Emma frost is in every game and Captain America in a lot. And sometimes costume dr.strange, rarely Black Panther is played, which is weird as he is an 90 CP and even more rare is Mr. Fantastic(always in his FF suit) and no on ever plays War Machine or Cyclops.
This is kinda interesting because in the games early days people would run a lot of War machine and Cyclops even both on the same time. But then Playdom boosted the Blaster. Yes this sounds weird right? By Boosting the Blaster less Tactician was played, wouldn't that increase them. The thing is that the Bruisers become way to weak. Meaning that people stoped using Bruisers which lead to people not using Blasters, which meant that the more straight forward damage focused Tactician like War Machine didn't get played at all.
Tactician has like the best class bonus in the game, especially in PvP where Stamina is less of an issue. AS they can attack a blaster and then do something else, not just attack like Scrappers they can heal/guard or attack someone else or an AoE attack etc. The most utility based class.
Emma Frost:
Emma in her Phoenix outfit as 99% of the user have this one. And it’s what imbalanced with her mainly.
Emma is really, really overpowered. And I mean really overpowered. She is probably one of the most overpowered characters/race/class I have ever seen in a player versus player game.
Given that she was recently nerfed and it wasn't her first nerf. She is still played constantly. Last Pvp Season she was played basically 100% of peoples defensive teams. And after there nerf, in this season I see her around 90% of the games. That says a lot. If a character that is nerfed goes to 90% of all games, she was probably pretty good before.
Emma has a her diamond body passive, which make her take almost zero damage from the first attack she gets then she gains a debuff, which will be removed when its her turn again.
Because of this almost no one could take her in 1v1 last season. One of her nerfs was that it triggers less frequently. IT went from 95% to like 70%, so its possible to beat her 1v1 but still hard.
That's the first issue with her, The biggest issue I have with her is that she is such an ridiculous tactician. The thing is that her abilities make her not be counter able. And Tactician are as noted weak against Infiltrator that counters them. Emma’s first and ultimate ability are mental so they cant be countered and not protected. And her second ability has is a stun with huge proc ratio, which means if she attacks an Infiltrator or a tank for that matter she will never be countered.
She is surely limited character, as she is an Tactician with no weakness towards Infiltrator.
This is the first very clear issue, she has no natural weakness.
Furthermore, her physic tap, locks down a character to attack as then the character loses half his/her life. This ability was nerfed so it cant be constantly use on the same target but it still a very strong ability. Her ultimate is a ridiculously strong AoE attack that reduces everyones damage by a lot. She can just stand and spam her ultimate as it cant be countered it cant be protected against it deals a lot of damage and it makes all 3 enemies really weak. Furthermore its an 8 attacks so she will always hit with most of them. Its impossible not to get the debuff migraine.
This ultimate is way to strong, at least it should have 1 turn cooldown.
Her stun attack I am not sure how it works, but I have heard a lot that its a 60% stun chance per attack as its a 2 attack. This sounds stupid to be frank. But, it clearly has the highest stun chance in the game. Which of course is also overpowered.
Furthermore, she has her ridiculous alternative suit. The phoenix one, that is soooo, soo overpowered. This is why her nerf had almost no affect, as the nerf was on her diamond body and her physic tap. Her Phoenix power is cosmic power, which is really badly designed looking at her third ability. Her third ability removes debuffs form an ally or herself and boost all stats, this is what cosmic power does as well so its kinda redundant. Making her third ability almost absolute if it didn't also give everyone stamina, this cosmic power does not.
But it still triggers all the time, which means she negates any team with DoT play or characters that has to play with debuffs synergies. Emma Frost complete ruins at least 50% of the characters in the game. I will say that it seems to trigger less this season, since her nerf. But, really this ability has to be revamped, revamped or lower the chance of triggering vastly.
Last season I played more then 100 games the last day, I faced her in each game. I am not over exaggerating I was just lower then the top PvP rankings and everyone used her in defence. 100% of the games. Today I have played like 10 games and I have seen her in each. So, she is still way to powerful.
