PvP tips wanted

talleman

Hi!

Ive been playing for a while now and im currently trying to go from 3* to 4* land. I play DDQ and PvE daily and trying to get all the rewards. I have tried to play some PvP aswell but i dont know any strategies and as fast as i get around 400 the points earned is very low and i keep getting attacked so i dont make much progress. Im at shield rank 54 so i can fight at rank 8 for the best rewards but maybe its better to choose a lower rank? Or do you know any tips like when to enter and when to use shields properly. Im all ears for any advice conserning PvP

aa25

Wall of texts incoming:

Disclaimers: Most of these are my understanding which could be wrong.

I honestly don't know where to start to make it easy to read. I'll try my best.

1.) Available points, floating points, etc.

The points you will earn from winning a match is determined by the difference between your score and the opponent's score. If you win a match against someone with higher score, you will gain more than winning against someone with lower score. (I think at around 35-37 pts is when you beat someone with a similar score yours.) It doesn't matter how strong your opponent is, just the difference between the score. On top of that, if you win, say, X pts, you opponent actually loses equal or less than X. The rate changes depending on the score. At around 400, you may lose like X/2, while at around 1k, you lose a full X pts. What it means is that, as the event progresses, there will me more pts (in someone's pocket) in the slice.

From what you say that you can't find a good target once you hit 400 and start to get hit a lot, that is probably because you are the leader of the pack at that time. So you become a juicy target for the other. PvP to a certain extent is a competition of roster strength. Suppose you have 400 pts with a 3* team and another person also has 400 pts but with a 4* team. You will definitely become an easier target for other people.

In general, as the event progresses, the available pts in the slice will increase. Hitting 400 within the first few hours will make you become the leader of the pack, but hitting it later, say at 1d left, won't make you a leader or become a juicy target.

There is a term call 'Floating point' which means the highest score you can get without becoming a juicy target. The floating point depends on your team strength (or you roster strength), amount of time left in the event, and the slice you play. However, it doesn't depend on what SCL you choose since the PvP system right now doesn't separate players based on the SCL (not really make sense, but it is what it is now.)

If you want to know your float pts, you can try score as high as you can and take hits to see where you drop back down. That point is roughly where your team becomes 'not worth the trouble'. Keep in mind that this float point also changes with time.

Will higher roster bully lower roster ? The answer is: Not really. For the most part, the game will try to match team with similar roster strength. (In my case (4* roster), I stop seeing 3* rosters once I hit around 400 pts, except the 3* rosters that also have lv 300+ 5*. Thus, leveling up 5* prematurely is a bad bad bad thing to do.)


2.) Offensive team vs. Defense team.

One aspect of the PvP is, at one point, the AI will control your team to defend your point. The team that other people see you is the last team you used and won a match with. (except for the retal which the opponent will see the team you used to beat his.) Switch to offensive when you play, switch to defensive when you walk away from the game. Some A-team (I want to say "most", but that may be exaggerated) becomes B or even D team when AI uses it on defense. So pick your team carefully. And keep in mind that a good defensive team is NOT the team that will give you a defensive win, but rather make people want to skip you for whatever reason.

For examples, IM40+Lcap+GSBW is an excellent team for offense, but this team is horrible on defense (because instead of firing Recharge asap, the AI may choose to safe the ap for Lcap's yellow. Plus, AI will only place Lcap's shield tiles at random and sometimes can be easily matched away. Plus, GSBW may use her less useful red instead of Lcap. Plus, The AI have no idea how to place green tiles from GSBW's purple right to charge up her green. Plus, etc - yeah, this team is that bad on defense.). On the other hand, IM40+Cmag+KK is substantially stronger on defense.

3.) Shield
I don't recommend you spending any HP on shield just yet. At this stage (rank 54), I would recommend you spending HP on roster slots only. A 3* roster should be able to hit 575 for the 10 cp without shield. There may be a different tactics involving shield to hit higher score, but I still don't think it's worth for the resource at the moment.

Last word: One good thing about PvP is about its payment per effort. Once you get used to it, you can spend as less as 30 mins to hit 575 for 10 cp and some other stuffs. Hope this help.

TPF Alexis

A few more points:

- I believe that 38 points is the switch point from opponents with fewer points than you to opponents with more points. A match that will give you 38 points is against someone with the same number of points as you, or at least very close. Not 100% sure, but fairly certain.

