Heroes reviewed in 30 seconds

mrdahl

HI,

I was bored and decided to add a quick review of the heroes in Dungeon Boss. If you intend to play the game for a while, you probably wonder which heroes to invest in. The campaign and challenge mode can be cleared with any team you like, if you just upgrade them accordingly. The challenge is mostly to find efficient PvP characters and auto play teams to grind the dungeons for you. This review is based on the heroes overall usefulness and their proficiency in PvP. A short comment on auto team play follows below.

mrdahl

Name Tier Comment
Ember Sanguine 1 Fast healer with powerful team attack buff. Essential PvP offense player
Ferno 1 New VIP. Great on PvP
High King Valkin 1 Great stats, great skills, great team player.
Hopper 1 PvP essential
Koros 1 The walking nuke. A must have.
Masuta Kira 1 Great at everything! Must have
Shade 1 Probably the single most important PvP character
Shadowblade 1 Fantastic PvP assassin. Great in PvE once epic
The Furnace 1 The tank of the tanks. Buffs armoured and red.
Viperia 1 The slithering nuke. Get her!
Archangel Emily 2 Unique resurrect, very hard to kill when runed right.
Aria 2 Boosts light characters, dodges like no other. Bring a dwarf if you see her.
Grog-Gnog 2 Great all-around.
IGOROK 2 Great stats and Epic
Shieldmaiden Astrid 2 Buffs caster and healer defence. Good warrior/tank
Yasmine Bloom 2 Best PvE healer once epic
Zen 2 Fast shielding healer, anti Kai Makani
Bauble 2 Construct healer. Annoying. Hard to kill if runed right.
Black Dimond 2 Very squishy, but good, fast AoE damage
Bovus El Doro 2 Good all around. PvP oriented skills. Very hard hitting epic
Dagrund Blacksmoke 2 Great dwarf team player. Good epic. Boosts casters
General Krexx 2 Powerful tank, great reptile team player
Indigo 2 Great on PvE until you get a decent autorun team
Kai Makani 2 Very powerful defensive skill, useful in PvP
Kobal the Pestilent 2 Very situational in PvP, PvE useful once epic. Disease for everyone
Lily Blossom 2 Unique, armour killer. PvP useful
Pontifex Mortis 2 Unique. PvP oriented
Rocky the Shiitake 2 Can be very useful in PvP
Augustus 3 Solid, heal, shields, epic. Rather low damage.
Chief NubNub 3 Good PvE healer, great on a goblin team.
Cobressa 3 Squishy, but great reptile team player
Cruel King Bramble 3 The linchpin of a goblin team. Useless otherwise
Ella Amethyst 3 Dangerous as an opponent, but not very useful on your team
Hagrim Felhorn 3 Some very powerful skills, great in PvE
King Yorick 3 A must have if you go with an undead team, otherwise mehhh
Kozar Bonebreaker 3 Big, slow, nothing special
Leonidus 3 Solid tank, unique on-death resurrect, but not very useful these days
Life Reaper Brom 3 Great killer, but slow and undead
Lord Zomm 3 Undead king. But slow. And undead
Lupina 3 Decent when on a beast team
Malice 3 Strong character. Demon queen, too bad demons are useless
Shadow Queen Daeris 3 High damage but squishy
Therand Fiddlestrom 3 Kills armoured. Nothing more
Torchy 3 Very squishy. Decent single target damage, epic nuke
Willow Swift 3 Fast, decent epic. Others do it better, but ok
Piginus Maximus 3 Great, but only on a beast team.
Dhaegon Stonecrusher 4 Hard to find, not really useful
Julius 4 Not exactly bad but does not excel at anything
Admiral Kreel 4 Weakest reptile
Ekko 4 Situational in PvE
Hansuke Undying 4 Only on an undead team
Nitpick 4 Mostly useless despite epic
Overlord Executum 4 Undead.
Phemus 4 Slow
Phenol Thoxian 4 Slow, worth having only for poison quests
Sifu Jianzhi 4 Not really bad, but no good either
Yokozuna 4 Rather decent tank, too bad tanks are useless
Abigail the Brutal 5 Useless all over
Alexandros 5 Useless
Balog 5 Useless
Icebloom 5 Useless despite decent epic
Icepick 5 Useless
Ignus the Wicked 5 Cool but useless
Jabbar Clenchjaw 5 Still no good
Lady Nimriel 5 Useless skills, useless epic
Mangle Jaw 5 No
Rogar Stonecrusher 5 First character. Useless. Useless epic
Samurai Takumi 5 Useless
Selwyn the Enduring 5 Strong freeze, but others do it better. Useless
Sir William 5 Cool taunt, but otherwise useless.
Squinch 5 Hardly even on a goblin team
Stone Fist 5 Useless
Tsume 5 Useless, possibly worst epic in game
Zurk 5 On a goblin team, nowhere else

