Has the character level shift made 4 stars usable?

TheHueyFreeman

This change has given the 4****s an additional 15 lvl lead on 3***s. It has also made them more level friendly without needing more covers. So my question is... Are they viable now?

My guess is the following
- Fury was and continues to be worth it.
- X Farce was and continues to be useless (although unsure)
- IW is up in the air.

Has anyone tried the 4 stars lately and if so, what have you experienced?

MarvelMan

I havent fully leveled any, but the numbers still make it look like they arent. Without good skills they will only be meatbags, and IW isnt even great in that regard. Im holding judgement on Fury until we see his other skill (has it been hinted?). He is decent with the two, but cant max level and a good/bad skill could make/break him.

Unknown

Yeah, totally man, level IW and Xforce all the way buddy.









JK please don't do this.

Nonce Equitaur 2

Invisible Woman could be formidable if her powers were a bit cheaper. Last I checked, her Force Field Crush generated AP. So 13 Blue AP to set up 8 bubbles, then 9 Green AP to gather 3 bubbles worth 24 AP. That ends the turn, but it could be done the next turn if enough green AP came in. Also, with a careful Force Bubbles to lock tiles, a free board shuffle is possible. She's playable, but much too expensive for what she can offer. The Hood, Storm, and Magneto MN are the others with good AP - generating powers.

Nick Fury's Demolition for 10 Blue can set 7 random traps on random colored tiles. If any are matched, they do 1447 each as they all explode, doing 10129 damage (at level 229). His Purple and Yellow also look like excellent powers.

Wolverine has a lot of health, and he heals faster than anyone else in the game. He's a reliable tank, and he'll eventually get a buff.

Unknown

IW needs to be a bit smarter about using Force Bubbles and she'd be playable. It should at the very least lockout whatever color your team doesn't need and the opponent needs if such a color exists.

Unknown

IW and Wolvie simply cannot end matches fast enough to be of any use whatsoever to endgame players in PVP. You have six minutes to earn 70-100 points before losing 150 in attacks. Not gonna happen with their current damage levels and ap costs.

Unknown

Ghast wrote:

IW and Wolvie simply cannot end matches fast enough to be of any use whatsoever to endgame players in PVP. You have six minutes to earn 70-100 points before losing 150 in attacks. Not gonna happen with their current damage levels and ap costs.

But PVE?

Unknown

4-stars scale differently, so I don't really think they got +15 levels compared to 3-stars.

Unless your IW or Xforce is near fully covered, I'd still rather use lvl50 m.Storm over either of em. But 1 -> 4 star transition is a pretty silly and unrealistic scenario.

MarvelMan

The buffs were:
+9 to 2*
+25 to 3*
+40 to 4*

http://www.d3pforums.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=10735


*Edit:
Realized I hadnt posted the rest of my thought. That is a 10.5% buff for 2*, 17.8% for 3* and 17.4%, so they are still the same relative. Im feeling too lazy to look at what it means for match/skill damage, so if someone else wants to that would be awesome.

Unknown

xfarce is still quite **** at level 127 with 5 covers. IW on the other hand is somewhat useful. Not great but it has been a nice change to use her powers with 6 covers. Did notice some odd behaviour which I'll list out in the Bugs section. Don't have Nicky but anyone who looks like Samuel L Jackson would be good.

FaerieMyst

I like IW a lot . . . . but because covers are so rare it will still be a while. Her cost is high and without really being able to play her effectively you don't know if it is worth it. My guess is yes. As you level up and play higher level opponents, matches get longer and you are more likely to gather AP for attacks with high cost.

I think as is X-Force is good. I like him better than Patch because I'm not overly fond of characters that cause harm to the team. Again, with the rarity, full judgement has to be suspended.

I'm not sure that the level shift makes a difference to players that are already committed to expanding into higher level rosters. As I understand it, the major target for the shift was players that settled in at level 2 and couldn't see the point of working for 3 and 4 star characters.

Talahamut

prash wrote:

Don't have Nicky but anyone who looks like Samuel L Jackson would be good.

Too bad he looks like Pres. Wayne Palmer!

Unknown

We had pve with X and concluded that he's just as **** at 350+ level. IW probably little better, but she's pure support (and hardly a good one) so usablility really depends on other members. Fury: no clue, with the nonpaying 0/1/1 config certainly not good for anything.

But they definitely LOOK better and I actually keep seeing leveled X-es, still can't figure why when even ** Wolverine runs circles around him.

Unknown

I don't think simply adding some levels to a character (upping match damage and health) doesn't make a char usable if you don't have enough covers of said char. You're still gonna have a bad time against fully covered 3*s even if your 4* has more levels but less covers.

Unknown

Ghast and Nonce are spot on about AP costing for IW. The extra health is nice, but match damage increase is negligible with the extra levels and she just takes too long to get going for PvP when crunch time sets in. The AIs ineptitude with Force Bubbles makes her a waste on defense too. Paired with AP feeders like Hood and IM40 she's more effective, but there are at least 5-6 more 3* combos that are for more efficient on offense and effective on defense.

PvE she plays well in - get out a well placed defense tile and you can weather tons of attacks. I've gotten her tile up to 2K defense before with Falcon, and that gives you tons of time to gather all the AP you need to end the match.

Short version: Just as useful as before the level shift. Middling.

Unknown

If you don't compare IW to people who are way too powerful (like Sentry) or people who literally look like P2W (like Nick Fury) she's workable if she actually used Force Bubbles on just one color of tiles. Even when the AI uses Force Bubbles at random it always dramatically slows down the game by greatly reducing the number of available moves. But since the Force Bubbles aren't placed in any order that make sense it takes a relatively short time to destroy the bubbles. If they are always put on a single color you wouldn't be able to destroy them and the game will be permanently slowed down which is potentially useful. Now even if the AI used Force Bubble intelligently you'll probably get killed by a high offense team before you can get 13 blue but that's a general problem with offense tend to outstrip defense by a large margin in this game. Just decreasing the cost of Force Bubbles doesn't solve it because defense is much harder to use preemptively. In general it's pretty much impossible to build a team based on defense, and I don't mean winning. You can't even put a team that has no chance of winning but can waste 10 minutes of someone's time. If that was possible, you can actually build a strong defensive team with the threat of wasting your opponent's time while he gets hit by a lot of other people.

Spoit

FaerieMyst wrote:

I like IW a lot . . . . but because covers are so rare it will still be a while. Her cost is high and without really being able to play her effectively you don't know if it is worth it. My guess is yes. As you level up and play higher level opponents, matches get longer and you are more likely to gather AP for attacks with high cost.

I think as is X-Force is good. I like him better than Patch because I'm not overly fond of characters that cause harm to the team. Again, with the rarity, full judgement has to be suspended.

I'm not sure that the level shift makes a difference to players that are already committed to expanding into higher level rosters. As I understand it, the major target for the shift was players that settled in at level 2 and couldn't see the point of working for 3 and 4 star characters.

Maybe during the beginning of the 3* transition, but with the op characters, killing power goes up way faster than hp