Rogue: A stellar release ?

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ Character Discussion
1

Disclaimer: I don’t own Rogue, so my analyse is based on what I’ve seen and the tests I made in the loaner node of SHIELD Training.

I remember Jarvind saying that he wished Rogue was a powerful 5*, and I replied that maybe she’s going to be a very powerful 4*. Of course, I was biased, because she’s one of my favorite X-Men since I was a child, and I’ve set my mind to favorite her in MPQ, no matter how she looks power-wise. Now, that I’ve seen and played a little with her in the loner node of SHIELD Training, I think that favoring her is a no-brainer, since I feel she will break the top 5 in tier list.

New mechanic: color blocking
First off, any top tier must have a distinctive mechanic that would gain advantages no other (or few other) character(s) would bring. And Rogue has such a thing with her green: Power Siphon.

For only 5 AP, you can Power Siphon the enemy in front, and her ability transforms into a passive of the target’s strong color. It last until you gain 14AP and deal damage to the target, or indefinitely is you consume the AP with other powers. That means you can color block the enemy team for as long as you want, especially if you have a rainbow team, and gain double/triple AP during that time.

This opens the door for so many strategic plays, and I will give 2 examples of usage:

1. Bl4de
You can shut down blade by simply Power Siphoning him, so the enemy team will not gain any red, thus Bloodlust will never activate.

Of course, not all characters have strong colors in their best abilities (Rulk, for instance), and that’s where example 2 comes in.

2. Vulture & Cloak-Dagger
You can shut down a team with both Vulture and C&D, by simply Power Siphoning Vulture. Vulture, won’t be able to gather black anymore. But you affect C&D as well, because all black they create will benefit only yourself. Or you can shut down Rulk if the enemy has a green strong color user, by Power Siphoning that character.

So there’s a wide variety of teams or opponents this power is good against. And the fun part is that if you’ve killed your target, you can let it deal damage, turning back to normal, and Power Siphon someone else, thus changing the color you’re blocking (having 5 green after a couple of turn of keeping the passive in play is more than likely, since you have enough time to collect green again). From my knowledge, this is the only ability in game that can transform in any color you want. Lockjow is close with his teleport, but you’re dependent on the board to switch the color.

Good tank
Another talking point is the tanking option. We have few tanks in game, and even fewer good tanks. Having the potential to block 50% of power damage is huge, if you’re able to keep her in front. Having played a lot with & against Colossus in the past, I know how good a 50% damage reduction can be. Being a passive, Rogue’s tanking has the potential to be as resistive as you manage to keep her in the fray of fight.

Role(s) in the team
What makes a character great is not necessarily his/her power, but the role(s) in the team. Medusa is a support that also enhance the damage you deal. Cloak & Dagger is a support with battery potential and consistent damage output. Carol is a strike tile creator and a CD resolver. Rulk or Iceman are AoE-centric heroes. Peggy is a damage dealer with lots of utility. So where do Rogue sits ?

Well, she is a tank & a color blocker, but what stands out is that she is a Counter-hero.

People usually ask, what is the best team for character X ? While this could be a valid question for Rogue as well, the better question for her is “who she’s good against” ? The other hero I might think like so, is Peggy. But other than that, few heroes in MPQ have this counter role. When I’m using Carol my only thought is to kick some arse. I rarely think who to fight against. With Rogue this question will be more prominent, and more rewarding to anwser.

Build
So how do we build Rogue? I’ve never talked about her red in this post, and with good reason. Even though it allows you to choose what block of tiles to destroy and it will also generate AP, I think the cost is too high, and damage too low to be worth investing in the power, unless you pair her with charge tile creators and plan on destroying those to gather AP. Still 12 red for this seems too much for me, especially since there are better red users in 4* land.

Only future testing will tell if I’m wrong about this, but as I see her now 5-3-5 is her desired build. It’s just hard to pass the damage reduction which comes with yellow covers 4 and 5.

