Character Rankings May 2015 Edition: The Results!

Vhailorx

TxMoose wrote:

not sure what the hate for Lthor is about. he's my only 166 - loki at 142 and all the rest near 100. those 2 get me to 600 (automatic t100) every time and 700 if i just do 1 or 2 hops, which lately have been getting me t25 if i care about the other cover. i have started using my stable at 104 with the boosted ones (have ~15 at ~104, which ends up 144 with a weekly boost) but once i hit 500 or so, its thor/loki and they hardly fail. i rated him 10, but rated several others 10s as well. I'm not playing at the top yet - probably not for several months. need to finish covering some other top guys and save some iso to do everything at once. once i do, pve will be screwed.

Not sure if "hate" is the same "suggesting that a character is not the single best character in the game." I have Lazy thor inside my top 5 (because of the health/power/boardshake combo), but not in the top position (because he is a bit slow). Does that mean I hate him?

over_clocked

Late to the discussion... Ebola is da real MVP, he is.
While I do agree that Loki is too far away from Hood, it does not mean that Hood is criminally overrated, more likely that Loki is underrated. Well and being able to actually win a game despite being left to his own devices helps Hood too.
I value their AP shenanigans a lot in different ways, and consider both solid top 10 material, personally. AP denial is just that safety blanket that you can never really let go of, y'know? mBW and oBW ways die hard, and it's not a bad thing, imo. It's telling that oBW is contending with the top dogs there still. I gave her a ten and she deserves every point out of those ten.
Some whale vets might disagree and call AP thieves useless due to their lower health, but AP is still king, or at least president, even though special tile users have gained back like 200% more traction since the glory days of XF/Goddess when special tiles were mostly an empty sound and every game in the top meta was an AP-boosted faceroll. Maybe Iron Fist and Professor X (and Hulkbuster and Kingpin and whoever) laugh at Hood/Loki, not everyone has those in the first place, especially 4*s, and then again, some new arrivals like Cage and Kamala are rather good at protecting Hood, and newly improved Beast and She-Hulk are besties with AP stealers too...
I mean... sure maxed Hulkbuster/Fury/Kingpin are intimidating. A bit. They have no right not to be, correct??


^ This picture is missing about 60 more in defensive wins for Deadpool/Beast/Hood in Beast's event.
Of course any top player knows how to deal with that team. Doesn't reduce the value of the trollific goodness.

Tanks aren't everything, as Colossus, Sentry and Grocket can attest.

The explosion of new powerful purple users also renders Loki a bit more redundant I feel, back then you could bring Loki to fill the rainbow pie of XF/Goddess, now there are Kamala, Fist, Kingpin, a less squishy GSBW, PX, Scarlet Witch, Doom, etc.

Colognoisseur

first thanks to Ebolamonkey for picking up the reins of this. Very appreciated.
It was no surprise to see Lazy Thor in the number one spot. He is the most general utility 3* in the game. All three powers work together and by themselves. They have speicific uses in combination with multiple other characters. Plus everyone understads how to use 3* effectively because they all got to use the 2* version in their transition. There is zero learning curve on how to use him effectively.

I have thought ever since the health nerf for both The Hood and Loki they have become irrelevant in any high end play. With rotating buffed characters they are too fragile. When i see one on an opposing team in PvP it might as well say "hit me". People are still holding on to them because they got used to the ap steal but now they are just liabilities because the match quickly turns into a 3v2 situation. There are a few specific places where they still work. when there is a buffed deadpool for them to hide behind and when they are buffed themsleves. I'll be using buffed Loki in Divine Champions because he will cause a problem because of his enhanced health. in my opinion all of this means The Hood and Loki should be close together in ranking somewhere in the 15-20 range. By the time we do this again I think most of the Hood and Loki users will have figured out they no longer stand up because of the low health that they have.

3* Captain America is in the top 10 wholly because he is the single best character for PvE and I don't have a problem with that.

I think all of the 4*'s except Professor X were underrated because many haven't had the opportunity to play with them.

My personal top 10 would be:

Professor X
Iron Fist
Hulkbuster
3* Thor
Cyclops
Kingpin
Fury
Kamala Khan
X-Force
Scarlet Witch

I would have 4* Thor, Elektra in my next five. Once you have the four-stars at a playable level they are better than many of the 3*'s it is just many don't have them and the ranking reflect this.

Once we do this again I expect Hulkbuster, Scarlet Witch, and She-Hulk to make significant jumps upward as more get them covered and see the different ways they can be used.

I think these ratings are reflective of the entire community of MPQ and my ratings are reflective of one single whale vet. Take them with that caveat.

