Dealing with sentries?

Yepyep

Hey all, could you please do some riffing on how to deal with these? I did a search and didn't see a lot of suggestions (probably the subject is an old one...). Team combos, strategy, tactics -- all will be helpful.

Thanks very much!

LifeofAgony

Don’t let the yellow sentry get below half health;  that’s when they start the healing.

Doc L

Depends what level you are but... To me, 3* Doc Strange is a great one for any 'goon' nodes. It depends a little what you find the issue - you can take 4* Red Hulk in if it's damage, or 3* Captain Marvel, who can also remove defense tiles. You could use 4* Nico, to control the tiles more, you could of course, just blitz with damage using people like 3* Iron Fist and 4* Hulkbuster. 

Looking at the buffed list for this PvE, I'd use 2* Storm to counter-attack damage at the 2* level, the 3* level I'd use Daredevil's purple for the tiles, Captain America's red or blue for the same reason (plus they are very useful), 3* Doom can cause cascades with his switching colour tiles (plus his purple is pretty strong). 4*, I'd use Punisher as he's a total bad-****, and does massive damage, or Ghost Rider if you are struggling with his Penance Stare. And of course, 4* Invisible Woman's invisibility is great stuff for hiding from damage.

That came out like a splurge of random information. 

LifeofAgony

Doc L said:

Depends what level you are but... To me, 3* Doc Strange is a great one for any 'goon' nodes. It depends a little what you find the issue - you can take 4* Red Hulk in if it's damage, or 3* Captain Marvel, who can also remove defense tiles. You could use 4* Nico, to control the tiles more, you could of course, just blitz with damage using people like 3* Iron Fist and 4* Hulkbuster. 

Looking at the buffed list for this PvE, I'd use 2* Storm to counter-attack damage at the 2* level, the 3* level I'd use Daredevil's purple for the tiles, Captain America's red or blue for the same reason (plus they are very useful), 3* Doom can cause cascades with his switching colour tiles (plus his purple is pretty strong). 4*, I'd use Punisher as he's a total bad-tinykitty, and does massive damage, or Ghost Rider if you are struggling with his Penance Stare. And of course, 4* Invisible Woman's invisibility is great stuff for hiding from damage.

That came out like a splurge of random information. 

Sentries don’t fire power, it’s all passive so strange doesn’t add any extra value.

Doc L

But Strange can also stun and remove tiles, so not a total loss! Yeah, I'd forgotten it's all passives for sentries, I'm terrible in that I just use 5* on all these nodes nowadays.

bluewolf

Medusa is helpful if you have her.  All the tile spam fuels your ap.  Fill in boosted 4’s that use b/g/p.

dokiy

Kill the green ones first. 

JackTenrec

In 4* land, the answer is Medusa.  In a pinch, Eddie Brock also works (did I just say that?)

In 3* land, Loki might be useful if you can get another character to tank for him.  Sentry swarm tends to cause 4-matches in cascades, and his black power can flip any non-attack tiles that were created.  Squirrel Girl, Bullseye, and Daredevil can get rid of enemy tiles while nuking the enemy.  Even though all of them use purple, I don't recommend using Scarlet Witch for AP generation: massive board shake plus tile spam makes Arcane Incantation very unreliable.

BoyWonder1914

Yellow Sentry - Drops Protect Tiles, will heal the team with enough friendly specials on the board
Blue Sentry - Drops Strike Tiles, has "Core Meltdown", which turns friendly specials into critical tiles with enough on the board
Green Sentry - Drops Attack Tiles, has "Swarm", which destroys bottom 4 tiles of a column when there aren't enough friendly specials

The fact that their abilities are completely passive and thus fly under the radar of a Dr. Strange, St4r Lord, or Luke C4ge is one thing. What truly makes them annoying however, is that they are tile movers, and the fact that they move tiles is the only requisite for their passive powers to fire. They all have a passive where new tiles that drop automatically have a chance to be a special tile, so when you combine all of their probabilities, a special tile is almost guaranteed to be among the tiles that drop. If they don't have enough special tiles, the Green one uses swarm, which destroys those tiles and makes more drop, on top of the actual match that they get. So most turns they get some sort of cascade, which of course means more special tiles dropping. With all of these special tiles out, the self-healing and core meltdown just absolutely go crazy. 

