How on earth do you beat omnitron?

I just picked the game up again after not playing it for awhile. I seem to recall having beat all of the original villains except for citizen dawn, but I might be wrong.

I've tried twice now to defeat omnitron (with three heroes, using the updated errata). But each time I lost, and the last game was purely and simply a diseaster. I think I only managed to reduce his hit points to like 88 before all three of my heroes were incapacitated. He kept pulling sedative flechettes over and over again, which I found to be really annoying. And what's really ironic is I found what I wasn't even playing the game right. When his brought a drone out at the end of his turn I didn't bother using its end-of-turn effect since it just came out right at the end of the villain turn.

The first game I used Tempest, Wraith, and Bunker. I lost bc he got out adapative armor plating, then tempest was incapacitated and the other two heroes were unable to do anything to him since they both only deal projectible damage. Second time I thought hard on what champions I should use. I went with tempest, Absolute zero, and tachyon. I chose tachyon bc she's the only deck that doesn't really heavily on ongoing and equipment cards. This time, I chose to flip omnitron on the first turn (since the card does say to do that, and it gives no indication you're not supposed to on the first turn, and besides that I thought it might make it easier on me). Right after Zero got his two main equipment out, he pulled a technological singularity (which he didn't do the first game, though he pulled the sedatives at least four or five times, imagine my surprise when I found out that there was only 2 in his deck), which besides taking out a huge chunk of his already diminished hitpionts set him back two more turns. Omnitron btw managed to take my heroes down to about half within 3 or 4 turns. Mostly bc he pulled sedatives twice in a row on either his first or second turn.

I used the insula primalis environment on both games. I actually spent more time fighting the environment deck the first game than I did omnitron. Second game it was as bad, though a couple of t-rexs took out a good chunk of Zero's hit points.

How is it possible to beat this guy? I can't fathom why he's given the same difficulty rating as baron blade in the enhanced rule book (warlord voss is easy compared to omnitron). All his cards are insanely powerful, I mean seriously h+1 damage to all heroes AND destroys all their ongoing cards, seriously? And singularity pretty much renders all equipment-heavy heroes completely useless (assuming he pulls it anyway, wraith actually did fairly well the first game). And that's not even counting the desintigration ray, and the electro-magantic railgun, and the adaptive plating, and the interpolation beam, oh and let's not forget the electro-pulse explosive, which at least will deal 10 damage to everyone on the next villain turn. And I don't appreciate it when the one drone comes out and heals what little damage I did to omnitron (most of my attacks are spent taking out the drones)

How do you beat this guy? I see no way to do it, his deck has at least one card that completely counters every hero there is!

How was he pulling sedative flechettes that many times? Are you pulling any card from the trash rather than just drones and comoponents on his Factory side?

I was shuffling the entire trash into the deck everytime. I thought that's what you were supposed to do. It says 'Shuffle the villain trash and draw from the top until a drone or component is revealed. Put it into play'.

Btw, I'm getting kinda tired to shuffling the villain deck every other turn.

Um, if I am not mistaken, when Omni is on his Self-Aware Robotics Factory side, you don't shuffle his trash into his deck: you just shuffle the trash, full stop. Meaning you put the cards in the trash face down so you can't seem it, shuffle them, then reveal cards from the top to put into play, putting the rest of the trash back in the, er, trash.

Also, I would suggest using heroes like Tachyon who don't rely on having stuff on the board. Other good ones would be Visionary. I find Fanatic to be very effective for some reason (Final Dive and Wrathful Retribution maybe?), especially in environments like IP where +damage is commonplace. Tempest is another good call (Knock that Electro-Pulse to the Stratosphere!).

Any hero with redirection (true redirection, not "getting hit then hitting someone else back for that much damage") is also very, very useful against the EPE. Choose to be the first to be hit by the Explosive, redirect it back at it (destroying it), and saving everyone else around you in the process. Yey! Tachyon and NightMist are perfect for this job :)

Actually, your interpretion of that effect does make more sense, it doesn't say 'shuffle the trash into the deck', it simply says 'shuffle the trash'. That might make him easier to beat, and it would also mean I don't have to re-shuffle his deck every other turn....

And speaking omnitron, is he supposed to flip on his first turn, or do I just ignore that do and his effect for his 'self-aware robotics factory' side first? On the first turn, it means he really wouldn't do anything.

He flips first turn, beware its playing of two cards!

I consider Omnitron slightly easier than Baron Blade, although the swing is most obvious in a 5-player game on Advanced mode…3-player or non-Advanced games are about even I think.  But aside from the several mistakes you've made, some of which have already been pointed out, the bottom line is that Omnitron is very slow, and most of his threats can be counteracteed quickly.  Sedative Flechettes is a wrecking-ball of a card, but he only has two; Technological Singularity and Terraforming are both potentially blank, his Repair Drones only delay the inevitable, all his Drones are easy to kill, his Components (except Interpolation Beam) don't fire until the start of the next turn and are quite easy to destroy before then with any sort of decent damage-dealing party…the only really strong cards in his deck are Flechettes, Electro-Pulse Explosive, and the Adaptive Plating if you don't have a diverse party.  Also the Environment makes a difference; because Omnitron is invariably higher-HP than heroes while his Drones are extremely low, it's common for environment cards that target high or low HP to work in your favor.  (Ones that target second-highest or -lowest HP are more of a problem, of course.)

Above all other heroes, the ultimate wrecking ball to Omnitron is The Visionary.  Precognition and Suggestion on his Factory turns will entirely neuter him by forcing him to play a blank card, and even when he's a Rampaging Robot, he's much less dangerous playing 1 relevant card than 2.  Visi can also use Wrest the Mind to entirely neutralize Electro-Pulse Explosives (when it tries to deal 15 damage to the first of all hero targets, you redirect that damage to itself, it's destroyed, and Visi doesn't even take 3 damage herself because Wrest the Mind was destroyed along with its target); failing that, she can have a weak Drone hit Omnitron and then kill itself instead of hitting a hero.

I'm not sure which errata that would be; I'm a newcomer to the game so I've never seen the pre-Enhanced Edition version.

He kept pulling sedative flechettes over and over again, which I found to be really annoying. And what's really ironic is I found what I wasn't even playing the game right. When his brought a drone out at the end of his turn I didn't bother using its end-of-turn effect since it just came out right at the end of the villain turn.

Since we've established that you weren't supposed to get that many Flechettes, I'd say two wrongs were making a right here.  I once had a game in which I beat Omnitron by accidentally allowing one of his Drones to attack all targets instead of just one…he killed Tachyon, who was right before Unity in the turn order, and Unity's deck is made mostly of extremely powerful robots that are impossible to play on your own turn without jumping through some hoops.  But Tachyon can grant a card play while Incapacitated, and since it's not Unity's turn, she can just plunk down a robot without any difficulty.  Thusly, Tachyon was far more useful dead than alive, and Visionary was also in that game (and we were in Insula Primalis, where the Velociraptors invariably attacked Drones, and the T-Rexes were Wrested by Visionary into attacking Omnitron after having legally done so once, because he had lower HP than the second Tyrannosaur) - nevermind, I'm mixing up a different pair of Visionary games, one with Omnitron and one on Insula, but the time they were both there this did not happen.  (I have had her throw a Monorail car at Omnitron with Wrest the Mind when they were in Metropolis, and I've had her Wrest a Tyrannosaurus once, but that was against Ambuscade.)

he got out adapative armor plating, then tempest was incapacitated and the other two heroes were unable to do anything to him since they both only deal projectible damage.

Bunker does have a few cards that deal other damage types - External Combustion for fire and Omni-Cannon for Energy I believe.  Wraith occasionally does melee (although it is weird, given that her shtick is being Batman, that she hasn't prepared any Equipment that can deal with this problem).  And occasionally the dinosaurs will deal melee damage to him and give you a window to get through the Plating that way, plus the Plating can simply be destroyed with a Grappling Hook or Ball Lightning or something.  But yeah, if Plating comes down against the wrong group of heroes, it's sort of a "You Lose" card unless you luck into the right way around it.  Omnitron has a lot of cards like that, which is part of why Visionary, the ultimate deck-manipulation hero, is such a magic bullet against him.

This time, I chose to flip omnitron on the first turn (since the card does say to do that, and it gives no indication you're not supposed to on the first turn, and besides that I thought it might make it easier on me).

He does indeed flip on the first turn - he technically starts the game as a Factory, but the first thing to happen in every game is that he goes Rampaging and plays two Villain cards.  It'd be pretty silly for him to be a Factory on turn 1 since he'd have no trash to reshuffle in search of a Drone or Component; even as-is, his second-turn first Factory effect is almost always a blank, because if he plays a Drone on turn 1, you probably won't bother to kill it, knowing he'll get it right back.  And if he plays a Component, and you're able to destroy that Component before his next turn so he gets it back…well, then you can probably destroy it again just as easily.  Usually it'll be at least turn 4 of the game before he'll raise anything from his trash.

Right after Zero got his two main equipment out, he pulled a technological singularity

Right, that's a clear example that these games were not destined to go your way.  Sometimes you get the bear and sometimes the bear gets you.  Absolute Zero is one of the worst possible heroes to use against Omnitron for this exact reason - Bunker and Wraith suffer a fair bit if he does TechSing, but Zero in particular needs his Modules to do anything effective.  He has issues against any hero who can destroy Equipment, such as Citizen Dawn or La Capitan, but Omnitron is the only one who adds insult to injury by punishing you for having ever played equipment.  (Yet another reason why Visionary pwns him, as she doesn't have any.  Traveled back in time with nothing but the clothes on her back, and saw no reason to change that after arriving.)

Omnitron btw managed to take my heroes down to about half within 3 or 4 turns.

That's not too unusual for any villain.  The heroes nearly always take somewhat of a beating, but as long as they have 1 HP left, they're still in the game, and even an Incapacitated hero or two continues contributing with their flipside abilities.  It's very common to have all the heroes down to 5 or 10 on the last turn of the game; it still doesn't mean that was even a particularly difficult fight.  The game's balance point assumes that the heroes will knock down the villain's 50-100 HP (there are four exceptions to this range) at about the same speed that they deplete their own 25-30 HP (three exceptions there, more if you count promo heroes), due to the Villain's attacks as well as their own self-damage effects, with the Environment periodically messing with both sides.

I can't fathom why he's given the same difficulty rating as baron blade in the enhanced rule book (warlord voss is easy compared to omnitron).

