PVP Guide

GrimSkald

Last Revised 11/11/14 – made some slight language changes, added to the “Lighting Round” section, added to the “Strategies” section, and updated the reward percentages.

This is my current guide to PVP playing. Feel free to comment! I plan on continuing to revise this document in the future as things change. I will also edit for clarity or add new sections based on the questions people ask. If anyone has suggestions, feel free to make them.

Introduction
The purpose of this guide is to provide a comprehensive guide for beginners to the game who want to understand the way Player Versus Player events. This includes the typical “Featured Character” events, the Lighting Rounds, the Seasonal S.H.E.I.L.D. Simulator, and so on. I’m going to start by saying that I am hardly an expert – I have been playing this game for 140 days and am firmly in the 2*-3* transition. I cannot say I have experienced the game at the high end. However, I’ve been playing for long enough to get the feel of it, so I thought I’d throw this out there as a guide to how PVP works – I will allow others to give me corrections if they feel they need to (and if I agree I’ll edit the guide,) and give strategies for play at other levels. I was considering starting the guide by defining a few terms, but I decided rather to define as I go – after all there are other glossaries of terms on the Forum.

PVP Events
First off, for those who are new at the game, I’ll start by saying it isn’t truly PVP – you are not facing another player in real time. Rather, you are facing the AI controlling another player’s team. Whether you win or lose will impact yours and the other player’s point total, but you are not actually “attacking” the other person in the sense that they are playing directly against you, will need to heal their characters, etc.

I will start the actual explanation by defining what is probably the most important term in PVP – Match Making Rating – MMR for short. This is a “behind the scenes number” – the developers have alluded to its existence but will not give exact data on how it’s derived. The game uses this number to determine who to populate your nodes with. There is some debate over what determines your MMR – the explanation I find most credible is that it is a combination of how long you have played the game with modifications based on how often you win and how often you lose. The characters you field may impact your MMR, but it seems clear who you have in your Roster does not. The intent of MMR is to match you against teams roughly equivalent to your own level.

Like the PVE Events, PVPs have a running point total which you gain by winning against the opposing team in the various nodes. Unlike PVE events you can lose points when you lose fights, and you can be attacked as well. I will go into this in more detail later. When you hit a certain total of points, you will be awarded a progression award. Your final total when the event ends will determine your placement award.

The standard PVP Events is a “Featured Character” event – a certain character will be boosted, be available as a progression award, and a loaner character will be available. You can use this loaner character whether you have that character or not - this loaner character will be of the minimum level and have one cover in its first color. This loaner character will be in your first roster slot when you “Assemble your Heroes.” Typically featured characters are boosted by half-again their level, rounded up (e.g. level 90 characters will become 135; a level 105 character will become 158.)

Other PVP events are typically based around a theme – frequently a set list of characters will be boosted, alternatively it may be restricted to certain characters or in other ways. In the past, some PVP Events have limited what particular types of characters you can play – for example the “Combined Arms” event requires you to play a 1*, 2*, and a 3* character for your team. Another example is the “Balance of Power” tournament where all characters were boosted to the same level. Typically the theme events run between seasons, but there have been exceptions.

Brackets
After you finish your first battle, you are slotted into a bracket with other players. A bracket of 500 players is typical for PVP. Your final placement and associated prize will be determined with these players (e.g. if you are 58th out of 200, you will receive the 50-100 placement award, usually one 3* cover, 500 Iso-8, 25 HP.) However, your opponents are not necessarily drawn from your bracket – you will be set against opponents based on your MMR. MMR also may play a role in what they call “sharding,” that is players of similar MMR grouped together. If this is so, then it is in a much rougher way than your MMR determines your opponents. Speaking for myself, I have noted everything from 2* rosters to 3* and 4* rosters in my bracket. The game tracks your placement within the bracket as time goes on, but always keep in mind that this number can drop as other players gain more points.

Entering a game later can be advantageous – the early brackets are frequently more competitive, so a later bracket can get a better placement for the same score. However, since you never know how long it takes for a bracket to fill, this can backfire.

The Lightning Rounds PVP is not bracketed -- I will go into that in their own section.

Entering a Fight
The basics of PVP is that you have three (or five in the case of the Season “S.H.I.E.L.D. Simulator” PVP,) nodes available to you to fight. Each of these nodes will have the team from a single player – the screen contains the opposing player’s point total, their name, the Rating Reward, and the three character team you must face and their effective levels (if they are boosted, their level tag will be purple.) You will get the option to “skip” or “fight” the team, but you can always back out and select another node. Above the fight button is your Victory Bonus.

The Rating Reward is the amount of Event Points you will gain from beating your opponent. It is based on the difference between your point total and your opponent’s. It isn’t based on the difficulty of the fight or anything like that. If your point totals are equal, you will get 25 points – if theirs is higher than yours, you will get more, if less, you will get less.

