So You've Transitioned! Now.....

ZeroKarma

I'm happy to say that I've more or less made the --> transition. When I'm playing PvP, my standard team is a L166 Thor and a L177 X-Force, and I have 3 other 3 that are ready for maxing when the comes around: LazyCap, Psylocke and Hood. I've found that I can beat teams that have a maxed X-Force though I haven't tried two maxed 4 's just yet.

My question is where to go from here now that I have these new toys? I just passed 900 points for the first time and finished second in a PvP in a sparsely populated slice. I'm thinking that I need to get some more max characters so that I can play longer in a session. (Probably also very useful for lightning rounds) Should I get Hood up to 166 next, and is it worth bringing LazyCap up?

It's funny, there are a lot of discussions on how to get past the transition, but not so much about the next step and hitting the top of the leaderboards.

Side question : Running LazyThor and X-Force, does it make sense to wait for CotS or do they immediately hit X-Force when you have enough green?
Question #2 : Is it really necessary at this moment to pump up X-Force further?

Unknown

First, grats on making it!

Second, onto your questions. Xforce / Lthor are a great duo (im assuming you have xforce 5/5/3?) and 8/10 times you will use xforce over cots but there are instances where cots would be better. You can use your own judgement for that, but thors main purpose in the team is for his yellow and reds which when combined with surgical strike.. Well.. Things just die.. Fairly quickly.

It is possible to pass 900 / whatever goal you are trying to reach with only 2 relevant characters, you just can't do it all at once without buying health packs, which I don't recommend. Instead, for now, use all of your non best guys for your climb up to 700 or so. (Whenever you get to the wall and can't progress farther without your own wall). Make sure you hit this goal before 12 hours left for the pvp. Once you hit 750-900, it varies for me, you start to see 40+ point targets which means you are now in shield hop territory. At this point you switch to your best team (thor/xforce) and get as high as you can. This is usually around 1000-1100 since your xforce isn't too scary at his level, maybe alittle lower. Once you start getting attacked more that you are gaining put up your 3 hour shield. Since you didn't start this push untill 12 hours you can now use 3 more shields to get you to whatever goal you are attempting without actually spending extra hp. You get a minimum of 200 hp per pvp, meaning you are spending only 150 or so hp to actually reach your goals. Depending on what kind of time you have, you air up 3 high point targets and wait your shield out, if you can manage it then don't hop untill a few mins remain on the shield, if time doesn't allow for that then it will be slightly more expensive with more shield needed, but you can do it ever 2 hours instead of 3. After being shielded for a few hours your chances of being attavked while hopping go down, but your team isn't fast enough for 3-4 fights so safely take 2 if you can beat them quick enough. Each hop should net you 80-100 points, and you only need your 2 heavy hitters to do it.

More maxed characters mean easier climbs and longer pushes. It doesn't really have any effect on placement or points achieved. Pvp is all about 2+featured and most of the time those 2 don't change. For pvps I pretty much use xforce+ someone (depending on strongest color) + featured. I have 7 maxed 3*s and another 10 or so over 100, but honestly most of it is just unnecessary for pvp, other than for the fun factor of not using the same people.

Unknown

Oh, and sorry, yes cap is an amazing character but he shines in pve not pvp. He's just too slow for pvp, but he can be used for your climb up to 700. Hoods levels are pretty much just all intimidation factors. His true power comes from his blue. But having the extra hp on him is nice. I would not level xforce too much yet untill you have a solid core of 3*s as your scaling in pve will go up due to him, but you won't have the guys to back him up leaving him as your only chance of beating any nodes. Just not fun.

NorthernPolarity

Read that section in my guide regarding this transition. For your specific situation, here's what I think:
XF is ridiculous both PvP and PvE: he is now your core character.
LazyThor is good in PvP, slow in PvE. LazyThor just isn't that great in PvE: red is whatever, yellow is good, green while normally good vs guys your level, is terrible against 395 enemies. The thing about PvE is that it cares a lot more about infinite combo degeneracy (thunder strike helps) and just sustained damage, which Thor doesn't have.

