Any use of Ares besides tanking ?
He was a … desired… gift from ToL 
For me he is the only non S1 conversion from HA10. Sitting at 1/1 currently.
I think he would be quite decent as a Shadereave/BT replacement on green titans, placed next to the highest attack/highest crit heroes. I suspect that would potentially result in the overall higher titan scores but hard to say for sure without testing it out.
He does also amuse my kids with his tiny, tiny head, so there is that too.
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I believe 43 posts in any thread without negativity blows the old record away. 
Great idea with this thread. Too many people crap on heroes without trying them because someone here bashed them.
I’m f2p and can’t add anything to the conversation except thanks and that the Thorne I was forced to use is sturdy and hits like a truck (especially with some combo of cKirl, cRigard and Frida).
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I’m far from the top 50 alliances, but I hardly find Zulag in defensive teams (and I’ve been in diamond for a long time).
I agree with @Homaclese that maybe Zulag works better in a offensive team rather than in a defensive one. She can be such a pain in the neck if you don’t have dispellers, but if you have them, it’s really easy to defeat her. In my case, I’ve got Seshat to dispel or even better, I use the Hatter to steal all her buffs. I commented a couple of times that her innate ability should be the same as Margaret has, not the useless sand resist.
I can’t talk about the way Zulag works in offensive teams because my three copies of her remain at 1.1. since I got them. The game was really generous with me regarding healers and I’m not interested in her.
PS: this is off-topic. I want to tell you, @Homaclese that I absolutely agree that this is a game and we should have fun (and in case someone’s wondering, I hate losing. I’m such a competitive person in all games). I read some of you posts regarding the most unpopular heroes (Noor and Myztero) and I’m really happy that you found a use for those hated heroes. Obviously, not everybody will agree with you and more important, nobody must accept your opinions and thoughts, but there’s no need to be disrespectful. As I said once, it’s your roster (not rooster) and you use your heroes the way you want. Some heroes need a buff, for sure, others not, but we have to deal with what we have for now.
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I mentioned a few times that Leonidas was my first yellow 5* hero and I really wanted to get him, as until I got him, I was using Chao. Besides, I like the ability of stealing mana.
I don’t have his costume but I usually use him in offense. Until today, he and Seshat were the only one to be able to survive by themselves against three enemies in wars/ raids because of their abilities.
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Here is my Raffaele review from a while back. Mine is +19 now
Raffaele
Pros : Very handy instant heal to half way
Awesome heal over time for the whole team
Tanky numbers in defense and health means he should fire at least once, specially on an
attackers bad board
Full team cleanse
Elemental link +30% defense for ice heroes vs specials, good in a blue stack
Superb in a very fast tournament or very good in a buff booster tournament
Instant heal to 50% is not affected by heal reduction specials e.g Fura, Roc etc
Cons : Slow mana (which may actually work in your favour at times as you want some of your team
to have taken damage to make the instant heal worth it)
Low attack
Redundant passive skill, you’re not going to be using him for his attack which makes the
resistance vs attack down pointless
Heal over time is dispellable
My main issue, which is specific to me and my raid attack team, is that Gazelle removes his heal over time which makes it nearly pointless to take him. He would be ridiculously good in my team if Gazelle let him heal
8/10 hero. Could be amazing in a raid attack team where you can time the special for maximum effect.
I would add Natalya and Gregorion to the list. Both were called by many the worst HotM of their color until Noor and Zocc showed up.
Nat: many don’t like her DoT but it also has advantage by not being affected by defense, so Heimdall can just sadly look at his armor. She also has that strong mana slow so while her DoT takes some time, she quite cripples her target until then. She’s also incredibly efficient against reviver wings. Charge her, fire her against MN or Alberich and when you come back later they need just a bop in the head before keeling over.
Greg: He’s not liked much because of average speed but his crit is important for titans (hello Jormungandr on which most regular strategies don’t work but crit does) and can save you even in raids.
- In class quest;
- Against green titans;
- In raids and war team where you may want him sandwiched by two powerful heroes with high attack stats and maybe some that provide additional crit bonus as Element Link since they won’t be overwriting each other or supported by crit troops to boost the crit percentage;
- Maps, quests, events, ninja tower, ToL, mythic titans, etc.
He is a good overall hero and may serve well on double or reverse double raid defense formation. He was a prized hero in 2017 and 2018 and was considered as one of the best tanks before the reign of Guinevere. I used him as regular raid tank since obtaining him up to when I got my Telly maxed within the month of her release as HOTM in March 2020.
