To Farm or Not To Farm the 3*s

JSP869

I'm not talking about not rostering the 3*s but specifically when you have your 3*s at 266 and you continue getting more covers for them. Popular consensus is to spend the HP and roster a dupe, right?

So I currently have 30 3*s at 266, 37 non-max level Champion 3*s, and 10 non-Championed 3*s, so I've not only not already started my 3* Farm but it's well on its way to being fully sowed. The reason I only have 30 3*s at 266 is because I've already sold quite a few 266s to re-roster them (as opposed to buying a second slot), then I did start to roster a dupe for everyone, but now, with She-Hulk at 266 and one of her covers on the vine, I'm wondering if I really want to buy another slot for her, or should I sell the 266 and re-roster her, or just say fugg it, keep the 266, and sell the cover for the Iso.

Part of what is causing me to deliberate this is that She-Hulk, like 34 other 3*s, does not have a 2* Feeder; only twelve of the 3*s do, and so I've been pondering the means by which I acquire covers for my 3*s. 

Obviously I get them from Standard, Elite, and Heroic tokens (sometimes), and that's undoubtedly my steadiest supply of covers. I also get one per day from DDQ, so every 47 days I get a cover for a specific 3*. I get them from PvE placement and progression rewards, so every 46th & 47th event (~23 weeks) I'll get another 6 covers (I play CL9) for a specific 3*. And every 46th & 47th PvP event (assuming a balanced rotation) will get me a few covers, but slightly less than I would from PvE. 

Playing casually I expect I can fully cover a dupe in 6 months, but as I often use the Bonus Hero system to fully cover each dupe, I'm actually fully covering each dupe in significantly less time. But that steady supply of covers for that one particular character very quickly dries up when I BH the next dupe.

And as mentioned earlier you get 3* covers from 2* Champion rewards, but they only help twelve of the forty-seven 3*s.

As I'm drawing closer and closer to having almost every 4* fully covered, I've becoming more & more acutely aware that what's preventing me from having them all Championed is the lack of Iso. And the reason I don't have enough Iso is because I'm dumping a lot of it into the 2* & 3* Farms.

So what I've really been pondering is whether or not it's worth having a full 3* Farm.

The 3*s that have 2* Feeders are no-brainers because those twelve are going to regularly get a lot more covers than the rest of the 3*s. 

The 3*s that don't have a 2* feeder will progress a lot slower, and so the "return on investment" for those non-fed 3*s is going to be significantly less.

What I also wonder is how my supply of HP, CP, and LTs will be impacted by not having a full 3* Farm. It's easy enough to crunch the numbers and see what benefits we can get from raising a 3* champion to 266, but how long does that take? 

I've been playing MPQ for almost 5 years (casually, for the most part) and only started to get max Champion 3*s within the past year or so. To me, that says the payoff for those non-fed 3*s was a very long time coming (at least for me), and so it makes me wonder if my Iso may not be better spent on my 4*s, and HP better spent on roster slots for the new 4*s and 5*s, which arrive every 2 weeks regular as clockwork, with any excess HP going to vaults with prizes that may help me cover an undercovered 4*.

Ultimately, I realize that this is an entirely subjective premise because our personal results will vary depending on how we each play the game, what CL we play at, and whether we play PvP, PvE, or both.

I also realize that as I currently have 75 3*s rostered, I'm already over halfway to having a dupe of every 3*, and so it wouldn't cost me too much more HP to roster a dupe for every 3* anyway. So perhaps this is all a moot point for me, and maybe I should just farm every 3*.

I tell you what though. I am not looking forward to the day when I have to seriously deliberate this for the 4*s

GrimSkald

I would say if you're feeling the crunch of Iso and HP for the dupes, you should sell some of your 266 and just make do with the lower level dupes.  For a 4* player you're probably only going to use the 3* when it's featured, and I think that will only make a real difference in PVP.  Even then, it mostly just acts as a deterrent and not a big one at that, so the difference between a, say, level 220 and level 266 3* is going to be fairly small.  Selling the 3* gets you back a lot of the Iso you need to dump into a new one - I think the difference is like 20k?

