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

Unknown

mageofshadow wrote:

Hi Everyone,

First post woo!

So I recentlyish got pretty hooked on MPQ. I decided to try out being a whale for the first time. "And what's this thing coming toward me very fast? So big and flat and round, it needs a big wide sounding name like 'Ow', 'Ownge', 'Round', 'Ground'! That's it! Ground! Ha! I wonder if it'll be friends with me? Hello, Ground!" RIP Douglas Adams.

So now on day 58 I have a decently fleshed out 3* star roster but I am having trouble deciding where to spend my ISO. I don't want to buy ISO because collecting it from playing is what keeps the game fun for me(also it is horribly inefficient).

here is my current roster.

Lvl 155 4Thor 5/3/5
Lvl 105 hood 5/5/3
lvl 116 RnG 4/5/4
lvl 100 Ldaken 5/4/4
Lvl 100 blade 5/3/4

I have a bunch of other 3*'s not close enough to fully covered to really be worth the ISO and pretty much all of the 2*'s fully covered but only CS storm at 94
My question is should I just dump ISO into 4Thor and hood until they are maxed or should I spread it to the 133 cap recommended by NothernPolarity? also should I bother maxing the 2*'s or did I essentially jump over that step? of particular note there is I have a lvl 70 2* mags that I am not sure if I should bump to 94. I am also thinking of leveling OBW(currently at 60) think that's worth it at this point?

My other less important question is should I concentrate on adding any particular character to my lineup(besides Xforce who clearly I want but sadly have no covers for)? I have a mystique at 3/1/2 covers, Lcap at 1/2/4, GSBW at 5/0/3, and the hulk at 1/4/1 covers.

Thanks for the guide NorthernPolarity. It is both helpful and awesome.

Thanks for any advice guys!

Wow nice 3* for day 58. I'm about the same, have no where close to that 3* lineup, and have whaled it up myself.

I'd def Max OBW asap. She is one of the most useful char in the game regardless of ** rating.

NorthernPolarity

Groot added and placed into high-mid tier: true healing is a thing. Need some help in figuring out his build: it's probably 5/3/5 but unclear as to if 5 yellow is necessary.
Sentry moved down to mid-tier: is now one of those chars where he's really good if he's your first 3*, but otherwise is pretty terrible.
Loki moved from bottom tier to low-mid tier: should be high-mid tier, but reliant on another char dealing the damage.

Unknown

NorthernPolarity wrote:

Groot added and placed into high-mid tier: true healing is a thing. Need some help in figuring out his build: it's probably 5/3/5 but unclear as to if 5 yellow is necessary.
Sentry moved down to mid-tier: is now one of those chars where he's really good if he's your first 3*, but otherwise is pretty terrible.
Loki moved from bottom tier to low-mid tier: should be high-mid tier, but reliant on another char dealing the damage.

Thanks again for the awesome guide! Are the mid-tier 3* listed in order of preference?

NorthernPolarity

joecoolmd wrote:

NorthernPolarity wrote:

Groot added and placed into high-mid tier: true healing is a thing. Need some help in figuring out his build: it's probably 5/3/5 but unclear as to if 5 yellow is necessary.
Sentry moved down to mid-tier: is now one of those chars where he's really good if he's your first 3*, but otherwise is pretty terrible.
Loki moved from bottom tier to low-mid tier: should be high-mid tier, but reliant on another char dealing the damage.

Thanks again for the awesome guide! Are the mid-tier 3* listed in order of preference?

All characters are listed in order of preference.

ruyen

Great guide, newbie (1-2* roster) here with more questions:
- Is saving ISO on BW/Storm and just spending in on tanks IM/Jugg (vs keeping them all within 5 levels of each other) a good strat?

- I messed up on 1BW and gave her 5 purple covers before I got a clue and came here. I have 1 purple and 2 blue covers storing for a couple more days, but I'm not sure it's worth rerolling her since ISO is already scarce.

- Should you always go for capping 1*s if you can start on a 2*? I have a 3-cover lvl23 Thor, which is a decent level cap, and he's cheaper to level than my IM/Juggs, which still need a couple covers each to open the cap.

- how do people "get" particular covers? On all these threads I read people talk about getting cover X next or completing cover-set Y, but to me it seems that almost all covers are just random. Seldom do I see any guaranteed 2* cover rewards except at the end of 3 day events. Otherwise I see Simulator fights with 2* rewards, but I always just get 70 ISO. Am I missing something here?

