LT pull strategy...

GrimSkald
GrimSkald Posts: 2,487 Chairperson of the Boards

This may belong better in "tips and advice," but I kind of want to hear what other people think more than I want to just "dispense wisdom."  I'm curious as to what your "pull strategy" is for CP and actual Legendary Tokens.  Do you use CP on Classics and pull LTs?  Do you indulge in the 5* intro tokens?  How about the special event ones like "Fan Favorites?"  What's your strategy?

In my mind, 5* Players should probably "ride the wave of latest" if they want to fully cover each character as they come.   This is actually what I do.  By that I mean pull Latest until you no longer want to add levels to the 5* who's going to be phased out next, then hoard until the next release.  For example, I'm hoarding now since Wasp is very meh and mine is 459.  When Cable goes in, I'll pull until I get at least one of him, then decide just how high I want my Loki (he's currently 455,) then hoard again.  Anyway, hoarding two weeks prior to the next release is in tokens is a good way to make sure you have them for their first featured event.  Maybe dip into Classics if you're happy with the levels on the current crop.  Dip into Event Tokens (new release or special event,) if you really want covers for that crop of 5*s - that should generally be when you either want to help finish them or else add a few levels to characters you use all the time (in my case, Thor, Okoye, JJ.)

The alternative for a 5* player to riding the Latest Wave would be pretty simple - use CP on Classics and open Tokens.  I would tend to think you'll end up not fully covering characters before they leave Latest, but if you don't care then this presents an alternative that gets  you, in the end, 25% more 4* and 5* covers.  You may also end up not having a certain 5* before they're featured in PVE, though that can probably be avoided by hoarding for a week or two before the tokens flip and using CP for Latest until you get the new 5*.

I transitioned from 4* to 5* with a much smaller pool, but I imagine the best strategy for a non 5* player is to pull Classics with CP and Latest from tokens until you're ready to transition to the 5* tier, then hoard until there's a 5* worth transitioning is in the crop.  You'll probably end up with a lot of 5* with 5-7 covers, but that's not inherently a problem and is good for PVE.

So anyway, what do you do?

Comments

  • pheregas
    pheregas Posts: 1,721 Chairperson of the Boards
    I usually pull as I go, then go into hoarding mode when they announce a new 5*.  Along the same lines, I'll go into a brief mini-hoard towards the end of a season as the new 4s will soon be entering tokens.

    This strategy has allowed me to champ every single 5* since adopting this strategy and fairly quickly cover the newer 4s after setting them to my only BH at the start of a season.
  • Daredevil217
    Daredevil217 Posts: 3,893 Chairperson of the Boards

    This may help with your question about what others are doing.

    For me:

    - I opened Classics and LL tokens as I got them for most of my MPQ career- as I slowly plugged along in 4* land.
    - I eventually hit a tipping point where I was cover-maxing people WAY faster than I had the iso to champ them so I stopped opening tokens to prevent waste.  Even without opening I still had to toss covers due to lack of iso.  So I hoarded for that reason rather than a grand leap into 5* land
    - I built up a massive hoard of both CP and LT
    - Right before Daredevil was set to leave Latests (Christmas Eve actually) I decided to finally crack my hoard for him.  I had no interest in ever transitioning, but wanted a fully covered DD because he's my favorite superhero and figured at worst I could soft-cap him and stay in the 4* tier.
    - I opened again for Gambit and then Thor when it turned out they were going to be the new meta and cover-maxed them.
    - I actively chased Jessica and Okoye for the same reasons but got Ghost Rider (11), Archangel (11 then- but now finished with the Cable store), Beardcap (12 + 1 saved) close along the way.
    - So basically, if there's something I want, I open until I get it and if I don't I hoard.
    - I still have about 385 pulls left and am thinking I might go crazy for Cable/Kitty/Loki (never pulled for three at once before), though I'm hearing all three are "meh" and don't have a place in the meta.  I think Kitty will end up being best of the three and may be a great piece of a future special tile meta like what we have in 4* land.



