I suck at 2-day subs

Dormammu

I must not understand the timing of them, because I do horribly (relatively speaking) in 2-day subs. Here are the facts and maybe some of my fellow forumites can teach me a thing or two (again):

SL8, Slice 5 (1am start/end time for me locally). I jump into sub 1 of DP vs. DDQ right at 1am and clear the nodes in optimal order as fast as I can, finishing my first four clears in 4th place. Now, normally on a 1-day sub I would expect to finish the sub in roughly the same placement (top 5).

I then wait until the next day and do my fifth clear right at 1am, once again optimally - starting with the biggest point nodes and working my way down as fast as possible.

I am able to do the final clears a half-hour before the first sub ends, once again in optimal order, but I end up finishing somewhere in the teens 

I'm sure my middle clear is where I'm screwing this up. Am I starting too soon? Too late?

Markot

Maybe you are just to fast with your middle clear. You have to wait for each node to have full points. As during initial clear you fight each node 4 times and during middle clear only once you need to do short break sometimes when you see next node is not fully refreshed yet.

Steve111

I think the problem might be you are losing refresh points by starting with the biggest points nodes and working down. 

Ed_Dragonrider

On your final clears do you grind the nodes to 0? It took me a while to realise that with 2 day subs you end up doing 8/6 clears by the end of it instead of the usual 7/6... But that might just be me

Dormammu

So if during my initial 4 clears I start with the 5E node (after any yellow loaner node) won't that be the first node to fully refresh? It makes sense to me to start with that one and work my way back down finishing with the easy nodes.

And it sounds like I need to wait until the nodes are at full points before doing my 5th/middle clear.

Ed_Dragonrider said:

On your final clears do you grind the nodes to 0?

Yes, three more times to 0 on the final clears.

jp1

I was wondering why I never crack top 50 despite a pretty decent roster. This is why. I guess I will have to be satisfied with progression only. I really wish they would change this up so people who can’t schedule their life around MPQ could sometimes rank top 10. 

More power to you you though if you dedicate that kind of time/effort into scheduling, you deserve the rank rewards.

Sm0keyJ0e

There is a whole other meta game around PVE, including what nodes to hit first (for which event), how to do middle clears in a 48h sub, and certainly strategy and timing around final clears. In cl9 at least, those in the t5 and often t10 know some stuff, some more than others.

Speed is only a small part of competitive PVE.

Dormammu

jp1 said:

More power to you you though if you dedicate that kind of time/effort into scheduling, you deserve the rank rewards.

I have a flexible schedule that allows it. I enjoy the competition.

Sm0keyJ0e said:

Speed is only a small part of competitive PVE.

I am T5 on normal events, T11  on new release events by simply powering through on speed. I don't need it to be any more complicated than it already is. Of course, I play in pretty forgiving slices (4 or 5).

Sm0keyJ0e

Sm0keyJ0e said:

Speed is only a small part of competitive PVE.

I am T5 on normal events, T11  on new release events by simply powering through on speed. I don't need it to be any more complicated than it already is. Of course, I play in pretty forgiving slices (4 or 5).

It's not complicated--the middle clear of a 48h sub shows full points (and gives full points) before the timer reaches "full points" in the game. You can see this if you restart the game some minutes out from when a node actually hits full points. What the game shows as points is what you will receive, regardless of what the timer says. People hitting these nodes optimally will all have the same score for the sub.

Also, it's important to note that if you hit a node early, you're not really just losing one point, but 3. For example, if you hit a 200 point node at 199, your next two hits are 132 and 65, totaling 396 points for that node. Someone who clears it from 200 is getting 200+133+66, or 399. Expand this across the event and maybe throw in some nodes where you hit 2 or 3 points early and now you're leaving a lot of points on the board.

That's barely scratching the surface. Everything else is rather... complicated.

Rod5

Yes, refresh timings and time taken to hit whichever nodes is the difference between T10 and T20/50.

There are certain base things that are (almost) a given to place well...champed 5E, champed Thano5, decent clear team. Using AP/match damage boosts as far as useful to accelerate.

But if you want top placement you have to get the order right - I know this because every time I clear/grind “perfectly” (rarely) I am still well behind the top guys in my bracket.

I’m talking CL9, but the principles are the same I’m sure.

jp1

I hope I didn’t come across snarky there. I don’t begrudge anyone the play style that best suites them and that they enjoy. 

I’m simply unable and unwilling to dive any deeper into the game than my current grind. So even with the 5* champs on my roster, I’ll be dwindling down in the low top 100. Its definitely fair... It would be cool to occasionally experience top 10 ranking though, so hopefully an event or two comes along that changes things up once or twice a season.

