Token Pools, Bonus Heroes, and the 4* transition

MarkersMake

Yes, it's another post about the 3-4* transition.

My roster (in sig) is up to date, but I'm currently a mid-3* player looking to make some progress into the 4* world. I've got 29 3* champs (with Thanos being the only significant one not yet champed), and 32 4*s rostered (most at 2-5 covers). I also have 5 2* champs rostered.

Normally, I would wait until I had a few more 4*s rostered, but the limited pool of 4*s available right now works to my advantage, as I have all but Kate and Wasp rostered (and I have a Kate cover in the queue and 950HP saved).

Right now I have 30 Latest, 7 Purple Reign, and 760CP - so enough for 75 pulls total if I go for classics. I also have 900k ISO on hand, if needed.

So my question is this: right now, the limited character pool favors me - I can actually use every cover I pull (aside from Wasp, who I can save enough HP to roster if I have to). With Peggy and Kate leaving the token pool shortly, is now the right time to cash in (Peggy is my only 4* favorite)?

I can temporarily sell my 2*s to roster any 5*s I happen to pull, but aside from that, I should be able to use every cover I pull (and afford to champ a 4* or two if I have to).

My expectations are that this will advance my 4*s, not get any champs necessarily. Actually, I think having several 4* usable at 9-10 covers might work better for me right now.

Is this a good plan? Is there a downside I'm missing? Or should I go ahead and do it?

EDIT - "Bonus" question! I've also got OML selected as my lone 5* bonus hero. Mostly because if I am going to pull a single-cover 5*, his yellow is probably the most useful to me. Agree? Disagree? Alternatives?

Kishida

I'm in the 4* transition as well, and I'd advise you hold off for a bit longer. Looking at your roster, I'd say that you're not guaranteed to get Kate or Peggy (or Medusa or Carol) well-covered enough in the short term. In addition, you will probably pull at least a couple 5*s you don't have rostered depending on if you stick with latest or spend your CP on classics. While you could sell those 2*s to make room for them, you'd lose out on potential Burrito rewards in DPD. While Mordo and Coulson aren't amazing, it might make more sense to build out your 2* farm and champ some more of the 3* tier in the meantime. Besides, what if you end up in the position of having to champ Riri and/or Agent Venom? Not to mention, with a smaller pool of characters, the overall likelihood of wasted covers goes up.

I spent 2000 CP on the Purple Reign vault and although it was a much larger pool of potential pulls, the only notable change to my gameplay experience by having some 8-10 covered 4*s was Medusa as a partner with Stormhawk and some better chances at the Crash. In your case, though, any 4*s you got semi-decently covered would probably be too new to really be a big help with the Crash.

But, you know, there's no telling what Demi might do in regards to vaulted 4*s in the future, and the heart wants what it wants. Good luck with whatever you choose to do!

Copps

So I'm actually going to disagree with the above poster. With only 8 characters you average almost 10 pulls per character. If I were you I'd wait until next season and pop my tokens with peg as my four star favourite. Next season gives you a chance to finish peg. It moves moon knight and Kate out of tokens but gives you longer on Everyone else.

You might get unlucky and not finish peg but she's good enough that it's worth a try. Even unboosted she teams up with im40 well enough to usually get you 900 in pvp.

Kishida

Copps wrote:

So I'm actually going to disagree with the above poster. With only 8 characters you average almost 10 pulls per character. If I were you I'd wait until next season and pop my tokens with peg as my four star favourite. Next season gives you a chance to finish peg. It moves moon knight and Kate out of tokens but gives you longer on Everyone else.

You might get unlucky and not finish peg but she's good enough that it's worth a try. Even unboosted she teams up with im40 well enough to usually get you 900 in pvp.

Sorry, you actually articulated this better than I did. While I do firmly believe that there's little more beautiful than a fully-functioning 2* farm, I do think the OP would do okay opening his tokens. As you said, just waiting until the beginning of next season makes the most sense. Kate & Moon Knight are unlikely to get well-covered between now & then and it gets him a headstart on fully-covering Mordo/Coulson who aren't outright bad as much as meh/pretty decent, respectively.

