Sabretooth:
I went over some pointers about Sabretooth last month and hes actually much better then what I thought he would be.
Sabretooth's main strength lies in his second ability which is ridiculous high attack damage on it. And his passive which are good in the current meta I guess.
Well ok, I myself said ... well this revive thing is bad. It is not the strongest, its better to have evasion to survive but Sabretooth also has his passive life regain(like so many others in this game, this whole mutant heal thing feels kinda overused in both the game and comic alike). But what is really good with his passive is that he gains 2 turns after he has died once. Which makes him pretty much just kill their team.
Thats the real strength in it, his damage is really high and with 2 turns he can synergies his first attack into his overly powerful second attack by himself. That combo will almost always kill 1 character from full Health.
Of course this passive wont trigger if they have anti revive guys which are still popular but not as widely used as a few season back(but they are still there, so its not the best passive by any means. However, as the AI is stupid they will of course sometimes kill him with the wrong ability etc. In AFK I would never really run him(also because hes a scrapper) but in attack its fine. I also combo him with Magneto, so Magneto can sheild him which makes him really hard to kill of while he can help Magneto vs Infiltrators. I prefer this over another bleeder guy. But more on that later.
So his first ability looks bad at first glance, well not and but its standard bleed + ravage attack. It does however also give him a buff that will make his next attack critical. Obviously this set up his second ability and then he kills them pretty much if he has frenzy(2 turns per 1 turn).
Sabretooth also has another passive, which gives him bloodlust stacks when attacking a bleeding target. These stack are then used up when using the second attack and they of course increase the total damage.
The result of this is that its really easy to one shot someone the second turn of the battle. Set up some bleeding, get bloodlust use it with guaranteed critical etc.
His second attack has attrition, which makes it deal vastly more damage if the enemy has any dots on them(including bleeding). Sabretooth can easily kill most characters late game. His is incredible easy to set up with the cube, using its third ability(probability field) to give the enemy load of debuffs to them kill them.
As Sabretooth is hard to kill to by his inherent passive. Its very easy to win late game with him(Note I consider late game at turn 3-4).
When I say he is much better then i thought he would be it is mainly in relation to how strong his second ability is. It gets really bonkers damage increase by the attrition and as the attack will be critical(in almost all cases) it kills them.
Then Sabretooth has kind of a third passive, his third ability is to gain a self coordination(Domino has this to but her is a passive instead). Which means he will use his first ability(its his normal attack) and gain the crit buff and possible more bloodlust while setting ut bleeding and ravage. This passive is a buff, so it has to be activated and will last for 2 turns and then later has to be reactivated(in 4 turns cd). But will rarely be used again as the game ends before it can and works pretty much as a minor passive that goes away after turn 2, its a Quick action to gain it so pretty much like a removable passive self coordination.
Not great but makes it easier to finish people. Its more an ability that makes him good with other bleeding oriented characters, Tigra, Wolwerine, X-23 etc.
His ultimate is pretty much completely useless. Its an AoE stun. By no context to how the games meta is, this would look like a good ability on paper. Of course it is instead shit, as everyone has mystic shroud and relentless iso(stun immune) pretty much every game. The result is like I predicted a few months ago that stun moves are almost completely obsolete. His ultimate does very, very low damage and there are very few games you will be able to stun anyone.
That this move also his a an AoE when hes Scrapper.. makes it even worse. It does almost no damage no real debuff its only usable to get someone with low hp and to do some extra damage to the 2 others but if one of them is a bruiser its better to just use the first ability.
I dont see Sabretooth as a bleeder oriented character actually. As I mentioned I see him as a late game finisher instead. He deals a lot more damage from having someone set up other dots then just bleeding ans he can do that himself. By using him with another bleeder it just limit his damage output. Like I mentioned my personal recommendation is Magneto, followed by Emma Frost. Survivability increase while he protects them from their class weakness.
