4*s - Who to prioritize

Kjempen

I don't really care about wasted covers, it seems hopeless to not waste any covers anyway. (Not into hoarding yet...)
Anyways, here is a list of who I have championed:
Cyclops
Hulkbuster
X-Force Wolverine
X-Force Deadpool
Iceman
Peggy Carter
Jean Grey
And I'm well on the way of levelling up Red Hulk (to champ him). But after that, who will be next? I have several 4*s fully covered or near fully covered. And I feel, how I've prioritized championing so far, has done me good. Championing someone like Mr Fantastic or Invisible Woman is not going to make me feel like my roster made any progress, so that, for example, is not an option yet (they will be some of my last, if ever).

My ideas so far are - in the following order: Nova, Moon Knight, The Punisher, Thor, Quake (for PVE), Ant-Man, Kate Bishop (if I can get the covers she might get higher priority). I'm also considering championing another villain (Kingpin). Is my plan stupid, or will it be, in the words of Borat, "great success"?

(Some I have fully covered or near that are not mentioned above: TAHulk, Ghost Rider, Winter Soldier, Nick Fury, Professor X, Star-Lord, War Machine, Drax, Devil Dinosaur.)

Orion

One question I have is: Do you have any playable 5*s at all? I'm going to assume you don't, and answer accordingly.

I have most of the ones you mentioned champed and have played with them all. So here's who I'd champ and in order:

1) Red Hulk - finish him pronto. He's an absolute beast and I think he's the best 4* period.
2) Quake - not really a PvP character, but she's a PvE queen. Her blue is surprisingly good board control too.
3) Punisher - finally got to play with him a while back when he was boosted and I was impressed. His green is great and his boost to strikes is very good as well.
4) Thoress - I don't think she gets enough love on the forum. Her blue into red is amazing and all of the charged tiles keep on powering her. Combined with IM40, she can punch way above her weight class and when boosted is an absolute terror.
5) Nova - has cheap, good attacks that pairs pretty well with PunMax.
6) Moon Knight? - I don't have him champed, but he's probably a better option than what's left.

So not hugely different from your own list, but tweaked slightly.

Champing a villain just for Nefarious Foes isn't a great idea, especially since it's just an offseason event anyway. Once you get all of this done (ha!) then worry about who's next.

Kjempen

Orion wrote:

One question I have is: Do you have any playable 5*s at all? I'm going to assume you don't, and answer accordingly.

I have most of the ones you mentioned champed and have played with them all. So here's who I'd champ and in order:

1) Red Hulk - finish him pronto. He's an absolute beast and I think he's the best 4* period.
2) Quake - not really a PvP character, but she's a PvE queen. Her blue is surprisingly good board control too.
3) Punisher - finally got to play with him a while back when he was boosted and I was impressed. His green is great and his boost to strikes is very good as well.
4) Thoress - I don't think she gets enough love on the forum. Her blue into red is amazing and all of the charged tiles keep on powering her. Combined with IM40, she can punch way above her weight class and when boosted is an absolute terror.
5) Nova - has cheap, good attacks that pairs pretty well with PunMax.
6) Moon Knight? - I don't have him champed, but he's probably a better option than what's left.

So not hugely different from your own list, but tweaked slightly.

Champing a villain just for Nefarious Foes isn't a great idea, especially since it's just an offseason event anyway. Once you get all of this done (ha!) then worry about who's next.

No 5*s with enough covers to make them playable (have them all, just a few covers each)...

Thanks!! Level 224 on RHulk. Just gotta focus all ISO on him, then I will start levelling up Quake (and continue down this list).

Jarvind

I agree with Orion's list, although I'd probably go for Kate over Moon Knight. MK is fun without question, but Moonsilver Blades is unreliable, as is his passive. Kate's abilities, by contrast, are all targeted and do stellar damage, and the minor backlash on her black is both preventable and not a huge penalty even if you can't.

Stussi

Which are the worst 4* in your opinion?

Phumade

Kjempen wrote:

Cyclops
Hulkbuster
X-Force Wolverine
X-Force Deadpool
Iceman
Peggy Carter
Jean Grey

Assuming we are talking about building a well rounded roster that competes well in both pvp and pve.

Build your 4* tier around the concept of AP accleration, then expand into Special tile and Board control characters. AOE and Nuke powers is already assumed in the base 4* tier.

At 4* and 5* play, you will need to expand your roster to work well with the AP acclerators. There are many times you will take im40 over a 4* or even 5* because of their ap acceleration.

