41. Sentry (Dark Avengers)
Analysis
Write up by El Satanno
Long, long ago, in a time when 3* characters ruled the land, there was a thing called Sentry Bombing. Sentry Bombing was so good, you couldn’t even smell victory for all the people who would be bombing your score into the basement…unless of course you were bombing as well. So they crippled Sentry. Crippled him but good. Now he’s barely good enough to even consider champing. Oh how the mighty have fallen.
Sentry’s green power, World Rupture, used to be the linchpin of Sentry Bombing. And it still does the job, kinda…sorta…a lot less damage after the nerf has left it feeling pretty unimpressive. The yellow Sacrifice power also doesn’t quite hit as hard as it used to, but is still a strong ability if you can keep that strike tile on the board. Back in the day, Supernova used to be the easy 3 of Sentry’s abilities, but now the tables have turned and it’s perhaps the only thing that keeps Sentry from being utterly useless. If you’re willing to sacrifice (irony) your team for a win, blasting a board heavy in red can win you victory pretty quickly.
The thing about Sentry now is that two of his three powers don’t hit very hard, and at the same time damage your own team way more than they’re worth. Boosted up, his red is a very dangerous ability, but will cost you in health packs very quickly. You’ll want another strong strike tile generator to make green worth it and it still requires a lot of babysitting. Not really a value proposition.
If you find yourself forced to use Sentry, try using…two other good characters. Seriously, he sucks. Maybe try racing to red as fast as possible if you’re looking for fast matches.
Pros: Gorgeous blond hair rivals Thor. Also red can hit hard, I guess.
Cons: Sucks. (Fine, if you want exposition: Damages your team with every power for questionable payoff.)
Pairs with: Good characters.
40. Ragnarok (Dark Avengers)
Analysis
Write up by hopper1979
Let’s face it we all know what characters are going to be in the bottom 5, Ragnarok, Sentry, Vision, Psylocke and Doctor Octopus. Spider Man might find his way into this list, not because he is horrible, but because some of us have been around long enough to remember how good he was before the change in healing occurred. I will argue Ragnarok gests unfairly rated for the for the same reason. Some of us are lost in the past and remember the days when Ragnarok was a common as Old Man Logan, Iceman and Hulkbuster. In the attempt to give all characters 3 attacks they took a very solid build and screwed it all up.
What made Ragnarok good was his mix of speed and power, none of his attacks we overpowered but because they were so fast he could cut through a team, this speed/power combo was especially noticeable when 4’s had not been introduced. In the current version of the game he would be a solid 3 but back in the day he was broken just like Sentry or Spider Man.
So let’s talk about how he plays now, no more waxing poetic about the good old days, he does have his uses. His strength lies in his two cheap, fast powers, don’t get suckered into using Godlike Power his green AOE it does more harm than good especially for its high cost of 14. Thunderclap and Lightning Rod are both solid fast powers especially when matched with the proper teammates he also has a lot of HP so he is one of the better tanks especially when boosted.
Finally, if it was not already clear, there are better characters out there once get into the 4-star transition you will probably not use Ragnarok often but he is a niche character who has his uses and again when paired with the proper teammates is a solid addition to your roster.
If they update him one of these seasons and make his blue true healing, like with the Chulk update, I think you will see him climb very quickly up the ranks of the 3-stars, this would turn him into the best tank in 3-star land. We can only hope.
Pros
• Two quick useful attacks
• High HP
Cons
• Horrible 3rd power does not do enough damage and hurts team too much to be useful
• Lack of a good AOE makes using him very team specific.
Recommended build: 3/5/5
Essential partners: Lets face it there are not that many good combos with him but this group can be a handful. Ragnarok, Qicksilver and Kamala Khan (this team is all about speed attacks and keeping your team healed, cast Rags red and blue as much as possible green goes to quicksilver and wait for his nukes to go off.)
IM40 is another good choice and can be substituted for Kamala Khan and the blue can to his nuke when you collect enough. Magneto is also a reasonable substitute.
Bad Partners: Once you are out of the 3’s there are much better substitutes for what he does. Do not make the mistake of pairing him with 4-Thor their best powers overlap and her blue makes more charged tiles.
39. Spider-Man (Classic)
38. Psylocke (Classic)
37. Colossus (Classic)
Analysis
Write up by Roland113
Colossus is the epitome of a 3 star tank. With a hit point total second in three star land only to The Hulk and the ability to shave half of the incoming damage while protecting everyone else, Colossus remains one of the most underappreciated three star characters in the game.
Yellow - Immovable Object: Want to protect your glass cannons, how about a big lug to jump in front. This is by far Colossus’ best power, combine this with his high hit points and your other characters are going to stick around for a while.
