Character rankings 9/14 edition: voting ended

Unknown

Lucius Brimstone wrote:

Look at any person's roster. Chances are they have a max level OBW. Not because she is better than having a max leveled 3 star, but because she was essential before 3 stars were available to most players.

Oh wow, yeah. I hadn't really considered that point of view: that a character's ranking could reflect not their utility inside of end game (3/4 star range) but rather their utility in the game overall. She absolutely out-ranks most 3 stars and 2 stars because she's so valuable to the budding 2 star and transitioning player-base, much like Storm and M-Widow.

Interesting.

With that logic she should be a top ten character for suresies.

Thanks for the insight.

I think about this list less for "who is stronger than who" and more "Who do you want to have on your team"

2 star Thor, Ares and OBW obviously don't match up to any 3 or 4 stars, but during the 2 star phase, you definitely want them on your team.

That's why I ranked them ahead of some 3 stars who I wouldn't put ISO into if I had them at max covers. Because they're outclassed, ineffective, have some sort of glaring weakness that makes them weak on either offense or defense or their color combination doesn't work with the other top character etc.

Unknown

onimus wrote:

The problem is, I don't really think 3/5/5 is the answer either. Because 14 red is just difficult to come by. If I power farm it, I can get it after one person is downed, maybe. But ultimately, that cuts out a large part of his offense. Plus, what AI will ever farm 14 red?

I'm not advocating 3/5/5 because I'm going to use his red a lot; I'm arguing it because it's the equivalent of keeping IM40 at 1 on yellow. His green can kill you on defense if you have it at 5, but Daken and Patch can often absorb the damage pretty easily at 3 even if you can't take out the purple tiles. I actually win a lot of defensive matches with those two, though I do sometimes substitute others in for the end of the push.

How important those two are to you may depend on how often you're able to play. During the week, since I can't play much except in the evenings, they're absolutely essential, and having those two be my only two people would barely affect my pvp strategy. For people who can play on their own schedule, it's going to be a different situation.

For sustained play, most of the other heavy hitters are going to take themselves out. For those of us who are seriously schedule-constrained, Patch/Lazy Daken isthe most useful PVP combo in the game.

Unknown

Ben Grimm wrote:

onimus wrote:

The problem is, I don't really think 3/5/5 is the answer either. Because 14 red is just difficult to come by. If I power farm it, I can get it after one person is downed, maybe. But ultimately, that cuts out a large part of his offense. Plus, what AI will ever farm 14 red?

I'm not advocating 3/5/5 because I'm going to use his red a lot; I'm arguing it because it's the equivalent of keeping IM40 at 1 on yellow. His green can kill you on defense if you have it at 5, but Daken and Patch can often absorb the damage pretty easily at 3 even if you can't take out the purple tiles. I actually win a lot of defensive matches with those two, though I do sometimes substitute others in for the end of the push.

How important those two are to you may depend on how often you're able to play. During the week, since I can't play much except in the evenings, they're absolutely essential, and having those two be my only two people would barely affect my pvp strategy. For people who can play on their own schedule, it's going to be a different situation.

For sustained play, most of the other heavy hitters are going to take themselves out. For those of us who are seriously schedule-constrained, Patch/Lazy Daken isthe most useful PVP combo in the game.

I run him at 4/4/5 and I'm pretty happy.

But like I said, I never leave him on defense so...

I always think a character should be valued on a 75/25 basis in terms of defense and offense.

I've said it many times. You can win any game with any team, as long as you are similarly leveled. A human team of Daredevil and Shehulk can beat a Sentry/Hood AI team pretty easily.

The key is defense. What line ups make you want to either completely skip the node due to time to win(Hulk, Sentry, LThor) and and what line ups make people that attacked them wish they didn't with one or two bad cascades(Black Panther, LThor, Sentry, Hulk, LCap)

Patch is just too easy to kill in my opinion. You're completely right that he is great for climbing and for people who only have certain defined time to play, they need to make the most of their health packs, he and daken are extraordinarily valuable. But I just can't call him top 5 with such a glaring weakness on defense.

