Oh look, the required character for shield training is barely in tokens… again with this tinykitty. How are we supposed to get him to 10 covers exactly?
Cant bonus him because we have no idea its gonna be that character. Pull from tokens? There’s like a 100 4*'s now… This is so lame.
Northstar this early is definitely pushing it (as well as pushing my buttons).
I just did some quick math. I’m probably on the middle to above average in the spectrum with having Northstar covered at 6 when he entered tokens. Dropped some CP on the new sinister store and with this season’s progression and those shards, he’s clocking in at 7 covers with 274 shards. I’ve got 5 more wins in SIM before he’s got 8 (final progression), which means I will need two more covers or 526 shards after final SIM progress to get to 10. (And I’m lucky he isn’t at max colors in any of them or all of this would be for naught).
Available earnable shards are 120 at 2400 Season and 175 at 3k Season.
Given that the SHIELD Training starts in 6 days, it is likely that with 1k scores in two to three events, that I’ll get those 295 shards from progression.
There is, however, zero chance of getting the 10k season 480 shards prior to 2/13.
So in 5 more wins, and roughly 2k more season points, I’ll have a 9-covered Northstar with 169 shards, which will be 231 shards short of the necessary 10 covers.
Let me get this straight? I spend 500cp worth of Sinister tokens. I purchase the 3400 HP shards deal. I go B@77s out and get win-based progression within about 24 hours of season start and I am STILL short shards to participate in the SHIELD training?
Granted, I’ll open a few more tokens between then and now… I guess if I can hit those 10 Mighty Tokens at 4k, I MIGHT get enough shards to get Northstar finished on time.
I suppose that there is the opportunity to get that last cover via progression in the Meet RNG event (if I play CL8,9,10).
I will probably pull it out. But I had to go through heroic efforts at the beginning of a season, hoard CP, and purchase a HP shard offer to do it.
This seems like tiny kitty to everyone.
There’s a full cover and 1020 shards waiting for you in SCL 10 pvp if you can somehow climb to the top of simulator and hit full season progression before shield training ends…
He’s in placement and progression rewards coming up in PVE as well, so I guess there’s some kind of chance. I came out with 4 covers on mine, and I’m not interested in trying to grind him up 6 more, so I’ll just do what I’ve been doing and not care about it I guess.
Yup. Mentioned that in my post above. Just hit my 75th win a moment ago and now I will slide back into PVP Sim oblivion until next season.
It’s not in my nature to try and give up on a character. Nobody knows who the next meta will be, nor how certain combos will ultimately work or not work. One less cover from this upcoming Shield training makes the one after that much harder.
Maybe the whole problem with this release is timing. People (myself included) hoarded for the Sinister store and hoarding LTs for Latests. But since Prof won’t leave and Sinister enter Latest until after Shield Training, I’ve got no motivation to burn my LTs, which means less opportunity for Northstar since I don’t want any more Prof covers.
I just stockpiled every token that gives shards since we moved to this stupid system. I know the developers (and many players) don’t like hoarding, but it’s really the best way forward. I’m up to just over 400 heroics, which is three 4* covers of my choosing in a pinch like this. Rather than guess who will be featured, I can just wait and open after finding out. I’m going to see how I do in PVE progression/placement first, because if I can get to 10 there, I can save these Heroics/Mighties/Event Tokens for the next character.
I didn’t see that until after I’d submitted my post. Hi five for hitting that grind so hard, I don’t have it in me to pull 75 wins in sim that fast lol.
Another screw you from the devs, don’t you love it?
Exerpt from secret Dev’s meeting about the above post:
“Excellent. This is exactly what we wanted”.
You get 400 Northstar shards from progression in CL8 and up in Honor Among Thieves. So, for Northstar, getting him to ten covers by Shield Training will be a pain in the Talos for many but going forward it should be a bit easier to get new 4s covered because you’ll be getting quite a few shards from placement and progression rewards in pve and pvp.
1 from release ST.
3 (or 4 for T2) from release placement.
2 from pvp release placement.
1 from T100 pve ally placement .
1 from progression in pve.
1 from progression in pvp.
