Tee said: bbigler said: Perhaps my abbreviation was confusing, Max/Champ meant Max cover OR Champ, not going to the maximum champion level. With the amount of characters in the game, Max/Champing a 5* in 8 months is very very difficult. Bonus heroes help but they're incredibly rare for the 5* lot. The others are... possible.
bbigler said: Perhaps my abbreviation was confusing, Max/Champ meant Max cover OR Champ, not going to the maximum champion level.
Qubort said: Rod5 said: No, the 5* version completely rules the PvP meta But Thor rules PVE and you don't seem to have an issue with that. I guess your beef with Gambit is personal bias for the format you prefer to play.
Rod5 said: No, the 5* version completely rules the PvP meta
bbigler said: Qubort said: Rod5 said: No, the 5* version completely rules the PvP meta But Thor rules PVE and you don't seem to have an issue with that. I guess your beef with Gambit is personal bias for the format you prefer to play. Why does Thor rule PVE? Are we talking about 5* Thor?
HoundofShadow said: Not just your normal 5* Thor. It has to be a <50% health 5* Thor. 50% health Thor will trigger his passives, which destroy 5 tiles and he gains AP for those tiles destroyed. America's Chavez will create critical tiles if you have more ap than the enemy in 3 colours. You would be creating critical tiles every turn and dealing critical damage.
bbigler said: Here's a list of the new characters I'm unfamiliar with (excluding 5*s) - could you all tell me which ones are the best and why?America Chavez4* Black Panther4* Black WidowJubileeKraven the HunterLockjawMockingbirdNico MinoruNightcrawlerRogueSandmanShuri4* HulkValkyrieVultureYonduAngel3* GambitThanks
I would start by whaling Kraven.. his passive is always useful and his two abilities deal massive damage! He is probably not the best character in the game. I've seen him get taken down by 5*'s easily. He will greatly help take you to 2* land with no problems.
7. Black Panther
King T’Challa has a decent kit but his main problems are 1) all his best partners in the tier have severe color overlap. Nico, Cage, and Shuri would all be fantastic partners but each overlaps in 2 colors. 2) He is also one of those who would greatly benefit from 5 in all colors. 3) He has a pretty hard counter in Medusa. So what does he do? He spams, fortifies, and strengthens special tiles. And he passively does extra damage for each protect tile on the board when he matches one away. He has one okay direct damage dealer in his Red that deals some damage but also strengthens fortified special tiles.
8. Nico Minoru
Nico is an interesting character who’s claim to fame is “death by 1,000 cuts”. She needs to tank at least one color because when she takes damage she puts out a super long countdown that changes all her powers. I won’t go through each one, but the highlights are 1) if you have more of a special tile type than your opponent, she will buff every single one a small amount every turn. This adds up if you can flood the board with specials (ala 3* Storm’s Hailstorm). 2) She creates protects that only her allies benefit from. 3) She has a true heal dependent on the number of protects out (see how she could pair so well with Panther!?) 4) She has a stun that removes opponents countdowns and lengthens the stun for each one removed 5) and she can create one of each special tile for 8 purple. She’s a great support character, that gets stronger as the match wears on. But in a game where speed is king, many don’t have time for “death by 1,000 cuts”.
9. Yondu
Basically he has one move that makes him worth playing, but it’s a fantabulous one. His Centurion Archery is a Blue nuke that does huge damage up front, then proceeds to do smaller passive damage each turn to the character with the lowest health. He will keep the assault up as long as he isn’t hit for big damage. His other two powers are nothing to write home about. Since I only play him boosted, his Yellow is a great true heal that can allow him to tank and bring him back to full if you can protect the countdown (it’s triggered by making a match 4 when he’s below a certain health threshold). His Black creates weak strikes and destroys enemy AP. It’s his throwaway power.
