Roster help for rookie

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ Tips and Guides Roster and Level Help
1

Hi everyone!

I would really be thankful for your help, because I am a bit stuck with my roster management and generally would need a (at least) mid term plan for the game. I read through alot of topics so far, some of them helped me while others confused me even more. But at least now I think I understand all the abrevations…

I’m playing this game for about 2 months now, and obviously made a big mistake in spending some HPs early in the game for buying characters, so now I missing roster slots and don’t really know how to proceed.

My roster can be seen here:

https://mpq.gamependium.com/rosters/Beerman63/

I probably will have earned enough HP within the next days to get one more slot, and (even though its sad to do so) get rid of my 1* Iron Man and only keep Spidey (which I like much more than Juggernaut).

Also I decided to not keep covers for 2* Moonstone, Bullseye and Capt. America as I read they are fairly useful.

Problem is I still have 15 covers waiting to be rostered within the next week or so, including two 4* characters.

To be precise I have the following:

4* America Chavez, Quake

3* Dr. Doom, Human Torch, Wolverine, Luke Cage (2 Covers), Elektra, Spider Man (2 covers), Gamora, Thanos

I definetly want to keep Thanos, as I figure he is one of the best 3* characters. As you can see I already have some 3*s in my roster, and most of them are already useful at this point, like Iron Fist, Black Panther and especially Dr. Strange, who is an absolute monster in goon battles, even though I don’t have alot of covers for him.

I have like 3 “Teams” that I use for games:

2Daken/2Wolverine/3*Dr Strange for goon teams

Thor/Magneto/Storm or Capt. Marvel (all 2*)

3Black Panther/3Iron First/2*Ares

Do you have any other advise for characters I can pair well together?

And what would you suggest, who should I discard from my roster to make some space for characters from my “waiting list”,and which 3* should I sell?

Generally I would be thankful for some tipps on how I should continue this game, so far I just enjoyed playing and didn’t think about some “strategy” for my roster. FYI, I mostly play Story, only a few games in PVP because I tend to get opponents that are way too hard to beat.

What I don’t fully understand is the concept of champing a character and afterwards selling it to start leveling it up again… Like, my Hawkeye is now LV 100, and I get some fairly decent rewards for every new cover, but I basically never use him in games as he doesn’t seem to really fit in somewhere, so I wonder how long I should keep him.

Thank you very much in advance for your help, I really appreciate it.

2

Once you champ a character, there’s a limit on how many covers you can apply for additional champ levels when they become ‘max-champed’. For 2-stars, that cap is level 144. At that point, it’s time to sell the character back (which refunds 65,000 ISO) and start a new version, re-champing that character to earn all of the champ rewards over again. This is known as ‘farming’. Those champ rewards are a great way to earn HP which you desperately need for roster slots. Those champ rewards also yield 3-star covers which help you transition to that tier of play. My advice is to prioritize rostering and champing all the 2-stars (except Bag-Man) to begin this process. Even the bad ones. Sure, 2-star Captain America is not very effective, but his champ rewards yield 3-star Captain America covers and 3-star Cap is one of the best characters at his tier.

As for making room on your current roster, ditch 1-star Iron Man and don’t look back. You don’t need him anymore and Spidey can handle the 1-star DDQ node. You could also swap out your 3-star Bullseye if you wanted to roster Thanos, which I think is a good idea. XF Deadpool isn’t doing you any good, I’d sell him to open a slot for America Chavez.

After that, you’re in a spot where you’re going to have to make a lot of tough decisions on who to roster and who to let go, based on your slot availability. Obviously, moving forward, you want to devote all HP to roster slots. If you’re having a tough time making a decision on any specific characters, use these forums to seek advice. You can use this thread as sort of an ongoing advice column.

3

Team advice:

Thor/Daken/Captain Marvel is a great team. They give you a full rainbow of match damage and a use for every color except purple. You have two AoE powers in Thor’s green and Carol’s black, synergy between Daken & Thor (match green to make strike tiles), and three solid nukes in Carol’s red, Thor’s yellow, and Daken’s blue (which is the single best power in the 2-star tier for damage-to-AP-cost ratio). Once your Ares is more developed, he’ll become a better option over Thor.

Magneto/Hawkeye is a deadly duo. Make match-5s with Magneto’s purple power, which triggers Hawkeye’s purple passive.

Wolverine/Daken/Black Widow is one of the most solid 2-star teams, once you have them all champed. Lot’s of synergy between Wolvie & Daken and fishnets Widow adds terrific support.