From that mind set:

cyclops is Red/blue
Peggy is red/blue

Iceman is Green/blue
Jean grey is purple/green

HB is Red/black
XFW is green/black

XFDP is red/purple (only count the active colors)

So another purple/green user like rhulks lets your effectively rotate any combination of red/blue/purple/green to save hps

Once you have the ability to rotate in chars and still have 4 active damage powers you should focus on the board control and tile specialists. Ant man may not be considered top tier 4*, but in their specific niches (wave mode) they are nearly unstoppable and often times far better than a 5* in that exact scenario. I.e. (antman in a 6 wave node is far better than a max champed phx or OML)

Once I got to 15 4* champs, colors stop mattering. At that point, unless that 4* has some brand new type of power never seen in mpq, your roster will grow faster by champion chars as covers become available.

metallion

More or less what everyone else said, except I for one think Kingpin is a pretty good choice, though not for the sole purpose of having a villain in the team. When boosted his cheap black can be very painful, and even unboosted deals pretty decent damage. The last time he was boosted I went with Switch and IF together with Kingpin and he was basically destroying everyone. Switch either feeding IF purple to feed KP black, or directly providing the CD tile for him to poke. If you've played the Dr Strange PVE you should know how painful that gets eventually.

Vhailorx

Stussi wrote:

Which are the worst 4* in your opinion?

right now, fantastic, elektra, spider gwen, IW, dino, wasp, and venom are all towards the bottom of my list. And each of them have their uses, too (c.f. elektra is perfect for fighting kaecilius).

Vhailorx

metallion wrote:

More or less what everyone else said, except I for one think Kingpin is a pretty good choice, though not for the sole purpose of having a villain in the team. When boosted his cheap black can be very painful, and even unboosted deals pretty decent damage. The last time he was boosted I went with Switch and IF together with Kingpin and he was basically destroying everyone. Switch either feeding IF purple to feed KP black, or directly providing the CD tile for him to poke. If you've played the Dr Strange PVE you should know how painful that gets eventually.

I agree that KP is useful, but I think this post undersells his best feature. he is the best yellow battery in 4* land (and in the game too)

Kjempen

Vhailorx wrote:

Stussi wrote:

Which are the worst 4* in your opinion?

right now, fantastic, elektra, spider gwen, IW, dino, wasp, and venom are all towards the bottom of my list. And each of them have their uses, too (c.f. elektra is perfect for fighting kaecilius).

If I was going to rank this from best to worst it would be:
Spider-Gwen
Venom
Elektra
Devil dinosaur
Mr Fantastic (if paired with the right character rank higher than IW, if not rank lower than IW)
Invisible Woman (very weak, but can protect those with low health pool or lock special tiles)
Wasp (more like mosquito, easily squashed - too little health to have niche use - the worst of all)

Vhailorx

BlackBoltRocks wrote:

Stussi wrote:

Which are the worst 4* in your opinion?

Hmm i think IW gets a lot of undue hate. I champed her last month, and have had absolutely no regrets. I've been using her at 5/3/5; her yellow is great for tanking, and 3 blue with 5 green gives you optimum board control since you know which force bubbles you'll be bursting. Green also does a heckuva damage, and has better utility than, say, Thing's green, since you can choose where to place your bubbles (for blue). Albeit you have to amass 7 blue AP along with 12 green AP. Maybe that's why people don't like her, because of the forced prerequisite.

She's nowhere near top tier, but I'd gladly use her over someone like Elektra, Wasp or Devilsaur anyday.

Everyone has their uses. I like melting muscle nodes with elektra. But she clearly isnt 'good.' IW is the same. Her damage is ok, but too expensive. Her special tile lock is solid, but there are usually better ways to deal with special tiles. Her yellow costs too much.

itsmahvelbaby

OP, listen to me:

get those to max lvl asap:

Rhulk, Nova, Punisher, Thorina

your other underleveled 4* are ok, but wont help you progressing as much as the ones stated above.
MK is FUN!! but not conistent, kateeye packs a punch, but is very setup heavy, quake is lowtier in my opinion and antman is fun to look at, but weak

spectator

Another thing to look at is the past 4* boost schedule and spread out your boosted 4*. Having a boosted 4* every week can mean the difference between hitting or not hitting final progression in pvp

Vhailorx

spectator wrote:

Another thing to look at is the past 4* boost schedule and spread out your boosted 4*. Having a boosted 4* every week can mean the difference between hitting or not hitting final progression in pvp

This is an increasingly important consideration. Boosted 4* champs sre so strong right now. Having at least 1 every week is very valuable. But i dont knks that its so valuable that i would spend 120cp for low tier 4* .

Kjempen

Orion wrote:

So here's who I'd champ and in order:

1) Red Hulk - finish him pronto. He's an absolute beast and I think he's the best 4* period.
2) Quake - not really a PvP character, but she's a PvE queen. Her blue is surprisingly good board control too.
3) Punisher - finally got to play with him a while back when he was boosted and I was impressed. His green is great and his boost to strikes is very good as well.
4) Thoress - I don't think she gets enough love on the forum. Her blue into red is amazing and all of the charged tiles keep on powering her. Combined with IM40, she can punch way above her weight class and when boosted is an absolute terror.
5) Nova - has cheap, good attacks that pairs pretty well with PunMax.
6) Moon Knight? - I don't have him champed, but he's probably a better option than what's left.
....

