An attempt to make hero ratings, or a great excuse to argue?

I tried a while ago to make a rating system for heroes, and it got complicated, well today I finished it.

I wanted to rate them in ways that showed how they contribute to a fight, and reflect their strengths and weaknesses; not come up with a conclusive list that shows what hero is the best.

I judged them in 4 categories:

Offense

Defense

Support

Mechanics

Each category I broke down into four parts, and gave each part a 0-5 rating, then for a rough overview added up each category.

The original spread sheet is RIGHT HERE.

Each graded part might not be clear as to what I was grading, so here is a basic explanation:

Offense:

Relieable damage: Given 2 cards in play, how many different combos deal damage, and how effectively (early game and small set up)

Damage Boosting:  increasing damage dealt, yours and others (bonus for boosting others)

One Shots:  Damage dealt by one-shots

High End Damage:  With all the cards you could want, how much can you throw down over several turns.

Defense:

Damage Reduction involves reducing damage taken by heroes

Damage Prevention involves reducing damage dealt by villains, being immune to damage and redirection.  

Healing is recovery for you and others

Tanking is redirecting damage away from a hero to a different hero target. (usually yourself, but smoke bombs is also tanking)

Support:

Destruction:  How much destructoin you have, Env and Ongoing, how many cards do it, how reliable is it, how much cost for doing so.

Ally Card Help:  How much the hero can put cards in other heroes hands or in play.

Synergy:  How well this deck makes other decks better in ways not already covered.

Deck Manipulation:  Messing with non-hero decks ability to play cards, or what cards are in the deck.

Mechanics:

Search:  Cards that pull cards from your deck or trash, and less reliable extra draws.

Base Power:  If you have no cards in play how good is your power?  (sucks to be AZ, Adept or Unity)

Card Draw/Play:  how fast you can draw and play cards in general throughout the game.

Internal Combos:  How well the deck interacts with itself in ways not covered already. (things like Legacy Ring, chaining Instruments etc.)

Enjoy this frivolous exercise in how to waste time while waiting for my son to fall asleep, and excuse to argue about SotM stuff.

Nightmist's Support total seems to be math'ed incorrectly.

As far as the findings go? It all seemed pretty much how I'd expect it to look. Nightmist edging out Argent Adept for top support slot is what tiped me off to the calculation.

Strong work.

Thanks, fixed.

I don’t know how much it would affect the over all scoring, but AZ getting a 0 in tanking seems a little off to me. Granted, he may not be the best, but once he is set up he tanks pretty decently (not as well as legacy or scholar, but well enough)

Just my thought on it

"Tanking is redirecting damage away from a hero to a different hero target. (usually yourself, but smoke bombs is also tanking)"

It's perhaps not the word I would have used for redirection, but by the given definition AZ does indeed have none of it.

Perhaps "Damage Control" would be a better term, as in you are controlling where the damage goes, whom it hits, etc?

Ok yeah, if you are going by that definition I can see him with a zero.

Zero's Defensive total should be 4, not 3. If that changes anything. How he got a 1 in damage reduction is slightly odd. Was SubZero Atmo the culprit for the lone point there? Seems to fit within your rubric, but just curious since we were talkin AZ

My guess is Cryo Chamber, which reduces fire damage by 1.

Ah that would make sense.

Fixed some more number errors.

I used tanking to mean taking damage for other heroes, since Highest HP tanking is better covered by the other three ratings in defensive.

For Sub-Zero Atmosphere, I put that under Deck Manipulation, which is why he has a 4 there, that card is sick.  I put it on the level of Savage Mana and IR Eyepiece, ahead of No Executions, into the Stratoshpere and Takedown.

Also a second chart for the Promo Heroes is now included.

I broke my ranking system for Dark Visionary.  The Visionary was a well-deserved 5 in deck manipulation, so adding the most powerful deck manipulation mecanic in the game had to break the ceiling of 5 for ratings.

Since I think just her base power alone would give a hero a 5 in deck manipulation I gave her a 10.  There is just no way to be reasonable when judging the power Dark Visionary wields over decks.

TLT should also get a 10 in whatever category corresponds to making your allies (and yourself) draw cards.

She got a 5 in helping allies with cards, a 5 in her own drawing/playing cards, and a 5 for her base power.

Those should all be like 7 or 8 then, by the same logic as with Dark Visi.  Nobody else even comes close.

