Farming 4*

ThaRoadWarrior

I kept a flex-slot and played that way while I was building out my roster, but it was never the endgame state. This is a roster management game, the core mechanic is opening tokens. Everything the game presents you is in service of doing that. Playing in that fashion is like slash and burn agriculture to me. You get short term wins and temporary gains at the expense of sustainability. When I say “missing out on rewards” I mean all the hp, cp, iso, LTs, covers, etc that come along with applying champion rewards rather than selling them off for a bit of iso and the minor convenience of not navigating a big roster as you look for your meta characters to play. Especially now that there are saved teams. 

I am honestly interested to know what that roster looks like, how many slots and who is on it, and then like actually why play that way vs a complete static roster? Back when I was doing it, my goal was to be able to pull any legendary token and not have it go to waste. I made sure I had all the 4s and 5s on roster, and my select group of usable 3*s I liked, and just 2* Thor and 1* Spider-Man to solo DDQ nodes. Then as I got the hp to add a slot, I’d just leave whoever was rostered in my flex slot and open a new one to flex with. This was before saved covers and before shards were even a thing. I found it stressful and couldn’t wait till I had everyone on bench to stop messing with it.

entrailbucket

Godzillafan67 said:

There are individualized play styles, as @entrailbucket has pointed out across a few threads. There are also individualized rostering styles. Personally, I take the Pokémon approach and intend to roster everything. Additionally, I champ and flip 2*, and have just planted my 4th 3*, where I’m keeping the max version because it’s good for my pvp play. 

Absolutely!  Like, don't listen to people about what's optimal, do what's fun for you. 

In this case I just don't understand how micromanaging the shards and essentials and stuff ends up being less work. 

I started farming duplicates mostly because I'm too lazy to do all that work keeping track of guys and flipping roster slots around.  It was way easier to just pay up for extra slots and not have to worry about it.

Phumade

entrailbucket said:

Godzillafan67 said:

There are individualized play styles, as @entrailbucket has pointed out across a few threads. There are also individualized rostering styles. Personally, I take the Pokémon approach and intend to roster everything. Additionally, I champ and flip 2*, and have just planted my 4th 3*, where I’m keeping the max version because it’s good for my pvp play. 

Absolutely!  Like, don't listen to people about what's optimal, do what's fun for you. 

In this case I just don't understand how micromanaging the shards and essentials and stuff ends up being less work. 

I started farming duplicates mostly because I'm too lazy to do all that work keeping track of guys and flipping roster slots around.  It was way easier to just pay up for extra slots and not have to worry about it.

I gotta admit I' this close to not farming my 2* anymore.  Its too much of a hassle having to sell and re roster a 2* every few days.

Currently I keep a max 2* and working 2* that gets all the covers.  But with how the game floods us with junk tokens.  I end up having to cycle 2* way too often.  I'm sorta tempted to sell the working 2* and just bulk sell the 2* covers like I bulk sell 1*.

This is a real pain point in the game now and I sincerely hope they are working on a fix.  Maybe trade 5 heroics for 1 mighty or something along those lines.  What I want to see is a reduction in the number of 2* covers that I have to apply and farm on a daily basis.  Maybe figure out a way to auto apply 2* covers.

Plus we need a solution for bulk opening vaults.  I have over 600 of each vault type (savory, sweet, and spicy) and at this stage, its way to tedious to even try opening one by one.  So the stockpile just keep growing.

entrailbucket

Phumade said:

entrailbucket said:

Godzillafan67 said:

There are individualized play styles, as @entrailbucket has pointed out across a few threads. There are also individualized rostering styles. Personally, I take the Pokémon approach and intend to roster everything. Additionally, I champ and flip 2*, and have just planted my 4th 3*, where I’m keeping the max version because it’s good for my pvp play. 

Absolutely!  Like, don't listen to people about what's optimal, do what's fun for you. 

In this case I just don't understand how micromanaging the shards and essentials and stuff ends up being less work. 

I started farming duplicates mostly because I'm too lazy to do all that work keeping track of guys and flipping roster slots around.  It was way easier to just pay up for extra slots and not have to worry about it.

I gotta admit I' this close to not farming my 2* anymore.  Its too much of a hassle having to sell and re roster a 2* every few days.

Currently I keep a max 2* and working 2* that gets all the covers.  But with how the game floods us with junk tokens.  I end up having to cycle 2* way too often.  I'm sorta tempted to sell the working 2* and just bulk sell the 2* covers like I bulk sell 1*.

