Coming back after years - what should I know?

Johnmcclaneisback

Hi there, after a ling hiatus (the game was too time consuming, could not play with my past job) I've decided to come back since I missed those little tiles. Last time I played it was during civil war I guess (I have got 5* Cap and IM).
Question is (are):
What should I know about game changes?
What should I do to catch up?

Thanks!

Johnmcclaneisback

Thanks! Well I spent money before, now I don't think I will since the amount I would have to spend. Just one more question: what s the red Iso for?

peterdark

Johnmcclaneisback said:

Thanks! Well I spent money before, now I don't think I will since the amount I would have to spend. Just one more question: what s the red Iso for?

Red Iso is for supports. You can assign a 'support' to one of your characters for a boost in PVE. Different supports grant different bonuses, and there are levels for each support. 

You can acquire supports through tokens but at the moment they are broken. There were pve events that were supposed to make it easier to acquire them but that has been put on hold until the devs can fix it. You can find many debates on the forum about supports.

oh, and welcome back!

Johnmcclaneisback

Thanks! I guess I'll have to study then...and catch up many characters (not having the 3* is a major issue for needed characters I guess)

DAZ0273

Yikes - that is a bit of a gap!

The main thing would be Saved Covers, no more race to champ covers on the vine.

The new/current Meta's are:

5* Thor & Okoye - Thor runs at half health for constant AP generation in red, green and yellow, Okoye is a true healer who tanks for him and has a power in black with increase damage on powers. Okoye works with many other combinations of characters also due to her black - referred to as Thorkoye

3*/5* Thanos - he is used for clearing fast low level PvE nodes thabks to his passive Black AOE that triggers when an enemy is downed - use him with healers or meatshields though as a percentage of damage is also caused to his tema mates (but not him)

3* Dr Strange - he has a counter attack passive that triggers whenever an enemy fires a power, including goon countdown tiles so he wrecks at PvE for those nodes if you don't have meta. There is a 5* version also but obviously he is buried in classics hell.

Gritty - This comprises 5* Kitty Pryde and 4* Rocket & Groot. R4G at the BEGINNING of their turn put down some hefty strike tiles. Kitty then uses her yellow passive power to buff these strikes tiles (and other specials) as long as there are a certain amount on the board. This results in absolutely insane levels of match and/or passive attack tile damage in a very short term. R4G is a part of many other meta teams also, he is frequently paired with 4* Gamora as having another Guardian on his team boosts his strike tiles even more and she has useful powers like a cheap stun.

Bishop - Bishop is often played with the above Gritty team. He has a passive that moves him to front once your team has absorbed a certain amount of damage and then retaliates once he has received damage past a further threshold, However what makes him such a nightmare is that he generates vast amounts of blue every time this happens which enables him (or another character on your team) to stun the enemy - you can quickly stun lock an opponent in submission.

Sabretooth - Sabretooth is a recently released 4* but he has use for 2 main purposes - first he has a passive power that when he matches an enemy strike tile it causes a 3 x 3 board destruction - this can be used to dismantle Gritty teams by taking out the specials they need to wreck. His black active also can create 1 point strike tiles for the enemy which he can then match for the above effect. His red is very cheap and if teamed with Okoye can cause havok - 4* Valkyrie has a similar power but Sabretooth is just much cheaper.

Medusa - Medusa team heals when you match specials and generates AP when you match enemy specials. Lots of teams but frequently paired with Carnage thanks to his special tile passive - referred to as Cardusa

You also completely missed the fearsome reign of Gambit! Both 3* and 5* versions had to be nerfed and were nerfed into oblivion.

jamesh

You also missed out on the window of time when it was easy to get 5* Wasp covers, so it isn't all bad.

ThaRoadWarrior

You might read through this thread if you're going to make a concerted effort to "catch up" since bbigler left the game, then came back as a new player and attempted to take the most optimal path to 5* play available at the time (and then quit for good):
https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/74686/2019-guide-to-progressing-fast#latest

and while it's decidedly not as helpful, you can also see what it has been like for me to attempt to transition to 5* play completely F2P this year:
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/p1

Johnmcclaneisback

Wow thank you guys! I've noticed many teams with 3*Strange indeed, I'm gonna check those link,I hope my hiatus won t prevent me to play well and have fun. Maybe I'll spend some money on roster spots..

bluewolf

First, you will almost definitely need to spend money on roster slots if you want to play competitively.

There are 81 (+ 4 Limited) 4s in the game and 35 5s.  About 185 characters in total.

