Puzzle Warriors 3 Episode #54!

XaOs72

New show!
the Curious Case of Craig's Cover Conspiracy

* Shield Ranks are here.
* How to gain xp?
* Iso reward bug
* Civil War returns
* And, this week featured character : Ghost Rider!

http://www.puzzlewarriors3.com/pw3-e54.html

Moon Roach

Listening now. When sending team-ups, I think sending 3* that are away for 8 hours, such as Cap or Bullseye, get you the most XP per day. A 5* is away for what seems like a week. It helps a lot if your alliance mates actually request team-ups...

Oh, and Civil War reappearing isn't that much of a surprise, the movie has just been released on Blu-Ray, I picked up my copy on Wednesday NZ time. (Other formats may be available.)

JeffCascadian

Moon Roach wrote:

When sending team-ups, I think sending 3* that are away for 8 hours, such as Cap or Bullseye, get you the most XP per day. A 5* is away for what seems like a week.

The team-ups are only gone a long time if they aren't used. As soon as your alliance member uses a team-up, it's ready for you to send again.

Moon Roach

JeffCascadian wrote:

Moon Roach wrote:

When sending team-ups, I think sending 3* that are away for 8 hours, such as Cap or Bullseye, get you the most XP per day. A 5* is away for what seems like a week.

The team-ups are only gone a long time if they aren't used. As soon as your alliance member uses a team-up, it's ready for you to send again.

Now, that I did not know. I guess deleting counts as a use? I've been sending out a request, deleting the received team ups, sending out a request, repeat ad nauseum. I've never actually tracked when any one I send out is available again.

If this is the case, gosh that has implications I don't want to mention because I've already had one warning and don't want to be banned. Those PVP threads don't write themselves.

Moon Roach

aesthetocyst wrote:

Only 19pgs of comments?

It could just be that he was using a big font.

IamTheDanger

Per your Ghost Rider build debate; in my opinion, Hellfire is better than Burning Rubber. BR puts 2 attack tiles that can be instantly matched away. But HF places them every other turn. And IF you can get a yellow Goblin cover, he will fortify it. I like to run him at 3/5/5 and put out multiple HF. This gives me damage and attack tiles every turn.

P.S. you guys might consider saying "my Ben Grimm" instead of "My Thing". For example: "Just got a cover for my Ben Grimm" sounds a lot better than "Just got a cover for my Thing". Just saying.

Tatercat

I normally have my champ GR at 3/5/5, he is perfect for most boss battles in those later out, if you have Iron Fist with him to generate black and someone like OML to tank for him. But they brought up a good point on the podcast about the AOE damage of the green. Int he Iron Man boss fight for CW, that AOE might be the only way you have to get past the House Party drones, so I've been running him at 5/3/5 for this event. Mostly the OML/GR/IF combo is fast enough to get off the Penance Stare if you deny yellow, but its nice to have the fall back just in case. Hi s red wouldn't make a difference in that fight anyway.

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................that!

zeeke

Guys, you have to stop telling people to level and use terrible characters like Mr fantastic, IW or Electra. When I come across any of them in PvP I double or triple that just to make a point, you still only get one retaliation node. Not that it matters since Mr fantastic couldn't beat anyone by any stretch (!) of the imagination.

I also find it funny that some people seem to think that you can put up a defensive team and float. That's cute. I run championed OML, Rulk and cyke in simulator and still get hit.

JeffCascadian

JCTthe3rd81 wrote:

P.S. you guys might consider saying "my Ben Grimm" instead of "My Thing". For example: "Just got a cover for my Ben Grimm" sounds a lot better than "Just got a cover for my Thing". Just saying.

But it's important to cover your Thing. Safety first.

madok

JeffCascadian wrote:

JCTthe3rd81 wrote:

P.S. you guys might consider saying "my Ben Grimm" instead of "My Thing". For example: "Just got a cover for my Ben Grimm" sounds a lot better than "Just got a cover for my Thing". Just saying.

But it's important to cover your Thing. Safety first.

Just be sure it isn't too restrictive. That could be bad for your Thing.

MPQ_Daywalker

zeeke wrote:

Guys, you have to stop telling people to level and use terrible characters like Mr fantastic, IW or Electra. When I come across any of them in PvP I double or triple that just to make a point, you still only get one retaliation node. Not that it matters since Mr fantastic couldn't beat anyone by any stretch (!) of the imagination.

I think this advice only applies if you really care about hitting high scores/progression rewards in PVP. The advice on the forums for the 4* transition have always focused solely on the top tier characters -- the ones that allow you to win the fastest, because that's all that matters for PVP (or ranking highly in PVE).

If you don't care about high PVP scores, I argue that any well-covered, highly leveled 4* character (with the exception of Cho) is useful. Situational characters like Ghost Rider and Captain Falcon may not be feared in PVP, but can be extremely helpful in Story mode (whether it's a regular story event, the Gauntlet, or a boss battle).

One of the reasons I enjoy the podcast (hey Chaos-Sneventy-Snoo, I'm that guy who stops listening to Nerdist to listen to PW3) is because it represents a casual player point of view for MPQ. It's often much more optimistic and positive than the forums, and fits my own personal view of the game more.

