ISO - How I Have Iso'd My Heroes

With the introduction of the new Isotope-8 Crystals, I have decided to redo all of my heroes. Since the new crystals are very expensive, in terms of silver, this will be an ongoing project, especially as I burned through a large chunk of my silver bringing almost everyone to L4 crystals. The L5 Crystals are prohibitively expensive, so this could be slow.

In the past, all builds were designed to maximize general playability, in both PvP and PvE. I added stamina, because I build as much for PvE, where some characters need some, and PvP (where it's a lot less of an issue). With the reactives, and their cost, I am building predominantly for where the hero will be used. For instance, Black Widow is a destroyer in PvP and acceptable in PvE, so will be iso'd without Stamina. Hercules, on the other hand, is not that great in my PVP meta, so will get a bit of stamina.

Alternate classes of the same uniform, if I don't expressly list them, are the same. If you look at the ones where I did both classes, you'll notice small differences that might amount to the same result. The only thing that would change my approach to a particular character is a change in function (Modern Colossus vs. P5 Colossus would be an example... Mod Colossus is a pure tank. P5 Colossus is a more general support hero).

One more word on philosophy:

My current goal with ISOing heroes is to get my L300/L12 heroes to have at least: 2000 ATK, 1800-2000 ACC, 2000 DEF/EVA and 9000+ Health. 2000 in an A/D/A/E stat is beyond 5 bars. 1780 is the 5 bar floor at L300. So, I am strapping the equivalent of 2x 2 stat, non-gold crystals to that stat, beyond 5 bars, if I can. 8300 is the floor for 5 bars of health. So, I'm going one crystal beyond.

I'm trying to move away from chaotics, but they remain the best way to keep a balanced hero balanced or to up the stats on a character with a lot of needs. It's hard to get any character all the way to my standards with exclusive chaotics... actually only Captain America gets there.

A couple quick notes:

I am level 300. So, all values are L300 reactive crystals. Your mileage will vary, though my builds should still be solid.

Iron Man

I use Iron Man in the Mark 42 Armor and only as a blaster.

• 7x Reactive Chaotic (White)
• 1x Reactive Robust (Purple)
  • 2431 H / 2431 S / 484 At / 399 De / 399 Ac / 399 Ev

http://i1362.photobucket.com/albums/r682/PKBHI/IronMan_zpsf1104611.jpg

Iron Man presents a problem. He has so-so stats, across the board. This makes him nice for low level players who get him for free, but hard to ISO to effectiveness for higher level players without making large tradeoffs. I need to walk through the complexeity here, to justify the build.

The goal: Spam unibeams. They are stamina intensive (1788 at L300). His shield will regen his stamina based on his stamina, so the more stamina we throw on him, the more return we get on that investment. The size of the shield is based on his health, so as long as the shield holds up, we get more stamina. Probably not enough to crank another Unibeam, but the move is to stockpile enough that you never have to refresh or do anything other than fire the beam. So, the health helps keep the shield in place, while the stamina helps make the shield useful for our purposes. I needed to build both.

Then, we're left with picking from the remaining 4 stats. Our standard is to work both offensive stats and one defensive stat, in this case, the defense works for two reasons. First, higher defense reduces damage, even to the shield. Second, it starts higher, so is easier to build. But, if we're going to build the 2 offensive stats, the defense AND the two health bars, that's 5 of 6 stats. May as well go chaotic, because there are only 1, 2, 3 and 6 stat crystals. No 4s and 5s. But, at the end, that brings nothing to exactly where I want it, and everything close. So, I picked. That's the Flourishing crystal. Because a Unibeam that misses is of no use to me, and the extra juice to health and stamina will be to my profit.

One last word here: While this is a compromise build, it gets very close to my standards on Health (<200 points), Stamina (same if Flourishing crystals were not bugged), Attack and Defense (<20 points) and 85 points short on Accuracy. I like the build. Let's see what IM3 brings for Iron Man.

NOTE: THIS BUILD IS WHAT I USE ON ALL VERSIONS OF IRON MAN.

Black Widow

I use Black Widow in her Grey Suit as a tactician. My build is designed to maximize damage from her Flying Kick while enhancing survivability:

• 4x Reactive Steady (Purple)
• 2x Reactive Skillful (White)
• 1x Reactive Proficient (Orange)
• 1x Reactive Violent (Red)
  • +2574 Health / +744 Attack / +458 Accuracy / +286 Evasion

http://i1362.photobucket.com/albums/r682/PKBHI/BlackWidow_zpsd10c8d7e.jpg

Flying Kick has a secret deadly crit. If you did not observe the game carefully, you wouldn't know it's there. Which would color your opinion of Widow negatively. In point of fact, ignoring the attack stat, Widow's Flying Kick is one of the best attack moves in the game in terms of pure damage... and it removes buffs. Black Widow, on the other hand, has low attack to start. Black Widow makes up for this with good accuracy, but the Kick has a significant accuracy penalty. She's odd in that she and her kick are complete opposites. The evasion is to get her to five bars and keep her there. I want her hard to hit because building the defense would cost more. The health is for those times when she does get hit.

As a result of this build, I have gotten her L1 and L2 skills up to 98%/38% and her kick up to 95%/37%. So much for that 20% accuracy penalty.

NOTE: THIS BUILD IS WHAT I USE ON ALL VERSIONS OF BLACK WIDOW.

Hawkeye

I use Heroic Age Blaster Hawkeye. With the update, he's actually pretty awesome, especially if you ISO him properly.

• 6x Reactive Skillful (White) 
• 2x Reactive Relentless (Purple)
  • 2574 H / 1144 S / 738 At / 510 Ev

http://i1362.photobucket.com/albums/r682/PKBHI/Hawkeye_zps9cf978ae.jpg

Hawkeye doesn't miss. All three of his attacks are 100% hits and his Master Marksman makes them rarely miss, even if he's dizzied. He always crits on marked targets. He lacks damage. He lacks health. He has workable evasion. The fact that he doesn't need accuracy gave me a very free hand to maximize his needs.

Built like this, he has extremely high attack, 6 bar evasion and beyond 5 bar health and stamina (for the targetting that he will do... in longer fights, this gets problematic, and as a tactician, you will want the extra stamina) This is a very strong Hawkeye.

NOTE: THIS BUILD IS WHAT I USE ON ALL VERSIONS OF HAWKEYE

Black Cat

I use Claws Black Cat in both uniforms.

• 5x Reactive Powerful (Purple)
• 2x Reactive Mercurial (Orange)
• 1x Reactive Violent (Red)
  • 2860 H / 854 At / 284 Ac / 170 Ev

http://i1362.photobucket.com/albums/r682/PKBHI/BlackCat_zpsdea5e3da.jpg

Compromises were made. This does not have my signature health or evasion. There was simply too much Attack and Health to build to get everything out without using gold. But, the result is, 33% of all attacks will crit, 97% of attacks will hit, and with her self boosting power, she can really wreck people in the second round as the build out from her luck is proportional. I would not be surprised to see her Nerve Chop have 45% crits or higher with the Luck boost on.

Progression is pretty straightforward. With the Infiltrator, you use the L1 on someone in the first round, then you use the L6-L9 in the second. And say goodbye. With the Scrapper, same thing, unless you're hitting an infiltrator. Then, L2, with the L1 followup, then L6-L9 in the second round, assuming they're still upright. She is not the most utilitarian character in the game, but, if you need someone dead in two rounds, she's very efficient.

NOTE: THIS BUILD IS WHAT I USE ON ALL VERSIONS OF BLACK CAT.

Captain America

I use him in his WW2 outfit, in both classes. I use the Bruiser one more often, but both builds are the same. I also use him in the Captain Steve Rogers Alt, but like the WW2 tanking build so much, it's the same, also.

• 2x Powerful (Purple)
• 2x Robust (Purple)
• 2x Steady (Purple)
• 1x Masterful (Purple)
• 1x Bulky (Orange)
  • +2860 H / 1287 S / 767 At / 114 D / 255 Ac / 0 Ev

http://i1362.photobucket.com/albums/r682/PKBHI/ISO/5-Cap_zps8e84b040.jpg

With the redesign of his stats, Cap is no longer evenly built and no longer a candidate for Chaotics. Sure, you could chaotic him, but what I have wrought here, is really a thing of beauty. He starts with 6 bar evasion (2000+), so there's no point in throwing anything there, unless you want him to dodge like a Spider-Sensed Spider-Man, and hit like a wet noodle. His defense starts a 5 bars and change, so I jumped it a bit to get it to my 6 bar standard. With one crystal (the Bulky), I have gotten him 6 bars on both defensive stats... he will dodge like a dirty dodge monkey, and take hits like a brick wall.

Now, to offense. 7 purple crystals make his accuracy a largely unnecessary 6 bars. 97-99% hits, and 34% crits in the store... very solid. I've bumped his stamina up a bit, with him being a tactician frequently, but not all the way to 9K. I did get his health up... to 10000! So, for WW2, he will tank, block, defend, dodge, and have a HUGE reservoir of health to take damage with. Good luck taking down WW2 Cap.

By the way, this also jumps his attack north of 2400.

I have often described Captain America as the ultimate point guard. What I mean when I say that is that he sets his teammates up to score the big points and can score a bit when the team needs it. Support hero. He'd been surpassed, by Rescue and some others, but with this stat set and the non-tanking play, he's back to being one of the best point guards in the alliance. And the WW2 Alt is still viable, given the absurd tanking stats my build provides.

NOTE: THIS BUILD IS WHAT I USE ON ALL VERSIONS OF CAPTAIN AMERICA.

Colossus

I use Modern Colossus almost exclusively. Bruiser, almost exclusively. I have the P5, but it's not as useful as Modern, and I know there is a lot of concern about Bruiser Colossus and the Blasters, but I never saw many blasters in PVP.

• 4x Reactive Steady (Purple)
• 4x Reactive Forceful (Orange)
  • 1716 H / 680 At / 340 De / 680 Ac

http://i1362.photobucket.com/albums/r682/PKBHI/ISO/6-Colossus_zps278d99bd.jpg

Mod Colossus reduces damage and is crit resistant from the start of the fight, so, you don't have to build his defense or his health exclusively to enhance his survivability. In fact, you'll notice that I have focused on his offense, to bring it up to par with his defensive capabilities, while building his health beyond my standard. He is a tank, after all, and will take hits.

Decimate has the potential to be a very powerful attack, but you have to build his attack. And he has to hit with it. His base accuracy is miserable. In this format, he hits 96% of the time and crits 26%. The exploit of exposed jumps Decimate's damage by 50%. But even without the exploit, Decimate is one of the ten better straight damage attacks in the game.

For P5 Colossus, you could use this build, as it's solid in all facets save evasion, or you could tilt it a bit to offense or defense, depending on how you intend to use your P5 Colossus. Since I think he's patently less useful than Mod, I can't really offer much advice.

