Tigra Trouble

Currently, the M:AA forums are abuzz with the man of the hour, the Merc With The Mouth a.k.a. Deadpool. He was a much sought-after character, being the prize for the top players of Playdom's first PVP tournament. The announcement of his availability for purchase after four days effectively eclipsed the debut of female Avenger Tigra.

For a lot of players, the Recruit button had a big question mark at the end.

Imagine - the announcement of a new hero arriving in four days was much bigger news, and was met with more enthusiasm than the immediate availability of a new female hero. I know what you're thinking - wouldn't stereotypical comic / Marvel geeks salivate more over a sexy cat-woman than they would over a masked assassin with guns and swords? Why is the opposite happening?

Nice answer, Wade, but not the one we're going with.

Part of the reason is the metagame, at least in PVP. The Infiltrator class, ideally counter-attacking every turn and ignoring tank / protector characters and striking fear into the enemy team, is not in its best environment thanks to the presence of agent weapons and characters whose attacks do not provoke counterattacks. A powerful deterrent to using Infiltrators in the PVP metagame is the presence of Ghost Rider, a popular Scrapper option. An oft-repeated aphorism in the game forums is "The game hates infiltrators right now," and Tigra is an Infiltrator.

As she was available earlier, players were able to check out her recruitment cost. Along with many other players, I was taken aback at her steep cost of 90 Command Points. To put things in perspective, Hercules, The Hulk and Thor clock in at 90 CPs. The reality-altering (and if the comics are to be believed, reality-shattering) Scarlet Witch also costs 90 CPs. Based on these three alone, one might conclude that 90 CP characters are unstoppable forces of destruction. However, other 90 CP heroes include Wolverine, Captain America, Spider-Man, Black Panther, Beast, Rogue, and Gambit (who's also another 90 CP Infiltrator). Comics-wise, they're not really on the level of the four 'unstoppable forces' I've listed earlier. They're still all good, for a certain value  of good.

Clockwise, from top left: Hercules, Hulk, Thor, Scarlet Witch, Wolverine, Rogue, Gambit, Beast, Black Panther, Spider-man, Captain America.

Now, if any M:AA players actually read this, they'll argue that Wolverine is an underwhelming 90 CP hero. I would have to agree. I used to think that Black Panther shared Wolverine's corner of shame, but a recent update allowed him to gain massive destructive potential and use it in the same turn, so the corner is solely Wolverine's again.

With the revamp to the bleeding mechanic, patched to coincide with Tigra's release, Wolverine got a slight bump in terms of utility. Of course, the change brought a new round of complaints, mostly from Black Cat players and the Black Panther players. Bleeding now only stacks up to three times, but the bleeding damage now fires at the start of each turn and with every hostile action. Hostile action here is defined as an attack or counterattack. Hostile actions also include (according to the last time I checked) effects such as Icy (from Laufey's Knife and Laufey's Needle) placing a status effect on an opponent. I am of the opinion that this should not be the case - after all, if you touch a very hot piece of metal, and you get burned because of it, it doesn't mean that the metal had any hostile intent toward you!

Cool swords, bro.

To wit, bleeding is shaping up from a straight-up Damage Over Time effect that needed to be built up to five stacks to become serious, into an effective punishment against multiple turns, counterattacks, and follow-ups.

The complaint from BC and BP users stems from the Exploits Bleeding attributes on Black Cat's Nerve Chop and Black Panther's Wakandan Arts. They now do significantly reduced damage, because they now get a max of 3 damage bonuses instead of 5 like before. I've seen people in the forums refer to the former as Nerf/ed Chop, and as for the latter I think people will be calling it WTF Arts.

Anyway, aside from being an Infiltrator, why was Tigra's first impression very bad for many players? The most common complaint is that she has no passive abilities.

Let's compare her with the other 90 CP heroes. Hercules will unleash critical hits per attack when he's loaded with buffs, Hulk gets more accuracy and damage whenever he's hit, and Thor is immune to a number of Damage Over Time effects. Scarlet Witch can dodge any hit 20% of the time, while Captain America can reduce damage by blocking it with his shield in addition to boosting his team's stats with his leadership. Spider-Man can divert an attack toward him, possible dodging it at the last second, saving the original target, and from time to time gain a sizable attack up as well. Wolverine is immune to fear effects and can recover some of his HP every turn. Beast gains an attack bonus if he does not attack that turn, and can make his team's next attacks critical whenever an enemy attacks. Black Panther has a chance to dizzy melee attackers, Rogue is immune to ground attacks thanks to her flight, and Gambit can throw a card at enemies who attack his allies, damaging the attacker and letting Gambit charge up his attacks.

