A Mostly Accurate 4* Ranking (Final Update 8/11/18)

dadows

gravel said:

Jarvind said:

Not game-related, but the top tier now has the ladies outnumbering the fellas 8 to 7 - I'm counting Cloak & Dagger as one of each. Girl power, y'all.

This got me thinking, it's funny because several of the better characters are female in the 4* tier, but in the 5* tier, there are 2.  Not 2 of the top x, just 2 of 22. 

3 actually: phx, jj, bw

Anon

So when are we getting an update? A whole bunch of characters have been released.

Rockwell75

Anon said:

So when are we getting an update? A whole bunch of characters have been released.

This ranking list isn't "official"...it's done by a forum user who updates it sporadically if and when he has the time.

Yepyep

Rockwell75 said:

Anon said:

So when are we getting an update? A whole bunch of characters have been released.

This ranking list isn't "official"...it's done by a forum user who updates it sporadically if and when he has the time.

Exactly. And should be treated as a most generous, entirely undeserved gift. Only gratitude should be expressed to @Jarvind for what we've already been given -- holding no expectation for future contributions.

Anyway, that's how I view it... I cringed at your tone, @Anon.

Jarvind

Yepyep said:

Rockwell75 said:

Anon said:

So when are we getting an update? A whole bunch of characters have been released.

This ranking list isn't "official"...it's done by a forum user who updates it sporadically if and when he has the time.

Exactly. And should be treated as a most generous, entirely undeserved gift. Only gratitude should be expressed to @Jarvind for what we've already been given -- holding no expectation for future contributions.

Anyway, that's how I view it... I cringed at your tone, @Anon.

While I appreciate the defense @Yepyep , based on @Anon's previous posts in the thread, I don't think they meant to sound demanding, just curious as to when I would update next.

That said, I was just looking over my roster and realized there have been four or five releases since I last tweaked this, so I'll probably make an effort to squeeze them in and maybe move one or two out of NYR over the weekend. 

It gets increasingly harder to rank these accurately the more the number swells and the more I continue to not use them much due to being in 5* land, but at the very least I think we can all agree that Chavez belongs in the top tier.

Anon

I apologize if my tone came out wrong, but it wasn't negative at all. I've been active in this thread for a while and sincerely thank Jarvind for it. I wasn't trying to be a ****. I was legitimately asking if a new update was in the works.

Yepyep

Jarvind said:

Yepyep said:

Rockwell75 said:

Anon said:

So when are we getting an update? A whole bunch of characters have been released.

This ranking list isn't "official"...it's done by a forum user who updates it sporadically if and when he has the time.

Exactly. And should be treated as a most generous, entirely undeserved gift. Only gratitude should be expressed to @Jarvind for what we've already been given -- holding no expectation for future contributions.

Anyway, that's how I view it... I cringed at your tone, @Anon.

While I appreciate the defense @Yepyep , based on @Anon's previous posts in the thread, I don't think they meant to sound demanding, just curious as to when I would update next.

That said, I was just looking over my roster and realized there have been four or five releases since I last tweaked this, so I'll probably make an effort to squeeze them in and maybe move one or two out of NYR over the weekend. 

It gets increasingly harder to rank these accurately the more the number swells and the more I continue to not use them much due to being in 5* land, but at the very least I think we can all agree that Chavez belongs in the top tier.

And I hadn't read up in quite a long time, so: apologies if I mistook your tone, @Anon.

YES as to Chavez. I think I use her more than any other character at this point! Wowser... I would put her top-5 and possibly top-3, but at that point it becomes a subjective, play-style thing. For example. I'd guess that, while I don't personally use her all that much anymore as my collection of 4*s grows, C4rol is still probably #1 or #2 for a lot of people.

Anon

Yepyep said:

Jarvind said:

Yepyep said:

Rockwell75 said:

Anon said:

So when are we getting an update? A whole bunch of characters have been released.

This ranking list isn't "official"...it's done by a forum user who updates it sporadically if and when he has the time.

Exactly. And should be treated as a most generous, entirely undeserved gift. Only gratitude should be expressed to @Jarvind for what we've already been given -- holding no expectation for future contributions.

