So first of all I want to discuss the buffer to get a sure Adamantium. Its one of those thing that I talk to people a lot that contact me but it was also very, very important for me this season.
I got this new const ult/free lance type of work right now (half way done so very short) but the effect of that is of course less time to play this game when I fly, move into a a new place etc. All of that but also new time zone and working just before this season ended. When this was over at Tuesday I got home when at the last hours of the tournament, which for example could been seen with my quick shady ant man review. So just back at that time when everyone is playing like crazy and the servers are crashing pretty much all the time so I could barely play anything.
It could be worse but that is clearly a pretty bad time.
The solution is of course what I have talked about earlier to have a Buffer, but I want to cover it again. The way I reach adamantium safely, was to play myself up to 2000+ at Sunday. Then I would keep maintaining at least that before Tuesday. At Monday I did go for another 300 point or so and then when I woke up at Tuesday I had only lost like 100 points, played another 5 games, got to around 2250 and then returning from work. I had only last around 200 points, being at 2000+ safely away from the border.
The reason is simple is not all about just having a lot of points to lose, but the higher up you are the less you get attacked. Especially its a huge difference being very close to 1550 where people will attack like crazy trying to pass the border, from being at 1650, my guess is that you get attacked at least 5 times as much from at 1550 compared to 1650. And then being at like 2000+ you barely get attacked at all. So the more buffer you get not only does it mean you literally has to lose more points to fall under but you also lose less points, double positive effect. This is why the buffer is such an easy way to get up.
It also means you don't have to relay on your defence, I don't have very high armor bonus now, I haven't updated it for like 3 seasons or so. I have missed to level a lot of characters as with my job and so forth. So my defence is weaker and weaker. But getting a high buffer just 2 days before means I will get almost no attacks on me. This means my defence ratio don't matter. Simple as that.
Ok so this season showed 1 new team which I really would recommend I guess even do I only lost to it once, the Rocket Raccoon based teams. Its because those teams are based on luck, and straight forward wining by high damage. Either you win fast or you lose, the less time a defence team is planned to take as it reduces the chance the AI will fuck up.
High chance of something lucky to happen has always been a very strong part of a good defence team. If they get lucky they do this eternal follow up combo, which I would definitely argue is bugged but w.e
So how does it work then. First of all its several different version of this team and it kinda blends in with the Star-Lord teams. So it has several variation, the 2 commons one is Spider-Man Noir or Union Jack with Rocket Raccoon. The effect is actually nothing new, Union Jack actually used to be super strong with the agent using the Demon set back when he was new. Agent would use the Hot shot which stun effect was counted as a 100% chance for a follow up attack on all enemies the stun in itself was not 100% but even if they avoid the attack the stun follow up attack would always trigger and this would cause Union Jack to shoot at them just like he does with Rocket, just that it was better. A 100% chance lol,,,it was freaking awesome. I wrote about it like 2.5 years ago.
Now how this team works is that Rocket shoots a lot right, and its a follow up attack and so on. And this can trigger UJ to shoot at each character with a Single Target attack. Its the exact same thing with Noir as he is just a copy of UJ. And while I enjoyed seeing him in action I really don't see why anyone would use him over UJ. Sure he might have a slight higher chance to follow up but otherwise he is still shit and hes passive is useless. Except Quicksilver in the whole game pretty much. And even then I thought about this a lot and this is also why his passive suck so much.
Its actually just worse that its a 100% chance vs stealth. Yes he hard counters Nightcrawler that no one plays but QS, can just use his other moves then namely his third move. Yes its not as good as his first but why would a player that run into Noir+Rocket use the stealth attack. It would be better if it was a chance so people might gamble and go into it. That is why is so much worse then UJ with his chance to preemptively all normal moves or for that matter new Spider-Man 2099, who has the UJ passive instead of Noir with his only vs Stealth Shit.
All tht being said is also a lot about the weakness of this team. And of course its Emma Frost;) She pretty much auto counter these guys so easily. Thanks to her Diamonds are forever she can tank these follow up forever so just like vs Quicksilver and Star-Lord or QS, psylocke etc follow up don't work on her. + For w.e reason people are using a lot of Blaster Rocket....which of course is an auto lose vs Emma(+ I use Magneto so really easy to win) for that matter now with the new QS suit Star-Lord and him, that team was clearly played a lot more and...why do people use Blaster QS. Such an easy win. Scrapper is obviously way safer. Blaster for Defence is always a huge liability. So was also a general weakness of a lot of the Rocket teams. But another weakness is that if one of them die, even te agent as he/she has to use her items to also further increase te chance the team is extremely weaker. This makes it weak vs for example Emma then with her Psychic tap. But also just a general reason why Union Jack > Spider-Man Noir. Kill of Rocket and Noir is utterly useless his attacks are all absolute crap. UJ can at least set up the agent and of course his passive is way better so he might win alone 1v1 while there is no chance Noir is gonna do anything alone.