- with 300 HP, I'm 200 shy of my next 3 roster spots and have Daken (blue) Ares (green) and cStorm x3 (1 of each) that I need to redeem in the next 30 hrs. I'd rather not spend cash until the next HP sale, so I'm debating deleting characters instead but can't decide. My roster:

40 Cap - 1xYellow
40 Patch - 1xGreen
31 IM - 5/5/3
30 Jugg - 5/4
26 Storm - 5/5/3
23 BW - 5/5 (dumb)
23 Thor - 3/0/1
23 Wolv2 - 0/1/2
17 Mag2 - 2/0/1
16 cHawkeye - 5/5

Thanks in advance!

PS: I also have 3 Prodigal Son and 2 Heroic tokens that I'm waiting to redeem until I have free slots.

Unknown

I recommend for a transitioner the Mystique + MnMags

While transitioning try to keep Mystique at a level that MnMags still tanks blue so you spread the damage around when you do get hit.

I have Mystique at 5 Blue and MnMags 5 Purple, the MnMag Purple feeds Mystique Blue and if you get enough generated you have an infinite recycle and cascades of those two powers. You also get to fire off Mystique's Black from the extra black you gain. For this type of strategy Mystique at 3-5-5 and MnMag at 3-5-5 is optimal.

With the new survival mode this type of strategy is even more devastating as by the time you get the infinite cycle of those two powers you just burn through the rest of the waves without them ever taking a move.

NorthernPolarity

Updated the end-game section to have more sensible recommendations of how much to level your character to.

NorthernPolarity

ruyen wrote:

Great guide, newbie (1-2* roster) here with more questions:
- Is saving ISO on BW/Storm and just spending in on tanks IM/Jugg (vs keeping them all within 5 levels of each other) a good strat?

- I messed up on 1BW and gave her 5 purple covers before I got a clue and came here. I have 1 purple and 2 blue covers storing for a couple more days, but I'm not sure it's worth rerolling her since ISO is already scarce.

- Should you always go for capping 1*s if you can start on a 2*? I have a 3-cover lvl23 Thor, which is a decent level cap, and he's cheaper to level than my IM/Juggs, which still need a couple covers each to open the cap.

- how do people "get" particular covers? On all these threads I read people talk about getting cover X next or completing cover-set Y, but to me it seems that almost all covers are just random. Seldom do I see any guaranteed 2* cover rewards except at the end of 3 day events. Otherwise I see Simulator fights with 2* rewards, but I always just get 70 ISO. Am I missing something here?

- with 300 HP, I'm 200 shy of my next 3 roster spots and have Daken (blue) Ares (green) and cStorm x3 (1 of each) that I need to redeem in the next 30 hrs. I'd rather not spend cash until the next HP sale, so I'm debating deleting characters instead but can't decide. My roster:

40 Cap - 1xYellow
40 Patch - 1xGreen
31 IM - 5/5/3
30 Jugg - 5/4
26 Storm - 5/5/3
23 BW - 5/5 (dumb)
23 Thor - 3/0/1
23 Wolv2 - 0/1/2
17 Mag2 - 2/0/1
16 cHawkeye - 5/5

Thanks in advance!

PS: I also have 3 Prodigal Son and 2 Heroic tokens that I'm waiting to redeem until I have free slots.

I feel like Juggernaut and IM35 are redundant since they accomplish the same role of support tank. I would max out juggernaut and stop investing iso into im35.
The most important thing for your supports is that they dont tank unnecessary colors. Keep your storm low enough so that your juggernaut always tanks green for her, for instance. You might want to consider building a 2/5 level 1 mbw.
3 cover 2*s are not going to be close in power level at all to your 1*s: I believe you need at least 8-10 covers before they end up being actually better than your max cover juggernaut or storm.

As for who to keep, that decision is going to be pretty rough. Daken / Ares / C. Storm are all worthwhile covers to keep, so it's hard to say which guys you should let go. I know for sure that you can get rid of cHawkeye, who has long lived his usefulness for C. Storm. IM35 is probably the next to go because he's redundant with juggs: I'm not sure if you use the two equally though: if you do, then it might be worth keeping him until your next roster slot expansion. Otherwise, I would can him for Ares. I would suggest that you also get rid of LazyCap's cover since it's his worse color (yellow is unusable), but he might show up in a featured PvE at some point, in which case not having him will screw you out of being able to play essential nodes.

ruyen

Cheers NP,
I have maxed out Juggs, but my understanding was that people usually have two tanks they alternate between, so my thought was to max IM next. He can tank blue for BW, who was my mvp until recently, since she's started getting crushed by AoE in pve. Alternatively I can replace him with Ares like you said and just keep LazyCap to tank IMs 3 colors occasionally.

