Excessive difficulty to reach 5*

bluewolf

I didn't read every comment in full, but  having prior tiers mostly champed before pursuing the next will really help your success.  (Unless you are just a massive hoarder, and assuming you are not planning to spend your way through the hurdles).  I had almost all the 4's champed before I champed my first 5, partly to avoid being painted into the 5* MMR corner.  

Champ rewards are a huge source of resources, especially CP.  The OP says they have most of the 4's champed so that is in their favor.

DO NOT PULL CLASSICS as your primary route into the 5 tier.  The dilution is a massive obstacle unless you have people mostly covered.  The odds of getting a specific 5* character from Classics is currently 0.65% - that will drop in about 2 1/2 weeks a bit to 0.625% when Okoye enters Classics.  That means you'll currently spend about 3080 CP to get one cover of each 5 in Classics.  That same amount of CP would give you about 6 covers of each person in Latest.  So double that to 6160, and you may have one Latest covered, maybe 2 or 3, while you now have 2 covers on each Classic 5.

Switch to pulling only Latests if you haven't already.  Probably the best store we've had was DD/Gambit/Thor, which ended 10 months ago.  We may never see its equal again.  Saved covers means you don't need to champ anyone you don't want to.  RNG may not let you finish some of the 5's, but feeders help a lot at this point, so hoarding isn't required in my opinion.

Look, 5's are the endgame, the thing you are meant to chase, the ultimate in game pursuit (other than Supports, perhaps).  The designers did not create a game that is meant to be completed or that everyone who starts is supposed to "finish".  The model is this:  players should feel like they are constantly making progress in their roster, and have something they are working on.  That's it.  You will with time probably finish most characters (except Classic 5's).  But finishing any particular character is still often difficult as RNG gets in your way.

I'm sitting here with 10 5 champs, and almost all the 4's champed. But I still can't finish Howard (12 covers, 2/5/5) thanks to lousy RNG, my Emma has 11 covers with 2 saved, I'm waiting for Nebula and Dazzler to enter tokens, etc.  Money would solve at least some of those issues if that interested me.  The point is that the game is designed to be pretty hard to finish a character, and the 5's are the hardest of all.   And if it ever gets a lot easier to finish 5's, then maybe 6's are around the corner or the game is winding down.  There's no magic trick other than spending when it comes to finishing 5's.  Just play a lot and wait for RNG to favor you.

MissoesRicRose

Does anyone know how to explain the exact difference between pulling classics chips and 5 * latests on probability of getting them?

DAZ0273

The probability of pulling a 5* is fixed regardless of whether you pull Latest or Classics.

However if you do pull a Latest 5* you are guaranteed that it will be 1 of 3 specific characters. If you pull a 5* from Classics then it will be 1 from however many other 5* characters there are.

As I understand it, all 5* draws are already pre-determined - the odds stated should even out over a certain amount of pulls but this can lead to "streaks" or times when you will have a barren run but it SHOULD equal out to the expected odds over time.

justsing

MissoesRicRose said:

Does anyone know how to explain the exact difference between pulling classics chips and 5 * latests on probability of getting them?

In both Latest and Classic, you have a 15% probability of pulling a 5*. The difference is that the 15% is split among 3 5*s in Latest (giving them each 5%) and among 24 (and growing) 5*s in Classic (giving them each 0.625% and dropping). The probability of pulling a specific 5* in Classics drops with each additional 5* moved from Latest to Classic. 

If you want to finish a 5*, you are much better off pulling only Latest since the 15% is only divided among 3 characters as opposed to 24+. 

tiomono

You also need to consider if you want to be top tier when you reach 5* land. Latests will not do that for you after okoye leaves. Wasp, Loki, and kitty are ok to bad. Wasp probably being the worst 5* period.

So if you want the good characters you can only find them in classics or you can wait and hope that the next 5* release store will have a top tier character in it. Kitty will have Logan and Phoenix. This is a mid tier store. If you save maybe the next new release store will have a top tier selection. Or it could be banner and ock we do not know.

If you want top tier, classics is the only place to get them right now.

Rod5

tiomono said:

You also need to consider if you want to be top tier when you reach 5* land. Latests will not do that for you after okoye leaves. Wasp, Loki, and kitty are ok to bad. Wasp probably being the worst 5* period.

