My 5* single champ "Season" experience. Was it worth it?
jtsings
Posts: 278 Mover and Shaker
First of all, I apologize for the long post but I thought this might be of interest to those who have thought/are thinking of having one 5* champ. So with fair warning given, I hope this will be helpful to someone who drops by the forums looking for a post trying to explain "what would it be like if I had one 5* champ?",
. Prologue: Thanks to some helpful people that took the time to post on this poll https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/77712/single-5-champ-discussion-pros-cons-5-candidates-horror-and-success-stories#latest, I hedged my bets and decided to jump just beyond 4* land by champing Okoye at the beginning of last season.
1) Before the jump: I had everyone except for the lastest 4*s fully covered and 62 4*s champed. My 4*s ranged from C4rol at 310 and most everyone else 280's and 290's range. ISO of course was (and still is) my limiting factor in finishing off champing any more 4*s and all the 4*s I have left, "classics" are either "meh" or just situationally useable. However, I would still like to champ them all some day.
2) PVE my biggest reason for champing Okoye was because I wanted to jump up to SCL 8 but I didn't want my time commitment to jump up anymore than it was in SCL 7. I was sure that I would be able to handle most of the nodes but the 5* essential node seemed to me to be a, potentially, pretty tough node; so I was a bit hesitant. I did, however, have two aces up my sleeve. Thor at 5 green covers and a Pocket Radio support that allows Okoye to tank just about everything on the board. I've always heard about the 1/2 Thor effect but unless you use it, you probably don't see how effective this team is especially when Okoye tanks Red, Yellow, and Green. Okoye and Thor have not failed in handling all of the 5* essential nodes, so far.. Results: I do play pretty optimally and I try to get in on new flips but since champing Okoye I've been able to net several top 10 and even some top 5 results in SCL 8. I even got my very first 1st place finish in either SCL 7 or 8 a few weeks ago. When I was in SCL 7 I was lucky if I could reach top 10 and top 5 was even more rare. I spend maybe a little bit more time on SCL 8 clears but it's by no means too much to handle. Will any 5* champ help in the 5* required node in SCL 8 or 9, my guess would be they'd be somewhat helpful but I have other alliance mates that have 5* champs (not Okoye and Thor) that seem to always talk about struggling with the 5* essential nodes, so I would have to guess that not all 5*s will be consistent in easily cruising through the later rounds of the 5* essential nodes.
3) PVP to be honest I was getting tired of this mode of play. When I first started playing PVP I loved it cause I could use my favorite 3* and 4* combos to help me get to my stopping point, usually 575, and then sometimes shield to get top 25 or top 50. As my 4* champs grew in number I found PVP to be a big chore. I could only play my favorite teams like IM40 and Peggy or Rogue and Dr Str3nge for a few rounds, then I had to somehow find some sort of synergy between the boosted 4*s (and spoiler alert....there rarely ever is; from my point of view). By the second PVP I had discovered that my best bet was to run with 1/2 Thor and Okoye on my climb up and try to put out a better defensive team when I was ready to end a session. This team can really climb fairly fast and are extremely sustainable. Most of the time I can even take on two 5* champ teams and beat them pretty easily, even with just my level 355 Thor and usually a maxed 3* character. They also can pretty reliably beat Gritty teams, sometimes with Okoye ending with close to max health left after the match. To me this is a good solution for my particular PVP issue. I don't like to be forced to climb with weak and non-synergized 4* boosted characters but I can, without too much effort, ride 1/2 Thor and Okoye and then play with strong characters like Peggy, Rogue, Carol and Riri when their boost week comes up.
a) What kind opponents do I see? Early in the climb, I'll see lots of 400+ 1 or 2 5* teams but mostly opponents that have a 5* champ and either a boosted 4* or a regular 4*. Oodles and oodles of Gritty teams and a few duo 5* champ teams, once I get high enough.
b) what's the biggest difference for you in PVP? besides it being easier to get wins, the big negative of Okoye is she really is a defensive liability. She's got 1 damaging power but even though she basically makes your whole team better it only makes things better when she's got a team left. And to make things worse the AI really doesn't play her that well either. During the Sabertooth event I was able to get to 900 fairly quickly but without shielding, I went from 900 plus points to 329 points in less than 24 hours. My point loss was much lower when I just had two of my strongest 4* boosted characters on defense without Okoye champed. The other issue is it's not uncommon at all is for me to be attacked by two 5* champs teams, which are not retals. But honestly PVP is rarely an even match, unfortunately, no matter what roster you have (except for of course 5* max champs).
