Character rankings 12/14 edition: the results!

squirrel1120

Vhailorx wrote:

Juggs is great as a team up evnwhen he isn't playable.

Also, for a short time, I was running a 0/1/5 patch with 2* daken t0 save health packs. Whenever. Could choose a 3rd character, I used my lvl 26 juggs. He didn't tank anything, but had enough health to survive the odd aoe. And his 6AP green board shaker was awesome (cast chemical reaction to clear strike tiles, then shake the board, and likely regen at least one strike tile in the process). And if I got unlucky, and my mains wiped, then juggs could usually headutt his way to a pyrrhic victory.

He definitely can't find his way into an A team, but he is definitely playable on the right B team. And he gives team ups, AND he is the best defensive character in the game in balance of power. I am not anywhere close to selling mine.

All very good points, most of which I'd never considereal in his overall value. Nice

Unknown

mischiefmaker wrote:

40. 3* Beast, -6
Finally gets his due as the worst 3* in the game, except that he's probably only the second-worst now.

Who do you think is the new worst? Doc Oct?

Unknown

onimus wrote:

mischiefmaker wrote:

40. 3* Beast, -6
Finally gets his due as the worst 3* in the game, except that he's probably only the second-worst now.

Who do you think is the new worst? Doc Oct?

Lazy Storm? She's definitely worse than Doc Ock,who's probably not bottom five.

Vhailorx

Hmmm, the way Mischiefmaker said that beast is "now" only the second worst 3*. Of the various 3*s new to this quarter's rankings, I can't see any except gamora and doc oc being rated worse than beast. I haven't played with doc oc enough to have an opinion there, but I would say that gamora is a bit better than beast though still definitely a below average 3* (it's sad really, gamora would be a very playable character if her black created stronger strike tiles or cost less AP. As is, she just isn't worth playing unless she is your only well covered 3*).

Edited for typos.

NorthernPolarity

Ben Grimm wrote:

onimus wrote:

mischiefmaker wrote:

40. 3* Beast, -6
Finally gets his due as the worst 3* in the game, except that he's probably only the second-worst now.

Who do you think is the new worst? Doc Oct?

Lazy Storm? She's definitely worse than Doc Ock,who's probably not bottom five.

Crazy talk, lazy storm sees more use for me than even average tier 3*s like dp and colossus. Her synergies with femthor are amazing in pve.

Unknown

I agree.

I mean, yes, Lazy Storm is complete garbage in PVP, but she is a very serviceable PVE character.

Doc Oct and Beast are both completely outclassed and completely unviable in every way when it comes to damage, reliability, health pool and overall...usability, for a lack of a better word.

I think Doc Oct is ultimately better because he at least has a use in destroying special tiles. He's even outclassed in that regard, but at least he has a purpose. Beast has no purpose. He has one of the worst, abilities in the entire game in his blue and the fact that he has untrue healing as one of his abilities just makes him that much worse. His green is also terrible unless you waste AP on his blue. And even then, it's mostly just a mid tier ability.

Doc Oct has a pretty good passive and a decent blue if they have special tiles out...decent being used liberally there. His green is complete garbage, but at least it does a bunch of bad things instead of one bad thing.

I ranked Doc Oct at #39 and Beast at #40, so at least my beast ranking was right on track haha.

OzarkBoatswain

43. 2* Wolverine (Astonishing), even
Actually still a little bit useful after fully transitioning to 3*, since his green is one of the fastest powers in the game when dealing with low-level (2k health and below) opponents.

Isn't 2* Daken better for this? 5 AP for 515 damage vs. 6 AP for 574, not counting strike tiles. But I suppose you can't run 2* Daken and 3* Daken together.

edit: also, Ares has a 5 AP green move that does 1150.

Unknown

Can't wait to see this when it's officially done

Unknown

NorthernPolarity wrote:

Crazy talk, lazy storm sees more use for me than even average tier 3*s like dp and colossus. Her synergies with femthor are amazing in pve.

