Who do you think the best heroes in the game are? Who are good in nearly every situation AND when ideal conditions exist act like a cheat code to the win? Here's my list in no particular order.
1. Prime Warden's Argent Adept - He needs almost no time to set up thanks to the extra card play and can almost always activate something useful. If opponents aren't constantly destroying cards, he grants the biggest bonus of everyone in the game. That extra hit point is pretty great, too.
2. Prime Warden's Fanatic - this is the iffiest member of the elite for me, as playing that accidental End of Days can be a huge problem, but with a bit of ongoing destruction going after her, it shouldn't be the end of the world. The extra power use and card play is huge, as are the benefits she gains from lower HP and digging through her deck.
3. America's Greatest Legacy - Extra power uses are huge, and Legacy has a ton of utility in his deck. That heal comes in very handy as well.
4. America's Finest Legacy - the easiest damage boost in the game with all the great combos one could wish for. He has a simple 2-card combo that nueters multiple villains, too.
5. Nightmist - Nightmist is a monster with her amulet. If she doesn't see it (through massive draw or search) quickly, then you can always stick her in Mistborn for awhile to dig even faster and keep her safe. She can also shut down the villain deck and heal to full.
6. Parse - Parse kills ongoings and enviornments like no one else,but she also does damage, creates multiplies and manipulates the villain deck. It's completely possible to play her in almost any way the game calls for to great success. She doesn't always feel that great or fast, but I've found that a game with her is always far easier and far less likely to be a loss.
7. The Scholar - With his ultimate set up, which can only take a few turns to set up, he's nearly impossible to kill and lets off huge damage. What sets him apart from others this is true of, like A/Z, is that he can also be useful while setting up, tanking huge damage, or after a reset,
8. Team Leader Tachyon - Everyone loves draw, and everyone loves huge bursts of damage. This Tachyon draws so much she can handle nearly any situation and unleash massive boss ending attacks, sometimes in the same turn.
9. Visionary- She can make multiple bosses and games a joke if she sees an early Wrest the Mind, Brain Burn, or Twist the Ether. She can search for these with her power, and control the villain deck in top notch manner. She makes ongoings a joke, or gives you back your very best. She even has more survivability than one would think thanks to the Decoy Projections and her Coccoon. She's always got something great to do.
10. Wraith - the fastest set up and best survivability, Wraith does everything from controlling the villain deck to stomping ongoings and enviornments to massive damage to damage reduction and prevention to fast draw and card search. She doesn't actively help the team besides herself (but then there's smoke bombs) but everything she does is a huge boon.
Honorable Mention: The Sentinels are phenomenal, but they do nothing to Ongoings and a villain who targets the lowers consistently enough can leave them little to do but heal. Omnitron X is a beast who sets up wildly quickly, but big damagers and ill timed equipment destruction can leave him searching for a way to help. Setback can be a beast, or see useless cards in the wrong order. A/Z set up without destruction can win games, but he has to see that set up and any destruction can ruin him. Of the bigger hitters, only Haka really warranted consideration, as he's the most self-sufficient since he can heal and draw on his own. The newer Naturalist will almost certainly make my elite tier fit 11 characters, but the current version suffers too much if you have the wrong card for the wrong time.
Best heroes?
It depends.
Depends what you draw, what villain you're fighting, what they play, what the environment is, who your fellow heroes are, what the other players' preferred styles are, what cards they draw/play, depends how skilled a player you are and how well you know the decks.
There are far too many variables to take into consideration for me to be able to definitely say that hero X is better than hero Y, since X might be amazing in one match and terrible in the next. So I don't see that putting heroes in tiers is at all helpful for me.
The only way I differentiate between heroes is to slot them into three fluid groups, with heroes moving according to my mood - heroes I have a lot of fun with and play at any opportunity, heroes I don't object to playing if they show up on the randomiser but I don't love, and heroes that I'd prefer not to play today (mostly the Argent Adept, since I usually don't find him fun enough for the amount of work needed to play him to balance out).
Just assume I'm always doing that.
Damn it, Ronway!
