Character rankings 10/14 edition: the results!

OzarkBoatswain

I have CMags at #10 in my current rankings. Available here: http://pastebin.com/SE8bVKUs

Unknown

Budget Player Cadet wrote:

Seriously, what's Bullseye doing so high? He's terrible. **** health, protect tiles are downright depressingly bad, and his black costs 16 AP.

Might have something to do with Balance of Power? Yeah, it's a relatively rare event, but he's actually slightly less bad during it.

I think there's actually an interesting discussion about to what extent BoP should be considered in rankings, because some 1* characters actually become significantly better when they're not so badly hampered by their low level cap. Juggernaut is obviously the most clear-cut example of this, but even 1* Iron Man is surprisingly good when pumped up, since his yellow is cheap and has a decently powerful effect for its cost. Granted, he's still not a powerhouse, and you'd never build a team around him, but if you're looking for a third character to round out missing colors, he can be a good slot-filler.

Unknown

I think just like how I have little idea about the power levels of characters in 3* and above rarities since I'm a transitioning player, some of the people voting in this has little idea on how 2* characters work or just their knowledge of them is rusty and/or outdated. Those people could be who sold their 2* characters while transitioning some time ago or just skipped 2* phase completely. I would have expected a rise in Marvel Now Magneto's rank for example instead of a drop.

He has more uses now with Mawkeye buff, in PvE he can be used with IM40 since he is common there for his 1 yellow cover build, there is also CStorm from before of course. He can create 2 critical tiles for Bullseye for him to do maximum damage with his black. Eventhough it is overcosted sometimes I have enough TU AP to cast Murderous Aim. To me he is up there with OBW as a support character, not as good as her obviously, but he is good to make a rise in the ranks imho. You can also use him, CStorm and Mawkeye at the same time outside of PvP that being PvE and Shield Sim. They don't make a good defense in the last one, however. If Ares is considered tier 1 in 2* characters, I would say M&Ms is tier 2 being present in most plan **** of transitioning players.

Unknown

Magneto's ranking loss might, in part, be because it's a lot easier to build a 2* team now that you get 2* covers from PvP matches. Before, your original 2* team was pretty much whoever you could get your hands on, and it was probably quite a while before you got an optimal team, especially if you were unlucky. But now, it's pretty easy to put together a fully covered Ares or 2* Thor, and both of them are powerhouses-- and unlike MN Magneto, they aren't useless on defense.

Unknown

Nonce Equitaur 2 wrote:

Ranking the 6 characters that have been added since the Survey. There are 54 characters now.

1. Lady Thor. More health than 3 3* characters put together. With boosts, has a trivial win by turn 4.
2. Devil Dinosaur. Highest Health, not bad damage.
3. Blade. Lots of Strike Tiles.
4. Colossus. Okay AOE Attack, half-decent defense.
5. Ms. Marvel. 2* character through and through
6. Doctor Octopus. Only his Passive is interesting. Overpriced powers.

Goddess would be top 2 for me if we voted today. Charged tiles is like IM40's recharge without having to use him and have the stun, even underleveled I'll be bringing her into PvE battles against goons. Her other powers are great, they feed into each other like Thor's Mjolnir, Thunder Strike, CtS.

My Ms. Marvel is 021, so I'll have to see about her skills but having another 2* black is welcome...and it's AoE. 2*s get more buffs in PvE, so even in my late 2-3 transition I'll probably use her often. 2*s are also easy to cover max, making them all the more useful even if they are only boosted to 134 max.

Back to the current rankings, I think that 454 is the best build for MNMags. 14 red is too expensive, and he needs all 94 levels with his low health, 4 blue is more useful as a last resort in PvE. I think you should never leave him out with cStorm or mHawk or anyone else in PvP, he's useful for climbing but a dud on defense. cStorm/MNMags/loaner is my favorite team to go against...avoid cStorm's yellow, then take out Mags, then go after the featured character (which often has their most useless skill).

PvE is a grind but it's your best source of HP to expand your roster as a free player and 2* rosters should be built for that. I have 44 of the 54 characters, and I'm still mostly limited in PvP to climbing to 600 pts and either shielding for top 25-50, or taking the HP and getting 1 cover for top 100. PvE on the other hand, I can reliably finish top 10 and get a 3* progression reward in PvEs.

Really curious how high CStorm ranks. Wind Storm is maybe the best PvE skill (gets boosted half the time to 7764 total damage) and her yellow can often win you battles after a bunch of threaten tiles and a tommy gun or flamethrower drops your team below 50% (hits for everyone for 4674 on the low side). She eats health packs, but is worth it for doing 500-700 damage per blue AP.

vudu3

There are no build recommendations for Hawkeye (modern) or Daredevil.

Zen808

mischiefmaker wrote:

33. Daredevil, +3

...taking a surprise crotch kick to the face is about as painful as it sounds...

I'm just trying to imagine what this would entail... Get kicked in the nuggets so hard that they whiplash upwards and speedbag you in the kisser?

Unknown

808SpicyToro wrote:

mischiefmaker wrote:

33. Daredevil, +3

...taking a surprise crotch kick to the face is about as painful as it sounds...

I'm just trying to imagine what this would entail... Get kicked in the nuggets so hard that they whiplash upwards and speedbag you in the kisser?

This is exactly what I was thinking haha.

Unless Mischiefmaker has a crotch on his face.

But that opens a whole new line of questioning

Maybe he is like Butters from that South Park Episode.

Pwuz_

mischiefmaker wrote:

34. Magneto (Marvel Now), -4

Theme song: You Raise Me Up (Josh Groban)
You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains;
You raise me up to walk on stormy seas;
I am strong when I am on your shoulders;
You raise me up to more than I can be.

