Noticed that I'm in the middle of a run [DDQ Musings]

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I can say I'm a player 3,5*. For me still missing:




Hopefully I'll get lucky tomorrow and get at least one more . This week I have gained a lot iso, 250 and

In relation to Iso missing only 5 to complete all 3 * to 166:



I accumulate all the tokens of the 40 days of each session to open within 5 days of Kamala Khan and Quicksilver. Except the legendary token, I'm lucky to DDQ token, Heroic and LR. As you are still a player 2*, the pack 10 would be good for you. Who is veteran flees these packages.

DFiPL

vinicius18 wrote:

As you are still a player 2*, the pack 10 would be good for you. Who is veteran flees these packages.

I haven't been a 2* player in a long time.

My 3* are mostly max covers. The few that aren't are relatively recent additions to the team. Of the vets, only a couple need a respec. To the extent that I can't hit 1000 in pvp yet, maybe I'm not a 4* transitioner yet, but since I refuse to shield hop, that may be eternally true.

DFiPL

Updated the OP for Kamala Khan joining Thirteenlandia.

Also, to the mod who edited the title: What do you mean, "evolved"? It started out mostly about DDQ ("covers I can't use") and eventually started lumping in just the general growth of my roster from all sources. If the topic evolved, it evolved AWAY from DDQ.

Mawtful

DFiPL wrote:

Updated the OP for Kamala Khan joining Thirteenlandia.

Also, to the mod who edited the title: What do you mean, "evolved"? It started out mostly about DDQ ("covers I can't use") and eventually started lumping in just the general growth of my roster from all sources. If the topic evolved, it evolved AWAY from DDQ.

- mod editing threads because they feel like it
- contributing actual meaningful discussion

pick one

Also, grats on Kamala. Are you going to level her up? Taking a look at my own roster and I still need a Blue Doc Ock cover, which I'd actually forgotten about.

DFiPL

Mawtful wrote:

DFiPL wrote:

Updated the OP for Kamala Khan joining Thirteenlandia.

Also, to the mod who edited the title: What do you mean, "evolved"? It started out mostly about DDQ ("covers I can't use") and eventually started lumping in just the general growth of my roster from all sources. If the topic evolved, it evolved AWAY from DDQ.

- mod editing threads because they feel like it
- contributing actual meaningful discussion

pick one

Also, grats on Kamala. Are you going to level her up? Taking a look at my own roster and I still need a Blue Doc Ock cover, which I'd actually forgotten about.

Yeah, I am, eventually! I haven't decided what the priority is, yet, for who gets leveled. Few reasons:

1) My current ISO deficit for 3* is about 3.1 million, and I have 135k ISO in the bank. The cost for any given 120 to get to 166 is about 97k. My options, then, are level one to 166 and then slowly save back up until another can level; wait until I have about 300k in the bank and then take 3 to 166; or continue to level evenly. I can take my 120's to 125 for about 6300 each, which would cost about 215k if I did alllllll of them. Or I could take 21 of the 34 to 125 and then take the other 13 there as I get 'em there.

2) in the event that I go the "take a few of 'em to 166" route, I'm not sure what the best path to do that is. Groot is the closest to 166, at 141, so he'd be the cheapest to level. He's also one of my more heavily used characters, which is WHY he's 141 (love that Grootastic healing). But after Groot, who else do I take? Cyclops and Cage, as damage dealers, seem like no-brainers. Kamala seems like a prime candidate. They all have cases to make, really; the only one I have zero small felines to give about is Sentry. He's at 114 and he may stay there until the heat death of the universe. I never use him unless I have to, so...

I'm really super close to my 'optimal' payloads for most of my characters. There are a couple I haven't decided on yet: Captain Marvel is 4/5/2, so I gotta figure something out soonish, but haven't yet. Hood has a long way to go, but I know he'll get 5 . Torch needs one cover, which should drop in daily resupply within the week; Cage needs either two or three covers (he'll get his 5th red in his next DDQ, but I want his red at either 3 or 4, which means at least one additional black cover is necessary); Magneto needs three covers (his blue is at 2, want it at 5); Doc Ock, Quicksilver, Ragnarok and She-Hulk are in the same camp as Captain Marvel in that I haven't decided on a loadout yet; Scarlet Witch needs two to reach my original plan but I'm debating changing that. That's it. Eight covers needed for respecs, and then whatever's going to happen with Ock, Hood, Marvel, Quicksilver, Ragnarok and She-Hulk. I don't know that I'm attached enough to Quicksilver to really care once he hits 5/5/3 here soon. That might end up being where I leave him.

