The Simulator (September 3-10 2014)

Unknown

The rotating nodes makes things more even in terms of difficulty, or at least it lets you know what to expect by the time the last sub come around. Before you never really knew if you're going to get the equivalent of Thor + 2 Pyros on every node at the end or not. Sometimes it works out great, and other times not so much.

dkffiv

So is it just me or is the Hard simulator scaling crazy hard right now? With the Daken nerf and AI Magneto buff the essentials are pretty deadly (if Falcon or Mag gets off the defense tiles its all over), I'm not even going to bother with the level 300 Sentry / Punisher / Storm aoe fest. The Nick Fury node is a **** shoot with him being so high that nuking him before the goons feed him pink is no longer feasible.

Is everyone just going super hard or what? It wasn't scaling this hard in the previous subs until the 10 hour or so mark, with 29 hours to go I don't see how these are possible, especially with Magneto being essentially removed.

FierceKiwi

dkffiv wrote:

So is it just me or is the Hard simulator scaling crazy hard right now? With the Daken nerf and AI Magneto buff the essentials are pretty deadly (if Falcon or Mag gets off the defense tiles its all over), I'm not even going to bother with the level 300 Sentry / Punisher / Storm aoe fest. The Nick Fury node is a **** shoot with him being so high that nuking him before the goons feed him pink is no longer feasible.

Is everyone just going super hard or what? It wasn't scaling this hard in the previous subs until the 10 hour or so mark, with 29 hours to go I don't see how these are possible, especially with Magneto being essentially removed.

My guess is you're grinding way too much my highest levels are 180 for Fury+Goons.

vudu3

vudu3 wrote:

vudu3 wrote:

I had the good fortune of starting PVE this morning with a fresh bracket--I entered in 125th place. The second sub ended a half hour ago and the bracket still only has 318 people in it.

If anyone is thinking of starting late to go for the blue Fury cover I'd suggest you wait until my bracket fills up.

I'm currently in first with 62K points and you'd never have a chance of catching up since you'd be behind a sub. I'll post here again if/when my sub finally fills.

EDIT--4 hours have passed and there are still only 420 people in my bracket. It may never fill up at this rate.

This bracket has been open for well over 24 hours and still only 849 people in it.

I repeat, if you are trying to join late to nab the blue Fury do not start yet. You'll be in for a world of disappointment.

EDIT--almost full. Currently at 953.

Finally, after being open well over 36 hours the bracket is finally full. Feel free to join a fresh bracket guys and gals!

Trisul

vudu3 wrote:

Finally, after being open well over 36 hours the bracket is finally full. Feel free to join a fresh bracket guys and gals!

Strange bracket we are in. Does MMR not affect PvE brackets? (I guess the nodes themselves do the work of scaling.)

Since the bracket has a bunch of slow starters I'm cautiously optimistic about hitting T10.

vudu3

I think a lot of us are waiting until after the current PVP ends to start the last round of Simulator. I ended Round 2 in first place by around 8K points, haven't started Round 3 yet but I'm still in seventh place.

That said, anyone who joined the bracket after Round 2 ended has almost no chance of a high placement so people who would normally push hard might have just given up after seeing the point gap between them and first place. So in that regard you're really only competing with 350 other guys instead of 999.

Unknown

Without Magneto's ability to get you out of almost any PvE scenarios it's also more interesting about when to do your missions. If the missions contineu to scale to 200 or even 300 it would be better to take the points you can get now versus the increased rubberband later on a bunch of missions you can't win. Sentry is powerful, but he demands a significant price for his power and it's fairly cost prohibitive to burn through boosts in PvE compared to PvP. Also, at the level 200+ range you got guys who can withstand a World Rupture combo so even with Sentry, victory is not assured. Perhaps it'd be a better strategy to focus on the normal bracket for the sure thing. I can see a lot of nodes in the hard bracket simply results in 3 downed guys.

Mawtful

Managed to snag progression Beast last night (nearly 16 hours ago now) and slowed down my grind a little bit (thanks, Destiny).
I need Yellow and Green Thor covers, so I only need top 50 to be happy, but I think with a little bit of effort I can probably still hold out for top 10.

Overall this Sim has been pretty fun - I like the Normal -> Hard rotation, which I don't remember seeing before - but I still don't enjoy the 2.5 hour refreshes.

Unknown

Just used all my healthpack to do 1 run for hard and easy. Crazy times... crazy times.

Unknown

Didn't turn out to be as hard as I thought. Daken + Falcon + whoever can still maul everything on just match 3s, though now you've to be more careful on the 'whoever' part. I use X Force but most strong green users can fit there, but since X Force can tank too, might as well stick with him. The toughest node I had was Storm + Sentry + Punisher. Storm acts as an extra lifebar for everyone else and while that's normally not a big deal, when they've super enhanced levels, even Storm takes a while to wear down and I ended up taking a Supernova in the face. Fortunately Sentry did the classic 'cast Sacrifice and then immediately match it' or it would be a lot worse.

dkffiv

Phantron wrote:

Didn't turn out to be as hard as I thought. Daken + Falcon + whoever can still maul everything on just match 3s, though now you've to be more careful on the 'whoever' part. I use X Force but most strong green users can fit there, but since X Force can tank too, might as well stick with him. The toughest node I had was Storm + Sentry + Punisher. Storm acts as an extra lifebar for everyone else and while that's normally not a big deal, when they've super enhanced levels, even Storm takes a while to wear down and I ended up taking a Supernova in the face. Fortunately Sentry did the classic 'cast Sacrifice and then immediately match it' or it would be a lot worse.

