When is it worth purchasing covers?

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ Tips and Guides
1

Hey forum folks, I considering getting in on this big HP sale this week and grabbing the 11k-ish HP option, and using most of that to buy covers to improve some of my 3* characters from good to great. That is, I’m taking characters that are already at level 100 or more and purchasing covers that improve the enough to actually be worth the 1250 HP it takes to buy the covers. I won’t have enough to fully cover all the characters I want to, so I’d like some advice on which ones are actually worth the cost. Here’s my list of characters above level 100:

X-Force L.188 2/4/3
Hood L.166 4/5/4 (Just switched from 3/5/5 right before the nerf was announced…)
Hulk L.166 5/3/5 (I guess this is already optimal, right?)
Punisher L.166 5/3/5
GSBW L.147 4/4/4
IM40 L.118 5/4/4
Lazy Cap L.117 1/3/5
C.Mags L.114 5/2/2
Spiderman L.104 5/1/4

I can afford up to 9 covers (except x-force twice as expensive)

My initial thoughts:

  • 1 black cover for x-force. Doubles strength of attack, and steals AP. This is already amazing, and cheap. Getting to 5 black makes him awesome even if my level for x-force sucks. Considered buying green covers, but they don’t appear to scale well enough to be worth paying 2500 HP for. Does anybody disagree? Has anybody observed that x-force becomes much better by adding a single green cover?

  • 2 red covers for lazy cap. Makes red really amazing, and allows me to cover count down tiles in PVE. Not planning on bothering with yellow covers. He’ll still be useful with max level two steps lower.

  • 2 green covers for punisher. Having three stronger strike tiles is necessary for him to be useful against crazy strong enemies. Replace AOE covers because I think that as opponents keep getting more HP, retribution is starting to be more useful.

  • 1 green cover for GSBW. Huge difference in utility vs 4 green covers. Makes her actually useful.

  • 1 purple cover for GSBW. Eventually, I want to get to 5 purple, but I’m not sure this is valuable enough to be worth buying. Interested in advice.

  • IM40: I guess most people consider the ideal build to be 5/3/5, because yellow is too expensive with 4 covers. But is it worth paying to reduce yellow and gain an extra cover for an power that costs 20 AP?

  • C.Mags: Considering an extra blue cover, because only doing 1500 damage right now. Swaps up to 20% more tiles, so expecting 20% extra damage, which seems hardly worth paying for a cover, but not sure if amount of damage per swap goes up like it did before. If so, might be worth while. Advice?

  • Spiderman: Honestly, he’s pretty useless without more blue, but is it even worth the price of getting him extra covers now?

Finally, to end my post, a general observation: It would be really great if there was a guide in this forum with general advice on the utility of adding 1 extra cover to particular characters, and when it’s worth paying for.

2

Also, I should note that I’ve got

Patch L.78 5/1/2, BP L.68 3/2/3, and Psyloche L.60 4/4/1 in the wings with 8+ covers, who I haven’t really used much up to now. At what point doe these characters start to become useful. Is there a single cover I could add to any one of these guys that would make them start being useful?

