As I noted in an earlier analyzation they got a pretty big buff but they are still pretty bad.
When the game was new the only viable Infiltrator was Spider-man by a large margin. Of course he cost maximum price (90 CP) and still do. I don't have a problem with him being expansive is after all spider-man and sure he can be the best, but he was the only viable. So not only was he the best, the rest where horrible worthless.
Since then most characters have been improved with their alternative costumes. However, they are still really bad as a normal base costume so I will have to look at them being played in their more costly costumes. For example, while Invisible Women cost 15 CP, she is utter shit. But with her alternative costume she is ok, for another 30 Cp. So in reality she cost 45 CP to play. Furthermore, she is not that good even with it, if not combined with another future foundation costume as they gain a bonus passive. So that's another 33 CP ( they all cost 33 or 90 for spider-man) and then another roughly 40+ Cp so when the user have paid 108 Cp they can play Invisible Women, with 1 character. The popular team Spider-man + Invisible Women cost 140 + 45 = 185 Cp.
Why is she so bad? Well the problem is not that Invisible Woman per say is bad, but that the class in itself is bad. (And she is pretty bad in her normal costume)
Their bonus was the weakest of all, being able to counter tactician and after being attacked or having attacked a tactician they can counter everything for 1 turn.
This means the other player or the AI has to attack into them to make them good, while would they do that? Spider-man has a passive ability that makes him intercept attacks, Aka he protects his allies sometimes. This is the reason he was playable, as he would actually get to counter attack a lot, and be a real nuisance in general.
Playdom decided to improve their class bonus, which was clearly the correct choice. However, as I have noted earlier this was a very weird boost. Which is the reason its still a very few Infiltrator that can be played. The boost is that now they also gain a pure 30% more attack damage when having the boost. Ok that's good, but still not enough to make them as good as for example scrappers that just gain another attack. Which is far better then 100% more attack as they will apply debuffs etc twice as much (e.g read what I wrote about Ghost Rider), so Infiltrator also got the stealth buff. The stealth buff suits the class well as it makes them go and be uncounterable and unprotectable.
However, this is a big mistake because what character benefit the most from this? You probably know what I am will say, its of course Spider-man. While the lower CP cost character like Invisible Women, Kitty Pryde and Nightcrawler already have a lot of attacks that are stealthed if not all. And the free Infiltrator Black Widow can remove the opponents protect abilities. The most expansive Infiltrator Spider-man and the later added Gambit is the ones with no Stealth attacks. Gambit was realised much later in the game and he is really, really good. Making the only viable characters be Gambit and Spider-man and this class buff affects them 100% and Black Cat (but shes pretty weak-- also needs a suit)
The conclusion I draw from this, is that the class bonus was so not well tough about, sure it make sense the Infiltrators gain a stealth buff,,,,,but most of them already have stealth attacks or subtitle moves (also uncounterable etc) so for them it became redundant. While the 2 expansive Infiltrator Gambit and Spider-man (both on max cost of 90CP) are the one who were balanced doing more damage and having better abilities but t hen with no stealth. They become a lot better from this
Another reason while Infiltrator are generally bad is because they are so heavily owned by the Scrappers.
Spider-Man:
Lets start with Spider-Man.
He is the character you should buy if you want a Infiltrator simple as that. He is far the best in his normal costume then any other character, Gambit is better in a few situations. But Spider-Man got a costume making him even better.
Spider-Man as all other good character has a load of passive abilities. He has as a I mentioned that he can protect people, this is far the best passive for any Infiltrator as he can then counter if the attacker was an Tactician. In PvE this works great to counter any Tactician enemies or bosses, and in PVP it can really save the day. He is very, very good in combo with Blasters. As Blasters are weak against Tactician, but the Tactician have to hit the Blaster to get their bonus(a second turn) Spider-Man can many times go in between costing them their extra turn and countering them. Furthermore, Spider-Man has a ridiculous evasion. While all the Infiltrators has a high Evasion Spider-Man has his second ability the spider sense that is a quick action, so its free to use with 1 turn cooldown and it gives him a huge boost in evasion. So he avoids basically everything. Especially then when he is defending against a Tactician.
