Polarity's Guide on Going From 1* to 3* (Updated: 1/22/15)

ThatOneGuyjp189512

so how much is the nerf gonna affect his usefullness? looking at the nerf, i think his ranking as a support character's gonna go down....not way down, but still he won't be as useful as before.

rkd80

Maxing out C. Hawkeye does seem like a poor choice of ISO no? Or is this after the fact when you are already swimming in ISO?

Unknown

Maxing out a level 40 1-star requires 18K iso. It's actually not that big an investment if you're hitting the upper progression rewards in PvPs.

What you get in exchange for that investment is the ability to take advantage of some pretty hefty buffs - and sometimes the ability to even have a reasonable team to field. Remember Heroic: Venom? I would have given a great deal for a maxed MHawkeye in that tourney.

Personal preference, I guess. I don't like investing ISO in three-stars until I have enough covers in them to take them to at least level 100. In the meantime, I can max out 2-stars and deepen my bench.

Unknown

Alright, I need help and I'm going to start here.

I've been playing for almost 150 days now, yet I'm struggling with 3 Stars. I read through the first post and then came back and chewed through the thread. Couple things

1) What's so special about the number 60 for 3 Stars? It's been mentioned several times on here.
2) Why are folks acting like a top 10 finish is easy? No matter how good my team is, the last ten minutes often end up putting me outside of the top ten. I've changed my team up a little recently to try and deter people fighting me, but OBW/Thor is so overdone that it isn't 'safe' and OBW/Wolverine teams are just lunch meat for me at this point
3) I've - like an idiot spent way too much money trying to get 3 stars. Now that I see how bad I'm being cheated on the covers, I've stopped, but now I can't seem to ever land a 3 Star cover. Advice?

I've got a large roster (35 deep), but below are the ones worth mentioning.

OBW (85) - 5/5/3 MMN (85) - 3/5/5 Thor MN (85) - 3/5/5 Hulk (85) - 3/1/5 Punisher (75) - 4/4/3 Daken (69) - 5/5 Doom (64) - 4/3 CStorm (57) - 5/5/3 IM40 (53) - 2/3/1 MHawk (44) - 5/5/3 Psylocke (43) - 1/3/1 Hood (41) - 1/4/1 Falcon (41) - 1/2/2 Patch (39) - 3/3/3 Loki (38) - 2/2 Daredevil (36) - 3/3/0 X-Force (35) - 0/1/3 Spider (30) - 1/1/3 MThor (28) - 1/2/2 CMag (25) - 2/0/0 GSBW (21) - 2/0/1 BP (15) - 0/0/1 Rogers (15) - 0/1/0 HT (15) - 0/1/0

this ties into my next question - I don't really know what to do now. I can never seem to get a 3 star cover, placing in the top ten absolutely never happens - sure I can get to #1, but staying there just doesn't happen. As well, who should I focus on? Right now, I've been looking into Hulk and Punisher, teaming Punisher with OBW and Hulk with MStorm in the desert. Before that my main duos focused around OBW/MMN and OBW/Thor.

Any help would be greatly appreciated...I've been trying to get strong enough 3*s to not feel like I need OBW or MThor.
- Unreall

Unknown

Some great advice in this thread... wish I had found it when I first started 5 months ago...

Probably have made every mistake this guide specifically says not to do. Meh... Up and running good now!

Unknown

I mentioned 60 several times. There is absolutely nothing special about it other than the fact that it is a beautiful number. During PvP, a 60 gets boosted to 90 which is a beautiful number that is greater than 85, so this gives you a psychological boost even though L90 3* are generally worse than L85 2* (especially since they'll likely have far worse covers)

I believe 67 or 68 gets you boosted to 100+, and seeing the triple digit levels may act as a psychological deterrent. It's like how you see $1.99 or $9.99 prices in stores, just because of the illogical and psychological "it's not quite $2" or it's not quite $10" mentality.

A more special number is 100. 102 is likely where you'll end up soft-capped, but 100 is roughly equivalent to a 85 2*

mohio

Unreallystic wrote:

Alright, I need help and I'm going to start here.

