Sustained play...is it possible?

MarvelMan

With Patchneto mostly nuked (Im thinking maybe 3/5/5 Patch with a 5/5/3 Cmag?), what pair do people think will work best for sustained play? By which I mean a push mid PVP tourney.

Unknown

They've tried their hardest to make sustained play impossible, but there are options. For those willing to spend on health packs, sentry/Laken is king. Otherwise, you want to minimize damage. Patch, xforce, and laken are great for that. High health guys like Thor and hulk are also great. These characters are also defensive deterrents because of their longevity. All of them except Thor also heal very fast. They gain a surprising amount of health if you rotate them out for a few fights.

wymtime

I have my Patch at 5,3,5 and if you are looking at not taking damage I would say either 5,5,3 or 5,3,5 for CMags. On the Cmags topic someone was saying Cmags red at level 5 is AOE. If that is so 5 in red would be extremly powerful and then I would say for my CMags I would go 5,5,3. I like that his yellow can overwrite CD tiles. Also once you hit Berserker rage I want the most protect tiles out as I can since I have Patches green at level 5. If Level 5 red is AOE that will be preety nasty combonation with 6 strike tiles out.

Unknown

I've used Patch plus Lazy Daken for a while now as my sustained push team. The featured is the weak link in this scenario - but if you avoid the colors they're tanking (which you can't, always) you can go for a while.

Trisul

Ben Grimm wrote:

I've used Patch plus Lazy Daken for a while now as my sustained push team. The featured is the weak link in this scenario - but if you avoid the colors they're tanking (which you can't, always) you can go for a while.

If featured, you can just use the loaner version, no?

Cragger

No one ever believes me when I say it, but Spiderman. 5 Purple is really very good at preventing incoming damage. A turn one purple match gives a 100 protect tile that mostly negates incoming match damage. Even if you never put a web tile on the board, one or two protect tiles will negate all but the worst cascades and criticals. Add to that good defensive play (by which I mean actually playing the puzzle) and Spiderman can last well over a dozen matches before requiring a heal, if he ever really needs one to begin with. His new healing rate works very well and can heal most of the damage taken in a match (-1 at a time...) between selecting opponents.

I use LThor/Spidey at 3/5/5 for each with the required character. They don't cover black, but most opposing teams don't either. I give Thor +3 Red/Yellow and finish most matches in under 4 minutes having taken around 500-1000 to Thor and negligible damage to Spidey and the required. This team gets me to 800 points easy, at which point it becomes tactics, boosts, timing, shields, and a healthy does of Sentry. But that is ok, because I usually enter this phase with at least 4 health packs. And I usually do it in under two hours.

Sustained play over 900 points is not a realistic concept. You will become a high value target for everyone over 700 and it doesn't matter who your team consists of at that point. The best defenses are, as previously described, high health characters like Hulk. I used to attempt runs on 1100 unshielded with Hulk/Thor/Sentry, but the results are not consistent enough to be a viable strategy for Alliance play.

Unknown

Even if you win twice as fast as anyone else and all your games are worth 40 points, after around the 800 or so all it takes is two guys who have you queued up for 40 points to undo whatever progress you made, and those guys will generally have a team as strong as yours to begin with. It's quite possible to hit the 'Sentry bombing' range with a sustained play, and after that range the system makes it impossible. If you don't shield, even with Sentry and infinite HP for boosts/health packs, you still wouldn't get very far after a certain range.

Sentry/Daken can easily take you to that range playing straight up, so no reason they can't do it in R60. For the rest I'm not sure, but taking 2 or 3 playing sessions to get to 800 isn't some kind of crime against community, and after that you always need shields in some form.

Now that I think about it, I remember hitting 900 with Moonstone/Ares/Daken in the DA only event (and Sentry wasn't an available character at that point), and I can assure you that team was absolutely nothing to write home about. I didn't prologue heal either. Now of course you're not going to hold 900 for long but that's why there are shields if you want to hold, let alone progress, after a certain point.

Pylgrim

Cragger wrote:

No one ever believes me when I say it, but Spiderman. 5 Purple is really very good at preventing incoming damage. A turn one purple match gives a 100 protect tile that mostly negates incoming match damage. Even if you never put a web tile on the board, one or two protect tiles will negate all but the worst cascades and criticals. Add to that good defensive play (by which I mean actually playing the puzzle) and Spiderman can last well over a dozen matches before requiring a heal, if he ever really needs one to begin with. His new healing rate works very well and can heal most of the damage taken in a match (-1 at a time...) between selecting opponents.

I use LThor/Spidey at 3/5/5 for each with the required character. They don't cover black, but most opposing teams don't either. I give Thor +3 Red/Yellow and finish most matches in under 4 minutes having taken around 500-1000 to Thor and negligible damage to Spidey and the required. This team gets me to 800 points easy, at which point it becomes tactics, boosts, timing, shields, and a healthy does of Sentry. But that is ok, because I usually enter this phase with at least 4 health packs. And I usually do it in under two hours.

