To evaluate a character I go over its stat card and compare it to the wider game in a couple of steps.
1. Stat line:
First I look at the base stats of the character so it's threat, defensive stats, health pool, size and speed. And also how many dice their basic Builders or Gainers have.
And I look for outliers in their stat line compared to the average for their threat level.
Here's what I think the base stat lines for characters at each threat level usually are:
2 Threat:
3/3/2 defenses. 4/4 health. Size 2, small base, medium move. 4 Dice base attack
3 Threat:
3/3/3 defenses. 5/5 health. Size 2, small base, medium move. Range 2, 5 Dice base attack or Range 3, 4 dice attack.
4 Threat
4/3/3 defenses. 6/5 health. Size 2, small base, medium move. 5 dice base attack
5 Threat
4/3/4 or 4/4/3 or 3/4/4 defenses. 7/7 health. Size 2, medium base, medium move. 6 dice base attack
6 Threat
4/4/4 defenses. 8/7 health. Size 3, big base, short move. 7 dice base attack
7 Threat
4/4/5 defenses. 9/8 health. Size 4. big base, medium move. 7 dice base attack
8 Threat
4/4/5 defenses 10/9 health. Size 4, big base, medium move. 8 dice base attack
(These are not the exact averages but good reference points for me)
2. Innate Superpowers
These have to be taken in consideration when looking at the stat line. Things to look out for here are, Wall Crawler/ Flight, damage reduction, Spider-Sense and immunities as they all influence the stat line a lot. And of course Innate Reroll bubbles like Strategic Genius are also helping the stat line a lot. (They'll also come up later down again).
Additional power in the power phase is also interesting but more so for what we'll look at later.
3. Attack ranges and Beams
Long range attacks from range 4 and especially 5 are rare in the game and already make any model, that can use them reliably, special.
In the same vein, characters that can Beam with their main attack are also something to look out for.
4. Throws
Throws are the best thing you can do in this game, both from a fun and also a game play point of view. A character that can throw anything for any price is already good.
What you're looking for here in comparing a throw to any other is if it is terrain only (the worst as it is "only" pure damage), character only (second best because it can be used for damage and displacement) or Terrain/Character throws (the best). Throws come in all kinds of ways but of course the bigger, longer and cheaper the better.
Hulk has the best throw in the game as he throws size 4 characters or terrain from range 2, medium and only pays 2 power for it. There's a few models with the same throw but they all pay 3 power for it.
Being able to throw anything, especially characters, from Range 3 is also incredibly strong. And of course being able to throw Long is too.
And we can add in every "pounce" here as well. Pounce refers to a superpower that lets the character throw itself. Especially good on models that are size 3 and up like Sabertooth, Apex Predator and Thor, Hero of Midgard.
To compare a good to a fantastic throw you can say that for a character throw "Power equal to size" is about standard and Range and how long the throw is, is often a bit determined by the threat level of the throwing character. Terrain throws are often either size -1 or from longer range or for a longer distance.
5. Action compression
Usually a character gets two actions a turn. They can walk, walk / walk, attack / attack, walk or attack, attack. So any character that has any way of getting more than two actions in a turn has action compression. The classic form here are Charge and Hit and Run but also being able to pounce, place or spend power to attack another time count here.
6. Spenders and attack triggers
As we just talked about throws: throw triggers or clauses on attacks be they Builder, Gainer or Spender are also always something to elevate a character over its peers. Push triggers aren't as good but still very helpful.
Handing out conditions, especially on Builders and Gainers is also great where Stagger, Stun, Incinerate, Hex and Root are the ones you like to see the most while Poison and Bleed are also nice to have but face much more Immune models. Shock is also great to hand out and very few characters are immune to it.
One especially good attack trigger only found on spenders is the dropping of all objective tokens, referred to as a steal.
7. Displacement
The logical consequence of talking about throws and attack triggers is talking about displacement. Some characters have superpowers that push, place or advance enemy characters (called "bows" due to the first superpower that ever did this being called "Bow to the will of MODOK"). Having any kind of displacement is always better than having none.
8. Dice fixing
We talked a bit about the innate reroll bubbles and Spider-Sense before but this also includes any reactive superpowers the character might have to make its attack, defense and/or dodge dice better.
9. Other superpowers
Here we have stuff like being able to teleport/move allies, hand out rerolls, body guard and "taunt" (bodyguard like effects where you have to be in range 2 of the attacker rather than the target) etc. Or reactive powers like attacking an attacker back when they live through the attack.
And once again Steals, especially if they don't cost an action like the ones of Doctor Voodoo and the Original Human Torch, are a premium superpower.
9. Having a unique superpower nobody else has
Here we have things that only this model in the entire range can do. Iceman's Cold Snap, Honey Badgers Anklebiter and Shockers If the Ground is Shaking superpowers come to mind here.
10. Especially strong character TTCs
Some characters are good already but have a TTC that is so good that it is an auto take with the character and elevates it over the competition. Comrade's Keeper for Red Guardian is a good example here. He's a fine 3 threat without the card but with it he becomes great as he kind of gains the uniqueness with it.
Other examples would be Heroes for Hire for Luke Cage and Iron Fist (though both are already above average characters without the card), Do you know who I am for Juggernaut and This is a Robbery for Rhino.
11. Being affiliated
The last thing a character can have going for it is being affiliated. A strictly worse character for the same role might trump a comparable character just because it is affiliated. Taking Viper over Black Cat in Hydra is a very good example for it. Viper is a good model that no one's taking because Black Cat can do exactly the same and a lot more for the same threat. But in Hydra having the affiliated 3 to bring in more splashed might be worth more than the additional abilities Black Cat offers.
That's it for today. We'll return to the Affiliation Overviews next with Convocation.
Cheers from Germany 🍻
No comments:
Post a Comment