Anyway, that's how I view it... I cringed at your tone, @Anon.

While I appreciate the defense @Yepyep , based on @Anon's previous posts in the thread, I don't think they meant to sound demanding, just curious as to when I would update next.

That said, I was just looking over my roster and realized there have been four or five releases since I last tweaked this, so I'll probably make an effort to squeeze them in and maybe move one or two out of NYR over the weekend. 

It gets increasingly harder to rank these accurately the more the number swells and the more I continue to not use them much due to being in 5* land, but at the very least I think we can all agree that Chavez belongs in the top tier.

And I hadn't read up in quite a long time, so: apologies if I mistook your tone, @Anon.

YES as to Chavez. I think I use her more than any other character at this point! Wowser... I would put her top-5 and possibly top-3, but at that point it becomes a subjective, play-style thing. For example. I'd guess that, while I don't personally use her all that much anymore as my collection of 4*s grows, C4rol is still probably #1 or #2 for a lot of people.

All good. I can definitely see how it could be interpreted negatively. I love this thread and have been following for a while. We've had numerous releases since the last update so I was curious if we were getting another update anytime soon. That's all.

Straycat

Said this on his character ranking thread, but maybe OP and @Daredevil217 should collab. He's set in the 4* tier, so he could handle the ranking and suggested build and jarvind does the character description. Less pressure on jarvind and more updates for the forum.

zodiac339

For a 5* player, Chavez is definitely a top 5. Punch Everyone becomes useless, but granting crit damage to 5*s more than makes up for the loss of the ability. Valkyrie takes a similar position, tossing out strikes from enemy match damage and generating AP relatively quickly from your match damage (if you pay attention to the Bounty Hunter target and can afford to switch to it). The better question though is: how do the four-star characters rate when played as four-star characters? Chavez’s usefulness as a 4* with other 4*s is considerably lower. Carol and Mockingbird have, not just incredibly terrifying damage moves, but they force you to take care in how you play. Rogue is horribly frustrating to deal with due to that passive, and her AP blocking/damage blast is abusive. Vulture turns into a one-man murder machine if you don’t keep black AP under control. Peggy’s capacity to slow the game pace until that game-ending blue comes out is top notch. Cloak and Dagger quickly turn up the damage with Child of Darkness’ attack tile spam with nice dual utility/AOE from Light Knives, and Darkness Hungers can shut an enemy right down for a while, letting Child of Light heal up. Mordo has a lot of damage to offer, and becomes even better as more passives define the meta, giving his purple bigger AP pools to nuke with. Iceman is still a bit of a solo monster.
Chavez, reliant on match 4s, tanking her strongest colors, and hoarding AP just doesn’t offer as much in the 4* tier. Opinion.

Jarvind

zodiac339 said:

For a 5* player, Chavez is definitely a top 5. Punch Everyone becomes useless, but granting crit damage to 5*s more than makes up for the loss of the ability. Valkyrie takes a similar position, tossing out strikes from enemy match damage and generating AP relatively quickly from your match damage (if you pay attention to the Bounty Hunter target and can afford to switch to it). The better question though is: how do the four-star characters rate when played as four-star characters? Chavez’s usefulness as a 4* with other 4*s is considerably lower. Carol and Mockingbird have, not just incredibly terrifying damage moves, but they force you to take care in how you play. Rogue is horribly frustrating to deal with due to that passive, and her AP blocking/damage blast is abusive. Vulture turns into a one-man murder machine if you don’t keep black AP under control. Peggy’s capacity to slow the game pace until that game-ending blue comes out is top notch. Cloak and Dagger quickly turn up the damage with Child of Darkness’ attack tile spam with nice dual utility/AOE from Light Knives, and Darkness Hungers can shut an enemy right down for a while, letting Child of Light heal up. Mordo has a lot of damage to offer, and becomes even better as more passives define the meta, giving his purple bigger AP pools to nuke with. Iceman is still a bit of a solo monster.
Chavez, reliant on match 4s, tanking her strongest colors, and hoarding AP just doesn’t offer as much in the 4* tier. Opinion.

