Champ level Rewards - 4★ vs 5★ (Ascension rewards)

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ General Discussion
1

When they first implemented the Ascension system I took a good hard look at the 4★ level rewards vs the 5★ level rewards. Since my HP income is quite good, and Roster slots are no longer 3k per slot, I can pretty easily maintain an extra 4★ after I ascend them, if the rewards are better. In particular since we were in limbo regarding Retroactive rewards for so long, I decided just to make a new 4★ when I got two max-champs, rather than ascend and keep leveling them. My gut said at 4:1 unless I was going to actively use the ascended 4★ the rewards are better for the 4★, and as a result I made a new 4★ instead of ascending a 4★ and leveling the new 4|5★.

This last week I decided to honest-to-goodness break it down and do a deep dive. We’re no longer in limbo – we know you’ll get at least 6 (probably 12? Can anyone confirm?) retroactive covers for an ascended 4★. So now the only reason to make a new 4★ is for the rewards. I did the math – to sum up, the rewards for 4★ levels are not just better, they’re much better.

They gave us rewards summaries that came in very handy. Using those summaries, I broke it down to a “per level” distribution for Iso, HP, CP, and Legendary tokens. I used the “no feeder” table, since feeders add far more value than they take away, even if the fed 5★ is not good (at 1:1, 5★ rewards are excellent.)

Here’s the total per level breakdown for a 4★

Iso - 1125
HP - 40
CP - 2.5
Legendary Tokens - .1

For the 5★ rewards I decided to break it down further since you will get the full 4★ rewards for every 25 levels. The most important (to me) rewards are the CP and LTs, which don’t really vary, but I wanted to get a good look. Here is the reward per level for 450 to 475:

Iso - 1019
HP - 60
CP - 6
Legendary - .28

For successive 25 level blocks the CP and Legendary tokens vary very little (LTs go down to .24 for the rest, and the last two blocks have 7 CP per level.) HP goes to 120/level for the 501-525 block, and 560/level for the last block. Iso goes to 2240/level for 476 to 525, then 300 for the last.

At 1:1 the 5★ levels are much better, but at 4:1 they don’t even come close. Iso never exceeds the 4500 per equivalent 5★ level (i.e. 4x the 4★ level) and HP doesn’t exceed it until the last block (after 540, really.)

Obviously I’m not grading utility in this-- that’s impossible to quantify. If you’re going to use the 4|5★, you should definitely put levels into them. I anticipate putting levels into my 4|5★ Agent Coulson unless he starts feeding the best 5★ they’ve ever introduced. On the other hand, if the fed 5★ is so much better than the 4★ (I’m looking at you, Puck,) there’s no reason whatsoever to keep leveling the 4|5★ in favor of just redoing them and getting more rewards and levels for a good 5★.

So yeah, hope you find this useful. Obviously a lot of players are not in the position to make this decision, but I definitely find it interesting.

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I initially thought it would be a good idea to create a backfill 4* for every ascended character because of the messaging that it would be possible in future to create events that require a specific version of a character. I only did it for Sabretooth, but I’ve been tempted to revisit that and start backfilling again.

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Nice writeup @GrimSkald . I agree that on average 4 4* champ rewards are better than 1 5* champ reward. I also play the long game, so I will only ascend 2 characters that are at max/max (e.g., 2 370s to make 1 475). From there, to decide what to do with new covers, I look at who they feed:

  1. Do they feed a meta 5* toon? If so, I put new 4* covers to dupes until the 5* they feed is 550. Example: 4 Lady Thor feeds 5 MThor, and until 5 MThor is 550 she’s much more valuable to me.
  2. If they don’t feed a meta 5* toon, is the 4* meta when boosted? Example: Polaris is meta when boosted (and is even showing up more non-boosted), but feeds 5* Havok who is relatively useless even during boost week. For these, I’m putting new covers into the 4a5 version.
  3. If they don’t feed a meta 5* toon and they aren’t meta when boosted, I look at who they do feed. If that character is higher than my ascended 4*, then I put new covers into the ascended 4*. Example: My 5* Old Man Logan is level 490, so any new covers I get for 4* Wolverine X-Force are going into my 4a5 version of him until he hits 490 or 491. I like parity for the “non-essential” part of my roster.

