A new low

xidragonxi

I struggled with this until I switched to IM40 / XPool. Take out Carnage using Out of Bullets and then clean up the goons. If they happen to fire Tommy Gun, Xpool makes them pay for it.

Oddly, I had a really hard time using Peggy on this node. Mine is only level 120 un-boosted, so that's probably why, but I was only able to take out two of them before almost losing to the third. Switching to XPool made it much easier.

broll

Yeah I did not like this sub at all. Carnage nodes were nearly impossible to clear outside of luck or stacking ridiculous amounts of boosts. Would have been fine if full roster was available. Having Doc Ock and Ant-Man to help with these would have been a huge help for me.

Sm0keyJ0e

Squirrel Girl owned!

Ishigun

It's just another reason to question if the devs are testing out their nodes because it's doable but brutal. If that's your standard for 4* essential then let that be your schtick.. it's the randomness of the difficulty that makes it seems like they have no QC..

mpqr7

Yeah it's a very tough, non-fun node! I probably won't make max prog (which is incidentally the name of my new jazz band omg/lol/j/k), but it's fine... I've emotionally given up on this particular pve. I already got my prog blade, so that's good enough. Tomorrow is a new day... scl 8! No oml, but I'll pull through somehow. Quake should be helpful with all those kishu aoe trap nodes.

SummerGlau

I did this one with Blade, Iron Man 40 and Thor Modern (The latter two are Champions)

The 5th playing of the Mission was the only time anyone on my team was downed

SummerGlau

lets not forget these nodes were probably balanced for the characters in the event the first time it was played as well

fmftint

Shrug, had no problem with it, Peggy/IM40, collect yellow (I boosted +2 on pass 4), throw shield stunning Carnage, Peggy red on the unstunned Muscle, then wait for CDs to resolve

MPQ_Daywalker

aesthetocyst wrote:

Pylgrim wrote:

Boss Rush doesn't hold a candle to this level of unfairness.

Yeah, that level of hyperbole is a indeed a new low. Well done ... I guess. How low can you go?

Heh, yes, this was my reaction as well. Comparing this one node of a three-day Heroic to the Event-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named (and discussion of which will be locked) seems to be the new low. It's like the MPQ equivalent of "worse than Hitler."

Even if you can't beat this node more than once or twice, chances are you can make up the points by playing the other nodes more in order to hit your final CP progression for the event. Can you say the same about Boss Rush?

FWIW, my strategy is IM40 and boosts... two Y/R AP boosts, one all AP boost (for a total of 3 yellow), so I just need to make one yellow match. Bring along your favorite blue stunner (Peggy Carter or Daredevil) to stun Carnage as quickly as possible, manage the Muscle countdown tiles, and you should be able to win.

The Bob The

It's the same Carnage strategy as ever: Bring a stunner. The goons suck, but they don't feed him AP, and having boosted Peggy (if you've got her, that is) slows down the goons' powers as well. If your roster isn't 4*, you've also got DD's stun, and for even lower rosters there's OBW's blue.

Understand, I'm not saying "Aw, this node's a cinch, quit'cher whinin'!" It's really hit-or-miss even with IM40/Peggy. I cleared it with barely any damage the first three times, then wiped twice: The first time I couldn't get yellow, the second time I kept getting to 9 red for Peggy's punch, then Blade ($%#$ BLADE) slurped it away. But they've played this song before.

BlackSheep101

So much hyperbole. I was able to clear this 4 times using the same x-force twins I used on the rest of the sub. Peggy/40 sounds like it would have been easier. Lower level rosters have Daredevil, OBW and 2Cap. Heroics usually suck, but the current set of characters is hardly helpless.

kobu

Yes, it's a stupid node. I only manage with Peggy.

If all the rest of you would harp on how stupid Muscles are in general like I do, maybe we'd get somewhere with getting them nerfed into a reasonable difficulty.

Next anniversary event idea: 5 waves of 5 level 500 Muscles with guaranteed starting board locked to one possible match.

CrookedKnight

Thankfully IM40 + Peggy lets you stun both Carnage and whichever Muscle has Threatens on the board, and then punch the third one's face in, but that's by far the best setup we've ever had for this essential and it's still a pain.

GrimSkald

hodayathink wrote:

Bowgentle wrote:

Don't worry, we're all struggling on that one.

I've retreated twice and wiped once on my initial four clears, and still finished them first in my bracket.

Yes, it's playing the lottery, so is 90% of the rest of the game.

Just give yourself an extra 15 minutes for the end grind.

Edit:
But wait, wasn't Caranage supposed to NOT have Scythes on all goon nodes? Was that change ONLY for Venom Bomb?

Only for Venom Bomb. Even then , Scythes isn't the dangerous thing about this node. The dangerous thing about this node is those automatic tiles plus a threaten going off.

Yes, the reason they took away his Scythes in Venom Bomb is that those Tinykitty Symbiotes were feeding him red - he could fire it off every other turn if he didn't match red, more if he did.

Muscles just plain suck. They are so far out of scale with anything else it's absurd. They should have been nerfed long ago.

carrion_pigeons

Muscles *were* nerfed a couple months ago, as I recall. This is what they nerfed them to.

(Incidentally, I'd much prefer they just reduce the cost of failure in general to lowering difficulty of any given node. Hard nodes at least give the game some flavor. They just need to do a better job of convincing people that hard nodes are meant as a puzzle to solve instead of a roadblock to punish you.)

Warbringa

Haha...glad I don't have Blade to even worry about this node. I remember this node from past runs and it is totally unfair. Yeah Muscle health is still way too high compared to the damage they deal and since they are goons, they will get the AP almost guaranteed (not even counting when they have an AI character matching tiles). I know they are Muscle so high health should be a given but their yellow countdown tiles should be at least a 6 or 7 due to this fact to be fair. The blue tile is probably fair at 5 but could also be increased to 6 to make them balanced.

Pants1000

I actually found this node easiest with XFDP and Colossus. Throw XFDP in the air, and use Colossus as a meat shield to generate the retaliations.

Peggy may be better, but like many others I don't have her champed yet.

Jam_Adams

don't worry guys, D3 is reviewing the data, and they will take our feedback into consideration for future runs

mpqr7

CrookedKnight wrote:

Thankfully IM40 + Peggy lets you stun both Carnage and whichever Muscle has Threatens on the board, and then punch the third one's face in, but that's by far the best setup we've ever had for this essential and it's still a pain.

I just tried IM40 + Peggy. This team works incredibly well! Thanks everyone who gave this as a tip!

Omega Red

It's not THAT hard but it's certainly infuriating. It's a "**** you buy some health packs" money grab kind of node.

Also, no idea of what you guys are talking about IM 40. Muscles cover all yellow tiles, he's useless unless you get a good board.