4) Other boss battles in alliance events are significantly easier but as you go further on to the event the side nodes get pretty out of scale and difficult because of the scaling applied to the nodes. Not too difficult for 1/2 Thor and Okoye but notable for those considering jumping to a single champ 5* roster. Simulator is also a big change but honestly I can usually get 75 wins pretty easily with 1/2 Thor, Okoye and America. So climbing to 2000 is not much of a priority anymore for me. I think I ended the season at somewhere around 1100 points whereas the season before I was able to float around the 1600 pt mark without shielding.
5) Conclusion was it worth the jump? For me, it was a win/win with PVE and PVP. I have had to let go of not placing well in PVP but I've been able to get higher progression in PVP with less time invested, which is a good trade-off for me. Should you consider having a single 5* champ? If you don't play PVP any 5* champ will help you in PVE, so I don't see any issue in going for it. Based on my experiences, if you do play a fair amount of PVP, unless you have my situation (Okoye with a 5 green cover Thor), I would have to say hold off until you have two 5* candidates that synergize well with each other. I'm tempted to say Kitty might be a viable single champ 5* candidate but since you are mostly going to meet other Gritty teams, it seems like you'd be spending health packs left and right just to stay afloat in PVP.
I hope this will be of help for anyone who's considering the single 5* champ jump and if you have any further questions about my other gameplay experiences, please feel free to ask. If you have your own experiences you'd like to share to help out the rest of the community, please feel free to do so here as well.
. Prologue: Thanks to some helpful people that took the time to post on this poll https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/77712/single-5-champ-discussion-pros-cons-5-candidates-horror-and-success-stories#latest, I hedged my bets and decided to jump just beyond 4* land by champing Okoye at the beginning of last season.
1) Before the jump: I had everyone except for the lastest 4*s fully covered and 62 4*s champed. My 4*s ranged from C4rol at 310 and most everyone else 280's and 290's range. ISO of course was (and still is) my limiting factor in finishing off champing any more 4*s and all the 4*s I have left, "classics" are either "meh" or just situationally useable. However, I would still like to champ them all some day.
2) PVE my biggest reason for champing Okoye was because I wanted to jump up to SCL 8 but I didn't want my time commitment to jump up anymore than it was in SCL 7. I was sure that I would be able to handle most of the nodes but the 5* essential node seemed to me to be a, potentially, pretty tough node; so I was a bit hesitant. I did, however, have two aces up my sleeve. Thor at 5 green covers and a Pocket Radio support that allows Okoye to tank just about everything on the board. I've always heard about the 1/2 Thor effect but unless you use it, you probably don't see how effective this team is especially when Okoye tanks Red, Yellow, and Green. Okoye and Thor have not failed in handling all of the 5* essential nodes, so far.. Results: I do play pretty optimally and I try to get in on new flips but since champing Okoye I've been able to net several top 10 and even some top 5 results in SCL 8. I even got my very first 1st place finish in either SCL 7 or 8 a few weeks ago. When I was in SCL 7 I was lucky if I could reach top 10 and top 5 was even more rare. I spend maybe a little bit more time on SCL 8 clears but it's by no means too much to handle. Will any 5* champ help in the 5* required node in SCL 8 or 9, my guess would be they'd be somewhat helpful but I have other alliance mates that have 5* champs (not Okoye and Thor) that seem to always talk about struggling with the 5* essential nodes, so I would have to guess that not all 5*s will be consistent in easily cruising through the later rounds of the 5* essential nodes.
