Holy tinykitty. 2400 progression....

Unknown

Here's an outline of roughly how my last 2 Hulk tournament went. I hit the 1800 progression both time in pretty much the same way. My team is about middle of the road for my range of opponens.

First day - play to about 600 or so, or whenever you get tired.
Next day - Wake up and found you lost 300 points, continue playing to about 900.
Final day - Wake up and found you lost 400 points. Retaliate takes you to 700. Burn boosts if needed to get out of the 1000 point range. After that, it's usually smooth sailing. Shield with 3/8 hours to go (depending on when the tournament ends). Finish top 5 in both (at least, I hope my #2 spot with 1h left today holds).

Now some caveats.

1. First, if HP is not a concern, obviously using a shield before going to sleep would've helped a lot. In particular, until you get to about 1000 you should expect to be retaliated often, so having a shield absorb that retaliation would surely help a lot. Realistically, you should try to wake up really early to throw up an 8h shield (people probably won't be retaliating at 3am) to maximize your shield coverage. I didn't do any of that, but just saying that'd be a good idea.

2. You should never fight opponents with less rating once it's clear that there are no pushover teams than you unless you know for certain someone is shielded. In general, the higher rating the guy, the more likely he'll be shielded. Further, if you hit a guy 300 points higher than you, even if he's not shielded he might just decide to skip you because you're not worth the time. if you hit a guy 200 poitns below you, it's always worth his time to retaliate. Yes, that means you've to attack some more intimidating teams. That's what boosts are for.

3. If there is a guy who is obviously on your tail, consider either taking a break (or even a shield) and let him pass you up or use max boosts every round to try to shake that guy. You can't just play normal when people are clearly hounding you and you must make a decision.

Also I don't get why people are complaining about the level of their competitionr. Do you really think you'll get placed in a bracket with guys with 1500 points that has a level 15 Hulk, level 6 Bagman, and level 1 Hawkeye? At around the 1000 rating mark, there are no more freebies. You've to go through some tough teams to get there. It's better to hit that maxed out team for 30 points than 2 slightly weaker teams for 15, not only because of speed but that the latter has potential for nasty retaliation later.

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Celerity wrote:

You just have to time it right. If you really want the progression rewards without tanking or having an unattackable team, you should start early with a lot of small pushes and 3hr shields to wait out each wave of retaliations.

With the nerf to Ragnarok there's no such thing as an unattackable team. If you're worth 40 points, I will always attack you no matter who you got.

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Kelbris wrote:

ihearthawthats wrote:

2400 is attainable though.

Very much so.

In hulk#2 I thought can the the 2 hulks. But then could not pass even 800 for more than seconds.
In first round got only a single hit in the last hour, now they never stopped coming. The last game would put me #5 at least, but obvoiusly got a saved-up got from a 300-ish guy, figures.

Well, maybe other tournaments have different nature, with hulk you had to go slow to avoid anger.

Unknown

SUPERTOM wrote:

How are people really achieving such high goals? I typically just hover around the 400-700 range throughout tournaments. I typically have to skip about 15 opponents then I find one actually worth fighting (25-30pts) then repeat. Once you break 1000 I'd imagine it would be a real pain to find anyone worth fighting considering 95% of the players sit well below you. 2400 is a loooong ways away if every match is worth +/- 10pts.

Once you leave that range it becomes way easier. You start to get more opponents upwards and most will be shielded so less retailiations.

As others write a 2 or 3 run approach looks the best most problems I see caused from saved-up retailiations. I just wrote about it in the suggestions group that it should be fixed.

I also hope to read up on others' experience, some smart shield usage would likely help a lot, and you still come out with HP gain or flat, taking all other goodies.

Unknown

Once you leave that range it becomes way easier. You start to get more opponents upwards and most will be shielded so less retailiations.

Not for me. Those opponents you mentioned are way above my level. I'm 85 fighting against 141.

