PvE event strategies

Unknown

I was hoping some of you experienced guys could explain what you do to get the most points possible in PvE as if you were striving for 1st place. I always seem to get ran over at the end of these events when I was staying around the top 25 all event. I don't see how some of these ppl get these huge point boosts at the very end when I've been maximizing my points all event.

I play at every 8 hour refresh for each node and generally within the last 90 minutes I grind the nodes in order of the most amount of points. This is theory should get me close to the most amount of points I can get but these top performers are thousands of points ahead of me. What gives?

I also delay myself from initially joining an event to get into a later bracket to possibly put myself up against not as serious players. Doesn't always work but it has worked for me every few events or so.

CrookedKnight

1) Join a fresh bracket. Watch the topic that shows up in the "Events" sub-forum tracking how many people are in the open brackets for each time slice, and join right after an old bracket fills up. That maximizes the amount of time you have available.

2) Clear the event entirely, every 8 hours. Don't forget that the introductory fight in the main event page may be repeatable, depending on the event (it's not in Deadpool vs.).

3) Grind every node down as far as you can before the end of a sub. Ideally that means getting them to the point where a victory would be worth just 1 point. That's generally not practical, but it's the most effective grind possible.

Ebolamonkey84

Kcman13 wrote:

I was hoping some of you experienced guys could explain what you do to get the most points possible in PvE as if you were striving for 1st place. I always seem to get ran over at the end of these events when I was staying around the top 25 all event. I don't see how some of these ppl get these huge point boosts at the very end when I've been maximizing my points all event.

I play at every 8 hour refresh for each node and generally within the last 90 minutes I grind the nodes in order of the most amount of points. This is theory should get me close to the most amount of points I can get but these top performers are thousands of points ahead of me. What gives?

I also delay myself from initially joining an event to get into a later bracket to possibly put myself up against not as serious players. Doesn't always work but it has worked for me every few events or so.

For 24 hour subs, you should play right at the start. Play one pass again when points are full at 8 and 16 hours into the event. Keep track of how long those passes take. Start your final grind with enough time to fit in 6 full passes. Grind the nodes down to 1 working from low value nodes to high values nodes.
If you are starting to run out of time, switch to the high value nodes earlier.

The reason you want to hit the high value nodes last is to give them more time to gain points. Joining late is not going to help you go up against not serious players. Instead, you will find serious players that don't want to play the whole time.

firethorne

And here is why I've given up on PvE. Completing all nodes 8 times over in 24 hours, for 4 to 7 days in a row. In no way is that fun.

GurlBYE

Alternatively, if you don't want progression awards, gamble away by following the bracket threads, join a fresh bracket last minute (im talking 2 hours to 30 minutes before events end sometimes), grind out a clear and get somewhere above 100th, it's not unusual for people to get top 10 or 20 this way either.

mohio

What you're doing is exactly right. What's separating those guys from you is that they are devoting probably around 3 hours at the end of each sub to grind nodes down as close to 1 as they can. Your method saves you time and sanity, but might only get you top 10 or top 20. If you want top 1, you clear right when they go fresh every 8 hours and then come back with about 3 hours to go and just get as many points as you can in that time.

The other thing is that joining part-way through an event can potentially get you into a bracket where guys are 8+ hours ahead and if they are the perfect clear and grind types, there is literally 0 chance of you catching them (giving these guys even 2 or 3 hours can be too much to overcome).

edit: ebolamonkey's strat is almost certainly the best way to maximize points, just want to point out a slight wrinkle...scaling. Myself and others have noticed that when you do it this way your scaling on the high point nodes (which are typically the hardest) will increase while you grind the lower point nodes. If your roster is 4* vet or optimized for pve, this may not really matter to you. But others might find this troublesome and then later have a harder time on the harder nodes, making them take longer or needing to use more health packs, and therefore not finishing as many as they wanted. So, it might benefit you to start with the hardest nodes just to ensure that you can beat them as easily and quickly as possible. It won't get you MAXIMUM points, but it's usually good enough to beat basically everyone.

