I have a general question to mods and D3.
Why are we updating 4* characters and not 3* characters first or atleast simultaneously.
This favours players who have a better roster than some one who is building up.
Or are we going to upgrade characters based on the order in which they were introduced?
There were several rounds of balancing for 3 stars, but that was a while ago. Four and five stars are where they are concentrating now. At this point, I think the only completely terrible three star is Ragnarok. Others are sub-par, but not as bad. YMMV.
I was surprised they chose Invisible Woman to fix, since they worked on her not too long ago, but she definitely needed it. Mr. Fantastic is probably the worst four star at this point, so he’s likely to get a look season after this coming, if my crystal ball is working. They may tinker with a 3 star, too, but I wouldn’t count on it.
Honestly, the only 3* character that really feels like he needs a rework at this point is Ragnarok. I know Spiderman frequently gets pooped on, but he offers a lot of control and damage mitigation, so while he isn’t a frontline guy I think he’s actually alright. Ragnarok just has awful damage, a cheesy non-true self heal and hurts your own team. Nothing going for him except his large health pool.
Fourstars, on the other hand, had wildly disparate power levels as the newer ones have been dramatically bigger and badder, presumably to keep them somewhat relevant versus 5* characters. Prior to Invisible Woman’s rework most people would never, ever, ever use her over, say, Peggy, even if IW was boosted and Peggy was not. Now she appears to be at least strong enough to consistently use when boosted. The same is true of the Starlord and Cho reworks - before they would pretty much only get used when they were essential, whereas now they actually see some play (and Starlord is actually OG status vs goons).
If there were 3* characters that were completely irrelevant even within their own tier like that, I’d agree that they need a tweak, but again, apart from Rags I don’t know who would really fit that description.
Agreed. The Ragnarok rework was pretty fail. Still more annoying than anything else. Red and blue aren’t awful powers, but 14 AP for an AOE that pales in damge to other, similarly priced (or cheaper in the case of Embiggened Bash) AOE powers AND includes a drawback for no reason keeps Rags in the garbage tier (and appropriately nick-named). Removing the team damage would be a big step forward, as would actually using charged tiles. I still don’t understand why there are only 2 characters that actually interact with charged tiles in any way. Silver Surfer could absorb ambient energy, converting charged to basic after a threshold (gaining 1 AP at early ranks and 2 later on). Cho’s damage increase could have been tied to charged tiles on the field rather than just holding onto a particular color pool (even though the rework was decent). Ragnarok could overload the charge, blowing up the tiles surrounding the charged tiles (something like force field crush. should the charged tile be destroyed too, or be left behind as basic?).
Spider Man’s trickier. He should deal damage. He’s always been a strong fighter, and the 3 star, his primary version, doesn’t reflect that at all. While it’s sort of okay that he has the heal, it’s the power that’s most off in his kit, with the Protect tile passive being the next most off thing. How about:
Web Snare, 10 AP
If your enemy won’t come to you, bring them to you instead. Spiderman snags the enemy with his web and pulls them into a devastating punch. Pull the farthest back enemy forward and deal ~2500 damage. Deal an additional 1000 damage if the enemy wasn’t already in front.
Something like that. Not great against bosses or the last one standing, but a unique counter to enemies like Deadpool, Colossus, or Thing. Maybe snare is the wrong word, but it sounds Spidermanish enough.
Sentry i dont find to great either, a lot of team sacrifice when other characters do similar things without crippling the team, Beasts aoe kinda requires blue to function and again there’s better aoe, i know the greens cheap but it kinda costs blue and green and still deals less damage than say kamela who can create greens negating the extra cost(all 3 of it) for her ae plus she’ll chuck out a nice heal when using another members power aswell rather than having to charge up for a burst heal…
Spiderman just seems irrelevant,
Hood has poo hp and his twin pistol ends the turn and costs a fair bit, i know it clears 2 nice blocks for yellows which aren’t overly used but half the time i dont even know if he’ll survive long enough to even use it and if he gets stuck at the front n theres a heavy hitter well yeah.. dorm aid needs 9 of a colour to even begin to steal 1 a turn, intimidate is nice for countdowns i guess..
punisher has a decent red, green needs control i feel half the time i darent use it because random block generally translates to as many of my special tiles it can fit in that block..