Unfortunately, he is one of the first generation of HOTM lacking Element Link and passive abilities, as well as suffering from inferior stats compared to the latest HOTMs released in the game.
He is still serviceable though, although not as much utilized now compared to other prized new red heroes from the various portals. But if you only summon using free pulls, getting him and maxing him is far better than maxing most classic legendaries and their dupes. His very high attack and crit buff as well as his heal over time shouldn’t be belittled. Tons of counters to him though such as Sonya, Frida, etc.
Hah!! Obtained the hero very much early in my fledgling self in 2018 when he was released as HOTM. Was able to get him to 3/70 in a few months but tonics went instead to Alberich, 2 Liannas with costume, Evelyn and Telluria. Tonics were only given to him late in the 2nd half of 2020, more than 2 years after getting Greg.
Indeed, against blue titans, his crit bonus does sure make a very very very huge impact on titan hits. He is in my main monogreen team for regular raiding. Only emblemed to +8 opting for the mana bonus node so that he fires in 9 tiles because he is supported by a level 17 mana troop. I was a bit regretful for not immediately maxing the hero.
I would like to know your guys opinion on Fenrir. I think he has a very limited purpose. That’s why I won’t give him telescopes at the moment
Not sure why Fenrir is on this list, I think he’s an awesome finisher and his animation is one of my favorites.
But to digress, I am giving serious consideration to leveling Noor. I am sitting on 19 rings and other than Reuben and Season 1 heroes w/out costume, she is my only other red project. If I do not pull Yang Mai this month I think I will indeed go for it. Given the current purple tank meta in wars, I need as many minion busters as possible.
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I use Raffaele constantly on blue stacks. (I don’t have Ariel, of course). My blue stack wins most raids I take them on. [Krampus - Finley - Glenda - Thorne - Raffaele]
His slow speed means that he generally turns things around if they’re going south - I’ve had raids where 3 heroes were in the red. Boom, Ice Treatment brings them to 50% and to full within a few turns.
I know that there are a lot of people who say that slow heroes never go off. But that’s not my experience with Raffaele. I don’t regret the scopes at all.
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This is a great thread homaclese. I wonder if it would be worthwhile to extend the discussion to 4* as well (Danzaburo comes to mind).
Anyway, another one I would add to the list is Mok-Arr. Frequently ■■■■ upon and derided, he deserves some love. As a strictly mono player, I use him in my purple stack whenever I meet someone who has made the unfortunate decision to use two or more yellows in their defense team. He hits like a truck, not quite at a Killhare level (harder against yellow), but close, and without the negative effect.
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Agree on Fenrir, I have him, I use him all the time and have no complaints about him.
About Noor, don’t believe all the negativity around her. I have her maxed, also I use her every day in my anti-minion team and am quite happy with her. Plus, she became a regular in my autoplay team. So, stop hesitating and just do it! 
This is one of the examples of anti-minion team (c.Sabina is there because of Sif, usually it’s someone else). Btw, I looove Bera+Freya defences now. 
I really like this topic. I have a bunch of “misfits” and it saddens me that they are not well regarded. Some, I think, deserve the bad reputation, but I can definitely vouch for some of others. Here are my thoughts:
I currently have maxxed:
Rafaelle +18 – I love this guy. Is him better than Ariel? Probably not, but there wasn’t a single day I regretted giving this him 6 telescopes and a bunch of emblems. Here’s a write-up from a while back on him.
Neith +20 – I think she’s criminally underrated. Probably one of the best yellow flanks out there. Balanced stats. Reasonable special damage, annoying blind + mana reduction. Very nice Elemental link. This girl is doing EVERYTHING. Now I’ve been using White Rabbit and Delilah more on defense, but I still use Neith a lot on offense. Many many times her blind saved my sorry rear from game-deciding specials, and her mana cut bought me the much-needed time to heal or finish someone off before they fire. The fact that she hits all is also awesome.
Grimble +10 – Decent minion-killer. Not much more than that. Low attack stat (although bulky) but fire him at the right moment and this guy will give you the edge in the battlefield. Faster matches makes him hard to time well, so bring him against those MN+Krampus or Telluria+BK teams. Bring two healers. This guy will help you outlast the enemy, not finish them quick.
Misandra +7 – Misandra normally charges at 8 tiles (no emblem bonus, no maxed troop). But usually you charge her at 9 tiles (3 simple matches). That means the other blue average speed heroes will be one tile away from firing. You fire Misandra and 40% of the times, she will make the averages fire a turn earlier. It’s that simple. Pair this girl with say Richard and Kiril and you get those guys to fire with one less match and a turn earlier. It could be decisive. I also love when there are 2 wings left and she hits them both.
