4* at 1k

FaustianDeal

What 3* tandems are people using to win the 4* progression prize @ 1k?

I see the original poster say he runs LThor/Hood, but it sounds like he still rolled over to XF for the late push. I'm curious if anyone who has made 1K using only 3* characters (using poorly covered Star-Lord for Ask Questions Later won't disqualify you from answering). I've got a few alliance mates who have <10 covers for XF, and Goddess has fewer, so they are trying to get it done with 3*s alone.

Can you share some tips and cost estimates? What teams are you using, how many shields are you dropping, how many fights in a shield ladder, do the number of fights in a ladder change at different score levels? Anything you are willing to share might help some frustrated players.

DecoyDuck

Demiurge_Will wrote:

We took a look at the numbers after the change and I'm pretty happy with where they're at. A few more people are getting a score of 1000 than used to hit 1300 before shield cooldowns, but not by a ton, and it seems right that it's a little easier to earn 4*s now that there are more of them around

It's possible that the stats might look a tiny bit different if IW was the 1K reward. Just sayin'

MajinDavid

FaustianDeal wrote:

What 3* tandems are people using to win the 4* progression prize @ 1k?

I see the original poster say he runs LThor/Hood, but it sounds like he still rolled over to XF for the late push. I'm curious if anyone who has made 1K using only 3* characters (using poorly covered Star-Lord for Ask Questions Later won't disqualify you from answering). I've got a few alliance mates who have <10 covers for XF, and Goddess has fewer, so they are trying to get it done with 3*s alone.

Can you share some tips and cost estimates? What teams are you using, how many shields are you dropping, how many fights in a shield ladder, do the number of fights in a ladder change at different score levels? Anything you are willing to share might help some frustrated players.

Reason I switched to xforce on storm is because she sucks and I barely use xforce unless I'm bored. The starlord event I was running blade, daken and star loaner and got to 825 without shielding then shielded once at end. Didn't care about the prize. But I could have got the 1k again with that team. 5 defensive wins and 1 loss. And its a quick team. Unshield, 2 matches shield until 1k.

morph3us

FaustianDeal wrote:

What 3* tandems are people using to win the 4* progression prize @ 1k?

I see the original poster say he runs LThor/Hood, but it sounds like he still rolled over to XF for the late push. I'm curious if anyone who has made 1K using only 3* characters (using poorly covered Star-Lord for Ask Questions Later won't disqualify you from answering). I've got a few alliance mates who have <10 covers for XF, and Goddess has fewer, so they are trying to get it done with 3*s alone.

Can you share some tips and cost estimates? What teams are you using, how many shields are you dropping, how many fights in a shield ladder, do the number of fights in a ladder change at different score levels? Anything you are willing to share might help some frustrated players.

I've made 1K (and 1300 pre-cooldowns) with only 3* characters. My X-Force is 2/2/1, and my Goddess is 3/0/1, so they're both unusable at the moment. Generally, if I'm trying to hit 1K, I choose Slice 4, although I've done it in quieter slices (such as Slice 1), although it can be dicey, as you definitely can run out of high value targets towards the end.

My initial climb is usually with Patch and Rocket & Groot, plus featured, just to conserve health packs. I usually find I can climb to just below 600 with this pairing (with the notable exception of the recent matchmaking test in Cat-5). I then tend to stop at that point, and let my health packs regenerate, if I've needed to use any.

I then push as high as I can. My 3* tandem are usually LThor and Black Panther. I aim for my initial shield point in the 700s. If I can hit 800, I'm doing really well, but my defensive losses tend to outweigh my ability to pick up points once I hit 750 or so. My initial shield point is usually somewhere between 730-780. I then alternate three and eight hour shields, using the usual eight hour shield break at the five hour mark.

My first hop is usually a double, sometimes a triple. After that, it's all doubles until I reach the 900s. I then choose to either do single or double hops, depending on the targets that I find. A typical score progression looks something like this: 750 -> 830 -> 880 -> 930 -> 960 -> 990 -> 1000+.

Approximate shield costs are therefore: 75 + 150 + 75 +150 + 75 + 150 + 75 = 750 HP. That's a general minimum. Occasionally I'll use a 24 hour shield because I can't keep to the exact hopping schedule (real life gets in the way!).

I'm a really soft target with that team, compared to most other people at those point scores, so it's of paramount importance that I keep each hop as quick as possible. I have to reshield within 5 minutes, or the hop generally fails. Generally, I note about 100 points of losses bouncing off my shields within a minute or two of reshielding, sometimes up to 200 points. Because I need to finish each match as fast as possible, I generally run with +3 R/Y, +3 G/B, and +3 all AP boosts. Occasionally, I'll have to top up my +3 all AP boosts towards the end of an event, but because I'm only aiming to hit 1K when X-Force or Goddess is up for grabs, it usually gives me time to restock on the all AP boosts. I'm also in the position of not having a workable Hood, so if I have to play a match vs Hood, I'll run match damage boosts for that too.

