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

Chirus

ThaRoadWarrior said:

Usually when Next Out of latest is champed, I’ll do Classic till they drop out. Sometimes like this batch, I’ll champ the second out first and have to keep after Latest. So Elektra got an extra 6 covers that would have been nice on another character, but whatever, she isn’t too bad. I’m debating on holding on to cp once Abigail drops out since I have such a poor showing on Crystal but I tend to get bored pulling nothing for that long.

I have the same point of view. It's just boring pulling only heroic tokens. So do you find that you make enough CP/tokens to champ a 5 star before they leave the latest legends shop? I might adopt your approach. I was afraid that I wouldn't make enough currency to champ a 5 star with just the in-game income. But I also want a system that gives me a reason to visit the classics shop too so I can occasionally have the 5e in PVE that isn't in the latest shop. If I can semi-reliably collect 13 covers while a character is in the shop, I might stick to that and jump to classics when I'm done with one, like you do. That way I'll have something to pull all the time.

HoundofShadow

Just track the number of LTs and CPs you earn once per week for the next 4 week, and you'll have a rough idea of whether you have excess cp to pull for Classics. With this knowledge, no wild guessing is involved. I'm not sure how your roster looks like but his 4* roster is pretty matured, I think.

ThaRoadWarrior

HoundofShadow said:

Just track the number of LTs and CPs you earn once per week for the next 4 week, and you'll have a rough idea of whether you have excess cp to pull for Classics. With this knowledge, no wild guessing is involved. I'm not sure how your roster looks like but his 4* roster is pretty matured, I think.

this is the "correct" way to make that decision, but like Austin Powers, I like to live dangerously. So far that has taken the form of me champing 2/3 of the Latest characters, switching to Classic until both drop out while saving LTs, and then scrambling to go all in on latest to do it again only to have that former last out, current next out, drop into classic at 10-12 covers, which is an acceptable amount to chase. That was also with me NOT parking my 5* favorite on next out, so this will be my first attempt pulling Classic that way with my favorite on Crystal. My gut says that it's less about having tons of champed 5s and more about having most of your 4* roster up above level 330 if you want to be able to pull like Entrailbucket and not lose out on anyone. But yeah, i'm full reward progression in PVE (4x clears of all nodes all in one go, suboptimally) which usually lands me t200 in SCL10, then I play PVP to 1200 and save out, that's about as competitive as I do it.

ThaRoadWarrior

I do seem to have a big spender in my alliance, but i have the attribution on who it is hidden. So there is a probably not insignificant amount of CP coming in from that. But I myself am and have always been completely F2P

Chirus

ThaRoadWarrior said:

I do seem to have a big spender in my alliance, but i have the attribution on who it is hidden. So there is a probably not insignificant amount of CP coming in from that. But I myself am and have always been completely F2P

In your opinion, would you say it's possible to get just the progression rewards in PVP by focusing on the latest releases primarily? I don't care about rank so much there. I'm in a comfortable spot right now depending on Polaris like a crutch, and part of me is afraid to venture any higher, but at the same time, I also want to invest in my 5 stars too at some point, eventually. I just don't know if hoarding is for me, which means chasing after classics will be a longer journey than the players who can tolerate the monotony for months at a time saving up tokens and CP. I'm sure I'll get the most popular characters eventually. I'm targeting Kitty, and hope to follow it with BRB, and the rest. And I'll go for them when they're featured in special shops, but I don't really want to save for them. I'm completely fine with just picking up a cover or two and waiting until the next special shop to make progress on that front. I just don't want to lock myself out of a game mode because of playing by my own rules. 

ThaRoadWarrior

I think you at least have to hit the 10cp benchmark every event, but I usually grind to 1200. I started saving out at 1200 to hang on to season points since there is CP towards the top of that progression tree, and now it just feels like the thing to do for the extra couple covers and tokens.

Zalasta

So far I've been able to keep up with baby champing all LL using LT and CP earned monthly. I complete CL10 PvE for progression, and CL10 PvP to the 10 CP mark.  That hasn't left me anything extra to go after classics, but one month I did burn my CP on the Crystal store because it had two classics that I hadn't champed yet. I probably can't do that every month, but it looks like I'll get it away with it this one time. Currently at 28 LT & 912 CP.  I thought I was approaching the ISO hump, but lack of ISO continues to be an issue.  I've stopped leveling new 4-stars to ensure that I've got ISO for champed 5-stars.

ThaRoadWarrior

Zalasta said:

So far I've been able to keep up with baby champing all LL using LT and CP earned monthly. I complete CL10 PvE for progression, and CL10 PvP to the 10 CP mark.  That hasn't left me anything extra to go after classics, but one month I did burn my CP on the Crystal store because it had two classics that I hadn't champed yet. I probably can't do that every month, but it looks like I'll get it away with it this one time. Currently at 28 LT & 912 CP.  I thought I was approaching the ISO hump, but lack of ISO continues to be an issue.  I've stopped leveling new 4-stars to ensure that I've got ISO for champed 5-stars.

