The entire party might have something to say if Sky-Scraper is involved. Captain Cosmic in particular finds her Legacy-inspired antics unamusing. Unity might have a polite, cocktail party laugh to spare if Stealth-Bot is out, but mostly she doesn’t find them very funny either.
I love Skyscraper at +1 with conduit's and syphons. Captain doesn't really struggle with low steady damage to constructs, a good chunk of your deck is useless if those constructs stay in play all game.
Eternal Haka to me fills a beautiful niche, he'll draw the elusive savage mana much faster and will reliably have a rampage in hand for that moment he's the man to skewer the Chairman's or Dawn's deck. he also gets ground pound going at a quicker pace and can volunteer for discard duty when appropriate. Being able to draw a 10th of you deck in one turn is nothing to sneeze at. Add a couple dominion and your sure to find the card you were looking for quickly.
Darkwatch setback shines at tanking for defenceless party members: Parse will always be grateful that you reliably take highest hp damage as your healing runs on low tokens in the deck and at the same time pull out a soak for the first hit on mass damage. High risk behaviour can be an early play and two at the same time will contribute with free tokens at start of turn. He just isn't as instinctive but can have his rewarding moments.
Without meaning to offend or slight, I make no apologies or concessions for my guide. They're my impressions--your milage may vary, depending on your own playstyle. You might find my advice useful; you might not. Both are great.
That said, I think all these comments have quite a bit of value--and have even made me reevaluate my own decisions over time!--though they (like my own guide) may be of limited worth. I disagree on your DW Setback thoughts, Medic-Tank, mainly because my experience has shown Setback to need more Unlucky tokens than he typically ever has and DW Setback drains that already-short pool very quickly. Eternal Haka, I find, runs behind either of the other Hakas in terms of damage output and flexibility. That makes him more valuable to me.
In the end, as said above, your milage may vary. In any case, though, the discussion is worth having! :D
I actually totally agree that using DW Setback is an uphill battle, doesn't mean I shy away from making the best of it. I find use and fun stuff on pretty much any promo characters except Freedom Tempest, but Tempest kicks so much ass that he can laugh that nerf bat away. RC Wraith I only like the extra Hp, but Wraith has more than enough power cards to not care so much.
There's a couple more promos out, like Scholar of the Infinite and the Termi-Nation promos, any chance you'll update this, Warlock?
For my part, Scholar of the Infinite changes the priority of his Forms. With normal Scholar, I always try to keep at least one Energy and Liquid card out, let him take damage, and heal for damage every round (especially if he's got people like Legacy or Tempest or AA on his team to heal him further), usually building up to a huge "Get Out Of The Way!" to heal hugely and hit the villain two or three times.
With Scholar of the Infinite, however, Flesh to Iron is my first play and it stays out constantly -- without a guaranteed healing each round, Energy and Liquid are less worth the discard. That gives him a base 2-HP attack and he stays near or at the highest HP, making him a juicy tank that draws most of the villain's attention. With this kind of buffer, you get more leeway to use some of his other support rather than focusing as much on drawing and self-healing. Don't Dismiss Anything and Proverbs and Axioms see more play here than when I keep normal Scholar's HP yo-yoing up and down. Know When To Turn Loose becomes very risky, but with the right party can be devastating, though it's tricky as you need a) an out of turn card play, b) invincibility of some kind and c) out of turn power uses.
Great guide, mostly! It definitely made me rethink some of the promo characters that I was hesitant to use before.
However, two points of contention: how come PoF Wraith's innate damage ability "quickly gets outpaced" by strictly better damage powers, but Ra's does not? For one character, the damage power is a plus, for another it's a minus?
Second, with Eternal Haka, you say there are cards that "mitigate" the difference in cards drawn, but that would imply that Eternal Haka doesn't also get access to those cards.
If your basis for hating on card draw is that you have to dig for a damaging power, that's no basis at all. The fact that you are drawing extra cards means you dig that much faster, and then you are drawing a crapton of extra cards!
