Which 5* to target?

Pongie

Unsure who to target next among my remaining unchampioned 5*s. Below is a snapshot of the candidates. 

Those will feeders that will finish
Kingpin 5/4/2 will finish from miles champion rewards. 19 covers needed
Hela 3/3/4 will finish from magik champion rewards. 47 covers needed. Currently targeting magik
Doom 4/3/3 will finish from invisible woman champion rewards. 42 covers needed
Black Widow Natasha 4/2/3 will finish from her champion rewards. 50 covers needed 
Captain America first avenger 4/3/2 will finish from Peggy champion rewards. 46 covers needed. Currently targeting Psylocke

Those with feeders that won’t finish

Doc ock 2/2/3 will only get 2 more covers from carnage champion rewards. 20 covers to go
Wasp 2/1/1 will only get 2 more covers from ant man champion rewards. 14 covers to go
Archangel 2/1/1 will only get 3 more covers from nightcrawler champion rewards. 32 covers to go

Those without feeders
Mr Sinister 5/3/3
Havok 3/4/4
Black Widow Yelena 1/1/3 with enough shards for 1 more cover
Apocalypse 3/2/2 with enough shards for 1 more cover
Onslaught 1/2/5
Killmonger 0/0/0

Stash
20x Latest tokens
18761 command points, enough for another 750 pulls of latest tokens 

I usually target those with feeders that will fall short, but the three candidates there are terrible. Doc ock will need 4 more covers which is 2000 shards, Wasp and Archangel both needing 7 covers each, 3500 shards. I have enough pulls to get one these there but I don’t believe that is the way to go. Mr Sinister and Onslaught has the worst distributions but the former can easily finish when a feeder is added (same reasoning for Havok) and the latter is still in latest. Of the five that can finish from feeders, I don’t see any important enough to warrant being fast tracked (unlike Black Suit Spidey, Dr Strange and Professor X whom I did fast tracked). Need to make a decision before I pull more latest tokens. Either before Killmonger enters to try and finish one or more of the latest, or when Killmonger enters, to get him for pve essentials. 

bluewolf

Fast track Kingpin, Hela, Doom, Black Widow Natasha or Captain America First Avenger

Apocalypse is indisputably the best character you have on your list.

Now.....if you open your hoard you can almost certainly easily finish him.  So maybe you shouldn't target him unless you just want as many levels as possible on him.  I would hesitate to target any Latests if you plan to open everything, or chase them.  Yelena isn't quite good enough to target and you are probably well served letting her go at this point.

Doom is probably the most useful Classic character in your list, and I would consider changing your targets to 3Doom and IW to finish him off.

I'm assuming you are playing in SCL10 and another option is simply targeting Okoye to make your clears faster/more successful there, but assuming you prefer trying to finish everyone, I lean towards Doom next.

Hela is probably the next most useful person (you can use her in waves if you want, legitimately, if you have run out of other options or want some variety to your play).

Doc Ock, Archie, Kingpin, Cap FA.....Wasp.....none are worth putting any effort into until you have finished everyone else.  And even then the argument for "champ 'em all" is harder in the era of releasing 5s every month (or more frequently, even).

Bad

Apocalypse

Like BRB and Ihulk, apoc will be one char who will be difficult to render obsolete 

ThaRoadWarrior

Doom is your best feedable classic. I'd suggest using your 5* shard target to chase somebody relevant/good/latest, and your 4* to play the long game for someone like Doom, and then you can do what I did and just park your 3* on Spid3r-Man (or some other fed-from-3* classic) until you eventually get your Fi5k (or whoever you pick).

For what it's worth, Fi5k is decidedly trash tier, but I liked the spider-verse movie, and he was the 5* that had just came out when I decided to commit to only pulling from Latest in my Grand Experiment thread, so I felt obliged to finish him up.

Borstock

Your Classics are mostly collection pieces. I would just put them on a Latest to give yourself a little cover (no pun intended) if you get a weird color distribution. But that's me.

Pongie

bluewolf said:

Apocalypse is indisputably the best character you have on your list.

Now.....if you open your hoard you can almost certainly easily finish him.  So maybe you shouldn't target him unless you just want as many levels as possible on him.  I would hesitate to target any Latests if you plan to open everything, or chase them.  Yelena isn't quite good enough to target and you are probably well served letting her go at this point.

Doom is probably the most useful Classic character in your list, and I would consider changing your targets to 3Doom and IW to finish him off.

I'm assuming you are playing in SCL10 and another option is simply targeting Okoye to make your clears faster/more successful there, but assuming you prefer trying to finish everyone, I lean towards Doom next.

Hela is probably the next most useful person (you can use her in waves if you want, legitimately, if you have run out of other options or want some variety to your play).

Doc Ock, Archie, Kingpin, Cap FA.....Wasp.....none are worth putting any effort into until you have finished everyone else.  And even then the argument for "champ 'em all" is harder in the era of releasing 5s every month (or more frequently, even).

I do play scl10 but only to max progress in pve and only to 900 in pvp.

