The Final Colognoisseur Ranking of 4* as of 1/14/16

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ Character Discussion
1

Well since I will no longer be able to keep updating this as I will no longer be able to whale new 4* releases anymore I thought I’d just close the thread out with the state of the 4* tier as of January 14, 2016. From here on out I’ll be guessing how good something is at max just like everyone else.

The top tier, the ones you should pray to get covers for and the ones you should spend time leveling up.

Iceman
Hulkbuster
Jean Grey
Classic Cyclops
Red Hulk

These five this is where all effort should be placed when transitioning into the 4* realm. Getting any two of these to level 220 or higher will allow for you to do much better in any event you want to enter.

The situational tier, the ones which go better with other characters but aren’t quite good enough on their own.

Ant-Man (Carnage)
Carnage (Ant-Man 4Venom)
Prof X (Flaptain/Ghost Rider and winfinite)
Thing (4Deadpool)
Kingpin (Any Countdown generator, 4* Venom, 535 Hulkbuster)
Elektra( Doc Ock/ Patch-try it on your next muscle goon PvE node)
4* Deadpool (Thing)
Nick Fury ( Really only good when buffed and you need a blue user)
Flaptain (His protect tiles plus blue ability to buff them will become more useful the more match damage becomes a thing you need to control)
X-Force Wolverine (4Thor)
4 Thor (X-Force Wolverine)

If for some reason you have well-covered versions of the partners it might be worth concentrating your efforts on leveling the other half. Fury and Flaptain are the last ones you should be concentrating on.

The ones that go very well with the 5* characters if you’re fortunate enough to have one.

X-23 (plays well with daddy Old Man Logan)
Ghost Rider
4* Venom
Miles Morales

The trash tier which you should sell for iso because they have zero use.

Star-Lord (The best of these three but still not worth investing in)
Invisible Woman
Reed Richards

And the absolute worst 4* ever The Totally Awesome (horrendous) Hulk

Devil Dino has his own tier as he should be on every roster at 111 just as a trophy which signifies one year of play.

I have been happy to be your source of information for the last two years on max new characters as they are released. The Guys at Demiurge no longer want that to be happening and so I leave you with this final ranking. Colognoisseur out!

2

Xforce, Thor, Star-lord?

3

Thank you young man for helping me find the gaps. OP fixed.

4

The only team outside of max 5* i could not beat in SSim was Ghost Rider, Falcap, PX.. lost 6 times in total.. this team is brutal with cd tile’s popping, special tile buffs all over the place..

This is one team i want to put together, quickly!

Also, Venom can be right nasty!

5

Your early rankings have always been useful and will be missed for the future 4* releases. Thanks for taking the time to do them!

I’d also like to add that 4* Deadpool and X-force Wolverine should be matched together on the teams list. 4pool’s Countdown to what followed by XFW’s Surgical Strike can be absolutely devastating. There is no cover overlap and they complement each other perfectly. It’s About the only reason to use XFW since his nerfing.

6

Thanks Colognoisseur, your ranking and comments have been very much appreciated and will be missed!

Actually they both have blacktile.png
so need a bluetile.png
user.

Since those two true heal, if you want to match that with your blue user then Silver Surfer, Mr Fantastic, Rocket & Groot or Daken are options to consider. Note that getting out R&G’s strike tiles before blowing up all of 4 star.png
Deadpool’s countdowns makes each detonate for >=2,500 damage. I don’t have a usable SS or a maxed Daken but imagine they’d work together nicely, too.

7

Daken and Grocket, at least, work very well with those two. But then I have a soft spot for selfhealers…

8

Many people have praised the pairing of Mr Fantastic / Carnage too since that one PvE when MrF was an essential character. MrF basically doesn’t die in that pairing.

9

As I hear it, the pairing of X-Force and X-Pool is great too.

10

Thank you Colog for confirming what I have said in my locked thread about TAH.

11

Mr.F is worth keeping for Carnage. I love Star-Lord so I can’t bare to sell, but agreed with Hulk and IW

12

IW’s one of the easiest DDQ’s to win, so she’s worth it just for the free-ish legendary every 4 months or so.

Depending on opponent, TA Hulk having a self accelerating single target nuke is probably alright too.

Whether either of them have more utility as 13000 iso is probably a legitimate argument, but I don’t see why you wouldn’t just roster them.

Otherwise the tiers are basically what they are. I find it interesting that the newest releases are all listed as “plays well with 5*” Wonder if that’s by design or coincidence.

13

Hi. I am new to the 4 star.png
possibly usable territory. My two most covered are Thor (3/2/5) and XFW (2/4/4). Considering their shown as a good pair, I’m wondering why. And would it be worth me putting iso in to level these two. Any insight or suggestions would be much appreciated.

14

Why is Reed Rechard that bad? i actually like him, i have him at 1/1/2 (still 3* land) but why he is considered so bad, has support character he doenst see that bad… At least for me

15

Because he’s not self sufficient. He has no offensive capability on his own, his heal is only effective if he’s paired with someone like carnage that’s pumping out lots of special tiles, and that bonus AP is not all that helpful since there’s only one other member of FF that is worth using. There’s much better support characters that bring a lot more to the table than he does.

16

He’s not really support… he doesn’t do anything except not get killed by Carnage. That isn’t something to take lightly, but he brings little else to the table.

17

I’m not sure where these 4 rank in your list. Are they between the Situational Tier and the Trash Tier? Or are they simply off to the side because their usefulness entirely depends on if you have a 5* to pair them with? How do they rank on their own merits?

I have a fully covered X-23 and I’m trying to decide whether it’s worth the 300K ISO needed to champ her. I already have almost all of the Top Tier and Situational Tier characters champed except Red Hulk and Iceman, both of which are stuck at 5/5/2 until I pull their last purple covers.

18

He hasnt ranked them because he hasnt had time to play with them properly at max level

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I would add the following advice for people transitioning to the 4* tier - Colog states that getting any of two of the top tier to 220 will help you do better in events. This is true, but ideally you want one from each “team.” Let me break down that top tier:

Red Team
Hulkbuster
Classic Cyclops

Green Team
Iceman
Jean Grey
Red Hulk

(You could just as easily call the second team the Purple Team, I’m naming them after what is usually their best color. JG is arguably purple, IM and Rulk is definitely Green.)

The two teams are remarkably homogenous - the only overlap between the two is blue on Iceman. Pretty much either of the Red Team will play great with any of the Green Team. Nothing overlaps perfectly, but you will only miss one color - with Cycke on the red team you’ll be missing black, with HB you’ll be missing yellow. Either is extremely survivable, and fairly easy to make up with your 3rd character in PVE. In PVP you’ll find it doesn’t matter if you have them maxxed.

20

4Pool too low, Hulkbuster too high.

When every character I face is a high level 5*, match damage will almost always set off the 4Pool passive, doing more than 3K in counter damage (more when boosted, though at max boosted his ability triggers at a higher damage point and you sometimes need to wait for an OML strike drop).

A 5 cover black 4Pool is incredibly important when making the transition into 5* land, because he will be doing more damage with his passive than most of your actives. Surfer and OML can both tank for him on Red/Black and heal up any damage they absorb.