Next steps? Moving from 3* to 4*

JasonLikesToTravel

Feel free to move this if better placed elsewhere but this seems to be the most active part of the forum and seemingly the best place to ask for advice. 

I've mostly been reading the forum to date, adopting various tips from the more experienced players here but having hit a nice little milestone last night I thought it was time to think about my next steps and perhaps adapting some of the things I've been doing to date.

A little context: I'm at day 179 and a 'free-to-play' player, I'm not looking to spend at the moment so my progress is going to be a little slower than some of you but I added Angel to my roster last night which was the last of the 3*s needed to have them all - 38 champed, the other 9 awaiting the necessary covers. 

To date I've been doing things that seem to be largely advised against so a few questions for my next steps?

Firstly.. where do I go next? Particularly as a free-to-play player, my HP's are limited to those earned through placement and progression in events. Where should I be focusing my limited roster spots when they become available? 4's / 5's? My up to date roster is linked below for an idea of who I have rostered already.
Having a few 5's has helped with PVP and PVE (Shang Chi in particular!) but I've largely been ignoring the 4* tier whilst waiting to get my 3's all rostered. I have no idea where to focus my attention next. 

Favourites? I've generally taken a scattergun approach thus far, so haven't had any favourites and certainly at 3* level my roster has been leveling at a similar pace. I'm content to stick with this method for 3's but am I missing out by not having favourites for 4's and 5's? 

Best practice for tokens and CP's? Again somewhat considered a 'rookie mistake' but I've generally been opening tokens as and when I receive them and I've spent some CP's on vaults and leveling 3's to get them champed.. However now that my roster is looking a bit stronger, I'm wondering if I should be hoarding tokens and using the CP's more effectively? Upsides / downsides? 

Any other tips as I move in to the land of 4* ? Thanks for the help!

MPQ Gamependium - JasonLikesToTravel's Roster

sambrookjm

Does "Focus on Polaris and Rocket and Groot" sound too pithy?  Because honestly, that's probably the main thing you'll want to do.  Polaris will definitely help you punch above your weight class, as her cascades can cause major chaos.  Combine with Rocket and Groot for strike tiles all over the place at the start of the game.

For the third, you can add 4-star Gamora into the mix, so your stuns produce special tiles and you'll occasionally get a "Whoops! All purple tiles are my specials...you're dead!" kill.  4-star Juggernaut will let you damage everybody with the colors he tanks, and with a couple dozen strike tiles out it shouldn't be too long before the other team melts away.

Srheer0

I would advise you to favourite 3 - Rocket and groot, 4 - Polaris, 5 - Shang Chi.

Don't put ISO8 into your 5s. It's a noob trap.  Wait until your 4s catch up.  

On my 2nd account I tried to do as little spending as possible and stay in 4star land. I use Polaris and R4g (rocket and groot 4star) in practically every pvp event. They are very quick and have good scaling damage and a cheap stun.  

I don't have time for PVE, but if you can manage pve at level 8 or higher, then you can get 4star covers at a good rate through pve. 

Don't waste CPs on getting missing 3star covers. It's a waste of CP. You could spend 20 or 25 CP and get a random 4 or 5star cover from classics or latest legends. 

If you manage to save up 270-330 pulls in latest legends you can almost certainly get 13 covers of each character in it. So that can be a goal if you are feeling up to it. 6750-8250 CP cost. Sounds like a lot, but you'd be surprised how many CP you can get in a month, especially  once you get some 4s championed and leveled beyond.

As for tokens, pull as many standard as you want.
Elite, Heroic and Mighty, only pull when you have enough HP to roster someone new.

Latest Legends, Save them.

"and friends" tokens, use them.  

Daily Tacos - it's up to you. Both the pull as you earn, or save until you have 300 can work. Pulling as you earn is probably more effective for you because you can use the HPs you might get, and you aren't very likely to hit the 4stars. More likely for 2star covers and health packs and iso8 rewards.

Spicy Tacos - Save up 40 and use them when a cover you really need is in the shop. Check daily.

PVE event tokens, probably just pull them as you get them.

Boss event tokens, not much point in saving them.

Think that's everything. Get polaris at 13 covers, then Rocket and Groot at 13 covers and then you can look for other characters like Blob, Juggernaut, mantis etc.

