when does it make sense to retreat?

Unknown

Is there any strategic value to the retreat option besides tanking? I rarely use it, and when I do the loss of HP is usually so big that my characters die anyway. I guess my question boils down to: (1) is the loss of points in pvp the same for retreating vs. outright defeat? and (2) How much health exactly do you lose when retreating? I wish the game made this clearer. If my characters are going to die from retreating anyway, I'll go down swinging instead and hope for a miracle.

rixmith

I don't know the answers to your specific questions, but there are a couple of instances where I retreat:

1. Say I'm playing a team like Ares + OBW + low level featured character. An early cascade downs my Ares giving me no one that can do much damage. If I retreat I still have an injured (but not downed) OBW who I can Story Heal back to full and then team with Thor for a while. No health packs used.
2. It is very near the end of an event and the cascades are all going against you. It might be better to take the loss quickly so you can get on to the next battle then spend the time grinding it out to the inevitable, painful conclusion.

Those are about the only strategic times I see for retreating.

Unknown

You lose 1/3rd of your health when you retreat. If defeat is certain, it may be worth retreating. You lose the same amount of points in pvp. I mostly use it in pvp. If opponents are hard enough, you might as well retreat and try again ifthey get enough AP to one shot someone.

Nonce Equitaur 2

If you're going up against a tough team, and you've been hit by a bad cascade, and the opponent team has scads of AP, while you have almost none, then retreat. Especially if all your characters are still healthy. If you wait, they won't be healthy.

After the retreat, you might be able to go and heal them with Spidey or OBW. If that isn't an option, then they'll heal in half the time than they would from a dead state.

It doesn't happen to me very often, but sometimes I've had 3 AP while the opponent had 80 AP after a miracle cascade. When Lazy Thor has 30 Yellow on turn 2, it's time to flee.

Unknown

also when playing vs scaled up goons and the counter is at 1 and you cant do anything. its time to retreat

HailMary

Retreats cost each of your characters precisely 33.0% of their max health.

In PVP, if you're going to retreat, you need to do it early on. You retreat ideally when you know you're about to enter a snowballing maelstrom of pain. For example, if (in a 2* scenario) you're playing against Ares/Thor + OBW, and the enemy OBW Recons away 3 AP each of R/Y/G following a big cascade, shutting down your damage abilities while priming a tri-color pain train for her teammate, and has the ability to crank up Recon again in a few turns (purple on the board, leftover purple in his AP stores). In that scenario, you might want to retreat if you don't have particularly tanky characters or an already primed OBW Recon of your own, and don't think you'll win that fight.

In PVE, retreat if a massive goon AOE attack (or several of them) counts down to 1, you can't match those tiles, and you can't use CStorm to counter-Rage them to death.

I'm pretty sure point losses stay the same for any loss -- there's no difference between a retreat and a team wipeout.

MarvelMan

It used to be that when the AI built up the AP they need while you had **** due to a bad board retreating and prologue healing was the way to go. These days, particularly with the nerf to Spidey, and the currently method of time healing (points per minute) the practicality of retreating has gone way down. I generally find that retreating puts me into health pack territory so the small amount of time you save by not fully wiping isnt worth it.

Unknown

Retreat is also viable if you are shield hopping and/or have a high pvp score. Sometimes if you are stuck in a long drawn out fight (I.e. Falcon gets off purple) and defeat is more than likely, you may be better of retreating and reshield since staying out too long gets you sniped for -40 or -100+ based on some people's experience.

Unknown

Budapest1980 wrote:

Is there any strategic value to the retreat option besides tanking? I rarely use it, and when I do the loss of HP is usually so big that my characters die anyway. I guess my question boils down to: (1) is the loss of points in pvp the same for retreating vs. outright defeat? and (2) How much health exactly do you lose when retreating? I wish the game made this clearer. If my characters are going to die from retreating anyway, I'll go down swinging instead and hope for a miracle.

Of course there is. You face the usual damagers/obw team, set OBW as target, start picking whatever the board allows, and few turns in (maybe with some cascade involved) you look happen to see AR inevitable, taking your full store and wit that can shoot all abilities.

Another case: you play a damager/2 support team and your damager suffers some accident going down early.

In both cases you're way better off retreating immediately, just losing some health to heal up and a lot of time. With the alternative choice to waste minutes to fight until triple down? You should rather explain how THAT makes sense.

Yet another case, you fight some puny mStorm/heal/steal/protect team and they started going, you're locked in without hope to come out. Maybe they don't even hurt you so much so it could drag hours till you die (or maybe break out after all)...

Unknown

In PvP retreat usually only makes sense if you have a character who can regen because it's awfully risky to start the next fight at 66% so you might as well continue fighting and hope something good happens.

In PvE retreating makes a lot more sense because starting at 66% is often enough to win against the easier fights or all goons fight.

