POLL: Heroes of Tower Defense (Survival Mode)

Nonce Equitaur 2

For Survival Mode, waves of enemies will arrive, adding more and more Attack tiles and counters to the board. The intended effect is to grind the player's team down.

The best defenses are AP generators, Protect tiles, Strike tiles, Attack tiles, Regeneration, and healing. Ideally, by the time the third wave comes in, a team will have a near impervious set of shields up, along with many powerful Strike and Protect tiles to slice and dice the enemy.

I decided that these were the best characters for waves of enemies

Invisible Woman: Grant Invisibility - 18 , Force Bubbles - 13 , Force Field Crush - 9 -- When she finally has and , she can lock down or destroy most enemy tiles, and then generate 24 AP by spending 9 , while doing appreciable damage.
Thor: Smite - 10 , Striking Distance - 12 , Power Surge - 9 -- Can fill the board with charged tiles, allowing the gathering of lots of AP.
Black Panther: Battleplan - 9 , Defense Grid - 8 , Rage of the Panther - 12 -- Lots of Protect and Strike tiles plus a Nuke.
Blade: Nightstalker - 8 , Keep Your Enemies Closer - 10 , The Thirst - PASSIVE -- Lots of Strike and Attack tiles.
Captain America: Sentinel of Liberty - 19 , Star Spangled Avenger - 11 , Peacemaker - 12 -- Shield bounces return AP.
Daken: Healing & Heat - PASSIVE, Pheromone Rage - PASSIVE, Chemical Reaction - 5 -- Strike tiles and Regen
Daredevil: Radar Sense - 10 , Billy Club - 9 , Ambush - 7 -- Stunlock, clear away enemy tiles, excellent damage.
Falcon: Inspiration - PASSIVE, Redwing - PASSIVE, Bird Strike - 12 -- Increase the power of everything else, remove enemy tiles, Protect.
Human Torch: Fireball - 8 , Inferno - 10 , Flame Jet - 5 -- Attack tiles, lots of damage
Magneto: Coercive Field - 9 , Polarizing Force - 8 , Magnetized Projectiles - 10 -- Protect tiles, lots of damage
Punisher: Molotov Cocktail - 7 , Judgement - 8 , Retribution - 8 -- Strike and Attack tiles.
Rocket&Groot: I Am Groot - PASSIVE, Blammo! We Got Ya! - 10 , I Got A Plan - 11 -- Regeneration and Strike tiles
Spider-Man: Web Bandages - 12 , All Tied Up - 5 , Spider-Sense - PASSIVE -- Healing and Protect tiles
Storm: Lightning Strike - AP Gen 10 , Mistress of the Elements - 9 , Hailstorm - 9 -- Cover the board with Attack tiles, AP generation
Black Widow (O): Aggressive Recon - 8 , Anti-Gravity Device - 9 , Espionage - PASSIVE -- Healing, AP theft.

Honorable mentions (updated):
Captain Marvel: Photonic Blasts - 7 , Hypersonic Punch - 9 , Energy Absorption - PASS
Colossus: Immovable Object -8 , Colossal Punch -11 , Fastball Special -13
Elektra: Double Double-Cross -7 , Shadow Step -10 , Ballet of Death -10
Doctor Octopus: Manipulation -11 , Insult to Injury -PASS , Armed and Dangerous -12
Gamora: Skull Cracker -12 , Razor’s Edge -5 , Bad Reputation -12
Hood: Twin Pistols -15 , Dormammu’s Aid -PASS , Intimidation -9
Hulk: Thunderous Clap -10 , Smash -14 , Anger -PASS
Mystique: Shapeshift -8 , Infiltration -9 , Masterstroke -11
Psylocke: Psychic Knife -8 , Bewilder -10 , Psi-Katana -6
She-Hulk: Settlement -9 , Reprieve -12 , Power Of Attorney -9
Thor: Mjolnir’s Might -8 , Thunder Strike -12 , Call The Storm -14
Ares: Onslaught -7 , Rampage -10 , Sunder -10
Hawkeye: Electric Arrow -9 , Blast Arrow -9 , Speed Shot -PASS
Magneto: Iron Hammer -6 , Polarity Shift -11 , Magnetic Flux -8
Storm: Lightning Storm -12 , Wind Storm -11 , Raging Tempest -PASS

The best character to consider for Survival Mode seems to be Falcon. Within a few waves, he can have an impregnable array of shields.

Characters boosted in esteem by Survival Mode
Falcon -- Best in the survival game.
Captain America -- Master of long games.
Daken -- Makes any team better.
Blade -- Makes any team better.
Spider-Man -- Will keep team alive.
Invisible Woman -- Only useless in the first wave.
Doctor Octopus -- Useful against ninja hordes.

Characters not boosted in esteem by Survival Mode
Daredevil -- Red overwrites hurt him. His Radar Sense should work on Traps.
Colossus -- Still too slow

What are your thoughts? Which characters should be added to this list?

turul

I suggest not commenting best combos since dev might nerf some of them ruining the fun
(there are a lot quite effective combos)

Unknown

My roster is a 2* transitioning one so here what I used

Level 66 2/2/1
Level 94 3/5/5
Level 94 4/4/5

Honestly Falcon was the superstar here! Green meant powering up of Thor's strongest ability and generating strike tiles. Yellow meant powering up of Thor's ability that in turn will power up his strongest ability (9 green tiles = destruction) and making those strike tiles stronger. Purple for shield purposes. Red for "why not?"

I might've been lucky with the board as well but it was actually a lot of fun seeing the damage this team was outputting. I definitely need to invest more on some falcon covers!