3) PVP to be honest I was getting tired of this mode of play. When I first started playing PVP I loved it cause I could use my favorite 3* and 4* combos to help me get to my stopping point, usually 575, and then sometimes shield to get top 25 or top 50. As my 4* champs grew in number I found PVP to be a big chore. I could only play my favorite teams like IM40 and Peggy or Rogue and Dr Str3nge for a few rounds, then I had to somehow find some sort of synergy between the boosted 4*s (and spoiler alert....there rarely ever is; from my point of view). By the second PVP I had discovered that my best bet was to run with 1/2 Thor and Okoye on my climb up and try to put out a better defensive team when I was ready to end a session. This team can really climb fairly fast and are extremely sustainable. Most of the time I can even take on two 5* champ teams and beat them pretty easily, even with just my level 355 Thor and usually a maxed 3* character. They also can pretty reliably beat Gritty teams, sometimes with Okoye ending with close to max health left after the match. To me this is a good solution for my particular PVP issue. I don't like to be forced to climb with weak and non-synergized 4* boosted characters but I can, without too much effort, ride 1/2 Thor and Okoye and then play with strong characters like Peggy, Rogue, Carol and Riri when their boost week comes up.
a) What kind opponents do I see? Early in the climb, I'll see lots of 400+ 1 or 2 5* teams but mostly opponents that have a 5* champ and either a boosted 4* or a regular 4*. Oodles and oodles of Gritty teams and a few duo 5* champ teams, once I get high enough.
b) what's the biggest difference for you in PVP? besides it being easier to get wins, the big negative of Okoye is she really is a defensive liability. She's got 1 damaging power but even though she basically makes your whole team better it only makes things better when she's got a team left. And to make things worse the AI really doesn't play her that well either. During the Sabertooth event I was able to get to 900 fairly quickly but without shielding, I went from 900 plus points to 329 points in less than 24 hours. My point loss was much lower when I just had two of my strongest 4* boosted characters on defense without Okoye champed. The other issue is it's not uncommon at all is for me to be attacked by two 5* champs teams, which are not retals. But honestly PVP is rarely an even match, unfortunately, no matter what roster you have (except for of course 5* max champs).
4) Other boss battles in alliance events are significantly easier but as you go further on to the event the side nodes get pretty out of scale and difficult because of the scaling applied to the nodes. Not too difficult for 1/2 Thor and Okoye but notable for those considering jumping to a single champ 5* roster. Simulator is also a big change but honestly I can usually get 75 wins pretty easily with 1/2 Thor, Okoye and America. So climbing to 2000 is not much of a priority anymore for me. I think I ended the season at somewhere around 1100 points whereas the season before I was able to float around the 1600 pt mark without shielding.
5) Conclusion was it worth the jump? For me, it was a win/win with PVE and PVP. I have had to let go of not placing well in PVP but I've been able to get higher progression in PVP with less time invested, which is a good trade-off for me. Should you consider having a single 5* champ? If you don't play PVP any 5* champ will help you in PVE, so I don't see any issue in going for it. Based on my experiences, if you do play a fair amount of PVP, unless you have my situation (Okoye with a 5 green cover Thor), I would have to say hold off until you have two 5* candidates that synergize well with each other. I'm tempted to say Kitty might be a viable single champ 5* candidate but since you are mostly going to meet other Gritty teams, it seems like you'd be spending health packs left and right just to stay afloat in PVP.
I hope this will be of help for anyone who's considering the single 5* champ jump and if you have any further questions about my other gameplay experiences, please feel free to ask. If you have your own experiences you'd like to share to help out the rest of the community, please feel free to do so here as well.
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Comments
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Makes a lot of sense. Good call on choosing a 5* with healing. That makes a big difference, especially as you transition into a new tier. Resources come from high volume matches. I rode phx oml for a year based on their sustainability in LRs0
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On average, how long does it take for you to clear SCL 8 to get top 10?
