Top Tier Heroes

Who do you think the best heroes in the game are?  Who are good in nearly every situation AND when ideal conditions exist act like a cheat code to the win?  Here's my list in no particular order.

1. Prime Warden's Argent Adept - He needs almost no time to set up thanks to the extra card play and can almost always activate something useful.  If opponents aren't constantly destroying cards, he grants the biggest bonus of everyone in the game.   That extra hit point is pretty great, too.

2. Prime Warden's Fanatic - this is the iffiest member of the elite for me, as playing that accidental End of Days can be a huge problem, but with a bit of ongoing destruction going after her, it shouldn't be the end of the world.  The extra power use and card play is huge, as are the benefits she gains from lower HP and digging through her deck.  

3. America's Greatest Legacy - Extra power uses are huge, and Legacy has a ton of utility in his deck.  That heal comes in very handy as well.

4. America's Finest Legacy - the easiest damage boost in the game with all the great combos one could wish for.  He has a simple 2-card combo that nueters multiple villains, too.

5. Nightmist - Nightmist is a monster with her amulet. If she doesn't see it (through massive draw or search) quickly, then you can always stick her in Mistborn for awhile to dig even faster and keep her safe. She can also shut down the villain deck and heal to full. 

6. Parse - Parse kills ongoings and enviornments like no one else,but she also does damage, creates multiplies and manipulates the villain deck.  It's completely possible to play her in almost any way the game calls for to great success.   She doesn't always feel that great or fast, but I've found that a game with her is always far easier and far less likely to be a loss.

7. The Scholar - With his ultimate set up, which can only take a few turns to set up, he's nearly impossible to kill and lets off huge damage.  What sets him apart from others this is true of, like A/Z, is that he can also be useful while setting up, tanking huge damage, or after a reset,

8. Team Leader Tachyon - Everyone loves draw, and everyone loves huge bursts of damage.  This Tachyon draws so much she can handle nearly any situation and unleash massive boss ending attacks, sometimes in the same turn.

9. Visionary- She can make multiple bosses and games a joke if she sees an early Wrest the Mind, Brain Burn, or Twist the Ether.  She can search for these with her power, and control the villain deck in top notch manner.  She makes ongoings a joke, or gives you back your very best.  She even has more survivability than one would think thanks to the Decoy Projections and her Coccoon.  She's always got something great to do.

10. Wraith - the fastest set up and best survivability, Wraith does everything from controlling the villain deck to stomping ongoings and enviornments to massive damage to damage reduction and prevention to fast draw and card search.  She doesn't actively help the team besides herself (but then there's smoke bombs) but everything she does is a huge boon.

Honorable Mention: The Sentinels are phenomenal, but they do nothing to Ongoings and a villain who targets the lowers consistently enough can leave them little to do but heal.  Omnitron X is a beast who sets up wildly quickly, but big damagers and ill timed equipment destruction can leave him searching for a way to help.  Setback can be a beast, or see useless cards in the wrong order.  A/Z set up without destruction can win games, but he has to see that set up and any destruction can ruin him.  Of the bigger hitters, only Haka really warranted consideration, as he's the most self-sufficient since he can heal and draw on his own.  The newer Naturalist will almost certainly make my elite tier fit 11 characters, but the current version suffers too much if you have the wrong card for the wrong time.  

Best heroes?

It depends.

Depends what you draw, what villain you're fighting, what they play, what the environment is, who your fellow heroes are, what the other players' preferred styles are, what cards they draw/play, depends how skilled a player you are and how well you know the decks.

There are far too many variables to take into consideration for me to be able to definitely say that hero X is better than hero Y, since X might be amazing in one match and terrible in the next. So I don't see that putting heroes in tiers is at all helpful for me.

The only way I differentiate between heroes is to slot them into three fluid groups, with heroes moving according to my mood - heroes I have a lot of fun with and play at any opportunity, heroes I don't object to playing if they show up on the randomiser but I don't love, and heroes that I'd prefer not to play today (mostly the Argent Adept, since I usually don't find him fun enough for the amount of work needed to play him to balance out).

I tried to account for situation in the discussion.  The list, as stated above, is to try and say who's good in EVERY match and great in the majority.  I struggle to think of a matchup where I wouldn't want any of the above, while it's easy to think of matches I would prefer not to use others.

I'm sorry but I have a hard time agreeing with a top 10 list where Wraith is at the bottom and Visionary is not mentioned.

...except he has Visionary right above Wraith...

He also said "in no particular order".

I think I really need to learn how to Visonary properly. People seem to love but I've always found her a bit dull and uninspiring.

