Might Pump Complete

Aaaand... it's done.

120000 might.

I had some spare time yesterday so I spent it raiding for mana.  I got all my Ninjas to 120 and 80 inscription, and I was about 1500 might short... so leveled and inscribed a spare Snowy I've had since way back when.  Here's the might section of my altar now:

Ninja dojo.

This morning, I got my first "do insane dungeon" quest item.

Do insane dungeon quest.

Nice reward.

That's a team dungeon card.

Might Pumping Progress

Starting a week ago, I started pumping up my might.  My goal is clear: get to 120000 might as fast as I can, subject to my finite playtime and general dislike of cluttering my altar.  I thought I'd update on how that is going.

Here's a shot of the relevant portion of my altar:

Mighty ninjas.

Last week I instantiated the seven Ninja dupes I had sitting around.  During the week, I took all the dupes to 100, as you can see in my altar above.  This costs 618850 experience, which I used experience books for.  It allows inscription to level 60, which I did in five days.  Once I was done with all level 100/inscription 60, I have started moving guys up to 120/80.  This is slower.  It requires 1860000 more experience, for one thing: about 3x as much.  Also, inscription 60 takes 8,946,000 mana total.  Inscription 80 takes 21,400,000, so a difference of 12,454,000.  Even doing three quests per day, as I do, this is probably more mana than I pull in.

I realize I could do extra raids to gather unlimited mana.  I'm just not willing to sink that much time into the game.  

In addition to the Ninjas, I knew I was going to need a few more heroes.  I figured I would do them only after getting the Ninjas to 120/80.  I thought I would use Druid(s), but then I used a LHC last week:

It's a sign.

You can see him in the altar.  (The Lady Leo I already had.  She is supposed to be a decent hero, powered but not overpowered.  So, she's sitting there waiting for me to have excess experience and/or a dupe to level her up.)  I pumped up Orksbane too.  I don't know that I will ever use him, but I am not sure of the opposite either.  His skill seems decent enough, and being stun-proof might have niche application.  In any case, he's ready to go now if I ever do need him.  And he adds might.

Currently I am sitting at 116000 might.  So, I have managed to add roughly 11000 might in a week.  As I computed last week, the lower levels (0-100) add might faster than the higher (100-120).  I need another 4000 might.  I expect it will probably take about another week.

Lava3 Success!

My guild has been working up to Lava3 for a while.  Some of the early planning I posted here. 

Lava in progress.

We did our first runs this week, resulting in success for the guild, but not me personally.  In two runs I had some bad crests on, so my own stupid fault.  But in the other two tries... dunno.  I think was just unlucky.  In any case, I booked my Treantaur a level boost, and kept trying.  Last night...

Lava loot!

Nice treasure.  For the evening I was 2 for 6, and before that, 0 for 2 (excluding the two with the wrong crests).  2 for ~8; it might be better to stick with mesa4.  Of course, I won't do any such thing.  I'll be pouring all experience into my Lava team.   Maybe better skills?  Better crests?  It's really hard to draw any conclusions since the key part happens so fast.  I can tell you, though, that the Vlad in the starting location really hits hard.  I can see why maybe Arctica would help: she'd freeze him.

Speaking of experience, I finished Medusa for now:

Stick a fork in her.

She is evo1, so there's more work to do, but I have no dupes for her.  I have enough shards that I can afford one evo2 without dupes, but if I were to do that it would be DD.  And I don't even feel it's worth it for him.  Medusa will stay as she is indefinitely.  She'll get the next talent pretty much no matter what it is.  In fact I rolled a Scatter 3 last night and gave it to a Ninja without thinking.  Oh well.

I am now training up my Phantom King, for the Lava team.

PK moving up

Here's a Lava heartbreaker.

