New best defensive team?

X-man2000

Hi all. I'm forever in search of the best defensive team for pvp. Can anyone tell me how hood/sentry/daken rates? With the variety of 3*'s available, no team is unbeatable but I think this one would be annoying, induce skipping and would get the odd defensive win. Can anyone with this as their current pvp team comment on its success rate? I'm sitting on a pile of iso and hp that I've been saving for fury but may invest it here instead. I already have 141 hood, cmags, patch, lthor, hulk, pun. My current go to is hood+cmags+lthor/pun which is great fun to use but doesn't scare anyone off.

Oh and I think once cmags is nerfed (whenever that will be), hood/sentry/daken will be even more effective. As it stands I think mags is the best counter against this team with his cheap ap board manipulation and destruction.

Or if you have any other good defensive pvp teams, let me know

Unknown

The amount of hitpoints on a Lazythor/Sentry/Hulk team would likely make me press skip.

I don't have/haven't come across a maxed-out Hood/Sentry/LDaken team yet. So I can't say for sure. However, I wouldn't hesitate to attack that team if it were worth a nice amount of points.

Unknown

Really true that no team is unbeatable. Even how good they are, sometimes they will be beaten. But if you are a good defensive team less percentage that you will be beaten. As what they says, offense will make a team wins but defense make the team champions.

Maestro145

Lthor, Panter and daken are good. Hulk good too, but he could use Lthors green...

Lthor, panter and Sentry is also nice.

simonsez

emil14glee wrote:

Really true that no team is unbeatable

I don't think the idea is to think in terms of who's unbeatable; it's which formations aren't worth the time and effort and potential damage.

Nonce Equitaur 2

When they start allowing multiple copies of a character on a team, the best defensive teams will be either

Hulk, Hulk, Hulk
or
Hood, Hood, Hood.

Unknown

For rich people : Fury+hulk/hood/Laken+sentry/LThor
for normal people : Hulk+Laken/Hood+sentry/LT

Unknown

For def purpose, my choice is LT/FalKen (Falcon + LDaken), and they are my "holy trinity" in shield training.

Here's why :
1. Several "inspiration" buffed strike tiles damage 600+ (up to 1K+) per move (depends on how many buffed strike tiles), means it could take down 3K char in several moves esp OBW (usually take her down 1st w/o skill).
Also improved LT/LD damage skill for example : 141 LT "thunder strike" from 1.9K to 2.5K, again it depends on how many buffed strike tiles on board.
2. No color stacked for active skill : R/Y/G/Blu/P.
3. LT is fat, LD self heal.
4. Apponents have to deny this color :
> Yellow : to prevent "thunder strike" and "inspiration"
> Blue : to prevent "chemical reaction" and to activate "heat"
> Purple : to prevent "bird strike"
> Green : well, cannot deny this actually.

Falcon is the weakest and prolly 1st to die, but that after he buffed several strike tiles and provide B/Y for LT/LD.

in my experience in shield training S2, 141 LT + 128 FalKen have more winning frequency and less attacked rather than 141 BP/ 141 LT/ 128 LD in shield training. Prolly because BP "battle plan" will prevent "thunder strike-call the storm" chains.

Mainly becoz LT+FalKen can kill w/o using active skills.

Unknown

Sentry/Daken/BP

NorthernPolarity

A couple of things to the responses im seeing here:
1. Any team sporting lazythor is probably just strictly inferior to a team with sentry. Sentry covers the same colors, is just as tanky, has a similar amount of damage in red/green, and simply is a lot faster than thor due to his green being so absurdly cheap. Sentry is pretty clearly the best defensive guy in the game right now, and should be built around as such.

2. Ive been trying out the falcon/daken/lt team as well, and ive been seeing the opposite response of it losing me a ton of defensive games as compared to something like lt/bp/hood. I think the problem wih falcon is he isnt aiproof. In order for falcon to do acceptable amounts of damage, the ai specifically has to match green for daken tiles and then chain yellows early in the match, which is pretty hard for the ai to do i think. Coupled with the fact that the guy only has 2/3rds of the hp of your best alternatives, it doesnt make sense to take him over someone like bp where 12 black at any stage in the game will almost straight up win you the game.