The fact that you get HP, CP, LTs, and 4* covers from a 3* means you should pretty much never sell the covers - the long term benefits definitely outshine the Iso expenditure, which can be mitigated by selling them.

Speaking for myself, I tend to sell my 266 3* when I get the dupe past the 60% mark (226) and they have been featured in PVP recently.  I feel confident enough that I'll be able to finish them before the four to six months go by before they're featured again.  But the fact of the matter is even if I don't it's going to make very little difference.

Borstock

I'm in 5* land, and there are exceptions to every rule, but I have found that I rely on a required 3* almost as much as I do a required 2*. As long as you have them on your roster with a decent number of covers, I wouldn't hesitate to sell your max-champed 3*s for any iso, HPs, and slots you may need. I'm on my third turnover and I only have five max-champed that I haven't sold off for parts (read:  HP).

GrimSkald

Also, you're probably a long, long way away from a 4* farm.   I'm a 5* player, have all but the 3 most recent 4* fully covered and champed, and I have exactly one 4* farmed character - Captain Marvel.  She was my 4* BH for a  while.  My next closest are Peggy, IMHB, and Medusa all at 355 - so 15 levels off max.  I'll probably end up with a (small) 4* farm at some point, but it's entirely possible that it won't be in 2019...

4* covers and levels come a lot slower - with that tier growing it will come slower still.  I don't think I'd worry about the logistics of a 4* farm, each one will come so slowly it will be a trivial expenditure of Iso and HP relative to everything else.  Also, there is such a thing as "post Iso," where your expenditures do not exceed your income.  When you hit that, your Iso builds pretty rapidly and basically ceases to be a factor at all.

Warbringa

Here is my experience.  Initially I only rostered the 3* dupes with 2* feeders OR a few of what I considered top tier 3's and I just sold off the 3* covers.  I quickly realized that I have a ton of surplus HP, so extra roster slots weren't an issue.  I currently am building my 5* roster so iso isn't really an issue either. Sure I could champ some poor 4* but now with cover savings, I prefer to just save their covers.  I think cover savings also made 3* dupe farms more reliable because I can spend the iso to champ them at my own pace while not wasting the covers.  Every once and a while I will champ a 3* dupe and I haven't sold any of my 3* 266's.  The way that I look at the 3* dupe farm is as an iso bank.  The bank is paying me interest through the 3* champ rewards.  At any time that I need a lot of iso, I can just sell a bunch of 266 3* to level up 4* or 5* if I really need to do so. At this point I have more than enough iso outside of my 3* farm, 3 million currently, that I don't really have a good use for.  Few of the 4* that I can champ are worthwhile, they don't make my roster any better.  Several of the new decent 4* I don't have fully covered.  I have a few places in 5* land where I can spend the iso but really, none are going to help me dramatically right now.  Therefore, 3* farm is a nice place to spend it for now, and I can always get it back in the future if needed.  For reference I am a long-time veteran, have not spent $ significantly (other than a few $1.99 purchases and one or two of their package deals over the past year) for several years and am in a casual alliance.  

Dragon_Nexus

Rostering dupes is painful, definitely. But I re-rostered and champed every 3* again because it gave me something to do.

And now I have every 3* at max levels and a dupe being created. I'm set up so a third 3* is being made and when that hits 13 covers, I sell the original dupe and pour the ISO into them to champ them.

Once you get every 3* maxed with a dupe, it's a farm that can almost sustain itself. It just takes a lot of ISO to get there.

Jwallyr

1) I have every character rostered, and am just now approaching some max 3s that I plan to dupe. I am significantly HP-positive, and this is with buying most 100-HP daily deals that aren't awful pointless vaults (I'm only interested in chasing specific 4stars). If you're struggling for HP for re-rosters, I'm curious where your HP is going. I consider nearly all H4H to be bad values vs. simply plowing that same amount of HP into daily deals, so I might recommend that you examine your HP spending habits if HP is a problem.

