Welcome to SHIELD

helix72

My fallback worked like a charm:
4* Professor X 3/5/5 with the Chewy support (or any support that helps create special tiles)
Cheap TU powers (it's firing the power that triggers Prof putting out specials, but of course stuns are always helpful)
Boost Purple +2, boost All +2

Goals:
Target Purple as much as possible to get Professor invisible and keep him there.
Try to protect your invisibility tile. Never match it away yourself, and try to prevent lining up match-4s that will allow the AI to destroy it.
Deny enemy powers that cause AoE damage.

As an example, playing Nega, my 2/1/2 Storm, and my Prof vs Thing, Star-Lord, and Mordo:
I prioritized Purple early, even using Storm's Yellow to generate more Purple.
Target Thing first and deny Green. His Green has board shake that has a chance to destroy your invisibility tile, and since they fire powers before they move tiles (and sometimes chain powers), you need him gone before that happens.
After that, I usually target Star-Lord because Purple is his strongest color, so all else being equal he'll chase Purple first, and you want the Purple in case your Invis gets matched away. For Mordo, Purple is his #3 so he'll go after Black and Blue first and is less of a threat.

Beat it on the first try, by the end Storm and Nega were dead of course but thanks to my Invisible Professor making every match, my special tiles were doing like 45K damage per turn.

HoundofShadow

For Peggy/Deadpool/Venom node, I used Karnak and targeted Peggy first. Let Negasonic eat the damage from Deadpool's passive CD because you can heal her anyway when you match yellow. Let Negasonic eat Venom's black power too because she can heal back that amount. With Peggy gone, the node was a breeze. 

Alfje17

This is the first SHIELD training I haven't been able to finish in about a year and it hurts.

The Riri node is just killing me time and time again.

Nega is just $%!£ and my 5/5/2 Storm isn't much better and neither tank purple, so my Pool gets slaughtered within 3 turns (in 15 attempts I once got to 9 purple after which Riri wiped my team).

This is after I gave up using half-Thor, even with all boosts, I got wiped.

I will try one more time with an invisible toon if I have an hour spare time, but after that I give up.

It's nice to realise that my transitioning to 5* roster was better than my current one with all 4* champs and a bunch of 5* champs... or maybe it just proves that Nega is utter garbage.

HoundofShadow

This time round Valkyrie has to take a backseat because 4* Wasp (3/5/5) is the MVP of Negasonic Shield Training. Use he,r chase 8 blue followed by black, or charged black tiles if you can match them. Stun Riri first. 

DAZ0273

I have struggled thus far with the Riri mode also (not even tried Thing). Nega is too much a of a support character to carry an understrength team but I'll give Wasp a go.

Vhailorx

Alfje17 said:

This is the first SHIELD training I haven't been able to finish in about a year and it hurts.

The Riri node is just killing me time and time again.

Nega is just $%!£ and my 5/5/2 Storm isn't much better and neither tank purple, so my Pool gets slaughtered within 3 turns (in 15 attempts I once got to 9 purple after which Riri wiped my team).

This is after I gave up using half-Thor, even with all boosts, I got wiped.

I will try one more time with an invisible toon if I have an hour spare time, but after that I give up.

It's nice to realise that my transitioning to 5* roster was better than my current one with all 4* champs and a bunch of 5* champs... or maybe it just proves that Nega is utter garbage.

Use a whales teamup.

Mr_F

"Use whale" shouldnt be a solution to every tough nodes... And it mostly is in SHIELD training.

LavaManLee

Mr_F said:

"Use whale" shouldnt be a solution to every tough nodes... And it mostly is in SHIELD training.

Definitely agree.  It's a shame that most of the events aren't able to find a middle ground.  Everything is set up to be either too easy or too hard.  For example, the very final node level of Welcome to SHIELD is a laughable wave.  Super easy for almost any roster.

Vhailorx

Mr_F said:

"Use whale" shouldnt be a solution to every tough nodes... And it mostly is in SHIELD training.

