A discussion on the changing PvP Meta

ThaRoadWarrior

Single target weapons (hard counters) are all well and good, but it would be ideal if it had a little utility beyond simply fixing Bishop. In the event it doesn't actually work as well as intended, you don't want another dud 5* hanging around like the Gambit counter attempts of old.

As mentioned, if you miss out on that hard counter in Latest, you're almost certainly just stuck without it. Much like if you transition now, and you don't have Gladiator Thor or Kitty, you're just stuck at the mercy of whatever comes out next to deal with it. 

This would have been a great opportunity for a support, assuming those were allowed in PVP. Even something with a high percent chance to override a status effect rather than a flat immunity to stun would probably be pretty popular. 

DAZ0273

ThaRoadWarrior said:

This would have been a great opportunity for a support, assuming those were allowed in PVP. Even something with a high percent chance to override a status effect rather than a flat immunity to stun would probably be pretty popular. 

"Reduces stun duration by x amount of turns and cannot be stunned again for, say, 2 turns" or functions like Elektra's shadow step - whilst x amount of traps are on the board character cannot be stunned.

jredd

KGB said:

tiomono said:

Borstock said:

Oh man, 4* Thor was my go-to when I made the transition to 4-land. That's a really good example. Although, I will say that I tended to use her with 3* IM. So, I guess he's an example of a bridge character that played up. 

Exactly. But the more 4's you champ the less you use 3* ironman. Bishop is different. Imo if a new 5* doesnt do something to slow or stop bishop they are not useful. Currently the biggest challenge to all young 5* rosters is bishop and grocket. Not a super strong pairing of 5*. There are multiple answers to grocket in both 5* and 4* play. We are not there yet on bishop. I just hope it happens soon.

I know all the 5* players want a 5* answer to Bishop but the problem is that if it's just a 1 character answer then in 3 months time anyone who didn't cover that character is screwed as it fades into classics in the same manner BSSM/Surfer has. And a 4* answer won't really please 5* players either because there are plenty of those now.

Since nerfing/changing Bishop isn't on the table maybe what we should be lobbying for is a change to PvP defensive teams. Instead of just using the last team, maybe your defensive team could be randomly selected from all the valid teams you've used in the PvP event (Valid = MMR scaled so you can't be leaving out cupcakes you beat seeds teams with). So say you climb with Thorkoye and then finish with Kitty/Bishop your defensive team would randomly be selected from Thorkoye or Kitty/Bishop (had you used 3+ teams it would be from the 3 plus teams). That way someone repeatedly queuing you would eventually see your other teams used. This would solve the lack of MMR diversity and solve the Bishop problem (unless someone ONLY used Bishop for all their battles which seems unlikely given his health pack requirements) and of course force more shield usage.

KGB

not to mention,  when you get to a certain point you're cueing up the same 3-5 teams anyways. a fix to expand available teams would help a little.

tiomono

ThaRoadWarrior said:

This would have been a great opportunity for a support, assuming those were allowed in PVP. Even something with a high percent chance to override a status effect rather than a flat immunity to stun would probably be pretty popular. 

If supports were not more rare than 5* that could be a good solution.

TPF Alexis

The weird thing about Bishop (and a couple of others, like Grocket) to me is that I have a handful of decent to excellent 5* champs (including both Kitty and Okoye), but the most effective teams available to me always involve running a 4*, if not two of them. That just doesn't feel right. I ran Falcon or IM40 with 4* teams for a time while I was transitioning there, but they faded out pretty quickly once I had a decent pool of 4* champs. I don't see Grocket or Bishop being sub-optimal choices compared to my 5* anytime soon.

Sm0keyJ0e

TPF Alexis said:

...the most effective teams available to me always involve running a 4*, if not two of them. That just doesn't feel right. 

Couldn't agree more.

ThaRoadWarrior

I wonder how much that's an artifact of who you have and how hard it is generally to cover a 5*? In particular Kitty seems like she'd go very well with Rescue (is there a 5* with a cheaper attack power than 6ap?) and OML. Is that the "best available" team? I guess I couldn't say with authority, and anecdotal evidence of never seeing it being run suggest "no." 

shinnaruto

I would like OML to go with Kitty, but he immediately is at a disadvantage due to his damage not matching up with that of newer 5*s

Both at level 451:

Kitty - Yellow 718, Pink 639, Red 559
OML - Black 629, Yellow 559, Red 489

OML's damage should be on par with their 3 dominate colors. this prevents him from even coming close to tanking for Red. 