Lastly his Future Foundation suit, gives him a passive that increases his evasion permanently for up to 20 stack and after his first turn is done he will gives this bonus to the others. This alone makes him sickly good.
Almost kinda funny, how good he is. His other abilities don't matter so much, he can just be in the fight with his passive and its good. But he got another passive....he deals more damage if he is attacked .... which he is because he tanks attack.
THen his first ability is an ok attack as it deals moderately high damage and debuffs the enemy with webbed a unique debuff to spider man(lowers attack and defence) but his third attack gains a lot of extra damage against webbed targets. This actually make Spider-man be a really heavy hitter as well. Because he will counter with the webbed attack, and then the player can use his web slingshot with extra damage from both being attacked and because the target is webbed to often 1 shot them.
Then Spider-man’s forth ability is actually pretty bad, its a 1 attack with a stun that has a lower chance to hit. But he is still sickly better then everyone else. Being able to tank and force the enemy to attack him so he can counter, and with the highest evasion in the game so he will survive most attacks. He can even soak AoE attacks, and then he can deal huge amount of damage too. He really should be nerfed, at least his damage don't make much sense.
And now with the class buff then, he is also stealth and deals even more damage....
Spider-Man is a most buy. He was the first Infiltrator I bought, I identified everyone else as utter shit as they where to when the game was new.
Gambit:
Gambit is surprisingly good in the game, one would think that a max cost character would be good of course but he don't look that good on paper until you play him.
Also no one plays him, at least in defence but hes really good in offense. Hes really good in PvE as well I use him more then Spider-man in PvE now days.
Gambit can deal a lot of damage, and be very useful in PvE. Has he can take several turns. And can deal damage out in a efficient spread way to kill more enemies. This is because his passive is that he gains kinetic charges. And he has the passive Wild Card, that makes him throw a chard at an enemy that either was attacked or attacked him or an ally sometimes. This Wild Card also gives a kinetic Charged. Otherwise they are gained from Gambits first ability, which is also his normal primary attack so if he counters he does his bo roulette and gains stacks or for example in combination with a avenger suit he does this as his coordinate attack.
This lead to his awesome second ability. Ace of Spades, which deals pretty low damage but gives the target exposed(25% lower defence) but more importantly its a free turn attack if he has 1 charge. Then Gambit consumes one charge and gains another free turn. This is such a great ability. This in PvE means e.g kill an enemy with Ace of Spades and then heal everyone. Or even sometimes kill 2 enemies as he can do up to 4 attacks with a max stack and then still have another turn to use items or to use his other abilities.
Gambit got, I would say at least the best self synergy ability in the game. Because his third ability deals extra damage if they are exposed, and it has deadly critical. For every stack he has he gains a lot more critical chance. So first the user can use his second ability to make them exposed and then use his third ability to deal huge amount of damage, usually killing them instantly if he has 3 stacks left as it then usually will critical. While pother characters usually build this up in 2-3 turns. For example Iron First first can use his first ability and then the next turn use his second ability for basically the exact same combo, expect Iron First don't have passively a lot more critical (Note: Iron Fist also has exploit critical) and it takes 2 turns he cant do it in 1 turn.
This ability do consume all the charges to deal even more extra damage, but it really means a huge amount of damage.
Lastly Gambit got one of the best ultimate abilities in the game. It also has exploit critical, it gives all enemies exposed, which is slightly redundant but another way to build up for the third ability. But, it also removes all beneficial buffs on the enemies!!! This is an amazing ability. It removes protect in PvP from guard characters, it removes stacking characters like Hulks ability to gain anger. It removes Phoenix buff, both from the PoE5 costumes and the agents weapon that grants hp regen is removed. And its on all the enemies, while dealing pretty good damage as well. And if they got a tactician its stealth.
Gambit is really, really good. Especially in PvP with the current Meta. And he gains a lot from the class bonus. The way he can get a lot of free turns, do an synergy with himself in one turn and being able to remove everything they got.
Ok, so the rest are shit. Trust me, I will give that if used with their alternative costume they have some use(some of them) but in their normal costume all other infiltrators are unplayable.
