Categorizing the heroes

I'm putting together a list for new players that breaks down the heroes into different categories.   That way I can ask them if they want to play a certain type and then list those ones off.  I will also color code my deviders so they each have the various categories.

How would you break them down?   Heroes can fit into multiple types.

I was thinking these for a start:

Burst -Burst damage - has potential to Build up to for big hits all at once

Fighter- sustained damage - can do smaller hits over and over

Healer -  has reusuable healing effects

Tank -  Can prevent damage to the team

Destroyer - Board control -  Has multiple ways to remove  ongoing and environment cards

Controller - Deck control - can manipulate enemy decks

Utility -  effects that enhance team mates

Drawer - Has effects that let other players draw or put cards into play  (like Omni X)

Minions - can create minions  like Cosmic or Unity

Are there any Im forgetting?

What categories would you place each hero in?   Some champs have a few cards o destroy ongoing/env cards but only 2 which I wouldn't consider to be consistant enough to call them a destroyer.  If it was a power that you could use over and over then maybe I would even if it was only on 2 cards in the deck.  The dividing line is kind of fuzzy.

Martyr - based heavily in damaging yourself for a powerful effects ( example: fanatic , nightmist)

Inventor - Can search his deck for card chosen by player (example: wraith, chrono ranger)

Reclaimer - Reclaim a card or cards from a trash (example: argent adept, mr fixer, tempest)

Exploiter - Weaken enemy defences by increasing damage done to target by other heroes or makind that damage irreducible (example: parse, mr fixer)

Can you rename some of your roles so they will sound a bit more superheroic? Drawer sounds like a piece of wood... And many are taken from fantasy roleplaying games.

There have been numerous attempts to fit the heroes into various categories over the years...I don't think anyone's ever managed to find anything that really works since pretty much every hero overlaps into multiple different categories, even the ones who seem really focused on one thing (such as Ra, who in between nuking everything can buff other heroes' damage as well as his own, change the type of damage, search his deck, give himself extra draw, and have a small amount of deck manipulation on the environment).

If what you want is to give players a rough idea of what it feels like to play a given hero, I think you should not use a "classic" distinction of roles. I would suggest trying to describe hero by the way they feel, by what they can be expected to do most of the time (keeping in mind that nearly all heroes have a lot of uncommon tricks) with one or two descripters.

I'd suggest :

Front Liner : you can expect this hero to regularly do damage, from the start of the game.

Finisher : these heroes can do very good damage, but it takes time - you will often spend a few turns before the damage magic begins.

Helper : these heroes often help others, one way or another. It can be by protecting them, healing them, giving them bonuses, etc, depending on the hero.

Survivor : these heroes often are very good at surviving damage, either through DR, healing, or more uncommon methods.

Manipulator : these heroes can often modify the the environment or villain plays : deck control, ongoind destruction, etc.

Martyr : for the heroes who often use their own HPs and/or the damage they take to become more powerful.

Demanding : for the heroes who often will do "bad" things to other heroes to fuel their power, like Unity's base power, Setback, etc.

Convoluted : for heroes who are often hard to set-up, or ask their player to know them well before they are really effective (Fixer, AZ...)

I think it's enough for most player to know if the "style" of a hero fits them, or if they want to stay away from Convoluted Martyrs :)

I generally divide them into damage, tank/healing, support, control, and shenanigans, and individual heroes will be a combination of them.

Damage, obviously, excels at dealing damage. Pure damage types (or mostly, since “pure” archetypes are few and far between) include Ra, Chrono-Ranger, and KNYFE.

Tank includes The Scholar, and Naturalist in Rhino form. Not many of them, as they aren’t fun to play unless they are REALLY unique.

Support is Captain Cosmic, mainly.

Control is Visionary and Gazelle Naturalist.

There aren’t any PURE shenanigans characters, but Setback, Nightmist, and Guise come the closest. Things like redirection, imitation, discarding, and otherwise hard-to-categorize effects go here.

Damage/Tank is Bunker, Haka, The Sentinels, The Naturalist overall, and Fanatic.

Damage/Support is usually skewed in one direction or another. Fixer and Tachyon are mostly control, with some damage and support. Legacy CAN do this, although he is usually Tank and Support. Setback is mostly damage, with some support in there.

