Is this it? Am I done?

Unknown

Yesterday an alliance mate said he didn't know when but he was done with the 3*s, completed them all. "I know I need some still" I thought to myself. Later I got a golden cover from a token, it was a vision yellow. I checked mine and it was alredy 553. "good, one less to worry about". Went in to check what I was missing and got shocked:

I have 13/13 of every 3*.

Rushed to check the covers and was very surprised when I saw I am 5 covers from optimal build in the entire 3* realm.

One SW purple (445, was 355 and needed respec after the nerf), one cMags blue (454), one punisher green (445) and two SG greens (553). Even tho I miss those 5 I'm pretty sure I can say I'm done with the transition, right?

Day 453 and mostly a f2p player. I've got some low $ early for slots, got a hp sale once but never used directly on covers, only on slots (77 with a few dupes).

I'm proud of myself and I have a lot of thank for two alliances that I spent most of my time. There were others but hey, those two are the ones I owe most: Soylent and Skynet.

I know it's nothing important and I'm almost a nobody who barely scratches 1300 but this forum helped me a lot and I try to help when I can.

Thank you MPQ for making my 12h shifts in the past 20 months better and entertaining me for so long (maybe too much but well).

No I'm not quitting, but it's gonna take a while until I'm done with the next part, which the first step is having a good 4* maxed (closest ones are WXF 445 soon-to-be 355 and 453 HB), both with a long path ahead in terms of iso.

squirrel1120

Back about a year ago when we were talking about the 3* transition as a hot topic (before deadpool daily quests), it was generally considered that you finished that said transition when you covered and maxed your first 3*. Once you were there, you were considered in the 3* game...

Kinda of a grey area since the changes to buffed weekly characters and hp increases to almost every character that wasn't already in the top health class. I mean by that old definition, I've 'completed' the 4* transition, but it doesn't quite work like it used to either. Having XF maxed isn't doing anything for me in PVP except that he's semi viable every 7 weeks or so when buffed. Then again, that also depends if there is anyone decent to pair him with, because his black alone certainly won't carry a team anymore like it used to.

There certainly is a difference between completing the transition and completing every character optimally in a tier. When you start using a tier more than the one below it, leaving it behind for the most part, I'd say that's the new tipping point for when you've completed a transition. Its a little less solid a line, and I'm guessing most players aren't feeling that hard transition point like I did. Way back when, finishing Lcap and patch really made my pvp ability jump up considerably, not even being that great a team together. These days, either would only help much at all when buffed for the week, and the chances of them being buffed together isn't great... so if a player maxed those two, as I did before those aforementioned changes, they are definitely going to have a different pvp experience.

In the pvp realm, the 3* transition is probably complete by my above definition when you have a decent pair already max'd for each weeks buffed list. Then again, its probably only a matter of time before they decide to pick 5 that aren't in my list of 22 level capped characters... So, like I said, kind of a grey area.

3 more red covers for vision, 1 purple for bullseye, and my 3* roster is 100% and spec'd right. Vision has been such a white whale for me.

GurlBYE

Congrat op.

I'd love insight on whether the developers think your transition was long or just on par for a light spender.

wymtime

Congrats OP. Now you hav to decide how many 3* to take to 166. I currently have 32 3* at 166 and the only 3* left I want to take up is bullseye. I don't know why I do but I feel I should so I will when his next PVP comes up.
I have not taken any 4* to 270 yet as my highest is 210 and I am waiting to have more 4* covered before really taking them to the next level. It is a great feeling knowing you have finished all your 3* now it is a matter is ISO. 20 ISO at a time

M C K

squirrel1120 wrote:

it was generally considered that you finished that said transition when you covered and maxed your first 3*

Not for me...my first covered/maxed 3* was IM40

Unknown

Oh yeah, forgot to mention that. I have 12 3*s at 166, from those only cMags isn't optimally covered: blade, cyke, Ldaken, DD, IF, KK, loki, Cage, cMags, lcap, Lthor and patch (my first 166). Others range from 140 to 120 and a few lower than that but at least 105.

With those I've been able to hit 1k consistently in the past 5~8 seasons at least I think, a couple times 1300 when the covers were really of my interest (5th WXF yellow, 4th HB red).