This is my problem with some of the older 5 stars.

BigSoftieFF

Yes, a simple match damage balance would do wonders for classic 5*’s.

Doesn't seem crazy difficult but who knows.

tiomono

TPF Alexis said:

The weird thing about Bishop (and a couple of others, like Grocket) to me is that I have a handful of decent to excellent 5* champs (including both Kitty and Okoye), but the most effective teams available to me always involve running a 4*, if not two of them. That just doesn't feel right. I ran Falcon or IM40 with 4* teams for a time while I was transitioning there, but they faded out pretty quickly once I had a decent pool of 4* champs. I don't see Grocket or Bishop being sub-optimal choices compared to my 5* anytime soon.

OVERCLOCKED! This post may contain excessive Bishop. Proceed at your own risk.

Yeah I made the same point earlier. As you progress up tiers it makes sense to use the lower tier less as you get more options in the higher tiers. But Bishop and Grocket seem to laugh at that idea. Bishop does it a bit better without a specific partner though. Chavez can do it a bit too.

TPF Alexis

ThaRoadWarrior said:

I wonder how much that's an artifact of who you have and how hard it is generally to cover a 5*? In particular Kitty seems like she'd go very well with Rescue (is there a 5* with a cheaper attack power than 6ap?) and OML. Is that the "best available" team? I guess I couldn't say with authority, and anecdotal evidence of never seeing it being run suggest "no." 

Certainly true in the case of Black Widow, and if my Thor were better than 3/0/2 it might be different as well. But Storm and Cable both play pretty well with each other and with Okoye or Kitty. Even so, Grocket is faster and Bishop is more threatening on defense.

Daredevil217

I agree that is a very well thought out, and well articulated post. Embedded within it is the best counters I’ve heard to nerfing Bishop.  Way better than anything in the Bishop threads.  That said, there are a lot of what I believe to be inaccuracies that I’d like to point out, and hopefully put some things into perspective. 

“Of course, there were calls for a nerf. Those calling for the nerf argued the team had too much power, was too fast and immediately rendered newer 5* obsolete.”

I don’t remember huge rallies for nerfs to Thorkoye. Their rise to prominence happened right after Gambit’s nerf, so people were more relieved than anything to not have to face what many deemed a broken mechanic. If you search the forums you will absolutely find rumblings of people complaining about staleness after awhile, and ideas here and there on how to bring them in line with everyone else, but no huge cries or pages dedicated to discussing how unfair they are. Mainly because while they are certainly the fastest option, and a great team for climbing and hopping, they can be beat (and this part is important) BY ANYONE. So you could at any point, throw whatever three toons you have at them and can likely win 90% of your matches. Why? Because the strategy to defeat them does not depend on specific counter-characters. We’ve had “rumblings” of ways to nerf every single top character throughout the history of the game. The only truly big cries that went beyond handfuls of people here and there were Gambit and Bishop. 

“Simply put, the Kitty/Grocket pairing revolutionized the PvP meta. Here is a team that forces a player running Thor/Okoye to take a gamble: do I risk it and hope I can remove enough strike tiles before things get out of control or do I skip? While Jessica Jones was a significant precursor to this, Kitty/Grocket took it to a whole nother level. With Jessica, you can see her trap tiles and can work around it somewhat or have Okoye take the damage and heal it off if all goes well. But with Kitty, the damage stacks. The longer it takes you to remove the tiles or down her, the more dangerous it gets.”

I don’t think either revolutionized the meta game. We’ve had defensive teams at least since Carndusa. So it’s not a new concept. 

Jessica is the first and ONLY somewhat scary 5* character to face (you can say Kitty is scary but if Grocket didn’t exist and she didn’t have all those specials right away, she’d be upper mid tier at best). 

