Need advice on an important decision

Dougfresh413

Today is a big day in my world, because today is the day I finally champ my first 5*.  I am on day 2,077.  I have spent a total of $100 on this game (bought a Stark Salary during the 3rd anniversary as a small token of my appreciation to the devs).  For the past couple of years I have played the hoarding game of saving latests/cp and strategically dumping them in hopes of nabbing the latest 3.  It has paid off for me as I came away with all 4* fully covered (except magik, talos, hawkeye, black cat) and a dozen fully covered 5*.  I feel this puts my roster at a point where I could jump to the 5* level.  I only play PVP to 900 and PVE to progression, but I am thinking about trying to compete for placement in both.  I am currently sitting on 3.8 million iso.  I plan to champ Kitty, Thor, Okoye, and Thanos all of whom I have softcapped at lvl 350.  This means I could champ a few more with my existing iso.

How was your experience with these other characters?  In which order would you invest iso?

Hela

Storm

Rescue

Cable

Loki

Old Man Logan

Gambit

Kingpin (RNG got me on this one, 17 covers but only 1 black)

Wasp (she’s dead last and not deserving of any iso)

Any advice from the community is appreciated.

MegaBee

Old Man Logan is a great companion to Kitty Pryde, and Cable is a fun third for the team.

bluewolf

Putting iso into Latest 5's pays off with godboost in PVE, so consider them first.  Hela is the most versatile, Storm is second, Rescue is third but has a decent red.

Gambit will be a 5E in the near future, so consider him too.  He's also a good Storm partner.

The others I would wait on until their 5E comes along.

Tony_Foot

In your situation with capped Thor and okoye and no answer to the current four star dilution and threat of increased speed 5* releases I’d carry on playing with my capped roster and enjoy the four star game. 

You probably don’t want to do that though and so the above advice on who to champ I’d agree with, not that it matters you won’t ever use the others anyway.  You could easily champ the ones you have currently capped and not bother with the others at all.

Waddles_Pines

Dougfresh413 said:

Today is a big day in my world, because today is the day I finally champ my first 5*.  I am on day 2,077.  I have spent a total of $100 on this game (bought a Stark Salary during the 3rd anniversary as a small token of my appreciation to the devs).  For the past couple of years I have played the hoarding game of saving latests/cp and strategically dumping them in hopes of nabbing the latest 3.  It has paid off for me as I came away with all 4* fully covered (except magik, talos, hawkeye, black cat) and a dozen fully covered 5*.  I feel this puts my roster at a point where I could jump to the 5* level.  I only play PVP to 900 and PVE to progression, but I am thinking about trying to compete for placement in both.  I am currently sitting on 3.8 million iso.  I plan to champ Kitty, Thor, Okoye, and Thanos all of whom I have softcapped at lvl 350.  This means I could champ a few more with my existing iso.

How was your experience with these other characters?  In which order would you invest iso?

Hela

Storm

Rescue

Cable

Loki

Old Man Logan

Gambit

Kingpin (RNG got me on this one, 17 covers but only 1 black)

Wasp (she’s dead last and not deserving of any iso)

Any advice from the community is appreciated.

Purely hypothetical on my part since I'm not in the 5* realm.  With that being said:

- Be careful leveling up Thor since you don't want him to tank, you're better off champing the rest and then going level by level with him until he's about to tank and then stop.

- I like Cable a lot and it might be a good outlet for all the green Thor generates (not sure how hard Thor's green vs Cable's is at that level), but you could use Thor's red to soften up one character and then use Cable green.  Also his blue will generate more green.

- Hela - works great with Kitty
- Loki is a bit underrated
- OML
- Storm, I would put her higher than Loki, but it doesn't sound like you have a usable BB
- The rest, don't bother.   

Vhailorx

OML is nice to throw in as a useful third who won't eat health packs.  His powers and match damage have been totally overrun by power creep, but t healing remains true healing.

