Looking for two-character team for PvE essentials

froggerjohn

https://mpq.gamependium.com/rosters/froggerjohn/revisions/160

Most of my goals have been achieved last year.

I have a couple of 5*s at 13 covers, and a few more close.
All 5*s rostered, and almost all 4*s champable, awaiting iso.
Juggs/Grocket have really sped up my PvE, and allowed some great finishes up to t5 in SCL8.
4/5/3 Kitty, and 283 shards towards my 5th yellow.

What's really missing right now, is a good two-character team for essential nodes that have active tile-movers. Those nodes take drastically longer than anything else.

Here's what I've tried:
Grocket/Juggs: works against goons, but potentially slow against tile-movers if they match too many strikes
Grocket/Kitty: haven't actually used this much, except wave nodes. At level 290, the buff is only 143, and doesn't feel super fast.
America/Hood: this is great when America is boosted, but otherwise still a bit slow unless you get an early cascade. Even when taking AP boosts, it doesn't take much to lose the passive, and then there's no major damage until America builds up AP.
America/5e: Potentially faster, but a lot less reliable.
Vulture/Valkyrie: Suggested in another topic, and interesting when it works. But subject to getting enough black, and not losing the green CD, so still not a reliable fast clear.

I suspect the gold standards are Thor/Okoye and champed Kitty/Grocket.

With a 2/1/0 Thor, that's one's not happening anytime soon.
Despite being close on Kitty, I'm pretty sure I don't want to champ her due to the changes in MMR and PvP (which is where I'm having a large part of the fun right now). So even when I get the 5th yellow, it may still not be a big speed boost.

One idea, is using a 4* Avenger's Tower support on Juggs, for 55% chance to fortify a strike. I already have a Chimi on Grocket for a 35% chance. If the strikes stay alive, the speed is pretty good. The downside, is that I'll lose one of Juggs' tanking colors, if I swap out the Stepford Cuckoos, which currently grabs the purple. Which could hurt across the board, and limit the great cascade damage potential.

Is there anything else I can do in 4* land?

Waddles_Pines

You can't use avengers tower on juggs, it's restricted to heroes and he's listed as a villain.  Hydra henchman or thanos' date order ppl might work if you have them.

Daredevil217

Are you looking to jump to 5* land? I think putting levels on Professor, Kitty,  Okoye, etc. are what will get you where you’re going. Other than that I’m not sure there’s anything better than what you’re running. 

Big damage dealer (boosted 5E ideally or Grocket) with Thanos is my go-to “gold standard” for 2-4* essentials. I then use Thorkoye for the 5* node. 

TPF Alexis

Once you get that fifth yellow for Kitty, that combined with leveling her up to something like 330 or so should roughly double how much she's boosting the Strikes, but not mess with your MMR.

Also, a Support that Fortifies friendly Specials can really help. Element Guns, Chimichanga, Lockheed, not sure what ranks they need to be, but I know they can all do the job. The Milano on Grocket is also a significant help. Doesn't need to be leveled, 1* is fine. All you need from it is the Synergy Perk Countdown giving you an extra hit with all those Strikes.

Waddles_Pines

TPF Alexis said:

Once you get that fifth yellow for Kitty, that combined with leveling her up to something like 330 or so should roughly double how much she's boosting the Strikes, but not mess with your MMR.

Also, a Support that Fortifies friendly Specials can really help. Element Guns, Chimichanga, Lockheed, not sure what ranks they need to be, but I know they can all do the job. The Milano on Grocket is also a significant help. Doesn't need to be leveled, 1* is fine. All you need from it is the Synergy Perk Countdown giving you an extra hit with all those Strikes.

Just for reference, my 341 kitty improves tiles by 214 with 4 covers, 267 with 5 covers.  Put your avenger's tower on Kitty.

TPF Alexis

Thanks for the reference point. It can be hard to remember how that curve goes.

Also, on re-reading, I noticed you're way ahead of me on the Supports that Fortify Specials. Missed that the first time through.

froggerjohn

Ah, definitely missed the part about Avenger's Tower being for Heroes.
I do have a 3* Hydra Henchman though, with 27% fortify. It boosts black instead of purple, so I can run G4mora instead of 3Lord, and still tank 5 colors + TU. That's actually a nice improvement in my base team, both in benefits, as well as not having to drill down 13 screens to find SL. 

It may or may not be enough to use Grocket/Juggs successfully on the 2-4 essentials, but worth a try.

I wish I had the Milano support, but it's still being elusive. Support tokens are the rarest commodity in the game, and most often, totally worthless as a duplicate, and negligible amount of riso. Alas, a separate matter...