Here you're just plain incorrect.  You were playing Omnitron all wrong as has been established; played properly, he might be slightly harder than Blade, based on what others on this forum have told me, but my personal experience is that he's easier (the only time he's beaten me, it was largely due to a particularly nasty Environment, coupled with my getting lazy and overconfident).  And Warlord Voss is probably the toughest of the original four villains, although an argument for Citizen Dawn could be made instead; I'm a bit biased because I just enjoy her more, but I still think Voss is tougher just by virtue of his brutal efficiency, coupled with the virtually unstoppable threat of Forced Deployment, the ability for Gene-Bound Guards to protect the rest of his army (who are admittedly quite squishy otherwise), and the fact that unlike with Dawn, it's completely impossible to ignore the army and just focus fire on him in order to end the game quickly.  (If Dawn flips, you have to deal with the Citizens, but otherwise you can take out the most dangerous few of her initial Citizens, and then leave a relatively harmless one like Spring or Autumn in play, just to keep Dawn from flipping, and then just beat on her nonstop and hope the worst of the Citizens don't show up.)

All his cards are insanely powerful, I mean seriously h+1 damage to all heroes AND destroys all their ongoing cards, seriously?

That is definitely one of the most absurd cards in the game, no argument there.  But look at how wimpy Automaton Drone is in a 3-player game (compare to the Blade Battalion, which are identical to a H=5 version of the Automatons, regardless of the actual H value).  Assault Drones are always a squishy 4 HP and deal just 2 damage to one hero, unless other Drones are out, which will seldom be true because you can keep killing them off (if it were up to me, Omnitron would reanimate ALL his killed Drones every couple of turns, just to get the "robot revolution" flavor to really come through and make it a more sporting battle).  Interpolation Beam is forgettable for most heroes unless you play on Advanced, and half the time even then; the other Components all wait until the start of Omnitron's turn to fire, and are usually easy to blow up before then by dealing 7 damage.  Omnitron is very swingy in terms of his card power, which is one of the reasons he favors a longer game.  If you get lucky on his first few plays, and consistently beat on him hard with a competent damage-dealing party, it's very possible to deprive him of even that massive 100 health before he can stabilize.

oh and let's not forget the electro-pulse explosive, which at least will deal 10 damage to everyone on the next villain turn.

Not true at all.  Even ignoring the Visionary trick I mentioned above, let's look at a party of Haka, Legacy and Absolute Zero (I could go with Ra or Wraith or Bunker instead of Zero, but that would definitely make this a party of above-average deadliness).  The EPE comes out on Omnitron's first turn (along with a Repair Drone or Terraforming or something similarly irrelevant), and then Haka gets a turn; Haka might Elbow Smash the EPE down to 12 and then Crush it to 10, or just put down his Taiaha and bonk the EPE for 3, let's assume the latter so it's left at 12.  Legacy can THOKK! it down to 9, then Galvanize all the heroes.  Absolute Zero plays Isothermic Transducer, then Thermodynamics himself for fire damage; because of Galvanize, the 1 damage is boosted to 2, and then Transduced into 2 damage which is boosted to 3, so he hits the EPE and knocks it down to 6.  That was only a fairly average round, maybe slightly above what a completely random group of heroes with a completely random set of cards might be able to put together, but certainly far short of the deadliest example I could have constructed.  (With five heroes including Legacy, Fanatic and Ra, it'd be far from unusual for the EPE to die halfway through the round and then for Omnitron to lose 10 or so HP thereafter.)

And I don't appreciate it when the one drone comes out and heals what little damage I did to omnitron (most of my attacks are spent taking out the drones)

Repair drones are good.  You want to see repair drones, because they do absolutely nothing to set back the hero team.  They just uptick Omnitron's HP a little; if that's all that ever happened, it would only be prolonging the inevitable.  Aside from Terraforming with no Environments or TechSing with no Equipment, Repair Drone is the most innocuous card in Omnitron's deck, even more harmless than the Components which are only a potential threat.  If you have to spend all your attacks taking out 3-5 HP drones, then your party is well below the median in effectiveness.  If you're stuck playing a group like Chrono-Ranger, Legacy and the Argent Adept (in that order), then yeah, Omnitron is going to be a tough hill to climb.  But even then, the Repair Drones are more of an insult than a threat.  You'll be happy to see them instead of even a mildly dangerous card like the Assault Drone or Interpolation Beam, to say nothing of the actual threats like EPE, Flechettes, or a mid-game Terraforming.

How do you beat this guy? I see no way to do it, his deck has at least one card that completely counters every hero there is!

And what happens when he draws TechSing on turn 1, when even the most equipment-dependent hero hasn't played a card yet?  What happens when he gets Adaptive Plating against a party of Ra, Fanatic, Zero, Haka, and Bunker, where no two of them share a damage type and most of them can do more than one?  Omnitron has very few H variables on relevant cards (Automaton Drone isn't really that dangerous, as it hits only one hero and isn't hard to kill within one round, and the Disintegrator Ray will almost never fire in a high-H game; Flechettes is the only one where it really hurts), so the more heroes you have against him, the easier he is to beat, almost without exception.  You've only done 3-hero games, so the deck was stacked against you, but even so, a careful selection of effective and diverse Heroes (and not making a HUGE rules mistake in his favor) would have easily rendered Omnitron a barely-credible threat.  That, of course, is not really ideal…you want the game to provide some challenge, or what's the fun in bothering to flip all those cards?  So I'd say next time you fight him, grab four random heroes and arrange them in an order that looks optimal, pick a more dangerous Environment like the Ruins of Atlantis (note: Pillars of Hercules or Font of Power into Electro-Pulse Explosives = VERY BAD, but the odds are pretty slim of that happening), and you'll find that he should provide you a good workout without making you feel totally screwed.  If you still manage to lose that game due to bad luck, you then take a party of five including Legacy and Visionary (and excluding AZ), fight in the Wagner Mars Base or on Insula again, and prove to yourself once and for all that he can be beaten, often with embarassing ease.

Wraith is not The Batman, they are actually very different from one another. Only similarities being they wear black, do some detective work, live in a crime filled city and are superheroes without super powers.

Some very major differences;

• Batman is darker than Wraith.
• Batman focuses on close quarters combat, only relying on ranged attacks when needed. Wraith is a ranged combatant that only uses melee attacks when someone manages to get close to her.
• Batman prefers working alone. Wraith likes working with the Freedom Five.
• Batman isn't really a good name. Wraith on the other hand has a great name.
• Batman's parents are dead. Wraith's are alive.
• They both have completely different personalities.

Does Wraith draw some inspiration from Batman? Sure, but she is still a very unique hero that merely shares the archetype with Batman.

As for having something to deal with Adaptive Plating, she has Grappling Hook.

They use a lot of gadgets and martial arts, they're stealthy, they're driven by personal tragedy, they have a Utility Belt filled with everything you could possibly need, and they're absurdly rich.  The parallels are NOT few.  The only real differences I can think of (before reading your list), aside from trivialities like gender and age, or things related to Batman's vastly larger and convoluted backstory, are that the Wraith seems to make no particular effort to intimidate her foes, and that she operates almost entirely solo instead of having an Alfred analogue and possibly a Robin one (Batman has however been Robinless during large parts of his career, and we don't know that Maia doesn't have an Alfred type that simply hasn't been mentioned…I'm presuming that Tony Taurus is her Jim Gordon, and perhaps her Alfred will turn up in the "Freedom V HQ" environment I'm expecting to see in Vengence).

Batman focuses on close quarters combat, only relying on ranged attacks when needed. Wraith is a ranged combatant that only uses melee attacks when someone manages to get close to her.

At best this is a distinction of degree.  Razor Ordinance is obviously a reference to the Batarang, and Throwing Knives pretty much amounts to using multiple Batarangs aimed less carefully.  That leaves Stun Bolt as the only really unique ranged attack in her arsenal, and I'd be surprised if Bruce has never used a Bat-Taser in his long career, even if it didn't "stick".

Batman prefers working alone. Wraith likes working with the Freedom Five.

The exact opposite of the point I made above about Robin and Alfred.  And really, while Batman might grumble a bit about being in the JLA, he virtually always is a member of it, although he also has a large solo career (as does Superman).  I don't know why you say Wraith "likes" being in the FV, I don't recall any terribly chipper flavor text lines from her, and in the F4 comic on the site, she only joined the F4 because she owed Legacy a favor.

Batman isn't really a good name. Wraith on the other hand has a great name.

…

Batman's parents are dead. Wraith's are alive.

But they were still attacked, motivating their child to pursue vengeance.  Instead of death, the Montgomeries retired from public life, leaving Maia to run the corporation they'd built.  Not that big a difference.

They both have completely different personalities.

Well I should hope so.  But John Stewart has a completely different personality from Guy Gardner; that doesn't mean they aren't both The Green Lantern.  A superhero identity isn't a person, it's an archetype, which one or more persons assumes.  The only hero in SOTM who might be a closer analogue to their DC or Marvel inspiration than Wraith would be Tachyon, and I can't really weigh in on that one since I'm not too familiar with the Flash (unlike with Batman, I've hardly ever read his solo comic, and he's seldom been at the center of the JLA's adventures).

Spider-man fits every one of those, aside from the being rich.

But as I said, Wraith prefers throwing, Batman prefers punching. So this has nothing to do with what I said. She throws knives, Batman throws miniature boomerangs. Too completely different weapons.

Christopher has previously said that after Wraith joined the FV, she realized she can get a lot more work done than alone. She also started to open up a lot more, rather than being seclusive. Something I have yet see Batman do with a group.

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how many character's have been attacked in their back story? A lot. It's not really something unique to Batman that Wraith is ripping off.

But you're comment was "her schtick is being Batman", meaning she would be a clone of him.

But the Wraith is not Batman.

Batman is not an Archetype though. Saying she has the same archetype as Batman is not the same as saying she is Batman, which is what you did.

Except they weren't, she was attacked, motivating her to become who she is.

I don't disagree there are similarities but that is not one of them

The bio on the website states that Maia and her boyfriend were mugged. Maia was beaten nearly to death and her boyfriend died. Her parents are alive and well and gave her the family company so that they could travel the world.

