I have good snipers but I’m still unclear on who makes a good tank. The community seems so divided on this. Right now my primary tank is Kunchen; he seems to be a pain when I face him, so I’m copying. Seriously, though, snipers as tanks? We’ve all seen it; sometimes it stings quite a lot. (The panel seems totally split on Aegir, which is a moot point since I don’t have him.) My talented 5s are Kunchen, Atomos, Mok-Arr, Leonidas, Khagan, Magni. Then I have Frida, Marjana, Lianna, Domitia fully ascended but not yet levelled and talented. My talented 4s are Chao, Melendor, Sumitomo, Cyprian, Li Xiu. Agwe, Sabina and Kiril with many fully levelled but untalented 4* waiting in the wings, including Boril, Kashhrek and Boldtusk. So. What statistics make a good tank, and why? And, who amongst my aforementioned roster is a good tank, and why? Is it high health and defence plus a damaging special skill? Thanks for the feedback, I should know this by now but I don’t; the forum has me completely bass-ackwards with all the different opinions out there.
Kunchen is a great tank.
Tanks should be strong (high defense, high health) enough to survive cascades of tiles and have a special that makes you pay for sinking tiles into them (inevitably or on purpose). Kunchen is good because despite his slow skill speed, his special heals, applies a defense debuff on the entire opposition (helping your other heroes) and is durable enough to not die easily.
Thanks voidstrike. Perhaps I understand tanks better than I thought, based on osmosis. I will keep Kunchen as my primary tank. What do you think about Frida? One of my colleagues said I should level her up pretty quickly as a good tank. Do you agree? If so, should I use a precious reset emblem on Cyprian, and give Frida his emblems? I’m not 100% confident about that, because I need powerful 4* s too, for a good war spread. Your thoughts?
Frida is great but not with the intent of being a tank. Her excellence comes with her elemental defense debuff which stacks with regular defense debuffs. Helps make monster damage experiences on titans and fire enemies.
Thank you so much voidstrike!!
To re-use an old statement here on the forum, a good tank is that hero that when triggered makes you say “oh gosh, please no”. And when that heroes usually at least makes you said it once, then he is suitable for that role.
Kunchen is one of that heroes, and so, a good tank. One of the best actually avalaible.
You already have an excelent tank.
In my opinion the best tanks are:
Purple: ursena, boss wolf, kunchen (aeron can tank too)
Blue: richard, ariel (aegir is a joke imo)
Red: mitsuko, black knight, santa (gm can tank if you need him to. Ares sucks)
Green: yunan
Yellow: justice, guinevere, drake, delilah, onatel (poseidon can tank too)
The tanks (even in a less-than-4400 lineup) that make me hesitate are, in order:
- Onatel
- Ariel
- Guinevere
- Santa
- Zimkitha
- Ursena
Except in extreme lineups (4400+; flanked by Onatel/Ariel; with MN or Alby on the wing; etc), I actually have the same success rate against Kunchen as overall (91%).
… okay, so there’s still some uncertainty in those numbers … particularly Zimmy tanks are rare enough that I’m not sure if it might be coincidence … but that’s where I am right now.
By him self, Kunchen isn’t a great tank. He is a healer, and healers are awful tanks. His only menace is the defense down which makes his team mates a lot more deadly than usual. So Kunchen’s power resides in the team behind him, not in himself. I usually take him on red mono, but I tend to avoid him when he is backed up by fast multiple target hitters like GraveMaker or Zeline…
Yes, this is exactly right, and Kunchen fits both of those. I’d expand the conventional interpretation of damage to include something that hurts the attackers a lot (as the hefty defense down does), and / or makes it much harder to kill the tank and frontline. Healing and a useful elemental defense both fit the bill for the latter and - OH NOES - Kunchen does all three of those things.
Lastly, I’d add that the tank is better if it can be complemented well. That has to do with a lot of factors, including the tank’s element, their special skill, but primarily the other available heroes (especially on YOUR roster). For example, I think Poseidon is a terrifying flank for Kunchen. Correct element so that the attacker’s tiles are weak against him, fast so he has a decent chance to fire while Kunchen is still alive, and a useful effect, in that it protects Kunchen from the types of ailments he is most likely to face. That is, a yellow 3tack or mono that has multiple mana controllers.