Just my way of handling ascension, but perhaps some others may find it of interest.

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Yeah having the fed 5* at 550 makes it a no brainer to ascend instead of rostering a third copy of the 4*.

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Sure, all this is true. My highest level characters are in the 530s so that skews my view a bit.

Personally I would say if you’re not using the 5|4★ at all, just make a 4★ when you have the covers and level that - the rewards are enough better that the edge cases where you will use the 5|4★ there’s no reason you’d need them higher than 475.

If you are using the 4|5★ and they don’t feed anyone good, just level the 4|5★. My 4|5★ Polaris and Coulson will probably keep getting those covers unless Havoc suddenly becomes amazing or Couson feeds someone top tier.

If you want to use both the 4|5★ and the 5★ they feed, that becomes a bit of a weird issue, I’d say. I’d probably make another 4★, level them to 480, then go back to leveling the 4|5★ since every 5★ cover is 20 levels after that

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I looked at these “per cover”, for easier (to me anyway) comparisons to find the best rewards return per cover. As Grim said, if looking only at the champ rewards, 4s ascended to 5* get hammered. 4* covers return a little more HP on average but that’s only over the course of a complete cycle of 5* champ levels. 70% of that HP is after lvl 525 (14,000 of 20,000HP is after lvl 525).

If it’s a max+min ascension you’ll need 300 more covers to get to the “good stuff” re: HP. Until lvl 525, the HP per cover average is 20.

If max+max ascension you’ll need 200 more covers to reach lvl 525. Until lvl 525, the HP per cover average is 30.

On iso, CP, and LTs, the return per cover is better in the 4* tier, and as with HP. However, the other resources are not as backloaded in 5* champ rewards … iso is backloaded a bit, CP and LTs not at all. They are the same amount, every 4 levels, from 451 to 550.

It takes a LONG time to gather 200 or 300 covers for a 4*. Various in-game things can speed up a character’s flow of covers, particularly favoriting. But there are so many of them.

The only realistic way for most players to ever reach the big HP money in high 5* levels, as well as the LTs, CP and iso across all 5* lvls, in a medium time span will be via ascended 1s and, slower, ascended 2s. But that this possibility exists does suggest a “catch-up” mechanism for new players that stick around long enough to get 1s a/o 2s that high.

My thoughts on keep farming as 4s vs keep leveling 4s ascended to 5s …

If fortunate enough to have two maxed champ copies of a 4* char, may as well ascend them, free up a slot, collect 25 lvls of 5* champ rewards, have a stronger character … nothing more for them as a 4*. (obviously!)

If you’re really tight on HP/slots a/o iso, rostering a dupe might be a burden for now, or for awhile. If that’s the case, slap covers on the 4>5, don’t let them expire! Can always start a dupe for farming later.

It isn’t all about champ rewards! If the character is strong and a frequently used, add covers to the ascended copy.

Otherwise, if flush on iso and slots, if a stronger version won’t do much for you, and especially if the character feeds a 5 you want to move, farming them is a fine option.

As for me … for now … I need to free up slots, so I am pushing those I will use frequently toward max+max ascension. I don’t think I will farm any … but there are so many, a lot can change over the course of the effort to get them all to a decision point.
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A. Numbers for 4s that don’t feed 5s … The “ascended” numbers here refer to covers for lower-tier characters (1s, 2s, 3s) ascended to the 4* tier.
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B. Numbers for 4s that feed a single 5. A few 4s feed more than one 5 … oh well, did not include. Ascended characters are not feeders, so these numbers never apply to lower-tier characters ascended to 4*
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C. Numbers for 5* champ levels … heavily backloaded in HP, as Grim highlights. Broke down into 25-level tranches as Grim suggested … a useful division since the last 25 lvls have the big payoffs, and max+max ascensions earn credit for first 25 levels.

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It sure is fun debating things and “proving” one’s point about how best to approach building your roster in a match-3 video game where most of the time you win after at most 4 turns with your existing characters.

Every day humans do irrational things that make no sense, that hurt them in the long run.

The devs say over and over “no power creep” but we stress about missing some pulls for future characters who at best will be a tool that is equal to what we have in game, or mmmaaaayyybbbeeee they nerf someone and you need to start using that former equal, new superior tool.