Strategy then, somewhat depends on the team buildup. Sometimes you'll fight two greens and one blue, two blues and one yellow, one of each, it really varies. Especially with a Boss Battle of nothing but side nodes of these guys coming up. Medusa will absolutely never fail you. Generally since the Sentries spam so many tiles they're usually not all that strong individually, so how much damage you get out of stealing them with her purple will vary. In either case, they should most definitely be generating enough special tiles for Medusa to net you crazy AP. Someone who penalizes match 4s/5s will also do you good, since sometimes they string together frustrating amounts of them. It's very frustrating as well to deal with their healing, so someone who can stun them also is pretty effective. 

Medusa - Stealing + Strengthening tiles, AP generation/healing from matching tiles
Mockingbird - Free AP + Ability firing if they get too "lucky"
Loki - Steals AP if they get too lucky, will turn their special tiles against them
Kraven - Weakens their tiles + deals damage, penalizes them for generating so much AP
Kate Bishop - Prevents self-healing after you nuke them
Mordo - Almost guaranteed to one-shot them since they generate so much AP they don't use
Venom - Penalizes them greatly for having so many special tiles on the board
Ant-Man - Can steal their special tiles almost faster than they can produce them
Doc Ock - Same as Venom, and you get your own for matching them
Elektra - Shadow Step can put them down hard for being cascade happy
Squirrel Girl - Same as Venom

Just some ideas to get the ball rolling. There's actually quite a few teams that deal with them well, they're just annoying regardless. 

steakleather

I always kill the green one first, because Swarm drives me crazy. Then blue, and yellow last.

LavaManLee

This has been a very helpful thread.  Have actually never bothered to figure out what each sentry does so I appreciate the write up and tips.  I usually just brute strength it and curse them every step of the way.

Yepyep

LifeofAgony said:

Doc L said:

Depends what level you are but... To me, 3* Doc Strange is a great one for any 'goon' nodes. It depends a little what you find the issue - you can take 4* Red Hulk in if it's damage, or 3* Captain Marvel, who can also remove defense tiles. You could use 4* Nico, to control the tiles more, you could of course, just blitz with damage using people like 3* Iron Fist and 4* Hulkbuster. 

Looking at the buffed list for this PvE, I'd use 2* Storm to counter-attack damage at the 2* level, the 3* level I'd use Daredevil's purple for the tiles, Captain America's red or blue for the same reason (plus they are very useful), 3* Doom can cause cascades with his switching colour tiles (plus his purple is pretty strong). 4*, I'd use Punisher as he's a total bad-tinykitty, and does massive damage, or Ghost Rider if you are struggling with his Penance Stare. And of course, 4* Invisible Woman's invisibility is great stuff for hiding from damage.

That came out like a splurge of random information. 

Sentries don’t fire power, it’s all passive so strange doesn’t add any extra value.

Thank you - one of my main questions. 

Yepyep

BoyWonder1914 said:

Yellow Sentry - Drops Protect Tiles, will heal the team with enough friendly specials on the board
Blue Sentry - Drops Strike Tiles, has "Core Meltdown", which turns friendly specials into critical tiles with enough on the board
Green Sentry - Drops Attack Tiles, has "Swarm", which destroys bottom 4 tiles of a column when there aren't enough friendly specials

The fact that their abilities are completely passive and thus fly under the radar of a Dr. Strange, St4r Lord, or Luke C4ge is one thing. What truly makes them annoying however, is that they are tile movers, and the fact that they move tiles is the only requisite for their passive powers to fire. They all have a passive where new tiles that drop automatically have a chance to be a special tile, so when you combine all of their probabilities, a special tile is almost guaranteed to be among the tiles that drop. If they don't have enough special tiles, the Green one uses swarm, which destroys those tiles and makes more drop, on top of the actual match that they get. So most turns they get some sort of cascade, which of course means more special tiles dropping. With all of these special tiles out, the self-healing and core meltdown just absolutely go crazy. 

