Time to make my Diamond push?

Gameplay Help & Tactics
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Hello, forum friends! I would like some advice from you today. Thank you for reading and for any suggestions.

Platinum Arena

For the last few months I have deliberately installed a tower defense that was lower than the best I could field. This enabled me to comfortably stay in the Platinum Arena (i.e., not drop out of it overnight), while accruing a large slate of revenge opportunities so that I could easily and quickly fill my raid chests each day.

During that time I have mostly ignored what would be / could be my ā€˜bestā€™ team, in favor of strengthening my bench for war and flexibility for titans, events, etc. At the time I elected to take this path we largely didnā€™t know what raid tournaments would look like, and I figured I wouldnā€™t be competitive in the five star eligible tournaments no matter what strategy I took, so I was better off rounding out my stable of three and four star heroes.

Diamond Arena

However, a few things have happened lately that make me think itā€™s time to re-evaluate. I have beaten a few teams with 4,000+ team power, a mark I have long held in a sort of mythic reverence and awe (and that - correctly or not - I closely associate with the Diamond Arena). This has happened in a few war conditions, in a few test raids Iā€™ve run (when not filling my hero chest), and in the recent raid tournament (where, it was like Fight Club - you HAVE to fight).

Additionally, I have twice pushed over 2,4000 trophies, without trying and without a flask (funnily, both times I just went over and then found myself out of raid flags - I have yet to actually officially win a raid in the Diamond Arena).

Finally, I am now nearing the point where I almost have to push my best team up - that is, the alternative options (another Chao to 3.60 type stuff) are less and less compelling.

My Roster

I figure a push would have to consist of two parts: installing the best tower defense I can (and probably level / emblem it where possible), and ensure that my attack team options are sufficiently varied and powerful. If you want to help, Iā€™d be interested in hearing if you think my roster is ready, what defense youā€™d install, and any other suggestions you have.

Assume I have all season 1 and 2 four star heroes in each element (not quite true, but it will be easier than listing my full roster) - I will list the five star / event / season / HOTM I have. Assume they are all maxed unless noted. Finally, assume I can put ~250 emblems on one hero in every class.

  • Dark: Merlin, a second Proteus, and a 1.1 Thoth-Amun that I have the materials to max

  • Fire: 4.32 Guardian Falcon currently being leveled to max, 3.70 Mitsuko, 3.70 Santa Claus, 1.1 Anzogh - I can max out one of the five stars

  • Holy: 4.72 Onatel currently being leveled to max, 1.1 Leonidas that I can only take to 3.70 (and I only have 1 dart)

  • Ice: 3.42 Aegir currently being leveled until 3.70 / until I get two more capes for a 2.60 Frida, 1.1 Thorne - I have the telescopes to max one of these

  • Nature: Buddy, 4.38 Mother North currently being leveled to max, 2.60 Evelyn, 2.60 Morgan Le Fay - I can bump either of those two to 3.70, but only have two tonics

Defense

As you can see, the biggest weakness on my roster right now - and it is glaring - is my complete lack of snipers. My best option currently is probably Caedmon + emblems. In raids I mostly rely on attrition, keeping as many heroes alive as I can while Mother North charges. My defense would probably have to be similar, with as many tanky hard to kill heroes as I can muster.

I think the best I could do right would be something consisting of Mother North, Onatel, Boldtusk with emblems, Grimm with emblems, Caedmon with emblems, and Proteus with emblems. Maybe Mother North, Onatel, Boldtusk, Proteus, and Caedmon. N.B. that Onatel flanked by two maxed Protei is an option, though I recognize the normal gripe about how the AI will play them poorly and actually HURT Onatelā€™s mana steal.

Future 1: maybe Mother North, Mitsuko, Onatel, Aegir/Frida, and ??? (Caedmon?)

Future 2: this would take longer, but Mother North, Onatel, Thoth-Amun (and give up waiting for Sartana), then some combo of Mitsuko and Aegir/Frida.

I can see a case for Santa, but there are two downsides there: he would be a second slow hero, and I lose Mitsuko and the synergy she provides with Onatel.

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1.MN-Mitsuko-Aegir-Onatel-Buddy

Peoples killing Aegir tank teams by disspell or all hits for weakest hero (with weakest def) but in this team you have only tanks with high def.