Your MMR determines the opponents on the nodes, but it starts to open up as you get higher in your point total. At some point you may find it harder to find fights that are at your level – I believe this is because as your point total increases your available opponents decrease, so the computer starts drawing your fights from a larger MMR range. Don’t be surprised if, for example, as a 2* team you start seeing 3* teams on your nodes at 650 or so. This may also depend on time of day and how late in the event it is.

If you win the match, your Event Score will increase by the Rating Reward; if you lose, you will lose points based on the difference between your point total and your opponents point total, with a modification based on your overall score (i.e. if your overall score is fairly low you will lose a fairly small amount of points.)

Skipping
You can always hit the “Skip” button to have the game refresh your opponent. This expends your Victory Bonus at first and later expends Iso-8. You start with a “+30” Iso-8 reward – this means that in addition to any reward you get, you will also get an additional 30 Iso. The first time you skip, this goes to +20, then +10, then you get a skip with no further expenditure. After this each additional skip you want to make will cost you a flat 10 Iso from your reserve – this cost does not increase.

Skipping will make the game draw a new opponent from your available pool based on your point total and MMR. Unfortunately the range of this search extends fairly low, so it may very well repeat opponents. When you are ranked fairly low your chances are better of getting a higher ranked opponent who will yield a better award – so later in the event you are more likely to climb quickly.

After each match – whether you win or lose – your Victory Bonus resets to +30.

Other Players Attacking You
As soon as you enter the Event, you will start to show up on other players’ nodes and they can attack you. If they win or lose, both they and you gain and lose points based on the same calculations above (e.g. if they win, they gain a certain amount of points based on their difference in point value between you and them and you will lose a certain amount of points based on that and your overall score.) You will receive a notice when other players attack you – it will inform you whether you won or lost and how many points you gained or lost.

If the other player beat your team, you will get a chance to retaliate – one of your nodes will turn red and this will be your opponent’s team. This will be pretty much like any other node – the only difference is you can “skip” the fight without losing any of your Victory Bonus. Please note that this retaliation isn’t “free” – the other player will get the option to retaliate against you, if they win you can retaliate against them, and so forth. Also note that other players can retaliate against you for any of your fights as you climb the leaderboards.

There will come a point when you cannot fight your opponents quickly enough to gain points to offset your losses. This will vary depending on your team, the time of day, and how long an event has left – I find for myself (in a 2* -> 3* transition) it happens at around 700 points in normal events. At this point you should either shield, or let yourself be pushed down to below that total. I sometimes call this point “the wall.”

Your Defensive Team
Other players will get to attack whatever team you used last when you populate their node. When you attack someone, the Retaliation is set up immediately – therefore that person will be able to retaliate against whatever team you used to attack them. Otherwise, the team another player will see is the one that you last used when they either ended their current fight or clicked “Skip” on any particular node. I believe their view of you is static – that is to say that the point total they attribute to you will remain the same as when you appeared on their node – it will not go up with your actual point total.

For example, you enter a PVP event and attack three times in succession. Your first fight lasts about 4 minutes, second 5, third 7. Then you go idle for a few hours - unshielded as your point total is not that high. All three players you attacked will get the team you attacked them with for a retaliation. For everyone else, no-one will get you in their node in that first four minutes - as far as the game is concerned you haven't entered the event yet. Whoever either ends their fight or clicks "skip" in the next five minutes may get your first team, the next seven your second team. However it is more likely by far that the random people (other than retaliations) will get to attack that last team - whoever gets you on their node until you make your next attack will get your last team.

Shields
You will at any time have the option to spend Hero Points to erect a Shield to prevent other players from attacking you. This will serve two purposes

– starting from when you erect the shield, you will no longer appear as a new fight on any player’s nodes.

- if you are attacked and lose, you will not lose points from your Event total (defensive wins still add to your Event total.)

Shields last a certain amount of time based on the amount you spend and the type of event – normal events have 3, 8, and 24 hour shields. If you attack, you will break the shield. However, the shield will be broken only when you click on the final icon to fight – you can arrange your fights (by using “skip,”) select your team, boosts, and Team-Ups all while safely shielded.

There is a possibility that the server does not update with your shielded status until several minutes after you shield. I have definitely had this happen to me – I have gotten an attack notice after I put up a shield. I have heard that if you check your rank on the player leaderboards it forces the server to update – I recommend doing this any time you erect a shield.

Generally speaking, once your point total is high enough that you will be attacked frequently, it is recommended that spend all your time shielded; only dropping the shield to attack. I am going to save any advice for using shields to get a higher point total for others – this is a technique called “shield hopping” or “shield bouncing.” I cannot say I am experienced enough in the technique to advise on it.

