Moving into 3* Land

EleganceFlawed

I've finally got my 2*s champed and was trying to see where else to invest my ISO. I haven't really started on the 3*s yet because I just started consistently beating DPD.

I also need to free up a roster slot, so if there's someone on my list who isn't worth keeping, I have ClMagneto waiting to be recruited.

Any tips on best builds for my Champions would also be helpful.

Here's my roster:

2*
CStorm lvl 97 5/5/3
MNThor lvl 97 5/5/3
MHawkeye lvl 96 5/3/5
OBW lvl 94 5/5/3
Ares lvl 55 5/1/2
MNMags lvl 54 3/3/2

3*
Sam Wilson lvl 53 2/1/2
ClDaken lvl 45 2/1/1
KKhan lvl 43 1/0/3
Patch lvl 43 2/0/2
Colossus lvl 43 0/1/2
Gamora lvl 40 2/0/4
Captain Marvel lvl 40 1/1/2
Deadpool lvl 40 2/1/1
Loki lvl 40 2/1/1
Steve R lvl 40 2/1/1
Hulk lvl 40 2/1/1
GSBW lvl 40 2/1/0
QSilver lvl 40 0/2/1
Bullseye lvl 40 0/2/0
Cyclops lvl 40 0/0/2
Daredevil lvl 40 2/0/0
Rocket/Groot lvl 40 0/2/0
SWitch lvl 40 2/0/0
Hood lvl 40 2/0/0
Beast lvl 40 1/1/0
Black Panther lvl 40 1/1/0
Iron Fist lvl 40 0/1/1
SheHulk lvl 40 1/1/0
Blade lvl 40 0/1/0
DocDoom lvl 40 0/0/1
Human Torch lvl 40 0/0/1
IM40 lvl 40 0/1/0
Punisher lvl 40 1/0/0
Thor lvl 40 0/0/1

4*
Thor lvl 70 1/1/0
ClCyclops lvl 70 0/0/1
Howard the Duck lvl 70 0/0/1
Kate Bishop lvl 70 0/0/1
EBVenom lvl 70 1/0/0
BBWinterS lvl 70 0/0/1

And I have a maxed 1* Juggy for DPD.

Thanks,
-EF

Starsaber

Going just on your low cover3*s I'd drop Punisher for CMags. Once you get your other 2*s champed and/or get some 3s to similar levels I'd consider dropping Hawkeye

udonomefoo

2* -

I prefer 3/5/5 on OBW, purple costs more the more you put into it. So it's faster at 3 and black at 3 does no extra damage where at 5 you get that double hit from her matches.

Also, 3/5/5 on Thor. Red is nice at 5, but green is really his best power and yellow fuels green much better than red fuels yellow.

You'll also want Mags at 3/5/5 when you get there. His blue is worthless compared to the other 2.

Drop Howard the Duck for your roster spot. He's a novelty character, not a terrible one, but he won't be featured in any events unless they re-run the duck hunt event. That will prob happen at some point, but when? A year from now? Next week? Who knows.

TxMoose

EleganceFlawed wrote:

...if there's someone on my list who isn't worth keeping, I have ClMagneto waiting to be recruited.

for cmags, I'd drop 3* punisher. next considerations would be daredevil and colossus. after that, maybe beast. cmags is t10 in my book.

EleganceFlawed wrote:

Any tips on best builds for my Champions would also be helpful.

Here's my roster:

2*
CStorm lvl 97 5/5/3 (this is widely considered her best build)
MNThor lvl 97 5/5/3 (thor really works better at 3/5/5, even if you're feeding storm green, thor green can be used as a finisher and red doesn't get a whole lot better from 3 to 5)
MHawkeye lvl 96 5/3/5 (3/5/5 maximizes damage output. if you're using a better red and no blue on a team, this could work though. his blue isn't considered a very powerful abililty.)
OBW lvl 94 5/5/3 (3/5/5 is by far the most popular here. at a cost of 8 ap, stealing 3 of everything except purple is a great balance of cost vs benefit. with espionage, if the enemy has purple, you can get 8 ap with 2 purple matches and get there quickly.)
Ares lvl 55 5/1/2 (when you get there with ares, 4/4/5 is best)
MNMags lvl 54 3/3/2 (when you get there with mnmags, I think 3/5/5 is best)

EleganceFlawed

Thanks for the build tips - I'm terrible with stats.

Howard's invisibility skill has actually gotten me through some events believe it or not so I'm a little apprehensive to get rid of him.

Sounds like Punisher's on the out.

Who's worth pumping ISO into 3* wise?

