The elusive 5* Carol

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  • Daredevil217
    Daredevil217 Posts: 3,939 Chairperson of the Boards
    HoundofShadow said:
    5* Captain Marvel and 4* Talos coming to you on 28th Feb and 14th March respectively. 

    I see red and green 3-turn repeater tiles, and also red strike tiles on the board. 
    Someone mentioned about Captain Marvel and 1 teammate going airborne. ArchAngel to clip their wings?
    See now I wouldn’t even be mad if they made her Uber powerful like Kitty. Kitty made Grocket a thing in the 5* meta as a partner and BSSM as a counter. She elevated herself and two others. 

    Making Carol meta with a built-in counter in Angel would be awesome because now you have two additional characters being played and the most diverse meta we’ve seen ever. 

    But alas it is very plausible she’s low to mid tier and so both her and Angel will rot. 
  • HoundofShadow
    HoundofShadow Posts: 8,004 Chairperson of the Boards
    Any 5* with 3-turn repeater is automatically bottom tier, unless her passive is so good that it can put her into top 3 tier, or it's a 3-turn repeater at 3 covers that is on the board.
  • GrimSkald
    GrimSkald Posts: 2,581 Chairperson of the Boards
    HoundofShadow said:
    Any 5* with 3-turn repeater is automatically bottom tier, unless her passive is so good that it can put her into top 3 tier, or it's a 3-turn repeater at 3 covers that is on the board.


    It depends.  If it's a 3 turn repeater with no cost, just appears (like Gambit's "Stacked Deck,") that edges it to "Mediocre" rather than "almost useless" (why hello Loki's green.)  It also depends on what it does - but I agree that anything based on a 3 turn repeater cannot be game-changing - it might not be awful, but it won't be great.

    Also, you have to look at the whole character rather than just one power - Kitty has a mediocre yellow and an almost useless red, but she's top-tier because of her passive.  Thor without his passive is solidly mid-tier at best, he's far too slow (believe me, I've made the mistake of bringing a full-Health Thor into SHIELD Sim a few times.)  It's the continuous board-shake/AP Gen that makes him excellent.

  • RPIJG
    RPIJG Posts: 25 Just Dropped In
    I feel like saying "we can't predict what is meta defining" is a bit of a fallacy.

    Thor is in the meta because he has built in passive AP gen and a walloping AOE.
    Okoye is in the meta because her black boosts every special power and her yellow true heals her AND self-creates additional TU to feed her black.
    Kitty is in the "quasi-meta" because her yellow passively boosts special tiles like crazy, doesn't matter what kind.  Strikes, attacks, shields, there is no cap on how high they go except for the match ending, she's not in the true meta because she doesn't generate offense consistently on her own, and she doesn't have any AP gen.

    It's pretty clear the meta is defined by AP gen and boost/buff.  4* carol has those, which is why she is a beast, the mechanic for her boost can be tougher to trigger, and it's a slower go, but if D3 "really" wants a meta defining character, they could easily use 4* carol as a roadmap with some tweaks.
  • GrimSkald
    GrimSkald Posts: 2,581 Chairperson of the Boards
    RPIJG said:
    I feel like saying "we can't predict what is meta defining" is a bit of a fallacy.

    Thor is in the meta because he has built in passive AP gen and a walloping AOE.
    Okoye is in the meta because her black boosts every special power and her yellow true heals her AND self-creates additional TU to feed her black.
    Kitty is in the "quasi-meta" because her yellow passively boosts special tiles like crazy, doesn't matter what kind.  Strikes, attacks, shields, there is no cap on how high they go except for the match ending, she's not in the true meta because she doesn't generate offense consistently on her own, and she doesn't have any AP gen.

    It's pretty clear the meta is defined by AP gen and boost/buff.  4* carol has those, which is why she is a beast, the mechanic for her boost can be tougher to trigger, and it's a slower go, but if D3 "really" wants a meta defining character, they could easily use 4* carol as a roadmap with some tweaks.


