Converted to the game... with great glee

Had my first few games this afternoon and I must say... best cardgame i ever played.

I love the fluff and i love a lot of the chars in there. (i'm a big fan already of Bunker, Absolute Zero and Ra)

But above all the ease and simplicity of the rules.

Played 4x. 2x Omnicron, 1x Baron Blade and 1x Ambuscade.

Unlike a lot of people Omnicron was a serious challenge to us and we didn't defeat him at all.
Baron Blade and Ambuscade we took down though.

In any case I'm definately going to follow this range as it develops.

Fantastic. Welcome to the game and to the forums.

Good to have you here, bro. Don't worry about it; Omnitron can be tricky at times.

I could see how Absolute Zero worked quickly. i've played tons of cardgames over the years: Magic, Battletech, Warhammer Invasion, Dragonball Z, Lotr LCG,...

But he's hard to get going, very hard especially when playing with 2 and you each only play 1 hero.

Bunker is easy and cool. Ra is ridicuoulously easy to get going.

But we were above all surprised by Unity. My friend played her and she's insanely good if you manage to spam those drones...

Right up until some serious Area damage wipes her out XD - But welcome to the game! I recomend if you only have 2 players playing 2 heroes each

Yep that's what we did the 2nd game. But the fourth game we only used 1 each again :)

Played three games since last time. Once more a game against my brother. And then today 2 more games.
Ambuscade got defeated once more today. Voss however... whooped our (beeps) with casual ease :)

I must say Bunker, Expatriette (sp?) (the gunslinger) and Silver Argent are all three excellent chars.

 Thematically I like them all.  Most people agree that Bunker and Expatriette are two of the weakest characters in the game currently, while Argent Adept is one of the strongest.   I encourage you to try all the heroes multiple times and find out who you like.    I think I'm the only one here (on the forums) who counts Fanatic as among their favorite characters,  but I just think she's awesome.  Tempest is very fun for me too.

You're not the only Fanatic Fan, awp! As for Bunker and Expatriette, I don't think they are weak. Maybe less versatile than other heroes, maybe more focused, but they outshine other heroes often in my games.

DarthVegeta800 : the fun just begins ! The more you'll play, the more you'll find yourself in amazing situations. There are few things more fun than seeing Absolute Zero slowly destroy Citizen Dawn while the rest of the team is incapacitated :)

Bunks is my favorite character. I wouldn't say he's weaker so much as more specialized. He's at his best when fighting a villain with multiple targets. He's heavily shutdown through equipment destruction, but so is AZ, Wraith, and Ex-Pat. I have the most success with him against Voss, Gloomweaver, the Organization, and Akash. Bunker was the first hero I played so I"m a little biased to that. Anyway, glad to see another person converted to the game. Save the Multiverse, buddy.

Im a huge Fanatic fan too, especially after i reread that one card of hers that does damage at the start of every turn... and realized every deck has a turn, to make up a round o.o

I blew the hell outta apostate the other day dealing a totaly of 24 damage (without her nuke card) by the time it got back around to me. yay +damage boosts.

And i really really like Expatriette. I find that sometimes she feels a little under for damage delt for a primarily damage dealing hero? but she more than makes up for it in the versatility

Fanatic can own against Apostate. You just want to make sure you have other heroes with high HP that can take some hits for her. Also, have her focus on Apostate while the rest of the team deals with the relics and demons. That tactic usually works pretty well for me.

yea we were talking about that. The team of heroes goes to face Apostate. They start attacking his minions and planning strategy and... then..

FACE THE WRATH OF GOD, HELLSPAWN!!! - ... as fanatic goes rushing by to engage Apostate directly.

While Fanatic is not my absolute favorite, sometimes I don't feel like dealing with "tactics" or "planning" and just want to beat the crap out of someone. Those times, I play Fanatic.

That's when I play Ra.

