journey to my first (and second) 1300 - with 166s

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ General Discussion
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I apologize in advance for the length – hopefully this is helpful to someone. I know multiple people that have made it to 1300 for the first time in the last week and I thought it would be nice to share experiences. With the IMHB red offered there during the QS event, I knew it was a cover that I’d consider buying later anyway when he was close to done, so I thought I’d go for it and pull out all the stops….or hops….or hp…anyway… lots of good and bad but here goes.

First, for reference, day 290 today for me today. 9 guys at 166ish (see roster – have cap up to the 160s too), 11 at 140. No usable 4*s (best is xforce level 120 – 2/4/1). highest pvp total previously was low-1100s.

Really wanted to give myself plenty of time for hopping so I actually made my push up to 819 very early in the event – about 36 hours out – about lunch time on Thursday (event ended 11pm my time on Friday). It went fine. Through my push I tried the buffs – cap/witch was popular but I found them to be somewhat slow and clunky. Only nuke was cap red and it was slow to get going. Deadpool/witch was fun, but again, slow. Red happened faster but mine only has 4 covers, so didn’t pack really that much of a punch, and purple was slow and needed multiple castings. So I ended up settling on fist/cage. Yep, ran 166s hoping to make 1300 – crazy right? So, then I started my 3/8/… shield cycle that I hoped to run through the rest of the event.

So, that was lunch. Mid-afternoon I did a 2-match hop that put me at 915. At this point, most all the high point matches were all either fistbusters or pairs of leveled (220+) 4*s, so things started getting interesting. Key here is cycling through your nodes to find high, reliable points – finding guys on your leaderboard or on t10 alliances are the best. And finding teams you can beat. Only took on 2 jean teams the whole event and those 2 didn’t have a blue cover (might have double tapped during my climb – if so, apologies).

At this point, I’m having a feeling something won’t go well at some point. and at that time I mistakenly thought that event ended at 11AM for me – more on that later. So because of my perceived time crunch, I chose to add an extra late afternoon hop and use my 24hr. 2 more matches got me up to 1007. At that point I’m done until the evening. Planning on 2 evening hops.

early evening hop: wiped game one. cascades set opponent QS blue off twice and that was pretty much game over (covered/levelled that’s ~3K damage each and that is hard to absorb with 166s). came out to a hit. that one had to just be bad timing. no way they queued me and finished. I don’t think that was a fresh queue or a snipe, but hurt nonetheless. won second match but lost plenty of pts down into the 900s.

late evening hop: won game 1 (dp/witch team). game 2 cascade set off blue and then they got a repulsor punch ready before I had enough to take hb down, so I sacrificed qs. a few turns later I see theres 4 locked and reactively matched blue with no qs, basically killing myself. came out of that to a hit. So at that point I’m down into the 800s and think that the only way I have a chance is to do one more (no idea what I was thinking). win it but come out to another hit (lucky it wasn’t 4 hits). Ended the evening in the upper 800s – all the hp spent so far completely wasted (800 hp plus some all AP boosts). Pretty frustrated and disappointed at this point.

early morning hop: my experience is that if I play early enough (~5:30am central) I can get more matches in because of less activity. I had 3 queued. played all 3 and got back into the mid 1000s.

second morning hop (~7AM): 2 targets. won both. came out of second match to a hit, so only gained 1 match worth of points. Was a 1112. This is when I realized I had till 11PM instead of 11AM. Also realized with the added activity, 2 matches was just not finishable fast enough with 166s, so the rest of the hops I went with 1 match only.

Because I could only do 1 match each, I knew I’d need another 24 hour in there to make it. Used it around lunch time and got up to 1179. Fistbusters were getting harder and harder to find. I like them because fist has low enough health I can get him down and even if hb got a punch off, I could sacrifice QS (just remember to not match blue with 4 locked out).

Early afternoon, I got word (message on the forum – not line…) that a well known alliance group was out making hops, so I dumped my decent queues for some really good ones for my stretch run. Was still very hard finding any cap/witch or fistbuster teams, but I found just enough. Used my 3 hour early afternoon and got up 1233 with 7 hrs to go in the event and would have my 8hr to hop with and event end if the hop didn’t go well.

