Thoughts after Restarting: Day 30

bbigler

I wanted to share my thoughts on the game after coming back and restarting my roster.  There's the good, the bad and the ugly.  Perhaps some of you can relate to this and I hope D3 is listening. 

I've been playing this game the way that D3 wants me to play it, by spending money on their starter packages, VIP and maybe a few other offers.  I've been dedicated to playing all events the best that I can (within reason).  This has rained down covers upon me, which requires a ton of roster slots.  So, being hungry for HP, I made some purchases totaling $185 so far.  But I want everyone to know that a few purchases alone will not boost you to a strong roster, that requires dedicated play.  First, here's the status of what I have after 30 days:

Rank 48, Slots 74

2*Tier: 11 Champed (need ISO to champ the other 2)

3*Tier: 9 Champed (need ISO to champ 5 more)

4*Tier: 14 rostered with Polaris at 1/4/3

5*Tier: 2 rostered with Shang Chi at 0/1/2 level 300 and Ultron at 2/1/1 at level 300

Supports: Taskmaster's Sword at 82/150, Wasp Gauntlets at 80/100, plus others

Vine: 29 covers, 27 characters to roster!, most of them 4*s

Play: PVE SCL 8, PVP SCL 7

The GOOD:

I've progressed much faster than the last time I restarted, I'm roughly 2 weeks ahead.  Shards have been awesome!  I also like the quests, but some of them are hard and don't reward very well.  My supports are slowly growing, but they're not useless.  The 2* tier only mattered for a week, then I switched to 3*s for fighting.  I was able to focus on covering the best 3*s.  Once I started opening LTs and getting 5*s, then my 3*s were sidelined as support characters only.  My 5*s do the main fighting now.  I got lucky opening LTs, because I've only opened 27 and got 9 x 5* covers!  I've also progressed fast through the SCLs.  I joined a good alliance and that helps too.  I focused all 4*shards into Polaris and that's going well.  I also want to say that they've gotten creative with making new kinds of powers for characters.  The only reason I'm playing is to discover all these new powers and combos. 

The BAD:

I'm hungry for ISO and HP.  That's what's holding me back, not covers.  Of course, if I had plenty of ISO and HP, then covers would be holding me back.  The real problem is my vine of 29 covers, which are mostly 4*s, with some 3*s and 5*s.  I could have hoarded those tokens, but then I wouldn't have 5*s and wouldn't be playing SCL 7 & 8.  My only solution to this problem is to either roster just a few and sell the rest, or buy a stark, roster most of them and sell the worst.  I'm guessing this need for HP is a part of the business model. 

The UGLY:

The competition and the dilution!  I wish lightning rounds had SCL levels because I have no chance against 5*champs.  I'm lucky to make top 100.  PVP is filled with Polaris.  She's everywhere!  But it looks like Morbius is the perfect counter to her, but I don't have him, of course.  I've seen some other anti-special tile characters too.  But we need better variety in PVP.  The boost list is supposed to do that.  Soon enough, my Polaris will be usable and she'll join Ultron and Shang in PVP, and then I'm a part of the problem.  When Shang and 3*Thanos were boosted in the Simulator PVE, I was able to clear very very fast, but still didn't make top 10 in SCL 7. 

4* dilution is ridiculous!  115 regular characters, really?  So, if I open 135 LTs, then I should average 1 cover for each 4*, while getting about 6-7 x 5* covers for each Legendary.  These odds make players skip over the 4*tier and just level up their 5*s.  That's what I'm doing and that's what I've seen other players at my level do too.  My point here is that D3's current release schedule is not sustainable.  We've gotten to the point where new players go around the 4* wall and focus on 5*s instead. 

ThaRoadWarrior

bbigler said:

[...] I wish lightning rounds had SCL levels because I have no chance against 5*champs.  [...]

I feel like you know this, but in case some is reading who doesnt, in PVP your SCL doesn't control the level of characters you see from match to match, it only affects who you get put into a placement bracket against. Your MMR should be feeding you winnable matches in your queues. 

