Sitting on a ****-ton of ISO and paralyzed by indecision

CrookedKnight

Okay, so I have 370,000 ISO-8 saved up and I'm completely unsure whether I should use it or keep playing in the shallow end of the pool. Since I started playing MPQ I've focused mostly on winning covers through PvE, where it's better to have characters with lots of covers but low levels to get advantageous scaling, but lately I've gotten completely burned out on that grind and would prefer not to go back to putting in the ridiculous time and stress involved in getting a top-10 finish. Which makes me wonder if it might be time to dump that ISO into a few 3* and 4* characters and join the 166 wall. My worry is that I wouldn't actually get enough of a boost from this to consistently finish anywhere near the top 25 of PvP, even with time slices making things easier there, in which case I'd gain exactly nothing for my trouble while losing the ability to use my maxed 2* characters to make PvE easier.

Currently my go-to PvP team is featured+3/5/5 OBW + L114 5/4/4 LThor. Here's the (worthwhile) characters I could boost into the 140-166 range if so inclined:

Captain America (Steve Rogers) 3/5/5
Thor (Modern) 5/4/4
Wolverine (X-Force) 5/3/2
Hulk 5/2/4
Falcon 5/5/3
Hood 5/1/5 (Yes, he's ****, but he could work as a deterrent)

I also have cover maxed Psylocke (3/5/5) and Spider-Man (4/4/5) but I wouldn't really call them worthwhile. Maaaaaaaybe a Psylocke/Falcon combo? Probably not, though. Anyway, advice on who, if anyone, to level is welcome.

lukewin

How are you currently ranking in PVP? Do you use shields? Are you avoiding time slices 4 and 5? I have nowhere near the covers you do, except for Steve Rogers and a 5/4/4 Falcon. I can get Top 25 in slices 1, 2 or 3 with a shielded score in the 600-650 range. I'm in the same boat, as I am tired of the PVE grind. If I was in your shoes, I'd go with Thor, X-Force and Hulk as my options. If you want to boost Steve as well for PVE, would be ok. Scaling is still a mystery, regarding covers/levels/roster slots, so no telling how bad you'd be off, so it might hurt your PVE chances. Hood will not be a deterrent, since most people use him for offense purposes, and helps on defense, when at 5 blue, which you don't have. X-Force at 5 green a nice damage dealer, Hulk would be the deterrent, and Thor is kinda both.

CrookedKnight

In season IX and before I was scoring a reliable 600-650 points and placing in the top 75. Since the advent of time slicing I've yet to break 600 points and am sitting more in the 75-100 range (even when I came back after taking ~6 PvP events off, which historically would have given me some tanking benefits). And I've been joining slices 1 or 3 most of the time. I generally use a three-hour shield at the end of an event to lock in my score, but nothing else unless I really need the top 25 cover (I burned something like 350 HP shield hopping and whale-nuking for my fourth LThor yellow, and regret nothing).

(with respect to Hood as a deterrent I was thinking of people seeing a high-level Hood with all three colors, and hitting "skip" without checking to see his build.)

lukewin

If you had 166s, your wall shows up later, as opposed to 500s for transitioners. It seems like 166 teams don't hit the wall til 700 / 800. How are you climbing? What's stopping you from the 600-650 pt mark, attacks, time, lack of health packs?

I usually climb to under 400, usually see very few attacks because I am not worth it and might not lose the points I earned. Allow for time for health packs and guys to regen. Final push around event end -2.5 / 2 hrs, so that people are 3 hr shielded, and I am less likely to get hit. Try to climb over 600 for the 25 HP. Depending on where I am, if Top 25 or close, climb to get in, with 600-650 score, shield. Wait til the end to see if Top 25 holds. If it doesn't, I break to squeeze in 1 match to avoid being queued while unshielded. If 1 match won't get me in to Top 25, wasn't meant to be.

I just recently brought my 3/5/3 Fury to 154, and softcapped my 2/2/3 X-force at 147. Also brought my 0/1/4 Dino to 131. Dino is strictly for deterrent b/c his purple animation slows down fights and with a cheap cost, it will go off a lot on defense. That combined with his high health, help me get skipped by my fellow transitioners / those looking for quick hits. People underestimate that 5 blue Fury, but I love having him. Pulled 3 blues in a 12 hr period during Thick As Thieves. All my other 3*s are underleveled at 104. 3/5/5 Steve, 5/4/4 Falcon, 3/5/5 Sentry, 4/4/5 Hulk.

CrookedKnight

Lack of beatable targets. It used to be that I'd start to see L166 teams in the 500-550 range and have to work to find anything else after cracking 600, now I start to see them at 350 points and see almost nothing else after reaching 500. It gets to the point where I'm not interested in paying a few hundred ISO to find one Ares/OBW team in a sea of X-Forces, only to inevitably lose the points I got from that fight to an incoming attack from a maxed Hood/LDaken team.

ballingbees

Hi guys, am in a very similar situation, so thought I'll share some. At day224, I'm also at the cross roads of when to take the next leap into levelling, so far I only have one guy at 107 (4/2/4 Hulk), the rest are at 94 or below. Hulk is there so that he covers Ares' colours when I pair them for PVP, reckon that's the most deterring pair I can field right now. Apprehensive about levelling, because my current setup seems to allow me to still be competitive in PVE, where I get most of my covers/HP earnings right now (and apparantly much to the disgust of vets that a 2* has the audacity to rank anywhere high in a fair battleground).

