Tactics Against Spite

Games Sentinels of the Multiverse
1

So last night my friends and I realized we hadn't fought Spite in a very long time, so we took a crack at him. And then remembered why we don't generally face him. He... ow.

Now I will admit that my friends generally like to pick their favorite hero over team synergy, but we still got stomped REALLY hard. I've searched through the forums, and didn't see a thread devoted to tips to beating him down (so my apologies if I missed one). Anyone with a better track record than me have any suggestions/tactics?

2

You know I just got stormed in on Monday (dang you Sandy!) so I played a couple of Solo games... which is a bit rare for me unless I'm playtesting one of my own games but I was just that bored.

So I fought Spite with Wraith, Argent Adept, Mr. Fixer and Visionary and I figured out what is needed to defeat him. In my game the thing that really slowed him down was Twist the Ether reducing his damage by 1 and Argent Adept helping Wraith recycle her Throat Jab to reduce his damage to zero.

 

So if I was going to assemble a 4 player "dream team" against Spite I would go with:

Legacy since he can reduce damage to himself and re-direct damage to himself. I consider him the best "tank" in the game. By reducing damage, you reduce healing for Spite.

Bunker reduces damage to himself and can save up for one big mega blast if the game slows down enough. Also lots of victim rescues require discarding cards... and bunker has a big hand.

Visionary for Twiste the Ether, Suggestion, Telekinetic Cocoon (immune to damage is good), Demoralization (triggers his first damage prevention) and situational deck control.

Lastly you need Damage + Dodge...

Wraith has Stealth and Razor Ordinance

Fixer has Driving Mantis + Monkey Wrench (this combo stuck with him through the game)

Nightmist: Damage Prevention, Damage Dealing but best of all... she can stop him from playing cards.

Tachyon: Lots of drawing, frequent damage dealing and dodging or counter attacking. Lightspeed Barrages for 10+ damage are nice too.

Tempest: because he does it all... damage prevention, healing, damage, trash recycling, cooking, cleaning, taxes and fish translation.

 

As for Spite himself... he is never gonna flip his deck... he just needs to get all his drugs out and bam, the game really starts in earnest. So depending on how crazy you are then you want it to happen early (so you dont need to worry about victims and ups an downs) or late (so you can really chip away at him and rescue everyone). My technique was damage reduction, supression and rescue...

 

Victims

Lost Child: Easiest to save... since H is hopefully 4, so 3 damage can be reduced to 2 or 1 by the teams resident tank.

Innocent Bystander: Also easy if you are drawing those cards efficiently.

Good Samaritan: Unless you are trying to get him to flip asap, sorry samaritan.

Potential Sidekick: I honestly think they struck a good balance with this character... he really is worth keeping around as a sidekick SOMETIMES. And it HURTS when he dies. Situational, but for sure if are preventing damage or drawing from spite this turn.

Drugs

Compound IX: this is a weird one but Tachyon would love this card... she rarely uses powers but she would just to get those bursts out.

Demons Kiss: shut it down early with damage reduction like Twist the Ether.

Compound  Upsilon: great to bounce back cards like Bloody Knuckles that would hurt the hero. Otherwise it makes it into a slow wrestling match and bosts his damage... in my opinion one of the worst drugs to draw early.

Compound Omicron: the FIRST time he would be dealt damage, reduce it by 2. Auto start of turn damage is great, or one shots will also get it out of the way while dealing a few points.

Mynd Phyre: hopefully the least troublesome card... like a weaker Demons Kiss.

3

I am not an expert, but the first time I fought Spite, Mr Fixer really shined.

He had the Riveting Crane style and the Chain tool : if he dealt damage to Spite, all damage to him were irreducible until the start fof his next turn, and spite dealt -1 damage. He just had to play Bloody Knuckles each turn, so he could go through Omicron (and get it back with Upsilon), and all the other low damage heroes were fully efficient vs Spite. As one of them was Wraith with Stun Bolts, poor Spite was unable to do anything.

As for general strategy, currently I mostly use the "victim" phase of Spite to build the ongoing/equipment of heroes - without event trying to damage Spite - save victims and control the deck (when I can) to have him flip as soon as possible and get rid of the cards that let him break the Safe House. Of course it depends on the heroes and the cards you have. In my last game, he was highly damaged before he had all drugs out, thanks to Ra, Expatriette and many "damage dealt -1" and "can't deal damage" cards and effects. He would have died from the Safe House alone if he had not flipped during a meteor swarm...

4

I've found that Spite turns into a /really/ hard 2 depending on the order of his Drugs come out - Unless as mentioned you have a Trash centric Hero (like Nightmist or Tachyon) Compound IX can be a game killer if it comes out to early.

 

But a killer combo against Spite (and honestly, any Villian that puts out a lot of little damage) is Unity with a Stealthbot in play that has been Chastised by Fanatic.

 

Yeah. Thats pretty much a 'we win' combo unless Ongoing Card Killers pop up.

