What is the best defensive team?

Unknown

locked wrote:

Now what do you mean, that 5 green in Patch is always good except when facing Spider-Man (for obvious reasons), or that the only good thing 5 green does is lose, especially to Spider-Man? Some clarification needed.

5g in Patch loses to Spiderman badly on defense because he'll just stun you when you use Berserker Rage. But then, you almost never win against Spiderman on defense with anybody, so that's really not something you should be worried about.

Offensively there are quite a few ways to render the weakness irrelevent. The simplest one is bring Spiderman.

over_clocked

I feel smug when people attack me using Spider-Man. I shouldn't because he's my favourite and perfectly viable, broken or not, but I do.

NorthernPolarity

I think that BP/lazythor/Hulk is probably the best defensive team out there: they're incredibly tanky, cover 5/6 colors, and have some pretty strong abilities. BP is the sole black user, so rage is going to be prioritized. This team probably wont give you as many random victories as Patch.team, but it also won't be able to be downed as quickly as patch giving your opponent zerker rage strike tiles. Even with spidey being so strong right now, the sheer amount of hp that this team has gives it a decent advantage over patch.team simply due to how long it'll take to kill a team whose lowest hp is 7.5k. Longer fights = longer matches = more chances of the AI getting a random gg cascade, so this is the team I'm going to be looking to invest into (assuming that BP's yellow gets buffed at some point).

over_clocked

^ sheesh. But at least we're safe from such monstrosities for at least a few weeks.

Unknown

NorthernPolarity wrote:

I think that BP/lazythor/Hulk is probably the best defensive team out there: they're incredibly tanky, cover 5/6 colors, and have some pretty strong abilities. BP is the sole black user, so rage is going to be prioritized. This team probably wont give you as many random victories as Patch.team, but it also won't be able to be downed as quickly as patch giving your opponent zerker rage strike tiles. Even with spidey being so strong right now, the sheer amount of hp that this team has gives it a decent advantage over patch.team simply due to how long it'll take to kill a team whose lowest hp is 7.5k. Longer fights = longer matches = more chances of the AI getting a random gg cascade, so this is the team I'm going to be looking to invest into (assuming that BP's yellow gets buffed at some point).

Having Hulk is redundant there because his green/red are inferior to Thor's and nobody's going to start out by attacking Hulk first. It's actually pretty hard for me to think of a third person because you don't want someone who can use black, so you can't use The Hood/The Punisher/Psylocke. Assuming you can have anyone, I'll throw in Modern Hawkeye there so that you get someone who can do damage with blue.

NorthernPolarity

Phantron wrote:

NorthernPolarity wrote:

I think that BP/lazythor/Hulk is probably the best defensive team out there: they're incredibly tanky, cover 5/6 colors, and have some pretty strong abilities. BP is the sole black user, so rage is going to be prioritized. This team probably wont give you as many random victories as Patch.team, but it also won't be able to be downed as quickly as patch giving your opponent zerker rage strike tiles. Even with spidey being so strong right now, the sheer amount of hp that this team has gives it a decent advantage over patch.team simply due to how long it'll take to kill a team whose lowest hp is 7.5k. Longer fights = longer matches = more chances of the AI getting a random gg cascade, so this is the team I'm going to be looking to invest into (assuming that BP's yellow gets buffed at some point).

Having Hulk is redundant there because his green/red are inferior to Thor's and nobody's going to start out by attacking Hulk first. It's actually pretty hard for me to think of a third person because you don't want someone who can use black, so you can't use The Hood/The Punisher/Psylocke. Assuming you can have anyone, I'll throw in Modern Hawkeye there so that you get someone who can do damage with blue.