- I play at CL6, despite qualifying for CL8. The Progression Rewards up through 575 are almost the same, but a Heroic Token is actually slightly better than an Event Token, and I'm in one of the ISO surplus stages of the game, so I don't really care about the 600 ISO/event difference. Also, I can generally place in the top 100 in CL6, while I struggle to place in the top 200 in CL8, so the Placement Rewards are generally a bit better for me there, too (again, excepting ISO).

- As aa25 mentions, each match fought increases the total amount of points available* in the round. This means that if you jump in right away, there won't be that many other players in, and they won't have played very many matches, so the total amount of points available is low. After I join, I generally wait a while, until the top players in my bracket are well above my goal of 575. That means two things. First, getting 575 won't put my placement as high, so I won't be as tempting a target, and second, the more people there are with higher scores, the easier it is to find matches worth more points, so I don't have to play as many matches (and take as much time, risking being attacked and losing points). It's way easier to get up there when you're getting 50-60 points per match than when you're getting 30 per.

*Up to a certain point. I don't know where it is, but it's far above anything we're concerned with in 3* land.

MarkersMake

Good tips already posted. 

One more thing: timing makes a huge difference. 

Don't climb during the last 3 hours of an event - it's a bloodbath. Try to climb to your float point late on day 1, and then from there to your goal sometime in the last 12-24 hours of the event (ideally some kind of off-peak time when many of your opponents are asleep). 

Calnexin

What I haven't seen mentioned is the mmr line of sight, or break points.  There seems to be two point values at which a significant shift occurs in both the people you see and the people who can see you.  They appear to be around 500 and 800 points.  I can only speak from my own experience of course, but those are the points where I notice a dramatic shift in both the difficulty of the opponents available to me and the number of times I get hit.  Once you pass those points, you should expect to get hit until you drop below that threshold unless you shield.

With a mainly 3* roster, the CP at 575 is a stretch goal.  Don't even think about the 4* cover at 900 unless you can field 2 boosted 4* champs, or a very fast niche team like Charlie's Angels with constant shielding between matches.  At 800 points you become visible to everyone (even though you can only see about 8 people), and you will be beaten mercilessly until you disappear by shielding or losing enough points to drop below that threshold. 

Between these thresholds, the "float point" idea applies.  You're competing against a certain group of players, and the strength of the team you put out there will determine who hits you and how many times. If you're weak, you will get hit until you drop out of their sight.   If you're strong within that group you can expect to get hit less, but if you leave yourself unshielded you'll still probably lose until you become invisible again.  If you want to reach certain goals above that float point, you need to shield.

The shield prevents you from losing points and also removes you as an option for other players to queue.  It does not remove your team from anyone who already has you in their queue.  They can still hit you, but if the shield is in place before they do you won't lose points.  You will still earn points if they lose to you.  Once everyone who has previously queued you has either hit or skipped, you will no longer be able to be selected until your shield expires.  As soon it expires, or you break it by fighting a match in that PvP, you become available to queue again.

Your strategy requires that you get a feel for these thresholds and your limits within them.  If you are getting hit frequently, it means your team is too attractive to the competition.  If you want to go higher, you need to shield.

Think of it like a game of whac-a-mole, but you're the mole.

talleman

Thanks for the comments they have made the PvP a bit clearer to me. But how about the ranks. Atm i play at rank 8. Is it easier to get to 575 points and grab the CPs at lets say rank 7 or 6? And how much rewards do i miss out if i choose to play at a lower rank?

Calnexin

It won't be any easier to hit progression, because you're still dealing with the same batch of opponents and will get hit just as often.  Dropping ranks gives you a better shot at placing well, because theoretically the people who are in that rank are under the same relative pressures you are - ie, their progression is similarly stunted.  There are people who drop clearance levels to place higher, but for the most part the prize gain for them is negligible.  If they place top 5 in CL5 their prize is similar to top 50 in CL8.  Generally most people who aren't at the top of the spectrum choose CL7 so they're not competing against as many people who score in the thousands, but can still earn the 4* from progression.  If their boosts aren't complementary and they don't think they can get that cover (or it's something they don't want), they might drop down lower to place well and get more Iso and HP from placement.

I'd recommendchecking out the CL progression rewards of the various tiers before signing up to gauge the difference.  I don't have a pending event at the moment so I can only see CL7.  I know that the difference between CL 7 and 8 is about 500 Iso.  The main difference between 6 and 7 is that the 900 point reward is a 3* cover instead of a 4*, which is why most people who have access to it go there.  But if you're not strong enough to reach it, you may be better trying to place higher in a lower CL.

