Farming source marks - to raise CR or not?

Hi everyone

I'm at CR 62 and farming source marks to upgrade my CR. However I also want to spend source marks on some of those materials and auras that use them as currency.

My question is should I spend my source marks on upgrading my CR so I can do higher tier instances? Do higher tiers reward you with more source marks? If they give us the same amount then I'd be better off keeping my CR where it is so I can keep farming the lower tier instances, no?

If higher tiers give more source marks then I can see it being worthwhile to spend what I currently have to upgrade myself so I can do those higher tiers, at which point I'll be able to farm them faster.

I would think higher tiers have greater rewards, but I read that once you reach certain CR break points the lower tiers no longer reward you with source marks, giving higher CR players no choice but to farm the higher tiers regardless if they gave the same or greater amounts of marks.

Can anyone enlighten me please? Thanks in advance!!!

I believe any missions drop gear regardless, you technically don't really have to spend any source marks to raise your CR as long as you are running the highest level content you can for the gear as well as event missions. There are certain spots in CR you can "sit" at, not collecting gear, to farm source marks because you have the largest amount of relevant content to run, but I believe the only real reason to farm many source marks is for artifact catalysts and to catch up on cosmetics and collections you want to buy from vendors (which wouldn't be very hard to get as you level, unless you want absolutely everything in a quicker time lol.)

Do level up your character to end-game level, but personally I don't use source marks on vendor gear for cr cultivation.

Main gear drops before Amazon Fury III have fixed item level so I can raise my cr pretty fast just by opening those.
There are also additional tier-based scaling gearboxes from instances so do use them wisely.
Stockpile 240+ scaling gear (also available from Vault and Event Episode) to strategically jump cr starting from AF3.
Vendor gear does have its uses when a particular part just isn't dropping for you, but the only reason for me to buy them is the style feats that come with them, that means I usually stray away from accessories like rings and necklaces.

You want to do higher-tiered missions for one simple reason: that's where the bulk of players are at.
Not a lot of people do older episodes, so trying to maximise your source mark earnings in those when grouping up is an uphill battle on its own is not that easy.
Episode currency will convert to source marks after some time so there's another advantage high cr has in this regard.
The strategy I recommend is just do anything that gives you source marks at that moment of time while moving up the ladder.

Don't forget to use those source marks for artifacts levelling, since the percentage and (at the very least) level 80 bonus make quite a difference.

Okay, so you'll get the same amount of source marks regardless of the CR. A duo always gives 2, whether it's a tier 1 duo or a tier 9. And once your CR hits a certain point, you stop getting marks from lower level content. So if you're at the CR for tier 6 stuff, you won't get any marks for doing tier 4. If you look at your on duty tab, each instance will tell you what CR range gives marks. Even if you're above the CR range, you'll still get the other rewards like gear and base items though, so you can always go back to lower level stuff to finish off a style or investigation or whatever.

Now, whether you buy vanity items or upgrade your CR....I feel like that's on you to decide. You can keep upgrading your CR with gear drops and never spend a single source mark on them. Mission reward boxes usually offer two different pieces of gear and one base item and you get to pick one of them. But those rewards are based on your CR average, so upgrades are small, and if you're wearing a piece of gear that's above average a loot box won't give you an upgrade for that at all. It takes longer to increase your CR this way but it will be increasing, and without you spending marks to do it.

For example, I've been running the Metal Part 2 stuff with a low level alt, and I've been mostly focused on getting the base items from the mission rewards. I only pick the gear option when the base item they offer isn't one I want. Metal part 2 hit what, two months ago or so? And I've gone from CR 110 to CR 123 without even trying. If I wanted to just increase my CR it'd probably be ten points higher than it is, but I've been decorating my base and league hall with all the Thanagar stuff. It's a slow process but my CR has gone up and I've saved a ton of source marks.

If you rely on mission reward boxes for CR, be smart about it. Not all gear pieces increase your CR by the same amount, and you should always look to replace your lower level gear first.

Have you considered making a toon just to farm marks for the vanity stuff? Just about all of those auras and accessories are account bound (if not fully tradeable) so you could buy it with one toon, put it in your shared bank, and equip it to another.

All your suggestions make a lot of sense guys I will take all your suggestions and just increase CR through drops and save my source marks for the vanity items or other things like artifact levelling (once I figure out what that is lol!)

Ascended that's some very good info there, very well explained! If the easier instances give just as many source marks as the harder ones I might as well farm where I am, unless I want shorter queue times like Catastrophic said. However how would having a low level toon help in farming marks if you get the same amount regardless of CR level? I can imagine having a small army of minions farming marks every day and eventually they can each buy something. Is that what you meant?

