Character rankings 12/14 edition: the results!

Unknown

Definitely think MNMags is underrated, he's way better than DocOck or Beast. With a +3 Blue/Purple with Mystique, the game can just become a crit storm after 2 moves. (Crit boosts finally come in handy!)

I think MoStorm is slightly underrated as well. As a transition player (eg one who can't always beat every node, or where it isn't worth it to beat every node), she's great with OBW and Cap for predominantly Goon nodes. She's great with the sustainability team of Daken/Wolverine if hiding behind both of them. Otherwise, she's ok support, but just too weak.

Don't think there'll be any surprises in the top 4.

The balancing of the characters is getting better overall.

Unknown

a6fan36 wrote:

vudu3 wrote:

Jimilinho wrote:

Really don't understand how some people vote, hood at 8!? Behind black panther and capt A!Hood is easily a top 5 character. Can only assume a lot of you don't play pvp's at the top end.

X-Force has trivialized Hood, especially at the top end. Hood used to be scary because he would slow down your game quite a bit. Now, if you have decently-leveled X-Force with 5 green covers you can boost +3 green/black, make two green matches and then one-shot Hood. I used to use Hood for hopping all the time but now if I bring him along it paints a huge target on my back. I don't expect to get any defensive wins with Fury but if I use him when hopping it generally means I can get through 3 fights and reshield before I get attacked. This isn't the case with Hood anymore.

I'm getting confused as I still see references to +3 boosts, but I thought those were retired ages ago? Are you just working off of an old stockpile or is there some boosting trick I'm missing?

Before you fight, where you select your team ups, there is a second tab labeled: boosts.

There you can buy many different kinds of AP boosts.

Unknown

Nonce Equitaur 2 wrote:

Nonce Equitaur 2 wrote:

Some notes on a few characters I think were slightly underrated.
28. 3* Doctor Doom
He's #1 in "Most likely to get a good buff." When he returns to tokens with a new third power, I expect him to be excellent against 4-Thor in particular.

Called it? I wouldn't yet put Diabolical Plot into the same usefulness level as Mischief, but at least he's got his 3rd power now.

Doom was decent to begin with; this takes him up to the A-List or at least close to it. He will partner insanely well with X-Force (not that he didn't already); between them they have actives covering everything but red, and complements any RGY user to form a rainbow team. Diabolical Plot isn't as good as Mischief, but Doom was significantly better than Loki when they both had two powers as is.

Nonce Equitaur 2

Great Job, Mischief!

vudu3

mischiefmaker wrote:

You might as well put a little sign that says "insert pointy thing here" at that gap.

Unknown

IMO, Sentry, like cMags last time, is suffering from post-nerf underrating. He's easily still better than the chars ranked 16-13 and maaaaybe deadpool as well.

Unknown

Mischief, good job! Now I'm going to wonder where all my HP went as I boost my 4thor.

mags1587

I just have to say I laughed when I read this part in 4* Thor's write-up:

Power: unreasonable

Unreasonable? Maybe? Fun? Absolutely.

Spoit

gamar wrote:

IMO, Sentry, like cMags last time, is suffering from post-nerf underrating. He's easily still better than the chars ranked 16-13 and maaaaybe deadpool as well.

IIRC, I put DP as like maybe the 3 or 4th best 3*. ALOTT is cheap and whales is maybe one of the best purple powers

Unknown

Spoit wrote:

gamar wrote:

IMO, Sentry, like cMags last time, is suffering from post-nerf underrating. He's easily still better than the chars ranked 16-13 and maaaaybe deadpool as well.

IIRC, I put DP as like maybe the 3 or 4th best 3*. ALOTT is cheap and whales is maybe one of the best purple powers

Yeah, it takes a lot for me to consider a character with less than 7000 HP and without an incredible passive to be anything but unplayable, and DP's got the goods. "Close to top 10, probably better than Sentry" is quite the feat for a squishy

morph3us

3. 3* Thor, even
Seems a bit overrated to me, since he doesn't synergize well with X-Force and can't be played with TGT at all, plus I'm having a hard time making a case for him over Fury.

My feeling is that 3* Thor has been rated highly by those of us who don't have any viable 4*s at this stage. In the absence of TGT, X-Force, or Fury, he rates very highly still. Also, I'd argue that 3* Thor is more reliable on defense than Fury (if there is such a thing as defense in PVP!).

NorthernPolarity

morph3us wrote:

3. 3* Thor, even
Seems a bit overrated to me, since he doesn't synergize well with X-Force and can't be played with TGT at all, plus I'm having a hard time making a case for him over Fury.