I always try to play as whatever character people are currently saying is underpowered. That just makes me want to find out that character's secret strengths more! I just finished proving to my group that Mr. Fixer is really awesome. He's no heavy hitter or amazing support hero( most of the time), but he has the right tool for any sort of odd job you might need done in style. It's like he's part mechanic and part martial artist!(!!) Too much DR? Start using irreducable damage. Taking a bunch of small hits? Start redirecting them. Not taking small enough hits? Start reducing enemy damage or giving DR to yourself. Got a bunch of targets? Getting forced to damage hero targets? Start hitting all non-hero targets instead. Got only a couple targets? Hit two at a time with extra damage. Do damage types matter? Do you need a +1 to damage? You can change types and deal extra. Is landing finishing blows important? Equip something that lets you destroy anything you hit if it's left with low health, maybe adding on a damage-increasing style to help you. Want to make Mr. Fixer play a very silly game? Play him in one of the new ST environments, hope for a certain card to come into play, then put into play every single tool and style simultaneously! Hard to accomplish, but pretty hilarious!

I'm thinking Expatriette will be my next prove-them-wrong project. I'm sure I can do some interesting things with guns and ammo if I think outside the box...

One of the things I love best about the game is that the characters' decks have the potential to get better as the player gets better. Even the 'simpler' characters (e.g. Ra) can get more awesome once you figure out quirks to their decks (e.g. turning the staff of ra into a retrievable thrown weapon or exploiting the Ra/AZ synergy). 

I think Expattriette's versatility comes in particular handy against Citizen Dawn (I wonder why that might be....)

My group generally has really good success with Chick Fury, as she's known in my group. There are times when it can be frustrating to play as her, but once you get some guns and some ammo she can be a  force to be reckoned with.

I love Expatriette for her ability to be set up in one turn. With card draw support she is so awesome it hurts.

But that's the thing, she needs card draw support more than any other hero. Some heroes just need good teammates more than others.

That being said, I have seen all 15 heroes pull off an epic move. Every hero can have their moment to shine and that's why I love this game.

I certainly am not one of those people. Expatriette FTW. You just have to learn good ammo manipulation.

Fanatic is definitely my favourite character. She has a great look, and some awesome cards, like End of Days and Zealous Offence. And of course she can do stupid amounts of damage. I had a game the other day where my first 8 cards included Absolution, Sacrosanct Martyr, Aegis of Resurrection, 2 * Smite the Transgressor and Wrathful Retribution. It was a bit wasted because it was against Ambuscade, but man that was a silly amount of damage I could do.

THIS. SO MUCH THIS. Maybe they're not all balanced, but whatever. Doesn't doesn't really matter becuase they're all fun and in the right circumstances any one of them can be MVP.

Seconded!

I'm curious, for those of you saying that Bunker/Expatriette are NOT the weakest characters in the game...  name someone who you feel is less powerful.

Less powerful in terms of pure strength or application?

i'm not sure what distinction you're trying to draw here.    You'd need to be more specific for me to answer your question..  What I meant is...  in general.   

Suppose you are playing a new villian that you have never played before, and you know absolutely NOTHING about them except that "they are very difficult to beat".    You have no other information.      for one reason or another, you REALLY want to win this game.   There's a million dollars on the line or something =p.      Which hero/ heroes are you least likely to take in this game?   Who is below bunker/expatriette on the list? 

That is what I mean by weakest hero, I suppose.   

Well, that's a very specific scenario, but under those terms.....

I wouldn't bring Absolute Zero until I know about his damage types and/or equipment destruction.

I wouldn't bring Unity until I know about his AE damage ratio.

I probably wouldn't bring Visionary until I knew whether or not manipulation really helped.

I probably wouldn't bring Tachyon until I knew whether or not he had minions.

I think my power team at this very moment would be:

Argent Adept for Sarabande of Destruction and his ability to buff others.

Ra for consistent damage.

Expatriette for consistent damage and Ongoing/Envrionment destruction.

Right now, probably The Scholar, for reasons I can't talk about on this forum.

I wouldn't say any of the heroes are weaker than any other. All of them have situations where they shine or don't. There have been multiple people my group introduced to the game who didn't like Tachyon when they first played her, I wasn't her biggest fan either. I gave her a couple more tries and grew to really like her. Against a new enemy, I would probably take a team consisting primarily of characters who have inherent damage powers, just in case there are targets I need to destroy. The only two I would make exceptions for is the Argent because Sarabande of Destruction is one of the most useful cards ever, and maybe Visionary because she's like a swiss army knife.

yes, well lets not add heroes that aren't released yet into the equasion, ok?

