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

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  • ThaRoadWarrior
    ThaRoadWarrior Posts: 9,162 Chairperson of the Boards
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    What it the long term goal? To see how fast you can "complete" each tier? if so, does this mean fully champed, or just on roster?

    Or is it to see how quickly you can make it to 5* play? If the former, do option A. If the latter, I guess do option C and hope when you spend it that it's either in a good special store or that there are 3 winners in Latest.
  • bbigler
    bbigler Posts: 2,115 Chairperson of the Boards
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    ThaRoadWarrior said:
    What it the long term goal? To see how fast you can "complete" each tier? if so, does this mean fully champed, or just on roster?

    Or is it to see how quickly you can make it to 5* play? If the former, do option A. If the latter, I guess do option C and hope when you spend it that it's either in a good special store or that there are 3 winners in Latest.
    Good question.  My original and current goal is to see how fast a new player can reach 5* play.  I'm predicting it would take 1 year, being a very active player and spending a reasonable amount of money (<$300).  Honestly, I don't care how good the Latest 5*s are because after I champ them and play a little longer, I would quit.  That's my exit strategy.  So, maybe option C is best for me.  But........

    The 4* tier has great variety and may be more fun to play, but I've done that before in 2017 (before quitting).  Still, there are a ton of 4*s that I've never used on a regular basis.  I suppose the real fun of the game is discovering new teams from your new champs.  So, jumping to 3 x 5* champs may be a horrible idea as it limits your team options.  With that in mind, jumping into the 4* tier quickly and slowly building 5*s may be the funnest way to play, which is plan A.

    To answer your other question: I don't plan to "complete" the 4* tier before champing 5*s, but I do plan to have everyone rostered with maybe 20 - 30 champs.  The 3* tier will be completed, all champed, but reaching max champ level may not happen within 1 year. 
  • ThaRoadWarrior
    ThaRoadWarrior Posts: 9,162 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited August 2018
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    I'm currently doing option A myself. To me, the core mechanic is match 3, but the "game" is roster building. So I've been chasing 4* champs in classic, and getting whatever 5*s I get (I had a brief run of only spending in latest, and got Gho5t Rider to 8 covers) - my best purely-from-classics character at this point is Hawkeye at 7 covers, also 5* Lord is the same. 

    I've set myself the short-term goal of having every 4* at 10 covers, and enough iso to be able to bring them to 209 whenever Shield Training demands it in between champing them. I have 25 champions, probably 10-13 waiting on iso to champ, and the rest somewhere below that. i have 15 4*s that still need covers to get to 10. After that, I guess we'll see. Hoarding holds no appeal for me, and as a completely F2P player I find it hard to imagine being a competitive 5* player without spending anything. I'm sure one day I'll just wake up and be like "what am i doing with my life?" and quit, but in the meantime it is still compelling lol.
  • Daredevil217
    Daredevil217 Posts: 3,913 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited August 2018
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    Seems you have competing goals. Getting to the 5* tier as fast as possible (goal 1) would hinder you from having a fully fleshed out 4* roster where you could make fun team combinations (goal 2). The fast way and the fun way are not compatible goals. Since the fast way is your target, then I’d say option C.

    However, here is another strategy you could employ. When you hit 300-330 pulls and 1.7 million iso, open the hoard. Once you get three 5* fully covered (with any extras banked), stop. You can then mark the date, and say it took me [???] days to go from new account to 5* play. But you don’t have to put that iso in the 5s. You can instead invest it in the many 4s you just opened up and enjoy that tier. That way you get to complete your experiment (goal 1) and truly enjoy and flesh out the most fun tier of play (goal 2).

    I sort of did the same. I amassed a HUGE hoard just because without opening covers I was getting 4s covered faster than I could champ them. I had no desire to ever actually enter the 5* tier but DD was set to leave Latests and he is my favorite super hero ever (and my screen name). So I finally busted my huge hoard. And max-covered him (still no iso in him or any other 5). And through selling my 2* farm and grinding like crazy was able to save like 98% of the 4s I pulled (this would not be an issue for you with cover save). 