Lets look at them trough Cp cost Order.
Black Widow:
Well Black Widow is a free character, so the user will have her, and the user will most likely not use her for long.
The only good thing with her is that she can remove buffs like Gambit, but its a single target attack. SO right away there we can determine she is not as good as Gambit. She has a combo set up, with well nothing really. As she don't have exploit combo as most others have with combo set up. Also makes it a pretty bad normal primary attack. Her second ability gives weaken(25% attack reduction) which can help a lot of a few times,. But for example Dizzy(25% to miss) is 10x better in this game as many attacks can one shot characters. Making them slight weaker, usually still leads to a 1 attack death. But making them a chance to miss.
Her ultimate is a quick action, and gives her a ability to counter all attackers with a debuff that makes them take more damage from unarmed attacks. Pretty bad, it do works good in conjunction against Tactician, so I guess in PvE its decent.
She has a very low viability with avenger suit on but as all the other avenger suit characters (expect Hawkeye) is 100x better, its kinda pointless to use her at all...and I regret I have her avenger suit.
Invisible Women:
15 Cp cost Invisible Women is really, really bad. But she is really popular now in PvP in her alternative costume. SO I guess we have to look at her from that perspective.
Her first ability is stealth, her third ability is stealth her second is a shield for her team and her ultimate is a subtitle shield on the enemy. So as I mentioned earlier she gains nothing from the class bonus. She also counters with putting up her shield instead of attacking, so that 30% damage don't do much for her.
She also has a 25% chance to avoid single target attacks, which can be really annoying. Her first ability is really weak, but I stealth but still really weak. Her second is an ok ability, but shields don't stack and there exist a lot better shields. Her third is an AoE stealth which actually can be quite good as it can kill of a weak enemy being protected by a tank, while still damaging the rest.
Her fourth ability is horrendously bad. I will go so far and say its the worst ability in the game (now when they Playdom boosted Iron Fist). It such a bad defensive AI in PvP.
What it does is that it guards away an enemy, this enemy cant attack or be attacked. This means if she does this is 1v1, while being doted she will only her self lose damage. And if the enemy, can heal or give others buffs e.g quantum jumping agent, the enemy can still move but is immune to attacks. I have extremely rarely seen her ability actually not helping my team when she uses it. Its such an horrible move, I would never use her in PvP defence.
Still a lot of people do as she gains a reactive shield on herself and after her first turn on all her allies with her future foundation costume. This is really annoying especially as it turns on again between scrapper attacks. So When she or an ally for t ht matter is attacked by a double attacking scrapper she first gains a shield, then its depleted and the next attack(which is still really the same attack) she will gain a new full shield.
So she is actually really good and lowering the damage from Scrappers. Still it don't matter much as most viable scrappers will still do huge amount of damage to her or double debuff her e.g Ghost Rider. Its mainly a good defence against Quicksilver as he deals 2 very low damaging attacks and it blocks his AoE as the shield protect the other as well. I never lose to her anyway as she is so horrible in a 1v1.
When I play against her is always just leave her last, she cant win in a 1v1. I assume she is better in offence but in defence....come on people get a better def team.
Black Cat:
Black Cat cost 23 CP and its a pretty lousy character.
She is way to much build around giving the enemy bleed, a damage over time effect. But it can stack up to 5 times while other Dots are only once applied, burn, chilled etc. Bleed deals less damage but is then stronger if its up to 5 times. Unfortunately for Black Cat as always there is a more expansive character which is better, Wolverine in his alternative costume is an Infiltrator and he applies more bleed. However, the alternative costume of Black Cat makes her gives 3 bleed instead of 1 per attack. So 32 more CP and she is decent. However, for a very, very weird lack of ravage she is still bad. Black Cats ultimate does have exploit bleed so she deals a lot of damage with it after attacking whit her first ability twice.
However, this really has to emphasised she cannot give the ravage. Ravage makes a bleed DoT be as strong as others DoT and then it becomes really strong. That really makes her less viable.
And in the current games Meta,,,,especially before the last PvP season everyone uses Emma Frost, she removes Debuff which makes both Black Cat, Wolverine and well a lot of other character suck.