Rewards
If you defeat your opponent, you will gain a reward of the Event points indicated before you fought. This increase will allow you to meet progression awards, and when the event closes it will determine your final placement award. Please note that you will sometimes be attacked while you are attacking someone else – because of the way the server updates it may show you hitting a progression award, but you do not actually get it due to your point value going down while you were attacked. You only get a progression award when you click “claim reward.” You will also gain whatever Iso-8 Victory Bonus award you had left (which you may have depleted by skipping,) and you will gain one additional random reward.

This used to be a simple award of 70 or 140 Iso-8. Starting 5/8/2014 the reward for successfully completing a PVP node was changed – 1* and 2* characters became available on these nodes. I had started tracking the rewards at that time – I am now at around 3000 points of data and as far as I can tell, these are the percentages:

70 Iso-8 – 31.5%
100 Iso-8 – 7%
140 Iso-8-22%
250 Iso-8 - .5%
Character – 39%

Of the characters, there is a 61.5% of a 1* character, 38.65% of a 2* character.

Final Placement
Events end at exactly the posted time – even if you start a fight prior to the end of the event, any points that are won after the event ends are not counted. When the event ends, your final placement will determine what prize you receive - e.g. if you are 26 out of 200, you will receive the reward for placing in rank 26-50. In the case of a tie, the first person to hit that score (even if they are pushed back by a later loss,) will be ranked highest, then the second, third, and so on. So for example if you get to 310 points from a win and are ranked 52, if another player later gets 310 points they will be ranked 53. However, if someone at 330 is attacked and loses 20 points, they will bump you to 53 and the person who came after you will be made 54.

If you are a member of an alliance your alliance will be placed similarly. The alliance point total is made from all the members of the alliance who had that total when the event ended.

Seasons
In April of 2014 D3 implemented a “Season” format for featured PVP Events. Currently, each Season lasts for three weeks. All points accrued in any PVP that is a part of the Season format (and clearly marked above the event image) counts toward your season total, and all players in an alliance count for an alliance total. The Season Events are usually featured character events, but they have in the past used other formats.

Incidentally, the awarded character in an event will almost always be the featured character of the next event. The only exception to this is when they decide to do something special for the next event, such as a multiple boosted character event, a 4* character event, or a restricted character event. There is also a distinct rotation to the covers they award for characters – for example, if they award Psylocke’s red at the 50-100 level of one event, the next time she is an award they will give blue or black at that level.

A S.H.E.I.L.D. Simulator PVP runs for the entirety of the Season as well. This is a PVP with five nodes which has no boosted or required characters. There are progression awards in the Season Simulator (not to be confused with the occasional PVE event of the same name,) but no final placement ward. However, points accrued here will count toward your Season total.

Lightning Rounds
I have given Lightning Rounds (LR for short,) their own section as they are very distinct from other PVP events. At this time the Lightning Rounds begin on Tuesday at noon, Eastern Time, and end Thursday at noon, ET. They cycle through a pool of five or six featured characters with every LR lasting an hour and a half – there is a half-hour break between each one so there is a new LR every two hours. At this time, there are two sets of LR characters – three out of four weeks will be villains, the fourth week heroes. All characters in the set are powered-up - not just the one in that particular LR.

The sets of characters now vary by Season – MPQ takes a number of characters and takes them out of rotation so they will no longer be available in the Token packs. Characters that are out of rotation will not be featured in the Lighting Rounds. They also seem to vary the characters somewhat – for example Season 7 did not have Spider Man as a featured character despite the fact that he was not out of rotation.

Unlike normal PVP Events, the LR does not use brackets, which means that you are competing against every other payer who is playing in the LR. As a result, getting to the top 100 can be much more difficult, since you are probably competing against thousands of other players (depending on the time.) However, the LR can be a great source of Iso-8, standard tokens, and low-level awards. LR uses its own shorter and cheaper shield structure.

Unlike other PVPs, you won’t get any real break in playing a LR. If you are going for LR tokens (the top prize,) or even a “Heroic or Better” Token, be ready to spend a significant portion of that hour and a half getting it.

Strategies
I am going to go over very basic strategies here – the guide is already quite long and I don’t want to devolve into a long discussion on how to place high in a PVP.

- If you enter an event in the first few minutes you can fight Seed Teams. In order to make sure there are always teams to fight, the computer places the Seed Teams in every PVP – examples are WannaBSkrull, FreerangeC4GE, Pyromantic, and Kicksthatkick. These Seed Teams are frequently very easy fights and include level 1, 5, or 20 characters. However, since they are at 0 points you will gain 25 for the first fight, 22 for the second, and so on.

- In particular, the seed teams can be great to get to 100 points in the Lighting Rounds, which is a good breakpoint for Iso-8. The Lightning Rounds can be a great source of Iso-8.

- On the flip side to this – the later you enter an event the more likely that your nodes will be populated with players who have higher point totals than you. This means that your Rating Reward will be higher for beating them and you will climb in points more quickly.

