I'm Back.........and I'm Starting Over

Daredevil217

bbigler said:

5* Tier - I've been gaining about 7-8 LL pulls per week, I'm now up to 37 pulls.  It may take 8 months more to hoard the approx goal of 330 pulls and champ 3 of the LLs.  This timeframe gives me the time to champ a good amount of 4*s before then, but that tier will still be mostly incomplete.  Then once I enter 5* land with 3 Champs, I think it will get boring, so I plan to quit at that point.  Why boring?  Because getting another 5* champ will take a very long time, so I'll be stuck playing the same 3 characters ad nauseum. 

This may be a dumb question but why not just stay in the 4* tier?

bbigler

Daredevil217 said:

bbigler said:

5* Tier - I've been gaining about 7-8 LL pulls per week, I'm now up to 37 pulls.  It may take 8 months more to hoard the approx goal of 330 pulls and champ 3 of the LLs.  This timeframe gives me the time to champ a good amount of 4*s before then, but that tier will still be mostly incomplete.  Then once I enter 5* land with 3 Champs, I think it will get boring, so I plan to quit at that point.  Why boring?  Because getting another 5* champ will take a very long time, so I'll be stuck playing the same 3 characters ad nauseum. 

This may be a dumb question but why not just stay in the 4* tier?

2 reasons: the main reason for my restart experiment was to see how fast one could progress through the tiers; the other reason is that I didn't enter the 5* tier before, so I want to see what it's like.  I had a large hoard to enter 5* land, but I quit before doing it.  I suppose my basic plan is to champ as many 3*s and 4*s as I can until I reach about 330 LL pulls, then crack them open. 

tupacboy

man you must play a lot!  

oops press post by accident... but anyways... getting 7-8 LL a week seems crazy to me... how are you getting so many so early?

**Consolidated posts - Ducky

bbigler

tupacboy said:

man you must play a lot!  

oops press post by accident... but anyways... getting 7-8 LL a week seems crazy to me... how are you getting so many so early?

**Consolidated posts - Ducky

Well, I do play a lot.  To be specific, I try to play to max progression rewards in PVE and place in the top 50, for PVP I play to 16 - 40 wins, depending on my time.  This turns into about 100 CP per week, plus 2-3 LTs per week from champing 3*s.  There's also other purchases and VIP LTs too.

bbigler

Day 60 update:

Rank: 54

Slots: 91

12 Champed 3*s - all rostered and in the champing pipeline

0 Champed 4*s - 29 rostered, 39 to go (for now)

0 Rostered 5*s

Hoard: 125 HT, 19 LT, 705 CP

The biggest thing holding me back is still HP for 4* roster slots.  I plan to buy the next HP sale or special package that comes along.  I still play SCL 6 for PVE because I'm scared of level 330 enemies, unless my champed 3*s are boosted.  I can see a clear path to champing 3*s, but 4*s look like a mathematical problem. 

Let's say I had enough HP to roster all 68 - 4* characters, I can get between 10 - 15, 4* covers per week. So, theoretically it would take about 6 weeks to get 1 cover per character.  I have 4 x 4*s with 4+ covers each (so I would need 9 more covers per character).  After 54 weeks (6 x 9) I should be able to start champing 4*s. That's an entire year of playing 3*s until I can transition to playing 4*s!  In practice, it probably won't take that long, but it looks like that on paper.  In that same amount of time I could simply hoard all LT and CP and pull about 330 LL and transition to 5*s. 

I think we need a better 4* transition system in the game.  Once you have champed 4*s and 5*s, then it's easier to get those covers, but before then, 4* dilution will impede the transition. 

Pongie

Instead of jumping in with 3x 5*s and quit, why not get a taste with just 1 5* champion? The mmr would be much better suited for  a 4* roster and you may not need to hoard for 330 pulls. Granted you probably wont get a choice which of the 3 latest you will get covered, but that's still a much better option than quitting.

bbigler

Pongie said:

Instead of jumping in with 3x 5*s and quit, why not get a taste with just 1 5* champion? The mmr would be much better suited for  a 4* roster and you may not need to hoard for 330 pulls. Granted you probably wont get a choice which of the 3 latest you will get covered, but that's still a much better option than quitting.

