Hi everyone! This topic just to have your opinions… I have seen that most of the top 100 teams don’t have a healer, except telluria, which is certainly not used for her weak heal. What do you think about this? Is a healer useless or not in a defense team? And why?
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The def team of my alt account had 3 teams being used for testing that.
》 First try (no healer):
Sartana+20 . DrakeFong20. AzlarCostume+18. Vela15. Lianna20
result: kept 2490~2600 trophies
》 second try (with healer):
Sartana+20 . VivicaCostume+20. AzlarCostume+18. Vela15. Lianna20
result: kept 2500~2550 trophies. More losses.
》 third try (healer as tank):
Sartana+20 . AzlarCostume+18. VivicaCostume+20. Vela15. Lianna20
result: 2450 ~ 2600. huge variety. Losing was more frequent than winning but it made some serious defenses (people trying 3x and losing).
Hope it helps. 
This is Current being used and it’s working good enough considering there’s no ultra strong META heroes inside. No ninjas neither event folks. It’s rarely under 2550. (Vela and sarta were unblemed and then put some again but saved the rest for others.)
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Interesting… and surprising to me! I firstly couldn’t imagine a defense team without a healer. But your results seem to show that a destructive power is more important than just surviving. In raids at least. Still think that a healer is essential in a war defense team. Will think about a team without healer but with 1 more killer in my raids defense team.
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Try one week each team ^^. It depends on the healer, on the tank… azlar + vivica is two slow heroes so that’s my weaknesses. While drake fong+20 can hit a lot, vivica can make AzlarC live enough to fire his devastating skill.
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Think i’ll try gefjon, frida, sif, alfrike, Kingston shortly. Still leveling alfrike, but with sif’s mana boost, i think she can be just awsome. I was planning gefjon, ariel, telluria, alfrike, drake. Both of them can be great defenses, but i’d like to see if there’s a big difference between them
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I’ve just switched to a fruity Seshat-Malosi-cKadilen-Magni-Gefjon defence. Seems to be holding diamond ok. All snipers + a dodge creator. All fast or v fast. Probably not ideal but it’s fun for now.
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Wouldn’t like to find that defense on my way bwang!
What was your defense before that? I have switched my sartana, c.kiril, telluria, tyr, drake for the same with frida instead of kiril for the moment. Just to try. Don’t hesitate to come back here to share the results in a while, just to see if that works. I will
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Beyond a certain point (say attacker has at least 10 maxed 5’s - basically when they can make a team that can finish off any defense given a decent board) - wars of attrition tend to favor the attacker. Attackers can make intelligent decisions and a longer war gives them an opportunity to work around a bad board.
That’s mainly what healers on defense do - extend the fight which just gives the attacker more time to work and build up combos of specials that will ensure the win. That’s even assuming the healer fires at the right time and doesn’t waste it on a fully healed team.
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Before I had Boldtusk +18 with the costume bonus. Mainly I suppose he was an attack buffer, but this new way of an extra sniper cuts out the middle man!
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The only good healer for defense is ariel flank or kunchen tank.
Using all attackers on defense is an offensive berserk mode and is it a good strategy as u don’t wasting space for a healer that AI can’t control when the right time to heal.
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Oh I have Ariel there but I removed emblems from her to set on costume vivica since Ariel is still awesome without them. Costume vivica became a monster only after the mana bonus. I’d say Ariel flank is awesome but if you set another blue there like Lepus or C.Magni you can do a plenty damage. Later let’s add also Costume Thorne who will hit like a bazooka.
Maybe I’ve had bad board but Gardnet tank destroyed me once to the point I didn’t even tried anymore after the first shot. You just can’t set ailments on anyone and she keep healing every freaking turn. It was horrible. Kunchen is surprisingly still a lot effective indeed. Def down resistance is brutal.
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I’m still undecided myself on this when it comes to raid defense… I always feel more comfortable having a healer on my team, but I’ve faced many defense teams that were pure attack, and they wiped me out before I was able to kill them.
(Important to note, these were teams that were much higher power than my own)
On the other hand… I tried it on my own defense team, taking out my healer, and I ended up losing more cups than usual. 
I will say that when it comes to war defenses? I love it when my opponents don’t have any healers. They could have the strongest attacking heroes in the game, and maybe they kill me before I’m able to one-shot them… but lacking any healers on their side makes for an easy mop up for one of my lower level teammates.
EDIT: I think it mostly comes down to team strength. Lower level attackers will struggle vs. healers, whereas strong attackers will wipe them out easily.
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Does not matter. Healer, no healer, all the same. There are just a few heroes that, when brought to +20, make an above average defense. You can see who they are by checking top 100, they’re present there, more than others. Outside that select few, it actually does not matter at all if you have a healer or not on your defense. All that matters is the board the attaker gets. A good board will break any defense. A bad board will make any defense virtually indestructible. Anything else is just pure theory. 11500 raids won and I never came across a defense I couldn’t overtake on a good board. On the other hand, I lost plenty of raids against less than average defenses on impossible boards. So, bottom line, for an average defense to keep you above 2400 and under 2700 cups, healer or no healer, makes no difference at all unless you plan to keep above 2700 cups. If so, you should have the most agressive and the fastest heroes available on your defense, no place for a healer.
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The advice I got from the leader of my first alliance was to focus on fire power in my defence line up rather than full time healers.
So I have continued with just that
Absolutely.
And to emphasize what @Gregor.Jax said before, a longer battle favors the attacker.
The point of defense is to prevent a middling board from being turned into a good one. Mana effects on defense help that as well. And attackers on defense punish bad and “meh” boards far more than a healer does.
The more it goes, the more i agree with that… I’m currently looking for what I can do best with what i have for a defense without a healer. But for war defense, a healer is important as surviving is nearly more important than killing, isn’t it…? A good defense with healer can survive 2 attacks in a row, which looks much more difficult with a defense only made of killers…
Not really. War defense has visually an additional hero who either heals, deals AoE-Damage or Buffs. What you want is eat up as many flags as possible. Therefore it is more important if your defense fits in the overall-defense of your alliance. If you use Red tanks with green and blue flanks it would not be a great move to put Vivica as a flank cause you open a gate where your opponents can move in with their purples.
It is more important to have an cohesive overall defense then having a healer or not. In fact the best way is to have 30 copies of one setup.
In general i would make the point:
Healers on tank or flank position allow your opponent to move more tiles without being pressured and therefore increase his chances to turn an average board into a win. Healers have to interact with your opponent otherwise they are a weakspot in defenses.
I run one and a half as they my maxed emblems 5* it’s Kingston+4 ariel+11 guin+9 jf jabberwok+9
It’s alright keeps me in diamond I have Athena+5 but I don’t think it would hold up as well if I swaped out ariel with her. Sometimes to much healing can be not good but this works for me.
My raid defense setup:
It keeps me around 2650-2700 cups overnight. In my case Ariel flank works better than no healer would (I tried a +20 costume richard in Ariel’s place, it was performing worse)
Ariel is a healer, of course, but also a mana booster. I think the second part is what defines her.
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