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

ThaRoadWarrior

entrailbucket said:

Zalasta said:

It's probably a good thing that the fan favorites store wasn't more enticing. This thread has me changing my pull methodology.  I pulled for the last set of LL until I had the next out 5* champed, which gave me everyone but the last cover for Shang-Chi.  I'll be able to champ him with shards in his next event.

I used my remaining 2500 CP in classics, and got a bunch of older 5* covers that moved them much closer to champing. I was able to champ Cap-FA shortly afterward with shards (not that I'll use him much). Several others are within a cover to champ. Another bonus that I didn't expect, was that every other 5* cover for your 5* champ is worth an LT or 25 CP, so it's essentially a free pull.  Point being, that this method really seemed to move up my roster.

Next step is to see if I can maintain this pace and have enough LT/CP to pull from the LL when Shang-Chi rotates out, and then have CP left over to pull for more classics. Sitting at 32 LT and 319 CP right now.

2500cp into classics?!? Team classics unite!!!

About Cap, and the others who are mediocre but not awful...you'll use them, when they're boosted.  The boosts just completely change the calculus on the mediocre older characters.  It doesn't fix the terrible ones, but there are only a few of those.

Before the boosts, it was insane to spend into classics, and nobody did it (I did it because I'm a contrarian, and I was hoping we'd get boosts someday). 

After the boosts it's actually a viable strategy.  It's not *better* than hoarding/going all in on the meta characters, but it's a viable alternative.

“Insane” is a strong word, but conventional wisdom for those who wanted to catch ‘em all did used to be waiting for a special legendary store for the most part.

entrailbucket

I'm used to dealing with a much different group of players.  Everyone in my world is a megahoarder with Okoye maxed out and 1 cover of every other 5*.

"Insane" was probably the least offensive way they described my strategy, before the boosts showed up.

ThaRoadWarrior

I love how MMR kind of constructs little fishbowls for us all. At mostly 45X, even dated 5*s with interesting mechanics can be kind of useful. Like Goblin/Ronan/Odin has been kind of fun in Divine Champions with all the fortification. 

ThaRoadWarrior

First pull back in Classic was a champ level for Adam Warlock; I really need to figure out how to use that character, he still just shows up and dies everytime I try and run him lol.

mdreyer93

ThaRoadWarrior said:

First pull back in Classic was a champ level for Adam Warlock; I really need to figure out how to use that character, he still just shows up and dies everytime I try and run him lol.

I recently had some fun with AW using a team someone (credit to them) recommended in the "latest fun team" thread. Adam (5/5/3), 5witch (5/3/5), and Rogue (5/3/5). Use Rogue's green on an enemy with strongest color purple (onslaught, 5witch) and 5witch's purple on purple. Adam's purple matches do crazy damage and he puts out a lot of purple traps for healing/damage. I think they called it purple people eaters or something, lol

ThaRoadWarrior

I’ll give it a shot, but I feel like Rogue would be doing most of the heavy lifting on that one for me.

HoundofShadow

I remember what the "bug" is regarding Odin. If you have Colossus on your team and opponent has Colossus, Odin would still jump in when enemy Colossus makes a yellow match-3 even though the damage would have been reduced by 83%. It could be a good or bad thing.

mdreyer93

ThaRoadWarrior said:

I’ll give it a shot, but I feel like Rogue would be doing most of the heavy lifting on that one for me.

Yeah, I mean it's not earth shattering but at least it seemed to be functional. You can do the same thing with yellow instead. I think the main point was to focus on Warlock's match damage and healing/traps and less on his black.

ThaRoadWarrior

I tried it, and wasn’t too impressed unfortunately. I think he has to be run with Thor to stay alive, but I just don’t see the value over other characters yet.

I’ve pulled 10 classics so far, and pulled a Warlock, Bolt, and Gambit champ level in that block. 9 LTs in the bank. So far so good.

ThaRoadWarrior

I got Drax to 320, so 5* Lord is champed to level 452. I moved my 4* and 3* favs over to Black Panther for both, but he has 9 covers and there are only 3 covers left in my 327 P4nther, so there will be some direct sharing in my future at some point here assuming I don’t get lucky in classic. I have other fed 5s with 10 covers, but he and Phoenix (who I now suspect may be pending a rebalance after Ghost Rider got one due to the number of times she has been boosted) are the two I’d like to work on for actual usage. I only need 100 more shards to finish Banner, then I’ll move on to the last 115 shards I need for Electro. Also I was able to roster Ultron from shards across the first sub of Strange Sights, so now I'm just missing Gamora. I went with Ultron's blue for a first cover.

trewiltrewil

This tread has dramatically changed the way I play this game for the better. Thank you!

ThaRoadWarrior

I'm glad you're finding it helpful!

No meaningful updates to mention I don't think. I picked up some Electro shards from the shard store, so she now just needs 95 shards to be champable. Also my duplicate Chavez is now champable after whatever PVP that was giving her out a few events ago. 

