I think it has more to do with few of us having the new Storm to even compete in all the events. I haven't grinded because of that.

I'm shielded and holding steady at #20 with 846 points. The only reason to unshield is to stay in the top 25 because hitting 1,000 to crack the top 10 is unreachable.

I'm such a dumb ass. After posting my rant, I logged back in and saw I was at 13th with 17 mins left. I figured I could make the top ten and get 2 new storm covers. I broke shield and proceeded to get my ass handed to me in the same way as I described in my rant (doh!) and dropped past 50th. Now, no Storm cover. Lesson learned I guess. Never pop a shield!

I was just going to post the same rant. I wanted a mohawk storm so i played a bunch this morning. Got up to 30-something and was going to pop a shield when suddenly i lost 178 points and fell to rank 60-something. i tried to get back to 50 but i was losing points faster than i was gaining them; i'd fight and win and get 23 points but during that time i'd have lost 70 points.

Dropped to 41 until the last three minutes, then got pushed to 51. Broke my shield and won a quick game, but must've just missed the cut-off and ended up at 54. With the way things are now, it'd be just as fair to just hold a drawing of anyone who played X number of hours and won X number of games and randomly choose who gets the top rewards.

I notice the top 5 in the new Storm PVP will all win 3 Spidey covers instead of just the typical 2. I wonder if that's a special case or the new standard. Doesn't really matter personally, as I'll never be top 5.

The top 5 rewards do matter, though, because the better (and newer) the reward, the more top players will play (this is the same thing when an upper progression award is really good). Hopefully most of the top players already have a maxed Spidey, though.

I was hoping that doing poorly on PvP would reset me somehow back to players around my level but it's not happening. Next event I'll just grind out some points from high level players to contribute something to the alliance.

I did take a slight break (even missing a game) and realized how insane these events are... the rewards just kept on coming.

I have yet to get a non-bagman, spidey cover so i'm glad they have him for top 100 instead of just top 50. Top 50 sucks if the prize is something a lot of the high level players want since there is no way to prevent yourself of getting pushed out. Even with a shield, they can still repeatedly beat you and gain points which pushes you lower.

what build do you all like for 2* Storm? I was 5/5/3 but then i realized i never use the green power since she's usually with Ares or Thor so i switched to 3/5/5 figuring it can help out when the computer controls her.
Whats the best Ares build? 5/5/3 or 5/3/5? I'm using the later now but was wondering if i was missing out.

For Ares I go 4/4/5. The 5th in Green just allows it to go off at 5 instead of 6, but I usually save it up anyway for an instakill. The 5th in red just allows him to do max damage at 30% of max health instead of 25% of max health, which didn't seem all that useful to me. Otherwise, the damage is basically the same between 4 and 5 for both.

As for Storm, I still go 5/5/3. The cascades from green are still useful when user controlled, and I'd almost rather the computer choose to do her green instead of Ares green, since the computer doesn't really always do the smartest thing and giving the opponent green can be deadly. But I haven't played against 2* Storm in a while (though I wish I did) so I don't know how she plays.

sorry guys, i haven't been around much this week and won't be hardly at all either next as i'll be out of town. hope to be back up and running full steam the week of the 4th of july.

For 2* Storm, I'm about to finish her off (except for the insane amount of ISO I need)....I have 5-4-3 currently. I keep hearing 5-5-3, but 5-4-4 might be a slightly better way to go. The only thing 5 in blue does is give an extra turn on stun and Raging Tempest will do more damage at 4. It's preference mostly what you plan to do with her.

Trust me, you want that extra turn. It gives you one more chance to pop off a power on the stunned mob and/or collect more gems. I always target the mob with the most health before firing off blue.

I'm not promoting spending money on this game, but for those who want to, there's a sale going on (protip: don't buy ISO). Also, I got something in the mail from paypal in a one day sale, where you can get $100 itunes card for $80 bucks.

edited to add: shoot, seems like they're sold out of the paypal itunes deal...

Absolutely agree on not buying ISO. Once you get a little ways into the game, it's incredibly easy to get. I've got 5 maxed 2*'s and have just been spending it to up 3* characters whenever I get covers for them. It's been weeks since I've had less than 100k in ISO saved up. Hero Points, on the other hand, I would recommend buying if you enjoy the game enough to know you'll be playing for a while. Opening up a bunch of additional character slots is huge, especially early on. It lets you level up whoever you happen to get covers for, instead of having to hope you get covers for one of the characters on a smaller roster. It's also much harder to come by in the game, especially early on.

I'm curious to see how the Storm PVP shakes out. I got over 800 this morning and bought my first full-day shield, as I know I won't have much time to play and didn't want to get slammed down from attacks. I've been attacked a handful of times and won points from one of them. Currently ranked 7 and am hoping enough people lose to my team to keep me in the top 25. I've been playing for about 4 months now and have only ever gotten one Spidey cover, so it'd be nice to pick up at least two more.