3

I think that getting the 5th X-Force black is a game changer. Any X-Force with 5 blacks is a skip for me, regardless of his overall level (since mine is only 5/3/2).
Cap is a good investment. Getting 5 Reds is a game changer for PvE.
I wouldn’t invest in Punisher. He’s fun, but mostly I use him for PvE, and mostly for 5 Red against high level foes. The Green is nice, but you’ll eventually get it through events and tokens. And he isn’t going to scare anyone away in PvP.
The 5th GSBW cover is nice. Paired with Hulk and his Anger, getting 19 Green isn’t that hard. Most of the benefit I get from her is in Lightning Rounds, and occasionally PvE paired with Hulk/Thor/Rags for green generation. I’d skip the Purple for GSBW. Not that big of an improvement.
I wouldn’t invest in Iron Man. Lowering the cost from 12 Yellow to 10 doesn’t help much, it is still generally the same number of matches to be able to fire it off. But you’ll like playing IM40 with a fully loaded Cap.
I’d skip cMags for now. The big difference comes in going from 4 to 5 Blue.
I certainly use Spiderman in PvE quite a bit, but mostly for his Purple (he clogs up Purple tiles making Patch’s Berserker Rage awesome as well as giving shields). If I really want stun (i.e. against Hulk) I’m bringing Cap. Not a great investment.
I think BP is a good investment. His Yellow and Black are both great and he pairs well with characters that are strong Green/Red. And he is a nice complement to Sentry in that BP’s Yellow doesn’t have a downside like Sentry Yellow.
Patch is good, but it is really only when you are going from 4 to 5 Yellow (where suddenly regen is guaranteed every round) that it is a game changer.
I’m using Psylocke a lot now since she is in LR’s (Hulk/GSBW/Psylocke is my go-to team for fast damage with a potential for a big finish). She’s good but she won’t ever be a player for you in PvP. But no single cover really changes her substantially.

So maybe X-Force black, 2 Cap red, GSBW green, BP yellow + black?

4

Getting X-Force’s black to 5 definitely is worth the investment. For X-Force to be a beast, though, both green and black need to both be at 5. The cascades these can cause can be a thing of beauty, when it’s your X-Force, or bring you to tears when you’re on the other side of it. Five green can one-shot an obw at full health if non-buffed. You can count on the green doing 4000+ on a hit, for only 8 AP. It all depends on whether you want to put that much of your purchase into just the one character.

Classic Mags works better in my opinion at 3/5/5, and despite his nerf, he’s still quite strong. As pointed out in numerous posts here, Classic Mags paired with X-Force is quite deadly. At five blue, you’ll do about 4.9K damage if you have seven pairs of blue/red tiles on the board. Again, like what I said about X-Force, how much of the HP are you willing to put into a single character, rather than spreading it around a few?

Othewise, GSBW definitely benefits from having 5 green, and LazyCap 5 red. Most of your other 3 stars are covered at more or less the optimum builds.

5

Buying covers is really only worth it for finishing off those good chars or getting that last cover for optimal build. Out of what you listed:

X-Force L.188 2/4/3
5th black may be worth it to buy, especially if you’re roster isn’t capable of getting the 1300/1st place pvp rewards. You definitely will want 5 green also.

Hood L.166 4/5/4 (Just switched from 3/5/5 right before the nerf was announced…)
You’ve got 5 blue, that’s most important. Black/yellow not worth buying.

Hulk L.166 5/3/5 (I guess this is already optimal, right?) Done!

Punisher L.166 5/3/5
Not such a great character anymore…most useful when he’s your first 3. You’re past that point, so there’s better options.*

GSBW L.147 4/4/4
Ehhh…5 green and 5 purple is a big improvement for her, but she’s not too great except as a green feeder. She’s a “Kick Me” sign in pvp.

IM40 L.118 5/4/4 Waste of hp…do not buy.

Lazy Cap L.117 1/3/5
2 red makes that power great, but you’ll still need 2 yellow to max him after that.

C.Mags L.114 5/2/2
Still great post-nerf… I prefer 3/5/5, but even for 5/3/5 you’ll still need 4 more covers.

Spiderman L.104 5/1/4 Not worth buying.

Patch L.78 5/1/2
Good character, but you need too many covers still. Also your XForce tends to make him obsolete and not worth buying for you.

BP L.68 3/2/3
Also very good, but again you need 5 covers for him. Or at least the 2 each of black and yellow.

Psylocke L.60 4/4/1
Decent backup character, but not worth buying. Also, she’s the rewards for the next Groot pvp.

I think the biggest impact buy you could make would be the 4 Green/Black XForce covers you need. You’ve already got Hood to run with him, or since XF is underleveled Hulk could also tank for him and provide green as well. XF is definitely the best character in the game right now and will be a massive benefit in PvP and PvE for you. If you also want to buy one more cover, I would go with the CMags blue.

