Ares 4/4/5
Green - from 4 to 5 means you can use his Green with 5 Green instead of needing 6. No damage increase. Will rarely in a situation where you only have 5 Green and you need to use his ability. 4 does just as much damage otherwise.
Red - Amazing damage if under the needed health. But most of the time you aren’t looking at matches where he will be under this threshold. Gets bumped up from 3 to 4 due to increased damage and the minimal disadvantage by taking one from Green.
Yellow - Amazing ability, vastly underrated imo.
aWolvie 5/5/3
Green - His most benefitial ability. Adding strike tiles for everyone on the team to benefit from.
Red - Pure damage. Can take a nuisance out of a fight. One of the best Red abilities amongst 2* and 3*'s in terms of damage.
Yellow - Another nice ability and can be argued that it should be pushed up to 4 or 5. But the healing is situational, and imo I would rather push the slots towards the other two abilities which can be used any time during the match. (you still heal almost 400 points per turn even at level 3 against 562 per turn at level 5)
cStorm 5/5/3 when I started writing this… But this was an intial build plan that was made by the noobie chief
Green - The weakest of her abilities in terms of damage. But can transition 12 to other colors by destroying random tiles. At 12 Green, the effect is the same at 4 and 5. The real benefit comes when you get over 12 Green before you use it. At level 4 if you have 24 Green, you can call it twice and get 24 random tiles. At level 5, if you have 24 Green, you can call it twice and get 36 random tiles(24 the first strike, 12 the 2nd). This works all the way up to 30 Green.
Blue - By far her best ability. At full level it deals out up to 5010 damage and stuns the target. Deals the same damage at 4 as 5, but stuns the target for one extra turn at 5. Arguement could be made to push one of these to Yellow.
Yellow - Plan B. This ability can save your ass in a single turn. If you get hit hard by a full team attack(Wind Storm/Call storm) or are beaten down pretty bad and things look bleak, this ability can completely turn the tide of the match, and even wipe out the opposing team in one fell swoop. Doesn’t really have much use until everyone on your team is less than 50% tho. So situational. Arguement could be made to take one from Blue to make this one more potent.
Daken 5/5 - No Brainer, two ability character with no benefit to not maxing both.
Hawkeye 5/5/3
Blue - See Purple. Gets better benefit from the level with minimal disadvantage by losing it from Purple.
Red - See Purple. Gets better benefit from the level with minimal disadvantage by losing it from Purple.
Purple - The difference in Level three and Level 5 is that he aviods with only 4 Purple tiles on the board instead of needing 6. Most the time there will be 6 or more on the board anyway. Push these levels towards Blue and Red
Magneto(mn) 4/5/4
Blue - 4 by default, cause I didn’t want my AP costs to go from 9 to 13 by making the jump from 4 to 5. Rarely use this ability. I guess argument could be made to move one of these to Red.
Purple - His most useful ability. Blue AP generator. At full strength, it costs 9 to place 5 Blue, almost assuring enough Blue for someone’s Blue ability(most likely not mnMagneto’s Blue)
Red - Again, 4 by default, cause I didn’t want my AP costs to go from 11 to 14. At 4 it still makes this very potent with a 1 turn timer, and the base damage is not effected. Arguement could be made to move one of these to Blue.
mCap 3/5/5
Yellow - Too expensive. And other characters have far more useful Yellows.
Red - Damage + Returns all but 1 of the AP in 3 turns. At full strength, can target any tile. Very useful in both PVE and PVP.
Blue - Stuns + Returns all but 2 of the AP in 3 turns. At full strength, can target any tile. Very useful in both PVE and PVP.
Moonstone 5/5/3
Purple - See Black. Gets better benefit from the level with minimal disadvantage by losing it from Black.
Red - See Black. Gets better benefit from the level with minimal disadvantage by losing it from Black.
Black - Too expensive. If you are in dire need of this ability and willing to spend 17 Black for it, it will do just as good at level 3. Level 4 only benefits if you are converting a tile with a counter already more than 2. Level 5 adds a guaranteed 1 turn stun to the target, with or without a countdown tile on the board.
oBW 3/5/5 - For a while there I thought maybe 5/3/5 would be the best build, as Blue with no enemy timers heals the same at 3 as 5. But found out quickly that being able to heal that 50% with enemy timers is crucial to prologue healing.