There are three categories that account for that ability, and she improved each one.  The visionary is already the undisputed queen of deck manipulation, to add the most broken power in the game to that kit is why I went over the allotted points.

Team Leader Tachyon gains 1 in reliable damage, 2 in ally card help, and 3 in Base power.  She loses one in Internal Combos for a net gain of 5.

Visionary gains 5 in deck manipulation, 1 in base power and loses 4 in Ally Card Help for a net gain of 2.

I don't think I under represented Team Leader there.

Like so many things around this game, much of this is perspective. We all play the heroes a little differently, focusing on things we personally prefer, things that better fit our personalities, etc.

I think what phantaskippy created is great! I might not agree with all the individual rankings (although there are few I don't agree with), but on the whole it's really interesting stuff.

Rabit, what ones would you change?

One of the reasons I posted this is I am interested in how other people see the balance of the game compared to how I see it.

I know. Unfortunately, life's been (as usual ) stupid-busy and I usually don't have time to do much here on the site for more than a few minutes at a time.

Having said that, I made a little more time to look more closely. I discovered that many of the things I originally thought I'd change (such as Bunker and Expat's Base Power of 1) actually make sense, in the context of the other powers, thinking about how often they are used, etc. I would have to do a more thorough analysis to give you really useful feedback, but the time's not readily available - sorry.

The only thing that stands out to me right now is AZ's Searching. Chrono has the ability to search for two different kinds of cards, so his Searching of 5 makes sense. AZ's searching of 5 seems high to me, and I would probably put it at a 4 - more in line with AA's.

I was going to argue with you, but I think you have a good point.  Adept is probably more of a five than AZ, and AZ is more a four.

May I recomend this thread for Sticky status?

Skippy, why did you choose to omit a "total" section for each hero? The results are interesting. Lets take a look:

I have listed ther "Overall" data from Skippys spread sheet, listed them from lowest to greatest, and included promos to the right.

Interesting take aways:

• Ra should be considered "bottom teir" as he rounds out the bottom 5.
• The other 4 being Fixer Bunker ExPat and AZ should surprise no one that contributes to the statistics thread
• Both of Legacy's promos edge out the original despite having one of the most powerful base powers in the game
• Wraith, by a significant margin, leads the total package score.
• TLT, while considered by many as the OP queen, finds herself in the middle of the pack, but does boast the highest score gain from original to promo
• Most promo characters, aside from TLT, all came out very balanced

Nerf Wraith! 

Can't wait to see where the Vengeance heros fall into this system

Edit: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AqClP82b_XgZdGJKUVJRakJmZ3RMX2pFUjB3MEtBWHc#gid=2

http://public.tableausoftware.com/views/Sentinels1/DetailedView?:embed=y&:display_count=no which

Here are links to both current Statistics projects for reference

Bah!  It won't open on my system and I love numbers!

What system are you using that can't open a google.doc?

Probably one like mine.  I created my Google Docs on this computer, but because Google feels entitled to constantly "improve" their technology so that it doesn't work with anything that's more than five minutes obsolete, I now have to go to a different computer in order to edit them, and then download a read-only copy and email it to myself to read back on this computer.  Science and progress, folks; it kills the dinosaurs (except on Insula Primalis, at least).

Something like that.  The spreadsheet for all the hero/villian losses works fine though.

I didn't even look at the sheet, just glanced at this thread.  But I probably will end up looking at the sheet in-depth later on since I tend to like statical breakdown and analysis (especially with sports).

Not surprising.  She is really great at a number of things.  Her only weaknesses are equipment destruction and lower HP.  Her power level is mainly contained in her cards, not the character power.  I consider Wraith top 3 in the game in overall power/usefulness (along with Legacy and NightMist).

I would put the Argent Adept above Legacy, because he contributes more to a low-H game.  And I would put Omnitron-X above both of them.  No argument on Nightmist, though...she's crazy good.

I'm a little curious how Expat got a 3 in boost damage and a 4 in One-shot damage.  I ask, because the only one-shot that she has that does damage is RPG so this score should be much lower, but you might then count unload and ammo as one shots and its ok. 

However, if you do this then she has no boost in her deck (ammo counting as one shots) so THAT score should be much lower unless that means she benefits well when others boost her damage and then its ok but doesn't fit your definition.

So basically, how did she get those numbers?

