General strategy for the final steps of 3*

PeterGibbons316

papa07 wrote:

Save your iso. Use it week by week. Try to get your 2 primary supports for that week up to 140 and your featured for each PvP to 120. This will boost them to 200 and 210 respectively, which is solid for PvP. As time goes by and you have less need to move someone to 140, start moving your featureds for that week past 140. This is the long term strategy, assuming that the meta doesn't change again. It is better to have a boosted 200 than an unboosted 166.

This is pretty solid advice. I've been trying to have a small stockpile of ISO at the start of each new PvP to take the essential to lvl 100-120, and it has really made the difference between finishing in the 600-800 range and the 800-1000 range. If you were able to bring up both the essential and a couple viable boosted characters to use you could probably hit 1000 pretty reliably.

MarvelMan

PeterGibbons316 wrote:

papa07 wrote:

Save your iso. Use it week by week. Try to get your 2 primary supports for that week up to 140 and your featured for each PvP to 120. This will boost them to 200 and 210 respectively, which is solid for PvP. As time goes by and you have less need to move someone to 140, start moving your featureds for that week past 140. This is the long term strategy, assuming that the meta doesn't change again. It is better to have a boosted 200 than an unboosted 166.

This is pretty solid advice. I've been trying to have a small stockpile of ISO at the start of each new PvP to take the essential to lvl 100-120, and it has really made the difference between finishing in the 600-800 range and the 800-1000 range. If you were able to bring up both the essential and a couple viable boosted characters to use you could probably hit 1000 pretty reliably.

It also helps to pick/choose which essential to boost. I generally look at whether they will be someone Ill use later, as well as what the progression rewards are (800 and 1k).

Unknown

PeterGibbons316 wrote:

papa07 wrote:

Save your iso. Use it week by week. Try to get your 2 primary supports for that week up to 140 and your featured for each PvP to 120. This will boost them to 200 and 210 respectively, which is solid for PvP. As time goes by and you have less need to move someone to 140, start moving your featureds for that week past 140. This is the long term strategy, assuming that the meta doesn't change again. It is better to have a boosted 200 than an unboosted 166.

This is pretty solid advice. I've been trying to have a small stockpile of ISO at the start of each new PvP to take the essential to lvl 100-120, and it has really made the difference between finishing in the 600-800 range and the 800-1000 range. If you were able to bring up both the essential and a couple viable boosted characters to use you could probably hit 1000 pretty reliably.

Yes and no, I can get to 900 very reliably, but the ground between 900 and 1000 is best conquered very quickly. Linger too long and the hordes attack non-maxed teams. Takes some luck or more shields than I have been using to get to 1000 reliably with that level of characters. That said, it's a huge jump from struggling to get the gold at 725 and being within striking distance to 1000.

ClydeFrog76

I've got 11 maxed 3*s, my PVE is not "broken".

I only really focus on my faves, and generally only start really boosting them once I get max covers. I gave up being truly competitive in this game long ago, though, and only play out of a Marvel fanboy's need to collect characters I love and a match-3 addict's need to match stuff, so maybe that's got something to do with my scaling. I've never really understood the ins-and-outs of the system tbh.

Unknown

Arimis Thorn wrote:

ArkPrime wrote:

Don't max your characters. They will break your pve. Listen to a guy that spent the whole day getting his Fury 1-hit KO'd from headbutts.

This simply is not my experience. I had leveled a few medicore 3*'s (Sentry, MoStorm, Hulk)to around 150 before I ever read the forums or knew about PVE scaling. Then I read the forums and was concerned that I'd screwed myself, but also read the advice to use appropriately leveled teams vs. the AI. That is, when I'm fighting goons who are level 30, I take in Juggernaut and my lowest leveled 3*'s. If fighting AI at 70-ish, bring some 2* 94 teams. They take damage appropriate to their match.

I now have 5 maxed out 3*'s, a handful in the 140's & 150's and another dozen or so in the 110-135 range. My PVE is not out of control. I mean I do run up against some stupidly boosted bad guys, but nothing I can't handle (eventually - and occasionally with Whales).

For example, in my current ISO-8 Lab: Canada 1 node, the AI are level 18. In Canada 6, Doom, Moonstone and Ares are level 217, but my Hulk is boosted to 240. Toss in Patch and Daken/Loki and it's a win.

All totally workable.

