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Also I think ghor can be still pretty strong, stat spread can be corrected a bit. he is definely one that can stay in the game for longer, for me he is a good candidate for stone hunt.
While Thane is the most reliable kingslayer, I think Magna is fully his equal overall. Pierce doesn't help you stay alive, while Magna's Reflect has the potential to effectively double the net effects of her shields. I disagree vigorously on Reflect not helping you slay the king; it's a rare game indeed where the king doesn't roll at least a few hits, and every hit Reflected back at him is effectively a free sword.
If you're looking purely and exclusively at kingslaying, I grant Thane has the edge, but for overall gameplay, give me the Wall of Wolf.
Meanwhile, Amber 's passive is just too unreliable. We don't even know precisely what it does. Most of the other hero powers have solid, quantifiable effects; Amber's alone is invisible. It might give you some crucial gold or magic, or you might go the whole game never benefiting from it. Even when it triggers . . . how do you know you wouldn't have gotten that result anyway?
Finally, my main vixen Scarlet. She shares Amber's strengths, being a good all-rounder who can easily be built into a combat machine or a sorceress, without any glaring flaws. While her hero power is sharply limited, it is also extremely potent - the right follower can make or break you. Followers are unique and powerful, and the ability to get them reliably is extremely nice, especially since most games will see at least a few settlements get terrorized.
Nice list, and good reasoning; I just felt compelled to throw in my own two gold.
Still great, just not quite as top tier as thane.
Amber, fair criticism, I was on the fence with her, and while what I have found from others indicate it is decent, due to reducing the odds of a bane and increasing treasure/follower, I should move her down to C. Especially without details released.
Scarlet. Extremely potent is pretty exxagerated. Let's assume you proc it twice, lost no ap in the process, and hit two of the best followers in the game (blacksmith/apprentice) if all the above didn't occur until day 5, you've spent over half the game with no passive, and now have two solid, but not overshadowing passives (old ghor had a stronger version of the apprentice and had below average win rates, Sylas is similar to the blacksmith and is admittedly quite strong)
Now factor in that often getting to terror costs you ap, followers are usually worse than the above, and other players can block you from even using it, and you have one of the weakest passives in the game. She is still solid due to good rings, stats, and starting gold, but it's in spite of her passive not because of it.
Fair point, but again, you're looking exclusively at kingslaying. You're likely going to end up fighting banes, guards, and other heroes before you get to that point, and the ability to auto-damage your enemy isn't all that great when they can still kill you, out-damage you, and prevent you from getting to valuable resources. Thane is a better kingslayer, but Magna is just as good in general.
Gonna have to disagree with you there. First, the fact that she doesn't get to use her hero power all that often is not crippling - most heroes aren't going to get to use them very often, and some may never be relevant. Elyssia's ability more than likely costs AP, and unless someone tries to steal your settlement, it doesn't matter. Amber's is invisible. Twiss's is potentially a liability, since she can't block heroes and you can fill her hand with trash.
As for the followers not being so great . . . again, I can't agree. The apprentice is like an extra point of Spirit on every spell you cast, and will turn anyone into a wizard. The blacksmith augments your combat ability significantly, without taking up an item slot. The explorer means you can forget about settlements for gold. The squire means you can suicide-kill the king and still win, or block someone for that crucial round without fear. Sure, some followers like the poison taster are less useful, but so are some treasures.
Bottom line: Scarlet is at least the equal of Amber, so whatever tier Amber is at, Scarlet ought to be at the same tier or one higher.
I don't pick Hargrave for his ability. Half of the roster has abilities that border on being meaningless, so that's no big loss. I pick him for Base Stats+High Starting Gold+Rabbit Clan. He has the strongest economy among characters who are viable for early/mid game palace Kingslayer, and he's able to take the +1 Gold/Magic per Dawn ring, turning his dump stat into something decent while helping make him immune to Settlement/Dungeon income variance. Day affinity is also very important, because you don't want to be making Night attacks that put the King at 1 HP. Barnaby can do a lot of the same things, so he's a viable alternative if you prefer his ability (I don't) or don't own the DLC.
