is quake the worst?

jredd

she seems to get a pass in the discussions about worst 4* characters. maybe because she's so incredibly useless no one thinks to include her? at any rate, a niche passive, an ability that does no damage, doesn't accumulate or destroy ap, and a mediocre aoe ability.  

time for a buff...

Borstock

I have an alliance mate who likes her, but I tend to agree with you. The aoe defense thing is a good idea in theory. Hasn't really helped in execution.

shadowyoshi

Niche passive? Yes but absolutely vital for many every time Enemy of the State is run.

Also, nobody uses her in PVP because she is slow, not because she is bad. She reliably wins even if on the weaker side of the tier.

Could she use a buff? Yes, make her blue generate AP. Nothing more needed. Niche passives are fine for a few characters when there are 60+ in a tier.

mega ghost

She definitely needs a buff. Her passive is one of the more useful niche passives. At the time she was released every team in PvP was using Jean Grey — Quake was a solution to that, and possibly the first character released with an ability in direct response to another character. She's outdated now, like many of the older 4* characters. Hulkbuster was also on every team. Now, I can't remember the last time I saw a Hulkbuster in PvP.

LifeofAgony

She’s got a unique to her only skill which you can take for what that’s worth.  Board shake with her 2 actives which is always useful.  She’s definitely underpowered though comparatively.

broll

She’s far from the worst. She’s kinda middle of the road with niche powers that make her very useful in certain matches. 

658

She has three good powers.  The older 4s don’t accelerate themselves much and aoe is never going to be strong against a single target.  She’s not t10, but she’s miles from the worst.  

killercool

mega ghost said:

She definitely needs a buff. Her passive is one of the more useful niche passives. At the time she was released every team in PvP was using Jean Grey — Quake was a solution to that, and possibly the first character released with an ability in direct response to another character. She's outdated now, like many of the older 4* characters. Hulkbuster was also on every team. Now, I can't remember the last time I saw a Hulkbuster in PvP.

Wasn't Jean Grey released as a direct response to ProfX?

BlackBoltRocks

Quake still holds her own as a check to AoEs. Use her against Kishu, Muscle, Grenadier, Pyro etc and watch their attacks hit like tissue paper. In terms of offence, I used to team her up with St4rlord to accelerate her abilities. She's also a decent alternative to Iceman if you have him underlevelled and undercovered

professorplum9

Quake is solid. So entertaining to watch Sentry destroy his own team while your guys take -1 or Red Hulk waste a bunch of purple and green AP for virtually nothing. Her blue is great for destroying special tiles and combines well with powers like XFDP Countdown For What. You haven't lived till you've used her board shuffle to get you out of a jam with Ultron Boss (or get you into a bigger one ) Sure she's niche, but solid niche!

vinsensual

Her blue is pretty cool.  Especially when the AI keeps giving Invisible Woman yellow matches and puts her invis tile at the bottom corners.

Vhailorx

Quake is quite good as a boardshake/support character.  She was back-end of the top tier when released, but power creep and 5* play has pushed her down into mid tier.  Nowhere near trash tier though.  Better than some recent releases, imo.

She does have a tough crash though, since her passive is useless and aoe sucks in 1v1, which might be why tc feels she is underwhelming.

HoundofShadow

You need to have characters that are perceived to be weak in order to perceive other characters as strong. If we buff X character, then another Y character will be perceived as weak. Then, we'll get players asking to buff Y character. This is a cycle and a never-ending cycle.

Quake's abilities are basically:
1) team damage + board shake
2) reduce team damage by a sizeable amount
3) destroys between 5 to 8 tiles of a colour of your choice

Quake is "niche" and behaves more like a support/strategic character. I guess your tactics are somewhere along doing high damages and ending the game quickly.

Some players like to enjoy playing the game tactically. So, MPQ has a variety of strategies that you can use to win the game. Obviously, Quake's abilities doesn't resonate with the strategies that you use.

Why not suggest how Quake's abilities can be improved so that you can perceive her to be strong? I could think of:

1) increased team damage + board shake + destroy all enemies' special tiles and neutralize all effects from enemies' special tiles that are destroyed

2) reduce team damage and enemy's team take up to 30% of original team damage dealt to you.

3) destroy x number of tiles of a chosen colour. You gain ap and reduce enemies's colour pool of the chosen colour by x.

Jarvind

Classic case of "it doesn't instakill everything, so it sucks" syndrome.

She's niche. Really great for the handful of situations suited to her, kinda "eh" otherwise. Green stands on its own, though, and her blue is really good for getting rid of color-specific special tiles (goon countdowns, Patch green, etc).

DAZ0273

I just won her Crash yesterday, was fun zapping Invisible Woman's invisible tile! She is no worst than say Thing who is also a bit on the average side with a niche defensive power.

Taganov

DAZ0273 said:

I just won her Crash yesterday, was fun zapping Invisible Woman's invisible tile! She is no worst than say Thing who is also a bit on the average side with a niche defensive power.

Thing is awful. Back to Quake. She's mediocre.

Jonny1Punch

Quake is nowhere near the worst. High mid-tier and her blue is suprisingly good. Nice board shake and destroys countdowns too. She’s just outdated like so many characters desperate for a buff or rework 

shardwick

Quake was the very first 4* that I ever rostered. I got like a top 50 finish with her in my first ever pve event. Up to 27 champed 4s now and Quake sits at like 11 covers because friggin RNGesus pretty much will only give me her green lately. Aaaanyway, I love her board shake. Would love to see her get a buff.

hunky_funky

With her you literally can forget about Caltrops, Muscles and Spys and you call that useless?! Talk to Sandman, he knows what useless is...

DFiPL

Jarvind said:

Classic case of "it doesn't instakill everything, so it sucks" syndrome.

She's niche. Really great for the handful of situations suited to her, kinda "eh" otherwise. Green stands on its own, though, and her blue is really good for getting rid of color-specific special tiles (goon countdowns, Patch green, etc).

Been saying words to the effect of the bold bit for a long time. Most character releases get viewed through the prism of PVP, where speed and nukability matter to the shield-hopping set; anybody who can't, as you put it, 'instakill everything' is irrelevant to that goal, and thus sucks.

That doesn't mean that every character is perfectly balanced, because that isn't true either, but support/niche characters don't get a lot of love unless they're accelerants. IM40 gets love because he's an amazing battery for 3* and 4* teams. America gets love because she does terrible, beautiful things when paired with 5* match damage.

Thing and Quake? Support characters, primarily about damage mitigation, but without the nuke that 4* Cage pairs with his own damage mitigation. That means they aren't PVP-useful, so they must suck.

sambrookjm

shadowyoshi said:

Niche passive? Yes but absolutely vital for many every time Enemy of the State is run.

Oh...so much THIS!  When I finally got her champed, and respeced her yellow passive to 5, suddenly those Caltrops that were smacking my team for 2500 pts of damage a shot were reduced to 1.  That saves a LOT of health packs, let me tell you.  Team her and 4-star Cage up, and even LVL 400+ Muscles aren't much of a threat.

She's certainly not the best in the 4-star tier, or even top 10.  But she'd definitely be in my top half of the 4-star tier.  Kingpin's nerf took him to that ranking.