Need help with my 3* to 4* transition focus

itsuka7

Hi all, I could use your advice. I have been playing about half a year, and I am on the verge of championing my last 3*s. But I am unsure how to proceed into 4* land, spend my ISO wisely and work towards the right sort of 4* teams to progress.

I painstakingly entered my roster in the gamecompendium, hit the save button several times, but when I tried to recall it, it said the roster didn't exist, very frustrating, so I will have to give you an idea of my situation in writing.

General rostering style: I roster everything I get my hands on. I never throw away covers 2* and up. Only missing 10 5* at this point.

General HP situation: comfortable. I can roster my few missing chars. At this point I generate more HP than I have to spend on rostering. I do not spend it on heroes for hire, or vault buys so far, but sometimes I buy an extra heroic coin at 100, or a shield in the PVP.

General ISO situation: no reserves. I only need to champion 4 more 3* chars, then I will start to upgrade 4*s.

Alliance: I form a 2-person alliance with my partner (for sharing CPs when we buy VIP). As my partner is also around the 3* - 4* transition, we may have to look into other options at some point.

General outlook: I am not in a hurry to get in any specific part of the game, like the 5* game. I like broad development, and I intend to have fun in 4* land. I spend money to buy the VIP, and sometimes I will get a nice pack if it is not too expensive.

Hoarding: Nope, do not do that, as I need 4* covers. I spend every LLT immediately, and spend CPs on classics.

2*: farm going. I have enough space to double roster if it means losing covers otherswise.

3*: close to championing everyone. The highest chars are at lvl 194, so I am still many months away from having to double roster (but I would like to farm them if they hit top lvl). BH is whoever is closest to 183

4*: I rostered them all. 63 characters are at 7 covers or less. 13 covers: america chavez (lvl 235), carnage (lvl 70). 12 covers: kate bishop (13 soon I hope) (lvl129), 11: hulkbuster (lvl 100), devil dinosaur (lvl70). 10: wiccan (lvl 144). 8-9 covers: HME, Gamora, War Mach, Deadpool, Nico M, Nova, Medusa, Spider-Gwen, Nick Fury (all at lvl 70). Eventually I would like to develop the roster broadly if possible, get them all to a minimum 209 or so first, and then champion them, that sounds like my sort of thing.

5*: I have all but 10 of them, have only raised two of them to 270 at the start, the rest are at 255. I combine them with Chavez to rake up PVP wins to get to 40. They tank nicely, and their high match damage works well with her rainbow tiles. And I can go to the next one instead of healing them. Though I suspect that playing style will have to change if I get further into 4* land.

Playing style: I like PVE over PVP, but as there is no comfortabel slot that fits more than 2 hours of playing, I have to be able to do my PVE rounds in less than 60 minutes. So I have been playing at SCL 4, which I can always finish within 60 minutes and make top10 reliably to snatch a few extra 3* covers. My partner plays at SCL 6, and I do not like how it seems to take him 70-90 minutes per round (the usual 4 at the start and 3 at the finish). Ideally we would have to play SCL 7 for 4* progression award, but I doubt we can make it work around the time slot we are stuck with.

PVP I am at SCL 7, I almost always play to 40 wins to get the 4* cover. Sometimes I buy a shield to get an extra few 3* from ranking if I think I can remain best 50.

Team preferences: mostly America Chavez, at lvl 235, I have been playing her intensively combined with one 5* tank (preferably the one that is bonussed) and doc strange in PVE, and with one disposable 5* tank plus mandatory char in PVP. I have a few other teams I like for Shield Simulater mostly, like Kitty Pride-Blade-Falcon.

MMR: I haven't got the faintest idea how it works exactly, but I stopped upgrading my 5*s and most of my 4*s until I had a better idea what to do and not to do. Advice appreciated!

For possible 4* outlook, currenty I have Medusa as bonus hero, but she is at 8 covers, so it will take a long time to get her at 13 that way (bonus 4* comes approx. once a month so far). I figure Chavez, Carnage and Medusa might make a decent team, but I am unsure how many covers Medusa needs before she becomes useful. I have her now at 3-2-3, and also at what point this team would become better than my current Chavez - 5* - 3*docstrange/PVPchar combo. But maybe I am overlooking better options?