The Hydra support change will definitely lose a tanking color for Grocket/Juggs with either Kitty or Nico, which I do for wave nodes. Probably still manageable with 4 colors plus TU, or I can always revert back for events that have waves.

For Kitty/Grocket on essentials, Avenger's Tower might indeed be an option. There's a 1* Chewie on her right now. Lockheed wouldn't be bad either, but I don't have that one.

Thanks so much for the reference points. A 267 buff would indeed be pretty sweet, and almost double my current value. Hugely significant, but I'd be pretty concerned about raising her level and impacting MMR. Seems like there's evidence that it's based on unboosted characters (and/or, I still have a lot of unchamped 4*s, so I'd probably take a hit anyway).

I'm not yet ready for the 5* tier, in large part because I'm still experiencing and enjoying the diversity of 4* play. Once you make the jump, you can't go back, and I don't think I'd like the reduction in team variety. I realize that means I'm essentially competing out of my weight class, trying to get high placements against mostly 5* players. But that's also why I'm asking for help, so all the comments are much appreciated.

froggerjohn

I was able to try out a few of these ideas on the mid-48h point of The Hunt: Florida.

With the disclaimer that this is a ridiculously small sample size, Kitty/Grocket was *really* slow for me. Granted, still 4 yellow and under-leveled, but it was nowhere close to the speed of either Juggs/Grocket, or America. I can definitely put that one on hold until getting a 5th yellow cover.

The Hydra Henchman support change was very successful. On the hard nodes, with Juggs/Grocket/G4mora, I had both more fortified tiles, and better power options than with 3Lord. In particular, Gamora's blue of course. Thanks for that great suggestion!

Juggs/Grocket was also reasonably successful on the 2e. But too early to tell if it's viable long-term, as a better solution than America. They might work for early node hits, but the longer fights for clears 5-7 likely still have too much risk of slow clears when losing strikes.

With America boosted, I probably can't do any better than America/Hood for this event. But after that, there might be some other options to consider:

America/MEH: Can sure be nice if you get a good Grand Entrance
America/Valkyrie: One of my go-to PvP solutions, but maybe too slow to check and switch Bounty targets in PvE
America/Vulture
America/C4rol

Waddles_Pines

Do you have taskmaster sword or any support that adds damage to powers?  Put it on Medusa and it'll add to her countdown damage. 

froggerjohn

Yes, I have a decent 3* Taskmaster's Sword, with +1110 damage.
I can try Medusa/Grocket, but along those lines I could also put it on Juggs, still run Juggs/Grocket, and get the support boost 2x instead of 1x, and cascade multipliers on top of that. (As a tradeoff for a tanking color, and some fortification).

Waddles_Pines

It won't work with juggs, none of the "add damage to character powers" supports work on him.  I've tried 

KGB

I use Ebony Maw support (L100) on Juggs because it has a 11% chance to spawn an attack tile each turn that does some nice extra damage against enemies thanks to the strikes (of course most non-trivial nodes end in 3-4 moves so it often doesn't trigger).

I use Carols Communicator (L150) on Grocket simply for the 50% chance of 2 600 strength defense tiles it spawns at battle start (eliminating match damage entirely though Juggs doesn't really care since he handles that nicely himself).

I find those 2 handle all the tile moving nodes at least in CL7 with ease finishing most battles in 4-5 moves tops as I scan quickly for double matches / cascades to amplify Juggs damage.

KGB

froggerjohn

Confirmed Taskmaster's Sword doesn't work on Juggs. Odd, since it works on other AoEs like Strange and Thanos.

I don't have the riso right now to get Ebony Maw to L100, and at L50, it's a 7% chance (and not enough black boost to tank over Gamora). Maybe something to try later, but not sure how that fares against fortification.

Corvus Glaive is another option. Fortify chance drops from 27% (with Hydra) to 14%, but adds a damage component. Might be the right choice if I'm going to run Juggs with Kitty/Nico on waves.

Agreed about SCL7. Both Juggs/Grocket and America do pretty well on the essentials there, but they bog down with the higher health enemies of SCL8. 

KGB

Juggs power is not a 'power' per se. It's considered extra match damage.

Too bad you lack the RISO for Ebony Maw. At L100 you will tank over Gamora since he does for me.

Other potential supports for Juggs are:

1) Chewie  - Lots of chances for attack tile spawning since he does most of the matches.

2) Hope Summers - 23% chance to increase a strike tile by 396 per match (L150) which can really add up on Juggs since he makes so many matches. He qualifies for this support since he is tagged as X-Men.

KGB