I got bored and decided to make an overview of the heroes used in the defense team in the top 100. Figured that I’d drop it down here and see what kind of information other people can get from this (together we know more ).
A couple of notes:
Maxed = completely maxed. Not maxed can mean anything in the range of 1^1, 3^70 or 4^79. Not ideal, but hey it gives you a general idea.
I’ve done this in about half an hour, I’m sure the top 100 is already different at the time I write this and heroes might be different. I didn’t see any troll/cupdrop teams so I figured this is probably representational.
The list (hope this copies well, I’ve sorted them on the amount of maxed heroes). Edit: it seems to cut off at quintus, the only things that really stand out below are Magni (1 maxed, 14 unmaxed) and Richard (1 maxed, 4 unmaxed).
Hel, Lianna and Athena are crowd favourites - even though athena is barely ever maxed.
In the line of that observation, we seem to really need more blue rare quests (!). All blue 5* heroes have more unmaxed than maxed - haven’t gone over it thoroughly but I believe they’re the only colour like that.
Boldtusk seems to be the most used 4* for a solid defense team
Figured this beforehand, but this seems to underline it: you need at least a maxed 4* team to be in the top 100 (there was only 1 person without a 5* at the time i checked).
Curious to see if people are interested in this and what other observations they have - happy to sort the lists in other ways if that makes it easier
I like lists! Could also throw in one with total used, maxed and unmaxed to show the true prevalence of some heroes.
Grand shame we can’t see people’s attacking teams to see which heroes trump others in both. Actually, let me do that so I can draw my conclusions lol.
Hel 57
Lianna 57
Athena 55
Joon 33
Marjana 32
Ares 30
Sartana 29
Musashi 21
Boldtusk 20
Vivica 19
Magni 15
Li Xiu 13
Azlar 10
Isarnia 10
Kiril 9
Rigard 9
Caedmon 9
Justice 9
Horghall 6
Richard 5
Elkanen 5
Colen 4
Elena 4
Sabina 3
Sonya 3
Quintus 2
Okay, now my thoughts looking at this mixed with what I already think of a game:
There’s a deficiency of healers amongst the 5*. Especially healers faster than “slow”. There’s Sabina, Rigarb, Boldtusk and Kiril appearing on the list. Quite a few healers from the land of 4*.
Single target nukes are valued the most. I thought perhaps they are more a domain of attacking teams, but apparently these are just the most desired heroes.
Athena has no valid competition amongst 5* heroes, it’s either her or no defense reduction. Not to mention how strong hers is (no, don’t nerf her! it would just be nice if some other heroes could compete)
These 20 Boldtusks and 9 Kirils also point at an empty niche for a strong 5* healer and buffer.
Lianna has no competition amongst green heroes. She’s just THE hero to have period. Hel shares the spotlight with Sartana. Marjana has Ares. There’s a bunch for most colors.
Caedmon is valued higher than any other green hero aside of Lianna lol.
If you allow me to share my thoughts on your observations (I might try and edit the lists together in my original post in the morning, too much hassle now - but much appreciated!).
Single target nukes are valued the most. I thought perhaps they are more a domain of attacking teams, but apparently these are just the most desired heroes.
Think it is more important that they are fast mana charging - with the mana adding up quicker on defense than on offense and these heroes generally hitting super hard, this makes for a very solid defense (one shot your heroes before you can charge anything )
Athena has no valid competition amongst 5* heroes, it’s either her or no defense reduction. Not to mention how strong hers is (no, don’t nerf her! it would just be nice if some other heroes could compete)
Personally pretty surprised by this, have her as well and even thought about swapping her out of my defense team. Her ability is very good, but her stats make her an easy target. A maxed Isarnia gives her a run for her money having defense reduction to the entire team (but slow).
These 20 Boldtusks and 9 Kirils also point at an empty niche for a strong 5* healer and buffer.
Lianna has no competition amongst green heroes. She’s just THE hero to have period. Hel shares the spotlight with Sartana. Marjana has Ares. There’s a bunch for most colors.
Caedmon is valued higher than any other green hero aside of Lianna lol.
I think all three of these points might be related to Alderich. Looking at the other hero numbers it is clear that the heroes of the month are widely used in defense teams (Hel, Athena, Ares and Mushashi are all pretty high up). I think that a lot of people in the top 100 might already have him, but don’t have him leveled enough yet for their defense team. I expect that if I or someone else would do this next month he’d be around a lot more. He would ‘fill the gap’ of a 5* healer with something extra next to Ares and Vivica, and be a solid choice for green (but yeah to be honest I’d prefer Lianna too ).
Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
P.S: I feel like this needs to be emphasized more, please don’t nerf athena more.
The way i break it down is… best in annoyance. Which abilities annoy the hell out of your team the most? There’s a common reason why some of these are used 24/7
The ones i find most annoying are…
Hel (WAY better ability than anyone in the game.) She’s out right broken. Its a must for top people.
Lianna ( one shot) Only person in the game with single high dps. Way higher than Sartana. Pray that when she shoots, it hits Hel.
Ares(king of bad board ruiner) got a crap board? He’ll make sure you suffer right when it comes. No way you are gonna get outta this hell.
The other two slots, vary a lot, but you see these 3 almost in all the top of everything.
Yellow is in such an awful spot thanks to Hel. Extra damage on yellow makes Vivica, Justice, and Joon scrap garbage.
Similiar reason with red, though Athena’s defense reduction isnt as painful as no mana generation.
“Hel (WAY better ability than anyone in the game.) She’s out right broken. Its a must for top people.”
Right - and this right here is a problem, since she’s not available anymore. Basically if you want to be at the top, you needed to start playing months ago (and not just for the extra time to level and add heroes).
Thats interesting, but you have to look only on people who are firmly in the top 100, because many just pop up and disappear even in the last of 10 minutes, and thats not very reliable.
If i may give you a suggest, keep record the names daily for a week, then see who appear the most and then use that data.
Or simply use less people for reference.
Surely better, but not so reliable even that.
I know for sure at least 3 people that may reach top 50/20, and then slip back over 200 positions in the same day
Would be better obviously, but can’t say I am that devoted to it.
Personally I’m usually somewhere in the lower half of the top 100 and generally stay there overnight. Figured this would be a good starting point for observations as the lower top 100 people have similar teams anyways (nobody will be kicked back to lower 200s when they have a few maxed 5*s for example), but yeah there is a reason why I included the disclaimer
Could have gone for top 10/20/50, but with top 100 I figured that it would give a better overview and with the larger amount of data the margin for error would be acceptable. Once again, I just noticed a lack of an overview like this and figured I’d check whether people liked it when I had a bored moment - feel free to do it on smaller amounts and over a longer time period if you think that would allow you to draw significantly different conclusions
I think certain observations hold up even though this might not be a fully consistent top 100;
hel, lianna and athena are used in most defense teams (I’d think whoever has them uses them).
There are not that many maxed blue 5*s in comparison to other elements (because hey, else they’d prolly be in the top 100 - the difference is pretty big).
Heroes of the month seem to generally make their way into the defense team
Yeah, i do agree that hero of the months are a good investment, since (for me) Hell/Athena/Ares are the best on their respective elements. You can have some trouble on choose to Musashi/Joon, but sorry, Alberich has no chance against Lianna (actually, no green has chance against her).
Blue are not so good? Mh, surely if you dont have Athena, Magni is a great card. And you sure find him a lot, if you observe more often the chart.
Mostly who have both Athena and Magni, simply ascends her (and keep her) for her titan job.
Thats why you find her just more easy right now, but it’s not that the other blue heroes are just garbage, expecially Magni.
Imo, Hel is held in awe by a) players that don’t have her or b) players that strongly favor their yellow cards. It’s true that she is one of the strongest Heroes in the game but she is not broken or OP and I feel the upcoming nerf is unnecessary but thankfully not so severe as to truly break her.
Hel is my first 80 however now that many players have passed me up with more 80s I can no longer hold a spot in the top 100 much less the top 10 where I used to make regular inroads. Almost all the 5* cards are powered as they should be and there are many combinations that create a strong team.
It’s the number of 80s that matter more than individual Heroes or their unique specials. I’d like to caution the developers at SG to be careful of individual player preferences that may be biased toward their favorite heroes rather than an actual reflection of any game imbalance. Most likely the caution isn’t needed though because I imagine SG runs hundreds of tests of game tweaks as well as running beta versions with play testers. We’re about 7 months into general release and even now very few players have all 80s and no one has maxed 4* troops yet. The devs at SG must balance the game all the way to it’s maximums and what may seem an imbalance to us may simply be a reflection of everyone being at different stages of development.
I have Hel and currently have zero cups. I fluctuate cups as I need resources. A person can have all maxed heroes, troops and items, but if they don’t know how to use them it doesn’t really matter.
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