The Hunt for the Falcon - April 18 - 27

over_clocked

Mine is 137/138/138. I've been doing my best to play as little as possible. 54k in main and top 50 so far.
Btw Hood/buffed cStorm/buffed MMN are effing great against anything not-UberDaken. I will never tire of saying that

Unknown

BelligerentGnu wrote:

Only point I think I'd disagree on is Bullseye. At high levels his protect tiles pretty much shut down match damage. I think he rates an 'okay'.

Yep. I always target Bullseye first on any node he's in. He'll draw the match out alot longer if you leave him alive, which is super frustrating when there's also a Daken there ripping you up with match damage.

Bowgentle

kensterr wrote:

What are your "Top of the World" levels in the main bracket? Mine has gone up from 161/162/161 to 183/184/184 overnight. I just go through the nodes once per refresh, sometimes not even completing all the nodes if i'm already in the top 10 for the sub-bracket. And I only used Spidey stunlock once, and I came out of that match without healing, with Spidey almost dead. Gah!

I think my TOTW levels actually went _down_ overnight, which is strange.
I do remember them being 180ish, now they're at 151/152/151.
I haven't started Florida yet so I can't check on the DAs there, but levels going down is a first.

daveomite

kensterr wrote:

What are your "Top of the World" levels in the main bracket? Mine has gone up from 161/162/161 to 183/184/184 overnight. I just go through the nodes once per refresh, sometimes not even completing all the nodes if i'm already in the top 10 for the sub-bracket. And I only used Spidey stunlock once, and I came out of that match without healing, with Spidey almost dead. Gah!

I already did top of the world, so can't play it again as it's locked. Are you saying that you can replay it?

daveomite

walkyourpath wrote:

BelligerentGnu wrote:

Only point I think I'd disagree on is Bullseye. At high levels his protect tiles pretty much shut down match damage. I think he rates an 'okay'.

Yep. I always target Bullseye first on any node he's in. He'll draw the match out alot longer if you leave him alive, which is super frustrating when there's also a Daken there ripping you up with match damage.

same here. Always go after him first

Bowgentle

daveomite wrote:

kensterr wrote:

What are your "Top of the World" levels in the main bracket? Mine has gone up from 161/162/161 to 183/184/184 overnight. I just go through the nodes once per refresh, sometimes not even completing all the nodes if i'm already in the top 10 for the sub-bracket. And I only used Spidey stunlock once, and I came out of that match without healing, with Spidey almost dead. Gah!

I already did top of the world, so can't play it again as it's locked. Are you saying that you can replay it?

No, but you can look at the levels.

daveomite

locked wrote:

Mine is 137/138/138. I've been doing my best to play as little as possible. 54k in main and top 50 so far.
Btw Hood/buffed cStorm/buffed MMN are effing great against anything not-UberDaken. I will never tire of saying that

Even though I've already played it, it shows they're in the 130 range for me too. Currently just under 57k in the main and top 30 presently.

kensterr

Thanks to all who replied about the levels in TOTW.

I think I gotta skip the hard nodes and not even bothered about boosting or using Spidey, or at the very least kamikaze on those nodes to bring down my scaling. BTW... suiciding 3 times (not retreating) didn't do anything to bring scaling down, so I suppose I need to make it more than 5 times? Anyone else sent in their teams to die and noticed a drop in levels?

Unknown

I took a few days off over Easter. When I got back ran myself up to top 5 in each of the active brackets. Main bracket rank 263. Am I correct in thinking that there is no functional way to catch up at this point aside from hundreds of people slacking off the rest of the event?

I knew taking a break would make it harder to place but didn't think it would be quite so impossible to get any falcons ...

Message received: don't take even a little time off

daveomite

kensterr wrote:

Thanks to all who replied about the levels in TOTW.

I think I gotta skip the hard nodes and not even bothered about boosting or using Spidey, or at the very least kamikaze on those nodes to bring down my scaling. BTW... suiciding 3 times (not retreating) didn't do anything to bring scaling down, so I suppose I need to make it more than 5 times? Anyone else sent in their teams to die and noticed a drop in levels?

welcome. And to answer the question, nada. Haven't noticed a drop, maybe not increasing as rapidly, but not a drop. I just suicided, not by choice, thanks to a one shot 4k+ photon burst from moonstone that took out my HT in one fail swoop. That was after losing both lazy Thor and obw while facing a 180+ plus venom and yelena on a cascade from hell board. Fun times.

HailMary

Lyrian wrote:

Another fun thought... There are two more laps around the entire three-sub circuit left to go. By Lap 3 around the nodes, how many more players will cave in and finish covering their Lazy Caps and Thors to be able to even have a chance against level 200+ nodes everywhere to win Falcon covers?

