Best and worst heroes?

So, out of curiosity, I want to hear how you would rate the heroes in terms of effectiveness. Which hero is your most favorite to use and/or the most powerful in your opinion, and which is the one that you always mulligan when you roll randomly?

I love me a good, civil argument, so if you disagree with my or anyone else’s choices feel free to debate.

As for my favorite, I have trouble deciding. There are a lot of really good ones. In terms of pure crowd control and versatile yet consistent damage, it’s Mr. Fixer. I also really like Wraith for her versatility, and Absolute Zero is fun to use.

As for least favorite, I have three that kind of tie for the position. I recognize that all 3 have uses and can be great against certain villains, but for me they are either too hard to use consistently or just not great.

The first is Bunker. He’s an absolute beast against people like the Matriarch or Voss, and pretty good against the Chairman or Omnitron, but unless you get Ammo Drop, good luck getting all the cards you need for his good setup. Even then, it always seems like I’m sitting there playing cards the whole game, but by the time I can pull out BUDDABUDDABUDDABUDDABUDDA mode I have let the other heroes do most of the work for me.

Then is Expatriette. Again, she has potential to be pretty good. She doesn’t have anyone in particular she’s really good or bad against, except she has a tendency to just run out of cards. She can play 2 a turn, but apart from Arsenal Access, she has no way to draw more. So she is basically the opposite of my problem with Bunker; she can get her cards out fast, she just runs out of them easily. Also, on occasion I have gotten nothing but ammo, so she just sat there comatose until she happened to draw a gun.

Last, of course, is Haka. Now, I guess I’ve been playing him wrong, so I never realized he was supposed to be more defensive than offensive, but his power led me to believe that he was supposed to be the damage-dealer. So he’s not necessarily bad, I guess, but I don’t like him that much.

Most favorite(s): Definitely Fixer for versatility, Ra for stupid amounts of damage, and Legacy for all-around support.

Least favorite(s): Tempest just never seems to really do well in my hands. I’ve seen him do great things as a part of a team (controlled by a friend), but every time I use him we end up losing. Perhaps that’s a coincidence? Who knows.

Also: Expatriette is really quite amazing with a supporter type hero at her side. Legacy giving her +1/+2 on damage or Visionary letting her draw up quicker makes her 10x better.

I consider no hero the worst, since each have their own traits that are more useful in some situations and less in others.

In terms of gameplay I would say Unity, Tempest, and Absolute Zero are my top three. Can’t say much about Unity so i’ll skip that for now, but as for Tempest I like that he has amazing multi-attacking powers and even Electrical Storm in play will cause some more madness, though his weakness is getting his damage reduced makes him more difficult to use, but he can reduce damage dealt to him and also heal the allies (though I don’t tend to heal while playing him). As for Absolute Zero, he’s just an all around fun character, and enjoyable to play.

Now for the characters I don’t choose as often when playing in groups are Visionary and Legacy. Don’t get me wrong, both fantastic characters, i’d just rather someone else play them then myself (solo play that I don’t choose randomly I tend to choose Legacy as one of the heroes though).

Why did you have to say “favorite or best” McBeher? Because its hard to call what people are talking about. Far be it from me to argue against anyone’s favorite character. If they’re your favoirte, then they’re your favorite! End of story. You don’t need a reason for a character to be your favorite, or it could be for reasons entirely outside gameplay. How they look, what other comic book hero they are an homage to, dialogue, theme… anything. Furthermore, favorite-and-best are often in direct contradiction to each other. I love Bunker… but I’m going to put him in my “3 worst” heros as you’ll see in a minute. But if it was based on favorite… I doubt he would be there.

The best:

#1: Visionary. I don’t see why people don’t squeal about this amazingly incredible hero more often. I feel sometimes that myself and flamethrower are her only fanboys. One look at the Flawless Victory thread will show that Visionary is the lynchpin in just about every one of them. So much so that we’ve specifically taken on the additional challenge of trying to get flawless victories without Visionary, because if you pick Visionary, the right villan and at least one hero with a damage absorbtion power [legacy, Ra, Zero], you can rack these up ad infinitum with little challenge in doing so.

But that oughtnt be my entire argument, and its not. No, despite the brokenness of Twist the Ether, visionary is good because Visionary does everything. She can tank, deal damage, control villan deck, control environment deck, control villan trash, buff, debuff, and help people draw cards. I mean really, what else is there? Wrest the Mind is exceedingly powerful when played on the right target, especially if followed by Telekenetic cocoon. Plummeting Monorail is great for this, and a bit of a teaser thrown in here, there is an enviroment card from Infernal Relics that can put Plummeting Monorail to shame in terms of “things you want to mind control”. Her base power is among the best base powers in the game -possibly the best base power in the game (its either that or Galvanize)-. Especially good when used on Tachyon, but also perfect for hunting for a specific card that a hero really wants to get out or have in hand.

And if that happens to be an ongoing card, and it gets destroyed well, that is what Mental Divergence is for. Ahem, well, that is one of the things Mental Divergence is for. Mental Divergence is absolutely fantasitic agaisnt any villan that uses ongoing cards.

But her best thing is probably Suggestion. First it gets two cards out of the trash, which is oh-so-useful and oh-so-rare of an ability. I don’t believe any other hero can take something out of the villan trash once it is in there. Putting one card back on top of the deck is maddeningly good, because it can give you a turn where the villan essentially isn’t doing anything, or isn’t doing much. But the fun doesnt stop there, you get to pick a card you dont want to see again and put it at the bottom of the deck. Great against any villan that gets stuff out of their trash.

That was longer than I thought. I was going to post the others in my top 3, but I think I’ll spread it out a bit and instead just do one of my bottom 3.

The worst

Absolute Zero: I’m posting him instead of anyone else because I want to be controversial, I know he’s got a lot of love. But it is the absolute truth that I think he belongs in the bottom 3. Reckless mentioned this in another thread, and he was spot on. Someone said that Zero was great against villans that dont kill your stuff very much, to which Reckless replied essentially that -that is exactly his point. I couldn’t agree more.

Zero needs, at a minimum, 3 cards to work. He MUST have Isothermic Transducer, Null-Point Calibration Unit, and Thermal Shockwave. If he is missing any one of these he is not effective. And really he kind of needs Coolant Blast, and Cold Snap to be at his most effective. His ability to get his modules usually is not an issue, and though getting out Thermal Shockwave sometimes is an issue, I’ll ignore that problem for the moment. After an equipment wipe, he needs essentially 3 turns to get back to doing something. Thats just too long to wait. I’ve played many entire games of Sotm that were over -victory or defeat- in 4 turns or less. His base power is undeniably the worst in the game, a power that is not only useless, but actively harmful if you dont have other cards out to help. So if you dont have Null Point or Module Installation in your starting Hand, or if you didnt take damage the first turn, then you’re not using your first turn power phase, its as simple as that. This gives Zero the slowest start of any character in the game. And even after Null-point and Isothermic, healing 1 damage is still pretty lackluster for a power phase.

Finally, he is also very finicky. This has nothing to do with his effectiveness, so you have that as a disclaimer. But it DOES have to do with my enjoyment of the character, and since that was included in the original post, I’ll mention it.

Ra: Ok, I cast Blazing Tornado. 3 fire damage, 1 for the staff, 1 for Galvanize. 5 damage to the Assault Drone, it dies. Go ahead, Zero.

Zero: Okay, I cast Thermal Shockwave. Thats cold 1 damage to the repair drone, -Oh Galvanize, 2 to the repair drone- plus 2 to Omnitron, Plus 2 to myself -3 to myself because of Cryo Chamber-. So I take… 2…4…7. 7 Fire damage. Galvanize. 8 fire damage. and also I had Imapale going this turn, so that was another… 3 cold damage I deallt this turn so add on 3 to that I take… 11 fire damage. 10 fire damage because of cryo chamber. Then I deal myself 10… 11 -cryo chamber- cold damage… 12 cold damage because of galvanize so I… … heal for 2.

You’re doing Ra Wrong. Try this…

I cast Blazing Tornado. That’s 3 fire damage, 1 for the staff, 1 for galvanize, 1 for imbued fire, 4 for solar flare… 10 damage to Omnitron. I don’t take any damage from them because of Imbued Fire. Your turn, Fanatic.

I know the Visionary can be a lynchpin in many situations; but against some villains (like Spite), she’s more of a liability.

Oh yeah, I want to deal damage with my one-shot. Oh wait, H-2 means I do 1 damage.
I want to use a power. Oh wait, I just lost 2 HP and 5 cards from the top of my deck.
I can’t manipulate the environment because Spite destroys all Environment cards anyway.
I can’t manipulate villain deck because Spite doesn’t play cards.
OH WELL. I WILL JUST HIDE IN THIS TELEKINETIC COCOON AND DRAW CARDS. :’(

Well, if you have stun bolt to reduce the damage he does, he won’t hit you, and you can still help others draw cards with your power.

Or, you could just hide in the cocoon so whenever he would hit the highest he hits visionary, who is invincible. Especially if you have Smoke Bombs, so Spite is completely neutralized. You just have to worry about him bouncing ongoings back to your hand, but whatever.

Well, I can’t talk about my best/favorite, because that’s probably Argent Adept atm; however, I wanted to chime in regarding Visionary. Out of all the heroes so far, she and Fanatic seem to run the most hot/cold for me (funny, you’d think it would be AZ?).

I’ve seen games where either of them was completely central. Visionary treated the villain’s deck like it was her toy, continuously got rid of ongoings, and even helped out with damage. Similarly, I’ve seen games where Fanatic got her Consecrated Grounds at just the right time, used Wrathful Retribution to decimate a baddy (especially in games vs. the Chairman, where you can commonly knock out one of the two sub-bosses), and maybe even managed to Divine Focus for great damage.

However, I’ve also seen several games where neither of them could seem to get anything going. The cards didn’t come at the right time, or ongoing/equipment destruction hit just after they did; games where they just seemed to be extra hit points sitting around.

The weird part is though, I rarely seem games where they are “average”. They both seem to either shine or implode. Say what you will about Haka, but you can pretty much count on him for 2 damage a round, probably a bit of healing, and PROBABLY getting Ta Moko out for some DR. You can count on him to be at least average. I think this is what makes it so hard to categorize Visionary and Fanatic. They swing the pendulum all the way from stellar to crud, but rarely fall in the middle. Mister Fixer runs about the same for me btw.

That’s my $0.02 anyway

Yeah, more than worst/best, it’d be better to categorise them as consistent / swingy.

Examples of consistent heroes include Ra, Legacy, Tempest and Haka. You can always count on them to be useful, no matter what the situation is.

I’m not “doing Ra wrong”, I wager I play a stronger Ra than most. I used that merely as an example of the simplicity of Ra vs the complexity of zero, to demonstrate how Zero’s “add this, subract this, deal this much damage, subract this, add this, end up with this” way of playing really annoys me. I thought that was apparent, but I guess not.

Visionary is pretty good against Spite from where I’m standing. Twist the Ether on him and you have 1/2 of an invulnerability complex. If you dont have Ra, Zero, or Legacy to finish the other half and make yourselves utterly invulnerable, twist the ether on him again and reduce all but his basic attack to 0 damage, and you’re almost as well off. Then you can use your powers and things with impunity.

And beyond that, you dismiss the cocoon so easily. If Visionary gets the cocoon and plays it then the heroes cant lose the game. Its either win or draw. That’s pretty good if you ask me.

Visionary is still very useful against Spite. No, she won’t be hurting him, but that’s never why you choose Visionary. She delays his flipping until the heroes have everything they need. Influencing the environment is still important, because she can prevent excessive damage to the heroes that way by leaving on top the things that don’t do anything before Spite kills them. And Twist the Ether on Spite is a godsend.

But enough about awp and I gushing about the Visionary.

