How to Enter 5* Land

Ramsey

This is certainly not the first topic regarding this subject, nor will it be the last I am sure.  I have read several of these and I have an idea how to proceed, but I would like to avoid making any costly mistakes if I can help it.

I am a t10 pve player in SCL7/8 land and generally only play enough pvp to get my 10 CP each event, rarely scoring over 800. I have completed the champing of my 4*s (at least as far as the character release schedule will allow anyway) and the 2/3 farms are in great shape.  So it is time to turn my attention to my ragtag band of 5*s.  The best covered is Black Bolt at 11 and I have not leveled any past 270.

I have just starting hoarding and I am around 90 LL tokens and the equivalent CP.  Here is my current roster, not including all the 2/3 duplicates: 
https://mpq.gamependium.com/rosters/Ramsey8858/

My biggest questions:

• I have read that I should wait until my hoard is at least 300 and I have a ton of iso before I start converting CP and opening LL tokens.  At that point, I should try to time it when the three latest 5*s are decent enough and then go for broke.  Is this still the prevailing wisdom?
  
  
• Does anybody go the other route and convert CP to CL tokens and slowly try to champ a handful of 5*s?  With 23 heroes now, is the pool just too diluted to do this without wasting many covers?  If so, are my chances of ever champing Gambit, Thor, Thanos, etc. slim to none?
  
  
• I already have my first two 5* covers on the vine (DD and Thanos).  Definitely sell before the timer expires, correct?  Creating a duplicate does no good?
  
  
• As I start building iso, is it safe to level my 5*s a bit?  I know the scaling doesn't affect pve at all, but I don't want to start facing a ton of scary champed 5*s in pvp.  Should I keep all 5*s below my highest 4* (currently 298)?

Thanks in advance for any wisdom you can impart.  I really appreciate the help!

abominatrix

All of this is just my opinion; I have a few champed 5*; people with a larger roster may well have different or better opinions.

Your first point is still the prevailing wisdom among many, although with a big caveat - Gambit. Besides waiting for 300 pulls, and waiting for the right 3 characters being in latest, you also need to wait for one of them to outshine Gambit in the meta. From what I can tell, JJ is not that character, and neither is Ghost Rider. Maybe the next one will be (depending on which rumors you believe). The biggest advantage in pulling a hoard is the exchange service Customer Support provides; you only get that for the 3 latest and it can be a lifesaver (I would never have champed Thor without it).

I happen to think the conventional wisdom is overrated. I know lots of folks who have gone the CP route to champ 5's. Think about it; sure there's dilution at the 5* level, but there's also dilution at the 4* level and you manage to make champs. Sure, it takes 7x as long, and sure, tossing a cover is more painful than a 4*, but you will get there eventually and you already have big head starts with several classics at 8+ covers.

You already have 180 pulls from your description, you could save up to 300 and if the current-3 look good, go for it, if not, use remaining CP either as a head start on LTs or dipping your toes back into classics.

In my personal position I can run combinations of Gambit/Thor/DD, and that works fine for me, so I'm back to pulling classics (except that I hoard before each release so I can pull from the release vault to get the new 5* for essentials). 

Unless you want to level 5* to make the 5e nodes easier, I don't like the idea of putting ISO into random 5*. You CAN safely level them to about 360 with a small impact on sim, but the key question is when would you use them? If you have a 5* with 5 covers in a good power, then leveling them is OK, but otherwise I'd hold the ISO until the moment you discover you need a million or 2 ISO to champ your new 5* champs.

Hope that helps!

Ramsey

Thanks so much for taking the time to provide a detailed response.  Some great food for thought.  It really sounds like Latest vs Classic is a tough decision when spending CP.

Focusing on 3 heroes with no worries about wasting covers vs 20% more tokens and all the heroes available.  Classics is definitely the longer route, but may be ultimately more satisfying if I can handle selling multiple covers.

As far as leveling goes, I may take a few that I have decent covers for and bring them into the low 300s when I have surplus iso.

Thanks again!

dramatist

I am doing things a different way. I have not entered 5* land yet because I want to (relatively) finish my 4*s.  You play more than me because I rarely play PvP. I need to champ 9 4*s still but sometime after Spider-Man left the Latest Legend tokens and Daredevil entered I stopped spending CP on Classics and only pulled Latest. This was because I had Silver Surfer fully covered and didn't want to draw a 14th because I didn't want him as my only 5* champion. My 5* Spider Man has 5 covers. My Daredevil, Gambit and Thor have all 13, AA has 11, Ghost Rider 7 and Jessica Jones 6. When I get ready to spend my Iso on 5*s I'll have several to champ. I'm sitting on 40 Latest pulls atm because I'm out of Iso and raising a couple of 4*s with covers on the vine. I should be able to finish AA before he leaves in about a month and have a good start on GR and JJ.