Heartbreaker

 

Pumping Might

I rolled a level 5 talent with a talent reroll quest last night.  What was it?  Bulwark?  No, scorch.  Scorch?  Basically useless.  Only good for increasing might.  I looked around for a scrub to put it on to boost might, and I didn't really find one I wanted.  My blue/green heroes I want to put Enlightenment on, so that it's cheaper to level them later on when I want to increase my garrison quality.  I already have level 3 talents or higher on my three legendary scrubs.  (These date from before I figured out to how to turn all hero rolls into cards.)

So, I finally decided to pull the trigger on pumping up my might.

Everyone says you should do it: pump up your might using spare heroes in your altar.  I've always resisted it for several reasons, laziness not the least.  But now I am up over 100000 might -- 105000 actually.  So I am in striking range of 120000 might.  There's a nice quest board item (do insane dungeons) at 120000 might, so it seems like it's worthwhile going for it.

The best heroes to pump might with are those heroes where you'll eventually want high level dupes that you use in different game modes.  But I don't have any such.  I suppose if I rolled a series of Revite 5 talents, eventually I'd run out of better places to put one, and maybe make a PD dupe.  But I'd rate Aries, Medusa, Treantaur, and Atlanticore higher.  Probably also Candy Kane.  So: not gonna happen.

I have seven Ninja cards, and Ninja, being fast, is the best choice for pumping might among heroes that you'll never use.  So my plan is to roll out Ninjas and level them, and inscribe them.  Taking them to 6 star 100 allows inscription to level 60; this gives 618 might for the hero (plus 20 per talent level > 1) and another 471 for the inscription.  The cost is 664,300 experience and 64,000 HB.  That's a bit painful, but right now I have over 500000 HB with plans to use only a modest number in the near future.  (My Medusa still needs 82m experience to hit 200e.)

Benchwarmer with nice talent.

 Going to 7 star 120 allows inscription to level 80, and adds 100 might for the hero and another 405 for the inscription.  The cost is 50000 more HB.  The total might per Ninja will thus be around 1500.  Seven of them, just over 10000 might.

I figure by that time, I may have gained the remaining 5000 in other ways.  Or I'll create some scrub Druids; I certainly have plenty of them.

Waterboy, hold this for a sec will ya?

One good thing about having lots of inscribed scrubs on staff is that I can use them hold spare crest sets.

More Medusa and Stupid Fortress Fued

I've been pouring the experience into Medusa.  60% bonus is great.  Friday, I got her to 200:

She's tired of the green look.

And evolved.  Foolishly took her up to 120 with books before remembering that she has Enlightment.  Duh!  Gave a bunch of books to Aries and Warlock, both now at 195e.

Fortress Feud happened over the weekend.  I barely did a thing.  Missed the first 20 minutes due to cluelessness.  In the second 20, got my team killed first battle by a maxxed out team.  In the third 20, got my team suspended in amber.  Not literally.  Went to a battle site next to an enemy corner, and another guy on my team got there first with a nearly max team, and won battle after battle.  But the enemy just kept sending teams: small, medium.  Sometimes as little as one executioner.  The last 15 minutes of the game were just that.  The battle stopped twice for a few seconds, but never long enough for me to get out and order my team to back up.  So, I sat there watching hopeless attack after hopeless attack, and then it ended.

FF is a pretty stupid game mode.

The treasure is good though.  This time, I got extra lucky and got a Lv 5 Talent Chest:

Thanks, Acadian Clashers.

Rolled the talent.  What might it contain?  Bulwark 5 for my DD?  Revite 5 for my Aries?  Corrode 5 for my DK?

Berserk 5 for my, uh... already have Berserk 8 on my PD.  Bleck.  My Druid still has War God 3 since a year and a half.  Guess he gets it.

800 ms attack now.

Yay.

Got Medusa through 180e.

Gentlemen prefer blondes.

Should be a few more days to get her to 200e.  Then she stops (I'm not paying 60000 shards to devo, or if I do, DD gets them).  I don't have a real obvious next candidate for experience.  Maybe I'll get lucky and roll a SK or GF or Ghoulem before then.  If not, I'll evo DK and then we'll see.