I think that the best defensive duo in the game is sentry/daken due to the extremely ai-proof strategy of free strike tiles + world rupture: the problem is finding a good third. Ideally this third would have purple/black active abilities and not have a red/green ability to mess up sentry, but that character simply doesnt exist in the game yet. Bp has some of these qualities, so hes probably the best defensive third to pair with sentry/daken right now.

Polares

tobi69 wrote:

For def purpose, my choice is LT/FalKen (Falcon + LDaken), and they are my "holy trinity" in shield training.

Here's why :
1. Several "inspiration" buffed strike tiles damage 600+ (up to 1K+) per move (depends on how many buffed strike tiles), means it could take down 3K char in several moves esp OBW (usually take her down 1st w/o skill).
Also improved LT/LD damage skill for example : 141 LT "thunder strike" from 1.9K to 2.5K, again it depends on how many buffed strike tiles on board.
2. No color stacked for active skill : R/Y/G/Blu/P.
3. LT is fat, LD self heal.
4. Apponents have to deny this color :
> Yellow : to prevent "thunder strike" and "inspiration"
> Blue : to prevent "chemical reaction" and to activate "heat"
> Purple : to prevent "bird strike"
> Green : well, cannot deny this actually.

Falcon is the weakest and prolly 1st to die, but that after he buffed several strike tiles and provide B/Y for LT/LD.

in my experience in shield training S2, 141 LT + 128 FalKen have more winning frequency and less attacked rather than 141 BP/ 141 LT/ 128 LD in shield training. Prolly because BP "battle plan" will prevent "thunder strike-call the storm" chains.

Mainly becoz LT+FalKen can kill w/o using active skills.

This is a very good team, but I suppose that if you change LThor for Sentry, the team could be even better.

For me I think the best team is Daken+Sentry+Hood. This team just needs to do some greens and it will win, and if the other team tries to deny green, then Hood will be able to steal some green from them so the other team has a very tough time denying you any color.

What scares me the most is that I think that soon all the teams will be something like LThor/Sentry + Daken + Hood/Falcon/Spidey/OBW/Fury, and then this game will be really boring in PvP.

NorthernPolarity wrote:

A couple of things to the responses im seeing here:
1. Any team sporting lazythor is probably just strictly inferior to a team with sentry. Sentry covers the same colors, is just as tanky, has a similar amount of damage in red/green, and simply is a lot faster than thor due to his green being so absurdly cheap. Sentry is pretty clearly the best defensive guy in the game right now, and should be built around as such.

I think that the best defensive duo in the game is sentry/daken due to the extremely ai-proof strategy of free strike tiles + world rupture: the problem is finding a good third. Ideally this third would have purple/black active abilities and not have a red/green ability to mess up sentry, but that character simply doesnt exist in the game yet. Bp has some of these qualities, so hes probably the best defensive third to pair with sentry/daken right now.

The Hood is the answer to your question.


PS: I don't know why people keeps saying that Hulk is good in defense. Maybe he was good in the past, but right now you can kill him with two or three attacks, and when he is hit he produces the strongest color in the game (food for LThor and Sentry, strike for daken, etc.). When I see Hulk now in a team I always attack him, and I always win, and without any significant harm to my team. And Hulk is completly useless in attack, so why use him?

NorthernPolarity

Polares wrote:

tobi69 wrote:

For def purpose, my choice is LT/FalKen (Falcon + LDaken), and they are my "holy trinity" in shield training.

Here's why :
1. Several "inspiration" buffed strike tiles damage 600+ (up to 1K+) per move (depends on how many buffed strike tiles), means it could take down 3K char in several moves esp OBW (usually take her down 1st w/o skill).
Also improved LT/LD damage skill for example : 141 LT "thunder strike" from 1.9K to 2.5K, again it depends on how many buffed strike tiles on board.
2. No color stacked for active skill : R/Y/G/Blu/P.
3. LT is fat, LD self heal.
4. Apponents have to deny this color :
> Yellow : to prevent "thunder strike" and "inspiration"
> Blue : to prevent "chemical reaction" and to activate "heat"
> Purple : to prevent "bird strike"
> Green : well, cannot deny this actually.

