| v · eGuides and Tutorials |
|---|
| Facebook Filters How to Spend Gold Get More CPs Strategies and Play Styles |
Welcome to the guide to CP farming. I’m you’re host, PKB. In light of the questions that have been asked over and over again, I decided to rewrite the guide, from top to bottom. I’d like to start by explaining exactly what this guide is and what it is not concerned with:
- This is the guide to the most game resource efficient manner of obtaining command points.
- This guide is not concerned with time.
- This guide is also not concerned with experience points or the avoidance of getting any.
If time is your concern, you will have to figure out what works for you. If maintaining a low level is important to you, you will also have to figure out how to do that.
Comments have been disabled. I, PKB, am no longer answering questions about CP farming or updating this blog. Please consult Scarlettolivia's new CP guide.
There are two ways to get CPs: Spend money or spend game resources, specifically energy. Any idiot can spend money, so let’s talk about spending energy. There is one method: gala farming. Run a mission with roulette(s) over and over again, and, through the law of averages, get the CPs you need.
There are no special tricks. No method to cause the roulette to stop on what you want. No method to read the roulettes result from the starting position of the mission. Anyone who tells you differently is either pulling your leg or working from either very outdated or simply incorrect information. Discussion of such methods will be considered off topic.
There is one way to get CPs without spending money. There are many missions to run. What the rest of this post will examine is which missions are better and which missions are worse.
Assumptions
Unless otherwise stated, all roulettes are understood to have a 50% chance of producing Command Points, broken out as follows: 25% Low / 20% Medium / 5% High. So, your standard roulette (aka gala) produces:
- 25% for 1 CP
- 20% for 3 CP
- 5% for 5 CP
Understanding this, we can put a 1.1 CP per roulette expectation in place. Because we understand statistics, we understand that not every run will produce 1.1 CP. But, if we run this enough times, we should see it level out to 1.1 CP per basic roulette. The season 2 missions with one roulette and one heroic battle should level out to 2.2 CP per run. Epic Bosses have a different payout table. Since they follow the same distribution, we can suggest:
- 25% for 3 CP
- 20% for 5 CP
- 5% for 10 CP
For an average epic boss fight produces 2.25 CP. An average run on an Epic Boss mission therefore produces 3.35 CP. And a Season 2 Epic Boss mission, with the Heroic Battle, produces 4.45 CP.
EXCEPTIONS: Chapter 12 roulettes do not follow this pattern. Nor do Season 2 roulettes at the normal difficulty level. Season 2 Challenge Mode missions do hold this pattern.
The Single Best Missions to Farm
Season 1, Chapter 12, Mission 2 is an epic boss mission that can be run in 20 energy. That made it the most efficient CP farm, by a HUGE margin. The other non-premium missions in chapter 12 could be run for 10 energy, making them the most efficient, non-epic boss missions by HUGE margin as well. As a result, the roulette tables were reduced from the standard to:
- Normal: 25% Low / 10% Medium / 3% High
- Epic: 20% Low / 5% Medium / 1% High
As such, Chapter 12.2 produces 1.65 CP/run, as opposed to 3.35/4.45 of other epic boss missions. But, due to the very low energy requirements, it produces a higher return on energy, specifically .825 CP / fight. This is still a vast improvement over other missions. The rest of the non-premium missions currently produce .7 CP per run and per fight, which you can contrast with everything else. You will find everything else wanting. Now, a couple points here.
Opening Chapter 12 requires something like 30 heroes and probably 120 levels, so it’s not going to be available to everyone. Chapter 12 fights involve 8-9 bosses in the main fight, and can be tricky to run. I run Chapter 12, Mission 2 with World War 2 Captain America, as a Bruiser, my agent as a tactician, with a War Axe (the only consistent item I use on it) and whatever non-tanking hero I have available. For efficiency, I like Union Jack, Quicksilver, Hellstrom, Juggernaut, and Omega Sentinel, but as long as the second hero doesn’t passively tank, anyone can work. Because of the low percentages on Chapter 12 roulettes, there is a lot of variance and you will have longer droughts. Keep your chin up and grind on. Nothing will produce as well over the long term. The rest of this guide is for people who don’t have chapter 12 open or who need some variety in their farms.