2) In the age of saved covers, I'm not sure why you would particularly care about champing all the 4s except out of some desire to "collect them all". There are a small number (probably single digit) of truly outstanding 4s, and the rest are only significant when boosted (if at all). Champing the ones that are standouts, leveling the rest to 209 as required for SHIELD Training (or when otherwise required) and then spending Iso to level individual solid choices if (and only if) you have a week where you have no good options boosted should leave you with plenty of Iso to do other things in the meanwhile.

3) Post-Iso is a thing, apparently, and in the long term foregoing the other rewards (HP, CP, covers) just to save some marginal amount of Iso in the short term seems like a bad long-term strategy.

4) Occurs to me that in measuring your entire gameplay history against the speed of your 3star farm might give you an inaccurate picture of how long it takes to develop a 3star, since champ rewards and etc. probably weren't even a thing when you started. Measuring from whenever champing became a thing would give you a better idea of the speed it takes. I'm on day 480, for instance, and I have multiple 3s approaching 266 pretty quickly, so your "5 years" number seems way off to me.

So, yeah, I can't possibly recommend that you don't re-roster dupe 3s. I personally plan to dupe ALL of the 3s, just to have the option of using a well-developed 3 in pvp and/or for Essential nodes (because sometimes being able to cobble a team around the given 3 makes it easier, rather than brute forcing the node with 2 characters), but I can understand if you'd want to sell the 266 and re-roster without buying another slot. Long-term I have a really hard time believing it's a significant loss in Iso to farm 3s, though, and you get so many other rewards that I really think it's a bad idea to just forego a 3star farm entirely.

Straycat

There are basically 3 options for farming

1. Keep the max forever, I do this for my fave 3*s

2. Sell the max to champ the dupe- Just so you are never undercovered in an pve essential

3. Sell the max to roster the dupe- Saves you from having to buy a roster slot, but being stuck with a 1 cover 3* is bad

Is it worth it to keep all max 3*s forever? No, I don't think so. But it is worth it to make sure you maximize every 3* cover earned instead of just selling it for 500 iso.

GrimSkald

Jwallyr said:

3) Post-Iso is a thing, apparently, and in the long term foregoing the other rewards (HP, CP, covers) just to save some marginal amount of Iso in the short term seems like a bad long-term strategy.

I can verify that it is.  I've never really been behind the curve on Iso, though to be fair I started playing the game when the new characters were all 3*s, so I've had a relatively slow influx of characters.  I think I finally completely soft-capped my roster back in.... May or June I think.  I know I reached 1 million before I needed Iso again, dipped down to about 700k when I finished another 5*, then have just been slowly climbing since then.  I'm now at 5.1 million with a completely soft-capped roster - even to hard cap my roster (which would require a decent amount of 4* and 5* covers falling from the sky) would only take 2.5 million - I effectively don't care about Iso.  As soon as I can apply Iso to a character because I add a cover, I do regardless of whether or not it will be immediately useful.

I know there are others in the same position.

Rockwell75

I sell my 3s as soon as they hit 266 and I have another single cover to re-roster.  It's never once impacted my ability to hit 1200 in PVP and I've never once regretted it and I've maxed and sold about 2/3 of the 3s.  Personally I think rostering dupe 3s is a waste of HP.

Dormammu

Once I have the entirety of the 3-star field max-champed (I'm about a half dozen covers away from this achievement) I'm never going to sell a single one of them. I want every one of those darn things sitting on my roster at level 266.

Once I'm finished champing the 4-star tier (sans new releases... I'm about 10 characters away) I'll start rostering 3-star dupes and farming them. At that point I'll be both ISO/HP positive and it'll make sense.