Got a Mohawk off the 300 point token.

I got a Red Hulk (2nd Hulk cover) I sacrificed my lvl 38 Bullseye and maxed Juggie to do it but that's okay, they'll heal .

oh yeah, I was supposed to stop playing. *sigh*. I am up to 20 slots of Heroes now though (since that's all I use my hero points for) and about to get my second character over level 50 (OBW, max 61...damn I need ISO).

I got one from the PvE event. I sold off Invisible Woman to make room. Figured it would be a loooonnnggg time before she would be viable for me to use anyway. Heck, I'm still rounding off my 2* roster.

Any preference on Thor 2* build? I was going 5/3/5 but since i usually team with 2* Wolverine, i never use thor's red so i'm respeccing to 3/5/5 so i can use the yellow power to make a bunch of greens

This is correct.

The only good thing about his red is that it's relatively cheap. It just doesn't generate enough yellow to justify it over yellow's green generation.

Definitely go 3/5/5, that's how I'm specced. His red doesn't scale well anyway and Wolv's red is maybe 2 more matches for a lot more damage. Also, don't forget to fire off Wolv's green first (if ready) before firing off red so you maximize strike tiles... unless you are saving up for Thor's green.

Thor, Wolv and OBW are my "A" team currently.

Not sure how many 2* players we still have in the alliance, but another tip. Save the hero points for shields, max out some good 2*s (OBW, Thor/Ares/Wolverine, M. Storm, Magneto), then save up ISO. Don't do what I did and start leveling up 3*s to above lvl 100 until you have a bunch of 3* covers and at least a few characters that can go well above lvl 115 or so.

I was living pretty good using an 85 OBW/Wolverine combo with whatever featured character was in PVP. I had a bunch of 3*s and leveled a few up for matches, but I knew that I'd have to get them to around lvl 110 to have them really surpass a maxed 2*. As soon as I had 11 or so covers in Hulk, I maxed him. It went ok for a while but my opponents got tougher and tougher, and I was finding it harder and harder to rank high enough to get more 3* covers to level someone else so I had a decent 3* duo.

If you just collect the covers and horde ISO, you can probably get some decent matchups in PvP, play really hard early on, then shield before the end when you'll normally get slaughtered, collecting 3*s along the way. Shields are key here... they may seem like a waste of points, but if you're fairly sure you can rank high enough to get some 3* rewards, it's probably worth it if you have it.

I've been experimenting around with PVP events to figure out the best way to play them. So far it seems like the best approach for me has been:

Day 1 - Play one or a handful of rounds to get in a group. Don't pass rank 50.

Day 2 - More people will have high scores, meaning larger rewards from some matches. Play enough to hit at least 300, possibly 400 or 500, depending on the current top scores in the group. If I push my way into the top 50, I count on losing at least 100 points overnight.

Final Day - Depending on my schedule & the end time of the event, I set aside 30-40 minutes based on the shield time limit points and grind as high as I can, then throw up a shield when I get high enough to be confident that I'll get a 3* reward. The best time for this run this seems to be either with 5-7 hours left (and use an 8-hour shield) or over 10 hours (and use a 24-hour shield). If you get into the last 3 hours or too close to the other shield times, it's an utter crap shoot, as so many others are playing at those times that you're likely to lose more than you gain during every match you play.

Hope that's helpful to someone and would love to hear if others have anything to add or other approaches that have worked. Doing well in the PVP events is pretty vital to transitioning to 3* characters.

That's almost exactly what I've been doing the last few weeks since joining the alliance and HP are a little easier to get.

I was busy yesterday and forgot about the PVP event ending until like 15 minutes before it ended. I had wanted a torch cover but i missed out on it by 4 points. i only could hit rank 104 before the event ended. oh well.

About not using ISO on 3*s: i'll boost up my 3*s that have a few covers in a useful power and show up in often in PvP events.

my go to team for the shield sim, has been OBW, Wolv 2*, and a level 40-something falcon. Falcon's passive abilities are pretty over powered even at lower levels and i dont even have the awesome shield making power yet. His blue bird power that removes enemy tiles and his yellow that boosts your own tiles are both great. I get some of the Wolverine's green attack bonus abilities really buffed up so OBW is hitting blue/purple/black matches for over a thousand a hit.

3* She Hulk for top 100 players and alliances in the new PVE Juggernaut event.

Let's get her!

I got to #7 in Webslinger yesterday morning and threw up a full day shield. Stayed top 25 until the very end, when someone bumped me to 26. Same thing happened with the PVP that ended Friday, but I got knocked to 29. Wish I could start placing high enough for 2 covers per event.

Saw the intro of She Hulk and will definitely be grinding on that for the next three days, though OBW not being playable for the event is showing me just how reliant I've gotten on her healing ability. This is the first PVE event in a long time that I've had to use health packs on.

Same here. I totally miss having her heals.