PvE SCL 8 to 9 Transition

helix72

I'm a 4*, predominantly SCL 8 player who was never before tried SCL 9. I know the progression prizes are better, and I've heard placement prizes are also more generous and easier to attain, but with exactly zero champed, fully covered, or even moderately leveled 5*s on my roster, I assumed it was out of my league.

But I do have at least 1 cover for every 5* (except GEDoom), and FOMO finally kicked in when I saw the boosted list for this event included some top tier 4*s all of whom I have champed (Chavez, Grocket, Captain Marvel, and Rogue). My hope is by documenting and sharing my experience it might help some others who are similarly wondering...do I have what it takes and is it worth it to do SCL 9?

Day 1:

Honor Among Thieves:
Opening node was super easy. So easy, I don't even remember who I used or if they were required. So far so good.

I Have a Plan:
Opening node also super easy. 8 black came quick, Carol's photonic barrage strike tiles started kicking in before the enemy CD tiles starting ticking off, killing off enemy 1. Enemy 2 went down when the tile resolved, enemy 3 taken out by Thor's Mjolnir. Still on cruise control.

5e: Right to the hard stuff. My level 255 2/0/1 Ghost Rider gets equipped with the level 200 Sharon Carter support for the extra red & blue damage plus most importantly increased crit multiplier because I expect to generate lots of crits thanks to 'Merica! Heck yeah. 'Merica gets my level 87 Vintage Shield because it boosts yellow damage (she'll be my strongest yellow user) and it gives me about a 1/3 shot to start with 3 Yellow AP. Added Hood to boost AP collection and strapped him with my level 50 Quantum Realm support for a 22% chance to start with 5 purple AP. Strategy is to try to get each enemy's HP down equally, until a CD is out then always target the one with the CD closest to resolving that I can't match away. Get a rainbow of AP quick to get 'Merica's crits going then juice up whichever colors the enemy produces to stay ahead in those. Maybe get enough extra to be able to afford firing a power or two but that's secondary. Hood's yellow can take out some CDs in a pinch but takes a ton of AP to get there.

OMG what have I done. Some bad boards and high enemy HP made me take 3 tries to get the first 2 clears, plus eat 2 health packs. I realized the toons only generate red and green (except when they destroy tiles, which comes later in the round) and I need someone better than Hood. 3* Strange doesn't damage enough. I could go Valkyrie, but my strongest color is red and I have no active red powers other than Valkyrie's, which since she's neither champed (the magic level 209) nor boosted isn't worth it. 4* Luke would throw out some protect tiles but when the CDs are doing 10K+ it will barely make a dent. Anyone else will use AP which could diminish 'Merica's value so I take Peggy, re-spec her to 3/5/5 so her passive slows down the tile producers and if I get enough blue I can stun 2 of them for 3 turns. I was too lazy to put a support on her but probably should have swapped over something that would generate start of match AP or boost purple damage or both.

Some close calls, and poor Robbie ate some damage and health packs. If I started with an awful board, I'd just immediately retreat and restart so it was another 3 tries to finish the last 2 clears. No deaths but needed 2 more health packs when all was said and done. If you're tracking, that's 4 health packs in one node. Granted the other nodes should be easier, but at this rate I'm worried about running dry before I make it through, meaning my PvP goes on hold and/or I'm going to have to rotate characters. The difficulty was high enough that I'm not sure it's worth it to try to get any more clears on this node tomorrow. And I already got the CP prize so I'd only lose out on some RISO and ISO.

4e: Kept my 2 sidekicks as described above partnered with Carol. This wasn't bad. No health packs needed, cruised through 4 clears.
3e: Same story: same 2 sidekicks for Thor, easy 4 clears, no health packs.
2e: Same story: same 2 sidekicks for Hawkeye, easy 4 clears, no health packs. I'm feeling a rhythm.
Node 1: Grocket + random GotG member + Thanos respeced to 3/5/5: with Rocket's boost, any Court Death will wipe the rest of the living and I just want to minimize self-damage to preserve health packs. Don't need to bother with supports. 1 clear done.
Node 2: Wave node. Dang it! Forgot about the wave nodes in this event or I would not have started with 5e. Two clears same team as Node 1 easy as pie.
Node 3: 1 clear, same team, easy as pie
Node 4: Back to my go-to from the 5e node: Robbie, 'Merica, and Peggy, speced as outlined above. Easy clear.
Node 5: 1 clear, same team, easy as pie.
Node 6: Same team. Another wave node. I'm appreciating how much 'Merica was built for wave nodes. I love it when Fear Not, Mi Gente! generates a crit that downs the last enemy in one wave so the next wave arrives and it's still my turn! Boom, 2 easy clears.
Node 5: Same team, 3 clears, easy as pie.
Node 4: Same team, 3 clears, easy as pie.
Node 3: Back to Grocket + random GotG member + Thanos. 3 clears
Node 1: Same team, 3 clears. Done

Conclusion: who is boosted matters a lot, but other than the 5e, it didn't feel harder than a typical SCL 8 (though SCL 8 with this boosted list would likely be a breeze). Not sure how long it took since I got interrupted several times. Things go so much faster with 'Merica because her value is in her passives, which saves time. So far the dread I had after the 5e is gone and I don't regret it, although other than a 3 CP prize I got for something (a wave node?) I haven't yet realized a material increase in rewards--that will depend on future progress.