Hero Development: DD and Medusa

I've been working up my Dread Drake, exploiting his Enlightenment 1 talent.  I got him to evo1 199, with most of the experience for 200.  I have one dupe, and although I could afford the 40000 shards (barely), I figure he's high enough for now.  I'd rather spend the shards on getting his talent to 9, or elsewhere.  I'll wait for another dupe or two before evo2.  As I was almost to 200, I happened to get a pretty nice talent in a quest reroll:

Not bulwark, but not bad

That's a sign.  I zeroed out my dungeons and HBM for the last burst of experience, then I replaced the talent.  DD now is quite nasty in toe-to-toe combat, using Bulwark 4 crests.  Very hard to kill.

DPS queen to be

Now I've started working up Medusa.  She's got Enlightenment 3, so she's going to evo0 200 now, and then to evo1 200.  I have no dupes for her, so I'll have to pay shards unless I get lucky pretty soon.  20000 shards for evo1 is pretty much always worth doing for a top shelf hero, and that goes double for a hero getting Enlightenment boosts.  It's a lovely talent, but you don't really want it there unless you're actively developing the hero.

I am still above 400000 HB.  That is with selling 600 of the green books but no others.  I think there may be sources of HB that I did not count, since I am nearly keeping up even with Enlightened heroes.

Should One Sell Experience Books II

Earlier I posted some opinions and figures on selling experience books.  My conclusion was: you should not.  That, assuming you play a lot: you are in a guild, finish all the subgames each time they are offered, and do 2.5 quests per day.

However an anonymous poster corrected me.  I assumed you'd go to level 200 at each level of evolution, even though you need only go to 180 (uncapped) or 185 for evo 1 and 2 respectively.  Duh!  Embarrassing mistake.  Let's correct that and recompute.  (Obviously anonymous already did this computation, but I'm showing the work here.)

So, experience.  Here's data.  To fully max out a hero at 200ee, you need level 180 then 185 then 200.  Level 180 requires 77508850 EXP; level 185 takes 100486350 EXP; level 200 takes 208918850 EXP.  200ee thus takes 386914050 EXP.  Similarly, 200ee takes 3 full sets of honor badges to 200, minus a handful of the little ones.  (When you evolve, you don't have to do the small levels.)  The total required is 814,000 + 800,000 + 780,000 = 2394000 HB.

Thus, in terms of outlays needed to max heroes, the ratio of EXP:HB is ~162.  If we earn more than 162 EXP per HB earned consistently, then books will pile up unused (and heroes will be blocked) and we should sell some books to equalize.

As I posted in the original assessment, the total experience I am earning per day (at Insane 4-10 and HBM S) is roughly 14.2m/day. 

Similarly, I am getting about 50000 HB/day from all sources. 

9.4m/50000 is ~188.  This is slightly above the breakeven point above.  So I was wrong: at least with these numbers, I will want to sell some books.  I doubt all of them, because it is close.  But I'll have to pay attention.

Also, as anonymous points out, you can increase experience by the Enlightenment talent.  I do this as much as possible.  For example right now I have Enlightenment 1 on my DD, who I am taking to 200e (I have no dupes for him).  Then I'll work on Medusa, with Enlightenment 3, again to 200e unless I get wildly lucky on some gem rolling.

20% extra experience is nice.

One more good point anonymous made.  Some people stop heroes at 180ee (uncapped), which saves 131410000 EXP; the ratio of earnings in that case is 255504050/2394000=~107.  I don't think this is necessary, but if you are super tight on honor badges, consider it.

So, why do have so many honor badges?  My guess is because I have only recently gotten to ID4-10; I was stuck sweeping expert dungeons until last September.  The different in experience is rather large.  But now that I am sweeping ID4-10, I should expect to run dry pretty soon.

Progress for DD and PD

Ever since I got my Dread Drake, which was two weeks back, I've been pouring all my experience into him from dungeon and HBM sweeps.  Very early I luckily rolled an Enlightenment 1 talent which I gave him.  Also during the past two weeks, pets appeared (+10/+14% exp from dungeons), and I got to ID4-10.  But still, it's been a long drag to level 200.  (Why not 180 + 1000 EXP?  Because of the Enlightenment.)