Black Cat is not a very good character even with her alternative costume. But, yet again a character that cant be played without having to pay more for her. This is a clear pattern.
Kitty Pryde:
Kitty is actually pretty decent. She is clearly better then the other more cheaper characters, but she was still never close to Spider-Man and I would never take her before Gambit either. But she is better then the others. Still arguably maybe Invisible women is better with her costume, if combined with another future foundation I would say so in most cases. Without costume Kitty is a clear third of the infiltrators.
Well,,,she is stealthy with her half her attacks so she don't gain that much from her class bonus.
Kitty has a passive ability, which make her sometimes counter attacks by summoning her dragon friend Lockhead which might give them burn. A pretty bad passive compared to for example Gambit as he can do an extra attack from both him being attacked, his allies or any enemy. But sure it does combine with her being able to counter attack being an infiltrator. And her costume makes her counter attack ever.
Kitty’s best ability is her fist ability as it makes her Phases, a buff that makes her avoid all attacks and increase the damage of her next attack. When she does the next attack she will lose Phased, and then she cant become Phased again for a while. This a really good ability and her alternative costume makes her start phases. Which means she cant be damaged, she will do a lot of damage wit her first attack and then she will counter everything as mentioned.
So she is a pretty good with her alternative costume but it don't really synergies with anything. Not with herself really and not with any particular other character.
Also I didn't really mention her other abilities because they are all kinda whatever, they deal some debuff, third for example gives exposed. But then again compare that to Gambit...who also gives exposed and keep his turn.
Kitty Pryde is playable with her costume, but she is not a very fun nor does she work well with anyone really. She can be used mainly with other characters that also are hard to kill to make a solid team.
Nightcrawler:
Nightcrawler is the most hated character in the game or maybe the second most hated after Wolverine. But Nightcrawler, deserve his hatred. He is the worst character in the game by far. And he cost a freaking 48 CP. Of course people don't understand this all the cheaper characters are better, and the 90 CP characters are a lot better.
First of all, all his moves are stealth so the class bonus don't give much and he is really, really weak so he don't gain much from 30% attack. Again a character that gained nothing from the infiltrator needed boost.
Nighcwaler does extremely mediocre damage, he gives on debuff dizzy, one of the better ones but still. There are characters that can do a lot more. His counter attack is pretty weak, his ultimate does a follow up attack on dizzy targets, which is really weird as it like random attacks the same target and one more enemy. Which of course is never good in a game. This ability really should do a follow up attack to each enemy.
Then Nightcrwaler has a avoidance ability, his second one. Compare this to Spider-man who gains a lot more evasion but can avoid any number of attacks, Nightcrawler will avoid 2 next attacks, this means he is better against a few attacks but worse against many. Also Kitty is complete immune, so its like a bad version of Kitty’s. However, Kitty first of all does an attack that’s more damage then zero and when she attacks out of Phases she deals more damage, while spider-man’s spider sense is a free move.
Nightcrawler has to pay 1 turn to be immune to the next 2 attacks. This is a lot worse then Spider-man and lacks the damage output Kitty has.
This ability Shadow Guard, clearly should be a quick action.
And probably in a future Nightcrawler alternative costume, he will start with this.
Then his third ability, Ambush is a just a high critical chanced attack but with stealth. This attack are usually pretty worthless. It don't combo with anything, for example having exploit critical usually lead to way more damage, what it has I guess is the stealth. Something he has on all attack being an infiltrator against tactician. So its pretty bad then when he has the class bonus, well as the rest of his moves. With this ability I would say it needs an pure improvement, more damage, maybe another debuff added to it.
Summary:
Inflitrorers are still pretty bad, if you don't use Old classic Spider-Man who still is the best by far. Gambit can be really useful from his utility. Don't use Invisible women in Defence,.,its a horrible AI. Kitty has some use, Black Cat should have ravage or not be build 100% around one debuff. Black Widow is bad and so is Nightcrawler. Hmm I guess Nightcrawler is actually better then Black Widow(without avenger suit) but becuse she is free no one things about that.