2.If you want rainbow(probably donā€™t need)

MN-Frida-Mitsy-Onatel-Thot

Thot work best in corner or flank, if you have hard raid Thot with stacked minions can be your nightmare

3.MN-Aegir-Santa-Onatel-Thot/another hit 3

You have 2 slow heroes there but you also have double minions, more minions=more annoying def

4.MN-Frida-Mitsy-Onatel-Grimm

Frida+Grimm combo is destructive

My favourites are 1 and 3, maybe someone else will have better idea :relaxed:

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Hi @IvyTheTerrible. Thanks for commenting on my post in another thread.

You donā€™t seem to have had many responses to this post , so I will try to bump it up for you.

I canā€™t really offer any advice - but I just wanted to say I empathise with you big time. I have a very similar situation where I have a very long-standing defense team that keeps me easily in platinum, with occasional forays into diamond. I also use the same team as my main attack team if I am going rainbow. The familiarity with it helps the flow for me.

I have some stronger heroes, but I struggle to arrange them in a defense team that I think is much better than the one I know and trust. i just donā€™t really know how to take that next step!

Good luck

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I had your same choice, and decided it was time, then made the jump successfully. I was in Platinum until recently, when I finally leveled Kage from a January Atlantis pull and Marjana from a February TC20 pull. With Aegir buffed, those two were enough.

Your defense doesnā€™t need to win vs all comers, it just needs to break even or not fall too fast. Most cups come from attacks anyway, not the defense. I think most of the combinations listed would work, with #s 1, 3, and 4 working best. I am particularly fond of the Frida-Grimm combo, both for your defense team and for use in offense.

Make sure to keep looking for snipers, especially for your offensive team!

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@Radar1, thank you for your suggestions! Some of those are definitely combos I have not really been looking at, so Iā€™m glad to get your perspective. I hadnā€™t strongly considered Buddy, due to the overlap with Mother North in color AND minions (thatā€™s probably ridiculous - Iā€™m not going to get three minion deep on defense), so thatā€™ll be great for me to reflect on.

@Steve9999, thank you! I appreciate it. I am still hoping I get a few more comments, but even just having typed it up has helped me crystallize my thoughts a bit. No conclusion at this point yet, but it did help me lay out my thought process. And I think you make a good point - my goal should probably be to start opening chests in diamond for the time being and then go from there.

@Greywing, haha - I donā€™t know if I should be encouraged or discouraged! I would love to get my hands on a sniper or two, and hearing that that was the difference for you just furthers that desire. Itā€™s almost comedic how much Sartana would add to my roster right now - right color, right skill set. I honestly think sheā€™d do more to advance me then adding a top hero like Gravemaker, Zeline, or Athena would. Iā€™ll keep summoning / training.

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Hereā€™s an idea to try out for raid defense:
MN/Aegir/Santa/Frida/Morgan

I think theyā€™d easily keep you in diamond when max. I donā€™t worry much about running a rainbow team any more

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Interesting setup. Unfortunately, I canā€™t max both blues (only one), and I canā€™t max Morgan at all. :frowning:

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Iā€™ll be the frustrated downer here and mention that after 3 months of Diamond my records show no difference in loot in Diamond over Platinum. I expected at least a slight improvement but nothing really.

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You get emblems and sometimes trainer heroes in diamond. You donā€™t (or I rarely) get those in Platinum.

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Platinum 1 to 5 emblems and 1 or 2 star trainer, diamond 3 to 20 emblems and 2 or 3 star trainer.

I didnā€™t experience other differencesā€¦

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Thatā€™s significant, if thatā€™s the difference. I assume thereā€™s also a slight uptick in food / iron / recruits, which would probably make moving up worthwhile, as long as I can still fill 2+ hero chests a day.

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Yes, more ham and more iron, too.

Recruits?
Coming from fights and farming, not from chests. 4K teams give up to 6.

Def maybe

Mom Aegir Mitsi Frida Ona

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Yeah, thanks - I meant food, iron, and recruits from winning raids. I remember noticing an uptick from Gold to Platinum, so I assume the same is true from Platinum to Diamond. That is a solid incentive for me to try to make the leap.

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Does your alliance coordinate tanks for war? I consider that way more pressing a question than raid defense, generally.

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Hope you get good suggestions @IvyTheTerrible. As a rather new player, and one who always looks for YOUR suggestions, Iā€™m in no place to suggest anything. Just commenting to hopefully bring about more visibility and garner more veteran tips. Good luck on your move up, I have no doubt you will do well.

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What is your goal? To sit in diamond or to raid to diamond to fill your chest and then sink back to gold?

Currently I am the latter. I can usually open chests in diamond but have to win raids to get there to do so. I donā€™t have that many options for my defense, it is BT, Aeron, Vivica, Richard, Gregorion. Those are my best 5 heroes and 3 happen to be healers. Itā€™s enough to keep me above 2200 cups. With troops itā€™s just over 4000 TP for whatever thatā€™s worth.

