When to use CP and LL tokens

shardwick

Speed283 said:

Thanks everyone - I used 145 out of the 255 LL.
I now have 12 covers for Shang, 9 for Electro and 7 for Odin.
Should I stop at this point?

You have a really solid build for Shang Chi so I would stop there and then you can always finish him off with shards from the shard store in the future. I would level him up as you go with your 4s so it doesn't mess up your MMR, and you could pair him with America Chavez once you champ her.

Srheer0

pair him with America Chavez once you champ her.

Other notable shangchi partners are

Scarlet witch (3star)
Ironman Hulk Buster
Riri Williams
Cyclops (3star)

They all make red or pink ap or tiles for him.

Sekilicious

Congratulations! I would be very interested in your experience in SCL10 with Shang-Chi nearly champed.

MegaBee

I don't have any advice for the OP, but I did want to say that this thread is the purest content, and the forum is better for it. Everyone just being so helpful!

Polares

So now that you have Shang "covered", and you can basically skip latest until Ultron goes away (so you have quite a bit of time to build CPs again), I think it is time to think again about the FF store.

6000 CPs is a bit low to be sure you will champ the 3 chars (even though you already have a cover for them already right?), but even if you dont champ them, a 11-12 cover Apoc and Kitty can be really helpful in your situation (and you can always finish them with shards/feeders). I think both Apoc and Kitty are great as transition 5s as they are some of the best damage buffers in the game (only Okoye is really better). With those two and Shang you can probably move to scl10 (or reduce you the time needed to clear scl9 by A LOT).

As I mentioned before both Apoc and Kitty have feeders, so if RNG is bad you can finish them in the future with those (and I would fav Apoc or kitty and the feeder for that one while pulling to maximize your chances of maxing them). Of course RNG is RNG and you might only get Strange covers (it is also important to know when to stop if RNG is not going your way).

I would think carefully about "How fast do you build your CPs? Do you already play in scl9 (PvE)? Do you play more PvP or PvE?" and then depending on this pull on the FF store. Apoc and Kitty are still VERY good in PvE, but they are not meta in PvP, so there is that (and to play in scl10 you will probably need to champ them, so that would hurt a bit your PvP experience. Also PvP is all about having the a lot of champs). Of course you can get Apoc and Kitty, leave them at the 350 range and then breeze through PvE in scl9.

We obviously dont know when the new meta char is going to be released, so you always have to ponder if these 5s will help you enough, and if you will have time to build your stash in time for the next meta.... That is the nature of the game for a lot of people (some people win CPs and LTs so fast they always are ready for the next batch, but for most of us it is all about making those decissions).

Jimsta_rooney

Apoc is still meta in pvp, see just as many apoc/switch as colossus switch. 
You can do scl10 pve with just shang chi and chavez, I know because I have been doing it since champing shang chi this week. 
It's fast enough for placement too. 

Speed283

Thank you all for your responses!!

The thing that confuses me is the comments regarding Kitty and Apocalypse.

As I progressed, I never was able to get Kitty and am unable to get more covers for Apoc.

Is there a way I can get those covers? Any way I can get Kitty at this point?

HoundofShadow

Meta characters (not all) are featured in special stores 2-3 times a year. The more prominent ones are Okoye and Kitty. 

Apocalypse was released in mid-2020; Wanda and Colossus in mid 2021, so it's still early to tell if they will change the lineup.

Polares

Speed283 said:

Thank you all for your responses!!

The thing that confuses me is the comments regarding Kitty and Apocalypse.

As I progressed, I never was able to get Kitty and am unable to get more covers for Apoc.

Is there a way I can get those covers? Any way I can get Kitty at this point?

There is no easy way of covering old 5s in this game.In this game it is actually easier to get new chars than old chars.

You have shards and feeders, but covering chars this way is very slow (you might need years to finish a 5 that way). And then you have special stores where you might get one of these chars you want every now and then (you might need to wait months until you get a special store with the char you want and then also the other two chars featured in the store might not intest you at all). There is obvisouly no way of predicting who will be featured in these special stores, so again, you might need to wait a lot until you get whoever you want.

