Developing a Deep Roster
FaerieMyst
Posts: 319 Mover and Shaker
About six months ago, back when I was transitioning from 2* to 3* land, I made the decision to develop a deep roster. I'm very happy with that decision and thought I would share my reasoning and methodology for those of a similar bent.
Reasoning:
1. Sometime I want to play. . . and play . . .and play. I don't want to wait for characters to heal. I don't want want to pay for healing. I just want to play.
2. I have a low boredom threshold. I don't want to play the same characters all the time.
3. Optimization. By being able to play a wide range of characters, you can pick the best counter to any set of opponents. For example, against Bullseye or Spiderman, Captain Marvel is effective at removing protect tiles.
4. I am very competitive and a deep roster gives me an advantage.
5. Having a deep roster means you never depend on one or two characters. This makes it a lot easier to weather nerfs and changes. You have to adjust to changes but they won't destroy your playing style.
Methodology
1. Maximize where you are. If you have fully covered two stars, get them fully leveled before worrying about leveling up your three stars. You can do a lot with a roster of fully leveled two stars. They are the foundation for building your three star roster.
2. Understand the full range of the character. I generally divide character attacks into four categories: damage, board disruption, AP changer, passive support. Damage and board disruption are obvious. AP changer is a character that either acquires AP for you or takes it from the opponent. Passive support is in the form of special tiles. All characters do multiple things and often how you configure the character will determine their primary use. When I create a team, I want every category represented as much as possible.
3. Give featured characters a genuine try. This means figuring out how to work them into a team. Sometimes it can take a while to figure how a character fits into your style - and maybe they don't - but if you don't give it a real try, you won't really know. Often it is difficult to see the full potential of a character until they have most of their covers and are at least 2/3 of the way to full level.
4. Use the featured character to learn how that character fits into your roster. Don't just pick two other characters to play with it. Pick pairs that will work and them rotate them in play as much as possible. My goal in PVP is to only have to heal the featured character. When a character has more than an hour's damage, I rotate them out. This will usually let you play quite a while before you have to wait for more healing.
5. Judge for yourself whether a character works for you. I see a lot of pronouncements by people that one character is essential or one character is garbage. Who defines that? Having a deep roster means you don't have to have perfect characters. You need characters that can make your perfect team.
6. Know when to sell a character. Unless you are looking for a roster of everyone (which has some appeal), sell characters you don't play with. This may be because you simply don't like the character or because the character has been replaced by someone bigger and better. I sold Ares because I don't like playing him. I sold 2* Thor when I had 3* Thor fully covered - and used the ISO from the sale to level the 3* character.
7. Use PVP as a way to focus on a character, both in learning it and leveling it. Any rewards from a PVP go into the next featured character. During the PVP, the rewards go into the current character. It takes time but as you level up a character, you see better how it can fit in your roster. As you play longer, you will repeat they featured character cycle. It's a good time to re-evaluate your covers. Playing styles can change so sometimes adjusting your cover spread is necessary. If you have a PVP where the featured character is fully leveled (play enough and it happens) then use the rewards for the next featured character.
Having a deep roster is a different kind of challenge. It means you are both able to adapt better and you have to adapt as you switch out characters. Sometimes it takes me a while to get a new character. My first time with Psylocke I won more when I wasn't playing than when I was. Now she is one of my favorites. There are very few characters I don't genuinely enjoy playing - and most of them are no longer on my roster.
Reasoning:
1. Sometime I want to play. . . and play . . .and play. I don't want to wait for characters to heal. I don't want want to pay for healing. I just want to play.
2. I have a low boredom threshold. I don't want to play the same characters all the time.
3. Optimization. By being able to play a wide range of characters, you can pick the best counter to any set of opponents. For example, against Bullseye or Spiderman, Captain Marvel is effective at removing protect tiles.
4. I am very competitive and a deep roster gives me an advantage.
5. Having a deep roster means you never depend on one or two characters. This makes it a lot easier to weather nerfs and changes. You have to adjust to changes but they won't destroy your playing style.
Methodology
1. Maximize where you are. If you have fully covered two stars, get them fully leveled before worrying about leveling up your three stars. You can do a lot with a roster of fully leveled two stars. They are the foundation for building your three star roster.
