This gauntlet and 5* cover scaling

madok

Deimos12 wrote:

Pretty tough to do this against level 320 Cage, Fist and Blade when every turn you're taking 1200+ damage from Fists attack tile...

Ugghhh.. that node. I whaled it after wasting all 10 in one go banging my head on it.

Malcrof

Dekliko1978 wrote:

Malcrof wrote:

With 5*s, i do not plan on leveling a single one, until i have 10+ covers for them .. and way more max 4*s than i do now.. Why? Because a 4* boosted is lvl 350.. if i were to level under-covered 5*s to 350.. it would think my entire roster was lvl 350.. and by not having the right covers or other level 350's, i would suffer horrible.

This describes exactly why the current game/scaling design is horribly wrong. For you to be willing to not use/level a 5* till it's almost completely covered to be able to play in PvE is just wrong. This also means you are gimping yourself in PvP, because the scarefactor of a higher level 5* is not something to be sniffed at.

Agreed. But this is the same at every * level... the same advice i am given is don't level until you have 10+ covers, and more than 2.

I have seen lvl 350+ surfers in PVP. but if they don't have 4+ red, they don't warrant a skip.. i always have a retribution team up ready.. takes almost 1/2 the work away from downing a 5* in pvp, and jeanbuster does just fine getting them there, but i know SS's red at 3 or 4 covers is no worse than fighting another hulkbuster..

Just one persons opinion.. even if i do get 5 red for surfer one day.. i won't take him above 350 (boosted 4* level) until i have a 2nd or even a 3rd ready to go.. and would prefer at least 5 colors covered if i do.. (OML + SS is only 4 colors, one thing i never understood.. why no 2 person rainbow in 5* land, at all...would be nice for pvp, but all 3 use red.. oh well..)

Mind you, i would gladly give up the gauntlet to have those covers.. no lvl 395 team has withstood JG + SW (essential in the middle, or where SW wasn't available, i just used Jeanbuster... rest of the mess, can just winfinite it.. but would loved to have tried some harder nodes with 5*s!


Side Note, let's keep this about 5*s in the gauntlet.. other gauntlet questions and strats go here: viewtopic.php?f=20&t=35695

westnyy2

I am mostly a PVP player with a decent roster of 4's. I have all at 250ish. I have recently started throwing ISO into my 7 cover and brought him to 310. My last several nodes in Gauntlet 2 were all 340 opponents. Alliance mates with similar rosters except the 5* were in the 270's for opponents. The 5*'s are definitely having an effect on scaling. I expect most of my Gauntlet 3 will be 395's. Can't wait for that fun!

Malcrof

westnyy2 wrote:

I am mostly a PVP player with a decent roster of 4's. I have all at 250ish. I have recently started throwing ISO into my 7 cover and brought him to 310. My last several nodes in Gauntlet 2 were all 340 opponents. Alliance mates with similar rosters except the 5* were in the 270's for opponents. The 5*'s are definitely having an effect on scaling. I expect most of my Gauntlet 3 will be 395's. Can't wait for that fun!

With an essential, he is boosted well over 300.. so, along with your surfer.. so your scaling is set for someone w/ multiple lvl 300+ chars.. so you are right where you should be.

Warbringa

Perhaps they shouldn't have started 5* at level 270 due to scaling. They should have made them start at let's say 180 and made the iso extremely cheap to get them to 270 for example. They need to tweak the starting level lower of 5* so it doesn't ruin scaling while making it easy to get to 270 with minimal iso and then ramp iso costs from there to fully level them. As it is I have a choice to make...do I open legendary tokens for the 4* covers I invariably need and risk getting 5* tokens when I currently don't want them OR do I grind forever to try and get 4* covers through conventional means and hoard tokens which means I will have 4* playable characters once 6* characters are introduced. My hope is that devs fix scaling issues related to 5* so I don't have to choose.

In a related note that could help solve part of the 5* roster problem, a great feature would be a cover bank (vault is a term already used in the game lol) where you could store let say 5-10 covers permanently until you want to use them. It helped when they moved the maximum number of days you could hold on to them but it would be valuable (I think) without altering the game too much in a couple of ways.