KGB

bbigler said:

4* dilution is ridiculous!  115 regular characters, really?  So, if I open 135 LTs, then I should average 1 cover for each 4*, while getting about 6-7 x 5* covers for each Legendary.  These odds make players skip over the 4*tier and just level up their 5*s.  That's what I'm doing and that's what I've seen other players at my level do too.  My point here is that D3's current release schedule is not sustainable.  We've gotten to the point where new players go around the 4* wall and focus on 5*s instead. 

Thanks for the write up. It's very informative and it's useful to know you can progress so fast in just 1 month of heavy play.

I think skipping the 4* tier has been a viable option (only realistic option?) for new players for close to 2 years now (since there were about 80+ characters in the 4* tier). The 4* tier really just exists for champ rewards now other than 3-4 meta characters like Polaris that you can use when progressing from 1* to 5* land. The 5* boost just reinforces this because even having a single 5* boosted by 100 levels is huge for developing rosters.

KGB

P.S. 5* land is going to look very diluted itself in another year or so given the 13 characters a year that get added so that there will shortly be 75+ of them.

ThaRoadWarrior

Are the older 4*s as mis-matched in basic stats and power costs vs the newer ones as the 5* tier is? It's hard to know because the older ones organically grow faster, and unless you're spending into classic legends your 5*s are unlikely to be doing the same thing.

HoundofShadow

Playing LRs is not about having champed 4* or 5* roster, but it's more about psychology. You can get T100 or T50 with a 2* roster without shielding. 

As for 4*, you should be able to champ + fully cover at least 50 4* within a year, given your spending and playstyle. Even if you could fully cover 80 4* in a year, you won't have the iso-8 to champ all of them anyway. They would be sitting at level 70 with those covers and shards piling up.

As for SCL 10, it will take you about 11 months to hit 120 unless you do the selling and rostering of 1*.

Anyway, focus on these four stars and they should be enough to handle 99% of the nodes in SCL 10 and Puzzle Gauntlet.

Polaris, Beast, R4G, Mantis, Karnak, Juggernaut, Shuri, America Chavez, Gamora, Medusa, Blob, Nico Minoru, Rogue, Sabretooth, Throg, Vulture, Domino, Captain Marvel, Spiderman (Infinity War), Valkyrie, Venom (Eddie Brock). 

That's about 20% of the 4* to focus on.

Edit: as for Polaris counter, pair your Polaris with 3* Hawkeye or 3* Hulk in the meantime while you work on Sabretooth, followed by Morbius. You can use 3* Marvel against Polaris to stun her and feed red for someone with a red nuke.

JHawkInc

I've always thought they should break up the 4's into different pools of characters. Maybe have Mighty/Legendary tokens come in two varieties, each version has half the 4's (but you can still get any 4 from normal rewards or Heroics). For a PVP season, PVP gives one type, PVE gives the other, then you alternate. So players pursuing certain characters will be encouraged to play both game modes.

Then, you pick characters you want to pursue, open those tokens, and hoard the other kind. So you can kind of ignore half the 4's by not opening those tokens. It won't be perfect (you'll still get them in event rewards and Heroics and champ rewards, and you'll be passing up some characters to focus on others), but you'll have a bit of control in fighting dilution. So for the sake of roster growth, instead of going through 3's and then 4's and then 5's, it would be like going through the 3's, then 4A, then 4B, then 5's (where you get to pick which group is A and which is B, or just open all tokens and have an experience that isn't really any different from what's already happening).

hothie

I've earned a "Top Fan" badge on the Morbius bandwagon, but in terms of Polaris counters, I still prefer Mantis. Don't get me wrong, I use the **** out of Morbius and love him to death (pun intended).

In the pve 5* nodes, if there are goons, I use Morbius. But if it's tile-movers, I usually opt for Mantis. 

Now, the reasons Morbius is good, but isn't as good as Mantis are these:

1. Mantis stun is just too good. Plus her damaging stunned enemies generally hits hard enough to down enemies quickly. She makes a great counter to R4G/Jugg teams as well, especially if she stuns juggs right away. She can stun early on with enemy special matching (even using her yellow to make an enemy tile just so she can match it right away.) Then as you get into midgame, she can fire green to stun lock an opponent for the rest of the game. That's huge.

