Battle Of The Bads

TLCstormz

Who out bads who? Who is the most bad? Who is the baddest of the baddies? Etc etc etc.

How would you rank the following older "bad" characters :

Doctor Octopus
New Beast
Old Beast
Ragnorak
Psylocke

Also, are any of the following characters as bad as the list above :

Punisher
Gamora
Gray Suit
Daredevil
3*Captain Marvel
3*Iron Man
Sentry

I didn't include the newer characters that people consider bad, but they are the following, correct :

3*Bullseye
Vision
Quicksilver

TLCstormz

On a personal note............

In my time of playing MPQ, I have gotten about 7 Beast covers. I always felt he was bad, so I always sold him. Even after having him covered like 1 / 2 / 1 as an Essential Character, I sold him again.

In my very first week of downloading this game, I got a Psylocke. It was her Blue and I just KNEW that one was tinykitten. Sold right away. And now, super randomly, I have her red coming in my Daily Rewards tomorrow, I have a Blue for her Essential Node, and 2 tokens just brought me a Black and another Red.

Should I actually keep this "bad" character, this time around? I definitely do not want to, but hopefully she'd be in the next set of Character Tweaks or maybe fixed up for X-Men Apocalypse?

Is 2 / 1 / 1 worth the roster space? The node in DDQ does not justify people, for me personally. Does it for you?

By the way, I also used to always sell Octavius, but stopped. He's now rostered with 9 covers. Yuck. If I am sticking to my guns, shouldn't I sell the Psylockes AND my DocOcks, just the same as I would Beast or Rags or etc? Are those 4 equally terrible, or are DocOck and Psylocke the better ones?

Unknown

TLCstormz wrote:

On a personal note............

In my time of playing MPQ, I have gotten about 7 Beast covers. I always felt he was bad, so I always sold him. Even after having him covered like 1 / 2 / 1 as an Essential Character, I sold him again.

In my very first week of downloading this game, I got a Psylocke. It was her Blue and I just KNEW that one was tinykitten. Sold right away. And now, super randomly, I have her red coming in my Daily Rewards tomorrow, I have a Blue for her Essential Node, and 2 tokens just brought me a Black and another Red.

Should I actually keep this "bad" character, this time around? I definitely do not want to, but hopefully she'd be in the next set of Character Tweaks or maybe fixed up for X-Men Apocalypse?

Is 2 / 1 / 1 worth the roster space? The node in DDQ does not justify people, for me personally. Does it for you?

By the way, I also used to always sell Octavius, but stopped. He's now rostered with 9 covers. Yuck. If I am sticking to my guns, shouldn't I sell the Psylockes AND my DocOcks, just the same as I would Beast or Rags or etc? Are those 4 equally terrible, or are DocOck and Psylocke the better ones?

Personally, I try to keep all the 3*. Kinda like completing your pokedex. There might be some below average toons ("BATs"), but they will be featured in DDQ at some point, So i make it a point never to skip any day of DDQ.

On a side note, a few of the BATs are pretty decent when boosted. for instance Dococks is pretty rad when boosted, can easily hit 8k damage with his blue and a board full of enemy tiles. Psyduck is also pretty nasty when boosted. Pretty cheap to use too.

Vhailorx

I second deadpoooooool: keeping every 3* and 4* is the most efficient way to build a roster in this game. It can suck to "waste" a roster slot on a grossly undercovered character for months, but in the long run its the only way to build efficiently because the cover pulls are random.

Of course, availability of money/HP is a personal decision, and you should do whatever you are comfortable with. Regardless of how much you spend, I do recommend using all of your HP for roster slots (and eventually shielding when you are in a good pvp alliance and get more HP per event) and hoarding tokens when you can't afford to buy a roster slot if you pull a new character.

as for the specific questions, I would rank them (the asterisks indicate characters that I haven't ever used significantly at 13/13 with an optimal build):

Psylocke
==GAP==
Doctor Octopus*
New Beast*
Old Rags
Old Beast*
New Rags

Punisher, Gamora, GSBW and Daredevil are all about as good as psylocke and significantly better than the other characters. IM40 and Cap Marvel are both similar to Doc Oc and New Beast. They don't suck horribly, but they aren't good enough to be worth leveling except when featured in PVP. They all have a couple of useful/fun tricks.

