Do level evenly or use the levels to fine tune abilities?

Lemminkäinen
Lemminkäinen Posts: 378 Mover and Shaker
edited October 2015 in Roster and Level Help
I have limited my three-stars to 102 in order to keep my 2-stars usable for a deeper roster but now my three-stars are getting to the point where I have a good amount of them with 10+ covers so was thinking of levelling them up.

But there are quite a few abilities that you want to be in front. Whether it is for taking damage (Hulk's Anger, Marvel's Absorption, Patch's and Daken's Healing), abilities depending on own tiles (Gamora, Patch) or wishing to be the one doing match damage (Vision, maybe sorta kinda Bulls3ye). Or maybe they just have a lot of health (She-Hulk and quite a few others).

There's also some very squishy support characters that you prolly won't like to expose to hitback (Hood, Loki).

So maybe going higher level for the former group and lower for the latter compared to your other characters?

I was thinking of pushing to 120 first. But should I go for 130 with Hulk, Gamora, Patch, Captain Marvel, and Vision? And 110 with Hood and Loki?

Also, doe people do this at higher levels? Or is maxing the way to go?

Oh, and I do realize that boosts kinda mess things a lot.

All input appreciated!

Comments

  • lukewin
    lukewin Posts: 1,356 Chairperson of the Boards
    It is a lot of work and planning that has to go into it. I'd say that's a deterrent for a lot of people to do it. If you have the time and willingness to figure it all out, you'll probably reap the rewards. If you just told people what levels were required, people might be more inclined to do it. Right now, it's just easier to max everyone and play the game only. But what it sounds like you're trying to do, is play the game before playing the game, so that when you do play the game, you don't come up to the same problems that others have, like characters tanking that you don't want tanking, etc. In the bigger picture, your strategy is more viable. When you play, you won't have to worry about healthpacks like most, if you have true healers tanking. You'll be able to play more often than your opponents, using the same resources. The planning ahead of time would reward you, b/c they're not willing to do it. You might spend more time planning in the beginning, but over time, you'll reap a lot more benefits and the return on investment of that time spent planning will far outweigh the time it took to do it.

    Good luck and I hope you get a system that works for you in place. I would definitely suggest getting true healers as your tanks. Might not even bother leveling powers that are cover and not level dependent. There's a lot of variables to account for, but when you get the formula figured out, then all you gotta do is match gems.
  • Green83
    Green83 Posts: 52 Match Maker
    Sorry to hijack your thread for my question, but it was related to the fine tuning of abilities.
    Let's say my OBW and 2Storm have the same power on blue. How is decided who gets the icon and does the damage, asking this to try and make sure its always OBW for the Espionage proc.

    I would try to plan ahead for certain tanks, keep them around the same level where possible though to not inflate the scaling too much. But I do love playing the game before playing the game as mentioned in the post above.
  • Quebbster
    Quebbster Posts: 8,070 Chairperson of the Boards
    Green83 wrote:
    Sorry to hijack your thread for my question, but it was related to the fine tuning of abilities.
    Let's say my OBW and 2Storm have the same power on blue. How is decided who gets the icon and does the damage, asking this to try and make sure its always OBW for the Espionage proc.

    I would try to plan ahead for certain tanks, keep them around the same level where possible though to not inflate the scaling too much. But I do love playing the game before playing the game as mentioned in the post above.
    The order of priority goes center, left, right. If you want OBW to tank for Storm, put Storm to the right and OBW left or center. As long as they are the same level this should work. If OBW is higher than Storm I don't think you need to worry.
  • lukewin
    lukewin Posts: 1,356 Chairperson of the Boards
    You can find the levels and the corresponding damage on the MPQ wiki. Not detailed here on the forums. Confirming what poster above said. If the damage is equal, that's when position matters. Position doesn't matter if the values are not the same.

    2 star page
  • BlackSheep101
    BlackSheep101 Posts: 2,025 Chairperson of the Boards
    Do note that there are hidden fractions at less-than-max levels that can mess with the priority. To borrow the example above, if OBW and CStorm are below max level and both do 40 damage on blue, it's possible that one may tank over the other regardless of their position.
  • amusingfoo1
    amusingfoo1 Posts: 597 Critical Contributor
    I'm a little further along, but facing a similar decision point.

    I have all 3*s, with fourteen fully covered (most of them optimally), a few 4*s with enough powers to justify raising (DP4, Jean, 4hor, IMHB), and several more 3*s with 10+ covers. All of those, and a few others, sitting at level 120.

    I mostly do PvE (regular top-10 finisher), but do do enough PvP to notice the lack of levels.

    I pretty much need to start leveling up (and have 600k ISO with which to do it), as I've got three 5* covers sitting in my rewards queue (I can't decide whether to be thrilled or bummed about that), and I'm trying to decide how to do it.

    With that much ISO, I can level up all of the 4*s and three or four of the 3*s (Witch, Fist, Panther, perhaps) all the way to 166, or I can level a much larger group to 150 or so. My big concerns are PvE scaling (I don't want it to go so wacky that I can't regularly do at least top-50) and PvP competitiveness (I'm pretty sure taking the smaller group higher will be better for PvP, though maybe not by much). It is nice, though, having so many at the same level, as it gives me lots of options for experimentation. For a while, I was in a serious rut, with DP4 and Jean dominating my approach to almost everything.

    My roster

    Oh, and to OP: I jumped straight from 94-cap to 120-cap when I was in your shoes. I guess, thinking about it, I did do that with three or four characters, and have been steadily increasing selection since then. It did help that I had enough ISO saved up at that time that I never got below 100k or so.

    FWIW, I mostly stopped using my 2*s when I made that jump (just in Deadpool Daily and the occasional "easy" PvE nodes. And the odd use of OBW, such as vs Galactus).
  • TxMoose
    TxMoose Posts: 4,319 Chairperson of the Boards
    from northern polarity's guide:
    FAQs:

    What level should I level character X to?
    It might seem obvious to just level all your characters to 166, but leveling takes an intense amount of iso, and it turns out that you can still reap most of the benefits out of a character while spending a fraction of the iso, as leveling someone to 135 takes 60% of the iso needed to max someone out, and makes that character 80% as effective as its maxed counterpart, which is generally good enough for PvE and when the character is boosted for PvP. Here are some numbers that I recommend leveling 3* characters to (4*s are more complicated and I'll add that later maybe).

    166 - The obvious one, level all your guys that you will constantly use in PvP / PvE.

    For when you want your character to be a strong PvP defensive deterrent and usable in a PvE B team even when not boosted -
    137 - This gets your character above level 200 when major boosted in a PvP (which is a big defensive deterrent), and allows that character to tank for your 166 characters when it is minor boosted in a PvE. Level your guys that you use only when boosted that you DO want tanking for other characters (She-Hulk, etc) when they are featured.
    135 - This gets your character above level 200 when major boosted in a PvP (which is a big defensive deterrent), and allows OTHER 166 characters to tank for your character when it is minor boosted in a PvE. Level your guys that you use only when boosted that you do NOT want tanking for other characters (squishies like Mohawk, etc) when they are featured.

    For when you want your character to be an okay defensive deterrent in PvP.
    118 - This gets your character to 178 when featured in a PvP, which is when they tank for a level 270 4*. This is important for say the Daredevil tournament, as it makes opposing X-Forces surgical strike hit purple, which is a terrible color to use.
    114 - Doesn't tank for a 270 4*.
    112 - This gets your character to 168 when featured in a PvP, which allows them to tank for your other 166 3*s.
    110 - 165 boosted, so doesn't tank for your other 3*s.