I'm new, I need roster help, blah blah blah

Hikeeba

Hi, I'm new and I need roster help.     I'm level 13 and am trying to simply stockpile recruitment tokens instead of spending them, because when I haven't done that, I've lost covers to the countdown.  But despite my best efforts, I have three covers in my rewards queue and only one open space.  I know my primary focus should be on racking up Hero Points to buy roster space, and I'm trying to do that.  My question is, is there anybody I can safely sell off?  Do I have anybody amazing that I should keep at all costs?  I have some ideas but I always worry I'm going to do something boneheaded, so I want second (and third and fourth and...) opinions.


I have 18/19 slots full at the moment:

• Daredevil (Man without Fear) ***, Level 53, 2/1/-
• Iron Man (Model 35) *, Level 50, 5/4/4
• Rocket & Groot (Most Wanted) ***, Level 50, 2/-/-
• Captain Marvel (Ms. Marvel), **, Level 46, 2/3/3
• Black Panther (T'Challa) ***, Level 43, 1/1/-
• Black Widow (Modern) *, Level 40, 5/5
• Storm (Modern) *, Level 40, 4/3/4
• Iron Fist (Immortal Weapon) ***, Level 40, -/1/-
• Kamala Khan (Ms. Marvel) ***, Level 40, 1/-/-
• Luke Cage (Hero for Hire) ***, Level 40, 1/-/-
• The Hulk (Indestructible) ***, Level 40, 1/-/-
• Wolverine (Patch) ***, Level 40, 1/-/-
• Storm (Classic) **, Level 31, 1/2/2
• Thor (Marvel NOW!) **, Level 31, 2/1/2
• Hawkeye (Classic) *, Level 30, 5/4
• Steve Rogers (Captain America) **, Level 22, -/-/2
• Magneto (Marvel NOW!) **, Level 17, -/1/1
• Black Widow (Original) **, Level 15, 2/-/-

Whew.  The three in the rewards queue are:

• Doctor Doom (Classic) ***, Level 40, 1/-/-
• Daken (Dark Avengers) **, Level 15, 1/-/-
• Hawkeye (Modern) **, Level 15, -/1/-

I'm currently going through the Doctor Strange event with Iron Fist, Daredevil, and Storm Modern, which seemed like the most well-balanced team among the boosted characters.  Magneto gets swapped in for Storm in his required character fights.

As for my queue, I very rarely use the Hulk, Hawkeye, Steve Rogers, or Black Widow (Original), so I'm always debating selling them off.  (Although now that I compare the Hulk to Patch, I think the Hulk's green power is less annoying than Patch's.)  It also occurs to me that I should definitely recruit Doom if I'm going to use Iron Fist, since Technopathic Strikes will synergize nicely with Iron Fist of K'un-Lun.  I'm not super eager to recruit Daken or modern Hawkeye, since neither of them seem all that great.

Any thoughts?

ZootSax

I would sell 1* Hawkeye and 3* Hulk (he's not in tokens with the current vaulting, so building him will be extremely slow--FYI, though, Doom isn't in tokens either, although he's a stronger character by far).  2* Black Widow is really, really good, so I would hold onto her at all costs. 

2* Hawkeye isn't essential, but his skills are all decent and his champion rewards ultimately give you 3* Iron Man covers, which is really good.  2* Daken self-heals and generates strike tiles, so once you get more covers he's better than he may first appear (his champion rewards are for 3* Daken who is a better version of the 2*).  Between the two, Daken is probably the concensus better choice, but I'm personally partial to Hawkeye FWIW.  2* Captain America is a shadow of his 3* self, but once you get his red and blue to 5 covers he really becomes an excellent character in PVE/story mode.

So yeah, in a nutshell, I'd sell Hulk & 1* Hawkeye for 3* Doom and either Daken/2* Hawkeye.

Whatever you end up doing, good luck.

granne

You can safely dispose of 1* Hawkeye. He has some cool powers, but once you start using 2* and above characters, his health makes him a liability. You really only need to keep one 1* (Iron Man of those you have), but I'd be reluctant to get rid of them all at your stage. Storm and Widow are hugely helpful and worth keeping for a while, if you can.

