K.N.Y.F.E. vs Ra/Haka/Chrono?

I've been playing lots of games lately with the new Season Pass 2 heroes (Parse, Naturalist, Sentinels, KNYFE), and while I've had great success with the first three, I've found K.N.Y.F.E. a little hard to use effectively.  

Any K.N.Y.F.E. loyalists out there -- can you tell me why you'd pick her as a damage dealer over Ra, Haka, or Chrono Ranger?

--Ra has better one-shots (Fire Blast, Inferno, Flame Spike), a great passive damage card in Flame Barrier, better AOE (Scorched Earth, Inferno), an awesome buff card (Imbued Fire) better card draw (Excavation, Summon Staff), limited self-healing (keep destroying the Staff of Ra and replaying it for 3 HP), and some situational cards like Scorched Earth and Flesh of the Sun God that can be devastating at the right time.  

--Haka doesn't have quite as much consistent damage, but his excellent card draw (18 of his cards give him extra cards in some way/shape/form) pretty much ensures that you'll get the Taiaha out and start doing 3-6 damage every round.  He doesn't have Ra's self healing, but Ta Moko will keep him in a fight longer than KNYFE; his "damage everybody" AOE card (Rampage) trumps KNYFE's, Ground Pound is a game-saver; Savage Mana can completely neuter villains and environments that count on playing targets and getting them back out of the trash, as well as provide a devastating 20-30 HP finishing blow.  

--Chrono-Ranger is, of course, the damage master, because he can do so much out-of-turn damage, and Hunter and Hunted is a big risk/reward card.   And again, not only does he have great card draw to get his party pieces out, all of his card-draw cards also do damage: Get a bounty or two in play, then play (ex:) Displaced Armory -- boom!  do damage and pull a new weapon.  Or play Sudden Contract -- boom! do damage and pull a new bounty.  Or play Eye on the Prize -- boom!  do damage and draw/play.  Or play any of the get-bounties-out-of-the-trash cards -- boom!  do damage and put a bounty back into play.   His dart-thrower makes him a capable damage-reducer, and he even has a little environment/ongoing control with Temporal Grenade.  His only real damage limit is AOE

KNYFE has poor card draw, no environment ongoing control, can't buff other heroes, can't prevent damage to herself or other heroes, can't heal, can't do villain deck-control...in short, it seems that she does no more damage than Ra/Haka/CR, but without any of their extras.  

The biggest problem for me is that I can't seem to find a KNYFE "master strategy."  With Ra, I generally try to get the Staff and Blazing Tornado in hand--which, given Summon Staff and Excavation, is not very hard.  By then, I usually have a bunch of cards in hand, and can pick and choose from the various one-shots as necessary.  

With Haka, it's all about Savage Mana.  Get the Taiaha in hand, get buffs either from Haka of Battle or other heroes, and begin storing up cards/preventing the villain from getting cards back, readying for a huge 20-30HP blast.  In between, play Ground Pounds when necessary to save your fellow heroes, and an occasional Rampage to clear the board.

For CR, it's working towards Hunter and Hunted.  Use his great card draw and Jim's Hat to get as many useful bounties out there as possible, then play Hunter and Hunted and do massive out-of-turn damage.  Yes, it gets him smacked, but with 4-5 bounties and Danny Boy or Masada in hand, there are very few things he can't kill before they kill him.  Or, keep smacking the villain with the dart-thrower and reduce the villain's damage.

With KNYFE, there doesn't seem to be anything to work "towards."  Get her knife and gauntlet in hand, and then just play one-shots until she runs out of cards...which is usually soon.  There have been many turns in which I've skipped playing a card because none of them seemed all that useful...or they depended on KNYFE doing herself damage, and she was too low on HP...or they needed a buff/equipment that she didn't have in hand...or they needed more cards for her to play/draw, which she didn't have.

Any thoughts?  How do you make KNYFE effective?  Right now, she is sitting far at the bottom of my hero-drawer, like Expatriette and Bunker.

I feel she mostly shines and burning down the main villain better than the others.   Between Focusing Conduit Blade, the Gauntlet,and Kinetic Neutralizer she gets a lot of buffs to beat down on the main villain.    With all of those out she can regularly damage the main villain for 6 on her power phase consistently which only Chrono can accomplish.   Her one-shots typically do multiple instances of damage so any damage boosts make her cards hit a lot harder.   She will have some dud hands but any of those heroes can as well.  The only card I find I won't play often at all of Overdo It because she doesn't have the card draw to consistently make good use of it but add a Team Leader Tachyon it's great.  