2. Understand the full range of the character. I generally divide character attacks into four categories: damage, board disruption, AP changer, passive support. Damage and board disruption are obvious. AP changer is a character that either acquires AP for you or takes it from the opponent. Passive support is in the form of special tiles. All characters do multiple things and often how you configure the character will determine their primary use. When I create a team, I want every category represented as much as possible.
3. Give featured characters a genuine try. This means figuring out how to work them into a team. Sometimes it can take a while to figure how a character fits into your style - and maybe they don't - but if you don't give it a real try, you won't really know. Often it is difficult to see the full potential of a character until they have most of their covers and are at least 2/3 of the way to full level.
4. Use the featured character to learn how that character fits into your roster. Don't just pick two other characters to play with it. Pick pairs that will work and them rotate them in play as much as possible. My goal in PVP is to only have to heal the featured character. When a character has more than an hour's damage, I rotate them out. This will usually let you play quite a while before you have to wait for more healing.
5. Judge for yourself whether a character works for you. I see a lot of pronouncements by people that one character is essential or one character is garbage. Who defines that? Having a deep roster means you don't have to have perfect characters. You need characters that can make your perfect team.
6. Know when to sell a character. Unless you are looking for a roster of everyone (which has some appeal), sell characters you don't play with. This may be because you simply don't like the character or because the character has been replaced by someone bigger and better. I sold Ares because I don't like playing him. I sold 2* Thor when I had 3* Thor fully covered - and used the ISO from the sale to level the 3* character.
7. Use PVP as a way to focus on a character, both in learning it and leveling it. Any rewards from a PVP go into the next featured character. During the PVP, the rewards go into the current character. It takes time but as you level up a character, you see better how it can fit in your roster. As you play longer, you will repeat they featured character cycle. It's a good time to re-evaluate your covers. Playing styles can change so sometimes adjusting your cover spread is necessary. If you have a PVP where the featured character is fully leveled (play enough and it happens) then use the rewards for the next featured character.
Having a deep roster is a different kind of challenge. It means you are both able to adapt better and you have to adapt as you switch out characters. Sometimes it takes me a while to get a new character. My first time with Psylocke I won more when I wasn't playing than when I was. Now she is one of my favorites. There are very few characters I don't genuinely enjoy playing - and most of them are no longer on my roster.
0
Comments
-
You took the words right out of my mouth
. (except the part about certain characters not being on your roster anymore)
I dont have to buy health packs to keep playing when i can just swap out the injured character and play some more. Also the part about using the perfect counter for a specific character. Like Loki to counter Patch's Berserker. Sometimes I've heard people say they don't like Loki, or that Loki is usless. Which, honestly, he's not all that good, BUT, he has saved me from Patch, Bullseye, Daken, Falcon and others many times. IMO, every single character in the game can be useful in the right situation. Having a deep roster means you can be prepared for just about anything, just about.
And I really, Really enjoy trying "unusual" combos. And since I'm nothing more than a big nerd with a big imagination and "low boredom threshold", (same as you), I have a tendency to make up my own private little stories in my head. (god knows the stories in the game are getting stale). Having a bunch of different characters makes it more interesting. I even use characters that don't work well together just because I think it might be fun. Of course I tend to lose a lot of those matches, but I'm not playing those to win, I'm playing them for fun. The way I see it, the more characters I have, the more choices I have. The more choices I have, the more fun I have.0 -
I agree with everything you said except optimization. Unfortunately, due to the retaliation and v defense team system, I too often forced to choose between the best/most fun team for a certain fight and the best guard against retals and/or which defensive team I want to show in opponents' nodes.
I could freely focus only on the best/most fun teams if, and only if, they would improve the defense and retal system.0 -
I never worry about offense vs defense. I find that if I put together a well rounded team in a PVP, I usually do okay.
I love the SHIELD PVP for playing around. I love to play Hulk and She-Hulk together for all the smashing.
