You can choose a few ways to go about using your emblems.
You can do what I do and focus purely on 5*. That gives you a good 10 heroes for war, assuming you have the right heroes and assuming you don’t spread your emblems out to more than 10 heroes.(A)
Or you could spread them out lower, from 3* to 4* which is cheaper and more affordable. (B)
Or you could do a mixture of both and spread them everywhere (C )
Given that War involves fielding 5 heroes x 6 teams = 30 heroes at the very least (more if you want variety), if you take strategy A, I’m of the view that your leftover 20 (30-10) unemblemed heroes (even 5* heroes at that) aren’t really a match for all these +10 or +11 defence teams. And the gap will continue to increase.
And if you take strategy B or C, if in high level war, it’s even unlikelier that your heroes could make a dent to your opponents. With a few exceptions possibly (Eg. Hansel at the moment)
I think this is part of the reason @algeco left or took a break. Our dupe heroes (particularly 4*) can’t match the power of these +11 war teams so there’s not too much point in ascending them.
I think I would actually prefer it if emblems were removed because that would render my 5* roster useful all round in war because there’d then be no large disparity in power levels. All heroes on my team could make an impact.
On the other hand I get that it is kind of nice to make your favourite heroes even stronger, if you have them. I also get that it gives weaker players an opportunity to field stronger 4* teams.
But I think the gap at the top end of war is too large.
Do you think this is an unreasonable point of view? I’m sure this was discussed in Beta and perhaps previously on here but I can’t find it.
I like the emblem system. My only concern is that emblems are much easier to obtain if you already have a high power team (third tier of class quest, challenge completion rewards, etc) so it DOES widen the gap between the top tier and the rest of the bunch.
That said, its not THAT much more difficult to obtain emblems once you reach a certain point in the game and I think several reasonably active players can obtain emblems with roughly the same frequency as the most powerful teams. Sorta like the rare quests; it doesn’t need a top 1% team to get a 4* ascension material.
I suppose my issue is not about farming emblems being easier for more advanced players, more that you can’t use your emblems on all 30 heroes or 6 teams for war, and, therefore, your leftover heroes will not be much use against +11 teams and later +20 teams
I’m not following the typical cookie cutter route of the top end personally
Most players in top 20 alliances or so are just beefing up war defenses then just best 5 heroes they have in the other classes
Which to me has never been a strong strategy in this game
E&P has always rewarded versatility and strength in numbers
So for me i use 3-2 in raids and wars
I would rather have 3 emblemed heroes per team for 5 teams than 2 strong emblemed teams and a tough D team
So i dont go higher than node 7 for these heroes
But i am embleming a sniper, a healer, and an aoe/dispeller per color/class.
Which gives me roughly 15 emblemed heroes including defense. With everyone so defense focused i believe at some point they’ll be behind offensively which has always been the case. Look at the players in the beginning that wanted 1 or 2 maxed rainbow 5* teams instead of 2 to 4 maxed 4* teams
Just way I’m goin bout it
My D team still gets the lionshare of emblems tho
So with that being said, i don’t think emblems are doing anything but enhancing the game and giving us another thing to strategize and have fun with
Let’s not forget one thing. Like any addition to war, this affects both sides. How you struggle in the second part with those remaining teams against those heavily emblemed defenses, so the opponents. That’s why I think it is imperative for any player to focus for the best rainbow with his/her emblems. Besides, imho, the way the things are now, are way better. Let’s not forget the attacker has all the advantages. Let’s not forget how YT was full till this year with AW videos showing 6/6 wins.With mono stacks (and decent boards) was too easy for any decent player to wipe out those 4200 defenses. Let’s see them now doing this. Even if they have 1-2 emblemed heroes spread among those mono teams, is way more challenging. Therefore, fairer I say. I don’t see any gap.And I repeat, the emblemed defenses affects both sides and for one, I don’t see any issue.
Perhaps it’s true there is no gap in the sense you have illustrated @scarecrow where both alliances are even in strength, but is there not an argument that:
for those that have limited 5* rosters eg 10 x 5* and 20 x 4*, the gap between this group and those with full 5* rosters has increased significantly because those with full 5* rosters can handle the +11 defence teams better, whereas those still relying on 4* teams as second string teams will not have much of an impact.
It’s true that the alliance with the full 5* roster might have won anyway but the margin of victory is going to be a lot higher I would say. It removes the element of ‘we may not win but we have a chance’ for the weaker team
even those with full 5* rosters cannot outbuy the very biggest emblem spenders (including quest skippers) in this game.
