When using Gravemaker as the main tank, would it be more beneficial to go down the defensive branches of the talent tree, the offensive, or a combination of both? Part of what make him so devastating as a tank is that he is super fast, so I’m conflicted on whether giving him more damage OR more survivability would make him a more potent tank.
What is everyone’s thoughts, especially those who were able to experiment in beta?
I honestly am an attack maniac, and @Kerridoc totally own me on how DoT works, that suppose to increase togheter with attack stats.
I do not have him to test in beta so i don’t really know how much it can increase, still you want him to burn people away at least once per fight.
I vote attack.
So, yeah, that was part I was curious about: does the damage increase only affect the initial hit he does or does it also increase the DOT of his burn, as well?
I am more of a defensive than offensive… My vote goes for defense… His hit is devastating as it is, Increasing defense means he gets a grater chance of standing longer and better chance for him to release on his special before he goes if he even… Let alone the fact that he could release twice before his out… Ugh… Two hits by him… fk that!
I don’t thought at first but my Azlar a while back has not the max DoT avalaible even if i had max his special and was on last tier.
It was maxed only when he reach lv80, and his attack reach is peak.
So DoT is totally linked with attack stats, and attack stats is the multiplier of mana troop too, so it is esponentially stronger.
This point of the underlying troops is more important imo than the talent. GM, for instance, will be much more effective with a level 11 mana troop than with a talent. This means, to me, that you have to look at what troops are available to support the talent.
I think it’s a tough call without an obviously “right” answer. The trees are set up so that you necessarily get some offensive gains even if you always choose defensive gains, and vice versa.
This raises a question more generally, is it better to accentuate the strength of a hero, or compensate for its weakness? Should attack-heavy Isarnia double-down and keep getting more offense heavy, or improve her survivability?
I don’t know the answers to these questions, and I’m not sure that we will have a lot of insights here until next year.
For me a hero like isarnia is obvious. Slow mana AoE with high attack but weak defense screams raise the defense.
I think the trickier choices will be the more balanced heros like grave, drake, and evelyn. All 3 have both attack and defense over 700 unless I’m mistaken.
I totally plan to raise Isarnia as a nuclear bomb.
Best defence is attack 
Lol i think sometimes you wake up just to contradict me
Ahuahua, nope your reasoning has much sense.
But some people (like me) simply want some extreme outcomes.
Games like Pokémon GO have shown Damage Per Move or Damage Per Second are very important in timed situations but Total Damage Output is more important in resource situations.
For Empires I am more concerned with TDO so Defense & HP would be my answer, except:
Natalya and Morgan Le Fay are non-dispellable Damage Over Time which bypasses reflect damage AND defense stat. With the current cost of emblem resetting, these are the only two 5* heroes I would emblem offensive branch.
This is a great question and one that will get different answers as time passes. I can tell you from my testing, GM needs balance. He already has good HP and Defense so focusing more on attack makes sense. However don’t ignore the defense and HP trees. In Beta I took the second and second last trees for the HP and Defense buffs and the rest focused on attack. It worked really well.
I think the trickier choices will be the more balanced heros like grave, drake, and evelyn. All 3 have both attack and defense over 700 unless I’m mistaken
Yeah I was thinking about what I’d eventually do with Evelyn once I get her maxed.
RN I’m leaning towards focusing on increasing her attack. I recall that some people on the forums shared concerns in beta that she might be “too good” in her previous version. This is despite being G.Panther for the most part with a different element.
In the end SG kept all her stats, and debuff skills the same but nerfed her SS damage from 225% to 210%
My guess is they chose to nerf this is because her skill does nearly the same amount of raw damage that panther does.
G.P 786 • 210% = 1,650.60
E.V 727 • 225% = 1,635.75
Since she already had the edge of being far harder to kill than G.Panther, (far better defense stat, marginally better health stat, w/ a 24% heal) — they probably felt having her S.S doing the same amount of damage probably tipped the balance a little too much.
So if beta testers thought having her skill damage being any higher makes her too much of a savage: I think trying to raise her attack stats with troops and the skill tree to try to mimic it would be the best for her.
As for Drake Fong; he and Evelyn are nearly stat-twins, and they both are considered to already have an A score in both Defense and Offense but only a B vs titans. So I also think his attack should be risen since that would make him a bit better on titans.
If you have any doubt go for attack
Need a better tank? Attack.
Need a better sniper? Attack.
Need a better girlfriend? Attack.
Gravemaker I think is dubious to pidgeon hole as a tank and the reason he is such an effective tank is his DoT. If you neglect his DoT it will do less damage as players increase thier defense. Making gravemaker less then ideal as a tank.
In other words I think it’s a double edged sword if you go all defense you neglect his damage and he still becomes a worse tank.
If you go balanced he might be an ok tank but never to his max potential.
If you go all atk he becomes significantly stronger on atk his tile damage goes up his special damage goes up and his talent goes up. He might not be the best tank anymore but he will always be a great flank and/or wing.
My suggestion go atk and find a better tank. Kuchen, guin, ares, Delilah, Santa or the new awesome tanks in khiona and inari. Seriously rogue tanks are a pain. Forcing players to rely on tile damage only charges those tanks up faster. Or they can try thier luck with special damage and have a 1/3 chance to do no damage. You can’t even silence talents as it’s innate. It makes rogues very durable.
Rogue tanks are definitely going to be the most annoying skill tree talent to go up against. Cleric tanks are probably gonna be a strong second place after more 5* cleric heroes come out.
I feel bad for anyone who joins this game in like 2020 when all of us have been getting tokens for our defense teams for a year— getting to diamond or even platinum will probably be an even harder grind
You might not be able to mana block reliable a healer tank but you can easily nueter most cleric tanks w Perseus… kuchen might be the exception to that rule because He’s so durable.
Sargasso would be decent too if his heal block wasn’t debuffable.
Thing is, Elkanen was included in the Cleric class, and he hits and only heals himself— so from this we know that its possible for the future cleric heroes to be hitters with tanky stats.
Looking at the 4*s: Rigard, Boril, Agwe, Gafar, and Hansel were all classified as Clerics. So not only can clerics be hitters, they don’t even have to be healers.
It seems like SG will be inclined enough to allow a hero to be a cleric if they do atleast one of the following;
• Heal
• Buff
• Cure Status Ailments
And it doesn’t matter whether the caster only heals/buffs/cures themself alone, or if they heal/buff/cure the whole team