Guardian Owl - my experiences

I have guardian owl at max level and understand he has been labeled a terrible hero. I am going to disagree with that assessment. I have used him in various capacities (war, raid, and defense),. Overall, I have the perception that many (most?) people consider him a defensive hero. However, I do not think he shines on defense, mainly because the AI is terrible in strategically using specials…plus, AI cannot ghost tiles to boost mana. My experience is that he is an offensive hero, especially if paired with a high level 4* troop that boosts mana (i have my troop at level 10). I have had quite a few war attacks where Owl is either the last hero, or one of two left, where he has wiped out 2-3 opponents all by himself. In many cases his high defense plus self-healing helps keep him alive long enough to fire twice. This happens, however, only if you have two or three opponents dead so he can ghost tiles. Pair him with a healer or hero that can boost defense and owl can be golden in raids or war.

Please note that I do not have the luxury of several 5* heroes…just owl, kadelin, frida at max, and Athena at 3.70. Does anyone else have similar experiences with Owl? Would be interesting to hear.

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Agreed.

Offense - definitely yes especially when you are in a tight spot with few heroes down. Owl can fight solo when near end raids.

Defense - one of the best right wing heroes that can turn the tide of battle in an instant

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I’ve only fought him once and he was in the right wing. I totally underestimated his power and left him until last (totally forgot about that part of his special) because he was super slow mana. My team was in poor health but all 5 heroes were alive when I turned my attention to him. I ghosted a few tiles to charge my healer, he charged and one shot my entire team. So he doesn’t really seem all that bad to me!

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It is a very slow hero. Not very interested in it.
BUT Owls are terrible for enemies who are on the defensive side (especially if only one of them survives). So I still prefer it to be a defensive hero at wings.

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there is smart player @YukimuraSanada

whith defence like this, which keeps him in diamond without problem
image

so Owl could be defensive anchor

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I suppose on offense he could be ok, as you can ghost tiles and control when he fires his special. But on defense I very rarely see him and if he’s there it’s very unlikely he’s going to be alive by the time his special fires.

We have 2 folks that use him in war and he seems to give people issues and waste flags from time to time, so… I’m a fan.

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I’m curious: what would be your definition of a bad 5* hero?

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A hero that doesn’t drop in my budgeted pulls or close to maxing out said budget - bad hero, very bad/naughty hero!!!

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Ha! I’m glad to know that Renfeld is the premium @MysterySpin hero :laughing:

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Someone’s gotta feed the heroes. Good eatings that night…

#casualcannibalism

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That’s a cup dropping defense if I’ve ever seen one. Probably keeps him in high platinum overnight, and easy to climb into diamond to open chests.

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I was his ally and this team sits regulary on 2500. He uses it all the time. The special skill of Owl increases when the flanks are dead.

If your strategy is to just ram tiles into the tank and hope for the best, that defense is probably pretty dangerous…

Does guardian owl’s special skill actually exist? Because I’ve never actually seen it so thinkin it’s just a rumor

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Firstly I will start by saying heroes you have got already have the advantage of not having to pull for them. Taking a holiday with the money you might spend trying to get something else will ultimately be of more value in the long run – but granted there’s only so many holidays you can take a year before you get the sack…

Ultimately it is better to work with what you’ve got. Push come to shove you can pretty much make any hero work for you – the point with ratings is that 4* AMs are the scarcest resource in the game and that forces people to prioritise which heroes to ascend. As such heroes can be quite useable but compare badly to their peers.

Back when there was still hope that Raid Tournament loot would improve (who’ve kidnapped the SG pets and demanded the Art Competition prize be buffed should really have set their sights higher…) I decided to go back to a number of my slower heroes I had never levelled (and because I had more 3* AMs than I thought I’d need for a long while), decided I’d take a bunch of the slower 5* heroes up to 3/70 – whilst you can’t judge the full potential of a 5* at 3/70 you can compare it’s performance to other 3/70 5* heroes to see their relative performance to one another. My aim was to try get an idea of whether I thought they had enough potential for me to consider ascending for Very Fast tournaments in the future (back when loot improvements was assumed). I assessed Guardian Owl alongside Boss Wolf, Justice, Horghall, Atomos, Elena, Azlar, Isarnia and I am in the process of ascending a newly acquired Yunan.

My takeaway from trialling out Guardian Owl was that even at Very Fast speed I found Owl a little disappointing – especially compared to the other Very Slow Boss Wolf who was awesome! I think my issue was that with both at Very Fast I found Justice preferable to Guardian Owl. For Guardian Owl to be effective you need to have lost a number of heroes but with all of your enemies charging at Very Fast your window of opportunity to capitalise on that game state can be rather brief as remaining heroes can go down briefly. The question with Owl on attack in Very Fast is if charged early do you delay using his special until you’ve lost a number of heroes – in which case Owl doesn’t have his defence buff and HoT up so may with bad fortune be killed by one to many very fast hero specials targeting it – or do you use it early for not that much damage (thanks to the low attack stat) that risks being healed away by a Very Fast enemy healer. In contrast if you charge Justice then spam away, with every enemy special skill missed your heroes live longer to kill the enemy quicker. Whilst Guardian Owl is better if he’s last man standing (Justice at Very Fast isn’t a total write off in those circumstances – good luck with blind and your colour stacked tile damage can still win through), Justice is a lot better at preventing the situation of getting to Last Man Standing territory in Very Fast.

Essentially you can make pretty much any hero work for you and Guardian Owl can be useable but my overall opinion is that comparatively he’s low on the yellow ascension priority list if you have other options. And remember it is perfectly possible to beat all the Atlantis Hard mode levels, Seasonal Events and get Challenge Event completion awards with just unemblemed maxed 4* heroes and 3/70 5* heroes so there is no need to rush ascending 5* early before you’ve a developed 4* team and in the process something you find even better could drop for you in the meantime.

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Good analysis, but to be fair, this is one side of the coin, as a defender wing in the very fast tournament, I’m far more intimidated by owl then justice and the same holds true in normal situations outside of VF tourney, owl is more of a concern (although obviously… slow) as a wing. So as per usual, it depends on what you need and what role you want that hero to fill. I generally advise offense over defense though, so… overall I agree with your assessment (even though I wouldn’t suggest either for offense). Also should be said, even though you are comparing them on an “even” scale (3/70), that scale isn’t entirely even… you’re allowing the blind (secondary effect) to make you feel Justice has value still, where Owl is a finisher and needs all the attack he can get to do that job effectively and to have that, he needs to be 80 and I think it would be best to compare them then (but… once again, not a suggestion).

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Is there another strategy??

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@Garanwyn used “spray and pray.” It isn’t very effective.

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What do you mean, man? That max+1 what’s-her-face and that max+1 naruto I think are super intimidating! I mean, he spent SEVERAL heroes to level those 1* heroes up. SEVERAL!

In all seriousness, that looks like a hilarious trap defense that’ll catch several people off guard, but it’s still way too vulnerable to a purple stack. Still, with a bad board, I think it could do surprisingly well.

My 3/70 Elk-Gadeirus-Melendor-Gormek-Cyprian cup dropping defense is much better, but nowhere close to the awesome power of my 1/1 Aife-tank-and-nothing-else defense! I’m almost in silver. :joy:

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