As a character Sabretooth is pretty good, but from a design perspective.. hes dead boring. But I think as I said from the start is Sabretooth even a good Marvel character?
Domino:
As mentioned about Sabretooth Domino has a self coordination passive and a lot of otehr stuff.
Shes has 2 passives, one that increases her teams critical chance. And then her first passive is like... 10 passive in one.
First of all it can make her second ability become a quick action for that turn.
Then Domino -_- is the combination of all the forum hate for Marvel Avengers Alliance ever. She got avoidance to attacks, she can avoid debuffs, she can join in on attacks, counter attacks and ignore defence for some extra damage from no were....her second ability is also random what it does so.......
yeah luck based. But of course this is all correct to her Character and the way she shots at the roof for her second ability to make some random debris fall on the enemies is exactly a move she uses all the time in the comic and animations. Her third ability also has random qualities, same with her fourth so shes really annoying to play with.
Shes actually quite bad in a away, shes not weak but when you play with her you cant trust in her abilities.
If it was not fir her first ability, which also is her primary normal attack she would be very bad to use in attack.
Without going it how her moves work, a character competently based on luck is clearly a bad character to use in any game really as it removes your skills, which removes the chance of wining.
But her first move has the ability to turn of any class bonus + more. Its a a unique ability to Domino(for now......seriously the character who is like 3-5 to come will have it to) and give the enemy the auto debuff taht counters their class. For example exhaustion to tactician so they cant gain extra turns or use quick action moves. This will negate her weakness to Tactician but also for example remove the extra turn from Magnetos sheild.
Because of this Domino can be used pretty effectively in attack, its kinda boring to play with her because you mainly just spam one ability and hope for lucky counters/evasion etc :)
Domino's weakness lies in that while her first attack is both strong in damage wise and have a great debuff. And the player can use it right to remove the correct class bonus first etc or to impose a debuff like winded if they see coordination(from e.g ares) makes it really good. Definitely one of the best primary attacks in the game if not the best and she will then sue it with counters and follow up attack sand so on which can happen at any time with her.
Her other moves are really weak. They have a terrible damage output. They have debuffs,m but they do no damage at all. So her gameplay is mainly spamming the first move and when the second ability is a quick action(at random) use it to then use the first ability. That's pretty much how you play her.
The third ability is exactly like Spiral has an ability that gives the team the 4 base buffs(strength etc) while debuffing the enemy team with weakness and so on. But this is of course random what buffs you get still pretty solid support move but it deals zero damage. So it might not be that great to sue.
Her ultimate has really annoying debuffs it both has incapacitation, a debuff that might make a character miss their turn. This is actually pretty much the best debuff in the game now as its a way to go pass stun immune, she also give disoriented making them attack their allies. The ultimate has huge potential but on the same time you can use it and they go unaffected and as her ultimate deals zero damage(almost) it could be a completely wasted turn.
So again very luck based.
But her fundamental issue lies in that shes a Blaster. Blaster are clearly the worst class in afk, by far. And shes completely luck based to get her full potential, this means shes great in afk. If we exclude her class. If she was like an infiltrator I would likely run her in afk defence as she got so strong luck potential but to run a blaster----- Not very smart.
That is what really puts her usefulness down. Shes clearly the most irritating character to face in the game but having hte most vulnerable class for afking she becomes pretty weak. The worst is that, while in Havoks case he uses his aoe attack that gives exhaustion always right away, this nullify tactician against him(yes Havok is pretty good) but she has to use a single target attack with no stealth on to reach that tactician. Will the AI do this? Likely not. she has 3 AoE attacks so the chance of the AI fucking up and giving a Tactician an extra turn is huge.
Dont get me wrong she is very strong in attack, when a player can control her and preferbly synergize her with the cube for extra evasion shes very powerful and in theory shes very strong in afk defence. I just dont trust Playdom's programmers.
10/10. Shes very true to her comic self, very good design on her. Shes has that annoying luck power down very nicely in the game.
