When to stop buying Legendaries..

Gmax101

So I am not bothered by 5* having deleted all of the ones I have pulled...

trying to get my 4* fully covered... though not levelled as I do not have the ISO...

When do you start using CP to finish a character's powers... rather than just buying Legendaries...

So of the possible 4*s I currently have 62% of the possible covers able to be assigned... assuming 13 per character.

Currently, 25% of the possible powers are at 5 covers.... so 75% of pulls are useful... (excluding 5*)

2 characters are max-covered - Nick Fury and Ice-Man although not sure if they are properly specced yet...

Nobody is even remotely championable... and nor will I until I have my own roster goals completed.... I am mostly a PVE player and having 1 or 2 massively levelled 4* are likely to cause me scaling issues... (not so much when not boosted, as my 3 star champions are coming in at 240/250 plus, but if they get boosted then I am probably knackered), so currently working on 3* championing... (only about 6 left to go: Hood, Beast, Vision, Psylocke, Falcon and Sentry... though Sentry is never getting done... I don't care how much he is needed)

There are 5 powers I have 0 covers for:
X-23 Green
Carnage Red
Quake Blue
Gwen Purple
Mr Fantastic Blue

So I know I am ok for a while...

There are a couple of powers I REALLY want to get up... but getting the right cover is very slight probability...

So, when do you start hoarding and use CP to finish off the 4* characters..?

or is the ISO you get from cashing in un-needed covers simply too valuable?

also note that I do not get many 4 star covers via PVP or PVE placement as I do not grind enough

and I rarely hit 1000 as I cannot be bothered to shield hop... (the frustration of trying to hit 2000 is annoying enough)

recommendations welcome

PeterGibbons316

Never. You never use CP to finish 4*s, you only ever use it to buy legendaries. 4* covers will eventually show up as rewards, but the only way to progress to the 5* end-game is with LTs and CP. The 5* transition is so slow that you can't afford to delay it by burning CP on anything other than attempts at 5*s.

Smudge

This is a pretty commonly discussed topic these days it seems. As a 3-4* transitioner myself, here is my take on using CP for powers.

3* - don't do it unless you really need to finish off one of the top tier characters like IF. This should never be a desperate need though. I still don't have a max covered IF and will never use CP to finish him.

4* - again, ideally the character should be top tier, but this is where you are more justified in spending the CP to max cover someone directly. When you have a character like Hulkbuster sitting at 5/1/5, the LT lottery is not as likely to be your friend. You might be better served by dropping the CP at this point unless that particular cover is on the near horizon for PvP rewards.

It also makes sense if you really want to finish off a character's covers for someone you enjoy playing and have a large % of the 4* tier max covered, say 60% or more (not leveled obviously, because lol ISO). If your LT is more likely to turn into 1k ISO, the 120 CP is not as painful of an investment on a single cover imho.

5* - this tier might be best for maxing out powers using CP based on analysis I've seen from better statisticians than I, but YMMV. My 5* luck isn't the best overall, but I haven't tracked it at all either. I know I've pulled 6 5* covers total, so I'm likely behind the normal rate. It's something like 800+ CP on average to expect any particular 5* cover in a particular color versus 720 for a single guaranteed cover in that same color. Removing the RNG aspect is nothing but positive in my book.

Edit:

PeterGibbons316 wrote:

Never. You never use CP to finish 4*s, you only ever use it to buy legendaries. 4* covers will eventually show up as rewards, but the only way to progress to the 5* end-game is with LTs and CP. The 5* transition is so slow that you can't afford to delay it by burning CP on anything other than attempts at 5*s.

The OP did hint at not being particularly interested in the 5* tier at the start of the post. Based on that info and the fact that I've seen a couple posts now from Cthulhu that the dev team is considering the difficulty in obtaining 5* characters from RNG alone, I'm still hesitant to say never use CPs on LTs only when there are in fact some (if limited) practical applications otherwise.

TxMoose

if you don't have a synergistic 4* pair champed and you have a meta-character at 12 covers with iso ready to go, I'd say do it only in that case. that first pair to 270+ makes such a difference and gives you an avenue (if you can afford some shield hp), to make up the cp by earning more at 1300s. I'd only do it if it definitely improves your performance capability. I know there are a few 3* rosters that score crazy points with the big boys. those would not 'benefit' from getting to 13 covers on a 4* (many of those have 4*s but just not leveled yet). also, if you don't have the hp inflow for shields to start making 1300, it may not be a good investment anyway. pve gets more difficult and unless you're bettering your pvp performance, why do it?

