Worst 4* character in the game?

DAZ0273

Talos

Vhailorx said:

DAZ0273 said:

Vhailorx said:

jamesh said:

turbomoose said:

Black widow is only useful for recharging the health of her teammates. But when you reach 5* matches health bonuses don’t really help much 

While she's not great, she offers more than that.  Lowering power costs is nothing to sniff at.  And her ability to remove special tiles comes in handy.  In the current Valkyrie PVP tournament, I've used her to force a few Professor X's out of hiding.

No, lowering power cost via an active power IS something to sniff at.  It's just too inefficient. 

If you play her on team that cares about other colors, and you happen to collect yellow from Cascades, fine.  It's nice to have cheaper powers. 

But you should never design a team to collect yellow AP so that you can use it to make other powers cheaper.  That is a waste of time and effort.  You are better off with a team that can use the yellow AP for some direct effect. 

Also, much of the meta right now is a passive one.  So reducing active costs is less valuable than it otherwise might me.

I might use her with Sabretooth once I have him up to speed, he gets some healing then and his cheap powers become even more spammable.

Nah, you should just collect more red AP to cast sabretooth red again.  Collecting the AP to fuel BW to cast saber red is a waste of time (I have been saying this since original 4*SL).

And if you really want a yellow outlet to imrprove sabretooth, im40 will make a bigger impact every time.

Well you may well be right but it costs nothing to try things out. Like I said, it was partly because I don't like the idea of Sabretooth not healing and her yellow does 2 jobs for one type deal (unlike say just running Kamala to do the same thing or Strange), so it was comic-book geek influenced as much as gameplay. More likely is that I will run Okoye with Sabretooth and so the yellow will go to her instead. 

ThaRoadWarrior

Talos

Vhailorx said:

Nah, you should just collect more red AP to cast sabretooth red again.  Collecting the AP to fuel BW to cast saber red is a waste of time (I have been saying this since original 4*SL).

And if you really want a yellow outlet to imrprove sabretooth, im40 will make a bigger impact every time.

Shuri ftw on making things cheaper while simultaneously making enemy things more expensive.

DAZ0273

Talos

ThaRoadWarrior said:

Vhailorx said:

Nah, you should just collect more red AP to cast sabretooth red again.  Collecting the AP to fuel BW to cast saber red is a waste of time (I have been saying this since original 4*SL).

And if you really want a yellow outlet to imrprove sabretooth, im40 will make a bigger impact every time.

Shuri ftw on making things cheaper while simultaneously making enemy things more expensive.

Only trouble with her and Sabes is the overlap on red.

ThaRoadWarrior

Talos

Depends on who they're with - as long as you keep n fortified tiles out, Shuri just gives out that AP discount/tax passively. Since it's not countdown based, it just works. So ST will have that 3AP red as long as the condition is met.

DAZ0273

Talos

ThaRoadWarrior said:

Depends on who they're with - as long as you keep n fortified tiles out, Shuri just gives out that AP discount/tax passively. Since it's not countdown based, it just works. So ST will have that 3AP red as long as the condition is met.

I'll give that a whirl too, it all amounts to slashy goodness.

ThaRoadWarrior

Talos

You might run them with Prowler - that way you can keep the pain train rolling with Tooth by just spamming out enemy specials with he and prowler, let prowler fortify them passively, then you have 2 stuns, some board shake, all kinds of passive damage between the 3 of them. Alternatively you could run them with Magik to add reds to the board over time and help with fortification.

Anyway, sorry for polluting this thread about bad 4*s with talk about good ones. As you were.

Daredevil217

Just dropping in to defend Natasha. 4* players want big damage or cheap damage powers. But as you become a 5* player, support and powers that don’t scale with levels (stun, AP drain/steal, battery, tile swap, etc.) become more important for that essential third character. 

