Best and worst characters?

[Romain672]

Hi,
Feel free to talk about synergies between characters, per example if X is really bad but it is really good if there is Y in the game.

[Romain672]

This post is old, feel free to skip it and read my second post below.
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1st) Hunter: his 4 level 2 is so good
2nd) Sensei: his 6 level 1 is already half of a good level 2 ability, while per example lancer's 6 is less than one quart of a good level 2 abiity, and his 4 even level 1 can be good for end game
3rd) Lancer: damage and xp, just what you need the most
4th) Stargazer: staying sun, is pretty similar to lancer. He got slightly more xp, and do slightly less damage. Moon give him extra support value.
5th) Medic: it just look good to heal the character which is in need. So can setup the last two turns of a fight really nicely to be able to have way more chance to kill
6th) Blood mage: need more experience with it, but it's similar to medic. Problem is that you regularly need to sacrifice yourself to do that setup, so that can backfire more often
7th) Death strider: doesn't do much outside of damage, is anti-synergic with healing characters. Pretty cool if you upgrade the 6 to max, but that assume the game is already in a good shape if you manage to do it
8th) Commander: it's really interresting to play, but I feel like his only good ability is his 4 which add armor, which can be really bad sometimes

[Ditto11]

6th) Blood mage: need more experience with it, but it's similar to medic. Problem is that you regularly need to sacrifice yourself to do that setup, so that can backfire more often

my experience with bloodmage, is any game I've been in where somebody took a bloodmage, we usually lose. I find he doesn't do enough overall ..
perhaps it's just a mixing of other champs: ie Medic + Hunter + Bloodmage = no damage can't kill anything.

7th) Death strider: doesn't do much outside of damage, is anti-synergic with healing characters. Pretty cool if you upgrade the 6 to max, but that assume the game is already in a good shape if you manage to do it

yeah, he's good damage, but doesn't really do anything the Lancer does ... and Lancer does it better.

8th) Commander: it's really interresting to play, but I feel like his only good ability is his 4 which add armor, which can be really bad sometimes

I am going to SOOO disagree here. I LOVE the commander, he's my main guy I use as often as possible. I find he is the best overall character:
- highest damage potential.
- very tanky : can soak a lot of damage and offers excellent group damage mitigation to others (which rivals the medic's healing)
- his bonus 6 can trigger so many different abilities ... it's such useful utility.

For best matchups, I find matching Commander with Sensei is just broken and results in an auto-win.
Sensei max out 3rd card (5/6 ability) first: to level 4. This gives his bonus action 6: +1 xp to all other players.
Commander: get 3rd card (5/6 ability) first: to level 3. This gives it a "range" of 1. I find this is more than enough to use it easily.
This means, the Sensei's #6 gets triggered twice as often .. this is free xp for everyone, all around. This adds up fast.

Commander: Highest damage potential: Lancer and Death Strider max out at 10 dmg with their #2 ability at level 4. Commander's #2, at level 4, has the potential to do 12 damage. (the big downside is most people doesn't seem to understand how the Commander works, and so unless you're coordinating with the team well, this can be hard to do).
I did have 1 game, I managed to spit out his max of 24 damage. that was fun.

Tankiest:
Blood mage has highest HP (18) .. but no armor ... so no damage mitigation. All he is is a damage sponge . not very exciting, imho
Death Strider: 14 hp, and 2 armor is very good for damage mitigation.
Commander: 10 hp, and 3 armor. The 3 armor is excellent damage mitigation, plus usage of this #4, giving other players in the highest/target spot +2 armor, is amazing damage mitigation. Think of it as an instant 2 heal to everyone.

all in all, I love his versatility ..

[Kevin015]

I would rank medic lower and commander higher.
I think bloodmage is a better healer as healer itself, especially in combination with deathstrider.
Commander is indeed very versatile, but you and the group need to be a bit experienced to make the most out of him.
Knowing which actions everyone will do, calculating if it's better to choose another perril bcs of commanders 2/4 dice or not...
Another one that needs a bit exp to play well is stargazer. When to switch day/night, who to give extra armor.

[tarongot]

Worst character is Hunter. because his 4 ability is overpowered. Even on first level it gives additional turn, at last level its also lowers monster attack. Is too much. Every game with hunter its so much easier. Easier, to a level when it is boring. I would personally like an option to ban hunter from games.

Other characters are pretty much at similar level. All have theirs strong and week sides, and need cooperate with others.