Also:  dilution is a big deal, especially for someone like you who is basically new to the 4 tier.   You have basically a 1% chance of getting a 4 you want from each Classic or Latest pull (so bonus the ones you want to make it a 5% chance).

If you want to "catch up" and play somewhat competitively, the only rational approach is to focus on a few meta 4's and bonus them, champ them, and use them a lot.  You should not plan on champing all the 4's for a long, long time....if ever.  I think the math is like 32 million iso for the 4 tier and over 1000 covers to finish just the ones in the game at the moment.

If you someday want to play with 5's, you'll need to also plan to hoard for a long time and enter all at once with a good group of 3.

Maybe those issues aren't a big concern, but for most newer players, I think you should approach the game wanting to go through the 3* tier then decide how badly you want to continue, as money will likely be involved beyond that, depending on your goals and how far you want to go.

ThaRoadWarrior

It would be a little easier to give advice with a peek at your roster, but at any given tier there are probably 3-6 truly "good" characters you should chase for sure, and after that it almost doesn't matter. This thread seems to be assuming you're a 4* transitioner, but your comment about needing a complete 3* roster while having a few 5*s makes me think you have 4*s and "skipped" the 3* tier a little bit.

At the 4* Tier, I always suggest Vulture to people, particularly if you're transitioning and can't field a whole team of 4*s. He is a 1-man show, who can be fed by good 3s and can in turn feed others if you want. If you have G4mora or Iceman, he is a terror.

4ocket/Medusa/G4mora remain a very strong team against similar opponents. I might suggest you bonus them in that order? Not sure it matters, but rocket will speed your clears up big time.

even though he is a Huge Problem in pvp for advanced rosters, I don't know that I would recommend transitioning with Bishop. He isn't super strong offensively, but defensively against upper tier rosters he is a nightmare. So you want him, but do you want only him for awhile? I'm not sure. 

Some of the newer releases like Sabertooth seem really promising for breaking the stranglehold over PVP that Gritty teams enjoy, but I don't have them finished yet.

At the 5* Tier, you're almost certainly going to just get who you get, so you are best served to save up until you have enough pulls to chase someone you like. If you want to park your BH on somebody, your obvious choice (in my mind) is one of the force multipliers like Kitty or Okoye. I'd maybe start with Okoye since she has a 4* feeder (Shuri) and a true heal, and adds value to nearly every character at every tier even partially built. 

Johnmcclaneisback

I have 2million iso at the moment, it's not good lol

jp1

I’d be pretty happy with 2 million ISO honestly. I don’t know how the ISO crunch was last time you played, but now it is a serious grind. 

Iso may be the single biggest complaint I have with progress at the moment.

n25philly

Johnmcclaneisback said:

What should I do to catch up?

lololololololololololololololololololololol  *takes deep breath* lolololololololololololololololololol

purplemur

don't hoard; you need to build your ranks not transition to 5* Play. 

Bonus Heroes: they are like a kettle on the stove; if you pay attention it will take forever to notice and it can be discouraging, but if you set and forget, you'll someday check your progress and see that it is a steady supply. 
3*= Strange, IM, Thanos 
4*= if your a collectionist then just hunt the one cover you need for Req'd nodes- otherwise: Medusa,Grocket, Vulture. Then Carol, peggy, gamora(best fit w/grocket), carnage, once you start being competitive in PvP again there is a whole slew of meta-busters that you will need in your tool belt.
5*= kitty/okoye cuz they help every team, OML/GED to save on healthpacks on the grind

Spending Money: They have SCL packs which are fantastic value (Oh yeah SCL is a thing that gives you big ISO bumps occasionally); I find it less value but some of the costume packs also have a decent return on HP. I would not just go buy a stark to "catch up"; anecdotally there seem to be more "sales" then before.

Farming: was farming a thing pre-CW? I think that came later??? anyway keep all of your 2*s cycling through and reroster/rechamp as needed- great source of HP and great for feeders. (long game you will need to keep 3's turning over too)

Supports: some can be real helpful but it is a total spin of the RNG wheel to see what you get and they are near impossible to get a good one at 5 ranks. You might want to hold these tokens until they come up with some of the talked about fixes. I wouldn't spend a drop if rice until you get a good one at a high level.

PvE Bracket sniping is harder as more and more players quit; recently there were tales of SCL 7 not flipping even once. So playing at prefixed times is still a thing. 