I dont think its a specific scenario,   no, on the contrary that scenario was designed to be as general as possible.  If I said a specific villian it would just open the door to "Yeah well this hero is good against this villian, this hero is not good against this villian."    I'm talking about general strength here.   In a take all-comers sort of way.    If you don't like that scenario,   what if you were going to play every (released) villian, in a row, and you cant change your team?  (with similarly high stakes, you want to win as many games as possible)

You're telling me that your top 3 hereos in that respect are Argent Adept  (solid choice), Ra (another solid choice) and Expatriette?   Are you even serious?  Tempest outperforms expatriette in every scenario that I can think of.   Why not him?   why not legacy with his massive team buff skills?   Why not Tachyon with her unparallelled nukeing ability and Hypersonic Assaults?   Why not wraith with her easy acess to rediculous damage, stun bolts, smoke bombs, and the eyepice? (Wraith is another hero that outperforms Expatriette on every level)    Why not Haka with the ever-useful Savage Mana?   Why not Visionary, the best villain manipulator in the game?    What makes you put expatreitte on your "power team"?       So… to be clear,   you think that every released hero, with the exception of Argent Adept and Ra, are weaker than expatreitte?

No, I don't think they're weaker.  That's kind of the whole point of this discussion.  I personally think they're all roughly equal and some shine in various situations.  I love taking Haka (Savage Mana) to Matriarch or Chairman or Voss, but in other scenarios, I don't think he's as strong.  He doesn't have any Ongoing or Environment destruction.  He's just not as versatile.  The main reason I would take Expatriette is that with 1 card (Tactical Shotgun) she can deal 4 damage on turn 1.  With another 1 card (Assault Rifle), she can deal 2 damage to 3 targets on turn 1.  Even Wraith takes 2 cards (Impromtu Invention and Throwing Knives) to pull that off.  Similarly, if Wraith is hit with an equipment wipe, she will take rounds to recover.  Expatriette just puts down a new gun and keeps on plugging.  Shes also got RPG Launcher, which provides the same utility as Grappling Hook, with some damage tied on.  Don't even get me started on Hairtrigger Reflexes.

Do I think Expatriette is stronger than lots of other heroes?  No.  But what she lacks in raw power, she makes up for in very low startup time.  Play gun.  Fire Gun.  Easy, peasy.

I like Ex-Patriette, and I've had some really good games with her. Even though she's heavily relient on equipment, that equipment itself can be useful against a wide variety of situations. The Tactical shotgun is the only card with a power that does a base of 4 damage. She has other guns that can attack multiple targets and ammo that can reduce damage. She also has cards that allow her to retrieve equpiment should they be destroyed. There's a wide variety of things she can do that make her a good choice for any team. The only reason she wouldn't be in my top pick for an unknown villain is that I don't know about equipment destruction, that being said, I would be hesitant to bring heavy equipment users to an unknown villain fight, and that includes Wraith. I don't really like to say which heroes are weaker and stronger simply because I've been in games where I was a character like Ra and someone else was Mr. Fixer, or AZ, or Ex and they ended up contributing way more to the war effort than I did. Whichever heroes do the best for you is really more dependent on personal preference or style. 

I know everyone is good in certain situations.

I know expatriette has good games.

I know even powerful heroes have bad games.

I know a lot is dependent on player skill/experience.