This is a real pain point in the game now and I sincerely hope they are working on a fix.  Maybe trade 5 heroics for 1 mighty or something along those lines.  What I want to see is a reduction in the number of 2* covers that I have to apply and farm on a daily basis.  Maybe figure out a way to auto apply 2* covers.

Plus we need a solution for bulk opening vaults.  I have over 600 of each vault type (savory, sweet, and spicy) and at this stage, its way to tedious to even try opening one by one.  So the stockpile just keep growing.

They need to give us my most wanted feature: the "immediately open all tokens" button.

Right now I have zero tokens of any kind in stock, and 16cp, but man would I love pressing that button once a day.  Or once an hour, maybe.

Timemachinego

2s are still a solid plus to resources, even if juggling them does get a little annoying. I keep a handful of flex spots for them, only really have to care about them when it's time to sell one and re-roster.

Sekilicious

Phumade said:

entrailbucket said:

Godzillafan67 said:

There are individualized play styles, as @entrailbucket has pointed out across a few threads. There are also individualized rostering styles. Personally, I take the Pokémon approach and intend to roster everything. Additionally, I champ and flip 2*, and have just planted my 4th 3*, where I’m keeping the max version because it’s good for my pvp play. 

Absolutely!  Like, don't listen to people about what's optimal, do what's fun for you. 

In this case I just don't understand how micromanaging the shards and essentials and stuff ends up being less work. 

I started farming duplicates mostly because I'm too lazy to do all that work keeping track of guys and flipping roster slots around.  It was way easier to just pay up for extra slots and not have to worry about it.

I gotta admit I' this close to not farming my 2* anymore.  Its too much of a hassle having to sell and re roster a 2* every few days.

Currently I keep a max 2* and working 2* that gets all the covers.  But with how the game floods us with junk tokens.  I end up having to cycle 2* way too often.  I'm sorta tempted to sell the working 2* and just bulk sell the 2* covers like I bulk sell 1*.

This is a real pain point in the game now and I sincerely hope they are working on a fix.  Maybe trade 5 heroics for 1 mighty or something along those lines.  What I want to see is a reduction in the number of 2* covers that I have to apply and farm on a daily basis.  Maybe figure out a way to auto apply 2* covers.

Plus we need a solution for bulk opening vaults.  I have over 600 of each vault type (savory, sweet, and spicy) and at this stage, its way to tedious to even try opening one by one.  So the stockpile just keep growing.

I love the 65 cp and 39 3* covers I get from flipping 13 2* characters every week or so. I have stopped duplicates since they are rarely required characters in PvE for me anymore. 

shardwick

Sekilicious said:

Phumade said:

entrailbucket said:

Godzillafan67 said:

There are individualized play styles, as @entrailbucket has pointed out across a few threads. There are also individualized rostering styles. Personally, I take the Pokémon approach and intend to roster everything. Additionally, I champ and flip 2*, and have just planted my 4th 3*, where I’m keeping the max version because it’s good for my pvp play. 

Absolutely!  Like, don't listen to people about what's optimal, do what's fun for you. 

In this case I just don't understand how micromanaging the shards and essentials and stuff ends up being less work. 

I started farming duplicates mostly because I'm too lazy to do all that work keeping track of guys and flipping roster slots around.  It was way easier to just pay up for extra slots and not have to worry about it.

I gotta admit I' this close to not farming my 2* anymore.  Its too much of a hassle having to sell and re roster a 2* every few days.

Currently I keep a max 2* and working 2* that gets all the covers.  But with how the game floods us with junk tokens.  I end up having to cycle 2* way too often.  I'm sorta tempted to sell the working 2* and just bulk sell the 2* covers like I bulk sell 1*.

This is a real pain point in the game now and I sincerely hope they are working on a fix.  Maybe trade 5 heroics for 1 mighty or something along those lines.  What I want to see is a reduction in the number of 2* covers that I have to apply and farm on a daily basis.  Maybe figure out a way to auto apply 2* covers.

Plus we need a solution for bulk opening vaults.  I have over 600 of each vault type (savory, sweet, and spicy) and at this stage, its way to tedious to even try opening one by one.  So the stockpile just keep growing.

I love the 65 cp and 39 3* covers I get from flipping 13 2* characters every week or so. I have stopped duplicates since they are rarely required characters in PvE for me anymore. 

