Who to champ next?

froggerjohn

https://mpq.gamependium.com/rosters/froggerjohn/revisions/143

Recent champs R&G, Gamora, Valkyrie, Wasp.
15 champed 4s
14 more champable
13 with 12 covers

300K iso.

Obviously, I'll be in iso crunch for awhile, so trying to figure out where to focus next.

Typical teams I'm playing now:
PvE - America/5e, or R&G/Gamora/Thanos
PvP - C4rol/Wasp or America/Valkyrie
Sim - C4rol/Wasp/Medusa, C4rol/Valkyrie/Medusa, C4rol/Wasp/Bishop (still experimenting)

Dormammu

At this point adding new 4-star champs isn't going to mix up your successful formulas in PvE too much, because speed is the critical factor and you're not going to get much faster than R&G/Guardian(+Thanos or Medusa) until you get into the 5-star conversation.

For PvP, it's less about who you champ and more about how many. Boosted 4-stars are significantly better and rule the 4-star MMR, so the more you have in an event's boosted list the better. Simple volume of champs is going to help your flexibility in PvP.

The SIM is where things get interesting because of the lack of a boost list and essential characters. You can get creative with teams of three and speed isn't a factor. But what I discovered about success in the SIM (with 4-star MMR) is that it's better to counter what your opponent is doing rather than hammer through with the team you like. So consider the meta; I'm guessing you see a lot of R&G/Gamora/Medusa, under-covered Kitty with R&G or Carnage, and a growing number of Bishop teams. You've got most of the tools to deal with the meta now that you have R&G champed but there's a few good hard-counter characters you could champ that will help you, like Kraven, Thing, Star-Lord, Rogue, and Luke Cage. You'd need to BH most of these to champ but they're all great SIM characters.

Otherwise, the cream of the crop you still haven't champed are, in no particular order:
Riri Williams (when she's boosted, she's probably the hardest-hitting 4-star this side of Peggy)
Nico (an interesting choice with Grocket)
Star-Lord (his countdowns really compliment Carol well, will also save Health in PvE with R&G)
Coulson (see Star-Lord, he plays so well with many)
Thoress (a freight train when boosted and a great SIM character with IM40)

froggerjohn

So far, my R&G experiences in PvE are typically slower than my America-based ones. (My T10s moved into teens and worse). I think there are a few reasons for that:

1. Unfamiliarity - I'm probably playing too slowly, trying to protect the strikes
2. Loss of the strikes. Despite #1, or sometimes because I screw up trying to push faster before I've really 'seen' the right moves, but it slows down a lot if I lose too many.
3. Missing the best supports for them, like Chewie and Milano. By comparison I have a maxxed rank 5 Sharon Carter that is a HUGE speed-up for America/5e.

There have been some successes. R&G/Gamora/Thanos is as fast or faster on nodes with 2-3 mooks, especially if the mooks generate more than 2 AP colors (which starts to neuter the initial speed of an America team). Adding Nico on wave nodes was pretty good. A really slow start, but gets faster as it goes along. And the standard R&G/Gamora/Medusa is working well on the 2+Hulk nodes in The Hulk event, since I can stun Hulk before Anger kicks in. And Grocket/Star-Lord/Carol was great with the boosted Carol.

For Sim against the Grocket teams, I just run Carol/Daken/3Hulk for the near-instant win. Albeit, always at a cost of a health pack. Medusa/Dazzler takes care of any Carnage teams, though I don't see many of those.

I currently have the 4BH on my 5/3/3 Coulson. I really like the utility of the swap&charge, along with the CD stuff.

Dormammu

froggerjohn said:

So far, my R&G experiences in PvE are typically slower than my America-based ones.

Go with what works. If Chavez is giving you faster clears that's awesome. Try mixing it up. If there are 2 or 3 goons in the node go with R&G. If not, mix in your Chavez team.

For Sim against the Grocket teams, I just run Carol/Daken/3Hulk for the near-instant win.