Quitting after experiencing 5* land is my end goal, my exit strategy.  I'm actually looking forward to it because this game takes too much time to play competitively (and I don't find it entertaining to play casually).  I'm not even sure I can endure for that long - my real life is hurt by this game.  Perhaps the game would be more fun slowly building the 5*s, so I'll consider that option.  But I want to point out that it seems like all people talk about in 5* land is PVP.  I know they play PVE too....so isn't that more fun?

bbigler

On a side note, I'm trying out a new team with my 3*Champs: IM40 + Strange + Kamala.  I probably don't need to explain how it works. 

Phumade

bbigler said:

But I want to point out that it seems like all people talk about in 5* land is PVP.  I know they play PVE too....so isn't that more fun?

In 5* land pve is about as interesting as farming 2*.  Strategies are well defined with no real challenges or tactics.  You either have the roster to be time competitive or not.  Not much strategy otherwise.

PVP you can compete in alot of different tiers/levels against really smart humans and really dumb humans, with a pretty wide array of tactics and strategies.

jtsings

bbigler said:

The biggest thing holding me back is still HP for 4* roster slots.  I plan to buy the next HP sale or special package that comes along.  I still play SCL 6 for PVE because I'm scared of level 330 enemies, unless my champed 3*s are boosted.  I can see a clear path to champing 3*s, but 4*s look like a mathematical problem. 

  That level that's talked about in SCL selection screen is outdated info that has never been changed.  Apparently the 5* node used to go up to 330 but now SCL 7 has essentials highest level 210 (4*), 210(3*), and 200(2*).  The 5* node caps at 245.  Other "hard" nodes are capped at 225,225, and 245.  But if you are trying to competitively place, it will be very difficult to do so without the required 5*.

broll

bbigler said:

On a side note, I'm trying out a new team with my 3*Champs: IM40 + Strange + Kamala.  I probably don't need to explain how it works. 

I remember this being one of my last 3* teams before I graduated to 4*s. 

ThaRoadWarrior

Phumade said:

bbigler said:

But I want to point out that it seems like all people talk about in 5* land is PVP.  I know they play PVE too....so isn't that more fun?

In 5* land pve is about as interesting as farming 2*.  Strategies are well defined with no real challenges or tactics.  You either have the roster to be time competitive or not.  Not much strategy otherwise.

PVP you can compete in alot of different tiers/levels against really smart humans and really dumb humans, with a pretty wide array of tactics and strategies.

where are you playing against real  humans, smart or dumb?

Phumade

ThaRoadWarrior said:

Phumade said:

bbigler said:

But I want to point out that it seems like all people talk about in 5* land is PVP.  I know they play PVE too....so isn't that more fun?

In 5* land pve is about as interesting as farming 2*.  Strategies are well defined with no real challenges or tactics.  You either have the roster to be time competitive or not.  Not much strategy otherwise.

PVP you can compete in alot of different tiers/levels against really smart humans and really dumb humans, with a pretty wide array of tactics and strategies.

where are you playing against real  humans, smart or dumb?

Continuously.  Rewards are based on how well you understand current volume of players.  Assessing if your roster is superior or inferior to their roster, can they retal.  Do other players have to make to play pve and can't enforce.  

That is the key difference.

You could give a 10 year old my roster, and they would probably accomplish 95% of what I can do in pve.

But you could swap my roster with a mediocre roster and I'm still pretty confident I could play pvp competitively.

bbigler

Hey guys, instead of making an update on my restart progress, I wanted to get some playing advice.  In summary, I'm on Day 72 and have 17 Champed 3*s, with zero usable 4*s.  I'm champing about 3 x 3*s per week, so I should be done champing all 3*s around Day 140.  Hopefully after that I can start champing 4*s, but for the next 10 weeks I would like some advice:

In PVP, should I use unboosted top-tier 3*s or go with boosted mid-tier 3*s?
 - I've had good success climbing with Cage and Fist (unboosted), getting to at least 700 per event.  I've been using them instead of the boosted 3*s because they save health packs and can take down any team at my level.  I'm not sure what discourages people more, boosted mid-tier or unboosted top-tier.  Should I try IM40 and Strange?  Fist and Strange?

What's the best 3* Shield Sim team?
- I've been using Cage + Fist + Switch.  I know IM40 + Strange + Kamala works well too, but what team discourages attacks?  Maybe Cage + Fist + Strange?  Patch + Daken + Loki?