Did you take this team into Lightning Rounds? If so, how was the results?
I think you moved into single champed 5* territory with a top tier 5*. It helps you in a good way. I would want to hear experiences of players in single 5* territory who champed 5* Wasp and see the difference experiences.1 -
Since I work with brackets that have flipped 2,3, or 4 times I can usually do clears when event starts and do my final clears within 50-55 minutes of the event ending to get top ten. I don't use my maxed champed 3* Thanos, otherwise, I might be faster, but it generally takes me 35-40 to do initial clears and about 35 minutes to do my final clears. Sometimes longer when the loaner node is brutally slow to clear. 1/2 Thor and Okoye definitely are one of the faster teams out there especially among tile moving opponents so yes they most certainly are a big factor in the speed of my clears and my results in PVE. And if I can be honest with you, part of my success is due to the fact that most speed players with 5* champs play in SCL 7, so me moving to SCL 8 helped in the transition because there are a lot more players that are just there for progression in SCL 8.HoundofShadow said:On average, how long does it take for you to clear SCL 8 to get top 10?HoundofShadow said:
Did you take this team into Lightning Rounds? If so, how was the results?
I used to do lightning rounds but I've kind of strayed away from them as of late. However, when I do play them it is markedly different. I used to be able to play with a three maxed 3* whoever the featured hero/villain is and be able to stay unshielded to a top100 finish for the Heroic token. Since Okoye is again a cupcake on defense, I get attacked quite frequently when I try to put her and another maxed 3* on defense. But as far as who I see in LR it's pretty much the same as PVP; single champed 5* opponents.
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Do you have levels on any other 5*s, or are they all 255?
My Experiences with a single 5* non-meta champ (Ghost Rider: Robby Reyes) are fairly well documented in my thread
https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/76726/the-grand-experiment-can-you-transition-to-5-s-pulling-as-you-go-as-a-progession-only-f2p-player#latest
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I'm unfortunately past the point now of this advice being able to help me, but I (and I'm sure plenty of others) appreciate you doing something like this. Being able to learn from people who have made the grade has always been one of my favorite aspects of this forum, from learning how to not screw up my PVE scaling when I first came back to the game and didn't know what the heck Command Points were, to most recently transitioning into the 5-star tier. Thanks for being so detailed in your experience, especially your story with how PVP play was affected. That was big for me when I was first considering it.
Back when Gambit was still relatively fresh and having him was playing the game on God Mode, I strongly considered him being my first 5-star champ. Gambit came to the game as I was champing my way through the 4-star tier and my 3s were all moving into the 230+ range together, so LTs and CP were flowing like water. I got incredibly lucky to somehow cover him during that timeframe without hoarding, so the temptation got stronger and stronger every time I saw people talk about how overpowered he was. But with that also came the constant calling for a nerf, and if I'd learned anything from the OML fiasco, it was definitely coming. I didn't like my fully covered Goblin & BSSM as alternatives or teammates, so I resolved to try and "finish" the 4-star tier as well. Pretty futile effort once dilution happened, so here I am now soon to be 11 5* champs......because there's literally nothing else to do with the iso.0 -
Sounds about right. With Kitty as my sole 5* champ, PvP has pretty much become a 575-and-out affair because, win or lose, a Grockitty mirror match is painful. The speed up in PvE is even more impressive, tho. I'm getting similar clear times to you when I bring Thanos along, but in SCL9.
I would definitely agree that with the right 5* champ, the single 5* meta is a pretty fun place to be, but it would be awful with a low-tier 5* as your only champ.
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I'd love to hear from somebody that transitioned with Kingpin or Wa5p. I have a suspicion that Banner isn't as bad by himself as all that. I imagine Danver5 and Loki are probably similar to my experiences with Gho5t Rider - fine for winning matches at all, but slow for winning them effectively.
