Where are the 2*->3* transitioning teams in PvP?

Unknown

I don't really understand why there isn't a gradual increase in levels of opponents as you earn more points in PvP. As soon as you hit 600 points, the levels of teams immediately jump from all 94s to all 166s (with the occasional XF at some random level in there).

It seems weird that I never see any teams in the same position as I am, with a few characters at level 100-120. They are generally comparable in effectiveness to the maxed 2* guys, so why don't I ever see any?

stryke

I'm in kind of the same place you are (One lvl 166, a few others around lvl 110) and honestly I see them enough to know that they're out there. Sure they're not super common and after 600 I tend to hit the same wall of death, but before that I do see quite a few other teams with a mix of random levelling 3*s paired up with maxed 2*s.

Unknown

CardinalBiggles wrote:

I don't really understand why there isn't a gradual increase in levels of opponents as you earn more points in PvP. As soon as you hit 600 points, the levels of teams immediately jump from all 94s to all 166s (with the occasional XF at some random level in there).

It seems weird that I never see any teams in the same position as I am, with a few characters at level 100-120. They are generally comparable in effectiveness to the maxed 2* guys, so why don't I ever see any?

Your MMR is too bad for that. Everybody sees all 166s at 600s. The difference is that other people are fighting unmaxed 3 Stars while you are fighting 2 Stars.

I am at 381 and those are my 3 nodes.

http://i.imgur.com/P4GPMfS.png
http://i.imgur.com/TxSzq00.png
http://i.imgur.com/Gu7puyd.png

Unknown

PPPlaya wrote:

Your MMR is too bad for that. Everybody sees all 166s at 600s. The difference is that other people are fighting unmaxed 3 Stars while you are fighting 2 Stars.

Oh well. I guess that's what happens when you refuse to tank. It just seems too much like cheating to me, though.

Edit: Oh wait. "Too bad" as in I'm facing easier opponents. I see. Mind you, I'd prefer to see a bit of variation. Oh look, it's Ares and OBW, or Ares and Thor, or Ares and someone else again.

MarvelMan

Its possible you are at a bit of an inversion in MMR as level 100 3*s are easier (weaker) than maxed 2*s. So you could be slightly above the slightly leveled 3* MMR.

The "wall" at which people run into 3x 166s has fluctuated a bit recently, sometimes as high as 800 (I think) but its currently down to 600.

There seems to be another change at 900 (or 1000) where you start getting more high point matches from people hopping. At 940 in the last PVP I cycled through over 50 people, then just pushed past 1000. Once there, I started getting 47, 48 and 50 point matches every other skip.

Unknown

MarvelMan wrote:

Its possible you are at a bit of an inversion in MMR as level 100 3*s are easier (weaker) than maxed 2*s. So you could be slightly above the slightly leveled 3* MMR.

The "wall" at which people run into 3x 166s has fluctuated a bit recently, sometimes as high as 800 (I think) but its currently down to 600.

There seems to be another change at 900 (or 1000) where you start getting more high point matches from people hopping. At 940 in the last PVP I cycled through over 50 people, then just pushed past 1000. Once there, I started getting 47, 48 and 50 point matches every other skip.

900 points seems like a pipe dream at the moment. I can maybe win 1 match in 3 against 166s, and I just get retaliated to death anyway. Tricky. Most of the time I'm just happy to stick around 600 points.

MarvelMan

Dont worry, you will get there (eventually). Its definitely a grind to make it through the 2* -> 3* transition but it is doable. Hopefully they tweak a few things to make it easier, without tipping things to punish you once you get there.

Ironically, I managed to "tank" into the transitioning MMR range. I joined the last PVP early, rush up and then took enough lumps that my MMR plummeted. Wishing you were here.

ZeroKarma

I'm wondering the same thing. I tried something different with this Blade PvP. I joined immediately since I'm in Asia, and figured the competition might be a little bit lower starting at midnight US time. It worked and I jumped up pretty fast and am right under 800.

