How to properly use Healthpacks

Punisher5784

This is embarrassing and this will probably be the most N00b question you'll hear from me but what is the best way to use Healthpacks?

You're probably asking "Punisher, are you serious?" Yes. For the first time in over two years I am at 10 healthpacks. I normally average well over 100 healthpacks but the way I have been playing has changed dramatically.

To give some history of Big Pun, I'm an old school player. During my old Final Fantasy days I never used Portions unless I absolutely had to so I can save gil/gold/money on equipment and I would rely on cure magic and Inns. Well I was still able to use this approach in MPQ, when I started I mostly used 2* Daken and 2* Wolverine until I had a nice 3* army and transitioned to.. you guessed it 3* Daken and 3* Wolverine lol. Pair them two with Loki hidden behind Daken and I could conquer every team. Wasn't the fastest but I saved healthpacks. Then eventually I used the team of IF and Cage. Cage's protect tile prevented most match damage to save healthpacks. Well between championing, 5*s, crazy scaling, and 4 clears at the start of PVE, these approaches are no longer viable and I began using 4*'s JG, Cyke and RH for big quick damage.. but it means a lot of healthpacks after a few matches. I also had numerous duplicate 3*'s (IF, Cage, SW, Hulk, Rogers) until Championing came and I had mine broken up so that also hurt.

My healthpack stock dwindled down from 200 to 10 since I returned from retirement (I blame Boss Rush) and I don't want to burn my tacos yet so I am curious how some of you utilize your 10 healthpacks to your advantage. It's beginning to be difficult to competitively play both PVE and PVP nowadays so any advice and discussion would be greatly helpful.

Thanks everyone

broll

I'd love to hear the answer to this as well. I hear people come on here and talk about how they have 100s of health packs were as I find myself at 0 at least once a day. I suspect some of this is having a larger roster of usable characters as I've graduated from being tempted to buy health packs daily to hitting 0, but still being able to get my clears in. It still would be good to hear what other players are doing different than me so i can git good.

TeamStewie

I have about 70 health packs stashed but that's probably because I'm just cheap. I don't spend them unless I'm really trying to hold onto or get into a certain position in the PVE and I don't have the time to wait it out.

JVReal

I always climb PVP late, within 3 hours of ending of my slice. My objective is to have 10 packs available for my climb and hope to pass 800, and hit 900 on a good boosted week. I play until I am out of health packs and shield.

On days where PVE sub/event ends within 1 hour of PVP (same slice), I will do my PVE clears about an hour before I start PVP, and I have 2 health packs I can use to clear out the toughest nodes early. This way, I can replenish those health packs and be back up to 10 by the time I'm ready for my PVP climb. After PVP ends, I then use my 5* and champed 3* to whittle away at the easier nodes while health packs replenish so I can do as many clears as possible of the new sub that will start soon. For the new sub, if I don't have a lot of packs, I hit the first node, open up the essentials, and hit the 4* essential 4x to get the CP and start the timer. Then I go through the story until I open up the next CP node, hit that 4x if health stays good, then work my way backwards as health packs and character health persist and replenish. When health packs dry up and A-team is limping. I go back and start timers on all the easier nodes using misc teams and 5* characters until I can't scrape by enough. Then I go to bed and wake up to 10 healthpacks and hit clears throughout my work day and lunch to get all the timers going.

Fortunately they don't overlap too often, twice a week, thanks to the one PVP that has the odd ending times.

Fightmastermpq

If a character loses more than half of the health that they started the fight with then heal them, otherwise don't. If you heal a character with 5k/10k health and then finish that fight with that character at 8k then you wasted that health pack.

Use different teams for PvP and PvE if you can. Adjust your team based on who you are playing if you can. If you aren't playing PvE super competitively alternate between goon and enemy nodes to give your different teams more time to heal between fights. Use characters that heal, and prolong fights to get your heals in before it ends when it makes sense.

