That was a nice two days. Now, we're back. Looking for Big Pun.
Ah, found him. There he is. Generalist. I think I had that in my prediction, as a low odds thing, but still. Skill set looks kooky. Short of diving the XML (and he might not even actually be there yet), no way to know what most of his skill set looks like since he has a different gun, grenade and passive for each class + generalist. I suspect he will be a PvP factor, but you never can tell by reading.
GOALS[]
My goal is Adamantium. I've done it twice before, I'm set up to do it. It's just a matter of mapping the right strategy and executing. Oh, and a bit of luck to not that a 450 point loss on the last day. Some things you can fix, but you cannot make up an excessive number of points in the last 6 hours of a tournament when the wave is upon you.
Your Goals[]
As to your goals, set one. Here's my advice for how to set your goal. Pick a target level. Remember, Adamantium is for bragging (because you can get the prize a month later for CPs). Vibranium is the best reward (as there is no evident plan to release the armors, and if there is, it will probably cost you gold and fair sized chunks of it). The Diamond is reward is generally useful and/or slot worthy, so is worth pursuing. Gold is never unwelcome, and Silver is too low a bar since everyone gets it. Pick what you did last tournament, or what you think you can do realistically, and then click it up a notch. This is the surest way to get the tier you believe you can get, and you never really know where you can land until you apply yourself. I didn't think I was an Adamantium player because of structural reasons. In 2 of 3 tournaments, not only was I an Adamantium player, but I was in the top half (and for non-regular readers, one of those was the first, when only 1000 people got Adamantium).
PLAN[]
The other goal is to maintain my sanity. I started the tournament and I saw what a few hours of AFK were doing. And I had a bit of panic. And then I remembered, there are 25 days left. Take some deep breaths and remember, "Don't Panic. There will be plenty of time for that later." (One of my posts here is the #1 hit on Google for that phrase... at least on google from my IP). I think it was good discipline last time to set a hard cap on fights, so, let's set a cap of 500 fights. That gives me my five a day to get the bonus XP (I am leveling kinda quickly), but gives me the leeway to adjust my play level in the timeframe I'd like.
So, the plan is like this. 5-10 a day until we hit the final week. Figure out what it's gonna take to set myself up to be in high Vibranium or low Adamantium at the start of the final day. I figure 1650 to be a safe number, though Big Pun seems to have brought out a renewed interest. We'll see if that jacks the required score. I know I have done 1900+ on the final day, but I really really really hope that's not the case because that took a level of play that I don't really want to maintain and would kiss the 500 goodbye.
Your Plan[]
"Start with the end in mind." That is the best planning advice I've ever heard (and I've heard a lot). So, look at your goal. Figure what it will take. Take last season's cutoff and figure what you will need. This tournament ends at 20:00 GMT on Monday 4 February (adjust for your time zone... it's 2PM for me). In 8 hours of play (which I'm unlikely to do given it would mean being at the console at 6 AM), I can maybe do 100 fights (Maybe 80 fights is more realistic. So, I work backwards from there. I should be around 400 fights on the final day (420 if 80 is more realistic). I want to do about 50 fights on StuporSunday (for my foreign readers, American Football's championship game is to be played on February 3rd. It's something of a big deal... like the World Cup Final is where you live. I haven't watched much of one in years.). That leaves 350. Add 5 a day for 23 days (115) and that leaves 185. 45 extra a day for 4 days before that, and we're just under 500 total for the season.
I'm not saying you need to set a hard cap. I'm not suggesting it's a good idea for you. But the idea is, once you set your goal, you work backwards to figure out how you're going to get it. Envision the future, then figure how it's obtained.
TIPS[]
Errors[]
Something that's just become habit, and isn't a bad idea. Check the load time of the leader ladder before you initiate a fight. My offensive record and fight volume was wrecked somewhat by reset issues. I find that if the leader ladder loads in 5 seconds or less, it's safe to start the fight. This might not be an issue anymore, but I'd rather take the time than pay the price, especially as they double up.
