Character rankings 12/14 edition: the results!

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  • NorthernPolarity
    NorthernPolarity Posts: 3,531 Chairperson of the Boards
    onimus wrote:
    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.[/quote]

    This is just a blatant overgeneralization. I'll start off with this quote by someone who doesn't have a full fledged roster:
    Etheus wrote:
    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.
    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.
    [/quote]

    And without the Patch combo (which a lot of people don't have), can you honestly say that Hulk is better than Sentry in PvP? Hulk is straight up miserable on offense without a strong, 3* green outlet, and he probably ends up taking even more damage than Sentry because he is incapable of dealing any sort of damage himself without triggering anger a bunch of times.

    I don't get why you hate Sentry this much. Yeah, he kills your team and isn't sustainable, but he obviously isn't completely and utterly worthless. You don't use him if you have every single other character, but he punches above his weight class when a lot of other characters can't.
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    NorthernPolarity wrote:
    onimus wrote:
    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.

    This is just a blatant overgeneralization. I'll start off with this quote by someone who doesn't have a full fledged roster:
    Etheus wrote:
    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.
    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.

    And without the Patch combo (which a lot of people don't have), can you honestly say that Hulk is better than Sentry in PvP? Hulk is straight up miserable on offense without a strong, 3* green outlet, and he probably ends up taking even more damage than Sentry because he is incapable of dealing any sort of damage himself without triggering anger a bunch of times.

    I don't get why you hate Sentry this much. Yeah, he kills your team and isn't sustainable, but he obviously isn't completely and utterly worthless. You don't use him if you have every single other character, but he punches above his weight class when a lot of other characters can't.


    Before I had a top tier roster, I thought that Falcon was very strong. Now that I have used actual strong characters, I have revised my opinion. He isn't weak, but when you only have 2 slots in PVP, he typically isn't worth one of those spaces.

    The point of this thread, at least in my opinion, is to influence people who they should commit ISO to in order to improve their roster in the long term.

    I've wasted ISO before. Falcon and HT are both over 135 for me and I hate that I didn't think ahead and instead just leveled the first characters I got covers for.

    Now I'm sitting on several characters that I could use that ISO to level that would actually improve my roster. Unfortunately, I can't get that ISO back.

    So I view this thread as a guide for those in the transition phase. Who should they level? If they max cover She Hulk, should they invest ISO in her or just wait for better covers? Who will still be useful once they get their hands on a meaningfully leveled Xforce or 4hor or whoever the next overwhelmingly strong 4 star there is?

    Sure, Sentry is serviceable when you have nothing better, but that doesn't make him a good character.


    As for Hulk, yes he is not very good at all without Patch (and Daken or Thor). But that combo with Patch is incredible, so why should it be discounted just because it relies on both characters in order to work effectively?

    By that logic, Hood is terrible because he can't win the game by himself. Or Daken is bad because he needs someone with abilities to take advantage of his strike tiles and green that he is farming.

    Hulk is strong because he is part of a combo that can destroy anything in the entire game. So he should be ranked higher to indicate that, yes, even in 4 star land he won't just be sitting there on your roster, rusting away.

    I can say, I have 6 maxed 3 stars, 5 more 100+ leveled characters and 1 level 245 4 star.

    If I were to rank them in order of value to my roster it would be:
    1. Xforce (245)
    2. Daken (166)
    3. Hood (166)
    4. Thor (166)
    5. Deadpool (147 and soon to be 166)
    6. Patch (166)
    7. Hulk (166)
    Big Gap
    8.Captain America (143)
    9. Falcon (138) (both only really see time in PVE)
    Big Gap
    10. Captain Marvel (111) (too low to use for much yet)
    11. Human Torch (153) (only PVE and not many matches due to his health)
    12. Sentry (166) (Haven't used him since he was nerfed except when he was featured, he was essential or every other character was dead and I needed a body to do one more push in PVE)

    I only ever use him when I'm forced to and even then it is so annoying that I have to waste health packs on him just to continue playing his essential nodes in PVEs, like Simulator.
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    Still baffled as to why angering your way to a certain win at the cost of a health pack is good but supernovaing your way to a certain win at the cost of a health pack is bad

    Also, how high is your PVE scaling? Hulk is a lot worse when he dies in a half dozen hits and Sentry is a lot better when 1k of team damage is LESS than your team would take in the time it took to use slower, "safer" skills
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    gamar wrote:
    Still baffled as to why angering your way to a certain win at the cost of a health pack is good but supernovaing your way to a certain win at the cost of a health pack is bad

    Also, how high is your PVE scaling? Hulk is a lot worse when he dies in a half dozen hits and Sentry is a lot better when 1k of team damage is LESS than your team would take in the time it took to use slower, "safer" skills
    How is supernovaing a certain win?