- It can be worth a little Iso-8 to use Skip to find a good Rating Reward. How successful you will be on finding a good Rating Reward will depend on how late in the event you are and your own point total – the more people who are above your point total the more likely you will be to get a decent Rating Reward. The better the Rating Reward, the faster you’ll climb the leaderboard. Of course, if your main intention in the event is to gain Iso, don’t do this.

- Similarly, you can use “Skip” to find a team you will be able to deal with more easily. Certain characters are a lot uglier on defense, and even if you can still beat them, if you may need to take a break to heal afterward. Decide whether any particular team is “worth it,” and compare that to the Iso-8 you want to spend – figuring out this balance is a great skill to have.

- Sometimes you will start seeing the same teams over and over again when you use “skip.” This comes from the game creating a “stack” of characters that it tends to draw from – this is also why you will see the Seed Teams for multiple fights if you enter a PVP early. You can clear a stack by exiting the game and returning – the next time you fight or skip you should start seeing new teams. You should not do this if you intend to continue to fight the Seed Teams, but it is a useful way to get better point values for your fights.

- You should only shield when you believe you will lose more points to attacks than you can easily get back. Depending on your team, you will find that you will only be attacked with any frequency when you hit a particular point range. For me, that is typically in the 650-700 range. Climb to that point at your leisure, then either make a mad dash or shield hop until you are at the point you want, and then shield for the remainder of the event.

- You can also make a final attack at the end of the event to try and get a few more points. Be careful – if your attack takes too long and finishes after the event closes, the points you get will not be added to your total. If you attack too soon, you expose yourself to being attacked and losing points – the end of the event is pretty busy and you are more likely to have less time when your shield drops. Know how long each team you use takes to attack, and give yourself a minute or two more. Leaving enough time to take two attacks is extremely risky.

- Until you shield, you should end any particular attack run with your scariest defensive team. The team that other players will get on their nodes will be the one that you last used – if you are idle for a few hours that is the one they will most likely see. Other players are more likely to skip a good defensive team. If you have a “fast attack” team (e.g. CStorm, MNMags,) then use that first, but end with something more defensive (e.g. Ares, OBW.)

- If you intend to attack again after you shield, give it some time. You will no longer appear as a new target when you shield, but if anyone queued you up they will keep you on their node until they either attack or skip. Give it around a half-hour for you to clear out the impending attacks, but know that there is always a possibility that someone will randomly choose the time you unshield to attack you - they could be shield hopping too.

- Make pushes in waves – since at this time there is no character that will heal another outside the current combat, cycle through your teams in such a way you can do a minimum of healing (e.g. OBW + Wolverine, then OBW + Thor, then + Ares since Ares is the scariest defensive character.) Give some time for your health packs and characters to regenerate, and then do it again.

- Boosts can be a great help to speed up your fight time. Each of your three slots can take either a boost or a team up. You should also know that you can add up to 2 more AP boosts or 4 more % to damage boosts by hitting the “Boost More” button after you have added the boost.

- Be aware of the end times of events. There is always more activity at the end of the event, and frequently at 8 and 3 hours out by people intending to shield for the rest of the event. Particularly if you plan to make a final push before shielding, you should probably not do it at one of these times.

- At first, featured characters are going to be dead weight. If you only have a few covers in the character (a good rule of thumb is less than four or five,) you may want to use the one provided by the game when your own is hurt. The featured character is always at full health – this can save you health packs.

- Expending Iso-8 to level a featured character during an event is not a bad idea – the earlier levels of a 3* are relatively cheap. When you do, always end in an odd number to maximize the level gain. I always add at least one level to the featured character (when I can) if only to make it easier to tell when I’m using my own version or the one provided by the event.

- The Season S.H.I.E.L.D. Simulator may seem like a good way to get some covers. Unfortunately, it is definitely affected by the MMR expansion I mentioned in “Entering a Fight.” As you get high enough (I noticed this at 1800 or so,) you will see more and more 3* teams even if you are not a 3* player yourself. All in all, I would not call it a good way to get 3* covers for players in the 2*-3* transition, and I suspect this is also true of players in the 1*-2* transition as well. It is a decent source of Iso, Hero Points, and points for your Season total, however.

- Your Season progression awards, however, can be a great source of covers. The 3* cover award and the 10-pack of Heroic or better covers are both very reachable.

GrimSkald

I did a little editting on this today - broke out a few things into sections more as this is so damn long, and corrected a misconception I had (the "half again" boost rounds the level up, not down. Odd levels are better.)

Seriously, though, any comments? Should I edit a lot of the very basic stuff out? Should I ask to have it made sticky?

metallicajake01

I think this is great, I read the whole thing, keep going!!!

Things I'd personally like to know:

Tanking-
How do you know when to tank? I run 94s and if you keep playing you get to a certain point where the people you get matched against are higher than 94s... do you tank right then? do you wait until everyone is almost all 166s and above?