Without going back to page 1 and looking at the poll options I can confidently say there is no one on the list (aside from “other”) that I’d want alongside Thorkoye. Thor provides more than enough yellow to proc Brush Pass. Using yellow to drop AP costs by three, is huge. You know all that black AP Thorkoye collects with no outlet? You now have a 5AP stun (that does Okoye boosted damage as a bonus and drains 3 AP each turn they remained stunned). Thor’s red is 6 AP, his green is 9. Then you can top off Okoye for just 4 AP. Widow can really speed up this already speedy team, while also providing a purple outlet that has corner case uses (again... in 5* land those corner cases happen more often than you think with hard to reach Gritty tiles being a thing every other match). Widow is solidly mid tier and shouldn’t be on this list. 

TranscendGod

I often like to climb the simulator while using every 4* at least once. I also like to use each of the boosted 4*s in PvPs and non-release PvEs for fun, so I have a fair amount of experience with the weaker 4s.

I agree with most of you about Emma and Talos being terrible 4* characters. However, I'm going to attempt to make the case that Emma is quite a bit worse than Talos. Talos has a passive that is mostly useless for 5* players, but can be somewhat useful for other players in certain circumstances. When required, his passive can make things a bit faster for a 4* player (especially if you equip a support that can make him cover more colors). He also has a decent stun (4 turns for 9 blue with a high chance of reducing their strongest color by 5 while creating a juicy countdown for characters like carol). Emma has no free passive (costs 11 black to activate, and is fairly weak). But her main problem is that the numbers on her abilities are extremely low. I've tried to make her work with various teams, especially with Shuri so I could get several yellow repeaters out. But the numbers are pitiful (compare her yellow to 4* Panther), and it takes forever to win unless the other characters do most of the work.

As for the other characters on the list:

Prowler is a fairly good 4*. His numbers are solid, his stun is sweet, and his passive is inconsistent yet powerful. That being said since nearly everyone here seems to agree I'll move on to the next character.

Jubilee is awesome for a 4* player when featured or boosted. I've had some of my fastest PvP climbs thanks to her. She can also be incredibly quick in PvE, and amusing in some other events. When boosted from a relatively low level (~270-280), she does 2600-2800 damage per match when her passive's condition is met. When max champed and boosted I imagine it would be at least double that amount. And much like Thor, you can intentionally ensure that her health is reasonably low to consistently enable her passive. Her green is also a decent AOE/utility that makes her passive activate for all 3 of your characters. When you want to take down a difficult opponent, a boosted Jubilee is fantastic (particularly if they have special tiles that you want to remove). Her purple is weird and fairly weak. Anyhow, I understand why most 5* players don't like her. Her passive is her strongest asset, so if it's difficult to activate she will be weak.

Black Widow is fairly decent, mid tier at worst. In the recent Valkyrie PvP, I used her with America to get her yellow going so that her black stun + AP drain only cost 5 and valkyrie's red cost 8. Was great for conserving health packs (in my initial climb from 0 - 1100 something, I didn't need to use a health pack until the 900s partly thanks to her). She's also a lot of fun to play around with (especially with Shuri or Starlord for massive cost reduction for silly combos). Her purple is awful. Although I suppose it's useful in 1v1s and some other odd situations.

Kingpin is one of the weaker 4s, but he's not too close to the bottom. When they made his black bad, they made his yellow far stronger (and it was decent before his update). When boosted/featured, he can do great things with Shuri. Combine them with an automatic AP generator (like America with boosts or Hood) and you can Shuri Red -> Kingpin Purple -> Kingpin Yellow (often multiple times). You'll randomly lose a bunch of his countdowns but they are so powerful it doesn't matter. It's also hilarious. Hood is nice because you can use his cost reduced black to accelerate Kingpin yellow. You can also use (5/5/3) carol for ridiculously massive strike tiles (although that's more for fun because it has a slow start).

The others are just fairly weak (lockjaw is almost okay in the right situation, but there are typically better options).

Vhailorx

ThaRoadWarrior said:

Depends on who they're with - as long as you keep n fortified tiles out, Shuri just gives out that AP discount/tax passively. Since it's not countdown based, it just works. So ST will have that 3AP red as long as the condition is met.