I've been playing for almost 150 days now, yet I'm struggling with 3 Stars. I read through the first post and then came back and chewed through the thread. Couple things

1) What's so special about the number 60 for 3 Stars? It's been mentioned several times on here.
2) Why are folks acting like a top 10 finish is easy? No matter how good my team is, the last ten minutes often end up putting me outside of the top ten. I've changed my team up a little recently to try and deter people fighting me, but OBW/Thor is so overdone that it isn't 'safe' and OBW/Wolverine teams are just lunch meat for me at this point
3) I've - like an idiot spent way too much money trying to get 3 stars. Now that I see how bad I'm being cheated on the covers, I've stopped, but now I can't seem to ever land a 3 Star cover. Advice?
- Unreall

I guess I'll try to answer you:
1) The number 60 was relevant in the discussion of leveling 3* because when that character is featured in their PvP event they get a 50% bonus. So it would put them at 90, which is about the borderline of "usefulness" for a 3*. Ideally you want them 100 or higher to use over a maxed lvl 85 2*, but when it's the featured character, you don't really have a choice.
2) There have been A LOT of changes to bracketing and matchmaking lately that has made reaching top 10 very hard for some people. Before, if you were willing to put in the time you could top 10 pretty easily with just a maxed 2* team. Nowadays you have to get lucky with an easier bracket, or spend a bunch of HP on shields.
3) Advice - join a top 100 alliance so you get 1 cover from each PvP at least. Also, if you're available at the very end of PvPs, you can try only joining near the end. You might get lucky and jump into top 50 or even top 10. If you're getting 2-3 covers from every PvP you'll be able to start leveling those 3* before too long. Lastly, your Punisher is pretty well-covered. I would defintely level him as high as you can, and then make your go-to team Punisher/OBW and the featured hero. With that team you should be able to place decently well in PvP.

Unknown

I've found this really helpful

One question for Polarity - have you updated your original post as the characters have been buffed/changed by the developers? Or does it represent a snapshot in time?

Unknown

Condormanking wrote:

I've found this really helpful

One question for Polarity - have you updated your original post as the characters have been buffed/changed by the developers? Or does it represent a snapshot in time?

He updates and edits regularly as changes are made to characters. We usually point out further corrections if he misses some and then he fixes it.

Unknown

nice
4*s?


BOOKMARKED

Unknown

I don't really see much to say about 4*s. Anyone with a goal of transitioning to an all-4* team currently has exactly one choice of members, and pretty much only one strategy (win 1st place in as many tourneys as possible). The only way I see that changing is if D3 brings in more 4*s in a big way - possibly including gold versions of 3*s, and at the same time introduces five-star characters to keep things interesting for the older players...

Unknown

Thanks for the useful guide. Bookmarked it

Unknown

This guide has been fantastic and helpful. I've been playing for awhile now and kept it bookmarked. Thank you for posting it.

Unknown

Is this guide ready for an update yet? Or do the changes to C.Spidey and the value of 3*Storm need to keep settling out?

Nonce Equitaur 2

Polarity -- a team to add to your Team Compositions

Human Torch + Lazy Daken. If there is an average amount of green on the board, this team will quickly lay down strike tiles and have a Flame Jet going that does lots of damage each round. In addition, Fireball does lots of damage, and Chemical Reaction will do some damage and add more green tiles. Meanwhile, Daken will tank for HT most of the time, and has regeneration. They make a very fast team.

I've played this team many times now -- works better than Cap + Hood, which has a slight problem with Hood tanking blue.

kensterr

Please update your thoughts on Spidey's best build now, as well as his tier placing. Thanks!

CrawHammerfist

With the changes to healing, Keeping those one star characters is more attractive.

kensterr

Double nerf on Spidey now, and also nerf on OBW. So what are the best teams given the current state of the game?

NorthernPolarity

kensterr wrote:

Double nerf on Spidey now, and also nerf on OBW. So what are the best teams given the current state of the game?

Been really busy due to summer internship and such. Spidey seems pretty unplayable nowadays. OBW is still one of the best two stars in the game: her offensive strength was never her heal, but recon / espionage, which hasn't been nerfed.

HairyDave

NorthernPolarity wrote:

kensterr wrote:

Double nerf on Spidey now, and also nerf on OBW. So what are the best teams given the current state of the game?

Been really busy due to summer internship and such. Spidey seems pretty unplayable nowadays. OBW is still one of the best two stars in the game: her offensive strength was never her heal, but recon / espionage, which hasn't been nerfed.

I'd agree that her real strength was AP stealing but you can't deny that her ability to sustain a team through multiple matches (whether through prologue healing or a quick "victory-lap" hit from AGD) wasn't a huge part of her appeal. It's certainly why I (ab)used her - that and the fact Punisher & Psyduck are my two best covered 3*s and Espionage works so very well with them.