Thane/Magma are overrated at what they do. Both are hamstrung in the early game by having only 3 Wits and a low starting Gold. Magna is rock bottom in Gold, while Thane doesn't get to treat Spirit as a dump stat when he starts with 3. Both are great at late game cleanup thanks to their abilities, but I'd rather be interacting with the King before everyone else is trying to cash in their wincons, and you can't reliably do that with poor Wits+poor Gold.
I'll show you a tier list that is, imo, accurate of top tier play and "short" descriptions of each hero and how they act or what their overall faults are.
Her stats, even after the "nerf" don't change the strongest things about her ; her wits, spirit, and passive.
What makes her above everyone else?
If you've played for any amount of time and payed attention, spells are extremely strong. The deck itself is so strong, if your character doesn't have a way to draw and cast them in some way, shape, or form, they most likely aren't good.
Casters have two weaknesses, Combat and being limited on their own magic.
Twiss, more or less, ignores both of those with her passive evade and the ring Amethyst. That ring, along with her naturally high wits, turns her into a power house that generates a near unlimited amount of magic allowing her to mill the spell deck at rates other heroes fear. If she wants a card, she'll more then likely draw it over the course of the game. Her only weakness, is starting fights, but she can fix that with Ferals, Mirror Images, and Burns.
The scary part is, she can get those cards consistantly for king fights. Not to mention she's the only hero in the game that can consistantly do all 4 victory conditions.
With the amount of power she has, and a little bit of knowledge, she could easily win every game she's in. If you're an amazing Twiss player, even teams of 3 will struggle winning against you.
These two excel at one thing. Combat which, in turn, makes them the best king killers. Which, in top tier play, is the most consistant victory condition. They both share the same reliable stat spread, both run celestite which gives them good mobility and situational defense, and can do something no other Fight based characters can realistically do : build full defense. Building full defense means you skip out on auto swords which is generally a very bad thing, not for them as they have consistant ways to work around that.
Sword pierces with Thane which either allows him to push, stay his ground, or go for the kill. Without needing to roll dice, he gets results consistant enough for him to be considered a threat, not to mention he's very new friendly to use unlike Sylas.
Sylas gets auto swords based on his bounty level and that alone makes him not user friendly, usually you don't want a bounty due to that putting a target on your back, Sylas has to live with that and plan ahead for the big king fight due to him no longer getting an instant traitor when attacking the king, but something he can relaibly do that Thane can't is 5-HP King kills. Killing a 5 HP is very risky as many won't be able to kill him without huge offensive equips and/or Mirror Image, but with his ability to get up to 3 auto swords from his passive alone and his options to gain even more makes him a force to be weary of.
Both heroes can run Resist/Watch to help them break into the palace to help with early king kilsl and to mainly catch other heroes off guard.
Elyssia has solid map control, an amazing stat spread, a good starting gold count, and with a lot of solid ring options, she has the versatility while being fair about it (unlike Twiss). You won't see her trickery spam in top tier play unless she's goofing off.
Zosha has an amazing ability, good stat spread, and great starting gold. Her ring options are limited, but that's due to being in the Rat clan, they usually run Ruby for damage or Tanzanite for gold generation.
Barnaby has a great stat spread, a very versatile ability, a ton of gold, and the amazing selection of Rabbit rings. He's a bit tricky to play for newer players, but once you get used to him and figure out all of his tricks, he becomes one of the more solid characters in the game.
Ghor. I hate this character, but he's good now because LoG gave him a busted ability. Nothing about Ghor is good other then his power. It makes or breaks him. Without it he's one of the worst, with it, he's near invincible. Not to mention he is the only hero in the game that can run 2 highly offensive equips due to his insane power. He also has access to the Bear's great set of rings, mainly Amethyst and Aquamarine. If he gets a stat spread change to something like 3/6/4/3 or 4/6/3/3 in the future, he can easily be S tier.
