How to make the jump to top 25

Unknown

I need some roster advice. I'm in the 2* -> 3* transition. Getting Thor maxed, I went from never finishing in top 100 to always finishing in top 100. I thought maxing out Daken would get me to top 25 but I've been sorely disappointed there. I have all the current 3* at various cover levels. My 4* starts aren't worth mentioning except for X-Force for whom I have 6 covers. Which character do you think would get me to the top 25 promised land? Is there a 3* star that stands out that I could pair with Thor or Daken or do I need to but XF covers to get me there? Finishing in the top 25 would be HUGE for me because I can get 2 covers every PvP instead of one, which would make the transition twice as fast. It would also make the game a lot more enjoyable. As it is, it takes months to fully cover one hero. I just don't know where to go from here. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Quebbster

Top 25 is do-able with three-stars. Who do you have at a decent number of covers?

Vhailorx

I don't mean to hijack this thread, but I too would love some advice getting to the top 25.

Thus far I have only been able to secure to 26th-36th finishes, which has been immensely frustrating. I can get about 670 points by joining an early slice (preferably slice 1) with only about 2 hours left and then pushing straight through into the 600s. I do start to get hit above 600, so I have to shield, and with the new shield cooldowns, I haven't figured out how to climb up to the 700 or so points I would need for a top 25 finish. And if I join a bracket way earlier to do more shield hopping, then the total scores are higher and I am still locked out of the top 25 (only i spend more HP for the same result).

And unlike the very lucky OP, I don't even have a maxed lazy thor or lazy daken. If PVP had survival nodes I could kick **** with patch + lazy cap + spidey/falcon. But alas I have only sub-par 3*s for pvp (thanks vaulting! my lazy thor and lazy daken have been languishing without enough covers to do anything for months now). I have Patch, lazy cap, punisher, spidey, and falcon all at or very close to max covers. I have mystique, doom, blade, hulk, and gamora (yay!) with enough covers to go to 104-127 range. (I could also level hood and grocket up to 100+, but they are both crippled by missing their best powers, blue and yellow respectively).

Pre shield cooldown, I would be fairly confident that I could do top 25 if I had enough HP to burn. But now I have no idea what strategy to use.

Unknown

Quebbster wrote:

Top 25 is do-able with three-stars. Who do you have at a decent number of covers?

I've got 166 Thor (3/5/5) and 166 Daken (5/4/4). Steve Rogers 4/3/5, Hulk 5/0/5, Hood 5/3/3, Blade 5/3/3, Sentry 4/5/3, Devil Dino 5/1/5, Patch 3/3/4, BP 4/0/4, Falcon 4/3/1, Storm 4/5/3, XF 1/2/3, GSBW 2/1/2, Mystique 1/2/2, IM 1/2/5, Clossus 3/1/2, Luke Cage 2/2/1, Mags 1/3/1, Spider-Man 2/2/1DD 3/4/1, Psylocke 3/2/1, Beast 3/3/1, She-Hulk 1/3/2, DP 3/1/1, Captain Marvel 5/2/0.

I want to finish top 25 but I don't know who can take me there.

spatenfloot

Have you tried Blade, Daken, Thor?

mohio

Do you ever use boosts? One thing I got in the habit of doing that I always thought helped was as I approached the score where I usually started to see attacks I would begin to use some of the ISO +ap boosts. For daken/Thor I would usually only boost red/yellow since you generally win by doing thunder strike into call the storm and mopping up with chemical reaction, mjolnir's might or whatever the featured char does. Boosting green is possible too but you usually can get there with one thunder strike and other incidental matches so I typically don't.

The idea behind this strategy is that you want to essentially outrun your attackers. Once they see you on 650 or whatever, they're going to hit you, but if by that time you've already hit 750 and shielded (cause of the delay in the server updating your current points in people's nodes they will see you on lower points and skip), you'll be in much better shape. From there you can hopefully find high point matches and do a hop or two to get into top 25 if needed. These shield hop matches are where I will also sometimes use the +1 all ap boosts if there's a cover I'm particularly fighting for, cause the extra speed can make the difference between no lost points and getting hit 3 times for -90.

Quebbster

Personally I love Patch and Daken for the early climb, two healing factors means you don't have to spend as many health packs. Hood is very effective when he has 5 blue covers. I've scored a lot of defensive wins with Thor and Hulk. I'd probably prioritize Hood, then Patch, then Hulk. Thor and Daken are by themselves a good start though.

Unknown

spatenfloot wrote:

Have you tried Blade, Daken, Thor?