I agree with skipping Yelena so I won’t pull from latest till she leaves. This means I have a while to go before making the decision. Unless I want to pull from Unbreakable Will store for Killmonger. Natasha may get closer and more champion levels on Okyoke is never a bad thing. But it’s definitely better to wait and pull latest with Apocalypse and Onslaught. Decisions, decisions. 

Michael1957

Black Widow Yelena

I voted Yelena since I find her red ability most useful against cascades and AP accumulation. With Okoye retaliation is brutal and fatal in a few hits . With Peggy all active powers are shut down . Great in PvE, not in PvAI where everyone chooses passives .

Vhailorx

Michael1957 said:

I voted Yelena since I find her red ability most useful against cascades and AP accumulation. With Okoye retaliation is brutal and fatal in a few hits . With Peggy all active powers are shut down . Great in PvE, not in PvAI where everyone chooses passives .

One caveat:

Because of the reliance on passives, many favored pvp duos have at least one dead color (i.e a color that has high match damage and is favored by the ai when selecting matches, but no active power outlet). That is the scenario that will proc yelena's red most often.

bluewolf

Fast track Kingpin, Hela, Doom, Black Widow Natasha or Captain America First Avenger

Vhailorx said:

Michael1957 said:

I voted Yelena since I find her red ability most useful against cascades and AP accumulation. With Okoye retaliation is brutal and fatal in a few hits . With Peggy all active powers are shut down . Great in PvE, not in PvAI where everyone chooses passives .

One caveat:

Because of the reliance on passives, many favored pvp duos have at least one dead color (i.e a color that has high match damage and is favored by the ai when selecting matches, but no active power outlet). That is the scenario that will proc yelena's red most often.

I like Yelena.  But she's not the biggest help in PVE if there are all goon nodes (see: the currently running Thick as Thieves PVE).  Goons don't accumulate large pools of AP; they generate it and spend it immediately.   Also, goons don't make matches so her purple is worthless.  (Barring the unusual circumstance of a CD expiring, leading to some kind of matches/cascades.)  Even her green is of fairly little use since she won't take out CDs and only destroys 2 tiles, which usually isn't enough.

Champing her with an eye towards PVE is not the right move.

Her main use is in PVP.  She does pretty well there but isn't going to dissuade many people from hitting you, so it's more a matter of having fun than anything else.

helix72

Don’t forget though, pairing Yelena with Peggy with 5 in Yellow can make some goons constantly trip Yelena’s passive without ever firing off a power.

Anon

I don't mean to hijack Ops thread but I figured it might be better to ask here rather than open another thread about the same topic. 

I have Apocalypse and BRB both at 5 covers and want to chase them. Who should I target first? I'm leaning towards Apocalypse but BRB is also really strong.

My champed 5s are Thor, Thanos, Kitty, Okoye, Gambit, Cable, and Havok.

krakenoon

I had no intention of using Yelena since I didn’t pull a red & I’m just rostering most new 5s.

That said, a group of mindless ones can regularly get up to 12 green AP and her green is great against Maggia muscles since I have a tendency to let their yellows trigger while focusing on their blue tiles. This doesn’t give her a ton of utility, granted, but it does make her better than useless against some goons.

Edit: @Anon neither of those 5s have feeders right now and you’ve got some time while Apoc is still in latest. 5 covers is not a lot to work with if your roster is where I think it is, but Apoc can do a lot with a little, given the right team mates. I’m guessing you don’t have all of your 4s rostered, so keep in mind not to level him too much or else it will mess up your MMR. Also, don’t forget his stun immunity when teamed up with a mutant.

658_2

Apocalypse

If you’re just playing to progression in SCL 10 pve, you’ll probably find Apocalypse super useful.  Apoc/Thor/BRB is my go to team on the challenge node 95% of the time. I’ve had to dust off Thorkoye/Sabes for the last two or three clears on a couple of the really hard ones, but Apoc/Thor/BRB handle most challenges with very little problem. The damage output and synergy are top shelf. Once it gets going, woof. With boosts, it’s reasonably fast too. Also, 5e are np with Apoc/Thor. Significant upgrade on Thorkoye. Few more healthpacks but so much quicker to do heavy damage.

I think you’re making a smart move to skip Yelena. She’s ok in a vacuum but you’ll always have better options, especially in pve as bluewolf noted. I’ve been using my 451 Apoc on every non trivial node in TaT. Used 545 Yelena zero outside 5e. I’m sure she’s playable to 900 in pvp, but who isn’t?

Michael1957

Black Widow Yelena

helix72 said:

Don’t forget though, pairing Yelena with Peggy with 5 in Yellow can make some goons constantly trip Yelena’s passive without ever firing off a power.

This is true , as I’m doing in the current PvE with her and Peggy and they aren’t triggering passives , Moonstone can’t fire and Juggs can’t do damage faster than Okoye can tank and heal , so it’s a net zero team damage by end of round . 