In the meantime, I've been selling 3-star covers. ISO is my priority to finish the 4-stars up and at 500 a pop I make a good ISO income from 3-star covers that has accelerated my 4-star champing process. Selling 3-star covers doesn't bother me one bit.

justsing

I'm a 4* player with a 3* farm. I keep a copy of my max champed 3*s and roster a dupe. I used to feel the ISO crunch and sold a few max champed 3*s to champ a 4*, but like others have said above, Saved Covers have changed things. There is no pressure to champ a 4* unless they are one of the best. I've also found that having a max champed 3* helps in 4* PVP land. So I'd recommend putting ISO into 4*s only if they're top tier, needed for Shield Training / Crash, or if you need a boosted 4* champ for PVP that week. As for your 3*s, I'd say go ahead and re-roster those dupes. You can keep them unleveled (I have several sitting at level 40 with many saved covers) and then champ them once you have enough extra ISO to spare.

randomhero1090

Straycat said:

There are basically 3 options for farming

1. Keep the max forever, I do this for my fave 3*s

2. Sell the max to champ the dupe- Just so you are never undercovered in an pve essential

3. Sell the max to roster the dupe- Saves you from having to buy a roster slot, but being stuck with a 1 cover 3* is bad

Is it worth it to keep all max 3*s forever? No, I don't think so. But it is worth it to make sure you maximize every 3* cover earned instead of just selling it for 500 iso.

I'm with this, especially if you aren't in 5* land, like myself.  I will still use boosted 3s from time to time, especially if they are IM40 or Strange.  Depends on what kind of synergies I can build.  Honestly not sure there are others I care that much about.  I'm holding a max cap marvel simply because the movie is coming out soon, otherwise, i'd sell and rechamp.

With saved covers, if HP isn't an issue, i'd just start a farm.  That might seem like a waste until you realize how many rewards you will get from now throwing away covers.

Personally, HP for roster slots is greater than most vault/store purchases, especially if we are talking about people who've maxed 3s already.  You aren't in a need for 3/4 covers.

JHawkInc

I sold my first 266's, and put the ISO into champing some 5's. I champed most of my first 5's this way, and later when I didn't have 5's to champ in the first place, I spent ISO on re-champing those 3's.

Now, I've flipped all of them at least once, and the first couple (mainly due to 2*s feeding 3* covers) have come back around to 266 again.

This time I'm creating a dupe. By the time you get to champed 5's you don't really worry about the 3* character for PVE, but carrying a weak 3* into PVP can be a little limiting. So this time around I'm glad to keep my 266s and start a third one as a dupe in order to keep that slight advantage of having a 3* that won't die immediately.

ThaRoadWarrior

I was rostering dupes for a month or two, and using my 3* bonus hero to force feed most of my 4* roster to 10 covers at least, so my dupes are all sadly undercovered. Around the anniversary and again at the Kingpin launch I sold off my max-champs, and was pretty immediately hit with some event where they were required. It was usually a rough 3 days trying to hang on to points in whatever PVP was going on, but there was always wins-based to fall back on if i wanted the 4* cover in progression. There is a very significant hit point delta between a baby champ 3* and a max-champ 3* which can really act as a deterrent in PVP. But right now my priority is closing out the 4* tier (to the degree it can be), so I need the iso more than I need the PVP help.

shardwick

Honestly, the game is one big painful process. Roster some 1s, all the 2s, all the 3s, all the 4s, all the 5s, plus decide to roster dupes for those tiers. It's like going to the gym when you're out of shape. You don't want to do it but down the road you know you'll be better off for it. Dealing with two painful processes right now, taking all of my 4s to 209 and making dupes of my 3s. Almost done with the first and halfway done with the second. Then I can relax more and just pour iso into champing the rest of my 4s and my 3* dupes and not have to worry about hp as much except for new characters.

AardvarkPepper

JSP869 said:

I'm not talking about not rostering the 3*s but specifically when you have your 3*s at 266 and you continue getting more covers for them. Popular consensus is to spend the HP and roster a dupe, right?

Ugh.  Popular consensus.

