Daredevil217's 5* Character Ranking and Analysis (Updated 2/14/2021)

helix72

jp1 said:

I maintain that Th4nos is the better option in the Polaris winfinite. Maybe it is my supports, my CM is 471...it’s just too slow to fill the board enough for her to reliably cycle her green. With Th4nos it is usually by the third turn due to his destruction pattern.

I'm with you now and have changed my mind. I would like to join team 4* Thanos.

What I liked about CapM over Thanos:
+Higher HP pool and match damage, so she could soak up some of the hits and not have BRB tanking everything. I have had BRB die a couple times before I could get Thanos's Green off but this never happened with CapM because I could spread the damage around.
+Red ability that creates a repeater that generates specials. Can help get specials out on a bad board.
+Self-generating Green AP without the need for board conditions (e.g. Thanos's need for enemy specials to convert tiles to Green which still need to be matched)
+Cheaper Green power than Thanos (10 vs 12)
+Higher damage Green power than Thanos (~26K vs ~11K)

Why I like Thanos better now:
+The destroy 32 random tiles--half the board--has been much more reliable at hitting specials than CapMs destroy one row and then a few more if the one destroyed was lucky enough to contain any specials. I've had too many battles now where I've fired it and hit the row with zero specials, depleting my green and needing to rebuild my green AP to 10 again.
+Unless I just haven't figured out the right character placement, firing CapM's Green on a board full of Protects leaves me with 20 Green AP once the screen settles. If I want to fire Bill's Green (cost 12), I have to make a match first to get some additional Green AP to be able to fire his Green then have enough left over to fire CapMs Green. With Thanos, on the other hand, the board settles with 30 AP, leaving me enough to hit Bill's Green and then Thanos's Green without needing another match in between.
+Thanos has an active damage power in Black. Not that it's a game changer, but I usually get enough Black to fire it at least once, and it's not uncommon that I end up with at least one enemy with only a few HP left and needing to waste a more powerful attack or take the time to make matches to get them downed.

Note that I reserve the right to change my mind back at any time

Michael1957

Well done , when I decided to start chasing the 5*’s  last November , I chose to focus on champing only one first . You have her ranked #1, I presume I made the correct choice . Four of my strongest six 5* are in your top 6, so even with an extremely small 5* roster I seem to be getting the most for my choices . Thanks again .

Aweberman

Here’s one use for Wasp I haven’t seen mentioned: Okoye will boost her black for extra big health steal. 

Aweberman

Having played around with a boosted and near-champed Daken lately, I really like him with Kitty and Polaris (though, of course, lots of people can slot into that third spot).

But I do think he fits nicely as a third with Captain Marvel and Green Goblin, as chasing Daken's black gives you some repeater tiles for Norman to fortify, Daken's green is better than Carol's, and between those repeaters and Carol's red, there's lots of passive damage chipping away constantly.  Plus his true heal is not bad at all.

Jacklag

helix72 said:

I have had BRB die a couple times before I could get Thanos's Green off but this never happened with CapM because I could spread the damage around.

I put Lucky the Pizza Dog support on BRB, so he get's healed with every friendly match.  He does take a good chunk of damage from SCL 10 tile movers, but once Thanos begins cycling tiles, BRB starts healing pretty much every round.

Daredevil217

Added Deadpool (#17) and Magneto (#35)

ThaRoadWarrior

I've been trying real hard to find a use for Magneto, and so far I think outside of protect-tile based teams, I like him most with Profe$$or X. They both like having X-Men tags, don't compete for colors, and X can do his part to add some colors to the board for you (albeit in a not super reliable way). I really wanted him to be an Apocalypse-level character I would be trying to construct teams around, but he is decidedly a 3rd wheel character. You want to run him as a 5* Emma Frost (buffing tiles, clearing specials).

