Worth it to just buy Sentry/X-Force?

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ General Discussion
1

I enjoy this game, play every day.

Highest char is a lvl 70 2* Daken, 60 Ares, OBW, Thor, etc. Still trying to max 2*'s.

Is it worth it to just buy a Sentry/XForce, Cover max him out through HP and put all my ISO into one of these as I do much better in PVP/PVE to gain additional covers and fill in the rest of my roster? Or will this just throw my Rating too high and stick me against 166 wall with Sentry/Xforce and a crap roster?

I don’t want cheap wins, I just want to be more competitor faster. For the amount of time I put into this, It’d be nice to not have to be on this slow hamster wheel selling hawkeye covers and not being able to do much with this slow crappy transition time. I tried the 42 pack once and it was pretty worthless.

2

https://forums.505go.com/discussion/3939

3

Thanks, I started following that guide Day 1 when I joined this forum. It was very helpful and saved me tons of time. I’m still wondering if a Sentry/Xforce boost would help me fill in roster a little quicker though.

I’d still be following that guide step by step, but would be trying to use Sentry/Xforce to farm ISO/covers more efficiently?

4

Hard question to answer for someone else. More covers is always nice, it’s a balance of 1) whether you will miss the money and 2) how much having those covers would increase your enjoyment of the game.

5

Sentry + Hood or X Force + Hood should be able to get you 2 covers on most PvP events quite easily. The 3 cover range is more of a whether you spent more HP than whoever was gunning for top 5 in your bracket since those guys probably have the same characters.

For PvE there’s not as much of an advantage. Sentry can never be part of a heroic roster for being a DA, and I don’t think 4 stars can be heroic lineup. Even in generic events, Sentry isn’t necessarily better than a PvE powerhouse like Captain America or Falcon. X Force is quite good in PvE but he may also incur additional scaling though scaling factor is hard to isolate on any particular variable now that we’ve seen examples where past performance being a very significant weight. Your 2* should do fine on PvE because of favorable scaling. If you don’t do well in PvE it’s most likely you don’t have the play time to be competitive and getting X Force isn’t going to change that.

6

Kind of contradictory there. Sentry is, almost by definition, a cheap win. That said, there is a different kind of rush using him. It can be nerve wracking if you get a board with almost 0 green/yellow, plus you are definitely on the clock while hopping.

My advice would be NOT to buy them. Well, at least not buy them other than the last cover or two. And if you must spend money, XF is a bit more fun as it takes some strategy for which AI to attack to maximize the pain of Surgical Strike, plus working the end match to get in a Recovery can be tough. On the other hand, getting Sentry to a usable level (I started low level bombing at 3G/3Y) plus the extra HP will get you further than having an XF. And Sentry can get you to those 1300 levels to build XF/Fury.

T:DR: Dont do it, but to each their own.

7

One word…patience.

It’ll cost you several hundred to thousands of dollars to max out Xforce/Sentry via ISO/HP. Don’t do it.

8

Its one thing to buy those covers - its another to level them. Until you can get get both over 150 (xforce 175), they will be easy targets. I think you need to have a stronger base of support characters to reach the 800s when you can then reap the benefits of Sentry. But at that point he really needs Hood and then is only as good as your willingness to boost and hop.

9

It’s not really an either-or question. Maxed Sentry/high-level XF will undoubtedly get you more points. However, just about everyone runs into the 166 wall at or below 800 points. The advantage of a maxed Sentry is that you start to become part of that 166 wall and gain the ability to quickly shieldhop, while XF has more sustainability while still kicking ass quite efficiently. However, Sentry/XF + 2* will make you a prime late-game target once you cross 800 points.

If you want to instantly join the high-end shieldhoppers, the most efficient way is to max out Sentry & Hood, which costs about the same in HP and Iso as just maxing out XF. Keep in mind, though, that Sentry is likely getting nerfed at an unknown point in time. Also, Sentry will not help you much in PVE.

10

Sentry isn’t a cheap win as far as it costs boosts every time you use him to be effective. It’s cheap in that there’s a 99.99% success rate and fast one at that when you use sentry with hood and pre-boost. More automatic and game breaking than it should be.