Godzillafan67

Congrats on your steadfast progress! You've employed the proper restraint and discipline... I wish that I had only opened tokens when I had the HP to roster a new character.

The only items I would add:

Though very puzzley, I completed most SCL7 nodes with 3* Wolverine, 2* Magneto, and 2* Black Widow. SCL7 became a breeze for me once I had rostered 4* Juggernaut, 4* Rocket & Groot, and 4* Polaris.

You earn whale points once a day when you play 3* Deadpool. (If Deadpool doesn't give you any points, then you've earned the maximum number of whale points.) Similarly, you can get an extra spicy taco token daily when you play 5* Deadpool.

ThaRoadWarrior

I would suggest at this stage of play, consider adding a "flex slot" to your roster where you roster and sell whoever is required that event. If you're doing well enough on PVE that you get a cover for whoever you need next event from placement then you can roster and sell them until such time as you have enough HP to just keep them, and then open a new flex slot. This will allow you to at least get one of everyone on roster eventually. Meanwhile, I agree that juggernaut, rocket, and polaris should be your primary focus at the 4* tier. Once you have those three, the rest are just reward factories for the most part. At the 5* tier I would definitely try and finish Shang-Chi, he strikes me as the "best" solo 5* with which to transition at this point. He plays down with 4* Valkyrie, Professor X, Karnak, and America Chavez quite well, so those would likely be good characters to add if you don't already have them. I would say Valkyrie first, then the others in whatever order.

bbigler

I think you’re doing well so far except for spending CP to get 3* covers.  You should use CP for Latest right now.  Here’s my advice (which differs from some of the other posts):  

Top tier characters let you hit above your weight class in both PVE and PVP.  I see that you leveled Shang to 285 being 0/1/1, that was a good decision.  You should use him often since he hits very hard.  A Shang team of 3*Scarlet Witch & 3*Cyclops could do some major damage.  Shang takes some practice, but he’s a wrecking machine even at low levels.  

I also see that you have Ikaris fully covered, that’s awesome, he’s another good 4* that hits hard and can play well with your low level Shang.  Ikaris can use Red to keep himself Airborne and hitting every turn (collect yellow to boost his match dmg), while Shang uses purple for kill shots.  So, I would recommend champing Ikaris.  

Remember that you should spend your ISO first on your main fighters / teams and then second on your champ farms.

As for shard targets, use 3* shards to finish your 3*s.  Use 4* Shards on Polaris alone until she’s champed.  She’s like Shang and hits well above her weight class.  She can be paired with 3*Daken & your Shang.  Matching red strikes is both good for Polaris & Shang.  But when you enter 4* PVP you’ll need Morbius to stop all the Polaris teams out there.  Polaris vs Polaris is a **** show.  

As for 5* shards, focus on Shang for now and try to get a red cover.  Even a 1/1/1 Shang is very useful.  How are your milestones?  Particularly the milestone for collecting 5* covers?….they reward a ton of 5* shards that you can use to build Shang.  So, I would recommend to keep opening Latest with tokens and CP to get those 5* covers.  This helps with playing PVE and getting those 5* shards.  The stronger Shang gets, the stronger you get.  

Hoarding is not advisable right now since your trying to enter 4* play.  Your biggest constraint are roster slots, so you’ll have to sell 4* covers as you slowly build up more slots.  But apply the 4* cover first in a flex spot in order to help complete the 4* cover milestone which rewards 4* shards to build Polaris.  

Since you’re not spending, roster spots are limited, so your champ farms will be limited too.  Focus on building your main fighting teams first while slowly build the champ farms on the side.  This includes the use of ISO and HP.  If you’re not going to fight daily with a certain 4* or 5*, then don’t spend ISO on them until the 3* champ farm is complete. Otherwise, it makes you stronger to level up 4*s and 5*s that you use everyday.  

fractalvisions

Congratulations on your progress so far! Looks like you have some good advice so far, although some I would disagree with so here are my thoughts.

CP: as the others say, this should really be saved for legendary stores and not spent on covers. Personally, I would not recommend spending on latest legends (that's what the latest legends tokens are for). It's much better to save it for special stores with 2 or 3 really good characters, particularly ones that have Apocalypse or Shang-Chi as these are your best characters. Apocalypse has a tendency to regularly show up in fan favourites stores and these stores are also excellent because they also give you a good chance of getting more of the meta 4*s. Don't worry about saving until you have 6000+ CP. Even a few covers of the best characters are helpful.