Well, I already posted a lengthy discussion of one viable strategy to beat the node straight up with a 4* roster.  But my comment on a whales teamup was specifically in response to someone complaining that 3* dp couldn't survive long enough to collect 14 purple.  A teamup should resolve that particular issue.

as re: the difficulty curve, demi has backed themselves into a corner on this issue.  There can be no difficulty curve at level 500+ in this game.  each node is either standard (in which case it is trivialized by the many super strong teams available to players from thorkoye to apoc/etc), or extraordinarily hard because it can passively pump out massive damage in just a handful of turns (gritty, 5* carnage, IH, polaris). 

Arguably, the thing/mordo/star-lord node is as close to a middle ground as is possible (in that it would be trivial in pick3, but is a more difficult puzzle in pick1). 

KGB

Vhailorx said:

Mr_F said:

"Use whale" shouldnt be a solution to every tough nodes... And it mostly is in SHIELD training.

Well, I already posted a lengthy discussion of one viable strategy to beat the node straight up with a 4* roster.  But my comment on a whales teamup was specifically in response to someone complaining that 3* dp couldn't survive long enough to collect 14 purple.  A teamup should resolve that particular issue.

as re: the difficulty curve, demi has backed themselves into a corner on this issue.  There can be no difficulty curve at level 500+ in this game.  each node is either standard (in which case it is trivialized by the many super strong teams available to players from thorkoye to apoc/etc), or extraordinarily hard because it can passively pump out massive damage in just a handful of turns (gritty, 5* carnage, IH, polaris). 

Arguably, the thing/mordo/star-lord node is as close to a middle ground as is possible (in that it would be trivial in pick3, but is a more difficult puzzle in pick1). 

It was however Demi's choice to use fixed scaling (ie L575 for every player) rather than roster based scaling. How these nodes (including the Peggy/Deadpool/Venom) play for 5* players vs mid tier 4* players vs entry level 4* players is obviously vastly different.

If they had set these nodes to be say 50-75 levels above your roster scaling (capped at 575) they would still be challenging but not insanely so for players in the mid tier 4* / entry level 4*.

As for 3* Deadpool, I managed to have mine live long enough (boosted 4 Purple) to use Whales on the Thing/Mordo/SL node. It took a couple of tries but it most definitely can be done if you don't have a team-up.

KGB

Daredevil217

KGB said:

Vhailorx said:

Mr_F said:

"Use whale" shouldnt be a solution to every tough nodes... And it mostly is in SHIELD training.

Well, I already posted a lengthy discussion of one viable strategy to beat the node straight up with a 4* roster.  But my comment on a whales teamup was specifically in response to someone complaining that 3* dp couldn't survive long enough to collect 14 purple.  A teamup should resolve that particular issue.

as re: the difficulty curve, demi has backed themselves into a corner on this issue.  There can be no difficulty curve at level 500+ in this game.  each node is either standard (in which case it is trivialized by the many super strong teams available to players from thorkoye to apoc/etc), or extraordinarily hard because it can passively pump out massive damage in just a handful of turns (gritty, 5* carnage, IH, polaris). 

Arguably, the thing/mordo/star-lord node is as close to a middle ground as is possible (in that it would be trivial in pick3, but is a more difficult puzzle in pick1). 

It was however Demi's choice to use fixed scaling (ie L575 for every player) rather than roster based scaling. How these nodes (including the Peggy/Deadpool/Venom) play for 5* players vs mid tier 4* players vs entry level 4* players is obviously vastly different.

If they had set these nodes to be say 50-75 levels above your roster scaling (capped at 575) they would still be challenging but not insanely so for players in the mid tier 4* / entry level 4*.

As for 3* Deadpool, I managed to have mine live long enough (boosted 4 Purple) to use Whales on the Thing/Mordo/SL node. It took a couple of tries but it most definitely can be done if you don't have a team-up.