    It all boils down to one thing, really - speed of play.  That one thing is actually two - actual raw time to finish the match, and number of turns to finish the match.  Better speed on the second will save you health packs, but let's face it, better speed on the first is absolutely essential to hopping in PVP and important if you want to play PVE competitively.  Thorkoye and Gritty are the meta right now because they allow you to finish the match with as little actual time as possible, and you also generally keep the number of turns low enough hat you don't take too much damage.

    This is why CoulHawk isn't a part of the meta, really.  They're fast for finishing the match in as few turns as possible, but even with animations off there's still quite a bit more real time you take to finish the match.  That, and it can sometimes fail to get going quickly.  They're meh for PVE (though I still use them for challenging 5* nodes, personally,) and unsuitable for PVP.

    Anyway, if she's fast, she'll fit in pretty well, but a 3 turn repeater is a bad sign.

  • thedarkphoenix
    thedarkphoenix Posts: 557 Critical Contributor
    Every single marvel movie 5 has been good the only exception is wasp...and I feel like she's gonna get reworked at some point to be really good.
  • Vhailorx
    Vhailorx Posts: 6,085 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited February 2019
    GrimSkald said:
    RPIJG said:
    I feel like saying "we can't predict what is meta defining" is a bit of a fallacy.

    Thor is in the meta because he has built in passive AP gen and a walloping AOE.
    Okoye is in the meta because her black boosts every special power and her yellow true heals her AND self-creates additional TU to feed her black.
    Kitty is in the "quasi-meta" because her yellow passively boosts special tiles like crazy, doesn't matter what kind.  Strikes, attacks, shields, there is no cap on how high they go except for the match ending, she's not in the true meta because she doesn't generate offense consistently on her own, and she doesn't have any AP gen.

    It's pretty clear the meta is defined by AP gen and boost/buff.  4* carol has those, which is why she is a beast, the mechanic for her boost can be tougher to trigger, and it's a slower go, but if D3 "really" wants a meta defining character, they could easily use 4* carol as a roadmap with some tweaks.


    It all boils down to one thing, really - speed of play.  That one thing is actually two - actual raw time to finish the match, and number of turns to finish the match.  Better speed on the second will save you health packs, but let's face it, better speed on the first is absolutely essential to hopping in PVP and important if you want to play PVE competitively.  Thorkoye and Gritty are the meta right now because they allow you to finish the match with as little actual time as possible, and you also generally keep the number of turns low enough hat you don't take too much damage.

    This is why CoulHawk isn't a part of the meta, really.  They're fast for finishing the match in as few turns as possible, but even with animations off there's still quite a bit more real time you take to finish the match.  That, and it can sometimes fail to get going quickly.  They're meh for PVE (though I still use them for challenging 5* nodes, personally,) and unsuitable for PVP.

    Anyway, if she's fast, she'll fit in pretty well, but a 3 turn repeater is a bad sign.

    Neither of you are wrong.  And none of this is news.  These two related factors have defined the meta since at least hood/sentry in 2014. Before that the meta involved a lot of 2ap powers and other tricks that could make easy infinity engines (rags, spidey, cmags, 1* storm + environmental tiles, etc), and the scoring systems were less mature, and less well understood, so total match time was less important.

    Since then, it's pretty clear whenever a new character is released that unless they generate lots of ap (or zero-ap-cost damage) quickly, or have a very easy to proc tile boosting mechanic, they won't be part of the meta.  

