Dealing with a team of pure snipers can be painful, but I never really see many of them.
That said, I would say mana control would be a good way to deal with them since they aren’t usually immune to mana control.
So your standouts would be Proteus, Merlin, Leonidas, or Hansel.
Otherwise, another tactic is to reduce the damage, so you’ve got Wilbur, and Kara (once she is complete) as options. Too bad you don’t have Elkanen as she would really help out with her increased defence against specials.
If you want to have some fun, take Ameonna and watch their snipers use up their specials missing her. Last war the opponent was running yellow tanks so I took her off the bench and found it satisfying when the defense would target her while she was in ghost mode. It’s more of a factor if you are losing since they have fewer targets, but I think I ended up winning that one with Ameonna and another hero surviving.
Looking at your roster I would say Brynhild is a great way to absorb hits at fast speed. Kiril with costume bonus and a lvl 5 mana troop is firing fast with a D up. Kashhrek’s overheal with costume bonus and lvl 5 mana troop can take hits. Kashhrek can pair with one of the other two well. Wilbur can also pair with some of these and help absorb damage.
Someone suggested rogues, which would help.
Hansel at fast speed is a good option. He also gets special D boost from his own special. Costume Chao could be effective at fast speed. Peters is a rogue and a silencer. My issue with silence is if you don’t kill them they fire still. That can buy you time for say riposte up or D boosts, etc.
I would really hope for Melendor’s costume, that costume is really great for the D boost. Add the costume bonus and level 5 troop and he gets his D up fast.
You mention dodge. While I have to try this myself, some people have been using Little John IN costume rather than costume bonus. He can generate a dodge and given the power of the snipers you’ll be dodging at the higher end of their dodge ability (70%). I am somewhat hesitant on this, but it’s worth a shot if you get his costume.
I also like riposte, even dual riposte for coverage. Boril and Cyprian can survive a sniper if hit early too.
Good luck!
OK, this is a rant. Fair warning, skip this if you don’t want to hear ranting about feeling outmatched.
I hate facing:
Percentage based heroes on defense
cKadilen’s 100% dodge chance. Yes, I know what’s printed on the card, but if I fire a special (including dispelling) at enemy heroes with this buff on, invariably the only effect is creating a bunch of enemy minions
Also: Mother North’s 145% resurrection chance. It’s pretty much a shock when any dead hero fails to be successfully resurrected, almost invariably with 100% mana and firing instantly.
Also: Malicna “randomly” fires a special that has two minor versions and one huge version. Pretty much I assume I’m always getting hit with attack-down/defense-down/mana-slowed combo every time.
Yes, I know about selection bias, but it does seem like there is an uncanny boost, to the extent that dodge keeps me from firing specials as I try to outmaneuver/outwait dodge. This does not work, because
Speed
I’m missing mana (much less magic) troops in several colors and my heroes are already playing at a speed disadvantage (my Vivica isn’t going to keep up in a defensive struggle with the likes of Toxicandra or Diaochan), never mind “free mana for my buddies” heroes like Xnolphod or Ludwig or “once I fire you don’t get mana ever again” heroes like Ferant.
In fact, I’ve pretty much stopped attacking any team that has one of those named heroes; it doesn’t work. This means attacking in Diamond is almost… no.
Then there are the Fast “destroy all enemies” heroes who would seem to be counter-able by counterattack, only my biggest counterattacker is… Boril. I’m not sure if it’s worth trying to suit him up for a 5000+ TP fight; can I keep him alive when I don’t have healing speed to back him up?
Then there’s the flurry-of-minion builds. I’m lucky enough to have Devana and Eiora, but those are gradual minion removal heroes. They help against “grind you down” minion builds, but not so much against minionmancers packing Thermonuclear Pengi. Sure, there’s cGormek, but that’s assuming (A) I can keep him alive in a 5000+ TP environment and (B) there’s not dodge and/or taunt keeping him from doing his thing.
(ugh, don’t get me started on Pengi and the “let’s nerf the REST of Christmas because of him” thing, much less Motega and his “welcome to permanent stackable DD minions AND fiends that a single heal won’t get rid of, and thus permanent 100% miss chance” double whammy)
I’m running HA 9 like crazy hoping for mana troop rerolls and I save all my ETTs for Magic Tower exclusively, so eventually that will narrow the troop mana gap… someday… but it still means my heroes will always need to be able to take a hard punch or three and recover, because I can never plan on controlling tempo and need to plan on being able to come from behind.
…
All of this means I’ve kinda settled on One True Raid Attack Team and hardly ever try anything else (and my raid win % drops a lot when I do)
Fogg - Kingston - Eiora - Devana - Vivica
and hope I can pick off one or two of the “must kill immediately” foes with my greens while my yellows try to keep me in the game 
I get the feeling of being outmatched @BobTheSnark it can be scary going up against the newest and greatest when you don’t have them yourself.