Results: Epic: .825 CP / 10 energy – Normal: .7 CP / 10 Energy
Season 2 Speed
The missions in season 2 feature Heroic Battles, which provide a second (or third) roulette, which means they have efficiency potential. For normal play, S2.C1.M1 can be done, with heroic battle, for 50 energy, producing (IN CHALLENGE MODE ONLY), 2.2 CPs on average, and .44 CP per energy. To accomplish this, you need Rogue and Gambit to do the heroic battle (180 CP). That makes it the most efficient, non-epic, non-Chapter 12 mission in the game. It's on par with the second tier of epics, but the requirements make it higher than the best epics, like 4.4.
Result: .44 CP per 10 Energy
2.1.2 can be done in 60 energy with the heroic battle, and only requires Wolverine. That yields .367 CP, the same as the non-epic missions in the next step.
Exploit That Apparently Has Been Patched For the Good of the Game
If you're really hard up for CP, you can cycle (load map, check fights, flight deck, abort, repeat until heroic loads at start) 2.1.2, and using Wolverine can do the Heroic Battle, then abort the mission and cycle it over again. This must be done in challenge mode, or your efficiency drops to chapter 12 mission efficiency (still pretty good). This should produce 1.1 CP / 10 energy with zero XP for the agent. Your Wolverine must be at least L2 to accomplish this fight with any efficiency.
I am 100% sure that, if enough people do this, it will be patched so that you cannot load the heroic battle at the start of the mission. It might take a month, so I'm not putting the full bold on this. In fact, I find this type of farming distasteful, so I'm happy to write it in my blog and hope that someone from Playdom will realize that people can average 1.1 CP / 10 energy, aka: what chapter 12 used to be and better than the old style of Elektra farming that they got rid of so many moons ago.
Low Requirement Speed
Chapter 7, Mission 3 is fast. Two hard fights and you can do the boss. You can also rack up as many as five deploys while running it. Two things about 7.3.
- You may have to restart the mission before doing any fights to get a hard fight and a deploy at the start.
- If you do not abandon the mission if you don't get the start you want, you may have to do an extra fight, lowering your efficiency.
- If you don't like abandoning missions and you don't care about XP, you can do any fight, fight Vector which should load Jack O'Lantern. Same efficiency, lower return on total investment, as this will limit your deploy opportunities.
Result: .367 CP per 10 Energy
Chapter 6, Mission 2 has all the benefits of 7.3 but has a very specific load pattern that you must follow. If the mission does not load with a hard fight at the start, back out to the flight deck, click the Missions button and abort the mission. Then enter the mission. If it again loads without a Red fight, repeat the abort and try again. It is critical that you start with a hard because you need to go Hard-Hard-Bosses to make it 30 energy. Note: If you are farming for deploy drops, and have not unlocked 12.4, these are the best missions, as you can get 4-5 deploys for 30 energy (depending on when it gives the Tactician deploy that takes 3 fights). I ran a lot of 7.3 for premium consumables and deploy drops.
Epic Boss Farming
Every chapter (except #1) has a secret hidden boss who appears if you complete all fights (you can two/three bird the boss) and all deploys (including ones that require a specific hero and ones that require a specific class of hero). Here's the list of Epic Bosses. Note the requirements very carefully.
Why Epic Bosses might be interesting to you in your search for CP is actually kind of interesting. Epic Bosses have an additional roulette. With better rewards. The reason you may not have thought of running them is because they require a lot of energy to get through, while the missions previously discussed can be run very cheaply. The math is pretty convincing for me.
- 90 Energy - .494 CP / Fight - Season 2, Chapter 1, Mission 6
- Requires: Cable, Deadpoop, Gambit, Rogue, Scarlet Witch and Spider-Woman
- Note: This mission includes a heroic battle producing a third roulette.
- Note: This rate applies for the mission in Challenge Mode only.
