Iron Man Hulkbuster's 4* nodeHow did you do?

A few quick comments for people attempting to beat this node with an underlevelled, undercovered IMHB.

Yes, the basic theory is that you deny green and red, and Hulk can't get his abilities off. However, the thing is that match damage from a level 270 Hulk will kill your underlevelled, undercovered IMHB most of the time, since he starts off with way more health than you, and does a lot more match damage than you. Your IMHB needs to be levelled enough to have sufficient health to make it through most of the match firstly (so you're probably looking around level 160 or so, at a guess, although I think some people have scraped by with less). Secondly, it helps to have a few blue covers, so you can mitigate that match damage (although you need to be careful when you use Hulk Proof, since you can accidentally feed Hulk red, if you're not careful). Boost your match damage, Hulk's boosted enough that he won't notice the additional damage in terms of Anger. If you don't have at least 2 red covers, you're unlikely to win either, since even a weak Repulsor Punch is enough to even out the health differential between you and Hulk at the end.

and if you only have a couple of covers in hb black, you can cast it early in the match to get strikes out and in the 150-160 level range with 2 black covers, one casting will not trigger anger on a match-3. not sure about a match-4. avoid making criticals if at all possible.

morph3us wrote:

A few quick comments for people attempting to beat this node with an underlevelled, undercovered IMHB.

Yes, the basic theory is that you deny green and red, and Hulk can't get his abilities off. However, the thing is that match damage from a level 270 Hulk will kill your underlevelled, undercovered IMHB most of the time, since he starts off with way more health than you, and does a lot more match damage than you. Your IMHB needs to be levelled enough to have sufficient health to make it through most of the match firstly (so you're probably looking around level 160 or so, at a guess, although I think some people have scraped by with less). Secondly, it helps to have a few blue covers, so you can mitigate that match damage (although you need to be careful when you use Hulk Proof, since you can accidentally feed Hulk red, if you're not careful). Boost your match damage, Hulk's boosted enough that he won't notice the additional damage in terms of Anger. If you don't have at least 2 red covers, you're unlikely to win either, since even a weak Repulsor Punch is enough to even out the health differential between you and Hulk at the end.

So Basically wait till your 4star is level 160 to beat a match that gives out a token with a 95% chance of a 4 star cover?

IFORANI wrote:

So Basically wait till your 4star is level 160 to beat a match that gives out a token with a 95% chance of a 4 star cover?

A level 160 4* is probably at the same power level as a level 90-100 3*. Level 160 isn't that high a level for a 4*. A level 220 4* is about the same as a level 166 3*. The levels aren't directly comparable, so the bar isn't as high as you might think.

TxMoose wrote:

and if you only have a couple of covers in hb black, you can cast it early in the match to get strikes out and in the 150-160 level range with 2 black covers, one casting will not trigger anger on a match-3. not sure about a match-4. avoid making criticals if at all possible.

I thought about it, but I didn't think those weak strikes were worth dumping several hundred health.

DayvBang wrote:

TxMoose wrote:

and if you only have a couple of covers in hb black, you can cast it early in the match to get strikes out and in the 150-160 level range with 2 black covers, one casting will not trigger anger on a match-3. not sure about a match-4. avoid making criticals if at all possible.

I thought about it, but I didn't think those weak strikes were worth dumping several hundred health.

Think again. those strike tiles are really important to even the match-damage disparity. more than worth a few hundred health if there are nice safe yellow tiles on the board. And remember that at 270, hulk can take almost 1k damage per match before triggering anger, so even 300 or 400 points of strike tiles won't get you in much trouble (unless you get a cascade critical.

Turbosmooth wrote:

Couldn't pass with 3/1/1 Lv131. Had to pony up to 4/2/1 Lv152 to make it work.
I had alliance members that passed with ~2/3/2 Lv137. I would think it would be very tough with less than 3 red covers, but people have done it.
When I won the match, I sort of wish I did 3/3/1 just so I would need to get 2/2/2 drops instead of 1/3/2.

from what I hear, red is key, 5/3+/x becomes usable. I added one red to bring mine to 3/2/3, but not sure I needed it with the match I won.

Have 2 black covers
still I tried it for fun's sake
A short game indeed

Vhailorx wrote:

I don't think that a 160 4* is necessary to win these 4* ddq nodes. I beat the IW node with my 2/3/4 IW @145.

I do think that there is a baseline level that is necessary to play in these nodes because a reasonable number of hitpoints are a necessity, especially if you don't have enough offensive punch to down the opponent with powers. But after reaching that baseline level of health (perhaps level 130 or 140, basically enough to survive 20+ rounds of match damage and maybe one or two weaker ai abilities), covers are much more important than levels.

Level 160 is probably overkill for most of these 4* DDQ nodes, but I do think it depends on the opponent. Hulk's a tougher opponent for underlevelled 4*s, because his health is so high, when boosted, compared to Mags, QS, and Cyclops, so you're going to take more match damage, as the match is going to take longer anyway. IW was a bit of a special case, since as soon as you got that Invisibility tile out, it completely mitigated any match damage as long as you could protect it, so her level threshold for winning was even lower. It's probably going to be the same for Prof X - a low level PX with a purple cover will probably be able to beat the 4* DDQ node given enough time too.

I think we're essentially agreeing, though, Vhailorx. I think 130-140 is probably fine for most of these matches, and absolutely, covers are more important than levels. I do think Hulk's high health shifts the baseline level up to an extent though. Against Hulk, level 130-140 is very dependent on a favourable board.

Got it on my 3rd attempt with my 1/5/3 lvl 172 IMHB. Boosted r/y + b/g 50% and critical 100%. Got very lucky though, was down to 2,000 health and Hulk had 11,000 so I went all in and fired off Overdrive (leaving me around 800 health) then smacked him with RP (30 AP). Then the lucky cascades made those boosts invaluable as critical after critical knocked Hulk out.

Karma got me though and wouldn't let me be lucky twice in a row, I received a Yellow Thoress from my token (my 7th yellow), not sure of the exact odds but it's 1 of the 3 covers I can't use from Legendary Tokens.