On the contrary, gushing about heroes and criticizing others is EXACTLY why I made this topic. Not because I like criticizing people’s tastes, but I like seeing both sides of arguments. It’s exactly why companies hire people to hack their websites; one person finds a hero’s weakness, and another tells you either how to fix the problem or that you’re just playing them wrong.

Also, I understand that you dislike AZ’s complexity, but you are kind of downplaying his strength a little.

So, with both Modules, Focused Apertures, Cryochamber, Inspiring Presence, and Galvanize, you are looking at +3 to cold damage given, an extra +1 to cold damage taken, and -1 to fire damage taken.

So then you use Thermal Shockwave. Deal 3 targets 4 cold damage each. Then you deal yourself (3*4) + 2 -1 = 13 fire damage. You then deal 13 + 4 cold damage to either another target (which makes 29 total damage, without Cold Snap or Impale) or yourself, which gives you an extra +1, so you deal 12 damage out among 3 targets AND heal for 5. with ONE POWER. And that’s not taking into account any other buffs (like Twist the Ether, which would also let you heal for an extra 15 points or so) or ongoings, like Cold Snap (4 cold damage across the board) or Impale (7 cold damage for free to one target each turn), which also add in to the damage you would take for Shockwave. Throw in a One-Shot, like Hoarfire (<3) or Frostbound Drain, and you have large amounts of damage and either large amounts of healing or even MORE damage each turn.

Alternatively, you could do what I love to do, which is put Twist the Ether on the Matriarch and use Demoralize to kill the birds automatically. She’ll keep dealing lots of fire damage to AZ (which can instantly be turned around for both damage to her and healing for AZ) so when it comes time for his turn, he can just use Coolant Blast for 20+ points of damage (or healing) as a power. Hell, you may as well give him an Embolden, too. the 5 radiant damage after buffs is chump change compared to all the massive damage and decent healing he’ll be throwing around.

sure. if he gets that setup and can keep it, he’s golden. But both modules, thermal shockwave, cryo chamber, and focused aperatres (lets just stop there and not worry about Imale, or Coolant Blast or Cold Snap, shall we?) thats 5 turns to get there. As I said before, some games are over in 5 turns. Heck I just played 2 consecutive games against Baron Blade [invoving Zero, incidentally, because I wanted to give him another shot] each of which were over [defeat] in four. Zero got to do absolutely nothing, both games. One of which he didn’t have a module or Onboard in his hand, so he had to make due with playing Glacial Structure to get what he needed, which slowed him down even more. I’m not saying the loss of either game was all Zero’s fault, but I am saying that Zero certainly was not able to do his part to help the team.

Of course, every hero has its weaknesses. I’m not saying he’s infallible (far from it, in fact. He’s pretty much the worst person to pick if you’re going to Mars or up against Dawn.) He takes some setup time, and is entirely equipment-dependent. His payoff for it is amazing, though.

Just a quick reminder, Coolant Blast specifies a non-hero target, and thus cannot be used for further healing.

oh, does it? I don’t have the cards in front of me, so I couldn’t remember.

I confirm that.

Also, Abs against The Bird Lady of Alcatraz is shut down pretty easy. Her cohorts pop two cards a turn. Matriarch’s two card combo screws over his five equipment cards rather quickly (one of them destroys ongoing AND equipment, right? I don’t have the cards on hand to make sure…). Then again, that’s a bit unfair. Saying that Zero isn’t fun against the Matriarch isn’t terribly compelling. I find the Matriarch to be an absolute chore (and nowhere near the thematic power scale of Tachyon, but that’s just me).

Let me just say, I enjoy playing AZ when he can actually do stuff. I find his concept fantastic, his playstyle unique, and playing with fire is fun. I just have noticed that, unlike other heroes who can at least impotently do something when all of their stuff is broken (deal/reduce damage, draw/play/mill a card, etc.), all Abs can do is punch himself in the junk. I am quite curious to see if there can ever be a promo card that can keep his fire/cold hurt/heal combo while still allowing him to be useful when he doesn’t have his tech in play.

Look at Onboard Module Installation. It can grab one of only two different cards (that make up a large chunk of his deck, granted, but still…only two), doesn’t put them directly into play, and allows him to draw a card and play a card. Meanwhile, Wraith is having a Razor party with Impromptu Invention, allowing her to search for ANY of her equipment cards, put it into play, and play another card. Why doesn’t the OMI install the card onto the field and allow AZ to play another card? Presumably it’s pulling a Downey, Jr. Iron Man and lets him run and gun while getting tricked out in sweet techno snow gear? I’d love it if there was at least one way the guy could get himself to play more than one Module a turn.

And I agree with awp (not just because he gave me a positive namedrop, mind you) that Visionary is fantastic. Twist the Ether and Mental Divergence are amazing. Also, Brain Burn when Decoy Projection is on the field? Goodbye Chairman Pike…your Underbosses and Thugs just left town and Visionary is still good to go! Just tonight, three Suggestions saved my friends and myself from Citizen Dawn merging with the Sun. There have been situations where she hasn’t been the greatest, but I cannot think of a time we actively regretted taking Visionary with us in a game.

Also, why does Mr. Fixer only deal one damage with his Strike? The fact that he can only have one Tool/Style out at once really limits his usefulness. At most, he can have Bloody Knuckles/Toolbox/Grease Gun, a Style, a Tool, and Harmony out at once. Also, Overdrive relies on him having the “Strike” power, so if he ever has a Promo card, its power will have to be called “Strike,” or else all of his Overdrives will be completely useless. Considering what other characters can do with their power combos, he really should be able to do two damage base.

Forgive me if I sound critical, but this is such a great game! I play it all the time and can’t help but notice these things (at least in my group).

TLDR: I find Visionary to be exceedingly useful in most situations, but have had several games in which Zen and the Art of Auto Repair and Zero have felt rather underpowered.

To be fair, most criticisms of AZ can be equally applied to Bunker. Not as finicky, maybe, but still so very, very equipment-oriented and utterly useless against certain villains/environments. Wraith manages to slip past that restriction mostly thanks to the sheer overpowered-ness of her Improvised Weaponry.

Some of them can, yes. I’m not gushing over Bunker here either (other than I said in my first post in this thread that I like him for flavor reasons, and not because of his effectiveness). In fact, what a great segue into…

The Worst:

Bunker: Ah, what a painful few paragraphs this is going to be to write. I really do love Bunker, I like his theme and I like the fact that he’s based on Iron Man, who is probably my favorite superhero. But alas, I am loathe to put you in the bottom 3, but I shall anyway.

Lets start with equipment kills. You simply don’t take Bunker to Mars unless you want an exercise in frustration. And against any villan with copious amounts of stuff killing, he can be a bother. Now, the newer villans have switched over most of their stuff destruction to an H-X stuff-destroying formula, which honestly is kind of fine for Bunker. its still nasty, but its kind of fine. What really messes him up is the destroy ALL equipment cards. And he does have an advantage over Zero in that ongoing destruction doesnt hurt him as much, only equipment destruction, where Zero really has to have both. But still, a bunker who can only Initialize is a sad bunker.

But its what happens after that which makes me think that Bunker is one step ahead of Zero. Bunker is at least reasonably back on his feet after 1 play. Where Zero takes at least 3-5 turns to get rolling again, Bunker can get back his grenade launcher or flak cannon and be good to go again. Sure, he’s not AS good as he would be with turret mode and both guns and gatling and heavy plating… but after one play he can do something to meaningfully contribute to the war effort.

But my strongest criticism of Bunker is the mode cards. They don’t work. Or I should say, they don’t work well. The only desireable mode to be in really, is turret mode. Turret mode is just fine. But I hardly ever go into upgrade mode or recharge mode, the fast-paced nature of the game means there simply isn’t time for this kind of buffing. You can’t afford to be not dealing damage for the 2 turns it takes for you to get any advantage out of those cards. You would think that his “thing” would be switching between mode cards to get the greatest possible advantage… but its just not. You want to stay in “regular” mode pretty much all the time until you have 2 guns out and then you go into Turret Mode. And thats about all. If only Bunker could play a mode card for free at the start of his turn, like Speed Loading or something. That would fix a whole lot of my problems with Bunker and would make him much more fun to play.

Finally, Bunker can deal damage. There is nothing wrong with that, but thats basically all he can do. He can draw cards and deal damage. He has a little tanking ability, he has the tiniest fraction of environment control (I do like Adhesive Foam Grenade) but no ongoing/environment destruction, which is something I always want to see from any hero. If you are SO good at dealing damage that you absolutely blow away the competition, you can get by without such things (like Ra) but Bunker really is not quite to that point.

Honestly, I use Recharge and Upgrade Mode all the time, often more than I use Turret Mode. I guess it’s just a different play style, but if I want to be playing a tanking Bunker (which can be done, and done well) I throw down a Heavy Plating and enter Recharge Mode for a while, then leave Recharge, enter Upgrade, and put down my Gatling Gun, Omnicannon, and Maintenance Unit and go to town. I guess I tend to be in longer games than you.

I’m not sure I have a worst three. I don’t particularly like Tempest, but I think that’s primarily because my girlfriend likes him and I rarely play him, I don’t like Tachyon because she tends to end the game right around when it’s getting fun, and I find Expatriette usually runs out of cards and sits there shooting things too often for me to really enjoy her.

On the other hand, I love Mr. Fixer (when he works, which isn’t all the time) because he’s steady, consistent damage, very recoverable, and brings irreducible damage to the table, something nobody else does. I’m also a big fan of Haka, who I find usually ends up both doing a lot of damage and taking a lot of hits for the team. Finally, I guess the third of my top three is Ra, because getting out his three-card buff combo is so rewarding.

I think the three most powerful heroes are Visionary, Wraith, and Tempest. Tachyon is also competetive for her control options, but she has a little trouble maintaining a board presence. The rest are varying stages of good, in my opinion - Legacy, Ra, and Haka have amazing capabilities, but lack vital control options (most specifically, ongoing and environment destruction). Fanatic is hot and cold for me, but you should see awp play her. Expatriette rarely wows me, but she’s got great weapons. I consistently find Absolute Zero, Bunker and Mr. Fixer at the back of the pack. (Argent Adept, Unity, and NightMist all rate fairly well on my scale, especially NightMist. I think NightMist is right there with the top contenders.)

As far as favorite goes, I’m bad at playing favorites. A lot of my plays are solo, so I just set it up randomly. When I’m in a group, I still usually make a random selection, but I think I most enjoy anybody that makes the other heroes shine - Visionary, Legacy, Argent Adept, for instance.

The thing to remember about rating the “best” and “worst” anything in this game is that it’s all relative. The game is practically infinitely variable, and your heroes and their cards work better or worse depending on situations impacted by the villain, the environment, and the other heroes. Not to keep singling you out, McBehrer, but look at your anecdotes. They all involve multiple heroes. Is Absolute Zero the best hero because he happens to combine well with Twist the Ether and Galvanize? I wouldn’t say so. Though the team aspect is important, you can’t really have evaluations of the “best” hero rely on who they have with them, where they are fighting, or who they are fighting against.

To this end, I think the best heroes are the ones who are good on their own, who set things up nicely, and exercise control over the villains. More justification to follow.

I think the best heroes are the ones who are good on their own, who set things up nicely, and exercise control over the villains

I think you might really be on to something there. With the exception of Visionary to some extent, pretty much every hero can make pretty good use of a damage buff. Everyone likes to draw more cards, essentially everyone likes a good buff, and stopping/slowing the villain and environment decks is also always helpful, so maybe the best heroes are those which have access to those capabilities. Although if those are the standards, that puts Legacy clearly above and beyond the rest of the pack, and I’m not entirely sure I want to put him there. A solid hero, for sure, but the best of the best? Not sure.

But with that said, I’m continuing on with the original heroes I had in mind.

The Best:

Tempest.