Tokens: Similarly, with latest legends, don't worry about saving up a huge hoard, but I would suggest getting a hoard of at least ~70 so that you stand a reasonable chance of at least getting three covers for each - I used to open each token as I got it but realised how useless single cover 5* can feel. I'd also suggest trying to build up a hoard of 3000HP before opening any to make sure that you can at least roster the 5*. You may also want to stockpile Mighty tokens until you have enough HP to roster any new 4*. I'd be less concerned about opening Elites and Heroics though. Don't worry too much about occasionally wasting some 4* covers. You won't use most of them anyway.

ISO-8 on 5*: Someone's already advised you to not put ISO-8 on your 5*s, but it looks like it's too late for that. Don't worry though, I did something similar and it's really not that big a deal, particularly when the characters are really good ones. Still, I wouldn't put much more on them. It looks like Gamora is your highest at lvl300, so I'd suggest not levelling any above 300 at least until you have the best 4*s champed. At that point, whether you want to continue champing 4*s or start levelling 5*s is your choice, but it'll take quite some time to get there.

Favourites: I'd just go with bbigler's advice on this.

DAZ0273

I was going to add some advice but really everybody else has already done great stuff and me saying Shang Chi blah blah doesn't help at all. So I thought I would help with some snack advice and most specifically snack advice from the popular show Friends cookie range.

Now, I appreciate you might want to level up on Joey's orange cookies but honestly Rachel's red velvet should be your centrepiece.  Now I would pair that with Phoebe's lemon and white chocolate and then for great synergy bring in Ross short bread. That should handle your snack clearance level to 8. Oh and do NOT level Monica's chocolate chip - you will not be ready for that.

Good luck matey!

P.S. Polaris

shardwick

Srheer0 said:

As for tokens, pull as many standard as you want.
Elite, Heroic and Mighty, only pull when you have enough HP to roster someone new.

He can pull elites since they only give 2s and 3s and he has all of his 3s rostered.

JasonLikesToTravel

sambrookjm said:

Does "Focus on Polaris and Rocket and Groot" sound too pithy?  Because honestly, that's probably the main thing you'll want to do.  Polaris will definitely help you punch above your weight class, as her cascades can cause major chaos.  Combine with Rocket and Groot for strike tiles all over the place at the start of the game.

For the third, you can add 4-star Gamora into the mix, so your stuns produce special tiles and you'll occasionally get a "Whoops! All purple tiles are my specials...you're dead!" kill.  4-star Juggernaut will let you damage everybody with the colors he tanks, and with a couple dozen strike tiles out it shouldn't be too long before the other team melts away.

Thank you. I'll add all of those to my list to prioritise!

Srheer0 said:

I would advise you to favourite 3 - Rocket and groot, 4 - Polaris, 5 - Shang Chi.

Don't put ISO8 into your 5s. It's a noob trap.  Wait until your 4s catch up.  

On my 2nd account I tried to do as little spending as possible and stay in 4star land. I use Polaris and R4g (rocket and groot 4star) in practically every pvp event. They are very quick and have good scaling damage and a cheap stun.  

I don't have time for PVE, but if you can manage pve at level 8 or higher, then you can get 4star covers at a good rate through pve. 

Don't waste CPs on getting missing 3star covers. It's a waste of CP. You could spend 20 or 25 CP and get a random 4 or 5star cover from classics or latest legends. 

If you manage to save up 270-330 pulls in latest legends you can almost certainly get 13 covers of each character in it. So that can be a goal if you are feeling up to it. 6750-8250 CP cost. Sounds like a lot, but you'd be surprised how many CP you can get in a month, especially  once you get some 4s championed and leveled beyond.

As for tokens, pull as many standard as you want.
Elite, Heroic and Mighty, only pull when you have enough HP to roster someone new.

Latest Legends, Save them.

"and friends" tokens, use them.  

Daily Tacos - it's up to you. Both the pull as you earn, or save until you have 300 can work. Pulling as you earn is probably more effective for you because you can use the HPs you might get, and you aren't very likely to hit the 4stars. More likely for 2star covers and health packs and iso8 rewards.

Spicy Tacos - Save up 40 and use them when a cover you really need is in the shop. Check daily.