It's her card draw (or lack thereof) that really makes it problematic for me.  Expatriette is bad enough, but she has a few cards (Quick Draw, Arsenal Access, Speed Loading) that can enable you to get her guns eventually.   The other big damage-dealers all seem to have pretty reliable ways of getting out their "Big Bad" cards.   I don't think I've ever gone a game, for example, that CR didn't have 3-4 bounties and some good guns in play, or where Haka didn't have the Taiaha and Savage Mana.    KNYFE's card draw plays are all random, and just allow an additional card or two.  It just always seems like KNYFE has a random (small) bunch of cards in hand, and no concerted strategy to play towards.  

I've never had her play out her hand unless she has Overdo It in play as most of the cards with extra plays draw a card as well.  Like I sad her main focus is more of beating the main villain quick which she is more capable of than the others you list.  Overall I'd say she is more like Ra but has more self buffing abilities and gains more from damage buffs than he does due to how her damage is split up.  

And given her nemesis, that makes sense. 

Yeah, I tend to see her as a kind of "assassin" character. Her best cards work toward focusing the villain character card, and she can be pretty devastating once she's set up. Things like Primed Punch and Battlefield Experience aren't limited, and between that and things like For the Greater Good, she can chain like a mofo and in ideal circumstances can do six or seven instances of damage to the villain -- and with a +2 on each of those, she can tear him down.

And don't underestimate Flawless Execution's ability to help bring down minions when she has to -- sure, it's not a buff per se, but it helps when there's some DR out.

For a long time I was like you and didn't much like KNYFE, favoring her slightly over Ra because of while she also lacks nuance she is slightly more complex in the combos she can set up. I think it's important to note that she is the only complexity one hero released outside the enhanced edition so she isn't necessarily made to open up new possibilities everytime she plays. Still, I think she has more to offer than you (or I, at first,) saw:

While she is great at focusing or going Mano a Mano against the main villain (Hello, Progeny,) being able to consistently put out tremondous damage as Powerhound pointed out, with Flawless Execution she is also able to handily take care of low health minons when needed (and has lots of multi-target damage cards to spread that destruction around.) 

While Rampage might have better raw damage output, Incidental Contact is more focused and can allow you to selectively damage non-hero targets less if you so desire (if say an environment card is going to attack the lowest target and you want to make sure that's not you,) plus if your teammates can redirect damage you can get double the benefit from Contact. If you team her up with Visionary and Twist the Ether that card becomes a monster attack. 

Of the four heroes you compare her to she has arguably the best ongoing destruction. Ra and Haka have none at all, and while Chrono can search for his it destroys itself, while KNYFE's sticks around (albeit it must be used indirectly.) 

Her lack of card draw doesn't bother me much, all heroes have weaknesses, but Null Shield is there if you need a quick boost. 

With the possible exception of Chrono, KNYFE also has much greater potential for monster turns than the other heroes: if she has the health she can pull off several power uses in a turn, each time she uses Battle Field Experience she can follow it up with a damage dealing one-shot, and she can begin her turn with a Primed Punch if needed.

What she lacks in Ra's damage consistency she makes up for in combos, what she lacks in Haka's draw potential she makes up for in focused and carved attacks, and what she lacks in Chrono's top damage potential she makes up for in less risk and less time setting up. At least for me. 

Plus with Rogue Agent you can help your teammates out while still setting yourself up, that's certainly not something the other three can do. 

I don't think you're ever going to love KNYFE, especially if you're looking for something to build towards (since she has explosive and destructive turns,) but she can do a few things no other hero can (Servo Gauntlet's ongoing destruction, Flawless Execution,) and might grow on you after a fashion. 

Maybe it’s just been lucky draws on my part, but I find myself consistently doing 6 HP or more per turn to the villain with KNYFE. Plus, KNYFE takes better to damage buffs like Legacy, “Twist the Ether,” or “Obsidian Field” than Ra or Haka, since she’s likely to be doing two types of damage and therefore be getting double the benefit from the buff.

I love KNYFE. I pick her over Ra because she's got a lot more finesse, more AoE options, and the ability to buff her own damage like Chrono-Ranger. As the others have said, her ability to destroy the villain is where she shines. She's really like Chrono-Ranger with Ra's base damage output.