Should you buy them? depends on what you want - clearly you’ll do better with them than without - XForce is a better overall investment do to being useful for an entire pvp, not just the end, - and for long stretches - and also a much better pve character.

So do you want to buy a fast ride to be in the end game? then buy those 13 covers and hope you have around 160k iso or 430k iso to level sentry or XF.

If you can wait, I recommend you play the game instead. It’s more fun earning your covers, earning your iso, and building your roster that way. It’s the only persistent trophy this game has and it’s a lot more fun when you can select from a variety of weird combos for PVE and figure out new tricks that aren’t sentry.

If you want to compete at end game high score chasing, just know they spend 1-2k hp and 25-50k iso per pvp. And if that’s your game then you wouldn’t have any problem dropping cash on the covers anyhow.

One thing to note, strong rumors of a sentry “nerf” coming before you invest more in him.

11

Here’s the thing: You’re asking what you should do so as to become competitive. I’ve got experience doing exactly what you’re trying to do now: buy better characters so you can win more.

My bad luck is that I invested in Spider-Man, and though his stun-lock trick earned me a lot of good covers, the party ended, and my money was lost. Around that time, a replacement Y/B/P character arrived, and he seemed pretty amazing. I set my sights on Falcon, and told my friends to do the same.

Anniversary time, a friend and I each bought a Stark Salary and maxed our Falcons. It turns out, he wasn’t nearly as active a player as he seemed all the times I had my ass handed to me. Nor was star.png
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Daken, who I remembered being a lot more dangerous before. Come to think of it, I remember pretty much every new character being pretty hard-core in that one node in their first PVE where you play a 4/4/4 level 100 version, and just cook the enemies before you’d even gotten warmed up. I think they have a trick for stacking these matches to make the new guy seem really cool. They managed to make She-Hulk look cool, and I can’t remember anyone doing that since.

Next stop, Sentry. Everyone talks about how Sentry is the Answer, so I knew he was a character I should have pumped. Problem is, playing Sentry is about as fun as playing Spider-Man used to be. It’s why they nerfed Spidey: this game is supposed to be about strategy, not tricks you repeat by rote. A few boosts, a fully-leveled Sentry, done.

A lot of my friends don’t even want Sentry because they hate the idea of harming themselves. And they have a point. He can get the wins, but he’ll ruin your roster, use up your healing, and leave you waiting for the next time.

By all means, spend your money on Hero Points, and spend those Hero Points on the two most obvious killers in the game. Of course, you’ll be risking that nerf they keep talking about. Might happen. Might make him a competitor. Might make him a loser. You’ll get easy wins right now. But you don’t necessarily want that.

I like X-Force. He’s too tough to fight. If you want to make a strong character, he’s one to get. But he’s not the only one. Thor is currently the top character. You might want to get him.

If I could take back my Hero Points and respend them, I’d skip Falcon, Daken, and Sentry. Maybe. But I know I’d want all my Thor covers and a maxed Rage of the Panther. Or now that Blade is around, I’d keep Falcon and Daken, but make sure to max his stuff, as well.

I guess the point I’m making is, the pleasure of this game is gaining on the characters you can. I think if I put $10,000 into it, I’d have bought myself out of all the remaining play value. And if I’d listened to the popular opinion, I wouldn’t have my own winning team. I use GSBW, Human Torch, and The Hood. They’re great. But of those three, only Hood ever gets rated highly.

12

Listen to this. The Devs won’t think twice about reducing the value of your purchases for the sake of a more balanced game.
Look at the recent Alliance slot debacle. They folded on that one, but still: buyer beware!

You may not even enjoy the game you pay $100s of dollars for, whether Sentry/X-Force remain dominant or not. I have purchased 2 covers and I don’t regret it, because I didn’t attribute much value to them. You’ve really got to have realistic expectations with your purchases or you will definitely suffer buyer’s remorse.

13

After you start maxing your roster you will look back to this time as some of the most fun times you had with this game.

