Baku, Rogue or other

WhiteBomber

Having finished my 3rd ascended 4 star (Coulson) I am now really feeling a good tank. I was leaning towards Mbaku because I know how good he is, but I really want the character to be fun, and he would only be fun because he is winning, not because I'm strategizing while I play him. Because of this I wanted to gather some veteran rosters thoughts on who it should be.

Is Rogue good enough chose her before MBaku? Does the fun factor offset never needing health packs? I reeeally enjoy the idea of her jumping in front, as that has got to be the most annoying mechanic in the game defensively.

OR, is there someone else that should seriously be considered? I know Blob and BlackKing are also good, but how do they stack up to the others? All opinions here, please vote and give yours!

Currently I have all 4 of those tanks around the same level (310ish).

Thanks in advance!

Borstock

Both of those characters are kinda boring, if you ask me. Good, but boring. I'm a fan of Blob and Juggernaut.

I don't know if he counts as a tank, probably not, but entrail turned me onto Prowler. Dude gets crazy at higher levels.

WhiteBomber

@Borstock said:
Both of those characters are kinda boring, if you ask me. Good, but boring. I'm a fan of Blob and Juggernaut.

I don't know if he counts as a tank, probably not, but entrail turned me onto Prowler. Dude gets crazy at higher levels.

You might be right, Blob does probably have the most fun kit of all of them. I just checked and he has quite a bit more health than Rogue and MBaku (roughly 50k more at 550). He jumps to the front AND has a heal. He is largely dependent on SAPs though and since I haven't ascended him yet I haven't tried out any fun teams, maybe I should test him out more...

Can you actually keep Prowler alive enough, since it sounds like you consider him slightly defensive? I know he gets quite a bit better and they improved his kit, but would you use him unbuffed in PVP? Who do you usually run him with?

Juggernaut4 is probably the least fun of them for me, I totally get his value, but I will probably let his dupe level up for as long as possible, especially since his weekly buff just passed.

Borstock

To be fair, I have Tinkerer at 5. So, my Prowler is kind of Prowler+.

I would totally use him at 550 in pick-3, but I don't use him at 480, or wherever I have him. I don't use him in pick-2, although he freaking dominated when he was boosted during a recent PvP. I love his stun. He can also steal those broken protect tiles people build now.

If you really just want a defensive tank, I guess my recommendation is Blob.

WhiteBomber

Oh yeah, Tinkerer also, mine is level 3. I'm hoping to use this person unboosted in pick 2 and 3 PVP. I have had great success thus far with Karnak, DLok and Magik3.

Do you have any experience with Beast4-5? I have multiple teams that I love to run him on, but none that really hinge on getting those protects out very quickly to stop him from eating damage. Actually, the only team I really run often that uses more than one SAP is Magic3-5 creating them as an after thought and now Agatha3 I suppose.

entrailbucket

Try Blob/Polaris/5* Hawkeye or Kang in a PvE fight -- it's a hilarious team. Blob can do some really fun stuff but he's more of a combo piece, with either a "countdowns matter" guy or a mass special tile generator.

Prowler is completely insane. I'm not sure if he's usable unboosted, but only because I've never really tried. They goofed on his black ability, the strikes are WAY too strong.

Tanks, huh? Well M'baku is wild. Rogue is fun but probably not as annoying as you think.

Here's a few that nobody else will suggest, and that will be very rare (check my roster for stats etc): Abomination, Doop (certain builds), and Rhino.

WhiteBomber

I think I remember you mentioning this one previously. I do quite like Hawk5... Have you had good success without Polaris? I kinda dislike Polaris from having to play her so much before my 5's were strong enough. Maybe the Cat!? Double defense sounds fun. I will give some options a try.

entrailbucket

@WhiteBomber said:
I think I remember you mentioning this one previously. I do quite like Hawk5... Have you had good success without Polaris? I kinda dislike Polaris from having to play her so much before my 5's were strong enough. Maybe the Cat!? Double defense sounds fun. I will give some options a try.

It can work with any special tile spammer, but Polaris works so well there because she's THE spammer.

