ST Heroes

Out of the 3 Heroes avialable through ST. Which ones do people like and why?

 

Saw someone else play Scholar tonight was really cool how can choose to be a super tank or high damage. The 3 elemental phases are really thematic.

Chrono Trigger' bounty mechanic is really cool. Hard to setup but starts doing a lot of burst damage when set up properly.

Best part is able to shoot them when not in your turn. The constant shots also seems really cool and really fun. The card that lets other discard so you can draw was quite interesting (worked well with Team Leader Tachyon to build her burst).

 

Can't wait to try Omni-X, havent got a game with him yet.

I've only played Omnitron-X so far but I really loved him. He had a lot of really cool start of turn effects. All you have to do is make sure you don't take 5 or more damage at once or they get destroyed.

His innate power was also really cool.

Omnitron-X has become one of my favorite Heroes, if not may favorite. There's nothing better than having my eight components in play doing so much at the start of my turn that I feel like i've statisfied my turn well enough where I could just skip my play and power phase and draw 2 cards. It's also really fun to just start playing cards from other people's decks just because you can. One of these days I may troll with him and keep revealing Wraith's cards until I reveal an Inventory Barrage and put it into play against her will.

 

Chrono-Ranger is really awesome aswell, though damage reduction can shut him down if he's not prepared for it. It's nice having another hero that allows me to play multiple cards in a turn. Jim's hat tends to be the card I dig for first with Displaced Armory, if not that then I tend to go for teh Compounded Bow, as that may be his most powerful attack if he has damage buffs out, and with his Bounties he is almost sure to have a buff at some point.

 

Good ol' Scholar, the man that is nearly unbeatable. Capable of healing more points regulary in a turn than nearly anyone, only being surpassed by NightMist, though it is fairly situational. I still am waiting for the day I get all copies of Mortal to Energy and Solid to Liquid out and becoming an unstoppable powerhouse. Sadly that is just too many cards to discard that if no one is helping with card draws it makes it highly unlikely.

Yeah, I would do all of my start of turn effects then my friends would be like "Okay, it's your turn now" to the next hero. I had to say "Hey, I haven't even played a card or used a power yet" multiple times.

 

I was able to use two "keep moving" cards to get up to 3 Liquid and 2 Energy… meaning 4 healing from his default power, damaging 2 times. Next turn I had to discard my hand (3 cards) just to hold on to a little bit of that glory, and then it was gone. That said you feel like a genius for a second.

As for Chrono my friend played him and was having a lot of fun, but was having a hard time avoiding damage and went down a couple of turns before we won.

As for Omnitron he has easily one of the most powerful default powers and I was able to trigger some crazy stuff by having him play the top of Nightmists deck. Also when you have the right armor in front of you so you are not taking 5 damage… you can run out of space for components. Also Flechettes are one of the least fair Omintron tricks (villain) so as a hero they are also nuts… they do great crowd damage AND get rid of ongoings.

Omg who do I like best…okay, well I think Chrono Ranger is my favourite just because he can pew stuff constantly and has loads of ways to access his stuff (and still shoot something). But I also like Omnitron-X because of all the stuff he can do when he has all his stuff out…though it does feel a bit fragile if you're against something that's gonna deal a lot of damage or can destroy equipment. The Scholar is also cool because of the pure "Oh yay please hit me so I can heal it back on my turn and then hit something and lol I'll be back at full health again" style. Plus he has several ways to blow everything up as well.

All in all I think they're all great…I think one thing I like about them is that you can always do something - all of them seem to have multiple search-the-deck cards, or can play/draw stuff, or deal a bit of damage no matter what cards they have in front of them. Some heroes you just kind of go "umm…I don't really have much I can do right now…I'll just draw twice". With these guys you kind of go "Hmm okay which of these cards shall I play first…omg so much choice!". I think it's gonna be a while before I go more than a game or two without playing of these three (apart from the fact that I like getting to know new decks) :D.

Here's the thing: Chrono-Ranger isn't my favorite hero. I'm still more fond of Unity, Tachyon, and Omnitronks (Who has recently jumped up my list).

That being said, Chrono-Ranger is, in my opinion, the damn coolest hero of them all. I mean, seriously. I don't think any hero will ever be cooler than him. I think we've hit our high point on the coolness scale of heroes. From now on, when a new hero is revealed, we'll say "on a scale of Iron Legacy to Chrono-Ranger, how cool are they?" (Iron Legacy being the bottom of the scale for being an evil hero--totally uncool)

But really, when it comes to the new heroes, I'm happy with all of them.

I've still never played as The Scholar (not even when playtesting!) so I can't speak too much on him, but from what I've seen, he's got great potential. Easy to learn, difficult to master.

On the subject of mastering heroes, I really want to see more level 3 heroes. Seriously, GTG: please make more level 3 heroes. There's a disturbing lack of them. Don't get me wrong--having a lot of heroes that are easily accessable but still fun is great. But my plea for level 3 heroes comes from my love for the idea of heroes that it's considered a talent to play as. I really consider being able to play the current level 3 heroes to be a talent. Especially Absolute Zero; but I don't think I'll ever even try and master him. I leave that to the one member of my group that can play him well.

Anyways, I'll get to summing up thoughts.

Chrono-Ranger plays well. His biggest problem is getting past damage defenses without The Masadah. But when that's not a problem, he's great. His bounties all have great applications, and he's got a good amount of cards that can let him get bounties back from the trash. I like him.

Omnitronks has really impressed me. The way he uses components and platings is really fun and exciting to set up. I still haven't gotten to a point in a game with him where it'd be a good time to pull off a Singularity/Self-Sabotage bomb, but I really look forward to it. And I love the inclusion of the Reset card, which will be the perfect follow-up to the aforementioned bomb. Only problem with him is getting bogged down with platings you don't need. I love him.