But long story short eventually the majority of my 3* roster will be 166. Eventually. Sentry might get there someday if I have a spare 100k lying around and nothing to spend it on, and I really don't hold out much hope for 3* Iron Man surviving on my roster long enough to reach 13 covers (let alone join the party at 120+), but the other 38 should get there. Eventually.

Mawtful

DFiPL wrote:

1) My current ISO deficit for 3* is about 3.1 million, and I have 135k ISO in the bank. The cost for any given 120 to get to 166 is about 97k. My options, then, are level one to 166 and then slowly save back up until another can level; wait until I have about 300k in the bank and then take 3 to 166; or continue to level evenly. I can take my 120's to 125 for about 6300 each, which would cost about 215k if I did alllllll of them. Or I could take 21 of the 34 to 125 and then take the other 13 there as I get 'em there.

2) in the event that I go the "take a few of 'em to 166" route, I'm not sure what the best path to do that is. Groot is the closest to 166, at 141, so he'd be the cheapest to level. He's also one of my more heavily used characters, which is WHY he's 141 (love that Grootastic healing). But after Groot, who else do I take? Cyclops and Cage, as damage dealers, seem like no-brainers. Kamala seems like a prime candidate. They all have cases to make, really; the only one I have zero small felines to give about is Sentry. He's at 114 and he may stay there until the heat death of the universe. I never use him unless I have to, so...

I'm not really sure how different that end of the 3* transition is now compared to when I went through it, but in my experience I found that after taking my first 3* character to max level my ISO gain improved significantly, and by the time I was able to field a team of max level 3*'s I was able to really pick and choose where I was spending ISO. The metagame is still heavily focused on speed matches, but there's a strong tendency towards big health pools since this is the largest deterrent for most speed teams and it helps to weather the increased match damage from 4* teams.

So lets deal with the easy one first. Cyclops. Cyclops is not just OP, he's the most OP character in the game relative to his star level. A bunch of people are probably going to come in here and tell me I'm wrong, but they're only lying to themselves. Anyway, I think the lesson here is clear: max Cyclops

After Cyke, my suggestion is probably: Iron Fist, Kamala, Luke Cage, in that order (Cage negating match damage is great, but he shares colours with Cyclops which hurts team composition), then sprinkle with your own preferences. Grocket, DP, Shulk, Hood & Loki all let you set the tempo for your fights as they all have some way of forcing players to think about what actions they're taking. Captain America, Doctor Doom, SWitch & Magneto aren't necessarily "target first" material, but all have abilities that can really put the hurt on their opponent. Support characters (like Hood, Loki, maybe SWitch) can contribute just as well at around levels 120-140, but characters like Shulk, DP, and Doom are definitely going to give better results by having higher health pools to try and burn through. With enough AP or the right board, I can burn through Loki in a turn, so I'm not always going to be concerned with avoiding a match-4 if it means I can knock him out before his countdown tiles activate, however it's unlikely that I'll be able to OHKO Shulk, so I'm still going to be managing her Green AP levels and she could easily get 6 AP in a cascade, so Furious Charge is going to affect the way I play until I know I can take her out. Even now, I'm not going to auto select a team with Shulk in PvP because it's really not a guaranteed fast win.

So for all that, I haven't reatlly suggested anything to you beyond you own thoughts already, so here's the 3* characters which I have at max level:
Black Panther, Blade, Cyclops, Daken, Daredevil, Human Torch, Iron Fist, Iron Man, Kamala Khan, Luke Cage, Magneto, Psylocke, Grocket, Steve Rogers, Hood, Hulk, Punisher, Thor, Patch.

And above 120 (either 140 or 150):
Gamora, Switch, Deadpool, Doom, Beast, Loki, Falcon, Shulk, Spider-Man.
Of those 9, I'd probably consider taking Shulk, Deadpool, Doom, and Gamora to 166. Yes, Gamora, because Gamora + Kamala + Thor4 is just a really fun Women of Marvel team.

DFiPL

Mawtful wrote:

DFiPL wrote:

1) My current ISO deficit for 3* is about 3.1 million, and I have 135k ISO in the bank. The cost for any given 120 to get to 166 is about 97k. My options, then, are level one to 166 and then slowly save back up until another can level; wait until I have about 300k in the bank and then take 3 to 166; or continue to level evenly. I can take my 120's to 125 for about 6300 each, which would cost about 215k if I did alllllll of them. Or I could take 21 of the 34 to 125 and then take the other 13 there as I get 'em there.

