To Gauntlet or Not To Gauntlet....

SnowcaTT

I have never, ever finished a Gauntlet. In fact, I've only gotten to the 2nd set of subs and thought to myself: this is a health-pack sucking nightmare!

Yesterday, I finished the Gauntlet in 12 hours. I'm sure it could have been much faster.

So what changed? Did the featured characters finally line up for me? Did the nodes get that much easier?

Only one small change - I finally had the -correct- thirteen covers of a certain scholarly 4* character. Since I don't play much PVE I had never bothered to level him up (and he still works with his 3* counterparts), and I had never bothered to buy any of his covers when I could.

He has made all the difference in PVE, and I can see why others rave about him and (one big reason) why folks howl when PVE-heroics are implemented. I feel sorry for anyone who was thinking about HP-buying covers before the option was taken away - I now see that no cover would be more purchasable in early-play time than these.

To Gauntlet or Not To Gauntlet, that is the question. One working 4* makes the decision, without him I would simply continue to not bother running this event.

TxMoose

not sure if you're talking hb or ice or px, but if u have both ice and hb, its crazy - mainly ice since cmags can work in place of hb. I'm not one to power through, but I made it through sub 1 and 2 without a boost. and hb/ice/hood are my mainstay unless one is locked out. hb can be replaced by cmags and hood by witch. ice hasn't been locked yet. wondering how far I can make it before dusting off winfinite. would be pretty mean to throw a team of ice/obw/im40 or something. my cyke isn't leveled yet, so that would be the obvious solution, but I might have to whale something like that, which obw would make tough.

Picklechu

You on about Prof X? I can't beat the Jeanbuster +Thor3 node for love nor money in sub 3. As soon as they get an ability off my guys die:(

SnowcaTT

"Scholarly" here meaning the Professor. I've been told before that he makes the entire gauntlet "Trivial"...and he pretty much did.

I have max Jean-buster, but you'll still be taking tons of damage with hulkbuster and needing lots of health packs. I've had max/featured 4*'s in gauntlets before, and that hasn't made me run them. I was told by a team-mate that Iceman was buffed to "godmode", and the entire thing was pretty trivial with him as well.

The Jean node (and all the final essentials) were also easy with a certain 3* character in red/black spandex that has a (solo-ish) movie coming out soon. If all the final essentials were DP/PX/other I wouldn't have known what to do.

Orion

Picklechu wrote:

You on about Prof X? I can't beat the Jeanbuster +Thor3 node for love nor money in sub 3. As soon as they get an ability off my guys die:(

Use some super-whales? Heck, I save up Deadpool's points just to clear those gauntlet nodes that are too annoying to clear any other way.

stowaway

This was the easiest Gauntlet for me by far, and not just because Iceman is awesome (but boy, is he). They reigned in the scaling of Global Domination (though the other two subs seemed worse). I had enemies 50 levels lower than the last two Gauntlets, despite having boosted characters about 100 levels higher. And the levels didn't go up after clearing nodes, making some of them worth farming for the rewards.

OneLastGambit

My professor and his harem are all under covered and underlevelled and have just enough of the right covers to be usable and at level 111...so far they have not failed a single node even when the enemies were 100 levels higher

pheregas

Picklechu wrote:

You on about Prof X? I can't beat the Jeanbuster +Thor3 node for love nor money in sub 3. As soon as they get an ability off my guys die:(

I used Prof X, GSBW, and 3* Spiderman with +2 b/p. Just make one blue match, gather your purple for a winfinite, but then stun Jean before you launch it. The rest isn't too hard if you can keep it going.

timbopp

SnowcaTT wrote:

I finally had the -correct- thirteen covers of a certain scholarly 4* character.

SnowcaTT wrote:

The Jean node (and all the final essentials) were also easy with a certain 3* character in red/black spandex that has a (solo-ish) movie coming out soon.

Really? Just type the character's name.

Bowgentle

Agreed, the 326 limit on enemy levels coupled with the fact that boosted championed Cyke is a monster, plus another top tier 4* buffed made this "easy" compared to previous Gauntlets.

I still needed to either use HP or switch out Cyke for HB and vice versa after a lot of nodes, but for the most part JG with Cyke/HB plus third destroyed everything.

Never needed to use winfinite, let alone Whales.

That was a difficulty that felt RIGHT instead of just boosting the Dark Avengers to kingdom come and force you to grind the node a million times.

Thank you, devs.

DeNappa

I wouldn't underestimate the number of people that don't have the luxury of well covered (good) 4*s.

Though I must have about 20 4*s, most of them are sitting at one or two covers, so I'm running the gauntlet with my 3*s. The enemy is generally scaled high enough to require a health pack every few nodes even on the 'easy' first gauntlet (at least in my case). So finishing in 12 hours would be out of the question unless I'm flooding in health packs

Last time I mostly had to resort to Hulk/GSBW for the more difficult 2nd and 3rd gauntlets, and there were a few nodes that also required luck with the board.

In the meantime I've gathered some more covers for my 3*s but the enemies are scaled higher as well, so hopefully I'll be able to push through this time as well...

TxMoose

denappa - keep in mind that this run starts higher at the beginning but doesn't get to crazypants levels at the end. nobody has seen a 395 this run and I did last run, and I have exactly 1 maxed 4*. if you can push through and keep clearing nodes, you have a chance because the level of difficulty doesn't skyrocket.

Unknown

SnowcaTT wrote:

To Gauntlet or Not To Gauntlet, that is the question. One working 4* makes the decision, without him I would simply continue to not bother running this event.

One thing I've discovered thanks to Galactus is that you can do as well as PX/GSBW with only 3* toons: KK/MoStorm. It's much slower because of no bonus PX damage, but it really does feed itself and keep building 'till you have 30 all AP. Seriously "infinite", and initial startup time is about the same (it's the time-to-kill that's slower, not the time-to-lock-down).

So it's not really a question of can/can't, it's more a question of slow/fast. I do like PX, A LOT, but he's not unique in terms of winfinite.