Nuking for Glory: Max Damage

Games Sentinels of the Multiverse
1

Some of the best moments in SotM is when the cards just seem to keep coming, everything lines up, and you nuke the enemy into oblivion. This got me thinking: what is the absolute maximum damage a character can deal to any given generic opponent without help from anybody else? This is the result.

I simulated the conditions as follows:
No help from teammates. Any increase in damage must come from themselves, not teammates or the environment, or even the Nemesis Bonus.
The villain may oblige by hitting or damaging the hero as the case may be, but the damage type will be nonspecific (I'm looking at you, AZ), as well the amount of damage itself.
I counted damage dealt to only ONE villain target. No minions, just the big bad. I also didn't count damage dealt to self.
I used only the base card, no alternate arts, for simplicity's sake.

 

I, of course, recognize that some heroes are not meant to deal damage, but I included them in the experiment anyway, just for fun. I am also, of course, only human, so any comments, suggestions, or changes are welcome :) If you will notice, I don't have any of the ST or Promo heroes, so I couldn't do this for them. Anyone who has them is welcome to do it. Additions are awesome!

 

Here we go!

 

Haka: 41
Haka of Battle for 39 cards, then Crush.

 

Legacy: 11
Insipiring Presence and Surge of Strength give +2. Back-Fist Strike for 6, then Galvanize (another +1) and Motivational Charge (via Legacy Ring) for another 5.

 

Ra: 33
2 Solar Flares, The Staff of Ra and Imbued Fire collectively give Ra +6 damage. The opponent hits him duirng his turn for some reason, is dealt 8 damage via Flame Barrier. Play Flame Spike, hitting for 7. Use Blazing Tornado for 9, then use The Staff of Ra for another 9.

 

Tempest: 24
Gene-Bound Shackles gives him +2 to the highest HP Villain target (for our purposes, this is the case for our one target). Electrical Storm will hit for 3, then Vicious Cyclone will hit thrice (three cards discarded) for a total of 9. Lightning Slash will hit for 7, then Localized Hurricane will hit for 5.

 

The Wraith: 30
Again, pretty simple. All possible equipment is put down (total: 14), then Inventory Barrage for 28. Opponent somehow hits her on her turn for an extra 2 from Combat Stance.

 

Fanatic: 41
Fanatic starts with Divine Focus for 2, letting it reduce her life down to 1. Play Wrathful Retribution for 29. Due to two Embolden's on her, she may use a total of three powers on her turn. Exorcism (2), Absolution (3), and Sacrosanct Martyr (5) work for 10, with an Aegis resurrecting her from suicide via SM.

 

Bunker: 79
OMNICANNON. 38 cards underneath it. Play External Combustion for 3, then Omnicannon for 76.

 

Expatriette: 21
Unload. Tactical Shotgun with Hollow Points for 6. Assault Rifle with Shock Rounds for 2 and 1. Submachine Gun and Shock Rounds for 1 and 1. Pride with Hollow Points and Incendiary Rounds for 5, and then Prejudice with Incendiary Rounds for 3. Then Load RPG Launcher for another 2.

 

Mr. Fixer: 9
Harmony, Pipe Wrench, Grease Monkey Fist in play (+3). Play Charge for 5, then Strike for 4.

 

Tachyon: 74
Start with HUD Goggles and Pushing the Limits (3 card plays). Play two Lightning Reflexes for a total of 5 card plays. Play two Supersonic Responses (where the villain had hit Tachyon since the last turn) for 8 damage. 3 Lightspeed Barrages for 22 each.

 

The Visionary: 8
2 Twisting the Ethers on The Visionary. Demoralization hits for 3. Mind Spike hits for a further 5.

 

Absolute Zero: 39
(Oh God, this made my head hurt) Start with Isothermic Transducer, and Focused Apertures. Two Impales and a Cold Snap out will deal 8 cold. Frost-Bound Drain for 4 cold, then three fire to himself. IT kicks in, hits enemy for another 4 cold. Thermal Shockwave hits enemy for 2 cold, hits AZ for two cold, then hits AZ for twenty fire. IT kicks in again to hit enemy for 21 cold.

 

Argent Adept: ...negligible.
Sorry, my head hurt too much. Too many fiddly stuff. Suffice it to say, he does very little for a lot of effort. if anyone wants to work this out, then please do so and I will update here.

