There are ways to counter her if she attacks your team. You can bring an owl healer or a defense up hero. Also the number of times she is healed will lower her insanity. The first shot is a freebie. It’s obviously a balance feature.
Also many top defenses have the secret heroes, so what are you guys saying? The top teams are using useless heroes? Cool story
Hm, yes some top teams use Abigail in defense. Some also use Zavinia, I think they are day-flies and it’s just cool for the top players, to show off their newest heroes for a limited time. I can only write about my tests on Zavinia, they are as described, maybe I can find heroes with synergies that make Zavinia playable. Owls I don’t have and maybe won’t get any of these.
It would be very helpful if someone could provide detailed test results on how and in which position to use her. 10% less insanity when healing doesn’t really change anything in terms of playability. And Abigail has a different mechanic with her minions, maybe they do their job without having to fire her special a second time. I’ll keep reading. Maybe someone can clearly explain her strengths and uses. If so I would be happy, otherwise she is simply useless to me
I like the idea of Farrah in green.
I absolutely hate the randomizing. Im ok with heroes with calculable strengths and weakness, because then I can plan and place effectively and know how and when to use them, You can bring a team thats all heales or all minion makers, because they can be easily countered, but when used against a specific enemy they may be effective,
Randoms wipe away practicalty. hence why Rumplestilskin is not used, His talents are all fine, but unless you know whuch will happen, its a magic 8 ball that too often says BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME
If it was 50 but self reduced, so you wait 2 or 4 turns to erase it fine. But a high chance of fail abd it defeats any quality of success,
I’ve been testing Zavinia yesterday and this morning in raids and Atlantis… Currently sitting at 3-49… Using her with Myon-Ni, Diaochan without costume, Daroga and Thalassa… all with their own class Leg troops and LB2 except Diaochan who sits at LB1…
So far so good… I’ve played around 15-20 raids and managed to get Her to fire on my own team just a few times… So on offense she is super useful… even at 3-49 only… I’m holding of on charged healers until I fire her after Daroga… She deals almost simillar amount of damage to Daroga who is LB2…
Immediately after I fire her, I use two healers in the same turn most of the time… So I get Her at 30 Insanity… and a turn or two later further 10… So with 20 Insanity she rarely fires on my own team…
But that same Insanity keeps her alive at 3-49 until I fire up more healers so on my third Zavinia Activation she is usually around 50-40 Insanity so she still rarely fires on my own team… By that time, Daroga and Zavinia kill a few heroes and the rest of them have lots of Insanity, like 50-70 or more, because when she fires on only three heroes left, she deals a lot of Insanity on them… Then they fire on their own team and at that time the match is over most of the times… I have boosted health and a weak minion to boot, so I don’t care If she fires to my own team the third time, it never affected me too much these few times it happened… Daroga’s attack stack helps Her a lot with both special and tike damage and his bpeed also finishes a few heroes so If she fires a third time, that’s it, raid won…
So If she holds Her own in 3300-3400 cups range raid at 3-49, I can imagine how she will perform at LB2…
So she definitely needs three fast healers and some careful timing, but she is very fun to use even now… Can’t wait to give her LB2… For offense, I think she will do great, but no so sure about defense yet…
I think she is definitely worth giving alphas to…
Will report after further testing.
I have been testing her at 2-40 ish and same, she’s fantastic on offense. She inflicts a ton of insanity on the enemy and you can work around her own. Fun hero
Thanks for your insights. Three healers sounds strange. Doesn’t look like effective gameplay. Would have to pair him with Melendor and Ptolemy, don’t have much choices. Looks more like a monocolour team. Mostly wish I would prefer to use him in raids. But I have found a real use for him in events, map stages and quests - you can heal him with small healing potions, thats good.
@ Mika
Would be nice if you could post more results, once you have tested him for a longer period of time in different circumstances.
Yes, I will… as soon as I finish her so I can compare the damage with LB2 Daroga properly… So far at 3-50 does similar damage with 7-8 green tiles at least, which is bonkers crazy good. And a couple of times she fired on my own team, It didn’t hurt me as much as I thought… It is strange to raid with three healers, but it seems efective so far in 3300 cups range…
Personal, I think this is not a defensive hero at all so far, but will test Her put once I max Her, but she will need a completely rework of my def team.
The thing is, I think this meta of crazy high stats brough back the snipers to the fore front again after a lot of time when Aoe fast hitter ruled the game… Now they are mostly useless unless they are slow hitting beasts… It’s a different ball game when we had 2000+ hp with troops and now we have 3300-4000 hp with 5* troops, so snipers are back in fashion… And in this meta, a two hero snipe combo with three healers to keep them alalive isn’t as strange as it sounds… You take out one by one and the game lasts a little longer, but as soon as you boost your team enough to avoid one shot kills, your are mostly in control… but need to have a t least one or two fast healers-boosters…
Hey, so far it works… Myon-ni and Thalassa when used in a combo with one plain healer and three hitters doesn’t add up much, but the two of them combined with one plain healer give your team quite a boost and buy you more time to charge up your snipers…
And Zavinia is especially usefull on the second and third hit for which I wait untill she’s max 40 Insanity, but aim for 20-30 Insanity which rarely missfires… then shee adds up a lot of Insanity to the oposing heroes which is very satisfying to watch them fire on the own team or heal up your team some more… 
Amyway, we’ll see how Zavinia behaves when maxed, but so far I don’t have any doubts with giving her not just the mats, but LB2 as well…
Have her at 3-67 and she is my all time favorite hero. Just blast to use
Yeah, I was skeptical at 1st, but I went ahead and bumped zavinia up to the 3s to do some test fights.