Before I get to his abilities, let me just say that Tempest is a clean sweep when it comes to my favorite hero to play. I hope my fanboyism doesnt pass off as bias because I know theres a legitimate case for him as a top 3 contender, which I will try to convince you all of with only minimal amounts of gushing. [EDIT: Omg you guys this is about to be a huge digression. You have been warned] Why? I dunno, I think part of it is that I’m a “lightning guy”. Take any video game since Final Fantasy and you have 3 basic elements. Fire, Ice, Lightning. And really, if you’re a gamer, you probably have a preference.

Fire: It just seems to cater to those of us who want to destroy things. Burn baby, burn and all that. You might be a wee bit crazy or useing fire as your outlet. Fire is pretty much always effective, and often carries the rider of “burn damage” which is generally super good. I mean there’s really not much to not love here, but it does invoke the pyromaniac in all of us.

Ice: Ice caters to… [blantantly sexist comments ahead. I apologize. Really I do. I’m better than this. But heck, I’m already married so, why not…] gamer girls. Seriously. I don’t know what it is. Maybe its the “ice-princess” thing, but I’ve noticed female gamers pretty much always have Ice as their element of choice. Maybe its because their gamer boyfriends or, in the case of my sister when we were kids -their gamer brothers- tend to choose fire or lightning and they want to be different. Maybe the blame falls entirely on Shiva from Final Fantasy. Why do you have to be so sexy and awesome? Ice: Because you want to blow stuff up and look GREAT doing it.

Lightning: Which brings us to the best element, Lightning. I dont know why this is an element now, because the Greeks always said it was Fire, Water (could be ice), earth, and air. Which I guess Lightning could be air but you know what, We didn’t have an Earth element back in Final Fantasy 4. You have Fire, Ice, and Lit -because Lightning was too long to fit in the text box-. Later in FF6 when the creators added a character and got a slightly firmer grasp of the English language, you had Bolt. By now my digression has a digression. Anyway, so Lit appeals to those of us who arent as disturbed as the pyros, and want something that is always effective, all the time. Because stuff resists ice and fire damage. And sometimes ice and fire damage are super effective but you know what… Lightning damage is pretty much always lightning damage. Good old, consistent, reliable, and not only that but at the risk of making a bad pun… flashy. Its like man-ice. Fire just isn’t as cool looking. You want your enemies to die. But you also want to be the coolest nerd-baller in school. And that’s what lightning gets you. Fire? You got nothin. Your spells are uninteresting, and consist of Fire and BIGGER FIRE. In camp lightning, we’ve got lightning, and freaking chain lightning. Seriously, what fantasy game in the last 10 years hasnt had a variant of this spell? Not any good ones, I tell you that. And when you think about it, isn’t that what Tempest is all about? I seriously get this stupidly goofy grin on my face when I’m playing Tempest and I get to cast chain lightning. Because it’s the spell you always WANT to cast, but rarely get to.

End Digression on elements.

So I’m a lightning guy and it’s sweet. And beyond that when I first played Sentinels, I was shown a variety of decks with different pictures and simply told to choose the one I liked best. And I sure as hell did that. Tempest was my first play and I still like him the best. I picked him because he looked like he was carrying a wallet that said “bad motherf***er” on it. [pulp fiction, anyone?] And to date he is the only alien. That’s kinda sweet in and of itself. Its the freaking MULTIVERSE baby! Alien lightning dude? I am there.

Now then, lets get into his PLAY! The rest of this post will be at least 60% content, and only a 40% blend of gushing and snark.

With one-shots like Lightning Slash and Chain Lightning he can keep up with Ra in terms of raw damage output. His Gene-bound shackles can give him a huge boost with damage to the villan, especially if he gets to combine that with Electrical storm or Vicious Cyclone. Localized Hurricaine is a great card too and underused IMO. People don’t want to take the extra damage, which is understandable and even adviseable in some circumstanes… but with Localized Hurricaine you also get to be awesome. and being awesome is what tempest is all about.

Beyond that, both Flash Flood and Ball Lightning are absolutely great cards to have in hand. Tempests control over the game is in a very solid place, Less than Visionary, but certainly quite good. Into the Stratosphere wins games. Pure and simple. It is very similar to Visionary’s Suggestion in many ways. It makes the villain play what you want them to play. I was having so much trouble with the Matriarch and then I realized Tempest can just pop her mask into the stratosphere, giving you a full turn of respite, and possibly doing that several more times. There is practically ALWAYS something that is a great mark for Into the Stratosphere, an absolutely top notch card.

And when you thought the awesome was done… whats that? Oh its Reclaim from the Deep! Another of my favorite cards in his deck. Too bad I already played into the Stratosphere last turn. I guess I better just get it back. And heck, while I’m at it, Legacy, you’d love to get your Inspiring Presence back after that nasty Hugginn ran off with it wouldn’t you? Well just go ahead and plop it back on top of your deck and you’ll have it out again in no time. Ra? Did you run out of Fire Blasts? Oh, something tells me that you’ll have another Hadoken lined up for us next turn…

And did I mention he’s also the best healer out there, if your team is you know, dying on you or something? No. I don’t think I did.

Ok… that was probably at LEAST 50% gushing and snark. Sorry, I tried. I couldn’t help myself. I’m done now. For a little bit. Tempest is the best hero EV-AR!!! Ok now I’m done.

Interesting.

Here’s the thing that makes Mister Fixer so cool, I think. (Like I mentioned, he is one of my favorites, if not my very favorite).

He does deal out consistent (if a bit low) damage, but that’s not all he’s for. He has different styles and tools for a multitude of situations. (plus, having Legacy, Visionary, and/or Ra to buff damage is always a plus) Also, all of his styles and stuff change ALL of the damage that he does. They don’t give him additional powers. (I know I’m pointing out the obvious here. I’m not claiming you don’t know this. Don’t take it that way.) They basically change the nature of his inherent power, his one-shot, and any other damage he might do (like from infection).

For comparison, Let’s look at Ra. He has Blazing Tornado and Staff of Ra. He can do a power for 4 fire damage to one target. He can play Fire Blast, which does one target 6 fire damage. But, he can never change it so that it also reduces the damage they do, or hits multiple targets, or changes damage type. It’s always exactly the same, just with variable amounts of damage.

Now we compare this to Mister Fixer. His base power is to hit someone for 1. His one-shot, Charge, lets him hit someone for 2. But lets say you have, say, a bunch of birds to kill. You equip Jack Handle, and now his base power AND Charge have changed to target all non-hero targets. Have 2 targets with a lot of health? equip the crowbars. Now his base power is “hit 2 for 2,” and Charge is “hit 2 for 3.” Have someone who hits your teammates a lot? Use Hoist Chain. Now he does less damage. Have someone who hits you a lot? Use Pipe Wrench. Now you’re protected for 1, and a bit stronger. Have a tendency to ALMOST kill things? Maybe they have crazy damage resistance? (Voss’s minions, thugs, etc.) Use Tire Iron. It basically gives them -2 max HP when you hit them.

Then you can throw a style in there. Have an enemy with low health, but high damage resistance? Use Alternating Tiger Claw and tear them a superfluous new behind. Have someone like Spite, who has a low – but annoying – damage resistance? Use riveting crane and make them drop their shield. Want to just do more damage, or maybe they have immunity to a certain type? Use Grease Monkey Fist.

And don’t forget, this applies to his power AS WELL as his one-shot, and any damage you may be forced to give yourself. Jack Handle is awesome when you are infected; you basically get 1-3 FREE ATTACKS against the boss at the start of each turn, which is not only irreducible but is probably buffed at least a couple times. Also it doesn’t hit you, which is nice. It’s also nice to use Jack Handle/Driving Mantis to redirect an enemy’s attack to all non-hero targets.

Then go ahead and throw Harmony in there. That’s another free +1 to damage. Bloody Knuckles for 2 more, at the risk of taking some more damage.

… So yeah. THAT is why I love “Blackie Chan,” as I like to call him.

I agree that Mister Fixer is amazing for the same reasons you listed, but I don’t think redirection would be modified by Jack Handle, as awesome as that would be. :-\

Actually, Chris said exactly the opposite. He said there’s an invisible “instead” at the end of the sentence, so he doesn’t hit himself. It says “whenever he would deal damage to a target,” which includes himself.

It works like that for the infection, sure. It doesn’t work if the damage is being redirected. In that case, the source is something other than Mr. Fixer.

Here’s why I think of Mr. Fixer as among the lowest performing of the heroes. What you say about him is true. He has a bunch of tools and styles that inherently change his power. That’s cool. He’s got plenty of options… for dealing damage. That’s what all of his little tricks add up to. There’s a little bit of utility there - Driving Mantis, Riveting Crane, Pipe Wrench - but for the most part, his cards seem to go to essentially increasing his small amounts of damage. Even Alternating Tiger Claw - against villains with one armor, you’ve just increased your damage by one. Things don’t usually have more than one armor.

Compare that to Tempest. Tempest starts with a Jack Handle. He can upgrade that with Grievous Hail Storm. He can switch to two targets AND draw cards with Localized Hurricane. And his one-shots do way more than just two damage, possibly while accomplishing something else. (Ball Lightning!) Is he dealing irreducible damage, or redirecting stuff? No. Villain armor is a pain. But in my experience, he can overcome damage reduction well enough, and he has the best armor of any character. And, incidentally, a way to change his damage type, if you needed that. (Otherworldly Resilience + Elemental Subwave Inducer.)

Salvage Yard and Grease Gun are pretty neat when you need them, but the latter only serves to put Fixer even more behind everybody else. Ultimately, the inability to destroy ongoing and environment cards, and not have anything really dramatic to show for it (like Ra), makes him less exciting in my opinion.

In my opinion, best and worst heroes are largely based on how well their decks exploit the framework of the game. For example, A hero with an innate damage power on their card automatically has more utility than one who does not, regardless of their deck. The goal of the game (until recently) has been to reduce the villain to 0 hit points. So innate damage is an advantage. The other areas I look for in a powerful hero are how theyt exploit their turn and how vulnerable they are. Does the hero have viable one-shots and good powers so they are always maximizing their turns? When I talk about vulnerability, I’m not just talking about hit points. The hit points in sentinels are close enough together that it really is not an issue. Dependence on multiple pieces of equipment and/or ongoing cards makes a hero very vulnerable, as well as not being able to deal with environmental or villain surprises.

So taking this into account, I was surprised to find that Tempest, Legacy, and Wraith my be the most powerful heroes.

Tempest: innate damage to multiple targets, highly useful one shots, ongoing/equipment cards that do not need multiple in play to synergize, and even damage reduction. He has relatively low starting hit points, but that’s really his only minus. He also has one of the most versatile one shots in ball lighting which allows him to deal with annoyying cards and still deal damage. There is no choice and the card is useful even if one of the indiicidual effects is not.

Legacy: innate damage dealing (as long as their is one other hero in the party who has innate damage). Very little vulnerability as most of his cards are ongoing so not effected by equipment destroyers and most are powerful enough in their own right that he can run pretty lean if he has to. My only negative with him is that you can sometimes not draw any damage cards so he becomes a very passive damage soak and ends up buffing others.

People think the wraith is the bees kness, and I agree to a point. However, I think there is enough of the “I love Batman” bias that rubs off on her to blind people. She does not deal innate damage, but does have innat damage redutcion to reduce her vulnerability. She has very useful one shotes and you will rarely, if ever, feel you don’t have a one shot worth playing. She is somewhat vulnerable as she is equipment heavy, and she needs some synergy, but these are 2 card combos for the most part. While I do not think she is as good as Legacy or Tempest, she’d definitely up there.

So worst by my criteria are bunker, and absolute zero. For honorable mention, I will also include both heroes from rook city.

Absolute zero is the worst with no innate damage power, or for that matter even useful power. This makes him highly dependent on the draw. To even get going he needs 3 card combos and more but he can function with a few two card combos okay. He is heavily equipment dependent. Basically, he needs a ton of help from other heroes to keep him alive and make sure he can keep his equipment. If you do this, He can be a beast. The question is whether the sacrifices other players are making for abolutes zero are worth his late game butt kicking. I fall on the no side.