Plan for tomorrow: 3 more clears of everything but 5e. I'm worried I will struggle in future sub 5e nodes to get even 4 clears, and this is all about getting the event final CP progression prize. I think I'll try 5e once more on this sub before it ends and if I wipe, just forget it. Then when the next sub opens, we'll try the same strategy (looking out for wave nodes first).

More tomorrow.

Day 2

I'm not going for placement and I'm so excited about my success, I decide to start several hours before the sub ends to take my first run through to ensure I can get all the nodes hit 3 more times and see what happens in the 5e. I keep all the same teams as yesterday, and run through each node once in ascending order of point values: node 1, opening node, node 3, node 4, etc. I get to the 5e and take my time--nearly 100K HP per enemy is no joke. I get lucky a bit with the enemy CD placement being able to match them away and by the time the CDs were out of control, I had downed 1 enemy and had enough blue to fire Peggy's stun twice. Cleaned up entirely with 0 damage.

As I beamed proudly at my newfound accomplishment, ready to start my second run through, only then do I realize it's a 48 hour sub and I wasted a bunch of points by hitting them all before they fully recharged. DOH!

On the bright side, if that's my biggest failure, I will consider the transition a success. No more playing until tomorrow. At least, no more PvE…

Day 3

Part 1: I Have a Plan finish: Before the first sub closes, I'm back hitting each node again, same strategies and teams as before. I fly through without a hitch, clearing all the node prizes (total 6x on normal nodes and 4x on wave nodes), even on the 5e. I think about hitting a few more but remind myself I'm not going for placement and clearing nodes during rest periods between exercises at the gym takes too long, so I'm happy with my progress and stop. After the sub closes, I place somewhere in the mid-100's. I realize if I could have gotten in the top 100 I would have gotten an extra 2 CP, but I won't lose any sleep.

Part 2: Backup Plan, new sub: Same teams and strategies as before. I can't remember before I start if there are wave nodes so I start with one clear of each of the non-essential nodes to open the board. No wave nodes so I go back to the previous strategy of hitting each node 4x in descending order of point values. Except the 5e.

The 5e mindless ones this time are out of control, spamming 20K+ damage CDs like rain. Never mind that when the round opens, they start with an attack + strike tile combo that is doing 3600 passive damage each turn! Peggy doesn't seem to slow them down enough, so I switch to Vulture. No luck there, because even at 5/3/5 Vulture's just not fast enough to keep up with removing all the special tiles. I manage to get through 3 clears but fail 4x at the 4th clear and give up. I won't be back to this node anytime soon.

The rest are very straightforward and not any tougher than yesterday. Feeling good about hitting max progression without a hitch. On track for T-200 overall, but I can't recall how the prizes for SCL 9 T-200 compare to SCL 8 T-100 (50 on a good day, 25 on a really good day).

spidyjedi84

Vulture is your friend on goon heavy nodes, period. He cleans those boards for 10 blue as well as damage every time you send him airborne. And just a heads up, the 5E nodes use Mindless Ones later in this event, so having a tile clearer who can get at hard to reach tiles becomes even more important, but Kraven can help as well. The 5E is the biggest difference between SCL8 and SCL9. Chavez, GR and Vulture will still work well together, though.

helix72

Good news is I have both Vulture and Kraven champed, so I can give it a try. Thanks for the tip!

crackninja

Played scl9 for months with no usable 5*'s.  This was before supports were a thing, so yeah, totally doable.
My suggestion is to just do the 5e twice per day unless it is goon only.  Not worth the headache.  If you are desperate, use an invisible character, especially alongside vulture because that can allow you to acquire more blacks while vulture is airborn and lock up some cheap wins.  Have some whales built up for the nastiest ones like the royal family and the deadpool v mpq 5e's.

helix72

@crackninja : are you still able to get max progression even doing the 5e node only twice? What is your strategy for the other nodes? 6x? 7x?

KenshinUK

I'm in a similar boat to you OP. I have 12 champed 4* (barely) and working on the rest with my lowest ones being 2/1/2.

Think I went from SCL6 to SCL8 when I was in 3* land as it gave an extra 3* cover through progress over SCL7. I've been getting a bit down with PVE lately being unable to get to top10 for that 4* placement cover so the last two events i've done SCL9 after a flip and have comfortably placed within the top50 for that sweet 4* reward. Depending on the event, top20 might even be possible.

Most nodes are a small amount harder, the real difficulty as you've noticed is the 5E node. Taking on enemies with 100k health while you are using 3* strange with around 10k is... iffy. I've found this node is the one where I break out from conventional clearing tactics and utilize my roster more. Vulture while boosted was a godsend!

