Step aside, Bishop

Dormammu

Dearest Bishop,
It's finally time for you take a seat and relax. I know your time as the Prince of 4-stars (among 5-star players) has been a long one, but I sense your time will soon be at an end now that Polaris has arrived. It has already begun as under-covered and under-leveled Polarises (Polarisi?) started appearing in my SIM nodes today - clearly taking your crown amidst the meta. She will be joining King Rocket (may his reign never end) and stand beside his throne as the new Princess of 4-stars.

Yes, your presence in court may still be required from time to time as passive stunning will never go entirely out of fashion, but soon 5-star players will be setting Polaris as their new favorite and greedily amass her shards; you will slowly vanish from PvP nodes and join the ranks of such ex-royalty as Medusa, Peggy, and Iceman.

Thank you for your service.
Yours truly,
-Dormammu

KenshinUK

The loaner with thorkoye in her pvp did great. I shudder to think what the carnage will be when fully covered.

Michael1957

Rocket is dead. Anyone using Rocket now in any combination has a death wish , as Polaris /Sabretooth destroys him and his tiles in 2 moves on average .

jp1

My Thorkoye/ProfX took a couple Ls from barely covered level 1xx Polaris and Gritty in PVP, they were easily defeated in retal of course...but she is punching high. I love it.

Easily my favorite new character of any tier this year. 

JangoLore

She shows real GRIT and promise.

GrimSkald

Against 5* teams, I don't think she's going to replace Bishop - the stun lock/on average 2 "clash of the worthy" hits on the enemy team is just plain too good.  Sure, if they get lucky they can spam a few, say, protect tiles on a BRB/Kitty/Bishop or BRB/Apocalpyse/Bishop, but BRB's hits is going to to take her down quickly.

I imagine for 4* teams fighting other 4* teams, though, she'll be absolutely essential very soon.

ThaRoadWarrior

Any 4* players trying out C4rnage/Polaris/Nico, or is that team too slow?

krakenoon

ThaRoadWarrior said:

Any 4* players trying out C4rnage/Polaris/Nico, or is that team too slow?

I have been curious how she fares in PvP with another stunner.

Vhailorx

I don't think Bishop is going anywhere.  Polaris still needs to at least a few things to make stuff happen (she needs to match special tiles or for the enemy to spawn special tiles).  Bishop's mere presence on a team in 5* land  = 5-10 blue ap after the other team's first move.  Your polaris is utterly useless if she is stunlocked by my bishop.  The stunner bros aren't great because their active powers are awesome; they are great because they = guaranteed ap in specific colors, which allows you to plan the rest of your team to leverage those colors.  Polaris has two very strong damage dealing passives, plus a good active.  she is a very good 4*.  But she only has partial overlap with the stunner bros; she is a damage dealer + stunner.  They are guaranteed ap generation + stun.  And the guaranteed ap generation is the most important thing about them. Polaris simply cannot ever replace that functionality, even if she will take the crown as 4* damage champ.

Think of it this way:

If you just want a 4* damage dealer to proc a 5* damage booster (mainly: apoc/okoye/kitty), then polaris might be the best option in the game.  But there are other really good options out there: 2099, blade, sabertooth, juggs, america, medusa, wolfsbane, valkyrie, even 3* strange  (and whoever else I am forgetting).  Those options may not have all the bells and whistles that Polaris delivers, but they can provide at least 80% of her value for sure.  plus some of them have advantages like aoe or randomized damage, and most of us have several of them rostered already. 

But if you have 1 spare team slot open, play in 5* land, and want to be absolutely sure that you can stun a super dangerous opponent after one turn, then bishop is still your best option by a wide margin.

bluewolf

I really hope that they announce a Bishop nerf this week.

22 months is plenty of time to be King of the 4s. Ironic, because he’s a Bishop....

DyingLegend

She is strong for sure, but Bishop is a 5 star in the category of 4 star,

You have to make sure you can kill Bishop on the first turn, but even then he will provide enough blue for most likely BRB to knock Polaris in 1 turn.

Bubba3210

I think she is really punching above her weight class. I mowed through the welcome to shield 5* fights with ease. I can’t wait to have mine champed.

jp1

I think there is a disconnect here with people talking maybe PVP vs PVE. 

I just cruised through an SCL 10 challenge node with almost no damage taken. All clears, with a 2/2/2 Polaris. My champed 300 plus Bishop couldn’t have done that. 

He is maybe more of an annoyance, and in the AI hands he is more dangerous. In a players hands it’s Polaris all day IMO.

Mrcl25

I think nerfing Bishop and Worthy Cap is a mistake. Using them has never prevented me from being hit multiple times in pvp, but they provide an interesting tool that allows you to defeat stronger teams. 

ThaRoadWarrior

at this point I have options to defeat Bishop, and I almost never run him myself; I don't really care if he gets nerfed anymore. Similarly i rarely see or use Worthy.

