As per the 12/14 community rankings:
Of the top 10 ranked 3*s in the game, 5 are currently vaulted of have been vaulted for multiple seasons in the recent past (Lazy Thor, Lazy Daken, Black Panther, cMags, Patch)
Of the top 20 ranked 3*s, 8 are currently vaulted or have been vaulted recently (five above + Human Torch, Punisher, Loki)
going to the top 25 gives 4 more vaulted characters (Psylocke, Daredevil, Doom, GSBW).
[note that some of these numbers aren’t quite fair as someone like loki was definitely not a top 20 character pre-vaulting).
So the overall distribution is OK, but it definitely seems like they have been vaulting the very best and the very worst characters, leaving the mediocre people in the middle (think spidey, hulk, falcon, etc).
Overall, I think the vaulting system has had a decidedly negative effect for players.
On the positive side, vaulting does let all 3s go into the token rotation without “making” d3p lower the individual drop rates (though this begs a followup question of why ~16% chance of a 3 in any herioc token is an uncrossable barrier).
On the neutral side, established veterans already have almost all of these characters, so they haven’t been hurt at all. Perhaps they have even been able to build the new characters slightly faster.
Another theoretical positive is that characters can be modified while in the vault. But this is clearly unnecessary since Sentry and Hood were significantly changed without any time vaulted.
Weighing against those considerations are the one, massive negative with vaulting both as a general concept and as it has been specifically practiced here. In general, vaulting is just another way of diluting the 3* pool. Rather than diluting the chance of pulling every character by a set amount, vaulting just concentrates the diminished pull value into a few characters. So vaulting isn’t a long term fix to the problem. At best its a short term patch.
And worse, the specific characters that have been vaulted are essential characters (3* thor, patch, lazy Daken, BP, cMags in particular, also punisher). these are the 3* workhorses. It is quite difficult to be a top tier contender without using these characters (even more so now that Sentry-bombing is dead), or the top 4*s that are even harder to get.
What message does it send to new players to have a game with a very slow progression curve, where it can take months to build even a single 3* character, and then tell those new players that they can’t even get started on that long process because the only characters worth building aren’t available?
TL;DR = Vaulting has been a terrible, terrible thing for transition players, especially because of the particular characters who have been vaulted.