MarkersMake

SCL only affects your rewards. It has no effect on who you can queue, nor on who can queue you (that's determined solely by your roster strength and current time points total). So getting to 575 is exactly the same regardless of your SCL. 

If you drop to SCL 6, you will miss out on total of 300 ISO, assuming you climb to 575. Also, the cutoff for the 3* covers for placement is t50 in SCL 7 & 8, but only t25 in SCL 6.

Some people like the Heroic token (@300) from SCL 6 better than the event token for SCL 7/8, but other than that, there's really no reason to play at anything other than the highest SCL you can. For a 3*-4* transitioner, you aren't placing all that well anyway (t100?) so take the best rewards you can get for it. 

talleman

I see. Then ill stay at SCL 8 and just try to hit the 575 CP reward. Thanks for the help

FokaiHI

I don't think it really makes a difference what SCL you play in if you can do SCL 8. Even if you go to SCL 6, someone is sandbagging for a top 5 finish. No matter what, there is always with a better roster playing in that slice. If you can already hit 575 and placement isn't as big of a deal, don't switch. 

TPF Alexis

FokaiHI said:

I don't think it really makes a difference what SCL you play in if you can do SCL 8. Even if you go to SCL 6, someone is sandbagging for a top 5 finish. No matter what, there is always with a better roster playing in that slice. If you can already hit 575 and placement isn't as big of a deal, don't switch. 

It's worth experimenting with. I do get better rewards from placement in SCL6 often enough. I'm not going to be top 5 in any SCL, but I place higher by enough that it's worth it. It can be highly variable, tho, depending on just how much better you can place in the lower SCL. I wouldn't say that it's categorically the way to go, but it works out for me.

Calnexin

In the last PvP I sandbagged down to CL5.  I took first, using one 3 hour shield.  Had I stuck with CL 7 or 8, I would have likely placed T25 for 1500 less Iso and 50 less HP, and would have spent ~ 700 hp on shields for a cover I couldn't use and an event recruit token.  It does make sense in certain situations, just not for everyone and not very often.

Sim Mayor

Two random tips that come from my own meandering experience:

If you have a choice between playing at CL7 or 8, pick 8. So many people decide to punch down and play in 7 that I have a better time placement-wise in 8 every time.

If your schedule allows it, play later at night and schedule your PvP to end in the wee hours. I'm in the Pacific time zone, and I've found that any points I gain after around 8pm tend to stick around until about 8am. That means that if my PvP is set to end at 3am, I'll lose maybe 50 points out of 725 (which is where I currently cap out at max effort with no shielding).

Again, no real data to back this up, purely anecdote, but it's helped me quite a bit.

talleman

Got stuck trying to quote so im just typing 10 characters so i can post and try again ^^

talleman

Im at GMT+1 and i have no idea what timezone the game is in? Usually just start a event when its the most time left as possible. And since this game have people playing all over the world i think that it really doesnt matter when i play. But i can be wrong

aa25

talleman said:

Im at GMT+1 and i have no idea what timezone the game is in? Usually just start a event when its the most time left as possible. And since this game have people playing all over the world i think that it really doesnt matter when i play. But i can be wrong

I think most of the players are US based. I also reach the same conclusion as Sim Mayor's about the "quiet time". Although, it seems to tie to what slice you play and on what day of the week also. (I used to switch between S1 and S3) This "quiet time" seems to disappear when you reach like 7-800 though. Around then, people have to play by shield regen time instead.

nitefox1337

I will just troll and say "stay away from it!".

Astralgazer

@talleman If your shield rank is in 50-ish, don't get your hopes up. Aim for 575 for the 10 CP reward, and call it a day. I say this from experience. With 3* roster, it's virtually impossible to climb above 575, as you're visible to stronger rosters (4* and 5*) above that point. With one 4* champ boosted for the event, it's possible to climb to 800 (and with luck and timing you can push to 900). Only with two champed-boosted 4* you can realistically hope to climb to 900.

All those neat guides won't get you anywhere without a strong 4* champion roster to back you up. Aim for 575 for now and build your roster. This is what I did when I was at where your are now. I now routinely sit Top 50 in PVP, and in sunny days I get to be in Top 25. Be patient, manage your expectations and work your way up.

Kjempen

Some people have more luck with pvp/mmr, some people have more challenges (F ex getting frequently smashed by players with double championed 5*s even though you yourself don't have a single well-covered 5*). For me it used to be enough with double championed 4*s but now, in my experience, doesn't seem to be enough anymore (900 is again a distant goal) . Working as it should? I don't know...