Is Sandman the worst 4* in the game?

Warbringa

So playing this PvE, I have struggled with the loaner node consisting of Sandman, Captain America and Doc Ock.  I have won both times I have played but barely each time.  Normally the loaner nodes aren't too hard and are supposed to showcase the essentials since they are boosted well above the AI.  

I think that the main problem is that Sandman is just so terrible.  I know Doc Ock and Cap aren't anything special either but really a 4* should be enough to win the match against lower level non-4* opponents (Cage, Hawkeye and someone else I can't remember).  

I think this alone show how bad Sandman is and I hope they re-work him to at least make him better.  His green needs more damage or significant AP reduction. His yellow power needs a complete rework.  His purple may be ok if they make his yellow power good enough imo. 

aa25

Warbringa said:

:snip:

I think this alone show how bad Sandman is and I hope they re-work him to at least make him better.  His green needs more damage or significant AP reduction. His yellow power needs a complete rework.  His purple may be ok if they make his yellow power good enough imo. 

He is a bad 4* certainly, but mostly because of his counter-productive yellow and okay-ish purple. His green damage output per ap is decent (383 per ap per target). For reference, Rulk's green deals 7333 for 18 ap (407 per ap per target). For PvE node, just stick with his green and you'll be fine.

If you have a problem with the loaner node, I thin it is because another poor-synergy team.

Sim Mayor

Wow, I'm kind of surprised I'm saying this, but I've been having exactly the opposite reaction to this mission. I have been resenting every Sandman cover that showed up when I wanted someone else, so that I currently only have him at 5/0/3 (due to selling a few early covers before I rostered him). But being forced to play him in the loaner node and his required node have convinced me that he's tactically ok.

Like aa25 says, his green does decent damage to the whole team, plus scores a stun against your choice of enemy, and 9AP isn't too much of a reach. His yellow allows me to choose tactically whether I want protect tiles or if I'm ok sacrificing them to score a decent amount of damage; granted, I wish it was 1AP cheaper, but beggars and choosers and all that.

I'm not sold on his purple (I've never had a chance to use it, even in the loaner node), but I guess as a feeder to make his yellow cheaper, it's not bad. I wish it had another backup ability, or a passive or something. But for 8AP it's not a deal-breaker.

Is Sandman suddenly gonna make it to the front of my roster? Nope. Will I complain every time I get a cover for him or I'm forced to use him in an event? Not anymore.

DesertTortoise

Sandman's fine. I can't believe people with undercovered loaners haven't figured out to wait until after you've champed them and played them during a boost week to gauge their value given how important boosts are to 4-star rosters. Agent Venom went through this, Iron Fist went through this and now Sandman's going through this. He's not perfect but he performs okay boosted. His green is solid as is, his purple is a legit good at what it does and his yellow is a bit of a mess. He also has a massive healthpool which is probably a reason his damage isn't as efficient as some other characters. 

Here are the main questions 4-star characters should be held to:

• Are they more useful boosted than top tier characters are unboosted?
• Do they have a role or niche that can assist boosted characters when they are unboosted?

Sandman can say yes to both of those. His green, when boosted, is great. His purple, boosted or not, is a solid yellow battery. His yellow is weird and could end up being okay with future additions to the tier, like if someone has a 3-star Luke Cage red passive power his yellow would deal damage every time it's fired. As is, he's a great green user when boosted and purple into yellow battery whether he's boosted or not. He's not fantastic but he's not even in the discussion of worst 4-star in the game. If, I had a boosted team that leaned on yellow and needed a green outlet, I wouldn't hesitate to plug 5/5/3 Sandman in there. 

Quick notes:

• 304 Blade boosted to 405's green: 7,121 damage
• 272 Sandman boosted to 377's green: 7,498 damage

No one complains about Blade's green, there's value in its conditional true heal but I don't think anyone will argue that a 2-turn stun doesn't have at least as much utility. 

Tiger_Wong

The answer is no. 

Jarvind

DesertTortoise said:

Sandman's fine. I can't believe people with undercovered loaners haven't figured out to wait until after you've champed them and played them during a boost week to gauge their value given how important boosts are to 4-star rosters. Agent Venom went through this, Iron Fist went through this and now Sandman's going through this. 

This is why I stopped trying to rate characters I hadn't champed yet in my ranking thingy. I dunno about anyone else in 4* territory, but I realistically don't really use anyone if they aren't champed and boosted - the only ones I occasionally dust off outside a boost week are Peggy, Iceman, Medusa and Nova.