Gritty does not make a 5* player running Thorkoye second guess, for the same reason you don’t second guess hitting Jessica. Maybe if there’s a particular required third that either works against you (3* Fist/3* Cage PVP) or for them (3* Daken PVP) you pause. Otherwise, Thorkoye is probably the second best counter to Gritty and a pretty safe bet to run. Why? It’s the same reason they don’t bat an eye at Jessica Jones. If you get unlucky and they place a trap and match it same turn, Okoye will heal up. Same way she will heal up after Thor smashes up the board and collects yellow. If worth enough points no one running Thorkoye has to think twice about hitting Gritty. 

“And once again, a significant section of the forum community called for a nerf.”

To be clear, that “significant section” is called 4* players. As mentioned, Thorkoye is a great counter, you mentioned BSSM, and Doom does the job well too (perhaps at the cost of a pack). Both Kitty and Grocket are super reliant on those strikes. Get rid of them and both are pretty bad characters in their tiers. Doom dies and victory is all but guaranteed. Most 5* players really liked Kitty/Grocket because they shook up the meta and offered a viable second option. Over time we’ve seen way less Thorkoye in the wild and more Gritty. The cries were mostly from 4* players and mostly before several 4* counters were developed.

Because underleveled Kitties are a 4* problem, the counters were developed at the 4* tier. Prowler, Sabretooth, Dazzler, Thanos, and.... BISHOP (I’ll get to this later). The developers decided to use 4* characters to fix a 4* problem. 

“The top passive defensive abilities that come to mind are:...”

Add Professor X’s match-4 passive. Especially since the AI will hit match-4’s you may have missed 100% of the time. 

“Any good defensive team is bound to cause player frustration

There is no escaping this fact. The reason for the outcry on the forum is simple: people are not used to losing anymore. In no uncertain terms, Okoye/Thor was basically an insta-win, especially if you have the ideal build of having Okoye tanking for Thor. The pairing allows players to punch way above their weight class. Before the arrival of Kitty/Grocket and Bishop, high level PvP was basically a sea of Okoye/Thor teams with the occasionally sighting of Thanos/Panther and sometimes a rare non-meta pair.”

I disagree strongly here. The outcry is not about simply winning all the time. I lose to Gritty way more than any other 5* team before them, but they are still beatable more often than not. I have to put thought into playing them in terms of protecting tiles and making the right matches. And I have to put thought into playing against them (who to bring and how to play those I choose). Gritty made it so you can no longer play mindlessly  fighting with or against them, and had to actually think. It’s because of this that the Kitty outcry never got too big in the 5-tier. Some complained. But mostly, people loved having a second meta option for maybe the first time ever. 

If it was really about never wanting to lose as you claim here, then there wouldn’t be cries for nerfs to Thorkoye (which you assert earlier). The cries to nerf Thor, Okoye, Rocket, Kitty, and Thanos (back in the day), all come from the same place. There will always be those who think the strongest character is “too strong” and when everyone uses them, makes other characters obsolete. To lump Bishop in with with these characters and to generalize it as “people don’t like to ever lose or use packs” is disingenuous and not representative of the real problem. To compare Bishop and 5* players reactions to him to Gambit would be much more fair of a comparison. 

“Bishop is the Okoye/Thor nerf”

No. Hela was an attempt at a Thorkoye counter. Iceman was an attempt at a Thorkoye counter. These are 5* counters to 5* characters (who honestly don’t need a counter character because anyone can beat them). But they are characters that I believed were designed to punish bringing Thor to a fight. 

Bishop was designed to be a Gritty nerf. A 4* solution to a 4* problem. Take a hit, from a low level Gritty? Smack Kitty back and stun her enough turns to take out her strikes. With Sabretooth and Thanos released as ways to handle hard to reach strikes a little later, it seems like you have a pretty good 4* counter-meta.  That’s great for 4* players. But created a broken mechanic for 5* players. 

Bishop does not “nerf Thorkoye”. He nerfs the entire tier above him. He doesn’t punish bringing Thor to a fight. He punishes bringing 5*s to a fight. That’s where the outcry is coming from.

You spend several paragraphs talking about Bishop serving his “intended purpose”, but since I believe the premise is faulty, I can’t agree with most of what you wrote. So I’ll move on.

Viable Kitty/Grocket Counters:

Great: Black Suit Spider-man, Bishop

Ok: Sabertooth, 5* Daredevil

Poor: 4* Thanos

Thorkoye is an absolutely great Gritty counter and not on your list. Gritty’s best counters (Thorkoye and BSSM) were already available before Kitty was ever released which is why the outcry never got too big. There were not great counters in place in 4* land however, and I don’t think the developers intended 4* players to chase her and “play down”. So they created counter characters after the fact.

