Looking for Roster Specific Advice for Breaking 1k Barrier

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ Tips and Guides
1

Hello all,

I am looking for some tips and tricks that might help me break the 1k barrier in PVP. I realize that this is a topic that has been discussed many times, but I’m hoping for some advice that is roster specific. Additionally, if it’s just simply not possible for me to break this “Icarus” effect that I’ve been running into, that’s reasonable as well.

My roster is as follows:

  • Wolverine (X-Force) 3/5/2 - 172
    Rocket & Groot (Most Wanted) 5/3/5 - 158
    Captain America (Steve Rogers) 3/5/5 -153
    Daken (Classic) 5/4/4 - 153
    Magneto (Classic) 4/4/5 -153
    The Hulk (Indestructible) 5/3/5 - 153
    Thor (Modern) 3/5/5 - 153
    Wolverine (Patch) 4/4/5 - 153
    Kamala Khan 5/2/5 - 153
    Blade (Daywalker) 4/5/4 - 131
    Captain Marvel (Modern) 4/5/4 -131
    Colossus (Classic) 5/4/4 - 131
    Daredevil (Man Without Fear) 4/5/4 - 131
    Deadpool (It’s Me, Deadpool!) 5/3/5 - 131
    Doctor Doom (Classic) 5/4/4 - 131
    Doctor Octopus (Otto Octavius) 5/5/3 -131
    Falcon (Might Avengers) 5/5/3
    Gamora (Guardians of the Galaxy) 5/5/3 - 131
    Human Torch (Classic) 5/3/5 - 131
    Iron Man (Model 40) 5/5/3 - 131
    Mystique (Raven Darkholme) 3/5/5 - 131
    Psylocke (Classic) 5/3/5 - 131
    Sentry (Dark Avengers) 5/5/3
    She-Hulk (Modern) 4/5/4 - 131
    Spider-Man (Classic) 5/5/3 - 131
    Squirrel Girl (Unbeatable) 4/5/4 - 131
    The Hood (Classic) 5/5/3 - 131
    The Punisher (Dark Reign) 3/5/5 - 131
    Black Widow (Grey Suit) 5/3/4 - 131
    Black Panther (T’Challa) 5/5/1 - 131
    Invisible Woman (Classic) 4/2/3 - 131
    Storm (Mohawk) 5/3/5 - 102
    Ragnarok (Dark Avengers) 4/5/1 - 102
    Beast (Classic) 3/4/3 - 102
    Cyclops (Uncanny X-Men) 5/2/3 - 102
    Quicksilver (Pietro Maximoff) 3/3/4 - 102
    Luke Cage (Hero for Hire) 3/3/3 - 102
    Scarlet Witch (Wanda Maximoff) 2/2/5 - 102
    Iron Fist (Immortal Weapon) 2/3/3 - 102
    Loki (Dark Reign) 5/3/5 - 95

That plus some 2s and singles in the 4s.

Alright, I tend to join 8 hours before the end of the PVP, go as far as I can, shield, come back when I’ve got more health packs, then go as far as I can. Am I biting off more than I can chew on my hops? I usually join the 4th slice, and I’d join earlier, but I’ve found that even T100 is out in that case if anything goes wrong. If you join later, I get at least placement if I take somewhat of a dive.

I appreciate anyone weighing in, even those who recognize some big flaw in my logic.

Thank you.

2

Not impossible, but it’s not going to be a cake walk.

Your best bet ofcourse is with a featured character you have at 153
The 7 you have @ 153 are pretty good picks, particuarily C.Mags and Thor.

8 hours is probally not enough to reach 1k… plan your climb earlier and remember it takes money to make money.
I’d guess 3-4 shields for you, since your hops will be short since you’ll be a juicy target on top.
Thats going to cost ~450HP, but you’ll recoup ~300 in progress and placements, so 150 is a drop in the bucket for a 4*

Are you soft capping @ 153 to control PVE scaling? Generally you can’t have it both ways. PvPr’s will tell you PvE is a grind and waste of time, I earned 3 -4* outside of the Carnage event in the same amount of time. PvE player will tell you PvP is impossible to rank high and ruled by snipers and whales.

Set reasonable goals, 725 is great, it’s the last HP. Then 800 for the 3*.
Top 25 will get you 2 covers, find a good alliance for a 3rd and you’ll finished with 3-4 covers.

The 10 Health Packs should help, don’t try to fight through retaliations it will be a net loss.

