Newbie looking for roster advice (esp. for 3*)

HailMary

Just started playing a couple of weeks ago, and have only played Events for about a week.

I'm still relying on IM35 & mBW as my core team, but I've gotten a number of 3* single covers lately.
I don't have the roster space. Who should I get rid of?

Roster:

IM35 - maxed
mBW - maxed
Thor - 38 - 3/2/5
Wolverine X-Force - 30 - 1 yellow
Bag-Man - 29 - 3/2/3
Cap. A - 29 - 0/3/2
oBW - 9 - 1/1/1
c Storm - 8 - 1/1/2
Moonstone - 8 - 0/1/1

The 3*'s: (some in roster, some in reward queue)
IM40 - 25 - 2/0/0
Spiderman - 25 - 0/0/2
Daredevil - 1 cover
Hood - 1 cover
Punisher - 1 cover
Hulk - 1 cover
BW grey suit - 1 cover

(2 Astonishing Wolverine covers also in the reward queue)

I have 14 roster spots, possibly a 15th coming in a couple of days, so I need to get rid of at least two characters total to accommodate my roster limit.

Also, any leveling advice would be greatly appreciated, since this doesn't seem to fit a normal 1* team -> 2* team -> 3* team progression(?).

Unknown

Seems to be fairly standard progression. While you were able to get some 3* covers early, those chars don't really become usable without at least a couple more covers each, so it would be better to progress to 2*s first, with Thor being particularly useful.

Regarding covers to toss, you can safely toss bagman for certain. If you really need a 2nd slot, Moonstone or IM35 might be your best bet. Keep in mind that Moonstone might be useful if they rerun dark avengers or no mans land tourneys tho, and your Thor might need a few more levels to replace IM35 on your team.

HailMary

Thanks for the advice!

I plan on keeping Moonstone, since I'll be getting a couple more of her through Blind Justice, and her red power looks decent...? Great tip on the Dark Avengers aspect. I didn't even consider that. (Should I work on a Venom or Bullseye for those situations? I've just been tossing those covers so far)

I've kept Bag-Man mainly because he's good at countering henchman countdowns, but I've never used him in PvP. Alright, he's getting tossed, though turning a lvl 29 char into 2-3 levels in Thor just feels wrong.

Classic Spidey: I keep hearing about how great he is, but I honestly can't figure out why. Does he become amazing when you upgrade his powers to the 3+ range?

I'm surprised that you rate IM35 below, say, Captain America. I don't really see Cap's strengths. Could you elaborate on them? (I tried a forum search, but to no avail) Honestly the only reason I've kept Cap is because I won his covers in a tournament.

NorthernPolarity

HailMary wrote:

Just started playing a couple of weeks ago, and have only played Events for about a week.

I'm still relying on IM35 & mBW as my core team, but I've gotten a number of 3* single covers lately.
I don't have the roster space. Who should I get rid of?

Roster:

IM35 - maxed
mBW - maxed
Thor - 38 - 3/2/5
Wolverine X-Force - 30 - 1 yellow
Bag-Man - 29 - 3/2/3
Cap. A - 29 - 0/3/2
oBW - 9 - 1/1/1
c Storm - 8 - 1/1/2
Moonstone - 8 - 0/1/1

The 3*'s: (some in roster, some in reward queue)
IM40 - 25 - 2/0/0
Spiderman - 25 - 0/0/2
Daredevil - 1 cover
Hood - 1 cover
Punisher - 1 cover
Hulk - 1 cover
BW grey suit - 1 cover

(2 Astonishing Wolverine covers also in the reward queue)

I have 14 roster spots, possibly a 15th coming in a couple of days, so I need to get rid of at least two characters total to accommodate my roster limit.

Also, any leveling advice would be greatly appreciated, since this doesn't seem to fit a normal 1* team -> 2* team -> 3* team progression(?).

Ignore this post and see next.

Unknown

HailMary wrote:

Thanks for the advice!

I plan on keeping Moonstone, since I'll be getting a couple more of her through Blind Justice, and her red power looks decent...? Great tip on the Dark Avengers aspect. I didn't even consider that. (Should I work on a Venom or Bullseye for those situations? I've just been tossing those covers so far)

I've kept Bag-Man mainly because he's good at countering henchman countdowns, but I've never used him in PvP. Alright, he's getting tossed, though turning a lvl 29 char into 2-3 levels in Thor just feels wrong.

Classic Spidey: I keep hearing about how great he is, but I honestly can't figure out why. Does he become amazing when you upgrade his powers to the 3+ range?

I'm surprised that you rate IM35 below, say, Captain America. I don't really see Cap's strengths. Could you elaborate on them? (I tried a forum search, but to no avail) Honestly the only reason I've kept Cap is because I won his covers in a tournament.

Dark avengers are really only useful in their own tournament, which isn't very often. So I wouldn't be too caught up with them.