It's not that I don't like Expatriette and Bunker.   It's not that I don't enjoy playing them.   It's not even that I think they're not "good."   BUT.....     in general, just about everyone else is better.  I'd place them both in the bottom 4.     Try it sometime.    Just take a look at your hero box and rank them 1-15 in terms of their relative usefulness in ALL possible games (they must be able to deal with any villian,  work well in any environment, regardless of who is or is not on their team).  Some of them are close,   you'd might waffle whether (for example)   Ra or Tempest is the better hero.   Each of them have their merits.  All I'm saying is that you'll probably find that certain heroes like Legacy, Tachyon, Wraith, maybe Argent Adept in the hands of a skilled player, are going to be towards the top of that list.    And Bunker and Expatriette are probably going to be near the bottom.

when we fight a new Villain its iether

a) Take your favorite (which has little in our group to do with power and more to do with how we prefer to play the game - That usually means in a 4person game its Argent, Nightmist, Tachyon, and Fanatic) or 

b) Build a solid team (One Deck control, one buffer, one damage, one tank - so like Visionary/Wraith, Legacy/Adept, Ra/Tempest, Bunker/AbZero)

c) Or use the randomizer and go!

My playgroup may dissagree with me, but I don't find any one of the heroes any more weaker than any other. I find them all /situationally/ weaker or stronger, but I wouldnt classify such and such deck as weaker in general terms than any other deck. 

I /dislike/ playing as AbZero ... but only cause I didnt like his base power. His Elemental Wrath version probably will have me liking him sooo much more when I get a chance to try him out.  But even beyond that I don't really stop playing anyof them. I almost always use the randomizer before a game unless we're gunning for someone - even if they dont follow it it gives me a random choice of a hero. I switch around who I'm playing all the time, though Fanatic is my favorite.

I disagree that they'll always be at the bottom four. The fact that there are situations where they perform better than heroes you'd consistently put at the top means that they are incapable of always being at the bottom. Context is everything, and in this game, the most important thing is having the right team for the job. It's like not valuing your safecracker because your guy with explosives can also open the safe, but then the cops surround and capture you because instead of making traps and blowing a way out for everyone to escape he was busy blowing up the safe. Yeah, your safecracker is really only good for opening the safe, but you NEED him or her specifically to get the job done efficiently.

See tho… Tis is a Coop game. Your -ment- to play it  with a team. Thats how it was balanced, thats how it was created in design intent. Saying that on their own Expatriette isnt good against all comers without taking into account her support is a bit of a misnomer… She is never going to be alone in a proper game. She is going to always have her friends along, and they are always going to be providing some sort of support.  Is Expatriette better with the right team? Hell yeah. Have I seen Expatriet without any carddraw support still wipe the floor against villains? Sure have.  Thats the -other other- thing. The game is basec around a psuedo randomizing factor that is Decks. How one draws into their cards is going to effect how well they do in a game. You could put Argent Adept on the top but if fate contrieves and he never draws an instrument or one of his deck cylcing cards… hesin trouble! (As what happened to me the very first game i played with him), in that same vein of thought if Expat draws into Pride, Pred, Hollow Points and Speed loading on her first turn, daaaayuuummm the baddy is in for a hell of a lot of pain.  Between teammate synergy and deck randomization factors, heroes work better or worse, so Its (in my humble opinion) impossible to classify any one as inhereintly weaker than another

Also, Bunker in the hands of a skilled bunker player who isnt just waffling for the Omni cannon beatdown, is going to do some -serious- damage. Especially those not afraid to jump in and out of modes to make things work. Ive seen some pretty insane bunker days where Grenade Launcher and one of his other weapons are all he was working with. Skilled player being the words you used, so I used them as an example here.

And finally! One of the things Ive taken to heart is what Christopher said in a late podcast. Every playgroup he encounters has diffrent opinions on heroes and villains based on their playstyle. What one group considers a weak hero is strong in another group because of the way they play the game. I can see which heroes are 'weaker' in our group based on our playstyles, but I also know that with the right person coming in they anturn that hero int a strong one suddenly just by understanding them and their style much better. Hence my opinion that not any one hero is weaker than any others inherentily

I could say something like that :

Tachyon only does one point damage except for a few cards : weak if villains have any kind of damage mitigating effect.

Legacy depends on card draw to do any kind of regular damage by himself.

Wraith needs to have multiple cards down to be useful, or hides in a corner.

Mr Fixer is the only hero that can make all his attacks irreducible damage. And attack all ennemies at once. Or kill an heavily armored ennemy without even having to reduce him to 0 hp.

