My alliance decided to move away from a single color of tanks for now. I haven’t really worried about my raid defense team for a while since it’s holding 2400, which is right where I want to be.
However, I do want my war defense to be the best it can be. I have no Yellow 5s, which is leaving me questioning the best setup. Any advice is appreciated.
You have a number of heroes who I consider underwhelming in defense, including Grazul, Grimble, and anyone who isn’t maxed.
I think for now I’d try Horghall in the center and flank him with Vela. Can’t see how we can deny Finley the field so I guess he’s on the opposite wing. Finley, ____, Horghall, Vela, and _____. I think that’s the best I can do.
Turning to the future, I think Elena is your best tank option once she’s maxed, but I’m not really sure how to fill out the rest of the spots (so her in the center may not actually yield your strongest defense).
I love my Danza! He’s been my tank in Wars for 6 months now. He’s erratic (as he is), but he has held his own. I don’t see a lot of love on the forums for him, nice to hear him suggested once in a while
I don’t love Wilbur in defense. But I didn’t really think about Danzaburo at tank. I don’t think that’s awful, though it doesn’t really increase the number of viable defenders as I think he’s a direct substitute for Horghall - the tree just can’t fare very well in any other spot.
However, one option he presents is that if he comes in at tank and you’re maxing Elkanen I think the latter could be a reasonable flank. I know he’s not widely loved, but he can be tough to get through with his self-heal, especially if you can emblem him.
That presents the possibility of Finley, Elkanen, Danzaburo, Vela, and…I guess Natalya for being the right element and speed?
Think about how you’d attack it and take advantage as much as possible.
Remember it’s fairly standard practice to stack against the tank - you’re going to have to double up one colour, so let’s think about that.
If you ran Horg tank, the obvious tactic is to flank blues - if the attacker stacks red to wipe Horg, they run into two flanks that are strong against it, if they stack greens to go neutral on Horg and strong on flanks then they risk not wiping Horg quickly enough and being hit with debuff.
Vela makes a great flank… You’re then left with Natalya wing (which works) and Grazul wing (IMHO healers in wings are wasted).
There’s no obvious answer… What’s your current tower defence?
Are you prepared to experiment and see what works in practice?
@BubblesUK
See, that’s the exact problem. When I’m raiding, when I see a Horghall tank, I think “Easy kill!” and I’m usually right. It actually doesn’t make a lot of sense to me that the team I’m using - Grazul - Finley - Horghall - Vela - Natalya - keeps me at 2400 cups. I think my flanks work overtime for me.
I’ll be a little better off once I finish Elkanen, and take Graz’s emblems for him. That still leaves me with a free wing/flank spot that I just don’t know what to do with.
Elena I think has something to offer, but I’m heavy on red already. Grazul’s out for sure once there’s a replacement, but if I drop Natalya, I’m down another slot.
It invites a green stack, which are neutral against the tank. This really only works with yellows flanking purple and purples flanking (where the attacker making an inverse stack ends up weak against the tank. On the bright side, this makes Horghall more likely to fire, and green doesn’t have likely attack buffers (they’re not super likely to bring Gadeirus just to reverse it and if they do good on them for rolling out a four star) and cleansers (Lady Locke is rare).
This team is still extremely susceptible to a red stack with Mitsuko. The primary stack is strong against the tank and Mitsuko can single-handedly kill both flanks if the attacker is skilled enough to get the timing right. And Mitsuko is far from rare in a Diamond raiders roster.
True, Mittsuko is indeed the obvious counter… But I don’t think she’s particularly common - maybe not ultra rare, but not common enough that you’d expect her prevalence to massively impact the win:loss ratio.
On top of this - getting the timing right relies on both attackers skills and RNG to give up a suitable board… If mits fires at the right time, it’s almost certainly a win, if not the Vela is going to really hurt that red stack.
At any rate, a defence doesn’t have to be unbeatable… It just has to score a good ratio of wins:losses and punish attackers who either don’t think things through and rely on brute strength (surprisingly common even in diamond!!) or punishes bad boards in a way that makes it very difficult for the attacker to win.
I think that defence probably does that about as well as is possible from the bench posted.