What is the highest enemy level I would get in SCL 8?  Because SCL 7 states it goes up to 355, but my highest enemy is 245?

On a side note, I've been having fun playing Hawkguy & Strange in the Honor Among Thieves event.  I think Hawkguy's purple at level 5 is underrated.  He places 4 x 175 strikes = 700 extra damage.  I currently have 99 roster slots, but I'm still roster slot hungry.  I have 37 x 4*s rostered with 32 to go.  My LT & CP hoard is now up to 62 LL pulls.  I'd say all of this is pretty good at Day 72.

Phumade

17 3* is less than 1/2 the tier,  so its pointless to ask for team advice. you have less than 50% chance of even having the chars we suggest.

That said,  you should not worry about tiers and focus more on the levels.  If the bulk of your 3* are in that 150-250 range,  then focus your team building choices there.

In your shoes.  I would identify teams that are good at specials, and teams that can hit without special tiles.  i.e. charged attacks or nukes.  The more speciality teams you can build the easier it is to counter other teams.

The 3* meta isn't very all encompassing and literally any good combo can be countered by different teams.

bbigler

Phumade said:

17 3* is less than 1/2 the tier,  so its pointless to ask for team advice. you have less than 50% chance of even having the chars we suggest.

That said,  you should not worry about tiers and focus more on the levels.  If the bulk of your 3* are in that 150-250 range,  then focus your team building choices there.

In your shoes.  I would identify teams that are good at specials, and teams that can hit without special tiles.  i.e. charged attacks or nukes.  The more speciality teams you can build the easier it is to counter other teams.

The 3* meta isn't very all encompassing and literally any good combo can be countered by different teams.

I'm champing 3*s so fast that even if I don't have a particular character champed now, I will soon, so any team suggestions are considered.  With that said, I have done all of this before and know the tier, with the exception of Angel and Gambit, but I'm sure there are teams that I haven't tried before.

I'm focusing on progressing through the tiers as fast as possible.  It seems that when I'm done champing 3*s, my 4*s should be ready to begin champing them.  If they aren't fully covered, then I'll start opening classics.  By that time, my 3*s may only be between levels 170 - 200, so unless boosted, they will become obsolete and just a farm.  Do you see?

The real long haul in the game is champing the 4* tier.  But I'm guessing halfway through that process my LL hoard can catapult me into 5* land.

AardvarkPepper

In PVP, should I use unboosted top-tier 3*s or go with boosted mid-tier 3*s?

If character tier damage hadn't been pulled down, if you had a more diverse roster, that would be more an ambiguous question.  But nobody cares if your character has 2000 more hit points and does 400 more damage on power activation or whatever.  Well maybe players using 2*s do, but they're running 2*s so . . . maybe they wouldn't be the first thing you should be concerned about.

Case in point, you fight 3* Doctor Strange and he's whatever level.  Use 3* Iron Man, eat damage from using Recharge, blow him up with Unibeam.  Even if he's pretty high level he's not going to hit you for a lot more, and if you planned for chip damage then he's dead.  Like 40 levels is whatever now, sure it makes a difference but it doesn't make enough difference.

Now if you have a selection of characters and you can pick some that are boosted and that complement the Essential then sure yeah go with that.  But if you don't have complementary characters then forget it, right?

What's the best 3* Shield Sim team?

I'll take it you're going on progression, because the answer is different if you're going for placement.  But depending on the match usually it'll be Captain America, Kamala Khan, and Hood or whatever third.  Assuming you don't just get killed before you build up enough AP, assuming they don't have a buncha board shakeup or blow up your Specials like with 3* Falcon then you keep getting AP refunds from your Countdowns assuming you played them well and protected them and didn't get any egregious bad luck.  So Kamala Khan keeps feeding health, you keep doing damage and getting Prot tiles and healing.  Hood has a bomb yellow and his Intimidation lets you permastun by firing Cap blue then Hood black; normally enemies come out of a stun for a turn before you can the AP refund so you can't stun them again right away but Hood black fixes that.  And of course Hood is AP denial if you're careful with the board so there's that.

If you're just firing powers and not getting any refund, well, that doesn't work too well.  If you're trying to outgun opponents that are fundamentally stronger same deal.  So you just play it slow and smart.