I tried to account for situation in the discussion. The list, as stated above, is to try and say who's good in EVERY match and great in the majority. I struggle to think of a matchup where I wouldn't want any of the above, while it's easy to think of matches I would prefer not to use others.
I'm sorry but I have a hard time agreeing with a top 10 list where Wraith is at the bottom and Visionary is not mentioned.
...except he has Visionary right above Wraith...
He also said "in no particular order".
I think I really need to learn how to Visonary properly. People seem to love but I've always found her a bit dull and uninspiring.
Mind you, I also never use infrared Eyepiece with Wraith and can't get decent results out of the Argent Adept either. Perhaps I'm just not very support-focused.
They all take a certain amount of deck knowledge. I only got good with the visionary once I started playing on the app. Argent adept requires knowledge of the game state, who is out and what they want. Infrared eyepiece is easier to use than the other 2, essentially asking which of 2 cards is worse, but that's still something you learn over time.
Infrared Eyepiece is one of the most powerful single cards in the game, IMHO. The ability to throw That Card to the bottom of the deck, avoid a spaceship, accelerate a flip condition, etc., etc., plus it gives you an extra card draw? It's absolutely phenomenal. You can all but take complete control of the villain deck, escpecially if you get out a Utility Belt and a second Eyepieces just in case both of the top two villain cards turn out to be awful. You're putting off dealing some damage by not using one of your weapons, but that doesn't matter if you're robbing the villain of all their most dangerous cards anyway.
I can't prove this but I feel like Sky-Scraper is easily in the top tier. She is versatile in almost any situation, getting things done quick when necessary but also able to fill up the board with link cards. That and all her card abilities are great.
She is really strong and, like tempest can do almost everything. The difference comes into that skyscraper can be confusing, whereas tempest is perfectly simple
I've also been realizing personally that spending some time in normal size and filling your hand can be quite valuable. Most of my less pleasant games as Skyscrapper have been when I've run out of cards, and thus not had options. Those options really are her strength, and if you don't have access to them, things can be rough.
You also need to be willing to use your normal cards sub optimally if your hand feels like it has no good options. One of my friends was almost grinding his teeth on her not having anything good to play but just wouldnt play the card that destroys environnment and ongoings to get back to normal cause it could have more use. Irony is the team had ongoing and environnment destruction at the ready at that point so that was a non issue. Sky-Scraper mostly only has access to the powers on her Character card so sometimes playing a card to go get the right power for the situation is a better move than the best card at the moment if it gives you the wrong power.
I think Haka definitely belongs on this list, for Savage Mana alone. That alone neuters pretty much half of the villian decks in the game. Ground Pound is your damage neutralizer, and Rampage is your insane AoE. Haka of Battle can also allow him to feed off of a stockpiled hand size for massive ouch.
Fixed :)
Steam Username: General Specific
You gotta know when to hold 'em,
Know when to fold 'em,
Know when to hold fast
And when to turn loose!
Killswitch - nice fix. And Haka could easily fit. I have seriously bad luck seeing Savage Mana when I need it, despite the draw, and when I do find it, ongoing destruction seems sure to follow. Objectively, he's probably in. So, sure, let's call him 11.
Sky Scraper might be there. I love her, but if the game is a shorter one, she can be less useful. She needs more testing before I add her to the truly elite and nearly gamebreaking. I'll spend some time with her during my next marathon sessions.
Mighty-Si - I tend to be more control oriented, especially when I want to power game, as control cards make the villains nearly harmless if done well.
No order and Visionary is listed, as mentioned.
And finally, Tempest is a bit too squishy for me. If he gets the right cards, the right support, the extra plays or powers, he dominates. He may, however, be T1 because once he dies, he's often far more useful than when he was alive. My strategy for some bosses comes down to kill Tempest, win game.
Tempest is super strong alive. His incap is strong against certain villains like Iron Legacy or Skinwalker, but nearly all of his cards are really strong
He's also pretty good vs. Citizen Dawn!
"Deja-fu? You've heard of that?"