5

Just to be clear, you know you'll just reshuffle when you run out of cards, right? Not that 2 irreducible damage whenever you use a power doesn't suck a lot too, but they forgot to put the part about reshuffling in the new rulebook, and I feared Compound IX much more than I should for a while :slight_smile:

6

Yep, indeed (though we did play one game before we knew that reshuffle, and just kinda went bwaah? When Tachyon ran out of cards :P)

 

But milling 5 cards off the top of your deck can be really harsh for certain heroes. We playe da game last week against Spite, with AZ, Visionary, Bunker and i ... think it was nightmist? - Bunker wasn't worried, he had his Omni cannon out and was 'chargin his lazer' - and kept using the power source draw 3 cards to do it. but as Visionary, I was looking for Precogs and her shut down abilities, and I kept seeing them get milled into the trash. -- All I was picking up were her spread damage one shots, which when Spite is healing small damage plinks every turn anyways, and the DR drug was in play too, it wasn't very useful. I could generally do 0 damage or 1 damage.  Not to say I wasn't useful, but the game was a close one - I was down, and Bunker killed himself to use the Omni Cannon and Gattling Gun (turret mode) (cause the auto damage on the next turn would have killed him anyways) to pretty much wipe spite after he flipped, and AZ finished him off (Though we were SOO Very close to him having 1hp left on Visionarys dead turn which would have been AWESOME to finish him off with that!)

7

Our game was with Unity, not Nightmist. Honestly if we woulda had Nightmist the game would have gone alot easier than it did, since 1 damage to everything pretty much shuts Unity out.

8

 

Nothing on Compound IX says "irreducible". That's Plague Rat's schtick in Rook City.

9

Yeah, Unity did not make my cut because she has a lot of targets that can be pinged for 1 or 2 damage... providing Spite an even bigger heal. Other than her Stealth Bot loophole, she would be a liability.

 

And yeah, all of Spites damage can be reduced and MUST be reduced if  you have any hopes of winning... so two questions... one for players:

Do you think he can be beat before flipping? I mean duh, yes, everything is possible... but is this a viable strategy?

 

And to the Greater than Games guys...

Was Spite ever a Vampire in design?

One of the villains I was going to submit to the contest was a vampire (who had survived centuries) and when I was done I took a look at my word document and said "dang it, you could be Spites cousin" (in terms of mechanics).

10

Whether it's a "viable" strategy, I can't really say, but I know we HAVE killed Spite on the first side.  It involved a first turn Inspiring Presence from Legacy followed by 2 Take Downs, a first turn Imbue Fire from Ra, and a couple of turns of Hypersonic Assault from Tachyon.  I forget who the 4th was or if there even was one.

We had a similar game where we COULD have killed him before he flipped, but we waited because we wanted to see him die to the victim/safehouse damage, just for the effect (and because we figured that when expansion Story Challenges come out, that would be one).

Bottom line though, Take Down or Mistbound dramatically increases your chances of winning on the first side, and Hypersonic Assault or damage reducers help significantly as well.

11

Yes, Spite can be beaten before flipping. It requires a good team and a lot of luck. I've done it only once though.

We used Tachyon, Wraith, Tempest, and Ra. Tachyon belted Spite with 5 Barrages (2 due to tempest's Reclaim from the Deep) with damage elimination from Tachyon and Wraith, Tempest uppercutting little girls into the sky, and Ra doing Ra things. The ironic thing was that the police killed Spite.

12

Curse my memory! You’re right you weren’t az you were fanatic and that was out unity stealth bot chastise combo game… Which I mentioned previously then totally forgot I did facepalm

13

No, I was AZ for that game. We did the chastise/stealth bot combo in the first game against Plague Rat. Another classic case of your memory failing you hard. :)

14

 

Beating him before he flips takes a lot of luck on the part of the Heroes.  I played one with a few guys with Legacy, Tempest, Haka and Wraith.  Legacy had a first turn Inspiring Prescence, Tempest drew nothing but damaging one shots, Wraith had the targetting computer and the rang out quick and Haka had damage.  Spite flipped victims and the damage reducing drugs and nothing else… It wasn't pretty for him. 

15

\

 

are you sure? I thought we had a point where we were like 'And Spite does a …

 

no. there goes my memory. It just got a bit better. You're right. lesigh

16

I feel your pain.

17

Maybe I'm confused, but I don't think you can Chastise the Stealthbot.  The Chastise card say non-hero target.

18

Not always:

https://greaterthangames.com/forum/topic/errata-chastise-2909

19

Tachyon, Ra, and Visionary can shut him down pretty easily; Tachyon to play a bunch of cards constantly to prevent him from being able to bounce Ra and Visionary's cards, Visionary to Twist the Ether on Spite, and Ra to make the team immune to fire damage. Once you can do this, victory is inevitable.

20

When I face Spite the goal is always beating him before the flip. It doesn't always work out, but I'd say it works out at least half the time.

The Team:

My 2 star players are Wraith and Mr Fixer. They both have execllent attacks against this villian, Stun Bolts and Hoist Chain. Fixer also brings Grease Gun to the table for those in a pinch moments. Wraith brings Eye Piece and the ability to dual wield those stun batons, great tactics abound.

The Backup Squad: Legacy, Tachyon, Haka, Nightmist, or Visionary. Each hero brings a solid damage denial option, or a way to make 1 of Spite's turns absolutely worthless. Solid damage is also a plus. While other heroes work just fine these are my choices. I have taken Ra, Tempest, Scholar, and even AZ in with me after 2 of my backup squad were chosen. 

The plan is straight forward: Denial of damage and pump out the damage you can deal. Hit him hard and fast. Take away his strengths where you can, Eye Piece, Precognition, Mist Bound, Take Down. As heartless as it sounds Victims are NOT a priority, that's not to say ignore them, but they take a back seat to taking down Donovan.

Hope this helps, and good luck.