[Romain672]

Ok time to redo my list one year later with tons more of experience.
First, that assume good or great play and start 0 xp.
Since the game is pretty easy with experience, what usually causes a loss is a lack of damage. And rarely a lack of control of the damage to deal during the last turn of a monster.
Good games never lose at level 5, even with bad luck.

You will see a +1/0/-1/-2 rating on characters. Add them, and if you got -2 or below, that will be a very difficult game.

1) Sensei (+1): even on bad games, if you manage to give him experience, he will be able to give some xp to the whole table, and you can never be far behind with it. You can be behind and still be able to have a chance in level 5 thanks to his 6. He lacks of damage which is extremely bad, but the xp send is extremely good.
2) Hunter (+1): I really want to put it lower, but his 4 saved some games. One big thing is that if hunter is alive during the last turn of an encounter, if you got some bad rolls, he still can use a 4 to have another turn. That makes some plays like missing 5 hp for last turn and 2 alive be much more probable to kill. I still think maxing 4 is unecessary, and upgrading once is best.
3) Lancer (0): great damage, some support
4) Stargazer (0): great damage, good support. Just stay in sun, upgrade the 4, and play it as support by giving 2 xp with downside and upside on someone else. Then upgrade 12 once, and you already got a great character with 1/2/4 being great rolls.
5) Death strider (0): this one is tricky, you got the downside of needed to not be healed fully, but you still got lots of damage. You got the possibility to max 12 or max 56 which let you adapt. He got no support ability (outside of his 4 on some rare fight), which is annoying.
6) Blood mage (-1): on a bad game, he can manage to get his own xp. One big upside is being able to take all the damage of the team, and make the three others characters alive during the last turn. But he is dependant on them, if those character don't have much damage, since he can't put the damage himself, that will be pretty bad.
7) Commander (-1): he lacks of damage, he got tons of support which makes it really hard and interresting to play for himself and others, but that's still not enough on my opinion. The lack of damage (because the 12 upgraded once can rarely deal more than 4) makes him want to take the damage of the team with it's armor and his 2 or 4 roll, but that make it dependant to others.
8) Medic (-2): lack of damage, can't do much things. His 4 upgraded once is it's best ability because it heals for 2 the whole team (8heal is above average) but that's usually the second upgrade, that's dependant of others hp, that's dependant of others, and that anti synergise with death strider. The damage is low, the 2 maxed is nice but bad games don't goes until that point. The 2 not upgraded is good turn 1 or 2, especially with hunter. And the 6 could let you make someone else be alive next turn. Lots of support around.

Now let me re-read the post

8th) Commander: it's really interresting to play, but I feel like his only good ability is his 4 which add armor, which can be really bad sometimes

I am going to SOOO disagree here. I LOVE the commander, he's my main guy I use as often as possible. I find he is the best overall character:
- highest damage potential.
- very tanky : can soak a lot of damage and offers excellent group damage mitigation to others (which rivals the medic's healing)
- his bonus 6 can trigger so many different abilities ... it's such useful utility.

So...
The highest damage doesn't really matter, if you manage to max an ability, either you already won, or you spend team ressources for that, and get it for level 5. You can deal 12 but that will usually make someone else deal less, like let's said -2 overall, so you deal 10. Or more often you will deal 8 for no or few downside, which is still above average, but not that much higher.
The tankyness is completely true, and really nice, that require some xp in 34 which is fine but still annoying. Maybe the problem came from the bad team. If you got a -1 or -2 team, you will already got one character which is bad to support. So you take damage for the team, but that character will not do much with the extra hp he got from commander's defense.
6 with sensei give extra xp which is really good as you said, that can win the run with that combo alone.
Hunter is very situationnal, but his 4 can protect him at peril 4.
Lancer is extra damage which is good.
Stargazer is interesting, guess I should change my gameplay with it, since it let the stargazer switch the sun/moon more often. And if it's maxed, that got some really nice upside.
Death strider is nice early to get the damage missing, and only nice later on if it's maxed.
Blood mage is bad/situationnal.
Medic is a small free heal. You prefer damage but that's fine.
So yeah only hunter and sensei look really nice with it.