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I would say this is my experience with and against those chars as well. I regular see Danver5 super grills, that can easily destroy a 470 Grocket team by herself. Loki and DD5 are a great climbing team that can repeated hit A teams and shake off the damage.ThaRoadWarrior said:t. I imagine Danver5 and Loki are probably similar to my experiences with Gho5t Rider - fine for winning matches at all, but slow for winning them effectively.
Do I use those teams when I'm hopping or fronting running? No, but they enable me to leverage my whole roster and save my strongest teams for when I most need them to beat a 5* Danver. loaner 370 grill.0 -
This is very very different to my pvp experience.TPF Alexis said:Sounds about right. With Kitty as my sole 5* champ, PvP has pretty much become a 575-and-out affair because, win or lose, a Grockitty mirror match is painful. The speed up in PvE is even more impressive, tho. I'm getting similar clear times to you when I bring Thanos along, but in SCL9.
I would definitely agree that with the right 5* champ, the single 5* meta is a pretty fun place to be, but it would be awful with a low-tier 5* as your only champ.
I have Kitty as my single 5* champ, and climb with Gritty to 900/1000 or higher, by fighting the dual-4* teams I am matched against, and skipping the Gritty teams. Gritty can take on champed/boosted 4* teams pretty reliably, and I can typically float around 700 points with few hits.
Anecdotally, my team doesn’t become visible to the dual-5* teams until my score is above 900.
Maybe it is affected by the pvp slice? I play S1, and if that has more teams and a larger spread of scores, the MMR might be better at matching against teams closer to my level.
I strongly recommend Kitty as a single 5* champ.0 -
I finally have the ability to champ a 5* myself. After all these years...
... And it's 5* Cap Marvel.
It's not to say I don't have plenty of other decently covered 5*s... I have
Kitty at 11 covers
Loki and Hela at 12
Cable at 10
Others vary down the path from there
So I'm contemplating it. It's gonna take a bunch of ISO I don't have, but I'm getting a bit tired of doing the same things right now, so it might be the shake up I need.0 -
My signature does have my updated roster in it but I have Okoye at 452, Thor at 355 and Kitty at 330. All my other 5*s are at 255. I leveled up Thor from 255 to 355 during the season because his green AOE does bigger damage and his green is just below the Pocket Radio green match damage boost that allows Okoye to tank green over Thor.ThaRoadWarrior said:Do you have levels on any other 5*s, or are they all 255?
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I wonder if that is why your PVP experience is so much better than some of ours? probably. I had a bunch of 345, 330, 300 etc un-built 5s when i put Gho5t Rider to 452, and my mmr is heck-ish. I've gotten the hang of it, but it was a shock and i had to get creative.0
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I don't have a consistent slice I play. Usually I just jump in when I notice one is within 8 hours of ending and do a single climb to 575. About half to two-thirds of that is other Grockitty teams. I rarely see anything other than those once I'm past about 200. When I do, it's almost always another single 5* champ team. Unless it's a really strong boost week, I virtually never see dual 4* teams anymore. If I jump in right at the start and hit Seed Teams, I can make it to 40 wins, but usually peak somewhere around 500 points, and it's a major slog once I run out of Retals from the 1* team I clear Seeds with.abenness said:
This is very very different to my pvp experience.TPF Alexis said:Sounds about right. With Kitty as my sole 5* champ, PvP has pretty much become a 575-and-out affair because, win or lose, a Grockitty mirror match is painful. The speed up in PvE is even more impressive, tho. I'm getting similar clear times to you when I bring Thanos along, but in SCL9.
I would definitely agree that with the right 5* champ, the single 5* meta is a pretty fun place to be, but it would be awful with a low-tier 5* as your only champ.
I have Kitty as my single 5* champ, and climb with Gritty to 900/1000 or higher, by fighting the dual-4* teams I am matched against, and skipping the Gritty teams. Gritty can take on champed/boosted 4* teams pretty reliably, and I can typically float around 700 points with few hits.
Anecdotally, my team doesn’t become visible to the dual-5* teams until my score is above 900.
Maybe it is affected by the pvp slice? I play S1, and if that has more teams and a larger spread of scores, the MMR might be better at matching against teams closer to my level.
