Noob question: when should I start champing 2*

Frugal

I have got to the point where I have rostered all of the 2* characters, but most of them only have a couple of covers. I am building up a collection of Elite and Heroic tokens that I dare not open as the chance of getting a 3* I have no roster space for is too high.
I have two 2* characters with a high number of covers: Thor with 11 and Storm who has just got her 13th.
As these are already my two most powerful characters, will I be doing more harm than good to champion Storm now? Should I wait until I get several characters up to 10-13 covers before I start to champion any of them?
My roster currently looks like this: https://mpq.gamependium.com/rosters/Frugal10196/

granne

I would hold off on champing Storm until you have others ready. She's great, but her low health is a problem if she's your highest character. Thor does good damage, but he won't tank any colours for Storm, as green is her strongest. Daken and Wolvie's healing will be helpful.

How much are your roster slots now? Wait until you have enough for one, then open tokens until you get someone new. Keep saving your Heroics, though, and any CP or LT you get. 4*s are not your friends yet.

Remember that even once you pull a 14th cover, you can wait for two weeks before champing and applying it.

Have fun.

Frugal

granne said:

How much are your roster slots now? Wait until you have enough for one, then open tokens until you get someone new. Keep saving your Heroics, though, and any CP or LT you get. 4*s are not your friends yet.

My roster slots are current 350 HP each. I have 3* Cyclops and 3* Doc Oc withering on the vine, so I can not risk opening anything other than Standard tokens at the moment.

My current plan is to open all of the Standards as they are safe. When I have no characters "on the vine" then I will start to open Elite until I get a new character and then stop until I have bought them a roster slot.

At the moment I seem cursed to only get 1* from Standard tokens and unrostered 3* from Elite.  

TPF Alexis

Magneto is another great partner for Storm. He tanks blue for her as long as he's within a few levels of her, and can make more blue with his purple. Plus his red power is just great, and his blue power is weak enough that it won't feel like much of a sacrifice to leave all the blue for Storm.

spatenfloot

Go ahead and open the elite tokens. You won't make much progress if all you open are standards. Use the covers to level up the characters you have rostered and add 3 stars when you have the hp. If you can't roster a new 3 star within 2 weeks, just sell it. You will get it again. Be sure to have your bonus heroes set to only the 3 stars you have rostered already. 

oakenwall

I open tookens nonstop, only really save up on command points and legend tookens.
i dont really mind selling some coves because of it. Having better characters helps to get more tookens anyway, 

I actually think not opening your elite tookens hurt your progress.

I also feel there is quite a few really bad 2* that championing makes little sense unless you plan super long. Point of the game is to have fun, better have fun all the time, than sit way for months just to save some covers.and having a bunch of heroes you never use anyway.

This tactic works fine for me, but i play a lot.


edit: as for referense: iv spent money for 2xvip and have bought some slots when really needed, might be different if your pure free to play. 

abominatrix

First, I would open up the elite and heroic tokens; Yes, you might get 3* you have to sell, but you'll get a lot of 2* that you'll be able to use now, and honestly you can probably use the ISO from selling a 3* at least as much as trying to roster them. 

Second, I would champ 2* as fast as you can get the ISO to do so. The game reaches an equilibrium point once you get a number of champs at one level but you don't have many covers at the next level; You want to get there so you can start banking ISO for when you start getting close to 3* champs (and, the much longer transition from 3*->4*). Having 1 2* champ and a couple close should allow you to get through the limited rounds and usually even "Dat Required Character" assuming you have even one cover of the 3* roistered. 

Third, the only things you should horde are legendaries and CP. Others have said it, but it's sound advice.

Looking at your roster today, it seems like you've made some progress and champed Storm and Thor. Fantastic! As others have mentioned, the Thor/Storm/Magneto trio is still pretty good, although not the guaranteed win in The Big Enchilada it was before they reworked it. But, it's worth a shot on the days you can get there.

Anyway, it looks like your roster is progressing nicely. Unless you want to spend on roster slots occasionally, you will have tough choices to make, but that's OK (personally, I spend the money on HP when I needed it, but everybody has a different view on if they should. You can progress anyway. Except at the highest levels this game is not as "pay to win" as many).