What is the highest enemy level I would get in SCL 8?  Because SCL 7 states it goes up to 355, but my highest enemy is 245?

Yeah I think you will get up to 355 depending on event.

As to 3* Hawkeye purple - he's slow and vulnerable to shakeups.  If you're running against Special tile spamming then it's different as he can generate AP and has true healing so he's really worth thinking about especially when those Specials are generated by passives so Strange doesn't do anything with on yellow.  But generally if you're just thinking purple then it's Scarlet Witch; her green can be spec'd for board control and her purple team damages and 5-turn stuns - random, but it's a 5-turn stun, it's always handy.  Certainly 3* Hawkeye is good for certain matchups but mostly people don't go on about him because he's more a specialist.

Daredevil217

Cover save really hit at the right time for you! I would make your goals 330 pulls and every 4* character rostered before your final transition with this new change. Some people had to chuck a crazy amount of covers mass pulling because they didn’t have the iso to champ the 4* they were pulling. This is no longer the case as you can just bank whatever you can’t (or don’t want to champ). I’d strongly consider this. 

Also, I’d make Grocket your 4* bonus. Thank me later. 

ThaRoadWarrior

Phumade said:

Continuously.  Rewards are based on how well you understand current volume of players.  Assessing if your roster is superior or inferior to their roster, can they retal.  Do other players have to make to play pve and can't enforce.  

So the classic poker strategy of play the player, not the hand then. I don't play PVP for placement, so it doesn't even factor into my thinking whether or not someone can retal. My general strategy is wait a day to start, climb to 600 or so, let my health refresh, get to 900 sometime on the last day. If there's something i want in the t50 range, or i'm chasing my season 10-pack, i'll pop a shield to hang on to points, but after the 10-pack i generally just get to 900 and then let my score settle down my floating point and take what i get.

bbigler

Daredevil217 said:

Cover save really hit at the right time for you! I would make your goals 330 pulls and every 4* character rostered before your final transition with this new change. Some people had to chuck a crazy amount of covers mass pulling because they didn’t have the iso to champ the 4* they were pulling. This is no longer the case as you can just bank whatever you can’t (or don’t want to champ). I’d strongly consider this. 

Also, I’d make Grocket your 4* bonus. Thank me later. 

I knew 4*Grocket would be game changing when I first saw his powers, but I ended up quitting before I champed him.  I fantasized about the 4*Grocket + 4*Gamora + Medusa team destroying everything.  My 4*BH is Vulture because everyone says he's the best and I can see why.  In my last HT batch opening, I scored 3 BH covers of Vulture!  Anyway, getting HP to roster all the 4*s is my biggest problem right now.  It will take some more purchases unfortunately.  I currently have 4 that need rostering within 10 days.

Anyway, I think I have a very sound strategy in place for my overall progression and for each event:

PVP - Climb with whatever team works and then set my defense team using the boosted 3*s
        - I make sure I hit 700+ points and use a 3 hr shield, hopefully making top 50, and getting either 32 or 40 wins
Shield Sim - Cage + Fist + Strange are working well to climb and stay, I plan to hit 75 wins
Lightning Rounds - I just play the seed teams for quick rewards
PVE - Do 6 clears, full progression rewards and place in the top 100, maybe top 50
DDQ - of course

As for resource management, all ISO goes to champing 3*s, HP goes to roster slots, HT are saved and opened in batches when I don't have 4*s on the vine, LT's are hoarded, CP is hoarded too, but here's a question:

What path is best after champing all 3*s?  I should have around 50 LT and 2000 CP by then, so:
A. Blow it all - Open all LT and spend all CP on Classics so I can start champing 4*s ASAP, purchase HP to roster the new 5*s and then continue to open LT and Classics whenever possible.  This would be the most fun but delay my transition to 5* land.  But I could simply enjoy playing 4*s and very slowly transition to 5*s.
B. Slow & Steady - Only Spend 100 CP per week to open Classics and keep hoarding LT, this way my hoard continues to grow and I double the rate of getting 4* covers, win-win right?  But this would seriously slow down my 330 LL goal, maybe taking another 9 months to get there.
C. Keep Hoarding - until 330 LL pulls while slowly gaining 4* covers from rewards and non-LT tokens.  This sounds like drudgery since it would take about 5 months more to hit 330 LL pulls, but it would be the fastest path to 5* land.