Roster help for rookie

ThaRoadWarrior

Howard is one of the least useless of the useless 4*s. I still say he is some numbers tweaks away from being one of the better ones. but he's still you know, pretty useless today.

DAZ0273

ThaRoadWarrior said:

Howard is one of the least useless of the useless 4*s. I still say he is some numbers tweaks away from being one of the better ones. but he's still you know, pretty useless today.

He is fairly useless. His green looks particularly out of date if you compare it to Namor who has a similar board colour tile dependent destructive power and Namor is considered average from what I can see by most.

ThaRoadWarrior

the primary utility of Quack Fu is to evacuate the board of green, and thus create an epic cascade, or to manipulate a certain color into being prevalent on the board for somebody like Black Bolt, Nightcrawler, Lockjaw (lol), or maybe Professor X. Other characters have better versions of this power (surgical strike, girl friday, etc) It's a shame it isn't doing Domino levels of damage per tile, but it isn't a total lame duck...

ThaRoadWarrior

I feel like i'm potentially giving OP bad advice on Howard lol. You should know I like constructing teams of losers and trying to make them better than they are. Howard is decidedly not great

DAZ0273

ThaRoadWarrior said:

I feel like i'm potentially giving OP bad advice on Howard lol. You should know I like constructing teams of losers and trying to make them better than they are. Howard is decidedly not great

Yeah nobody is gonna bring Howard the Duck to create cascades when they can bring almost anybody else, sadly...

ThaRoadWarrior

but if they were ALSO invisible, and ALSO removing special tiles with a multi-turn stun they might. 

but they probably wouldn't...

DAZ0273

ThaRoadWarrior said:

but if they were ALSO invisible, and ALSO removing special tiles with a multi-turn stun they might. 

but they probably wouldn't...

It could be worse - he could be Devil Dinosaur.

Beerman63

Thx for the help, I'll absolutely try that Thor/hulk/IM40 team, as I was searching for a way to use Hulk anyways. He's really a "mistake" champ, I never searched or hoped for his covers and nevertheless he's a champ now. 
I'm going to go with Kamala as bonus Hero first, she's quite a good partner for IM40 and Cap from what I read.
Talking about BH's, is the chance of getting a 4* BH as big as a 3*? Cause I was wandering if I should BH my 4* Capt. Marvel (currently 4 covers), but not sure if it makes sense... 
Any suggestions on 3* teams that don't include IM40? Cause I use him so much that I'm wanting to have an alternative.
Btw, the cover for Howard is indeed the purple one

ThaRoadWarrior

4* BHs are not as common in heroic and legendary tokens as 3*s are in the lesser tokens, but they are a lot more common from PVP store tokens. 

You could do much worse than 4* Captain Marvel, that's for sure. She was one of my first 4* champs, and at the time she was super top tier. She is fed by 3* captain marvel (who is decidedly trash-tier) who is in turn fed by 2* captain marvel, so you'll be seeing more covers of her for sure eventually. 

There is a very short list of "essential" 4* characters I like to recommend people get quickly:

Medusa
4ocket
G4mora
Vulture

C4rol isn't as crucial to your core roster as those, but she is very strong and adds value to loads of teams.
Peggy - still solid, but not the GOAT as she was once considered in my opinion. If you're you're trying to get away from IM40, she probably isn't who you want, but she does slay pretty hard against similarly leveled opponents.

HoundofShadow

Here are some non-IM40 teams that I used when I was in 3* land:

Goons nodes or enemies that spam special tiles

1. Hawkeye (5/3/5), Dr Ock (5/5/5) and Patch (5/3/5).

For each enemy special tile that you match, you gain 2 purple and 2 blue aps via Hawkeye's passive. If your match-3 consists of 3 enemy special tiles, you gain 6 blue aps and 6 purple aps, and 2 attack tiles from Dr Ock's passive. The strategy is to help the goons to spam more special tiles for them via Hawkeye's black power and mainly Patch's green power. Then, you take them down with Dr Ock's blue power. If those special tiles get matched, you gain aps and attack tiles. If not, you deal around 1000 damage per enemy strike/protect/attack destroyed. Watch those Ultrons get 1HKO by Dr Ock's Manipulation. 