    Supernova does about 4k AoE damage for 11 Red. And it ends the turn

    Hulk/Patch combo does about 1.5k AoE per hit that Hulk takes for 9 green.

    That would be about 44 red to take down a 4hor with Sentry. Or 9 to 18 green with Patch/Hulk.

    The only con to Hulk is if they get some insane cascade that generates 9 or 10 matches, he's in trouble. Unless he survives with 500 health. Then you win the game. so as long as they don't deal 11k damage in one turn, you're good to go.
  • NorthernPolarity
    NorthernPolarity Posts: 3,531 Chairperson of the Boards
    onimus wrote:
    NorthernPolarity wrote:
    onimus wrote:
    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.

    This is just a blatant overgeneralization. I'll start off with this quote by someone who doesn't have a full fledged roster:
    Etheus wrote:
    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.
    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.

    And without the Patch combo (which a lot of people don't have), can you honestly say that Hulk is better than Sentry in PvP? Hulk is straight up miserable on offense without a strong, 3* green outlet, and he probably ends up taking even more damage than Sentry because he is incapable of dealing any sort of damage himself without triggering anger a bunch of times.

    I don't get why you hate Sentry this much. Yeah, he kills your team and isn't sustainable, but he obviously isn't completely and utterly worthless. You don't use him if you have every single other character, but he punches above his weight class when a lot of other characters can't.


    Before I had a top tier roster, I thought that Falcon was very strong. Now that I have used actual strong characters, I have revised my opinion. He isn't weak, but when you only have 2 slots in PVP, he typically isn't worth one of those spaces.

    The point of this thread, at least in my opinion, is to influence people who they should commit ISO to in order to improve their roster in the long term.

    I've wasted ISO before. Falcon and HT are both over 135 for me and I hate that I didn't think ahead and instead just leveled the first characters I got covers for.

    Now I'm sitting on several characters that I could use that ISO to level that would actually improve my roster. Unfortunately, I can't get that ISO back.

    So I view this thread as a guide for those in the transition phase. Who should they level? If they max cover She Hulk, should they invest ISO in her or just wait for better covers? Who will still be useful once they get their hands on a meaningfully leveled Xforce or 4hor or whoever the next overwhelmingly strong 4 star there is?

    Sure, Sentry is serviceable when you have nothing better, but that doesn't make him a good character.

    So let's say I'm Joe Transitioner and I have two options: 1. Level Sentry, and 2. Level Hulk. Since Sentry is a defensive deterrent if you aren't running X-Force and has high damage potential, he will let me punch above my weight class and get me 1 more 3* cover per PvP tournament for every tournament until I have the opportunity to level a more sustainable character like LazyThor. In this scenario, leveling Sentry will have netted you an extra cover for however many PvPs that would have taken, which I imagine is a non-trivial amount of PvPs. Yes, he is terrible in the long term in that you will never use him once you have a full roster, but aren't those say, 6-10 PvP covers that he helped you get worth the iso you spent to level him? I imagine that they would be to someone whose main bottleneck is covers and not iso. The fact that Sentry has the potential to do that makes him a better character at that stage of the game than someone like Hulk. Yes he's bad once you have a full roster,

    As for Hulk, yes he is not very good at all without Patch (and Daken or Thor). But that combo with Patch is incredible, so why should it be discounted just because it relies on both characters in order to work effectively?
    By that logic, Hood is terrible because he can't win the game by himself. Or Daken is bad because he needs someone with abilities to take advantage of his strike tiles and green that he is farming.

    Hulk is strong because he is part of a combo that can destroy anything in the entire game. So he should be ranked higher to indicate that, yes, even in 4 star land he won't just be sitting there on your roster, rusting away.

