Hardest 5* Essential Node

With some of the current talk about which 5* E node is the hardest, it got me wondering which one really is the hardest. Now I do understand that the required 5* is very important in this topic, because having 1/2 covers changes this drastically, but even without that some of these nodes are just ugly.
With looking at this, I am only looking at tile movers (non goons). Reason is the forums only lets me do 10 questions for a poll. So I am only looking at 3 characters that move tiles even though I know some of the non tile movers can be hard if they get going.
This will only be for the PVE events they have ran with this. Here is the list of PVEs we have has so far.
Venom Bomb
Unstable ISO-8
Heart of Darkness
Webbed Wonder
Honor Among Thieves
Simulator
Deadpool vs MPQ
The Hunt
Thick as Thieves
Meet Rockett & Groot
Enemy of the State
Strange Sights

Hardest 5* Essential Node
  • Venom Bomb Sub 3- 4* Venom, 3* Doc Ock, 4* Sandman
  • Heart of Darkness Sub 3- 4* Medusa, 5* Black Bolt, 4* Lockjaw
  • Simulator Sub 1- 4* Rogue, 4* Wolverine, 3* Colossus
  • Simulator Sub 2- 3* Colossus, 5* Jean Grey, 5* Wolverine
  • Simulator Sub 3- 3* Cyclops, 3* Magneto, 4* Professor X
  • Deadpool vs MPQ Sub 1- 4* Iron Fist, 4* Luke Cage, 4* Mockingbird
  • Deadpool vs MPQ Sub 2- 5* Thanos, 4* Vulture, 3* Daken
  • The Hunt Sub 1- 3* Daken, 5* Green Goblin, 2* Ares
0 voters

To me, Heart of Darkness with BB Medusa and Lockjaw just sucks. Wiped too many times on that node.

Easy choice

Bolt Medusa Lockjaw.

Although Mockingbird Fist Cage is also off the charts.

Would be surprised if the poll isn’t 100% the B.B. Medusa Lockjaw node

Sub 1 DP vs MPQ is tough but there are all active powers - venom bomb is passive death before you even fire a power

BB, Medusa, lockjaw. This node is the one I would retreat after first couple turns especially when your strongest color has some charged tiles…

The inhumans royalty is the toughest. their synergy is really very good.

There’s only one node I’ve had to DROP ALL THE WHALES each and every time I’ve faced it - Medusa, BB and Lockjaw. Makes me want to get all of these characters up to a decent level so I can try it myself in Sim.

I don’t know how, but I cleared the inhuman nod first time! Didn’t do it again though, so really can’t say if it was a fluke!
The Thanos-Vulture-Daken node, however, has crippled me. No matter what I do, I think I’ve only managed to complete that once.

I can’t remember which 5* was featured for those (and which of those I have Championed), so I went with the worst one based on power synergy and overall “sneakiness”

In terms of toughest to beat these two hands down. But I voted for the Rogue one because it took FOREVER and caused me to screw up the timing of my final grind and really killed my placement.

Voting like most everyone else.

I know the goon nodes are usually easier, but I will say the Mindless One nodes from HAT were pretty tough on me without Gambattery/Jean.

Easy vote, where is the inhumans option? Click, check.

The DP vs MPQ are also difficult, but nothing rivals the Heart of Darkness one, it really needs a fix.

It was a bit of a toss up for me between this one and the one that most people voted for - the reason I went with this one is that I default to CoulHawk to clear the 5* nodes, particularly if my 5* is low. Luke makes CoulHawk so, so very much more difficult.

I just chose based on emotional memory, but it was gratifying to see everyone else picking the Royals as well.

Definitely Bolt/Medusa/Lockjaw.

It’s wild how a champed Gambit makes everything trivial, though. Now the 5* nodes are just as easy as everything else, they just take a bit longer.

The hardest over-scaled nodes are always the ones with passive damage and good-but-squishy support characrers with way more health than they should have.

Hood, strange, bb, 3fist, vulture, and medusa arw the type of characters that become extea challenging when they start tanking as well as doing all their other good stuff.

Add in some good characrer synergy (like the inhuman royals, or that old gauntlet node of 3fist + switch + 3cage) and it’s pretty easy to predict which nodes/characters give us the most trouble at 500+.

Inhuman royals or gambit + rogue + jg are about as nasty a combo as exists in the game now. Strong, unavoidable passive damage, defensive passives that make the player less efficient, and self-accel to drop an active power hammer if the player takes to long.

I believe I used 4-5 whales in that 5e for HoD sub 3.

May I nominate, Thick as Thives: Scotland yard - Jugg+Muscle+Moonstone.

Definitely this one from HoD, but a very close 2nd place goes to Sim sub 1- IF4, LC4, MB.

I didn’t have the essential 5 champed for the last run of either, but I still managed to eek out 5 clears in Sim, HoD… 3, maybe…