Sticks and Stones - July 30 - August 3 - Season XVII

Moon Roach

STICKS AND STONES:

This Event:
Hero for Hire

New Characters:
:jeangrey: All New X-Men
Scott Lang
This Week:

Cletus Kasady
Classic

Classic
Model 40
:human torch: Classic
Dark Reign
Raven Darkholme

Modern
Modern

Model 35
Dark Avengers

Single Player Rewards

1. All rewards from the previous rank +
2-5. 5000 , 100 ,
6-10. 2000 , 100 ,
11-25. 1000 , 50 ,
26-50. 1000 , 50 ,
51-100. 500 , 25 ,
101-200. 500 ,
201-300. 250 ,
301-400. 2x Standard Token, 140
401-500. Standard Token, 70

Progression Rewards:

25. Standard Token
50. 100
100. +3 All Boosts
200.
300. Event Token
400. 25
500. 1000
575. 25
650. Event Token
725. 50
800.
850. 1000
900. Event Token
950. 1000
1000.
1300.

Alliance rewards:

1-2. 5000 , 250 ,
3-10. 5000 , 100 ,
11-25. 3000 , 100 ,
25-50. 2000 , 100 ,
51-100. 1000 , 50 ,
101-250. 1000 , 50
251-500. 500 , 25
501-1000. 500
1001-10000. 250

Ending Time Countdowns

Slice 1
Slice 2
Slice 3
Slice 4
Slice 5

Quebbster

Hmmm. Might try Mystique and Human Torch as Cage's buddies this time.

Malcrof

FINALLY, i get to complete my Psylocke! been after that last black cover forever!

Unknown

Got my final red cage cover. Left it unshielded - if you see me, hit me hard! I am happy with what I have.

Vhailorx

Seems like the weekly boosted characters are not good this week. Everyone is just using imhb/if.

Also, scores are much much lower than last time, so climbing has been significantly more tedious than the blast few events.

Edited: some carnage and Jean grey teams above 900. Can't be many people with those characters maxed, but they do add a bit of variety.

Unknown

Got to around 900~ points with very little trouble. Then no one was worth any points T-T. On my stream of course.

Vhailorx wrote:

Seems like the weekly boosted characters are not good this week. Everyone is just using imhb/if.

Also, scores are much much lower than last time, so climbing has been significantly more tedious than the blast few events.

boosted characters are ****, which means you're gonna see alot of Fistbusting for Jean Grey

spectator

raisinbman wrote:

boosted characters are ****, which means you're gonna see alot of Fistbusting for Jean Grey

except match 5s created by fist is going to result in stun and lost of 3 red ap so probably not a good idea

puppychow

Vhailorx wrote:

Seems like the weekly boosted characters are not good this week. Everyone is just using imhb/if.

Also, scores are much much lower than last time, so climbing has been significantly more tedious than the blast few events.

Edited: some carnage and Jean grey teams above 900. Can't be many people with those characters maxed, but they do add a bit of variety.

It's interesting. I seem to have landed in the xmen shard for this event. However, it's already day 2 and I'm seeing far too few xmen guys worth more than 30ish. So you might be on to something here re: lower scores for this event.

Yes, I am seeing a lot carnage, jean teams. If jean wasn't buffed this week I would take a stab at those.

puppychow

spectator wrote:

raisinbman wrote:

boosted characters are ****, which means you're gonna see alot of Fistbusting for Jean Grey

except match 5s created by fist is going to result in stun and lost of 3 red ap so probably not a good idea

I care more about jean's 4k aoe actually.

lukewin

Was slice 1. Didn't think I'd be able to hit 1k this time because I started a lot later than usual. I hadn't even hit 650 in my initial push. When I started my final push, it was under 3 hrs to the end, so I thought it'd be a bloodbath. Started from the 300s or 400s, and got to 800 no problems, with Daken and Blade with Cage. Then after 800, swapped to HT and IF (140). Didn't see many hits, and was able to get to 950 before I decided to shield with a 3 hr. Broke at the last 5 min to hit a 60+ pt match I had queued and able to add a yellow to my dupe IW. Was watching the time remaining, 1 min + waiting for hits to come in, but they didn't. Finished 30th with 1019.

spectator

puppychow wrote:

spectator wrote:

raisinbman wrote:

boosted characters are ****, which means you're gonna see alot of Fistbusting for Jean Grey

except match 5s created by fist is going to result in stun and lost of 3 red ap so probably not a good idea

I care more about jean's 4k aoe actually.