Speaking of, what's the best 1*-2* combo to deal with pesky gangsters with Pistols, Threaten, etc...? I've been trying combos of Juggs/Storm/mMags/cHawk but nothing seems fast enough to deal with the Thugs and their short timers that hit for 300 hp and even send Juggs down for dirt naps.

over_clocked

ruyen, try rushing blue and stunning Thugs since they generate fast Pistol tiles, ignore Threatens from Muscles unless there's also a villain, take out Tommy Guns via killing the Muscle or smashing the board or overwriting the tiles with Cap America.
Hitmen and Dons are less dangerous when you can take out blue tiles, MMN is very good for that.
A pure 2* team is cStorm/MMN/mHawkeye (Polarity Shift into Wind Storm + Speed Shot). Add strike tile TUps, crit tile damage boosts that are so ubiquitous, you're good.
Miss Marvel can be usable in a pinch to cover yellow/black for a cStorm/MMN team and bring a cheaper red if needed, although hers is meh compared to Magnetic Flux. But she does have some health and her yellow can be used either as backup to charge a powerful Team-Up if Polarity Shift > Wind Storm aren't ready, or as a means of getting rid of a lot of TU tiles on a cramped board with some luck. Besides, her cheap yellow can overwrite any tile, which could be life-saving against goons. Just don't use it out of the blue before using Polarity Shift since Polarity Shift suffers from random TU tile clogs. Of course her yellow also synergizes with mHawkeye's Speed Shot so if MMN is down, you can always try cStorm/mHawkeye/Miss Marvel and charge blue through traditional means, while using mHawkeye and Marvel's AoE indiscriminately. Both mHawkeye and Miss Marvel have a 4,5x crit multiplier, the highest there is, so if you boost crit tile boosts and/or match damage, you could see some outrageous numbers when generating crits.
As another last resort measure, if you spread out the damage, and cStorm can survive an incoming AoE hit, she will retaliate nicely with Raging Tempest.

jobob

This is an awesome guide... do you think you will ever put out the best builds and rankings for 4* characters? I know there are polls, but I like reading your descriptions and knowing how best to use the character.

DrStrange-616

This guide has been soooo incredibly helpful. Thank you NP and everyone who has contrinuted.

I'm a core 2* on the cusp of transition. I just got enough covers to really use Falcon and it coincided nicely with survival mode where he's saved my bacon numerous times. Those long matches with multiple waves are ideal for him.

Thanks again!

ThatOneGuyjp189512

my question now is: when are you gonna add a 3*to 4* transition guide since now there's enough 4*'s to be able to do it now and run a team of maxed 4*

Mechahamster

So after 136 days and some luck with the heroic 10 pack from the pvp event I finally have a 3* that with 9 covers could potentially do something. The big problem is that it's Spiderman, so basically he will only be used as a support character in PVE next to the usual gang of maxed 2*s.

Should I spend the ISO to get him to level 114, or will that screw up the potential levels of my pve opponents? At what point do you get placed in more difficult brackets?

Quebbster

Mechahamster wrote:

So after 136 days and some luck with the heroic 10 pack from the pvp event I finally have a 3* that with 9 covers could potentially do something. The big problem is that it's Spiderman, so basically he will only be used as a support character in PVE next to the usual gang of maxed 2*s.

Should I spend the ISO to get him to level 114, or will that screw up the potential levels of my pve opponents? At what point do you get placed in more difficult brackets?

I wouldn't bother right now. Spider-man has his uses, but he can't really front a team for you. Save your ISO for someone with a little more offensive punch. You can always level up Spider-man later.

Mechahamster

Thanks for the answer.

My concern isn't so much with wasting the ISO, but more the effect adding those levels has on the scaling of the enemies.

Unknown

This post is amazing! It is a must read. Thanks for putting it together.

It completely changed the way I leveled up and looked at my roster. I am still trying to bump up my 2* as well as build up my 3*s. I really botched how I was creating my roster early on. Now I'm able to be competitive in PvE as well as push further in the PvP.

Unknown

Thanks so much for this post!

I just returned to MPQ after a big hiatus. I started playing right when the game came out, then burned out pretty quickly. I left before the "True Healing" change. This post has really helped me focus as I've been getting back into the game.

