Diablo-type games balance on a see-saw of distribution and acquisition; the games explode with loot while giving you limited space to store all of your treasures. The agonizing decision of what to keep in your precious inventory space is a minigame unto itself (and probably helps us from becoming digital hoarders).
Everyone I’ve met in Marvel Heroes has, at one time, struggled with how to handle the game’s inventory space. When starting out a new account, you’ll be given a 60-slot character inventory (shared between all characters) and a single 48-slot S.T.A.S.H. (bank) tab. Now, 108 slots might sound like a lot, but that’s only before you see how much stuff you’ll end up picking up in Marvel Heroes and how many types of goodies there are.
To make matters worse for space-limited players, right now there’s no way to earn more S.T.A.S.H. tabs without forking over cash. So how do you get a handle on your inventory before it buries you? I’ve formulated a few strategies over the past year that have served me well.
Team-up, pack mule. Same difference.
The first thing I recommend to anyone looking for more inventory space is to get ahold of a team-up companion as soon as possible. Not only are team-ups great, but they come with a 30-slot inventory (which is shared between all team-up characters). It’s certainly a nice perk.
I use my team-up inventory to hold three types of loot: pets (which I have on hand to swap out for specific bonuses), potions, and relics. Relics are somewhat hard to come by in great numbers, so you don’t want to be throwing any of those out, even though there are about 14 different types of them.
Cash for S.T.A.S.H.
This is my opinion, but unless you’re a masochist or are limiting yourself to only one or two characters, you’re really, really going to want to spend some cash for more S.T.A.S.H. tabs. No, I’m not trying to make Gazillion’s sale for it, but Marvel Heroes is really the type of game where you could pick up something one day and not realize that it’s incredibly rare and useful. To a limited extent, you’re going to want to save a lot of stuff up for future possibilities, and that’s going to require space.
A regular S.T.A.S.H. tab is 500Gs. There are cheaper tabs dedicated to specific characters and crafting mats, both of which have their uses. If you were a new player and were asking for my advice, I’d say to buy at least two more regular tabs and one crafting tab. That would give you enough breathing room for a while, at least.
Now, there is the rumor-slash-somewhat-confirmed-statement that some day in the future, S.T.A.S.H. tabs will be sold for eternity splinters. If and when that happens, there will be much rejoicing because tabs remain one of the few things you can’t earn in-game. It might be worth saving up some splinters on the side! Gazillion also gave out a free tab for the game’s one-year anniversary, although this action was not repeated this past June.
So what do I keep?
Figuring out what’s worth hanging on to and what should be either vendored or fed to the enchanter and crafter to level them up is really the key to keeping an inventory under control. Not every artifact or unique is useful, which is why you’ll often see a player on social asking the community if an item he or she found has worth. This and this site should be bookmarked for such evaluations.
Here’s a list of what I recommend:
- I like to keep my character inventory as free as possible, especially during events in which I’m collecting a lot of loot boxes (Midtown Monday, ICP, Odin’s Bounty). All I hang on to there are a couple of stacks of med kits and a couple of odds and ends (such as sentinel torsos and pots overflowing from my team-up inventory).
- As I said earlier, keep all relics. In fact, when you get four duplicates of a hero’s unique, turn them in to the crafter to get a stack of relics to add to the pile.
- Some space should be allotted to costumes and ultimate upgrade tokens, especially if you haven’t acquired those characters yet.
- Keep several stacks of each type of tier-6 crafting mat along with matrices and unstable molecules. Mats can be broken down into lower tiers, so you really only need tier-6s in storage. This is why I like having a crafting tab, but it’s your call.
- I have one tab for uniques and one for artifacts. I generally only keep one of each type — and only level 60s at that. It’s easy to tell which ones are total junk, but if you have a doubt or it looks as if it might have a purpose in a specific build, check it out and hang on to it.
- If you have plans to acquire more than one team-up, keep any cosmic (yellow) team-up items! These are fairly rare and really helpful to kitting out your companion.
- Cosmic rings are sometimes worth keeping, especially if in the upper 50s or level 60. I also hang on to any cosmic medallions, since those give out a valuable +2 to all ranks buff.
- It’s easy to get overwhelmed by insignias, uru-forged items, and costume cores. I have a small number of each of these, but they’re easier to acquire and thus not as important to keep in great quantities.
- If you do have character tabs, use those if at all possible! Character tabs not only hold that hero’s gear, but costumes, upgrade tokens, rings, costume cores, and insignias.
One last tip: Vaporize!
It’s a beginner’s mistake to assume that all loot that explodes out of enemies and chests is worth keeping. In fact, much of it is pure trash, there to pad the lootsplosion experience. If you’ve done the smart thing and leveled up your crafter and enchanter to level 20, then what you’ll want to do is go to your gameplay options and scroll down to where it says “vaporize slot gear by rarity.”
Basically what this does is allow you to tell the game what quality loot should be instantly disposed of when it comes out into the field. I’ll fiddle with this depending on what character I’m playing, but generally a lower-level character will have all loot less than purple vaporized, a mid-level character will have all loot less than cosmic vaporized, and a high-level character will have everything less than uniques trashed.
If you have a pet (slotted, it doesn’t matter if you have it following you or not), then vaporized gear will go to leveling up its bonus bars. You will have to hand-feed it its eight uniques, however. If you don’t have a pet, then you get a miniscule amount of credits back for each vaporized piece, but generally it’s not worth the space and time to pick up and sell them anyway. You’ll still be getting a lot of other types of loot, so don’t freak out that you’re missing out on the fun.
Good luck with keeping that inventory trim and organized!