Bunker comes in second worst. He has no innate damage power, but does have card draw which can help him set up his desperately needed combos. He is very vulnerable due to equipment dependence, that makes it difficult to get or keep his 3 card combos going. He has limited ability to effect enviornment or villain cards other than through damage. his one shots are okay but not spectacular.

Both mr. fixer and Expatriatte fall into a similar category. Neether is bad but both have serious weaknesses. Mr. fixer is highly dependent on tools, and styles. A lack of either will neuter him and it is not uncommon to be sitting in a game without the right tool ofr the job, or sometimes without any tool. Yes, he deals innate damage, but that is his only power. So this means the second half of his turn will be devoted to one choice. His versatility is great often talked about, but he needs to have those versatile cards in had or in play. S he really has the potential to be versatile, but too many times I have seen that not pan out. Like absolute Zero, if he is coddled by the other heroes, he might do some righteous damage.

Expatriatte is dependent on her weapons. She can play two cards per turn, but you want to be careful with that as you can have all you stuff wiped out in one round and be stuck with nothing in your hand. On the other hand you her cards encourage you to play as many guns out as possible, so it can be a catch 22. Like Mr. Fxers tools, she is highly dependent on her guns. If no guns come out or gun retrieval, she does very little. On the other hand, she is probably one of the heores that can gain the most benefit from the do nothing and draw two cards as she can play two cards if needed. She also has some righteous damage dealing if necessary. While Ammo is nice, Expat. is not nearly as combo dependent as mr. fixer and can function well with only one gun in play. She has some ability to deal with environment cards and I do love the RPG vs. t-rex picture. It makes me wish there was an RPG equipment card.

That being said, Who do I enjoy playing the most? Ra, Expatriatte, and Tempest. Just because I think certain heroes are strictly better than others does not mean I enjoy playing them more. That’s why you won’t hear me complain about playing absolute zero. Sometimes I just want to play something different.

I agree with most of your arguments Smilinbrax. That’s one of the reasons I really like Young Legacy. She has all the benefits of Legacy, with an innate damage dealing power. I agree that with games of 5 heroes, Papa Legacy will almost always result in more damage, but in games of 3 heroes, she’s often better. In games with 4 heroes, it’s dependent on what your team make-up is.

Oh, I see. Yeah, you’re right. Never mind that then.

I’ve thought about Expatriette being in the bottom, but IMO she’s still a cut above fixer, zero, and bunker, for a couple of reasons.

1. Her guns are so prevalent that you’re hardly ever without one, although sometimes not having the gun you want is a problem.
2. For a power (and a power alone, without combos) Tactical Shotgun deals the most single target damage of any power in the game.
3. Assault Rifle is extremely useful, especially when paired with ammo cards.

The thing I dont like about Epxatriette is that she practically seems like she’s in a perpetual fight with her own deck. Her two “best” cards are probably Speed Loading and Unload. Both of which are totally at odds with each other. Unload encourages you to play as many guns as you can, while Speed Loading actually stalls your deck.

Beyond that, her damage is pretty much all from powers, she lacks good one shots (except for Unload, which is only a few cards) so that hurts a lot. Against single targets, ammo is pretty unimpressive as Hollow Points are effectively “one-shot, deal a target 2 damage” which is kinda low.

She also had the very unfortunate circumstance of coming out in an expansion featuring almost entirely villans that she’s not good against. Spite and Plauge Rat don’t enough targets in their decks to take advantage of many of Expatriettes cards [SMG, Assault Rifle, Shock Rounds, Hairtrigger Reflexes]. She is okay against Matriarch, but a lof of times the cards I mentioned aren’t particularly useful as killing the birds is unhelpful. And Chairman is so rediculously hard that even though Expatriette has enough targets to shoot, she still doesn’t quite cut the mustard… not that anybody really does.

Still, she has her place against all 4 villains from the base game, and she has a little environmental control in her deck too, which is nice to see -something that Bunker, Zero, and Fixer lack-.

Ok, so if I get you correctly, you’re saying that Tempest is inherently better than Fixer most, if not all, of the time. Now, of course I’m not saying that he’s NEVER the better pick, but consider the following scenario.

You’re up against Voss, and he’s on his starting side, on advanced mode. Both Guards are out. Also there’s a Twisting Back Alley.

You can have whatever setup you want going into this, but since we’re just comparing these 2, you can’t rely on any other heroes to buff or deal damage. Tempest really can’t do anything helpful here. He’s at -4 damage, and is pretty much completely neutered. He only even has a couple options anyway, and none of them are particularly helpful. He can use lightning slash for a whopping 1 damage to one of the guards. He could use Into the Stratosphere, so he’s only at -3, but even then the guard will just play again next turn. You could use flash flood, but you’d still be at -3. Even if you were to use Localized Hurricane, that’s 0 damage.

Fixer, on the other hand, has not only the ability to buff himself multiple times, but also to completely ignore damage reduction or nullify it for others. There are multiple different options he has here, but he can easily take out both guards and possibly even hurt Voss a little. Let’s say, Jack Handle, Tiger Claw, Harmony, and either Bloody Knuckles or – better yet – Charge. In one case, you do 4 irreducible across the board. In the other, you do 3 and then 2. Either way, you definitely kill the guards – and any other minions out – and hit Voss for 5. May not seem like much, but compared to Tempest in the exact same circumstances, it’s kind of a lot.

Also, I just thought of something. Not very related, but a little. Against Spite, you could abuse Bloody Knuckles like nobody’s business. Let’s say you’re using Hoist Chain, Riveting Crane, and Harmony. You play Bloody Knuckles for +2 to damage, then hit Spite. Not only does he now do -1 damage, but he has also completely lost his once-a-turn damage reduction, leaving the rest of your team to pummel him uninhibited, regardless of what the environment says. Then, at the start of Spite’s turn, he sends Bloody Knuckles back to your hand, getting rid of the +2 damage he would otherwise deal you, and allowing you to play it again next turn.

Yeah. A ton of armor on everything would be one of those situations where Mr. Fixer, with Alternating Tiger Claw, can rule the day. I don’t seem to find myself in those situations all that often, but more to the point, when I’m in that situation, I more often find Fixer futzing around with the entirely wrong tool and style, with the right one nowhere nearby, and very few good ways to get to it/them. Tempest, by contrast, has enough card drawing to usually have the right answer at hand.

I can see the potential Fixer has, but it never seems to play out in practice. I don’t know if I’m playing him wrong, or not playing him in the right situations, or what, but he just doesn’t impress me.

Fanatic with a Final Dive and Tempest with an Into the Stratosphere is a smaller combo that can get a group out of that situation. Fixer is fun, but this again relies on a lot of cards and a lot of buildup. Must his usefulness rely on such heinous circumstances? That is a pretty specialized situation to be in. I’ll give the guy credit where credit is due, but that’s still a lot of cards to take out two guards. Irreducible damage is where it’s at, but I don’t understand why the guy needs to start out with a puny one damage power.

So I know I said that we shouldn’t evaluate heroes based only on their team or against their villain, but the situation you describe is exactly the kind of situation that it takes a team of heroes to overcome. It’s cool that Mr. Fixer is capable of taking them down all by himself, if he gets the dream setup for the situation. But far more likely, this will be solved by a Flash Flood from Tempest, followed by a couple hits from Haka and Wraith to take down one guard, followed by a Fire Blast from Ra to take down the second one. (To pull a random configuration and play order out of nowhere.)

I know there’s a villain in the next set that you’ll really want Fixer’s irreducible damage on… unless it’s been changed since I played it last. That’s one of the disadvantages of being friends with a playtester but not being one yourself. And on another note, it’s really a question of a hybrid character versus a pure character. Tempest is a pure character: he’s got a niche, and he knows where it is. Fixer’s going to be worse in that niche than Tempest almost all of the time. That’s good. Ra also has a niche. Fixer’s worse in that niche too. The only niche Fixer has all to himself is irreducible damage, but that doesn’t mean he’s not a decent-to-good choice in those situations where you might want Tempest, but you might want Ra, for example Citizen Dawn or Chairman Pike or Omnitron (people with lots of high health minions).

Firstly, Fixer isn’t going to have irreduceable damage all to himself for long.

Secondly, Fixer is still at a -1. Voss advanced mode is decrease damage dealt by heroes by 1. Decrease… not reduce.

Thirdly, if you get into that situation either something REALLY unusual happened, or you played bad. 2 gene-bound guards and a twisting back alleys in play at the same time? How did you come to that? Why didn’t you kill off the first gene-bound guard as soon as he came out? Maybe they came out off of a Forced Deployment. In that case, if you knew that Forced Deployment was about to bring gene-bound guards back into play, why didn’t you destroy Twisting Back Alleys on the environment turn when you had the chance?

One reason might be that you had a plan to deal with it. And these are team plans. Maybe Tempest will Flash Flood the Twisting Back Alleys away, leaving everyone at only -3 damage, then Wraith can drop the first guard to 1 hp with Razor Ordinance and microtargeting computer. Then Haka can use a Haka of Battle to add 3 damage, kill the high HP guard with the first hit, and finish off the low hp guard with the back end of his Tahia. You’re out of a bad situation.

As far as “hyrid character vs pure character” I read that as “character with a point, vs one that doesn’t have one”. To put it more succinctly, name another character that doesnt have a “pure” role. What you call hybrid, I call undirected.

Because what I would call hybrid is somebody who can do a lot of things well… to me… Tempest is the most hybrid character there is.

Actually, no. Decrease and reduce are the same thing. Just a different word; one of those inconsistent wordings they will probably change for Enhanced Edition.

fair enough, but the other 3 paragraphs still stand.

Bunker, Haka, and Fanatic would classify as hybrid characters to me. All three of them have two niches that they can fill, just not particularly well. Both Bunker and Haka can fill the damage role, but can also fill the tanking role (as very few others can) while Fanatic has such a variety of cards I’m really not sure what role to fit her in at all. Don’t get me wrong, I like playing as her and I think she’s got some pretty cool stuff going there, she’s just not sure what role she really wants to fill.

awp, somebody else is getting irreducible damage? This is news to me. Still, are we discussing favorite heroes now or favorite heroes in the future? I don’t think a future change that we don’t all know about should be a mark against Fixer.

Two things. First: I LOVE this conversation. I’m not going to jump in here and argue with anyone, as these are all opinions and awesome and this is EXACTLY the sort of discussion I love seeing. You guys are great.

Second:

Ice is my favorite. It always has been. Fire, as you accurately pointed out, is damage and more damage, and usually to a single target. Lightning is damage and more damage to other targets with nifty options. Ice? Ice is CONTROL. Slow and Stop piggyback on cold damage. Ice: for those who want to control their opponents and then obliterate them. And, as you might have guessed, I am not a gamer girl.

Not that it has anything to do with SotM - just weighing in.

Ice is nice, but Lightning is frightening. Also Fire.

(In all seriousness, though…Tempest deals Cold, Lightning, AND Projectile damage! Or any damage you want with the ESE. Love it!)

Ah well, there are always exceptions to the rule… Although you are right about Ice often having rider effects. I wasn’t really thinking of that at the time.

We don’t really have an ice character in SotM. I mean, yes, there is Zero, but he relies on fire just as much as he does on cold. And he’s missing the “rider effects” that you so observantly point out. I mean I understand if a hero was too much like Zero it wouldn’t be worth making, but I don’t think simply having the same “element” qualifies. I mean heck, we have Wraith, Bunker, Expatriette, and 1/2 of Tempest who all do Projectile damage. Legacy (original) and Haka are both melee.

Man it sure would be… cool if SotM had something like that. I bet a lot of people would be interested in buying it… ;D

For what it’s worth, I’m an Ice guy too.

And Zero has one “rider” effect, if you will. That is exactly the purpose of Subzero Atmosphere.

My wife and I are the same way: I’m all water/ice all the time, and she’s 100% fire*.

