…that the characters I get the most excited about building and/or get the most enjoyment out of using are frequently denigrated on the forums.
I’m not sure if that’s coming from a place of ‘nobody is super-powerful why is nobody super-powerful everybody sucks’ or if it’s a long con to discourage people from covering those characters so that they’ll be the only ones using them.
Care to provide a specific example? Or are we talking about Vision here? Because Vision is legitimately terrible despite how he might look good on paper.
I don’t think it’s a long con, although I do sometimes suspect certain forumites of suggesting poor builds on purpose to dissuade newbies. I think it’s more “I have Character X, why do I need this new person” syndrome. For a long time it was “Not as good as XF, therefore they suck”. Now it’s more internal rankings of power due to weekly buffs, but still there are certain cases where characters just fail to hit their marks.
In general I think most characters powers and faults are discussed vigorously in the character threads and a “best” build is typically worked out, but it’s by no means a gold standard. There are legitimate reasons to deviate from the “best”, especially if those best builds assume reliance on a current meta flavor character.
Vision is one, certainly. But he also feels like one who needs to be at max covers before he starts being useful. He’s not someone you’d want to use if you had any choice while he’s, say, 1/1/0 (which mine is), but I can see a 5/5/3 Vision being in my A Team rotation.
There are others. Some of them are characters who have been rebalanced somewhere along the way. Some of them I don’t know if people think they’re actually “bad,” so much as they just seem to be frequently the target of derision. Storm 
as an example. I frequently see her get run down, but Hailstorm has saved my ass on numerous occasions. Of course, she’s also one who didn’t get REALLY useful until she hit max covers and close to level 100 for me.
Gamora and Star-Lord are a couple others, though I’m in the process of building the former and have yet to even get a cover of the latter on PC. I mean, I get that they’re not going to be as powerful as the boosted trainer variations that we get in the PvEs, but those are both characters I would love to have fully covered, and yet the majority of the comments I read about those two are dismissive.
Storm’s main problem is her HP, and sharing colors with XF when she was released. No one in their right mind would chose Storm over XF even today if they had maxed versions of both.
Storm’s second problem is she USED to be good, and now she’s not so good, because Desert Storm is no longer a thing. And they changed environmental tiles at right around the time 3* Storm was released, so 3* Desert Storm never became a thing which would have many of the vets maxing her out right away. Combine this with her 
now targeting 
, a system many people still hate for some reason.
Storm’s third problem is she’s a lazy 1* conversion. Lazy 2* Storm would be a god among 3s. If you could stun a targeted character for 4 turns while doing 3600 team damage for 11 blue you would be on every 3 team ever made. Sadly they didn’t do that and opted for 1*'s powers, which while they are fine for 1* land really kinda lack power in 3* land. This is mostly due to 2* Storm being OP.
Storm’s fourth problem is she is better as a team up than in person, due mostly to her HP again. Her 
is a great way to convert 10
into 14 not
AP. Converting 
to not
is usually bad (admittedly less so now that XF doesn’t murder people with
) In 1* land Storm has more HP than Widow, somehow in 3* land she made it to the Loki support teir, and not up to the GSBW teir. I understand not giving her 8500, but she deserved at least 6800 on release.
All these reasons add up to a character that I am personally not going to pursue very hard. I have her at 13 covers and level 100, she MIGHT make it to 120 when she’s next boosted, but not making it to 166 for a very long time.
Gamora’s main problem was one of team composition, there just weren’t enough characters who could let her tank her colors when she came out. Also her 
while seemingly a good cheap power has been outclassed since release, it’s damage should be doubled probably for her to be A tier.
Today you could run Gamora out front or boosted, IF, and Grocket and Gamora would tank Green/Red/Black/TU(doesn’t count) so 3/7th of the board for a 
→ 
conversion to throw Bad Rep ASAP and then win with cheap red swings and purple swings. Plus
and 
Strike tiles as well. Gamora isn’t bad, but characters that rely on specific team comps can’t really be “good” either.
If you like those characters as characters, that’s fine, but in terms of puzzle gameplay they aren’t the best. Doesn’t mean they’re all outright bad, but there are many others that are much better than them, but if they’re who you like to play, who cares what everyone else says? (Just don’t expect to be dominating the PVPs with them…)
I refuse to spend Hero Points on shields, so I really don’t expect to ever “dominate” PvP anyway. 
I used to be satisfied with getting to 300 and getting a token. That’s basically not doable for me any longer, so I’ve all but stopped playing PvP. Might play long enough to get some ISO or a standard token, but to put it in perspective, the season that had Kamala Khan as the 3000 point reward, I finished at 2950 or some such. I think that was two seasons ago?
I’m not going to come close to that this season. I get, if I’m lucky, three seed fights per event and then fights full of 3x166+.