It's fun to think about what would happen if certain characters were really together. I often play Loki and Patch together. Just imagine how much Patch would hate Loki. It would be fabulous.0 -
while the overall concept of your post is spot on I just had to comment on this.FaerieMyst wrote:6. Know when to sell a character. Unless you are looking for a roster of everyone (which has some appeal), sell characters you don't play with. This may be because you simply don't like the character or because the character has been replaced by someone bigger and better. I sold Ares because I don't like playing him. I sold 2* Thor when I had 3* Thor fully covered - and used the ISO from the sale to level the 3* character.
The correct answer to this is hardly ever.
The only characters you should ever sell are Yelena, Bagman, maybe Bullseye and 1*Hawkeye, and even Hawkeye is worth keeping around to some extent.
You sold your 2* Thor. I'm sorry to hear that, he's now powered up in the current PVE and is a huge asset to the limited roster team by far and large.
Ares is a monster, period. He is way too good for his stars.
Never sell your 2*s0 -
I agree with a lot of that, except I've kept all my characters. If anything, you never know who you'll need for an essential node down the line, or for use in a Heroic mode. I have all the characters and there are times I've had some crazy but effective combos simply because I've had no more half packs but want to keep going.
Also, I'm just a collector at heart and I like saying I have everyone.
0 -
Logged in just to give a thumbs up to OP
I'm still transitioning but i started out collecting HP to buy roster slots to collect covers. I only sold off some 1* to make room for 3* when i started to get them in PVP and PVE. Sold off 1* Storm and Widow. Do i regret it? A little but not enough to collect them again even with Balance of Power or if they are powered up in PVE. Right now the limitation i have is with iso. Leveling up the higher levels are really expensive.
And i also agree that almost all characters just need to be thought out to make them work with others in a team. And a deep roster helps with that.
Also i hate missing essential nodes in PVE. That's a lasting mental trauma i have from when i first started playing PVE...
0 -
HawkeyeSucks wrote:while the overall concept of your post is spot on I just had to comment on this.FaerieMyst wrote:6. Know when to sell a character. Unless you are looking for a roster of everyone (which has some appeal), sell characters you don't play with. This may be because you simply don't like the character or because the character has been replaced by someone bigger and better. I sold Ares because I don't like playing him. I sold 2* Thor when I had 3* Thor fully covered - and used the ISO from the sale to level the 3* character.
The correct answer to this is hardly ever.
The only characters you should ever sell are Yelena, Bagman, maybe Bullseye and 1*Hawkeye, and even Hawkeye is worth keeping around to some extent.
You sold your 2* Thor. I'm sorry to hear that, he's now powered up in the current PVE and is a huge asset to the limited roster team by far and large.
Ares is a monster, period. He is way too good for his stars.
Never sell your 2*s
I would also keep bagman. He gets a bad rep. But he's really good for what he is designed to do. That is, he's awesome in Heroic PVE's for CD nodes. And yes, I keep him for that because I never know what the reward or roster will be for those PVE's.
I have not sold Yelena or Bullseye...well...because as soon as I do, I'm certain the developers will make her handy. I sold my Juggs and Venom not long before BOP. Yea, never again.0 -
stephen43084 wrote:I agree with everything you said except optimization. Unfortunately, due to the retaliation and v defense team system, I too often forced to choose between the best/most fun team for a certain fight and the best guard against retals and/or which defensive team I want to show in opponents' nodes.
I could freely focus only on the best/most fun teams if, and only if, they would improve the defense and retal system.
Here you make a good point. However, for me, that is exactly what I count on, (one of the things I count on anyway).
I play with a "bad" or "weak" team, just for fun. If I lose then it helps keep my MMR in check. If I win, others will come along a beat my team which also helps with MMR. For me, and my play style, it's a win/win
. I rarely see opponents above level 125 or so. Also, I don't worry about shielding or high scores until the last 4 - 6 hours of an event anyway. Now Shield Sim? I love that. I play around for a few weeks with whatever team I want, using any and all characters because I always wait until the last 2 days to actually start on it. So losing on defense doesn't bother me at all. Right now my Sim score is around 400, ( I think). On the last day, then I will start playing to win, get about 1200 to 1500 points, then shield and do something else.