Bag-man's skills may be decent for PvE, but with the high cost its really not worth it. Once you get more covers for OBW or Classic Spidey they're far better.

Classic Spidey's pretty overpowered at the moment, mainly because of his blue. It's -1 AP cost per level so at 5 it only costs 2 AP and can easily keep an entire team stunlocked. Though he's definitely due for a nerf soon.

IM35 is mostly used as damage soaking char, which Thor can replace and add tile generation too. Cap on the other hand is buffed very often for PvE events, so I just like to keep him around for those, but dont bother level him.

NorthernPolarity

HailMary wrote:

Thanks for the advice!

I plan on keeping Moonstone, since I'll be getting a couple more of her through Blind Justice, and her red power looks decent...? Great tip on the Dark Avengers aspect. I didn't even consider that. (Should I work on a Venom or Bullseye for those situations? I've just been tossing those covers so far)

I've kept Bag-Man mainly because he's good at countering henchman countdowns, but I've never used him in PvP. Alright, he's getting tossed, though turning a lvl 29 char into 2-3 levels in Thor just feels wrong.

Classic Spidey: I keep hearing about how great he is, but I honestly can't figure out why. Does he become amazing when you upgrade his powers to the 3+ range?

I'm surprised that you rate IM35 below, say, Captain America. I don't really see Cap's strengths. Could you elaborate on them? (I tried a forum search, but to no avail) Honestly the only reason I've kept Cap is because I won his covers in a tournament.

Classic Spidey is one of the best characters in the game because his blue at 5 covers costs 2 AP and potentially stuns for 5 turns, which is incredibly powerful. Think about it this way. Lets say you make 2 blue matches to 6 AP and downed one of their guys so they have 2 guys left. You cast your blue on the first guy who becomes stunned for one turn, and then cast blue on the other guy so hes stunned for 2 turns. Now you can match a blue, and restun the first guy for 3 turns. Make another blue match, and now you can stun the second guy for 4 turns, and the first guy for 5 turns. So now, if you make 2 blue matches every 5 turns, you can keep them permanently stunned. Oh, and at the end of the match, you use his yellow and recover all of the hp that you lost throughout the match. Match a purple and you reduce all incoming damage by a good amount too. He's just a really powerful character.

Ignore my last post, it seems like you have 17 characters with 15 slots available. In this case, I would say that Bag-Man definitely needs to go, but the other cover is trickier. My prime candidates for removal would be Cap. A and Moonstone, but those covers might be useful for you while you're in 2* land. IM35/mBW are not options because you're going to need them until you can get a 2* roster above 60 or so. The funny thing is that the 3*/X-Force covers will be useful to you down the road, but they're just going to be sitting in your roster for a very long time doing nothing. Regardless, it's probably worth keeping them just due to hard it is to get them (it took me maybe a month or so to finally complete my spidey, for instance). Between Moonstone and Cap. A, I really think it's Moonstone that has to go at this particular point in time. Historically, PvE events have always buffed heroes, so the chances of Cap being relevant in a tournament is a lot higher than Moonstone would be. Her abilities aren't even all that good: the black wont be used due to how insanely expensive it is, the purple is decent damage if they don't have special tiles/mediocre if they do, and the red is fine damage if you don't have any other red abilities. However, since you're going to be using IM35 and mBW for a while, you have a good purple and don't really need the red ability. Also consider that as soon as you get enough OBW covers, she instantly replaces Moonstone (as she is a ton better and covers the same colors except red, which doesn't matter because all the characters cover red), wasting all of the iso that you put into Moonstone. That being said, I would wait until the last minute since they've been strangely giving out a lot more 3* villain covers now than before (which implies that villains might be the next PvE event) just in case Moonstone somehow becomes relevant.

As Linxis said, this does follow the 1*->2*->3* progression. It's going to be really hard for you to finish off 3* covers until you can consistently place in the top 15 of a tournament, so you need to go into 2*s. I would just put all my iso into Thor/A. Wolvie/oBW/C. Storm: whichever ones you get more covers of.

HailMary

Wow, thank you very much for your detailed breakdown, and yeah, I should've provided a straight-up char count. My bad.

I've never thought about building up more than 3 web tiles (since I've only ever used Spidey in PvE against Venom), so thanks for the Spidey explanation.

Alright, based on all the great advice, I've swapped out Bag-Man for two-cover Astonishing Wolv (Hulk & GSBW still in reward queue, slot #15 coming in 25 HP after Blind Justice). As for Iso, I'll generally pour it into Thor until he hits his level cap (61 for now). I won't bother with leveling Cap or Moonstone (but will try to keep them) unless a buffed tournament appears. Between OBW, classic Storm, and A-Wolf, who should get Iso priority when they hit a usable level cap?

Lastly, having just read through a forum topic about Blind Justice, it seems that Daredevil is hard to get, even among 3* and has a higher "minimum usable level" than most 3*s. Does that seems about right?