Professa D

I've been loving but I'm constantly tempted to use blade's instead of falcon's cause the attack/strike stacking is so sexy . But the one time I used Bird Strike instead my team basically took no damage for the rest of the match, so I suppose defense is the better option

Unknown

Charged tiles and special tiles (storm black) also disarm traps!

Unknown

Removing every last tile from the board and hitting everyone with AOE can also be rather effective. Just saying

Pylgrim

Punisher+Daken+Spiderman are rocking my survival nodes. Spidey reduces most of damage to 1 and can stun the odd goon that I cannot kill before his countdown goes off. Daken tanks black for Punisher and purple and blue for Spidey while filling the board with strike tiles and executing stragglers with Chemical Reaction. Punisher is the main damage dealer, completing the rainbow; a well-placed Molotov Cocktail countdown will slowly fill the board with strike-tile-assisted attack tiles by the later waves.

Lystrata

They're probably not the 'best', and I've probably had some luck with a couple of boards, but I've stuck to using my 'usual' team of LThor, Blade and Daken/LDaken (using Daken in pvp too, sooo...).

Thus far, it's cost me one health pack per run, to bring LThor back up by abouuut the third or second last node. Blade + Daken are absolute killers, with the consistent strike tiles (and it rather nicely takes up red tiles, which helps). Plus matching black countdowns doesn't feel so useless, given Blade's black is pretty great too.

Eddiemon

Spiderman, Falcon and Punisher.

You populate the board with Spidey's defense tiles, Punisher's offense tiles and let falcon boost them both with yellow.

WIth a couple of defense tiles you can completely ignore the shiruken ability. Punisher just grinds through the opposition and if anything bad happens spidey can heal.

Kolence

I had fun with Storm + Mystique + MNMags and Storm + Falcon + LCap. Tried Storm + She-Hulk in the Elektra's essential, it was good but I was really lucky with boards there so far, so idk
Panther + LCap/Torch + Hood is also nice for ninja goons.

Unknown

i am really liking psylocke. relatively cheap, but powerful strikes with red and black that build with subsequent times the more you can lay down. blue usually collects black and red against the hand so even better. team her with falcon for awesome synergy.

IamTheDanger

Well, since I can't use my Thor-Force team to stun, smite, slash, and strike my way to victory, I've been relying on Falcon, OBW, and Steve Rogers. OBW keeps the tiles on the board long enough for Cap or Falcon to cover them. At the same time, Steve's red does damage in addition to covering a tile. Another great thinghis, that by the time Wolvie shows up, I usually have enough blue Ap to keep him stun locked with 2 of cap's Peacemakers.

Nonce Equitaur 2

[dev-voice]"Hey guys ... Spider-man is polling well![/dev-voice]

Moon Roach

I still use my go-to anti-goon team of Blade, Falcon, Doc Ock. Slow to start, but once going it's pretty good.

turul

(Ab)using hawkeye as sentry, can be quite effective too, just make him lot match5s somehow

CNash

I'm in the last phases of transitioning, so I don't have enough covers/levels for many of the more strategic or supportive characters mentioned here. I've had mild success with a brute-force team of Cap (3*) / Hulk / Daken (2*), although it would be better if my Hulk was higher leveled so that he can tank more colours - and it is eating through my stock of health packs.

rbdragon

My go to team has been

Build the red/green up during the early easier goons, hit wolverine with a fireball right away when he steps in, use flame jet when built up enough...

Falcon protects very well, plus the boost to Daken's strike tiles....very nice team indeed...

I choose HT over LazyCap just based on cost of red...plus my HT is maxed...

alaeth

I'm stuck in land so here's my roster for the non-essential nodes.




I would like to swap out Ares for damage mitigation (Spidey maybe? But he is only level 53), his high health helps brute force through the long fights - plus red s to soften the entire enemy team. Worst battle I lost two of three and was left with Daken to mop up.

The Smoke screen tiles pose a issue since I'm matching purples for OBW, meaning there's only single strays in the corners. In one fight I was faced with 6 of them. Plinking single damage out, and catching caltrops almost cost me the match, but saving blues for OBW heals (and timer boosts) I was finally able to match out the protect tiles and win.

Overall,, I'm really liking the new combat mode, doesn't feel grindy at all, and posses a real challenge of stamina and endurance to survive.

GuntherBlobel

I wanted to vote for other useful characters, but is the singular survivor mode superstar; other characters only make him better. It will be interesting to see survival mode nodes that aren't dominated by goons with countdown tiles. Until then, rules.

Unknown

You are missing Elektra on the list. Sure, nearly no one has her maxed. But she is only character (ok, Invisible Bagwoman can too I guess) completely deflect attack. You know the node where on wave 2 and 4 you meet Wolverine that have first move and might already have 12 Red generated from before? Now think what happens when he have extra 150+ levels. Or instead it's powerleveled Hood coming up with 30 Yellow in reserve. Boosted Protect tiles are king against low damage scratches like Caltrops and low level attacks/match damage, but once you start seeing crazy scaled enemies you might need character that can evade or be fine with loosing one outright.

DaveR4470

I've been rolling with the boosted 2* Cap with all covers but not fully leveled + boosted 3* Storm with 4 covers + maxed Ares, which works fine for me.... but it's not great, because Cap and Storm aren't maxed (or even close), and one Survival Mode run leaves Cap pretty low on health, as he's doing most of the tanking. Once Cap gets his red and blue up and running, though, it's a smooth ride.

My Falcon is only 2-1-2, but I might give him a test run based on the positive comments in this thread to see how it works out.