5 star Dupes

Helinutz

Based on the fact we’re now into ascension land, what are your thoughts on rostering a second duplicate 5*?
I have a few now at 550 and also have dupes of 3 of them, but not sure if I’m wasting slots/ resources on them.
Do you think the Devs may use ascension to create a virtual 6 star character or is that just a bridge too far

Borstock

You have 550s but are also lacking resources? You have played very differently from me, sir.

entrailbucket

The champion rewards from duplicate 5* will certainly offset the cost of slots/iso/etc.

Besides, what else would you do? Sell them?

Helinutz

@Borstock said:
You have 550s but are also lacking resources? You have played very differently from me, sir.

Not short of ISO, but have to manage my HP hence why im not sure if the cost of dupe roster slots is the most effective way of using them

trenchdigger

If there is one thing we have learned over the years, it is that selling is never the right option. I used to sell all but a very few of my maxed 3s, as soon as it's dupe hit 13 covers, and regretted that approach once ascension arrived.

Chrynos1989

Still hoping for some kind of prestige ascension for 5*, like you can ascend 2 550 and get them prestiged, no power increase, just infinite levels for a certain amount of covers giving high rewards

GrimSkald

I'm going to chime in with the rest of the people advocating dupes. The rewards for 5★s are amazing and well worth the 1200 HP. Even if I didn't have a ton of extra roster slots from when they gave them as awards (most notably from those amazing vaults late last/early this year) that HP expenditure is minor compared to the rewards you get.

I also recall that when they were asked about 6★s, they said that they did not foresee that happening, it was more likely that we would be able to somehow continue to level 5★s. In that case, while it isn't impossible they'll just let us do it, it's more likely that they'll implement some kind of "Ascension" to level them past 550.

LavaManLee

Not even a question. Roster them. If you are a 550 player, that roster slot is easily available.

Scofie

@trenchdigger said:
If there is one thing we have learned over the years, it is that selling is never the right option. I used to sell all but a very few of my maxed 3s, as soon as it's dupe hit 13 covers, and regretted that approach once ascension arrived.

I'm not sure I agree with this. At a purely objective level you are right. But the Iso and HP "cashflow" issues are real at different points in the game, so I would still advocate selling 2 and 3*s to some people dependingon their roster and play styles. Whilst ascension increases rewards, it also drops them more slowly, so the trade off is way longer. The amount of time your dupe slots exist is shorter, so you spend less HP on slots and can save for using in stores for more limited resources.

I still consider ascension more of an end game feature for the "collect em all" group (myself included) and a mid-game feature for the "get rich quick" group.

GrimSkald

@Scofie said:

@trenchdigger said:
If there is one thing we have learned over the years, it is that selling is never the right option. I used to sell all but a very few of my maxed 3s, as soon as it's dupe hit 13 covers, and regretted that approach once ascension arrived.

I'm not sure I agree with this. At a purely objective level you are right. But the Iso and HP "cashflow" issues are real at different points in the game, so I would still advocate selling 2 and 3*s to some people dependingon their roster and play styles. Whilst ascension increases rewards, it also drops them more slowly, so the trade off is way longer. The amount of time your dupe slots exist is shorter, so you spend less HP on slots and can save for using in stores for more limited resources.

I still consider ascension more of an end game feature for the "collect em all" group (myself included) and a mid-game feature for the "get rich quick" group.

Point of fact, and I may post this at some point, but because any ratio other than 1:1 yields a lot less rewards if you want the best rewards you're probably better off redoing a 3★ than leveling the 3|4★. Sure the 4★ rewards are better, trouble is they're not 3x better until that 4★ is pretty high. For LTs they're definitely not.

OTOH 5★ rewards are more than 4x better than 3★ rewards, but that's a long slog to get there.

KGB

@GrimSkald said:

@Scofie said:

@trenchdigger said:
If there is one thing we have learned over the years, it is that selling is never the right option. I used to sell all but a very few of my maxed 3s, as soon as it's dupe hit 13 covers, and regretted that approach once ascension arrived.

I'm not sure I agree with this. At a purely objective level you are right. But the Iso and HP "cashflow" issues are real at different points in the game, so I would still advocate selling 2 and 3*s to some people dependingon their roster and play styles. Whilst ascension increases rewards, it also drops them more slowly, so the trade off is way longer. The amount of time your dupe slots exist is shorter, so you spend less HP on slots and can save for using in stores for more limited resources.

