Returning Player Asking for Your Advice

Liljoeyjojo said:

mpiter said:

By the way, you will not find much use of Karnak and Sabretooth because other 4* meta are much faster than them.  Try to champ C&D instead.  This pair is a very useful black and yellow feeder to solve puzzles and in other niche situations although Domino is also a good black provider.  Outside the meta, they are the character I use the most often for those special situations.

I do not think that Karnak and Sabretooth deserve the meta qualification.  They do not have any use in PVE and they are very easy targets in PVP.  I love the Karnak+Chavez pair that some people still use in PVP.  You can always kill Karnak in less than 4 turns, then most of the time Chavez before she can use her passive.  I never use them.

I've been playing a lot more competitively in PVP, and thats where Karnak and Sabretooth shine. Not for PVE, and not for climbing in PVP necessarily, and may not be scariest on defence in PVP, but they are the key to part of the rock/paper/scissors dynamic of the meta that you see in 4* PVP, and they allow some of the fastest clears of a node when hitting certain opponents.

You obviously have the right MMR for those characters.  A guy of my team championed first Karnak+AC (Chavez).  He had no other 4* close to be champion at that time.  He never could do anything in PVP because as soon as he reached 600 points, he was attacked all the time.  He never succeeded in climbing to have a good ranking because K. + AC are easy meat in defense.

Karnak as I understand is a great pairing with Chavez for certain matchups, especially Polaris/Sabretooth or Polaris/Medusa where bringing any strike/special tile users is dangerous. Karnak can take out a Polaris or Medusa in 4 turns and reduces the risk of special tile effects which is important.

The game provides a huge advantage on the attack because the AI does not take into account character specificity.  Many characters seem good because they are stunning on the attack but gave poor results in PVP because they are too low on defense because the AI is unable to properly handle them.

For example, I love to meet the pair AC+Karnak because they are so easy to break when handled by the AI.  Both characters are much too slow!  Karnak needs 4 turns before doing anything worthwhile, and except on very rare cascades AC is also too slow to do anything good in defense.  I used Polaris+Grocket against them.  They killed a championed Karnak usually in two or three turns, and AC did not last longer after.  AC+K are a call for being wrecked in PVP because they are too weak on defense.  I think that is why we do not meet them often today.

Conversely, you always think twice in 4* world before attacking Polaris+Grocket because you know that the likelihood to loose a lot of health when things go awry is not very low, even if you always kill them in the end.  And if you use an anti-Polaris such as Sabretooth, you will be an easy target in PVP because against teams which do  not provide special tiles, they usually are very weak.

Sabretooth is just the fastest and best way to clear Polaris/Grocket nodes, or any nodes with Grocket. I have a 3/1/0 Sabretooth and even that knocks out Polaris/Grocket really really quickly. Can't wait to champ him.

Sabretooth is not good.  He is very weak against any team that does not produce special tiles.  He seems good now because the 4* meta is totally dominated by combinations of Polaris, Grocket, Medusa, and low-level Kitty (I know, she is a 5* but you can find her at low level in 4* PVP).  I always killed him in a couple of minutes with a dedicated team, then I immediately went back to Polaris + Grocket to place a team worthwhile in defense.

I wonder whether championing him would not be the last time you would use it because it might increase your MMR to a point where he would be easy meat, and you would not be able to climb anymore for that reason.

Despite the fact that everybody knows that he is an anti-Polaris character., almost no one uses him in PVP in comparisons to Polaris+Grocket.  That is a proof to me that he is generally not good even if you use him now with your particular MMR.  Same for Karnak + AC.  Some still believe that they are good and still use them, but on average, you mostly meet combinations of Polaris, Grocket, and Medusa, then with low-level Kitty at a slightly higher level, then iHulkoye at a higher level.  There is a reason for that.  If Sabretooth was really good, you would meet him more often

I have heard Cloak and Dagger is great and will work on them eventually, but I think ive got PVE mostly sorted with Polaris/Grocket/Juggs, and PVP is where Karnak and Sabretooth can be really effective in certain match ups.

You are right.  C&D is not a great general-purpose character pair.  They can do nothing in comparison to Polaris+R&G (+ Jugg if you can use a third one).  The only reason I suggested you to champion the pair is because they are one of the very few 4* characters that can have a real use in niche situations, mostly to solve puzzles.  They usually can provide a constant stream of black or yellow tiles (you choose which one using their purple).  When you need to solve a puzzle with a lot of black or yellow tiles, you can use them (though Domino is a bit faster for black).  You want to solve a puzzle where you need to gather a lot of blue or green, you can use them with Vulture though BRB+Polaris+Bishop should do a good job with blue but that requires a 5* (C&D provides black to Vulture who provides blue and green with his black).  You need red, C&D + IM40 + Riri (C&D provides yellow for IM40 who uses yellow to produce red and blue, and Riri can use the blue to produce more red)...  So, C&D is not a great character on itself but a very good support on in niche situations.  Outside the meta, it is the 4* I use the most often.

I am glad that you succeed so well in your comeback.  Specially the top 5-10 ranking at the end of PVP events is great.  That is a proof to me that Sabretooth and Karnak are currently very good options in your case.  Congratulations.

Don't let any silly comments calling Sabertooth bad dissuade you.  He is an excellent Rocket hunter, as it seems like you already know. 