2. When many people say Morbius is a Polaris counter, I could be wrong, but I feel like they don't fully understand what that means. Yes, he pulls enemy specials off of the board, everyone gets that. But one of the things that makes Polaris good is her speed. She tends to down enemies quickly with all of her passive powers and special tiles. Countering that means...slowing the game down considerably. That's what Morbius does. By pulling those specials off of the board, now you're relying on match damage and firing powers. So now you're relying on generating AP and making matches, which is where his purple traps come in very handy. Those traps are really about his only offense, besides the damage given for removing specials. So he's really not very offensive, especially once the enemy specials are removed, which he does tend to do fairly quickly. And even though he can heal with his blue, he doesn't hold up well as a one-on-one guy at the end of a match. So if you use Morbius as a Polaris counter, be prepared for a long game. When that realization hit me, it was eye-opening.

bbigler

ThaRoadWarrior said:

bbigler said:

[...] I wish lightning rounds had SCL levels because I have no chance against 5*champs.  [...]

I feel like you know this, but in case some is reading who doesnt, in PVP your SCL doesn't control the level of characters you see from match to match, it only affects who you get put into a placement bracket against. Your MMR should be feeding you winnable matches in your queues. 

The MMR is giving me matches I can win, but the moment I try to climb past 200 in a LR, I get smacked down by 5* champs. That doesn’t happen in regular pvp events. 

bbigler

HoundofShadow said:

…

As for 4*, you should be able to champ + fully cover at least 50 4* within a year, given your spending and playstyle. Even if you could fully cover 80 4* in a year, you won't have the iso-8 to champ all of them anyway. They would be sitting at level 70 with those covers and shards piling up.

As for SCL 10, it will take you about 11 months to hit 120 unless you do the selling and rostering of 1*.

Anyway, focus on these four stars and they should be enough to handle 99% of the nodes in SCL 10 and Puzzle Gauntlet.

Polaris, Beast, R4G, Mantis, Karnak, Juggernaut, Shuri, America Chavez, Gamora, Medusa, Blob, Nico Minoru, Rogue, Sabretooth, Throg, Vulture, Domino, Captain Marvel, Spiderman (Infinity War), Valkyrie, Venom (Eddie Brock). 

That's about 20% of the 4* to focus on.

Edit: as for Polaris counter, pair your Polaris with 3* Hawkeye or 3* Hulk in the meantime while you work on Sabretooth, followed by Morbius. You can use 3* Marvel against Polaris to stun her and feed red for someone with a red nuke.

If the specials start multiplying with Polaris, then I’ve already lost. I want to remove them ASAP, which kills her power. I’m not afraid of her by herself, but paired with R4G and she hurts.  Using 3*Hulk or 3*Marvel to take the damage would end up eating health packs, plus it would make me a pvp target.  Ever since switching to Shang & Ultron, I get attacked less. 

Your 4* list is in line with what I know and have seen, except for Spider-Man IW and Venom Eddie Brock. I don’t like them. Legion looks very interesting though. I still like Ghost. Bishop is still good, right? He used to be everywhere in Shield Sim. I loved the Cardusa combo, which can be supplemented with Polaris now. I never tried out Okoye, but she would pair well with Polaris and Juggernaut. So, I’m focusing my 5*shards on her. I’ve played Gritty before and it was great, but I’m here to see something new. 

The last time I restarted it took me about 9.6 months to hit rank 120. I have no intentions on playing that long this time. I don’t have a set goal to stop playing, just when I feel like it I suppose. I’m curious to see how much I can cover new 5*s without hoarding. I’m also curious to see if I cover new 5*s faster than I cover 4*s. The 4*tier has great variety and could be a fun tier to experiment with, but they pale in comparison to the strength of 5*s. There’s always the boost list though. 

bbigler

hothie said:

I've earned a "Top Fan" badge on the Morbius bandwagon, but in terms of Polaris counters, I still prefer Mantis. Don't get me wrong, I use the **** out of Morbius and love him to death (pun intended).