Sentry is theoretically useful in PVP defense because his red still does massive damage to everyone and is a deterrent (especially when boosted), but he is a real pain to use and just not that good even for that function (and there are many better options).

over_clocked

Are you kidding me?
As someone who has used all 3*s except maybe Bullseye and Vision, extensively, who are both decent tier, by the way, Vision average tier at that, the worst 3*s are easily, in no particular order:

Psylocke
Sentry
Octopus
Spider-Man & Falcon (mostly due to no offense)
Iron Man 40
Quicksilver (has his uses though and excels at those uses)

Psylocke is the one who I feel is the most unnecessary, the least interesting of the bunch.

New Beast, Daredevil, Gamora, GSBW are leagues above the likes of Psylocke. Psylocke's only merit is that she can produce attack tiles somewhat fast. I use them all the time when not buffed; I hate to use Psylocke even when she's buffed.
Ragnarok is mediocre when standalone but he's an all-star team player (just don't use his green). I wouldn't put him lower than Bullseye, Quicksilver or Punisher.

Der_Lex

I have to disagree with adding Falcon to any 'worst' list. Sure, he's not a good pvp character, but he's a fantastic support character for goon nodes in PvE, especially when paired with Kingpin.

Vhailorx

Over_clocked:

I agree that vision is not quite as bad as most people think. His blue is actually a decent power. His biggest problem is that he is worse than useless on defense on because the ai is so dumb.

I disagree with you on psylocke. Overall she is a little underwhelming because her blue is so useless most of the time. But her red and black synergize very well. And her black is the second fasted way to get an attack tile, after only IF. It's a limited use set, but how is it any worse than IM40's use a red battery. Or Ock's use as another attack tile generator (better than psylocke, but only if the other team makes special tiles).

I rate psylocke above them all because, despite all her faults, she is fast and has a decent color mix. that makes her a useful third in more situations.

As for new rags, he has his uses as both a green and blue battery, but IMO there is almost always something better to do with blue and red ap. He is just such a mess post change that I can't warm up to him

Orion

Der_Lex wrote:

I have to disagree with adding Falcon to any 'worst' list. Sure, he's not a good pvp character, but he's a fantastic support character for goon nodes in PvE, especially when paired with Kingpin.

Even in PvP he's pretty good with Cage and Blade or Fist. Or even Daken. Heck, anyone who spams special tiles is a good partner for Falcon. He's not top tier, but he's far from the worst in PvP or PvE.

Malcrof

I really have to disagree with Doc Oc being on that list. Patch + Doc Oc = death to even the most overscaled goon node or daken/bullseye node. He is insanely useful since the buff and i use him regularly. got the 1500 iso node done in current iso-8 brother hood , taking 0 damage with Patch/Doc/QS

Still waiting for enough covers to try out beast for real.

W4LAndre

IMO Daredevil isn't someone I'd consider to be in contention for being in the honorable mention group for "baddest of the bad". He isn't by any means excellent but at 5 purple he can wreck Malcrof's aforementioned daken/bullseye teams, as well as other special tile spammers. I enjoy bringing him out to play in events like Cat. 5 where mohawk storm seems to always get to use hailstorm. He also does a decent job of eliminating specials when facing Ultron prime and his goonbots, although with that only having been run three times, it isn't really a large enough sample size since any single player hasn't faced Prime (with his goonbots, I forgot about the Gauntlet) more than 24 times. It isn't quite as effective as stealing specials like Loki does, but his health is much better. His red is really hit or miss, in my case usually more miss, so I tend to go with a better red user. Blue is similar, it is nice if the CD stays out, but there are better blue users out there. Then again, maybe I just like him because I think he is fun to use. I suppose his situational usefulness is why I never really see him in high level PVP.

EDIT: I forgot that he was in the Gauntlet, I never made it that far

Malcrof

W4L Andre wrote:

it isn't really a large enough sample size since any single player hasn't faced Prime more than 24 times.

think we are up to 26, he was in a gauntlet node, and a DP vs everyone node.

