Grand Experiment 2: Treading Water in the SCL 10 Post-Shardpocalypse

Cannibalqueen

Magneto is really an odd duck.  Mine is unclamped so can’t really mess with him much til Yellowjacket enters and I can hopefully get enough covers.  

, but this thread made me examine his powers more closely.  And five covers on his blue just seems awful.
it actually raises the amount of time he stays in air  by 1 round. If anything it should be reducing that time.  Very bizarre character design,

it almost makes me wonder if at some point, there was some passive that triggered while he was airborn.  And maybe it got taken out and they forgot to fix that.  Maybe there’s something I am totally missing with him,  anyways eager to champ him, I fall in line with the spirit of this thread.  My goal is to get each of these news ones babychamped, regardless of meta.

edit:  or maybe there’s some new passive coming up that confers advantage when ally is airborn.  That’s a possibility too

ThaRoadWarrior

I agree, his blue isn’t right - I am confident having it turn green to yellow every turn he is airborne would change everything about him, particularly vs hulk. As it stands the only reason to keep him up longer is to give you one more turn to gather yellow for when he comes down, but that’s pretty weak as implemented. If Danver5 were still “right,” maybe you could do it with her green, but she is totally broken in a useless way now.

ThaRoadWarrior

Ghostpool dropped out for Yellowjacket, so I pulled a bunch for a cover. Current Latest Crop:

Out:
Ghostpool - lvl 454

Current:
Magneto: lvl 452
Adam Warlock: 1/1/2 with 180 shards
Yellowjacket: 1/0/1 with 390 shards

I've been experimenting some with Magneto some more while he's boosted, and He's still not great. But running him with Heimdall/Vulture is a pretty reliable team. Also Professor X/BRB.

ThaRoadWarrior

Hela is champed now (451); took 11 days since champing Magneto and I didn't flip any 3*s along the way or jump up a Shield Rank....go figure. Maybe it's because there were no alliance events in between this time, and the PVP season ended? 

I've been curious about her for awhile, I'll have to spend a little time working on some teams for her. She seems like she might be kind of hilarious against a Hulk team, since you could conceivably kill him over and over, but that may involve eating some big hits to get there.

I tried Hela/Onslaught against a hulkoye team (482 okoye, 452 hulk) in the Fury pvp, and it worked as intended, though of course I got reasonably lucky with match-n availability across the match. 

ThaRoadWarrior

Got a Chavez today, forcing my hand on whether or not to sell off my max-champ for the flip or roster a dupe. Because I had the hp, I chose for now to roster a dupe, at least until she is champed, at which point I guess I'll have to decide for real what to do. I also got a black for Warlock.

Current Latest:
Cyclops: New, 0/0/0

Magneto: lvl 452 w/ 270 shards
Adam Warlock: 1/1/3 w/ 180 shards
Yellowjacket: 1/0/1 w/ 390 shards

Current favorites:
Havok: 5/2/3 w/ 387 shards
Rogue: lvl 316 w/377 shards
Cap: lvl 256 w/171 shards

I'm finishing up Lumbercap via 3* cap shards, since Winter Solder just needs 300 more to spit out that last cover. I moved my 4* over to Rogue to work on Gambit, but it was a tossup between that and Loki.

ThaRoadWarrior

Picked up the final 200 Bucky shards I needed for Lumbercap from the resource shop and champed him, so I moved my 3* over to Gambit to keep on chasing that tree. 

mdreyer93

@ThaRoadWarrior, I just wanted to thank you for this thread and your diligent posting of your results. I just read through the whole thing and I've now started following the same path. I had been playing really casual before milestones, but have since champed my first 5 (okoye) and started playing PVE to progression and PVP to 900+, similar to you. I was hoarding LL and CP but decided to pull as I go from now on. Already have Mags at 12 covers with 470 shards so now I'll wait til he leaves. I only wish I would have started this earlier...

