How I got past the vaulting ISO crunch

Pants1000
Pants1000 Posts: 484 Mover and Shaker
in MPQ General Discussion
I know this won't work for more casual players, but I'm still hearing people struggle with this, so I wanted to share my experience.

FWIW I am on day 1035, play PVE to max progression, play PVP to 575, and occasionally push harder in both.

When vaulting went live I think I had 2/12 champed.  I don't like hoarding, so I continued to open classics and LT's as I got them.  I only champed 1 non-vaulted along the way (Nova) because I had 4 extra covers for him.

After about 6 weeks I found myself with 6 max covered latest and no ISO, so I started hoarding.  I hoarded about 1 month until Spiderwoman dropped out and I had built up ISO to champ 3 more.  I then pulled everything and champed Agent Venom, Gamora and Mordo.

Since then I continued pulling and have also champed C&D and R&G.  

Now I have 11/12 champed, with only Sandman left and he's at 0/2/2.  I'm finally at the point where I have the ISO to champ another 4* and I don't have a latest to champ.  It means every single 4* I pull from a token is useful.  It's either a champ level or a needed cover for Sandman.

If you find yourself being "forced to hoard" because of vaulting, keep playing and you can get over that hump.  Just don't spend ISO champing vaulted 4's, and don't be afraid to let 1 or 2 of the weaker characters leave the latest without champing them.
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Comments

  • revskip
    revskip Posts: 1,005 Chairperson of the Boards
    Pretty much what I did except I went into full in hoarding mode right when vaulting hit.  Saved all heroic tokens, all LTs and all CP while building up ISO reserves and waiting for characters that I didn't plan on champing right away to fall out of tokens.  Took a couple of months but once Luke Cage and Spiderwoman went out I was able to champ all but the newest three.  Then started hoarding again to catch up on ISO.  

    A month or so later I was able to champ the last three, now I'm working on vaulted characters and all of my magic 12 are in the 282-305 range with time to grow from there.  No wasted pulls.  It takes a little discipline but if you hate wasting covers it can work wonders.  
  • udonomefoo
    udonomefoo Posts: 1,630 Chairperson of the Boards
    I'm only at 8/12, but I did the same thing as revskip and allowed spiderwoman and c4ge to go out fully covered but not champed.  I've been able to keep up from there and I don't even play pve to full progression most times.
  • Straycat
    Straycat Posts: 963 Critical Contributor
    Thats about where I am too, but I still have 5 of the 12 left to champ. I've been only pulling champ rewards and I feel like my progress on newer releases is a little slow, but that still lets me accumulate iso. I got enough iso to champ Mr Fantastic when he was a pve reward.  Currently have all covers on Coulson and about enough iso to champ him when I get another cover.

  • Beer40
    Beer40 Posts: 826 Critical Contributor
    Pants1000 said:
    If you find yourself being "forced to hoard" because of vaulting, keep playing and you can get over that hump.  Just don't spend ISO champing vaulted 4's, and don't be afraid to let 1 or 2 of the weaker characters leave the latest without champing them.
    I've actually champed a few vaulted characters since it was introduced because they were so close to 13 covers. So I do agree partly with you that if you're "forced to hoard" due to an ISO shortage then avoiding spending it on vaulted characters will definitely help.

    However, its the part I put in bold that just doesn't add up to me, so I'll ask about it. What are you doing with those weaker characters? Do you apply 13 covers, not level them up, and then sell off every extra cover you get for the ISO? 

    That seems viable if the pulls are right. RNG can be absolutely crazy though. I'm not sure I'd want to go that route if RNG was not on my side, because the trickle down effect could be pretty severe (at least I think it could).
  • NewMcG
    NewMcG Posts: 368 Mover and Shaker
    Beer40 said:
    Pants1000 said:
    If you find yourself being "forced to hoard" because of vaulting, keep playing and you can get over that hump.  Just don't spend ISO champing vaulted 4's, and don't be afraid to let 1 or 2 of the weaker characters leave the latest without champing them.
    I've actually champed a few vaulted characters since it was introduced because they were so close to 13 covers. So I do agree partly with you that if you're "forced to hoard" due to an ISO shortage then avoiding spending it on vaulted characters will definitely help.

    However, its the part I put in bold that just doesn't add up to me, so I'll ask about it. What are you doing with those weaker characters? Do you apply 13 covers, not level them up, and then sell off every extra cover you get for the ISO? 

