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

1468910

Comments

  • helix72
    helix72 Posts: 991 Critical Contributor
    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
    Michael1957 Posts: 630 Critical Contributor
    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
    Aweberman Posts: 428 Mover and Shaker
    Here’s one use for Wasp I haven’t seen mentioned: Okoye will boost her black for extra big health steal. 
  • Aweberman
    Aweberman Posts: 428 Mover and Shaker
    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
    Jacklag Posts: 316 Mover and Shaker
    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
    Daredevil217 Posts: 3,894 Chairperson of the Boards
    Added Deadpool (#17) and Magneto (#35)
  • ThaRoadWarrior
    ThaRoadWarrior Posts: 9,125 Chairperson of the Boards
    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$$or X. They both like having X-Men tags, don't compete for colors, and X can do his part to add some colors to the board for you (albeit in a not super reliable way). I really wanted him to be an Apocalypse-level character I would be trying to construct teams around, but he is decidedly a 3rd wheel character. You want to run him as a 5* Emma Frost (buffing tiles, clearing specials).
  • Daredevil217
    Daredevil217 Posts: 3,894 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited February 2021
    I've been trying real hard to find a use for Magneto, and so far I think outside of protect-tile based teams, I like him most with Profe$$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
    ThaRoadWarrior Posts: 9,125 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited February 2021
    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
    LavaManLee Posts: 1,246 Chairperson of the Boards
    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
    ThaRoadWarrior Posts: 9,125 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited February 2021
    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
    Davidk777 Posts: 76 Match Maker
    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
    Daredevil217 Posts: 3,894 Chairperson of the Boards
    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
    Davidk777 Posts: 76 Match Maker
    I appreciate the info. Thanks 
  • LucasRaven
    LucasRaven Posts: 47 Just Dropped In
    Just stopping by to say I appreciate the updates. 
  • ThaRoadWarrior
    ThaRoadWarrior Posts: 9,125 Chairperson of the Boards
    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
    Daredevil217 Posts: 3,894 Chairperson of the Boards
    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
    ThaRoadWarrior Posts: 9,125 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited February 2021
    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. 
  • ThaRoadWarrior
    ThaRoadWarrior Posts: 9,125 Chairperson of the Boards
    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.
This discussion has been closed.