Dodger is one of the best characters in the game. Highlights: - Range 2+ Gold - Range 3+ red - Self-heal - Premium Ramp - low restriction block card - silver is a pseudo-attack - gimmick allows you to hold a wave hostage or aggressively remove your own minions to deny enemy coin. - premium damage on range 2 (alt red) In my gaming group we say “X is a pretty good hero” when we think a character is S tier. Dodger is a pretty good character.
I believe the main reason that Dodger is good is a mix of her great initiative mixed with her great range. You call out that her attack values on her gold and primary red are pretty lackluster, but I don't really see that as an issue. You are normally not one shotting heroes in guards, especially after everyone at the table has a few games in. Instead, a lot of the time you are resorting to what playtesters call "card killing." All that means is that you are defeating a hero with an attack or "discard or be defeated" card when the hero being targeted can't respond as they have no cards in hand. This typically happens on turn 4 after you've gotten one card out of their hand from an attack or discard. Dodger is phenomenal at both enabling that initial discard to set up a card kill, or dealing that final hit because of the flexibility in her gold and primary red. The base initiatives on these cards are both great, but adding more ini and picking up a range item make them absolute terrors. At that point, the damage on those cards doesn't even really matter when her game plan is just to last hit people, or get that first discard to setup one of her teammates. This is also why her initiator stat is so high. I think that is her baseline strength, and the thing that most players refer to when they point out how strong she is. The second tier of why she is great is all the minion manipulation she can do. Killing friendly minions that were going to die anyway and denying enemy gold while also farming gold from empty minion spawn points make her an absolute power house. It can be tough for newer players to grok how to use these skills efficiently, but once they do, Dodger becomes even more of a menace. She is one of the heroes I most often see getting her ultimate because of her farm potential, and her wave control in the right hands can be absolutely brutal for the enemy team.
Dodger is one of the best characters in the game.
Highlights:
- Range 2+ Gold
- Range 3+ red
- Self-heal
- Premium Ramp
- low restriction block card
- silver is a pseudo-attack
- gimmick allows you to hold a wave hostage or aggressively remove your own minions to deny enemy coin.
- premium damage on range 2 (alt red)
In my gaming group we say “X is a pretty good hero” when we think a character is S tier. Dodger is a pretty good character.
I believe the main reason that Dodger is good is a mix of her great initiative mixed with her great range. You call out that her attack values on her gold and primary red are pretty lackluster, but I don't really see that as an issue. You are normally not one shotting heroes in guards, especially after everyone at the table has a few games in. Instead, a lot of the time you are resorting to what playtesters call "card killing." All that means is that you are defeating a hero with an attack or "discard or be defeated" card when the hero being targeted can't respond as they have no cards in hand. This typically happens on turn 4 after you've gotten one card out of their hand from an attack or discard. Dodger is phenomenal at both enabling that initial discard to set up a card kill, or dealing that final hit because of the flexibility in her gold and primary red. The base initiatives on these cards are both great, but adding more ini and picking up a range item make them absolute terrors. At that point, the damage on those cards doesn't even really matter when her game plan is just to last hit people, or get that first discard to setup one of her teammates. This is also why her initiator stat is so high. I think that is her baseline strength, and the thing that most players refer to when they point out how strong she is.
The second tier of why she is great is all the minion manipulation she can do. Killing friendly minions that were going to die anyway and denying enemy gold while also farming gold from empty minion spawn points make her an absolute power house. It can be tough for newer players to grok how to use these skills efficiently, but once they do, Dodger becomes even more of a menace. She is one of the heroes I most often see getting her ultimate because of her farm potential, and her wave control in the right hands can be absolutely brutal for the enemy team.