    That seems viable if the pulls are right. RNG can be absolutely crazy though. I'm not sure I'd want to go that route if RNG was not on my side, because the trickle down effect could be pretty severe (at least I think it could).
    Yes, that's exactly what you do. If you sell a few covers for someone who is rotating out in a matter of weeks and instead prioritize iso toward characters who will provide champ rewards for months, your waste on your pulls will be minimized.
  • Huntah86
    Huntah86 Posts: 221 Tile Toppler
    It took a little bit to catch up with the latest 12 but I only need a 3 covers or so to fully cover Sandman and 2 covers for Grocket before champing and then I'm completely caught up again.  Just keep pulling LTs until you have somebody fully covered then hoard until you get enough ISO to champ, rinse and repeat. Right now since I need some covers before I can champ the last two I've been saving up ISO to champ one of the 3 vaulted 4* I have fully covered but not champed.  I'm able to scrap together enough ISO to champ a 4* in roughly 10 - 12 days between all the PVP, PVE and DPD I do so as long as I only have one to save for I never have the issue of wasted covers. Just make sure you hoard until that last one is champed.
  • Pants1000
    Pants1000 Posts: 484 Mover and Shaker
    New McG said:
    Beer40 said:
    Pants1000 said:
    If you find yourself being "forced to hoard" because of vaulting, keep playing and you can get over that hump.  Just don't spend ISO champing vaulted 4's, and don't be afraid to let 1 or 2 of the weaker characters leave the latest without champing them.
    I've actually champed a few vaulted characters since it was introduced because they were so close to 13 covers. So I do agree partly with you that if you're "forced to hoard" due to an ISO shortage then avoiding spending it on vaulted characters will definitely help.

    However, its the part I put in bold that just doesn't add up to me, so I'll ask about it. What are you doing with those weaker characters? Do you apply 13 covers, not level them up, and then sell off every extra cover you get for the ISO? 

    That seems viable if the pulls are right. RNG can be absolutely crazy though. I'm not sure I'd want to go that route if RNG was not on my side, because the trickle down effect could be pretty severe (at least I think it could).
    Yes, that's exactly what you do. If you sell a few covers for someone who is rotating out in a matter of weeks and instead prioritize iso toward characters who will provide champ rewards for months, your waste on your pulls will be minimized.
    Yep, I probably sold 5-10 Spiderwoman covers.  If I had started hoarding earlier I could have reduced that, but I don't regret it.  
  • NewMcG
    NewMcG Posts: 368 Mover and Shaker
    Pants1000 said:
    New McG said:
    Beer40 said:
    Pants1000 said:
    If you find yourself being "forced to hoard" because of vaulting, keep playing and you can get over that hump.  Just don't spend ISO champing vaulted 4's, and don't be afraid to let 1 or 2 of the weaker characters leave the latest without champing them.
    I've actually champed a few vaulted characters since it was introduced because they were so close to 13 covers. So I do agree partly with you that if you're "forced to hoard" due to an ISO shortage then avoiding spending it on vaulted characters will definitely help.

    However, its the part I put in bold that just doesn't add up to me, so I'll ask about it. What are you doing with those weaker characters? Do you apply 13 covers, not level them up, and then sell off every extra cover you get for the ISO? 

    That seems viable if the pulls are right. RNG can be absolutely crazy though. I'm not sure I'd want to go that route if RNG was not on my side, because the trickle down effect could be pretty severe (at least I think it could).
    Yes, that's exactly what you do. If you sell a few covers for someone who is rotating out in a matter of weeks and instead prioritize iso toward characters who will provide champ rewards for months, your waste on your pulls will be minimized.
    Yep, I probably sold 5-10 Spiderwoman covers.  If I had started hoarding earlier I could have reduced that, but I don't regret it.  
    Same here. Spiderwoman and Wasp both probably could have been at 275-280 when they rotated out, but I held off. Now I am getting the last 15 levels on R&G and then need about 3 Sandman covers to be "caught up". And instead of having Wasp/SW finished, I actually have been able to run a couple 5* (Thanos and BP) up to around 375, which helps make the trivial nodes in PVE slightly more trivial.
  • MissChinch
    MissChinch Posts: 509 Critical Contributor

    The magic number is around 17.5k ISO / day if you average above that then you will eventually not have ISO hold you back from championing every incoming 4* and getting to a point where you're pulling mostly champion rewards.  For that to work you have to be averaging over 1 4* pull every other day. 

