Oh damn, I didn't even notice that it's an OBW Black, that's awesome, since I only have 3 black covers right now.

How do you guys already have ~3000 points in Thick as Thieves? I did every event in Family Reunion and it only put me at 1483, and best case the two essential ones are ~250 points each at this point. Did I somehow get screwed points wise?

I started playing it right when it hit, and have grinded a little on it today. Seems pretty normal to me.

no. i've just played the shit out of them, often for 100 - 120 points each level.

Oh okay, for some reason I didn't think it started until a couple hours ago. I'll grind it out a bit. We should rank pretty well in them.

Did you replay the events that have more than one reward?

Not yet, but I will.

I try to space out my replays of those events, going through until I get 2/4 rewards on each mission, then 3/4, then 4/4. More bang for my buck versus just grinding them out initially and wearing down the payoffs.

Instead of targeting the 4 rewards, target to play till it has only 1 point to give away. Rewards will come to u anywyas.

Is there meant to be only one battle in the Thick as Thieves map? I've been playing the Family Reunion map, but see only one battle in Thick as Thieves.

Correct. After Family Reunion expires today, another mission will open up in TaT, and then a separate map will open up similar to FR. Rinse and repeat until TaT is over.

It seems to me that the nodes are not regenerating points as fast as they did for me in the Simulator event. I focus on the two 'essential' nodes (the one where Hulk is required) as those regen the quickest and reward the most points. Then, I go to the two nodes on the right where other heroes are part of the fight. I grind each of those down to 50-75 and then wait till they get above 175+ again.

I almost want to take a dive in the overall event to bring my rank down to below 200 as the OBW black cover will be far more useful to me than the new Storm red cover.

I need that Red Hulk cover from the 25,000 reward in TaT. I had hoped to get to 5,000 in this round and all subsequent, but now I'm approaching 7,500 already it seems very doable. The rest of you need to power up over the next 2.5 hours to get our alliance into the top 50.

I believe the reason the essential nodes grow in value so quickly is because they're the only ones that are affected by "rubberbanding" or by how far back you are from the leader (or at least they are much more affected than the other nodes). So if you go away and come back and you dropped 100 spots, the point totals for those two nodes are huge to help you catch up. This also means at the last second there are going to be a lot of position changes, so just a heads up.

Top 50 but got a useless Hawkeye with the token. Damn it.

Top 50 here too. Got a OBW purple... Yes! She's now at 4/1/3. What is the ideal build for OBW? 4/5/4?

just got a psychloke w/ my heroic token.

I love 3/5/5. You can pop the aggressive recon a lot faster. Sure, you don't get as many colors from the other team, but I think it's worth it when you can use it a lot more often.

I was in 3rd place with 20 minutes left. I played for the final 20 minutes and ended up in 20th place. So frustrating when all you have left are 1 point matches and everyone is passing you. What do you need to do to end up in the top 10 in these PvE matches? I spend so much time playing PvP that I guess I never really worked out a good PvE strategy.

Here is my strategy which has been serving me well as of late (two Top 2 and a bunch of Top 50):

The main key, which will determine how well you do, is if you have the 'essential' character for the event. Thick as Thieves essential character is Hulk. If you have this character, then you will be able to farm all of the nodes and the essential nodes typically reward you with more points and regen points quicker.

1-Go through each node when the event first opens to unlock all of the nodes.
2-Look for a node with the highest payout, rinse and repeat until the payout is between 75 and 100.
3-Wait at least 3 hours for the nodes to recharge. I usually wait till I see the payouts above 300 but it really depends on the event as each one is if different.
4-Repeat steps 2 and 3.
5-Time the last node farming just right so you are maximizing the payout right before the event ends. This way you are not farming 1 point nodes.

There is a thread on the official forums regarding PvE strategy, timing, formulas, etc but it went over my head. The above is what works for me with my current roster.

I had about the same thing happen. I wasn't down to 1 point matches across the board, but most of mine were below 20. I ground (grinded?) the hell out of the event five times, had every possible reward and probably beat each level over a dozen times. And I still ended up somewhere between 40 & 50.

On the bright side, I got a 3* Doom from a generic cover this morning and a 3* Human Torch from another yesterday. Nice change of pace from endless Venoms and Yelenas.

Also Top 50 and I got a useless 3-star Iron Man yellow power. My Iron Man 40 is maxed, assholes!

I really do wish we could gift covers to people in the alliance. Plenty of people could have used that more than the 500 ISO I got for it

100% agreed. Plus if you couple her with an Astonishing Wolverine that that is farming green and red for Feral Claws, her Espionage double-hit on blue, black, and purple is tremendously powerful.

And yet another Hawkeye with the alliance token reward. Gah.

This is great advice. I tried various set-ups (since I keep getting her covers). And 3/5/5 is definitely the best. You can steal a lot faster and do more damage. When facing another OBW that's 5/5/3, I can use my recon and take her down before she collects enough AP to use her recon.

I've been playing OBW with Astonishing Wolverine. Together they are awesome. Collect some Red AP, then use his Green power to get a bunch of Strike tiles on the board. Then every time OBW makes a Blue/Black/Purple match it does major damage.

The problem is that the devs are continually tweaking the system. It used to be that you should wait for a full refresh, usually 12 hours, in between farming nodes... the refresh, along with the rubberbanding, gave you the best results, and you'd have to time it right. Also, if you farmed to 1 point, it would screw you later on because the enemies would scale to ridiculous levels.

Now it seems you can just grind the nodes down over and over, wait, then do it again. And scaling seems almost non-existent, the last few PvEs are the first time in a long time that I wasn't facing enemies that I feared would wipe me out, making me skip their points in favor of weaker nodes.

3/5/5 is the ideal build for OBW. Having her maxed along with a maxed Wolvie/Ares/Thor is a pretty potent 2* combo for the PvP events (where you can't choose your third player). That or 2* Storm and 2* Magneto (to feed Storm's blue). That's why when you get to the point where you're playing against lvl85 opponents, you'll face those combos over and over and over.

I got some pretty good covers. Hulk (red) and Doctor Doom (black). I also got a Daken (black) from a standard token. I only need maybe two more 2-Star covers.