    This just doesn't seem like the right way to establish general character rankings. LazyThor is rotting away in my roster because FemThor exists and LazyThor just doesn't do anything exciting for PvP. Mohawk combos amazingly with FemThor, and sees way more PvE use than LazyThor does. By your logic, this means that Mohawk and LazyThor should be a lot closer in ranking because with a full roster, they see the same amount of use. Characters should be ranked based on how generally useful they are, with them fitting in a random, average team composition and specific combos taking far less precedence unless they completely break the game (which Hulk/Patch doesn't really as Hulk ends up taking a lot of damage each round). Every single one of the characters in the top 12 (and honestly a lot more characters below him like MQ) is generally more useful than Hulk, so I don't see how ranking him higher makes any sense.
    By that logic, Hood is terrible because he can't win the game by himself. Or Daken is bad because he needs someone with abilities to take advantage of his strike tiles and green that he is farming.

    There's kind of a huge difference between "requiring a character that has active abilities that deal damage" or "a character that has a green ability" vs "Patch". Hood and Daken obviously fit into a lot more team compositions and will generally have higher impact for someone at various stages in the game than Hulk, which is literally only actively good on offense with Patch, average with someone that has a game ending green (GSBW / LazyThor...?), and terrible otherwise.
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    NorthernPolarity wrote:
    Quote overload


    So let's say I'm Joe Transitioner and I have two options: 1. Level Sentry, and 2. Level Hulk. Since Sentry is a defensive deterrent if you aren't running X-Force and has high damage potential, he will let me punch above my weight class and get me 1 more 3* cover per PvP tournament for every tournament until I have the opportunity to level a more sustainable character like LazyThor. In this scenario, leveling Sentry will have netted you an extra cover for however many PvPs that would have taken, which I imagine is a non-trivial amount of PvPs. Yes, he is terrible in the long term in that you will never use him once you have a full roster, but aren't those say, 6-10 PvP covers that he helped you get worth the iso you spent to level him? I imagine that they would be to someone whose main bottleneck is covers and not iso. The fact that Sentry has the potential to do that makes him a better character at that stage of the game than someone like Hulk. Yes he's bad once you have a full roster,

    As for Hulk, yes he is not very good at all without Patch (and Daken or Thor). But that combo with Patch is incredible, so why should it be discounted just because it relies on both characters in order to work effectively?
    By that logic, Hood is terrible because he can't win the game by himself. Or Daken is bad because he needs someone with abilities to take advantage of his strike tiles and green that he is farming.

    Hulk is strong because he is part of a combo that can destroy anything in the entire game. So he should be ranked higher to indicate that, yes, even in 4 star land he won't just be sitting there on your roster, rusting away.

    This just doesn't seem like the right way to establish general character rankings. LazyThor is rotting away in my roster because FemThor exists and LazyThor just doesn't do anything exciting for PvP. Mohawk combos amazingly with FemThor, and sees way more PvE use than LazyThor does. By your logic, this means that Mohawk and LazyThor should be a lot closer in ranking because with a full roster, they see the same amount of use. Characters should be ranked based on how generally useful they are, with them fitting in a random, average team composition and specific combos taking far less precedence unless they completely break the game (which Hulk/Patch doesn't really as Hulk ends up taking a lot of damage each round). Every single one of the characters in the top 12 (and honestly a lot more characters below him like MQ) is generally more useful than Hulk, so I don't see how ranking him higher makes any sense.
    By that logic, Hood is terrible because he can't win the game by himself. Or Daken is bad because he needs someone with abilities to take advantage of his strike tiles and green that he is farming.

    There's kind of a huge difference between "requiring a character that has active abilities that deal damage" or "a character that has a green ability" vs "Patch". Hood and Daken obviously fit into a lot more team compositions and will generally have higher impact for someone at various stages in the game than Hulk, which is literally only actively good on offense with Patch, average with someone that has a game ending green (GSBW / LazyThor...?), and terrible otherwise.


    I guess our main disagreement is that Sentry can help you punch above your weight class.

    I just don't see how he does. Sure, he is strong pre-xforce. But pre-xforce is about 600 points. And there are simply better investments for ISO to get above 600 points.

    I know the game has drastically changes since I was in transition, but Hulk was my first level 166. He is what got me Daken to 166 and he jumpstarted my entire roster. So I'm obviously biased.