Another surprising drop, this time for MMN, who got a big boost from the buff to mHawkeye in that he now has two strong partners instead of just one (CStorm). When taken on his own, he's really weak -- both of his direct damage powers, blue and red, are expensive and countdown-based, so are both slow and unreliable, although red is quite strong if you can get the AP for it. Purple is pretty good on it's own, as you can almost always create one critical tile and usually get two, plus you get a horde of blue AP.

But it's his synergy with other characters that really causes MMN to shine -- he's a real asset as a blue AP battery in both PVP and PVE. Blue has a number of outlets at the 2* level: there's CStorm, of course, and now also Daken, and while Hawkeye's blue is pretty bad, Speed Shot is awesome and becomes a reliable damage dealer with Polarity Shift, so MMN should see even more play at the 2* level.

There aren't nearly as many useful blue abilities once you start transitioning, though -- Captain America and Daken are about it since you can't use MMN and CMags together.

Blue: poor
Purple: excellent
Red: fair

Speed: low
Sustainability: low
Power: medium

Recommended build: 3/5/5 -- blue is horrifically slow and should almost never be used since you always should be looking to pair MMN with a better blue user. Keep in mind, too, that since you're using him primarily for his purple, an underleveled MMN is totally fine; I wouldn't fault anyone for running a 0/5/5 (to prevent blue from ever firing on defense), 2/5/4 (make red a little bit faster at the expense of power), or anything in between.

I would argue that for a 3* roster, 5 Blue does have a real use for goon battles & any time you want a total board clear. Yes, it requires a lot of babysitting, so in PvP it's not really suitable. But how many 3* rosters carry M.Mags into PvP either?
Depending on the board, you could even get it off against an opponent who has flooded the board with strike, attack, or protect tiles.

Does this change M.Mags ranking? Not in the least.

Unknown

Pwuz_ wrote:

I would argue that for a 3* roster, 5 Blue does have a real use for goon battles & any time you want a total board clear. Yes, it requires a lot of babysitting, so in PvP it's not really suitable. But how many 3* rosters carry M.Mags into PvP either?
Depending on the board, you could even get it off against an opponent who has flooded the board with strike, attack, or protect tiles.

Does this change M.Mags ranking? Not in the least.

I remember using a 5 blue covered MN Magneto cos that was what I had at the time. It's a thing. It's like a miracle but it worked sometimes A 4-turn cd tile going off and exploding the entire board was very satisfying. It also did decent damage due to sheer amount of tiles that are destroyed and the cascades after that.

Spoit

The problem is that Mn mag's is amazing, nuff said. but his is also really good, if you actually get enough AP to cast it. Unlike his blue, it actually collects all the AP it explodes, so the extra 5 tiles it collects is usually worth the +3 ap to cast it (and the 1 turn countdown helps too)

Unknown

There just aren't enough good abilities. Daken rarely needs more than 10 at a time. Besides CStorm and Thoress' I can't think of many other abilities I "actively" collect for. I bet most people don't try to time polarity shift right either to scoop up tons of other AP with just the right placements either.

Spoit

Fury? Detonate is the single target king

Unknown

Can someone explain how that grid works? I take it the top left would be first and bottom right would be the worst. What do the numbers on the far right mean?

Unknown

ecir2002 wrote:

Can someone explain how that grid works? I take it the top left would be first and bottom right would be the worst. What do the numbers on the far right mean?

Probably an average of the votes per based on where each person ranked them.

Let's say 3 people voted Deadpool as 10th, 15th & 17th

10 + 15 + 17 = 42 then divide by 3 ~> 14 points ~ so depending on the range of high/low votes for an individual character you would expect Deadpool to rank somewhere near 14th. This tabulation method probably also helps to decide on tiers when scores are bunched together.

Unknown

Red Panda wrote:

ecir2002 wrote:

Can someone explain how that grid works? I take it the top left would be first and bottom right would be the worst. What do the numbers on the far right mean?

Probably an average of the votes per based on where each person ranked them.

Let's say 3 people voted Deadpool as 10th, 15th & 17th

10 + 15 + 17 = 42 then divide by 3 ~> 14 points ~ so depending on the range of high/low votes for an individual character you would expect Deadpool to rank somewhere near 14th. This tabulation method probably also helps to decide on tiers when scores are bunched together.

Ah that would make sense. Curious who put the blonde widow first then haha.

Unknown

daibar wrote:

There just aren't enough good abilities. Daken rarely needs more than 10 at a time. Besides CStorm and Thoress' I can't think of many other abilities I "actively" collect for. I bet most people don't try to time polarity shift right either to scoop up tons of other AP with just the right placements either.

what spoit said (fury) and dont sleep on cmags' magnetized projectiles

Pwuz_

ecir2002 wrote:

Ah that would make sense. Curious who put the blonde widow first then haha.

I'm not 100% sure on that reading of this chart. I'm sure we are going to see by the end, but I think that may be the #1 ranked character with a single vote for #48.

Killinstinct

Pwuz_ wrote:

ecir2002 wrote:

Ah that would make sense. Curious who put the blonde widow first then haha.

I'm not 100% sure on that reading of this chart. I'm sure we are going to see by the end, but I think that may be the #1 ranked character with a single vote for #48.

No it means someone putted yelena on the first place

mischiefmaker

Red Panda is correct -- #1 is at the top of the chart, #48 (Yelena) is at the bottom.

Apologies for the delay getting today's edition out; I had too many things going on and forgot to put the post up, but it's there now. Almost halfway done!