When to stop leveling

homeinvasion

I should know this by now but how do you work out when to stop leveling a character so another character tanks for them? Its an expensive mistake if you go too far.

Nonce Equitaur 2

Data for most is at the Marvel Puzzle Quest Wiki. There are gaps in the data for some.

Unknown

I will demonstrate this with an example. If you have CStorm and MNMags and you want MNMags to tank blue for CStorm then you can check this by going to each character's profile. You will see a number associated to different ability colors. These numbers represent the amount of power a character has when you much a certain color.

So if you have a CStorm at lvl 94, her blue power will be around 49 I think. If you want MNMags to tank that color, you have to level him until this number is higher than CStorm. Of course in this case if both characters are maxed, MNMags will always tank blue over CStorm because it is his most powerful color.

In a case where two character have the same power over a color and you have them both at max level, the one that is in center will tank the color. Or if center is taken by a special character, the left selected character will tank that specific color over the right one.

I hope this helps

Phaserhawk

homeinvasion wrote:

I should know this by now but how do you work out when to stop leveling a character so another character tanks for them? Its an expensive mistake if you go too far.

I've never been a big fan of this strategy. The reason being it's only temporary. Eventually they will come out with a character you will want to play in conjunctin with another that you were purposefully underleveling, and that one will tank regardless, not to mention they could just switch the color or tile strength as they see fit. There are enough characters now you can pretty much get around this. Want someone to tank for Hood, use Black Panther, don't want him, then use Captain America/Psylocke and keep him covered. There are so many more options now I just don't see this being an optimal strategy. I would rather have the extra power and hit points than someone tanking. And in PvP and the boosted characters it many times doesn't matter.

Nonce Equitaur 2

Here's a leveling chart for 3* characters.

