Resident Evil DBG Tier List (Mercenaries Edition)

[Evincar2001]

Agreed on Krauser, Chris, Steve, Carlos, George, Claire, and David.

Mark Wilkins is super underwhelming without the Stun Rod present. I have him hovering around the bottom 10. Wesker (Nightmare) and Sergei are so mediocre that I'd almost rather have Rebecca or Kevin over either of them. Despite her low health and outclassed abilities, Rebecca at least makes me feel like I'm moving toward a better deck and she interacts well with the new Mercenaries mansions. Kevin definitely feels like a ball and chain around your leg in the early game, but he can now get his gun online faster thanks to the better ramp cards and trash effects. Don't get me wrong, he still sucks, but I've found I can pull out of the hole better with him these days.

Note on Krauser and David King: I play with Survival Knives as a resource pile specifically so these guys have a chance of not being complete turds when they're dealt. That aside, they just take too much work to match the end game of almost any other character, even a vanilla using skills. It is easier to clear out the clutter from your deck and ramp now than ever before, but these guys are so linear and knives have gotten so little love from development.

I almost listed Mark, but he does have a couple of things going for him: 90 health, and another ability that you can always turn on that doesn't suck. Granted, he goes from a 7.5/10 or so to like a 4.5 without Stun Rods, but he's still not unplayable. I'd go bottom 20, but not bottom 10.

I'll take what you said about Rebecca under consideration, though, so I'll likely keep her around and just cut the other 10. I just figured that she'd be nigh-worthless with the new Rebecca doing similar things with better health, plus an added skill (in my playgroup, that is).

Kevin's in the same boat with Premiere Rebecca, in some ways: someone else just does what he does better. The irony is that this person has been in the game since Premiere. Plus, I believe it was TsuKiyoMe that pointed out that in the first 2 turns of the game, he's the only character that can get a hand that does literally nothing: 2x Knife/Reliant Blade, Handgun/CSS, Samurai Edge, and Ammox10. You can explore for 10, and... that's it. He's the only character in the game that can downplay his luck just by having a mediocre card to start with. Now, in Partner mode... totally different story. Just attach the Edge to him as your partner and go nuts. In fact, the most fun Partner game I've ever had was Premiere Leon on lead w/Kevin as my partner. Still not sure how I got that lucky...

[135forte]

There are enough resources now that any character that depends on getting certain cards, or even types of cards sometimes, can't dependably do well. That said Krauser and David have gotten a boost from Weapon Master lv.2 and Giant Killer lv.3, perhaps more of a boost than most Characters.

[Evincar2001]

By the pool dependency logic, isn't the whole skill dependency that you mentioned for Krauser and David arguably the same? I mean, there are less skills than there are resource possibilities, but it's still the same argument.

[135forte]

I was just saying they haven't been completely neglected.

[Evincar2001]

That's fair, though they're both still easy cases for bottom 10.

[TsuKiyoMe]

Updated after playing God knows how many games between Christmas and yesterday. This is still a work in progress and this is my initial estimates of characters power levels.

I don't have much time so I'd like to say a few things:

Degenerate Strategies
It does not matter how bad your character is, these strategies are just degenerate and basically hand you the game.

4. Lonewolf.dec. It hits far too hard far too easily and can easily be stacked with explores.

3. Great Ambition stacking. You can do this on the first turn of the game and have massive advantage that opponents can never hope to catch. Can be beaten simply by buying up a sizeable chunk of them yourself...but still it's going to be the strongest card in the pool unless one of the 2 below it show up.

2. Gathering Forces. The most broken action. Good luck beating the first person who buys this at the table.

1. Toughness Level 2 + Vengeful Intentions. THIS IS THE DEGENERATE STRATEGY. My friend Donovan found this one by accident and it feel virtually unbeatable. You have all the card draw and actions you ever need with no downside...and no other player at the table can counter your strategy because the card is clunky and unwieldy unless you own Toughness Level 2.
Take from that what you may.

I shouldn't have to defend my top 5 choices. Regardless of the setup, they will dominate harder than anyone else you can think of, even Set 2 Claire. They get online far before her and they can abuse Gathering Forces just as well as she can. Luis Sera is clearly debatable for cracking into this tier but I feel like in certain setups he doesn't shine that brightly. The others are amongst my playgroup instant windmill slams down onto the table. There is no thought in choosing these characters as you know just the mere action of picking them and piloting somewhat intelligently is a game won, without even knowing what cards are in the setup. It's for this reason my playgroup now only plays with characters in the A, B, and C tiers.

As for the one decision I feel I have to defend: Barry's position.

