Another defense setup dilemma

My current raid defense is [Zimkitha, Kageburado, Justice, Magni, Lianna], I haven’t changed it in the past couple of months but due to some lucky pulls in January I now have more options to experiment with. Also previously that was good enough to keep me comfortably in Diamond but lately I sometimes get knocked back to Platinum and I’d like to avoid that.

I have a target setup in mind that I’m working towards (which I’ll present at the bottom) but I’m eager to hear any thoughts on what would be the best defense from my heroes. I’m happy to consider ideas backed up by reasoning and I’m grateful for any help.

Current roster (not everyone is 4/80, this is a project for the future):

Blue: Magni, Richard (no costume), Vela
Red: Zimkitha, Grazul, Anzogh, Elena (with costume), Jean-Francois, Mitsuko, Khagan
Green: Lianna (no costume), Evelyn, Elkanen, Kadilen
Purple: Kunchen, Kageburado, Obakan, Sartana
Yellow: Justice, Joon (no costume), Poseidon, Neith, Leonidas

I have level 13 mana troops for blue/yellow/purple, level 17 for green/red. Crit troops are level 10 for yellow/purple/green, level 6 for red/blue.
I have roughly the same amount of emblems for each class, between 900-1100.

Given the above how would you setup the ideal defense?

My thought process:
  • I want rainbow with 5 different classes so that everyone can be emblemed.
  • Kunchen is by far my best option for tank, other clerics can be discarded.
  • I also want to discard other slow heroes because on wing they will never fire and on flank they give an additional column that the attacker can use to setup their specials.
  • next stop: green. Elkanen is cleric like Kunchen so he’s out. I’m not impressed with Kadilen. Evelyn is more useful on attack when elemental def down can be exploited. This leaves Lianna and eliminates other rangers from the pool.
  • next stop: red. I love Zimkitha but I don’t want another cleanser. 2 healers are also not needed, so Grazul is out. Elena/Khagan are slow. I’ve seen Anzogh in action and his special is much better on defense but he still feels inferior to other options. This leaves Mitsuko and Jean-Francois. Mitsuko is my only good Sorcerer and she will get emblems anyway, while JF is a wizard and I’m reluctant to reset my +18 Kiril and +18 Proteus as they usually play a critical role when completing hard quests. I’m leaning towards Mitsuko but this definitely feels closer than other decisions.
  • next stop: yellow. Justice is out because she’s slow. Neith is out because she’s a ranger. Leonidas is average which is worse than my other options. So Joon or Poseidon. Both monk and fighter are great at resisting, Joon has a slight edge in damage but I feel that Poseidon might bring more utility to my team. Maybe if I had Joon’s costume then he would be my choice but currently I’m leaning towards Poseidon.
  • final stop: blue. If I go with Poseidon then Magni is out. Richard feels more like a tank position to me, again, maybe if I had costume for him I would rate him higher. But for now I want to go with Vela.

So my current target is [Lianna, Mitsuko, Kunchen, Vela, Poseidon]. Mitsuko could be replaced by JF but then I give out too many status ailments and opponent could just bring cleaners to deal with it. Poseidon could be replaced by Joon which would make Magni a possibility instead of Vela (and Richard is also an option). What do you think, did I get the essentials right?

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I really like your thought process, it was nice to read how you take every detail into consideration.

I’d personally go with either Lianna-Zimkitha-Kunchen-Magni-Joon, or Lianna-JF-Kunchen-Vela-Poseidon.

The first option relies too heavily on snipers, though, so your heroes will be killing the opponent’s heroes one by one.

The second option relies on AoE heroes who can take out the whole team in a few turns. I’m not a big fan of Mitsuko on defence because if the attacker is an experienced player (doesn’t bring blues/brings dispelers), she is not a threat at all.

You said that having Kunchen, Vela and JF on the same team could be a disadvantage for you, but not many players have good cleansers (the only regular ones are slow Vivica and average 4* Rigard) so they may never get the chance to fire. The only real threats to your team will be people who have Zim/Grazul.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts!

My current setup also has 3 snipers so it wouldn’t be too much of an issue for me, but as I said I don’t want 2 cleansers in the team.

That’s true though the mana cut can be very important in my opinion.

But I like your reasoning for the DoT team, I’ll probably try it out for a while.