mrdahl

They are separated into five tiers. You should try to get and upgrade all in tier 1 ASAP, (they are of course relatively hard to get, but try) and then tier 2. The rest can be picked up as you go along, unless you want a specific team to play around with.
There are several tier 3 and 4 that are ok, but they are simply overshadowed at what they do.
Being undead is counts as a disability, since they are easily pwned by Masuta Kira in tower and PvP

mrdahl

Once you get fed up with the daily grind, you’ll start considering an auto play team to clear dungeons for you. There are several options.

Undead: Lord Zoom, Hansuke Undying, King Yorick, Overlord Executum and Life Reaper Brom.
Main benefits: Immune to disease. Can go anywhere. Lifedraining, hard hitting, epic teamwork.
Drawbacks. Slow. Requires Lord Zoom. Needs lots of epic upgrades to reach full potential

Goblins: Cruel King bramble, Chief NubNub, Zurk and Squinch. (or possibly Kozar Bonebreaker)
Main benefit. Great teamplay from all but Squinch. Very fast, high auto play damage. Critical strikes everywhere. Cleanses with epic NubNub.
Drawbacks. Falls apart as soon as they stop delivering crits. Must invest in critics runes. Can’t fight red or diseasing teams

Blue team: IGOROK, Grog-Gnog, High King Valkin, Yasmine Bloom
Main benefit: Hard hitting with epic heals and cleansing regeneration.
Drawbacks. Powerful characters but limited team interaction. Very weak against green enemies. Requires lots of epic investment in Yasmine and IGOROK

Dwarves: High king Valkin, Dagrund Blacksmoke, Hagrim Felhorn and the useless three: Therand, Rogar, Deaghon.
Main benefit: Three strong team players with auto heal and perfect swing.
Drawbacks. No cleanse. Fourth member is weak.

Beasts. Lupina, Torchy, Grog-Gnog, Julius, Bovus el Doro, Piginus, Jabbar
Main benefits: Great team interaction, powerful epics, very high damage with Piginus on the team
Drawbacks. No heal or cleanse!

I personally play with a beast auto team, with Yasmine as a fourth member. They can quickly clear any dungeon, including the boss elemental ones.

JackHallow666

Mangle and Zurk are bad..??

Maybe I misread the title, are these 30 second reviews on each character or have you only used each character for 30 seconds? xD

echonap

Mostly agree with the assessments. I'd bump a few up or down 1, but I guess it depends on your level and pvp league.

farfella

That took more than 30 seconds to read.

JaxBoomstick

Gotta disagree with some of those:
Black Dimond - Completely Useless. Too little damage, way too squishy
Indigo - Useless. Unreliable abilities.
Kobal the Pestilent - DO NOT LEVEL HIS EPIC, great cannon fodder in PvP.
Pontifex Mortis - Over-rated. Speed bump in PvP.
Kozar Bonebreaker - Total Stud. Group with Grog Gnog. Great in PvP
Leonidus - Unique ability which creates new options in PvP
Lupina - Fastest end game auto run beast hero. Epic AoE.
Torchy - Fastest end game auto run beast hero. Epic AoE. Great to Combo with Ferno in PvP. Can also Silence.

Barleyman

JaxBoomstick wrote: »

Lupina - Fastest end game auto run beast hero. Epic AoE.
Torchy - Fastest end game auto run beast hero. Epic AoE. Great to Combo with Ferno in PvP. Can also Silence.

They can't both be fastest.

itirnitii

I don't think he means individually, just they are both part of the fastest team.

JackHallow666

Barleyman wrote: »

JaxBoomstick wrote: »

Lupina - Fastest end game auto run beast hero. Epic AoE.
Torchy - Fastest end game auto run beast hero. Epic AoE. Great to Combo with Ferno in PvP. Can also Silence.

They can't both be fastest.