It's a decent chunk of hp as well. It all adds up.

Akoni

@TheEyeDoctorsWife That's a perfectly valid way of playing the game. It's very streamlined and allows you to get what you like out of the game. Low stress, too, in that you don't feel like you're missing out on anything when you miss a PvE or PvP.

@entrailbucket Your roster is lightyears ahead of mine. Unless you take a 5 year hiatus, I doubt I'll catch up to you. The strategy of hoarding for LL worked for me, but earlier this year, I switched back over to using my cp for classics. I get so many more 4* covers and shards for the cp.

@qandols I will roster my 4* dups, not just because of my farm, but as mentioned by others, it saves health packs and allows me to use the same teams to save time. Even though we have saved teams, it takes time to figure out the best team to use. In PvP when you're pushing for points to shield before retals, time is of the essence. In addition, 4* favorites like Polaris and Karnak are squishy so having a second on hand is a good idea. Lastly, some characters have multiple builds that work for them. You might want a 3/5/5 for one team and a 5/3/5 for another team. Dups make that possible without the hassle of adjusting between teams.

By now there are certainly many with a 4* farm, but are there any players with maxed 5* working on dups? I've seen multiple Okoye and Apocs, but those players were specifically targeting them. Who's working on their second Wasp or Banner?

Sekilicious

shardwick said:

Sekilicious said:

Phumade said:

entrailbucket said:

Godzillafan67 said:

There are individualized play styles, as @entrailbucket has pointed out across a few threads. There are also individualized rostering styles. Personally, I take the Pokémon approach and intend to roster everything. Additionally, I champ and flip 2*, and have just planted my 4th 3*, where I’m keeping the max version because it’s good for my pvp play. 

Absolutely!  Like, don't listen to people about what's optimal, do what's fun for you. 

In this case I just don't understand how micromanaging the shards and essentials and stuff ends up being less work. 

I started farming duplicates mostly because I'm too lazy to do all that work keeping track of guys and flipping roster slots around.  It was way easier to just pay up for extra slots and not have to worry about it.

I gotta admit I' this close to not farming my 2* anymore.  Its too much of a hassle having to sell and re roster a 2* every few days.

Currently I keep a max 2* and working 2* that gets all the covers.  But with how the game floods us with junk tokens.  I end up having to cycle 2* way too often.  I'm sorta tempted to sell the working 2* and just bulk sell the 2* covers like I bulk sell 1*.

This is a real pain point in the game now and I sincerely hope they are working on a fix.  Maybe trade 5 heroics for 1 mighty or something along those lines.  What I want to see is a reduction in the number of 2* covers that I have to apply and farm on a daily basis.  Maybe figure out a way to auto apply 2* covers.

Plus we need a solution for bulk opening vaults.  I have over 600 of each vault type (savory, sweet, and spicy) and at this stage, its way to tedious to even try opening one by one.  So the stockpile just keep growing.

I love the 65 cp and 39 3* covers I get from flipping 13 2* characters every week or so. I have stopped duplicates since they are rarely required characters in PvE for me anymore. 

It's a decent chunk of hp as well. It all adds up.

It would be interesting to see if switching five 2* for one 3* (nearly 13 3* covers for each max champed 2*s) would be a net positive in terms of rewards. On the surface, It doesn’t look like it, but maybe I will have to figure out the averages a figure it out. 

Uhh, I realize this is unlikely to happen; it is an interesting thought experiment.

entrailbucket

Akoni said:

@TheEyeDoctorsWife That's a perfectly valid way of playing the game. It's very streamlined and allows you to get what you like out of the game. Low stress, too, in that you don't feel like you're missing out on anything when you miss a PvE or PvP.

@entrailbucket Your roster is lightyears ahead of mine. Unless you take a 5 year hiatus, I doubt I'll catch up to you. The strategy of hoarding for LL worked for me, but earlier this year, I switched back over to using my cp for classics. I get so many more 4* covers and shards for the cp.

@qandols I will roster my 4* dups, not just because of my farm, but as mentioned by others, it saves health packs and allows me to use the same teams to save time. Even though we have saved teams, it takes time to figure out the best team to use. In PvP when you're pushing for points to shield before retals, time is of the essence. In addition, 4* favorites like Polaris and Karnak are squishy so having a second on hand is a good idea. Lastly, some characters have multiple builds that work for them. You might want a 3/5/5 for one team and a 5/3/5 for another team. Dups make that possible without the hassle of adjusting between teams.