If the point of defense is to have the most annoying characters for opponents to attack into, then I can't think of a better character for the job than the Hulk. This team is redundant on offense because of what you said, but tiptoeing around an angry Hulk must be one of the most annoying things in the game to deal with. It's not 100% about the defensive team killing the attacking team for me: average kill length and scarecrowing are big factors to consider. This obviously doesn't matter right now due to Spidey, but it's important to plan ahead in terms of iso investment for when the nerfs do come.

mouser

Phantron wrote:

NorthernPolarity wrote:

I think that BP/lazythor/Hulk is probably the best defensive team out there: they're incredibly tanky, cover 5/6 colors, and have some pretty strong abilities. BP is the sole black user, so rage is going to be prioritized. This team probably wont give you as many random victories as Patch.team, but it also won't be able to be downed as quickly as patch giving your opponent zerker rage strike tiles. Even with spidey being so strong right now, the sheer amount of hp that this team has gives it a decent advantage over patch.team simply due to how long it'll take to kill a team whose lowest hp is 7.5k. Longer fights = longer matches = more chances of the AI getting a random gg cascade, so this is the team I'm going to be looking to invest into (assuming that BP's yellow gets buffed at some point).

Having Hulk is redundant there because his green/red are inferior to Thor's and nobody's going to start out by attacking Hulk first. It's actually pretty hard for me to think of a third person because you don't want someone who can use black, so you can't use The Hood/The Punisher/Psylocke. Assuming you can have anyone, I'll throw in Modern Hawkeye there so that you get someone who can do damage with blue.

Heh, throw Dare Devil in there for the laughs.

over_clocked

Good thing we have other stunners besides Spidey. Also high level Hulks can't be bothered with being angered from match damage, which safely allows you to generate enough AP to oneshot them.

Unknown

NorthernPolarity wrote:

Phantron wrote:

NorthernPolarity wrote:

I think that BP/lazythor/Hulk is probably the best defensive team out there: they're incredibly tanky, cover 5/6 colors, and have some pretty strong abilities. BP is the sole black user, so rage is going to be prioritized. This team probably wont give you as many random victories as Patch.team, but it also won't be able to be downed as quickly as patch giving your opponent zerker rage strike tiles. Even with spidey being so strong right now, the sheer amount of hp that this team has gives it a decent advantage over patch.team simply due to how long it'll take to kill a team whose lowest hp is 7.5k. Longer fights = longer matches = more chances of the AI getting a random gg cascade, so this is the team I'm going to be looking to invest into (assuming that BP's yellow gets buffed at some point).

Having Hulk is redundant there because his green/red are inferior to Thor's and nobody's going to start out by attacking Hulk first. It's actually pretty hard for me to think of a third person because you don't want someone who can use black, so you can't use The Hood/The Punisher/Psylocke. Assuming you can have anyone, I'll throw in Modern Hawkeye there so that you get someone who can do damage with blue.

If the point of defense is to have the most annoying characters for opponents to attack into, then I can't think of a better character for the job than the Hulk. This team is redundant on offense because of what you said, but tiptoeing around an angry Hulk must be one of the most annoying things in the game to deal with. It's not 100% about the defensive team killing the attacking team for me: average kill length and scarecrowing are big factors to consider. This obviously doesn't matter right now due to Spidey, but it's important to plan ahead in terms of iso investment for when the nerfs do come.

Yeah I'm using the current game where nobody is going to be discouraged by Hulk's massive HP because Spiderman can put away any game. If you're talking about a balanced near future environment, then certainly The Hulk is good, though you risk having him screw up Thor's green since his green is cheaper. BP/Thor is likely going to be the top 2 defensive characters, and looking at their strengths, you can't have anyone who has a cheaper yellow, green, or black. That leaves you with very few choices for the third guy, which is why I settled on Modern Hawkeye.

Unknown

mouser wrote:

Heh, throw Dare Devil in there for the laughs.

Hmm, that might actually work. I can't imagine Daredevil being targeted first when you have Thor and BP around, so he'll get a lot of time to put down traps. It'll be difficult to predict which red/blue abilities gets used but those are abilities you don't care too much about, and if a purple did resolve, there's going to be all kinds of pain coming the next turn.