Hela is great, especially with thorkoye.  Her green triple proc's okoye for just 8 ap, she punishes opponents for collecting green, and generates lots of useful tiles too.  Just behind the meta.

Storm seems a bit less good to me, but still useful. 

Rescue has some fun pairings (bishop + magik) and her red can also multi-proc okoye for cheap.  But she is not "good" in any reasonable sense of the word by mpq standards.

Cable and Loki are both perfectly competent mid-tier 5*s, with some good powers, and some real design flaws that hold them back.

Gambit just breaks my heart now.  Bring back his red and make his repeater tile 1 turn!  He will be good but not op.

KP is trash tier and wasp is even worse.

Also, assuming you have 5 green covers for Thor, you should leave him around 430-435 so that okoye will tank red for him.  But if you don't have 5 green covers, then I would go ahead and champ him anyway; more passive AP gen is worth living with him tanking red.

grunth13

OP, before i give you my assessment,  how much cp and latest tokens have you hoarded?

Dougfresh413

Thanks for the advice so far everyone.  Unfortunately my Thor is 4/5/4, so I will have to champ him to get green up to 5.  I am sitting on 2,031 cp and 10 latests at the moment.  I dropped my hoard last night, but stopped after only 229 pulls b/c I was able to fully cover hela, storm, and rescue.  I will begin hoarding again and likely not drop anything on the latests until these three have cycled out.  This strategy has mostly worked for me and the only 5 stars I haven't been able to fully cover since midway through 2017 are GED and Capt Marvel.   @Tony_Foot suggestion is not one I take lightly.  I have been weighing this decision of jumping to 5* land or staying in my softcapped world of 4* for over a year.  It's time to make the move, I'm not getting any younger and neither is this game.  If I don't like the 5* game then it's probably time to quit.  6 years of daily playing for only $100 is a great bargain.

Phumade

Dougfresh413 said:

Thanks for the advice so far everyone.  Unfortunately my Thor is 4/5/4, so I will have to champ him to get green up to 5.  I am sitting on 2,031 cp and 10 latests at the moment.  I dropped my hoard last night, but stopped after only 229 pulls b/c I was able to fully cover hela, storm, and rescue.  I will begin hoarding again and likely not drop anything on the latests until these three have cycled out.  This strategy has mostly worked for me and the only 5 stars I haven't been able to fully cover since midway through 2017 are GED and Capt Marvel.   @Tony_Foot suggestion is not one I take lightly.  I have been weighing this decision of jumping to 5* land or staying in my softcapped world of 4* for over a year.  It's time to make the move, I'm not getting any younger and neither is this game.  If I don't like the 5* game then it's probably time to quit.  6 years of daily playing for only $100 is a great bargain.

What do you want from a placement / comp stand point?  Scl9 placements for pvp and pve have different strategies than scl 8.
 
Since your already planning on champing the meta char.  I’d think about what mechanics you like to play etc.  do you like charged tiles users, make sure you have a team that does t require specials.  Those are easy ways you can diversify your playsyle.

LLohm

I will not cover roster aspects with you since I see some very experienced players helping on that.

I will touch on competitive play instead. You need to have an idea of what comprises competitive play in both pve and pvp. Once you define that, ask yourself as an almost free to play player. Am I willing to spend time and HP to do so. The roster with mainly newly champed levels ensures that you’ll be spending more HP than you can earn for you to place in a good manner.

Pve
A strict time adherence to the clearing and end grind needs to be taken into account. A willingness to spend HP on heals as Thanos backlash on low champs will cost you or you place lower by taking more time.

PvP
Definitely use line and join battle chats. A raw champed 5* roster needs both a lot of time and HP spent on shields for hopping. Many times, you’ll find yourself even 1-hopping to secure placement if you’re trying to place highly.

Last consideration
By taking a shot at placement, you’re taking somebody’s. That fact doesn’t change. You may face massive snipes in PvP or find that your expenditure in heals in Pve exceeds your expectations. A roster change in itself will bring new excitement to your game. But do take note that just going into 5* land doesn’t necessarily mean placement is on the table.