So if you want the good characters you can only find them in classics or you can wait and hope that the next 5* release store will have a top tier character in it. Kitty will have Logan and Phoenix. This is a mid tier store. If you save maybe the next new release store will have a top tier selection. Or it could be banner and ock we do not know.

If you want top tier, classics is the only place to get them right now.

Yes but you’ll never be able to champ them. I pulled Classics for a long time till I recognised two things:

1) dilution is real and significant
2) power creep is also very real

Save and pull Latests when there are 3 good ones would be my advice.

Dormammu

Rod5 said:

Save and pull Latests when there are 3 good ones would be my advice.

People can say what they want about opening classics as a path to 5-stars, or pulling-as-you-go out of latest, but this right here is the best way to get what you want.

It's not the only way to cover 5-stars (as the many opinions in this thread attest) but it remains the best way of ensuring you cover the ones you want - in other words, the 5-stars who will make a meaningful impact in PvP. PvE shouldn't matter as the reward differences are minor between SCLs and having a single cover 5-star vs. a champed 5-star for one essential node isn't that big of a deal if you are playing in an appropriate SCL. If all you do is play PvE my advice to you is to stay in 4-star land forever and don't worry about 5s beyond the minimum one cover. The only caveat to this is if you play competitive PvE for top 5 placement - in that case you want as many champed 5-stars as you can get your hands on.

For the player who gets max progression every PvE and gets to 575 or 1200 every PvP, the open-as-you-go method is probably the right strategy. But not everyone plays at the same amount or pace; for the players who don't play as diligently (like myself), hoarding becomes the best option to cover 5s. It's as simple as not opening any LTs or using any CPs until there are 2 or 3 good 5-stars among the latest three.

Yes, you will be sacrificing steady progressive roster growth and instead receiving bursts of massive growth spread out between your pulls. The end result is still the same, however, and you give yourself a much better chance of fully covering the 5s you want. Yes, you have to go a couple-three months staring at all those resources growing and having the itch to use them, but I promise you that hoarding gets a lot easier after the first time you do it because the end of the hoard is a very satisfying payoff with three fully-covered 5-stars of your choosing.

I don't care one lick for Loki and 5Wasp would make a bad 4-star character. So I'm hoarding. I'm going to wait and see who comes after Kitty and then see who comes after that. And then when the next Okoye/JJ comes along I'm going to pull my hoard and get them fully covered with no issue.

After I do that, I'll be sitting back and reading a bunch of threads made by non-hoarders about how they can't seem to cover the new 5-star Captain Marvel because 'RNG has screwed them'.

crackninja

Some good points by Dormammu.

I do disagree about staying in 4* land if all you care about is pve, because pve is where your opponents are static.  Having a couple champed 5*'s makes pve go so much faster, and an event like the hulk a laughingstock for anyone with a champed Okoye.  To me, pvp is where having champed 5*'s turns people off because there is less variety and no champ list.

The thing about getting into the 5* tier (or any tier for that matter) is that the first couple are the most important because you'll be relying on them so much.  So yeah, there are a lot of ways to get there, but if you don't consider the likely results ahead of time you might not be so thrilled with the results when you do.

XandorXerxes

How are you guys/gals calculating how long it takes to stockpile? Also, this is effectively telling casuals they'll never hit the end game.

I've been putzing around 4* land for a while, and was trying to decide if I was going to start playing seriously again or not. I assumed completion of every PvE to the 4* progression, completion of every PvP to the 4* progression, completing over 2/3 of the Crash of the Titans and 2 CP/day for DPD it would take me about 2 years to get enough CP/tokens in order to have a decent chance to champ all three 5*s from a latest token pull. I know there are some things I didn't account for (daily shield rewards, for one) but I can't imagine there are enough things to cut that time in half.

When you say you can champ a 5* in a year or under... are you hitting all rewards in PvE and PvP? Where are all the CP and tokens coming from?

I'm not sure there's even a point in going for 4*s any more if you can get enough CP while using 2-3*s, just save and go straight for 5*s. You can pick up the 4*'s later while you roflstomp everything.