Go to your Team Screen and select Tigra, then place the cursor over her image. The box in red pops up, which for certain heroes will display the passive abilities in this current uniform. 

In other words, she has no special defenses or quirks. Many players took one look at her and probably summarized her as a more expensive Black Cat. Both are female Infiltrators whose arsenals revolve around bleeding, and neither have any passives in their standard uniform / costume. Looking at it in a different light, there are 5 Infiltrators that cost less than Tigra does, and of those 5, 3 have passive abilities that make attacking them unattractive. Black Widow promises more damage to anyone who attacks her. Invisible Woman has a chance to flat-out dodge an attack and give herself increased accuracy, which translates to a greater chance to land a critical hit, and all of her damaging moves have Deadly Crits, which essentially means Normal Damage X Critical Damage Multiplier + Deadly Crits Bonus. Finally, Kitty Pryde has her dragon friend Lockheed, who has a chance to belch fire at whoever attacks her.

As for the other 2 Infiltrators who are cheaper than Tigra, one of them is Black Cat, who requires a combination of multiple bleeding stacks and her Stroke of Luck skill to land a One-Hit K.O. with her Nerve Chop. The other one is Nightcrawler, widely regarded by players as one of the worst heroes in the game at the moment, and whose specialty is inflicting the Dizzy status on enemies and executing follow-up attacks on Dizzy targets.

When trying to determine whether a hero is worth his or her point cost or not, it's fine to look at the little details and compare the hero to similarly-costed or same-class heroes, but that shouldn't be the end-all and be-all of things. As Albert Einstein said, 

“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”

So here's an alternate view I'm offering - Tigra doesn't have a passive (yet, as I'm still wishing she'll get one eventually) because she doesn't need one in her current role in the game. What is her role in the game? The answer, I believe, lies in the unique status effect she brings to the game, Shred.

Shred essentially enables characters who exploit bleeding to do so against targets that don't bleed, as well as reducing defense. Shred gets applied to targets hit by Tigra that are immune to Bleeding. In PVP, this applies to agents with the rare Fist of the Colossus equipped, as well as the heroes Luke Cage, Thing, and Colossus himself. In PVE, this applies to enemies with the Mechanical Body passive, such as the Servbots and the Sentinels.

Shred also stacks three times, and according to its description, counts as bleeding for the purposes of attacks. This will allow Black Cat and Black Panther to use their attacks with Exploit Bleeding to full effect, even against hardened targets. Of course, getting 3 stacks of Shred on the same target is going to require three turns with a low-level Tigra with her first attack.

However, it's just two if she's at least level 9 and has access to her Frenzy Skill.

First turn: Swipe, then Frenzy, gain Feral Instincts. Second turn, Swipe, then Razor Claws, gaining Sharpened Claws, then a follow-up Razor Claws against the same target. Feel free to send Black Cat or Black Panther in for the finisher.

Here's her level 2 skill. It certainly cements her dedication to the bleeding theme.

It's clear now what Tigra's role is - she allows attacks that depend on the target bleeding, including her own, to be used against everything. In other words, she ensures that a bleeding team does not automatically lose when  fighting a team with Colossus, Thing, or Luke Cage in it. (Does anyone really field Luke Cage in PVP?) Once the opponents are either bleeding or shredded, Tigra can go in for massive damage, helped along by her level 6 skill.

An important note: Shred doesn't work with the Ravaged debuff, which increases the health lost from Bleeding effects. Sorry, Wolverine, you're still stuck up the creek when you're fighting robots in-game.

My verdict - I'm getting her, as she'll prove to be great against everyone's favorite epic boss, Magneto. Recruiting her will let me finally train Wolverine up to level 10, as he'll now have a replacement who can cause more bleeding damage to happen despite Magneto's shields. She seem like she's going to be a blast to play, and it's highly likely she'll be required in the next Spec Ops. Besides, catgirls!