*Unless we’re talking Avatar, in which case she’s a huge Toph fangirl.

Oh, and Fueled Freeze, to some extent. It’s a control option, anyway, and one of Zero’s few.

It’s strange that you say that, Because I feel like absolutely zero is controlled more than controlling. As I noted, His requirements to really kick in make it more likely the villain cards will decide his fate then he will decide the villain’s. Compared to visionary, who I see as a control freak’s dream, AZ is a bit limited.

I did some quick and dirty math using a mana calculator for Magic, so it’s based on a 7 card draw. My calculations extend out to the first 3 turns. The plus side is that by the end of turn 3 (assuming a draw of one a turn), you are 99.9% likely to draw 1 module or a card that will get you a module. You also have a 67% chance of getting 2-3 modules, which I would consider the sweet spot as getting 4+ modules is taking up space for other cards. In a third of games, you will end up with no modules or too many in your hand. So, granting you get both modules out and into play and not get stuck with two of one type, your combo will be ready turn 3 or 4.

At that point you need a power or one shot that can deal damage. There are 5 damage dealing powers in the deck of which only 2 can deal damage on their own. The other three require AZ to take fire damage at some time since the end of his last turn (and since it’s a power, he can’t use any other power that deals fire to him to trigger it). This means that another hero needs to oblige him, the villain/environement just happens to deal him fire, or he needs one of his own one shots to deal him fire. AZ just happens to have 4 one shots in his deck that will deal him fire. One of you probability hounds can probably do a much better job here than I can, but just eyeballing it, AZ has a very inconcsistent deck. Other heroes can help him out, but then he is dragging others down.

There are only 4 control cards that I see in the deck, 2 subzero atmospheres (which is my favorite card in his deck), and 2 fueled freezes which destroy ongoing cards. Since the new trend is villains that have very few ongoing cards and many more custom named cards, Fueled freezes are much more likely to be used on hero ongoings than villain ones.

Sorry if I went overboard on the analysis, but AZ really bugs me in that I find him very interesting, but I generally don’t get him to work. I think this may be because his cards really do not synergize as well with themselves as you would expect.

I apologize for going back to Magic for comparison, but a combo deck is generally set up to find and get the combo out as quickly as possible. In sentinels you don’t generally want that, as a too finely tuned deck will get stale over time. However, in the case of AZ I might make an exception because you only get to play a max of one card per turn. Thus, a combo requires many turns to set up with many opportunities to have it scrapped before then. You can tell that was recognized early by how many fetch cards (from the deck and trash) there are in his deck.

I Love the thermodynamic back story and intent behind AZ, and I actually like most of the cards in his deck. I just think that when you put it all togeher and play with it, that it doesn’t gel as well as it could.

I have some anecdotes that are part bragging about a new player I brought in, and part relevant to this thread. This will be long.

I started a three player game against regular Dawn in Atlantis, with Visionary, Tempest, and Bunker. The new player was Tempest (because, he said, Lightning). Visionary and Tempest, both of whom I report as all-powerful, were unable to get their ongoing destruction, so Dawn laughed it up with two copies of Return with the Dawn. We were able to kill all the minions every round, and they weren’t hurting us, but we couldn’t make any headway. Then Citizen Truth came out, and it was pretty downhill from there.

Tempest eventually cleared the ongoings, but once she started drawing the damaging minions, she wiped us out but good. Tempest and Visionary spent most of the game with no hands to speak of, between multiple Blinding Blasts and Phosphorescent Chambers. They had stronger options than many in that situation, however. On Visionary’s turn, she would Enlighten Tempest, who would typically find one of the two cards applicable to the situation, due to his great versatility. It wasn’t enough, of course, but it was a good thing in a bad situation. Bunker, by contrast, built a strong array from the start and was instrumental in mowing down the early minions. However, once the Devastating Aurora came, he mostly became a spectator. Not because he didn’t have the cards, but because he didn’t have the time.

Well, the newbie wanted a rematch, and we were joined by two more players. The newbie picked Absolute Zero (because, he said, Ice!). He was even more intrigued when he read Zero’s base power. We ended up, fairly randomly, playing the Freedom Five, minus Bunker plus Ra, since Bunker was dead. Rematches rule. Anyway, since we had five, we were playing Advanced Dawn.

Newbie caught on to Zero right away, and probably played him better than I do - that is to say, aggressively. On his second turn, with the Isothermic Transducer in play, and no prior knowledge of the Sun God’s deck, he asked if Ra could deal him three fire damage to help finish off Citizen Truth. Ra was stunned, but obliged with an Inferno, which, funnelled through Zero and amped by Galvanize, killed Truth, and dealt two to all the other citizens.

The combined might of the Freedom Five minus Bunker plus Ra was able to take Dawn down without flipping her. We had a fabulous plan to bury her in the volcano for 26 damage, but it never materialized, because +3 damage to all attacks kinda took care of the situation.

So yeah, a newbie made me rethink Absolute Zero. Two things worked for him here - Ra, Legacy, and Wraith were in the game, and nothing interfered with his capabilities. Ra could shoot him with fire when needed (and didn’t use either Flesh of the Sun God or Imbue Fire), Legacy had the buffs, and Wraith used Infrared Eyepiece and dodged Devastating Aurora. Ergo, nothing killed his stuff, allowing him to deal a truly dizzying amount of damage, just between the two modules, Legacy, and his one shots. Does this make me think of him as good? … Well, it certainly makes me think we used good teamwork.

Playing Absolute Zero is all about being ruthless, especially to yourself. You don’t really need those HP. Ask anyone who’s played with me.

YES. Phenomenal. Bravo!

Ra can work very well with Absolute Zero (assuming you don’t Embued Fire (at least not too long), as that can result in a quick Absolute Zero death), and more so with Legacy, Visionary, and/or Fanatic (with Legacy improving damage dealt, Visionary controlling damage types, and Fanatic Embolding Absolute Zero (allowing him to use Thermal Shockwave before using Coolant Blast, for that extra oomph) as well as occasionally using Absolution to fuel more fire). Typically, my plan, assuming I’m in a situation allowing me to keep out played cards, is to end up with at least both modules and Coolant Blast. When dealt fire damage, I check to see how low the HP is. If too low, I use healing. If not too low, I retaliate. Then, Coolant Blast allows either double damage (plus any modifiers at the time), or single damage plus a net of not taking any damage (plus modifers). I haven’t played with him much recently, only because I tend to play other heroes that I never played much when I first got the game.

I guess I just don’t get it. If you have only Isothermic in play, then dealing Zero fire damage is only marginally better than just dealing fire damage to the baddies, and at the expense of your hp. EG: What difference does it make if Ra deals Truth 3 damage with an Inferno or if he deals Zero 3 damage with an inferno which is elementaly changed to cold and channeled to truth? Basically none, except you get to abuse buffing, if you have it. Still, 4 damage to Zero in exchange for +1 real damage to Truth, not worth it.

So its only really good if you have Coolant Blast. And even when you do, the heroes that can deal fire damage are few and far between. There is Ra (duh), Tempest and Fixer, who can deal consistent fire damage if they want to. Expatriette can deal it on rare occasion with her inferno rounds, and Fanatic can do some, but only with Absolution. If Zero is supposed to be a synergy hero, he certainly doesn’t synergize with very many of his compatriots.

I have always had problems with that combo as well, I guess the only thing that would make it better than +1 is multiple buffs, with both Galvanise and Focused Apertures in play it would make it +2… hmmm, any effects that increase damage to heroes would be another buff to the damage dealt out, but I’m still with you on this, not sure it’s worth it to lose that much HP to inflict the extra damage (but I am happy to be proved wrong).

Well, it would do 3 + buffs to Absolute Zero. (let’s say 2; 1 for Galvanize, and one for the staff) so 5. Then AZ does 5 + buffs (Galvanize and Focused Apertures) for 7. that’s double the buffs.

Also, if AZ has Coolant Blast, any fire damage he takes is basically redirected double; once when he takes it, and again when he uses Coolant Blast.

Yes but its 5 damage to Zero for only +2 damage over what you would usually have.

If you have coolant blast its worth it. If you don’t, I don’t see how it can be.

I do agree that “Friendly Fire” typically isn’t worth it (except maybe in some rare case) without Coolant Blast.

If you’re not worried about AZ ever getting to zero, then it becomes worth it again, don’t you think?

Isn’t that essentially treating a hero like a glorified Tony Taurus?

I’m trying to think of a game where I have had someone die and we’ve won… I’m coming up blank. It’s always been an all or nothing affair so I’m always worried about removing HP from a non-tank character.

I remember a 3 hour Citizen Dawn on Mars game, where I believe only Absolute Zero died, and on his turn, he was able to use the “Destroy one target with 1 HP” to defeat Dawn.

Is that a typical game for you? If not, then isn’t a corner case just a corner case?

You stated that you can’t think of any games where you had at least one hero die and still win the game. I simply decided to reply with one of the most memorable games where a hero died and still won the game. And I’d say about a fifth or so of the games won had at least one character die.

It is a corner case, but that’s not to say dead heroes are without merit. Sometimes they can be game winners, sometimes a dead hero can be better than a live one. Dead Tempest can be particularly effective because he can make all heroes immune to an element type. I called “toxic” against plague rat the other day and won a game that I don’t think it would have been possible to win otherwise.

However, if you’re not playing solo, even though on occasion death is equally effective… Well… I certainly dont want to be the guy with the dead hero. It’s not as much fun. Kudos to >g for giving a KO’d player something to do that is meaningful… but who could argue that its as fun as getting to play your hero when they’re alive?

My point is that death is kind of something to be avoided at all costs, so I don’t feel that strategies that involve obliterating Zero are on the table.

Ah.

So you have a fifth and I have none, anyone else want to offer up their results so we can get a broader sampling?

EDIT:

Couldn’t have put it better

In a fifth of my winning games, no heroes died.

In 1 memorable game, dead heroes allow Haka to play Savage Mana, Rampage, and then activate Savage Mana in the same round to down Matriarch. In that game, Wraith’s death was orchestrated to setup the 1 round combo.

I often find dead heroes instrumental to a victory. A dead hero can really turn the game around. My favorite was the game where Tempest returned Visionary’s Telekinetic Cocoon every single turn, allowing her to completely destroy Grand Warlord Voss by herself. (Well, and some significant help from dinosaurs.)

Re: Self-destructing Absolute Zero. I don’t find 1 for 1 damage especially useful, most of the time. In this particular instance, I was highlighting the fact that the new guy picked up on the game nuance right away, and magnified Legacy’s buff to get rid of Truth that turn. I was sincerely impressed. Of course, it would have been much better with Coolant Blast. The dude didn’t even know that existed, though.

I have played a lot of games. Some of my most memorable were the ones in which multiple players died. I have won a vast majority of these games. I don’t always have heroes die, but it does happen, and I still usually win. (by me I mean me and my friends, btw, although my one-player-4-hero games are included)

One game had me as Tachyon or Wraith, Henry as Legacy, and Kris as AZ against Plague Rat at the Industrial Complex on advanced. (Henry was getting tired of us winning all the time) I don’t remember a lot of the fight, but eventually AZ, I was at 1 HP, and Legacy was at about 3. Legacy had Lead from the Front and Next Evolution, so he had been soaking most of the damage, but he always had to let either the Melee or Toxic slip through. Once AZ died, though, he could use an extra power, making him immune to Melee and Toxic, which – along with LftF – completely neutralized Plague Rat.

Another one was just me, as either the Freedom Five or a team of 3 including AZ (I don’t remember which) against Baron Blade at Primalis. Somehow, everyone died by AZ. He was at 3 HP and Blade was at 1. I could have easily killed him with Hoarfire, but I decided to heal instead and wait for the enraged T-Rex to eat him. I can imagine the scenario in my head:

AZ is surrounded by the dead and dying forms of his allies. Baron Blade shuffles towards him, barely hanging on to consciousness. His mech suit is barely functioning; it seems to have more missing pieces than pieces still attached. The look on his face is one of a madman; only one target remains, and the sight of it shrinking back before him and frantically healing doesn’t pose much of a threat. He closes in on his apparently terrified prey, trembling in fear – when it starts laughing.
It calls out, “hey, Blade! You’re an inventor, right? Maybe you should invent a suit with some sideview mirrors next time!”