I only got a blue mana troop late least year, so over 2yrs in. Now over 3yrs and I still only have one, and that’s just at lvl 11 so other than with a costume hero or VF format it doesn’t impact anything much for me. As such I won’t use more than one blue hero in a team normally. My other colour top mana troops are all between lvl 17 & 23. So good enough with emblem bonus to get an average down to 9 tiles which I feel is the most vital part of troops.
How do you get on with vivica? I have her sat at 3/70 and due to her speed ( and that stats wise she’s pretty squishy), I’d typically always use on of the average speed 4* ones instead (especially if both emblem/troop I could get them to 9 tiles) I think looking at your general raid team I’d be looking for the quicker heal from one of them instead, not sure if that might help?
Boril was my go to counter attack option. I know a lot don’t like him as his defence is so high, so prefer to use Cyprian as reflects more damage back. I liked the survive longer but less damage myself though. Can’t remember but pretty sure with emblems etc his stats should be ok enough to survive in diamond till he fires. Same should go with Gormek costume, his health stat gets pretty high so with a bit of added survivability from elsewhere he should be ok for dealing with all the minions, but it’d need testing. You might find works better than you expect though?
I play with mainly legendaries, but my regular raiding team has 3 healers and a minion maker (Gulli, Luigi, Noor, Diaochan/Xnol/Raffaelle). Outside of that raid team I try to have at least 2 healers in every team, preferably 3. It is a strategy that doesn’t fit everyone’s playstyle but for me the focus on survivability helps me to overcome most “bad” boards
This was the best ‘rant’ I’ve read in a good while - especially since I can relate to it so much 
I haven’t played as long as you have, but I have the same experience here with the blue troop! And the % heroes! I try to stay in low Diamond and cup drop over night, so I hopefully stay clear of all that. It’s more cozy down here. 
I hope you will soon have better counters to those heroes in question, you are definitely not alone. 
I leveled, emblemed, and limit broke her before I even got her costume (which I only very recently got and am leveling now). She is my only 5* healer (I’m not counting Hanitra, because her dodge ability, while useful, provides a limited/contingent form of healing).
I also have leveled/emblemed/costumed/LB Rigard.
- I really like cRigard, but arguably cRigard isn’t any faster than (and possibly slower than) Viv at healing because his healing is regeneration-over-time. (He is still faster at cleansing, of course.)
- Even with her costume bonus not fully maxed, Vivica is hardier than maxed Rigard. —Yes, that takes more investment, obviously, and Rigard is a worthy healer in a 5* environment, especially before one has the resources to crank a 5* healer all the way up; still, with the chance to develop one 5* healer, she’s still hardier (and as a side note—though this is far from a primary consideration—she also contributes substantially more to tile damage generally than Rigard does, at least when cRigard’s attack bonus isn’t active).
- On offense, I have and use Devana all the time anyway, and her element link gives small amounts of mana each turn, which (when active) helps close the speed gap a bit as well. —To get that to apply to Rigard, I’d have to use Devana and Hanitra together, which is not terrible, but now means I’m using three of my heroes for defense and support, and if I’m going 3-2, locks me into purple/yellow only. (I don’t have a like element link in purple.)
Once I get Viv’s costume finished, I’ll have to consider how much to use her actual costume as opposed to just the passive costume bonuses: DD + dispel is a very nice combo, but it still happens at Viv’s speed, and cleanse is also kinda a necessary food group. (A preparatory effect like DD helps more if it goes off faster, before other offense, where a reactive effect can be a little slower, going off after enemy action, as long as it’s not too-slow-to-be-ready-when-needed.)
If I need Viv to pull my team out of the fire—as I often do—heal+cleanse+DU is a big turnaround. At minimum, cViv means I consider pulling Devana in favor of a cleanser (and I’ll have to consider how much Viv’s emblem path changes).
In summary, though Vivica is often sneered at in “just use Rigard or like any other 5* healer” terms, for someone who has no other 5* healer and every likelihood of never getting any other 5* healer….
(plus, if and when I ever do get any other healer, how many resources will it take for me to get Healer 2.0 even up to Viv’s level at this point…)
Was looking at that… but also that Cyprian’s Paladin talents are sometimes counterproductive as well. (Plus, like most folks, I always only have so many emblems to go around, so is it worth throwing them at Boril to try to weather Morel-Frigg-Elizabeth-Hannah-Odin-type combos, or should I be trying, e.g., to make someone like Hansel survivable in a 5* world…)
He’s likely to be one of the hardier 4* options, just if I’m bringing him to a 5* minionmancy+PengiDoom fight, I absolutely must keep him alive, plus that part of my tile damage contribution goes to “haha no.”