Your priorities from this point are actually pretty easy:
1. Level Hood to 166 - Hood is great in PvE for denying goons AP, and providing a yellow outlet for surgical. Mainly the AP denial. He's also probably the scariest guy to pair XF with on defense outside of LadyThor (XF / LazyThor is not a good defensive deterrent at all), so he's great on both fronts for you.
2. Level Cap to 166 - Cap is only really good in PvE since he's way too slow for PvP, but boy is he good in PvE. He's the definition of sustained damage: red is effectively 2ap for 4k damage given enough time, and blue gives you a ton of stuns over time.

XF / Hood is one of the best PvP duos, XF / Cap / Hood is one of the best PvE teams, it's a no brainer.

The general strategy you should be thinking is to build a diverse roster that is resilent to if you can't use one of the characters. For instance, if for some reason you can't use Wolvie (PvE locked him out, heroics, etc), you want to have a backup team that can still be pretty good. This means having characters that have good abilities in all colors (you have no good purples right now, for instance), and just leveling generally strong characters for that (for the love of god do NOT level Psylocke).

ZeroKarma

Polarity and Biggz, thanks for the reply. Polarity, I read your post about 100 times regarding the transition but I think I stopped at the final part! I expected that making it to this point would take a lot longer and it absolutely would have, but I decided to fork out $$ during the Thanksgiving sale. Looking at the teams I was facing, I realized that I needed an X-Force and that would help me get the prizes to progress further. Chicken and egg meets cash.

X-Force is 5/5/2. I haven't bothered with the 3rd cover for now, since I don't intend on capping him anytime soon. As Biggz mentioned, there have been times when CotS just ends the game, but X-Force is better for serious beats on one or two guys. I was running at 4/5/2, but I'm glad I caved and got that 5th cover. Huge difference.

So, Hood is next and that makes sense. Followed by Cap unless something more fun comes around. Now that I'm at this point and have a team I can ride most of the time, I can pick and choose. (Until Thor's next PvP). When running a 3-man team in simulator is that third guy Hood, though? What's a good 3-man team? I would really like to get someone like Deadpool covered and up to 166 so that I have Whales as an active purple.

ZeroKarma

A couple of other quick notes....

Really too bad about Psylocke. She has a really good, balanced design I think. Couple of quick hitting and persistent damage abilities, who cares about the 3rd. She's at 140 right now, and will stay that way. She is handy in the lightning rounds every other week. Thing is, she isn't weak enough to get a buff, and not strong enough to be a regular. She's in gray territory.

Secondly, if I'm going to be using LazyThor with X-Force, and assume that his green is going to be situational...does it make sense then to re-spec to 5 5 3 ? He is currently 3 5 5

Unknown

ZeroKarma wrote:

A couple of other quick notes....

Really too bad about Psylocke. She has a really good, balanced design I think. Couple of quick hitting and persistent damage abilities, who cares about the 3rd. She's at 140 right now, and will stay that way. She is handy in the lightning rounds every other week. Thing is, she isn't weak enough to get a buff, and not strong enough to be a regular. She's in gray territory.

Secondly, if I'm going to be using LazyThor with X-Force, and assume that his green is going to be situational...does it make sense then to re-spec to 5 5 3 ? He is currently 3 5 5 [/quote

Always go with 355 with LThor. For times when you are not using him with XForce. LThor Red is okay at 5 covers, but there are better Red Abilities out there.

GrumpySmurf1002

ZeroKarma wrote:

Side question : Running LazyThor and X-Force, does it make sense to wait for CotS or do they immediately hit X-Force when you have enough green?
Question #2 : Is it really necessary at this moment to pump up X-Force further?