In PVP I also notice meeting the wall closer to 400, but lately about >500pts has been enough to secure T100 for old cover rewards. Sitting on a modest crapton of 800k iso and 4k HP.. they're mainly reserved for my XForce fund, since I just can't draw him from tokens. He's now 3/2/2, so the plan was to blast PVE for HP, buy two blacks for 5k HP, and pray for the 5th to fall from the sky. Not the most wise strategy I know, considering it's enough for 5 shieldhop campaigns with a 166 team to earn 5 prog rewards at 1300pts. But a 166 PVP team I have not, so..

I do have some 3* max covered (Spiderman, LCap), but they're not the top tier PVP guys. Been waiting for the longest time to build up LThor(3/4/3), Patch(4/3/3), Hulk, Magneto (4/1/2) and Daken(4/2/2), who I'm relying on to take me to the next step. My crapton is just waiting for them now. Of course the vaulting thing doesn't help too. If I had your Xforce, I would prioritise on earning his last two blacks, after that he should be able to take over the task of earning the rest of the covers you'll need, that's my impression.

Unknown

If you have that kind of iso sitting around you should definitely think about saving up HP to just upgrade X Force's covers directly. In particular this means don't bother shielding for any event that features a marginal 3* because if you can manage at least 25 HP for placement, it's a net loss to use any shield at all as the most you can possibly get is 100 HP (top 10) and looking at your roster, there's certainly no way you can guaranteed a top 10 finish with a single shield, while getting top 100 without a shield should be quite doable, but even if not, then getting 100 HP for using a single shield is likely equally impossible and getting 0 HP is better than getting 50 HP but having to spend 75 HP in shields. You also should definitely consider pumping a lot of shields and AP+3 all boosts whenever a 4* cover you need is at 1300, which is another reason why you should be saving up HP so that you have them available to attempt for a 1300 push. Well, this part might not be as relevent after the shield changes next season, but I'd think shield hop should still be possible in some limited ways and at your level you can't think about going for 1300 without having 1000 HP or so in reserve just in case. While you shouldn't be expected to use 1000 HP to hit 1300, having that in reserve allows you to make up for any unforseen issues and spending 1000 HP to get a 2500 HP cover is still a pretty good deal.

Unknown

HP is generally best spent on upgrading covers especially when it comes to 4*. Here's a rough estimate of the ways you can get 4* and their cost, from lowest to highest:

Hit 1300 in PvP - 0-1000, or never.

Upgrade cover - 2500

Tokens - Somewhere around 10000-40000 (25-100 tokens to get the 4* you need by probability, no guaranteed on the correct color). The lower value is only available when the 4* you need is the only 4* in the pack, which doesn't happen very often.

Placing 1st in PvP or 1st/2nd in PvE - almost never in PvP based on roster strength, almost never in PvE unless you alter your sleep patterns.

The weaker your roster, the more likely the 1300 option is 'never'. Compared to the other options, 2500 is pretty cheap. Of course, if you can go for the 1300 route at all you should go for it, though right now probably isn't the best time to start experimenting in the shield hopping game given the impending changes to shields.

CrookedKnight

My only worry there is that the new-character cycle won't let me save up that much HP. Right now I've got ~800 in the bank and am looking at dropping 600 of that to recruit Daredevil, but I could also toss some 2* ballast overboard in order to free up space if necessary, or just skip him. Good food for thought, thanks.

wymtime

CrookedKnight wrote:

My only worry there is that the new-character cycle won't let me save up that much HP. Right now I've got ~800 in the bank and am looking at dropping 600 of that to recruit Daredevil, but I could also toss some 2* ballast overboard in order to free up space if necessary, or just skip him. Good food for thought, thanks.

You probably need to start dropping some of your 1-2* characters then instead of just buying slots. Also LCap,Thor, Psylock are all very playable good characters. Don't level Hood until you get more blue. You should be able to beat a lot of teams with Lthor, or cap. You might need to boost ap and spend some ISO on those boosts, but it will be well worth it. If you have a maxed LCap, and Lthor 800 points should be doable even in the time slice PVP. I have been starting earlier with the time slices and can climb to above 500 quickly against 2* teams. I can then hang out just below 600 points till the final day of the event with min play. The last day of the event I will decide how high I want to climb. From 600 points you should be able to get 150-200 points using 1 3hr shield. From 600 climb as high as you can using your health packs and using APboosts then shield. Then line up 2-3 good targets and with 7min left try and win 2-3 more matches to get to 800. If you are trying to just climb late you will hit a big wall of XForce and will get stalled.