My feeling is that 3* Thor has been rated highly by those of us who don't have any viable 4*s at this stage. In the absence of TGT, X-Force, or Fury, he rates very highly still. Also, I'd argue that 3* Thor is more reliable on defense than Fury (if there is such a thing as defense in PVP!).

He's just slightly overrated: I would rank Fury above him, but he's the best all around 3* otherwise (in a 4*less world). I think he sees significantly less play in a competitive roster than most other characters because X-Force obsoletes him (hell, my Mohawk sees more play than him), but I would say that he still deserves his top 5 spot.

Unknown

Yeah, 3* Thor is still very viable when you've had your A-Team knocked out. His yellow is still excellent and compliments X-Force well if you don't need XF healed at that stage of the match. He's still teh Suck compared to Hood though...

Square

Thanks a lot for this! It's really useful to see how experienced players view characters.

Unknown

gamar wrote:

IMO, Sentry, like cMags last time, is suffering from post-nerf underrating. He's easily still better than the chars ranked 16-13 and maaaaybe deadpool as well.

He's actually suffering from an unusual case of post-nerf overrating.

I think people can't quite cope with how bad he really is.
"How can you go from elite to completely worthless?" they ask.

The shock will subside and he'll drop another 3 to 5 places in the next set of rankings, once it is infinitely clear how bad he is.

He has no appealing qualities about him other than his high health.

Unknown

onimus wrote:

gamar wrote:

IMO, Sentry, like cMags last time, is suffering from post-nerf underrating. He's easily still better than the chars ranked 16-13 and maaaaybe deadpool as well.

He's actually suffering from an unusual case of post-nerf overrating.

I think people can't quite cope with how bad he really is.
"How can you go from elite to completely worthless?" they ask.

The shock will subside and he'll drop another 3 to 5 places in the next set of rankings, once it is infinitely clear how bad he is.

He has no appealing qualities about him other than his high health.

I completely disagree with this. World Rupture plus Sacrifice still does an obscene amount of damage, it's just slower and somewhat less reliable. I've started using it again in the Simulator and it's taken out enemy teams where everyone was over 10k in hit points still. He's not overpowered, and he's not someone you're going to use regularly (or maybe at all in PVP), but he has a very good niche role in taking on very high level enemies.

In some ways, it's a good representation of the character: you only want to use him when you need to, but when you need to, he destroys whole teams.

wymtime

Ben Grimm wrote:

onimus wrote:

gamar wrote:

IMO, Sentry, like cMags last time, is suffering from post-nerf underrating. He's easily still better than the chars ranked 16-13 and maaaaybe deadpool as well.

He's actually suffering from an unusual case of post-nerf overrating.

I think people can't quite cope with how bad he really is.
"How can you go from elite to completely worthless?" they ask.

The shock will subside and he'll drop another 3 to 5 places in the next set of rankings, once it is infinitely clear how bad he is.

He has no appealing qualities about him other than his high health.

I completely disagree with this. World Rupture plus Sacrifice still does an obscene amount of damage, it's just slower and somewhat less reliable. I've started using it again in the Simulator and it's taken out enemy teams where everyone was over 10k in hit points still. He's not overpowered, and he's not someone you're going to use regularly (or maybe at all in PVP), but he has a very good niche role in taking on very high level enemies.

In some ways, it's a good representation of the character: you only want to use him when you need to, but when you need to, he destroys whole teams.

His problem is the same as it was before in the fact that he destroys both teams. Before it was not an issue becuase you would get Sacrifice with World Rupture off so fast that you could still win 2 matches before using a health pack. Now you either need to use a ton of boosts, or take a good amount of Match Damage before WR goes off. If we had a character that could true heal people this would not be so bad. He is super powerful, but if you look at destroying a team at high end all over 10k health you can use X-Force and Deadpool. Between SS, X-Force, and ALOT you can get 3 characters below 4k to hit them with Whales, and if you bring Hood along you can steal AP or also hit an enemy for 5k damage with Twin Pistols. There are just a lot more options that don't kill your own team as much as Sentry does that will get the job done and are more reliable, and that is more the reason on why he has been shelved. He is still super powerful, just not scary anymore.