STOPTHIS

I haven't really had to worry about running out of health packs since the 8 hours timers were left in the dust. Now, I usually try to offset my PvP and PvE slices to some degree. So that while I'm really grinding one I know I won't be even looking at the other for a few hours and my health packs can recharge. Now to be fair, I don't play PvP competitively (I only hit 575) and I only try to place in PvE for a new release (but usually end up in the top 100), but it works for me.

rainkingucd

Punisher5784 wrote:

...I'm an old school player. During my old Final Fantasy days I never used Portions unless I absolutely had to so I can save gil/gold/money on equipment and I would rely on cure magic and Inns. Well I was still able to use this approach in MPQ, when I started I mostly used 2* Daken and 2* Wolverine until I had a nice 3* army and transitioned to.. you guessed it 3* Daken and 3* Wolverine lol. Pair them two with Loki hidden behind Daken and I could conquer every team. Wasn't the fastest but I saved healthpacks. Then eventually I used the team of IF and Cage. Cage's protect tile prevented most match damage to save healthpacks...

You have described my place style exactly. I'm currently sitting on 180 health packs (down from 240 due to Boss Rush), and I've only recently moved on from Patch/Daken/Loki (i.e. last Gauntlet was the first Gauntlet I didn't use that team on every node. Even that crazy overscaled one I still ran Patch/Daken/Loki).

I don't have a good answer for PVP health pack usage. I'm mainly a PVE player, and since my roster is deep enough, and I don't have any levelled (or viable really) 5*, when someone goes down I just swap out a new team. My biggest health pack usage recently was 1 health pack during my final climb in the Daken PVP event (ran XFW, XFDP, Daken, so lots of heals).

All that being sad: I'm also curious around others' opinions on this.

IamTheDanger

First, you need to remember that people play differently. Different styles and different reasons for using or not using health packs.

Now me, I used to only play pve. But lately, I've started playing pvp too. And I learned early on that to save on h.packs, I set my end times about 10 hours apart. I only had both events ending together once to learn that lesson.

It also helps having every 2* and 3* champed with about a dozen 4*. So I do have an advantage. I rotate out different teams for different level nodes.

And the final thing I do, is I only use a h.pack on a character if they are close to or below 50% health.

Mr_Sinister

I hardly use healthpacks. I go entire PvE events using only a couple. I almost never use them in PvP. I'll use high efficiency teams until about 20℅ health, then use boosts to continue winning fast until they're dead, then make another one. If my needed PvP character dies I game plan to make sure the loaner is out front and my other guys mesh well enough to 2 man attack for a win.

One team that'll save healthpacks for both is Thor/Loki/Groot. Groot tanks 3 colors and I allow 4 matches the AI to fill the gaps.

Bowgentle

Tuesdays are rough.
I did end grind of sub 1 of the Heroic, 4 starting clears, plus 0-1265 in PVP all on 10 HP last night, in the span of about 4.5 hours.

Use true healers as much as possible.
Heroic is good since the useable chars don't overlap with my PVP team, but I've done the same in regular PVE too.

It's not something I'd recommend, but it's possible once your roster becomes good enough.

notamutant

First off, I am a 4 star player, so this may not apply to you. I haven't used 3 stars even when boosted for a while unless required, or in special teams (winfinite and IM40 boosting 4 stars). I used to use more shields in PvP and timing of slice ending mattered a lot more then. Now I can almost always hit 900 without shielding prior to hitting that mark, so I can shield 3 hours before slice end.

So, I do try to leave some space for playing between PvP and PvE just in case things go poorly. If I am playing PvE, I will play optimally usually. It really depends on the boosted characters if I need to use a lot of health packs. For example, this week, I barely had to use health packs because XDP and XFW come out of most matches with full health. I usually use about 4-6 health packs for the initial 4 clears at the start of a sub. I try not to be too stingy. The time lost from losing a match along with extra health packs usually makes it more worthwhile to use a health pack if you think you might die. For PvP, I play up to around 500 the day before PvP ends. That way I only use 3-5 health packs over the course of a day for PvP. Then for the final push about 3 hours before the end, I use anywhere from 3 health packs to get up to 900 in a good week, to all 10 in a bad boosted character week. If things do go wrong, I have enough time to regenerate the few health packs I would need to finish the climb to 900 while shielded.