He whips around and doesn’t even have time to scream before he is devoured by the angry dinosaur looming directly behind him.

I didn’t mean that I don’t care whether or not AZ dies, I mean that I’m not so worried about him losing HP, because he can heal!

This is exactly the kind of thing that makes me love the game. It’s not just that we’re playing it, it’s that we can envision the encounters, how they play out, what’s actually happening.

And all in comic form. ;D

Rabit

My numbers fall somewhere in between. I’d say in probably about 1/10 of our victories, at least 1 hero dies. We had several victories with only 1 or 2 heroes standing. We also arranged the “kill Dawn when she has 1 hp” thing, but I think we did it with Visionary. We also had 1 game where only AZ survived, and he just let the Volcano eat everyone else

We’ve also had quite a few incapacitated heroes. I haven’t kept track - couldn’t even tell you how many games we’ve lost or won, although I think we’ve usually won - but in the begining incapacitated heroes were far more common. As we’ve gotten to know the game better, it’s happened a lot less. (Not counting playtesting, of course. )

I vaguely remember one (this was just after GenCon last year, so we were still pretty new at SotM) in which everyone but Fanatic was dead, and Fanatic hit the villain with a Wrathful Retribution for ~25 to finish the game. We didn’t expect to have a chance on that one. The heroes were dragging themselves home, that day…

We’ve also had situations in which we could only won because one of the heroes was incapacitated; in one case, we had no ongoing removal and the villain’s ongoings were keeping us from doing anything effective. When the first hero was incap’d (don’t remember who it was), they could remove an ongoing, so we suddenly had a chance. (We don’t look at what an incap’d hero can do - we just do what we can once we’re incap’d.)

A part of me wishes I’ve kept a log of games, like I’ve done for the original Lord of the Rings board game. It’d be even more fun for SotM, as there’s more of a colorful story, there.

I’ve had games like that. We were playing Legacy, Haka, Mr. Fixer, and Ra vs Citizen dawn and after she flipped she pulled both channel the eclipses and both return with the dawns. Realizing we had no ongoing or environment removal, we all looked at Ra and said sorry. Then beat him down.

Now I can’t say I have any games where the heroes have died but there are a few where a hero has become incapacitated and still won. I’ve had games where three of the four heroes have been incap. and was still able to pull a victory, usually just barely. Also usually those games the surviving hero is Absolute Zero (trust me I play hime fairly wildly too but if I see something going wrong soon I start keeping his HP a bit higher), Visionary, or NightMist but usually someone somehow falls before them and they are able to provide enough support to keep at least one of them kicking. The battles become some of the most intense thing because the team tends to cheer you on and tell you not to screw the whole thing up.

I’ve only had one game though where Fanatic was the last hero remaining (which is thinks to her having on her armor and not drawing martyr during the game until after everyone was incaped) and that is all kinds of crazyness since she is hard one to play without being able to damage herself.

Oh well, looks like I am the aberration here, I will have to note what we are doing to get us death or glory results (or just remember better if it is not the case).

Nobody’s really talked about Wraith yet, except for some references to her at the top of the list, and some discussion about fanboys. Well, I’m no Batman fanboy, at least as much as anybody isn’t. But I do have some very good things to say about the Wraith.

First, she has access to three of the most powerful cards in the game. One is Infrared Eyepiece. It’s like Visionary’s excellent Precognition, but, uh, every turn. She can vet the top card of the deck, generally dodging all the “Oh crap” cards - you know, Forced Deployment, Devastating Aurora, Prison Break, Lab Raid, what have you. And then she draws a card, because the first part wasn’t good enough.

Next is Stun Bolt. Reduce damage dealt by the target by only two? I guess that’s pretty situational. The situation? All the time, forever. What Wraith does to Spite with Stun Bolts is well documented, but really, she reduces most villains to mewling kittens. It’s also good for hard-to-kill, high-damage targets, like the Flagships. Evidently, she doesn’t even need to damage the target in order to reduce the damage, unlike Hoist Chain, Liquid Nitrogen Rounds, or Hypersonic Assault.

Oh, and neither of the above cards are limited, for some reason. So grab another and go to town with your Utility Belt, if you want.

The third card is Impromptu Invention. I’m sure everybody has noticed that Impromptu Invention is ridiculously better than comparable cards Summon Staff and Onboard Module Installation, since it lets you put the card you searched for directly into play, and then play another card. This is what makes her so resilient, and what helps her set up very quickly. It would be a good card if it only let you find Stun Bolts and Infrared Eyepieces, but no, it lets you find any of the very useful equipment cards in her deck.

Wraith is no slouch on damage - Razor Ordnance, Throwing Knives, and Microtargeting Computer, along with Utility Belt, allows her to belt out damage with the best of them. Smoke Bombs and Mega Computer both provide excellent defense, depending on the villain and environment.

Further, she has excellent card drawing - Trust Fund, Infrared Eyepiece, Grappling Hook, Impromptu Invention, all make sure she has at hand what she needs. Grappling Hook provides the necessary Ongoing and Environment control. Suture Self even gives her healing. I never find her without something interesting to do - in fact, I often accidentally skip some of the gratuitous draws, because she’s got enough to do! And don’t forget Throat Jab! Saved my skin against Plague Rat just the other day.

Drawbacks? Well, yes, she has to have equipment in order to do anything. But unlike Bunker or Zero, she has ways to protect her equipment - Infrared Eyepiece most importantly. She can go lean if she wants - the Eyepiece and Stun Bolts are great alone. Put them with a Utility Belt, and use Stealth if you must. Utility Belt is the basis of most combos, but Wraith contributes to the team effort really well if she only has one power. Impromptu Invention really helps her get back on her feet after something destroys all of her stuff.

She only has two other drawbacks I can think of - she can’t attack everything at once, and she’s overreliant on projectile damage. Those really only come up against a few villains, though. I’m confident putting Wraith as one of the very best heroes.

I am absolutely with you. The Wraith is the strongest hero.

Although she has been slightly downpowered in the Enhanced Edition. I’d still say she’s the strongest but she’s no longer in another league altogether.

We had a shining example of this last night. Two players (four heroes) vs. Spite in Insula Primalis (not that the environment matters much vs Spite).

Game 1: Wraith, AZ, Legacy, and Visionary (all randomly chosen). Spite flips drugs like CRAZY in his first couple of turns and utterly destroys us. As the Wraith player, the only time I see an Impromptu Invention is when Spite mills me with his toxic drug (which was his first play), and by the time I drew Stun Bolt it was way too late.

Game 2: Wraith, Tachyon, Haka, and Ra (specifically chosen to fight vs. Spite). I have Impromptu Invention and a Stun Bolt in my opening hand. I knew this game was going to be a cakewalk from the word go. Between Wraith (Stun Bolt, Throat Jab) and Tachyon (“1 damage to everything and they can’t do damage until her next turn”) I think he might have hit us for maybe ten damage total. Maybe.

We had a shining example of this last night. Two players (four heroes) vs. Spite in Insula Primalis (not that the environment matters much vs Spite).

Game 1: Wraith, AZ, Legacy, and Visionary (all randomly chosen). Spite flips drugs like CRAZY in his first couple of turns and utterly destroys us. As the Wraith player, the only time I see an Impromptu Invention is when Spite mills me with his toxic drug (which was his first play), and by the time I drew Stun Bolt it was way too late.

Game 2: Wraith, Tachyon, Haka, and Ra (specifically chosen to fight vs. Spite). I have Impromptu Invention and a Stun Bolt in my opening hand. I knew this game was going to be a cakewalk from the word go. Between Wraith (Stun Bolt, Throat Jab) and Tachyon (“1 damage to everything and they can’t do damage until her next turn”) I think he might have hit us for maybe ten damage total. Maybe.
[/quote]

This is totally awesome. Another reason why I feel like the theme really shines in this game is the unpredictability of things sometimes. In the first game, we see how the heroes can still get completely wiped out even with their best efforts and in the second game they can turn the table early and really stick it to the bad guy. Love it.

I played a game at one point versus the Chairman with Wraith. I started with an opening hand that had 3 Impromptu Inventions. I got Throwing Knives, Micro-Targetting Computer, Utility Belt, and drew into Stun Bolt as my fourth play… That was a silly game.

This is totally awesome. Another reason why I feel like the theme really shines in this game is the unpredictability of things sometimes. In the first game, we see how the heroes can still get completely wiped out even with their best efforts and in the second game they can turn the table early and really stick it to the bad guy. Love it.
[/quote]

Man, that first fight was agonizing. We selected everything at random, so before we started we knew we’d be in trouble as we didn’t really have any heavy damage output. So Plan A was to tuck as many victims as possible and hope that Spite didn’t flip a Break-in. Then his first three plays – over two rounds thanks to his extra card – were all drugs: the toxic/mill one, the +1 damage/bounce stuff one, and Mindphyre. He was clearly pissed off about something and he took it out on us instead of innocent victims.

Incidentally, it’s pretty much never worth it to actually save the victims.

The best strategy I’ve found is to let them fend for themselves until Spite has 5 drug cards and then save all of them. Or, if he hasn’t used his Forced Entry’s yet, then save as many as possible without playing cards from the villain deck, or you risk undoing all your progress.

Interesting. Spite doesn’t come up often enough in our random scenario generation, so we haven’t tried that yet.

My favorite characters to play are Tachyon and Ra. In one case I like dealing out a whole crap-load of cards with Tachyon while Ra always seems to have a decent hand. He never disappointed me.

I tend not to like Mr. Fixit or ABsolute Zero. For the former, I just haven’t played him enough, while for AZ, I still don’t know how to play him (though there is a guide in the works).

I’ve yet to try Matriarch, and Rook city. (I don’t know why I haven’t gotten to them yet!)

If it’s your first time playing them, just don’t try them together!

Word

I find Rook City the hardest of the environments, except Mars for equipment heavy characters. Rook City plays a ton of extra villain cards, at the worst possible time.

Yeah, Matriarch is pretty horrendous when played in Rook City. My friends and I have only ever beaten her in Atlantis, oddly enough.

My favorites to play are definitely Ra and Tachyon…

Ra- He ALWAYS manages to do steady damage. There are always god choices in your hand with Ra, and epic things always happen! (Big booms!) If ever there was a super consistent character against almost any villain, it is Ra. He WILL help you win with no drama or fuss. Granted, I love his super-awesome set-up, which looks to be much easier to get with alt. Ra!

Tachyon- I never get bored with Tachyon. I love the fast pace and the great powers. Getting rid of the environment and ongoing cards and doing MAJOR damage are both very helpful!

On story challenges, I have different favorites:

Visionary- I don’t like to play as Visionary, but her control can be VERY useful when trying for specific goals.

Haka- Savage Mana is a good plan sometimes.

My least favorites, due to play style and a big build up with not enough payoff, are Bunker and Expatriette. They really both annoy me…

Thus far I’ve become a bit of a Tachyon fanboy, although I try to mix it up as often as possible.
I’ve had the least positive experiences with Bunker, but I think that’s because I never draw anything heavy-hitting. I’ve never drawn Omni-cannon when playing Bunker.

I have that kind of issue with Haka - I have never been able to actually use Savage Mana in a game. I’ve seen others do wonderful things with it, but I’ve never done it myself. Very disappointing, but I’ve still had some fun games with Haka.

I have found that Expat actually has a pretty good payoff if you wait long enough. In our most recent game against Dawn, she did about half of Dawn’s health in one turn.