6

I’d honestly jsut put all covers into xforce since hes such a monster. It wouldnt be going ot waste since hes the best character in the game

7

I think with the HP sales loads of people have just been buying Xforce covers, and d3 have been making a fortune from it. I am seeing a lot more 2* teams without even maxed 3* characters with 5/5/3 Xforce and varients of! This probably makes it even harder to compete in PVP as a 2* player.

8

Thought I’d chime in, my opinion pretty much mirrors whats already been said.

X-Force L.188 2/4/3
I’d say the 5th black is a must if your going to spend some HP on his covers. If you can reliably place 1st atleast occassionally or get to 1300 points on a regular basis then the green covers will come eventually if your willing to wait. Otherwise having a 5/5/3 xforce is amazing and if your willing to drop the 10k HP it will take to make that happen now then I’d go for it.

Hood L.166 4/5/4 (Just switched from 3/5/5 right before the nerf was announced…)
The 5 blue is the important thing here and youve got that. 3/5/5 is my preferred build but unless your likely to be trying to sentry bomb then there are rarely enough friendly count down tiles out to make the 5 black shine. I wouldnt spend any HP here in your position.

Hulk L.166 5/3/5 (I guess this is already optimal, right?) Done!

Punisher L.166 5/3/5
I kind of skipped the punisher would be useful phase of my roster development so by the time I maxed him out he was no longer of any use to me. I personally wouldnt spend any HP on his covers, if you really want to change his build then I’d be more inclined to wait until he shows up as a reward and then win them.

GSBW L.147 4/4/4
5 green, 5 purple for definite but spending HP to get the covers? I wouldnt bother. Unless she’s a featured character I dont use her since there are much better options.

IM40 L.118 5/4/4
I’d aim for 5/5/3. 3 yellow makes the ability cheap (if 12 can be considerd cheap) enough to be useable. Dont spend HP on him though.

Lazy Cap L.117 1/3/5
Great in PVE when you need to keep control of countdown tokens. I never use him in PVP though unless he’s featured. 2 red covers would make a difference.

C.Mags L.114 5/2/2
I prefer 3/5/5 for him which would cost you 6 cover increases. Unless you really want to use him regularly I wouldnt spend you HP on him.

Spiderman L.104 5/1/4 I agree that not worth buying.

Patch L.78 5/1/2
Good character but you need 5/3/5 to use him effectively as a tank as you need the reliable regen or 5/5/3 for all out “devil may care” attack mode which is 5 covers either way (or 3 if you just boost up and cap his yellow). He used to be my number 1 pick character for a long time so I got a lot of use out of him but x-force makes him redundant in most situations. I think x-force is the better investment plus patch is rotating back in for next season so reasonable chance he’ll be a reward/featured character in PVP so you could get his covers there.

BP L.68 3/2/3
Very good character. Depends who you will run him with though. His yellow is a great source of strike tiles with no draw back and his black aoe ability is nice. 5 covers to cap him though or atleast 4 to cover cap yellow and black and if you were to run him with xforce your likely going to want to use xforce black unless its going to finish the match for you to nuke the entire team with BP.

Psylocke L.60 4/4/1
I like using psylocke but short of her being featured there are much better options out there. I wouldnt spend any here.

So in summary. If I was spending 11k on your roster I’d go 4 covers for x-force and I’d be inclined to keep the left over 1k and use it on shields in a couple of PVPs with covers I care about. or failing that give the left over HP toward either a red LCap or BP black which including the xforce covers comes out at 11250 HP spent.

9

Sorry to jump in on your thread, but I’m new to the forums and can’t start a new thread.

I’m in a similar spot. I’ve got 12910 HP and trying to decide the best way to spend it. I’ve got a 2/5/3 Fury and a 1/1/3 X-Force. My 12910 is good for five covers. Will a fully-covered Fury leave me more competitive than a 2/5/3 X-Force?