Who is the worst 4-Star character?

The Bob The

It's a sign of where we're at that special teams characters get branded as garbage. Consider:

- Flaptain: In 4* town, he rules with Jean & Witch, esp against goons.
- Quake: Every few months, somebody busts out a gripe against Our Lady of the Kishumuscle. I have to assume it's some kind of in-joke.
- Hat Hulk: Put him with America and half-dead 5Thor.
- Lockjaw: You've seen that Royal Family node, right? Also, Gambit exists.
- Electra: Kaecilius, Kaecilius, Kaecilius.
- Chulk: Generic bruiser, but those calling him the worst seem to have him confused with his pre-buff version.
- Kraven: I'm not a fan, but 5 purple in Combined Arms was a sobering thing.

For me, I'd say probably Sandman or Mr. F (I know Reed also has his uses, but they're not great and don't point to a specific application). Sandy I've never found a good use for, but maybe someone can enlighten me.

Nerfed Kingpin's a bit **** now, but I'm not sure if he's the Worst or just worse.

ursopro

Kraven is a god vs all the Ultron/Sentries nonsense

Straycat

Dormammu said:

I don't think of Devil Dinosaur or Howard as anything more than a nifty trophies, so I wouldn't even consider them worst or best lists. But I love creating lists so here's my least favorite 4-stars in descending order...

5) Lockjaw - I've never really gotten into the charged tile strategy other than Thoress, who does a fine job of producing and utilizing them all by herself, so maybe that's why I don't appreciate Lockjaw more.

4) Quake - She can protect you against AoE. Okay, cool. And, uh, what else? In a meta age of special tiles and countdowns, big board shakers are no longer our friends.

3) MEHulk - Expensive, wildly inconsistent, with no direct damage attacks. Yet another Hulk no one ever plays (even though we all want to).

2) Winter Soldier - One overly expensive power (red), one completely unreliable trap power (blue), and one mostly ineffective power (purple) all combine to make for a bad character. I don't even use this guy when he's boosted.

1) Kraven - I'm not entirely sure what the developers were thinking here. Some neat ideas hidden under poor execution. It's too bad, Kraven is one of my favorite Spider-Man villains.

(Special shout-out to Kingpin, Flaptain, Gwenpool, Venom, and Gwen who also were in consideration to join this list.)

Not feeling this list. Gwen and Gwenpool are closer to top tier than worst. MeHulk hits hard, and then can be hit or miss with the criticals.
Kraven, maybe, having one possibly unusable power is a recipe to be ranked lower than he should be tho. His trap ap steal seems good.
I would say Drax. I don't like Sandman but his green makes him better than at least 1 other character. Flaptain is pretty bad too, but his issue of "boosted he is overkill" makes me think he could be rated a little higher.

JackTenrec

I'm surprised there are no votes for War Machine yet.

Dormammu

Straycat said:

Not feeling this list.

That's cool. The list was my least favorites.

There is no definitive 'worst' 4-star. Give me a 4-star, and I'll put a team around them and win.

Sm0keyJ0e

Dormammu said:

Straycat said:

Not feeling this list.

That's cool. The list was my least favorites.

There is no definitive 'worst' 4-star. Give me a 4-star, and I'll put a team around them and win.

Also noticed your list is almost exclusively toons you don't have champed. They work much differently when you can play with their cover configuration and use them boosted. Also, some of those toons work differently at different tiers. Spidergwen and Gwenpool are quite good with certain 5*'s.

Jarvind

I don't think there is any such thing as a "bad" character, honestly. Everybody is useful somewhere. Most characters that get branded as "bad" just don't have an "lol, I win" button that instantly kills whatever it hits. The folks propagating that nonsense are the same ones that stand in the fire and die in MMOs because all they can think about is BIGGR NUMBARZ, MOAR DAMAGE.

Elektra is a good example. She's not especially great on most teams - her AP and tile theft is nice, but her lack of big hits makes her unappealing to the KILL IT MOAR crowd. But during the Defenders release when everyone was using 4* Cage and Fist, she was MVP-status because she could flip all those annoying protect tiles into nasty strikes. She's also an amazing counter to Kaecilius - if he drops strikes in hard to reach spots, she can flip them while also generating some negligible enemy strikes to match and hurt him.

Not bad. Just niche.