CR advancement can come exclusively from gear drops so you can save your source marks for styles whether it's styles you want to wear or to complete style feats to gain SP. You probably will run in to situations where you're like "the chest piece hasn't dropped and if I just buy that vendor chest piece I'll be able to play the next tiered content" in which case, the choice is up to you if you want to be patient or not.

FYI, on average the value of exobytes from salvaged gear usually exceeds the value of base items in the broker economy. You'd probably do better to choose gear, salvage it, sell the exobytes and buy the base items you want. But there are more than one way to skin a cat and the beauty of life is we are free to choose our own way.

I'd be cautious about spending Source marks on styles, I say that because I started a new character and have had moments where I couldn't get into instances for gear because I guess no one was running that particular content. Or moments when gear that I needed just wouldn't drop to increase my cr up that one point to get to the next tier. And with open episodes ending soon I don't know if que times will get better/worse/or stay the same.

Thanks for the word of caution, SugarHoneyIcedTeaMix! Sounds like it mirrors what Catastrophic Repercussion said, that queues are shorter at higher tiers so the sooner I get there the less time I'd waste in queues

Without more information, I am going to presume this is your first character, given you don't yet know what the future holds. This advice only really applies if this is your first character.

Raise your CR. You've got to run for the endgame, so that you have a character that can run the endgame content. Your endgame content is going to be throttled by lootlocks. And as you reach those later Episodes, they will have their own Episode specific currency to buy the tier gear. At that point, Source Marks cease being useful for advancing your gear, and blowing them on Materials, Catalysts, Styles, or Qwarks is all you have left to do with them. While you will not get extra Source Marks at the later levels, you will no longer need them for your gear, so you do start to see a greater stockpile of them build up.

Second thing to recall is, those Materials and Auras and such... they're tradable. You can just play your main like normal, and if you have a level 30 alt that only logs in daily to run the Vault, eventually that alt will stockpile up enough Source Marks to buy that Material for you without you ever having to spend the stuff that your main needed for gear.

My actual wording is "grouping up is an uphill battle on its own", and the reason for that is it's not just about on-duty queues, open-world group content like Bounties and sometimes Weekly Mob Murders is where the real headache is.

Here's a tip: use LFG (you can turn that on in settings) and when permissible, advertise your run as a feat run!
For example, call for "doing Four Corners" when grouping for Assault and Battery.
It would be easier to find people this way but remember this requires you to read up if there are feats that you are capable of attempting and how to attempt them to avoid false advertisement.
This means don't waste time on doing hard feats like Uncorrupted nor do multiple-runs/grind like demons killing that'll require you to play Unholy Matrimony for several hours when your primary goal is just the gear drop (unless you're willing to do so of course).

There are definitely sweet spots for source marks farming.

The t2 brainiac duos have a ton of long progressive feats in them and they tend to pop, but the t2 and t3 raids don't pop often.

T5 is a really good range to farm-- you can get a ton of marks from doing the Trigon open world missions regularly and those duos generally have short wait times. People run dox and Nexus pretty frequently also. If you stop at cr100 ish you can run the TD alert which pops frequently also. And the Amazon duos too.

Between t5 and t6 you have a little less open world marks but more raids. At one point those used to pop all the time but lately they've gotten really slow.

T7 is all about duos and alerts. Demons plan and phantom zone but the raids tend to take a while to get into.

Whatever content the current cr-skip lands you at also tends to be popular

Thanks for the glimpse into the future, Brit It's good to know what to expect. Yes this is my highest CR toon, as when I played a few years ago I mainly did PvP and never advanced my PvE CR. Now I think I get the point Ascended was making about having an alt farm source marks - so that my main is free to use his own marks for CR advancement.

Sorry Catastrophic Repercussion I thought you were talking only about on-duty queue times; I didn't think about grouping up for open world content. You make a good point about reading up on which runs have which feats and if I can do them.

Thanks for identifying the sweet spots, L T!!! I don't quite know where to find all of those but I'll look them up when I get to that level

If I am levelling a toon as long as its below cr 230, you can get 3 sources of Source Marks: current cr content, doomsday content and event content. This range of cr is the best area to farm source marks. The problem is getting enough players into the earlier content and getting your marks. If you are able to do that, I suggest to keep your cr below 230.

If you don't want to keep the toon below cr to save as much source marks, then just as others have advised, after you pass the doomsday cr just level up through drops and continue doing the current cr content and event content; so that you are progressing up and saving source marks as well.