Once I include all the boosts, plus the occasional 24 hour shield, I would estimate my HP cost to hit 1K with only a 3* team is in the order of 900-1200HP, which is a still a substantial discount on the 2500HP to buy a 4* cover. I might get about 150HP back in event rewards.

I'm in an alliance with friends, which means I can't coordinate my hops, so periodically I check the leaderboard to see if anyone has unshielded in the top ten, line them up if they have, then wait for them to reshield before hopping again. I can usually line up at least a 50 point hop doing that, occasionally more.

In terms of matchups, X-Force/Goddess aren't a terrible matchup, provided the featured character isn't maxed out. There's not a huge amount of room for error, though. I can usually absorb an X-Force going off, but if a Surgical Strike goes off, or if I have a character downed before the opposing X-Force goes down, things tend to go south pretty quickly.

Square

Sasquatchkid wrote:

I mean, the thing about a lot of the players hitting 1K is that they already have maxed out 4-star characters. So, it's not like a ton of players are getting ones that they didn't already have.

A 3* player can totally hit 1000 with a little hp. I have only XF. Now, I'm going to be able to finish 4hor and maybe later Nick Fury (I won't be putting ISO into Starlord or Elektra or IW).

This is a great change, and really makes 4* possible on a regular basis. I only ever hit 1300 once, and it cost me about 900 hp and lots of luck. I can get 1000 much easier, without stress.

If you have a solid 3* roster, the game has just made the 4* transition much more realistic.

xellessanova

So I advocate strongly to alliance-mates that they just save up HP and ISO for X-Force, because he'll get you high scores more reliably and cheaply than even the top-tier 3*s and doesn't necessarily even have to be totally covered/leveled to be functional.

I've hit 1000 pts in LThor, Storm and Star-Lord PVP since new prog rewards got put in, using a 220 X-Force 5/5/3 and various 3*s. I don't have any other usable 4*s. My team is typically XF + Daken (166) or Doom (153) for climbing, with X-Force + Hood (140) or Deadpool (153) for hops. I'd only hit 1300 once before shield cooldowns (it took 525 hp and 6 hops) and hadn't hit any after cooldowns before the prog rewards were dropped. These teams can typically roll until just under 600 without taking any hits, or stay at 650 with only 1 or 2 fights -- still a bigger target than XF+GT.

I was in Slice 5 for all 3; it's pretty predictable that the last PVP slice will have some heavy hitters in it trying to solidify their alliance rank at the end. Thor PVP was 375 hp for 2 8-hr and 1 3-hr, Storm PVP cost 450 hp for 2 3-hr and 2 8-hr, Star-Lord PVP cost 225 hp for 1 8-hr and 1 3-hr (so net cost of 275 for IW, 200 for GT, 25 for SL) Generally I try to aim for 750-830 points before shielding around 11 hours out. Never bought health packs - I think it's better to shield than to try fighting for more points when people might have you queued up.

For Thor, it is way easier fighting 3*Thor than 4*Thor, I wanted Green Loki bad and IW was a bonus, and it was last PVP in-season. In Storm, I started the climb early and made a lot of small jumps starting after 730 - I knew I could do it because Storm is super squishy and red GT would bring lots of points. Star-Lord was probably an outlier because I shielded <8 hours out at 781 and then did 200 points in one hop at 2h30 to get to 981 - usually I only risk two fights per hop, this was like 6 wins before 1 loss. One defensive win (and 7 shielded losses) pushed me to 989, and then all I had to do was stay up until 4 am and hit one more time for Star-Lord. After 700 points, it's teams of XF and GT worth 35+ and teams of XF and 3* worth 20-28. Against XF I always boost 2 green/black, I sometimes add 2 +1all or 2 +20%all for maxed XF/GT during the last couple of hops. I spend a bunch of ISO on skips and buy green/black boosts, but it's probably ISO neutral compared to the number of fights won.

It's definitely not always possible (I got wrecked by monster attack tiles in Blade PVP and gave up before 900, and didn't try at all with Divine Champions because fighting boosted 405 GT is not fun), but it became much more worth it to try for 1000 in most PVPs.

over_clocked

Sorry, didn't read the thread in its entirety; I recommend everyone without a strong 4* roster to join LINE chatrooms for MPQ to have access to better targets for hopping, and to reduce the risk of being hit by other active players (many, many of them use LINE). I hear stories of 3* people hitting 1000 with 400 HP, purely thanks to better communication.

Also surprised that OP uses LT/Hood for hopping instead of, you know, XF/Hood or XF/LT. And especially surprised at XF/Hood not being maxed by now. Maxed characters reduce defensive losses, not by a ton, but they do, especially when concerning Hood, and with more health they give you slightly more time before you need to reshield again.