Sandman is definitely not a powerhouse must-have character, but like pretty much every 4*, he'll be usable boosted. I still maintain that Agent Venom is pretty mediocre and his AP-juggling mechanic is too gimmicky for him to ever be great, but the fact is that his black is a pretty strong power when he's got the boost - much as I don't like him, I'm still gonna use him over an unboosted pretty-much-anybody.

granne

I was impressed by Sandman's green when he was released, but wasn't particularly looking forward to champing him. I did champ him a couple of weeks ago, though, but hadn't played with him until DPvMPQ. I'm now very impressed by his green and more taken with his other two powers than I was before. Is he top tier? No, nowhere close, but he's solid and good at what he does.

Oh, and Agent Venom is fantastic. Fight me.

Straycat

DesertTortoise said:

Sandman's fine. I can't believe people with undercovered loaners haven't figured out to wait until after you've champed them and played them during a boost week to gauge their value given how important boosts are to 4-star rosters. Agent Venom went through this, Iron Fist went through this and now Sandman's going through this. He's not perfect but he performs okay boosted. His green is solid as is, his purple is a legit good at what it does and his yellow is a bit of a mess. He also has a massive healthpool which is probably a reason his damage isn't as efficient as some other characters. 

Here are the main questions 4-star characters should be held to:

• Are they more useful boosted than top tier characters are unboosted?
• Do they have a role or niche that can assist boosted characters when they are unboosted?

Sandman can say yes to both of those. His green, when boosted, is great. His purple, boosted or not, is a solid yellow battery. His yellow is weird and could end up being okay with future additions to the tier, like if someone has a 3-star Luke Cage red passive power his yellow would deal damage every time it's fired. As is, he's a great green user when boosted and purple into yellow battery whether he's boosted or not. He's not fantastic but he's not even in the discussion of worst 4-star in the game. If, I had a boosted team that leaned on yellow and needed a green outlet, I wouldn't hesitate to plug 5/5/3 Sandman in there. 

Quick notes:

• 304 Blade boosted to 405's green: 7,121 damage
• 272 Sandman boosted to 377's green: 7,498 damage

No one complains about Blade's green, there's value in its conditional true heal but I don't think anyone will argue that a 2-turn stun doesn't have at least as much utility. 

Just to be a huge pedant; the pve loaners are covered. Sandman is 5/3/5 in the loaner node. Agent venom's big problem was that loaners in pve are 1/1/1 so his ap threshold is at its lowest. And Switch was boosted at the time, so AV was dumping purple ap before she could reality crush.

For the most part, I agree that Sandman isn't that bad. People tend to really underrate characters if they have a "useless" power. Thats why Riri, Mordo and Spidergwen were so hated before their reworks. And Sandman is self accelerating towards his useless power, which highlights how bad it is. His yellow is not good on its own, and its pretty poorly designed. I think characters should have higher standards than "are they usable boosted?".The worst 4* in the game is still usable when they're 100 levels higher than everyone else. I haven't tried him champed, but for now he's a contender for the worst 4* on my rankings. 

People don't complain about Blades green because its his 2nd best power. It looks like Sandman is only useful for high health and his green, so it definitely feels underwhelming.

moss04

He'd be fine if they fixed his yellow.  Here's two decent options:
1) Reduce the AP cost (by 2 or 3 perhaps)
2) Change mechanic to: Destroy all defense tiles on the board dealing some damage for each, then create 3 defense tiles

I like option 2 because it allows the power to be useful solo but also retains synergy with other defense tile creators, which is the only way to make it any good currently.

EDIT: It might also be interesting if it destroyed _all_ defense tiles instead of only the ones you control...

DesertTortoise

Straycat said:

DesertTortoise said:

Sandman's fine. I can't believe people with undercovered loaners haven't figured out to wait until after you've champed them and played them during a boost week to gauge their value given how important boosts are to 4-star rosters. Agent Venom went through this, Iron Fist went through this and now Sandman's going through this. He's not perfect but he performs okay boosted. His green is solid as is, his purple is a legit good at what it does and his yellow is a bit of a mess. He also has a massive healthpool which is probably a reason his damage isn't as efficient as some other characters. 

Here are the main questions 4-star characters should be held to:

• Are they more useful boosted than top tier characters are unboosted?
• Do they have a role or niche that can assist boosted characters when they are unboosted?

Sandman can say yes to both of those. His green, when boosted, is great. His purple, boosted or not, is a solid yellow battery. His yellow is weird and could end up being okay with future additions to the tier, like if someone has a 3-star Luke Cage red passive power his yellow would deal damage every time it's fired. As is, he's a great green user when boosted and purple into yellow battery whether he's boosted or not. He's not fantastic but he's not even in the discussion of worst 4-star in the game. If, I had a boosted team that leaned on yellow and needed a green outlet, I wouldn't hesitate to plug 5/5/3 Sandman in there. 