But I made it today.  And...

Drake evolution

Now I am heading straight for level 200.  I won't do the second evo anytime soon; will wait on dupes.
Hopefully a nice Bulwark 5 talent will eventually show up.

In other hero news, I have had over 18000 fame for a while now.  I finally decided to pull the trigger on this...

This guy's famous

It was for the new Summoner Archdemon, which in spite of the shiny PD, I did miserably on.  Try again tomorrow.  But the talent will continue to pay off going forward.

Creating Contention at Battle Altars

Almost daily, players list their heroes on reddit.  I am often surprised by how low their crest sets are relative to their might.  (Here's a recent example.  90000 might; a handful of level 3 crest sets, mostly level 2s, and even some 1s.)  I guess people don't take the Lost Realm very seriously.

I've always pounded the Realm as hard as I could subject to FtP limits.  So by now I have all six battle altars (and indeed I have had them for months).  And for all six, I contended for them either once or at most only a few times when they were new.

It would be nice to have contention for my altars, since the more they change hands, the more blue crystal they create.

For a while I had two teams: one scatter team for facing demons, and the other stun-heavy team for fighting the normal monster groups.  But then I got Aries, and gave him my Revite 4 crest set.  Now I just have one team.  It could certainly be better, but it's pretty strong for my 97000 might.

About two weeks ago, I realized that my problem with getting fights in my battle altars might be that I am just too strong.  Perhaps the code works like this: when you first expand the size of the Realm to include a battle altar, the program assigns you a similar-might player to be the other contestant for that altar.  And perhaps that assignment never changes.  (If you have some notion of how the Lost Realm works, please drop a line.)

If my conjectured functionality is so, then it would explain why I don't get fights at altars.  Because I have not puffed up my might artificially, and because I have excellent crests (which don't count as might), my opponents may not be able to beat my team even trying multiple times.  Also, I am pretty hardcore about always doing all the subgames every day; this means I am increasing in my "true" might about as fast as can be done absent spending money.  As a result of that, any other average player is never going to get stronger than me, and in fact will be slowly left behind unless he is similarly hardcore.  (Or spends.  Or gets lucky rolling heroes that I don't have.)

Anyway, I decided to try an experiment.  I set up a team with just a level 60 angel in it.  For the past weeks I have been leaving this team as my team whenever I exit the realm.  My hope was that my opponents, whoever they are, would eventually think to re-try their battle altar and be pleasantly surprised.  Then, assuming I can take the altar back (almost certain), if I keep doing it, perhaps they'll keep beating my angel and I can get my altars leveling up.  More blue crystal!

So I have now been weak for weeks.  Nothing changed.  Not until yesterday, that is.  I entered the realm to see this:

First battle altar contention in months!

Excellent!  Of course I retook it.  Hasn't changed since... but I am hopeful.  Meanwhile, a second altar got taken by someone else!  Go, go, whoever you guys are.  Maybe I can get all six into contention!

Incidentally, if you are inspired to try something like this, please first consider its effect on your guild.  If you are one of the 10 or so highest might guys in your guild, then you probably have guildmembers who are used to using your team as the other half of their Lost Realm demon killing.  And in that case, it's probably a bad idea to do this.

Should One Sell Experience Books?

[UPDATE: this post is wrong.  See the first comment.  The general method is right, so I have updated it in a newer post.]

Clashers are always asking that question.  Since a new one just popped up at reddit, and I have this blog now, I thought I'd take a stab at it, since my answer is different from the traditional one.

The traditional answer is yes, sell some books.

My answer is no.  The reason I say that is because I have been tight on experience and not HB for months now.  Take a look at my top heroes in their altar:

Five shinies, one capped.

