Journey to ThroneBreaker Challenge
BitterSteel
Member Posts: 9,264 ★★★★★
We hear a lot of conversation about just how hard it is to get to Thronebreaker. Perhaps more-so in the past when there were less sources to get T5CC, but still a good amount considering the current climate of the game. I'm one of the, let's say louder, proponents of the idea that getting TB is actually quite easy nowadays. As there are two sources of 25% selectors readily available in Act 7.1 and 2, all you need to do is save those for last and get to 50% in one class of T5CC. There are 7 sources of 25% crystals (Act 6.1, Act 6 Completion, Variant 5,6 and 7 and 7.1 and 7.2 completion) that guarantees you with 50% in at least one class. So the theory is there. But how hard is this in practicality?
I have already taken a second account to Thronebreaker, it now has 6 rank 3 champions and I run it in the same alliance as my main account, so it's developed enough for Map 7 epic mods and T3/2 war. But this was very much a pick up and play for a month, then drop it, on and off kinda deal. I don't know how long or hard it was to get Thronebreaker. Plus, I ran an abyss path to get my T5CC, and a point we see a lot is that "I don't want to do Abyss". Regardless of the reality of the situation, and how relevant that point is, I am quite interested to see how hard it would be without an Abyss run.
Inspired by Brian Grants recent FTP 7 day challenge, I wanted to see how far I got too, though I don't have enough time to dedicate 11 hours a day to the account. This past week I have started a new account. Yesterday, my 7 day XP boost expired marking a week of progress. I have decided to momentarily retire my second account, and set myself a challenge for the coming months. How long does it take for a FTP to get to TB?
I will write and update this post every week or two weeks, depending on content cleared and how much there is to update.
Week 1
Overview of the week
First hard choice of the challenge, the name. After a brief tantrum that "SteelyMcSteelface" went over the character limit, I went with Mini-Steel.
I began by clearing act 1 and 2, largely led by the 3* Shang Chi given to new accounts. I ranked him, the torch given to us by the Up Up Down Down challenge and a Mr fantastic I pulled as my main 3. After act 2 I continued to act 3, and Shang gave Thanos the beating of his life.
I looked to the Up Up Down Down challenge and assembled a team, ranked up a Howard the duck 3* to deal with iceman and went in. 15 minutes and a very sketchy 3% health finish on iceman later, I had my first 2000 4* shards. This felt like a huge moment, who was the first 4* going to be?
Yup, it was drax.
But no matter! I now looked at the Shang-Chi Challenge, which even in the early quests has some really, really relevant rewards for newer accounts. I mean, the first chapter exploration was a 5*! Not to mention 2 4*s, 500 shards, a generic awakening gem for a 4*, T4b etc. Having auto-fought the first chapter I had no idea what the level of difficulty would be for a new account.
It turned out to be very easy in the early quests, and I had a 4* full my formed crystal and the rest of the the shards to form another before I even broke a mild sweat. Nervous to pull another drax level champion, I just hoped for a usable champion, someone with damage to get me through Act 4. Anyone usable... and as it slowed down and landed on Archangel, I definitely felt like it was usable.
I opened my next crystal and pulled sentry, which after a brief disappointment, I realised synergised with the tech/science power sting Mr fantastic synergy. I then ploughed on with the Shang chi challenge and explored up to quest 3, giving me a 4* Nexus. With a choice between Killmonger, Mysterio and someone else forgettable, I chose Killmonger for an evade counter. It was a tough choice, but I felt Killmonger brought more to my account to deal with tricky evades. Luckily, my next two 4* crystals gave me Hit Monkey and Professor X (who I awakened later as well), both evade counters - So I guess the RNG gods really wanted me to have no issue with Evades...
I used the generic gem from Shang Challenge to awaken Archangel, I started completing Act 4, ending up with 2 chapters done. Then I looked back to quest 4 from Shang Chi Challenge. Exploring that would give me my first full 5* when I'm still on 350 shards. This could be huge. I did it one path in the quest at a time, and luckily, new accounts get a lot of units quickly so I felt good about using revives for a 5*. Overall, I think I used 5 or 6? My team was Archangel now rank 4, Professor X rank 4, Killmonger rank 2, Shang Chi maxed 3* and Torch rank 3 3*.
Shang took She hulk, archangel took sunspot, prof X took hit monkey, killmonger took Mr negative and torch took tigra. Archangel then crushed the Shang Chi boss. Taking it one path at a time was very important to keep item use down.
To close out this first week, I opened the first 5* of the challenge. By the time I get to act 6 I won't have too many 5*, so this is one of the few leaders of the charge into act 6 I will be able to use early on. In any case, here was the pull.
It just rolled over YJ, who I would have been over the moon with, so much utility. But hawkeye is decent, his power control is so reliable and I was lacking in that. I'm not disappointed, not blown away.