Vhailorx

Malcrof wrote:

I really have to disagree with Doc Oc being on that list. Patch + Doc Oc = death to even the most overscaled goon node or daken/bullseye node. He is insanely useful since the buff and i use him regularly. got the 1500 iso node done in current iso-8 brother hood , taking 0 damage with Patch/Doc/QS

Still waiting for enough covers to try out beast for real.

Let's not go crazy here. Insult to injury is a very solid power, but did still isn't great. His blue is a bit overpriced for what it does (unless the board is filled with enemy specials), and his green isn't even as good as the blue. He has some niche uses, but that is true of everyone is this list. I do think that doc and psylocke are two best of these, but I put pslyocke's speed and utility as a general complimentary player above doc of. It is subject though, and doc maybe should move above the gap in my previous list.

He is definitely kryptonite for mostorm, and a very good pair with patch or carnage.

Vhailorx

Malcrof wrote:

W4L Andre wrote:

it isn't really a large enough sample size since any single player hasn't faced Prime more than 24 times.

think we are up to 26, he was in a gauntlet node, and a DP vs everyone node.

25 unless you are in "the best" or "deadpoolstacos". That imhb run was insanely difficult.

Colognoisseur

I have to agree with over_clocked these so-called "bad" characters suffer from being underleveled and unloved by the people on the forums and Facebook.

As one who has them leveled I can tell you there in not one 3* character that doesn't have a use for me somewhere in MPQ. I'm not talking as meat shield either. I have teams which employ all of them not only effectively but repeatedly.

There is an old saying that when the only tool you have is a hammer every problem looks like a nail.

When you have a more complete toolbox you might find there are some more interesting team compositions besides the ones everyone talks about.

I would encourage people to experiment especially in the early days of shield sim. You have nothing to lose if a team of "bad" characters bite the dust in the first few days. You might have a lot more to gain if you find out you have more than a hammer in your toolbox.

Vhailorx

Colog, I don't think most of the people in this thread are saying these characters are bad (title notwithstanding). I think I said that they all have their uses.

That doesn't change the fact that these are the weakest 3*s in the game (with some room for debate about at the margins). They all have significant drawbacks and limitations. These characters work well in specific circumstances, but are pretty bad outside of those scenarios. By contrast, the best 3*s (iron fist, khan, bp, lazy thor, cage, cmags, cyclops, etc) are all awesome in specific circumstances, but they are also perfectly functional in basically any situation.

(disclaimer, I don't have every 3* maxed, but I do have 30+ covered and make a point of running them in sim and easy pve nodes to try different teams. I feel moderately well qualified to comment on the value most 3*s.)

GrumpySmurf1002

over_clocked wrote:

the worst 3*s are easily, in no particular order:
Psylocke
Sentry
Octopus
Spider-Man & Falcon (mostly due to no offense)
Iron Man 40
Quicksilver (has his uses though and excels at those uses)

This looks close to the list I would think of. I'd probably replace Octopus and/or Sentry with Hulk. I know Hulk bombing, big health yadda yadda, I think he's terrible.

On a PvE list, for sure Falcon comes off.

Unknown

How does gsbw even get on a list of possible worst caharcters in the game. Her maxed green does 4k+ to lead bad guy and an additional 3k+ to the rest of the opponent team. And her purple feeds her green as well as adding as many as 3 crits to the board at the same time. She may not be top tier because of her green cost and average health but she's not near the bottom either.

Phaserhawk

Vhailorx wrote:

Over_clocked:

I agree that vision is not quite as bad as most people think. His blue is actually a decent power. His biggest problem is that he is worse than useless on defense on because the ai is so dumb.

I disagree with you on psylocke. Overall she is a little underwhelming because her blue is so useless most of the time. But her red and black synergize very well. And her black is the second fasted way to get an attack tile, after only IF. It's a limited use set, but how is it any worse than IM40's use a red battery. Or Ock's use as another attack tile generator (better than psylocke, but only if the other team makes special tiles).

I rate psylocke above them all because, despite all her faults, she is fast and has a decent color mix. that makes her a useful third in more situations.