4

Thx alot for explaning the farming, I get the point now in why to do it. Now it also makes sense for me to roster Cap, didn’t actually think about that he as a champ will create 3* versions of himself. I have 3 2* covers of him waiting, so I will roster him now.

As you mentioned Bullseye will be changed for sure, that’s my spot to change if I need one of the waiting 3* for Deadpools Daily.

About the teams that I mentioned playing with, I also like playing with Human Torch, but I didn’t find the “perfect” partners for him yet.
And what about the 4* characters I have waiting, I guess they are not useful at the moment, so I believe I can’t do more than to sell them…?

5

Torch is great. His green can really put pressure on opposing teams and his read deals nice damage. Thor is a decent teammate; he can tank Red/Green (Torch is a bit squishy) and can manufacture more green with his yellow. Either Daken/Widow make a good third because of their colors and utility.

Most 4-stars aren’t going to offer you much in the way of usefulness, beyond existing as a possible health bag and/or tanking colors to protect someone else. The exception is a 4-star with a strong passive ability, like Chavez or Medusa that could definitely help you even when under-leveled and under-covered. It sucks having to sell them when you get them because you lack roster slots, but you can minimize that loss by hoarding any legendary tokens and CP you gain. There’s no sense in opening 4/5-star tokens if you can’t roster them yet.

6

Got some questions again, so I thought I re-active this thread:

So, 2 months later my roster looks like this:

https://mpq.gamependium.com/rosters/Beerman63/

Any advise / feedback on it? Basically I am doing fine with it in PVE, my nr. 1 team is IM40, Ares (or 2* Thor) & Dr. Strange. With opponents until lvl. 70 approx. I also use the team of Luke Cage / Iron Fist / Strange, or Daken/Wolverine/Cpt. Marvel. Any suggestions on other good teams?

I admit I do have a bit of a problem playing with supporting characters like Black Widow. I’m never really that happy when she’s in my deck, though I read in the forums that she is super-useful, so I assume I’m not really using her correctly :stuck_out_tongue: what would be good partners for my 2* and 3* versions of her?

What really confuses me is that, whenever I play PVP (Lightning Rounds and everything else besides Shield Simulator), 90% of the time will I get opponents with at least one level 270 character in it, which are impossible to beat. Why is that so? I read that the level of opponents is an average of the best 3 to 5 cards, and I am nowhere near a 270 level card, my average obviously would be around level 140 the most…

Last point, I got a loadfull of characters waiting to be rostered, including some 4*. This would be Invincible, Medusa, Spider-Gwen and The Thing (which I think seems to be a pretty strong character). Is any of those 4 worth keeping / worth dumping one of the low cover 3* like Rocket Beast or Octopus?

I got alot of CP points and I know I shouldn’t use them for 4 or 5* covers now, but how about “upgrading” my 3* like IM40 with it? Is that a waste of CPs or would it help me at this point of the game?

I’d once again appreciate your help, sorry for my rookie-questions…

7

Don’t spend CP on Model 40 (or any 3*), they are easy enough to grow if you only have a single bonus hero. If he’s not already, I’d suggest making IM40 your only 3* bh since he’ll open up loads of other team options for you. Looking at your roster, loads of your characters have levels on them, many are at 13 covers but only partially leveled. Are you spending your iso all over your roster, or targeting specific characters to champ? You should definitely be spending your iso on 1 character at a time until they are champed rather than diluting it across your roster, generally speaking. If you can swing it, it would even be best to put no iso at all into a character until they are champable directly. It makes for spiky roster growth, but champion characters come alive in a way un-champed or partially covered characters just can’t, and you’ll be better for it.

Regarding your un-rostered 4s - I know it seems like it now, but no single cover of a 4 is drop-everything and roster them level of priority. Medusa from that list is an Essential 4*, you absolutely want her champed someday, but tying up a roster slot with that one cover won’t get you progress like having playable 3s will right now. You can get what Medusa would bring to the table from working on your 3 Hawkeye a lot sooner, then get Medusa later when you’re ready. I would highly encourage you to work on champing your 2s and continuing to roster/champ your 3s next as a general strategy.

2* tier: champ that Hawkeye/Magneto combo as soon as you can, they will really let you play up past your level.