Daredevil217

ThaRoadWarrior said:

I've been trying real hard to find a use for Magneto, and so far I think outside of protect-tile based teams, I like him most with Profe$$or X. They both like having X-Men tags, don't compete for colors, and X can do his part to add some colors to the board for you (albeit in a not super reliable way). I really wanted him to be an Apocalypse-level character I would be trying to construct teams around, but he is decidedly a 3rd wheel character. You want to run him as a 5* Emma Frost (buffing tiles, clearing specials).

So when a new character comes out and I get close to champing, I list all the 5* I think they might pair well with and put them in a rough rank order. As I try out different combos people shift up and down the ranking list.  I just looked at my Mags list, and Professor was #1. I have no idea how I forgot to include him in my write up. So thanks for that!

Here are the ones that didn’t make my write up:

Thor I had high hopes for to fuel Mags, but I just found myself getting annoyed when Magneto went Airborne leaving Thor to tank.

Black Bolt was an okay partner. The idea was using charged tiles to try and accelerate one of the 4 mostly expensive colors they cover (I say mostly because yellow is cheap). It was serviceable but healthpack intensive as both are kind of squishy. So I didn’t mention him.

I tried Storm but it felt like I could never get them off the ground. For some reason the enemy would always luck into a huge cascade ending one of them. 

Two left that I have yet to try but have hopes for are Loki and Onslaught. Loki provides 5/6 rainbow coverage, but I really prefer him with a black outlet since he chases those shadowplay tiles. So I’m iffy. 

Onslaught however can be a cascade machine on a match 4 and maybe just maybe could be a decent accelerant for Mags with all the AP he collects. The overlap on blue isn’t ideal, but I could be a serviceable pair. 

ThaRoadWarrior

I've been using him with Kitty and or OML. It's not like the BEST team, but it's largely passive driven once it gets rolling. It really needs a battery - it would be ideal if there were some kind of Hawkeye synergy, but I don't think it works well. I have a 4* Lockheed support on my Kitty, so at the start of battle in PVE, there is 1 protect tile of 242 strength per X-Man in play. That can help some. I ran him down a tier with Magik in the Sighclops launch event, and that worked against an Onslaught/Apocalypse team, but it wasn't fast. The mechanic there being that anytime an active power is fired, Magik spits out some protects and fortifies something for you, and her puprle can add red to the board eventually. That may be faster in Pick-3 with Heimdall, but at that point, I'd rather replace magneto with Shuri.

As for Ghostpool, I've been using him in PVE with Thorkoye in place of Spider-Man 2099. I don't know that it's as fast, but it is pretty fast, and the 5* healthpool gives a better sense of stability. I run him at 3/5/5, and I priortize black + purple and firing his red, that way all that board shake will have a better chance of knocking those countdowns around.

LavaManLee

I am really bad at hoarding, so ended up with a level 557 Magneto.  I am encouraged by some of what I'm reading here that he may not be as bad as first thought when released.  He's not great but not trash either.  Kinda like Heimdall, I think.

ThaRoadWarrior

You can definitely use Magneto/X/Kitty to combat Hulkoye in pick-3, but you have to kill hulk a time or two first and race to drop protects on green. Be careful using ax’s purple on purple, it can overturn all your green denial in an instant.

I was experimenting with Nightcrawler/magneto/ x-person but haven’t found one that can get started fast enough.

Davidk777

Glad you updated, great list. Was thinking of going for these 3, and was wondering what you think about Adam Warlock so far. Personally I think he might be best at 5-5-3 teaming up with someone like ihulk.

Daredevil217

Warlock is a toughie. I really can’t rate him without playing him. He seems like a complete wildcard to me. Some say he’s just a healthpack drain and you spend most the match trying to heal him. Others think he’s an awesome sustainable tank, or like you said, a killer third with Hulkoye.  I can’t really speculate what he’d be like in practice. 

(Yellowjacket on the other hand seems much more straightforward to me. Even though I have yet to play him, I have theories on how he’d perform and wrote a pretty lengthy write up on him already.  Just waiting to confirm if my thoughts on him are accurate.)

