Yeah Magik collection of new characters this time.
Heimdall,
Loke Loki and
Brother Voodoo Dr.Voodoo. I could do Sabertooth to pretty much because I got him very fast this season but I think I leave that to next season.
I can say some quick things about Sabertooth for people out there thinking of using Gold for him.
Hes not fantastic but pretty solid so far, his revive ability is one of the best, while I have earlier talked a lot about how resurrection effect are kinda meh, since all the excetuone characters came. This is of course still true for Sabertooth. Well as he always resurrects with 50% health and he then also gains life per turn, hes really hard to kill.
I done like 50 battles with him and he has yet to die(a true death). Hes pretty good, hes not Magneto good but Ok so far.
Heimdall
Heimdall's first ability is a Finest Hour moves, which means it deals more damage based on how many buffs he has and it also has deadly crits.
Its not a very great ability, because he can give himself the 4 standard buffs(agility,strength,defence and evasion) but its from his ultimate with a 3 turn Cooldown.
So while its kind of easy to always just start of with his ultimate into this move thats usually a one time deal as then the buffs get removed most of the time. Hes really only good move his is second one(and his passive).
Heimdall get stuck a little like Satanna were she cant be played with Finest hour guys, he instead need someone else for the most time to buff him, for example I been running a lot of Spiral + Heimdall which is a good team. So this Limits Heimdall, hes not very strong.
His third ability is a very weak AoE attack with bad debuffs on it. Its quite the bad move.
Note: His ultimate moves people to bifrost(no real effect on gameplay that I know of at least) and then buff everyone.
His real redemption is in this second ability which give him a chance to cancel any attack made be the enemy for 1 turn. This can then completely shut down massive AoE attack kind of characters like Thor, Iron Patriot and so on. Its a Quick Action, its one of the best abilities in the game. And a first turn move. However, it also has a significant cooldown of 2 turns. In most PvP battles it will only be used once.
But it can even cancel out stuff like Scroll of Angolob(which is kinda weird as its not an attack...)
His passive is first the Asgardian passive, protecting him from some Damage over time effects a decent passive.
His second passive is unique to him and its a very strong passive. It a chance to cancel out preemptive attacks, there are not many of this but obviously 2 common characters Magneto and Quicksilver has them, making him pretty good in the meta. In context this passive is good against those guys pretty much. It also makes enemies not be able to use stealth moves, so hes a Bruiser good versus both Scrappers and Infiltrators, well and a few others too.
Hes slows down the game a lot but his own attacks are very weak.
Because of this he has to be played either with a support for him or him supporting strong attackers. He don't stand very good on his own at all. He pretty much fall short, as if the opponent just kills his allies he almost does nothing. Also while he can prevent stealth, he is not himself a tank. So then you have to play him with tank, making the team very defensive and slow. The best synergy I found with him is Spiral. Well hes good with Hercules to until someone uses a aoe removal..so like the fist turn if stars aligns.
His passive makes that Tacticians cant longer stealth move and not be countered by a Infiltrator like for example Fantomex. This of course helps infiltrators in your team and hes Bruiser. Hes a very niche kind of character.
One last thing to think about is -_- don't get me wrong. His second ability, first of all also have a chance to apply debuffs.....this is something almost no character has in the game. And it would be good if no one had this shit, so only sometimes will it apply the 2 debuffs it can gives.
But the more important thing is, while its a great move. It can also do absolute nothing. Same with his chance to negate preemptive attacks.
His very limited and his best move is a luck move.
3/10
Loki
I am used to call Loki, Loke, just like its Mjölner and not Mjolnir btw. In Sweden, Norway and Danmark hes called Loke, just like Odin is Oden. Well in old proto Scandinavian, E and I is the same letter. But, I wouldent mind some Ö in English.
Anyway, I have barely ever seen Loki In defence nor have I heard about him being used.
Which says a lot, because hes amazing in attack. But clearly his moves are mainly good versus the stupid AI and his moves cant be used by the stupid AI.
Loki's second ability is an amazing attack against the AI. It has the cursed mirror debuff he as a boss has. Really good to use, his first ability is just throw dagger and it usually does not miss. Very bad move but a stable damage output I guess.
That move can be almost ignored, its about his second third and ultimate and he got a good passive ability.