I think the Focusing Blade's ability to put another equipment in play when destroyed is the designer's way of saying that KNYFE wants to start with the Blade. KNYFE really wants to have all of her equipment in play. Leading with the Blade helps her get there. Put the Blade in play and use it. KNYFE gets to deal 4 damage and still end up with the Gauntlet or Shield in play. Of course, that assumes she's got her equipment in hand, which is far from sure.

As pointed out, with the Blade, Gauntlet, Neutralizer and Primed Punch in play, she can deal 3 melee and 3 energy each turn. That's an awful lot of cards to get in play, particularly without any search to help out, but if you _do_ get there, it's hard to beat in terms of damage being dished out each turn to a single opponent without buffs from other decks and without increasing damage to herself.

I tend to agree that Ra, Haka, and CR probably all have more consistent and larger amounts of damage they can deal, combined w/ more flexibility, so in general I agree with you, but I'm surprised at the idea that KNYFE is ever left with nothing useful to do. I guess if your hand is filled with Overdo It and For the Greater Good that might happen, but it seems relatively rare.

Combat Experience also helps her set up and cycle through her deck -- use it, then have the draw/play put another ongoing you want to use out, that frees up your next turn a bit.

Also worth pointing out that Knyfe can, in fact, destroy ongoing if she uses the gauntlet power. It’s not consistently available, but it means she does have some utility available.

She also has some interesting synergy with other heroes -- I got a log of mileage out of pairing her with Tempest. He knocks a troublesome card Into the Stratophere, and she can use Wrecking Uppercut to toss it right into the trash. Also handy if, say, Wraith or Parse or Visionary find a double of something like Devastating Aurora when they scry the villain deck.

KNYFE is a great 3 player team member, at least her original card is.  She is not reliant on burst damage, she has a solid base damage that increases with almost all of the cards she gets.  She has a lot of good cards, and very few big turn cards, so she doesn't really need that card draw to get her good cards, most of them are good.

She self buffs, self defends, has an ongoing destruction option, and can run some bursty turns when called for, but still be reliable the next turn as well.

Chrono is a fantastic damage dealer in a larger team, but his low early damage means you need help to get through the initial villain setup, while his indredible ability to scale up in damage makes the end game Chrono time.

Haka is a really strong and versatile damage dealer, with multiple big turn scenarios and Savage Mana.

Ra cannot match the other's single turn outputs, but makes up for it with Flame Barrier and really solid damage each turn.  He doesn't have big single turn cards, his best is setting up a big turn with Solar Flare, which requires a setup round and self damage.

Of the four of them KNYFE is my favorite for a 3-hero party, Chrono is amazing in a 5 hero party, Haka is good on any team and Ra I like best with 4 players.

Not that I limit their use to those team sizes, but that's where I think their style does the best.

You may also find your mileage improving with KNYFE if you put her at the back of the party rotation. She benefits from being in the rear, so the other heroes have softened up minions and she can land a killing blow with “Prototype Servo-Gauntlet” and/or “Flawless Execution;” "Wrecking Uppercut is most effective after someone else has had a chance to scan/manipulate the villain deck; her damage is best after everyone’s had a chance to buff her; and her own card draws are most effective after giving someone a chance to manipulate her own deck.

Also, like Chrono-Ranger, Legacy and Argent Adept are her BEST friends. Damage buffs, healing, DR, and extra card plays and draws? All helpful for her.

I like pairing her with Visionary. I start using Enlighten to give her cards for Overdo It. Twist the Ether means that she only needs one of her dmage buffs to give each instance of damage plus two. A second Teist the Ether helps too with all her instances of damage. Twist the Ether has means you take less damage from Overdo It, which you can now keep out longer with all the extra cards. Limits the samage on For the Greater Good, and it can even prevent damage to allies from incidental Contact. Also, you can keep using Mental Divergence to keep bringing back Battlefield Experience, which can possibly do 6 plus 6 to the main villain each time. Not to mention the extra draw and card play.

Also a very powerful, if apparently hard to spell, alliance.

This, this, a million times this. Holy Crap is that a beautiful combo.

Another beautiful combo I love is Overdo It and Primed Punch. Also Overdo It plus anyone who can feed her card draws like TLT, Naturalist, Argent Adept, etc. Sure you are hurting yourself every turn but what are hit points if not a resource to be exploited. My personal philosophy when playing KNYFE is that if she ain’t close to dieing at the end of the game you are playing her wrong. This is why I love her so much.