Red - Colossal Punch: Red is a good secondary color for Colossus, for maximum effectiveness you’ll want to fire this off, only when he’s in front. Upside, with Immovable Object, getting him in front isn’t very hard. If you work it right, Colossal Punch is almost a poor man’s Call the Storm in that you can target most of the damage at one enemy, but still polish off the one that you had almost down to zero, saving yourself a turn or two on the secondary character.
Black - Fastball Special: Not Colossus’ best power. Honestly, this is over priced and slow to use, however, there are very rare instances that this can come in handy. The gist is that Colossus throws an ally into the air, effectively stunning the ally and preventing them from taking damage for some amount of turns (3 turns at level 3, 1 turn at level 5). If we keep in mind that Colossus’ role in MPQ is to protect teammates from damage, this is a good thing. If you’ve got a pair of Tommy Guns coming at you, throw someone into the air, allowing them to avoid the damage. When they land, there’s a bit of damage and a power goes off without using any of your AP. Can you say GSBW with back to back sniper rifles, it can happen.
PVE: Colossus shines at PvE play, try to keep an Immovable Object tile on the board at all times and just let him suck up the damage. When you need to use a health pack, just heal him and the other two are protected. One side note, if you boost him with two yellow AP, you only need two matches to get this started.
PVP: Unpredictable at best. The AI will most likely cast multiple Immovable Objects wasting yellow AP or place the countdown tile somewhere that it will get matched immediately. The AI won’t know who to throw in the air for Fastball Special. The AI won’t know to wait until he’s in front to cast Colossal Punch. Yeah, not the best choice for PvP, better stick to PvE with this one. This is really where he gets the bad reputation from.
Pros: - Tank, Tank, Tank! He really is the T-34 of MPQ. Yellow will keep the rest of your team safe from anything but AoE hits.
Cons: - Black, 13 AP is a lot of AP for anything, let alone an unpredictable power that has a fifty fifty chance of giving you Hex Bolt over Reality Crush if you toss Scarlet Witch. Awful at PvP play, the AI has no clue how to use him.
Recommended Build: 5/5/3 or 5/3/5 depending on team mates strengths. Basically, if you team him with someone that has a good red, do a 5/3/5 build, otherwise, go 5/5/3.
Good Team Mates: Glass cannons that need protection. 2* Storm jumps to mind, The Hood, Loki or 3* Strange should also benefit from protection from Colossus. Grey Suit Black Widow is also a good teammate if you plan on using his black power. Personally, I play him with Beast (5/5/3) and Kamala Khan (5/5/3) for a team that takes almost no damage.
36. Doctor Octopus (Otto Octavius)
Analysis
Write up by abominatrix
Otto Octavius is a specialized character who can be fun to play, but his main use is against characters and goons that spam the board with special tiles and countdowns. Otherwise, his powers are too expensive and don’t do enough damage to be of any particular use.
Pairs well with characters who can play to his main strength, which is his black passive, which can fill the board with attack tiles, which means characters that can lay down strike tiles like 2/3* Wolverine, Daken, Blade and 3* Bullseye can give give the enemy a bad day. I find the combination of Luke Cage and Blade with Doc Ock to be extremely effective against these kinds of enemies (good attackes on 4 colors, rainbow except for red, which you don’t want to match when using Blade anyway).
Green: Tries to do a number of things (stun a character, do some damage, drain some AP, strengthen a special tile), but since it does several things, it does none of them well and there are better choices in 3* land for each of them.
Black: Passive which can be extremely useful against special tile layers (like Mohawk Storm) and countdown tile layers (like all goons). Since the attack tiles are placed on black tiles, there needs to be enough unoccupied black tiles on the board to get maximum use, which can make him less effective right after Storm or Bullseye fires their special-tile laying powers, but against the slower spamming of goons can be devestating.
Blue: If used against non-tile layers, it’s an extremely expensive Illusions. When used against tile layers, can be devestating. At 5 covers, it will move half the board, and at level 170 will do 1044 damage per special tile moved. This is the power you want ready when Mowhak Storm or 3* Bullseye fires off, since you can one-shot most characters in 3* land if you can catch a board with 20 special tiles. Note that this power does not effect countdown tiles, and does not do anything to boss special tiles like Ultron bombs.
Speed: Slow
Sustainability: Low
Power: Low
TU potential: Situational. Green is almost never useful, but having a blue can make a difference in the right fight.
35. The Punisher (Dark Reign)
Analysis
Write up by carrion pigeons
Punisher was one of the earlier 3*s added to the game, and hasn’t aged particularly well, but he does still have uses. Specifically, when the Hulk event or boss events roll around, The Punisher is one of your best tools for dealing with them.
Molotov Cocktail is a weak aoe followed by slow, weak attack tiles. This may sound terrible, but it is cheap, so that’s a plus, and it interacts pretty effectively with strike tiles.