- Lu Tze, Sweeper, Thief of Time by Terry Pratchett
Less so because she and battery deal energy, summer and hammer deal fire, winter deals cold, and the rest that deal damage deal melee. That's more than one type and because of that it's less efficient
Mostly - against DR with the wrong draw, not great. And I seem to play him a lot against Advanced Voss, so squishy and not great. Also, he has a few cards I straight up don't like: Vicious Cyclone, Elemental Subwave, and, to a lesser extent, Aquatic Correspondence. All are useful in the right situation, I just feel like he REALLY needs extra plays and powers to get set up in a timely manner without really good luck (or he can use the phenomenal Localized Hurricane to find what he needs... but that tends to kill him fast given his lowish starting HP). He isn't BAD at all. He's right around average to me, which means he's usually good and against the right target with the right set up, can be great... but he has too low a baseline (to me) for this list.
I love Viscious Cyclone, especially against Voss, it's so much fun. That said I don't play it often
EDIT: I notice my mistake but think it's funny
His death saved our bacons in Pydro's depth challenge vs. Dawn by choosing energy (most of the other citizens were gone).
"Deja-fu? You've heard of that?"
- Lu Tze, Sweeper, Thief of Time by Terry Pratchett
Here's a game I played a while back
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=380229317
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=380229346
Obviously Tempest had Legacy there for the damage buff but that's a still pretty good turn right there!
Stop lurking, it makes you look like a villain target
When you do things right, people won’t be sure you’ve done anything at all
Yeah I have done with +3 damage, Electrical storm, vicious cyclone, lightning slash and then localized hurricane against Voss. That's a lot of damage
I play Dawn exclusively on Advanced and I REALLY don't want Tempest in that match.
Tempest is really valuable just for Lightning Slash, Ball Lightning, Chain Lightning and Into the Stratosphere.
his one-shots are so strong that he's good on any team.
Don't forget reclaim from the deep
And Cleansing Downpour! Not a one-shot, but it's great.
I forced myself to use Visionary and Wraith with her eyepiece in a game against Voss last night.
See, I can be taught!!
With good timing, patience and a bit of luck vs. Voss, Visionary can make that match nearly auto win.
Interesting, I found her a bit of a dead weight to be honest. I had a couple of twist the ethers out, a decoy projection and nothing else I drew seemed to be worth playing save for a ping of damage here and there. Wrest the Mind sounds like it could help, but targets were disappearing before I actually managed to get it played and she would have died if she had managed to play it and deal herself damage. I dont understand telekenetic cocoon at all, it basically takes you out of the game? Why?
In short, I don't understand her, but i want to! Why must you taunt me so, Vanessa?!
One good combo of wrest the mind is putting it on the psy weaver then putting the cocoon in play. That may take two rounds, but you your own mini cannon that hurts things for you. Even better with twist the ether, because then it will kill any minions that come out before they attack you
Yeah, cocoon is one of the cards I play least, but in the right setup, when you have ongoing cards like Twist and Wrest in play they are brilliant.
Also Decoy Projection is a phenomenal setup card for Brain Burn or Wrest the Mind, since it takes the damage for you.
One of my favorite moves ever was Siege Breaker with Wrest the Mind on him and cocoon on Visionary.
It was an (H)=5 match, and Siege Breaker was crushing everything for us.
Twist the ether on Vis and Ra with imbued Fire is also an amazing combo for Wrest, since you can switch your damage to fire and Wrest becomes free, get your ongoing recovery going and you can bounce 2 wrest the minds into play all the time.
(I've only pulled that off twice, but both times it was amazing)
I got to use the electropulse combo yesterday. That's always fun
I've just played with her MVP
I've linked here for others to see
Started with a Brain Burn
and then Voss quickly learned
That he had much better places to be.
"Do you not know that a man is not dead while his name is still spoken?"
- Terry Pratchett, Going Postal
I use the Cocoon a fair amount, especially in any close game. If we're all in single digits and I can tell whether highest or lowest is at risk, I pop it out to tank damage. I won against Advanced Dawn that way recently. He had wrecked the whole team but Visionary, but he had only HP left. I left Visionary in the Coccoon and got key cards and damage boosts until she could pop out and win the game with a one shot.
