Shields Assessment Post Round 1 of Double Shot

Purty_Hawkeye

I wanted to start a topic to see if people wanted to share what they thought of the shields now that they used them for a tournament.
From what I can gather it seems a lot of people on this forum were able to consolidate positions and achieve the 1400 point progression reward.
So now what are the impressions good/bad/broken/P2W?

Disclosure: I have all of the covers for this one so I held back from charging but watched intently to see what those in my bracket were doing and saw a lot of interesting strategies including one player who must have burned up a dozen 3hr shields on their way to a top 5 finish.

Unknown

Bought a 24 hour shield sat out last 11 hours and got second. Loved it because I'd normally never be able to place due to work

Unknown

definitely jumped on a 24 hr shield too early...but I liked the fact that as we got into the last 10 hours or so, you had an idea of what # you had to hit in order to do well due to the top players being frozen with shields on.

First time ever I've been able to hit the 1400 mark by grinding big time around the 9 hour mark, cycling opponents to find 20+ point matches, and then locking in an 8 hour shield. Finished 3rd.

Was very skeptical of this system when it first launched but as the community gets a feel for it I sort of like it.

Unknown

In my bracket as of :30 before the end of the tournament, the top 7 positions were shielded and ranged from 1300 to 750. I shielded last night at 770 in #2 and woke up to find myself at #6, which I'm okay with. I appreciated the fact that I didn't have to sit in front of the computer and play through the end of tournament since it was 8:00am here and I have to leave for work at 7:30 (not to mention get ready for work). I'll gladly drop a couple HP to secure a spot the night before and not feel the pressure to speed through matches in the last 30 minutes just trying to keep my rating from falling off a cliff.

So, as far as I'm concerned, even if I could have gotten a better rating without shields, I very much support their existence.

Unknown

It will be interesting to see what happens once everyone burns out their stockpile of HP. Will people be satisfied with a 3 hour shield for the 400 progression reward?

Unknown

overall....net positive I guess. That said, I don't think you gain anything unless you pushed for the high progress rewards. In a way it hurt the lower lvl players who either wasted shields or couldn't afford them in the first place while ppl with a few thousand hp stashed away could drop 2-3 and come back with a net positive hp at the end because they aleady could get a top finish normally. It will be more noticeably useful when the progress reward isn't a fricken IM 40. Then again...I don't even know what I would want from non-lightning rounds now that my spidey is done. We need new cards. It's been 2+ weeks since hulk started appearing now, so it wouldn't be out there to think a new character might drop soon. Pve events usually start wed or Thursday I think. Hopefully something new comes out.

Also, I don't feel shields really "work" for lightning rounds imo.

Unknown

I'm not sure how I feel about it. As I was able to blitz my way to the top 5 in the last 30 mins of the recent Avengers tournaments. That definitely won't be happening with Shields. I needed Yellow Spidey, so I guess it was worth 200HP.

Unknown

Iron Batman wrote:

It will be interesting to see what happens once everyone burns out their stockpile of HP. Will people be satisfied with a 3 hour shield for the 400 progression reward?

That won't happen. I netted three hundred HP, even with the shield cost. And if I had needed all the covers I sold, it would still have been a net of 150. I still think the point loss is wonky in the 300-600 range, but I doubt it will get fixed, since people were able to climb to such high scores.

Unknown

I agree shields aren't super useful in the LRs, unless you are maybe hoping to stick a score for a 'lower' tier reward like a Diabolic, less chance of getting bumped out. They are a convenience items, and useful for that, and the fact that they allow the point progression to be pushed higher. Sure, some people wasted shields this go, but I feel as time goes people will learn when and for how long to shield for, in terms of worth to them. It's a new feature and all. And I do feel they give mid-tier players a leg up. You can grind to those super high ranks, and stick a decent point total, giving you a good chance at high placement. Before shields, those mid-tier players were more likely to fall victim to last minute teardowns from other players looking to rank up.

Unknown

Yeah I love it so far. It adds a whole new layer of strategy. I got up to 1000 (didn't get 1k progresssion) but started getting hit immediately and couldn't make up ground. So I dropped a 24hr shield at 910pts and was just hoping to stay in top 15 for the blue spidey. The key is to KEEP A CLOSE EYE ON YOUR BRACKET. I was prepared to drop shield and keep climbing if necessary to get my desired reward. My bracket wasn't super competitive though. With 9 minutes left i was in 6th. I dropped shield and went to 1030ish for the progression reward and 3rd place. And no retatliations in that last 10 minutes. This is so much less stressful than worrying that you are going to get nailed at the last minute and drop to 50th place. And you can determine how much you need to grind based on your bracket and desired goal. Its not quite "set it and forget it" (those rotiseries make excellent chicken fyi) but its "set it and monitor, adjust as needed" (not gonna sell a lot of machines with a slogan like that). Which is exactly what this game needed IMO. I wish it had been around since the beginning.