I still consider ascension more of an end game feature for the "collect em all" group (myself included) and a mid-game feature for the "get rich quick" group.

Point of fact, and I may post this at some point, but because any ratio other than 1:1 yields a lot less rewards if you want the best rewards you're probably better off redoing a 3★ than leveling the 3|4★. Sure the 4★ rewards are better, trouble is they're not 3x better until that 4★ is pretty high. For LTs they're definitely not.

OTOH 5★ rewards are more than 4x better than 3★ rewards, but that's a long slog to get there.

It's not as bad as 3-1 and doubt it's even 2-1.

If you are going the 3->4 route you'd definitely level a pair of 266s to make a 4 which gives you 33 levels of rewards (the 100 extra covers on the 2nd character) on the 4 right away. So you only need 66*3 covers or 196 to hit 370. If you instead sold the 2nd 266 and started another 3, you'd need 176 to max champ (166+13). Pretty sure the 196 covers giving 66 levels of 4 star rewards is going to be in line with the 176 covers spent to get all the 3 star rewards esp since the back end of the 4 rewards are where it's loaded.

KGB

entrailbucket

These types of questions are worth asking, but I always come back to a player's individual goals.

If your goal is "maximize rewards," for their own sake, I still think it's a little odd. It's ok! I can accept that your goal is just to produce the most tokens and stuff, but the why of it still confuses me.

If your goal is "get the strongest characters at the highest level," that goal makes more sense to me, but I think that may no longer be the natural result of "maximize rewards."

For example, the consensus best strategy used to be about getting the most legendary tokens, then hoarding them for a set of very strong 5* and maxing out those 3. I'm not sure that's optimal anymore! New 5* do tend to be quite strong, but a lot of the ascended 4* are MUCH, MUCH stronger. How does that change the optimal strategy?

Scofie

@KGB said:

@GrimSkald said:

@Scofie said:

@trenchdigger said:
If there is one thing we have learned over the years, it is that selling is never the right option. I used to sell all but a very few of my maxed 3s, as soon as it's dupe hit 13 covers, and regretted that approach once ascension arrived.

I'm not sure I agree with this. At a purely objective level you are right. But the Iso and HP "cashflow" issues are real at different points in the game, so I would still advocate selling 2 and 3*s to some people dependingon their roster and play styles. Whilst ascension increases rewards, it also drops them more slowly, so the trade off is way longer. The amount of time your dupe slots exist is shorter, so you spend less HP on slots and can save for using in stores for more limited resources.

I still consider ascension more of an end game feature for the "collect em all" group (myself included) and a mid-game feature for the "get rich quick" group.

Point of fact, and I may post this at some point, but because any ratio other than 1:1 yields a lot less rewards if you want the best rewards you're probably better off redoing a 3★ than leveling the 3|4★. Sure the 4★ rewards are better, trouble is they're not 3x better until that 4★ is pretty high. For LTs they're definitely not.

OTOH 5★ rewards are more than 4x better than 3★ rewards, but that's a long slog to get there.

It's not as bad as 3-1 and doubt it's even 2-1.

If you are going the 3->4 route you'd definitely level a pair of 266s to make a 4 which gives you 33 levels of rewards (the 100 extra covers on the 2nd character) on the 4 right away. So you only need 66*3 covers or 196 to hit 370. If you instead sold the 2nd 266 and started another 3, you'd need 176 to max champ (166+13). Pretty sure the 196 covers giving 66 levels of 4 star rewards is going to be in line with the 176 covers spent to get all the 3 star rewards esp since the back end of the 4 rewards are where it's loaded.

KGB

But in that context, the trade off between selling vs ascending a 3* is:
Sell: 105k Iso and 500HP
Ascend: 21k Iso and 550HP (plus 40CP and 4 LT).

The trade off for the next 113 covers is:
If previously sold and sell again: 200k and 1150HP (plus covers, tokens etc)
If previously ascended: 36.5k Iso, 900HP (plus 77CP and 4LT).

Total for sold twice: 305k Iso 1650HP
Total for ascension: 57.5k Iso 1450HP.

If you're in the Iso desert, selling 3s is worth almost 250k Iso and 200HP more than ascending to the same point. And if you get two covers a week, that's over a year of play to get those covers.

So, I think, for every 3* you ascend, you lose 250k per character, per year. If you do them all, that's 10 million Iso. Per year.