Decided to try that on the Jug/BW/IM node, **** that. At lvl262 its nearly impossible to prevent Jug from getting off at least 1 headbutt (6k hit at that level). Barely won, not worth the effort. Even with enhanced strike tiles it takes forever to eat through 2x 12k hp.

Unknown

dkffiv wrote:

Phantron wrote:

Didn't turn out to be as hard as I thought. Daken + Falcon + whoever can still maul everything on just match 3s, though now you've to be more careful on the 'whoever' part. I use X Force but most strong green users can fit there, but since X Force can tank too, might as well stick with him. The toughest node I had was Storm + Sentry + Punisher. Storm acts as an extra lifebar for everyone else and while that's normally not a big deal, when they've super enhanced levels, even Storm takes a while to wear down and I ended up taking a Supernova in the face. Fortunately Sentry did the classic 'cast Sacrifice and then immediately match it' or it would be a lot worse.

Decided to try that on the Jug/BW/IM node, tinykitty that. At lvl262 its nearly impossible to prevent Jug from getting off at least 1 headbutt (6k hit at that level). Barely won, not worth the effort. Even with enhanced strike tiles it takes forever to eat through 2x 12k hp.

Wait what, did you say level 262? My juggernaut/im35/mbw node is only level 111, still kinda easy. That's some harsh scaling on your end.

GrumpySmurf1002

Mine are in the 170-190 range, but I've been using Sentry-MMags-New MHawkeye+Purple/Blue boosts. Team countdown tile! It gets murdered if there's no easy purple matches, but otherwise it makes fairly quick work of the XForce/Fury nodes, and does decent with the essentials.

Still, like most of the event, I cleared the Hard nodes exclusively early, then opened up the normal 36 hrs after it started and focused there the rest of the way. The hard node at this points are gravy. Movement is starting to slow down in that bracket dramatically.

y2fitzy

Have only had one run through the essentials in the last 16hours or so thanks to sleep and work, and have hardly dropped at all in either sub. Kind of bizarre how quiet it is

Still got my Beast. He's marginally less useless now

Trisul

Seems like people overall have enjoyed this one.

It's nice when the points you get are decided more by how long you can last in the missions, as opposed to routine 2.5 hour grinds or massive rubberband rushes. I find it enjoyable balancing high point nodes with real wipe risk.

Phillipes

I have scaled myself out.
Is that even possible? I thought when most nodes are unplayable for me, they are for everyone. Is that wrong ?
I was competing for fury reward, I was first several times.
Now, 10 hours before event end, all nodes are hard or deadly, even essencials. I have lost all healpacks, played maybe 5 nodes. (Not the hardest.)
Im 3rd in main bracet. Those two guys before me make sweeps worth 4000 - 5000 points.
Im able to do only easy part of the SIM !
Im punished for being active and grindy in previous days.

I dont understand why points in nodes have to climb? It makes previous run worthless.
I joined every turney right from the beggining. Was it miskake?
May I play LESS and STILL end First in main ??

dkffiv

Phillipes wrote:

I have scaled myself out.
Is that even possible? I thought when most nodes are unplayable for me, they are for everyone. Is that wrong ?
I was competing for fury reward, I was first several times.
Now, 10 hours before event end, all nodes are hard or deadly, even essencials. I have lost all healpacks, played maybe 5 nodes. (Not the hardest.)
Im 3rd in main bracet. Those two guys before me make sweeps worth 4000 - 5000 points.
Im able to do only easy part of the SIM !
Im punished for being active and grindy in previous days.

I dont understand why points in nodes have to climb? It makes previous run worthless.
I joined every turney right from the beggining. Was it miskake?
May I play LESS and STILL end First in main ??

Whats your roster look like, especially compared to theirs? My jug/bw/iron man node dropped to lvl256 for a reference in scaling.

With a 166 daken/hood and 127 sentry I'm able to clear the hard essential nodes but I need to use 2 health packs on sentry to do it. I'm sweeping normal quite easily without using any health packs, doing the 3 hard essentials plus the goon only node. I've managed to clear the jug/bw/im node every sweep so far using super high level team ups (lvl395 thor abilities from last sub or some 170+ nick fury ones from this one) with my b-team but its been really close most of the time.

If the people you are competing against are boosting sentry I could see clearing all nodes except the punisher/storm/sentry but personally I'm not willing to do that as you more than likely will need 1-3 health packs per node and there's probably a 50%ish chance you're gonna wipe due to rng and bad cascades. If the people you are competing against are dumping HP + ISO's to muscle through the nodes there's not much you can do about that.