Problem is, there are no transitioning teams. My A squad is L140 LCap and L140 Hood, with an L130 Sentry for low-scale bombing. I would expect to at least see several teams that are running something like that, but I haven't. Everything is max 166's and, more often than not, a 270 XForce. Surely I'm not the highest ranked transitioning player.

If there is a huge glut of people transitioning, then we should see each other once in a while. I can't believe that everyone is shielded all the time. And when I get hit and look for retals, I'm not getting hit by transitioning guys eithe. They are the same max guys from before. So it is either 166's or 94's. The 94's are easy and the 166's are difficult to hit quickly without tricks.

To make matters worse, the opponents in my queue are all at LOWER points than I am, so if I break shield I can't jump quickly. It's not a good return.

I don't understand the concept of tanking in this case. Won't I still have to face the same opponents when I hit 700 points? Unless you mean tank in the Sim and lower my MMR there.

By the way, any suggestions on 3* 166 teams that are easier to go after than others? Otherwise, I'm just going to hide behind my shields until I can get these guys maxed.

SnowcaTT

I asked this question around season 1, someone replied "there aren't very many transitioning teams".

Here this many seasons later I'm still barely transitioning (several 120's), and I still rarely (almost never) see transition teams. All 94's to all 166's, just bizarre. MMR/sharding was complained about then as being broken, and now is more broken than ever - before it was possible for transitioning teams (my alliance has several) to get to 700 and top-25 on a semi-regular basis; now that's become difficult to impossible.

Unknown

There is definitely some mystery to the 166 wall at around 600.

I'm transitional fronting chars between lvl 130-150. I'm at ~780 pts right now in High Stakes and I still see some transitional teams in my nodes (saw ~110 Colossus/BP, some ~130 Lcap/Hulk and an Ares/OBW if you can believe it at this range). If I skip through my nodes enough times (~6-12 times), then I start to run into the 166 wall, but if I don't skip more than a few times, I generally see reasonable nodes. I don't tank (I stopped cause it's too boring) but when I did tank it didn't make much difference above the first 300-400 points. It didn't seem to make much difference and I'm starting to wonder if tanking just makes things worse -- waste of time for little to no benefit.

In general though, part of the reason why you see few transitional teams in your nodes is because many of them are shielded. The max X-force/Sentry/Hood/Laken teams go unshielded until 900-1000+ scores (and sometimes they don't shield even then) so you end up seeing lots of them in your queue.

I've been trying to build up my roster rather evenly so as to not upset PVE difficulty, but what I've found is that there is little downside to maxing some chars in your roster above the rest of your roster. To those players that have a large group of their roster at the 120 range, near max covered, I'd seriously recommend leveling up some your key PVP heros (i.e. Sentry/Hood/Laken/Hulk/LCap/Mags/Xforce) to the 140-166 range. PVP got much easier for me once I hit that point. Fewer retals, fewer hits, and you have a decent shot at tackling the 166 wall in a pinch.

I had a more even roster for the first Gauntlet, but I couldn't complete it. I took a risk, leveled a couple key chars above the rest and went with an more uneven roster and managed to finish the Gauntlet 2.0. Raising key chars above the rest was definitely a net positive for me, both in PVP and (fortunately) PVE.

Unknown

ZeroKarma wrote:

By the way, any suggestions on 3* 166 teams that are easier to go after than others? Otherwise, I'm just going to hide behind my shields until I can get these guys maxed.