    All I know is today, January 6, 2015, I use Hulk more than Sentry and he is, in fact, a major player in my PVP strategy. For that reason, I consider Hulk a better investment than Sentry. I leveled him first and I'm using him more.

    That's not to say I don't appreciate what Sentry did for me. He got me at least 15 4 star covers.

    But his time is over. We really just need to retire him officially. The game would be better without having this trap character that transitioning players waste ISO on only to find out how bad he is later on.

    I've mentioned before the value of matching up with Xforce or 4hor as a reason to be higher on the rankings. I personally think storm was underrated in this ranking system. And for the same reason, I find LThor overrated. Now, I'm not saying they should be switched because LThor is still extremely valuable when you have Xforce but not 4hor, So while Storm is strong when paired with one character (4hor), Thor is strong when on a roster with anyone except one character (4hor).
  • Etheus
    Etheus Posts: 56
    Thanks Northern Polarity for pointing out the covers acquired with punching above your weight class! For the vast majority of players this is huge.

    At 625+ points in most pvps, the teams are the same mixes of 4 stars, LazyThor, DP, and Hood. If you lack a top 4 character, just give up. You'll lose against the top teams or you'll lose even more points from attacks during matches. Sentry get you the points that matter and gives a better chance of keeping them: the points above 700 that determine top 100 placement or better. Also, you can't even get those 50 pt matches until you reach this point tier now. Hulk doesn't scare any team now, Sentry and BP scare the players you're trying to separate yourself from when you're punching above your weight.
  • NorthernPolarity
    NorthernPolarity Posts: 3,531 Chairperson of the Boards
    onimus wrote:
    NorthernPolarity wrote:
    Quote overload


    So let's say I'm Joe Transitioner and I have two options: 1. Level Sentry, and 2. Level Hulk. Since Sentry is a defensive deterrent if you aren't running X-Force and has high damage potential, he will let me punch above my weight class and get me 1 more 3* cover per PvP tournament for every tournament until I have the opportunity to level a more sustainable character like LazyThor. In this scenario, leveling Sentry will have netted you an extra cover for however many PvPs that would have taken, which I imagine is a non-trivial amount of PvPs. Yes, he is terrible in the long term in that you will never use him once you have a full roster, but aren't those say, 6-10 PvP covers that he helped you get worth the iso you spent to level him? I imagine that they would be to someone whose main bottleneck is covers and not iso. The fact that Sentry has the potential to do that makes him a better character at that stage of the game than someone like Hulk. Yes he's bad once you have a full roster,

    As for Hulk, yes he is not very good at all without Patch (and Daken or Thor). But that combo with Patch is incredible, so why should it be discounted just because it relies on both characters in order to work effectively?
    By that logic, Hood is terrible because he can't win the game by himself. Or Daken is bad because he needs someone with abilities to take advantage of his strike tiles and green that he is farming.

    Hulk is strong because he is part of a combo that can destroy anything in the entire game. So he should be ranked higher to indicate that, yes, even in 4 star land he won't just be sitting there on your roster, rusting away.

    This just doesn't seem like the right way to establish general character rankings. LazyThor is rotting away in my roster because FemThor exists and LazyThor just doesn't do anything exciting for PvP. Mohawk combos amazingly with FemThor, and sees way more PvE use than LazyThor does. By your logic, this means that Mohawk and LazyThor should be a lot closer in ranking because with a full roster, they see the same amount of use. Characters should be ranked based on how generally useful they are, with them fitting in a random, average team composition and specific combos taking far less precedence unless they completely break the game (which Hulk/Patch doesn't really as Hulk ends up taking a lot of damage each round). Every single one of the characters in the top 12 (and honestly a lot more characters below him like MQ) is generally more useful than Hulk, so I don't see how ranking him higher makes any sense.
    By that logic, Hood is terrible because he can't win the game by himself. Or Daken is bad because he needs someone with abilities to take advantage of his strike tiles and green that he is farming.

    There's kind of a huge difference between "requiring a character that has active abilities that deal damage" or "a character that has a green ability" vs "Patch". Hood and Daken obviously fit into a lot more team compositions and will generally have higher impact for someone at various stages in the game than Hulk, which is literally only actively good on offense with Patch, average with someone that has a game ending green (GSBW / LazyThor...?), and terrible otherwise.


    I guess our main disagreement is that Sentry can help you punch above your weight class.