So, long post, but I really could use your thoughts on how to develop my 4* roster and  adapt my playing style if necessary, any help and comments appreciated.

itsuka7

PS Tried again to put the roster in, now available at (I hope)

https://mpq.gamependium.com/rosters/Itsuka7/

TPF Alexis

You haven't made any substantial mistakes yet. The 5* are pushing up your MMR, but you'll be able to deal with that just fine once you get a couple of 4* champs. Chavez is top tier, definitely a solid option for your first 4* champ. Can work well with most of the best 3*, and will stay useful up well into 5* land. Kate Bishop isn't top tier, but she's solid, and complements Chavez perfectly in terms of colour usage. Wouldn't be a bad second at all. Plus, they're really good friends in canon, so it's a very fluffy duo. Which never hurts.

It's a long haul, because you only have them at three covers so far, but 4* Rocket & Groot will do more than anyone else to speed up your PvE clears. I would probably switch your Bonus Hero over to them. There are other characters who are better overall, but since you mentioned PvE clear times as one of your major issues, I would highly recommend them.

The minimum needed to get Medusa ready to work well with Carnage is getting a fourth purple cover for her, so she can steal the Attack tiles he makes for the enemy. Really, you're also going to want another two yellow covers as well. Unfortunately, Carnage+Medusa really suffer against some of the most common 4* teams out there (mostly those with Rocket & Groot). So they're probably not really the way you want to start out in 4* land.

For now, I would put your Bonus Hero on R&G, and put your ISO into America and Kate. Because of your 5*, champing 4* won't affect your MMR significantly, so if you've got the resources, just go ahead and champ America now. I would also look for a bigger Alliance. Doesn't have to be a great one, but with even a mostly full casual Alliance, you'll start getting significantly better Alliance rewards on a (mostly) daily basis, and way better rewards from Boss Events. Finally, having at least three MPQ players who are friends on Facebook helps significantly, since you can give each other extra ISO and Standard Tokens from certain rewards, and it really does add up.

Best of luck!

itsuka7

Thx, Kate will get her 13th cover soon if I BH Hawkeye 3*. I will look into alliances soon, there will probably be some halfway decent ones around that can use two active players...

bbigler

You're on the right track and doing well, so I have just a few comments:
Opening Classics is good for rostering all 5*s, but be warned that it takes years to champ 5*s this way. 

Chavez is a great first 4* champ. Carnage doesn't work well until you have Medusa nearly done. Kate Bishop is solid. ME Hulk works well with Chavez. Cardusa can produce lots of AP for Chavez. Since your 4*Grocket isn't ready yet, Blade and Daken pair well with Kitty, but Kitty needs to be leveled up to at least 300 to really be effective buffing.

As for PVE, have you timed yourself in scl 6? Thanos and Strange are fast against goons. Your Chavez team should do well. Your Kitty team should also do well in PVE.  Cardusa is a slow but resilient team I wouldn't recommend for pve. Fast pve clears takes some skill, so you can get better at it. 

itsuka7

Thanks, I will try scl6 pve. I have a bit more time this week, so if it takes longer than 60 min I can still finish. The rewards are not that much better but the extra cp should help to compensate for losing the ranking reward ar scl4 I hope.

I understand about the 5*, but it will be a long time before that becomes urgent. I can still switch to hoarding tokens and cp when my 4 star game is getting advanced enough...

bbigler

itsuka7 said:

Thanks, I will try scl6 pve. I have a bit more time this week, so if it takes longer than 60 min I can still finish. The rewards are not that much better but the extra cp should help to compensate for losing the ranking reward ar scl4 I hope.

I understand about the 5*, but it will be a long time before that becomes urgent. I can still switch to hoarding tokens and cp when my 4 star game is getting advanced enough...

The single best time saver in pve for me was getting a champed Grocket and half- covered Kitty. I play SCL 8 now and I can do my beginning or ending clears in 40 - 55 minutes. So, you may want to open Latest before Kitty leaves in 6 weeks. Plus, with fast clearing times you could rank top 10 and get more 4* covers. 

AardvarkPepper

itsuka7 said:

General HP situation: comfortable. I can roster my few missing chars. At this point I generate more HP than I have to spend on rostering. I do not spend it on heroes for hire, or vault buys so far, but sometimes I buy an extra heroic coin at 100, or a shield in the PVP.

