[Primer] Double Strong colors on team Part 1

Subject
[Primer] Double Strong colors on team Part 1

==Background, BEGIN==
==Good Heroes==
Some heroes are good, some suck and the majority are mediocre

So choosing to level the best heroes you have, and stop leveling poor heroes when they are a bad investment ( see sunk cost fallacy ) can help you a lot. However, hero roster slots are inexpensive, don’t get rid of heroes you have invested a lot of XP and ascension items.

==Bonus Example==
This is like to being broken down on the road changing a tire, versus a formula one team changing a tire in the middle of the race. The tools in your car are portable, small, relatively economical. They are designed to help you when no help is available, but not take up lots of cargo volume and weight when not in use. The formula one team has large, bulky expensive tools, to quickly change the tire before too much time passes. Price, volume and relative weight is not an issue.

==Team Synergy/ Compatibility==
Even good heroes can be a bad investment if they don’t go well with the other heroes on your team. Synergy/ compatibility are very important when building teams.

An extreme example of this is building a team around a single hero ( looking at you 4* Wu Kong and 5* Alberich ).

But sometimes a rainbow team, one of each color, is not the best strategy. Sometimes a rainbow team HELPS your opponent. Currently Challenge events and rare titans are the most prominent situations.

==Bonus Example==
Both the tools in your car, and the tools used by the racing crew, are useless for changing the tire of a commercial dump truck. And if you need to carry away tons of dirt, a car ( personal or racing ) won’t help.

==Colors==
Each color has one color it is strong against ( double damage ), one color it is weak against ( half damage ) and three colors it is neutral against ( normal damage )

Example:
Red is strong against green, weak against blue, and neutral against purple, yellow, red

==Board Damage, Mana & Moves==
When you make a match on the board, the shields ( tiles ) do the following:

  • Damage the opponent, increase the opponents’ mana and increase your heroes’ mana
  • Zero damage to the opponent, trickle mana to your opponent and increase your heroes’ mana faster
  • Trigger an opponents’ basic attack or reduce the number of matches/ turns until the basic attack is triggered.
  • Trigger the Revenge bar or reduce number of matches/ turns until the Revenge bar is triggered.

When you make a board match, and damage the opponent with a strong color, you not only do double damage, but because you did double damage, you indirectly cause the opponent to trigger fewer special skills, fewer basic attacks, and fewer revenge bars.

When you make a board match, and damage the opponent with a weak color, you not only do half damage, but because you did half damage, you indirectly cause the opponent to trigger MORE special skills, MORE basic attacks, and MORE revenge bars.

==Bonus Example==
This is like having five people bailing water from a leaking boat, three have 1 quart buckets, one has a 1/2 quart bucket and one has a 2 quart bucket. The whole group is still bailing the same amount of water per bail, 5.5 quarts per bail, but at different individual rates.

==Bonus Hero Example==
Even if you have good 3* heroes, they count as smaller buckets than 4* or 5* heroes, so they can bail less water. But poor 3* heroes are heavy, difficult to bail with, and leak out the bottom. While good 3* heroes are lightweight, easy to bail with, and are water proof.

==Single color enemy versus a Rainbow team==
For most situations, against a single color enemy, the advantages gained by the strong color hero, are balanced by the disadvantages suffered by the weak color hero.

This is why leveling good heroes, and heroes that have synergy/ compatibility ( see above ) are important. It gives you more damage, for longer, than poor heroes that cancel each other’s stats and special skills.

Edit:
==Why level a Rainbow team ?? ==
A Rainbow team requires the least amount of XP and ascension items to fight all opponents.

It might not be as good as a double purple team ( strong against yellow ) against an all yellow opponent, but it is better than a double purple team ( weak against purple ) against an all purple opponent or a reflect purple titan.

==Background, END==

==Double same color heroes, PROS==
If you have two red heroes, each hero has it’s attack stat calculated as normal. Each time a red shield ( board tile ) does damage, it is calculated by adding the current, modified, attack stat for both red heroes.

Example
Scarlett attack 767
Nashgar attack 514
So each red shield ( board tile ) does damage as if you had the hero NashgarScarlett attack 1,281

But the opponent hit by each red shield ( board tile ) only gains the normal amount of mana.

When you make a board match, and damage the opponent with a double color, you not only do combined damage of the two hero’s attack stat, but because you did combined damage of the two heroes, you indirectly cause the opponent to trigger much fewer special skills, much fewer basic attacks, and much fewer revenge bars.

==Double same color heroes, CONS==

Since teams only have five hero slots, if a team has two red heroes, the team will be missing a color. For this discussion, the team is missing blue.

The opponent hit by each blue shield ( board tile ) has the message “Missing Hero”, takes only a single point of damage, but gains the normal amount of mana.

When you make a board match, and damage the opponent with a missing color, you not only do 1 point of damage, but because you did 1 point of damage, you indirectly cause the opponent to trigger much MORE special skills, much MORE basic attacks, and much MORE revenge bars.