Mind you, I also never use infrared Eyepiece with Wraith and can't get decent results out of the Argent Adept either.  Perhaps I'm just not very support-focused.

They all take a certain amount of deck knowledge. I only got good with the visionary once I started playing on the app. Argent adept requires knowledge of the game state, who is out and what they want. Infrared eyepiece is easier to use than the other 2, essentially asking which of 2 cards is worse, but that's still something you learn over time.

Infrared Eyepiece is one of the most powerful single cards in the game, IMHO. The ability to throw That Card to the bottom of the deck, avoid a spaceship, accelerate a flip condition, etc., etc.,  plus it gives you an extra card draw? It's absolutely phenomenal. You can all but take complete control of the villain deck, escpecially if you get out a Utility Belt and a second Eyepieces just in case both of the top two villain cards turn out to be awful. You're putting off dealing some damage by not using one of your weapons, but that doesn't matter if you're robbing the villain of all their most dangerous cards anyway.

I can't prove this but I feel like Sky-Scraper is easily in the top tier. She is versatile in almost any situation, getting things done quick when necessary but also able to fill up the board with link cards. That and all her card abilities are great.

She is really strong and, like tempest can do almost everything. The difference comes into that skyscraper can be confusing, whereas tempest is perfectly simple

I've also been realizing personally that spending some time in normal size and filling your hand can be quite valuable. Most of my less pleasant games as Skyscrapper have been when I've run out of cards, and thus not had options. Those options really are her strength, and if you don't have access to them, things can be rough.

You also need to be willing to use your normal cards sub optimally if your hand feels like it has no good options. One of my friends was almost grinding his teeth on her not having anything good to play but just wouldnt play the card that destroys environnment and ongoings to get back to normal cause it could have more use. Irony is the team had ongoing and environnment destruction at the ready at that point so that was a non issue. Sky-Scraper mostly only has access to the powers on her Character card so sometimes playing a card to go get the right power for the situation is a better move than the best card at the moment if it gives you the wrong power.

I think Haka definitely belongs on this list, for Savage Mana alone. That alone neuters pretty much half of the villian decks in the game. Ground Pound is your damage neutralizer, and Rampage is your insane AoE. Haka of Battle can also allow him to feed off of a stockpiled hand size for massive ouch.

playing that accidental End of Days can be a huge problem, but with a bit of ongoing destruction going after her, it shouldn't be the end of days

Fixed :)

Killswitch - nice fix.  And Haka could easily fit.  I have seriously bad luck seeing Savage Mana when I need it, despite the draw, and when I do find it, ongoing destruction seems sure to follow.  Objectively, he's probably in.  So, sure, let's call him 11.

Sky Scraper might be there.  I love her, but if the game is a shorter one, she can be less useful.  She needs more testing before I add her to the truly elite and nearly gamebreaking.  I'll spend some time with her during my next marathon sessions.

Mighty-Si - I tend to be more control oriented, especially when I want to power game, as control cards make the villains nearly harmless if done well.

No order and Visionary is listed, as mentioned.

And finally, Tempest is a bit too squishy for me.  If he gets the right cards, the right support, the extra plays or powers, he dominates.  He may, however, be T1 because once he dies, he's often far more useful than when he was alive.  My strategy for some bosses comes down to kill Tempest, win game.

Tempest is super strong alive. His incap is strong against certain villains like Iron Legacy or Skinwalker, but nearly all of his cards are really strong

He's also pretty good vs. Citizen Dawn!

Less so because she and battery deal energy, summer and hammer deal fire, winter deals cold, and the rest that deal damage deal melee. That's more than one type and because of that it's less efficient

Mostly - against DR with the wrong draw, not great.  And I seem to play him a lot against Advanced Voss, so squishy and not great.  Also,  he has a few cards I straight up don't like: Vicious Cyclone, Elemental Subwave, and, to a lesser extent, Aquatic Correspondence.  All are useful in the right situation, I just feel like he REALLY needs extra plays and powers to get set up in a timely manner without really good luck (or he can use the phenomenal Localized Hurricane to find what he needs… but that tends to kill him fast given his lowish starting HP).  He isn't BAD at all.  He's right around average to me, which means he's usually good and against the right target with the right set up, can be great… but he has too low a baseline (to me) for this list.

I love Viscious Cyclone, especially against Voss, it's so much fun. That said I don't play it often

 

EDIT: I notice my mistake but think it's funny

His death saved our bacons in Pydro's depth challenge vs. Dawn by choosing energy (most of the other citizens were gone).