Expatriette's Shotgun is better than any other single card attack power. Assault rifle is the same for all one card three target powers. Compare card by card, power by power and she is at least equal to  any other hero, often better.

You can "rank" heroes by looking at only a few parameters. You can't rank them if you look at all parameters.

In your scenario, awp, Mr Fixer would be one of my choices. He can adapt his base power to any situation, and can help all other heroes to get back lost equipment cards - perfect if you don't know what an ennemy is capable of.

Your mileage may vary. If you're used to play a given hero, you see all his awesomeness. If you are not, you see his failures.

Yeah, me, too.

Omg we had a really epic game earlier - Ab'Zero and Visionary versus Plague Rat. I was thinking "I'll play Ab'Zero so I can heal myself, since Infection and his end-of-turn attack can whittle us down pretty well". First Infection card to come into play, I took. Then Visionary had Twist teh Ether come up. And OMG it was EPIC. So, Twist the Ether on Ab'Zero. Nul-Point Calibration Unit. Infection damage changed to cold damage. Therefore auto-heal at the start of my turn. Every turn for the rest of the game :D. Twist the Ether also helped a lot to boost Cold Snap and the one copy of Impale that turned up during the game. I finished up on 26/29hp, and only because in my final turn I used my innate power on myself to deal three fire damage (one plus another one for each of the two copies of Twist the Ether that were on me by then), then do the resulting cold damage (caused by Isothermic Transducer) to Plague Rat, who had two or three hp left by then. Woot, that was most fun :D.

Anyway, to chip into this discussion I'll agree with those who say that every hero can be uber in their own way, and can also be crap as well, from time to time, depending on the situation. Some more than others - for example, Expatriette is gonna suffer a lot more from equipment destruction than Tachyon, but then she has plenty of cards that let her get out more guns and stuff so she can recover pretty quickly. Some heroes are pretty good by themselves, while others are dependent on having team-mates around to help them. Which, of course, they'll always have since unless you're playing solo that's kind of the point of the game ;). And some heroes just work even better in a particular combo, if you can get the right cards out (see above ;)).

Just because everyone can be awesome in their own way doesn't mean some heroes don't inherently have an advantage.  I agree that, in my experience, Bunker and Expatriette consistently perform at a lower level than some other heroes.  It's possible I share opinions with awp because we play together a lot.

That said, I have an anecdote.  I had arranged two other people, and they wanted to fight Voss.  I don't remember who they chose, but they weren't big damage characters.  One might have been Tachyon.  For some reason or another, I was choosing between Haka and Expatriette.  I was going to use Expatriette, but one of the others insisted I choose Haka, possibly due to some perceptions about Expatriette's strength.  We fought tooth and nail throughout the game, and came pretty close to a victory, but the deciding factor was likely that we had to tolerate one of the Dreadnaughts for several rounds, partly because our main damage dealer, Haka, couldn't hurt it.  In the post-game dissection, the player who had told me to use Haka said, "You should have used Expatriette!"  

I don't know how much that has to do with the conversation.  But we laughed.

I'd second that many heroes are dependent on their team mates to show their true power. Fanatic is a good example - with damage boosts from other players (Ra, Legacy, etc) her base power becomes ridiculous.

In the case of the original Power team proposed by broccoli, I think the strength of Expatriette is that Argent Adept is on the team. I can't think of any hero who consistently has more to gain from out-of-turn powers and card play. Her ammo is what makes her go from just okay to really really good, but it's hard to be using much ammo when you're working with just your own turn. If AA can give you out of turn card play (assuming some way to improve your card draw), then you can actually make use of double-loading Pride and Predjudice.

Thinking of a solid, take all-comers team, I think you could do worse than having Expatriette and AA as a couple. Fill the team out with Leader Tachyon and Youngest Legacy, and you've got most of your bases covered. (Visionary gets an honourable mention, but deck stacking mechanics are no good if you're playing a villain for the first time and don't know their cards)

I think my favourite out of turn plays for Argent Adept are Grease Gun, Overdrive/Salvage Yard, Prayer of Desperation, and Zealous Offence, although he's good for any slow-build Hero. Expatriette does really like the extra card draw from the Accompany text on Counterpoint Bulwark, though.

