How do you level up your characters?

Straycat

Before vaulting, back when I didn't always have a 14th cover waiting, I would level my 4*s to about 188. Back then I didn't have that many 4* champs, and a 5 cover power was still useful even the character wasn't champed. Now if I get to around 250k iso I'll start leveling them up to at least above my 2*s. I had TAHulk at 192 and just champed him. That iso cost difference is probably not that big of a deal, but it feels great spending 270k iso instead of 370k iso to champ him.

animaniactoo

General method, in order of priority:


1) Whoever I can champ/need to champ due to covers on the vine.
2) Whoever is currently an essential character.
3) Whoever was just a major badass when they were essential/buffed because then even unbuffed they become useable options.

4) Whoever needs the least total iso (np, I can spare 2400 to bring you up to your max)

5) Whoever is close to max covers because they become very useful when buffed/essential even before being champed AND if I pull last/extra covers for them it's easy to get them finished without stressing the time crunch.

6) Whoever needs the most iso total.

Currently working on 3*->4* transition, 14 4*s (I need to update my roster below). New release 3*s take priority over new release 4*s in terms of leveling up to near champ, but 4*s take priority in champing. 5*s are at the bottom of the list but I don't have more than 4 covers for any of them so that's a future horizon thing.

smkspy

Crash level up at the bare minimum everyone that can beat theirs.

Otherwise I wait til I'm ready to champ a character before dumping iso into them.

5 stars are stuck at 255 regardless of covers til I'm ready to move up into 5 star land.

Jaedenkaal

aesthetocyst said:

"How do I level my characters?" With iso, of course.

Jaedenkaal said:

I level them up 4 levels at a time so I can write down all the numbers from their abilities that scale. 

... Hi, I'm MPQ Jaedenkaal, and I have a spreadsheet problem.

You should be updating the Wiki!

Does the wiki have ability-damage-scaling-by-level tables? o.O

Seriously though. Ain't no one got time for that. I should have been putting it on my google drive, if I'd been thinking, but there's too many calculations in there now.

veny

Simple rule - when i get 14th cover from legendary token i am trying to champ that hero if possible (thanks to lack of ISO i have around 10 4*s prepared for promotion but lacking iso).
Naturally i prioritize new 4*s with triple dropchance.

shardwick

I go with who has the most covers, then pour enough iso into them to get to 200. Then I'll go ten levels at a time until they hit 270 and are ready to champ.

Dotproduct

I have a running 400-500k surplus of ISO, so I level the characters to the max they are able to when I get a new cover. 

Kevin61

Since I usually open LT's and cash in CP as soon as I can, if I get a cover for a character that is not champed, I will stop pulling and concentrate on that character.  95% of the time, I can get enough ISO to champ them before the cover expires.  Lather, rinse, repeat.  Currently have 38 champed 4*'s.

Hyposphere6234

Usually, I level up my lowest level characters first. But I'm transitioning to 4* and have hit that bittersweet spot from the 3* transition where once I was previously underdeveloped and a single cover didn't really make a difference, now a lot is happening all at once with just a single cover.

As much as I'd like to focus on a single character during 4* land, like the 3* phase, you don't know where the next cover is going to land. I'd rather keep an even keel on characters during a lull so when that last cover lands for whoever, I'm in a position to be able to focus resources wherever needed.

New 4*s don't really phase me as I'm still trying to collect covers for characters that were released over two years ago.

DarthDeVo

I used to try and stay on top of each character as I pulled covers as best as I could. At one point (not counting 5*s), I only had like four or five characters that needed to be leveled. 

Mostly, I just didn't like looking at the character selection screen and seeing the yellow level up arrow. I wanted everyone to be as high as they could be. 

But then it seemed I was getting a lot of 4*s to that point where it just costs a ton to level up with each cover added. 

I'm also in the middle of hoarding and started to realize that when it comes time to pull, there's a real possibility I could pull the covers to get a number of characters to 13 covers and beyond, and that I should be much more selective with my leveling. Otherwise there's a very real possibility that I have a number of covers in my queue, but not enough ISO to champ the characters that need to be champed.

I can't remember how long ago that was (a month, maybe?) and I'm up to 1.71 million ISO. I would be closer to 2M, but I did throw some levels on some characters here and there. 

It will still probably be close to a month before I start pulling the hoard, depending on when Rogue enters tokens. Well, I'm assuming Gambit is the 5*, then Nightcrawler a 4* after that, so maybe when he enters tokens; he's been a favorite character of mine for a long time.

But the reason I started hoarding was to chase Spider-Man, another favorite. I was hoping to do an initial pull, add a bunch of covers and level/champ characters and rebuild the ISO reserve, then do another pull closer to when 5pidey rotates out if I need to. The goal is to try and minimize wasted covers.

At this point, I'm leaning towards doing that initial pull once Ock rotates out and Rogue is in tokens, then doing the rest right before 5pidey rotates out. Nightcrawler should be in by then. 

sambrookjm

I level whichever one is closest to being able to get maxed out.  I just finished champing my last 13 cover 4-star (Venom) so now I'm working on the ones with 12 covers - Kate Bishop and Moon Knight.  Since Kate is closer to being maxed, she's getting the ISO.  5-stars will start getting ISO once all of the 4-stars are done...which is a deficit of at least 700K right now.

Deadsider

I use ISO.

cubnad

Usually LVL my 4* to 180 then when I get a 14th cover champ them. At LVL 180 it's around 300,000 ISO to champ them

UNC_Samurai

Hard for me to compare to newer players, because I went through the two major transitions before champing was a thing.

When I was in the 2->3 transition (this was 12-18 months before champing, I soft-capped most of my 3*s at 120 until I had three 3*s ready to jump to 166 together.

When moving to 4* territory (about 6 months before champing), I charged straight ahead and maxed a 4* as soon as 1: it had 13 covers, and 2: I had the ISO to do so.  

I got a couple of 4*s maxed (Hulkbuster, Fury, Teen Jean) before the 4* covers began accumulating fast enough that the strategy changed - I started leveling the handful of top-tier 4*s as high as I could, and the more important characters at the time (4hor, Iceman, etc.) took priority.  

Then champing happened, and I shifted my priorities back towards getting as many 3*s champed as possible; given the champ rewards and ISO from XP, my strategy was to sell as few covers as possible instead of champing them.

broll

I usually prefer all at once.  If a character comes up for crash before I champ them, I level them as little as I can and still beat their crash.

If I've got a 14th on the vine, the character is top tier, and they're boosted in the current event, then I'll tend to level them day by day.

Top tier characters in a tier I'm not ready for or a character I'm not likely to hit 13 for in the near future I tend to soft cap some.  For example i soft capped Teen Jean, Iceman, Hulkbuster, and a few other 4*s way before I was ready to champ them.  I'm currently planning to level Panthos to 360.

MaskedMan

It depends a lot upon what point in my life I was in LOL.  During 3* to 4* conversion I often/always had a lot more ISO than I had maxed out characters.  Took forever to get Nick Fury to 13 covers (my first 4* champ) so during that time I would level up characters that either looked like they would reach 13 covers or that were good characters and I wanted regardless.

Then D3 let loose the purse strings and I had cards falling out of the sky till I was hip deep in 'em.

Once I started getting characters  I could champ I focused on those especially if I got a 14'th card in which case I have been known to sell off 144 2*'s to raise extra IO (instead of using IO to promote a new 2*). 

Now I am in the opposite position where I have over half my 4*'s champed and at least 3-4 more at 13 so now it is just play favorites between all the needy little tykes that need my help.  Venom and Totally Awful Hulk may be level 70 forever and I don't like to even think about 5*s.