Who is the Best Vanilla Tank? šŸ¦

What is the best tank an f2p player can expect?

I currently have Justice +6ā€¦are there any better candidates for me and players in my situation?

Other likely lads:

Richard - mine is in the scope queue behind Magni

Vivica - I donā€™t rate her personally, however her costume is another matter! I guess we canā€™t quite judge how realistic an option this is during the hiatus but itā€™s unlikely to be a big positive shift.

Elena - I know, I know, but @IvyTheTerrible had some data that suggested she was better than expected.

Boril - with a ton of emblems? But thereā€™s always melendor and Caedmon to spoil the party

Kash - similar problem as above. Plus in my case heā€™s never going to wrestle emblems from Proteus, Sartana, isarnia or Kiril

Anyone Iā€™ve overlooked?

5 Likes

Justice hands down in my opinion especially emblemed and will just get better when costume arrives

But i havenā€™t faced costumed vivica enough to have an opinion on her

But will say base form vs base form, justice wins so would be a safe prediction that costume justice will trump costume viv as well

7 Likes

Iā€™d say, for 5* Richard, for 4* Boril.
Second one then Justice and Kashh.
Thirdā€¦uhh not so easy for 5*, dunno - Viv is easy, Horghall is easyā€¦Khagan?..4* Iā€™d say Kiril or Boldie.

So I think youā€™re going good with Justice anyway.

But it depends, an emblemed Magni hiding behind a Viv can be annoying.

2 Likes

Justice is a pile of HP and has a good defense, you should pair her with a healer to gain the most out of her as tankā€¦ so a high leveled Rigard is mandatory.

Sorcerer Vivica is good and just need hitters around her, bonus if they could also provide a cleanse as Druid Sonya, Monk Quintus could also be an ok choiceā€¦ more or less as he is an AoE glassy version of Richard.

3 Likes

Iā€™ve got Richard as a tank. Emblemed in lvl 13, the def way. He holds me on 2500 - 2600.

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Sheā€™s very kuncheny.

I got spanked by a +13 repeatedly.

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I donā€™t find kunchen to be a very threatening tank personally, so probly why i think meh but i also bring 2 cleansers per team cause Iā€™m used to facing gm flanks

Also depends if weā€™re talkin wars or raids

Wars= limited stacking due to uniformity which makes any hero tougher as a tank

Raids= out of my interest zone these daysā€¦

6 Likes

Richard imo.
I lose often, when heā€™s the tank. He hits hard and weakens your attackers.

Just lost a war flag against him.

Domitia also is a great tank due to her anti stack def.

A high talented Azlar would be a threat, too. If he fires - bye bye.

Isarnia wearing her costume will bring your team half down and sets up a deadly def down.

There ā€˜isā€™ too many dark out there to field any yellow tank except punishing Guin, but away from that Justy is tanky enough.

5 Likes

Itā€™s between Richard and Justice for me. I lean towards Richard myself as he is seriously beefy, and hurts a lot with emblems leaning towards attack (whilst still maintaining really good defense)

Vivica costumed I donā€™t have much experience though ā€“ the ones I fought at tank in Beta had no emblems, so it is hard to judge just from that.

2 Likes

This is exactly my case: Marjana, Isarnia+7, Justice+6, Rigard+17, Lianna+6

Iā€™m going back and forth from Platinum to Diamond and back. But I donā€™t raid actively, only do occasional revenge.

3 Likes

I use Thorne +7 as my tank since I donā€™t have anyone better! He keeps me in diamond well enough though.

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I find Richard more a more threatening tank than Justice. The slow mana speed gives you that much more time to prepare a defense (easy with Grazul, not too hard with Ursena), have a cleanse ready, or kill her outright before she fires. You have less margin for error in a bad board with Richard soaking up tiles. I havenā€™t faced his costume more than once or twice, but he seems excellent costumed up.

3 Likes

What about Azlar?

Kash is my favorite snack, earlier this year, I used to fight 3600 Kash Tank with 3200 team that consist of 2 blue and 3 purpleā€¦ I wonā€™t rate the lizzard as tank.

When I need a guaranteed victory (filling raid chest), I often avoid Elena/Azlar tankā€¦

4 Likes

After the classes were introduced Elena definitely got better, Iā€™ve thought of her as a serviceable tank for defenses.

  • Riposte to herself + nearby means that rows 2 to 6 get counterattacked
  • Fighter class comes with revive talent (a plus for any tank even if slow)
  • Nasty damage to all, means you need a beefy dispeller that can take the hit

I think sheā€™s serviceable though, not a fantastic tank. Her low defense is what ultimately really hurts her for that spot.

2 Likes

I compiled the data for all 3,224 raids Iā€™ve tracked. Normal caveats apply: I am making no attempt to normalize for emblems, team power, value of support team, the attack team I brought, etc. So, to some extent, the data is skewed by my own roster and decisions to fight. Although, with this particular question, I believe it is less subject to those influences, as a big part of my tracking exercise was so that I could better guide my embleming and troop leveling decisions to shore up weaknesses. That is, when I saw Iā€™m weak against red tanks, I poured emblems into Kiril and Frida and bumped up my blue troops.