I realize this is all just your opinion, but as I said, I think you massively underestimate the strength of card draw.
Of course, this could just be the Competitive TCG player in me coming out.
The damage of Ra's base power can be boosted by cards in his own deck (Staff of Ra and Imbued Fire) leaving it comparable to his other damaging powers, but because PoF Wraith's base power is melee, it doesn't get the boost off her only boosting card (Micro Targetting Computer) meaning that any source of projectile damage instantly becomes preferable in 9/10 situations once MTC hits play.
Put it this way – Base Haka and Base Ra are insulated against equipment and ongoing-wiping cards. Unless something specifically blocking powers comes out, they can always do some damage and contribute to the board. Switching that out for card draw might mean getting your more powerful stuff out faster, but it also makes them vulnerable to wipes.
If Devastating Aurora comes out, Base Haka and Base Ra are guaranteed to still be able to do damage the next turn. Their alternates will have to spend more time setting up to get to that point.
And? If they have more draw, they have a much higher chance of being able to get back set up once the board wipe hits. Sure, base Haka is guaranteed to be able to hit one target for 2 damage after an Aurora, but Eternal Haka is muh more likely to be able to drop Taiaha and hit two targets for 3.
Besides, how important it is to do damage right now depends very much on the villain. If Voss has eight minions out, you want lots of damage in all of the places, but if he's all alone on 80HP it doesn't matter if you hit him now or later. Hell, if he's dropped a Forced Deployment it's very much in your interest to prioritise preparing for next round over hitting him (or his minions) now.
The way I see it, there is never anything bad about getting extra draw (outside of villain effects that punish you for doing so, like Apostate's Tome, but you can always choose not to draw or something). The more cards you have in hand, the more stuff you can do, and if there are any cards you don't particularly like (or don't find really relevant in that particular battle), you can always keep them as discard fodder or put them into play as destruction fodder (whichever is applicable in a game, if any). I like Eternal Haka - you can build up a nice big hand of cards pretty easily and then smash something to bits with a massive Haka of Battle later :D.
Damage is nice, but it's not always the most important thing to be going for. Of course you want to defeat the villain, but not all heroes need to worry about doing so directly themselves. When I play the Adept, I very rarely deal any damage at all and instead focus on letting everyone else do stuff. And sometimes you don't want to do damage, if there's only one target you can hit and it's got some horrible retaliation effect or something (Baron Blade with two Backlash Fields, for example).
Wraith has a lot of very strong and consistent "search" cards via Imptromptu Invention to find her better damage powers + Micro Target Computer.
Ra lacks those, but his buff cards (Staff and Imbued) both synergize with his base power damage, something that Micro Target does not for Wraith.
It's about the context of the deck and not just looking at those two powers in a vacume.
Edit: Also since we are talking Promos in this thread, TermiNation Bunker is a friggin powerhouse and actually makes Bunkers deck fun to play again. I personally think it is too strong considering the powers of the other promos that Bunker has. However it is so much fun that I can let that slide.
(Emphasis mine)
I hadn't even thought of this, but yeah under the right circumstances Haka can convert 2 cards (the potential gain from Haka of Knowledge) into 2 damage. Directly compared to base Haka, yes we lose right now damage, but as long as we have a Haka in hand (which we often will, given that they're a quarter of the deck we're chugging through like a freight train) we're not actually losing any damage overall*, while also opening up a ton of new options in-hand. The more I think about this, the more I like Eternal Haka 
*Modulo any external damage boosts/damage reduction.
It's generally been my experience that, for most villains, steady damage throughout the whole game gets a win much quicker than waiting for a big finisher. And playing regular Haka tends to involve enough card draw anyway that Haka can finish off with a giant Haka of Battle when Haka's gotten them down to size by steadily beating them the whole time.
I guess it comes down to play style.
Depending on the enemy, one big hit may not be as useful as multiple small hits, or vice-versa. That gives room for both styles to do well. :D Also, damage reduction on a target favors fewer big hits instead of more small hits for the most part.