Okay, sorry I lost track of this thread. I've been looking for it because I like this discussion.

You've got some good points, awp832. And honestly, I'm having trouble thinking of a defense for Expatriette. But really, I can't rank any of the heroes. They can all be good, and they can all be bad. I'm in favor of Expatriette because I like her, and I've seen her be good, and I know she can be better once I get the hang of manipulating the ammo better. But you can argue weaknesses for just about every hero. And like lynkfox said; you gotta take into account the co-op aspect of the game. Expatriette can get to hitting things pretty quickly compared to other heroes that take more set up. If you need immediate action, she's the way to go. That's why her base power allows an extra card played. I guess it's hard for me to look at the heroes objectively without teams. But I just like her.

 my one complaint for Expatriette out of the gate is Load.   It's a good power,  it's not particularly strong in the beginning.   If you have Tactical Shotgun in your opening hand, you can get to work quickly.   Assault Rifle can do the same depending on the villian you are up against.    But if it takes you a while to get the shotgun, then by the time you get it than 4 damage doesnt seem so impressive anymore, when compared to what other heroes are doing.  Same goes for after an equipment wipe.

In  a perfect world, when your team has built up a little bit and you have your shotgun/rifle out, that's about the time that your ammo SHOULD be kicking in to high gear.    But that often gets stalled as well.  Without Speed Loading, you have no reliable way to keep yourself stocked full of ammo,  with speed loading you're not making your way through your deck.    I suppose you could use Speed Loading and NOT use the part of it that lets you replace an ammo card on top of your deck,  it might be worth trying, but I dont know if it would work out.   But she has no reliable way to actually *get* to speed loading.  Or Unload.   The two cards that make the character powerful and neither can be searched for with Arsenal Access.   Nor can she depend on large amounts of card draw to garuntee that she eventually picks one of these strong cards up (the way Fanatic can). 

She can play well with others, I'll give her that.   If you have someone who lets people draw cards all the time (team leader tachyon) and/or someone who lets others use powers out of turn (Argent Adept) then she could shine.   But you have to ask yourself,  "Okay, So I'm letting her use powers and draw a lot more cards here... but is she doing better than say,  Ra or Wraith might be, if I had them on my team instead and was letting them draw cards and use extra powers?"   The answer in my experience is ususally 'no'.

see, the issue i have with your statements awp is the same issue i had when I used to play wow - Just because you're not doing the max damage possible every turn (Ie, just cause you arent leading the DPS meters) doesnt mean you arent useful, and doesnt mean that you are inhereintly weaker than anyone else.  It may mean you arent doing as good as you could be doing, or any number of other things, but in a team situations its really annoying to judge someone because they aren't putting out their max damage right away. ((Yes yes, dps meters can be a good tool, but they shouldnt be the end all end all of comparison... and im getting off topic)

I played expat last night in a playtesting game. Sure I got Tac shotgun out in the first turn, and it was nice. I also lost it in the second villain turn, and was reduced to the assault rifle. Did it suck to loose out the shotgun so quickly? Yeah. Did I still manage to be effective and between Argent Adept and Nightmist did we win? Heck yeah. Its not about who can do the -best- its about can you work together to win. And while some hereos have some limitations to how effective they can become, they are none the less /useful/ and if worked right with your teammates (no matter who they are playing, but properly aiding one another) All can do the job.

Is some combinations harder than others? Most certainly.  But that is an added challenge. Is working together the name of the coop game? Heck yeah.  Are you going to have an easier time against certain villains with certain hero combinations? Certainly. Does that inherently make another hero weaker? I do not think so. You stack the deck (metaphorically, selecting a certain team agianst a certain villain) and certain heroes are going to shine more than others in that situation. I do not think that because in some situations where you make sure everything is lined up right and heroes can shine makes any other hero who doesnt shine outside of those situations weaker. Just more reliant. 