4 Stars

There is no contest here: the answer is Boril. He went 5-74 against me, 8th best in the sample and head and shoulders above any other four star (barring one potential outlier I will get to in a minute). The rest of the four stars went 1-129 against me. Heā€™s by far the best value proposition, given how cheap itā€™ll be to emblem him to max, compared to all the five stars weā€™re going to talk about in a moment.

Worth noting: Gadeirus. Recognizing that he probably doesnā€™t fit the definition of Vanilla, he did go 2-6 against me, which would be the highest win rate in the period. Obviously thereā€™s a sample size issue here - I am looking for and fighting every Gadeirus tank I can find. But if I had one, a stack of Druid emblems, and no obvious better emblem tank, Iā€™d give it a go.

5 Stars

Hero Wins Losses Win %
Elena 12 97 11.0%
Isarnia 6 61 9.0%
Azlar 4 45 8.2%
Richard 13 167 7.2%
Elkanen 4 52 7.1%
Horghall 1 14 6.7%
Obakan 1 17 5.6%
Joon 1 17 5.6%
Justice 3 69 4.2%
Lianna 1 26 3.7%
Leonidas 1 26 3.7%
Thorne 3 79 3.7%
Kadilen 1 27 3.6%
Vivica 3 89 3.3%
Sartana 1 43 2.3%
Magni 2 98 2.0%
Marjana 1 57 1.7%
Khagan 0 50 0.0%
Quintus 0 17 0.0%
Domitia 0 15 0.0%

Observations

  1. Fast snipers like Joon, Lianna, Sartana, Magni, Marjana, etc. are not tanks. You are mispositioning your hero.

  2. Average speed and slow heroes fall into two groups: when they fire they basically win the raid (Azlar and Isarnia) or dramatically change the composition of the fight with their secondary effects (Elena and Richard), or they do not, causing only damage (Leonidas, Thorne, Khagan, Quintus, Domitia - note the absence of soul crushing secondary effects).

Letā€™s look a little deeper at the heroes I didnā€™t name in the above categories one at a time, since I think they defy easy classification.

Vivica: her win rate is poor, even though her special changes the fight composition. Part of it seems to be how easy the special is to clear: Richard does well because there is no natural choice to cleanse or reverse his ailment, Vivica does not because Seshat or Domitia were getting charged while Vivica was.

Horghall, Obakan, and Kadilen: not the best sample sizes for these, but it is interesting to note that Horghall may qualify for the latter part of point 2. Maybe not though, as Boldtusk is a very strong counter. Kadilen is a weird mix since she has sniper speed and does have a secondary effect that is hard for fire heroes to clear. But I think ultimately itā€™s just not enough damage output while still leaving her susceptible to tile death (whereas Richard and Elena make tile death harder / punish it). Not sure what to say about Obakan.

Elkanen is also an interesting case as he is similar to Kadilen, conceptually. Sniper speed, but only damage. The obvious comparison is Leo, who did NOT fare well. Iā€™m not sure why Elk did better than Kadilen. I guess that self-heal giving a little extra time for his team before dying makes a difference. Maybe someone will have some thoughts on this.

Lastly, Justice: Justice seems to meet the criteria for an average / slow tank: big special. The problem is that almost everyone is going to have a very emblemed Rigard. And the costumed versions can now easily fire in 9 tiles. Barring a costume change for her, I think sheā€™s becoming less viable, though she is not terrible. Average or slightly above average right now, Iā€™d say.

My Opinion

Again, Boril. You get maybe 80% of the performance of the best vanilla five stars at a fraction of the cost.

Beyond that, my vote is Richard. No green whoā€™s likely to attack him undoes his ailment and his class does a lot for his tank position (where Isarnia and Azlarā€™s do not). In saying this, Iā€™m partly accounting for my roster - Iā€™m attacking him with a heavily emblemed Mother North, moderately emblemed Evelyn, and a basically max emblemed Caedmon. That team is strong and fast (decently superior to what I bring against the red heroes). That he still wins so often anyway is a real credit to him.

18 Likes

@IvyTheTerrible do you happen to know what talent path is the best for Elena? Attack or HP or Defense?

3 Likes

Titans att, tank defā€¦

Azlar - the gamble king

Horghall - emblemed and costumed can be extremely tough

Elena - similar to Azlar as another gamble card

Thorne - sorry but I like him better than Richard

2 Likes

Thorne isnā€™t anything, neither tank nor flank nor wing, he just hits and leaves enough lp for at least one slash even on squishy epics. No, Thorne is out imo.

2 Likes

Richard - the best classic tank. Always was, always will be. This is the main reason Iā€™ve chosen him to be my tank in AW. Beginning with September, no one succeeded 1-shot win against me in wars. OK, agree, there are a lot of noobs out there, but stillā€¦

P.S. Iā€™ve chosen every atk node and is also a 1-shot finisher if he hits an already harmed hero (or one with lowered def). And the adjacent heroes are also screwed. And is average, not slow, which makes him indeed the greatest.

5 Likes