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

ThaRoadWarrior

I'm trying to decide what it would feel like to be rewarded with a super hot streak of usable covers for characters I don't yet have champed - progress on classic, but a super lull in LT aquisition for chasing Kunll/Ronan/Ohm My...

There are a lot of ways this could go south honestly lol.  I think best case scenario is some combination of champ levels and new covers?

WampaX

So I probably have a unique perspective on this experiment and would like to provide a different sample set.
Since I have never posted here before, a little background on my playable and roster

It is Day 920 for me.
My 2* and 3* farms are in constant rotation.I have every 4* champed (levels range from 275 - 347) and have not yet re-rostered any 4*s.I have every 5* rostered, 36 of which are champable (13 covers + various amounts of shards), but none have been champed yet. Every 5* has color coverage, at least 1 of each color for the character. - This was my previous roster goal, the current one being to get 13 covers for each of them.

I don't play for placement, just progression, all at CL 10 (except for new 4* events where I drop down to 9 for more placement covers). I shield out of PVP once I hit 1000+ points, rarely going for the 1200 point/75 win reward, which consistently puts me in top100 for my slice. For PVE, I am always in top 100, sometimes getting top 50.

My current strategy for covering 5*s by spending LLs and CP is somewhat reserved.

When a new 5* HP store appears, I will buy the 200HP daily deal as long as the store is up - despite it being very long odds, this has paid out more than you would expect and the cost is sometimes mitigated by the rewards from the other covers. Once the 5* CP store is up, I tend to buy in until I get at least 1 cover for the new 5*. If the other two 5*s are still undercovered, I do buy in more. This usually results in 1-2 covers for the new 5*, but I'm not looking to cover them here, just get them closer to color coverage for their initial PVE event. Finally, when the 5* rolls into Latest, I consider a few things. If the oldest 5* is fully covered (13 covers) or will be covered by shards in their last event, I won't pull anything. If not, then pull until the oldest 5* is covered or can be finished with the last event shards. This usually results in a rotating block of 1-2 LL characters still needing covers and has once or twice resulted in a full set of 3 being fully covered due to luck of the draw.

This measured strategy has been working for my simple goals and doesn't appear to be losing me resources yet.
My LL hoard fluctuates, but has been on a steady climb upward, not having dropped below 250 in about 6 months. The CP reserves fluctuate more, but tend to hover between 1000-2000..Once it gets over 1K, Every 100 CP thereafter, I will pull 1 cover from Classics. My Shard targets tend to be chains of feeders for ultimately getting undercovered 5* shards. I keep them on rotation so that no character gets higher than my highest 4* and favor chains that are the closest to paying off with a 5* cover.

What I believe is happening, and I have no empirical evidence other than my current roster state, is that the constant drip of resources from the swath of champed 4*s and my lower level farms is keeping this strategy going.

Ultimately, this appears to be a sustainable pull strategy, even though I'm not getting any rewards off my champable 5*s. With the boosts now including 5*s, I'm questioning if I really need to spike my MMR just to start getting those rewards. I will need to reevaluate once my 4*s start maxing out and are no longer providing any benefits.

The TLDR is that I think TheRoadWarrior's strategy is sound with the proper base of champ rewards to sustain it.

HoundofShadow

I'm impressed by how you are not playing competitively, and yet you have 36 5* that can be champed. What's more, you did it in 920 days, or 2.5 years. What's your secret? That must be something missing.

ThaRoadWarrior

I'm not playing competitively either to be fair, but I am on day 1962, so I guess there's that lol

WampaX

HoundofShadow said:

I'm impressed by how you are not playing competitively, and yet you have 36 5* that can be champed. What's more, you did it in 920 days, or 2.5 years. What's your secret? That must be something missing.

I am a reformed whale. Initial spend was high as I was damned if I was going to sell covers or let them time out. I didn't approach the gatcha side of the game in any measured way and that just led to a snowball effect where more token rewards meant more new roster slots "needed." Once I got that under control, I slid down to what I rationalized was a totally fine dolphin level of spending . . . until 5* Prof hit and I braked hard.

I took a step back and starting paying more attention to where rewards were coming from, what I needed to do to make incremental progress and setting long term goals instead of just chasing the latest release by throwing money at it. I did have the benefit of all the infrastructure the early spend gave me to work with, so that made the pivot a lot easier as I had a full 3* farm in rotation. Since then, I've been enjoying the game a lot more and spending a lot less on it. Its not zero spend, but since then, I've maybe bought one or two deals a month where the HP were a good value.