I was thinking 1/1/1 loaners. I cant imagine many of us taking on a fully leveled, covered and boosted jean grey. Damage will be more than 4k too

Unknown

spectator wrote:

raisinbman wrote:

boosted characters are ****, which means you're gonna see alot of Fistbusting for Jean Grey

except match 5s created by fist is going to result in stun and lost of 3 red ap so probably not a good idea

how about this:

You will see alot of fistbuster teams because powered up characters are **** so they will default to the default wombo combo UNLESS it's against Jean Grey so they can get that Jean Grey cover at the top of their bracket.

spectator wrote:

puppychow wrote:

spectator wrote:

raisinbman wrote:

boosted characters are ****, which means you're gonna see alot of Fistbusting for Jean Grey

except match 5s created by fist is going to result in stun and lost of 3 red ap so probably not a good idea

I care more about jean's 4k aoe actually.

I was thinking 1/1/1 loaners. I cant imagine many of us taking on a fully leveled, covered and boosted jean grey. Damage will be more than 4k too

We have to take on Jean Grey to show our dominance. We can't just let the new girl take over without a fight!

Quebbster

This was an unexpected slog. I can usually hit 1000 points without much difficulty, but this time I had to give up and shield after breaking 900. Fortunately I don't need the Invisible Woman cover, but I might break shield for the 950 point award at the 3 hour mark. Decisions, decisions...

Vhailorx

Glad I wasn't the only one who had a tougher than average time with this event.

Maybe it's just that cage is a defensive character, and mirror defensive matches suck (see falcon pvps, or spidey pvps).

As for facing maxed jeans or carnage: I avoided maxed Jean because I didn't want to fight her for the first time in a match that I really wanted. But I have fought several carnages, even at 350, and I have to say that he just isn't that good as a scarecrow. He is slow overall, and The damage from his passive is minimized by saving up ap for an alpha strike, which is generally the best tactic anyway, and although he does suck up healthpacks, that doesn't matter when shield hopping.

Unknown

Vhailorx wrote:

Glad I wasn't the only one who had a tougher than average time with this event.

Maybe it's just that cage is a defensive character, and mirror defensive matches suck (see falcon pvps, or spidey pvps).

As for facing maxed jeans or carnage: I avoided maxed Jean because I didn't want to fight her for the first time in a match that I really wanted. But I have fought several carnages, even at 350, and I have to say that he just isn't that good as a scarecrow. He is slow overall, and The damage from his passive is minimized by saving up ap for an alpha strike, which is generally the best tactic anyway, and although he does suck up healthpacks, that doesn't matter when shield hopping.

