PVP Hero Tiers

We use to have a few players who would post where heroes fell in terms of power in PVP. Most of those players seem to have either quit or stopped posting topics like this so I figured it was time to refresh the idea. Please keep in mind I am no where near the best PVP player. I regularly rank in the top 100 in the highest PVP bracket, and will sometimes rank top 50 if I have time to play so take that for what you will. Also, please keep in mind this is strictly from a PVP perspective, many other heroes like Beck, Lancer, Purifier, etc. are great for Alliance Wars, or good for PVE. Now, on to the ranking…

God Tier

Damage

  • 4-Cep - with decent survivability and high burst from his basic attack right out the gate, it’s not hard to see why 4-Cep has become one of the top DPS. His bronze ability is pretty much worthless as he does more damage from his basic attack. His heal block adds insult to injury and ensures any heroes left will go down that much quicker.

  • Kurtz - unlike 4-Cep, Kurtz does not have a very strong basic attack. He is the opposite of 4-Cep in all of his power comes from his abilities. The basic strat with him is just roll until your abilities pop up, unless you aren’t taking any damage. Most people will try to focus him first since he applies a nasty debuff if an ally is killed first. If he gets Dominate and especially Execute off it’s pretty much game over due to the buffs his team will gain. If you execute an ally Flatline or Ifrit are nice to have around to revive them. Then you get the buff AND have all your heroes alive. Executing an enemy is also a great option though.

Support

  • Mandrake - a long time favorite due to his decent damage output and stun, but more importantly his gold ability to cloak anyone who falls under 30% hp. His platinum ability is all but worthless, but the rest of his tool box more than makes up for it. He has been a staple in PVP for years now and still is included in most teams, despite his nerfs in the recent months.

  • Phalanx - she has come to power in recent months, and it only makes sense with such potent burst heroes like 4-Cept, Shiv, and Panzer. Her Team Mag shield allows everyone to gain hundreds of thousands of extra shield right from the get go, and her platinum gives all your own heroes more damage. She is often used along with 4-Cep for a very deadly combo.

Healers

  • Flatline - another hero that came up the ranks over a year ago, and despite some nerfs still stays on top. Her ability to revive and keep heroes alive, along with her stun make her a great choice for almost any team. Often she will be the first focuses which will take heat off the rest of your team.

  • Keel - she is incredibly powerful with the right cover breakers (Panzer, Matador, etc.). Even without she does some serious healing, and gives all allies a nice bump in armor. Her Field Repairs heal is extremely versatile and can be used to top off several heroes, full heal a single hero, or heal two heroes who are at half hp up to full

Top Tier

Damage

  • Panzer - her platinum ability was recently was nerfed in the last patch, but she can still pack a punch in the first 20 seconds of a match. This is usually enough time to get a kill in. However, with the introduction of 4-Cep, her initial burst seems lacking, and 4-Cep does not have the same dramatic damage dip after the beginning that Panzer suffers from. He is also great vs front, mid, AND backline heroes where Panzer really only excels vs front line energy heroes (usually big tanks).

  • Shiv - her flat 10% damage nerf a few months ago really hurt, but she is still a decent choice if you can get a kill off with her. After that the damage really starts rolling. Unfortunately she is mostly over shadowed like most heroes right now by the better choice, who is 4-Cep.

  • Mauler - the Mauler/Halo/Mandrake/Moss/Caine combo is actually pretty potent vs a 4-Cep build. The 4-Cep build is built all around his burst damage and if Mauler gets lucky with stun locks right away he can totally take 4-Cep out of commission. Mauler is also excellent vs some other top tier heroes like Kurtz to stop his rolling, and Panzer and Shiv. I’ve been using him in the last tournament and he has been surprisingly potent now that the Ronin and Siren teams have fallen off the grid. A real rock/paper/scissors play going on here

Support

  • Halo - she’s a decent choice all around, and especially good when paired with Mauler. I’m not sure if she would be considered a top tier, maybe mid, but she is definitely somewhere in the middle. Her small heal, shield, and extra damage on everyone’s special makes her a solid choice for multiple builds and PVP. She also pairs very well with Siren.

  • Castellan - his two turret buff several months ago made this hero much more potent. He has good damage when he can get both turrets out, and great survivability with his shields. Unfortunately I think more people are catching on to him and will leave him along, then focus his turrets and him down towards the end of a match when he becomes a real threat. With mech DPS this isn’t usually a problem, with bio I have seen him single handedly take out 2-3 heroes.

  • Heimlock - his heals are fairly weak, but the extra health, heal boost, and cleanses he provides really help with the burst meta. He will allow your heroes to last a while extra which may make or break a match. Other than that he doesn’t offer much in the way of damage or direct healing though.

  • Caine - he got buffed, and then recently nerfed, but his shields are great and charge fast. He can usually get a shield off before atarget is killed unless you are facing a top DPS hero.

Healers

  • Duran - his abilities are a little slow to recharge and he doesn’t offer much more in the way of support or damage, but his heal and self heal are incredibly powerful. Not much else to say about him.