I think the boost is coming from the ammo and I agree with it.  I think the one-shot is coming from unload in which case I disagree.  Unload and RPG together with nothing else do not warrent a 4.

Overall I'm a little surprised Unity isn't Lower and Argent isn't higher but otherwise the list doens't surprise me. 

I do think we may be undervaluing some things and over valuing other in this system.  Deck cycle for example is very valuable.  There are plenty of times when a hero has the right card for a situation but it is barried in their deck.  I think TLT's win percentage on the stats page as much as anything shows that letting everyone draw a card every turn is worth like 5xH points.

One-Shot damage is a scale on what kind of damage output you can shell out through one-shots. Between Rocket Launcher and a supped up Unload, her one-shots, per card, have a very large damage potential. Unload gets better with every gun you have out. Her top end with Unload is what earns her the 4. Sounds resonable to me. 

Can you compare it to other heros for reference as to maybe why it shouldnt be a 4?

Unload is worthless without a gun.  To me, One-Shot Damage ought to cover how much potential the hero does to deal damage once with a single card played from their hand, assuming no bonuses, though perhaps adjusting the score for the potential for bonuses (eg Fixer might score higher than Haka, or at least not lower, but both of them fall far short of Tempest and Ra).  Expat's only way to do damage without having to expend her Power phase is RPG Launcher, and that won't work if she doesn't have an Ongoing or Environment card to destroy.  I would give her a 1 in One-Shot damage, compared to a 2 or 3 for Haka and Fixer, a 4 for Legacy and probably Absolute Zero, and a 5 for Ra.  Whether Tempest should be a 4 or a 5 I'm not sure.  I'm also unsure where to put Nightmist, since she has the potential to put out a lot of one-shot damage but is usually hurting herself, if not the entire team, in the process.

One-shot is based on how much damage one-shot cards add to the deck.  Unload is Expat's damage dealing card.

I put her with Fixer and Chrono, because while Chrono has constant pings of damage, they add a ton of damage to the deck, Expat sits on the other side of that, but the value of Unload is similar to the value of Lightspeed Barrage, which is a big part of Tachyon's 5 in one-shot damage.  Fixer has Overdrive and Charge, which really boost his deck damage.

Her damage boosting is all ammo, but it is one of the best situational damage boosting systems the game has.

As for the importance of deck mechanics relative to other ratings:  I fully agree, which is why this wasn't intended to give an overall rating for heroes.  Tachyon is the obvious victim, as her deck is overall weak, except for the speed at which it plays, and that makes her incredibly good.

You can totally still play RPG Launcher without any Ongoings or Environment cards in play.

You can, but you won't deal damage.

Im pretty sure the damage is not dependant on the destruction. 

It definitely involves an "If you do"

I agree (and want the ziggurat to continue).

At the start of your forum turn you may hit Quote.

If you do continue the Ziggurat.

Since I am on my cell phone, I hate you all.

Fueled by your hatred, the tower grows ever skyward.

I am intrigued to see that it only bolds the first two names in the magnificent structure, I wonder why?

I'm really beginning to think the forum needs to have a "no quote-towers" rule.

Envisioner wrote:

I'm really beginning t o think the forum needs to have a "no quote-towers" rule.

Envisioner fears the ziggurat. WE'VE FOUND HIS WEAKNESS!

I'm not the one who's on a mobile phone here.  Others have pointed out how this behavior is bothering them, and yet you lot persist, for no visible reason other than to annoy those people.

*ducks for cover*

I can only assume that the ultimate conclusion of this topic is that it's a great excuse to argue?

And finally this thread starts achieving its purpose.

I've been in 5 games with Expatriette and I don't think I have ever seen her with both more than one gun and unload at the same time.  So for me Unload has added no damage.

I have enjoyed a few Unloads, but I still think it's not reasonable to count the card as one-shot damage when it only enhances your ability to use Powers to deal damage.

Unfortunate. Thats the thing with Bell Curves and probabilities. Someone somewhere will be that bottom tail.

Last game with Expatriette was with DW Exp. I had Pride, Predjudice, and an Assault Rifle with one Aim in place, and played an Unload. Second Aim and fired all three guns. Was a glorious turn.

(Of course, she died start of the next villain turn, but it was a blast to play it!)

If you’re fighting a villain or in an environment with equipment destruction, chances of getting more than two guns in play for an unload aren’t very high.

