The Hulk - Jan 7 - 11

FaustianDeal

lukewin wrote:

I thought they said they were looking at trying to balance how to continue distributing more ISO and HP, which is what they said they had been doing.

They must have decided the balance had shifted too far in the direction of people being able to earn HP. They probably crunched the numbers on how many people had to buy HP to open a roster spot for Luke Cage and decided that number was too low. That, or since there isn't a (truly) new character being awarded for this PVE they are going to cheap out on giving HP since we don't all need to buy a roster spot when its over?

RemoDestroyer

Or will more players buy a roster slot because of this tournament? Is earning the top progression in the Hulk more accessible to most players than placing in the top 150 was in The Simulator?

Unknown

Twoslot wrote:

Add cage to the mnmag-stique combo and hulk doesn't get à turn once you hit 9 purple. Then jab jab jab when you hit 30 black.

Yes, really powerful combo and fun to play. My Hulk node is at level 362. Downed him 2 times with this.
However, I'm not sure how the combo goes with 3 or 4 Infiltration covers. For me the MNmag+Mystique combo
started to shine after I got 5th Infiltration cover.

VonMatterhorn

Wow. This tournament is super stingy with HP. Only 25 for T10 in subs?

ISO-8 Brotherhood not too long ago was giving 50 HP for T50 in subs! Same 12 hrs, 2 concurrent subs format, and I think it also had 1000 player brackets. What gives?

Unknown

Haven't run out of health packs in a long time, sheesh. I was almost done anyway - I can't bring myself to grind nodes to 0 when they're so low in pt totals. No idea how y'all do it!

fmftint

VonMatterhorn wrote:

Wow. This tournament is super stingy with HP. Only 25 for T10 in subs?

ISO-8 Brotherhood not too long ago was giving 50 HP for T50 in subs! Same 12 hrs, 2 concurrent subs format, and I think it also had 1000 player brackets. What gives?

Iso 8 also had alliance sub rewards

Unknown

VonMatterhorn wrote:

Wow. This tournament is super stingy with HP. Only 25 for T10 in subs?

ISO-8 Brotherhood not too long ago was giving 50 HP for T50 in subs! Same 12 hrs, 2 concurrent subs format, and I think it also had 1000 player brackets. What gives?

Agree its poor for HP....i wondered if they decided having the Doom new color was enough of a drawcard to keep people playing. And for me they were right

Though it has sure changed my engagement and i dont try to place overly well in any particular sub, just ensuring overall event stays safe.

Unknown

rossfoss wrote:

Twoslot wrote:

Add cage to the mnmag-stique combo and hulk doesn't get à turn once you hit 9 purple. Then jab jab jab when you hit 30 black.

Yes, really powerful combo and fun to play. My Hulk node is at level 362. Downed him 2 times with this.
However, I'm not sure how the combo goes with 3 or 4 Infiltration covers. For me the MNmag+Mystique combo
started to shine after I got 5th Infiltration cover.

It goes ok, but it can't reliably go infinite like with 5 covers. If the rumors are true and jab gets a stun at 5 covers, plus a huge protect tile as of turn 2, cage will be the permanent addition to that combo. Stun everyone, match that you need, keep going.

Vankysher

raisinbman wrote:

Haven't run out of health packs in a long time, sheesh. I was almost done anyway - I can't bring myself to grind nodes to 0 when they're so low in pt totals. No idea how y'all do it!

Ha. I regularly run out of health packs & so far in this event i ran out even faster. Everyone is getting beat up badly or downed after 2 nodes. Ridiculous.

RemoDestroyer

AJRooke wrote:

VonMatterhorn wrote:

Wow. This tournament is super stingy with HP. Only 25 for T10 in subs?

ISO-8 Brotherhood not too long ago was giving 50 HP for T50 in subs! Same 12 hrs, 2 concurrent subs format, and I think it also had 1000 player brackets. What gives?

Agree its poor for HP....i wondered if they decided having the Doom new color was enough of a drawcard to keep people playing. And for me they were right

Though it has sure changed my engagement and i dont try to place overly well in any particular sub, just ensuring overall event stays safe.

Isn't 25 HP for a 12 hour sub slightly better than the 100 HP from the 60 hour subs in the last pve?

Unknown

Isn't 25 HP for a 12 hour sub slightly better than the 100 HP from the 60 hour subs in the last pve?[/quote]

Thought subs were 200 in last one, 1000 in this one. Happy to be wrong, my memory is rubbish.

Moon Roach

A tale of Wolveroach.

After completely miscalculating a node in Sudan, The Hard Sell, my OBW died from match damage because I was saving up her blue to delay Hulk's anger. I didn't pay enough attention, so bye-bye OBW.

