4 star XXXX is required for a fight, you pair them up with 2 of your champed characters but you got only a few covers for the 4 star. Do you throw them in front of expiring count downs? Do you seek out their color when you know the enemy has just gotten enough AP for a large nuke?
And if so, do you feel bad about doing that to them?
Only if I’m done with that mission afterwards.
No point sacrificing the essential if I then have to use a health pack to revive him for the 4th clear.
Same thing applies to the 2*/3* essentials.
Saving health packs is the most essential thing in the essential nodes so the highest health character gets the hit for me
Same here. If your other characters are low on health you can always switch them out. You can’t switch out the essential character.
I threw my Ares to the wolves…this is the first time in a long time I haven’t had a champed 2-star fir the required node. I needed to sell off three champed ones to get my 4-star Carol champed before losing a couple of her covers. Ares, 2-star Capt Marvel and Moonstone are no longer champed on my roster.
By the end of the fourth clear, Ares was down to 63 health. On the bright side, I found out that if Sunder ends the match, Ares doesn’t take the damage from it. He returned alive from the intended suicide charge. 
I thought something like that happened with mine the other day, but I wasn’t paying enough attention to know for sure. Good to have confirmation on it. It probably does the damage in two steps, one to the target, one to Ares. If it downs the last opponent, the match ends before the second step resolves.
I was under the impression that was general knowledge >_>
I figured that out some 2 months ago or so but never posted because I felt dumb…
Never! Even though they may not help you win the fight, you don’t want to waste a health pack on them either.
Depends. On really hard nodes I do; I need the other two to actually win the fight. Healthpacks aren’t so valuable to me that I can’t spare one. Especially if the countdown (Maggia hitman Blue for 15k or something) is going to kill someone. Sorry, Drax.
I don’t feel bad about it.
Actually I do in lightning rounds where I don’t have the character and the game gives them to me, because the always come back undamaged
I have Thano5. Everyone gets thrown under a bus.
But seriously, if there is a big, single target nuke coming my way and I have the match, generally it’s the under covered/levelled essential who is eating it.
Hear, hear. Since I pair IM40 and Strange for prettu much all nodes I prefer to send the essential to take the hit.