Gmax101

I don't tend to do PVP other than to hit the 10pack for the season and grab some tokens and HP.

I usually grind up to about 650-800 in a single blast just before the end of the Bracket, I just enjoy PVE more for core playing .

All my 3* are fully covered... no issue there, and while I have missed numerous champion levels due to lack of ISO at key times... that's just the way the cookie crumbles...

so far I have not missed a potential champion level for a 4* as I have only recently (ie end of Gauntlet and progression about 10 days ago) fully covered the 2 4* stars with 13 covers. It will happen soon I have no doubt.

I appreciate the comments. I am more completionist than competitive... so there are definitely better choices on spending ISO I could have made

I know I am a way off the point that statistically the legendary token is more than likely to be auto-ISO. After all, only 25% of the powers are maxed... so there is always the option for re-speccing prior to Championing, although in the main I think the 1000 ISO is more useful...

I think that at a point where I have 60-70% of 4* star powers at 5 covers, then that might be the point where it is worth thinking about investing 120cp in specific covers... (although I would love more Jean Grey Purple....)

mohio

Personally I agree with the poster who said never. I am more PvP focused and was already scaled in PvE to the point where a 255 5* wasn't going to effect me, so that wasn't an issue. I had many cover-maxed 4* so I started the long process of max leveling the best 4*, mostly when I pulled extra covers. Anyway, I was quickly to the point where I was more likely to pull a cover I had already maxed versus a "new" cover that I could apply. However, I kept pulling anyway cause I wanted the chances at improving my 5* and that is the only way of doing so. Any covers for newer characters were quite welcome and some I'm sure helped me complete their crash of the titans node and obtain more LTs. Extra covers for characters I have no intention of every maxing are always a depressing pull, but at least they are needed iso to go towards whatever characters I DO want to max.

As an anecdote for the other side of things. I have an alliance mate who has used CP to buy covers a few times. Each time it was to finish off a top tier character and bring them to 13 covers. He bought one or two rulk covers, maybe a JG or iceman cover at some point. I'm sure this helped him at times reach higher PvP scores more easily, so perhaps it worked for him, but I still would rather not do it. As with most things, you'll get varied opinions, and YMMV.

PeterGibbons316

mohio wrote:

Personally I agree with the poster who said never. I am more PvP focused and was already scaled in PvE to the point where a 255 5* wasn't going to effect me, so that wasn't an issue. I had many cover-maxed 4* so I started the long process of max leveling the best 4*, mostly when I pulled extra covers. Anyway, I was quickly to the point where I was more likely to pull a cover I had already maxed versus a "new" cover that I could apply. However, I kept pulling anyway cause I wanted the chances at improving my 5* and that is the only way of doing so. Any covers for newer characters were quite welcome and some I'm sure helped me complete their crash of the titans node and obtain more LTs. Extra covers for characters I have no intention of every maxing are always a depressing pull, but at least they are needed iso to go towards whatever characters I DO want to max.

As an anecdote for the other side of things. I have an alliance mate who has used CP to buy covers a few times. Each time it was to finish off a top tier character and bring them to 13 covers. He bought one or two rulk covers, maybe a JG or iceman cover at some point. I'm sure this helped him at times reach higher PvP scores more easily, so perhaps it worked for him, but I still would rather not do it. As with most things, you'll get varied opinions, and YMMV.

Even without considering the 5* end game, for spending CP on a cover to make sense it would have to allow you to earn that 20 or 120 CP back in the time it would have taken to get that cover. The difference between a 12 and 13 cover 4* is just not that great to ever really put you in that position. The only exceptions might be re-specing IF from 2 to 5 purple to pair with IMHB so that you can hit 1300 in PvP, same for IM40 yellow with Thoress/Iceman/Cyke/Whoever, and MAYBE JG from 2 to 5 purple in PvE if she is the only 250 in a sea of 166s and throwing your scaling off so that you can't hit max progression without that OP purple (honestly a pretty unlikely scenario). 120 CP is a lot, that's 5 events worth of CP, 6 classic pulls - any one of which could potentially be the very cover you aim to get (unlikely, but possible), it's just hard to believe that purchasing any one cover is really going to get you to final progression 6 times where you otherwise would have not gotten there.