Spidey doesn't have a utility belt, and he's only a gadgeteer if you're in a continuity where his webshooters aren't organic (they were his own invention for most of the comics' run, but the comics were later changed to match the movies, and I have no idea where the matter rests now…personally, I'm fond of JM Stracinzsky's suggestion that spider-man's powers are totemic in nature, and organic webbing is a much better fit there).  As for him being stealthy, he wears a bright red costume; the only way he ever goes unnoticed is because people aren't in the habit of looking up.

Christopher has previously said that after Wraith joined the FV, she realized she can get a lot more work done than alone. She also started to open up a lot more, rather than being seclusive. Something I have yet see Batman do with a group.

Hm.  Well Christopher is telling a story in his own head which I am not privy to, as it hasn't been published in any form I can recall having seen.  I can hardly be blamed for not knowing that.

how many character's have been attacked in their back story? A lot. It's not really something unique to Batman that Wraith is ripping off.

Spider-Man is the only other example which I can recall offhand.

But you're comment was "her schtick is being Batman", meaning she would be a clone of him.

Not a precise clone, but a very transparent homage, and I still say it fits.

But the Wraith is not Batman.

rolls eyes Not literally, no.  But if you made a character who got an alien power bracelet from the Protectors of the Cosmos, a race of tall and spindly green-skinned old women from a planet "at the top of the galaxy", which enabled him to project brilliant blue energy constructs created from his imagination, that character would "obviously be the Green Lantern", just not 100% literally.

Batman is not an Archetype though. Saying she has the same archetype as Batman is not the same as saying she is Batman, which is what you did.

Details…

I remembered the boyfriend, but I thought it was her parents too, in a second incident which added to the impetus of the first (or vice versa).  I stand corrected if that isn't the case.

He does infact have a utility belt. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider-Man%27s_powers_and_equipment#Utility_belt_and_spider-signal

He has been known to where his black suit for stealthy missions.

Having certain qualities about her that are a homage to Batman, doesn't mean her whole schtick is about being Batman, as my whole point has been about.

rolls eyes Not literally, no. 

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I'm just going by what you have already said.

Anyways, this is already getting old. So summary of my only point, Wraith has homages to Batman, but her schtick is not to be Batman. She does fit in the same archetype, which is not the Batman archetype. Wraith is just as much similar to Spider-man as she is to Batman.

Huh.  Well, none of the incarnations of him I'm familiar with ever seemed to.  Was it something Todd McFarlane or Rob Liefeld added?  (I don't know if Liefeld ever drew Spider-Man, I just tossed his name in there because he's infamous for giving just about everyone he draws a utility belt or something similar.)

He has been known to where his black suit for stealthy missions.

You mean the black suit he randomly found and decided to put on while on the Beyonder's planet, which was actually an alien symbiote that turned him almost-evil until he took it off, at which point it ran away and bonded with someone else to become Venom and come back and repeatedly try to kill Spidey?  One would think this would leave him with a distinct aversion to such fashion statements…

Having certain qualities about her that are a homage to Batman, doesn't mean her whole schtick is about being Batman, as my whole point has been about.

I think this is pretty much the definition of a "shtick"…it may not be every detail of her personality, but it is pretty much "what she's about" as a character.

Wraith is just as much similar to Spider-man as she is to Batman.

I really don't see her resembling Spider-Man at all.  If anyone in Sentinels were to be compared to old Web-Head, I'd have said it was Setback, just because he seems to have a similar combination of irrepresible optimism and hard luck.

Guys, let's get this back to Black Wolf's Omni thing, yes? :)

Well on that subject, I will link the OP to my extended discussion of why Omnitron is kinda pathetic sometimes (and my first three games against him were all such times, though he did eventually manage to beat me once):  Omnitron 3.0, so named because I felt he needed more of an upgrade than just his Advanced version.  (Cosmic Omnitron is probably 5.0 or 7.0, and I didn't want something that changed him quite that much.)

I'll try omnitron again tonight when I get time. I'll use insular primalis again (how are you supposed to pronounce that name anyway?). I think I'll use tempest, visionary, and fanatic.

This may be off-topic, but there is one thing I would like to know: what is Absolute Zero good for anyway? He has to deal damage to himself to accomplish anything, and I mean anything, seriously the guy has to damage himself just to heal himself! He's heavily reliant on a few specific equipment cards, and buffs from other heroes or the environment. Not to mention he pretty much can't do anything until you get set up, I mean seriously his innate power does nothing but damage him until you get either Calibration unit or Theromodynamics out! Not to mention other heroes (like Ra and Wraith) can easily match his damage output, without damaging themselves, and wraith has alot more versatility than Absolute Zero to boot.

To me, he just looks like crap. Was he designed to give players a challenge or something? Because he has a plethora of disadvantages, and really the only advantages he does have are immunity to fire and the ability to heal himself everytime he would get cold damage (sadly though, the villains don't seem to be big on dealing fire or cold damage, most of their damage cards do energy damage), and because of his odd interactions with fire and cold damage, he can actually benefit from situations that are detrimental to all the other heroes. Is there any reason to every play AZ besides for a challenge?

There has been a lot of debate about Zero. He is one of the only heroes with a complexity three rating. In my opinion he is very much a high risk high reward character. When he pays off, he can pay off very big and can easily do more damage in a game than Ra. Flamethrower has a lot useful guides about how to play heroes. If you want more information about how Zero works or if you have questions about any other heroes, those guides can be a good place to go.

I have a friend whose favorite hero is AZ; indeed, he almost exclusively plays him. Like Nielzabub says, high risk, high reward. And he has some very, very interesting interaction with other heroes, especially Ra and Visionary. On the point about damaging himself to deal any sort of damage, or even healing, NightMist is even more guilty of that: about 80% of the damage she gets come from her, not from the villain or environment. And although AZ does require some set up to become fully effective (which, if I may add, is true of several other heroes as well), it is wrong to believe that he can't contribute unless fully set-up :)

Check out the Flamethrower guides for more details! :)

PS: If for nothing else, AZ is good for improving your arithmetic skills. Absolute Zero deals three kinds of damage: Cold, Fire, and Math.

I say it "inn-syoo-lah pry-mal-iss", personally.  I don't know if that's official or anything.

what is Absolute Zero good for anyway? He has to deal damage to himself to accomplish anything, and I mean anything, seriously the guy has to damage himself just to heal himself!

He heals instead of taking the damage, though.  He is a bit on the frustrating side, but also has potentially incredible output, if he jumps through all the proper hoops without interference.  Picture this setup:  At the start of his turn, Impale deals 2 damage to a target, which Focused Apertures increases to 3.  He then activates Thermal Shockwave to deal 1 cold damage to each of three targets; the Apertures increase that to 2 each.  So he's dealt a total of 9 cold damage this turn; Thermal Shockwave deals 9 fire damage to him, and Isothermic Transducer turns that into 10 cold damage thanks to the Apertures again.  He can either hit the same target as his Impale and one of the Shockwave hits, making a total of 14 damage that turn, or if he has both modules out, he can have the Transducer "damage" him, enabling him to regain all the HP he lost to the Shockwave and 1 more besides.  (Do note that if the Shockwave damage kills him first, he doesn't get the chance to heal.  This is why Cold Snap plus Shockwave is probably not a good idea, and Cold Snap plus Focused Apertures plus Shockwave is really not a good idea.)

He's heavily reliant on a few specific equipment cards, and buffs from other heroes or the environment.

The former at least is true, he does badly need at least one module to get anything done, and both to work ideally.  But he has four copies of each, plus four copies of the Installation card which searches them out (and lets you draw another card, and if you didn't need to play the Module you searched for you can play a different card instead, so you basically drew one new card without costing yourself anything, as well as trading the Installation for any Module in your deck - do try to count how many are left as you play, though, since you get nothing if they're all in your trash or if you draw the last one before searching).  Buffs from other heroes are not necessary, although they can be amazing - Embolden from Fanatic will let him fire a Coolant Blast after a Thermal Shockwave, dealing a second instance of cold damage equal to the fire damage you took, or it will let you pop Cryo-Chamber for 4 fire damage to yourself before Coolant Blasting for 4+ (although the two aren't normally a great combo; unless you played the Cryo-Chamber that same turn, it cost you a point of fire each time you got hit during the previous round).

Not to mention he pretty much can't do anything until you get set up, I mean seriously his innate power does nothing but damage him

This is why he is one of the heroes most likely to spend his first turn drawing 2 cards.  However he's hardly unique in this - Unity's power does nothing without an Equipment (her own or an ally's) that can be spared and a Golem to turn it into.  Nightmist takes damage to draw cards, which is a painful trade unless she has redirection out.  Argent Adept is useless without a song, Expatriette can do very little without a Gun, Mr. Fixer needs a Tool and a Style…very few characters are as good "out of the box" as Ra and Haka, most of them have to do a fair bit of legwork in order to get rolling, and can be undone badly by a wipe card such as TechSing or Flechettes (or Dawn's Devastating Aurora, which destroys ALL non-villain cards in play, except for Unity's golems or Visionary's Decoy Projection).

Not to mention other heroes (like Ra and Wraith) can easily match his damage output, without damaging themselves

Let me know how often Ra or Wraith can deal 29 damage to one target.  That's the theoretical maximum output of AZ's damage if he does everything exactly right, assuming no external boosts.  (Deal exactly 28 cold damage out including Thermal Shockwave, then Isometric Transducer dishes 29 out thanks to Focused Apertures.)  Fanatic is the only other character that can wallop that hard, and she also ends up at 1 HP afterward (as well as before), but she has only one copy of the triggering card, and must discard 3 cards to use it.

In actual practice, of course, Fanny is probably somewhat better than AZ across the board.  But both are self-damaging heroes, and both give you reasons to damage yourself.  If you can't get the hang of knowing when to let yourself get hurt and when not to, well, maybe these two aren't for you.  But they can definitely be good to have on your team.

and wraith has alot more versatility than Absolute Zero to boot.

Wraith has more versatility than anyone (except possibly Argent Adept, depending on who he's paired with).  If you made a list of the best heroes in the game, it's virtually certain Wraith would be in the top three no matter who was making the list, unless it was purely subjective.  She's a little boring once you "solve" her, but she's just ridiculously good.  Don't criticize other heroes for failing to be The Wraith; they each have their own little niches in which they can shine.

Was he designed to give players a challenge or something?

