User blog comment:Tappingplayer/Power Creep and Injustice/@comment-28738889-20161002142101/@comment-28738889-20161002171733

Well, who's to say that new players need to have their characters at E7? As Gorthrax pointed out above, it isn't really necessary to have all characters at E7. I can say that, personally, my favorite team consists of E4s, mostly because SI2 has the same stats at E4 that most other characters have at E7, which is a problem in-and-of itself, and because I fear very well. Obviously, over-time, you would want to get your characters to E7, but to start off, the lower level Elites are good enough. Besides, I got all of the SS challenge characters to E5 essentially for free (and SSJU to E7), so I don't think the promotion cost is that much of a concern.

That being said, I do think other characters (besides SI2) are over-priced. Take Darkseid Apokolips. He is still one of th best characters in the game and can easily mow down almost any other opponent. His cost is 331,000 (give or take a few thousand). That places the SS characters at approx. 1.5 times his price, and therefore value. I can, without a doubt, say that all of the SS characters are not as good as ADS (I think the SS characters will fade away when SS craze is over), and definitely not worth 1.5 times his price. That's not even mentioning Raven, KFP, and Luch. Bane. All three characters cost less than 235,000, less than 1/2 of the SS characters, which is completely ridiculous considering their worth. Now take ACCW, worth ~ 420,000 (I don't remember the exact value). She is one of the worst characters in the game, boasting a worse version of KBA's passive, which is totally unacceptable considering her value. In conclusion, most of the new characters need to have their value seriously evaluated, though I think SI2 has decent value. Phew. Sorry for the long post.