What is the right way to setup your true defence?

I'm not talking weak defence at event time people.
I'm talking what is the best way to manage and hopefully have a reasonable success rate at defending your team in the hands of AI on your behalf?

If we can place relics aside for this discussion, what's important to you?
I have just spent the past 3 hours placing various combinations of toons up against one another in the manage defence area of PVP trying to come up with the ultimate combination.

My conclusion so far is, there is no perfect combination. But there is playing to the AI's strengths given paricular characters, watching typical AI reactive plays can give you an advantage, toon position surrounding your Eddie makes a difference to, but not always.

What are the most important buffs or character qualities for you?
Every buff has a counter move every character has a counter character.

What balance do you draw? What is a reasonable success rate in defence PVP?
What I can control in attack PVP has no real relevance in defence PVP, so I have reached my wits end trying to develop that perfect team...

Any thoughts appreciated!

As someone said before (i can't remember well who was) the best option to setup a Defense is just looking at what could worth to defeat an average of teams with popular formations, then having the toons already in a list, just analize what kind of mistakes or errors could your defense AI commit, the less of them, the more effective it is, since the defense team is managed by just the AI and some luck.
In other words... pick a team that will make less mistakes being controlled by the AI, and then it will work the way you want as a programmed system.
For example, you don't pick Rocket Dogs that much because yes, it can make all the enemies bleed and heal block, but the AI decides that everytime you have enough energy, it will just use his ability. That having a toon that can revive such as for example, The Clairvoyant, can ruin your plans very bad.

Things that you learn playing the game, make experiments and see for yourself because if there are good secrets i don't think that secrets are going to be told, even if is for the greater good of god (yay, reference)
Actually i change not only my defense but also my offensive team because the game is having a lot of changes recently. That makes a lot of problems but also offers a lot of variety to play, not as before (like the prisioner in every team)

Now as you said, it is true that you can't have a definitive team that beats them all everytime, but i know a thing for sure, when you want to battle in the arena, no matter wich event is, APMA,MACLI and INTRO team will win everytime :p

For me... D is far more about how easily something is countered.. how easily a toon is killed or disabled. It's more about talismans and abilities on the team, not any one character specifically. I won't use Ghost, Valor, or Shroud because they are removed VERY easily and often Don't provide much benefit without the buff. I like the Shadow set, but needing a perfect hit ally sucks.. and makes them less useful overall to me.

For example.. The Beast is a hard hitting toon with the right set up (ask JJJ) but without the right setup and allies, he's often the FIRST opponent to die. Sometimes he dies twice in rapid succession because even Perfect Immortality doesn't make him "healthier". Shadow can help with a Perfect Hitter passive (which can't have passives disabled). JJJ's 2-Beast defense was great because he had a perfect hitter with Immunity talismans and 2 Beasts with Shadow talismans.. so all he needed was 1 hit and the Beasts were invisible at the start. It's all about configuration or talismans.

Many seem to rely on first strike... I try and create teams that will survive almost any first strike and be able to hit back. Many times all I need is 1 turn. Sometimes only 2 due to ghost or immortality. And of course, throw in relics and it may take a third or forth turn near the top of the ranking.

Yeah I know what you mean Yup high hitting teams are great if they get the roll of dice in their favour (first turn), if they don't succeed though they leave them selves vunerable.
I prefer teams that the opposition is going to have to slug away at until they (for instance) take out the blocker, then they still have to remove buffs and chop away at the defences hp.

I am starting to doubt that testing my defences against my "best attacking side" is even worth it, because all my teams will be combinations of my personal strengths and weaknesses through the relics I have. Where as other teams will have invested in their relics differently....

Whatever team I set to represent me in defence won't work against other teams, if like me they swap in/out toons depending on who they are battling....

I'm like Yup, I always build based on the belief that I will go second so survivability is key. The most important thing is to watch other teams defenses and see how the AI plays them because that is how it will play your team. You know that the Ai will revive with Sent Lillith if she has the power. You know that Visions Eddie will always Fury if the choice is between him and another ally who has a Fury. You know Clansman will always cast Unify to push him to full Fury if he is close. The list goes on so use what you see and build accordingly. Look how the talisman function. You know that Destiny talisman will 90% pop an Invincibility so you put them on a blocker. It's all about tricking the AI into doing your bidding. Of course you always have the benefit of the "does not exist" AI boost for accuracy and such so use that as well. Allies that have a low chance of hitting perfects or having effects activate because they don't always work on Attack may work much better on Defense. I was surprised and happy to run into someone running a Magus COTD with Destiny and it was quite potent in defense. Something unique is always good. I tried mine in Attack mode and though it did ok it did not do as well as the Defense side I battled.

At first I made my 3 defensive teams as hardy as possible, but since then I've resigned myself to using my attack teams as defense teams and figure if they go first they have a decent chance to win. If not they wont. I have about a 23% winning percentage and I suppose that's normal?

Win rates vary depending on where you are in the league - lower down I can get over 50% but as soon as you get into say the top 200 it drops off a lot.

I always put 2 defensive minded toons and 2 damaged focused ones in and hope for the best. I look for skills in the toons and just hope AI uses then.

Probably explains why I never rank highly and my teams are easily beaten. I don’t have the time or desire to test out defences.