In the pve 5* nodes, if there are goons, I use Morbius. But if it's tile-movers, I usually opt for Mantis. 

Now, the reasons Morbius is good, but isn't as good as Mantis are these:

1. Mantis stun is just too good. Plus her damaging stunned enemies generally hits hard enough to down enemies quickly. She makes a great counter to R4G/Jugg teams as well, especially if she stuns juggs right away. She can stun early on with enemy special matching (even using her yellow to make an enemy tile just so she can match it right away.) Then as you get into midgame, she can fire green to stun lock an opponent for the rest of the game. That's huge.

2. When many people say Morbius is a Polaris counter, I could be wrong, but I feel like they don't fully understand what that means. Yes, he pulls enemy specials off of the board, everyone gets that. But one of the things that makes Polaris good is her speed. She tends to down enemies quickly with all of her passive powers and special tiles. Countering that means...slowing the game down considerably. That's what Morbius does. By pulling those specials off of the board, now you're relying on match damage and firing powers. So now you're relying on generating AP and making matches, which is where his purple traps come in very handy. Those traps are really about his only offense, besides the damage given for removing specials. So he's really not very offensive, especially once the enemy specials are removed, which he does tend to do fairly quickly. And even though he can heal with his blue, he doesn't hold up well as a one-on-one guy at the end of a match. So if you use Morbius as a Polaris counter, be prepared for a long game. When that realization hit me, it was eye-opening.

Thanks for the analysis, but I must say that Morbius wouldn’t be fighting alone. He would be the defense while I use someone else for offense, like Shang. He can quickly dispatch anyone. Plus, they both have a true heal. I wouldn’t use Morbius’ trap tiles, traps are never reliable, but Shang loves purple. 

Mantis is certainly good, but someone is taking damage while the stun lock is setup. I wish her passive stun wasn’t random. Sabretooth could work, but his tile destruction is also random.  Bishop could take the hits and then stun Polaris immediately. Dazzler could even passively remove specials and stun if paired with R4G. 

ThaRoadWarrior

Bishop and WCap got nerfed awhile back, they are basically unusable now.

HoundofShadow

Hawkeye gives you 2 blue aps per special tile matched. If you want, you could always start with +2 blue aps, match two enemy special tile and you will have 7 blue aps to stun enemy Polaris. Putting Hulk with Polaris against Polaris/R4G gives you Hulk Bombing. The point is to have multiple options on hand to deal with Polaris since she will be really common.

Bishop is still good. Try pairing him with Polaris and BRB. Don't match blue if possible and keep matching protect tiles.

The reason Venom and Spiderman IW were chosen is because SMIW will make clearing one or two of the Puzzle Gauntlet nodes easier. I think Eddie Brock would also help in one of those nodes but I can't remember which node that is.

With 5* shards from milestone rewards, you should be able to champ 1 5* provided you focus on one, like classic 5*+feeder+shards or latest+ milestonenshards+ 2000 to 2250 scl 10 5* shards. Check out the milestone reward thread if you haven't. 

Akoni

bbigler said:

hothie said:

I've earned a "Top Fan" badge on the Morbius bandwagon, but in terms of Polaris counters, I still prefer Mantis. Don't get me wrong, I use the **** out of Morbius and love him to death (pun intended).

In the pve 5* nodes, if there are goons, I use Morbius. But if it's tile-movers, I usually opt for Mantis. 

Now, the reasons Morbius is good, but isn't as good as Mantis are these:

1. Mantis stun is just too good. Plus her damaging stunned enemies generally hits hard enough to down enemies quickly. She makes a great counter to R4G/Jugg teams as well, especially if she stuns juggs right away. She can stun early on with enemy special matching (even using her yellow to make an enemy tile just so she can match it right away.) Then as you get into midgame, she can fire green to stun lock an opponent for the rest of the game. That's huge.