PVE event tokens, probably just pull them as you get them.

Boss event tokens, not much point in saving them.

Think that's everything. Get polaris at 13 covers, then Rocket and Groot at 13 covers and then you can look for other characters like Blob, Juggernaut, mantis etc.

Thank you, appreciate all of the advice! Definitely looking to move up on the PVE SCL now that I have all of the 3's covered. I only recently thought to save up the spicy tokens so have been keeping my eye on those each day, useful tip though!

Godzillafan67 said:

Congrats on your steadfast progress! You've employed the proper restraint and discipline... I wish that I had only opened tokens when I had the HP to roster a new character.

The only items I would add:

Though very puzzley, I completed most SCL7 nodes with 3* Wolverine, 2* Magneto, and 2* Black Widow. SCL7 became a breeze for me once I had rostered 4* Juggernaut, 4* Rocket & Groot, and 4* Polaris.

You earn whale points once a day when you play 3* Deadpool. (If Deadpool doesn't give you any points, then you've earned the maximum number of whale points.) Similarly, you can get an extra spicy taco token daily when you play 5* Deadpool.

Thanks! Shang Chi makes some of the nodes at SCL7 & 8 easier, hoping now that I start adding a few more 4's that I'll be able to place a bit better though.ThaRoadWarrior said:

I would suggest at this stage of play, consider adding a "flex slot" to your roster where you roster and sell whoever is required that event. If you're doing well enough on PVE that you get a cover for whoever you need next event from placement then you can roster and sell them until such time as you have enough HP to just keep them, and then open a new flex slot. This will allow you to at least get one of everyone on roster eventually. Meanwhile, I agree that juggernaut, rocket, and polaris should be your primary focus at the 4* tier. Once you have those three, the rest are just reward factories for the most part. At the 5* tier I would definitely try and finish Shang-Chi, he strikes me as the "best" solo 5* with which to transition at this point. He plays down with 4* Valkyrie, Professor X, Karnak, and America Chavez quite well, so those would likely be good characters to add if you don't already have them. I would say Valkyrie first, then the others in whatever order.

Thank you! Love the idea of a flex slot, certainly not something I'd considered but might be useful for certain events. 

I have none of those 4's yet so will be prioritising those. Shang Chi on his own has helped me compete a bit better, hoping I can add at least another cover with the current store. bbigler said:

I think you’re doing well so far except for spending CP to get 3* covers.  You should use CP for Latest right now.  Here’s my advice (which differs from some of the other posts):  

Top tier characters let you hit above your weight class in both PVE and PVP.  I see that you leveled Shang to 285 being 0/1/1, that was a good decision.  You should use him often since he hits very hard.  A Shang team of 3*Scarlet Witch & 3*Cyclops could do some major damage.  Shang takes some practice, but he’s a wrecking machine even at low levels.  

I also see that you have Ikaris fully covered, that’s awesome, he’s another good 4* that hits hard and can play well with your low level Shang.  Ikaris can use Red to keep himself Airborne and hitting every turn (collect yellow to boost his match dmg), while Shang uses purple for kill shots.  So, I would recommend champing Ikaris.  

Remember that you should spend your ISO first on your main fighters / teams and then second on your champ farms.

As for shard targets, use 3* shards to finish your 3*s.  Use 4* Shards on Polaris alone until she’s champed.  She’s like Shang and hits well above her weight class.  She can be paired with 3*Daken & your Shang.  Matching red strikes is both good for Polaris & Shang.  But when you enter 4* PVP you’ll need Morbius to stop all the Polaris teams out there.  Polaris vs Polaris is a **** show.  

As for 5* shards, focus on Shang for now and try to get a red cover.  Even a 1/1/1 Shang is very useful.  How are your milestones?  Particularly the milestone for collecting 5* covers?….they reward a ton of 5* shards that you can use to build Shang.  So, I would recommend to keep opening Latest with tokens and CP to get those 5* covers.  This helps with playing PVE and getting those 5* shards.  The stronger Shang gets, the stronger you get.  

Hoarding is not advisable right now since your trying to enter 4* play.  Your biggest constraint are roster slots, so you’ll have to sell 4* covers as you slowly build up more slots.  But apply the 4* cover first in a flex spot in order to help complete the 4* cover milestone which rewards 4* shards to build Polaris.  