No one addressed your full defense, but I would think the natural suggestion would be to just field a rainbow squad of your five stars, possibly Lianna – Magni – Kunchen – Leonidas – Marjana.
So what is tank - it is a hero that is exposed to the most attacks during a raid defense as 3 out of 7 tile columns will hit them directly.
That means they will be getting the most damage early on. On the other hand, they will also charge up quickly. So a hero that is a good tank is a hero who can survive the most directly (high def/hp stats) and at the same time has a strong (not necessarily fast) special skill.
‘Strong’ skills on tanks are those that:
- Heal tank and significant part of his team (effectively reversing couple turns for the attacker) - see Kunchen, Ares, Guin
- Significanly debuff the enemies, to a point where their consequent attacks will have much less impact to the game (including mana cuts, which effectively counters all specials) - see Guin or Justice - or when they become easier to kill, see Kunchen
- Buff the tank and the team survivability significantly - see Aegir, but also buff the tank on defense to a color that they are weak against (as people would usually stack against tank, so if tank manages to fire, the damage protection will be significant) - see Guin, Ursena or Kashrek
There are also ‘aggresive tanks’ - like Gravemaker or Ursena or Rana or Yunan, who are focused on killing the enemy faster than they become relevant.
There are couple heroes in the game that would be a great tank based on their special skill but really aren’t because of their stats (like Elena, Azlar or Neith - although people still run them on that position), there are couple heroes who have very tanky stats but whose skills are not necessarily applicable for tank (Guardian Owl or Mother North). So it may take some game sense and experience to be able to evaluate whether particular hero would be good for a tank or not. Looking through top 100 rank would definitely give some ideas.
Sometimes I like a different tank for offense and defense. Kunchen makes a fine defense tank on offense he’s better in the corner. I like cyprian and boril tank on offense because counterattack also like fast hitters tank on offense. Of course I’m usually told I don’t know how to play but this definitely is a funny tank on offense is Wu Kong. For some Reason on Titan hits Wu in the tank just throwing some of my best Titan hits. It’s just an opinion on tanks and everyone has one.
Like others already said, Kunchen is not a good tank for an experienced player. I find him useless and I didn’t lose a single battle against him in the last 2 months. He is a slow healer for God sake… For a player like me, is one of the worst tanks and easiest to defeat in raids and wars. The only place is really good, raid tournaments/rush attack.
For OP, of course, Kunchen is the only and best solution.
Thank you all for your opinions and wisdom. It seems I don’t have a lot of 5* tanks and, given that, Kunchen remains my best option, so I made the right choice. I do have a lot of snipers, and some of them have defensive buffs, so right now I’m sticking to my team of
Atomos or Mok-Arr > Magni >> Kunchen << Khagan < Leonidas,
until I can ramp up some other snipers, like Marjana and Lianna, or a second tier like Frida (she’s en route). Thank you, all, again.
One thing I’d add is that I think a lot of people judge tanks by how easy is is for them to win a raid against that tank, which I don’t think is really the right way to think about it. Like just because Aegir is in theory easy to beat doesn’t mean he’s a bad tank. If you can use to hold off lower ranked players on their way up who can cost a lot of cups, and if weaker teams struggle against him in wars, he’s still doing the majority of his job as a tank.
There goes my regular status…
Kunchen is a regular tank in top defenses because he is bad…
Ignore Scarecrow… He seems to always have the opinion that everything is easy to beat… 
which it can be but not all the time.
In reality, there is no perfect tank… all of them can be beaten with either a) fantastic heroes with an average board or b) average heroes with a fantastic board.
The other thing is that every tank will win some battles & lose some… Some heroes just have a better strike rate than others.