Some good tips in this thread. I like the one about invisible chars to collect black for Vulture!

jamesh

helix72 said:

@crackninja : are you still able to get max progression even doing the 5e node only twice? What is your strategy for the other nodes? 6x? 7x?

If all you're after is progression, you can ignore the 5* essential node and complete the others 5 times (or 3 times for survival nodes, 2 times for join forces nodes).

TPF Alexis

Chavez is fantastic on wave nodes, yeah. A while back, she was the featured 4* in HaT, and when I ran one of the last wave nodes, I ended up with the full 30 AP in all six colours. Absolutely ludicrous damage. It was glorious!

spidyjedi84

Took me just under a hour for four clears today with Chavez, Cap M4rvel and Grocket. Just spent 600 ISO every three playthroughs to top up 2AP boosts and let America punch her way to the top. Pulled Vulture in on 5E node. Luckily, my GR is one of my highest covered 5 stars, so it was pretty cakewalky to nab 5 clears there. Wait 24 hours for two more clears, and one final clear 22 hours later and I may make a top 50 finish...

JackDeath666

Good for you for taking it on OP.

I used to find the following teams helped with the 5E node when I first tackled SCL9 with just 4* and 3* characters:

Lady Thor / IM40 to stun and do big damage.
Vulture / Jean Grey as both can remove enemy tiles
Scarlet Witch / Deadpool for Super Whales

I'd suggest just doing 2 clears as it may ramp up too much after that, but that gets you the token and the 3 CP reward (you were wondering where that came from).

Hope you have some of those combos and that they work for you. 

crackninja

jamesh said:

helix72 said:

@crackninja : are you still able to get max progression even doing the 5e node only twice? What is your strategy for the other nodes? 6x? 7x?

If all you're after is progression, you can ignore the 5* essential node and complete the others 5 times (or 3 times for survival nodes, 2 times for join forces nodes).

This is true, but the best part is if you are choosy about your brackets you can also get top 50 with just 2 clears of the 5e node.  Or at least you could, not sure if that's still the case.

Dormammu

Maybe I'm a complete tool for doing so, but I still play SCL 7 (with champed 5-stars on my roster). The minuscule progression reward bump in SCL 8 isn't worth the effort and SCL 9 takes too much of my valuable time. The placement rewards and quick grinds I can achieve in SCL 7 more than make up for any loss of progression in the higher SCLs, to me.

helix72

@Dormammu This is where it's an odd middle ground for people like me. Because of what you described, I can go fast in SCL 7 but not fast enough to get top placement prizes because of folks like yourself (not hating here, just a fact) who have champed 5-stars and can outrace me. And my erratic schedule often doesn't allow for optimal timing, no matter which slice I join. So I actually tend to place better in harder SCLs for that reason.

LavaManLee

IMHO, SCL9 is completely not worth the time investment.  Again, this is just for me.  I enjoy the game but have no desire to invest 1 hour + each day on it.  Even though I could do it, I don't go above SCL8.

Dormammu

helix72 said:

@Dormammu This is where it's an odd middle ground for people like me. Because of what you described, I can go fast in SCL 7 but not fast enough to get top placement prizes because of folks like yourself (not hating here, just a fact) who have champed 5-stars and can outrace me. And my erratic schedule often doesn't allow for optimal timing, no matter which slice I join. So I actually tend to place better in harder SCLs for that reason.

I can see that. In most events, the top 20 in SCL 7 (slice 4) are all rosters with champed 5s. On new release events I struggle to get top 10 - and I can play that slice optimally. If I had a usable 5Thor I'd probably move up but I don't have any of the fast-5s (Thor, Kitty, Thanos, DD). All my 5s are pretty slow (Spidey, JJ, Widow) except Okoye.

BigSoftieFF

Dormammu said:

Maybe I'm a complete tool for doing so, but I still play SCL 7 (with champed 5-stars on my roster). The minuscule progression reward bump in SCL 8 isn't worth the effort and SCL 9 takes too much of my valuable time. The placement rewards and quick grinds I can achieve in SCL 7 more than make up for any loss of progression in the higher SCLs, to me.

Weird, when I champed 5*’s I moved from Scl7 to Scl8 in pve and my clear may take an extra minute or two. Went from T10 in 7 to T10 in 8. So the extra rewards seem worth a couple minutes.

Only take on 9 if I have the5E champed though.

spidyjedi84

Another running of Honor Among Thieves, and yet again, the Mindless Ones tile placement takes longer than some of the damn matches... How long until this gets fixed?!?

LavaManLee

spidyjedi84 said:

Another running of Honor Among Thieves, and yet again, the Mindless Ones tile placement takes longer than some of the damn matches... How long until this gets fixed?!?

Amen!  I might tell my alliance I will take the hit and just skip this event next time.  It's not unbeatable, just too frickin' long.