4* max champs - to dupe or not to dupe?

Captain_Trips88

Reaching that point in the game where I'm only a couple of levels away from having my first max champed 4* (Captain Marvel, if anyone cares) and wondering what the advice is regarding how to deal with this.

I'm happily a 5* player, so there isn't any need for having high level 4* kicking around so I am leaning towards cashing in once I hit max champ and have another cover to instantly re-roster. This is the 2*/3* farming method I've gone for, but are there any real benefits for going down the dupe road instead at 4* level? 

HP floats comfortably around 6000, was higher but I splurged for some anniversary vault rewards, so wouldn't be an issue keeping a dupe around for the time being. 

I can see that having the high level would benefit when the 4* is featured in PVE and PVP but shang-chi does my heavy lifting so it doesn't matter how good the 4* is and same in PVP as I just play for 25 wins and call it quits.

Pros and cons of each approach welcome 

HoundofShadow

There are retro feeders now. If you're fine with doing away 6 potential 5* covers in the future, then sell it. For example, MODOK feeding 5* Arcade is the most recent example.

Captain_Trips88

I was going to put something in about retro feeders, I guess with it being Captain Marvel who realistically is always going to feed Captain Marvel then I have discounted this as something that is likely to come up on this particular character. But well noted for any other 4*s 

ThaRoadWarrior

They do take a really long time to max out, so I’ve been rostering dupes on mine. Plus the retro feeders have been nice lately; I had a Frost from chasing Kitty.

Sekilicious

Some day Captain Marvel might be a secondary feeder, however unlikely. I would be tempted to cycle her if I could get a duplicate champed but considering how much I wish Chavez, Polaris and now Silk were max champed I would probably end up hold on to her as a trophy and hope she becomes relevant in Pick-2 or 3 someday.

Aweberman

I have been following the same approach as the OP with 2* and 3* characters for some time, but I have opted to roster dupes of 4*.  While I have found that having a low-level featured 3* in a PVP event doesn't really make much of a difference to how many hits I take, I (like to) think that having a max-level 4* in such an event makes a significant difference.

I love the power level of (some, but not all) boosted-from-370 4* characters.  Depending on the event, they can be a significant component of the team, even if the other two are boosted 5*.  And certain 4* play up very well when boosted: the first one that comes to mind is boosted Miles with SMPP.

Naturally there are some drawbacks to this approach.

- You have identified HP costs as a significant drawback, and it is (though the level 370 reward of 1000 HP seems designed to offset this).

- The drawback that surprised me was the ISO cost.  I reached a peak of over 15 million ISO in the summer of 2021, but that has dropped all the way down to under 6 million at this point.  The reason?  Largely leveling that duplicate 4*; I currently have 62 at 370.

- I still like to play with 4* sometimes in PVP, especially if the boosted 5* list is gross, but boosted max-champ 4* are not great for that as (it seems like) higher rosters can still see them, what with them being boosted to 479.


Then again, there are (or have been) some drawbacks to selling off the 370 (as have already been noted).

- Because I had a level 366 Emma when the rewards changed, I ended up with 6 covers for 5* Emma.  That clearly highlights why selling a 370 -- even a bad one -- should not be done if there is no 5* feeder in their rewards yet.

- Because I did not have dupes of 2* and 3* when milestones were introduced, I needed longer to progress toward those.  If anybody had been recycling their 4* at that point ... well, they would have missed out on a bunch of rewards.  So, again, you never know what's going to happen in the future.

- Along the same lines, even a bad character might end up with a rework in the future and become worthy of a place in the 5* meta.


At the end of the day, there are probably more arguments for recycling than against.  How often have I pulled my level 370 Sam Wilson off the bench?  Not often.  But I think the most psychologically-compelling reason for me to keep them (even if it is a rationally-weak argument) is how much time was invested in maxing each one.

Look, even when I target a 4* and pull them all the way from one cover to 370 it takes 6 months.  Captain Marvel was also my first 4* at 370 (three years ago), and her dupe is still only back up to 340.

So it's just hard for me to kick them to the curb ... even though I probably should.  

BriMan2222

Capt marvel is also close to being my first dupe maxed 4 star.  I plan to sell her once I get her maxed as she is already a feeder for 5 star capt marvel.  Any non feeder characters or characters that don't feed a version of themselves and could potentially change in the future I'll keep. 

dianetics

There are only a handful of 4*s I would keep max champed.

I would keep the majority of characters in the roster until I champ the second. Then sell them.

The shortlist of characters I would keep are Polaris, Morbius, Beast, America, Blob, Huggernot, and Peggy. There are probably a few more but those are the ones that stand out to keep rostered.

Hammer3001

I’m also a 5 Star player. I say roster doubles of 4 stars for the following reasons: 
1. when you play on higher levels of PVE or PVP you can use the lower ranked version as cannon fodder & save the higher ranked for when you need it. Advantage: saving respawns.

2. The rewards. Since I started maxing out 4 stars; I’ve been able to collect an average of 30-45 Legendary Tokens & 1400-1700 Command Points a month. I horse these until the new characters shuffle in and have been able to champ every new 5 star since Yelena Bolova by the time they’re out of the Legendary rotation.

3. The retro rewards have allowed me to get the last 2 new 5 stars on release day and I’ve gotten multiple covers for each on release day. I got so many for Phoenix-Emma I’ve already championed her. She works awesomely with X-men characters.

Punter1

The champ-em-all and collector status of max 4s coupled with the time invested to even achieve a max 4* means I have held all of my dupes.  I also always hold a max 3* & 2* for similar reasons.

I can afford the now 2,200 HP cost (1,200 for extra slot and 1,000 for not selling) + 320k Iso as a F2P player to hold on to a dupe so I do.  

At 57 dupes and counting I've noticed my ISO length steadily drop, but still got the ability to afford this practice so will continue.  If i get into problems, I'll drop max 2s and 3s first.

Most 4s have some utility at max in their PVPs, sometimes just having the extra health helps.