Quick notes:

• 304 Blade boosted to 405's green: 7,121 damage
• 272 Sandman boosted to 377's green: 7,498 damage

No one complains about Blade's green, there's value in its conditional true heal but I don't think anyone will argue that a 2-turn stun doesn't have at least as much utility. 

Just to be a huge pedant; the pve loaners are covered. Sandman is 5/3/5 in the loaner node. Agent venom's big problem was that loaners in pve are 1/1/1 so his ap threshold is at its lowest. And Switch was boosted at the time, so AV was dumping purple ap before she could reality crush.

For the most part, I agree that Sandman isn't that bad. People tend to really underrate characters if they have a "useless" power. Thats why Riri, Mordo and Spidergwen were so hated before their reworks. And Sandman is self accelerating towards his useless power, which highlights how bad it is. His yellow is not good on its own, and its pretty poorly designed. I think characters should have higher standards than "are they usable boosted?".The worst 4* in the game is still usable when they're 100 levels higher than everyone else. I haven't tried him champed, but for now he's a contender for the worst 4* on my rankings. 

People don't complain about Blades green because its his 2nd best power. It looks like Sandman is only useful for high health and his green, so it definitely feels underwhelming.

I'll concede that I didn't mean loaner as in the ones you get fully covered, rather the undercovered essential you're dragging along just to be allowed to play the node. The actual loaners are with forced allies, non-guaranteed synergy and at weird levels to top it all off so they're not always a great indicator either. I'm not saying the highest standard you should hold someone to is if they're worthwhile boosted, it's the minimum standard. Being able to be both useful boosted and have some roles unboosted is the bar we're aiming for, as stated. Really high tier characters like Vulture, Star-Lord, Carol, etc have uses when they aren't boosted as well. Sandman is useful boosted, which we all mostly agree about, but at least he has a niche unboosted as well with his purple to yellow conversion.

His yellow is absolutely a mess, you won't hear any arguments from me. If a power is going to be that demanding with such a bad payoff (it has a worse AP:damage ratio than Wasp's black!) I don't really see the point of it. It works by creating the protect tiles, then checking to see how many protect tiles are on the board before it decides what to do. It either leaves those pretty underwhelming protect tiles out or it converts all of your protect tiles to basic tiles and then deals that bad damage. It doesn't even destroy the protect tiles for some minor board shake, it doesn't deal more damage if there are more protect tiles out and he doesn't have any other way of getting a protect tile out for him to do the damage rather than have to cast this twice (unless there's another protect tile creator on your team). Is the damage supposed to be a punishment for getting too greedy? 10 AP is a lot to spend on a power that does two things poorly. 

Jaedenkaal

Eh, at 5 covers the protect tiles are pretty decent, the problem is just that protect tiles themselves are pretty underwhelming

Removing -all- of them to do the actual damage, though, is the worst part of this power.

As to the topic question, I'm not sure he's the worst 4* in the game, although he's almost certainly in the bottom group, however you define that. 

Warbringa

DesertTortoise said:

Sandman's fine. I can't believe people with undercovered loaners haven't figured out to wait until after you've champed them and played them during a boost week to gauge their value given how important boosts are to 4-star rosters. Agent Venom went through this, Iron Fist went through this and now Sandman's going through this. He's not perfect but he performs okay boosted. His green is solid as is, his purple is a legit good at what it does and his yellow is a bit of a mess. He also has a massive healthpool which is probably a reason his damage isn't as efficient as some other characters. 

Here are the main questions 4-star characters should be held to:

• Are they more useful boosted than top tier characters are unboosted?
• Do they have a role or niche that can assist boosted characters when they are unboosted?

Sandman can say yes to both of those. His green, when boosted, is great. His purple, boosted or not, is a solid yellow battery. His yellow is weird and could end up being okay with future additions to the tier, like if someone has a 3-star Luke Cage red passive power his yellow would deal damage every time it's fired. As is, he's a great green user when boosted and purple into yellow battery whether he's boosted or not. He's not fantastic but he's not even in the discussion of worst 4-star in the game. If, I had a boosted team that leaned on yellow and needed a green outlet, I wouldn't hesitate to plug 5/5/3 Sandman in there. 