NOTE: I ONLY USE MODERN COLOSSUS. SEE NOTE IN TEXT ABOUT P5 AND BASIC.

Cyclops

I use P5 Cyclops as a blaster. .

• 5x Reactive Stalwart (White)
• 2x Reactive Forceful (Orange)
• 1x Reactive Steady (Purple)
  • 2574 H / 680 At / 595 De / 255 Ac

http://i1362.photobucket.com/albums/r682/PKBHI/ISO/7-Cyke_zps02e4ea41.jpg

Cyke has some problems. He has high damage multipliers in the code, meaning, if we can only get him some solid ATK, he can do a ton of damage. Problem is, he has average ATK and average ACC. So, he won't hit hard or often until we get him strapped with some major ISO.

Like this, I have ignored the stamina issue (since I don't play him much, I could address it with items or a partner), but focused on him being a deadly killer of enemies who can take a punch. If he were to get a redesign, he would not be a bad candidate for something like 6 Chaotics, then some extra attack and defense. Slotted this way, his attacks are 96/26 and his attack is way beyond 5 bars, producing very solid damage numbers when he hits.

NOTE: THIS BUILD IS WHAT I USE ON ALL VERSIONS OF CYCLOPS

Daredevil

DD has no alt (when it comes, I predict it will be an infiltrator, and I'm not sure if I will go there or keep him scrappy).

• 2x Reactive Skillful (White)
• 2x Reactive Mercurial (Orange)
• 2x Reactive Violent (Red)
• 1x Reactive Steady (Purple)
• 1x Reactive Powerful (Purple)
  • 1859 H / 767 At / 483 Ac / 340 Ev

http://i1362.photobucket.com/albums/r682/PKBHI/ISO/8-DD_zps139b1bd9.jpg

Daredevil is kind of stealthy good. He starts with fairly average stats across the board, nothing outstanding, no glaring weaknesses except attack, which would normally make him a candidate for chaotics. The attack issue, given the ability to MOVE stats with the L5 crystals, doesn't have to be an issue, as you can throw 700-800 or more into a stat if you are significantly motivated. This build doesn't quite get to my usual standard of 2000 in both attack stats and one defensive stats, but his radar sense buffs the accuracy and evasion through the roof. I put some effort into getting them where I wanted them to be, but not at the expense of health and attack, since he can buff himself the rest of the way.

DD's attacks don't look like they hit very hard, but, he's sneaky. Since his Radar Sense jumps his accuracy by 100%, you can set him up to crit pretty much 75% or more. My DD crits, without Radar, 42-44% on his attacks. (That's a high crit on anyone else). That jumps to about 90% with Radar Sense. The really sneaky part about DD is that his crits actually crit harder. He crits for 1.7 of base attack damage. Everyone else's crits hit for 1.5. Deadly crits, for comparison, hit for 2.0. So, he's not a deadly crit machine, but he's a crit machine, and his crits are Heavy Crits, which is unlabled, and you'd have to log a ton of data (or peek at the code) to see this.

DD also debuffs the enemy through his normal progression. The ManRikiDon'tLoseThatNumber puts Exposed which serves to drop defense, making subsequent attacks hit harder. His follow up attack applies combo setup, which increases unarmed attack damage (like the Snap Kick) by 25%. So, work with me here. Let's say the exposed increases base damage by 25%. Let's assign the Snap Kick a damage value of 1. We go L9-L1, then Snap Kick. 1.25 from the exposed, then exploiting the combo setup, we're up to 1.5625. And we crit a lot, a a 1.7 multiplier, which results in a hit doing 2.66x base damage, AKA REAL HARD.

I am STILL looking forward to his alt costume with great interest.

Dr. Strange

Modern Dr. Strange. Both classes. He is a wrecking machine in both classes, and both classes profit both the same build

• 5x Reactive Chaotic (White)
• 3x Refined Deft (Green)
  • 3146 H / 1430 S / 285 At / 285 De / 285 Ac / 627 Ev

http://i1362.photobucket.com/albums/r682/PKBHI/ISO/9-DrS_zps9a7783e2.jpg

Strange has two things he's great at, and 4 things he's terrible at. He hits hard and often. But he is stamina intensive with Vapors taking a LARGE chunk, and Bolts costing about half of a Vapor. His stamina makes him mostly unuseful in PVE. And he dies if anyone looks at him hard.

What this accomplishes is a massive increase in survivability by giving him high evasion, my 6 bar standard attack and accuracy, a three bar level of respectability in Defense, and 500 health above the 9000 I try to build to make up for his merely 5 bar evasion. It also straps enough stamina to do an extra turn in PVE, which is important to me.

NOTE: THIS BUILD IS WHAT I USE ON ALL VERSIONS OF DOCTOR STRANGE.

Hulk

I much prefer World War Hulk and I use him exclusively as a bruiser. He smash!

• 4x Reactive Patient (White)
• 3x Reactive Violent (Red)
• 1x Reactive Exact (Orange)
  • 1716 H / 342 At / 454 De / 796 Ac

http://i1362.photobucket.com/albums/r682/PKBHI/ISO/9-Hulk_zpse6bb9821.jpg

Hulk smash. One of the best sets of stats for my purposes as I could whip him into shape with 7 two stat crystals. I could whip him to 11K health and meet all requirements. Easiest guy to ISO except the only question is what to overload. His main problems come from accuracy. Though he charges up his accuracy (and now enraged builds accuracy), it's still important to build the accuracy for the early progression of the fight. Oh, and to make sure that Hulk Smash crits for the deadly crit. Evasion is a lost cause, and by adding to his health, we help mitigate the "Blaster Problem" inherent to all bruisers. Blasters may ignore defense, but they cannot ignore health.

I do not like scrapper Hulk, even though he charges faster. One enraged buffs him better than a marginal Hulk Up, so I'm not sure there's value to Scrapper Hulk, especially as Hulk Punch takes a while before it's a damage dealer. Compared with other Scrappers, his L1 is a bit underwhelming, even as a follow up.

NOTE: I ONLY USE WORLD WAR HULK BRUISER HULK. THIS BUILD WOULD WORK FOR SCRAPPER OR ANY OTHER HULK.

Human Torch

Annhilus, of course. Blaster. Mostly because I don't use him in PVP (and neither does anyone else in the upper reaches of levels and rankings), and because he'd win the head to head if it came to that.

• 3x Reactive Athletic (White)
• 3x Reactive Mercurial (Orange)
• 1x Reactive Focused (Purple)
• 1x Reactive Violent (Red)
  • 1859 H / 369 At / 738 Ac / 510 Ev

http://i1362.photobucket.com/albums/r682/PKBHI/ISO/10-Torch_zps9bbb0ab1.jpg

First, let's recognize. He has the highest base attack in the game (with Hulk) BEFORE he gets Flame On!, WHICH he gets automatically for the first two rounds of every fight, and which adds about 19% to his attack without any ISO. And the base is still not quite up to the standard (by a smidgen). But the main focus here is  Accuracy. Because all the ATK in the world doesn't do anything if you cannot deliver it to the target (See: Hulk). Thus, Health/Accuracy.

The extra evasion is because his evasion is better than his defense, and while his Blazing Speed may proc a lot, his evasion can reduce crits, dodge melee attacks, dodge other non-ranged attacks, and even improve his odds on being missed by ranged attacks. Worth doing for a competitive build.

I had the room for extra, so, rather than gild the accuracy or evasion lily, I went with Atk. IF you were going to run him a lot, you might want to replace the excess ATK (specifically 2 of the Mercurial and the Violent) with Stamina building crystals. Instead of Violent, you'd use the Stamina/Accuracy purple crystal and instead of the Mercurials, you'd use the Stamina/Accuracy/Evasion white crystals.

NOTE: THIS BUILD IS WHAT I USE ON ALL VERSIONS OF HUMAN TORCH.

Invisible Woman

White Future Foundation suit, either class. I ran her mainline in PVP for a LOOOOOOOOONG time. The builds are the same, regardless of class, as the role is the same, regardless.

• 3x Reactive Steady (Purple)
• 3x Reactive Skillful (White)
• 2x Reactive Mercurial (Orange)
  • 2574 H / 680 At / 425 Ac / 425 Ev

http://i1362.photobucket.com/albums/r682/PKBHI/ISO/11-IW_zps87822f27.jpg

Sue starts with decent evasion, great accuracy and pretty good attack. And she has actives and passives to boost her survivability. I'm not worried about the defense, because I can put so much work into health (which determines the size of both of her shields), which can buy a ton of time. Ideally, you'd have defense and health for the shields (I ran her with Colossus, and my Colossus was nigh unkillable), but her D is not really something I want to invest large amounts in when her Evasion starts nicely and she has an passive evasion proc.

Different people use her differently. I mainly spam Force Spheres and Force Volley, and rarely cage. If you use her to Cage people, your build will have more defense and stamina than mine. But since I use her to hit people, and to take advantage of her deadly crits, I focused on getting her attack up and making her accuracy top of class. My attacks with her in PvE crit 33% of the time. That makes the accuracy worth doing. Don't sleep on IW. She can hit very very hard in this format.

NOTE: THIS BUILD IS WHAT I USE ON ALL VERSIONS OF INVISIBLE WOMAN.

Iron Fist

White and Bruiser, but this works for all suits.

• 3x Reactive Mercurial (Orange)
• 3x Reactive Steady (Purple)
• 2x Reactive Skillful (White)
  • 2145 H / 680 At / 510 Ac / 425 Ev

http://i1362.photobucket.com/albums/r682/PKBHI/ISO/12-IFist_zps72a04503.jpg

Fisty. Agent Junior as I like to call him. He heals, like an agent. He boosts, like an agent. He carries a big weapon, like the agent. Odd character in my opinion, as he does a lot of different things, like a support character, but the deadly crit on the Iron Fist (along with Combo Expoit) give him the ability to be a major damage dealer as well. Odd.

At any rate, I built the stand out stats to my standards. The ATK helps with his overall damage output and his healing, but since we like the deadly crit on the Iron Fist, the accuracy might be more important. The evasion is just building the stronger of his survivability. Stamina doesn't start too bad, so shouldn't be too much of an issue.

The new costume unlocks new abilities but the overall function of the suit is not altered. He is now Agent Junior Plus. Rather than have the white outfit, which I really didn't like in comics, why not the David Aja, shirtless costume that he wore for much of the best portion of the Immortal Iron Fist (one of my favorite books, at least while it was Fraction-Aja at the helm).

NOTE: THIS BUILD IS WHAT I USE ON ALL VERSIONS OF IRON FIST.

Kitty Pryde

Shadowcat Kitty. Always. Either class, depending on utilization. Today, Infiltrator to mess with a bunch of Quicksilvers in PVP. Tomorrow, Scrapper, to mess with Nightcrawler. The build is the same.

