Nonconventional farming, math is your friend

So I know it is generally frowned upon to use your gems on purchasing the hero fragment packs, however I wanted to present the math on the topic so we have a good understanding of what it actually entails, and what can be gained or lost.

First thing is first, the fragments pulled will consist of a single character. there are 9 characters who can only be obtained from opening these packs: bizaro, black cannery, Shazam, deadshot hg, joker cpoc, mirror master, raven, sinestro WL, and superman. This is quite a few characters exclusive to these packs. I will also say the all of the single node characters except black Adam appear in these packs. So there are 16 character who are "desirable", contained in these packs. That's about 57% of the pack contents.

So we need to determine how to compare these packs to the value of normal grind farming. The commonality of gems is as close as we get. Math time: you can buy energy in the shop for gems at a rate of 2 gems per energy regardless of which pack you get, the only minor benefit is the bonus of speed force in the 500 gem pack.

That all being said, how does this calculate on the value of a fragment from pve? Well, each node can be run up to 3 times and with the assumed drop rate of 1/3, that is 1 fragment per heroic node completed. The costs for a node completion range from 30 in chapter 1, and increase with each chapter. Chapter 2 & 3 cost 36, chapter 4 & 5 is 42, chapter 6 & 7 is 48 and chapter 8 is 60. You now multiply each total of energy expenditure by 2 to get the equivalent gems. So 60, 72, 84, 96, and 120.

The value of each of the packs for hero shards are 900 gems for 10 fragments, 2200 for 25, and 4000 for 50. These breakdown to 90 gems per fragment, 88 gems per fragment, and 80 gems per fragment respectively.

So to draw our comparisons, the general farming rates range from 60-120 gem equivalent energy spent per fragment. While the packs range from 80-90 per fragment, contained well within the range of what we have equated the normal farming to.

The decision is still yours to make as to if you want to take that lottery like chance on the packs or have a bit more control over your farming habits. I will also remind you that the game generously provides around 67008500 gems per month between the login bonus and dailies.

I hope you at least feel more informed now, enjoy.

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OgreBarberian, math is your friend