Pants1000

I’ve gone against the hoarding mentality and always pulled classics.  I have 8 champed 5’s now, with a few more at 12 covers that will be champed soon.  4* feeders helped quite a bit, and pulling classics really only worked because I’ve been playing daily since well before 5* existed.

I think the biggest problem with pulling classics is that you cover the old ones. I just recently champed Thanos and Panther, so I’m a year behind the meta.  My Thor, Okoye and Gambit are all undercovered.

I’ll continue pulling classics since I have a bunch at 10-12 covers, but for a newer player I would only suggest pulling classics while building your 4* roster. Get at least one cover of each for the 5* essentials, then switch to hoarding if you want to jump to 5* land.

Dormammu

XandorXerxes said:

When you say you can champ a 5* in a year or under... are you hitting all rewards in PvE and PvP? Where are all the CP and tokens coming from?

2-star champ rewards (farming) = CP
3-star champ rewards = CP/LT
4-star champ rewards = CP/LT
5-star champ rewards = CP/LT
PvE progression = CP (this is my largest source of CP in the game between progression and node rewards)
Occasional alliance purchases = CP
DDQ = CP/LT
Boss Events = CP/LT
Lucky event vault pulls = LT

You'd be surprised at how much it all adds up when you start tucking it away. I don't play much PvP but when I do another 15 CP is easily available with minimal grinding. If you're only playing PvE to the 4-star progression you are missing out on a hefty chunk of CP every event. The last time I hoarded I had around 220 pulls which netted me a fully covered Okoye, a fully covered JJ, and 12 covers for Lumbercap. That hoard took me just over 3 months to attain with steady PvE play (max progression) and minimal PvP play.

0_efx_0

I asked players which day they finally Champed a 5* and most answered between Day 675 through Day 900.

Quebbster

I have hoarded twice to around 300 pulls, both times it took around 3 months. But that is with fivestars already champed so I could hit 1200 in every PvP and get full progression in every PvE.

It can't be understated how important a good farm is though. The more covers you can apply as champion levels, the less waste you will have from your pulls. Also, the champ levels get better as the levels get higher - my CP flow has increased a bit simply because I have bumped a few fourstars high enough that they drop 7 CP rewards now and then. Got to build your roster from the ground up.

tiomono

Rod5 said: 

tiomono said:

You also need to consider if you want to be top tier when you reach 5* land. Latests will not do that for you after okoye leaves. Wasp, Loki, and kitty are ok to bad. Wasp probably being the worst 5* period.

So if you want the good characters you can only find them in classics or you can wait and hope that the next 5* release store will have a top tier character in it. Kitty will have Logan and Phoenix. This is a mid tier store. If you save maybe the next new release store will have a top tier selection. Or it could be banner and ock we do not know.

If you want top tier, classics is the only place to get them right now.

Yes but you’ll never be able to champ them. I pulled Classics for a long time till I recognised two things:

1) dilution is real and significant
2) power creep is also very real

Save and pull Latests when there are 3 good ones would be my advice.

Power creep is real? So who would you list as top 5 characters for the tier? At least 2 of the 3 newest (once kitty is live) would not make that list. 

For me personally latest legends are good for getting a jump start on the 3 in them giving me an easier time to finish them off once they go to classics. My jj, okoye, and ghost rider all made it to 6 covers. My thor made it to 9 and lumbercap made it to 10. I have not had any feeders helping me with these characters yet. So once the feeders get going I will finish them off eventually. My archangel is currently at 12 when he went into classics he was at 8. That is without a feeder.

Telling people they can "never" champion a 5* pulling classics is a lie. This is not my opinion, it is statistically true. Pulling from classics works it is just slower progress overall but will get you access to all the characters. Whereas saving all your cp for latests will guarantee you never draw a cover for 24 different characters (and growing) except for bonus heros. 

Yes hoarding for latests is the most direct route to getting into the 5* tier. But you will miss out on fun synergies with older characters as you will never draw covers for them except for bonus hero's or champion rewards. For me personally never drawing a cover for close to 90% of a tier is unacceptable if I have other options.

justsing

tiomono said:

Rod5 said: 

tiomono said:

You also need to consider if you want to be top tier when you reach 5* land. Latests will not do that for you after okoye leaves. Wasp, Loki, and kitty are ok to bad. Wasp probably being the worst 5* period.