I don't disagree with any of that, and most of the characters you mentioned are in the top tier already. Chavez is definitely most useful to a 5* player, but she's still pretty beast at the 4* level. Crits in 4* land certainly aren't as devastating, but they're hardly negligible either, and crit tiles make match-4s and -5s much easier to pull off due to their colorlessness. Plus, combined with Punch Everyone she actually has the ability to crank them up significantly higher than normal. 

I will say that I find her yellow to be fairly goofy at any tier. It goes off more than I originally anticipated, but it still requires so much setup that it's not worth banking on. It's a "nice when it happens" ability at best.

Sidlon

I think it’s worth noting that most “4* players” still have the option of cleaning house with Chavez with a couple low-leveled, low-covered 5*s.   My highest 5* is level290, but I’ll still regularly pair Chavez with the PU 5*, and whatever 5* covers the other 3 colors.

Yepyep

Sidlon said:

I think it’s worth noting that most “4* players” still have the option of cleaning house with Chavez with a couple low-leveled, low-covered 5*s.   My highest 5* is level290, but I’ll still regularly pair Chavez with the PU 5*, and whatever 5* covers the other 3 colors.

Moi. C'est moi. (Because Chavez is French, non?)

lastbreath

Need an advise, please.

I want to collect Quake, but I have to sacrifice one of next characters: Nova, Chavez or Kraven. Does it have any sense? And if so, who should I choose to remove?
Thanks!

Jarvind

lastbreath said:

Need an advise, please.

I want to collect Quake, but I have to sacrifice one of next characters: Nova, Chavez or Kraven. Does it have any sense? And if so, who should I choose to remove?
Thanks!

I mean, I would just collect the 1k HP and buy another roster slot. You should be able to get that much in the 2 weeks before a cover expires.

I guess if you absolutely have to toss somebody, I'd lose Kraven out of that group.

Quebbster

Jarvind said:

lastbreath said:

Need an advise, please.

I want to collect Quake, but I have to sacrifice one of next characters: Nova, Chavez or Kraven. Does it have any sense? And if so, who should I choose to remove?
Thanks!

I mean, I would just collect the 1k HP and buy another roster slot. You should be able to get that much in the 2 weeks before a cover expires.

I guess if you absolutely have to toss somebody, I'd lose Kraven out of that group.

Yeah, Chavez is a must keep and Nova is very fun, so Kraven would be the loser by default in this situation.

Yepyep

Quebbster said:

Yeah, Chavez is a must keep and Nova is very fun, so Kraven would be the loser by default in this situation.

I'd guess that Chavez is my most used character (and has been for a month or so). Easily so in PVE, though I don't think I've ever used her in PVP.

I'm really looking forward to champing Nova; he's finally fully covered and I have one on the vine but I don't think I'll be able to get to him this time... As ever, ISO is tight.

I have no idea what Kraven's coverage situation is, don't care, have never used him unless required, and don't plan to. He's in a ****-off with Sandman for my most disliked character. Perhaps not wholly justified, but I just don't like them -- I dislike their powers, their art, everything.

Jarvind

Buttdate:

- Added Black Panther, Shuri, Valkyrie, and Jubilee to Not Yet Rated.
- Moved out of NYR: America Chavez at 7th, Main Event Hulk at 39th, Nightcrawler at 46th, and Kraven the Hunter at 55th.
- Various minor description updates that  I won't bother listing.

Maximus7481

Thanks for the update

Yepyep

Very cool, @Jarvind, thanks!

I'm not suggesting you undertake this, but there almost should be a separate ranking for "while boosted." Certain characters become absolutley lethal, seemingly out of proportion to their utility unboosted. For example: Mordo. He's just incredible boosted, in my opinion, probably top-10, while he's decidedly mid-tier unboosted. I just champed MEH, and he, too, is just deadly boosted but almost useless unboosted. These two are easily contrasted with Carol, Vulture, and America, to pick 3, who are all so good unboosted that their boosts are relatively anticlimactic (not trying to overstate this -- they're obviously incredible boosted). And it isn't just that these 3 are already at the top of the ranking -- a character like Iceman, already near the top normally, becomes the best 4* of all when boosted (in my opinion! lol). It's an interesting dynamic I'm thoroughly enjoying discovering as I deepen my 4* bench (I have 26 now, I think).