I've seen a number of debates recently regarding Doctor Octopus and it seems the MCP community is split on their opinions. So, that prompted me to write this article, to give my opinion on why I think he's one of the most underrated characters currently in the game.
Let's start by taking a look at his stat card then. On his healthy side he's 5 health with a medium move, he also comes on a medium base so he can be quite quick in getting across the table. 4/3/4 defence is way above average for a 3 threat character - so he's going to take a bit of effort to daze or KO. At first, his builder looks a bit disappointing, at range 3 and only 4 dice it's nothing to get excited about, but upon reading a bit further he does count each wild in the attack for two successes with Flurry of Arms, so this lessens the blow of only rolling 4 dice - and gives him some potential to spike on the attack.
Moving on to his spender, Arm Lasers is a range 4, 6 dice energy attack which costs him 3 power to use. The attack ignores Line of Sight and the defending character doesn't benefit from cover. This stipulation is nice, but it doesn't really come into play very often. The pierce on a wild is super valuable though and can often mean the difference between dazing/KO'ing a character or leaving them alive.
Ock comes with two superpowers in his kit that work quite well in tandem together. The first of these is Ock's Clutches, where for 3 power he can throw a size 2 enemy character or terrain feature within range 3 and throw it short - the fact this is both a character and terrain throw gives him a lot of flexibility even if there is a size 2 limitation on this. Most characters in the game are only size 2 though, so the character throw isn't as limiting as the terrain throw.
Scientific Hubris is the Second of Ock's superpowers, whenever he rolls dice, after the effect is resolved he gains a power if he rolled a crit. Note here, this is WHENEVER he rolls dice, so that's attack, defence, dodge and interact rolls. This often means that he's never short on power, and can either throw or use his spender once a turn - sometimes both.
He also gets the benefit of Wall Crawler adding to his already quick movement we spoke about earlier.
The only change to Ock on his injured side is that he gets 1 extra health - going up to a health pool of 6. It would have been preferred if the extra health was on his healthy side (as staying healthy is more beneficial towards the crisis) - but I wont complain too much as the extra health on his injured side will help keep him on the table longer.
So now let's move on to one of my favourite things about Doctor Octopus and that comes in the form of a Tactics Card.
Well Laid Plans is an unaffiliated tactics card (but you need both Green Goblin and Doc Ock on the table together so this is rarely seen outside of Spider Foes) - Green Goblin and Doctor Octopus may both spend 3 power to play this card, for each enemy character holding an objective token roll 5 dice, for each crit and wild in the roll, the enemy character takes a damage. A character that was damaged in this way drops all objective tokens they are holding.
This is such a great tactics card and is a staple in most Spider Foes lists and you need Doc Ock on the table to be able to play this card, his Scientific Hubris means he's never short on power, so paying his portion of the power to play this card should never really be an issue.
In summary, Doc Ock is a solid character, he's able to get across the board quickly, he's self sufficient in power generation and has access to a throw - so he makes for a great scenario/control piece. Add into the fact he has an above average health pool and defences for a 3 threat character, he's not going to get blown off the board easily without some spiky dice. He also makes up 50% of Well Laid Plans, which as mentioned a little earlier, is a strong inclusion to rosters where your also running Green Goblin. The counter point, is that his attacks do leave a little to be desired, but the rest of his toolkit makes up for that.
You will rarely find Doc Ock taken outside of affiliation, but that should never be a basis to judge a character. Characters that are splashed everywhere are few and far between given the number of characters currently in the game, and that often means they are slightly on the over-tuned side of the curve.
Please check out our sponsor for all of your MCP and hobby needs: www.protechmodels.co.uk
Comments