As far as "least universally applicable character," I'd probably go with Flaptain or Lockjaw. Flappy lost a lot of his utility when repeater tiles came around - he used to be absolutely filthy with Ghost Rider, R4G - anyone with a nasty repeating countdown. His red has always been tough to use effectively due to its insanely high cost, and his tile buff just isn't very impressive, especially with the likes of Nico around now.

Lockjaw loses a ton of usefulness if he isn't fighting a heavy tile generator, and his blue is effectively a roll of the dice as far as whether it will do anything worthwhile. He is, however, devastating against R4G, Gamora, Medusa, etc.

Dormammu

Sm0keyJ0e said:

Dormammu said:

Straycat said:

Not feeling this list.

That's cool. The list was my least favorites.

There is no definitive 'worst' 4-star. Give me a 4-star, and I'll put a team around them and win.

Also noticed your list is almost exclusively toons you don't have champed. They work much differently when you can play with their cover configuration and use them boosted. Also, some of those toons work differently at different tiers. Spidergwen and Gwenpool are quite good with certain 5*'s.

Yes, but one of them is champed and two more are cover maxed and leveled to 150, making them very usable to me when boosted. Of the other two, MEHulk and Kraven, I'm far from alone on my opinions.

JackTenrec

Jarvind said:

Elektra is a good example. She's not especially great on most teams - her AP and tile theft is nice, but her lack of big hits makes her unappealing to the KILL IT MOAR crowd.

Pre-update Elektra really was terrible. She was only useful against strikes and had no useful AP generation. New Elektra is actually a threat. If she gets her red trap out, you will soon be facing an invulnerable Elektra and a steadily-growing set of pointy tiles.

Lockjaw loses a ton of usefulness if he isn't fighting a heavy tile generator, and his blue is effectively a roll of the dice as far as whether it will do anything worthwhile. He is, however, devastating against R4G, Gamora, Medusa, etc.

You want tile generation on your side against movers with Lockjaw. He resists/eliminates match damage when your tiles get matched, and deals retaliatory damage in return. He doesn't do anything aside from match damage when matching enemy special tiles.

veny

Lockjaw is cool  
Worst 4*s?
- Falcon
- Sandman
- propably Kraven but i dont have him maxed
- X-Force Wolverine is bad but not the worst
- Thing is weak
- Yondu 


Hard to decide - some are good in some situations, but i

BoyWonder1914

ursopro said:

Kraven is a god vs all the Ultron/Sentries nonsense

OMG this! He flat out tears special tile spammers apart, which includes but is not limited to:

Sentries, Daken, Bullseye, 4* R&G, Carnage, Cloak & Dagger, Professor X, Blade, Jean Grey

To a lesser extent: 

C4ge, Yondu, Nico, Ant-Man, Sandman


With the frequency that you fight a good chunk of these guys, I'd definitely be giving my Kraven a workout if I had him champed. This is case where I'd have to make a list too, based on personal opinion rather than any kind of objective "fact". All characters have their uses. 


Mr. Fantastic - To me the highlight of his skill set is his blue. I think the act of fortifying tiles is severely under-valued in this game. When pure dumb luck is responsible so often for your precious tiles getting matched away, it's nice to have the peace of mind that a fortified tile provides. Stuns and protect tiles don't win you matches though, and that's where he falls short IMO. Medusa's yellow puts his own to shame; affecting all special tiles rather than just your own, and his Black basically feels like OBW's Espionage minus the AP stealing. While it's a neat little trick, it's not really much to be concerned with at the 4-star level. He's meant to be a support character, which is fine, but support characters like Nico and Medusa can still melt your face off if you let them hang around too long. Better than I think most people give him credit for, even post-"buff", but still not enough to get called off the bench in most cases for me. 

Spider-Woman - Definitely not a horrible character, and does a multitude of neat things, just not incredibly well, or in a way that can be tricky to pull off. Her black, while incredibly useful, is a non-fortified countdown tile that you'll be lucky to get off more than once per match without a reliable black battery. There's thresholds for what damage is reduced, and due its effect being tied to a CD, there's an added nuance of casting it at the right "time". The opposing team may gather the necessary AP for powerful nuke the turn it may expire for example. A good example for comparison would be Elektra's "Shadow Step", which reduces ALL damage no matter the quantity, and even hits back. That does highlight one of the body-copter's best aspects though, which is that it's not limited to a certain amount of damage-dealing instances like Shadow Step. Her purple took a serious nerf IMO when they changed the rules on trap tiles to only activate if matched, rather than also destroyed by Match 4s/5s. That seriously changed the game for me with her, seeing as the "Love" option does no damage, it it's rather easy to prevent her from getting 14 red AP for her nuke/stun. 