Please someone check my maths!

entrailbucket

@Scofie said:

@KGB said:

@GrimSkald said:

@Scofie said:

@trenchdigger said:
If there is one thing we have learned over the years, it is that selling is never the right option. I used to sell all but a very few of my maxed 3s, as soon as it's dupe hit 13 covers, and regretted that approach once ascension arrived.

I'm not sure I agree with this. At a purely objective level you are right. But the Iso and HP "cashflow" issues are real at different points in the game, so I would still advocate selling 2 and 3*s to some people dependingon their roster and play styles. Whilst ascension increases rewards, it also drops them more slowly, so the trade off is way longer. The amount of time your dupe slots exist is shorter, so you spend less HP on slots and can save for using in stores for more limited resources.

I still consider ascension more of an end game feature for the "collect em all" group (myself included) and a mid-game feature for the "get rich quick" group.

Point of fact, and I may post this at some point, but because any ratio other than 1:1 yields a lot less rewards if you want the best rewards you're probably better off redoing a 3★ than leveling the 3|4★. Sure the 4★ rewards are better, trouble is they're not 3x better until that 4★ is pretty high. For LTs they're definitely not.

OTOH 5★ rewards are more than 4x better than 3★ rewards, but that's a long slog to get there.

It's not as bad as 3-1 and doubt it's even 2-1.

If you are going the 3->4 route you'd definitely level a pair of 266s to make a 4 which gives you 33 levels of rewards (the 100 extra covers on the 2nd character) on the 4 right away. So you only need 66*3 covers or 196 to hit 370. If you instead sold the 2nd 266 and started another 3, you'd need 176 to max champ (166+13). Pretty sure the 196 covers giving 66 levels of 4 star rewards is going to be in line with the 176 covers spent to get all the 3 star rewards esp since the back end of the 4 rewards are where it's loaded.

KGB

But in that context, the trade off between selling vs ascending a 3* is:
Sell: 105k Iso and 500HP
Ascend: 21k Iso and 550HP (plus 40CP and 4 LT).

The trade off for the next 113 covers is:
If previously sold and sell again: 200k and 1150HP (plus covers, tokens etc)
If previously ascended: 36.5k Iso, 900HP (plus 77CP and 4LT).

Total for sold twice: 305k Iso 1650HP
Total for ascension: 57.5k Iso 1450HP.

If you're in the Iso desert, selling 3s is worth almost 250k Iso and 200HP more than ascending to the same point. And if you get two covers a week, that's over a year of play to get those covers.

So, I think, for every 3* you ascend, you lose 250k per character, per year. If you do them all, that's 10 million Iso. Per year.

Please someone check my maths!

This is exactly what I'm talking about! The math is interesting and it matters (that's a lot of ISO!) but what are you spending the ISO on?

If you're delaying ascension on a particularly strong 3* to spend the ISO on championing a very weak 5*, is that worth it? What if it's a 4* ? What if it's a terrible 3* and a great 5*?

The calculus is more complicated than "how can I get the most stuff?" It becomes a resource allocation question (unless your goal is just "get the most stuff" -- but again, I've got trouble figuring out the motivation for that goal).

Scofie

@entrailbucket said:

@Scofie said:

@KGB said:

@GrimSkald said:

@Scofie said:

@trenchdigger said:
If there is one thing we have learned over the years, it is that selling is never the right option. I used to sell all but a very few of my maxed 3s, as soon as it's dupe hit 13 covers, and regretted that approach once ascension arrived.

I'm not sure I agree with this. At a purely objective level you are right. But the Iso and HP "cashflow" issues are real at different points in the game, so I would still advocate selling 2 and 3*s to some people dependingon their roster and play styles. Whilst ascension increases rewards, it also drops them more slowly, so the trade off is way longer. The amount of time your dupe slots exist is shorter, so you spend less HP on slots and can save for using in stores for more limited resources.

I still consider ascension more of an end game feature for the "collect em all" group (myself included) and a mid-game feature for the "get rich quick" group.

Point of fact, and I may post this at some point, but because any ratio other than 1:1 yields a lot less rewards if you want the best rewards you're probably better off redoing a 3★ than leveling the 3|4★. Sure the 4★ rewards are better, trouble is they're not 3x better until that 4★ is pretty high. For LTs they're definitely not.

OTOH 5★ rewards are more than 4x better than 3★ rewards, but that's a long slog to get there.

It's not as bad as 3-1 and doubt it's even 2-1.