I find her pretty boring, but still very useful.
On the other hand, I find Absolute Zero to be one of the most fun characters to play- but also relatively useless against more difficult enemies.
In short, boring and useless are two very different things, and I'd say you're probably right about just not enjoying support roles.
EDIT: On subject though... For me personally, it goes something like this...
Characters within a tier are not in any particular order:
Top Tier
Team Leader Tachyon
Dark Visionary
High Tier
Legacy
Greatest Legacy
Young Legacy
Omnitron X (I'm quite biased on this one, I'll admit)
The Sentinels
Eternal Haka
Haka
Wraith
Rook City Wraith
Wraith - Price of Freedom
Visionary
Super Scientific Tachyon
Tempest
The Scholar
Redeemer Fanatic
Skyscraper
Mid Tier
Tachyon
GI Bunker (Panzer Buster is surprisingly useful against many Advance Mode villains)
Chrono Ranger (against villains with few or no targets other than themselves, he's definitely high tier)
Golem Unity
Mister Fixer
Fanatic
Parse
Naturalist
Ra
Ra - Horus of Two Horizons
Freedom 6 Tempest
Kvothe-Six String Argent Adept
Captain Cosmic
Low Tier
Bunker
Bunker Engine of War
Unity
Absolute Zero
Setback
Dark Watch Setback
Expatriette
Dark Watch Expatriette
Dark Watch Mister Fixer
Argent Adept
K.N.Y.F.E.
Bottom Tier
Freedom 6 Absolute Zero
Nightmist
Dark Watch Nightmist
I haven't played enough yet to really say Tier
Guise
Any Prime Wardens variant
Rogue Agent K.N.Y.F.E.
Depending upon the person you'll get different answers or feeling on who is a top tier character. Personally I have just two categories of heroes, ones I enjoy playing and those I don't as much. Though there are a few heroes I would like to play more with my normal gaming group but choosing them often results in a lot of groans. I hardly got to play AZ much because of that but with the app I thoroughly enjoy games with him. I'm really looking forward to Expat and arm Fixer being in the app since they don't hit the table much either.
Crush your enemies, drive them before you, and laminate their women! - Guise, Prime Wardens #31
I'm not terribly excited by Visionary either, but I don't mind playing her. She works best if you're good at assessing which choice of villain/environment card is the least worst, so you do need some deck knowledge to make meaningful decisions. Not so good for me when I'm tired and just want to hit things.
I rarely played Wraith's Eyepiece either until the app. Now I play it at every opportunity. Same problem as with Visionary though r.e. deck knowledge.
Argent Adept doesn't feel like enough fun to counteract the complicated hoops you have to jump through to get him to do the cool stuff, but that likely means I need to play him more.
Just assume I'm always doing that.
Damn it, Ronway!
Once the Steam version has both multiplayer and Infernal Relics, I'm sure I can show you a few games in which the Adept does many many things, Silverleaf ;). You don't even need much out for him to be useful in some cases - even if all you can manage to do is let someone else draw a card every turn, that can still make the difference if one of the drawn cards is one that was really desperately needed at the time ;).
Anyway, I think I fit with Powerhound in terms of hero categorisation - I have those I enjoy playing, and those I'm less bothered about. I should probably start rolling my heroes on occasion rather than just picking them every time, since I seem to end up playing as one of a small-ish selection of heroes that I like more than the others. I mean, I think I've played Fanatic maybe three or four times ever :O. Mind you, my partner likes her so it's not as if she just sits in the box doing nothing for months on end ;).
Anyway, I'm sure everyone's preferences vary in terms of which heroes they like and stuff. Someone might have a run of bad luck on their first few tries with a particular hero which might put them off using that hero in future, even if that hero is normally one who does really well. But sometimes it is just a matter of playstyle preference. I like the heroes who feel like they can do a lot - be that a lot of damage turn after turn (such as Jim or Ra), or just having lots of different options so that you can always do something (like the Adept, of course, or the Naturalist, or Omni-10). Some heroes I feel like I need certain things before I can really do anything but that probably just shows that I need to play those heroes more in order to fully appreciate what their decks can do. So many decks, not enough time to play them all a million times! ;)
I am the Wordweaver...
