Start a dupe 4 or swap?

trenchdigger

Always interesting to hear different views and opinions from the forum, and this is a new dilemma for me after opening a chunk of LL yesterday.

I have dupes of most 4s (haven't checked, but guessing 80%+) plus a handful of max max 4 ascended 5s. Some dupes are well on their way to 370, but some aren't even champed yet.

I rostered a lot of the 4s I pulled yesterday (the good ones and the ones for which the dupe is high), but I still have approx. 130 in my rewards inbox which fall into 2 camps:

1. Those for which I have 1 370 and no dupe yet. This includes Spider-Woman who is awful and probably not worth creating a dupe for (how many years till she reaches 370 again), Prowler who I understand is great when ascended to 5 but again how long to hit 370, and half a dozen others in between these 2.

2. Those with a dupe not yet champed or very low level. This includes Black Widow (dupe has 8 covers) who is awful so do I just cut my loses and swap any extra covers going forwards as the next 5 covers won't give me anything and will cost iso to champ (although iso isn't an issue for me), and Ghost (dupe has 5 covers) who I suspect is very good as a 5, but again will probably take years to hit 370 again, and quite a few others.

130 4* swaps would cost me 52,000 gold (which I have) and would take my Polaris from 513 to 546 which seems considerably better than adding a few levels to low level 4* dupes which will probably never be of use to me.

However, I'm also aware that MPQ is a marathon, not a sprint, so am I just being greedy wanting the new shiny now?

So swap all, some (if so which), none?

entrailbucket

I don't think anyone can answer this for you. It depends on your play style and what you value. Prowler and Ghost are very, very good when ascended, but if you don't want to use them they won't do anything for you. If Polaris is the character you want to use instead of them, you should apply the covers to her.

Borstock

Polaris has been in the game forever. Is she really all that shiny and new? If I were ever in a position to consider that many swaps, both an enormous spend and forfeit of in-game currency, it would be on an actual new character. I might not get to play with it immediately against 672's in PvP, but I couldn't possibly care any less about that. I'm the guy who raced to ascend Moon Girl/Dino.

entrailbucket

@Borstock said:
Polaris has been in the game forever. Is she really all that shiny and new? If I were ever in a position to consider that many swaps, both an enormous spend and forfeit of in-game currency, it would be on an actual new character. I might not get to play with it immediately against 672's in PvP, but I couldn't possibly care any less about that. I'm the guy who raced to ascend Moon Girl/Dino.

Lately I'm seeing a bunch of 550 Polaris/m'Thor teams in PvP. It's an incredibly fast clock -- you've got like 2 turns to kill or stun Polaris before they rip off a cascade that'll hit you for 300 or 400,000+, and then the next turn you're just dead.

Borstock

@entrailbucket said:

@Borstock said:
Polaris has been in the game forever. Is she really all that shiny and new? If I were ever in a position to consider that many swaps, both an enormous spend and forfeit of in-game currency, it would be on an actual new character. I might not get to play with it immediately against 672's in PvP, but I couldn't possibly care any less about that. I'm the guy who raced to ascend Moon Girl/Dino.

Lately I'm seeing a bunch of 550 Polaris/m'Thor teams in PvP. It's an incredibly fast clock -- you've got like 2 turns to kill or stun Polaris before they rip off a cascade that'll hit you for 300 or 400,000+, and then the next turn you're just dead.

All the more reason she isn't anything new.

KGB

You could also consider rostering those dups and instead of waiting to 370/370 simply ascend once you get to 271. Sure, you miss out on re-doing all the 4 star rewards but the upside is you get the 5 star version of the character to use today (only 13 covers needed) instead of years from now.

This might be an especially worthwhile thing to do with Prowler and Ghost and swap the Spiderwoman/Black Widow covers to quickly get them both to 13 covers.

You can then apply the rest (100ish?) covers to Polaris while also adding 2 new 5s in Ghost/Prowler.

KGB

entrailbucket

@Borstock said:

@entrailbucket said:

@Borstock said:
Polaris has been in the game forever. Is she really all that shiny and new? If I were ever in a position to consider that many swaps, both an enormous spend and forfeit of in-game currency, it would be on an actual new character. I might not get to play with it immediately against 672's in PvP, but I couldn't possibly care any less about that. I'm the guy who raced to ascend Moon Girl/Dino.

Lately I'm seeing a bunch of 550 Polaris/m'Thor teams in PvP. It's an incredibly fast clock -- you've got like 2 turns to kill or stun Polaris before they rip off a cascade that'll hit you for 300 or 400,000+, and then the next turn you're just dead.

All the more reason she isn't anything new.

Oh sorry, I wasn't disagreeing with you on that, just pointing out what seems to be a trend.