TxMoose

EleganceFlawed wrote:

Who's worth pumping ISO into 3* wise?

popular rule of thumb says wait until they're at about 10 covers. some specific abilities can make some characters useful before that. like if you get steve to 5 red. he could be 0/5/0 and he'd be useful. torch is almost the same with red. any quality black ability too since black is so lacking among the 2s. but generally not worth iso until about 10 covers, but that's still subjective. sit tight, keep trying to finish those 2s and build up some iso for when it makes sense to use it. you don't have many lower tier characters rostered, so any that gets some covers would be worth some iso. the question then will be how much. I used a tiering system. this was before some changes happened, but popular tiers when I went through were levels 94, 104, 120, 140, and then 166. 94 just put them at the same level as the maxed 2s. 104 put their match damage nearly equal to the 2s back then - that meant you could arrange your team for tanking nearly on equal terms there. 120 is relatively cheap to level 3s to - the leveling costs increase substantially past 120 compared to before 120. and 140s boost to level 200, which was a good level for use in pvp back then. thing are a little different now - not sure about match damage any more, and level 200 isn't scaring anyone I don't think, but might still help down where you're playing. with champing, everyone wants to get good, covered characters champed asap. I recommend starting with only the best characters - fist/cage/mags/cyke/kk/panther/cap/etc (vision will also be in this group if he isn't changed when you get him covered). support like im40/witch/hood/loki are really important too, but might not require maxing super early. hope this helps.

EleganceFlawed

This is extremely helpful, I guess for the most part I'll just hoard for now.

Just to clarify, kk = kamala khan and cage = luke cage? I don't have him yet.

TxMoose

yep - those are in the group that's considered the best of the 3* tier, along with the others listed. many went with a soft-capping leveling philosophy and brought basically their entire roster up together. this was perfect for pve - lots of options and kept scaling low. but didn't work well in pvp where you're taking on maxed teams all the time. so shortly before boosting hit (kinda bad timing) I leveled a pvp 'pair' of thor/loki. they're not very scary now but back then thor was one of the strongest characters in the game. if you choose to level a pvp 'pair', I'd make sure it was a couple of those top tier characters. like fist and cyke or fist and cage. or if they ever confirm on vision, vision and kk or vision and witch. really, almost any combinations of:

character #1 = one of fist or kamala khan
character #2 = one of cage, Cyclops, or panther
character #3 = one of cmags or current vision (or maybe steve)

along with any of hood, im40 and/or switch...

and you'll have the beginnings of a very good core where a few different pairs can be made depending on the featured pvp character. that may be down the road some but its always nice to have a plan.

EleganceFlawed

Wow, thanks for breaking it down. I haven't really gotten into pvp yet, so it sounds like soft capping the top guys is the way to go.

How's Falcon? I have a lot of covers for him but he doesn't seem to be on anyone's lists.

udonomefoo

EleganceFlawed wrote:

Wow, thanks for breaking it down. I haven't really gotten into pvp yet, so it sounds like soft capping the top guys is the way to go.

How's Falcon? I have a lot of covers for him but he doesn't seem to be on anyone's lists.

He's a good utility player for pve, which is where you'll be spending most of your time for now. Redwing can take out enemy countdowns (cds) which is huge. His downside is that he has zero ability to inflict damage, he's purely utility. If you have a character who makes strike/protect/attack tiles then he can buff those, but without that, you're not getting a lot of use out of him.

TxMoose

falcon is great in pve against goons when he's covered (in blue). he's also good with tile makers like fist or cage when covered (in yellow). he basically overwrites enemy stuff (cds or special tiles) and boosts your special tiles. good pve character. he's the center of 2 of my favorite goon-only teams - falcon/steve/mnmags and falcon/witch/gsbw. on those teams he gives you some breathing room early to get the ap generators going.

not very useful in pvp since few good characters use cds and there is usually a faster, more powerful option for that character slot than falcon. him with 2 of fist, daken, and/or blade can be pretty nasty. he's really good with characters that can get tiles out quickly. my enchilada team in 3* land was steve/falcon/blade. not sure how they work since they changed up enchilada, but it worked well back when it was goons/characters/goons/characters, and falcon and blade are still at 120 and 140 on my roster.

Calnexin

Other have suggested dropping Punisher for CMag. I concur that Punisher is one of the weakest 3*, but I'd suggest you drop Ares and put him on rotation. Ares and Thor use the same colors and pretty much do the same thing - Ares is slightly better at single-target while Thor has a good AoE and self-generates. The only reason to keep both is if you really like and regularly use both. I think it's worth keeping every 3* you can because you're now firmly in the realm where you can benefit from the Daily Deadpool. The extra 2k + cover will progress your roster much faster than holding on to a minimally used 2*.

Whoever drops, CMag is definitely worth the slot. His blue/red are great damage with shakeup capability, and his yellow is extremely annoying when facing him in PvP.