Quick notes:

• 304 Blade boosted to 405's green: 7,121 damage
• 272 Sandman boosted to 377's green: 7,498 damage

No one complains about Blade's green, there's value in its conditional true heal but I don't think anyone will argue that a 2-turn stun doesn't have at least as much utility. 

Obviously by my original post, I disagree that he is fine.

First of all, I was only comparing him to the tons of other loaner nodes I have played 4* characters with over the years. This is the first one I have come across in a while where the 4* doesn't carry the team against a weaker team. I don't have him covered and was not looking at his essential nodes fyi.  Second, I don't need to play him boosted because I already know that all boosted 4* are generally better than unboosted due to scaling, even the worst ones.  I do believe you are right on other 4* such as IF and AV being unfairly called junk too early but I think Sandman may actually deserve that title.  

What niche does Sandman really provide?  His green is average at best. Rhulk is straight up better and a much better self synergy character for green aoe. Since it is Sandman's only power that really deals damage effectively, it is probably his best power as of now.  His purple is not a great yellow generator in that it only provides 5 random yellow tiles at 5 covers and some board shake.  Kingpin is a far superior yellow AP generator.  Perhaps with improvement in his yellow power it could be serviceable.  Sandman's yellow power is terrible as there are far better protect tile makers than him in 4* land and the requirements to make it do damage are poor (lots of AP and destruction of protect tiles). Perhaps as you say someday it could be a good synergistic power but as of now it isn't.  

Also nobody really uses Blade primarily for his green, it is a secondary power.  You use Blade almost exclusively for his red power.  So I don't see that as a good comparison when one characters second best power is basically about the same as another characters best power.

I am curious as to who you believe is far worse than Sandman in 4* land as well.

finlanderboy

I think Sam Wilson owns that title.  

I would argue he is near the bottom though.

Jaedenkaal

mexus said:

14 AP for the, potentially, best nuke in the game - a nuke that can one-hit almost any unboosted character, is to be a fair deal.

It has the same problem that Ultra-Freon Beam had in the 1* tier. By the time you get that much AP, the match is often over, or if not, everyone has taken so much damage already that you don't even need all of the damage that it does. And the damage/AP isn't even that spectacular until there are more than 5 Protect tiles on the board

Tiger_Wong

It's gotta be Nick Fury or Spider-Woman. 

Straycat

The problem with Captain Falcon is that his best asset is almost lost when he is boosted. His nuke becomes overkill, and by the time you generate enough ap it is hardly worth it. His blue was interesting at one point, but Carol does it so much better now. His yellow might have new value with Iron Fist or Wasp being able to turn them into strikes, but overall he's a one trick character that takes too much effort to get going.
It is hard to say Falcap is the worst since his red is legitimately strong, but being really slow is almost as bad as being really weak. I might have Drax, Thing, or Elektra as the worst, but Sandman is right there. They all have some niche that they can fill and can be played boosted tho.

Tiger_Wong

I've got teams I can wreck shop with and use perfectly with Sam. And Elektra. And Thing. And I've got ideas for Sandman. 

Ive got nothing with Fury. 
Or Spider-Woman. 

Jarvind

Flaptain used to play great with Ghost Rider since he'd buff the attack tiles and make red tick faster - it made two otherwise "eh" characters work really well. Dunno if that still works with the "repeater" tiles though - has anyone tested if he can make those tick down or if it still only works with "true" countdowns?

Straycat

Tiger Wong said:

I've got teams I can wreck shop with and use perfectly with Sam. And Elektra. And Thing. And I've got ideas for Sandman. 

Ive got nothing with Fury. 
Or Spider-Woman. 

Sounds like you don't have good luck with the enemy matching your trap tiles. They can both destroy, especially if you have someone to generate purple or blue. Once during a Loki pvp I used her and cyclops, unboosted. Loki was tanking so Cyclops generated purple, Spiderwoman filled the board with trap tiles. Same with Fury, his blue was scary back in the day.

Blindman13

I've got a soft spot in my heart for Fury. He was my first 4* champ. It takes a lot of AP, but I used to love maxing out his Yellow and watching the entire team get decimated. That said, I only use him when he's boosted now because of all the other characters I have leveled higher than him.
I think every 4* can be useful (especially if they are boosted) if you are able to pair them with the right team.

bluewolf

Jarvind said:

Flaptain used to play great with Ghost Rider since he'd buff the attack tiles and make red tick faster - it made two otherwise "eh" characters work really well. Dunno if that still works with the "repeater" tiles though - has anyone tested if he can make those tick down or if it still only works with "true" countdowns?

Just tried it out in Simulator.  No effect on GR's Repeater.  Sam got nerfed by the Repeater rollout.  That's just mean....