Another issue with her is as with all other with passive abilities that are similar to her. That they don't stop when she is dead. This removes strategic potential for the user. If character A does X, and the user wants X to be removed or is afraid of character A’s Y ability. Normally the user starts with removing Character A then, this is obviously very simple strategy. This cant be done in PvP in Marvel Avengers alliance as characters passive stuff still triggers.
This means that if the user is running a DoT team she/he cant say, oh a DoT healer/remover I have to kill her first. Instead its ooooo “%#%#% my team cant do shit now. The user cant focus on her to remove her imbalanced ability that counters most teams. This is very bad. And limits of the PvP so much. She is the sole reason PvP even do its better in season 2 still is so limited to a handful of few characters.
Lastly, I want to comment on her alternative class as an infiltrator.
Its worthless, not only does she then not get her no weakness to infiltrator from her abilities. Her Diamond body has problems with Scrappers. As the Scrapper attack twice, they don't actually have the same issue as other characters against her in 1v1. Really, being an Infiltrator just makes her weaker.
Captain America:
Cap is the other only played Tactician in the game. However, he is extremely popular not at Emma Frost level. But still I would say he is played around 25% of the games. And often with Emma Frost.
First I have to comment on how Captain America was the most used character--- also being used in 100% of the battles. Before he was nerfed. First he got boosted so his Shield could be used each turn, and hid shield was already the best tank ability in the game. I used him in 100% of my attack and each battle would defend with him. Usually almost every game was Captain America and Thor on both teams.
Cap has since then been nerfed several times. At the early phase of the game he was so good, that he was the only defense against an agent with 3 quantum jumper. Which made them take 3 more turns with all characters and kill your team.
Cap used to always go first (this was recently changed) and then he could protect the team, from both single and AoE attacks. And he had an amazing dodge chance will defending well the dodge chance has been lowered several times and then now completely removed. But he was hilarious overpowered as he could take all those 12 attacks usually taking zero damage and kill the other team alone. It was also super easy to beat any PvE Battle without any battle and get perfect strategy bonus.
I use cap a lot because hes a good tank. His other moves are pretty decent, I would say his first ability is the best as it gives the opponent target Dizzy (25% accuracy) the other 2 abilities increases the damage for the next attack, the second attacks one target and increase it damage taken by the next single attack and the third ability is an AoE, which increases the enemies damage from the next ranged attack, often that then an AoE. So Cap empowers the teams damage output,. Which is decent. I would say that he is all about the protecting the team, the tanking.
These other abilities are kinda meeh, they are ok.
His tanking is good for 2 reasons.
1: He tanks both single and Aoe Attacks and he counters these attack. And he reduces them sometimes(changed from high evasion)
2: hes an Tactician--- as I wrote about the Bruisers.
The reason Cap is such a popular tank is because he don't have the squishy weakness of Bruiser when they face Blasters. A user can build Cap with focus on Hp/Def/Evasion and he will be really hard to kill and the weakness to infiltrator is much better to have. There is one problem with facing infiltrator and having a tactician tank, after he has tanked them once. They gain the class bonus and can now attack anyone as they gain stealth.
This is another reason Cap was so overpowered before as the infiltrator didn't get that stealth bonus (mainly Spider-man the only played infiltrator had problems then).
Cap also got pretty good stats, I would say that’ s a factor one shouldn't ignore as he has the jack of all trades guy he also has a very average point in all stats. This makes him in total have more points then most other characters. Hes pretty tanky and pretty strong with a pretty high acc/evasion and so on. He also gives everyone a small buff in all stats, so his own stats are pretty dam high.
But really its kinda strange why he is still the most popular tank. I don feel his other abilities are that amazing. I really think its about the tactician and the Aoe cover. Another good thing with a Tactician tank, is that he can attack a blaster and then use shield guard.