“For 5* rosters, there are only four viable options for countering Bishop:

OK counter: Silver Surfer, Bishop

Poor counter: 5* Doctor Octopus, 5* Black Widow”

Ock and Widow are not viable counters at all. I question if anyone who calls them “viable” truly understands the problem he poses for 5* players. I’d say high level surfer is okay (requires tanking), Bishop is poor (requires luck) and Ock and Widow aren’t viable counters. The only “great” counter is skipping. Otherwise you are punished for matching 3.

“I think the meta is in a better place than it was last year, at least at the higher end of PvP.”

I disagree. The meta is becoming “play 4* so I can leave Bishop on defense, knowing people will skip me”. I’d much rather get to play whatever team I want and face the same team over and over (I was rocking Cable/Daredevil for a minute against the sea of Thorkoyes when I transitioned.  That was fun for me!) then having to play certain characters, so I can leave out a broken character, so I don’t get hit. OR, being locked into playing one pretty mediocre character that I don’t even have useable (Surfer) in order to get through a wall of the same broken 4* character. That is by no means better for me. 

And by the way, as people are catching on, the wall is only getting bigger each season. As people realize that: Bishop = skips and defensive wins, more and more people are running him. And to run him and have him on defense, means running less 5* and having less diversity. And trust me when I say this wall will only get bigger and soon be as big as the Thorkoye wall once was. It’s already happening.

Again, I appreciate the write up but hope my equally long one gives you better perspective on where people are coming from. This call for a nerf is not just another “X is too strong or X is too hard to beat”. It is “X is broken”, just like with Gambit, who is the only other character that the forum got up in arms about wanting nerfed. There’s a reason people spoke out against him. And the precedent that his nerf set made me believe that Bishop will be nerfed as well, which I believe is ultimately good for the health of the game. 

thedarkphoenix

Very well said OP, and even if not on purpose by the devs I agree with your take

Warbringa

Daredevil217 said:

Again, I appreciate the write up but hope my equally long one gives you better perspective on where people are coming from. This call for a nerf is not just another “X is too strong or X is too hard to beat”. It is “X is broken”, just like with Gambit, who is the only other character that the forum got up in arms about wanting nerfed. There’s a reason people spoke out against him. And the precedent that his nerf set made me believe that Bishop will be nerfed as well, which I believe is ultimately good for the health of the game. 

I think you are missing two big issues with this argument.  First, Gambit was a 5*.  He was exponentially more difficult to obtain whereas Bishop as a 4*, is much easier for the majority of the player base to get their own if they want.  Availability is a key factor the devs may take into consideration on their nerf decisions.  Second, Bishop is only an issue in PvP and in 5* only meta in particular.  Gambit was an issue in both PvP and PvE and impacted both 5* and 4* PvP play tiers more than Bishop does.  Back then pre-nerf Gambit allowed you to make him your only 5* champ and dominate PvP or keep him under leveled with the way MMR worked back then.  Not saying he doesn't need some adjustment but it isn't anywhere close to the Gambit problem you compare it to.

In addition, be careful when wishing for a Bishop nerf.  Remember the original Gambit nerf?  Oh yeah, it actually made him more powerful.  Eventually he was beaten with the nerf stick....too much like the majority of nerfs in this game.

Finally, the forums are only a small portion of the player base and I believe the devs really look at overall statistical data when they make these decisions.  Just because the forums skew towards veteran and 5* players, the devs may not find it nearly as big of an issue as we think. One thing I think the OP is trying to say is give the devs some time, the game may be going through a significant change as they try to present multiple meta options.  I think a character that may counter Bishop is certainly an option, hopefully it is a 5* tier character as well.

tiomono

Warbringa said:

Finally, the forums are only a small portion of the player base and I believe the devs really look at overall statistical data when they make these decisions.  Just because the forums skew towards veteran and 5* players, the devs may not find it nearly as big of an issue as we think.