NorthernPolarity

Phantron wrote:

NorthernPolarity wrote:

Phantron wrote:

NorthernPolarity wrote:

I think that BP/lazythor/Hulk is probably the best defensive team out there: they're incredibly tanky, cover 5/6 colors, and have some pretty strong abilities. BP is the sole black user, so rage is going to be prioritized. This team probably wont give you as many random victories as Patch.team, but it also won't be able to be downed as quickly as patch giving your opponent zerker rage strike tiles. Even with spidey being so strong right now, the sheer amount of hp that this team has gives it a decent advantage over patch.team simply due to how long it'll take to kill a team whose lowest hp is 7.5k. Longer fights = longer matches = more chances of the AI getting a random gg cascade, so this is the team I'm going to be looking to invest into (assuming that BP's yellow gets buffed at some point).

Having Hulk is redundant there because his green/red are inferior to Thor's and nobody's going to start out by attacking Hulk first. It's actually pretty hard for me to think of a third person because you don't want someone who can use black, so you can't use The Hood/The Punisher/Psylocke. Assuming you can have anyone, I'll throw in Modern Hawkeye there so that you get someone who can do damage with blue.

If the point of defense is to have the most annoying characters for opponents to attack into, then I can't think of a better character for the job than the Hulk. This team is redundant on offense because of what you said, but tiptoeing around an angry Hulk must be one of the most annoying things in the game to deal with. It's not 100% about the defensive team killing the attacking team for me: average kill length and scarecrowing are big factors to consider. This obviously doesn't matter right now due to Spidey, but it's important to plan ahead in terms of iso investment for when the nerfs do come.

Yeah I'm using the current game where nobody is going to be discouraged by Hulk's massive HP because Spiderman can put away any game. If you're talking about a balanced near future environment, then certainly The Hulk is good, though you risk having him screw up Thor's green since his green is cheaper. BP/Thor is likely going to be the top 2 defensive characters, and looking at their strengths, you can't have anyone who has a cheaper yellow, green, or black. That leaves you with very few choices for the third guy, which is why I settled on Modern Hawkeye.

While Hulk messing up Thor's green is annoying, I think that the intimidation/annoyance factor that the Hulk brings to the team (and maybe the odd anger cascade kill) is far more valuable than having a more optimal color configuration with M. Hawkeye. Daredevil is an interesting one, but he's too random for my liking.

Unknown

NorthernPolarity wrote:

While Hulk messing up Thor's green is annoying, I think that the intimidation/annoyance factor that the Hulk brings to the team (and maybe the odd anger cascade kill) is far more valuable than having a more optimal color configuration with M. Hawkeye. Daredevil is an interesting one, but he's too random for my liking.

Now that I thought about it some more, BP also conflicts with Thor's yellow, and Thunder Strike should be able to put the game away (very hard to not have 14 green after adding 9 green tiles to the board).

Designing the dummy proof team for the AI seems to be a lot harder than it first appears.

NorthernPolarity

Phantron wrote:

NorthernPolarity wrote:

While Hulk messing up Thor's green is annoying, I think that the intimidation/annoyance factor that the Hulk brings to the team (and maybe the odd anger cascade kill) is far more valuable than having a more optimal color configuration with M. Hawkeye. Daredevil is an interesting one, but he's too random for my liking.

Now that I thought about it some more, BP also conflicts with Thor's yellow, and Thunder Strike should be able to put the game away (very hard to not have 14 green after adding 9 green tiles to the board).

Designing the dummy proof team for the AI seems to be a lot harder than it first appears.

Assuming buffs go through such that its 1 strike tile + 1/(15 env tiles), BP yellow at least does something useful. Getting probably 2 strike tiles on average makes the ability as powerful as a punisher green, and getting more than that since the AI loves them env tiles can randomly just win you the game. The team at least has hulk passive not be dead weight due to fueling BPs black (which is actually a pretty important concept for defense), so theres that.