    Once you're there you can look forward to making solid progress on the token 12, no creating any additional backlog work on retired 4* heroes and eventually having extra resources you can either use to catch up on retired 4*s you don't have covered/championed or saving up for many concentrated pulls to get the token 12 4*s into higher champion levels.  (Or if youre interested in transitioning to 5*s, hoard enough pulls to concentrate covers on latest legends)

  • smkspy
    smkspy Posts: 2,024 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited July 2017
    Too many comments did not read all, but yeah, a lot of the best approaches with the twelve was picking and choosing which 12 to champ. Spiderwoman, from the get go, was my choice n9t to champ
    vaulting occurred. She was one of my first finished 12 latest, but I chose to prioritize nearly everyone over her until she got vaulted.

    That said I only hoarded once during that season when she was about to leave tokens, so I did sell quite a few of her. But even though I sold off quite a number of SW cover, I was to champ carol, medusa, blade, and cage along the way.

    Here's the thing about the 12, and the same applied to pre vaulting, you have to decide which characters are going to benefit more in the long run versus immediate gains.

    Hoarding works, no doubt. But selling covers of a character you chose not to champ doesn't hurt your game also. I think too many players have a "I don't want to waste anything" mentality and in the long run it hurts their game more than helps it.
  • Spidurman27
    Spidurman27 Posts: 184 Tile Toppler
    I did similar - I started a mini hoard during C4ge's last season in to focus on 4* Groot, and got him done that first day available.  After that I would pull until I had covered another 4*, and finish champing them.  Rinse/repeat and I ended the season champing 12/12 (pre Sandman).  My key was not pulling covers too fast, and making sure I'd have enough ISO for what I pulled, or time to acquire ISO.  This season I'm being lazy - I don't really want Sandman, so I'm pulling some and hoarding some to work towards 5* tier.  

    Pulling some because with 11/12 champs and most of them being pretty good (and high cover levels in the better ones), I can build some quality 4s short-term.  And hoarding for the future.  
  • MaskedMan
    MaskedMan Posts: 234 Tile Toppler
    And what happens when they revise the Character you bypassed and now he rocks?  LOL

    My problem is that there a a number of characters in the vault right now that I want to champ but I have like 5 or 6 people at 10-12 covers.  In recent event I ended up with 5 4* Carol Danvers cards on a 12/12 character who was level 138.  Talk about ISO debt.  I'd end up in a clock tower if I had to delete 5 Carol Danvers.  (She was low before that because she was 5/0/5 and I had all but given up on her).

    Anyway hording doesn't work because I need cards on things in the vault now but if get the wrong things OH the pain.

    Also hoarding goes against my greedy nature.  I want it now, I want it fast and I want it with whip cream.
  • broll
    broll Posts: 4,732 Chairperson of the Boards
    Not sure why so many people get mad or upset about vaulting (other than need for instant gratification I guess).  Hoarding is one of the most powerful tools in the game for progressing your roster and not wasting resources.
  • Huntah86
    Huntah86 Posts: 221 Tile Toppler
    irwando said:
    broll said:
    Not sure why so many people get mad or upset about vaulting (other than need for instant gratification I guess).  Hoarding is one of the most powerful tools in the game for progressing your roster and not wasting resources.


    Sure, but is it fun? Since vaulting I am overall having much less fun:
    • I always used all of my tokens & CP when I got them and most of the time I got a cover I could use. Now I'm hoarding them knowing a lot of the time they'll be useless until I have most/all of the latest 12 champed.
    • Many of my favorite / best heroes are now rarely if at all leveled. Bonus Heroes sure, but how often do you actually get one?
    • I feel like I am now forced to champion characters I don't want to (Mordo, AV, Riri...) if I want to have the fun of opening tokens/CP and not waste them, or I have to wait months and months for them to cycle out.
    Once again D3 has designed a system where the best thing to do is to do nothing. The best way to manage your tokens/not waste resources? Don't use them, hoard. It is the same as my major problem with PvP - the best way to advance is to spend most of the time not playing (shielding) and to only play in little bits.

    The fun of the game is playing and seeing what rewards I get, and the new design continues to take that away from me.


