Roster help for a newby

vdW

Hi,

I have been playing MPQ for about 3 weeks now. I have read a few threads about how to start ‘smart’. I have read about champing characters (but still don’t really know what it exactly means) and about focus on 1* and 2* characters first. So dispite I have quiet a few 3* now, I haven’t done anything with them. But now I have come to a point where I don’t know anymore what to do with my characters. Should I keep on focussing on my 2* characters or should I move on to my 3* characters (which I believe I have enough of). Could anyone give me some advice?

My roster:

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

Thanks in advance 

TPF Alexis

Keep working on your 2*. They will eventually (once they're champed, which you're still a little way away from) start giving you rewards that will help you get started on your 3* much more smoothly. Sell off any 1* you aren't using regularly, like the dupes and the terrible ones like Venom, Yelena, and Hawkeye. Eventually, you're only going to need a single 1*, just for the first node in DDQ (Juggernaut is the best, but Spidey, Iron Man, and even Storm can solo it at maxed level), but for now it looks like you're still relying on them.

• Spend ISO only on leveling Characters. Don't put ISO into your 3* yet, and you don't need to put any more into your 1* except the one you want to keep for DDQ.
• Spend Hero Points only on Roster slots. Roster space is the most important resource for expanding at this point, and the spots get progressively more expensive as you get more of them.
• Don't open Tokens unless you know you can use any cover that's likely to come out. When you're out of Roster space, stop opening Tokens until you can afford another slot. Don't open any Legendary Tokens you might happen to get. It's unlikely that you will get them anytime soon, but if you do, just leave them for later.
• Like LTs, don't spend CP at all for now. There are some rare cases where it's worth spending them when you're close to finishing a 3*, but mostly you don't want to use them until you're ready to start collecting 4*.

Champing Characters is confusing until you get there, but once you see how it works, it's pretty simple. Once you get a 2* to max level, you'll see what I mean. I didn't get it at all until then, but once I did it, it all made sense.

I'm not sure if you're at the point yet where you get Bonus Heroes, but if you are, or when you do, set either Dr. Strange or IM40 as your 3*, Rocket & Groot are probably best as your 4*, and maybe Kitty as your 5*, altho, again, that's not going to matter for quite a while.

Overall, it looks like you've got a pretty good start there. The basic thing at this point is just to play as much as possible. Finish the Prologue if you haven't yet. Play as much of DDQ as you can every day. Play as much of Story events as you can. Don't worry about placement. You're just going for the Node rewards and Progression right now. Versus is mostly difficult and frustrating until you're pretty far along, but if you join right as a time slice opens for an event, you can get a few Seed Teams that are easy to beat, and even just three wins will get you a couple of Tokens and some ISO. Again, don't worry about placement, don't worry about getting attacked. Just get the Progression rewards and the rewards from each fight.

If you haven't already, join an Alliance. Even just a random public Alliance will get you extra rewards, or you could check in the Alliances forum down below and see if anyone has a space available for a newer Player.

Remember, it's a marathon, not a sprint. It takes time and playing a lot to get anywhere in this game. And most importantly, have fun!

vdW

Wow! Thanks for the reply. Really helpfull advice  

Great to hear I am doing OK at this moment. I haven’t finished the Prologue yet, I was focussing on Stories and Versus.

I did receive 2 bonus heroes already (Psylock and Star-Lord).

Again thanks for the great reply

TPF Alexis

You're welcome! Yeah, when you add it all up, the Prologue has quite a bit of ISO and other useful stuff in there. Oh, and other than Strange and IM40, the other 3* who's one of the "Big Three" is Thanos. There are varying opinions about which of the three is most important, but collectively, it's a pretty solid consensus that those three are the best.

Dormammu

@TPF Alexis is good at spelling everything out for newer players, right? 

Champing: All characters other than 1-stars can be champed once they hit their level max, which requires 13 total covers (a 5/5/3 or 5/4/4 build in their abilities). For example, a 2-star with 13 covers has a level max of 94. Once they are level 94 you can 'champ' them (for a reasonable ISO cost). This allows you to apply any future covers gained for that character into 'champ levels'. Each champ level gives a reward of ISO, HP, CP, LT, or covers and makes that character a little stronger. You can do this until they become max-champed, which for a 2-star is level 144.

2-stars - level max: 94; max-champ: 144
3-stars - level max:166; max-champ: 266
4-stars - level max: 270; max-champ: 370
5-stars - level max:450; max-champ: 550 

Saved Covers: If you have 13 covers applied to a character but don't have enough ISO to level and champ them, don't worry. You can still apply any additional covers you gain to that character as a 'saved cover'. This will save it to the character until you can champ them, and then be applied as a champ level(s) at that time.

vdW

TPF Alexis said:

You're welcome! Yeah, when you add it all up, the Prologue has quite a bit of ISO and other useful stuff in there. Oh, and other than Strange and IM40, the other 3* who's one of the "Big Three" is Thanos. There are varying opinions about which of the three is most important, but collectively, it's a pretty solid consensus that those three are the best.

I better start working on the Prologue then. Good to hear; I already have Thanos

Thanks again

vdW

Dormammu said:

@TPF Alexis is good at spelling everything out for newer players, right? 

Champing: All characters other than 1-stars can be champed once they hit their level max, which requires 13 total covers (a 5/5/3 or 5/4/4 build in their abilities). For example, a 2-star with 13 covers has a level max of 94. Once they are level 94 you can 'champ' them (for a reasonable ISO cost). This allows you to apply any future covers gained for that character into 'champ levels'. Each champ level gives a reward of ISO, HP, CP, LT, or covers and makes that character a little stronger. You can do this until they become max-champed, which for a 2-star is level 144.