 

Nightmight: 26
Start with Amulet of the Elder Gods and Elder Ring. Heedless Lash(1) played, reveals HL(3): 4 damage to enemy, redirect 4 to self to enemy via Amulet. Play HL(3), reveal another HL(2). 3 to enemy, three to self. Play revealed HL(2), Oblivion(4). 5 to enemy, five to self. Play Oblivion(4), reveal two (4)s. 5 to all, 5 to enemy.

 

Special Case: Haka has Savage Mana, which lets him eat his opponents. This constitutes one of his best attacks, so I thought I'd include it here, although it involves significant Villain interaction. I chose the decks with the most targets in them.

Haka: 103
Haka of Battle for 38 cards, then Savage Mana with 20 Villain cards (courtesy of Matriarch) and 12 Environment cards (courtesy of Final Wasteland) will yield 32 cards for 64 damage.

Haka also gets a special note in that he has the potential for *infinite* damage (As noted by BlueHairedMeerkat), since he can keep racking up the Hakas of Battle to no end. Another note, as raised by Jimmy The Rat, is that, if we extend this to two turn plays, you can Haka of Battle on one turn, then Rampage on the next for even greater glory!

2

Haka of Battle can't discard itself, so your HoB discard numbers are 1 too high, but it can be cast on a previous turn since it's "next damage", allowing you to use Rampage for more damage.  Against the Matriarch, it'd be HoB 37 + Rampage 5 + Savage Mana 64 for 106.

Against a targetless deck with a targetless environment, it would be 45.  Either HoB 38 + Rampage 5 + Crush 2, or HoB 37 + Rampage 5 + Taiaha 3.

3

Actually, Haka can get n infinite number of damage; just use Haka of Battle on 40-card hands over and over again :P

4

Ooh, if you had Punish the Weak out with every target eaten, it would be -1 for the HoB number but it would increase both Rampage and Savage Mana, to a max of 107 against Matriarch/Final Wasteland.

 

BlueHairedMeerkat, that's technically true, but it's also rather silly.  I think a one HoB limit is best for these sorts of calculations, but Haka gets an asterisk for sure.

5

I was hoping to get the max for just the one turn, rather than the actions of two or more turns. As Meerkat said, that thinking could lead to infinite damage. And wouldn't you be able to discard HoB as well? given that you have the entire deck in your hand: you play HoB, it gets sent to the trash. You draw 2, so you reshuffle the trash into yoru deck, then you are able to redraw the Haka of Battle? If not, then thank you for pointing it out!
 

er, Meerkat, that is true :)) though perhaps for the purposes of this exercise, we should limit it to maybe one or two turns...

6

One-shots don't get sent to the trash until they're finished resolving, so it's not available yet (since it's still in play while you're drawing/discarding).

7

I think I shall limit this to one turn plays, as in, no Rampages :) But thank you for the input Jimmy! I shall edit.

8

Argent Adept: All instruments, 2 Subdominants, 2 Frost and Flames, Inspiring Supertonic, and Syncoplated Onlsaught. 2 xSilver Shadow and Poly Flare in hand.

Play Silvey Shadow, activate the accompany of Subdominant to use a power. Use Vocalize to Perform Onslaught for +1 damage. Play a second Silver Shadow to do Onslaught for 2 damage. Than play Poly Flare, take 3 damage and use the Bell. Using Both Perform and Accompany of Onslaught for +1 damage and deal 3(5) damage to the villain target.

First use the Harp to activate Perform of the Inspiring Supertonic to use a power. Use the Lyra and do the same with Perform. Now use the Pipes to trigger both Frost and Flames for 6 damage each (17 so far). Go back to the Lyra's accompany to do Onslaught for 3 (20) damage. The Harp's accompany will be used on the second Subdominant. Activate the horn to do Frost and Flame for another 6 damage, the accompany of the Subdominant again to use a power. Now use the Drum's power to do both the accompany of Onslaught and Perform of a Frost and Flame for another 9 damage. 35 damage total

 

Tachyon: Hud Goggles, Pushing the Limits, and 2x Synaptic Interruptions. In hand: 2x Sonic Vortex, 2x Lightning Reflexes, x3 Light-Speed Barrage.

Play both Lightning Reflexes, then both Sonic Vortexes. Hitting both the VIllain and Tachyon with them. Tachyon redirects both using both Synaptic Interruptions, for a total of 12 damage. Then play all three Light-Speed Barrage for 22 damage each. 78 damage total.

9

Did you forget to add in the bonus from the ring for NM?  So if she reveals HL(3) that would do 4 damage to the enemy and redirect 4 more at them, etc, etc for the rest of the chain.

