Lots of conversation on unbalanced characters, what is the forums’ thoughts on who are well balanced characters?
Someone already said Cyclops is balanced well. Ares is another I think. His powers are strong, but there are drawbacks to each of them. What is everyone’s thoughts?
I’ll play - 3 stars only
The Really Sucky
Beast
Doc Ock
Iron Man
Sentry
Just a Little Bit More
Black Widow
Colossus
Falcon
Human Torch
Psylocke
Punisher
Rags (3rd cover could solve him)
Spiderman (Just fix the Yellow)
Squirrel Girl
Storm
Close Enough
Black Panther
Cage
Cap America (Would be perfect with half the shield for half the price)
Cap Marvel
Daken
Daredevil
Deadpool
Hulk
Magneto
Mystique
Patch
She-Hulk
A Little Overpowered
Blade
Doom
Hood
Loki
Thor
Gamora, Rocket, Cyclops, Iron Fist are too soon to tell for me. I would guess Rocket and Cyclops are in the Close Enough camp, Gamora probably a little underpowered and Iron Fist in the Overpowered camp (Either a little or a lot).
I think they have done a good job with 3star land. I only see 4 needed reworks (5 if Iron Fist is Vastly Overpowered) out of 35 which is a pretty good track record
Once upon a time, Punisher was probably the poster child for good, all around, balanced character. Three solid, modestly priced abilities that work well together, with a case to be made for multiple builds. He’s been the backbone of many a developing roster. Sadly power creep has pushed Frank further to the back of the pack these days.
Of the newer lot, Blade strikes me as being on the good side of a balanced character. He’s strong, but not the most reliable, and just okay in the hit point department.
Pretty good list, but I’d only have Thor and maybe Hood in the OP category. Blade is a monster because the AI doesn’t shut down Thirst, but a player can; so in that sense, he’s balanced. Hood is a problem with OP characters that can take out entire an team. I only see him with Thor and X-Force or Pre-nerf Sentry. In his case, fix the other characters first.
Pretty good list, but I’d only have Thor and maybe Hood in the OP category. Blade is a monster because the AI doesn’t shut down Thirst, but a player can; so in that sense, he’s balanced. Hood is a problem with OP characters that can take out entire an team. I only see him with Thor and X-Force or Pre-nerf Sentry. Hood’s balance is pretty good, IMO.
I think you’d need finer categories because there are different kind of broken and different kind of balanced. Restricting to 3s (4s are kind of obvious whether they’re balanced or not), here’s what I’d say:
Does everything too well
Thor
Black Panther
Iron Fist
Has one broken skill (may be more or less broken than the above tier, but unlike the above they obviously don’t do everything well but is insane at whatever their thing is)
The Hood
Loki
True healing gods (because true healing is generally godly)
Patch
Daken
Punisher tier balanced (these guys may be more powerful or less powerful than Punisher, but within an acceptable limit)
Punisher
Luke Cage
Cyclops
Blade
Human Torch
Hulk
Falcon
Dr. Doom
Magneto
Colossus
Mystique
Captain America (who is a PvE god)
Captain Marvel
Daredevil
R&G
Sentry
Gamora
Deadpool
Psylocke tier balanced (that is, balanced if the above tier characters don’t exist)
Psylocke
Spiderman
GSBW
IM40
Ragnarok (this is mostly because his level is artificially low)
Storm
Lost causes
Dr. Octopus
Beast
I have a gripe with Doom. Exactly how is he OP? His purple takes forever to do XFW grade damage, since you’re apt to match the trap tiles and delay the big attack. And with the advent of IF, where speed will win you matches, Doom’s even less apt to land his diabolical trap explosion.
Sure, he can color deny blue for a little bit, but that’s not OP, ESPECIALLY since IF’s purple (or Mystique’s Blue) have been released.