River has a decent amount of gold, a solid hero power, Celestite, and is one of two heroeswho have the most balanced stat spread in the game. Her main weakness is built directly into her hero power and because of that she needs to plan around encounters and how to play them out. She's a very solid character, she's the epitome of balance.
Brun is one of the hardest characters to use in the game. You have to balance many variables to make him work efficiently, but once you do, he's a train of hurt that has a hard time being stopped. Ok stats, an amazing hero power, and Amethyst allows him to work the way he does and a good Brun is always a challenge to fight.
Sana. She's basically the building blocks for all pure casters, for the further they drift away from her in terms of similarity, the better/worst they become. Her hero power Amethyst allow her to not feel the full force of the two main caster weaknesses, but they don't cover it entirely.
Mercurio and Scarlet both are in similar situations. Great stats, unreliable hero powers. If the hero powers were a bit more consistant (Scarlet) or just gave more (Mercurio), the would be up there at Tier A.
Hargrave and Amber are in similar situations. Good stats, amazing rings, nice gold, but have a hero power that is either basically worthless (Amber) or can be a detriment without giving much in return (Hargrave), if those issues were fixed, they would in Tier A.
Griotte suffers from one tiny thing. She doesn't get a natural affinity die unlike other heroes, she relies on her hero power for that. A natural affinity die is a huge deal, and without it, she's not balanced. If she were to get it, she would be Tier A.
Sargon with the evade ring is Twiss, but without a near infinite source of magic, card stealing, and the ability to turn off evade in the palace. Without the evade ring, he's an ok character. Later down when you start reading about Fang, you'll read about the building blocks how to do rot. As for his hero power, more often then not in top tier play, you draw depending on the situation, if you need spells, you'll draw a hand full of them, same with equips, and sometimes a mix of the two, usually never trickery. Sargon's hero power allows him to draw 4-5 cards over the course of the game that any other hero normally wouldn't have gone for. It's ok, but it's not on the level that lower tier plays puts it on.
She was in B tier, but then she got a gold nerf for basically no reason that really hurt her.
Her stats are a bit extreme with her lacking in both wits and spirit meaning she has to double down on both or lose out on card power that would otherwise help her.
People say she's Thane's equal, but she doesn't get many of the perks the Prince gets. Her stats are unbalanced, her hero power is fine, but with full defense and full offense it isn't consistant enough to make those builds viable. She's very limited in what she can do. That's why she's a cut below the rest.
Horace is pretty much in the same exact situation as Magna minus the fine hero power. He too got a gold nerf for no reason, before that he was Tier C, but now he's at D.
Yordana is basically hated on sight. Like Sylas, she puts a target on her back to use her hero power, but unlike Sylas, people aren't scared of her and her power isn't amazing. She's an annoyance that is killed over and over again, but keeps coming back. She also can't self cast on turn which is a HUGE disadvantage she has over everyone else for basically no reason.
Where do I begin? The most obvious point is his rot. He has it because of lore reasons, but that reason puts him at an innate disadvantage and pushes him to do a victory condition he isn't built for : Rot. The basic building blocks for going Rot is: Good Body, High Wits, and at least 4 Spirit. Him starting with rot makes sure he has none of those things which also makes his overall surviability very low.
Next thing to check off is his VERY LOW GOLD. Dude is the poorest wolf in the clan and it shows. He can barely afford the item(s) in his opening hand and sometimes not at all. If he goes into a peril to dump those cards, he'll most likely fail the peril and suffer some drawback ranging from a tap on the wrist to a lightning strike leaving him at 1 hp.
That allows me to lead into his Extreme Stat spread. Magna and Horace lose points because their stat spread is extreme too, but they don't have to build Fight and they don't have to build Body. Fang doesn't have to build Fight, but due to his +1 rot, he has to build Body, Wits, and Spirit and he only gets 4/5 points to do so and only 1/2 can be considered "instant", first quest and an amulet that gives +1.
