Jessica has 2 major issues and these are both classic design issues which often result in a negative outcome for the character, having both of course makes her unplayable.
1 - Licence character
The first one really annoys me becasue its a classic, "licence game issue". While she and the rest of all the characters are of course licence by Marvel-Disney. She is still really shows of a classic Licence game problems. By this I mean, that its generic and bad. As most licence games are horrible tryng to just sell on the licence alone, this is a very classic issue, Et being the prime example of the whole game industry crash, if anything I would say that bad licence game is probably the most iconic issue a game can have.
So while all the characters are licence here by the same company, Jessica Jones clearly is still released to support her new netflix tv-series. Nothing wrong with that, as long as its not so obvious its just a cop out to have something with the tv-series. She is very boring, very weak overall a very generic and useless heroine.
But if there is one thing tat really shows of her as a prime example of this is that she cannot fly in the game. Canon Jessica Jones from the comics can fly and are overall psychical stronger then the Tv-series one.
So its clear they are designing after the show and then they made another big mistake. Its balanced after the show...just WTF. The show is way more down to earth, like all the marvel films and especially these netflix shows. This means Jessica is by defualt is supposed to be just a little better than a normally trained human. And the are keeping it like that...
I truly make no logical sense on a gameplay level. Look at e.g Marvel Vs Capcom 3. If they had followed the comics literally, Thor would never lose to Spider-Man as he would just 1 shoot him with 1 punch. What you do instead is that Thor is a slow strong character, spider-man is fast but weak etc. OF course that game is not perfectly balanced, just like any other game. But it would make no gameplay if the characters where impossible to play in a 1v1 match up kind of game based on a literal adaption from the comics/movies.
That only works in a game like Europa universallis where you can for example start as France and have a huge advantage over most countries or start as Byzantium and likely die from the Ottomans in a few years.
This game follow real life history and it was unfair, life was unfair. But that works in a game as its a challenge to survive then as Byzantium. Other games that follow a book like the lords of the rings can e.g feature you playing the halfings "army" and trying to beat the orcs which will be way harder, maybe they have some cool passives and weird strategies one can use and so on.
This particularity works because advanced strategy games ca feature other kinds of meta gameplay, alliances etc. n
But a straight 1v1 game where the 2 sides will automatically fight each other the game has to try and be as balanced as possible of course to work. Marvel Avengers Alliance works a little better then MvC as is 3v3 and some characters can be really weak alone but good with certain teams etc. But a character that is just blatantly weak because of following a tv-series that is just bad.
And I don't really get it, why not make her sell. If you compare to Boomarang the next character, he is vastly better and he is a really uninteresting character so I guess they made him be better, while not caring about Jessica.
But to me, it would make more sense that she is supposed to draw you into the show or be really cool that fans of the show needs to have her. And its not so dam hard, for example why is her fire hydrant attack debuffing waterlogged. That is one of the worst debuffs in the game, I get that she has to look street thuggy from hell's kitchen so she cannot have like Deathfrost, Deathfrost would make no sense as its a magical thing. But why not have chilled over waterlogged, they could even have waterlogged and chilled the ability would still be crap.
Its all those mistakes on each of her ability, she could have had 1-2 debuffs on each ability and still not be a good character then she would be ok.
For me its clear licence cash grab with no brains behind it.
2 - To many abilities.
Second issue she has is something that is very common in games. I wrote about this in my old Elise and Jayce reviews in League of Legends like 3 years ago. This is something that is super common in games (Note that Elise is really good now in LoL but a lot of new items, map changes patch changes to her has happen since then), where the game characters has a set decided number of abilities
normally.
In both LoL, Dota etc its 4 just like in Marvel Avengers Alliance. And then often when a designer works on creating more abilities for those few characters who have 5 or more, often what happens is that all these abilities are bad. Instead of having 4 great ability, the character ends up with 8 horrible abilities. There is a lot of games that do this, JRPGS where all characters have around 20 spells and then suddenly one has like 75 where 65 is useless and so on (Than we also have like Cid in Final Fantasy Tactics, who could do what all other knight class could do while also doing it better, he has like 40 abilities where the rest has 10 but all of his are also better then the ones with 10, that is what we call super broken).
A good example to Balance this is e.g Akuma in Street Fighter where the otehr cahracter has 3 abilities he has 10 or more. But he the lowest health in the game and the ability who overlaps with others like Shouryuken (him and Ryu). Ryu does higher damage, but he still has it so he can use it as a close high prio move or as an Anti Air.
This can work, but many games has this issue and its further really bad in a turn based game, as Marvel Avengers Alliance. Characters with multi functional abilities that are Quick Action aren't effected than but characters with just several crappy abilities that you can only pick 1 from is just really, really bad.