GwenPool - Very cool character, but I CAN NOT STAND having to pull out a cheat sheet every time I get enough AP for her purple. Not only that, but you have no idea how much damage the technique is going to do. You need to learn that hard way the "destroy__ row/column" options hit harder than the "remove all ___" options. Her green is also a neat ability, but the randomness of who it hits and how hard is very unwelcome in my books. It's one of those abilities that can either turn the tide in your favor, or royally screw you over by hitting the wrong person, and I'm not a fan of that uncertainty. 


I of course could describe my gripes with the likes of Flaptain, Eddie Venom, Kingpin, or Fury at length, but I feel those guys have been covered enough already. Wanted to add some folks I didn't see a lot of people talking about. 

Jarvind

JackTenrec said:

Lockjaw loses a ton of usefulness if he isn't fighting a heavy tile generator, and his blue is effectively a roll of the dice as far as whether it will do anything worthwhile. He is, however, devastating against R4G, Gamora, Medusa, etc.

You want tile generation on your side against movers with Lockjaw. He resists/eliminates match damage when your tiles get matched, and deals retaliatory damage in return. He doesn't do anything aside from match damage when matching enemy special tiles.

Hurrrp yeah I spaced on that. I champed him after moving to 5* territory, so I've never actually used him outside of essential nodes.

Sm0keyJ0e

aesthetocyst said:

I have no basis for choosing between all these faceless champ reward pumps...

Hasn't stopped others before you...

acescracked

In what situation would you ever use xforce wolverine? Cmon now, no lying you wouldn't. Hence the worst. Even boosted he stinks.

bigsmooth

Of the non-limited 4* characters, I have to go with Flaptain. He can be useful in certain situations, but he uses the same colors as better characters (Peggy, Thoress, Cyke, Panther), and his blue passive can actually be detrimental with certain countdown tiles (Cloak/Dagger black, Thanos purple, Spider-Woman black, 3Cage black, etc.)
His yellow is self-limiting in that it only creates protects on yellow, and he has no AP manipulation abilities.

I think another character that has to be considered for the bottom is Kingpin. This was one of the rare reworks where they made the character worse. Increasing the cost of his black made him less fun to play, especially since you can no longer fire it without a friendly CD on the board. When you do fire it, you don't get to choose which CD(s) to destroy, so he is another guy who can hurt his own team. Yellow and purple are are still OK but not exactly world-beating.

LavaManLee

acescracked said:

In what situation would you ever use xforce wolverine? Cmon now, no lying you wouldn't. Hence the worst. Even boosted he stinks.

If he were the only champed 4* you had.

Bubba3210

acescracked said:

In what situation would you ever use xforce wolverine? Cmon now, no lying you wouldn't. Hence the worst. Even boosted he stinks.

He works well with xforce deadpool purple. 

Borstock

acescracked said:

In what situation would you ever use xforce wolverine? Cmon now, no lying you wouldn't. Hence the worst. Even boosted he stinks.

With his XForce teammate.

Borstock

It's Devil Dino. This is a character that has no special niche, really. Almost every other character you could possibly list has at least one scenario where they have a specifically useful skill. Even boosted, Dino is practically a 2* with higher health. 

sambrookjm

acescracked said:

In what situation would you ever use xforce wolverine? Cmon now, no lying you wouldn't. Hence the worst. Even boosted he stinks.

I think a lot of the hate for XFW comes from old timers who had him maxed out before he was nerfed. At that point, his black at LVL 5 gave you all the AP from the tiles you destroyed.  While I freely admit that power creep has definitely left him behind, he is not completely useless.  He gives a LOT of board shake with his green at 5.  He will very likely kill an enemy 4-star with his black at 5.  He an heal up if his yellow healing tile goes off, or do even more board shake damage if it's matched.

Use him with XFDeadpool.  Seven purple and eleven black will kill at least one, and probably two of the enemy 4-stars.

My five worst of the ones I've got champed are:
Kingpin - If there's such a thing as a nerf hammer, Kingpin got hit with a nerf nuke. Worst in tier.
Flaptain - Red is way too expensive.
Thing - Unless you're facing off Grocket+Medusa with Thing, Carol and XFDeadpool
Devil Dino - Huge health pool, but not much in the way of useful abilities
Eddie Brock Venom - Unless you're facing a protect tile producer

Not champed but mentioned in this thread - Kraven or Spider Woman