I just got 11 covers for Blade. I'm looking more for a hero that would get me to top 25 in PvP. I can't necessarily pick this trio for every PvP. I will try this trio in Simulator and PvE.

Unknown

Quebbster wrote:

Personally I love Patch and Daken for the early climb, two healing factors means you don't have to spend as many health packs. Hood is very effective when he has 5 blue covers. I've scored a lot of defensive wins with Thor and Hulk. I'd probably prioritize Hood, then Patch, then Hulk. Thor and Daken are by themselves a good start though.

Thanks for the advice. I will prioritize those 3. I've been waiting for Hood blue and Hulk red for months. I'll keep plugging away. So you don't think it's worth spending all that HP on buying XF covers?

Unknown

To make Xforce useful you need not only covers but also 400.000 ISO to max him. By the time you'll save up al that ISO, XForce might even become useless (take a look a the game's nerfing history - the top hero was ALWAYS nerfed).
Looking at your roster, the obvious choices are:
1. Hood - always useful, esp when paired with a heavy hitter like Thor. His yellow makes him a finisher by himself (5k damage...)
2. Cap Am - really good in PVE. If you don't play PVE, forget about it.
3. Patch - another good finisher, but doesn't play well with neither Hood nor Thor. Also, Patch/Daken is still ewting health packs galore
4. Blade - haven't played him, but the general consensus is that he's strong. Check the forums for more info.

mohio

I think you can make it without spending a ton of cash on xforce, but he would certainly get you there. I routinely run max covered xforce (level 230) and daken in pvp while climbing and only really switch to something different later on if I need better color coverage based on what I expect to be collecting with surgical strike. And to the guy saying you have to max him, it's not true. I had him on 200 for a long time before saving up a bunch of ISO and not really seeing any 3* I really wanted to put it into. He was awesome even at that level. The big thing is the covers. Anyway that would save a good 150k or so of ISO to not have to max him all the way (or maybe more).

Quebbster

joecoolmd wrote:

Quebbster wrote:

Personally I love Patch and Daken for the early climb, two healing factors means you don't have to spend as many health packs. Hood is very effective when he has 5 blue covers. I've scored a lot of defensive wins with Thor and Hulk. I'd probably prioritize Hood, then Patch, then Hulk. Thor and Daken are by themselves a good start though.

Thanks for the advice. I will prioritize those 3. I've been waiting for Hood blue and Hulk red for months. I'll keep plugging away. So you don't think it's worth spending all that HP on buying XF covers?

You need at least 4 and preferably 5 covers and around 200,000 ISO before X-force becomes truly threatening, so you'd need to spend a lot on him. It's probably better to focus on your three-star roster for now.

wymtime

joecoolmd wrote:

Quebbster wrote:

Top 25 is do-able with three-stars. Who do you have at a decent number of covers?

I've got 166 Thor (3/5/5) and 166 Daken (5/4/4). Steve Rogers 4/3/5, Hulk 5/0/5, Hood 5/3/3, Blade 5/3/3, Sentry 4/5/3, Devil Dino 5/1/5, Patch 3/3/4, BP 4/0/4, Falcon 4/3/1, Storm 4/5/3, XF 1/2/3, GSBW 2/1/2, Mystique 1/2/2, IM 1/2/5, Clossus 3/1/2, Luke Cage 2/2/1, Mags 1/3/1, Spider-Man 2/2/1DD 3/4/1, Psylocke 3/2/1, Beast 3/3/1, She-Hulk 1/3/2, DP 3/1/1, Captain Marvel 5/2/0.

I want to finish top 25 but I don't know who can take me there.

So the #1 hero to get you to top 25 will be hood with 5 blue. If you have the 2500 HP to spend it will be the best 2500 HP you have ever spent. You will need to climb as high as you can in the event. In slice 1 or 2 I actually like climbing really early becuase I see a lot of 2* and I don't need to use many health packs. I will hang out in the 600-700 range until 11-8 hours left. If your defensive team is LThor Hood you can probably hang out just below 600 and not take too many loses. So with eaith 3hr's or 11-8 hrs left make a big push with LThor and Hood. Boos +3 with Green/Black and 3+Y/R. I only use +3 to all on a rare occasion, but if you are seeing a X-Force 4Thor team worth good points it might be helpful. Make sure you skip and line up 3 quality opponents before you start. Climb as high as you can using your health packs when necessary and shield( 8hr for 11-8 hrs out, 3hrs for 3hrs out). You should be able to get 700+ durring this run with around 6 wins, if not that is ok. If you are using 2 shields at the 3hr mark do the same thing, but since your score is higher you will be looking at 3-4 battles and you will see more 4* players at the 3hr mark.
Now here is the fun part(I like it anyway). After you shield at the 3 hr mark line up 3 good point matches and wait. You wait until there is 5-7 min left. Sometimes this works other times it does not. With 5-7 min left you break shield and try and finish 2 matches. Even if the matches are not worth a ton of points the difference between 25-40 is not that much. If you are able to add 40-50 points in the last 5 min you should be able to sneek in to the next tier. Caution as it can also be an epic fail if someone has you lined up.
I have used this strategy to get top 10 and top 5 in different PVP's. The real key is Hood becuase he makes everyone faster with AP steals and will make 3* players less likely to attack you becuase Hood slows the game down. You will get smushed by 4* becuase X-Force will 1 shot Hood, but you will be amazed by how much less you get attacked by having a fully leveled Hood on your defensive team.