2

535 seems like a good build for her the only other build worth mentioning is 553. There are plenty other better red users though, especially Mockingbird.

I like her with Rogue 553, Winter Soldier 553, and Carol 535 . Carols yellow ensures that Buckys blue goes off and its a team full of nukes with ap generation.

Also, Rogue 535, Mockingbird 553, Wasp 355. There is a lot of AP generation and rogue becomes a great tank with 5 in yellow exactly what her partners need on this team.

3

I think Vulture will still generate Black from Circling Prey. But not from matches, you’re right. So he’ll have a hard time getting to 6 black again.

Worth mentioning that (although I have not tested this) Yellow appears to reduce all power damage by up to 50%, not just damage dealt to Rogue.

The only time I can think you’d want Rogue at 5/5/3 is if she doesn’t tank any of her colors; this makes it very unlikely that she’ll be in front when the enemy fires their powers, so you might as well get that extra damage from red.

4

I definitely think Rogue will join the “Kill First” list in PVP. Looking forward to Rogue being the new Medusa/Carol where she’s on practically every team :s

5

Well, that’ll be tricky since she’ll only take half damage (except from Attack tiles, possibly)

6

Yeah, it only blocks matches. So Vulture, IM40, Rulk, etc. would still work. Still, sweet mechanic for blocking unpleasant powers, especially since you can’t shut it off by matching away a countdown.

I’ll probably build her 4/5/4. The extra match damage on one color isn’t a big deal unless you’re pairing her with 5*s, so the 5th cover on green isn’t essential for me. Likewise, an extra 5% damage reduction per teammate on yellow is unlikely to make or break anything. So I don’t see any reason not to max out her only damage power. It’s costly, but it also gains AP for the tiles destroyed, which makes it worthwhile in my opinion.

I guess 5/4/4 might be an option if you were to argue that the damage portion of green is worth it, but I feel like I’ll mostly want to use it for battery and power-blocking purposes. Will depend on what the numbers look like boosted, I guess.

7

Is this accurate? The description on her yellow passive specifically states she reduces match damage.

8

At 4/5 covers it also reduces damage from powers.

9

After playing with the team a little more I can tell you Rogue 535, Mockingbird 553, Wasp 355 is super scary
since you don’t have a blue outlet. Wasps passive will always be active. So you have all 3 characters generating
ap. Rogues green, Wasps blue, Bobbi’s yellow “opportunist” and her purple. Then you have Rogue tanking and blocking 25% of hits and powers all while stopping ap generation for your opponent.

When you have Wasps tiles from her blue passive the board can get pretty limited for your opponent really fast.
I think this is my favorite Rogue team, so far. She works well with others who have passives as well. She can also
have a problem with working well with many other characters, which kind of fits her personality and result of her powers. Soon the board becomes scary for your opponent to match anything.

D4Ni13 was right about 535 becoming a nuisance for your opponent.

I hope she works well with the future x-men coming to mpq (crosses fingers for Cecilia Reyes, Gambit, Rachel Summers, Jubilee, and Nate Grey).

10

Am I missing something?

isn’t Rogue a brand new Character in MPQ?
i keep reading like people had her long ago and fully maxed already…

or or are all this talk is based on just reading her stats?
Oo

11

I use her on my sandboxed account and maxed her on day 1. I posted a video of her stats yesterday. I like to help the community when i can, there great folks. I have been using her with Mockingbird and Wasp with good results, Bucky and Carol with her is interesting as well. I change her build to 535 with MB and Wasp though.

12

Good point with Bl4de, but one of my favorite ways to use him is with IM40. I would assume the red AP you get from Recharge would still trigger Bloodlust.

However, it would become really hard to keep it going if Rogue is siphoning red AP, as red matches would yield 0 AP as Bloodlust consumes 1 red AP each turn.

13

Thats one of her problems, which is why i have a love and hate relationship with this character. When she takes over a power that one of my characters really needed it can suck. Which is why I use Mockingbird and Wasp, cause if she takes over purple, blue, black, or yellow it doesn’t really affect me.