Not to mention that Unload is perhaps my favorite card to play ever.

well, vs dawn is a bit skewed in Expatriette’s favor…

I dunno, I feel she’s weak. Slightly weak, not terribly weak, just a little weak. Her weapons are quite good, Tactical Shotgun, Assault Rifle, Pride&Prejudice are all very great powers to have, and pretty much covers all situations. My problem is what to do after that.

I mean, seeing as how you can only use one power/turn (except for Unload, which I’ll get to in a second) playing extra guns that you’re not using is not especially fantastic. So if you’re not playing a gun, what are you playing? Well, usually its ammo, if you have it. But it gets used up so quickly and usually the ammo effects are only mediocre. I mean, take Hollow Points. If you put this on Pride or the Tactical Shotgun, its essentially a one-shot to deal 2 damage. Slightly different where buffs and debuffs are concerned, but similar at least. In other words, its pretty lackluster unless you can put the ammo on the SMG or the Assault Rifle. She has a ton of card draw problems, and Arsenal Access doesn’t help enough. It’s very difficult to get what you want… especially if what you want is Speed Loading or RPG Launcher.

There are basically 2 things expatriette can do after she’s got guns out. She can either play as much ammo as possible and blaze away, or she can play as many guns as possible and prep for a devestating Unload. The first way is only good if you have Speed Loading IMO, and the second way is very vulnerable to equipment destruction. Besides that, I’m not convinced that Unload is that great. Yes it can do a ton of damage in one turn, however in order to get there you must fill up a bunch of your previous turns with mediocre card plays.

In general, I agree with you. Expatriette is not necessarily the most effective character, plagued with card issues and too many powers that probably won’t do anything. However, that doesn’t stop me from getting this really stupid grin on my face when it’s time to play Unload.

Load is nice for prepping up, too, if the villain gives you time. (Like against Spite.)

Expatirette, Fixer, and AZ really, really need some way to “cycle” redundant limited equipment (MTG-speak for “discard to draw a new card”, for those not familiar). Oddly I don’t seem to have this problem with Bunker, but that might be a side effect of his additional card draw (and being able to stuff extras in the Omnicannon).

Ooh…a promo Expatriette with the power: Discard a Gun. If you do reveal cards until you get an ammo card. Put it in your hand.
Something like that would be great for her.

Oh, man, this would be SO cool.

On a related note, I had a game this past weekend where we had both Expatriette and Tempest in play. Both of them had their “hair-trigger reflexes” type card (where any non-hero target entering the battlefield took immediate damage) and I have to say combining the two is really quite terrific.

Er, which card does Tempest have that does damage whenever a target enters play? I mean, there’s Electrical Storm, which does each non-hero target 1 lightning damage at the start of each of Tempest’s turns, but that’s not exactly the same. Is that what you meant? confused

Yeah the only other card I can think of like that is Visionary’s Demoralize.

Technically Demoralize reduces the max HP by 1, and technically Enhanced Edition Demoralize won’t do either of those.

Yes, but without DR there are only a few cards that notice the difference. I can’t speak for how EE changes the rules, of course.

!!!

What!

All cards that changed maximum HP have been reworded. In the case of most cards that increased maximum HP, now it restores that much HP when the card is played. In the case of some cards, instead of increasing or decreasing maximum HP, it restores or deals damage at the start of that player’s turn.

“Demoralize” isn’t even the right word anymore.

I think it should be called
[quote=““Highlight this to get spoiler””]
PSYCHIC STORM
[/quote]

Heh, nice. (Both the use of the “spoiler” and the name. )

I really like keeping the name and flavor of Demoralization. I picture it less of her actively assaulting their mind, and rather with soft whispers whispering dark things and worst fears.

Absolutely! Hence the art.

Whenever I played Demoralization on Citizen Dawn I tend to picture The Visionary saying “haha, you’re daughter doesn’t have the gift but still can wipe out your entire army.”

so… percentage wise, how many of the cards from the base game have been changed, effect-wise?

Really wasn’t too many cards that changed. Everything in the Errata were the bulk of it. Really the only things that changed effect wise were the increasing and decreasing of max HP. Which JayMann already explained. Though almost all the Environment cards were changed (mostly just shortened) so that way the art could fit on there aswell.

I have been working on a very thorough answer to that question this week. Expect satisfaction within the hour.

Satisfaction granted. I’m reading up now.

Who-whadda-what-now?

Christopher posted a thread in the Rules and Gameplay area.

Aha! You are a true warrior of the three kingdoms, Rabit.

This is definitely not the order for my favorites. This is also just my opinion:

Best

Tempest (Does it all)

Wraith (Impromptu Invention and Infrared Eyepiece best two cards in the game)

Visionary (Plays at a different level than other heroes)

Legacy (Everyone is happy to see Legacy)

Nightmist (Far superior version of Absolute Zero)

Agent Ardept (Don't actually have much play time with him)

Unity (My favorite hero)

Haka (Good offense and good defense)

Ra (All he does is damage)

Tachyon (Inconsistent damage, but I love the flavor of her deck. I feel like a speedster)

Fanatic (Another deck with good flavor. Everything she has is great, but only at the right time. Her personality is being situational)

Bunker (Modes are just okay)

Absolute Zero (Had to make a house rule to be able to enjoy him)

Expatriette (No draw power means I can only use her innate power twice)

Mr. Fixer (Being okay at everything means not being good at anything)

Worst

My group likes tank characters.  It fits into our style, the games are long but we stablize fast and then build until we have the game well in hand.  Because of this Haka is extremely popular.  His healing and damage reduction have been invaluable, not to mention Ground Pound has won games more than once.  Legacy is usually the alternate Haka although I would say its just because people like Haka more, not that he is better.

Any character that has a choice of healing or damage such as AZ and Nightmist are very popular as well although they are much more susceptible to losing equipment or ongoing cards.

Tempest is crazy good.  In fact he has been so good in our games that some people won't play him anymore.

Visionary people are all over the place on.  Everyone recognizes her value but I wouldn't say she is popular to play.

Perosonally I like Fanatic even though she doesn't fit our group style as much.  I like her much more with the Promo version.

Expatriette has been the only diasappointment.  Basically (in our opinion) we feel she is a pure damage character that doesn't do great damage.  I think the might be the lack of one-shot damage cards.  For us Haka usually puts out more damage while tanking and Ra, Wraith, and Tempest just blow her away.  This has been unfortunate as we really like her flavor.

We had a game once where a combination of Legacy, Ra, and Expatriette (there was a fourth character but I can't remember who it was) totally kicked Gloomweaver's arse (or rather, the arses of all his followers) without actively having to do very much - Legacy buffed everyone, Ra had buffed himself and had Flame barrier out, while Expatriette had Hairtrigger Reflexes. So a cultist would come out and get shot for two or three damage instantly (buffed Hairtrigger). Then said cultist would deal some damage, starting with Ra, whose Flame Barrier would finish off said cultist, bringing out a Zombie...who'd promptly get insta-killed by Hairtrigger Reflexes :D.

i think that some of us should start writting down just how much damage we do each game with various characters.

I have a suspicion that Expat does good - possibly even better - damage than others, but being that its in small formats of 2, 3 at a time it doesnt /seem/ like it given the big hits some other characterscan dish out.

I had a game where Legacy and Expatriette almost totally invalidated a Forced Deployment. Expatriette killed something like 9 Minions with Hairtrigger Reflexes. Only the Guards and the Soldiers survived.

Don't the Guards give all Minions soak, or do they just have it themselves? I know First Lieutenant Tamar gives all of them +1 soak but of course, he's not a Minion.

Anyway, yeah, Expatriette is, I think, a pretty good, steady damage dealer, and with lots of options in order to change her damage type, hit multiple targets, or get past soak by using a more powerful weapon. She could pretty much solo-kill everything if assisted by various effects from people like Legacy and the Adept, letting her get more stuff out and deal more damage, and so on. I suppose it depends who you're fighting.

I think the terms best and worst don’t truly fit here. Simply because every hero has their use during any fight. It’s more a favorite/least favorite kinda thing.

My personal favorites are Legacy, Tempst, and Ra. Tempest is simply so versatile that he does a little of everything, but that same strength sometimes causes him to have cards he really doesn’t need at the time. Legacy is just a good tank and Ra can make toast out of nearly any villian.

My least favorite are AA and AZ. Not saying they are bad heroes, they just refuse to work for me. That and AZ has the one card I have not found a use for yet. The one where he switches the start and end of turn effects for villian cards. I see no real use for it.

It doesn't switch them, it moves the end of turn to the start of turn. It helps with villains like Voss whose minions act at the end of turn giving you a turn extra to deal with the before they pummel you.

It delays things, when the chairman plays a underboss, he wouldn't bring a minion from the discard pile until the start of his next turn, so if brought out soon enough it can make some battles a bit painless, not much because some things cant be killed in one round.

I used to think it was useless too, I used to just use it if our group thought we would need select ongoing destruction.

She

Really? How can you tell? I'm guessing it's in some fluff text somewhere that I just haven't read...probably at the bottom of Tamar's card, lol.

Mind if I point out that Tamar happens to have breast? She is also the only one out of the three Thorathian to have visible hair, long hair at that. My speculation is that for whatever reason men can't grow hair, or maybe their skin tight spandex cover it and they just keep it short.

I had a similar situation with Ra's Glare card (destroy target with 2 or less hp), simply because Ra can normally deal much more than two damage, it wasn't useful… until I took him against Apostate and started to burn the relics. 

Each character is a lot different in use and purpose.  Adept should never be the damage dealer and Haka is never support, but that doesn't make one better than the other, just better in one situation or another.  The reason I think that Fixer takes a lot of flack is because he looks like a damage dealer and just isn't.  Fixer either plays minion control or mini-tank when I play with him.  He's never really there to take out the boss.  Like-wise, when I play Ra, he normally targets the boss so directly, I could care less about minions except for collateral damage. 

Ah okay...I suppose I never looked at her pic that carefully, and anyway she's an alien - Tempest could be said to have long "hair" in the form of those tentacle thingys hanging down his head ;).

They do, but you can bring the Minions out in whatever order you want, and Expatriette kills them as they come out, so I brought all the Minions that weren't Guards or Soldiers out first so they wouldn't get the benefit of the damage reduction.

The only difficulty with this is when you're playing against Akash'bhuta. I was in a game earlier this week playing Nightmist where I did a total of 93 points of damage with one Oblivion, not counting the 2 each of the heroes took. Doing killing damage to 6 limbs that dealt 59 damage directly skews the numbers quite a bit. Still, that was the single most damaging attack I've ever done.

The thing about that is NightMist isn't dealing the damage to Akash'Bhuta when limbs are destroyed, it is Akash"Bhuta dealing damage to herself. So that wouldn't really have an impact if we recorded damage dealt from each character.

that

record it before double ups (including Bonus damage, from like Galvanize and so on)

Galvanize damage should, of course, be credited to Legacy.  Which is one thing that stands to make this somewhat complicated.  But I'll give it a try, when I remember, and have a bunch of extra time.  Only beatdowns for me today.  (Man, some of you are really looking forward to Iron Legacy.  Some of you aren't.)

Does this mean Ra's +1 should also go to him? Or Visionary's +1/-1 card?

I'm a little surprised to see people so down on Mister Fixer and Expatriette, especially in comparison to Argent Adept and Absolute Zero.

The nice thing about Fixer and Expatriette is that while they, like most heroes, are reliant on Ongoings and Environment cards, they both are able to recover easily.  Fixer needs three cards to function at a solid level:  a Stance, a Tool, and Harmony...and Harmony can even be forgotten in a pinch.  If the field is wiped by, say, Devastating Aurora, Fixer is back up and dealing damage within 2 rounds.  

Expatriette works similarly, as she can throw down cards out of her hand faster than almost any other character.  If she's out of cards she's pretty screwed, but then again, who isn't?    And for crowd control, she's right up there with Tempest--Hairtrigger Reflexes, the Assault Rifle, and Shock Rounds see to that.

