When do top tier 5* become more useful than champed 4*s?

helix72

Looking to learn from folks who made/are making the 5* transition as to when using 5*s sped up your game to the point where they were worth an investment. In the 4* tier, I currently have 45 champed (including all the top tier), 34 at 209 waiting on ISO, and the remaining 6 between 70-209 waiting for covers. But I also have a few of the top tier 5*'s creeping up and I started wondering--at what point should I stop ignoring them for either PvE or PvP and start investing ISO and/or RISO into them? I have:

Okoye 1/2/1, level 255/315 and a 3* Royal Talon Fighter at 1/150
Thor 3/0/0, level 255/300 and a 5* Korg 250/250 and a 3* Stormbreaker 125/150
Kitty 1/1/1, level 255/300 and a 2* Lockheed 1/100

Are any of these with only partial coverage worth prioritizing investing ISO/RISO over continuing the 4* champ parade? If not, at what point does that happen?

Thanks in advance for your perspective!

jp1

For me it’s around 10 covers. But if you have 3-5 Okoye black or Kitty yellow then it’s worthwhile.

Some people may suggest that even less than that on those two covers is good enough. I don’t have experience with that, so I can’t comment.

TPF Alexis

Thor is not particularly impressive with only 3 green covers.

I think it was at three yellow covers that I really started to figure out how amazing Kitty is. Do you have Nico? Use her purple to benchmark Kitty. Also, I don't have Lockheed, but the Element Guns are a great fit for her. Best at 3* and above, but even just the 1* chance of getting an Attack tile right away when you fire one of her actives is pretty nice.

I don't really know about Okoye. I only had 1 black cover for her when I got Kitty champed, so I didn't start using her until very recently, when I realized she'd somehow gradually hit 4/4/4.

abenness

TPF Alexis said:

I don't really know about Okoye. I only had 1 black cover for her when I got Kitty champed, so I didn't start using her until very recently, when I realized she'd somehow gradually hit 4/4/4.

Crikey, I know Kitty is great, but I don't think she's so great that you wouldn't notice building a 4/4/4 Okoye!
I hope you have BH'd Okoye, Shuri and started saving your iso to champ her too.

For OP, try using Gritty with Strange, Thanos, Medusa in pve, to get a feel for their speed compared to your other options.  Levelling her to get more damage in the powers is probably quite viable, as with only 3 covers she couldn't go so high as to affect your MMR. And you can at least learn how to use her (simply by protecting the strikes)

PiMacleod

It's hard to say what number it is, but I'm kinda in your boat.

I have no champed 5*s.  But I've been using my unchamped Kitty and it has been carrying me ever since I had her at around 9 covers (and more).

I have experience with alliance mates that only have 1 yellow cover and still use her with Carnage, Medusa, Rocket, or others, despite their 4* characters.

I think it comes down to how reliably fast can it take you through PvE progression, as opposed to your other options.  If the other options require certain amounts of AP, they may be slower on that aspect alone, instead of using Kitty and friends, which need nothing but the easy ready-made SAP tiles certain 4*s give you.

Perhaps just give it a spin with Okoye or Kitty.  Making the ISO isn't hard, and you probably won't regret it.  Besides, as you get more covers for them, you'll want them leveled anyways.  This is assuming no great nerf is coming... Knock on wood and all.

TranscendGod

From what I've observed, top tier 5s need ~10+ covers to be competitive with top tier 4s. I've seen a couple top 5/10 PvE players with top tier 360-390 5*s, but the fastest 4* players can still beat them. However, in terms of actually being useful my answer is 6 covers (for any 5*, top tier or not). Not because they're better than 4s (except possibly when boosted), but because you can set them to level 340. If you have 3x 340s on your roster, you can start queuing 5* champ grills. That makes it way easier to get high (1200+) scores in PvP. It will slow your initial climb a little, but not by too much (~5-10 minutes at the very most, less if good 4s are boosted/featured that week).

TPF Alexis

abenness said:

TPF Alexis said:

I don't really know about Okoye. I only had 1 black cover for her when I got Kitty champed, so I didn't start using her until very recently, when I realized she'd somehow gradually hit 4/4/4.

Crikey, I know Kitty is great, but I don't think she's so great that you wouldn't notice building a 4/4/4 Okoye!
I hope you have BH'd Okoye, Shuri and started saving your iso to champ her too.

I wasn't using her, so I didn't really notice how the covers had been stacking up until I got the BH black that put her at 4/4/4. ISO is not a problem. I'm effectively ISO positive until I decide to jump fully into 5* land. Got a couple million lying around. I have my 4* bonus hero on Ronin right now, because he's at 9 covers, and I'm hoping I can get the 10th before ST ends, and then it's going to Sabretooth. Shuri's at like 283 or something, so it'll probably be faster just to wait for the 5* BH.

helix72

Experiment time! I compared 1/1/1 lvl 255 Kitty with 5/3/5 lvl 286 Nico. Nico has more HP (by about 3K) but even at 1 cover and base level Kitty's boost to specials is 91 vs Nico's 76. Granted, Nico's boost works as long as you have more than the opponent whereas Kitty's requires 4 or more. So I raised Kitty to lvl 290 and the boost went to 104. She still has less HP than Nico but not by much, and of course her base match damage is much higher. I went through a few Sim battles with her, Grocket, and Medusa, and it seemed a little faster.

My Shuri's Lab has 46% chance to fortify specials with each match, so in PvE I'll try slapping that on her and seeing how she does against some high HP goons and tile movers.

jp1

No max tiles on Nico’s buff though. Not as good as Kitty still when both are champed, but devastating with Mohawk Storm’s black.