Strangest Successful PvP Teams

Since I'm not competing very hard this event, I have been playing around a lot with PvP setups. I've stumbled upon a fairly successful setup, but it's pretty strange and not very intuitive. I'm running a 3 man squad of Daddy Longguns v2 - Mordeo - Dick & Jane in V formation. If you find this to be a strange setup, it's probably because I'm using a pure AGI merc (daddy) and a pure WIS merc (Dick & Jane) in the front row next to an ATK buffing merc!

Although after careful contemplation we can see why it's fairly successful:
1. It's a 3 man squad - easier match-ups than a full 5 man squad (Yes, the secret's out. Run one like the rest of us for easy farming)
2. Dick & Jane's pre-battle proc - chance to outright kill 3 opposing mercs 30% of the time (300% modifier, doesnt need a buff) means some battles are won before the match even starts, a nice bonus
3. Mordeo buff - Since both Daddy and Dick are double action, the attack buff from Mordeo is doubly effective. Having Dick in the front row increases the effect of his (and her?) double attacks even more. On the off-chance nothing procs, the DEF portion of the buff keeps the team alive longer.

It's fun to watch, as you never know whats really going to happen in each battle.

So, anyone else have any surprising or strange pvp setups that work well?

I have to mention:

Blue Bot Chest r1-Dutch-Blue Bot Chest r1


easiest match ups imaginable, tanky enough from the two blue buffs and hp buff to make it through most battles until you catch a proc on the 40% dutch agil nuke which usually wipes the field clean. Why do you need lethals when you can get 100% win rates with this team haha.

M: sick idea bro. Play to the weak.

Here's one that drove me crazy - W formation of Junker War Marshal - Tigrey - Augmented Bladedancer - Tigrey - Junker War Marshal.

The buffs & the silence made my attacks ping pong balls. And how much would that crew cost?? Maybe 50 res and you just play the odds.

Food for thought.

Hep: I'd take that team on with my Triple Threat team. Wis and Agi procs aren't affected by JWM!

Still, annoying to play against, but I wouldn't bank my pvp streaks on it.

Legend: Agreed, but how many can afford your squad? Last I checked those 3 would be somewhere above 800 res (if you could find them at all):

Daddy Longguns v2 - 300
Mordeo - 250
Dick & Jane - 150

cept 2 JWM tigrey buffed is epic overkill. I'd run tigrey-JWM and just pick atk teams lol. 2 man team ftw.

Hey legend, just a suggestion. Considering you're only running a 3 man squad why don't you replace the mordeo with a Niobe? It'll do the exact same thing as the mordeo, only higher wisdom stats and much faster with over 14k agility. Just my 2 cents. :-)

I'm running Niobe - Howitzer - Niobe. Breezing through. :-)

Not really sure that the running less than a 5 man concept is really a secret more just a case of let's not tell Dakota how we are getting around ridiculous 5 man matchups. I just hope for the sake of those still running 3-man formations that they don't change the matchups for the 3 man formations.

Running a Daddy long guns is interesting though.

I have tried a Niobe and for an Incin-X-D&J setup, Mordeo works better.

For those of us that don't have lethals, what teams have the greatest success? AGI, turtle, counters, combo, what's the non-lethal crowd think?

I've got Cannonback - Archangel/Switchblade - F9 that has been generally effective. When all skills fail, or the opponents get all theirs it's not fun watching them go down in flames. Occasionally, the F9 will steal the victory at the last second, but alas it isn't something to rely upon when facing difficult battles. ... That is when my phone lets me in the game ...

Anyone else care to share?

How many man team?

I think you should put a value ceiling requirement on it rather than a "no L" requirement.

3-merc squad, Archie & Switchblade back each other up. If I need the speed & more powerful attacks I use Archie, but if I need / hope to silence the opposition then the birdman comes to the front.

Agree on the value ceiling comment. The 4 main mercs in my rotation max at something like 320 res. Many of the "L's" mentioned above "might" alone fetch that amount of res.

So would a reasonable ceiling be 400 - 500 res? That way teams using Mordeo, Golem, Incinerate, and Siren would also make it under the wire.

Thoughts?

Could also have a second variation for those that insist on using 5-mercs for their PVP squads. Threshold would need to rise accordingly, say 800 res.

Well as far as my experience goes, Incin - Mordeo - D&J is a bit of a winner. D&J is 120, Mordeo is 150, Incin is 150. If you want cheaper, use a cannonback or possibly the new chained colossus instead of Incin. Run 2 televangelists on your back row to fill out the squad on the cheap.

Two Niobes and a Canis would be pretty nasty.

50% proc rate, if it doesn't buff, Canis will get nuked.

Absolute cheapest and best PVP squad...

Lvl 170 Mean Mary

With the increased proc rates, solid agility, and 200% damage skill she rarely loses. Sure you might not ALWAYS win, but this is hands down the cheapest squad and I've been running 30 streak after 30 streak the last 2 PVP's.