Early evening, made it to 1300 and it was so nice. I think the keys are finding good queues, managing your hops and playing within your limits. Spent a total of 1600 hp on hops and 200 hp on all AP boosts. A lot, yes, but I learned many things and got the hb cover. The things I learned here will help me in the future (and already have).

Now, fast forward to mr fantastic event (I nickname him MFer). Fist is boosted, but weekends are full of family activities and its opening weekend for NFL, so Sunday is full. so I go with slice 1 to be done in time for church/football on Sunday. Saturday I play up to 700 running fist/cage again (put me in the 40s in rank). Was tempted to play 1 more but thought that would bring hits more, so let it sit. Actually nobody hit me and was able to start my push from 700. Historically I can reliably push 300 pts and I made it up to 1K here too and used my 3 hr shield. Was right at 8 hrs to event end, so I wouldn’t have it again. I figured if everything lined up perfectly I might have an outside shot at 1300 with 3 - 100pt hops. Note: boosted fist takes longer to down and I changed my strategy and went after hb first because I was not consistently getting him down in time before his purple went off, so had to mix it up.

So, I make my hulk clears (sub beginning) and then get a 2-match hop up to 1100 and use my 8 hr and go to sleep. I know the possibility is remote of me making it, and I need sleep, so I don’t set an alarm (event ends at 7AM).

I actually wake up at 6AM, and immediately use my 24 hr shield and make it up to 1200 pts with 50 minutes left in the event. I want to give myself plenty of time to get there, even if something goes wrong. I decide to give myself 18 minutes (an eternity at event end). I know even if I make I’ll get beat down, but don’t really care about that if I get the token.

Event end I get my 2 matches in and get to 1300 an my token and then get beat back down to 1060, but that was still enough for t50, and I got my token. Pleasant surprise. And this one only cost me 525 hp and would have been less if I could have timed my push better. I won’t be doing that often probably but its nice to know that a push and 3 hops (can be done with 3/8/3 shields and event end, would be 300 hp and very sustainable). Key there is making 1K on your initial push, which can come with good boosteds or featureds like fist.

I apologize again for the length but hopefully it helps someone else realize what they can do if they have the hp and roster strength to do it.

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Interesting post. Can you talk about the teams you did see above 1100? Is it all Jean Greys? Or are things and 4*deadpool well represented?
How hard was it to find targets above 1100? And what did you consider a viable target? 40 points? 50?

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man on this one the 4* teams were more varied than I expected. saw hb/jean/carnage/antman/xpool/xf/4thor, but saw a ton of jean/hb - skip. I think I took on an xf/hb, witch/4thor, and the 1 jean team that didn’t have blue (forgot who she was paired with). maxed antmans (boosted to 350) = skip. saw a couple xpools, mostly with xforce, but not many = skip. some carnages = skip.

towards the end I had to skip a lot to find a fistbuster worth anything. doing only 1 match hops, you still have your other nodes saved, so skipping that one through till you find either a 50+ node or a t10 alliance or someone you see on your leaderboard (t10 alliances were pretty findable up there). trick is finding a beatable team worth enough points, and that just takes lots of skipping. sometimes you have to just put it aside for a while and come back later and search again.

reading through it I missed a hop there - I was at 1296 at one point - don’t remember.

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Have you tried fighting carnage at all? I haven’t found him too hard, especially if he is paired with slower characters.

I also feel like Jean grey/imhb should be doable. Jg is slow without someone like switch to fuel her. And while imhb is dangerous, he is only deadly when he get black. So deny black and purple and you should be ok (though a bad so cascade, or an unlucky match t would be devastating)

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don’t understand how you can get to 700 in one go.

I hit 550 even running max XF/Fury/Featured or a combination of boosted 166’s (I have nearly all 3* at lv 166) & attacks start coming in stacks of 4-6 - I’m gaining 30-40 points per battle but often losing 50-80.