Obviously it's whichever one you have in the first spot. Until DB makes a 'faster than fast' stat to nerf MK...

farfella

@JackHallow666 don't joke about horrible things like that.

xandrew29

Manglejaw isn't useless, simply because, like Torchy, he comes with an auto-powered silence attack. Also, if you're new to the game, he's infinitely eaiser to star up/ascend vs. Bovus or Koros, and he slows. I'd move him into Tier 4 because of that; he's basically Koros before Koros existed (seriously, both Red Monster heroes with high damage AOE fire attacks as their base).

Glad you gave SB some love. He's an amazing counter to the reptile teams (which have no fast characters). You de-rune him, and he removes Krexx's taunt without killing Krexx. You can then kill Viperia right away, and you're in great shape.

WombatBatKing

xandrew29 wrote: »

Manglejaw isn't useless, simply because, like Torchy, he comes with an auto-powered silence attack. Also, if you're new to the game, he's infinitely eaiser to star up/ascend vs. Bovus or Koros, and he slows. I'd move him into Tier 4 because of that; he's basically Koros before Koros existed (seriously, both Red Monster heroes with high damage AOE fire attacks as their base).

Glad you gave SB some love. He's an amazing counter to the reptile teams (which have no fast characters). You de-rune him, and he removes Krexx's taunt without killing Krexx. You can then kill Viperia right away, and you're in great shape.

Yes, but UNLIKE Torchy, he's a middle-tier speedster where Torchy is a fast creature. Silence goes away after the turn it's cast, so if you're going to use it, it needs to be right away, and Mangle will have to go before the other teams speedsters and the first middle-speeder on the opponents team.

That being said, being slow isn't the crippling flaw you, or just about anyone else, makes it out to be, neither is being fast the huge benefit. Sure you get to attack quicker, but it means little if you can't deal or take hits or have something that can help tip the scales, and if the slow one can REALLY deal and take hits, then it makes up for what they lack in speed.

JackHallow666

WombatBatKing wrote: »

xandrew29 wrote: »

Manglejaw isn't useless, simply because, like Torchy, he comes with an auto-powered silence attack. Also, if you're new to the game, he's infinitely eaiser to star up/ascend vs. Bovus or Koros, and he slows. I'd move him into Tier 4 because of that; he's basically Koros before Koros existed (seriously, both Red Monster heroes with high damage AOE fire attacks as their base).

Glad you gave SB some love. He's an amazing counter to the reptile teams (which have no fast characters). You de-rune him, and he removes Krexx's taunt without killing Krexx. You can then kill Viperia right away, and you're in great shape.

Yes, but UNLIKE Torchy, he's a middle-tier speedster where Torchy is a fast creature. Silence goes away after the turn it's cast, so if you're going to use it, it needs to be right away, and Mangle will have to go before the other teams speedsters and the first middle-speeder on the opponents team.

That being said, being slow isn't the crippling flaw you, or just about anyone else, makes it out to be, neither is being fast the huge benefit. Sure you get to attack quicker, but it means little if you can't deal or take hits or have something that can help tip the scales, and if the slow one can REALLY deal and take hits, then it makes up for what they lack in speed.

Yet MK can:
- Take hits
- Deal crap tons of damage
- Still be a Fast hero

So what we've learned today is MK beats everyone. Torchy or Mangle? MK. Class dismissed!

(joking, Torchy is still good cuz of Silence)

WombatBatKing

JackHallow666 wrote: »

WombatBatKing wrote: »

xandrew29 wrote: »

Manglejaw isn't useless, simply because, like Torchy, he comes with an auto-powered silence attack. Also, if you're new to the game, he's infinitely eaiser to star up/ascend vs. Bovus or Koros, and he slows. I'd move him into Tier 4 because of that; he's basically Koros before Koros existed (seriously, both Red Monster heroes with high damage AOE fire attacks as their base).

Glad you gave SB some love. He's an amazing counter to the reptile teams (which have no fast characters). You de-rune him, and he removes Krexx's taunt without killing Krexx. You can then kill Viperia right away, and you're in great shape.

Yes, but UNLIKE Torchy, he's a middle-tier speedster where Torchy is a fast creature. Silence goes away after the turn it's cast, so if you're going to use it, it needs to be right away, and Mangle will have to go before the other teams speedsters and the first middle-speeder on the opponents team.