These are my top heroes by level.  None is at his cap except Immo, and I only use him in the Lost Battlefield.  Santa and Warlock are both evo 1, waiting for dupes (or spare shards) to evo twice.  Harpy Queen I also rarely use, although I probably will in the future, unlike Immo.  But experience is tight.  I do use Dread Drake, but he is my current experience project, since his talent is Enlightenment 1.  Hey, 20% is better than nothing.  I will evolve him soon, when he hits level 200.

Meanwhile, I have uncapped Griz and others not shown above.  I have 1.3m HB waiting for use.  800000 will go into DD when he evolves.  But after that... well, we'll see.

Perhaps I am weird?  Well, let's consider some data and do some math.

First, experience.  To fully max out a hero at 200ee, you need 3 full sets of level 200 experience.  Level 200 takes 208918850 EXP; 200ee thus takes 626756550 EXP.  Similarly, 200ee takes 3 full sets of honor badges to 200, minus a handful of the little ones.  (When you evolve, you don't have to do the small levels.)  The total required is 814,000 + 800,000 + 780,000 = 2394000 HB.

Thus, in terms of outlays needed to max heroes, the ratio of EXP:HB is ~262.  If we earn more than 262 EXP per HB earned consistently, then books will pile up unused (and heroes will be blocked) and we should sell some books to equalize.  If things go the other way -- we get less than 262 EXP per HB over time -- then we have no easy way to address the problem.  HB will pile up; there is no way to turn HB into experience.

So what rates do you earn?

We can guestimate rates by looking at the major sources of experience and HB.

Most non-book experience is coming from two sources: dungeons and HBM.  With dungeons, one gets 3 per hour; thus in theory you can get 72 per day but in practice you probably sleep.  I do, anyway.  I usually use up my dungeons before bed, so, the next 6 hours and 40 minutes I am not maxxed out.  But if I sleep for 8 hours a day, I lose 3 dungeons per day there.  Also I occasionally have my dungeons max out when I am not paying attention for some reason.  I probably lose another 3 dungeons per day there.  So call it 66/day.  Since I three-starred ID4-10, I get 124971 experience (+14% for pets); that comes out to 9.4m EXP/day.

Now, HBM.  I am sweeping HB-S, and I almost never miss any.  You get 8 HBMs per day.  HBM-S is said to average about 600k EXP by a guy with data.  So, that's another 4.8m EXP/day.

The total experience per day is thus roughly 14.2m/day.  (You can see here why getting to ID4-10 is such a big deal.)

OK, now HB.  Non-book HB sources are more varied, but they largely come from these sources: nobility title bonus, boss 3, torch battle, guild wars, arena, expeditions, and quests.  My nobility title bonus is 8800, and I get another 14300 from boss 3.  My guild runs two torch battles per week and always gets the maximum reward, which is 10000 HB; this averages to 2857HB/day.  There are also two Guild Wars, in which I usually get 11-20th in my guild, for 3400HB each; this averages 971HB/day.  I am holding pretty steady at the 90/day level in arena, with perhaps 15-20 battles per day, maybe a third wins.  Call it 2400 HB/day.  Expeditions, I am currently getting about 28000 HB/day.  And finally, quests; this one is hard to estimate but I run 2-3 quests per day, and get perhaps 8000 HB/quest (not counting books).  Here's a reference on that.  With 2.5 per day, that's 20000HB/day.

So the total HB per day I am getting is about 50000 from all sources.

Now let's put the numbers in perspective.  9.4m/50000 is ~188.  This is far below the breakeven point computed above, namely, 262.  The books I am getting don't make up the difference.  And that explains why I never ever sell any books any more, and all of my heroes that matter are uncapped.  I need all the experience I can get!

PSA: Aviar attacks with his hero

After I posted my pets guide, I linked it on reddit and got an interesting reply: "Aviar only need to be in proximity of one of your heroes being attacked to activate. Whoever is attacking that hero will be silenced."

