How many ** are worth keeping?

Unknown

In your opinion, what's the sweet spot at which ** characters become a waste of slots?
I'm talking about transitioning players, with no *** characters above lv.70.

Right now, I sell any Cap, Moonstone, Bullseye, Bagman I find. And I'm keeping OBW, Ares, CStorm, Thor, iMags, Wolv, Johnny and Daken.
The issue is that as more *** characters join my roster, I find costantly starving for slots.

I notice that the PvE guide on collecting characters suggests to only use 3x ** characters ( some best combo ) and then focus on collecting *** covers.
So I started wondering if I really need all those ** heroes, after all.


My other choice would be to sell 1 cover, low-tier *** characters ( Loki, She-Hulk) but that might come to bite me back once those characters are featured.

Thanks in advance!

Unknown

Myself I keep 6 ** chars right now. I have CStorm, Thor, Wolvie, MNMags, OBW and Ares. 3 of them are maxed, Mags is at 88, OBW at 70 and Ares at 15. I plan on leveling them all before I start pumping ISO on 3*. Whatever other cover I get for 2* I sell it (Also torchling and daken). I know they are good characters but I will just not be using them when I transition to 3*. So I figured I'd make more space for those 3* covers rather than level some 2* which I will stop using. Also these 6 ** characters I have make 3 of the strongest ** teams, so that is why I am focusing only on them to help me transition faster.

Although this is my approach, I would like some advice on this topic as well. I follow this strategy because I am F2P and being in EU timezone I need to shield for at least 8hrs in almost every PVP. So HP for both shields and roster slots for an F2P player in a transitioning period is a bit hard to get.

Unknown

It depends. In general, you'll use very few of them, but occasionally, mainly in heroics, you'll need the other ones. I don't use any of them regularly, but whoever's buffed in PVE is going to get used usually, and in a heroic, they'll be depended on.

Unknown

I kept 5.

Wolverine
Thor
OBW
Storm
Hawkeye

Of course, I've since sold Hawkeye because he was worth HP, but overall, I still keep those 4, even though I have now fully transitioned to 3 star (5 characters with max or near max covers and over 130, 3 of them 166.)

Unknown

I'm starting to think 8 ** characters may be a bit too much, and I should get rid of Johnny and Daken

Nonce Equitaur 2

If you've leveled up a 2* character, eventually you'll find them useful in a Heroic tournament.

My Ares, OBW, 2Cap, 2Dak, Hawkeye, MNMags, cStorm have all gotten regular usage in Heroics. Mags and Cap are frequently the only board controllers in Heroics. Mags+Hawkeye is a strong PvE combo. cStorm has one of the best stuns in the game. Ares scales up well. If 3Dak isn't allowed, 2Dak is fine for getting some strike tiles on the board.

Characters 2HT, 2Thor, 2Wolv -- the Heroics usually have a stronger 3* character. I have all these guys, but I don't use them much, even in Heroics. If you've stopped using them in your normal play, you likely won't need them in Heroics either.

Unknown

Nonce Equitaur 2 wrote:

Characters 2HT, 2Thor, 2Wolv -- the Heroics usually have a stronger 3* character. I have all these guys, but I don't use them much, even in Heroics. If you've stopped using them in your normal play, you likely won't need them in Heroics either.

2* Wolverine was absolutely vital in the last Heroic for me - he seems to be boosted in Heroics a lot.

Unknown

I think I kept all of mine, except mHawkeye who I kept gathering covers for then selling as 3* came along. But he's back again now for the 4th time
Currently, I think I'm only missing Bagman, and I have doubles of MNMags, CStorm and OBW with full covers but no ISO, in case Balance of Power comes back or I pull an un-needed 3* cover that I've already maxed out but wouldn't mind 2 of, I'll swap 'em then

At 49 Roster slots, I think maybe I took the newb advice to only spend your HP on your roster places too literally, it's time I grew up and learned to shield.

