More 5* help please

bbigler

It doesn’t take long to produce surplus HP - meaning you’re making more HP per week than you need for slots & shields.  

It takes a very, very long time to produce surplus ISO though, solely because of the  4* tier.  

Contrary to some of the above advice, I don’t recommend softcapping 5*s UNLESS they are really bad AND it would change your MMR.  Otherwise, level them up as much as you can, they can always be useful during their boost week.  

Timemachinego

bbigler said:

Contrary to some of the above advice, I don’t recommend softcapping 5*s UNLESS they are really bad AND it would change your MMR.  Otherwise, level them up as much as you can, they can always be useful during their boost week.  

Leveling 5s that have more than a couple covers basically always means you're changing MMR though, that's kind of the catch. From what I can tell currently it's based on your top 4 (yes, 4... not 3 or 5!) average characters. If you take that past 370 you are fully reliant on bringing at least 1 5 to the dance, taking a pair of 4s there is just asking to get smacked around.

 If you want the most diverse roster options for play, 300-370 is the absolute sweet spot where your champed 4s and capped 5s can all play together and have a great time. I live there, score competitively and get to play any teams built from 170? characters that sound like they might be fun instead of having to lean on the one or two "big" characters I've managed to scrape together.

HoundofShadow

Where did you get the info that mmr is based on your top 4 characters?

Timemachinego

I did the math on received champ4 TUs. It may not be correct any longer, but public opinion was that non-boosted levels on those were also your MMR. Findings do hold true with all other accepted notions, PPV opponents I can see are all within the same range until I break (mid-champ 4), then they go the next tier (max 4, pre-5 champ)

Warbringa

I think the following general advice for roster leveling of 4* to 5* transition rosters still holds. 

If you mainly play PvE, level everything up as higher characters means easier battles and potentially allow you to move up in SCL.  There is no benefit to soft-capping for PvE.  

If you play PvP a lot, consider soft-capping if you don't have a handful of good 5* to champ, otherwise you will find 5* PvP more cumbersome and less enjoyable than 4* PvP was since you will always need to use your 5* and if they aren't fairly decent 5*, you are at a huge disadvantage.  

bbigler

Warbringa said:

I think the following general advice for roster leveling of 4* to 5* transition rosters still holds. 

If you mainly play PvE, level everything up as higher characters means easier battles and potentially allow you to move up in SCL.  There is no benefit to soft-capping for PvE.  

If you play PvP a lot, consider soft-capping if you don't have a handful of good 5* to champ, otherwise you will find 5* PvP more cumbersome and less enjoyable than 4* PvP was since you will always need to use your 5* and if they aren't fairly decent 5*, you are at a huge disadvantage.  

What about people that play both PVE and PVP a lot?  

bbigler

Timemachinego said:

bbigler said:

Contrary to some of the above advice, I don’t recommend softcapping 5*s UNLESS they are really bad AND it would change your MMR.  Otherwise, level them up as much as you can, they can always be useful during their boost week.  

Leveling 5s that have more than a couple covers basically always means you're changing MMR though, that's kind of the catch. From what I can tell currently it's based on your top 4 (yes, 4... not 3 or 5!) average characters. If you take that past 370 you are fully reliant on bringing at least 1 5 to the dance, taking a pair of 4s there is just asking to get smacked around.

 If you want the most diverse roster options for play, 300-370 is the absolute sweet spot where your champed 4s and capped 5s can all play together and have a great time. I live there, score competitively and get to play any teams built from 170? characters that sound like they might be fun instead of having to lean on the one or two "big" characters I've managed to scrape together.

It won’t change your MMR if you already have several other characters at that same level or higher.  

The diversity you mentioned in PVP is great, but it hurts your PVE performance.  Most competitive players does both I’ve seen and I believe most players choose performance over diversity.  PVE has better rewards than PVP, SCL 10 has significantly better rewards than 9, and reducing your grind time in PVE is a quality of life improvement.  For those reasons, I recommend leveling up your 5*s higher than your 4*s.  

Because of the weekly boosts, there’s still diversity in what your best team is.  

HoundofShadow

As for pve and pvp players, generally, it's covering 2-3 metas and champing them simultaneously or you could champ one to test the ground before moving to champ the second and third. Or simply cap them at 360. As for placements, 4* metas can do T5-T10 in SCL 9. 

Yepyep

bbigler said:

Timemachinego said:

bbigler said:

Contrary to some of the above advice, I don’t recommend softcapping 5*s UNLESS they are really bad AND it would change your MMR.  Otherwise, level them up as much as you can, they can always be useful during their boost week.  

Leveling 5s that have more than a couple covers basically always means you're changing MMR though, that's kind of the catch. From what I can tell currently it's based on your top 4 (yes, 4... not 3 or 5!) average characters. If you take that past 370 you are fully reliant on bringing at least 1 5 to the dance, taking a pair of 4s there is just asking to get smacked around.

 If you want the most diverse roster options for play, 300-370 is the absolute sweet spot where your champed 4s and capped 5s can all play together and have a great time. I live there, score competitively and get to play any teams built from 170? characters that sound like they might be fun instead of having to lean on the one or two "big" characters I've managed to scrape together.

It won’t change your MMR if you already have several other characters at that same level or higher.  