Sustained play over 900 points is not a realistic concept. You will become a high value target for everyone over 700 and it doesn't matter who your team consists of at that point. The best defenses are, as previously described, high health characters like Hulk. I used to attempt runs on 1100 unshielded with Hulk/Thor/Sentry, but the results are not consistent enough to be a viable strategy for Alliance play.

Agreed. I started playing Spidey because he was the perfect colour complement to my Punisher (my first maxed 3*) and I have never looked back. I have to heal the Punisher only every 2-3 games and Spidey every 3-4 (barring 40-AP cascades by the Ai.) If you got a good board and can get 12+ blue AP it's easy to keep two characters perma-stunned at a time. Yellow Healing rarely comes into play, but I hope it causes trouble for my opponents while defending.

Beast1970

I think this will force sustained play more into the diverse roster idea that was mentiond before. Making multiple teams you can rotate in and out will certainly lengthen your sessions, although not nearly like running a Patchneto team did. L Daken/Falcon, HT/Hood, L Thor/Spidey will all work just fine until you hit the 800-900 range, and barring bad luck and cascades, two or three teams should get you to that point without having to take a healing break.

To answer the not quite question from wymtime, C Mad red Polarizing Force is NOT an AOE attack, I just jumped in and tried it and it only did damage to the target (and yes, mine is at 5).

GrumpySmurf1002

Multiple characters. I have 21 level 94 characters (that's where I've softcapped my 3*s, because it's funny to me), plus a few more I can bring up to there. That allows me to use a multitude of teams to split between PvE and PvP. I can play for 3ish hours most nights with little issue.

The hard simulator puts more of a strain on it, but overall that's the easiest way. I've never had a worthwhile CMags, so I'll never be spoiled, but at least I'm ready for this version.

OnesOwnGrief

Never played Paychneto and I never had a problem with sustained play. Didn't have Daken (still don't) at a comfortable spot to let him heal through stuff and my Patch has only been running 5 yellow since his last featured PvE. Spider-Man kept me going before Patch and this was after his change with true healing.

Nonce Equitaur 2

There seems to be more team variety.

Thor, Patch, Sentry, Hulk, Daken, Hood, BP, Magneto, Punisher seem common in enemy teams.
Captain Marvel, Falcon, Spiderman, X-Force, Fury, Deadpool, BWGS, Torch, Psylocke, Captain America, IM40, Spiderman, Ares, mStorm, OBW are less common in enemy teams.
Beast, Loki, Doctor Doom, Ragnarok, She-Hulk, Invisible Woman are very rare.



Bracket stats -- the next time I'm in a bracket of 1000, I'd love to see a top 20 character breakdown for the 1000 teams I'm facing.
1000 -- Captain Marvel (required)
750 -- Hulk
713 -- Sentry
627 -- Daken
542 -- Patch
430 -- Hood
320 -- Magneto
....

Each character has a tile icon, so they could list the team each person used in the rankings.

babinro

I'm still all about 5/3/5 patch post ...uh...patch.

Patch/Daken/Loki is an extremely strong team for longevity now that all the true healers protect Loki entirely.
It's further enhanced by the fact that it only needs one green/black boost rather than 2 or more.

Beyond teaming patch up with Loki...his 5 green still make him the single best offensive goon killer in PvE. By comparison his red is just too expensive and slow as a single target killer.

Unknown

Trisul wrote:

Ben Grimm wrote:

I've used Patch plus Lazy Daken for a while now as my sustained push team. The featured is the weak link in this scenario - but if you avoid the colors they're tanking (which you can't, always) you can go for a while.

If featured, you can just use the loaner version, no?

Yup, but then they're the super-weak link. I'm always reluctant to use the loaner version when I've got someone who can actually contribute next to them. I can still usually manage sustained play using them, unless I'm doing something else health-pack intensive.

Unknown

Daken with Human Torch, not only sustain thanks to Daken tanking but also fun (at least for me). I wasnt using Patchneto but this combo is awesome for, even in pve its great.

Ok, forgot bout color change so nvm

babinro

Malcoran wrote:

Daken with Human Torch, not only sustain thanks to Daken tanking but also fun (at least for me). I wasnt using Patchneto but this combo is awesome for, even in pve its great.

Ok, forgot bout color change so nvm

I suspect HT and X-force will make a great duo team since X-force tanks both green and black. I'm probably a few months of ISO saving to know for sure though.

FaerieMyst

Sustained play is totally doable but you have to have a deep roster.

My best playing decision was to develop a deep roster. All the changes people complain about are just bumps in the road because I am never relying on one or two characters.

Unknown

Patch, Loki, someone who tanks Black for Loki is pretty sustainable. Used it during latest Ms. Marvel PvP and was able to fight for some time before running out of health packs for the tank.