Black Panthers black does nice damage but its always a risk giving an enemy ap of their strongest colour so always feel like a finisher, again an aoe i can get in elsewhere, strike tiles are nice n the defense grid is ok aswell.
captain marvel i think deserves a stronger red attack given she can energy absorb make it a higher cost and give it more punch, the punch 2 turn stun give them a strike tile decent damage..9 ap but someone like storm or SW can near enough slap the whole team for close to her damage, stun for 4/5 turns ok one is random but the other can be chosen, one generates the ap tiles she needs, storms cost aint much more than 9 and shes only 2* just the low hp trade off and neither give the enemy a strike tile… for me cyclops red/black outweighs hers by miles, a mask off eyeblast is generally death or leaving the enemy pretty much near it and red wise 3 extra reds for nearly 5k damage and a line clear generally seems better to removing a couple of protect tiles at the trade off of 3k odd damage and his yellow is almost similar generation tool take 608+ damage for 5 red n 2? blacks..or save 7 yellow ap and gen upto 8 red tiles dependin on spec and the board which usually has a good amount of team ups…
Pyslocke… well i dont use her outside of boosted events, AP steal is nice and the steadily cheaper attack adding the Strike tile is ok and the bleed tile but again i just feel there’s people who use the colours better
It just seems bar the boosted events there’s like 4/5 really exceptional characters who handle the job so well the others always feel lacking, i know theres situations and play styles that suit certain characters better but i just feel old characters were forgotten as new characters came out and there abilities weren’t compared so older ones got left lacking and left behind.
Aside from having a bit of fun and trying to mix it up there always seems to be certain picks that just excel.. its not like half need a complete over haul just tweaking to be relevant and compete when it comes to deciding a roster.. thats my 2 cents anyway and how i feel from my 2 years playing.. if my attacks are gonna punish me like giving away ap or strike tiles etc it should come with the benefit of being heavy duty enough so it pays off or is worthwhile especially if someone else can do similar things with no negative consequence, i imagine a fair chunk of 3* are distant memories for 4*+ players and rarely seen bar boosted events or having some fun in say Balance of Power
i can understand why 4/5* are a priority but i imagine there’s a lot of people stuck in the 2/3* area and it can be fairly steady going or a bit of a slog depend who you was lucky enough to get or unlucky enough to not get in your 3* draws.
4*s are a lot harder to get and max. There shouldn’t be any terrible ones. I’d prefer that there weren’t any terrible chars in the game at all, but I’m on board with fixing terrible 4 & 5 characters first.
I play Ragnarok a lot more than I play Sentry. He’s pretty bad on his own, but his red and blue powers make pretty good support for other characters who use blue and/or green AP, or those who thrive on cheap powers. I particularly like Ragnarok with Kamala Khan - with her purple it’s easy to snatch the charged tiles for an Embiggened Bash, and Ragnarok’s red mean she heals a lot.
Sentry, on the other hand, I pretty much only use when I absolutely have to. I suppose Supernova and Sacrifice aren’t half bad, but I am not a fan of self-damaging moves.
Sacrifice isn’t half bad, it’s all bad.
Mostly just to chime in, yes, it’s because the 4-star meta needs more fixing. There are a couple crappy 3’s that could use reboots–Sentry, Rags, Psylocke, Punisher all fall far behind the curve, in AP costs or damage–but right now there is a big disparity in power level in the level 200-300 transition. The 4-star meta is dominated by a few good characters, and once you’re lucky to get 6 or so covers for a 5-star, even those are made relatively obsolete. By boosting old characters like IW (who many players have close to fully covered but never use) they can give new options to the player base that are more immediately felt than adding a new character. More decent options at 350 (either powered up 4 
champs or 7-cover 5
s) makes pvp a lot more interesting for veterans.
Moved to Suggestions and Feedback.
Just chiming in here…
The only character I have found completely undesirable is Sentry.