Yep, we're already seeing Russian-roulette scaling, and we still have 6 days left. Your assessment of the purpose of scaling makes a scary amount of sense. I'm seriously considering buying a LThor G for PVP purposes (currently 3/5/3), but I'm aiming to hold off on that until the end of Falcon Hunt in case I get lucky pulls from sub tokens. I've got a 3/5/5 Mr. Rogers, but I'm stockpiling my Iso for pending LThor & BP leveling, so he's staying put at L41. We'll see how long I can stick to that plan.

Lyrian wrote:

You are correct in stating that Daken did not need to be more powerful than he already his. Yet, he is definitely receiving a power upgrade. Depending on what that Blue active skill actually does, Daken is either going to be extremely annoying if the Blue skill is weak, or outright torturous if his Blue skill is strong. Which one do you think would generate more cover sales for him?

Yep, just a direct boost-to-L141 of Daken would be extremely annoying to fight. UberDaken will be a definite must-have (even without a third skill) not to actually play on offense, but simply to put up as a defensive scarecrow.

Phantron: I'm gonna agree with TestyCow that high-level Bullseye is a massive annoyance. Get L150+ Bullseye and L150+ Daken on the same team, and every turn without firing a heavy-hitter ability makes me feel like Mickey Mouse in the last third of The Sorcerer's Apprentice.

daveomite wrote:

I just suicided, not by choice, thanks to a one shot 4k+ photon burst from moonstone that took out my HT in one fail swoop. That was after losing both lazy Thor and obw while facing a 180+ plus venom and yelena on a cascade from hell board. Fun times.

Yep, Moonstone is preceded only by Ares and Bullseye on my "super-leveled PVE hellions" kill priority list. I've seemingly been subject to cascades from hell within 4 turns on just about 30% of my villain fights, which sometimes leads to Biggie Ares pulling out Onslaught + Sunder + Onslaught over three turns, which then brings great shame upon my family.

TOTW levels: 85/86/86

reckless442

daveomite wrote:

Phantron wrote:

One of the biggest problem of scaling is that this game is very poorly balanced at certain places. If you are to make a power level chart for the level 200+ DAs + affiliates, it'd probably look like this:

Daken tier - Daken

Broken - Juggernaut

Very good - Ares, The Hood

Okay - Moonstone, Venom, Ragnarok, Dr. Doom

Kind of weak - Bullseye

Yelena tier - Yelena

The problem is that these guys are mixed assuming everyone is roughly equally powerful, so you get say a level 230 Ares/Moonstone/Bullseye which is definitely doable, and then next fight you get Juggernaut instantly killing a guy with 6 red (at least he's not a choice in this event), and he isn't even the strongest guy in the enemy list.

They really need to change it so that lower * characters don't get a disproportional buff for the +level effects beyond their cap. If there was a level 300 Modern Storm running around, that'd be pretty scary too.

agreed. And right, ares/yelena/bullseye at 230, probably doable...but ares/rags/daken or venom at 230+, they can all cause massive hp issues quickly.

Try 308/309, which is my Ares node in Florida -- a node I haven't even attempted yet.

Here are some stats.

308 Ares -- has 18705 health; does match damage of 136 yellow, 156 red, and 175 green; onslaught does 728 damage per green AP (i.e., at least 4368 damage); rampage does 2644 to each team member; and sunder does 6998.

309 Venom -- has 18780 health, does match damage of 137 purple, 157 black, and 176 green; devour does 5868 damage.

309 Daken -- has 1252 health; does match damage of 137 purple, 157 black, and 176 green; and each strike tile does 164 damage.

I tossed in tank team 141 Hulk, 141 Psylocke, and 128 IM40 to see what would happen. Within three moves from each side, there were seven Daken strike tiles on the board. I actually managed to get some good cascades off of thunderclap and did a second thunderclap, 1 psychic knife and 2 psi-katanas in my next turn, but then Ares got a mini-cascade of two matches) and Psylocke took over 4000 in damage. I matched yellow in the hope of doing an IM40 recharge, but Ares used onslaught and did over 6000 damage, finishing off IM40's remaining 38 points with a match. Another thunderclap and a match took out Ares (b/c of my attack tiles), but the next match removed Pyslocke. So now I had nearly full-strength Daken and Venom and Hulk with 6567 left. Hulk managed to survive two turns and get off another thunderclap to drop Daken to 7000 health before dying.

And the devs wonder why I use boosts and Classic Mags to control the board and prevent my opponent from accumulating AP and triggering powers?

Unknown

reckless442 wrote:

308 Ares -- has 18705 health; does match damage of 136 yellow, 156 red, and 175 green; onslaught does 728 damage per green AP (i.e., at least 4368 damage); rampage does 2644 to each team member; and sunder does 6998.