2) in the event that I go the "take a few of 'em to 166" route, I'm not sure what the best path to do that is. Groot is the closest to 166, at 141, so he'd be the cheapest to level. He's also one of my more heavily used characters, which is WHY he's 141 (love that Grootastic healing). But after Groot, who else do I take? Cyclops and Cage, as damage dealers, seem like no-brainers. Kamala seems like a prime candidate. They all have cases to make, really; the only one I have zero small felines to give about is Sentry. He's at 114 and he may stay there until the heat death of the universe. I never use him unless I have to, so...

I'm not really sure how different that end of the 3* transition is now compared to when I went through it, but in my experience I found that after taking my first 3* character to max level my ISO gain improved significantly, and by the time I was able to field a team of max level 3*'s I was able to really pick and choose where I was spending ISO. The metagame is still heavily focused on speed matches, but there's a strong tendency towards big health pools since this is the largest deterrent for most speed teams and it helps to weather the increased match damage from 4* teams.

Well, the other bit is I don't play a ton of PVP at the moment. I play about every other season because once I land in a vet bracket, my ability to compete drops significantly. Not so much from a placement perspective as my ability to reach 650ish on demand. And, yeah, leveling characters to 166 is going to help with that, but I enjoy PVE enough that I have fears of running into a wall if I level too quickly. That's why I've been taking everybody to preset levels, slowly. I may change that at some point, but I'm not super sure of how PVE scaling is determined. If it's the average of my top 3, that's (141+133+120)/3 = ~131. With everybody mostly at 120 currently, that's not too bad.

Leveling someone straight to 166 (who isn't Groot or Storm) would change that to (166+141+133)/3 = ~147. Those 15 levels probably aren't going to start spawning Lv395 baddies, but if the 'average' enemies are spawning at around 145-150, the harder fights might get into the 200s (the hardest nodes in PVE have been around 180 currently).

If it's based on the average of top 5, not top 3, then the average would go from 131 to ~127 as things stand, and from ~147 to ~136 with the addition of a 166. I'm trying to find some kind of a firm answer on that, which is why I've taken it slow.

So lets deal with the easy one first. Cyclops. Cyclops is not just OP, he's the most OP character in the game relative to his star level. A bunch of people are probably going to come in here and tell me I'm wrong, but they're only lying to themselves. Anyway, I think the lesson here is clear: max Cyclops

He's on the short list, as are Luke Cage, Captain America, Iron Fist and Doctor Doom. I mean, I don't have a real clear sense of where I want to go beyond those five, but those five are dudes I skip when I see 166s pop up in PVP because I go "oh man those fights would take forever," and I'm not a shield hopper. So maybe they'd be a similar deterrent for people who ARE.

I gotta run to work but I'll take another look at the rest of your post this afternoon and respond to it then. Thanks for the advice!

DFiPL

Mawtful wrote:

So for all that, I haven't reatlly suggested anything to you beyond you own thoughts already, so here's the 3* characters which I have at max level:
Black Panther, Blade, Cyclops, Daken, Daredevil, Human Torch, Iron Fist, Iron Man, Kamala Khan, Luke Cage, Magneto, Psylocke, Grocket, Steve Rogers, Hood, Hulk, Punisher, Thor, Patch.

And above 120 (either 140 or 150):
Gamora, Switch, Deadpool, Doom, Beast, Loki, Falcon, Shulk, Spider-Man.
Of those 9, I'd probably consider taking Shulk, Deadpool, Doom, and Gamora to 166. Yes, Gamora, because Gamora + Kamala + Thor4 is just a really fun Women of Marvel team.

Getting back to your post now that I'm not in 'oh **** I'm going to be late' mode:

I snipped the bit with your suggestions, not because they weren't welcome and/or gratefully received, but because they're fairly well in line with my own thoughts, as you said, and I wanted to comment on your 120+ group.

Of your maxed 3's, characters on my own shortlist for maxing include: Black Panther, Cyclops, Daredevil, Human Torch, Iron Fist, Kamala Khan, Luke Cage, Magneto, Groot, Steve Rogers, Thor, and Patch. The others'll get there eventually, but the dozen or so I just listed are probably at the top of the list. Oh, add Deadpool (currently 120).