So you would figure his hero power would be decent because of his huge amount of Fight? Well, not really. After all, he still has to THROW the dice and pray to RNG gods he can do enough damage to proc it while offense, but here's the thing, equips are better at winning fights then the actual Fight stat. They work hand in hand, but against each other, equips always win. An Elyssia with 3 fight and with good equips will most likely always beat an 8 fight Fang who doesn't have them. Burning also helps immensly, but his low wits doesn't always allow for good cards for burning.
And the worst part about it all, he mostly wins because of others. If someone breaks into the palace, passes it, and doesn't have HRW and dies while inside. Then Fang can just step in and most likely attack the king and win. He can't do it by himself unless he's building Watch. He doesn't have the stats to break in, he doesn't have the surviability to complete all quests, and if he doesn't get decent equips, he wouldn't be able to kill the king. There is so much against him that even Kingslayer, something he was built for, isn't even a consistant option unlike Kingslayer for every other hero in the game.
Consistency is king, but there is more than one way to hit that consistency. Cycling spells is nice just like cycling the other decks, but like Barnaby's ability, spell hoarding gets hamstrung by card theft mechanics. Twiss' ability is ironic, in that while it can be good vs other card hoarders, Twiss in turn can have her hand poisoned by players who attack into her and burn all but their worst card. I don't make a habit of attacking players often despite being combat-oriented (King's Guards, though? Very often!), but dumping a burn-only card into Twiss' hand is often too good to pass up.
Twiss is a top character, but I wouldn't put her at #1 nor would I give anyone in this game a top tier to themselves. She is unique in that she warps the value of Pierce/Scout, but really she's just another dedicated spellcaster that new players don't know how to react to.
Also, while I certainly don't rate it highly, Hargrave's ability is rarely a detriment. I want to be cycling cards and I want to pay 0g to do it, so if his ability gives me a Bounty and free King's Guard fights, great! If it makes a player mad because its too expensive to walk around me, so they attack, that's also great! Anything that helps me cycle quicker is welcomed.
Interesting feedback, I definitely feel like I underappreciate Sylas, as almost everyone I see rushes bounty way to early and gets killed/set back for their misplay. I do find it odd you put half the cast as A tier or higher, as I feel like A tier shouldn't be the cut off for average, but that's just semantics.
I definitely concede I was overvaluing abilities when looking at Barnaby/Amber/Hargrave, and lack experience with the new Rainbow Ring, which seems a lot better than their old options. I may need to reevalute them.
I find it odd you put Sargon in B tier (below average in your list) after you put Twiss in SS tier for her base stats/evade (both of which Sargon has, literally they have the same base stats) is Amethyst ring really that much better than +1 starting gold and seeing every topdeck?
I feel like top tier play would especially favor being able to snipe suits for palace, deny powerful spells/trickery/items (over the course of 5 days, on average seeing the spell topdeck after you finish drawing spells alone will get you one extra teleport or banish putting you a turn ahead on quests while denying an opponent the same, let alone good equipment/trickery, and avoiding bad cards or stuffing opponents)
Honestly was tempted to put Fang in D tier, as he needs to take an early rot lead lest any high wit character take his one niche, combat from him, and his only strat is so vulnerable, but seeing so many others call him top tier on reddit had me tempted to at least offer him middle tier for his potential combat.
Ghor, fair, I may undervalue him as I enjoy River who basically hard counters his ability and as you said, without it he is below par. Any time I played someone else his ability definitely stood out as powerful.
Ellysia, when I have seen her, while her ability has been annoying, it doesn't really come across as A+ to me, although this may be just due to our semantics as in your tier list 50% of heroes are A or higher.
So outside Sargon, whom you oddly never described your reasoning on, yeah agree with your assessments outside semantics of A vs B
I'd put Zosha in S tier actually. She's just the current sleeper op hero who has everything going for her. Very good stats, resources and power. There's not even a slight weakness that holds her back or the player has to account for. It's essentially impossible be in a bad spot because you picked Zosha. Even Twiss or Sylas will occassionally have gold issues at the very least. She just kinda flies under the radar because other S heroes feel more cancerous.