1.) I sometimes hold on to 3* tokens to tinker with characters to find out which build I like best if I am contemplating changing their build. It would be nice to have the ability to hold some of those tokens for an extended time to give the new build a chance.
2.) If I open legendary tokens and get a 5* tokens I can hoard a few (within reason say of the 10 slots, only 5 could be used to hold 5* tokens or something like that) so it doesn't impact my scaling.
3.) I know they are afraid that it would reduce hp spent on roster slots because people would hold covers for characters they don't want to roster. Couple of solutions for this. One you can't hold 2* or lower tokens in the bank (people would need to roster 2* for essential or at least leave open slots like they do now etc). Two if they are worried about the same for 3* you could make so that you could only hold covers for a specific number of 3* characters in the bank (let's say two or three max) so that people can't just use it as a rotating essential but roster build tinkers could? Or keep 3* tokens who are essential in an event in the bank locked for 2 weeks before and the week during the event? I know that would be the most difficult aspect of finding a way to provide the benefit without it being abused by players but able to be implemented by the devs.
4.) Still keep the current system of having a cover for 2 weeks available before using or selling it. The bank wouldn't replace this, simply allow you a third choice instead of using or selling.

Malcrof

Warbringa wrote:

Perhaps they shouldn't have started 5* at level 270 due to scaling. They should have made them start at let's say 180 and made the iso extremely cheap to get them to 270 for example. They need to tweak the starting level lower of 5* so it doesn't ruin scaling while making it easy to get to 270 with minimal iso and then ramp iso costs from there to fully level them.

This.. all day this.. toss this over in suggestions so we can upvote it into oblivion and hopefully get it done!

Unknown

Malcrof wrote:

Warbringa wrote:

Perhaps they shouldn't have started 5* at level 270 due to scaling. They should have made them start at let's say 180 and made the iso extremely cheap to get them to 270 for example. They need to tweak the starting level lower of 5* so it doesn't ruin scaling while making it easy to get to 270 with minimal iso and then ramp iso costs from there to fully level them.

This.. all day this.. toss this over in suggestions so we can upvote it into oblivion and hopefully get it done!

I completely agree, and even did the math in one of the threads about 5* scaling to show what level they should start at to compare to 4*/3* and 3*/2* overlap.

There are only 3 counter-arguments I can imagine:

1) Devs want their players to feel pain and hate life. I reject this, but "you're supposed to lose" adds a little fuel to this fire...

2) Devs want players to throw away their first 5*s, then whale LTs to try and get them back later when they're ready. Don't see how they get any more 'engagement' by ruining a player's experience and requiring them to sell the 'best' toys in the game. So I doubt it's this.

3) Who feels the most pain from this?... noobs (relatively speaking). What's a noob likely to do if he rosters a shiny 5* and sees he can level it for less than he can level his 2*Bullseye? Of course he'll level the 5* to see how bad-**** it is! Now he's stuck in the same tinykitty situation but has also spent ISO, so he's even _MORE_ upset than if just rostering the 5* killed his experience. I don't know the answer to this other than some sort of warning or a total revamp of scaling.

The worst of it is when a new player doesn't even know why the game sucks all of a sudden. They don't sell their awesome toy and try to get better, they just leave. I really think this has to be a big big important thing for the devs to fix _somehow_.

On a 'side note' related to the thread topic: I started gauntlet sub3 with only SSred1 rostered. Added OML red hours later before he expired. So my scaling was only _mostly_ borked, but I did manage to get some use out of them by adding 3Daken boosted to 200, and just overpowering the first handful of nodes with match damage and lots of ChemReact spam (OML red repleneshing strike tiles). So in that particular instance, where healthpack drain doesn't matter because no competition and no need for grinding, 1-cover 5*s weren't completely useless. But of course I reverted to my 2* Thormneto team when the going got tough (like aforementioned blade/fist/cage). Amazing how nice lots of covers are compared to lots of health, huh?

vinnygecko

Deimos12 wrote:

scottee wrote:

I'll say it again for 3* rosters. LCap/Hood/Shehulk is capable of beating just about anything. Really it's just LCap and Hood. Manage the enemy AP with Hood/Shehulk. Get protect tiles with LCap. Kill with LCap. Accelerate with Hood black.

Pretty tough to do this against level 320 Cage, Fist and Blade when every turn you're taking 1200+ damage from Fists attack tile...

If you have Captain Marvel maxed, this is doable with her, Hood and KK, though it will be tough. I took out Blade first, then went to Iron Fist and Luke Cage. If I was to do it again, I might prioritize Cage first as he nearly destroyed me at the end (I had to sacrifice KK to his black). Taking big hits with CM helps, as it will give you red and black to hit back (and heal with KK so long as she's alive).

As far as scaling goes, I have 1 5* at 1/1/0, level 272. Since the last Gauntlet, I also have 4 4* ranging from 167 to 210, while before I only had XFW at 205 and all maxed 3* after that. In my last Gauntlet I didn't see level 395 until Sim 42. This time it showed up at Sim 40, so not a huge change for me, and honestly it's probably warranted scaling in comparison to the last gauntlet, for me.