And so Kevin rated Commander higher again. I should try it more, with more focus on 4 maybe? Let me wrote three 'random' team with commander which sum to my -1:
a) commander/bloodmage/lancer/hunter: (-1)+(-1)+0+1
b) commander/medic/hunter/sensei: (-1)+(-2)+1+1
c) commander/lancer/stargazer/death strider: (-1)+0+0+0
Team A can play aroud hunter, and got lancer for damage, so that look a pretty good team even with that -1. They got everything it seem. Peril 4 for everyone look to work. If you replace lancer by stargazer, then we got lots of differents peril. Peril 2 can work, but that seem annoying.
Team B extremely lack of damage. They got lots of support, they could survive with a lucky monster 1&2 or make sensei carry the game by maxing it. If it's the second, the game will look hard, but I can totally see a win. Again the peril doesn't look great.
Team C is full of damage, but lack of everything else. And peril 3 is absolutely great.

Here is my last lost with a -2 team, included commander: https://boardgamearena.com/archive/repl ... s=84207926; .
My second last lost, with again a -2 team: https://boardgamearena.com/archive/repl ... s=84207926; .
My third last lost with a -4 team: https://boardgamearena.com/archive/repl ... s=84207926; .
And my forth last lost, with a -3 team: https://boardgamearena.com/archive/repl ... s=84207926; .
So commander is only present twice. Which is interresting.
3medic/bloodmage/stargazer
2commander/strider/sensei
1lancer
0hunter

Other characters are pretty much at similar level. All have theirs strong and week sides, and need cooperate with others.

I strongly disagree though. I don't think the game is well balanced.

[__X__]

I think all of the characters are pretty well balanced. But you must have 1 of Lancer, Death Strider, Stargazer or Blood Mage in the party on the highest allowable difficulty we usually play.

Now, you may be immediately questioning those last two, but both can be powerful attackers. Blood mage does take a bit to develop, so he's not ideal for attack at the start, so he's initially the weakest of the four.

I think Medic and Stargazer (and, to a lesser extent, Blood Mage) are the most misunderstood characters, so I'll limit my my extensive commentary to those three.

Blood Mage is a great character, for reasons Romain outlined above. He's one of the few characters where your first upgrade shouldn't necessarily be the 5-6. Ideally, you want that 4 upgraded as soon as possible so he can start gaining XP from healing. Secondarily (usually) you want the 1-2 upgraded so he has decent attack. Rarely will you ever want to play a 5 to just take XP with Mage - the 4 is almost always a better choice for XP gain. If you need him to lead attack because none of the other three heavy hitters are present, just focus on upgrading his 1-2 - he quickly becomes very powerful.

Stargazer has so much flexibility, and needs very little XP to get there, that he might be the most powerful character in the game. There's almost no need to worry at all about his 5-6. Upgrade his 1-2 first, and he's already effective for the entire game at that point. In addition to his powerful attack, he can, if necessary, be a good healer - his drawback in this capacity is that he has only one die for healing, rather than the two dice of Medic and Mage. In addition, on moon, with level three upgrade of his 1-2, he cuts Boss attack by TWO. Medic's 2 has to get to level four for that, and Hunter's 4 needs to be at level four to get that ability at all. Of course, the potency of this flexibility comes with drawbacks - taking damage himself from his powerful attack, one die limit for his healing ability/ XP giving ability (which also inflicts damage on the recipient), and the need to carefully manage his moon/sun phases. Overall though, he's a fantastic character, but even I (and i play him frequently in my 1200 or so games) haven't fully exploited and explored his possibilities.

Medic used to be my most hated character. Now he is my hands down favorite. My opinion changed when Foxman showed me that he is best used, not as a healer, but as an attacker. The ability to nerf the Boss attack is the single greatest ability in the game. Hunter's 4 is useful, but only becomes (in the eyes of some) overpowered when it's maxed and gets that minus-1. Medic has this ability immediately, and a quick level three upgrade gives him a decent attack to go with it. I do like to get his 3-4 upgraded to level 2 fairly soon for the 2 point healing, but it's secondary, or even tertiary to getting that 1-2 upgraded. I strongly disagree with your rating for medic, Rom.

OTOH, I don't care much for Death Strider, and he's the only character I regularly swap out from a random draw. He has the second best initial attack, and a potent late game attack, but overall, he is the least desirable character in the game, in my opinion. So, he has good attack and nothing else, and his attack comes with the major drawback of always being on the edge of being incapacitated.

Sensei can have decent secondary attack. In fact, in our last game, i quickly abandoned focus on his 6 and upgraded his 1-2 instead. He can't carry a party alone, but he can help a lot in attack if you adjust your strategy as necessary for the party. His 4 is often overlooked, but can often it can save a tough game.