Notable Pulls
4* Professor X
4* Professor X awakening
4* Archangel
4* Killmonger
4* Hit Monkey
5* Hawkeye
Notable Rank ups
Archangel to rank 4
Professor X to rank 4
Killmonger to rank 2
ShangChi 3* to rank 4
Human Torch 3* to rank 3
Howard the duck 3* to rank 4
Content Completed
Act 1 Ch1-4
Act 2 Ch1-4
Act 3 Ch1-4
Act 4 Ch1-2
Shang Chi Challenge Chapter 1 100%
Up Up Down Down challenge Heroic and Epic difficulty
Heroic EQ completion
Master EQ completion
Plan for next Week
I want to complete Act 4, giving me another 4* and 1k 5* shards. I am considering Master EQ exploration, giving me 2750 5* shards and 4500 4* shards, which is a very sizeable amount. In terms of rank ups, I want to rank 2 Hawkeye and rank 4 my human torch 3* but apart from that I will likely save for future pulls.
At the end of week 1, here’s the roster
I have already taken a second account to Thronebreaker, it now has 6 rank 3 champions and I run it in the same alliance as my main account, so it's developed enough for Map 7 epic mods and T3/2 war. But this was very much a pick up and play for a month, then drop it, on and off kinda deal. I don't know how long or hard it was to get Thronebreaker. Plus, I ran an abyss path to get my T5CC, and a point we see a lot is that "I don't want to do Abyss". Regardless of the reality of the situation, and how relevant that point is, I am quite interested to see how hard it would be without an Abyss run.
Inspired by Brian Grants recent FTP 7 day challenge, I wanted to see how far I got too, though I don't have enough time to dedicate 11 hours a day to the account. This past week I have started a new account. Yesterday, my 7 day XP boost expired marking a week of progress. I have decided to momentarily retire my second account, and set myself a challenge for the coming months. How long does it take for a FTP to get to TB?
I will write and update this post every week or two weeks, depending on content cleared and how much there is to update.
Week 1
Overview of the week
First hard choice of the challenge, the name. After a brief tantrum that "SteelyMcSteelface" went over the character limit, I went with Mini-Steel.
I began by clearing act 1 and 2, largely led by the 3* Shang Chi given to new accounts. I ranked him, the torch given to us by the Up Up Down Down challenge and a Mr fantastic I pulled as my main 3. After act 2 I continued to act 3, and Shang gave Thanos the beating of his life.
I looked to the Up Up Down Down challenge and assembled a team, ranked up a Howard the duck 3* to deal with iceman and went in. 15 minutes and a very sketchy 3% health finish on iceman later, I had my first 2000 4* shards. This felt like a huge moment, who was the first 4* going to be?
Yup, it was drax.
But no matter! I now looked at the Shang-Chi Challenge, which even in the early quests has some really, really relevant rewards for newer accounts. I mean, the first chapter exploration was a 5*! Not to mention 2 4*s, 500 shards, a generic awakening gem for a 4*, T4b etc. Having auto-fought the first chapter I had no idea what the level of difficulty would be for a new account.
It turned out to be very easy in the early quests, and I had a 4* full my formed crystal and the rest of the the shards to form another before I even broke a mild sweat. Nervous to pull another drax level champion, I just hoped for a usable champion, someone with damage to get me through Act 4. Anyone usable... and as it slowed down and landed on Archangel, I definitely felt like it was usable.
I opened my next crystal and pulled sentry, which after a brief disappointment, I realised synergised with the tech/science power sting Mr fantastic synergy. I then ploughed on with the Shang chi challenge and explored up to quest 3, giving me a 4* Nexus. With a choice between Killmonger, Mysterio and someone else forgettable, I chose Killmonger for an evade counter. It was a tough choice, but I felt Killmonger brought more to my account to deal with tricky evades. Luckily, my next two 4* crystals gave me Hit Monkey and Professor X (who I awakened later as well), both evade counters - So I guess the RNG gods really wanted me to have no issue with Evades...
I used the generic gem from Shang Challenge to awaken Archangel, I started completing Act 4, ending up with 2 chapters done. Then I looked back to quest 4 from Shang Chi Challenge. Exploring that would give me my first full 5* when I'm still on 350 shards. This could be huge. I did it one path in the quest at a time, and luckily, new accounts get a lot of units quickly so I felt good about using revives for a 5*. Overall, I think I used 5 or 6? My team was Archangel now rank 4, Professor X rank 4, Killmonger rank 2, Shang Chi maxed 3* and Torch rank 3 3*.
Shang took She hulk, archangel took sunspot, prof X took hit monkey, killmonger took Mr negative and torch took tigra. Archangel then crushed the Shang Chi boss. Taking it one path at a time was very important to keep item use down.
