My woe; I quit MPQ "if not..." AKA.5* is what I expected.

I understand sentiment, believe me. I felt exactly the same, but for me, how you feel about 5 star land is how I feel about 4 star land too. For how large it is and the variety, I see about the same 6-7 characters in every match, and use those characters myself. So I’m dipping my toe into the water with Thor. I’ll see how the rest of the PVP season goes before champing Gambit, even though I know champing Gambit will 100% change my game forever.

Again, this just isn’t true. This week it was all various combos of Rogue, Sandman, Cyclops and Star-Lord. Saw the occasional Gwen, the occasional Carol, and the occasional Medusa/Grocket with Star-Lord in his PVP. I guarantee you that this next week I don’t see Star-Lord, Cyclops, Rogue or Sandman at all and they were about 95% of this weeks matchups. I usually used Sandman/Star-Lord to save on packs until about 500 and then Switched to Rogue Cyclops until 900 and shielded out. One single climb. I will not be using these same characters next week.

If I leveled Gambit/DD I’d have to play just those two characters week after week against an endless slew of Gambit week after week. Sounds… fun? Eh, not for me.

That’s not right. In a 3-day PVE with 24 hour subs, there’s a difference of 10 CP between CL8 and 9. 1 per day on the 5* node, and 7 in progression.

Depending on how you play, you may also get more placement rewards.

CL8 definitely takes less time, but you have to consider all of the rewards.

Seems like you’re quite a ways ahead of me. More 5s max-covered, less 4s left to champ, and ahead on the 3* dupe Farm. I’m actually trying not to sell off my 266 3* if I can get away with it. We’ll see if it works in practice. How do you tend to fare in PVE/PVP, and what’s your spending like?

Sure, individual pvps rely heavily on boosted characters, though I take down those low level champed boosts just as easily with my high level rocket and Gamora. But go play SIM where there are no boosted characters, and tell that a select few aren’t the dominant teams. We can play these games of technicalities all day though.

But we all be pea-crying in our soup the day 5 star boosts become a regular thing beyond a line 5 star essential.

I only have one 5* fully covered, next best covered is 11. I dont really pay much attention to them though since I dont use them. I just make sure I have at least one cover of all so I dont get locked out of the 5* essential.

I dont honestly see the point in keeping dupes of the 3*s cause a lot of them I dont use anymore. I have only kept Strange and IM40 from the 266 crowd as those guys do get used a fair bit. I’m happy to take the slight decrease in power from them should they pop up in PVP’s.

PVE - I tend to finish top 10 most events with 7 clears. I do wait 5 hours or so to join though so to allow a good couple of flips.

PVP - I usually join in the last 3 hours and play to 575. I’ll rarely bother trying to get to 900 unless the boost list is particularly favourable.

My spending is mainly VIP. I’ve never bought more than a Logan’s Loogies and thats probably been perhaps 3 or 4 times over the 3+ years I’ve been playing the game. I’ve probably spent £150 maximum on the game.

Yes, SIM is certainly a bucket load of Grocket/Gamora/Medusa, once you reach a high level. Theres still more variety though than facing Gambit all the time in SIM and the other season events.

Sim is just one event though. Yes it’s longer than a regular PVP, but still one event and it doesn’t even run in the off-season. Also it’s the only PVP I can get max progression on and I can do it playing casually, not using shields, and using fun teams. I’m pretty sure my last team played there was Rogue, Carol, ME Hulk just to try it. I can get to 2000 in a day easily. So for the other 29 days per season, yes there’s plenty of variety and certainly more that in the 5 tier.

We’re pretty similar. I’m usually top 5, maybe top 10. Lately been getting some T1-2 finishes. CL8 btw. Can’t mess with 9.

PVP I find if I join outside 3 hours (like 8 or less) I can get to 900 in one run with no shields. Could be worth trying since any given week you have more 4s boosted than me.

I only spend 2 a month to keep the intercepts rolling. Never been VIP.

