Is Margaret useable now with the buff? Margaret Balance Discussion

To be absolutely accurate a very fast hero without any mana boost takes 6.5 tiles to charge

With a mana troop at level 11, or any combination of mana bonus over 9%, they charge in only 6 tiles.

@diesdas count of tiles is absolutely correct, just they start at 6.5 tiles to be clear

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Margarate after buff

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I loved where she dodged Alice. Margaret Telly seems like a really good /2 green.

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She doesnā€™t look extremely different than before, the damage dealt is almost insignificant, but now the dodge seems to be a little more functional.

Anyway as she is, I am giving her tonics after Tarlak.

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Iā€™ve had her at 4/80 since she came out (first HotM ever, so I ignored all advice and maxed her). Iā€™ve been taking her on mono-green raids, and it has been very successful. The damage is very small, even worse than Zimkitha, but itā€™s not nothing. She takes those pesky heroes that suck up two snipers and are left with a hundred HPā€¦

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I have taken a few videos using her in raids at 4/80.
Must said I am surprised as she has been quite good!
Will try to upload later today.
She definitely has a place in attack teams

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Well, I had to create a youtube channel LOL, but here they are!

Raid Hit 1

Raid hit 2

Raid hit 3

Raid hit 4

War hit

Well I won all the matches and in all of the cases against green tanks (If I remember well the raids), stacking green mostly and with more or less 200 TP less than the defense. She is quite useful and very good at saving time for the team, plus her damage helps quite a bit as it hits most of the time at least 2.

One of the main benefits is if the dodge triggers no status ailments or effects are induced in the target, and that may be just glorious! In raid two drake targeted Margaret and her two neighbors, and the three of them dodged the damage and as a consequence the blind. That clearly secured the win.

Raid 3 Is also a good example because it is a huge come back. Ariel dodged a seshat hit and Margaret cannot be dispelled which is also huge.

War hit was also good! She can held her own against a sniper in late game situations now because she deals damage.

Another benefit is the huge tile damage, as it is very help when stacking.

Overall I am very happy after maxing her, and I had doubts about her usefulness. She will be in my war teams. Anyway, I would suggest all of you to look at your rosters and A.M. (and also pulling behavior and volume) to decide if she is worth of tonics or not. I had plenty (17) but after using her I would have pulled the trigger even having less. In fact I plan on giving her emblems to increase her strengths even more! (more damage please!!!)

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Iā€™ve had Margaret since the original HOTM, and because (in 3years) Iā€™ve only been gifted with 2 other green 5*ā€™s (both ElkanenšŸ™„), Iā€™ve had her maxed.

She has never been great, but has been a valuable part of a stacked/mono green team.

I would not say she is a character to seek out, but Iā€™m a fan of leveling the characters given to me.

But I still canā€™t think of a weaker 5*ā€¦can you?

She has always died quickly. It doesnā€™t seem to be the specials that target her, but the AI hits her constantly with normal attacks.

Previously, her dodge was Maybe 50% effective. Another gamble character.

The added special attack isnā€™t a huge hit, but Iā€™m really thankful that they gave her something that can consistently be effective.

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Thanks @ierazo for the valuable videos! They are all good examples for facing some of the strongest heros in game. The dodges saved their lives many times. Really boosted my decision to let Margo have the tonics.

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you are welcome @Riverwind !
She is not a super star killer, but now she is an excellent offensive support !!
It may be overlooked, but the high tile dmg allows her to be even more effective in stacks

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First raid of the night with Margaret, beat a team nearly 4700 TP first try with 400 less TP, she dodged like 8 Special skills and of course saved the match with that ! Even better, board was below average but could recover and only lost kingston




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Had a chance to give her a proper go today. Going from 20 > 30% on her lower end dodge has made a big difference imo, quite usable Iā€™ve found now.

Long video trying to showcase her ability more than being about wining fights, couple middle fights can be skipped as her ability was never targeted.

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Amazing Margaret.

I am using her in raids only in 4/55 (my idea is getting her emblems to +6).

Iā€™m using Ariel (+10) - Kingstone (+6) - Margo (4/55) - Telly (+12) - Fenrir (+4)

Margo prevent snipers damage a lot, and gives Kingstone and Telluria more chances to survive. In deed she charges her mana very very quick when Kingstone and Ariel use their specials.