Strategy then, somewhat depends on the team buildup. Sometimes you'll fight two greens and one blue, two blues and one yellow, one of each, it really varies. Especially with a Boss Battle of nothing but side nodes of these guys coming up. Medusa will absolutely never fail you. Generally since the Sentries spam so many tiles they're usually not all that strong individually, so how much damage you get out of stealing them with her purple will vary. In either case, they should most definitely be generating enough special tiles for Medusa to net you crazy AP. Someone who penalizes match 4s/5s will also do you good, since sometimes they string together frustrating amounts of them. It's very frustrating as well to deal with their healing, so someone who can stun them also is pretty effective. 

Medusa - Stealing + Strengthening tiles, AP generation/healing from matching tiles
Mockingbird - Free AP + Ability firing if they get too "lucky"
Loki - Steals AP if they get too lucky, will turn their special tiles against them
Kraven - Weakens their tiles + deals damage, penalizes them for generating so much AP
Kate Bishop - Prevents self-healing after you nuke them
Mordo - Almost guaranteed to one-shot them since they generate so much AP they don't use
Venom - Penalizes them greatly for having so many special tiles on the board
Ant-Man - Can steal their special tiles almost faster than they can produce them
Doc Ock - Same as Venom, and you get your own for matching them
Elektra - Shadow Step can put them down hard for being cascade happy
Squirrel Girl - Same as Venom

Just some ideas to get the ball rolling. There's actually quite a few teams that deal with them well, they're just annoying regardless. 

This is phenomenally helpful! Thank you. 

Lol this game must be easy for you with such a fine memory...

crackninja

At the 3* level, luke cage can shut them down singlehandedly with his protect tile.  Sentries fire no powers and the tile mitigates if not completely blocks match damage at that scaling/lower scl's, so they are literally no threat at all.

MarkersMake

I take out gunners (blue) first before they can start generating critical tiles, because those will kill you quickly. By that time the green sentries have generated enough special tiles to stop their swarm ability from going off. Hit them next, and then the yellow fliers (because they are strictly defensive). 

Stuns and/or passive damage (Grocket) are very helpful. 

YMMV, of course. 

Yepyep

So for me, Medusa is THE answer. Healing and AP-gen+tile-stealing does the job. 

animaniactoo

I take out the Sentry Fighters first - they're the ones who Swarm. Because a lot of my gameplay revolves around getting tiles on the board/having my next possible/favorable moves planned out so I can move quickly, that much destruction of the board every turn is my main impediment. Gunners and Flyers are easier once the Swarms are off the board, fewer tiles being laid down on their turn, etc.

Medusa and Bl4de are a good combo against them for auto-regeneration of strike tiles/cd attack tiles in a "hurry up and kill them off" kind of way. Both are passive on your own team, so you don't need to be as concerned with gathering the *right* AP of a color match you can't make anymore because it just got blasted off the board.

shardwick

Yes, Strange's yellow won't help against sentries, outside of them using their teamup, but he still has one of the very best stuns in the game to me. Absolutely blows my mind when I see people have him at 3/5/5. Pair him with Medusa, if yours is champed or at least decently covered, and she feeds his stun and his purple unless you'd rather have her flip tiles with hers instead if things get out of control.

Dormammu

I like to perma-stun them with 4Gamora and Sandman. Use Vulture to help feed them blue and green.

JSP869

With so many enemy special tiles on the board Medusa and Hawkeye are almost a must. With both of them on your team you double-dip on the AP generation when matching enemy specials, and you can almost non-stop spam Hawkeye's Full Quiver (until he's Out of Arrows) and Medusa's Hair Flip  

Darknes21

Kill the green eyes first!