I’m having quite a surplus of dark 5 stars. Khiona, Sartana and Kunchen. Also have Tibertus and Sabina, so lots of choice haha. I don’t like Khiona too much, but I’m wondering which one to ascend first, once I finally get my tabards (rarest ascension material for me sigh). I only have Isarnia, Horghall and Marjana fully ascended, don’t have any 5* healers. Apart from that the regular 4’s: Wu, BT, Kiril etc, no Rigard though. Also have Richard and Elkanen which are still lvl 1 and Aegir at 2 60. Might become interesting if they are buffed.
I kinda like Kunchen, although he’s slow his effect is quite impacting. Also I’m lacking a dedicated tank, but if I use him I don’t have a good yellow to back him up, Li Xiu is the best I have. His elemental link might be very good for titans though.
Any input?
I am in the same boat except I have Khiona maxed and she is awesome. I use her attack buff between Onatel and Joon most of the time. I also usually use another purple (Victor or Rigard) for the elemental part. She works well.
I will have both Kunchen and Sartana at 60 waiting for a couple trap tools and tabbards of course. I will make my decision in a bit. I am quite torn to be honest as both could be very helpful. I am just going to play it out and see. But you will not regret any of those choices.
I wish i could pull a Red, Blue, or Green 5* worth the mats. I have them ready. I have Lianna, Isarnia, and Natalya maxed. But noone else worth it right now.
I don’t think I helped your question much as I will be following looking for opinions on who is better to get some ideas.
I don’t know, Sartana feels a bit more potent compared to Khiona, faster and more damage. Khiona feels much slower. Also I have BT or Kiril if I need an attack buffer.
Another thing to think about going with Kunchen would be the Cleric tokens, I think he’s much more suitable than Elkanen, at least at the moment.
My Cleric tokens have gone into Rigard right now. Maybe when maxed Kunchen will get them but that will be a while.
Khiona and Sartana are 2 different heros. Sartana is a sniper and will always hit harder. Khiona has other little abilities that make her effective. Sure you can use others to get the attack buff but the possibility of Khionas activating more than once are pretty good with AI.
She is a decent tank and I used her there for a while. I use Onatel now.
Ouch many Khiona fans here lol.
I don’t think she’s bad, probably better for titans than Sartana.
For raids I think Sartana is better though, you get immediately value.
If I had Wilbur which I don’t have Khiona will probably be better overall due to sinergy.
Right now I think I prefer Kunchen as I already assigned a wizard and rogue. Still appreciating input tho
If it helps, a 4/80 Sartana is almost identical to a 4/80 Mariana. Since you already have a next Mariana, that will give you a feel for what Sartana plays like at max.
I lean towards Kunchen. Your lack of a 5* healer and a cleanse is a serious gap. You have two slow attackers; they need to stay alive to cast.
Khiona deals a modest amount of damage, greatly increases her own attack and the attack of nearby allies and slightly heals every purple ally.
Kunchen slightly decrease the defense of all of your foes, cleanse and heals your whole team and greatly increase his own weak element defense to every purple ally.
Sartana does a good amount of damage on her own, the end.
Titans: Khiona Kunchen Sartana
Defenses: Kunchen Sartana Khiona
Team utility:
Khiona: attack(3) + heal over time( to Dark)
Kunchen: -defense(5) + heal(5) + cleanse(5) + yellow shield(to Dark)
If you lack 5* healers then go with Kunchen with Khiona to follow him.
Thanks for the reply, Marjana hits like a truck and is very durable. Very happy with her so far.
Sometimes I question the need for a self cleanser, countering with a buff seems better overall, but Kunchen does so much: Heal, cleanse, debuff and is immune for defense debuff. I like him already, even though he didn’t even get 2nd ascension.
I’m just going to say that Khiona is no defensive slouch, either.
I run into her pretty often in low-mid diamond and she causes me a LOT of problems. Maybe not as many as Sartana, but she’s definitely not inept on a defense team. Add rogue emblems to that if you aren’t using Marj and I see her as being a very viable pest at wing.
For the life of me I cannot ascertain why everybody thinks they need a 5* healer on defense, particularly a slow one. Defense is ALWAYS at a disadvantage vs similarly strong teams, thus your wins are going to predominantly come from really bad starts for the opponent. Having a slow defender (particularly one without a game changing effect like an Alby) leaves the door open for the opponent to recover from those bad starts.
Kunchen as tank can help a lot of teams and the healing and cleanse are bonuses.
He may be tough enough that he gets to fire his special from tank position which puts you in the driver’s seat from there on.
It is on the margin where things change: Just how bad does the board have to be for the defender to win? I would argue that for many of us he brings it a bit more in favor of the defender.
Clearly, support is key, some fast to very fast flanks would help immensely. Alasie synergizes well b/c she slows the attackers mana giving Kunchen more chance to fire…
Happy to receive coaching. I have recently started running into problems with Santa tanks flanked by speed hitters, Magni and Alasie ate me for breakfast (different defenders). I see Kunchen as better than Santa.
Back to OP: Depends on what you need. I love Sartana at 4-80 +1, she is a good mix of power hitter and survivor for raids and war. She will pair well with Marjana. Defense only works if you can kill the enemy, she helps with that. I like that Sartana can take a direct hit from everyone, defenders only help while alive, unlike when attacking so she score well on this metric.
Kunchen probably does well everywhere, I believe him to be an excellent tank and think his def down plus elemental link are huge positives for almost any team (Titans it will be huge when on the strongest titans, protect your purple stack) with the healing sort of the cherry on top.
Healing tanks suffer the same shortcomings that Aegir does. They provide no real pressure, but can remedy some of the tile damage they’ve suffered. The problem becomes that they then serve as a safe spot for your opponent to dump tiles while they charge their own specials, which they then use to nuke the damage dealers. Once the damage dealers are gone, they can continue to feed tiles into the tank without care of the healing until they can kill him with a special or two.
If you are struggling with healer tanks, I’d suggest an approach less focused on killing him via tile damage, and more focused on building specials
My thought on Kunchen is that his defense down and resistance to the standard def down specials will allow him to keep healing and magnify the impact of the damage dealers. That is based on how much trouble I’ve had with some recent Santa tanks that were well flanked.
It IS a problem to have a healer as tank, I see it a lot (well, more than I expected) when raiding, Delilah seems to be the favorite healer to use which I find odd considering how many people are set up to take down yellow tanks due to Guinevere.
Kunchen is clearly a better tank than Delilah… right? She has revive when given emblems but never the less…
Del is significantly better at tank than Kunchen for a few reasons. First, average speed vs slow speed means a lot more than it reads on paper. Second, not only does she heal more than Kunchen, but the minions serve as an overheal on fully healed heroes effectively raising their survivability and total HP. Third, don’t underestimate their damage. Each swipe may not be a massive hit, but they add up and can be a major nuisance. For these reasons, a poor start vs Del is much tougher than a poor start vs Kunch
Don’t fall into the trap of conflating durability with tank strength. If that were the case Aegir would be hailed as tank supreme while GM would be middle of the road.
Khiona
Kunchen
Sartana