MajinDavid

locked wrote:

Sorry, didn't read the thread in its entirety; I recommend everyone without a strong 4* roster to join LINE chatrooms for MPQ to have access to better targets for hopping, and to reduce the risk of being hit by other active players (many, many of them use LINE). I hear stories of 3* people hitting 1000 with 400 HP, purely thanks to better communication.

Also surprised that OP uses LT/Hood for hopping instead of, you know, XF/Hood or XF/LT. And especially surprised at XF/Hood not being maxed by now. Maxed characters reduce defensive losses, not by a ton, but they do, especially when concerning Hood, and with more health they give you slightly more time before you need to reshield again.

Both xforce and hood just aren't that fun to me. Both are great characters but not my faves. For Spidey I'm running Thor blade.

scottee

MajinDavid wrote:

locked wrote:

Sorry, didn't read the thread in its entirety; I recommend everyone without a strong 4* roster to join LINE chatrooms for MPQ to have access to better targets for hopping, and to reduce the risk of being hit by other active players (many, many of them use LINE). I hear stories of 3* people hitting 1000 with 400 HP, purely thanks to better communication.

Also surprised that OP uses LT/Hood for hopping instead of, you know, XF/Hood or XF/LT. And especially surprised at XF/Hood not being maxed by now. Maxed characters reduce defensive losses, not by a ton, but they do, especially when concerning Hood, and with more health they give you slightly more time before you need to reshield again.

Both xforce and hood just aren't that fun to me. Both are great characters but not my faves. For Spidey I'm running Thor blade.

There's no problem with choosing what's fun, as long as it's acknowledged that sometimes that makes in an-game goal, like winning the 1k cover, harder.

For my personal playing habits, I probably shouldn't say this on the dev forum, but 1k is ridiculously easy to hit. I have a maxed X-Force and 229 Thor (4 blue), and went from 200 to 1000 this morning in an hour with no shields and no one attacking me. Some maxed Loki and Hood mixed in. Got my Elektra cover and put up a 150 shield till the end.

TheViceroy

scottee wrote:

For my personal playing habits, I probably shouldn't say this on the dev forum, but 1k is ridiculously easy to hit. I have a maxed X-Force and 229 Thor (4 blue), and went from 200 to 1000 this morning in an hour with no shields and no one attacking me. Some maxed Loki and Hood mixed in. Got my Elektra cover and put up a 150 shield till the end.

Highlighted why it is "ridiculous easy" for you.
Not so much with my pathetic 1 3 5 X-Force and non-existent 0 0 0 Lady Thor...
I'm not leveling that X-Force cause it will screw over my PVE scaling. Not until I get at least 2 more covers. Somehow.

kalex716

I've got a solid 3 star roster, maxed LThor, Cap, Hulk, Daken, Psylocke, Wolverine, Hood and other characters that are close. I've been getting pretty bored of the game lately though. Until Blackpanther comes out of the vault, their isn't any 3 stars i even really want anymore.

I admit though, I've never shield hopped, and can count on one hand how many times i've even bought them before (mostly early in the 2 star transition, a year ago).

I'm extremely nervous about spending my hero points on trying to sneak that 1000 points for choice 4 stars, and failing and wasting them in order to do so. I understand how in principal, its supposed to work, but i feel like i'm standing on the edge of the plane with a packed parachute, and i just don't have the nerve's to jump!

My HP are so hard earned!

morph3us

kalex716 wrote:

I've got a solid 3 star roster, maxed LThor, Cap, Hulk, Daken, Psylocke, Wolverine, Hood and other characters that are close. I've been getting pretty bored of the game lately though. Until Blackpanther comes out of the vault, their isn't any 3 stars i even really want anymore.

I admit though, I've never shield hopped, and can count on one hand how many times i've even bought them before (mostly early in the 2 star transition, a year ago).

I'm extremely nervous about spending my hero points on trying to sneak that 1000 points for choice 4 stars, and failing and wasting them in order to do so. I understand how in principal, its supposed to work, but i feel like i'm standing on the edge of the plane with a packed parachute, and i just don't have the nerve's to jump!

My HP are so hard earned!

It's pretty scary, the first time you do it. Even now, my heart still races when I break shields. I sit there, frantically matching away, and holding my breath after I clear the post match rewards screen. It's particularly bad when the "share rewards with friends" screen pops up - "What is this? Go away, I don't wanna share, I'm trying to shield!!!!!"

Unknown

People are downplaying this, but I think the change single handedly provides a clear path for people transitioning from 3* to 4*. It basically makes it possible to exchange solid amounts of hp for 4* covers - a reasonable amount, instead of the apesh1t 2.5k

Unknown

I'm shielded at 803 points in sentry pvp. I'm not confident I can make it to 1000 points.. I can probably get to 900 and reshield, but unless I find a high point opponent, I wont make it to 1000 points. 1 opponent killed me 13 times in a row within 20 min last night. Xforce and thoress lol. It's funny because he had a level 60 sentry, whereas I had a maxed sentry. Thoress is pretty amazing.