ThaRoadWarrior

@mdreyer93 glad it was useful to you! I don't know that it's "THE" way to play, but it's "A" way to play, and it's been working for me. 

I realized I forgot to mention for the first time ever I landed a yellow Sighclops out of his hp store from one of the single tokens rewarded by an event, that was cool. I was also on a decently long dry spell until this morning when I got a Magneto champ level. 

Current Latest:

NEW: Sighclops: 0/1/0, 390 shards

Latest: 
Magneto: lvl 453, 270 shards
Adam Warlock: 1/1/3, 180 shards
Yellowjacket: 1/0/1, 440 shards

Also it seems that due to random shard rewards for Gambit over this year, he's a little out of sync with Rogue, so he's 30 shards short of an 11th cover.

Current Favorites:
Havok: 5/2/3, 477 shards
Rogue: lvl 321, 130 shards
Gambit: lvl 214, 51 shards

HoundofShadow

Very informative thread. I'm wondering if I should give up playing in SCL 9 and jump to SCL 10 instead. I've some questions:

PvEs
1) Do you play only 3 initial clears or do you also grind the last 1x or 2x?
3) How long does it take for you to complete your initial 3 clears?
3) What's your usual placement for sub-events and entire event nowadays?

PvPs
1) Do you play to 1200?
2) How often do you play to 1200?
3) What's your usual placement for pvps?

ISO-8
1) Does it still take you ~12 days to gather ISO-8 to champ a 5*?

ThaRoadWarrior

HoundofShadow said:

Very informative thread. I'm wondering if I should give up playing in SCL 9 and jump to SCL 10 instead. I've some questions:

PvEs
1) Do you play only 3 initial clears or do you also grind the last 1x or 2x?
3) How long does it take for you to complete your initial 3 clears?
3) What's your usual placement for sub-events and entire event nowadays?

PvPs
1) Do you play to 1200?
2) How often do you play to 1200?
3) What's your usual placement for pvps?

ISO-8
1) Does it still take you ~12 days to gather ISO-8 to champ a 5*?

PVEs
1 - I join slice 5 (2am eastern US end time) the following day and do 4x clears all at once. I find this gives me noticeably more iso-8 than stopping at 3x clears, and doesn't feel like quite as much of a time commitment as it used to when there were rewards through to 6 clears

2 - it super varies based on how many tile movers and what's going on with the challenge events. I'd say maybe an hour total for 4x clears?

3 - Playing this way in Meet R&G I was place 194, I'd say t200 is pretty typical depending on if I get lucky with a bracket flip or not. I don't really pay attention to sub finishes, but I'd guess it's probably comparable to that (barring Strange Sights of course)

PVP
1 - These days I'd say I'm able to hit 1200 when I have time/want to, I still play that without shields and just work my float points. But at a minimum I play to the 10cp.

2 - I would say I'm playing to 1200 more often than I'm not these days, but I really don't stress it if I can't do it

3 - I only save out if I'm working on season progression, usually that means to the 10 mighty tokens or the 7500pt CP drop, after that I don't bother unless there is a placement reward I need for some reason. Playing in Slice 1, not really paying attention to bracket flips, 1200pts is usually good for t50 or t100 if there is something cool being given out. After that point, I generally push to 1200 and walk away, so for instance in Top Gun, the 3* Falcon event that just finished, I did that and dropped down to 546 points, good for 135th place (in retrospect, hanging on to t50 there would have helped my 5* Gambit quest, so that was a bit of a mistake). I'd say this is typical

ISO-8
this is an evolving observation. So it seems to be ~12 days, give or take, depending on what's going on with my 3* and 2* roster, and also if there is an iso-poor alliance event going on or not. I don't always have a backlog of completed 5*s, and sometimes when I finish a classic I'm working on (as with Thano5 and Lumbercap recently), I'll have sunk a bunch of iso into them previously so it won't cost quite as much. Since Lumbercap was already up at level 405, I didn't drop down to 0 after champing him, so I don't think it'll be a great test for how long it might take to champ Cable. I'm currently at 304,938 iso-8 after doing that, and we're in the middle of an alliance event, so we can see what, if anything, the earn rate looks like for this moving forward.

