Building 2* roster: Thor or Ares or both?

rkd80

Hi guys,

Super quick Q for the experts. I am building out my 2* roster, that is, collecting covers. I have 5 or 6 covers for Daken, C. Storm, Thor and Ares. Neither here nor there naturally.
My alliance buddy (biggz) suggest I choose either Thor or Ares, since they kind of overlap and do the same thing - which makes sense.

However I am currently torn because Ares is buffed in this PvE event and the only character I have that is worth leveling (got several moonstone covers, but do not want to put ISO into her).

So given the PvE buff, is it worth pouring ISO into what I have so far for Ares with the plan to eventually add Thor or just forego Thor altogether?


Thanks!

Unknown

The answer is both. You will need a fairly robust roster of characters to make deep runs in PvP/PvE. The amount of effective 2* characters is pretty limited to begin with (OBW, Thor, Awolv, Ares, C.Storm, MagN), so you will need to level all them up.

Having overlapping colors in teams is not necessarily a bad thing either. Having different varieties of ways to deal damage is extremely useful while in a match.

For instance, if Thor was your only green ability and you were sitting on 9 AP with one enemy left, you would have to collect more AP in order to kill him off (overkill). But if you had Ares, you could launch his quick(er) ability and kill off that enemy. That speed can sometimes mean the difference in avoiding taking 1000's of damage.

Unknown

One big advantage of Thor is his abilities build on each other. Red not only hits for decent damage, but adds yellow to the board. His yellow adds green. His green hits everyone. He is a decent tank in this regard.

I like Ares but he's a lower priority simply because his red, while somewhat quick, isn't that powerful and almost too dispersed for what it takes to charge. His yellow can be devastating but can take Ares out of the fight due to the amount of time you'll spend healing him up after the match. I definitely use it with discretion. He's a good strategic character but not an all-rounder. I never hesitate to take Thor, I hesitate with Ares all the time.

Eyris6

Also keep in mind that Ares's green can be super quick, and still hits hard. At 85, with a level 4 green, using it the minute you can, at 6 green, does about 1.2k damage. Getting one more green match in, for 9 green, boosts it up to the 1.8k damage range. This can be very useful for quickly taking out an important or damaging but squishy character (OBW, CStorm, for example) before they can get an ability off. Thor's green, at 14 AP is certainly more powerful, but that 5-8 extra green may be the difference between the enemy OBW getting off an Aggressive Recon or not, in which case you'll never get Thor's green off anyway.

The other appeal of Ares is that, like most characters where the drawback to their skills is "they damage themselves", he's great on defense. With 5 yellow, the countdown tile is only 2, but even if it doesn't go off, you don't care about the health loss on defense. And as mentioned above, his green is harder for the enemy to prevent.

rkd80

Interesting arguments, something worth considering for both.

Would anyone play Ares + Thor together? I know in PvP when I see that combo, I run away. Then again any suicidal-type characters are just a menace on defense. Right now through the PvE we get a chance to play with Sentry and I imagine him to be an absolute nightmare on defense.

noobprime

generally no on playing them together. second up would be obw for a stealer and healer. 3 would be someone who doesn't use those colors if you have that flexibility.

Unknown

As I was saying, although I can explain it much better here, is that you should focus on one of them first depending on which u get more covers for. Thor is just easier to get covers for since 3 are given in story and 1-2 (not sure if I got 2 or not) from daily rewards. They each have strengths and weaknesses and at some point they should probably both be leveled. In this case yes you should lvl ares to whatever you can since the buff will make him actually useable for you and you will therefore be able to place higher and obtain more rewards. In cases like this go for it. What I was trying to say though is to save ISO untill one of the 4 tanky chars are covered enough to use and replace im35 (Thor,ares, wolverine and to a lesser extent daken). I have been lucky and was able to max Thor and obw fast and so far I haven't seen any need to pump any more 2*s because they won't give me any further placement or even help much with health packs since I can just obw heal. In my case I have 130k ISO and I can lvl any 2*s I want. I personally won't untill it's necessary though and would rather try to get a 3* covered. Either way it's never a bad thing to lvl both and most 2*s in general. And Thor/ares/loaner teams aren't the best for offense (although still very good as they split the tanking and like was mentioned earlier, ares is faster) but they are amazing on defense. Both have very high hp and hit hard. Even if you manage to take one down quick the other should have built up enough to hurt.

Nighthawk81

I played with thor and OBW for the longest before I maxed a wolvie. I don't have enough covers to level a 3* to usefulness so I had been hoarding iso. When I saw ares was buffed before this I maxed him out. Now I love playing him with OBW and classic darken with one purple cover.

noobprime

Jdberia wrote:

I played with thor and OBW for the longest before I maxed a wolvie. I don't have enough covers to level a 3* to usefulness so I had been hoarding iso. When I saw ares was buffed before this I maxed him out. Now I love playing him with OBW and classic darken with one purple cover.

do you love it more than thor? and is the love only because of the buff?

Unknown

I used to be all about Thor and now I almost prefer to play Ares, unless it looks like the match will take a while and I'd rather have Thor's battery ability to speed it up. I feel like such a traitor.

But yeah. After several weeks with Thor I've switched to Ares in 80% of the cases and I enjoy him more - with OBW. If I were using Storm, I'd still go with Thor, because of him generating green.

As for using them together - I think they're fun together (if the team allows for a third - OBW usually) but without a healer they can take a lot of damage and require health packs afterwards. I do leave them as my defense team in PvP and I got the impression that outside of retaliations, attacks have become a bit less-

Unknown

Level both. They're both amazing in PvP and PvE, having a redundant tank can help you play for longer stretches without health packs, and OBW+Ares is much scarier on defense than OBW+Thor (plus, who wants to fight Thor+Ares?).

rkd80

Thanks everyone! Leveled up Ares to 30, now searching for covers desperately. I have had an absolute miserable 2* drop rate in PvP, either SHIELD or the recent Psylocke is not dropping any 2* for me. Got one cap, that is it.

To say it is frustrating is an understatement, and I am not spending money on this game until devs throw us a bone.

So far he does seem to be a little helpful in PvE, but the scaling is getting laughable.



any advice on increasing chances of a 2* drop? Thanks!

rkd80

Thanks everyone! Leveled up Ares to 30, now searching for covers desperately. I have had an absolute miserable 2* drop rate in PvP, either SHIELD or the recent Psylocke is not dropping any 2* for me. Got one cap, that is it.

To say it is frustrating is an understatement, and I am not spending money on this game until devs throw us a bone.

So far he does seem to be a little helpful in PvE, but the scaling is getting laughable.



any advice on increasing chances of a 2* drop? Thanks!

Unknown

rkd80 wrote:

any advice on increasing chances of a 2* drop? Thanks!

Play lightning rounds as soon as they start for seed teams. Token at 50 and small chance of Unlessers each match. Worse case scenario, you just get an efficient source of iso. Unless his covers are event rewards it's all an odds game though.

Abralicious

Both! They're both really strong and once you build up their covers, they can do a lot of damages. These two and OBW are my go-to team as of right now.