Among other things.  He's not a handicap, but he is designed to appeal to players who grow bored with the straightforwardness of Ra and Legacy, and want to jump through a few hoops and make themselves look/feel clever.  I'm one of those players, and AZ is in my top third of heroes in the game for precisely this reason…he feels like a puzzle that I enjoy solving.  Though I do think he might not be quite perfectly balanced, as compared to some of the other characters who have similar shticks but seem to execute them a little better (in particular, the other two 3-complexity heroes are both absurdly good when they get a dream setup, compared to which AZ is just okay).

and really the only advantages he does have are immunity to fire

I assume you're talking about using the Transducer to heal himself.  Note that becoming actually immune to fire damage (or to damage in general) is one of the worst things that can happen to him, as it turns off much of his ability to do anything.  This is in flavor for him, since Ryan Frost is a miserable old curmudgeon who does nothing but complain the whole time he's battling to save the world (another reason why I like him, having a similar personality much of the time).  In the words of Garbage, he's "Only Happy When It Rains".  (Tempest can help him with that.)

(sadly though, the villains don't seem to be big on dealing fire or cold damage, most of their damage cards do energy damage)

I agree that this is a little annoying.  Ra also wishes fire damage would get dealt more often, since he can make the entire party immune to it.  A fair number of Environments are fire-centric, but not as many as I'd like.  And I personally find energy damage to be quite unflavorful and unsatisfying (if it were up to me, I'd make most of it into lightning damage, occasionally fire or radiant - the latter type is almost exclusively found on Fanatic and occasionally on The Scholar, and seems to exist mostly as a way to make them feel more special than if they were dealing a "mere mortal" type of damage).

Is there any reason to every play AZ besides for a challenge?

Yes, every reason I stated above. 

Well give Ra The Staff of Ra, Imbued Fire, Drawn to the Flame and two Solar Flares, and then by playing Scorched Earth he can deal each non-hero up to 21 damage (progressively less as he starts melting environment targets, but at that point he's already hit the villains), and following that two villain ongoings are enough to make him deal 8 more damage with Drawn to the Flame, making 29 or more to all targets. Wraith, meanwhile, tops out at 28, and that's assuming no Price of Freedom Wraith and an opponent who doesn't deal retaliation damage. With either of those she can get to 29+.

PSA: For more information about huge damage outputs, check out the Nuking For Glory thread! *poofs away*

We're assuming no external aid here.  With no Environment or Villain Ongoing cards in play, Scorched Earth and Drawn to the Flame will only deal 5 damage with those buffs.  (I did fail to notice however that Solar Flare is non-limited, so thanks for pointing that out.)

Wraith, meanwhile, tops out at 28, and that's assuming no Price of Freedom Wraith and an opponent who doesn't deal retaliation damage. With either of those she can get to 29+.

That I do stand corrected on.  I had noticed that Mega Computer was non-limited (and thus you can throw three of them with Inventory Barrage), but I didn't realize that the same was true of Stun Bolt and Infrared Eyepiece.  (Yes, because the Wraith got tired of everyone calling her "four eyes".)  The ability to fire two Stun Bolts with a Utility Belt is definitely worth knowing about.

How exactly are you dealing exactly 28 cold damage out with no external aid? (With no external help Ra can still get 26, with a Flame Spike, a Blazing Tornado and a staff throw.)

Focused Apertures in play.  3 cold damage from Impale (needs a target, but you almost certainly have at least one of those, unlike with ongoings and environments), 2 from Cold Snap, 3 from Hoarfire, which deals 3 fire damage to Zero, triggering Isothermic Transducer to deal 4 more cold, then Hoarfire goes on to deal 2 cold (this assumes you do NOT have NPCU in play) and 1 fire to Zero, triggering another 2 cold.  That's 3+2+3+4+2+2=16 outgoing cold damage, then 2 more from Shockwave on a single target, which is 18 outgoing cold damage, so 18 fire damage to Zero which triggers 19 more cold damage.

...Okay so it doesn't work exactly like I said, but it does mean you're dealing 35 cold damage to one target over the course of the turn, along with 22 to yourself.  That's even better than what I'd said before.  With even one other target, you get another 2 damage from Cold Snap and 2 more from Shockwave, resulting in 4 more fire damage to yourself and thus 4 more cold damage to the primary target.  You can't add a third Shockwave target without killing yourself, and if there are very many other targets at all, you probably want to replace Hoarfire with a card that won't damage you (Fueled Freeze is good if the number of targets is exactly right), and possibly ditch Cold Snap as well.

So even if I got the minutiae wrong, the point still stands: AZ can dish out more damage in an almost-complete vacuum than nearly any other hero, if he has exactly the right set of cards in play and is at sufficient health.  He even beats Wraith unless the target has reduction, though not by much.  And Ra isn't going to take much less damage than AZ keeping two Solar Flares in play long enough to play Flame Spike (especially with Staff of Ra and Imbued Fire already in play), whereas Wraith takes no damage but needs far more cards in play.  AZ looks pretty good in this particular bubble, even if it's fairly far from the typical conditions of actual play.

(Note that while I may have read about this trick in one of Flamethrower's guides originally, I am not consulting that guide as I type this; this is all from memory and looking at AZ's deck.)

https://greaterthangames.com/forum/topic/nuking-for-glory-max-damage-3823

As an aside, I will happily say that AZ is my current favourite hero. I find him an entertaining, if occasionally difficult play, and I love how thematic heis. The trick, as with all heroes, is to know what you can do, but be prepared to change that at a moment's notice if your draws don't go the way you like, or if you lose your setup.

Just tried him again, and the game was a complete diseaster, again. My heroes started taking damage quickly, omnitron was still at full health when everyone was at half, and he had that damned explosive device in play, the heroes were mostly drawing one-shots, so I rarely had any decent powers to use, and the game ended rather dramatically. I had a choice between destroying the explosive device (which was at 1) or take out a s-85 drone that was about to do 2 damage. I decided to take out the drone. Environment deck pulled obsidian field, om pulled tech singularity (which I knew was going to happen), bc he was on his rampaging robot side, he drew another card, and it was a sedative. Tempest reduced the damage by 2, but that only saved visionary from death, and the bomb dealt 2. I accidentally tried to shuffle vis's hand and trash into the deck, bc I thought she was the one incapacitated and not fanatic. I have no idea if i managed to put her hand back together right, which didn't really matter since the environment deck pulled a t-rex, and that was game over right there.

Fanatic didn't do anything at all, really all she did was sit there and ping stuff for like 1 and 2 damage. Vis helped avoid a sedative at the start, and I used one of her cards to put one of those explosive devices on the bottom of om's deck (bc he already drew the damned thing on his Self-Aware robot factory side), only one who did well was tempest who managed to get out a localized hurricane. He drew a lightning slash and played an electrical storm, but he died before he could use either of them. Om ended the game at 80 hp btw, thanks to damned healing drones (who over the course of the game managed to heal him for more than 10 damage)

Fanatic would've been much better if I had legacy to boost her damage, then she may have been useful (her only shining moment, if you can call it that, is when she used final dive to throw a pterodactyl at omnitron). Visionary was only of mild help, she was useless when it came to combatting those explosives, I actually had to chastise one (for two turns) just to keep my team alive.

What I need is a team that can quickly deal 15 damage in a single turn to take care of those bombs.

Are my problems having to do with the fact that I'm running three heroes instead of four? The sole reason I'm doing 3 is bc I found 4 to be a huge hassle to do solo, which is why I didn't play the game for so long. I thought the updated errata (with the h symbol, and various buffs and nerfs) would actually make the game easier with 3 heroes, but it doesn't. It looks like 4 is still the only number that is viable.

3 heroes vs. Omni is rougher.  I would try a team of Legacy, Tachyon and Wraith.  Tachyon gives you damage elimination, Legacy can give you a takedown before Omni flips to his 2 card side, and Wraith while a bit Equip heavy has Infrared Eyepiece and consistant damage.  Legs can tank a ton of Omni's damage as well.

Fanatic actually has several options to neuter the Electro-Pulse Explosive. She has Chastise and Zealous Offence in order to prevent it from doing damage (Zealous Offense can be a bit tricky, admittedly), End of Days if you're desperate, and Sacrosanct Martyr is worth doing if you're really desperate.

If nothing else, she can at least do some damage.

I decided to take a break from omnitron and try to do baren blade, with four heroes. I chose legacy, tachyon, visionary, and absolute zero.

After that game, I decided that AZ can be quite good. Here's a play I managed to pull off near the beginning (as best as I can remember it anyway).

There was an obsidian field in play, legacy had used galvanize, and AZ had his isothermic transducer, null-point calibration unit, focused apertures, and coolant blast in play.

I played hoar-fire. Dealt 5 frost damage to legacy, (2+1+1+1) to heal him for 5, dealt him 4 fire damage, which triggered his IT to deal a total of 7 cold damage, healing a net worth of 3 points, then he dealt himself 3 fire damage, and 4 cold damage, healing him for a total of 5+1+1=7 hit points (almost bringing his health back up to full). I then used coolant blast to hit baron blade for a total of 10 cold damage. Very good turn for him, healed 7 hit points and dealt 10 damage. I also used his fueled freeze to destroy 2 of baron's living forced fields (along with one of visionary's ongoings), and hit him (and everything else) for 5 cold damage (or maybe six, the last half of the game I had 2 obsidian fields out).

I chose the heroes to make AZ the primary damage dealer, and he certainly delivered on that expectation. Only other hero that really shined was tachyon, who got to do 2 light-speed barrages, on two consecutive turns, for 10-something damage, straight to baron blade, after he flipped. He died to velociraptors btw.

I managed to get legacy's next evolution-lead from the front combo out, but I didnt get anything from it sadly, but I imagine that would be invaluable when dealing with omnitron's explosive device.

Legacy will definitely be one of my choices when I fight omnitron again, though tachyon probably won't. yeah, she dealt 20 damage that game, but everytime I've played her, she's spent most of the game just drawing cards like mad without really accomplishing much (though I think she did take out an environment card, a lava flow if i remember right). Visionary also didn't do much besides draw cards like you wouldn't believe and shield herself with her decoys. She had several hemmorages in hand, but I never got to use them, though that was bc by the time she drew one everything except baron blade was dead, so I chose to wait just in case he got a bunch of stuff out somehow.

I'll likely take fanatic again next time I do omnitron, I imagine she would be quite useful with legacy. Not sure what the other two would be, though visionary may be one them (just to help deal with the sedatives and singularities), might also use tempest, since he might synergize well with legacy (if i remember right, he has a bunsh of multi-hit cards in his deck).

For now though, I'm going to bed.

You either worded this wrong or played it wrong. AZ can't heal other people with his cold damage.

