New Feature - Champions 2.0 (Live with R287)

Kolence

@BlackBoltRocks said:
PVP is going to be very annoying now that anyone can be a 5. Winfinites that were previously only viable in lower tiers (2* Hawkeye/Magneto/Storm) or had a weak link (like 4* Polaris together with Bill and Jane/Kamala) will now be on a level playing field. All the Countdown spammers like 4* Captain Marvel, Coulson, Starlord, 5* Hawkeye, Sentry, maybe even WorthyCap, will see plenty of use. Characters with buffed match damage like America, M'Baku, Rhino, 4* Juggs. Your AP generators like 3* Wanda, 4* Vulture. We also finally have a web tile meta with Gwenom, Chasm, Miguel, Silk, Iron Spider, 4* Miles. Not sure how viable most 3* will be, but the recent ones like Omega Red, Arcade, High Evo, Magik will be forces to be reckoned with. Some of the older ones like Captain Marvel, Cyclops, Doom, Wanda, and of course IM40 will be great batteries. The 1* - 3* versions of Storm will be great with cascades. Might be enough to make one go PVE-only...

I wonder if Worthy Cap with someone to resist the damage (Colossus, Wanda, Rogue?) would be enough to actually punish Mighty Thor's incessant cascading...
Not sure Countdown makers will be able to resist Thor either, unless maybe with Hawkeye or Goblin to keep fortifying the tiles.

slidecage

Do they know when this is coming... forgot i got like almost 8k tokens saved

ThaRoadWarrior

@Kolence said:

@BlackBoltRocks said:
PVP is going to be very annoying now that anyone can be a 5. Winfinites that were previously only viable in lower tiers (2* Hawkeye/Magneto/Storm) or had a weak link (like 4* Polaris together with Bill and Jane/Kamala) will now be on a level playing field. All the Countdown spammers like 4* Captain Marvel, Coulson, Starlord, 5* Hawkeye, Sentry, maybe even WorthyCap, will see plenty of use. Characters with buffed match damage like America, M'Baku, Rhino, 4* Juggs. Your AP generators like 3* Wanda, 4* Vulture. We also finally have a web tile meta with Gwenom, Chasm, Miguel, Silk, Iron Spider, 4* Miles. Not sure how viable most 3* will be, but the recent ones like Omega Red, Arcade, High Evo, Magik will be forces to be reckoned with. Some of the older ones like Captain Marvel, Cyclops, Doom, Wanda, and of course IM40 will be great batteries. The 1* - 3* versions of Storm will be great with cascades. Might be enough to make one go PVE-only...

I wonder if Worthy Cap with someone to resist the damage (Colossus, Wanda, Rogue?) would be enough to actually punish Mighty Thor's incessant cascading...
Not sure Countdown makers will be able to resist Thor either, unless maybe with Hawkeye or Goblin to keep fortifying the tiles.

Maybe lean in and bring hydra stomper, xfdp, or 3* hulk, or red hulk so those cascades just make more CDs

rainkingucd

@ThaRoadWarrior said:

@Kolence said:

@BlackBoltRocks said:
PVP is going to be very annoying now that anyone can be a 5. Winfinites that were previously only viable in lower tiers (2* Hawkeye/Magneto/Storm) or had a weak link (like 4* Polaris together with Bill and Jane/Kamala) will now be on a level playing field. All the Countdown spammers like 4* Captain Marvel, Coulson, Starlord, 5* Hawkeye, Sentry, maybe even WorthyCap, will see plenty of use. Characters with buffed match damage like America, M'Baku, Rhino, 4* Juggs. Your AP generators like 3* Wanda, 4* Vulture. We also finally have a web tile meta with Gwenom, Chasm, Miguel, Silk, Iron Spider, 4* Miles. Not sure how viable most 3* will be, but the recent ones like Omega Red, Arcade, High Evo, Magik will be forces to be reckoned with. Some of the older ones like Captain Marvel, Cyclops, Doom, Wanda, and of course IM40 will be great batteries. The 1* - 3* versions of Storm will be great with cascades. Might be enough to make one go PVE-only...

I wonder if Worthy Cap with someone to resist the damage (Colossus, Wanda, Rogue?) would be enough to actually punish Mighty Thor's incessant cascading...
Not sure Countdown makers will be able to resist Thor either, unless maybe with Hawkeye or Goblin to keep fortifying the tiles.