The simulator is full of 94-120s for 15 points a pop.
I’d like to have that Quicksilver black cover (speaking of maligned characters I’d actually like to collect and use), but not badly enough to deal with the simulator.
Mine is 1/1/1. I got 3 covers through the daily and that’s all I’ve ever seen. Sorry, XF.
Storm’s second problem is she USED to be good, and now she’s not so good, because Desert Storm is no longer a thing. And they changed environmental tiles at right around the time 3* Storm was released, so 3* Desert Storm never became a thing which would have many of the vets maxing her out right away. Combine this with her
now targeting
, a system many people still hate for some reason.
See, I think she is still good. She’s not my favorite character on my roster, or even the best one, but lightning storm is useful if I’m not running Groot or a Wolvie variant, and a couple applications of Hailstorm just chews through the enemy teams I face.
Storm’s third problem is she’s a lazy 1* conversion. Lazy 2* Storm would be a god among 3s. If you could stun a targeted character for 4 turns while doing 3600 team damage for 11 blue you would be on every 3 team ever made. Sadly they didn’t do that and opted for 1*'s powers, which while they are fine for 1* land really kinda lack power in 3* land. This is mostly due to 2* Storm being OP.
She is a lazy 1* conversion, no question. That’s a big part of why I didn’t put any ISO into her until I had lots of covers. At that point, it felt like I should level her some and see what she could do. The idea of 3* Storm with 2* Storm powers gives me inappropriate biological reactions.
Storm’s fourth problem is she is better as a team up than in person, due mostly to her HP again. Her
is a great way to convert 10
into 14 not
AP. Converting
to not
is usually bad (admittedly less so now that XF doesn’t murder people with
) In 1* land Storm has more HP than Widow, somehow in 3* land she made it to the Loki support teir, and not up to the GSBW teir. I understand not giving her 8500, but she deserved at least 6800 on release.
I’d love to see her get more HP, no question, but it being on the low side for a 3* hasn’t put me off using her. She’s still frequently a member of my top 3* team. She’s level 133 for me, and she may not go much higher, but she’s been eminently useful for me in PVE, and while she’s not a PVP regular for me, there are times I bring her along.
All these reasons add up to a character that I am personally not going to pursue very hard. I have her at 13 covers and level 100, she MIGHT make it to 120 when she’s next boosted, but not making it to 166 for a very long time.
I’m debating real hard whether I want to take anybody to 166, since I play far more PVE than I do PVP. I’m moving cautiously with training my 3* because I don’t want to find myself in a situation where I have a bunch of leveled 3* and get “rewarded” with PVE nodes beyond my ability/patience level as a result. Groot is 141 for me, and as great as he is, and as badly as I’d like to max him, I’m just not sure it’s a good idea.
Gamora’s main problem was one of team composition, there just weren’t enough characters who could let her tank her colors when she came out. Also her
while seemingly a good cheap power has been outclassed since release, it’s damage should be doubled probably for her to be A tier.
“when came out” seems to be a common theme. Because I don’t buy covers and build my characters more slowly, it seems like I’m okay with them in a way higher level players aren’t and may never be. They’re looking for the metagame they can use for PVP climbs and top 10 finishes in PVE. My goals are usually set quite a bit lower (a top 150 finish and the progression rewards in PVE). A character who doesn’t meet their needs because he/she doesn’t fuck shit up ends up still being quite useful for me.
Today you could run Gamora out front or boosted, IF, and Grocket and Gamora would tank Green/Red/Black/TU(doesn’t count) so 3/7th of the board for a
→
conversion to throw Bad Rep ASAP and then win with cheap red swings and purple swings. Plus
and
Strike tiles as well. Gamora isn’t bad, but characters that rely on specific team comps can’t really be “good” either.
Why can’t they? There’s nothing wrong with a team dynamic. I mean, is there any character in the game, Professor X and maybe Kamala Khan excepted, who can do their thing no matter with whom they’re paired?
If you can only get to 300, even without using any shields, that’s likely a roster strength issue because you basically don’t lose points at that level so you only have to win about 10 games. Unless a character is incredibly weak, like Bagman, levels tends to trump everything else in the current sort-of-balanced MPQ world and you should always use anybody that is reasonably covered and currently boosted by the weekly buff. Heck, even if they’re poorly covered, back in the pre X Force nerf days it was not unusual to see a level 200 X Force at something like 3/3/4 which is not stronger than a typical 3*, even for someone as broken as him, and yet you can see the guy running that has a decent score and it sure isn’t because that 3/3/4 X Force is a winning machine, so clearly other players must have been intimidated by those levels. Most players aren’t going to check to see what covers your character has so even if you’ve a character built the wrong way, if they see ‘level 240’ (3*) or even a ‘level 150’ (2*) they’ll probably look for someone else easier at the lower point range.
