Best and worst heroes?

General GTG General Discussion
21

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.

22

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.

23

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.

24

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.

25

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. :-\

26

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.

27

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.

28

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.

29

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.

30

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.

31

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

32

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-.

33

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.

34

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.

35

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.

36

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.)

37

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).

38

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.

39

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.

40

fair enough, but the other 3 paragraphs still stand.