Etheus

I think Sentry is definitely a top 20 character. As someone without a viable top 4 heavy hitter, or DP, Sentry 5/3/5 is my biggest damage dealer over BP. Now his drawbacks limit my use of him to post 625 pvp, when it's all 4*s + Hood and/or LThor, and hard pve nodes. But with BP, Hood, and Sentry I can take down any top tier team. Supernova, RotP, and Twin Pistols will take down at least 2 of 3 characters with a mauled 3rd character left to mop up. It's not sustainable, but it's often good enough for shield hopping into top 25 or better when extended play is dangerous. The other benefit is as a scarecrow. Players without XForce or SheThor have no interest in taking on a lineup of Sentry/BP/Hood. So while Sentry might not play well with XForce or She Thor, for those without them Sentry can be an equalizer in short bursts.

Unknown

onimus wrote:

gamar wrote:

IMO, Sentry, like cMags last time, is suffering from post-nerf underrating. He's easily still better than the chars ranked 16-13 and maaaaybe deadpool as well.

He's actually suffering from an unusual case of post-nerf overrating.

I think people can't quite cope with how bad he really is.
"How can you go from elite to completely worthless?" they ask.

The shock will subside and he'll drop another 3 to 5 places in the next set of rankings, once it is infinitely clear how bad he is.

He has no appealing qualities about him other than his high health.

Let's go down the list of chars directly above him:

I literally cannot think of a situation where I'd use Human Torch rather than Sentry. Maybe against level 60 gimme battles, but I would use Patch or Psylocke or someone instead of Torch so not even then

Captain Marvel's an odd duck, she charges your 4*s but dies in return - She's not bad but I don't really get the love for her

You have to get Dino just about all the way to 270 to even consider using him WHICH IS INSANE and even then I don't think "bad abilities but all the health" means as much in the current meta

Hulk is now awful in PvP - SS Hulk for all the green and let him anger green back onto the board? Hulk isn't a deterrent, he's BAIT in PVP. Now, in PvE, he can give a significant leg up against overscaled teams in exchange for a health pack every battle or two - which Sentry does just as well, if not better

Unknown

gamar wrote:

onimus wrote:

gamar wrote:

IMO, Sentry, like cMags last time, is suffering from post-nerf underrating. He's easily still better than the chars ranked 16-13 and maaaaybe deadpool as well.

He's actually suffering from an unusual case of post-nerf overrating.

I think people can't quite cope with how bad he really is.
"How can you go from elite to completely worthless?" they ask.

The shock will subside and he'll drop another 3 to 5 places in the next set of rankings, once it is infinitely clear how bad he is.

He has no appealing qualities about him other than his high health.

Let's go down the list of chars directly above him:

I literally cannot think of a situation where I'd use Human Torch rather than Sentry. Maybe against level 60 gimme battles, but I would use Patch or Psylocke or someone instead of Torch so not even then Human Torch is overrated, in my opinion as well, But I still use him over Sentry in PVE. He deals a ton of damage and doesn't hurt his own team, which is nice. He isn't competitive in PVP, but then again, neither is Sentry

Captain Marvel's an odd duck, she charges your 4*s but dies in return - She's not bad but I don't really get the love for her She was definitely better before Xforce came around. But having a 2 turn heavy damage stun is quite strong and she has a lot of use as a battery as well as a niche performer against amped up PVE protect tile generators.

You have to get Dino just about all the way to 270 to even consider using him WHICH IS INSANE and even then I don't think "bad abilities but all the health" means as much in the current meta Dino has taken the role of "I don't want to deal with that" defense. He isn't a death machine, but having that much HP makes him resistant to even the strongest hits and he doesn't damage himself, so still more use than Sentry.

Hulk is now awful in PvP - SS Hulk for all the green and let him anger green back onto the board? Hulk isn't a deterrent, he's BAIT in PVP. Now, in PvE, he can give a significant leg up against overscaled teams in exchange for a health pack every battle or two - which Sentry does just as well, if not better Hulk is very underrated right now. Pair him with Patch and you have a team that can kill ANYTHING in PVP. Hulk Patch is my go to team when taking on Xforce 4hor and that's with a level 245 Xforce on my roster. He is also how I beat the 300 and 400 level teams in simulator hard mode.

My retorts are bolded and underlined above.

The only nice thing about Sentry is once he's done soaking a ton of damage and has 1 hit left until he's downed, his yellow becomes virtually consequence free. Other than that, there isn't much reason to use Sentry. Unless you want to waste health packs.

It may sound strange, but 1 or 2 health packs per fight is a very very bad way to climb in PVP or clear series of nodes every 3 hours in PVE. And it isn't even reliable. At least with Hulk, you may have to use a health pack on him, but he is a surefire way to taking down 50 point teams in PVP. One unlucky cascade at the wrong time when using Sentry buries his hope of doing any damage at all.

He is good.
For
Nothing.