And phantron, I dunno how you could do that without raising your MMR. If I did what you do, I'll be fighting killer teams by the second day.

Do you really think you'll get placed in a bracket with guys with 1500 points that has a level 15 Hulk, level 6 Bagman, and level 1 Hawkeye?

Theoratically, it's possible to get that high with 1 star teams. Just not probable. So long as you stay in that MMR range. I think.

Unknown

mechgouki wrote:

Once you leave that range it becomes way easier. You start to get more opponents upwards and most will be shielded so less retailiations.

Not for me. Those opponents you mentioned are way above my level. I'm 85 fighting against 141.

And phantron, I dunno how you could do that without raising your MMR. If I did what you do, I'll be fighting killer teams by the second day.

Every team is quite strong at the top, and especially for Smash Hit, as long as you have Spiderman with 4b or better you're competitive against anyone. This is because almost every high level team has Spiderman to deal with the high level Hulks, but Spiderman sucks on defense if you have Spiderman (you just let the AI stun first and take advantage of him doing the work to setup the web tiles for you). The only difference between say 125 Hulk 140 Spiderman 85 Wolv versus 90/90/85 is just that it takes slightly longer to take out the former team, and if the former team is worth 30 points while the latter is worth 15, of course you should attack the former.

Stop trying to pick on weak teams once you've a good rating. After a certain range, the primary factor to determine whether you get attacked or not is simply how many points you're worth to the opponent. You're not going to intimidate anyone with a 500+ rating in the era of the nerfed Ragnarok. Do try to keep a list of the guys who are shielded. I probably should start writing down people's rating...

Spoit

Celerity wrote:

It actually becomes easier after 1k or so, because that's when you start finding a lot of opponents who are shielded and won't retaliate. If you can shield into that range late in a tournament, very few of your opponents will actually be unshielded, so you can climb with impunity.

Also, there are fewer people i the point range, so it's easier to actually find worthwhile matches. I had to grind sub-20 point matches from like 800-1200, but once I crested that, I was able to find 25+ opponents within the first 5 skips easily

Unknown

mechgouki wrote:

Once you leave that range it becomes way easier. You start to get more opponents upwards and most will be shielded so less retailiations.

Not for me. Those opponents you mentioned are way above my level. I'm 85 fighting against 141.

And phantron, I dunno how you could do that without raising your MMR. If I did what you do, I'll be fighting killer teams by the second day.

Do you really think you'll get placed in a bracket with guys with 1500 points that has a level 15 Hulk, level 6 Bagman, and level 1 Hawkeye?

Theoratically, it's possible to get that high with 1 star teams. Just not probable. So long as you stay in that MMR range. I think.

My core is also 85 BW**/Vol**. And it can beat most anything barring the 5% bad luck at start when you're supposed to retreat early. I also read about it fairly recently then experienced in reality.

The only character the AI plays well is Spiderman. He keeps me serious headache so I have tendency to avoid if possible, and if not pack up all boosts to dispatch him. Also requires different tactics, denying blue and purple obviously. In hulk2 I had no choice but to fight several of 90-100 lvl of those two at the end. Sure as long as I have the choice I pass the 3*141 team, why take more risk and time. Learn to evaluate those factors and stop being afraid. The attacker has so much advantage that games are auto-win with actually good play. over 95% I lost a hero or a game it was due to an overlook on my part, losing attention or such. Despite the game flashed that opponent can use some ability or the AP raw was there, I made a match instead of using BW's steal or heal -- when I had the AP there. Sure I keep swearing at times it gets some lucky cascade or even more facing a bad board lacking 3-4 colors at the same time, or forcing me to a single match I don''t want. But honestly I can recall more of lucky draws on my part and recovery from almost dead too.

The bottom line: stop being scared, just evaluate and play well, you will get there.