Anyway, I regret spending ISO on Moonstone and I regret selling baby Daken covers back in the Prologue days. Otherwise I think most of my 2 Stars have either earned their keep or not cost me any ISO or unrecruited 3 Star covers. They all have their place. Even Bullseye. I use them more than most of my 3*s 'cause I have a tonne of 3* covers but spread over a lot of characters, none of them are really up to muster yet.

OnesOwnGrief

Everyone but Bagman. Heroics have taught me to not get rid of any of my characters (besides Bagman).

NorthernPolarity

The main reason for keeping 2* characters outside of the top tier ones are for Heroics where they're the only ones featured. Given that all of your current 2*s are mid-high tier, I would probably keep all of them if I could. Another nice thing about having multiple 2* characters is that each one is an extra health pack of sorts. Try playing your B team in PvE until they die before switching to your A team: you'll get a lot more mileage out of your roster this way.

over_clocked

Really worth keeping: 2 oBWs, perhaps with different builds, although I see even less merit in a 5/x/x oBW now, maybe to counter Fury/Deadpool, but Espionage should do the job fine anyway. Ares. Thor. cStorm. MMN. Maaaaaybe aWolvie, maybe Daken. Maybe Torchling (the only active black! Moonstone and Bullseye do NOT count). mHawkeye is gimmicky and squishy, don't keep him if you lack space.
I have most 2*s maxed despite needing ISO for 3*s just as much; most of them are indeed very good when buffed. Moderately buffed Ares is much better than most low-tier/mediocre 3*s (She-Hulk, Beast, Mohawk, Psylocke, Loki, Daredevil, Spider-Man, etc.). oBW is THE best purple in the game, since DP and Fury are too new/expensive yet. cStorm/MMN wreck. cStorm also wrecks without MMN. Thor is that reliable slower no-nonsense guy that is buffed much, much more often than Ares.
I only keep from leveling Moonstone (everyone else does the job better), Bag-Man (if it occurs to me to use the Sentry destroyer (with 6+ all boosts), his abilities don't scale with levels anyway), Bullseye (pure protect tile abilities as of now SUCK since they add nothing to offense, maybe Falcon/cMags are decentish but Falcon is overpriced and yellow can be spent better elsewhere), Captain America (lazy Cap eclipses him about as much as oBW eclipses Yelena Belova).

Edit: I feel that A.Wolvie, Daken and Torchling definitely deserve slots, since the former two are the only true healers and can fight for much longer, and, well, active black is an active black.

Phaserhawk

In no particular order within groups, I will list top tier, mid tier and low tier
=============TOP TIER===================
Ares (Dark Avengers)
Thor (Marvel NOW!)
Black Widow (Original)
Daken (Dark Avengers)
Human Torch (Johnny Storm)
==========MID TIER=======================
Captain America (Modern)
Wolverine (Astonishing X-Men)
Hawkeye (Modern)
Magneto (Marvel NOW!)
Storm (Classic)
==========BOTTOM TIER===================
Bullseye (Dark Avengers)
Spider-Man (Bag-Man)
Moonstone (Dark Avengers)

There are obvious instances where 1 moves up due to buffs, but for the most part thats where it is. Wolvie was once top tier but since his fun balance just isn't there any more. If I had to get myself down to 8 I would ask myself, how much do I love Hawkeye/Mags combo? or Mags/Storm combo, if I like them then I scrap Capt and Wolvie, if I don't then Mags and either Storm or Hawkeye. One begining suggestion is to have 6 maxed 2*'s early on to rotate, and as you transition get a team of 6 maxed 3*'s, once you have a core you can start looking to expand.

simonsez

I agree that Storm is mid-tier and Mags is mid-tier... but wouldn't the combo be top tier? It's not unusual for someone with that combo to beat my maxed 3*s, and I can't recall any other 2* team ever beating me.

CrookedKnight

As long as you're controlling them that combo is brutal. The pitfall is that in PvP you have to let the AI run your defense and the AI is incapable of using Polarity Shift to its full effect. I assume you got retaliation points against that team, right?