    I'm still having a ton of fun. I only had to hoard a couple times after vaulting (when I had a 4* waiting on ISO to champ and I didn't wanna risk pulling more LTs and wasting covers) and I do agree that it was difficult to hoard but as soon as I champed and got to dive into my hoard it was a BLAST to open those tokens.  If you're going for vaulted covers then BH gets you that specific cover faster so far in my experience (I've actually already finished off 4 or 5 vaulted 4* that were sitting at 1 - 3 covers from champing before vaulting for months upon months). And to touch upon your last point, I completely understand feeling like you're forced to champ 4*s you don't care about but I have a gotta catch em all attitude anyways and quite a few have actually really surprised me after champing.  Riri really isn't as bad as everybody says, she's a pretty solid damage dealer and her blue is SUPER niche but when it's useful it's pretty great. AV is one of my favorites, he does great damage for only 5 black AP. I use him in trivial nodes and wave nodes A LOT teamed with Thanos. Mordo I can't say anything good about though lol
  • broll
    broll Posts: 4,732 Chairperson of the Boards
    irwando said:
    broll said:
    Not sure why so many people get mad or upset about vaulting (other than need for instant gratification I guess).  Hoarding is one of the most powerful tools in the game for progressing your roster and not wasting resources.


    Sure, but is it fun? Since vaulting I am overall having much less fun:
    • I always used all of my tokens & CP when I got them and most of the time I got a cover I could use. Now I'm hoarding them knowing a lot of the time they'll be useless until I have most/all of the latest 12 champed.
    • Many of my favorite / best heroes are now rarely if at all leveled. Bonus Heroes sure, but how often do you actually get one?
    • I feel like I am now forced to champion characters I don't want to (Mordo, AV, Riri...) if I want to have the fun of opening tokens/CP and not waste them, or I have to wait months and months for them to cycle out.
    Once again D3 has designed a system where the best thing to do is to do nothing. The best way to manage your tokens/not waste resources? Don't use them, hoard. It is the same as my major problem with PvP - the best way to advance is to spend most of the time not playing (shielding) and to only play in little bits.

    The fun of the game is playing and seeing what rewards I get, and the new design continues to take that away from me.
    Depends on what fun is to you I guess.  I get a ton of enjoyment out of the planning and optimizing ways to use my resources.  But I'm sure I'm in the minority there.
  • MissChinch
    MissChinch Posts: 509 Critical Contributor
    broll said:
    irwando said:
    broll said:
    Not sure why so many people get mad or upset about vaulting (other than need for instant gratification I guess).  Hoarding is one of the most powerful tools in the game for progressing your roster and not wasting resources.


    Sure, but is it fun? Since vaulting I am overall having much less fun:
    • I always used all of my tokens & CP when I got them and most of the time I got a cover I could use. Now I'm hoarding them knowing a lot of the time they'll be useless until I have most/all of the latest 12 champed.
    • Many of my favorite / best heroes are now rarely if at all leveled. Bonus Heroes sure, but how often do you actually get one?
    • I feel like I am now forced to champion characters I don't want to (Mordo, AV, Riri...) if I want to have the fun of opening tokens/CP and not waste them, or I have to wait months and months for them to cycle out.
    Once again D3 has designed a system where the best thing to do is to do nothing. The best way to manage your tokens/not waste resources? Don't use them, hoard. It is the same as my major problem with PvP - the best way to advance is to spend most of the time not playing (shielding) and to only play in little bits.

    The fun of the game is playing and seeing what rewards I get, and the new design continues to take that away from me.
    Depends on what fun is to you I guess.  I get a ton of enjoyment out of the planning and optimizing ways to use my resources.  But I'm sure I'm in the minority there.

    I can agree with that, to the point where devising an optimal strategy/build/rotation for a game is often more fun than executing it...  WoW got to the point where once my spreadsheet was done and I was sure I'd hit on the optimal set of equipment/skills and rotation actually playing the game was pretty boring...
  • broll
    broll Posts: 4,732 Chairperson of the Boards
    MissChinch said:
    broll said:
    irwando said:
    broll said:
    Not sure why so many people get mad or upset about vaulting (other than need for instant gratification I guess).  Hoarding is one of the most powerful tools in the game for progressing your roster and not wasting resources.


    Sure, but is it fun? Since vaulting I am overall having much less fun:
    • I always used all of my tokens & CP when I got them and most of the time I got a cover I could use. Now I'm hoarding them knowing a lot of the time they'll be useless until I have most/all of the latest 12 champed.
    • Many of my favorite / best heroes are now rarely if at all leveled. Bonus Heroes sure, but how often do you actually get one?
    • I feel like I am now forced to champion characters I don't want to (Mordo, AV, Riri...) if I want to have the fun of opening tokens/CP and not waste them, or I have to wait months and months for them to cycle out.
    Once again D3 has designed a system where the best thing to do is to do nothing. The best way to manage your tokens/not waste resources? Don't use them, hoard. It is the same as my major problem with PvP - the best way to advance is to spend most of the time not playing (shielding) and to only play in little bits.