I think the key thing to remember is, don't be afraid of using health packs. The only time you really NEED health packs is in PvP, since you get attacked if you are too slow to get the points and shield. In PvE, you can just use a different team if your main one is hurt and you run out of health packs. But always use your best team if you have the health packs.

GrumpySmurf1002

ABR. Always Be Regenerating.

The best way to manage your health packs is to break up your play as much as possible and recoup what's used during down time. Obviously not everyone's schedule allows that, but even if you play in a big block, get that timer started. A 3 hour session is still 15 health packs as you recover what is lost.

The other big thing is assessing your risk. You want to maximize how much health you regain so you don't use them when your characters are at 75% health. If you have someone like Hood or Loki hiding, they don't need health packs even if they somehow get down to 10-20%.

If your roster allows, it also pays to switch out when characters get down to 50-60%. That extra time to get them back to 60-70% can often make a big difference. Sure it's nice to whip through the easy PvE nodes with your strongest characters, but if they're hurting, let your B or C teams do it.

And the last obvious one, which you already know...still use your true healing characters whenever possible.

JVReal

Don't forget, that if you plan to take a break for an hour or two, and your A-Team took a hit in the last match... their regen time may be 4-6 hours, but a health pack is only 28 minutes. Drop a health pack on them and you'll be up to 100% health and 10 packs when you plan on picking up the game again.

wymtime

Another thing to take a look at is to break up your PVE team from your PVP team. In the heroic when I am on a day I will play PVP as well as PVP I am not using XFDP. I will run Pun or XF wolvie with IM and HT. He reason why is when I go to PVP and make a climb I am more likely to take damage and DP can self heal. I will also use LR seed teams to heal my self healers. In 3* land you have Daken and Patch, in 4* XFDP and wolvie X-23,in 5* OML and SS.

With non heroic PVE the other thing I do is on the first clear or 2 I use different teams. Scaling is much lower so non buffed characters can win easily. If they get hit hard I just let them heal and go to a different team. If they are not buffed they will not help against harder nodes or in PVP so why waste a only character I will heal who is not buffed is IM40 since he is such a good battery, but hood could work instead.
I generally don't use a HP on a character until they are well under 50% or dead.

dsds

To add to the other strategies that have been put forth. Try to use characters that regenerate health at double the rate during their down time. I always thought it was only wolverine, and maybe deadpool. But apparently there is like over 20 characters that regen at double the rate when they are not being used.

I found this article and I am not sure if it's entirely accurate. http://marvelpuzzlequest.wikia.com/wiki/Health_Pack

It lists antman, red hulk totally awesome hulk, all spiderman, and even Jean grey (5*) as double regen characters to reflect their abilities from the comics. These characters don't have heal abilities in battle, but apparently generate health at double the rate.

It still takes a long time to completely heal the 4-5* characters even at double the rate. But if you are at 50% and you are not sure, you can wait 15mins and that would be a lot more regen for them. i know the I use red hulk enough that it seems he does heal at a faster rate than normal.

Edit: Combine them with VIP 25% heal, haha plug for vip even though I never got it.

sambrookjm

One of the beast self-healing teams you can put together is a 5-star Old Man Logan with a yellow cover, X-23, and Daken. That being said, if you don't have a yellow cover for OML, there's a surprising 4-star that you can put in his place - Mr Fantastic.

No, I'm not saying that Mr F is anywhere near as good as OML. That's just crazy. But with the strike tiles that Daken puts out on every green match (healing X-23) and the protect tiles that Mr F can generate, there are a lot of friendly tiles that, when they're matched by the enemy, will heal Mr F. Nobody there uses red, so you won't have to worry about accidentally using them and not getting X-23's green ability to change over. Red and yellow both cause extra damage from Mr F's black Imaginaut tile.

I've used it with surprising success. The added bonus is that because they're all healers, it's a much grindier PvP match than people going for a quick match are looking for. You'll still get attacked, but not quite as often.