Hidden Blades - Colen, Santa, or Neither

That’s the tough part. I think this comp can push me through some content but isn’t ideal. I have liked Colen so far so I’m tempted there. Santa has been underwhelming mostly but could be leveled much higher and would be pretty tanky. Right now he’s sometimes a game changer but usually dies before his special even if Gadeirus is near.

Suppose I’ll push toward 3-60 on my other 4’s and wait a bit before deciding. Saving up the 400k+ ham for Colen will slow down the other leveling a bit anyway. Hu Tao and Gadeirus are about to ascend.

I was planning on ascending Santa to 2-60 because the blades aren’t needed until that point. But from the sound of it you’d both suggest to bail at 1-50 and just move to Hawkmoon/Nashgar/Colen options?

Farming and raiding bring resources and recruits. This is as important as mats and higher level heroes.

If a c2p player uses his resources for any purpose other than building his base and feeding his roster, I don’t see what any mat won can be used for other than a doorstop.

That’d be my suggestion, at least. Leave Santa alone, work on 3-60 for 4s and 3-50 for key 3s. And it compromises to buy you some time before committing the blades.

Yeah a lot of them I just got recently with a bit of a holiday splurge. Bane and Valen are maxed and I use them pretty frequently. Saved those others since I knew they were some of the better 3’s but just haven’t gotten to them yet.

Good to know you had some success with Hu Tao and Boril though! I was a little worried about wasting mats there too lol.

I absolutely agree with this.

This part confuses me, though, because I’m not sure how you’re imagining the resources are being used for challenge events, unless, again, you mean for item crafting.

And if you think mats are as good as doorstops, I’m not sure why you’re arguing against putting them to use to max the heroes that are ready and waiting. :smiley:

I may just be misunderstanding, it just sounds like you’re saying don’t max these heroes, plus don’t care about ascension mats, and do nothing but push toward tc20…which will take months to get up and running, and then very likely months of running to get the “right” heroes to spend mats on.

I still use them regularly, and I’ve actually found as I’ve gotten other new heroes that they have new life.

Hu Tao was getting some serious hate from me for a while when I got sick of his slow speed and low attack stat, but he’s back in my good graces and gets pretty frequent use now that I can pair him with other heroes where those are made up for and his blinding shines through. I’m probably not going to get to my duplicate any time soon, but I’m loving me some panda again.

And I’ve found Boril more useful now that I also have blue snipers, and particularly when paired with a strong healer or two that can keep him going to take many hits.

Nice! Any recommendations where you would fit hawkmoon in? Currently I can’t really work her into a rainbow setup without losing my most powerful card.

Go heavy red? Ditch Santa and go 2 red? I plan to experiment but until she’s fully leveled she would die too easy in current content.

Most of us raid with very unbalanced teams. 3-1-1, 2-2-1 or 3-2 are popular, but always with the tank color’s strong color in the majority.

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I almost never use a rainbow team for anything anymore, but that’s because I either stack colors based on what I’m doing, or I stack healers to get through things I otherwise have little business finishing, like Legendary Challenge Events and Season 2 Hard levels.

The fact that Hawkmoon is red isn’t much reason to drop your strongest hero that happens to be red from your team, unless you’re doing something where red is super useless — like a stage that’s all blue monsters and bosses, or attacking a blue titan.

Until I got 4* healers, I made a lot of use of Hawkmoon and Gunnar (same ideas as Kailani) just to survive more things.

Hawkmoon pretty much came along all. the. time. Defense. Offense. Titans. Quests. You name it, Hawkmoon helped with it…and often died doing it. :wink:

So I’d think of it more in terms of purpose and fit with the rest of the team, and not worry if you end up red heavy because of it at times.

That makes sense. I pushed from bronze to gold when I switched to 2r 2b 1y from rainbow. Jumped pretty quickly in my lowly levels lol. Lately been running 2-1-1-1 but tough to find a good setup with my current cards.

Haha yeah suppose when I get her up I’ll remember how nice it is to have a healer. I’ve been running without one for quite awhile until the recent Gadeirus pickup. My 1-2• healers got ditched awhile ago when they couldn’t keep up.

I’m actually leveling Gadeirus right now. I’ve played with him a couple times just to try him out, but I don’t have him leveled enough or used enough to have an opinion on him yet. His skill is pretty useful, but at slow and affecting only himself and neighbors, I’m struggling to figure out a ton of cases where I’d use him over Boldtusk…maybe blue titans, but again, Brienne is amazingly pulling her weight for those still as my attack buffer. Healing over time can be nice, though, since heroes keep healing a little each turn (assuming they don’t die).

For the moment I’m just leveling him for War bench depth and variety in anticipation of the eventual Class Quests.