Borstock

@entrailbucket said:

@Borstock said:

@entrailbucket said:

@Borstock said:
Polaris has been in the game forever. Is she really all that shiny and new? If I were ever in a position to consider that many swaps, both an enormous spend and forfeit of in-game currency, it would be on an actual new character. I might not get to play with it immediately against 672's in PvP, but I couldn't possibly care any less about that. I'm the guy who raced to ascend Moon Girl/Dino.

Lately I'm seeing a bunch of 550 Polaris/m'Thor teams in PvP. It's an incredibly fast clock -- you've got like 2 turns to kill or stun Polaris before they rip off a cascade that'll hit you for 300 or 400,000+, and then the next turn you're just dead.

All the more reason she isn't anything new.

Oh sorry, I wasn't disagreeing with you on that, just pointing out what seems to be a trend.

Ah. Misunderstood.

Blazpheme

For me, it would come down to available roster slots, so I would apply every cover I could to an existing dupe (even the smelly ones) before swapping. After that, if I had a bunch of covers for a really good character, I might consider starting another dupe with those. Otherwise, they might be better off being swapped for something I could actually use.

GrimSkald

@trenchdigger said:
Always interesting to hear different views and opinions from the forum, and this is a new dilemma for me after opening a chunk of LL yesterday.

I have dupes of most 4s (haven't checked, but guessing 80%+) plus a handful of max max 4 ascended 5s. Some dupes are well on their way to 370, but some aren't even champed yet.

I rostered a lot of the 4s I pulled yesterday (the good ones and the ones for which the dupe is high), but I still have approx. 130 in my rewards inbox which fall into 2 camps:

1. Those for which I have 1 370 and no dupe yet. This includes Spider-Woman who is awful and probably not worth creating a dupe for (how many years till she reaches 370 again), Prowler who I understand is great when ascended to 5 but again how long to hit 370, and half a dozen others in between these 2.

2. Those with a dupe not yet champed or very low level. This includes Black Widow (dupe has 8 covers) who is awful so do I just cut my loses and swap any extra covers going forwards as the next 5 covers won't give me anything and will cost iso to champ (although iso isn't an issue for me), and Ghost (dupe has 5 covers) who I suspect is very good as a 5, but again will probably take years to hit 370 again, and quite a few others.

130 4* swaps would cost me 52,000 gold (which I have) and would take my Polaris from 513 to 546 which seems considerably better than adding a few levels to low level 4* dupes which will probably never be of use to me.

However, I'm also aware that MPQ is a marathon, not a sprint, so am I just being greedy wanting the new shiny now?

So swap all, some (if so which), none?

So this is a really good question, to be honest. So characters represent two things in the game, really: use and rewards. The first kind of trumps the latter, but if you're literally never going to use the character, then you want to look strictly at rewards.

Looking strictly at rewards, the 4|5★ characters are actually pretty bad -- you get less bang for your buck for their levels since you're spending 4 covers for every level. A lot less, actually, I broke it down in the thread on my signature. Speaking for myself, unless I see myself using a 4★ I actually create a dupe even after I ascend them 4|5★ -- the rewards I get outweigh the fact that they won't be leveled past 475. I also never ascend less than a 370/370 4★.

However, if you are going to use the character, then that has an inherent value of its own. If you're not stuck for resources (HP in particular) the exchange system is actually a great way to focus on a character. I've been doing it myself on 2★s and 3★s I don't think I'll ever use, and I'm sure it will make a serious difference in getting one of them to 2|5★. Speaking for myself, I'd just roster the dupes (and level the dupes to 370 to ascend them, and then probably re-roster another dupe to get the 4★ rewards,) but Polaris is a hell of a good partner to so many other characters, leveling her more is definitely a good option. It's a pity her boost week has already gone by, she was an absolute monster during it.

entrailbucket

@GrimSkald said:

@trenchdigger said:
Always interesting to hear different views and opinions from the forum, and this is a new dilemma for me after opening a chunk of LL yesterday.

I have dupes of most 4s (haven't checked, but guessing 80%+) plus a handful of max max 4 ascended 5s. Some dupes are well on their way to 370, but some aren't even champed yet.

I rostered a lot of the 4s I pulled yesterday (the good ones and the ones for which the dupe is high), but I still have approx. 130 in my rewards inbox which fall into 2 camps:

1. Those for which I have 1 370 and no dupe yet. This includes Spider-Woman who is awful and probably not worth creating a dupe for (how many years till she reaches 370 again), Prowler who I understand is great when ascended to 5 but again how long to hit 370, and half a dozen others in between these 2.

2. Those with a dupe not yet champed or very low level. This includes Black Widow (dupe has 8 covers) who is awful so do I just cut my loses and swap any extra covers going forwards as the next 5 covers won't give me anything and will cost iso to champ (although iso isn't an issue for me), and Ghost (dupe has 5 covers) who I suspect is very good as a 5, but again will probably take years to hit 370 again, and quite a few others.