    I just don't see how he does. Sure, he is strong pre-xforce. But pre-xforce is about 600 points. And there are simply better investments for ISO to get above 600 points.

    I know the game has drastically changes since I was in transition, but Hulk was my first level 166. He is what got me Daken to 166 and he jumpstarted my entire roster. So I'm obviously biased.

    All I know is today, January 6, 2015, I use Hulk more than Sentry and he is, in fact, a major player in my PVP strategy. For that reason, I consider Hulk a better investment than Sentry. I leveled him first and I'm using him more.

    That's not to say I don't appreciate what Sentry did for me. He got me at least 15 4 star covers.

    But his time is over. We really just need to retire him officially. The game would be better without having this trap character that transitioning players waste ISO on only to find out how bad he is later on.

    I've mentioned before the value of matching up with Xforce or 4hor as a reason to be higher on the rankings. I personally think storm was underrated in this ranking system. And for the same reason, I find LThor overrated. Now, I'm not saying they should be switched because LThor is still extremely valuable when you have Xforce but not 4hor, So while Storm is strong when paired with one character (4hor), Thor is strong when on a roster with anyone except one character (4hor).

    There's really two things going on here: how characters are good in a "vacuum", and how good characters are with an end-game roster. These rankings should be skewed more towards them in a vacuum, since the end-game roster only really benefits veterans, while the vacuum benefits newer players more, and they clearly could use this information a lot more than we can.

    I'm pretty sure you're still looking at this too much from an experienced player with a deeper roster. What characters do you think are better than Sentry, if your sole goal is to push from 500->800 or 900 like a transitioner would? Discounting the 4*s, the only characters I see that will be actively better are BP / LazyThor. Patch / Hulk if in that specific combo. Torch / Punisher probably are more sustainable but are miserable on defense. Everyone else either doesn't have Sentry's damage potential, or lack his defensive scarecrowing. This makes Sentry probably what, the third best general PvP guy if you don't care about sustainability at all for transitioners to use to punch above their weight class. Of course, sustainability matters a ton in PvE, and as a result he's obviously miserable in PvE, but it doesn't need to matter as much in the PvP metagame of just winning a relatively small number of fights before shielding.

    I said this earlier: you look at supernova and sacrifice without considering HP loss and they're BP level. If BP is one of the best guys for transitioners in PvP, then Sentry can't be that much worse.
    Sacrifice = Battleplan with life loss.
    Supernova = RotP with life loss.
    Sure he takes a ton more health packs than BP, but when your bottleneck is simply not getting 166 walled off in PvP, Sentry is one of the best guys you could have to not do that. If Sentry can't punch above his weight class, then BP can't either since they effectively have identical damage output, and if BP can't do that, then who really can? Your logic seems to imply that the only characters who can punch above their weight class is LazyThor, since Sentry = BP, BP can't do it, and everyone else is worse than BP.
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    NorthernPolarity wrote:
    onimus wrote:
    NorthernPolarity wrote:
    Quote overload


    So let's say I'm Joe Transitioner and I have two options: 1. Level Sentry, and 2. Level Hulk. Since Sentry is a defensive deterrent if you aren't running X-Force and has high damage potential, he will let me punch above my weight class and get me 1 more 3* cover per PvP tournament for every tournament until I have the opportunity to level a more sustainable character like LazyThor. In this scenario, leveling Sentry will have netted you an extra cover for however many PvPs that would have taken, which I imagine is a non-trivial amount of PvPs. Yes, he is terrible in the long term in that you will never use him once you have a full roster, but aren't those say, 6-10 PvP covers that he helped you get worth the iso you spent to level him? I imagine that they would be to someone whose main bottleneck is covers and not iso. The fact that Sentry has the potential to do that makes him a better character at that stage of the game than someone like Hulk. Yes he's bad once you have a full roster,

    As for Hulk, yes he is not very good at all without Patch (and Daken or Thor). But that combo with Patch is incredible, so why should it be discounted just because it relies on both characters in order to work effectively?
    By that logic, Hood is terrible because he can't win the game by himself. Or Daken is bad because he needs someone with abilities to take advantage of his strike tiles and green that he is farming.

    Hulk is strong because he is part of a combo that can destroy anything in the entire game. So he should be ranked higher to indicate that, yes, even in 4 star land he won't just be sitting there on your roster, rusting away.