Absolutely no way I can skip from 700 to 1000 in one go - if unshielded even for 20 mins to allow this, I would expect to lose at least 200-300 points in hits.

I very rarely bother now to go past 600 as I don’t like shield-hopping & any points gained after 600 are lost almost immediately to hits.

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If you’re gaining 30-40 points per battle you’re definitely going to get hit a lot because you’ll be offering a good-value retal node. Skip to find targets worth at least high 40s or 50s, to max 75 even.

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if I have a strong featured with a strong boosted that play well together, i’ll take carnage on with hood as a third. this one especially I didn’t want to go there because my 166s were not boosted and it took time for me to gather enough ap for fist/cage to get someone down. carnage’s red is cheap and strong and every little ability starts eating into your health. throw in an accidental QS blue and you’re done (really that’s what got me more than anything else). I’ve taken him on before but prefer to either have a 3* tank boosted to absorb some of the damage, or hood with me. jean - again, if I could guarantee the qs blue doesn’t go off, taking one jean purple isn’t the end, but taking the green behind it or qs blue would be. and green is not something I would be actively denying like black/purple and then pursuing yellow. actually I took on jean/witch gladly because it’s only 2 colors to deny. and colors which I can use. put jean with hb and its a lot to deny imo. when I get my Cyclops’s 5th black, i’ll use him too, that way denying red is beneficial to me, even if it isn’t mega-strong damage/ap like cage yellow/black(2nd/3rd)/fist purple(with 12 black). fistclops just takes more damage in the match without cage’s protect. I do like fistclops better - just need 5th black.

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Great post OP.
Thanx for sharing your experiences.
A few questions :

  1. Which slice did you join ? Is there a preferable slice in terms of more points on offer ?
  2. Do use boosts in all slots or take a TU ?
  3. Do you make sure your characters are fully healed ? How low on health would you take them into a match ?
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  1. QS event was slice 4, MFer event was slice 1 - as mentioned elsewhere I think there are top scorers in most all the normal event slices. I know top alliances have been in 1, 3, 4, and 5 recently (not sure about 2 - never played 2 before). I’m not plugged in to all the movement but I think it was spread towards the end of the season
  2. I was using +2black/green, +2all, usually a team-up in the third. used a deadpool red once, an obw purple once, and an mbw blue once. most of the time the team up never gets used though.
  3. during my push I’ll risk a bit more than during hops. hopping I want them mostly full health because a wipe on a hop is pretty devastating to a score when you’re playing that far over your head and can only afford one match/hop. I did have some close calls.
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First, the post from Druss is super discouraging to a 3* transition player who would love to have all 3s at Lvl 166 and even one usable 4. Of course, depending on the PVP, I’ve been able to run up to 600 before w/o getting whacked (although this was not the case in MrF - wonder if the new 1300 token is having an impact).

Second, regarding DrTinyKittyLove, how many skips would you define as ‘a lot?’ I have no problem skipping, but I feel like I get to the 750-800 level (while shielded) and I completely run out of teams that are a) beatable and b) worth more than 30-40pts. I find myself skipping 10-20x and I keep cycling thru the same 5-10 opponents. This is frustrating and feels like a huge waste of ISO. Are my expectations of how much skipping to do wrong? Should I skip 50 teams?

Thirdly, I don’t know when the sweet spot for playing is and it is becoming annoying. If I play early and get up to 700-800, then I’m stuck in the t25 and I won’t be able to find any worthwhile targets, plus if I don’t shield hop for the entire rest of the event, I get smacked back down, BUT if I wait to join, then I feel like everyone is shielded and I can’t find anyone worthwhile to hit. Maybe once I max cover a few more 3*s and bump everyone up from Lvl 114 to ~140 it’ll be different (although not according to Druss), but it’s pretty frustrating now to shield hop for 800s and makes me think it’ll take forever and/or a miracle to approach 1300.

