Colors and abilities

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ General Discussion
1

Well, I thought about relations between abilities and their colors. After playing awhile it’s just interesting if my impession is same as for other players:
I’d divide them on three groups - Damage, Support and Sabotage.
Red - Direct damage
This is most obvious out of six. I mean, look at Wolv, IM, Rag, etc. Only noticable exception would be Thor - his red creates tiles, not destroys them. Why?

Black - Indirect damage
mStorm’s Hailstorm, Moonstone’ steal of attack and Bullseye’ creating of critical. From that point of view Punisher’s black supposed to be mainly for creation of strike tiles, not direct damage. On other hand, it creates red countdown, same intercolor relation as Daken’s black-yellow passive.

Green - Agressive support
Punisher’ and Wolv’s strike tiles, Storm’ trading in colors. Although I’m not sure, Rag and Thor create tiles, not getting AP or buff.

Yellow - Defending support (heal, resupply, protect)
This is mostly defensive color (well, it was until Ares advent - and even then it has heal in description). Wolv, IM, Spider, Cap - usual examples. Even cStorm’s yellow kinda fits with hurricanes being defensive weapon. As for Hood, I guess it’s mainly to get AP? Sounds more like green ability, no?

Blue - Stun, direct sabotage
On one hand, mHawk, mBW, cStorm, adding on countdowns for oBW, on other hand - Magneto with his blue protect and blowing.

Purple - indirect sabotage, confusion
Mag, Loki, Bag and Moon’s swaps, mBW and oBW steals. On other hand - gBW’s purple effect similar to Thor’s red, although description fits.

Any thought? Maybe you have some ideas?
Sorry for butchered English

2

Red - of or pertaining to physical power
Purple - of or pertaining to manipulation or change
Blue - of or pertaining to control
Green - of or pertaining to action
Yellow - of or pertaining to energy
Black - of or pertaining to the darkness/enmity (literal or figurative)

3

Red = anger, commonly assault.
Green = environment, commonly destruction. Changes the board massively, sometimes generating AP, sometimes adding strike tiles to the environment.
Blue = slowing maybe cold, magic, commonly stuns. Also has a heal? Hard to categorise beyond the stun. Has many misc powers like obw heal, dooms tile change which I think should be purple, hood stealing AP which also sounds purple but they are both magic effects so maybe that explains it.
Purple = stealth, misdirection. Steals AP, changes owned tiles, rearranges the board, changes tile colours.
Black = evil, decay, commonly attack tiles. Lower direct damage abilities but all seem to have side effects.
Yellow = life, commonly regeneration and defence tiles. Thor’s yellow attack generates environment, which ties in with life.
I have no explanation for hoods yellow attack here.

4

You forget about thor’s thunder strike well before ares entered the picture.

5

Consider that colors seem to have more to do with the rationale for the ability. Tiles changing color would ordinarily be purple however when Dr Doom does it, he makes it happen with control. When Thor does it, he does it as a result of the consequence of the attack.

Dr doom controls the blue tiles to become black. He doesn’t manipulate anything. It just happens.

Thor slams the earth with mjolnirs might. As a result all sorts of energies are kicked out of the earth (yellow - earth… volcanic ash is earthy and becomes charged when spewing into atmosphere). GSBW has red pistols. The pistols are intended to only deal damage, including destroying targeted tiles. Useful for removing enemy special tiles and doing some damage.

Yellow deals with the absorption and dissipation of energy. Thor dissipates energy with yellow. Captain America throws out defense tiles which absorb energy. The Hood has guns with big bullets (more energy, less piercing) that grab the surrounding tiles (absorbtion).

Black isn’t necessarily evil but it can be. Anything to be done in darkness, without detection, is black. Usually deals with Enmity.

6

See the Infinity Gems, part of the Marvel Universe.

Green - Soul - Allows the user to steal, control, manipulate and alter souls, living or dead, and is the gateway to an idyllic pocket universe.
Orange - Time - Allows the user total control over the past, present and future. Allows time travel, can age and de-age beings.
Purple - Space - Allows the user to exist in any or all locations, move any object anywhere throughout reality and warp or rearrange space.
Blue - Mind -Allows the user to greatly strengthen and enhance mental and psionic power and access the thoughts and dreams of other beings.
Yellow - Reality - Allows the user to fulfill wishes, even if the wish is in direct contradiction with scientific laws.
Red - Power - Accesses all power and energy that ever has or will exist, and can boost the other gems’ effects.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinity_Gems

7

Doesn’t seem like it’s relevant to in-game mechanics. We have black. There’s no orange.

8

Perhaps this is a good time to bring this subject back, since Demiurge acknowledged the color wheel as a part of their blog entry on Colossus.

There are also indirect comments about yellow being a defensive/protection color (Thor, Ares, Black Panther, Storm, and some other yellow users seem to deviate from this).

There are very loose implications that black fits with “fun”, or perhaps “thinky” (tactical, perhaps?).

9

Deadpool’s whale-throwing doesn’t fit with that at all. They changed Magneto’s purple, will they change his?

10

Well, it is kinda tricksy, breaking the 4th wall and all.

But I also think they break from the color scheme intentionally on occasion, especially when we’re talking about recent characters.

If a character performs an ability uncommon for that color, then that instantly gives that character an interesting niche. She-Hulk’s green is disliked because that color is often used for damage, but on the other hand, it also allows for the only team that can heal with theree different AP colors. That team can heal constantly. Also, She-Hulk must have a green power, regardless of what it does, she just simply must.

Maybe a better example is BP, who is very popular because he adds another direct damage power to the team when there is typically only one or two (red or green).