    This just doesn't seem like the right way to establish general character rankings. LazyThor is rotting away in my roster because FemThor exists and LazyThor just doesn't do anything exciting for PvP. Mohawk combos amazingly with FemThor, and sees way more PvE use than LazyThor does. By your logic, this means that Mohawk and LazyThor should be a lot closer in ranking because with a full roster, they see the same amount of use. Characters should be ranked based on how generally useful they are, with them fitting in a random, average team composition and specific combos taking far less precedence unless they completely break the game (which Hulk/Patch doesn't really as Hulk ends up taking a lot of damage each round). Every single one of the characters in the top 12 (and honestly a lot more characters below him like MQ) is generally more useful than Hulk, so I don't see how ranking him higher makes any sense.
    By that logic, Hood is terrible because he can't win the game by himself. Or Daken is bad because he needs someone with abilities to take advantage of his strike tiles and green that he is farming.

    There's kind of a huge difference between "requiring a character that has active abilities that deal damage" or "a character that has a green ability" vs "Patch". Hood and Daken obviously fit into a lot more team compositions and will generally have higher impact for someone at various stages in the game than Hulk, which is literally only actively good on offense with Patch, average with someone that has a game ending green (GSBW / LazyThor...?), and terrible otherwise.


    I guess our main disagreement is that Sentry can help you punch above your weight class.

    I just don't see how he does. Sure, he is strong pre-xforce. But pre-xforce is about 600 points. And there are simply better investments for ISO to get above 600 points.

    I know the game has drastically changes since I was in transition, but Hulk was my first level 166. He is what got me Daken to 166 and he jumpstarted my entire roster. So I'm obviously biased.

    All I know is today, January 6, 2015, I use Hulk more than Sentry and he is, in fact, a major player in my PVP strategy. For that reason, I consider Hulk a better investment than Sentry. I leveled him first and I'm using him more.

    That's not to say I don't appreciate what Sentry did for me. He got me at least 15 4 star covers.

    But his time is over. We really just need to retire him officially. The game would be better without having this trap character that transitioning players waste ISO on only to find out how bad he is later on.

    I've mentioned before the value of matching up with Xforce or 4hor as a reason to be higher on the rankings. I personally think storm was underrated in this ranking system. And for the same reason, I find LThor overrated. Now, I'm not saying they should be switched because LThor is still extremely valuable when you have Xforce but not 4hor, So while Storm is strong when paired with one character (4hor), Thor is strong when on a roster with anyone except one character (4hor).

    There's really two things going on here: how characters are good in a "vacuum", and how good characters are with an end-game roster. These rankings should be skewed more towards them in a vacuum, since the end-game roster only really benefits veterans, while the vacuum benefits newer players more, and they clearly could use this information a lot more than we can.

    I'm pretty sure you're still looking at this too much from an experienced player with a deeper roster. What characters do you think are better than Sentry, if your sole goal is to push from 500->800 or 900 like a transitioner would? Discounting the 4*s, the only characters I see that will be actively better are BP / LazyThor. Patch / Hulk if in that specific combo. Torch / Punisher probably are more sustainable but are miserable on defense. Everyone else either doesn't have Sentry's damage potential, or lack his defensive scarecrowing. This makes Sentry probably what, the third best general PvP guy if you don't care about sustainability at all for transitioners to use to punch above their weight class. Of course, sustainability matters a ton in PvE, and as a result he's obviously miserable in PvE, but it doesn't need to matter as much in the PvP metagame of just winning a relatively small number of fights before shielding.

    I said this earlier: you look at supernova and sacrifice without considering HP loss and they're BP level. If BP is one of the best guys for transitioners in PvP, then Sentry can't be that much worse.
    Sacrifice = Battleplan with life loss.
    Supernova = RotP with life loss.
    Sure he takes a ton more health packs than BP, but when your bottleneck is simply not getting 166 walled off in PvP, Sentry is one of the best guys you could have to not do that. If Sentry can't punch above his weight class, then BP can't either since they effectively have identical damage output, and if BP can't do that, then who really can? Your logic seems to imply that the only characters who can punch above their weight class is LazyThor, since Sentry = BP, BP can't do it, and everyone else is worse than BP.