    Today I have Daredevil, Jessica, Goblin and Thor max-covered (I had Gambit as well, but had CS melt him and I rebuilt him 4/2/5 so a feeder could finish him). I also have Angel, Panther, and Ghost Rider at 11 and Okoye at 10 with about 270 pulls to finish her. But more importantly, I have every 4 but Emma champed, and so I get to enjoy a wide array of fun team combos and don’t have to deal with 5* MMR.   I will eventually  bring my 5s up to about level 300+ once I’m done fleshing out the 3* farm and then will have even more options.   Definitely worth considering going this route. 
  • bbigler
    bbigler Posts: 2,115 Chairperson of the Boards
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    ThaRoadWarrior said:
     Hoarding holds no appeal for me, and as a completely F2P player I find it hard to imagine being a competitive 5* player without spending anything. I'm sure one day I'll just wake up and be like "what am i doing with my life?" and quit, but in the meantime it is still compelling lol.
    Well said.  The last several times I've quit, I've said to myself, "what am I doing with my life, this is such a waste".  But I've come back again and again because I needed something fun to fill those moments in-between the important things I do.  Unfortunately, this game sucks too much time away from my life. 

    As for hoarding, I've heard other players say that you don't need to hoard in order to build the latest 5*s.  I calculated that is true if you can open about 15 LL per week, which is a lot.  But if your goal is to get them to 10 covers, then that is much easier. 
  • ThaRoadWarrior
    ThaRoadWarrior Posts: 9,162 Chairperson of the Boards
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    My goal when I got serious about playing was to try and race to catch up with new releases so I could then slow down and play more casually. As it is, I play PVE to progression most times (4X clears in SCL 8 since i have all 5s on roster) and now that I can, I generally go to 900 in PVP for the cover. I'm starting to get to the point (especially in a post-save world) where covers aren't my scarcity, and I'll just be in iso debt forever. We'll see how long that feels fun I suppose...
  • CT1888
    CT1888 Posts: 1,201 Chairperson of the Boards
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    You don't have to hoard to cover latest 5*s it is true, but for me it has taken a number of factors to be able to do (I've managed to cover most since Thanos was released)  Pve progression >50% of the time, consistent top 25 in pvp getting 900 to 1200 points, plus having enough 3* in the sweet spot for champ rewards for the high CP and LT ones (why top 25 is important to me), and getting a flow from 4*s as well.

    If you want to reach 5* and get out, do it in style - get enough cp for a new release store, cover and champ the new character, stride around like a titan with thanks to the new character boost, crushing all around then retire.

  • bbigler
    bbigler Posts: 2,115 Chairperson of the Boards
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    CT1888 said:
    You don't have to hoard to cover latest 5*s it is true, but for me it has taken a number of factors to be able to do (I've managed to cover most since Thanos was released)  Pve progression >50% of the time, consistent top 25 in pvp getting 900 to 1200 points, plus having enough 3* in the sweet spot for champ rewards for the high CP and LT ones (why top 25 is important to me), and getting a flow from 4*s as well.

    If you want to reach 5* and get out, do it in style - get enough cp for a new release store, cover and champ the new character, stride around like a titan with thanks to the new character boost, crushing all around then retire.

    That actually sounds like a lot of fun.................save CP & ISO for a new release store, then cover and champ.  Do all new release stores include 3 x 5*s nowadays?  Because before, it was just the new release.  How much CP and ISO would that take?  I'm guessing 1.5 mil ISO and 7500 CP................that's a lot!
  • bbigler
    bbigler Posts: 2,115 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Hi everyone, if you're interested, here's my Day 93 Update.  In summary, my actual performance is exceeding my predictions, which is great.  The end is in sight with champing 3*s so that I can start on 4*s:

    Stats:
    Rank 68 --- Slots 116
    LL Hoard = 42 LT + 1340 CP = 96 Pulls!
    2* Farm --- they are now in the 2nd generation
    3* Champs = 26 Done and 21 Left
    4* Characters --- 52 Rostered and 18 Left (I'm not rostering Dino and Howard)
    5* Characters --- Just 1 Black Bolt which came from a Boss Event token
    *Even though I can play SCL 8, I go down to 7 to save time

    Production Rates:
    Approx. 400K ISO per week = 3 x 3* Champs
    Approx. 2800 HP per week
    Approx. 150 CP per week
    Approx. 4 LT per week
    Approx. 14 x 4* covers per week (while hoarding LL pulls)

    Goals and Other Stuff:
    The next 7 weeks are straightforward....champ 3 x 3*s per week while collecting 4*s and hoarding LL pulls.  I hope to have all 4*s rostered by then, but once I champ all 3*s, it's decision time.  I've been thinking and calculating the best course of action, but it's still foggy.  It seems best to champ half of the 4* tier before moving onto 5*s. 

    About a week ago I beat my first Crash of the Titans with Black Widow taking down War Machine!  I must have tried 20 times, while slowly getting more covers and leveling her up to level 125 at 2/2/2.  After playing him 20 times I got the strategy perfectly figured out too.  I have 8 x 4*s with 6 covers each, which I think is very good at this point.  In about 4 weeks, my 3* Champs should start hitting level 183 and rewarding 4* covers too.  Getting 3* covers is not even a concern, I just need a ton of ISO to champ them.  My roster slot hunger is finally over.  I've opened my hoard of Heroic Tokens and rostered everyone.  My LL hoard is growing well, but when I champ all 3*s, I'm not sure just yet what to do with it.  I should have around 170 pulls by then. 
  • Phumade
    Phumade Posts: 2,477 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Keep track of your production rates.  That info is particularly useful
  • bbigler
    bbigler Posts: 2,115 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Since the announcement of Kitty Pryde, I've finally decided the path I'll take to build my 4*s and 5*s.  Keep in mind that with my new roster, I currently have just one 5* because I've been hoarding. Here's my current status and plans, which I think is of interest:

    Current status: Day 117
    Rank 74 - Slots 125
    2* Farm - end of 2nd generation 
    3* Champs - 36 Done, 11 To Go
    4* Rostered - 60 Done, 11 To Go
    LL Hoard - 129 pulls available 
    Top 10 x 4*s - between 6 - 8 covers

    Upcoming Plans: 
    3 weeks - finish champing 3*s!
    5 weeks - level up 4*s and hoard
    Once Wasp leaves Latest, I'll open the hoard! (Around 220 pulls), then I'll start champing 4*s and continue to open Latest for the next 12 weeks. By then I'll have some max covered 5*s and will start leveling them up and see how it changes my PVE and PVP experience. Going forward, I would not hoard but continue to open Latest.

    I realize that this plan ignores the Classic 5*s, which are essential in PVE and useful in PVP, but I would rather have a few 5* Champs than 20+ 5*s with 1- 3 covers each. Classic 5* champs are practically unobtainable to new players. I've put a lot of thought into this and I'm planning to start a separate thread to talk about the 5* transition and its many options.
  • RussR16
    RussR16 Posts: 2 Just Dropped In
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    SymmeTrey said:

    Supports are also largely useless, but, the complaints there also stem from long time players wanting something new (again, very valid)... but, new or returning players can basically ignore Supports and just enjoy the content already there. Maybe by the time a new player exhausts current content, Supports might even worth playing with.
    I am a 4* player who has actually enjoyed some of the supports, I got Starlord’s blasters leveled up far enough to have a decent chance of fortifying a tile on match, and he is combo-ing well w/Shuri.  I have already seen a difference with the Red ISO boosts in rewards, and the volume coming out now means I can probably do a little more experimentation with leveling up some other ones.
  • bbigler
    bbigler Posts: 2,115 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Day 164 Update (5 months):  Yesterday was the glorious day I cracked open my hoard of 200 LL pulls.  I couldn't wait any longer because my 4* progress was being stalled. This was a great jump into 4* play and set my goals for 5* champs. I definitely felt the full impact of 4* dilution when doing this. Some of my 4*s didn't even get 1 cover. To break down how my roster has improved, I'll give the before and after:

    Top 10 x 4*s Before:
    Ghost 5/2/4 level 229
    Medusa 2/4/4 level 209
    XFDP 3/3/3 level 188
    Miles 3/4/2 level 188
    Taskmaster 3/2/4 level 188
    Spiderwoman 1/2/5 l level 172
    Wasp 4/3/1 level 172
    Carnage 3/2/3 level 168
    Nova 2/3/3 level 168
    Widow 3/2/3 level 168

    My 5*BH was set to Kitty and 4*BH was Grocket or Carnage. My hope was to get Kitty to 10 covers and Grocket, Carnage Medusa to 11-12 covers. My Grocket was a lowly 2/2/1 before.

    New 5* Characters After:
    Kitty 1/3/3 => just 1 Yellow! :(
    Cable 5/5/1
    Loki 3/4/3

    Top 10 x 4*s After:
    Grocket 4/5/4 level 273
    Medusa 5/4/4 level 270
    Carnage 3/5/4 level 250
    Ghost 5/3/5 level 229
    XFDP 3/4/5 level 188
    Miles 4/5/3 level 188
    Nova 3/3/5 level 168
    Valkyrie 3/5/3 level 131
    Antman 4/2/5 level 70
    ME Hulk 4/2/3 level 131

    The Result:
    PVP - Carnage and Medusa can beat almost any 4* team and I'm getting very few attacks in return. The downside is that they're slow, but that's OK, I can still climb just fine. I tried Kitty + Grocket but lost too many strikes. I tried Kitty + Carnage, but Kitty needed health packs often. I could try Cable + Kamala while he's boosted, just for fun.
    Shield Sim - This was liberating! Kitty + Grocket + Carnage was taking down 4* teams very quickly, even though Kitty was weak. On defense, I replaced Grocket with Medusa and can now float around 1700 points. 
    PVE SCL 7 - I'm still figuring out the best combos here, but Kitty + Grocket + Carnage with 3 supports to fortify specials, worked very fast in the hard nodes. For the essentials, I used Kitty + Grocket, which worked fine, but I may have better combos. I want to test Kitty + Grocket + Thanos and Strange + Grocket + Thanos. Once I get this figured out, I'll try out SCL 8.

    Going Forward: No more hoarding, I'll be opening Latest once a week to try and finish my current 5*s. Hopefully they'll get max covered before leaving the pool. I plan to champ 1 x 4* per week and move into SCL 8. Perhaps I can get the 4* progression reward in PVP by getting 900 points instead of 40 wins. My long term problem is having the 5* essential for PVE, but I am slowly getting them. 
  • Phumade
    Phumade Posts: 2,477 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Keep at it.  I’d be curious to see if you finish off your Loki kitty etc.
    you need to strategically hoard at this point.  By all means finish off Loki, he is decent and will work aroundd lots of different 5*.  Plus with him tanking, you’ll get a lot more feign death chances vs older accounts were Loki will always be the smallest 5.

    id keep pulling latest till you finish Loki, 4-6 weeks, then hoard until Loki leaves
  • bbigler
    bbigler Posts: 2,115 Chairperson of the Boards
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    I forgot to mention this yesterday, but after opening the hoard and gaining 5 ranks, my ISO was up to 900K. I then champed Grocket, Medusa and Ghost (today). Before opening, I was ISO positive, now I have a 2.3 Million ISO deficit with just the 4* tier.
  • Dogface
    Dogface Posts: 971 Critical Contributor
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    The bright side is, once you champ a 4*, it's 100 levels that don't cost any iso. I still have 38 4* to champ, so i will be in iso debt for some time. But when that time comes, i think i'll finally earn more iso than i spend.
  • Pr0spect0r
    Pr0spect0r Posts: 291 Mover and Shaker
    edited November 2018
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    Maybe tomorrow after work I'll sit down and calculate my character debt compared to what I have now. Cuz I always see people talk about it but I never checked my own. I'm gonna guess now maybe 6m. I'll edit this post with answers