• 4x Reactive Powerful (Purple)
• 3x Reactive Violent (Red)
• 1x Reactive Steady (Purple)
  • 2717 H / 883 At / 427 Ac

http://i1362.photobucket.com/albums/r682/PKBHI/KittyPryde_zpsc2c1514d.jpg

Frankly, she's got a 23 cp set of base stats with some things in the wrong place. I'd be much happier if she had less stamina and more health, or less defense and more evasion. So, compromises had to be made, specifically to looking after a defensive stat. On another character, I'd worry more, but since Kitty can stay mostly unhittable for a couple rounds, and still hit people out in the real world via counters and Lockheed, I think I can live with a 4 bar Evasion and a 3 bar defense.

The tradeoff is my 6 bar standard for health, attack and accuracy. Which should lend itself to a large hit on pretty much anyone who touches her while phased and a huge hit while exiting phased with the L2 attack. Deadly crit, phased damage increase and phased advantage, combined with high accuracy and high attack should produce a useful attack.

NOTE: THIS BUILD IS WHAT I USE ON ALL VERSIONS OF KITTY PRYDE.

Luke Cage

Sweet Christmas. Can we please make this happen:

http://i1362.photobucket.com/albums/r682/PKBHI/ISO/14a-Cage_zps7c9c9c47.jpg

Until then, modern costume, bald head, no metal. Boring.

• 5x Reactive Forceful (Orange)
• 2x Reactive Steady (Purple)
• 1x Reactive Stalwart (White)
  • 1287 H / 680 At / 510 De / 595 Ac

http://i1362.photobucket.com/albums/r682/PKBHI/ISO/14b-Cage_zps8e3d4e18.jpg

Luke is a tank. So, health and defense. Make him last longer. Luke also has a high and deadly crit (with a combo exploit that he can't set up for himself... ), so it's worthwhile to increase his accuracy. And the attack is just there because I have this rule: If you don't hit hard, you sit hard. Face Punch uses a hideous amount of Stamina for not much more base damage than his Brawl skill. Yes, deadly crits, high crits, combo exploit. When the moon is in the 7th house, he can hit very very hard. The rest of the time, not so much. Best use is tanking, since he gets 4 rounds of tanking, and can set up counter attacks. Kind of like Budget Cap with structural flaws. He could still use a tweaking.

Having now been forced to use him quite a bit (I put up over 100 Mil on his premium mission... it is the level maker), I don't totally hate him, as he doesn't need the combo setup to hit pretty hard with the Face Punch. But you do want it to crit, so I wound up using a lot of penetrating strikes. Iso'd in this manner, his Face Punch hit/crit is 96/61. It still has a slight base damage advantage over Brawl, but with 25% more crits and 50% more damage on the crit, that's the tool.

Mr. Fantastic

I have not upgraded Mr. F to his white PJs. I haven't felt the need since I don't use him often, but I see some potential because of the L6 and the L9. At any rate, someday, and I'll figure which class then. And at this second writing, I still have yet to upgrade his suit.

• 5x Reactive Powerful (Purple)
• 2x Reactive Forceful (Orange)
• 1x Reactive Violent (Red)
  • 2860 H / 854 At / 170 De / 284 Ac

http://i1362.photobucket.com/albums/r682/PKBHI/ISO/15-MrF_zps4b35feea.png

Where's the potential? Well, first, Bifurcator. Consider, it does a flat percentage of damage. So, for PVP, if you're up against someone really much bigger than you, Bifurcation is actually pretty solid, in that it's a direct portion of health, like Emma's Tap, only it can't be removed or avoided with non-aggressive actions. It's stealthy, so you can get it where it needs to go and not get him smacked with a counter. And it recharges stamina, making it among the select moves that do (Emma recovers other people's stamina, Herc, Ms. Marvel and Strange recover their own). So, this has the potential to be a solid move, regardless of stats. Important to have accuracy, because that's where we make sure we hit with it. Like this, his accuracy in the store in 97%.

The other portion is Tumble. Deadly Crits. Low base damage, no matter what you do to Fantastic. But it is the deadliest deadly crit in the game. 6x multiplier. So, the low base, while annoying, gets the largest damage multipler around. So, the build is largely to get that maximized the base and get the crits. Strap as much attack and accuracy on, while building his survivability with the defense and his Malleability passive.

There is potential here. I just am not sure it is enough to make him that useful, without a full team target type skill on a partner. I had to borrow from Health and defense to get his attack in the shape that I like, and Tumble's base damage is still pretty low. An alternate theory might be to push his accuracy out the yin yang and leave the attack alone. That might look like 4x Steady and 4x Patient, which for me would produce a 2-3 bar attack and a near 2400 accuracy, which should result in a 99% hit and maybe 40% crit... If I were playing more of him, that might be something to experiment with.

Ms. Marvel

I like Blaster Ms. Marvel with her cute flip hair style and hot pants. You know, the uniform that everyone wants them to change.

• 4x Reactive Stoic (White)
• 3x Reactive Steady (Purple)
• 1x Reactive Focused (Purple)
  • 1859 H / 1716 S / 255 At / 340 De / 709 Ac

http://i1362.photobucket.com/albums/r682/PKBHI/ISO/16-MsM_zpsfb0a2551.jpg

Ms. Marvel gets extra turns. One of her mechanisms for doing that is very stamina intenstive. And extra turns are stamina intensive. And photon blasts aren't cheap either. Since I only really use her in PvE, and wouldn't use her in PVP unless she gets a major overhaul or I started over again (she was great at low level PVP), stamina got some build out.

Ms. Marvel hits hard. But she misses. A lot. I have her hitting 97/33 on all attacks. That'll do. Defense up. Her evasion is the worst of any flier in the game I'm pretty sure, and her alt suit has some neat tricks to help on defense, so I wasn't overly worried about it. This build would work fine if you ran her as a bruiser.

ALT BUILD:

Considering that Ms. Marvel now has an EISO that gives her Guaranteed Hit and True Strike on all of her attacks, it has been suggested that you could do away with accuracy for her entirely. I disagree, as you still want some crits. But wait, there are AISO now that will take care of the crits. IF you had her EISO AND strapped some crit improving AISO to her three attacks (requiring L14), then, you might want to build something like this:

• 5x Stalwart (White)
• 3x Relentless (Purple)
  • 2145 H / 1716 S / 767 At / 425 D

You'd want to do this because you could jack her damage through the roof, make sure she has enough stamina against non-energy attackers, and could take a punch. If you were not so concerned about her stamina, change the Relentless for Powerful or Bulky, or a mix (maybe 2 Powerful, 1 Bulky).

NOTE: THIS BUILD IS WHAT I USE ON ALL VERSIONS OF MS. MARVEL.

Nightcrawler

New alt, time to finally upgrade his crystals.

• 3x Reactive Violent (Red)
• 3x Reactive Skillful (White)
• 2x Reactive Powerful (Purple)
  • +2431 H / +825 At / +342 Ac / +255 Ev

http://i1362.photobucket.com/albums/r682/PKBHI/ISO/17-NC_zpsb08507d1.jpg

We will see how this plays, but I see a pairing with Punisher, as Swashbuckler Nicghtcrawler can consistently put three exploitable debuffs on all targets, which Pun can then drive his van over. That nearly doubles the base damage of Pun's Van, and if you have iso'd your Pun like I have, it will hit pretty hard on it's own, before crits and exploitation. There's a lot of potential here, but I have yet to play it much.

He's a fairly annoying opponent in PVP as he jumps in front of attacks at a high rate (like Spider-Man used to), disappears and applies bleeds. Very annoying, particularly as a scrapper, as it removes his Quicksilver vulnerability.

NOTE: THIS BUILD IS WHAT I USE ON ALL VERSIONS OF NIGHTCRAWLER.

Phoenix

I am using White Crown Phoenix as a blaster. I could see using her as an infiltrator, depending on the meta, but given the meta at the time of this writing, infiltrators are not invited.

• 3x Reactive Steady (Purple)
• 2x Reactive Athletic (White)
• 1x Reactive Mercurial (Orange)
• 2x Reactive Deft (Green)
  • 3289 H / 340 At / 510 Ac / 483 Ev

http://i1362.photobucket.com/albums/r682/PKBHI/ISO/18-Nix_zpsa32b6b8f.jpg

I don't use 'Nix in PvE at all, so I see no reason to add to her stamina despite her being a complete and utter stamina hog. TK and Fire are both massive sinks of stamina. The key for her in PVP is maximizing her reincarnation abilities and her L9. To that end, the standard deployment of high attack, high accuracy, 9000+ health and a high defensive ability, in this case evasion. Her defense would take 8 two stat crystals or gold to build to my standard, so, evasion it is.

NOTE: THIS BUILD IS WHAT I USE ON ALL VERSIONS OF PHOENIX.

She-Hulk

Sensational. I like She-Hulk probably more than anyone else on the wiki. So good for fast smashes with scrappers. She's like the opposite of most bruisers, who need time to get going, or tank. She's just straight offense. Smash.

• 4x Reactive Forceful (Orange)
• 2x Reactive Patient (White)
• 1x Reactive Steady (Purple)
• 1x Reactive Careful (Purple)
  • 1287 H / 572 S / 425 At / 510 De / 709 Ac

http://i1362.photobucket.com/albums/r682/PKBHI/ISO/19-Shulk_zps17cce081.jpg

Her Toss and her Stomp are both kind of stamina intensive, but I like the L1 and L2 moves a bit better. And to maximize those, we don't need a ton of stamina, and we have enough to do a Toss-Stomp combo if warranted. But, really, the move here is to make her fast, get her double enraged, use a QJ and get her to hurt someone very badly. And really, her L1 does good damage and has two hits, so makes up for her so-so accuracy. Really, if you haven't used She-Hulk lately, you need to reiso and go to town on some scrappers.

Sif

Modern Armor, Bruiser Sif. I have both, but I like the bruiser better, mostly because of the PVP bonus and the general lack of need for another mediocre scrapper.

• 3x Reactive Steady (Purple
• 4x Reactive Forceful (Orange)
• 1x Reactive Stalwart (White)
  • 1716 H / 680 At / 425 De / 595 Ac

http://i1362.photobucket.com/albums/r682/PKBHI/ISO/20-Sif_zps6256cd89.jpg

I like Sif because of her Tempered Steel passive on her Modern Armor. Three rounds of guaranteed crits. What can we do with those? Well, we have a deadly crit on the Leaping Slash that also adds tenderized and exploits the same (which is naturally exploited by all of her attacks). So, let me get this straight, on her second attack, I can have a deadly crit with an exploit, against a target with lowered defense (and I can possibly be enraged for extra damage)? Yes, I'll take that.

The scrapper build would be exactly the same. But the order of combat would be different against an infiltrator. We would lead with Flying Sword to put Ravaged and a bleed on, then go Leaping to put the Tenderized and another bleed. Then we could spam the Leap again with more deadly crits and exploitations. Really, a very underrated damage dealer.

NOTE: THIS BUILD IS WHAT I USE ON ALL VERSIONS OF LADY SIF.

