Is it worth having one 5*?

froggerjohn

I'm currently in 3* land, with all characters covered, 20 champs, and about 5 more ready to champ when I get the iso. The 2* farm has already turned over once, and on it's way back up.
https://mpq.gamependium.com/rosters/froggerjohn/revisions/103

I've started to collect 4*s, and have 23 of those, albeit half with only a single cover, and none above 1/1/2.

I've been wondering whether it is worth having one 5* character on the roster at this point. Primarily the match damage for speed-clearing the easy PvE nodes, but perhaps there are other reasons as well.

I have an empty vine and 4K HP, so I have the space. It's just a matter of not really knowing whether it's worth it, and what the downsides are (PvP MMR?).

And even if it's worth it, I'm not really sure how best to get one. I have:
36 LL tokens
956 CP
2 Covert Ops
1 Don't Freeze

The last two post-event tokens in particular I'm not really sure how they work, and what happens when hanging on to them. (Will they always be for those characters?)

Something else I'm really uncertain of, is how to deal with the 4* tier in general at this point. With very few exceptions, the characters aren't usable at low covers, and are only a means to play the 4e PvE node and DDQ. I do spend some money, but within reason, so I don't foresee whaling enough HP to keep all of them. When I eventually run out of slot space, I figure I'd sell single covers that aren't top-tier, and just accept that I'm not going to have all the 4e characters.

TPF Alexis

It looks like you've got enough 3* champs that you should have at least a couple boosted up into the 250 range every week. If that's actually correct, then adding a single 250 shouldn't change your MMR too much, and will help with PvE.

How best to get one, I have no advice on. I didn't pick any up until I started actively building 4* characters.

On the final point, yeah, it takes a while to get on top of the roster space issue. Best option is probably to keep a couple of slots dedicated to rotating through whoever's Essential in the current event, but not worth rostering full time yet. If you have a cover about to expire and they haven't been featured for a while, stick them in one of those slots, until either they come up in the rotation or you need the slot for someone else.

It's handy for being able to take on more Behemoth Burritos, too.

Dormammu

Once you have champed 3-stars it's time to start planning for the future. You're going to stumble into some 5-star covers without trying. With your 2-star farm in place and 3-star champ rewards coming, you'll get the HP you need eventually. It may take time, which is why hoarding is your friend.

froggerjohn said:

Something else I'm really uncertain of, is how to deal with the 4* tier in general at this point. With very few exceptions, the characters aren't usable at low covers, and are only a means to play the 4e PvE node and DDQ. I do spend some money, but within reason, so I don't foresee whaling enough HP to keep all of them. When I eventually run out of slot space, I figure I'd sell single covers that aren't top-tier, and just accept that I'm not going to have all the 4e characters.

Here is what I did when I was approximately where you are now:
1) All HP was devoted to roster slots
2) Hoard all CP and LTs until I had at least 2000 HP
3) Open classic legends until I got a new 4 or 5 star character not on my roster
4) Roster the new character and stop opening tokens
5) Save to 2000 HP again
6) Repeat steps 3-5

The reason I'd save to 2000 is so that I'd always have 1000 HP in the bank for a surprise cover that would come from a 3-star champ reward, boss event cover, or a lucky Heroic Token pull.

froggerjohn

Thanks for the advice. I pulled and got 4* Black Widow and Carnage. Both seem decent.

Pretty cool entering a new era, where I get to open some of the things I've been hording since the beginning. 

I realized later that I really need to keep a 3K HP reserve for the moment, in case it generates my 4* BH (which will take an extra slot). That's one of the side benefits I was hoping for. I want some of that America Chavez goodness.

froggerjohn

After recycling a 2* Storm, I had a free slot so I pulled some more, and had great luck. I got 4 additional covers for existing characters (all of which I already had multiple covers for), and then a 5* BP red. Mission accomplished. 

Dormammu

That's how you do it, froggerjohn, just keep at it. Hoarding and opening, hoarding and opening, and one day you'll realize you have them all. The 4-star tier seems daunting and it is - so many characters and they just keep coming. But progress can be made.

TPF Alexis

Yep. It wasn't actually that long ago that even having all the 4* rostered seemed like a pipe dream to me, and now I have over half of them champed. It's a long trek, but not an endless one.

ThaRoadWarrior

I would encourage you to not do it the way I did, which was to gut my 3* champ roster down to make room for every 4*/5*, then backfill all my 3*s as I got the HP. I kept a flex-spot for 3* requireds, and I'd just roster whoever i needed off my vine, then cycle them out for the subsequent event. My rationale for doing it this way was that 4* and 5* waste was much harder to deal with than 3* waste. Getting 3* covers on purpose via bonus heroing is the most reliable thing you can do outside of getting a progression reward in an event, so I only rarely got burned by not having somebody, though i certainly (and continue to) got burned by just...selling off covers as they ran out of time. What wasn't obvious to me at the time was that lower tier champ rewards are the engine that fuels your upper deck, and even though i felt like I was leveling up by having every high character, I almost certainly was hurting my ability to progress properly/quickly.