  • Nightingale - she use to be one of the best healers in the game, hands down. Howerver after receiving multiple heal nerfs, nerfs to her crit and stun, and other various nerfs over the last year she has dropped out of favor somewhat. Her rare and common skin have helped bring her power back up a little if you choose to use her single target heal instead of the group heal though.

Mid Tier

Damage

  • Astrix - there are a few things keeping Astrix from top tier. Her low hp coupled with the fact all her damage comes from her bronze and gold ability mean she has to last awhile to do any real damage. This is tough with less than 400k hp. Her Wing Clip is also dodegable making her main source of damage easily avoided by someone paying attention

  • Siren - all of the top and god tier mech heroes has dramatically reduced Siren’s usefulness. She is usually dead before she can get her song off. It also does little damage to mech heroes and is easy to interrupt (especially with the likes of Caine).

  • Ronin - I was tempted to put Ronin as a top tier, but unfortunately he is a one trick pony. He is only really useful on min/max teams where his Honorbound can be used to it’s full potential. The round of nerfs he received several months ago knocked him down quit a bit, and then all the top mech heroes further ensured he would not be in the top category.

Support

  • Alvarez - this hero doesn’t do much damage or healing, but is still amazing once his bronze pops since he can completely shut down another hero. Unlike Flatline or Pris it does not require him to incapacitate himself in the process. On top of that it also heal blocks for 90%. His other abilities are decent, especially his gold that reduced all elemental damage from enemies by 15%, or his silver that briefly stuns and does a small amount of damage to all enemies. He is borderline top tier. If his damage and other abilities were slightly better he would cement himself there.

  • Francoise - it is debatable if she is top or mid tier. Her platinum buff a few months ago really helped increase her potentency. However, I am seeing her on more min/max teams than anything. People will pair her with a high DPS hero and only run 3 or 4 heros to ensure they get the buff, while also having much stronger individual heroes than their opponent.

  • Kobold - she is the new Butter. Being bio means she does not take as much damage from the mech DPS, her shields can heal, and she can also deal decent damage with them. Her shields may not be quite as strong as Butter’s, but she more than makes up for it with the extra utility.

  • Matador - his shields can be decent, but unfortunately his AI is not great and you need to control him to really see him be useful with his cover breaks. All the same he can be very potent when player controlled or when paired with a hero like Keel. He does decent damage and healing on top of things.

Healers

  • None

Low Tier

Damage

  • Dogface - he use to be the hands down best PVP damage dealer, but now he suffers the same issue many others in this tier suffer from, and that is his burst is slow to get out. It almost all comes from his bronze and silver and by the time he gets them out the match can already be close to over. He use to be great but with newer, better heroes coming out, and the round of nerfs he got over a year ago, he has never been quite the same.

  • Kunoichi - her low hp makes her incredibly susceptible to dying. She is usually the first targeted if Flatline isn’t around and can be dead within the first several seconds of a match starting. If she is ignored she can do some insane damage, but unfortunately that is not often the case. Her knives absolutely wreck other heroes and can bring a hero from full life to nothing if you get all three to land and then attack that hero. There are better heroes out there that don’t take extra damage to use an ability though, and some do just as much, if not more damage.

  • Odachi - his abilities do not pair well with his build. He needs to get a target to 50% hp before they really kick in, but unfortunately his hp is too low to allow him to last that long. In many ways he suffers the same issues Kunoichi does, just in slightly different ways. Two of his abilities do absolutely nothing unless a target is at 50% or dead, and his bronze is only at half power until a target is 50%

  • Cinder - she is actually really powerful, the problem is it takes forever to build her up and get her to that point in a match. Used along with cover breakers like Matador, Panzer, and Keel she can be decent enough. The problem is most of her damage relies on cover being broken and that takes time. Also, both of her bronze and silver abilities are easily dodged further decreasing her effectiveness.

  • Maven - Mavn has great damage from her basic attack, but suffers from other issues. Both of her abilities are incredibly easy to dodge, and her health is relatively low making her not much of a threat. If her Hallucinate tracked or instantly landed, or her cloud had a larger range, she could definetly be a top contender. Until then she is at the bottom of the barrel for barely usable PVP heroes.

Support

  • Butter - being energy, and especially front line means almost all of the top mech DPS can kill him incredibly fast. His shields come out too slow and he is often killed before he can get them out. If not Butter’s, a team mate of his is usually dead before the shields come out.

Healers

  • Moss - unfortunately Moss is only really good on one team, and that is the Mauler build because of the extra crit he provides. He is borderline mid tier, but without better healing or more utility it is hard to place him there.

  • Briar - I rarely see her used. Her root is nice, but other heroes heal much quick and more efficiently. Her damage and utility aren’t really there to compensate either. Because of this Briar is low tier.

