250cp for Yelena?

Vhailorx

So my Yelena ended up at 12/13 covers when she left the LT pool last week.  Counting the ffw shards, I will have ~300 shards towards cover 13 by next week.

Or I could buy her red h4h cover (available at the classic price point!) and champ her immediately.

If I don't buy the cover now, I can see a few alternativeeans of champing her:

(1) shards. I would need to sharget her for about 70 lt pulls. This will likely not happen for several weeks as I am unlikely to pull at least until onslaught leaves the pool.

(2) a speciality store. Yelena should cycle into a store in a few months, but I would likely spend more than 250cp chasing her (though I would get a bunch of covers).

(3) Yelena featured in pve. This should be early 2022 or so!

(4) feeder update.  Bwahahahahahaha!

So the basic question facing me is "is Yelena useful enough to justify 250 shards now to avoid a months' long wait?". She seems to have some value in boss events and other very hard pve nodes.  She has little PVP value right now, but could be reasonably strong with a good partner.

Xception81

You can also watch for her to pop up in the shard store. I think 200 shards would cost about 8,790 HP... 

bluewolf

I'm going with "no".  Assuming you have better options right now in PVE (you probably do), there's not a lot of reason to do this?  I say that while I have fun with her in Sim as a "please hit me" team as I chase 75 wins for the season.  She's nothing great in PVP, but she's better than a lot of the older 5s.

I guess it depends on your general rate of CP acquisition but I think I'd only spend 250 CP on meta 5s, myself.

HoundofShadow

Ask yourself,

1) To what extent can Yelena improve my gameplay in PvPs, PvEs, Shield Simulator or Shield Training now and in the near future, given my current options and playstyles?

2) What will I gain / lose out if I champ her three months or six months later, compared to champing her now?

If your answer is a little or not much, then simply wait for her to appear in special cp stores or spend 560hp on the first set of 20 shards when she pops in. If not, wait for her to appear as placement rewards in PvPs so that you can reduce the number of pulls needed.

Michael1957

Got her finished today , and I say get her. Best AP suppressor in the game. With Peggy ALL enemy active powers are blocked and Okoye tanking for her as 3rd she gives them a huge beating on suppression. As MPQ cheats often by giving the AI multiple match 4s, 5s , and cascades , this makes it pay dearly for that. 

Anon

Michael1957 said:

Got her finished today , and I say get her. Best AP suppressor in the game. With Peggy ALL enemy active powers are blocked and Okoye tanking for her as 3rd she gives them a huge beating on suppression. As MPQ cheats often by giving the AI multiple match 4s, 5s , and cascades , this makes it pay dearly for that. 

My experience is similar. I have her fully covered (100k iso away from champed) and pairing her with Peggy can be pretty debilitating against some opponents. She's more of a PVE character since most events are repeated battles against Dark Avengers with high AP costs and she really shines. I doubt she has any value in PVP though.

She's definitely not a speedy character and is more of a nuisance than anything, but she's definitely not a dumpster fire like Wasp or Banner.

Tldr: She's not worth 250CP, but not a bad character and really good in niche situations (PVE against Sentry, Moonstone, Bullseye).

Vhailorx

Anon said:

Michael1957 said:

Got her finished today , and I say get her. Best AP suppressor in the game. With Peggy ALL enemy active powers are blocked and Okoye tanking for her as 3rd she gives them a huge beating on suppression. As MPQ cheats often by giving the AI multiple match 4s, 5s , and cascades , this makes it pay dearly for that. 

My experience is similar. I have her fully covered (100k iso away from champed) and pairing her with Peggy can be pretty debilitating against some opponents. She's more of a PVE character since most events are repeated battles against Dark Avengers with high AP costs and she really shines. I doubt she has any value in PVP though.

She's definitely not a speedy character and is more of a nuisance than anything, but she's definitely not a dumpster fire like Wasp or Banner.

Tldr: She's not worth 250CP, but not a bad character and really good in niche situations (PVE against Sentry, Moonstone, Bullseye).

Yeah, right now she doesn't seem to have much more than PVE value.  but the fact that peggy + yelena is extremely effective against any enemy that cannot kill you exclusively with passives + match damage suggests that she will be decent in PVP if we ever get a 5* that raises enemy ap costs (or at least one who can do so when paired with yelena and doens't have color overlap like Prof X).  Yelena will always struggle against kitty or IH based teams because they don't need to gather ap to be effective.  But she should be quite effective against Apoc-based teams if her partner can push Apoc's casting costs up to 9+. 

That said, we don't have any such character in the game yet, and her PVE utility, while real, is not so great as to surpass the existing options on my roster.  So I suppose the smart play is just to sit on her at 12.5/13 and wait until there is a clear reason to finish.  Especially given that I redid the math and will be only 150 shards short of cover 13 after the wakanda event is over.  So this really a question of spending 250 cp to avoid collecting 120 shards (since I would get 30 shards for her just from spending 250 cp on tokens). That doesn't seem particularly resource-efficient.

bluewolf

@Vhailorx

I know you are pretty casual-ish lately from your posts, but if you manage to place T50 (not that hard in some slices) in PVP you can add some shards to her a couple times a year.

Michael1957

I agree her major value is shutting down PvE vs characters/Dark Avengers which she nails the coffin on any SCL. She’s not for the passive infested PvAI unless you fight the rare battle against those without them . She at least takes BRB off the board easily 

PiMacleod

Personally, I like her as an option against those teams that use a "feeder"... or have other ways of gaining AP quicker than normal (i.e Carn5ge, BRB with those protects, you get the point).

I've used her, with Okoye, plus a fitting 3rd against certain teams, and they do mighty well.

As far how to chase her and if you want to?  I'd just do your #2... wait for the specialty store.  That's how I normally play it... but only if it's one of those stores that ALSO includes a new 5*... because that way, you've got a 2nd reason to spend there.

Otherwise, if you really want her quicker, I'd just favorite her for the shards.  Shouldn't take too long with how often we're expected to spend CP and LTs to keep up around here... 

helix72

It depends a bit on:
1) Your roster. How many other 5* champs do you have and who are they? If Yelena was your last to champ I'd say do it, but if you're missing any other top tier I'd say don't.
2) Your coverage. Is she 5/5/2? 4/4/4? 5/4/3?

Without knowing either answer I say wait. I've got her covered (but not champed) at 3/5/5 and while she's not horrible, I've run her with Thorkoye and she's slower than running Sabretooth. Her Red Passive is good but there are plenty of goons and toons with powers at less than 9 AP. Her Purple only works against tile movers, and the best thing about her Green is it's 33% cheaper than Thor's. I wish her Green destroyed CDs, then she'd vault up in my rankings. But it doesn't, just A/P/S tiles.

It will only take you 34 pulls with her shargeted to finish. Plus you might get the offer to buy 20 shards for 560 HP in the store. Plus you might get a special store with a chance to get her last cover. Plus there might be yet one more event offering some shards in the future. Not worth what you lose for 250 CP, IMHO.

Vhailorx

Alas, I have her 1/4/5 with enough shards for 2 covers.  If I just had 5 red I would happily sit tight.

I have ~15x 5* champs including almost all the metas (eg, okoye, Thor, kitty, strange, thanos, dd, he, brb, prof$, and apoc next week).  Ice and GED are probably the best existing 5*s that I am unlikely to champ this year.