By now there are certainly many with a 4* farm, but are there any players with maxed 5* working on dups? I've seen multiple Okoye and Apocs, but those players were specifically targeting them. Who's working on their second Wasp or Banner?

I have a 550 OML and a second one at 465.

I also have a 550 Surfer and a dupe at 270.

These things are really quite shameful.  I'll probably end up with a Phoenix dupe very soon because RNG hates me.


Way back in the day, the huge whales had duplicate 5*, including one player who had multiple 550s of the same guys.  I think there's maybe one or two active players who fall into this category.

dramatist

I just have one 4* dupe at the moment but I’ll have more in the coming months. I also recently hit 300 roster spots and decided to temporarily not keep duplicates of every 2* and 3* max champs. I’ll probably go back to this process because to me it’s just easier to manage that way and even with the 2000 roster spot cost I’ll have enough HP because I don’t shield in PvP often. 

I’ve been playing for 7 years now and about five months ago I finally max champed 2* Bagman I pretty immediately got another cover and started a dupe but haven’t gotten a 2nd cover since then so I think I’ll probably sell the dupe. It’s weird because I play more PvP now than ever since 5* boosts. I still don’t play as much as most that post here. 

KGB

dramatist said:

I’ve been playing for 7 years now and about five months ago I finally max champed 2* Bagman I pretty immediately got another cover and started a dupe but haven’t gotten a 2nd cover since then so I think I’ll probably sell the dupe. It’s weird because I play more PvP now than ever since 5* boosts. I still don’t play as much as most that post here. 

You'll get a bunch of Bagmans at April Fools when they run the Bagman event. So unless you are going to sell them all then too you might as well keep him rostered.

KGB

Akoni

entrailbucket said:

Akoni said:

@TheEyeDoctorsWife That's a perfectly valid way of playing the game. It's very streamlined and allows you to get what you like out of the game. Low stress, too, in that you don't feel like you're missing out on anything when you miss a PvE or PvP.

@entrailbucket Your roster is lightyears ahead of mine. Unless you take a 5 year hiatus, I doubt I'll catch up to you. The strategy of hoarding for LL worked for me, but earlier this year, I switched back over to using my cp for classics. I get so many more 4* covers and shards for the cp.

@qandols I will roster my 4* dups, not just because of my farm, but as mentioned by others, it saves health packs and allows me to use the same teams to save time. Even though we have saved teams, it takes time to figure out the best team to use. In PvP when you're pushing for points to shield before retals, time is of the essence. In addition, 4* favorites like Polaris and Karnak are squishy so having a second on hand is a good idea. Lastly, some characters have multiple builds that work for them. You might want a 3/5/5 for one team and a 5/3/5 for another team. Dups make that possible without the hassle of adjusting between teams.

By now there are certainly many with a 4* farm, but are there any players with maxed 5* working on dups? I've seen multiple Okoye and Apocs, but those players were specifically targeting them. Who's working on their second Wasp or Banner?

I have a 550 OML and a second one at 465.

I also have a 550 Surfer and a dupe at 270.

These things are really quite shameful.  I'll probably end up with a Phoenix dupe very soon because RNG hates me.


Way back in the day, the huge whales had duplicate 5*, including one player who had multiple 550s of the same guys.  I think there's maybe one or two active players who fall into this category.

How did I overlook the second OML? Oh well, if they ever introduce 6*, the handful of players with multiple 5s might get a wonderful surprise.

Aweberman

When I was playing CL9 competitively (a couple years ago), I rostered all the 2* at 144 and then worked on a second one for farming.  (This helped with the Thanos bombing in the 2* essential nodes.) Once CL10 opened up, I sold off the maxed 2*.  (I then got HP positive and ran dupes again, then hit 300 roster slots and cut them again.  Most recently I'm not even keeping my favorite 2* team of OBW/Wolvie/Storm with 144s because I'm just tired of playing DDQ.)