Blob converts all special tiles (friendly and enemy) in the bottom part of the board into 1-turn CD tiles. Pair him with a spammer and someone who does something when CDs go off, and...

WhiteBomber

Dang, MBaku stole the show. Is his match damage that good when he's takin hits, or more so unkillable?

entrailbucket

@WhiteBomber said:
Dang, MBaku stole the show. Is his match damage that good when he's takin hits, or more so unkillable?

It's both. Plus he gets stun immunity at a certain percentage of health. He's just very, very hard to deal with.

ThaRoadWarrior

Rogue's green hits very hard, even unboosted, and you can use it for AP gain as well, but I think most players know how to deal with her. M'Baku was rarely seen prior to ascension so I think he will be the wildcard for awhile in addition to being legitimately powerful. It's who I'm working on at the moment.

WhiteBomber

Thank you all very much for voting and your thoughts!

The people have chosen MBaku and since I have so many other fun characters right now I might as well prioritize a quite likely OP one. After him though I think I might consider Blob and then Beast4 for the funsies. If Purpleman's stats are released by then, he could change my mind.

WhiteBomber

No one wants BlackKing it seems like, poor guy...

If they ever add a functional healer to this game, these characters are going to be amazing. By functional I mean "good enough to play in PVP", I love you Bong... you're just not, enough.

ThaRoadWarrior

I ascended him, and I never remember I did it.

WhiteBomber

@ThaRoadWarrior said:
I ascended him, and I never remember I did it.

Ha, King or Bong? I wouldn't mind having both, they're just too far down the list. Bong is maybe on of my favorite characters, but to cut his healing in half at 5!? Shame on them.

entrailbucket

@WhiteBomber said:

@ThaRoadWarrior said:
I ascended him, and I never remember I did it.

Ha, King or Bong? I wouldn't mind having both, they're just too far down the list. Bong is maybe on of my favorite characters, but to cut his healing in half at 5!? Shame on them.

I was really disappointed in Black King's ability to shut down m'Thor when I left him out on defense.

I get (and fully support) why situations like Dr Bong, Aunt May, Iron Patriot etc happen. When you ascend them you're trading offense for defense, and you should have to give something up for that. Aunt May or Dr Bong with 400k health, huge match damage, and their 4* passives, would be way too much. They'd be free shields, unstoppable on defense, and nobody wants that.

What I don't get is why they don't apply that philosophy consistently.

WhiteBomber

If the philosophy is "make healing pointless" they just shouldn't have healing at all. It is a mechanic like any other, it should scale with the character.

If only Bong's healing was a problem, tune it, if healing in itself is too strong, create characters/supports/abilities that counter it. It's no different than what they had to do when resurrecting, or team damage, or match damage was OP, you don't kill the character you create fun counters.

His kit was clearly built around healing, suddenly hitting 5 star shouldn't say "ok, now damage is your thing", that's how some characters become garbo and others become amazing. I'm still not saying he's useless either, I'm just saying healing gets no love and the only justifiable reason for it, is that you have to pay for healthpacks. If that is the case, than maybe they should just remove it all together so we don't end up with more characters who can never achieve the greatness they deserve.

entrailbucket

@WhiteBomber said:
If the philosophy is "make healing pointless" they just shouldn't have healing at all. It is a mechanic like any other, it should scale with the character.

If only Bong's healing was a problem, tune it, if healing in itself is too strong, create characters/supports/abilities that counter it. It's no different than what they had to do when resurrecting, or team damage, or match damage was OP, you don't kill the character you create fun counters.

His kit was clearly built around healing, suddenly hitting 5 star shouldn't say "ok, now damage is your thing", that's how some characters become garbo and others become amazing. I'm still not saying he's useless either, I'm just saying healing gets no love and the only justifiable reason for it, is that you have to pay for healthpacks. If that is the case, than maybe they should just remove it all together so we don't end up with more characters who can never achieve the greatness they deserve.

Eh. When resurrection was a problem they tried to create fun counters...and ended up having to kill the character. Some stuff is just problematic. Healing has been an issue going back to OBW in like 2014.

That said, you can still just bring Dr. Bong as a 4*, like how everybody uses Iron May. You'll be a target, but if all you care about is packs it doesn't matter.