How to get over the 1k hump in PvP?

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ General Discussion
1

I have a well established 3* roster

http://imgur.com/a/0gYE3

As you can see ProfX is the centerpiece. I regularly score 800 - 900 but I find that when I am trying to hit 1k I get attacked faster than I can win matches. It’s gotten much worse now with multiple boosted characters. In the Hulkbuster event, killing a 10k Blade/11k mag/ 12k HB takes time. Those are the teams that are worth 30+ for me so I feel I have to attack teams worth the most points so that the time <> point ratio is worth it in case I get attacked. I have managed just over 900 a couple times, but I just cannot break that 1k barrier.

Strategy:

I start the event on the day its available and gain about 400 points leaving my best team on def (no shield). Next day I get to 650-700 again leaving my best team on def (24 hour shield) Last 6 hours of event I push for as many points as I can.

What is the secret to passing that final barrier?

2

I think you already said it yourself: Have faster battles.

The characters you’re working with are nice solid characters, but not great at getting to 2-fast victories before reshielding. You’d have to center your attack group around heros with great fast attack flow, eg XFist as one example.

3

Do you ever get defensive wins? My highest progression ever was 726, and that was thanks to a last minute defensive win while doom was boosted.

4

To be quite honest, you can’t get over the 1,000 barrier on your own. The high scorers coordinate and bounce hits off each other. Once you’re up at the top of the leader board, people are waiting to snipe you. So you’ll looking at one or two matches between shield hops.

Also, the top guys are running 4* defense with 40k+ health in HB event. They know you can hit them, but they’re counting on the fact that you’ll get gang banged down for a few hundred points if you do take them.

The best bet to reach 1k on your own merits is to reach the 900s, leave a solid defense and hope for defensive wins to put you over the top.

5

Mostly true, but it’s still possible to do solo. It’s just considerably harder these days.

Requires the right slice (more high scorers), proper hop timing, boosts, an elite lineup, and some good luck. That’s a lot of variables to manage, so it’s inconsistent at best.

6

That’s only true if you pick the wrong shard. If you pick the shard where all the high scorers went, they hop so often, it’s easy to set up your queues for hops. Just try to make sure you don’t hit them while they’re still out hopping, because you don’t want to be on their radar.

7

You can get 1000 on your own. Don’t just turn up and look for opponents 5 minutes before your shield goes down. Make sure you’re always looking and save two 30-40 (more if you’re lucky), then when you do your hop you get 70-80 points. That way if you can make it to about 750-800 before you start shielding, you can do it in 3 hops. I usually do it in 4 or 5 just in case I make a mistake.

Edit: This way you wont piss people off because they think you’re sniping them as hopefully their shield is up by the time you come to hit.

8

IMHO, you actually do not have a well established 3* roster. to me, a well established 3* roster would entail at least 5 strong maxed 3*s. hood and profx have low hp and wont really deter too many attacks now that there are more character buffs. my advice would be to work on leveling more characters and deepening your roster. i’m assuming that you’re currently only using your top3 characters and perhaps whoever is buffed, and this simply will not be enough to grind 1k points against multiple opponents who will have max 270/240 teams…without spending a ridiculous amount of hp on shields. it actually pains me to read that you use a 24 hour shield. this should never be necessary. other than working on developing your roster, i’d recommend that you make your push later, maybe with 10-11 hours left in the event (you dont wanna be climbing around the 8 hour mark). let others score points and get ahead of you and piggyback off their points. with more points available you should be able to climb to 800ish, maybe even 900 before you have to shield (dont get greedy). let the 8 hour mark pass by and then around the 6-5 hour mark make a hop, play 2, maaaaaybe 3 matches. throw up another shield and then one last match if necessary towards the end. you’d be using your shields 8/3/8. but again, i really think you just need to develop your roster more. hope this helps.

9

I try and leave ProfX/Thor/Feature on Defense and I don’t get attacked very often, and even then when I do I win roughtly 25% of them.

10

Mind you that I’m usually in favorable shards. But I don’t usually shield until I’m right at 800 and higher(first shield was 799 in HB).

For me… I hover around 600-650 for the early part of the event (first 24 hours), taking my hits and climbing back(retals help here). 600 appears to be a threshold for being able to q the high point targets, so that is a very important part to the process. (note - because I am not shielded, I will lose a few of these Qs from time to time.. just part of it).

When I’m ready to push, I hit all my high Qs and depending on how much health I have left I may hit a couple more matches then shield. Its much easier to get multiple matches in when you are at lower scores as people are less likely to hit you over some others with more points to be won, though can be different from event to event. During shield (and this part you probably already know, but stating it anyway) spend some time off an on trying to find decent Qs. Don’t expect to find them all at once, you may have to check in every hour or so to pull a different set of users. Be prepared to spend a good deal of ISO if you can’t coordinate this somehow(alliance).

At my first shield around 800, I expect to have at least three 30 point targets by the time I go again. I can usually do all three without issue then shield again. This usually lands me in the low 900’s or maybe upper 800’s if I got hit.

At this point you are now looking for q’s that not only give good points, but can also(at least in your mind) be done quickly. Two 30 point matches that can be done quickly is better than one 45-50 point match that may take too long to risk another match. Rinse/repeat this paragraph.

This is not a hard and fast, set in stone approach. As things can happen.. ie, someone you defeated earlier happens retal you while you are hopping. A match gives you the worst board you can imagine, someone’s point total on screen isn’t what you actually win. The time you decide to go may be when the snipers are out in masse. Everyone in the event is pushing hard and scrapping for any points they can(like HB). So you have to adjust sometimes.