  • sinnerjfl
    sinnerjfl Posts: 1,260 Chairperson of the Boards
    I pull from Latests exclusively until I cover whichever character Im chasing, I'll get them a few champ levels if its possible but don't want to spend too many ressources so I can cover the next Latest 5* just in case they end up good.

    I'm never spending CP on special stores ever again, it's too much of a gamble and they're not open long enough to beat the odds. I can wait 2 weeks for the new 5* to enter Latest tokens. Might miss out on one or two 5* essentials nodes in PVE but whatever.

    I pull from Classics sometimes, I still have older 5*'s close to being covered (9+ covers) and sometimes you luck out, sometimes you dont. With saved covers its a viable and cheaper option sometimes. Doesnt hurt to have more of the Classic 5*'s champed as well, its probably not what you wanted but champ rewards are very good for 5*'s.
  • Straycat
    Straycat Posts: 963 Critical Contributor
    Not a hoarder so those new release or special tokens are useless to me. I guess I usually use cp on latests and open tokens as I get them. JJ and Okoye both left tokens without being fully covered, so I switched to opening classics to try and finish them. After I get Okoye champed and/or Wasp leaves I'll probably go back to Latests, since aside from Wasp I have them very poorly covered right now.
  • broll
    broll Posts: 4,732 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited October 2018
    I used to ride the latest wave only due to the CS swaps.  Now because that is gone and because saved covers makes no cover ever wasted I us most of my CP for Classics.  I say most because I did pull CP for Okoye due to her top tier status and I pulled CP for a few of the special vaults like Fan Favorites and the new characters releases to chase particular classic 5*s.

    My reasoning for this is twofold:
    1.  My ultimate goal is to champ everyone.  I'll never attain that riding the latest wave, even with feeders.  I have a few characters who are sub 7 covers and a feeder won't be a enough to finish them (I think I actually have 2 with only a single cover).  
    2.  Getting 20% more pulls.  Even when I'm getting more 4*s or champ levels for already champed 5*s those still give resources that lead to more pulls LTs, CP, etc. and those rewards get better at higher levels.  Until I get to the point where I'm the second go round with many/most 4*s I feel I'll get the most total covers by going for classics.

    Also doing it this way it doesn't seem like I'm that likely to miss champing the new ones either.  This is obviously skewed somewhat by pulling for Okoye, but here are the 5*s status that came out since I started this:

    Okoye 5/4/4 L455
    Wasp 5/2/3 (10 covers)
    Loki 4/3/3 (10 covers)
    Kitty 2/2/2 (6 covers)
    Cable 0/0/0

    Wasp I intentionally chose to start hoarding to let feeders eventually finish her off.  When there are bad characters I will choose to do that but try to at least get them to feeder level.

    I don't have an exact count of how many 5*s I've champed from classics but I'm pretty sure it's 3, plus most have gone up at least 1 closer to champing.
  • CT1888
    CT1888 Posts: 1,201 Chairperson of the Boards
    I'm a pull as you go kind of person, Latest all the way which has allowed me to cover, or almost cover (11 or 12 covers), every 5* bar 2 since Thanos.
    Unfortunately I've conditioned myself to dislike hoarding so much that I struggle to do it for even 2 weeks, despite the fact that I know hoarding after Okoye left would have been better for me, given that I had already champed Wasp. The Fan Favourite store was great though, allowing me to get some useful covers without hoarding and without risking a Wasp cover. 