(BTW this will be a text wally post, feel free to skip if you don't like text walls, or for whatever other reason really).

Look, I want to be very clear.  What is very right in some situations is very wrong in others.  Even statements that are taken pretty much for granted, such as "roster at least one of each non-Bagman 2* character" or "3* Cyclops is a good character" are situational.

"what, aardvark, you're just talking silly" - no, really.  If you're a super casual player that only plays Deadpool Daily Quest (only!) *and* that doesn't open tokens, your main source of HP income is Deadpool Daily Quest and having the Essential 3* - in that case you may give up 2*s to roster 3*s (but I mean REALLY you don't play ANY events, and you REALLY hoard tokens - which you can open later, but I digress.)

As to 3* Cyclops, sure veterans that use him in PvP think he's good because he has multiple bombs.  But if you're a player in the 2*-3* transition, 3* Iron Man, 3* Doctor Strange, and 3* Hawkeye all take priority.  3* Cyclops' weak board shakeup isn't sufficient to fight off higher leveled Muscles that do high team damage, nor is he particularly useful against Sentry bots.  Multiple bombs yes, and the AI doesn't screw up using him so he works all right on PvP defense, but for pushing PvE, he's just not a priority.

Then I'd roster 3* Black Widow (also called GSBW for "Gray Suit Black Widow" a lot) before Cyclops even.  Thanos.  Deadpool.  Buncha others.  Again, 3* Cyclops, nice for vets for PvP.  But for developing 3* rosters with limited roster space, I'd say not so much a priority.

Sooo "popular consensus".  The question is not what people say is right, it's why they're saying it, and whether or not it's right for your roster (which is one thing) and your spending habits (which is another) and your playstyle (including regularity or infrequency of play as well as which events at what SCL and how long you take, then there's the question of alliance rewards . . .)

JSP869 said:

As I'm drawing closer and closer to having almost every 4* fully covered, I've becoming more & more acutely aware that what's preventing me from having them all Championed is the lack of Iso. And the reason I don't have enough Iso is because I'm dumping a lot of it into the 2* & 3* Farms.

So what I've really been pondering is whether or not it's worth having a full 3* Farm.

The 3*s that have 2* Feeders are no-brainers because those twelve are going to regularly get a lot more covers than the rest of the 3*s. 

The 3*s that don't have a 2* feeder will progress a lot slower, and so the "return on investment" for those non-fed 3*s is going to be significantly less.

I'd say you have a pretty good grasp of the fundamental mechanics.  Which is different to saying you have a good grasp of the fundamental question.  But then, if you had a good grasp of the fundamental question, you wouldn't be asking a question.  Ha.

Ultimately it's a question of Return On Investment.  More on that in a bit.

I've been playing MPQ for almost 5 years (casually, for the most part) and only started to get max Champion 3*s within the past year or so. To me, that says the payoff for those non-fed 3*s was a very long time coming (at least for me), and so it makes me wonder if my Iso may not be better spent on my 4*s, and HP better spent on roster slots for the new 4*s and 5*s, which arrive every 2 weeks regular as clockwork, with any excess HP going to vaults with prizes that may help me cover an undercovered 4*.

Ultimately, I realize that this is an entirely subjective premise because our personal results will vary depending on how we each play the game, what CL we play at, and whether we play PvP, PvE, or both.

You are good at putting the question into perspective.  Seriously.  Most players just don't frame the question in such a well organized manner as you have.

JSP869 said:

What I also wonder is how my supply of HP, CP, and LTs will be impacted by not having a full 3* Farm. It's easy enough to crunch the numbers and see what benefits we can get from raising a 3* champion to 266, but how long does that take?

Ooookay now to the heart of the matter.

http://marvelpuzzlequest.wikia.com/wiki/Champion

http://marvelpuzzlequest.wikia.com/wiki/Iso-8

Note:  The wiki is REALLY out of date in some areas, but I think the iso costs probably haven't been mucked about with too much.  No seriously, the wiki is out of date, don't rely on it much . . .

