The Ultimate Guide to PvP

flyingpizzacats

The Ultimate Guide to


by F. P. Cats

Table of Contents:
Preface
Part 1: Raiding
Introduction
Chapter 1: Know Your Enemy
Chapter 2: Choosing Your Heroes
Chapter 3: Building Your Team
Chapter 4: Tough Combinations
Part 2: Defense
Introduction
Chapter 1: Protecting Your Gold
Chapter 2: Baiting Your Foes
Epilogue
TL;DR

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Preface

Dearest Reader,

In case you didn't notice, I split up the thread into a booklike format because it is too long, but I would be thrilled if you read all of it. I hope you find the answers to all your PvP questions here, and enjoy reading the guide!

Your friend,
Mr. Cats

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flyingpizzacats

Part 1



Introduction

Dungeon raids can be hard to win, especially since the new update. With the new update came fixes to passive buffs along with the fact that all the defense's abilities are charged and the defensive heroes will use them in order. Because of this, many strategies that once worked before have gone down the drain. Don't give up! Just because something is harder does not mean it is impossibly difficult. The updated PvP should not cause you to hate it or find it less satisfying, because the mechanical changes are actually a good thing. They help people to better defend their gold, especially the F2P players. There may be some heroes that need tweaking due to the new mechanics, but the developers are working on this issue and it does not mean the mechanics are bad, or make it unwinnable, as I will show in Chapter 4 (skip to here if you are just looking for how to beat a certain team).

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flyingpizzacats

Chapter 1



Know Your Enemy

Knowing the weaknesses of the enemy heroes is crucial. You should know what each enemy uses as their first skill, when they will use it, an estimate of how much damage it does or what effect it has. If they are ascended, it can help to know those 2nd/3rd skills too in case it gets to be a longer fight. You should also know what passives each of the enemy heroes have, whether it be extra attack, extra health, extra defense, extra crit, ability to dodge, tank hunter, pwn undead, etc. A lot of these passives used to be insignificant because they did not work, but now they do. You should also know how strong your heroes are in comparison to the enemy heroes. Levels, stars, and ascensions can make a big difference. Stars and ascensions = ~2 levels each. You should not try to take on a player whose combined "hero levels" are more than ~16-20 above yours, though this amount can vary depending on the strength of the defense. 16 combined hero levels higher would mean all of their heroes are 4 levels above yours, or the ascension/star equivalent as previously stated. Some good strategies will not work if you are not equal or very close to equal, but some strategies might work, even if you are underpowered, if the defense is put together poorly. Knowing these things about the enemy will help you in Chapter 2.

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flyingpizzacats

Chapter 2



Choosing Your Heroes

This part could have been mostly done away with before the update because certain offensive teams could beat almost anything. However, with defenses that are much harder to beat, you will find yourself losing to teams that might even be weaker than you if you do not choose your heroes wisely. Each hero that you pick should have a role and you should think about whether that hero will survive long enough to fulfill its role and be able to carry it out successfully. To really get a grasp of these roles, you will need experience against many different teams and have experience using your heroes against those teams. Here are some examples of roles, in no particular order:

~~Fasts~~
Black Diamond: Moderate aoe damage with high crit chance, meant to hurt/kill mid speed/slow heroes, +crit to light
Masuta Kira: Same as Black Diamond, slightly higher damage, less crit, undead killer
Willow Swift: Kill Yoko/Igorok/Tsume, give nature +hp
Torchy: Kill Bovus/Julius/Tsume, tank Willow, give beast +damage
Shadowblade: Kill Tsume/Igorok/Yoko, survive against two-rogue teams, high survivability from dodge