Unknown

Iron Batman wrote:

It will be interesting to see what happens once everyone burns out their stockpile of HP. Will people be satisfied with a 3 hour shield for the 400 progression reward?

I shielded for 3 hours at 410 while in 37th place. My aim was to drop down to the first of the Daken rewards since I have all my Spidey covers. Still placed in top 50 though.

eidehua

I agree it helps mid-tier players, since I definitely am one (75 wolive/72 rag/43 ironman). I progressed to around 1k (with some nasty -40+ knockdowns since my team was easy to beat) and shielded at second. Went to bed and woke up staying top 5.

Unknown

i like that shields give a reason not to constantly tank your MMR. But Tanking still has it's uses (still good for placing in the LRs, and useful if you've pushed yourself too high).

Unknown

My experience was quite curious. I was in a kind bracket and shielded on 516 points which put me 10th.

I figured I was really happy with 2 Spiderman covers (my highest finish in a tournament so far, after my top 25 one in the doom LR yesterday) so I was suddenly in a position where I had to make a CHOICE.

I could have blown my shield and really pushed for a top 5 spot, or stayed shielded and keep my points, but accept I might be overtaken.

To me, that's strategy and I approve.

Unknown

Positive first time experience for me. Started this NHB tournament yesterday and fought to about 500ish points, came home from work, worked my way up to about 700 points and put up an 8 hour shield. Woke up 3.5 hours prior to tournament close, grinded to first and shielded till close of tournament. Stayed in 1st the whole time. I find the trick is to do your grind/push early when everyone still feels they have plenty of time to get their points. Retaliations are not as immediate, giving you time to sheild yourself and clear yourself from their radar. Avoiding the final 30 minutes is pretty critical. I watched my brackets leaderboards just to observe how players who werent sheilded did. The ones that weren't were very clearly trying to climb, but their points just fluctuating without any clear advancement.

Unknown

got both invis woman and xforce wolv so cant complain

Kavel

I managed to land the yellow spidey, which is all I wanted, without ever shielding. I was a little amazed b/c I went to sleep last night around #20 and woke up having only been attacked twice and still around #50. I snuck in two quick matches and managed to snag the yellow.

Maybe a side effect of the shields will be a reduction of the feeding frenzy around end-time of tournaments. Lots of people take themselves out of the hunt once they shield up.

Unknown

In terms of placement strategy, all shields does is remove the insanity in the last 30 minutes. That is, if you're playing like top 5 of your bracket you probably finish somewhere between 1 and 20 instead of just randomly roll a number between 1 and 200 for your final placement.

The general strategy of shields in the final stretch is 'do whatever others aren't doing'. If people are generally shielded then you should not be (unless you have a comfortable lead or simply cannot play anymore), and if people are not generally shielded then you should be to avoid the constant hits. Of course trying to figure out the state of your bracket is going to be tough.

For progression rewards, if you're close to something valuable, you probably should shield. If you use an 8 hour shield to hit 1000 rating, you broke even and put you in good position to hit the higher rewards. Of course you got to pay attention to the relative strength of your opponents. I tried to push for 1000 a few times but I just didn't have strong enough of a team to get there, even if I shielded, so I did not. If I tried to shield it'd probably be wasted, but that'd be my fault not the game's.

Unknown

DumDumDugn wrote:

got both invis woman and xforce wolv so cant complain

Sure you can. They are awful . But me too

Unknown

Kavel wrote:

I managed to land the yellow spidey, which is all I wanted, without ever shielding. I was a little amazed b/c I went to sleep last night around #20 and woke up having only been attacked twice and still around #50. I snuck in two quick matches and managed to snag the yellow.

Maybe a side effect of the shields will be a reduction of the feeding frenzy around end-time of tournaments. Lots of people take themselves out of the hunt once they shield up.

Yes, I believe that shield mechanics benefit both shielders and non-shielders alike.

Unknown

_fulu_ wrote:

DumDumDugn wrote:

got both invis woman and xforce wolv so cant complain

Sure you can. They are awful . But me too

My invis woman is 3/3/3 now. Starting to get tempted into dumping ISO into her lol