Once again thanks Ebolamonkey this was a great effort.

over_clocked

Why is it okay for LCap to belong in top 10 thanks to being a top PvE character and not okay for someone like Hood? Without boosts, I can take down a hard (seriously it's mind-boggling) essential node for Elektra against Kamala/Vision/Star-Lord with his and classic Storm's help and not with tried and trusted Patch/cMagneto, for example. Hood is a top PvE character and excels at PvP too. His greatest alpha strike nemesis, X-Force, is threatening to him no more, so I'm sure that helped Hood's ranking too.
I am not a whale, but I do have all 3*s and almost all 4*s in a very usable state, and I don't think Hood was overrated this time around. Maybe just a couple spots. Top PvP meta isn't everything. It's enjoyable, it's the very high end of MPQ, it's profitable (when you don't use 20 shields and 10k ISO per event), and it has no right to be definitive.

babinro

Colognoisseur wrote:

I have thought ever since the health nerf for both The Hood and Loki they have become irrelevant in any high end play. With rotating buffed characters they are too fragile. When i see one on an opposing team in PvP it might as well say "hit me". People are still holding on to them because they got used to the ap steal but now they are just liabilities because the match quickly turns into a 3v2 situation. There are a few specific places where they still work. when there is a buffed deadpool for them to hide behind and when they are buffed themsleves. I'll be using buffed Loki in Divine Champions because he will cause a problem because of his enhanced health. in my opinion all of this means The Hood and Loki should be close together in ranking somewhere in the 15-20 range. By the time we do this again I think most of the Hood and Loki users will have figured out they no longer stand up because of the low health that they have.

I've had several discussions with Colog about this one and so I feel obligated to put my 2 cents about Hood (not Loki) on here.

I feel that Hood is entirely worthy of his top 5 placement because of how universally great his AP steal is in all aspects of the game except for defensive PvP. I agree with Colog's reasoning completely and yet I don't consider that drawback to be enough to warrant such a drop in placement. Especially when you consider that stronger defensive teams will still get hit plenty at the later stages of play as well. If you're at the shield hopping stage of PvP then the team you choose to play with really doesn't make a big difference. Hood will certainly invite more hits but that's also more opportunities to gain defensive wins since having an unlucky board to deal with hood can be disastrous.

Meanwhile, AP steal acts as a great means of speeding up battles and preventing ability damage to increase sustained play in all modes where you can use him. Hood is godly in any mode where you select a 3 person team and in any featured node where you have 2 strong damage dealers. His yellow brings some nice utility to the game and acts as a fine finisher to boot. His black is mostly useless except when used alongside Lcap who happens to be his most common partner.

Where you stand on Hood will largely depend on how much of a detriment you feel having a low health character in pvp truly means to the game as a whole. Colog clearly values it much higher than I do and I really don't think either of us are wrong here.

Full disclosure: I have 3 hoods in my roster and the one that sees the LEAST play is the level 166 version. Reason being is that Hood is at his best when he doesn't tank. I'll bring in the 166 version for pvp play (beyond 400ish points) and for goons but that's pretty much it (unless he's protected by someone like BP).

Unknown

raisinbman wrote:

Budget Player Cadet wrote:

...3* Thor at the top? Nobody still uses him.

Is this internet sarcasm, or are you unaware of the different groupings of players who may find 3*Thor viable?

When I'm climbing, I see tons of Luke Cage, Iron Fist, Cyclops, XForce... Almost never Thor. Since the health buffs, he's just not that spectacular - CTS has been outclassed by quite a few other AOEs, he doesn't quite have the explosive tempo of Iron Fist or Cyclops, the brute force of Hulkbuster, or the solid defense and nuke capabilities of Luke Cage.

Colognoisseur

One of the reasons Hood sees so much play and is highly regarded is many have him fully covered and pretty well leveled from the Sentry Bombing days.
Some people even have three.
When Sentry was nerfed Hood still remained viable, until the health nerf.
Giving examples of single PvE nodes where Hood is good is silly. I can give single examples where Quicksilver is good. The question about overall utility is whether when you are looking at a hard PvE node the first character into your team is Hood or is it very often 3*Cap; then you choose for utility.
The other aspect of this is in a hard PvE node if you do choose Hood and the ai gets a cascade he is toast as one high level Pve active goes off and that's it. you're likely pressing the retreat button. If you choose something with utility and higher health you can weather a cascade and still pull out the win.

