Newbie advice

ruyen

Even though it feels like I've been playing this game nonstop and not getting enough sleep, I'm still a total noob - 1-2* roster. So after reading what I could here on the board, I still have some rookie questions. Apologies if some of these answers are obvious :

1. Is it a better start to max out your tanks (IM/Juggs) first, then level your utility chars (BW/Storm) afterwards... Or is it better to keep them all within 5 levels of each other?

2. I messed up on 1BW and gave her 5 purple covers before I got a clue and came here. I have 2 purple and 2 blue covers storing for a couple more days, but I'm not sure it's worth rerolling her since ISO is already scarce, even after the Lightning Rounds yesterday.

3. Should you always go for capping 1*s if you can start on a 2*? I have a 3-cover lvl23 Thor, which is a decent level cap, and he's cheaper to level than my IM/Juggs, which still need a couple covers each to open the cap.

4. How do people "get" particular covers? On all these threads I read people talk about getting cover X next or completing cover-set Y, but to me it seems that almost all covers are just random. Seldom do I see any guaranteed 2* cover rewards except at the end of 3 day events. Otherwise I see Simulator fights with 2* rewards, but I always just get 70 ISO. Am I missing something here?

5. Is it normal to have more trouble in PvE than pvp? I find pve extremely slow/hard, especially the Venom missions vs the BW wannabe chick. I'm sure it's just a case of "you're doing it wrong!" But my lockdown team of storm and BW seem to be glass cannons now and are dying from full health more often than I like, guess I just need to tank better, but also more and more pve enemies are doing AoE and trashing them behind my wall of Juggs.

6. With 300 HP, I'm 200 shy of my next 3 roster spots and have Daken (blue) Ares (green, yellow) and cStorm x3 (1 of each from drops, plus the PvE rewards) that I need to redeem soon - Daken is in 11 hrs. I'd rather not spend cash until the next HP sale, so I'm debating deleting characters instead but can't decide. My roster:

40 Cap - 1xYellow
40 Patch - 1xGreen
40 Juggs - 5/5
31 IM - 5/5/3
26 Storm - 5/5/3
23 BW - 5/5 (dumb)
23 Thor - 3/0/1
23 Wolv2 - 0/1/2
17 Mag2 - 2/0/1
16 cHawkeye - 5/5

Thanks in advance!

PS: I also have 3 Prodigal Son and 2 Heroic tokens that I'm waiting to redeem until I have free slots.

NorthernPolarity

ruyen wrote:

Even though it feels like I've been playing this game nonstop and not getting enough sleep, I'm still a total noob - 1-2* roster. So after reading what I could here on the board, I still have some rookie questions. Apologies if some of these answers are obvious :

1. Is it a better start to max out your tanks (IM/Juggs) first, then level your utility chars (BW/Storm) afterwards... Or is it better to keep them all within 5 levels of each other?

2. I messed up on 1BW and gave her 5 purple covers before I got a clue and came here. I have 2 purple and 2 blue covers storing for a couple more days, but I'm not sure it's worth rerolling her since ISO is already scarce, even after the Lightning Rounds yesterday.

3. Should you always go for capping 1*s if you can start on a 2*? I have a 3-cover lvl23 Thor, which is a decent level cap, and he's cheaper to level than my IM/Juggs, which still need a couple covers each to open the cap.

4. How do people "get" particular covers? On all these threads I read people talk about getting cover X next or completing cover-set Y, but to me it seems that almost all covers are just random. Seldom do I see any guaranteed 2* cover rewards except at the end of 3 day events. Otherwise I see Simulator fights with 2* rewards, but I always just get 70 ISO. Am I missing something here?

5. Is it normal to have more trouble in PvE than pvp? I find pve extremely slow/hard, especially the Venom missions vs the BW wannabe chick. I'm sure it's just a case of "you're doing it wrong!" But my lockdown team of storm and BW seem to be glass cannons now and are dying from full health more often than I like, guess I just need to tank better, but also more and more pve enemies are doing AoE and trashing them behind my wall of Juggs.

6. With 300 HP, I'm 200 shy of my next 3 roster spots and have Daken (blue) Ares (green, yellow) and cStorm x3 (1 of each from drops, plus the PvE rewards) that I need to redeem soon - Daken is in 11 hrs. I'd rather not spend cash until the next HP sale, so I'm debating deleting characters instead but can't decide. My roster:

40 Cap - 1xYellow
40 Patch - 1xGreen
40 Juggs - 5/5
31 IM - 5/5/3
26 Storm - 5/5/3
23 BW - 5/5 (dumb)
23 Thor - 3/0/1
23 Wolv2 - 0/1/2
17 Mag2 - 2/0/1
16 cHawkeye - 5/5

Thanks in advance!