I'm actually thinking Thane is severely overrated. He's a combat hero who doesn't excel at early king kills and the spell deck has no swords. Ideally, a combat hero is trying to kill the king at about 5 or 4 hp. Thane's issue with doing that is his power becomes weaker with the offensive items you need to make such an attempt. Early kills also usually require burning into the palace which means the whole idea of saving sword burns doesn't work. Combat heroes work better in my experience when you're taking the initiative to force other players into uncomfortable positions and choices. Thane's overall strategy tends to be comparatively passive. Other combat heroes close out the game sooner and higher resource heroes take the game later better. Thane really only shines against shield walls which simply aren't the norm. There's still value in having a built in solution for those scenarioes, but devoting your hero choice for that is a bit much. Thane would still be a B solid, but I probably wouldn't put him higher than that without a uniqe and powerful strategy or advantage behind him.
I'm going to agree with this. I wouldn't argue with Twiss being the best, but I don't think any hero is in a tier on their own or the gaps are really that big. Pocket metas are very common for Armello.
Also, people shouldn't call themselves "competitive" or "top tier" in this game with a straight face. There's literally no way of proving or backing those claims up, so it's no better than ego stroking. The level of competition and where you fall on it only exists in your head because there's no mmr or ladder.
Overvaluing Sargon's ability is typical of middling-tier play — where players understand how to play the game, but don't have the inclination to go in-depth with the game mechanics. It's what I call the Sargon Illusion, the idea that his hero power somehow magically makes good cards rain into your hand.
Protip: it doesn't. Yes, it really doesn't. Remember that the card decks are determined at game start, and their order is fixed until the discard pile is reshuffled. Sargon doesn't magically flip through the deck to get what he wants, he still has to draw in order like everyone else. Remember that in order for his hero power to actually make a difference, it has to change one's drawing pattern as opposed to the pattern which you would have otherwise taken without his hero power, and for the better.
No one at high play levels draws trickery, worthless trash deck that it is. That leaves spell and item. Then, remember that you can only see the top card, so your decision-making is limited to that information; you still have to guess at what's underneath. What remains is that Sargon's ability vis-a-vis actually getting "good" cards is limited to lucky topdecks that you otherwise wouldn't have taken, and maybe taking the least worst option in the last card of your draw. So, maybe a trickery topdeck of one of the few actually semi-useful trickeries, or maybe a lucky item late-game when people generally start drawing exclusively from spell. Otherwise, your drawing patterns are likely to be largely unchanged, rendering his hero power moot.
Claiming that his hero power somehow nets you teleport or banish (2 of each in deck) is a perfect example of confirmation bias - people draw "good" cards with him and think, "oh wow, Sargon's hero power is really good, it helped me draw X!" No, it didn't. Sargon's high wits count is more of an aid in helping you get what you want than topdecking. Now, if his hero power was "the top X cards of each deck are revealed", where X is equivalent to your wits, that would change a lot. But it isn't, and the top card is what you have. Remember what I said — in order for his hero power to actually work, it has to change your draw pattern than the one you otherwise would have, and in a way that benefits you.
At high play levels, people know the deck compositions and card rarities by heart, they count cards, they can tell you the symbols of each peril off the top of their heads. Knowing deck composition, card rarity, and the likely playstyle of other heroes in the game is much more useful in getting what you want than Sargon's hero power will ever be; good luck trying to draw any useful spells with both Ametwiss and 4/7/6/4 Ghor sipping from the spell deck at the same time. Just as good RNG essentially makes Amber's hero power defunct, good meta knowledge and skill makes Sargon's hero power largely defunct. That you don't know the danger that Ametwiss poses implies that you're middling to bad at cycling your hand effectively (a good Ametwiss who clears most of her hand almost every turn has effectively infinite magic); quick and effective hand clearing so that you can draw fast and deep into the decks is more likely to get you what you want than Sargon's hero power ever will.
That's not to mention how easily his hero power can work against him; since Sargon can only see the top card, it's very easy for him to see a "bad" card on the top and not draw from the deck — only to miss "good" cards underneath. A cub's blood when not going rot is "bad", but if there's a chain mail or a war hammer beneath it, I'd gladly take it and burn the thing out of hand.
