Newish player, roster help please!

Stolio

Hi, I've been playing a lot recently and so far have not approached my roster management with any real long term plan, rather just been dumping resources into whoever I like at the time. 

I'm feeling the pinch on roster slots now though and am starting to see I could be culling some covers for space/ISO return. For example, I could sell the capped Moonstone and drag up the 2* Captain America or something.....anyway, was hoping for some advice to get me on track. I'm guessing there's quite a bit there I could change.

I have the following waiting to recruit when I get space:

3* Quicksilver, 3* Bullseye, 3* Squirrel Girl, 3* Hawkeye, 3* Psylocke, 4* Nightcrawler,  4* Venom.

Stolio

Sorry, here's the roster link, D'oh!

https://mpq.gamependium.com/rosters/Stolio/

Rod5

Devote all your earned HP into roster slots.

Sell no-one, unless they are max-champed and you have a replacement ready.

Don’t pull LTs/CPs as they will likely give you more characters you need to roster, wait until you willdefinitely have space.

Dormammu

You're a 2-star player with a lot of them champed. That's good. Keep them all and continue applying champ levels. Get your Ares and Cap champed when you can so they're rising in champ levels also. The champ level rewards from your 2-stars are going to help you advance to the 3-star tier and also provide you with some ever-coveted HP so you can expand your roster slots.

When your 2-stars reach max-champ status (Level 144) keep the ones you rely on to win matches and sell the ones you don't. Restart a new version of the ones you sell and work on getting all those champ rewards again. Once you're firmly established in the 3-star tier you can do this with all of your 2-stars as you won't be relying on them anymore. Repeat this process into infinity.

While you're working on this, keep building up the covers on your 3-stars. Since you have limited roster slots you may need to make some tough decisions on who to roster and who to let go. Prioritize rostering, covering, and champing the top-tier 3-stars and let the lower-tier 3-stars go until you have the slots to roster them at a later time.

Top-tier 3-stars: Captain America, Cyclops, Doc Strange, Iron Fist, Iron Man, Luke Cage, Kamala Khan, Magneto, Scarlet Witch, Thanos, Wolverine, Hawkeye, Deadpool, Thor.

Low-tier 3-stars: Daredevil, Gambit, Gamora, Ragnarok, Punisher, Captain Marvel, Mystique, Vision, Doc Ock, Sentry, Colossus

Everyone else is somewhere in the middle.

Avoid acquiring 4-star and 5-star covers that you can't afford to roster right now. Do this by hoarding your CP and Legendary Tokens. Let it pile up because they can't help you until they have 10-13 covers anyway. Rostering and champing ALL of the 3-stars should be your current goal. Once you've done that you can start using new roster slots to start building fours and fives the same way you'll build your threes while in the 2-star tier (and you'll find all those LTs and CPs you hoarded very useful). In the meantime, don't put any ISO into your 4-stars (or 5-stars!), wait until you're ready to make the transition to that tier by champing them when they have 13 covers.

Heartbreaksoup

Not to be too contradictory, but...

If you leave a 4* character at level 70 until you get 13 covers, then a) you have to sink something insane like 350,000 Iso at one go into them, and b) they just sit there collecting dust because you can't realistically use them, at all, until then.  I am so incredibly glad I did not do that.  Almost every 4* is usable at around 6 covers / level 127, (although the best is certainly yet to come) and it's much, much more fun to build them up, enjoy playing with them, and just spend that last ~90k to move from level 250 to 270 when you get the 13th cover.

My Carnage is at 9 covers / level 188.  I have a ball with him.  I sometimes bench him for my 6 cover / level 131 Mr Fantastic.  Why miss out on fun?

Now I will certainly agree that there doesn't seem to be any point - beyond the sticker shock of the cost - in giving any Iso to a 5* up front.  There's no appreciable difference in power between a level 255 5* and a level 270 5*.  What I did in the last event, when 5* Lumbercap (I have just one cover) was an essential, was give him just enough Iso to take him to level 258.  That way, boosted for the event, he had just enough power to fell an easy mook (1080 hit points in SCL-7) with one blow on a red match.  Otherwise, Lumbercap won't get any more Iso until I get another cover for him.

Rostering all the 3*s is a crushing bore.  I finally added the last couple of turkeys (Sentry, Doom) to my roster, but  I've had much more fun - and success - going after 4*s and 5*s and using almost all of them.  I say go ahead and roster Nightcrawler and Venom.  If you lose out on Squirrel Girl, Bullseye, or Hawkeye now, don't worry, another will be along within a week or so.  You may not see another Venom for months.  (I've been playing for more than a year and have seen exactly one Eddie Brock, which I sold off because I didn't know better, and have never seen an Agent Venom cover - the two Venoms are the only two 4*s I don't have!)

Stolio

Thanks very much that's really helpful!

Dormammu

Heartbreaksoup said:

Rostering all the 3*s is a crushing bore.  I finally added the last couple of turkeys (Sentry, Doom) to my roster, but  I've had much more fun - and success - going after 4*s and 5*s and using almost all of them.  I say go ahead and roster Nightcrawler and Venom.  If you lose out on Squirrel Girl, Bullseye, or Hawkeye now, don't worry, another will be along within a week or so.  You may not see another Venom for months.  (I've been playing for more than a year and have seen exactly one Eddie Brock, which I sold off because I didn't know better, and have never seen an Agent Venom cover - the two Venoms are the only two 4*s I don't have!)