Purple - At level three, it costs 3 AP less than at level five, and steals from all colors except Purple. Arguement could be made to take one from Black to make this level four.
Blue - A must to get to level 5 for that healing 50% even with enemy timers
Black - Getting an extra round of damage for most Blue/Purple matches makes her attack on par with many of the heavy hitters. Plus it will double dip on the strike tiles. Because of that, this needs to be a bare minimum of 4.
Thor(mn) 3/5/5
Red - You get three Yellow tiles regardless of level. I calculate the difference in level 3 damage and level 5 Damage to be about 250 points. With other members of your team still alive, you probably wouldn’t be using his Red ability, regardless of the level.
Yellow - Decent Damage, but the major benefit is the placing of Green tiles to help feed his Green ability.
Green - His best ability. 4000 damage at full strength.
Black Panther 5/3/5
Yellow – Finally something that makes good use of the environment tiles regardless of the battleground. The difference in level 3 and level 5 is 50 points of damage per strike tile (and obviously per damage source).
Blue – Level 4 allows the max number of protect tiles to go from 3 to 5. But unlikely that this scenario will happen often enough to justify taking a level from the other two abilites. For the scenario of going from your 3rd protect tile to your 4th, the countdown tile and three protect tiles would have had to survive through 8 turns(the 4th protect tile would be placed on the 8th turn.) The 5th level has a bump in the strength of the protect tiles, but would take two levels to do this and would greatly hinder the other abilities.
Black – His best ability. 3162 damage to every enemy, for max total of 9486 damage. Would say this is non-negotiable.
Cap(SR) 3/5/5
Yellow - Too expensive. And other characters have far more useful Yellows.
Red - Damage + Returns all but 1 of the AP in 3 turns. At full strength, can target any tile. Very useful in both PVE and PVP.
Blue - Stuns + Returns all but 2 of the AP in 3 turns and turns into a protect tile. At full strength, can target any tile. Very useful in both PVE and PVP.
Dr. Doom 5/5 No Brainer, two ability character with no benefit to not maxing both.
Falcon 5/4/4
Yellow – His best ability. Can change a friendly tiles strength. The difference between level 3 and level 5 is a total tile increase of nearly 117 (~120 to 237) for every Yellow match that is made.
Blue – This needs to be at least level 4 so that it can target all types of enemy tiles. Level 5 makes the countdown to return go from 4 to 3. Argument could be made that this is beneficial enough to push it up to max, but I plan on trying to match that tile as quick as possible, and thus never making it to 3 turns, let alone 4.
Purple – Gets the benefit of not needing Blue maxed. Can’t max this ability due to needing the levels of the other abilities increased to maximize falcon’s usability.
GSBW 5/3/5
Green – Expensive, but at max level will do 3336 to each enemy (for a max total of 10,008) + tile damage to the target.
Red – The difference between level 3 and level 5 is a +3 ap cost, but goes from destroying 12 tiles to destroying 27 tiles. Argument could be made to take one from Green and bump this to 4(+1 AP cost but now destroys 18 tiles), but I prefer other Red abilities that are out there.
Purple – Green battery to help feed her Green ability. Need this maxed to help utilize her best ability sooner.
Hulk 5/3/5
Green – Gains benefit from not so great Red ability. Does do 1023 damage at max plus destroys (at bare minimum) 13 tiles and up to 23 tiles for added damage.
Red – Not a fan of this ability. Yes it does a good amount of damage(2492 base + 298 per Green AP for a max of 8452), but that is all to one target, and if there are 10 Green on the board, your allies take 30% of that damage. Not sure I want my team taking anywhere between 748 to 2536 damage just to hit one guy on the other team. Bare minimum here for that reason.
Black – This is a must to get to max. Will help feed Green abilities(his own or others) merely by taking damage.
Human Torch 5/5/3
Red – Essentially 2891 damage for 6 Red AP. Hard to beat.