If you are going the 3->4 route you'd definitely level a pair of 266s to make a 4 which gives you 33 levels of rewards (the 100 extra covers on the 2nd character) on the 4 right away. So you only need 66*3 covers or 196 to hit 370. If you instead sold the 2nd 266 and started another 3, you'd need 176 to max champ (166+13). Pretty sure the 196 covers giving 66 levels of 4 star rewards is going to be in line with the 176 covers spent to get all the 3 star rewards esp since the back end of the 4 rewards are where it's loaded.

KGB

But in that context, the trade off between selling vs ascending a 3* is:
Sell: 105k Iso and 500HP
Ascend: 21k Iso and 550HP (plus 40CP and 4 LT).

The trade off for the next 113 covers is:
If previously sold and sell again: 200k and 1150HP (plus covers, tokens etc)
If previously ascended: 36.5k Iso, 900HP (plus 77CP and 4LT).

Total for sold twice: 305k Iso 1650HP
Total for ascension: 57.5k Iso 1450HP.

If you're in the Iso desert, selling 3s is worth almost 250k Iso and 200HP more than ascending to the same point. And if you get two covers a week, that's over a year of play to get those covers.

So, I think, for every 3* you ascend, you lose 250k per character, per year. If you do them all, that's 10 million Iso. Per year.

Please someone check my maths!

This is exactly what I'm talking about! The math is interesting and it matters (that's a lot of ISO!) but what are you spending the ISO on?

If you're delaying ascension on a particularly strong 3* to spend the ISO on championing a very weak 5*, is that worth it? What if it's a 4* ? What if it's a terrible 3* and a great 5*?

The calculus is more complicated than "how can I get the most stuff?" It becomes a resource allocation question (unless your goal is just "get the most stuff" -- but again, I've got trouble figuring out the motivation for that goal).

If you're end game then you're not spending the Iso on much other than the treadmill of champing the new people and the dupes. I have said before, I ended up losing about 1m Iso per month net following ascension being implemented with a few exceptions (anniversary being the most recent) because I was starting to get more 4* covers and the dupes were stacking up and the Iso was ramping down.

The value of the various currencies isn't a static thing either, and it's closely linked to roster progress and opportunity cost. 5 years ago, there was no way I'm opening the lightning vault for 500000 Iso or 6000HP. I'm going to say there's no way I'm ever likely to open the 1000CP vault, but I might...

The great thing is that there are choices and trade-offs and ways of adjusting what you do and how, but you always want or need more of something. There's no right way or wrong way and different people with different rosters can make their own choices. I honestly believe that one of the main reasons the game has survived this long is the evolution of currencies and tokens as much as the new characters and abilities.

entrailbucket

@Scofie said:

@entrailbucket said:

@Scofie said:

@KGB said:

@GrimSkald said:

@Scofie said:

@trenchdigger said:
If there is one thing we have learned over the years, it is that selling is never the right option. I used to sell all but a very few of my maxed 3s, as soon as it's dupe hit 13 covers, and regretted that approach once ascension arrived.

I'm not sure I agree with this. At a purely objective level you are right. But the Iso and HP "cashflow" issues are real at different points in the game, so I would still advocate selling 2 and 3*s to some people dependingon their roster and play styles. Whilst ascension increases rewards, it also drops them more slowly, so the trade off is way longer. The amount of time your dupe slots exist is shorter, so you spend less HP on slots and can save for using in stores for more limited resources.

I still consider ascension more of an end game feature for the "collect em all" group (myself included) and a mid-game feature for the "get rich quick" group.

Point of fact, and I may post this at some point, but because any ratio other than 1:1 yields a lot less rewards if you want the best rewards you're probably better off redoing a 3★ than leveling the 3|4★. Sure the 4★ rewards are better, trouble is they're not 3x better until that 4★ is pretty high. For LTs they're definitely not.

OTOH 5★ rewards are more than 4x better than 3★ rewards, but that's a long slog to get there.

It's not as bad as 3-1 and doubt it's even 2-1.

If you are going the 3->4 route you'd definitely level a pair of 266s to make a 4 which gives you 33 levels of rewards (the 100 extra covers on the 2nd character) on the 4 right away. So you only need 66*3 covers or 196 to hit 370. If you instead sold the 2nd 266 and started another 3, you'd need 176 to max champ (166+13). Pretty sure the 196 covers giving 66 levels of 4 star rewards is going to be in line with the 176 covers spent to get all the 3 star rewards esp since the back end of the 4 rewards are where it's loaded.

