I dunno, a spreading effect that you have to either block or cleanse otherwise it’ll stick for the rest of battle is kinda annoying. I remember the times of Skadi and her unremovable Frost Damage stacks, which was very strong back then, and this is easier to trigger.
Btw I wonder what would happen if you fire Whitefang then GE who makes all enemy debuffs uncleansable. Say good night!
My guess is if you fire GE before it is fully spread, frot DoTs spread after would still be cleansable.
I got lucky enough to get this hero. Working on leveling her up. I’ll let you know how she plays in a month or two.
A lot more annoying when you consider that “oh, just heal away the damage” isn’t going to work so well when you’re stuck at half-healing all fight until you take out the fox.
ew, given that most “uncleansable” effects have their own duration. Granted, @Bobblez is probably right that “only” currently-spread DoT would become uncleansable, but still.
If you have a defensive dance (Guardian Gazelle or Opera like Odette or Odile), that would seem to help… but you have to keep that hero alive long enough to fire, and the dance hero at least generally doesn’t give the dance to themselves.
(Plus, if you are buff-blocked, lasting-DoTted, and then Elephanted, dance won’t help with that.)
—
It feels like we are slipping further into a “I can’t ever run anything but Toons ever again” scenario (as at least they have their ridiculous “75%” immunity to most things baked in, though experience suggests that percentage-based abilities certainly feel different on offense vs on defense).
I suppose one way around the “healing is nerfed forever” chicanery is to run like five Mega Minion heroes, but seriously? (Also, how about folks who have checks notes zero such heroes?)
For me, Mega minions are definitely the hardest teams for me to beat. Permanent dots are also supported with dispel and also run the risk of being reflected onto your own team. Dancers can cleanse all dots except for on them, so if the permanent dot is on the dancer themselves, it will start spreading again once the dance wears off. So dancers are good but not full proof.
I don’t have a ton of trouble with debuffs and dots myself, because I use odile, goldie, a 3/70 lady locke, and 4/75 C. Hathor. If people do not have a dispeller, I can see how dots can be an issue. But Rigard or C. Sabina should not be too hard for FTP players to get, if facing dot cleansing issues. I’m not against running double cleanse when I need to, either.
Goblins, however are still a pain point bc my battles constantly go long, I don’t have a growth cleanser aside from just getting Greg, and there is still no easy way of getting through mega minions except targeting them early and hoping for good tiles. I’ve lost several games on time due to a last remaining Scrollbeast or Shimmerscale where my attack is reduced so much that I can’t kill the mega minion before he ults again.
Imo, growth and mega minions are harder to beat than a perma dot.
Counterpoint: running a Rigard or Sabina (even if one has or eventually gets a Toon version of either) may well be likely a problem against a modern 5* generally!
–especially (in this case) a hero whose base 4/80 attack score before emblems is 1046, with a sniper hit of 550% – while a Toon costume may keep the Lasting Frost DoT from taking hold, the point may be academic if the 4* cleanser is simply dead in a single shot (or, if not from Whitefang, from the caliber of heroes likely to be partnered with a 0.1% hero like this one).
The other issue is that even for folks who have a bigger/stronger/more recent cleanse hero – which is of course entirely possible – that Whitefang is taking two choices from you, if you pretty much have to run a cleanser and run a LNY hero for its passive, if you don’t want Whitefang’s Infinity-Dodge minion to steal any 2LB start-of-battle buffs.
but that’s not all
because even if you’ve devoted two hero choices to help try to counter Whitefang, you’re still healing for half all fight until you get rid of Whitefang.
That’s a problem: if you have to consider devoting half or more your team to counter just this one new monster, what are you gonna do about the other four?
I mean, one cleanse hero in your attack team is just good sense, given the state of the game, and whitefang is not the only hero worth bringing a cleanser to defend against. Having two may be excessive, but if they do cleanse + something different than the other, it is not really a wasted spot. Cleanse and dispel, to me, are about as necessary as heal.
The teams I face (~3000 cups) already make bringing a dispeller and a cleanser practically mandatory. Actually, where I am at, I should probably run two dispelers (one attack dispeller and one heal dispeller), one cleanser, and one guard hero to clear wither. I don’t quite have all of that, so I hobble along. (I don’t even have DD or EDD on my team, which is why it probably takes longer.) But, I also tend to want to bring heroes that counter their heroes. This does leave a lot of other fun heroes unplayed (my hippo and ginger are just used for war teams and titan now), but I’m happy playing this way. I still find it enjoyable to beat a pvp defense that is hard to win.
I think the only people who don’t need to worry about bringing a cleanse are new players who really only have to worry about counterattack. And, if that is the case, I doubt they will see whitefang on a defense team amytime soon.
The strongest thing about the Fox Family is not the perma dot but the Fox passive of -50% heal, which seems to be a partial counter to heavy healer teams that are hard to break. It is a strong passive, for sure. But, like the c. diao passive that countered the Lunar passive, not many will have it at first, and killing whitefang or rust removes it from battle, so you know who to focus down.
I’m not sure if -50% healing also means -50% boosted health. I’ll have to test that. I would think so, but you can never be too sure with Zynga.
“Well, given that this is a 0.1% hero, maybe it will at least be a few days before I have to face—“
sonuva foxing vulpine infernal beast
yeah, that was slightly over 24 hours. very first war after this portal opened.
From what I can tell, this type of “lasting DOT” doesn’t seem to scale with attack value (including troop bonus). Is that correct for both Whitefang and Rust? The 300 per turn for Whitefang is then maximum no matter the attack value, unless there’s a damage multiplier debuff (eg Matilda or Snowball fiends) in place?
Makes me wonder if emblem route for defense/HP is superior to help ensure survival and make sure the DOT is applied to start spreading?
Correct. It’s a fixed value. You can always verify this by toggling the max power preview button
Joke’s on you, last war I faced someone with 4 Secret Heroes (and no, none of them were that Steampunk baddie from Hellboy or Ugly Egg).
As I see yours other heroes luck is not important here just whale spending.
I first saw Whitefang in the wild (90+25) less than 5 hours after the summons opened. Must be nice to whale level 5*s. 
Just pulled Whitefang, what do you think about the mana node, worth giving It ?
I always get the mana node no matter what. Even if I don’t think that it will currently help hit any breakpoints now; it may in the future and respec is expensive or not feasable. (especially if GE or ME used…)
So yeah,always mana node 
I’d go full def/HP as well, not even as much because fixed DoT, but because of the heal-nerf passive. If I had but never fired Whitefang it would still help me win battles as long as it stayed alive cutting foes’ healing in half.
Some great points made. I lucked into white fang as the only 5* in a 30 pull and going defense and hp makes sense.
Testing this one only 1/1 and playing around in season 2 map stages… appears to me that hero is taking damage on successful dodge, minion health remains full though. Anyone else able to double check me?