Spoit

Phantron wrote:

2. You should never fight opponents with less rating once it's clear that there are no pushover teams than you unless you know for certain someone is shielded. In general, the higher rating the guy, the more likely he'll be shielded. Further, if you hit a guy 300 points higher than you, even if he's not shielded he might just decide to skip you because you're not worth the time. if you hit a guy 200 poitns below you, it's always worth his time to retaliate. Yes, that means you've to attack some more intimidating teams. That's what boosts are for.

I've never seen anyone 300 points above me unless it was a stored retaliation. Whereas it almost always gets stuck in ruts where all it can find are people 200 points below you.

Unknown

Spoit, they are working on it

Unknown

Spoit wrote:

Phantron wrote:

2. You should never fight opponents with less rating once it's clear that there are no pushover teams than you unless you know for certain someone is shielded. In general, the higher rating the guy, the more likely he'll be shielded. Further, if you hit a guy 300 points higher than you, even if he's not shielded he might just decide to skip you because you're not worth the time. if you hit a guy 200 poitns below you, it's always worth his time to retaliate. Yes, that means you've to attack some more intimidating teams. That's what boosts are for.

I've never seen anyone 300 points above me unless it was a stored retaliation. Whereas it almost always gets stuck in ruts where all it can find are people 200 points below you.

Once I hit the 1000s I see plenty of guys who are 300 points higher than me. Before that, yeah, it's awfully hard to find anyone with even the same score as you. That's why it's all the more important to not pass up anyone who's worth a lot of points, both for the value and the fact that they're less likely to retaliate (because you're worth less to them).

Unknown

Spiderman loses badly on defense to another Spiderman to the point he's arguably a bigger liability than OBW. This is because you just let the AI stun you 3 times first (you won't lose a turn on the first 3 stuns due to their handicap of 1 ability per turn), and then now you have 3 web tiles up and your own Spiderman can clean up since the opponent has setup the web tiles for you. While that's not a reason to not use Spiderman (I use him), there's really no reason to be intimidated by a high level opposing Spiderman if you have Spiderman as well. I usually make 1 or 2 blue matches and then just let the opposing Spiderman have all the blue he wants, since after he drops 3 web tiles he's never going to get a turn again, so why not let him have a bunch of useless tiles?

Unknown

I think the main issue now is the heavy grind. That's a good bit of playtime for a game within a 3 day period. I can maybe squeeze in 2 hours after work on a good day (and 1 hour before), about 30 minutes during lunch, yadda yadda yadda. I do like that there is something hard to strive for though, and that some of the rare rewards aren't completely out of reach (1200 isn't quite reaching for the stars, and very manageable). 2400 just feels so far away that I don't want to put up with that kind of push. I just look at the rewards, go "I'll never seriously use Hulk or IW anyway", and stop at 6th or 7th place for that last green and black Punisher cover. For this tournament, I'll obviously not worry about progression rewards, given Punisher is finally done (or will be - one black cover is all that's left, gogo Hunt). It'll be nice to take a pseudo-break from MPQ and play something else in the evenings, even if just for a few days. This isn't to say that I don't enjoy those bouts of several matches, one after another, but.. well, 2 Smash tournaments back to back sucked super hard.

Unknown

mechgouki wrote:

Those opponents you mentioned are way above my level. I'm 85 fighting against 141.

The 2400 reward is not for you. Simple as that.

Unknown

Landed first in 2nd Double Shot, got into top 5 during both Hulks. Always broke through 1000 points, during Hulks 1400 and 1600+ respectively. And some people may have seen me, I'm that strange guy with team of Hulk/lv71 Wolv/lv50 mStorm. It's not that hard, you just need to know how to use your team, when use boosts, remember about "useless" boosts and how to combine them in each situation, who to attack first etc. And I almost never attack those who lower than me in ranking - too much hassle later.

Unknown

GEFPenst wrote:

Landed first in 2nd Double Shot, got into top 5 during both Hulks. Always broke through 1000 points, during Hulks 1400 and 1600+ respectively. And some people may have seen me, I'm that strange guy with team of Hulk/lv71 Wolv/lv50 mStorm. It's not that hard, you just need to know how to use your team, when use boosts, remember about "useless" boosts and how to combine them in each situation, who to attack first etc. And I almost never attack those who lower than me in ranking - too much hassle later.