KGB

But in that context, the trade off between selling vs ascending a 3* is:
Sell: 105k Iso and 500HP
Ascend: 21k Iso and 550HP (plus 40CP and 4 LT).

The trade off for the next 113 covers is:
If previously sold and sell again: 200k and 1150HP (plus covers, tokens etc)
If previously ascended: 36.5k Iso, 900HP (plus 77CP and 4LT).

Total for sold twice: 305k Iso 1650HP
Total for ascension: 57.5k Iso 1450HP.

If you're in the Iso desert, selling 3s is worth almost 250k Iso and 200HP more than ascending to the same point. And if you get two covers a week, that's over a year of play to get those covers.

So, I think, for every 3* you ascend, you lose 250k per character, per year. If you do them all, that's 10 million Iso. Per year.

Please someone check my maths!

This is exactly what I'm talking about! The math is interesting and it matters (that's a lot of ISO!) but what are you spending the ISO on?

If you're delaying ascension on a particularly strong 3* to spend the ISO on championing a very weak 5*, is that worth it? What if it's a 4* ? What if it's a terrible 3* and a great 5*?

The calculus is more complicated than "how can I get the most stuff?" It becomes a resource allocation question (unless your goal is just "get the most stuff" -- but again, I've got trouble figuring out the motivation for that goal).

If you're end game then you're not spending the Iso on much other than the treadmill of champing the new people and the dupes. I have said before, I ended up losing about 1m Iso per month net following ascension being implemented with a few exceptions (anniversary being the most recent) because I was starting to get more 4* covers and the dupes were stacking up and the Iso was ramping down.

The value of the various currencies isn't a static thing either, and it's closely linked to roster progress and opportunity cost. 5 years ago, there was no way I'm opening the lightning vault for 500000 Iso or 6000HP. I'm going to say there's no way I'm ever likely to open the 1000CP vault, but I might...

The great thing is that there are choices and trade-offs and ways of adjusting what you do and how, but you always want or need more of something. There's no right way or wrong way and different people with different rosters can make their own choices. I honestly believe that one of the main reasons the game has survived this long is the evolution of currencies and tokens as much as the new characters and abilities.

Yep, I agree with all this. It makes it very difficult to answer folks' questions sometimes, though!

Optimizing the sheer amount of rewards is pretty well understood -- it's just math. Optimizing someone's roster building strategy to meet their gameplay goals? That's a totally different animal, and it may actually conflict with reward optimization! I still feel like a lot of players have less fun playing MPQ because they feel forced to do things in a certain way, because it's "optimal."

Scofie

@entrailbucket said:

@Scofie said:

@entrailbucket said:

@Scofie said:

@KGB said:

@GrimSkald said:

@Scofie said:

@trenchdigger said:
If there is one thing we have learned over the years, it is that selling is never the right option. I used to sell all but a very few of my maxed 3s, as soon as it's dupe hit 13 covers, and regretted that approach once ascension arrived.

I'm not sure I agree with this. At a purely objective level you are right. But the Iso and HP "cashflow" issues are real at different points in the game, so I would still advocate selling 2 and 3*s to some people dependingon their roster and play styles. Whilst ascension increases rewards, it also drops them more slowly, so the trade off is way longer. The amount of time your dupe slots exist is shorter, so you spend less HP on slots and can save for using in stores for more limited resources.

I still consider ascension more of an end game feature for the "collect em all" group (myself included) and a mid-game feature for the "get rich quick" group.

Point of fact, and I may post this at some point, but because any ratio other than 1:1 yields a lot less rewards if you want the best rewards you're probably better off redoing a 3★ than leveling the 3|4★. Sure the 4★ rewards are better, trouble is they're not 3x better until that 4★ is pretty high. For LTs they're definitely not.

OTOH 5★ rewards are more than 4x better than 3★ rewards, but that's a long slog to get there.

It's not as bad as 3-1 and doubt it's even 2-1.

If you are going the 3->4 route you'd definitely level a pair of 266s to make a 4 which gives you 33 levels of rewards (the 100 extra covers on the 2nd character) on the 4 right away. So you only need 66*3 covers or 196 to hit 370. If you instead sold the 2nd 266 and started another 3, you'd need 176 to max champ (166+13). Pretty sure the 196 covers giving 66 levels of 4 star rewards is going to be in line with the 176 covers spent to get all the 3 star rewards esp since the back end of the 4 rewards are where it's loaded.