2. When many people say Morbius is a Polaris counter, I could be wrong, but I feel like they don't fully understand what that means. Yes, he pulls enemy specials off of the board, everyone gets that. But one of the things that makes Polaris good is her speed. She tends to down enemies quickly with all of her passive powers and special tiles. Countering that means...slowing the game down considerably. That's what Morbius does. By pulling those specials off of the board, now you're relying on match damage and firing powers. So now you're relying on generating AP and making matches, which is where his purple traps come in very handy. Those traps are really about his only offense, besides the damage given for removing specials. So he's really not very offensive, especially once the enemy specials are removed, which he does tend to do fairly quickly. And even though he can heal with his blue, he doesn't hold up well as a one-on-one guy at the end of a match. So if you use Morbius as a Polaris counter, be prepared for a long game. When that realization hit me, it was eye-opening.

Thanks for the analysis, but I must say that Morbius wouldn’t be fighting alone. He would be the defense while I use someone else for offense, like Shang. He can quickly dispatch anyone. Plus, they both have a true heal. I wouldn’t use Morbius’ trap tiles, traps are never reliable, but Shang loves purple. 

Mantis is certainly good, but someone is taking damage while the stun lock is setup. I wish her passive stun wasn’t random. Sabretooth could work, but his tile destruction is also random.  Bishop could take the hits and then stun Polaris immediately. Dazzler could even passively remove specials and stun if paired with R4G. 

Mobius won't be able to defend Shang-Chi since Shang's attack points are greater and climb higher as he racks up combo points. As a result, Mobius will be in the back most of the time.

TheEyeDoctorsWife

I’ve played 34 months . It took 24 to reach tier 5 metas. Yes I skipped 2/3 of the 4* tier because I play the game to win not to collect nor compete with others . I just champed my 8th 5*, 5 are the metas that are the only ones used in PvP by over 95% of players . My expenses are the VIP monthly that’s it (mostly free with cash back incentives in the real world ) so $20/ yr.
  I can beat 88% of CNs in SCL 10 and finish top 100 without having to have my daily life schedule run by a video game (I personally would have killed myself long before 8 years if that was the case ). So in short , the game can be an enjoyable distraction at almost zero cost if you play the game for what it was meant to be. 

bbigler

ThaRoadWarrior said:

Bishop and WCap got nerfed awhile back, they are basically unusable now.

Thanks goodness! I hated fighting with or against Bishop back then. Who’s WCap?

bbigler

Akoni said:

Mobius won't be able to defend Shang-Chi since Shang's attack points are greater and climb higher as he racks up combo points. As a result, Mobius will be in the back most of the time.

Oh, I didn’t mean that. Morbius defends against the special tiles while Shang hits hard. Shang almost always tanks, so it’s a good thing he has a true heal 

Edit: but reducing special tile damage does help Shang. 

bbigler

TheEyeDoctorsWife said:

I’ve played 34 months . It took 24 to reach tier 5 metas. Yes I skipped 2/3 of the 4* tier because I play the game to win not to collect nor compete with others . I just champed my 8th 5*, 5 are the metas that are the only ones used in PvP by over 95% of players . My expenses are the VIP monthly that’s it (mostly free with cash back incentives in the real world ) so $20/ yr.
  I can beat 88% of CNs in SCL 10 and finish top 100 without having to have my daily life schedule run by a video game (I personally would have killed myself long before 8 years if that was the case ). So in short , the game can be an enjoyable distraction at almost zero cost if you play the game for what it was meant to be. 

Thanks for sharing. I must say that 2 yrs is a long time to reach the top. My style has always been all or nothing. It’s hard for me to be happy doing less than my best. Nevertheless, I’m trying to scale that back so that this game doesn’t ruin my life

MoosePrime

bbigler said:

ThaRoadWarrior said:

Bishop and WCap got nerfed awhile back, they are basically unusable now.

Thanks goodness! I hated fighting with or against Bishop back then. Who’s WCap?

4* Captain America (Worthy)

He had a similar jump in front as Bishop, but his would drop a bunch of countdowns.  With 5* Hawkeye it would give a bunch of blue and red AP (and slow down the match waiting for the countdowns to resolve).

Now he still jumps in front (but on a match-4+), but only drops one countdown, with a longer timer.

ThaRoadWarrior

https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/83407/character-updates-september-2020

If you're interested.