    Classics still seem a waste, and as a non hoarder 3 day release stores are pointless.
  • justsing
    justsing Posts: 507 Critical Contributor
    Yeah, I’m generally a “pull Latest as you go” person. I usually stop and hoard once I finish covering a 5*. With Wa5p being bottom tier, I’ve started hoarding CP and only pulling LTs. I might try to keep a stash of CP for new release stores with classic 5*s that I really want (e.g. Thano5 and DD).
  • spidyjedi84
    spidyjedi84 Posts: 514 Critical Contributor
    Now that we're not wasting covers, thanks to Saved covers, I open covers as I get them, period. I don't avoid any 5-stars. I pull mainly from Classics at 20 a pop, as opposed to Latest, especially as the Latest aren't necessarily who I'm chasing. I've pulled from the Cable exclusive vault to try and nab him to have when he's a required 5-star in PVE events... Otherwise, I'm not exclusively chasing anyone at the moment. I'm pretty solid on my 4-star roster, and have adapted that everyone advances to level 209, and I'll triage from there. Currently, working on champing Miles, since he has the most covers saved at the moment and is required in the Deadpool vs. MPQ event, and I really want a Web Warriors team to play around with. 
  • crackninja
    crackninja Posts: 444 Mover and Shaker
    My focus is on making my roster stronger, including flexibility, raw power, and the "I just want to champ that character even if they aren't useful" factor.  I accomplish this through strategic hoarding, and considering every offer and vault as it comes out.

    This means that in general I'm looking at latests as the way to improve my roster.  What I'm finding lately is that the newer characters haven't move the needle.  This is leading to a vicious cycle where I simply cannot justify unleashing the hoard, yet hoarding with no end in sight is not fun.  I even opened some classics last week purely out of boredom.
  • DFiPL
    DFiPL Posts: 2,405 Chairperson of the Boards
    I pull as I go. I don't necessarily want 10 champion levels on every 5*, but I don't freak out over covering one I don't like, either.

    Now, that said, I have hoarded twice:

    first when my Archangel hit 4/2/4 and I decided "good enough for a feeder if he ever gets one
    and again when Wasp hit 5/5/3 with a saved cover because, eh, she's done, good enough.

    Now let's save those pulls for when Cable lands and I can go after three characters I DO actively want to both champion and get as many champion levels as I can for.

    But generally speaking? I don't have the self control for hoarding to be a regular thing, so I pull as I go and take what I get and that usually means completing everybody in Latest, even if I don't champion them all.
  • Dragon_Nexus
    Dragon_Nexus Posts: 3,701 Chairperson of the Boards
    I do nothing but latests. If the current latests aren't very good, I just save up until the three feel worth going for. I'm saving up now until Wasp leaves, I like the look of Loki, Kitty and Cable and when Cable enters the tokens I'll have a better chance of getting him with hoarded up tokens and CP.
  • dramatist
    dramatist Posts: 218 Tile Toppler
    When we couldn't save covers but swap Latest Tokens I pulled all Latests. This allowed me to fully cover Daredevil through Jessica Jones. When saved covers became a thing I started using CP on Classics to hopefully finish a few. I almost always pull as I go but sometimes hoard for a small amount of time (like now when I'm waiting for Wasp to be replaced by Cable).

    The last couple of months have been really bad for me getting 5* covers from both Latest and Classics though. I think I went through a drought of about 60 Classic pulls between 5* covers and Wasp has only 6 covers and Loki 3 and Kitty 2.

    I am close on Okoye and Lumbercap, each has 12 covers with one saved.

    The nice thing about Classics is the 20 cp price is cheap and I'm getting so many 4* champ levels and covering the new characters pretty quickly.

    I'm one of those people who eventually want everyone champed even if they suck.


  • Dragon_Nexus
    Dragon_Nexus Posts: 3,701 Chairperson of the Boards
    Yeah, as tempting as it is to buy-four-get-one-free with Classics, I'm in 5* land and it feels bad to be behind the curve on the latest 5*s.

    But the trouble is the classics are so heavily diluted I have a bunch who I might never champ. I'd really like to champ Black Widow and Hawkeye, for instance. But at 5/2/2 and 4/1/3 respectively, that's a tall order. Got a Black Widow cover from my 4* Black Widow and it just got dropped in the Save pile immediately.