Hit t2 pve once (reed) and t10 twice (iceman and a long time ago lcap, I really wanted to max mine back then to the point of getting t10 on simulator which I hated).

squirrel1120

M C K wrote:

Not for me...my first covered/maxed 3* was IM40

Well, there was always a rub on that definition as well, because more often than not a person's first max'd covered character wasn't likely to get them all that far. My actual first cover max'd characters were actually spidey, then mostorm, neither of who got all that much iso in the transition. I didn't even recognize the days they got max covers, since they just weren't worth investing in.

If you max covered IM40, he was automatically broken with at least 3 yellow covers, so yeah, probably about the same situation.

Unknown

There's more than one stage of transition. Until recently I'd say I was on late transition and now I'm over it. There's about no need to any 3* cover but a blue cMags, the rest is just for completion.

I have 0 competitive 4*, even when I hit 1k on she hulk pvp and finish my 355 WXF I have no iso to Lv him so still useless, specially because I'm going to iso HB before.

Malcrof

ShionSinX wrote:

There's more than one stage of transition. Until recently I'd say I was on late transition and now I'm over it. There's about no need to any 3* cover but a blue cMags, the rest is just for completion.

I have 0 competitive 4*, even when I hit 1k on she hulk pvp and finish my 355 WXF I have no iso to Lv him so still useless, specially because I'm going to iso HB before.

Same boat here, all 3*s except Falcon have 13 covers, he will be done in ddq in 2 weeks.. 2more covers to respec to optimal.. and still no usable 4*s, i seem to be 1 or 2 covers away on the colors that make them what they need to be. It will come soon though... there was a time i never thought i would have 3*s done.

DFiPL

Congrats. I think I finished my transition a while ago (as somebody else said, once you aren't relying on 2*...)

I mean, he/she meant it in the PVP context, but I think it works for either. Once you're at the point where you reach first for your 3* roster in either PVP or PVE, you've probably transitioned and from there you're strengthening your position.

And that's where I'm at, now. Speccing out my team optimally and training peeps. Six of my 39 3* have 10 or fewer covers, while the other 33 are from 11-13 covers. Looks like 18/39 are spec'd optimally (defined as "how I want them" OR "oh god i don't even care 13 covers in whatever order is fine thanks (and I'm looking at you, Sentry)).

6/39 have 13 covers but need a respec. 15/39 are not yet fully covered, optimally or otherwise.

I'm making progress with my 4* thanks to Legendary tokens (I now have THREE characters with at least 4 covers!) but that's a slow burn.

Dragon_Nexus

Iron Fist and Bullseye are the only two characters I've not fully covered. I need a purple and green for Iron Fist and a purple and either he's done or I'll need two black as well. Not sure.
Of the rest, I need a black Luke Cage and a green Squirrel Girl. That's it.

So I'm tending to skip PvE these days because the reward is a 3* I don't need. Actually it's been quite relaxing skipping the grind. Sure I'm missing out on legendary tokens, but I'm enjoying doing PvP and hitting 1000 points. Means I can play more casually.

Then it's just an issue of levelling up more characters and one day breaking the level 166 barrier.

SnowcaTT

Gratz to those (Shion, Malcrof) getting their 3*'s done!

After the first rotation of DDQ (three covers, one of each color) I was finished with 3*, all "properly" covered. No 3*'s introduced since then...almost unfortunate, nothing else to look forward to with all those heroics dropping worthless 3*'s left and right. DDQ has really helped/accelerated the 3* covering and somewhat leveling.

Since then I keep "commenting" on the slow 4* transition, including how perhaps all 10-packs should include one. Trading in five 3*'s for a 4* or ten heroics for a legendary would be awesome. It's pretty frustrating to go season after season getting lots of 3*'s you don't need...and so rarely getting 4*'s you do need.

Even when you get them (and you need most of them), it's rough knowing that you get to maybe your 8th or 9th cover....but you are only going to see one more of that character every other season through PVP (10 PVP's per season, now 19 declared 4*'s), you'll have to get lucky (real lucky it seems) to get your higher covered 4*'s to get their desperately needed 10th-13th covers and make them usable.