All in this list are now champed also except for two. Missing 2 Punisher covers still. And Moon Knight is fully covered and levelled up to over 200. On my way to champ him since I didn't get Kate fully covered yet. But I also have 4* Blade near fully covered, and I must say his strike tiles are impressive, and nearly 2.500 damage each turn at level 150. I expect him to be devastating when champed. Any more recommendations? How about Star-Lord? Can he be used in place of IM40?

Pylgrim

If you are not into hoarding and constantly opening your LTs and using CP, my recommendation would be to either save your iso until you open the 14th cover for one of your unlevelled 4*s and max that one, or to spend it on leveling up all of your 13-covered 4*s little by little (e.g. 5 levels each, then 5 more and so on). That way, when you open a 14th cover they would also be closer and easier to max.

Etheus

Kjempen wrote:

All in this list are now champed also except for two. Missing 2 Punisher covers still. And Moon Knight is fully covered and levelled up to over 200. On my way to champ him since I didn't get Kate fully covered yet. But I also have 4* Blade near fully covered, and I must say his strike tiles are impressive, and nearly 2.500 damage each turn at level 150. I expect him to be devastating when champed. Any more recommendations? How about Star-Lord? Can he be used in place of IM40?

I love the new Star Lord. I consider him a top tier 4* just based on his passive. His ability to accelerate all powers except black is huge. I have champion SS/OML and I will often use SL 5/5/3 as my third in SIM. I can often take out Rulks for only 10 red ap. I'm not sure how SL plays in the 4* only tier, but he's definitely a player in the 5* transition.

SL cannot replace IM40. No one can do what IM40 does: turn 6 ap into 36 ap. SL's ap generation is random and cannot be relied upon. But SL accelerates differently. Let's compare using Iceman. IM40 needs 2 yellow matches + 2 more turns of countdown to deliver 12 blue ap, 9 green ap, and 3 purple ap. That's 1 build/punch a snow man and most of a whiteout in the time it took to make at least 4 matches. SL's passive drops the total cost for build/punch a snowman to 8 blue ap. This can be done in 3 matches. Recharge hasn't had time to resolve yet. So in some respects SL has an advantage over IM40.

Now run them together with Iceman:
Recharge @4Y ap = 12R, 12B, 9G, 3P
B/P a snowman @4B ap = 2 stuns and 1 punch for 12B
Now also consider that for 3 yellow matches, you could cast Recharge twice in the same turn...

MPQ_Daywalker

Etheus wrote:

I love the new Star Lord. I consider him a top tier 4* just based on his passive. His ability to accelerate all powers except black is huge. I have champion SS/OML and I will often use SL 5/5/3 as my third in SIM. I can often take out Rulks for only 10 red ap. I'm not sure how SL plays in the 4* only tier, but he's definitely a player in the 5* transition.

Speaking as someone in the 4* only tier, I will tell you that I use my championed Star-Lord all day, every day. I honestly didn't think about him being a third in the 5* tier; that sounds awesome.

I use SL primarily in PVE. With him as a third, your other two characters can be boosted 4*s or 3*s, and SL is reducing their costs, sometimes to ridiculous levels. X-23, Daken and Star-Lord made every battle in Prodigal Sun trivial. X-23 does awesome damage when boosted, and when she can do that for 6 green AP instead of 8? Way faster. Not to mention Daken's blue suddenly taking only 3 AP to fire. He's especially handy when going against goons, since SL's yellow countdown goes off automatically when the goons are putting out their countdowns.

Crowl

itsmahvelbaby wrote:

OP, listen to me:

get those to max lvl asap:

Rhulk, Nova, Punisher, Thorina

your other underleveled 4* are ok, but wont help you progressing as much as the ones stated above.
MK is FUN!! but not conistent, kateeye packs a punch, but is very setup heavy, quake is lowtier in my opinion and antman is fun to look at, but weak

Calling quake low tier seems like a very harsh judgement on a great pve character who trivialises some pve nodes, especially if she is boosted.

Vhailorx

Crowl wrote:

itsmahvelbaby wrote:

OP, listen to me:

get those to max lvl asap:

Rhulk, Nova, Punisher, Thorina

your other underleveled 4* are ok, but wont help you progressing as much as the ones stated above.
MK is FUN!! but not conistent, kateeye packs a punch, but is very setup heavy, quake is lowtier in my opinion and antman is fun to look at, but weak

Calling quake low tier seems like a very harsh judgement on a great pve character who trivialises some pve nodes, especially if she is boosted.

quake isn't quite top tier, but she is just behind (think x23 or xpool level), with her value slanted a bit towards pve. She has a solid aoe attack, neutralizes enemy aoes, and her blue is incredibly useful board control. She is a very good character.

Kjempen

I don't get the hate for Quake. For just 2 more ap you get nearly 2.000 more AoE damage than Rulk with 9 green, and a board shuffle. My opinion after having champed her: not 1st choice for PVP, but definitely usable, probably awesome together with Spider-woman. And she is top tier for PVE. Well worth champing! Very happy with the 4*s I champed so far