Awesome strategy. Now that you have R&G champed, try them with Carol and Red Hulk. Same basic principle - keep Hulk out front taking the hits. Swapping these teams could get you more wins with less health packs.

TPF Alexis

There's a list of historical boost weeks here. They tend to change fairly slowly, so go through and look for any weeks when you don't have any Champs boosted. Then use those to focus your ISO until you've got at least a couple for each week. At least, that's how I did it when I was at that point.

froggerjohn

Good point about the boosted 4s in PvP. I'm almost always fighting boosted 4s with a non-boosted team, which makes PvP challenging, but can definitely be a slog.

Sounds like I just want to hoard iso and then see who's on the boosted list. I don't have anyone champed or champable this week.

Next week, my only candidate is Nova.
He can make cheap and decent strikes, but there's no source of CDs paired with Carol, unless the Required character can do it.

TPF Alexis

Nova is a whole lot of fun. Nico makes a better partner for him than Carol, tho. I also use him a lot with Mordo. It started kind of randomly and there isn't huge synergy, but they don't get in each other's way, and Mordo can help feed black to Nova to make sure there are always Strikes around. I particularly like them when there's a good red/green Featured Character to round it out.

Dormammu

Nova really shines when he's boosted. His red airborne tactic starts hitting like a truck and is great for moving annoying people out of the way. 

ThaRoadWarrior

It's a shame you don't have any yellow covers on Kitty - even 1 on yellow is better than a level 290 nico if you've thrown iso at her. 

Regarding strategy for 4ocket in PVE, I run a 5* Lord/Thano5/4ocket team across all the easy nodes, and my health is such that 4ocket will finally die from self-harm on the final initial clear of the last easy node assuming there are no waves involved. That team is essentially a match-1->Court Death->Collect Reward team. As soon as the hard nodes hit, I switch to Medusa/Okoye/Chavez with +2 ap stacks on all-3 slots because i find it faster as well. When i had them max-champed, i used to use 3* Thanos/Okoye/Strang3 on nodes involving goons, or I'd swap Strang3 for Medusa on tile-mover nodes for more reliable damage.

froggerjohn

Ok, sounds good, I have enough iso to champ Nova. Mordo is 13 covers as well (and 5 saved), but only level 94, so I'm well short of having enough to champ them both. Nico still needs one more cover, but already leveled to 250 and 5 purple, so at least she's already doing most of what she's supposed to do.

What build is best for Nova?

And believe me, I hear you about the Kitty yellow for my 0/4/3. I spent some LTs when she was in latest, but only managed 0/2/3. Since then, I've pulled two more covers, one Classic, one 5BH -- both purple.
The excitement when I saw the Kitty covers was short-lived when the color was revealed.
That said, having the 4 purple is very cool also, so when I eventually get some yellow for her, she'll be a great asset.

Dormammu

froggerjohn said:

What build is best for Nova?

Nova is one of those you'll wish is at 5/5/5 and doesn't have a bad build. I tend to keep him at 5/5/3 as a default.

TPF Alexis

Dormammu said:

froggerjohn said:

What build is best for Nova?

Nova is one of those you'll wish is at 5/5/5 and doesn't have a bad build. I tend to keep him at 5/5/3 as a default.

Agreed. I use 3/5/5 usually, but I don't think it's possible to go wrong.

DAZ0273

I champed Nova for this boost week and he is enormous fun. I had chased him forever but it was totally worth it.

Of the others mentioned I would probably go with Riri for her versatility. She is able to bypass characters such as Bishop or Thing who jump to the front and can also take them off the board for a time also doing damage. She also has her red nuke against a single target and one of the better active powers that generates charge tiles.

froggerjohn

Also champed Nova, and he has been great in the Bullseye and Bag-Man PvPs!

I'm running 5/3/5 along with IM40.

Once I have either 18+ red, or 8 black plus 12 red, the other team goes in the air. Pretty sweet.