    Saying that, Archangel and Silver Surfer are both at 12 and it would be nice to champ them as well. didn't have any luck with Cable, I got three Cables and a Gambit. Hoped I'd get that last cover I needed. Would also have been nice if the cable covers weren't all yellow.
  • Quebbster
    Quebbster Posts: 8,070 Chairperson of the Boards

    Saying that, Archangel and Silver Surfer are both at 12 and it would be nice to champ them as well. didn't have any luck with Cable, I got three Cables and a Gambit. Hoped I'd get that last cover I needed. Would also have been nice if the cable covers weren't all yellow.
    You're not missing much with SS and AA. :) Neither one has a feeder yet either so you will probably be able to champ them when that happens.
  • beyonderbub
    beyonderbub Posts: 661 Critical Contributor
    Will hoard until Loki is out of Latest. I need one more cover from MEH and he can be champed. Have kitty and cable covers so I can pve properly. Good enough. 
  • xKOBALTx
    xKOBALTx Posts: 299 Mover and Shaker
    edited October 2018
    My pull strategy since Thanos/Panther/Hawkeye has been to cover Latest with LT's and use my CP exclusively to pull Classics. I did skip Star-lord and Doc Ock right after the trio above, but I've been completing all of the Latest since then.

    LT/Latest mostly works like this:
    1) Wait for new 5 to enter LT's.
    2) Pull LT's until the oldest 5 is complete (13 covers).
    3) Resume hoarding LT's until the next 5 enters.

    This has changed a bit with the death of covers swaps and the introduction of feeders to newer 5's, but it still works along similar lines. I've stopped pulling for Hope even though she isn't actually finished, for example, because she's 5/3/3 and can be completed by Ant-man. I won't continue pulling for Loki either, since he's in a similar state - 2/5/4 and can be completed by MEH. I'll resume when Kitty is the oldest 5.

    It's worked well for someone like me that wants to champ all characters as a minimum, but doesn't really care how high they get past that point. 

    The CP side has worked well for me as well. I've still completed several Classic 5's that weren't already complete when I started this. I'm down to just the aforementioned Star-lord (1/5/5) and Ock (4/4/4) as the only Classics that aren't finished. My other 5's reside between 450 and 475 and get levels regularly. My 4's also show my strategy in action as I have 5 of them max-champed and duplicated despite not being a whale. I have another 8 of them in the home stretch (360+).

    I think LT/CP pull strategy is all about the individual. I've long went against common thought on this topic. It's worked for me and what I want to accomplish, but it wouldn't work for someone that wants the latest/greatest 5 at as high a level as possible (as an example). Different strokes and all that.
  • tiomono
    tiomono Posts: 1,651 Chairperson of the Boards
    I typically pull classics because I hate vaulting more than dilution. A tiny chance to pull any character in classics is better to me than only being able to pull 3 characters. But that's just my opinion.

    Currently however I want kitty so I am throwing everything I have at latests pulling as i go. Once she is max covered i will go back to dilution land of classics.
  • Dragon_Nexus
    Dragon_Nexus Posts: 3,701 Chairperson of the Boards
    Quebbster said:

    Saying that, Archangel and Silver Surfer are both at 12 and it would be nice to champ them as well. didn't have any luck with Cable, I got three Cables and a Gambit. Hoped I'd get that last cover I needed. Would also have been nice if the cable covers weren't all yellow.
    You're not missing much with SS and AA. :) Neither one has a feeder yet either so you will probably be able to champ them when that happens.
    Yeah, I know they're not game breaking or anything, but it still bugs me =/
    Bugs me more that JJ's covers are fed out of order so I need another 23 covers from Chavez to get her champed ¬¬

    But you're right, assuming they get feeders and assuming they give out the first cover for each of them, I'll be able to champ them when it happens.