Armory[]
Do not buy the Dust of Death for your armory. Yes, it's good, but, uncle PKB has a trick for you. It involves looking at a calendar and the history of LE items. PVP Armory items are sold in three packs that take three weeks to run through. Dust of Death runs coincidentally with the first week of a 4 week tournament. Tuesday to Tuesday. When it expires, it will be replaced by a new item with the same total Offense/Defense, but it will be skewed to offense or defense, rather than balanced like the Dust. That will run through Tuesday, 22 February. Then, a similar item, only skewed the opposite way, which will run through the 29th. On the 29th (with 6 days left in the tournament), a new balanced item will be released. If you are inclined to buying such things (I've developed an affinity since PD jacked them north of anything but the highest level PVP items), Tuesday the 29th is the way to maximize your gold spend for this tournament. Imagine you use 20 of these things. If you buy Dust of Death, you will be 3600 total bonus higher than your previous score, based on Hive Spores, Bub Bottles and whatnot. If PD jacks Unknown Item X another 180, for the same gold, you could be 7200 better off. If they jack it by a larger amount... even more. Timing is everything, and it's not like the 3600 is more valuable for the month than the 7200 is for the last week. We've been around the block. We know that the end matters more.
A word about the above comments. You do not need to spend gold on your armory. It is not the best spend of gold unless PVP is very important to you. It is a constant treadmill, every month redoing your armory. But I see an advantage and I'm taking it. You do not have to do the same. I'm not even recommending you do.
TEAM[]
At the start, I am running the same team as last time. Blaster Modern Strange, Ghost Rider, Inf Power Armor - Hoarfrost Mace, Sinister Scepter, Nine Inch Nailgun, and Jumper. This could change. I'm investigating other counter weapons.
On day 2, I flipped this to be the same agent gear, only with the now functional Knight inplace of the Mace. Emma + Psylocke. Psylocke is a beast in PvP, but I'm concerned her AI is bugged.
On day 4, I am also playing with the counter attack weapon a bit. I am experimenting with Fury as it has a higher counter rate. I'm also switching afk to WW2 Cap and Black Widow. BW works great without buffs. Trying to figure who else, but too lazy. As I mentioned in last tournament, the team I found most interesting used an agent + Cap tanking strategy.
On day 5, I'm switching Emma for WCP. This is really a waiting game, as we're all waiting for Spec 6 to drop and change everything. I haven't found a team that I'm comfortable with, which is part of why my AFK is so abysmal. Maybe back to Cap/Emma. Basics. I dunno. Not important now, but I'd like to have an AFK team that I can play on offense before the final week.
PUNISHER WAR JOURNAL[]
I have started a more thorough logging program to track offensive fights. The good thing is that it gives plenty of data to figure out where my meta is. The bad thing is that it doesn't really have a way to dump, so it will get polluted by the early stages (I do not expect to see Spider-Man in 25% of my fights over any length of time as people in high meta do not use him). The other down thing is that it gives me motivation to play more PvP. As long as I don't feel burned out, I'm cool. So, I should maybe walk back the 500 to <1000 or <800. We'll see. I'll have some interesting nuggets as we get deeper and the stat sets get thicker. But, I like to keep track of what heroes I'm liable to see (and while this isn't capturing class or alts {of the first four Emmas all were P5, one was an inf}, it's still useful for overall patterns), so this should help with that.
Hero Log[]
| Enemy Heroes | Frequency |
|---|---|
| Black Widow | 55 |
| Cable | 33 |
| Captain America | 24 |
| Colossus | 7 |
| Dr. Strange | 20 |
| Emma Frost | 224 |
| Gambit | 1 |
| Ghost Rider | 43 |
| Havok | 2 |
| Hercules | 2 |
| Hulk | 2 |
| Human Torch | 1 |
| Iron Man | 1 |