Building a solid base of 2*s will help you more right now than having a one-cover 3*. It won't seem like it now, but soon you'll be swimming in 3* covers. Of course, you'll also be swimming in 2*s, but hey.

You may not use 2* Widow now, but trust me, you will. 2* Cap? Not so much. I would still keep him, if I we're you. Daken will save you health packs and works well with 2* Wolvie and Widow.

3* Patch is very good, but probably not at your stage of the game. 2* Hawkeye works really well with 2* Magneto and 2* Storm, but is otherwise hard to find an effective team for.

There is always the option of buying HP for roster slots, but that's up to you.

Doom is vaulted, so it could be months before you see another of his covers. If you'll find that one cover useful, then fine. If not, he'll just be dead weight on you roster.

jtsings

   Welcome to MPQ!  I'm a fairly newish player myself and my highest recommendation is to read this post first https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/3939/polaritys-guide-on-going-from-1-to-3-updated-1-22-15  (Polarity's Beginners Guide)  It is somewhat outdated, but it's still very helpful in pinpointing what to do and who to focus on at each star level (1*-3* at least).

   The biggest part, that was the most helpful to me, was to work on getting most, if not all, of my 2* champed.  At least get Thor 2*, Daken 2*, and Storm 2*; the first 30 days of play, I used this team for everything.  The benefit from champing all of your 2* first is twofold: 

   1) 3*s are decent when they are boosted for an event even with just a few covers but after the event is over you'll have a character that's generally not very usable.  And as you keep playing with your core of 2* teams, while opening more rosters slots, you'll get the 3* star covers back eventually; how quick depends on how well you do in events and how often you play.

   2)  You'll get far more 2*s than 3*s, and when you champ a 2* you'll get ISO, Hero Points, 3* covers and more Recruit Tokens as you get additional covers for them.  If you take a look at more experienced rosters many people have a 2* farm, as it's referred to so they have a constant flow of Hero Points, Recruit Tokens etc. coming in.

   So, maybe unfortunately, in my opinion I would either only keep 2* characters and sell all the others or just keep one or two 3*s that you think would be helpful.  For example Luke Cage and Iron Fist are considered top tiered 3*s and when they are somewhat well covered, work very well together on a team because one gives you a protect tile at all times and the other keeps a strike tile on the board at all times.  And just for me personally, I would only keep IM35 and Black Widow (modern) for your 1* team, unless you happen to use your 1*s a lot.

   There is one 3* character, however, that if you can pick up, is well worth a roster spot at all times and that's Iron Man 40 (IM40)  3*.  If you can get his yellow covers at 5, you can use him to make most other characters fire off their powers very quickly, giving you an advantage over the computer opponent (and that's even without him being leveled up too).

   Now that's my suggestion overall, but if you want my analysis on what you should do if you want to just keep collecting 3*s, without champing twos, is definitely keep Daken (his self healing is awesome)  Maybe get rid of Storm 1* and Hawkeye 1*.   Even though Doom is a good character, you'll need a lot of covers to get him to be a full functioning team member, which might take a long time and most people will say that Hawkeye 2* is good for 1 thing, he'll give you IM40 3* covers when he's champed lol.  But if you read the guide linked above, hopefully it will give you a good indication of which characters are worth focusing on and which ones are worth passing on till later.

WeatherTop

If you enjoy the game, spend some money on it. There should be no shame in paying for an enjoyable hobby. It really is the best way to grow a roster.

Otherwise, focus on getting all 2 stars to champion and sell off 3 stars to make space for them.

2star black widow is definitely worth leveling first. Her blue is great in early rosters against PVE for healing and damage prevention. Later, her black makes her a match making power house. 

Hikeeba

ZootSax said:

 2* Captain America is a shadow of his 3* self, but once you get his red and blue to 5 covers he really becomes an excellent character in PVE/story mode.

Thanks for the advice!  Would it be worth holding on to 2* Cap even though I managed to draw 3* Cap?

TPF Alexis

Hikeeba said:

ZootSax said:

 2* Captain America is a shadow of his 3* self, but once you get his red and blue to 5 covers he really becomes an excellent character in PVE/story mode.

Thanks for the advice!  Would it be worth holding on to 2* Cap even though I managed to draw 3* Cap?