==Single color enemy versus a Single Strong, Single Weak, Double neutral team==
For most situations, against a single color enemy, the advantages gained by a double heroes of a neutral color are balanced by the disadvantages suffered by a missing hero of a neutral color.

Example
Against an all yellow opponent, a team of strong ( purple ), weak, ( yellow ), neutral ( green ) and double neutral ( red x2 ) will tend to do as well as a rainbow team.

==Bonus Example==
This is like having five people bailing water from a leaking boat, one has a 1 quart bucket, one has a 1/2 quart bucket, one has a 2 quart bucket and two are jointly using a 2 quart bucket. The group is still bailing the same amount of water, 5.5 quarts per bail, but at different individual rates and only using four buckets, not five buckets.

==Why double neutral heroes ?? ==
If the the neutral hero your are removing, is not effective against the single color opponent, but the neutral color hero you are adding is effective, this might be a good switch.

Example
If the opponent is a green boss with healing, you may remove a neutral, green major healer ( Ex: Melendor ) and add a second, neutral purple hero that can disrupt the boss’ healing special skill ( Ex: Merlin )

==Double Strong, PROS==
Against a single color opponent, the simplified explanation behind removing the weak color and adding a second hero of the strong color is more damage, faster ( on average, increases your damage by 27% versus a rainbow team, see notes detailed explanation )

==Bonus Example==
This is like having five people bailing water from a leaking boat, three have 1 quart buckets and two are jointly using a 4 quart bucket. The group is now bailing 7 quarts per bail, instead of 5.5 quarts, because the person using the 1/2 quart bucket, and the person using the 2 quart bucket, replaced both buckets with a 4 quart bucket that they are jointly bailing with. So even though less buckets are being used, four, more water is being bailed, 7 quarts per bail.

==Double Strong, CONS==
The colors on the board are random, but humans hate random. You will remember all the times the missing color lost you a raid/ war attack. You will remember all the times the double color destroyed your raid/ war opponent on the first match. You will not remember the times nothing really changed.

Having said that, with a rainbow team, all your board matches do damage, even if some do half damage, but with a double color team, some of your matches will do only 3 HP damage. Even if the average is better, if you really need to use a major healing special, or defense debuff special, you will still be upset.

==Bonus Example==
This is like having five people bailing water from a leaking boat, three have 1 quart buckets and two are jointly using a 4 quart bucket. If one of the 1 quart buckets breaks, until it is repaired, you are only reduced from 7 quarts to 6 quarts per bail. But if the 4 quart bucket breaks, until it is repaired you are reduced from 7 quarts to 3 quarts per bail and the water is still rising. If the water is raising less than 3 quarts per bail, you are still okay, but if it is raising 6 quarts per bail, you are losing.

==Double same color heroes and boards==

==Titans==
Because titans are only 90 seconds, you will have less total boards ( unless you get some large board combos/ cascades ). Because of the fewer number of boards, the average of the board will be more scattered. Because the new maximum damage per board is higher, and the new minimum damage per board is lower, using non-rainbow teams versus titans will yield wildly varying results.

==Bonus Example==
This is like having five people bailing water from a leaking boat, three have 1 quart buckets and two are jointly using a 4 quart bucket. If you are only bailing for 60 seconds until you can reach shore, a string of unlucky failures on the 1 quart buckets that happen after 50 seconds will be less noticeable, than a failure of the 4 quart bucket that takes 65 seconds to repair that happens before the bailing can start.

==Revenge Bar==
For our purposes, the Revenge bar is X moves to complete a map ( see notes for more details ) like the titan time is 90 seconds to complete a map. So everything that applies to the titan situation apply to the Revenge bar situation, just with a different background reason.

Also, once again, board combos/ cascades have a huge impact on the results like it does for a titan.

==Bonus Example==
This is like having five people bailing water from a leaking boat, three have 1 quart buckets and two are jointly using a 4 quart bucket. But the buckets are made out of paper and can only bail five times each before they disintegrate. Having a string of unlucky failures on the 1 quart paper buckets that happen after 50 seconds will be less noticeable, than a failure of the 4 quart paper bucket that takes 65 seconds to repair that happens before the bailing can start.

==Bosses==
Because bosses are usually fought after fighting 2- 3 waves of mobs, you will have more total boards, since the boards, and team mana, do not reset between waves. Because of the larger number of boards the average will be more concentrated.

But this is a game, so very few areas have all opponents the same color from wave 1 to the Boss wave. For some of these opponents your neutral colors will actually be strong or weak while your strong colors will be neutral or weak. Instead of an average damage increase +27% versus a rainbow team, you may actually have a DECREASE in average damage versus a rainbow team.