I'm not sure if I want to stay after Panther right now, or if I want to keep with the strategy of chasing whoever is closest to champ. Currently my unchamped 5* builds are:

Shang-Chi (still in latest): 1/3/1 with 200 shards, no feeder
Panther: 3/2/4 with 350 shards (P4nther at 328)
Archangel: 2/2/4 with 340 shards (Nightcrawler 334)
FA Cap: 5/2/3 with 50 shards (Peggy 331)
Jean Grey: 5/2/2, 1 saved, 290 shards (Jubilee at 320)
Surfer: 4/3/3 with 360 saved (Mr F at 325)
Banner: (current fav) 4/4/4 with 424 shards (TA Hulk at 329)
Nata5ha: 4/1/2 with 310 shards (my worst covered Classic) (N4tasha at 322)
Doc Oc: 3/3/4 with 5 shards (Carnage at 323)
BSSM: 4/3/3 with 150 shards (Iron Spider at 318)
SMPP: 3/4/3 with 170 shards (Vulture at 335)
electro: 5/3/4 (3 saved) with 405 shards, no feeder
Iron Man XLVI: 4/4/3 with 85 saved (war machine at 318)
Ultron (still in latest): 1/0/0 with 200 shards, no feeder
Wa5p: 3/4/3 with 40 shards (Ant-Man at 326)

Still NEW: 
Gamora: 0/0/0 with 390 shards, no feeder

So looking at that, Iron Man is the fed character with the most covers on the list.

ThaRoadWarrior

After a fairly long dry spell in Classic, I lucked into a yellow for Panther bringing him to 3/3/4. Now I won’t have to direct shard him to finish, though focusing fire on him might get him done quicker than taking P4nther up another 30 levels. I’ll see what shape I’m in after Banner and Electro are done.

ThaRoadWarrior

Got Banner covered, he’ll be my 47th 5* champ. I moved my shards to Electro. I need 34 pulls to finish her. I champed my dupe Chavez, and Blob is sitting at 4/5/4 with 335 shards after hitting season progression in the Icarus PVP. Icarus is 0/1/2, after his PVP, still waiting on Infinite Pursuit to end tonight. 

Zalasta

Now sitting on 56 LT & 1013 CP. After my initial 2500 CP spend in classics, I'm liking the idea of spending CP in classics more and more.  There are a lot of benefits to classics since you get 25% increased pulls for your CP (100 CP gets you 5 pulls in classics vs 4 pulls in latest or special store).  

1. With that extra pull, your 5* pull rate effectively goes from 15% to 18.75%
2. The 5* shard bonus effectively goes from 3 to 3.75
3. 25% more 4* covers leads to more LT/CP/HP/5* shards/5* covers
4. Every other 5* cover for a champion, gives an LT or CP, which is essentially a free pull.

The only real downside to classics I can see, is the inability to target specific characters.  This seems like less of a problem until you get closer to champing all of your 5*s, at which point you might want to focus your CP on targeted offerings. It really seems to depend on where you're at in development of your 5* roster.

It remains to be seen if I can keep up in latest as well with just LT, though the current offerings don't call to me.  I should have SC champed in the next event.  I'll see where things stand after SC rotates out before I pull from anywhere again.

mdreyer93

Odin is the placement reward in Venom Bomb so it looks like he'll get a 5th progression reward after he rotates out of LL. Good news for me since I'm sitting at ~1300 shards with 4 covers still needed.

ThaRoadWarrior

I'm going to be very curious how my Classic pulling ways will serve me as I try to finish up my 1/3/1 Shang-Chi after Odin leaves. I did pull back to back Sighclops and OML champ levels this morning out of classic, so that was fun.

ThaRoadWarrior

Thought it might be interesting to figure out my pulls per day. I went back to Electro dropping out of latest on 10/18/2021, and in that time I’ve earned 41 latest tokens pretty much all through champ rewards except any one or two I’d have landed from personal progression in a boss event. I’ve pulled 50 classics since then also, which equates to 1,000 cp earned through full progression in most events and champ levels/daily rewards/alliance mates spending occasionally. 

So in the last 22 days, that works out to 3.68 possible Latest pulls per day, however, since I’ve been getting 20% more bang for my CP buck, surely a sizable chunk of that pull rate was due to pulling over there. Interesting nonetheless though.

mdreyer93

ThaRoadWarrior said:

Thought it might be interesting to figure out my pulls per day. I went back to Electro dropping out of latest on 10/18/2021, and in that time I’ve earned 41 latest tokens pretty much all through champ rewards except any one or two I’d have landed from personal progression in a boss event. I’ve pulled 50 classics since then also, which equates to 1,000 cp earned through full progression in most events and champ levels/daily rewards/alliance mates spending occasionally. 

So in the last 22 days, that works out to 3.68 possible Latest pulls per day, however, since I’ve been getting 20% more bang for my CP buck, surely a sizable chunk of that pull rate was due to pulling over there. Interesting nonetheless though.

I've been tracking my CP and LL rate for the past month. I've been pulling exclusively from LL in that timeframe and have a similar play style to you, except I don't always make it to 1200 in PvP. I have ~75% of the 4s champed and 14 champed 5s. 

Since 10/5 I'm averaging 43 CP/day and 1.4 LL/day, which works out to a possible 3.18 LL/day pull rate for me. 

According to the LL odds spreadsheet, you need ~200 pulls to get 10 covers for a latest 5 before they rotate out, making them champable assuming you get 1500+ shards. In the ~85 days that a 5 stays in LL, that equates to a required 2.35 LL/day. 

Based on that, I think your hybrid strategy of going all-in on LL until the next to leave is champed and then switching to classics should work. Maybe I'll give it a try too...

ThaRoadWarrior

It's not NOT working yet, though Electro fell out with a bad spread. She had 3 saved green and 12 usable covers, so I could have done the 3:1 swap, I just figured it was better in this case to do the 33 pulls I needed to finish her with Shards. I think it gets even easier if you can set your shard target to Next Unchamped Out while you pull in classic too. I may attempt that if somebody good shows up after Gamora, I think it's too late for Shang-Chi to see how it would go.