Of your 140/150 group, I really like Gamora (maybe more than "most" here do) but not sure she's in my first tier of 166's. Doom is one of those guys I forget about until he's boosted and then I start daydreaming about maxing him. I may need to bump him into that first tier (and may need to whittle the first tier down into a first and a second tier). My She-Hulk is still getting covers, but I'm finding her much more useful than the last time I had her. Not sure if that's because I'm learning how to use her effectively or if her powers were different then. Beast is Sentry without the antipathy for me. Sentry I just flat don't care for. Beast seems kinda useless, but not to the point of getting left at 114 forever. Loki and Falcon will definitely be getting the 166 treatment, but not sure if they're Phase 2 or Phase 3, to use Marvel terminology.

Spider-Man is probably more like Phase 4 or 5, lol. I just feel like everything he does well, somebody else does better.

DFiPL

Main list upthread was a little out of date. So...now it isn't.

I have enough ISO to level two cats to 166, and I kind of want to do that, but I'm also in the middle of the comparison experiment between Steam (this account) and my mobile, which has an Old Man Logan.

Decisions.

DFiPL

A standard token makes Ragnarok my 35th 13-cover 3*.

Kind of interesting since he was my MPQ white whale pre-nerf, the 3* I most coveted 13 covers of.

And now there are probably a dozen 3* I prefer to him.

snlf25

Only a dozen? I'm finishing my Iron Fist off on the 17th too and my Scarlet Witch the 21st. So excited for those. I can't recommend Kamala enough. She is top shelf 166 material all the way.

DFiPL

snlf25 wrote:

Only a dozen? I'm finishing my Iron Fist off on the 17th too and my Scarlet Witch the 21st. So excited for those. I can't recommend Kamala enough. She is top shelf 166 material all the way.

Awesome! Yeah, Kamala has bailed me out on tough CP nodes a couple times. She's definitely on the short list for first to 166.

I've been going back and forth on whether I want to jump a couple characters up and then bring the rest along behind or what. I only PVP about every other season at this point, so the benefit of doing it slowly is no massive jumps in PVE scaling. The detriment is it will take me probably 10x as long to get my first 166 as it would otherwise.

I don't even like level 200 nodes. I wonder if it's even possible to level in such a way that I don't run into level 300+ nodes with regularity.

snlf25

My first 166 optimals were the Captains Marvel and America. I moved them up way above my other threes and paid for it for a few months until I could bring up Thor and Patch. My advice is to chose 4 or 5 and bring them up equally. Don't give yourself a tougher time with scaling than you have to. I have 16 fully optimal 166s now and I only need 15 more 3* covers until I have the full set. I'm not bringing any of my 4*s over 165 until I have a bunch ready.

DFiPL

My 4's are so so puny. And that's a big part of why I'm trying to keep scaling under control: I'd rather not make it any harder to get Legendary Tokens in 3/4 day events than is absolutely necessary.

Of late I've been leveling everybody 5 levels at a time (unless they're at their current caps, such as Hood at 102). Except Sentry. **** that guy.

DFiPL

OJSP wrote:

DFiPL wrote:

I don't even like level 200 nodes. I wonder if it's even possible to level in such a way that I don't run into level 300+ nodes with regularity.

It depends on what you mean by regularity..

For my roster (20 166, 3 255 (5*s) and several 4*s in between), at the moment I only see 300+ opponents on the last day/sub and usually only on the hardest 2 nodes. Sometimes from the beginning of the sub, but most of the time, the levels would increase from high 290s to around 325 on the 2nd or 3rd clear.

This is what I'm thinking of, yeah. If the hardest node - which is ALREADY a pain in the **** trying to farm Command Points from because of the crit boosts and 20 ISO garbage - is gonna go from 190 to high 2s/low 3s just through the course of ordinary scaling, and I don't PVP much, it may not be worth leveling further.

If there's a way to level without tripping that trigger, okay then.

DFiPL

Magneto becomes my 36th 3* to reach 13 covers. She-Hulk, Doc Ock and Hood are the only holdouts. Beyond that, just some tinkering for preferred spec.

Then it's leveling time and "try to make some progress on my 4*" time.

DFiPL

Gonna need to update this this weekend. Championed two 3's and leveled a bunch of the rest to 130, but there are still a bunch hanging out at 125 or lower since I spent the ISO to get to 166 on Groot and Black Panther.

DFiPL

Updated the OP to reflect the fact that we're living in a champions' world now.