A maxed 3* takes somewhere on the order of six months to a year to build, depending on favorited covers &c.  Using that maxed 3* gives you on the order of 10,000 more hit points plus better damage (compared to a non-maxed boosted 3*.  I think).  Though you may feel "comfortable" with the HP situation now, what about rostering duplicate 3*s once your current 3* roster starts getting maxed out?  That'll require another whole chunk of HP, and remember most of the roster slots you purchased cost less than the 1000 HP you're probably currently paying per slot.  It didn't take as much HP to get to where you are now as it will to build for dupli-roster slots is what I'm saying.

Also once you hit 300 roster slots, roster slot costs go from 1000 to 3000.  I think.

General ISO situation: no reserves. I only need to champion 4 more 3* chars, then I will start to upgrade 4*s.

Alliance: I form a 2-person alliance with my partner (for sharing CPs when we buy VIP). As my partner is also around the 3* - 4* transition, we may have to look into other options at some point.

Alliance rewards add up.  Right now it probably seems like a bother to find a better alliance, but the rewards add up.  If you're in a top 100 PvE or PvP it adds up a good bit, but even lower ranked alliances make good earnings that add up.

As to 2-person alliances with a partner for sharing CP when you buy VIP - again, if you're part of a larger alliance, you'll get CP from the rest of the alliance buys.

TPF Alexis wrote "You haven't made any substantial mistakes yet" but that's only relevant to rosters.  Believe me, you want to be part of an active 20-member alliance for better rewards, and you want to get on that.

Also another note - you have a couple 5*s at 270.  It looks like you are not trying to level your 5*s, and that is good.  I wouldn't level 5*s at all.

Hoarding: Nope, do not do that, as I need 4* covers. I spend every LLT immediately, and spend CPs on classics.

"Need".  A powerful word.  But think on it.  If you're playing the game a good bit, say you want to make the transition to 5* land.  How will you do it?  Occasionally you can buy a 5* cover, but it's expensive, and I mean expensive.  The easiest way to get 13 covers on a particular 5* is to hoard CP and/or Latest Legends tokens, and to open the Latest Legends tokens to get one of the three most recent select 5*s.  It takes what, on the order of 500 tokens to do that?  Without cover swaps that is, which customer service used to offer but doesn't any more.  And if you don't have that many tokens, then you'd buy tokens with CP.  The same CP you're using now.


If you want to build out a broad roster, so be it.  I don't say what you're doing is wrong; there's good reasons for doing so (like having Essential characters).  But I just want to make sure you're making an informed decision - that you know you're delaying your entry into 5* champion land by spending all your CP and tokens up front.


Mind, you can still increase your 4* roster through events and Heroic tokens.  If you want a little more speed so are using CP, all right, but again - just so long as you're making an informed decision is all I'm saying.

Eventually I would like to develop the roster broadly if possible, get them all to a minimum 209 or so first, and then champion them, that sounds like my sort of thing.

Yes, for SHIELD training rewards, 4*s at 209 get the maximum possible rewards.  Of course you know that.  But I mention it specifically because you mentioned having no iso to spare, because you have all the 4*s rostered, and you're accumulating a lot of 4*s - which means you're going to have well-covered 4* covers well in advance of your iso.

To be more specific, I'm saying you should consider banking iso and not spending it at all.  If you have a bunch of 4*s at 10 covers and level 70, then one of them happens to come up in Deadpool Daily's Clash of the Titans or SHIELD training, then if you have iso on hand you can put the iso into the character then get maximum rewards.

If you have all your iso spread out among a bunch of level 120 or whatever 4*s - well, they weren't really helping your roster perform, and when an event comes up they won't be able to help you earn maximum rewards.

I have been playing at SCL 4, which I can always finish within 60 minutes and make top10 reliably to snatch a few extra 3* covers. My partner plays at SCL 6, and I do not like how it seems to take him 70-90 minutes per round (the usual 4 at the start and 3 at the finish). Ideally we would have to play SCL 7 for 4* progression award, but I doubt we can make it work around the time slot we are stuck with.

PVP I am at SCL 7, I almost always play to 40 wins to get the 4* cover. Sometimes I buy a shield to get an extra few 3* from ranking if I think I can remain best 50.

First, I recommend researching 4*s to discover which ones are the "best".  It seems you play both PvP and PvE, and I have my thoughts about what's good but that sort of thing is really a topic for another thread.  Why would you want to know what's "best"?  Because with 70 and counting 4*s, a particular one only comes through in an event rarely.


