How do I beat this?

Would go with my usual team of Skadi, Heimdall, Vanda, Kage and C-Viv. Kage for Krampus and his taunt. Viv dispels and decreases defense while Heimdall increases offense so Skadi can fire, kill all minions even from Freya and then it’s just waiting them out. The team lacks any attackers so unless there is a truly bad board it should be possible.

For your roster try Seshat, Lotl (slow mana down), Domitia, Gazelle and Kingston. Seshat and Kingston should be able to off MN with Gazelle’s help or even without rather early. Then Kingston. Then just wait them out and make sure Freya’s minions won’t get out of hand. Apply dispel as necessary. LotL’s minions shoud give you some breathing room.

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I personally like Drake. He’s so devastating to your defense. Panther is another one who will dispell your entire team :rofl:

I would hate to keep adding to the list of heroes you don’t have. How about… Mist and Almur? They are fast 4* hit-3
And they ravage double formation!

The average hit-3’s should NOT be underestimated however…
Why would you do that? After Proteus fires your defense is cooked.

Post 10 of this thread has a link to unemblemed 4* wiping a top tier of your defense.

People are figuring it out. The leaderboard was 90% double a few months ago. Now… a different formation is saturating.

Don’t color me surprised tho…

Also, if I (and likely most anyone else) attack you. Then you can see my defense. And it looks nothing like my offensive teams. Especially the ones I use on double formations

:grin::grin::grin:

Bullet proof theory… still, I own exactly ZERO of the heroes you mentioned, and I suspect most players also don’t own most of them. As I previously said, few of them were used by people attacking my defense. Well, I do own Proteus, he’s average and squishy even at +20 and doesn’t really charge in time… My defense does not rely on buffs, so dispellers are useles against it, except for the ritual suiciders that fire on a double counterattack formation. Fot this kind of trick I use Kage’s surgical strikes, or Malosi before the riposter is charged, not sacrifice a hit all dispeller. Top 100 might be full of reverse V shape, but, hey, how many people reach top 100 nowadays? Beside, it’s the heroes used, not the formation that makes a defense redutable. All this theory around a match three game… I was into it long ago, now I don’t actually give it much thought. I use one team to raid, rarely change it, the same defensive formation from day one, it’s just enough to keep me above 2600 most days, I have three S1 heroes on my defense, one S2 and one old HOTM and frankly, I’m sometimes amazed how good my defense fairs. People with access to top heroes are playing a different game, you know? Advice works only if based on the target’s roster, otherwise is just a load of crap…

How do you know that?

You probably should have read my post

Sorry you don’t have Mist or Almur, that’s rough luck.
Those that do, will enjoy seeing your defense. I miss the double… my easy wins are becoming rare with this reverse saturation.

All the enemies charge so fast…

  • Standard weakness:
    tank requirement
  • Double weakness:
    hit-3 = hit-all, load-up, and…
    back heroes don’t charge
  • Reverse weakness:
    …?..

Reverse weakness: defender has absolutely 0 control over who fires first or in what order, so “team synergy” becomes a fuzzy concept.

I mean they can certainly order heroes left to right in the hopes that a few are charged at the same time and do what they intended for them to do, but rarely does that actually happen.

So, in order to put out a good reverse defense, each hero pretty much needs to be able to hold down their own, and not depend on their neighbors to maximize their potential. Put it another way, a good reverse defense is one in which there isn’t a single hero you want to set off before you’'re ready. Which means a good reverse defense will inevitably be a heavily paywalled one.

Fwiw IME raiding reverse defense, I’d say about 60% of the time, matches are still made in such a way that the center 3 go off first before the two outer “wings”.

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For me they all charge up really fast.
It’s more difficult to avoid hitting an enemy that you’re intentionally trying not to charge.

As far as your weakness. I feel like that applies to them all. None of them control perfect timing.

I can charge the right side before the left, or vice versa for standard formation as well!
My interpretation of defense is less about order of left to right for timing. And more about order from center to outside for who I want to charge first.

I like dispel on the left wing just for the purpose of following slash and hopeful skills that maybe loaded.

But the order of who fires is helpless no matter which formation you choose.

Which… could be an opposing strength for a double formation! You will charge the front heroes first and can bank on that, more than any other.

But the weakness… is severe!

Well, in standard formation the tank will almost certainly go off before anybody else, barring unforeseen cascades or weird tile placements. Same thing with reverse double since there is still technically a tank. The heroes at the back almost surely won’t go off before the frontline, and this applies to double as well.

So while the defender still won’t have perfect control over who fires in what order, there is much more certainty compared to reverse in terms of the general order of firing (front to back at least). Reverse your guess is as good as mine who goes off first. This is why I said if you want to run a reverse formation, then you better be sure each hero’s special puts a significant dent in either the offensive or defensive capability of the attackers (attack/defense debuff; dodge; taunt; blind; mana block/steal etc).