His black is strong, but you never use it when you run Doom with Cage, XFW, or even Punisher. I’d sooner take a guaranteed 700-all for 7 black than a potential 1100 per turn against one. Further, There’s no guarantee Doom’s demon tiles will stick around to do the max dmg. Finally, since the optimum build for doom is 3/5/5, you’re doing 160 per tile vs 190. And for the price of one Doom Demon ability, you can attack for over 4K AND STUN with Cage.
Doom is “improved”, but he’s no top 10 character.
I agree. While purple is obviously strong, it’s just so slow and you probably can fire it once per match (and even if lucky cascade(s) give you enough for second, it would be quite weak if firing immediately).
I find his black underwhelming even when Doom is buffed, so I have 355 build, and to have use for his blue you need to bring better black user. He has good synergy witch Patch, but it’s still slow (just much more powerful).
I use Doom for medium pve nodes, when enemies can’t take him down before he could do something useful 
In my mind, a balanced character is a character that has obvious and defined positives about his kit, but significant cons to counteract those pros to a certain degree.
Acceptably balanced characters:
4 star:
Nick Fury
He has high damage, high utility and can do a lot of things. But he has high AP costs, relatively low health and his highest damage ability is unreliable. That’s what we in the business call having pros that are balanced with cons. Unlike a few other 4 stars who had high damage, high utility, high health and ability predictability paired with relatively low AP costs. Or, on the flip side, characters that have so many cons, their one or two pros don’t mean anything.
3 star:
Deadpool
High damage on Red but can’t be a finishing move. High damage on purple, but it is high cost. Low health and limited sustain. He is also a model of pros balanced with cons.
Daken
Great regen. Great strike tiles for whittling away at your opponent. Low health and no truly impact ability. Plus he has the capability of slowly killing himself with a bad board.
Patch
Great regen. High damage on red, but high AP cost as well as requiring him to tank colors. His green is the perfect example of a high risk high reward ability. Perfectly balanced.
Loki
He has clearly defined pros. His ability to steal AP when you play hastily against him is incredible. His purple being able to reset a bad board is also clutch. His black has a great niche purpose that could come in incredibly handy in certain situations where most characters would be rendered helpless. Cons include low health, no actual damage and reliance on the opponent to use his best ability.
Luke Cage
He has a clear niche as a high health defender who can be used to reduce match damage for longer climbs. He has 2 high impact damaging abilities, but they are off set by the high AP costs and (1) the reliance of having a special tile on the board in order to deal any heavy damage with black and (2) the requirement of having your team alive when using his yellow. He does drag out defensive fights a little too long, but overall he isn’t oppressive nor is he useless. Very well balanced.
Classic Magneto
Another very well balanced remake. He has high damage, high board shake and some good protect tiles but he has low health and a majority of his damage is reliant on the state of the board (need enough red and blue to swap for blue and need enough TU tiles for red to be worth it). He may be slightly on the overpowered side, due to his destructive nature, but he is very beatable with 1 or 2 abilities.
Captain America
High AP costs and useless yellow are his weaknesses. High damage and stun with relatively reliable AP return are his strengths. He is, in my opinion, the perfect example of balance in this game.
2 star:
Thor
High damage abilities off set by high AP costs. He was designed as a 2 star character. Buffing him up to 3 star made him a little overpowered, but this incarnation of Thor is very well balanced.
MN Magneto
High utility offset by a relatively worthless blue and red ability. But his purple is enough to make up for both of those abilities. Strong, with good partners in both 2 and 3 star land, while simultaneously not overwhelming any scene.
Storm
Another character with clear strengths and weaknesses.
Other than these characters, I believe each character is either too far on the strong or weak side of the spectrum.
There are a few other characters that have special niches: Dr Doom and Daredevil are fairly good with Patch. Hulk is great for hulk bombing with Patch as well. Mystique is a great PVE character with winfinite and Blade is also good for taking out PVE nodes.
Cyclops is one character that may be balanced. I don’t know because I don’t have him leveled and I’ve never seen him in PVP. We’ll but a TBD on him.