Unknown

Thanks everyone for the input. Looks like I've had the right general idea but I should either start right away to get in as much time as possible or wait until very late to join an event since it seems I'm handicapping myself by an hour or two when I start with a delay.

So it looks like I gotta pay attention to how long it will take me to finish 1 pass through, multiply it by 6 and that's how long I should give myself to finish the event.

I have a question regarding this strategy. The nodes be about half full of points by the time I want to grind down. So this is maximizing my points by doing 6 play throughs starting at half points? Say if it took 45 min to finish a pass through, that's a little over 4 hours after multiplying by 6, which would leave less than half a refresh of each node going up to the end of the sub event.

mohio

Kcman13 wrote:

I have a question regarding this strategy. The nodes be about half full of points by the time I want to grind down. So this is maximizing my points by doing 6 play throughs starting at half points? Say if it took 45 min to finish a pass through, that's a little over 4 hours after multiplying by 6, which would leave less than half a refresh of each node going up to the end of the sub event.

Yeah, unfortunately there's just no way around that issue. As for the math, each time you beat a node it decreases in points by 1/6 of the full amount. So, that half refresh is only about 1/12th of the full amount of points. For those easy nodes worth like 150-200, that's barely anything. for the essentials and hardest nodes worth 500+, it can add up to quite a bit since eat hit "loses" the built up points. Even so, waiting an additional hour only increases the nodes by 1/48th of total amount, which at most is maybe 12-15 points outside of wave nodes. As mentioned, these can still add up since each hit you'd get those points, so multiply by 6 and that's the total points you're "losing" by going an extra hour sooner. If you hit each node 5x instead of 6x, you can come out a little ahead by waiting that hour (cause 5/48 > 1/12), but if you only end up hitting it 4x instead of 5x, you will end up with fewer points (4/48 < 3/12).

Unknown

What's the typical suggestion when finishing up one node and prepping for the next one to start. Should I be conserving health packs? Grind down using a variety of characters and have my packs ready if need be for the next node?

Or do real top tier players have so many packs reserved/not really need them? What would you suggest to players attempting to move up to that tier...?

nwman

kaykordeath wrote:

What's the typical suggestion when finishing up one node and prepping for the next one to start. Should I be conserving health packs? Grind down using a variety of characters and have my packs ready if need be for the next node?

Or do real top tier players have so many packs reserved/not really need them? What would you suggest to players attempting to move up to that tier...?

People are using health packs in this event, make no mistake about it. Sure you can clear with a good team most of the time, but with the high scaling on the last grind clear you will wipe.

Playing deadpool, hulk, devil dino node for example as they march up, mine are level 271 already and I have to play that node 5 more times tonight. So if I get a board that doesn't give me match 5's, prof x and gals are going to have a rough time. I find the AI seems to match my arcane incantation some matches a lot and that makes it hard as well, prob. on matches where the AI needs blue.

So, you can save dpd tokens and hope for health packs during events, or buy them with hp.

If you have good health left, don't use a health pack most of the time. Switching characters depends on how your playing, in this event I can't switch off my top 2 teams and expect to put in fast enough clears to stay top 10, a lot of other events you can do that however. - This is for the harder nodes, the trivial ones are prob. where you could use weaker teams and still get them done fast.

A lot of people on the final grind play each node to 1 then move to the next, some play each in a row like the initial clear, but I think most play the first way.

Unknown

Right...but I was asking about the transition, from node 1 to node 2. In this case, from vs heroes to vs villains. Should one hold back on their final push of the ending node in order to be able to complete their first push on the just starting one?

Vankysher

kaykordeath wrote:

Right...but I was asking about the transition, from node 1 to node 2. In this case, from vs heroes to vs villains. Should one hold back on their final push of the ending node in order to be able to complete their first push on the just starting one?

It depends if you are willing to spend for health packs via HP or Tacos.
When I used to be competitive while trying to stay F2P, I would grind the nodes down to a certain point to let health packs regenerate before the switch or start 1 hr after the switch to a new sub to let health packs regen. You don't want to give up too much time to other players but this method typically kept me at least in the top 20 - 50.