KGB

They could. But not every player should get every reward. I’m a firm believer in that. One of the things that hooked me as an early player was trying to win Crash of the Titans. Being able to beat it more and more regularly was a marker that my roster was improving and it felt great. This was a reason to get better, build up the roster and try again next week. I didn’t complain that I couldn’t get them all or it was too difficult. 

Now I often hear that if the developers make something too hard or restrictive, new players will get frustrated and quit. Sadly there may be some truth to that as I believe society is moving more toward a place of entitlement/instant gratification. If it’s too difficult it’s no longer worth it. 

For me personally, these difficult Shield nodes are probably my favorite thing in the game from a game play and challenge perspective right now. Just like I felt great about all the work I put in to building a wide 4* roster during COTT, I feel the same here with 5*s. I want to “champ them all” and I think it’s cool when I get rewarded for not just chasing/playing the meta (like I said, baby champ Storm and Yelena got the job done for me). 

Vhailorx

KGB said:

Vhailorx said:

Mr_F said:

"Use whale" shouldnt be a solution to every tough nodes... And it mostly is in SHIELD training.

Well, I already posted a lengthy discussion of one viable strategy to beat the node straight up with a 4* roster.  But my comment on a whales teamup was specifically in response to someone complaining that 3* dp couldn't survive long enough to collect 14 purple.  A teamup should resolve that particular issue.

as re: the difficulty curve, demi has backed themselves into a corner on this issue.  There can be no difficulty curve at level 500+ in this game.  each node is either standard (in which case it is trivialized by the many super strong teams available to players from thorkoye to apoc/etc), or extraordinarily hard because it can passively pump out massive damage in just a handful of turns (gritty, 5* carnage, IH, polaris). 

Arguably, the thing/mordo/star-lord node is as close to a middle ground as is possible (in that it would be trivial in pick3, but is a more difficult puzzle in pick1). 

It was however Demi's choice to use fixed scaling (ie L575 for every player) rather than roster based scaling. How these nodes (including the Peggy/Deadpool/Venom) play for 5* players vs mid tier 4* players vs entry level 4* players is obviously vastly different.

If they had set these nodes to be say 50-75 levels above your roster scaling (capped at 575) they would still be challenging but not insanely so for players in the mid tier 4* / entry level 4*.

As for 3* Deadpool, I managed to have mine live long enough (boosted 4 Purple) to use Whales on the Thing/Mordo/SL node. It took a couple of tries but it most definitely can be done if you don't have a team-up.

KGB

Let's not pretend that we haven't seen per-roster scaling in the past.  that system was much maligned as well; and avoiding it was perhaps the driving force behind the introduction of clearance levels in the first place.  Welcome to shield doesn't have CLs, of course, but I think demi's view of the event is that it's all 'bonus' content (i.e., never necessary to complete any 'regular' events, and is intended to provide an increasing level of reward as a player's roster grows.

skittledaddy

@Alfje17

Whenever I bring my own 3pool (rather than a team-up) with intensions of "Whaling It", I not only boost Blue/Purple AP (of course you could also boost it 2 more with a rainbow AP boost), but I also attach my Quantum Realm support to one of the chars in play. Doesn't have to be to 3pool himself, but it helps immensely.

If I get a bad board right at the start, I just retreat and try again. Sometimes the board is good enough without Quantum Realm activating, sometimes it's not; but it's always good enough when it does activate.

This, of course, assumes you have a Quantum Realm support... 

Dogface

Honestly, this is the first time finding out that the Whales, whales works not only as a teamup. I always thought (why, idk) that Deadpool points could only be spent on the teamup. Trick now ofcourse was to collect 14 purple before getting downed, which is quite a challenge in itself.

But mission completed and now going to get that LT. 

DAZ0273

Well 4* Wasp didn't work in the slightest.

Rhipf

The biggest problem I currently have with Shield Training is that we are expected to have a well defined 5* team for a 4* character introduction. At the very least let me substitute the useless (for me) 5* required with a 4* of my choosing that can actually stand up to the 5*s on the AI team.