3* Tier:Top priority should be to finish up that Model 40 by setting him as your only bonus hero. He opens up loads of other teams for you to play, and is individually a strong character. After that, I’d ask you what your biggest pain point is right now: is it winning at all, or winning quickly? Using the Bird-in-the-hand train of thought, that Thanos will help you win quickly, but isn’t necessarily going to really help you get wins if you’re getting beat by other people. The way I play, I would suggest after finishing IM40 move on to Patch, and once he is champed move on to Hawkeye. IM40/Strange/Patch is a killer team, and Patch/Hawkeye play really well together. Iron Fist and Luke Cage are a great team, I’d move on to them next in that order.

Regarding black widow - 3* Widow is a killer, she’s not really a support at all in my experience - her problem is really that her powers cost a lot but she gives you excellent board control and the ability to snipe enemy specials as well as clearing them out in bulk. 3/5/5 makes her a green battery with a single target red board shake and critical tile generation from purple, or 5/3/5 makes her an AoE killer. Her big rival is going to be Kamala Khan, who does what she does without the board shake or precision, and with a minor health boost. 2* and 4* Widow are squarely in the “here to help the rest of the team” category, and I’ve never found a use for them either.

8

Fishnets Widow does some unique things that can’t be found elsewhere in the 2-star tier, like team burst healing and AP theft. Good 2-star partners are Wolverine and Daken. Grey Suit Widow is one of the oldest 3-stars and is a bit antiquated now. Like @ThaRoadWarrior said, she is outclassed in what she can do by Kamala Khan. That being said, if you can feed her green and purple she can still be highly effective so put her with IM40.

I wasn’t as afraid as others when it came to buying 3-star covers with CP and I did it several times. If the character was top tier (like IM40) I’d pay 20 CP for a thirteenth cover and had no regrets. Maybe impatience got the better of me, but then again I got to champ them and enjoy them that much sooner. It’s only CP - you’ll make more.

What’s happening is that MMR has found players who are at your level but have also lucked into some single-cover 5-stars, which MMR tends to not account for. While their match damage is scary, as soon as you have a few more champed 3-stars and get them to level 200+ those types of teams will be easy for you to beat and you’ll actually start looking for them.

9

Thank you so much for the long reply, alot of useful information again!

Well about the levels, I got 600.000 ISO at the moment, so I do level any character that gets new covers just to get rid of a bit of the ISO. Black Panther I didn’t level more so far because I wanted to keep him @ the same level as my 2* champs so it doesn’t affect PVP even more.Do you think I should champ him already (like I did with Dr. Strange?).

Thanx for the advise on the 4s, so I’m not going to roster them… I do have some 3 cover 4s as you can see like Prowler and 4* Thor, which I got through ally events, I do intend to keep those though.

What do you mean by champing 2* Hawkeye and Magneto? They are champed already, arent they? - or maybe I am misunderstanding the term champing ? For me it’s when a character has 13 covers and will not get any more but every extra cover will only add 1 level… Is that correct?

About the bonus hero, i took your advise and used IM40 as the only one (i had Cyclops as a second, but he’ll have to wait obviously). Is there any “rule” on how often you get the bonus hero or on what does it depend? Cause I think I get one about 1 time per month (as a casual player with about 1 - 2 hours playtime per day.

10

I think it’s time for you to champ any 3-star you get thirteen covers for. Black Panther is a good character and would work well with Strange, especially against PvE goons. Get Panther’s cheap yellow strikes out to buff Strange’s yellow passive damage.

11

GamePendium shows that they have 13 covers, but the level of the character is (in the case of Magneto) 116/144 and 125/144 for Hawkeye. This character is champ-able, but will not be a champion until you buy up the levels to 144 and pay the 5,000 iso fee to make them properly a champion. It’s possible the levels are out of date on them - if so, then disregard.

3* Bonus Heroes drop at some percentage from standard, elite, and heroic tokens when you land a 3* from them. If you get a 3* from a standard token, the odds are such that you will get a bonus hero 100% of the time - so maximizing the number of standard tokens you’re pulling down can help you when you’re trying to work on a specific 3*. I would encourage you to beat 2 seed teams in lightning rounds whenever you notice them going on for the easy standard token. Having a functional thanos can really help trivialize that process.

12

@ThaRoadWarrior I think you are confusing champed and max-champed. 2-stars champ at 94 and max-champ at 144.

13

yeah, that was confusing me as well cause I can’t raise their levels via ISO, only with new covers that I get…
Btw, about “opening” the tokens, is there any difference on whether I open them instantly when I get it or if I “save” like 10 or 20 standard tokens and them open them alltogether? Are chances better than that I get a 2* or 3*?
Dormammu, do you have any idea about my question concerning PVP opponent levels? Really wondering why I get so many opponents with an 270 level character, even though my deck is much weaker than that.

