Any advice for SHIELD Simulator?

The Herald

Hello, I'm a 3* player who's been here less than a year.

Any advice on getting to 2k points?

Teams I've been running so far are:

Winfinite (Switch/GSBW/Baldy, my underleveled Prof X seems to make me a target on defence)

Hulk bombing (Hulk/Patch/IM40) which seems to be a good deterrent in defence but I've had it go horribly wrong against certain match ups.

Patch/Loki with Iron Fist acceleration for Trickery. (This suffers from am underlevel Loki, doesn't matter when I use it but it has an obvious weak point on defence).

Any advice for me from more experienced players?

Bowgentle

Wait another week before trying for 2K.

Will be much easier then.

udonomefoo

Bowgentle wrote:

Wait another week before trying for 2K.

Will be much easier then.

Yes, this.

Patch is good for offense, but has very low hp so you will get hit a lot using him. You mentioned fist, do you also have maxed cyclops? or luke cage? I used cyc/fist with a blue user (usually cmags) for several seasons before getting my 4s going. cyc/fist/im40 would probably be even better than cmags.

If you can't be the strongest team, be as annoying as you can. Fist is annoying, cage is annoying, hood is annoying (but weak).

Also, you prob will have to shield at some point to get there. Every match will be a gamble after you pass about 1800. You could come out to no hits or you could come out to -150 points. Good luck!

Rodolfo78

I wouldn't worry at all about defense, as no team will be a true deterrent. Instead set aside a day to do it- not necessarily all at once, but in a pretty short time period, so you don't backslide all the way by ignoring it for a couple days. Use healers so you can go longer at a stretch, and don't be afraid to spend a little ISO skipping so you're not slogging through 10-point matches. Your Patch/Loki combo is a pretty common one for 3* sim, as they can punch way above their weight class... I bet you could ride that almost all the way despite the low HP. You'll get hit a few times on the climb for sure, but just ignore it and keep hitting decent targets. And yes, it'll be easier perhaps a week from now- there will be more points in the sim for better targets, but it's not so late that everyone's trying to climb.

The Herald

Thanks

I'm at 1200, going to back off (may set up Hulk Bomb and hope that puts some people off for eating health packs).

Should have Champion Luke Cage in about a week. May have to start targeting my next picks for Champion... Got 20 Champions at 3* right now but it's mostly been at the whim of fate.

No 3cyke Champion yet. That's my ONLY 3* that isn't 13/13 covers. They're sat at 2/5/5 (I'll probably hit him with 20cp when an inevitably redundant cover turns up).

I've been blown out by IF/Cage/Falcon before now, sheer weight of irritation O.o

OneLastGambit

Back when I was a 3* player I hit 2k using lcap/im40/cage

No matter what team you use you will get slapped around a bit in SIM play in bursts go high as you can and then don't fret and do the same again the next day, eventually you'll get there.

TxMoose

other than waiting another week to make the big push, you need to be soft climbing to where you're floating in the 1200s or 1300s. for example, I currently have a 3* team out of gamora/fist/hood and I'm at 1260 but haven't played in a couple of days. I could manage the float a little and stay closer to 1400 if I wanted. find a teams/groups that is either really good on their own or would be underestimated regularly. my team of gamora/fist/hood is the latter (works only if gamora can tank for fist). there are multiple 3* teams that carry a consistent "red/blue user + yellow/black user + purple/green user" pattern:

red/blue users: cmags, cap or less effective, daredevil, shulk. once 4s start developing this could be changed out for hb, 4cyke, or 4hor
yellow/black users: cage, hood, cyke (im40 could use yellow to feed the other 2 here)
purple/green users: fist, kk, witch or less effective, bullseye. once 4s start developing this could be changed out for jean, rulk, ice, or x23

I'm partial to hood because he generally slows the enemy down (but has low health), but many of those can work. my go-to team in 3* play was cmags/cage/fist (before the im40 rework). great offensive abilities everywhere. work your way up into the lower 1000s through this week and then in about a week or so, see how high you can float, let your health packs fully recharge and then try and make your big push.

dsds

Would fighting the shield event later get you into a different bracket that might be easier?

I think this shield event is going to be hard even for those who have made it before. It's peggy carter as the rewards, lots of people will be fighting for her. I remembered how hard I had to fight for her pvp.

Quebbster

dsds wrote:

Would fighting the shield event later get you into a different bracket that might be easier?

There are no placement rewards in the SHIELD Simulator. Your bracket is irrelevant.
Playing later may mean there are more high point targets around, but it also means a higher risk of being hit yourself.

revskip

Try to time your final push with the end of a PVE and/or highly coveted PVP. If you can swing both even better. There are fewer sharks in the water when people are trying to make their final push elsewhere. I usually try to get to at least 1750 before shielding (I also have a team of 3*s). Once you've shielded do not skip until you are maybe 10 minutes away from the shield dropping. At that point make sure to queue up at least 3 winable matches worth as many points as possible but at least 60 points a fight.

Don't be afraid to use boosts, both +ap and + match damage if you are outmatched, the point totals are way more important than the actual teams you are fighting although you will probably want to skip 5*s with more than one cover. It may take two shields to get there, do not try to hit more than 3 to 4 fights in a row before reshielding, one 8 and one 3 hour should get it done if you've climbed high enough.

It's definitely doable with 3*s, I have gotten 2k the past 4 seasons with just 3*s.

Edit: Make that 5 times in a row. This time only used one 8 hour shield timed to end during the end run of slice 5's Hulk event.

Bowgentle

revskip wrote:

Once you've shielded do not skip until you are maybe 10 minutes away from the shield dropping.