Passive AP cost adjustments can be great (c.f. Peggy, new 4* SL, and potentially shuri).  But active ones are basically never efficient enough to he worth using. 

PiMacleod

I must be the only person who thinks Namor is the worst.  

Everything he does is too expensive to be worthwhile.  By the time the match is wrapped up, he's finally ready to fire.

At least Talos has cheaper powers than Namor, and a stun is part of it.  Namor has mainly damage and a color change.  All of which take too long to get to.

But maybe that's just me.  

Vhailorx

Daredevil217 said:

Just dropping in to defend Natasha. 4* players want big damage or cheap damage powers. But as you become a 5* player, support and powers that don’t scale with levels (stun, AP drain/steal, battery, tile swap, etc.) become more important for that essential third character. 

Without going back to page 1 and looking at the poll options I can confidently say there is no one on the list (aside from “other”) that I’d want alongside Thorkoye. Thor provides more than enough yellow to proc Brush Pass. Using yellow to drop AP costs by three, is huge. You know all that black AP Thorkoye collects with no outlet? You now have a 5AP stun (that does Okoye boosted damage as a bonus and drains 3 AP each turn they remained stunned). Thor’s red is 6 AP, his green is 9. Then you can top off Okoye for just 4 AP. Widow can really speed up this already speedy team, while also providing a purple outlet that has corner case uses (again... in 5* land those corner cases happen more often than you think with hard to reach Gritty tiles being a thing every other match). Widow is solidly mid tier and shouldn’t be on this list. 

Enh, that still seems wasteful.  Now I need to wait to collect 10 yellow just so that I can reduce the cost of Thor's red/green?  Why not bring a good black outlet instead and use the 10 yellow AP for 1-2 casts of okoye's yellow which will heal her and hopefully collect someore tu ap, which can make Thor's powers more damage efficient even at a higher cost. 

When the initial investment is 10, there is almost never a good reason to use her to reduce AP costs.  You need the CD to last long enough to cast 4 powers before your are net neutral or ahead on AP cost.  That will not happen often unless you plan carefully (and get luck with Thor's boardshake).  And you are almost always just better off planning and implememting a simpler strategy.

jp1

Talos

TranscendGod said:

I often like to climb the simulator while using every 4* at least once. I also like to use each of the boosted 4*s in PvPs and non-release PvEs for fun, so I have a fair amount of experience with the weaker 4s.

I agree with most of you about Emma and Talos being terrible 4* characters. However, I'm going to attempt to make the case that Emma is quite a bit worse than Talos. Talos has a passive that is mostly useless for 5* players, but can be somewhat useful for other players in certain circumstances. When required, his passive can make things a bit faster for a 4* player (especially if you equip a support that can make him cover more colors). He also has a decent stun (4 turns for 9 blue with a high chance of reducing their strongest color by 5 while creating a juicy countdown for characters like carol). Emma has no free passive (costs 11 black to activate, and is fairly weak). But her main problem is that the numbers on her abilities are extremely low. I've tried to make her work with various teams, especially with Shuri so I could get several yellow repeaters out. But the numbers are pitiful (compare her yellow to 4* Panther), and it takes forever to win unless the other characters do most of the work.

As for the other characters on the list:

Prowler is a fairly good 4*. His numbers are solid, his stun is sweet, and his passive is inconsistent yet powerful. That being said since nearly everyone here seems to agree I'll move on to the next character.

Jubilee is awesome for a 4* player when featured or boosted. I've had some of my fastest PvP climbs thanks to her. She can also be incredibly quick in PvE, and amusing in some other events. When boosted from a relatively low level (~270-280), she does 2600-2800 damage per match when her passive's condition is met. When max champed and boosted I imagine it would be at least double that amount. And much like Thor, you can intentionally ensure that her health is reasonably low to consistently enable her passive. Her green is also a decent AOE/utility that makes her passive activate for all 3 of your characters. When you want to take down a difficult opponent, a boosted Jubilee is fantastic (particularly if they have special tiles that you want to remove). Her purple is weird and fairly weak. Anyhow, I understand why most 5* players don't like her. Her passive is her strongest asset, so if it's difficult to activate she will be weak.

