You know, I had the same experience with Guardian Panther which is unsurprising since she, Evelyn, and Frida are basically the same thing. Somewhat average by themselves but great support heroes when paired.
Now that I have a 3/70 Obakan and 3/60 Seshat, Panther makes a lot more sense. On the note of synergy, Richard is… okay by himself. But pair him with Grimm and Frida? That sounds like a baaaaaaaad day for the defense team.
That said, my odds of pulling an Evelyn anytime soon are… Low at this time.
(Note to future readers: Evelyn was December’s hero of the month and has not seen rotation in Atlantis at this time nor availability via any other avenue, making her impossible to get).
I think SGG’s ostensible plan to buff classic green/yellow heroes (and purple to an extent), which are known to be lackluster is via costumes which may or may not turn into another money slot machine pit for the average player. Who knows.
Also it’s a bit of a catch-22 to say a hero needs to be a strong and independent individual to be classified as good. By that metric, Panther and Evelyn suck too because they’re not good by themselves either. I think it has more to do with “how many other support heroes does one need to make this hero in question viable?”
This might be why snipers are ranked so highly in that they need basically no support to do their job but are limited in their scope; an all sniper team won’t score the highest average Titan damage, and there are few snipers that make sense at tank and none that excel in that position.
That said, Panther/Evelyn need basically any on-color hitter to function, so their synergy threshold is low (though I would argue a Merlin, even emblemed, does not count… from experience). Green lacks a pulverizer or damage buffer, so the only realistic on color options to pair with Elkanen are Gadeirus (slow mana), Buddy (seasonal), and Evelyn (hero of the month), all of which are hard to get.
You can always pair Elk with off-color heroes like Boldtusk and Grimm, but it makes 3-2 offensive stacks more limited in composition.