I’m weak on holy and those two are my options there.
I know, they are both meh and also ask myself, if they were worth the darts.
Owl or Mushi or none?
Musashi has an incredibly good attack stat, and his tile healing is bad on defence but at least useful in attack.
And he is fast and a rogue, so eventually a real pain in the ■■■ if talented (though i don’t know your rogue heroes).
So in a nutshell, Musa eventually is not that bad, while i totally avoid thinking about Owl.
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Thx, Mushi also has the advantage of being 3.52 already, while Owl is unleveled at all. I’ll give him the darts, if I don’t pull a holy healer or Fishking.
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Owl Owl Owl and more Owl
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Hmmm, undecided again 
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Musashi is fast but lacklustre direct damage and his self healing is only from tile/slash damage.
The only thing great is the tile damage and nothing else.
Owl on the other hand is a game changer on the right wing and even more so during the rush tournament and AW. He is a super PITA during AW. I would trade you my 3x Vivica’s for the Owl. He is the only guardian I am still missing.
PS. Musashi is a lousier version of Elkanen in my opinion.
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Why right wing specifically for owl?
While I still think his only position in raid defense should be tank, you are starting to sway me a bit on the AW front. What do you think of this potential setup? I have the mats to do Owl but am two scopes short for Ariel
PS Musashi is way better than Elkanen. The extra 100 ATT is huge
Someone in my alliance asked me once if there was one hero that always gives me trouble on raids. My answer was Guardian Owl. Mostly because I hardly ever see him and my plan of attack isn’t focused on him. He’s just there…on the wing…waiting for me to ignore him and then kill me.
I have had one for about 6 months now, but I haven’t done anything with him. Too many other heroes lined up ahead of him to ever see the light of day on my team. But if my options were Owl and Mushashi…I might go Owl.
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To answer the question about Owl being in right wing:
- being tank wastes his skill
- right wing is what I call the tide changer position since it is usually the last position to fire (skills fire from left to right and left is usually left for dispels / buffs / cleanse / heal / revive)
- very slow mana and low attack AOE makes him a horrible tank
- extremely powerful AOE when the whole team is dead (more often than not the attacker would have at least suffered damage by end raid)
- self heal at end raid with his high def/hp is like adding salt to a wound of the attacker
- wing positions are usually ignored (slow mana heroes are best to be kept with a low profile)
As for the Musashi vs Elkanen:
- the only thing that Musashi wins Elk is in the attack stats
- Elk can save his own hide when he fires since it is instant self heal
- Musashi has to wait for slash/tile attacks to heal = potentially die the next turn
Please do note that a hero is only as good as his ability to survive till the end
PS. my reply is based on defense perspective
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As usual, my answer is “it depends”. What do you need?
Owl doesn’t seem to help on offense much. I don’t plan raid/war attacks under the assumption that everyone’s going to die but one (although that certainly happens). Musashi does much more damage early on and can attend to some of his own healing on offense. He’s useful, e.g., on wing when an Ares tank is your healer. His high attack stat also makes him valuable, dead or alive, against purple titans.
But Musashi has no place on defense. Owl is fearsome there, as @AirHawk recounts.
So…what do you need?
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I still find your wing argument very compelling. But I do think you exaggerate to make your case.
Being tank doesn’t waste his skill. If his special goes off and the opponent does not immediately dispell he becomes near impossible to kill with the +63 DEF and the heal over time. Yes his AOE will do less at tank but his special is far from wasted at tank, that’s misleading.
If very slow meant a hero was a bad tank than Boss Wolf would be bad. And yet Boss Wolf has the highest winrate on defense and is one of the hardest tanks I’ve faced. Therefore your argument that very slow = bad tank is a bad argument.
Owl is a decent tank. One of the players who used to be in our alliance came from a top alliance. He used to keep stats for his alliance and their players who had Owl tanks actually had higher win rates than the Guin/Drake/Delilah tanks during Alliance Wars.
You massively underrate his tank potential. But I do like your argument that he’s viable on wing.
Why is he a good tank? Because he’s got some of the tankiest stats in the game. His special is actually devastating at tank if you don’t dispell the +63DEF and the heal over time right away. The dmg is just icing on the cake.
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You have your point but that does not mean he is being used correctly.
There are many better tanks compared to Owl. So no point in using him as tank.