Luckily, after failing to kill Hulk with speed shot, and 6 anger tiles wiping out Hawkeye and leaving Magneto with only a teeny tiny amount of health, the AI decided that Smash was a much better option than Thunderous Clap. End result, dead Magneto but also dead Hulk, and Victory was mine.

lukewin

Another thing they've tinkered with, which makes the 12 hr subs a bigger problem, than it already is with time slices, is pt decay per refresh. Yes, they have gone back to a 3 hr refresh, but now the points drop 1/6 of full value, for every time a node is played again. Nodes don't drop down to 1 until you hit an 18 hr refresh. This means that grindtime at the end of the subs even more important. Playing for placement is even tougher if you have people that can play at the end of each 12 hr sub. It gives a chance to increase separation at the top, or makes it even more competitive at the top. Not a fan of this change.

Glad I am done trying for top placement. This would've made grindtime start a lot earlier.

Unknown

lukewin wrote:

Another thing they've tinkered with, which makes the 12 hr subs a bigger problem, than it already is with time slices, is pt decay per refresh. Yes, they have gone back to a 3 hr refresh, but now the points drop 1/6 of full value, for every time a node is played again. Nodes don't drop down to 1 until you hit an 18 hr refresh. This means that grindtime at the end of the subs even more important. Playing for placement is even tougher if you have people that can play at the end of each 12 hr sub. It gives a chance to increase separation at the top, or makes it even more competitive at the top. Not a fan of this change.

Glad I am done trying for top placement. This would've made grindtime start a lot earlier.

That hardly matters for the harder bracket because nobody was ever doing anything more than about 3 passes of all the nodes in one sitting to begin with. For normal it may or may not matter but normal is always stupidly grindy.

thanos8587

FaustianDeal wrote:

thanos8587 wrote:

will the points per subs go up as the days go by. im trying to figure out how much ill need to grind per day to get top progression. oh and i dont have punisher which makes it that much more difficult, joy of joys

Previous runs of hulk had a global counter running for total points accrued in the event. Once the global counter filled then a new one-and-done node would appear on the main map where you would win a green hulk cover. The event is designed to repeat 3 sets of subs, once chasing the hulk and once with him on the team. The points awarded *after* the hulk node dropped are always much higher. (They try to rig up the rate at which points are awarded so that hulk gets added to your team right around the time you start the 2nd trip through the subs.)

The points you get in the first 3 sets of subs in the event are going to be terrible. The points in the same subs when we run them again will be a lot better.

If past runs are any indicator, you are playing the first 3 pairs of subs for the placement awards they offer. The next 3 sets of subs are where you will earn all the progression awards for the overall event.

thank you. great info for us noobs

Unknown

Wasn't there a node that actually provided a green Hulk cover as a reward last time?

Quebbster

blarkh wrote:

Wasn't there a node that actually provided a green Hulk cover as a reward last time?

Yes, there was. Should be one this time too.
I tried the Magneto/Mystique combo on Luke Cage's essential node, and I was quite pleased how effective it was. Didn't take long for the power loop to get going, then I could just Jab Hulk into oblivion once Cage had 30 black AP.

squirrel1120

My last clear through the hard sub last night I couldn't win a node to save my life. The cascade gods were especially angry. When the AI's cascade pauses long enough on a crit tile creation for hulk to smash your half-health Lcap into the ground, and then keeps going, you are going to have a bad time.

I've played around with the Magstique combo a bit, more since she went 1/5/1, and the mechanic is certainly interesting. I have yet to have it completely dominate a match in the first 3-4 turns like I've had with Stormneto, but admittedly I've only tried it a few times. Have to make it a point to put cage in there with them, sounds fun.

I had a run of bad boards this morning in the luke cage essential (ai lvl only 135) in the new sahara sub. They wasted 2 of my better teams in a row, and being the last node I was already down to 1 healthpack. I used it on cage, set hulk left, patch right, and after 3 green matches in a row, zerker rage and constant anger procs every turn put that one down quickly. God I love that combo. Not terribly sustainable, but I'll put down some tough baddies.

I think if it weren't for chemical reaction, perhaps 10+ of the nodes I've lost to in the last day's play would have been wins instead. It really has changed the dynamic of dark avenger nodes quite a bit... especially if they have someone to use all the green that drives its damage component.

On a different but related subject, Doom's going to be a pretty decent choice now in the 3* food chain, yes? I haven't seen it play, as I was already skipping that node in Sim hard before the patch, and I didn't feel like wiping a team just to see it. Just the fact that the ability is purple will help slot him into some team comps?

Unknown

Idiotically tough matches for comparable peanuts in terms of points. Way to start the new year with a bang.

Unknown

tuscan panty raider wrote:

Idiotically tough matches for comparable peanuts in terms of points. Way to start the new year with a bang.

Top progression is only 42,000. I'm at 12,000 with minimal clearing of the first two sets of subs. Should be easy to get to the Cage cover. Points are fine.