Kamala Khan & Luke Cage - Great examples of character design

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ General Discussion
1

I’m just over 300 days in and at the 3* level, and as I’ve been building up some of the new characters, I’ve felt Kamala Khan and Luke Cage have been two of the best in terms of character design simply because they are the first characters I want multiple specs of and feel like there is a firm argument for all 3 of their powers without overpowering.

KK:

Yellow - Great defensive ability. Even without true healing, I desperately want to package her with Devil Dino after I get my Anniversary Covers, maybe with The Hood as a 3rd for Shield Sim. Just the insane defensive play of Devil Dino’s wiggly dance and KK’s yellow would have to get a lot of people to pass or simply be too frustrated to tackle.

Purple - Provides Green, a major color, and is awesome for specific AP denial to change out a color for Green. Very useful ability

Green - AOE effect that is pretty powerful.

I want a 5/5/3 and a 3/5/5 of her for offensive and defensive purposes.

Luke Cage

Yellow - Costs a lot, but super powerful especially if you get it out early

Red - Great defensive ability. I can understand some criticism of auto tiles (like LC and IF have,) but protect isn’t as bad as some possibilities. Makes him a PVE and DDQ monster to take on the lower leveled villains without any retribution. I know common build is against red, but I’d love to have a powerful defensive LC

Black - Can chain together, with stun, and big damage. Love the versatility of quick damage to eliminate a character if you need it, or build it up for some huge blows.

Same deal, I want an offensive and a defensive LC to use.

Maybe it is because I like playing defensively more than the meta game is (I play PVE this way,) but want to give applause on these two characters. Very useful, not overpowered, and their builds become more about how to pair them with others and play style over one power just not being as good as the others.

2

Agreed! These characters are great. And have more than one good build, which makes it stressful when deciding whether to delete a cover or not!

And I’m a fan of the 5 redflag.png
LC. While occasionally I lament not having stun on blackflag.png
, I smile everytime I see 1 pt match damage, which happens against even medium-high level opponents. When I bring along a squishy like Hood or Loki, LC pretty much ensures they live long enough to ruin the opponent’s AP pool. And to top it off: Luke + AP = wrecking ball.

3

I abso-freakin-lutely love Luke Cage!

On Thunderbolts mountain I cleared the way with him and Fist without using a single health-pack! His 5 redflag.png
is kinda overkill as even level 280 characters do 1 damage on matching.

However I have NEVER advocated 5 yellowflag.png
for him as it’s waaaaay too expensive AND you only get to pull it off twice a match (maybe?), though it might be more viable now with Kingpin (if you’d rather use LC skills over his own, which i suspect won’t happen).

355 or 445 for LC is BEAST. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. icon_lol.gif

4

Me too! I love Luke cage red, because it saves so much health packs. I can bring in a character with less than 50% health, and as long as I deny the AI the ap, I can still come out relatively unscathed.

I like his yellow more than his black, because there is a dearth of yellow ability and Xforce black is way better. But things have changed now. For yellow Cyclops ability is pretty darn good and it’s low cost. Xforce black is no longer that domineering. I might respec him if I get 2 more blacks… I really do like the stun.

5

I like Luke Cages design but his powers can honestly go both ways since Yellow is 13 cost and Black is 12 cost if you want the full effect of it.

5 yellowflag.png
comes out to 549.3 damage per AP with two members still standing and 5 blackflag.png
is 448.667 damage per AP for the full effect with 12 AP + stun. I do quite like these characters when you can build towards any direction and be good depending on what you’re after. Comparatively speaking, he hits harder per AP on a single target than 3 star Thor if you don’t include that his Yellow fuels his Green. If you even get that green that is. You gotta build for that yellow hit however which is only 207.17 per AP. D: Man, Luke be strong.

6

Putting it simply. Luke Cage fits however you want to build him. There are so many different teams that his builds can go into. He can be built with defense in mind 5 redflag.png
or go full offense 3 redflag.png
. He is definitely a well thought out character that appeals to all playing types.

Kamala Khan is the same. No matter how you put her together, support or assault she is a good fit into a team. A passive heal is a handy thing to have regardless of 3, 4 or 5 covers.

7

5/5/3 Luke with 5/3/5 Kamala

enjoy the free Protect + Heal every single turn.

8

I don’t think it works that way. If that were the case, Daken would heal any time green is matched. It doesn’t.

9

Yes, passive skills do not activate her heal. You must physically touch-activate something for her to go off.

Hmm… I think i may need to rephrase my previous sentence…

10

Then it’s bugged, because Luke sure does trigger her.

11

Weird, my Cage doesn’t trigger her. Just tried it. Not sure if it’s a client issue.

12

And that’s how you point them which characters to nerf next…

Just in case… Beast and Bagman will be awesome with the health buff!

13

5/3/5 Luke and as long as 5 green in Kamala it doesnt matter her build.

5 red is overkill and 4 red gimps black or yellow too much.

5/3/5 Cage with 5/3/5 Kamala and 3/5/5 Iron Fist. YOU DON’T TAKE DAMAGE EXCEPT FIRST FEW TURNS!!!

And trust me, you need all the offensive firepower you can get with all the health upgrades, if matches are getting longer you have 1 of 2 options, dig in for def or all out for offense, since all out offense is quicker it’s the way I’m going

14

I like Kamala’s design, but somewhere in their process, someone should’ve said ‘hey, isn’t she just GSBW 2.0’? Part of the design process is making sure you don’t invalidate other things(but GSBW needs to be powered up anyway)

My thoughts on character design: https://forums.505go.com/discussion/25844

Kingpin is hard to place, and Bagsilver got nerfed too hard.