Hey there!

I'm trying to stay kinda competitive in ranked (top 10 of my own server, ~40-ish of merged server) but I often struggle with various teams. I like to experiment, try different lineups, settings, synergizing teams, but with mixed results - it's always ups and downs, and fighting for the 3rd spot of my server with 4 different dudes and while I mostly have ini advantage I generally lack hard field hitters so it is a struggle and while I find something that works on one dude it usually is super weak against another. Plus sometimes a good concept on paper comes out super thin - I think we all had same experiences.

Anyway - I'm not looking for any specific counter but for something that might be 'good' in general and I've been wondering if you could throw me some suggestions cause maybe there are some good team that eluded me so far and I haven't tried them yet and maybe you can think of them? Below are my ninjas, I have most of the sb's for the ones I have.

Thanks in advance!

Hey there!

So I did some more experimenting and made a few fun teams - my favourite example that I want to share would be this 3 synergizing teams:

1. KCM, Roshi, Mabui, Kabuto [Snake Cloak] - KCM launches every round most of the time interrupting/immobilizing one unit and provides immunity for 5 rounds for Mabui, Roshi's chase is being triggered from KCM Mystery dealing a good portion of damage, Mabui provides some shields for the field, heals KCM/Roshi and provides chakra for everyone in the team to launch mystery asap and Kabuto provides some defence with dead souls, gives chakra from dying units, his high combo chase is being triggered by KCM providing poisons and, most important, his mystery gets reduced cooldown allowing him to revive anyone from the field basically every 2-3 rounds. Important thing here is that revived units get the Edo Tensei tag and here's why:

2. Kushimaru, Edo Sasori, Mangetsu, Jinpachi - no need to explain how the Kushimaru/Jinpachi combo works, Mangetsu provides some additional defence with clone and dodges for the swordsmen for the first two rounds and can give some technique points in the later rounds for Kushi/Jinpachi for their mysteries, but the main thing here is the Sasori who needs to be out in front (position 2 ideally) - upon reviving he reapplies his +att/nin and shield buffs for Edo units and since characters revived by Kabuto get the Edo tag, they will also receive re-buff from Sasori!

3. For the Main team I used Kushina, Main, SB Guy and Chiriku - Kushina obviously scales, deals huge and often crits, reheals, controls and reduces mystery so great for the front line, Chirikiu provides defence for the team, Main and Guy serve here as leech providers for your reanimations to gain some health after reviving and not die out soon after they raise from the dead (they revive with 10% health I think so it is important to keep them alive otherwise it will give you nothing)

Overall it is a bit random as it relies on your reanimations not dying out immediately after reviving and Sasori reviving when reanimations are on the field. And the biggest bummer comes when Kabuto wastes his mystery on Sasori (he will not re-buff in this situation!). And unfortunately you have no barrier...

So it was fun and working nicely untill... I faced a guy with AGK, Edo Deidara, Samehada Kisame and Kushina... And this was the moment it went downhill as my reanimations were dropping like flies from AGK/Deidara... It was time to do something else entirely and I've decided to try something completely new to me and try your Zero Buff approach (this was new as I always do Full Buff teams). So after a few tries this is what I came up with for that fight:

And here's how it works:

1. Top team - Main is used here as a chakra battery (3rd mystery, 4th standard), he self heals/debuffs and provides a non-removable +att buff and leech for the whole field. Kushina of courseis the main scaler/damage dealer here, Chiriku provides non-removable defence, KCM dodges attacks and gives ignition, whole team is immune and reduces cooldown on mysteries which can be launched easily provided chakra from main - in the end this team proved the weakest link here - more on that later on.

2. Middle team - the basis for the approach - Han removes all the buffs from the field and serves as a nice tank/sweeper (since he dodges first standard, he blocks AGK from mystery cooldown reduction which is perfect in this scenario), Roshi destroys any barriers (even less buffs!) and is the main scaler/damage dealer here. In later rounds he gets even more tankier making him almost non-killable, Sakura and Jigokudo keep the team alive while giving possibility to revive dead units and Sakura also scales in attack therefore she starts dealing nice damage in the later rounds to 4 units with each standard.

3. Bottom team - this one may come as a bit of surprise, but listen: Kimimaro is a great tank, scales af in def/res, dodges a first standard and his mystery does ok damage in this scenario, Oro is fully SB and he is the main scaler/damage dealer here - he gets +25% att/nin for each dead unit on the field which skyrockets his damage output veeeeery high in the later rounds (I've seen crits for 25k damage with mystery and 15k with standard in around 5th-6th round), his mystery goes every other round and if it kills (which believe me is easy in later rounds) he gets a cooldown reset, his standard does repulse so he clears the line an in this scenario he bursted the bottom team alone with standard. And if dies he revives from the hidden sound units with 70% of life with his buffs still intact and still scaling - with a bit of luck he can revive from a Kabuto's summoned dead souls. Kabuto is a strong healer, scales up Kimimaro with the experiment passive, removes debuffs before healing from himself, Kimimaro and Oro, provides additional leech for the cursed mark ninjas and can provide some defence/revive possibilities for Oro with clones. Hinata has a huge defence/res buff from being in team with three males, resets her mystery every round with chase and gives some control with 2 accupunctures every round (1 from chase, other from mystery). She also provides a dummy-barrier so that enemy won't have his in the first round (in this fight it didn't matter since he uses Samehada Kisame). The ideal scenario would if I had the bond barrier from Oro (+100% def/res for the whole field - my enemy wouldn't even be able to leave a dent on my units!) but the cost is definitely too high - getting 4 assist cards that don't work good with other units to lv. 6-7 is a waste of bells/scrolls.

As I've mentioned above, the top team proved to be the weakest link here (middle team was able to tank out all the damage incoming while bottom died out reaaaaally slow keeping Oro alive and dealing HUGE damage) - KCM dropped like a fly round 3, Chirikiu and Main followed him soon after leving Kushina to herself out. That was the time to change the approach and after a few tweaks, this is the currently final form of my lineup:

Since KCM was glass and didn't do much damage without buffs I used Tsunade instead and it was a good choice - she heals the whole team, provides more control possibilities and since I'm using +2 Mystery, not Y+1, starting from round 3 she self-heals to almost full health ans starts busrtsing enemy units like crazy!

I know this is not an ideal/perfect team (could use a little more ignitions/poisons) but it still managed me to win a fight that didn't let me sleep for the past few days ;)

Thanks again for all the help and I'd be glad to help anyone I can!