~~Mid Speeds~~
Igorok: Take a lot of damage, deal heavy water aoe damage, and then freeze them
Tsume: Take damage and give heavy nature aoe damage, give nature +atk
Archangel Emily: Take damage and revive tsume, immunity to status effects
Abigail the Brutal: Buff your following aoes and kill Tsume/Julius
Lady Nimriel: Kill Tsume/Nub Nub/tanks and daze, resist status effects
Yokozuna: Buff team defense, give warriors +health, daze enemies, take damage
Bovus El Doro: Moderate nature aoe damage, give warriors +health
Sir William: Keep important water heroes alive longer like Igorok with +def, taunt
Yasmin Bloom: Similar to William but +hp, probably won't live long enough to heal unless paired with William, can act as cannon fodder
Cruel King Bramble: Same as Abigail, but have bulk instead of kill tsume, good on goblin team
Squinch: Same as Bramble, but burning enemies for extra DoT, warrior and taunt hunter
Pontifex Mortis: Moderately heavy dark AoE damage and +atk and +def for undead
Ella Ametryst: Charm low health Tsume, charm lady nimriel for tank Hunter, etc. high crit, can act as cannon fodder
Sifu Jhianzi: High, armor ignoring single target damage, bulkiest hero that can dodge first round
Mangle Jaw: +atk for beasts, moderate fire aoe damage, burning aoe (after round 1)
Nitpick: Similar to Mangle Jaw, not as bulky, boosts fire heroes instead of beasts, burns on round 1, can act as cannon fodder
Lupina: +crit for beasts, supports aoe damage, can act as cannon fodder
Alexandros: belongs on a bulky team meant to counter rogue teams
Samurai Takumi: Can't miss, Can chill after stampede to stop enemy skills, good as a moderately bulky, armored water damage dealer
Ingus The Mad: Immune to Torchy, Mangle, Squinch, Nitpick, and himself, can act as cannon fodder
Overlord Executum: Good tank and is the bane of all light heroes (except Alex). Works well with undead
Julius: BARRELS. And +atk and crit for beasts
Therand Fiddlestrom: Can't miss, dazes enemy, moderate water aoe damage, extra damage to armored
Rogar Stonecrusher: Same as therand but for fire and can't daze, but more bulky. Good against rogues
Kobal The Pestilent: Disease enemies (lower attack and defense and skill), moderate aoe damage, can act as cannon fodder
Ekko: Immune to Pontifex, Executum (unconfirmed), Lupina, Balog, Phemus, and Dhaegon (unconfirmed). Gives your heroes ascended skills sooner, +crit
Selwyn The Enduring: Freeze enemies, moderate water aoe damage, immune to freeze, can act as cannon fodder
Jabber Clenchjaw: Heavy nature single attack, high crit, works well on beast team, can act as cannon fodder
Dagrund Blacksmoke: Can't miss, can be useful to take out light rogues, get a hero an ascended skill early and heal
Zurk: Can work well on goblin team
Dhaegon Stonecrusher: Same as Rogar but light damage. And he's way cooler, so old school.

~~Slows~~
Nub Nub: Support for goblins, good vs slow, bulky teams
King Yorick: Mark a bulky hero, like Igorok, to make easier to kill. Works well on bulky team to last past round 1
Life Reaper Brom: Take damage, moderately heavy aoe, works well on undead team
Phenol Thoxian: Moderately heavy nature aoe that poisons. Can taunt, works well on nature team.
Stonefist: Heavy single target damage, reduces team attack and defense, can taunt. Works well on bulky team
Balog: Moderate dark aoe, can prevent enem(y/ies) from using ascended skill(s).
Phemus: Fairly bulky, heavy single target damage, works well with nature team
Lord Zomm: Works very well on undead team, moderately heavy single target damage that is supposed to lower energy

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flyingpizzacats

Chapter 3



Building Your Team

How are you supposed to know which heroes to pick? If they all have a role, then who do I choose? The answer is choosing the counter to whatever is popular on defense, which may end up changing in the future, once enough people figure out how to beat these defenses, certain heroes get tweaked, or new heroes are introduced. To know what is popular on defense, all you must do is PvP long enough to find out or look around on the forum. For example, the popular defenses now consist of 3 main combinations, or variations of the 3. All of them will take some luck to successfully beat, but in this PvP meta, where defense has the upper hand, there is not nearly as many "guaranteed wins." These combinations are discussed in Chapter 4. A strategy that you could have in choosing which heroes to upgrade for PvP could be to pick the heroes that belong to these counter teams. There are many ways to counter most teams, which especially helps at lower levels when not everybody has access to these 3 combinations. Because of this advantage at a lower level, another strategy for PvP could be to stay low level and focus on PvP and stocking up on gold, scrolls, gems, and evos. This can be done by completing daily quests which do not give player xp. Do not accept the reward if it gives player xp. Also, you do not have to let your stamina go to waste, because you can retreat from the dungeons you run and still get honor scrolls from friend summons, any evos you find along the way, and the gold received from killing monsters and clicking shiny objects. Due to the +2 xp of raids, it can't be done indefinitely, but you will be able to hold off levelling much longer doing these things. If you want to level slower than normal, but you still want tokens, a strategy could involve only retreating when it is a wooden chest and not accepting quest rewards granting xp. You will be able to have more fully upgraded heroes if you do this, and you will end up having more ascensions for your level, and you can even max some characters at a very low level from honor summons.