Black Widow is fairly decent, mid tier at worst. In the recent Valkyrie PvP, I used her with America to get her yellow going so that her black stun + AP drain only cost 5 and valkyrie's red cost 8. Was great for conserving health packs (in my initial climb from 0 - 1100 something, I didn't need to use a health pack until the 900s partly thanks to her). She's also a lot of fun to play around with (especially with Shuri or Starlord for massive cost reduction for silly combos). Her purple is awful. Although I suppose it's useful in 1v1s and some other odd situations.

Kingpin is one of the weaker 4s, but he's not too close to the bottom. When they made his black bad, they made his yellow far stronger (and it was decent before his update). When boosted/featured, he can do great things with Shuri. Combine them with an automatic AP generator (like America with boosts or Hood) and you can Shuri Red -> Kingpin Purple -> Kingpin Yellow (often multiple times). You'll randomly lose a bunch of his countdowns but they are so powerful it doesn't matter. It's also hilarious. Hood is nice because you can use his cost reduced black to accelerate Kingpin yellow. You can also use (5/5/3) carol for ridiculously massive strike tiles (although that's more for fun because it has a slow start).

The others are just fairly weak (lockjaw is almost okay in the right situation, but there are typically better options).

Hard to argue with this since I haven’t bothered with most of them other than Lockjaw and Namor. I haven’t champed Prowler yet, but his steal seems like a fun mechanic and I agree he doesn’t even feel close to trash tier.

I have Emma champed (Just for champ rewards, not because she is good lol), and haven’t invested more than a few thousand ISO into Talos. So perhaps my perspective is skewed a little in her favor. 

Talos is has no damage output, which makes him garbage to me. His Clash was the worst I’ve had to compete in ever, hands down. A support and a lucky board after tons of tries is the only reason I was able to complete it. 

I almost would have included Bucky in the poll if Emma and Talos weren’t so bad. Mainly because his Clash was second worse and I had to level him far higher than any other character to win it. I really dislike his kit. But I’d run him solo over a team of Emma and Talos. So no point in his inclusion I guess.

Anyone that thinks Lockjaw is as useless as Talos need only play the royal family node. In regular play with Okoye and BB he can be fun and quite decent too. 

AlexR

Emma Frost

PiMacleod said:

I must be the only person who thinks Namor is the worst.  

Everything he does is too expensive to be worthwhile.  By the time the match is wrapped up, he's finally ready to fire.

At least Talos has cheaper powers than Namor, and a stun is part of it.  Namor has mainly damage and a color change.  All of which take too long to get to.

But maybe that's just me.  

You can fix the problem of "too expensive" pretty easily with a feeder though. You can't patch up someone like Emma Frost that way because her problem isn't as easy as "too expensive", it's "too expensive for what it does + enforced waiting through randomly placed non-fortified multi-turn repeaters that will likely not survive + very weak numbers".

Warbringa

Emma Frost

Its probably a close tie between both Frost and Talos.  I went with Frost because I value hypothetical AP steal more than the nothing that is Frost abilities and Frost should be character that could have a lot of potential.  That being said Talos is pure junk as well and gets an almost as trashy runner up trophy.  I think Talos is hilariously bad because having no damage abilities (besides his match damage), his usefulness of powers isn't really impacted by his level ala 3* Loki.  Unfortunately for Talos I would take 3* Loki every time over him because at least 3* Loki actually has some decent powers!

Gold_Dragon

My opinion on the 4*s (and any character, really) is if I can find a team for you that you can thrive and/or have importance, then you’re good in my book. So.... going down the list......