Also a question of limited resources, in that is, say, LBing cGormek a priority over Boldtusk/cBoldtusk or Guardian Falcon or other general-use red 4*…
I’m not saying I shouldn’t, but in 5000+ TP fights, every 4* feels a bit like bringing a knife to a gunfight; even if it’s the right tool for the job, it’s a potentially fragile tool and/or one that nerfs tile damage.
Right? Again, I know about selection bias when it comes to the perception of %-based heroes, but when I’m playing offense I need, as much as possible, to be able to count on what my heroes will do — but when I face such heroes on defense, I have to react to what they might do, and heroes like MN and cKadilen sure seem to exceed their printed % on defense.
(I would say something like “I should keep actual stats on MN when I face her” only, of course, that when I do, generally one of my early priorities has to be making sure she never fires.)
Exactly! I’m not looking forward to the next week’s tournament 
Thank you for the post on Vivi, I got her recently, but still missing Darts to level her. Her costume bonus looks great.
I recently decided, though, to forget about my five stars, at least the S1s which I have the most of, and instead I’m just LBing and emblemming four stars. I can use them in more places and they do not require the ascension materials that I don’t have anyway. And some of them can pass for mini five stars in tournaments I feel. 
I feel your pain @BobTheSnark , thanks for articulating it well . For those of us with more limited rosters and troops, we have to make do - we have to find something that works and sticks with it until we can get more heroes / troops
And yes, advice like “just use xxxx” is often useless for us due to lacking relevant costumes or troops …
And yes, I avoid upper diamond like the plague. Too many high powered defenses that require an outsized bit of luck to smash through.
I mean, I could go with 3 healers but then I’d lack the power to actually kill anyone
I could go rainbow, but would also lack the power to kill anyone
So yeah… 
I just hang out in lower diamond for my own happiness lol
It’s always a good idea to work on what you can do, and a lot of folks will tell you to work on your 4* before any 5*, which…is true, but I’d add “find a balance.”
You don’t want to keep yourself from developing your 4* by working more expensively on 5*, but you don’t want to put off 5* indefinitely waiting for a “right one” either. If nothing else, once you DO get ascension materials, a lot of PvE (quests, more advanced season areas, and the rewards that come with them) can get easier too with some 5*, and as much as people with more options may sneer at a lot of S1 5*, they’re still certainly usable
Absolutely, you are right, thank you - all in balance 
I continue to struggle with the riposte heros
it seems they always kill my (c)Sabina first.
(c)kadilen…agreed she dodges 99% of the time…lol
And I still despise going against the Christmas defenses
(reroll is my friend and probably why I never have enough ham) 
Oh come on, MN never revives that much…at least, not when she is on an attack team!
I have often wondered if there is indeed a boost to the percentages when a hero is on defense, and a nerf when they are on offense. The defensive boost would be to make the hero in question appear much better than they really are, to drive people to want to pull them and do more summons to make the devs more money. Given all the other stuff SG/Zynga does, it is the sort of thing that they would do. And then the offensive nerf would keep it “balanced” so the overall percentage would still match what’s on the card. (Like 50% becomes 40% on offense and 60% on defense, or worse.)
I have Mother North and when I face another MN I track in my head what percentage of revives I get vs. the other team, and it really does seem like there is an advantage to the defense. But I’ve never methodically recorded it to see what it really is statistically. I really should start tracking it to see what the truth really is. My hypothesis is that it really is all just cognitive biases, and what’s printed on the card is actual, but without tracking actual results we’ll never know for sure.
It just really stings to be on the wrong side of random, I think that much we can all agree on.
I’m surprised when I’m fighting against Mother North and she doesn’t revive someone.
And half the time she revives someone who’s ready to fire their special.
tell me about it… I lost badly to a Nadezhda who revived ALL FOUR of her fellow fallen heroes… partly my fault that I didn’t kill her first, but then she was in the back-center of a double tank formation. I used tiles to kill the rest, but was struggling to charge my specials to kill her…
Wolfgang is indeed annoying though I personally find Ludwig a bigger PITA. how do you deal with Wolfgang though? (PS thanks in advance for the idea-sharing and brainstorming)
My answer is cSabina and Malosi. 2 staples when dealing with Wolfgang and taunters.
yeah, totally. against these types I like to hedge my bets sometimes by bringing two dispellers, though that only really works with my Purple stack (two of Seshat, Domitia, C-Sabina). Iris is also good…
… what makes Malosi so great is he charges so fast, so he is almost always ready before a dangerous hero fires
In my case, it is usually 3… cSabina, Domitia, and Devana. Usually works well as there are a lot of defenses whose main heroes are purple and yellow: Ludwig, Wolfgang, Xnolphod, Bera, Freya, Sif, etc. Generally speaking those 3 with Malosi and Krampus works well.
how do you deal with Wolfgang though?
Dispell his buff, then take him out. Fogg plus more Nature damage (I use Quenell, but there are loads of options) is an excellent approach.