Also, I like saying I have every characther too. 1 more Loki and I'll be able to say I have 2 of every character. And yes, that means I have 2 Yelenas. Not only do I have them, but I use them too. Which I'm told is a strong indication of MPQ addiction. But I'm Not addicted. I'm NOT. I can quit any time I want to. 0 -
This will sound weird but the only character I ever think about 'restocking' is Bagman. I actually kept 1* Hawkeye. I find him useful from time to time.
My favorite strange combination so far is Loki and Daredevil. The biggest complaint about DD is that his tiles are never in 'convenient' locations. If you saturate the board with his tiles, this is less of an issue. However, having Loki to rearrange the board can be a real advantage.0 -
Agree with everything except 2 things.
Don't sell characters that you have pumped iso into unless there is no other option. There is no reasonable return and they often have uses.
Keep characters at the same level. I am working on getting all my 3 stars to 110, as I collect more covers. At this point, they are stronger than the 2 stars and I can see how they all interact at the same level (who covers what colors, how does damage compare for powers) to be better prepared for how they will interact at 166.0 -
pap07 beat me to it. I would not sell any character, especially Thor and Ares as those guys are great damage dealers.
Great original post though as I am also trying to level up all my characters somewhat equally. When I first started out and was limited on roster space, I would have to sell a stray Daredevil or Iron Man 40 but now I try to keep all covers and use the characters more often (mainly in PVE where experimentation doesn't really cost you). PVP can get tiresome but it does show you that pretty much every character can be good when surrounded by the right supporting cast.0 -
papa07 wrote:Agree with everything except 2 things.
Don't sell characters that you have pumped iso into unless there is no other option. There is no reasonable return and they often have uses.
Keep characters at the same level. I am working on getting all my 3 stars to 110, as I collect more covers. At this point, they are stronger than the 2 stars and I can see how they all interact at the same level (who covers what colors, how does damage compare for powers) to be better prepared for how they will interact at 166.
Yup. Add me to the list. My original plan was to take a bunch of my 3*s from 94 - > 166 in one shot. Given recent threads, I'm reconsidering that strategy, and may go to 124 instead.
I enjoy PvE well more than PvP for the 3-man combinations, and I'd like to not make my 2*s completely obsolete.0 -
It was fun having a deep roster for the Gauntlet too, trying combinations that would defeat some node a delight
I don't see my 2* though, I just can't get rid of bagman either because he was my first 2 stars0 -
The problem is going for variety only matters for an event like Iso 8 Brotherhood where there are only 10 total nodes in two subs combined. Usually there are more than 10 nodes in each sub for the average PvE event and there's more than one of them. When you deal with 15+ nodes which is the norm clearing them quickly is a very big deal. If you're doing a clear every 2H 24M it can take an hour by the time you get to your last node. Even if you're not planning to be optimal it still will take about an hour to clear them all so you don't necessarily want to waste too much time with experimental teams even if you didn't care about your placement.
The only place where this sort of works in Gauntlet where you're not as pressed for clearing quickly though even there, most weak teams have no chance so you might as well not bother, though I did have the high end of scaling so a workable team for others would still be weak for me due to facing up to +80 levels on everything due to X Force's presence. What I found is that I can take 3 random 3*s and still have say a 1 in 3 chance of winning, but again even if not pressed for time doesn't mean you want to be wasting your time.0 -
I too like having a ginormous roster. I have everyone except
which I just can't bring myself to buy a spot for her. Maybe one of these days...hahaha...but yes, it's also very helpful to have a giant roster for tanking. Much easier that way! But I have the compulsive drive to get everyone and max everyone. Maxed 
btw and don't really regret it. They need to buff him more often...but yeah, I wish I could get unlimited resources and just max everyone and have way too much fun with matching teams. 0 -
bahukma wrote:Phantron wrote:...wasting your time.
It's called "play". I personally loved the "kitchen sink" aspect of the Gauntlet.
Having fun is not an excuse to waste time unless your definition of having fun is wasting time. For an event like Gauntlet the level 395s that I face are far out of reach of even a random mix of 166s that there's not much point to bother, and at any rate 3*s need about 5-6 hours to recover after downed and you won't be using health packs on any experimental teams so the number of tries you get is surprisingly few if you were really just throwing 3 random level 166s against the 395s.