Finally I guess the way to look at this top 10 is if a new player joined your alliance and said they had the entire top 10 fully covered but all were at base iso level what order would you tell them to put iso into them.
My answer would be:

Iron Fist
Luke Cage
3* Thor
3* Cap
Cyclops
Blade
C Mags
Patch
The Hood
Professor X

All of those other top 10 3*'s are more generally useful than Hood and are better building blocks to a stronger roster for a transitioner.

Wobby

Colognoisseur wrote:

One of the reasons Hood sees so much play and is highly regarded is many have him fully covered and pretty well leveled from the Sentry Bombing days.
Some people even have three.
When Sentry was nerfed Hood still remained viable, until the health nerf.
Giving examples of single PvE nodes where Hood is good is silly. I can give single examples where Quicksilver is good. The question about overall utility is whether when you are looking at a hard PvE node the first character into your team is Hood or is it very often 3*Cap; then you choose for utility.
The other aspect of this is in a hard PvE node if you do choose Hood and the ai gets a cascade he is toast as one high level Pve active goes off and that's it. you're likely pressing the retreat button. If you choose something with utility and higher health you can weather a cascade and still pull out the win.

Finally I guess the way to look at this top 10 is if a new player joined your alliance and said they had the entire top 10 fully covered but all were at base iso level what order would you tell them to put iso into them.
My answer would be:

Iron Fist
Luke Cage
3* Thor
3* Cap
Cyclops
Blade
C Mags
Patch
The Hood
Professor X

All of those other top 10 3*'s are more generally useful than Hood and are better building blocks to a stronger roster for a transitioner.

What I have discovered as a "top" player is I basically have everyone I want already maxed out. I have all 9 of the 3*s listed here at 166. I practically have every other cover maxed except the 4*s, as I don't kill my self for their release events, don't get boosted to first and am too lazy/busy with work & family to get 1,000 every pvp.

But I do find these rankings important all the same. No it hasn't helped to decide where to invest my current bank (300,000 ISO and 13,000 hp) but it helps to solidify where I shouldn't invest it.

Basically it's "work on 4*s" or "Level up folks you think will be fun". I keep resisting the urge to max my 3/5/5 Quicksilver because I know he is awful... But he is different than what we see every day and on that merit alone I keep considering it.

jimstarooney

The real crime imo is having cage and fist higher than kk and cyc.bcyc.both are better characters imo and both are better stand alone characters.

Unknown

Budget Player Cadet wrote:

raisinbman wrote:

Budget Player Cadet wrote:

...3* Thor at the top? Nobody still uses him.

Is this internet sarcasm, or are you unaware of the different groupings of players who may find 3*Thor viable?

When I'm climbing, I see tons of Luke Cage, Iron Fist, Cyclops, XForce... Almost never Thor. Since the health buffs, he's just not that spectacular - CTS has been outclassed by quite a few other AOEs, he doesn't quite have the explosive tempo of Iron Fist or Cyclops, the brute force of Hulkbuster, or the solid defense and nuke capabilities of Luke Cage.

Did you read the statement you quoted?

Do you see your bias?

PS: CTS outclassed? Are you kidding?

over_clocked

err, Colog, so I didn't post dozens of other nodes Hood's great against. So what.
Anyone can beat level 300 nodes with non-buffed 2* Storm, Magneto and Hood. Fun and synergy available for any 2* player who gets their hands on Hood, and the collective health for the party must be what, less than 10k? Does it matter if enemies can dish out 10k damage in one move if they can never use said move? They will, however, use all the moves against tanks with no AP denial capability, and Kingpin/X-Force/Fury/She-Hulk are not as good at it and will never be, nor they should, with that health.
We cannot afford for Loki and Hood to have more health since they are so good at what they do. I do use Hood and Loki more than LCap in PvE, by the way, since one major thing I don't like about LCap is tolerating losing his precious CDs here and there. I've also had tons of games with GSBW/LC/Hood or Kamala/LC/Hood where ladies did most of the damage and LC couldn't get a single move off. He's the best, but he has his limitations. I can bring Hood with 20 other teams without LC, but I don't usually bother bringing LCap without Hood.

over_clocked

Ah, so 2* Stormneto/Hood clock in at 13k health. But in PvE, it doesn't matter if you bring three squishies to a fight, the AI won't retaliate based on the weakness of the player's team

Here, some screenshots of how insignificant AP stealing/generation is.

Fight one, lvl 306 in Deadpool versus MPQ:



Didn't bother healing anyone, next node, lvl 266:

Unknown

over_clocked wrote:

Ah, so 2* Stormneto/Hood clock in at 13k health. But in PvE, it doesn't matter if you bring three squishies to a fight, the AI won't retaliate based on the weakness of the player's team

Here, some screenshots of how insignificant AP stealing/generation is.