That being said, being slow isn't the crippling flaw you, or just about anyone else, makes it out to be, neither is being fast the huge benefit. Sure you get to attack quicker, but it means little if you can't deal or take hits or have something that can help tip the scales, and if the slow one can REALLY deal and take hits, then it makes up for what they lack in speed.

Yet MK can:
- Take hits
- Deal crap tons of damage
- Still be a Fast hero

So what we've learned today is MK beats everyone. Torchy or Mangle? MK. Class dismissed!

(joking, Torchy is still good cuz of Silence)

That's why MK needs to be nerfed bad. He can still be strong without being overpowered, but right now he requires certain characters to check when other characters require a less narrow cast of characters to beat. ...And none of MK's checks are sure things, just characters who at the very least have a chance.

One more thing I can say is that the OP said "Tanks are useless" when rating Yokozuna, yet gave several tanks 1s and 2s, including Furnace which he gave a 1.

JackHallow666

WombatBatKing wrote: »

JackHallow666 wrote: »

WombatBatKing wrote: »

xandrew29 wrote: »

Manglejaw isn't useless, simply because, like Torchy, he comes with an auto-powered silence attack. Also, if you're new to the game, he's infinitely eaiser to star up/ascend vs. Bovus or Koros, and he slows. I'd move him into Tier 4 because of that; he's basically Koros before Koros existed (seriously, both Red Monster heroes with high damage AOE fire attacks as their base).

Glad you gave SB some love. He's an amazing counter to the reptile teams (which have no fast characters). You de-rune him, and he removes Krexx's taunt without killing Krexx. You can then kill Viperia right away, and you're in great shape.

Yes, but UNLIKE Torchy, he's a middle-tier speedster where Torchy is a fast creature. Silence goes away after the turn it's cast, so if you're going to use it, it needs to be right away, and Mangle will have to go before the other teams speedsters and the first middle-speeder on the opponents team.

That being said, being slow isn't the crippling flaw you, or just about anyone else, makes it out to be, neither is being fast the huge benefit. Sure you get to attack quicker, but it means little if you can't deal or take hits or have something that can help tip the scales, and if the slow one can REALLY deal and take hits, then it makes up for what they lack in speed.

Yet MK can:
- Take hits
- Deal crap tons of damage
- Still be a Fast hero

So what we've learned today is MK beats everyone. Torchy or Mangle? MK. Class dismissed!

(joking, Torchy is still good cuz of Silence)

That's why MK needs to be nerfed bad. He can still be strong without being overpowered, but right now he requires certain characters to check when other characters require a less narrow cast of characters to beat. ...And none of MK's checks are sure things, just characters who at the very least have a chance.

One more thing I can say is that the OP said "Tanks are useless" when rating Yokozuna, yet gave several tanks 1s and 2s, including Furnace which he gave a 1.

It's funny. Most of the good Tanks for PvP aren't even good because they're Tanks. For example,
Astrid - Good because she applies Off Balanced to all enemies and protects Casters and Healers, not because of her provokes.
Kozar - Good because of his high damage and health, not because of his provokes.
Leo - Good because he can revive allies and protects Light allies from extra Dark damage, not because of his Taunt (anti-magic aura sucks anyways).
Krexx - Good for his Taunt, but serves as fodder to make the Sisters invincible. Technically does use his Taunt to protect his allies, but isn't meant to last.
Pignius - Good for increased Crit damage and double-attacks for Beasts, not for his Taunt.
IGOROK - Good for Freezing enemies. You probably won't even see his Taunt get used, since it's his last ability.

Furnace is just about the only hero in PvP who's Taunt is actually good at protecting allies and letting him Tank damage. But I guess it's also because of his Abs of Steel. Without those, his Taunt would probably just be used to grant allies Fired Up, and maybe take a hit or two. In short, the only hero good at actually tanking damage is good because he had a stupidly powerful passive that guarantees he Tanks at least 5 hits. Mainly because most heroes, Tanks or not, die in a couple hits anyways in PvP.

CentralCommand

JackHallow666 wrote: »

WombatBatKing wrote: »

JackHallow666 wrote: »

WombatBatKing wrote: »

xandrew29 wrote: »

Manglejaw isn't useless, simply because, like Torchy, he comes with an auto-powered silence attack. Also, if you're new to the game, he's infinitely eaiser to star up/ascend vs. Bovus or Koros, and he slows. I'd move him into Tier 4 because of that; he's basically Koros before Koros existed (seriously, both Red Monster heroes with high damage AOE fire attacks as their base).

