In light of backloaded rewards, vaulting, and PVP considerations is 3* farming really viable?

professorplum9

Like many others I've recently reached the point where multiple 3* have reached their maximum champed level. I had started building several duplicates (and already champed one), but am now having second thoughts. Primarily due to three main reasons.

1. The rewards are back loaded. Sure it's always been this way (and a good argument can be made that it makes sense to have the rewards that really help the 4* transition be at the end). Unfortunately, it doesn't help the people in the 4* to 5* transition (where I would think a lot of the 3* farmers could potentially be) to have 4/5LTs and 38/50CP be 2/3rds of the way in after level 227.

2. Vaulting. I had put 4 covers into a GSBW duplicate and have 9 more in my queue but since she recently was pulled from the tokens I am hesitant to apply the covers and eventually champ. My champed 3* that are not currently in the tokens are moving at a glacial pace (which in light of reason #1 is particularly discouraging). Sure Bonus Heros could help in this regards, but I think it would be difficult to meaningfully accelerate more than 1 or 2 at a time.

3. PVP considerations really make 3* farming an expensive proposition. A team is only as strong as its weakest link and that is almost always the featured 3*. It’s hard to give up all that health that comes with a maxed 3 and start over. Among other things it makes your team Thanos bait. Since I like to PVP I don’t really see any other viable alternative than to keep the maxed version (aka don’t sell for 105k) and pony up the full 127k+ ISO to champ the dupe.

Despite these reasons I am torn because it feels like more meaningful progress is being made when I'm applying excess covers as champ levels rather than just selling them for ISO.

I'm curious what other people think about the current viability of 3* farming (aka is it worth it?)....

Starfury

3* farming is always viable

Each week I get 6 3* covers from PvE progression, 7 3* covers from DDQ and usually another 4-6 covers from PvE placement and 6-12 covers from PvP (progression and/or placement)

That's 2.5 covers a day for a someone who skips PvP and 3-4 covers for someone playing both. That's definitely more than I get out of tokens, so vaulting is WAY less of a factor than it is for 4*

So in my mind, even vaulted 3* are worth farming, even more so if they're fed by a 2*.

Bowgentle

Starfury said:

Each week I get 6 3* covers from PvE progression, 7 3* covers from DDQ and usually another 4-6 covers from PvE placement and 6-12 covers from PvP (progression and/or placement)

That's 2.5 covers a day for a someone who skips PvP and 3-4 covers for someone playing both. That's definitely more than I get out of tokens, so vaulting is WAY less of a factor than it is for 4*

So in my mind, even vaulted 3* are worth farming, even more so if they're fed by a 2*.

The problem is that they don't give out vaulted 3s as rewards, same as 4s.

Case in point: my 3* Thor dupe, who is lingering at 173 even though he has a feeder.

On the other hand, my KK and Grocket dupes are at 210 and 206.

With an even split between vaulted and non-vaulted rewards yeah it would make sense.
With the split we have now... I'm not sure anymore.

Starfury

3* farming is always viable

I haven't paid much attention to which 3* covers were given out as rewards (only noticed it with 4*)

Yes, if vaulted 3* are removed from progression / placement, that changes the math significantly.

broll

Great question!  I've been wondering this myself.  I currently don't have a 3* farm, my highest 3* is currently 247 so decision time on how to handle this is coming soon.

It's clear anything currently non-vaulted will be worth it (at least until they become vaulted), but how to deal with vaulted ones is the question.  

I'm interested to see what others say.

Tinykitty I hate vaulting so much.  

mpqr7

3* farming is always viable

My 3* farm is the main thing I live for currently in mpq. I'm hoarding, so I'm not getting much 4* or any 5* love these days, so 3*s have become my top dogs.

Instead of selling my max-champed 3*s, I'll just start new clones and go for it again.

Once a 3* reaches level 247, I add it to my favorites, clone it and build that clone to 13 covers, putting any dupes into the original champion 3*. Then when the clone hits 13 covers, I'll max-champ the original and then start adding champion levels to the clone.

I won't sell the max-champed 3* until I have a second max-champed 3* of the same character. I have so much HP at this point, that there's no need to sell off the first max-champed 3*. And I get enough ISO to handle championing the 3*s without needing to sell the max-champed 3* for ISO or HP.

Even if a 3* is vaulted, I'll still win it from BH every now and then, as well as when it's featured in PVP and PVE, as well as when it gets rewarded in DDQ. So some of my vaulted heroes will take forever to max-champion, but enough of them will still get there that it's been quite rewarding, in terms of CP and LTs.

Here's my progress currently. I have SL3 included because he's at less than 13 covers, even though he doesn't have a corresponding championed version. I start tracking them when they get to lv 235, so that I'm ready to build the clone when they hit lv 247.