To close out this first week, I opened the first 5* of the challenge. By the time I get to act 6 I won't have too many 5*, so this is one of the few leaders of the charge into act 6 I will be able to use early on. In any case, here was the pull.
It just rolled over YJ, who I would have been over the moon with, so much utility. But hawkeye is decent, his power control is so reliable and I was lacking in that. I'm not disappointed, not blown away.
Notable Pulls
4* Professor X
4* Professor X awakening
4* Archangel
4* Killmonger
4* Hit Monkey
5* Hawkeye
Notable Rank ups
Archangel to rank 4
Professor X to rank 4
Killmonger to rank 2
ShangChi 3* to rank 4
Human Torch 3* to rank 3
Howard the duck 3* to rank 4
Content Completed
Act 1 Ch1-4
Act 2 Ch1-4
Act 3 Ch1-4
Act 4 Ch1-2
Shang Chi Challenge Chapter 1 100%
Up Up Down Down challenge Heroic and Epic difficulty
Heroic EQ completion
Master EQ completion
Plan for next Week
I want to complete Act 4, giving me another 4* and 1k 5* shards. I am considering Master EQ exploration, giving me 2750 5* shards and 4500 4* shards, which is a very sizeable amount. In terms of rank ups, I want to rank 2 Hawkeye and rank 4 my human torch 3* but apart from that I will likely save for future pulls.
At the end of week 1, here’s the roster
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Comments
The challenge i’d set myself was to do it with as barebones a squad as possible. I finished act 6 with no r5s and took 3 champs to r5 for abyss. Also did minimal arena got most of my units snd resources clearing story content and rttl etc.
Wrt to a timeframe, doing it FTP means you’re gonna have to 100% most of act 1-5 to get to l60, will be bit of a slog.
Overall, if you’re a bit lucky with pulls it’s easy enough.
Good luck!
I suppose it depends on which champions I pull.
Who did you end up ranking for your TB rank up?
I had a think btw and took about 4 months of solid play. Without abyss, who knows, would take longer unless there’s some more sop style rewards along the way. When I finish cav eq I’ll potentially have a second T5cc. Got Tb about a month ago.
Yeah, my plan is going to be go through act 6, then complete 7.1 and 7.2 and see where I am. If I have 50% of one class by then, I’ll explore 7.1 and 2 to use the selectors. If not, I’ll start doing variants.
Along the way, I’ll likely need to do some variant content, monthly content etc to get new champs or rank up materials. But that’s my basic plan for now.
I’m gonna work on my 4* roster to get through act 5, and also prepare for some variant content. Completing 2 variants out of 5-7 will give a full 6* which could be huge.
I reckon I can do two variants with 4*s at some point
Even I started a new account today.
My old account is uncollected but the month started to feel boring so I thought of starting the new account
Overview of the week
Last week ended with me wanting to complete Act 4, explore Master's and do a few rank ups. I'm pleased to say all of this and more was done!
I began the week by completing Act 4, I ran through with XP boosts to try and get to that level 45 mark to unlock variants. Act 4 was mostly pretty well handled, no revives used with rank 4 Prof X and Archangel taking most of the brunt of the fights. Even Maestro went down easily (even if I did finish on 1% with archangel, meaning I couldn't parry heavy anymore). I was definitely pleasantly surprised by the rewards
I have always had a soft spot for this guy, and I think he could have a pretty big impact on the account, especially in the hero variant, I remember using him for the Miles boss (who now that I'm thinking about it could actually be a colossal pain in the buff).
I then began doing some incursions, when I realised there were a hell of a lot of 4* shards in the top zone bonuses. I was doing zone 3 and 4, which got me 4500 4* shards and 1750 5* shards. The incursions were pretty straightforward themselves, as I'm only going to zone 10 it wasn't a huge challenge. I actually split up the two runs to get incursion artefacts when the milestones refreshed, so I opened one crystal after the first set, which was a She Hulk. Now, she is a fantastic champion of course, but I just don't know if she's worth the resources right now. If I find there's a need for her, of course, but there aren't a huge amount of places I can imagine myself requiring a she hulk.
Next in the week, I set my sights on exploring Masters. There was a great chunk of 5* shards, and enough 4* shards to open two crystals. The domino in 3.1 actually presented fewer problems than expected, 3* Howard the duck (as much as I hate his sound FX) is a wonderful counter when awakened, base 115% AA you see. Coupled with Mr fantastic and she hulk, the Duck shredded Domino. Nimrod was taken down by my now rank 3 Vision Aarkus, reminding me why I like him, that power gain is so great, his animations are so much fun, and the armour shattered just is incredible. He's a love child of Iceman, Medusa and Hyperion, and damn is he good. Anywho, less drooling over Megamind and onto the rewards...
The first of my 4* crystals was a Massacre, eh, fun champ but not bringing anything to the table. But the next one, oh boy, the next one was perhaps a little too spicy and may have me second guessing whether Kabam Miike has put in a good word with the RNG Gods.