I donā€™t raid rainbow as I suck at that. I generally use 3-2 and my raid team is usually between 3500-3700 TP. I would not expect to be able to stay in Diamond until I can successfully raid more consistently against the 4000+ teams I see and as often as not lose to. I am building up my bench strength to achieve that but I am also chronically short of AM.

I would say in my case I didnā€™t plan on the push towards diamond, it just happened as my defense team became stronger.

From your roster, and based mainly on who Iā€™ve faced, Iā€™d use:

Dark: Merlin can be troublesome, I am ambivalent about Proteus, maybe Rigard?
Holy: Definitely Onatel
Fire: This is tough, Iā€™ve not faced Anzogh, but Santa doesnā€™t scare me - probably Falcon or Anzogh or BT
Ice: I would use Aegir or Frida, Aegir is very troublesome if not killed early
Nature: Mother North and her infernal porridge

I have none of these 5* myself. Iā€™m jealous :slight_smile:

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@Garanwyn, we do NOT use same color tanks. We tried for a little bit, and it worked very well when most of our teams were of similar power. That is not true right now, so we dropped it, feeling the strategy wasnā€™t working - our lower power teams were attempting to use underpowered tanks just to match color, while some of our stronger teams fielded suboptimal defenses. Itā€™s a point Iā€™d like us to get to eventually, but itā€™s a ways off. Plus, my heroes are so tank heavy that I think Iā€™d be okay / field a reasonable team almost no matter what color was picked. Good point though and one I wasnā€™t thinking of.

@PapaHeavy, thank you! Thatā€™s very kind. Please feel free to tag me in any of our posts where you need help. Canā€™t always promise Iā€™ll deliver or have good ideas, but Iā€™ll be happy to take a look. :slight_smile:

@nevarmaor, I guess for now Iā€™ll settle for opening in diamond, but it would be cool to eventually reside there. I donā€™t really care about being in the top 100 or anything like that, but Iā€™m competitive enough that I enjoy seeing some improvement, and this one would definitely feel good.

Your comment about defense team around the 4,000 markā€¦Iā€™m not there yet and will need some time, but itā€™s Interesting that your raid teams sound similarly powered to mine (well under the 4k mark).

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I only have 4 maxed 5* currently and they are rainbow, which I never do for raiding (I suck at rainbow, I can never seem to get my specials going soon enough). Thatā€™s why my attack teams are generally much less than my defense team (my 4 maxed 5* plus BT maxed). Because I find best success with 3-2 I can generally have success facing up to 3900 opponents, occasionally 4000+.

As I gain more AM and max out other heroes my raiding team will grow in power to be able to challenge 4000+ teams on a more consistent basis. Then I can aim for higher levels in diamond (my current high in cups is 2540), and make longer lasting visits.

My heroes are also predominantly classic ones, some of whom are a bit suboptimal against the shiny ones in the upper levels.

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In that case, I feel safe to make some unrestricted recommendations.

Think Offense First

The first thing Iā€™d observe is that you should strive not to harm your offensive capabilities in setting up your defense. This is what I like to think of as the @zephyr1 Maxim: All defenses suck; some just suck incrementally less than others. It is much easier to control your ability to win raids on offense than it is to ensure that you win raids on defense.

In that sense, here are my thoughts on your options:

Dark: no final ascension choice. Sartana would be super helpful, though.

Fire: Mitsi vs Santa is the call here. If you already have Wilbur for titans, Iā€™d far prefer Mitsi. Ice snipers are so common that being able to field an Ice reflector on offense is very useful. The mana cut also is very helpful in slowing down a defense.

Holy: no final ascension choice. Leo at 3/70 is very effective on offense, though. My main yellow stack is Onatel 4/xx-Leo 3/70-Danza.

Ice: Thorne and Frida is actually a brutal one-two punch, since theyā€™re both Average mana. Frida and Aegir also play very well together because her debuff makes the tile-generated healing of Aegir extra effective. But you can only max one right now. Defensive utility probably dominates this question.

Nature: no final ascension choice, but Iā€™d take Evelyn to 3/70.

Current Defense

The real problem is you donā€™t have any configuration of heroes that particularly punishes an enemy for flinging tiles. I doubt you have a current configuration that can hold Diamond. But you can probably hold close enough right now to raid up for chests.

MN-Proteus-Onatel-Proteus-Triton seems fun to try, since Triton gives the Atlantis family defense buff. Youā€™re striving to limit your opponent to tile damage here basically, and because of that, with MN youā€™re very likely to get rezzes at full mana.