The thing that frustrates me most with AZ is the fact that for the turns that you're trying to get set up--your Calibrator, your Focused Apertures, etc.--you're not doing anything worthwhile.  You might be healing yourself, or dealing damage 1:1, but it's just not worth the trouble.  Argent Adept has much the same trouble, but his comes in balancing Instruments and Songs.  Too much of one leads to not enough of the other, and a happy medium is hard to maintain.  

I readily agree that the potential of AZ and AA are much higher than almost any other hero, but those turns taken while getting set up come close to being wasted turns.  Heroes like MF, Expatriette, and even Bunker (if you can throw down Upgrade mode quickly) get on their feet much faster than certain other heroes, which means that damage output comes out faster, even if it's at lower values.

The Adept can be useful with just one card, though - one song, any song, and he can do something. And if he starts with no songs in hand, he's got several copies of Arcane Cadence which have a chance of being in the starting hand (and which in turn have a pretty high chance to turn up at least one song when played). Okay, so one song may not be hugely useful, but it depends on the song, and which other heroes are present, and which villain is being fought. Or even which Environment you're in (Sarabande of Destruction versus the Self-Destruct Sequence? Yes please!) ;).

Agreed, and that seems to be the biggest difference between him and AZ at our table:

Where Absolute Zero needs a very specific set of cards out in order to Anything without killing himself, Argent Adept can be functional from the start, even those his individual functions are generally lesser than that of any other given power.

My overarching point, though, was that during all that set-up time where AA and AZ are prepping huge combos of cards, Expatriette and Fixer are actually fulfilling their intended purpose--crowd control and damage.

The key words I notice is "without killing himself", AZ is all about killing himself. As pointed out in another topic is he really only needs two cards to function as well as others. Isothermic will always without a doubt be one of those cards. The other can be any card other than Null-Point and Cyro Chamber. Then he'll be more than capable of dishing out plenty of damage.

So  my main point is if your playing AZ in a manor of not trying to kill yourself than you are extremely limiting his ability.

Agreed. You gotta be willing to wreck him if you want to contribute! 

I guess that angle just comes down to personal preference.

I, and most of my group, would rather deal 4 damage and take 0 hp, than deal 6 damage and take 3 hp.  Yeah, the 6 hp is more 'optimal', but if you're bringing yourself closer and closer to death with each attack, how many times can you really pull that off?

And yeah, it's fine to take some damage when you're sitting at 20 HP, but when you're sitting on 3 hp, and your next attack takes you out?  There's nothing about that situation that screams 'fun' or even 'optimal' to me.  I feel that Nightmist doesn't run into this problem as much as AZ, given that she's given basic healing abilities by both her Equipment (Necklace) and her Ongoing (Master of Magic), rather than just one.  Her numerous Call Forth cards go a long way, too.  Yeah, if both get nuked she's screwed, but that's still the case with all heroes.

As usual, your milage may vary.  My group just finds it frustrating to build up and build up, going turns without being productive, only to have it all wiped away and have to work from scratch.  As you might imagine, Wraith and Ra get a lot of play at our table, as does Haka.  

That said, it's all kudos to the >G gang for building a game in which we can actually have this sort of argument/discussion.  It says a lot to their internal testing and revision, to catch the right feel for these heroes while simultaneously making them balanced enough that a character like AZ can simultaneously be viewed as the best and the worst hero.  

Yes.  Any hero boosts get credited to the hero doing the boosting.   Try not to think of corner cases.  Too late!

(Okay, Rook City Wraith flips Obsidian Field into play for everybody to use.  Is she responsible for that extra damage?  Okay, but only for that one turn, right?  What if she was using that power for several turns to try to find them?  Complicated.)  

Well said. And I add that, for me, they also did a wonderful job at giving each hero many different ways to be played, even if some tactics are far less obvious than others. I am often surprised to see, when I read how another player plays a hero, how differently we play or evaluate cards and powers !

Another thing about AZ and "self destruction capable heroes" : they still contribute to the fight when incapacitated, and there are some situations where you may want them to be incapacitated… I suspect I am not the only one who sacrificed Tempest so he could make everyone immune to Toxic damage in Pike laboratories, for instance (Tempest is not a "sacrifice" hero, I know, but this example is obvious I had to use it). It can be a winning move. And in a recent game, AZ "died" fast because he did not have his Null-point calibration unit, and finished the game fueling the powers of the other team members quite efficiently - or at least as efficiently as a one song Argent Adept.

I think our reactions to heroes playing "styles" are often a matter of taste and of "do I find fun to play this way" than strengths/weaknesses. Even if some heroes are more "limited in audience" than others.

The thing about AZ is that he can still do a lot of damage throughout a game even without the Focused Aperatures.  Of course, he can do more damage with them, but with just his basic setup of Null-Point Calibration Unit and Isothermic Transducer (and his deck provides ample opportunites to get these items and hold onto them) he can really contribute through the whole game. He just has such great role versatility that I have maybe only played one game out of the many times I have played with him where he hasn't been that productive, but I could say that about most heroes.  

Thinking on the topic further, something occurred to me in regards to my somewhat contradictory feelings on Nightmist and Absolute Zero.

Nightmist's healing is almost entirely passive.  Master of Magic rewards her with hp every time she casts a spell--something that she was going to do anyway.  Starshield Necklace lets her discard as an end of turn action for healing.  In no case is her basic routine of play-power-draw disrupted, while she still benefits from the healing.  Getting healed for doing the things you normally do is paramount efficiency, even if those basic actions cause you temporary harm.

How many enemies in the base game deal cold damage?  I can think of a couple--Voss's frost hounds, Citizen Winter--but not many at all.  If AZ wants to heal, it will nearly always cost him an action, either a power or a card play.  While fire-using enemies are more frequent, allowing AZ to spread around more damage, that still doesn't solve the overall hp problem for him.  Using his own actions for self-healing can work, but that hinges greatly on being able redirect damage off-turn, to say nothing of support from teammates.  

That active vs. passive difference for me is what makes the characters so different, and why I end up liking Nightmist while not ready caring for AZ.  I'd be interested in seeing how the Elemental Wrath AZ plays, in comparison to the base character.

Ab'Zero can get better healing if the Visionary is around. Okay so this requires him to have a whole extra hero in the game, but Twist the Ether on something that'll be dealing Ab'Zero lots of damage is very cool. Or Twist on Ab'Zero himself when you're against Plague Rat and Ab'Zero's been Infected - been there, done that, and the only reason Ab'Zero didn't finish the game on max hp was because he damaged himself in the final turn (with his base power) in order to then hit Plague Rat with the resultant cold damage :D.

Actually, Twist the Ether on Ab'Zero in any game is cool, 'cause it'd be like having an extra Focused Apertures and Cryo Chamber out as a two-in-one card :D.

When I'm playing with friends who want to try AZ for the first time, I'll often pick Visionary just to show them how ridiculous he can be. They are an exremely powerful combo. Also, AZ really shines with bonus damage because it increases his output by 2 and boosts the damage he does to the enemies over himself by 1. It also makes his healing actions more efficient.

I'll find with AZ I often do damage twice in a row and then switch to one heal and repeat the cycle when I need to be killing things fast, and do two heals and one damage in a cycle if we're in marathon mode. Yeah, you have to activate it, which feels slow, but if you have a few boosts in place your 3-7 damage per turn with breaks to heal up is still 2-4 damage per turn in the long run, which is normal for damage dealy characters, and then he has the added flexibility of healing for several turns or burning himself down to dish out crazy amounts of damage in short bursts if that's what you need.

With the self-harming characters (like Ab'Zero and Nightmist), I don't tend to have much of a problem burning through the hp until I get down to around 10-15 or so. At that point I consider myself "starting to get a bit low" and tend to put more of a focus on healing. Yeah, 10hp might seem like a lot, but if you're battling a high-damage villain (or a low-damage one who brings out a very nasty, harmful card), that can be reduced pretty quickly - a few hits and suddenly you realise you've lost about 8hp in one turn, for example.

I disagre entirely. Some heroes - Fanatic, Expatriette for example - do multiple small attacks. They become more powerful with Legacy around, and that should be reflected on /them/ (be like - game total damage 75 with Galvanize. Game b total damage 43) - because that doing multiple sources of damage is what /makes/ them so much more powerfull with just one or two +1 boosts, and that is a trait of them not of Legacy/ra/ect. 

I can kinda see where you're coming from, but still - you'd have Legacy only be responsible for the 4ish points of damage all game from that spare Thokk! he threw out, but ignore the fact that he played Inspiring Presence turn one and Galvanized every power phase?  You would say he contributed almost no damage?  If anything, it seems to me like it severely overvalues the damage that characters like Fanatic deal for this equation.  It's also not fair to the characters that contribute in a different way.

That's probably another reason nobody's posted about doing this yet.

Does Visionary get the damage for smacking Baron Blade around with a Monorail?   Does she also get all the damage to the Monorail?  Do environment targets even count?  Is Argent Adept credited damage for nuking spaceships with Cedistic Dissonant?  Is Fanatic credited damage for the "destroyed" part of Final Dive?  As I alluded to above, things can get really complicated.  I still plan to do something like this, but the specifics will likely depend on the situation.

true true and true flamethrower. Its not so cut and dried - which is why I still do not believe Expat and Mr Fixer are 'bad' in anyway XD. What they contribute to a game is not so easily noticed most of the time. 

I would say you just do a comparison for heros widely regarded as 'Damage' heroes (Fanatic, Ra, AbZero, Expat... ect) and go from there but even then- is Nightmist a Damage dealer? What about Tachyon? Building for those Lightspeed Barrages is the whole /point/ of her printed power XD

So... yeah :P In the end, its not something that can be reliably compared to for all heroes. Which is why the only factor of 'How many games have they won, vrs lost?" is the only way to compare, just becaues of the myriad of different possbilities and setups. Sucks, but it does show in the stats that Expat and Mr Fixer are right in the pack - ie, the 60-70% win rate range where, with a few exceptions such as Legacy who just dominates the charts - the majority of heroes fall. (to tie this all back around to ' are expat and mr fixer the worst heroes?)

Only reason I see giving those damage to Legacy interesting. As then we might have data to see the total damage difference contributed by Young Legacy versus Finest Legacy. 

I agree with the notion that this thread should be less of "greatest/worse" heroes, and more of who's your "favorite/least" favorite and why? And if you don't like a certain character, what would you do to make them better without overpowering them? And seeming how this thread was written before some expansions were even available, I'd really like to see how people's opinions have changed now that there are a few more expansions out with new heroes and villains.

There's been a lot of discussion about how you rate a character based on damage output per game, which is a common way to rate how good a hero is. Furthermore, the credit of extra damage from a buff wouldn't count towards a given hero benefitting from said buff, but rather counts toward the source of the buff, such as legacys galvanize or an obsidian field, thus playing a factor on how good a character actually is without assistance or outside influence. However, isn't that one of the points of playing the game? Looking at the villain/environment/hero combo and choosing a character that will play efficiently in that particular scenario? One such example is the observation that expat doesn't do nearly enough damage for being primarily a damage dealer. However, if you throw some damage buff and hair trigger on her, she ends up being a monster damage dealer (granted targets are being played via the villain or environment decks). That's just something to consider with her before playing, and I think her design is much more hinged on the team combination, rather than being self sufficient like other heroes, let's say Haka. The issue with haka is that he primarily pushes for one big attack per turn, via savage man or haka of battle. While he does a great job dishing it out on his own, because he often uses only one attack per turn, he doesn't benefit as much from a damage buff like expat would, simply because she would do multiple instances of damage per round (In a perfect world). Given the right circumstances, I think both would be dishing out as much damage as each other per game. And that's ONLY talking about the damage aspect of the game, which is not the worth of all heroes. So then what it really comes down to is your play style preference. And I believe that that's the balance of the game. If it all gives on just one hero every game, I don't think it'd be as fun.