Maybe you are a 3-star player and there’s one character who makes it onto a variety of your teams. Maybe you are a 4-star player, but there’s one 3-star who you just can’t let go of because they do something useful. Or, maybe you are a 5-star player and don’t give a tinykitty.
Which 3-star offers you the most utility?
Blade (Passive strikes? Yes please.)
Dr. Strange (Goons beware)
Hood (AP wins matches)
IM40 (Duh)
Iron Fist (Making blacks and attacks)
Kamala Khan (makin’ them greens and passively healin’)
So, I use Deadpool and Switch and Thanos every day for DDQ, but I assume you’re not asking about that.
I also use most of the boosted 3s during story events, but you’re probably not asking about that either. (Nor the Featured 3 in PVP, presumably)
So, of the 3*s I use for hard story missions and PVP -despite not being boosted- I think IM40 is my only answer.
Oh, he’s not on your list, but Loki probably makes second place, for me. None of his abilities care what level he is, and its easy enough to find a 4* team he can hide behind and steal all the AP.
Falcon might be third; he’s a cute combo with Wasp, although I don’t have Wasp championed yet so I don’t bring that one out as much.
Well, I’m a more Story than Versus player, so I choose Hood a lot as support, but I usually uses Kamala and Strange as well with my 4*s, even if they are not boosted.
I rarely use 3* outside of the required character in Versus. As much as I hated trial by combat, she-hulk has pretty decent utility between stealing and buffing enemy tiles and the much hated furious charge. It is nice to be able to completely drain 2 enemy ap pools. I also like Sentry paired with Agent Coulson. World Rupture = lots of free ap when those CDs resolve.
As a coverall, the 2 most obvious answers are your duh options of IM40 and Thanos. However, I love seeing someone run their unboosted IM40 on a 4Thor boost week in Versus… Easy pickings!!!
IM40 and as you said it Duh, but I use Rocket and Groot (he is criminally undervalued in my opinion) even more, his mammoth self heal makes him essential on the first 3 nodes for all pve events when paired with Thanos. I still enjoy using three stars even though I am getting much closer to having all the 4’s full covered.
Strange is probably the one I use most, since I primarily play PvE, and there’s a huge number of goons that are a serious pain in the neck to fight without him, but Blad3 isn’t far behind.
Yes, I use Thanos all the time, but it’s just to save a bit of hassle on the easy nodes. He’s just a time-saver, not someone who lets me win fights I’d otherwise lose.
At different stages of the game, I’ve relied on probably at least four of these. Fist was my first 3* champ and I used him a ton back in those days. Then it was probably KK for the AoE. Then of course, IM40 and Strang3. Blad3 and Switch to a lesser degree. I had the luck of getting Thano5 to 5/1/4 (well, 7/1/2, but CS helped me out), so I really haven’t used the 3* version much.
So really, it’s been between IM40 and Strang3. I’ve probably used IM40 longer, but I think it’s probably been Strang3 more often lately, so I went with him.
next I swap storm & Hawkeye for their 2* counterparts and swap spider with Magneto.
i use these three for any DDQ except those with required characters.
i like Iron 40 for charging
Kamala for healing and team bashing
Daredevil for stunning and traps
also Radar sense is useful if enemies use tiles items.
speaking of Daredevil, I just uploaded his skill set video today.
can see him nonstop stunning the Hulk in his story
IM40 is about the only 3* that I would still consider in 4* land. SW is still too unreliable with her countdown to hit 14 purple consistently for her own power or to feed others. The other reason is when I see her in PvP, I often automatically take Jean Grey and let her make 5-match so I can get the stun and damage. There is basically no reason to ever let IM40’s Recharge to go off except in weird cases where the AI will fire off an expensive power as opposed to a less expensive power that will hurt you more.
Kamala’s healing gets less and less useful as people go deeper into 4* land and higher. It’s still useful to count some match damage, but it really can’t keep up.
Getting all of those red, green, blue, and purple gems fuel any number of powers and combos.
I find Stranges passive very useful against goons and non goons alike. I put him #1 in my book because he has single handedly decreased my story clearance time more than anyone else. And I know most folks think he’s mostly a passive threat with his yellow but his blue can be a game changer
I think lately I’ve been relying on Blade. While I mostly use my small selection of 4*s, since CM is basically my “main”, Blade gets a lot of mileage. There’s lots of honorable mentions though:
Dr.Strange: I mostly just use him when boosted, but that one’s obvious.
IM40: I totally underestimated just how useful he is. Sometimes he’s a third in PvP, still working out where I want to use him more.
Thanos: Much like strange, usually paired with him, he’s really good, especially when boosted.
KK: Back when I was in 3* land, she was my all-star. She was so useful to me, it inspired me to start reading her books. Usually paired with…
Cap: Again, mostly back when I was in 3* land, Cap was my workhorse. When the shields start flying, he can outlive just about any fight. When speed wasn’t an issue for me, he was extremely useful.
Hood: I think he’s a bit slow now, but he was always a welcome member to my KK/Cap team if I wasn’t using…
Luke Cage: That protect tile. Gosh dang, that protect tile. His yellow was extremely useful when paired with KK and Cap; I never really bothered with Cap’s yellow, so the uppercut was a great finisher.
Finally, my default shield sim team is She-Hulk, CM4 and Medusa. Rainbow powers/matching, and useful in 2/3 mirrors, and most other comps that rely on special tiles. She-hulk’s green can also be pretty annoying to deal with. The only downside of course is her red when you’re the only one producing special tiles.
Now that I’m fully in 4* land, I only use a couple of 3* unless required. Note that I only use these in PVE:
IM40; it’s the only way to accelerate other 4* to the speed of the heavy strike layers like Rocket/Gamora/other
She-Hulk: It’s a unique skill set; 5/5/3 is remarkably annoying to the other team.
Thanos: Only for the seed notes in Lightning Round
Patch: Especially when boosted; at level 370+ he’s better than his 4* counterpart and works well with Carol
That’s about it. I occasionally throw out Falcon or Cap against heavy tile layers, but they’re really too slow.
IM40, Dr. Strange and Thanos all are brilliant. However, my other go to is Falcon - his bird strike teamed with Wasp’s tactical intuition is devastating for strike tile damage. Sure, he is a little slow but when it works you can turn things around very fast.
Strange has an all round amazing power set: free damage & heal, stun that destroys AP and does damage and special tile removal. I guess people lean towards IM40 though as his yellow can power up higher level characters.
(Nor the Featured 3 in PVP, presumably)