Best 3* Defensive Team

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ Tips and Guides
1

I know defense isn’t a big part of this game. If you’re worth a high enough number of points, you will get attacked.

That being said, I am curious to know which 3* team you consider to be “the best” for defense. For example, which team would cause someone pressed for time to hit the “skip” button? Which team would intimidate a noob? Which team would make even a veteran go, “Sigh, this is going to be annoying!”

PS: I open the floor to discuss both the Shield Simulator where no characters are boosted, and regular PvP where characters are boosted.

2

for noobs, I think the most annoying characters include fist, cage, witch, hood, cyke, im40, kk. basically all the top characters. when I was playing 3*s in shield sim (many many months ago), I found that fist/cage/cmags would get attacked less than some of the other teams I liked. now I like trolling with gamora/fist/hood. if gamora is even level with fist, that can be nasty. most don’t level her early enough for that to be an option though.

3

Thanks. My current team floating in Shield Sim is fist/cage/cmags. I don’t have Hood; would IM40 make a good complement to gamora/fist?

4

I have fond memories of playing Luke Cage, Kamala Khan and She-Hulk together in Earth’s Mightiest when I was in 3* land. Got quite a few defensive wins from that because really, what can you do against them? Even if you win the fight likely takes forever thanks to Cage’s protect tile, Kamala’s healing and She-Hulk’s Furious Charge.
This was Before IM40’s respec though - being able to get all the AP in the World for just six yellow might pose a problem to this team.

5

If you are looking for a heavy defense team, that would be Falcon, Spider-man and Hulk. I believe that would be very painful to play against…

6

That is a very good team. She-Hulk annoys me very much, but KK has to be the first person you take out otherwise she’ll keep healing. You would need an assassin team to take these guys out, like Blade-Fist-Daken or something like that.

That could be a long and annoying fight. The down side is protect tiles may interfere with Hulk’s Anger.

7

im40 would be ok, but would tank red, making gamora’s black less effective. that team is about strikes (with fist attack tile) and match damage/cascades from the match damage. witch would be a decent partner on offense just to feed fist, but im40, while making gamora red less effective, would accelerate several abilities and provide a blue aoe to boot, so try it and see how it goes. gamora has to be even or ahead of fist in levels though.

8

I like running Switch/Cage/CMags.. I dont find I get attacked a whole lot with that team, and if I do I win quite a few defensive matchups.

9

Since the AI is inept at any targeted powers the most effective characters are those with annoying passives or devastating one-shots if they’re allowed to gather the AP.

Cage & Fist - these are the top two I see on defense, given their annoying passives. Cage nullifies match damage unless you’re getting hit by 5*s, while IF guarantees your opponent damage they’ll either have to heal up or risk in their next fight.

KK - highly annoying, IF paired with characters who have low-cost abilities. If her partners’ lowest power is 9 ap the chances of her healing anything are slim.

Hood - Though extremely squishy, his AP steal can delay plans, possibly shutting your opponent down if they draw an unforgiving board.

Blade - I’ve been trounced by Blade a few times. If there’s enough red he’ll fill the board with strike tiles, and unless you’ve brought along someone who can punch big holes in the board, it can build up to over a thousand damage for a single match.

Magneto - his yellow bombards the board with protect tiles. It’s not particularly cheap, but once he gets one out it’s a rough road to being damage-positive. He often has enough time to collect enough to fire again just after you’ve whittled it down to 2-3 tiles.

I generally focus on one of those and then look for synergy. Cage/Fist together give you four non-overlapping powers, but none of them are all that synergistic - Cage will steal the black with a weak punch, stopping fist from firing off cheap purple bombs and double the strike tiles. The individual automatic tiles are annoying, but their active powers neutralize their offense.

My favorite (in simulator, at least), is focused on KK. I pair her with Gamora and She-Hulk. Both of them have cheap powers that activate KK’s heal. The overlaps are green, (which She-Hulk will steal to drain opponents’ AP - devastating if it hits the color(s) your opponent was trying to build) and red (no ground pound for She-Hulk, but a 5AP swipe that triggers a heal is decent).

I’ve also used Vision/Blade/Fist a few times. It’s not as effective on defense because Vision will often overwrite his own countdown with the other power, but if he does manage to get density in play, he’s got great damage potential since he tanks all three of his colors. Blade and IF are doing their own annoying things in the meantime, but like Cage/Fist they nullify each other - Blade won’t get enough purple to fire attack tiles since IF will use them to make black, and IF won’t ever have enough black to upgrade his powers since Blade will consume it swinging his ninja sword like a baseball bat.

It really is a well-balanced tier. Most complimentary synergies come at the cost of nullifying a partner’s more effective ability.