Loosie

Vhailorx said:

I got it (thing/mordo/star-lord) done straight up with wasp (I have a champed wasp around lvl 310, and a 1-cover storm). My suggested strategy:

(1) boost +2 blue asap and try over and over until you get a board that allows you to collect 6 more blue ap one the first (via cascade) or second turn.

(2) play VERY conservatively, as an enemy cascade is WAY worse for you than just about any other outcome.  avoid leaving high-value matches to the ai, and pay attention to their ap (plus whatever color wasp is about to steal). 

(3) wherever possible collect red and black (bearing in mind that this is less important playing conservatively). Storm's black charged tiles should be a priority, both because you need the black and because letting the ai have it is very risky.  Neg can eat one cast of the black if the board doesn't have too many charged tiles out, but more than that is likely a wipe.

(4) once you have 14-21 black and 18 red, AND have destroyed 6 charged tiles, stun the ai team (first star lord, then thing, and mordo if he has enough ap to be dangerous. this consistently did not proc thing for me, somehow). 

(5) cast red x2 on star-lord.  This should kill him. 

(6) while the enemy is stunned, chase charged black matches as much as possible.  use Neg's yellow if the board is unfavorable.  If you can collect 14 black every three turns, you can stunlock the ai team. 

(7) While doing the above, use red and green to drop mordo.

(8) finish thing at your leisure

if you can keep them stun locked for a while, then wasp will eventually drain almost all their ap, and you can generally afford to let them have a move or two if you are short on black. But be wary because there will likely be a lot of charged tiles on the board by now, and if they get lucky you might be in trouble.

Using this strategy, I am about 1/10 so far.  so be prepared to use a pretty good number of boosts and healthpacks.

You need to be very lucky with the board to do this. My lvl 297 Wasp lasted 3 turns.

StormDragonE55

Vhailorx said:

Alfje17 said:

This is the first SHIELD training I haven't been able to finish in about a year and it hurts.

The Riri node is just killing me time and time again.

Nega is just $%!£ and my 5/5/2 Storm isn't much better and neither tank purple, so my Pool gets slaughtered within 3 turns (in 15 attempts I once got to 9 purple after which Riri wiped my team).

This is after I gave up using half-Thor, even with all boosts, I got wiped.

I will try one more time with an invisible toon if I have an hour spare time, but after that I give up.

It's nice to realise that my transitioning to 5* roster was better than my current one with all 4* champs and a bunch of 5* champs... or maybe it just proves that Nega is utter garbage.

Use a whales teamup.

That only works if youj actually get one.  Everytime someone gives me one, I get a Red DP TU.

Painmonger

I have a champed storm & still got the stuffing kicked out of me many times with Okoye or Bobby as a third on the Thing/Star Lord/ Mordo node. Finally tried 5* ProfX & plowed through them pretty easily.

Since the other two are both X-Men affiliated, Prof has pretty high damage reduction, and his AP tax is helpful to slow them down a bit. Used Storm's yellow & profs purple to make red for Nega. Storm's black will easily max Nega's red damage, and all the destroyed charge tiles trigger Nega's passive for some board shake. Frequently allowed me to use multiple powers in a turn & get some match 4+ for prof to whittle them down a bit, too.

Granted, this is a 5* solution, and even then you need to be careful & put thought into moves & powers.

Vhailorx

Rhipf said:

The biggest problem I currently have with Shield Training is that we are expected to have a well defined 5* team for a 4* character introduction. At the very least let me substitute the useless (for me) 5* required with a 4* of my choosing that can actually stand up to the 5*s on the AI team.

I would agree if you needed to finish 'welcome to shield' to get the new 4* release.  that would be terrible.  As is, however, I don't really think players are expected or required to complete welcome to shield.

At worst you are missing out of 200 shards for the new character and an LT.  That's irritating for sure.  It was very frustrating for me in the old days when I routinely missed out on a full 4* cover and an LT with almost every shield training event, but it didn't really prevent me from building a pretty deep roster.   I would like to see a smoother difficulty curve, hit I think we do need to be realistic about the state of the game and why that is difficult for demi.