Arondite wrote: Buret0 wrote: 4Pool too low, Hulkbuster too high. When every character I face is a high level 5*, match damage will almost always set off the 4Pool passive, doing more than 3K in counter damage (more when boosted, though at max boosted his ability triggers at a higher damage point and you sometimes need to wait for an OML strike drop). A 5 cover black 4Pool is incredibly important when making the transition into 5* land, because he will be doing more damage with his passive than most of your actives. Surfer and OML can both tank for him on Red/Black and heal up any damage they absorb. How can HB be overrated? You're saying he's not T5?
Buret0 wrote: 4Pool too low, Hulkbuster too high. When every character I face is a high level 5*, match damage will almost always set off the 4Pool passive, doing more than 3K in counter damage (more when boosted, though at max boosted his ability triggers at a higher damage point and you sometimes need to wait for an OML strike drop). A 5 cover black 4Pool is incredibly important when making the transition into 5* land, because he will be doing more damage with his passive than most of your actives. Surfer and OML can both tank for him on Red/Black and heal up any damage they absorb.
Buret0 wrote: Arondite wrote: Buret0 wrote: 4Pool too low, Hulkbuster too high. When every character I face is a high level 5*, match damage will almost always set off the 4Pool passive, doing more than 3K in counter damage (more when boosted, though at max boosted his ability triggers at a higher damage point and you sometimes need to wait for an OML strike drop). A 5 cover black 4Pool is incredibly important when making the transition into 5* land, because he will be doing more damage with his passive than most of your actives. Surfer and OML can both tank for him on Red/Black and heal up any damage they absorb. How can HB be overrated? You're saying he's not T5? I'm saying I see a lot of Hulkbuster around and it doesn't scare me one bit. 95% of teams that aren't running a 5* are running a Hulkbuster. But Hulkbuster's lack of AoE means that I'm not at all scared of him and his strike tiles aren't as scary as they were five months ago. RHulk, Jean, 4Pool, and Iceman really make you think about who you need to attack first. If you don't kill 4Pool first, he will deal more damage with his passives than Hulkbuster will deal all match if you leave him to the end. Jean will do her double AoE plus drain/stun on match 5s if you don't kill her right away (which messes with tanking/healing and strike tiles in the high level meta). Rhulk sucks to have to kill first because of all the CD tile generation, but if you leave him hanging around your green AP will be gone and he'll be doing a ton of AoE damage (though my 4Pool counters for more damage, I want to be taking most of my damage only with my 5* tanks). Ice has the big buster AoE, a slight drain + battery, and will stun your tanks to hit the back row non-healers. Hulkbuster and 4Clops are kind of on the fringe of top 6 in my opinion. They are fast on O (as are all of the other top 6), but Hulkbuster's inability to do an AoE makes him an easy target for when I'm choosing who to attack. His damage per AP is starting to fall behind the powercreep curve. His high health makes him more of an asset than 4Clops, even though 4Clops is faster, hits harder, and can generate a ton of AP in your strongest color (also red or strongest color). I am in transition to 5* world where I fight more 5*s than I do 4*s. So who am I going to bring with me and who is going to make me think twice about attacking? Hulkbuster never makes me think twice because I don't even have to adjust my strategy and I'll heal 100% of the damage he can do to my tank by the end of the battle. RHulk + OML + Phoenix is terrifying. You pretty much have to kill RHulk first and OML second (I never let phoenix die first or second). In doing so you are going to give off a ton of potential cascades from match damage to RHulk. I would even consider going 5/3/5(ish...) because you want to maximize his opportunity to gather AP for phoenix and OML while slowing down your opponent. My list of the 4 characters you absolutely should have covered and leveled going from 4 to 5*: 1. RHulk 2. 4Pool (5 black covers a must... I just don't know how to stress how important this is. Being able to do 30K+ in damage spread over multiple targets over the course of a 5* battle... for free. No, it isn't hard to trigger this passive 10 or more times when fighting a bunch of high level 5*s.) 3. Ice 4. Jean Getting levels and covers gives you options, so having these two is a secondary objective: 5. Hulkbuster 6. 