BlackWolf, have you tried doing play-by-forum games?  I've only done one myself, but since you and I have such opposite views on Omnitron, I'd be willing to help you run a game against him and see if I can show you why I always have an easy time of it (or if you can show me why you don't).  I'm in US Central Time and tend to be free in the evenings, especially over the weekend (not Fridays though), so if we can arrange a time when we're both on, we could play such a game out in a few hours.  (Most of the online games take weeks of players making one move a day or so, but I lack the patience for that.)

That sort of thing is not unusual for villains in general, though Omnitron is a bit less likely to get it than some others.  Most villains do tend to come out the gate guns blazing, and except for a few such as Tachyon, heroes nearly always have to build up a lot before they stabilize.  More than one game has ended with all the heroes down to about 5 HP; once they get all their stuff out, it's not hard to focus fire on the villain and bring him down by 10-20 HP each round.  If he pulls a Flechettes or TechSing at the wrong moment, it's trouble, but otherwise he's basically screwed.

I had a choice between destroying the explosive device (which was at 1) or take out a s-85 drone that was about to do 2 damage.

In most cases 2 damage to one hero is preferable to 1 damage on each of three heroes.  It depends on exactly what's in play, so it's not necessarily that you made the wrong call, but you might well have.

om pulled tech singularity (which I knew was going to happen), bc he was on his rampaging robot side, he drew another card, and it was a sedative.

Ouch.  Well, there's 2 of each card in a 25-card deck, so it's not statistically likely that he'll get that pairing, but it's definitely a wallop.  Perhaps you're just cursed with terrible luck?  Let's see if we can get your hands on Kismet's Talisman and do something about it. 

Fanatic didn't do anything at all, really all she did was sit there and ping stuff for like 1 and 2 damage.

Fanatic is a very hit-or-miss character.  I like to say that she's made for players who like to pray for a miracle; her cards are highly situational, but many of them are potential gamewinners.  Wrathful Retribution, End of Days, Divine Focus, Divine Sacrifice, Final Dive, Chastise, Smite the Transgressor, Sacrosanct Martyr, Zealous Offense - all extremely potent under very particular circumstances.  The rest of her cards are just sort of little plinks to bide time until "the clouds part" and you know exactly what you need to do.  Don't be afraid to have her spend a turn drawing two cards if damage reduction prevents her Exorcism from working.  She's largely there to tank with her high HP and bide her time, looking for an "I Win" button.

Visionary was only of mild help, she was useless when it came to combatting those explosives

You must not have drawn Wrest the Mind.  Did you have her Enlighten herself or play Foresight?  Conversely, she can also Enlighten a different character who might be stronger than her in a particular situation (Fanatic and Tempest could both have been good choices, depending on exactly what you had).

I actually had to chastise one (for two turns) just to keep my team alive.

Which was exactly the right thing to do in that case.

What I need is a team that can quickly deal 15 damage in a single turn to take care of those bombs.

Very hard to do with three characters (probably your best chance is either Ra + Absolute Zero +1 or Legacy + Fanatic + 1, where the other hero is either Haka, Tempest, or whichever of Legacy and Ra you aren't using.  But keep in mind, this team is built almost exclusively to do tons of damage, and will be in deep doo-doo if Omnitron sticks an Adaptive Plating after one or two heroes have died, because Tempest, Zero and Fanatic are the only ones of these characters who can remove ongoings, and only Fanatic and Tempest deal multiple damage types.

Are my problems having to do with the fact that I'm running three heroes instead of four?

Yes, or better yet five.  In a five player game, Legacy is absolutely bananas, and Omnitron is a punk.  Dealing 7 damage to kill a component or 15 to an EPE is trivial with that many heroes, and Omnitron has only a couple of H effects which are improved in such a game.  You've been fighting an uphill battle by using only 3.

Omnitron can be tricky, what with those bloody horrible Flechettes and Technological Singularities…and the EPEs of course. One game we had against him he played both EPEs in the same turn, if I remember rightly, or possibly played one on one turn and the second one on the following turn. Fortunately, however, Tachyon had two Hypersonic Assaults in-hand and was able to nerf both of them for long enough that we destroyed them before either was able to deal us any damage :D. Deck control can be very useful against Omnitron, though in terms of looking at what card he's going to play next you obviously can't always get full control on the turns in which he plays two cards. Stuff like Take Down or Mistbound can be good to more or less shut him down completely, though :).

If you had someone like Tempest or Ra (good damage/good AE stuff) teamed up with, say, Legacy (damage buffs), dealing with Omnitron and his bots might be a bit easier. You'd obviously have trouble if any stuff-destruction came out, though. I'm yet to try Omni-10 against Omnitron but I intend to do so at some point - Self-Sabotage lets you destroy ANY components, not just those belonging to Omni-10, hint hint ;). Of course, a Technological Singularity on Omnitron's part would be incredibly painful if it came out while Omni-10 was pretty well-equipped…but that's the risk, I suppose.

Wraith is another one who could be useful. Mind you, she's pretty good in any fight. She can control the deck with her Eyepiece, nerf damage with her Stun Bolts, deal it with her various throwable pointy things, and soak it with Stealth.

Unity might also be good, since her bots count as neither ongoings nor equipment, so would completely ignore either of the two stuff destruction cards. She can be pretty insane if she can get enough bots in play - paired with someone like the Adept or Omni-10 (who can help her get cards into play outside of her own turn, therefore she can put more bots out without needing to use her own powers) she can get set up that much faster, which is always nice :).

Hehe, yeah, typo. I meant AZ. Ironnically, even though I had the opportunity to deal damage to 5 targets (three for hoar fire, which triggered IT twice), I used all five of those attacks on AZ to heal him and to set him up for a coolant blast. Though in hindsight, I probably could've dealt more damage if I directed one of those attacks at baron rather than AZ. He did afterall gain 7 hp from that one move, I could've instead chose to have some of that cold damage attack baron (though I was getting kinda paranoid with how low on health he was, especcially considering alot of his abilities require you to damage him, IT and Hoarfire and frostbound drain and whatnot).

In case you missed it before, I reiterate my offer for a forum game, BlackWolf.

Too useful, in my opinion.  It's exactly why I consider him lame…if you can force him to play cards that do nothing over and over, he's neutered completely, unlike most other villains who at least have a built-in attack or something (or don't have any cards which are totally blank under certain circumstances).

Unity might also be good, since her bots count as neither ongoings nor equipment, so would completely ignore either of the two stuff destruction cards.

Do note however that Sedative Flechettes damages all of the bots (since they're Hero targets), often destroying them outright.  Only the Freedom Five golems can survive even the weakest Flechettes (unless you have some soak out), and in a five-player game, the Flechettes deal 6 damage, enough to kill Swift Bot or Stealth Bot (though the latter can protect someone else from one hit, since she's going to die anyway).  The last three bots can only survive if they're undamaged or if there are fewer players in the game - Cryo Bot of course gets to deal a point of retaliation damage if he isn't killed instantly, and Inspired Repair can fill him back up and hopefully let him do it again.

Then go against him with heroes that can't manipulate decks at all.

Sadly, that wouldn't be very practical. I don't have a table that I can just leave the game on for an entire day. I play on a foam board that I set on my bed, which obviously I need to sleep on.

I wouldn't mind making a video of the game and uploading it to youtube (I did that once with elder scrolls oblivion), but I think it would be a challenge to record the entire game and upload it, considering that my primitive camera can only take a few minutes of video at a time (I recorded my elder scrolls game using a program I found online, I think it was hypercam but I'm not sure).

Maybe I could just do a game and write the whole thing down then post it on here, though that might be a bit of a challenge.

Well I was planning on a simultaneous play that would probably only take 2-6 hours, but still, that could easily qualify as "the whole day" for people who have better luck getting/keeping a job than me. 

Maybe I could just do a game and write the whole thing down then post it on here, though that might be a bit of a challenge.

It is, and will probably take even longer than a simul-play (since that involves having another person to do half the work).  But if you do decide to do such a thing, you'll find it educational.

I personally would suggest not healing so much HP as AZ, but that is just my preference. I don't tend to play Null-Point until late game, unless it is the only card I have worth playing. I think I have been incapped more with AZ than any other hero, while still pulling a victory. The reason being is AZ can deal tons of damage if he focuses on it rather than keeping himself alive. Though I don't let him get knocked out until after I do 40+ damage in a single turn and other heroes are set up.

Regarding Omnitron and deck control…actually, regarding any character with the potential to draw two cards on their turn (eg Dawn, Spite, La Capitan) and deck control…it's fine being able to look at the top two cards of the villain deck and put one on top and one on the bottom (which is what most deck control things allow you to do), but that doesn't let you look at the second card said villain is going to play. You might reveal Truth and Spring from the top of Dawn's deck and put Truth on the bottom…but that won't save you from the Devastating Aurora which comes out after that Channel the Eclipse has brought out Spring at the start of the turn ;). Actually, this doesn't even solely apply to villains who have double-draw capabilities in their own decks - environments like Atlantis can let them get extra plays regardless.

There will also inevitably be occasions where the top two cards are both horrible, and in some cases, both the same. Then, some kind of trouble is unavoidable. Unless you've got a second source of deck control, I suppose, which can then look at that horrible top card and whatever the next card is, and maybe end up with a nicer card on top and both the horrible ones on the bottom. Or Omni-10, who can just Timeshift the horrible card into the trash :). If that's not an option, however, you'll just be sat there knowing what's going to happen on the villain's next turn, but being unable to do anything about it.

Apparently, my problem really was because I insisted on playing only 3 heroes. I just beat omnitron rather easily, using legacy, visionary, tempest, and fanatic.

His drones really are underpowered btw.

I also have a rules question. I've noticed online that people seem to think that fanatic's innate power gets a damage boost twice because it deals 2 different kinds of damage to 1 target. For instance, if she has a +1 to damage, then exorcism deals 4 damage (2 fire and 2 radiant) rather than 2. Is this correct? This is the way I've been playing her, though I think that might be a bit overpowered, since this game she was dealing 8 damage with every use of the power by the end of a game (bc of heroic prescense, galvanize, and obsidian field).

That is correct.  Each is a separate source of damage, so each gets modified separately.