Anyway, I hope everyone is enjoying themselves. I will keep using my early ascended Nightcrawler and Medusa when I want, happily.

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I don’t know about you, but in general I use the best 5★ pairing I can get out of the boost list, supplementing with my existing high-level 5★s if one of them pairs nicely (or there’s only one boosted 5★ that is decent.) So efficiency in rewards with an eye toward future rewards (and future high level boosted 5★s out of the new lot,) help.

It’s nice to bring in a 4|5★, but I think we can all say that a lot of the existing 4★s aren’t good even when ascended.

I assume we are enjoying ourselves, otherwise we wouldn’t be posting on the forum, and probably not playing the game..?

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@GrimSkald I realize it was a bit salty, my earlier comment, for no good reason. Well, other than everyone takes different approaches to their rosters and ascension now provides yet more forks in the road - when to ascend? Should I ascend (as this post argues, not necessarily)? And sometimes it feels like (this is purely my personal reaction) people are saying “you’re foolish if you don’t follow this very specific strategy and you are giving up so many rewards, what is wrong with you?”. I am not saying you or anyone else is saying this, but it can feel a bit that way to me.

Every decision will have defenders and attackers. If you are in a position to consider whether to max-max or max-min your 4s as you ascend, you are certainly using 5s most of the time, and most 4s will not impact your game significantly. This is especially true if some of your 5s are in the 500+ zone and you won’t have a 4 that reaches their level for a very long time.

However, other considerations can be made, like “Am I bored using the same characters besides the occasional boosted useful person?” or “What are my PVP goals? Could I make a team that can win even if they aren’t meta or fast by ascending a 4 early?”.

Anyway the information as presented is useful and can be helpful for players. I appreciate the time and effort it took to put it together.

For me, my highest 5s are 470 currently and I have a lot unchamped/low covered. So an ascended 4 here and there is actually quite useful, especially when boosted, even though there are so many that the boost cycle is about 28+ weeks now so…yeah. Not often. I also enjoy playing in Sim with different offbeat teams for fun. But obviously not everyone is like me.

Keep on matching!

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It’s also the fact that the veteran player community tends to be dominated by the sort of players you’re describing. A lot of folks on the forum, Reddit, line etc want to play MPQ as a roster-optimization exercise, because they’ve been playing the match-3 stuff forever and they’re bored of it. “Maximum rewards with minimum time invested” is probably the philosophy of 85-95% of players here, and anyone who disagrees tends to be looked at like some sort of space alien.

And, to be fair, it IS boring doing the same stuff all the time! I understand exactly why people get bored of it, because it’s the same events and fights and opponents over and over again for years! How can anyone possibly enjoy fighting Daken/Bullseye for the 10,000th time!?

Except – if your goal is to minimize the time you spend playing the boring repetitive events by mindlessly autoplaying them with only the most powerful characters, you are making it even more boring for yourself. You’ve chosen to play the game in the most monotonous repetitive possible way, so of course you want to minimize the time you spend playing it!

The way to enjoy fighting Daken and Bullseye again is to pull out some random character that you forgot even existed (helpfully, now he’s a 5* from ascension) and fight them in some new way. It’s not as fast (although it’s probably like a minute slower, not an hour), and you’ll miss out on a few extra tokens (that will make zero appreciable difference to your roster in the long run), but you’ll actually have fun matching-3 again, and THAT is why we’re all here.

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So i think depending on where you are, would the rewards be better?

For example, I really don’t need HP or Iso. All i need are LL, and CP. if i get more iso as a four star, but less CP then I would do better to ascend

I would love a direct comparison (100 covers of 4star rewards vs 100 covers of 5star) and the numbers associated

edit I did the “first 100 covers” level comparison.

for 100 levels of 4stars you get

ISO - 113,500 LL Tokens - 10 HP - 4,000 CP -188

for 100 levels of 4star_ascended_

ISO - 30,000 LL Tokens - 7 HP 1,500 CP - 25

My guess is unless you’re going to use them as 5s (polaris/jugs/rocket) don’t bother.