Top 5 is for characters that are the total package, like Sentry, LThor and Black Panther.

Unknown

I guess I don't worry about defense as much because I tank enough that I don't get attacked a lot, and when I do, it tends to be 166 teams that wouldn't be concerned with anyone I could put up. When I get high enough in the rankings, I'm not usually using my climb team anymore, so Patch is less a problem.

But importantly, the usefulness of a given character is going to vary wildly based on how people like to use him. He may not be top 5 to you, whereas he is to me; likewise, I find Fury fairly useless, but that's because mine's been 1/1/1 since the end of Season 3 and I don't anticipate using him any time remotely soon. Yelena is more useful to me right now.

Unknown

Ben Grimm wrote:

I guess I don't worry about defense as much because I tank enough that I don't get attacked a lot, and when I do, it tends to be 166 teams that wouldn't be concerned with anyone I could put up. When I get high enough in the rankings, I'm not usually using my climb team anymore, so Patch is less a problem.

But importantly, the usefulness of a given character is going to vary wildly based on how people like to use him. He may not be top 5 to you, whereas he is to me; likewise, I find Fury fairly useless, but that's because mine's been 1/1/1 since the end of Season 3 and I don't anticipate using him any time remotely soon. Yelena is more useful to me right now.

Heh. Fair enough.

I guess the tier list is assuming you have everyone at level 166, who do you use?

It's not really a useful concept, considering not many people have every single character at max level. It's more just a guideline for players who are looking for a new character to add to their roster.

For example, I have GSBW with 10 covers, Lazy Thor with 10 covers, Captain Marvel with 10 covers, Psylocke with 11 covers, Punisher with 11 covers, IM40 with 10 covers, Lazy Storm with 10 covers, Daredevil with 9 covers, She-hulk with 9 covers and Black Panther with 10 covers.

The list would tell me who is, in general, worth leveling and who isn't.

But you're completely right. If you value one character more than other people, that's not a problem. I know I think Hulk is a top 5 character, but a lot of people don't even rank him in the top 15. It's because my play style relies on a tank, since I never boost and I value his anger more than, I think, any ability in the entire game. I wouldn't trade my Hulk for a Sentry or a Black Panther of equal level and covers, because he is key to me succeeding in this game.

So this list is more for fun and information than it is to determine what characters everyone should definitely, and only, have on their roster. Not being in the top 10 of this list doesn't mean anything in some cases.

Unknown

For those saying patch needs a partner: Hulk. No, seriously. Hulk. It's the same strategy you'd use to counter patch, except the other way around: you throw your beserker rage, then put your Hulk out front. Patch heals himself, and Hulk has a massive life pool and faster-than-average life regen, so he'll usually be good for a few matches, and his Anger absolutely SHREDS the enemy team. IMO Patch is top 10. Not high in the top 10, but I cannot think of 10 characters above him. He definitely beats out Captain Marvel, anyways...

Unknown

Budget Player Cadet wrote:

For those saying patch needs a partner: Hulk. No, seriously. Hulk. It's the same strategy you'd use to counter patch, except the other way around: you throw your beserker rage, then put your Hulk out front. Patch heals himself, and Hulk has a massive life pool and faster-than-average life regen, so he'll usually be good for a few matches, and his Anger absolutely SHREDS the enemy team. IMO Patch is top 10. Not high in the top 10, but I cannot think of 10 characters above him. He definitely beats out Captain Marvel, anyways...

I have Daken, Hulk and Patch maxed.

I personally prefer Hulk Daken over Hulk Patch.

Hulk Patch is dabbling in the same active colors and there's a quandary with who to allow to tank.

