With Ascension batch 2.0 coming is 266 + 266 the only way to go?

Vhailorx

No retro rewards means ascending right away now has a potentially significant cost. Should we not all be waiting for 266 + 266 every time?

This is a especially true for 4* s, but only a small portion of the playerbase has enough 370s for this to matter.

Zarqa

That’s what I am doing. I pretty much have (almost) every 3 star duped, unchamped, slowly gathering covers until they get to 100 saved and then I’ll ascend them (eventually). I’m am prioritizing iso towards my 4 and 5 stars, so I don’t plan to champ them until they’re ready for 266.

entrailbucket

Sure, if all you care about is rewards.

If you want to use the characters, like I do, it's to your benefit to ascend everyone as soon as possible. That's what I'll be doing and what I've done.

Bowgentle

@entrailbucket said:
Sure, if all you care about is rewards.

If you want to use the characters, like I do, it's to your benefit to ascend everyone as soon as possible. That's what I'll be doing and what I've done.

I'll check your roster before ascending so I can identify Ghost Rider style pitfalls where skills become MUCH worse when you ascend.
I'm still not sure why they had to kill his black.

JoeHandle

Not the ONLY way, no. In regards to 3*s, it's a way with certain efficiencies, and certain costs. Choices, choices.

In regards to other tiers, it's inapplicable, as they are not ascension-eligible at lvl 266 ... or can't reach 266 w/o ascending at least once.

ThaRoadWarrior

I'm getting my dupe 4* to some LT/feeder level if they are within a cover or two, and then hitting ascend on them. 3* I've only had Psylocke so far, and I ascended her with a baby champ. The lower tiers I'm maxing out through level 2, I guess it remains to be seen what happens above that for me.

meadowsweet

Keep in mind that if you're going the "Max-Max" route every step of the way on a 3★, it will also take 21.0% longer / more covers to get them to level 550 compared to "Max-Min" (1,152 covers compared to 952 covers.) So it comes down to whether you prefer receiving mid-level champ rewards or reaching the highest level…

BriMan2222

@Bowgentle said:

@entrailbucket said:
Sure, if all you care about is rewards.

If you want to use the characters, like I do, it's to your benefit to ascend everyone as soon as possible. That's what I'll be doing and what I've done.

I'll check your roster before ascending so I can identify Ghost Rider style pitfalls where skills become MUCH worse when you ascend.
I'm still not sure why they had to kill his black.

My guess is that they felt he needed a trade off from being able to survive much longer as a 5 star. As a 4 star he could hit 5 stars or challenge node enemies for massive damage, but then he had 4 star health so you had to protect him. It was easy to have ghost rider killed off before you ever got to use his black.

Now with 5 star health it will be much easier for ghost rider to hang around long enough to use his black.

entrailbucket

@Bowgentle said:

@entrailbucket said:
Sure, if all you care about is rewards.

If you want to use the characters, like I do, it's to your benefit to ascend everyone as soon as possible. That's what I'll be doing and what I've done.

I'll check your roster before ascending so I can identify Ghost Rider style pitfalls where skills become MUCH worse when you ascend.
I'm still not sure why they had to kill his black.

Glad I can be your resource! Really, it's not like that's useful information that everyone would need, that could be published by the developers in some centralized location -- better to have everyone look up my roster to find out.

Bowgentle

@entrailbucket said:

@Bowgentle said:

@entrailbucket said:
Sure, if all you care about is rewards.

If you want to use the characters, like I do, it's to your benefit to ascend everyone as soon as possible. That's what I'll be doing and what I've done.

I'll check your roster before ascending so I can identify Ghost Rider style pitfalls where skills become MUCH worse when you ascend.
I'm still not sure why they had to kill his black.

Glad I can be your resource! Really, it's not like that's useful information that everyone would need, that could be published by the developers in some centralized location -- better to have everyone look up my roster to find out.

Yeah, not like they could do a preview in game, like when you change levels on a skill for champed characters.
Much more important to write 300 word essays on the skill description pages!

WhiteBomber

Does Senor Bucket have the biggest roster? If so, I would also like to look at your ascended characters to see how they turn out; what's your alliance?

Bowgentle

One of the biggest ones.
And he's committed to ascending everything, the moment he can.

entrailbucket

@WhiteBomber said:
Does Senor Bucket have the biggest roster? If so, I would also like to look at your ascended characters to see how they turn out; what's your alliance?

I really don't know. It certainly doesn't match the whales from years ago. If you're looking for the highest-level versions of the worst characters I'm definitely your guy though!

I am in the alliance Clochards and will be there until the game dies or I do.

WhiteBomber

4 level 370 Coulsons... Yikes.

entrailbucket

@WhiteBomber said:
4 level 370 Coulsons... Yikes.

This is one of the things that happens when you put all your CP into classics for a very long time.

Vhailorx

@entrailbucket said:
Sure, if all you care about is rewards.

If you want to use the characters, like I do, it's to your benefit to ascend everyone as soon as possible. That's what I'll be doing and what I've done.

You don't count since you have multiple maxed 3* s and 4* s ready to go. Your roster obviates the entire point of this thread!

