Unstable ISO-8 - July 18-24

Unknown

Like most new characters that I'll end up with just a few covers about for the next month, I'm not overly excited about Ms. Danvers, but I am looking forward to tearing things up with a buffed maxed Cap. Shulkie doesn't have enough levels (and certainly won't be getting any ISO) to be useful, but PSY is getting up there, so that should be good. iMags is at 45, the other two are at 15. They won't be getting any use unless there are essential nodes.

I guess the big question now is when to join. Have some travel coming up during the week and don't feel like grinding anything very hard, let alone every 144 minutes. That would be gross.




Oh, and apologies if the silly names were tooooooo silly. I like making them. So I'll probably keep doing that. But I've got no problem sticking in a spoiler with the real ones all neat and correct.

Unknown

...but seriously..does anyone know when first main ends?

Ducky

stephen43084 wrote:

...but seriously..does anyone know when first main ends?

They end when the new ones show up.

squirrel1120

So the nodes change around... good to know. I raised an eyebrow at a 6d event with only 8 nodes, of which several of them are already yellow (normal). I figured as soon as they started scaling much more I'd be shut out pretty quick.

Any tips on the goon only fights? Is it maybe worth it to bring baby-storm along just to keep shaking up the board every 5 red? without a villian making matches, it gets to be quite a drain on health if you aren't getting the colors you need...

Unknown

squirrel1120 wrote:

Any tips on the goon only fights? Is it maybe worth it to bring baby-storm along just to keep shaking up the board every 5 red? without a villian making matches, it gets to be quite a drain on health if you aren't getting the colors you need...

My team for goon only fights that I've been using for a very long time is 1* Storm, CMags, and pretty much anyone who does damage. The third is usually a required character, whatever the super boosted character is, or since I maxed him out Black Panther. As soon as you get 5 red and 5 blue the match is pretty much over. CMags can mostly do this by himself, provided you have 5 blue covers for him, but having MStorm around to zap those meddlesome enviro tiles and battery it up with her green just makes it a wash. I like BP for a third because you can actually leverage his yellow strike tiles with MStorm around, and cleaning house with a Rage of the Panther or two is a good time.

Now if you don't have CMags to use (abuse?), then you're going to have to go another way. The Storm/Thor power hour is a good choice and more readily available. Otherwise it depends on what characters you have to play around with really.

Unknown

stephen43084 wrote:

...but seriously..does anyone know when first main ends?

You mean when the nodes change? It's always at the same time of the day based on last sub, but I don't remember when it was exactly. Maybe noon EST? With the rubberbanding structure of this event there's no particular advantage to wait once you're already in a bracket. You should do the missions once immediately to make sure you get the first time drop and then you can do it again later whenever you want, or not at all. It doesn't matter because there should always be enough points to rubberband later, so the only concern is if you want to get the first time guaranteed drop.

Unknown

squirrel1120 wrote:

So the nodes change around... good to know. I raised an eyebrow at a 6d event with only 8 nodes, of which several of them are already yellow (normal). I figured as soon as they started scaling much more I'd be shut out pretty quick.

Any tips on the goon only fights? Is it maybe worth it to bring baby-storm along just to keep shaking up the board every 5 red? without a villian making matches, it gets to be quite a drain on health if you aren't getting the colors you need...

I've been using OBW to delay the countdown timers and her steal can feed the 2 others, LCap coz he's super boosted and can overwrite a timer tile too and does good damage with his red skill, and your choice of green user... I opt for Punisher or Patch since you probably don't need to worry about the strike tiles given to the enemy goons - LCap skill 5 red/blue can overwrite them if they worry you

dr tinykittylove

I've got a lvl 85 loki with 5 purple. I've done pretty well on goon nodes using him to shuffle the board for 5 purple ap when things look bad. Alternatively, if your cstorm can survive a flamethrower/rocket, getting whacked will make her blast the enemy team 3 times with high-powered tempest. If they don't die from it outright, they'll be easy pickings anyway. Her stun also buys time, and level 5 green does a good job of shaking the board if you collect a lot of green if your heavy hitter can't kill the goon outright.

Unknown

Been using patch obw and hood against goons lvl 140 and its enough to kill them without any use of boost powers, but when they reach lvl 160 i have to start using for sure.

Unknown

Shouldn't Falcon be useful against goons as his blue ability clears enemy tiles?

over_clocked

If you have 4/5 in blue, yes, Falcon is good against slower goons like Pyros or Grenadiers or Snipers/Assassins.