Ragnarok I found to be incredibly important for a 3* player, ignore his Green (which is garbage) and focus on him as a battery. Put him with Kamala Khan and MoStorm for a 3* only Winfinite team.
I used that 3* Winfinite in Boss Rush and actually made it to a Peggy cover, so can testify to its effectiveness. I show it to newer players who have gone on to use it for a slow but useful team.
A lot of Ragnarok hate seems to come from him being drastically moved away from his fast attacking roots.
I just want to go on the record an beg that we NEVER IMPROVE THE DARK AVENGERS. If we’re going to have PvE where we have to face them 100 times over during the course of the event, I’m 100% happy having a weak character like Rags. I’d much rather have one wasted roster slot than have him be a powerhouse we have to face over and over and over and over and over and over and…
I’d guess it’s because the 4* tier occupies the current “meta”. 5* tier is elite. 3* and below are “progressing”. I’d bet the “core” player base is on or working toward the 4* tier.
The 3* tier is mostly balanced. There’s a few underperformers in there, but once you champ a few 4*, “a few” becomes “~ 35”. Outside boosters and certain useful entities, the 3* becomes a resource farm. Out of 40 champs, outside essentials, I can count the number of 3* I’ve used in the past month on one hand. My digits are intact. I didn’t lost my thumb to a boating accident or a particularly vicious squirrel. I’m pretty sure it’s 5. IM40, IF, KK, Shulk, Switch.
OK, in fairness I have used others to fill rainbows. Doom and Mystique, in particular, because blue/purple isn’t that common in my roster. They tend to only last a round, though, before I have to replace them.
The 3* tier is in pretty good shape. It’s well balanced, and there are only a few stinkers left. (Sentry being #1 for me. Ragnarok is not great, but he has some decent synergy with the 4* Thor and IM40 team, so there’s at least some utility he brings to the table. Still, I’d much rather bring a stronger green user like KK, Chulk, or Thing.)
Spidey needs work. The issue with him is that he’s set up as a passive support character, but his abilities do not give the same bang for your AP buck that other 3* passive support characters bring you. Spidey is not useless… but then, no character is truly useless. But 12 AP for a 2800 point health bump to the team is costly in a tier where Kamala gives close to 1000 points any time a teammate fires a power for zero AP, Beast gives you 3 protect tiles (if you trigger the power right) and 25% less team health for 11 AP, or Cage can give you close to 7500 damage for one more AP. (Or for 7 yellow AP, Cyclops can spam away red tiles and feed his own 4k eyeblast over and over.) Spidey’s cheap blue stun is worthwhile, and the purple shields are a nice bonus if you’re running a strong purple user like SW or Blade. But the blue stun, in the end, isn’t worth effectively taking two offensive players with you instead of three. And now, with Dr. 3-Star Strange and his 9 AP blue stun that also drains enemy AP and does damage… I don’t see why you’d bring Spidey along anymore unless you had to.
But… the 4* tier – which is the most numerous tier now – needs a LOT of work. There are characters that I’ve never seen in the wild (other than their PvP events) because their utility is marginal or zero. There are characters who are so close to being something cool (Drax, Mr. Fantastic) but pull up short in the end. There was Cho. (Thankfully, Cho has come around 1000% with his revamp.) There are characters who are fun, to an extent, but that slow down match play with excessive animation (Ant-Man, Carnage – who also eats your roster alive unless you plan well), and characters that would be fun if they weren’t so limp or costly or slow-developing or all of the above (Spider-Gwen, Winter Soldier, Miles, original Star-Lord, Kingpin). And characters that are okay, but just don’t stand out from the crowd for some reason or seem to have been passed by (Moon Knight, Spider-Woman, X-23), or which don’t really become effective and useful until you’re in the 10-13 cover range, making them fairly useless for transition players (Red Hulk is a good example of the latter. A few covers – eh, not bad. Lots of covers – defensive giant). And Medusa, and Strange in the 3*, show that Demi can still design great, fun, worthwhile characters, so all of this is not due to lack of ability. There’s a lot more work to be done in 4* land, and I’m hopeful that some of the characters, if not all, will be brought up to a standard where any of them are reasonable characters to bring into PvE or PvP.