Slightly irrelevant but interest sidenote

Funnily enough my reverse formation with four S1 heroes (costumed yes, but still S1) trips up more people than it should, and performs a bit too well defensively: Moreau-cKad-cRichard-cMarjana-cJoon. Moreau and cJoon blinds, cKad is there for the annoyance factor, cRichard cripples your offensive prowess and hits decently hard as well, and cMarjana… well she’s there for the lolz. Had GM in there previously but figured might as well go full measure and throw in another S1 hero and see if people take the bait. Quite a few do, and some of them are too embarrassed to rematch. :rofl: If I had Sartana’s costume I’d just replace Moreau with her instead. An all S1 (albeit costumed) defense holding around 2600 cups, now wouldn’t that be something.

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It’s the lacking weakness :joy:

We should do a joint effort thread.
I don’t think anyone ever has before.

You want to try?

About the pros and cons of different formations. What do you say

Make a thread called Formations: Pros and Cons

You list the pros. Since your glass is obviously half full

And I will reply with the list of cons because I love my pessimism, as it never disappoints me

Nah far too lazy for that, plus after that rainbow raid thread I no longer want to write encyclopedias anymore lol. But you’re welcome to use anything that’s already been posted. As a tl;dr…

Standard
Pros: Ummm, if you have Bera and Freya it’s pretty much the only formation that makes sense for them?
Cons: Vulnerable to mono, the most basic of formations, long since figured out by most

Reverse double
Pros: None? Honestly it’s basically standard but with the two flanks pushed out to catch more tiles
Cons: Same as standard, except now you also have the cons of double as well which turns 3-hitters into AoE. Seriously this is probably the worst possible formation, I intentionally stack neutral or even weak color against tank, fire my hit-3’s and take out the defense in 9 tiles

Double
Pros: Potential to be very devastating if frontline heroes have crippling specials
Cons: 3-hitters become AoE, and will quickly wipe out your defense if you don’t kill them first

Reverse
Pros: Lack of apparent* weakness, color stacking largely ineffective, keeps attackers on their toes
Cons: Wild west of defense, you don’t have much control over who goes off first or in what order either

*emphasis on apparent

Ok I’ve contributed enough, Chao! :crazy_face:

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Nah… I’m out too then :sneezing_face:

Besides…

I still can’t think of a proper con
For Reverse Formation

Laterz

I would try 3-2 with your roster:

Seshat, Proteus,LoL, Domitia, Kingston.

With Proteus you stop enemies from getting Mana, LoLs minions work the same way, cutting mana. With Seshat and Domitia you have two debuffers to shutdown Krampus and Sif. They also together with Kingston have the firepower to take out MN and Heimdall.
An alternative could be all purple mono wirth Rigard and Merlin.
Merlins Mindless Attack could buy you time to take out the enemy with Seshat and Domitia.

Good luck

I’m using reverse double ever since formations came and it brought my sucessful defense rate way up, as well as the average cup count. Natural cup threshold increased by 100 on average. Now my defense holds around 2600 most of the time. Adding things up, reverse double is at least better than regular V shape. What’s really annoing it’s the lack of attacks once cups go down towards 2600…

By regulary consuting the raid battle history feature. Can’t wait to get it back.

Life’s though for f2p, pulls are very limited, luck only takes you so far… might get lucky once I’m done with S3 hard, but it will take a long time I’m not into map battles at all I find them boring as hell and only play during Valhalla, if I remember to. So far I only got Rattatoskr, Fura, Stonecleave, Mirewave and Sumlee from the S3 gate. No Guli, no Mist, no Bryn, no other 5*, no top S3 heto at all. For the bright side, you learn to make the best of what you got. Either that, or you quit.

That’s unrelated to formation, that’s mostly due to high mana troops. The difference of potential between those with high mana troops and those without is brutal. I’ll take on top hero teams, maxed, +20, even broken, regardless of formation, as long as the troops are way behind. Generally, the higher the player level, the higher the chance of high mana troops. My summoning luck only brought me crit troops for about two years, so my mana troops are far from max potential, while crit troops were halted around lvl 26 -28.

@Pompitous, Hey, up for a little game? Here’s defense and my roster, build me a reverse V defense, I’ll run it for a week, let you know if it fairs better than my curent reverse double.


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I like your set-up for what greens you have. It’s well thought out.
Though, Elena doesn’t scare me.
I would have dispel ready before she fires.

You might try:
Kage, Joon, Magni, Kad, Vanda
Vanda will certainly fire, before any dispel is ready. She can be a pain if you haven’t noticed.
Solid damage+def
And faster charge across your team in reverse.
I doubt you will see a significant difference, but it’s still worth a look.

How long was this history log up and running? I didn’t even notice it…but my activity crawls these days

History log came up with the last update and was shut down for tehnichal difficulties, a few days ago. Hope they’ll bring it back soon, it was a great feature. Next best thing to being able to replay your defensive fights.

Ok, I’ll switch to reverse V Kage, Joon, Magni, Kadi, Vanda for a week, will see how it holds and let you know. Thanks for your time.

To be honest with you i would not put Magni in the middle of a Reverse… c.Kiril (especially if broken) would serve you better… your current left side is not able to oneshot-onekill most of the 4 star heroes…

So I would spread the hit five heroes to the two sides… Vanda, Kageburado, c.Kiril, Joon, Kadilen…

So at the time the snipers (Kage and Joon) go off the enemy is softened up…

If c.Kiril goes off than even the slashes are killers and the snipers will do oneshots…

Just my 2 gems…