Quick request for suggestions, too (sorry to hijack the thread a little, but I can't make new posts anywhere, only replies!)

After returning, I'm stuck in the 300-400 points range for PvP events, and I vary wildly in placement for the PvE events. I've got what I think might be a solid start to a roster, but I'm not sure which direction to go. Looking at my covers below, where do people think I should be investing my time and effort? What covers should I be going for if they come up in events? Is there any way for me to break out of ** rewards land with what I have right now? Thanks!

Usable Covers right now

Lvl 100 GSBW 5/3/5 (Only *** I could max-level, but I don't want to mess up PvE and not sure I can field a good team with her...)
Lvl 94 OBW 3/5/5
Lvl 94 Daken** 4/4/5
Lvl 94 Thor** 3/5/5
Lvl 94 Wolvie** 5/5/3
Lvl 94 Hood 2/5/1 (Can level to 104)
Lvl 92 Spiderman*** 1/5/3 (Can level to 117)
Lvl 74 Nick Fury 1/1/1
Lvl 70 Ares 4/2/5
Lvl 55 Rocket & Groot 1/3/1

Can level up some if useful

Lvl 55 Iron Man*** 3/5/4 (I way over-covered yellow, so I feel stuck with him - anything I can do there?)
Lvl 45 cStorm 5/5/3
Lvl 40 gamora 4/2/0
Lvl 40 hulk 4/0/1
Lvl 40 beast 3/2/0
Lvl 26 Cap** 3/5/5
Lvl 15 Captain Marvel** 5/4/4
Lvl 15 mnMags 3/5/5
Lvl 15 Torch** 5/3/3

Waiting on more covers...

Lvl 70 x-force 0/0/1
Lvl 70 ladyThor 1/0/0
Lvl 70 Elektra 0/1/0
Lvl 70 Invisible Women 0/0/2
Lvl 45 psylocke 1/2/1
Lvl 45 blade 1/1/1
Lvl 40 cap*** 1/2/1
Lvl 40 Doc Oc 1/2/0
Lvl 40 Falcon 2/1/0
Lvl 40 Colossus 2/0/0
Lvl 40 Daredevil 2/0/0
Lvl 40 Ragnarok 2/0
Lvl 40 Sentry 0/0/2
Lvl 40 lazyStorm*** 2/0/0
Lvl 40 Captain Marvel*** 1/1/0
Lvl 40 She-hulk 1/1/0
Lvl 40 deadpool 1/0/0
Lvl 40 Doctor Doom 1/0/0
Lvl 40 Patch 0/1/0

Trisul

Mechahamster wrote:

Thanks for the answer.

My concern isn't so much with wasting the ISO, but more the effect adding those levels has on the scaling of the enemies.

If you really want to excel in PvE and have absolutely no interest in PvP, stick to a low cap across your roster. Maybe even as low as 40 or 50 to keep 1*s viable.

If you want to dabble in PvP but keep scaling low, 94 is a solid cap for your 3*s. Your 1*s are mostly useless at this point, but this rewards a deep 2* roster, and will especially shine in heroics.

Personally, I capped at 114 (accidentally leveled that high before I figured out scaling), and I slightly regret it since it relatively depowers the 2*s I have. This is less of an issue now that my 3* roster is more fleshed out.

(Fine print: there are some minimum level for enemies in PvE. Goons can be very low, but 3*s can't be lower than level 40 even if the node is supposed to be trivial, which might be more difficult than usual if you cap at 40 or 50.)

NorthernPolarity

ThatOneGuyjp189512 wrote:

my question now is: when are you gonna add a 3*to 4* transition guide since now there's enough 4*'s to be able to do it now and run a team of maxed 4*

Not really sure on the specifics of this yet, as it's pretty hard to transition from 3->4*: it just sort of happens as you pick and choose what PvP events you want to burn HP on for shield hopping and what PvE events you want to grind. I don't really want to include 4* rankings: I started writing them but it seemed kinda dumb: XF/Ladythor are top tier, Fury is high tier above LazyThor, IW is unplayable tier, and Elektra is probably on the cusp of mid-high tier. MM's post in character rankings does a better job explaining them.


Quick update on the guide:
Blade moved up to above Torch: I greatly underestimated his consistency and damage output.
Loki moved up to above Sentry: he is a nightmare to face on defense. Would be higher but really needs someone dealing the damage.
C. Marvs moved above Falcon: a lot better on offense than Falcon / 2* Daken ever will be.