I hope this helps and good luck taking the next step.


Edit:Don't put ISO into Hulk. He is a meat shield and 4* people target him. Thor and Hulk sound great with super health, but X-Force eats him for lunch. Surgical Strike takes all the green tiles and then Anger does nothing while giving X-Force more green to use. Go Hood, Patch, Daken. Patch and Daken are really good for climbing early in PVP.

Quebbster

PhoenixDream wrote:

To make Xforce useful you need not only covers but also 400.000 ISO to max him. By the time you'll save up al that ISO, XForce might even become useless (take a look a the game's nerfing history - the top hero was ALWAYS nerfed).
Looking at your roster, the obvious choices are:
1. Hood - always useful, esp when paired with a heavy hitter like Thor. His yellow makes him a finisher by himself (5k damage...)
2. Cap Am - really good in PVE. If you don't play PVE, forget about it.
3. Patch - another good finisher, but doesn't play well with neither Hood nor Thor. Also, Patch/Daken is still ewting health packs galore
4. Blade - haven't played him, but the general consensus is that he's strong. Check the forums for more info.

I think Hood complements Patch/Daken just fine, since he has active powers in other colors (and also, he's the Hood). We may have different playstyles though as I rarely have to use healthpacks on Patch/Daken. Prologue healing does help from time to time though...

Unknown

mohio wrote:

I think you can make it without spending a ton of cash on xforce, but he would certainly get you there. I routinely run max covered xforce (level 230) and daken in pvp while climbing and only really switch to something different later on if I need better color coverage based on what I expect to be collecting with surgical strike. And to the guy saying you have to max him, it's not true. I had him on 200 for a long time before saving up a bunch of ISO and not really seeing any 3* I really wanted to put it into. He was awesome even at that level. The big thing is the covers. Anyway that would save a good 150k or so of ISO to not have to max him all the way (or maybe more).

I have the HP to get XF to 4/5/3 and almost 300K ISO so I could level him to 175-200. That's a lot of HP to spend but if he'll guarantee top 25 all the time then it's worth it. I'm mainly interested in XF (if he'll get me there) not so much for XF but because he'll make my 2* -> 3* transition faster because I'll be getting 2 covers every PvP instead of 1. My main concern is they may nerf him, in which case that's a lot of HP wasted.

Unknown

wymtime wrote:

joecoolmd wrote:

Quebbster wrote:

Top 25 is do-able with three-stars. Who do you have at a decent number of covers?

I've got 166 Thor (3/5/5) and 166 Daken (5/4/4). Steve Rogers 4/3/5, Hulk 5/0/5, Hood 5/3/3, Blade 5/3/3, Sentry 4/5/3, Devil Dino 5/1/5, Patch 3/3/4, BP 4/0/4, Falcon 4/3/1, Storm 4/5/3, XF 1/2/3, GSBW 2/1/2, Mystique 1/2/2, IM 1/2/5, Clossus 3/1/2, Luke Cage 2/2/1, Mags 1/3/1, Spider-Man 2/2/1DD 3/4/1, Psylocke 3/2/1, Beast 3/3/1, She-Hulk 1/3/2, DP 3/1/1, Captain Marvel 5/2/0.

I want to finish top 25 but I don't know who can take me there.