I find that if I don't tank when I start seeing higher level targets they take on my team then I lose lots of points on top of that I can't progress. Anything anyone knows is helpful. I don't see how I'd possibly get over 650-700 points without shield hopping.

Proper Shield Hopping Technique-
Not that I really have the HP to do it at this point but its something that seems to come upalot.

Leveling-
Is leveling featured character past your 94s good or are you just going to hit higher level teams you can't beat sooner? I have just started getting 5-6-7 covers for 3* but haven't put any over 62 yet. You sort of alluded to this that there is no evidence of roster levels effecting MMR but would like confirmation if its available on my question.

Thanks for doing this, some of this stuff is really hard to find and buried in threads!

GrimSkald

metallicajake01 wrote:

I think this is great, I read the whole thing, keep going!!!

Things I'd personally like to know:

Tanking-
How do you know when to tank? I run 94s and if you keep playing you get to a certain point where the people you get matched against are higher than 94s... do you tank right then? do you wait until everyone is almost all 166s and above?

I find that if I don't tank when I start seeing higher level targets they take on my team then I lose lots of points on top of that I can't progress. Anything anyone knows is helpful. I don't see how I'd possibly get over 650-700 points without shield hopping.

Proper Shield Hopping Technique-
Not that I really have the HP to do it at this point but its something that seems to come upalot.

Leveling-
Is leveling featured character past your 94s good or are you just going to hit higher level teams you can't beat sooner? I have just started getting 5-6-7 covers for 3* but haven't put any over 62 yet. You sort of alluded to this that there is no evidence of roster levels effecting MMR but would like confirmation if its available on my question.

Thanks for doing this, some of this stuff is really hard to find and buried in threads!

Your welcome, thanks for the praise!

I'm going to keep editting it as I note things and if people point things out. I tightened up some langauge today, for example. I may bump it from time to time to keep it findable. Regarding your specific questions:

Tanking - tanking is weird, and since it is a bit of a hack I'd prefer to keep it out of this guide. I have noticed the same thing you have - if I get to a particular point total I start seeing bigger and badder teams - for me this is generally happening in the 700s (which is when I spend most of my time shielded anyway.) I don't think tanking will help that - I think its a function of the available pool of opponents being mostly bigger and badder, so the game is using a wider MMR range to populate tyour nodes. What tanking will help with is if the game decides you've crossed into 3* territory and starts giving you more 3* teams. If you tank (intentionally lose fights in PVP,) you can bring your MMR down to the point where you see more 2* teams.

I can usually hit 700 points without shield hopping - getting higher than that is tough for a 2* -> 3* transition player. The only suggestion I would offer is trying to play at off times.

Leveling - I can't offer confirmation that roster doesn't affect MMR (the devs have never explained exaclty how MMR works and I wouldn't expect them to,) but I really think this is the case. I had a Hulk over 100 for litterally weeks before I really started seeing bigger teams on a regular basis. That being said, I do think Polarity's advice on this is very good - don't level up a 3* unless you will get a tangible benifit from it. For most 3*s this means being at least 110 or so and having decent covers in their good abilities. Even then, I just treated my 3*s like another one of my 2*s - my attack runs would look like this:

MNMags + Cstorm, AWolvie + OBW, Thor + OBW, Ares + OBW, Hulk + OBW

So I'd get 5 attacks (more if I can squeek by without taking a lot of damage) using at most 3 Health packs. Now I've got a few more 3*s (Hood, CTorch and CMags,) I throw those into the mix as well. I suspect I won't be fielding a good 3* team for at least a few weeks.

Shield Hopping - I do very limited shield hopping right now, generally I shoot for the top 25 and consider the top 5 out of my league and just not worth the time and HP I'd need to spend. There's a great write up on it elsewhere on the forums - I may add it to the guide in the future when I feel more comfortable with the technique myself. I do address some of the basics in the substance of the guide, though - shield up and let your opponents clear, then make some fast attacks.

El_Dude

I'll second that. Great guide. Wish I had known some of this months ago.

One question -- it applies to PvP and PvE -- is about this part...

Like the PVE Events, PVPs have a running point total which you gain by winning against the opposing team in the various nodes. Also like the PVEs, when you win your first victory against the computer, you are slotted into a bracket with other players. A bracket of 500 players is typical. Your final placement will be determined with these players (i.e. if you are the 23rd out of 500 you will get the 11-25 placement award,) but your opponents are not necessarily drawn from your bracket.

If you are tied with someone, say they are showing as ranked in 10th place and you are shown in 11th but you both have the same number of points, what determines who is 10th and who is 11th?

Thanks again for writing this up.

HairyDave

GrimSkald wrote:

- At first, featured characters are going to be deadweight. If your own version is not much better, you may want to use the one provided by the game when your own is hurt - you will not need to expend a health pack each time. However, as you play the game your featured characters will get better. Expending Iso-8 to level a featured character during an event is not a bad idea – but when you do always end in an odd number to maximize the level gain.

