when are latest hero for hire covers worth it? (Prof X case study)

Vhailorx

I am currently sitting on 11 Prof x covers (5/x/x build).  His next cycle as a latest 5* with likely be his last.  he is better than average, and it would be great to champ him while I can do so 'easily.'

Is it worth 500 CP to direct buy a cover for him?  (What color is even up for him next cycle?) 500cp will, on average, provide 1 cover for each 5*. But a blue cover is useless for me, so my odds are a bit worse than they look on paper.

What about if I manage to pull a purple/black cover for him from a token between now and then and  get to 12/13?

I after i get a token sinister cover, I am going to start the hoarding in earnest again, so relying on shards to cover Prof X would be a LONG wait.  Just like waiting for him to cycle as a a classic 5*.

sambrookjm

I assume the 4-star and 5-star versions of Prof X are your Shard bonus heroes?  (If not, set them as such.)  I would say that the 500 CP isn't worth it unless your build is a 5/5/1, and the cover is the one you need your 1 in...and even then it's only if you *really* like him and have the CP to spare.  The 500 CP will get you 20 LTs, which as you pointed out *should* get you about 1 cover in each of the 3 latest 5-stars, plus a bunch of shards for your bonus 4-star hero.  As someone who owns a 5-star Prof X at 7/2/1, I can sympathize.

Some other questions to think about:

How many LTs do you have in reserve?  If you want Prof X, burn these off before you start spending the CP.

What are your Beta Ray Bill and Carnage builds?  How many covers do you have for each of them?

How do you feel about Mister Sinister?  If you really like him, you might want to save the CP up for the token pool that he'll be in (with two other five stars.)

Vhailorx

Thanks for the feedback sambrookjm

I have made my choice of PX over sinister (or rather, a 'helpful' child made it for me by opening 20+ LTs while holding my phone). So my undersized LT hoard is now almost entirely committrd, and I only have ~60 pulls left, mostly in CP.  Fortunately, the net results have been decent so far. 

Prof X is 5/2/3 (with shards for another cover, but 4* Prof is at 300, so no more help there anytime soon).  BRB is at 3/3/4.  Carnage and sinister aren't going to happen.  But my goal is to get X and BRB champed and then get the next hoard going.  I am not worried as brb yet as I will likely get 1-3 more covers for him naturally pulling for tokens of sinister and the next 5*, and my distribution has been good so far.  So right now it's just a question of what to do about X. 

Ideally, I could spend a few hundred cp and get the last two covers I need.  But that is unlikely.  Assuming it's purple or black, the h4h cover is much more compelling than it usually is, since Prof X would likely be a frequently used 5* for me, and the wait for those last two covers might be very long (I think my last two JJ covers took 12-14 months).  But neither dropping 500 now on a latest cover, nor waiting a year for him to cycle around again as a classic is very appealing.

KGB

@Vhailorx: Did you ever spend the CP for the cover available in the current PvE?

I have a similar problem as my ProfX is 7/2/1. I could open a bunch of LTs (sitting on 270) but not only do I have a bad ProfX build but my BRB is 503 so I'm scared of getting covers I can't use there either (of course Carbage is fine at 3/2/1).

I have 2800 CP and the Black cover is 500. If I don't buy it then it means it may be a year or so before another is offered and there is a good chance it's Blue. Plus when ProfX gets the inevitable feeder the 280 cover will be the useless Blue .   I'm currently sharding for Kitty (who also has 10 covers) so I won't be sharding him anytime soon which means I need him in another release store to even have a shot at covers.

So would you spend the 500 on the Black cover if you were me (note than I am still a 4* player who has 4 fully covered 5* but none leveled past 300 because I'm waiting to finish Kitty/Okoye before making the leap)?

KGB

jamesh

KGB said:

Plus when ProfX gets the inevitable feeder the 280 cover will be the useless Blue .

Professor X already has a feeder: 4* Professor X.  So you might already have received that blue cover and be on your way to shards for the next cover.

Vhailorx

KGB,

This particular issue was very quickly mooted for me as three significant facts-on-the-ground changed since I created this thread last week:

(1) I pulled a Prof X black from an LT (so he was sitting at  5/2/4 with 600/500 shards). 

(2) Demi offered the 3400HP for 125x 5* shards package.

(3) The day after my first post in this thread, D3 announced CL 10 with as many 150x prog shards per pve event.

So once all of those things happened, I did some quick math and decided that 3400 HP + grinding a CL10 event would leave me at 11/13 covers + 975 shards for Prof X (i.e. just 25 shards shy of 13/13).  That seemed like a better play for me than dropping 500 CP on the 13th cover.  In a pre-CL 10 world, I might have purchased cover #13 for 500 cp since the only alternative was waiting for him to cycle around (either as a featured classic in 6-12 months, or in another special store, or when I got 18 more Prof X 4* covers).  It's a close call, but I don't think it would have been wildly irresponsible to make the H4H purchase for a very good 5*. 

In your case, KGB, I think the key difference is that even with a direct buy cover, your Prof X will still be at just 9 covers, and a long ways from being complete.  If you had a 5/5/2 build or something like that (and your 4* Prof was still well below level 300), then the purchase might make sense as you would get a lot of flexibility and a decent power jump from finishing X.  But as is, he won't be appreciably tougher with just  2 black covers, nor do you get the flexibility of respec'ing him.  So I would probably suggest passing on this H4H.  Your Prof will even have some value in his current state because you have 5 blue covers (especially if you have a functional okoye to proc with his passive). And you can focus your short term efforts on Kitty (who will have an even bigger impact on your game experience than X), and wait for X to cycle around again.

KGB

Thanks for the advice.

I'll pass on buying the ProfX cover based on your sound arguments. I do have a functioning Okoye (5/5/2) who will be fully covered when I get 4 more Shuri covers.

KGB