Ruinate

Kcman13 wrote:

I also delay myself from initially joining an event to get into a later bracket to possibly put myself up against not as serious players. Doesn't always work but it has worked for me every few events or so.

If you want to to be able to hit a certain rank consistently, don't do this. Clear all nodes as soon as the event starts, 8 hour 8 hour and 3 hour end sub gets me top 10 every time. 3 hours gives me enough time to eat, watch shows, play with kitties, smoke etc. 90 minutes of actual playing time is probably realistic. Start from the smallest node all the way down to 1 then move up leaving essentials and hardest node last. Use garbage teams or healer teams when you can to save health packs. I also use 2x2ap boosts on the last 2 (or 3 if Juggs) nodes to save on health. 10 health packs is enough to get into top 10. I usually have to buy more if I want top 2 unless they're Psylocke rewards and no one is playing.

Unknown

Ruinate wrote:

Kcman13 wrote:

I also delay myself from initially joining an event to get into a later bracket to possibly put myself up against not as serious players. Doesn't always work but it has worked for me every few events or so.

If you want to to be able to hit a certain rank consistently, don't do this. Clear all nodes as soon as the event starts, 8 hour 8 hour and 3 hour end sub gets me top 10 every time. 3 hours gives me enough time to eat, watch shows, play with kitties, smoke etc. 90 minutes of actual playing time is probably realistic. Start from the smallest node all the way down to 1 then move up leaving essentials and hardest node last. Use garbage teams or healer teams when you can to save health packs. I also use 2x2ap boosts on the last 2 (or 3 if Juggs) nodes to save on health. 10 health packs is enough to get into top 10. I usually have to buy more if I want top 2 unless they're Psylocke rewards and no one is playing.

I'm nervous about scaling though. Those hard nodes will be brutal because of how easily you kept beating the easy nodes. I've kept most of my characters at 127 as I'm trying to level up my whole 3* roster together and I have a great variety owning all 3* characters in the game. There's some events where that last node is sometimes too hard to deal with after scaling happens and the boosted characters might not be in my favor.

nwman

kaykordeath wrote:

Right...but I was asking about the transition, from node 1 to node 2. In this case, from vs heroes to vs villains. Should one hold back on their final push of the ending node in order to be able to complete their first push on the just starting one?

Ah okay between sub events then. If I'm not buying I would use maybe 7 in the grind on the first sub event where scaling is at play and save 3 for the new sub event where the first play though shouldn't be too hard.

You will regen 1 playing the new sub event by the end of it as well also incase you wipe on the hard nodes.

puppychow

Ebolamonkey84 wrote:

Start your final grind with enough time to fit in 6 full passes. Grind the nodes down to 1 working from low value nodes to high values nodes.
If you are starting to run out of time, switch to the high value nodes earlier.

The reason you want to hit the high value nodes last is to give them more time to gain points. Joining late is not going to help you go up against not serious players. Instead, you will find serious players that don't want to play the whole time.

That's my approach as a top 10 pve player. You hit trivial/easier nodes first because those are pretty much guaranteed points in the bank. There's a strong possibility of wiping out against a normal ranked node. So I would throw my expendable characters (2 and level 120 3 ) to grind the easy nodes and save heals for the hard nodes.

Also, as you grind the hard nodes you will notice the scaling will increase dramatically. So the odds of wiping will increase. And your ability to clear them will partly depend on luck. In my bracket, the difference between second place and third was only 30 points; so the ranking could have easily flipped depending on luck.

Unknown

puppychow wrote:

Ebolamonkey84 wrote:

Start your final grind with enough time to fit in 6 full passes. Grind the nodes down to 1 working from low value nodes to high values nodes.
If you are starting to run out of time, switch to the high value nodes earlier.

The reason you want to hit the high value nodes last is to give them more time to gain points. Joining late is not going to help you go up against not serious players. Instead, you will find serious players that don't want to play the whole time.

That's my approach as a top 10 pve player. You hit trivial/easier nodes first because those are pretty much guaranteed points in the bank. There's a strong possibility of wiping out against a normal ranked node. So I would throw my expendable characters (2 and level 120 3 ) to grind the easy nodes and save heals for the hard nodes.