Since you’re not spending, roster spots are limited, so your champ farms will be limited too.  Focus on building your main fighting teams first while slowly build the champ farms on the side.  This includes the use of ISO and HP.  If you’re not going to fight daily with a certain 4* or 5*, then don’t spend ISO on them until the 3* champ farm is complete. Otherwise, it makes you stronger to level up 4*s and 5*s that you use everyday.  

Thank you! Shang Chi is definitely my go-to for a lot of events because as you say, he allows me to compete above my weight class. I did champ Ikaris too, picked up a few covers on one of the boss events and decided it was worth adding to the roster. Luckily he's featured in a lot of events so picked up enough shards and covers to quickly level him up. 

Appreciate the advice on favourites and tokens. fractalvisions said:

Congratulations on your progress so far! Looks like you have some good advice so far, although some I would disagree with so here are my thoughts.

CP: as the others say, this should really be saved for legendary stores and not spent on covers. Personally, I would not recommend spending on latest legends (that's what the latest legends tokens are for). It's much better to save it for special stores with 2 or 3 really good characters, particularly ones that have Apocalypse or Shang-Chi as these are your best characters. Apocalypse has a tendency to regularly show up in fan favourites stores and these stores are also excellent because they also give you a good chance of getting more of the meta 4*s. Don't worry about saving until you have 6000+ CP. Even a few covers of the best characters are helpful.

Tokens: Similarly, with latest legends, don't worry about saving up a huge hoard, but I would suggest getting a hoard of at least ~70 so that you stand a reasonable chance of at least getting three covers for each - I used to open each token as I got it but realised how useless single cover 5* can feel. I'd also suggest trying to build up a hoard of 3000HP before opening any to make sure that you can at least roster the 5*. You may also want to stockpile Mighty tokens until you have enough HP to roster any new 4*. I'd be less concerned about opening Elites and Heroics though. Don't worry too much about occasionally wasting some 4* covers. You won't use most of them anyway.

ISO-8 on 5*: Someone's already advised you to not put ISO-8 on your 5*s, but it looks like it's too late for that. Don't worry though, I did something similar and it's really not that big a deal, particularly when the characters are really good ones. Still, I wouldn't put much more on them. It looks like Gamora is your highest at lvl300, so I'd suggest not levelling any above 300 at least until you have the best 4*s champed. At that point, whether you want to continue champing 4*s or start levelling 5*s is your choice, but it'll take quite some time to get there.

Favourites: I'd just go with bbigler's advice on this.

Thank you. CP's will be saved for stores going forward I think.
I certainly don't plan to go beyond 300, it hasn't hurt me too much in PVP yet (SCL 8) and I usually place high enough to get decent rewards from those events, hopefully by the time I move to SCL 9 or 10 I'll have a much stronger roster too. DAZ0273 said:

I was going to add some advice but really everybody else has already done great stuff and me saying Shang Chi blah blah doesn't help at all. So I thought I would help with some snack advice and most specifically snack advice from the popular show Friends cookie range.

Now, I appreciate you might want to level up on Joey's orange cookies but honestly Rachel's red velvet should be your centrepiece.  Now I would pair that with Phoebe's lemon and white chocolate and then for great synergy bring in Ross short bread. That should handle your snack clearance level to 8. Oh and do NOT level Monica's chocolate chip - you will not be ready for that.

Good luck matey!

P.S. Polaris

Thank you! Nice analogy haha. Polaris looks to be the place to start! 

Thanks all, appreciate the advice!

ThaRoadWarrior

Valkyrie and Professor X won’t help Shang Chi as much until you have a red cover. The reason they are good with him is because they can conditionally generate 4 strongest color bonus AP within a turn (damaging a specific enemy and creating a match-5), and that is going to be red even if you haven’t got the cover there. Valkyrie has a good 4* red though, so I still think she could be worth chasing.

I actually really like Negasonic with Shang-Chi, but I use her with Onslaught in pick 3 and I wouldn’t suggest chasing Onslaught to a player trying to transition. That’s kind of a “fun” team for me rather than an empirically great team.

dianetics

In the 4* realm I would chase Polaris Blob and Rocket. As a team they can burn through a lot.

I would put Morbius in there as well. Morbius and Polaris will get the most play when you move up into 5* PvE. Polaris will show her head in PvP as well.