130 4* swaps would cost me 52,000 gold (which I have) and would take my Polaris from 513 to 546 which seems considerably better than adding a few levels to low level 4* dupes which will probably never be of use to me.

However, I'm also aware that MPQ is a marathon, not a sprint, so am I just being greedy wanting the new shiny now?

So swap all, some (if so which), none?

So this is a really good question, to be honest. So characters represent two things in the game, really: use and rewards. The first kind of trumps the latter, but if you're literally never going to use the character, then you want to look strictly at rewards.

I'm not disagreeing here, but how would you know that you won't use a character if you don't have them yet? I've seen this a few times, and often it comes from folks saying the characters are unusable. This isn't generally true -- there are certainly some ascended duds like Spiderwoman, but Prowler and Ghost (examples mentioned by OP) are absolutely usable, and there are tons of others.

Now maybe someone's just decided that they don't want to use those characters, or that they prefer others, and that's ok.

Zarqa

@GrimSkald said: I broke it down in the thread on my signature.

Sorry to go off topic, but I have no idea how to see people’s signature. Didn’t even realize that is a thing…

Help?

KGB

@Zarqa said:

@GrimSkald said: I broke it down in the thread on my signature.

Sorry to go off topic, but I have no idea how to see people’s signature. Didn’t even realize that is a thing…

Help?

"Here is my breakdown of native 4★ vs 4|5★ rewards. It's useful to look at if you're in a position to re-roster an ascended 4★, or want to know if you should level a dupe 4★ to 370 before ascending them. (short answer - yes.)
My Roster is here, but I haven't kept it up to date since 2019."

At the bottom of his post is his signature (I posted it above). The word 'Here' is a link to that thread if you go back to his post.

KGB

entrailbucket

@Zarqa said:

@GrimSkald said: I broke it down in the thread on my signature.

Sorry to go off topic, but I have no idea how to see people’s signature. Didn’t even realize that is a thing…

Help?

I think they don't show on mobile.

Zarqa

@entrailbucket said:

@Zarqa said:

@GrimSkald said: I broke it down in the thread on my signature.

Sorry to go off topic, but I have no idea how to see people’s signature. Didn’t even realize that is a thing…

Help?

I think they don't show on mobile.

That must be it. And it’s also not even shown when I click someone’s profile. That’s stupid.

Zarqa

@KGB said:

@Zarqa said:

@GrimSkald said: I broke it down in the thread on my signature.

Sorry to go off topic, but I have no idea how to see people’s signature. Didn’t even realize that is a thing…

Help?

"Here is my breakdown of native 4★ vs 4|5★ rewards. It's useful to look at if you're in a position to re-roster an ascended 4★, or want to know if you should level a dupe 4★ to 370 before ascending them. (short answer - yes.)
My Roster is here, but I haven't kept it up to date since 2019."

At the bottom of his post is his signature (I posted it above). The word 'Here' is a link to that thread if you go back to his post.

KGB

Nope not for me. As EB mentioned, must be a mobile thing?

ThaRoadWarrior

I’m not max-max ascending. It’s going pretty good for the most part.

entrailbucket

@ThaRoadWarrior said:
I’m not max-max ascending. It’s going pretty good for the most part.

It's suboptimal in terms of rewards math, but the question I always have is what would you DO with the extra rewards?

Like a bunch of folks say "I'd never use those characters anyway." And that's fine, but which characters WOULD you use, then? Are you targeting those other characters with the extra rewards you're getting?

If your strategy is "get the most rewards" without some kind of larger goal, then I just don't understand that.

Borstock

The vague "stronger overall" comes to mind.

dianetics

I'm just strait ascending the 4's at either 271 / 280 / 300 depending on what covers they offer.
2s I max max because they don't take long. 3s I decided I'm just going Max / min +1.
My roster is just too bloated to deal with it, and it gets rather annoying trying to apply covers.
Once my roster got to near 600 I just couldn't be bothered anymore and just ascended everyone that was available.

Daredevil217

@entrailbucket said:

@ThaRoadWarrior said:
I’m not max-max ascending. It’s going pretty good for the most part.

It's suboptimal in terms of rewards math, but the question I always have is what would you DO with the extra rewards?

Like a bunch of folks say "I'd never use those characters anyway." And that's fine, **but which characters WOULD you use, then? **Are you targeting those other characters with the extra rewards you're getting?

If your strategy is "get the most rewards" without some kind of larger goal, then I just don't understand that.

The next meta release. Whenever the next mthor (PvP offense), Chasm (deterrent) or Golden May (PVE speed) gets released, you have stockpiled much more CP and LT pulls to 550 that character out of the gate due to all the extra rewards you’ve amassed not ascending Spider-Woman and collecting those sweet sweet rewards. Not to mention the potential for a double dip while waiting to ascend.