That being said, it feels pretty cool to crack into legendary stores and get a sweet character, and it can be really tough to stare at a hoard of tokens/cp for any length of time. You'll just have to decide for yourself which is more your speed: banking up resources and feeling like you have a stagnant roster for a longish time or constant store pulls along the way with a much higher percentage of sold-off covers you can't use.

froggerjohn

There's a fair amount of emotional management going on in this game. I've made so many decisions that I later regretted, and I wish I had a better understanding of the game economy earlier in the timeline.

Among those management tasks, as you allude to, is avoiding the feel of stagnation and boredom. At the end of the day, it's a 'game', and there's not much point to it if you're not having fun.

Everyone should make their own decisions based on personal tolerance to waste, efficiency, speed, etc. But I think it's definitely worth keeping in mind two things:

1. Deviating from perfect efficiency to add some variety and enjoyment is likely a net positive.
2. Decisions that help you 'now' almost certainly have a snowball effect that carries forward and help pay back (or even profit from) the cost. Like faster clears help earn higher placements, etc.

It has taken me a long time to get over the feeling that a sold cover is a "lost resource". While true in the purest sense, it's healthier to play for a more achievable compromise, where it's accepted ahead of time that not all covers are going to be used. In the long run, if you're using most of them, and the most valuable ones, you'll still reach the same goals only slightly behind optimal, and with less stress, $$, etc.

One specific example, is spending CP on important 3* covers. I've done that several times now, and the small amounts of missing CP will almost certainly never be noticed. The immediate roster improvements however paid notable dividends in both enjoyment, and the ability to compete (which turns back into resources). A major win, IMO.

I'm still feeling-out how I'll be handling the 4* transition, but I definitely plan to keep all my 3s. I figure, take advantage of the sales to maximize my HP resources, and be willing to sacrifice some lower-tier 4*s if I get in a major crunch. Not having a required 4* will of course impact placement on that event, but it also provides an opportunity to take it easy from time to time. Grinding each and every event contributes to burn-out, so I think I'll welcome the occasional break from it.

ThaRoadWarrior

to add to that point about spending CP on 3*s, if you're only doing it occasionally, you can even think of it as a 5cp discount on a latest legend pull. Though it's been my experience that 3* bonus heroes drop often enough that you could bonus your way out of most of those situations and at worst just lose a cover or two to the 14 day expiration, so why not just save the 20cp and get a classic pull and an LT from it?

froggerjohn

The new saved covers feature does make BH safer to use on characters needing that one last color, but the difference in value between a cover you need, and "one more champ level" is usually considerable. So until there are no more 3* characters that you really want, it seems better to keep BH on someone who still needs all colors.

There's almost always a time element to decisions like this, and getting an LT on the first champ level is one of those. Unless you need that LT pull right now, it's going to happen eventually without potentially costing a BH for it.

Dormammu

froggerjohn said:

It has taken me a long time to get over the feeling that a sold cover is a "lost resource". While true in the purest sense, it's healthier to play for a more achievable compromise, where it's accepted ahead of time that not all covers are going to be used. In the long run, if you're using most of them, and the most valuable ones, you'll still reach the same goals only slightly behind optimal, and with less stress, $$, etc.

It would make some people cry to know how many 4-star covers I've sold. I've never cared. If I don't have a use for it, I just sell it and take the ISO. I need the ISO. I won't even let it linger on my vine 'just in case'. Better to get it out of there and forget about it, rather than have it hang around and remind me every day for 13 days that I'm going to have to sell it.

For example, a Heroic Token gave me a 14th Spider-Woman cover yesterday. Of my un-champed 4-stars, she's pretty far down the list of my priorities.  I have fifteen or so sitting at 13 covers and no ISO. I also have a 14th Valkyrie I'm hanging onto until I have the 350k ISO I need to champ her. So... Spider-Woman went bye-bye. I just sold the cover and didn't think twice. I'll get around to champing her, but not today.

BigSoftieFF

TPF Alexis said:

Yep. It wasn't actually that long ago that even having all the 4* rostered seemed like a pipe dream to me, and now I have over half of them champed. It's a long trek, but not an endless one.

Same here. When the new year came around I had all the 3*’s champed and had rostered maybe 1/2 the 4*’s. Six months later the only character I’m missing is 5* Strange and I’ve got 20 4* champs. Pretty unbelievable.

Heartbreaksoup

froggerjohn said:

Thanks for the advice. I pulled and got 4* Black Widow and Carnage. Both seem decent.