I also have had customer service do cover swaps on Daredevil, Gambit, Thor and AA so far and it's a great thing to not have to sell a cover that I already have 5 in.

Of course this means I'll probably never finish most classics. My Black Bolt only has 4 covers. Good luck whatever you decide to do.

Ramsey

You make a very persuasive argument for sticking to the LL tokens.  You've played it smart and have some great 5*s ready to champ once you can build enough iso to make that transition.  If the current threesome were more favorable, I'd probably be leaning heavily that way.  But by the time my hoard and iso are ready, it will be a new threesome anyway, heh.  So I can procrastinate here and wait a bit to see how it plays out.

Straycat

If you are earning around 300 tokens in the 3 months or so that a 5* is in latest, then you don't need to hoard. I managed to champ DD, and Thor, Gambit, and AA to 12 covers by opening latests and not hoarding. I like the single 5* champ MMR better, so I am hoarding until AA leaves. But if I wasn't hoarding I'd probably have him champed.
5*s are too diluted in classics and no cover swaps make it real tough. Latest is definitely the way to go, especially since you already pull from them with tokens.

Ramsey

Thanks for the input.  AA seems so underwhelming that I will hoard until he leaves at least.  Shouldn't be too long.  JJ seems decent.  Is there a verdict on how useful Ghost Rider is?

BlackBoltRocks

Hmm AA might seem underwhelming, but I'd argue he's a decent 5* character. Nowhere near Thor or Daredevil level (i won't talk about Gambit) but decent nonetheless. His Blue is ridiculously expensive for what it does, but his Green does great damage for its cost, and his Black can help to slow down the opposition. But I digress. Seeing as your Archie is only 6 covers, I agree that you should hoard at least until he leaves.

For Ghost Rider, he seems alright. CactusJack made a video of his champed Ghosty; you can check it out here:  https://youtu.be/fGR0dGO2aCQ. His Green is meh if there are no surrounding Green/Red/Black tiles, and Red is ok I guess, while his Black does brilliant damage if the target has made a match.

And Jessica is awesome. If you can hit the 260-300 pulls for the time she is in Latests, I strongly recommend maxing and champing her. Someone made several videos of a lv550 Jessica (cos 5* are boosted for four weeks after they debut) against fellow lv550 5*, and she absolutely kicked butt. https://youtu.be/OJwF3RG79uw

GamBaTron

abominatrix said:

The biggest advantage in pulling a hoard is the exchange service Customer Support provides; you only get that for the 3 latest and it can be a lifesaver (I would never have champed Thor without it).

Hello! I’ve been playing this game for a bit but I am still learning the ins and outs. Well more accurately, learning what I’ve been doing wrong this whole time. (just started looking at this forum) Can you explain how this “Exchange Service” works?

abominatrix

Up front, I'll keep one of the admins from reminding us that the exchange service is temporary and may be stopped at any time. I know that the devs don't like it, Customer Support doesn't like it, and it really only seems to exist because without it, the 5* transition would be even worse.

OK; that said...

The service is best given as an example:
Let's say you have a latest legend, call her JJ, and she's covered 3/5/3. You pull a legendary, and you get a 5*, and it's a JJ Black. When this happens, don't sell the cover and take the 2K ISO, instead use the in-game email (settings->Help->Contact Us), and send an email that looks like this:
"Hi! I just opened a Legendary Token, and drew a 5* Jessica Jones Black (Body Check), of which I already have 5 covers. I would appreciate it if this could be converted to a 5* Jessica Jones Red (Defenestrate) cover. Thanks!"
You might get a response reminding you that this is temporary, if you do, just ask them to go ahead with the same request. In any event, Customer Support will look at your account and verify that you have the cover on the vine, and that you can't use it. If so, they'll contact you and tell you to sell the cover, do so and let them know. A day or 2 later, you'll get the new cover and you even get to pocket the 2K.

Again, CS will ONLY do this for either Latest or Release characters (so, Cap, JJ, GR and AA until AA cycles out of Latest). If you had pulled a Bullseye out of the recent Cap release store that you couldn't use, you're still out of luck. It doesn't matter how you got the cover; token pull or bonus hero.