3 star and below however, you’ll get more as 5s

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I think you also have to take into account how long it takes for you to get a cover of a particular 4*. For me, I estimate that ever since I ascended my 4s, I have gotten an average of 2 covers for those particular 4s (and that would have been for a 4* that’s at lv271). Those two covers would have brought me a grand total of 2 CP and 2500 iso. Is that really worth waiting to ascend any eligible 4s? My answer is a hard no, and I’ve been enjoying using my ascended 4s. If I didn’t ascend them, they’d be rotting in my roster. Ascended, at least they have a chance of being run in both PVE and PVP.

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YEP i would agree - if it;s a character that’s even remotely usable - I say ascend them ASAP (jugs/polaris/chavez/rocket/ etc).

People like Flaptain or Puck who are really just reward pinatas - i think leaving them at their level is the way to go

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@Omegased said:

@BlackBoltRocks said:
I think you also have to take into account how long it takes for you to get a cover of a particular 4*. For me, I estimate that ever since I ascended my 4s, I have gotten an average of 2 covers for those particular 4s (and that would have been for a 4* that’s at lv270). Those two covers would have brought me a grand total of one LT and 2 CP. Is that really worth waiting to ascend any eligible 4s? My answer is a hard no, and I’ve been enjoying using my ascended 4s. If I didn’t ascend them, they’d be rotting in my roster. Ascended, at least they have a chance of bring run in both PVE and PVP.

YEP i would agree - if it;s a character that’s even remotely usable - I say ascend them ASAP (jugs/polaris/chavez/rocket/ etc).

People like Flaptain or Puck who are really just reward pinatas - i think leaving them at their level is the way to go

There are more, though – like, Prowler was an unholy terror during his boost week (I almost lost to him a few times). I have a feeling Throg is going to be a nightmare. There’s all these guys we just forgot about that turn into murderers.

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I appreciate this post. I think my issue is that I’ve seen posters on here that almost play this victim card and it’s super weird given it’s. a mobile game. Like they feel persecuted or bullied or something by the majority for playing a fun team rather than min-maxing and I hardly think that’s the case. In fact, I guarantee very few people are thinking about what you, they, or anyone else is doing with their roster or losing sleep over it. But those same folks have judgment after judgment for people who choose to play the game different than them in a weird sort of projection. It’s truly bizarre.

I’ve always spewed the same rhetoric. If you have fun playing the game, then cool. Keep doing your thing. If you don’t… I really don’t care. It’s your life and what you choose to do with it. It doesn’t really impact me (kind of my mentality as a therapist as well lol). Though if you’re asking my advice directly I’d of course give my opinion, but I’m not going to shove it down your throat. A lot of people stay in jobs and relationships they hate. It’s actually more common than uncommon. I’m more of a get out while the getting is good or before I turn resentful sort of person, but I don’t judge folks for choosing a different path.

I think if more people took the live and let live approach this would be a better community and society. But then… what would people argue about on the internet.

What I really like about this thread is it is mostly just facts. And depending on your version of fun or what you want to get out of this game, you can use the data to make informed decisions. I have certain characters I want to get to high levels asap. I have others I just want to farm rewards for as long as possible (max/max). Threads like this help me make those decisions for the ways I like to play. Much better than another thread about how “you’re doing it wrong!”

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Was glad to see you come back and post again, as the first response didn’t seem responsive to this thread, but to other discussions regarding ascension. Not fair to the OP, can lead to new beatings of dead horses.

I had specifically looked at the same thing Grim does here, and had some numbers to share. Here’s some observation, here’s some reference, it may be useful to others. 4* covers being converted to ascended levels at 4:1 has downsides (diluted resources, glacial leveling). When I say what I think about it, or how I will react to it, there’s no “… and so should everyone else!” implied.

MPQ has gotten complicated, and there’s a lot of choices to make. In various places, there’s no one right way that applies to everyone. These decision points make the game more engaging, creates things to think (obsess…) over, and to talk about. And so here we are.

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You did come across as a bit salty, so my response may have been similarly snarky, but I tried to keep it even as a response. Thanks for reposting and clarifying your point!