4* Beast and Morbius are also going to be players in the heavy special tile meta that exists in 4* land.  You mentioned that you're keeping up with champing the new releases, but if you end up short on one of those two after their event rotation ends, I would move them to the front of the list to focus on before any other middle tier characters.

It will be interesting to see how Beast competes in this meta. BRB, Beast, and Polaris look like they are going to dominate. I don't have BRB in useable form, but Medusa is apparently a good replacement (according to PiMacleod anyways). Frankly, Beast might replace Polaris entirely if Morbius and Sabertooth combine to wreck Grocket teams, but I still think that is unlikely. 

mpiter said:

Theghouse said:

Don't let any silly comments calling Sabertooth bad dissuade you.  He is an excellent Rocket hunter, as it seems like you already know. 

I love when people write offending comments with words such as silly, stupid, or brainless without backing up their opinions with facts.

I quote a part of the comment I had written : "Sabretooth is not good.  He is very weak against any team that does not produce special tiles."  In other words, yes a good R&G hunter, but easy meat in defense in PVP and too slow in PVE in comparison to the meta to be useful.

Let's talk about FACTS now.  I have just started the current PVP event Please Stand By with obligatory SW5.  I firstly beat the first three teams with 1* companions to have three team corresponding to my MMR.  Then I passed one team 37 times to end up seeing the first 40 teams the game proposed to me for a total of 80 characters (the two complements of SW5).  I also wrote down the character levels of any Grokit, or Polaris + R&G4/BRB/Medusa team to be sure to avoid counting several times the same team.  Here are the results of the character occurrences in decreasing order out of 80 occurrences:

1. Polaris: 15
2. R&G and Kitty: 10 (both)
3. R&G and Kitty: 10 (sorry to repeat, it is to have correct automatic numbering)
4. Rogue: 5
5. Medusa and Deadpool5: 4
6. Same
7. Drax, Carol, Px5,: 3
8. Same
9. Same
10. Hulk Main Event, AC, BRB, OML: 2

Sabretooth: 0

The rest appeared once or never.  Rogue and Drax can be taken away because they were boosted.  I rarely seem then when they are not boosted.

Take away the 5* of the list and we can safely assume that Polaris, R&G,  and Medusa are the base of the 4* meta, the first two being the real meta.  Kitty is the first 5* to complement the meta at intermediate level, though at a higher one, iHulkoye is better as DAZ0273 pointed to.

I meet Sabretooth from time to time in PVP.  This drawing of 40 pairs was not his best shot.  But he is VERY far behind Polaris, R&G, and Medusa in my MMR.  I did not expect him to appear more than once, or twice if he was lucky.  Anyone claiming the opposite has obviously not played during the last three months or is unable to face FACTS.

So, I repeat, do not invest in Sabretooth before champing the 4* meta.  If he was any good in comparison to the meta trio, we would meet him much more often.  Furthermore, there are other 4* non-meta with more uses than him in niche situations.

4* Beast and Morbius are also going to be players in the heavy special tile meta that exists in 4* land.  You mentioned that you're keeping up with champing the new releases, but if you end up short on one of those two after their event rotation ends, I would move them to the front of the list to focus on before any other middle tier characters.

Beast and Morbius are unlikely to be characters in the heavy special tile meta that exists in 4* land.  They are too slow for PVE and too slow and fragile for PVP.  This was the case of all 4* anti-special characters such as Sabretooth or Kraven.

Beast has been available for weeks and many people have championed him.  Nobody uses him in PVP because he is too easy to handle.  Just control his black and kill him in less than 4 turns.  He is just fodder in defense.  Polaris had already been intensively used when she had been available as long as Beast now.  Even though Morbius is better than Beast, I do not think that he will be heavily used because R&G gives a better start.

No characters define the meta, only teams.  Which Beast-based team or Morbius-based team would be more efficient than Polaris + R&G in PVE or in PVP?

Do not forget that the AI is unable to correctly handle a character who needs a special strategy.  The only teams that can enter the meta are those who passively do a lot of brainless damage from the beginning of a fight.  That is why the 4* meta was a few years ago composed of R&G, Gamora, and Medusa.  Gamora was superseded by Juggernaut for his team damage, and then Medusa was replaced by Polaris.  Just brainless heavy damage without thinking, the only thing the AI can do.  The same can be said for Grokit who had dominated the meta till iHulkoye.  Quick brainless heavy damage very difficult to avoid.

I wasn't calling you silly, just your one comment.  If you don't want one of your comments called out for being silly, I would suggest not making generalized statements.  Opening as you did by saying "Sabertooth is not good" is not only a generalization; it is just plain wrong.  He is one of the best situational characters in the 4* tier, especially since Rocket and his free strike tiles have been firmly planted at the top of the 4* meta since his release almost four years ago.

A list of teams you see available to queue in PVP is far from definitive fact of the character's use in PVP, let alone a character's usefulness in the entire game as a whole.  Not only is it entirely subjective upon your MMR, point level, time slice you are in, time of day you are queueing, and time left in the event, but it completely ignores that you can't see top players' teams when shielded, and that top players use fast characters with low PVP defensive worth quickly before switching back to a better defensive team or shielding.

If you don't see any use to Morbius or Beast, by all means pass them up.  But other players will be finding efficient uses for them whether you see them in your 40 skips or not.

This is such a great time to have 4* MMR, I envy you. I think the 4's have been so varied and good recently.