So you're NOT questioning whether you're championing then maxing 3*s.  (I agree you don't want to give up on farming 3* champion rewards).  The QUESTION is what do you GAIN by SELLING a maxed 3*, and what do you GIVE UP?  And I'm gonna say at the outset it's about PvP.  Because I imagine at this point in your roster development (you mentioned getting to the point where almost all your 4*s are fully covered) you already have your PvE down.

3*:  119,919 iso to raise to normal maximum (13 covers), then another 7,500 to champion.

4*:  365,821 iso to raise to normal maximum (13 covers) 12,500 to champion.

Then, from outside wiki, selling a maxed 3* champion gets 105,000 iso, 500 HP.  Again, you're not questioning whether or not to keep that 3* champion rewards farm going, as I read it.  You're asking what happens if you sell your maxed 3*s as opposed to keeping them.

==

Soo yeah.  Right now you're spending the iso on raising duplicate 3*s anyways.  So rather than calculating difference between raising and championing a 3* and selling a maxed 3*, it's pretty simple - you get 105,000 iso and 500 HP per 3* sold.  4*s require 378,321 iso to champion, going from 70 to 270 with 13 covers.

So for almost every fourth 3* you sell, you'll have the iso to champion one more 4*.  (Not really!  Read on, it's more like two 3*s really . . .)

==

So the question now is - is it worth it?  Well let's think on it.  You're going to be raising level 4*s to level 209 for SHIELD training anyways, and Deadpool Daily Quest Crash of the Titans, 209 is often good enough with boosts.  I forget the exact numbers but it works out to raising a 4* to 209 costs a little less than the full cost for championing a 4* to 270 from scratch.  So it's not REALLY that you're giving up four 3*s for one 4*.  It's more like you have to go about half the distance with a 4* anyways.  So it's like giving up two 3*s for one 4* (assuming you DO have the iso to bring your 4*s to 209).

Yes, you may not be bringing a particular 4* to 209 immediately; you might be banking the iso so instead of bringing everyone to 209 when they don't need to be and not having iso when you need it, if you have an iso bank then a 4* comes up in Deadpool Daily Crash of the Titans or SHIELD training, hey presto, instant level 209 (or whatever).  But what I'm getting at is for long term development, all those 4*s will be at 209, so use that as the base to figure opportunity costs relating to fully championing 4*s (as opposed to using level 70 as the base).

==

So again the question - is it worth it?  Well it works out to . . . . your 3*s are going to be level 166ish in PvP when re-rostered as opposed to level 266 (maxed).  That works out to 100 levels of difference, which is like I don't know, maybe 15,000 hit points and a fat load of damage for their powers.  Is that going to make a difference?  Yes it is, to a degree; if you're at a lower tier, maybe in the 3*-4* area in PvP (which you are) and unshielded then if *you* have a maxed 3* as opposed to a fresh 3*, then fewer opponents are going to hit you.  If a PvP opponent has to choose between two teams, and one has a character with 15,000 more hit points and a chunk of damage, which will they hit?  Exactly.

And in the back of your mind, you're thinking it took you about four years to get that maxed 3*.  Well okay it's not quite four years what with favorite character gold stars and accelerated rates of earning rewards, but it's a while.  So again, in the back of your mind, you're thinking you don't want to mess up your investment in that 3*.

So what's the difference with a championed 4*?  (Not 3*, mind - for comparison to 3*s)  Well again, think about it not as level 70 vs level 270, but level 209 vs level 270.  If NOT boosted in PvP, I think it works out to something like a 30% difference in HP and damage.  But if a 4* IS boosted, the effective difference in power is I think something on the order of 100% more HP and 100% more damage.

Now is a maxed 3* going to make a difference when a 5* Thor / Okoye team comes knocking in PvP?  Probably not.  But then again, that's probably going to screw you over regardless so I'd say it doesn't figure so much into the calculations.  Yes again, even a 5* Thor / Okoye team won't pick on you if the OTHER guy (or girl) has the same team as you but doesn't have a maxed 5*, but they're going to pick on you next, you know?