    You and I see the development of a roster differently.
    Leveling Sentry can help you get from 500 to 700, yes. Maybe 800 if you shield hop.
    But characters like Black Panther, Magneto, Daken, Patch, Captain America, Thor, Deadpool or Blade and possibly the new Doom could achieve that same level of production without tanking in value as you continue to develop your roster.
    I made my jump with Hulk, but again…maybe the transition stage has changed since then. I think he could still do it, with Thor or 2star daken, but I can’t go back in time.

    So yes, I concede that Sentry could help transitioners get from the 500 range to the 700 or possibly 800 range.
    And if that’s all you’re striving for, then yes, Sentry may be worth 173k Iso.
    But if you want to get into the 1100 or 1300 range eventually, then Sentry will just slow you down.
  • over_clocked
    over_clocked Posts: 3,961
    I just want to point out that Hulk and Patch both regen a lot faster than Sentry, Hulk takes what, about 3 hrs to heal almost fully if not dead? That means you can afford to Anger bomb in PvP/PvE at least, say, 3-4 games, with a very high degree of reliability and minimal ISO boosting if at all, and leave both to regen while you let the nodes refresh/are shielded/run other heroes, etc.
    Sentry a) is unreliable, b) requires a healthpack after practically every game and c) regens very slowly.
    I don't know for sure how meaningful this is but I think pretty meaningful.
  • Slyli
    Slyli Posts: 15
    mischiefmaker wrote:
    Here's the heat map for this round of rankings:

    7jOA6D6.png

    A couple of observations:
    - There were several notable outliers -- look at all the orange dots scattered around the map -- more so than last time, and with higher values, even though we got slightly fewer votes.

    Regarding notable outliers, I can't help but notice a pattern. It looks as if a group of voters (might even be the same person) decided to vote specific characters on awkward positions for whatever reason. For example:
    14 cMag votes at position #25, among a sea of 1s and 2s.
    15 Hood votes at position #35, among a sea of 1s and 0s.
    15 Patch votes at position #36, among a sea of 1s and 0s.
    There are several others with similar magnitude outliers such as Devil Dino, GSBW, Bagman, etc.

    If it turns out that there is a correlation between outliers and voters (i.e. specific voters vote significantly more outliers than other voters) it would be interesting to see the rankings recalculated with those "serial outlier voters" removed. For example, a straight forward solution could be that each voter could get a "troll score", such as by subtracting each of his character rankings from the average rank of said character and summarizing the square of those values.

    It might not shake the rankings much, but many higher tier ranks are separated by a small fraction of points and it kind of spoils the anticipation and the hard work by those involved, if there are 10 - 20 trolls manipulating the results. icon_e_smile.gif
  • over_clocked
    over_clocked Posts: 3,961
    11 votes for Beast at #6.
    The Hood, meanwhile, 15 votes at #35.
    Alphabet, thou heartless bi... mistress.
  • NorthernPolarity
    NorthernPolarity Posts: 3,531 Chairperson of the Boards
    Slyli wrote:
    mischiefmaker wrote:
    Here's the heat map for this round of rankings:

    7jOA6D6.png

    A couple of observations:
    - There were several notable outliers -- look at all the orange dots scattered around the map -- more so than last time, and with higher values, even though we got slightly fewer votes.

    Regarding notable outliers, I can't help but notice a pattern. It looks as if a group of voters (might even be the same person) decided to vote specific characters on awkward positions for whatever reason. For example:
    14 cMag votes at position #25, among a sea of 1s and 2s.
    15 Hood votes at position #35, among a sea of 1s and 0s.
    15 Patch votes at position #36, among a sea of 1s and 0s.
    There are several others with similar magnitude outliers such as Devil Dino, GSBW, Bagman, etc.

    If it turns out that there is a correlation between outliers and voters (i.e. specific voters vote significantly more outliers than other voters) it would be interesting to see the rankings recalculated with those "serial outlier voters" removed. For example, a straight forward solution could be that each voter could get a "troll score", such as by subtracting each of his character rankings from the average rank of said character and summarizing the square of those values.