    The fun of the game is playing and seeing what rewards I get, and the new design continues to take that away from me.
    Depends on what fun is to you I guess.  I get a ton of enjoyment out of the planning and optimizing ways to use my resources.  But I'm sure I'm in the minority there.

    I can agree with that, to the point where devising an optimal strategy/build/rotation for a game is often more fun than executing it...  WoW got to the point where once my spreadsheet was done and I was sure I'd hit on the optimal set of equipment/skills and rotation actually playing the game was pretty boring...

    Yeah that's kinda where I am too.  The planning / collecting (collecting got a major nerf in IMO with vaulting) are what make the game most fun for me.  If/when I get to a point where I've champed all characters currently out I could see losing interest very quickly.  Especially since vaulting makes it much easier to keep pace once you reach that (but harder to get there in the first place, which seems backwards to me...)
  • BoyWonder1914
    BoyWonder1914 Posts: 884 Critical Contributor
    edited July 2017
    I agree that getting the 12 champed should definitely be a priority for the sake of not wasting resources, but my vaulted heroes need love too. I give them attention when I'm at a standstill, or have some precious covers on the vine. Out of the current 12, Mordo and Riri are not champed, while G4mora and Sandman are not fully covered. My R&G is 2/5/5, so he's practically fully covered as far as my luck is concerned. I still bend here and there with a pull, but for the most part I'm trying to wait until Riri and Mordo are gone before I go crazy. My vine has me focusing on Star Lord and Thing at the moment, but if I don't get any more vaulted covers on the vine I'll go ahead and get Mordo and Riri out of the way. I think we've got 3-4 seasons before they're both gone, which is PLENTY of time. 

    EDIT: If that ever-elusive last blue cover for R&G shows up, or G4mora ends up fully covered I will definitely prioritize them, but I don't think Mordo and Riri are worth it at the moment. I've got them fully covered, so at this point I can just champ them whenever I damn well please, in tokens or not. Same for Spider Woman and Gwen Pool. 
  • n25philly
    n25philly Posts: 426 Mover and Shaker
    broll said:
    MissChinch said:
    broll said:
    irwando said:
    broll said:
    Not sure why so many people get mad or upset about vaulting (other than need for instant gratification I guess).  Hoarding is one of the most powerful tools in the game for progressing your roster and not wasting resources.


    Sure, but is it fun? Since vaulting I am overall having much less fun:
    • I always used all of my tokens & CP when I got them and most of the time I got a cover I could use. Now I'm hoarding them knowing a lot of the time they'll be useless until I have most/all of the latest 12 champed.
    • Many of my favorite / best heroes are now rarely if at all leveled. Bonus Heroes sure, but how often do you actually get one?
    • I feel like I am now forced to champion characters I don't want to (Mordo, AV, Riri...) if I want to have the fun of opening tokens/CP and not waste them, or I have to wait months and months for them to cycle out.
    Once again D3 has designed a system where the best thing to do is to do nothing. The best way to manage your tokens/not waste resources? Don't use them, hoard. It is the same as my major problem with PvP - the best way to advance is to spend most of the time not playing (shielding) and to only play in little bits.

    The fun of the game is playing and seeing what rewards I get, and the new design continues to take that away from me.
    Depends on what fun is to you I guess.  I get a ton of enjoyment out of the planning and optimizing ways to use my resources.  But I'm sure I'm in the minority there.

    I can agree with that, to the point where devising an optimal strategy/build/rotation for a game is often more fun than executing it...  WoW got to the point where once my spreadsheet was done and I was sure I'd hit on the optimal set of equipment/skills and rotation actually playing the game was pretty boring...

    Yeah that's kinda where I am too.  The planning / collecting (collecting got a major nerf in IMO with vaulting) are what make the game most fun for me.  If/when I get to a point where I've champed all characters currently out I could see losing interest very quickly.  Especially since vaulting makes it much easier to keep pace once you reach that (but harder to get there in the first place, which seems backwards to me...)
    It's a good point.  Last year when I was focused on building up and champing the 3*'s a had a spreadsheet with all of their levels, how much iso to level/champ them, etc.  Vaulting hit right before I finished up the 3's that were present at the time.  I was just starting to put together another spreadsheet for the 4*'s and I now look at it and go "what's the point?" Since it apparently is supposed to only have 12 names on it.  Doing all of that tracking, planning, adjusting, etc was a lot of the fun.  Another fun element taken away....

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