So yeah it makes a difference depending on how high in PvP you're aiming, if you're going for lower score progression or maybe making a few matchups easier I'd say.  But I'd say maxed 3*s aren't going to really make that transition to PvP top placement rewards or anything.  They'll help a bit yeah, but at that level it's really the other two characters on the team that make the difference.  Every bit helps, but . . . yeah.

==

Soooo and yeah what you're looking at by dropping a maxed 3* is something on the order of a 15,000 HP (or whatever, I forget) and I don't know, 50%?  70%?  Something nice anyways, and an investment of 2-4 years perhaps.

And what do you get?  It takes you two of those maxed 3*s to bring your 4* level 209 to 270, and the difference in PvP unboosted is a lousy 30%.  BUT IF THE 4* IS BOOSTED then it's 100% more HP and 100% more damage.  Plus of course you can switch covers around at will, which isn't a bad point.

Hopefully that provides some perspective.  Championed 4*s compared to thirteen-cover level 209 4*s, the championed 4* is waaay better.  But if the 4* isn't really that much good on its own, if the 4* isn't on a team with synergy, then it's just not so good.

So if you're early in the 3*-4* transition (which the OP isn't) then I'd say if you have maxed 3*s (you might have a few), probably you don't have a lot of synergistic 4*s that can take advantage of boosts.  If you're later in the 3*-4* transition and have a number of championed 4*s, and other 4*s at thirteen covers or so that you can raise to champion, then you're looking at synergistic boosted 4* teams, which is a load better, and at that point you start selling of some of those maxed 3*s if you're hurting for iso, because you're really transitioning into using your 4*s more in all situations (especially PvP).

==

To the point of keeping 3* maxed champions if they do or don't have 2* feeders - I would say, personally - I wouldn't care about 2* feeders.  If a 3* has good utility, especially if it's unique, then I want to keep it maxed.  So you keep a 3* Iron Man at level 266, because he has a load of hit points and he can generate AP.  3* Thanos also has a load of hit points and his black passive is useful too.  Those are pretty much yeah no matter what you keep them at 266, I'd say.

Then there's 3*s that are effectively replaced by 4*s.  Like Daredevil's fun at 3*, but for blue stuns you have 4* Iceman, for red recurring damage you have 4* Gamora, for purple messing with enemy SPA (strike/protect/attack) you have . . . oh, I don't know, 4* Kraven's passive, 4* Jean Grey's purple, blah blah loads of stuff.  Plus 3* Daredevil doesn't have a load of hit points.  So kick him to the curb.

Then there's 3*s that are kind of sucky normally, but if you're using them in PvP then maybe worth keeping at 266.  Like 3* Cyclops, he's pretty useless in PvE and even in PvP I wouldn't prioritize him normally - mostly because he's so one-dimensional with only damage and no AP generation or stun or good board shakeups, but if he's boosted (which is the whole point almost of keeping a level 266 3* anyways) then he's pretty decent in PvP.   Okay he doesn't have many tricks, he just has a couple damage powers, but sometimes that's what you want.

Then there's 3*s that might be okay normally, but if you're using them in PvP then they're worth thinking about keeping at 266.  Like 3* Hood really is fragile and slow, and his powers are kinda eh.  But when you combine his AP steal with 4* America Chavez, he's a little more interesting than normal.  Of course if Hood's at 166 then he dies really quickly, but if he's at 266 a little less so.  (He still dies super fast).  But anyways if you're using 4* Chavez / 3* Hood a lot, well, that's where I'm going.

==

On the flip side, there are 4*s you want to champion as a priority.  Again yeah it's only a 30% difference if not boosted, but if you have a good combination of characters and both are boosted, that 100% difference when boosted is pretty big.