You can flip between them too - use the loaner for a few fights and then use your own until it gets too damaged. However, I don't find the loaner a worthwhile risk if I've got more than about four or five covers on the featured character. At that point I find I'm giving up too much utility for a free health pack.

GrimSkald

El_Dude wrote:

If you are tied with someone, say they are showing as ranked in 10th place and you are shown in 11th but you both have the same number of points, what determines who is 10th and who is 11th?

Thanks again for writing this up.

You're welcome!

That's a very good question that I do not know the answer to. However, I can hazard a guess (and I'll keep an eye out for this to confirm.) I believe the people who hit that point value will be ranked in order latest to earliest. For example, someone hit 414 at the current event five minutes ago and was ranked 30 (it's early yet,) I hit 414 now, I'm now ranked 30 and he's 31. Someone else hit 414 moments after me, he's 30, I'm 31, and the guy who hit it first is 32. I'm basing this guess on the roster - your roster is organized by level order but the character you levelled most recently will show up before those characters you levelled earlier.

I'll post and update the guide when I confirm this. I suspect I'll be able to.

HairyDave wrote:

You can flip between them too - use the loaner for a few fights and then use your own until it gets too damaged. However, I don't find the loaner a worthwhile risk if I've got more than about four or five covers on the featured character. At that point I find I'm giving up too much utility for a free health pack.

That's a really good rule of thumb, depending on the utility of the covers themselves. I'll add that.

IamTheDanger

GrimSkald wrote:

El_Dude wrote:

If you are tied with someone, say they are showing as ranked in 10th place and you are shown in 11th but you both have the same number of points, what determines who is 10th and who is 11th?

Thanks again for writing this up.

You're welcome!

That's a very good question that I do not know the answer to. However, I can hazard a guess (and I'll keep an eye out for this to confirm.) I believe the people who hit that point value will be ranked in order latest to earliest. For example, someone hit 414 at the current event five minutes ago and was ranked 30 (it's early yet,) I hit 414 now, I'm now ranked 30 and he's 31. Someone else hit 414 moments after me, he's 30, I'm 31, and the guy who hit it first is 32. I'm basing this guess on the roster - your roster is organized by level order but the character you levelled most recently will show up before those characters you levelled earlier.

I'll post and update the guide when I confirm this. I suspect I'll be able to.

HairyDave wrote:

You can flip between them too - use the loaner for a few fights and then use your own until it gets too damaged. However, I don't find the loaner a worthwhile risk if I've got more than about four or five covers on the featured character. At that point I find I'm giving up too much utility for a free health pack.

That's a really good rule of thumb, depending on the utility of the covers themselves. I'll add that.

Actually, you have it backwards. An alliance mate tied for #10 and sent a ticket to CS. The response he got explained it that whoever gets the score first has the higher rank.

EXAMPLE.....

Player A gets 500 points and hits rank 25. Then, 1 hour later, Player B gets 500 points. Player B will be ranked 26. And if 1 hour later Player C gets 500 points, they will get rank 27.

Think of it as first come, first serve.

However, if player A has 320 points and Player B has 300 at rank 35, and Player A loses 20 points, then Player A will take rank 35 and Player B will be bumped to rank 36. This is because Player A was the first to reach 300 points, they just didn't stop.

hope this helps

JJ

GrimSkald

JCTthe3rd81 wrote:

GrimSkald wrote:

El_Dude wrote:

If you are tied with someone, say they are showing as ranked in 10th place and you are shown in 11th but you both have the same number of points, what determines who is 10th and who is 11th?

Thanks again for writing this up.

You're welcome!

That's a very good question that I do not know the answer to. However, I can hazard a guess (and I'll keep an eye out for this to confirm.) I believe the people who hit that point value will be ranked in order latest to earliest. For example, someone hit 414 at the current event five minutes ago and was ranked 30 (it's early yet,) I hit 414 now, I'm now ranked 30 and he's 31. Someone else hit 414 moments after me, he's 30, I'm 31, and the guy who hit it first is 32. I'm basing this guess on the roster - your roster is organized by level order but the character you levelled most recently will show up before those characters you levelled earlier.

Actually, you have it backwards. An alliance mate tied for #10 and sent a ticket to CS. The response he got explained it that whoever gets the score first has the higher rank.

EXAMPLE.....

Player A gets 500 points and hits rank 25. Then, 1 hour later, Player B gets 500 points. Player B will be ranked 26. And if 1 hour later Player C gets 500 points, they will get rank 27.

Think of it as first come, first serve.

However, if player A has 320 points and Player B has 300 at rank 35, and Player A loses 20 points, then Player A will take rank 35 and Player B will be bumped to rank 36. This is because Player A was the first to reach 300 points, they just didn't stop.

hope this helps

JJ

Thanks! I've been trying to figure it out from the Lightning Rounds - I strongly suspected I was wrong but with the speed of the rounds it was hard to tell. I very much prefer it the way it is rather than my theory - it is definitely more fair. I think you're right, I'll throw it in the guide.