When Kingstone fires the damage decreases and itā€™s useful to prevent damage on Margo tooā€¦

Wowā€¦she is a A+ hero support without any doubt

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Hello again!

After watching these videos, I have to say this is a really huge step up for Margaret and that 20%-30% increase on the minimum dodge percentage is even more significant than it seems. You have to understand that I played with 20% Margaret, so thereā€™s a huge difference both in play and mathematically.

One of the big problems with 20% Margaret at 3-70 (and even if she had been maxed) is weak defense/HP, so sheā€™s pretty easy to kill. All hitters were her worst nightmare because, letā€™s face it, 20% plays like, ā€œAlmost never,ā€ because 1 in 5 in this game is almost never. A couple of all hitters on the other side and you werenā€™t taking her. Theyā€™d chop her down with normal attacks and all hitters.

What we have seen is that her dodge results in DOT also being neutralized. There werenā€™t many DOT characters when I played with Margaret, so I donā€™t know if this is new or if it was always the case. Again, I never took her against a Gravemaker because I figured sheā€™d be barely over 20% to dodge. I do recall that if she dodged the attack that she would dodge something like a blind, mana drop or defense dropā€¦so sheā€™s probably always dodged DOT.

So, letā€™s look at the math differences, shall we:

20% Margaret:

All Three Hit: 51.2%

2/3 Hit: 38.4%

1/3 Hit: 9.6%

All DODGE: 0.8%

Over half the time, all three of them are getting hit by all attackers assuming the minimal case.

30% Margaret:

All Three Hit: 34.3%

2/3 Hit: 44.1%

1/3 Hit: 18.9%

All Dodge: 2.7%

So, the single most likely case (less than 50% by itself) is one dodges and the other two are hit. Again, this is assuming direct damage from your Gravemaker, Vela, Telluria, is insufficient to take her off of the minimum dodge rate, which we really donā€™t know.

In any case, we go from a 48.8% chance that AT LEAST ONE dodges to a 65.7% chance of at least one dodging. Not only that, but the cumulative probability of two or all three dodging MORE THAN DOUBLES to 21.6%, which can make a huge difference.

Snipers continue to basically just miss, especially 5* snipers, but that was basically always trueā€¦from my experience. She was mainly on my raiding team when I needed to attack blue tanks who themselves were either snipers (or strong three-hitters) or were flanked by snipers/three-hitters.

And, again, paired with someone like Drake Fong (and before that, Hu Tao, on my team) the blinding combined with the dodge just meant snipers miss, end of story.

FUTURE USES:

As weā€™ve seen from some of the excellent videos, Margaret has a place on a team going up against the xxxx-Telluria-Vela combo, and I love to see that. Very fast mana is great and ANY tile damage you can get against Telluria is excellent tile damage since her biggest strength seems to be that sheā€™s darn near impossible to kill before she goes off.

Margaret can do this probably as part of any team as long as youā€™re not going mono some other color (obviously), but sheā€™s best paired with at least one nature hero to take advantage of her element link.

If youā€™re going with a team of any variation that has only 1-2 other green heroes, then it is probably best not to cover them with Margaret unless it is really necessary if there is a red attacker on the other side. The reason for this is that the element link reduces the amount of potential HP damage of a special, and therefore, makes Margaret (and those near her) less likely to dodge. By not putting other green heroes in a 3-2 or 2-2-1 or 2-1-1-1 beside Margaret, other heroes can take full advantage of Hide in Shadows while green heroes take advantage of Element Link.

There are probably a few exceptions and one exception I often did was putting her beside Kashkrek a lot of the time because his job was to keep her alive and both of them dodging. I usually would not do this against red snipers, but against someone like Colen or Azlar, yes, because chances are nobody was going to dodge anyway.

If you want to stack red against xxx-Telluria-Vela 3-2 with green, this is pretty good because two red heroes can be on either side of Margaret and are more likely to dodge Vela. If Velaā€™s DD is dodged, then so are all of her effects including water damage and attack nerf on reds. The red heroes are also more likely to dodge than Margaret (even though we donā€™t know how much more likely) because Vela does extra damage to red heroes. These heroes may also dodge the mana slow from Telluria and any damage/effects from whoever the red hero is.