    Pretty much no power reliant on a 3-turn tile, CD or repeater, will satisfy those criteria (the closest is Switch's passive, but even that is a bit slow these days).  So if 5* carol is going to be good, then her repeater ability must be her worst power, or a useful appendage on a power with some other great ability (e.g. Kitty's active yellow).  Given that she has two relatively cheap powers (8ap is cheap in 5* land) and at least 1 passive, there is still a clear path for her to be good.  But now that we know her color combo, and have strong evidence that she has at least 1 repeater tile ability, I will say that the odds on her being a meta character have to be slightly lower than they were 36 hours ago.

    and re: kitty, obviously her yellow passive is the number 1 reason she gets a lot of usage.  but is her red passive at all helpful too?  I have found it to be mildly irritating the few times I have played her in PVP.  And passively removing 1 special tile every turn is a useful ability (if not quite so crazy as original 5* gambit's special tile defense).  It seems like it might be her second best attribute.
  • Daredevil217
    Daredevil217 Posts: 3,939 Chairperson of the Boards
    thedarkphoenix said:
    Every single marvel movie 5 has been good the only exception is wasp...and I feel like she's gonna get reworked at some point to be really good.
    Star-Lord and FA Cap and Iron Man and Kingpin and Loki and IW Cap all say hi. 
  • Vhailorx
    Vhailorx Posts: 6,085 Chairperson of the Boards
    Daredevil217 said:
    thedarkphoenix said:
    Every single marvel movie 5 has been good the only exception is wasp...and I feel like she's gonna get reworked at some point to be really good.
    Star-Lord and FA Cap and Iron Man and Kingpin and Loki and IW Cap all say hi. 
    Im46 was arguably the best non true-healing 5* in the game when released (the need to play with team IM allies was irritating, but his damage per AP was very high and his other two abilities are useful).  He gets a pass.

    But yeah, the others on your list were all meh or worse at release.
  • ZootSax
    ZootSax Posts: 1,819 Chairperson of the Boards
    Daredevil217 said:
    thedarkphoenix said:
    Every single marvel movie 5 has been good the only exception is wasp...and I feel like she's gonna get reworked at some point to be really good.
    Star-Lord and FA Cap and Iron Man and Kingpin and Loki and IW Cap all say hi. 
    ...and who could forget one Bruce Banner.
  • tiomono
    tiomono Posts: 1,654 Chairperson of the Boards
    ZootSax said:
    Daredevil217 said:
    thedarkphoenix said:
    Every single marvel movie 5 has been good the only exception is wasp...and I feel like she's gonna get reworked at some point to be really good.
    Star-Lord and FA Cap and Iron Man and Kingpin and Loki and IW Cap all say hi. 
    ...and who could forget one Bruce Banner.
    He doesn't really resemble the mcu banner though. So I wouldn't put him in the movie tie in category.

    Funnily enough he is my current bonus hero. 1 more cover and he is champable. I plan on running him with kitty and daredevil so he can generate enemy specials for kitty to pop.
  • thedarkphoenix
    thedarkphoenix Posts: 557 Critical Contributor
    Daredevil217 said:
    thedarkphoenix said:
    Every single marvel movie 5 has been good the only exception is wasp...and I feel like she's gonna get reworked at some point to be really good.
    Star-Lord and FA Cap and Iron Man and Kingpin and Loki and IW Cap all say hi. 
    The only MCU based characters you listed are IW cap who is good... Starlord is a toss up as either, and the rest are comic book variants or other movie references.


  • Vhailorx
    Vhailorx Posts: 6,085 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited February 2019
    thedarkphoenix said:
    Daredevil217 said:
    thedarkphoenix said:
    Every single marvel movie 5 has been good the only exception is wasp...and I feel like she's gonna get reworked at some point to be really good.
    Star-Lord and FA Cap and Iron Man and Kingpin and Loki and IW Cap all say hi. 
    The only MCU based characters you listed are IW cap who is good... Starlord is a toss up as either, and the rest are comic book variants or other movie references.


    Iw cap is meh.  He would have been good if released with civil war. But two years of power creep hurt him badly.  With bb, panthos, Thor, Gambit etc in the game he was meh at release.