Effectively this means you can champ a Latest hero by just getting 13 covers; everybody else has to get the RIGHT 13 covers. By the way, that's where the 300 pull number comes from; 1/21 chance of drawing a random 5* cover of a character you're interested in * 13 covers is 273 pulls. 300 gives you some buffer, and you have a few other chances at it (Bonus Hero, Legendary champ rewards, etc.).

Hope that helps.

GamBaTron

Yes this definitely helps! Thank you for taking the time to write an in depth explanation.

300 Latest legend pulls! I think it would take me a year to get that many. Am I doing something fundamentally wrong? Other than the fact that when I do get a LL token or 25 HP I have always been too excited to stash it and will use it right away. Now that I know that is a bad practice I’ll try to start saving them. I have one LL token and like 10HP and I want to save it to try to get the new Cap lol.

I just always feel like I am doing something wrong because I always feel way outmatched in PvP. I think I am approaching level 53 and usually play on Level 6 which is the minimum for my rank. Yet, I am severely outmatched by the players I am forced to play against. And trying to acquire that many LL and HP seems impossible to do in a reasonable time. How long did it take you to start approaching the 300 mark?

I am in an alliance, I play every day, I pay for the vip bonuses… I just want to know if anyone has any suggestions on if I am doing anything wrong, or if I just need to stay the course.

Sorry, I don’t mean to take over this thread. Maybe I should split this into a new topic. Because I need a lot of help lol.

heybub

Nice post.  I'm looking to get into 5* land, and this is some good information.  I'm going the hoarding route, have about 30 LTs (counting CP) after a month, so probably will champ my first 5* early next year...

How much Iso do I need to champ 3 5*'s?  I'm at 1.5mil, but this varies as I level lower tier characters.

Quebbster

GamBaTron said:

Yes this definitely helps! Thank you for taking the time to write an in depth explanation.

300 Latest legend pulls! I think it would take me a year to get that many. Am I doing something fundamentally wrong? Other than the fact that when I do get a LL token or 25 HP I have always been too excited to stash it and will use it right away. Now that I know that is a bad practice I’ll try to start saving them. I have one LL token and like 10HP and I want to save it to try to get the new Cap lol.

I just always feel like I am doing something wrong because I always feel way outmatched in PvP. I think I am approaching level 53 and usually play on Level 6 which is the minimum for my rank. Yet, I am severely outmatched by the players I am forced to play against. And trying to acquire that many LL and HP seems impossible to do in a reasonable time. How long did it take you to start approaching the 300 mark?

I am in an alliance, I play every day, I pay for the vip bonuses… I just want to know if anyone has any suggestions on if I am doing anything wrong, or if I just need to stay the course.

Sorry, I don’t mean to take over this thread. Maybe I should split this into a new topic. Because I need a lot of help lol.

Playing at SCL 6 means you are pretty far from optimal progression. At higher levels there is a lot more CP available. I Think you should enjoy SCL 6 as long as you can though, at SCL 7 or above you need to compete with fivestar rosters for placement rewards.

Also, if you are only level 53 that means you are just starting out. Ideally, you want all characters from a tier rostered and preferably champed Before moving on to the next tier. When you no longer rely on a character to get through PvP/PvE you should farm their covers and increase your Resources that way.

I am a fivestar player and I can pull in around 100 pulls a month I Think - I get around 300 CP a week from PvP/PvE progression and placement rewards as well as champion rewards, the rest is the odd token. That does rely on being able to clear SCL 9 in PvE and getting to 1200 in PvP though, that's not easy if you are not already a fivestar player.

If you are still building your fourstar roster (and if you are at level 53 I assume you are), it might be smarter to spend your CP on Classic Legends tokens instead of Latest by the way. The fourstar covers are what you are really after, treat the fivestars as a bonus.

Quebbster

heybub said:

Nice post.  I'm looking to get into 5* land, and this is some good information.  I'm going the hoarding route, have about 30 LTs (counting CP) after a month, so probably will champ my first 5* early next year...

How much Iso do I need to champ 3 5*'s?  I'm at 1.5mil, but this varies as I level lower tier characters.

One fivestar costs around 550 000 ISO to max out, then Another 20 000 ISO to champ, so you are pretty Close to what you need to max Three. You will probably need to use some ISO on the fourstar pulls you get too, so the more you can get the better. If you need to max out twelve Latest fourstars and Three Latest fivestars that's around 6 million ISO, but you probably won't have to do it all in one go...

heybub

Quebbster said:

GamBaTron said:

Yes this definitely helps! Thank you for taking the time to write an in depth explanation.