Falcon is the weakest and prolly 1st to die, but that after he buffed several strike tiles and provide B/Y for LT/LD.

in my experience in shield training S2, 141 LT + 128 FalKen have more winning frequency and less attacked rather than 141 BP/ 141 LT/ 128 LD in shield training. Prolly because BP "battle plan" will prevent "thunder strike-call the storm" chains.

Mainly becoz LT+FalKen can kill w/o using active skills.

This is a very good team, but I suppose that if you change LThor for Sentry, the team could be even better.

For me I think the best team is Daken+Sentry+Hood. This team just needs to do some greens and it will win, and if the other team tries to deny green, then Hood will be able to steal some green from them so the other team has a very tough time denying you any color.

What scares me the most is that I think that soon all the teams will be something like LThor/Sentry + Daken + Hood/Falcon/Spidey/OBW/Fury, and then this game will be really boring in PvP.

NorthernPolarity wrote:

A couple of things to the responses im seeing here:
1. Any team sporting lazythor is probably just strictly inferior to a team with sentry. Sentry covers the same colors, is just as tanky, has a similar amount of damage in red/green, and simply is a lot faster than thor due to his green being so absurdly cheap. Sentry is pretty clearly the best defensive guy in the game right now, and should be built around as such.

I think that the best defensive duo in the game is sentry/daken due to the extremely ai-proof strategy of free strike tiles + world rupture: the problem is finding a good third. Ideally this third would have purple/black active abilities and not have a red/green ability to mess up sentry, but that character simply doesnt exist in the game yet. Bp has some of these qualities, so hes probably the best defensive third to pair with sentry/daken right now.

The Hood is the answer to your question.


PS: I don't know why people keeps saying that Hulk is good in defense. Maybe he was good in the past, but right now you can kill him with two or three attacks, and when he is hit he produces the strongest color in the game (food for LThor and Sentry, strike for daken, etc.). When I see Hulk now in a team I always attack him, and I always win, and without any significant harm to my team. And Hulk is completly useless in attack, so why use him?

Hoods an interesting one, but id be worried about the prevalence of daken in the meta dtrictly countering hoods low hp. Bp feels safer to me, but i may be wrong. Your comment about hood stealing greens doesnt always work out in practice i think: if theyre denying green then there probably wont be enough green tiles on board to allow hood to steal green.

mohio

I think the idea behind hulk isn't so much that he's dangerous, but that he's a huge pile of hp that takes a while to chew through. I know personally I don't hesitate to attack a hulk team early on, but when at 800+ and starting to see attacks I'd rather not have to spend the extra couple minutes gathering ap and take on another team I can beat a little quicker.

Unknown

mohio wrote:

I think the idea behind hulk isn't so much that he's dangerous, but that he's a huge pile of hp that takes a while to chew through. I know personally I don't hesitate to attack a hulk team early on, but when at 800+ and starting to see attacks I'd rather not have to spend the extra couple minutes gathering ap and take on another team I can beat a little quicker.

The problem with hulk is if you miscalculate killing him and you end up with 7 anger tiles on the board about to own you. Especially when you used a patch bezerker rage so every anger does 500 damage to the whole team.

Unknown

I honestly think no defensive team is complete without Hulk. He's just... perfect. Nobody wants to slog through that, if you kill him too fast you have to deal with anger, and he has great synergy with Ldaken, LThor, and Sentry.

Unknown

I have bp Lvl 141 535 and Lthor Lvl 141 355.
So my question is : which yellow does the ai use?

Thanos

Budget Player Cadet wrote:

I honestly think no defensive team is complete without Hulk. He's just... perfect. Nobody wants to slog through that, if you kill him too fast you have to deal with anger, and he has great synergy with Ldaken, LThor, and Sentry.

If he's dead the anger tiles disappear. No Hulk, no anger, no sweat!

