Should I Buy This Character? How to Decide

This article is aimed at early to mid-game players. End-game players may not find any new discoveries here 🤷

We've all been there, whether new players or veterans. You open the in-game store and see that one toon everyone's hyping up or one that you haven't seen in a while, and the immediate question comes to mind - Should I buy you?

In this blog post, I'll break down some reasons to splurge or wait on a store offer. It's written with early to mid-game players in mind. Ideally, this article won't tell you who you should buy, but give you tips on how to make the decision yourself.

Never buy anything from the shop. Save your Essence Gems for gears and refreshes!

Is what many players may tell you. While there are some merits to this argument, it is mostly dated.

Essence Gems are much easier to come by nowadays. Raids, the new Colosseum Event, Offerwall, and ADs, are just some of the new sources in which you can acquire Gems since the saying was popularized.

You are always encouraged to make your own judgment; this is your game, and you play it how you want to.

Let's look at some reasons to buy or skip a character! Not all points will have equal weights and I'll convey it within each reason's description.

When Should I Buy a Character?

The character is objectively good

This might very well be the easiest call to make. Check the WOWL Tier List, Community Tier List, or the combined Oracle Tier List. Is the toon S-Tier or at least a very high A-Tier? You might want to invest in them.

For this point, I'd suggest you only make the purchase if it's a good deal and, more importantly, if you understand why the character is considered good. Keep in mind that many times, a good toon only becomes great at a specific minimal level.

The character solves an issue for you

Do you find yourself refreshing the PvP boards just a bit too often because you simply can't deal with that irritating toon? Many of the most annoying characters have already received hard counters, and if you keep your eyes peeled, who knows, you might just find the perfect counter in the store!

It's completely reasonable to buy a toon that will help you advance further by solving an issue that was holding you back.

Just one more!

With over 200 characters and a whole lot of ways to acquire fragments, you're destined to find yourself in a situation missing just a tiny bit more to make a good toon great. If you're absolutely sure pulling the trigger on a single pack will greatly benefit a toon you use often, go for it.

However, do note, that if the toon is available on the Void Scanner, the more common approach is to save up the spins and test your luck for when they appear.

This is a deal you can't refuse!

The content in the table below is provided by the DCL Oracle website and is automatically updates regardless of the article release timeframe.

One major benefit to the game showing its age is the fact that we've been there and seen it all (almost). By analyzing past deals, we can easily distinguish between genuine bargains and not-so-great ones. Let's take a look at this handy table of deals:

The PPF (Price Per Fragment) is the key info we're interested in. It ranges from 14 to 80, with the average around 40. A PPF of 30 or below is considered objectively good, and anything at 25 or below is a fantastic deal!

So, if you find a character you've been eyeing with a PPF of 30 or less, you can be confident that it's a smart purchase!

The one.

Don't let anyone tell you that you shouldn't buy Beast Boy to complete your greenest characters collection!

Bias warning, this is my favorite reason to splurge on a sale!

It's your favorite DC Universe character, they have sentimental value to you or complete a collection. Pretty straightforward, the number one goal in playing the game is to have fun with it. While I do understand some people having fun from being competitive, realistically, the minimal amount of Gems you'd save by holding back wouldn't matter in the big picture.

When Should I Not Buy a Character?

Character is readily available

Many of the greatest characters in the game can actually be obtained for free through events, R.E.D. Alerts, and Campaign. While it might be tempting to pounce on a good toon sale. If they're farmable, you might want to hold back.

The campaign rewards rarely change, so there's no need to buy energy to rush farming a character. We've seen one refresh over a year ago at the time of writing this article, with no signs of a change coming soon.

Generally, R.E.D. Alerts character poll changes once every 4 months. By now, you should be able to do the math and decide if it's worth refreshing R.E.D. Alerts for a character you want. Keep in mind that clearing the event grants you 120 Gems which reduces the refresh cost.

Check the R.E.D. Alerts Calendar to see when the characters you're looking for are coming and plan the best days to refresh.

