SCL 10 is a little different from 1-9. In 1-9, you play a standard node 4 times in order to get the timer to reset and then you can play it up to 3 more times before 0ing it out (Wave nodes you play 3 times before resetting and, IIRC, 2 times before 0ing it out).

With SCL 10, you play a node 3 times before resetting the counter and then can play it up to 2 times before 0ing it out. (Wave nodes are 2/2).

So what phant meant is that if you play all nodes 4 times (not including the green "challenge" node), you should typically make max progression. That means any clears you make of the challenge node are bonuses into progression as are any 5th clears of any nodes.

I realize it is discouraging to not be able to finish clears and barely make top 200.... but I think if you look at the rewards you get - both progression and even the T200 placement rewards, you will find you are earning significantly better prizes in SCL10.

I need to decide what to do with 1000 5* wild card shards.
I just hit that milestone and wondering where those would be best applied.

I have been dumping everything into Shang-Chi lately as he is my daily go to for PVE (with 5X and Onslaught), so two more levels there are an option.
Having said that, I hit the fan favorites pretty hard as well as that vault when he was in there.
He is currently sitting at 505 with Kitty as the only one higher than him at 507 and BRB also over 500. The next closest is Okoye at 490.
I will probably get some more of him through the above places before the anniversary ends, so I kinda feel like using these shards on him now could possibly be a missed opportunity to get a shot in the arm elsewhere.

Until recently my SHIELD Simulator team has been SWitch, Colossus, and Apoc. I could apply the shards to one of them to improve that team. That said, this last go round in there is making me think that I need to contemplate changing my Simulator go to team. It seems like the go to toons are currently Lady Thor and Chasm, both with various team configurations.
I have both of them champed, with Thor at 453 and Chasm at 460.
I could put those shards to one of them for if I decide to change over to a new crutch team for SHIELD. I suppose I should try playing teams with them first to decide which one would be my new one.

I could apply them to some other random 5*, but I don’t see the point in that, really, since they don’t get regular use,

The final possibility would be to just hang onto them for an “emergency” situation where I need the shards to champ a new toon.
I am not so much into this idea. My strategy for pulling occasionally burns me to where this has been an issue, but recent game history is pointing towards the devs giving out more covers and shards for new toons on release than they have in the past, so it feels like (if the trend continues) I might be sitting on them needlessly.

Does anyone have any thoughts?

I need to compare to my SCL9 performance.
- I typically came in Top 200 at SCL9.
- I could clear all "normal" nodes along with the 2-4*.
- 5* was a crapshoot. Obviously I couldn't even try it when I didn't have the relevant character. If I did have the 5*, I could regularly manage one clear but not necessarily further.

Now on Webbed Wonder I'm getting ROFLstomped on the last "normal" node after my first win, and I can't manage a second win on the 5* node. I'm willing to give up placement if I can make those progression awards, but otherwise I don't want to waste my time.

I could champ Thor, BRB and Kitty right now while running Shang-Chi (12) and Kamala Khan (11) most of the way, but I don't want to mess up my MMR.

We'll see... the first day of an event is usually the worst for me, so maybe I'll change my tune.

-J

Do you optimize your point refreshes?
By that I mean that in your chosen time slice you should do your first clears as early as you can, then as late as you can go back and do your finishing clears, and do both of them.

For example, I generally enter the time slice that begins and ends at 2am by my local time. Every morning at about 7am I run through CL10 and play every node 3 times*. On that third win the points are cut in half and a refresh timer begins. Then I come back in the evening, maybe 11ish, and play every node two more times.

When phant described how the progression points worked, that was for a scenario where someone goes in and hits all of the nodes four times with no point refreshment.
Doing that should be the minimum needed to hit max progression.
But, if you hit snags along the way, like you seem to be hitting, then playing as I described above should do a bit to mitigate that as you get to make up for those lost points by getting more points on the refreshes of the other nodes.
Say that you had only four nodes….100, 200, 300, and 400.
The max progression on that should be about 3500.
100+100+100+50=350
200+200+200+100=700
300+300+300+150=1050
400+400+400+200=1400
350+700+1050+1400=3500

By letting the points do some refreshing and getting two final hits, you can make up some ground.
Say you let those last hits on the first three nodes build back up to 90, 180, and 270.
Hitting them twice will get you 135, 270, and 405, for 810 points total, or 510 points more than you would get just hitting them right away.
Obviously 510 doesn’t cover the whole 1400 of that last node, but…
1) I just pulled these numbers out of thin air
2) In a real even you have several more nodes to add to that
3) The challenge node (green) doesn’t factor into progression at all, so anything earned there helps cover things
4) if you can get any wins at all in the trouble node, you have that much less to make up for.

The point is that by playing in a way to make the most that you are able to of the point refresh, you can hopefully make up for the weak spots.


* Some nodes, like nbperp mentioned above, require fewer than 3 to get the timer going, so I do whatever gets the timer rolling.

