General Thoughts on Strategy

Unknown

I have a decently broad selection of level ~60 2* heroes. But the costs to level them further are, well, 1000+ per level, and the advantage in doing so is an increase of roughly 0.4-0.6 damage per tile, plus associated ability buffs and hp.

I'm thinking about dumping all my ISO into tokens to bait the RNG into giving me 3*'s to upgrade and leave my 2*'s at 60. Anyone do this before? Anyone see a reason to NOT do this?

Unknown

If I were you I would suggest not doing this. Most likely you'll end up with a lot of 2*s. I turned in 203 regular tokens last week and got three 3* covers. The best thing to do is just plug away a tournaments and work towards winning the 3* covers. If a tournament or PvE event comes up that has a boosted 2* character that you have, I would dump ISO into them at that point and grind away.

NighteyesGrisu

somewhere there's a survey that covers what covers were gotten by what tokens. IIRC, the likelyhood of getting a *** from a standard token is around 2.5%. so you'd need a wagonload of iso to get your 3*

Unknown

The status of the game right now, unless they fix it, means that you will do better in tournies if you remain low level, so I would not spend ISO on anything just yet.

You can own the events now with a low level roster, enjoy!

Unknown

starsrift wrote:

I have a decently broad selection of level ~60 2* heroes. But the costs to level them further are, well, 1000+ per level, and the advantage in doing so is an increase of roughly 0.4-0.6 damage per tile, plus associated ability buffs and hp.

I'm thinking about dumping all my ISO into tokens to bait the RNG into giving me 3*'s to upgrade and leave my 2*'s at 60. Anyone do this before? Anyone see a reason to NOT do this?

Tokens are the worst investment, forget it. It's conversion of 500 ISO to 105.

You want *** covers win them in a tournament. You need well leveled characters for that. The difference may look smallish but it's still significant in play -- and if your team will be subject to more attacks if lacking in levels compared to others.

Unknown

A good idea is to stockpile your ISO, then spend it on the characters buffed for whatever tournament or event is going on.

Unknown

pasa_ wrote:

You want *** covers win them in a tournament. You need well leveled characters for that. The difference may look smallish but it's still significant in play -- and if your team will be subject to more attacks if lacking in levels compared to others.

Tournaments are not really accessible. Given the tactics around shielding, leapfrogging, etc, tournaments are for P2W players, of which I'm not. My characters and their levels are largely irrelevant - I've only pulled 3* covers from tournaments twice, and that was making sure I was grinding the hell out of them during the last hour, in addition to more playing during the day or two beforehand. I can consistently claim high enough to get a small HP reward and one of the 2* cover rewards, but the 3* rewards are for P2W players.

NighteyesGrisu wrote:

somewhere there's a survey that covers what covers were gotten by what tokens. IIRC, the likelyhood of getting a *** from a standard token is around 2.5%. so you'd need a wagonload of iso to get your 3*

That's actually not so bad. That's one pull in 40, which is 20k ISO, RNG gods permitting. 15-16k, after the cover sells. 16k ISO gives me roughly, what... 10 levels from L60, spread across my heroes? That's hardly anything.
I'm just not sure that taking them from 60 to 85 is really worth anything, given that they will become irrelevant for tourney use as I slide into 3*, and for PvE play, they seem to get the job done pretty okay.

Unknown

25 lvls does make a significant difference to heroes that have scaling abilities.

Furthermore, you certainly don't need to pay to rank in tournaments. I've been playing for about 6weeks, and recently got top spot in wolverine tourney with a lvl80 as my highest, and haven't spent anything. In fact, 2 of the top10 had lvl50 ironman as their highest char. With lvl60s a top 45 finish shouldn't be too hard.

With the hp from tournaments you should be able to buy one shield and still come out hp-neutral, just gotta pick opponents and plan your pushes carefully.

Unknown

starsrift wrote:

That's actually not so bad. That's one pull in 40, which is 20k ISO, RNG gods permitting.

Yes, the empiric rate is around 1:6 breakdown, so with proper luck of 36 tokens you get 5 ** and 1 *** cover.

starsrift wrote:

15-16k, after the cover sells. 16k ISO gives me roughly, what... 10 levels from L60, spread across my heroes?

The usual wisdom is not to spread ISO but to concentrate it into a few select heroes.

starsrift wrote:

That's hardly anything.
I'm just not sure that taking them from 60 to 85 is really worth anything, given that they will become irrelevant for tourney use as I slide into 3*, and for PvE play, they seem to get the job done pretty okay.

There is tremendous difference between the 60 and 85 lv **. The scale is not linear. Certainly it depends on the abilities, many depend solely on covers.

But if you consider 10 levels worthless how about the alternative? What is a random *** cover worth? I have a couple of those solo heroes -- only good to spend another 300HP for a slot. They have exactly zero play value. Even with 2/2/2 they are barely usable. Except for spiderman the *** heroes start kicking over 100 levels (I hardly ever use the 89 lvl Hulk with 8 covers).

So how many time you want to repeat that *** getting before arrive at something you will actually play with?

Unknown

Echoing the above. There are literally no 3* heavy rosters in the Top 10 of my bracket right now. It's very possible to slug it out for a decent placement and then drop one 3 hour shield when you're in the final stretch and feel good about staying in 3* reward territory. This should land you easily in the Top 45 for a 3* cover, and even net you positive HP (50 for prog, 100 for placing, minus 100 for the shield).

I would also strongly recommend continuing to pump your ISO into your 2* roster. It makes a big difference in terms of who people decide to target towards the end of a tourney. I'm always going to attack someone with a 70 Thor over someone with an 85. I know it seems like an ISO sink, but it will actually speed up the transition to 3* in the long run.

