Championing, sadly, isn’t tuned to close the power gap between 4s and 5s.
I’d been holding out hope for this patch and the Champion feature based on statements from IceIX that the rollout of 5s was being monitored, and that the 4 tier would receive a buff when 5s became widespread. (I’m paraphrasing, but I don’t think I’m mischaracterizing) That buff has apparently come, and it’s a complete joke in terms of closing the gap between 4s and 5*s.
Just look at the raw numbers. If the covers fall as expected, you’ll pull one 5* cover from a LT for every nine 4* covers that you pull. You’ll also get the occasional 4* cover from progression awards, and if you’re willing to bracket snipe, you’ll get a couple more from PvE. So something like 12-15 4* covers for every 5* cover, assuming that you play pretty hard and you have normal luck with LT draws.
Now, pulling a 4* cover gets you one single Champion level on that character, assuming that the character was worth maxing to 270 to begin with. Pulling a 5* cover gets you fifteen levels on a single character, and those levels are a massive, concentrated boost to the power of that character. I have 8 champion-able 4s, and one more that I’ll probably be championing. Out of 25 4s, and growing. I don’t see that number increasing anytime soon.
The expected value of a LT, at this point in the game, is about 0.036 champion levels for each championed 4, and 0.5 levels per 5, assuming none have 5 covers in a given color.** If you have all 25 maxed, each LT will get you, on average, 0.9 4* champion levels, spread out across your 4* characters, and 1.5 5* levels, spread out across your 5* characters. LTs will continue to increase the gap between your 5s and your 4s, at least until maxed 5s are widespread, even if you have every single 4 maxed.
The numbers just get worse as you have fewer 4s maxed and championed. For me, I’ll get 0.19 4 champion levels for every 5* level I get from a LT (or I would, if I had normal LT luck). Even with other sources of 4* tokens, like heroic tokens and progression/ranking awards, it would take an amazing run of luck and effort to even keep pace with the 5* level gain rate. Those numbers change slightly once you’ve got one or more 5*s with 5 covers in a given color, but that won’t happen anytime soon for the vast majority of players, even high end players.
Championing is a great feature for boosting 2s, and it’ll help a little bit in the 3 realm as well. For 4s, though, unless you receive a significant benefit from respeccing, it’s throwing a few crumbs to people with developed 4 rosters and bad token luck, in its current setup. It’s inexplicable that they didn’t give, at minimum, 2 levels per 4* cover for championed rosters, which would at least allow the gap to close somewhat.
High end progression in this game is now entirely based around LT pulls, and the game is designed so that people with normal to lucky 5* pulls will keep pulling away from the pack, and there’s nothing that the unlucky players can do to stop that, even after the Championing feature goes live. It doesn’t matter how hard you play, it’s all luck, and it isn’t how any other tier transition has gone. I haven’t had meaningful progression in the last two seasons, and it turns out that the championing feature won’t change that in any real way.