I switch between several combinations depending, but Hulk/Hood/Lazy Cap has earned me more defensive wins than I expected.
Many comment that there is no such thing as defense and in a narrow, absolute sense that is true: there isn’t really any defense from a max Sentry/Hood/Daken team. Okay, we get that. And for players like me, there isn’t really much defense from someone significantly higher on the food chain than me altogether, short of the ultimate defense – shielding. So, I focus on the food chain around me (my peers) and below me, Against them, I would contend there is a measure of defense to be had.
If you can field a team that discourages opponents from selecting your team by minimizing their return on investment per unit of time and energy, it is in essence a form of defense. You want to exploit player psychology and the calculation they make when selecting you as a target, or not. Players tend to look for fastest return on investment. Pressing the skip button is relatively effortless. Waiting for scarce health packs and players to regen, or paying HP, isn’t. So, like a peacock that puffs up it’s feathers to appear bigger, you want to field a team within the constraints of your roster that provides maximal deterrence from your opponent calculating the prospects for the fight in his (or her) favor.
Despite comments all over the forum discounting Hulk, a high level high hit point Hulk does still discourage many players (at around your level or lower on the food chain – players those with max Hood/Sentry/Daken teams can discount outright as an externality) simply because of the time investment in wearing him down. Whether Hulk should be a deterrent or not is separate and irrelevant question. A 5 blue Hood does the same – he drags out the fight and players hate that. Plus, the procs every turn are annoying to watch. The annoyance factor does matter! Some players will outright avoid certain characters based on cognitive bias from past experience. You’ll see comments on the forum from players on this. Lazy Cap isn’t too intimidating unless he gets his shields going in which case he’s a steam roller. Most players have probably experienced at least once in their career being spanked by the AI running Lazy Cap.
There was a scientific study done on how people calculate risk. People tend to select "investments" which are 100% confidence but provide a low rate of return (i.e. savings account) rather than investments that are higher return (e.g. high quality bonds, say), but with less than certain confidence -- even if the higher risk investment is statistically superior. People, unlike banks, don't discount emotion when calculating risk. The conclusion of the study is that people inherently weigh and calculate risk irrationally, in situations where there is a net gain. Furthermore, humans calculate even *more* irrationally after having incurred a loss --i.e, people tend to take larger risks than they would otherwise after losing money (in an effort to regain what was lost). Casinos know and exploit these human traits (Watch the movie "Owning Mahoney") as a profession.
Based on the above, it is in your interest to choose a team combination that carries a "wildcard" factor. Wildcard type characters are the Hood, OBW, Thor (cascades from yellow), and probably a couple others like Sentry, Hulk (green cascade), Juggernaut, and perhaps classic Storm at certain levels of play. You want your opponent to lose the certainty of winning if they select you. That loss of certainty exploits their irrationality even if their team is statistically superior.
Now that I have a decent level Sentry up and coming from recent covers. I will probably switch over to the Hulk, Hood, Sentry. As your roster improves, you will naturally field better teams. People who don't have Sentry are more likely to skip a team with Sentry on it by default, even if it's an irrational decision.
I'm not there yet, but I suspect simply having a two level 166 characters in itself, whether a decent synergistic combination or not, provides a decent level of deterrence as well. The reason being that many 2* and 2*->3* transition players are so accustomed to pressing the skip button when they encounter "the wall" in hopes of finding a lower than max level team in their queue, they'll just skip you outright out of habit before really proceeding on to calculating the cost benefit of fighting you. Take advantage of that...