2-stars - level max: 94; max-champ: 144
3-stars - level max:166; max-champ: 266
4-stars - level max: 270; max-champ: 370
5-stars - level max:450; max-champ: 550 

Saved Covers: If you have 13 covers applied to a character but don't have enough ISO to level and champ them, don't worry. You can still apply any additional covers you gain to that character as a 'saved cover'. This will save it to the character until you can champ them, and then be applied as a champ level(s) at that time.

Thanks for the Champ clarification I haven’t seen it better explained yet

vdW

@Dormammu in addition to your reply: I have read about 5/5/3 and 5/4/4 before, but how do I know which is best for a character? I have been looking but haven’t found a clear topic about it

Rod5

vdW said:

@Dormammu in addition to your reply: I have read about 5/5/3 and 5/4/4 before, but how do I know which is best for a character? I have been looking but haven’t found a clear topic about it

Some characters are more clear than others. 

For instance, 2Thor (and 3Thor for that matter) is best with 3 Red because his yellow and green powers are his best (and one feeds the other). IM40 is best with 3 blue as that is expensive and his weakest power. 2Daken on the other hand you can play 3 purple or 3 black. 

Generally speaking, there is usually one power you’d want at 3, optimal builds are almost never 5/4/4.

DAZ0273

It also comes down to your playstyle as much as anything.

For example - 3* Iron Fist is a character you are going to want when you get to that tier. Almost everybody is going to have his purple set to 5 because it is very cheap (5AP), provides black on the board that can help Iron Fist allies, cause cascades or triggers his nuke/most powerful attack. But what about his black and green? Both are nice powers - his black is a passive that gives you a free attack tile no matter what as it regenerates if matched away. Or you might prefer his green which is strike tiles + damage? On the one hand you get the black power, no matter what from the beginning, so why not run that at maximum? On the other hand the strike tiles "stack" and the more you add the more powerful your match damage becomes.

There isn't really a "right" answer so it may come down to what works best for you and/or the characters you are using with in your team.

If you check out the MPQ Wiki character entries they normally have polls based upon best builds and whilst these are of course subjective they at least offer some insight into what players think are best builds.

Below is a link to the 3* Iron Fist one so you can see what players think on one that isn't so obvious:

https://marvelpuzzlequest.fandom.com/wiki/Iron_Fist_(Immortal_Weapon)

And here is 2* Thor (more relevant to where you are probably right now)

http://https//marvelpuzzlequest.fandom.com/wiki/Thor_(Marvel_NOW!)

Dormammu

The nice thing about champing a character - it allows you to alter their build at any time so that you're not locked into a particular cover distribution. So if you have a character at 5/3/5 normally, but for a particular fight you think a 3/5/5 distribution would be better, you can change it back and forth once champed.

ThaRoadWarrior

Some characters, like Hobofist and Coulson at the 4* tier, or Kingpin also there, have very mutable builds that can be situationally beneficial to change. Make sure if you do that you remember to put them back. This often happens to me with Vulture in boss events where I set him to 5/4/4 for maximum special tile clearing off blue, and then on the side nodes forget to put him back to the generally superior for fast clears build of 5/5/3

vdW

Thanks for all the replies. It makes it all a bit more clear. 

@DAZ0273 thanks for the links, I didn't know these

Jacklag

I started playing one month earlier than you, but if you are still following, here are two guides I think you may find useful:

https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/74686/2019-guide-to-progressing-fast

https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/3939/polaritys-guide-on-going-from-1-to-3-updated-1-22-15/p1

vdW

Thanks for your information. I am still playing and progressing (I have updated my roster), but I don't exactly know when to proceed to the next step..

DAZ0273

Hi vdW - proceeding to the next step should start to get a bit more organic for you as you progress. Your first goal should be max champing your 2* but there is no reason you can't now not invest a little bit of Iso into your 3* characters that will make a difference to your play - so IM40 for example could be brought up to the same level as your 2's without too much drama.

Also - if by some miracle you have managed to obtain any Supports (I can't remember if any of these were available in any of the bundles if you have spent) then these will work on your 3* but not your 2's, so I would equip and play around to see what sort of benefits you can obtain to your unlevelled 3's if you did pick any up..

With regard to Bbigler's guide, it has some good advice but I would also be slightly wary for the following reasons:

1.) This was composed by a player who had quit multiple times and already had vast experience of playing MPQ, this guide is not therefore from a new players perspective.

2.) He broke his own rules as and when it was convenient to him, especially with regard to spending money.

3.) Be wary of advancing Shield Ranks too fast - yes you'll get iso bonuses but if you want to play PvP at levels that are slightly lower than your roster strength so you can "learn" you will get locked out after reaching a certain rank. This means that scores you were achieving before to dominate in the smaller ponds are suddenly chicken feed in the higher SCL's. Not a problem for right now but steady progress is the way to go rather than racing ahead like a maniac. Remember that Bbigler was racing so he could quit the game!

With regard to PvP - it cannot be stated enough that whilst roster strength matters a lot there are a great number of additional things that factor in (and that isn't even including things like out of game collusion) - you will be able to learn when the right time to play is based on your own schedule and you'll learn how far you can climb without getting hit - these things are going to change as you progress so learning early is a good idea. Too many newer players hit a wall in PvP and give up but it is half the game, right? So best keeping your options open.