The On Duty tab can help with figuring out where cutoffs for Mark rewards begin and end, even if you're just looking at the 1 player/solo content queue section.

Also, beyond what L T mentioned and don't mind sticking to solo content, there is one more spot to get some good Mark returns. Tier 3 content will give you the solos but also should keep you in range for the Lightning Strikes version of Central City, and unless they've changed the rewards there you should be able to get 2 Marks per solo mission there. It's been a while since I've had a character in that range, though, so it might not hurt to double check the reward screen when you take the mission.

Hi inferno thanks for your tips! But could you please elaborate on what you meant by the three sources of marks?
-Current CR content
-Doomsday content
-Event content (I assume this is the event version of the current DLC, in this case Metal II?)

willflynne that's excellent to hear! Despite being Premium I do own Lightning Strikes so I'm happy to hear its solo mission gives 2 marks instead of the usual 1. Thanks for that, dude

Personally, if I'm looking for source marks specifically, especially if you are looking to accumulate them for styles you need or catalysts to work up some artifacts...or even to power level up. You will get the same marks regardless of the level, but there are some spots with more runs to get into, and content which can be blown through quickly. CR100-103 is a good spot (Can't remember the exact point you lose Dox and Nexus...don't have game in front of me), with 5 or 6 raids that will not only pay out 10 marks for the run, but have a good amount of bosses which will have a source in the loot chooser. You can still farm doomsday and the event runs and collect but don't open the gear, and accumulate a few sets of runs in these raids. On Thursday/Friday LFG will have people looking for bodies to get into these raids strictly to get the source, or you can just queue up while doing outdoor stuff. Once you fill up on gear boxes, you can open all of them at once and boost your CR well past relevancy for 103 , but should end up in the next sweet spot at 113 CR...there are about 14 raids (counting DD 10+ raid and event raids) that you will get source from and most only take 10 min or less to run, once the queue pops. This IMHO is the best point if you are looking to strictly 'farm' source marks without using replays.

I wouldn't spend any source on tier gear unless you are looking to rocket up to current CR...buying tier gear will definitely do that and you can buy cheap stuff all the way to Atlantis gear at about 100 source marks a set. The issue with getting into the higher CRs quickly is you lose content you can run for source. At 263 you lose Doomsday and Titans content, at 276, you cannot get source from the event on-duty runs or Atlantis, and at 286 you will only get source from Metal 1 and 2 content, and some of those runs you might not be able to get into or complete if you are still low CR/SP (from your other 'just getting back' thread...I'd guess you are)...and they will take a lot longer to complete at a minimum, assuming you get in.

I could be off a number or 2 on the CR relevancies (I'm sure someone will fact check it), so make sure to look at On-duty to fact check the exact numbers.

Reinheld

EDIT...just saw your message to willy. Yeah, thought you were going member...if premium, you'd lose your ability to run stuff after tomorrow's free eps are gone, or low level stuff like FOS/batcaves. Regardless you will get doomsday marks up till 262, so power leveling still takes that out of the mix and gains nothing as a premium.

Well, first off, I suggest listening to everyone about the que times. Those are murder at low level. If you get into a good league, you can often find people to run the low end stuff with you, but you're relying on the charity of others y'know? And unless they have low level alts of their own, you're asking them to run content they get nothing out of.

Anyway, I suggest an alt for two reasons; first you can focus your main character on leveling your CR and reaching endgame, and use your alt to get those vanity items you want. So you get both, although you'll be splitting play time between multiple characters.

And a character starting out, if you do nothing but the solo missions and the side missions in each open world zone (Metropolis/Gotham), will net you around 100 source marks by the time you hit level 30. Once you figure out what you're doing you can level a character to 30 really, really fast. And once you hit 30 you get some missions; "Complete all tier 1 duo's" and such, which will reward more marks very quickly and easily. Most of the vanity items start at 100 marks, so its a good jump on those prices.

You can get as many source marks (or more) just as quickly by doing raids and group content, but at low level your que times are awful so you could be sitting there half the night waiting, whereas by leveling an alt you're not just being idle.

The stuff I salvage usually goes into leveling my artifacts or augments or whatever they are. Otherwise I probably would do what you suggest.

All duos net 1 mark, all solos net 1, all alerts net 3 Mark's, all raids net 10. Now elite raids can net 12 or 13 Mark's but that's the only difference between low level and the end game. But at end game it's easier to have stuff pop / queue then lower level content.