Best way to gain ISO?

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ Tips and Guides
1

I am a new-ish player (a little over 6 months) and have a fairly sizable roster (link https://mpq.gamependium.com/rosters/Warshark22/) with a fair amount of covers. I have 20 LL tokens saved and approximately 15k in HP thanks to the sale this week.

My problem now is my iso just can’t catch up with the two star farm to allow me much progress on my 4* leveling. As soon as I make progress through shield level it get spent on the farm. I have just recently almost finished my 3* champs (angel is my lone holdout) so that should help. I routinely finish in the top 50-100 in PvE and around T100 in PvP. Any advice on how to gain ISO more quickly? I easily have enough covers to champion Medusa, Carnage, Vulture, Ghost, and America, but not the ~700k in Iso.

2

It’s not a question of making iso. It’s a question of not spending iso.

If you just try to maximum level everything, you’re going to be short on iso. That’s how it works (well usually anyways). You can play Lightning Rounds for more iso, but as you’re already doing PvE and PvP your iso income is pretty well capped so you need to observe austerity measures.

As to where you shouldn’t spend iso - well it’s a matter of priorities.

As I see it, Rocket and Groot is a big 4* to use in terms of cutting real times in PvE. Medusa is also pretty strong when combined with Carnage (particularly, cuts down on health pack usage). Vulture and America Chavez can be used to good effect, and though I don’t care for Ghost, she’s not bad.

BUT - the question is, where do you really need iso?

You don’t need to push iso into your 3*s. Yes, eventually you do, then you champ then get rewards, but you don’t really have the iso so much right now. You can save covers and not champ for now, deferring those rewards for later when you have the iso.

Probably you will want to keep your 2* farms going. You are losing iso by rotating through your 2* farms, but you are gaining tokens, HP, and covers that help your development overall. Plus you are generating a lot of tokens what with your good placement in PvP and PvE. You could technically save iso and save covers, but in practice I don’t know that would work so well - 2*s don’t require that much iso, and trying to juggle them is just more trouble than it’s probably worth - though if you’re really up for austerity, you could think on it.

But really if you’re having trouble with your 2* farms - it’s probably because you’re pushing your 4*s to 240. They don’t need to be at 240. 209 is fine. 240 you get a performance boost sure, but you don’t need it so much. See what I mean?

The last few levels on a 4* cost a lot more than the first few levels, and each additional single level doesn’t make that much dfiference. So do you really need to push iso into assorted 4s? I’d say no. Think about the 4s you really use a lot, and put iso into them only. And if it’s more than two or three, well, you don’t really have the iso to be pushing iso into trying to champ more. So you have to not-spend somewhere. See?

Mind I think if you push iso into 4s you will probably increase your MMR in PvP, but that’s as it goes. (You do know what I mean?) Putting iso into those 4s can help you cut times in PvE at least, assuming you’re playing at SCL 7 or whatnot.

However . . .

You already have iso in most of your more covered 4s. So I think you’ll probably already be able to use them to cut times in PvE. So at this point I would think instead of spending iso, maybe you just want to sit on iso and not use it. Then if a particular 4 comes up in Deadpool Daily Crash of the Titans or SHIELD training, you have the iso to level it to 209 - which I notice you stopped some 4*s at already, probably because you already know 209’s where you need to be to get all the rewards off SHIELD training but mentioning it here again just to be sure.

==

That is - I’d say generally try to keep a bank of iso so you have to spend when you need it. I don’t think you need to push iso into championing your 3* what with saved covers (you should do it eventually certainly but I don’t think there’s a rush). Your 4*s are mostly developed, but apart from maybe championing Medusa to switch her to 5 yellow covers, Carnage is already going to be okay I think because his function is to generate Specials which he already does at his current covers You might push Chavez too, but apart from that I don’t know that I’d say anything is terribly urgent - maybe Iceman, or whoever you really plan to use.

But again, try not to spend if you can help it. Think about what you REALLY need, and remember you can save covers. I know you probably want to get on with championing and get it over with, but really you just don’t have the iso, and apart from buying it in the store (which I think many would recommend against, it costs a lot to get enough iso to make a difference), the only way to get more iso is to just not spend it.

3

Aardvark

Thanks for the input. I already knew a lot of your advice from sharing around the forums here in search of answers to the FAQs I knew I had. To go more in depth, my roster usage is almost exclusively

PvE- Carnage/Medusa/Required(or America) for tile movers
Okoye/Strange/Required(or America) for Goons

PvP- Vulture/America/Ghost(or required).

Thats why I’ve put My iso in them, due to usage. I think my main goal is trying to speed up that iso wall I have seemingly hit. I know championing those 5 characters I outlined will impact my MMR, and I have been trying to level my characters up evenly to combat that. You are correct in the 209 assumption—I leveled characters I knew were useful with exception to iron spidey; he was my first 4* when I started the game ~7 months ago and carried me through a lot of fights I would’ve lost without him.

I am am just concerned that trying to level up a useful 4* roster that is semi complete (~50% at 209 or above) will take so long I lose interest or get discouraged with the game. I am hoping that maybe this thread could be used as a help guide for other newer players in tips for generating iso.

4

Play, play, play.
Do 7 clears in PVE, get yourself into a t100 alliance.
PVE rewards help.
If you are using boosts in PVE, stop immediately.
Play PVP to 75 wins, don’t boost.
Ignore PVP placement.
Play Lightning rounds religiously.