Having an alliance can help, as you can know when to go looking for good qs.

11

Which 3*'s do you consider to be Strong, so that I can max them?

12

Didn’t look at his roster til now. But this is important too.

Non-maxed characters are easy targets for people at the high end. You’ll want to get more of these characters max leveled.

13

I think your roster is fine. Just don’t be tempted to do 3 matches per hop, just the two as you have a big target on your back.

14

The tricky part is now the ‘strong’ characters will vary depending on who is boosted for the week. I ran Cyclops/KK last week and it was awesome because I have both at 166. If I ran that team this week, I would’ve gotten obliterated. This week, I started with Mags/Blade, but moved to Mags/XFW because when everyone is creating red tiles, surgical strike does massive damage. Hit 1005 for that red HB cover without bouncing wins and with just 1 8 hour and 1 3 hour shield. Roster diversity is as valuable as ever now

15

again, IMHO, your strongest (fully covered) 3*s are, in no specific order: IF, lazy daken, loki, KK. i havnt been seeing as many patch/dakens since their stealth nerf but they can still help you climb and save on health packs. KK is really good on defense. i tend to skip teams with max KK cause her yellow is a pain in the ass…

you need more covers for cmags and cage, otherwise i’d say definitely max them. buuuut…i think your cage is already usable with 5 in red. and if you max IF, his purple will accelerate cage’s black. great combo those two.

also…why do you have so many empty roster slots? lol…all i’m seeing is empty $$$

16

One other thing that hasn’t been mentioned is that you might want to reconsider your strategy at the end. Starting at the beginning is a good start. Settle around 400 is good. Do a climb to 700 also good. From there, you might want to consider the 3hr-8hr-3hr…etc. shield hopping strategy where you hope for 60-70 points per hop. It’s miserable on HP but it’ll get you there and is less time dependent. I don’t know if 1000 is in the realm of possibility with 6 hours left to go. I think you’ll just get hit too much given your roster in that end-of-event time frame.

That said, I’d agree that to get to 1000 these days, you’re going to need to have your stable of 166 characters that are boosted for that week to have a good shot. With rotating boosts, that optimal team is going to change each week and you gotta hope you have them available and at 166 so they can shine.

Best of luck, I personally don’t have the heart for shield hopping anymore, especially when 4*'s are really only glorified 3*'s anymore.

17

Timing your initial jump to 750-800 can also help. Im in the UK so I can hit about 5am EST when all the Americans are asleep so it keeps the attacks on me down. This also works in the hops, I can sometimes get 150-200 between 800-1000 without being hit.

18

I just sold off all but three of my 2*'s (I had all but bullseye and hawkeye maxed) and used the ISO to get everyone up to a usable state so that I could start testing 3* combo’s. I am trying to figure out what combos work well together so that I can choose to level them up to max.

19

You’re only now starting to lose faster than you can win? That happens to me in the 400-500 range and I finish events in the 200’s again and again =/

20

Ok, here is my advice, since I use a very similar strategy with Prof X:

First: Do NOT level Prof X any higher, you don’t want him to have the most powerful color on the team, since that will not benefit you from his Master Plan.

Second: Re-spec Black Widow Grey Suit to 5-3-5 and level her to 166. Her purpleflag.png
deceptive tactics is the BEST way to win with Prof X (IMO). Purple is her strongest color, and at level 166 will be higher than Prof X blue, so every match 5 will give you +4 purpleflag.png
. When you use Deceptive tactics, you will be able to make 2 match 5’s EVERY TIME, sometimes 3, which will often let you do deceptive tactics AGAIN, right away, which then allows you to fire sniper rifle. Added to the 4k damage from Master Plan, even 20k hit point hulkbusters won’t last long.

Third: Match strategy—Boost +2 blueflag.png
/ purpleflag.png
AP; search for match 5’s above all else (obviously) then prioritize purpleflag.png
, and then greenflag.png
. It takes 3 purpleflag.png
matches to hit 11 purpleflag.png
AP. Deceptive tactics into sniper rifle and game over!

There are a couple of drawbacks with this:
–High level boosted characters can have a stronger color than Black Widow’s purple, which will alter what you gain from Master Plan. Not a lot to overcome this, but hopefully whatever that color is has a strong attack. If it is green, it will feed your sniper rifle for over 4k AoE damage. If it is red, you can use the pistol to manipulate the board for more purple matches. Or it may feed a good attack for the boosted character. It also may be worth it to switch to Iron Fist for that event instead.

–Bad boards, with little purple or no purple matches. These happen, but thankfully not too often, and makes any match tough, regardless of who you are using.

I have been able to finish 4 matches in 9 minutes against max level 3/4* using this strategy, occasionally winning on my first turn with a couple lucky cascades (purple match 5 into another cascade is awesome!!)

Other than that, starting at 750 with 12-13 hours until the event ends, you can go 3-8-3 for shields (and avoid the heavy times at 11 hours, 8 hours and 3 hours before the end) trying to get 3 matches for 30+ points each hop (only 2 if the matches take too long), then try for 1 more high value match at the end if you need it! Don’t use the 24-hour shield that far out, if at all, since the 3-8-3 shield hops costs the same. If anything, the retals you can get from the hits will bring you higher than you started anyway!

I would say this works for me 3 out of every 4 events right now, although you do need to be diligent with skipping fights to find high-value targets.