Neither of the Venom's are any more rare than any other 4-star now that vaulting has gone the way of the dodo. With nearly 70 4-stars, RNG is going to make sure everyone has some unicorns. Both of the Venoms are extremely niche, low-end 4-stars that aren't going to be worth much until they're champed.

If 2-star players start worrying about rostering every 4-star cover that comes their way, they're going to end up with a mass of under-covered fours that aren't doing them any good because of the dilution at that tier. With limited roster space, it's not wise to clog your roster with a 1-2 cover 4-star when you don't have all the three's yet. Tackling the 3-star tier in its entirety may seem like a chore, but it doesn't take that long and the 3-stars will be of immediate use. Having them all champed is one of the best ways to advance to the 4-star tier because you can get into SCL 7 sooner (where 4-star covers are progression rewards in PvE) and 3-star champ rewards start giving 4-star covers and LTs.

That being said, Heartbreaksoup is correct that there are certain 4-stars that can help even when under-covered. Medusa, Carnage, Chavez, and Vulture are some good examples. Usually they have a strong passive ability that can be of benefit. 

Heartbreaksoup

One other point that I think should be addressed: I believe my learned friend Dormammu weighs the elements and factors of Versus play far more than I do, and his advice is given with that in mind.   It seems to be true that your roster will affect the makeup / points / enemy teams you will face in Versus, and if you try playing with a mainly 2* roster with eight or nine single-covered 4*s, the AI will sic much more powerful enemy teams on you than you can probably manage.

On the other hand, I jump recklessly into giving advice based on what I do, which is Story with just enough Versus to get me to my season goal of 4000 points, without pausing to ask what the OP actually wants to do.  If you are mainly a Story player, keep all the 4*s that you receive and fill in the 3*s when you can.  Over time, your 4*s will become more and more powerful and you'll have much, much more fun in Story.

Put another way, the *only* regret I have in this game after a year and a bit playing is selling off the many 4*s that I did before I wised up.  My Kraven and Carnage should have been champed months ago; I certainly had enough covers for them but I was stingy.  I have some badly under-covered characters like America, Nico Minoru, and ME Hulk who probably would be up around level 188 by now if I hadn't tossed them away, plus that Eddie Brock that mocks me, and more.

DAZ0273

If you are mostly playing Story mode then your focus should be on champing Doctor Strange as soon as possible. He will speed up nodes with goons, etc a lot and will soon be indispensable to you. The other key 3* is Iron Man for his recharge ability.

4* - the thing that trips up people with the 4* level is the iso cost to level, especially when they have been used to 3* costs. At the beginning, it is gentle and you can take your 4* up a good 50 levels without really feeling it. However at the higher end, the cost spikes considerably. It comes down to perceived value thereafter - a champed 3* will have fully covered powers whereas a 4* raised to equivalent levels (166) will not unless they are being deliberately held back.  However a Vulture with 5 black can be used as an AP battery and so might well be more useful than a 3* Sentry.

ThaRoadWarrior

Dormammu said:

Neither of the Venom's are any more rare than any other 4-star 

It's probably picking nits, but Eddie Brock Venom can be had from champ rewards on Loki, while Agent Venom is unfed. So he is functionally slightly less rare than Agent Venom. That being said I have a 1/4/1 EB Venom and a 4/2/4 Agent Venom myself, so go figure lol.

As for OP, I would suggest as I usually do that they make sure to at least roster the 3*s that are fed by 2*s regardless of how good they may or may not be, that way your farm will provide you with compound interest. The good news is that many of the "fed" 3*s are legit good, though a few are duds for sure.

DAZ0273

Well for what it's worth I have had a fully covered Eddie Brock Venom sitting at 135 for 10 months now. I have probably allowed 4 covers to get sold and then when cover saves came in immediately got another Venom cover. Opening my Loki hoard - I managed to pull another one! So Venom is like a bloomin' 3* for me and this game wants me to champ him so bad!

I'm not saying he is comparably terrible to many other 4* and I don't want to spend iso on him but, yes actually I am saying that.

ThaRoadWarrior

I bet EB Venom goes well with Elektr4 and Kraven lol; force those enemy specials out and then convert them to friendly strikes...everybody will be all "look at these losers...oh noez! my pvp points!" Or maybe not...

DAZ0273

ThaRoadWarrior said:

I bet EB Venom goes well with Elektr4 and Kraven lol; force those enemy specials out and then convert them to friendly strikes...everybody will be all "look at these losers...oh noez! my pvp points!" Or maybe not...

We need to start that petition for Venom PvP now so that in about 18 months when I finally champ him I can test this!

ThaRoadWarrior

Venom is getting a movie before too long, one hopes we'll at least see a PVP run for that

Quebbster

ThaRoadWarrior said:

I bet EB Venom goes well with Elektr4 and Kraven lol; force those enemy specials out and then convert them to friendly strikes...everybody will be all "look at these losers...oh noez! my pvp points!" Or maybe not...

Kraven and Carnage. Nuff said.

ThaRoadWarrior

Carnage isn't nearly as generally bottom tier as the others though; a Carnage on defense is an invitation to use some health packs. Kraven/Venom/Elektr4 makes people lower their guard for a bit...