Deadpool is one of my most-used 3*s, and every time I'm forced to use Lazy Storm I find her absolute deadweight. I never use her voluntarily. She may have synergy with 4* Thor, but since I don't have a usable one, and won't anytime remotely soon, I don't consider that relevant. I think I voted her the worst 3* (maybe ahead of Beast), and I completely stand beside that decision.

Arondite

Vhailorx wrote:

Hmmm, the way Mischiefmaker said that beast is "now" only the second worst 3*. Of the various 3*s new to this quarter's rankings, I can't see any except gamora and doc oc being rated worse than beast. I haven't played with doc oc enough to have an opinion there, but I would say that gamora is a bit better than beast though still definitely a below average 3* (it's sad really, gamora would be a very playable character if her black created stronger strike tiles or cost less AP. As is, she just isn't worth playing unless she is your only well covered 3*).

Edited for typos.

Gamora isn't close to the bottom, haha.

She's not the best by any means, but she's running around the middle of the pack rather than the bottom of the barrel.

She sits much prettier than the likes of Beast, Octopus, Psylocke, Storm3, etc.

NorthernPolarity

mischiefmaker wrote:

Due to his black, he can be a reasonable character for PvE, but you know who else is a reasonable character for PvE? Basically everyone!

After seeing the light of how useful certain characters can be in PvE, I think we should stop dismissing PvE as the red-haired stepchild, and instead take the format slightly more seriously. Take Mohawk for instance. Terrible in PvP, and everyone agrees that she's "good" in PvE, but it turns out that she is significantly better at PvE than most other characters in the game, arguably top 8 or so. I think there would ideally be three axis of viability that cover most of the areas of the game, and which a character's value is typically judged (in order of importance):
1. How good the character is in PvP.
2. How good the character is in high level PvE nodes (level 180+)
3. How good the character is at speed killing seed teams, low level PvE nodes, 2* team compositions, etc.

I will go and update my guide with these ratings now I guess.

TLDR: Nitpicks! "PvE" should mean "high level PvE". Add "low-end" to each instance of PvE in that sentence like you do later on in the paragraph.

ShanePHallam

This was my first time voting and I def. had trouble balancing PVE vs. PVP usability. I def. went against the grain on some characters because of their PVE usability, especially as we are seeing new characters introduced and PVE becoming very important to complete quickly and with sustainability. I bumped a guy like Falcon way up my list with this trend as he preserves sustainability that has helped nab multiple covers of new characters in PVE.

Vhailorx

Arondite wrote:

Gamora isn't close to the bottom, haha.

She's not the best by any means, but she's running around the middle of the pack rather than the bottom of the barrel.

She sits much prettier than the likes of Beast, Octopus, Psylocke, Storm3, etc.

I think psylocke is better than gamora, and maybe even moStorm.

pylocke and gamora are, I think, supposed to fill similar roles on a team, so they are a fairly straight forward comparison. both have two offensive abilities and one support ability. Gamora clearly has the better support abilityk, even though it competes with other good abilities in green (I'll take two stunned enemies and aoe damage any day over psylocke's mostly useless ap steal). Gamora also has more health, which is another big point. Then we look at the offensive abilities, and I think psylocke is quite a bit better. both have a low cost, moderate damage ability (psy's black, gamora's red). Psylocke's is better, in addition to decent damage for a 2 match move, she also leaves a beefy attack tile. And psy's red destroy's bad reputation, even though it is only ok. basically the problem with gamora, as I stated above, is that he black power is supposed to be her main attraction, and it just isn't good enough. it doesn't produce enough strike tiles given how strong they are, and and how much the skill costs. At 6AP it would be awesome. At double tile strength it would be awesome. At 1 strike tile per 2 on the board with her icon it would be awesome. As is, it very unlikely that it will ever be of much use unless some other characters have been taken out already. and that's a bad strategy.

moStorm is a bit more arguable, I think that she is basically on par with gamora. not actively bad (like beast's blue), but not great.

I also agree with NorthernPolarity's suggestion that rankings should pay more attention to pve performance (specifically, how a character plays against highly-scaled pve opponents). Both sides of the game have value.