14

Saving tokens doesn’t affect your odds.

So, what MMR does: it calculates the highest leveled characters on your roster for that event (so it includes weekly/event level boosts) and tries to match you up with players that are in a similar range. However, MMR also tends to ignore under-covered characters. So if a player has a single-cover 5-star that they’ve leveled to the soft cap (270) MMR isn’t accounting for that.

15

oh, my bad guys. definitely had the wrong number in my head for 2*s. As you were…

16

I want to add to @Dormammu comment about spending CP to level up 3* characters.

What I did will be considered controversial on the forum. However, I would like to provide a different perspective that I hope you find useful.

I’ve spent CP to level all of my 3* character except Dr. Doom (he’s my RNG control; more on that in a bit). Why did I do this? To get to the champ state faster because I wanted to start getting the champ rewards.

I decided to use CP who was essential for PVE. (Important side note here: I only play PVE and DDQ. I have never played PVP, so I can’t attest to that.) Usually, but not always, by the time the story event was over, my 3* character was champed. Any covers now got me champ rewards I wanted.

I have all of my 3* characters champed (except Dr. Doom) for several months now. They vary from levels 176 to 225.

Now onto Dr. Doom. He was the last 3* I rostered. I have had him for seven months now. He is at level 127 (5/4/2). He’s there because of RNG. I chose him as a control because (to me, not to the forum but to me) he’s one of my three least favorite characters (of 3* land) to play. This proves to me that RNG is going to be RNG. That is why I don’t go “chasing after” characters (of any tier). I learned that you simply have to take what RNG gives you.

I am still not going to spend CP on Doom because I do want to know how long it’ll take RNG to give me the covers, and, yes, he is my bonus hero.

Yes, I realized that by spending my CP on leveling 3* forced me to stay in 3* land. This helped me in the long run. Since I was not tempted to open any Latest or Classic Legends vault to get into the 4* and 5* land, I had the time to fully learn the game and what are the best strategies and team synergies that work for me.

Also, it ended up being fruitful. I literally have over 2 million ISO surplus at all times because now I am waiting to earn the 20 to 25 CP to open up Classics or Latest Legends vault during my play. I always have ISO to spend when I get a cover to level up a character. Additionally, I always have 1000 HP to spend when I get a new character to roster.

17

Enjoy it while it lasts, you are going to need every drop of it and lots more to level your fourstars in due time. 2 million ISO is only enough for around 6 fourstars, which is less than 10% of the tier.

Of course, this is not a problem that would have been solved by a bigger CP pile, just pointing out that ISO-wise the fourstar tier is a massive hump to get past.

18

This is true to a degree, and more true the further up the rarity tiers you go, but it should be entirely possible to bonus your way to any given 3* faster than 7 months. I once went from not having 3* Gamora on roster at all to having her champed via bonus heroes in maybe 3-4 weeks. It could be that i’m seeing more standard and elite tokens via PVP than you are though; I think the key to leaning on bonus heroes is just volume of tokens opened.

On the 4* fronte, I find that the PVP special stores give me more 4* bonus heroes than any other store does, and I only ever open the 2-3 of those per store that I get through progression. I believe the 4* odds in there were generally tweaked higher as part of the full-dilution change though, so maybe that’s just working as designed?

19

When Bonus Hero-ing first came out I used it to complete the 3* tier and BH’ed Spider-man (this was before his re-work when he actually did NO damage from his powers!), Ragnarok, Sentry, Beast and possibly a few others from not even being rostered to Champed in next to no time, certainly a matter of weeks. Pretty sure I did Falcon too.

During Vaulting I also (probably unwisely considering the other characters I should have BH’ed at the time) decided to use my Bonus Hero to try and complete Moon Knight who was no longer available otherwise and whilst it took a while I succeeded in that too - I started with 2 purple covers and bought 1 cover from Heroes for Hire, all others were Bonus Heroes and I champed him just after vaulting came to an end - so I guess about 6-7 months? So it is possible even at 4* level.

20

It’s a lot faster than 6-7 months at the 4* level if you play pve/pvp to progression, at least for the newer characters that are being more heavily featured in progression rewards. I came out of the Dazzler release with a 0/0/2, and from BH and progression rewards I was able to get her to 4/3/4 lvl 209 now. I’ve been moving my bonus hero around to get everyone over 10 covers for shield training is the only reason I didn’t leave it on her to finish her up.