Unknown

Shield Bro seems to wrangle hulk quite nicely. The stun can prevent anger all together, the shield tiles minimize any match damage, and then it is just a matter of throwing the correct number of red shields

NorthernPolarity

Regarding hulk, i think the issue is that as you can see, some people simply arent intimidated by him. Yes hes annoying to play against and yes, it takes forever to kill him. However, the people who actually attack your team will kill your team more often than not because hulk simply isnt that great at dealing damage. You might see less attacks with hulk on defense, but i feel like youre going to lose a lot more points with hulk than with someone else simply because the people who attack you are probably going to kill you more often.

mohio

Maybe it's just because I'm always using either 3/5/5 Punisher or 3/5/5 LT, but Hulk is pretty easily dispatched just by saving up for 3-ish abilities (and maxed, you can do match damage against him without worrying about anger). On the other hand max Hood or max Daken + another scary hero (Sentry or LT maybe) are way more likely to make me skip them.

To the guy asking about LT and BP together, that's one of the problems with that pairing - the AI will most often end up using Battleplan, which is obviously less than ideal. It makes CotS much less reliable to go off too. It's still a somewhat intimidating pairing for most people and a ton of HP, but a smart player will deny black and green and win pretty easily.

Unknown

Nonce Equitaur 2 wrote:

When they start allowing multiple copies of a character on a team, the best defensive teams will be either

Hulk, Hulk, Hulk
or
Hood, Hood, Hood.

hood hood hood? really? What is he going to do, intimidate me to death? I guess if his blue stacked you would basically lose 3 ap every turn almost, but while that might be annoying, your chance of actual death is next to nothing.

Hulks wouldn't be that scary at all honestly. 1 hulk is knocked down by match damage and the other two are done so by actives. Add someone like pun and hulk team becomes a joke. Hulk is only useful on teams that 1. have strike tiles. 2. have overall a nice health pool 3. can do damage. All hulks have high hp, but lacks the other two. ALL three are needed for hulk to be worth using imo (though you can get away with no strike tiles, its the only thing that makes his black serve as anything other than a green generator...which hulk FAR too often ends up using for his move instead of allowing for something like COTS.

Best teams are those that can do quick damage or very very strong damage. # duplicates is bad as you really should have 5+ colors when possible. With duplicates it probably would be sentry sentry or thor thor plus another high hp character that covers 1-2 other colors. Also, thor thor sentry would be a pretty strong and avoided team even with only 3 colors... the issue is that when they have only 3 you can start playing prevent D as well as more readily use someone who steals ap (especially controlled AP steals).

mohio is right, bp/thor is not a good def team. They look like they could be, but the machine plays them poorly. Its pretty easy to deny green heavily and yellow/black mildly and end the match with neither getting a move off (at worst, a battle plan early).

There are 3 categories of def teams: skip, guerilla, high chance to kill you.
Skip usually constitutes teams with high health and things like that. You might skip teams that are guerilla or "high chance" but a skip team is built with the sole purpose of making people want to skip you. while there is no good example of a team where def is high enough and fast enough to warrant use, a defensive team is the perfect example of a skip team. It might not kill you, but you might spend 5-6 instead of 2-4 min fighting it. Instead of def, hp tends to be what determines this in th current meta. an example would be thor bp hulk. not a great team, but solid because it is 3 high hp characters who have a way to kill youif you take too long to take them out (or get an unlucky cascade).
Guerilla is a team where you are guaranteed to take damage from them. They may or may not kill you, but they will always deal damage. You might skip them simply because you don't have an easy way to heal and they do, afterall, have a good chance of a lucky cascade turning into a ko or near ko. punisher is a great character for this, as is hood, and some others. key thing is that they have low ap moves usually so that, even without a cascade, they have a chance to get enough ap to attack.
Chance They don't necessarily have high hp and they don't necessarily do damage every match...heck they don't necessarily even make the opponent want to avoid you, but they have the highest chance of bringing you a def win. one of the best examples of this is patch. he is horrible on def realistically. he gives the opponent strike tiles that (as the human) they will undoubtedly use better than you, his red is too expensive to be helpful, he can be chunked down with actives to make his yellow useless, and he has avg hp. With the right ppl surrounding him though patch can lead to some very demoralizing losses. While you might beat him 95% of the time without even taking a lot of damage, the other 5% can be a **** shoot as to whether you come out with a team at all.