Talking about DPS meters, it would be interesting to keep track of all damage done by each hero in a number of games and look at Expatriette's rank after enough games. I bet she would be higher than what most people think. It was the same thing in WoW : doing big damage once in a while is impressive and marks memories, doing good damage all the time is less visible - but you end up in the first places on the DPS meter at the end. Expat is a reliable damage dealer, in my experience.

It works for Bunker too : a fully charged Omnicanon at the end is impressive. Flak canon or grenade launcher each turn is more efficient. Especially if there are multiple low hp targets.

I honestly think Quick Draw should let you draw a card, and Arsenal Access should let you put both equipment cards into play or in hand. Neither of those are changes that would make Expatriette overpowered, and they'd do something about her big weakness. And Load is a good Power, but at the same time Expatriette basically makes worse use out of it than almost any other character would.

I totally agree about Arsenal Access. For the longest time, I thought that was what the card was supposed to do, so I always took both. Recently I realized that's not what it does, and I really don't like that. If it got you two equipment cards, it'd make her much better so she didn't have that problem taking too long to get both guns and ammo. It'd much more help to contribute to the idea that Expatriette (I think) is supposed to be able to get to doing damage quickly, so more people would like her.

In Alex's playgroup, for reference. I was probably the biggest non-believer about Mr. Fixer and Expattriette, and that was due to some extremely, extremely unsatisfying games when I got Rook City. Seeing Alex play Mr. Fixer was enlightening, though, and the other night we had a game where Expattriette was using Speed Loading to always have ammo, and Argent Adept to let her draw and play other cards, as well as using Vernal Sonata and the like to give her more Unloads.

Load can be used defensively too. Play ammo cards to get ready for equipment wipes and protect other heroes' equipment. Only applicable to villains that wipes (H) equipments. Useless against Devastating Aurora.

I didn't say that.    Actually I fully agree with your statement.   Some of the best heroes IMO are Legacy, Visionary, and Argent Adept, all of which have low personal "dps" but high potential team benefits.

But in Expatriette's case,  what does she do besides damage?  The answer is not much.   She doesn't have any cards that directly help other players.   The best she's got is RPG launcher.  so in other words, Expatriette is a nearly pure dps character, with 3 ongoing destroyers in her deck.   In this case, DPS is actually a VERY good judgement of how strong this character is.    

Compare Expatriette to Wraith:   Wraith has either 3 or 4 ongoing destroyers in her deck, I forget how many grappling hooks there are.   Anyway,  so she's on equal footing or maybe slightly ahead in the ongoing/environment control department.    Since that is equal, Expatriette can claim no advantage.   So then who has the higher dps?  Wraith does.   Therefore; Wraith > Expatriette.      And that's utterly ignoring the fact that Wraith DOES have team utility in her deck, in the form of Eyepiece and Smoke Bombs.

You can do the same with Tempest.    Expatriette has 3 RPG launchers, Tempest has 2 flash floods and 2 ball lightnings.   Roughly equal in terms of ongoing/environment control.    So who has better DPS?   Tempest does.    Expatriette loses big time because again, Tempest a lot of useful non-dps things in his deck which Expatriette simply lacks.   He has villian control, he has team healing, he has card drawing, he has trash retrieval.   So Tempest > Expatriette.

Tempest and Wraith are one of the few that can heal :) 

not sure how valuable that is in this discussion.

What about Legacy, Bunker, Argent Adept, Redeemer Fanatic, Nightmist, Absolute Zero, and Haka?

Oh I was referring to AWP's post.

Whoops forgot Wraith only heals herself. I meant it as in group heal*.

Think the only heroes capable of group heal is All 3 Legacy (Greatest best at healing),  Tempest, Argent Adept, do not remember about ReedemeerFanatic and someone i probably forgot.

I will concede to your point, Awp: Expatriette is one of the weaker heroes. Truth be told, I've never had her be the "star" of any game.

Does that mean I don't like playing as her? Not at all. I'd love to play as her more and maybe have a few good games with her. I mean, I hate Absolute Zero, but I see his value. I guess it just depends on who you like.

I have seen some amazing improvement on Fixer's deck over the past few villains that have been released, and I can only imagine that Expatriette's deck will get a similar treatment as the game grows.

