CareBearStare Alliance Thread

Unknown

Since DecoyDuck was asking about Lightning Rounds earlier this week, I posted a guide to what I do in them over in the War Room. Nothing Earth-shattering, but if anyone thinks it could be useful, they might want to check it out.

Unknown

I entered PvE with 4 hours to go and got all progression rewards in an hour. Sadly I didn't need green thor but entering late might have paid of. Once playthrough of all nodes and I'm in top 100. The question is, will it hold if I go to bed.

Didn't like the characters you are allowed to use. Falcon is not very useful since only IM35 and Wolvie can place special tiles.

Unknown

So happy with the Season end. I have gotten more than 10 3* covers in the 5 days that I have been in the alliance and have been able to secure at least 600 pts in PVP.

For the current PVP though, the reward is Mowhawk and I am not very thrilled. Is it ok if I save up my 250 HP for an extra slot for XForce? That means I will not shield for this PVP and maybe end up somewhere around 300-400 because of retaliations.

P.S.: Should I delete my 1 cover of CMarvel for XForce instead of spending 350HP for another slot? I think that the HP will be better spend on some shields to secure some more covers and keep me in game (I'm totally F2P).

Unknown

Okin107 wrote:

So happy with the Season end. I have gotten more than 10 3* covers in the 5 days that I have been in the alliance and have been able to secure at least 600 pts in PVP.

For the current PVP though, the reward is Mowhawk and I am not very thrilled. Is it ok if I save up my 250 HP for an extra slot for XForce? That means I will not shield for this PVP and maybe end up somewhere around 300-400 because of retaliations.

P.S.: Should I delete my 1 cover of CMarvel for XForce instead of spending 350HP for another slot? I think that the HP will be better spend on some shields to secure some more covers and keep me in game (I'm totally F2P).

For reference, I'm also F2P, but of course I started playing ages ago and the way to progress has changed somewhat, especially if one is lucky enough to join a top 100 alliance and start having a rather fast influx of covers. When I started playing well before alliances, I could actually target the 2* reward level and only go for 3* rewards when I could fit them into my roster. Feels like so long ago now.

Nonetheless, my advice is to figure out a way to buy a roster slot, it really pays to have lots of characters, especially for PVE. And it takes a long time to accumulate covers as a F2P-er, so every little one counts.

The way I see the math, you're 100 HP short for this one, and 7 days to get there. 100HP is the alliance reward, so you'd get there are the end of Earth's mightiest without any spending. If you get to 400 or 600 without shielding, you even have leftovers. However if you reach 600 points with under 3 hours to go and it's good enough for a top 100 individual spot, you'd get another 25 HP which would mean the cost of your shield would be covered. That's a bit of a tricky time sensitive commitment, and I'm not sure how easy it is for you to reach 600 without any other shield use and at a specific time. Of course you have 2 tournaments to do it, really, because the X-Force cover is not expiring for quite a while. Plus whatever HP there is to scrounge up over the next week in PVE.

Bottom line: I think you can have both a roster slot for X-Force and a shield. If you don't have Mohawk Storm already, it would be very tricky to also scrounge up the HP for a slot for her without cutting out shields. She would be my choice for the hero to sacrifice among those listed (Cpt Marvel, X-Force, Mohawk) as the least useful/powerful/likely to be featured soon.

As a complementary thought: it's also ok as a newcomer with an early stage roster to let the alliance carry you a little bit, and we don't want you to feel forced to spend HP you're not comfortable spending to "keep up" or whatever. That's likely to breed resentment and burnout. No bueno. So if that means you don't shield this tournament because you're not comfortable doing so for whatever reason (you want the roster slot asap, you're not confident reaching 600 on a single shield, you have life stuff that will for sure interfere, etc), that's all fine. The important thing there is to let us know that's what you're doing, and to be open to make an extra effort for events we want to particularly target.

But then again, I just got off a long flight, I'm jet lagged as all hell and I'm not going to be playing for weeks, so what do I know?

Unknown

Thanks, appreciate all the advice.

What I did is cut out one Loki cover I had and put in XForce. I can get loki again in the future and he is not a crucial character, at least not for me anytime soon.

Now for the PVP with Mowhawk reward, my end time is 5AM. Meaning I will have a 8hr window to shield because I go to sleep at around 11PM to be fresh for work. 150HP for a shield to secure one more Mowhawk cover it is not very tempting . Because I also have to think of the 350HP for the slot to recruit her (Just today I spent 600HP for 2 slots and I have a total of 24) as no one of my character is worth sacrificing to get her in instead.