Damage/control is Tachyon, as mentioned, as well as Wraith and Fixer. ExPatriette and Chrono-Ranger have shades of this as well. Sky-scraper is this, but she alternates between them, rather than blending them. Tempest is this as well, with some mild support and shenanigans.

Damage/Shenanigans is where Guise falls. He has some tanking in there. Setback also qualifies, with some support thrown in there.

Tank/Support is Legacy, The Scholar, and Omnitron-X.

Tank/Control is Nightmist, with some shenanigans in there as well.

Support/control is Argent Adept and Parse.

I would highly suggest separating the heroes by complexity first. Then separate by only a few catagories (Damage Dealer, Support, Tank). A new player that wants to do damage and mistakenly picks Absolute Zero is going to be highly disappointed. A new player is going to have little understanding about how the game works and even less understanding of which cards in the deck are important. Separating by complexity allows you to ease people into the game. If you give them way too many choices with no real reference point they might get overwhelmed and just opt to not care what they play or not play at all. Additionally, separating by complexity allows people who are familiar with the game to run their brain in low power mode if they want to by selecting one of 5 or 6 characters all listed in one place (no need to go looking all over the place).

Catagories, four catagories that reflect the primary playstyle of a hero.

Beater- Primarily deals in straight forward tactics or direct damage; Haka, KNIFE, Expatriette, etc

Controler- Deals with the board, usually through deck manipulation or Ongoing/Enviornmental destruction; Visionary, Argent Adept, etc

Buffer- Adds to the team as a whole, through Damage Reduction, Increases to Damage dealt by Heroes or Letting heroes play or draw extra cards; Legacy, Parse, Omnitron X, ect

Renegade- Deals primarily with themself using their own cards, powers and often health as a means to an end; Absolute Zero, Fanatic, Nightmist, Setback, etc

Subcatagories, six (for now) subcatagories that represent individual utility that heroes can bring to the table.

Widespread-Able to handle multiple targets at a time; Tempest, Sky-Scrapper, Bunker

Alpha Striker-Able to do a tremendous amount of damage after a bit of build up, usually a one-shot type thing; Bunker, Tachyeon, Haka

Healer-Able to heal themselves or other heros; The Sentinels(Dr. Medico), Tempest, Argent Adept

Tank-Able to soak up damage from other players; The Scholar, Haka, Legacy, The Sentinels(Mainstay)

Horder-Someone that plays with a lot of cards on the field, building up a small army or a large Arsenal; Unity, Expatriette, Captain Cosmic

Workhorse-Someone that can play multiple things a turn, through repeated use of powers or card effects; Tachyon, The Sentinels, Argent Adept

Some characters fit into two or more catagories but ultimetly I feel that they usually fit one role the best. The Naturalist's catagory depends on the form he's in and Sky-Scrapper is only a Controler until she's a Beater. Also, yes, Guise is a Renegade. He is dependant on other heroes but ultimately it's still just for himself. Characters can have multiple subcatogories and some make their mark on it, Argent Adept, for example, is a controler that specilizes in utility and dips his toes into quite a few of the subcatagories.

Ugh. I pains me greatly to see the Scholar viewed this way 

Anyway, since we are talking hero catagories, why hasn't anyone brought up Phantaskippy's hero rankings system? It's not perfect, but of all the attempts by the forum to rank and catagorize hero decks, his system is by far the best one put forth I've seen.

Original thread can be found here: https://greaterthangames.com/forum/topic/an-attempt-to-make-hero-ratings-or-a-great-excuse-to-argue-4556

Hey Skippy! Personally, I'd love to see you update this for WotC

The Scholar can get up to 6 poimts of DR at once. He’s a tank. Yes, he can also deal damage (quite a bit of damage if he’s set up properly), but you cannot deny his effectiveness as a tank.

Two and half things I want to address here. Sorry to go off topic, but Scholar is my jam piece.

1. Having DR does not a Tank make. Naturalist in Rhino form is the strongest Tank in the game. He can gain 2 DR without outside help. Tempest can also gain 2 DR without outside help. Are we prepared to call Tempest a Tank? Not by a longshot. 