I also saw this in another context: while working on my Lava3 article, I asked the guy who posted the strategy I am using why he was using Aviar since (if it only is defensive) it would seem to be very hard to get to have any effect.  He replied, "Aviar, the owl, has been described wrong. It does activate when your hero is in battle. As such it gives us additional silence same as garuda."

Where there's smoke, there's fire.  Or may be.  I decided to test it myself.

After kicking myself for not testing this yesterday (when Guild Wars was on), I finally decided that the best way to test was to try it out in a easy dungeon (basic dungeon 8/14).  So I rigged up my Treantar with lifedrain crests, then I assigned Aviar to a level 20 cupid I have.  I carefully put in the Tre first and let him kill troops.  Then, when a nearby enemy Paladin stepped up to fight, I put in the Cupid.

Sure enough.  Aviar fires green bolts at the Paladin.

Now, this is not sufficient to distinguish the two theories on offer.  But seeing as there are other pets which attack the hero that their owner is attacking, and none which are activated proximately, I am going with theory two.  Aviar procs based on its hero attacking, not being attacked.

Towards Lava Isle 3

My guild is easily doing Mesa4s each night in between bosses.  We've talked about trying to move up to Lava Isles, and a few of the guys have tried it.  They've gotten crushed hard.  (Having looked at it a little, I told them that would happen...)

(BTW my guild is Acadian Clashers -- drop a line if you're looking for a solid guild and you're on iOS; most of us in Eastern timezone; we do bosses at 20:00 and 20:30 server time.)

Before I started writing this, it was not clear to me which Lava Isle to aim for.  So I asked about that on reddit, and got a pretty helpful answer: "Lava 1 rewards are worse than mesa 4, for lava 2 you need minos so harder to find partner for it. Lava 3 can be done with f2p setup as well, and of course means best rewards. We farm it with 95%+ and only use one spirit mage, no other p2p heroes, and no event heroes."  I know my guild has some Minos, but on the other hand rewards for Lava 3 are better, and since everyone can do it... I think that's what we should aim for.

I have looked around, and found a lot of different ways of dealing with Lava3.  However, I like this one best, since it is detailed, and built around using FtP heroes.  That allows everyone to join, at least eventually (high levels and skills are necessary).  It also promotes the development of heroes that everyone should be developing anyway.  Also, using FtP heroes also means that we would have a lot more flexibility in assembling teams, depending on who is around.   Guys cannot always attend every night, and it would be preferable to be able to do Lavas in spite of missing that one guy with Arctica.

Generally, the meta for lava isle 3 appears to be as follows.  First, you have to survive the really immense initial damage incoming.  Generally, revite Ghoulems with very high skills are needed for this, as well as high level, evolved or d'evo'ed heroes.  Also you need a very fast amp-up from PDs: three are used for this, and also Cupids. Second, you've got to avoid or stop the procs of the bosses.  This is generally done by killing them remotely; the teams use Phantom King, Santa, and Grizzly Reaper to inflict massive remote damage.  For the bosses you fight hand-to-hand, it is done by constantly silencing them, using one Aries, and 4x Garutas and Aviars (the pet).  Finally, you need to output a large amount of damage in general, subject to a cap of 60000 damage.  The 60000 cap obviously requires at least one Pumpkin Duke, but we already have three for the ramp-up.  We will use for DPS the heroes that do lots of hits and which proc remotely: PK in particular, as well as SB and GR.

Anyway, here's an adapted version of the teams in the link.

Team 1:
SK (skill 8/10+), Cupid, Ghoulem (skill 9/10+)
2x remote damage heroes (in order, PK, GR, SB)

Team 2
Ghoulem, PD
2x remote damage heroes
1x utility - 1 Aries (skill 8/10+)

Team 4 is the same as team 2, except instead of Aries, it has:
1x utility - 1 Cupid

Team 3:
PD
3x remote damage heroes

1x utility: Treantar (skill 8/10+)

Levels:
All heroes should be evo 160+
Ghoulems should be evo 180+

Minimum Skill Levels:
Ghoulem: 8/10
GR: 7/10
PK: 1/10
PD: 9/10
Cupid: 9/10

Talents/Crests:
PDs should have Revite 3+
Ghoulems should have Revite 4+
Cupids need Revite 4+; 5 preferred
All remote damage heroes should have Revive, level doesn't matter.