Strength-wise I maybe could, but I don’t spend on shields, and I don’t have the patience to slog through a bunch of 3x166 fights to get to 200, let alone 300. It’s not doable on my terms, is what I guess the issue is. It scales quickly enough that the choice is spend a bunch of ISO until I find something I can handle, or just stop PVP’ing.
Are you talking about 3X166 or 240X2+290? Because there’s a world of difference between the two even though the latter technically is just 3X166 too (that happens to be the right 3 guys). If it’s the latter I can certainly see why you’d be frustrated, but 3X166 is often an easy win for a 2X240 team. For example in this week’s lineup, any 2 out of 4 of Punisher/Blade/Magneto/Mystique at 240 will easily clean up most 3X166 teams.
Little of both, but none of my 3* are at 166 (or higher boosted) because I mostly play PVE and don’t want to make things harder for myself than they need to be there.
I have seen the 240X2+290 you mention, but it’s more often 3x166 or 166x2+270
That’s an interesting point you make about those characters.
I suspect part of the reason why non-top tier characters get denigrated on the forums, is because this game is so heavily slanted towards its competitive aspects, particularly in PvP. Field a suboptimal team in PvP, and expect to get eaten for dinner. It matters less in PvE, until you start to face overscaled enemies, in which case, again, you have to field your A-Team, or be prepared to have multiple attempts at a node, which doesn’t fly, particularly in the end of sub grind.
I think Lerysh makes some good points about those characters. I would tend to agree with him about 3* Storm, particularly in terms of her team up value. What I would add, though, is that she does have a very valuable role in survival nodes, where you can use her to build up quite significant AP reserves (whilst ending waves while maintaining priority), set up cascades via depleting TU gems, and also make good use of her Hailstorm ability (particularly with strike tiles) once you’ve built up enough AP to carry you through (and doubles as a great way of dealing with trap tiles, if you need to). Having said that, you don’t need to significantly level her. My 3* Storm is only at level 87 (albeit fully covered), and that’s sufficient for how I use her.
Go to the specific character threads to see the breakdown of why things don’t work.
Vision sucks because #1 he’s reliant on being maxed leveled and preferably boosted to ensure he tanks his colors (so that blue and yellow work). Assuming you get the composition right (either bring no other yellow/red/blue users or make sure they follow his strength progression) he suffers from being unable to place his tiles so there’s a good chance the AI will end up matching it and reducing its potential effectiveness. Third, if you do get the red and blue combo off its not all that different than the other good AoEs (DP, BP, KK). PvP wise he’s a mess and there’s no way the AI will use him properly.
3* Storm probably benefited the most from the Xforce nerf and HP boost, she’s decent in PvE now. She may actually be a better partner than XF for 4hor now since 4hor still does pretty decent damage whereas Xforce is kinda useless once his black goes off. I’m not rushing to max her but I have used her a decent amount, especially last PvE when she was boosted.
Gamora is bad. Her red does decent (but not stellar) damage at 5 covers, at 3 it barely tickles. Her green can be useful but its very expensive. Her black is terrible, way worse than BP’s yellow. Tons of AP and its not even game ending when it goes off. Her problem is that she can’t really reduce damage (either via reliable stuns, AP steal, or defense tiles) and she lacks the damage to knock someone out. She’s slow and has no benefits to make up for it so you end up either losing or taking massive damage when the game drags on and the AI starts firing off moves. I’ve had her 553 and 535 at 166 and the only time she’s somewhat useful is when she’s super buffed to 260.
Star-Lord I want to like but his yellow is pretty bad. His purple is fantastic, his red is fun (but has a decent chance to do nothing), his yellow is just about worthless. If he were a 3* I’d probably have more fun with him but as a 4* he’s way too expensive to level.
Anyway unless you’re forced to bring them along you shouldn’t really be using 3* if they aren’t nearly fully covered. You’ll get a lot more mileage out of maxing several 2* and using them, then banking ISO until you have a fully covered (preferably decent) 3* ready to go.
Mid tier characters can find their way into top tier PvE teams (GSBW is a PvE all star) but Gamora and Vision are just bad. With the health buff 3* Storm can now enter 395 nodes without instantly dying to match damage and I think Star-Lord might be able to work his way in too if you can find others to cover yellow along with black/green/blue.
Oh, I know. I have 7 or 8 2* at 94, and those are what I used in PVP before the MMR changes. The patch that cut 3* leveling costs cut them enough that I now have 8 or 9 3* between 94 and 131, but as I’ve said, I’m not really excited enough by PVP to level the 3* to 166. A game like this, I don’t care about competition with others. That’s not to say I won’t engage it in it ever, but my priority is enjoyment in solo play. That’s why I care so strongly about the progression rewards being reasonably reachable, and why I wish they’d add additional solo chapters instead of recycling events.