Maybe lean in and bring hydra stomper, xfdp, or 3* hulk, or red hulk so those cascades just make more CDs

XFDP is an interesting case, and now I'm thinking who benefits from not ascending. There are a few of those 4* that saw use in transition phases because they were so effective against 5* at the 4* level (i.e. Bishop, Worthy Cap). Would XFDP be a good character to ascend? Will his 5* powers make him effectively useless if his black doesn't trigger on every 5* match? a la 3* Hulk and Red Hulk as well

entrailbucket

@bbigler said:
@entrailbucket
I would like to get the input from a new player too see if that’s really true. As for me, I get far more 1-Star covers than any other type.

Oh, me too! But it takes a lot of 1* covers to create a 550. I guess I'm not sure what you consider "new players?" I really don't think anyone but the grindiest grinders will get these guys maxed anytime soon.

Pottsie1980

Valkyrie is another character that may lose her main input if ascended. The target to generate ap may push too high to activate most turns. Guess we wait until her pvp and see how others are faring.

ThaRoadWarrior

Yes there are a ton of powers that get worse as the character gets better, and those powers need a good hard looking at across the board from Odin on down.

ThaRoadWarrior

I am fairly confident that 5* Nico is going to be head and shoulders better than Kitty level on level because she can bulk raise everything rather than being limited. I think people may be surprised to see the special pump meta return for a minute or two.

Bowgentle

@ThaRoadWarrior said:
I am fairly confident that 5* Nico is going to be head and shoulders better than Kitty level on level because she can bulk raise everything rather than being limited. I think people may be surprised to see the special pump meta return for a minute or two.

Jane: "Hold my Mjolnir"

ThaRoadWarrior

Polaris + Carbage: don’t mind if I do. Actually once Lockjaw hits the ascendancy train, I'll be very curious to see what he does as a 5* to defend your SAP-spam. Or Medusa right away I guess.

BobDucca

@bbigler said:
Eureka! I've got it! The best way to maximize champ rewards with ascending: the Max+Max ascending "tax" only applies in the next tier, NOT the tier you start from. Because of this, a Hybrid approach is best for 3-stars. Each tier is different, so here's the best method for each tier:

4-Stars: 370+370
3-Stars: 266+266 => 370+303
2-Stars: 144+94 => 266+167 => 370+271
1-Stars: 50+50 => 144+94 => 266+167 => 370+271

=======================================================
Using 957 x 3-star covers:

Max+Min Approach => Go up to 550
447,500 Iso-8
25,300 Hero Points
949 Command Points
10 Heroic Token
8 Mighty Token
4 Classic Legends
48 Latest Legends
CP + LT = 86

Max+Max Approach => Go up to 501
544,000 Iso-8
13,600 Hero Points
973 Command Points
20 Heroic Token
16 Mighty Token
8 Classic Legends
53 Latest Legends
CP + LT = 92

Max+Max => Max+Min => Go up to 534
528,500 Iso-8
16,150 Hero Points
963 Command Points
20 Heroic Token
16 Mighty Token
8 Classic Legends
55 Latest Legends
CP + LT = 94

As others have said, thank you for all of your thoughts shared in this thread. I particularly appreciate the insight that even if you want to go Min/Max, it's likely worth champing and getting the LTs at 167/271 (or potentially other specific champ rewards if desired).

With that said, while it does look like the math above is correct, and using 957 covers is what it takes to 'optimally' get a 3-star to 550 using Min/Max, it does seem like that is a fairly arbitrary number of covers to use as 'the best way' to maximize rewards. One thing it does is overly skew the return from 501 to 534/550 for any method that doesn't reach those levels as the rewards at the end are just so high. And it's not like after 957 covers people will stop getting covers (of course, that's a ton of covers already and many/most will never get there at all!).

I am trying to think about it similarly but also slightly differently. It takes 957 covers to 'optimally Max/Min' and 1152 to 'fully Max/Max'. What is the best way to spend those next 195 covers? Is it starting a new ascended dupe? Is it selling 3* maxed champs? OR, could it actually be getting the champ rewards from going Max/Max? Curious if you have thought of using a different number of covers than 957 (or 'time horizon'), as even using 1152 may overly skew the return in favor of the Max/Max method, as in that case, the ROI of those last few covers will be the highest possible. Thanks again for sharing all your thoughts and math!

Borstock

As always, I'm really glad they came up with the dumbest and most confusing way possible to add a new feature into the game. Twenty-nine pages in and we still don't appear to have a consensus on the best way to do any of this nonsense.

...in a Match-3 game.