Davidk777

I appreciate the info. Thanks 

LucasRaven

Just stopping by to say I appreciate the updates. 

ThaRoadWarrior

Just popping in to update that Magneto/BRB is decently reliable at overcoming Hulkoye in pick-2, but not as reliable as BRB Kitty. The reason it's not as reliable is that Magento requires active green denial by dropping his yellow on it or matching it, and Kitty/BRB have 2x countdowns that flood the board independently with AP tiles every time Hulk does something. So it's a much more auto-pilot experience to use those two.

I'll be waiting to see the Yellowjacket writeup - people seem to be more impressed with him than I was during his launch events, but I usually form my impressions of new 5*s by facing them down as opponents in PVP (assuming they appear there) until I have them covered myself.

Daredevil217

ThaRoadWarrior said:

Just popping in to update that Magneto/BRB is decently reliable at overcoming Hulkoye in pick-2, but not as reliable as BRB Kitty. The reason it's not as reliable is that Magento requires active green denial by dropping his yellow on it or matching it, and Kitty/BRB have 2x countdowns that flood the board independently with AP tiles every time Hulk does something. So it's a much more auto-pilot experience to use those two.

I'll be waiting to see the Yellowjacket writeup - people seem to be more impressed with him than I was during his launch events, but I usually form my impressions of new 5*s by facing them down as opponents in PVP (assuming they appear there) until I have them covered myself.

1) Is the goal to chase blue first to flood the board with protects from BRB? Or is the goal to put protects on yellow with Mags first?  Or do you just go with whatever the board conditions are? Do you pump up Beta’s yellow for stronger protects at the expense of dropping green or blue damage?

2) I can definitely post my write-up, as long as folks know it’s complete conjecture, from best build on down to the “pairings” as I haven’t actually taken him for a spin. 

ThaRoadWarrior

You kind of have to take the board for what it is and roll with it. I think the stronger play is to get Clash of the Worthy out as fast as you can, because all you need is an unlucky cascade to make it so that Magneto's green fill is useless, and CotW just gets better and better the longer it's out. But I just kept my BRB at 5/3/5, it didn't occur to me to adjust the build honestly. 

Daredevil217

Yellowjacket  (Darren Cross)

922 820 718 456

117 108 99  Health: 62,754

Recommended Build: 5/5/3

True to his namesake, Yellowjacket was created to be an annoying pest of a character. Unfortunately though, he was released in the wrong era.  If Immortal Hulk hadn’t ushered in the hyper-boosted passive AOE meta, then Darren here would’ve thrived as a defensive nuisance. While he can be an effective tool against non-AOE teams, the fact remains that PVP queues are littered with hard counters to his kit. So while offensively solid, and quite durable, he’s not as scary on defense as he would be in a a bygone era. As a result, his ranking drops a bit.  Still, he at worst serves as a fun character with a solid kit, a unique niche, and in my opinion is one you won’t regret leveling if you happen to pull a bunch of his covers.

Yellowjacket boasts three active abilities, all of which are inexpensive; making him quite spammy. His 6 AP black (Cross Your Heart) restores about 5k-7.5k health (true heal!) and he becomes “energized”. When energized, the next time Darren fires a power, he does additional damage (about 8k to 12k depending on covers).

Yellowjacket’s blue (That Shrinking Feeling) is the power that gives him a niche and differentiates him from others in the tier. For just 6 AP, Cross goes invisible for 2 turns.  Once invisible, Yellowjacket gets an extra turn of invisibility for each match he makes in any of his strong colors. Since Cross has to be the one to tank in order to add to his invisibility, it makes team composition very important, as you ideally want his icon on blue, black and green tiles. There is also a passive attached to this power that increases Yellowjacket’s power and match damage by up to 5383 when invisible. A lengthy cascade can mean both huge damage to the opposition as well as multiple extra turns in the shadows, as long as you keep matching those colors.

