The 5-star Pitfall

TPF Alexis

Dormammu said:

I level all my 5-stars to 270. I don't do this to use them, I do this so that they always fit in my roster above the 3-stars but below my champed 4-stars in a nice group.

I started doing this after you mentioned it in another thread. It does help keep my roster tidier.

I also have a handful that I've brought up a bit higher, but not past my unboosted 4* champs. Gets a nice little extra bit of HP and match damage. Most of those are at least 5 covers, with all three colours, as well, so it bumps up some of the powers a little, too. Not a huge deal, but it helps sometimes when they're the 5* essential, and I don't really expect to lose my ISO surplus any time soon, given my relative ISO and CP incomes.

randomhero1090

I fell for it early.  A waste of ISO when I was flush on ISO.  But not sure how much it impacts until I am fighting from the top 10 of my cut.  Then I get monster matchups. 

Like in the current PVP...  My Rag is boosted level 307, JJ 345 then have single cover Gambit and Arch at 270.  My next would be a boosted 258 Thor.  I just rinsed through some matchups and they aren't crazy.  Some very favorable.  Again, isn't until I get way up that I get crushed.

I do have to be careful.  I have nothing to offer defensive-wise.  So I need to time my run at the 3hr or 8hr mark and then shield.  If I am not shielding, I just sit in 300-400 point land until the final 30 minutes and see if I can sneak a top 25.

Sandmaker

We really need to stop referring to this issue as some kind of a problem with 5* covers.

It is not a "5*" pitfall. It is a "Broken PvP System" pitfall. 

The game shouldn't need to educate its players better on how to not level 5* characters or put some kind of constraint on 5*s, it needs to have its backwards PvP system fixed. 

It is extremely unintuitive and frankly terrible game design to have a leveling system where the optimal move is to actively avoid making certain characters stronger. 

One thing that should have been done ages ago is to stop only using levels to determine a character's strength. Give each character a proxy strength rating that is calculated as a function of the character's level, star rating, and the number of covers it has. You can then use this proxy rating to determine the top 3 strongest character in a roster for the purpose of match making. 

Raud

Good that game punish them only in PVP and team events not in PVE like before.
I have bad luck to 5* so i think i sooner champ every 4* and max 3* than cover Gambit and Bolt.

Anon

When Silver Surfer came out I pumped Iso into him. He's 315 and the highest level character on my roster. I've learned to hold off on 5* before your 4* are in order.

Frequently I find myself matched against people with very few if any champed 4* (most have barely covered 3*!) with 5* leveled to the max. All in all extremely easy points, but I do feel bad for them. My 5*Thor is at 12 covers and I still haven't leveled him. 

Shintok17

Dormammu said:

I level all my 5-stars to 270. I don't do this to use them, I do this so that they always fit in my roster above the 3-stars but below my champed 4-stars in a nice group.

I thought I was the only one who leveled all their 5*'s to 270 no matter the amount of covers they had. This has been good for me MMR wise. Now that I have six 4*'s champed though I only see boosted or non boosted 4*'s in PVP and the occasional lower leveled 5*. Now that my 4*'s are level 275 and up I think it's time to level up the 5*'s to that level. Will it affect my MMR matching my 5*'s level with my Champ 4*'s level?

Shintok17

aesthetocyst said:

Shouldn't.

Thanks.

CenturyChild

Yeah... if it wasn't for my OML I would probably play PVP more frequently. He's not good enough to use in PVP but 70% of the teams I'm matched against are using at least one 5* and my roster's not good enough yet to really contend with that. I really only play PVE because of it, he pushed me through PVE earlier on so effectively that I'm hesitant about selling him. I can fare well enough without him now, so I should probably ditch him, but it feels like sacrilege to sell a 5* because who knows when I'll ever get him back.

It doesn't help that I only have his red ability.

I've learned my mistake, but I've yet to really figure out what I'm gonna do because of it.

Alfje17

Calnexin said:

The game doesn't tell you anything about "MMR".  You have to find that out the hard way.  I think that's a disservice to newer players.  They get some 5* covers and think it makes them more competitive in PvP, when in reality it makes them far less.

Some of them may be purposeful.  Although leveling those 5* ruins MMR, they become far more useful in PvE, particularly if you lack the weekly boosted 4*s.  I've leveled a few undercovered 5* (Gambit, Daredevil, Black Bolt) beyond their starting 255 because they gain a tremendous amount of health and damage capability that make some of the more difficult nodes a lot quicker.  It's a huge jump-start in that area of the game, when speed matters but your more organically growing roster can't handle the highest tier available to you.  It allows you to bootstrap that mode at the expense of being able to do much in PvP.

Some sort of tutorial at the end of the Prologue explaining why you should hang on to your 1* and 2*, would be useful. I'm in a very casual alliance and we get a lot of new players in: often they have sold off most of their 1* and 2* in order to roster 3* and 4* covers. They end up with a very weak roster, can't advance and drop the game.

I softcapped my first 5* as I was unaware of MMR, so I didn't play PvP for about a year, on the other hand it helped me enormous in PVE, so no regrets there.

PenniesForEveryone

Dormammu said:

4) PvE. Maybe those 5-stars help them play at a higher SCL level in PvE, I don't know. If nothing else they do impressive match damage and soak up a bit of damage.

I think it's mostly this one.  A new player that lucks into a 1/1/1 5* will be able to use that character in PvE at level 300 all the way through the 3* tier.  Additionally, the additional levels can make the difference between being able to clear the 5* essential node or not at some SCLs.  Personally I have been leveling most of my 5s just for that essential node, but I've got more ISO than I know what to do with right now.

DAZ0273

Some 5* are more useful than others at lower levels also.

For example a 1 cover Green Goblin black hits for 3k+ damage. Not bad for a PvE meatshield.