So my plan is to always have around 200HP on me for being able to secure that 8hrs shield towards the end of PVPs. But if the cover reward is **** like this one, I'd rather save that HP for the next PVP + covers.

However, I always like to communicate such stuff as it is not nice to see me score 600pts in the last 2 PVPs and then you see me drop to 400. I will push for 600pts in this PVP as well, but in a 8hr window untill the end of the event, anything can happen. So, I'm guessing 400-500 will be my final score according to my roster. I will be using Thor+Wolvie as my defence team so not everyone will be tempted to attack these two beats

Unknown

Right, I forgot that you're in Europe. Wouldn't Earth's Mightiest end around mid-day for you then? Not that it changes much. In your situation it makes sense to skip Mohawk.

Unknown

That is true. I did not notice it. It finishes at 7PM for me. I finish work at 5:30PM and it takes me 30-45mins to get home depending on traffic. So if I do not have wife and life stuff to do I can probably be pushing the last hour. Still I figured it would be better to announce my intentions

DecoyDuck

What a night, Bears! So much taps and matches. Thank you all for another wonderful season.
Top Gun - rank 24! Stare on!
Heroic Juggernaut - rank 23! Stare on!

And season 5, rank 31! Stare on! A big one this time!

We continued to have some transition this season with our members, but we are still holding on. Many of the original, old-timey alliances have moved on, but we, like a cantankerous old bear, refuse to yield! Not only are we staying put, we have transitioned nicely to a top50 alliance.

Anubisath , Ben Grimm , DecoyDuck , Enoc99 , Fisben , Howard D , Kamu , Okin107 , Punter , RWTD_Burn , Shinobi55 , Sir Phobos , Spork Jenkins , Stcacace , adamLmpq , orionpeace , shmau , thekrush , tonzil , and xMegadethx
This is CareBearStare!

user311

Great Job you all. Its nice to see that you are still holding strong without all the defined requirements (pressure) others have.

Enoc99

Hey, when someone gets a chance, can you approve me to join the war room?

Unknown

Enoc99 wrote:

Hey, when someone gets a chance, can you approve me to join the war room?

What is the war room?

DecoyDuck

Pssst... Milkrain... it took us 5 seasons, but we finally did it. We beat our nemesis alliance is Season 5 rank!

Unknown

I finally got top 50 (kept being like 51-60), so that was nice.

RWTDBurn

Kamuuu wrote:

Okin107 wrote:

So happy with the Season end. I have gotten more than 10 3* covers in the 5 days that I have been in the alliance and have been able to secure at least 600 pts in PVP.

For the current PVP though, the reward is Mowhawk and I am not very thrilled. Is it ok if I save up my 250 HP for an extra slot for XForce? That means I will not shield for this PVP and maybe end up somewhere around 300-400 because of retaliations.

P.S.: Should I delete my 1 cover of CMarvel for XForce instead of spending 350HP for another slot? I think that the HP will be better spend on some shields to secure some more covers and keep me in game (I'm totally F2P).

For reference, I'm also F2P, but of course I started playing ages ago and the way to progress has changed somewhat, especially if one is lucky enough to join a top 100 alliance and start having a rather fast influx of covers. When I started playing well before alliances, I could actually target the 2* reward level and only go for 3* rewards when I could fit them into my roster. Feels like so long ago now.

Nonetheless, my advice is to figure out a way to buy a roster slot, it really pays to have lots of characters, especially for PVE. And it takes a long time to accumulate covers as a F2P-er, so every little one counts.

The way I see the math, you're 100 HP short for this one, and 7 days to get there. 100HP is the alliance reward, so you'd get there are the end of Earth's mightiest without any spending. If you get to 400 or 600 without shielding, you even have leftovers. However if you reach 600 points with under 3 hours to go and it's good enough for a top 100 individual spot, you'd get another 25 HP which would mean the cost of your shield would be covered. That's a bit of a tricky time sensitive commitment, and I'm not sure how easy it is for you to reach 600 without any other shield use and at a specific time. Of course you have 2 tournaments to do it, really, because the X-Force cover is not expiring for quite a while. Plus whatever HP there is to scrounge up over the next week in PVE.

Bottom line: I think you can have both a roster slot for X-Force and a shield. If you don't have Mohawk Storm already, it would be very tricky to also scrounge up the HP for a slot for her without cutting out shields. She would be my choice for the hero to sacrifice among those listed (Cpt Marvel, X-Force, Mohawk) as the least useful/powerful/likely to be featured soon.