Shield hopping with Sentry is NOT fun. It’s mechanical, tedious work that you need to do to get covers because everyone else does. The most emotion you’ll get out of it is aggravation when you can’t find yellow tiles. And when you get 3-4 covers you go “finally” or “yep”, you don’t raise your fist in victory like the first time you got three covers by fighting without shields until the very last second of a pvp.

The only times I really have fun in pvp is climbing before the first shield.

14

Don’t do it if you don’t have a well rounded roster. People talk a lot about Sentry-bombing and XForce shenanigans, but don’t mention that not having covers for the featured character is a flashing “hit me” sign.

The loaner character often has their most useless skill, I’m mid-to-late 3* transition (lots at level 102-104) and I LOVE seeing a level 60 with one cover. I go out of my way to attack them, because the loaner is dead weight. A 1/1/2 or 1/2/2 build at level 53-55 gets boosted to 79-83, has skills in all their colors, and is therefore way better on defense. Using a loaner is like fighting with one hand tied behind your back, you might win, but it’s waaay harder.

It costs 5703 iso (I think) to max a 1/2/2 build and that leverages you an extra 2-3k in health for the featured character. Try not to go above that because then the featured starts to tank colors for your 2*s. You’ll be able to get top 50-100 finishes every event and gain HP with alliance rewards, and at the rate they release new characters having extra HP every event is useful.

15

I don’t get the people saying having Sentry or X Force isn’t enough. Of course having them is enough. Didn’t one of the guys ran a team that was Bagman + loaner + Sentry to 1XXX just fine? There’s a reason why Sentry is overpowered and X Force is closely behind. Even without The Hood, if you’re gifted a max level Sentry or X Force you’ll certainly do way better in PvP. Sure you’ll run into the stronger teams in the 700+ range but you’re not even getting to that range with a 2* team so that’s a first world problem. Is that worth the money? I have no idea, but it’ll definitely improve your PvP performance. PvE is far less certain due to scaling and roster limitation. Is it fun to play the game that way? Well, it sure hasn’t stopped a lot of people from playing that way. X Force is plenty fun even while he’s dominating since Surgical Strike does require you to have some understanding of how the game goes. Sure being way overpowered goes a long way too but I find all my X Force games to be pretty satisfying. Sentry could feel a bit too cheap but that’s a small price to pay for someone with his power.

16

Doesn’t matter if they hit you if you’re shieldhopping anyway. There’s no such thing as defense, and honestly, unless it’s like LT or hulk or something, a lvl 60 or a lvl 160 are really about the same sized speedbump (read: none at all).

There are plenty of people who’ve easily and consistently broken 1300 with only sentry and maybe hood covered, not even max leveled

17

I agree about that “Shield hopping with Sentry is NOT fun” thing. Of course once we got that 1.300 reward, it’s all paid off, but it’s still not fun.
Game is supposed about both fun and achieving target. And Sentry’s bombing only give us the later.

So if you want to spend money on chars and still wanna have fun, use it on X-Force instead of Sentry. He is fun to play and he can heal himself. Assuming you already got all of his first cover (we get all of his colours in daily reward), buy HP for more four black cover, four green cover, and two yellow cover. That’s it all you need, don’t buy ISOs at all since they’re not worth the money. You’ll get plenty of them in Lightning Round, PVE and PVP. A forumite once said (homeinvasion, if I remember correctly), the more money you spent on this game, the less fun game it became.

18

But what will you have left to play for then? You have to think about it and choose wisely.

If you want to be a top scorer in Versus, yeah, you need Sentry and Hood for that, optionally X-Force, since Sentry and Hood are no bueno for sustained pushing, but it takes a lot of ISO and HP as already mentioned and is NOT sustainable with just free play, meaning if you want a one time investment, just buying covers and ISO for top characters won’t cut it. Buying HP for roster slots? Will be worthier in the long run if you want the long run and a lot of enjoyment.

a) If you want the top top scores, north of 1100-1300, you will need plenty of ISO for skipping and boosting, and HP for shielding/boosting/healthpacks when needed, as mentioned.