GrumpySmurf1002

Phillipes wrote:

I have scaled myself out.
Is that even possible? I thought when most nodes are unplayable for me, they are for everyone. Is that wrong ?
I was competing for fury reward, I was first several times.
Now, 10 hours before event end, all nodes are hard or deadly, even essencials. I have lost all healpacks, played maybe 5 nodes. (Not the hardest.)
Im 3rd in main bracet. Those two guys before me make sweeps worth 4000 - 5000 points.
Im able to do only easy part of the SIM !
Im punished for being active and grindy in previous days.

I dont understand why points in nodes have to climb? It makes previous run worthless.
I joined every turney right from the beggining. Was it miskake?
May I play LESS and STILL end First in main ??

- Yes, it's possible to scale yourself out on the hard nodes. Should be pretty close to impossible in the Normal nodes (Spidey-Doom and Triple Deadpool are becoming a hassle, but still manageable)
- If you can clear the Normal nodes, you should be ok, unless you were already trailing. If you were 3rd at the end of the 2nd set of subs, you have to outplay the people above you to catch up. That doesn't mean getting into 1st with 36hrs to go, because they likely haven't cleared their nodes while you did.
- No, you can't play less and finish first, unless you join really late, and even then, you're against people that also joined late and will likely play optimally from that point, which you can't match.

Unknown

Phillipes wrote:

I have scaled myself out.
Is that even possible? I thought when most nodes are unplayable for me, they are for everyone. Is that wrong ?
I was competing for fury reward, I was first several times.
Now, 10 hours before event end, all nodes are hard or deadly, even essencials. I have lost all healpacks, played maybe 5 nodes. (Not the hardest.)
Im 3rd in main bracet. Those two guys before me make sweeps worth 4000 - 5000 points.
Im able to do only easy part of the SIM !
Im punished for being active and grindy in previous days.

I dont understand why points in nodes have to climb? It makes previous run worthless.
I joined every turney right from the beggining. Was it miskake?
May I play LESS and STILL end First in main ??

well I am also a grinder and the only top 3* characters I have is a level 155 LDaken and L140 Sentry. I was grinding thru out the 7 days and now sit in #1 with 185k points. Yes the later sub nodes offer a lot of points and as someone pointed out, every lead you have is basically cut in half when a new sub node came out.

I was clearing all nodes in the first sub, to clearning 6-7 nodes in sub 2, and due to scaling I am only able to clear the 3 essential in hard. I'm also clinging on by a thread as I'm constantly swapping places with the #2 player. At least I'm about 22k up on #3.

When this started my intention was not Nick Fury. It was top 10 finish with 3 Lthor covers. I am surprise my grinding strategy held up this well. I also noticed many in the top 10 are pulling 3-5k runs per refresh which I can no longer compete. But I have a big enough lead that with 8hrs to go I Should be ok. My essential hard nodes are sitting at lvl 187-219 and I amassed 185k points with 8hrs to go. So you can compare this and see if you grinded too much or too little. I never skipped sleep either.

as long as you can at least do the essentials. You should be able to finish top 10 and this is quite the achievement considering it is out of 1000 players. The top 2 all comes down to luck and if you have another version of yourself competing. At that point, it is really just who spends more hp/health packs or have a better roster + did that extra grind into 3am in the morning and missed some sleep.

dkffiv

GrumpySmurf1002 wrote:

Phillipes wrote:

I have scaled myself out.
Is that even possible? I thought when most nodes are unplayable for me, they are for everyone. Is that wrong ?
I was competing for fury reward, I was first several times.
Now, 10 hours before event end, all nodes are hard or deadly, even essencials. I have lost all healpacks, played maybe 5 nodes. (Not the hardest.)
Im 3rd in main bracet. Those two guys before me make sweeps worth 4000 - 5000 points.
Im able to do only easy part of the SIM !
Im punished for being active and grindy in previous days.

I dont understand why points in nodes have to climb? It makes previous run worthless.
I joined every turney right from the beggining. Was it miskake?
May I play LESS and STILL end First in main ??

- Yes, it's possible to scale yourself out on the hard nodes. Should be pretty close to impossible in the Normal nodes (Spidey-Doom and Triple Deadpool are becoming a hassle, but still manageable)
- If you can clear the Normal nodes, you should be ok, unless you were already trailing. If you were 3rd at the end of the 2nd set of subs, you have to outplay the people above you to catch up. That doesn't mean getting into 1st with 36hrs to go, because they likely haven't cleared their nodes while you did.
- No, you can't play less and finish first, unless you join really late, and even then, you're against people that also joined late and will likely play optimally from that point, which you can't match.

I think I wiped on the Torch Widow Brawler node with 2-3 B teams one night when my A-team was down from messing with Hard nodes. They were scaled up to like 70 or 80 and it was impossible to outdo BW's heal from being fed blue and torch's stupid green kept ticking. By the time I'd get enough for an ability Widow would chain enough for a recon.

Level 90-100 deadpools aren't much of a threat since they only have 2 attack colors, you just need to remember to always target the highest HP one first. A single AOE nearly wipes them out.