The character is new

New character deals are always bad. Not only that, but you can also obtain both the Event Free Toon and the Siege Toon to L5 and L3-4, respectively, easily just by playing the game during the month and the following one!

The deal is just bad

In "This is a deal you can't refuse," we discussed the various types of store deals available in the store based on the data table. Going back to it, we can assume that any PPF of 40 (Price Per Fragment) is a subpar deal, and anything above it is flat-out bad.

It's that time of the year - October-December

The end of the year is a packed season for the DCL store. One can speculate that the marketing team needs to show profits before the end of the year. Whether this is true or not, the special sales we've been getting year after year are!

Make sure to start saving your Essence Gems in October (or even September if your Gem income is low).

The two major events you should be ready for are the DC Legends Anniversary, which happens at the end of November, and the 12 days of Christmas, near the end of the year.

Not all the offers during these events will be great, and you should apply your own judgment. However, it's safe to assume there will be at least two great deals in each event!

So... We loosely defined some buying rules. However, there are a few characters that stand out as exceptions. At the time of writing this blog, four characters shine brighter than the rest of the DC Legends roster in terms of immediate value;

Spectre: Spirit of Vengeance

Spectre is a swiss army knife the size of a machete. – M4Y15

This wraith needs no introduction. M4 perfectly summed him up in one sentence. Since the release of DC Legends, we have not seen a single entity as formidable as the reworked Spectre.

Spectre provides massive damage, permanent intelligence ups, a speed buff, and is getting stronger with every kill. It's no wonder the Spectre is a must-have. While many toons nowadays offer each of these features, none provide a complete package as the Spirit of Vengeance! In most cases, getting a kill with him on your team guarantees a match win.

Unlike the other characters on this list, it's hard to pinpoint one or two specific abilities that make Spectre the monster he is. His kit is just that cohesive. If for some reason you haven't read it yet, you probably should check it out!

Superwoman: Earth 3 Lois Lane

Whippin' them Raid Bosses to the ground!

Begone, Raid boss! Lois is the Raid Boss slayer. Released in early 2021, some newer characters and reworks are starting to catch up to her Raid Boss damage levels. However, she still reigns as the queen thanks to her unmatched heavy damage and crit-based kit. With permanent buffs and swift attack animations, she's the ideal pick against most raid bosses.

At the time of writing this article, any semi-competitive alliance will likely require you to have Lois leveled up.

The Question: Renée Montoya

One move and one passive to make any trash toon faster than Penguin and hurt more than your ex. – Windigroo

Renée is one of the best support characters to add to your arsenal! She excels at calling assists, removing pesky immunity buffs, evasion countering, transferring debuffs for free, and granting team-wide turn meter-ups. Focus! this is not a blog about The Question! Her kit is incredibly versatile, and I suggest you take deep dive into it if you haven't. You'll find out, she's probably the answer you've been searching for!

If I must pick one ability from The Question's kit to highlight, I'd have to agree with Windigroo's quote and choose her 2nd ability. By the way, the other ability he was referring to was her 4th.

Lex Luthor: Survival Support Suit

Previously dubbed as the worst character in the game, SS: Lex is the prime example for why you should always farm your shards!

An exception to the list of exceptions, Lex can be farmed in the campaign. In fact, he's available in 7(!) farmable nodes. You'll be perfectly right to not spend on him. However, he's a prime example of spending a few gems that can take you a long way!

SS: Lex's true superpower lies in his leadership ability, granting near infinite team heals, which in his case, is the 4th ability - only needing Rank 4 to unlock! If you haven't used Lex, you'll find him to be really good, especially early-game when one-shotting is not as common. If you can't kill 'em - out sustain 'em!

This list of characters was compiled with additional insights from the following community members: BMWL1975, Burger82, Dlaiuppa, Doom, Feldmast, Firewings, M4Y15, WaSar, and Windigroo. Thank you!

This was meant to be a short article...

This is my first, and probably last blog post for a while, as my focus is mostly on the Oracle website development. It was a ton of fun to take a break from the code and contribute to the blog! Thank you for reading!

We're working on integrating comments into the Oracle Blog. In the meantime, let's discuss this article on our Discord server!