Very interesting to know there are some trade secrets to the order you clear nodes though. 

I haven’t yet been able to get myself to hoard either. Perhaps I lack the willpower to play this game in an optimal fashion.

Dormammu

jp1 said:

I hope I didn’t come across snarky there. I don’t begrudge anyone the play style that best suites them and that they enjoy. 
...
I haven’t yet been able to get myself to hoard either. Perhaps I lack the willpower to play this game in an optimal fashion.

You didn't, we're cool. I understand that I am lucky in that I am able to play around slice times. Not everyone has that luxury. As far as playing optimally, I can't help it. I'm a notorious min/maxer when it comes to certain things and I am a compulsive MPQ hoarder - it's the only way I've been able to cover any 5s other than 5widow, which RNG decided I'd stumble into.

Phumade

Dormammu said:

And it sounds like I need to wait until the nodes are at full points before doing my 5th/middle clear.

That is a given under any scenario.

at the end of the day the comp players have a vast area of optimized clear orders based on their teams speed and timers.  

If your losing t5 t10 by under 20pts,  they have a better clear path for their team.

if your losing by 20-50 points,  they have a better fundamental roster and a better clear path.

If your losing by more 50 points,  you are leaving points on the table.  I.e.  you didn’t finish the nodes on time cleared too early etc.

overall, you need to be within 5m of another players time, before it’s worth it to actually optimize the path.  Otherwise it’s like asking why 4* have slower matches than 5*

bluewolf

I realize this is slightly off topic, but the fact that people are parsing down their clears to the second to maximize points and finishing within 20 pts of each other when the total points are in the 10s or 100s of thousands says yet again:

There is no need or space in this game for a 6* tier.

Putting that in would first require adding a whole layer (I suppose SLC10) of difficulty in order to make the power gain (I presume that would be the goal) feel worth chasing/spending on.  But as things stand, top players' biggest impediment to faster clears are not having the newest/right phones and waiting to move through the UI elements.

Anyway.  Best of luck to @Dormammu and anyone else looking to improve their play.

Phumade

bluewolf said:

I realize this is slightly off topic, but the fact that people are parsing down their clears to the second to maximize points and finishing within 20 pts of each other when the total points are in the 10s or 100s of thousands says yet again:

There is no need or space in this game for a 6* tier.

Putting that in would first require adding a whole layer (I suppose SLC10) of difficulty in order to make the power gain (I presume that would be the goal) feel worth chasing/spending on.  But as things stand, top players' biggest impediment to faster clears are not having the newest/right phones and waiting to move through the UI elements.

Anyway.  Best of luck to @Dormammu and anyone else looking to improve their play.

you gotta put that into context.  Yes the top 10 is ridicously compettive,  but once your past the people who missed on a few clears,  the score drop is dramatic.  People who finish all 8 grinds within 30min of each other typically are locks for T20.  

So while T10 is played at a ridiciuously high level of timing and roster power, T50 is always finish all 8 clears on a semi optimal basis (4hr wasted margin time)

People outside of T50 rarely if ever complete all 8th clears on any basis be it casusal or competitive.

Dogface

As someone who usually goes for T50 (SCL7), to get there I always need to do all nodes and more often than not a 7th clear. I've been experimenting with joining later brackets and while it's more relaxed, you'll still need to put your work into it to finish T50. T10 is always reserved for those with (multiple) champed 5*.

TPF Alexis

Dormammu said:

So if during my initial 4 clears I start with the 5E node (after any yellow loaner node) won't that be the first node to fully refresh? It makes sense to me to start with that one and work my way back down finishing with the easy nodes.

Yeah, but the ratio of how long it takes to clear each one to how fast they refresh also matters when looking at the total points earned. If the 5E is worth as much as the three easy nodes put together, but it takes twice as long to do four clears on the 5E than a total of 12 (4 on each) on the three easy nodes, you get the same amount of points refreshing sooner by doing the easy nodes first than by doing the 5E first.

PiMacleod

jp1 said:

I was wondering why I never crack top 50 despite a pretty decent roster. This is why. I guess I will have to be satisfied with progression only. I really wish they would change this up so people who can’t schedule their life around MPQ could sometimes rank top 10. 

More power to you you though if you dedicate that kind of time/effort into scheduling, you deserve the rank rewards.

This is why I play SCL 9, actually.

I play for progression and that's it.  I know I dont have the time, or the schedule, or willpower to play competitively... so I pump it up to SCL 9 and get the best progression rewards I can.

I make the best I can with what I got.  Usually gets me around 120th place... and I'm not hurt by it one bit.