Glad you gave SB some love. He's an amazing counter to the reptile teams (which have no fast characters). You de-rune him, and he removes Krexx's taunt without killing Krexx. You can then kill Viperia right away, and you're in great shape.

Yes, but UNLIKE Torchy, he's a middle-tier speedster where Torchy is a fast creature. Silence goes away after the turn it's cast, so if you're going to use it, it needs to be right away, and Mangle will have to go before the other teams speedsters and the first middle-speeder on the opponents team.

That being said, being slow isn't the crippling flaw you, or just about anyone else, makes it out to be, neither is being fast the huge benefit. Sure you get to attack quicker, but it means little if you can't deal or take hits or have something that can help tip the scales, and if the slow one can REALLY deal and take hits, then it makes up for what they lack in speed.

Yet MK can:
- Take hits
- Deal crap tons of damage
- Still be a Fast hero

So what we've learned today is MK beats everyone. Torchy or Mangle? MK. Class dismissed!

(joking, Torchy is still good cuz of Silence)

That's why MK needs to be nerfed bad. He can still be strong without being overpowered, but right now he requires certain characters to check when other characters require a less narrow cast of characters to beat. ...And none of MK's checks are sure things, just characters who at the very least have a chance.

One more thing I can say is that the OP said "Tanks are useless" when rating Yokozuna, yet gave several tanks 1s and 2s, including Furnace which he gave a 1.

It's funny. Most of the good Tanks for PvP aren't even good because they're Tanks. For example,
Astrid - Good because she applies Off Balanced to all enemies and protects Casters and Healers, not because of her provokes.
Kozar - Good because of his high damage and health, not because of his provokes.
Leo - Good because he can revive allies and protects Light allies from extra Dark damage, not because of his Taunt (anti-magic aura sucks anyways).
Krexx - Good for his Taunt, but serves as fodder to make the Sisters invincible. Technically does use his Taunt to protect his allies, but isn't meant to last.
Pignius - Good for increased Crit damage and double-attacks for Beasts, not for his Taunt.
IGOROK - Good for Freezing enemies. You probably won't even see his Taunt get used, since it's his last ability.

Furnace is just about the only hero in PvP who's Taunt is actually good at protecting allies and letting him Tank damage. But I guess it's also because of his Abs of Steel. Without those, his Taunt would probably just be used to grant allies Fired Up, and maybe take a hit or two. In short, the only hero good at actually tanking damage is good because he had a stupidly powerful passive that guarantees he Tanks at least 5 hits. Mainly because most heroes, Tanks or not, die in a couple hits anyways in PvP.

The three strongest heroes in the game right now are Shade, Hopper and MK. I am pretty certain these 3 each kill more heroes and deal more damage in PVP then all the rest of the heroes combined. Lets do a quick rundown:

1. All 3 are fast. So immediately rule out the usefulness of every taunt/provoke that doesn't start the battle active. Hiding a dead hero behind a wall is not very useful. Unless the taunt starts active you can't count on hiding a weak hero behind it, they'll already have taken the worst shots of the match.
2. All 3 essentially ignore taunts on their first move. Shade literally ignores it, hopper and MK just have AOEs to start. So now we can go ahead and rule out taunts/provokes that start active, the most damaging move each of them has will ignore the wall.
3. The "turn 2 problem"
   • Shade (who was already pretty hard to kill on turn 1) makes himself invincible on turn 2. And forwards all your damage to the guy of his choice. And based on how we now know targetting works, that's probably going to be the squishy guy you were trying to hide behind the wall. Which means most likely the most effective thing that guy is going to be doing is killing your team when shade possesses him.
   • Hopper gives herself a big boost in dodge, she also spends turn 2 making herself tougher to kill. Not as tough as shade since she's not invincible but her second move also really hurts immediately (unlike spirit link which hurts later). And since she keeps gaining energy and healing letting her live gets much worse very quickly.
   • MK goes a different tactic, if you let him live then he's got a coin flip to take an extra turn. He doesn't get any harder to kill on turn 2 but an extra turn is really painful. And he's also pretty hard to begin with.
   • Why bring this up? Because if you aren't spending turn 1 doing everything you can to bring these guys to the ground you are hurting yourself more then you are helping. It's too late to build a wall, you need to kill them before they get way worse. If furnace's taunt didn't add fired up it probably wouldn't be used either. Only because it helps kill these guys in addition to building the one semi-reliable wall does it get used.