You can also buy one cover at a time for 250/500 CPs when a 5 is featured in PvE. This is better than 720 CP option, but still pretty expensive. I guess I would buy one last cover for 250 CP if I had to respec a char (I had him with 12 covers but with a bad distribution of colors) but that is about it.

This is why stores like the current fan favorites store are so special and useful (specially for players that are moving into 5 land). You usually get 2-3 very good old 5 chars. Like this time around, Apoc and Kitty are very good chars, Strange was very good for PvE but he is so old that has been power crept but he is still good when featured (+100 levels).

Speed283

I now have Shang covered, it would cost 550K in ISO to raise his level to 450. I’m thinking that that would raise my MMR too high…Is that correct?

HoundofShadow

It will raise your MMR to single champed 5* MMR. So, you'll see one champed 5* + champed 4* most of the time.

The champed 5* you'll see frequently are likely to be Colossus, Wanda, Okoye, Kitty, Apocalypse, Shang-Chi, BRB. I think Shang-Chi can deal with all of them, provided that you are very familiar with his usage.

I don't know if there's any single champed 5* player posting here, so let's wait for them to appear to give you more insight.

dianetics

When I went single champ last year it was a nightmare for pvp for me.
Most of the teams I saw were single 5* champs in the first few rounds. But as soon as I hit about 6 wins it was all either 2 5's or 5's like BRB or Kitty in the 460-470 range. 
I couldn't really get back into PvP for 2-3 months when I finally champed the next one.
When you step up you most likely want to jump up with 2 5's who can be competitive on some level.

HoundofShadow

Did you include retals as well? I noticed a lot of newer players include retals as part of their usual mmr opponents. If you disregard unusual MMR opponents in retals and opponents you see when you break MMR, you should be seeing 1* champed players and double champed 4* most of the time.

For example, I have over 20 5* champed now at an average level of 45X. When I climb too high too early,  I'll get hit by 550 rosters and they will appear in my retal. If I climb really high, MMR also starts giving me opponents who are 3* players and baby champed 4* players. However, they are usually worth <10 points. The two extreme MMRs above show what happens when MMR is broken. 

dianetics

I wasn't climbing high, and shield sim at the time was just crushing me.
The pick 2's were easier but still I would rarely break 300. Most of my teams were just too slow to compete against kitty teams, and they weren't doing enough damage to get past BRB before he threw out all the protect tiles and wiped my 4's with his green.

HoundofShadow

I think it's this fear that has prevented you from climbing high. Having a slow team might have added to that fear. Sometimes you need to skip multiple time to get opponents whose mmr is closer to you. Who was your first champed 5*?

dianetics

Heimdall. I champed him specifically for PvE and he brought me to CL10 for PvE, but stopped me from really doing much in PvP. I only had 25-30 4* champs at the time, now I have nearly 100.
I was getting 0 defensive wins.
I champed Th5nos a couple months after him and I was finally able to get up and going again. Was getting some defensive wins with that team.

Bad

Heimdall is a tough one to be your first champion. However involves some tactical playstile.
To start your champing 5* roster with kingping is way worse, and to have to rely in carnage4 on pvp.
But here we are. From my pov is a lot better to start as a 5* player than to hide behind MMRs if you are a newcomer. 
SC is the most powerful 5* right now. He is pretty bad in defense, but in this game there is no great single 5* on ofense and defense(perhaps wanda was until gamora).
You can wait another year for to have another 5* or you can fly now.

HoundofShadow

Heimdall is pretty tough because he's largely a support/defensive character with only one strong power with condition, and requires specific characters to synergise with him.  Back then, Shuri was probably the best partner. 

dianetics

I'm glad I made the jump, because the extra stuff I got from PvE cl10 made it much easier to get the second champ faster, and now here after a year I'm at 5 champs with 4 5's between 10-12 covers. From, 25-30 4* champs to almost 100.
I waited years to even try to pushing and I wish I did it earlier.
The initial jump was a pain for PvP, but I did well in PvE using C4rnage, Polaris, and Heimdall until I get more very good 4's.

Bad

dianetics said:

I waited years to even try to pushing and I wish I did it earlier.

Finally some big words here.
Truth is that I learned it was so horrifyng to champ a 5* from reading posts about that in this forum.
It's like the game suddenly changes and becomes unplayable or stuff like that.
Sometimes I feel guilty for not noticing that.