309 Venom -- has 18780 health, does match damage of 137 purple, 157 black, and 176 green; devour does 5868 damage.

309 Daken -- has 1252 health; does match damage of 137 purple, 157 black, and 176 green; and each strike tile does 164 damage.

....I'm honestly not sure if there is *any* way to beat that outside of infinite turn/stunlock combos. Maybe some kind of Patch shenanigans?

Ye flippin' gods.

kensterr

HailMary wrote:

Yep, we're already seeing Russian-roulette scaling, and we still have 6 days left. Your assessment of the purpose of scaling makes a scary amount of sense. I'm seriously considering buying a LThor G for PVP purposes (currently 3/5/3), but I'm aiming to hold off on that until the end of Falcon Hunt in case I get lucky pulls from sub tokens. I've got a 3/5/5 Mr. Rogers, but I'm stockpiling my Iso for pending LThor & BP leveling, so he's staying put at L41. We'll see how long I can stick to that plan.
TOTW levels: 85/86/86

I've maxed my 3/5/5 LT and while it helps a lot in most of the fights where he tanks for the rest of team, though he could be the reason why my scaling went up as well. Those which are not "Deadly" I find it doable with LT/OBW/M.Storm or any featured character. I only used Spidey to stunlock once. The "Deadly" nodes I have to keep making sure I match some blues for OBW to heal, if not Daken's strike tiles will bite me when AI gets lucky cascades.

reckless442 wrote:

And the devs wonder why I use boosts and Classic Mags to control the board and prevent my opponent from accumulating AP and triggering powers?

Hope that IceIX takes notice of this. We have to use C.Mags or Spidey (with boosts) to overcome hard enemies, but when we do it they think that we are having an easy match, therefore making future matches harder with crazier scaling. The only way I suppose to overcome this is to either skip an event altogether, or just keep on suiciding in an event where we have no interest in.

Unknown

reckless442 wrote:

Try 308/309, which is my Ares node in Florida -- a node I haven't even attempted yet.

Here are some stats.

308 Ares -- has 18705 health; does match damage of 136 yellow, 156 red, and 175 green; onslaught does 728 damage per green AP (i.e., at least 4368 damage); rampage does 2644 to each team member; and sunder does 6998.

309 Venom -- has 18780 health, does match damage of 137 purple, 157 black, and 176 green; devour does 5868 damage.

309 Daken -- has 1252 health; does match damage of 137 purple, 157 black, and 176 green; and each strike tile does 164 damage.

I tossed in tank team 141 Hulk, 141 Psylocke, and 128 IM40 to see what would happen. Within three moves from each side, there were seven Daken strike tiles on the board. I actually managed to get some good cascades off of thunderclap and did a second thunderclap, 1 psychic knife and 2 psi-katanas in my next turn, but then Ares got a mini-cascade of two matches) and Psylocke took over 4000 in damage. I matched yellow in the hope of doing an IM40 recharge, but Ares used onslaught and did over 6000 damage, finishing off IM40's remaining 38 points with a match. Another thunderclap and a match took out Ares (b/c of my attack tiles), but the next match removed Pyslocke. So now I had nearly full-strength Daken and Venom and Hulk with 6567 left. Hulk managed to survive two turns and get off another thunderclap to drop Daken to 7000 health before dying.

And the devs wonder why I use boosts and Classic Mags to control the board and prevent my opponent from accumulating AP and triggering powers?

He was level 280 and I beat him fairly easily but that was just all luck. After that I got totally destroyed by a level 240 Daken elsewhere pumping out 1500 match 3s. Lazy Thor took like 6K damage in one round from just cascades and died.

Lazy Thor can actually take a hit from even the strongest moves and given that you got OBW boosted it's not unreasonable to rely on Aggressive Recon, but of course AR doesn't do anything about match 3 damage boosted by Daken, which is a true killer.

Unknown

Welp... This event is going from "challenging but fun" to "annoyingly difficult". A majority of my missions are hard and Deadly, and playing the few missions that aren't either of those are just going to make the rest of the event even worse. And even if I could manage to win one of those missions, I've have to quickly use up any health packs to keep going. With the scaling like this, it feels almost pointless to have this be a nine day event since, at this rate, it'll be damn near unplayable with at least what... 3 days left?

Oh well. I'm going on vacation, so it's a relief this isn't an event for a character I would REALLY want.

Unknown

For Bullseye, he is quite strong in the 150-200 range, but after that he becomes much weaker because when you fight guys with 15K or more HP, you're not counting on match 3 to make a dent on their HP so the fact that it goes to 1 very quickly doesn't matter. You're just collecting AP until you've some kind of combo to break the game open. If you use Spiderman you can simply stun Bullseye when you unleash your combo to break his protect tiles. Magneto can override protect tiles or destroy them with match 4/5s. Lazy Thor you can do 2 Thunder Strikes which should nearly clear the board, and if not Call the Storm hits hard enough that you can probably live with the protect tiles. Lazy Cap can just throw his shield over the protect tiles. It's pretty hard to come up with a team that can do 40K+ total damage that doesn't have a way to destroy protect tiles.