So if you want the good characters you can only find them in classics or you can wait and hope that the next 5* release store will have a top tier character in it. Kitty will have Logan and Phoenix. This is a mid tier store. If you save maybe the next new release store will have a top tier selection. Or it could be banner and ock we do not know.

If you want top tier, classics is the only place to get them right now.

Yes but you’ll never be able to champ them. I pulled Classics for a long time till I recognised two things:

1) dilution is real and significant
2) power creep is also very real

Save and pull Latests when there are 3 good ones would be my advice.

Power creep is real? So who would you list as top 5 characters for the tier? At least 2 of the 3 newest (once kitty is live) would not make that list. 

For me personally latest legends are good for getting a jump start on the 3 in them giving me an easier time to finish them off once they go to classics. My jj, okoye, and ghost rider all made it to 6 covers. My thor made it to 9 and lumbercap made it to 10. I have not had any feeders helping me with these characters yet. So once the feeders get going I will finish them off eventually. My archangel is currently at 12 when he went into classics he was at 8. That is without a feeder.

Telling people they can "never" champion a 5* pulling classics is a lie. This is not my opinion, it is statistically true. Pulling from classics works it is just slower progress overall but will get you access to all the characters. Whereas saving all your cp for latests will guarantee you never draw a cover for 24 different characters (and growing) except for bonus heros. 

Yes hoarding for latests is the most direct route to getting into the 5* tier. But you will miss out on fun synergies with older characters as you will never draw covers for them except for bonus hero's or champion rewards. For me personally never drawing a cover for close to 90% of a tier is unacceptable if I have other options.

Never say never. But statistics also say that it’ll take a really long time to make progress towards champing a 5* via Classics.

In 350 Latest pulls, you’ll get an average of 52 (sd = 7) 5* covers split among 3 characters, and you’ll finish 2 of them on average (sd = 1) assuming you’re starting from 0/0/0

For that same amount of CP, you’ll get 437 Classic pulls, draw an average of 66 (sd = 7) 5* covers split among 24 characters, and you’ll finish 0 of them assuming you’re starting from 0/0/0.

Classics are not worth it if your intention is to jump into 5* land, especially if your Classic 5*s are mostly undercovered. Either wait for Latest to feature 3 decent 5*s or wait for a new release store that has a Classic 5* you really want.

tiomono

justsing said:

tiomono said:

Rod5 said: 

tiomono said:

You also need to consider if you want to be top tier when you reach 5* land. Latests will not do that for you after okoye leaves. Wasp, Loki, and kitty are ok to bad. Wasp probably being the worst 5* period.

So if you want the good characters you can only find them in classics or you can wait and hope that the next 5* release store will have a top tier character in it. Kitty will have Logan and Phoenix. This is a mid tier store. If you save maybe the next new release store will have a top tier selection. Or it could be banner and ock we do not know.

If you want top tier, classics is the only place to get them right now.

Yes but you’ll never be able to champ them. I pulled Classics for a long time till I recognised two things:

1) dilution is real and significant
2) power creep is also very real

Save and pull Latests when there are 3 good ones would be my advice.

Power creep is real? So who would you list as top 5 characters for the tier? At least 2 of the 3 newest (once kitty is live) would not make that list. 

For me personally latest legends are good for getting a jump start on the 3 in them giving me an easier time to finish them off once they go to classics. My jj, okoye, and ghost rider all made it to 6 covers. My thor made it to 9 and lumbercap made it to 10. I have not had any feeders helping me with these characters yet. So once the feeders get going I will finish them off eventually. My archangel is currently at 12 when he went into classics he was at 8. That is without a feeder.

Telling people they can "never" champion a 5* pulling classics is a lie. This is not my opinion, it is statistically true. Pulling from classics works it is just slower progress overall but will get you access to all the characters. Whereas saving all your cp for latests will guarantee you never draw a cover for 24 different characters (and growing) except for bonus heros. 

Yes hoarding for latests is the most direct route to getting into the 5* tier. But you will miss out on fun synergies with older characters as you will never draw covers for them except for bonus hero's or champion rewards. For me personally never drawing a cover for close to 90% of a tier is unacceptable if I have other options.

