So a thread was opened on General Discussion regarding a player's experience in transitioning to the 5* tier. I made a post there on how I did it and how I would advises others to do it - a lot of people did, which caused the thread to be moved to "Tips and Guides." It occurred to me that probably the best thing to do would be to make it it's own thread - here's basically what I posted, edited to be more general. I invite others to post their own experiences in transitioning, and what advice they'd distill from their own experiences.
I started off with one champ 5* - Black Bolt. Black Bolt pairs very well with many, many characters, so I ran BB and a boosted 4* (I had a pretty full 4* roster at the time, and it's only gotten better since.) I played this way for a few months until I maxed out Black Widow. BB and Widow pair together very well, so I champed her too. I then fully covered Dr. Strange, but since Stephen doesn't play very well in PVP, I decided he wouldn't be a great 3rd 5*, and stopped pulling Latest as soon as he was fully covered. I resumed pulling Latest after, as I wanted Thanos. Once I got Thanos, I then fully leveled all my 5*s (in for a Penny, in for a Pound,) which at the time included OML and Strange. I champed Strange, as his build wasn't great (4/5/4,) but have yet to champ OML since he's very usable at 4/5/4. I'll get around to it when I can spare the extra 20k Iso. I don't have an extra cover for either OML or Strange. I have recently champed Black Panther, and am working on Hawkeye - I want Hawkeye for the diversity he'll give to my roster. After I fully cover Hawkeye I'll probably move to Classics until we see another top-tier 5* - I'd like to finish my older characters and get more levels for my current champs.
So when I had one champ 5*, my scaling went up appreciably - I stopped seeing 4* teams with any regularity and generally just saw a 5* with one 4* or two 5*. My PVE scaling went up too, but I expected that. When I champed Widow, I saw a lot less 5/4 teams and saw pretty much just 5*s. I didn't notice much difference if any in PVP when I got my 3rd 5*. The PVE difference wasn't huge, either.
As far as PVP climbing went, I could generally climb to around 900 (in S4) with a boosted 4* team before taking more than a few hits. Adding Bolt increased that to around 1050ish, depending on the time and other things. With Bolt/Widow I could make it to 1200 before shielding unless it was particularly "hot" out. Thanos/Black Panther has impacted this a little - I now take more hits since BB/BW isn't as scary, but I still think I can do this (also, I now have Thanos/BP too, so I'll switch to them when I get high in points.) I will definitely say it's helped my HP income a lot - I spend a lot less on shields, and have to hop less. Also, I can get a much higher total though I've yet to score higher than T10 (well, I got T5 once in a fairly lazy bracket.)
The downside of this is you wipe a lot more with 5* teams - the match damage is so much higher that a bad cascade will destroy your team. You also consume a lot more health packs. I frequently climb to a good float point evening, then climb to shield the next morning. Sometimes I dig into my Tacos. If I don't have much time to play, I will climb as far as I can get and shield.
In general, I would say you can play with 5*s as long as you don't level them past 390 or so - I noticed the PVP scaling kicking in at around 400. My advice would be to be careful with the 5*s you champ until you have at least two good ones. You will want your first 5* to be one that plays well with others - Bolt, Thanos, even OML. I believe Hawkeye is too squishy (don't have him yet,) and Strange definitely is (he rocks for PVE, though.) Widow can be devastating, but she's too slow to be a good deterrent - she really needs a good accelerator (like Black Bolt.) I'm honestly not sure who else - maybe 5* Cap and IM? GG? PHX?
Anyway, your second 5* should play well with the first. After that, you can do what you want, but unfortunately this is the best way to deal with the scaling and not have an awful time of PVP.
Jarvind said: @broll from my brief experience (I've sold my 5s because I got tired of them and am currently saving my Latest tokens until I'm ready to make a run at a better trio), I'd say Thanos is definitely the best overall 5* right now. He's not particularly interesting to play, but his passive is second to none and his green, while saving the CD is sometimes frustrating, does insane damage even by 5* standards - over 20k AOE if you 5-cover it. Often green will down an enemy and trigger the passive, meaning in one turn you deal around 80k total damage and also stun the other team. It's nuts.Purple's match damage boost is "eh," but I was also surprised at how often locking down the board came in handy. The AI is stupid, per usual, and will sometimes attempt to use OML's black while it's out, which just wastes its black AP and its turn. It was also the only counter I had to Hawkeye's insane arrow-spam. You just have to remember that it applies to your team as well.
Bolt is the best 5, hands down.
But forget about covering any classic 5 with Bonus Heroes that are more than two covers away.
Beer40 said: Question about the CS swaps: (example) If I have a 13 cover Thanos with a 2/5/6 build, will CS swap the 6th cover for the 3rd one I need in the other power, if Thanos is still at level 255? Or do I have to max his level as high as possible before they make the swap?I'm interested in going all in on the 5* tier because I'm on my way to getting enough CP. The lack of ISO to level the 5s is worrisome though.
FokaiHI said: Beer40 said: Question about the CS swaps: (example) If I have a 13 cover Thanos with a 2/5/6 build, will CS swap the 6th cover for the 3rd one I need in the other power, if Thanos is still at level 255? Or do I have to max his level as high as possible before they make the swap?I'm interested in going all in on the 5* tier because I'm on my way to getting enough CP. The lack of ISO to level the 5s is worrisome though. Sadly, the answer is no. CS will only swap covers of characters in the Latest Legends pool. They actually swapped 5 covers for me between BP and HE recently. Also, they will only swap unusable covers. I.e. Your 6th black cover.
So the way CS swaps will work is if you draw a cover that you have 5 in that particular color for a 5* in the Latest Legends Pool, they will swap it for another color for the same character if you do not yet have 13 covers for that 5*. So if you have, say, a 2/5/5 Hawkeye and you draw another red (this is me, right now, actually,) they will swap that red for purple. Let's say they do this so I now have a 3/5/5 Hawkeye. I draw a blue for him, and for some reason I want to respec him to 4/5/4 rather than champ him. They will not do the swap at that point since I have the potential to use the cover as a champ level - I have 13 covers for the character so my choices are to champ him or burn the cover.
They will let you swap for another character, actually.... if you have that character at 550 (and so cannot apply the champ level.) I am not tinykittying you, that's what the Rep told me, at one point, when I asked if it was possible to swap it to a different character. Makes sense, though, since you do have a use for the cover.