Level .. strong-weak .. TU
40 25 22 19 07 07 06 14 --- 72 40 36 31 09 08 08 22 --- 104 55 49 43 11 10 09 29 --- 136 67 60 52 12 11 10 35
41 25 22 19 07 07 06 14 --- 73 41 36 32 09 08 08 22 --- 105 55 49 43 11 10 09 29 --- 137 68 60 53 12 11 10 35
42 26 23 20 07 07 06 15 --- 74 41 37 32 09 09 08 23 --- 106 56 49 43 11 10 09 30 --- 138 68 61 53 12 11 10 36
43 26 23 20 07 07 06 15 --- 75 42 37 32 09 09 08 23 --- 107 56 50 44 11 10 09 30 --- 139 69 61 53 12 11 10 36
44 27 24 21 07 07 06 15 --- 76 42 38 33 09 09 08 23 --- 108 57 50 44 11 10 09 30 --- 140 69 61 54 12 11 10 36
45 27 24 21 07 07 06 15 --- 77 43 38 33 09 09 08 23 --- 110 57 51 44 11 10 09 30 --- 141 69 62 54 12 11 10 36
46 27 24 21 07 07 06 16 --- 78 43 38 33 09 09 08 23 --- 109 57 50 44 11 10 09 30 --- 142 70 62 54 12 11 10 36
47 28 25 22 07 07 06 16 --- 79 43 39 34 10 09 08 24 --- 111 58 51 45 11 10 09 31 --- 143 70 62 54 12 11 10 37
48 29 25 22 07 07 06 16 --- 80 44 39 34 10 09 08 24 --- 112 58 52 45 11 10 09 31 --- 144 70 62 55 12 11 10 37
49 29 26 23 08 07 07 16 --- 81 44 39 35 10 09 08 24 --- 113 58 52 45 11 10 09 31 --- 145 71 63 55 12 11 10 37
50 29 26 23 08 07 07 17 --- 82 45 40 35 10 09 08 24 --- 114 59 52 46 11 10 09 31 --- 146 71 63 55 12 11 10 37
51 30 27 23 08 07 07 17 --- 83 45 40 35 10 09 08 25 --- 115 59 53 46 11 10 09 31 --- 147 72 64 56 12 11 10 37
52 30 27 24 08 07 07 17 --- 84 46 41 36 10 09 08 25 --- 116 60 53 46 11 10 09 32 --- 148 72 64 56 12 11 10 37
53 31 28 24 08 07 07 17 --- 85 46 41 36 10 09 08 25 --- 117 60 53 47 11 10 09 32 --- 149 72 64 56 12 11 10 38
54 32 28 25 08 07 07 18 --- 86 47 42 36 10 09 08 25 --- 118 60 54 47 11 10 09 32 --- 150 73 65 57 12 11 10 38
55 32 28 25 08 07 07 18 --- 87 47 42 37 10 09 08 26 --- 119 61 54 47 11 10 09 32 --- 151 73 65 57 12 11 10 38
56 32 29 25 08 08 07 18 --- 88 48 42 37 10 09 08 26 --- 120 61 54 48 11 10 10 32 --- 152 73 65 57 12 11 10 38
57 33 29 26 08 08 07 18 --- 89 48 43 38 10 09 08 26 --- 121 62 55 48 11 10 10 32 --- 153 74 66 57 12 11 10 38
58 33 30 26 08 08 07 19 --- 90 49 43 38 10 09 09 26 --- 122 62 55 48 11 10 10 33 --- 154 74 66 58 12 11 10 39
59 34 30 27 08 08 07 19 --- 91 49 44 38 10 09 09 26 --- 123 63 56 49 11 10 10 33 --- 155 74 66 58 12 11 10 39
60 35 31 27 08 08 07 19 --- 92 49 44 38 10 09 09 27 --- 124 63 56 49 11 10 10 33 --- 156 75 66 58 12 11 10 39
61 35 31 27 08 08 07 19 --- 93 50 44 39 10 09 09 27 --- 125 63 56 49 11 10 10 33 --- 157 75 67 58 12 11 10 39
62 36 32 28 09 08 07 20 --- 94 50 45 39 10 09 09 27 --- 126 64 56 50 11 11 10 34 --- 158 76 67 59 12 11 10 39
63 36 32 28 09 08 07 20 --- 95 51 45 39 10 10 09 27 --- 127 64 57 50 11 11 10 34 --- 159 76 67 59 12 11 11 39
64 36 32 28 09 08 07 20 --- 96 51 45 40 10 10 09 27 --- 128 64 57 50 12 11 10 34 --- 160 76 68 59 12 11 11 39
65 37 33 29 09 08 07 20 --- 97 52 46 40 10 10 09 28 --- 129 65 58 50 12 11 10 34 --- 161 76 68 59 12 11 11 40
66 38 33 29 09 08 07 21 --- 98 52 46 40 10 10 09 28 --- 130 65 58 51 12 11 10 34 --- 162 77 68 60 12 11 11 40
67 38 34 29 09 08 08 21 --- 99 53 47 41 10 10 09 28 --- 131 65 58 51 12 11 10 34 --- 163 77 69 60 12 11 11 40
68 38 34 30 09 08 08 21 --- 100 53 47 41 10 10 09 28 --- 132 66 58 51 12 11 10 34 --- 164 78 69 60 12 11 11 40
69 39 34 30 09 08 08 21 --- 101 54 48 42 10 10 09 29 --- 133 66 59 52 12 11 10 35 --- 165 78 69 61 12 11 11 40
70 39 35 31 09 08 08 22 --- 102 54 48 42 11 10 09 29 --- 134 67 59 52 12 11 10 35 --- 166 79 70 61 13 12 11 41
71 40 36 31 09 08 08 22 --- 103 54 48 42 11 10 09 29 --- 135 67 60 52 12 11 10 35

MarvelMan

Phaserhawk wrote:

homeinvasion wrote:

I should know this by now but how do you work out when to stop leveling a character so another character tanks for them? Its an expensive mistake if you go too far.