- 70 Energy - .479 CP / Fight - Chapter 4, Mission 4
- Requires: Storm and a Scrapper
- 100 Energy – .445 CP / Fight – Season 2, Chapter 1, Mission 4
- Requires: Spiderwoman, Psylocke, Black Knight and Union Jack
- Note: This mission includes a heroic battle producing a third roulette.
- Note: This rate applies for the mission in Challenge Mode only.
- Requires: Spiderwoman, Psylocke, Black Knight and Union Jack
- 80 Energy - .419 CP / Fight - Chapter 3, Mission 5
- Requires: Black Widow, Spider-Man, a Blaster and a Tactician
- 90 Energy - .372 CP / Fight - Chapter 2, Mission 3 and Chapter 8, Mission 5
- C2.M3 Requires: Black Cat and a Scrapper
- C8.M5 Requires: Hawkeye, a Blaster and a Tactician
- 100 Energy - .335 CP / Fight - Chapter 5, Mission 3, Chapter 6, Mission 3, Chapter 7, Mission 3, and Chapter 11, Mission 3
- C5.M3 Requires: Wolverine, a Blaster and a Scrapper
- C6.M3 Requires: Luke Cage, a Scrapper and a Bruiser
- C7.M3 Requires: Spider-Man, a Tactician and a Scrapper
- C11.M3 Requires: Phoenix, a Bruiser and an Infiltrator
- 110 Energy - .305 CP / Fight - Chapter 9, Mission 4, and Chapter 10, Mission 4
- C9.M4 Requires: Invisible Woman, Thing, Rogue and a Tactician
- C10.M4 Requires: Spider-Woman, a Blaster and a Scrapper
NOTE: Season 2 Missions require Challenge Mode for full efficiency. Standard Mode has lower expectations that nuke efficiency.
I cannot recommend running 5.3, 6.3, 7.3, 9.4, 10.4, or 11.3 to completion FOR CP FARMING, as they produce lower efficiency than running 7.3, 1.2, and 1.1 minimally. You are slightly better off running 2.3 or 8.5 to full completion than the efficient non-epic missions. And you are much better off running 2.1.6, 4.4, 2.1.4 or 3.5 through to the epic bosses. I recommend 2.1.6 if you can do it, 4.4 if you cannot, as 4.4 has much lower requirements in terms of deploys.
Result: .494 - .419 CP per 10 energy
Additional Information
Below, find Additional resources, links and answers to frequently asked questions as well as an easy summary of the blog for everyone.
Mission Score
The score on the boss fight or the total mission score does not affect, in any way, your result on roulettes. Do not stress winning your boss fights "Big" as it means nothing in terms of farming efficiency.
Challenge Mode
The roulette tables for challenge mode in Season One have one difference from the regular mode tables. They have customized gear. The odds remain the same, so the math is the same for regular mode and challenge mode. Do either; it's COMPLETELY THE SAME with regard to command points.
In Season 2, Challenge Mode is essential to efficiency.
Will You Make It?
Titeuf24 has been kind enough to put together a blog dealing with many of the questions that you want to ask, including whether you can actually accomplish a given amount of CPs in a given amount of time and whether you should recruit a hero required for a CP farm while farming for a goal.
Notes
Warnings about small sample sizes abound. In the short term, your mileage will vary considerably, due to small sample size concerns. You should start to see your distribution of results normalize after a significant number of runs, but to be robust, you'd want several hundred.
In case that is not crystal clear... if you do not have a data set that is AT LEAST 100 runs long... Do not post a comment on this blog. If people continue to violate that simple rule (100 runs minimum before complaining), I will turn comments off and never write anything about farming CPs again. I am very tired of answering the SAME QUESTIONS over and over again.
I would have you note that the reduced odds of landing CP on Chapter 12 will produce more variability in results, particularly in short runs of data. You should not comment about any change to these missions unless you have at least three hundred runs logged.
This analysis also assumes that the M:AA random number generator is random enough to produce genuinely random results. That is an explicit assumption that underlies this analysis, that, if proven wrong, will undermine this analysis significantly. I have not seen compelling evidence to suggest a lack of randomness, but I won't rule it out.