I mean, you can still use them to climb but when you're ready to go on defense you want to have some arrangement of Ares/Thor/OBW/Daken/Torch to take the baton, as it were. You can't build a team just with those two and succeed unless you're paying out the tinykitty for shields, whereas you can climb and defend with the A group.

mjh

The only one I would sell is Bagman. The rest, when buffed for pve and such, are good and you'll wish you hadn't. Yes, even bullseye. When he's buffed his protect tiles save you health packs. Moonstone's red can take out enemies and goons in pve. It's not worth it to sell them if you've invested the ISO

GrumpySmurf1002

I've got everyone maxed except Bagman (sold) and Moonstone (lvl 60). As mentioned, most of them give good mileage in PvE. If roster spots are a concern, I'd sell those two, and eventually 2*Cap once you get the 3* version built, since he's vastly inferior.

Others will say Bullseye, but I happen to like him. When he's boosted he basically squashes match damage, so you can get a lot more mileage out of teams if you stick him as the 3rd.

Unknown

I am keeping them all.. Took me a lot of effort to get them and my heart doesn't allow me to just throw them to the Thrash.. (currently 48/48 covers - only Nick Fury is missing..)

Unknown

I have also kept all my 2* so I have 6 maxed and everyone else fully covered. Okay they not much use in PvP now but they are still very useful in PvE. In heroics their are 8 usable characters made of 3 3*, 3 2* and 2 1*. (A buffed 5Blue classic storm is a beast) Being able to run a via second team is very useful. Even in events like the current one when the nodes are easy just break out your two star team for the starting nodes you should be able to get thought some nodes before having to break out the bigger guns so saving on Health Packs.

The only problem with this is that currently extra slots start eating up large amounts of HP - currently 650 a pop.

Unknown

simonsez wrote:

I agree that Storm is mid-tier and Mags is mid-tier... but wouldn't the combo be top tier? It's not unusual for someone with that combo to beat my maxed 3*s, and I can't recall any other 2* team ever beating me.

I think that's a very key point. Since most PvP is 2 + guest, or 2 + your half-developed under-covered 3* if you've started building one, the key thing with your 2* roster is keeping working teams.

I'm not that imaginative, and my 3 Stars have only recently started to get to the point that they're threatening to others, but till now I've always run OBW + AWolvie and mnMags + cStorm to get me as far as I can go in a session before dumping my suicide squad (Ares + Hulk with 1 black and a couple of green covers) down to put people off attacking me until my next go. I'd sooner keep Thor + Daken or Ares + Daken over Thor + Ares. They don't really compliment each other that well, at least not when I'm at the controls. If you play a lot of PvE you may want to hang on to Cap for his countdown overwriting ability. There's no point in having all the "Top Tier" 2* if you can't make them work for you the way you want to play.

Phaserhawk

simonsez wrote:

I agree that Storm is mid-tier and Mags is mid-tier... but wouldn't the combo be top tier? It's not unusual for someone with that combo to beat my maxed 3*s, and I can't recall any other 2* team ever beating me.

absolutely. I by no means want to say that Mid Tier 2*'s can't be powerful in combos or aren't worth keeping. I'm just looking at stand alone power. OBW is not as powerful without strike tiles but still strong. I would pretty much go Ares/Daken/OBW since Daken is far superior to Wolvie. When they only allowed Wolvie to heal up to 50% they gutted him. If you are making his healing active by having to match tiles than you don't need to cap it, if you made it passive up to 50% that would be okay, but there are only so many yellow tiles to match before you have to wait

Trisul

Phaserhawk wrote:

absolutely. I by no means want to say that Mid Tier 2*'s can't be powerful in combos or aren't worth keeping. I'm just looking at stand alone power. OBW is not as powerful without strike tiles but still strong. I would pretty much go Ares/Daken/OBW since Daken is far superior to Wolvie. When they only allowed Wolvie to heal up to 50% they gutted him. If you are making his healing active by having to match tiles than you don't need to cap it, if you made it passive up to 50% that would be okay, but there are only so many yellow tiles to match before you have to wait

Only bad part of that team is that Daken is limited to tanking Black.