I just pulled c-Chao. Glad to have him (I think). He and Li Xiu are always a pain to go up against, but I never liked using Li Xiu and only recently pulled the regular chao. Vanilla is pretty meh, but his special sounds like it could really help with mana control.
I don’t have Gretel, but I do have Hansel, who is in the queue after Franz. If Chao pairs well with Gretel, then I’d imagine he’d pair well with Hansel.
I was mixed about the idea that his ability to steal mana needs time to ramp up, but the idea that you can charge him faster when he snowballs onto other bosses sounds great.
Some challenges seem to really dial up the mana speed, so this could be a way to take advantage of that. The faster the enemy charges, the faster Chao Charges.
Question: Let’s say you have someone like Tettukh silence an enemy. Their special meter will stay maxed out. Will Chao continue to steal the mana that enemy “would have” gained?
Thanks for this topic Muchacho! I read it a couple months ago and based on it I actually gave C.Chao a chance, and have been quite happy with him ever since. Along with Peters, Hansel, and Mist, I run C.Chao in situations where I don’t run any other 4*'s, like Wars and Raiding.
Yes. Hansel is better than Gretel, so they will work the same together. The main difference is mana speed between Gretel and Hansel. Everything else is splitting hairs because you’re not using them for the initial damage on their specials.
I got Hansel from Festival and am excited. He is almost maxed and will immediately go to +20 and likely get LB’d once green comes around again.
I will say one perk to Chao or Gretel and Hansel is that when the boss stage rolls around and you shoot your initial specials for damage, including dropping enemy D, you don’t need to hold Chao back. Bosses have empty bars, so it’s not that impactful to fire tiles into them while his special just started and isn’t stealing as much mana.
I find myself holding Gretel and Hansel back until they’re needed. Granted in CoK that took no time flat, but say costume chamber where the boss mana speed isn’t nuts they’re waiting until even the D drop wore off and stuff. Admittedly might be more an irritant for me and nitpicking, but it’s there. It takes even longer if LJ slows them down too initially.
Yes and no, be careful. Fast heroes like CoK will still charge if you do them as a big tile dump when his special first starts. Against normal bosses it’s reliable. You can always hold a full-stopper back, like I usually do (mentioned above$, as a back up.
My roster lacks elemental D drop and other essentials for blowing through events. I need to go about it more deliberately and mana control has been a great compensation for lacking the atomic bomb hero teams. You won’t be competitive due to being slower by time, but you’ll finish and get the mats/loot. I managed the stupid hard CoK like that on all levels.
Glad to hear someone found this useful!
I mentioned above I got Hansel in Festival, but HA have me Peters like 2 days ago or so. I am eager to max him and test out how silence plays out on offense. I have seen it, begrudgingly, when the enemy D does it to me.
With a deep roster he definitely won’t be front line, but he is a very valuable bench piece for long events and wars. Not only in abilities, but cost. A vanilla 4* and costume is both inevitable if you keep playing and cheap in materials. My Chao is still +1. While I wish I had more emblems for him, he still works great as-is.
Don’t know if you have Proteus, but I use him in conjunction with cChao or Onatel, depending on the challenge level. You fire Proteus first, then wait a turn, and then fire cChao. That way you get the 75 and 100% mana while the bosses become tile dumps for 5 turns which might give you a chance to reload Proteus and repeat as cChao should be fully charged. It’s what I did for CoK (with Onatel) which made the legendary a breeze.
I do have proteus. With your method, when you do fire cChao, while enemy still can’t gain mana, you’ll dump tiles into that enemy and the enemy won’t gain mana, but neither will cChao, correct? Not until the mana block wears off and by that time cChao’s steal is at 75%, so only THEN will he begin to receive mana.
That is correct because while Proteus mana block is active, the enemy isn’t gaining mana, so cChao has nothing to steal. Depending on how you time it and how the tiles go, this means you can pretty much cut each boss down one by one without them ever firing a special, assuming you are going in with at least Proteus and cChao ready to go once you hit that stage. the 75% and 100% rounds are usually enough to charge up cChao assuming you just feed tiles to that one boss after Proteus’ mana block is over.
I don’t have Proteus unfortunately. I am starting Peters soon though and maybe their is some kind of combination there to play with? Although they can still can mana while silenced.
The combo seems more natural with Hansel/Gretel. When silence wears off hit with H&G to get the full mana damage initially. When H&G wear off hopefully Peters is ready again.
Yeah, the tactic I use for Proteus doesn’t really work for Peters, but what you are suggesting works well. I believe I’ve done that once or twice between Peters and Merlin, who does essentially the same thing as Hansel/Gretel.
Depends also for what you want to use them. For example Li Xiu can work great on rush defense. Gretel is great for rush offense, C Chao can also help a bit there.
Personally I only have Mist with max talents and limit broken, but I haven’t used her much recently. I might max Gretel and Li Xiu if no better options, but C. Chao does not seem so impactul for me.
On the other hand, I am p2p, I have a developed roster and I am fighting against very good defenses usually.
I focus on weely 4* tournaments, tend to always finish in the top 1% (in all formats). There Li Xiu is a strong tank. Also used her a lot elsewhere, in war teams, on the map etc. Mine is max emblems and limit broken. Prefer the original over the costume but both are maxed. Mist is versatile and useful way beyond the tournaments. Also maxed out. Gretel I just finished after her sitting and waiting for years (after trying her out on my wife’s account). She is good for attack and quests, but her stats are old. Gave her emblems now, will see if she keeps them. Chao I don’t rate at all for the tournaments, with or without costume. Stripped mine of emblems and always happy to see one in defence when attacking. Whatever way you choose to go, good luck!
Well they’re all a little different as @The_Seeker said Power creep isn’t just stats, but also volume of ability.
Mist I got last Covenant and have started using regularly. Yea, her mana slow is nice. Her D drop on specials is a perk too. To me her best value is the ability block. Using her on the likes of Ludwig and watching their taunt not work is great. Same is true of riposters. Looking at Mist’s mana impact exclusively, she is still good, but I would put others higher.
Li Xiu I have vented about elsewhere (and repeatedly ). Some people love her, I am not one. I would consider her a 4* tournament and platinum defense hero.
Between c-Chao and Gretel I would probably go Gretel. Now if I know the enemy has slower mana c-Chao is a better factor. What I like about Gretel is it drops the enemies mana. That portion is huge IMO and what swings it. The longer a fight goes the more important this is. This is also why I really don’t like single enemy silence heroes like Peters and Tettukh.
Another factor, and a key one based on individual rosters, is I have an issue finding barbarians worthy of emblems whereas I am 1000’s of ranger emblems behind. Since I can only beef up Gretel she gets the nod. Most of the mana controllers are 4’s, so these days they need to have LBs and emblems to stand a chance of hanging.
Wait a minute, her special drops enemy defense? I know it’s a splash and the target gets the Hansel treatment, but I’m not aware of it dropping the defense.
Just a note, I sometimes combine the two on the same team simply because while cChao steals mana, the target still gains some, so there is a chance their special will go off. Gretel/Hansel/Merlin kind of acts as a safe guard for that.
If I get Li Xiu‘s 2nd costume, I would level 3 or 4 of her, you can see which where LB1 and who got emblems. I was so unimpressed with Chao‘s costume after fighting it a few times in tourneys, that I did not bother to max it yet. I would have feed him away although he is maxed, but CoE saved him. He is in the 5th (weakest) holy team.
). Some people love her, I am not one. I would consider her a 4* tournament and platinum defense hero.