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I would hope that my post would be more encouraging. look at my roster. it is strong at key characters, but not as strong as druss’s overall. I’m not really sure how the mmr thing works. all I know is that towards the end of my push, when the system still thinks I’m 600-700 pts, points can become hard to come by because I’m being matched based on what the system thinks my score is. however, at some point (usually around 800?), usually it is like a switch flips, queues will go from boosted 3* teams in the 30pt range to 4* teams in the 50+pt range. not sure what that ‘switch’ is, but it has happened multiple times for me. if you can be fast enough the last part of your push can be for big points, but also sometimes comes with an occasional wipe and certainly more frequent health pack needs. but, by then its tricky to balance maximizing your push against hits that will inevitably come in. overshoot your team strength and you’ll come out of a match to -100. conversely, undershoot and shield and then have no hits come in for 30+ minutes is pretty frustrating too. so, its really an art more than a science to me and every event seems to be different.

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TxMoose, great post and very informative! Nice to see someone figure out how to play and succeed rather than come to forums asking d3 to change the game for them.

Very cool how you persevered during the rough hop that knocked you down. Way to go!

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Great post, fellow moose! antlerknock Err… hmm.

Anyway, I enjoyed the read. I typically score about 650 to get the two tokens in PvP, but I’m starting to think that I might be able to hit 1,000 if I am careful. I have all of the “big boy” (or girl) 3* maxed (and mostly properly covered), but not much in the way of a 4* roster yet. I have only managed 1,000 once - first day I burned up to about 600, then the next day I recovered from ~ 100 points worth of lost points and burned up to 800, then shielded. Hit 900, shielded, waited for Health Packs to recharge. Then, the final push to 1,000. I got the reward (red hulkbuster yay)and less than three seconds later I lost over 100 from attacks.

I think now that my 3* roster is mostly complete I can start being a bit braver and trying to hit 1000 instead of stopping at 650 whenever time allows it.

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if you have a core at 166 and some others at 140, mostly covered like you want it might be easier than you think. my strategy for normal pvps (1K target) is to try and hover as close to 700 as I can and about 10 hrs from event end, push as high as possible quickly. my experience is that I can usually safely push 300 pts without much trouble, depending on how fast the matches are going, maybe more. doing it all at once helps alleviate hits because of the delay in the system from your score going up from winning matches and that higher score being accurately reflected in queues of other players. so until that updates, people who see you in queues think your score is still down at 650 or 700 and around the time that it updates to your higher value, hopefully you’ve completed your climb and shielded. that’s the plan anyway - doesn’t always work perfectly. but more often than not it does.

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had lots of coaching from a fellow forumite over most of my months of playing, so that helps a ton too.

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One common thing is to join earlier than you are used to and make an initial climb. Get to the 500-700 range and leave unshielded. You will take hits of course but later on the retaliations will be worth more. Also sometimes that easy team the early 300-400s get a big cascade and while you still win it makes you use a few packs or forces you to change the team. Better let that happen when you are not pushing hard.

On your real climb you gonna need all the packs you have at your disposal so staying on the “floating” status gives no pressure on shields yet and you can recover your packs.

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I will be joining you in the 1300 club very soon.. i tried hard for that HB red (think everyone knows that cover is my white whale right now).. died @ 1100.. out of HP due to rostering reed..

I will say this, Blue Shift was the first PVP i hit 1k with only 1 shield.. new personal best.

Then the vault was kind to me, spat out 1k HP, then another 250..next thing you know i am up to 1700Hp again..

Major congrats on the 2x1300’s! As with hitting 1k, i hope to be following you soon on that path!!!

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Nice job moose. I’ve only recently started hitting 1300 about 50% of the time. I have most 3* characters maxed and no 4* above lvl 165. Having 3 boosted definitely helps but I would definitely say that you shouldn’t be afraid of max JG/HB teams or carnage even. They are doable with the right strategy and when I get past 1100 that is most of what I see. I skip until I see the 50+ pointers which usually takes a lot of skips. Less fights to 1300 plus if u do get wiped u don’t lose as many points. I try not to double tap, but when you are shield hopping above 1100 you have to go quick for 2 fights so sometimes it happens.