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I’ve hit 1000 one time and it cost me 600 hp to do it. not sure where the 300hp in progress/placements comes from. there is 100 hp in progressions and 25 or 50 in placements (depending on alliance, maybe another 25 ot 50), so unless you’re surviving on just a 3 hr, pvp will always be hp negative, but that’s ok.

you have a lot more variety at the top than I do. my top guy Lthor is slow (and my top support loki makes it even slower) and not made for hopping, so really except for one very early morning hop, every hop netted me one win. the times I tried my second win, I lost one and was probably lucky it wasn’t 4 or 5. at the end I broke and played 3 very quick matches, got a defensive win and made it. with you’re top guys you can field several different teams and win - hulkbombing is in the cards. I’m not a regular 1000 guy, but based on my experience it is possible if you use your shields right.

generally I’m a pve guy who wanted it both ways. at one time I was satisfied with t50 pve and t100 pvp, but now I’d really like to be hitting 1000 more in pvp and am feeling a pull to start leveling guys. I’d hate to really screw pve up, since all character intros are done that way. and my hp is a finite amount, so spending 600 on hopping doesn’t necessarily appeal to me a ton. I’d love to see some more of the more experienced guys weigh in - I’m interested too.

4

My preference if I’m gunning for 1K is to join early, and take my time climbing up to my equilibrium point (which is usually in the 600s). I then tend to make a major push during a relatively quiet time (which is essentially any time which isn’t -8 or -3 hours before the event ends), and see how far I can go before I start taking substantial hits. With the new MMR and new point values, I often find I can make it to the mid 800s or 900s before I need to think about shielding. Usually, I can make it to 1K with only two shields (an 8 hour, and 3 hour, with the last shield being to protect my final score).

I tend to regard placement and progression as two separate goals, which aren’t necessarily mutually compatible. If I’m aiming for T100 or T25 placement, I’d rather join a quieter time slice. Slice 4 is too active, and the scores are too high to be really sure of a good placement. On the flip side, if I’m going for progression, then Slice 4 is a good choice, since there are lots of high scorers, which means more high value targets to hit, plus I’m less obvious as a target when I’m near the end of my climb.

In terms of roster specific advice, it really depends on who the featured is, and who’s boosted for the week. The “best” team will vary fairly substantially from PvP event to event. You have a good, deep roster, which means you should be able to hit 1K. If we assume the next event coming up is the cMags event, then I’d probably choose a team of cMags/X-Force/Doom from your roster. Gives you lots of damage output, lots of board shuffling and cascade potential with SS, and black feeding from Doom (plus a heavy hitting purple outlet). The weak link in that, oddly enough, is your X-Force. At level 172, he’s low in health and easy to down, and I’d regard you as a target with an underlevelled 4* like that in play.

As mentioned by Hendross, if you’re softcapping your roster to control PvE scaling, your PvP is going to suffer. When I’m skipping through targets in PvP, I’m always going to choose the slightly lower level target, if point values are otherwise equivalent. The overall effectiveness between at 153 and 166 is minimal, but it’s still going to invite more attacks.

5

Thank you for the replies!

I’m soft capping mostly for ISO reasons. I have a limited ISO budget (~170k at the moment), and as you said, a deep roster where any one of them can be featured at any time. :-/

The only soft cap that I don’t want to break is X-Force; Morph3us, I took your advice before and brought him up to 172, and the scaling hasn’t been too bad. But he’s pretty close to the 3*s at the moment, and bringing him up to 208 is 80k ISO, without really strengthening my roster.

I’ve achieved scores that are at highest 940 (last PVP) - and in that case it was with minimal shielding, but mostly because I’m not good at shield management (I shouldn’t equivocate, I didn’t purchase any shields). I am decent at getting T100, it’s basically been what I’ve seen as the only reasonable goal in PVP, but now that I’m getting so many covered 3*s, I think that it’s time to move toward the next target. I was one battle in the last PVP from making the 1k mark, in this new world, and was fighting that battle, but I was hit hard. Which is understandable, in retrospect, a 131 Hood and 172 X-Force are really juicy targets.

So, it’s about 32k ISO from 153->166 and 70k ISO from 131->153, which is the reason that I’ve been using for the soft cap. Maybe this is the time to pick a couple characters and let them ride?

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I can see your point. I would agree with you that levelling XFW from 172 to 208 isn’t really strengthening your roster, but I’d definitely say that he’s got a big target painted on him at level 172, especially post-nerf. Taking him up to 200 would probably alleviate some attacks (particularly if he’s boosted for the week), and it shouldn’t worsen your scaling too much. I have Fury at 200, and with a roster of 11 maxed 3s, I’m coping with the PvE scaling pretty well. The counter argument is, of course, that 4s aren’t really a deterrent until they’re level 250-270, and that’s when they really mess up your scaling, so there’s definitely an argument on your side as well.