Let me guess: you fight in jungle 95% time, maybe little in hitech and ignore the city. ?

I usually look at people running gals as 'the smart guys'. For me BW85 works more consistently and in all arenas, and importantly heals up the team in-game. But if not her I'd run mStorm also and keep winning. Grats for keeping up and wish you a good bracket -- as pointed out so many times, the final placement depends on a single factor that is *not* the team you play, but how many times you pop up on other active player's screens and at what pacing.

It's quite sad but possibly the devs start working on some tweaks finally, and in due time something better emerges finally.

I recently noticed the AI keeping back use some abilities waiting for a particular member of my team. I try to keep myself prepared to see the AI taking the first L-shaped 5 instead of 4 or pass on an offcolor 4-match I left as bait. While ability use is not trivial, better match-pick is easy to improve, I almost think it is deliberately kept that stupid as smarter play would ruin all too many players. Or remove this vary chance: to beat a much stronger team with cunning. Yet too bad this makes whatever team just a punching bag on defense.

Unknown

In the hulk event, 1000 isnt too hard, I didn't get retaliated a lot below 1000. Maybe 4-5 times.
However, once I hit 1200, the real fight starts. I get people repeatly hit on me even though I don't have a shield up and there are easier opponents. The higher level hulk is easier than low level one, anger never went off on 13k+ hp hulks.
I guess 5 red wolverine also made the killing a bit faster. Took me 50+ games to reach 1.8 k and too sick to play anymore.

Unknown

I don't think I have the give a tinykitty to get up that high. I played for 3-4 hours almost straight last night and went from 0 to 1900, got hit and then shielded. Attacked twice on the way up. Once you reach certain thresholds you see more ppl.you know are shielded (if yhier points don't change after beating them once..they are shielded). Closest to me in my bracket was 1300 by the end of the event. I started about 7-8 hrs before the event ended, so anybody expecting to beat me basically had to do the same. Could I have grinded up to 2400? Absolutely. Would I want to? No, but I would have considered it.

To me, personally, the issue isn't that the wolverine cover is so high...its that the punisher covers are unuseable to me as I have a 3/5/5, 2 covers in the que and likely 3 more from the end of the hulk pve going for the 500 hp from subs...and at the moment that puts me in 1st or 2nd in my bracket. So for me, after the hp rewards that are pretty low down I am grinding away at over 1000 points..just for one cover. That's a bit excessive for my tastes. At 1000 I was tired of the grind but thought "almost to a red hulk." Then "almost black" then "I don't care, but might as well grab the iw.". If you don't have a complete punisher..feel free..but I don't know if I care enough to bother..especially for a green wolvie (most common color).

Side: thanks phantron. Your team ,1900+, was very beatable so it helped me push my last 200 pts or so. As you go up you start to see very few ppl worth fighting. There usually would be one or two easy teams and 1-2 maxer teams in my scrolling. So many 0 point teams though.

Unknown

pasa_ wrote:

Let me guess: you fight in jungle 95% time, maybe little in hitech and ignore the city. ?

Nah, actually, took a liking to city in last Hulk tourney - light heal as bonus, but main use of red is board changing - to get additional greens or reds for Wolv to chomp. Not really optimal strategy, of course, but I lack certain covers to switch (oBW stuck at 3/5/3 and Punisher lacks board-change power).

Unknown

The only team that was remotely difficult I've seen throughout was the one with the max Magento and that's because Magneto is a powerful character in general. The level on Hulk is irrelevent, because once you get up there you should have Spiderman to deal with him, and Spiderman is hard countered on defense by himself. Basically the only combination that can possibly be difficult is Hulk/Spiderman/Magneto, and that's just due to Magneto's general strength, not any character synergy.