Probably. A 2* Cap with all three powers is going to be better than single cover of 3* Cap.

Also, a note on Doom: He's the required 3* for The Hunt, which is just starting, so I'd at least roster him for the next 4 days, tho you may well find you want to sell him off after that.

ZootSax

Hikeeba said:

ZootSax said:

 2* Captain America is a shadow of his 3* self, but once you get his red and blue to 5 covers he really becomes an excellent character in PVE/story mode.

Thanks for the advice!  Would it be worth holding on to 2* Cap even though I managed to draw 3* Cap?

Personally, I'd hold on to 2* Cap until you have 5 covers in both red and blue for 3* Cap.  Even after that, 2* Cap as a champion gives you 3* Cap covers, so he's still worth holding on to to "farm" the 2* (you're a ways off from this, but you'll see people talking about this on the forum frequently).

When you're trying to decide which 3*s to hold on to, check to see who are in the Heroic Tokens.  With very few exceptions, they're a good group to build around and you'll also be able to build them the quickest.

mpiter

I think you made the right decision to ask for help here.

The first question you need to ask yourself before playing MPQ is are you willing to pay money?

If the answer is "no" as I expect in your case, the pressure on HP will always be very high irrespective of your level in the game.  As a consequence, your strategy will be based on HP saving because you will always be frustrated to get rid of interesting covers.

If the answer is "yes", expect to pay more than for a console AAA game, but you will progress faster and will have a more pleasant experience.  In this case, you will invest your money in HP, and the scarce resource will be ISO.

I am assuming that you want to play for free  because if it was not the case, you would not have asked your question, you would have bought HP.  So, knowing that HP is the scarcest resource for you, the following question is what is the utility of each roaster level (number of stars).

1. The * level

As far as I am concerned, the 1* level has only two uses:

• Build a ** roaster;
• Play the Daily Deadpool Quest (DDQ).

I do not see any other use.  To play the * level of DDQ, you only need Juggernaut 5/5 at maximum level (40).  Nothing more for a daily 120-sec. quest.

To build a ** roaster, you only need Iron Man 35  5/5/3 around level 25, Juggernaut 5/5 at maximum level (40), and another character to complete the team such as Black Window 5/5 at maximum level or Storm or someone else.  Everything else is a waist of HP and ISO because as soon as you have a good ** roaster, you will sell every * character except Juggernaut because you will need HP for your ** and *** roasters.

As a consequence you built a not-to-good * roaster because you have not Juggernaut, and you invest too much ISO in useless characters.  Selling a character does not compensate the ISO investment.

So, your primary goal is to get Juggernaut fully covered at max level using a few nodes of the Story mode and, more importantly at your level, carrying out PVE and/or PVP quests.  To do that, keep IM35 but cover him 5/5/3 when you get a Yellow cover because his Blue is almost always useless because its too expensive and you want to use BW Blue.  Yellow is not so good either for IM35 because Strom  Yellow is better but IM35 Yellow is still better than his Blue.  Sell Hawkeye to make room for your roaster.  When you have Juggernaut at a usable coverage and level, sell Storm and keep Jug, IM35, and BW until you have a good ** roaster.  Then sell BW* and IM35, and keep Jug for the DDQ.

2. The ** level

According to me, the utility of a ** roaster is:

• Building a *** roaster;
• Playing quests where ** characters are mandatory;
  
• Playing the DDQ;
• Championing the characters to farm resources including 3 covers of a *** character.

To build a *** roaster and to play the DDQ, half a dozen of ** characters are sufficient.  To play all the quests, you need all the ** characters and then you can farm with every ** championed characters.  So, for a paying player, it might be useful to get all of them.  But for a free-playing player, I disagree with everyone advising you to farm with every ** characters.  I think that you better keep your roaster slots for *** characters and you better only keep 6 ** characters at most.

About farming, championing a ** character requires a total of around 100,000 ISO (or maybe less, I do not remember) while you will only farm between 17,000 and 18,000 ISO if I remember well, and you will sell him/her for only 65,000 ISO and 125 HP.  You will see later in the game that a roaster slot costs 1000 HP from a certain point.  So even if my ISO figures are wrong (I cannot remember the exact figures), the balance will not be graceful, and the HP balance is terrible.  When HP is your scarcest resource, you understand that farming with a useful character is good, but keeping a character just to farm is a mistake.  So, do not keep ** characters only for that purpose because there are other ways to cover your *** characters.