I've never been a big fan of this strategy. The reason being it's only temporary. Eventually they will come out with a character you will want to play in conjunctin with another that you were purposefully underleveling, and that one will tank regardless, not to mention they could just switch the color or tile strength as they see fit. There are enough characters now you can pretty much get around this. Want someone to tank for Hood, use Black Panther, don't want him, then use Captain America/Psylocke and keep him covered. There are so many more options now I just don't see this being an optimal strategy. I would rather have the extra power and hit points than someone tanking. And in PvP and the boosted characters it many times doesn't matter.

If they didnt jack with the power of chars so much (sounds wrong to say given how long they take) it would be viable. I had Hood perfectly underleveled before they upped the cap to 166, which screwed me. If they allowed down leveling (even w/o iso refund) it would introduce SOOOO much more strategy, like the kind they took away by bastardizing CMags blue.

Unknown

The Hood is the only character I can think of where you don't want to be high level to match, but since he has literally no HPs it's a significant risk in PvP, and he's not quite as good as he is in PvE because his strength is in defense which never happens in PvE. Right now the only character I'd consider underleveling is X Force where you need to keep him such that he doesn't have the strongest match on your team for the X Force mirror matches.

homeinvasion

Nonce Equitaur 2 wrote:

Here's a leveling chart for 3* characters.
166 79 70 61 13 12 11 41

Thanks Nonce, you're the resident guru, this is kinda beyond my pay grade if you will.

Does this mean for every character at 166 they have a match damage of 79, then 70 etc and this match damage is what determines who is tanking, nothing to do with abilities; therefore If I want one character to tank a color I need to ensure the weaker character stops below this match damage threshold?

E.g. if I have two characters with blue, the one I want to tank it is on 70 match damage at 166 (so their second strongest match damage), and the weaker character has blue for their strong color I need to stop them at level 141 so that their match damage stops at 69?

Also I can have two 166 that use same color in the same order but I need to then place them middle, left then right before I enter the game?

Also if I have 2 characters that have 79 for blue at 166 I can stop one of them at 165 and the other will tank?

Sorry to bombard you

Unknown

Your analysis is correct. Tanking is based solely on match damage for color matches. In cases of a tie there are clever things you can do to get who you want out front. The only character so far with an ability to override this mechanism is Colossus who always tanks when his yellow tile is out.

A warning, when Character B is buffed, their bonus match damage will put them over Character A. The gap is so wide it's pretty much impossible to plan around. Whenever the Hood is buffed he tanks blue for me, no mater what I try.

Unknown

This is an interesting discussion, but I initially misunderstood the intended question in the topic headline. So, I'd like to ask a different question, but literally related to the topic of "when to stop leveling".

I have seen a wide variety of practices amongst veterans in their approach in leveling of their 3* characters. Some level their 3* characters to level 166, others stop at 130, and others I've seen stopping at 110-115. A common rationale of those not leveling to 166 is that they are concerned with crossing some threshold in the game (related to MMR) where the nodes in their PVP will permanently become much more difficult (reminiscent of the wall of 166 level enemies many encounter above a PVP score of 600-700), since you can't unlevel your chars.

Has some definitive opinion on this been developed?

My questions would more specifically be,
a. is there a threshold of some sort where leveling your characters (or a group of them) beyond it causes a decisive change in node difficulty?
b. if yes, what level, or what average level of your roster does the threshold appear to be?
c. is there a consensus on whether it is undebatably better to level your 3* chars to level 166?
d. if yes, what is the consensus?

homeinvasion

camichan wrote:

This is an interesting discussion, but I initially misunderstood the intended question in the topic headline. So, I'd like to ask a different question, but literally related to the topic of "when to stop leveling".

I have seen a wide variety of practices amongst veterans in their approach in leveling of their 3* characters. Some level their 3* characters to level 166, others stop at 130, and others I've seen stopping at 110-115. A common rationale of those not leveling to 166 is that they are concerned with crossing some threshold in the game (related to MMR) where the nodes in their PVP will permanently become much more difficult (reminiscent of the wall of 166 level enemies many encounter above a PVP score of 600-700), since you can't unlevel your chars.