Which is why claiming Sargon makes a good rotlord because "he can easily get rot cards" is laughable; the only thing he has going for him in that regard is starting wits. Low starting body means he's easily nuked and dawn chip damage hurts him bad, taking turquoise means you're easily pushed around (and people who know what they're doing can make you evade into bad positions and perils) and can't hold the palace, and high wits is easily achievable on a hero far suited to a rot victory like Twiss or Ghor.
Paradoxically, Sargon's ability is much better for drawing for symbols instead of card effects because symbols are far more forgiving in that regard. Of course, that is once more reduced by knowing the symbol makeup of each deck, still suffers the topdeck view limitation, and requires memorising the symbols of each peril — at which if you're playing at that level, you might as well get good enough to make his hero power largely worthless.
TL;DR: Sargon is a noob trap. He has a hero power that looks good on paper to those who don't think about it deeply, and confirmation bias gives them a rush when they think it helped them as much as a placebo would. The perceived benefits are largely an illusion, and the usefulness of his hero power falls off sharply with increasing skill level at the game.
I've been in some competitive game scenes over my time on the internet, mainly Smite, and whenever I saw a tier list, I always saw Tier A as the point of balance, and so when I make a tier list I revert to that.
Amethyst is a scary thing on any high wit character, but Twiss' evade can shut off in the palace which is a huge plus if she needs to attack the king...Sargon's evade can't.
Mistakes explained it well, Sargon's power only really matters if you change from your normal drawing patterns, otherwise it's conformation bias.
In reality, Fang is at his best when someone else does the work for him, which many people do when starting out and don't know how to properly spell nuke him.
Elyssia's ability allows for two big things: Settlement control and Situational Defense like how Celestite does with Mountains.
Her power, if used properly, denies other heroes potential gold and makes her a bit safer in combat if the need arises. It's a good power, but not the end-all-be-all levels of strong that Ghor's power is.
Sargon doesn't have the same levels of Magic generation that Twiss has which allows her to cycle the deck even faster then Sargon. If she needs to fight the king, she doesn't need HRW to fight in the palace unlike Evade Sargon.
While the competitive players are a minority in Armello, you'll see most, if not all of them over at the Armello discord and while we do play private games with each other, many of us do jump into random queue to play games, some more then others.
As for ladder against the average player, this tier list won't make sense because players around that skill level don't act the way my tier list suggests.
As for the 8 tiers over 20 characters, it's my way of saying what characters are equal to each other as I don't believe heroes like Fang to be on the same level as characters like Magna or Amber.
Twiss at most can have 1 card she doesn't want, other wise she burns it. She can cycle cards so often and safely, that by attacking her, you're giving her another oppurtunity at the cost of some card you don't want, which will always be a win for her.
What I said is from the experience I have seen vs high level Twiss players and even if you know all the tricks Twiss does, that doesn't stop her from dominating. If the player is intent on winning and picks Amethyst, there isn't much you can do.
Top tier play wouldn't attack you, they would nuke you with spells.
Being the best literally means no one is on the same level you.
And players can call themselves a "competitive" player, it means they take the game seriously and try to find the best ways to win. It's something you can see in any multiplayer game, no matter how casual.
That's how you define the best and decide to use tiers, but you're hardly an authority on the topic. In tier lists, "best" is always comparative instead of absolute. The top tier is usually inhabited by mutiple characters especially when they have different advantages, disadvantages and roles.
Your definition of "competitive" doesn't really tell the whole story. Clearly, there's some threshold for the amount you need to try before you actually qualify because otherwise you wouldn't be saying that competitive players are in the minority. How do you prove you've found the best way to win? It works well against the few people you specifically choose to play against privately and the randoms who aren't nearly as serious as you are, right? How do you determine who the best players are other than agreeing with what they say and do? "Trying to find the best way to win" means almost nothing when it isn't being done objectively or put through rigorous scrutiny.