As to why I have champable 5*s hanging around - I haven't yet convinced myself that their champ rewards are worth the headache my increased MMR would bring in PVP. And having them for PVE isn't really required when just going for progression rewards there. That line of reasoning may not be correct, but I'm not struggling to keep up in either format and I'm having fun . . . so <shrug>

entrailbucket

I don't know if you have the iso to do them all at once, but I wouldn't worry about matchmaking at all if you have 35 guys you can champion.  With boosted 5*, you'd have a lvl575 guy almost every week.  There's no meta team that you couldn't handle with a roster like that, and you'd be able to use different guys every time the boosts rotated.

ThaRoadWarrior

aaaaaaaand…..pulled a purple for Banner (2/3/4). 1:7 pull ratio so far. 7LTs in the bank.

ThaRoadWarrior

Pulled a 25cp champ level for Fi5K that turned into an LT champ level for Miles. Currently 10LTs in the bank. I’m 2 for 12 since I started pulling classics. 

Medusa: 338 w/ 228 shards
Sighclops: 198 shards
Flipped, 1/1/2 now

ThaRoadWarrior

Got an iso champ level for Kitty, and was able to get Colossus bought up to champ. 11LTs in the bank. This doesn’t feel like I’ll be earning enough to stay current purely from champ level LTs yet. I’ll evaluate after Colossus drops out whether I should go back to latest.

primetime21

FWIW, I'm on day 2383.  I constantly farm 2*s, and do duplicates on 3* and 4*s once they are champed (never having more than 2 of any character at a time).  I use my CPs on Classic store unless I know a good 5* store is coming up (if I only need the new character, I stop once I get him, if I need the other boosted 5*s in the vault, I go after them too).  I have always played PvE daily and recently have been playing PvP to where I usually finish about top 200, sometimes 100, so nothing crazy.  I use 5* shards on the next one to champ, and 4* shards based around if I have feeder I need shards from, or if not then closest to a "substantial award" (25 CPs, LT, etc.)

I have 48 5*s champed with the highest being lvl 471.  The ones I don't have champed are Scarlet (5/1/5 with 2 saved), Captain America Infinity (3/3/3), Onslaught (3/3/3), Sinister (3/2/3), Immortal Hulk (4/3/1), Krull (2/3/2), Killmonger (2/0/3), Yelena (4/1/0).  I don't have Ronan yet.  I have every 4*; the only one that isn't champed is Mantis (1/3/1).

In general, other than not having Immortal Hulk champed, I feel good about how I play and build my roster.  I'm constantly getting LTs from progressions awards and using them then, so I feel like by the time they leave the vault, I usually have them champed or just about there.  Plus I'm a completist so I enjoy having all the characters as high as I can.  Finally, I feel somewhat vindicated getting all the 5*s as high as possible, as the new amount of boosted 5*s has made PvP much easier.

Anyway, at the end of the day there is obviously no right or wrong way to play the game, but whenever I try doing only LTs, I don't get enough positive reinforcement to continue doing it that way.

ThaRoadWarrior

I definitely agree it's a workable strategy for regular roster growth assuming your roster has a critical mass of champs, I'm just not 100% certain my roster is turning out rewards at the rate I'd be confident in quite yet with regards to staying current on new releases (or even having them drop out at 10-12 covers). My 4* roster is in a similar state to yours- i have them all, with the exception that Morbius and Lizard are both waiting on iso to be champed and my Mantis is currently 2/2/2.

I'm up to 12 LTs now, which means I'm earning 2 per day on average since I started pulling classics on the 16th. That's *almost* enough assuming the trend holds, so there's a world where this just kind of works out for me. I guess we'll continue to play it by ear.

TheRiddler

HoundofShadow said:

I'm impressed by how you are not playing competitively, and yet you have 36 5* that can be champed. What's more, you did it in 920 days, or 2.5 years. What's your secret? That must be something missing.

I'm at 925 days and I'm more curious as to his ISO accumulation. The only ones I don't have at 13+ covers are Lizard and Mantis. But I have 50+ that are waiting on ISO to champ. I'm talking about needing another 15 million or so ISO just to champ those 4s. And then a bunch of unleveled 5s as well.

ThaRoadWarrior

Got an HP champ level for Doom, sitting on 14 LTs now. If Ohm My... turns out to be Omega Red, I'm back to being all-in on Latest only though for sure y'all. Even if he's trash.

WampaX

TheRiddler said:

HoundofShadow said:

I'm impressed by how you are not playing competitively, and yet you have 36 5* that can be champed. What's more, you did it in 920 days, or 2.5 years. What's your secret? That must be something missing.

I'm at 925 days and I'm more curious as to his ISO accumulation. The only ones I don't have at 13+ covers are Lizard and Mantis. But I have 50+ that are waiting on ISO to champ. I'm talking about needing another 15 million or so ISO just to champ those 4s. And then a bunch of unleveled 5s as well.

