So I’m rapidly approaching my first fully covered 4*, Hulkbuster (woo!), but I’m hesitant to champ by itself due to scaling. Problem is I will have basically 4 covers on the vine wasted if I don’t champ. My original plan was to fully cover something like 5 4* and then champ all at once.
At the moment I have 4 lvl 255 5* and my 5 highest lvl 3* are between 190-207.
Will my PVE scaling jump significantly if I suddenly introduce a lvl 274 HB? Should I just sell the vine HB covers and wait til I have more ready to champ? Or am I overthinking this and should just champ him!
Do you have any 4s between the level 255 5s and the 207 3*s?
All my 5s are at 255 and then I have 4s at 225 and then 3*s starting from 223 and going downwards. My scaling maxes out at level 304, which my roster can cope with.
If your roster is similar to that then adding a 274 HB should realistically probably only add 5-10 levels to your scaling.
My understanding is that boosts are taken into account for your scaling, so your 3*s will already put you at the level of a champed Hulkbuster. When he’s boosted he’ll just be one character and your average level won’t change all that much. You’ll probably see a small increase in enemy level, but not significant enough to worry about it. Especially not significant enough to give up those four champ levels.
OK. Your 255 5s will be creating you scaling right now because you have 4 of them so adding a 274 to that will raise it. As I said, it should only really add 5-10 levels onto your scaling. I guess its down to whether you think your 3s can cope with another rise in scaling?
I still use a handful of my 3s against level 304 opponents but I’m not sure I’d want to solely be using 3s.
I strongly recommend leveling a few solid PvE 4s at once for your jump into the 4 tier… You will absolutely see a scaling increase, but with 4*s that are good at dealing with both PvE goons and PvE heroes you could get by with only championing 3-4 of them and have reasonably quick clear times…
Vaulting has recently caused me to scrap my softcapping strategy and jump from a roster where my highest levels were 5s at 255 followed by 3s and 4s around the 200 level to multiple champion 4s, so the increase in scaling I’m basing this response on happened under recent game mechanics.
Logically, you hit it on the head. Scaling is still determined by your top 3 (includes boosted) so your first champ of a new tier is practically guaranteed to cause a jump. You’re much better off doing 3 at once if you’re trying to keep scaling in check.
However:
Boosted champed 4s are ridiculously fun, and usually trump scaling increases
If you’ve got the vast majority of your 3s champed, they tend to end up around the same level as a low champed 4 when boosted. So the scaling jump shouldn’t be debilitating regardless.
IMHB is vaulted, and who knows when you’ll get THAT many champ levels again. He’s top tier, and quite literally one of the best 4s to champ early for a 3-4* transitioner. Pair him with IF and punch everything away!
In my experience 5* don’t increase scaling since I recently added my fourth one without any change in scaling. Also I don’t think boosts affect it either since scaling remains basically static across events despite changes in who is boosted. Do others have a different experience?
Its likely OBE now, but at the time that 5* IM and 5* Cap were introduced there was a marked difference in PvE scaling for a 166/7 roster. This was true despite the PSA released outlining the notion that 5*s should not dramatically impact your PvE scaling…
I have no idea if they changed anything since, but I’d been utilizing a roster where my 5s were a good 50 levels over any of my other characters for a while and I saw no decrease that would be in line with 5s being removed from scaling calculations.
When I champed my first 4* (C4rol), all of my 3s were level 187 and under, and I had a couple level 255 5s. I saw about a 20 level increase in the scaling for my hardest node. It went from level 272 to level 293, and I don’t think C4rol was boosted at the time. After champing 2 more 4s, my scaling jumped to level 320, but one of the 4s was boosted. So I have no idea whether boosts factor into scaling…
Scaling has been an enigma for a while, claims of it taking just the top 3 characters into account, proof of it taking more, claims of 5*s no longer skewing scaling for early rosters and examples of it still hosing people… They don’t post specifics and they don’t post changes, so I think we just have to resign ourselves to never being able to be sure about it, best we can do is look at it anecdotally with the more recent info being better…
All I got for the OP is that yes, going from a roster where 5* 255 heroes is your highest to one that has one or more champ 4s will have a noticeable impact on scaling, if that sort of thing bothers you, I’d strongly recommend taking a few good PvE 4s up to 270 at the same time. On a side note, champ 4* land appears to be easier in terms of PvE, however it seems to take a similar amount of time or longer than champ 3* land (with only a handful of 4*s championed, but those being “good” pve options)
I have something around 25 4* champs. Almost all the time atleast 2 champs are boosted (level 350+). I also have 300 lvl oml. My highest enemies are 323. So boosting doesn’t increase scaling.
As long as you keep your 5s at low levels (255 - 270), adding one 4 champ at a time will not make a significant difference in your scaling.
When people suggest leveling 3 or 4 four-stars at once, they mean that you will be expected to almost always be playing those characters alone (since your 3s will find it hard to keep up with the difficulty jump).
I champed one 4 at a time (17 now), have always had a PvE focus, and the leveling has been very manageable/fair each time.
Vote: Do NOT waste the opportunity to champ HB and use those covers!
Kavosseay, I hope you post your findings if you do champ him.
I’m in a similar position but my 3* and 4* are slightly behind yours (soft capped between L110-125).
Before I rostered any 5* my top PvE nodes were capping out around 200 which is roughly where my top boosted characters would be.
Since vaulting happened I started to open my LT horde and have now rostered a half dozen 5* at L255. My top PvE nodes are now capping out around L250 which is an increase of 50 levels.
However I have not leveled any other characters past 125. However I do have many more characters at L110-125 range (and most of the newest 14 or so 4* are 10+ covers).
So something changed to push my scaling up 50 levels. Either it was rostering the 5* or the fact that my total number of boosted characters is now around 10-12 because I have almost every 3&4 character rostered and in the 110-125 range (a few months ago I had maybe half that boosted each week).
You didn’t mention what your current nodes top out at by I’d assume since your 3* are 166 that boosted they are around 266 and so your around 280 range after 4 clears. HB at 270 is basically the same as a boosted 3* at 266. Except of course weeks when he is boosted. So on non-boosted weeks you may not notice any difference unless a 4* at 270 is weighted a lot higher than a 3* at 266 (anyone know if that’s the case).
My original plan several months ago was to do a group of three or four 4* champs at once when I finished champing all the 3*s (before they started releasing new ones). Then I got a bunch of Peggy covers.
Champed her and I have never regretted it. Scaling went up slightly, maybe 15 levels or so but the ease of my clears improved dramatically and all of a sudden I could climb much quicker and higher in PVP. While I don’t have a champed Hulkbuster he is considered to be top 10 material by most of the community just like Peggy and I am fairly certain that your experience would be similar to mine. Champ him and reap the benefits.