Spider-Man

This may come as a shock, but I don't have a single alt for Spider-Man, despite having once used him all the time. Dunno why, just never got back to using him. Maybe someday... he was also one of the last original heroes I leveled to 12. Weird.

• 5x Reactive Steady (Purple)
• 2x Reactive Mercurial (Orange)
• 1x Reactive Powerful (Purple)
  • 2717 H / 709 At / 595 Ac / 170 E

http://i1362.photobucket.com/albums/r682/PKBHI/ISO/21-Spidey_zpsa5d3f3f7.jpg

I will never understand why people strap a ton of evasion on Spider-man when his damage output is so low and his Spider Sense jumps his evasion through the roof. He has stellar base evasion, can build his evasion with a skill, and with the white suit, can build his evasion passively. All that, and I felt compelled to strap a couple crystals with evasion. Well, it does double, so a small increase helps, but not at the expense of his offense or his health, which seems to be what a lot of people advocate.

My Spider-Man build is much more aggressive. Health for when evasion fails, attack to make his attacks worthwhile, accuracy to make sure they hit. Simple, straightforward, making him much better rounded and more dangerous overall.

NOTE: THIS BUILD IS WHAT I USE ON ALL VERSIONS OF SPIDER-MAN.

Spider-Woman

Spiderwoman is someone I liked in mid level, and really think is the worst character in the game today. That said, she has some potential if they decide to rewrite the rest of the worst.

• 4x Reactive Mercurial (Orange)
• 3x Reactive Athletic (White)
• 1x Reactive Powerful (Purple)
  • 1859 H / 454 At / 595 Ac / 595 Ev

http://i1362.photobucket.com/albums/r682/PKBHI/Spiderwoman_zps822d6c10.jpg

I haven't play tested this. I am unlikely to play test this. But I've strapped enough evasion on her to make her a top class dodge artist, enough accuracy to get her Brawl crits up to 76% and enough attack to build a useful amount of damage to multiply.

There's really not much to see here, until and unless they redo her skills into something more interesting. A quick fix would be to make her L9 a subtle skill rather than stealthy and to make it Quick Action. It would function like a quick, no-consequence Intimidated, and let her get on with her damage dealing. You could come up with more drastic things to do with her, but if you wanted to keep it simple, you could.

Storm

I am using Blaster Alt Storm when I use her. With this build, I might wind up using her more often.

• 4x Reactive Skillful (White)
• 2x Reactive Robust (Purple)
• 1x Reactive Steady (Purple)
• 1x Reactive Athletic (White)
  • 3432 H / 858 S / 595 At / 170 Ac / 425 Ev

http://i1362.photobucket.com/albums/r682/PKBHI/Storm_zps209c2583.jpg

The great thing about Storm is that she has two Catastrophic attacks plus an all ally buff. So, accuracy is not anything like a big deal, especially when her Blizzard hits harder than her Lightning. Evasion is the main way we will keep her alive, along with her Shroud, and the extra health. She has very good attack to start, but as I was building her, and decided that accuracy doesn't have a lot of purpose with the two catastrophics, I decided to just jump the attack as high as possible once I got my evasion where I wanted it. I even had some left over to take her awful stamina up to merely bad.

NOTE: THIS BUILD IS WHAT I USE ON ALL VERSIONS OF STORM.

Thing

The thing about the Thing is that he's kind of complicated. I run him in his Future Foundation as a Bruiser.

• 3x Reactive Steady (Purple)
• 2x Reactive Violent (Red)
• 2x Reactive Forceful (Orange)
• 1x Reactive Exact (Orange)
  • 1287 H / 653 At / 284 De / 767 Ac

http://i1362.photobucket.com/albums/r682/PKBHI/ISO/23-Thing_zpse3308398.jpg

If there were ever a character who doesn't need evasion, it's the ever-loving Thing. When his Stonewall is in place, he cannot evade. That's a relief, because we simply do not need to even worry about adding to it. The shame is that he starts with two bars of evasion, unlike Herc, Colossus, and a number of other bruisers, who start with one. He rebuilds his own stamina, so I don't feel the need to jump his stamina any, even though he does get extra turns. His stamina regain is more consistent than Herc's.

His defense doesn't need much buffing because it's already high, and he buffs it by getting hit. So, I pushed it to my usual standard, but even that is unnecessary to get very very large defense indeed. The main problem is to build his offense. I like adding a lot of health because the defense does not help against blasters, but the health and stonewall do. So, we get this build. I did see value in maxing out his defense, as it will make his proc build it faster (it's proportional to total defense). I was unable to get everything I wanted, so I sacrificed ~90 points off of accuracy, which still leaves him with excellent accuracy, 30% crits, and 90+% hits on his Gizmo Sandwich. The large amounts added to his attack bring his attacks into line with other heroes.

Playing Thing is a ballet of extra turns and situational tanking. I don't play him often enough to have mastered the dance, but I did enjoy leveling him and will be giving him a situational extra chance now that he's iso'd into a reasonable shape.

NOTE: THIS BUILD IS WHAT I USE ON ALL VERSIONS OF THING.

Thor

I use Mod Blaster and Bruiser:

• 4x Reactive Forceful (Orange)
• 2x Reactive Bulky (Orange)
• 1x Reactive Steady (Purple)
• 1x Reactive Violent (Red)
  • 429 H / 767 At / 568 D/ 539 Ac

http://i1362.photobucket.com/albums/r682/PKBHI/Thor_zpse3d326d1.jpg

Stamina doesn't really matter in PvP. So, there's no reason to add it. I could have skimped on the accuracy in PvP, given the large number of unmovable scrappers, but there may come a time when they let me move some people off scrapping, and I would want to maintain a semblance of acceptable accuracy. You could still skimp, as I did, becuase the main reason you're using him is the Summon Thunder, which is 100% hit anyway. I have overloaded his Attack whille skimping a bit on the defensive end.

You might ask, why do I like Av Thor for PvE and Mod Thor for PvP. Well, Instant Summon Thunder is cool in PvE, but Avenger procs charge him faster in Pve, and you will want to use his L6 first in PvE, which generates a charge of Thor Ups, meaning you'd waste half of Mod Thor's advantage. I'm looking forward to Classic Thor. So I can own 5+ Thors.

NOTE: THIS BUILD IS WHAT I USE ON ALL VERSIONS OF THOR. I ONLY USE THE MODERN VERSIONS.

War Machine

Iron Patriot, either class. I'm not convinced it needs stamina, and he's now the PVP boss that he was back when the game launched (almost).

• 4x Reactive Patient (White)
• 3x Reactive Forceful (Orange)
• 1x Reactive Steady (Purple)
  • 2145 H / 340 At / 595 De / 680 Ac

http://i1362.photobucket.com/albums/r682/PKBHI/WarMachine_zps19a90900.jpg

This should boost his accuracy and his attack enough to make him a credible threat, while getting his health and defense up to a range where he can survive long enough to be a threat. He creates his own shields, which make the defense and health go further (and the defense and health make the shields go further), and I've left the stamina low since he can recharge himself with his L9 skill.  

NOTE: THIS BUILD IS WHAT I USE ON ALL VERSIONS OF WAR MACHINE / IRON PATRIOT.

Wolverine

Brown/Tan, Scrapper. Because he was so meh for so long, I did not use him much. But with this build, he's bright and destructive. And he opens a premium, an epic, and a chapter reward, so, for the completist, you gotta have him. But he's also one of the best scrappers in the game now.

• 4x Reactive Forceful (Orange)
• 3x Reactive Patient (White)
• 1x Reactive Powerful (Purple)
  • +1859 H / +454 At / +595 De / +595 Ac

http://i1362.photobucket.com/albums/r682/PKBHI/Wolverine_zps2cdeb559.jpg

This build results in over 9000 health, over 2000 in Attack, Defense and Accuracy, which a bit of room to spare, which makes it very good. Maximizes his attacks and his crits and gives him some mileage as an occasional tank. And that's really what you want. You can't keep him from protecting.

NOTE: THIS BUILD IS WHAT I USE ON ALL VERSIONS OF WOLVERINE.

Mockingbird

Original suit, of course. One woman wrecking crew if you build her right. Soft tapper if you don't. You really have to understand the mechanism of making her hit very hard

• 2x Refined Reactive Violent (Red)
• 2x Reactive Skillful (White)
• 1x Reactive Powerful (Purple)
• 1x Reactive Steady (Purple)
• 1x Reactive Mercurial (Orange)
• 1x Reactive Proficient (Orange)
  • 1895 H /  854 At /  456 Ac / 369 Ev

http://i1362.photobucket.com/albums/r682/PKBHI/Mockingbird_zpse7418e7b.jpg

Couple things. First, look to survivability. I've done that with a combination of health and top notch evasion. At my level, she has over 9000 HP in PVE. Which translates to ~30K in PVP. Second, you need to look after maximizing what she does well. What she does is have a deadly crit on a paragon exploitation attack giving her very very heavy damage potential. To maximize the deadly crit aspect, you need accuracy, and I have taken her already pretty decent accuracy and juiced it to my standard... 2000+ (call it 6 bar).

Don't mistake Mock for anything she isn't. She's a matchup problem that opponents need to account for. She hits very very hard and is not necessarily a glass cannon due to the evasion. Strap what attack you can and watch her hurt people.

If you don't want to spend the gold, use the non-gold version of the same crystal. Lesser effect, but same theory. Maybe replace the Proficient with a second Mercurial or a third Violent.

Black Panther

I like him. Quite a bit. He does some interesting things and they gave him a subtle buff that made him better.

• 5x Reactive Steady (Purple)
• 2x Reactive Mercurial (Orange)
• 1x Reactive Proficient (Orange)
  • 2145 H / 709 At / 595 Ac / 284 Ev

http://i1362.photobucket.com/albums/r682/PKBHI/BlackPanther_zps22fb60c8.jpg

He is not terribly stamina intensive, even with extra turns and Panther Stance as a quick action. The key is making him more of an offensive force while boosting his survivability through health. Once he gets his Panther schwerve on, he's very strong as he boosts his own stats, depending on what buffs he has. The key is to get him into a useful amount of Panther Stance as early as possible. Once there, he's a completely different, much brighter hero who destroys blasters and others.

With the new Reactive Isos, he's actually pretty bright from the jump with top notch attack and accuracy and an ignore defense bleed attack.

Scarlet Witch

One of the scourges of low - mid level PVP, I used to love her. I don't use her much anymore as the meta has changed, but she's still a ton of fun to play.

• 4x Reactive Stalwart (White)
• 2x Reactive Patientt (White)
• 2x Reactive Exact (Orange)
  • 2574 H / 340 At / 738 D / 398 Ac

http://i1362.photobucket.com/albums/r682/PKBHI/Scarlet-Witch_zps821aaebd.jpg

Here's the thing. Her defense and her evasion are both horrid, and her health isn't much to write home about. So, you have to pick a poison here. I built this one around health and defense, as she has a passive evasion. I've also built that PKB standard for offense, 6 bar in both skills.