Unknown

Out of those three I would say OBW should get first priority, since she's the best 2* support char and can work with almost any team and her healing can keep you playing much longer without using health packs.

DD is hard to get mainly because he's the newest one, later on the rarity should be the same as other 3*s. As for high level required, he's mainly a defensive hero IMO, his Ambush skill is the only one that scales with level, and only does scary high damage at high levels.

HailMary

Got it. OBW, it is (when I get there... down the road).

Also, good to know about DD. Besides Patch, do you think are the best 3* chars? I ask in case I run into a roster-limit problem again with odd 3* covers.

Thanks!

Unknown

Most of them have their uses. Spidery and mags are the most powerful but they're on the nerf list already. GSBW is very strong offensively but sucks in defense. Hulk is the exact opposite. Punisher is very versatile, nothing too strong but no weaknesses either, and can fit into almost any team. Patch is probably the strongest offensive char ATM but can get your own team killed just as fast.

The weakest 3*s are probably the 2 skill villains, particularly Rags, they nerfed him too hard.

NorthernPolarity

I would go OBW then Wolvie then C. Storm in terms of who to level first. OBW is extremely versatile due to her stealing AP, and espionage means that shes very good with strike tiles: I still use her paired with Punisher as my offensive team. Wolvie's green is still pretty good even post nerf, and his red is probably one of the most efficient ones in the game in terms of damage. I don't like Storm as much as the other two: her yellow is useless for the most part, and the green slot is usually taken by wolvie/thor, so youd be going her only for blue for the most part (which is okay I guess, but meh).

Linxis wrote:

Most of them have their uses. Spidery and mags are the most powerful but they're on the nerf list already. GSBW is very strong offensively but sucks in defense. Hulk is the exact opposite. Punisher is very versatile, nothing too strong but no weaknesses either, and can fit into almost any team. Patch is probably the strongest offensive char ATM but can get your own team killed just as fast.

The weakest 3*s are probably the 2 skill villains, particularly Rags, they nerfed him too hard.

+1 for explanations on the villains. Something else to consider is how good they are when not cover-maxed (since it takes a long time to get them maxed). I would say that GSBW is extremely mediocre on offense without 5 green, so you would be running her at low levels only for purple. Hulk is similar in that he isn't really scary unless his black is at high levels. Patch is also meh unless he's the highest level on your team due to Best There Is. Punisher will always be somewhat relevant due to his red being % based, so it doesn't take as many covers for him to be good.

HailMary

Great info, guys! It looks like, if anything, I should lean toward Punisher, Spidey, and heavy hitters at the 3* tier, though basically no one but Punisher is that useful without near-max covers.

Linxis wrote:

Most of them have their uses. Spidery and mags are the most powerful but they're on the nerf list already...

Well, minikitty. I just swapped out a Classic Magneto for Daredevil a couple days ago. Welp, here's hoping cMag kinda gets nerfed bad.

Ronfar

X-Force Wolverine mostly exists for bragging rights. He's really rare, but I've never actually needed to use him for anything at all.

Personally, my advice would be to just break out the credit card and buy yourself more roster space - it's totally worth it in the long run - but not everyone can or wants to do that...

HailMary

Yeah, I haven't used Wolv X in PvP ever since a few of my other chars, esp. Thor, hit 1500 HP. He's there just because he's Legendary, and for the occasional low-level PvE fight. Actually, getting him very early is probably the reason I didn't spec out a Modern Storm, which I kinda regret after seeing ridiculous mStorm Lightning+Hailstorm+Hailstorm chains in Blind Justice. Oh well. Since I've got a couple of classic Storm covers now, I'll just go straight for her.

As for paying for roster space, I understand the logic, but I don't want to spend any money on MPQ. Also, having just unlocked Prologue's Dark Avengers a couple of days ago, I just discovered that there's an entire roster spot lurking in its HP rewards, so I'll be up to 16 (enough for all currently obtained covers) in a couple of days.

Unknown

Roster space is going to become easier to come by when you can land in the 50 HP PVP slots consistently, so it's not that far away.

Moonstone is terrible. Photon blast is very weak, level for level. She wants a lot of red on the board to do any amount of damage, but there is no easy way of filling a board with red. If it said green, it'd still be bad, but at least you'd have Thor and GSBW to paint the board green.

HailMary

Yeah, I've been hitting the 46-75 tier pretty consistently. Combine that with several 50 HP rewards from Prologue and dailies, and I've gotten 3 slots in...4-5 days?

Double Shot is messing with my pace a bit, though, since my mBW/Thor lvl 45 team (IM35 is my normal tank) overwhelmingly gets matched with higher-level 2*/maxed mStorm teams, so each round drains much more health than before.

I've generally heard that Moonstone isn't a keeper, (though at 5 red, lvl 85, it's 300 + 200/red tile dmg, which doesn't sound bad w/ 6+ red tiles... and she's hot) but we'll see if I manage to get another slot before my GSBW cover expires.