PvP Wall for under-construction ** roster

AaronTheLuigi

I've been having immense issues since Day 1 (started in Oct. 2014) in regards to placing in a PvP event. My roster has four maxed one stars, (Iron Man, Storm, Black Widow and Hawkeye) all of whom serve a purpose for me at the moment, and two stars under construction. The highest leveled people on my roster are two stars: Lv. 55 Thor and Magneto, and Lv. 54 Storm and Ares. I have other two starred characters (Daken, Wolverine, Black Widow, Captain Marvel, and to a lesser extent Human Torch) who need more covers before they can competitively hang with my highest-leveled heroes. (I also have four, Lv. 40-ish three stars who are there mainly for essential nodes: C.Marvel, Loki, Sentry and R&G, along with a Lv. 50 Doom to fill out black on my team.)

I'd love to open more roster slots to give myself more freedom in the two star department (mainly with C.America and Hawkeye), as well as to begin adding more three stars if I win/draw any more. Most of the advice I see for new players is to hit 400 points in a PvP just to collect 25HP, since each bit helps. I understand I'm not expected to place top 50/100 in an event without joining late and getting a shallow bracket, or get up to 1300 points, but I have immense trouble just breaking 300 points.

Each PvP, save Balance of Power, starts the same for me: Hammer away the seed teams until 100 points, beat low-leveled players (think 5-25 level range, using partially-developed one stars or one cover two stars) until I hit 200, then find anything from maxed two stars all the way to maxed three stars with Lv.200 four stars. This jump always happens around 250 points, and I can't fight back or skip through. There are never opponents around the 40-60 level, my range, where I stand a roughly 50% chance of making it. I have participated in each PvP since I started and have a whopping two recruit tokens from PvP events: Balance of Power and Identity Theft. (No idea how I got the latter.)

As it stands, I can't place well in PvP to help build Hero Points, and I doubt any alliance that earns regular HP from PvP would want to work with my low scores. Are players with similar roster strength to mine experiencing similar frustrations, am I just dealt very unlucky queues, or is this the MMR working as intended?

NorthernPolarity

I believe this wall is normal because you haven't completed the 2* transition: the advice about 400+ points is more for guys with max 2*s that can fight that highly. I think you should just keep on doing what you're doing: focus on PvE, and get as high as you can in PvP. Grinding seed teams in the LRs should help you speed up your transition as well, as that will give you more chances to get useful 2* covers.

AaronTheLuigi

Well, that's a little disheartening, but I'll manage. The abysmal rate at which I earn HP is about 25 a week for PvE placement/progression rewards, plus 50 a week from the daily rewards if I'm fortunate.

I'm in a bit of hurry to open roster slots because I have a few three star characters with one cover (two for Mohawk), and a few two star C.America/Hawkeye covers in my wait list, and people say to start by trashing your one stars because you can build them again in no time. The issue I have is my one-stars are as useful as my two-stars in both PvP and PvE, and I doubt trashing them for a three star with one or two covers would help me. On the other hand, I know I'll regret selling those covers because I can't easily build them up or obtain them at my leisure. Feels like a catch 22 unless I drop $20 on the game.

NorthernPolarity

AaronTheLuigi wrote:

Well, that's a little disheartening, but I'll manage. The abysmal rate at which I earn HP is about 25 a week for PvE placement/progression rewards, plus 50 a week from the daily rewards if I'm fortunate.

I'm in a bit of hurry to open roster slots because I have a few three star characters with one cover (two for Mohawk), and a few two star C.America/Hawkeye covers in my wait list, and people say to start by trashing your one stars because you can build them again in no time. The issue I have is my one-stars are as useful as my two-stars in both PvP and PvE, and I doubt trashing them for a three star with one or two covers would help me. On the other hand, I know I'll regret selling those covers because I can't easily build them up or obtain them at my leisure. Feels like a catch 22 unless I drop $20 on the game.

Yeah, it's unfortunate but that's how most f2p games work haha. Could I see your roster? Might be able to help you figure out what to keep / get rid of. For instance, you don't need 2* cap or hawkeye in your roster at all really, since you have better options.

AaronTheLuigi

NorthernPolarity wrote:

Could I see your roster? Might be able to help you figure out what to keep / get rid of. For instance, you don't need 2* cap or hawkeye in your roster at all really, since you have better options.