With that being said, I 100% echo the sentiment above which is the best tanks are the ones that make you hesitant to face… HOWEVER, what you are hesitant to face changes over time and isn’t the same as what others feel… For me, I was once in awe of Horghall Tanks… Now I think hes super Meh… Guin used to scare me heaps too but now, not so much… Kunchen the same…
My personal list of the top tanks in the game are (in no specific order):
- Guinevere - While you can work around the mana control by throwing off-colour tiles at her to set up a board, she can still be annoying with the Purple Resist
- Yunan - You don’t want him to fire… he fires and hits you with the DoT & Healing Block, you’re in trouble
- Drake Fong - His speed coupled with the damage & blind make him a touch annoying…
- Kunchen - Not a great tank on his own as he doesn’t do much directly… Coupled with some good
fast DoA & Snipers tho he can be very annoying - Gravemaker - his speed… that is all…
- Onatel - She’s the inverse of Guin where if you just toss tiles at her, you will pay. HOWEVER, she doesn’t block your mana as well as Guin does so you have a chance that way.
There are a couple popular ones I’ve left off my list including Aegir as hes not overly bad to face… Still a good tank but the lack of impact on MY offence team means he doesn’t really perturb me at all…
Imo, a tank is one who can be the shield for the rest of the team to charge up. Example: Kunchen, he cleanses, heals, has innate resistance to defense down, and defense downs the entire enemy team. Another great tank that you see often in the upper ranks of play is Guinevere. Her mana cut, HoT, and other aspects make her amongst the most wanted tanks for everyone’s team.
Stats are also another thing to take into account. A tank has to have relatively high defense (Boril is an example of mad high base defense before emblems).
Overall that is what a tank means to me. To be the vanguard for the team. As long as a tank is flanked by fast snipers to protect him/her/it then you’re good. Another good tank that I have been using lately that is in the base roster and not a 5 star is Li Xiu. Been going full defense and health as I mainly use her for her mana cut. She is my tank on my main for the past couple tourneys. And has always come through. I have her flanked by Sumitomo and Kingston typically.
Just to go against the grain I’ll say that a good tank is one that helps the team kill the attackers. This can come in many forms, whether that is by being a
- Glorified meat shield (Kashrek, Aegir, Grazul, etc.)
- Saboteur / enemy debuffer (Guinevere, Boss Wolf, Justice etc.)
- Amplifier / allied buffer / healer (Ares, Kiril, Black Knight, etc.)
- Straight up damage dealer (Gravemaker, Yunan, Ursena, etc.)
These are not meant to be a list of the best tanks, just the best examples of the qualities that go into a good tank. Often the excellent tanks have more than one of the above qualities. Kunchen for example ticks the boxes of Numbers 1 -3.
If a hero isn’t tough enough to survive long enough to fire their SS (see No. 1 above), then there’s no point in considering Nos. 2 - 4. This is why heroes like Elena, Azlar, and most snipers are not thought of as good tanks. Not because they are squishy, but because they can be taken down before they fire their SS. And / or the sniper’s SS doesn’t do enough and they are just a meat shield with one good punch in them.
If a hero’s SS doesn’t really execute well on anything in Nos. 2 - 4 then they are just pointless as tanks (i.e. Ameonna, Margaret, etc.) and they are likely most suited for special cases.
The thing that is in most everyone’s blind spot is how to find a hero that would do well as a tank if only they could survive long enough to fire. This is why Gravemaker is still in the list of top red tanks even though his stats are vanilla average across the board. His speed enables him to fire once or twice before the typical attacker can kill him. Find another hero that could excel in Nos. 2 - 4 and you could have a really good tank with just a few emblems to help their survivability. It surprised me when Zimkitha fell into this category and I popped into the top 10 through defense wins alone. Other unconventional tanks are Athena and Hel. Undoubtedly there are more out there who are not in the spotlight because they don’t have the right kind of team behind them. A Zimkitha tank’ed team will never stand out if she’s flanked by healers or average speed hitters for example.
These tanks won’t unseat the top tanks in their colors but they can make the right team perform better than they would with a traditional tank.
All tanks will lose to good boards. Most tanks will win with bad boards. Great tanks are those that punish the mediocre boards that you can’t convert to good in time against them.
Having said that, Guin is a great tank. If she gets firing it is very hard to stop her. Same with Onatel. They are the two I have the most problems facing with a mediocre board. Also very good tanks, at least against me, are Delilah, Yunan, and Kunchen (yay OP).
I see a lot of yellow in my list … 