The diversity you mentioned in PVP is great, but it hurts your PVE performance.  Most competitive players does both I’ve seen and I believe most players choose performance over diversity.  PVE has better rewards than PVP, SCL 10 has significantly better rewards than 9, and reducing your grind time in PVE is a quality of life improvement.  For those reasons, I recommend leveling up your 5*s higher than your 4*s.  

Because of the weekly boosts, there’s still diversity in what your best team is.  

Wait... You are stating that you get it both ways -- performance AND diversity. But you don't get it both ways. You need to choose: performance, meaning hoarding and no real team growth for months or years but then growth manifesting in a pop as 2-3 explosively powerful characters. Or you choose diversity where growth is steady over time, but you won't get level 500 characters, perhaps ever.

In my opinion, given that there is a stable of ~6 truly meta characters in place that you cannot possibly champ in less than, like, 5+ years (unless you spend truly astronomical amount of money on the game; tens of thousands of $US, probably) the only option to newer players is the long, steady build of "every" character. Because slowly, surely you get a team of champs that will get you a boosted character or two EVERY week. And that makes all the difference in the world in placement and balancing real life with this gamecult.

Both hoarding for metas and champing all are worthwhile approaches if you commit to one or the other. But you don't get both unless you bring your private jet to MPQ.

bbigler

@Yepyep It doesn’t take years or thousands of dollars to champ meta 5*s.  You also don’t need to hoard to champ meta 5*s.  And you can have diversity in 5* play.  They release great meta 5*s every year, so a new player can steadily collect the Latest 5*s and champ them.  Don’t get caught up in the mindset that you have to get the Classic 5* metas to compete.  This is basically what I’m proving with my new roster.  

You simply collect & champ the Latest 5*s without hoarding and steadily build your 4* and 5* roster.  Within 6 months a new player can be getting SCL 10 rewards with 2 - 3 Latest 5* champs, with upper 3* champ rewards and a dozen or more 4* champs.  This growth steadily continues with more 4* and 5* champs and better rewards, which leads to such a high production rate of LTs and CP that you can start saving some CP for Classic 5* meta stores.  During this build up, you get more and more playable options from the weekly boosts, thus more diversity as time goes on.  

The devs have shown repeatedly that they will release new meta 5*s every year, so don’t think that you have to get the Classic metas to play the game.  Now if someone wants to soft cap their 5*s, that’s their choice, but this choice is not between softcapping or waiting years to enter 5* play.  New players can enter 5* play quickly and steadily build their roster while enjoying diversity as well.  Hoarding to enter 5* play is not necessary unless you’re a casual player.  

Yepyep

bbigler said:

@Yepyep It doesn’t take years or thousands of dollars to champ meta 5*s.  You also don’t need to hoard to champ meta 5*s.  And you can have diversity in 5* play.  They release great meta 5*s every year, so a new player can steadily collect the Latest 5*s and champ them.  Don’t get caught up in the mindset that you have to get the Classic 5* metas to compete.  This is basically what I’m proving with my new roster.  

You simply collect & champ the Latest 5*s without hoarding and steadily build your 4* and 5* roster.  Within 6 months a new player can be getting SCL 10 rewards with 2 - 3 Latest 5* champs, with upper 3* champ rewards and a dozen or more 4* champs.  This growth steadily continues with more 4* and 5* champs and better rewards, which leads to such a high production rate of LTs and CP that you can start saving some CP for Classic 5* meta stores.  During this build up, you get more and more playable options from the weekly boosts, thus more diversity as time goes on.  

The devs have shown repeatedly that they will release new meta 5*s every year, so don’t think that you have to get the Classic metas to play the game.  Now if someone wants to soft cap their 5*s, that’s their choice, but this choice is not between softcapping or waiting years to enter 5* play.  New players can enter 5* play quickly and steadily build their roster while enjoying diversity as well.  Hoarding to enter 5* play is not necessary unless you’re a casual player.  

I obviously agree that one can build a roster and champ new-release 5s. (What I said above is accurate as to champing the core meta chars, Apoc, Kitty, Okoye, BRB, 5witch, Colossus, Shang-Chi, and iHulk -- it will take years and/or money.) But I don't believe a new player today can be competing in SCL10 with a viable 5* roster in less than "years" without putting out big money. It simply cannot be done. You have to build out your 2* then 3* rosters for sure, then a fairly significant 4* roster just to get shards to cover 5s. You cannot compete in SCL10 PvE events without a powerful roster that takes years to build; you'll be slogging away in SCL 6, 7, 8, 9 for a long, long time before you can even get into SCL10. There are only so many events in a year and efficient play and smart building tactics will only get you so far.

But it's all good. It's a pointless argument and I didn't intend to provoke one; sorry about that. Cheers!

bbigler

@Yepyep I would love to play SCL 10 with my new roster, it could certainly handle it right now, but I’m currently at rank 99 and have to wait.  I’m projecting to hit rank 120 in 10 weeks, which is around 7 months in.  At that time, I should have 3 x 5* champs, around 17 x 4* champs, with my 3*champs in the upper levels.  That’s at 7 months, not years of play.  It can be done.  I know you disagree, and that’s fine.  I’ll continue to post my progress, but keep in mind that new meta level 5*s are coming.  It happens every year.  And new players can compete with these new 5*s.