Artifacts:
all artifacts should be level 5.
PDs should have Blitz scroll for fastest ramp-up.
One hero in each team should have Garuda, and this should not be a remote damage hero (i.e. not PK, SB, GR, or Aries).
Others should have Victors Emblem, for defense.

Pets:
All can be used except: no Celestis in teams 2, 3, and 4.

Substitutions:
Spirit Mage can be subbed for any remote damage hero.

Three Flamed Insane Dungeon 4-10

I have been pressing through the insane dungeons for a while now.  Brief hangups on a few of them, but eventually I'd get lucky and get through.  I am free to play, so, that means I do not have Mino or Spirit Mage to work with.  Instead my team is PD, Cupid, Druid, TG, Santa, and either Griz or Dread Drake.  Generally you want Griz if the problem is enemy heroes, or DD if the problem is buildings.

I got to insane dungeon 4-10 yesterday.  My goal is to three-star it.  Doing that increases pretty impressively the shards and experience I get for farming dungeons.  I looked for some help on youtube, and found it with this video.  It's better than most videos for ID 4-10 in that he explains how it will work, and thus what you're trying to do with the drop.  In this case, to get all the heroes to go left together.  It took me a few tries, but finally I dropped my heroes and copters on the opposite sides of my spells, and that got it done.  The heroes all went left, and very soon...

Winning...

 Oh yeah!

Three flames!  Sweeps from now on!

There's often a snowball effect when winning in CC.  I did not lose a single hero, and only 10 copters.

I have been farming ID 2-10 since I completed it recently, which gets 0 or 75 shards (+2 for pets) and 53,330 experience (+10% for pets).  But now I farm as follows:

Cha-ching

0 or 88 shards (+2 for pets) and 124971 experience (+10% for pets).  More than double the experience!  Wow!  Now, the chance to get nonzero shards from a blue dungeon is said to be about 30%.  So, my expected shards have gone from 24.5 to 28.4 -- a 16% increase.  Also nice.

The question now is... what do I do next?  I can return to dungeon 2-1, trying for a 3-star to get the artifact Goblet of Life.  Or I can start trying to push HBM, where I have completed S but not T.

Moving Up with Dread Drake

Two days ago I rolled a Dread Drake.  Here he is now.

Work in progress

Now I've gotten him through 160, and inscribed to 83.  Also he's wearing Flame Guard 4 crests to pump up his hitpoints and reduce the damage a bit.  His skill still needs work, and he needs a better talent.  But those are coming.

I started using him yesterday for my arena team.  I subbed out Death Knight, who was nice in that he protects against stunning -- if he procs.  But protecting against an enemy Dread Drake once you get all the way across the arena and proc is not very powerful, since of course the enemy DD autoprocs first, slowing you, and then typically the enemy Aries procs first, and things snowball.

I'd been solidly in the 80 HB/hour level for a while, seeing 90 rarely but always been booted out immediately.  Now I am in the 90 HB/hour zone, and have stayed in for most of a day.

Broke 1000

Indeed, I just peaked into the 100 HB/hour range, which I have never done before.  I doubt I can stay that high, but I think I'll be able to hang in the 90 range now.

One other thing: I've been stuck on Insane 3/9 for a few days.  With DD the neophyte supertank in my lineup, I've finally beat it.

I needed a tank for all those arrows

Yay Dread Drake!

Pet Strategy

[UPDATE January 2017: the information here is still basically pretty good, but there have been enough changes to pets that I wrote a new article to discuss them.]

With the advent of pets in Castle Clash, there's a new aspect of strategy to think about.  That is how to manage pets -- where to put them, what to give them resource-wise, etc.