So, everyone needed an answer for Telluria/Vela and here she is now that she has been made at least a good support character against all hitters.

That was really the problem with Margaret all along. She mainly has one highly specialized use and, quite honestly, she wasnā€™t very good at it. Snipers-Excellent. Three Hitters-Flip Coin. All Hitters-Theyā€™re usually all getting hit.

Now her tile damage remains massive and she is good at the one thing that is her main purpose.

MY PERSONAL GRADES:

Defense: F

There is no reason to use Margaret on defense.

Tank: F

*Margaret is just too vulnerable to stacking to tank, even with her mana speed. Even if she does hit her special, itā€™s usually going to be early enough in the fight that the attacking team can just wait for it to wear off, or hit the outsides with snipers. A sniper/debuffer hitting the outside will even cause everything but the Element Link to go away for the other green heroes with only Margaret keeping Hide in Shadows. In many fights, the fight wonā€™t even have progressed enough that any offensive heroes are even lit up.

Just keep throwing tiles at her and eventually she will go away.

Outside: D-

*Margaret does not serve what she is designed to do on the outside. The only use I could think of is maybe on the outside protecting a super strong healer flank in a Field Aid war. That is extremely limited usefulness on the outside.

Honestly, I actually also hate that idea, but I wanted to be fair and really reach for a use for her on the outside. Maybe if youā€™re F2P or C2P and her HP + (DEF * 2) is not much worse than some of your other heroes.

Flank: D-

*This is probably her best possible position on defense, but itā€™s still not good. The attackers can easily hold specials or just target the other side.

DEFENSE OVERALL: It would work theoretically against random AI, but all of the E&P players that would go up against a defense Margaret have functioning brains and would hold their specials.


Offense: B

Raids/Wars: A-

*This is a brand new grade for her given the high effectiveness of her dodge as well as her ability to counter the devastating new combo of Telluria and Vela. Margaret can be used however you like, she can protect your attackers or protect your healers; then, if your attackers die, you can just let the massive tile damage do the work while the healer heals and both dodge specials.

Margaret can be used on virtually any team, but functions best on a heavy green team (in general) or on a primary red stack designed to take out Telluria/Vela. This gives the attacking team a pretty reasonable chance to have fire heroes get hit by Vela without their attack stat getting wrecked, not to mention not taking the extra damage.

In many cases, if there are only 2-3 green heroes on the team, keeping them away from Margaret will give them full use of the Element Link to protect against fire without reducing the ability of any heroes (except Margaret herself) to dodge while Hide in Shadows is active.

My personal old grade for this might have been a B-, or something. She used to really suck against all hitters of any kind.

World Map/Quests: B-

She has her uses in this regard, but sheā€™s pretty easy to kill just with normal damage if youā€™re not careful.

Randomness is gonna random and never SEEM random when it does, but regular enemies all hitting Margaret in a row can conspire to kill her pretty quickly unless you donā€™t mind being generous with those red or blue potions from time to time.

Other than that, sheā€™s great if you can get her to a boss alive because she causes strong bosses to miss. This is especially useful on quests/events because many of those bosses tend to be super strong snipers. If thatā€™s not a 90% dodge, I donā€™t know what is.

But, B is the highest I can go because she will get chopped down pretty quickly if you make the mistake of taking your eyes off of her HP bar. Cascades into enemies with specials will conspire to kill her from time to time if Hide in Shadows is not active. Once in awhile, sheā€™s just going to get killed and thereā€™s nothing you could have done about it.

Titans: A

Her tile damage is awesome and the numbers for her minimum miss on titan specials are above. What else needs said?

My Grades:

Titans: A
Offense: B
Defense: F

OVERALL: C+/B-, probably a B- thanks to her Telluria/Vela effectiveness. Still only a C+ without her skills against that particular (extremely common) setup.

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This was super helpful and informative. You get a forum gold star in my book.

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@DDTDuchess good review, I agree with defense being an F and titans A.

I differ a bit in offense, as from my experience she is quite useful. I will explain.

