A little behind from my forum break.
Congrats @sleepyhead on Ametrine! I don’t know which ninjas do what or fight them often, but know they’re universally good and it is fun to get rare heroes!
Did you complete the whole tower again?
Congrats on beating S3 @Noble_Weasel . I am currently trying to focus and pound out S3 normal. I had neglected S3 for a while. I am almost done with province 26 on normal and just finished 9 on hard. In looking at teams people use to beat the end, especially on hard, I am legitimately concerned for my rosters ability to beat it.
Yes! I still don’t have Marjana and emblemed Kelile to +18 A path and her A value is 800. She can be a useful hero. She is still on most of my red stacks for raiding.
I have been busy rearranging heroes. I finished Ranvir and had emblems to get him to only +1. I have a lot of good druids: Melendor, Caedmon, Gullinbursti… Anyway, with Ranvir done I could plug him into my titan team. That allowed me to drop and reset my +20 Wu. I then got Joon to +19 (not spending 250 emblems for a mana boost on a fast hero for 20th mode) and got Leonidas to +7.
Very happy with those new hero arrangements. Titan team is still new with Ranvir. He seems to die easier than Wu currently, but scores are comparable if not slightly higher. The mana speed difference between him and Wu is noticeable in a good way.
Then came Frostmarch and a 6th scope (finally)! Options were Glenda, Raffaele, and Thorne. I picked Glenda. She is currently 30-something of 80. I have been playing with her damage increase ability and it is cool. I will like her. Another ailment remover is nice too. She is also my second minion producer, albeit a pseudo one. I don’t count Druid minions. Curious to see if she plays well off color to boost on color attack of others…
My other minion maker is Buddy. I got him early and had him at +20 but did not like the path I chose back then. Given my current abundance of reset tokens and materials I reset him going for D/HP to beef up his minions and am happier. The minions are about 15 HP tougher. Stacked with 3 that is up to 45 more HP as a meat shield. Every little bit helps. I also stopped him at +19 (increased crit chance on a hero like him for that emblem value is not worth it IMO). The extra emblems allowed me to get Athena to +7 
Finished HA research and put in a dupe Azlar to retrain
. I meant to pile all my dupes in at once, but am leveling my house up instead to increase that output. That has limited my current ability to raise recruits to stack that much in.
I did raid pretty hard for a week when formations came out. The attack thought process was a bigger change than I would have anticipated. I have adapted now though. I like the increase challenge. I hope it stays and applies to wars, etc.
From a raid D standpoint my rainbow team got obliterated. The record was like 1-15+ or something. Really bad. Switched to this and it is roughly 50/50 or so +/-:
In the double formation Elkanen and Richard are a decent double tank tandem and Magni boosts D to everyone. A big improvement over the rainbow team.
It is hard to gauge though. Given the somewhat more difficult nature of attacking now people are attacking different teams than they normally would. A lot of teams attacking me at “slumming” it down to me. I think there is a slight reshuffling going on in terms of player cup levels. It is harder to compete at the top with marginal rosters with this set up. Maybe I am wrong, time will tell.
How is Zulag working now @Noble_Weasel ?
I also found bringing Gretel +18, c-Chao +1, and Leo +7 to all elite enemy stages regardless or color helps. It isn’t always fast, but is safe. I can basically dictate when/if anyone shoots a special. 