Unknown

NorthernPolarity wrote:

Assuming buffs go through such that its 1 strike tile + 1/(15 env tiles), BP yellow at least does something useful. Getting probably 2 strike tiles on average makes the ability as powerful as a punisher green, and getting more than that since the AI loves them env tiles can randomly just win you the game. The team at least has hulk passive not be dead weight due to fueling BPs black (which is actually a pretty important concept for defense), so theres that.

It's useful but Thor's yellow can be considered a game ender right now so you're giving up a lot. It's awfully hard for me to see that you wouldn't accidentally have 14g after dumping 9 green on the battlefield. That's one and a half Oasis! Thunder Strike into a Call the Storm should pretty much put the game away, since that's 10K worth of damage there plus cascades (2K from Thunder Strike, 4K/2K/2K from Call the Storm).

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

5 in green for Patch is only guaranteed to lose if you're facing Spiderman, but you're already guaranteed to lose if you're facing Spiderman barring a miracle.

Win/lose is just one aspect of defense. It matters a lot if your team while losing leaves the attacker losing substantial amount of health and even more: time.

Say, of course you can win over a hulk with 5 anger. But is usually take ages, compared to other teams.

The other factor is pure risk. If I see a mstorm/obw team in the forest I'm really inclined to skip. Sure it goes down easily most times, but brings in an excess risk factor -- and counterattack if placed on the same field will succeed just as easy.

This all is like in the basic parable for security field:

Two guys camp in the Rocky Mountains, and see a grizzly bear approaching. One of the guys hastily changes his boots to running sneakers. The other guy makes a note: come on, you can't outrun the bear in whatever footware. And the first guy replies: but I don't need to outrun the bear, it's well enough if I just outrun you.

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

Yeah I'm using the current game where nobody is going to be discouraged by Hulk's massive HP because Spiderman can put away any game.

For one, you massively overestimate how many people of your metagame have maxed-blue spiderman to strat with.
And experience show that certain teams are avoided way more than others, and hulk definitely has that effect.

I do skip hulks deep in black. When I leave the team with Hulk for defense I barely get attacks. A few times I had playing vendetta chains with variable teams -- mostly fast retal wiih an offensive. And the guy kept coming back until the last team I posted Hulk. (Ok, maybe he just tired out or decided the temporary points not worth the trouble

Also, if you pack your spiderman attacking the team with hulk, and that player has spiderman on his roster chances are good to get a back-punch. Mirrors are said quite handicapped.

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

It's useful but Thor's yellow can be considered a game ender right now so you're giving up a lot. It's awfully hard for me to see that you wouldn't accidentally have 14g after dumping 9 green on the battlefield. That's one and a half Oasis! Thunder Strike into a Call the Storm should pretty much put the game away, since that's 10K worth of damage there plus cascades (2K from Thunder Strike, 4K/2K/2K from Call the Storm).

IME they usually pick 6 greens right from cascade and often make a green 4-match immediately. unless you carefully hunted down all the existing greens before it.

Eddiemon

I'm a 5/5/3 Patch with OBW and Hood person.

I don't care if you can beat me on defense. That's likely to happen regardless. But if Patch pops berserk and OBW gets a 2 match cascade, that's one of your team dead, and a Health Pack wasted. It's that deterrent that causes the fight to not happen in the first place.

Unknown

I feel that the best team on defense would be something akin to Hood/Thor/Spiderman. All colors covered (no use for purple, sadly), major annoyance, and major kill potential with Thor nuking, Hood slapping, and Spiderman irritating.

Unknown

Eddiemon wrote:

I'm a 5/5/3 Patch with OBW and Hood person.

I don't care if you can beat me on defense. That's likely to happen regardless. But if Patch pops berserk and OBW gets a 2 match cascade, that's one of your team dead, and a Health Pack wasted. It's that deterrent that causes the fight to not happen in the first place.

Along the same lines wouldn't punisher/obw/hood company be better and come with less risk?
Until you struggle to bring down the AP stealers frank fills the board with all his stuff and nukes all your team to hell.