At What Point do 4*s Become Useable?

astrp3

I am currently a 3* player with five left to champ. After I champion them, I will be ready to enter 4* land. My plan was to save up until I could champion about 4-6 at once so as to not wreck my scaling.

In the meantime, however, I was planning on leveling some of them up to just below the level of my top 3*s so I could start using them in PvE and PvP. My top 3*s are currently in the upper 180s, so I planned to level my 4*s to 180-185.

The only one I've leveled so far is Peggy, who I have at 9 covers (4-3-2), for the crash. The problem is that even at level 185, she is underwhelming (unless I'm using her wrong) and I can't see using her over my boosted 3*s, and probably not even my non-boosted 3* champs. I have Red Hulk at 11 covers. I've only levelled him to 110, but even in the current PvE, where he is boosted, he also seems underwhelming.

So my questions are:

1) at what level/# of covers do 4*s become useable over championed, non-boosted 3*s of similar level?

2) at what level do they become usable over boosted 3*?

3) Should I change my plans and not level any 4*s at all until I'm ready to champion them?

Quebbster

An old guideline was that they became useful around 10 covers. You can probably push them up to around level 180 without ill effects.
The best approach is probably to hoard tokens until you have enough ISO to level twelve fourstar to max and then jumpstart your fourstar play.

MpqTron

I was in your position a couple of months ago. 
4's really come into their own when champed and boosted. Peggy is a monster, but her crash does not do her justice as she works best when against 3 enemies, as her blue stuns 2 of them. You'll also find that until you have 5 in the best cover, those 4's just don't do much over your boosted 3's. 
I champed HB first, and his red when boosted was ridiculous. I didn't have a three that touched him, but non boosted he didn't do it for me as much. 
Rhulk is very underwhelming until you have 5 in green and purple, then he's a monster. 

A 4 star at 3,2,4 isn't going to give you much over a boosted 3 but a fully covered one rocks. I've now got 5 champed 4's and still have to use my 3's, but at the moment spiderwoman is boosted and does monster damage compared to my 3's and she's not even top tier. 

My advice is to champ as soon as possible. I didn't have too much trouble with pve with only 1 champed 4, and multiple ones are games changers from the 3 star tier 

Jarvind

You need key powers (generally stuff that deals damage) at 5 covers. Stuff like tile shuffles or AP steals can be useful at 2 or 3, depending.

The best example is Red Hulk - at anything less than 5 green covers he's just a meat shield, but at 5 green he suddenly becomes a powerhouse. I'll disagree w/ the above post and say that his purple is useful even at 1 cover, since it totally drains the enemy's green - it'll take longer to SMASH, but you can deny enemy green powers with it forever. His red is totally irrelevant beyond 1 cover, as it really only serves to drag out matches when you leave him on defense.

For another example, Peggy's passive will mess up enemy AP costs at 1 cover, but her damage will be lackluster if her blue is anything lower than 5 (her red tends to get passed over for a flashier red power). 

Straycat

Obviously it depends on the character and the ability, but 10 covers is a good rule of thumb. Its more about the covers and not the level. If you have 5 in a good power, a 4* can be a one trick pony but better than 3*s even at level 140. My Moonknight is only 1/3/5 level 152, but that 5 green does 10,000 damage. Someone like Coulson would be almost as useful at level 70 as he is champed, since he is more about passive ap stuff instead of damage.

I generally level them up to 188 before champing, depending on how much iso I have to spare. 

Dormammu

astrp3 said:

So my questions are:

1) at what level/# of covers do 4*s become useable over championed, non-boosted 3*s of similar level?

2) at what level do they become usable over boosted 3*?

3) Should I change my plans and not level any 4*s at all until I'm ready to champion them?

1) Reading between the lines, you seem to be considering damage output as your primary evaluation of how useful a 4-star is. They're just like any other tier - some are good, some are underwhelming. Usually by level 180-200 you have a good idea which ones are going to be impressive. But there's strategies besides straight damage output in the 4-star tier that can't be found anywhere else. I use my level 70 Wasp all the time because of her yellow.

2) Boosted 3-stars are going to remain valuable to you well into the 4-star tier. If you think you just abandon your 3-stars when you finally 'make the jump'... that's not the case. Blending the two tiers will become your norm for a while.

3) I'm trying to level all my 4-stars at least to level 150 if I have no immediate plans to champ them. At that level they are still useful when boosted and they can typically get the job done in Crash DDQ, plus it's not too expensive in ISO.

astrp3

Dormammu said:

1) Reading between the lines, you seem to be considering damage output as your primary evaluation of how useful a 4-star is.

I think that was just because of the two I had leveled up. I was expecting Red Hulk and Peggy to be offensive powerhouses, and they weren't (I know that Peggy's blue was useless in the COT, but even outside of that, she hasn't been as powerful as I though she'd be).