2. Can Scholar Tank? Yes, I don't disagree with that. He actually does have some tools that allows him to do this. My contention is mainly, in a system that allowed for multiple classifications like McBehrer's, to label him as a pure tank in the same vein as Rhino Naturalist, is really sad to me as it ignores 80% of what his deck actually does. I'd personally say he is much better suited for Damage/Support (if I was going to use McBehrer's classifications). Damage/Tank or Tank/Support would be just as appropriate.

2.5) If you set up Scholar in a way to deal a ton of damage, you also set him up for insaine effective health through his healing, which can be just as effective a tanking tool as static DR. Assuming three forms in play, Liquid/Energy/Energy will net you just as much effective health as Iron/Iron/Iron in the long run while at the same time dealing mass amounts of damage. So while Scholar can indeed tank, Iron form is not even the most effective way to accomplish that goal.

We're not off topic - we're talking about hero classifications!

I misunderstood you.  I thought that you meant that it pains you to see Scholar viewed as a tank at all, rather than viewed only as a tank.  

I do find you 2.5 point humourous, because while I generally agree with you, I'm currently watching the Advanced Challenge Infinitor PBF game, which I'm convinced is only going to be survivable if Scholar goes into super-ultra-tank mode.

As always, the best thing to use is always situational. If straight DR is going to provide more effective health than your healing/damage, then thats what you should go for if the team is suited for it. I still think you can get just as much effective health out of healing/damage generally, but the more instances of damage you are taking, the better static DR gets. Infinitor does a lot of instances of damage during his turns, so I could see Advanced Infinitor favoring Scholar going double Iron. I wouldn't ever go more than double Iron though, the third rarely prevents enough damage to be worth the extra card loss given all the healing he has in his deck that might cover it just as well.

That's the problem with all hero classification systems, Foote. They all can do a lot of different things - typologies are always reductive. I agree on the damage potential of the Scholar - but I also consider Legacy and even Visionnary as good damage dealers, even if they can't do it every turn. That's why I think that it is better to "classify" heroes by what they can do nearly every turn, either thanks to their base power or to the cards they can easily have in hand.

For me the Scolar is first very, very good at surviving through DR and self-healing - and "less often" can become a wonderful killing machine.

The big problem for any classification of heroes is that they are not built to fit the very defined "roles" of D&D or MMORPGS - each is unique. Unless Christopher already has his own classification system, all we can do is try to simplify all this diversity and "multi tasking" of heroes in vague, partial "main role" definitions.

…Visionary?

raises eyebrow

We obviously play Scholar very differently. Which is awesome. But if you're comparing his damage to Visionary's there is a massive disconnect somehwere.

Yes. Any game where the hero with the highest HP is target most frequently, Tempest can totally be considered a tank.

The reason I do not categorize heroes into certain roles is not only can every hero is built to take on various roles, they can also take up different roles based on the villain and environment decks. Example being Tempest, he will not be able to achieve a Tank status against someone like Citizen Dawn, but against Apostate he can absolutely shutdown a lot of his damage. 

Not only does villain and environment decks effect the role a hero can take, but other hero decks can help out as well. Use the example before, now add The Wraith into the mix. Thanks to Smoke Bombs, Tempest can now absorb the damage from the hero target with the lowest HP. With the combined effort of two heroes, you have now made a very good tank.

I actually did list him as a tank/support, I thought, and I meant to take him off of the pure tank slot. However, you cannot deny that he can be an amazing tank. His easily sustainable DR and massive healing make him HARD to kill, plus he can redirect damage, just like Rhino man. I would say he’s better at it than Naturalist.

He can do damage, sure, but I wouldn’t classify him as a damage dealer. He kind of shifts around, depending on the needs of the party. He CAN do damage, but to do so effectively requires a massive setup that can be hard to maintain. He has some burst damage, but the only one that isn’t dependent on the number of targets causes you to nuke your whole hand, rendering him useless for a few turns afterward.

He can ALWAYS tank, though, and his support comes in the form of one-shots, like Proverbs and Don’t Dismiss Anything, that can be used in conjunction with whatever else he’s doing (tanking, healing mostly) without having to slow down or dedicate too much.

His main damage output comes from Energy forms, which are just as hard to maintain as his Iron form is. It's no harder to set up or maintain.