He like many new characters...has a evasion passive. He can dodge any attack 20% chance and then he counters. It is not as good as Spiral nor as good as Elektra(against melee) as his counter is just damage back to them it don't really apply anything. But, Because of Loki's other shenanigans it actually is very strong. His other 3 abilities are about reducing or ignoring the damage the enemies does as well. So in combination its an amazing passive, but in pure comparison to the others its a little weaker then some, well it is better then Elektra as she only dodges Melee moves(but her counter is better).
His second ability, plays a cursed mirror debuff. This makes the characters next attack heal instead of damaging. Which crushes so many characters, you got 2 stacks on your Thor, thanks for healing my characters.
It's at very excellent moves, also it work like a stealth attack for Tactician. I been over this many times before how Stealth and/or psychic attacks is pretty overpowered on a Tactician as they cant then be countered by an infiltrator. In Loki's case this ability works like that but it has as miss chance, a low miss chance(I never miss personally except of evasion abilities like the cube) but if it hits it will instead force the Infiltrator to counter and heal him. This of course kind of counters Loki in that way that he cant place a cursed mirror if they counter it away right away in a sense. But for most of the time its a way just like With Emma Frost, Fantomex, Black Widow etc to be able to attack an class you should be weak against with no repercussions. And sometimes it can be used to purely make the target heal up Loki.
His third move also cant be countered as its a subtle move, meaning it also cant be protected against. To go over each affect of this move would take a very long time. Simple Trickster as its called reverse most stuff for the opponent, if they got a protector, they get cornered so they cant block anymore. If they got Strength they get weakness. Often this one is hilariously stronger against character who buff all their team mates like Heimdall.
Its very noteworthy to remember it reverses passive buff such as mentioned protection also means protection on an agent who has it full time from an item not only a protector buff started by e.g. Captain America for one turn.
Its a surprisingly effective move in the current Meta.
Lastly his ultimate also protect him from Infiltrators, its a Aoe attack and he gains mirror image so they miss when they counter, well it does not work against multiple counter enemies but at average it works fine. It also adds one of the strongest debuffs in the game, disoriented.
Loki is all about lowering the enemies damage, making them miss or heal instead or attacking each other. So he actually works pretty fine in defence to because of the strong luck factors of disoriented and his passive. While in attack hes a amazing.
I still roll my old team Magneto and Emma Frost, but I found Loki and Magneto even stronger. But its like 1-2% more win ratio pretty indifferent and with Emma I win a lot faster. Loki is more safe.
9/10. Very strong and his true to his mythological self.
Dr. Voodoo
I just want to say I prefer the Brother over Dr. It might sound racist but the thing is that I always felt it was a name to remark how his dead Brother Daniel would be in the stories and be really annoying. I man really, did anyone ever like Daniel Drumm, I just felt he was always there nagging Jericho. Hes like Marvel's version of Navi.
Spoilers:
I loved the Issue of new Avengers, were he finally died and he toke with him Victoria Hand, 2 birds with one stone.
Dr. Voodoo essentially got 7 moves and its not like change class or stance etc. He got like the cube, one move which is 4 moves and they got individual cooldowns so he just got 7 moves. That's a unique trait of his. Of course as one could expect many of the moves are kinda eehhe. Its more that he has a lot of weird skills especially his ultimate.
Well he is actually pretty strong, hes a heavy support character like many other Blasters he is similar to Dr. Strange for obvious reasons.
And also for that reason, its clear he would be so much better of getting a Tactician suit. He makes sense as a Blaster but as with Dr.Strange it would be better to swap class.
His biggest drawback really is, hes a blaster with really bad stats. Like most Blasters he got very low Health and very low defence.
His first ability is low damage but it does give the target soulfire removing their buffs and bane(increase damage taken by magic) which is better then nothing. Its actually pretty much the exact same base move Daimon Hellstrom has but weaker damage(and then Daimon gains a buff, while Dr.Voodoo gives them bane instead).
Well this will make the soulfire deal more damage and he like Dr.Strange works better with other magic users.
His second ability is low damage as well but has exploit attrition(increased damage from debuffs on target). The better part this ability is that it also heals all allies.