Finally, Yellowjacket’s green (Sting Like a Bee) is his “expensive” power, clocking in at 8 AP. Darren fires two blasts of around 4K damage. If invisible when the power is fired, he also destroys 3-4 enemy strike, attack, or protect tiles. While not the best green in the tier, it’s definitely not the worst either; especially if you fire it while energized and invisible. Since there is a less than 400 damage difference per blast going from 5 covers down to 3, I’d suggest keeping this power at 3 (even if it means destroying one less special tile).

Overall, Yellowjacket boasts a lot of strengths. First, he has three cheap powers, all of which are very solid. So he can play filler on teams that need any of his colors (as long as he can tank). Second, his ability to go invisible easily and stay there for huge lengths of time, mixed with his ability to effortlessly heal while in the shadows, makes him quite the healthpack saver on early climbs, a potential nuisance to face, and a beast in 1v1 nodes. Darren is easily the best invisibility character in the 5* tier and may allow players without better options to punch above their weight on a solid board where he can stay hidden. Finally, he’s a flat out fun, puzzley character, which is much appreciated. Despite a solid kit, what keeps Cross from being ranked higher is the fact that he doesn’t fit the current meta. He has three good powers, but top meta teams revolving around special tile spam and hyper boosted passive damage don’t need to fire a single power in order to steamroll the opposition.   And while the ability to go invisible effectively is something that has been missing in the 5* tier, Hulkoye blasts everything in both darkness and light to smithereens. If AOE teams get a strong enough hard counter, expect Darren’s stock to rise. But as is, he is a solid, fun, sustainable, well designed character that can wreck teams not built around passive AOE damage. If you can find said team, put Yellowjacket to work and you likely won’t be disappointed!

Pairings:

Two people that I wish Jacket tanked fully for are Carnage and Onslaught (both will tank green at similar levels). Carnage’s extra matches can be brutal if Darren is invisible. Similarly, Onslaught’s cascades can melt opponent’s if Darren is hiding (it can also be fun to see if you can keep both invisible). However, I don’t feel it’s worth employing any strategy that cuts Jacket’s ability to stay invisible by a third. That said, Darren has no shortage of quality partners in the tier. One strategy I like with Yellowjacket, is to pair him with another true healing tank like Daredevil, Okoye, Adam Warlock, Heimdall or even old school toons like Jean and Old Man Logan. Let Yellowjacket take damage and then heal in the shadows while his partner absorbs damage. Then Yellowjacket can pop out and tank to let his partner heal. Okoye may be best for this as Wakanda Forever can beef up Jacket’s green multi-hit. Daredevil’s Sonar Strike will also work well with those tics of damage. Heimdall makes a great pair because he is super tanky, and if you can manage to keep Darren hidden after the first cast of “That Shrinking Feeling”, you will have excess blue that you can use for Heimdall’s fortification/heal. If you play YJ right, he’ll be leaving his partner holding the bag and absorbing a lot  of damage. So, you ideally want him with people who can sustain big hits and cover more colors. Apocalypse is a good non-healing option because he not only has a massive health pool, but similar to Okoye and Daredevil, can boost Darren’s green. Magneto can put protect tiles on the board cheaply, and if you have an X-Man as your third, they may be able to sustain enough damage to let Darren stay invisible. Xavier is a good choice with or without Mags due to his own tankiness and purple outlet. Killmonger and Infinity War Cap both provide excellent coverage in red/purple, but will likely need a healthpack when it’s all said and done.  Like I said, as of now, he has lots of solid teammates, but I expect viable partners to dry up as more characters with higher and higher match damage get released (dang power creep!).

ThaRoadWarrior

Now that I have mine at 1/2/1, I can see Yellowjacket being pretty fun. Did we ever find any good uses for Cable? I finally got him champed last night.