The only things I need are Mocking birds passive and red power, also wasps passive is good enough as well.

14

Yes, and Blade was just an example. There are plenty other enemies that would be shut down from a well timed power siphon. Carol is another example. Of course her passive works, but most Carols (including myself) play around her having the strong color and generating black quickly. Take the black away from us, and we’re dead meat.

Wasp is another example, but harder to shut down, since you need an enemy with blue strong color in her team, and Wasp compositions rarely have such a guy. But Wasp & Scarlet Witch teams would suffer.

Of course, testing & pairing prefference will tell if one build is better from the other. And you might be right about focusing on her red. I just think the cost is a bit high.

Peggy does the same, ignoring any protect tiles, for 1/4 less AP than Rogue. Mokingbird does the same damage as Carol for the same AP like Peggy.

Generating AP is nice, but relying on that to consistenly fire her red means you have to hit a punch first in order to lets say destroy some red and get back some of the initial cost, therefore being able to fire red earlier next time. Now if you plan to power siphon a target with red strong color, the situation would change a lot.

I guess she will be a hero you want to change the build acording to what enemies you face. She might change her build from event to event. And that is not a bad thing :slight_smile:

15

I’m not understanding your logic here. You are reffering to playing against Rogue ? If so the only colors she could block would be your strong colors. Assuming you play Rogue, Mockingbird & Wasp, the enemy Rogue could take Green (from Rogue), Red (from Mockingbird) or Yellow(from Wasp).

If you’re reffering to colors you block from others, than all of the colors you mentioned would be good. Purple for Mockingbird, Yellow, Blue & Black for Wasp. Red and Green would be awesome too.

I mean you’re right the team you mentioned is pretty good. What I wanted to clarify is why did you mentioned those 4 colors as not affecting you..

16

I should have been more specific, I love rogue as a character she was my main in marvel vs capcom 2, lol. What I was referring to is when I use her not my opponent. For the team stated above, if the enemies strongest color is blue, yellow, black, or purple it doesn’t really effect my play with the team.

She seems to not work well with other teams at times due to the fact that she can end up taking over a important color on your own team like Mockingbirds red for the team I was talking about. Other than that she seems to work
well with characters that have passives.

If Rogue takes over blue it doesn’t affect me cause no one on my team uses blue, wasp simply needs to have 6ap in blue for her passive to fire consistently. This is fine if rogue takes blue over since I will still get use from wasps passive due to Rogues “Gloves Off” needing 14ap so no biggie.

If Rogue takes over black or yellow on my team those also don’t matter to me. I mainly use wasp for her blue passive. Yellow and black for wasps are just extra’s I can use when I get the ap to use them. Although black is
also useful at times to stun and do some damage.

If Rogue takes over my mockingbirds purple that also doesn’t matter, since even without that power at mockingbirds
disposal every character on that team passively generates ap (Rogue green, MB Yellow, Wasp blue).

Maybe I will make a video later when I get off work just to show the team synergy.

17

She can be very fun in PVP with 4* Miss Marvel. If you’re sharing strongest color, their matches become 0 damage, 0 AP, 3/4 AP to you, And damage their entire team.
And if that’s black, you can spam out her Photonic barrage, and ensure Rogue’s green never becomes an active again.
AND if it’s specifically Miss Marvel you’re fighting (Which I’m seeing a lot in PVP), then you don’t need to worry about HER ability to punish you gathering black: Just set up black matches for the enemy, and you’re laughing.

18

I see…
But why is red problematic ? Do you want the green damage ? If Rogue is taking red she kinda transforms into a red battery, gather red quicker so you can use Bombshell more. Why does it affect your play ?

19

not a fan of her jumping in front to take damage. i use oml to take damage. don’t need another character jumping in front on their own accord.

already not impressed.

20

I would rather have Rogue use any other color but red so that I have 2 nukes ready to go since Mockinbird and Rogue are the main damage dealers, Wasp is just there to be a added annoyance.