Seeking Ascension Advice (WInter Soldier)

nbperp
nbperp Posts: 171 Tile Toppler
in MPQ General Discussion

I feel like I've seen it mentioned that there is good reason to ascend a 4* once something comes out that it feeds into. Since 5* Winter Soldier landed this morning, I figured I would ask those who know --

I currently have both a 370 and a 300 4*Winter Soldier. Retro rewards got me 2 covers and 3000 Shards.

Is there anything I gain by ascending the Bucky Barneses now, rather than waiting for the max/max?

Comments

  • BriMan2222
    BriMan2222 Posts: 1,541 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited 1 May 2025, 13:13

    Yes, if you ascend him in the next few days you will get more covers for 5 star bucky. If you wait too long the ascended bucky will no longer reward the 5 star covers.

  • JimboJambo
    JimboJambo Posts: 141 Tile Toppler
    edited 1 May 2025, 14:22

    I think we now have a 4-day window to ascend and double dip on rewards. At that point the 5* rewards will revert back to the standard ones and won't include any retro covers.

    If you ascend now with your second Winter Soldier at Level 300, that will give you a Level 457 ascended Winter Soldier which gets you:

    Level 451: 1500 secondary character shards
    Level 452: 1800 primary character shards
    level 453: 700 primary shards
    level 454: top color cover of primary character
    level 455: top color cover of primary character
    level 456: 165 secondary shards
    level 457: 250 primary

    So 7 and half covers for Winter Solder (Thunderbolts) and 3 and a third covers of Captain America Infinity War.

    If you don't ascend now but just progress your current 4* to Level 370, you'll get all of the rewards in the 4* reward tree from your current Level 300 up to 370. This includes 4 covers for the Winter Soldier (Thunderbolts) and 2 covers for Captain America Infinity, if I've added up the shards correctly.

    So it seems like ascending now would be better for you as you will get more 5* covers that way. Just worth bearing in mind that you will miss out on the LTs, CP, HP and iso that you would have got by going max/max on your 4*.

  • nbperp
    nbperp Posts: 171 Tile Toppler

    Not so much missing the Late, just getting guaranteed 5* covers for them. For a new release. I like it. Going in now to ascend

  • nbperp
    nbperp Posts: 171 Tile Toppler

    Wow.

    I have never champed something this quickly. I had 2 covers and 3,000 shards from retro rewards and then the covers from this ascension.... I now have him at 4-4-5 and at level 452.

    I am sold. I think I'll avoid ascending 4s that are not currently feeding a 5. Wow! Thanks to both @BriMan2222 and @JimboJambo

  • bluewolf
    bluewolf Posts: 6,064 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited 1 May 2025, 15:17

    There are 160 4s in the game (4 are limited). You can do whatever you like with ascension but if someone doesn’t feed someone- but can help your game somehow - you should still ascend them when you think the time is right (maybe when they’re boosted).

    In a calendar year you get 13 5s so let’s say you ascended a non-feeder 4 and there’s no apparent release coming like an MCU film. That means there is an 8.3% chance - at best - (going with 156 equally likely chances) that the character will in the next 12 months feed some new 5. You’ll still get some covers from a 4-5 as well.

    You can kind of do whatever you want imo. It’s just a game; don’t sit on ascending someone just because maybe they’ll feed someone someday, if you think you want to use them in gameplay.

    The best example of “ascend this non-feeder” is Coulson, by the way.

  • MegaBee
    MegaBee Posts: 1,111 Chairperson of the Boards

    @bluewolf said:
    There are 160 4s in the game (4 are limited). You can do whatever you like with ascension but if someone doesn’t feed someone- but can help your game somehow - you should still ascend them when you think the time is right (maybe when they’re boosted).

    In a calendar year you get 13 5s so let’s say you ascended a non-feeder 4 and there’s no apparent release coming like an MCU film. That means there is an 8.3% chance - at best - (going with 156 equally likely chances) that the character will in the next 12 months feed some new 5. You’ll still get some covers from a 4-5 as well.

    You can kind of do whatever you want imo. It’s just a game; don’t sit on ascending someone just because maybe they’ll feed someone someday, if you think you want to use them in gameplay.

    The best example of “ascend this non-feeder” is Coulson, by the way.

    Ascended Coulson is a beast.

  • entrailbucket
    entrailbucket Posts: 6,491 Chairperson of the Boards

    @bluewolf said:
    There are 160 4s in the game (4 are limited). You can do whatever you like with ascension but if someone doesn’t feed someone- but can help your game somehow - you should still ascend them when you think the time is right (maybe when they’re boosted).

