The New Boyscout Manual - How to Be Prepared For ANYTHING

Hello loyal readers,

I'm sure many of you are familiar with my previous Boy Scout Guide, getting ready for Special Ops. Well, things have changed. Playdom has introduced a new special event type, the PVP Tournament. This put a tax on an additional resource, Challenge Points, in addition to the challenges that Special Operations put on Command Points and Small Energies. They've also introduced two rounds of limited edition alternate costumes, which put additional Command Point pressure on us. If we're going to be prepared for everything that Playdom could swing at us, we are going to have to change our preparation strategy.

Goals[]

I am not going to set your goals for you. No, no, no. Your goals are your own. You decide what's worth pursuing. I will link to an article that I really like about unrealistic goals, because I see the value of aiming high, especially for me. I am broken in three ways:

Very Competitive
Believe I Can Solve or Improve Anything
Like to Lecture

High goals bring out the first two attributes. The third one is your benefit, because I have a need to share. At any rate, your goals are yours, but this post is going to be designed to make sure you can reach them.

Relative Values[]

I will always put the Special Operation as a higher priority than a PVP Tournament. Heroes are the core of the game to me, so getting a limited edition hero (Special Op) is worth a lot more than getting a head start on a hero (PVP Tournament). Likewise, time limited alternate uniforms are more valueable than PVP Tournament results. That said, if we look at the reward tiers from the first two PVP tournaments, we can see a break point in value:

Silver League	100,000x Silver
Gold League	10x Gold
Diamond League	A unique item with high PVP bonus
Vibranium League	An Agent Uniform better than the 24 gold commander trenches
Adamantium League	A new hero that will be released later

The hero, you might guess, is not the break point. You'd be right; they are pure bonus. Even with the likely cost of 135 CP, we can always farm that (40 runs of 4.4 if necessary) later, if necessary. If we make the dangerous assumption that subsequent tournaments will follow the same prize structure, we can set a goal of Vibranium League (the Power Armor is better than the equivalent 24 Gold purchase, as they seem to eliminate their nemesis class advantage) if we want to stay top line competitive. If we don't care about PvP a bit, we can aim for Gold League, which shouldn't be overly hard for my regular readers. Pick a standard breakpoint in value, a point where the value of the prize above is not equal to the prize below. It will never be the hero as long as the hero will be released a month later for CP. I suspect for PVP players, it will generally be the suit and for PvE players, generally the gold. With that in mind, we can set the following priorities (these are MINE... they are right for ME):

Special Ops Completion (Hero)
Limited Edition Suits (on heroes I use or would like to)
Vibranium League completion
Special Op interesting gear
New Heroes as they are released

The Plan[]

My Plan works for me. It may have to differ a bit for you. I already have every special op hero and every generally available hero. So, I only need to pace the releases. If you do not have every hero, your plan will have to work differently. Let me lay out two plans (All Heroes, Not All Heroes). In both, we need to keep a reserve of Command Points, Energy Points and Challenge Points so that we can make our goals.

All Heroes[]

300 CP
800+ Small Energy
150 Fights worth of Challenge Points

Let's break down each one of those. In the most recent tournament, I did about 100 fights on the final day. That was the ones I earned with time, 50 daily gifts, some Five Battles that Playdom gave through links, and ally bonus collection (which was impaired by the Halloween Collection items). This was after doing a lot of work for the whole month to get high. I have a new plan, which requires doing minimal fighting in the early stages, making a large push 4 days ahead of the end, then maintaining for the final 4 days. I think 150 challenge points, plus freebies from Playdom, should be more than adequate. It gives me the flexibility to crush on the last day if necessary. But remember, I'm not aiming for the Adamantium League again.

Three hundred Command Points. But I have every hero. Let's be clear about something. I have every hero, but I want to be ready if they drop a new hero (90 CP), a PVP reward that I missed (135?) and an expensive limited alt (75 CP) in the same week. I don't feel compelled to get every alt, only the interesting (to me) ones. And I don't always get both classes immediately. This also leaves me in good stead if they should introduce something with a limited timer. I can go back to 4.4 and ramp up CP production, but with 300, I have a good base to work from.

Eight hundred small energy. Far and away, the least important. I used to have a stash of 1200+ (back before Spec 3), and it's now down to 300. Small Energy is like a lubricant. It makes getting things done a bit easier. Largely, I want to have small energy if I have to go back to CP farm in a hurry, or if I want to play a longer session and get more done. They add up. I have currently suspended the use of small energy, until I rehab it to 800.

Not All Heroes[]

I can only remember what this was like (except that it was a lot different when I was there). If you can get all the heroes, go and do it. Your PVP bonus and your future special op completions will thank me now. Then, follow the above plan. If you are not anywhere near this, you will want to maintain something like the above, only with 400 CP. Yes, that is a big number. One hundred and twenty runs of 4.4. Three hundred and sixty-four runs of 7.3. I don't even want to think about how many runs of 10.6. But the 400 CP will insure that you can buy 3x 90 point heroes on demand, and still have a buffer for some random 48 CP hero AND a cool alt or a new hero you want. If keeping up with new releases is not your thing, reduce this to 320. If Special Ops are not important to you, I'm not sure why you're here.

Other Things[]

As always, get 50 allies. Specifically, ones who play the game. Gifting can make large strides to fixing any resource shortage, and Special Ops are resource intensive, so it's better to have more friends who play and more friends you can collect from. And ignore gifting. Collecting energy and challenges from allies is key to running a lot of fights in PVP.

Keep an eye out for the task list for each new special op. We typically have that within 24 hours of the release of the special op. I will post my guide shortly thereafter, in an attempt to break it down for general efficiency and maximizing opportunities. There will be other blogs talking about special ops. If a series of limited suits come out, I will produce a buying guide, and doubtless other bloggers will too. And always look to my blogs for discussions of high level PVP strategy.