Comparing 3* and 5* Star-Lord

Dayv

Note: yes, this sort of duplicates the existing thread on Star-Lord purple, but I'm taking a broader view here.

As multiple people have said, it's disappointing that the two new versions of Star-Lord are so similar, much more so than for Thanos, Doctor Strange, or Hawkeye.

Here's my basic take in a nutshell: 5* Star-Lord is a surprisingly simplistic 5* design (see addendum) with a couple of good abilities and one pretty disappointing one.  He's a 5* with one 3*-level ability.  3* Star-Lord, on the other hand, is overpowered for his tier.  He's effectively a 3* with two 5* skills.

And now for the long-winded details:

Purple: this is the ho-hum, 3* level ability.  It's weird that the 5* steals one fewer special tile at five covers, but I suspect that's more of an error than by design.  At 3* tier, this power compares acceptably to things like Daredevil's purple.  At 5*, it's basically a dump skill.

How I would change purple: Leave 3* alone, but do one or both of two things to 5* purple:

• Add a passive element that complements his other powers or makes flavor sense for him.  Maybe make it mimic his jump rocket things.  How about any stun or airborne effect on Star-Lord is decreased by one turn, to a minimum of zero?
• Keep the basic active component, but have it both steal special tiles and AP, with bonus AP theft if there are no enemy tiles to steal.  "Star-Lord steals up to four enemy special tiles and six random AP.  If there are less than three enemy special tiles to steal, steal four additional AP."

Green: This is a 5* level ability.  Up to 24 tiles (that's huge) are destroyed, and friendly special tiles are exempted.  That last part is totally new, no patterned tile destroyer has completely avoided only friendly special tiles before.  I suspect that many cascades will be induced by this (at three columns destroyed) as well.

How I would change green:  This is way to powerful for a 3* character, even with the AoE damage at a tier-apropriate level.  Remove the exemption for friendly special tiles at 3*.  Also, the level tile destruction is outrageous for a 3*.  Short of a few skills (2* Storm, maybe #8 Hulk and 3* Rocket & Groot) fired with massive amount of green AP on hand, nobody outside of the highest power tiers should destroy that many tiles.  3* Star-Lord should destroy two columns at most.

Yellow: This is another 5* tier power, ill-suited to a 3* character.  Only one character, 4* Mordo, has been introduced before with an effect of creating new charged tiles of a specific color that will be on basic tiles of a known single color, and he only creates three at a time.  When used at the right time (not necessarily as soon as AP is available), those 5 new tiles will have a reasonable chance of immediate matches at a minimum gain of 5 AP per match.  Gaining 10 green AP with a single 10 yellow AP use won't be uncommon, and higher amounts are possible.  The health boost is basically a bonus, IMO, and like green's AoE damage can easily be scaled to the tier.

How I would change yellow: There's at least a few ways to bring this to an appropriate 3* power...

• Decrease the number of tiles added.
• Add more green tiles, but don't charge them.
• Add green tiles and charge green tiles, but charge a few *remaining* green tiles after any matches resolve.
• Make the power do something totally different to increase differentiation from the 5* character.  There are already multiple green tile creators in the 3* tier anyway, with Black Widow, Kamala Khan, Hulk, and Thor. This one is my favorite, even if it is the least complete suggestion.

So there you go.  I can stop letting this bother me now.  (I am lying.)

Edited for an addendum: when I say that Star-Lord is a fairly simplistic design, I don't mean that as a slight against the devs, it's a valid design, but it lacks a lot of the complexities that almost every 5* has.  No powers change to alternate versions or enhanced effects (Logan, Black Bolt, Phoenix, Spidey, Hawkeye, Widow), there are no powerful new passive abilities (Surfer, Phoenix, Black Panther, Thanos, Spidey, Widow, Hawkeye, Goblin, Banner), there are no team affiliation bonuses (I think that feature has been kind of a bust anyway, but that would be IM and Cap).  His mechanics are mostly strong, but the design seems more akin to late era 3* and mid-era 4* designs.  5* characters have generally been a playground for complicated and surprising new mechanics, and Star-Lord is a bit more... flat.

Vhailorx

Thoughtful analysis but i really think that both you and the devs are overvaluing random boardahake.  3 columns is nice, avoiding friendly specials is nice (r&g does this too), but 8k damage is inappropriate for a 12ap power.  Kk does 1/2 damage for the same cost at level 166.  SL is playing at a tier with 4x to 6x as much health, but only 2x more damage.  Random boardshake doesn't fill that gap.