Tapping affected a tiny portion of the playerbase at the very top of competition. And it was only in story mode and not versus. It got adjusted. 5* saved covers only affects the top tier of the game. They made a relatively fast adjustment to that lowering it to 3 covers instead of 5. They adjusted 1* spiderman for reasons he only affects a tiny portion of the playerbase.

We dont know what the devs think most of the time. Or what amount of players need to be affected by something before they consider changing it. We can only share our experiences and frustrations and leave the decisions to the devs.

ThaRoadWarrior

shinnaruto said:

I would like OML to go with Kitty, but he immediately is at a disadvantage due to his damage not matching up with that of newer 5*s

OML exists on my team suggestion to spam burly strikes any time a teammate does something and that’s about it. I’d expect Rescue to tank that red for Kitty. 4 on black means Logan makes enough strikes for Kitty to do work as soon as Rescue fires Do or Die, which she can do quite often as a red battery.

anyway, back on topic.

Polares

I am sorry man, but you lost all credibility when you defended Bishop. Bishop doesn't counter Thoryoke, he counters ALL 5s. I reapeat Bishop counters ALL fives. A single one char that punishes the superior layer of play in such a way is obviously broken. Just a single fricking match 3 triggers him.

I ask you, how, in a game of matching tiles, can exist a character that punishes you for doing the very basic nature of the game.

And Norrin is a bad counter. He needs to be in front to counter the stun, and even then he still gets the blue AP. And he has very low match damage, so it is not that easy to have him in front. Then of course Norrin is quite a meh char, so after using him you are going to be obliterated by other 5 players that will find your team extremely easy to beat (this is also the same big problem Spidey has with Gritty, and this is why they are not viable counters). The other two are even worse.



The very easy way of disrupting the PvP meta was to have featured 5 chars like there are in 4 land. If a few 5s get +100 levels every week, people will be forced to use them. Done. PvP meta disrupted. Also buffing all the mediocre and bad 5 chars would help a lot here.

fmftint

You can talk, analyze, argue all you want,  bottom line is the current dev team simply doesn't care. One of many reasons why I've stopped playing but still look for news that may signal a change

A_Wise_Man

To the OPs post:  Lot of stuff there.  One thing I take issue with is Bishop being a part of shaking up top tier (I read as 5* meta).  He was designed as a counter to rocket/america teams in the 4 star tier (according to a dev on discord) The fact that he shuts down 5 star match damage is an unintended consequence created by players running him with 5 stars. 

 The one other major glaring issue here:  it takes forever to cover a 5 star from classics.  Even if players like @tiomono are doing it, that doesn't make it easy or the cost reasonable to do.  And even if you can cover them from classics you could cover 30 of the 37 5 stars we have now and be absolutely no better off in pvp.  Theres no balance.  It's broken characters and bad characters (most of which are only bad because they're compared to the broken ones).  I have several players in my alliance that have covered and champed several 5 stars by pulling classics and still find pvp unplayable cause they cant cover the good ones....or I suppose they can  but it takes way too long.  Throwing money at it doesn't help at all, either.  The amount of money youd have to throw at it to get classic 5s to just level 450 is ridiculous.  Build a varied meta, sure.  But fix both 4 star and 5 star dilution and stop hiding 5 star dilution by having latests.  Then, sure, the varied meta works to some extent.  Until then, it's just frustration which leads to people quitting.  No more band aids.  Fix the real problem.

fight4thedream

I appreciate all the feedback and criticism. Obviously, this isn't an issue that I think we all can reach a consensus on but I believe this discussion will be helpful to illustrate the differing viewpoints on the current state of PvP and what players at different stages of progress in the game want (at least among active members of the forum. I think it goes without saying that we don't speak for the entire player base.) 

First, I will try to answer some of the questions and comments that were posed in regards to my original post:

Weren't Carnage and Medusa, pre-nerf Gambit, Peggy Carter and such defensive teams and characters? Yes, without question. My apologies for the oversight. 

I don't think Kitty/Grocket revolutionized the PvP meta.
I think my lack of explanation in my original post drew out this criticism so I feel it best to clarify what I meant. I did not intend for it to mean that they were the first effective defensive team (although I can see why people might have interpreted it this way. My apologies.) but rather that they presented a viable alternative to the established meta of Okoye/Thor.  