KGB

But in that context, the trade off between selling vs ascending a 3* is:
Sell: 105k Iso and 500HP
Ascend: 21k Iso and 550HP (plus 40CP and 4 LT).

The trade off for the next 113 covers is:
If previously sold and sell again: 200k and 1150HP (plus covers, tokens etc)
If previously ascended: 36.5k Iso, 900HP (plus 77CP and 4LT).

Total for sold twice: 305k Iso 1650HP
Total for ascension: 57.5k Iso 1450HP.

If you're in the Iso desert, selling 3s is worth almost 250k Iso and 200HP more than ascending to the same point. And if you get two covers a week, that's over a year of play to get those covers.

So, I think, for every 3* you ascend, you lose 250k per character, per year. If you do them all, that's 10 million Iso. Per year.

Please someone check my maths!

This is exactly what I'm talking about! The math is interesting and it matters (that's a lot of ISO!) but what are you spending the ISO on?

If you're delaying ascension on a particularly strong 3* to spend the ISO on championing a very weak 5*, is that worth it? What if it's a 4* ? What if it's a terrible 3* and a great 5*?

The calculus is more complicated than "how can I get the most stuff?" It becomes a resource allocation question (unless your goal is just "get the most stuff" -- but again, I've got trouble figuring out the motivation for that goal).

If you're end game then you're not spending the Iso on much other than the treadmill of champing the new people and the dupes. I have said before, I ended up losing about 1m Iso per month net following ascension being implemented with a few exceptions (anniversary being the most recent) because I was starting to get more 4* covers and the dupes were stacking up and the Iso was ramping down.

The value of the various currencies isn't a static thing either, and it's closely linked to roster progress and opportunity cost. 5 years ago, there was no way I'm opening the lightning vault for 500000 Iso or 6000HP. I'm going to say there's no way I'm ever likely to open the 1000CP vault, but I might...

The great thing is that there are choices and trade-offs and ways of adjusting what you do and how, but you always want or need more of something. There's no right way or wrong way and different people with different rosters can make their own choices. I honestly believe that one of the main reasons the game has survived this long is the evolution of currencies and tokens as much as the new characters and abilities.

Yep, I agree with all this. It makes it very difficult to answer folks' questions sometimes, though!

Optimizing the sheer amount of rewards is pretty well understood -- it's just math. Optimizing someone's roster building strategy to meet their gameplay goals? That's a totally different animal, and it may actually conflict with reward optimization! I still feel like a lot of players have less fun playing MPQ because they feel forced to do things in a certain way, because it's "optimal."

Yeah, and there are some "kind of rules" that are suitable for maybe 80% of players, 80% of the time. Like: Don't sell a lvl50 1* (though I have, several times, in the early days to free up roster slots and save HP).

In my head "rewards optimization" is the best combination of resources to meet your immediate, mid and long- term goals. Each of these is a pipeline with a bottleneck and sequencing them correctly allows the easiest transition between goals. Like the whole "opening vs non-opening tokens" thing blows my mind!

If I had the time, I'd develop a straw man whole map of options and considerations and constraints. The MPQ world has hugely moved on since I was in the early stages though so it would most likely be a lengthy, hole-filled, and imprecise exercise!

KGB

@Scofie said:

@KGB said:

@GrimSkald said:

@Scofie said:

@trenchdigger said:
If there is one thing we have learned over the years, it is that selling is never the right option. I used to sell all but a very few of my maxed 3s, as soon as it's dupe hit 13 covers, and regretted that approach once ascension arrived.

I'm not sure I agree with this. At a purely objective level you are right. But the Iso and HP "cashflow" issues are real at different points in the game, so I would still advocate selling 2 and 3*s to some people dependingon their roster and play styles. Whilst ascension increases rewards, it also drops them more slowly, so the trade off is way longer. The amount of time your dupe slots exist is shorter, so you spend less HP on slots and can save for using in stores for more limited resources.

I still consider ascension more of an end game feature for the "collect em all" group (myself included) and a mid-game feature for the "get rich quick" group.

Point of fact, and I may post this at some point, but because any ratio other than 1:1 yields a lot less rewards if you want the best rewards you're probably better off redoing a 3★ than leveling the 3|4★. Sure the 4★ rewards are better, trouble is they're not 3x better until that 4★ is pretty high. For LTs they're definitely not.

OTOH 5★ rewards are more than 4x better than 3★ rewards, but that's a long slog to get there.