So the #1 hero to get you to top 25 will be hood with 5 blue. If you have the 2500 HP to spend it will be the best 2500 HP you have ever spent. You will need to climb as high as you can in the event. In slice 1 or 2 I actually like climbing really early becuase I see a lot of 2* and I don't need to use many health packs. I will hang out in the 600-700 range until 11-8 hours left. If your defensive team is LThor Hood you can probably hang out just below 600 and not take too many loses. So with eaith 3hr's or 11-8 hrs left make a big push with LThor and Hood. Boos +3 with Green/Black and 3+Y/R. I only use +3 to all on a rare occasion, but if you are seeing a X-Force 4Thor team worth good points it might be helpful. Make sure you skip and line up 3 quality opponents before you start. Climb as high as you can using your health packs when necessary and shield( 8hr for 11-8 hrs out, 3hrs for 3hrs out). You should be able to get 700+ durring this run with around 6 wins, if not that is ok. If you are using 2 shields at the 3hr mark do the same thing, but since your score is higher you will be looking at 3-4 battles and you will see more 4* players at the 3hr mark.
Now here is the fun part(I like it anyway). After you shield at the 3 hr mark line up 3 good point matches and wait. You wait until there is 5-7 min left. Sometimes this works other times it does not. With 5-7 min left you break shield and try and finish 2 matches. Even if the matches are not worth a ton of points the difference between 25-40 is not that much. If you are able to add 40-50 points in the last 5 min you should be able to sneek in to the next tier. Caution as it can also be an epic fail if someone has you lined up.
I have used this strategy to get top 10 and top 5 in different PVP's. The real key is Hood becuase he makes everyone faster with AP steals and will make 3* players less likely to attack you becuase Hood slows the game down. You will get smushed by 4* becuase X-Force will 1 shot Hood, but you will be amazed by how much less you get attacked by having a fully leveled Hood on your defensive team.

I hope this helps and good luck taking the next step.


Edit:Don't put ISO into Hulk. He is a meat shield and 4* people target him. Thor and Hulk sound great with super health, but X-Force eats him for lunch. Surgical Strike takes all the green tiles and then Anger does nothing while giving X-Force more green to use. Go Hood, Patch, Daken. Patch and Daken are really good for climbing early in PVP.

I was hoping Hood would be the game changer for me. Thor was a game changer early on in that I was guaranteed top 100 once I had him fully covered. I finally got Hood blue in the last PvP where I finished top 25 (weird, that was the only PvP where I didn't get attacked at all) but wasn't sure if it would be worth spending 5000 HP on 4 more blue if I still can't hit top 25 (I would be 5000 HP poorer but not finishing top 25 which is my goal for this game). With the huge influx of 3* heroes, it is next to impossible to get every one covered when you're only getting 1 cover per event. I have no aspirations of being the best at the game but finishing top 25 would give me a greater reward for the time and effort. The current environment forces you to buy covers. I've been playing for over 7 months and would not have one fully covered hero if I hadn't purchased 4 for Thor and 4 for Daken. It's quite frustrating but the game would be fun again if I could get 2 covers for every pVp. I'd be happy with that.

Is it enough to have 5 blue for Hood or do I also need to bring him to 166? I don't want to screw up my PvE scaling too much. However, I'll do what is necessary. Thanks for the advice.

wymtime

joecoolmd wrote:

I was hoping Hood would be the game changer for me. Thor was a game changer early on in that I was guaranteed top 100 once I had him fully covered. I finally got Hood blue in the last PvP where I finished top 25 (weird, that was the only PvP where I didn't get attacked at all) but wasn't sure if it would be worth spending 5000 HP on 4 more blue if I still can't hit top 25 (I would be 5000 HP poorer but not finishing top 25 which is my goal for this game). With the huge influx of 3* heroes, it is next to impossible to get every one covered when you're only getting 1 cover per event. I have no aspirations of being the best at the game but finishing top 25 would give me a greater reward for the time and effort. The current environment forces you to buy covers. I've been playing for over 7 months and would not have one fully covered hero if I hadn't purchased 4 for Thor and 4 for Daken. It's quite frustrating but the game would be fun again if I could get 2 covers for every pVp. I'd be happy with that.

Is it enough to have 5 blue for Hood or do I also need to bring him to 166? I don't want to screw up my PvE scaling too much. However, I'll do what is necessary. Thanks for the advice.

You don't need Hood to be 166 but it helps. If you bring him up to 140 he should still hide behind LThor and be usefull. I ran him at 140 for a long time with other 166. Once you start looking to use X-Force or go against X-Force at higher levels it helps having a little more health, but not much.

Unknown

wymtime wrote:

joecoolmd wrote:

Quebbster wrote:

Top 25 is do-able with three-stars. Who do you have at a decent number of covers?