These I have sitting in my roster, but I couldn’t bring myself to level them yet:
Guardian Owl – 3.70 – I really want to like this guy, but his special is not delivering enough for very slow. And I won’t give him darts just for very fast environment.
Malicna -1.1 – Mixed feelings about her. Element Link seems solid, but the fact that 2/3 of the alternatives are really underwhelming is holding me back.
Rana – 1.1 – I feel she’s just outdated. I don’t think she’s bad, but she’s just way back in my priority line.
Norns – 1.1 – Seems like a fun hero, which is a super plus for me. But I don’t see where I could fit her exactly in my teams.
Zulag – 1.1 – The moment SGG makes Raid formations a reality for wars and tournments, I’ll give her the tabards. Not worth just for raids.
Gregorion - 3.70 – Don’t think his necessarily bad. I just have better options.
Yunan – 1.1 – I already have Heimdall and Tellluria, so it’s a roster-based decision not to level him. I just don’t get why he’s so rare, because he seems solid.
Jade – 3.70 - I have Garnet and wanted to level her next, as she seems fine in theory, but she’s so hated by the community that I couldn’t pull the trigger yet.
Noor – 3.70 - I also really really wanted to like her, but even at 35% HP/attack, slow speed seems too slow.
Costumed Elena – 3.70 – Also wanted to give her a shot. Maybe when I have a spare set of rings.
Perseus – 1.1 – Underwhelming. Would rather level Magni.
Reuben – 1.1 – Underwhelming.
Justice – 3.70 – Maybe worth after the buff? As an owner of Neith, I don’t see myself using Justice a lot.
Zocc – 1.1 – Willing to give him a shot as well, after seeing so many nice reviews.
Thorne – 3.70 – Solid hero. This guy eventually will get ascended.
Magni – 3.70 – Solid hero. This guy eventually will get ascended.
Ranvir – 3.70 – Ranvir right now has 1 single function: boost my damage against rare green titans. When I can’t use Tarlak, I bring this guy. The misses are a pain against 14* titans. I’ve been considering maxxing Tarlak and Ranvir (I use both at 3.70) because of challenge events and heroic modes.
Noor
This was a pet topic of mine for quite an extended period when she was first released - I just didn’t get the universal hate for her. She was voted worst HOTM of the year, and possibly of all time. I guess the factors are that she is slow (oh, the horror) and she “only” has sparrows as part of her special. That’s right, her special has ONE BULLET POINT and that bullet point JUST SUMMONS.
What are her redeeming qualities then? Well she has the innate ability to create a minion for herself whenever an opponent summons a minion. That is without question the best innate ability of any hero in the game. Fully emblemed as I have her that means an insta-heal of 512hp which by itself usually means she is last (wo)man standing if things go wrong, giving you a chance at a comeback. What else? Her minions are the strongest in the game, now at 30% attack and 30% health after the recent buff. Her elemental link gives 30% protection vs specials, which means she has extra value as part of a red stack. Finally, her cute little sparrows are carnivorous and destroy all other minions on any hero that doesn’t have some sort of minion resistance - so basically any hero other than Vela, Tel and I think the upcoming July HOTM.
Is she the best minion counter around? No, she isn’t. To my mind Grimble ticks that box. Then there is Skadi whose special wins battles by destroying enemy minions. C Gormek is pretty good too. But those specials are very powerful when they cast, but don’t do anything between casts. Noor’s minions are an ongoing minion-mitigation strategy which is perfect for battle of attrition style configurations.
PVE
Noor is one of the best heroes to bring to any type of PVE stage. She provides a lot of extra survivability and her slow speed is not a big factor in PVE. She shines in ninja tower and I have gotten very good use out of her in challenge events. She probably won’t get you the very high end scores in competitive play but she will help you get top 5K/top 10K by whittling away at corner mobs, allowing you to save tiles and specials for the later stages.
Configuration
If you plan on bringing a team that hits hard and hits quick, Noor is useless. If you have a team set up for battle of attrition/survivability, she will end up casting multiple times and will be of great benefit. I personally have her teamed up with Wilbur, Baldur, Lady Wool and Gullinbursiti, and when I have Yang Mai ready she will replace one of the yellows. One of the benefits of Yang Mai will be to boost the mana of the reds which will make Noor potentially a 9 tile hero with a mana troop if tiles dry up (to be tested).
The other great synergies are with Freya, who can greatly increase the strength of the minion attacks, and Frosth, who boosts all of the minion stats. The stats of a Noor minion twice-booste by Frosth are equivalent to a fully emblemed Gunnar (I have a separate thread on this) which is pretty damn impressive.