So 9 for most top players on release week.
Sim cover takes you to 10!
…are you telling me everyone doesn’t do that for new releases?!
LOL. I can’t tell if you are being serious or not. 
But I get your point, if 100% of the people were placing t100, this would be a non-issue.
Using a new 4* release as an example, this is typically how many covers one can get through placement and progression rewards in the first run (non-alliance event):
PvP that rewards new 4*: 2 placement covers
PvE that rewards new 4*: 3 covers from placement + 1 from alliance placement
New 4* shield training: 1 cover
New 4* PvP: 1 progession cover
PvE with new 4* as Essential: 1 progression cover
That is a total of 8 covers up for grab. Apart from real-life committments, lucky pulls from vaults and not counting 4* cover from alliance placement, if you are getting (for the first run) between:
0-2 covers, you are probably a very casual player or a new player, or you simply don’t care.
3-5 covers, you are competitive or at least you make the effort to get the new 4* covers. Lack of deep roster or roster strength might be what’s stopping you from getting the top spot.
6-8 covers, top of the world: in both PvEs and PvPs, and you have a deep roster.
Find out where you are and adjust your expectation.
For me, I get about 5 to 6 covers in the first run and 3 to 4 in the second run. So, I have to make a choice whether to chase the extra one cover if I have only 9 covers.
Once I finish Sim, I’ll have 5 Northstar covers, which feels to be my usual haul for new characters. I’ve long ago settled into the though-mode that ST is not meant for me. I play what I can to get whatever rewards are available, but then I go zen and come back occasionally as I get a few covers for the new 4*.
^Same. I just use my Favorites to shard my way to 5*s now, so I’ll get those when I get them. If I miss out on the ST cover it’s not the end of the world. Though last time it was somebody sufficiently new, I legit pulled the 10th cover I needed within the final hour or so of ST closing, but had no iso-8 to bring them up, so I had to just watch it go by. very sad…
Wait a moment. Isn’t the rotation typically 4*, 4*, 5*? Unless I’m off my mark here, they moved to a 4, 5, 4, 5 rotation: Northstar (4), Sinister (5), New House of Windsor character (4), then place holder for next 5* coming late February. Please tell me I got something wrong . . .
^This is the correct read of the current situation. There has been 4, 4, 5, 4, 5 releases before, but I seem to recall those were around special events like movie tie-ins or similar. Unclear if this is going to be the new normal. On the one hand, slowing down or potentially even locking down the 4* tier is probably desirable at this point, but ramping up the 5* release rate, on the same every 2 weeks schedule is going to be very challenging to keep pace with unless the shard economy is much more generous than it appears.
There have been a few 4545 stretches. Or 45445.
As recently as spidey 2099 we have had 3 4*'s in a row as well. Torch, worthy, 2099. Then went back into 5445. It’s pretty hard to nail down on solid pattern on these with the devs switching it up on occasion.
That right there is the very definition of random. :
In terms of releases, there have been plenty of 3 week gaps lately.
Look at the last few 5s and how long they have been in Latests:
Rescue was the shortest one at 14 weeks (6/3 to 9/9)
Storm was 21 weeks (6/24 to 11/18)
Iceman was 19 weeks (8/5 to 12/20)
Professor is (probably) going to be 23 weeks (9/9 to 2/20/20)
Carnage looks like a 18-week stay (11/14 to 3/19 presuming the next 5 releases on 2/27)
Even if they went to a 4/5/4/5 schedule, that might not mean more frequent 5’s. It could mean longer gaps between characters that they fill in with bundles (they are very fond of bundles lately) and other sales and offers. Slow down a little and capitalize on the existing characters (dilution makes buying bundles more appealing, to make monetization work a lot better).
I know we are all worried about more frequent 5’s but they’ve never had one in Latests for less than 14 weeks. Also: Designing a 5 seems (to me, from the outside) like a more involved process due to the fact that each one has different match dmg and health pool numbers which seem to fluctuate based on the ability set, how fast it works, etc. I don’t think we will see 5’s coming every 4 weeks and Latest stays of 12 weeks - especially when testing is taking longer than ever as they add more and more characters to the game.