Once you’re getting 40k+ ISO daily you slowly will be able to champ your 4s.
It’ll be a long road, but all it takes is time.
Dilution will make sure that you won’t get too many covers - and saved covers means you don’t have to champ trash like Venom just because you have him at 13.

5

Bowgentle,

Thanks for the advice. I play PvE to at least 6 clears a node (I’m usually at 125% of max progression), PvE is where I spend most of my time.

PvP I struggle to get much past the 28 or 40 win mark with my main team of Ghost, America, and Vulture, which are rank 240. I tend to get up high early and then only draw teams with 300+ 5* Thorkoye or Grocket, Kitty, and Gamora. I don’t have a great track record beating those teams unless I get some favorable AP drops for Vulture and just play “keep away”. I try to play lightning rounds but they’re almost exclusively when I’m at work, which stinks. The could get better alliance rewards if I went searching for a more serious one.

What is the expected roster comp to get to 40k a day? My roster is listed in the OP, but I can’t clear fast enough to get T25s ever. I play in SC7 which I know has a lot of 5* champ teams lurking amongst the plebs like me.

6

TBH 40K is probably too high a number for now.
25k should be doable.

When you run into 300+ teams in PVP, fight them with 1*s and retreat right away.
This way you’ll lose points and get beatable match-ups again.
Retreat a few times to lose 200 points, climb again, dump, rinse repeat until 75 wins.

7

When I was in your position, I was able to average 40k ISO / day by doing the following:

Join a good pve & pvp alliance
Play pve to 6 or 7 clears in scl 7
Always complete DDQ
Play pvp to 40 wins
Play shield sim to 75 wins
Play most lightning rounds for at least 2 minutes to beat the seed teams.
Farmed XP from 1* covers to gain ISO rank rewards faster (this is easier with extra roster slots)

As for managing ISO, I think you should put it into the 4* characters you are currently using until they are champed. Then use your ISO to finish champing 3s (for champ rewards) and champ 4s when possible. With the 2* farm, I like the method of letting their covers build up in my queue for 2 weeks, and then sell and re-champ immediately. It usually costs me about 8K ISO, so the ISO set back is minimal.

8

  1. If you’re getting 125% max progression regularly, and if you’re doing PvP, look for a top 100 hybrid PvP / PvE alliance. Alliance rewards add up.

  2. “Ignore PvP placement” advice - well, breaking into top 10 is probably out of the question. But running up your score at the end of a slice can mean you net 600-700 points, which puts you in range of top 100 PvP alliances. You’d have to look around, mind, that’s not the best score, but it’s a lot better than 400-550.

  3. Right now as I read it, you don’t have a bank of 4* characters, so you can’t count on synergistic boosted teams so the matchups will not favor you in PvP and that’s just how it goes. But if you’re facing three nodes with nasty enemies, skip three or four times (you give up iso bonuses from winning the match but you’re not trying to win, just get a different beatable opponent in the node), then fight with the Essential and two 1s or 2s or whatever then retreat right away. That way you can cycle your nodes to get easier enemies and get to that 40 win progression regularly (though it’ll still be a grind). You’ll lose points when you retreat but you’re going for win-based progression. As to losing iso for skipping - well the bonus iso for winning a match resets after you retreat, so long as your first few skips don’t actually cost you anything, and you’re getting iso bonus when you do try to actually fight, well there you go.

  4. A lot of the advice here is only going to make small amounts of difference - a few thousand iso here and there. (Like joining a better consistent alliance, which is a bother, but once you find a good one stick with it and the rewards add up. Or playing lightning rounds which really adds up. But at any rate again - your iso income is only so much, you’ll have to think about what you really really NEED, and keep in mind putting a couple more levels on 4*s is expensive the higher level they are, for not much effect (the higher level they are anyways).

I’m not saying you shouldn’t champ your 4s - you should. But I don’t think you need to be in a rush, and even if you feel that you’re not making progress, it’s the way the game is. Like if you’re making the 5 transition you’re looking at hundreds of Latest Legends tokens plus a huge bank of CP, which takes on the order of a year or more to save up for. MPQ is a long game, for those that want to develop their rosters a lot anyways.

  1. As to getting 40K a day - it really depends on your roster. Once your 3s are all championed, all 3 covers then feed into your iso (and hp and tokens). The more 4s are championed, the more that’s true for them as well. Then there’s the matter of earning better rewards, and those rewards cycling into your collection earning you even more iso rewards. But until you get there, you’re putting iso into characters, and especially early in the 3-4* transition you’re going to put in a lot more iso than you have. Again, I can’t emphasize enough that it’s a long game.

  2. bbigler referenced 1* farming. You roster a 1*, which adds I think 5 points to your SHIELD rank. Each additional cover applied adds I think 10 points. You fully cover the 1*, then sell it. The XP you gain adds to your SHIELD rank, when your SHIELD rank increases you get a big chunk of iso. At some point it stops paying off, I think maybe SHIELD level 100 or 110 or 150 or something; at that point the iso you would get from selling directly outweighs the XP/iso bonus from ranking up.

There’s speculation about how manipulating your SHIELD rank like that boosts your PvP SCL (but you usually want to play highest PvP SCL anyways I think), or this or that, but IMO if you want faster iso and have the roster slots to spare, 1* farming can help.

9

It should be mentioned that you can’t keep up with iso demands when transitioning to 4* champs. You’ll have to accept that you’ll be in an iso deficit for a very long time going forward. In order to champ the entire 4* tier while averaging 40k iso per day, it would take about 2 years! So, this is the long game.

10

Yes, it’s a long road. But given saved covers you can now basically pull with gay abandon anyway.