Grace Under Fire is usually discard fodder (but when it's good, its real good) and Get out of the Way is used more for the healing than the damage (which feeds back into Energy form). Know When to Turn Loose is rarely not discard fodder as well.

Scholars "real" damage one-shots are Transmutative Recovery and Proverbs and Axioms (Get out of the Way is a huge bomb with a few targets in play). That's where the money is. 

DR is just damage mitigation for Scholar with Iron Form. Healing is damage mitigation plus damage output with Energy Form. It's a no brainer what I'm choosing every time, especially when both ways can keep Scholar at around full health.

I dissagree here. Naturalist has multiple copies of Indomitable Force, which redirects all damage to him. Resiliant hide provides healing while flat out preventing all instances of 2 or less damage (assuming Rhino form. Instances of 3 or less damage with Indomitable Force is prevented outright). He also has multiple copies of Threatening Stomp which also direct damage from a specific target to himself as well. Tack on Natural Born Vigor and Natural Forms Power for more healing. I can even throw Blend into the Pack into that tool kit.

Scholar has 2 copies of Alchemical Redirection.

Scholar has him beat on healing sure, but Naturalist also has heals and has way more tools to flat out prevent and redirect damage thats dealt to the whole team. Naturalist in a primarily Rhino playstyle will prevent and mitigate more damage for the whole team than Scholar ever will in any given game. Naturalist just has more tools at his disposal to do so than Scholar does.

Yes I think Scholar can tank, and he is good at it. I'm not saying otherwise. But I am a firm believer he is tanking at his best while he is healing and dealing damage. That's what seperates him from pure tanks like Rhino, or a Nightmist sitting at full health in Mistform, or a Legacy Leading from the Front, or a Bunker with armor and Recharge Mode. His damage mitigation is also his damage output.

The thing is, that his damage relies on him healing. If he is going to heal in big bursts consistently, he either needs Solid to Liquid, meaning he needs twice as many forms out, or outside help. He has big bursts of healing – get out of the way, mainly – but, as mentioned earlier, that requires a lot of targets to be very powerful. Not to mention that if he is at full health, he can’t heal, so his damage output requires maintaining that way, too; he has to keep taking damage in order to be able to deal it. There is no such restriction on tanking.

Also, sure, he only has 2 Redirections, but how many cards does The Naturalist have that allow him to pull cards out of his trash? None? Right. Don’t Dismiss Anything can become extra copies of Redirection, if you want, while also helping the team.

And, don’t forget Expect the Worst. That’s INFINITE DR against any non-irreducible damage.

Also, why does Naturalist’s ability to prevent 1-damage hits make him a better tank than the scholar? Sure, it can prevent irreducible damage, but only 1. If stacked with his natural DR it can cancel out hits of 2, but that’s actually WORSE than DR2, since it doesn’t block any hits of 3 or more. Not saying that it’s useless, but you seem to be claiming that it is better than The Scholar’s easily attainable DR 6, and that’s just silly.

Every time?

I'm not disagreeing with you - I'm disagreeing with the absolute in your statement.  Healing and Damage are not always the best choice.  If you're dealing with damage from multiple sources, even Scholar's healing can't keep up.  Case in point: the game going on at this very moment against Advanced Challenge Infinitor.  Those manifestations will be dealing upwards of 20 or 30 damage next turn - There's not enough healing in the world to keep  Scholar safe long.

But if he is taking the damage (as he should) he is still tanking, then healing back up, mitigating that damage, and using that damage mitigation to actually deal damage back. It's incredibly efficient. If you aren't being targeted for damage in the first place, you arn't tanking either way, so I'm not sure I see your point.

And how does he need twice as many forms out? Liquid Energy Energy is just as many forms as the "easily attainable 6 DR". 1 Liquid is enough to get a ton of healing in and blast a bunch of damage out. 1 Liquid is enough to keep you the highest HP target to soak hits.

If you are going to be close to full health anyway, either with Energys or Irons out, why wouldnt you play Energy where you can pump out damage on top of everything else?