Occasionally when a meta transitions we run across some overlap as people still do not have the covers for the new meta character/team and the old meta still has enough strength to delay its eventual obsolescence. But it seems clear to me by the sheer number of players running both teams that there is a rough state of parity between Kitty/Grocket and Okoye/Thor and as far as I can remember, this is a first in the 5* realm.  Sure, I guess you could make the argument that in the Age of Gambit you could run either Gambit/Black Bolt or Gambit/Thor but this is an instance of having four distinct characters sitting atop the meta. 

Okoye/Thor offers great offensive power and speed but little in terms of deterrence while, on the other hand, Kitty/Grocket also has great offensive power but sacrifices speed a bit (although this can depend on the event as they can be quite fast in PvP events where the 3*/4* required character generates special tiles) but in exchange offers a greater deterrent effect. 

If Okoye/Thor were truly the superior choice, as some may argue, it fails to explain why many players, even those who have a viable Okoye/Thor team, choose to run a Kitty/Grocket team in PvP. 

Aren't Okoye/Thor a counter to Kitty/Grocket? This largely depends on the build your running. If you are running a team with Okoye doing most of the tanking, which I will call Okoye/Thor Deluxe, then yes you could argue that they are a counter, although to be honest that team can beat just about any team, regardless of champ levels with the exception of those using a high enough Bishop and 5* partner (JJ seems to be a popular choice). 

But the less tanking Okoye does, the more risky the proposition becomes since Thor will take damage. We have to keep in mind that not every player is running an Okoye/Thor Deluxe team.  But I won't disagree that with some luck, Kitty/Grocket is still beatable even if you aren't running the Deluxe version.

Criticism of Counter Character Analysis

Having given it some thought, I do think some of the criticism I received over my initial analysis were valid, specifically including 5* Black Widow as a viable counter for Bishop. Her passive only stuns for 1 turn and is random. This might work for low-leveled Bishop teams but for the most part I agree it's too random and doesn't do enough to be considered viable.

Also, the failure to include God Emperor Doom  as Kitty/Grocket counter was a glaring oversight on my part. Perhaps my own distaste for having to sacrifice Doom for it to work caused me to forget but nonetheless it is a strategy that can work and should be included.

Finally, it seems a high level 5* Black Panther is also another way to successfully deal with Bishop, so I will include him as potential counter

I also believe it would be beneficial to clarify the grading system:

*Great: a character or team combo that counters the targeted mechanic (what some may call a "true counter" ) or is able to overwhelm the mechanic (what I shall call the "the hegemon" for lack of a better term) and the player feels absolutely confident in their chance of success and has no serious drawbacks

*Good: a character or team combo that counters the targeted mechanic (what some may call a "true counter" ) or is able to overwhelm the mechanic (what I shall call the "the hegemon" for lack of a better term) and the player feels confident in their chance of success but the character has some drawbacks (lack of offensive or defensive presence, slows down match speed, etc)

*OK: a character or team combo that offers ways to counter the targeted mechanic but not without a certain level of risk or at a high cost (e: having to sacrifice a character) . Generally, the player would prefer to avoid using this method repeatedly because of high cost/risk.

*Poor: a character or team combo that offers a way to counter the targeted mechanic but the risk for failure is high and luck plays a significant factor in being able to successfully counter the targeted mechanic.

Viable Kitty/Grocket Counters

Great:  Okoye/Thor Deluxe**

Good: Black Suit Spider-man, Bishop
Ok: Sabertooth, 5* Daredevil, God Emperor Doom, Standard Okoye/Thor team
Poor: 4* Thanos

**a Okoye/Thor team that has Okoye tanking all of her colors.

Viable Bishop Counters

Great: N/A

Good: Silver Surfer

Ok: Bishop, 5* Black Panther**
Poor counter: 5* Doctor Octopus

According to a dev on discord, Bishop was designed to be a counter for 4*Grocket/America

Noted. Although it has also been reported that the dev team does not currently have any plans to redesign Bishop. 

There are actually one or two more points that were brought up but they tie into the discussion at hand so I will save them for later.

Closing the gap between the 4* tier and 5* tier

A lot of the complaints against the Kitty/Gritty/Bishop meta is that the strongest PvP team is composed of two 4* characters. The thinking behind this complaint is that the best teams should be comprised of 5*s due to their rarity and being a tier above.