Yup. That'll do nicely.
The next piece of content I completed was 5.1. And here folks, is the first time I found myself struggling with content. This is where the challenge begins in this.. ahem... challenge. Some quests really were tough, flare is actually a really tough node to come up against when your rating is lower than what is expected. A lot of us nowadays think of flare as ooga booga my damage is big, or bring a heal champ like Rogue or Claire and heal back everything, but when you have 3 options at 4/40 and none of them heal - It. Is. Rough.
It was a race against time to finish the fight before I die. In normal content when you're outclassed by the opponent's fat health bar, you just take a little longer, but really it's just as safe. With flare, it's not the same. I mainly used Archangel and tried to finish fights fast, but relying on RNG, that oh so fickle mistress, is not a good idea. On good fights I lost 15% health and had 4 neurotoxins before you could say "bleed and poison". On bad fights, they'd be on 20% before my first neuro and my health bar would be looking equally sorry.
Lemme just say that breakthrough and life transfer were a god send.
In any case, getting the end of the chapter allowed me to open another 4*, and please forum members, remember this is a fun challenge and try and keep your shouts of top 5 skill, and most overrated champ in the game comments to yourselves. Yes, I'm sure we all know who I pulled. And yes, I am going to rank her up.
To round this week out, I completed heroic EQ, for an ultimate crystal and a 4* crystal. Nothing noteworthy about the content, it was heroic. The last 4* of the week was an iceman, could have been ok earlier, but I have evade counters coming out my ears.
Notable Pulls
4* Vision Aarkus
4* Dr Doom
4*
Top 5 SkillElsa Bloodstone4* She Hulk
Notable Rank ups
Dr Doom rank 1-4
Vision Aarkus rank 1-4
5* Hawkeye rank 1-2
Content Completed
Master Exploration
Act 2 chapter 1-2 exploration
Act 4 Chapter 1-4 completion
Act 5 chapter 1 completion
Heroic EQ completion
Incursions sector 3/4 zone 1-10
Plan for next Week
I don't think there's too much interesting I can do this next week, since it's the end of the month. I am going to work through some of the definitely fun objectives, I've done all of the lowest difficulty, but have now unlocked Conqueror ones, and there are some relevant rewards for me like 4*/5* shards. So I think they're just about worth doing.
The incursions will reset so that’ll be a good source of 4* and 5* shards. Growing ever closer to that second 5*!
Apart from that, I want to continue exploring act 2, as there are some units there. I also want to continue the march to level 45 to unlock variants. I'm currently level 39, so I don't think I'll get there by next week but who knows. I have 5 energy refills from compensation I can use to smash out some act 2.
In terms of rank ups I want to rank Doom as my first R5. I have 2 T4CC mystics, and 23/45k fragments. So it's definitely possible. I also want to rank 4 my Elsa as she is a lot of fun.
Here is what the roster looks like at the end of Week 2.
You'll notice that of my 15 4*, EIGHT of them are evade counters. This account may be one of the strongest evade counters in the game. I can have a full war roster with just evade counters. What is going on. Watch my next 4* pulls be Falcon, Heimdal and Nick Fury.
Looking forward to another week!
Obviously to do Abyss you would have to be lucky with your pulls - so there is a fair amount of luck either way. There are a stack of people that probably have the roster but fall into the don't want to Abyss camp.
I'm TB on two accounts both F2P. Cav took maybe two months, TB less than a year but could have been way sooner if I had not thought that Abyss was out of my reach. It loomed larger than it really was.
If I did abyss on this account it would be to get 6* shards, not to get the t5cc. I wouldn’t use it.
This is a perfect example of how the Disagree button gets abused. There is literally nothing in that exchange that warrants disagreement. Zilch.
Spamming disagrees should be treated the same way as spamming posts or threads. It’s non-constructive, appears to be done with nothing more than malicious intent and should be treated as a violation of forums rules. And I suspect there’s ample capability to figure out whether accounts spend more time posting comments or spamming disagrees.
Dr. Zola
To me, it’s just an abusive practice that’s symptomatic of broader dysfunction in the forums in general. If you disagree, post a comment and put it out there for others to react to—that’s what a “forum” is meant to be. Anonymous disagreement is pretty cheap.
Dr. Zola
We should go back to when disagrees were free to view for everyone, so you could see who has disagreed with you. It would definitely stamp out this annoying trend.
I do appreciate this is an annoying part of the forums, however I would ask if everyone could stick to the subject of the thread. I'm more than happy to carry out this conversation in a thread relevant to disagree trolling, I just don't want to have a long debate here. Thanks for everyone raising their points, and please don't anyone take this as a dig or any negative feelings whatsoever @DrZola you know I agree with you on this, @Malreck04 @BlackBoyFly thanks for input as well.
Thanks everyone