So, which ** characters should you keep?  This is very debatable.  My favorite 6 are Black Window 3/5/5, Thor 3/5/5, and Storm 5/5/3 for a slow but very powerful winfinite team for the wave and goon nodes, and Daken 3/5/5, Ares 4/4/5, and whoever you like as a third (Human torch, Magneto, Wolverine...) to complete a second team which is faster against moving-tiles enemies but which is not a winfinite team.   Having two complete independent teams lets you to play the two ** DDQ without pause or without using health pack when you do not have much time.

A winfinite team if you wonder what is it is a team that can, from a certain point in the battle, launch a continuous stream of attacks, each attack feeding the AP for the next one till victory.  You need time to prepare the winfinite part, but when you can start it, the game is over.  That is why I use it for wave nodes but not for fast fights.  The key of the BW/Th/Storm team is to use Green Storm when you have around 25 Green to gather AP, then use Thor Yellow and BW Purple if you can to get back the Green which can be used to gather Storm Blue, Thor Yellow, and BW Purple again...  This is deadly due to the insane Storm Green that can gather till 30 AP + cascade for a cost of 12 Green.

BW is one of the best ** character that you will also use during the **-to-*** transition.  So, keep her.

3. *** team

Same line of reasoning than ** team.  Keep the 15 to 20 best ones, do not invest in the others.

4. Final piece of advise for your current roaster

Choose 6 ** characters and sell the other ones.

Regarding the *** characters of your current roaster, ranked from top to low personal preferences:

1. You must absolutely keep: Iron Fist (fragile but so powerful, cheap powerful attack to trigger Kamala healing, board shaking, constant strong attack tile combined with strike tiles), Kamala Khan (good AOE damage, AP generation, and healing), Luke Cage (strong on offense and defense),
   
2. Not top priority but useful: Black Panther (strong AOE damage, strong strike tiles, and stun, just a bit slow), Wolverine (true healing but his attacks fire back, so dangerous), Doctor Doom (slow but high board-depending target damage, board shaking and strong attack tiles), The Hulk (tank and annoying Black/Green synergy), Rocket and Groot (damage, strike tiles and true healing), Daredevil (good stun but very unreliable damage, so not too good).

Good luck.

jtsings

 
About farming, championing a ** character requires a total of around 100,000 ISO (or maybe less, I do not remember) while you will only farm between 17,000 and 18,000 ISO if I remember well, and you will sell him/her for only 65,000 ISO and 125 HP.  You will see later in the game that a roaster slot costs 1000 HP from a certain point.  So even if my ISO figures are wrong (I cannot remember the exact figures), the balance will not be graceful, and the HP balance is terrible.  When HP is your scarcest resource, you understand that farming with a useful character is good, but keeping a character just to farm is a mistake.  So, do not keep ** characters only for that purpose because there are other ways to cover your *** characters.

   Just to give you the actual stats on what you get by champing any 2* character.  If you just sell all the covers from a 2* you don't champ you'll get 50 covers worth or 12,500 ISO.  If you choose to champion a 2* as you keep getting covers the totals you'll get throughout the 50 levels is 5 CP, 5 Heroic Recruit Tokens, 250 HP, Three 3* covers of various characters (do forum search for "champing rewards" to see which characters give which characters) and 17,500 ISO.  And the fully champed 2*can be sold from at least 100 HP and 17,200 ISO (I only have a level 141 2* currently so I'm not sure how much a level 144 sells at).  Does it make sense from a ISO sense to champ all your 2*s, probably not.  But if you do, you'll get a steady source of, usually greater ISO, HP and Heroic Tokens and 3* covers, which for me is well worth the waiting for starting to work on my 3*s.