I will also say that given the current shape of my 3 and 4* roster, hp earn is totally acceptable to keep pace with current releases. At least for now, there is no danger of a character withering on the vine if I get the new one, though there may be some danger I won't have them on roster quite in time for a given event depending on some of the life choices I may have been making up to that point clearing out vaults or whatever. But unless i'm close on 4* shards or something I really don't spend into stores anymore. I'm also decently likely to push a 3* or 4* over the hump in the resource store if they are within 2-3 shard slugs of turning over a level. Also if a 5* is within 1 or 2 slugs of it and I have the hp, I'll do it as well.

ThaRoadWarrior

@HoundofShadow
Next event after the alliance event, I'll stopwatch 3x clears of Sub 1 before doing the 4th clear and let you know what that looks like.

You want me to do it with a certain team you have on roster, or just whatever I have that's fastest?

For context - my "easy" clear team is G4mora (lvl 324, 3* Milano support)/4ocket (lvl 324, no support)/Juggern4ut (lvl 291, 3* Hydra support)

Then my "hard" team is either Thorkoye/2099 or more often lately it's Thorkoye/Ghostpool. On pick 2 nodes it's Thorpocalypse, then the challenge node will vary depending on what it is, and hands down that node will take as long to 4x clear as the entire rest of the event if I'm using a BRB/5torm/Polaris or CoulHawkMora team to gimmick it to death. There are still some of them where I have to fall back on Vulture/iHulk. I keep forgetting about Iceman/Thorkoye, it's a pretty fast reliable team depending on what the enemy is doing.

I also play with Animations turned on, I've never turned them off.

HoundofShadow

Thanks for answering those questions. I think 1 hour for 4 clears with animations on look just right. So, you don't have to time them. 

I played SCL 10 recently and I was thinking Thorokoye/2099 seems counterintuitive because his web tiles were blocking Thor from destroying some of the green and red tiles. I switched to Scorpion and I think he's a pretty good fit for Thorokoye. I remember Sabretooth was also one of the core Thorokoye teams. Since you have a champed Deadpool, he could be even better than all the above.

Some other questions after reading your replies:

1) How much of an impact does Apocalypse have in a pve pick-2 node? Imagine that you don't have Apocalypse, who will you use for pick-2 instead, using your current list of champed 5*? 

2) What are the top 3 or even top 5 (if there are) Challenge Nodes that you find the most difficult to deal with?

3) Are you mainly using Thorpocalypse in pick 2 PvP when you are heading for 1200?

It seems Apocalypse could be much better than Okoye for those players who are in the baby champed 5* group.

ThaRoadWarrior

1) How much of an impact does Apocalypse have in a pve pick-2 node? Imagine that you don't have Apocalypse, who will you use for pick-2 instead, using your current list of champed 5*? 

Apocalypse is, in my estimation, far and away the best single character in the game. By combining a multi-damager with a power booster, he essentially takes what would have been a pick-3 team (thorKoye/Sabretooth) and turns it into a pick-2 team with 5* health and match damage. All his powers are cheap enough, his red and yellow are accelerated by Thor, and his black is an excellent high-damage outlet that ignores invisible. Since his red disregards protects, he sidesteps the BRB meta handily, and in pick-3 his un-stunability means you can run him with Thano5 and boost Court Death against iHulk if you bring Onslaught or some other mutant with you, which makes that team not just trivial but desirable to hunt down. The reason I like him in Pick 2 with thor over Okoye is because by the time you have 7 yellow, you probably also have 7 red, so you can drop Shared Strength and stomp out 1-2 enemies with his red in the same turn, and then the following turn or two you're probably ready with thor's green to just be done with it. If I didn't have Apocalypse, I'd probably run Okoye/Profe$$or X. Sometimes I run Hulkoye, but hulk will generally chew through the required character on the second or third clear, requiring a health pack, so it's kind of like "what's the point?" you know?