As a complementary thought: it's also ok as a newcomer with an early stage roster to let the alliance carry you a little bit, and we don't want you to feel forced to spend HP you're not comfortable spending to "keep up" or whatever. That's likely to breed resentment and burnout. No bueno. So if that means you don't shield this tournament because you're not comfortable doing so for whatever reason (you want the roster slot asap, you're not confident reaching 600 on a single shield, you have life stuff that will for sure interfere, etc), that's all fine. The important thing there is to let us know that's what you're doing, and to be open to make an extra effort for events we want to particularly target.

But then again, I just got off a long flight, I'm jet lagged as all hell and I'm not going to be playing for weeks, so what do I know?

I'm going to add to what Kamuu said. When I first joined CareBearStare I had a similar roster to yours (a hand full of maxed out 2*s and no 3* over 100) and other than giving $5 3 times to support the dev's, I've been FTP as well. Balancing the cost of roster spots and low HP can be tough, but if at all possible you want to find a way to pick up 3* covers as they come along. Expanding your roster is the key to long term success. With a young roster, it's tough to place high enough to get HP in the PVP events so the best way to generate HP is by placing well in the subs for PvE events. In order to place high enough to get HP in subs, you almost have to have the cover required for the Essential Node. If you have the featured cover then your path to earning more HP is so much easier (check out the guides we have in the war room on PvE for details on getting top 50 finishes with minimum effort). Don't spend any of your HP on covers, as tempting as it might be. Being in a top 100 alliance will help fill your cover needs for you. HP should all go to roster slots and shields (there is also a good guide on the economics of shielding in the war room).

You'll need to find the sweet spot where you are able to make enough HP in PvE and PvP so that each event you are coming out ahead and have enough HP to expand your roster as needed. It's tough where you are at, but it does get easier.

Unknown

I tried to mercenary myself out for the end of season, ended up with the Spider Men, they were doing well but had someone bail out last minute for a 105 finish

Punter1

Yo Bears - My season 5 performance not as good as 4, didn't really want to slide down the ranks, but my time is getting eaten up as kids activities started up and we've been off at fun stuff like Monster Trucks & mountain biking etc

Anyhoo - I should be able to keep up the same sort of level once things settle down. Curling starts (Shmau needs to try!) soon too, but only 1 night a week this year. I'm still gonna say I'm the "Best Curling MPQer" (TM)

To echo what others said as F2P in a top alliance shortly you'll find HP is not your issue. Between progression and event rewards both personal and alliance if you're careful on your HP spend (see my amazeballs PVP guide in the WR) you'll be getting more HP than you know what to do with. Hopefully at a rate that's quick enough too so that as you're lucky and get the new covers you'll be able to open up the next spot. I'm currently up to 45 spots and HP to spare, only a few 1* characters missing, my gotta collect 'em all gene kicked in.

Instead now I'm ISO starved, more covers than I know what to do with and currently taking the multi-levelling approach once I got to 1 max 3*, moving others up in step - so currently got lots of good 3* around lvl 100 and trying to bump them up as I use them. Not sure if that's the best approach, but does mean I've never an issue in PVE with lots of options, and that helps at the PVP side too.

DecoyDuck

Punter1 wrote:

To echo what others said as F2P in a top alliance shortly you'll find HP is not your issue. Between progression and event rewards both personal and alliance if you're careful on your HP spend (see my amazeballs PVP guide in the WR) you'll be getting more HP than you know what to do with. Hopefully at a rate that's quick enough too so that as you're lucky and get the new covers you'll be able to open up the next spot. I'm currently up to 45 spots and HP to spare, only a few 1* characters missing, my gotta collect 'em all gene kicked in.

Who are you and what you done with Punter1?

Unknown

Yeah at the moment I stand at 24 slots and have 275 HP. I had 875 before the Season end but I spent them as I got XForce and one lucky Daken Blue drop. Had to buy those two slots for 600HP for them. Oh yes and Colosus came in which means I sacrificed the only Loki cover I had to get him in. Not a big fan of Loki in the game.