This is why tool box characters in general aren't good in MAA, you rather spend your turn doing 1 good attack then having 6 different to choice from where maybe 1 of them is good in some specific scenario.
To many abilities is a common issue in MAA but it especially bad on Jessica Jones.
Because she is a anti class toolbox options, which is probably the most crystal clear bad toolbox options to have.
So Jessica has 4 abilities that each counter 1 class right, it gives them the counter debuff to that class + does some weak debuffs as well. Well the game has disadvantage, that debuff will auto set the correct debuff. Clearly its 10x times better to have disadvantage + good debuffs. That counters any class and you can then also have nasty stuff with it as well. She would have to have way, way better debuffs + the specific counter debuff to be good, for example her 3.1 has open wound this is a really good debuff so that is one is better then having like Generalist and nothing more like Silk has.
But than we have an attack like the primary attack of Cloak and Dagger which has generalist and purged (which is really good in this meta), that counters any class + adds a very good debuff.
When Domino was new her whole thing was that she uniquely had Disadvantage and that was years ago, Jessica has a worse version of disadvantage spread over bad combo debuffs, look at it compared to just the newest character when writing this - Nova (Richard) who has AoE disadvantage he has not seen any PvP play yet but that is clearly a really, really good attack. Which also shows how forgotten Domino is.
Basically his 2.1 is better then any of Jessicas options (2 and 31.32.33), he counters any class right away, all enemies and adds in random debuffs which are equal or better to what Jessica does to 1 enemy + He also still got his 2.2.
She is terrible.
More abilities has never been a key for being good in this game and then to have it to around turning of a class where its an debuff that does that versus any class. Mind blowing bad.
Passive:
First she has this "Short Fuse" which is horrible. This passive is the chance to after being attacked gain counter to attacks.
There are characters who just have counter on always (as passive not as infiltrator). Or like coordinated defence where everyone in the team can counter an attack.
This is a blatant example of under powered design that I am talking about where it seems its way to much focused on being like in the tv show.
Her other passive is that she at random puts Target focus which is UTTER CRAP. That is just to fit her tv character this does nothing in the game.
However, it does also sometimes random that she gains fatal intel which means her next attack has fatal blow and that is actually strong.
The way I see it she has this passive to get Fatal intel on luck and the rest is just nonsense, a 4/20 in passive power
Abilities:
Her first ability is actually quite good is a good primary attack.
For example its pretty much the same thing Kamala has but it also adds in targeted (as well as combo setup and wide-open), that makes it automatically better. But it also adds Grit to her.
And this is great as Grit goes up to 5 stacks and gives a stat increase to all the 4 primary stats + is used for her ultimate, gaining a stack buff on a primary attack is strong as its then increased by each follow up attack, each counter each coordination attack etc. This is her only good move and it is quite important that its her primary but she cannot be carried only by this.
6/10
Her second ability is just a part of her toolbox stuff, it might as well be called 3.4 or the 3.x moves could be called 2.2 etc. And that speaks volumes to it not being very good (as explained above).
This one turns of infiltrators but its a little better then the other 3 moves, as is a stealth move. That is always good to have but on the same time its not like she has any real benift of that being a Bruiser. I gues its more like, if an infiltrator has counter on they cannot counter this ? I am pretty sure if you attack into someone who has counter on but you have an anti counter move like off-balance they don't counter anyway, so yeah. Its ok.
2/10
So her third ability are 3 moves split with a multi function option, the 3.2 counters 2 classes, while the other 1 counters 1 each.
The only good move here is 3.1 which does open wound that randomizes bleeding + ravage which can be really strong, it also strangely does tenderize that increase slash damage even do she has no other slash abilities, it really looks like they just took a Wolverine or X-23 move and put it on her + anti Blaster.
Its good do that as she is a Bruiser the anti blaster move is likely your first pick regardless.
But all the other options are really bad, and if you are facing a none blaster? or actually does not care about removing class buffs as its not usually such a big deal except for Tacticians that really can utilize having 2 turns.
3/10
Ultimate:
Her ultimate is the most generic thing she has as its the most generic and over used thing in this game.
Throwing an object, since the game was released several character has had the throw a car, satellite, ston etc for a stun effect. Always stun and bad damage.
This ultimate is no different it do user up her grit to do more damage but it has a horrendous base damage and it stuns that's it.
And I don't get why it cannot also have a debuff like intimidation, if its supposed to be more like in the series more down to earth, then intimidated would be a reasonable outcome if a normal criminal got a car thrown at them,
1/10
Verdict:
Her score is: 4+6+2+3+.5 = 15.5 of 55.
She is a generic license character with no interesting gameplay at all. She is weak and there is no combo character for her and so on, just boring and bland.
1/10 (Because I do like the jokes like car-astrophic and private eye passive name etc, the names are good but the effect of the abilities are just so weak and unimaginative)
