Puzzle Warriors 3 Special: 2 to 3 star Transition Guide

XaOs72

In this hour long show we get together, all in the same room, and Ian leads us through a discussion on tactics in going from a mostly 2-star roster into a 3-star roster.
* What events should you play?
* Should I really do PVP?
* What 3-star characters should I look for?
* Should I be using my Command Points?
* Should I keep my 4*/5* that I just got?
All these questions and many, many, MANY more are answered!

http://www.puzzlewarriors3.com/2to3-star.html

LFChikarason

Listening now, lots of good info for even grizzled players like me

OnesOwnGrief

Time to see how bad the information is here...

Gonna be editing this post as I go along.

2-3* transition: Some solid stuff, could have been more focused. More talk of which 2* champs give desireable 3* covers.

Talk on PvP: Doesn't sound as if they are that experienced. My suggestion is to start PvP asap. New players are sectioned off from the rest of the big boys and are able to jumpstart their roster with rewards fairly easily. Light brackets for a few months to help new players.

Which events to play? Not that informative. Passable but the short answer is all of them.

Laptop died at this point.

saj14saj

I must absolutely disagree with you on keeping 5* characters no matter what.

Right before championing began, I accidentally rostered a 5* Jean Grey with red (I wasn't paying attention that closely late at night, and thought I had gotten a 4* which is useful for essentials).

My opponents in both PVP and PVE (after the seed rounds) went from being uniformly maxed 94ish teams much like my own to being maxed 3* teams. My PVP scores went from a routine progression of 300-400 without too much trouble to barely getting more than 100 from the seed teams.

PVE became a nightmare grind.

When I sold (painful, painful) that Jean Grey, the opponents in SHIELD instantly went back to being able to find 94-110 level teams (championing had begun) which I could actually have a reasonable chance against.

And while Jean was a nice meat shield for trivial and seed nodes, in PVP she made me a target. From that experience, I have learned to target single cover 5* teams as well--except yellow OML who is too tedious.

So I cannot agree. If you are a pure 2* transitioner without a ready 3* team at 166, keep that 5* in your queue as long as you can, and consider selling it if you have to, or you will ruin your present game play for your future game play.

The only one that would make me question that is the indisputed king of the 5*s, the Parmesan cheese of covers, OML yellow. But I don't have one of those

Now, I have several maxed 3*s and am solidly into the beginning of the 3* transition. I am lucky enough to have IM40 post buff, GSBW, Hulk, Storm, and my favorite Black Panther all at 166 or so. I have 3 5*s in my queue (three days to go), and I am considering letting them in--because the average difference between a boosted 3* and a 5* is so much less than the difference between a boosted 2* and a 5* that my scaling should not suffer as much.

Of course, I was hoping that the dev's would push their much anticipated scaling update before I run out of time, but that doesn't look like it is going to happen.

Good luck 2* transitioners--and play those DDQs! That is the best advise in the podcast.

Postlude: why do I open tokens and spend CPs instead of hoarding them? I hate lost opportunity, and am at a stage in my life where I have whaled just for roster slots, and nothing else. It is necessary to open the tokens and spend the CPs to get 4* covers for the essentials for PVE. The 5*s for me right now are an unhappy accident.

Also... hoarding is not fun

saj14saj

On lightening rounds -- they are from mid-day Tuesday to mid-day Thursday, every two hours.

And the best reason to hit all the seed times (which advise I *do* absolutely agree with) is to get the 2* covers as random rewards, which either go into championing, or are like 250 ISO coupons. You can get 2 to 4 in a typical round. That adds up fast. I have nearly max-champed my entire 2* roster on the strength mostly of lightening rounds.

Moon Roach

On Deadpool Points, I always use 3* Deadpool on the essential node in Daily Deadpool, just to be sure I get the points every single day.

You can never have too many DP when Gauntlet comes around.

madsalad

I'll listen tomorrowish and edit this with some thoughts.

Edit:

If I had it all to do over again, I would hoard every single token, and now CP, until I was firmly entrenched into a 3* transition. I would do my best to obtain all the ISO and 2* and 3* covers I need by grinding PVE and PVP until I had a fully covered and maxed 2* roster and a mostly covered and maxed 3* roster. By avoiding openimg tokens, I would limit the amount of 4 and 5* I would have ( down to 0) and my scaling would jump through the roof when rostering a 5* or a 4*.

I would also pick and choose my roster, as Ian had suggested, to separate the wheat from the chaff. No Sentries, Visions, Dr. Dooms, Mystiques, Punishers, Quicksilvers, AND ESPECIALLY PSYLOCKS, allowed!
No moonstone, Hawkeye, Bullseye, or Bagman.

Would it be slow going? You bet. But I would probably have a lot more fun and more success with lower tiered full covered dudes than what I have with partially levelled nonsense from 2-5*s.

Your PVE scaling (from what I understand) is taken from an average of you 4 highest leveled characters. You PVP scaling is a combination of leveled characters and success (I could be wrong on this). That's why scaling junps through the roof when adding just 1, unusable, 5* to your roster. I would try to limit the temptation of rostering a 5* by not having opportunities to open one until I was ready to make that transition.

Wishful thinking.

Also, when Ian named his Top 5 worst 3*s and Psylocke wasn't on it, I screamed at my phone right before someone said, "What about Psylocke"?

My lowest leveled 3* is Psylocke at, I think, 56. She will be the last 3* I ever level, even after Rags and Sentry. Even after Punisher. That is if I ever max level another 3* now that they've all been needed and this is now a 4* game. I'm too busy dumping all my ISO into that tier to stay relevant.

WHALES caps at 100, from what I understand.

The fact that none of you knew the times LRs ran, or that they only ran mid-week (Ian) made me sad.

I say, "go pound sand" as often as Ian says "long story longer".

Clyve

saj14saj wrote:

On lightening rounds -- they are from mid-day Tuesday to mid-day Thursday, every two hours.

And the best reason to hit all the seed times (which advise I *do* absolutely agree with) is to get the 2* covers as random rewards, which either go into championing, or are like 250 ISO coupons. You can get 2 to 4 in a typical round. That adds up fast. I have nearly max-champed my entire 2* roster on the strength mostly of lightening rounds.

Do 2* covers drop at an increased rate in lightning rounds? I almost never bother with lightning rounds because time is my biggest limiting factor in playing this game and there always seems to be something better to commit to.

HaywireII

I agree with them about never selling 5* covers. I had just maxxed my 2* characters and was trying to build out my 4* roster for PvE essentials (hard to place well without all three essential characters) and pulled Phoenix green and OML black out of a group of 4 pulls.

Long story short, the game was a lot harder rostering two 5*'s at the same time but I kept building my roster through Big Enchilada and getting the full progression rewards on PvE. I managed to pull a Surfer Blue three weeks later and that made things even worse but I kept grinding. I did miss almost all of the last PvP season because I couldn't queue beatable opponents.

Fast forward to this week, I'm still hitting progession on PvE, I finished High Stakes at 812 points, I have three championed 3* characters and several more at 120 with 11 or 12 covers. I have every 4* but Starlord (1 to 6 covers depending on the character) and I have pulled Phoenix Green (again) and pink covers. Very glad I did not sell them.