Boss event done right

ZootSax

Honestly, the only negative was the massive boost in the side nodes after 24 hours, but we've come to expect that.  Everything else was a lot of fun, while still being challenging.

ProfessorGumby

Wumpushunter said:

Round 8 is impossible no matter how good you are with puzzles. Unless you got 1000 days in with champed 4s and 5s you don't have the health to hang against his red attack. I sure someone is going to say they beat him on round 8 with 3 stars.... don't you believe them.

I've got 1000 days in, the majority of 4* champed, but no 5* champs yet. And I took your challenge and went after the boss fight in round 8 with only 3* champs (and not any of the boosted ones).

Hulk in the middle, KK with yellow at 5 and green at 3, and [anybody at least one level lower than those two, to be the target for red] ... I chose Squirrel Girl for the humor. SG died, Hulk was nearly dead, but using anger to generate green, KKs purple to make more green, then have Hulk give Apocalypse the clap over and over while KK keeps healing everybody not dead.

It worked... and it doesn't matter to me if you don't believe me.

granne

@smkspy you don't have to beat him to get any points, you just have to remove at least one horseman, then you'll get some points and the side nodes will open.

I thoroughly enjoyed this event. Thank you, Devs. You managed to balance complexity and difficulty just right in this one.

Starfury

@smkspy
You actually don't have to beat him, you just need to have done damage at the point where the battle ends.

So basically you need to fire a skill (or match-5) and then retreat. 300 damage done, 300 points gained, mission lost. You're free to beat up on the side nodes again.

smkspy

Oh okay, I was just throwing my unchamped 2s at him like i do for every boss event. Thanks

Valenson

I just wanted to express my appreciation to the development team for this event. I feel strongly that this event, and the boss in particular were very well done. Thematically, Apocalypse was very well done. I really enjoyed the "puzzle" aspect of playing Puzzle Quest. Like the Doctor Octopus boss event a couple of months ago. Kudos to everyone involved. I am also very happy to see more X-Men related characters in the game. I wonder if there is a way to use Apocalypse in a story event, like the way Doctor Octopus is used on the last day of the webbed wonder event. 
Again, Well done, and thank you! 

  

Zalasta

Agreed. This was a really well thought out boss event. I had concerns coming into it, but have managed to be it with several different (primarily 4-star) teams. Tough, but manageable. Well done devs!

D4Ni13

Well, I don't know about you guys, but in previous boss battles I would register at least one defeat. So far only wins in this event. And although it's more puzzley, it is certanly manageable. 

You need one guy who steals special tiles, one who can help you gather AP easier, and one to soak the damage. 

It may be harder with 3* teams, but with good pairing I think it is duable. With 4* teams it is only a matter of planning & patience. 

Lucifier

Wumpushunter said:

Round 8 is impossible no matter how good you are with puzzles. Unless you got 1000 days in with champed 4s and 5s you don't have the health to hang against his red attack. I sure someone is going to say they beat him on round 8 with 3 stars.... don't you believe them.

I am at day 163, I don't even have a champed 4*, done it all with only 3* team.

till round6 using KK+Mohak+3* cyclope
round7 and round8 using KK+Mohak+3* Hulk.

from start, I match red or blue (so hulk will be in front), then boss will hit hulk twice (match damage + attack tile damage), Hulk will generate 10 greens, the idea is clear now, when you have enough green, keep using mohak green/yellow + KK purple (I do not use Hulk abilities, just use his passive), sometimes you run low on green (and not enough purple), again match red/blue, then hulk take damage and generate green (and don't let boss get red, this way you will never get big/killing damage and KK will always heal all).

did not even lost one fight (most of the time don't even use team-up, but i start with +2 purple/blue).

happened to me twice (one time boss was full health, other time boss was low in health), the boss got really lucky with cascades and criticals and kill one of my team char, but at that time I used the team-up (2 TU was over 30k damage) + whatever leftover abilities (which Hulk was alive and his red was full).

Dragon_Nexus

ZootSax said:

Honestly, the only negative was the massive boost in the side nodes after 24 hours, but we've come to expect that.  Everything else was a lot of fun, while still being challenging.

A few boss fights ago, they curbed the increase quite noticably.
It's still a big jump, but not early as bad as the level 340+ enemies you'd get on the final day, making the whole thing a tedious slog.

My alliance would typically bail out after 48 hours from the start because it stopped being fun.

So while it's not quite ideal yet (a more gradual increase would be nice) at least the level cap is way better.

Hyposphere6234

I'd like to throw my hat into the ring with praises for this event. It's tough but manageable, it makes you think more about team selection and strategies and it also gives you the option to brute force your way through too.

This boss event was done right and has been fun.

sambrookjm

Since we all whine about horrible events, I'll also throw in a "Kudos for the well designed event!" for the Devs.  At first I thought you had to get rid of all of the Horsemen to win.  Then I got a Match 5 on LVL 1, and Prof X one-shotted him with the Forehead of Doom!  Multiple ways to win is always a good thing, and I've used at least five different teams to take him out.

Plus, it gets some of the new folks in our alliance a True Healing 4-star, which is invaluable at the lower levels!