If you put Hulk in a priority slot, he owns red and green, which is great for your aforementioned tanking for Patch's green, initiating endless cascades from Anger. However, Patch's red now is a dead ability, as the only colors he owns are purple and yellow (depending on who the third person on your team is, he may not even have those)

If you put Patch in a priority slot, Hulk owns only black and blue (depending on who the third person on your team is, he may not even have those). This makes it difficult for him to tank for patch's green, but it makes Patch's red actually useful.

It's kind of a lose-lose situation. With Patch and Hulk together, you can either use Patch's green well or his red well, but usually not both.

That's why I don't really like their pairing.

vudu3

The other problem with pairing Hulk and Patch is Anger generates green which it likely to match away your own strike tiles. If it happens enough you'll get 9 more green AP and can launch another Berzerker Rage but unless you're able to deal with the enemy purple strike tiles they're going to start to pile up quickly.

wymtime

Hulk and Patch are actually very similar but very different. Both are Tanks, and you need to one shot, or stun both of them. You one shot Patch becasue if you try and match him down he regenerates and you are only generating AP and not doing damage. You one shot Hulk becuase if you use strike tile damage he gets angry and destroys your team that way.

Hulk has the benifit of being able to survive a WR with sacrafice and you have to trickle him down first, he will draw out fights and make you leave your favorite strike tile damage dealers at home. He is bad in PVE becuase against goons there are so many AOE abilities and so you only get 1 Angry tile for taking a bunch of damage. In PVP in the higher levels people have the right people to take him down without a problem. Hulk is more of a defensive character as he needs to take damage to be effective.

Patch is great for climbing as he can last forever. His strike tiles do massive damage and he does strong initial damage for 9 AP. He is the best in PVE since you can hit BR and match out the goons since they don't do any matches. He is good with OBW and Doc Ock as they can cheaply double dip off of his strike tiles. In PVP Patch is self destructive. He gives the opponent strike tiles that they will use right away. He still has the best regeneration in the game but requires more strategy in PVP. He's is all about offense and sustainable Play. Overall Patch is much more versitale to play with and in PVP if you bring a quality AOE attack your match can end very quickly and you will still have enough health to keep playing.

Unknown

There are debates about Patch being top 10?

Maybe I'm missing something in the criteria for tiering, but being arguably the best self-healer in the game already puts him in good company. Add in his red being able to one shot almost anything with the right team, and proper use of his green to 'break down' other teams, and it just feels like a no brainer that he's top 10 if not top 5. The only REAL reason IMO for him to drop from last time would be the emergence of 'useful 4 stars' and a changing meta-game. Even with the Magneto changes, Patch is still wildly effective.
- Unreall

Unknown

Patch is a monster if used properly. I've never (ever) used Classic Mags in PvP because... well... I thought he'd be nerfed hard a long time ago and never put the ISO into him. He sits alongside my lv40 spidey.

So, my go-to grind team has been LDak / Featured / Patch for a long time now and regularly I've been able to grind from zero to 900(ish) without using more than a couple of health packs. Patch should only ever be wiped out by a lucky series of cascades from your opponent, or a decently levelled 4* maybe with Hood.

The sad fact of the matter is that (for all intents and purposes) the ranking is currently:

1. Sentry
2. Hood
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Everyone else (but X-Force, Patch, Fury etc near the top of the pack)

Unknown

I don't think Hood is 'that high', he just has good synergy with Sentry. Though the point stil lstands about Sentry. I too actually wasn't a mags user, I put ISO into mine, but didn't bother maxing out as I didin't know how he would change when the nerf came...I'd be POed if he became 'Spiderman 2.0'. heh, thankfully I think they gave him a 'fair one'. So I don't feel blinded by the synergy they had. MMags/MStorm synergize well, doesn't mean they are useless without each other...MMags is actually a work horse for multiple characters including the 'improved but squishy' MHawkeye.

In general though I'm curious about the community feelings on CapMarvel and Colossus. I don't like Cap, but I can see 'some' bonus with her as a tank...the 'red' hulk if you will, and Big Steel seems like the perfect cover for other characters like Patch/X-Force/Hood.
- Unreall

Unknown

where can i see the results?