There were so many times Barry was picked this weekend where he was so slow he couldn't get off the ground versus the Trash Characters and the Rush characters. When he gets online, he covers ground hella fast but even then if you swing big and hit like a 20 HP dork, his momentum comes to a grinding halt. His upside is better than Wesker, Chris, Hunk, etc. but his downside is far worse and it comes up a lot more often than you think Meanwhile, Set 5 Chris just crushes everyone at the table with the blistering speed he offers. He also has a 120 HP which is HUGE in Set 5 Metagame. You die far more often, which means big bodied characters are in high demand. Having a 120 HP character with the second best ability in the game (Exploring > Deck Thining but it's **** close) makes him the clear Set 5 winner in my book.

Other decisions: GenCon Wester gets a huge boost because you die more often making his effects come up earlier and more often and makes him a contender at the table for once without hindering him. Set 1 Rebecca gets a nerf because her best card to trash was a Pistol and Set 5 Pistols are hella OP and actually help your opponents. There are no cards in the pile that screw your opponents anymore.

[Evincar2001]

Glad to see a list finally come together. In looking over it, I don't really disagree with too much of it, but I am curious about a few placements, so I'd love to hear the reasoning.

Why So High?
Sheva: The only real advantage I see for her is that she's probably the best user of Weapon Master Lv. 3 in the entire game, since two of the best weapon abilities to copy are rifles. Aside from that (and how random it is to actually get that skill), I don't see what makes her better than Nightmare Leon, Mysterious Mask, or Mercenaries Chris.
Jill (Premiere): She does what she does well, but is she really above other characters in her tier like Alliance Krauser or Alliance Leon?

Why So Low?
Billy: How the mighty have fallen? Seriously, it seems like Billy still has enough staying power to be considered at least an A tier character. With only 80 health and no absurd game breaking ability that draws him 2+ cards per turn, I can see why he's not S, but A seems like a good fit for him. He didn't exactly get worse, I would think.
Wesker (GenCon): For your reasons mentioned, he definitely is better now. I'm surprised he's not at least higher in the B tier. I would definitely rank him above characters like Mark or Mercenaries Jill, for example.

[TsuKiyoMe]

Sheva hits a really random sweet spot. Her best case scenario is far and away better than everything in the game. She's solid in every setup, with any rifle. She gets going quickly and stays at a consistent power level no matter what. She might go down a few clicks, I agree.

She's definitely better than Krauser I feel. If the setup goes in her favor, she crushes him outright very quickly. If the setup is not in her favor, I feel she can still swing things to be even. You wouldn't pick Jill if she didn't have some use... that's my point with that I'm trying to hammer home with this newer list. How good is the character in their worst case, poor case, average case, great case, and best case. Jill is very good in all these instances except her worst case. Jack in his worse case caps out at 50 damage. Jill at least in her worse case can use two weapons which kind of makes up for it. Terrible logic? Probably but I see Jill win more often and far more effortlessly than Jack.

As for Jill vs. Set 2 Leon, this is a toss up. Set 2 Leon is probably tied for my favorite character in the game. I think he's pretty ridiculous but he does not have supreme godlike power like he does in his best case all the time. He's average case I feel is weaker than Jill's, if only slightly. This is probably the closest matchup in the tier 2 list probably.

As for Billy, this was a group consensus at my place last week. His worst case sucks...you get a free reload for playing poorly. No one wants that. He only shines in 3 setups out of the hundreds of thousands you can see and that's the ones with Flamethrowers, Lonewolves, and the one where there are 0 trash cards (a.k.a. a scenario no sane person will ever play). Luis does his job far better and far easier. Luis also is very viable even in setups where his deck is small as a free draw never hurt anyone especially if you discard a weapon or something to Reload and combo out. He suffers very much like Set 2 Claire, only he's more usable than Claire but unlike her...there is always a character who is strictly better than her by a mile in every instance.

Wesker's worse case is actually not that he's a 100 health vanilla. His worse case is dying at a poor time that costs him the whole game. He relies on some clutch decision making and a lot of luck to become a super powerful force. His best case makes him probably the second strongest character in the game but we rarely ever see it happen, even when you actively try to get him killed. Dying twice can easily cost you a whole game. Just since everyone is probably dying together or around the same time, it's not so costly anymore.

[Evincar2001]

I guess I can agree about Jill vs. Krauser, if nothing else. I forget that Krauser has one drawback in this set that no one else really has: a much more difficult time getting rid of Reliable Blades, thanks to his Level 1.

[Dirjel]

From this tier list, I gather you guys do NOT play Partners mode. At all.