Unknown

NorthernPolarity wrote:

mischiefmaker wrote:

Due to his black, he can be a reasonable character for PvE, but you know who else is a reasonable character for PvE? Basically everyone!

After seeing the light of how useful certain characters can be in PvE, I think we should stop dismissing PvE as the red-haired stepchild, and instead take the format slightly more seriously. Take Mohawk for instance. Terrible in PvP, and everyone agrees that she's "good" in PvE, but it turns out that she is significantly better at PvE than most other characters in the game, arguably top 8 or so. I think there would ideally be three axis of viability that cover most of the areas of the game, and which a character's value is typically judged (in order of importance):
1. How good the character is in PvP.
2. How good the character is in high level PvE nodes (level 180+)
3. How good the character is at speed killing seed teams, low level PvE nodes, 2* team compositions, etc.

I will go and update my guide with these ratings now I guess.

TLDR: Nitpicks! "PvE" should mean "high level PvE". Add "low-end" to each instance of PvE in that sentence like you do later on in the paragraph.

Respectfully disagree.

And here's why:
PVE is going to be beat. When PVE is really just doing essential nodes once every 3 hours, it is less a matter of beating the top nodes (the ones that scale into infinity) and more just who can deal the most damage to grind out the essentials, which don't scale as rapidly.

And the characters that deal the most damage are, almost always, going to be the best in PVP as well. Just off the top of my head, there's Thor, Xforce, 4hor, Daken and LCap. All great at dealing heavy damage relatively quickly and grinding out those essential nodes.

PVE isn't really about roster strength. It's more about how much disposable time you, the player, have on your hands. So while PVE may be a saving grace for a character that is, in PVP, not usable, like MoStorm, it shouldn't really be weighted too heavily when grading a character.

At least that's my opinion. I can compete in PVE without leveling characters that specialize in PVE but are worthless in PVP. My PVP roster is more than enough to beat PVE nodes. It's more about the time you have available, rather than having PVE specialists covered and leveled.

rixmith

I'd say the best characters are the ones who are good at PvP (both offense and defense) and so naturally also good at PvE. Then you have some characters who are maybe good at PvP offense but not as good at defense. Then you have the majority of characters that you just don't see in PvP once you get to 600-700 points. For these characters PvE and LR usefulness are good differentiators. For example now that we have survival nodes, Spiderman and Falcon are going to move up my next set of rankings pretty substantially. Being good at those nodes won't make them Top 10 characters, but it makes them much more important to a well balanced roster than they were a month ago.

So being good at PvE doesn't turn a B-List character into an A-Lister, but it does separate the B+ characters from the B- ones IMO.

NorthernPolarity

onimus wrote:

NorthernPolarity wrote:

mischiefmaker wrote:

Due to his black, he can be a reasonable character for PvE, but you know who else is a reasonable character for PvE? Basically everyone!

After seeing the light of how useful certain characters can be in PvE, I think we should stop dismissing PvE as the red-haired stepchild, and instead take the format slightly more seriously. Take Mohawk for instance. Terrible in PvP, and everyone agrees that she's "good" in PvE, but it turns out that she is significantly better at PvE than most other characters in the game, arguably top 8 or so. I think there would ideally be three axis of viability that cover most of the areas of the game, and which a character's value is typically judged (in order of importance):
1. How good the character is in PvP.
2. How good the character is in high level PvE nodes (level 180+)
3. How good the character is at speed killing seed teams, low level PvE nodes, 2* team compositions, etc.

I will go and update my guide with these ratings now I guess.

TLDR: Nitpicks! "PvE" should mean "high level PvE". Add "low-end" to each instance of PvE in that sentence like you do later on in the paragraph.

Respectfully disagree.

And here's why:
PVE is going to be beat. When PVE is really just doing essential nodes once every 3 hours, it is less a matter of beating the top nodes (the ones that scale into infinity) and more just who can deal the most damage to grind out the essentials, which don't scale as rapidly.