Fanatic's Exorcism works both ways. It might seem overpowered when your damage is getting boosted (1+3+1+3=8 as opposed to just dealing a flat 2 damage and then getting boosted up to 5). However, she gets crippled by Damage Reduction, because each of her 1 damage instances gets reduced (if the enemy has 1DR: 1-1+1-1=0 as opposed to just dealing a flat 2 damage, where she would still do 1 damage).

Any time anything deals damage and gives a number as its damage totals, each given number is a separate instance of damage - Fanatic's Exorcism is one example, of course - she deals one damage and one damage with her base power, therefore any damage boosts (or nerfs) will affect both those totals separately. Another example is Tempest's Vicious Cyclone, which says you can discard up to three cards and deal one damage for each card discarded. So if you are buffed with, say, Galvanise, you'd instead deal two damage for each card discarded.

It's the same with, say, the vats in Pike Industrial - the Supercooled trisolvent Vat deals something like one cold, one toxic, and erm, one something else at the end of the environment turn. If the erm…toxic vat (something-cyclohexane I think it's called…lol sorry bad memory this evening) is out, the one which converts all damage to toxic and increases it by one, the Trisolvent Vat will instead deal two toxic, two toxic, and two toxic damage at the end of the turn.

Compare to cards like Savage Mana, Omni-Cannon, and Lightspeed Barrage, which specify to "…deal X damage, where X is the number of cards…". So you'd total up the damage, and apply any buffs on top of that one total.

I must be the only one who feels that 3 hero games are actually easier on average than 4. I play the majority of my solo games at H=3 with heros chosen at random. Deck manipulation becomes a much higher priority with 3. Visionary or Wraith should be focusing on Omnis deck to skirt the Explosives and fletches whenever possible.

I find that when I am having massive trouble with an encounter, adjusting your priorities is usually the quickest answer to success. By that I mean if you are giving priority to killing every single thing on the table before moving to omnitron, he will probably eventually get you as the game progresses. Obviously the Electro-Pulse should always be the highest priority target (either to crowd control through effects like Chastise or for nuking). But with Omnitron, most of the time hitting him and letting a bot or two live for a round or so is the best thing. Those components have to be destroyed, so every round there should be some damage going his way to keep cleared of those things.

Do not underestimate support abilities or effects that allow you to exert more control over the table. When I first got the game, I put way too much stock and emphisis on doing damage. Once I started shifting my card/effect priorities toward controling the tempo and flow of the game, things started getting much much easier. And in H=3 games, those same control effects become even more valuable. Damage Reduction for instance, is point by point more valuable in an H=3 game than H=4 or 5 as it becomes easier to totally negate instances of damage instead of just reducing them.

I guess I would sugest mixing up your play style a bit maybe. I understand some games the cards just arnt going to give you many options depending on the situation (and you should always play to the situation really), but try different things. I highly and strongly doubt the reason for your losses is just because you went H=3.

This must be that "different players play differently" thing.  I personally pretty much always get NPCU first and Transducer second if I have a tutor, because I've virtually always been hurt by the villain before my first turn, and when I have nothing else useful to do on turn 1, I'd rather heal for 1 with Thermodynamics than hurt myself more to deal out 1 damage.  To me, AZ is largely a tank, and probably a better one than the "Indestructible" Bunker.  Of course, in seven games, I've lost AZ 5 times and the whole game about 3 of them.  His incap ability to add 2 damage to the next instance is rather good in the right position.

Can he tank? Yes. Is he good at it? Sure. I would disagree that he works better in that role than in the damage role however. Just going over the deck the tools he has to dish out the damage far exceed his tools to help him be a better tank. His deck just runs too slow for my taste when you play a more tanky focused game. Consider that going NPCU first delay his ability to do meaningful damage by at least a round or 2. That is a lot of time to set up just to heal. Its a cost benefit thing I guess. Time vs. Reward. Ab Zero is like a brand spankin new farrari. You can drive the speed limit sure, but you get the most out of the experience when careening 150mph toward the wall. As always, the caveate is play to the situation in front of you, but thats my two cents.

Only hero that looks like he could actually tank at all (to me anyway) is legacy, he has by far the best damage reduction in the game (danger sense and next evolution most notably), and he has the ability to redirect damage to him, something taht to my knowledge the other heroes can't do (or at least, not as well as he can). The famous next evolution-lead from the front combo is a good example of this.

I might be doing something wrong though, since to me the heroes seem to be severely lacking in the defense department. At best, some can reduce all the damage to them by 1, and that's it (bc the cards that give them this have limited). I also find healing to be rather pathetic, I mean really the only two heroes that can heal more than 2 hit points are wraith (with a one-shot) and AZ (and only himself). And 1 and 2 hit points aren't much when you consider the fact that most turns end with someone receiving at least that much damage if not more. That one game with AZ is the only time I played where healing actually proved to be useful.

Well now that I think of it, haka can also heal for a lot, and reduce damage to himself, but he needs to discard ALOT of cards in order to accomplish this, and even then it would only be for one turn.

Legacy is the only hero that looks like a viable 'tank' to me, I mean in my last game it wasn't until around mid-game that he actually took some damage; mostly thanks to danger sense, and the fact that everyone got hands full of high-damage cards to deal with railguns, interpolation beams, disintigration rays and EPEs, the first two btw he got out on the first turn!

the problem with going damage early with Zero is that each card you play that is not an equipment or an ongoing is one more turn you delay in getting fully set up and breaking the game. Plus you are outputting damage in a ratio of 1:1 or 1:2 towards the enemies, which kills you fast. His healing abilities, outside already having Apetures or Chamber is not that great, 1 or 2 HP so then you have to spend a lot of time healing him if you are avoiding him getting Incap. (Plus I'm biased by 3 Hero teams).

This is why I love ABZ so much, as it shows that I am one of the very few people who don't care about my HP. It's great!

Bear in mind you can stop damage coming at you in other ways besides having soak on yourself - you can zap the bad guys with something that lowers their damage (Stun Bolt, for example), or redirect it with stuff like Synaptic Interruption or Driving Mantis, or do both in the case of Smoke Bombs.

Several characters can heal others - Tempest is pretty good at it (Cleansing Downpour), Omni-10 can heal multiple people (Innervation Ray, though only up to three if I remember rightly, so perhaps a little less useful in a game with more than three heroes), as can the Adept (Vernal Sonata/Rhapsody of Vigour, and he's also pretty good at healing himself with the right songs and instruments to combo).

I think Ab'Zero, Nightmist, and the Scholar are probably the three characters with the best means of healing themselves, but other characters such as Fanatic, Ra, Wraith, and Bunker can heal themselves to a certain degree (albeit not necessarily to a very reliable level, and often there's something you want to do more than healing yourself at any given moment).

Bunker can be a reasonable tank if he uses Heavy Plating and Recharge Mode. Legacy has been mentioned. The Scholar can have good soak via Flesh to Iron, and can use Alchemical Redirection to divert all damage to him for a round (alternatively he can use erm...that card which reduces all damage he receives to zero for a round), plus of course he's got plenty of ways to heal himself. In a way, Nightmist and Visionary both have means of tanking via their invincibility cards (Mistform and TK Cocoon, respectively), if they happen to be the highest/lowest hp in a situation where most of the damage is being aimed at them. Of course, this basically shuts them down from being able to do much else othe than draw, but it's something :). Omni-10 can tank a bit as well, now I think of it, if all incoming damage is of the "right" type(s) for whatever plating he happens to have out at the time, and is low enough not to break his components (and even if it does, he still gets to keep the plating) - had a good game versus the Matriarch a couple of weeks ago, whre Omni-10 had his Ablative Coating out, and Bunker his Heavy Plating and the highest hp. Wraith was the third hero and had taken quite a bit of bird damage so had the lowest hp - after a while she managed to get out Smoke Bombs, which meant any damage being dealt to her by Lilian was being redirected to Bunker, who soaked it. So Wraith wasn't getting hit at all, and Bunker and Omni-10 were both soaking all incoming villain damage. Yeah, Lilian didn't do too well that game (plus irreducible plasma cannon damage on Muninn = lol >:)).

I'm also a big fan of the loose-cannon/devil-may-care attitude when playing Absolute Zero… but I kinda feel that it goes a bit against his whole "better bored in here than dead out there attitude". Does anyone else feel that way about it? I mean I can see him incurring damage on the fancy suit out of spite (he is basically a slave of the Freedom Five because of it), but I just don't really see him risking his life for the team (or taking dage when two heroes are tied). It makes sense mechanically for him, but I always found it a bit out of character. 

I almost think he puts up an act, at least later on. I think he doesn't want the FV that he has begun to care for them. I think his resentment is more towards the government however.

Also Coolant Blast shows he uses his suit quite recklessly.

If he wants to use powers, he has to incur some pain himself. It's the nature of his suit. If he doesn't use those powers, he goes back in the cryo chamber full time (remember he works to pay off the suit). He has little choice there. Ronway brings up a good point. Zero seems like he uses the suit recklessly. Maybe it has to do with how he handles his grief.

OK. I can buy that, he isn't so much hurting himself as he is damaging the suit to "stick it to the man" who has to, in turn, pay to fix it.  His actions probably change once he gets to the single digits and is in real danger... and I guess being incapacitated doesn't really mean he is hurt. He could just have damaged his suit to be of any use in the fight. 

The Scholar is ridiculously good at tanking…he can't lose HP fast enough with all the healing he does, usually he wants to get hurt so that he can heal and thus deal damage with Mortal Form To Energy.  Legacy is probably second to that, although he has the advantage that his "take damage for everyone" card doesn't go away after one round.  Haka is also a good tank, and Fanatic is adequate at it, as she can mega-nuke something when low on HP and has the Aegis to resurrect her if she gets abruptly killed.  Bunker is not as good at tanking as he should be, given that he's literally a tank (with arms and legs instead of wheels, but still, what else do you call an armored combat vehicle with a pilot inside), and AZ probably falls next in the order, though Nightmist is arguably better at the "I hurt myself except actually I don't" shtick (as opposed to Fanatic, who actually does hurt hurself in every case).

he has by far the best damage reduction in the game (danger sense and next evolution most notably)

Danger Sense only works on the Environment, which is relevant a lot less often than I'd like; I usually don't have a spare play to get it out.  Next Evolution can be great (especially in a Cyclohexane Vat heheh), but it's very frequently not as helpful as Galvanize or Motivational Charge, and you need a Legacy Ring to do both (conversely, without either Next Evolution or Motivational Charge, the Legacy Ring is useless, unless you're fighting in the Tomb of Anubis and can pick up a Relic…hm, I'll have to try that sometime).  Although the Ring is the exact same card as Wraith's Utility Belt, it proves far less useful due to the other cards in your deck; only those two (unless I'm forgetting one) have Powers, and neither is very often going to be preferable to Galvanize, nor is NE usually preferable to the other one if you are giving up Galvanize (or have the Ring).

and he has the ability to redirect damage to him, something taht to my knowledge the other heroes can't do (or at least, not as well as he can).