This is a good question:

I go after Hulk based teams with LCap -- you kill Hulk last, while stunned. (You can also use Cap Marvel black to stun him, but I'd still opt for LCap over her, or roll with both of them is even better!)
I go after LThor or BP teams with Sentry/Hood or LCap/Hood. Hood (5 Blue) makes it take forever for them to get off their powers -- you can Sentry bomb or LCap steamroll them before they get going with some luck.
I go after LDaken with Sentry Bomb or LCap/Hulk. Daken is a pain, but let Hulk soak up Chemical Reaction while you warm up the steamroller. I also carry, if possible, a She-Hulk Settlement TU as a farewell gift to Laken
I go after GSBW for the same reason as LThor. She ramps up slower than you can steamroll her with LCap.
I go after Spidey based teams with LCap/Hulk or Hood. I also carry a Captain Marvel red Photonic Blast TU to wipe his pesky defense tiles.
I go after LCap with Lcap/Hood. "Fight fire with fire!" (air guitar) You want to get your steamroller moving before he gets his moving, hence Hood (or even OBW, but that's a bit more risky)
I go after CMags with LCap. You'll be naturally prioritizing red/blue which has the ancillary benefit of denying him his best AP.
I go for Doom with Capt Marvel/Deadpool or LCap. Have Capt Marvel absorb his Summon Demons to feed DP red for continuous haircuts or a LCap steamroll.
I go after Patch with Hulk. Let him cast BR and watch them eat an avalanche of green jello. It's so ridiculous the cascades that result.

The above are obviously the more preferable fights if you can find them. I'm careful when approaching Xforce (lvl 180+). I typically only go for him with a Sentry bomb, often with boosts, but sometimes with Hulk+something tough (sounds ironic). You need to deny him black and green so that he can't wipe the board with cascades while you're setting up your WR, and his low ability costs make it a bit dicey. Since he can wipe Hulk pretty badly, you want to have something powerful behind Hulk to attack him with -- just use Hulk as a sponge. BP or LCap or even CMags are possibilities but it will depend on Xforce's level and how he is covered.

I sometimes will go after a max Sentry Hood, but again, often only with a Sentry bomb with boosts, though a good Hulk team can make Sentry eat crow after a failed WR.

You can see that my game rests heavily on LCap, Sentry, Hood, and Hulk. Definitely keystones in any PVP roster -- The Breakfast of Champions.

Unknown

It might be because transitioning, unmaxed 3* guys, are used rarely. After I got a few 3* to above level 100, I tried them and played with them in various events which opened me to a lot more retaliations and losses compared to my maxed 2* team. The level shift helped a bit but they are still inferior to maxed 2*s without some of their abilities maxed I concurred.

Wonko33

My main guy is patch

I go patch - cmags against a team that needs a member removed quickly (sentry, hood, spidey) or a team I can't aoe (hulk)

I go with my RAGE team, patch - bp for others, patch takes the damage, then Berserk rage followed by rage of panther

nobody bothers me until 700-800, easy matches for me, no attacks, no retaliations.

Then I have found that past 700-800, i use less ISO buying green-black boosts then skipping forever for a favorable match.

I know bp is not super on D, but I don't care anymore because any team can just beat you with boosts anyway. I don't score high enough be worth it for the Sentry bombers shield hoppers , and patch bp 166 scares away a lot of people below me- I aim for top 25, get the extra from the alliance, call it a day. Haven't hit top 10 on regular basis ever since changes to matchmaking.

Rusalka

Apparently, the answer to "where are the transitioning teams" is "right here in my queue." I'm sitting at just over 700 pts, and the last 5 teams I saw were:

L94 ** Thor and L147 Devil Dino
L141 Punisher and L153 Lazy Cap
L94 ** Thor and L142 Hulk
L166 Lazy Cap and L94 OBW
L140 Patch and L140 Hulk

The handful of teams I got before that were all similar, except at the very beginning when I had a run of cStorm/MNMags teams.

The question is, why am I getting these guys? I have plenty of L166 characters. Is it because my Hood is only L105? If so, maybe I should leave him there.

Unknown

CardinalBiggles wrote:

Edit: Oh wait. "Too bad" as in I'm facing easier opponents. I see. Mind you, I'd prefer to see a bit of variation. Oh look, it's Ares and OBW, or Ares and Thor, or Ares and someone else again.

Rofl...

I see the variety above "Ares"...
I can choose X-Force and Daken. Or Daken and X-Force. Or X-Force and Hood. Or X-Force and you choose one... Probably, next thing wont be X-Force, but most likely Sentry... Hooray for the change!