2. I used to use Hawkeye/Strange/Patch  in goons wave nodes and I can easily hit 30 blue and 30 purple aps thanks to Patch's green and Goons spamming special tiles. Fire Hawkeye's purple to increase your damage by about 1000 plus another 1000++ damage from Patch' Green. By then, your Strange's passive will be dealing ~4000 damage to those goons. Remember to match away Hawkeye purple cd to keep your strike tiles on the board.

I like to bring Hawkeye and Dr Strange in PvP again opponents using Iron Fist and Luke Cage because there will always be special tiles for me to match, which means if there is a lack of blue or purple tiles, Hawkeye is there to back Dr Strange up. Hawkeye has true heal and he will tank 2/3 colours for Dr Strange if both are of equal level. I will heal Hawkeye up before ending the match. I suppose you still see a lot of teams with Dr Strange and Iron Fist/Luke Cage in PvP?

3. Hawkeye (3/5/5), Iron Fist (3/5/5) Cyclops (5/3/5) 
Similar strategy and used in similar scenario as above.

4. Patch and Magneto. This team is risky but the payoff can be big. Fire Patch's green and use Magneto's red to create cascades, then use Magneto's blue (which could potentially create cascades) to clean up the third enemy. Usually, it's enough to down the first opponent and shave the next opponent's HP by ~30%. The third opponent after taking Magnetized Projectiles will be close to enlightenment. The risk is no cascade happens and you eat a lot of damage. That's why you let Patch tank the next match if this happens. Unfortunately, IM40 is a perfect partner for this team due to him being a battery for this team.

DAZ0273

ThaRoadWarrior said:

4* BHs are not as common in heroic and legendary tokens as 3*s are in the lesser tokens, but they are a lot more common from PVP store tokens. 

You could do much worse than 4* Captain Marvel, that's for sure. She was one of my first 4* champs, and at the time she was super top tier. She is fed by 3* captain marvel (who is decidedly trash-tier) who is in turn fed by 2* captain marvel, so you'll be seeing more covers of her for sure eventually. 

There is a very short list of "essential" 4* characters I like to recommend people get quickly:

Medusa
4ocket
G4mora
Vulture

C4rol isn't as crucial to your core roster as those, but she is very strong and adds value to loads of teams.
Peggy - still solid, but not the GOAT as she was once considered in my opinion. If you're you're trying to get away from IM40, she probably isn't who you want, but she does slay pretty hard against similarly leveled opponents.

Peggy pretty much needs IM40 or somebody similar in much the same way 3* Cap does.

One argument for Cap Marvel is that her yellow power has a highly useful element to it in being able to reduce countdown timers to zero. Obviously most players will use this on Carol herself but it has widespread utility across the board, especially at 3* level where countdowns tend to be more vulnerable.

Warbringa

I think your best non-IM40 team is Fist/Strange/Cyclops.  It is a pretty good team with rainbow coverage and lots of good passive.  Strange is primarily there for stun/passive blast.  Fist for his tile and his purple bomb.  Cyclops is your big damage dealer with his red/black.  Save up black so that you can use Fist's green/purple then spend all the black AP for Cyclop's nuke.  It should be a decent team.  For IM40, Magneto is a good pair even though they share the same colors.  The reason is that Mags blue is probably the best blue 3* power (maybe strange's is in the running).  With IM40 you always match yellow first and then spend the blue/red AP.  IM40's red blast is good but his blue ability is terrible, that is where Mags comes in.  You then just add in a good green AP user to round out your team.  Don't even bother about black or purple AP as your only goal is gathering yellow AP and spending blue/red/green.

Another overlooked good 3* imo is Blade if you can get him champed. He is rare in that all three of his powers are very useful at many different combinations.  I like his green at 5 to give you the most strike tile creation, his purple at 5 for great attack tiles and his black at 3.  What makes him rare is that his black power at 3 is still pretty decent, not for damage, but for the AP steal. Most powers at 3 you don't use in my experience but his is still worthwhile to be your primary black power on a team even at only 3 covers. 