Polaris is definitely offensive, and Bishop is defensive in my mind. I hate trying to climb with Bishop because he is a guaranteed health sink. Polaris you could keep in the back no problem.

KGB

Vhailorx said:

Think of it this way:

If you just want a 4* damage dealer to proc a 5* damage booster (mainly: apoc/okoye/kitty), then polaris might be the best option in the game.  But there are other really good options out there: 2099, blade, sabertooth, juggs, america, medusa, wolfsbane, valkyrie, even 3* strange  (and whoever else I am forgetting).  Those options may not have all the bells and whistles that Polaris delivers, but they can provide at least 80% of her value for sure.  plus some of them have advantages like aoe or randomized damage, and most of us have several of them rostered already. 

There are others in 4* land, but none quite like her for damage output. It's not uncommon to get 3 or even 4 damage attacks from her in a turn (her green passive, damage from matching a special, regular match damage plus 4th/5th from any attack tile damage/cascade that hit more specials). In the Shield training nodes I often got 5+ damage attacks in a round that did well over 20K damage when things got rolling. That's what it will look like soon when everyone favorites her and she's L300+ on teams with 370 Rockets/450+ Kittys (shield sim and PvE obviously).

KGB

Anon

I feel like Polaris is better for 1-4* while Bishop remains king for 5*.

Daredevil217

So what are the odds Polaris gets nerfed. I never shardgeted Bishop because I thought, “there’s no way they let him remain as is”. Obviously I was wrong. I have about 1100 Mighty tokens and 800 Heroics I was saving for a rainy day. Clearly Polaris makes it rain. I could use those tokens to either get 10 4* widow covers (my shardget) and champ the 5. OR, I can champ and put some levels on Polaris when she enters tokens. Thoughts? 

Dormammu

Daredevil217 said:

 ...OR, I can champ and put some levels on Polaris when she enters tokens. Thoughts? 

I know I'm hoarding any tokens that will net me 4-star shards until Polaris is available for favoriting. With Kitty and Okoye being my best 5-star champs, this is a no-brainer for me. Polaris works wonders with both of them.

Vhailorx

KGB said:

Vhailorx said:

Think of it this way:

If you just want a 4* damage dealer to proc a 5* damage booster (mainly: apoc/okoye/kitty), then polaris might be the best option in the game.  But there are other really good options out there: 2099, blade, sabertooth, juggs, america, medusa, wolfsbane, valkyrie, even 3* strange  (and whoever else I am forgetting).  Those options may not have all the bells and whistles that Polaris delivers, but they can provide at least 80% of her value for sure.  plus some of them have advantages like aoe or randomized damage, and most of us have several of them rostered already. 

There are others in 4* land, but none quite like her for damage output. It's not uncommon to get 3 or even 4 damage attacks from her in a turn (her green passive, damage from matching a special, regular match damage plus 4th/5th from any attack tile damage/cascade that hit more specials). In the Shield training nodes I often got 5+ damage attacks in a round that did well over 20K damage when things got rolling. That's what it will look like soon when everyone favorites her and she's L300+ on teams with 370 Rockets/450+ Kittys (shield sim and PvE obviously).

KGB

But as you say, she is very dangerous "when things get going." The whole point of PvP meta teams is to prevent the other tram from ever getting going (either via a stunner bro, or via overwhelming damage escalation from okoye, gritty, or apoc, combined with superior match selection by human players).  Even a level 370 Polaris in PVP will have less than 30k health.  Apoc only needs 7 red ap to one shot her at level 270. 

For my money I think she may well replace carol as the very best offensive 4*. And replace Medusa as the best auto-damage 4*. She does not have uncapped damage boosting or ap gen, but she has two strong passives and a great stun.  Unfortunately, what does that do for you? Carol is basically not a factor in 5* PVP.  And Medusa has a few very niche roles with select partners. Polaris definitely has a role to play in the game as a damage proc'ing 4*.  She might even be the best at that role.  But we already have very good 4*s for that role and they don't really see much play for true 5* players.

KGB

Daredevil217 said:

So what are the odds Polaris gets nerfed. I never shardgeted Bishop because I thought, “there’s no way they let him remain as is”. Obviously I was wrong. I have about 1100 Mighty tokens and 800 Heroics I was saving for a rainy day. Clearly Polaris makes it rain. I could use those tokens to either get 10 4* widow covers (my shardget) and champ the 5. OR, I can champ and put some levels on Polaris when she enters tokens. Thoughts? 

Apparently there is a Winfinite with Polaris/BRB/5* Captain Marvel with her Green at 5 destroying every row, BRB giving you tons of Green for the destroyed protects and Polarity refilling all the protects on the new tiles so you can repeat.

This may or may not get addressed depending on how easy it is to pull off (I don't have those 5* characters champed so I can't try but I think you do).

KGB