Black – Max level creates 8 x 192 strike tiles. That’s 1536 damage PER DAMAGE SOURCE. This is another non-negotiable.
Green – Good amount of damage, but requires 10 Green before it becomes really effective(5 to cast, 5 left to do 1000 damage on the first round.) Argument could be made to level this over Red. I’m ok with it being around 160 points of damage per Green AP over 231. I believe there are better Greens out there and would rarely if ever use this ability, so gets the short stick.
Ldaken 5/4/4
Purple – This is his main ability. Max it out for two strike tiles.
Black – The passive healing is secondary in my list of priorities. I originally had this at 3, but gets the benefit of an extra level due to Blue not getting a lot of benefit from it.
Blue – Ldaken’s new ability. Originally had at 5, as I’m not all that concerned with healing… but the difference between 4 and 5 is a total of 308 damage at max level. Better to increase the heal % than have the minimal increase in damage.
mThor 3/5/5
Red - You get three Yellow tiles regardless of level. I calculate the difference in level 3 damage and level 5 Damage to be about 650 points. With other members of your team still alive, you probably wouldn’t be using his Red ability, regardless of the level.
Yellow - Decent Damage, but the major benefit is the placing of Green tiles to help feed his Green ability.
Green - His best ability. 7708 damage at full strength.
Psylock 4/5/4
Red – Probably so better Red abilities out there, but taking one from Black increases the strength of the strike tile substantially and worth taking the one from there to increase the strike tile by ~ 117 (that’s per damage source)
Blue – Her best ability. It can cripple the enemy team and load up your AP pool for several abilities to be used. Taking this one to 5 so that the countdown timer is 2, and have a better chance of going off. Take one level from both Red and Black so that you don’t cripple either of those abilities.
Black – At 4, attack tiles are maxed. Going to 5 only increases the initial damage by 300 per casting, and worth leaving at 4 so that Red still gets the use of the full strength strike tile.
Pushisher 3/5/5
Black – I initially had this at 5, due to the description at 5 saying that it would fire of the attack tile every turn, but it was either wrong or changed, and now fires it off every 2 turns… making it less appealing imo.
Green – His best ability. At max, he creates three strike tiles that are 104 strength each. That’s 312 extra damage per source for only 8 Green. Non-negotiable.
Red – I like other Reds abilities better for damage, but this one has a nice side function of being able to instantly down a target that is below 40% of their health. This can be huge when taking down a tank.
pWolvie 3/5/5
Green – Damage is the same at level 3 as level 5. Difference is in the number of strike tiles created.. but for both teams. I don’t like that allies are put on Green(meaning hindering either your ability to match Green or losing potential strike tiles) while enemy tiles are Purple(which is a lesser color and less likely to get matched). Using this ability can actually harm you more than help you if not handled with care.
Red – High cost, but one of the better Red abilities in the game. It is rather situational, as it will rely on his emblem on the tiles. Also creates strike tiles for both teams, but unlike his Green, the opposing teams strike tiles are half of that of your own.
Yellow – I usually tend not to care for healing abilities, but maxing this one out immediately makes him heal every turn for 371… otherwise, you are only getting 371 if there are 10 Yellow tiles on the board(and ~ 100 points if there are fewer than 10 tiles… if you take this ability up to 4).
Ragnarok 5/5 – No Brainer, two ability character with no benefit to not maxing both.
Red Hood 5/5/3
Yellow – Need specific AP for the upcoming turn? Or got potentially game ending countdown tiles about to run out? This is perfect for either. Going up to level 5 even allows the current turn to not end. Potential game changer.
Blue – Stealing from opponents AP and adding to your own? Yes please. Go to 5 to steal from all colors. You are guaranteed to be able to steal one color each round. Potentially being able to steal one from all 6 colors.
Black – I don’t use countdown tiles that much. And when I do, I definitely don’t have more than three out there at a given time. And I’m already doing what I can to minimize the counts to those tiles with my builds.[/spoiler]
I think I have a net profit of about 100 points on defense so far. (Make that 136. I just got another defensive win while I was writing this, lol.) There’s a reason I tend to avoid teams that are running juggernaut. . .