 

I'm not sure but I think AA might be able to give himself +1 damage and then do 2 or 3 attacks with a base of 1 damage each to get up in the 6 range.  With silver shadow could maybe get another attack or something.  Heck he could silver shadow multiple times if necessary.  I bet on a perfect turn he could do something interesting but I don't have the cards here to look into it.

10
3 Bee Bot, 1 Champion Bot, 1 Cryo Bot, 3 Platform Bot, 3 Raptor Bot, 1 Stealth Bot, 1 Swift Bot, 1 Turret Bot, 2 Voltile Parts (we'll say platform bots are at the end of the line)
14 Bots in total
Start of turn, Turret shoots for 4 damage
Unity plays Powered Shock Wave on her turn for 16 Damage. She plays a second thanks for Swift Bot for another 16. (36 total)
The 3 Raptor bots attack, each for 16 (84 total). Two platform bots shoot a raptor bot each which explode and hit the villain for 6 per. (96 total). 
 
The last Platform shoots a Bee Bot. The Bee bot dies, shooting another Bee bot. Two volatile parts trigger, shooting the villain for 6 (102). The 2nd Bee bot dies, shooting another Bee Bot, and the villain for another net 6 (108) and offing the last of the Bee bots. The Last Bee bot shoots a Raptor Bot and deals 6 to the Villain (114). The Raptor dies, dealing 6 more to the Villain (120)
 
Unity: 120
11

I need to point out that Volitile Parts hits the Villain target with the lowest, so you can't twist it to hit any Bots for you.

Also Powered Shockwave will be dealing 16 damage.

12

Fixed the volatile parts thing. Also, I'm pretty sure Shockwave only does damage = bots, so 14 (+1 for Champ).

13

Omni-X: All components in play, x2 Rocket Punch, Bio-Engineering Beam, Elemental Exochassis or Temporal Shielding, and Defensive Blast.

The Coil Blasters and Plasma Cannon deal 6 damage. First Deployment Unit plays Disruptive Flechettes, for 2 damage. Second plays Self Sacrifice destorying the 10 components for 20 damage. Play play phase will play a Slip Through Time. Use Defensive Blast for 4. End of turn play Singularity, destroying both Rocket Punches and the Plating for 3 damage. Engineering Beam for another 2. Making 37 damage.

 

The Scholar. Know When to Turn Loose, Truth Seeker.

Play know when to turn loose, discard 38 cards. Use Truth Seeker for 2. 40 damage.

14

Shockwave deals number of bots in play plus 1. So 14 bots +1= 15, plus 1 for Champion bot.

15
Is it possible to get this setup? How do you get the card discarded for Gatling Gun under Omni-cannon if last the card played needs to be Turret mode, which prevents card drawing. If you were in upgrade mode last turn, you can play both cards, but you would have Upgrade mode and the discarded card in the trash, and Omni-cannon would only have 34 cards. If you didn't have upgrade mode: 2 turns before: play gatling Gun, draw a card, discard a card. Last Turn: Pump Omni-cannon, play Turret Mode, discard a card (You need Turret mode to be in from the beginning of the turn to pump Gatling gun). You still have 2 cards in the trash. Is it possible to get that setup?
 
16

It's possible. However the way to do it I guess slightly breaks the "no help" rule as he would need a way to put the top card of his deck into play, which would be his last card, the Gatling Gun.

Even so, have the Gatling go under Omnicannon then, that'll increase it to 75 daamge, for a total of 79, which is the same as the other, dang it.

17

I know it’s one less, just being nit-picky (sorry).

Question though, if Bunkers deck is empty and he only has Gatling Gun in his trash, what happens if O-X Timeshifts him?

18

Nothing at all.

19

I hate it when i can't double check my cards. That means it says "reveal," right? Just checked. Yep, it does.

Well, thanks for taking the time out and answering the same question over and over again.

20

If zero uses Hoarfire instead of Frost-Bound Drain, targeting himself for fire, he does 3 cold to villain, 2 fire to self, redirecting 3 cold to villain, then deals himself 2 cold and 1 fire, redirecting 2 cold to the villain. Same amount of damage. However, it adds 2 cold total, adding another 2 to Thermal Shockwave. Without Null-Point Calibration Unit in play, this will kill him. If Null-point is in play (and cold to heal still counts as cold damage dealt, I don't have cards on me right now), he will survive, but deals one less, since he manages to heal to full. Still, that's 40.

 

If someone with cards could double check, that'd be great.