==Raid/ war defense team center==
The most likely reason to run two heroes of the same color is the center hero of a raid/ war defense team. Especially if the center is a healer, like 4* Kashhrek or 5* Guinevere, your damage per shield ( board tile ) is reduced every time you trigger their special skill, and their position at the front center means they will get the most mana from board matching. While a flank, or corner, healer still gets a trickle of mana every turn ( see notes at end ) a center healer gets the most mana. This is made more difficult if the healer has a defense buff against the anti-color ( 4* Kashhrek takes double damage from red and get a defense buff against red, 5* Guinevere takes double damage from purple and gets a defense buff against purple ).

==Grave Damage==
A dead hero cannot use its special skill. Compared to 4* and 5* heroes, 3* heroes are very fragile. But even a dead strong color 3* hero can help your board damage. See notes at end.

==Double Neutral, Double Neutral==
On average, this is no different from Double neutral, but the lack of two colors makes it twice a likely that using a Power shard ( created by matching 5+ shields/ board tiles ) will give your opponent more mana, while inflicting zero damage and giving your team less mana. This will be balanced in the long run by twice as many Power shards giving your opponent the standard amount of mana, while inflicting much higher damage and giving your team twice the mana.

==Double Strong, Double Neutral==
On average, this is no different from Double strong, but the lack of two colors makes it twice a likely that using a Power shard ( created by matching 5+ shields/ board tiles ) will give your opponent more mana, while inflicting zero damage and giving your team less mana. This will be balanced in the long run by twice as many Power shards giving your opponent the standard amount of mana, while inflicting much higher damage and giving your team twice the mana.

==Triple Strong==
Because you have three heroes of the strong color, you average damage goes up but the lack of two colors makes it twice a likely that using a Power shard ( created by matching 5+ shields/ board tiles ) will give your opponent more mana, while inflicting zero damage and giving your team less mana. This will be balanced in the long run by one color of Power shards giving your opponent the standard amount of mana, while inflicting substantially higher damage and giving your team triple the mana.

==Why doesn’t everyone use triple strong ?? ==
The following makes it difficult to field a triple strong team:

-Most colors have a specialty. Example: Many healers are green. Finding a team with good synergy/ compatibility becomes more difficult the less colors a team has.

-Lack of good heroes. Instead of one good hero of each color, you now need fifteen good heroes, three of each color, which all have good synergy/ compatibility.

-Lack of ascension items. Instead of the ascension items for five heroes, you now need the ascension items for fifteen heroes.

-Lack of XP. Instead of the XP for five heroes, you now need the XP for fifteen heroes.

-RNG summons. Even if a color has awesome heroes in a color, with good synergy/ compatibility, you have all the ascension items and XP you need, you still need to summon those three heroes for a triple strong team.

==Notes==

Grave damage or Improved damage with dead 3* heroes on 4* teams

Trickle of mana for defense teams
[Primer] Defense AI Cheats or why computer gets first move, trickle mana & bonus damage and how to exploit/ defend against it for more trophies

Revenge bar series
Revenge bar part 1

Revenge bar part 2

Probability, or math, based explanation of Strong, neutral and weak color teams

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Awesome thread, but I’ll have to reference it always.

Missing color tiles

NOTE
Parts of the original post are severely out of date due to the addition of Elemental links, Challenge event heroes bypassing Elemental barriers for matching Challenge events, Arrow Barrage replacing the revenge bar, and our current understanding of the damage formula

@Guvnor
I believe all matching color heroes’ Attack stat are added for tiles damage is due to effect of missing color on matching mechanics ( see above )

Mana bar

This is not needed for Special attacks because one tile adds the same mana to ALL matching mana bars

Example
1x Blue tile adds mana to ALL Blue heroes ( as little as zero and as high as x5 )

So 1x Blue tile gives 500% mana for a 5x Blue hero team

If the team is 5x Magni, then you effectively get 5x the damage per tile from Special attacks

Tinted attacks

While defense team normal/ slash attacks appear to be tinted attacks, not true color attacks IS probably due to Titans like you speculate.

Purple/ Yellow titans would be much harder to defeat if five strong color teams took double damage.

Red/ Green/ Blue titans would be much easier to defeat if five strong color teams only took half damage.

Since Empires was a rushed game, Raid defense just used the code for titans’ normal/ slash attacks

Raising Troops

To complete the discussion of color stacking mechanics

troop effects need to be split among different heroes

Otherwise 1x Bypass troop would carry more weigh than 1x Mana troop

By splitting the effects, you need to raise multiple Bypass, and Crit, troops just like you need to raise multiple mana troops

Unlike tiles, normal/ slash, and Special attacks, this does not appear to be a game balance decision.

This appears to be a monetize decision since troops could have been color neutral, already maximum effect and additive but instead are color matching, non additive and require leveling for maximum effect

Notes

(What Is Elemental Damage? - A Guide to Elements - #61 by Gryphonknight)

(What happens in a red color stack when Marjana is blinded, Ares has a crit buff and Gravemaker has 30% wound? OR Color stacking and RNG ( buffs, debuffs and talents ))

FIN

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