For playing PVP competitively, rostering all the 3* at 266 and farming a second seemed valuable for not having a total pushover for the third in PVP.  (Note that I have been in the 5* meta since Gambit's release, so, four years.)  I hit 300 roster slots back in the spring.  Around that time it seemed like we were having almost exclusively 4* PVP events; between that and 5* boosts, I sold off most of my 266s.  (It turns out that we weren't, in fact, done with 3* events, but I haven't really noticed much of an effect.)  I only intend to retain a few that are particularly useful for certain things, like IM40 for a battery, Kamala for Puzzle Gauntlet, Thanos for PVP seeds, and Wolverine for Kaecilius.

My first dupe 4* champ (Carol) came almost exactly two years ago, in November 2019.  She was first by a lot, but I now have 41.  I wouldn't dream of selling off 4* covers, since the dupe generates a constant drip of CP and occasional LT.  I also wouldn't sell off the 370 because ... well, it's just fun to play with 370s.

Tony_Foot

TheEyeDoctorsWife said:

The so called reward factory is extremely overrated by collectionist farm boys . You can win and place top 100 with little effort , I’m satisfied with that level of play .

So called reward factory? Collectionist farm boys? 

You love throwing barbs at people who don't agree with you way of thinking. It's quite simple, if you are not farming 3/4* you are missing out on a huge amount of free awards. I don't play at anything like a high level but still wouldn't turn my nose up at an extremely quick method for me to either hoard to 300 or as others do keep pulling and make sure they champ them all. Such a high percentage of my LT's and CP comes from champion rewards and so very little comes from placement. Yet I'm sitting on over 1200 pulls available. It's very short sighted to dismiss that farm as over rated.

ThaRoadWarrior

That's kind of where I was headed. There is nothing "so-called" about it - if you aren't applying champ levels you are throwing away resources in favor of little slugs of iso-8. Like what are you doing with the stuff you win if not earning covers/applying covers? Just throwing them away for iso? I just have 1 of everyone on roster, and I just apply covers as I get them...it's basically 0 effort, so that's why I was curious why there was such depth of feeling about not doing that?

entrailbucket

At the highest levels of the game you'll meet a lot of players who view the "playing the game" part of the game as an unpleasant and/or inconvenient obstacle to earning rewards and roster building.  There's not too many of those around this forum these days, but you'll find lots if you go other places.

I have never met anyone at any level who was the opposite -- who played the game only because they loved the core gameplay loop and had zero interest in rewards or advancing their roster in any way.  I suppose it's theoretically possible.

ThaRoadWarrior

I sometimes wonder if there isn’t a bit of “The Fox and the Grapes” going on with some of this stuff. Like “it’s out of reach, so I bet it tastes bad anyway” type of thinking. The game makes you grind so hard, for so long, to get a “complete” roster, and there is really nothing you can actively do to get there meaningfully faster than putting in the time. “Farming” as a term kind of implies there is some redundant rostering going on or something, but it doesn’t have to mean that. It just means applying and collecting champ rewards, then starting the character over (or not) when they hit maximum. The game rewards playing that way to such a complete degree that I would say if you aren’t working towards a complete roster you really are doing it wrong. You can take farming to a crazy level and roster dupes at all tiers if you want, but you don’t need to by any means.

I know there is some advice from the old days that said you must champ everyone at every tier before moving up, and that can feel like people trying to hold you back or gatekeeper you from higher tier play to a certain type of personality. I didn’t like hearing that, so I set out to build my roster back to front as I mentioned in a previous post. Ultimately after I got my 2s and 3s all rerostered and champed and I realized that having the patience to play that way probably would have gotten me further faster, but I eventually got there.

Bad

Right now I'm playing pve competitively. I got t11 on the previous one. Only 300 points and I didn't was t10!
However I don't like it so much. I have more rewards but I clear it too fast and after that I have nothing to play.
This unestable iso 8 gives SC shards and I will do it again, but after that I will play like I always did, possibly (with a 70% probability).

Sekilicious

ThaRoadWarrior said:

I know there is some advice from the old days that said you must champ everyone at every tier before moving up, and that can feel like people trying to hold you back or gatekeeper you from higher tier play to a certain type of personality. I didn’t like hearing that, so I set out to build my roster back to front as I mentioned in a previous post. Ultimately after I got my 2s and 3s all rerostered and champed and I realized that having the patience to play that way probably would have gotten me further faster, but I eventually got there.

I wonder if it is still considered optimal to champ all 4*s before moving to the 5* tier. It probably is from a rewards standpoint. Maybe I will pull exclusively from LL once Gamora enters to see if I can champ them going forward without having half champed though with ~70% fully covered and waiting iso.