Thats the fun part about chance is it not?

Source: decent gambler

But it is a one-shot, and it does enhance your ability to deal damage.

Similarly Overdrive is a one-shot that increases your damage.

The dependancy on cards in play is no more than Tachyon's burst mechanic relies on cards in the trash.  You can play Lightspeed Barrage or Sonic Vortex for 0 damage, and you can use Unload and gain no powers.  Both are very good and very powerful cards.

Got a "newbie" player in her 2nd game ever using Unload with four guns in play to finish off Ambuscade last week.

And I bet he doesn't see the irony. 

Well, it's a bit more. A lot of villain and environmental stuff put cards into the trash. That both makes card-dependent one-shots less powerful, and a trash-dependent card like LIghtspeed Barrage more powerul.

As I recall there's more villain cards that remove dependency cards, then there are villain cards that remove Tachyon's dependency trash.

Fixer always has his Strike; Expat does not always have her guns.  In and of itself, Overdrive is a weaker Charge, but you have more copies of it and can get extras from Salvage Yard.  If you're counting Unload as extra one-shot damage because it lets you use more guns, you might as well also count Arsenal Access and Quick-Draw, because they let you get more guns (or more importantly your first gun).

And you do not see the profound difference between the effect of "getting" vs "using" as it pertains to the defenition the rubric uses?

If I have no guns in play, Quick Draw is adding 2 damage to my potential turn, while Unload is not.  QED.

Here is my thinking, although definitely influenced by my experience.  I've seen Expat played probably somewhere between 30 and 40 times.  Never in any play has she hit a full unload more than once in a game.  In well over half the games she doesn't unload at all or does it with only say a shot gun an assault rifle out (nearly half involve never drawing the card). 

Now lets compare to say Ra or Tempest (both 5s I know).  They both have one shots that do not rely on any other card, and more importantly SEVERAL of them.  There is rarely a time when you can go more than a turn or two with either of these heros where you can't play a one shot that deals damage. So even if one of these one shots does potentially less damage, the frequency and reliability are much higher.  More than one point worth.

AZ is only  a three and like Expat his cards require a lot of setup on his part.  However you can get some major output from them with that setup.  I see the two as fairly equivalent.  I just don't think that two cards, one of which may be amazing, but may be no big deal constitute a ranking of 4 out of 5.

Ok, so that was my thinking.  Now when I go back and review the whole table I really think a lot of heros look weird.  I realy think there is a huge gap between the 4s and 5s.  There are no 1s and only a single 2.  I think that whole curve could be smoothed out.

So I would have given Expat a 2-3 probably but I'm not setting the scale either.

And what makes you think this isn't already taken into account? Making a point would be optimal.

@Sefirit: Thats a good observation about the curve not being even. I am not sure the scores are supposed to be standardized that way as to smooth it out. That would be something Skippy would have to comment on as it is his rubric.

In addition to my last post, I would say that Haka > Expat for how I'm hearing one shots described.  Haka of Battle is better than Unload for single targest and Rampage is often better for multiple targets.

Haka being a 3 in one-shot damage while Fixer sits at 4 doesn't sit well at all.

If AZ is sitting at a 3 as well, maybe Skippy is deducting points for collateral team/self damage? That wouldn't make sense though seeing as Nightmist is at a 5. 

The only rating where I judged for being used in a vacuum is Base Power.  

Haka of Battle is a one-shot that boosts damage.  It does not cause damage to be dealt.  Haka has a 4 in boost damage, a 4 in healing and a 4 in damage reduction.

All of those are heavily based on one-shots that do those specific things.

Haka of Battle boosts damage.  Haka of Restoration heals.  Haka of Shielding reduced damage taken.

His one shot damage is rampage and Elbow Smash.  Rampage bets downgraded for hitting hero targets (cost) and Elbow Smash isn't that great.  He gets a 3, largely because Rampage is still sick.  AZ, Wraith, Unity, OX get 3's as well.

I didn't just judge by face value, but their likely impact  Expat doesn't play Unload when she has 1 or 0 guns in play, and is more likely to use them when she has more.  Just Like Tachyon's Lightspeed barrage, you can choose to play it at 0 damage, but that would be you playing it badly, not her card being bad.

Fixer gets a 4 because he has 7 one shots that deal damage, and 2 more that put one in play.  Those one shots vary in power, but all are likely to add a lot more damage than most one shots.  Just under 1/4 of his deck is a very good number, and each at least doubles his damage output.  That is strong one-shot damage.