Warbringa

Drop Howard the Duck instead of Punisher. He is never going to be useful for you and he is going to be a character like Devil Dinosaur where getting covers for him will be extremely rare. Your 4* really are going to be a drag on your roster for a while and he is one that you can easily do without. You probably shouldn't open any legendary tokens until you have a developed 3* roster. Depending on your play style but especially if you play PvE, I would work to roster every 3* since they are usually needed as essentials and only use HP to buy roster slots at this point because you will need a ton of them. Contrary to other opinions posted above I believe that Punisher is fairly solid mid-tier 3*. All of his abilities are decent, the problem is they don't have great synergy with each other. His red ability can be really effective if used correctly. There are way worse 3* than Punisher (Dr. Ock, Sentry, Vision, Spider-Man, SQ Girl, Ragnarok, Storm, Colossus, Bullseye,....in my book) based on general damage and durability. What you will find though is that players view many of the non-top tier characters differently based on their play style. Dr. Ock is great against an enemy team that generates tiles but really weak against those that don't for example. Bullseye is fun to play and really effective against wave nodes but in normal play against a single team I wouldn't use him unless necessary. Beast (I put him in the solid mid-tier as well) is nice because he has quick firing abilities and his green is cost effective when you have a blue tile out but you will find that there are generally better green and blue powers you will be using in other characters however he can fill in adequately when you need that specific color combination or he is boosted. I put more value into Punisher than these specialized characters because you can use him in any team and he works fine. Pair him with other large damage dealers like Iron Fist and Blade and his red is really, really good.

You certainly need Classic Mags though as he is top tier and one of the best 3* damage dealers.

Your 2* Thor should be 3/5/5 because his green AoE is one of his best powers, much better than red. Your goal should be to collect yellow and green with him, especially since yellow deals good damage and charges his green.

I would also recommend that you change your OBW to 3/5/5 as you get to use her purple steal more often at rank 3. Yes you don't steal as much but getting to use it more is better. Adding the covers to black actually causes her to become a pretty awesome damage dealer as well.

TxMoose

I agree with some of the others and actually change my vote to howard from pun, but pun is next when another top 3 comes along. howard inviz can help in a pinch, but he'll likely never be the 'best' option for a team.

Warbringa

TxMoose wrote:

I agree with some of the others and actually change my vote to howard from pun, but pun is next when another top 3 comes along. howard inviz can help in a pinch, but he'll likely never be the 'best' option for a team.

I think he pretty much has most of the top tier rostered except Cage and Classic Mags at this point.

EleganceFlawed

I did drop Punisher before these messages came in. I will be needing to drop someone else because I should be getting MStorm from the current event.

I would hang on to Ares for now because I have like an A and B team for DPD, OBW/CStorm/Thor is my A team and Ares/MNMags/Hawkeye is my B team.

This means I can still complete the nodes even if one of my main team members is locked, and keeps me from using health packs for DPD and I can save them for the events.

If this strategy is flawed please let me know.

Thanks for all of the imput so far!

-EF

TxMoose

personally I agree wit you EF. I'd keep both thor and ares. both are solid characters that cover the same stuff (but differently) and provide depth. if you only had to do 1 match a day, sure sell one, but in pve you need depth and both are solid characters. I still have both. thor can be locked out in ddq - ares should never be locked out of ddq and is almost never locked out of a simulator pve or gauntlet. keep both. personally I'd pair mnmags with cstorm and thor as a third, but hawkeye can certainly work too. I like ares with obw and cstorm is a good third there. lots of different ways they can be used. I wouldn't sell any of the core - I still have obw, thor, ares, mnmags, and cstorm on my roster (but I'm in the process of going back and finishing everyone). those 5 I'd never sell. even after you get 3*thor.

Warbringa

Honestly 3* Storm is worse than most of the 3* you already have on your roster. If you want to roster her since you have 2* Storm champed I understand but I would maybe ditch Bullseye or Colossus in that case (although I actually like both of those better than Storm). Her black power is decent and her green is an ok board shake that does give your random AP but is expensive to use at 12 green. Her yellow isn't good and she has really, really low health which is her biggest drawback because none of her powers really make up for it like other low health characters such as Hood or Loki for example.

EleganceFlawed

I totally wasn't paying attention and thought Mohawk Storm was a 4*.

If she's not that good then I guess I'll just sell her.

TxMoose

mostorm isn't elite by any stretch but with the right team can be pretty good. her biggest drawback is her health. her and hulk got my through both galactus runs - keep hulk out front taking damage and making green. she turns that into ap for a damage dealer 3rd team member. G1 that was cap and G2 that was cyke I think. I'd keep her over Howie, pun, daredevil, colossus, or beast. its pretty subjective, but she's a thoroughly average character. and with yellow/black colors, there are many other better options there. hood/cage/cyke/xfw (when you get him)/etc. up to you

EleganceFlawed

Part of my problem is coming from fan land and going BUT ORIGINAL STORM GUYS...... Same reason I don't want to give up Colossus because FASTBALL SPECIAL.

If she's fairly useable I could keep her over one of the other not so good 3*s. I love Beast but he is kinda useless in most of my experience too.