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Drawing this post to a close - I'd say pick and choose the maxed 3*s you want to keep, remembering you want them for PvP (isn't that true?) and *possibly* if you use them in a particular 4* team (like 3* Hood and 4* Chavez) then that too.  Generally the 100% boost to 4*s when championed (when comparing level 270s to level 209s) makes 4*s worth championing *if* you have a decent field of 4*s to draw from so can build off 4* synergies.  IF.  Which the OP does, as I read it, but others won't.

Don't just blow ALL your 3*s to champion 4*s though.  Some 4*s, you give them a 100% boost in HP and damage, and they're still not that great.  And some 3*s really are going to make others think twice about hitting you, if you're not going too high in terms of PvP score anyways (maybe you're going for progression based prizes).  You have a boosted 3*, another 15,000 HP for a maxed boosted or whatever it is, you're going to save on health packs.  Not a super consideration if you're fielding synergistic boosted 4* PvP teams but  . . . if you have it, it's not bad either.

Also remember if you are going to shift into the 5* transition, that's going to be a chunk of iso there too.  By this point in your development, even as a free player, you ought to be capable of making the 5* transition if you saved, and though you might have been waiting for three good complementary 5*s to be in Latest Legends at the same time, my guess is you will have to think about the 5* game at some point - though you might defer putting iso into 5*s so you don't bork your PvP matchups.

n25philly

I don't have the resources for duplicates.  just fairly recently reached the point where I max champed some 3*'s.  Sold all of them off as soon as I got the first cover beyond that.  As a casual player I can say the 3* covers come reasonably quickly (I do add them to my bonus heros to help a little) and despite not being that deep in the 4* game I've yet to come across a match where my other heroes can't cover for the poorly covered rebuilds.

crackninja

I keep the max champs.  There are times when it matters just a bit, like:

*you happen upon a behemoth burrito where the 4* isn't great or is more of a support character, and having a low level 3* can mean dragging the fight out.

*thanos kills your low level 3* and it costs you healthpacks too fast

*less likely to get hit in pvp, though this goes the other way too, in that you're less likely to get hit by a weaker team you can retal against for an easy w

*those loaner nodes in pve...using your characters saves time over the loaners, and similar to the behemoth burrito note above, given say Emma frost as the 4* of the group, you will be happier with a higher level 3*.

I have the resources to do this, but it may not make sense for everyone. Plus these are minor factors. Definitely recommend against selling the dupe before the new one is fully covered though, if you can avoid it.

shardwick

crackninja said:

I keep the max champs.  There are times when it matters just a bit, like:

*you happen upon a behemoth burrito where the 4* isn't great or is more of a support character, and having a low level 3* can mean dragging the fight out.

*thanos kills your low level 3* and it costs you healthpacks too fast

*less likely to get hit in pvp, though this goes the other way too, in that you're less likely to get hit by a weaker team you can retal against for an easy w

*those loaner nodes in pve...using your characters saves time over the loaners, and similar to the behemoth burrito note above, given say Emma frost as the 4* of the group, you will be happier with a higher level 3*.

I have the resources to do this, but it may not make sense for everyone. Plus these are minor factors. Definitely recommend against selling the dupe before the new one is fully covered though, if you can avoid it.

I never use my regular characters over the loaner on the loaner node in pve. If you use the loaner and get a bad board then just retreat and try again. If you use your main characters and the enemy gets a huge cascade and fires off their big abilities on you then you're looking at spending up to three health packs to heal your guys for just one battle. The only time that I will use my guy over the loaner is if it's Grocket since he can shred people pretty fast.

bbigler

Just want to chime in for the "new player" perspective. By the time my 3*s reach 266 (about 1 year from now) I would be in 5* play and have about 66% of the 4* tier champed (this accounts for new 4*s). At that point, I would simply roster a 3* dupe and start saving 3* covers. By the time I have enough saved covers to sell the max champ and re-champ to level 183, I should be nearly done champing 4*s, so ISO shouldn't be a problem. 

I don't plan to keep playing that long, but this is how I would do it.