Judgement is a very weak single target attack that places a bunch of quite strong strikes on the board. Since Punisher’s abilities are largely cheap, sequencing them correctly is key: try to start with this one.
Retribution is, under normal circumstances, a truly mediocre finisher. If your opponent has more than about 10k max health, however, then it starts looking much more attractive. Against bosses with 30k-60k (or more!) health pools, Retribution looks absolutely terrifying. Unlike Deadpool’s red, there is no damage cap here.
The Punisher is a fun character to use. He’s fast and has a bunch of actives that do different things. At his best, he gives the opponent so many things to respond to that some of them are bound to do some damage, and that can be quite fun. He’s grossly undertuned for the state the 3* tier is in now, however, so the main times you’ll use him are for specialty fights. Use with Spider-Man for infinite cheap utility and total chaos on the board.
34. Squirrel Girl (Unbeatable)
Analysis
Write up by fanghoul
Squirrel Girl isn’t a top tier character, but certainly has her uses. Her purple power, Nuts From Adventure, becomes more powerful with each enemy Protect, Attack, or Strike tile which can be useful for one shotting 2* Daken and 2* Bullseye, who show up far too often. Furry Friends, at 11 AP is expensive for what it is, but at rank 5 has the potential to return more AP than it uses, while also dealing thousands of points of damage at the end. The weakness of this power is of course that since it’s powered by countdown tiles, they can be matched away before they have their full effect, and this is particularly likely to happen when the tiles themselves keep shaking the board every turn.
Her final power, The Bigger They Are, can be a slight pain when you encounter it on a defensive team because the protect tiles generated are relatively strong. On the offensive, this tends to be less useful, as it ends your turn, robbing you of the damage and AP of that turn’s match. Possibly useful if you want to avoid making a forced bone headed move, but that doesn’t come up often enough to really count.
Pros:
High damage against some of the most common and annoying characters in the game.
Furry Friends is great as long as you can protect the tiles
Cons:
Mediocre against enemies that don’t generate protect/strike/attack tiles.
The Bigger They Are is generally a let down
Recommended build: 3/5/5
Good partners: Star-Lord (who benefits from countdown tiles), characters that stun (to keep the enemy from matching your furry friends away)
33. Gamora (Guardians of the Galaxy)
Analysis
Write up by Punisher5784
Most players hate her.. hell I will not tell you that I love her but when she is boosted I use her solely for her black ability. Bad Reputation requires Gamora to be your strongest character, hence why she is great when boosted. She places a yellow strike tile for every tile that bears Gamora’s symbol. These strikes are beefy for the 3* tier at 150 max (yes that’s Patch strength!) but you need 12 black AP. Who could you use? Well Iron Fist of course! IF makes the black fuel Gamora. Her strike tiles with IF’s attack tile is deadly. Also pair them with Doom to guarantee you fast black AP. None of them have Yellow powers so you will often have the most strike tiles possible.
Her red, Razor’s Edge, is low cost for low damage (1700 max) but that’s the point. You’re supposed to get her strike tiles out THEN use her Razor’s Edge multiple times! I save up red until her strike are out then I start hacking the enemy down to death.
Her green is well OK, it deals up to 1150 max AOE and stuns two random enemies for two-turns. I have seen players love her green but at 12 AP, I rather use someone else’s green. The damage is just too low, even with her strike tiles, it’s still disappointing. The random stun helps but I rather focus on gathering red and black AP over green. Because of this I have her 3/5/5 as you’ll likely have a better green user on the team. I’ve also paired her with Kamala Khan. Gamora and IF’s cheap powers give constant healing. In the rare instance these two are boosts (Class of 2015 PVP), Gamora and KK are surprisingly deadly. Should Gamora be your 3* focus for maxing and champing? No (although she gives Starlord covers!), but she’s not the worst 3* and can come in handy against some tough PVE nodes. Give her a try in DDQ’s Big Enchilada.
Notes from Ebola
Once you are past the 3* tier, you are going to want to respec her to 5/5/3. Bad reputation is worthless if she isn’t tanking colors, and you can get better strikes from some of the 4* and 5* characters.
32. Daredevil (Man Without Fear)
Analysis
Write up by El Satanno
Daredevil can hit hard, lock down an opponent endlessly, and counter grips of special tiles. If fun-to-play meant anything in this game, Daredevil would be one of the premiere characters across all tiers. Of course, fun-to-play means exactly zero, he’s not fast enough in most cases, and let’s be honest – trap tiles pretty much suck. Hence Daredevil lives somewhere in the middle of the 3* pack. He’s pretty good when boosted but not quite aggressive enough to make him a top choice.