    Kingpun was a Tuesday in with Netflix DD.  So quasi MCU.  Civil war cap is straight MCU.  Star Lord is straight mcu.  Im46 is straight mcu.  5* Loki is pretty clearly Tom Hiddleston. Wasp is also straight mcu and she is arguably the worst of all
  • GrimSkald
    GrimSkald Posts: 2,581 Chairperson of the Boards
    Vhailorx said:

    and re: kitty, obviously her yellow passive is the number 1 reason she gets a lot of usage.  but is her red passive at all helpful too?  I have found it to be mildly irritating the few times I have played her in PVP.  And passively removing 1 special tile every turn is a useful ability (if not quite so crazy as original 5* gambit's special tile defense).  It seems like it might be her second best attribute.
    Her red isn't really a passive - it places a CD tile that acts like a passive.  The problem with it is that it's a combination of three different factors - you need to have had 6 red ap to place the CD, the CD needs to survive, and your opponent needs to inflict damage via a power.  Versus Medusa and BB it works really well, otherwise you need good timing to get any value out of it at all.  It's so situational - I put it close to "almost useless."

    Her purple passive is solid, actually, it's just not the thing that makes her top tier.
  • Daredevil217
    Daredevil217 Posts: 3,939 Chairperson of the Boards
    thedarkphoenix said:
    Daredevil217 said:
    thedarkphoenix said:
    Every single marvel movie 5 has been good the only exception is wasp...and I feel like she's gonna get reworked at some point to be really good.
    Star-Lord and FA Cap and Iron Man and Kingpin and Loki and IW Cap all say hi. 
    The only MCU based characters you listed are IW cap who is good... Starlord is a toss up as either, and the rest are comic book variants or other movie references.


    Nah. You said “marvel movie 5” (which includes Kingpin) not “MCU” (which includes Jessica/DD).  But the point stands... Cap (Ca: Civil War), Iron Man (CA: Civil War), Wasp (AM&W), suck. Star-Lord (GOTG: Vol. 2), Loki (IW/Ragnarok), Cap (IW) are okayish. Strange (Dr. Strenge), PP Spidey (Homecoming), Daredevil (Netflix), Jessica (Netflix) are good. And Thorkoye are meta. So really... they’re all over the place. MCU/movie has not automatically meant awesome. Just like non-MCU characters they’ve been all over the place. 

    I’m predicting that Carol will be in the okay tier. Hoping I’m wrong and she sneaks into that second tier just below the meta. 
  • Tony_Foot
    Tony_Foot Posts: 1,790 Chairperson of the Boards
    Carol direct colour overlap as Thor, 3 turn repeater? Well that’s another skip in marvel passive quest. I’m happy if she’s another mid tier, eases the pressure to get 300 pulls every 3 releases. One cover and ignore.
  • Daredevil217
    Daredevil217 Posts: 3,939 Chairperson of the Boards
    Is it possible that the 3-turn repeater is at low covers and maybe a 1-turn at 5 covers? I’m just trying to be optimistic. 
  • HoundofShadow
    HoundofShadow Posts: 8,004 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited February 2019
    Another 4-5 days and everyone will know how good Captain Marvel is.

    I suspect it could be a 3-turn repeater at 3 covers and 2-turns at 4 or 5 covers. It would be surprising if it's a 1-turn repeater at 5 covers, which I believe will be unprecedented. 

    Or unless the repeaters belong to Talos...  :D

  • ammenell
    ammenell Posts: 817 Critical Contributor
    they will be careful not to make another gambit, i wouldn't be surprised if she ends up in low or mid tier because of that. 
  • Daredevil217
    Daredevil217 Posts: 3,939 Chairperson of the Boards
    It’s sad because there’s a world of room between meh and amazing. So many of these meh characters could could occupy the space where Daredevil/Jessica/Bolt or even Thor/Okoye/Kitty reside with some pretty small reasonable tweaks. Lower Loki’s repeater, have Cables blue stun upon casting, raise Doom’s match damage, etc. But I guess if they can avoid another Gambit and avoid another Wasp, they consider it a job well done. And the meta remains the same.  At least we were given Kitty recently to shake some things up, so it’s not all bad.  

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