4Clops The ONLY reason I put RHulk over 4Pool in this list is because of: (a) max health; (b) lower trigger counter; (c) doesn't rely on allies being damaged to trigger counter; (d) battery; and (e) AoE. He's fast and good on O, but also a threat on D. The bad: RHulk doesn't have healing, but has to take damage to trigger his counter. Less useful on O where you are trying to fight high level opponents without spending healthpacks every fight. Pool on the other hand has a true healing, but you don't want him tanking. The red does a ton of damage, but can be difficult to power until the end of the match when you heal up and take down OML or Phoenix. On O, you can hide behind a tanking 5* and deal 30K in free damage with 4Pool. Useful purple outlet that works very well with OML's high powered strike tiles to VASTLY increase damage per AP. Ice is so good, but his green takes so long to activate and my best teams have him tanking green and purple too often, leaving him exposed to damage. His low health means, while you have to take him down quick, it is possible to finish him before he does anything bad. Better on O than D, but still a threat on D (if that makes sense). Jean is less important in the 5* transition because: (a) her stun doesn't affect Surf and doesn't really slow the other team down much; (b) the number of "place X tiles of Y color" powers in 4-5* are very minimal; (c) her health makes her a target to take down quick. The good: her purple is cheap, does decent damage, and can clean up all of those 5* strike tiles. Compared to those 4, Hulkbuster struggles in moving in to the 5* world. He wants to eat your red/blue/black AP, but there are better outlets for damage per AP on red and the utility of black and blue in 5* land is going to mean Hulkbuster is just wasting AP. He lacks an AoE, so he doesn't get the triple damage per AP increase from the big strike tiles. He has a lot of health, but he just isn't as efficient as other options anymore. 4Clops is great on O, but I love seeing him out there on D. AI can't use his blue to gather red, doesn't go straight for matching TU tiles after yellow is out, blows up their own tiles with red (though that one really hurts if it ever lands). Low health means that I can take him down early. If HB and 4Clops were both out there, I would kill 4Clops first. If JG, Ice, 4Pool are out with 4Clops, I have to leave 4Clops for second, which gives him a ton of time to battery up.
rkd80 wrote: I am strongly favoring rulk over ice only because jeanbuster or jeanclops is still a very prevalent team in PvP and rulk appears to be a great answer to jean.
Arondite wrote: Seems like you're placing a ton of value on defense, which is weird because no one plays anyone for the defensive ability lol. Everything is was and likely always will be how fast they are on offense so you get the most out of their hops, and within the 4* tier Hulkbuster is unarguably top 5 at getting you in and out quick. As for how they pair with 5*'s, seems weird to prioritize that as a factor for a couple of good reasons. First, these tier lists aren't made for people who have every 4 star fully built. Anyone in that scenario can obviously tell who is good at what just by playing thems some. It's to give players who don't have ANY an idea of which ones to prioritize. Convincing a player to prioritize the heroes that will ease 4*-5* transition while they're tying to go from 3*-4* will only hurt them, because let's face it, 4Pool isn't the hero you want carrying you through taut phase of roster building. IMHB+Fist or JG+SWitch are probably the best 3+4 Teams available, and that's a great deal of why those heroes rank so highly. Secondly, with the transition to 5* being so random right now, until they change that I think it's insane to place much value on a 4* based on how hey pair with a 5*, as the simple fact is a only a tiny little fraction of the player base will get any mileage out of that information at all.
Buret0 wrote: To say that 4Pool isn't as good as HB in the transition is just a matter of groupthink. People are using HB over 4Pool because more people have HB as a result of his launch and how long he has been around and how dominant he was for so long after his launch.
rkd80 wrote: But other than 4* ddq, this is not a 1vs1 game so we should only consider it from a 3v3 perspective unless something drastic changes. I see your point on the stuns and on rulk AoE, however rulk really strikes me as an annoying defensive character more than an offensive one. Since this game is all about offensive speed, it would appear that iceman provides that in spades. I think trying to come up with a defensive strategy to thwart the influx of 5* is probably a losing battle as the only realistic answer against 5* are probably more 5*. :-/ Think i will go ahead then and stick to iceman for now. Still cant think of who might be a good partner for him, but HB + ice does not sound too bad anyway.
GrumpySmurf1002 wrote: Buret0 wrote: To say that 4Pool isn't as good as HB in the transition is just a matter of groupthink. People are using HB over 4Pool because more people have HB as a result of his launch and how long he has been around and how dominant he was for so long after his launch. One thing that needs mention is XDP gets a massive bump thanks to championing. He's not quite as versatile when you had to pick a build and stick to it. Anyway, disagree that it's just groupthink on HB. Fistbuster was/is immensely popular for a reason, it's hard to find a quicker accelerating combo. XDP has an ok accelerator in 3Cyc, but you'd be building 3Cyc sub-optimally (before championing) to use him as such. Plus your primary selling point (his black) is not as beneficial given the lack of 3/4* characters with self heals even remotely good as a 5*. That reduces him to a very good (but expensive), not self-accelerating red, and an inconsistent purple without a partner like XForce or Thing (which aren't necessarily available during the 3->4* transition).
