Who should I level to complete the Gauntlet

Edarion

This round of Gauntlet is very tough
I am so close, all i'm missing is the last non essential and the rest of the essentials.
I'm stuck on the last non essential node of
HB, Thor, Deadpool. They are all at level 307.

I have roughly 50K of ISO to sling at this.

Who should I level to carry me through the rest of the way

Brief snapshot of my roster

Xforce lvl 166
Lazy Cap 166
Human Torch 166
Hulk 166
Punisher 166
Thor 166

Those I can potentially level to close to lvl 166
Patch lvl 141
Daken 125
Daredevil 120
Hood 97
Luke Cage 120
Deadpool 110
Loki 95
Magneto Classic 55
Blackpanther 43

morph3us

You're lacking the two key support characters in your levelled roster, Hood and Loki. They're pretty much critical when you're playing against overscaled nodes. Hood needs to be 5/5/3, and Loki 5/3/5 or 3/5/5. Neither needs to be maxed out, if you're PvE focused. (If you're also going to use them in PvP, they could use the extra health in getting to 166).

For Node 42 of the Gauntlet, you're best off with full rainbow coverage, if you can manage it. I ran LCap/Hood/SW, and got a rolling stunlock going between Cap/SW, and recycled Cap's red, with Hood's black to accelerate the shield return. Hood's also critical in delaying the time before any of them get their abilities off.

If your characters are correctly covered, LCap/Hood/Loki should be able to take down that node with a reasonable success rate.

Alternatively, you could level Patch to 166, and Hulkbomb it, with Patch/Hulk. (You don't have to max Patch to Hulkbomb, but given the level scaling you're facing, the extra health helps, just a teensy bit).

Edarion

Yah, i've essentially become 100% PVE focussed.... PVP is a bit too much of a slaughterfest these days

How high should I level Hood and Loki?
Hood is at lvl 97 5/3/4/
Patch 141 3/5/5/
Loki is at lvl 95 5/3/5

whats hulkbombing?

Thanks so much !

morph3us

I'd leave Hood alone. With only 3 covers in Blue, he's not useful to you until you get that fifth blue cover.

How high you level Loki depends on whom you're planning on pairing him with. You want his match damage to be less than the character you're pairing him with, so the other character tanks his colours. Just level him slowly and watch his black, purple, and green numbers creep up, until the appropriate number is one below the character you're planning on pairing him with.

Hulkbombing is using Patch's Berserker Rage to proc Hulk's Anger. Essentially, you save up to 9 green AP, then drop a Berserker Rage (you can boost green to get there quicker, if you need to). The enemy strike tiles that Patch drops should ensure that any enemy matches will trigger Hulk's Anger. The Anger should proc AE damage, enhanced by the friendly strike tiles, and turn the entire board green, which you can use to feed a green ability of your choice. Obviously, Anger will damage your team a bit too, so you'll eventually need some health packs.

For this, you need Hulk to be out in front, and tanking his own colours. You can either keep Patch one level below Hulk to pull this off, but my favoured approach is to max out Patch, and make sure that Hulk is in a higher priority position (1 or 2), and Patch is in a lower priority position (3). You generally need a minimum of 3 strike tiles to make Hulk angry, so 3 covers in Berserker Rage will do it. I prefer 4 covers (4/4/5), because it covers you if you lose a tile here or there. You do need to be careful of the blowback from the enemy strike tiles, which is why I don't run at 5 covers, but a lot of people swear by 5/3/5.

Edarion

Priority position? so like who is in the middle?

So... Patch, Hulk, and.... Loki?

morph3us

The centre position has priority on colour matches, followed by left, followed by right. In PvE, you'd put Hulk in the front, and Patch on the left or right (it doesn't really matter). In PvP, you'd put Hulk on the left, and Patch on the right.

Loki's an option in that trio, as it gives you an option to flip the enemy strike tiles around if they get out of hand. Loki's weakness in this combo is that he doesn't have a lot of health, and isn't likely to be useful for more than one fight. You could think about taking a more efficient outlet for the green (Thor). You may also need to save the green to refresh Patch's strike tiles, though, since they may very well get matched away by the Anger tile changes. The traditional Hulkbombing duo is simply Hulk/Patch. The third you can play around with, depending on the situation.

Edarion

Okay, last 2 Nodes!

I'm facing Prox X,Thoress, Fury @ lvl 245 and Tetris Ultron, Loki, She-Hulk at lvl 294

Help?

morph3us

The first is a Human Torch essential, from recollection. The main threats in that node are Prof X (just because if he gets any match fives, things will go south very quickly), Fury's blue, and Thor's blue/red. So you need to deny blue and red primarily, and target Prof X first, Fury second, Thor third. I took this one down with LCap/Torch/Hood. You don't have Hood, so I'd run LCap/Torch plus a third who's going to provide you some benefit from yellow, since that's going to be your third priority match colour after blue and red. Thor would probably do okay in this instance. His yellow feeds green, which either Thor or Torch could use.

The Invisible Woman essential is very, very difficult. I'd just suggest you Superwhales it with Deadpool, if you have enough Deadpool points saved up. Otherwise, you could try Invisible Woman/LCap/2* Magneto, and ramp up to LCap's blue/red as fast as you can. Down Loki first, She-Hulk second, Ultron third. You can try downing Ultron first, if you want, since the other two aren't a threat without Ultron's bombs, but he has twice as many HP as Loki, and it's pretty much impossible to keep Loki away from 5 purple.

Edarion

I did it! Thank you so much !!!!