10. Nightcrawler
Kurt is one of those fun yet unreliable characters. Some people rank him pretty highly. I tend to think he’s great to mess with in Sim, but that’s about it. His big unique power, and reason to play him (his Purple), doesn’t scale at all when boosted. For 8 AP he will flood the board with whatever color is most prevalent. Since there’s already tons of that color, he will create cascades, crits, and lots of fun chaos. If the most prevalent color on the board is Purple he can keep spamming the power and go winfinite on his lonesome. It’s super fun (albeit slow) when it actually happens and you match damage three characters to death. The fact that his power does not indicate which color is the most prevalent, means that you don’t always know what you’re going to get. I feel that down the road he could be part of a meta team if the right character comes along to exploit his Purple. His Blue and Red are okay damage dealers. Nothing to write home about. The former deals damage for each AP in the enemies strongest (and steals some), the latter does extra damage if you are holding 10-12 AP in your strongest. Oh yeah he’s also completely immune to AOE attacks... so there’s that! He just goes airborne, and negates all damage
11. The Hulk
Hulk really has one great power. His Purple (Gamma Powerbomb) does big damage and floods the board with crits. It’s easily my favorite nuke in the 4* tier just for the chaos and fun factor. But man is it expensive. His Yellow is also expensive and creates 5 fortified Yellow Countdowns. Each one will either heal him, damage the enemy team a small amount, or gather AP each time it ticks down. This is overcosted for what it provides. And his Green is just annoying. He does a board shake to start the match and then begins each turn randomly swapping two tiles. It mostly does nothing, but you will occasionally get a free match and it will occasionally screw up that match 4/5 you were planning to make. Really what it does is prolongs matches. Basically he’s a fun character when boosted, if you have a great Purple battery, or a way to lower is crazy high power costs; but said costs make him not the most efficient character.
12. Lockjaw
The pup basically has two niches he excels in- bodyguard (or guard dog as it were) and charged tile specialist. For the former he will jump to the front of any enemy match that includes one of your special tiles, he’ll negate all the damage, and he’ll bite you back for a small amount. Not to shabby! So flood the board with friendly specials to get the most out of him! The problem with him as a bodyguard is he is only staving off match damage. He does zero against powers. His Green puts 8 charged tiles on the board and he deals a small amount of passive damage each turn if there’s a charged tile in the enemy’s strongest color. Again, not too shabby. The problem here is you want to pair him with people who benefit from charged tiles. You could use Gambit or Bolt, but why bring a low tier 4 to a 5* fight? That leaves Jubilee and Thoress in his tier. But the former is utter trash and their best powers overlap (Green). The latter could be an amazing pairing, with doggie’s Green fueling Smite. Finally his Blue is his throwaway power. It gives one of six effects depending on the color most prevalent on the board. But aside from when he summons Medusa (which is only really effective against special tiles), all the effects are pretty dang weak.
13. Sandman
Sandman was a character that was vilified by the forums upon his release. People screamed for a buff but to no avail. When compared to those released immediately before (Coulson, Fist, Clagger, Grocket, Gamora) and after (Vulture, Mockingbird) the cries seem more than fair. But when taken in the context of 65+ 4* characters, people realized he’s not THAT bad. And in fact he’s pretty dang good boosted. His best move is his Green which gives a decent AOE attack and 2-turn stun. Having a stun in a non-Blue/Purple color makes him unique and gives him a niche. His Purple swaps a bunch of tiles and turns 3-5 of them Yellow for 8 AP. Finally for 10 Yellow he creates 5-6 protect tiles, or if there are seven or more out he removes all of them for a nice chunk of damage. While he’s nothing to write home about, he isn’t as terrible as people think either on boost days.
14. Kraven
Kraven is the first character since Sandman to get vilified on the boards upon release for being weak. Again, people tend to overstate how bad he actually is. His Purple is easily his best ability and the only reason you’d play him. It’s niche. But a dang good one. Against tile spammers he will weaken their specials each turn into nothingness and deal passive damage each turn to boot. He was likely created as a counter to the Rocket/Gamora/Medusa special tile meta and he does that reasonably well. Problem is that is pretty much all he does well. So literally any other team will cream him. Once he negates special tiles he sits on your team doing nothing else. His Black does okay damage but it’s attracted to an unfortified, randomly places countdown. And it taxes you even more AP upon expiring. His Blue is just weird. He creates a trap that siphons a single AP each turn that doesn’t stack with more traps. When the enemy matches it; they have the potential to create a cascade in your strongest color. Like I said... weird.