This ability is often useless at start but can be quite strong if its set up correctly, but in PvP with fast battles and so on, its not so great more of a PvE move.
Then his third ability are the 4 different ones.'
The first move is pretty much Unstable affliction in World of Warcraft(I played Lock in TBC ftw) when it is removed either by time or by the enemy it deals the damage. Very interesting move...if the game was a real PvP. Useless right now, the player don't know if the enemy will remove and so on.
The second move is very weak, but in theory it could be good as it drains enemies stamina. I always have wanted to create a stamina stealing team. Which I have noted on earlier why it can never work as people get stamina from Bonuses(which should be removed 100%) in theory this moves is good especially as his next move puts deathfrost all targets removing stamina per tun as well.
But how the game is balanced(fail) right now this move is pretty useless as well.
The third move summons crows on the enemies is a great move. Its a summoning move, so they enemy cant counter it. Summoning move is kinda the middle thing between being stealth and psychic. It is not as good as psychic but better then stealth unless they got a tank. Ye its funky.
For the mot part people don't have AoE tanks, its good move as it puts on 2 damage over time effects, deathfrost and dark void. Very nice total damage is done by using this move once. A good start move with him.
The last ability is bad, it cant be used more then once during his ultimate for starters. But the issue with it is that its a very unsafe damage. Dr.Voodoo will try and posses an enemy. Yes Try, first of all this possession can fail then it does nothing,,,and even when it succeeds it makes the enemy attack someone at random so its extremely hard to get any good value from this move.
However, it does make him phased. Which is by far the best of this ability. So, if its a 1v1 match and the enemy is doted(which he should be as Dr.Voodoo got 3 dots only by himself to start with) you can hide away phased, just like old good demon set + abyssal It's not a worthless move but often its not very great. Also note that Dr.Voodoo usually dies first. (However, I would recommend setting him up with 8 Spry isos or something similar to max def/hp so he can survive longer).
A summary of these moves 4 moves are pretty much, in most cases the Crow attack is enough to have. The other 3 are just there for the show. Well in rare occasions when hes last man standing they have more value and the phase can save you.
His ultimate is weird but it is pretty simple how it works
One ally gets one turn per alive ally and the rest loses their turn. So essentially one person in the team can do a lot of damage.
Its a very situational ultimate. And it has to be set up with a character that can spam their abilities. For example its amazing with Emma Frost. Then you can sit their and spam her ultimate. While with other characters it will be nearly useless and of course depending on what gear your agent has it might do nothing.
This ultimate is similar to Cable's. And Cable is better, not necessary every time or for every team. But in a generally perspective Cable will work better with more characters. Its again about
Limitations, Dr.Voodoo is not bad but only a handful characters can use his ultimate. Of course he can use it on himself but....thats not what you want to do. None of his other moves are damage dealing really.
Unfortunately this move has 1 start cooldown. So you cant just do it and win.
Having a good AoE spammer with him should mean a sure win at round 2. For example round one Emma does, Mental Trauma, Dr.Voodoo does crows, round 2 Dr.Voodoo Ultimates her, she does 2 mental Traumas game over, definitely game over(unless they have Magneto and Juggernaut :). She can still do a third one that round, thats 4 mental traumas in 2 turns plus crows and maybe damage from Agent as well, but I would run Tank/support agent to protect Dr.Voodoo. It seems to work to that its possible to combo Sheppard Staff with Dr.Voodoos ultimate double removing 1 turn for the agent but still then gaining one turn with Emma(and then + sheppard statff).
Lastly, Dr.Voodo also has a passive, like all other new characters they always got some passive.
It reduces damage taken by Magic effects for everyone in the team. Not the greatest ability as not so many character uses magic and in the PvP meta right now, its a decent passive.
7/10. I feel he got a lot of pretty nad moves and like 1 great.
Of these 6 new characters I been gone over, Spiral, Loki and Dr.Voodoo are clearly playable but in different type of teams ofc. Loki work in most team, Spiral is great with strong damage dealers(especialy buff based one) she can also be played with Damage over time teams(as she both deals dots and heals/shields) which are very strong but slow wining teams). And Dr.Voodoo is insanely strong in the right synergy.
Heimdall and Bishop are pretty mediocre, while Moon Knight is absolutely worthless.