Edit: Also, getting your covers through tourneys guarantees that you're getting the covers you need, instead of hoping your token draws match with a 3* character you're hoping to build up covers for. Strongly advise against the ISO token lottery.

Unknown

Eidolone wrote:

With the hp from tournaments you should be able to buy one shield and still come out hp-neutral, just gotta pick opponents and plan your pushes carefully.

Slight profit, actually. If you're shielding only for three hours - most likely the last three hours, naturally, and it might well be the last two once you've pushed for the rating you want along with everyone else trying to bump their rating late - then even at the worst of the recent fluctuations in price/reward settings you're spending 100HP to get 150HP, plus possibly a 25 or two if you scrape top 15 or 5 and wind up with dupes to sell.

In my experience you can perfectly reasonably do top 45 without shielding at all, so assuming you break the HP progression threshold for it that's +150HP from that tournament, which lets you consider a multi-shield strategy or an 8hr or whatever for one in every few without ever paying for the privilege.

A bunch of 3* covers sounds nice, but standard tokens are very untargeted and likely just to give you a smattering of everyone without one usable set. Either way, 3*s are naff all use to you without ISO to level them, usually to at least 100ish where they actually start being as good as 2*s, and if you've just spent all your ISO getting them it'll take aeons of grinding with your underleveled 2*s to get them usable.

Unknown

Hear, hear the CHAMP!

Unknown

I would max out Thor since he's a regularly featured character in tourney and now a green tile generating machine and OBW because of her strike tile synergy and ability to heal.

I don't believe in buying tokens. They're 95% ****, 4% decent covers you already have, and 1% a 3 star cover you actually needed. Plus you accumulate these things quite easily in the LRs and tourney's no need to spend iso.

Unknown

walkyourpath wrote:

Echoing the above. There are literally no 3* heavy rosters in the Top 10 of my bracket right now. It's very possible to slug it out for a decent placement and then drop one 3 hour shield when you're in the final stretch and feel good about staying in 3* reward territory. This should land you easily in the Top 45 for a 3* cover, and even net you positive HP (50 for prog, 100 for placing, minus 100 for the shield).

I would also strongly recommend continuing to pump your ISO into your 2* roster. It makes a big difference in terms of who people decide to target towards the end of a tourney. I'm always going to attack someone with a 70 Thor over someone with an 85. I know it seems like an ISO sink, but it will actually speed up the transition to 3* in the long run.

Edit: Also, getting your covers through tourneys guarantees that you're getting the covers you need, instead of hoping your token draws match with a 3* character you're hoping to build up covers for. Strongly advise against the ISO token lottery.

absolutely agree. with the MMR the way it is right now, there's no question you should be pumping up your 'core' 2* characters since that level is the most diverse, most likely to get boosted in tournaments, and will give you the best flexibility throughout a week of events. In my No Holds Barred bracket there are no 3* rosters at all in the top 10.

Unknown

The difference between level 70 and 85 isn't that big, but it still counts for something. I was doing Big Thunder with a level 70 Thor and it's quite doable and normally it wouldn't be this bad be to 15 levels behind. Sure Spiderman did most of the work but Thor still pumped out a lot of damage, and he obviously finished the game.

From a scaling point of view, level 85 2* characters are roughly equivalent of a level 100 3* character in pure stats. For example I recently found out Hulk doesn't pass up Moonstone (85) in black until level 95 or so. So level 85 characters are actually quite competitive against 3* characters that aren't likely to level 141 outside of very few top/rich players. Further 3* characters tend to be slow with 2 notable exceptions (Magneto/Spiderman) so even if they're stronger, it's not impossible to approach them if the point rewards are worth the risk.

For shielding strategy, there's a 50 HP difference between #45 and #46. If the 3* cover matters at all to you, you should shield if it's needed to hold onto top 45. Generally I've been able to hold #45 without shields quite easily but your mileage may vary. Likewise if the additional cover matters at all you should definitely shield. From my experience if you started in top 5 you'll definitely stay in top 15 if shielded, but top 5 is not guaranteed (really depends on how competitive your bracket is), and likewise if you started in top 15 you're pretty much guaranteed to get top 45 if shielded.

Unknown

Mmmkay, thanks for the responses, folks.

Yeggy

NighteyesGrisu wrote:

somewhere there's a survey that covers what covers were gotten by what tokens. IIRC, the likelyhood of getting a *** from a standard token is around 2.5%. so you'd need a wagonload of iso to get your 3*

Marvel Puzzle Quest recruit token spading

Unknown

Update:
I did push hard on the No Holds Barred tourney, and shielded up after grabbing 3rd place to sail into a top 5 finisher victory.

I'm not sure if that makes me think they're more for P2W players or less. But it was worth it this time because I really want to round out the Hood; I'm attracted to AP generating heroes.

Unknown

Congrats! You can definitely freeload your way to splurging on shields occasionally, you just need to throw a fair bit of time into it if that's what you want. That's more or less standard f2p/p2w (pay not to spend time).

Unknown

Here's another tidbit for ya. A 3* isn't efficient until it's in the triple digits. The time it takes to level an efficient 3*, you could level 2 2* characters.

Unknown

Koolbiird wrote:

Here's another tidbit for ya. A 3* isn't efficient until it's in the triple digits. The time it takes to level an efficient 3*, you could level 2 2* characters.

Basically. Even if you spend all your ISO on tokens and somehow get lucky with 3-stars, how do you plan to level them?