Any tips to get to 1000 points? I'd like to finish my invisible woman.. she needs 1 blue.

Unknown

Hitting 1000 on the cheap seems to be more about trying to make a push when the game incorrectly has a lower score than what you really have. I don't think it's even that much of a roster issue. There are sometimes where nobody seems to be attacking you for no reason whatsoever but I don't think that's easily reproduceable. I mean sure sometimes you shield up at 850 and then nothing happened for the next hour and you figure that's a wasted shield and you can easily have pushed 1K in that time, but other times you hit a shield and 15 minutes you get the notice of "you were attacked by soandso AND OTHERS" which would be pretty disastrous if you were greedy. You win some you lose some.

Unknown

Previously it was 2* to 3* transition. With this change, and the rate 4*'s are being released, I suspect D3 is trying to get people to shift to 3* to 4* transition.

Also it makes sense to bring the point range to 1000 for the 4* cover since they implemented the increased shield costing by adding shield cooldowns.

It's only fair and I'm guessing a lot of players would be severely displeased if these two changes weren't done in tandem.

Good Job D3!

atomzed

morph3us wrote:

kalex716 wrote:

I've got a solid 3 star roster, maxed LThor, Cap, Hulk, Daken, Psylocke, Wolverine, Hood and other characters that are close. I've been getting pretty bored of the game lately though. Until Blackpanther comes out of the vault, their isn't any 3 stars i even really want anymore.

I admit though, I've never shield hopped, and can count on one hand how many times i've even bought them before (mostly early in the 2 star transition, a year ago).

I'm extremely nervous about spending my hero points on trying to sneak that 1000 points for choice 4 stars, and failing and wasting them in order to do so. I understand how in principal, its supposed to work, but i feel like i'm standing on the edge of the plane with a packed parachute, and i just don't have the nerve's to jump!

My HP are so hard earned!

It's pretty scary, the first time you do it. Even now, my heart still races when I break shields. I sit there, frantically matching away, and holding my breath after I clear the post match rewards screen. It's particularly bad when the "share rewards with friends" screen pops up - "What is this? Go away, I don't wanna share, I'm trying to shield!!!!!"

I feel exactly the same as you when I break shield!

That's part of the fun at "high end" pvp, the chase for points through shield hop.

Other exciting stuff during break shield are:-
- the pace at which you complete the games during shield breaking is much faster, and hence more exciting
- deciding quickly whether to push for one more game or to shield up
- the anxiety when you click to purchase the shields and waiting for connection to process it
- the sigh of relief when you realised that you were shielded after a series of attacks
- and the joy when you hit the progression reward.

Sure, sometimes I failed and curse the board, curse d3, curse the ai cascades. But I recognised it's part of the game and take the hp lost as entertainment fee. Cheaper than watching a movie that's for sure.

morph3us

atomzed wrote:

That's part of the fun at "high end" pvp, the chase for points through shield hop.

Other exciting stuff during break shield are:-
- the pace at which you complete the games during shield breaking is much faster, and hence more exciting
- deciding quickly whether to push for one more game or to shield up
- the anxiety when you click to purchase the shields and waiting for connection to process it
- the sigh of relief when you realised that you were shielded after a series of attacks
- and the joy when you hit the progression reward.

I only wish I could stare at the 4* progression for longer when it pops up on screen, but I'm usually too busy trying to clear it, so I can reshield!

Well expressed!

over_clocked

Vexed wrote:

I'm shielded at 803 points in sentry pvp. I'm not confident I can make it to 1000 points.. I can probably get to 900 and reshield, but unless I find a high point opponent, I wont make it to 1000 points. 1 opponent killed me 13 times in a row within 20 min last night. Xforce and thoress lol. It's funny because he had a level 60 sentry, whereas I had a maxed sentry. Thoress is pretty amazing.

Any tips to get to 1000 points? I'd like to finish my invisible woman.. she needs 1 blue.

Hope you didn't spend more to try to get IW. Unless they buff her to the point of being absolutely broken (which I don't see happening), the only 4*s anyone should target are X-Force and 4or. Then maybe Fury if you're so inclined. Mostly for PvE.

El Satanno

I just gave my first honest effort to hit the 1k reward when Mrs. Thor red was up for grabs. I ended up falling shy by about 30 points after taking a 35-point hit in my final push. It was most disappointing, but I will admit that atomzed is very right that it is thrilling in a way the game usually isn't.

That being said, I am quite sure that if I had timed my push to 1k better it would have been very doable. Not easy, mind you, but definitely very possible.