However, this is not a new phenomenon. Interactions between characters of different tiers has been a thing since the earliest days of the game. Back in the day when the Punisher was considered a strong character, his best partner was 2* Black Widow since she was able to double dip from his strikes. Before the arrival of 4* Jean Grey, 4* Hulkbuster's best partner was 3* Iron Fist. 5* Hawkeye pairs best with 4* Coulson, and so on. 

Ideally, there should be some overlap between neighboring tiers to make entering the next tier more accessible. For quite awhile, there were a few forum members who would complain that 4* were meaningless.  I wonder if they ever thought to wonder what a "meaningful" 4* would be. If the dev team has no plans to release 6* characters and the vast majority of the player base is somewhere between the 3* and 4* tier, it would make sense for the dev team to focus on providing them with ways to better negotiate PvP.

It's notable that the dev team released three 4* characters within the span of 6-7 months to deal with 4* Grocket's strike tiles, all of which deal with the strikes tile with passive abilities. In contrast, the 5* tier got two characters that could potentially deal with Grocket's strike tiles during the same period, but one you have to sacrifice in order to remove the tiles and the other takes 9 AP to replace 4 of the strike tiles and is in a color that you will have to compete against the AI to collect if Kitty is on the team. 

The most interesting abilities more often than not seem to go to the 4* tier simply because that is where the majority of the player base is. 

4*/5* teams are good for the game

If the goal is to expand top tier play and to help bridge the gap between the 4* and 5* tiers, then allowing for these sorts of teams to exists is essential.  Not everyone is capable of keeping pace with the 5* release schedule. In fact, the problem of token dilution also makes it difficult for the vast majority of the player base to keep up with the 4* release schedule, too. But setting that issue aside for the moment, it does make sense to cultivate this dynamic for the time being. 

It gives players who have one foot in the 5* realm a chance to participate in PvP and with bonus heroes, gives them something to work towards. There are quite a number of solid 4*/5* pairings, some that can even be used competitively in PVP:

Grocket/Kitty
Bishop/Jessica Jones
Valkyrie/Kitty
Gamora/Daredevil
Coulson/Hawkeye
Iceman/Daredevil
Deadpool/Okoye
Carnage/Kitty

And I'm sure there are more. 

Now what seems to bother some members is the potential of such pairings to reach the highest level of the PvP meta. While I understand their thinking on the issue, if it provides a greater variety in the PvP meta and allows more players to have the opportunity to enjoy the PvP experience than I am for it. 

Nerfs are not the answer

The more I think about the current PvP situation, the more I feel the call for nerfs is a bit short-sighted. Admittedly, my interests are more in the game moving away from the "one meta to rule them all" to a more diversified PvP experience. I think the meta would be far more interesting if it weren't possible for one team to be able to beat all variations of teams in the game. So where some may look upon Bishop as a broken character, I see potential. With a few more characters in both the 4* and 5* tiers that effectively deal with the stun mechanic , I think the frustration that a certain section of the player base is currently feeling will be alleviated. And despite the lack of fanfare, Silver Surfer is a perfectly legitimate counter, albeit lackluster. I have even seen some players using Black Panther as a counter, although I haven't completely grasped the strategy of it just yet. 

There is a reason that the best stun abilities are in the 4* tier. It provides the player with a means of control and thus can be used by a transitioning player as a tool to overcome stronger opponent teams.  I see Bishop playing a crucial role of keeping the 5* tier in check.  If the dev team were to ever release another Gambit-like character, Bishop would be play a crucial role in helping those players who were unable to acquire said character (as long as they didn't give such a character stun counter-measures).

Buffs and Counters 

I think one point we can all agree on is that there is a dearth of effective counters for Bishop. And while I do think Silver Surfer is a legitimate counter, I understand the reluctance of some forum members to embrace him. For a long time the forum community has been asking for the classic 5* characters to get a general maintenance buff to help them stay viable in PvP and I think a good buff for Silver Surfer with a special vault would go a long way to help build good will with the community.  And just as Kitty/Grocket received three 4* characters and two 5* characters with counter mechanics, I think it would help if the dev team did a similar approach for the current Bishop issue. 

There's actually a bit more I would like to say on the subject but the hour grows late and I am afraid I have already said too much so I will leave it here for now.