Yeah you can definitely keep up by committing to latest only playing to full progression in PVE and the 10cp in PVP. Then if you can stop until whoever is champed drops out it works pretty well.

dramatist

I passed the 500 5* cover milestone yesterday and used the 800 shards to finish and champ Sersi. Now Elektra is 4,4,4 with 141 shards so I should probably hoard again until She drops out. 

ThaRoadWarrior

Wa5p is now fully covered, but I threw a bunch of iso into my 4/4/4 Ultron for this past boost list as bolt and Abigail weren’t really cutting it in PVP. I need about 170k to champ her. I moved my 4* over to Gert who is now level 275 so I can finish Ultron. 5* is still Crystal, who is still 0/0/1 with 820 shards. Mr F is 5-8 covers away from finishing up Surfer depending on the loose shard situation. I may true him up to the rewards to save the cover chase.

ThaRoadWarrior

Wa5p is champed now. I haven't used her yet, but I'm curious if there isn't some kind of Panther or Shuma Gorath team that could benefit from getting sent inviz. I guess Thor is still the top tier yellow battery, though potentially Sersei could be cool there.

HoundofShadow

You've another 10 5* to go, while I have another 30+ to go. 

I think you can bring her to half health or lesser so that Rescue or Crystal can trigger her swarm tile passively. My Wasp is at a bad build so it's really difficult work on creating a synergetic team.

ThaRoadWarrior

yeah for sure; it's a weird feeling being so "close" to having them all champed. Calling the swarm is a full on joke though (at level 450 it does 6,915 damage and a lot of board shake). To me her only utility is to be able to be a 5* who can send teammates invisible. There is possibly some kind of board control chaos you could do with her now by using Sersei to remove a color from circulation and locking a bunch of the other tiles, but I can't really figure out how to make that meaningful.

ThaRoadWarrior

I hit the 4K 4* covers milestone and a bonus 400 shards for Gert, so Ultron is now champed. That was 5* champ #60, so that milestone was cleared as well. I moved my 4* fav over to Mr F who needs 6 or 9 covers to complete Silver Surfer depending on if I want to true him up by 40 shards.

ThaRoadWarrior

Now that Gargantos (Shuma Gorath) is in latest, I ran through all my LTs and I'm back in Latest with my CP.

I ended up doing 47 pulls with 7 5*s in the group ~14.9% pull rate which is pretty great.

Current Latest:
Crystal: 0/1/2 with 1372 shards (been my shard target since Ultron got a feeder)
Moon Knight: 1/0/2 with 725 shards (got lucky from an hp token)
Shuma Gorath: 1/1/2 with 275 shards (just got the one cover from personal progression in the boss fight, my alliance didn't clear round 8)

Current favorites
Crystal (previously mentioned)
Mr F: level 342 - 2 more to get Silver Surfer to 460 shards, 2 more after that to finish him or i can wait and buy shards when they turn up.
Storm (just rebuilding a flip)

Zalasta

TRW - have you been able to champ all of the latest 5-stars? Your LL covers always seem a little low.

I got my last two full covers for Crystal, and 2 each for MN & SG, so I'm on hold until next month. Will champ Crystal with her next event. A little concerned about my ability to finish MN before he rotates out. I did champ DD with bonus shards. Sitting on 18 LT & 1125 CP.

MN @ 0/1/1 with 730 shards
SG @ 2/1/1 with 405 shards

ThaRoadWarrior

Not always since I’ve been spending back in Classic, no. But usually they get at least to 10-12 before dropping out, and I just leave my favorite on them till they catch up. Ultron was the most recent dropout.

ThaRoadWarrior

Usually the loop goes like this: I’ll be all in on Latest till I champ whoever is next out. Once that person is champed I’ll stop burning LTs and move my CP spend to Classic until they drop out. Sometimes it’s seemless and I’ll just pick up on the next one, sometimes I’ll be a little short and they drop out at 10-12 covers which is fine, they are easy to finish from there. 

Other times I’ll champ the middle out character first, like Elektra this past batch who dropped out at 457, so it sets me back on the subsequent group like we see here with Gargantos. Now most of those Elektras were purple, so it wouldn’t have been an even spread, but I’d be a lot further along had I not continued chasing Brand.

Chirus

For the people who mostly spend on the latest to build their 5*s, do you usually switch to the introductory store to get the newest release a couple weeks early? Or do you stay on the Latest to continue building your current projects?

ThaRoadWarrior

Never. Just wait for them to land in Latest. If you really want to reliably stay current by spending as you go, the path to that is ONLY spending into latest, and stopping until the top 3 are characters you need covers for as you champ them.