Fight one, lvl 306 in Deadpool versus MPQ:



Didn't bother healing anyone, next node, lvl 266:

holy ****.....

atomzed

Wobby wrote:

Basically it's "work on 4*s" or "Level up folks you think will be fun". I keep resisting the urge to max my 3/5/5 Quicksilver because I know he is awful... But he is different than what we see every day and on that merit alone I keep considering it.

Oh boy, looks like you are not the only one who feels that QS is different (and fun). I really like the way he plays even though he doesn't win games, he allows me to have fun while playing.

I like to pair QS with GT. Match blue to charge up QS ability, and I can then do power surge with GT. I will then try to swap tiles to match those charge tiles. It was quite fun.

Unknown

daibar wrote:

I agree Cap** is underrated because LCap exists. Same with tiny torch.
Juggernaut is overrated; he's not as valuable as tiny torch unless boosted.

There are couple ways to look at it though. with juggernaut, he gets used everyday with DPD, and THEN he gets boosted at least once a month to ridiculous levels. Compare that usage to tiny torch. Sure head to head TT would be of more value...barely, but factoring in actual usage, 'd rather keep a slot for Juggs than TT (ironically I sold my TT a couple weeks ago).
- Unreall

Unknown

daibar wrote:

Hulkbuster and KK are underranked, HB criminally so. If I were to redo the top 10 myself, I'd drop Blade and Cyclops, pushing Steve to 10th. I dare say that the interim rankings are closer in terms of comparative rankings - these results seem more biased by things like - "well X-Force was at a 10, so he must be at a 8 now", whereas he was probably an 11 before, now he's a 9.5. Basically, what was '10' has shifted down. Neat to see some of the trends vindicated in both polls:

Ironically, that is why I didn't vote. I started to, but then hard a REAL hard to gauging 'what is really a 10 now', and with the large cast of characters I got 'dizzied' if you will, trying to group them. If I could fo it all over, I'd tier them first, then place them within those tiers. Functionally that's how I'm accustom to tiering anyways - it helps to establish placement as well. for instance in MvC2, you had 'God-Tier' the elite 3 if you will of Storm/Sent/Cable. Then you had top tier, which are the people who would be placing at all the tournys if that God Tier didn't exist. then the next tier ended up being godlike assist, and so fourth.

This can sort of be broken into something like this. There is the God-Tier - ironically led by 3hor, though it's less of a God tier now as he doesn't feel broken, just consistently strong, but also this would include PX, who IMO is ranked WAY too high (he's an Omega Mutant sometimes, other times, he's just a guy in a wheelchair with no hair). Then you have your top-tier, characters who everyone consistently wants, have little fear of major nerfs as they are just strong...like Luke Cage or Hood, neither is broken, both are strong, everyone wants them, but they are balanced enough that they don't break the game like XF did. Then you get to the "want on your team due to usefulness, but not scary" tier, which will ahve the PvE all stars like Blade & Steve rogers in it.

I do have some concerns about the numbers though where I think characters are poorly placed for reasons unrelated to actual placing.
- Unreall

Unknown

I guess I'll do my take on the listing now.

first off, thanks so much for all the work, I think its super beneficial to people actively working on their roster, especially those not in the know to the current meta or direction of it. I personally regurgitate this info to my alliance to help them know who's worth leveling.

1. If it wasn't so much work, I wish you could 'erase' the outliers for statistical purposes. I look at 3hor and would whipe all the votes less than 5 - to zero, they are obvious trolls. Doing so would space out or correct some of the tight races methinks. Maybe I'll do it @ work. Results are also turned a bit by players obviously not leveled (2hor getting 23 1st place votes wasn't trolling).

2. I almost feel as though if a character hasn't been around long enough to get covers like Hulkbuster, they shouldn't be votable...his position is obviously wrong and as everyone has said, it's because of ignorance.

3. Wow, some of these drops and the position of some of the old characters just stuns me. I love CMags MORE than the next guy, but I wouldn't anticipate him being that high. He's got board shake up and a really strong single target attack, but its all been matched by say Cyclops. So does that mean he should be higher or CMags lower. The Hood surprises me more than anyone. It seemed like his 'grip' on AP theft was slipping with the likes of Blade, Loki and now She-Hulk hanging on, yet there he is at 5. frankly its way too high, currently the only time AP theft seems to be effective is when STACKED (like Hood/Loki or Loki/SH or Hood/Blade), it seems AP 'generation' is the new kid in town, GSBW is enjoying a rebirth with her purple being so useful, Cyclops is turning the 'used by a few' yellow into the current in color of red, IMHB is nothing BUT generation, there is Kingpin, etc. Longer matches means stupid cascades which REALLY derail the AP theft. I fully expect him to fall next time. He's still top 10, but 5? Nah.