It may be the D3 plan - it seems the only real way to get any 4*'s faster than a year of play is to pay for them...but you have to have 4*'s to compete well anymore, the 3*'s aren't doing so hot it seems. Hard to buy those covers anymore with earned HP, since there are so many characters almost all you can do with that HP is buy the roster slots for more characters.

I enjoyed getting the 3*'s leveled - that was always my goal when I started the game. Now I'm still somewhat enjoying getting the 4*'s going - but it is much more frustratingly slow than the 3* achievement was. The 5* seems impossible and I could see that driving me out of the game.

cyineedsn

SnowcaTT wrote:

Gratz to those (Shion, Malcrof) getting their 3*'s done!

After the first rotation of DDQ (three covers, one of each color) I was finished with 3*, all "properly" covered. No 3*'s introduced since then...almost unfortunate, nothing else to look forward to with all those heroics dropping worthless 3*'s left and right. DDQ has really helped/accelerated the 3* covering and somewhat leveling.

Since then I keep "commenting" on the slow 4* transition, including how perhaps all 10-packs should include one. Trading in five 3*'s for a 4* or ten heroics for a legendary would be awesome. It's pretty frustrating to go season after season getting lots of 3*'s you don't need...and so rarely getting 4*'s you do need.

Even when you get them (and you need most of them), it's rough knowing that you get to maybe your 8th or 9th cover....but you are only going to see one more of that character every other season through PVP (10 PVP's per season, now 19 declared 4*'s), you'll have to get lucky (real lucky it seems) to get your higher covered 4*'s to get their desperately needed 10th-13th covers and make them usable.

It may be the D3 plan - it seems the only real way to get any 4*'s faster than a year of play is to pay for them...but you have to have 4*'s to compete well anymore, the 3*'s aren't doing so hot it seems. Hard to buy those covers anymore with earned HP, since there are so many characters almost all you can do with that HP is buy the roster slots for more characters.

I enjoyed getting the 3*'s leveled - that was always my goal when I started the game. Now I'm still somewhat enjoying getting the 4*'s going - but it is much more frustratingly slow than the 3* achievement was. The 5* seems impossible and I could see that driving me out of the game.

The 3* achievement actually was frustratingly slow before DDQ. So much that I quit for a year or so before coming back this year. I think in many ways from a developer perspective DDQ was too much and made the 3* achievement too fast. Alongside tokens and the various other rewards available, DDQ more or less allowed many people to fully cover or nearly fully cover 3*s in...I don't know, a year of play? This lead to the quagmire we are in now of so many people having very few ways to progress, and the 4* transition feeling way too slow.

In any case, I think this is just the nature of the game. 6 months from now there will probably be many more opportunities to get 4* characters, lots of people will have their 4*s fully covered, and we'll all be complaining about how the 5* transition is still too slow and random. I think we just need to accept that the can is always just going to be kicked down the road. It's literally the only way this game (and many others like it) can keep going.

Marty17

I am getting a little bit excited by the prospect of completing my characters. I need 2 covers for & 6 for with 7 additional covers required for respec & 11 characters left to max level.

stowaway

I want to play too! The recent Doc Ock rewards got me to 13 covers for every three star. The only one who obviously isn't optimally covered is Deadpool, who has three red and five black. There are two or three others that are probably a cover off, but they're the likes of Sentry and Vision, for whom "optimal" build is a speculative exercise, and whose priority is essentially zero. About 25 characters at 166, two of them four stars.

For reference sake, I'll be getting my Devil Dino rewards during anniversary week (I can see the first one queued up now). I started playing in December '13, but have taken lots of breaks, most of which I thought were permanent at the time.

There's something bittersweet about being in the four star transition. . . with 40 characters, three star feels like its where the heart of the game is. And there are only a couple of four stars that have that "woah, fun" feeling that some of the three stars have.

snlf25

I'm getting to that point too, op.

I have 13 maxed level 166 3* characters:
Black Widow
Blade
Captain Marvel
Cyclops
Deadpool
Kamala Khan
Luke Cage
Magneto
Rocket & Groot
Steve Rogers
The Hood
Thor
Wolverine

Of those I only need one green Blade to respec to 3/5/5 were I want him. I only need 29 more covers total to have everything exactly how I want it. The vast majority of those are for respecs.