BlixTheFrog

@Borstock said:
As always, I'm really glad they came up with the dumbest and most confusing way possible to add a new feature into the game. Twenty-nine pages in and we still don't appear to have a consensus on the best way to do any of this nonsense.

...in a Match-3 game.

Well if it was just a match-3 game we wouldn’t still be playing that I think. Took me three months to grow out of Candy Crush.

Bowgentle

@BlixTheFrog said:

@Borstock said:
As always, I'm really glad they came up with the dumbest and most confusing way possible to add a new feature into the game. Twenty-nine pages in and we still don't appear to have a consensus on the best way to do any of this nonsense.

...in a Match-3 game.

Well if it was just a match-3 game we wouldn’t still be playing that I think. Took me three months to grow out of Candy Crush.

Ah but imagine they had released a new character to play as in Candy Crush every month!

DrClever

@Borstock said:
Twenty-nine pages in and we still don't appear to have a consensus on the best way to do any of this nonsense.

Good?

If something's obvious everyone does it and the obligation to actually think (as well as the opportunity to gain a competitive advatage as a result) is lost.

As Blix says, if this was just a dumb match 3 game it wouldn't hold everyone's interest.

Borstock

@DrClever said:

@Borstock said:
Twenty-nine pages in and we still don't appear to have a consensus on the best way to do any of this nonsense.

Good?

If something's obvious everyone does it and the obligation to actually think (as well as the opportunity to gain a competitive advatage as a result) is lost.

As Blix says, if this was just a dumb match 3 game it wouldn't hold everyone's interest.

There's a difference between two different players having different strategies and two different players believing the system works in two different ways with neither of them knowing if they're right or if it's even the way the devs intend the system to function.

This game is not "more than a simple Match-3 game" because people don't know how the heck it works.

Jacklag

@JHawkInc said:
This is completely bonkers and I am here for it.

One note though. If you have a 266 Doctor Strange and a 166 Doctor Strange and 100 covers, won’t you get more rewards from leveling the 166 to 266 and then Binding them, as opposed to Ascending to 4-Star and applying the covers afterwards? So the longer you put it off, the more overall rewards you’ll get?

Sounds like someone went to business school.

entrailbucket

@DrClever said:

@Borstock said:
Twenty-nine pages in and we still don't appear to have a consensus on the best way to do any of this nonsense.

Good?

If something's obvious everyone does it and the obligation to actually think (as well as the opportunity to gain a competitive advatage as a result) is lost.

As Blix says, if this was just a dumb match 3 game it wouldn't hold everyone's interest.

I agree with this and I'll go one further -- it's better still if there are multiple ways to do things, that are all equally optimal, so players can choose the strategy they enjoy using the most.

liminal_lad

@ArchusMonk said:

@liminal_lad said:

@LavaManLee said:

@ThaRoadWarrior said:

@LavaManLee said:
Apologies but even after 19 pages, I still have some basic questions. Here is something I still don't get and hoping it is clear:

• I have two 4* Polaris at 370
• If I "ascend" them into a 5Polaris4, can I use that character in the required 4* for the current PVE? Or do I need to have a "pure" 4*Polaris to use?

Thanks in adanvce!

They've said there are currently no nodes in the game programmed to require Polaris (Lorna Dane) to be 4* Polaris (lorna dane), but that the technology to require that in future could be rolled out. so you will be able to use the character with that name anywhere they are required, even required character PVP.

Thanks. Polaris was just my example.

I guess the overall question is whether those required nodes in PVE require a "pure" 4* (or 3*) or if an Ascended one works in those nodes?

They will not work in Deadpool nodes as their original star level.

We’ll see how it actually plays in game, but the INTENT of the devs is that a PVE node is either level specific or character specific. That means if you ascend 2* Storm to 2Storm3, you can no longer use her in the DDQ node that requires 2* characters. However, you would be able to use her in the 4-3-2 node if she is the required 2 because that node doesn’t specify a level just a specific Storm. Again, implemented code does not always follow what the devs intend, but that was IceX’s answer when I asked pretty much this specific question.

That's also what I said. But thanks for adding additional context.

DrClever

@Borstock said:
This game is not "more than a simple Match-3 game" because people don't know how the heck it works.

Well, it is though, isn't it?

At the very least that makes it a complicated Match-3 game, or possibly a simple Match-3 game with some complicated additions, either way counts.

But logic and uncontestable correctness aside, I was, and generally am being, slightly facetious if not more so.

If these forums have a mute option I'd heartily recommend using it on my posts. Goodness knows I wouldn't read them.