So one alliance might have +12 defences, another might have +7 defences because they are a FTP alliance. The nature of the ‘both sides have it the same’ concept doesn’t really apply in this scenario I would suggest simply because the leftover heroes of the FTP alliance are ‘more outmatched’ than the amount the spending alliance is outmatched by.
Of course the war matchmaking algorithm should really sort the above two issues out automatically but common experience dictates that opponents aren’t always properly matched and hence the above disparities are bound to occur
I’m totally for rainbow team defense getting all the emblems for their classes. That ensures 1 of each color strong against titans, war defense is a challenge and it’s probably your strongest hero of each element anyway ie. Cage Alasie zeline etc. I checked my roster after reading your topic and found I have 15 in total emblemed. Some are 4* for war/titans that are literally 5* ie Wilbur Falcon Jackal Danzaburo ( laugh all you want I swear by him and he’s tier15). I personally am not worried about 20 tiered defenses because by the time the majority hits that my own overall 30 heroes will be improved as well. I do think raiding too top 10 will be tougher shortly because there will be a hanfull that’ll achieve god like Albys GM etc. Much faster then most of us but time will cure that. I kinda see the emblem thing not separating the field as much as troops to be honest. Troops can be bought with only the limit of ham stopping anyone from doing it instantly if they have the cash where emblems not so much. Just my thoughts.
Point well taken. I do disagree on the unemblemed heroes being useless though. It’s certainly possible for a good non-emblemed 4-star team to take out a highly emblemed 5-star team given a decent board and proper team composition. If the supply of emblems is limited, then there will always be a trade-off between having one strong defense team (or offense team!) and several weaker teams. I personally level heroes to 7 then begin working on others as offensive versatility is still tops for me.
Of course, in the long run, everyone will have emblems so its just a matter of time of who gets them first.
That falls back on alliances recruiting peeps of similar strenght and remaining full for best matchmakings though
Sure there is bound to be 1 to 5 players per full alliance that is behind the rest which is where cleanup flags come in, but more than that and an alliance should expect to face some pretty difficult wars if the top is greatly outweighing the bottom and leading to screwball matchmakings
Having fought in wars vs top 50 alliances for the past 6 months, it’s frustrating AF!
During this time, the average TP has probably increased by 100-150TP.
Less room for errors to recover but troops play a bigger factor. I’d prefer facing a defense with 5 +11 heroes vs a defense with less emblems but lvl30 troops.
After troops, it’s tiles and RNG.
Over the war with 180 flags used by both sides, the RNG evens out so for now its still troops.
Will have to check this in another couple of months with even more emblems on war defenses.
I 100% DISLIKE emblems. F2P & C2P that have not been playing for WAY WAY more than 1 year are falling farther behind. When they started SELLING emblems it ruined the heroes on our teams. It was bad enough we couldnt keep up any way then came emblems widening the gap, then the sale of emblems widening the gap even farther. Its no longer fun for most.
Very interesting thread, and a lot of good points were made. Before I get started I should add I am nowhere near the level where my alliance is going up against an alliance of maxed and 11+ emblemed 5 stars. So my opinion on the matter may be naive and may change as I progress.
To the original question in the thread I think it is even more important now to have a strong and wide roster for war. I think emblemed war defenses increased the importance of clean up teams, and made war strategy more critical. I think as @Scarecrow pointed out the days of 6/6 one shots are going away. I think the top war alliances will not be based solely on their emblemed defense, but also on how good their strategy is for maximizing their points against emblemed defense.
I am embleming just the 5* heroes I use the most but if I were to start a new account I woul emblem my 3* heroes only while maxing 4* heroes and keeping the 5* ones to lv 3.70…
Brace yourself, costumes are coming.
I would rather run an alliance that would kill 11* titans with wars, tournament and events as “low ELO” main attraction than playing the pursue every hero game.
3* and 4* are easier to get and if more than one alliance would follow the lead there would be a lv70 meta with 3.50+20, 4.70 and 3.70 heroes as bench to have good fights due to the matchmaking to avoid 5.80+20 heroes and a cancerous meta.
I build my best 5* alpha team and assigned them with emblems to have a strong defense to keep me in the diamond arena and a strong team to send to war for defense. Each hero in the alpha team has a different class and the work well as a team. The other 5 classes of emblems I allocated to specialist 4* heroes that needs to survive 5* teams to win a raid. For example Rigard as cleanser. My other 5* heroes I leave without emblems. This allows me to fight with various combinations in raids and wars.