Why you play MPQ, or what makes the game fun for you, determines how you want to build your roster. I think the forum is mostly made up of very competitive players who are interested in advancing their rosters as quickly as possible, and getting high scores in PVP, the only game mode that matters to the average forumite. (There is a subset of forumites who are high placing PVE players, but other vets usually say that putting that much time and effort into Story mode is crazy.)

I am not a very competitive player (I'm willing to try for Top 100 in PVE but that's it), so I feel like I get the Puzzle Warriors' perspective a little more. My own philosophy with this game has always been to play it in whatever way is the most fun. Set a goal, and strive toward that. When I first started out, my goal was to roster, and then level, every 3*. I set out to do that well before championing became a thing, and once that hit, and 3*s were nerfed, I set out to build up my 4* roster. But I personally don't enjoy PVP; the constant need to only have the top tier characters (and a well-leveled Only Character That Matters) puts me off, as does the need to shield hop and spend HP that I'd rather use for roster slots. So I gather CP through PVE, open legendaries and gain way more 4* covers through daily rewards, legendary tokens and 3* champions than I do from PVP progression rewards. I'm having fun, and I'm happy with my progress (I'm on Day 743, was grandfathered into SHIELD Rank 61, and am now up to 62, all without ever being part of a competitive alliance).

I could go on, but think I've increased the page count of this week's comments enough.

TL;DR: Just because the consensus of the forums is to only focus on certain 4* characters doesn't mean it's the only way to play the game. You can still have fun in MPQ with other characters and team combinations, as long as you don't only care about high scores in PVP.

MPQ_Daywalker

aesthetocyst wrote:

_Daywalker_ wrote:

TL;DR: Just because the consensus of the forums is to only focus on certain 4* characters doesn't mean it's the only way to play the game. You can still have fun in MPQ with other characters and team combinations, as long as you don't only care about high scores in PVP.

It's not just PVP. The split is competitive v. casual. If you're competitive in PVE, it's all about speed there as well, and you wind up using the same (or nearly the same) teams there as you would in PVP. Unless he's essential and thus everyone has to play him, using MrEffer, or any other match-extending toon, is volunteering to be handicapped in the grind race.

Agreed; I mentioned high-ranking PVE players in my post as well but didn't cover it in my TL;DR.

I think the speed you're talking about is only really seen at the Top 50 level and above in PVE, with speed becoming increasingly more important in Top 20, then Top 10, and then Top 5. In my experience, with the PVE changes, Top 100 players can generally just focus on four clears of everything, no matter how long it takes them to do it, plus whatever time they have for some additional clears. Everyone above that has to put in a lot more work and be super-focused on the fastest clears.

But you're talking about 50/1000 people per veteran bracket needing to be doing fast clears, or 5% of veteran players who are that competitive in PVE. And then 1% of the vets where speed matters so much that a match taking even seconds longer than a competitor means moving down in the ranks.

That's not a lot of people, compared to the overall player base of Marvel Puzzle Quest. You and I have had this discussion before, aes, and we've agreed that the competitive veterans of the forums are in the minority compared to the casual players that make up the majority of MPQ players out there.

So the advice to focus only on top tier 4*s still really only applies to competitive PVE and PVP players. Everyone else (arguably the majority of the MPQ player base) is really going to be just fine leveling the characters they like to play with. The Top Tier characters are always going to be without a doubt the ones everyone want, because they're not only fast but they have so many other great properties (self-accelerating, great AOE damage, etc.) that they're no-brainers as far as putting ISO into them. But with 38 4*s out there now and more to come, people's covers may randomly fall for other characters first.

Tony_Foot

Just found this podcast, really enjoying it. Reminds me of the feel of the giantbombcast. Subscribed, will make my commute a bit more interesting.

PUM_SPAK

Dear Puzzle Warriors 3,

I typically listen to the podcast during my grinding hour-long commute, and this week was no exception. As Ian began the "Featured Character of the Week" segment, I completely lost focus on the podcast.
I was going about 60 MPH, and I became convinced that part of my car's suspension had broken loose on the underside of my car. There was this scary grinding / whining sound and it seemed to be getting louder. Was I losing a wheel?
After a few moments of panic, I sheepishly realized it was...

...just guitar feedback from the Rollins Band performing "Ghost Rider"! You got me good!

PUM-SPAK ( MickJ in-game )

Vhailorx

Thanks for the content!

Generally agree with zeeke.

You guys are frequently too positive about mediocre characters. Your praise for GR was similar in tone to your praise for rulk. But there is a vast difference in value between the two (rulk is much much better).

Ghost rider is nice for boss fights. But he isn't really worth using anywhere that you don't need a single attack that can do 50k damage. And since his damage with black is totally divorced from his level, there is no need to champ him. Save your iso for better characters.

Also, the best pair with GR black is anyone that can true heal (oml, x23, etc). That way you can charge up black without wasting healthpacks.

Coordinating your feature characters with the upcoming 4*ddq schedule would be great. So consider punmax or spider Gwen soon.

JeffCascadian

The problem with the idea of coordinating the Featured Character of the Week with the Crash of the Titans is that CotT is every five days but the podcast is "only" every seven days.