He got 2 good suits, I prefer the Avenger on in offence. Then his WWII suit makes him start with 2 rounds of shield guard which is really strong. However, to my experience people using the WWII suit usually have him as total tank with low damage, so when I role a stealth team he will be almost useless.
The other tactician then these 2 aren't really bad, but they are not played because Emma and Cap are so strong. I would say its most interesting in that especially Black Panther is a 90 Cost(most expansive cost) but see almost zero usages. Still I think he is good and there is some small usages for Mr.Fantastic,,,,but the other tactician,s
Black Panther:
T’Challa, is a pretty decent anti tank guy. He was one of the first to be able to remove buffs (the other Black Widow correct me if I am wrong) but he is also pretty strong otherwise. However, of the reason he don't see so much play is that there is now a lot better anti buff and especially anti tank characters. Such as Gambit, who does the same but for every enemy or Beast that remove class bonus and remove counter attacks etc.
He is very straight forward his 3 first abilities has a synergy while the ultimate who removes stuff is kinda just there.
The thing is that he is far to slow, T’Challa needs to build up his stuff, which takes 3 turns. 3 turns are way to slow for the current meta in PvP.
His first ability and his second gives him 2 unique buff each and then the third transform them to two very strong buffs while giving him a third buff.
This works good if he faces a blaster as he then gains the second turn otherwise its take way to long time.
And the ultimate while its a good ability in itself it really is by itself. It has no combination with the other abilities or any other for that well it is extra strong versus mechanical enemies which they are none of in PvP.
Black Panther is like many other characters a strong PvE character and a weak PvP character. He has been nerfed and boosted a little, the problem is its not a very easy to balance him. Either he becomes to strong as its an easy combo, do 1, do 2 do 3 = super massive stat boost. Kill stuff. If the abilities last to long its to easy, if he gains the 2 buffs right away he could gain the max buffs in one turn etc.
Still I could definitely see a alternative suit, which makes him start with 1 or both of the buffs. I think that would be fair.
He still have some use today as he can remove tank abilities etc. And his passive is decent 50% of the time he is attacked he gives dizzy to the attacker.
Mr. Fantastic:
First of all no one ever plays Reed. without his future foundation suit. He is pretty good actually, when combined with someone else from the future foundation as he gives a annoying passive and then the future countdown. This means he is good, but very limited to a few possible teams.
He has a couple of good passive with the FF suit and 2 without.
The first one is interesting, his attacks has a chance to give weak point a debuff that makes the next attack to the target a guaranteed critical.
His second is mallable, meaning he some times take reduced damage from non energy attacks. This is one of the reason he works good with Spider-man FF,Invisible Women FF and Thing FF as he already has a increased defence gaining the evasion/shield/defence buff from that can be quite good.
But, his second and third ability isn't that good. The second one is really bad, it sets up one target for combo set up. Reed is not strong enough to make it worth while. The third is good in that sense that its an AoE so it can give everyone weak point and it has Deadly Critical so after it has given everyone weak point its good to use.
Is a problematic ability to be able to give everyone weak point is really good something Mockingbird can do. But to be able to sometimes do it is kinda risky. Like in any other game, you wont want to trust in random luck.
His first ability is actually a lot better then his second it gives the super accucery reduction debuff distraction. The next attack cant hit basically.
This is also what his team passive is in his suit, he grants everyone the ability to give distraction with single target attacks.
Reed’s ultimate really don't work in PvP or at bosses in PvE. I am sure it reduced Max hp, but now it says deals damaged based on hp only. Maybe it got nerfed or something hmm. Regardless it has a very low effect in PvP and on bosses. That lower his use, but it its stealth.
So in the right team, usually with another FF. Mr. Fantastic s pretty strong, but the user needs to get the costume, the actual cost is 33 + 50 (or 66) = 83. He got a really expansive costume that for sure, but he is really deadly in the right team.