2) What are the top 3 or even top 5 (if there are) Challenge Nodes that you find the most difficult to deal with?
Any of the ones with Carbage on them are the ones I find challenging. At those power levels, 2 turns of match damage followed by a slap in the face of attack damage is pretty rough for baby champ 5*s. I think that situation might be different now with Throg though, I'm looking forward to testing that out.

3) Are you mainly using Thorpocalypse in pick 2 PvP when you are heading for 1200?
It depends on what i'm up against. ThorPocalypse is the rowshambow to BRB/Kitty which is the RowShamBow to Hulkoye, which due to the requirement that Thor be at 50% health means that defensively Thorpocalypse can be beaten by Hulkoye - you have here the meta team triangle in 5* pvp as it exists in my MMR. so I look for whoever is worth points and use one of those teams against it.

It seems Apocalypse could be much better than Okoye for those players who are in the baby champed 5* group.
potentially. Okoye is better on a pick-3 team I think, because she can scale her damage boost WAY beyond Apocalypse, but if you have a battery, Apocalypse is for my money better in pick 2. Be aware Wakanda Forever! and Shared STrength don't stack, you just get whichever is currently providing a higher boost to you should you be tempted to run both.

Generally speaking, what I want out of a team that I'm trying to use to grind repetitive nodes is this: I only want to have to "play" one of the characters, and I want the others to be doing something predictable that facilitates that somehow. So for instance with Hulkoye, I just want to be playing Okoye, finding yellow and team up, and letting hulk predictably grind in the background. With Juggernaut/guardians I just want to be playing Juggernaut and letting the guardians boost everything. With ThorPoclaypse I want to be playing Apocalypse and just letting Thor keep him fed. If I have 3 different characters I'm trying to manage, or two complex characters, it's just too much to do when grinding nodes. I enjoy that kind of play in Puzzle Ops, or even on the Challenge node where I can take my time, but on the main track in PVE or when trying to hang on to points climbing PVP, it just isn't practical to require that kind of power management. Playing progression-only means that PVE SCL10 is just like DDQ. But because it requires a high time sink of repetition, I'm always looking for the fastest way through it. I treat the main track and the required character nodes as a burden, then I'll have fun playing with novelty teams on the challenge node.

HoundofShadow

We play SCL 10 in the same fashion: Speed through everything except Challenge Nodes. 

It seems Apocalypse will be the catalyst to push me to scl 10 regularly or permanently. Unfortunately, I got to wait  until April or May (hopefully) to get him champed.

I have iHulkoye now but when IHulk is disobedient, a 40-60 secs match will turn into a 2-3 minutes match. Sometimes, it's risky to use iHulkoye. Thorpocalypse looks much more reliable. 

I understand your last point. It's like using Juggernaut with R4G or Polaris with R4G. You focus on making matches or matching special tiles.

Daredevil217

HoundofShadow said:

We play SCL 10 in the same fashion: Speed through everything except Challenge Nodes. 

It seems Apocalypse will be the catalyst to push me to scl 10 regularly or permanently. Unfortunately, I got to wait  until April or May (hopefully) to get him champed.

I have iHulkoye now but when IHulk is disobedient, a 40-60 secs match will turn into a 2-3 minutes match. Sometimes, it's risky to use iHulkoye. Thorpocalypse looks much more reliable. 

I understand your last point. It's like using Juggernaut with R4G or Polaris with R4G. You focus on making matches or matching special tiles.

I have all options baby champed (except Warlock, Cyke, and YJ). I tend to use Grittylaris in pick 3, but definitely ThorPoc in pick 2. I’m not saying it’s THE fastest (I’m not a break out the stopwatch type) but they’re pretty damn good and I can’t think of any pick 2 combo I’d rather run. If I had a 500+ Okoye it’d be a different story of course. 

dramatist

I enjoy this thread too, although I followed it when it was in the other sub forum. 