Unknown

HailMary wrote:

In PVP, if you're going to retreat, you need to do it early on. You retreat ideally when you know you're about to enter a snowballing maelstrom of pain. For example, if (in a 2* scenario) you're playing against Ares/Thor + OBW, and the enemy OBW Recons away 3 AP each of R/Y/G following a big cascade, shutting down your damage abilities while priming a tri-color pain train for her teammate, and has the ability to crank up Recon again in a few turns (purple on the board, leftover purple in his AP stores). In that scenario, you might want to retreat if you don't have particularly tanky characters or an already primed OBW Recon of your own, and don't think you'll win that fight.

On forest, if OBW unloads Thorned Rose and she can follow with aggressive recon. I'm gone before her animation is even done.

Unknown

Phantron wrote:

In PvP retreat usually only makes sense if you have a character who can regen because it's awfully risky to start the next fight at 66% so you might as well continue fighting and hope something good happens.

In PvE retreating makes a lot more sense because starting at 66% is often enough to win against the easier fights or all goons fight.

I don't get it, if the alternative to retreat losing 33% health is to finish the game with 0% or something close, who cares if the character regens or not?

Playing on a futile game is good (more like neutral) to those with unlimited time and health packs. I'm sure if I logged my player errors most of top entries would say "should have retreated on turn 6" or like.

babinro

- When playing a tough matchup and a "godchain" takes out original black widow early on.
- When your opponent uses original black widows gem steal purple ability leaving you far away from any kill power and leaving the enemy very close to several

In both of these instances the odds are stacked HEAVILY against your success.
You 'might' still pull out a victory but in the long run it's just not worth it.

I've had fully healed 3s Thor, 3s Punisher and 2s OBW get obliterated by enemy 2s only parties (OBW+Ares+anyone) when the above situations happen. I stick with the match when against 2 star enemies but I think that's just arrogance on my part. Once you significantly fall behind in the resource war then you have very little chance at squeaking out a victory.

Unknown

Thanks, useful responses all around!

Unknown

considering that retreating no longer counters for scaling/MMR ?
I'd say there isn't any value in it anymore, you're better off letting your characters bite the bullet so that you can hopefully next time have a slightly easier go of it.

Unknown

HailMary wrote:

For example, if (in a 2* scenario) you're playing against Ares/Thor + OBW, and the enemy OBW Recons away 3 AP each of R/Y/G following a big cascade, shutting down your damage abilities while priming a tri-color pain train for her teammate, and has the ability to crank up Recon again in a few turns (purple on the board, leftover purple in his AP stores). In that scenario, you might want to retreat if you don't have particularly tanky characters or an already primed OBW Recon of your own, and don't think you'll win that fight.

Tri-color pain train made me

Points!

HailMary

Duffman85 wrote:

Tri-color pain train made me

Points!

I don't see no points! ...

Unknown

I'm not sure that 33% number is correct. This last PvE it seemed somewhere between 30-50%, to the point where it meant that if they're your primary characters you're using for the pve or pvp, that there was no benefit to losing the match, since you'll need health packs anyway when you're facing opponents 2x+ your level.

In PvP, it makes somewhat more sense to retreat rather than fight it out since you might be able to pull off an extra match before needing to use health packs (or if you have a healer like OBW/Spidey to potentially heal up your characters that way).

The one place it doesn't make sense ever to fight it out is when you're running out of time in an event. If you're near the end of an event, the time you lose fighting it out may take priority over whether or not you win the match. OTOH, you have to counterbalance that with the amount of points you'll lose by retreating. In some cases, it may make sense to fight it out, even if it's hopeless, if that means you'll lose the match after an event ends so you don't lose any points. I've never been in that situation, so it's a tough call to make, based partially on likelihood you'll be hit more times during the match if you drag it out, how many matches you'll be able to play if you don't, whether or not you have health packs and/ whether or not you have more opponents that you can beat in the amount of time you have left.

HailMary

theHappyDance wrote:

I'm not sure that 33% number is correct. This last PvE it seemed somewhere between 30-50%, to the point where it meant that if they're your primary characters you're using for the pve or pvp, that there was no benefit to losing the match, since you'll need health packs anyway when you're facing opponents 2x+ your level.

I admittedly never considered the idea that PVP and PVE retreat losses would differ. I never gave any thought to PVE retreat loss numbers.

But, for PVP, as of a week ago, retreating dealt 33% team health loss. I tested this using chain-retreating with a single team.

Unknown

Impulse wrote:

You lose 1/3rd of your health when you retreat. If defeat is certain, it may be worth retreating. You lose the same amount of points in pvp. I mostly use it in pvp. If opponents are hard enough, you might as well retreat and try again ifthey get enough AP to one shot someone.

A third of their usual full health or their remaining health at the point of retreat?

Unknown

Peacemaker wrote:

A third of their usual full health or their remaining health at the point of retreat?

1/3 of max health.