Another factor was that when I went from 2* to 3* land, the 3*s seemed leaps and bounds better than my 2*s. The first 3* I had any covers for was Rocket & Groot, with 9 or 10. I remember using his blue and thinking I'd just found nirvana. I Rocket & Grooted my way to 1400 in the SHIELD simulator, which was a big deal for me at the time, since it netted me two Switch covers (I remember thinking "If Rocket & Groot at #23 is this good, I can't wait to try Switch" - though she ended up being kind of underwhelming too).

I have had a few 4*s that were useful even at low covers. Carol was useful back when I just had 1 yellow (I now have her fully covered but just leveled her up today for the COT, which was a cakewalk - almost over before it started).

Dormammu

Don't give up on Peggy, she can dismantle an entire team pretty quickly. The trick with her is to whittle down one opponent to the point where you can take them out. Fire her blue right before you do and stun the other two for three turns, followed by 15k+ damage when the countdowns resolve. With IM40 at her back she's pretty much unstoppable. Her yellow does a good job of keeping you safe while this process unfolds.

Milk Jugz

Rulk is a beast, I have him champed 3/5/5. Last time he was featured he was boosted to 380-something, his green did 6.5k damage @9 ap, and 16.5k @18. Nothing underwhelming about that. In pve with him, 11 green,  7 purple and the match is over (purple @5 covers generates 7 friendly green ap).

I'm transitioning into 4* now, I have 15 4* champs. Now I'm stepping the rest in, I took them all to 150, now I'm working them to 215, then 250, then champ. It all depends on the next weeks buff list for who goes to 215, it costs about 128k iso to go 150-215 so I can usually do 2-3 a week.

Basically I'm stepping them up to make them useful over my champ 3s, a featured 4 @ 215 is boosted to 320 & a weekly boosted 4 @ 215 is boosted to 304. You need to have 3*s in the 200-230 range to compete with that (when they are boosted). And of course having 9-13 covers for said 4* helps!! I have only 5 4*s with less than 10 covers

This current boost list includes 4 of my champs (Peggy, Nick Fury, Ghost Rider, & X-Force Deadpool) and Agent Venom is already 215. So I decided to champ Wasp, plus two covers in PS progression!! Depending on the next boost list I'll most likely level a couple more 4s to 215 next Thursday-ish.

Pants1000

I honestly didn't find 4's better than boosted 3's until they were champed.  As others said, you need key powers at 5 covers for most characters.  A good example is Iceman.  His blue does about 1k damage at 3 covers, 3.5k damage at 4 covers, and 8k damage at 5 covers.  Not all powers scale that dramatically, but many do.

I boosted most 4's to about 150 when I needed them for DDQ or an essential, and saved ISO to fully champ them when ready.

adamdivine

4's really heavily on covers. Most of them will be underwhelming without 5 covers in a particular power.  Fully covered though, they will beat all of your 3's (assuming same level). Some of the newer 4's are very good even at low covers though. Carol, coulson, Medusa, cloak and dagger to name a few. Any of those would become staples for you right now at similar levels as your 3's

MarkersMake

Jarvind said:

You need key powers (generally stuff that deals damage) at 5 covers. Stuff like tile shuffles or AP steals can be useful at 2 or 3, depending.
... 
For another example, Peggy's passive will mess up enemy AP costs at 1 cover, but her damage will be lackluster if her blue is anything lower than 5 (her red tends to get passed over for a flashier red power). 

This right here. 

I have Peggy champed (272), but the idea is the same regardless of level.  Here is the damage each of her blue countdowns do (at 272):

3 covers: 955 dmg
4 covers: 2204 dmg
5 covers: 5399 dmg

I have her at 5/3/5, with her red doing 6871 dmg. If you can get one of your opponent's HP down to that by the time IM40's recharge goes off, then you can stun 2 and down the 3rd on the same turn. The countdowns will usually down at least one, if not both of the other opponents. And that's without counting your 3rd person at all. Bring a solid green user (Rulk would be nice) and it's over before it starts. 

Peggy is very much an "I win" button, once she is properly covered, so it depends not just on how many covers you have for her, but which ones. 

Carol, on the other hand, was immediately usable at 4/2/3. She's pretty amazing across the board. 

Jaedenkaal

Yeah covers are definitely more important for 4*s than levels. 

For example, your 4/3/2 lvl 185 Peggy probably does 3535 damage with Ultimate Soldier. Even if you got her up to level 270 with still 4 covers, it would only be doing 4161 damage.

However, at 5 covers at level 185, it does 5736 damage (and 6751 at level 270)

astrp3

Thanks for the replies. I had noticed the jumps from 4 covers to 5 on some characters when I had them at level 70 but was hoping that the 4* abilities would scale better when I leveled up. Big jumps between 4 and 5 covers also seems to be more common for 4*s than it was for 3*s.