Basically, I like writing stuff ;)
Visionary can be really boring, but still game changingly powerful. She is one of my favorites.
One of my favorite teams to field against any villian is Argent Adept, Scholar, The Sentinels, and Tempest. Or as I like to call them Hootie and the Blowfish. It is possible with the right draw to take entire rounds in Scholar and Argent Adepts turns. And with the teams ability to fetch cards from the trash keep doing it every round.
Weidly, while I'm fairly admant about my top teir, I don't really think there's a lower teir. Everyone else is just a bit more situational than that group, for me... though I remain a hater of DW Nightmist and DW Setback.
My top tier of heroes consist of All of them!
I've just had a game in which Nightmist finally clicked for me. I think I now get how she is supposed to behave, so thats a bonus.
Of course, she paled before the awesomeness that is Sky-Scraper, but i've still got the 'new toy' shine on her. ;)
All of them.
Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.
-Robert E. Howard, "The Tower of the Elephant"
Nightmist, more than most, has a few key cards (especially the one that lets you redirect damage) so that she can tank, deal huge damage, and rarely been in danger of being killed while offering healing, draw, ongoing and enviornment control and deck lockdown. You absolutely have to see hp as just another resource for her, though.
I can't believe there's someone out there who thinks Dark Watch Fixer is less powerful than the original Mr. Fixer, let alone so much less powerful that he's in a different tier.
He has a rougher game against Deadline on Challenge Mode if Deadline's armour comes out. Otherwise he's clearly more powerful.
Oh, I've seen him be amazing many times on G+, and I've done a couple of tricks with him myself. I just don't find him fun enough to balance out the brain work it needs to figure out how to get the effects you want or to decide what instrument you want to conjure. My poor tired brain can't cope with convoluted chains and loops very well.
Absolute Zero on the other hand, just requires me to count. I'm fine with counting.
Just assume I'm always doing that.
Damn it, Ronway!
I would have to say that DW Fixer becomes even more situational/a little less reliable than regular Fixer though. Fixer is definitely in my top tier, but DW Fixer is probably in what would be my I'll play him occasionally tier as well. The reason being that I either can't keep my own ongoings and equipment out, which in essence turns them into one-shot abilities that change what my hit does that turn, or I have to stunt the growth of other characters in order to keep my own stuff out. Regular Fixer, while still situational, can adapt to that situation and then keep that adaptation out and going (barring villain ongoing/equipment destruction, like That Card).
It is hard to really quantify Fixer vs. DW Fixer.
With most setups I prefer regular Fixer, because destroying cards is rarely helpful, esp. when you are trying to stay ahead of Villain destruction.
For my style Fixer is better, but I've played DW Fixer several times now and he certainly does have a lot of value. He scales ridiculously well with Sky-Scraper and her tiny form, as she has cards she would rather have destroyed than left in play quite often.
When the team can give Fixer a few early cards to destroy he gets insanely good, you just want him before those heroes in turn order.
Playing him with no help isn't always the most fun, but I've done it, I just prefer regular in those cases.
So Yeah, if someone grabs Skyscraper or Guise and we need a big damage dealer I'll grab DW Fixer, but otherwise I go regular Fixer.
Darkwatch Fixer is also good with someone like Jim, if going after him in play order - lots of epic damage from a bounty-fuelled Hunter and Hunted, then Fixer nukes it so that Jim doesn't get demolished when something hits him on the environment and/or villain turns :D.
I am the Wordweaver...
Basically, I like writing stuff ;)
A significant amount of the time people have ongoings that are just being played to be played, and don't actually significantly benefit the guy playing them. It makes more sense to let Fixer keep his Jack Handle or whatnot than, well, any number of cards. And of course there are cards like Take Down, Slip Through Time, etc., that are just going to blow up anyway.