My point is the damage to the tank isn't the problem. Even furnace can only actually protect people who can also protect themselves. These 3 heroes and their mechanics make it impossible for the taunt/provoke strategy (a staple of other strategy games) to have success in DB. There are other heroes that contribute as well but these are the big 3. It's pretty much impossible to enter a PVP match without seeing at least one of these 3 and all 3 remove your ability to use your tank as a traditional taunter.

Aura0fsmiles

Your assessments make mangle sad

Sparkle_Starley

couple of disagrees

bd: can boost death blossom crit to 80%*, and Im pretty sure her base attack is higher than mk
torchy; befor nerf**, he did like... more damage than shadowblade, and fast ability cooldown for tower
daeris; more defense than koros, and can still one shot teams
that goes with alot of other glass cannons(to name a few: mangle jaw, tsume)
the undead: tier 2, zomm deserves tier 1, they're like, the king of campaigne
igorok:utterly useless except for tower or lava academy
stonefist: he still suks but never underestimate a well runed stonefist(my lv 50 daeris with over 3500 attack only did 1000 damage to an UNRUNED one)




*50% cap, 15% extra crit, 15% light crusade, and Im pretty sure leonidus also has light crusade so you can get 95%
**beast leader(+30% attack) got changed to beast scout(+30% skill)

JackHallow666

Leo doesn't buff stats at all. He does, however, prevent Light allies from taking bonus damage from Dark heros' elemental advtanges.

Sparkle_Starley

JackHallow666 wrote: »

Leo doesn't buff stats at all. He does, however, prevent Light allies from taking bonus damage from Dark heros' elemental advtanges.

so back in the zen kozar meta you can make zen shadowblade immune

xandrew29

CentralCommand wrote: »

JackHallow666 wrote: »

WombatBatKing wrote: »

JackHallow666 wrote: »

WombatBatKing wrote: »

xandrew29 wrote: »

Manglejaw isn't useless, simply because, like Torchy, he comes with an auto-powered silence attack. Also, if you're new to the game, he's infinitely eaiser to star up/ascend vs. Bovus or Koros, and he slows. I'd move him into Tier 4 because of that; he's basically Koros before Koros existed (seriously, both Red Monster heroes with high damage AOE fire attacks as their base).

Glad you gave SB some love. He's an amazing counter to the reptile teams (which have no fast characters). You de-rune him, and he removes Krexx's taunt without killing Krexx. You can then kill Viperia right away, and you're in great shape.

Yes, but UNLIKE Torchy, he's a middle-tier speedster where Torchy is a fast creature. Silence goes away after the turn it's cast, so if you're going to use it, it needs to be right away, and Mangle will have to go before the other teams speedsters and the first middle-speeder on the opponents team.

That being said, being slow isn't the crippling flaw you, or just about anyone else, makes it out to be, neither is being fast the huge benefit. Sure you get to attack quicker, but it means little if you can't deal or take hits or have something that can help tip the scales, and if the slow one can REALLY deal and take hits, then it makes up for what they lack in speed.

Yet MK can:
- Take hits
- Deal crap tons of damage
- Still be a Fast hero

So what we've learned today is MK beats everyone. Torchy or Mangle? MK. Class dismissed!

(joking, Torchy is still good cuz of Silence)

That's why MK needs to be nerfed bad. He can still be strong without being overpowered, but right now he requires certain characters to check when other characters require a less narrow cast of characters to beat. ...And none of MK's checks are sure things, just characters who at the very least have a chance.

One more thing I can say is that the OP said "Tanks are useless" when rating Yokozuna, yet gave several tanks 1s and 2s, including Furnace which he gave a 1.

It's funny. Most of the good Tanks for PvP aren't even good because they're Tanks. For example,
Astrid - Good because she applies Off Balanced to all enemies and protects Casters and Healers, not because of her provokes.
Kozar - Good because of his high damage and health, not because of his provokes.
Leo - Good because he can revive allies and protects Light allies from extra Dark damage, not because of his Taunt (anti-magic aura sucks anyways).
Krexx - Good for his Taunt, but serves as fodder to make the Sisters invincible. Technically does use his Taunt to protect his allies, but isn't meant to last.
Pignius - Good for increased Crit damage and double-attacks for Beasts, not for his Taunt.
IGOROK - Good for Freezing enemies. You probably won't even see his Taunt get used, since it's his last ability.