Questions I have to ask myself about this build. If I'm planning on using her L1, L6 and L9, why am I bothering with attack or accuracy. Well, if I get an extra turn, I'm going to use the L2, if I can end a fight, I'm going to use it, and basically, I prefer aggression. You could make a case to build her straight defense, but I would urge you to build up at least her accuracy, because a missed L1 will mess up your strategy.

For people who prefer evasion to defense:

• 4x Reactive Skillful (White)
• 4x Reactive Athletic (White)
• 2x Reactive Dextrous (Orange)
  • 2574 H / 340 At / 398 Ac / 738 Ev

Same build, different emphasis.

Emma Frost

I use Emma excluively as a tactician and this build is tilted for PvP where she has more general utility. This is the P5 uniform, as there's nothing the regular uniform does that this doesn't do better.

• 3x Reactive Violent (Red)
• 3x Reactive Patient (White)
• 2x Reactive Stalwart (White)
  • 2145 H / 512 At / 425 De / 597 Ac

http://i1362.photobucket.com/albums/r682/PKBHI/EmmaFrost_zps58f9927f.jpg

When I play Emma, I play her in PVP. I generally use all moves, but have strong preferences for her Mental Trauma and her War Diamond attacks. I mostly use the Tap to get extra turns for her around tanks. As a result, I have put the bulk of the emphasis here on attack (since the L2 and L9 attacks both use ATK, while most of the damage from the L1 doesn't rely on ATK). I have juiced her accuracy because I like hits and crits, and the moves I use require some measure of accuracy to get their full damage. The defense and health are towards survivability. You could make a case that I should build her evasion instead of defense, but defense took the fewest resources to push to the 2000 range (it's actually 1999 like this, but that's good enough for government work).

NOTE: I ONLY PLAY P5 EMMA.

Rogue

A generalist hero who can take on useful traits without downside risk, gets extra turns, self boosts and self-replenishes... yes please. 

• 3x Reactive Steady (Purple)
• 3x Reactive Patient (White)
• 1x Reactive Forceful (Orange)
• 1x Reactive Bulky (Orange)
  • 2574 H / 454 At / 454 D / 595 Ac

http://i1362.photobucket.com/albums/r682/PKBHI/Rogue_zpsbabb33f7.jpg

Okay, one of the more impotant things to do with Rogue is make sure that her Southern Comfort actually connects. If it doesn't, she doesn't get the boost, and without the boost, her output isn't that strong. So, if you're going to deviate from this design, do not skimp on the accuracy. Or the health, for that matter.

The debate is pretty straightforward about her sequencing of attack. Do you do Southern Comfort first, to get extra powerful turns on her next turn or do you use the Absorb class ability to get class benefits before using the SoCo. I used to be doctrinaire about using the Absorb ability first, now, I'm going with the consultant answer and tell you that it depends. If there is a tactician and you are carrying a QJ, Absorb->SoCo. The extra turns will pile up and you maximize the SoCo with your extra turn from tactician and your QJ extra turn, and then get more extra turns in the third round. This is a boss beater. To a lesser extent, this rule holds true for scrappers as well. Now, if you're not carrying QJ, you might want to go SoCo->Absorb, which can produce a sick amount of turns in the second round and might produce a higher rate of Stun. At any rate, read the situation and react.

Gambit

Fragile soft tapper according to others. I see a lot of potential for huge damage. Of course, I level them to 12 and other people read them in the store.

• 4x Reactive Steady (Purple)
• 2x Reactive Skillful (White)
• 2x Reactive Proficient (Orange)
  • 2574 H / 738 At / 340 Ac / 398 Ev

http://i1362.photobucket.com/albums/r682/PKBHI/Gambit_zps296f553c.png

So, why the difference of opinion. Well, at L12, I have the ability to MOVE stats with Reactive ISOs. So, when they look at his attack in the store, they see a 2 bar problem and when I look at his attack on my hero, I see a 5+ bar solution. Then, because they are not playing him, they don't see how it all comes together. Like the 30% bonus to damage from combat reflexes. The 25% boost to damage from Exposed. The 50% boost from exploiting the Exposed. The doubling from the deadly crit. The extra damage from the charges. The extra crits from the charges... it adds up to fairly large numbers and solid support to the team.

I'm not going to lie to you and tell you that I use Gambit all the time. He is a bit fragile, but here, I've given him the standard health and 5+ bar evasion, so he should be able to get out of the way of some attacks and take a couple on the chin before fading to red. But I am going to tell you that he can really put a major hurt into his one big shot. Oh, and he distributes Exposed which makes your team hit harder. And he does buff removal for the entire enemy team. So, I'm not saying he's the best hero. But he's a good hero with solid stats who needs some play and some ISO love.

Magik

I might be in the minority, but I love me some Magik. I find her hella useful, and if more people ran Ghost Tank like I do, I'd run in her AFK PVP. She shreds Inf Ghost Tanks, with her L1.With the return of Kitty Pryde to PVP, Magik might be a nice, viable counter.

• 3x Reactive Steady (Purple)
• 3x Reactive Patient (White)
• 1x Reactive Forceful (Orange)
• 1x Reactive Bulky (Orange)
  • 2574 H / 454 At / 454 De / 595 Ac

http://i1362.photobucket.com/albums/r682/PKBHI/Magik_zps03de85a4.jpg

Magik is a stamina pig with everything other than her L1. But I find that fights with her in them don't last long enough to use more than 1 or 2 of the higher skills, since I like my Magik fully charged (more procs, more stuff with her attacks). The accuracy is fairly central, as there's nothing worse than missing with her L1 and not getting charged. Otherwise, this is a straightforwad build with a slant towards PVP utility.

Quicksilver

So many people hated him upon release and some tactical thinking people like me urged patience to see it. Then, people started to see it, and he got an alt suit that he didn't really need and now he is threatening to become the most popular character in PVP not named Emma Frost.

• 5x Reactive Powerful (Purple)
• 2x Reactive Violent (Red)
• 1x Reactive Skillful (White)
  • 3289 H / 883 At / 228 Ac / 85 Ev

http://i1362.photobucket.com/albums/r682/PKBHI/Quicksilver_zps5ab67eb2.jpg

He has no need for stamina, ever. Everything he does is based on his blinding punches. They are basically free. He starts with very high stamina also. No need to build that. At all.

I don't see a need to build much evasion, as he builds it himself. Each stack of Quickness increases his accuracy and his evasion. I increase the accuracy a bit more because it helps in the early flow of the fight. The attack is the main thing of importance here, and I think it's obvious, so doesn't need discussion. Thinking about it rationally, he builds his own evasion, his own accuracy, he has high stamina that he doesn't need, so you have to build your choice of health, attack and defense. The attack is most important, which is why every crystal I strap on him has attack, the defense won't come into play much as his evasion is 5 bar with the one crystal, and gets to way beyond 5 bar before anyone gets a shot at him. So, Health and Attack, and that's where I put the most of the money.

NOTE: THIS BUILD IS WHAT I USE ON ALL VERSIONS OF QUICKSILVER.

Deadpool

Let me be honest. I don't like Deadpool in comics. I don't like him in the game. I am biased.

• 3x Reactive Stalwart (White)
• 4x Reactive Forceful (Orange)
• 1x Reactive Violent (Red)
  • 1287 H /  716 At / 602 De / 458 Ac

NO PICTURE OF DEADPOOL ON GENERAL PRINCIPLE. EFF HIM. YOU WANT DP PIX, MAKE YOUR OWN BLOG AND BUILD YOUR OWN READERSHIP. I'M NOT SPENDING ONE SECOND LOOKING FOR GOOD DEADPOOL ART. THERE'S NO SUCH THING.

He had a lot of needs. He needs stamina, accuracy, defense, attack, health... everything. But since he's not a support character in any manner, and he needs his attacks to hit, getting the accuracy up mattered, but given the wealth of needs (including Stamina since I only ever play him in PvE), made me have to cut corners on everything but health and attack.NOTE: I've actually now skimped on Stamina, as I use the Cosmic Cardinal in PVE. And I don't generally use Deadpoo. 

His progression is obvious, so merits no discussion. The less Deadpool discussion, the better.

Frankly, when he was released, people gushed about his base stats. They suck, at least for my purposes. Nothing really strong to top off, nothing really inessential and weak to ignore. His evasion is bad, but the extra bar there could go somewhere else to nice effect. And the stamina hog that he is... blech.

Hercules

I have an eclectic taste in super heroes. I hate Deadpool with a passion. He breaks the fourth wall and is funny. I love Herc massively. He breaks the fourth wall and is funny. Don't know why that is. But all I know is awesome is Herc and Deadpool is jerk.

• 4x Reactive Forceful (Orange)
• 2x Reactive Patient (White)
• 1x Reactive Exact (Orange)
• 1x Rective Violent (Red)
  • 858 H / 454 At / 738 De / 624 Ac

http://i1362.photobucket.com/albums/r682/PKBHI/Herc_zps3446bf04.jpg

I use Herc for PVE boss fights that are tricky or feature multiple waves. He replenishes stamina, gets jacked, and hits massively hard. So, since I'm tanking with him, Defense and Health are at a premium. Because he normally cannot hit the broad side of a barn, accuracy. Because it's important that he hit real hard... It's pretty straightforward.

I am contemplating golding him up again, so that I'd have room to improve the stamina, but am not sure I want to gold him for PVE use. Something to consider.

Ghost Rider

I ran him mainline in PVP to Adamantium in Season 3. Did not like him upon release, but as I played him more, I grew to like him.

• 3x Reactive Stalwart (White)
• 3x Reactive Patient (White)
• 1x Reactive Violent (Red)
• 1x Reactive Forceful (Orange)
  • 2574 H / 454 At / 595 De / 454 Ac

http://i1362.photobucket.com/albums/r682/PKBHI/ghost_rider_zps68242023.jpg

I think this is pretty straightforward. The Health because it will prolong him the most. The Attack and Accuracy are pretty straight forward and the defense to work with his Infernal Contract's damage reduction, to help with magic attacks and to help the 50% of time when Infernal Contract doesn't reduce damage.

The progression is pretty straightforward as is everything else the Rider does. Not much room for discussion, imho.

Beast

A bit of a conundrum, as his base stats are completely backwards from how I'd want to build. And his skills are decidely against my preferred play style.

• 5x Refined Steady (Purple)
• 2x Refined Dextrous (Orange)
• 1x Refined Athletic (White)
  • 2574 H / 425 At / 738 Ac / 313 Ev

http://i1362.photobucket.com/albums/r682/PKBHI/Beast_zps46f1f714.jpg

First, the primary concern is accuracy. Nasty tricks like Generalized and off-balance/cornered are no good if they don't hit. And Dr. McCoy starts with abyssmal accuracy which I pushed to my standard. This required sacrificing some things, like really, pushing evasion to my standard or Attack. They're both 5 bars, but not really 6 bars. Or adding stamina, though he doesn't really need it, despite the stamina intensity of his L1 move. I can rationalize the skimp on attack with the notion that he buffs his own damage. His defense is fairly solid to start with, so I can live with a bit of substandardness in evasion since the extra hits he will take will be reduced, somewhat, by the stamina.