Vhailorx

@entrailbucket said:

@WhiteBomber said:
Does Senor Bucket have the biggest roster? If so, I would also like to look at your ascended characters to see how they turn out; what's your alliance?

I really don't know. It certainly doesn't match the whales from years ago. If you're looking for the highest-level versions of the worst characters I'm definitely your guy though!

I am in the alliance Clochards and will be there until the game dies or I do.

This is an interesting question and a hard one to measure.

One metric might be cash. I have no idea of bucket has spent anything near what the early 5* uberwhales did. I can't confirm anything, but there were fairly credible reports of 4 or even 5 figures a month USD spending. I don't think the buy-club scene burns quite that hot these days, but others here may now more than I do.

Another metric might be number of covers accrued (normalized). If we just look at raw numbers bucket has a huge advantage since there are many more characters and the level cap has been raised several times now. but I would guess that in terms of distance from the median number of covers bucket's roster is actually closer to the pack (in terms of standard deviations) than players like [redacted] way way back in the day. the gap between those players who spent enough to max out 5* s before the champ system was introduced, or to have level 500+ characters when champing was still new, and the "average" player was just absolutely enormous. Bucket's roster is impressive, but I think the passage of time, and the increasing distribution rate of 4/5/cp over the years means that there are more players up in the level level 500+ (relative to the playerbase as a whole) than ever.

I only have an obscured view from baby champ land though, take my opinion for what it's worth.

Vhailorx

@meadowsweet said:
Keep in mind that if you're going the "Max-Max" route every step of the way on a 3★, it will also take 21.0% longer / more covers to get them to level 550 compared to "Max-Min" (1,152 covers compared to 952 covers.) So it comes down to whether you prefer receiving mid-level champ rewards or reaching the highest level…

I doubt that people will be too worried about giving up 3* champ rewards (though plenty of players have dupe 266s anyway). the real issue is 4* s. feeders are one of the most reliable ways to get covers for classic 4* s, and I think some may balk at giving up all those covers for premium 5* s, especially for mediocre 4* s or those who don't benefit from ascension).

Omegased

So - this is all dependant on TIME, and what rewards are more important to you.

if you have enough TIME, then for sure - wait until you have everyone max champed.

BUT, there are other things in play. For example, a 5 Chavez is going to be a PEST. you could benefit more from having her as a 5, than you would waiting for a year to second-champ her (looking forward to Chavez/Killmonger/Colossus).

IMO, it depends on how valuable you see the original level rewards are. for me, I have all 4s champed, and all 5s champed. I would probably benefit more from LL NOW, than other things.

and when it comes to feeders, I think it's only someone who gives high quality shards it would be worth waiting (Okoye, Namora, etc). Otherwise, i think LL tokens will be way more valuable than a Havok cover.

entrailbucket

@Vhailorx said:

@meadowsweet said:
Keep in mind that if you're going the "Max-Max" route every step of the way on a 3★, it will also take 21.0% longer / more covers to get them to level 550 compared to "Max-Min" (1,152 covers compared to 952 covers.) So it comes down to whether you prefer receiving mid-level champ rewards or reaching the highest level…

I doubt that people will be too worried about giving up 3* champ rewards (though plenty of players have dupe 266s anyway). the real issue is 4s. feeders are one of the most reliable ways to get covers for classic 4s, and I think some may balk at giving up all those covers for premium 5s, especially for mediocre 4s or those who don't benefit from ascension).

Some players will definitely wait for 370/370 for everyone, and at least one player (me) will just immediately ascend everyone.

I think the right solution here is probably a hybrid though -- weigh how good the 4* is when ascended, vs the 5* that they feed.

meadowsweet

@Vhailorx said:

@meadowsweet said:
Keep in mind that if you're going the "Max-Max" route every step of the way on a 3★, it will also take 21.0% longer / more covers to get them to level 550 compared to "Max-Min" (1,152 covers compared to 952 covers.) So it comes down to whether you prefer receiving mid-level champ rewards or reaching the highest level…

I doubt that people will be too worried about giving up 3* champ rewards (though plenty of players have dupe 266s anyway). the real issue is 4s. feeders are one of the most reliable ways to get covers for classic 4s, and I think some may balk at giving up all those covers for premium 5s, especially for mediocre 4s or those who don't benefit from ascension).

I think character dilution is going to completely eliminate Max-Max as an option for me personally, even though 4★ characters cost 526 covers to get to Level 550 either way.

There are soon going to be more than 150 unique 4★ characters in the game. Even assuming that today you already have every character already Max Champed, if you were to wait until you Max Champ a duplicate for each one starting tomorrow, that's nearly 17,000 additional 4★ covers you'd need to collect. And you'll need to reserve 300 total roster spots for all the months while you're working on the 150 Max duplicates. And the devs are going to add another 4★ every 4 weeks and make dilution worse and worse over time...

Or you could have a Min Champ ready in 11.5% of the time and you can take the Ascended character from level 370 to level 450. During the months you would have spent collecting 100 covers to take your duplicate from level 270 to level 370, you could have been leveling up your Ascended 5★ from level 450 to level 475.