Now if you guys do not mind I would like to ask some advice on the direction my roster should head on during the next season. I will post below my current roster and then what my plans are for it. Any suggestions would be more than welcome. If I am becoming annoying let me know. I just like to chat and get some info at the same time ^^

Roster:

2* Chars:
Storm Classic: 5/5/3 lvl 94
Thor Marvel NOW: 3/5/5 lvl 94
Wolverine Astonishing: 5/5/3 lvl 94
Magneto Marvel NOW: 3/5/5 lvl 82 (Cap 94) <-- Boosting now
Black Widow Original: 5/5/1 lvl 70 (Cap 79)
Ares Dark Avengers: 3/4/5 lvl 15 (Cap 86)

3* Chars:
Wolverine Patch: 1/2/1 lvl 55
Magneto Classic: 2/1/0 lvl 43 (Cap 53)
Psylocke Classic: 1/2/0 lvl 43 (Cap 53)
The Hood Classic: 3/0/1 lvl 40 (Cap 66)
The Hulk Indestructible: 2/0/1 lvl 40 (Cap 53)
Black Widow GS: 1/1/0 lvl 40 (Cap 43)
Captain America Steve Rogers: 1/3/0 lvl 40 (Cap 66)
Colosus: 0/0/1 lvl 40
Captain Marvel: 0/0/1 lvl 40
Falcon: 3/0/0 lvl 40 (Cap 53)
The Punisher Dark Reign: 1/0/0 lvl 40
Thor Modern: 1/0/1 lvl 40
Sentry: 0/0/2 lvl 40 (Cap 43)
IM40: 1/0/1 lvl 40 (Cap 43)
Daken: 0/0/1 lvl 40
Beast 0/0/1 lvl 40

4* Chars:
IW 0/1/1 lvl 74
XForce 0/0/1 lvl 70

Current HP is at 275, like I said before completely F2P.
My focus at the moment is to max MNMags, then boost OBW and then Ares. If by this time I get a 3* char that can go to ~100 then I will focus on him/her.
As it stands at the moment I am not thinking of adding any new slots to my roster. At least if it is not worth it. (Mowhawk for example is not worth opening a slot for her so she is going to be sold when I get her from this PVP).
My plan is to have a stock of at least 200HP on me all the time in order to be able to shield for PVPs as my EU time lets me uncovered for the last 8hrs of the event (6AM end times here).
I figure it is more important to have that HP help me boost my scores and secure more 3* covers rather than spend it on one roster slot and then stare at my covers.
Before I joined this alliance I had almost one cover for each 3* except from Patch. In less than a 5 day window you can see a big difference ^^
I know it is good to have as many characters as you can to play some PVEs but I would rather sacrifice that than not being able to shield in most PVPs due to no HP on me. So yeah, balance is what I am trying to go for. I get roughly 125-175 HP per PVP with my placement and the alliance placement so this will keep me going. If the PVP event has a cover I do not want, like the current one, I will save that HP and slowly gather it up for next PVP and slots for any new characters I want (Fury maybe).

So anyway, sorry for the stupid long post. I just like to collect opinions since being F2P requires a bit more planning at this stage of the transition than just buying the covers you want. I never buy covers even with the in-game HP... I find it very stupid and expensive to do so. I just trust my luck

Any opinions or advice would be more than welcome. Feel free to ignore this post as well. I understand it can hurt your eyes being this big

Punter1

Okin107 wrote:

My plan is to have a stock of at least 200HP on me all the time in order to be able to shield for PVPs as my EU time lets me uncovered for the last 8hrs of the event (6AM end times here).

OK - this is a bit of your issue - spending 200HP is too much - the end times suck - I'd move to the US, or Canada (it snows in Sept eh!)... I'd personally say you're better hitting top 100 to get 1 cover and save the HP, you probably don't need to shield to do this, 500ish pts before bed, hope you only lose 100 on retals and stick around the top 100. The alliance will help fill in the blanks and get you more covers, plus you're likely rarely hitting top 25 with the roster you have that gets the bonus cover.

DecoyDuck wrote:

Who are you and what you done with Punter1?

Oh it's still me - it's just the updated 2 months a bear me with HP coming out of my ears and now in desperate need of ISO! There's a point (right now around late 30's count) where you "max" out your roster in terms of essentials and start just buying spots cos you can. Plus my game style hasn't changed that I still rarely shield hop, so net I'm still usually pulling in 100+ HP if not more an event.

Unknown

Okin107 wrote:

Now if you guys do not mind I would like to ask some advice on the direction my roster should head on during the next season. I will post below my current roster and then what my plans are for it. Any suggestions would be more than welcome. If I am becoming annoying let me know. I just like to chat and get some info at the same time ^^

I would say don't bother putting any ISO into any 3* chars until you have at least the covers to get them up to around level 100 or so, about the level of your 2*s. I'm confident in saying that OBW is easily the most valuable 2* char and can be used well into your 3* transition, she should be your priority to max out. After her C.Storm (which you already have maxed) and Ares/Thor.

I notice you're short a couple of 2* covers still. I recommend playing lightning rounds, follow Ben Grimm's guide, as they seem to drop covers as battle rewards more frequently then other events. The key is to start LRs as soon as they are available to get the seed teams.