That's a recipe for disaster not only in SSIM but for any shield hop.
You should start looking for qs right after you shield, not 10 minutes before your shield expires.
Q only people from t25 alliances where you can be certain they'll keep their points or even increase them by the time you hit them.

Skipping frantically with 10 minutes to go on your shield and at the worst ending with 3 30 pointers isn't something I'd recommend.

revskip

Bowgentle wrote:

revskip wrote:

Once you've shielded do not skip until you are maybe 10 minutes away from the shield dropping.

That's a recipe for disaster not only in SSIM but for any shield hop.
You should start looking for qs right after you shield, not 10 minutes before your shield expires.
Q only people from t25 alliances where you can be certain they'll keep their points or even increase them by the time you hit them.

Skipping frantically with 10 minutes to go on your shield and at the worst ending with 3 30 pointers isn't something I'd recommend.

In Shield Sim if you wait until the last week there are plenty of high point targets and unlike other PVPs almost no one is shielding once they hit 2K, they just let themselves free fall from there. So it is the one place I do it that way. In a normal PVP setting you definitely wouldn't do that since you'd be looking to queue people ahead of time that are either shielding after you queue them or can float much higher. In Shield Sim though doing that usually means the points degrade way more than they would in a normal PVP. Especially when you are a 3* player who is already kinda having to cherry pick what teams you can hit.

Bowgentle

revskip wrote:

In Shield Sim if you wait until the last week there are plenty of high point targets and unlike other PVPs almost no one is shielding once they hit 2K, they just let themselves free fall from there. So it is the one place I do it that way. In a normal PVP setting you definitely wouldn't do that since you'd be looking to queue people ahead of time that are either shielding after you queue them or can float much higher. In Shield Sim though doing that usually means the points degrade way more than they would in a normal PVP. Especially when you are a 3* player who is already kinda having to cherry pick what teams you can hit.

Gotcha.
I have never in my life shielded in SSIM so you're probably right lol.

Cousin Simpson

The team that I used to always use was Patch/Daken/Loki, since Daken would both tank black in front of Loki and recover his own health, and Berserker Rage would make quick work of most opponents. Yes, not having Fist accelerate black makes this team slower, but using one health pack every 10 matches (I might be exaggerating the exact number) is preferable.

tanis3303

I've had the most luck keeping my Shield Sim points by leaving really annoying things out for people to see. Stuff that, yea, you'll probably win if you hit it. But it's either going to take forever to accomplish, cost you 1 or more health packs, or ideally, both. Stuff like Thing/Xforce Deadpool or Kingpin/Scarlet Witch. My current team is Carnage/Antman/OML. At the three star level, characters like Loki, Hood, Colossus, M40, Magneto, Fist/Cage all come to mind, with special nods to scratch damage strategies and/or healers like Daken/Bullseye, Daken/Patch or Loki/Patch. Stuff that drags out the fight can be a good deterrent too, like Spidey and his protects/heal/stuns or Daredevil with his stuns...I've found strategies that rely on AoE attacks like Panther or Sentry don't really scare anyone off since its fairly easy to down them before they collect enough AP to fire it (barring crazy cascades of course)

tiomono

It's fine to play a bit and hover around 1000 points. Then about day 10 go ham and push hard.

The last 5 seasons or so I have made it with only shielding once. I use psylocke in the center spot, kamala on the left, and hood on the right.

Hood tanks no colors if he is at the same level or lower than the other 2. You have very good coverage and cheap moves to keep the heals running.

Eddiemon

Have an offence team for climbing and a defence team for resting.

Patch/Loki/Iron Fist is good value, as are the Charlie's Angels set you run.

For defence you want an annoying team. Something like She Hulk/Iron Man/Doom can be difficult. She hulk's 6 green is incredibly annoying, and if iron man lucks into 6 yellow pain will follow. Doom is the third because you don't want anyone with a green or yellow ability as the AI will use them instead.

You can't put out a team that the AI will beat people with, so instead you put out a team that will take time to beat and has a high risk of costing you a health pack. That may earn you a skip.

Iron Fist/Falcon/Luke Cage or Hood can also give that 'you will take damage beating me' vibe, but the AI is bad at playing falcon or leveraging IF/Cage

torontoraptors

I have been playing for like 4 months and only use 4-5 3* characters and made it to 2k with one 3 hour shield because I ran out of health packs.

I only use champed Fist, Cyc, Switch, level 127 IM40 and champed Daken. That's all you need to hit 2k.
On defense I leave Fist, Cyc and Switch. I think other 3* will generally avoid it.

MarcusGraves

I've always done shield sim as big push/little push, every 4-5 days the average point amount of players jumps up which is when I do my big push and in-between those days I clear out some nodes if I've been hit few times.

It's really about being efficient with your health packs/using a strong climb team and going for big pointers you know you can handle, don't work harder than you need to by trying to do teams worth stinky amounts of points just for the sake of getting more.

The Herald

A lot of great advice here, thank you everyone

dsds

Thought the peggy carter cover this time would make it much more harder to hit 2000. Managed to do it yesterday from 1100 to 2000 pts in about three hours!

Fought to 1600pts then stopped to refresh some health packs. Had 3-4 health packs left at around 1600pts. let my guys heal a bit and 2-3 health packs regenerated, and back to the climb I go. Got attacked once or twice when I Stopped at 1600. This was in the evening.

I used two teams to climb. Scarlett witch, Iron Fist, Luke Cage. And my main team was Kamala Khan, IM40, 4thor. The main team sometimes, never took much damage so I was able to fight maybe two battles before using a health pack. Of course there were bad matches where I used 2-3 health packs at a time. This is the first time, I didn't need to use taco tokens to replenish my health packs.