And the characters that deal the most damage are, almost always, going to be the best in PVP as well. Just off the top of my head, there's Thor, Xforce, 4hor, Daken and LCap. All great at dealing heavy damage relatively quickly and grinding out those essential nodes.

PVE isn't really about roster strength. It's more about how much disposable time you, the player, have on your hands. So while PVE may be a saving grace for a character that is, in PVP, not usable, like MoStorm, it shouldn't really be weighted too heavily when grading a character.

At least that's my opinion. I can compete in PVE without leveling characters that specialize in PVE but are worthless in PVP. My PVP roster is more than enough to beat PVE nodes. It's more about the time you have available, rather than having PVE specialists covered and leveled.

Right, my original post mentioned that pvp is more important than pve, and is ranked higher in order of importance. I think here it really depends on what your definition of "competing" really means. I havent really done just essential grinding in a pve for quite some time, but the competitive pves (such as elektra, etc) typically require you to do full clears in order to keep pace. If you are doing full clears of say, thunderbolts, then having a deep roster can matter a lot: im sure plenty of people got locked out of the wolvie nodes because they depended on xf while i was able to take em down with pve specialists. Its not as important as pvp since pvp happens more often, and the pves can be easy enough to clear with anyone, but its still a consideration.

Another thing to note is that once you do have a strong pvp team, the only characters you really care about are pve guys. When your pvp team is xf ladythor, leveling the pvp centric bp seems inferior to leveling a pve specialist such as lcap, or combo potentials such as mohawk.

rkd80

I think it is rather safe to say that any character that is a top PvP contender will be de facto excellent at PvE. Whereas just because someone is great at PvE does not mean it translates well to PvP. Therefore, those who are great at PvP will always naturally command the top tier spots.

I suppose, for the sake of really understanding the technical implications of any particular character - we should split the votes. Have a PvP and PvE ranking. Otherwise, it becomes a bit too confusing.

And, to add even further complexity, someone like Juggernaut is not being "appreciated" enough because he is excellent at BoP - so the niche breakdowns can go further than most people would like them to.

wymtime

Anybody else shocked at how low She-Hulk is ranked? She has a very good AOE for 9 AP and it does good board shake up, her blue in PVE can be awsome, her green might be horrible, but 2 out of 3 isn't bad. I actually like playing her a lot more than Hulk. I don't think she is top 10 but she should be in the 11-15 range. Good health, strong red, and situational blue and pairs really well with X-Force if you are going up against a red primary color. Lot's of board shake up and AOE damage. I highly recomend her and she as she is a very solid 3* character.

Killinstinct

wymtime wrote:

Anybody else shocked at how low She-Hulk is ranked? She has a very good AOE for 9 AP and it does good board shake up, her blue in PVE can be awsome, her green might be horrible, but 2 out of 3 isn't bad. I actually like playing her a lot more than Hulk. I don't think she is top 10 but she should be in the 11-15 range. Good health, strong red, and situational blue and pairs really well with X-Force if you are going up against a red primary color. Lot's of board shake up and AOE damage. I highly recomend her and she as she is a very solid 3* character.

What are you talking about ? She hulk is really bad. The only good thing about her is the red. The other two powers are just worthless.

Unknown

She-Hulk is underrated. Her red is one of the better red powers, and her blue knocks out CD tiles, which I think a lot of people don't realize. She's very good against characters like muscle, where a CD tile on a bad corner can be devastating. She's a PVE-only character, though.

Doc Ock also has his uses, in that he's actually very good in certain situations. One of those situations is survival nodes, where his black power can be incredibly effective, especially combined with Falcon, and if you also throw in a good strike tile generator, he can be devastating. I like to use him against characters like the Don who throw a ton of special tiles out, because that's fuel for his black. And 3/5/5 is his only viable build; his blue power is utterly useless, while his green is just overpriced in general, while very useful in niche situations. He's likewise PVE-only.

And I'll stand by saying that, even where she is, Lazy Storm is overrated. 2* Storm is better in almost every respect.