I have just got the final orb I need to max another holy hero. Holy is my weakest team so I really want to max the vest candidate. I currently have only Wu Kong and Gretel maxed, but who should be next…
The candidates at 3/60 are Danzaburo, Li Xiu or Chao. I also have Poseidan, Ranvir at 2/60 and could take them to 3/70.
So which should I choose?
I would stick with the 4*'s at the moment, and not do the 5*'s till you have a good amount of 4*'s leveled up. I have all three of those fully leveled up, and I would level them up in this order: Chao, Li Xiu, then Danzaburo. It also depends on what you plan on using them for. If you plan on using them for defense I would do Li Xiu first, then Chao, and Danzaburo last again. I like Danzaburo, but not a whole lot because his special can “miss” and he won’t gain mana for 2 turns. I have had that happen enough to make me put him on the back burner. His mana is average though, but its unpredictability is quite annoying. Li Xiu’s special is very annoying to go up against, because almost every single time her special goes off, one of my heroes just finished building up enough mana to use their special only to see it taken away.
Thanks @Bobjohnson - Yes I was favouring Chao for his fast attack, but wanted to check first. I like Li Xiu for her damage against all enemies and mana reduction too. I must admit though I dont worry about facing Chao in attack, unlike Li Xiu where as you say she can be a pain!
There’s this prevailing wisdom in the forums that defaults pretty much everyone to always work on your 4 star heroes no matter what. While I understand their reasoning and thinks it works in a lot of cases, I think it isn’t so absolute and we need to go on a case-by-case basis.
None of your 4-star yellow heroes are amazing (there are very few good yellow 4 stars that are easily available); on the other hand, poseidon is a great hero.
Sure, 3/70 5-star heroes are generally weaker than 4-star heroes. But Poseidon is an s2 hero that has higher stats by default, and, even if he’s weaker for a short while, he has much higher potential later on.
I think that the tiny bit of benefit in the near term does not nearly warrant everyone to always work on 4 stars, pushing back their 5-star agenda for years, potentially. It hardly makes sense in terms of absolute game play, and it makes even less sense considering as a player, I think many of us are attracted to obtaining at least a couple of those ultimate, maxed 5 star heroes just for the fun of it.
@bobiscool - I just checked and I had it wrong about Poseidan he is in fact 3/70 and I need two poison darts. I agree that while my barracks has mostly 3/4* maxed heroes, there is a certain mystique in having maxed 5* heroes - currently only Seshat but Kingston is at 4/50, so soon to be two! Thanks for your input.
Based on my own experience, when paired with wukong, Li xiu is better than Chao, because Li’s special attack goes to all enemies while Chao only 1. With Wu’s chance to miss, you might waste Chao special, but Li will still hit some of the enemy. so my suggestion for you is Li - Chao - Danza.
Another bote for Li Xiu.
I’ve had the same dilemma before and decided to go with Li Xiu. It’s indeed a right decision as although Chao is fast, he never really see the light. Li Xiu is sturdier and can be quite annoying as a tank in high gold / lower platinum arena.
Li Xiu once made it to +17 emblem and was in my raid team all the way to diamond arena.
Until now, she is still in my 4th war team along with Wu, Kadilen and Colen. Wu’s special works fabulous on AOE hitters.
Even tho li xiu can be a realy pain in the a.ss and i was in your shoes i maxed chao for fast mana cuz i need more fast heroes for war raids so my answer is chao, i fed danzaburo like 4 times now.
I’d go chao to give you a fast sniper over another average hero… however… depending on the rest on your deck and how you play, if you have snipes in other colors that you stack with holy, I’d switch my opinion to li.
Oops. Didn’t mean to respond to you @AliceCooper. Lol.
Another reason to level up the 4* vs a 5* is because you might not have enough ascension materials to make the last ascension. Also if you use the rate mays on the 4*, you can quite possibly get build the rare ascension materials back up by the time you get the last of the needed epic mats. Plus with the 4* fully leveled up you can dump class tokens into and make it quite a bit stronger pretty quickly making it comparable to the 5*.
I think Li Xiu is your best option, more versatile and AoE mana cut. It doesn’t mess to much with Gretel’s ability and it can save you.
I started using Danzaburo in my mono yellow, which includes Poseidon: because of the mana protection effect of his special, if Danzaburo casts a freeze on himself, he won’t be affected.
The other two effects give a nice boost, so he will stay for now
I only use Danzaburo on my mono team as well.
You use 5 danzaburos on your mono team? That’s quite mono of you 
Li Xiu with costume can become fast mana with a mana troop (I forget what level the troop needs to be…). So I vote for her over Chao, if you think you can get the costume and mana troop up in a reasonable amount of time.
But if not, I would go Chao. You don’t yet have a single-target “sniper”, and Chao will be decent in that role until you can max Poseidon. The fast vs. average mana makes quite a difference on offense.
I have both Li and Chao, and before I maxed Li’s costume, I was using Chao on offense. Once I maxed Li’s costume though, I switched to her.
Isn’t Engish great!! You know what I mean, but others may be confused by my comment. For those that don’t understand, the only team that I use him on, is my mono team. 
I guess another good question would be do you have the epic ascension mats for Poseidon? If so I would go that route.