I have been doing my version of this for a long time and it has worked for me pretty well even though I don’t try as hard as I used to try. 

I have played to progression in PvE CL10 since it came out but I usually end up in the top 200. I play a little PvP, but I’ve never enjoyed it or tried to master it. If I get a season score of 4,000 or get to the 10cp in any event I feel I did fine. 

I also am free to play for the last couple of years and recently became Iso-8 positive so I don’t feel the Iso grind anymore. Sometime close to a year ago I decided not to really chase classic 5s that weren’t champed because there were none I needed that were anything more than trophies for the most part. 

I sharded Okoye and she’s now my highest of 29 5* champs at 467. She finally tanks red over Thor in PvP, but I really don’t use that team in PvP anymore. 

I just today changed my shard target to my 450 Apocalypse after reading the recent posts here. Apocalypse is fun to use and I’ve been using him more lately. 

Captain_Carlman

Never got to read this in the old forum it was in, but I'm glad to see it now.  I only read starting from page 10, but just those two pages were extremely informative and entertaining too.

I'm mostly a 4* star player that is thinking about possibly taking the dive into 5* land, so reading this was helpful.  I did like the way you also explain ISO costs, average times for rostering/building/champing 5*s, and different strategies you use for dealing with them.  I'll likely keep reading this thread, now that's it in a section I visit more often, to help me decide what the next step with my own roster should be.

Keep up the good work.

atomzed

@Road_Warrior, I was trying out your proposed pick 3 of Apocalypse-Thanos-Onslaught to hunt down Hulkoye..... and wow!!! It worked like a charm! I having a lot of fun chasing down junior champ Ihulk in sims....
its especially effective against Hulkoye + PX team. Normally PX is a PITA because he has damage resistance.  But his dmg resistance doesn’t cover him from Hulk dmg and when he is stun (from court death). So PX gets killed very quickly with this team. 

ThaRoadWarrior

It works for sure, it's a pretty strong team generally it turns out. I really think Onslaught is a slept on character, I'd say he is probably about as Meta-Adjace as Jessica Jones used to be even though on paper he doesn't seem to do all that much.

ThaRoadWarrior

@HoundofShadow

I went ahead and timed my 3x clears of Times Square, the first sub of Venom Bomb, just because I was curious. It took: 42:21:59 with animations turned on, but skipping the intersticial story sequences, and that was 1x clear of the "Tendrils, Tendrils Everywhere" yellow ring node, which is how I usually leave those, as well as 3x clears of the challenge node. It cost me a single healthpack, and that was because of the Thano5/iHulk/Gladiathor team I was using for easy clears (to reduce Thor's health to 50% organically by the time i got to the "real" nodes) ended up court deathing  iHulk at the wrong time, and I had to revive him.

After that, I used Ghostpool/Okoye/Thor for the hard nodes on the main track, and then ThorPocalypse on the pick 2 nodes (including the Yellowjacket 5e node. I only have a 1/0/1 YJ so he was a non-factor). Then for the challenge node I used Iceman/Okoye/Thor, which was about as fast a challenge node team as I have. 

Some items of note: the required character nodes were largely non-movers, but the Challenge Node had Goblin/Octopus/Iron Man

I started and stopped the timer here and there because I started it across lunch and had to take a call, so it wasn't a super clean run, but it's probably representative tbh.

Incidentally - I confirmed that Yellowjacket's base green damage is boosted by Shared Strength, but his black additional damage did not receive the boost. I'm very curious what the justification is for that, or if it's a bug. I would bet it's probably to do with the way Wakanda Forever! and Shared Strength don't stack, so it's pulling that damage from whatever pool those two powers do also, but it really feels to me like it should get the boost from a player facing standpoint.