***** Shang-Chi (Origin) *****

entrailbucket

ThaRoadWarrior said:

I've been running my 1/3/1 Shang-Chi with Onslaught and a max-champ Chavez on the 5e node in this past run of Operation Spider Silk, and that team works really well. It's the kind of pick-3 I enjoy, where you flank a very technical character with a pair of synergistic auto-pilot characters so that i can largely just focus on managing Shang-Chi. You have a ton of crit and cascade opportunity on this team, and Onslaught's active blue can really make a difference in a pinch without really getting in the way of what SC is doing (@entrailbucket this is your blue boardshaker perhaps). I'm really looking forward to getting him all the way up to champ at some point.

No, I need a guy that has both blue *and* black powers, where both of them do boardshake/manipulation/etc.  Alligator Loki works with Shang-Chi/Cyclops, and it's a good team, but I don't have a blue outlet so it feels suboptimal.

ThaRoadWarrior

I see. Seems like we have more options for that at the 4* tier:

Hulkbuster Converts 7 basic greens to red on blue, and then on black just creates 9 red AP out of thin air

MODOK has an active blue though it isn't a tile manipulator, but his black will create 6 red tiles on the board. 

Taskmaster: you can equip Twin Pistols on blue which does huge board shake, but unfortunately hard-ends your turn. He can also equip Quack-Fu One Two on black which will blast out all the greens on the board. Sniper Rifle may be another useful black to equip if it weren't so expensive

entrailbucket

ThaRoadWarrior said:

I see. Seems like we have more options for that at the 4* tier:

Hulkbuster Converts 7 basic greens to red on blue, and then on black just creates 9 red AP out of thin air

MODOK has an active blue though it isn't a tile manipulator, but his black will create 6 red tiles on the board. 

Taskmaster: you can equip Twin Pistols on blue which does huge board shake, but unfortunately hard-ends your turn. He can also equip Quack-Fu One Two on black which will blast out all the greens on the board. Sniper Rifle may be another useful black to equip if it weren't so expensive

Hulkbuster sounds like a possible winner, although the special tiles he creates could eventually cause a problem.  Shang-Chi really wants the board to be as pty as possible.

Modok might be fun...his blue synergizes because it wants you to cast a ton of powers, but it probably only does decent damage when he's boosted.  He also creates special tiles that you don't want.

I thought about Taskmaster, but, yeah, can't be ending the turn.  (It is really extremely stupid that Hood ends turn on his yellow.  There was a good reason for that back in the day but I forgot what it is.)


Alligator Loki/Cyclops is really fun though.  Any time you can't find a good Shang-Chi play, you just cast Cyclops green or yellow, or Loki black, watch the board spin around and cascade, then get back to business.


I didn't try Heimdall at all because his tile fortification is just going to make everything way more complicated.  I'm trying to go really really fast to see if it's viable for high end play (I really think it might be!), and adding fortification into the mix is like playing 5D chess vs 4D.  If your spatial calculation ability is off the charts, or you don't care about speed, then it might work for you.

ThaRoadWarrior

That's what I like about Onslaught - he in fact may be good with Sighclops as well, though they are obviously at odds when it comes to team up tiles. But the amount of additional cascade generation you get just for playing like you play with that team adds a lot I think.

As for Hood - I would bet that at the time, that power had to be one of the highest damage attacks in the 3* tier, plus it has two huge targeted areas of board destruction which the devs have always seemed to value, but I have never run the numbers. As the only reliable tile destruction yellow power in the game (XFW has one, but you have to match away his countdown to get a random tile break), you could have a lot of fun with Polaris/Danver5 if it didn't hard-stop the turn. But I digress.

MadScientist

Hood's yellow used to gain AP from the tiles destroyed. To counteract this, it ended the turn. Then the AP gain was removed but the turn-end stayed.

ThaRoadWarrior

I just took my Heimdall (lvl 457)/shang-chi (1/3/1 lvl 255)/Odin (3/5/2 lvl 405) into simulator against a Kitty/rocket/polaris team as a retal, and that team was a lot of fun actually. Odin fortifies all type of nonsense for you passively, and then I completely forgot he pumped up your cover stack for you as well, so suddenly i had a "real" Shang-Chi by turn 2, and it got very cheap to make moves. It wasn't totally invincible or hyper fast, but it took the technicality out of working the Heimdall angle in a way I enjoyed quite a bit.

entrailbucket

MadScientist said:

Hood's yellow used to gain AP from the tiles destroyed. To counteract this, it ended the turn. Then the AP gain was removed but the turn-end stayed.

That's exactly it!  Thank you! 

The AP gain was removed when they created charged tiles/introduced 4* Thor, because that combo would've been absurdly broken.

jredd

so, shang is one of those characters that makes the game fresh again. been having fun using him with different combos. 2 things would have made him better though.
1. as you add combo points, he should gain rings. wouldn't effect gameplay, but it'd look cool.
2. if you manage to get 10 combo points it should lock in god-mode and you cannot lose them regardless of matching red/purp on your turn.

ammenell

what teams are you playing with him?