On question #1:. Mine's at 174, so I'm assuming damage is close. XForce at that level does around 4k damage (3k + tiles + cascades), CotS does ~9k. So technically, CotS does a little more damage per AP, but only if all 3 enemies are alive. Once one enemy is dead, CotS is inferior. It sort of is anyway because hitting two enemies with XForce and generating AP from cascades is generally better than spreading the damage among the 3 opponents.

Short answer: Almost always use XForce, but there are situational uses for CotS.

Question #2: I've done some comparisons of mine to other alliance members at various states (200, 230ish, 270). The biggest benefit from 170->270 is the 3k health, which really makes him sustain. I find with 5/5/3 that you have to get recovery out pretty frequently, which kind of hurts LThor's usefulness as a partner. But there are obvious downsides to having a 270 XForce vis a vis PVE scaling. My plan in that spot is to inch him up and watch the scaling each event. I doubt there's a noticeable difference between a 170 and a 180, but you never know when some trigger will change the algorithm against you.

Short answer: No,it's not necessary at the moment, but when you have a little more support, you should probably aim to get him as high you can without destroying your PvE scaling.

ZeroKarma

GrumpySmurf1002 wrote:

On question #1:. Mine's at 174, so I'm assuming damage is close. XForce at that level does around 4k damage (3k + tiles + cascades), CotS does ~9k. So technically, CotS does a little more damage per AP, but only if all 3 enemies are alive. Once one enemy is dead, CotS is inferior. It sort of is anyway because hitting two enemies with XForce and generating AP from cascades is generally better than spreading the damage among the 3 opponents.

Short answer: Almost always use XForce, but there are situational uses for CotS.

Question #2: I've done some comparisons of mine to other alliance members at various states (200, 230ish, 270). The biggest benefit from 170->270 is the 3k health, which really makes him sustain. I find with 5/5/3 that you have to get recovery out pretty frequently, which kind of hurts LThor's usefulness as a partner. But there are obvious downsides to having a 270 XForce vis a vis PVE scaling. My plan in that spot is to inch him up and watch the scaling each event. I doubt there's a noticeable difference between a 170 and a 180, but you never know when some trigger will change the algorithm against you.

Short answer: No,it's not necessary at the moment, but when you have a little more support, you should probably aim to get him as high you can without destroying your PvE scaling.

Thanks Grumpy. I have switched to not using CotS with X-Force around. Honestly, I'm working on my Hood now, who is lvl 159 and is my preferred dancing partner with X-Force in this latest PVP. My Cap is lvl 140, so I didn't really need any of Thors firepower.

I think the level for X-Force is even more about defense than it is about sustainability. The extra health would at least give people pause, since there is a better chance he can get a skill off. I have found I can reliably beat 270 Fury and 270 X-Force with X-Force/Hood, but it is slower than the retaliation so climbing is not so quick.

I've gotten over 900 in the last 2 PvP's, but I'm still thinking 1300 looks a looooong ways away.

GrumpySmurf1002

ZeroKarma wrote:

Thanks Grumpy. I have switched to not using CotS with X-Force around. Honestly, I'm working on my Hood now, who is lvl 159 and is my preferred dancing partner with X-Force in this latest PVP. My Cap is lvl 140, so I didn't really need any of Thors firepower.

I think the level for X-Force is even more about defense than it is about sustainability. The extra health would at least give people pause, since there is a better chance he can get a skill off. I have found I can reliably beat 270 Fury and 270 X-Force with X-Force/Hood, but it is slower than the retaliation so climbing is not so quick.

I've gotten over 900 in the last 2 PvP's, but I'm still thinking 1300 looks a looooong ways away.

The only difference between 900 and 1300 is HP spent on shielding (and time slice selection now).

I personally don't bother with 1300 unless it's ideal conditions; meaning an event featuring one of my top leveled guys (Cap, Thor, Sentry) and a reward at 1300 worth getting. I usually just settle around 900-1000 per event, and around 11.5k for the season. That gets all the season progression and mostly top 25 finishes, which is plenty of rewards for 3 weeks work.