| 1 |
No, it depends on your opposition. However, because most shield fac units are fairly cheap for their class, you can and should fine tune your composition on the fly to meet the evolving threats you'll face.
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1 |
No, it depends on your opposition. However, because most shield fac units are fairly cheap for their class, you can and should fine tune your composition on the fly to meet the evolving threats you'll face.
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| 2 |
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2 |
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| 3 |
If they're heavy and so not particularly numerous, for instance tank, but also jump since jacks and juggles can really ruin an unprepared shieldball fast, you want to stack a good number of racketeers. Racketeers can also thin out incoming fire from a recluse ball that shield can otherwise only answer with cloaked snitches (bandits get chewed up fast because they're slow and have a fairly large hitbox for a raider that a recluse ball won't have any trouble thinning out on approach regardless of terrain) and they're good for bypassing crabs, spired or otherwise.
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3 |
If they're heavy and so not particularly numerous, for instance tank, but also jump since jacks and juggles can really ruin an unprepared shieldball fast, you want to stack a good number of racketeers. Racketeers can also thin out incoming fire from a recluse ball that shield can otherwise only answer with cloaked snitches (bandits get chewed up fast because they're slow and have a fairly large hitbox for a raider that a recluse ball won't have any trouble thinning out on approach regardless of terrain) and they're good for bypassing crabs, spired or otherwise.
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| 4 |
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4 |
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| 5 |
If you're likely to face large numbers of light units, you'll lean more on felons. Felons are also probably the best flex AA in the game.
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5 |
If you're likely to face large numbers of light units, you'll lean more on felons. Felons are also probably the best flex AA in the game.
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| 6 |
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6 |
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| 7 |
You'll want rogues against porc, since closed Razors will deplete felon and linked aspis shields quickly for not much gain.
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7 |
You'll want rogues against porc, since closed Razors will deplete felon and linked aspis shields quickly for not much gain.
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| 8 |
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8 |
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| 9 |
Your core meatshield is thugs and outlaws. Thuglaw by itself can be an effective means of pushing cheaply, but only if you're not walking into the teeth of massed skirmishers or artillery.
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9 |
Your core meatshield is thugs and outlaws. Thuglaw by itself can be an effective means of pushing cheaply, but only if you're not walking into the teeth of massed skirmishers or artillery.
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| 10 |
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10 |
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| 11 |
You'll see pure and almost pure felonballs in lobsterpots, but I believe they are generally overrated. Anything with adequate range and mobility (even badgers) will wear them down and force a retreat. An opposing shield player with time to acquire an iris will also have good opportunities to blow them away in one go with snitches.
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11 |
You'll see pure and almost pure felonballs in lobsterpots, but I believe they are generally overrated. Anything with adequate range and mobility (even badgers) will wear them down and force a retreat. An opposing shield player with time to acquire an iris will also have good opportunities to blow them away in one go with snitches.
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| 12 |
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12 |
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| 13 |
The main shieldball specific threats you face are snitches and Likhos. Thunderbirds look scary, but with enough Felons (3 or 4 will likely be enough, 2 may suffice), they turn into a modest metal donation. Except in prohibitive numbers, outlaws will not by themselves deter an experienced snitch bomber, but they will make it more difficult to safely approach your ball. In essence, they buy time for mistakes to be made or for screening units to find the threat. If you can't count on your allies to do it, you at least have the dirtbag to call on, and if you've been investing in AA, Vandals can also fill this function in a pinch. Don't build them for screening purposes, but if you don't have dirtbags to hand and you need to screen your ball from bombs, they can step into the breach being cheap and probably numerous due to feeble individual DPS. Vandals are your only real active defence against Likho (besides effective allied air cover) and they're not great for it. I find the Likho usually gets through and gets to go home again, though it may fall prey to massed Felons if you're lucky.
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13 |
The main shieldball specific threats you face are snitches and Likhos. Thunderbirds look scary, but with enough Felons (3 or 4 will likely be enough, 2 may suffice), they turn into a modest metal donation. Except in prohibitive numbers, outlaws will not by themselves deter an experienced snitch bomber, but they will make it more difficult to safely approach your ball. In essence, they buy time for mistakes to be made or for screening units to find the threat. If you can't count on your allies to do it, you at least have the dirtbag to call on, and if you've been investing in AA, Vandals can also fill this function in a pinch. Don't build them for screening purposes, but if you don't have dirtbags to hand and you need to screen your ball from bombs, they can step into the breach being cheap and probably numerous due to feeble individual DPS. Vandals are your only real active defence against Likho (besides effective allied air cover) and they're not great for it. I find the Likho usually gets through and gets to go home again, though it may fall prey to massed Felons if you're lucky.
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| 14 |
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14 |
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| 15 |
In an ideal world, you don't need Aspis. They cost energy to charge and they're fragile. However, in reality, anyone with AOE options or lances will force you to invest. Scale number of aspis according to the size of those threats. They're also a passive defence against Likhos. While air might try to manually fire under the aspis, doing so is likely to require entering Felon kill range (or they might get hobbled by a lucky Racketeer).
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15 |
In an ideal world, you don't need Aspis. They cost energy to charge and they're fragile. However, in reality, anyone with AOE options or lances will force you to invest. Scale number of aspis according to the size of those threats. They're also a passive defence against Likhos. While air might try to manually fire under the aspis, doing so is likely to require entering Felon kill range (or they might get hobbled by a lucky Racketeer).
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| 16 |
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16 |
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| 17 |
Since
shield
doesn't
have
a
true
artillery
option,
you
will
suffer
generally
if
you
try
to
march
into
artillery
(
or
massed
nimbus.
Don't
do
that.
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17 |
Since
shield
doesn't
have
a
true
artillery
option,
you
will
suffer
generally
if
you
try
to
march
into
artillery
(
or
massed
nimbus)
.
Don't
do
that.
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Is there a recipe for the perfect shieldball?