There is a lot of talk on the forums about who's underpowered and who's overpowered. The "The Best Heroes-A Statistical Community Effort" thread is a superb idea.
Just for fun, which heroes do you think have the best and worst incapacitated abilities?
I suppose it depends on whom you're playing. If you're Tachyon, a hero who lets you draw or play cards is cool. If you're the Adept or Wraith, you might prefer to use a power. If you're fighting someone like the Apostate, with the soak on his relics, you might prefer a damage buff.
[This is probably going to end up being a very, very long post. Sorry.]
Let's start with Absolute Zero, who can let a hero use a power, destroy a 1HP target or give +2 to the next damage a hero deals. The reason we're starting here is because Expatriette shares Ab-0's first two abilities, so all we need to compare is +2 damage and Expat's third ability: Next time a selected hero uses a power they also make a 1-damage projectile attack. With no outside effects the former is better, as it is if your enemies have damage reduction, but with damage boosts the latter becomes superior. A difficult call, but I'm going to make it in favour of Ab-0, on account of it being less reliant on who you're playing with.
Let's look at the Argent Adept next. Like Ab-0 he can let a hero use a power, or he can heal 1HP or give +1 to hero attacks of a selected damage type for a turn. That damage boost seems far superior to Ab-0's highly situational target destruction, and stands up to his damage boost too; either one might come out on top, depending on the situation. So one of AA's abilities equals two of Ab-0's, leaving AA's minor heal to push him to victory.
Fanatic now, who is going to take AA's place as best so far. Her 'hero plays a card' and '+2 next damage dealt' abilities are on a par with AA's 'hero uses a power' and '+1 to attacks of one damage type', and her heal 2HP is just better than his heal 1HP. Fanatic wins.
Redeemer Fanatic. Hmm. She can prevent 2 damage, with is much the same as healing 2HP, and she can let you draw a card, which is nice if you need cards but is it better than being able to play one? Depends on how many cards you have. Let's call that one a draw and move on to ability #3: +1HP to all heroes. A more spread-out heal versus a damage-dealing ability... I'm awarding this one to regular Fanatic, on the grounds of being more flexible. AA gets a win on account of his versatility too, but Ab-0 is not so versatile and so loses out.
Haka is flexible, but it's a different type of flexibility to Fanatic and AA: he can let you draw a card, or play a card, or prevent two damage. And, annoyingly, I have no idea where to put him. He's comparable to Redeemer, but is drawing a card better than healing all heroes? I'm going to say no, so Haka goes below Redeemer.
Bunker is very similar to Haka, but the difference is instead of letting a hero draw a card he can add one from his trash to his hand, which in the late game (which is when you're going to be incapped, really) is much better (unless you've shuffled your deck recently, which is possible but fairly unlikey). Bunker is above Haka then, and since I think a card of your choice is better than healing all heroes he goes above Redeemer too. In fact, I'm inclined to put him above Fanatic too; preventing two damage is akin to healing 2HP, and sticking a card of choice into a players hand seems superior to a mere +2 damage.
Legacy seems like he could be worse than Bunker - use a power is comparable to play a card, and drawing a card doesn't stand up to taking a card from the trash. It's his third ability where the difficulty lies. Until his next turn, damage dealt by the environment is reduced by two. This could do nothing - if the environment is hitting the enemy it could even be detrimental - but if you're getting slaughtered by krakens or something then this coud be a whole lot better than preventing two points of damage. I'm putting him below Bunker, because he's somewhat situational, but above Fanatic because my God he's interesting. As for his daughter, she replaces this ability with one that boosts all hero damage by 1 for a turn. I think this might be better than vanilla Legacy's.
Well, that's what I have so far. Two disclaimers: first, I've been doing this on the fly - what I've written is pretty much my whole though process. Secondly, despite being an avid fan I haven't actually played the game before. My copy arrives with Shattered Timelines. Still, I hope this helps, and I hope that either I or someone else will finish what I've started.
Tempest is the best in my estimation. Often all he needs to do to secure the game for the heroes is to completely blank whichever damage type seems best that round. Returning an ongoing to hand, while not as good as it once was (return it to play(!) in the original edition), is still useful, and failing that, a hero can use a power, which is a fine fallback plan.
Horus of Two Horizons Ra gets a special mention, since one of his abilities is to put a card in the villain trash on top of the villain deck. With most villains, that makes it easy to stall them to death.
I tend to agree that Expatriette and Absolute Zero are the worst, as far as incapacitated powers go. Their best choice is to grant the use of a power, which is nice, but very dependant on what others have going on. Destroying targets with 1 hit point just doesn't come up much. Expatriette's stacking damage is interesting if there are significant damage bonuses in play, but in most cases, using a power is just going to be better. I can't remember what the other power is, but these two are rather uninspiring.
Now that you mention it Tempest is really OP. One of the cool things active Legacy can do is use Lead from the Front to redirect damage to him and Next Evolution to blank one type of damage for all heroes. However, incapacitated Tempest can do that without worrying about ongoing destruction and it works for environment damage, too. It seems like against Matriarch I'd rather Tempest start the game incapacitated not active.
Rook City Wraith and Mr Fixer have awesome equipment recycling abilities, which I think put them in joint 3rd place behind Tempest and Horus Ra. Expatriette's ability to let someone do 1 projectile damage when they use a Power is hyper-situational. I guess the best use would be if you're teaming up with Mr. Fixer against Spite, or you're teaming up with Mr. Fixer and Toxic Seaweed is in play. Or both Visionary and Nightmist are hiding and can't use Powers.
When The Visionary is hiding in a TK Coccoon and has some Twist the Ethers on the field, it gets pretty awesome storing those up after a few rounds.
I have to agree on Tempest. I just played a game in Pike Industrial Complex against Grand Warlord Voss where a vat (can't remember its name) came out after all Chemical Explosions were gone and we just continued to make our heroes immune to toxic until we were able to win, but aside from that instance, that one ability can cripple a number of decks.