I in no way meant to imply this was only one way of doing things, and as I said in my post, “you can’t quantify utility.” If you’re going to use the character (particularly as a 4|5★) then by all means you should add levels to them and/or Ascend them “early.” I have a robust roster and I can usually find a native 5★ in the 470s to 480s on any particular boost week - for me I will always ascend a 4★ max/max unless I feel that not having that particular 4|5★ puts me at a serious disadvantage. So far that hasn’t happened (and I survived 4★ Jugg’s boost week, so I doubt it will.) But someone in a different roster situation could definitely make a completely different decision there.

I was just putting that information out there. I strongly suspect I’m not even going to touch at least half of the characters after their introduction even when they’re boosted. In that case, a 4★ is more valuable as a rewards generator than as a 4|5★, so I’ll probably get them to max/max (takes me years,) Ascend them (no reason not to now, I think,) but then create another for the rewards. There will be exceptions, possibly many exceptions, but I think at least with half the 4★s that’s almost certainly what I’ll do.

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@entrailbucket said:

@Omegased said:

@BlackBoltRocks said:
I think you also have to take into account how long it takes for you to get a cover of a particular 4*. For me, I estimate that ever since I ascended my 4s, I have gotten an average of 2 covers for those particular 4s (and that would have been for a 4* that’s at lv270). Those two covers would have brought me a grand total of one LT and 2 CP. Is that really worth waiting to ascend any eligible 4s? My answer is a hard no, and I’ve been enjoying using my ascended 4s. If I didn’t ascend them, they’d be rotting in my roster. Ascended, at least they have a chance of bring run in both PVE and PVP.

YEP i would agree - if it;s a character that’s even remotely usable - I say ascend them ASAP (jugs/polaris/chavez/rocket/ etc).

People like Flaptain or Puck who are really just reward pinatas - i think leaving them at their level is the way to go

There are more, though – like, Prowler was an unholy terror during his boost week (I almost lost to him a few times). I have a feeling Throg is going to be a nightmare. There’s all these guys we just forgot about that turn into murderers.

Yellowjacket was boosted that same week, they were so much fun together. Even though they overlap on 2 colors. I would take +2 all and black/green and blue. One black match would get Prowler’s beefy strikes out and turn him invisible and one blue match to get Yellowjackets match damage up and turn him invisible. Just used the loaner all week, barely used any health packs.

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@Pantera236 said:

@entrailbucket said:

@Omegased said:

@BlackBoltRocks said:
I think you also have to take into account how long it takes for you to get a cover of a particular 4*. For me, I estimate that ever since I ascended my 4s, I have gotten an average of 2 covers for those particular 4s (and that would have been for a 4* that’s at lv270). Those two covers would have brought me a grand total of one LT and 2 CP. Is that really worth waiting to ascend any eligible 4s? My answer is a hard no, and I’ve been enjoying using my ascended 4s. If I didn’t ascend them, they’d be rotting in my roster. Ascended, at least they have a chance of bring run in both PVE and PVP.

YEP i would agree - if it;s a character that’s even remotely usable - I say ascend them ASAP (jugs/polaris/chavez/rocket/ etc).

People like Flaptain or Puck who are really just reward pinatas - i think leaving them at their level is the way to go

There are more, though – like, Prowler was an unholy terror during his boost week (I almost lost to him a few times). I have a feeling Throg is going to be a nightmare. There’s all these guys we just forgot about that turn into murderers.

Yellowjacket was boosted that same week, they were so much fun together. Even though they overlap on 2 colors. I would take +2 all and black/green and blue. One black match would get Prowler’s beefy strikes out and turn him invisible and one blue match to get Yellowjackets match damage up and turn him invisible. Just used the loaner all week, barely used any health packs.

I understand folks saying “I’m only going to ascend the characters that I’ll actually use, like Polaris and Juggernaut etc,” but there are just SO. MANY. CHARACTERS. now, that nobody can keep track of them all.

Guys like Polaris or Juggernaut are familiar to us because they were 4* that were usable by 5* players – utility type characters, mainly. But a lot of damage dealers become deadly after ascension, and we never used any of them. Almost every week I get surprised by somebody I completely forgot about – like Prowler, who got a rework that everybody completely forgot about.

And, of course, that’s without getting into what happens to some of the 2* and 3* characters…we’ve all seen the 1*, but the other tiers get crazy as well.

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Joehandle with the clutch defining data and good advice, thanks meng ! ^_~