Also, as you grind the hard nodes you will notice the scaling will increase dramatically. So the odds of wiping will increase. And your ability to clear them will partly depend on luck. In my bracket, the difference between second place and third was only 30 points; so the ranking could have easily flipped depending on luck.

I thought scaling happens in opposite of what you say. That if you were to grind the easy nodes, the hard nodes will go up. It's stupid but from what I've read a little while ago, the game determines scaling based on how well you are clearing any difficulty of nodes and that the game measures this by how much health your team loses in a match.

Ruinate

Kcman13 wrote:

Ruinate wrote:

Kcman13 wrote:

I also delay myself from initially joining an event to get into a later bracket to possibly put myself up against not as serious players. Doesn't always work but it has worked for me every few events or so.

If you want to to be able to hit a certain rank consistently, don't do this. Clear all nodes as soon as the event starts, 8 hour 8 hour and 3 hour end sub gets me top 10 every time. 3 hours gives me enough time to eat, watch shows, play with kitties, smoke etc. 90 minutes of actual playing time is probably realistic. Start from the smallest node all the way down to 1 then move up leaving essentials and hardest node last. Use garbage teams or healer teams when you can to save health packs. I also use 2x2ap boosts on the last 2 (or 3 if Juggs) nodes to save on health. 10 health packs is enough to get into top 10. I usually have to buy more if I want top 2 unless they're Psylocke rewards and no one is playing.

I'm nervous about scaling though. Those hard nodes will be brutal because of how easily you kept beating the easy nodes. I've kept most of my characters at 127 as I'm trying to level up my whole 3* roster together and I have a great variety owning all 3* characters in the game. There's some events where that last node is sometimes too hard to deal with after scaling happens and the boosted characters might not be in my favor.

Don't worry about scaling. I've never had it go so high that all of a sudden the node became unbeatable during the grind. Community scaling on the other hand has, but it's gone now. A 300 headbutt and a 395 headbutt is still a health pack regardless. Play to avoid damage since health packs are your limiting factor. Grind the nodes down and deal with scaling or you don't rank. And it's not that bad, I promise.

PQAmbition

Hey I posted this on another thread, but got no answer...so I'm asking this thread as well. Any response would be appreciated!

Thing is, the top one or two people in the last half dozen events I've been in, have been a good few thousand past my score on the first 8 hour clear round. And my thinking was "well they're crushing the nodes into dust, and will drop down as I diligently work through my full point rounds--but these people not only stay a few thousand ahead, but their lead grows. How is this possible? If they do a node twice or three times, then my full point nodes should bring me at least to the same score as them after two or three rounds, while they don't get full points back for 16-24 hours. I don't see how the scaling/rubberbanding/timing could possibly apply to the first round to account for thousands of points...

Can anyone answer this?

Unknown

PQAmbition wrote:

Hey I posted this on another thread, but got no answer...so I'm asking this thread as well. Any response would be appreciated!

Thing is, the top one or two people in the last half dozen events I've been in, have been a good few thousand past my score on the first 8 hour clear round. And my thinking was "well they're crushing the nodes into dust, and will drop down as I diligently work through my full point rounds--but these people not only stay a few thousand ahead, but their lead grows. How is this possible? If they do a node twice or three times, then my full point nodes should bring me at least to the same score as them after two or three rounds, while they don't get full points back for 16-24 hours. I don't see how the scaling/rubberbanding/timing could possibly apply to the first round to account for thousands of points...

Can anyone answer this?

Did you join the bracket immediately after it opened up? It is possible that they joined earlier and could have been ahead but 1 sub.

PQAmbition

Yeah, within a minute or two. And even if I end up in top 3 or 4 right away, within minutes afterward these people are past me by 2-3k. And they stay at least that far ahead of me. I feel like if I was vigilant enough I could grind past them (not a fun prospect at 5am lol)...but I just don't understand. If we're both doing single full node runs, we should be neck and neck approaching the grind. If they grinded early, I should be past them by the time I start my grind. Nobody else has seen this?