Name	Covers	Champ Level
Patch	13	264
LCap	13	263
SW	13	262
R&G	13	258
GSBW	13	257
Mags	13	250
KK	13	248
MoStorm	12	247
IM40	9	247
SL	9	78
DD	8	247
BP	6	247
CapMarv	5	247
Spidey	4	247
LThor	3	247
LDaken	3	247
The Hulk	2	247
IF	1	247
LC	0	244
Rags	0	244
Bullseye	0	243
Loki	0	243
SG	0	241
Falcon	0	240
DP	0	240
Vision	0	239
Blade	0	238

Pants1000

3* farming is always viable

There's a lot of champ rewards there, so I definitely think it's worth it.  The questions I'm thinking about are should when should I start the dupe, and when should I sell the original.  For now I'm planning to keep most of them around for PVP and PVE essentials.

Huntah86

Right now I have every 3* champed except SL (and he's fully covered, about to be champed after I finish champing C&D) and I just maxed champed my first 2 3*s (Patch and Capt) and have no intention of starting a 3* farm.  That's only because I can't justify spending the HP (I typically have 3k - 6k HP on hand but if a HFH shows up that will finish covering a 4* I buy it) for a roster spot on somebody I'll barely use and it takes SO long to get enough covers into the champ process for real rewards to show up.  If you have the HP for it then it's absolutely still worth doing but it's by no means the only correct answer now.

broll

For you guys who dup for 3* farm.  Do you dup all characters or for bad ones do you just recycle (Sentry, Ragnorak, spidey, etc).  My current thinking is the most useful 3*s (IM40, GSBW, Switch, blad3, etc) will definately get dupped even if they are non-vaulted, but for the both vaulted and useless is it really worth the 1000 HP to dup?  It might be worth a recycle.  

dr tinykittylove

3* farming is always viable

I just farm all of them, assuming you plan to stick around playing mpq for a while longer, you're going to keep getting covers and I've become accustomed to having champ rewards.

I start dupes as they get close, then once dupe is done and original maxed I sell. The pain of iso-starvation is cruel... It leaves no room for sentiment. 

Fightmastermpq

3* farming is always viable

I'm taking them all to 266 (have I think 23 so far), making a dupe, and keeping the 266 until the dupe is also 266 and then selling one.

The smart play would be to start the dupe sooner so that I don't waste covers in the event of a 5/5/0 situation, but quite honestly I don't feel like managing my roster to that detail every single time I pull a 3*.  I've only had to sell a couple 3* covers as a result of this so far, so no big deal really.

I can make enough ISO to champ a 3* in less than 3 days, so I don't feel the opportunity cost to do so is all that high.

Pongie

3* farming is always viable

If you noticed in my signature, there are more championed 3*s than unique 3*s in the game. This indicates that I have managed to build and championed duplicates. I won't bother adding them to my gamependium roster (just as I stop updating the 2* farm there too). Hard to ignore those champion rewards and much better than selling covers for 500 ISO 

Borstock

I have enough HPs that I can afford to keep the max champed 3* character as I'm leveling the duplicate. With that being the case, it's worth it.

pheregas

3* farming is always viable

Champ them all, then champ them all again.  Once you've gotten that dupe champed,  sell the original (or the dupe, as how would you tell???) then re-roster.  It's a one time HP/roster slot tax and basically a one time iso tax as the sell price of a max champ 3 is not that far off from rechamping.

Max champing, then immediately selling, is viable ONLY if you DO NOT play PVP.

westnyy2

3* farming is always viable

Rewards may be backloaded but they are rewards. They easily trump the iso for selling the covers outright. The cost to champ a new 3 is 120k which is nothing these days.

After max champing the first round of 3's, I found my progress slower. Now that my second round is getting into shape, I am constantly receiving tokens, cp, etc.

I can say that I will not be farming 4's in the game's current state.

Ducky

*Off to Roster and Level Help since this is roster based discussion*

pheregas

3* farming is always viable

OJSP said:

pheregas said:

Max champing, then immediately selling, is viable ONLY if you DO NOT play PVP.

But, if we play Versus and get placement rewards from one event and progression reward from the next, we get 4 covers (5 if we include the alliance reward).

I'll let you know if it's viable or not when I happen to have a lvl 170 something 3* again for the event. Like I said before, last time I had Patch at lvl 167 and OML locked out for that event, but I think I still did okay.

I suspect I should still be able to get some progress, I don't usually try to get more than 1200 nowadays. It probably will make getting 1500+ tougher for some people, but to say it's not viable is overblowing the situation. 

Sorry, what I meant by that was if you sell and start over, you are going to be devoured by Thanos.  Having a max-champ 3 in PVP is worth its weight in gold.

xKOBALTx

3* farming is always viable

My process is to take my main 3* to 261, build the dupe to thirteen covers, take the main the rest of the way to 266, and champ the dupe when needed. I plan to keep all of my max-champed characters until that dupe is at 261, then I'll sell the max and rebuild another dupe in its place. I also mark each character as a BH at 261 and won't remove it until the duplicate reaches 222 (where I see the back-loaded prizes basically begin).

So far I've got 11 champ duplicates up and running, with another 11 in the building stage.

I've got plenty of HP for all of the extra slots that this process requires (currently 169 slots and no shortage of HP). I'm not terribly fussed about how slow vaulted characters will be, even those without feeders. The ISO spend hurts a little up front, but I've managed it so far. I've consistently played the long game in my roster choices and this is no different. The XP and champ prizes are far more valuable to me than the drip of ISO for selling covers.