300 Latest legend pulls! I think it would take me a year to get that many. Am I doing something fundamentally wrong? Other than the fact that when I do get a LL token or 25 HP I have always been too excited to stash it and will use it right away. Now that I know that is a bad practice I’ll try to start saving them. I have one LL token and like 10HP and I want to save it to try to get the new Cap lol.

I just always feel like I am doing something wrong because I always feel way outmatched in PvP. I think I am approaching level 53 and usually play on Level 6 which is the minimum for my rank. Yet, I am severely outmatched by the players I am forced to play against. And trying to acquire that many LL and HP seems impossible to do in a reasonable time. How long did it take you to start approaching the 300 mark?

I am in an alliance, I play every day, I pay for the vip bonuses… I just want to know if anyone has any suggestions on if I am doing anything wrong, or if I just need to stay the course.

Sorry, I don’t mean to take over this thread. Maybe I should split this into a new topic. Because I need a lot of help lol.

Playing at SCL 6 means you are pretty far from optimal progression. At higher levels there is a lot more CP available. I Think you should enjoy SCL 6 as long as you can though, at SCL 7 or above you need to compete with fivestar rosters for placement rewards.

Also, if you are only level 53 that means you are just starting out. Ideally, you want all characters from a tier rostered and preferably champed Before moving on to the next tier. When you no longer rely on a character to get through PvP/PvE you should farm their covers and increase your Resources that way.

I am a fivestar player and I can pull in around 100 pulls a month I Think - I get around 300 CP a week from PvP/PvE progression and placement rewards as well as champion rewards, the rest is the odd token. That does rely on being able to clear SCL 9 in PvE and getting to 1200 in PvP though, that's not easy if you are not already a fivestar player.

If you are still building your fourstar roster (and if you are at level 53 I assume you are), it might be smarter to spend your CP on Classic Legends tokens instead of Latest by the way. The fourstar covers are what you are really after, treat the fivestars as a bonus.

Quebbster...clearing PVE and 1200 in PVP???!!! How much time do you spend on this game?  I used to push and clear PVE, but lately I'm reduced to getting the 4*, maybe that 8-10 ISO if i focus....

Quebbster

heybub said:

Quebbster said:

GamBaTron said:

Yes this definitely helps! Thank you for taking the time to write an in depth explanation.

300 Latest legend pulls! I think it would take me a year to get that many. Am I doing something fundamentally wrong? Other than the fact that when I do get a LL token or 25 HP I have always been too excited to stash it and will use it right away. Now that I know that is a bad practice I’ll try to start saving them. I have one LL token and like 10HP and I want to save it to try to get the new Cap lol.

I just always feel like I am doing something wrong because I always feel way outmatched in PvP. I think I am approaching level 53 and usually play on Level 6 which is the minimum for my rank. Yet, I am severely outmatched by the players I am forced to play against. And trying to acquire that many LL and HP seems impossible to do in a reasonable time. How long did it take you to start approaching the 300 mark?

I am in an alliance, I play every day, I pay for the vip bonuses… I just want to know if anyone has any suggestions on if I am doing anything wrong, or if I just need to stay the course.

Sorry, I don’t mean to take over this thread. Maybe I should split this into a new topic. Because I need a lot of help lol.

Playing at SCL 6 means you are pretty far from optimal progression. At higher levels there is a lot more CP available. I Think you should enjoy SCL 6 as long as you can though, at SCL 7 or above you need to compete with fivestar rosters for placement rewards.

Also, if you are only level 53 that means you are just starting out. Ideally, you want all characters from a tier rostered and preferably champed Before moving on to the next tier. When you no longer rely on a character to get through PvP/PvE you should farm their covers and increase your Resources that way.

I am a fivestar player and I can pull in around 100 pulls a month I Think - I get around 300 CP a week from PvP/PvE progression and placement rewards as well as champion rewards, the rest is the odd token. That does rely on being able to clear SCL 9 in PvE and getting to 1200 in PvP though, that's not easy if you are not already a fivestar player.

If you are still building your fourstar roster (and if you are at level 53 I assume you are), it might be smarter to spend your CP on Classic Legends tokens instead of Latest by the way. The fourstar covers are what you are really after, treat the fivestars as a bonus.

Quebbster...clearing PVE and 1200 in PVP???!!! How much time do you spend on this game?  I used to push and clear PVE, but lately I'm reduced to getting the 4*, maybe that 8-10 ISO if i focus....

I prefer to not Think about that. 1200 is the easy bit of PvP though.