I don't necessarily think that comparing heroes to Wraith and having them come up short means that the hero is weak, considering how OP Wraith is.

I mean, Expatriette feels a little unversatile compared to a lot of the other heroes. If I had to rank them by effectiveness I'd put her on the lower end, but it's not like she doesn't pull her own weight. I've had games where Hairtrigger Reflexes alone was worth bringing her along. Considering that the villains are clearly meant to vary in strength, as long as they're fun to play I'm kind of okay having the heroes vary in strength as well.

Does anyone else feel a little bad that someone's "I'm new to the game! Hi!" thread got hijacked for this debate?

A little bit, yes.

Well thats comparing DPS to Healers and Buffers - my smilie breaks down at that point.

She has some great utility. its masked into her damage.

Nitro rounds can save your team from quite a bit of damage - especialyl if you dump it on Submachine gun with a lot of minions in play - potentially saving a lot of damag ea turn. 5 villian targets doing damage? 5 damage saved. If any of t hem hit multiple targets? +1 for each target. It can easily reach up to the double digits in saved health. In this game where damage is so prevalant Damage Reduction/Prevention is much more powerful then healing.

Shock rounds though not the best ammo in her deck, is a nice way to dump an area amount of damage on her off a single attack gun. Give a damage buff or two and you can wipe the board with a single shot of Pride or Prejudice

Pride+Prejudice means you can do both a specialty shot for utility (Nitro for isntance) and damage something. You can also reliably hit two targets with armor with these two. The combination of this and Unload? Means you can play an ammo even on the turn you Unload (Unload, have x powers, but to activate pride and prejudice you only use one power activation. Therefor you can use Load to play an ammo on one of your other guns. These two guns give her a ton of utility in how she applies her damage to targets. Yes Wraith has Throwing knives+targeting computer to reach similar damage, but she doesnt get to use the utility that ammo can provide in the same situation.

I would indeed like to see an overall Damage per Game chart with expat. I did that once in a DnD4th game where i was getting made fun off cause i wasn't doing the big hits everyone else was. Turns out I was putting out more constant overall damage every fight thent hey were.

I'm willing to bet that she will be putting out comparable damage in most sitations, and in the right ones (Against minion decks) she can put out a lot more.

It happens. This is a real forum experience. Tangents!

hehe I was just thinking that myself.

But I also am thinking I may be going a step further than necessary. I bow out for this one. I respect your opinion awp and keep to mine!

You just reminded me of something that came up in a solo game with Expatriette…

SO, y'know how an Ammo card's bonus takes effect when a gun card's power is used to damage a target, and is destroyed after the power is used? So, f'rinstance, Liquid Nitrogen Rounds weaken every target their gun damages? Well, by that same logic, are Shock Rounds actually the most powerful bullets if put in a gun that hits multiple targets? Let's say there are 5 non-hero targets out. She shoots them all with Submachine Gun loaded with Shock Rounds. That means she zaps all non-hero targets for each of the 5 times she hits one of them! In other words, she doesn't deal 1 projectile and 1 lightning to everything— she deals 1 projectile and 5 lightning to everything! Give her a +1 to damage, and that's 2 projectile and 10 lightning! I wasn't sure if I was thinking about this the right way at the time, so I just had the Shock Rounds go off once. But thinking about it now, I think Expatriette just got a lot more interesting. I gotta try this…

I've made the same mistake, too.

Shock Rounds is written differently from the ammo cards. It's subtle, but there is a difference.

Incendiary Rounds increases damage for every instance of damage that gun does.

Hollow Points increases damage for every instance of damage that gun does.

Liquid Nitrogen rounds reduce damage for every thing it hits.

Shock Rounds do 1 damage to everything on the field then are destroyed.

Detailed here:

https://sentinelsofthemultiverse.com/forum/topic/expatriette-shock-rounds-and-submachine-gun

Oh. So the freezy rounds work this way because they say "AFTER that card's power is used to damage a target…" but the Shock Rounds don't because they say "WHEN that card's power is used"?

Awww… that's no fun.