Unknown

Great guide! As a beginner, I'm very interested in this.
Anything else about the strategy of when to enter the PVP events? Does any kind of "entering in the last hours" strategy that exists for PVE applies for PVP? Or is it always better to enter early for seed nodes?

El_Dude

JCTthe3rd81 wrote:

GrimSkald wrote:

El_Dude wrote:

If you are tied with someone, say they are showing as ranked in 10th place and you are shown in 11th but you both have the same number of points, what determines who is 10th and who is 11th?

Thanks again for writing this up.

You're welcome!

That's a very good question that I do not know the answer to. However, I can hazard a guess (and I'll keep an eye out for this to confirm.) I believe the people who hit that point value will be ranked in order latest to earliest. For example, someone hit 414 at the current event five minutes ago and was ranked 30 (it's early yet,) I hit 414 now, I'm now ranked 30 and he's 31. Someone else hit 414 moments after me, he's 30, I'm 31, and the guy who hit it first is 32. I'm basing this guess on the roster - your roster is organized by level order but the character you levelled most recently will show up before those characters you levelled earlier.

I'll post and update the guide when I confirm this. I suspect I'll be able to.

HairyDave wrote:

You can flip between them too - use the loaner for a few fights and then use your own until it gets too damaged. However, I don't find the loaner a worthwhile risk if I've got more than about four or five covers on the featured character. At that point I find I'm giving up too much utility for a free health pack.

That's a really good rule of thumb, depending on the utility of the covers themselves. I'll add that.

Actually, you have it backwards. An alliance mate tied for #10 and sent a ticket to CS. The response he got explained it that whoever gets the score first has the higher rank.

EXAMPLE.....

Player A gets 500 points and hits rank 25. Then, 1 hour later, Player B gets 500 points. Player B will be ranked 26. And if 1 hour later Player C gets 500 points, they will get rank 27.

Think of it as first come, first serve.

However, if player A has 320 points and Player B has 300 at rank 35, and Player A loses 20 points, then Player A will take rank 35 and Player B will be bumped to rank 36. This is because Player A was the first to reach 300 points, they just didn't stop.

hope this helps

JJ

Thanks. That explains a lot. I usually wait until later to make my run up the boards. That would seem to increase my likelihood of being last among tied players.

I've had 3 matches where I ended up 26th but with the same points as people in front of me. Just out of reach in winning double covers. It was driving me mad. I thought it was seniority or some mystery metric like MMR or least damage taken. First come, first ranked is definitely the fairest route but it never occurred to me.

Unknown

Anothe great guide, thank you!
Just a few doubts, tho.

1) Is there a correlation between the # of times you attack, and the # of attacks you suffer? I can guess it's releated to your rank, but I'm not entirely sure.

2) Regarding shields, they are meant to be used after a "push", but does that mean that you will most likely get attacked within a certain time period?
Can it be that you push, shield for 3 hours and then, another 2 hours later, you get attacked 10 times?

3) Regarding defense team, is it based on the last 3 characters you used in PvP battle, in any battle, or the last 3 you selected?
Just to make an example:

- I fight one PvP match with OBW, Thor, Ares.
- I then fight one PvE battle with OBW, Wolv, CStorm
- I then enter one battle, pick OBW, iMags, CStorm but I do NOT confirm and just move back to the main menu.

What my defense team will be then?

Thanks in advance!

Unknown

Rocketh, in your example your pvp defensive team would be OBW, Thor, and Ares, which was the last team you battled with in PVP.

Say you then make two more attacks, against Player A and against Player B. Player A you attack first with OBW, Thor, and Ares. You attack Player B second with Hood, Laken, and Sentry. At that point if anyone searches for you and attacks you they will face your last team of Hood, Laken and Sentry. If Player A revenges you, however, he will fight your first team of OBW, Thor, and Ares.

Unknown

question. is there a way to tell if someone is shielded or not? when i'm skipping through nodes trying to find a high point match to play, all those teams are unshielded correct?

Ebolamonkey84

unco_dan wrote:

question. is there a way to tell if someone is shielded or not? when i'm skipping through nodes trying to find a high point match to play, all those teams are unshielded correct?

They were unshielded at the time they came up in your queue, but it is possible they could be shielded by the time you actually attack them. As far as I know, there isn't a way to see if someone is shielded unless they are in your bracket either near you or in top 10. Some alliances use this to their advantage to coordinate attacks against each other when they are shielded.

GrimSkald

Zamble wrote:

Great guide! As a beginner, I'm very interested in this.
Anything else about the strategy of when to enter the PVP events? Does any kind of "entering in the last hours" strategy that exists for PVE applies for PVP? Or is it always better to enter early for seed nodes?