Unknown

Transitioning teams...that would be nice. I got up to 787 on this PVP using 83 Blade/166 Hulk/140 Cap (my highest leveled characters), and now my three matchups, after skipping nothing but maxed characters:

60 Blade/166 GSBW/166 CMags (feel as if I can beat that team)
60 Blade/94 2* Daken/166 LThor (think I can beat them too)
60 Blade/166 LThor/270 XForce (Not a chance in hell)

And that's after skipping two Sentry/Hood maxed teams.

ScrubJay

I see my fair share of transition teams until I hit the wall at 700 points. Mostly 3* Caps, Thor's, and Hulks around 114/127. They can hold themselves well at those levels. Other 3*'s tend to be too squishy or not effective enough without enough covers.

ZeroKarma

As if in answer to my question, I was able to find some transition teams and made two shield hops. Would have had 900 points for the first time, but I forgot to use Sacrifice before one of my World Ruptures and had to retreat. Got to 896, and while I would have loved to get that shiny token at 900, I'm pretty satisfied with how I did.

You know, people have questioned whether Sentry was developed and allowed to run wild so that people would buy HP for shield hopping and boosts, but what I think is just as important is that you can run a L130 Sentry like I have and still beat some of the big teams (though I avoid Hulk like the plague). I have 5 green and only 1 yellow, but that is enough to take out the mid-hit point characters like Patch and Daken. For transitioning, he and Hood make it possible to place top 25 without a maxed roster.

BTW - On my failed Sacrifice attempt, I probably could have tried to continue, but a high level Blade, paired with a L166 Daken is evil with a lot of red on the board. There were strike tiles everywhere!

_RiO_

I have had a consistent jump from lvl 70-80 2-star teams to lvl 166 3-star teams at 510 points for the last 4 PvP events.
My MMR is tanked low enough that I don't even get maxed 2-stars in my lineups, but I still jump straight into maxed 3-stars...

I don't know what Demiurge has been doing, but they should one-eighty whatever it was.

Phumade

ZeroKarma wrote:

I'm wondering the same thing. I tried something different with this Blade PvP. I joined immediately since I'm in Asia, and figured the competition might be a little bit lower starting at midnight US time. It worked and I jumped up pretty fast and am right under 800.

Problem is, there are no transitioning teams. My A squad is L140 LCap and L140 Hood, with an L130 Sentry for low-scale bombing. I would expect to at least see several teams that are running something like that, but I haven't. Everything is max 166's and, more often than not, a 270 XForce. Surely I'm not the highest ranked transitioning player.

If there is a huge glut of people transitioning, then we should see each other once in a while. I can't believe that everyone is shielded all the time. And when I get hit and look for retals, I'm not getting hit by transitioning guys eithe. They are the same max guys from before. So it is either 166's or 94's. The 94's are easy and the 166's are difficult to hit quickly without tricks.

To make matters worse, the opponents in my queue are all at LOWER points than I am, so if I break shield I can't jump quickly. It's not a good return.

I don't understand the concept of tanking in this case. Won't I still have to face the same opponents when I hit 700 points? Unless you mean tank in the Sim and lower my MMR there.

By the way, any suggestions on 3* 166 teams that are easier to go after than others? Otherwise, I'm just going to hide behind my shields until I can get these guys maxed.

No such thing as tanking after 700 points. It's always some combination of 166. The more rare combination is two 166s and a 60 loaner char. At that pint you know there roster is underpowered. I had already won 8 blade covers before the pvpi had even started. 4 from pve and 4 from the prior pvp

MarvelMan

Phumade wrote:

The more rare combination is two 166s and a 60 loaner char. At that pint you know there roster is underpowered. I had already won 8 blade covers before the pvpi had even started. 4 from pve and 4 from the prior pvp

This isnt a true blanket statement. Even with an overpowered roster there are a couple reasons for leaving chars at 60 (which would only appear to be a loaner) or even using the loaner.