Natsufan01

I actually completed 1 node of the 3rd area with OML, and SS each with 1 cover at 255, and Iron Fist as my third. Can't remember, which node, but it was in the second half, with opponents in the 320 range. So they're not entirely useless, but you have to be careful and a bit lucky when using them.

TxMoose

I could see them being very usable with cascade makers (i.e. cmags, mnmags, xf, loki, fist, etc.) use match damage boosts that hardly ever get used outside of 4* ddq nodes. that could be very effective. you'd have to get lucky with the cascades, but it could work. haven't tried that yet, but might later.

Xenoberyll

I have 10 lvl 395 nodes to beat in sub 3. Not sure if i'll bother for the lame rewards. Not even a legendary token? Meh.

Argon Flame

I have a roster with virtually all 3-stars and some 4-stars at lvl144. I have both SS and OML lvl255.

I have completed Gauntlet when I check the final node it is lvl395. So this may have scaled up since I finished it.

SirLanik

My nodes hit 395 starting at Sim 39 - and I have six level 166s, everyone else is 140 or lower. Oh, and a Surfer and OML completely wrecking my scaling this event.

Ebolamonkey84

I have 2 1 cover 5* at 255, all 4* either softcapped or at a level between 167 and 240, and all 3* over level 160 except IM40 (153). I did not hit my first level 300+ node until Sim 32, and my first 395 node was Sim 40. This seems roughly comparable to what I had the last gauntlet, where I did not have 5* and my max 4* were around 230.

Unknown

TxMoose wrote:

I could see them being very usable with cascade makers (i.e. cmags, mnmags, xf, loki, fist, etc.) use match damage boosts that hardly ever get used outside of 4* ddq nodes. that could be very effective. you'd have to get lucky with the cascades, but it could work. haven't tried that yet, but might later.

Equivalently, crit generators are huge when paired with low-cover 5*s. It's like getting MHawkeye for free, with a crit matching blue/black/red causing ~2K dmg for a 3match. Definitely saved my butt a few times when I was really needing luck to win a node. My roster's maxed at 106 with almost nobody max covered, so that's big damage to me.

Dragon_Nexus

Starting to think 5*s are bodging my scaling, too. Got a two cover Silver Surfer at base level and the last node in the chain is level 395 for me. Didn't happen last gauntlet. Well, it did, but only well after I'd completed those nodes.

Starting to get a feeling I might not manage to complete this one. The boosted characters don't generally hit hard enough for this gauntlet. Mystique has been my nuke but she's squishy, and she no longer one-hit kills people. Plus her nuke is damned expensive and only hits one person.

Captain Marvel's okay, but again seems to die pretty quick. Beast is...eh, alright. Daken is also alright. No real killer characters though, just "okay" characters until I dip into my level 166 pool...which dies way quicker.

BlackSheep101

Last gauntlet, I don't think I saw a single 395 node. This round, with OML and SS added, the last 6 main line fights were 395 skipping all essentials.

Last time my highest levels were maxed 3*s. This time I have some more maxed 3*s, no 4*s over 150 and my 2 5*s.

scottee

Deimos12 wrote:

scottee wrote:

I'll say it again for 3* rosters. LCap/Hood/Shehulk is capable of beating just about anything. Really it's just LCap and Hood. Manage the enemy AP with Hood/Shehulk. Get protect tiles with LCap. Kill with LCap. Accelerate with Hood black.

Pretty tough to do this against level 320 Cage, Fist and Blade when every turn you're taking 1200+ damage from Fists attack tile...

That one was a balance of racing to blue to get shields going, and making sure there wasn't too much red, so to render Blade useless. Once you get enough blue, use it on Fist's tile, as he won't be able to make a new one while stunned.

ragnarady

Dragon_Nexus wrote:

Starting to get a feeling I might not manage to complete this one. The boosted characters don't generally hit hard enough for this gauntlet. Mystique has been my nuke but she's squishy, and she no longer one-hit kills people. Plus her nuke is damned expensive and only hits one person.

I feel your pain, but I think you should keep trying. Mine 0/0/2 SS messes with my scaling too (and my only strong 4* is 5/4/2 XFW @135), but it's still not just unfair as Galactus-1 was (though, sometimes I want to tinykitty tinikitty the whole Marvel universe).

hurcules

For that Cage, Fist and Blade node (mine was at L395), I beat it with Hulk/3*Thor/KK. I think you can see what the strategy is with that team.