge, but he cannot attack with the weapon, so he dies without doing damage. Since Need for Speed kills 2-3 members of your team on the first turn, removing the agent from your side means your team will be very dead, barring some exceptional luck. I don't like that.
So, back to where I was before I created the Chaos Slate. The move with Chaos Slate was the combine the two most annoying characters in the game, Mockingbird and Scarlet Witch, and build an agent load out to support that. We're at the end of Spec 3 and I didn't get Fist of the Colossus, and Scarlet has always had a hard time with Emma Frost, this isn't going to work anymore. But my thinking of pairing the two most annoying characters in PVP remains. And now, with Emma's P5 Suit, she has a special ability she can process, I give you, the first iteration of
Proc Stars[]
- Mockingbird
- P5 Emma Frost
- Agent (Tactician or Generalist, I haven't decided)
- Coulson's Revenge
- Omni-Fury
- Magnetic Field Generator
- Quantum Jumper
Logic[]
The first piece of logic is this: The most complaining and demands for nerfing surround the first two special op characters. So, combine them and give people a real headache.
The second piece of logic is that I have three one person pain inflictors on this team. Mock hits hard, Emma wears people down, and with Coulson's and the Omni-Fury, the Agent can hit hard too.
But here's the reason we are naming this team Proc Stars. Mockingbird gets extra turns by a process. Emma gives the Cosmic Power buff by process, and with Coulson, the Agent gives everyone Cooperative Attack, which activates by process. Why the focus on process? It is widely held that the defensive agent gets more procs to make up for being run by a tactical idiot. I don't know that I fully believe it, and I suspect there may be something else at play (relative PVP bonuses, for example), but, I'm open to the idea that I might be wrong (oh and I have a pretty good PVP bonus as well). At any rate, IF the defensive team gets an advantage in proc rates, then I want to have the prockiest Proc Stars around.
Now, among heroes who are Proc Stars, the real champion would be Magik' who has two (Fiery Retribution and Unleash Hell). And if this team sucks big time, I could replace Emma with Magik or Mock with Magik to get more procs. But I think the extra turns of Mock and the Cosmic Power of Emma are better procs that Magik's. The other Proc Stars I'm not using are Avenger Cap (not a terrible idea) and Human Torch's Annhilus outfit, which does a lot of neat stuff, including summoning the Negative Zone critters. Another option, to be sure, but I like Mock a lot.
At any rate, time will tell if this is a good setup.