Hunter is a beast. It's hard to get that 4 upgraded to where it's really potent, but his temporary nerfing abilities (2 and 6) can be critical. And if you have to abandon trying to get that 4 upgraded beyond level 2, his attack can be on par with sensei. His biggest drawback is that he needs XP across the board, and usually needs lots of help to get there.

Lancer is great. i don't see how you can rate him as 0. he has the best attack, bar none, AND has the ability to confer XP. And his 6 is often overlooked - at level 3+ it is as powerful as most other character's 1 or 2.

Commander can be either very useful, or the second worst character in the game, depending entirely on the presence of Sensei or Hunter. If neither of those characters is in the game, his 6 loses its potency. His 2 and 4 are useful adjuncts, but really only powerful late in the game - early on they are mostly useful defensively to split damage and keep everyone else alive


- Razz (X)

[Ditto11]

The highest damage doesn't really matter, if you manage to max an ability, either you already won, or you spend team ressources for that, and get it for level 5. You can deal 12 but that will usually make someone else deal less, like let's said -2 overall, so you deal 10. Or more often you will deal 8 for no or few downside, which is still above average, but not that much higher.
The tankyness is completely true, and really nice, that require some xp in 34 which is fine but still annoying. Maybe the problem came from the bad team. If you got a -1 or -2 team, you will already got one character which is bad to support. So you take damage for the team, but that character will not do much with the extra hp he got from commander's defense.

Trick with the commander, is to note all those items as "potentials" .. he generally won't have it all in a single game .. but the potential is there .. the flex is there .. you need more damage in the team? Yes, the commander can step up, put pts into 12.
Need a tanky char to soak dmg so the big damage dealer (ie lancer or death strider) can spank .. no problem, put pts into 34.

Every time I play the commander, I play him differently. It depends on the rest of the team. But when you build for damage, spitting out his big max damage isn't that hard, and no, doesn't often cause someone else to deal less. Besides .. even if somebody does -2 dmg, so you can do +4 .. isn't that overall a good thing for the team?

I think commander ranks higher simply due to his versatility and flexibility .. he can fit almost any roll and do it almost as good as the best of that role does.

I think as a counterpoint, the only real problem I find with the commander, is early game, his damage (even if you're trying to be the damage dealer) isn't really great .. until you can get a couple pts into 12. So that's a fair point against him.

[Romain672]

Ty for answering

Medic used to be my most hated character. Now he is my hands down favorite. My opinion changed when Foxman showed me that he is best used, not as a healer, but as an attacker. The ability to nerf the Boss attack is the single greatest ability in the game. Hunter's 4 is useful, but only becomes (in the eyes of some) overpowered when it's maxed and gets that minus-1. Medic has this ability immediately, and a quick level three upgrade gives him a decent attack to go with it. I do like to get his 3-4 upgraded to level 2 fairly soon for the 2 point healing, but it's secondary, or even tertiary to getting that 1-2 upgraded. I strongly disagree with your rating for medic, Rom.

So medic's 2 with one upgrade is deal 2 / -1atk. Let's first change the -1atk by +3heal (will talk about that later).
Looking at the characters: https://x.boardgamearena.net/data/theme ... 2_book.png , that look better than blood mage, and that's pretty much it. That look in the average of many of the others characters.

If you add an hunter, that competence became a lot better since it can goes up to 5+ heal.
You could argue that having some heal later (-1atk) is better than heal now (+3heal), but even that I don't think it's true. I think i slightly prefer heal now and manage what's remaining later.
Then you can argue that not making a single character take all the damage thanks to the -1atk is better, and that look totally true. That can make the player survive for the last turn. But is it really that good for that upside?

You can look for 0xp start at the level 1, which is deal 1/-1atk, so deal 1 / +3 heal. And that's the second best 2 of the game by far (lancer first: deal 4).

But that 'heal 3' is only true for the first turn of each monster. At the second turn it's already 'heal 2'. And at the third turn, it's 'heal 1' which is extremely bad.

Commander can be either very useful, or the second worst character in the game, depending entirely on the presence of Sensei or Hunter. If neither of those characters is in the game, his 6 loses its potency. His 2 and 4 are useful adjuncts, but really only powerful late in the game - early on they are mostly useful defensively to split damage and keep everyone else alive

That's a really interresting take. Because if you assume Hunter and Sensei makes the game won at 100% (which is wrong), then commander became a lot worst if you only care about winning.
At that point, that really make the rating/tier list way harder to do.