But because of personal and community scaling, I’m cautious about leveling my 3*s because I don’t want to find myself in a position where the part of the game I actively enjoy - PVE - becomes a headache of a slog because nodes are overleveled.
And that’s the best argument I’ve seen yet for getting rid of community scaling. If the community holds a derisive view towards a character not because of the character’s skills but because scaling makes them actively not useful, then scaling is breaking your game.
This is probably true. Any character that can’t make an instant impact on PvP is downplayed by the community at large, because that is the game they play. Try and win top 25 of PvP events for covers and HP. It’s no wonder they want new characters that help them in that goal.
Even still, Storm ranks way way down the list of usable 3s, mainly because she was chipped away piece by piece from her original glory days (ask me how 1 Storm single handedly took down level 395 Hulks the first time that event ran) and the devs haven’t given the time to really look at her and say “hmm, maybe she needs some help now”.
You see her through untainted lenses, the old guard see her through fractured glass.
Patch, Thor, Thor, Daken, Nick Fury, Blade, Black Panther, Captain America, and to a lesser extend Iron Fist (who doesn’t really NEED a black user to eat all his purple damage from him). Basically the entire top 10 of the character rankings (besides Hood, who’s support is so good he makes the top 10). These characters are good. Characters that rely on other characters are limited, and therefore not good.
I’m not exactly sure what your argument is. If you want content to be so easy that terrible characters can compete + complete it, what would prevent you from using 1* and 2* characters? Barring unfair fights (goons feeding AP, Blade/Daken/IF nodes where you’re automatically taking over 1k damage a turn or anything involving the Hood), scaling isn’t that bad and there are several really strong PvE teams I can field that use nearly my entire roster. Due to the nerfing of really strong characters and the messing with health/boosts I’m more likely to take multitudes higher damage than I would’ve before, but I can still complete the nodes.
I think all PvE nodes are meant to be pretty hard in general, but people seem to assume everyone else must be getting an unreasonably easy time since scaling exists. To compound this, it is indeed true that somebody is getting unreasonably easy nodes and since there’s no way to know who is getting those extra easy nodes people blame the game, though it is the game’s fault that this situation even exists in the first place. When you’re getting stomped by a level 250 The Hood with yellow AP feeder you shouldn’t have to worry if the other guy beating you is fighting level 120 version of the same node, but you do.
Even the cheapest nodes aren’t just a matter of luck. I won all my matchups against The Hood + 2 yellow AP pump when Sentry was available very reliably because with his 16K HP you can always take 2 Twin Pistols and that is enough time to win. If you used the standard 240 guys (or even lower) you might not survive a Twin Pistols since none of those guys are in the tank HP classification and all kinds of bad things can happen after The Hood takes out a guy with an early Twin Pistols. But it’s easy to blame scaling for those stupid turn 4 Twin Pistols, and it’s not strictly wrong either. I feel the game is quite fair when I’m competing against guys with a similar roster, but I have no idea how it can be remotely fair against a specialized PvE roster.
Well, again, as we’ve already discussed upthread - I feel like the “terrible” nomenclature that gets hung on a lot of these characters comes from high-level PVPers who are looking for the next metagame. It’s not that the characters are terrible. It’s that they’re terrible for that one specific purpose - tearing through PVP teams as quickly as possible so you can climb before a shield hop.
Doesn’t make 'em useless, and a number of the “terrible” characters I’ve used in PVP and found them quite satisfactory.
I’m not arguing that PVP should be “so easy etc.” I’m saying that community scaling is dumb, and even more so if the argument is that “well, these characters are bad because they can’t really handle higher-level opponents.” What that argument is really saying is that CS scales those characters’ usability away so why bother using them?
As a player who consistently lands on the top page of the leaderboard in pve events, I agree that your caution in leveling anyone to 166 is warranted. If you do not use shield in pvp events, then there’s really no point for you to max out 3* characters because w/o shielding you will not keep your points no matter what you use for defense.
For a pve oriented player, your focus should be on having as many characters in your roster as you can comfortably carry. For the just ended Dark Avengers Heroic event, were you able to clear every single node? Or were you missing an essential character and unable to do so? The ideal roster mix for pve should include 1*, 2*, and 3* characters. I should also note that for the last pve event and this new Hulk event, D3 has made a 4* character (Invisible Woman and Fury, respectively) an essential; it may be a new trend. Second, having a larger roster of usable characters mean you could avoid using up your heal packs and play pve longer.
That’s nuts. I have 2 purple for Star Lord and while that’s very limiting, he can be a great character when I need someone to cover purple in PVE, especially when going up against enemies who create any kind of special tile. Take him against sentry and just wait for that sacrifice strike tile to come out, woop! turn it into a bomb.
Maybe the other covers are less impressive by themselves but he’s one I’m dying to get more covers for.