Essential nodes- a recurring theme

thisone

So when a new character comes out, their essential node is usually freakishly hard in comparison to the other essentials. I know lots complained about the gauntlet cyclops nodes for example.

Usually it's a minor inconvenience. But man I have cleared this node twice no sweat yesterday but wiped twice today because kk/starlord/vision keep being gifted yellow ap from the heavens. Everyone with me on the board multiple times. It was insane how quickly I got my **** kicked! This is a serious troll node.

I think it's the constant animations that annoy me more than wiping though.

Anyone else share in my suffering?

Malcrof

Usually if i end up with only 1 or 2 covers of a new release, i bring 2 boosted with good symmetry in, or i just bring in KK / Mags , cheap skills + heals and an aoe is usually good enough to compensate.

SirLanik

actually I found red hulk node to be no problem, just whomped on Kamala then took down the others easy.

But the node essential to Bullseye wiped me three times. Eventually beat it but only with lucky cascades.
Iron Fist strike tiles with backup from Ant-Man and cascades from Scarlet Witch was INSANELY brutal.

The Viceroy Returns

SirLanik wrote:

But the node essential to Bullseye wiped me three times. Eventually beat it but only with lucky cascades.
Iron Fist strike tiles with backup from Ant-Man and cascades from Scarlet Witch was INSANELY brutal.

Agreed, this node was the hardest of all them so far.
All three are usually characters you want to target first.
I went in with Bulleye, Magneto, & Hood. Bulleye died (cause he's still Level 15 as I don't want to waste ISO on such a low tier character), and the other two were I think half-dead. My mistake was that it brought in my 2nd Hood I have who is only like 75 or so, and I didn't realize until my Hood yellow only did like 2K damage instead of the 6K+ or so it should have done with a 5 yellow, boosted max Hood.

I had this happen during the Galactus event too, where it brought in my severely under-powered 2nd Luke Cage instead of my max one.
Why does it pick your lowest leveled version of your characters by default? Seems like it should know better...

thisone

To Malcrof: Yeah I'm not asking for tips but thanks

Just generally wondering why the sudden upswing in difficulty of essential nodes. Seemed a general discussiony kinda thing.

I seem to remember a lot of goon feeder nodes against galactus. And again not asking for tips, just wondering is it just me? Or is this a new direction? Cos the supposed hard nodes are comparatively easy, really. It's kind of jarring I guess?

PuceMoose

Yes, that Kamala/Starlord/Vision node slaughtered me. It was a cascade fest for the enemy, but I believe my first (and so far, only) attempt resulted in the enemy team at 100% full health as I met my death due to Kamala grin-healing every turn due to Vision's insane density dancing.

Punisher5784

I agree that new character essential nodes are generally harder (e.g. Cyclops in Galactus).

I know you're not asking for tips but I used Beast and SW with Red Hulk. He tanked both of them.. With SW always having a Blue CD, Beast's Green wipes them out in a few turns.

The Beauty & the Beast is my fav PVE duo now

thisone

Punisher5784 wrote:

I agree that new character essential nodes are generally harder (e.g. Cyclops in Galactus).

I know you're not asking for tips but I used Beast and SW with Red Hulk. He tanked both of them.. With SW always having a Blue CD, Beast's Green wipes them out in a few turns.

The Beauty & the Beast is my fav PVE duo now

I do like beast but he's one of my few undercovered ones. 4/3/4 still. That definitely sounds like a nice combo to try though!

I just went cyke/fist and get off my lawn'd her.

jredd

there are times when i wipe hard on a node. heal the same three characters. and go back in the same node and demolish it. depends on your board luck and whether the game has pre determined if you are going to win or lose...

thisone

Puce Moose wrote:

Yes, that Kamala/Starlord/Vision node slaughtered me. It was a cascade fest for the enemy, but I believe my first (and so far, only) attempt resulted in the enemy team at 100% full health as I met my death due to Kamala grin-healing every turn due to Vision's insane density dancing.

For me the cascades led to starlord popping everyone with me multiple times. I didn't know you could have more than 1cd tile down for it! I was like holy ****! So they started spamming all their powers due to mega decreased costs. But brute force won out in the end.

I actually had less trouble in the fist node than everyone else. Only wiped once due to her cd tile giving off a match 5 that led to another match 5. That led to fist filling the board with black for another 2 match 5s. That was kind of brutal. Is it my turn.. no..me next.. no.. oh finally my go. Oh I'm dead..

I

BlackSheep101

Kamala paired with teammates using spammy powers requires tactics similar to Cage, Hulk, 3* Marvel, etc. Ignore match damage and save your AP until you can go nova. The AI is going to fire off abilities as soon as it can, regardless of whether it will only heal the front character for 300. Don't make its braindead tactics more effective by dealing out damage piecemeal. Once KK goes down, you're facing two of the worst characters around.

thisone

Carnage + ultron prime + doc ock now lmao.

One shotting carnage before things go crazy is the way to go. But as I've said before, these nodes seem more cascade prone than others. Good luck all

Crowl

Are they really more difficult than the others or does it seem that way due to the lack of covers almost everyone has on them, even those with otherwise great rosters?

Add another vote from me for the day 1/2 Bullseye node being the toughest as for most people that was almost a 3 on 2 handicap match.

Akari

I've been using Patch and Rocket+Groot for this entire PvE (Loki as 3rd when not in essentials). I didn't think any of the essentials nodes were hard, but they were extremely tedious. The Carnage node can get messy real quick, especially if they use the Magneto TU early on and Ultron spams defense tiles too. The KK node just sucked due to Vision spamming skills multiple times a turn, but it was just a battle of endurance and getting enough AP to keep KK down, then it was easy.

Honestly, I thought the hardest node was either the buffed Ragnarok/Loki/Ares node (Loki keeps you down while they spam cheap damage), or the Doom+Doombot node (feeding Doom TONS of AP for nonstop Technopathic>Summon Demons is no fun, no fun at all).

I will say, Patch+Rocket is really slow, but ultra safe. True Healing ftw, keeps my health packs up.