As has been pointed out before, KNYFE is all about focusing down the villain and can setup some nasty combos to accomplish this goal: with Gauntlet, Blade, and Kinetic Neutralizer already out, Overdo It into For the Greater Good into Battlefield Experience into Primed Punch; you’ve just drawn 2 cards, hit the villain for 4 energy and 9 melee, and you still have your main play power draw phase to go through.

KNYFE took awhile to grow on me as well. When I one-shotted Iron Legacy though I was hooked on her.

I think of 'one-shotted' as meaning destroying a target with a single dealing of damage, but I'm guessing you mean that KNYFE destroyed Iron Legacy on her turn by taking him from max down to 0 HP using a series of attacks. I'm curious what the details were, if you happen to remember.

Not sure about that situation, but I have had turns like that with some plus to damage on the team. Overdo it playing For the Greater Good can often deal 15+ damage before your play phase. Either play Primed Punhc, use the power, then deal 4 more damge, since it is the start of the turn still. With +3 damage, that's 4+4+7=15. Nice start of the turn. Playing Battlefield Experience using the power, then playing Amplified Combat with the destruction clause with +3 can deal 5+5+4+4=18 damage. I have done both in-game, not to Iron Legacy, just in general. Then just go all out during your play phase and power phase, and the damage can really get up there. 

That wasn't in refernce to Iron Legacy, just in general. If you meant how to get that much damage to Iron Legacy specifically, *shrug*.

Okay, I'm gonna have to remember the Overdo It/Primed Punch thing. :)

I’m sorry, I don’t remember the details. We played that game months ago. All I remember was that Legacy(Pauline) was on the team and there was a Meteor Storm out which gave us time to build up. I’m pretty sure I had a Primed Punch already out and pulled off the combo I mentioned earlier leading with a second Primed Punch.

Yeah, my favorite thing about KNYFE is combos. She can play 3 or more cards, use multiple powers dealing multiple instances of damage, without too much trouble.

Also, like was said, she really likes going toe-to-toe with the highest hp villain. She can reduce their damage, increase her own, and then go to town hitting them an average of 4 times a turn if not more.

Or, with her one-shots and the blade and gauntlet, she can handle multi-target situations really well, destroying or at least brutally weakening multiple minions, while still hitting the big target.

Oh... and don't use Wrecking Uppercut against the Ennead... I found out that was a bad idea the hard way.

Especially not on challenge mode!

Lots of interesting ideas here; I'll have to try them out.  

One of my biases against KNYFE may come from the fact that for whatever reason, I found myself playing her against Spite numerous times, with no buffing or damage-redirecting heroes to help.  Between Spite's DR, KNYFE's lack of DR (which made the "take damage whenever you use a power" really problematic), and the continuous ongoing/equipment destruction (so she never got to keep her Blade/Gauntlet/anything else in play very long), she just wasn't doing much good, and was leaking HP like a sieve.   

This is why I always bring Legacy(for tanking and evolving vs the toxic damage) and Wraith(to reduce everything else Donovan throws) along if I can when I fight Spite. Especially when I have Inspiring Presence as the card that always comes back into play.

Thanks for all of the tips!  I've been having more success with KNYFE lately.  Based on the above, I'm now using her as sort of a kamikaze cannon:  I basically assume that she's going to get incapped 50% of the time, so I take any early opportunity I can to buff her damage, don't care a fig about her HP (since her incap powers are great)  and just use her to pound on the main bad guy mercilessly, stopping every so often to skip-skip if she doesn't have any great one-shots in hand, or if they won't do above-average damage (e.g., I usually won't bother playing an un-buffed Incidental Contact or Amplified Combatant unless even their unbuffed damage is sufficient to take out some crucial targets.).  I think KNYFE is the only hero I use as sort of a "consumable resource"; every other hero I try to keep alive as long as possible.  KNYFE is more like putting a car's accelerator all the way to the floor and going head-on full speed until the fuel runs out.

I play Setback in a similar fashion, although when he drives I assume the car will accidentally hit something vicious and/or delicious.

This week's Weekly One-shot is a good example of KNYFE shining.  I got her Kinetic Neutralizer and Conduit Blade out first turn (courtesy of her Rogue Agent Power), and then proceded to deal 5 damage each turn with Primed Punch.  And the turn after that Energy Burn did another 9 damage on top of the Primed Punch.

Oh well there’s your problem. I don’t play Spite, just as a general rule.