My strategy for ISO accumulation during the long period of champing 4*s was 2 fold. First, I hit every Lightning round I could during a week getting up to at least 100 points, 250 when I could manage the time. The rewards may seem insignificant doing one, but doing 10-20 over the three days really adds up - not just in ISO rewards, but incidental 2 and 3* covers which feeds into Shield Levels where the big payouts are . . . which is also supported  by the second thing.

The second thing was farms. 2*s were sold when I could champ one from cover sin the queue. They rotate quickly enough that you can usually just wait it out, but it gets frustrating trying to tell when your have one ready to go. Like i mentioned above, I had a full 3* farm, too - a matching pair of 1 max champed and 1 on ice for each character. Regardless of who it was, I would save covers up on the on ice version until I hit the sweet spot of breaking even from iso rewards and immediately sold the max champ to pay the champ cost. That meant that I didn't lose any iso from the transaction AND gained the incidental shard and token rewards, making it more profitable. I had about 1/2 in rotation at any one time, growing them back up to max champ - which worked double duty building up the LT horde as the break even point champs close to 227. I aggressively targeted lvls 227, 239, and 257 switching between characters 1-3 times a day to target whoever was closest to paying out an LT.

Whenever I had enough ISO I would champ a 4*, targeting the ones with the most saved covers/shard levels first to recoup some of the loss. Eventually, once I had about 75% of the 4*s champed, I started eating into the 3* farm on ice slots to roster new characters. The 4* rewards generally made up for the loss of the aggressive 3* farming.Now, its a pale version of itself as it more slowly turns around since I have stopped doing Lightning Rounds.altogether. I have built up a surplus of 7 million ISO, which is still slowly growing until I finally decide to start champing the 5*s.

Hopefully, some of that was helpful. The general strategy was cobbled together from several of the older "How to advance" threads here on the boards. It did take many months to get the 3* farm up and running and then again a year of running it to finally get the backlog of 4*s champed. I don't think I would have committed the time to it without the restrictions of the Pandemic.

ThaRoadWarrior

Resource acquisition update:

ive been spending CP into classic and sitting on LTs for 18 days so far. I’ve pulled 31 classics, and landed 4x 5*s: banner (unchamped), Fi5K (champed), doom (champed), and Thor (champed). I’ve earned 28 LTs in that span, which is short of the 3x per day average conventional wisdom says I need to stay current. I think once 5Witch drops out I’ll have to go back to all latest to stay current.

medusa is up to level 340, 10 more and Bolt will be champable. Sighclops is at 323 shards, so a cover and a half to go.

DAZ0273

The Randomisation of boosted 5's is kind'a messing with my decision making. Before I had a clear path to see when I needed to champ fully covered 5's leading up to their boost week. Now that is gone, I am suddenly feeling an iso crunch and may need to ramp up my iso production although the timing of Lightning Rounds rarely favours me. It feels like everything is crying out for iso right now - my 2 farm, my 3 farm, Monica, Wanda and Adam all want some iso and there is not enough to go around. I'll want iso for Mantis too once I have her fully covered as she feeds Adam. I think Wanda being still latest 3 makes her "safe" in terms of getting boosted but Adam could pop up - of course do I really want to prioritise Adam over Wanda when she is obviously going to get far more play otherwise for the sake of a single week? Not having a god boosted 5 has been a struggle this week though that could just be because of the events.

ThaRoadWarrior

Iso crunch is decently real for me at this point as well but manageable - I have usually at least 1-2 4*s waiting on iso, and what I was doing was champing a 5*, then while grinding cp and LT to chase the next out id champ whatever 4* had the most saved covers, and then if things got really light I’d rechamp a 3*. I only keep 3 champed 2*s at a time, then when they max out i sell them and champ whatever arbitrary one has the most stored covers in the bank rather than keeping them all champed. When I was only pulling in a new 5* every month or so that was manageable, but one it aligns with finishing up a classic through feeders it can sometimes put me in “who to champ next?” Mode like the old Battle for Who Could Care Less days lol. Since I just leave everyone at base level until I can champ them in one shot, I don’t usually feel like I’m at absolute zero for iso.

DAZ0273

If I am honest, I wasn't expecting to have Wanda fully covered this early so she is the one throwing things a bit out of balance. Obviously I would like to get her into play as soon as possible but champing Monica would normally have been my expectation as I can keep up with the 4's (the exception being Lizard who I didn't really go after all that much).

Whilst I do keep a full 2* farm I don't have a full 3* farm thank goodness as that would rack up the bill even more but I have it about 75% dupes so getting them to champ levels is still 100,000's of iso once they have 13+ covers.

ThaRoadWarrior

The only dupe I have is Chavez, my only max champ 4*. I just flip and regrow 2s and 3s without worrying about it, but 4s take way too long to regrow to casually let them drop and they still matter when their PVP rolls around.

ThaRoadWarrior

Landed a green for Electro out of the hp store from a token, that's pretty sweet.