    Edit: total iso debt is 7,922,309 not including champion costs because I wasnt making note has we covers. I currently have 1.3mil and like a bunch of level up iso rewards I never opened
  • bbigler
    bbigler Posts: 2,115 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited November 2018
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    Day 184 Update (6 months): I thought it would be good to show what can be accomplished in 6 months along with my experience transitioning to 4* play. I've been hitting my goal of champing a 4* every week, but I don't know if I can keep that up. My ISO deficit also increases every week. First some stats:

    Rank 96 - Slots 150
    2* Farm - 4th generation 
    3* Levels - 179 to 203
    4* Champs - 5 (Grocket, Medusa, Ghost, Miles, XFDP)
    5*s - Kitty 1/3/3, Cable 5/5/1, Loki 4/4/3

    Because I transitioned to 4* play with Grocket, Medusa, Carnage and Kitty, things have been great! My PVP average score has gone from 700 to 850, using the Cardusa duo. Matches are slow, but I get attacked less than before and Cardusa is very resilient. I would like to play boosted champed 4*s, but I only have 5 ATM.

    Shield Sim is a pleasure to play now with Kitty, Grocket, Medusa. That team typically wins in 7 turns without firing any powers. Chavez, Carol, Rhulk, ME Hulk are not a problem. Rogue is annoying because she takes twice as long to kill. Vulture is dangerous, so I must deny him black. GrockGamDusa teams are easy to beat, but I take some damage.  Thing + XFDP teams I just skip, but Dazzler could counter both of those teams. Unfortunately, my Dazzler is 2/2/4 right now. 

    Lightning rounds are better too, I can typically rank top 50 and get some extra Heroics. 

    PVE is much easier now, but it's not all rainbows. I can rank #10 in SCL 7 with perfect play. The good thing is that it takes half the time than before. The bad thing is that it's not very fun playing super-fast mind-numbing repetitive battles and the smallest mistake will cost you a few ranks. It seems that Kitty + Grocket + Thanos is slightly faster than my Sim team, but it costs health packs. 

    In SCL 8, the battles are harder, take longer and the 5* node is pretty killer. This isn't fun to play either and I can rank top 20 there. When Kitty was boosted though, I was able to rank #10. Overall, I think my PVE performance is great given that I'm competing against 5* teams. 

    So, I'm open to advice here. Should I play SCL 7 or 8? Should I fine tune my SCL 7 grind and get used to it? Should I play for fun and accept a lower rank and rewards? Should I play scl 8 for some extra iso and cp and not worry about my rank? 
  • bbigler
    bbigler Posts: 2,115 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited December 2018
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    Day 205 Update: I reached a major milestone today, I fully covered my 1st 5*! It was done with 264 total pulls from Latest. This beat my prediction by 2 weeks, but here's the bad news: It's Loki.  My Loki is now 5/5/3 with 2 saved, Cable is 5/5/1 with 3 saved and Kitty is still 1/3/3. It's very frustrating, the best character is the one I get the least covers for. I play hard to collect LTs and CP in hope of getting a yellow Kitty cover, but after 264 pulls, I've gotten just 1. I've gotten 0 Kitty covers in the past 6 weeks. I know it's all RNG but it feels like the powers at be are purposely thwarting my plans.  In addition to this frustration, 4* dilution is also thwarting my progress to champ more 4*s. 

    But I will try to be positive and focus on what is going well.  Since transitioning to 4* champs, my ranking across all events has improved (my best rank was #5 in Webbed Wonder SCL 8), my CP production rate has improved, and I have 15 x 4*s with 10-12 covers each. My future plans are to hoard until Loki leaves, then hope again for Kitty covers. I'm not worried about covering Cable. 

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