I'd really like to talk about how the new promo heroes hold up, but I'm afraid this post is getting too long, so I'm stopping here.

I second the vote for a couple more complexity 3 heroes. I understand that their shouldn't be a ton of hard to master characters in standalone/base game (Enchanced Edition & Vengeance) but they're perfect for smaller expansions since those aren't introductory games anyway. You should have a base set before buying them. Either way, I love the heroes but a couple more complex ones would be cool.

The platings can tend to pile up in your hand but that's not necessarily a bad thing. It could be really helpful in some of the environments where a hero has to discard cards.

 

That's when you break out the ol' faithful Defensive Blasy. That's 3 or 4 instances of 1 damage to all targets. If that's buffed it becomes an even more insanely damage dealing power. Though if there are debuffs it becomes useless… Sad debuffs, ruining things that deal lots of instances of 1 damage ever since the Baron…

The new heros are all beasts.

Chrono Ranger (lets call him Cable) is downright nasty with Compound bow and the 2 +dmg bounties on the villain. Mr. Chairman really really wishes he didnt have that retaliation power anymore.

Omitron-X (lets call him Legion) when left alone its disgusting how effective he can be. Villains NEED equipment destruction or Legion will chew them out eventually, and even that wont slow him down too much due to his power and Reset. It becomes really tough to outpace all of his damage and utility, especially since they are almost never mutually exclusive during any given turn. Legacy has a new buddy on my "overpowered hero" shelf

Scholar (lets call him Jeff Bridges) is as hillarious as he is fun. Jeff Bridges should really be all I need to say on the matter.

 

All three got shut down in my game last night vs. Miss Information because she never let them keep a card on the table longer than one turn.  Was a sad first outing for the new guys.

Have you played Little O against villains that deal a wide range of damage types?  It's rather hard for him to keep his components out against villains like Dawn or Voss.  I don't know that I would call O-X "overpowered".  I've been pretty impressed with his abilities against villains that are strong against him and villains that are weak, but having all of his Components break after five damage in a turn is still pretty scary.  One One-Shot you're not prepared for can crumble his vast technological panoply.

O-X feels risk/reward-y like Unity to me. If he can keep his stuff out he's a beast. A fully tricked out O-X is absolutely terrifying. But you can lose all of that in a single turn, and then he's back at square one. And that's without accounting for equipment destruction etc. That's just "Apostate has a glove out and O-X is highest. OOPS." He's one of the most fragile of the setup-heavy heroes, which is the tradeoff for his astounding power.

Sure I see what you are saying. From my experience, even with a late game board wipe, he doesn't slow down that much compared to, well anyone quite frankly. Ill try him against Voss/Dawn later though and see how I feel then.

This is how I felt about O-X during playtesting.  Unity, when fully setup, is devastating.  Her trade-off is that a simply AE card can destroy her. A fully equipped O-X is less powerful than Unity, and O-X worries more about equipment destruction and high single target damage.

Just like Unity dies horribly to The Ennead (AE and the < 3 hp killer), O-X has his nemeses too.  The most common I've seen is Plague Rat.  Many of PR's one-shots can deal enough to nuke O-X's components.  If you can't get the correct Platings out, Spite can actually do it too.  Apostate is another (which is one of my favorite matchups, because O-X's irreducible damage is awesome in that fight, but O-X is constantly fearing the big smack).

Something I've just been reminded of, on the subject of Chrono Ranger being the coolest hero...the other reason I like him is 'cause he reminds me of the Stranger, from the last Oddworld game (Stranger's Wrath) - he wears a hat and a poncho and goes around shooting at things, and has a thing for bounties :D.

Had a game last weekend with Omnitron-X. Can't remember who we were fighting but they just managed to do enough damage to take me up to a total of six damage taken...and I had pretty much all of my components out by that time. Arse :P. I think we still won, though.

Nightmist can't use Master of Magic to heal from casting spells that have been put into play. Mind you, Nightmist is one of those Heroes who appreciates extra card plays.

 

Yeah we got lucky in that it helped get her equipment out (without a turn wasted playing equipment) but a good (free) heedless leash that leads into another card (I think the one that damages heroes, then villains twice) was really funny.

If it's smart about managing its life total, Omnitron-X can stay in the middle quite easily to avoid big hits from most villains, though if it does that, it's not being a classical tank.  Omnitron-X is just crushed by irreducible damage.  Plague Rat can tear through the components, though with Ablative Coating you still have a good chance.  Don't even bother with components against (Advanced) Iron Legacy, however, unless somebody's blocking damage.  He'll just break them, and you'll cry.  Unity's kinda in the same boat against him.

Plague Rat is fairly easy to shut down with Ablative Plating as he only deals Melee and Toxic damage, and his only real irreducible damage is the end of turn effect he has. Not to mention with Reactive Plating Subroutine Omnitron will hit him back for at least 2 points of melee. If Omnitron-X becomes infected, that means Omnitron will deal himself 1 irreducible Toxic damage, which once again triggers the Reactive Plating Subroutine. Plague Rat may be able to get a few more points in with his really high damaging one-shots, but it typically won't be too high as long as Plague Locus has been taken care of. I would think Plague Rat would learn is lesson and not touch Omni-X, but I guess the rat isn't too bright.

 

The fun thing against Advanced Iron Legacy is the above method still works, though it will be so much Irreducible that it is useless to put components into play until after he flips. Though he works wonders if he is paired up with Visionary or Wraith and if he goes after them, as they can search the top of his deck and Omni-X could actually discard the card they put ontop. Thus getting Galvanized into the trash and never letting it enter play!