Lockjaw - you can team him up with most charge users but to me, he really shines on a team that makes s lot of special tiles vs tile-movers. Put him with 4*BP/Magik and not only will you do a nice bit of damage on the opponents turn, but BP/Magik won’t take damage as L.J. jumps in front as all the shields/strikes you generate and are matched by the opponent. Loyal Protector is a FANTASTIC power. 

Sam Wilson - his red is probably the biggest one shot nuke in 4* land and it has no ceiling. You put him Magik/Switch and not only will you get that red off, you’ll get it twice. A team that’s just as fun but slower is taking out Switch or Magik and adding Hulkbuster but choosing which red to use based on what’s on the field.

Kingpin - I’m kinda at a loss with him. His purple is really good as a yellow generator and AP destroyer. His black only works with other CDs on the field but most CDs you want to go off. Why not have him expire those CDs instead of destroy them? He was way better in his previous incarnation. His black was significantly cheaper and just plain better. It seems his change was only for the AI when teamed with goons. 

Black Widow - anybody voting for her as the worst 4* is gonna have to fight me first. Her toolset as a support only character is amazing and I can put her on a bunch of teams. Putting her with 5*DD/4* Gamora is some of the easiest wins you’ll ever get. You want her black to do more damage? Why? So you can team her up DD and Okoye and watch the world burn? Or DD and Shuri? Hell... you don’t even need DD. Put her with two other characters that only deal damage like Kate Bishop and Riri and see how valuable she is. Team 4*BW up with Peggy and watch how it’ll almost feel like cheating because the opponent will never get a power off and you can just slowly match your way to getting your powers off. Team BW up with 4* Starlord and Kate and watch the magic. Ever team her up with 5* Hawkeye/5*Archangel? Yeah that’s right. That would be a legitimately dangerous team if Gritty and Thorkoye weren’t a thing. Have you ever put 4*BW with GED/5*DD and used them for a run through SS or PVE vs tile movers?  And you think her yellow should be cheaper? You think her black should do more damage? Are you **** crazy?! Do want the world to burn?!

Jubilee - I got nothing with her despite having her champed. But that’s because I’ve never sat down and tried to run her with some teams to find some synergy with her. With KP, I’ve tried and failed. With Jubilee, I simply haven’t tried. 

Namor - you guys are really missing the boat on him and that’s probably because his colors/powers are almost  the same as Iceman and most of you are thinking ‘why would I use Namor, when Iceman has the superior moveset?’ Well, the thing is, Iceman has the best blue in 4* land (probably the entire game) and Namor’s black pales in comparison to it. But..... Namor’s purple/green are better damage dealers than Iceman’s green/blue/purple. Because the purple becomes an AOE nuke with 10 blue on the field after it’s made, and the green is gonna deal as much damage as Icemans blue after Namor’s purple has activated for the same cost as iceman’s blue (12 AP) with the added ability of a board shake. I put him on a team just for dealing damage and he works really well. He would really work better with Thorkoye than Iceman if Iceman didn’t have that 4-turn stun. If it was a 2-turn stun, Namor would be a better fit, as you would now have 2 AOEs with different colors as opposed to 2 of the same color (green) and the active black would be damage pumped by Okoye while Iceman’s purple does no damage.

ThaRoadWarrior

Talos

You have to run New Kingpin like the AI does-with somebody that always has a CD on the board. Try with Valkyrie/Coulson. It seems Coulson would be counter intuitive with these he overlap, but KP’s yellow doesn’t do board shake and hits a little harder, so Coulson keeps you flush with AP and shortens the timers as long as you keep him stocked with Team Up AP

Gold_Dragon

Prowler - his toolset is really cool, albeit abnormal. He’s like Elektra sonit doesn’t surprise me that people think he’s bad because most people are afraid to think outside the box with characters that don’t have moveset that say ‘press button, do damage’ or ‘don’t press anything, profit’. Using him with sabretooth, Elektra, 5* Kingpin, 4* Venom (Eddie), and a few others is a total blast. 