PS: I also have 3 Prodigal Son and 2 Heroic tokens that I'm waiting to redeem until I have free slots.

Answered some of your post on my guide post, hope it helps!

grapez

ruyen wrote:

Even though it feels like I've been playing this game nonstop and not getting enough sleep, I'm still a total noob - 1-2* roster. So after reading what I could here on the board, I still have some rookie questions. Apologies if some of these answers are obvious :

1. Is it a better start to max out your tanks (IM/Juggs) first, then level your utility chars (BW/Storm) afterwards... Or is it better to keep them all within 5 levels of each other?

2. I messed up on 1BW and gave her 5 purple covers before I got a clue and came here. I have 2 purple and 2 blue covers storing for a couple more days, but I'm not sure it's worth rerolling her since ISO is already scarce, even after the Lightning Rounds yesterday.

3. Should you always go for capping 1*s if you can start on a 2*? I have a 3-cover lvl23 Thor, which is a decent level cap, and he's cheaper to level than my IM/Juggs, which still need a couple covers each to open the cap.

4. How do people "get" particular covers? On all these threads I read people talk about getting cover X next or completing cover-set Y, but to me it seems that almost all covers are just random. Seldom do I see any guaranteed 2* cover rewards except at the end of 3 day events. Otherwise I see Simulator fights with 2* rewards, but I always just get 70 ISO. Am I missing something here?

5. Is it normal to have more trouble in PvE than pvp? I find pve extremely slow/hard, especially the Venom missions vs the BW wannabe chick. I'm sure it's just a case of "you're doing it wrong!" But my lockdown team of storm and BW seem to be glass cannons now and are dying from full health more often than I like, guess I just need to tank better, but also more and more pve enemies are doing AoE and trashing them behind my wall of Juggs.

6. With 300 HP, I'm 200 shy of my next 3 roster spots and have Daken (blue) Ares (green, yellow) and cStorm x3 (1 of each from drops, plus the PvE rewards) that I need to redeem soon - Daken is in 11 hrs. I'd rather not spend cash until the next HP sale, so I'm debating deleting characters instead but can't decide. My roster:

40 Cap - 1xYellow
40 Patch - 1xGreen
40 Juggs - 5/5
31 IM - 5/5/3
26 Storm - 5/5/3
23 BW - 5/5 (dumb)
23 Thor - 3/0/1
23 Wolv2 - 0/1/2
17 Mag2 - 2/0/1
16 cHawkeye - 5/5

Thanks in advance!

PS: I also have 3 Prodigal Son and 2 Heroic tokens that I'm waiting to redeem until I have free slots.

1. well i would level a main team first. like i would defintely level storm and iron man first, when iron man gets KO'ed and youre out of health packs, then I would sub in jugg. so your main team should be your main focus. its good to have jugg as a back up but probably not necessary. jugg is a nice tanky character with cheap skills but he also damages himself with one of his skills. hes gonna need a health pack every 2-3 battles. i think you can get by with out him.

2. i think its a preference, i have my obw purp at 5 also and while its one extra match, being able to steal 4 purp is nice too. just keep it at what it is because at this current point, one skill over or under the prefered level is not game breaking. when youre level 94 and youre competing to be top 10 at a pvp event, maybe it will be then. when you max out her black and blues, you will have the option to reduce her purple levels, so just do it then.

3. your maxed cover level 1s will be a lot stronger than your level 2s who only have 1-2 levels in each skill. your level 2s will only start to get better then they are capped and surpass the levels of your 1s. meaning a 5-5-3 iron man will be better than a 2-2-2 thor when theyre both at level 50. an 5-5-3 iron man will be slightly behind a 3-5-5 thor when theyre both at level 50. so until youre sure of which character you want to level up and you have that character close to fully maxed in their skills, i would save the iso.

4. unless its a specific reward that you can see on the reward screen, the covers are random. to get 2* covers, I would play the dark reign pve campaign, a lot of the missions offer 2* covers. each mission offers 4 rewards, so keep farming them for the covers you need. also the shield simulator randomly drops covers. maybe 1 cover every 5 battles? just keep farming them and you'll get there eventually.

5. yeah with pve, a lot of the attacks come in the form of countdown tiles. having an obw blue is nice because not only does the skill heal, it also increases the countdown timer giving you more time to destroy them. if you're dying a lot, it means you have to just level up more. you should have a level advantage when you're playing pve. meaning if the average bad guy level is 20, try to be 25 at least to make it easier on yourself.

6. the next sale wont happen for awhile im guessing since the last one was during thanksgiving. spend the money, it sucks to delete people off your roster to find out you need them later which kinda always happens to me. however if i had to, i would delete hawkeye and BW.

Unknown

I would trash Cap and C. Hawkeye.

Hawkeye is no doubt an interesting utility character, but he pales in comparison to the utility M. Storm and mBW bring.