  Also just to give you a little background on me, I'm on day 74 and I've spent about $16 total on the game; all HP has gone to buying roster slots (I have 51 slots atm)  https://mpq.gamependium.com/rosters/jtsings/; so not a whale by any means.  I highly recommend you at least spending $1.99 on the Bugle Pittance every once in awhile just so you can get extra ISO and tokens and HP from Shield Intercepts.  Way more than worth the amount of money you put in to get those; as long as you play PVE or DDQ frequently.  And if you want to support the game spend more, especially if they have a sale on HP.  My focus right now is only on my 3* roster.  I'm trying to have every 3* available because I want to get the extra 3200 ISO a day from DDQ and I want to have a better chance of being competitive in PVE, which requires you to have a 3* character as well.  Just my further 2 cents of what has worked well for me.

Jaedenkaal

mpiter said:

A winfinite team if you wonder what is it is a team that can, from a certain point in the battle, launch a continuous stream of attacks, each attack feeding the AP for the next one till victory.  You need time to prepare the winfinite part, but when you can start it, the game is over.  That is why I use it for wave nodes but not for fast fights.  The key of the BW/Th/Storm team is to use Green Storm when you have around 25 Green to gather AP, then use Thor Yellow and BW Purple if you can to get back the Green which can be used to gather Storm Blue, Thor Yellow, and BW Purple again...  This is deadly due to the insane Storm Green that can gather till 30 AP + cascade for a cost of 12 Green.

If your team doesn't go winfinite until 25 AP, it's not winfinite, sorry. You should just bring Ares and use those 25 AP to win

mpiter

jtsings said:

   Just to give you the actual stats on what you get by champing any 2* character.  If you just sell all the covers from a 2* you don't champ you'll get 50 covers worth or 12,500 ISO.  If you choose to champion a 2* as you keep getting covers the totals you'll get throughout the 50 levels is 5 CP, 5 Heroic Recruit Tokens, 250 HP, Three 3* covers of various characters (do forum search for "champing rewards" to see which characters give which characters) and 17,500 ISO.  And the fully champed 2*can be sold from at least 100 HP and 17,200 ISO (I only have a level 141 2* currently so I'm not sure how much a level 144 sells at).  Does it make sense from a ISO sense to champ all your 2*s, probably not.  But if you do, you'll get a steady source of, usually greater ISO, HP and Heroic Tokens and 3* covers, which for me is well worth the waiting for starting to work on my 3*s.

You can sell a level-144 2* for 65000 ISO + 125 HP.  So, adding the 17500 ISO + 250 HP gathered during the long time necessary to reach level 144, you will get 82500 ISO + 375 HP, which is not more than what you need to invest in the character to reach that level.  Hence, the ISO/HP balance is not thrilling.  And the other tokens earned going trough the 50 levels above 94 are nothing in comparison to what you can earn during the time needed to go through the 50 levels just by playing daily.  So it does not seem a good incentive either to me.  If I were someone who does not invest money in the game, I would not waste a roster slot during weeks for that.  I would prefer to use the slot for a 3* character instead of throwing away his cover by lack of roster slots.  Six 2* characters are more than sufficient for the 2*-to-3* transition.  So keeping more is just delaying the transition by lack of roster slots for 3* characters.

Jaedenkaal

You wouldn't spend ~6000 ISO (and time) for 375 HP, 5 CP, 5 heroic tokens, and 3x 3* covers? I know ISO-debt is a thing, but you can earn 6000 in a day, easily. 

I understand that you might not want to devote 13 roster slots for that, but you could devote one or two, and keep six at max level at all times. It's a nice way to earn extra 3* covers, and HP for those precious roster slots.

mpiter

Jaedenkaal said:

If your team doesn't go winfinite until 25 AP, it's not winfinite, sorry.

A winfinite is any team that can start a turn and never ever pass the turn again to the opponent.  I have never seen a condition on the moment to start the process.  So BW/Thor/Storm (2* each) is a winfinite.

You should just bring Ares and use those 25 AP to win

No, 25 Green will generally not be sufficient for Ares to clear the 8 opponents of the DDQ 2* wave node.  I prefer to use Thor in that node to keep Ares for the other 2* DDQ node with usually three tile movers.  This way, I can clear the two quests in a row without using health pack.