I kinda like this follow up team, as it really covers the good factors for a defence team. But as they go for really high attack its also really easy to kill 1 of them. DO not AoE vs this team and just focus on single out one fast, preferably Rocket and the team has auto lost as soon as he dies as without the whole wombo combo they are horrible on their own. Any of the variation they all suck as soon as 1 character has died. A Glaring Weakness.
No the best defence team, excluding super high stated players with Molly(which is still by far the most scary thing to face). Was clearly Pestilence and Enchantress.
I really enjoyed how while Nul and Kuurth is forever to be popular it seems. The higher you get in rating the less you face them, around the border they are like 90% of the teams but at 2000+ they where around 10%. Then the most popular team by far is Pest+Enh. Which you will face in at least 50% of the battles.
I already covered this team but its so strong with high defence oriented players who have used money to get the super high health and defence so I wanna go on a little on that again plus I had a realization why this is finally a team that is actually good that includes Pestilence.
But first of all I just want to note how I find it strange, that Enchantress is only popular among the highest stats players. When she is literately the best character in the game when you have low stats. Her damage comes from dots so just like Emma she can always be played as its % damage. Her 2 other moves make the opponent attack each other so its their attack that matters not yours, which is perfect if you got low stats. But what we see instead is that she is only played by people with huge stats.
That reason for that is quite obvious using the Iso on her that gives her health back per magic attack heals her for about 30% max life each turn and 10% more then on each counter as Tactician are commonly used. This means when you have really high health hand she gets like 4k Hp on each moves....man she is hard to kill. And when for example in my case Magneto does like 4.5k hp to her on a normal attack. She only loses 500 health lol.
And of course as she don't need high attack to deal high damage she can go full on evasion,defence,health iso(spry) as attack on her is almost meaningless. Yes it do boost the emerald wave which is actually a very strong attack but the other 3 abilities are 0% boosted by more attack so just going for complete defence oriented is way better. This also of course combos will by doing the same with Pestilence.
Shes is so hard to kill really with really high, evasion and defence she barely take any damage and heal herself. Sure again she is weak vs Emma so that is the salvation but if you get into like any other character except Emma or the Agent with her in a 1v1 you are fucked. Even a 2v1 can be really hard. Only team I ever really lost to even do I had Emma(well Magneto was just a minus I guess).
Of course I already talked a lot about how amazing she is in her review and she is rated just below Emma in the total rankings pointing out how ridiculous overpowered she is.
But I thought about this specific team a lot as I was facing it all the time.
And I have a further analyzation on why specifically this works so well. Obviously they are a great a team. But I have always pointed out how really bad pestilence actually is and teams like Rulk+Pest have always sucked. Kill Pestilence and you have won.
The problem with all those teams are that they are build around Pestilence and trying to make him work but it just does not work out in most battles. He is simply to slow and not worth spending 1 character slot to support his debuffs and tank for him. Especially as you cant tank in this game people will just kill him and its over. Completely useless with Rulk or Nul etc.
The HUUUUGE difference with Pestilence x Enchantress is that HE IS THE SUPPORT.
Its kinda obvious now when I have realized it. But he is the one supporting the uber strong enchantress. She is amazing in a 3v3 and in a 1v1 and by having Pestilence that makes so you cant remove all her dots and mind debuffs she becomes even stronger. The team is not build around him for once, its build around her. So that is why it works is the only Pestilence team that is not focused on carrying him.
And even while she is the main power, you cant kill her first for 2 reasons. Pestilence has to die before to many turns go that is still true and she heals herself like crazy. Of course the result is the same you kill him fast but then you are left with this super strong character. You are not left to face the crap support for him but the real power in that team. So its actually a huge, a huge difference in the core strength of the teams.
I don't think people have thought about this that much as they just natural match so well. But that is why he finally has a good team, because he is not the star of the team.
Probably by far the worst team to face. I mean I lose to it a few times and I use the hardest counter with Emma, who counters both of them.
So that is definitely a team that more people should test out.
Now my hope is yet again that we see some spider teams that works.
Spider-man 2099 looks to be a strictly better version then Ultimate, that power creep lol each spider better then other it seems. His move 2, better then ultimate on all accounts. Have the strained on his first attack, better finisher and better team attack. Also his passive seems to happen ALL the time. His weak point passive, will trigger pretty much from anything that moves it seems. While that is not the best debuff to have a constant refresh of weak point(attack will critical) is quite the damage boost.