He’s getting to the point of usefulness for me finally after leveling a bit. If I had Boldtusk perhaps not so much lol. In my case the HoT and attack buff are pretty handy. Once Hawkmoon is leveled I might find Brienne worth the switch though.

I have no doubt you’ll get use of Gadeirus for a while, given your current roster.

Brienne is a special kind of monster, one of the few 3* that essentially has a skill that should never have been on a 3*. So much so that it eventually got borrowed for Khiona, a 5* HOTM, and even Khiona didn’t get the “all allies” version of it, she only buffs herself and neighbors. Keeping Brienne alive can be a challenge, but boy does she give a kick.

I hit 221k total on our blue 8* titan yesterday, not leveling up, not using any flasks, and I think actually having gone in short a flag. At least one of those hits was 50k. Brienne definitely makes that possible.

For an even more impressive demo of Brienne in an unexpected context, watch this video from @ScndStar using Brienne on a 12* titan (granted the rest of the team is solid too, but seriously, this is a top tier titan):

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Pretty impressive! Can hopefully work on her in a couple weeks here after Gadeirus. It’s tempting to try and pull some more meta 4-5* but better off working on some of these for awhile I’m sure.

Appreciate all the help! :smile:

You’re welcome! I know with all the chat on the forum and elsewhere about shiny heroes, it can feel like your lot isn’t good enough. But despite what others say, not all 3* heroes are trash or just feeders, and you can do a lot with most 4* heroes, especially with creative mingling of skills.

From my view, you’ve got plenty of good heroes to work on. Just keep plugging away on what you’ve got, slowly leveling your base, and enjoying the challenge of trying new quests and events as they come available. You’ll struggle for a while, but soon enough you’ll be making it through. :slight_smile:

Good luck!

He most probably means the cost opportunity of using the energy on quests/events instead of blasting 8-7/12-9 over and over. And he’s right. If you’re rushing TC20 you’re rushing TC20, not making pitstops for forges, quests or events.

Not making pit stops for forges I get. Passing up opportunities for ascension mats instead of farming 8-7 endlessly I don’t get.

“Rushing” tc20 is still a multi-month process. Playing through quest levels every 7-10 days, and event levels once per month is well worth the mats.

I partook in quests and events along the way to tc20, and still had no trouble banking 27 million food and 7000 recruits. I guess I could have banked more by skipping those and only farming 8-7, but I’d rather have all that food and recruits, plus the ascension mats I picked up along the way.

_Edited to mention Colen:
Go with Colen now, he will help you.
Also, from what I see you are using several AoE attackers but have no debuffer in your lineup except for Tyrum sitting at 1-1. I believe you will find him very useful, you can drop a riposte and defense buffs from the enemy before setting off the AoE attackers, saving the lives of your attackers and also permitting stronger hits. I believe this will make a huge difference for you.

Boril, he tanked for me for ages at 3-60. Good base stats and the Riposte wiped out soooooo many enemy AoE attackers.

Brienne - was said by others above, spectacular. I too still bring her to titans, hand in hand with Wilbur she has a chance to survive against tougher Titans (that for me is just 5* and 6*).

Once I had powerful 5* heroes in my roster I found it incredibly difficult to stay focused on the 3* and 4* heroes but the advice from others in this chain is spot on. Focus on a solid core of a team so that you can win the materials to properly level up the 5* heroes.
Solid 3* team is important for challenge events where completion usually gives you something of value even if you don’t place in the rankings.
Then, solid 4* team (maybe with a 3* like Brienne in there) allows you to complete two levels of the challenge events and more ascension materials and MAYBE complete legendary if the synergies are good.
You’ll want the deeper bench of 3* and 4* for wars as well, it is another good source of materials (usually the war chest has better materials than each war but my alliance has been pleasantly surprised from time to time with the prizes from the wars).
Bane and Valen are useful for a very long time. Carver is good mana controller (I never had him and have a copy sitting forlornly leveling with duplicates only), I’ve fallen in love with mana controllers since getting Hansel and Proteus.

Most importantly of all, have fun.

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Give those blades to Santa …period

You rather have a hero that can hit all enemies, decrease their attack, and lower their defense than a hero that just does damage of time.

They both are slow but Santa is a certified tank and will last longer in the battle than Colen

If you think Colen is impressive at 3^60, take him to 4^70.

Hands down, Colen at your point of progression is the centerpiece of your roster. He will be coming to every fight. Santa would tax your resources too much, and at 3^70 (assuming you don’t have the rings yet), he will be a huge disappointment. I’d recommend you work on him after you round out your heroes more (finish Hawkmoon). I would even hold off on working on Santa until after 2 or 3 more 4* reds (like boldtusk, scarlett, falcon, wilbur, lancelot)

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