It also doesn't help that the change to doing one cycle every 2H 24M greatly reduces the flexibility of your teams because as long as your best team can clear all the nodes that matter in about 4 health packs then there's no reason to vary from it. Back when nodes refreshed in 12 hours, it's difficult for even the strongest team to every everything 3-4 times on 5 health packs when enemy is appropriately scaled so you want to squeeze out as much extra mileage with your lesser teams as possible, and the upshot is that you only have to do this once every 12 hours so you can use literally anyway because even Thor will have generated from 0 to 100% even under the old system where he needed about 9 hours to recover.0 -
Phantron wrote:
Having fun is not an excuse to waste time unless your definition of having fun is wasting time.
It is actually possible to enjoy this game without being insanely competitive.0 -
GrumpySmurf1002 wrote:Phantron wrote:
Having fun is not an excuse to waste time unless your definition of having fun is wasting time.
It is actually possible to enjoy this game without being insanely competitive.
I think what Phantron is trying to say is that having a deep and varied roster isn't going to give you any real advantage in the game as OP suggested. It can definitely make the game funner / more interesting for people, but it's not going to help you place higher in general for PvP / PvE because of how the game currently works, which I agree with for the most part. Being able to stop a Sentry / Daken node with Spidey + protect tiles is pretty fun if theres nothing at stake like the Simulator, but when you're in a time crunch grinding down heroic PvE, C. Mags / X-Force gets the job done a lot more efficiently time wise, and X-Force or Sentry + Hood is essential to not getting hit post 600 points in PvP. If you want to experiment with new teams in either mode, than more power to you, but practically speaking, a large roster doesn't really help you out too much. The only real benefit I see is that it allows you more leeway in PvP when pushing since a high leveled featured character = autoskip for a lot of people, but whether or not it's worth 170k iso to be able to do that every month or so to save some extra HP in shields is questionable.0 -
I don't consider anything that'd purposely put me in a disadvantageous position in PvP or PvE to be fun because doing poorly is not fun. I don't play PvP competitively but this doesn't mean I want to get lit up for running Daredevil + She-Hulk + featured even if that seems like an interesting team to try. Likewise even though I don't care as much about PvE as I used to, this doesn't mean I want to waste even more time trying weak teams that most likely won't clear the nodes since it's hard even for my best teams to beat them with scaling.
There used to be a time where trying a variety of team mattered in PvE because it's awfully hard even with a pre nerf Magneto to beat say the Simulation Hard bracket 3 times on every node on 5 health packs. You really want to squeeze some extra mileage out of your lesser teams to keep Magneto from getting worn out, and in today's environment you definitely can't clear all nodes 3 times reliably in the absence of boosts (and would still be hard with them) so anything extra you get out of your B team is a bonus. But PvE no longer works like that as the optimal strategy is clear every node once every 2H 24M, which is roughly 4 health packs and quite doable for your strongest team.0
Categories
- All Categories
- 44.9K Marvel Puzzle Quest
- 1.5K MPQ News and Announcements
- 20.3K MPQ General Discussion
- 3K MPQ Tips and Guides
- 2K MPQ Character Discussion
- 171 MPQ Supports Discussion
- 2.5K MPQ Events, Tournaments, and Missions
- 2.8K MPQ Alliances
- 6.3K MPQ Suggestions and Feedback
- 6.2K MPQ Bugs and Technical Issues
- 13.7K Magic: The Gathering - Puzzle Quest
- 508 MtGPQ News & Announcements
- 5.4K MtGPQ General Discussion
- 99 MtGPQ Tips & Guides
- 424 MtGPQ Deck Strategy & Planeswalker Discussion
- 300 MtGPQ Events
- 60 MtGPQ Coalitions
- 1.2K MtGPQ Suggestions & Feedback
- 5.7K MtGPQ Bugs & Technical Issues
- 548 Other 505 Go Inc. Games
- 21 Puzzle Quest: The Legend Returns
- 5 Adventure Gnome
- 6 Word Designer: Country Home
- 381 Other Games
- 142 General Discussion
- 239 Off Topic
- 7 505 Go Inc. Forum Rules
- 7 Forum Rules and Site Announcements