Oh Groot.
BEST TANK HANDS DOWN!!!
And he is still not playable.
Its a sad reality in marvel avengers alliance tanks just does not work and while Groot is by far the best tank in the game, he got exactly what I have said tanks should get for ages. He can block both single and aoe attacks and its a passive which cant be removed. And thats just the start he got another passive which prevents him from dieing turns him into a healing support character while the other defend him and lastly with his alternative suit he becomes immune to attacks that would other wise prevent his second form from happening.
Thats just 3 really, really good passive. Absolutely the best tank in the game, even if all his abilities would suck. But Tanks are so weak.
Also if there is anything you should take away from this article is that people play Groot very wrong, so even if they for whatever reason want to use him. They don't do it correctly, same with Star-Lord and as they are an extremely common team up. It sets Groot in a horrible win ratio.
Groot got more good stuff, his passive(suit) also lower damage taken at low life and he can be played as a Generalist. His whole support form is actually quite good with its extra turn ability which works like Cable were he can grant 1 team mate an extra turn while he still has his turn and keep his turn(as its a quick action) so he can get 2 turns himself instead of giving someone else 1 turn if thats is needed.
Very good tank and passives. His offensive abilities are that he can lower peoples stats with debuffs and hobbled them so they cant use stealth attack. His hobble attack is a Quick action so he can use it very easily. Just wow really he is a tank with great utility and best passives far better then the rest.
ISSUE---META
So what is the issue then? Simple said, Groot counters pretty much all characters except the best characters. In a pvp game based around meta, e.g if character A is played 90% of the game and while B is the best character in the game you cant play B as everyone will beat B.
Groot is bad vs Emma Frost,Magneto,War,Kitty Pryde,Death,Iron Patriot,Cable,Spiral,Wolverine. Thats the top 10 characters in the game, he is only good vs Taskmaster of the top characters and thats barely as Taskmaster can still buff and shit, so Generalist Groot is good vs him.
Overall tanks are just worse in the game right now compared to how they were before, well not as in season 3 were 90% of the players used psychic attacks but...now we got mechanics like catastrophic which cant be blocked.
So for example, I use the best team in the game Magneto and Emma Frost and facing Groot I just aoe them with both characters. Emma use her physic aoe which no tank can defend against and Magneto uses his catastrophic aoe who also no tank can protect against.
Other top character are Quicksilver and Psylocke who is one of the most common team if not the most common right now, it has been at least over the last seasons. This team hard counters Groot. QS goes first so no way he will be hobbled by Groot and Psylocke is also stealthy so he can only hinder one when its his turn. IF he even can. As most people use mystic and removal, keeping hobbled up is not easy. They will go past him and kill the agent or the other hero.
It just not viable playing with tanks even if Groot is the best tank (so really do not play with any other tank as they will just perform even worse)
Thats the overall problem with Groot and other tanks.
Then people also play Groot wrong!
Full defence orientd. I am guessing people roll Groot with like Spry isos. Sure it makes him harder to kill but who cares he hits for nothing. This is the same with Star-Lord people go full support on him and he himself does nothing, combo these guys togheter you got 1 character with any power which is the agent and the agent likely got support items like hte guardian item...so yeah this will just take time to beat no one will lose to this team if they can play the game.
One thing that always made Wonder man a good tank and the best tank until Groot came. Was that he hit really hard. Groot can actually do surprisingly high damage with his ultimate and its 100000x more scary then a Groot that just wont die so fast.
Playing Groot you should go for the Stark Iso, Attack, Defense, Health. Overall this is the go to iso for any character. Its much better then chaotic Iso. And absolutely no defense oriented iso like Spry for Groot.
Only characters who can play with Spry are damage over time strategies and thats only in attack when the player is in control.
To win with the AI the characters need to deal high damage, the longer the game the likelier the attacker wins, which is another fundamental flaw for playing with tanks. The more time the AI can screw up the worse it gets.
With any tank in the game, they should all go as for max damage as they can. Sure they can tank but thats for reducing aoe damage and focusing the attacks to them so other characters can do even more damage.
So really its the horrible, just horrible to go Star-Lord and not make him a Glass canon then. If its Star-Lord behind Groot he should go for MAX MAX damage. Fuck, Health etc just damage them. IF you believe Groot will defend...redundant to say but of course Groot wont defend him most games so do still go Stark on Star-Lord but in theory if we were to make complete use of Groot then we should have Star-Lord (or who ever is the other hero) as a Glass Cannon with pure damage isos.
Wonder man was always like this as well, hes annoying as he blocks some attacks and the then aim was to kill the the other team with his rising buff based finisher. Not just stand there and not die for a while. 99% of the Groot teams out there are free win.