This assumes you don't use +match boosts, though if you use +match boosts that sort of implies you should be using Magneto (since MF is all match damage) who have no problem overriding protect tiles too.

reckless442

BelligerentGnu wrote:

reckless442 wrote:

308 Ares -- has 18705 health; does match damage of 136 yellow, 156 red, and 175 green; onslaught does 728 damage per green AP (i.e., at least 4368 damage); rampage does 2644 to each team member; and sunder does 6998.

309 Venom -- has 18780 health, does match damage of 137 purple, 157 black, and 176 green; devour does 5868 damage.

309 Daken -- has 1252 health; does match damage of 137 purple, 157 black, and 176 green; and each strike tile does 164 damage.

....I'm honestly not sure if there is *any* way to beat that outside of infinite turn/stunlock combos. Maybe some kind of Patch shenanigans?

Ye flippin' gods.

I managed to beat it using my main team -- buffed max-LT/buffed max-HT/135 Classic Mags -- and pulling out all the stops (i.e., boosts). I used +3 blue/purple, +3 red/yellow, and +3 all-AP. The board actually was very short of blue and red, so I took a lot of damage. Lazy Thor tanked the match damage while I managed to take out Daken first. I couldn't remove him before the first move, but he only was able to get out two strike tiles before I took him out on turn two. I took out Venom next and managed to take him out before Ares got a second onslaught, which I positioned LT to take since he was down to 1100 health. Then HT and Mags managed to deny Ares green and red, while doing damage with HT's red and Mags' purple. They took minimal damage before I won. Both were still over 5000 health at the end. Of course, had Ares gotten off another onslaught or a sunder, he would have one-shot either of them and it would have been over. In fact, if I had not had the foresight to move LT to the front to absorb Ares' second onslaught, I would have lost. Ares would have taken out either HT or Mags (or dropped them to a few hundred health) and LT probably would have been too low on health to survive match damage from more than two matches.

I got the 500 ISO for the win, so at least I got the best reward. I don't think I'll be repeating that node.

daveomite

HailMary wrote:

Yep, Moonstone is preceded only by Ares and Bullseye on my "super-leveled PVE hellions" kill priority list. I've seemingly been subject to cascades from hell within 4 turns on just about 30% of my villain fights, which sometimes leads to Biggie Ares pulling out Onslaught + Sunder + Onslaught over three turns, which then brings great shame upon my family.

haha and ha. No kidding. Shame upon the family, bad. But man, the cascades... wait... hey D3, here's a sponsorship opportunity for you calling. Get Cascade to sponsor all this crazy DA cascades in the game.

"Cascade, keeps your dishes clean... almost as much as it wipes the floor with your a$#$"

reckless442 wrote:

Try 308/309, which is my Ares node in Florida --

Oh my word.... geez.

RichHurtz wrote:

Welp... This event is going from "challenging but fun" to "annoyingly difficult". A majority of my missions are hard and Deadly, and playing the few missions that aren't either of those are just going to make the rest of the event even worse. And even if I could manage to win one of those missions, I've have to quickly use up any health packs to keep going. With the scaling like this, it feels almost pointless to have this be a nine day event since, at this rate, it'll be damn near unplayable with at least what... 3 days left?

No kidding. It's kind of like putting your hand in a running blender, realizing it hurt, then putting your hand back in the running blender again anyway.

Unknown

kensterr wrote:

What are your "Top of the World" levels in the main bracket? Mine has gone up from 161/162/161 to 183/184/184 overnight. I just go through the nodes once per refresh, sometimes not even completing all the nodes if i'm already in the top 10 for the sub-bracket. And I only used Spidey stunlock once, and I came out of that match without healing, with Spidey almost dead. Gah!

In my book that is way to many nodes if you want to keep scaling down. Since all the subs have reverted to a more standard rubber banding I am back onto my usual method of doing missions. In the first 3 refreshes of Alaska, this time around, I have done every node once and the featured nodes twice. In Florida I have not started yet and there only two refreshes to go. I will not even go to do all the nodes once leaving 3 untouched. My rule of thumb is do less than 20 missions in a sub unless this is going to effect the overall standing.

In fact the more refreshes there are in a sub the less missions per refresh you need to do.

For reference I am 8K off the leader in my main bracket which is about how far I am behind in Florida. This gap will be closed to under 2K by doing 5 or 6 nodes as currently the featured nodes are worth between 1500-1900 and they still not at maximum rubber band yet.