And while i agree that yellow is SL's best power, i still think 3/5/5 is his best build. 3-->5 in yellow only affects the burst heal.

Dayv

Vhailorx said:

Thoughtful analysis but i really think that both you and the devs are overvaluing random boardahake.  3 columns is nice, avoiding friendly specials is nice (r&g does this too), but 8k damage is inappropriate for a 12ap power.  Kk does 1/2 damage for the same cost at level 166.  SL is playing at a tier with 4x to 6x as much health, but only 2x more damage.  Random boardshake doesn't fill that gap.

The posted  stats for Star-Lord's damage are all messed up, so I didn't consider them in my analysis.  My basic assumptions were that the actual damage and health boost numbers made sense for their tier.

And I think you undervalue board shake, especially multiple columns, as vertical matches and smashes are significantly more likely to cause cascades than rows are.  Board shake removes enemy, special tiles, generates match damage and produces AP to fire more skills.   With five stars, anything that produces extra match damage is far stronger than at other tiers.  This will be one of the best shakers in the game, if not the best.

Dayv

Vhailorx said:

And while i agree that yellow is SL's best power, i still think 3/5/5 is his best build. 3-->5 in yellow only affects the burst heal.

Agreed, for 5*.  For 3*, you'll need four yellow to get maximum tile conversion, so I'd go 4/4/5 on the 3*.

Jaedenkaal

It probably doesn't help that he's a Yellow/Purple/Green character that burst heals, generates Green, and has a green AoE.

Kamala Khan isn't even vaulted (and won't be for a long time, as she's one of the later 3*s released). How were we NOT going to compare the two, and find Star-Lord lacking?

Granted, Kamala Khan is very good, but that's no excuse. 

Vhailorx

Dayv said:

Vhailorx said:

Thoughtful analysis but i really think that both you and the devs are overvaluing random boardahake.  3 columns is nice, avoiding friendly specials is nice (r&g does this too), but 8k damage is inappropriate for a 12ap power.  Kk does 1/2 damage for the same cost at level 166.  SL is playing at a tier with 4x to 6x as much health, but only 2x more damage.  Random boardshake doesn't fill that gap.

The posted  stats for Star-Lord's damage are all messed up, so I didn't consider them in my analysis.  My basic assumptions were that the actual damage and health boost numbers made sense for their tier.

And I think you undervalue board shake, especially multiple columns, as vertical matches and smashes are significantly more likely to cause cascades than rows are.  Board shake removes enemy, special tiles, generates match damage and produces AP to fire more skills.   With five stars, anything that produces extra match damage is far stronger than at other tiers.  This will be one of the best shakers in the game, if not the best.

Well i think you OVERVALUE random boardshake!  

There are a bunch of powers in the game that have randomized boardshake.  Xfw, rags, r&g, etc.  Sometimes they are very helpful, sometimes they are useless.  Overall they tend to be a weak link in their characters' kits.  One notable exception is juggs' green, which is great if and when it costs 6 ap.  Remember when a bug made it cost 10ap?  It sucked.

24 tiles is more than most. And that's good.  But at 12 ap, it's too expensive to spam.  And it will therefore still be unreliable, and therefore not something that can ever be a central part of any strategy.

Also, i don't think random columns will be any more likely to result in cascades than would random rows.

Quebbster

@Jaedenkaal- someone has to be removed from the three-star token pool to make room for Star-Lord, you just convinced me it will be Kamala. I know they chose Loki last time since he was oldest, but that's not a guarantee it will always be the oldest character.

DrDevilDinosaur

Thanks for your analysis.

I certainly feel like this is the "laziest" 3/5 duo we've received to date. I was certainly disappointed that the 5* does have any new/unique mechanics (which has almost been a hallmark of 5* characters). Destroying swathes of tiles but keeping any friendly specials is certainly unique in execution, but mechanically it's comparable to a lot that we have seen before - as opposed to, say, Thanos preventing tile change/destruction, Banner's whole character change, or Surfer's immunity to Stun. Your suggestion to give Peter "resistance" to Airborne status would have been a unique enough ability to make him interesting.

Before the reveal, I had been expecting that 5* Star-Lord would get a "Guardians Assemble!" type ability - while it's not unique for the tier, I think this would have been a better way to give him one of those "little bit of everything" type abilities which seems to be the flavour they were going for with each of his abilities. You could do Strike tiles from Gamora, CD bomb tiles from Rocket, Stun from Drax, Burst Healing from Groot (the dancing improves everyone's spirits), and crit tiles from Yondu.