I have no idea how consistently it will work. But it looks fun to try for a week and see what happens.

Future Defense

I tend to think about defenses in terms of a defensive core, and then the corners, since thatā€™s functionally how they receive tiles and activate.

To my mind, you have basically two defensive cores that cohere and donā€™t kill your remaining hero choices:

A) Mitsi-Aegir-Onatel
B) Aegir-Santa-Onatel

A is more or less a Prevent Defense with some teeth. B is a little more offensively focused. But you donā€™t have the damage dealers for the corners to back either one up in an ideal way.

Since Iā€™d prefer Mitsi to Santa for offensive stack use, Iā€™d probably recommend core A. Itā€™s nasty in that if Aegir fires, he makes it very likely the surrounding mana control will activate. Without having specials hot, Aegir can be really annoying to take down.

It would be really nice to put something at the corners like an elemental debuffer and an AOE. But at this point weā€™re looking at Nature and Dark, and there just arenā€™t great options.

MN as a left corner anchor maximizes the probability that the core will come back, so she seems like a good choice. Which leaves us with a variety of unexciting choices at right corner. Maybe Proteus? Maybe Tibs?

Iā€™d try MN-Mitsi-Aegir-Onatel-Proteus.

@FraVit93, @Kerridoc, @Gryphonknight, @RandaPanduh, @Zephyr1 alternate thought here? Itā€™s a really interesting challenge to stitch this into a stable Diamond defense.

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Complex math

Click for boring math

My first thought is Gold is more stable than Platinum and Platinum more stable than Diamond because of how Eloā€™s math interacts with color stacking, Hero XP generation and and summons RNG.

Summons RNG limits available heroes ( see Gravemaker, Zeline and Guinevere).

Hero XP generation limits 5* rosters.

Except for the attack stat soft cap, color stacking is only limited by 4* / 5* heroes you can level and Devs have added to the game. See how my wife broke raiding.

Eloā€™s math is very stable in the MIDDLE, but less stable at both ends. Since much of the math deals with normal curves, the end cases like Diamond are at the end of that curve. Especially individual 24 hours since Elo also assumes a bell curve for each win/ loss/ tie while admitting it is not a realistic model at Diamond or low Bronze.

A good mathematician could customize the trophies but it would have to be rebalanced for each new feature and basic Elo assumptions work well enough.

Players do not understand that with MMOs defense teams are more like partial raid shields than trophy generators. See Worldā€™s Deadliest Spelling Bee. Probably should have lead with this.

Rerolls

Since Empires trophies are more about partial raid shield on defense, intimidation is your best characteristic.

We discovered in war that weaker war defense teams work better than stronger if the opponent AVOIDS ā€œwastingā€ energy attacking them.

Any defense can be overcome, especially with two rematches, but the attacker has to chose to engage.

Simple special skills, heroes with reputations, 5*+1 are all very intimidating even if the team itself sucks on defense and has little synergy.

Try to build a defense team that scares away attackers.

Where is your fun

Hero XP is very limited.

Is it worth it to spend creating a better raid shield?

Often this will require using lots of Hero XP on defense heavy heroes ( looking at you Kashhrek). Perhaps ā€œskinsā€ will help with this problem.

Or to create a better raiding roster to open Wanted Hero Mission Chests in Diamond?

Often this requires little additional Hero XP since attacking heroes for raiding are often useful against waves with multiple bosses, challenge events, and Tourney.

But itā€™s GLOWING

You can fill a Wanted Hero Mission Chest and leave it unopened until you are in Diamond. Just because it is full, does not mean you have to open it.

Especially with twenty Tourney energy per week, this is often the least expensive option.

Click for War Center strategy

Color coordinated centers

You can color coordinate centers by hero star.

Example
3*= Belith, Tyrum, etc.
4*= Rigard, Kashhrek, Boldtusk, etc.
5*= Vivica, Delilah, Gravemaker, etc.

So each player coordinates by best hero. Maybe 5* yellow, 4* Red, 3* purple depending what your alliance has leveled or wants to level. Just pick one color for center starting at 5* defense and going down to 3* ( or 1* defense for newbie alliances).

This works because primarily attacks tend to be auto matched or manually match based on displayed team power.

Example
3* centers tend to get attacked more by enemies with 3* attackers. So if all you 3* centers are purple, they will run out of 3* yellow attackers.

Same for 4* red defenders and 4* blue attackers.

This is the weakness of color stacking on offense.

FIN

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