So, i am a 7 month player. I only have 20 maxed 4&5* heroes period. I have 5 maxed 5* & 15 maxed 4* plus another 3 5* and 2 4* in final ascension and others at lower levels.
I play in a top 500 alliance, and i do fairly well in wars. I know my limitations. I have 2 hits against 4300+ teams, the rest is cleanup duty for me or getting real creative w/ heroes to counter specific teams w/my weaker cards. With whar i have now, i have raided as high as 151 globally(the crash out was tremendous, all the way out of platinum). But i dont expect to have the same depth of roster as a 2+yr player.
As far as emblems, none of my 5* have more than 3 nodes currently. My defense team is right around 4100tp. 4* that are important have gotten emblemed up to as far as +10 and there are several that will make it to +18 and maybe 2 that will get to 20. Early on i leveled Layla to +11 because i had no 3* purple for tournaments. I have since leveled 7 3* to around +7 for tourneys and recently did 4 other 2* to +5.
It doesnt bother me that i cant go team for team in war with players who have beeen playing multiple times longer than i have. After Xmas, is expect that my top 2 teams will be able to compete w/anyone and im not leveling 5* past +5(mostly)until i have 30 maxed 4&5* and can really decide who i enjoy playing with the most.
I don’t think emblems broke the game, but I do agree with @Rohn that they shouldn’t have started selling them.
That being said:
As most people, my defense team was my first focus for emblems. But since I can keep up in diamond pretty well and there’s more heroes in my roster that can benefit from emblems, I stopped some of them to start talenting others. So my Guin is +7 now, switched to Hel (also +7 now) and I’m deciding on the next Wizard to talent. I only do this for classes I have multiple good heroes in I frequently use. So since GM is my only decent Barb, he gets all the emblems.
Other than that, one of my main in-game focuses is Events, I’m also working on my red event team with emblems (which is almost completely maxed). Any other classes that don’t fall into either category, I give emblems to the hero I use most in that class.
Once I start noticing that my defense is starting to struggle staying Diamond, I will redirect my emblem focus on those heroes.
I wasn’t convinced about emblems when I first saw them, was pretty pessimistic really, but when I got used to them decided that I actually liked them.
I do think that this issue is tied up in other issues too. In any game it is a struggle to keep older players engaged and interested in the game, which means new content is suposed to stretch those players and provide them with new goals and a feeling of continuing achievement.
It feels to me like the devs are taking this too far across the board. Hard work and dedication should still feel worthwhile, rather than an increasing struggle for diminishing rewards.
I don’t know. Perhaps it is because my roster is deep with 5* and I usually only use 4* if they are +20. I find that the emblemed teams are harder, but not insurmountably so. Perhaps I should’ve stayed quiet, as I’m at the higher end of roster depth and tenure in the game here.
I do agree that selling emblems was a bad idea, but (come on) we all knew it was going to happen the very first second it was announced. We. Knew.
If folks with only 4* want to go vs. 5* emblemed teams on their last flags… I’d suggest going full mono with 4*. It’s risky, but at least with a halfway decent board there’s a good chance of a full wipe. Almost equal chance of a zero, but a better chance at a kill.
We’ll see.
If we’re being honest, things are not going to get better. Costumes will allow those with DEEP 5* HOTM benches to beef up their vanilla 5* and see immediate improvement, based on how easy these costumes will be to ascend. Turning Vivica into a Yellow Kunchen, for example, will be a game-changer. I’ll expect Hero Academy to only be truly accessible to the elites or spenders (not unlike the alchemy lab) and when people spend oligarch-level dollars to complete all buildings the very day they are released, there will always be grumbling and discontent, when 99% of the rest of the players (rounded up) do not have all of their buildings finished.
So, after all that… I wouldn’t expect any major balance changes to make the lower end of the heroes more viable (aside from costumes).
War— do your best and don’t mind the rest. Perhaps people with <10 5* heroes, focus their emblems on 4* to compete with the 5* emblem teams. It’s a thought.
Overall Game— play until there is nothing left to entertain you, then leave. There’s always going to be something to be mad at, maybe even several somethings. I’m constantly annoyed by things in the game, not the least of which the core mechanic of board-reliance. One day I’ll rip the bandaid off and quit. that day is not here yet.