Emma Frost - trying to put aside the fact that HATE the actual character, her toolset is mostly screwed up by one thing..... once she turns diamond, SHE CANT FIRE HER POWERS! I’m able to find some teams (mainly, almost any team with 4* Cyclops)  to put her on as long as I don’t plan on firing her black. But her black has a horrible payoff. 

Talos - I cant really get a hold of enough covers to get a read on him. 2/1/2. He looks underwhelming but I’ve been fooled before. uve champed all the other characters on this list except Talos.

Of the characters listed, Emma would be the worst, but the worst 4* character isn’t listed. That would be Mr. Fantastic. 

Mr Fantastic - his blue has turned from a great board control move with stun to a move that you basically have to wait for in the hopes of doing damage. His yellow needs 4 matches of enemy tiles for a random payoff of a power going off. And Imaginaut is yet ANOTHER ‘hope you get what you want with this random repeater LOL’. He sucks now. He’s only acceptable with Carnage (which he already was good with pre-adjustment). I can’t do anything with this guy.

purplemur

Talos

Lockjaw has 2 passive damage powers, the widest skill set of any tier. Inhuman for whatever family is. He is really underappreciated.
Sam Wilson has the nuke and is a captain america so he can wield the old shield. His CD reduction is mostly negligible but with the choengine has some synergy. He belongs on the heap but not quite the worst.
Kingpin/cho/sam work mediocre. The yellow battery conversion is niche so he has some utility.
BW is also really good. Pink is weakest but for tricky removal gets er done. She is a great "tester" for chars. she gives you the breathing room to figure it out she gives you a nice green pillow and you don't have to bank up tons to try out multicasts; that AP cost reduction can unlock some potential in the devs 21AP combos they love.
Jubilee I think it was PoP or one of the "newer" PvE's where she was the enemy and it really showed her strength. I use her all the time in one of my favorite teams:
The stone cold stunners: Jubes/BW/Gamora: you don't always need it but when BW gets her brushpass off and gamora is stunning, you make a blue match, re-up the stun on the 1 turn back end to 4, Gams red finishes whomever, Jubilees purple double damage stun is great lockdown and all the specials created sweep up the leavings. 
and as mentioned above: You could build teams off her charged tile damage buff too.
Namor - I am really leaning towards him as the worst= slow and conditional. but @golddragon above and others who rank him midtier have me questioning my view. I have him woefully under-covered, and maybe I need to give him benefit of the doubt....
Prowler- another really good character. self synergy, he has a great engine with Shuri that makes it cheap&fast and pretty good animations(although it gets old just as fast) 
Emma Frost -  Seriously, Yelena is better. Okoye doesn't help,vulture doesn't speed her up, Daken/kitty might be her best partners but gah... I have used Valk to speed her up but the AP denial in strongest color every OTHER turn is just not helpful. As a fanboi I have loathing for her build. Travesty. but like the comment above: The popularity of the character and amount of requests heightened the abject disappointment so I will go back and keep trying; I want to find a good team for her. 
Talos -the fatal conceit in design is that a support character needs to tank.  and then also have more AP in one specific color when you match in that one particular color for it to even take effect is not .....a good ability. It makes Emmas Diamond form shine. So, maybemaybemaybe if the enemy's strongest color was black and you brought domino and C&D and Talos was boosted so he got the match it could cascade of death kinda sorta fast-ish. He is so awful when I see he is a reward I harvest the cp and skip the rest of the event because I don't even care about him. I am angry I have covers for him instead of anyone else. He should be moved to 3* Limited and give us exchanged tokens for a special store that only has the 12 worst. 

2nd place in a "beauty" contest: Bucky.  Again with the over-valued AP destruction and powers with caveats and extra burdens. 
Nebula - raspberry
Devil Dinosaur has gotta be mentioned. Limited nuthin- she is awful.

Therealsmkspy

Other (please explain in the comments)

I picked other because all the worst fours are on equal footing due to just how many are in the tier.. 

TPF Alexis

Talos

The only thing I have ever seen Talos do well was make Namor look great.