Has some definitive opinion on this been developed?

My questions would more specifically be,
a. is there a threshold of some sort where leveling your characters (or a group of them) beyond it causes a decisive change in node difficulty?
b. if yes, what level, or what average level of your roster does the threshold appear to be?
c. is there a consensus on whether it is undebatably better to level your 3* chars to level 166?
d. if yes, what is the consensus?

I think you will find most of this is urban legend, there is no character threshold where you get chucked into the wall of 166, that is all MMR or a magical rating, MMR basically works based on your wins. In theory you could get a new account spend millions of dollars and take 3 X 166 into PVP, you would at first be stomping all these 1 star teams but your rating would go up so fast so quickly you would soon be matched to the wall of 166. You are talking about the other tanking, which is where you deliberately tank a game, or lose as many as possible so that your MMR goes down and the opponents you face become easier. They have tried to get away from this practice as it creates unfair match ups, and it doesn't really work that well any more.

In summation there is no level barrier that puts you into a higher bracket, it is your win/ loss ratio.

homeinvasion

Would this work?:

166 Patch 3/5/5 61/ 70/ 13/ 12/ 79/ 11
140 IM40 1/5/5 61/ 69/ 54/ 12/ 11/ 10
140 Cap Marvel 3/5/5 61/ 69/ 11/ 10/ 12/ 52

It all leverages off Best there is for 14 , as long as Patch is center he has icons on 4/7 tiles (he would tank Team Up too but not sure if that would count to his damage. 4/7 tiles = 57%
64 tiles on the board X an average of 57% =37 tiles with his icon.
37 tiles X 216 damage per tile = 7,992 damage (which one shots most characters)

Let patch tank all the incidental match damage, his 5 yellow will regenerate it next turn
If I keep Iron mans at 1 it means I can turn 6 into 9
Save black matches for any time the AI has the AP for an ability you chuck Captain Marvel under the bus, and her yellow gets you 5 ,

Do these one trick ponies work? I think on defense the AI would use the red for Captain Marvel so no good.Also a red starved board you are kind of paying 3 health packs.

Unknown

People used to try to setup levels to optimize tanking but that got ruined by the level shift, and the true healing characters are relatively weaker now compared to back then (Patch lost Magneto's help, Daken got weaker) which further reduces the incentive to do this. It's hard to imagine in PvP any advantage gained by tanking optimization that wouldn't be outweighted by the fact that your guys happen to look more attractive than any 166X3 team. For PvE tanking optimization could make sense but PvE has more unpredictable character buffs as well (far more than one person is buffed per PvE event).

A level 166 character that's boosted in PvP will always tank all his colors compared to unboosted characters. This is quite problematic when that character is say, The Hood, so much that in some cases it can be argued to be somewhat disadvantageous because The Hood can't possibly be tanking around 5 colors out of 7 (his colors, team up, and anything rest of your team isn't strong on) even with a level boost.

Unknown

homeinvasion wrote:

Would this work?:

166 Patch 3/5/5 61/ 70/ 13/ 12/ 79/ 11
140 IM40 1/5/5 61/ 69/ 54/ 12/ 11/ 10
140 Cap Marvel 3/5/5 61/ 69/ 11/ 10/ 12/ 52

It all leverages off Best there is for 14 , as long as Patch is center he has icons on 4/7 tiles (he would tank Team Up too but not sure if that would count to his damage. 4/7 tiles = 57%
64 tiles on the board X an average of 57% =37 tiles with his icon.
37 tiles X 216 damage per tile = 7,992 damage (which one shots most characters)

Let patch tank all the incidental match damage, his 5 yellow will regenerate it next turn
If I keep Iron mans at 1 it means I can turn 6 into 9
Save black matches for any time the AI has the AP for an ability you chuck Captain Marvel under the bus, and her yellow gets you 5 ,

Do these one trick ponies work? I think on defense the AI would use the red for Captain Marvel so no good.Also a red starved board you are kind of paying 3 health packs.