  • Ifrit - he was over nerfed, plain and simple. Heroes that are revived from him come back with such little hp they are usually instantly killed making his platinum all but worthless. His heal is too slow and doesn’t heal enough. His gold is a very small amount of health and insignificant. His silver is about his only saving grace, but it’s not enough to make him terribly useful. You are better off getting a real healer and keeping your heroes alive than relying on Ifrit to revive them.

Garbage Tier

Everyone else :grin:

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Godlante Tier: Galante.

3 Likes

I’d like to add Razorback to the Top Tier category or at least the Mid Tier. He is overlooked but is very useful.

Also… Alvarez seems to be missing, tsk tsk :slight_smile:

I also like Min and Jarek, and I woulda tried to find some space for them in the list. Interesting list though.

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Putting commando in the garbage tier? Shame, he rocks and I disagree with healers rankings. Missing saphyrr and pris as both are better than maven. Overall cool post took a lot of work good info. Love that you are getting back to mauler he is awesome, been my favorite since I started using him. Which reminds me Oracle not represented. Many many that don’t get used enough but that still work in pvp, I can’t rank as there’s too many that counter others. And I think flatline is garbage lol. Bucket is game changer if she gets bronze skill off and makes a tactical advantage as most target her first. My list of unusable is very small. Buff to halloway helped him tons as well. Problem is that everyone got on this 4cep train and he hurts using many of the otherwise great pvp heroes. He is the new ronin and too many min/max him.

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This is an awesome post! Thanks for taking the time to do this

May I ask what tournament bracket you are in? I never see Pris or Commando used. They die way to fast and don’t have enough burst damage to really be competitive. They don’t have any other utility either. Pris’s Sapper skill is incredibly easy to dodge. I see Sapphyr the most of these three, and her Rift Blade and Mortal Rift abilities are pretty good, but she just doesn’t do enough damage outside of these to be very useful. Also they are all energy based so the mech burst DPS chew through them all.

Oracle has her silver and gold that are easily dodged making them essentially worthless. Her platinum and silver are nice the first 8-20 seconds. Her platinum can be especially useful it it hits a high DPS target like 4-Cep, but outside of that it is not used the rest of a match so she really has nothing to offer after the first 20 seconds.

I had intentions of including Alvarez and Min, but completely forgot about them. I will be adding them shortly.

I rarely see Jarek at high levels. Razorback I see more, but I usually just ignore him and save him for an easy last kill. If you aren’t damaging him he doesn’t really pose much of a threat I have found. His root is more a nuisance than anything.

Try Oracle with mauler, there’s so many hidden gems with him. Also I’m mythic and I’ve killed maxed 4cep with commando numerous times hate going against him but unskilled 4cep users I kill. Really only afraid of 4cep panzer or shivs when I use commando. Same rankings depends how bored I am or motivated I am but easily make top 100. You have flatline as God tier but she is worthless against heal block and adding mandrake to saphyrr gives her the extra bonus crit whenever she is invisible therefore saphyrr is excellent against flat. Pris has little secrets that I’ll keep to myself but is fun if used right. Also of my 35 10 star heroes 4cep is still only 8 stars, and I play at the level of 89k-101k, I don’t min max.

Excellent list! When all is said and done, a hero is only as good as their pilot and team (except Klayton, you can’t do squat with him). I would probably add some other points to the discussion:

I would disagree with Dogface and Kunoichi’s placement. They have a reputation as being heavy damage dealers, and despite the arrival of newer heroes, there usefulness isn’t subpar or even mediocre. They will always catch my eye on the battlefield for that very reason, even more so than 4cep. So, I would argue that they should be Mid to Top tier in my opinion.

Alvarez isn’t on this list, but I would argue that he is also a Mid to Top tier support hero. His Bronze can put a hero out of commission for 15 seconds, blocking 90% of health received and effectively silencing and stunning them. Plus, his silver is a useful interrupt which is annoying to fight through.

Hardscope is also surprisingly good when patiently piloted. He excels in headshot burst damage and subtle healing. Don’t overlook him.

Nice list. I would agree with most of the rankings that you have. I have also been thinking about PvP tiers in terms of kill order i.e. if faced with a team of 4-cep, kurtz, mandrake, phalanx, flatline who do you kill first? It really depends on who you are running on your team but, it is an interesting scenario to think about.

Dog and Kuno both definitely have some great burst damage, they just are lacking in other areas that keep them from being top tier imo.

Kunoichi has VERY low hp (less than 450k), and her silver ability makes her take even more damage when used. Her knives/stun are able to be dodged and she is often killed almost immediately by any decent player when she pops her Full Offense ability. 30% more damage taken is a ton when you have such little hp.

Dogface just takes too long to do any sort of real damage. He needs his abilities up to get any sort of burst going and kill opponents. His health is also on the lower side, though not nearly as bad as Kuno. There are a few heroes like Min who completely shut him down. I can usually kill Flatline first, then get Dogface down or close ti it before he even pops his silver. You can also roll a hero around quite a bit to help dodge most of his shots when his abilities are up making it very hard to land them.

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