My Roster is in my signature, and is up-to-date. (Haven't leveled up my two-stars past 55 until I have better support: Only Magneto has a different color scheme of the four two stars I can level up. Also worried about PvE scaling going wonkers if I have a maxed MNThor with nothing much in the way of support.)

I have the following three-star rewards in my queue:
Mohawk Storm: 1 Green and 1 Black
Hulk: 1 Black (but in 8 days I get his green from the 90th daily reward)
Spider-Man: 1 Yellow
Falcon: 1 Blue

If anything, I'm considering dropping Johnny Storm for Hulk.
On the side: I appreciate your viewpoint, even if it's not what I want to hear, ha ha.

Quebbster

I'd consider selling Classic Hawkeye, Dr Doom or Astonishing Wolverine if you need to make room. Hawkeye has good powers but a glass jaw, so he's mostly useful against goons and can easily be rebuilt. Doom is vaulted, so you won't be able to develop him further until he is released again. Wolverine is useful, but it's probably better to focus on Ares and Thor for the moment as all threw have the same color combination. He should be fairly easy to rebuild too.

Alzulra

You're pretty much doing what you need to. When I was transitioning from 1*->2* I ended up buying some HP because I'm impatient and hated deleting 3*s that I knew I would need (someday). At this point, ISO is what you need to build up your roster to a more capable level. So play the PVP, even if you can't place highly, because each match you win will get you some of that precious ISO. Like everyone else said, lightning rounds are the best (join early, beat the seed teams, then lose all your points but it doesn't matter because you were playing for ISO) but regular PVP can work for that too. If you actually want covers, at this point PVE is your best bet but right now it's the simulator which scales like crazy and you probably can't earn too many points. But again, play when you can and keep grinding out that ISO. Once you get your two 94s of your choice, then it gets a little easier because you can consistently start earning 3* covers in PVE and occasionally in PVP (though you still probably won't end with more than 500 points before being demolished).

AaronTheLuigi

Yes, Simulator is amazingly brutal for getting points, never mind I don't have Patch. I don't even think I can get top 400 in that event. Thankfully, with the Season ending soon, I might get some HP for rewards (but I fared worse than I did in Season VIII).

I do have a nice Iso bank right now, around 150,000. Once I get more ** support covers I should be able to burst through 300 (& maybe 400) quickly. The Elektra LR combined with the normal LR have given me plentiful Iso opportunities, yet in the past 2 weeks I've only netted three useable ** covers from random drops.

Oh, I'd love to work harder on events and getting tokens, if only I could keep those *** covers. Grr....

Quebbster

AaronTheLuigi wrote:

Yes, Simulator is amazingly brutal for getting points, never mind I don't have Patch. I don't even think I can get top 400 in that event. Thankfully, with the Season ending soon, I might get some HP for rewards (but I fared worse than I did in Season VIII).

I do have a nice Iso bank right now, around 150,000. Once I get more ** support covers I should be able to burst through 300 (& maybe 400) quickly. The Elektra LR combined with the normal LR have given me plentiful Iso opportunities, yet in the past 2 weeks I've only netted three useable ** covers from random drops.

Oh, I'd love to work harder on events and getting tokens, if only I could keep those *** covers. Grr....

If it's any consolation, the last third of the Simulator should have Sentry as the Essential character, so you should be able to catch up a bit then.
I'd prioritize leveling up two-star characters in your shoes. You can get Thor and Ares to high levels, that's an excellent start. Then you can focus on OBW and Daken when you get more covers.

squirrel1120

No matter how big your iso pile seems, don't waste it on anything you don't have to. No 500 iso random covers, no buying boosts (except in special circumstances like being right on the cusp of a reward tier you need). The iso requirements for 3* characters are very high, and once you start getting a bunch up near lvl 100, all of a sudden you'll be gaining covers faster than iso, and from that point on always be iso poor.

Also, as far as farming iso goes, you can work your pvp scores as high as possible right away when the event starts, and then do it again and again after those coming up through beat you down. Its busy work, but at 140 iso average per match, plus the chance at the important 2*'s you still need, its a worthwhile endeavor if you have the time.