Beast, I simply do not understand you. You have great stats for a tank, and I could build you out that way, no problem. But as a tactical weapon, you're a bit of a mess.

Cable

I like Cable a lot, and really enjoy his ability to fix turn sequencing. Beyond that, he can deal a ton of damage, self-boost, foul attacks, full party stun, and all sorts of other tricks.

• 2x Reactive Forceful (Orange)
• 1x Reactive Exact (Oranage)
• 1x Reactive Violent (Red)
• 1x Reactive Steady (Purple)
• 1x Reactive Patient (White)
• 1x Reactive Stalwart (White)
• 1x Reactive Focused (Purple)
  • +1859H / +454 At / +454 De / +682 Ac

http://i1362.photobucket.com/albums/r682/PKBHI/Cable_zps881109d6.jpg

Given the fact that Overdrive mode kills Cable if you linger there too long but has a lot of his cool stuff, I've come to the conclusion that you want to get him to Overdrive quickly and get him back to Control mode as fast as possible. With the extra health, he's able to take a bit more punishment, and with the low stamina, he can flip there on the first turn and flip back by the end of the second.

The damage output of Cable, combined with the extra turns and the delay tactics and a full team unblockable stun make him a very neat offensive force. His ability to increase his own damage with the TO Rampage mode is also cool, since it stacks. There's a ton of potential, but his accuracy is junk, so that's where I chose to focus my efforts. He has good natural defense, so that, with some health and his L2 are the survivability solutions.

Valkyrie

Controversial. You either really get her, or you don't. I like her a lot, and I don't even use her resurrection mojo or her L1 very often.

• 4x Reactive Forceful (Orange)
• 1x Reactive Patient (White)
• 1x Reactive Stalwart (White)
• 1x Reactive Steady (Purple)
• 1x Reactive Focused (Purple)
  • 1859 H / 510 At / 510 De / 624 Ac

http://i1362.photobucket.com/albums/r682/PKBHI/Valk_zps62c5566b.jpg

This is an agressive build for PvE, because it doesn't carry stamina, but a more rounded build for PVP, where her full range of skills become more useful. I like the aggression of attacking over using the Blessing skill in PvE situations and things have to get pretty pear shaped before I would use Geirr over Dragonfang in either format.

What her detractors don't get is that, ignoring the question of accuracy, Dragonfang is actually one of the higher base value attacks in the game, neutral of attack. And they don't see this because, in playing the Special Op, or looking at her in the store, they don't see her with extra accuracy and extra attack. Fang is not sexy, but even with the reduced accuracy, it has three hits, so you'll land something if you jack her base accuracy enough. And the healing from the Dragonfang debuff can be significant. So, Dragonfang was my main focus. Maximizing Dragonfang (and indirectly Geirr... plan for things to go right but be ready for the pear shaped outcome). I like Valk. A lot. Worthy Spec Ops, and I only really use half her skills.

Tigra

People are funny. They said Tigra was weak, she's awesome. Dunno why people insist on rating before playing. Except that they want to save CP. But seriously, how many times will people be burned by misunderstanding their reading of a character only to be proven wrong.

• 3x Reactive Steady (Purple)
• 3x Reactive Skillful (White)
• 2x Reactive Mercurial (Orange)
  • 2574 H / 680 At / 425 Ac / 425 Ev

http://i1362.photobucket.com/albums/r682/PKBHI/Tigra_zps71b4b880.png

Deadly crits on the L1 require accuracy. Built like this, it's a 33% shot when she doesn't have Sharpened Claws, 100% when she does. I like my odds of hurting people badly. Defense is not a total lost cause as she can build her own with Tiger Fury, but I though that Evasion could be built a bit further. Because she has a high 4 bar Stamina to start, she has a suboptimal starting build that is deficient in a lot of corners, and therefore impossible to get to my usual standards. But I got within a single point on accuracy and evasion, and 32 points on attack.

As to play, I prefer to get Tiger Fury started before spreading the bleeds, but you could roll it either way. With a single stack of Tiger Fury, she is a total wrecking machine on offense, especially if she can get Combat Reflexes.

Psylocke

She's not the beast in PvP that she used to be, but she's still viable. She is still very good and is very very good in PvE.

• 3x Reactive Steady (Purple)
• 2x Reactive Skillful (White)
• 2x Reactive Powerful (Purple)
• 1x Reactive Proficient (Orange)
  • 3289 H / 767 At / 255 Ac / 284 Ev

http://i1362.photobucket.com/albums/r682/PKBHI/Psylocke_zps79948849.png

This should work very nicely, indeed. That pushes her health to 9700+, her attack to ~2200, her accuracy to 1800+, and her Evasion to 2000+. Meaning beyond what I like to build to in the three stats that are going to matter. She should hit hard, enjoy massive boosts from her Mental Coordination, and crit often. And maybe even get missed from time to time. Since she has normal crits, I traded off some accuracy for extra health and attack. She's gonna be able to roll with a punch and deliver some serious hits, especially with Mental Coordination.

The Mental Coordination is great, but you do have to burn a turn to use it. That's fine. Turns are precious but even with a lower proc rate, it winds up giving you your turn back in attacks. Paired with a heavy hitter, she is gold. Very solid character in all aspects of PvP and PvE. Also, great for Stupid Hero Tricks. The list of funny things you can do with coordination is nigh endless.

Punisher

This is what I have on him. I love the versatility, but his base damage is a little underwhelming. In a lot of ways, he's kind of the jack of all trades, master of none. But that gives him a niche.

• 4x Reactive Stalwart (White)
• 2x Reactive Forceful (Orange)
• 1x Reactive Patient (White)
• 1x Reactive Proficient  (Orange)
  • 2145 H / 630 At / 716 De / 258 Ac

The health and D make him live long enough to get his paragon exploiting van off against people with things to exploit. That's important. The Attack and Accuracy help him hit hard and crit often. Brightens him up and makes you see him for what he can be. That's an offensive wrecking machine. The bruiser is the only mode that I don't care for, though I find myself using the Tact, Scrap and Blaster modes most often, in that order. Part of that is the missions I'm playing, but part is just that they flow a bit better.

Havok

Heroic Age Havok. Very strong damage dealer, boosts his own defense, and doesn't tank anymore, so not as fragile a flower as he used to be.

• 4x Reactive Steady (Purple)
• 3x Reactive Exact (Orange)
• 1x Reactive Patient (White)
  • 2145 H / 340 At / 427 De / 767 Ac

You twigged it, he needs accuracy. This build does not strap a crystal on him that does not boost accuracy and whatever you do to tweak my build, keep in mind that all the ATK in the world doesn't mean anything if you cannot make it hit. Whatever else you do, you will want to focus your efforts on the accuracy.

As to playing him, he can recharge his own stamina, and he's no longer reliant upon his stamina level to determine his damage. He has an AoE pressure point attack that works nicely with the various heroes who exploit basic debuffs or who do it via paragon exploitation. And he brings one of the best hammers in the game in his ability to instantly stack 5 charges, then set them loose with a single attack that is guaranteed to crit. He can bring the wood and set his teammates up. Why wouldn't you like him?

Magneto

Magneto starts with interesting base stats. A ton of bars, but nothing exceptional. Better base stats than Captain America, truth be told. Interesting to build.

• 4x Reactive Skillful (White)
• 3x Reactive Violent (Red)
• 1x Reactive Steady (Purple)
  • 2145 H / 767 At / 427 Ac / 340 Ev 

Mags damage output is a tad on the low side, hence the heavy focus on the attack. This is nearly 200 points beyond my usual standard for heroes. You could say that I borrowed from the evasion to get the attack that high. And you wouldn't be completely wrong. But his attacks rely on people being magnetized to do their damage. That's nice, but I like my attacks to do great damage regardless. So, heavy on the already not terrible attack.

The accuracy is also worth comment. Someone might want to suggest that he doesn't need accuracy since he auto hits and crits people with magnetized. I would ask back, how do people get Magnetized. The answer is that some folks don't get it unless he straps it to them with his L1 attack. Which requires accuracy to hit people who are dodgey.

X-23

Got her, at last. Can't say I like the character from the comics, or find anything really interesting about here, but such is the pain of being a completionist. She takes a bit of luck to get going, but once she is going, she's a wrecking machine.

• 5x Reactive Skillful (White)
• 1x Reactive Steady (Purple)
• 2x Reactive Violent (Red)
  • 2574 H / 744 At / 314 Ac / 430 Ev

A couple things to note. I skimped on Accuracy a bit here (she still have 5+ bar, just not 2000), because her attacks all have secret high crits and the L6 crits if it hits. Since 1800 or so produces 50%+ crits and 96% accuracy, I didn't see much point in pushing it much further. As a result, She has high, even for my standard, attack. Which is good, because she can lay a lot of hits on people if she gets trigger scent going. For defense, I focused on Evasion, which I've pushed nearly as high as the attack, and of course, my standard health. If you wanted a bit more, you could replace a Mercurial with a Skillful and produce more health at a tradeoff for a touch of accuracy. She will still have 96/55 accuracy, like that, so it's not like she's gonna miss it much.

Wasp

I like her. Not everyone is liable to do the same. She takes some setup, she works on fouling opponent strategy, and that's just not as simple to appreciate as someone who is a one hit kill monster.

• 4x Reactive Steady (Purple)
• 2x Reactive Mercurial (Orange)
• 1x Reactive Athletic (White)
• 1x Reactive Steady (Purple)
  • H +2574 / At +595 / Ac +595 / EV +340

This one is pretty straightfoward. More damage, more accuracy, more health, More evasion. 5 bars in each. She boosts her own evasion, so we could have stolen from there for more attack or accuracy, but I don't like having to set up that defense if the attack that triggers it is not the optimal attack path. Her defense is bad and would take a lot of resources to improve, but her strength on defense involves fouling attacks, rather than taking hits. And my Jan will start PVE fights with 9000 HP, so she will have solid survivability through the health and evasion.

What you want to do, if you want to appreciate her, is play her with a team that will produce the debuffs that trigger, and are exploited by, Opportunist. Someone like Hank Pym, Punisher or an agent using Manvantara. With enough of her exploitable debuffs out there, she can do a lot of damage with that skill. She can really foul attackers with her L1 nerfing damage and adding a DoT (which also reduces damage), her L2 forcing the next attack to hit and adding blinded, her L6 negating counter attacks to the field, and the L9 detanking and dizzying with the one of the most amusing animations in the game.

Captain Britain

I like Cap B. He has great base stats in everything except Health, Stamina and Accuracy. He does a ton of damage, gets extra turns, and does paragon exploitation. What's not to like?