That has pretty much been my experience as well. I held my 3s at 104 for the longest time, afraid to mess up my pve scaling. When I finally got optimal covers on some good characters (Hood, Cage, Patch) I decided to take the plunge and lvl them all to 166. My scaling for pve went up some, but it is still totally playable. And by totally playable I mean I still do top10 in any pve without spending any hp.

As for top10s consisting of mostly players with underlvled rosters: maybe in non-4 (old) character pves, where the vets simply don't care for the rewards and thus are not making much of an effort. In my current Carnage bracket, one person in the top10 has his highest characters at sub166 (160 and a bunch of 150s to be exact), four people have 166s and the other five are all people with maxed or close to maxed 4*s.

Unknown

3x166s won't break your pve scaling. 4 or 5 270s and 10+ 166s will.

Unknown

ArkPrime wrote:

3x166s won't break your pve scaling. 4 or 5 270s and 10+ 166s will.

I have 8 166s now and my pve is still totally doable. I have noticed that when one or more of the 166s I have are buffed for that pve/week, my scaling is significantly higher. I've read a gazillion theories as to what decides your scaling and I am sticking with the one where the game looks at the three highest lvl characters you could use in the event (including temp buffs) and then scales accordingly. So I guess that means the more 166s (let alone 200+ 4s) you have, the higher your scaling is on average since you have a higher chance to have one or more buffed characters increasing your scaling.

So where I was once scared to lvl to 166 (don't be afraid, go for it, your scaling will go up but things are still playable, 3s are more fun then 2s and have a much wider range of abilities, never mind the fact you can score top25 in every pvp if you so choose) I am now scared to lvl any of my 4*s beyond 166. Which kind of sucks since I can now reliably get covers for them without having to schedule my life around shield cooldowns, so I would eventually like to get them up...but not at the cost of stupidly high pve scaling.

puppychow

I agree w/ illiana re: buffed characters affecting scale leveling in pve events. That's been my experience as well. There was a recent event, for example, where xf was among the buffed, and my 181 xf was buffed to mid 200s for the event. No surprise, then, to see Normal rated nodes at his level. That, to me, is the most direct effect of roster's level on scaling in pve.

I personally try to balance between pve and pvp events, and the way I do this is by having every character in the game on my roster. Then I max out 3* that I find myself using a lot for pvp (patch, laken, cage, rogers, deadpool) and keep the other max covered 3* at 120 or higher. At 120, your 3* are still usable for pve (1 round or 2) and when buffed they will be utilized even more. To keep scaling manageable for pve, my highest character level is xf at 181, and I intend to keep him that way.

I think leveling multiple 3* to 120 or above is a much more efficient and safe approach than choosing a few 3* to max out, in this environment.

Nooneelsesname

ArkPrime wrote:

3x166s won't break your pve scaling. 4 or 5 270s and 10+ 166s will.

I can see this being true and it is probably super frustrating now that maxed 4*s aren't an instant win button in PvP anymore.

puppychow wrote:

I think leveling multiple 3* to 120 or above is a much more efficient and safe approach than choosing a few 3* to max out, in this environment.

This might be the best way to go, especially if you've maxed out the heavy hitters as puppychow mentioned and are into the middling 3*s.

Unknown

Nooneelsesname wrote:

ArkPrime wrote:

3x166s won't break your pve scaling. 4 or 5 270s and 10+ 166s will.

I can see this being true and it is probably super frustrating now that maxed 4*s aren't an instant win button in PvP anymore.

I made my entire 4* transition on the back of hulk+patch. I was consistently putting up 900+ when GT and XF were at the height of their powers. Never bought a single 4* cover.
4*s have never been an "I win" button, regardless of the daily posts saying so made by people who have been playing for barely a week.

Pylgrim

ArkPrime wrote:

IMO don't push your 3*s past 133 or so. When they're boosted it won't make much of a difference if they're 200 or 240, and supports at 130 are about as good as 166 in the new pvp landscape.

4*s are a different matter, I'd say they're worth taking to 220 or so.

Don't max your characters. They will break your pve. Listen to a guy that spent the whole day getting his Fury 1-hit KO'd from headbutts.

Interestingly, I'm one of those who has fielded lots of 166 3*s and haven't had that much trouble with scaling (hardest characters towards the end of a PVE just get into the 300s). More surprisingly, my girlfriend who started almost a year after me, now has the same amount of 166 3*s as I (at the cost of having most of the others at 100 or less, while most of mine are 130+) and her scaling is much lower than mine. On the other hand, I have one level 200 4* while she has none above 120.

So my question is, what if it is your 220+ 4*s the ones ramping up your scaling?