. . . and what I'm saying is when one of the better 4*s *does* come up in an event, you might want to make the effort to play at PvE SCL 7 to get that 4*.  Not all the time if it doesn't suit you, but if a good one comes up, you might want to make an exception every so often.

As to PvP, I think it's best to play at maximum SCL.  I don't think your matchups are impacted in PvP based on what SCL you enter; you just get better prizes.  Though I could be wrong about the matchups.

MMR: I haven't got the faintest idea how it works exactly, but I stopped upgrading my 5*s and most of my 4*s until I had a better idea what to do and not to do. Advice appreciated!

Something like, your top nine or so characters are factored in, and boosts are not considered.  So if you have a bunch of 255s (your 5*s), you're looking at near-championed 4*s that may also be boosted, which is nasty and beyond your ability to fight normally, but you seem to be making it work for win-based progression so there's that (nice job on that by the way).

But yeah basically you do not want to be increasing your 5*s at all.  For quite a while, I won't get into the particulars here, but not for a while.

As to 4*s - well, here's the thing.  You're going to have a couple 4*s at 270.  The game looks at that and says "hey here's someone that has 270s on their roster".  Then they put you against other players in that range - maybe 270, 280, 290.  But the trick is, THEY have developed rosters.  So THEY are going to have synergistic boosted 4* teams.  Where YOU only have a couple 270s and you can't just pick and choose what you want.

Well right now you're hitting 40 wins with 3* teams so it is what it is.  But I'd say if you want to push into 4* land, you might want to really think on boosting those first few 4* champions.  Make sure they're good 4*s.  (see point earlier about RESEARCHING 4*S TO KNOW WHAT'S GOOD)

For possible 4* outlook, currenty I have Medusa as bonus hero, but she is at 8 covers, so it will take a long time to get her at 13 that way (bonus 4* comes approx. once a month so far). I figure Chavez, Carnage and Medusa might make a decent team, but I am unsure how many covers Medusa needs before she becomes useful. I have her now at 3-2-3, and also at what point this team would become better than my current Chavez - 5* - 3*docstrange/PVPchar combo. But maybe I am overlooking better options?

It's not a matter of "how many covers" as it is "how many of the right covers".  To put it in terms you may more easily understand, take 3* Doctor Strange.  His purple sucks.  If you have 5 yellow covers and pump his level up as much as you can, he'll still punish non-character goons that fire powers that create countdown tiles in PvE.  As to 5 blue covers, he can stun and drain well if he's covered there.  So for 3* Doctor Strange it's not a function of "how many covers" but WHICH covers, see?  And yes all right, if you have purple covers and you push him to 13 covers then you can increase his level, and he does better damage based on level so there's that.

But Medusa doesn't quite work that way.  Basically you want to max out her yellow covers (similar to Strange), then increase her level for effect and to give her a little bit of hit points.  But after that?  Well if you're teaming Medusa with 4* Rocket and Groot even a weak . . . I forget which color makes the Entanglement tile, is it red?  even a weak Entanglement tile combos with R&G's Strike tiles, and if she has multiple yellow covers there's burst healing if R&G's Strike tiles are matched away.  In longer matches with Carnage as a partner, Carnage often ends up doing most of the damage, with Medusa healing, and possibly switching a lot of tiles around with purple if she has it.


I am really not going to get into looking at 4*s in this thread, as that's really best in a separate topic.  For this topic, I'll keep it to writing on general practices.

So, long post, but I really could use your thoughts on how to develop my 4* roster and  adapt my playing style if necessary, any help and comments appreciated.

Comments in bold.

"Finally, having at least three MPQ players who are friends on Facebook helps significantly, since you can give each other extra ISO and Standard Tokens from certain rewards, and it really does add up" - argh, mobile players get everything.  WHAT ABOUT STEAM USERS!

"For now, I would put your Bonus Hero on R&G, and put your ISO into America and Kate. Because of your 5*, champing 4* won't affect your MMR significantly, so if you've got the resources, just go ahead and champ America now." - Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm well . . . yeah.  Comments on that though.