If you plan on taking on Bera you need to take a cleanser
Stats, Emblems
Noor has pretty high survivability as it is but if you use her regularly it is well worth fully emebleming her so she gives all of the minions the benefit of the stat boosts. The typical build is health so the minions have more health (and using crit troops to further boost makes sense) but with the introduction of Frosth and if you have Freya it may actually make sense to go down the attack path, give her a good ninja troop… I am not quite sure how powerful the attacks will get but I suspect they will actually provide a very decent ongoing DOT
Who to fight
You want to go up against a minion summoning tank, ideally 2 - so she keeps getting her self minions and so that her minions handle the minion threat leaving the rest of the team to provide the attack. The following are heroes to watch out for
Freya - a very good candidate as her minions fall very easily to sparrows
Bera - a good candidate but not without a cleanser. C Rigard is good and Shale actually has a use case as here as he is a red and can have his cleanse always ready for Noor when she fires. As long as you cleanse just before firing Noor her sparrows should be able to easily handle all of the moth minions
Tel - Tel is herself immune to the insta kill but other minions she summons aren’t. Just be careful with her mana down as that can mess up your strategies around timing your specials
Krampus, MN, Delilah - all these are fine too although not as common as the above
Example
Here Noor faces off against Bera and Freya (and MN too) and ends up taking out something like 30-35 minions through the course of the raid. If we say the average minion is 250 hp (very conservative estimate) that is still a total damage output of 7500 for 30 minions, above and beyond the actual minion damage and of course the added survivability the minions provide
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I agree on this. I have seen so many calls for buffing her but based on my experiences fighting her on defence I don’t think that is justified at all. I can see her being very useful in attack too. I would have loved to have gotten her
I personally would put him up as the best minion counter in the game right now. I use him as an off color mana insurance policy so if my main stack (all fast/average mana) fails he can charge the main stack after destroying all the minions, which is an insta win. This works out at:
- 5 minions, 6 tiles on stack - fully charged
- 10 minions, 3 tiles on stack - fully chatged
Other than the mana boost the damage output of killing 10 freya or bera minions is around 3500, plus another 1000-1500 on top of that - my attack path Grimble end up doing 5000hp of damage in one special. I have a second maxed and am considering doing a third - he is that good
She is very, very good. The link is the best part but don’t forget she gets a very solid hit each and every time she does her special. There are no bad alternatives. One will just about win you the game, 1 will remove attack boosts and save your heroes from dying to snipers and one will remove any defense buffers and may get you the edge in taking down an enemy (although you can easily bring Tiburkiss to overwrite with a bigger defense down if required). She even does well as a +4 tank for me - better than a fully emblemed Dr Moreau did
I don’t have her but I know a lot of people are getting very good titan scores by using her in creative ways
I think he would significantly boost blue titan scores
See the write-up I just did
I’d like to have her. Not sure exactly where I would use her but the attack stat is so high and the reflect is deadly. If nothing else I think she would be a great asset in PVE
I wish I had something good to say about him…
As above…
I will do a write up of him. He is awesome
I have no choice but to use him, and I get the frustration. I think there are potentially 2 further use cases for him over a Tarlak or Miki:
- On purple titans - he also has a protection vs holy, which helps team survivability
- On green titans - I use Baldur and Ranvir’s special significantly boosts the average damage from Baldur’s ongoing hit, which can give you 5-10K extra points at the end. Tarlak and Miki don’t boost Baldur’s damage
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I agree that overall Shale is an inferior version of C Rigard.
This being a positive thread about heroes I have finally found a use case for him where he would be a better fit than C Rig, which is supporting Noor in a battle vs Bera. Somewhat niche yes but where you have colour dependencies in a battle like that it can get tricky managing all of the matches and sequences. With Shale you know that he will always be ready to cleanse himself and Noor and one other whenever Noor is ready to fire, so she will always be able to create the minions that will remove the Bera threat.
Of course G Kong would achieve the same cleansing outcome and provide the big hit too… but with limited rosters I think this is a viable use for Shale
Yup, this is the fact people often completely disregard: instant self-heal of about 400hp (mine has no emblems yet), overheal to teammates AND if there are minions total dmg of about 700 to even 1000 in opposing minions killed by sparrows… And I don’t get why people take it for granted - one sparrow hit can shave off 3 stacked minions, as if it’s a decent sniper. 
I just pulled emblems off telluria, and put them on ares instead. I figured running mother north - morel - ares - Fogg - neith or Clarissa on defense. Feel like ares fits better in my team with defense down with crit/ attack up.