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flyingpizzacats

Chapter 4



Tough Combinations

There are some defensive combinations that some people consider to be unbeatable or very difficult to beat, so here are some strategies (assuming equal hero level, stars and ascension) for going about these teams if you are willing to take a risk*

*Disclaimer: I have not tested or proven all of these to work, but believe that these are some of the best strategies when put into these situations based on others' experience and on knowledge of enemies and how my own heroes have performed in similar situations

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Combination 1: Masuta Kira, Black Diamond, Julius, Igorok

This combination, though very difficult to beat, is not impossible. All it takes is a bit of luck and proper hero choices.


Counter 1a: Willow, Shadowblade, Igorok, Sir William.

Killing Julius can be done with Willow and Shadowblade, although you may need at least a dodge from Shadowblade and hope for no crits on willow, and Igorok + William can survive with the extra bulk, hopefully with William resisting freeze, but unsure whether this matters. You should be able to win if you succeed in the above.

Counter 1b: Willow, Shadowblade, Tsume, Emily.

With the same luck of dodging and avoiding crit in the previous team, Emily should be able to survive without the barrel damage, and since she is immune to freeze, she can resurrect Tsume, who may die, though ideally, he may live if no crits are dealt, but then he needs to resist freeze. Soul shred and attacking with your remaining heroes should hopefully earn the win.

Counter 1c (F2P): Willow, Shadowblade, Tsume, Bovus

Though this is untested and relies quite a bit on luck, it could be an option for free players. You would still need Shadowblade's dodge, Willow to avoid getting critted, as well as Tsume to avoid getting critted. In fact it might not work if Bovus gets critted too, or if neither of your rogues survive polar pounding or dodges assassinate, but likely the rogues will target Shadowblade, who luckily has evasion activated. Definitely pray first. The idea is to have the passives be enough bonus to Tsume's health that he will survive long enough to soul shred, whether that be in the first round after resisting freeze, or second round, if the Ai didn't target Tsume and let him live.

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flyingpizzacats

Combination 2: Igorok, Bovus, Yoko, Tsume

Those passives can give you a massive headache. In the previous example, you needed some luck to win. In this example, guess what? Still need luck. There are a couple main ways of going about beating this team.


Counter 2a: Masuta Kira, Black Diamond, Shadowblade/Torchy, Willow

Ughhh... really? Rogue team? Yes, with the current meta, while rogues remain unpopular, this team will continue to reign as one of the best defenses. Here's the idea: Kira and BD do their thing, pray for crits. If BD crits Tsume and Igorok/Yoko, you're golden. If that didn't happen, then if Kira crits Tsume and Yoko, or double crits igorok, there's still hope. If none of the previous two sentences happened, probably means you lose, unless you get quite lucky on dodges. After this, you use Shadowblade/Torchy to kill Tsume and Willow to kill Igorok if he's low enough from the aoes, or go for Yoko. If you didn't crit Yoko at all or didn't do enough damage to Igorok, then use Willow to kill Bovus. Better to kill 2 than kill one and weaken 3 in my opinion, but maybe you will find that going for Yoko is still a better strategy because of his taunt in round 2.

Counter 2b (F2P): Igorok/Willow, Bovus, Yoko, Tsume

Isn't it funny? A counter to this team is... This team. Because of passives, you might be able to survive through everything, even if just barely. Your main luck has to do with your heroes taking the damage away from Tsume, and then hitting despite being dazed. If Tsume hits everyone at least once, you should be able to take down a significant amount of their health and you'll be able to kill Igorok and Yoko if you hit twice, since you'll most likely be ~x2.5-3 damage. If you don't have Igorok (F2P route), go for Willow to boost the bulk of Bovus and Tsume and hit Yoko with sniper shot so you get past the taunt before he can self repair (if applicable).

Counter 2c (F2P): Willow, Shadowblade, Tsume, Emily/Bovus/Yoko

Although a similar team, rather than dealing with the full brunt of the damage and daze, the strategy here is to kill Yoko with Willow and Shadowblade (which should be doable, unless the Yoko is stronger, in my experience). The rogues have then done their main job, but it helps if they stay alive too. Emily can survive the aoe onslaught fairly well, and Tsume might survive too, but probably frozen. The next round you revive him and soul shred, which, depending on how much you level up resurrection, should be enough to do a sizable amount of damage, and possibly kill Tsume, and at this point you hope your rogues dodged enough to survive and kill Tsume if he's still alive. Winning at this point will still be difficult, but if they target others besides Tsume, savage fury will lead you to victory. If you bring Bovus or Yoko instead of Emily (F2P route), you are really hoping the Ai targets them instead of Tsume and it basically makes the strategy centered on savage fury.