b) If you want the lazy, relaxed top scores (what I and many other vets are doing) with X-Force, you still need featured characters at a decent level and a developed roster that only comes through a lot of time and/or money invested. I was attacked very little in the latest Colossus PvP because I maxed mine and his 15-16k of boosted health is not very pleasant for a Sentry hopper to get through. I got to 1200 points unshielded without much issue, with healthpacks left for Juggernaut Heroic, shielded and unshielded at the very end to squeeze in more points, got 1300 points without any attacks in 2 fights as well.
That’s lvl 221 cover-maxed X-Force, maxed and buffed to lvl 249 Colossus, and maxed Hood. I also ran cMags, Nick Fury and Sentry a fair bit.
With X-Force, Hood/cMagneto and a decently leveled featured, I never shield under 1100-1200 points unless it’s an event like Balance of Power or Combined Arms (which run once per several months).
See, it’s still ISO for leveling all those characters, although the most benefit comes from actually decent characters with high health and/or some defensive potential, i.e. Colossus, Lazy Thor, Captain America, Hulk, Captain Marvel, and HP for roster slots and shielding to get said characters.

Nowadays 2* > 3* transition is tinykitty hard as vets are told, so I would advise to take the scenic route, maybe the devs will make it easier after making it harder and harder lately, add more guaranteed covers, and by that time your maxed 2* roster will be ready to crush PvE and to a lesser extent, PvP. And then, as you eventually earn and level some good 3*s, you will be ready to play PvP at a high level too and choose if you want to be a crazy scorer or not. I don’t think there are that many people that want to join the top game just for the sake of top game (since Sentry and Hood are already top and you don’t need any other new character to get high scores in PvP). If you are one of them, apply to any X-Men/non-PvE alliance once you buy and level top covers, since you will ruin your PvE scaling by maxing Sentry who is not suited for PvE well icon_e_smile.gif
Moreso for X-Force, probably (who’s a god in PvE too but he might cause some unruly scaling).

19

A lot has been said about the achievements you can get with maxed Sentry/X-Force. Like scoring 1300+ PvP, better pushing, the like.
Scaling has been mentioned.
Maxing the said chars is expensive has been mentioned. I just want to outline a bit more about the “expensive”.

First of, before you can start thinking about maxing X-Force and Sentry, you need to get one cover of each color, so that you can start buying the rest. Before that, it is pointless. You can’t buy the initial cover!
So that leaves you to buy 10 covers for each, X-Force and Sentry.
X-Force cover is 2500 HP, Sentry is 1250 HP. Leaving you with a needed 37250 HP, if i am not mistaken. That is roughly 2 Stark Salarys, aka 200 $.
Then you need 430K Iso to max X-Force and 172K Iso to max Sentry. Roughly 600K Iso. That again is about 8 mother lodes , aka another 800 $ to max them out. So roughly 1000$ for buying a quick win.
Is it worth it for you? Or better go, have a nice week of vacation with your girl- or boyfriend, all inclusive?

Maybe it is an option for you, to grind in the PvPs, especially the lightning rounds as you get more progression rewards, but any will do. Why?
Average PvP victory is about 100 Iso, as long as you need the 2* covers you frequently get there (way more than of standard tokens) and about 150, once you dont need the 2covers anymore. It gives you match experience, it is fun. And you can repeat at any time, without spending hero points. Save the Iso to level your 2s (or only a certain set) and then save for the upcoming 3* and 4*. At this point, you might still think the bottleneck is the lack of covers. Once you start earning 3* covers, you will find out, that the real bottleneck is Iso. At least for me it is.
Save your HP for later use. Shield Hopping for that special placement or progression reward, or that last missing green cover of Sentry.
And, like all the others said, be patient and enjoy.

20

Ok, I’ll play Devil’s advocate here. If you don’t balk at the HP cost of 10 covers (assuming you have a 1/1/1 Sentry) being 12,500 HP being basically $100 to buy a single character, then go ahead and do it. Games are more fun when you can win, and Sentry will for sure help you do that. If you want to P2W, why shouldn’t you?

The downside is the rumors of a Sentry change coming. It would suck to drop that kind of HP and have him be pulled out from under you. They haven’t announced it yet, but they did say they are trying to announce changes closer to when they happen, learning from the Magneto change announcement length.