Buret0 wrote: rkd80 wrote: But other than 4* ddq, this is not a 1vs1 game so we should only consider it from a 3v3 perspective unless something drastic changes. I see your point on the stuns and on rulk AoE, however rulk really strikes me as an annoying defensive character more than an offensive one. Since this game is all about offensive speed, it would appear that iceman provides that in spades. I think trying to come up with a defensive strategy to thwart the influx of 5* is probably a losing battle as the only realistic answer against 5* are probably more 5*. :-/ Think i will go ahead then and stick to iceman for now. Still cant think of who might be a good partner for him, but HB + ice does not sound too bad anyway. Ice can do a ton of damage with that green. The great thing with Ice is that he's a standalone character. I don't mean that he is fighting 1 v 1, but rather that you can put him in with anyone else and he will thrive. A lot of what makes for great team composition depends on if/whether there is a mandatory third character. We often think in terms of 2 characters who work well together, but if there is some chemistry with the mandatory third, you should take advantage of it and change the team up. RHulk is actually a good teammate for Ice. Ice's purple creates blue, which is useful at the mid/end stages of a match when you are trying to prevent the enemy from using their nuke or you are trying to stunlock or wipe out the last character. However, RHulk's purple should be at 5 covers (whereas Ice's purple should be at 3) and can be used to feed Ice's Green nuke. Ice is a bit of a glass cannon, so having a way to gain green without forcing Ice into the front to take the damage is a good idea. Then again, you can pair Ice up with pretty much any of the top 6: 4Pool is good if the 3rd is a black AP user (XFW gives you a full rainbow and his surgical strike is deadly with a 3/5/5 4Pool with XFW in the tank position on Green/Black/Yellow/TU 3/5/5 so that he can heal and Ice can nuke). Hulkbuster is tough because Ice wants to deplete red tiles from the board and HB wants to deplete green from the board, but both of those abilities are likely at 3 covers. They don't accelerate each other either, so really you are going to have to hope the board is kind to one or the other. Cyclops at 5/5/3 can feed green to Ice and tank Red/Yellow/TU, but his low health and lack of healing don't make him an ideal tank, plus you want the strongest color to be green to feed Ice, so this team needs a high level 4* or 5* at 3rd position to be effective, which limits the usefulness to PvE, Shield, or a 4* PvP. Jean and Ice share three colors, but a 5/5/3 Jean with a 5/5/3 Ice can actually do good work together because Jean's purple is the best use of that AP, Ice's Green is the best use of that AP, and Ice has a very good active blue to complement JG's passive. Ice can feed off RHulk's excellent purple. If Ice dies, RHulk can still make use of all that green AP. Obviously the third matters.
Ruinate wrote: Why do people love Cyc + Rhulk or Cyc + Iceman so much? Is a 12k single target nuke really necessary after a 7k aoe? Wouldn't Overdrive strike tiles and smaller/quicker Repulsor Punches be much better for cleaning up without massively over killing?
Der_Lex wrote: Ice and Cyke is a great combo, actually. You just need to respec your Cyke (hurray for championing!) to 553. That way you have Cyke as a red and/or green feeder (his yellow output will change depending on which order you put the two in), Iceman as a blue feeder, and no less than 3 big damage powers between Ice's green and blue and Cyke's red. These two guys have my vote for current top two best 4* characters, with good old Jean rounding out the top 3. We'll have to see what the exact stats of Nova are, but if his damage output is high enough and his strikes are halfway decent, I think he has top tier potential as well.
Arondite wrote: Der_Lex wrote: Ice and Cyke is a great combo, actually. You just need to respec your Cyke (hurray for championing!) to 553. That way you have Cyke as a red and/or green feeder (his yellow output will change depending on which order you put the two in), Iceman as a blue feeder, and no less than 3 big damage powers between Ice's green and blue and Cyke's red. These two guys have my vote for current top two best 4* characters, with good old Jean rounding out the top 3. We'll have to see what the exact stats of Nova are, but if his damage output is high enough and his strikes are halfway decent, I think he has top tier potential as well. Bolded... No it wont. Cyclops Yellow awards AP at random if the numbers are true-tied (read, a numerical tie of two same-level, same-star characters).