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Combination 3: BD, Kira, Willow, Rocky

I had to think quite a while about this team, but it is actually quite doable if you pick your heroes correctly


Counter 3a (F2P): Willow, Rogar, Yoko, Tsume

The strategy here is obviously to kill Rocky, so if he is the same stars/ascension as Willow, skip to Counter 3b or c. Because of weird Ai, Willow will probably target Rogar, and possibly Yoko, but very unlikely Tsume or Willow, so you can kill Rocky with Willow. If you managed to avoid getting critted a bunch of times, you should be okay to kill all the rogues with Tsume and Rogar. Or if Rogar died, then taunt with Yoko or kill a non-evasive rogue if almost dead. Tsume could one shot all of them at this point but if one of them dodges, you need to be prepared to kill it or endure another hit. If all of the rogues dodge, you're probably hosed.

Counter 3b (F2P): Sir William, Yasmin, Takumi, Yoko

Poor Yasmin. I mean she really has no hope of survival, but her main purpose is to be cannon fodder as well as keep your other heroes alive. Because of Sir William, I believe that Yasmin can survive both aoes, which means Willow will probably snipe her, though I haven't tested this to be sure, this team is rather underdeveloped and is more of a theoretical team if you are unfortunate enough to go against a 4-5* fully ascended Rocky, though could work against a weak Rocky even better (obviously), but probably not as well as 3a. Because of the mass water buffing, you should be able to tank 2 full rounds of attacks. Then taunt with sir William and sumo stomp with Yoko. Since the dodge rate Rocky's haste gives will make it near impossible to hit them, sumo stomp is just for the defense buff, and any dazes you get are icing on the cake. You'll need William to taunt and prepare to take the beating from the third wave of attacks. Takumi is your money maker here. The fact that he is so heavily buffed by William, Yoko, and Yasmin will make him very hard to kill and, even better, he can't miss. So the 80-100% dodge rate of the enemy from the haste just became 0. Try to kill BD if possible, I think two hits of frost katana could do it, but takes some luck. Order to kill: BD, Willow, Kira, Rocky

Counter 3c: Kira, Willow, Tsume, Yoko/Igorok/Rogar.

This team is probably the most reliable strategy for winning, whether the Rocky is equal or lower than willow, but requires Kira (or a lucky black diamond). Kira and Willow can both take the aoe if it doesn't crit, or they can take one crit from Kira if they dodge blade storm. The goal is that Willow targets Your bulky hero, or that a rogue dodges her attack, which isn't hoping for an extraordinarily large amount of luck, because it fairly likely she'll target the bulky hero anyway because of how she tends to pick her targets. At this point use Kira and Willow to kill Rocky, Then Tsume should be able to kill the rogues if he just hits once on each one (since kira damaged them already).

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flyingpizzacats

Part 2:



Introduction

We are in the Golden Age of defense. And I mean actually golden, because your chest is full of gold that wasn't stolen. Defense became much easier and if you choose the strongest defense you possibly can, even if your stars and ascensions for your level are average, you probably won't get attacked much (except at a very high level when people attack solid defenses for fun). This part will be much shorter, but there is still some level of strategy that should be involved when picking your defense.

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flyingpizzacats

Chapter 1



Protecting Your Gold

If you want to save as much of your gold as possible, you can choose one of the combinations from Part 1 Chapter 4 or you can create your own clever variation (throwing in nub nub for example). This will almost guarantee that you will have a very high defense rate and will get little to no gold stolen from you, because you will only receive a few incoming raids. If your main focus is upgrading all of the heroes, this is a good route to go as you will get the most gold. However, if you wish to place higher in tournaments (without spending gems) at the risk of losing gold, proceed to Chapter 2

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flyingpizzacats

Chapter 2



Baiting Your Foes

Creating a "bait" defense is an interesting approach to defense that has arisen as a method to placing higher in tournaments. This is a strategy that works best at levels 10-45 because people begin to have a wide variety of upgraded heroes starting around level 45. The ideal bait team gets lots of people to attack it, but wards them off every time, or nearly every time. It is even possible to get ~20 defenses per tournament and win every single one. In the most recent tournament, I went 18-0 on defense, winning an average of 15 trophies per defense, so I got 2nd spending no gems on refreshes, when everyone else in top 15 spent gems. So how does one construct a bait team? Here are a few tips:

1. Underused heroes

If you use heroes like kobal, alexandros, selwyn, zurk, therand, phemus, etc, that are almost never used, you are bound to get a few attackers thinking you're easy, but really have no idea how to handle you, so you end up beating them (if you actually have a well thought out defense that works together). This doesn't mean you have to use all underused heroes, but at least half, and don't use the popular ones like igorok, bovus, tsume, yoko, etc. There are all kinds of possibilities you could make to have a decent defense using this strategy, so experiment and see what works best.

2. Underpowered heroes

Although it sounds similar to tip 1, it is different. Underpowered heroes could include popular heroes, but at a low star level, ascension level, or they are a couple levels under max hero level. This will give the attacker the idea that you are weak and will lure people into attacking you, thinking they can beat a weak defense, but even an underpowered defense of one of the combinations listed in Part 1 Chapter 4 is hard to kill, but people do not realize this so they attack anyway.

3. Overpowered heroes, Underpowered team

Another way to have an "underpowered" defense is to have a 3 hero defense, but make it a very good combination, like BD, Kira, Rocky (my defense), or Igorok, Tsume, Yoko. In these defenses, you want your heroes to be strong, but only above the average attacker. So if average attacker is 2/3* 1a, make yours 3/4* 1a or 2/3* 2a. If you are way above the average, even just 3 heroes might scare people away.

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7l-l3 3l\\ll)

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flyingpizzacats

Epilogue

And with that, I conclude my guide to PvP If I made an English mistake or you would like me to fix some error, please pm me. If you would like me to add or change something based on your experience, I would love your knowledge to be included in the guide. I am still figuring out the ropes myself and by no means know everything there is to know about PvP, but there is always room to grow and learn more, and I hope you got something out of this guide too. Feel free to ask any questions, let me know what was especially helpful, or just a review of the guide in the comments. Thanks for reading! And if you didn't like my guide, or don't like PvP because it requires luck...



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TL;DR = Know stuff about the enemy heroes, know stuff about the roles of each hero you choose, upgrade your heroes based on what you find is popular on defense, and that with a little luck, even teams that are "unbeatable" can be defeated. Defend with strong heroes = more gold, defense with bait = more trophies. Now go back and read my guide

viciousfetti

This is sweet appreciate the hard work very informative

It'll be very helpful for a lot of people
Good job

Milohunter

Nice work! Hope to see more of these.

Savage

great work mate.

greets

bisu

wow I just saw the next guru coming. Well done Mr. Cat!

dinglebear

Bravo

hugwable

Wow what a great effort well done. Vote for sticky. Mayb u can add a section about leveling slower to help star up for better pvp success. Just a suggestion but really good guide.

HaxusBloodbane

Wow and I thought I was thorough. Adding this to navigating the forums.

afroninja

Love it

Kaildaka

awesome awesome write up!

flyingpizzacats

Thanks for the positive reviews everyone, I really appreciate it and @hugwable thanks for the suggestion! I can add that to Part 1 Chapter 3, since that is where it would seem to fit

meowstaa_

Great job, must have been a lot of work!

Niseiku

Excellent! Thank you @flyingpizzacats. Really glad this is stickied but have it bookmarked also.

omegathree

Outstanding!

PWN-Star

Not sure whether to applaud FOC for his fine work, or curse him for making my raiding more difficult.

flyingpizzacats

@meowstaa_ yes
@Niseiku bookmarked? :') that's awesome glad you found it useful
@HaxusBloodbane thanks for the support and getting it stickied means a lot to me
@PWN-Star whoops, spilled the beans didn't I at least you can find some strategies to beat those combos in this nifty guide

DarkIfrit

Excellent !!!!!

Jayyco

Wow awesome job man!

DeäthWish

- Samurai Takumi: Can't miss, Can chill after stampede to stop enemy skills (unconfirmed)

That's a definite. If he hits you. Chill stops heroes gaining energy. After stampede, all heroes have a -1 on energy. Then takumi comes in for the chill. Make sure stampede happens first though.

flyingpizzacats

I know it works on defense @D3athWish but did you test it on offense? I know it sounds like it should work but I read that it didn't for someone.

DeäthWish

My Bovus doesn't usually survive the first round of AOE for me to try. I'll give it another go when I think Bovus will come out of round 1 ok.