The main advantage the attacker has (and why there exists the 20% extra def for defense) is that we can pick the heroes to counter the defense. In this regard Margaret is HUGE because she can always be picked against sniper teams, which are super frequent.
Also, she can always be part of the MAIN or the Support against the tank because there are no good red tanks (sorry Santa). Now she deals a bit of damage too, which comes handy in late game situations against sniper and just making a 3 match without hitting heroes and firing again.
She will never be the ā€œKiller starā€ of the team, but her versatility to protect and be extremely efficient against some hard setups is quite good. Think about this: Facing some Telluria/Ursena tank, one healer and then drake and 2 snipersā€¦ she is great ! A Jabberwock in the other team? make Margaret cover one of the wings!
Also, when facing heavily emblemed defenses SHE IS EVEN MORE USEFUL!! that because they deal more damage so she dodges even more.
With respect to war, she is extremely useful because you can just pick the team with more snipers and maximize her use.
Having said, that, I would give her A- in offense.

With respect to map stages you are right that she is difficult to use, but actually she is great against those difficult levels in S3 where the mobs also have special skills.

Finally, if we weight every aspect equally I would give her a solid B, but for people that weight offense and titans a bit more, even B+ does not seem far fetched (in fact she may be once she is emblemed)

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Ahem. What, pray, is Black Knight? Or do you mean only tanks that hit?

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To me Black knight is a bad tank, very easy to kill. Just bring a couple dispellers and he is done. (Think sonya, costume melendor, seshat, etc).
For those who have malosi (I do not) he is a joke. Use malosi on him and his special skill does nothing!

I actually believe Black Knight is an excellent flank, just as shrubbear is one in the 3* rarity

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@ierazo

Thank you and I enjoyed reading your take on it. It certainly seems that we agree more than we disagree, even on her offensive uses; we just seem to disagree on how good it makes her.

I definitely agree that Margaret is best used against sniper teams, sheā€™s just ridiculous! All snipers ever do is miss, after ten raids, youā€™ll be shocked when you finally see someone she has covered get hit by a sniper!

I agree with the second part, I think. Is tanking Gravemaker not a thing anymore? I play a similar game to Empires now and havenā€™t played Empires for months other than helping my roommate with a few things here and there. I never understood Gravemaker tank, except maybe with max emblemsā€¦just no threat at all, and I didnā€™t even own a cleanser of any kind. Ares could be debuffed, no threat. Is Black Knight a threat? Never faced him.

Nice thought on Jabberwock, I forgot all about him! You could probably even put your healer back on the wing with Margaret covering him or her.

I really like your thought on targeting the war teams with lots of snipers, thatā€™s great thinking.

Iā€™ll go ahead and put her in my B-/B range, youā€™ve convinced me. Sheā€™s better than a C+ for sure, but I donā€™t think I can go full B on her, just too specialized.

Who do you like as a pair for her?

Healers (Any): I have seen so many wars lost in NittanyLionRoar or Yukimura videos when Rigard, C. Rigard or Ariel go down. I was one of the higher F2P on E&P (Level 40-something) and am high-middle C2P (30-something) on the other game, so maybe the dynamic is different. Never understood one healer, never did it, probably will never do it and always take two of different colors.

But, I could see where Margaret protecting the healer gives the option.

Gravemaker: Margaret would be great protection for Gravemaker and might even be good for Gravemaker + Grazul on a red stack team. The three of them can dodge specials all day long, Grazul can heal what damage they take from regular attacks and all hitters while Gravemaker burns them all down. I actually really like this idea, but understand most do not have both of these. I didnā€™t have either and Grazul hadnā€™t been out long. Neith was active HotM when I quit playing.

Drake Fong: Miss, miss, miss. With the blind + the dodge, they just arenā€™t hitting you. First, a sniper would be 65% to hit to begin with, then Margaret has a 90% chance of causing them to dodge that, which results in an overall probability of only 6.5% for an individual hero to even get hit.

Seshat: This would be one I could have done because I had Seshat! Seshat can sit on the outside and build up ridiculous amounts of minions while Margaret helps her dodge all of the specials. It would be truly glorious.

I could go on all day, so Iā€™ll just stop there. Who would you most pair Margaret with?

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I think she will be more pain-in-the-@$$ish now, and thatā€™s good. Her constant ability to help everyone dodge specials, the added attack. I have a feeling on the Attack/Defense route in the Talent Grid with max emblems, sheā€™s going to be good and strong enough to virtually take special skill hits out of the fight like for 90% of a battle.

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