Hope your new journey brings new fun to your game

_Vitto

If I were you, other than the no-brainer ones to champ, I'd invest in Hela, Storm and Rescue - for pve porpuses.

The other characters wouldn't add pretty much anything to your game. You may consider champing them in the future, when they'll be featured in pve.

Daredevil217

Your journey closely mirrors mine (though I’ve probably spent a little less than you). I too, took the long road enjoying the 4* tier while collecting covers for 5* and leaving them unleveled. I also ended up doing a mass champing similar to what you’re thinking and I transitioned with the “Mt. Rushmore of MPQ” as my core 4 (Thanos, Kitty, Thorkoye). 


This is my thread chronicling my transition:
https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/76951/i-ve-denied-the-signs-too-long-i-m-a-5-player/p1

Some notes:

1) You won’t ever play your 4* again for the most part (with a few exceptions). So you can say goodbye to that tier. However, once you get enough 5s covered, and I’d say you’re already there, you won’t lack for variety. 

2) I was able to jump to 900 every time as a 4* player to 1200 every time as a 5*- both without coordination.  Though I’m only focused on progression and not placement. I don’t have much advice on placing well. I believe that coordination is probably necessary to place and I’m not willing to put that much work in so... yeah. 

3) PVE will get significantly faster. Thanos does drain healthpacks but the default 10 is usually more than enough. You shouldn’t have to buy. 

4) You will have less to get excited about. 4* characters aren’t “for you” anymore. And the few that you find use for (Sabretooth for example) will get champed before you know it as your rewards should increase.  This is in many ways a first world problem, but the fact is only 5* characters will move the needle and when you have a string of bad ones like we’ve had, even those might not do it. I’m currently in the middle of my own lengthy wait for three characters to rotate, just like you are planning to do, and those long droughts are not fun (just have Hela left). Special pop up stores can get the excitement flowing again though if there is someone in there you are close to finishing or a feeder you have been needing is announced. 

5) Who to champ beyond the core 4? Honestly those four (and Rocket) can handle anything the game throws at you and gives offense, defense, and speed. If the goal is placing well, then champ the three Latests because they are featured heavily in PVE until they rotate out. Having the 5E champed will make your grind even faster. If the goal is fun, just pick people you think would be fun. I try to play all my characters when I can and not just stick to the meta. I was the same way in 4* land, trying to make suboptimal characters work. If you just played Grocket/Gamora in 4* land, you’ll likely just play Thorkoye in 5* land. 

I would champ:

1. Hela- the best of the rest and as a bonus is still in Latests. Pairs well as a third for the two meta teams (Thorkoye/Gritty)

2. OML- Pairs well with Thanos to heal Court Death and with Kitty to add strikes and an X-Man to lower the buff threshold. 

Then probably save up and champ Storm/Gambit together and play them as a duo for a bit. I don’t have either champed, but they seem to have good synergy. Plus Storm is a latest 3. 

Then Loki/Cable. They are two very unique characters that I’ve enjoyed building teams around and play way more than you’d expect looking at the “better” options my roster has. Cable/Thor was fun against all the Bag-loaner teams I faced. Thor fuels Cable’s green then blast Bag-Man and enjoy the huge AOE damage the other two take when he drops. Loki/Doom is a blast for me. Killing Loki and trying to revive him (often using Doom’s board shuffle) is a fun mini game for me. Loki has the best active purple of the now 17 champs on my roster. So I wouldn’t sleep on him. 

Rescue, Fisk, and Wasp are garbage. Rescue is a Latest 3 so you’d get use there but all three of these can wait until you have excess iso. 
 

Warbringa

Gambit isn't close to what he was but he still very serviceable 5* and mid tier.  His purple still packs a great punch and his red is still decent with charged tile makers like Storm and Black Bolt.