In general, many characters debut in the game in ridiculously powerful states with few existing characters who can reliably counter them, with later characters often being expressly designed to counter them (or at least their more annoying abilities). That being said, a few characters stand out (or did at one point) among the rest.
- When he debuted in the game, Olaf was considered to be frigging powerhouse. He has the ability to dodge attacks (multiple times), can recover his own health, and can revive with almost full health when KO'd. Most of his attacks have the chance to freeze opponents for even longer than Frozone's does, and his energy meter charges up scarily fast (including getting filled almost if not completely back up when reviving), meaning he may be able to use his special again right as his opponents are thawing out. All of this makes for a shockingly formidable opponent who is a nightmare to deal with in fights. Power Creep has lowered his viability to an extent, but he is still a very good option for PvP teams (especially teams based around freezing).
- The Mad Hatter is one of the best control-based characters in the game bar-none. While he's only mildly annoying at White through Green rank, at Blue Rank his trump card is unlocked: The unique ability to charm three enemies at once. If the Mad Hatter is protected well enough and long enough for him to use said attack, you will get to watch as the opposing team (or your team!) potentially completely destroys itself. On top of this, his Purple Skill makes him immune to all debuffs, so good luck trying to stall him long enough to take him down.
- Ducky and Bunny have proven to be a headache for some players to deal with. Making up a single Tank unit, with sufficient upgrades the duo hits like a semi-truck and their Blue Skill can hit all opponents at once. On top of that, their purple skill enables them to heal a sizable chunk of HP with every attack that lands. Between their ridiculously massive damage output and their healing abilities, Ducky and Bunny make for a very annoying opponent. Your best bet for dealing with them is to bring in a character who can either debuff or disable them before they can use any of their strongest attacks or can take the damage they can deal.
- Jafar has quickly shown himself to be extremely hard to fight against. Possessing a Blue Skill that exceeds the aforementioned Ducky and Bunny's in terms of damage output while also inflicting a status effect on top of it, as well as being able to be upgraded to the point of using the skill at the literal start of the match. He also posses an extremely potent charm move lasts for as long as he has energy, so any team that survives the initial storm can find themselves fighting one of the main things keeping them alive. He's so powerful that the devs planned to nerf him in two subsequent updates
, but ultimately did very little to fix the problem. As of currently, he can only really be beaten if he can be slowed down long enough for Woody to use a stun skill that targets the backmost character,note but these counters can be cancelled out if the enemy is using the same sort of slows. - Much like Jafar and fellow Toy Story characters Ducky and Bunny, Bo Peep often gets complaints about being overpowered. On top of also having absurdly powerful green and blue skills (along with a purple skill that NoSells most projectiles on a more regular basis than Dash), her active skill is a continuous spin of her staff that stops all projectiles while also moving forward and damaging and knocking back all enemies she walks into until her energy meter is emptied...and since characters gain energy from damaging enemies (and Bo is typically hitting many enemies at once when using her active skill), this means that Bo is nigh-unstoppable and you've pretty much lost the battle already unless you can stop her solely with non-projectile attacks. And unlike characters with similarly powerful white skills like Zurg and Jack, Bo is (ironically) no Glass Cannon and actually has the bulk to compensate for her immense attack power. Like with Olaf, Power Creep has made Bo less reliable over time, but she's still considered one of the game's best characters overall.
- Randall managed the impressive feat of topping even Jafar (who was already infamously OP as noted above) in the sheer amount of "overpowered" complaints, and once you've had to face him in a fight, it isn't hard to see where the complaints come from. As would be expected from him, most of Randall's moves and skills are based around his camouflage abilities, and when he's invisible he is untargetable and takes less damage overall. And he can be ungraded to be invisible at the start of every battle as early as his Green Skill. His Purple Skill also enables him to revive with a chunk of health while also invisible once per battle, and his ability to inflict the Scare status on enemies and deal extra damage to them puts those of Mike and Sulley's to shame. Combine all of this with his Red Skill note and two very powerful Friendship Disks note , and you get a character who wins in pretty much every aspect no matter what mode he's used in. Randall turned the game's meta completely upside down due to how (when fully upgraded) he is able to solo a fully-upgraded team of six with little issue and basically turned the Arena into more of a "who-has-the-strongest-Randall" contest. It says a lot that a user on the game's subreddit noted for compiling tier-lists for all the characters in the game not only still ranked Randall as a top tier character a month after his release into the game but, when asked, also noted that they would have put Randall in his own tier above everyone else (not unlike Meta Knight in Super Smash Bros. Brawl) if they had wanted to. Attempts to nerf Randall in subsequent patches did little to dethrone him as king of the game's meta until Friendship Disks (Magica's Megavolt disk) and characters (such as Jumba and the Cheshire Cat) designed with the express purpose of countering Randall and other invisible enemies (but mostly Randall) debuted in the game, and even then he is still considered one of the best characters in the game bar-none. Even PerBlue themselves gave a nod to Randall's infamy by having one challenge require winning a certain number of battles without using him.
- Maximus is infamous for being an utterly unstoppable brick wall with busted stats and abilities across the board. Not only does he have ludicrously high health and damage as-is (even compared to other tanks), his white and green skills both deal a ridiculous amount of damage (the latter also healing him in the process), enough to allow him to take down other tanks easily, and his blue and purple skills both allow him to dodge damage in some way, heavily boosting his tankiness, making him a ridiculously powerful tank with little in terms of counterplay. It says something that he was still considered the best tank in the game by far even months after his initial release, with the only notable counters for the longest time being Ian's blue skill and another Maximus.
- Upon his debut, the Cheshire Cat quickly became infamous for how utterly busted his damage output was. Not only do his white and green skills deal a ludicrous amount of damage (to the point where, despite being designated as a Control hero, the Cat actually deals far more damage than the designated Damage heroes), despite being relatively frail he can easily heal himself back to full health with his blue skill, and his red skill actually allows him to hurt anyone who attacks him by sapping their energy, meaning he's extremely difficult to kill too. All of this makes for a hero who can easily one-shot most of the cast one-on-one while taking very little damage in return, and by far one of the best heroes in the game period.
- The Beast definitely qualifies as this as his White Skill allows him to rapidly attack while being unable to be KO'd (only brought down to one HP) while also healing himself with each critical hit (which happens to be every hit he deals). While he's become less of a nuisance over time, he still all but requires a character who can slow him down before using his White Skill again (otherwise he'll simply chain uses of his White Skill again and again until time runs out or he wipes out your team).
- One might be forgiven for thinking Mulan was the result of an experiment by PerBlue to see how much damage they could have a single character be able to deal without breaking the game that went horribly wrong. Her damage output is completely ridiculous as is (and her Green Skill scores an unavoidable note hit and stun on the furthest opponent at the start of every battle, making Mulan the bane of any backline characters), but Mulan has the bonus of being a Critical Hit Class character who gains a significant boost to her critical hit ratio whenever she has a shield (giving her good synergy with shield-based characters like Slinky and her own boyfriend Shang). Combine this with a White Skill that's already one of the most damaging attacks in the entire game (a fireworks barrage that can deal up to millions of points of damage per rocket without being a critical hit), and you end up with a near-unstoppable powerhouse that can bring even the strongest of teams to its knees (even Maximus can have a significant dent put into him) and for a time was one of, if not the most hated character in the entire game (even more so than Jafar, Ducky and Bunny, and even Randall ever were). It took until Ian and Fear were introduced (and brought the new "Reflect" status with them, making it possible for Mulan to KO herself with her own skills) that characters considered to be truly good counters to Mulan were introduced.