They raised progression levels in PvE so you will need to do 5 clears of each node to get progression, but the 5* Req'd node is "free" points and can make up some. I think the grind is worse then ever actually.... 

My advice is to not rush right back into trying to "catch-up". play around sub-optimally and on your own schedule. It is the best match-3 game in it's class and it comes with great art assets, if you can stoke that enjoyment and get your bearings you can switch to high gear and start chasing placement if that is what you want. but trying to get there too quick will just burn out because quite frankly; it is futile. With the dilution levels and the rewards % you just can't "catch-up", but you can make progress and improvements and enjoy yourself.

ThaRoadWarrior

Shield Training is a new thing since then also, so an intermediate goal between "roster all 4*s" and "champ all 4*s" can be "get all 4*s to 10 covers" with a follow on goal of getting whichever ones are required for the next release to lvl 209. 209 is the minimum level to get to the top of progression in the character release Shield Training events.

This has the secondary psychological benefit of reducing the perceived cost of champing a 4*. It changes from being around 370k iso from lvl 70 to being more like 240k iso from 209. Going from 70 to 209 is about the same as champing a 3* from scratch.

Johnmcclaneisback

I'm on mobile so I can't go in order, anyway:
-pve sniping not being there anymore is sort of a relief
-the bonus character is a new thing, I'll follow your advices
-for now I just play as much as I can, whenever I reach 1k gold I open a spot
-I guess it's time for me to farm 2*, I just reached 144 with Thor.

don't know how to share my roster, if I can I will do it without problems

Thank you again, I m happy to be back, always considered this forum as a good and helpful one

PiMacleod

purplemur said:

...

They raised progression levels in PvE so you will need to do 5 clears of each node to get progression, but the 5* Req'd node is "free" points and can make up some. I think the grind is worse then ever actually.... 

Honestly, I have yet to ever do 5 clears since that "change" happened, and I always get full progression.  But I'm also including the 4 clears of the 5* req node.  In short, I don't need to wait to do a run later on... I can do all 4 of my clears for each node at one point in the day.

Now if for some silly reason I don't have a required character yet, of course that's where I have to kill a few more extra clears out.

ThaRoadWarrior

I think at this stage of play, the "race" should be to get a cover for everyone on roster for node access. I personally found the best way to do that was spending CP into Classic Legends, but I was also burning my legendary tokens into latest so I never really had a big stash to cover anyone overly well. Best I ever did was 8 covers that way, but by leaving my BH on him I was able to take Ghost Rider up to champ roughly a year after his release. I would assume anyone currently in classics is probably dead to you for champing purposes, unless you plan to hoard up and burn it in a special store.

skittledaddy

Johnmcclaneisback said:

I'm on mobile so I can't go in order, anyway:
-pve sniping not being there anymore is sort of a relief
-the bonus character is a new thing, I'll follow your advices
-for now I just play as much as I can, whenever I reach 1k gold I open a spot
-I guess it's time for me to farm 2*, I just reached 144 with Thor.

don't know how to share my roster, if I can I will do it without problems

Thank you again, I m happy to be back, always considered this forum as a good and helpful one

Either you can enter your roster into MPQ Gamependium ( https://mpq.gamependium.com/ ) and share the link to your roster with us or the easier way is to tell us your alliance (assuming you have joined one since returning) and in-game name.

Gamependium involves lots of manual entry, but I enjoy occasionally updating my roster through it because it gives me a more tangible way to see the progress I'm making.

pheregas

Either you can enter your roster into MPQ Gamependium ( https://mpq.gamependium.com/ ) and share the link to your roster with us or the easier way is to tell us your alliance (assuming you have joined one since returning) and in-game name.

Gamependium involves lots of manual entry, but I enjoy occasionally updating my roster through it because it gives me a more tangible way to see the progress I'm making.

I used to use gamependium but gave up as it got too time consuming.  I'm almost curious to see how my roster has changed since I stopped using it.

Warbringa

pheregas said:

Either you can enter your roster into MPQ Gamependium ( https://mpq.gamependium.com/ ) and share the link to your roster with us or the easier way is to tell us your alliance (assuming you have joined one since returning) and in-game name.

Gamependium involves lots of manual entry, but I enjoy occasionally updating my roster through it because it gives me a more tangible way to see the progress I'm making.

I used to use gamependium but gave up as it got too time consuming.  I'm almost curious to see how my roster has changed since I stopped using it.

I still like gamependium but I only update it every few months.  That way it isn't as time consuming and you get the feeling of progress you mentioned.