Top billing goes to Billy Club, Daredevil’s blue power. One tile on the board can make a mess of enemy offense with that recurring stun. If you’re slick and can juggle two or more on the board, well you’ve got yourself a free stunlock right there! Oh, and in case you match away that tile you can just have some of your blue AP back. How lovely! Ambush is an almost-great power, offering good bang for the buck when matched by either team. Loading a red-heavy board with those tiles is a recipe for disaster if you can keep matching them off yourself. But as mentioned before, traps kinda suck. Any opponent that generates tiles on red (or randomly, for that matter) neuters Daredevil’s only offense pretty quickly. Likewise, Radar Sense is handy but suffers from a couple of issues. It’s easily the weakest power and so is a no-brainer for 3 covers. It doesn’t hit very hard at 3, nor removes many tiles, and is expensive to boot. Shame.
Send Daredevil into the field with 3* Cyclops and go bonkers loading the board with red traps. Throw Scarlet Witch in for the accidental blue freebies and you’ve got a rainbow team of significant potential.
Quicksilver also makes a handy partner who gives you an extra kick for all that blue you’ll be chasing. Or for maximum irony, try Bullseye to snipe your own red matches or keep blue alive.
Pros: Blue stun is fun as hell and a potential infinite stunlock, red hits hard and very fun.
Cons: Purple is weak and costly, traps suck
Pairs with: 3* Cyclops, Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, Bullseye
31. Vision (Android Avenger)
Analysis
Write up by saeva
While Vision isn’t the most durable of the yellow|red|blue spectrum characters (that’s Steve Rogers) nor the most powerful (Peggy Carter and 4★ Thor both have him beat) he’s well-worth collecting early in the 3★ transition. With strong damage potential and cheap AP costs Vision goes from doubling to quintupling match damage, a factor that can make all the difference for a 3★ player looking to go further – and that’s using his blue covers alone.
Add in the AoE damage made possible by his red covers and the protection afforded by his yellow, Vision’s a real utility character that can tank for other characters while building up AP reservoirs for teammates with larger power costs.
Health:
- @ 40: 2508
- @ 166: 9690
- @ 266: 15402
Abilities:
- Blue | Added damage per match where Vision is in front until countdown tile is matched away, runs out, or is destroyed; changes the red ability so that it does AoE damage.
Red |
- Base: Deal damage and destroys 5 random tiles.
-
- Blue: Deals AoE damage; doesn’t destroy any tiles
-
- Yellow: Deals damage; converts 2 enemy Strike or Protect tiles to basic
Yellow | Protects player from damage while Vision is in front until countdown tile is matched away, runs out, or is destroyed; changes the red ability so that it does damage for enemy tiles. [/*]
Pros:
- All of Vision’s abilities are cheap, with the costliest - red - at only 10AP.
- Blue is a heavy hitter, adding up to 1040 damage per match, and Vision works well with Strike tile produces to include even more damage.
- Vision’s cheap abilities allow you to trigger power-dependent passives, like Kamala Khan’s burst healing, quickly and repeatedly.
- His red ability is versatile, doing normal damage, AoE damage, or removing enemy tiles depending.
Cons:
- The usefulness of Vision’s abilities require him to be in front, tanking and taking damage from the enemy team.
- This limits the characters he can easily be played with, as he needs to do the most AP damage for red, yellow, blue, and, ideally, team-up tiles.
Builds
5/5/3 is the best and most popular build, increasing the damage Vision can do without reducing the number of enemy tiles he can remove using the Red+Yellow ability, which is consistently 2 regardless of whether yellow is at 1 cover or at 5.
Partners: Because Vision needs to be able to claim at least 3 out of 4 total color + team-up tiles to be effective always double-check to make sure he does more AP damage than those you’re pairing him with and/or that he’s in center when paired with characters who do equivalent damage. Also make sure that the characters you’re pairing him with, combined, don’t overpower him in more than 1 color/team-up tile option.
For example, Black Panther will always claim yellow over Vision but not blue. If Black Panther, Vision, and Iron Fist (who doesn’t overlap any of Vision’s colors) are teamed together then, so long as Vision is in center, Vision will claim red, blue, and team-ups.
- 2★| Bullseye. Daken. Human Torch.
- 3★| Black Panther. Blade. Doctor Doom. Iron Fist. Kamala Khan. Luke Cage. Quicksilver. Scarlet Witch.
- 4★| Elektra. Jean Grey. Kingpin. Professor X. Star-Lord. Wolverine.
Especially good teams for Vision include:
Quicksilver | Vision | Scarlet Witch
Kamala Khan | Vision | Star-Lord
Note: Vision can also be used effectively with Kamala Khan and Iron Man 40, taking over to use Vision’s blue and red abilities while IM40 is temporarily stunned from his own yellow Recharge. This gains more damage per AP overall than IM40’s red|blue abilities would while protecting Vision for the majority of the match.