MarkersMake

Thanks for the feedback, both of you - it's very helpful.

I agree, it makes more sense to wait for coulson and mordo. I have both of them rostered already (0/2/1 and 1/1/0), and the chances of fully covering moon knight or Kate are pretty small. I would most likely end up stuck with 6 or 7 covers on each of them. With a bit more time to save, plus using her as a bonus hero, I do feel better about my chances with Peggy.

Kishida - I should have mentioned that I will make restoring my 2*s a priority. I do love me some tacos!

Thanks again - I'll save up just a little bit longer and then make my move!

MarkersMake

Just a quick update with my results. I had 7 Purple Reign tokens, 30 Latest Legends, and 800CP that I used on 40 Classic pulls. Here is a sorted list of my pull counts (5*s bolded):

Blade - black 3
Blade - green 1
Blade - red 2
Cage - black 3
Cage - red 2
Cage - yellow 3
Carol - black 3
Carol - green 2
Carol - yellow 1
Coulson - blue 4
Coulson - purple 2
Coulson - yellow 2
GG - black 1
Gwenpool - green 2
Gwenpool - purple 2
Jessica - black 2
Jessica - purple 1
Jessica - red 1
Medusa - purple 2
Medusa - red 1
Medusa - yellow 3
Mordo - black 4
Mordo - blue 2
Mordo - purple 4
OML - yellow 1
Panther - red 3
Peggy - blue 2
Peggy - red 4
Peggy - yellow 3
Riri - blue 2
Riri - red 1
Strange - blue 1
Thanos - black 1
Thanos - green 1
Venom - black 2
Venom - red 2
Wasp - black 2
Wasp - yellow 3


The RNG was nice to me - no wasted covers (although having all of the 4*s in the tokens already rostered helped too)! Also, 4 of my Peggy pulls were Bonus Hero pulls, which was nice. This leaves me with 4 fairly usable 4* characters, and I wasn't forced to spend any ISO (yet):
Peggy: 4/3/5
Cage: 4/5/2
Coulson: 2/5/5
Mordo: 5/3/4

and I now have a few that are in decent shape (although the cover distribution could be better)
Gwenpool: 5/1/3
Carol: 4/1/2
Medusa: 4/1/2
Blade: 2/1/4
PunMax: 2/1/4 (no change, obviously)

I had no 5* Bonus pulls, but obviously I won't complain about that since I lucked into an OML yellow!



Thanks again for the advice to wait until this season - vaulting may have its flaws, but I think I've ended up with some decent usable 4*s a lot faster than I would have otherwise.

Kishida

No wasted pulls and it looks like Peggy is on her way to being your first champ! Awesome!!

Even if it's tricky to get that final cover, Coulson will definitely come in hand-y!

Quebbster

mexus wrote:

May I ask,
what's the true benefit of hoarding CP for doing a huge pull instead of just pulling them one by one as you gain the CP required to do this? I mean, in the end it's the same amount of tokens pulled.
For me it feels less overwhelming and more controlled by pulling one every once in a while and I'm wondering what I'm actually missing out by doing this except for the feeling of "wow, today I quickly increased my 4* covers".

Greater odds of actually getting a working fivestar character. If you are mostly after the fourstar covers you have Little reason to hoard (well, possibly ISO shortage).

Quebbster

mexus wrote:

Quebbster wrote:

mexus wrote:

May I ask,
what's the true benefit of hoarding CP for doing a huge pull instead of just pulling them one by one as you gain the CP required to do this? I mean, in the end it's the same amount of tokens pulled.
For me it feels less overwhelming and more controlled by pulling one every once in a while and I'm wondering what I'm actually missing out by doing this except for the feeling of "wow, today I quickly increased my 4* covers".

Greater odds of actually getting a working fivestar character. If you are mostly after the fourstar covers you have Little reason to hoard (well, possibly ISO shortage).

Yeahxactly.
And feels like any eventual ISO shortage caused by constant LT pulling is quickly solved by suddenly having ten 4* characters to level up after a hoard-pulling.