HairyDave

locked wrote:

If you have 4/5 in blue, yes, Falcon is good against slower goons like Pyros or Grenadiers or Snipers/Assassins.

With the proviso that there does need to be enough blue on the board for you to grab the five you need.

(I swear I've had the worst luck with him ever since I got the fourth blue cover - there's never any blue on the board so he gets ganked by rockets)

And wow that Venezuela node is going high! I started my run with it at 160, it hit 172 before I got to it and it had already gone up to 178 by the time I finished

over_clocked

Aw come on 5 blue is not terribly hard to grab. But Falcon is not A+ against goons anyway, unlike the usual suspects oBW and mStorm.

HairyDave

locked wrote:

Aw come on 5 blue is not terribly hard to grab.

It shouldn't be but I've watched him fail so often I think the AI is out to get him

Unknown

Previous PVE grinder here, new to the ways of rubber banding success (which surprisingly worked so well in the Hunt for me)

Is it ideal to grind the valuable nodes a few times before the noon reset? Since it's not like sub with token/hero point rewards... Am I just repeating to get most of the 4 ISO/standard token/boost rewards while still available? Just wondering if I do a pass through at 11:30 since I'll be busy this morning

dr tinykittylove

HairyDave wrote:

locked wrote:

If you have 4/5 in blue, yes, Falcon is good against slower goons like Pyros or Grenadiers or Snipers/Assassins.

With the proviso that there does need to be enough blue on the board for you to grab the five you need.

(I swear I've had the worst luck with him ever since I got the fourth blue cover - there's never any blue on the board so he gets ganked by rockets)

And wow that Venezuela node is going high! I started my run with it at 160, it hit 172 before I got to it and it had already gone up to 178 by the time I finished

Yeah, I'm at 186 on Venezuela now. I went at it with Steve, MNMags because my cmags doesn't have enough covers, and mStorm for emergency board shakeup. Worked surprisingly well, I ended up never usinng Mistress, keeping red for Steve to do the killing with. Between mStorm's green and Mags purple letting me place 5 blue tiles, Venezuela and the other one with hitman, soldier and grenadier was a cakewalk.

Marty17

HairyDave wrote:

And wow that Venezuela node is going high! I started my run with it at 160, it hit 172 before I got to it and it had already gone up to 178 by the time I finished

It's 185 for me, & that's on my 1st go. The scaling is ridiculous. With that level, it should reward better points than under 1,000 (I know it's early but still).

Unknown

locked wrote:

If you have 4/5 in blue, yes, Falcon is good against slower goons like Pyros or Grenadiers or Snipers/Assassins.

Falcon can't keep up with a lot of countdown tiles even at 5 blue, but he does do well against the slow guys as locked said. Where he's also really useful is in those DA/goon hybrid fights. It means once you make two blue matches you can pretty much completely ignore the goon and go about your business, rather than having to make matches of colors you might not want because you're trying to clear a countdown tile in a stupid place before you eat it.

He's also good against Bullseye. Also, **** Bullseye. Annoying little prick that he is.

Moral

Phantron wrote:

stephen43084 wrote:

...but seriously..does anyone know when first main ends?

You mean when the nodes change? It's always at the same time of the day based on last sub, but I don't remember when it was exactly. Maybe noon EST? With the rubberbanding structure of this event there's no particular advantage to wait once you're already in a bracket. You should do the missions once immediately to make sure you get the first time drop and then you can do it again later whenever you want, or not at all. It doesn't matter because there should always be enough points to rubberband later, so the only concern is if you want to get the first time guaranteed drop.

Short answer: there is no timer. No way to game it beyond assuming every 12 hours after the event started that they might change.

Edit: But generally it is 24 hours or 36. At some point the nodes shift from 24 hours from the start of the event to 24 hours from the end. If I remember right, a couple nodes each day stick around an extra 12 hours until they are all switched over.

HairyDave

Marty17 wrote:

HairyDave wrote:

And wow that Venezuela node is going high! I started my run with it at 160, it hit 172 before I got to it and it had already gone up to 178 by the time I finished

It's 185 for me, & that's on my 1st go. The scaling is ridiculous. With that level, it should reward better points than under 1,000 (I know it's early but still).

Just hit 190 on my second pass.

And I appear to be bracket buddies with Ghast. Hi, Ghast!