    It might not shake the rankings much, but many higher tier ranks are separated by a small fraction of points and it kind of spoils the anticipation and the hard work by those involved, if there are 10 - 20 trolls manipulating the results. icon_e_smile.gif

    It's probably just the default position of that character in the list.
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    What NP said^. For the outliers to be the work of trolls they would've had to coordinate to troll vote for the same positions. Feels more like an ordering/positioning thing.
  • AXP_isme
    AXP_isme Posts: 809 Critical Contributor
    Position seems the most likely explanation, conspiracies require a lot of organisation. Would it have a significant impact on the results if you remove all votes where position = starting position or use some other mechanism to normalise these outliers? Looks like it might cost beast his exalted rank...

    Note for next time to see whether it's possible to randomise the starting placement for each participant.

    You must love these 'helpful' comments that expect you to do even more than you already do.

    And finally- great work, much appreciated.
  • atomzed
    atomzed Posts: 1,753 Chairperson of the Boards
    Yeah great work! And the turn around time was much faster than before! That was good so I didn't have to die of anticipation icon_e_smile.gif

    The theme less version also make it more streamlined so it's easier to read.
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    I think he should set the order based on the ranking it has in the last set of rankings haha.

    That way a character can't just randomly raise or lower in rank based on people deciding not to rank.

    Or, if possible make is so if you don't select and drag the character where you want him ranked, it considers your vote a "no vote" on that character. Something along those lines.
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    Bagman's certainly not complaining. +2 ranks! icon_e_biggrin.gif

    It really looks as if a bunch of people saw how much work it was to vote and just said screw it, but voted anyways.

    I really think we should cut out the 2* and 1* and Beast to make it a little easier to handle.
  • squirrel1120
    squirrel1120 Posts: 492
    I'm still a 'transitioner', as I'm not fighting with even a single maxed 3* character. I have several cover maxed at the moment, but I'd like to bring several up together, or all at once, and honestly some of the cover maxed characters aren't work putting iso into further (ie., mostorm 110, spidey 94)

    From this perspective, I've had most of the characters in the discussion covered approximately the same (BP, patch, hulk, sentry) until recently when I finished patch in the xmas pve.

    Before his nerfbat run in, Sentry saw a small bit of use. Regardless of his damage output, he harmed the team too much, unless you max boosted to shorten the match just like the classic shield hop, he'd actually be dead half the time before his tiles resolved. It was iffy at best, but it could get me through a normal or hard pve node if I was out of other options.

    BP *still* only has 2 black covers, and given the option, I'd pick him over sentry any day of the week even shorter on covers or levels. Without the self damage, the biggest negative was feeding them 5ap, and that's inconsequential if you use it as a finisher, or know you'll down the character with the strongest color and it has not duplicate users on the ai side.

    On hitting above your weight class... the patch/hulk combo, assuming you have that option, is far superior to sentry. Sometimes you'll only get 1 node out of hulk. High risk for sure, cause as stated, if the ai gets a decent cascade along the line, and hulk goes down, you are pretty much borked. However, if things go right, you can often get 2-3 matches out of hulk. Since you are using a loaner each round with patch, that makes the strategy WAY more sustainable than trying to hit above your weight with the likes of sentry.

    Undoubtedly, sentry is a better deterrent on defense... I know I think a second longer when I see him on the odd occasion. Still, there isn't much chance I'm going to sink iso into him now that he's been left behind (stopped the moment I saw the nerf) just to be a scarecrow.

    Hitting above your weight in the current meta is actually not very likely to net you 2 3* covers either. As I mentioned, I feel the hulk/patch combo sustains longer, and I've topped out at about 750ish. I think in that particular event, I still didn't get 2 covers. Especially with the new shielding changes, I think a sentry user would have that much harder a row to hoe, so to speak.

    Sentry isn't completely useless if you already have him leveled for some reason from some reports, but I really don't think it's worth it from the pov of a transitioner.
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    squirrel1120 wrote:
    Before his nerf
    I don't see how you can say this. As a transitioner, Old-Sentry let me beat PVP teams and nodes that I had no business even trying. I could pick two level 1 characters with no covers and Sentry and come out on top, really. Sentry's self-damaged never mattered much - loaner character + self-healer.

    I would rotate between Sentry and Black Panther, but use Sentry when I absolutely, positively had to win.

    I've already commented on how I feel about current-Sentry so I'll leave it at that.

    On another note rating **** heroes and 2* is still important. I think we should let the community know as much info as possible so they don't feel robbed of their ISO, time(and possibly HP).

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