I've got 166 Thor (3/5/5) and 166 Daken (5/4/4). Steve Rogers 4/3/5, Hulk 5/0/5, Hood 5/3/3, Blade 5/3/3, Sentry 4/5/3, Devil Dino 5/1/5, Patch 3/3/4, BP 4/0/4, Falcon 4/3/1, Storm 4/5/3, XF 1/2/3, GSBW 2/1/2, Mystique 1/2/2, IM 1/2/5, Clossus 3/1/2, Luke Cage 2/2/1, Mags 1/3/1, Spider-Man 2/2/1DD 3/4/1, Psylocke 3/2/1, Beast 3/3/1, She-Hulk 1/3/2, DP 3/1/1, Captain Marvel 5/2/0.

I want to finish top 25 but I don't know who can take me there.

So the #1 hero to get you to top 25 will be hood with 5 blue. If you have the 2500 HP to spend it will be the best 2500 HP you have ever spent. You will need to climb as high as you can in the event. In slice 1 or 2 I actually like climbing really early becuase I see a lot of 2* and I don't need to use many health packs. I will hang out in the 600-700 range until 11-8 hours left. If your defensive team is LThor Hood you can probably hang out just below 600 and not take too many loses. So with eaith 3hr's or 11-8 hrs left make a big push with LThor and Hood. Boos +3 with Green/Black and 3+Y/R. I only use +3 to all on a rare occasion, but if you are seeing a X-Force 4Thor team worth good points it might be helpful. Make sure you skip and line up 3 quality opponents before you start. Climb as high as you can using your health packs when necessary and shield( 8hr for 11-8 hrs out, 3hrs for 3hrs out). You should be able to get 700+ durring this run with around 6 wins, if not that is ok. If you are using 2 shields at the 3hr mark do the same thing, but since your score is higher you will be looking at 3-4 battles and you will see more 4* players at the 3hr mark.
Now here is the fun part(I like it anyway). After you shield at the 3 hr mark line up 3 good point matches and wait. You wait until there is 5-7 min left. Sometimes this works other times it does not. With 5-7 min left you break shield and try and finish 2 matches. Even if the matches are not worth a ton of points the difference between 25-40 is not that much. If you are able to add 40-50 points in the last 5 min you should be able to sneek in to the next tier. Caution as it can also be an epic fail if someone has you lined up.
I have used this strategy to get top 10 and top 5 in different PVP's. The real key is Hood becuase he makes everyone faster with AP steals and will make 3* players less likely to attack you becuase Hood slows the game down. You will get smushed by 4* becuase X-Force will 1 shot Hood, but you will be amazed by how much less you get attacked by having a fully leveled Hood on your defensive team.

I hope this helps and good luck taking the next step.


Edit:Don't put ISO into Hulk. He is a meat shield and 4* people target him. Thor and Hulk sound great with super health, but X-Force eats him for lunch. Surgical Strike takes all the green tiles and then Anger does nothing while giving X-Force more green to use. Go Hood, Patch, Daken. Patch and Daken are really good for climbing early in PVP.

THanks for info! Have you had any experience using Maxed Hood + Maxed Loki for a defensive team? Probably squishy, but I can only imagine AP would be scarce.

grapez

just remember that leveling xforce to level 270 will make PVE tremendously hard in terms of scaling. i would keep my x-force in the range of my other high level characters. all my characters are around level 155. his green does 4k and his black does about 450 per color on board. still pretty decent.

Vhailorx

Updated Tip:

Don't want to finish top 25 for desirable rewards.

E.g.

In the Army of One event, I easily finished 21st despite not playing at all in the last 40 minutes and scoring only 620 points.

In the more recent fly, fight, win event, I had to shield hop my way up to 655 to finish 36. Top 25 was 720+ points in the end.

There were some slight differences in that my punisher is higher leveled (though not any more covered) than my cap. marvel. that probably accounts for a couple of extra attacks on me. But otherwise i played with the same main team and used the same basic strategies. I think most of the difference can be accounted for my the simple fact that RnG is much, much more desirable than any human torch cover for those players with the best rosters.

Obviously, there must be some performance rewards or additional opportunities created by having a top roster (otherwise there is no point in progressing at all), but on the other end, there would be an equally significant problem if the only way to get a top roster is to already have one. I don't know that MPQ is quite in that position yet, but it does seem that top 25 competition has gotten increasingly fierce in the last few months (I'm told that early last summer, it was possible to get a top 25 finish with just ares/obw. That is laughable today.)

Reliably making top 25 seems to be the dividing line between top-tier status and under-developed 3* roster in that you must be able to reliably beat 4* teams to play into the 700s. and top 25 fluctuates between 600 and 750 depending on bracket/slice/reward etc.

And reliably making top 100 is the dividing line between 2* rosters and decent 3* rosters because getting to top 100 requires the ability to beat top 2* teams easily and hit at least a few 3* teams at the end.