As for keeping the 266s, I guess for me it’s more for the trophy than the utility. I think it’d be cool to have every character max Champed one day. I know I’m slowing my progression big time dedicating Iso to extra 3s instead of 4s, but figure I can always sell later if I change my mind.

Fun fact, the ONLY 3 I have max Champed (with 4-5 on the vine) happens to be Rogers, who happens to be the PVP essential. Will be my first time running a max boosted 3!

I recently transitioned to 5* and i like it much better than 4*.

The variety in 4* is an illusion. The boost list selects which portion of the tier is viable for the given week. Sure, the characters change, but at any given time only 5/60 of the entire tier is a valid option. This holds true in sim as well, the 5 characters that matter when there are no boosts are Rocket, Gamora, Medusa, Blade, and Carol. Only 8% of the characters matter on any given event. The fact that this 8% changes creates the illusion of variety.

5* tier has completely different issues. The gambit issue first and foremost. Yes every match has gambit on both sides, and that is a problem. But that second character varies all over the place. Some choices are better than others cause they synergize with gambit (black bolt / hawkeye), but you dont have to skip more than twice to find a thanos, daredevil, thor, phoenix, or logan. You will see most of the tier in this second spot (except Banner). So like 90% of the 5* tier is actively used and you will fight against them. Its very unfortunate that 1 of the 2 spots has to be gambit. I wish I had seen the 5* PvP tier prior to gambit cause it sounds like a magical place.

I wouldn’t say it’s an illusion. It’s just we define variety differently I guess. I just know that with few exceptions I use all 51 of my 4* champs beyond just when they’re essential. That’s variety. Yes what we see any given week is determined by the boost list. But if not for that, people would just use the best two/three characters all the time. We’ve seen this in sim throughout history. The meta constantly shifts to whatever team is best. Currently Grockmordusa (was Carol/Blade/Wasp before that) in the 4 tier and Gambit in the 5. But the boost list really does shake that all up and to me provides variety.

As far as Sim goes, I don’t spite people that use the Grocket meta. For one, it’s super easy to beat and there are a number of effective counter teams. Two, they are for the most part skippable and at least from about 0-1500 points it doesn’t take long to find another team if you want to mix it up with a different opponent. Three, people are going to use the fastest/best team. It doesn’t matter the tier, there will always be a best combo. Before Gambit there were plenty of nerf Thanos posts and it was Panthos as far as the eye could see. So really, the fact that people cry about the toughest combo is just the same old song just with different characters. Apparently what makes Gambit different is all the other “best combos” are beatable but you can’t beat Gambit without one of your own and he makes all other characters obsolete. But even if they fix Gambit I think the 4 tier would be more varied and fun.

I play in CL7, as I prefer the much quicker clearance times. I dont feel the rewards in 8 are that much better to warrant the extra play time.

PVP - I can hit 900, within the final 3 hours, if the boost list is a good one. Most the time though, I cant be bothered to try. PVP is very much an after thought for me.

Thats exactly why I cant be bothered with 3* dupes. I cant justify having all that ISO in the same 3*. At the end of the day though, its about what makes the game fun for you. If having them all at 266 is a big goal to you then you should absolutely play for it.

also in 1 or so years this convo will probably be moot with the intro of 6*s

I like how people are complaining about always having to fight G5mbit in PVP, while they themselves have him rostered too. Same goes for Grocket/Medusa teams in 4* land.

I have a 452 Gambit, but I mostly run my 466 DD and 451 Thor. I HATE using Gambit, by the time I had champed him I had faced him some many times I’m just sick of him. I hope he gets the nerf bat, but not too hard. I’ve said it a few times but, don’t change his purple or red at all. Make black an active power that costs 6 ap, have it create X number of red, purple, and black charged tiles. Remove the stipulation on allies red and purple powers, remove the ap gen, remove the ap drain. That one change fixes him, and he is still one of the most powerful characters. Just tie him back to the point of a match 3 game… Matching tiles!!!