ThaRoadWarrior

I ran Blad3 like that also - typically with Falcon/Switch

Beerman63

Blade is too weak still, but I was lucky to get 3 Thanos covers lately, so I changed my BH from Kamala to Thanos, cause finally I see why he's so well-liked by many others. I didn't have a black cover before, but now I can really speed through alot fo PvE battles. It's still in the future, but what's the best build for him? I'm wondering whether or not I should put 5 covers on black, because the harming of the teammates also gets quite heavy then...

Concerning 4*s, I got more, namely Kraven the Hunter (looks not too good) and Emma Frost (but not sure about her...). I got 3 Prof. X covers from the teamevent, I rostered him instead of the 1 cover Bishop. Guess it makes sense to keep him.

ThaRoadWarrior

5/3/5, hands down. 3 on black is the worst ratio of self-harm to enemy damage. So even though you're doing a few 100 more to yourself, the enemy damage is nearly doubled by setting it to 5.

Professor X is not a top-tier 4*, but he is super fun when you have other characters that can make match-5s on purpose. You'll be seeing a couple more from Magn3to eventually, and it seems like he is in a bunch of progression rewards at the moment.

Bishop is actually a really strong 4* on defense. In many ways he is the 4* version of 3* Dr. Strange, but more annoying. There is one near the top of the support circuit today that is a nightmare lol

DAZ0273

The primary use of Prof X is in tandem with Scarlet Witch and 3* Widow as one of the old "winfinite" teams known as Charlie's Angels. Personally I never really got too into using them but if you can get them going then you can win without the other side doing much. The key to it is having Switch's blue resolve which often makes a match 5 which triggers Prof and fills Widow's purple which is used to make another Match 5 in green by which time you might be able to finish the match with Widow or get another Match 5 from Switch.

ThaRoadWarrior

The superior Professor X team in my opinion is Angels & Demons - put Nightcrawler/Domino next to him and just let Bamf! do the work. Domino ensures incoming tiles are primarily black for better cascade creation, and Professor X generates purple (assuming he or Nightcrawler are leveled enough) in the background on every match-5 to keep the Bamf! happening. Domino's red nuke is awesome, her Green helps with cascades, and Nightcrawler's Blue is also really strong. This doesn't have the disadvantage GSBW has where she can't change the color of a special tile either.

DAZ0273

ThaRoadWarrior said:

The superior Professor X team in my opinion is Angels & Demons - put Nightcrawler/Domino next to him and just let Bamf! do the work. Domino ensures incoming tiles are primarily black for better cascade creation, and Professor X generates purple (assuming he or Nightcrawler are leveled enough) in the background on every match-5 to keep the Bamf! happening. Domino's red nuke is awesome, her Green helps with cascades, and Nightcrawler's Blue is also really strong. This doesn't have the disadvantage GSBW has where she can't change the color of a special tile either.

Yeah, sadly I don't have either Dom or NC champed, just can't get that elusive last purple for Nightcrawler because I would definitely play this team than the traditional Charlie's Angels.

ThaRoadWarrior

Domino is one of the better new releases in my opinion. I know everybody is all stoked for Bishop right now, but she is way more my playstyle. I champed her quick, and she really helps my Ghost Rider (Robbie Reyes) stay flush with black, even though they overlap on all 3 colors. I like her red better than his, and since she has a passive black, he gets to use Damnation on the regular, and Hell Ride tiles stay fed. I'm actually pretty interested in trying to run Magick on the other side of him to keep red on the board. My TA Hulk is now covered, but un-leveled, so I can't experiment with his green making ways, though I suspect it's also good. For that matter, Magick/Domino/TA Hulk is probably a super fun 4* team... Anyway, back to your regularly scheduled programming.

Beerman63

New "whom to roster" problem in 4* land for me...

Currently I have 4* covers for Nick Fury (seems average from what I read), Rogue, Punisher, and Moon Knight. Probably will only be able to keep one of them, which one seems most useful to you?

Through team event and the the current PVE I managed to get 4 covers of Carnage, whom I absolutely hate if he's on the opposing team, so I believe he'll be helpful for me as well, even though many rankings place him very low in comparison to other 4*. I made room for him, so now I'm wondering if he can already be useful for me when paired with some 3*... Any suggestions for that?