Presumably you were running with Spider-Man (131 + boost), X-Force (172), and Hood (131). Your analysis is spot on there. A boosted Spider-Man isn’t more of a threat than a non-boosted Spider-Man, your Hood is one-shottable, and we’ve discussed XFW already. If you’re planning on running Hood in PvP, I think you’re going to need to take him to 166 - he really needs the health. Again, this is one of those things where there’s a strong counter-argument - he’s going to take a lot more damage in PvE since he starts tanking in an awful lot of circumstances at 166. The problem is that Hood’s suffered substantially with the health boosts, and is a lot less viable in PvP than he used to be.

Given that you’re feeling that it’s time to start looking at your 4s, in terms of the 1K progression, I do think it’s probably time to start moving some 3s to 166. You can either level a whole batch together slowly to 166, or pick a few and let them ride, as you say. I chose the latter, mostly because I’m impatient!

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Hulkbombing is the answer. I was able to hit 1k with 350 (3hr 8hr 3hr and 1 healthpack). You need to get to ~700 1st shield. Then pick 50 pt targets to hulk bomb to ~850. Then shileld again. Hulkbomb to ~950. Shield. Then u should need 1 hop to 1k. Once u reach it though prepare to get knocked down to oblivion. Haha. Also suggest to start this with 2 days left in the event

8

I’ve been trying to hit the 1k barrier last couple of event too. So far with no success.
My roster is soft capped at 120 because I mainly play pve. I do have 400k+ ISO, so I can afford to bring several of them to 166 if need be. Just means I won’t be able to use them in pve without it affecting my scaling.

I tried started late (3 hrs to go) but I found that once I get to 700 (takes me about 60-90 mins to do so by skipping teams under 38 pts), I start getting attack. Sometime I will be able to reach 800 but most of the time, the attacks come in faster than I can win my matches. Since I don’t bother to shield, I normally drop back down to 400-600 by the time the event ends.

I then tried to start earlier (8-12 hrs to go). Similar results, but I found that I could get to 800 much easier. Less people attacking me on my climb. However, beyond that, I become juicy targets while ranked in the top 10. 166+ teams would hit me like crazy and I can never get to 1k. I think the closest I got to was 920 before I was gang-banged down to 800 again. I didn’t bother with shield and I notice 400-500 is my equilibrium point. If I try to climb again in the last 3 hrs, I end up being attacked rigorously beyond 800.

Last event, I tried starting with 24 hrs to go. The climb here is much slower as not many people are climbing yet. Very few targets above 50 pts and once I get to 800 or so, again I become juicy targets.

I have no idea how people are managing to climb to 1k in one sitting. I thought with the introduction of 10 health packs, it was going to be easier but this doesn’t prevent my roster from being attacked. I guess my only option is to level my roster to 166.

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I’d caution a bit if you are thinking that if you don’t use max characters in PVE that your scaling will not be impacted. This is why so many folks do not max out 4* (even though they are not used for PVE ever). It is a big mystery though and I wish I could give you concrete evidence that confirms it doesn’t matter if you use them or not, but my experience shows that it will impact your scaling in PVE. I’ve done all sorts of experiments to try and lower my scaling and haven’t been able to lower it at all by just using lower leveled characters.

Not saying don’t do it, but there is no way to undue this change without deleting that character unfortunately. If PVE is more important to you, I’d suggest staying firm at 120, but if you want to get more serious in PVP, then maxing 3* is a good start, just wanted you to know it may have an unforeseen PVE impact.

10

You’re definitely going to find that your equilibrium point is lower, with your roster soft-capped at 120. In addition, once you cross a certain point (I’m not sure, it’s somewhere between 700-800, I believe), the game stops matching you with just your MMR appropriate enemies, and you become visible to everybody. Given the choice between hitting a featured + two 166s, and your team of a featured + two 120s, people are likely to choose you every time, which is probably why you’re having so much trouble.

Climbing to 1K in one sitting pretty much requires a maxed featured, and two maxed boosted characters (or appropriately levelled 4*s), since you’re likely to take few enough hits on the way up that you’ll make net positive progress. Things do vary from event to event. I climbed to 1K in one run from 600ish in the last two PvPs, but in Starfall, I’ve had to do two shield hops to clear it.

11

Thanks again, all! I took my LThor to 166 and went 8-3-8 with shields and finally, finally broke 1k!! Hopefully this is just the beginning!