Naturalist still has his own 5 copies of cards that redirect all damage to himself (Stomp even deals considerable damage). Even if Scholar fishes a Redirection out, Naturalist still has it beat in terms of number of tools avaliable to him. Let's also consider that they both have amazing card draw and can dig into their deck very quickly (Naturalist is quicker at this right off the bat with Rhino forms power). With equal card draw engines and Naturalist having more tools in number, Naturalist is more likely to find his tanking answers quicker.

Scholar has nothing in play and is down to single digit HP on turn 2. There wasn't anything that was saving anybody in that game regardless of what was played. You make it sound like a 3 Iron Form Scholar was a champion where LEE would have failed. Nothing is saving that game from a loss. I don't see what this proves.

Wow, this thread's been busy.

See what I mean, OP? ;)

Unless I did my math wrong, that game is still theoretically winable. Get Scholar to DR 6 and he can take everything that Infinitor can throw at him, and he just has to tank until Infinitor kills himself.

crushing cage = you arnt going to sustain 3 forms 

Rather than having a single label on each hero, I would actually like a spreadsheet listing capabilities. How many consumable cards (one-shots, powers that self-destruct after use, etc.) destroy environment cards? How many reusable ones? Same 2 things for helping others draw, self draw, ongoing destruction, AoE heal, self heal, cards that deal single-target damage, AoE damage, various forms of DR, an assortment of ways of modeling damage output, a miscellaneous “cards not easily categorized,” and some other info. It would not focus on tricks or combos, though some of the damage models could include boosts and reduction.

I believe that this quantification would be useful for most hereos, at least. Even Nightmist and AA could be at least partially quantified, but Guise would largely be a blob of not easily categorized.

didnt you see the link to Skippys spread sheet I posted above? It's really good and exactly what you're looking for. 

Updated for WCos and the newest promos.

Forgot to post after WCos went live.

• Complexity is how difficult it is for a brand new player to learn.

• Playstyle is what players can expect their hero character to do.

• Utility is how much the hero can be expected to contribute to actually winning.

Difficulty 1

I've seen AZ be MVP so many times it's not funny. Similarly Fixer.

Parse? 

I'll refrain from starting another tangent on this one. but Parse is the closest hero deck in game to truely being overpowered

No Guise in your list?  Booooooooo

You want to put the almighty Guise in a category?

Category: Guise

I want him listed in his own Guise category or listed in all of them.  

How about:

Extremely popular love machines powered by Rock and Roll and fabulous abs:  Guise.

That'll do

Or just in the category: "Best"

I didn’t realize that was there (had to click multiple links). However, that isn’t quite what I was going for. I wanted to focus on card counts and mathematical formulas rather than ratings. Also, I wanted greater detail.

It is a pretty good document though.

The problem with that type of evaluation is you need a ton of categories to come close to an effective quantifying of a deck.  Quantifying Nightmist alone would be crazy.

Or AZ, how do you Quantify Thermal Shockwave's value?

There are a lot of cards that do different things, or even just vary their effect drastically across it's designed range, you almost have to start running numbers for team comp and Villain/Environment decks to do the cards justice.

I figure that there is no perfect way to compare. I also figure that what I propsed would both be a fairly large spreadsheet and would take quite a bit of effort. I also haven’t figured out exactly how to qualify things like thermal shockwave, and if it were quantified then I’m doubtful that everyone would agree on the method of quantification.

I would still find value in the document that I proposed. It doesn’t seem like anyone else is interested, though I’ll consider making it myself for my own purposes.

I would go for a few things:

1.  Hero difficulty - Tough heroes can be a real problem for beginners

2.  A few sentences describing what that character's gameplay is like

3.  Thematically who the character is similar to.

The first option filters gameplay difficulty and the second and third options give the players an overview of the character without overwhelming them in details.  A huge spreadsheet might do the opposite!

I generally give new players a choice between Haka (“A Maori brawler”), Ra (Indiana Jones turned into the sun god, aka kill it with fire), Tachyon (female Flash), the Wraith (female Batman), Legacy (Superman), and sometimes Chrono-Ranger (time traveling cowboy).

That’s usually enough to give the player a good selection of easy heroes with strong and familiar flavor. Of course, not all new players are the same. I had one player who’s first hero was Argent Adept, and he did fine.

And of course, that’s just for the first game. After that it really depends on the player.