@Wolfjack @Ninety7expo
See below notes saved from a knowledgeable person, sadly I do not recall from whom so cannot give credit but I found it helpful as a guide.
Orienting War Defense Teams Based On Field Aid
Where alliance wars are concerned, creating a defense team can be an art form. Every time a new war is announced the most important thing you can do is go and look at the alliance war boost which are the following.
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Field Aid: boosts the health for all enemies
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Arrow Barrage: cuts all of your heroes remaining health by 25%, which means it does less as the fight goes on.
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Attack Boost: Gives all remaining enemies a 10% attack boost that cannot be dispelled and stacks with other attack buffs
Now, knowing all of this, what does it mean for you. Well, depending on which field aid you receive you will want to set-up your teams a little bit differently. I’m going to start off with the boost I believe give people the most trouble and work my way through them from there.
FIELD AID:
When it comes to field aid you want to have bulky more defensive heroes on your roster with at least two different healers on opposite sides of your line-up. The reason the healers are kept on the wings is because the field aid speeds up in increments gradually as each hero is killed, so healers on the wings will, theoretically last longer due to their own healing ability as well as the field aid advantage.
Ø Example of a field aid defensive war team: Vivica, Proteus, Athena, Caemdon, Boldtusk.
Look at that line-up and ask yourselves, “who would I take to counter that team?” and hopefully you’ll understand why team composition is so important. I chose this line-up for a reason because people will look at the tank (Athena) and her flanks and completely forget/disregard the field aid and that is a trap. Say you manage to take out Athena and either one of her flanks, you’re stuck with a two healers (one that bumps attack and one to bump defense) with different mana speeds (to make sure their abilities don’t trigger too close together) and either Proteus (stops mana generation and has a DoT effect) or Caemdon (fast hitter that dispels all enemies) and the field aid to heal all of them as well. That scenario is very nasty, but it happens quite often in the wars I’ve been in. Remember, if time counts down to zero and you’re still fighting, that is technically a defeat.
Ways to counter this strategy: use very fast heroes that hit several enemies such as Thoth-Amun/Drake, G.Falcon/G.Panther or the vampires, Victor and Valeria because they actually siphon off the field aid while doing DoT. If you have fast heroes, but all they do is DoT (Natalya), that WILL NOT be effective because many healers can dispel ailments (I know Natalya’s cannot be dispelled), but they can also ride out the damage (even against Morgan Le Fay). The team I would use to counter Vivica, Proteus, Athena, Caemdon and Boldtusk would be Drake, Evelyn, Proteus, Victor, Elkanen.
ARROW BARRAGE:
The second most troublesome, in my opinion, is the arrow barrage because it hits, hurts and does not discriminate. Towards the beginning is when it hurts the most, however, it can be the source of a loss at the end as well. As I mentioned above, arrow barrage takes 25% of every living heroes health, so, if Magni has 1000 hp left and the arrows go off, he loses 250. When creating teams that work best with this boost you should take ONE healer and your fastest heroes that deal DoT. In this particular arena Gravemaker, Natalya, Lady Locke, Proteus (I know… him again!?!), Sartana and the Sand Empire heroes (Yunan and Gafar to name two) reign supreme. The point of this particular team is to burn your enemies where they stand and leave them helpless. It is also important to note that the more “destructive” your team looks to the enemy, the more they will over compensate when they choose the heroes that they plan on using to fight you and once they use that hero, it’s gone, and it can’t be used against you or your alliance again.
Ø Example of an arrow barrage team: Natalya, Proteus, Yunan, GM, Delilah
If you encounter a team with Yunan as tank flanked by GM and/or Proteus, use extreme caution when choosing your heroes, obviously, but don’t be afraid to fight fire with fire (pun intended). Earlier I mentioned people will look at that team and overcompensate by adding a bunch of healers and support to their team, but that is the kiss of death strategy. If they are trying to hit you hard, hit them harder and faster. The best heroes to use against a team like this would be fast snipers and the ramming pulverizer trio. Some say a good defense makes a great offense… well in this case, a great offense makes a great offense.
The problem with this counter strategy is that you may run out of viable hitting heroes, so if that happens you will need to coordinate with your alliance to see who has what heroes left to take down whichever team.
ATTACK BOOST:
The final, and in my opinion, the easiest war boost is the attack boost. This particular boost isn’t a problem for most people that I’ve talked to because you can debuff it with a hero that reduces attack (Santa, Buddy, Zeline and Scarlett). If you don’t have a hero that can lower the attack stat of the opposing team, that’s ok because this is where riposte heroes such as Elena and Boril come in handy. When putting together a team for this particular war boost, it’s best to consult your alliance because you’re going to want to divide your opponents’ resources by making them choose which kind of heroes they choose to fight against you. How are you going to do that? Easily. What you’ll want to do is decide in advance who is going to be a sword and who is going to be a shield.
Ø Sword Team: Consists of fast strikers that hit multiple and/or do DoT and one healer (if any at all).
o Example of a sword team: Grimm, Marjana, Lianna, GM, Sonya.
Ø Shield Team: Consist of three to four healers/support heroes and one hero with an AoE.
o Example of a shield team: Colen, Cyperion, Kashhrek, Boril, Rigard
With sword teams, the opponent will theoretically use up more healers which means the opposite should hold true for the shield teams (it is important for me to point out that this strategy could also work for the other two war boost, but it’s just the most effective here). In the end though, this particular strategy will only work for the alliances that communicate well together and they know what each member is capable of. When it comes to wars, make sure you check the aid and build your team accordingly, but just make sure you know what your alliance wants and you know what parts you are playing because these strategies, though they have worked for me and my past alliance, won’t work for everyone.
Things to consider
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I said it before and I’ll say it again. For every hero used against your war team, that is one less hero to be used against the rest of your alliance. If you fall, that is O.K. because you may have prevented (with your specific war team) two of your fellow teammates teams from falling. Allow me to go into detail:
a. Say your alliance just wants everyone to use their “strongest” defense teams for war instead of doing the sword and shield technique. That means your opponent can use customized teams against you (teams that they are familiar with and have ■■■■■ ton more experience with) instead of putting together a team specifically to counter either the number of offensive hitters you have or defensive healers/supporters. If your alliance has 15/15 sword and shield teams, 9 out of 10 times your team will be behind in the first half of the war, BUT your opponent will have less heroes in the second half to inflict much damage, leaving your team to come back and steal the war (it’s happened like this for me and my alliance several times because our opponents overcompensate to counter this unfamiliar strategies and they end up exhausting their resources).
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If you have 6 war flags that is a total of 30 heroes, however to have all of your bases covered, you’re going to want to have 45 heroes with at least 12 of them being healers (have at least 6 of those heal outright like Sabina or Vivica and the other six a combo of HoT like Alberich or Ares ■■■■■ Guin) and gradual healing which is only Red Hood), 12 more that do DoT and at least 6 (one for each team potentially) the cleanse your team and 6 that dispel your enemies team. The rest can be whatever you’d like and of course you can have some that overlap like Vivica or Victor (she heals and cleanses while he damages, deals Dot and buffs). I know that is a lot (trust me I’m not even there yet) but if you shoot to have this done… I guarantee you won’t be concerned about buying new heroes because you’ll be too busy leveling up the ones you’ve got.
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The best way to get 5* heroes, in my opinion, is to constantly have TC20 going 24/7. I have gotten the following heroes from TC20:
a. Richard
b. Obakan
c. Lianna
d. Quintus
e. Thorne
f. Leonidas
g. And a bunch more 4* heroes