Generally gets matched against 3 man squads led by a
Guess the secret really is out   

Haha, orion, that's awesome! 30 streaking with only leader. You would think FF would learn something from the huge issue in BB of running leader + shades way back when to do the same trick. Nope. Fail Dickota.

Its taking into account all your mercs. Its not the 3 man that's getting you easier opponents its the fact you've got 4 mercs missing front and back row so all those stats are bringing down your average stats. Just run your 5 best guys with leader in back and its same results. That's why I litteraly lose maybe once or twice per event... I'm prolly also not worth many points due to the fact half the squads missing. What do you get maybe 5-10k Max for fighting me.

5 men, can't get 6 win streak. 3 men, easily get 30 with maybe one all out.
In BB they take everything into account, here definitely not.

Edit: And points are like 75% linked to rank. Can fight 5 L's for nothing or the trashiest trash for tons of points if that trash just managed to get a solid rank.

They do definitely take everything into account in FF, it's just the way that they do the matchups that allows it all to work.

My take on it is that similar to what Arthanius said, in that they effectively look at the collective stats of your entire squad and from that, they assign you some sort of a number indicating your awesomeness. When you go through your 30 win streak (let's ignore the fact that at some points mid streak they inflict the hardest teams possible and then go back to normal matchups) the matchups start off against teams that have an awesomeness number lower than your own and then at battle 30, you are facing teams that have an awesomeness number higher than your own.

If you run an average and up 5 man, it is most likely that you will only ever see other 5 man teams in your matchups, but if there was a really awesome 3 man team you theoretically could see it in a matchup.

If you run an awesome 3 man team (this also applies to any number man team <5) your potential matchups are other awesome 3 man teams, weaker 4 man teams and mediocre 5 man teams. When you do run a quality 3 man team, you do see other quality 3 man teams occasionally, but you just don't fight them as there are usually 2 other mediocre 5 man teams to fight. This is half of the reason why the <5 man works so well which is only because everyone isn't running a quality 3 man team. If everyone was, you would have hard 3 man matchups all the time and it would be like trying to run a 5 man team is now.

As to the question of why fighting the 5 man matchups with a 3 man team is easy, usually the 3 man team has really good mercs and a fair bit of thought and trial and error has gone into its formation. The 5 man teams that you face are usually sub standard evos of mercs that are not as good and there is usually a distinct lack of synergy between them.

until that pact uber astro comes off the back line and procs 5 times in a row haha

There's always a risk with no back row on 3rd fights. Also the 3 man formation 21-30 wins are not always guaranteed to get you 1 out of 3 teams being bad. One of the first serious game mechanic manipulators was Ash.... he ran 3 man and made new account for every event. He took a lot of lethals doing that but back then there were less then 20 teams with multiple Ls.

Ash-pvp was his main

True I remember him

I discovered that I did better with a 3 man in the Incin event when accidentally unlocking a 4-man formation meant I only ended up getting 3 R1s instead of 4.

Seeing Ash run his 3 fistas in PVP made me realise that you actually could win an L with a 3 man.

i cant remember the team but it wasn't fistas i dont think. he quit playing by fista im pretty sure. in fact i heard a rumor that a few of veterans that were on top back in the day were all mostly the same person. like I know for a fact same guy ended up with 3 hellcats during hc event. wont say who it was..... rules were kinda undefined in the early days as far as multi accounts.

Arth u weren't even playing back then u piece of shit. Back then it was the fun times.
Ashs was always making a new account for Tower & PvP event. (Ashultima,Ash-PvP1, Ash-PvP2, etc)




Arthainus u will never be a veteran FF player. By trying to pass by -Zzz
What u thought we would fall for it? Zzz was the probably the best.

I've seen u been hating on Duke. For jealousy. Duke is much better than u. Also how did u become a moderator if u haven't done nothing around the community??? All i see Legendslayer (FF veteran ) and Mamon doing everything.

Ouch. Seems you have a fan Arth   

Don't they say we make fun of and ridicule the ones we love?

Anon:

Art inherited the role as others didn't want to step into the void, or herd cat more than we already are ...

Also, it doesn't appear that you are elevating the discussions (theory, squads, math, mercs, etc.), unless you did back in the Mesozoic era of FF, when the knuckle-draggers ruled the world. Maybe if you contributed to the forum we might actually listen to your message. Otherwise it's noise.

Laaaate in the game to comment on this, but I've seen a 3man consisiting of mord, niobe, cannonback work extremely well

HAHA i just saw that comment from anonymous.... He should probably check and see how many Lethals are on -Zzz and how many are on Arthainius in their collections.... claiming -Zzz is my account would say that ive only obtained 9 lethals..... Im pretty sure I have doubled that.

You also just left obvious clue as to who you are dumbass

Lol, who is it who is it??!!

I've no clue who zzz or who duke is lol