Unknown

Unreallystic wrote:

I don't think Hood is 'that high', he just has good synergy with Sentry. Though the point stil lstands about Sentry. I too actually wasn't a mags user, I put ISO into mine, but didn't bother maxing out as I didin't know how he would change when the nerf came...I'd be POed if he became 'Spiderman 2.0'. heh, thankfully I think they gave him a 'fair one'. So I don't feel blinded by the synergy they had. MMags/MStorm synergize well, doesn't mean they are useless without each other...MMags is actually a work horse for multiple characters including the 'improved but squishy' MHawkeye.

In general though I'm curious about the community feelings on CapMarvel and Colossus. I don't like Cap, but I can see 'some' bonus with her as a tank...the 'red' hulk if you will, and Big Steel seems like the perfect cover for other characters like Patch/X-Force/Hood.
- Unreall

Captain Marvel is another one of those characters, like Hulk, that you kind of don't want to deal damage to until the end when you can just finish her and end the fight before she has a chance to use all the AP she just generated. I once used Sentry on her and the WR didn't quite kill her, and she did like 3 straight Hypersonic punches. It was brutal...

9 black allows her to deal 2500 damage and stun someone for 2 turns.

and if you deal 700 or more damage to her, she generates 5 red and 3 black.
So she really becomes an AP factory for characters like Patch, Captain America or Sentry (if his new build becomes 535 after the WR nerf)

I think she is top 12. I'm not sure where, as she still is difficult to get a lot of covers for, since her covers won't be offered in heroic tokens until Friday.

As for Colossus, he is a great solution to the whole "I have grey suit black widow but she dies if wind blows too hard on her" problem. But he is still just a tank, much like Hulk, and for that reason likely won't be a top tier pick. I still think he's strong and I would use him if I had more covers for him. His red is strong and his black is amazing when paired with the aforementioned black widow (unless he throws her and it casts pistol...yuck). Other good pairings would be Captain America, who can get off an easy stun or burst and ignore the steep cost, or even Patch and watch him destroy whoever you throw him at.

rixmith

I don't have enough Captain Marvel covers to say how she is on offense, but having encountered her I quickly learned to skip teams that had her at a high level. I think she's scarier than Hulk because of the low cost of her active powers and. In my opinion she is borderline Top 10. I've had far less problems going up against teams with Colossus (another character I don't have very many covers so can't comment about offense) and don't consider him a threat on defense. So, for now, I think he is more middle of the pack.

Pwuz_

rixmith wrote:

I don't have enough Captain Marvel covers to say how she is on offense, but having encountered her I quickly learned to skip teams that had her at a high level. I think she's scarier than Hulk because of the low cost of her active powers and. In my opinion she is borderline Top 10. I've had far less problems going up against teams with Colossus (another character I don't have very many covers so can't comment about offense) and don't consider him a threat on defense. So, for now, I think he is more middle of the pack.

Really? She doesn't seem that threatening unless you hit her. Just like Hulk, just whittle her down with match 3 damage, then finish her off with a couple big moves or stun her to prevent her AP generation. Her active skills are not nearly as effective as Hulk's. Hypersonic Punch actually gives you a strength tile when she attacks! Unless she can match it away, or has some teammate that can neutralize special tiles (Loki, Falcon, Doc. Ock) I'll gladly take that hit.

Unknown

Pwuz_ wrote:

rixmith wrote:

I don't have enough Captain Marvel covers to say how she is on offense, but having encountered her I quickly learned to skip teams that had her at a high level. I think she's scarier than Hulk because of the low cost of her active powers and. In my opinion she is borderline Top 10. I've had far less problems going up against teams with Colossus (another character I don't have very many covers so can't comment about offense) and don't consider him a threat on defense. So, for now, I think he is more middle of the pack.