I don't think "avoid me" is as great as "I might kill you" generally though as almost everyone is willing to attack if u are worth enough points. I would say some of the best defensive teams are:

patch/dakan/hulk - above avg net health. 2 healers means you are focusing match damage on hulk early. since hulk is pretty unanimously considered to be the lst person you ko (unless you run pun and can hit him down and their tem doesn't warrant attacking someone first for some reason) that is an advantage. Hulk's green works well with both as they both give you strike tiles, and dakan constantly puts them out (especially when anger goes off) while patch getting a green off can be very bad news as if you don't ko the hulk quickly his angere (forced by the friendly strike tiles) can ko team all on its own). This team is about the only truely scary hulk team imo, but it also isn't that hard to beat. It has one of the better "luck n F***" % in th egame though, so that i why i put it here.

thor/magneto/punisher - slightly above avg net health (realistically..avg). Thor + any team on its own could have its own spot, but this is one of the bettr combinations. If it doesn't have some luck on its side though, the match can end quickly with little no no damage being done besides a molotov (which seems to ALWAYS drop at least once a match). nobody will skip you, but you might get the occasional win. unlike the pathc dakan hhulk team, this is a fast kill team (without tons of self damage) on offense as well. also unlike that team, all 3 characters can wipe you out with one move if the situation is right. Not the most amazing def, but it has a lot of "oh shoot" moments built into it such as: retribution hitting your high health character like thor for a ko. Translocation going off and 1 shotting if enough blue on the board. Thor yellow into green in one turn. judgment followed by molotov and magneto red spam. ...and then as I mentioned, moltov seems to drop EVERY match. Makes the team annoying the same way a dakan team can be annoying even when they have no chance to actually kill you.

Thor+hood+x - I am not a fan of hood on def, just because his hp is so low, but thor can turn slight advantages into huge payouts and with the right #rd character hood can sacrifice himself basically in order to give his teammates a little ap before he gets taken out on def....enough for the other two to go from 10/14 green and 10/12 yellow...nothing...to "12/12 yellow adding +6 green to my 112/14 green" Other times, the hood basically does NOTHING. If you play him right and get a board that works, hood is one of the worst defensive characters in the game. Thing is, most ppl aren't actually all that good at the game (despite most ppl still winning) and so a character like hood allows you to take advantage of that. added to a low ap team, hood can make teams even more "guerrilla."

sentry/thor/other colors (strike tiles if possible) - sentry thor is a strong combo and if the 3rd is good, probably the best 1-2 punch atm. High hp, high damage, sentry has a very high "chance" rating due to his green and sentry's red, when used instead of thor's, can be pretty painful. issue, is that sentry likes to use his yellow..not a great move against a live opponent,...and more importantly loses thor out on his "best in class" yellow. add in someone like dakan or punisher and you have a solid team with good hp, a lot of damage, and some solid guerilla warfare making this team a mix of being an above avg team in all 3 categories. fury might be a good 3rd too, but it will be predicated on just how good his yellow is/is used by the machine. Fury's moves are a little too high ap to be incredibly effective every match, but he does come with above avg hp, a nice complementary color swathe, and good "chance" moves that can wipe out a team if the higher ap requirements are met. If his yellow ends up being good then this could be the gold standard as long as the machine uses the yellow well (which it probably won't).

there are others, but those are the only ones I am going to mention as I don't want to water down the list with similar but slightly weaker permutations. and also, my message is already long.

tl;dr - Lt+anyone is a solid team. Senty+lt+a good compliment (preferrably with strike tiles) is probably the best def team atm. Fury could team with sentry/lt and be the best team depending on just what his yellow does and if the machine uses it well. Dakan/patch/hulk is a pretty annoying team as well.