I think one thing that's very important to take into account (as well as being probably one of the main reasons this game is so replayable) is that pretty much everything is context-based. To use Haka as the example, if you're fighting someone like Voss, whose Minions you constantly need to be dealing with so you don't end up with too many of them hammering away at you and pushing Voss closer to victory, using base Haka and punching stuff as often as possible is pretty useful. Or Plague Rat, combat with whom tends to be something of a damage race. But sometimes you want a big hand to throw away in order to just smack something really hard - Apostate with his Runes/Effigy (or Condemnation) for example, where all you really want to do is just one-shot them out of existence so you can concentrate on beating up everything else (or Apostate himself, if that was the last of his relics). Also, don't forget environment targets - if no-one in your team has environment desctruction and someone like Char comes out, it'd be nice if only one hero had to worry about dealing with it while everyone else continued to focus on the villain :).
I remember one time when I was playing Haka (the normal version, as none of the others were out yet) against Citizen Dawn and spent most of the game eating her Citizens whilst saving up a nice big hand of cards. I managed to end up with about half my deck (think it was about 17 or 18 cards) fuelling a Haka of Battle which I immediately used to vomited a decent number of Citizens into her face for something like 35 damage. When she had about 3hp left. Because I could :D. If I'd had Eternal Haka at the time, I'd probably have played him - like I mentioned before, more draw is always good and if you're getting that many cards out, the various copies of Mere and Taiaha will show up sooner or later and then you'll have an ability to whack stuff too, if you want/need to. I think one of the main things about promo versions of heroes is that they change the way the deck is played. Normal Haka punches stuff more but has a smaller and slower-building hand. Eternal Haka tends to deal rather less damage but you can build up a massive hand, get every card you want and then use them to do whatever it is that needs doing. It also gives you plenty of stuff to discard/destroy at ho great hassle if a villain/environment forces you to do so. I haven't played Prime Warden Haka just yet so haven't had a chance to play around with his power but I can see it being useful if he can chuck a bunch of cards into letting Chrono Ranger shoot Plague Rat even harder, or letting a half-dead Scholar become nowhere near dead and able to nuke something as a result, or something :D.
To be honest, I have to agree that damage does not automatically equal a better power. I prefer Guardian Haka, myself, but Beard Haka is awesome as well.
It's not strictly worse, either, though. Ra's base, in my opinion, is better than his card draw, because he has so many different buffs and one shots that it's not usually too important to get one particular one or another.
For some, it's purely situational, like Fanatic's Exorcism vs. Temperance. If there's a lot of damage buffs going around, then Exorcism is less risky and more rewarding. If there is global reduction, or someone like Argent Adept or Captain Cosmic (or both!) to protect her, then Temperance is great. If you plan on using Divine Focus, then Redeem is super helpful.
I like choices. If I had to choose between a power that can easily be replaced and never used again or one that provides more choices throughout the game, I like the more choices option.
Hey, guys!
I know it's been a while, but I finally got around to updatating the guide through Termi-Nation and the X-Mas 2015 promos.
One thing--could I get this thread added to the already-stickied "Flamethrower's Strategies" thread? I already have my Omnitron-X guide in there, but this one got a bit lost.
Also, while it bears understanding, all of this is my opinion. Your mileage may totally vary. Just because I like one promo better than another, that doesn't mean I'm right. It's just my own review, based off of what I've seen when Sentinels hits my game table. I do appreciate continued discussion, though, and I'll be glad to talk more about my thoughts!
It should be noted with Termination Unity that you don't need a mechanical golem in play to use the power to get a golem from trash into play.
For normal Guise versus Santa Guise it comes down to whether you want the spotlight on Guise to do his awesome combos or you want to spread the love to your other players. Because of how his cards work using his second power on himself is not very useful unless you have Selling Out or Super Ultra Kawaii out to take advantage of what comes out.