I may have added this after you looked at it. I did add this the last time:

- On the flip side to this – the later you enter an event the more likely that your nodes will be populated with players who have higher point totals than you. This means that your Rating Reward will be higher for beating them.

So the short answer is, yes, there is strategy - the later you enter, the more likely you are to see targets who give you more points on your nodes. Of course, you can always skip to have the node refresh. In general, though, I either enter in the first few moments to get the seed teams, or enter when I'm about to make my first push. One of the great things about the forum is that you don't have to enter the PVP in order to see the rewards, you can always check the write up in "Events."

GrimSkald

rocketh wrote:

Anothe great guide, thank you!
Just a few doubts, tho.

1) Is there a correlation between the # of times you attack, and the # of attacks you suffer? I can guess it's releated to your rank, but I'm not entirely sure.

2) Regarding shields, they are meant to be used after a "push", but does that mean that you will most likely get attacked within a certain time period?
Can it be that you push, shield for 3 hours and then, another 2 hours later, you get attacked 10 times?

To answer these two questions:

1) sort of. Keep in mind the higher up you go in points, the fewer people there are at that point level, and so the more likely someone at a similar point level is going to get you on their nodes. This is why you will hit a point where you will be attacked constantly - there are so few people at that level that you'll appear on several people's nodes at once. However, you will also appear on someone's node when you attack them (they get you as a retaliation) so there will be a point after you attack where you are more likely to be attacked - you'll both appear at random on people's nodes and you'll appear on everyone you've hit. Of course, if the people you hit are not on line when you hit them, they can always retaliate against you later, so you're never safe unless you're shielded.

Once you shield, you stop appearing on people's nodes at random, so you'll eventually fall off of everyone who is making their push now. However, people do save their nodes for later, so again, you can get attacked at any point - but you're less likely to be attacked the longer you're shielded.

2) Certainly, once your shield drops you will appear on people's nodes again, and depending on your point total, you're likely to be attacked. I always shield for the rest of the event once I've hit the point total I want. Well, unless I don't really care about the reward and want to save on HP...

The above is the basics of shield hopping, btw. You push, shield, wait a while, then drop the shield and attack. Once you get a few attacks in (there is argument as to how many you can do with minimal risk, most say no more than 2,) you shield again and wait for you to drop off of people's nodes.

Unknown

Good start to the guide. Glad someone has finally gotten around to doing a PVP guide, so thanks!

I have a question. When you are attacked, is your defensive team always the last team that you attacked with? Does that team also have the team-ups you equipped in your last fight?
I'm always too lazy to equip the team ups, but if they are used defensively I may have to start putting them on before fights.

GrimSkald

kkengvib wrote:

Good start to the guide. Glad someone has finally gotten around to doing a PVP guide, so thanks!

I have a question. When you are attacked, is your defensive team always the last team that you attacked with? Does that team also have the team-ups you equipped in your last fight?
I'm always too lazy to equip the team ups, but if they are used defensively I may have to start putting them on before fights.

I couldn't say for sure, not sitting on the other side of the computer, but as far as I know your defensive team (the team the other person gets to attack,) is the team in use at the time that node was populated. If you attack someone, their "retaliation" node is populated immedietely, so a person will get to retaliate against the team that you beat them with. Otherwise, players get to fight whatever team happens to be the last one you used when they either end their current fight or click "skip."

Lets say you enter a PVP event and attack three times in succession. Your first fight lasts about 4 minutes, second 5, third 7. Then you go idle for a few hours - unshielded as your point total is not that high. It certainly is possible that a person will be able to attack any particular team you use - noone will get you in their node in that first four minutes - as far as the game is concerned you haven't entered the event yet. Whoever either ends their fight (or clicks "skip") in the next five minutes may get your first team, the next seven your second team. However it is more likely by far that the random people (other than retaliations) will get to attack that last team - whoever gets you on their node until you make your next attack will get your last team.

I think I'll draft a portion on Defensive Teams.

As far as I know, the AI always gives their team one Team-Up at random - it's type, # of covers, and level based on the team. So a Maxxed 2* team will usually use 2* team ups of about 94th level, but this can definitely vary - I've definitely seen 3* powers at about that level.

Unknown

I remember there was certain breakpoint in PvP events after which you start being visible to everyone and was forced to use shield. But iirc it was 600, is it really confirmed it was pushed up to 700?

GrimSkald

Nivrax wrote:

I remember there was certain breakpoint in PvP events after which you start being visible to everyone and was forced to use shield. But iirc it was 600, is it really confirmed it was pushed up to 700?

It really varies by your team and the time you're playing. I find it hits me in the mid-600s. Speaking for myself, once I hit 600 I will not take any real breaks until I shield, and I don't push much past 700 without shielding. I may make one attack past 700 before shielding.

I'm told by others that they can go higher without needing to shield. Once you get further into the 3* transition, it does seem to get easier to make those big pushes.