Cap is a decent PvE character once you have him fully covered at 355, but he is slow and his damage is less than optimal for its cost and his rarity. Although his 3*, otherwise known as Gold or Lazy, version is decent as his Red has solid damage to cost and his Blue leaves behind a strong protect tile that can eat quite a bit of damage for you.

I would definitely invest in a slot for C Storm, Ares and Daken. All 3 are very solid characters. Ares was my MVP back when I was in the same position as you are now. Daken is a handy character to have as he self regenerates, saving health packs and provides a constant stream of strike tiles that will rack up your damage, with a solid finisher that eats them. C Storm although fragile, can bring down a lot of enemies, especially on combination with Marvel Now Magneto.

ruyen

Thanks guys, small update and request for advice:
I ditched my BW to make room for Daken (1 blue), with the plan to rebuild her properly with 2/5. cStorm (4+ covers) is next up in 11 hours or so and I'm trying to get my last 100 HP to unlock 3 more slots. I really need advice to deal with Gangsters that start in the Juggs campaign. Thugs, threaten, tommy guns, etc... Nothing I've tried has really worked, even with a maxed Juggs tanking.

What strat and char combo would you recommend from my roster? Thanks!

PS: grapes, my 2. Refers to 1* BW. I've since got a couple oBW covers finally, so I can add her too... soon as I find the room.

squirrel1120

I wouldn't bother spending money. The give you covers faster than you can save them to put that pressure on you to spend. The player thinks this will help them, but the fact of the matter is, don't sweat losing characters. They will come around again. Spending money won't help either. It'll seem to take that pressure off for a short time, but the truth of the matter is that it will never be enough unless you spend a large amount if money on a match-3 phone game.

Anecdotally, I spent $5 to expand roster slots in my first 2 weeks of play when 'good luck' gave me 3 separate 3* characters. Not wanting to lose them, I shelled out. One was spidey. At 260 days I just got his 13th cover , but almost never use him. Another was patch wolverine, who sat there for most of my play time uselessly. He's only recently become useful, and with some effort I might be able to coverify max him in the pve event. The third was hulk, who's been useful for a month or so.

Save them as you can... stop opening random tokens at all until you have extra space. Also, check the thread on the daily resupply to see what free characters will come your way so you can try to plan to have a spot for them.

Hope ygat helps.

ruyen

Had some good progress in the last week, between some pvp, lightning rounds, and especially Enemy of the State, where I got 2 Patch covers. cStorm surpassed mStorm at around lvl30, same with Thor vs IM. I'm not sure if that was the suggested path, but it felt right at the time. Top char right now is lvl 60 Thor.

My most urgent decision is if I should make room for mHawkeye in the next 2 days. I have 4 covers waiting: 1,1,2. His colors, especially purple, are a premium for me right now but I hear he's not that great unless he's combined with guys like Mag. The most obvious chars to lose for him would be:
1green Mohawk Storm,
1,0,4 mCap lvl 15 (that I recruited for the recent bonus missions, like Mohawk)
5,5,3 IM lvl 31
5,5,3 mStorm lvl30

I also have a She Hulk I pulled from a 1* cover and a few CaptMarvel, but I think I'll just sell all those covers.

wymtime

ruyen wrote:

Thanks guys, small update and request for advice:
I ditched my BW to make room for Daken (1 blue), with the plan to rebuild her properly with 2/5. cStorm (4+ covers) is next up in 11 hours or so and I'm trying to get my last 100 HP to unlock 3 more slots. I really need advice to deal with Gangsters that start in the Juggs campaign. Thugs, threaten, tommy guns, etc... Nothing I've tried has really worked, even with a maxed Juggs tanking.

What strat and char combo would you recommend from my roster? Thanks!

PS: grapes, my 2. Refers to 1* BW. I've since got a couple oBW covers finally, so I can add her too... soon as I find the room.

WOW this might be tough to remember and unfortunatly I think you dumped one of the best characters for that node at the 1* level. I believe I used MBW, and Hawkeye. Hawkeye could destroy the entire line with CD tiles, while MBW would stun to keep the CD around for another turn. You want to use Juggs green to shake the board up and look to destroy the TU tiles. You actuall might want to bring along Iron man for his protect tiles and red damage instead. He is seriously outclassed later in the game, but at the 1* level healing Juggs after every battle becuase of headbutt can be costly.
Hawkey is the real key with arrow stab. Try to line up 2-3 CD at the same time.

wymtime

ruyen wrote:

Had some good progress in the last week, between some pvp, lightning rounds, and especially Enemy of the State, where I got 2 Patch covers. cStorm surpassed mStorm at around lvl30, same with Thor vs IM. I'm not sure if that was the suggested path, but it felt right at the time. Top char right now is lvl 60 Thor.