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You know, I’m starting to look at this lonely Guardian Owl on my bench and thinking I might start pouring yellow feeders down his beak just to see what happens. Currently working on Li Xiu but don’t really have anything exciting to work on at the moment as my other 5* yellow is Justice.
Did you mean +46% defense?
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I started Owl now, since my only nice Druid is Melendor so far. Mushi is a rogue and I have already 3 emblemed rogues.
Hopefully there will be a legendary rush tournament without dark someday, where Owl would be the most decent tank…
Imo he’ll also be nice for trials, farming and maybe titans.
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I’m not sure he’s be great for either farming or Titans. His attack stat is in the same low 600s as some 4* heroes at max level.
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I think one of the things that misleads people is that “does increased damage from dead allies.” If, for the sake of the argument, we removed that feature and changed nothing else, I don’t think it would be any question whether or not Guardian Owl should be at tank. His stats and the full range of his ability dictate nothing less than throwing him in tank position. He’d be an annoying wall to get around, and the damage to all, while not typically that significant, isn’t that helpful.
That said, he does have that ability, and that completely changes how he’s perceived as a result. It’s rare to make a good argument for throwing a tank like Justice, Khagan, or Richard on the wing, but people seem to want to do that with Guardian Owl even though his mana speed dictates that he would not do much better than any other slow tank there either.
So I think either argument is equally valid. Guardian Owl isn’t the best yellow tank in the world, but he would do adequately at tank position just because of his stats and how his special works, as well as tank position getting the fastest mana charge. Guardian Owl would be pretty punishing on bad boards and could stand just as well as any other tank at that point. A tank’s purpose is not (typically) to wreck the enemy team by him/herself as this usually doesn’t happen, not even with Guinevere. The tank’s job is to buy time, and Guardian Owl can easily do that.
I’d say he’d be more effective than a straight healer-tank like Vivica or Delilah because of the stats and the damage-all which neither Vivica nor Delilah do, but he’s not punishing enough at the tank position; damage-all just isn’t that scary, especially with such a low stat. It’s secondary effects like Guin’s mana cut or Justice’s Blind (or Kunchen’s Defense down) that make a tank most effective. Owl just doesn’t have that.
Owl could catch newer players by surprise, those that are unfamiliar with what he does because he’s such a rarity in general, let alone fully maxed, but those who do know what he does aren’t going to be scared by him. He’s like the corner Alberich and Mother North - gamechanging on bad boards or attack teams light on snipers, but largely meaningless on good boards or against more experienced foes, and nobody is advocating that Alberich and/or Mother North are bad “just because they’re slow and I know how to stomp them before they fire.”
Owl could do fine in either tank or wing, but he’s not great at either position because his skill just doesn’t bring enough oomph either way. He’s just average and heavily dependent on things that the defending player has no control over, and that just doesn’t make for a great hero. He’s a niche that’s bad (or at least average) at his niche, and that’s his biggest problem.
Getting back to the OP’s question, I’d have to go with Kerridoc on this one: it depends on what you need for your bench and/or yellow bench in general. Musashi is more versatile but doesn’t excel at anything in particular. Guardian Owl does far better in a few specific roles but terribly outside of that. You just need to look at your needs and decide who brings more to the table.
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Thinking about it a little more, Guardian Owl isn’t the worst tank in the world. He’s either easily or arguably better than all but the cream of the crop.
Elena, Azlar, Khagan, Vivica, Isarnia, Kadilen, Horghall, Leonidas, Quintus, Domitia, Thorne, Elkanen.
In that field, it’s either obvious that Guardian Owl is better or a valid argument could be made that Owl would be a better tank. Once you start getting to midtier or upper tier tanks like Richard, Justice, Ariel, emblemed Boldtusk, etc then it starts to become more debatable.
But he’s not the worst tank by a long shot. I think any number of sniper tanks would fare far worse than an owl in that role.
Owl is a niche character that is basically a pure defense character.
He excels greatly in AW especially with field aid. My whole team almost got wiped in the recent when he launched as the last hero. Opponent was using him in left wing. One hit and all that was left was my Rana vs Owl. Fortunately it was Rana that survived due to the field aid and his self healing.
He is also superb in rush tournament. He is also paired well with Albi in the left wing and him on the right.
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Yep. He is not too great until his talents are unlocked at max 5*. After that people don’t hit usually.
I’d definitely go with the Mush.