Cage is def not a defensive character. He has a defensive move, but he definitely packs a punch(see what I did there?).

~~~~~~

Got to 1000 with very little trouble, just did a shield hop to 1100~

All on stream of course for dissection purposes.

mgallop

Cage is awesome, he's not a defensive character, given that he has two great nukes, but...

The Cage PvP, following on a week where basically all top level players were using a boosted cage w/ IF and Hood, was really unpleasant. The thing about Cage, is that if he's boosted, the fight is going to take a while, and that means fights against Loki/Hood and especially IF become really bad...

But the thing was, the same was true during the IF PvP, but that was at least for Cage covers, slogging through 290 cages to get Psylocke and IW covers makes you think about your choices...

Vhailorx

mgallop wrote:

Cage is awesome, he's not a defensive character, given that he has two great nukes, but...

The Cage PvP, following on a week where basically all top level players were using a boosted cage w/ IF and Hood, was really unpleasant. The thing about Cage, is that if he's boosted, the fight is going to take a while, and that means fights against Loki/Hood and especially IF become really bad...

But the thing was, the same was true during the IF PvP, but that was at least for Cage covers, slogging through 290 cages to get Psylocke and IW covers makes you think about your choices...

I am surprised by all the feedback to my statement that Cage is a defensive character. I in no way mean that as a disparaging comment, cage is one of the very best 3*s in the game (I think the top 4 3*s are Cage, Khan, IF, and Cyclops). But he is a defensive character. He's got a fairly high hitpoint total, he has two 2 slow moves that cost 4 or 5 matches (I don't count his black as a 2-match move because it's basically not worth using before 12 ap except to finish a very dangerous foe), and he has an awesome defensive power that protects the entire team.

So the net effect of throwing cage into a match is to the slow the match down and end the match with an alpha strike later in the game. Contrast that with more offensive minded characters like Cyclops or IF. Both of those character self-accerate into high-damage abilities. Both characters have tile-smashing powers that create cascades that generate more damage and more ap to fuel additional powers. IF ticks for almost 500 damage each round, burning down squishy supports very quickly. The next result of adding either of these characters into the game is a faster, match.

So while it's true that Cage has high-damage abilities, I still think he's a defensive character because his net effect on the gameplay is to slow things down and minimize team damage while collecting ap (either for his own nukes, or for someone else).

Unknown

Vhailorx wrote:

mgallop wrote:

Cage is awesome, he's not a defensive character, given that he has two great nukes, but...

The Cage PvP, following on a week where basically all top level players were using a boosted cage w/ IF and Hood, was really unpleasant. The thing about Cage, is that if he's boosted, the fight is going to take a while, and that means fights against Loki/Hood and especially IF become really bad...

But the thing was, the same was true during the IF PvP, but that was at least for Cage covers, slogging through 290 cages to get Psylocke and IW covers makes you think about your choices...

I am surprised by all the feedback to my statement that Cage is a defensive character. I in no way mean that as a disparaging comment, cage is one of the very best 3*s in the game (I think the top 4 3*s are Cage, Khan, IF, and Cyclops). But he is a defensive character. He's got a fairly high hitpoint total, he has two 2 slow moves that cost 4 or 5 matches (I don't count his black as a 2-match move because it's basically not worth using before 12 ap except to finish a very dangerous foe), and he has an awesome defensive power that protects the entire team.

So the net effect of throwing cage into a match is to the slow the match down and end the match with an alpha strike later in the game. Contrast that with more offensive minded characters like Cyclops or IF. Both of those character self-accerate into high-damage abilities. Both characters have tile-smashing powers that create cascades that generate more damage and more ap to fuel additional powers. IF ticks for almost 500 damage each round, burning down squishy supports very quickly. The next result of adding either of these characters into the game is a faster, match.

So while it's true that Cage has high-damage abilities, I still think he's a defensive character because his net effect on the gameplay is to slow things down and minimize team damage while collecting ap (either for his own nukes, or for someone else).

he is not a defensive character. Defensive characters are few and far between in MPQ because they're not part of the meta(spiderman)

Malcrof

Got my T100, Psylocke finally finished 5/3/5!

TxMoose

did not plan on going for 1K but an opportunity to do a quick push at the right time to go 3/8/3 presented itself and I actually made it. had to overcome the fear of the fistbuster though - that's the only way I got there. last 2 fights were ~60 pt fistbuster teams but I cycled though enough to find some not fully leveled. ended up 1044 really at the end running fist/cage/hood. if they don't get a big cascade, hood keeps them from getting an ability off and he hides behind cage mostly and with cage's protect you can take matching damage for a long time. featured cage is just stupid strong - both yellow and black are crazy. left myself enough time at the end to finish even if I had a bad board and broke with 6 minutes left in the event, finished the match in just under 5 and watched for what was a very looong minute. nothing came in and I'm kinda surprised, but i'll take it.

GrumpySmurf1002

Ended up one hop short of getting my 5th red IMHB. Boo.