Expat has 5 One Shots, RPG Launcher is 2 targets 2 damage, that is pretty good (again I'm assuming you aren't being dumb and playing it with nothing to destroy, and it isn't like Environment cards are a rare commodity)  Unload is very powerful, and can rival Wrathful Retribution in damage when played in great situations.  Even with average usage you should have two or three guns to shoot, which is really good damage.

I have it as superior to Rampage, slightly less than Lightspeed Barrage, and better than Overdrive or Charge (not in quantity but power).

Have been looking for something like this, incase i need to tell people about heroes i dont play that often myself. Would be pretty cool if we could get this updated with vengence heroes aswell. Would be really cool if someone with some graphical talents could turn this into some sort of graph, diagram or easily digestable format, you could hand out to new people when they need to pick a hero. 

Totally forgot to update for Vengeance.

Although Honestly I don't play those heroes enough, I don't think I could rate Naturalist or KNYFE at all, I'll have to work on it.

I'd love to see how you would rate Setback.

I'd venture to guess all the Vengeance heros would score pretty high. KNYFE is the closest to a middle of the pack hero. The rest of them are straight powerhouses.

Yeah I was just thinking about that.  That's why I don't play them as much.  I really like more nuanced heroes, and the Vengeance heroes are just crazy strong.  Naturalist will be really tough as well.

Parse will be the hardest, since I'm actually missing 3 cards from her deck.  Need to find that card list so I can order new ones.

As an anecdote, I do not think I'v lost a game yet in which Naturalist was present. 

I got destroyed in a game that had The Naturalist and KNYFE in it against La Capitan

Edit:  Based on my playthroughs I think I lose with the new vengeance characters mixed just as often as I did with the characters before that.  Only The Sentinels to me seem to win a lot when used in a group 

I've had the Dreamer crush our team of Naturalist, Visionary, KNYFE and AZ. Most of the Vengeance heroes are pretty strong but not OP, in my opinion.

Edit: But I am hoping for a bump in difficulty for the new villains and environments in Wrath of the Cosmos to compensate for these somewhat stronger heroes. I hope we only get 3's and 4's for villain difficulty in WotC.

Rhino form should be pretty boss against Dreamer with that group. 

Well, they don't have nearly as many games as the other heros, but according to this:

http://public.tableausoftware.com/profile/#!/vizhome/Sentinels1/Overview

Sentinels are ridiculously strong.  Only Greatest Legacy and TLT have a higher win rate and I think they are both considered pretty OP.

Naturalist is mixed right in with the stronger though not OP heroes.

Setback and Knyfe are in the bottom middle of the pack.  They both have win rates over 70% which I kind of use as the cut off to determine if a hero is weak.*

Parse is pretty low in her win percentage beating out only Expat, Fixer, Bunker, AZ and various alternate heroes. We all know how much those four have been debated.

*This makes less sense than it used too, at one point there was a sudden gap from 71% down to 68% with no heroes in it which is why started thinking in those terms.  This gap seems to have been smoothed out. Though the gap between AA and Parse is over 1% and the only other places this happens is way at the top of the list with what are generally considered the OP or at least very strong heroes.

You have to try pretty hard to loose a game with Parse. Grains of salt I guess.

Speaking of the awesome statistics project! The only statistics I typically pay attention to are the ones that G+ submits!

Parse is actually our hero that wins the least, at 60%! She also has 97 less appearance than our highest appearing hero, Argent Adept at 132. So I don't really want to draw anything too much off of only 35 games. Currently, our bottom 3 heroes (not including promos) are Parse, K.N.Y.F.E., and Setback. None of which are above 70%. But once again, <50 games, so it doesn't say much to me, still a bit of learning, unlucky randomization and so on.

Our bottom 3 heroes (not including promos) with more than 100 games are; Expatriette (77%), Absolute Zero (78%), and Unity(79%). Which isn't so bad, considering our highest 3 heroes (not including promos) are; The Wraith (88%), Haka (87%), and The Scholar (87%). Only a 11% difference between the highest and lowest.

Anyways! I'm getting a bit distracted. I really don't see the Vengeance heroes are vastly superior than any other hero, as I have stated many times for all heroes. I certainly haven't seen any heroes as being impossible to lose with.