Really? She doesn't seem that threatening unless you hit her. Just like Hulk, just whittle her down with match 3 damage, then finish her off with a couple big moves or stun her to prevent her AP generation. Her active skills are not nearly as effective as Hulk's. Hypersonic Punch actually gives you a strength tile when she attacks! Unless she can match it away, or has some teammate that can neutralize special tiles (Loki, Falcon, Doc. Ock) I'll gladly take that hit.

A lot of health to patiently whittle away. Just like hulk.

Besides, that means no strike tiles, no AoE and no damage per turn.

That cuts out a pretty big amount of the character base. More than likely, you're going to proc her energy absorption at least a hand full of times.

Also, unless she is the last target left, her ability goes off for each big hit. There is no countdown tile like with Hulk where it is harmless if he does go down. Once you damage CapMarvel, unless it is the last hit before she dies, her team gets that AP. Which makes her an insanely strong power generator. Much stronger than Hulk's power generation.

over_clocked

Pwuz_ wrote:

rixmith wrote:

I don't have enough Captain Marvel covers to say how she is on offense, but having encountered her I quickly learned to skip teams that had her at a high level. I think she's scarier than Hulk because of the low cost of her active powers and. In my opinion she is borderline Top 10. I've had far less problems going up against teams with Colossus (another character I don't have very many covers so can't comment about offense) and don't consider him a threat on defense. So, for now, I think he is more middle of the pack.

Really? She doesn't seem that threatening unless you hit her. Just like Hulk, just whittle her down with match 3 damage, then finish her off with a couple big moves or stun her to prevent her AP generation. Her active skills are not nearly as effective as Hulk's. Hypersonic Punch actually gives you a strength tile when she attacks! Unless she can match it away, or has some teammate that can neutralize special tiles (Loki, Falcon, Doc. Ock) I'll gladly take that hit.

Troll much? I voted Hypersonic as 3rd best active black ability, right behind Rage of the Panther and Surgical Strike. I have her maxed; the tile she 'gifts' to the enemy is like strength 50 (=ignorable).

Pwuz_

onimus wrote:

A lot of health to patiently whittle away. Just like hulk.

Besides, that means no strike tiles, no AoE and no damage per turn.

That cuts out a pretty big amount of the character base. More than likely, you're going to proc her energy absorption at least a hand full of times.

Also, unless she is the last target left, her ability goes off for each big hit. There is no countdown tile like with Hulk where it is harmless if he does go down. Once you damage CapMarvel, unless it is the last hit before she dies, her team gets that AP. Which makes her an insanely strong power generator. Much stronger than Hulk's power generation.

True, but like Hulk she get's shut down totally if you can stun her before you attack (or during; gotta love C.Storm powered up.) I start off hitting her 1st so long as there isn't a higher priority target. Then if I get a chance to launch some strike tiles, I swap targets till I can either 1 shot her or stun her.

Also if you eliminate anyone who makes better use of her Red or (or Black when at 5), it really isn't that big of a deal. How often do you have protect tiles out for her to be smashing.

Don't get me wrong, she's useful, but not as useful as Hulk. Her health is a shadow of his, and his passive & Green are more dangerous due to the resulting cascades. I'd bet no higher than #14, but more likely closer to #17.

locked wrote:

Troll much? I voted Hypersonic as 3rd best active black ability, right behind Rage of the Panther and Surgical Strike. I have her maxed; the tile she 'gifts' to the enemy is like strength 50 (=ignorable).

Really? Perhaps I've just not been on the wrong end of it (I'm certainly not on the right end of it with 2/1/1). I just don't see it as that useful of a move. A single character stun is only useful for negating Passives (like her own) or finishing off the last character standing. I think I would rather use Molotov Cocktail, Psi-Katana, or even Inferno in MOST cases.

Unknown

Is today the day that the results will be posted? I'm anxious to see these results. If you need assistance with any of the vote counting or character write ups, I am happy to help. Let's get these results posted!!!