Scl 10 experiences and questions.

ThaRoadWarrior

halirin said:

Does the challenge node require the 5* essential? 

No, it's pick-3, run-what-you-brung.

bluewolf

halirin said:

Does the challenge node require the 5* essential? 

No, you can use any team you want.

PiMacleod

Im a newbie to this 5* champ deal still.  Cap Marvel was my first (i know, i know!), But Kitty followed that closely, Iceman, OML, Green Goblin, Hela, and just recently Thanos.

Those are my champs.

Because my prof X is at 435, he's boosted, and i have Gritty champed, i'm going through SCL 10 without much issue, beyond a couple extra health packs, and some extra time spent.

But the resources seem worth it!  As a progression PvE (mainly) player, i already have 9 covers for Karolina thanks to this.  Like someone else said, though, kinda wish they were for Shield Training... But thats prolly because we're staring down the next Shield Training.

Edit:. This'll probably be a different story if its someone i barely have covered, like FA Cap'n or Black Widow or JJ, and its the Royal Family node.

Daredevil217

I'm hearing a lot of folks saying "if I have the 5* champed, I'll play up" but what no one is talking about is when you DON'T have the 5* champed, that's when those CL10 progression rewards become much more valuable to your roster.  As we all know, covers 1-13 are way more important than the next 100.  I've been rocking my 0/0/2  Carnage and 1/1/1 Bill in every event they've been essential.  If CL10 was a thing when they dropped and I wanted those 2-3 colorless covers, I'd have to slog it out in 10 with these dead weight characters.  Not ideal, but this is the way forward if you want to bring up your lower-covered characters and stay on top of Latests (especially if we get that accelerated release rate which is still TBD).

Vhailorx

Daredevil217 said:

I'm hearing a lot of folks saying "if I have the 5* champed, I'll play up" but what no one is talking about is when you DON'T have the 5* champed, that's when those CL10 progression rewards become much more valuable to your roster.  As we all know, covers 1-13 are way more important than the next 100.  I've been rocking my 0/0/2  Carnage and 1/1/1 Bill in every event they've been essential.  If CL10 was a thing when they dropped and I wanted those 2-3 colorless covers, I'd have to slog it out in 10 with these dead weight characters.  Not ideal, but this is the way forward if you want to bring up your lower-covered characters and stay on top of Latests (especially if we get that accelerated release rate which is still TBD).

Conveniently, if everyone else drops down when rare/new 5*s are featured, then placement will be a bit easier.  But I will be curious to see how often that actually happens.

In the meantime, learning to play cl10 with just boosted 4*s and baby champ 5*s would seem to be extra valuable for those building out their 5* rosters. 

And even for those with decent 5* rosters, 5* champ rewards are quite good, so more access to them via cl10 is tempting. 

Also, I suspect that in the longer term, cl10 will increase the pve value of having multiple covers in newly released 5*s significantly.  Getting 8+ covers for a new 5* quickly after launch means easier access to the 2-3 additional covers available from pve prog now. 

AndiTi

I did my initial sub 1 clear in an hour, with champed X. 40-45 min would be the norm on SL9. Used one health pack on Karolina when a mob got a Tommy Gun through. I anticipate my cleanup runs tonight (I'm in slice 5) will be similar of about an hour.

Having the essential 5* champed or at least with enough covers/iso to be effective is going to be huge and will probably help dictate my choice of SL9 vs SL10. Whether I want the shards for the 5*s involved will too. For 250 shards in a character I want, it's worth it to me to at least play for progression and not worry about placement, although there are 5*  shards for placement at a really low level so most people who play at least 3-4 runs should get some placement shards.

I think this is working as intended. It's harder but manageable with the right characters. It actually forced me to not brute force a few matches and play the puzzle, which hurts time placement but is appropriate for the pinnacle level of PvE in my mind. The rewards are good, and I can always choose to drop down if I just don't think I can/want to tackle a specific event or character mix.(HoD's last sub will be entertaining).

We will see long term, but my initial impression is favorable.