Fully covered optimally just waiting for ISO:

Black Panther
DareDevil
Hulk
Daken
Sam Wilson
Loki
Storm
Gamora
Beast
Doctor Doom

My only huge gaps are 4 covers for Iron Fist and 2 covers for Scarlet Witch. Pretty much everybody not listed is extremely low priority but almost fully covered if not perfectly. I wish they'd give us more three stars, especially Jessica Jones with good synergy with her pals Cage and Fist.

XandorXerxes

I've got most all of my 3*s max covered, but I went mostly casual a few seasons back when I burned out on PvE. I got 1K a few times at the beginning of the season, but it was a royal pain so I stopped bothering. Could really use a few tips on when exactly to push the 1K mark, the Ice Man PvP especially was brutal on me.

I don't see much of a 4* transition in my future, so not really sure where I go from here.

Turbosmooth

Congrats.

Today I got my first 4* with 13 covers. XFW @ 5/4/4. Not optimal, but still 13 covers. No rush to take him or any 4* above my 166 soft cap (PX is an exception). I will not consider doing so until I have 13 covers for at least five 4* characters. I have three that are at 11 covers so it won't be long. I have 11 Legendary tokens stockpiled for 2nd 5* release.

3* Bullseye still needs 2-3 covers, but all other 3* have 13 covers and almost all optimal. I changed my mind on cmags to be 3/5/5 and I sold so many red covers in the past (I could have had a second one by now). I have built/building my favorite 3* duplicates, but they might be a waste just like my 2* duplicates were.

When I focused on 3*, half of the 2*s have been abandoned. Ares and Storm are stuck at level 60. Would rather spend the ISO finishing all 3*s to 166. I do think half of my 3*s will be stuck at 120 when I start leveling up 4* past 166. I feel obligated just for PvP stake. 1000 PvP is barely achievable with 166 3* buffed/featured roster. If I ever want 1300, 4* is completely necessary. I'm already a season behind.

There are three 5* being released, so the road is still long ahead. I have been playing almost a year and there is still a long way to go even just in ISO terms.

Unknown

Today I took a step in the future.

TxMoose

you're a little ahead of me shion. my beast, im40, and bullseye need one more for fully covered and I need just a few for respec'ing. I think my total cover need for 3*s is in the single digits now (7 if I have it right, and really aren't needs, just respec'ing some mid/lower characters) - shulk event helped just about finish her (considering a 4th blue, but that's just tinkering).

no, waiting on this next 5* for my 14 legendaries. i'll be taking some steps into the future here shortly.

SnowcaTT

TxMoose wrote:

you're a little ahead of me shion. my beast, im40, and bullseye need one more for fully covered and I need just a few for respec'ing. I think my total cover need for 3*s is in the single digits now (7 if I have it right, and really aren't needs, just respec'ing some mid/lower characters) - shulk event helped just about finish her (considering a 4th blue, but that's just tinkering).

no, waiting on this next 5* for my 14 legendaries. i'll be taking some steps into the future here shortly.

Wow, gratz on that many! I think I have 7....I don't want to spend the money it will cost me on HP for boosts to get to 1300 each tim, and I don't want to spend the life/family time it will cost me to grind the PVE's to double progression. The legendary will help those that are not burned out on PVE - so those in 2*/3* transition will jump right into 4* pretty easily compared to before I think.

If I had to guess, our alliance probably averages 500 days played - that seems to be well past the point where people have burnt out on PVE. We've lost so many players to PVE throughout seasons, a couple re-started to try to get the legendaries this season and it's burning them out already.

I'm still concerned about the poor folks that get those surfers. I've seen plenty of folks with three or less maxed 3*'s running their best character - a lucky one cover SS pull - in LR's and sim. These poor, poor people. That's going to be their best character, by far, for at least six months and likely a year. They are going to be so sick of surfer. I saw someone the other day with one 94 and nothing else - think of playing that character for a year and a half while you 3* transition and start to get into the 4* transition. Your scaling suddenly became worse in PVE as well - so it's going to make that transition harder there.

I used Hood/Thor for a long time. Then I used XF for a long time. Now I've used HB for a long time. But never have I used one character in every match for more than about six months. Imagine doing it for a year and a half - would you still want to play after that? Ug.