I have found some 4*s to be quite useful at level 180. I leveled Carol up to 180 and she has been great (I burned a cover to move her black from 4 to 5, but even at 4 it was great). Deadpool has also been useful, even at 7 covers (though I have 5 purple).

And I certainly haven't given up on Peggy. In fact, she is my 4* bonus hero. I have, however, lowered my expectations for how much I'll be able to use level 180, under-covered 4*s and may just wait to level them until I am ready to champion them.

My current plan is to finish off championing my 3*s up to Hawkguy, then hoard until I have enough to champion six 4*s at once. If covers cooperate, the six will be Peggy, Red Hulk, Medusa, Carol, and two of the following: Cage, Gwenpool, Mordo, Coulson, or Spider-Woman (don't think I'll make it on Wasp, or I'd include her).

Jaedenkaal

I didn't notice any issues (I assume you're wanting to avoid scaling issues) with championing my 4*s one at a time. Boosted 3*s are pretty comparable in level to newly-champed 4*s. I have 10 champed 4*s now and my hard nodes in PVE are capping out at about level 315, which isn't that much higher than they were months ago with 0-1 champed 4*s (297-303 maybe).

astrp3

Jaedenkaal said:

I didn't notice any issues (I assume you're wanting to avoid scaling issues)

Yes, I am trying to avoid scaling issues. I keep hearing conflicting information about whether boosted characters could toward scaling. Some say it does but others claims that someone "proved" it doesn't. I used to avoid rostering 5*s for this reason, but I finally decided to so do (on the assumption boosted characters did count toward scaling) and my scaling wasn't effected at all.

Good to know that you saw no diffs when adding them one-at-a-time. I may do that. The issue, of course, is that if it DOES affect my scaling, I'm kind of stuck until I get more 4*s champed - unless I want to sell the my first one.

Did you see any effect in PvP/MMR?

Jaedenkaal

I only PVP to get 300 points in most events, and I try (although not very hard) to get 4000 points in a season and I used to aim for the 2000 mark in the PVP simulator (although I probably won't anymore since those new 4* covers aren't nearly as rare anymore). Given those parameters, I rarely if ever see 5* characters higher than 360, and even less frequently see two on the same team. Most PVP teams I see are still pretty reasonable (in level) compared to my roster.

Although it was a while ago, my memory of my PVP experience immediately after my first championed 4* (hulkbuster, incidentally) is that I experienced a noticeable bump in success (again, given my PVP goals above) as the teams I was matched against stayed largely the same, while I now had HBs huge health pool and (comparatively) huge damage on my side.

For reference, this was at the time that Iron Fists champ reward was changed to Kate Bishop (however long ago that was, last September maybe?); I remember specifically because I got IF to 183 and the Hulkbuster black cover HOURS before it switched to Kate Bishop. So at that time the rest of my roster would have been ~35 champed 3*s, mostly in the 170s, with perhaps 10 higher than 183 and my highest (Thor) in the low 190s. Wolverine and Nick Fury would have been my only other 4*s worth speaking of, level 180 at most. I did have some 5*s, none with more than 3 covers, and all at 255.

darkwatcherDEZ

Perhaps the best examples of a poorly covered and yet useful 4*s were:

4* Peggy - Just a mere yellow cover to delay enemy abilities passively. Just a mere blue cover to stun two enemy characters

C4rol - Just a mere yellow cover for countdown chaos w/ Thanos GREEN, 2* Mags RED, Fury PURPLE, etc coupled with a special tile buff. Add a mere black cover for strike tiles and a little attack bang. Add another mere green for occasional AP passive absorption and occasional AOE.

Wasp - Just a mere yellow cover made both Cages strike tile generating beasts, and made Falcon and 3* Spidey more offensive then ever. Just a mere blue cover caused small passive AP generation with a pretty good damage sting if the enemy is dumb enough to match it.

Coulsen - Just a mere purple causes switcheroo AP battery generation and passive countdown timer reduction, and a mere Blue for AP steal and minor countdown passive damage. Yellow is decent passively too.

Iceman - A mere blue cover makes him quite annoying stun wise

ProfX - A mere requisite purple cover with the later addition of one mere blue cover can make him exceedingly annoying and / or dangerous

Medusa - A mere cover on any of her passive abilities makes her frustrating and useful. 

4Fist - (Requisite pairing of the martial hobo with 4Cage) A mere black cover does decent damage and can create decent strike tiles from protect tiles. Slap in a strike tile generator and a mere blue cover fortifies and amps 4Cage's YELLOW. His mere existence does that as well. 

SpiderW - A mere purple wipes specials and countdowns in PVE

Milk Jugz

I'd definitely get Wasp in that list, she is a beast when boosted. Using her in the current story, PS. 5/3/5 is her best setup