Iso, Champion Characters, and Tokens

GrimSkald

This may be better off in Tips and Guides, but I've seen enough people talk about it here that I wanted to post this here. We can discuss it.

Here's the underlying point I want to make - before you do anything long term in this game (promote a character, level a character, spend Hero Points, open a token,) you should have a good conversation with yourself as to whether you should do this now, or possibly wait until later. This is particularly relevant when opening tokens, as the covers you get from the tokens expire, but the tokens don't. Remember this game is much more of a marathon than a sprint, and you may be able to get more value from a cover later down the line. First off, I'm going to go over the tangible beneifts of promoting a character to a Champion

- You will be able to respec a character at any time (definitely of great value if you weren't able to get the ideal covers for the character, otherwise still quite useful.)
- You will be able to increase the character's level at a rate of one level per cover
- You will get a token for the first level (Legendary for 3* or 4*, Heroic for 2*,) after that you will essentially get Iso-8 that recoups the Iso you would get for selling the covers, plus a few other benefits such as HP, Command Points, and covers.

The cost of promoting a character is whatever Iso it takes to max level it, a fairly modest one time cost in Iso, and of course the loss of Iso from that first cover. You recoup the iso costs for not selling the covers after that (eventually you recoup the up-front cost, but that's really long term,) so there is no continous cost to promoting a character.

That up front cost is not insignificant, particularly if you don't already have that character level-maxxed. You should really consider what the promotion gets you - a single token, a incremental increase in the character's power, and the ability to respec. If that is worth the Iso you'll be spending, you should do that. If not, balance it against the fact that the token will expire in two weeks. Be sure to keep in mind that you will get another token for that character sooner or later, and one level makes a really small difference in the character's power.

I'm going to use myself as an example. Here's my roster:

http://mpq.gamependium.com/rosters/GrimSkald/

You can see I have a number of 3*s at 166 - I haven't promoted them yet. At this point, I'm sitting on covers for pretty much all of them - there hasn't been any tangible benefit for promoting them. I will promote them all, sooner or later, but I don't see any big deal to letting one cover expire, particularly for a character I don't use that often. When the Champion system was introduced I spent Iso on levels for exactly 1 3* - Human Torch as I had a lot of them. I regret that a little, to be honest - I'd have much rather have spent the 40K-odd Iso on Red Hulk or Cyclops. It turned out well, as he helped me get through the Heroic: Juggernaut event, but I don't know if the eight additional levels made any real difference - that is probably the point where it starts having some effect.

Another thing - I am not opening Legendary Tokens at this time. The benefit to opening Legendary Tokens is to get more covers for my 4 max level 4*s, more covers for my lower level 4*s, and 5* covers. The drawback to opening them now is if I draw either Red Hulk or Cyclops I will probably not be able to level them to 270 before that cover expires. Getting additional covers for my Champions and/or lower level 4*s is outweighed by the future benefit of having more levels for more top-tier 4*s. 5* covers are similarl of limited value right now - I don't have the Iso for them either.

My plans for the future are to get Cyclops and Red Hulk to 240 before opening Legendary Tokens (Cyclops will become cover maxxed by the end of tomorrow.) After that, I'll probably open them until I get one of the two, then level that one to 270. Then I'll open more and see what that gets me. If I don't end up with either, I'll probably start leveling more 4*s to join them - Kingpin and 4Pool are at the top of my list. Eventually I'll get around to leveling my remaining 3*s - Psylocke first since she's so close, then down to my 153 tier, then down to my 139 tier, etc.

Hopefully this helps people. Champions really made me excited about opening tokens again, I really like the system, but you should resist the urge to promote everyone.