Furnace is just about the only hero in PvP who's Taunt is actually good at protecting allies and letting him Tank damage. But I guess it's also because of his Abs of Steel. Without those, his Taunt would probably just be used to grant allies Fired Up, and maybe take a hit or two. In short, the only hero good at actually tanking damage is good because he had a stupidly powerful passive that guarantees he Tanks at least 5 hits. Mainly because most heroes, Tanks or not, die in a couple hits anyways in PvP.

The three strongest heroes in the game right now are Shade, Hopper and MK. I am pretty certain these 3 each kill more heroes and deal more damage in PVP then all the rest of the heroes combined. Lets do a quick rundown:

1. All 3 are fast. So immediately rule out the usefulness of every taunt/provoke that doesn't start the battle active. Hiding a dead hero behind a wall is not very useful. Unless the taunt starts active you can't count on hiding a weak hero behind it, they'll already have taken the worst shots of the match.
2. All 3 essentially ignore taunts on their first move. Shade literally ignores it, hopper and MK just have AOEs to start. So now we can go ahead and rule out taunts/provokes that start active, the most damaging move each of them has will ignore the wall.
3. The "turn 2 problem"
   • Shade (who was already pretty hard to kill on turn 1) makes himself invincible on turn 2. And forwards all your damage to the guy of his choice. And based on how we now know targetting works, that's probably going to be the squishy guy you were trying to hide behind the wall. Which means most likely the most effective thing that guy is going to be doing is killing your team when shade possesses him.
   • Hopper gives herself a big boost in dodge, she also spends turn 2 making herself tougher to kill. Not as tough as shade since she's not invincible but her second move also really hurts immediately (unlike spirit link which hurts later). And since she keeps gaining energy and healing letting her live gets much worse very quickly.
   • MK goes a different tactic, if you let him live then he's got a coin flip to take an extra turn. He doesn't get any harder to kill on turn 2 but an extra turn is really painful. And he's also pretty hard to begin with.
   • Why bring this up? Because if you aren't spending turn 1 doing everything you can to bring these guys to the ground you are hurting yourself more then you are helping. It's too late to build a wall, you need to kill them before they get way worse. If furnace's taunt didn't add fired up it probably wouldn't be used either. Only because it helps kill these guys in addition to building the one semi-reliable wall does it get used.

My point is the damage to the tank isn't the problem. Even furnace can only actually protect people who can also protect themselves. These 3 heroes and their mechanics make it impossible for the taunt/provoke strategy (a staple of other strategy games) to have success in DB. There are other heroes that contribute as well but these are the big 3. It's pretty much impossible to enter a PVP match without seeing at least one of these 3 and all 3 remove your ability to use your tank as a traditional taunter.

Great post. I recently FA'd Hopper and Shade. My team was Kai, MK, SB and Koros on offense (Kai, MK, Emily, Koros on D). I'm strongly considering Kai, Shade, Hopper, MK on D, or Shade, Hopper, MK and Koros.

I love my MK, he wins me a ton of matches, but he's the most frustrating RNG hero in existence. I've had MKs dodge 5 straight times and use tenacity 3 times in a row in 1 fight; he was literally the only hero left, I had 3 nearly full health heroes, and the opponent won.

I'm cool with MK having his dodge, but he doesn't need tenacity. Give it to a warrior like Augustus or Tsume who could use a boost.

I make killing Shade my #1 priority when facing him. Once spirit link is out, I either have to purge it, or be prepared for a brutal fight.

Hopper is a bit squishy; vs. Shade/Hopper, I usually put Shadowblade first and he can 1-shot most hoppers at my level 48. By killin Hopper, I shift the turns back in my favor, usually follow with Kai (drench non-dark) then MK. By the time I get to Koros, he purges Shrouded and kill shade (since default Shade runes are 5 Power, no increased dodge).

In general, AOE abilities need a nerf, at least for the fast heroes. I've 1-shotted entire teams with just Kai, and will go through 5+ fights without ever having to use Koros. No strategy, just fire off as many fast AOE bombs as you can.

Heck, I may just roll Shade, Hopper, Kai and MK and see if any teams can survive that onslaught. Maybe a lucky reptile squad, or a Beast unit that gets lukcy with Pack Tactics.