| Mockingbird | 3 |
| Nightcrawler | 1 |
| Phoenix | 115 |
| Psylocke | 62 |
| Quicksilver | 29 |
| Scarlet Witch | 4 |
| Spider-Man | 2 |
| Storm | 4 |
| Thor | 60 |
| Tigra | 1 |
| Valkyrie | 13 |
| Total Logged Fights | 355 |
Variety[]
- Number of Logged Fights: 355
- Unique Agents: 152 (42.82%)
- Repeat Agents:
- 9x (2 Agent), 7x (6 Agents), 6x (5 Agents), 5x (1 agents)
- Repeat Agents:
- Unique Agents: 152 (42.82%)
Rating Comparisons[]
- Rating
- Lower - 164 (65.5%)
- 1-100 - 159 (63.4%)
- 101-200 - 5 (2.1%)
- Higher - 81 (34.5%)
- 1-100 - 81 (34.5%)
- 101-200 - 0 (0%)
- Lower - 164 (65.5%)
- Level
- Higher - 188 (53.1%)
- 1-5 - 148 (41.8%)
- 6-10 - 32 (9%)
- 11-20 - 8 (2.3%)
- Lower - 128 (36.2%)
- 1-5 - 103 (29.1%)
- 6-10 - 24 (6.8%)
- 11-20 - 1 (0.3%)
- Same - 38 (10.7%)
- Higher - 188 (53.1%)
Fight Result Progression[]
- Jan 12 - 916 (9.5% - 63099) / 37-27-1 (58%) / 29 attacks (28-1 - 97%) / 36 defenses (9-26-1 - 26%)
- Jan 13 - 972 (5.2% - 36481) / 49-35-1 (58%) / 43 attacks (40-3 - 93%) / 42 defenses (9-32-1 - 22%)
- Jan 14 - 1094 (1.4% - 10613) / 79-56-1 (59%) / 62 attacks (59-3 - 93%) / 74 defenses (20-53-1 - 27%)
- Jan 15 - 1109 (1.4% - 11744) / 102-80-1 (56%) / 80 attacks (76-4 - 95%) / 103 defenses (26-76-1 - 25%)
- Jan 16 - 1152 (1.1% - 9539) / 130-108-1 (55%) / 98 attacks (93-5 - 95%) / 141 defenses (37-103-1 - 26%)
- Jan 17 - 1197 (0.8% - 6819) / 145-122-1 (54%) / 103 attacks (98-5 - 95%) / 165 defenses (47-117-1 - 28%)
- Jan 18 - Sick in bed, no report
- Jan 19 - 1131 (2.1% - 19570) / 194-180-1 (52%) / 121 attacks (115-6 - 95%) / 254 defenses (79-174-1 - 31%)
- Jan 20 - 1087 (3.5% - 34334) / 222-211-1 (51%) / 140 attacks (130-10 - 93%) / 294 defenses (92-201-1 - 31%)
- MLK - 1178 (1.6% - 16018) / 246-229-1 (52%) / 157 attacks (147-10 - 94%) / 319 defenses (99-219-1 - 31%)
- Jan 22 - 1095 (3.6%) / 263-250-1 (51%) / 162 attacks (152-10 - 94%) / 352 defenses (111-240-1 - 32%)
- Jan 23 - 1324 (.6% - 6371) / 304-276-1 (52%) / 198 attacks (187-11 - 94%) / 373 defenses (117-265-1 - 31%)
- Jan 24 - No results, didn't feel like logging on.
- Jan 25 - 1114 (3.6%) / 328-315-1 (51%) / 214 attacks (203-11 - 95%) / 430 defenses (125-304-1 - 29%)
- Jan 26 - 1134 (3.4%) / 357-344-1 (51%) / 235 attacks (224-11 - 95%) / 467 defenses (133-333-1 - 29%)
- Jan 27 - 1186 (2.4%) / 381-366-1 (51%) / 251 attacks (240-11 - 96%) / 497 defenses (141-355-1 - 28%)
- Jan 28 - 1075 (5.5%) / 420-414-1 (50%) / 271 attacks (260-11 - 96%) / 564 defenses (160-403-1 - 28%)
- Jan 29 - No Report - Downton Abbey
- Jan 30 - 1300 (1.2%) / 520-500-2 (51%) / 370 attacks (345-25 - 93%) / 652 defenses (175-475-2 - 27%)
- Jan 31 - DISGUSTED. 384 attacks - 736 attacks. 14 attacks (that's low, but it's what it says) against 84 attacks. 84 DEFENSES in 24 hours. WHAT DID I DO TO DESERVE THAT?
COMMENTS[]
The last iteration of this page generated more than 450 comments. We need to be extra on point. Discussion is to be limited to (with a near zero tolerance) tournament 4 PVP goals, strategies, meta discussions and results. That would not include questions on how to iso a hero or an agent or how to farm more CP.
We want to keep this page as a section for knowledge and experience transfer.
Oh, and one more thing:
My apologies. I am not answering specific PVP questions anymore. The tournaments have created a very high demand that I simply could not keep up with, even if I wanted to.
I take a holistic approach to PVP that requires more information than you will want to provide or I will want to review. You have to consider not just what you want to run, but what the opposition is running, so that you can adapt to the larger game in PVP. To that end, I've written two blogs to teach you how to work my approach. The first one will teach you how to break down the metagame and how to plan for it. The second one is a selection of advice from the best player in the game, Agent Wanderer. If you read these, take them to heart, and apply them, you will get better results in PVP before too long.
Read those, and if you have a specific question about the theory, I'll be happy to help.