Pongie

658_2 said:

If you’re just playing to progression in SCL 10 pve, you’ll probably find Apocalypse super useful.  Apoc/Thor/BRB is my go to team on the challenge node 95% of the time. I’ve had to dust off Thorkoye/Sabes for the last two or three clears on a couple of the really hard ones, but Apoc/Thor/BRB handle most challenges with very little problem. The damage output and synergy are top shelf. Once it gets going, woof. With boosts, it’s reasonably fast too. Also, 5e are np with Apoc/Thor. Significant upgrade on Thorkoye. Few more healthpacks but so much quicker to do heavy damage.

I think you’re making a smart move to skip Yelena. She’s ok in a vacuum but you’ll always have better options, especially in pve as bluewolf noted. I’ve been using my 451 Apoc on every non trivial node in TaT. Used 545 Yelena zero outside 5e. I’m sure she’s playable to 900 in pvp, but who isn’t?

My goto team for scl10 challenge node are hawkeye, coulson, and worthycap. It's definitely slow but doesn't need many health packs. For the first 4 clears, I usually only need 1-2 health packs for worthycap. The Yelena and Peggy combo has me interested. Anon said:

I don't mean to hijack Ops thread but I figured it might be better to ask here rather than open another thread about the same topic. 

I have Apocalypse and BRB both at 5 covers and want to chase them. Who should I target first? I'm leaning towards Apocalypse but BRB is also really strong.

My champed 5s are Thor, Thanos, Kitty, Okoye, Gambit, Cable, and Havok.

I'm in favour of BRB since I see more teams with him than Apocalypse in pvp 

Vhailorx

Pongie, switching 4* gamora in for worthy will give you better results for the most challenging cl10 nodes. using her is much better for stunlock as she has a cheaper stun that targets two opponents.  Even a level 300+ worthy cap struggles when the ai can deal 20-30k per turn (e.g., gritty or 5* carnage).

I don't think even strong suppression (a la Peggy + Yelena) will outperform stunlock against level 650 5* opponents; their match damage is too high.

Pongie

Vhailorx said:

Pongie, switching 4* gamora in for worthy will give you better results for the most challenging cl10 nodes. using her is much better for stunlock as she has a cheaper stun that targets two opponents.  Even a level 300+ worthy cap struggles when the ai can deal 20-30k per turn (e.g., gritty or 5* carnage).

When I had Peggy as the third over Coulson it was a struggle to keep the stun lock going long enough. Usually run out of blue tiles for Peggy to stun. Having switched over to Coulson, that isn't a problem anymore since Cap's stun does not require blue tiles to be available. The only concern is having cap die from a first AI turn cascade. Usually they make a match or two within their first turn and that's it. Note, I do boost +2 red & blue aps since these only cost iso.

Against Gritty I can sub in Black Suit Spidey (replacing worthy Cap) to counter the attack tiles. Just takes a bit longer to start up. 

ThaRoadWarrior

I switched WCap out for G4mora also on those really hard nodes, even though my hawkeye is still 4/5/3. getting that second character stunned, even for just one turn, really helps slow down the hemorraging.

bluewolf

Fast track Kingpin, Hela, Doom, Black Widow Natasha or Captain America First Avenger

ThaRoadWarrior said:

I switched WCap out for G4mora also on those really hard nodes, even though my hawkeye is still 4/5/3. getting that second character stunned, even for just one turn, really helps slow down the hemorraging.

I highly recommend that players look at options besides WorthyCap for the harder challenge nodes.  Possibly looking at developing other characters if needed.

Just in case, y'know, they finally get around to nerfing his crazy interaction with HE.  Seems wrong to match 3 and have the opponent get dozens of AP.  Just saying. 

Who knows when this might happen?  It's long overdue, in my opinion.  Long overdue.

ThaRoadWarrior

I don't mind WCap anymore, not now that I have iHulk. You eat a little damage, but you can shut that trash down pretty fast and reliably with Profe$$or X/Okoye/iHulk

Vhailorx

Pongie said:

Vhailorx said:

Pongie, switching 4* gamora in for worthy will give you better results for the most challenging cl10 nodes. using her is much better for stunlock as she has a cheaper stun that targets two opponents.  Even a level 300+ worthy cap struggles when the ai can deal 20-30k per turn (e.g., gritty or 5* carnage).

When I had Peggy as the third over Coulson it was a struggle to keep the stun lock going long enough. Usually run out of blue tiles for Peggy to stun. Having switched over to Coulson, that isn't a problem anymore since Cap's stun does not require blue tiles to be available. The only concern is having cap die from a first AI turn cascade. Usually they make a match or two within their first turn and that's it. Note, I do boost +2 red & blue aps since these only cost iso.

Against Gritty I can sub in Black Suit Spidey (replacing worthy Cap) to counter the attack tiles. Just takes a bit longer to start up. 

Not peggy, 4* gamora.  Peggy's stun is too expensive for cl10 and ineffective against single opponents.  4* Ice's stun would be good, but is less efficient because it alternates with his nuke.  Gwen would be great if we had a good purple battery.  But we only have a great blue and red engine.  So gamora is the best stunlock machine we have right now.  Nova would also be decent, but slower because you can't damage airborne opponents.