ThaRoadWarrior

Something else we're kind of touching around the edges of is the composition of the nodes in this starter event. That Sub 1 challenge node was one of the universally panned 5* releases, a goon, and Hood. So an annying node, but not a node with characters that are actively good. I think we're going to need a full cycle of the PVE circuit, to see what all is out there, to really decide what does and doesn't work. Royal Family, Rider Awakens, whatever that Mockingbird+Heroes for Hire node is called, there are some known empirically hard nodes out there, not to mention any of the jumped-up Daken nodes where he just stays spamming his blue. 

I just think a bunch of us are probably going to come out of this one going "that's not so bad..." and go into the next one like "is there a doctor in the house?!"

DirionScrab

 

In the meantime, learning to play cl10 with just boosted 4*s and baby champ 5*s would seem to be extra valuable for those building out their 5* rosters. 

This was my thinking when i  joined  SCL10 with my 12 cover doom5  420 as only real 5 * and I think i will get the  initial  shards and extra part cover 4 *

What i loose though is a shed load of ISO, time and health packs but most importantly   CP's. Given in the long run  the CP is worth  as much as the shards ( I say each CP is worth  (500/7/25 = 2.8 Shards  missing out on  roughly  40 CP is 115 shards )

PvP is a different story as I play for wins not points the extra  progression is well worth stepping up

So back to 9 aiming for full progression in PvE  but more effort in PvP  to reach 50 wins/1000 instead  40/900

TPF Alexis

Daredevil217 said:

I'm hearing a lot of folks saying "if I have the 5* champed, I'll play up" but what no one is talking about is when you DON'T have the 5* champed, that's when those CL10 progression rewards become much more valuable to your roster.  As we all know, covers 1-13 are way more important than the next 100.  I've been rocking my 0/0/2  Carnage and 1/1/1 Bill in every event they've been essential.  If CL10 was a thing when they dropped and I wanted those 2-3 colorless covers, I'd have to slog it out in 10 with these dead weight characters.  Not ideal, but this is the way forward if you want to bring up your lower-covered characters and stay on top of Latests (especially if we get that accelerated release rate which is still TBD).

Speaking only for myself, I was mostly thinking of Classics that I don't care much about. I'm not going through that extra difficulty for some Banner or 5tarLord shards. For someone in Latest and/or better, I'd be much more willing to take on the extra challenge.

Vhailorx

Entered slice 4 at #88.  4/6 grind took me just about 1 hour without any boosting (up a bit from cl 9) and I finished at #41.  Only had 1 balk on the 4th challenge node match and 1 healthpack used. Otherwise the ultimate glass cannon team of thorkoye + sabertooth was just fine.  other than the challenge node, Dark avengers events will be manageable, but the newer events will be more of a challenge.  The challenge node will be a bit rough for clears 5+, and might be hard in general if they put in nasty combos (e.g, royal family or mockingbird/cage/if).  Curious to see how that goes.

Aweberman

I’ve been regularly doing initial clears in cl9 in about 30 minutes; 18-25 if I have the boosted 5* champed. Sub 2 I opened in 40 minutes, and I think without a good boosted 5, that might drift more toward an hour. 

But I clearly remember an event I competed in at least 2 years ago (maybe 3) where Jean Grey was boosted ... Hearts of Darkness, I believe. It was 60-minute opens and 90-minute closes. 

So, I’ve been here before.

TPF Alexis

I've noticed that the second sub has gone more easily. Part of that is because I've made some mental adjustment to my expectations, I think. But it's also definitely at least in part because I don't have Juggernaut's health pool to grind through repeatedly, and because I remembered to re-spec Kitty to 5/5/3*.

*In SCL9 or lower, I finish pretty much every goon node before any enemy countdown has a chance to expire, so having Circuit Breaker at 5 was just slowing things down with the Repeater moving every turn. In SCL10, I actually need it clearing those out.

DAZ0273

With the change up in rewards I am also feeling there may have been a tweak to MMR. The roadblock feels like it has shifted above 900 points now, it isn't as bad as Shield Sim but it definitely feels this where you will need to plan - reaching 900 was straight forward but I also noticed that the 400 points mark seemed more sensitive too. I guess those are the barriers before the CP so people will park there.