10

I avoid most teams of Iron Fist and Luke Cage, just because the constant damage from the tile often seems to be more than I lose in a good fight. Also, it’s boring, because I’ve had that fight several hundred times before. I’m not sure if they’re the best on defense, just what I find annoying.

I’ve been growing more fond of Magneto / Kamala Khan / Hood as a defensive team, since they win more than I’m used to on defense.

11

How do you choose a defensive team? I assumed the game made a random selection based on who you had?

12

Your defensive team is the same team you last used to battle with in the PvP event. So sometimes it makes sense to use one team to gain points, and then to do a final battle with a different team, if you’re going to leave for a while without a shield. Some characters don’t work well at all when controlled by the AI, or when you can’t choose who’s tanking.

Hulk is a good example. I’ve gotten some good use out of him while climbing the ranks, but on defense no one is stupid enough to hit him with a bunch of mediocre attacks that will set up his anger over and over.

13

It’s all about the AP. Good defensive teams get more of it and cripple opponents with strong attacks. Characters that cause easy cascades can be effective on defense. Cmags is a perfect example with his blue and red, each with the potential to clear an entire board and do heavy damage, while generating piles of AP; plus his yellow provides significant damage reduction. The Hood with his color-stealing blue can stall opponents on a slow board if they have characters with pricey attacks, while fueling his buddies (or his crippling yellow - another cascade generator). Loki is a surprisingly effective defender; his cheap purple can cause big cascades to fuel his friends, and his green generates AP.

Cascade-generating defensive teams do require a bit of luck, though. But there is another way to go.

The other route is a stall team. Spidey and Falcon paired together is a defensive nightmare. Purple matches generate defense tiles from Spidey, fueling Falcon’s purple which floods the board with more defensive tiles. Falcon’s passive yellow makes the defense tiles stronger, and fuels Spidey’s team heal. Falcon’s passive blue clears away opponent tiles, fueling Spidey’s stun. Yikes! Stick the two of them with someone that is pure offense, like Thor (and his yellow-generating red) or Torch (the perfect teammate for Spidey/Falcon) and you’ve got a solid defensive team.

14

Minor correction: It’s the last time you won a battle with in that PvP. You can’t set up your defense team by starting a fight and then immediately retreating, you need to actually win a fight to change the defense team.

15

I think Iron Fist is the only one I would consider skipping (unless it’s full 3* team and I have boosted 4* champed with AOE damage… or over 55 points). It’s just annoying as regardless of what you do he will damage you for couple of thousands HP. Switch can be annoying. Luke Cage is fine if you control black, so are Hood and Loki (both too squishy). Also IM40 is not really a danger as AI doesn’t play him too well.

So a decent defensive team would start with Iron Fist. To play on his strengths you need a good black user. I would start with Cyclops followed by Cage, Black Panther and Storm (her black can be a pain in the a** but it kind of negates Fist tile if it’s matched). Of course it all depends as well who is featured.

The only good defence in PvP is an annoying team that takes too long to fight or will make you use health pack. Such team get’s skipped a lot. The defensive win is like a saved penalty in football (soccer for the US readers) - it’s due to bad play by the human or sucky cascade (football reference - badly shot penalty is the only one that get’s saved).

16

Thanks for this thread. Got me an idea to pair IF with Gamora and SWitch. Gamora is one of the very first character I championed, so she tanks all her colours, especially black. With SWitch supplying IF with purple, and IF supplying Gamora with Black, I can crank up auto damage to well above 1K per turn. IF’s green occasionally gives more damage, and one or two times I can fire IF’s purple with 12 black in reserve. Gamora’s red also helps with over 2k damage.

With this team I can climb Sim to well over 1k mark.

The only problem is yellow. When the board is choke-full of yellow, I must wait for luck to get the chain going.

And ofc this team doesn’t do well against 4* teams. I get attacked rarely but when I do, it is mostly by 4* teams. If Switch gets killed, it’s practically game over for me.

17

Well in the last Shield Simulator, I left a team of IM40, Fist, and Cyclops floating around for quite a while. I was surprised at the large number of defensive wins I got.

18

Would like some uppdates to this thread as there are some new characters and new team combos :slight_smile:

19

Interesting. I don’t find either of them scary at all. All you need is a stunner and/or a nuke big enough to drop them in one go. Just build up AP for a while, and then go to town. The only time Strange worries me is when he’s paired with someone else who’s likely to be able to drop something really nasty of their own before I build up to my stun/nuke. And most of the ones there that scare me are 4*

20

Im in 3*-4* Transition so i mostly combine 3* and 4*. But i remember that i avoided dr doom and mystique because of their big nukes when i only played 3*s. Dooms purple can do serious damage and mystiques black is heavy aswell, especially when her purple countdown is out.