• 3x Reactive Masterful (Purple)
• 2x Reactive Refined Steady (Purple)
• 1x Reactive Patient (White)
• 1x Reactive Refined Flourishing (Purple)
• 1x Reactive Stoic (White)
  • 2040 H / 2253 S / 469 At / 170 D / 746 Ac

http://i1362.photobucket.com/albums/r682/PKBHI/CapB_zpsd5a46b80.jpg

Yes, I spent a bit of gold. And I didn't really have to. Trade out one of the Masterfuls for an extra Steady and you're there. I should have put this on a spreadsheet. But, not gonna undo the gold just to prove a point.

What I have done is jacked his attack and accuracy through the roof, brought his defense to my 2000+ standard and done the 9000+ with both health and stamina. The stamina took the gold, since I saw it as lower priority than the health. I let the Defense trail the offense as Cap's Roar passive reduces damage drastically.

Cap B works fairly straightforward. Stun everyone (or as many as you can), stack the debuffs quickly, and get to paragon exploitation and Curse of the Otherworld as fast as possible. This maximizes much of that.

Strong upon release. Already a monster in Pvp. Enjoy.

Hank Pym

Hero I enjoy hating almost as much as Deadpool. He has his uses beyond being a pilot.

• 4x Reactive Chaotic (White)
• 2x Reactive Stalwart (White)
• 1x Reactive Vigorous (White)
• 1x Reactive Powerful (Purple)
  • 2574 H / 1573 S / 597 At / 483 D / 228 Ac / 228 Ev

http://i1362.photobucket.com/albums/r682/PKBHI/Pym_zps6abfc183.jpg

Odd rebuild, but this is much more efficient. In PvE, where he's more useful (specifically in group boss fights, where he can deal a large amount of damage), he is an absolute stamina pig. Runs out of juice before you get to his turn where everything crits. So, with so much to build, some chaotics.

So, what use is the old wife-beater, arguably the Avengers greatest foe? Looong fights. Multiwave battles where he can get his passive up to the second and third level. Group bosses. Once he gets people setup with his L1, his L2 can hit like a truck, especially once he starts ignoring defense and auto-criting. If you pair him with someone who can boost his attack, he can hit very hard indeed. Don't believe me, set him up with Juggernaut and give the agent a way to set people up for Pym's knockoff of Paragon exploitation.

Fantomex

Pretty meh for me.

• 3x Reactive Skillful (White)
• 2x Reactive Tireless (White)
• 1x Reactive Steady (Purple)
• 1x Reactive Athletic (White)
• 1x Reactive Mercurial (Orange)
  • 2145 H / 858 S / 595 At / 255 Ac / 595 Ev

http://i1362.photobucket.com/albums/r682/PKBHI/Fantomex_zps6ebb93c6.png

Traded a bit of accuracy here to juice the stamina. As a tact, with low starting stamina, I fear he could have issues in PVE. He boosts his own accuracy, so why overplay. I'm pretty meh on him because his setup is too long and his payoff for the full setup is kind of weak. Boosting accuracy is not that strong, accuracy has diminishing returns beyond 5 bars.  

Black Knight

Interesting concept for a hero. I feel people are selling him short, but haven't quite solved the puzzle of his use yet. I think this build gets me closer.

• 3x Reactive Forceful (Orange)
• 2x Reactive Steady (Purple)
• 2x Reactive Stalwart (White)
• 1x Reactive Focused (Purple)
  • 2288 H / 595 At / 425 De / 539 Ac

http://i1362.photobucket.com/albums/r682/PKBHI/BlackKnight_zps4be5db8a.png

Let me walk you through my thoughts here. The accuracy that I'm skimping (about 170 points) reduces him from 97/33 Hit/Crit to 96/25. Valinor doesn't miss, and his other two attack both have multiple hits. So, I think getting 858 health instead of 170 accuracy is worth doing. Especially since we have to tank him to get to the big damage abilities.

The reason I haven't twigged exactly what to do with him is because he's highly situational. Sometimes, you will want to lead with Valinor to detank people. This is a neat skill for PVP as people will run Wolverine and a tanking agent. Sometimes, you will want to tank up from the start. At that point the extra health and the high defense will come into play. And every now and again, you will just want to apply bleeds with the Ebony Blade. So, situational awareness is probably the key. And repetition.

Vision

Prelim build. All Chaotics possible, but specialization explored:

• 3x Reactive Forceful (Orange)
• 1x Reactive Steady (Purple)
• 3x Reactive Stalwart (White)
• 1x Reactive Athletic (White)
  • 2145 H / 595 At / 595 De / 425 Ac

http://i1362.photobucket.com/albums/r682/PKBHI/vision_zpsed762d61.jpg

The strategy here is to get phased, stay phased, do a big hit coming out of phase. That's pretty straightforward. The build emphasizes defense over evasion, as I value the defense higher and he will dodge lots with his phasing. The defense will cover him better when he's not able to phase. Everything else is standard shape.

Omega Sentinel

Probably my favorite character to play at the moment. I went with a level of specialization and a level of generalization:

• 4x Reactive Chaotic (White)
• 2x Reactive Violent (Red)
• 1x Reactive Steady (Purple)
• 1x Reactive Stalwart (White)
  • 2506 H / 1432 S / 784 At / 391 De / 677 Ac / 284 Ev

http://i1362.photobucket.com/albums/r682/PKBHI/Omega_zps3adcd5d4.png

I can't really explain the strategy of playing her because it's massively complicated and nuanced. The Overclock ability and the class changing makes the sequencing of her turns worthy of a whole blog post on it's own. She is well suited to pretty much any situation, only really lacking a solution for tanks. Since she can do multiple things each round, and change class ad infinitum, it's worth taking the time to think through the move to make sure you don't leave her in the wrong class. It's also worth taking the time to think about the order of attack for maximal damage. Or the order of protect for maximal protection. Very complicated.

Shatterstar

Liefeldian. Disgustingly Liefeldian. Like Liefeld looked at Longshot and said, "I can make that, only with dopey swords that wouldn't work as well and moar pouches... a quick palette swap and Boo-Yah, X-Force is finished.":

• 4x Reactive Skillful (White)
• 2x Reactive Mercurial (Orange)
• 2x Reactive Steady (Purple)
  • 2574 H / 680 At / 340 Ac / 510 Ev

http://i1362.photobucket.com/albums/r682/PKBHI/1952240-x_factor_220_shatterstar_1_zps4beeeb34.jpg

So, despite the Liefeldian excess, I really like Shatterstar. He has ENORMOUS damage potential. The problem is that the potential is in the second round, and people can do things to mess him up before the second round, like buff removal. Once you get all his skills, you can run a first turn Gladiatorial Carnage, which jacks his stats for the next round and gives him two turns next round. At which point, you can use the L2 to apply the exposed and the L6 to exploit the exposed. Collectively, this works out to a TON of damage. I used him as part of my anti-Red Skull Group Boss crew, as he could just stack the damage in a hurry. The followups are a total point guard move. You think to yourself, 8% increase to damage, that's like the tax in New York or Chicago... rounding error. But, you get a couple stacks of Pain, and the damage starts to rack up.

A couple words about the build, I traded a bit of evasion for a bit more attack and accuracy. The L6 has a deadly crit, and built in this manner, we get that to 30% before the Carnage buff. The attack is self explanatory... more attack = more damage and SS is a damage dealer. The evasion I left low because he procs his mirror images at a pretty decent clip, With mirror images, we get better funtional evasion than any evasion we're liable to build, so, I thought we could slough a bit of evasion into attack and accuracy.

Union Jack

Jack is the man. Love this guy. Preempts everything. Fouls up strategies like you wouldn't believe. He's like an offensive version of a tank.

• 5x Reactive Skillful (White)
• 1x Reactive Mercurial (Orange)
• 1x Reactive Steady (Purple)
• 1x Reactive Violent (Red)
  • 2574 H / 709 At / 284 Ac / 510 Ev

http://i1362.photobucket.com/albums/r682/PKBHI/unionjack_zps2ba845c5.jpg

Attack makes his various assists and preemptive counters matter. The preempts are where the damage is, and boosting his attack makes them really bright. His attacks all do multiple hits and none have deadly crits, which makes the accuracy less important to take beyond five bar. 96/26 is plenty good. My build also cranks his health very high. If you are concerned about Stamina, you could trade one or two of the Skillfuls for the Stamina/Attack/Evasion equivalent. Evasion should make him as fairly dirty dodge monkey.

In terms of use, he pairs exceptionally well with a counter tank, like Captain America. Or someone who gets a lot of procs, like Quicksilver (followups, counters, preempts all allow Jack to assist, which speeds his progression into a preemption machine). If there comes a time where there is anti-buff removal tech, UJ will be absurdly strong.

Rescue

Rescue is really not my thing, even though I pretty much suggested exactly this style of build for her on the Playdom forum a long time ago. But the new "Nerf" girl, since everyone who can't beat her wants her nerfed. 

• 4x Reactive Patient (White)
• 2x Reactive Chaotic (White)
• 1x Reactive Spry (Green)
• 1x Reactive Adroit (Orange)
  • 2717 H / 572 S / 114 At / 624 De / 539 Ac / 284 Ev

http://i1362.photobucket.com/albums/r682/PKBHI/ISO/24-Rescue_zpsfac51d97.jpg

When you look at Rescue, there are two strong impulses that you kind of want to avoid. The first is the "She's got no attack, we gotta build that" trap. There's no need to build her attack much, as she does most of her damage by invalidating the enemy. No matter how much attack you strap on her, she isn't going to be a finisher or a come from behind kind of attacker. The second impulse to avoid is the "She doesn't attack, so let's go 8 Spry" trap. She has an attack. It applies some fairly important debuffs, and the debuffs don't apply if you don't hit with it.

So, Rescue gets the inverted build. Instead of maxing out attack and accuracy and the better of the two defensive skills, she gets maxed out in defense, near max out in evasion, 5 bar accuracy and a ton of health. Collectively, this build should give her consistency with her accuracy dependent moves (I know the L1 is, I suspect the shielding/healing skill is as well), and make her a nuissance to kill. You can add your opponents to the chorus of people who want to nerf the least offensively dangerous hero (by a really wide margin) in the entire game.

Thundra

The most direct expression of militant feminist thought in comics since the early days of Valkyrie:

• 2x Reactive Steady (Purple)
• 2x Reactive Patient (White)
• 2x Reactive Forceful (Orange)
• 1x Reactive Stalwart (White)
• 1x Reactive Violent (Red)
  • 2145 H / 539 At / 425 De / 624 Ac

http://i1362.photobucket.com/albums/r682/PKBHI/Thundra_zps0439e545.jpg

Thundra has farily unlimited damage potential. She has a stun move that jacks her next attack by 25%. She has an attack that does pressure points and sets up a guaranteed crit. She conveniently has a paragon exploit move that is also finest hour and a good shot at crit hits. Oh, and she can self-buff with the basic four. As a result, she can be really hellish on people when paired with someone that either spreads a lot of exploitable debuffs or finest hour enhancing buffs. Oh, and she's a bruiser, so throw double enraged on that sucker, and watch the bodies fly.