Its really very much more manageable IF you bring 2 immediate heals. That includes any other teammates that hit and heal or simply a quick healer (Heal over time DOES NOT work on lowering Zavs insanity BTW!). Id say the majority of shots came at 30 or less nearly every recycle with 2 healers and considering its usually a min 3 or even 4 turns to recycle Zav to shoot again, 0-20 is very doable also if you bring a very fast healer who you can shoot twice before Zav is ready again and a fast Hit n Heal type to match. (Think Styx or Ninja healers). I have quite a bit of reserve mats at present, I can do 2 greens should I so desire, was thinking Smart Tongue and Garten. Now Im somewhat debating bumping one of them for Zav.
I really do believe Gargoyles are brute force weaponry. They rarely have the best stats or skills on the board, but if you can wait till their specials stack up the growth and wither. they become nearly unstoppable if you can keep them alive and shooting 5+ times…not to mention they really bring the owl family to life. So Im sorta leaning towards Smart tongue and Zav now. Garten does multiple things well too though. Including a heal that would work with Zav, I do believe more and more with some further play that all this YOU CAN ONLY FIRE HER ONCE THEN SHES A LIABILITY is overstated. on the right team, Ive fired her 5x in a battle without a single team shot. Only once ever did she shoot her own team twice in a battle (fired at 30 and at 20).
The thing about her is much like Lemonwood, she makes the game more fun! Certain heroes are more fun to use and she is proving to be one of those.
Meh, she’s okay - she should have stayed at 40 self-inflicted insanity - she requires multiple healers to be of use and even then there are plenty of times where she’ll affect your team with only 20 or so insanity, yet when the enemy has 20 insanity it never seems to trigger nearly as often…
In my case I tested her with C. Hathor, C. Cleopatra, Lazara, and C. Hel - she’s a bit of fun which can turn into something very annoying when she inflicts your team and they go off instead.
I’ll ascend her all the way, only because I deem her a better choice than Winifred, though she’ll soon follow when I get 2 more tonics.
I have her to 85 +20 now. I am enjoying her gameplay in map stages, raid and war attack. The reduced damage when she goes insane makes any frustration I may have with it, tolerable. I bring one healer, and am selective when I fire her, related to the # of green tiles on the board. I have also enjoyed the occasional good luck with the opponent firing on itself (or healing my team) on only 10-20% insanity. This is my first secret hero, so I’m learning about how the insanity mechanic works for my roster with new eyes.
I will have the alphas required in a week or two, and feel she’s deserving of them.
Has anyone used Zavinia (or other secret/shadow heroes) in war yet? I’m wondering if the health and defense family bonus is added once you are attacked. Her health seems to only recognize the leg troop bonus, not the family bonus.
I gave LB1 to Zavinia, need one more green aether III for LB2… On average, she hits around 2000± in total, plus Insanity… with two or three healers and Daroga, she gets to fire safely for the second time usually, but the third time is when it gets interesting… If you kill several oposing heroes and have space to ghost tiles and heal some more and fire her for the third time, that usually gets the job done… But, If the defending team heals etc. What I usually do is wait to have just a few Green tiles on the board and fire Zavinia to intentionaly cause her insanity on my own team… By that time, I’m usually healed up and her damage isn’t that great to my team… the oposing team usually have around 20-30 to several target… but then when I activate my Zavinia with 70-90 insanity and trigger her insanity… I get a hit I can tolerate easily, but the target gets 50 Insanity, so i I usually target either their healer or heawy hitter to help my own team that way… And the I can fire Zavinia for the forth time safely… So If times right, It can be useful to trigger own Zavinia Insanity to help your team… so it’s all about good timing… So all in all, extremely fun hero to play with…
You have fun with her, that’s the most important thing !
She’s sitting on my bench right now. Maybe something will change later, if SG starts an event with this hero family and possible bonuses, or my hero squad will be strong enough at some point in the future to cover her/their weaknesses. But unfortunately that will take a long time i think… Happy gaming Mika!
I gave her LB2 and never regretted it! She is fantastic on offense and seems to work fine even on defence…My cups rose to around 100+ since putting Her on defense…
She hits like a truck and her second hit is usually very safe with at least two healers, and like I started previously… Her third hit is either a finisher or a saving grace… Her third hit triggered Insanity of a difficult opposing hero many more times than it did cripple or kill my own team…
Still, in order to be in line with the rest of the Insanity heroes, I think she should of stayed at 40 self inflicted Insanity or she should give 15 or 20 Insanity per hit to the opposing heroes… some heroes give 50 to two heroes on the first acrivation which is far more impactful then giving 10-20 to several heroes, which is quickly cleaned out via healing…
Who is Zavinia…?? Never see her before…
I only play this game 2 year. I already feels that new hero releases too offen. And they are way too much powerful then some old Classics heros…
That’s because it’s a secret hero.
One of these heroes who were released once, on left up corner of the screen named and described as ??? ??? ??? ???
It was a chance to got her for 24 hours(from 2024-06-30T07:00:00Z to 2024-07-01T06:59:00Z), as a bonus summon(like a HOTM) with 0,1%(yeah, REALLY LOW) chance.