As for new rags, he has his uses as both a green and blue battery, but IMO there is almost always something better to do with blue and red ap. He is just such a mess post change that I can't warm up to him

Vision only needs Attack protocol to do more dmg. As is it's 271 per AP, thats terrible, you can't really mess with the cost because then the density and light secondary costs start to get out of line, but I think it should be at least 300 to 350 per AP dmg. Cyc is sitting at 428 per AP and he accelerates into his, and he's only got 425 less hit points then Vision. Vision's other problem is that he needs to be tanking to be worthwhile, because if anyone has ever eaten a cascade with Vision's Density tile out is well aware of how much that can hurt.

Malcrof

Phaserhawk wrote:

Vhailorx wrote:

Over_clocked:

I agree that vision is not quite as bad as most people think. His blue is actually a decent power. His biggest problem is that he is worse than useless on defense on because the ai is so dumb.

I disagree with you on psylocke. Overall she is a little underwhelming because her blue is so useless most of the time. But her red and black synergize very well. And her black is the second fasted way to get an attack tile, after only IF. It's a limited use set, but how is it any worse than IM40's use a red battery. Or Ock's use as another attack tile generator (better than psylocke, but only if the other team makes special tiles).

I rate psylocke above them all because, despite all her faults, she is fast and has a decent color mix. that makes her a useful third in more situations.

As for new rags, he has his uses as both a green and blue battery, but IMO there is almost always something better to do with blue and red ap. He is just such a mess post change that I can't warm up to him

Vision only needs Attack protocol to do more dmg. As is it's 271 per AP, thats terrible, you can't really mess with the cost because then the density and light secondary costs start to get out of line, but I think it should be at least 300 to 350 per AP dmg. Cyc is sitting at 428 per AP and he accelerates into his, and he's only got 425 less hit points then Vision. Vision's other problem is that he needs to be tanking to be worthwhile, because if anyone has ever eaten a cascade with Vision's Density tile out is well aware of how much that can hurt.

SW/QS/Vision are an amazing team to use. Vision tanks all his colors, actives on every color, 2 passives, each has an AOE, and none of the powers are overpriced AP wise.

I think they were made this way on purpose, to work as a unit, and they are mighty effective.

Vhailorx

That's true malcrof, insofar as those three character do have nicely overlapping powers. But plenty of teams have rainbow actives and decent synergy. Vision remains terrible on defense and harder to use offensively than other characters with his same colors (e.g. cmags). And when you can pick all e members of a team, there are generally better ways to go (imhb/cage/if for well balanced rainbow team, imhb/if/cyclops for ALL OFFENSE; switch/deadpool/cmags to accelerate into a massive aoe nuke, gsbw/switch/prof x to abuse the floating head). It just isn't a team worth using unless it is boosted, or you have a shallow roster, or you are at the end of a clear and want to conserve healthpack for your a-team.

This isn't to criticize your suggestion. Its a fine team. I just think that it's worth pointing out that weaker characters are still weak. They just aren't worthless.

Malcrof

Vhailorx wrote:

That's true malcrof, insofar as those three character do have nicely overlapping powers. But plenty of teams have rainbow actives and decent synergy. Vision remains terrible on defense and harder to use offensively than other characters with his same colors (e.g. cmags). And when you can pick all e members of a team, there are generally better ways to go (imhb/cage/if for well balanced rainbow team, imhb/if/cyclops for ALL OFFENSE; switch/deadpool/cmags to accelerate into a massive aoe nuke, gsbw/switch/prof x to abuse the floating head). It just isn't a team worth using unless it is boosted, or you have a shallow roster, or you are at the end of a clear and want to conserve healthpack for your a-team.

This isn't to criticize your suggestion. Its a fine team. I just think that it's worth pointing out that weaker characters are still weak. They just aren't worthless.

every team is bad on defense, and every team is good on defense.. if you shield, it doesn't even matter how you got there or with whom.

as for PVE, once again, you use the team you like, and everyone has uses. Shield sim is where i play around with loads of different teams.. Used the SW/QS/Vision team in BoP a bit, and did get a defensive win, but got beat some as well. It is all about playstyle and preferences.

I cannot wait to get my Bullseye fully covered and leveled, Cage, BE, Daken will be a team i use very regularly.