We just talked about this.

I always take the 4PM slice. After 4PM I run until the timer starts, though given my personal schedule that could be anywhere between 4 and 9PM. The next day I finish things off between 2 and 4PM, depending on flexibility in my work day.

Weekends are different since I run Clix and see my girlfriend. On Saturday the 2-4PM run usually has to be between 9-10AM, and the next chance I get after 4PM might not be 'til midnight.

This has been good enough to consistently max progression with room to spare and score top 200 placement in SCL 9, even if I don't have the 5* for that event.

The biggest trouble I see is that without a 2* node to make up points, and still struggling on the 5* node, I'd need to max-clear everything else in order to stand a chance at progression. Stumbling on the last main node is costing me a lot of potential points too.

So we'll see just how far I can get and decide from there. I may just not be ready.

-J

Nothing says that you check to see who is powered up and/or essential and pick based on that.
Like, if you are missing a high point essential maybe you play that event at 9, but then if you happen to have several of the powered up toons, maybe you can cover it.
Right now your Th4nos is at 4/1/2.
If you could get him champed….and champed BRB, too, then with your already champed Polaris, you have the makings of a fine squad that can handle pretty much anything PVE throws at you.
I think that one champed 5* does not vastly hurt your PVP pairings, but I cannot guarantee that.
Your highest 4*s look to be about 282. Those would get around 95 levels when powered up, I think.
I believe that I have heard that your matching in PVP are based on your three highest level characters in that event.
So if you happened to have three powered up 4*s in a PVP event, you are looking at around 1131 for three base 282 toons powered up to 377. Replace one of those with a 450 BRB and you have 1204, or an average of 401.
I don’t know where they make cutoffs and such, but those might be the same levels for matchups. I can’t say.

At the moment Shang-Chi seems like the best idea. However, I feel like "just around the corner" we are going to be looking at something that will just nerf certain toons. I have not played your team (Switch/Coll/Apoc) not gone against Chasm/Thor and question how fast they are compared to SC. I guess I am in a different place than you. SC or Apoc would be my choices. Apoc seems to have stayed solid all this time and for a meta character he has been out for a while.

If it was me, I would probably hold off to see what the next 5*s are and just choose by Christmas time at the latest.

Wow you still play clix?

You can champ a single 5* and PVP pairings are not that bad. The one crutch is that you HAVE to play that champed 5* for every PVP or else you will do poorly. I had BRB as my one champed 5* for a while and it helped a ton in PVE and worked very well in PVP.

I have 4 champed 5*s right now and I can play SC and MElinda May and pull out wins. However, I cannot always go against a team with two champed 5*s and the required toon. That was the problem with PVP after champing more than one 5*.

Experimented today to see if maybe a different mix of characters would work better.

Polaris/Grocket/Juggernaut wasn't cutting it. They couldn't survive. Nearly voided my phone warranty after getting taken down by Cheap Shot.

BRB is indeed improving survivability on two fronts: Protect tiles, and racking up blue AP for Polaris. That helped me through the side nodes, and just left finding a partner for the main nodes. Grocket and Juggernaut are still in the running, but I also had good results with 5* Thor or Medusa.

I can see why y'all are recommending 4* Thanos; his Green should work great with Polaris and BRB or Grocket. I'm 118 shards away from Champing him.

(BRB will also let me use all those Apocalypse "Forged in Fire" Team-Ups I keep getting. )

-J

Here is the thing, I only use SC in PVE. He takes too much finesse/thought to be most effective, so on defense in PVP he isn't great. On top of that, I think that his excellence for me in PVE comes in no small part from the supports, and those do not apply in PVP.

So, with that in mind, I have jumped my SC up like 35 levels this anniversary. My performance in PVP seems to have improved, but not too significantly.
It is hard to say since we haven't had many PVEs with that boss event in there.
Maybe I shaved off a couple of minutes.
So look at it this way....each level I gained maybe shaved off 4-5 seconds from my PVE. So two more levels saves me 10 seconds.
That seems like a waste of two covers I can put anywhere.

I would wait on the 1,000 shards. Eventually there will be an LT store that RNJesus disfavors you and you can use them to fix for that.

There's no ticking clock on the shards. Whatever the next prize is, you're still earning towards it. I would wait and hold it until I needed it.

Hell, you don't even need to NEED it. You can just do what you usually do in the next hoard cracking, except you're targeting 11 covers for the 5* that's leaving instead of 13 and those shards finish you off.

Well, clearly I did something right... I just hit max progression.

-J

How many more times will we see 5he Hulk before she leaves?
Emma is t even in, but how many times before she leaves?
I need 1000ish more shards on each to complete them.
I generally bank on 325 for each PVE cycle, so I need three each.

I am thinking that I may be able to save my LL pulls until January.

Congratulations.

I hate to sound like a broken record, but teaming up 5* Jane with 5*Strange melts minions like they were butter.