PiMacleod

....just remembered...

Theres that node in the cap marvel PvE where you go against Gritty.

Thats gonna be a headache.

tiomono

PiMacleod said:

....just remembered...

Theres that node in the cap marvel PvE where you go against Gritty.

Thats gonna be a headache.

Blacksuit and daredevil tear gritty up. Thorkoye is pretty effective as well. You dont have to worry whether or not the team you beat them with will leave you vulnerable on defense. I feel the royal family and the heros for hire with mockingbird will be 2 of the toughest.

ThaRoadWarrior

DAZ0273 said:

With the change up in rewards I am also feeling there may have been a tweak to MMR. The roadblock feels like it has shifted above 900 points now, it isn't as bad as Shield Sim but it definitely feels this where you will need to plan - reaching 900 was straight forward but I also noticed that the 400 points mark seemed more sensitive too. I guess those are the barriers before the CP so people will park there.

One of my alliance mates in a similar spot to what I imagine your roster is like (late 4* game) mentioned something similar as well, but I haven't really seen it in 5* play. He was feeling like he was getting served up stronger opponents. I'm wondering if it's more to do with player behavior, people trying harder to hit those levels or just generally playing more/at different times etc.

AXP_isme

Those are the nodes we know about. Every first run of a sub in CL10 will show up with a new ‘special’ node going to level 630. Just imagine when the simulator come around again: carnage, BRB, kitty anyone?

DAZ0273

ThaRoadWarrior said:

DAZ0273 said:

With the change up in rewards I am also feeling there may have been a tweak to MMR. The roadblock feels like it has shifted above 900 points now, it isn't as bad as Shield Sim but it definitely feels this where you will need to plan - reaching 900 was straight forward but I also noticed that the 400 points mark seemed more sensitive too. I guess those are the barriers before the CP so people will park there.

One of my alliance mates in a similar spot to what I imagine your roster is like (late 4* game) mentioned something similar as well, but I haven't really seen it in 5* play. He was feeling like he was getting served up stronger opponents. I'm wondering if it's more to do with player behavior, people trying harder to hit those levels or just generally playing more/at different times etc.

I can't think of any changes I have made to my roster that would explain it otherwise but it could just be a co-incidence.

I would be surprised if the 5* game is too affected by these changes as that revolves around playing for 1200 points generally which is hard coded into players but it really feels like we may have a new choke point *after* the 4* cover which is all about the movement of that CP in progression. A lot more rosters are getting hungry for it and I had to shield to avoid the scrabble in what is normally a quiet period to play PvP in my slice. So basically CL10 PvP is maybe going to see scores pushing upwards - I was top 75 when I shielded whereas in SCL9 I would have expected to be top 50 with a similar score.

ThaRoadWarrior

For my part, i tend to brute force my way to 900 and tap out without playing too "smartly" and certainly without coordinating. I find I have the roster to get myself to 1,000 now, so i've been attempting that these past 2 events. To be honest I probably always could have, I just didn't care about the RISO that used to be there. 1200 was a step too far for me, I only did it 2, maybe 3 times ever. So i know my own behavior has changed. 

bluewolf

ThaRoadWarrior said:

For my part, i tend to brute force my way to 900 and tap out without playing too "smartly" and certainly without coordinating. I find I have the roster to get myself to 1,000 now, so i've been attempting that these past 2 events. To be honest I probably always could have, I just didn't care about the RISO that used to be there. 1200 was a step too far for me, I only did it 2, maybe 3 times ever. So i know my own behavior has changed. 

This.

You are seeing more people enter PVP because the rewards are better (especially in 10).  You are seeing higher scores because there isn't a 300 point gap between the 4* and the last CP.  There was no functional way to get from 900 to 1200, in most cases, without shielding once, maybe twice.  With 1000 it becomes a lot more viable to straight climb.

Also, if you care about placement, SCL9 and below will probably offer easier placement (if you find the rewards worthwhile) than 10 does.

TLDR:  More people means you might find it harder to place than before.  Higher scores will be required to place because the CP will lead people to climb higher.  That said, I think there will be a dramatic drop off past 1000 so you might still do OK above that.