Ranvir – New June 2019 HOTM (Hero of the Month): First Thoughts & Discussion

Anyone using Ranvir on raid defense? I heard from a beta tester that he was decent at flank, was curious if anyone had any experience using him or facing him.

He was not a particularly sturdy flank in Beta. Also, since defensive attacks are much less frequent than tile attacks on offense, using him on defense is likely to dramatically up your variance in results.

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Which I’m starting to think might be a good defense strategy. Since attackers have such a huge advantage, it’s very hard to win on defense. Might as well throw in some heroes which give you a chance to get lucky. My worst raid lost ever was vs a misandra tank (a pretty bad tank) which fired twice, both times getting all 4 hits… Throwing Ranvir into an AW defense might get some lucky wins.

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That theory suggests that you can turn as many good boards into defensive wins as the number of bad boards you convert into defensive losses. I’m not sure I believe that theory, but it would be interesting to see someone test out.

I never ran him on D in beta, and honestly, most people in beta only raid when they’re testing out new heroes. So it’s hard to read ones defensive record very usefully. He never troubled me as a defender when I was raiding.

The most likely outcome seems like would be a modest increase in the loss percentage over time, since the extra misses on bad boards will differentially allow the attacker to escape from under bad boards, while I’d guess the attackers can generally still convert on good boards.

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I have Ranvir and now is tier 2 only small to be part of the team but yesterday I raid a guy who have him Max out with 3 emblems and he put him on wing so my team was: Caedmon, Kiril,Triton, Wilbur and Onatel and I won easy enough actually i loat Triton only and Ranvir pull trigger twice and I feel no difference on my team and I took 45 trophy’s

Hmm… Not really expecting to win vs good boards regardless of what I have on defense. Although the raid I described above I managed to lose in 3 moves due to misandra charging up all their specials so who knows…

I think it would be might be more interesting for situations where the defense has very little chance of winning in the first place otherwise. For example, I’m pretty confident I can win 100s of a raids in a row against 4* heroes… but throw in a wukong and I might lose if I get a bad board and the wukong luck works out.

Don’t think this is a good strategy for raids since you’d want some long term consistency, but if you’re one of the weaker defenses in AW then maybe this can get you some lucky wins.

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That makes a lot of sense to me. Blind luck is better than no luck at all.

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I hate to break the news, but you are an exceptional Elder player.

From what I remember of Beta rumors, Zimkitha and Kadilen are not popular but they work well with Ranvir on defense and attack.

Wu Kong and Jackal are not popular among Elder players for defense teams, but I have run them on my defense before.

If you have Guinevere, Gravemaker, and Zeline, you have better choices than Wu Kong, Jackal, Ranvir, Zimkitha and Kadilen.

Beta, and Anchor’s Guide, often suffer from the “fresh eyes” problem of game testing. You want the most knowledgeable testers, but that often means you are not testing accounts representative of the majority of the population. Like comparing the worst NASCAR driver to a random driver leaving a church parking lot. You want the NASCAR driver to test your car and give feedback, but the short old person with a cane may have trouble properly adjusting the mirrors.

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“You want the NASCAR driver to test your car and give feedback, but the short old person with a cane may have trouble properly adjusting the mirrors…”

I’m stuck with that image in my head and it doesn’t end well - thanks :confounded:

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That’s a fair criticism. I have a fairly low opinion of the new and improved Aegir as a tank. But that’s clearly not reflective of the practical reality that most people apparently have great trouble with him now. I don’t understand why that is, although I have some guesses.

Perhaps Ranvir on defense is the same.

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I guess it depends on who you ask an how many 4* and 5* heroes they have. Aegir used to be a problem for me because to kill him I had to stack Skittles and a bunch of green 3*. At that time he was a strong tank. Now that I have Caedmon, Skittles and Jack O’Hare he’s less problematic but still good. If I had Zeline and other 5* dispellers I probably would have ranked him very low too.

Alliance

Aegir

The biggest improvement to Aegir was generic/ rainbow defense buff instead of Green debuff buff. This made him more effective against rainbow 5* 4.80 teams, which most of my alliance is stuck with due to Summons odds, Hero XP from common/ uncommon training and 5* to 7* titans only having two ascension item loot rolls.

5* heroes with emblems are slowly eroding the usefulness of 4* heroes versus 5* defense teams. To triple stack 4*+15 heroes you need 3x rainbow 4*+15 teams. Before emblems you just needed 3x rainbow 4* 4.70 teams.

I find it interesting that 5* heroes need approximately 3x the emblems of 4* heroes. So players without 5* heroes are forced to emblem 4* heroes. But players with lots of 5* 4.80 heroes can emblem a single rainbow 5*+15 team at the same rate as attackers are embalming 3x rainbow 4*+15 team. Add the useful special skills of HotM and emblems are shifting the meta to Pay To Win. Especially with the current reset meta. The law of unintended consequences appears to have turned a good thing ( 4*+15 ) into a sucky thing.

Aegir being a Paladin does not help this situation from an attacking point of view.

Mystic’s Virtue can actually help with attacking 5*+15 defense teams if you pair the right heroes.

Attack all enemies

A lot of my teammates are stuck with Classic 5* Heroes like Quintus, Isarnia, Elena, and Azlar which are slow attack all enemies. Add Mystic’s Virtue, and this can be brutal for the attacker.

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That’s why I initially wanted Ranvir but now I’m not sure. I prefer playing with utility heroes like Wilbur, Proteus or Aegir. Ranvir affects their tile damage but since their special skills deal no direct damage, they don’t benefit from attack buff but suffer from accuracy debuff. Proteus missing is a disaster.
I also use GM in almost every raid and again, he deals more DoT than direct damage thus he gains very little from the Mystic Virtue as DoT is unaffected but missing chance still applies.

Ranvir should be great for farming s2 thanks to increased tile damage. In pvp offense/defense not so, at least not with my play style.

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Yes…ish. I mean, I agree with your analysis on the overall emblem situation, although even 5+7 defenses don’t vex me overmuch. I don’t even have a full rainbow 5* squad maxed yet, let alone emblemed.

But there are 4 4* on my preferred anti-Aegir squad. And none of them are green, interestingly enough. That said, green 4* are actually a great way to unwind Aegir.

My guess is that people insist on taking 5* against Aegir even though it’s really suboptimal to do so for many rosters.

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I don’t have Zeline. And I have only 4 maxed 5*, none of which is green. When I do bring green to fight Aegir, for my first green hit I debuff with Buddy and dispell with a 3/70 Evelyn. For my second green hit in a war, the dispell duties are shared between 4/70 Caed and 4+10 Melendor.

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I take on Aegir with a 4.70+14 Melendor, a 4.70+14 Buddy and a 4.70+10 Hansel. Unless I get a terrible board, I’m good.

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Even more off topic than we are already, but how do you like Buddy with emblems?

I was following the discussion about hero grades and reviews, not saying you had Zeline or every 5* hero :slight_smile:

Back to topic, I remember having problems against Wu Kong in diamond Arena. I imagine Ranvir will be placed in that same place if people start using him in defense.

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Just saying my grade wasn’t informed by a huge 5* stable :slight_smile:

I like the HOTM I tried to get him I did 6x10 pulls and 10 free tokens and got 1- 5 star 4 epic and the rest 3 stars. Not good but it is what it is .