No, he's definitely unequaled in that regard.  But you don't need to be able to redirect damage in order to tank; just being highest (or lowest) HP and staying there is enough, as it means attacks will consistently be aimed at you (except when they hit everybody of course).

I might be doing something wrong though, since to me the heroes seem to be severely lacking in the defense department. At best, some can reduce all the damage to them by 1, and that's it (bc the cards that give them this have limited).

Bunker reduces damage by 2 when he's in Recharge Mode with Heavy Plating out.  But you're doing it right - 1 point of armor is usually the most a hero gets, and that's enough to make a significant difference.

I also find healing to be rather pathetic, I mean really the only two heroes that can heal more than 2 hit points are wraith (with a one-shot) and AZ (and only himself).

Again, you haven't seen Scholar, and also Argent Adept.  But you're right that the healing tends to be a bit lacking.  Tempest is the best healer in the EE; the 2 HP he restores each round is enough to keep ahead of some of the less violent villains, but it's often less advisable than Squalling everything (unless of course the enemy has out DR, as with advanced Omnitron on his Rampaging Robot side).

Well now that I think of it, haka can also heal for a lot, and reduce damage to himself, but he needs to discard ALOT of cards in order to accomplish this, and even then it would only be for one turn.

Do note that the card "Dominion" is not Limited.  Having multiples of those out and destroying Environment cards is the single best way to get the kind of card supply necessary to make full use of the Haka cards.  It's also fun to have Visionary in the game feeding you with Enlighten every turn.

See also: Elemental Wrath.

Just incase we don't know here, I don't have any of the expansions, all I have is the original box set. I don't even have the enhanced edition. Though I do intend on getting rook city once it's back in stock. I probably won't bother getting the enhanced edition, not that its bad, but $40 just for a better box, counters, and updated errata is way way too much for me. I don't see any reason to pay $40 just to deal with a few very minorly annoying issues.

From what I understand, the rules changes between original and enhanced are not all that minor.  (Someone linked me to a list of the changes once, but I was too busy to follow the link and then I forgot where it was.)  There were several fairly big mechanical changes - Wraith used to be able to prevent irreducible damage with her Stealth ability, and I'm told there were effects which could alter the max HP of targets.  The art was also different, with Haka shown Elbow Smashing a tank, instead of the character fans have dubbed "Hippocalypse".

NIGHTMIST.

Yeah, there were some cards that would increase the maximum hp of heroes (or lower it for villain cards). According to my errata, they changed all of them to instead either heal 1 point of damage, or damage the opponent by 1. Most of the changes though, are just fixing typos and making the cards neater (for example, they put the information for setup and gameplay in seperate boxes on the villain cards). I've also noticed that like half the changes involve them simply replacing the word 'hero' with 'hero target'. I don't get why, I'm guessing that has something to do with heroes in the expansions. Alot of the villains also had the 'h' symbol added to their cards, though functionality wise this makes no difference if you're playing with 4 heroes (for example, sedative flechettes deal 5 damage to each hero, but in the enhanced edition it is h+1, which in a four player game means the card deals the same damage as it did in the original edition). They also did some nerfing and buffing (primordial plant-life no longer reduces the heros' damage, and one of tempest's incapacitated powers was changed).

One thing I've noticed is that this 'h' symbol thing doesn't appear to make the villains any easier for a three-player game (at least the original four). I imagine this is not a problem with the villains in the expansions since they were all designed with this mechanic in mind.

Some of the heroes have minions (Unity). Those minions, while not in-and-of-themselves heroes, are hero targets.

Spiff's file of the text differences is here. Also, a graphical representation of the changes is available on the official downloads page, in the "Changes" section.

Huh, ok? Does that make you feel special? Maybe that was not intended the way I read it.

But anyway, even if he gets Incap? My problem with that strategy is that later on Zero falls close to uselessness as he tries to get his cards down and heal to not die. If he gets Thermal Shockwave he might not be able to use it because of his low health (or give only partial use). He might need to use Hoarfire to heal to get out of the "Villain/Environment turn might kill me" instead of using it for damage. Well, basically both of his One-Shots are much better with Equipment down.

Eh, you said you pick Fixer as a damage dealer so maybe I'm just making a fool of myself here.

Yeah, that's what my errata sheets show. Note that I downloaded the ones on this site, so they're not nearly as compact. Each character and environment are on a seperate page for me (thus I have a total of 18 pages of errata, which is pretty stupid when you consider that some of the changes to the characters were few, like tachyon and AZ who both only had 2 cards changed. Though my errata pages don't say anything about AZ's deck being changed. Why would they remove a coolant blast for?

edit: I was responding to rabit's post, guess I should've used a quote...

I guess I've been infected by so many games with Ronway - I'm somewhat reckless with AZ's HP as well. AZ as a tank? Scholar with Flesh to Iron? Not for me!

I'd rather play 5 rounds doing cool useful things and then get incapped than survive the entire game playing more conservatively. (I acknowledge that this is just my own personal play style and that other styles are available and may even be preferable.)

I play Zero differently depending on the game. We don't have a tank? It's tanking time! We need more damage? Oh look, there goes my HP! BOOM! Anything else is dependent on how the cards fall, and half of what I love is the versatility. The rest? Flavour. Oh yeah... and I kinda like the crazy maths you sometimes have to do.

I'm not even sure what you are getting at.

Yes, even if incapacitated. The only thing I do is to not incap AZ on my turn, I let the environment or VIllain do the finishing blow, hopefully when hitting the lowest and not a AoE attack.

Not sure what partial use is, but I would still use it, as long as I still make it through my turn.

Doesn't bother me, if I can take some of the damage and become incapped, oh well time to use my incap powers to allow other heroes to cath up to the amount of damage I did in the game.

Most hero one-shots are better when they have some cards in play. If the equipment you are refering to are modules, I shall point out that Frost-bound only deals Fire damage to AZ, so unless you decide to deal yourself the cold damage, it has nothing to do with Null-Point. Hoarfire, I would still play it, even without Null-Point, because it is only 1 (2 with Focused Apertures) point of damage. Which can make Thermal Shockwave better, as that will cause an extra 1 (or 2) points of fire damage, which in turn does an extra 1 (or 2) points of cold damage to another target.

Not sure if you are refer to my old comment in which I use Fixer to do damage. He is rarely the primary damage dealer, but he is good at doing back-up damage on some nasty minions.

Ahh, ok now I see. You are talking about playing Zero a fun way even if it's not THE optimal way (at least not for 3 players) but still getting a lot from him. I always got the vibe from the comments that playing it recklessly like that was the right way to play that people were not seeing, my bad then.

pulls up a chair
grabs popcorn
I hope there aren’t too many previews.

Of course it is not the optimal way to play, as I don't think there is a optimal way to any hero in any given situation. Every hero is built to be able to be played in a variety of ways. It is one of the reasons why I enjoy SotM so much, perhaps someday I will be in the mood to play conservative and still provide effect help to the team, even though that day may never come, it is still nice to have that option.

There is one hero in the EE who can put out an additional hero target - Visionary with her Decoy Projection.

Presumably choosing fewer than 3 targets to hit with cold damage, in order to minimize the backlash (particularly with Apertures out or other increases).

I think I've said something to this effect before, but I'll say it again:

Optimal way to play = most fun way to play.

Personally, I'm reckless with my HP, which lets me have more fun. Does it help me beat the villain some times? Yes. Does it help me beat the villain all the time? No. But do I have a load of fun either way? You betcha. So for me, I am still playing him optimally! Of course, others like to play him conservatively, and if they enjoy playing that way, then fine by me!

What use is playing if you dont enjoy?

Ok, that's where we disagree, since each way of playing the Hero provides a different amount of contribution to the game and inevitably one will lead into a different amount of points (sum of damage, card destruction, etc.) than others. I do think that with all the variables the game has it's impossible to have real concrete data to back-up a clear cut strategy with overall better performance than others, but I do think it exist.

Of course, that pure for analysis in terms of win rate disregarding fun rate

edit: woah, people post fast here

Optimal for YOU, completly subjective since fun is subjective so it's super hard to generalize or translate to others. It does point out though that I should be using the word "effectiveness" for what I'm describing though since optimal can be interpreted either way ("most favourable").

I dont really see how its more effective to just ignore healing him rather than try to keep his hp as high as possible, considering that to do the maximum possible damage with him you'd need to sacrifice 22 hp to do so. And besides, the longer he stays alive, the more damage he'll be able to do in the game. Especcially considering how much he benefits from damage boosts due to how he attacks loop around and amplify eachother, like my one turn I mentioned before. Basically, every +1 to damage he gets will increase the damage he does every turn by at least 3, if not more. Like with frostbound drain, one damage boost to the cold damage, then one boost to the fire damage which essentially boosts the cold from IT before it gets its own bonus, right there you got 3 times the damage increase you would otherwise. And its not that hard to get more. Imagine if he used hoaffire. One for the cold damage, one for the fire damage to him, which again boosts his IT cold damage twice, then again with the second fire damage, which boosts another cold damage attack twice. Then you use coolant blast and that gets boosted 3 times (one each for the two seperate fire damage and 1 for the cold damage itself). That's eight times he got a boost to his damage in one turn (and not considering that he might have impales and coldsnaps in play, which each get their own damage boost). Even if he had only a +1 modifier that's quite substantial. Of course, to pull that off he'd have to sacrifice quite a lot of hp. If nothing else, you should at least build up for an epic blast in case you need to take out something quickly, like an EPE or something like that.

However, because of this non-existant data, how did you decide your way is the optimal way?

Yes, i'm well aware how his damage works, hence why I use him for a damage dealer. Here's my thought, the more HP I heal, the more something other than me is doing me damage, meaning I am not healing my damage, I am healing other damage I recieve. Meaning the longer I leave AZ, the more he becomes a target for other attacks.