4. PVE All Stars - Blade and CapA - still feel too high...both are too dependant on the board/take a while to get going. I eat Captain alive, but avoid XF, heck I'd fight him over anyone else in the top 17...Blade is in the same boat and I'm a Blade stan. He's going to fall.

5. So long as HulkBombing is a thing, Hulk should be top 20...its pretty much a garunteed win against 'anything'.

6. Finally ****...Sentry at 52? Really? the nerf hurt him a lot, but he is still one of the few good 'defensive' characters, I hardly EVER get attacked when I have him in the line-up, and he's great at clearing those real tough nodes. He isn't top tier, but he isn't even as high as Juggernaut - a one star? 2* Daken? I'd argue he should be in the 30s, and only not in the 20s because of the number of new characters.

7. I wonder if 3hor is in line to get nerfed. I figure PX and IF will be.
- Unreall

Unknown

Unreallystic wrote:

I guess I'll do my take on the listing now.

first off, thanks so much for all the work, I think its super beneficial to people actively working on their roster, especially those not in the know to the current meta or direction of it. I personally regurgitate this info to my alliance to help them know who's worth leveling.

1. If it wasn't so much work, I wish you could 'erase' the outliers for statistical purposes. I look at 3hor and would whipe all the votes less than 5 - to zero, they are obvious trolls. Doing so would space out or correct some of the tight races methinks. Maybe I'll do it @ work. Results are also turned a bit by players obviously not leveled (2hor getting 23 1st place votes wasn't trolling).

2. I almost feel as though if a character hasn't been around long enough to get covers like Hulkbuster, they shouldn't be votable...his position is obviously wrong and as everyone has said, it's because of ignorance.

3. Wow, some of these drops and the position of some of the old characters just stuns me. I love CMags MORE than the next guy, but I wouldn't anticipate him being that high. He's got board shake up and a really strong single target attack, but its all been matched by say Cyclops. So does that mean he should be higher or CMags lower. The Hood surprises me more than anyone. It seemed like his 'grip' on AP theft was slipping with the likes of Blade, Loki and now She-Hulk hanging on, yet there he is at 5. frankly its way too high, currently the only time AP theft seems to be effective is when STACKED (like Hood/Loki or Loki/SH or Hood/Blade), it seems AP 'generation' is the new kid in town, GSBW is enjoying a rebirth with her purple being so useful, Cyclops is turning the 'used by a few' yellow into the current in color of red, IMHB is nothing BUT generation, there is Kingpin, etc. Longer matches means stupid cascades which REALLY derail the AP theft. I fully expect him to fall next time. He's still top 10, but 5? Nah.

4. PVE All Stars - Blade and CapA - still feel too high...both are too dependant on the board/take a while to get going. I eat Captain alive, but avoid XF, heck I'd fight him over anyone else in the top 17...Blade is in the same boat and I'm a Blade stan. He's going to fall.

5. So long as HulkBombing is a thing, Hulk should be top 20...its pretty much a garunteed win against 'anything'.

6. Finally ****...Sentry at 52? Really? the nerf hurt him a lot, but he is still one of the few good 'defensive' characters, I hardly EVER get attacked when I have him in the line-up, and he's great at clearing those real tough nodes. He isn't top tier, but he isn't even as high as Juggernaut - a one star? 2* Daken? I'd argue he should be in the 30s, and only not in the 20s because of the number of new characters.

7. I wonder if 3hor is in line to get nerfed. I figure PX and IF will be.
- Unreall

ill accept that AP gen is stronger than AP theft, already discussed cap, Blade will fall naturally as Kamala/SW/Hulkbuster rise, Hulk is about where he needs to be - he has his uses in both PVP and PVE but he needs to be looked at(after actually **** heroes are looked at), sentry is finally where he belongs, there was a rumored 3*thor nerf but honestly, thor doesn't need to be looked at. There are definite elephants in the room and just because thor is top doesn't mean he needs nerf. He didn't get a health buff which is kinda a nerf.

Ebolamonkey84

Split the votes by roster strength and posted them on the last of my reserved posts.

chill21genlee

outstanding list, very helpful and thoughtfully compiled!
One idea / suggestion for the next one might be to have players rank each character for pve and pvp uses separately..since some are way more useful on one mode or the other...the results might be very telling..and could then be amalgamated into "overall" rankings...this would also eliminate natural rating bias of players who play heavily in one mode or the other....
just a thought. .keep up the awesome work!