IMO 4* Rocket and Groot is a big one for your first 4* character, as his Strike tiles might seem stupid (they can just be matched away!)  but they're really strong so can cut match times a lot.  When you team him with 3* Strange in PvE, you save real time, and the OP mentioned time was a thing.  So yeah.  Favorite him.  Them.  Whatever.

As to America and Kate - I'm not QUITE so sure I'd agree.  I think you're going to be short on iso for quite some time, and I think you need to be very careful about how you spend it.  I don't think Kate is worth it, and though it'll be a while before you have better options, I think you *will* have better options, and when you do, you'll need iso.

America Chavez is pretty amazing but the only caveat I'd put is . . . um.  If you want to blow things up with Chavez, you need boosts.  OR you can use Medusa who generates AP if the enemy generates SAPs like Carnage, OR you can use 3* Hood.  Well anyways America Chavez is a pretty solid investment IMO but I'm just saying be careful to get the most use out of her.

I'm not sure I'd use 5* / America Chavez / 3* Doctor Strange in PvP.  it's just too easy for attackers to kill / neutralize, and on offense it's got to be a bit dicey.  You could make a case for it, but (!)

In my opinion, what you want to save is TIME.  REAL TIME.  (and healthpacks)

So what's 5* /America Chavez / 3* Doctor Strange play out as?  The 5* tanks, you can switch out to save healthpacks.  America Chavez builds up AP and IF you get an AP advantage (there are reasons you may not but most usually sure probably) then she's nice, and Strange paralyzes and drains AP and does damage.

BUT

in PvP?  Strange has few hit points, so he's easy to target and kill.  Part of the issue is his yellow punishes enemies only after they fire a power, but unlike in PvE, enemy powers usually have an immediate damaging effect (as opposed to making Countdowns that have effect later).  Also enemies aren't firing powers nearly as often as they do in some PvEs.  And when they do?  Strange only does a little damage.  So even if he fires once or twice, not a big deal.

Strange's blue is still nice for stun / ap drain / damage.  But his damage is still 3* scaled, and the power costs 9 AP.

You can end up making 3* Iron Man / 3* Strange viable, because Iron Man yellow matches into feeding blue to Strange, then what with stunning one enemy, draining AP from another, and using Iron Man's red on a third, maybe you killed everything before it could hurt you.

But Chavez is a bit slower, you don't have nearly the reliability of blue that 3* Iron Man / 3* Strange offers.

So if I were to suggest a team for Chavez?  With your lineup?  Probably 3* Captain America (at 355) and 3* Hood, both of whom you have at 13 covers but not championed.  Hood steals AP to power Chavez, and Captain America has spot removal for troublesome tiles and/or stuns and Protect tiles that reduces damage a bit.  On the minus side Hood is fragile, but his AP steal can really get Chavez going without using boosts.  I'm not too sure about Captain America, but hey, you'll figure something out.

itsuka7

Lots of good advice again, thank you. 

On the why of 5* +  chavez, and the secret of pvp wins, tanking and changing 5*s is a good bonus for saving health packs, but the real killer is the match damage. I need only to be ahead in 3 colors, and then the critical tiles start coming. Combined with the high match damage of the 5 star in 3 colors, that means doing a lot of damage on each turn without having to use powers. I cannot reach that amount of damage so far by combining her with boosted 3*, as their match damage is not increased enough to compensate. Besides, with that line up, the 3d char is usually simply bonus.

obviously, the combo is not great defensively, but as the main ranking competition is high 4* in scl 7 I have no delusions I can compete for top 25 anyway. Shielding is mostly to remain in top 50.

as for combining with doc strange, it doesn’t happen that often in pvp, as the third slot is usually for the required char. In pve I timed it as the best combo so far... for the shield simulator I am still searching for the best combo.

itsuka7

On the topic of the 5 star transition, I am really not in a hurry to get there. 4* is so broad, I think I can enjoy that for a long time. But I get that at some point I will have to start up saving  cps and llts instead of spending them.

Playing with a broad selection instead of a focused selection seems a more individual choice, I get that it will hinder fast progression, and that I should balance iso spending. Maybe I can start a savings plan for my iso, spending 50% after I champ a playing selection.

Getting Kitty better covered while she is still in ll looks really appealing. I will consider doing that. I have her as bh already.

as for duping 3 stars, yes, I intend to do that eventually, so I will keep a fair amount of hp in reserve for that. Hopefully they will not not have to be rerostered all at once.