As I said open to having a discussion about the merits of making a change to a card because it is needed. Very much against changing a card because the programming was done poorly and it is too difficult to sort out.
Some players’ initial thoughts on Mitsuko quoted below (she was released prior to Beta Beat being launched so commentary is all over the place):
@Snowdoggydogg , I personally believe you’re making a mistake in passing up Ares for Mitsuko and quite honestly, even ZimKitty. Mitsuko is a niche character, who has a niche ability the other two are far more versatile
As for red, not loving any of those options, but if you can max three, you may as well go ahead with at least one [while you wait to see if you land GM next month]. I’d probably choose between Mitsuko, Grazul and Natalya personally. Mitsuko is very niche, but super fun to use and the best counter to any blue heroes,
My Zimkitty is 4/80 and has 4 talents, and my Mits is 3/70 and rarely sees the battle at all. The only place I use Mits is in events/Atlantis levels when the boss is blue.
Mits’ special kinda works against itself, mana cut prevents the boss from firing, and you’ll need to throw more tiles at the boss to finally trigger the special. But of course, blue special mirroring is VERY satisfying when it finally happens. So, Mits is a very cool, but has the niche that is too narrow.
Mitsuko’s ability essentially breaks down to bad Guin minus the heals to help her sustain. She will be an okay tank on the basis of her stat line and the fact that mana hate is always a good thing, but what makes a great tank is either a special that goes off reliably and makes a giant impact on the board or a tank that can continuously absorb damage while the others build their specials and do the dirty work. Without the heals to keep her alive longer I’m not particularly sanguine about the amount of damage she can absorb, nor do I think that if her ability goes off once and she dies that she has made a significant impact.
Yes, she punishes running a blue stack against her (sort of, she does nothing to prevent tile death), but even accepting that as gospel just means that you stack against whichever other hero you are most worried about. If you’re not running blues, her ability doesn’t hit hard enough to be a major concern and the mana loss will be more of a nuisance than a threat.
Mitsuko: tl;dr Red tank that can’t replace Gravemaker but could almost replace Ares on defense. On offense, she’s a niche hitter that hits below average and can be very useful against blue AoE hitters. She’s another hero that encourages players to think of tile damage strategies.
BTW, the third bullet point of her SS is worded ambiguously.
“All allies reflect all status effects and 115% damage from Ice Special Skills back to the attacker for 4 turns.”
If a nitpicky grammarian parses everything before the word “and” as one effect and everything to the right as another effect you get something much more interesting that what was intended.
Below average attack, above average defense and health. This is generally the traits of a tank and her defense & healh stats are comparable to Ares.
Refelect blue SS. Blue is the strong color vs. red therefore Mitsuko is designed to be a defensive hero. Offensive oriented heroes deal extra damage vs. their elemental weak enemy. The nature of this buff is unique in that it reflects only SS. Mitsuko appears as a boss on several Province 12 levels and I tried dispelling her SS w/ Sonya but that got reflected back.
The design of Mitsuko deviates from the best of tanks in that she does not heal. That puts her at a disadvantage compared to all other tanks. All of the best ones heal in one form or another with the exception of Gravemaker. He’s the hitter that proves the point of the best defense being a good offense. Anyway, Mitsuko doesn’t hit hard enough to defend the way Gravemaker does. Without healing, she won’t last as long as any tank that does heal.
Her mana steal is annoying but it sometimes misses the mark and that somehow makes her less scary than Guin or even a Li Xiu.
The big gaping hole in Mitsuko’s defense is tile damage. Her ability only reflects SS and if you color stack blue heroes against her, she isn’t that painful to take down when she’s the tank.
If she’s a flank or wing, there’s a fairly good chance that you can take her down before her SS goes off. Or you could take her down using something other than blue SS. When she’s not the tank, you could simply color stack to take down the tank and opposite flank and not pack any blues. This works around her SS so well, one hopes that players realize how bad she is outside of the tank position.
Outside of raid defense, her SS is pretty decent and is likely to pack about as much of a punch as Scarlett. The mana steal is less useful on offense since the enemy starts recharging with the next set of tiles sent their way. The blue SS reflection however could be really useful against a blue AoE hitter like Grimm, Athena or Isarnia.