And, the boards have lots of experienced people with useful advice. It also has me, but you get what you pay for   

Good luck!

jtsings

Frugal said:

I have got to the point where I have rostered all of the 2* characters, but most of them only have a couple of covers. I am building up a collection of Elite and Heroic tokens that I dare not open as the chance of getting a 3* I have no roster space for is too high.

   I'm in agreement with everyone who's posted before, getting 3* you can't use is just part of the game but you've got to open the tokens to get your 2* characters their covers.  Plus you're missing out on bonus covers that could be strengthening your current 3* characters.  My vote would also be to put priority on Thor/Storm/Magneto 2* along with another helpful supporting character Original Black Widow (OBW) who will be your best friend in PVE goon nodes. 
   One 3* that I would highly recommend rostering, even if you have to kick another 3* off your current roster, is Iron Man 40 (IM40).  If you can get 5 yellow covers for him, it makes almost all of the your 2 or 3* characters stronger.  Plus you don't have to put any ISO in him to level him up for his yellow to be completely effective.  My highest recommendation would be to set him as your bonus hero.

oakenwall

screw ironman, luke cage is where its at haha, well at least for me! *so you got dr.strange in pvp, how nice, how about i one shot him with my yellow or stunlock him while doing super damage and finish you off with a human torch fireball! anyway i love cage !

BlackBoltRocks

oakenwall said:

screw ironman, luke cage is where its at haha, well at least for me!

Oh my sweet summer child.

Frugal

Ok, thanks for all of the advice. I went and opened all of the Elite covers. Once I had done that, I did the maths and realised that of the 18 heroic covers I had, I was statistically likely to pull 15 2* or 3* covers for characters I had already rostered, and 3 3* or 4* for characters I had not. Fortunately the maths worked out perfectly, as that is exactly what I got.

So now I have 2* Storm, 2* Thor and 2* Black Widow all at 13 covers. The rest of my 2* characters are between 3 and 9 covers, and 12 3* characters with between 1 and 5 covers.

I now have a total of 10 3* covers in my queue that I have not rostered and a bunch of spares for Storm, Thor and BW.

Am I right in thinking, that for Story events like the Hearts of Darkness that is currently going on, it is those 3 highest level characters that will determine the levels of the bad guys? So I really need to round out my team before I start championing those three, or I am going to make it so that no one else in my roster is any use at all.

How do you guys manage to do 6 or 7 clears of all of the nodes. I can just about manage 4 clears to start the countdown timer before I get clobbered by bad guys 30+ levels higher than me.

jtsings

   As far as scaling goes, I'm not very clear how that works but Black Widow adds 4 maybe 5 levels to every countdown tile and if she's on 5 blue covers she'll actually give your whole team a boost of health as well.  She's your best bet in goon nodes to survive in PVE.  If she's not on 5 blue, unless you are already aware, you can Champ her and then change her cover levels at will, even if you don't have extra covers for her.

Frugal said:

How do you guys manage to do 6 or 7 clears of all of the nodes. I can just about manage 4 clears to start the countdown timer before I get clobbered by bad guys 30+ levels higher than me.

   In the future, at least in 3* land, Dr. Strange is a perfect goon node clearer.  His yellow covers damage the other team and gives your team health too every time they lay down a countdown tile.  His blue covers can stun a goon that has the lowest countdown tile and damage him or another one of the enemies too.

Warbringa

You will want Daken, Ares/Thor, Storm and Black Widow as your prime 2* characters.  The others are ok but these will be your staples.  I would wait to champion until you have a few 2* to champion at the same time.  While you are doing this though, your main concentration should be on buying roster slots with HP and rostering 3* characters when you get them.  Wait to open your token hoard until you can afford to do so from an iso and HP perspective. 

6/7 clears will not be easy with 2* roster to be frank.  Especially since your roster isn't diversified enough to handle that many clears.  With a diversified roster, you can use different team combinations to make clears, spreading your damage over several characters.  Since you are still early in the game, you only have a few go to characters who you are required to use to complete those harder clears.  They will take damage and it will limit your ability to make clears.