The downside is that her full damage potential is kind of slow to get going, and people tend to be dead before you can fully let her loose. I find that I'd rather build her up with Finest Hour than opponents with Paragon Exploit debuffs. The Finest Hour buffs stay with her, while the debuffs are target specific. She lacks AOE or Stealth, making her of limited use for PVP, imho.

Juggernaut

He's the Juggernaut. And he couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. What?

• 3x Reactive Forceful (Orange)
• 2x Reactive Steady (Purple)
• 1x Reactive Patient (White)
• 1x Reactive Exact (Orange)
• 1x Reactive Violent (Red)
  • 1287 H / 539 At / 454 De / 738 Ac

http://i1362.photobucket.com/albums/r682/PKBHI/ISO/25-Jugg_zpsb073577c.png

Gets him more into a shape I like. The evasion will never be much, unless we dedicate to building it full on, alongside the accuracy. Since we want to emphasize what he's good at, it's a non-starter.

Built this way, he is possibly the premiere one shot artist in the game. On par with Havok. Get his L9 rolling, and you never really have to use his L6, because his accuracy, in this build, is plenty high and the momentum stacks just keep his damage very exciting.

Red Hulk

He's the bomb.

• 3x Reactive Forceful (Orange)
• 3x Reactive Steady (Purple)
• 2x Reactive Patient (White)
  • 2145 H / 510 At / 425 De / 680 Ac

http://i1362.photobucket.com/albums/r682/PKBHI/ISO/26-Rulk_zps4fe1041e.png

He starts with the same base stats as Juggernaut, so the inclination is to build him the same way. But Rulk runs a bit deeper than Juggy Smash!, so requires a tweak to that build. Tanking requires more health. I sacrificed a bit of accuracy a hair off attack and a hair off defense to add two crystals worth of health.

Rulk can take care of his own damage. He's not quite the one shot artist that Juggy is, but when he's fired up and gets the crit on his L2, he can take out most opponents with one hit. He also has a lot of debuff tricks to play, with his Gamma Bomb and his heating up and on fire passives. All in all, very strong.

Wonder Man

I wonder, wonder, wonder who...

• 5x Reactive Steady (Purple)
• 3x Reactive Forceful (Orange)
  • 2145 H / 680 At / 255 De / 680 Ac

http://i1362.photobucket.com/albums/r682/PKBHI/ISO/27-Wondy_zpsb1b7f33a.jpg

I love me some Wonderman. Let me count the ways. He tanks, passively, the whole fight, and cannot have his tanking removed via Debuff. He's got a stealthy attack (which disables stealthy attacks... yes, come into my tank). He can get tons of extra turns. His healing can be HUGE. And the Hollywood Handy hits people HARD when he gets juiced. The build focuses on his accuracy (attrocious improved to top notch), his health (he's a tank) and his attack (there really wasn't anywhere else to put it). He's REALLY bright built like this.

I will admit, it's a chore leveling him, especially getting him from 1-9. But once you get him there, and figure out how to use him, you too will love you some Wonderman.

Constrictor

Hey, didn't this guy used to be a low level bad?

• 3x Reactive Steady (Purple)
• 3x Reactive Skillful (White)
• 1x Reactive Mercurial (Orange)
• 1x Reactive Violent (Red)
  • 2574 H / 709 At / 454 Ac / 340 Ev

http://i1362.photobucket.com/albums/r682/PKBHI/ISO/28-Constrictor_zps898653a6.png

He's got a deadly crit on his L6, so we push the accuracy a bit harder than normal. The attack is the normal, PKB bright bright attack. And the evasion is 5 bar, with the standard PKB health.

I gotta say, after playing him up to 12, he's a total flight jockey. His passive is flukey, too random to be consistently useful, his setup for his deadly crit is extensive, and his damage is pretty meh. I don't say this about many heroes, but this guy would have pilot written all over him if I bothered doing flights anymore.

Angel

Well, now that nearly everyone and their mother got him from the great PVP giveaway error...

• 3x Reactive Steady (Purple)
• 1x Reactive Skillful (White)
• 1x Reactive Powerful (Purple)
• 1x Reactive Mercurial (Orange)
• 1x Reactive Proficient (Orange)
• 1x Reactive Violent (Red)
  • 2288 H / 767 At / 454 Ac / 284 Ev

http://i1362.photobucket.com/albums/r682/PKBHI/ISO/29-Angel_zpsef4c56cf.jpg

I put a lot into attack as he has three attacking moves and a heal that are all based on attack. I put a lot of health on him to improve his survivability, which is key for him to repeat his extra turn trick. I topped the accuracy out at the top of where I put people without deadly crits, even though he doesn't need to hit with most of his attacks, largely out of practice, and largely because I hate a miss. And I built out a solid, but not PKB standard of evasion because his wings process better than any evasion crystal will, but I like to build the evasion anyway.

That's the why. The goal of all this: first turn, level 2, level 1, which produces extra turns for the rest of the team, with a good shot at better stats. Then he sits there for the secound round, and in the third round you do something like L2, L6 or L2,L9 depending on game position. More extra turns, more stat boosts, keep people alive... very solid support. Now, he's a much more aggressive support character than Rescue, so I could really see using him in PVP, even though he probably loses a lot in one on one situations.

PLEASE NOTE: THIS BUILD APPLIES TO ANGEL AND BOTH CLASSES OF ARCHANGEL ALTS.

Daimon Hellstrom

I'm so excited. And I just can't hide it. One of my favorite B-characters.

• 3x Reactive Stalwart (White)
• 3x Reactive Forceful (Orange)
• 1x Reactive Sturdy (Green)
• 1x Reactive Exact (Orange)
  • 1859 H / 510 At / 738 De / 369 Ac

http://i1362.photobucket.com/albums/r682/PKBHI/ISO/30-Hellstrom_zps03b651f0.jpg

This rounds Hellstrom into shape. Solid health, tankable defense, solid 5 bar accuracy and HUGE attack. Attack modifies not just his trident damage, and some of his L6 damage, but also his healing and his counter attacks, which process pretty much constantly. So, high attack increases total damage output and total survivability. He should be pretty rugged like this.

I opted to build the defense over the evasion for two reasons. First, his L2 provides better evasion than any stat will produce. Second, I am of the opinion, that in general, defense is better than evasion, particularly at high level PVP where everyone has their accuracy bonus jacked to the ceiling. If you're gonna get hit, you might as well take minimal damage.

Satana

Pam Anderson with demonic powers.

• 3x Reactive Steady (Purple)
• 3x Reactive Skillful (White)
• 2x Reactive Mercurial (Orange)
  • 2574 H / 680 At / 425 Ac / 425 Ev

http://i1362.photobucket.com/albums/r682/PKBHI/ISO/31-Satana_zps114f5980.jpg

So, like all Infiltrators, she's built exactly the opposite of how I want her shaped. But, with the power of reactives, I can apply a ton of health and a ton of attack while still getting accuracy and evasion to high numbers. That's what I've done with this build. Time will tell if it needs tweaking.

Squirel Girl

The little mutant with the "spot-on-the-wall" power who can single-handedly take down the biggest hitters in the Marvel Universe.

• 3x Reactive Skillful (White)
• 3x Reactive Steady (Purple)
• 2x Reactive Mercurial (Orange)
  • 2574 H / 680 At / 425 Ac / 425 Ev

http://i1362.photobucket.com/albums/r682/PKBHI/SG_zps7a94a568.png

The big discussion we might want to have about SG is when to stack Nutty vs Acorn Power. Acorn Power boosts the damage of individual attacks, with three stacks (and a War Frenzy) taking mine up by more than 60%. Nutty gives us extra attacks, 20% shot at an extra attack per stack, stackable to five. My take is that it's always possible to get a stack of Acorn Power through her Super Squirrelly proc, especially against melee intensive enemies. So, you read the situation, and err on the side of getting extra turns, if you can stack it high enough. The Healing to Nuts to This is almost incidental.

She also packs a significant finisher, Wrath, which cannot be blocked, has deadly crits, accepts charges for extra damage, and will defeat resurrection. Oh, and it has no cooldown. That's not a bad solution to the metagame in PVP at the time of this writing.

Elektra

The final piece of the puzzle for bleeder teams? I honestly couldn't say, as I don't really care for that strategy.

• 4x Reactive Skillful (White)
• 2x Reactive Steady (Purple)
• 1x Reactive Proficient (Orange)
• 1x Reactive Violent (Red)
  • 2574 H / 738 At / 284 Ac / 454 Ev

http://i1362.photobucket.com/albums/r682/PKBHI/Elektra_zps2b858d3a.jpg

First, let's give a golf clap for the bleed that cannot be removed. On ALL of her attacks. Woo-hoo. Let's assume that PD will, at some point, fix bleeds replacing internal bleeds (I can see a logical argument either way), and let internal bleeds be the top of the bleed chain. I still don't really care for bleed as a strategy, because it's still very slow, compared to straight damage. The reason is that they factor the Damage over Time effect into the base damage of the attack, so as to keep things balanced. But, in point of fact, straight damage is better than occasional damage over time, as no one can heal dead (more than once) but people can heal slow damage all day.

So, given that I don't care for bleeds and that Elektra's attacks all have various levels of junky damage, what's the play. Well, the Ancient Art is a nice play, as Wide-Open and Flanked both increase the damage of other players. The Assassinate skill doesn't do enough base damage to be anything more than situationally useful. And in the right team, the Rain of Blood could be a game breaker (like with Tigra or X-23 or the Barony Sword). But, my Elektra will probably gather dust and do deploys once she's fully leveled.

Ares

Herc's darker, less fun half brother, who holds a grudge against Herc over his beloved Stymphalian birds. Great appearances in both Mighty Avengers and Secret Warriors, as well as his own limited series. Of course, nothing to me is quite as great as The Sentry ripping someone in half, and Ares was the lucky beneficiary during the Siege.

• 5x Reactive Forceful (Orange)
• 2x Reactive Steady (Purple)
• 1x Reactive Stalwart (White)
  • 1287 H / 680 At / 510 De / 595 Ac

http://i1362.photobucket.com/albums/r682/PKBHI/Ares_zps1041636e.png

Not sure what to do with Ares. The Level 9 is a killer doing buff removal and stun, an apparently at a near inevitable rate, so that's nice. But the three round cooldown means you better get on people quickly. His other skills go from situationally okay to why bother. Personally, I like Personal War, as he can setup someone who can do some damage, and would really like Modern Warfare if Despair worked consistently. The Art of War combos nicely with someone who can slash for actual damage, because Ares, despite being the God of War, really can't hit very hard at all. Built like this, he really should be a tactician, because his skillset screams playing more tactically and intelligently, rather than crushing people as if they were dolls. Again, not sure of the thinking, but he needs a strong partner to actually do the damage and exploit the goodies.