I rotate these chars in and out:

- rogue triples damage (got a purple match-5 worth 160k damage) and doubles ap generation

- killmongers black adds 150% match damage on specific colors

- onslaught for his boardshake and blue

- colossus or switch for damage mitigation

- America or Karnaks blue for multi tiles

Bad

Shang can be played with literally all characters. If you play him with board shakers or AP providers he will hardly run out of combo. But he is as fun with any partner.
5* Characters wich I played him succesfully so far: wanda, odin, onslaugh, heimdall, carnage, cyclops, electro. In 4 tier: karnak, chavez, loki, dbeast, north star, valkirye.

MadScientist

I have so much fun killing Colossus with Shang-Chi just via match damage. In Shield Sim the match is usually over before you really start to go towards the infinite turn.

Bad

Just add to the big "good SC partners crowd" the good havok, thanks to all his channeling skills red is granted when having blue and green.

Anon

Bad said:

Shang can be played with literally all characters.

5* Thanos disagrees!

ammenell

Shaun took me to 5* land, him and onslaught are my first champs.

after months abusing the hell out of my softcapped okoye I haven't even champed her yet because shangslaught is so much fun to play 

Tiger_Wong

Shang Chi is the best character in the game. 

BlackBoltRocks

Interesting. I currently have 5 retals in Season SIM; all of them contain Shang ranging from late-450s to early 460s. 4 of the Shangs are at 3/5/5, while the remaining one is at 4/5/4.

Perhaps it's more efficient to give up one or two extra tiles destroyed in favour of more match damage (because there's less thinking on the player's part)? I'm currently of the view that 5/5/3 is generally his best build, but this has me reconsidering.

HoundofShadow

I think it's probably they are playing in pve scl 10 and they are lazy to respec it for shield sim. You play pve everyday but I doubt you play shield sim everyday. Alternatively, 3/5/5 is the best build for pve because if Shang Chi can go winfinite, 5 in red doesn't do much and purple is more important.

I had fun trying different winfinite teams and here are those that work:

5* Hawkeye + Coulson
5* Thor + 5* Storm
Shuri + 4* Cyclops
3* Gambit + Domino
Rogue + 3* Cyclops (against enemy with red as strongest colour)

I have a list of other characters on my mind and I don't have time to test them out because I'm in love with a new team that deals with meta in shield. It worked really well, much better than BRB/Polaris or Colossus/Wanda. Anyway, here's the list in my mind:

Havok, Prof X, Riri, IMHB, Mysterio, MODOK, Quicksilver, Karnak, Knull, 2*/3* Bullseye

Sekilicious

BlackBoltRocks said:

Interesting. I currently have 5 retals in Season SIM; all of them contain Shang ranging from late-450s to early 460s. 4 of the Shangs are at 3/5/5, while the remaining one is at 4/5/4.

Perhaps it's more efficient to give up one or two extra tiles destroyed in favour of more match damage (because there's less thinking on the player's part)? I'm currently of the view that 5/5/3 is generally his best build, but this has me reconsidering.

I saw something on the Discord channel by froggerjohn  with Colossus, Chavez, and SC at 3/5/5 is a speedy team. Sacrifice the winfinite potential for obscene purple nukes at low combo points with massive match damage in 5 of 6 colors. Just need to add boosts, which everyone doing speed runs in SCL10 does anyways. 

Sekilicious

HoundofShadow said:

I think it's probably they are playing in pve scl 10 and they are lazy to respec it for shield sim. You play pve everyday but I doubt you play shield sim everyday. Alternatively, 3/5/5 is the best build for pve because if Shang Chi can go winfinite, 5 in red doesn't do much and purple is more important.

I had fun trying different winfinite teams and here are those that work:

5* Hawkeye + Coulson
5* Thor + 5* Storm
Shuri + 4* Cyclops
3* Gambit + Domino
Rogue + 3* Cyclops (against enemy with red as strongest colour)

I have a list of other characters on my mind and I don't have time to test them out because I'm in love with a new team that deals with meta in shield. It worked really well, much better than BRB/Polaris or Colossus/Wanda. Anyway, here's the list in my mind:

Havok, Prof X, Riri, IMHB, Mysterio, MODOK, Quicksilver, Karnak, Knull, 2*/3* Bullseye

Just adding this here since I already put it in the fun teams sub. SC/Prof4x/Valkyrie can give the winfinite on turn-1 in PvP if you luck into a match-5 at the start of the match. If you match red at the start you can get going turn-2. This might be broken. They are my current main team for PvE and Pick-3 PvP. 

HoundofShadow

What'a your build for that particular team? 5 in red should have higher probability of making match-5?