And what would your pattern be?

Mine (general):
"Unlock node" - hit 1
5* Essential - hits 1-4
4* Essential - hits 1-4
3* Essential - hits 1-4
2* Essential - hits 1-4
Easy 1 - hit 1
Easy 2 - hit 1
Easy 3 - hit 1
Hard 1 - hit 1
Hard 2 - hit 1
Hard 3 - hits 1-4
Hard 2 - hits 2-4
Hard 1 - hits 2-4
Easy 3 - hits 2-4
Easy 2 - hits 2-4
Easy 1 - hits 2-4
*time elapses*
Easy 1 - hits 5-7
Easy 2 - hits 5-7
Easy 3 - hits 5-7
Hard 1 - hits 5-7
Hard 2 - hits 5-7
Hard 3 - hits 5-7
2* Essential - hits 5-7
3* Essential - hits 5-7
4* Essential - hits 5-7
5* Essential - hits 5-7

Sometimes I tweak this, even on a standard layout. Like, if the 5* is a ball buster, then I might save it to last because the lesser nodes can be regenerating points while I slog through the 5*. Or if I think I might get pulled away, then I may hit complete the first four clears of the easy nodes before hitting the hard ones, just to get *something* regenerating.

I'm kind of kicking myself. I was pretty bushed last night, so I started final run a little earlier than I'd have liked. I ended up in 21st place by about 200 points. If I had just waited a little longer I think I could have cracked T20 for one more cover.

Do you look (there are sources online) to see if the order you list is the "smallest-to-largest" process you can follow? For example, if the Hard 3 node is a Wave node, then it is going to (most likely) be more points that any of the essentials (unless the essential is also a wave node)

I do not look for that stuff. In general, I do remember that stuff, so I play with it a bit. Or, like you said, if an essential is a wave node, then that is seen and targeted earlier than normal.

The last day of...I don't recall which...Unstable ISO, maybe...the one with the Devil Dinosaur node...is a corner case, too. You can hit the hard nodes before touching the easy ones.

I haven't played in a while, so I don't quite remember. I Think it was something like this:
Clears:
Unlock node when applicable
Easy nodes (low to high)
2*, 3*, 4* essential
Hard nodes (low to high)
5* essential.

Grind:
5* essential
Easy nodes (low to high)
Hard nodes (low to high)
2*, 3*, 4* essential

If there's wave nodes, they get hit ASAP during clears and at the end of the grind.

Basic theory is that it's better to go for the nodes you can finish fast first so they have more time to regenerate Points. I know some people kept track of the regeneration rate of the various nodes and tried to let the nodes regenerate Points Before hitting, but I never quite got to that level of dedication.

This is what I do when 2 of the nodes are waves. For the 2 nodes that are waves I get the first 2 out of the way to start the clock going because they net me the most points when it comes to the final few hits.


If there are no nodes with waves in them then I go with Essentials first then go into Easy and then Hard. Thanks to 3* Thanos the Easy nodes are easier and take a lot less time than before. 3* Strange helps immensely when it comes to any nodes with 2+ henchmen.


It seems like I am not doing anything wrong per se, it is just I need to play the game for longer and get my toons powered up so it takes a shorter time to complete a node. This is most prevalent with the simulator PVE, which is harder because there are no henchmen and I need vastly overpowered or boosted toons. Having 5torm boosted is amazing but even she is getting whittled down a bit more than I thought.

As I queried earlier about how long it takes you to finish 1-4 it takes me at least 30 minutes more than most of you. Now that the school year began it will be even harder to stay up for that 11pm start and that means that I am doing most of my grind around 8pm or later.

I may have mentioned before that my go-to team back when I was around your stage was 3* Strange, 3* Blade, and 3* Falcon. I found that they had a very nice synergy, especially against the generics.
The play is straight forward. Use Blade to create stabby tiles. Falcon improves the stabby tiles. The stabby tiles improve Strange's damage.
IIRC, you have a decent Grocket, so you could possibly sub them in for Blade here.

FWIW, the PVE slice (5) I do begins and ends at 2am EST. I am not up at that time usually.
I tend to finish my end grinds about 11pm-ish. I don't start a sub until maybe 5:30-6:00am-ish.
I am therefore losing about 6 hours worth of point regeneration each sub.
That's actually quite a chunk of points once you factor in the snowball effect in clears 5-7.
(Completely made up numbers here...)
Say I hit a node which has regened to 100 points for #5. #6 will be about 67 points, and #7 will be about 33. That's 200 points on that node for 5-7. (I think it is something like that.)
If I had the extra hours, maybe that's up to 120 for 5, then 80, then 40. That's a total of 240, or 40 more points on that one node.
That would also be a relatively small node, but take that minimal one times 10 nodes, and I could get 400+ extra points (most likely much higher) if I had better play times.

But I'm ok with that, actually. Even leaving those points on the table, I can consistently get T50 in CL9, and that gets me a 4* cover. Since I've bumped up my 5*s to 360 from 330 I've even had a couple of T20 finishes.

In other words, not getting the most of your time can still work out.

(I have thought of trying out PVE slice 4 which ends at 11pm. I'm just afraid that I won't get my whole end-grind done in time. I said 11-ish above, so that means that I sometimes go later than 11.)

I'm seeing people saying that Torn is going to be the next beastly one to be abused. I'm not seeing it. What am I missing? Is it just the stabby tile generation?

What're you talking about here?

Torch...new guy

Gritty gets hurt when they lose tiles. You gotta have 4 on the board to get the buff going.

I've had it happen in Simulator where they've lost a bunch of tiles. Using Kitty's yellow to put out 2 shields and then Torch's passive puts out a strike (or just use team ups) ... it helped more than once to get the engine going again.

Not sure I'd say it's the new meta. Bishop still is my nemesis. I'll play Gritty sans Bishop before I tackle almost any Bishop team in PVP

I really wish that the PVP should you the builds.
Like, I might see a 360 Kitty, but is she 5/5/3 or 3/3/2? It would be good to know.

I'm ok with Bishop usually, but I tend to skip them anyway just to save health packs.

I am pretty solid against generics, it's the nodes that are all toons, those kill me.

I have been so out of it this first week with the kids back my grinds have been seemingly non-existent. But all this information is quite helpful.

Enemy of the State? Where's my Quake?!

Refresh my memory, please. Why is Quake good for EotS?