Advice On How To Improve PVP Standings

Cabol

Hey guys, I'm looking to gain some insight on how to improve my standings to earn covers outside of DDQ.
I'm in that fun purgatory state where in PvP I hit the max 3* covers/X-Force wall by the time I hit 350, 400 points if I'm lucky. The last time I had a top 100 finish in a PvP event is when I couldn't fall asleep and joined a slice 5 4a node with 45 min to go and grinded (ground?) my way to 99th place with 300-some points.
I want to focus on PvP more than PvE because you can only face a lvl 200+ Ares/Jugs so many times before you want to start slamming your head against the wall. Here's my roster of noteable covers:

(optimal covers + lvl 94)
Ares - oBW - Daken - Tiny Torch - MNMags - C.Storm - Thor - A.Wolvie


X-Force LVL 78: 1/1/2


Hulk LVL 107: 5/1/3
Daredevil LVL 107: 3/2/5
R&G LVL 107: 3/3/3
Gamora LVL 107: 4/4/1
The Hood LVL 106: 5/4/3
Deadpool LVL 104: 3/4/1
Dr. Doom LVL 104: 3/4/1
Lazy Thor LVL 92: 3/4/3
Falcon LVL 77: 3/3/1
Blade LVL 77: 2/2/3
Spiderman LVL 77: 2/2/3
Punisher LVL 77: 5/0/0 (got all 5 within the first 2 weeks he was unvaulted, haha)
Patch LVL 77: 3/2/1
Luke Cage LVL 76: 2/3/0
BP LVL 55: 3/3/1
Capt Marvel LVL 55: 3/1/2
Mystique LVL 40: 4/0/1
*note - want to get BP to lvl 77*

(not enough covers to get past lvl 65)
lazy Storm - Sentry - Human Torch - Doc Ock - lazy Capt - Colossus - Psylocke - Loki - Cyclops - c.Mags

Reasoning behind soft lvl caps for my characters:
LVL 107 - to tank for
LVL 104 - to equal
LVL 77 - to be leveled up to LVL 107 when minor boosted

So what I'm looking for is A) what sort of team should I be using to help push myself to higher PVP scores and any advice on how to get myself back to the point where I can start getting top 100 PVP finishes and earning covers again?
Thanks everyone for any insight you provide :]

Cabol

Recently pulled my 4th green Gamora and got her to lvl 107, updated post.
Any advice would be appreciated

Unknown

I was recently in your position. For the previous 2 seasons, I would climb to about 400 with a day left of the event. With 4-4.5 hours left, I would make a final run for points, and throw up a shield at the 3 hour mark. With a 2* roster, using shields seems to be the only way to stay in the top 100. You just become a juicy target for people making late climbs without it. By this time in the event there are more 2* teams at higher point values for you to fight. The 3* wall is kind of a moving target throughout the event, depending on when other people are playing. Just because you hit it early, you can sometimes come back later, skip a few people and then find people at your level. I eventually started getting to the 500+ mark consistently, and eventually the 575 mark. 500 was 50/50 on top 100. This was strictly using 2* lineups with wolv/daken starting to conserve health packs, using storm/mag for higher value targets, and leaving obw/ares on defense. I usually finished with a couple higher level opponents (storm/mag) before throwing up my shield, and before they could retaliate. I would also invest iso into the featured character to get them above 100 levels (buffed). This often deterred other 2* teams from attacking.

I'm now averaging 600 points for the current season with most of my 3* at or approaching 103 with 8-12 covers. I have R&G, Blade, Patch, and Hulk at 127. I still use the 2* as much as possible to spread the damage around. Since I only have R&G fully covered the way I want, I'm not going to put iso maxing any one character.

SuperSkrull

I may not be able to give you 'expert' advice but I can give you my experience which may be helpful in making your decisions.

You seem to be in the position I was in about 5-6 seasons ago, when I moved from noob PvP bracket where I was getting top10-25 and suddenly I seemed to have 'paid my dues' and moved into the veteran's PvP bracket and ended up struggling to get past top 200. With some effort I could get top 100 by hopping using Stormneto, but clearly not options anymore.

Like you, I soft capped my levels to remain competitive in PvE but grinding was getting old real fast so I decided to pump ISO into my two most covered characters and bought the remaining two covers I needed to complete and get them to 166. This was a total game changer for me and top 50/100 became a certainty with ease. This did screw my PvE scaling but I have no regrets. I'm now in the position where my main issue is getting the ISO to bring more characters to 166.

I think what really helped was my first two 166s are hood and LThor, which IMHO are an awesome PvP combo. I notice your hood is near completion for 5/5/3 and should be your top priority, useful for PvP, PvE, DDQ and LR. The only downside to him is he's very squishy, if I had the roster space I'd have two.

From your list you have a few options for a second. R&G at 5/3/5 would be a nice complementary character but I would go for someone who has a heavy AoE ability. I'd avoid BP as he competes with hood colour wise. You could go 3/5/5 with LThor like me, he's super tanky, hood blue offsets his high AP cost and LThor's yellow and green are heavy damage dealers. One downside is that twin pistols will rarely get used. Another viable option would be deadpool at 5/5/3, his red is very cheap and a heavy hitter, and whales is an awesome AoE ability. One downside is that his black will take big hits for hood as DP has higher health. Without significant investment in buying covers these are probably best options.

If you don't want to buy covers (which I totally respect) another option is to level your most covered characters to 133ish and patiently earn the missing covers, which would be reasonable if you're regularly hitting top 100 and with DDQ. Hope all this rambling is helpful!

Cabol

*Updated original post with new covers/levels*

Thanks for the tips guys. Seems like it's tiem to decide to focus on PVP and not worry about PVE scaling. Got lucky and on the day lazy Thor's red was in DDQ, I pulled a yellow and green for him with the Taco Tokens. Leveling him up now and then I'll be getting all my 3* covers as high as the can. Will probably level them together to at least have a slight chance in PvE progression. If anyone has more advice in the mean time, don't hesitate to post as I'm sure I'm not the only one in this situation.