You all might want to avoid playing AZ with Ra then if you dislike AZ doing damage. Since this is on topic, I had a great solo game last night with AZ Ra and Haka vs Apostate. 3 hero game. Saw Ruins and the Statue and a Spirit. But that was it. AZ blew himself sky high, and because of all of the extra damage he did, the game ended much ealier than anticipated. AZ incapped the round the game ended (Appostate got eaten by a Chuprakabra). All that extra damage AZ did in the game to the villain saved Ra and Haka from taking more damage through more rounds.

I think that is important to keep in mind, the length of a game. More rounds go by, more cards the villain plays and the greater chance they will find that one combo which will pound you. AZ died sure, but if it wasnt for him I woulda seen a summoning ritual or two at least and it would have been much harder to win. At the end of the day its about fun I agree, but its always about winning for players like me and Ronway. Blowing AZ up (as long as you have a decent ratio of damage in:out) flat out gives you a better chance to win games.

Which do you think would deal more damage: AZ dying to his own thermal shockwave, or him surviving it and thus allowing his isothermic transducer to deal a huge amount of damage to the villain.

Not that I'm against lowering my hit points just to deal more damage, but as far as I'm concerned, if you have a damage output like AZ, the longer you can stay alive the better. I played a game with my sister last time I was at her house, I was playing fanatic and killed myself to deal a huge amount of damage. But the villain quickly recovered, and my sister was unable to defeat him without my help, even with my incapacitated abilities. If I hadn't done that, we would've stood a much better chance of winning that game. To me, the only circumstance in which suiciding would be justifiable is if the resulting damage to the villain would be enough to finish them off. Remember, the villain is still going to play the same no matter what their health is, so its always possible for them to rebound and start giving your teammates a problem (especcially the ones that can heal themselves, my game with my sister ended with baron blade at full health, and he never flipped). And I imagine my teammates would much rather have AZ around when omnitron pulls an EPE out of his own trash (my last game against him he was doing that alot, bc it was one of the first things he drew). And AZ has the option of dealing a perfectly decent amount of damage while healing himself at the same time. So i see no reason to kill myself just to deal 20 damage to a villain that still has 80 hit points or something like that.

No one is saying you should, but ending a game on 20+ HP gets you no extra reward, especially when you could have used those HP to end it sooner.

I am of the opinion that both camps here are wrong. Whether you play AZ as a tank or as a damage dealer depends on the situation you face, going into the game and saying "I am playing him as a tank" and sticking to your guns when it is clear you need a damage dealer makes for a "sub-optimal" play, the reverse is equally true.

Isothermic does not prevent AZ from taking the damage you understand. AZ has to actually take fire damage for Isothermic to spit it back out as cold. The faster AZ goes down the more damage is is ultimatly doing when its all calculated. Obviously a 1:1 ratio of damage in:out is to be avoided. 1:2 is a simple setup and if you hit 1:3 and you arn't blowing yourself up, you are holding yourself back from a massive final damage total. I think you are asking that question without really knowing the answer yourself. Run like 10-15 random games with AZ. Make note of your play style, game length, and total damage out (make note of teammates as well I guess). The numbers wont lie.

Oh, I didn't. I'm not even sure if  I have adscribed for a way to play him (though the correct answer to that is the vague 'adapt'). It's just that the self-destruct way is a really inefficient way of dealing damage. The value of doing damage that way is to be compared with who wants the game to end faster, the Heroes or the Villain. Foote describes how it goes in the first case, BlackWolf the second.

I see healing slightly different. I consider the Heroes have a HP pool total, similar to the Villains, which varies with the damage flow and the targets that enter play. Of course it depends on a lot of situations but in general when I heal Zero and, say, he becomes the highest HP character, he gets hit, I consider that almost as good as having that damage by the Villain reduced by 1 (comparing HP pool totals). Incap Hero abilities make this only a guideline but in general, with 3 Heroes (the way I have played most of my games) having 1 Hero die and not have an ability that super compliments one of the other guys means I'll lose pretty soon, so that's why I don't take it that much into consideration.

Now, if I have to factor the Environment to all this in, yeah, nigh impossible to calculate

edit: geez, people post fast here!

That is technically true, in all card games (I used to play in MTG tournaments years ago, as in the days of odyssey and onslaught) you need to adapt to the situation. In MTG, the best deck tends to be the one that can deal with the most number of situations. There is no perfect deck, the top deck is always the one that has the highest chance of encountering another deck that it can counter.

Though that doesn't mean your deck has to have a counter for everything that can be thrown at it (if that was the case then rock decks would always be at the very top) Years ago for example, it was quite popular in vintage to play rift-slide decks bc they were highly effective at beating goblin decks, which were very very common since they could beat just about everything else. But once goblin decks ceased to be so effective, rift-slide also vanished since that was pretty much the only deck they were good against, the sole reason they were so successful at the time was bc goblin decks were also so successful.

That's a bit off-topic, isnt it? Especcially since SoTM doesn't work the same way since its a cooperative game rather than a solo game (though I imagine you could play it was a competitive game, with two hero decks, or two teams of hero decks, fighting eachother to try and take eachother out).

I have a nasty habit of going off-topic, but I am improving, since at least this time I noticed it.....

edit: replying to matchstickman. apparently hitting the 'reply' button DOESN'T automatically mark your comment as a reply to that specific comment...

It is always best to play to the situation. But we have only really been discussing generalities here.

Maybe there is another way to frame this discussion. Lets talk about the purpose of "tanking" as it relates to this game. What is "tanking" trying to accomplish? When is the goal of winning the game best served with a tanking approach?

Tanking for me serves one purpose: buying time for the rest of the team to get set up to start doing damage. With the exception of Gloomweaver and possibly Akash (depending on location) there are no real "endurance" test encounters where you just have to bide your time. They are damage races for the most part. Most villains come out of the gate swinging for the fences.

There are a few ways to be an effective tank in this vien. You can redirect damage from others to yourself, or you can manipulate your HP to take the majority of damage instances (those that target the highest HP hero).

AZ lacks the tools to redirect damage to himself from others (like other notable tankers like Legacy or Scholar). Villains that deal a lot of AoE damage are a poor choice for AZ to tank against for this reason. AZ will not be able to mitigate enough damage from the team to warrent the absence of his crazy damage production.

This leaves HP manipulation. Now, AZ lacks any sort of passive mitigation (although Cryo Chamber does mitigate fire damage only). Healing is your only way to achieve any kind of effective mitigation to make tanking worth it, so single target damage heavy villains are a better choice to tank again. But also  keep in mind that there is no real mitigation through healing when your damage in:out ratio is 1:1. It is no good. So you need to be at a higher ratio to get yourself decent mitigation, and at that point your damage is starting to be too good to pass up. And remember any time you heal, you pass up the chance to do damage (the villain is now in effect getting some damage mitigation of his own in that sense).

The question still becomes are you mitigating enough incoming damage to justify the loss of production. Are you really buying the team time to set up? Or are you just stalling and being a burden? This is why he is a complexity 3 hero.

Nope - need to use Quote and include the quoted text to indicate that. It's a linear forum.

I don't let the backlash damage from Thermal Shockwave kill me. Whenever I use Thermal Shockwave, I take all that damage and deal it out to someone else. Letting something else get the killing blow.

I don't see why you are trying to change my opinion. I don't care, it's how I play and how I will continue to play. You don't like it, fine.

The is what brings up, know when to do something. If we want to get into specific situations, then yes there is the better way to do things. However talking about generalization, it is a matter of opinion.

Most games in which I become Incapped as AZ last 2 or fewer rounds.

Once again, knowing when to do it is a huge factor. If you decide to off youself while the villain hasn't taken any damage, then that doesn't mean dealing yourself damage is a bad option overall. It's just not ideal at the time.

I never said you did, but you have said the way I play is not optimal, meaning you play the optimal. The only 2 cards in AZ's deck that doesn't rely on him taking damage are Cold Snap and Impale. So I guess AZ isn't an efficient damage dealer to you.

In general, I prefer to have AZ dealing himself damage to the point of near death.

AZ has the incap power "One hero may use a power" that just about compliments everyone. I play with 3 heroes most of the time as well.

This should be made into a new thread, it has nothing to do with my original question (which has already been long since resolved). And besides, this discussion looks like its about to turn into a flame war. I won't be discussing this any further just to avoid adding to the flames.

Everyone has been a bit on edge lately. I think it's largely due to the govenment shutdown, of course. Let's all remember that the best part of this community is how we all work together. You know how I like cooperative games.

Don't make me turn this forum around. *grin*

a

Oh, that's interesting info! The few games I went with no healing Zero is close to Incap/gets Incap turn (say) 3/4 while games tend to last longer for me (around 10 turns). Different in perspectives.

I never said you did, but you have said the way I play is not optimal, meaning you play the optimal.
No, I didn't meant that, sorry for being misleading or personal. I just meant the first part (and even then it should be 'effective', not 'optimal') since it has been mentioned as a way to play Zero that was not mainstream. I'm pretty convinced, as said before, that the optimal way to play is to adapt to every situation. I like going the tank route (open Impale, Null Point, set up, Thermal Shockwave, break game) but I know of it's shortcomings.

AZ has the incap power "One hero may use a power" that just about compliments everyone.
That's fine but pretty standard, with 'compliment' I was referring more to broken stuff like Fixer letting Fanatic put back Aegis in play, Bunker putting Lightspeed Barrage back in hand or Tempst's 'lolwut' ability kind of stuff.

Radnom thing I noticed in one of the posts somewhere back up this thread - a mention of Omnitron pulling EPEs out of his trash. The EPE is a device, and Omnitron doesn't pull those out of his trash - he pulls drones and components...

Sorry, met to say 2 or fewer rounds after he was incapped.

Yes, situations call for different measures. But my previous posts was solely of the method I like the most and what I try to use most games. So adapting is good and all, but you don't have to say that I play "ineffectively" or "nonoptimal" just because I was giving a suggestion to try out sometime. Letting someone know that there is another option rather than healing to the max.

That's not complimenting, that is as you said, breaking the game.

I think I'd disagree that it's the government that tends to get people on edge, and most people would likely agree with me as to what the actual cause is.

But yeah, let's play nice, people. Or at least be courteous and polite. Things are getting uncomfortable around here recently.

I think the government shutdown bit was a joke. :-P

Yeah, I got that. Seems my comment didn't come over as intended, but never mind!

I got it.

It's no joke!  It's SERIOUS BUSINESS! 

I'm more annoyed that with the shutdown, I'm not getting better and lighter traffic patterns in DC.  This shutdown was all for naught!