15. Jubilee
For some reason she hasn’t gotten the outcry that Sandman, Kraven, or even Lockjaw got upon their releases, but she should have. Jubilee is a pretty bad character. Her best power is her green that does AOE damage and replaces enemy strikes, attacks and protects with charged tiles. Sadly she only does about 2400 damage. Boosted its not that great either. Ghost Rider, Quake, Punisher, Blade, Sandman, Red Hulk, Iceman, Vulture, etc. all do better green AOE per AP. Some of those names are bottom of the 4* barrel. And that’s her best power. Her Purple is weird. It does much more respectable damage (about 6500... and also weirdly randomizes the colors of two chosen blocks of tiles). It also stuns two random enemies for two turns. But it also costs 12 Purple AP! That’s just insane. Her Yellow gives a bump in match damage if she’s tanking and has lower health than her target. If there are enough charged tiles out her allies get the same bonus if they meet those conditions as well.
Not Ranked: Black Widow
One of the very few I’ve yet to champ (mine is 2/4/2), most people around here do not like her but I think she’s has an interesting kit. Everything is just a tad too expensive for what it does. Purple allows her to spam invisibility tiles to keep her protected and only costs 7 AP. She can pop out the shadows and get rid of some pesky enemy tiles (gathering AP for them as well), but that’ll cost you another 10 and probably isn’t worth it. Having a Black stun is very nice and quite unique (even if a bit expensive) though it’s the passive attached that’s truly amazing. Enemies lose three random AP whenever they begin the turn stunned. So pair her with any number of stunners in other colors and you have a nice suppression team. Finally, her Yellow for 10 AP will give a chosen character a huge huge chunk of health and put out a countdown lowering allies AP costs by three. Not too bad at all. Widow is definitely a support character and I personally can’t wait to try her out.
Gambit and Angel are trash tier as far as 3* go. I’m not going to bother with them.
iron-n-wine said: @Daredevil217 - who have you found partners particularly well with Rogue?
Best Build: 5/3/5
Alternate Build: 3/5/5 (If building to not trigger Power Siphon’s explosion component)
Pairings: Rogue being such a Swiss Army Knife excelling in so many things means she pairs well on most any team (in PVP. Much less effective against goons in PVE). Use her to protect more fragile characters (Professor X, Nightcrawler, or my favorite pairing... Vulture), or use her to fuel more expensive ones (ME Hulk). Also, characters who spam cheap powers (Iron Fist, Cloak and Dagger, Nova, etc.) can provide quick outlets to stave off Rogue exploding. I’m also wondering if Shuri or Star-Lord could pair decently with her (despite color overlap) by lowering AP costs and thus providing even more of an “explosion buffer” firing powers quicker... might have to test this and update this section accordingly.
JHawkInc said: King T’Challa has a decent kit but his main problems are 1) all his best partners in the tier have severe color overlap. Nico, Cage, and Shuri would all be fantastic partners but each overlaps in 2 colors. He only overlaps one color with Shuri. Her blue is passive, and won't interfere with his blue.They're a great pair. Shuri's red to make fortified tiles (one use is enough to trigger her passive to reduce the cost of powers). Panther's yellow to make a repeater to slowly generate fortified special tiles of all types (and thanks to Shuri, it's easy to get 2-3 of these repeaters out). Panther's blue strictly for fortified protects. Where they shine is matching fortified protect tiles, as Shuri gives bonus damage for matching fortified tiles, and Panther gives bonus damage for matching protect tiles, and it adds up, especially with cascades.
Yeah, I think they were made to be played with one another but every time I try it just feels slow and I ultimately end up pairing Shuri with better partners. Mr. F has a similar “double damage” effect with his Black Countdown out and honestly I find him to be a better partner. Seriously try them if you haven’t. Also, ME Hulk and Iron Fist pair pretty great as well. I did rank Panther at the top of the mid tier. He has a good kit. I just want more great partners to pair him with is all.