Personally I like this design, in that sense that cheaper characters should be viable but be more limited. I would prefer if every character was equally strong and then the cheaper ones like Reed here was simply limited to fewer teams.
I would not recommend to get any of the 3 other Tactican, well Hawkey is free so. And War Machine unlocks a stage. But no one plays with them for a reason.
Hawkeye:
Hawkeye was actually pretty good until Playdom nerfed the whole quantum jumpers as they could take infinitive turns. The exhaustion thing was introduced this nerfed Hawkeye from being able to do 4 turns against Blasters.
Before Hawkeye could use his ultimate, which is a quick action and 2 attacks on enemies. First Ultimate on one target, which is a unique debuff so they cant avoid and all Hawkeyes attack are critical on that target.
If that target is a Blaster he gains another turn. Then he could do the ultimate again on another target and then shoot that target or preferably the first target or use his AoE. This left 2 enemies who cant avoid and one that has taken pretty high damage.
Even better his second ability is a stun attack, so he could refresh it before the game system was changed using the ultimate. So stun a blaster then ultimate and stun another enemy.
So he was pretty good then and I am sure that how he was designed for.
Since the game system was changed he has not become stronger.
Also his ultimate is really redundant for himself. Sure he critical, but he cant miss anyway. As he has a passive granting him super accuracy(which is true to the comic). Then he really cant miss them, the ultimate is decent as he is weak so his critical does not matter to much.
One fix for Hawkeye would be that his ultimate was changed into a weak point but it lasted, so his attacks and everyone else would critical the target for 1-2 turns. And maybe his AoE could do some debuff then just measly damage to all enemies.
Cyclops:
Cyclops is a douche bag, so you shouldn't play him.
Now that I have got that out of my system. Cyclops deals pretty high damage, but he is not very good.
First and ultimate is just pure damage, the latter being AoE. This is one of the reason people could still kill Blasters quick as two first abilities or even better second and then first is a lot of damage.
His best ability is the second ability which gives weak point(critical next attack) so he is a good anti blaster. First second then his first to damage them hard.
His third is a buffer ability. Granting everyone Agile(25% Evasion). Which I in most cases are stronger then Fortification(Defence) so its not that bad but weaker then strengthened(25% damage). It also makes him counter attacks.
There is really not to much to say about Cyclops, he got one of hte worst ultimate in the game a pure damage AoE which can be protected etc. So it don't do much, his third ability gives Agile, not the best buff nor it is not unique. The are better character to give weak point like Mockingbird who does it to everyone and its a quick action.
His Phoenix costume is decent. It grants sometimes that the attack for the character are like Blasters against Bruisers. Critical and Ignore Defence.
War Machine:
His first ability ignore defence and has high critical. Its like an Blaster move and he got huge attack power. With extremely high cost on stamina making him a pretty much a 1 attack glass canon guy.
His second ability is just high damage and his third is just high damage but in AoE.
And his ultimate is full stamina + more damage on the next attack but after that zero stamina.
So he is more or less the most boring character in the game. I would guess hes a Tactician because Iron Man is Blaster. Furthermore, no is his first ability is a Blaster attack to a Bruiser. He probably wont get a Blaster alternative suit which other wise would fit him more.
As he is so straight forward and uncomplicated people used to have him in defence to hope a Blaster would pop up, but now with vastly better Tactician Emma Frost or that those users saved top Captain America he don't see any play.
I haven't seen anyone use him since 6-7 months ago.
His ultimate has a precooldown which should be removed to make him have some viability the user will still be left with zero stamina so its a strategy choice. And hes really bad for PvE as he runs out of Stamina right away. In PvP he is saved by the PvP Bonus if the user has a lot of Tacticians, but he is so straight forward he wont do much good in most games.
Summary:
As class the Tactician is awesome, arguably the best class. I am surprised that not more Tactician has been added because I can really see a way around many interesting design with specially the class bonus and that they can be more of a support character type.
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