It's not as bad as 3-1 and doubt it's even 2-1.

If you are going the 3->4 route you'd definitely level a pair of 266s to make a 4 which gives you 33 levels of rewards (the 100 extra covers on the 2nd character) on the 4 right away. So you only need 66*3 covers or 196 to hit 370. If you instead sold the 2nd 266 and started another 3, you'd need 176 to max champ (166+13). Pretty sure the 196 covers giving 66 levels of 4 star rewards is going to be in line with the 176 covers spent to get all the 3 star rewards esp since the back end of the 4 rewards are where it's loaded.

KGB

But in that context, the trade off between selling vs ascending a 3* is:
Sell: 105k Iso and 500HP
Ascend: 21k Iso and 550HP (plus 40CP and 4 LT).

The trade off for the next 113 covers is:
If previously sold and sell again: 200k and 1150HP (plus covers, tokens etc)
If previously ascended: 36.5k Iso, 900HP (plus 77CP and 4LT).

Total for sold twice: 305k Iso 1650HP
Total for ascension: 57.5k Iso 1450HP.

If you're in the Iso desert, selling 3s is worth almost 250k Iso and 200HP more than ascending to the same point. And if you get two covers a week, that's over a year of play to get those covers.

So, I think, for every 3* you ascend, you lose 250k per character, per year. If you do them all, that's 10 million Iso. Per year.

Please someone check my maths!

I don't quite understand your math.

I understand this part since its obvious
But in that context, the trade off between selling vs ascending a 3* is:
Sell: 105k Iso and 500HP
Ascend: 21k Iso and 550HP (plus 40CP and 4 LT).

So if you sell, you get 105K ISO vs spending 21K ISO to ascend.

But when you re-roster the 3* and level that character from 40-166 it costs 119K ISO + 7500 to promote so you can max champ at 266. So the cost of leveling up eats up 100% and more of what you got as the sell back ISO so there is no net benefit of ISO when selling.

Meanwhile the person who ascended doesn't pay any more ISO cost (beyond the 21K to ascend).

So where are you losing 250K per character that you ascend vs re-roster?

KGB

Scofie

@KGB said:

@Scofie said:

@KGB said:

@GrimSkald said:

@Scofie said:

@trenchdigger said:
If there is one thing we have learned over the years, it is that selling is never the right option. I used to sell all but a very few of my maxed 3s, as soon as it's dupe hit 13 covers, and regretted that approach once ascension arrived.

I'm not sure I agree with this. At a purely objective level you are right. But the Iso and HP "cashflow" issues are real at different points in the game, so I would still advocate selling 2 and 3*s to some people dependingon their roster and play styles. Whilst ascension increases rewards, it also drops them more slowly, so the trade off is way longer. The amount of time your dupe slots exist is shorter, so you spend less HP on slots and can save for using in stores for more limited resources.

I still consider ascension more of an end game feature for the "collect em all" group (myself included) and a mid-game feature for the "get rich quick" group.

Point of fact, and I may post this at some point, but because any ratio other than 1:1 yields a lot less rewards if you want the best rewards you're probably better off redoing a 3★ than leveling the 3|4★. Sure the 4★ rewards are better, trouble is they're not 3x better until that 4★ is pretty high. For LTs they're definitely not.

OTOH 5★ rewards are more than 4x better than 3★ rewards, but that's a long slog to get there.

It's not as bad as 3-1 and doubt it's even 2-1.

If you are going the 3->4 route you'd definitely level a pair of 266s to make a 4 which gives you 33 levels of rewards (the 100 extra covers on the 2nd character) on the 4 right away. So you only need 66*3 covers or 196 to hit 370. If you instead sold the 2nd 266 and started another 3, you'd need 176 to max champ (166+13). Pretty sure the 196 covers giving 66 levels of 4 star rewards is going to be in line with the 176 covers spent to get all the 3 star rewards esp since the back end of the 4 rewards are where it's loaded.

KGB

But in that context, the trade off between selling vs ascending a 3* is:
Sell: 105k Iso and 500HP
Ascend: 21k Iso and 550HP (plus 40CP and 4 LT).

The trade off for the next 113 covers is:
If previously sold and sell again: 200k and 1150HP (plus covers, tokens etc)
If previously ascended: 36.5k Iso, 900HP (plus 77CP and 4LT).

Total for sold twice: 305k Iso 1650HP
Total for ascension: 57.5k Iso 1450HP.