Yeah, you still need to pull in the ISO even if you aren't opening tokens. It's all about increasing your chances to get 13 covers for a fivestar Before they move into the Classic Legends pool and getting more covers for them becomes... a lot more difficult.
You may need to take some difficult decisions about your ISO though. There may not be enough to level everyone. Nothing new there.

MarkersMake

mexus wrote:

May I ask,
what's the true benefit of hoarding CP for doing a huge pull instead of just pulling them one by one as you gain the CP required to do this? I mean, in the end it's the same amount of tokens pulled.
For me it feels less overwhelming and more controlled by pulling one every once in a while and I'm wondering what I'm actually missing out by doing this except for the feeling of "wow, today I quickly increased my 4* covers".

HP, ISO, roster condition (# slots, level), and vaulting.

I didn't have enough HP or roster slots to pull any new 4*s, let alone 5*s. And my roster wasn't developed enough to roster 5*s without messing with my PvE scaling for a long time. And I wanted to save enough ISO to champ a 4* or two if needed, rather than waste covers. So, hoarding made sense for where I was in the game at the time.

When they vaulted the 4*s, I had resolved most of those issues and saw an opportunity to get one of the better 4*s (Peggy) mostly/fully covered quickly, and it worked out really well. Had I done this gradually over the last few months, she would be at 2/0/3 or something equally useless, instead of the 4/3/5 she is at now.

As an aside, the result of all of this is that I broke 800 for the first time ever in the Cage PvP today.

lakantanz

My own roster:

https://mpq.gamependium.com/rosters/Lakanta/

2*s are on a rotation mid-farm
I have all 3*s championed except for the new hawkeye. The highest of these is at level 192 so far.

I have selected Doctor strange and thanos as my favourite 5, though considering just thanos.
Peggy carter and Iceman for my 4.
My 3 will become hawkeye, once he's complete make it the character closest to a cover in progression.

Any thoughts? Are my bonus heroes correct and should I just keep pulling as I earn or save?

Thank you in advance.

MarkersMake

lakantanz wrote:

My own roster:

https://mpq.gamependium.com/rosters/Lakanta/

2*s are on a rotation mid-farm
I have all 3*s championed except for the new hawkeye. The highest of these is at level 192 so far.

I have selected Doctor strange and thanos as my favourite 5, though considering just thanos.
Peggy carter and Iceman for my 4.
My 3 will become hawkeye, once he's complete make it the character closest to a cover in progression.

Any thoughts? Are my bonus heroes correct and should I just keep pulling as I earn or save?

Thank you in advance.

With your Peggy at 3/1/2 and Iceman at 2/2/2, you need at least 7 covers for each of them. At a 5% (1/20) bonus hero rate that'll be 140 4* pulls for each, and that's assuming optimal cover distribution. It'll be a bit better for Peggy since she's still in tokens. Definitely don't wait to spend your cp if you want her, since she's going to be vaulted soon.

I'd pick one of them (probably Peggy since she's still in tokens) for now. That'll get you a solid 4* champion the fastest, and having just one shouldn't affect your scaling too much. Once she's covered/champed, switch to iceman. It's possible he'll come up as a pvp progression reward too as you're working on him and Peggy might let you reach 900 if you're lucky. I already hit 800 with her under-covered and under-leveled, so you never know.

But if you want both of them to end up fully covered/champed at about the same time, keep them both as bonus heroes. Might just have to wait a fair bit longer, that's all.

EDIT - Note that I said 140 4* pulls for each. If 85% of your LT pulls are 4*s, that'll actually be 140/0.85 = 165 legendary token pulls for each. It'll be somewhat less than that in reality, given that 1% of heroic token pulls will also give you your 4* bonus hero.

lakantanz

Should I instead focus on my luke cage at 11 covers, my nick fury at 10 and nova at 9?

lakantanz

I've set Luke as my bonus hero, though had 1 cover of Peggy and Medusa today, so pretty happy with my 4 star pulls.

Has anyone else got any comments that might be the way to go?

Should I just continue to keep pulling as I get legendary or heroic tokens, or start saving?