    In a calendar year you get 13 5s so let’s say you ascended a non-feeder 4 and there’s no apparent release coming like an MCU film. That means there is an 8.3% chance - at best - (going with 156 equally likely chances) that the character will in the next 12 months feed some new 5. You’ll still get some covers from a 4-5 as well.

    You can kind of do whatever you want imo. It’s just a game; don’t sit on ascending someone just because maybe they’ll feed someone someday, if you think you want to use them in gameplay.

    The best example of “ascend this non-feeder” is Coulson, by the way.

    Is Juggernaut a feeder? I love Coulson, but I don't see him unboosted nearly as much as Juggernaut.

  • bluewolf
    bluewolf Posts: 6,064 Chairperson of the Boards

    4 Jugg feeds Magneto.

    Coulson is good and worth ascending, certainly, but is mostly useful in cheese teams that can defeat meta spam in Simulator.

    Anyway he has more utility than the vast majority of the 4s, ascended. Most of them you wouldn’t bother with beyond “let me see if I can win with them. Nope, turns out mthor/Pol is way better.”

  • JimboJambo
    JimboJambo Posts: 141 Tile Toppler

    @BriMan2222 This is a really useful write up, thank you. I have ascended 15 4s so far, so this helps me to work out who I should be targeting. I do also find the Ascended Winners and Losers thread interesting but it has so many posts now that it can be difficult to find information about specific characters.

  • entrailbucket
    entrailbucket Posts: 6,491 Chairperson of the Boards

    Honestly the list of characters who aren't good ascended is much shorter than the list of the ones that are.

    Most of the players who say "why bother ascending anyone, you'll only ever use Polaris, Juggernaut, etc" only have Polaris, Juggernaut, etc ascended, or haven't bothered trying to use anybody else. So of course those are the only ones they use!

  • LavaManLee
    LavaManLee Posts: 1,598 Chairperson of the Boards

    @entrailbucket said:
    Honestly the list of characters who aren't good ascended is much shorter than the list of the ones that are.

    Most of the players who say "why bother ascending anyone, you'll only ever use Polaris, Juggernaut, etc" only have Polaris, Juggernaut, etc ascended, or haven't bothered trying to use anybody else. So of course those are the only ones they use!

    I think the list of ascended characters that are meta in PVP is what matters to many more than which are good. I totally understand that many people play the game differently, but the list of players who are absolutely great at both offense AND defense is very, very, very short. Heck, I wouldn't even put 5Polaris on that list as her defense isn't that good.

    So, while some of the Ascended 4s might be "good" it doesn't mean they will do you much good in PVP. If one only plays PVE, totally understand that some of those Ascended 4s are going to work way better for you.

    But there are only so many resources to put into Ascended characters, one has to focus on what is important to their style of play.

  • entrailbucket
    entrailbucket Posts: 6,491 Chairperson of the Boards

    @LavaManLee said:

    @entrailbucket said:
    Honestly the list of characters who aren't good ascended is much shorter than the list of the ones that are.

    Most of the players who say "why bother ascending anyone, you'll only ever use Polaris, Juggernaut, etc" only have Polaris, Juggernaut, etc ascended, or haven't bothered trying to use anybody else. So of course those are the only ones they use!

    I think the list of ascended characters that are meta in PVP is what matters to many more than which are good. I totally understand that many people play the game differently, but the list of players who are absolutely great at both offense AND defense is very, very, very short. Heck, I wouldn't even put 5Polaris on that list as her defense isn't that good.

    So, while some of the Ascended 4s might be "good" it doesn't mean they will do you much good in PVP. If one only plays PVE, totally understand that some of those Ascended 4s are going to work way better for you.

    But there are only so many resources to put into Ascended characters, one has to focus on what is important to their style of play.

    Characters like the ones briman listed are absolutely usable in PvP (PvE is a totally different story -- if you want to compete there, then you have to use something that wins turn0, and that list is fairly well known) and can more than match the "meta" guys...if they're boosted that week.

    And that's the catch. If you like using the same team every event, there's no reason to mess around with anybody else ever. Just get the "meta" characters and stop. It's the easiest way to win and it'll probably work forever.

    If someone is happy running the same team for months or years, every event, over and over, I say good for them!

    If that isn't appealing and you're sick of doing the same thing forever, I promise you there are plenty of other ways to win, if you bother to explore them. If you're bored but refuse to try something different, well, that's your own fault!

  • DAZ0273
    DAZ0273 Posts: 10,833 Chairperson of the Boards

    I'm guessing the next ones to look at will be the Fantastic Four as it seems highly likely if we get a 5* for any of them that the 4* will be changed to feed. I also imagine that apart from guys like Entrail, not a lot of people will have these ascended. Of course they could pull a bait and switch and give us 5* Galactus but I think Mr. Fantastic is probably high up the list given who is playing him in the film.

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