If you're in the Iso desert, selling 3s is worth almost 250k Iso and 200HP more than ascending to the same point. And if you get two covers a week, that's over a year of play to get those covers.

So, I think, for every 3* you ascend, you lose 250k per character, per year. If you do them all, that's 10 million Iso. Per year.

Please someone check my maths!

I don't quite understand your math.

I understand this part since its obvious
But in that context, the trade off between selling vs ascending a 3* is:
Sell: 105k Iso and 500HP
Ascend: 21k Iso and 550HP (plus 40CP and 4 LT).

So if you sell, you get 105K ISO vs spending 21K ISO to ascend.

But when you re-roster the 3* and level that character from 40-166 it costs 119K ISO + 7500 to promote so you can max champ at 266. So the cost of leveling up eats up 100% and more of what you got as the sell back ISO so there is no net benefit of ISO when selling.

Meanwhile the person who ascended doesn't pay any more ISO cost (beyond the 21K to ascend).

So where are you losing 250K per character that you ascend vs re-roster?

KGB

Yeah, sorry, it wasn't clear and I forgot the cost to champ another character.

Starting premise was having 2 x 266 3☆s.
If you sell one, you get 105k. If you rebuild, the champ rewards from lvl166-266 are 95k Iso plus another 105k from selling again, so you have 305k Iso but have spent 126k to champ the third, so your net is 179k.

If you ascend, you immediately jump to lvl303 which yields 21k Iso in champ rewards and the next 113 covers takes you to lvl341 which is another 36.5k Iso in champ rewards, so your net Iso gain is 57.5k.

So the Iso benefit from selling is 121.5k after 113 additional covers.

JoeHandle

@GrimSkald said:

@Scofie said:

@trenchdigger said:
If there is one thing we have learned over the years, it is that selling is never the right option. I used to sell all but a very few of my maxed 3s, as soon as it's dupe hit 13 covers, and regretted that approach once ascension arrived.

I'm not sure I agree with this. At a purely objective level you are right. But the Iso and HP "cashflow" issues are real at different points in the game, so I would still advocate selling 2 and 3*s to some people dependingon their roster and play styles. Whilst ascension increases rewards, it also drops them more slowly, so the trade off is way longer. The amount of time your dupe slots exist is shorter, so you spend less HP on slots and can save for using in stores for more limited resources.

I still consider ascension more of an end game feature for the "collect em all" group (myself included) and a mid-game feature for the "get rich quick" group.

Point of fact, and I may post this at some point, but because any ratio other than 1:1 yields a lot less rewards if you want the best rewards you're probably better off redoing a 3★ than leveling the 3|4★. Sure the 4★ rewards are better, trouble is they're not 3x better until that 4★ is pretty high. For LTs they're definitely not.

OTOH 5★ rewards are more than 4x better than 3★ rewards, but that's a long slog to get there.

And all that is why you should take all 3★'s to 266, and spend as many 3★ covers as possible in the 5★ tier, and as few 3★ covers as possible in the 4★ tier.

Once you make a lvl 370 3>4★, ascend it with the next 3>4★ copy of that character you can come up with. If you can whip up 2 more 266's, great, they make a 303 and immediately merge the 370 with the 303. If you happen across a 270 (I hear this happen with increased regularity these days ...), raise it to 271, then merge it 370 + 271.

I believe the devs are comfy handing out those 270s like candy because 1) they tie up slots for a long time (duh), but, more importantly, it's the 370s that are the real treasure. And they take so long to make. On its own, a 270 is worse in terms of performance in comparison to a 266. It's value us in its potential ... which will take 4-8mos to realize if favorited, or 1 - howevermany??? years to realize if not favorited.

---

OF COURSE you register the 5★ dupe! Your other choice is to ... sell every cover you receive for that character, forever? Ye gods, each 5★ copy pays out 20K HP, 25 LTs, and 625cp. You would forego that over worries about a 1200HP roster slot and some iso??? The time to sell (if ever) is when you 550 a second copy of the 5★ ... selling then yields 500K iso and 2K more HP, on top of all those champ rewards.

If thinking, "well, gosh that will take forever", I say thee nay, and remind that—say it with me, kids—"Eh-vuh-ree-thing Gits Fas-tur Awl Tha Ti-yeem." Feel free to use as a mantra in your meditation hour. Progress at every stage is exponential. Slow, slow, slow, a little less slow, kinda picking up now—FLOOD!!"