Never say never. But statistics also say that it’ll take a really long time to make progress towards champing a 5* via Classics.

In 350 Latest pulls, you’ll get an average of 52 (sd = 7) 5* covers split among 3 characters, and you’ll finish 2 of them on average (sd = 1) assuming you’re starting from 0/0/0

For that same amount of CP, you’ll get 437 Classic pulls, draw an average of 66 (sd = 7) 5* covers split among 24 characters, and you’ll finish 0 of them assuming you’re starting from 0/0/0.

Classics are not worth it if your intention is to jump into 5* land, especially if your Classic 5*s are mostly undercovered. Either wait for Latest to feature 3 decent 5*s or wait for a new release store that has a Classic 5* you really want.

Both options have pros and cons. For me the extra pulls and availability of every character outweigh the pros of hoarding for latests. Also the biggest con of latests for me is no chance at almost 90% of the tier.

But again I'm not trying to fly into the 5* tier I'm just moving toward it steadily.

I'm not saying my way is the only way. I am pointing out that it is an option. With the addition of feeders and daily rewards nobody will be at 000 on all 5*s regardless of which option they choose. If you want into the 5* tier pronto latests is it no doubt. I just cannot handle not having any shot at so many good chatacters. I hated vaulting for the exact same reason.

Phumade

tiomono said:

Telling people they can "never" champion a 5* pulling classics is a lie. This is not my opinion, it is statistically true. Pulling from classics works it is just slower progress overall but will get you access to all the characters. Whereas saving all your cp for latests will guarantee you never draw a cover for 24 different characters (and growing) except for bonus heros. 

Yes hoarding for latests is the most direct route to getting into the 5* tier. But you will miss out on fun synergies with older characters as you will never draw covers for them except for bonus hero's or champion rewards. For me personally never drawing a cover for close to 90% of a tier is unacceptable if I have other options.

It’s definitely true that you can champ a classic in 13 straight pulls.  But idi don’t think you considered that math behind dilution.

assumpitions
6 week cycle = 40 days ( end to make the math easy)
assume 100 pulls yields 15 covers simplified for math

work
this means you 100 classic pulls every cycle to keep up with dilution.  At 20cp a pull you 2000 cp every cycle to keep up with dilution.  Stated another way, unless  your personal daily cp avg is greater than the 5* intro pace, you will ALWAYS fall behind in covering 5*.

so the real implication is this.  The real obstacle to finishing the 5* tier is “whether your roster can generate the cp to keep up with the pace of 5* introduction.

example:
my roster can only generate 40 cp a day.  So in 6 weeks I make 1600 cp or 80 pulls. 80 pulls yields 12 5*.   Even if you assumed all 12 5* were the same character, you’ve actually LOST ground since 13 covers entered the 5* tier.  Each successive cycle will put you even further behind.

So the fundamental difficulty in creating a 5* champ is whether the roster can generate cp faster than anew 5* character would consume it.
(Consume means buy enough pulls to cover a char).

if your goal is to champ every 5* as they are released, then ultimately the only thing that matters is whether your roster can generate or buy more resources at a faster rate than the devs can create content to consume those resources.

For me personally, the only question I ever ask is will this expenditure of resources enable my roster to generate a bigger daily avg.

Straycat

The only thing that makes pulling Classics a viable strategy for me is that LTs are always Latests. I got JJ to 11 covers when she left latest, so then I started pulling classics until I could champ her. That's where my Okoye is too, so I hope to champ her before too long when she enters classics.

tiomono

Phumade said:

tiomono said:

Telling people they can "never" champion a 5* pulling classics is a lie. This is not my opinion, it is statistically true. Pulling from classics works it is just slower progress overall but will get you access to all the characters. Whereas saving all your cp for latests will guarantee you never draw a cover for 24 different characters (and growing) except for bonus heros. 

Yes hoarding for latests is the most direct route to getting into the 5* tier. But you will miss out on fun synergies with older characters as you will never draw covers for them except for bonus hero's or champion rewards. For me personally never drawing a cover for close to 90% of a tier is unacceptable if I have other options.