My most urgent decision is if I should make room for mHawkeye in the next 2 days. I have 4 covers waiting: 1,1,2. His colors, especially purple, are a premium for me right now but I hear he's not that great unless he's combined with guys like Mag. The most obvious chars to lose for him would be:
1green Mohawk Storm,
1,0,4 mCap lvl 15 (that I recruited for the recent bonus missions, like Mohawk)
5,5,3 IM lvl 31
5,5,3 mStorm lvl30

I also have a She Hulk I pulled from a 1* cover and a few CaptMarvel, but I think I'll just sell all those covers.

If you want to dump 1* you can, but remember this you will get a lot of 2* and 1* while playing. The best thing to do is to keep building your 2* roster. I recomend going 8-10 deep in 2*
OBW, Ares, Thor, MMN, CStorm, Daken,Torch, Marvel, Hawkey, Wolvie. Each one of these characters I feel are solid and will help you do well in PVE. Captain America, Bullseye, Moonstone are poor. From the 1* the only character you will want to keep is juggs and that will be for Balance of Power and combined Arms. The reality is you can probably sell him for a 3* and when you get enough HP open an extra roster slot for him later.

Some people say don't sell 3* and it can be a tough pill to swollow, but the reality is you need to get your 2* up and running so you might have to make some sacrafices. As much as I like She-Hulk and Marvel in 3* land if you don't have the HP you might need to take the ISO.

Vhailorx

I am sort of in the middle in terms of the advice you have gotten so far OP.

I agree with squirrel that you shouldn't feel compelled to spend money on a marginal 3* player that won't be playable for many months.

On the other hand, it is very easy to rebuild 1* and even 2* characters once you have a max 2* roster, and keeping even low-covered 3*s opens up essential nodes in pve. So my advice would be dump non-essential 1*s amd 2*s first, then consider dumping the very worst 3*s and the weaker 2*s and any outclassed 1*s, then consider spending money. Polarity's guide, as well as the character rankings are a good way to figure out which 1*s and 2*s are dump-able.

As far as a solid 2* roster, I would put iso into OBW, ares, 2*daken, and thor. In that order if possible. having those four maxed is very important for a 2* roster, they have great abilities cover all 6 colors. Wolvie can sub in for thor if you like, but I think thor's extra health and aoe nuke make him a bit better. Once you have the core 4, then put iso into the cstorm/mnmags/mhawkeye team. this team is absolutely awesome offensively (at 94 they can realistically take on lvl 200 teams), but they have zero defensive value in pvp and chew through healthpacks faster. Other 2* like johnny storm and ms. marvel are ok, but hardly essential. Once you have 7 or 8 maxed 2*, start hoarding iso. save up several hundred thousand ideally. When your 3*s start getting 8-10 covers, bring them up to the 90-100 range so they can play nicely with your 2*s. Wait until you have a good team of 2-4 3*s fully covered before taking any to 166.

And with respect to your most recent question, there is basically no reason to keep 2* cap around. he is boosted a fair amount, but is only barely playable even when boosted. just not enough damage or utility. He's first off the raft if you need space. after that, since you have thor up into the 60s, it's time to start thinking about ditching IM30 (and eventually mstorm). You can rebuilding them quickly if you even want to, and there is basically no reason to every play them again once you have leveled 2*s (except maybe to mop up low level nodes in heroics. that's a fairly niche role).

Unknown

It looks like he has a 3* cap cover at lvl 40, but the worst one (yellow). Probably sellable at this stage. Would have saved MBW, as she's useful for that level of roster, particularly if you get the 5 turn stun for 9 blue.

All 1* and 2* covers can be gained gradually through playing any of the 'PVP' missions, as they drop randomly. This includes lightning rounds, and the 3-day tourneys that pop up. You should be able to win a few rounds with the loaner, beating other Lvl 60,1,1 teams, or Lvl 60,20,20 teams. I think the drop rate is something like 9-10% of won matches provide a cover.

Since you already have IM cover maxed, I'd focus on getting him to 50 until you have a more usable 2* tank, (Thor or Ares) to sub in.

IM + Storm gives you active abilities in all but Purple -> usually Hawkeye or BW fills in here until you get OBW**. With her, even a single purple cover is better than your current Hawkeye.

ruyen

Cheers for the tips guys. Soon as I can I'll update the OP with my current roster and questions but in short:

I'm in the middle of 2* land and am basically filling out covers and struggling with getting ISO and figuring out where best to spend it. Got a 72 Thor; then Patch, cStorm, MnMag, Ares, Torch, oBW, and R&G are in the 45-39 range; finally mStorm, IM35, Wolv, mHawk, mCap, and daMoon are in the 30-15 range because i either don't have the covers or just don't play/level them over the others.

Thanks again!