I strongly recommend Kitty as a single 5* champ.
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Jumping in during the last few hours is always a risk because players are busy looking for high points and then shield up. Jumping first is also a risk due to you being one of those players with one of the highest score and other players will start attacking you.
Try jumping one day after the slice starts, let the points build up, and then climb in the last 9 hours. Or you could do 300 to 575 on the first run, and then before it ends, do another final burst and shield up.
See if there is any change or improvement.0 -
Yep, ditto this. Last 8 hours is not a good time for pvp. Try S1 or S4, which are the higher point slices, and try some climbing 24 hours from the start. I saw heaps of 4* teams earlier today until I ran low on health packs.HoundofShadow said:Jumping in during the last few hours is always a risk because players are busy looking for high points and then shield up. Jumping first is also a risk due to you being one of those players with one of the highest score and other players will start attacking you.
Try jumping one day after the slice starts, let the points build up, and then climb in the last 9 hours. Or you could do 300 to 575 on the first run, and then before it ends, do another final burst and shield up.
See if there is any change or improvement.
With Gritty you should be making 900 points regularly without any shielding, in < 30 wins.0 -
I'll give it a shot. I never have managed to get the hang of PvP at any level of this game, tho.Also, I'd note that when I jump in at the start, I actually spend most of the way to 40 wins trading Retals with 2* and 3* players. But when I do run out of those somewhere around the middle of the event, it's pretty much nothing but Kitty as far as the eye can see.0
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That did work out better, so far at least. Thanks!HoundofShadow said:Jumping in during the last few hours is always a risk because players are busy looking for high points and then shield up. Jumping first is also a risk due to you being one of those players with one of the highest score and other players will start attacking you.
Try jumping one day after the slice starts, let the points build up, and then climb in the last 9 hours. Or you could do 300 to 575 on the first run, and then before it ends, do another final burst and shield up.
See if there is any change or improvement.
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I used to just dabble in PvP but had a lot of fun with Okoye as my first & only 5* Champion. With her and XPool, I could win matches fast, and save on health kits, and I hit 900 a lot more often than what I used to. I knew about Shield Hopping but could never do it properly, but with Okoye & XPool I didn't need to. Wins were over fast so I could just blaze to 900+ then Shield out for the remainder of the event.
Then I made a mistake. I finished Jessica Jones, and thinking she'd play well with Okoye, she became my second 5* Champion. Now they do work okay together, but they were slow (compared to Okoye & XPool) and I still got hit a lot on defense, and so slow victories meant I was losing points almost faster than I could collect them. So to me, Okoye & XPool still seemed the better team.
But now that I had two 5* Champions, my MMR had increased, and so PvP became harder for me again. I actually regretted making Jessica a Champion because I was almost never using her, and it only made things more difficult.
PvP did not become easier again until I made Thor Champion #3, then I joined a PvP Line room and it became easier still. With Okoye and half-Thor, and using Line to play nicely with others, I wasn't just hitting 900...I hit 1200! I had never hit 1200 before, I hadn't even gone above 1,000, but two Seasons ago I not only hit 1200 for the first time ever, I went on to hit 1200+ in every event, and I hit 10,000 for the Season, being another "first" for me. I did that again last Season, and I'll do it again this Season. And now that I'm hitting full progression in every event, both PvE and PvP, CP is not as scarce a resource as it once was.
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I'm pretty close to champing God Emperor Doom (100k iso) to go along with my single Ghost Rider: Robby Reyes. So I'll be sure and start a "my life with 2 non-meta 5* champions" thread after the season is over...1
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@jtsings
Nice writeup. Okoye was my first champed 5 (had a 5/3/3 lvl 420 Thor as well). One you get a decent pvp score, you always seem to be punching up, but it is what it is.
If you are going to single champ a 5, there are only 2 choices. Okoye and Kitty. I'm sitting on a fully covered CM5 w/ 10 saved and fully covered Cable w/ 7 saved.
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