I've mentioned before that most of the 4*s are pretty useless until you have at least six covers for them.  Carnage exemplifies this.  He is *so* fun teamed with Lockjaw and Medusa after about level 127.  Until then, just forget you have the guy, he's worse than useless.  But man, I just have a ball playing with this team.  It's not a speed team - there are lots of animations and banners - but it's incredibly fun.

Waddles_Pines

froggerjohn said:

And even if it's worth it, I'm not really sure how best to get one. I have:
36 LL tokens
956 CP
2 Covert Ops
1 Don't Freeze

The last two post-event tokens in particular I'm not really sure how they work, and what happens when hanging on to them. (Will they always be for those characters?)

Just to address ^, I don't remember what those events were, but I'm assuming PVP.  Anywho, general rule of thumb is that if it's a character specific store, there's really no benefit to holding them.  If it was from a vault store (usually PVE), then you can hold onto them to have increased odds of getting the "good" items the next time the event is run.  If it's a one off event (pvp or pve) then just open it.  

Rod5

Waddles_Pines said:

froggerjohn said:

And even if it's worth it, I'm not really sure how best to get one. I have:
36 LL tokens
956 CP
2 Covert Ops
1 Don't Freeze

The last two post-event tokens in particular I'm not really sure how they work, and what happens when hanging on to them. (Will they always be for those characters?)

Just to address ^, I don't remember what those events were, but I'm assuming PVP.  Anywho, general rule of thumb is that if it's a character specific store, there's really no benefit to holding them.  If it was from a vault store (usually PVE), then you can hold onto them to have increased odds of getting the "good" items the next time the event is run.  If it's a one off event (pvp or pve) then just open it.  

They were new character stores, so effectively legendary tokens with specific 5* rewards.

froggerjohn

To put a bit of closure on the original question, I've had a week to play with the new 5* BP, and I feel that this was an exceptional addition to my roster.

A 5*, Thanos3 (5/3/5), and the required character make super quick work of seed teams in lightning rounds. It's usually a single match, which makes an otherwise tedious process almost painless, and worth the iso.

He's also very helpful to speed the easy nodes in PvE (with Thanos 3/5/5).

I don't play a lot of PvP, but I did play a little, and didn't see a big difference in the MMR after the 5* addition. Likely for the reasons mentioned by TPF Alexis, that boosted 3* characters are around that rank anyway.

monsieurmojo

Rod5 said:

Waddles_Pines said:

froggerjohn said:

And even if it's worth it, I'm not really sure how best to get one. I have:
36 LL tokens
956 CP
2 Covert Ops
1 Don't Freeze

The last two post-event tokens in particular I'm not really sure how they work, and what happens when hanging on to them. (Will they always be for those characters?)

Just to address ^, I don't remember what those events were, but I'm assuming PVP.  Anywho, general rule of thumb is that if it's a character specific store, there's really no benefit to holding them.  If it was from a vault store (usually PVE), then you can hold onto them to have increased odds of getting the "good" items the next time the event is run.  If it's a one off event (pvp or pve) then just open it.  

They were new character stores, so effectively legendary tokens with specific 5* rewards.

Specifically, those were the Hobo Cap (Covert Ops) and Okoye (Don't Freeze) release LTs. Okoye was in tokens with Black Panther and Peter Parker; Cap with Hawkeye and Natasha.

DAZ0273

Dormammu said:

froggerjohn said:

It has taken me a long time to get over the feeling that a sold cover is a "lost resource". While true in the purest sense, it's healthier to play for a more achievable compromise, where it's accepted ahead of time that not all covers are going to be used. In the long run, if you're using most of them, and the most valuable ones, you'll still reach the same goals only slightly behind optimal, and with less stress, $$, etc.

It would make some people cry to know how many 4-star covers I've sold. I've never cared. If I don't have a use for it, I just sell it and take the ISO. I need the ISO. I won't even let it linger on my vine 'just in case'. Better to get it out of there and forget about it, rather than have it hang around and remind me every day for 13 days that I'm going to have to sell it.

For example, a Heroic Token gave me a 14th Spider-Woman cover yesterday. Of my un-champed 4-stars, she's pretty far down the list of my priorities.  I have fifteen or so sitting at 13 covers and no ISO. I also have a 14th Valkyrie I'm hanging onto until I have the 350k ISO I need to champ her. So... Spider-Woman went bye-bye. I just sold the cover and didn't think twice. I'll get around to champing her, but not today.

I have a very similar outlook. In fact, yesterday I played several hours of Civil War to help my Alliance get some Nick Fury covers (we already had Ghost!) - those covers will get sold for iso probably because Nick already has 13 covers and my iso is going elsewhere. Sorry Nick, all that hard work and you still don't get to be champed because you are mediocre. I nearly regretted playing that Ares node though - some trolling going on there, Devs!