Level mn.mags and c.storm together, as they are a great pair. I wouldn't drop more into mags at the moment, as having him as your strongest character won't help much. By himself, he is one of the weakest 2*'s. Defensively there isn't a team you can drop him in that makes him 'good', but at least the Stormneto combo is great on offense. If you like pve, and have time to play it often, you'll end up being able to do pretty well having this team maxed when you finally get there. Trying to level ALL your 2*'s fairly evenly will make pve much easier as you progress.

I wouldn't drop any of the r/g/y 2* characters. A great strategy once they are all maxed out is to rotate them through in matches with OBW. Start a match with a.wolvie and OBW. Once he's trashed, move thor in for his place. Then after all your teams are exhausted and you need a break, play your last matches with Ares/ Obw. Fighting that team with comparable level characters is begging to use a health pack afterward, so unless the point difference is worth it for them, many will skip, and there's a decent chance of defensive wins as well.

a.wolvie and daken are a great pair for climbing through those seed teams. You'll likely be able to use them for those, plus a match or two depending on the boards you get.

Try to hold onto your 1*'s if you can until you find you haven't even used them in a while. You'll get to a point where the 2's will entirely eclipse the 1's, and then the only place the 1's will be of any use is pve's where they are buffed. m.storm, IM35 and m.BW all have decent use in that arena for a bit. When I came up through, I sold my 1's very early to make room for single cover 3*'s, and I still consider it a mistake looking back. I could have used them in pve events where they were buffed, where as most of the 3*'s I saved were completely useless for 4-5 months. Heck, some of them still are... 3*'s are definitely the objective, eventually, but you will need a good support cast to get you there first. When it comes to picking which characters to save and drop, always consider a leveled and covered 2* to be more valuable than a single 3* cover... until the point where you are barely using those 2's anymore. I think my over-assignment of value to getting a 3* cover saved actually slowed my roster progression. Once you get to the point where you can be top 150 in events rewarding 3* characters, getting each event's character saved to have the essential for the next event will be the main goal, and if you can pull that off consistently, you'll be in a pretty good place for the point you are at in the game.

Also, stop opening recruitment tokens if you haven't already. They don't expire, so if you save every one you get until you have an EXTRA space on your roster, you'll lose fewer important characters. This will make your roster grow in spurts, as you'll get tons of tokens saved up, and when you finally get a roster space, you'll get a bunch of covers for characters you already have until you run into a 3* drop you don't have. Then you stop using tokens again until you have another free space.

Lastly, when it comes to deciding which characters to keep and nuke, a good resource is the character rankings thread. If a character is in the top of the ranking, trying to find a place to save them is more important.

AaronTheLuigi

Thanks for the lengthy piece of advice. I've been encouraged by other people to immediately push my up as high as I can right now, but I feel the imbalance would be harsh, so they're still weak. It'll just be waiting until I get more covers for OBW, Daken, C.Storm, MNMags, and maybe Ms. Marvel (I find her black amazing, and her yellow a good backup to Thunder Strike/Sunder.) Also, I don't want to let go of my characters because they offer good support for my somewhat incomplete s.

My Iso-bank is up to 160k, and I'm getting a fair amount from the LR's and PvP in general. I also earned two more roster slots, but they're already occupied. I won two Patch covers around the same time, and a decent alliance invited me for the remainder of Season IX, and is looking close to nabbing a T4or. (Only one, but I'd like to keep her if we get it.) If we don't win, I still have a Falcon cover waiting in the wings. The alliance gave me a good bump in HP from events thanks to the alliance rewards, but it's strictly temporary. Right now I'm 50/600 for the next two slots.

I have a huge amount of tokens (over 300) stockpiled until I get absolutely free space. Once I can hit 400 PvP points regularly I expect the token storage will drop significantly. I have an odd amount of tokens that might let me build new characters (17 Iso-8 Brotherhood, for Gamora, 12 Enemy of the State for Elektra) but considering the atrocious drop rates I don't want to rely on them.

In short, I'm keeping a focus on building my s, but if I have room, also adding s here and there to help me with essentials.
The addition of Patch alone (even at 2/0/0) won me my third ever PvP token from Cage Match! (Still short 90 points for the 25HP reward before the wall enclosed me.)