TPF Alexis

On 1* Characters: Iron Man and Spiderman are also capable of soloing the 1* DDQ node. As long as you have one of them, Juggernaut is not necessary, tho he is still useful. I've never had him rostered, and I did just fine.

mpiter

Jaedenkaal said:

You wouldn't spend ~6000 ISO (and time) for 375 HP, 5 CP, 5 heroic tokens, and 3x 3* covers? I know ISO-debt is a thing, but you can earn 6000 in a day, easily. 

I understand that you might not want to devote 13 roster slots for that, but you could devote one or two, and keep six at max level at all times. It's a nice way to earn extra 3* covers, and HP for those precious roster slots.

I can see your point and I do not claim anymore that it is not a nice way,.  But as far as I am concerned, my answer is no I would not spend a roster slots for that.

My main game is a paying game where I financially support D3.  I am actually keeping only Jug in the 1* roster and every characters in the other rosters to be able to access any quest.  Then, once I knew the game better, I started a new one on another account to check whether it would be possible to continuously progress without paying a dime.  In this secondary game, as soon as I started to have a good 2* roster, 3* covers fell too fast for me to keep up the pace with my roster slots.  I had to throw away several interesting 3* covers.  Of course, this is done by D3 by design to motivate us to buy HP.  So I did not keep a supplementary character beside the 6 I had choses.  My only hesitation was for Hawkey to get 3 covers of IM40, but I decided to keep an interesting 3* character instead and I will fully cover IM40 by other means.  Maybe not the best decision but the one I believe to be the most efficient one.

aa25

Farming 2* is very crucial for new players, imo, especially if you F2P. Each flip you get 375 hp, so that is like a third of a roster slot there. It is the only way that you can exchange iso for hp when you are in the early stage of the game. Also, applying 50 covers to hit lv144 gives you 200 xp which help you earn more iso from shield rank too. (I don't remember how much you get from the first 13 covers and when you pay the champ fee)

PS: By the way, my recollection says for each flip, you pay 8k iso for 5 cp, 375 hp, 5x heroics, 3x 3* covers, and 200 xp.

TPF Alexis

Also, Roster Slots are way cheaper at that stage of the game. Up to 28 Roster slots, each run of a 2* through your farm gives enough HP for at least one more Roster slot. I have 75 at the moment, and I'm still not quite paying the full 1000HP for each new one.

oakenwall

im a 2-3 star player i can relate but compare with mei have 20+ covers in reward, though i will be able to remove most when i champion some characters i cant afford iso for yet.

Sell all 1* except juggernaut and ironman, actually you can keep hawkeye 1 a bit since you dont have so many 2* at high lvl yet and I used him a lot.before i got more 2* up

Sell  your 1 cover 3* if need room,

2*dakken is really good, id recruit him asap(sell random 1 cover 3* 

Ducky

***Off to Roster and Level Help***

mpiter

aa25TPF Alexis, despite what you wrote, I do not see the point to farm with 2* characters in an F2P context except of course with your fighting team.

1* and 2* levels are not very exciting in comparison to the 3* level.  So the main goal to me is to reach the 3* level as soon as possible.  As I wrote above, I tried the F2P context in a second game, and I was short of roster slots very quickly when I started to gather 3* covers soon after having a good 6-character roster at level 2*.  You wrote about reaching level 144 for each 2* character, to gather 3 3* covers, 5 heroics, 5 CP, 375 HP, and a few other things for each character for the price of a roster slot blocked by each of your 2* characters and a long wait to reach that goal: a minimum (if every character reaches level 144 at the same time, which is very unlikely) of 13*50 covers after championing = 650 covers irrespective of the number of characters you use to farm.  During that very long time, I prefer to use those roster slots to hire 3* characters to access more covers in DDQ and more quests in PVE and PVP.  You can earn a lot of ISO and regular HP in those quests.  And it is very easy to earn 2 3* covers and 8 CP in each PVE plus at least 2 CP per if you have the right characters when you are in the 2*-to-3* transition.  Not to mention a 3* cover in DDQ each day when you have the requested 3* character.

So, the slow way to earn 3 3* covers, 5 Heroics, 5 CP, etc. in 2* farming does not seem attractive to me.  This seems a slow strategy that stuck you longer in the 2*-to-3* transition in F2P because you have never enough HP during that period to gather all 3* characters.  So I use a maximum of slots for the 3* characters.