D4Ni13

sambrookjm said:

Since we all whine about horrible events, I'll also throw in a "Kudos for the well designed event!" for the Devs.  At first I thought you had to get rid of all of the Horsemen to win.  Then I got a Match 5 on LVL 1, and Prof X one-shotted him with the Forehead of Doom!  Multiple ways to win is always a good thing, and I've used at least five different teams to take him out.

Plus, it gets some of the new folks in our alliance a True Healing 4-star, which is invaluable at the lower levels!

X-23 is nice at any level, but people usually take damage on purple over heal. She can be a very good tank if you can resist from upgrading her (unreliable) purple damage. When she's boosted she's very hard to kill, with 3k heal on match.

Wumpushunter

madoctor said:

Wumpushunter said:

Round 8 is impossible no matter how good you are with puzzles. Unless you got 1000 days in with champed 4s and 5s you don't have the health to hang against his red attack. I sure someone is going to say they beat him on round 8 with 3 stars.... don't you believe them.

Try changing your strategy a bit. I am at Day 640, champed a few 4*, no champed 5* and boss is beatable for me.

And my alliance managed to finish R8 first. I had one wipe in round 8.

Very well designed boss. Puzzle-y yet not impossible

You have champed 4s I specifically stated if don't have those, average champed 3 health even boosted is oy 10k to 12k. That's 2 of his red attacks. 

Tony_Foot

A very good boss event in the end, nice to play with some variety and have lots of different teams work so I didn't eat into health packs. On paper it was a lot scarier than it actually turned out. I didn't get close to losing a node or boss fight. I used penance stare once though when I didn't bring anyone to pack a punch.

I didn't see many people at all on line say they were losing battles so I think in reality it felt harder than it actually was. In fact I only had one time when a character got downed and that was running winfinite and my level 123 prof took a couple of reds.

I even had slow success with 3 star teams.

dokiy

Loved this event. Had the puzzle aspect, side nodes didn't get harder than boss mode, and multiple ways to win. As far as winning with 3 stars....I used IM 40, 3deadpool, and Patch to win a few times. By round 8 I switched out DP for 4Clops but it was more about waiting for the right time to use powers than luck.

sambrookjm

D4Ni13 said:

sambrookjm said:

Since we all whine about horrible events, I'll also throw in a "Kudos for the well designed event!" for the Devs.  At first I thought you had to get rid of all of the Horsemen to win.  Then I got a Match 5 on LVL 1, and Prof X one-shotted him with the Forehead of Doom!  Multiple ways to win is always a good thing, and I've used at least five different teams to take him out.

Plus, it gets some of the new folks in our alliance a True Healing 4-star, which is invaluable at the lower levels!

X-23 is nice at any level, but people usually take damage on purple over heal. She can be a very good tank if you can resist from upgrading her (unreliable) purple damage. When she's boosted she's very hard to kill, with 3k heal on match.

As someone with multiple champed 4-stars, I agree with all of your points.  One of the teams I ran in Combined Arms was X-23/Patch/Daken, aka "War of Attrition."

However, we've got some very new blood in our alliance; they're still in the "first champed 2-star, and a few three-star covers" phase.  A two-cover (three, with a bit more progress tonight!) 4-star character with true healing in that point of the game is very, very helpful.

D4Ni13

sambrookjm said:

D4Ni13 said:

X-23 is nice at any level, but people usually take damage on purple over heal. She can be a very good tank if you can resist from upgrading her (unreliable) purple damage. When she's boosted she's very hard to kill, with 3k heal on match.

As someone with multiple champed 4-stars, I agree with all of your points.  One of the teams I ran in Combined Arms was X-23/Patch/Daken, aka "War of Attrition."

However, we've got some very new blood in our alliance; they're still in the "first champed 2-star, and a few three-star covers" phase.  A two-cover (three, with a bit more progress tonight!) 4-star character with true healing in that point of the game is very, very helpful.

Back when I had no 4* champed, my goal was to get X-23, but unfortunately I was stuck at 0 red covers for a very long time (5-0-3). Then vaulting came and destroyed my dreams. So I had to focus on newer heroes.

I had X-23 champed for this event already, and after I got Carol, Medusa & other top 4*, I must admit, that I choose X-23 a lot less. But for anybody who is in 3* land, she is a beast and I recommend getting her (as a tank - this is very important). And having 4 covers in row for her is great for everybody. 

DeNappa

I liked the event, but I agree with the poster that said points were a bit slow. Especially for personal progression.

Maybe this is partly because our alliance only got halfway through round 7 and the higher rounds rack up points more quickly, but I still got that feeling. Not all alliances consist of members with only strong rosters or people able to invest a lot of playtime in a relatively short time.

D4Ni13

DeNappa said:

I liked the event, but I agree with the poster that said points were a bit slow. Especially for personal progression.

Maybe this is partly because our alliance only got halfway through round 7 and the higher rounds rack up points more quickly, but I still got that feeling. Not all alliances consist of members with only strong rosters or people able to invest a lot of playtime in a relatively short time.

Well, IDK. My alliance just barely finished round 8 (slower than other events), but I had a quicker personal progression then other events (was the first one to reach max progression). If you have a good roster, you can drag your alliance up. I also had no defeats for this event (which never happened in other previous events). Maybe a reason is that my roster got stronger, but what I wanted to point out is that I didn't feel that my alliance influenced the rythm of my personal progression in any way.