It’s definitely true that you can champ a classic in 13 straight pulls.  But idi don’t think you considered that math behind dilution.

assumpitions
6 week cycle = 40 days ( end to make the math easy)
assume 100 pulls yields 15 covers simplified for math

work
this means you 100 classic pulls every cycle to keep up with dilution.  At 20cp a pull you 2000 cp every cycle to keep up with dilution.  Stated another way, unless  your personal daily cp avg is greater than the 5* intro pace, you will ALWAYS fall behind in covering 5*.

so the real implication is this.  The real obstacle to finishing the 5* tier is “whether your roster can generate the cp to keep up with the pace of 5* introduction.

example:
my roster can only generate 40 cp a day.  So in 6 weeks I make 1600 cp or 80 pulls. 80 pulls yields 12 5*.   Even if you assumed all 12 5* were the same character, you’ve actually LOST ground since 13 covers entered the 5* tier.  Each successive cycle will put you even further behind.

So the fundamental difficulty in creating a 5* champ is whether the roster can generate cp faster than anew 5* character would consume it.
(Consume means buy enough pulls to cover a char).

if your goal is to champ every 5* as they are released, then ultimately the only thing that matters is whether your roster can generate or buy more resources at a faster rate than the devs can create content to consume those resources.

For me personally, the only question I ever ask is will this expenditure of resources enable my roster to generate a bigger daily avg.

So are you saying its mathematically impossible to champ a 5* by only using cp to open classics?

Phumade

tiomono said:

Phumade said:

It’s definitely true that you can champ a classic in 13 straight pulls.  But idi don’t think you considered that math behind dilution.

assumpitions
6 week cycle = 40 days ( end to make the math easy)
assume 100 pulls yields 15 covers simplified for math

work
this means you 100 classic pulls every cycle to keep up with dilution.  At 20cp a pull you 2000 cp every cycle to keep up with dilution.  Stated another way, unless  your personal daily cp avg is greater than the 5* intro pace, you will ALWAYS fall behind in covering 5*.

so the real implication is this.  The real obstacle to finishing the 5* tier is “whether your roster can generate the cp to keep up with the pace of 5* introduction.

example:
my roster can only generate 40 cp a day.  So in 6 weeks I make 1600 cp or 80 pulls. 80 pulls yields 12 5*.   Even if you assumed all 12 5* were the same character, you’ve actually LOST ground since 13 covers entered the 5* tier.  Each successive cycle will put you even further behind.

So the fundamental difficulty in creating a 5* champ is whether the roster can generate cp faster than anew 5* character would consume it.
(Consume means buy enough pulls to cover a char).

if your goal is to champ every 5* as they are released, then ultimately the only thing that matters is whether your roster can generate or buy more resources at a faster rate than the devs can create content to consume those resources.

For me personally, the only question I ever ask is will this expenditure of resources enable my roster to generate a bigger daily avg.

So are you saying its mathematically impossible to champ a 5* by only using cp to open classics?

did you not read the first line of my response?  If your fundamental goal is to champion all the 5* or be in a position to champ them as they are released, then your choice of tokens is irrelevant.  The only question is whether you can generate enough cp to keep up with the devs production cycle.

In fact,  if your a 40cpe a day roster.  I will guarantee that a 100cpe a day roster will complete the 5* tier faster by just buy latests and new char stores. (assuming that all old chars get rotated though)

In fact a 100 cpe a day roster will generate this.

100 cpe X 40 days = 4000cp every cycle.
4000cp yeilds  160 (25cp pulls)  yielding  24 5* covers.

So in general terms a 100 cpe a day player can reasonable expect 2 full 5* every cycle. (it doesn't matter if its open as you go or hoard for the full 6 weeks.  Its the rate not the amount that really matters in keeping up with the devs.)

by comparison a 40cpe a day player generates this:

40 cpe X 40 days =1600 cp every cycle
1600 cpe yeilds  80pulls (20cp pull) yielding 12 covers.

Assuming the game gliches and gives out covers perfectly.  The 100 cpe a day player is reducing his backlog of 5* by 1 full character each cycle.

The 40 cpe a day player is actually increasing his backlog every cycle.

and I want to point out 1 more important fact.

You could have a god tier roster and be a lazy casual player and only generate 40cpe a day.
and I've seen much smaller rosters easily meet that avg (whether through buying their resources or winning them)