The chart doesn't show decimal places so unless you've someone with the characters leveled exactly the same way to verify it's probably too risky. The only case where two color strengths are exactly equal is same tier and same level. Every other case there is potentially a decimal place that you cannot see that makes one of the numbers higher than other even if they appear to be equal.

Teamup doesn't count for TBTI.

Patching tanking a lot of colors works when your roster is weak. It stops being effective once your characters are all level 166, and although Patch/Daken are both powerful, it is almost never worth it to purposely keep another strong character underleveled just for that because in PvP people prefer the guy with the lowest level if all else is equal. You might be able to form some kind of specialized PvE but Falcon + Daken pretty much trumps any other specialized PvE team so there's not much point.

homeinvasion

Yea good point, I had myself convinced to go do this, but the weak defense of the team comp AND the lower level characters would make you too tasty a target and you couldn't possibly outwin the negative points. Thanks guys

Sandmaker

With colossus's black, I've been playing around with the idea of using under leveled characters with whole abilities missing to guarantee good throws. For example, Thor or Deadpool without red. Hood without black.

It'll keep them maxed out at 140, but it makes his black quite an incredible ability. I'm don't have the exact number, but I think with a purple only deadpool, even stuck at 140, the throw will be be stronger than Rage of Panther at 166.

Yeah, bit gimmicky, but could be fun.

Spoit

Phantron wrote:

The Hood is the only character I can think of where you don't want to be high level to match, but since he has literally no HPs it's a significant risk in PvP, and he's not quite as good as he is in PvE because his strength is in defense which never happens in PvE. Right now the only character I'd consider underleveling is X Force where you need to keep him such that he doesn't have the strongest match on your team for the X Force mirror matches.

Not entirely true. Back then, you could underlevel laken by only a few levels (losing about 300 HP and like 2 damage per strike tile) to let OBW still take blue and purple. laken/falcon shredded even faster like that, especially against goons

Unknown

Gimmicky works best in PvE, where no one will retailiate against you and you don't have to rely on the AI using your Fastball gimmick.

I am currently debating if I want to add the black cover I won from this weeks Deadpool to my all red Punisher who is level 40. His sole goal in life is to stand behind Thor and hit people for 40% of their health.

homeinvasion

Sandmaker wrote:

With colossus's black, I've been playing around with the idea of using under leveled characters with whole abilities missing to guarantee good throws. For example, Thor or Deadpool without red. Hood without black.

It'll keep them maxed out at 140, but it makes his black quite an incredible ability. I'm don't have the exact number, but I think with a purple only deadpool, even stuck at 140, the throw will be be stronger than Rage of Panther at 166.

Yeah, bit gimmicky, but could be fun.

My brain hurts, if colossus had his yellow up would Deadpool still jump in front?

Unknown

homeinvasion wrote:

I think you will find most of this is urban legend, there is no character threshold where you get chucked into the wall of 166, that is all MMR or a magical rating, MMR basically works based on your wins. In theory you could get a new account spend millions of dollars and take 3 X 166 into PVP, you would at first be stomping all these 1 star teams but your rating would go up so fast so quickly you would soon be matched to the wall of 166. You are talking about the other tanking, which is where you deliberately tank a game, or lose as many as possible so that your MMR goes down and the opponents you face become easier. They have tried to get away from this practice as it creates unfair match ups, and it doesn't really work that well any more.

In summation there is no level barrier that puts you into a higher bracket, it is your win/ loss ratio.

Somehow my first reply didn't go through, so I'm sorry if this is a repeat.

One of the vets I discussed your comment with suggested that maintaining lower levels on your chars, as opposed to 166, limits PVE node difficulty from getting out of control. Does anyone else share this observation?

My questions here are intended to be separate from the topic of tanking, which I agree lowers node difficulty. This is a question of how character/roster level may additionally influence (PVP and/or PVE) node difficulty.

homeinvasion

Wish I had the answer mate, sorry IDK. I think it is all kept quiet so no one can game the system.