Frugal

I can champion Thor, Storm and Black Widow now, but the others are a way behind (Daken is at 3/1/0, Ares is at 3/2/0, and Magneto is at 5/1/0)

TPF Alexis

Yeah, I don't think I regularly started making 6-7 clears until I was in 3* land, or at least close to it. Do make sure you get 6 clears of the easy and join forces Nodes, tho. The ISO you get from leveling up can be a big help, and those end up being a pretty big chunk of XP every event.

abominatrix

I see no downside from champing Thor/Storm/Widow if you have the ISO to do it. That's not the worst team in the world as-is, although once you bring on other 2* champs you'll want to probably separate OBW and Storm since the blue overlap is painful. I went a long way in 2* land running Thor/Storm/Mags and OBW/Torch/Wolverine.

The point is that once you can have 3 champs, you're scaling is set, and you have the characters to be able to handle it.

TPF's advice is spot-on. For where you are, in PVE you can get 6 clears of the first 3 nodes, and the 2* essential. The other essentials are going to be more difficult for now (if you even have the right characters rostered to unlock them); carrying a 1-2 cover character into these makes things harder, and the three harder nodes are going to be hit or miss. 

I've always ignored advice about waiting for the right characters to start champing; If I have a toon covered with a 14th cover in the queue, I champ unless I don't have the ISO. I've never regretted it.

Good luck!

Moon Roach

If you haven't done it yet, clear the prologue.  There are a heap of 2* covers, HP, ISO, and most importantly, XP that can increase your level and gain you even more ISO.

Frugal

OK, so I have champed the three characters I can. Thank you for all of the advice.

I presume that PVE gets easier when you get to 3* because although the bad guys will still scale to your level, your 3* characters will hit harder than 2*s at the same level?

TPF Alexis

The scaling is weird. It's not really even, and kind of goes in waves, getting harder and then easier and then harder again as you move past break points, learn how to use the higher level characters, and then moving up a bit further and starting the cycle over again.

In general, tho, yes, it does become easier as you move on. Not only because the higher tier characters are more powerful, but just because, as you build a deeper roster, you start picking up characters who you won't use all the time, but are perfect for situations that you just don't have a tool to deal with in a 2* roster.

jtsings

   I can only tell you my experience in PVE, subsequently I do play every event and usually end up being in the top 50; sometimes 20.  I wouldn't say that PVE will get easier, however if you have a good combo of 3*s it can become much easier.  For example my current PVE beasts are champed Rocket and Groot, champed Dr. Strange, and level 106 IM40 (all 3*).  R&G are my tanks, taking most of the damage and whenever they are super low on health, I almost always can make a yellow match and he can gain anywhere from 4k-10k healthpoints with just 1 yellow match.  IM40, when he gets his 6 yellow ap and all of his tiles countdown, gives at least one stun ablility to Strange and many times a R&G nuke (green) for anywhere from 2k to 4k damage.  Because of this composition, I rarely have to use any healthpacks since R&G self heals himself when needed.  Many other people will tell you that Luke Cage, Iron Fist and Scarlet Witch (all 3*s) is also a money combo for PVE.  So my recommendation would be to search the forums for the top rated 3*s, and teams as well, and target those for pumping ISO into when you are ready to start working on your 3*s.  So for instance, if you have a champed Rangarok in PVE, though he's a 3*, his powers are generally considered poor, so he probably wouldn't make your PVE experience change that much.

   Don't count out your 2*s, however.  Even though I rarely use some of my 2*s, when they are boosted for an event, they can be crucial and even better than your 3*s for surviving PVE.  Just a few days ago Moonstone was boosted for an event; she really only has 1 good power. I was able to use her because her health was at a crazy 13k, making her a perfect tank candidate for this one node.

TPF Alexis

jtsings said:

Just a few days ago Moonstone was boosted for an event; she really only has 1 good power. I was able to use her because her health was at a crazy 13k, making her a perfect tank candidate for this one node.

When she's boosted, Moonstone can actually be pretty good against the right opponents. I was using her in Nefarious Foes, and just trashing teams with Daken using their own Strikes.

2* and 3* Captain Marvel can also have a lot of use in niche situations past their tier level, especially when boosted, and I pull 2* Storm out constantly if she's boosted for the event or the week.