Resource Allocation

There are two aspects of resource allocation that are related to pets.  One is, spending to get them.  Then once you have them, spending resources on them.

I assume that anyone reading this is going to do at least two quests per day, and log in every day to get the two free eggs.  If you aren't, then you're not playing CC that seriously.  But what about spending gems?  I'd say for sure if you manage to spend nearly 300/600/900 gems you should find a way to spend the last few to get it over.  If you are around 150/450/750, obviously a gem roll is the best way to get the other 150.  If you are very close (I was at 285 the first day of pets), you might buy something from a merchant that you wouldn't otherwise, like red crystal.  Or perhaps you have a building that is almost done.

What about allocation of resources to pets?  It is clear that leveling pets is going to be slow enough that this won't become a problem, at least for a while and probably not ever.  Also it seems that all pet skills will be worth leveling as fast as you can (which isn't that fast).  Leveling the pets themselves should be done ASAP, since this increases their "Compendium" boosts.


Pet Assignment Strategy

The main aspect of pet strategy is where to place pets.  Which pets are best placed with which heroes?  Of course, this depends almost entirely on which heroes you have, and how you use them.  If you have a SK but never use him for some strange reason, don't give him a pet.

At least at their current low levels and low skills, I don't think the damage that pets do is significant enough to make much difference.  This is because pet damage, unlike hero damage, is not affected by any existing hero.  That is, your PD stack doesn't help them.  So, I am ignoring pet damage pretty much, and when describing their skills I say they do "some damage".  Their healing is similarly low, but especially for snipers (who should be self-healing with Lifedrain), sometimes even a small amount matters.  So I feel the healing is a bigger deal.

But the most important aspect of pets is their "other", non-damage and non-healing abilities.  Pets with these are going to be the important ones.  I have bolded the "other" stuff below, to keep the focus on it.

Anyway, I'll list each pet and which sort of hero I would want to give him to.  Also, I'll also say which hero I gave my pet to.  Bear in mind that I mostly do raids/expeditions/GW using sniper strategy (see my guide), because I do not have either of the super tanky heroes (SK and DD) needed to charge in for hand to hand.  (Update: just rolled DD!  He's not evolved yet, though, so not really a player in most modes.)

Aviar -- skill has a 65% chance to deal some damage to a random nearby enemy hero and silence it for a few seconds when its hero is attacked.

Silence!  Wow!  Any "when its hero is attacked" pet is only good if its hero is attacked (duh).  So you want to put Aviar with a brawler.  SK and DD are the main guys for this.  Aviar will be most useful in game modes which include hand-to-hand fighting: Boss fights, LBF, Arena, and HTH raiding.  If you snipe for raids, as I do, then he is not that important.

I put my Aviar with my new DD.

[UPDATE: In fact Aviar procs when its hero attacks.  Not when hero is attacked.  I've posted about this separately.]

Bubblow -- skill restores some HP of 3 allied heroes with the lowest HP and increases their MOV SPD somewhat.  So far as I know, Bubblow auto-procs every N seconds; it does not key off its hero attacking or being attacked.

On the attack, restoring HP is nice, especially for snipers.  Perhaps it will be a lot at high levels, but right now my bubblow is level 2 with a level 2 skill, which means he restores 1827 HP (times 3) every 5.5 s.  That is underwhelming in pretty much any situation.  As I suggested earlier, I do think that even a small amount of healing can make a difference occasionally when sniping.  This is because snipers tend to be in combat for long periods of time.

Defensively, it doesn't matter who you put him with, but this is a pet you'll want standing around for GW defense.  Once it levels up, it's going to make sniping a tougher proposition.

I put my Bubblow with my Warlock.


Celestin -- skill has a chance to deal damage to a nearby enemy hero when its hero attacks. Also removes the target's buffs.

Holy cow!  Removes the targets buffs?  This guy is a tank killer, if you can put him on a hero that will go up against a tank.  Its hero needs to attack, and it has to be "nearby", whatever that means.  You want this guy on a brawler -- SK or DD.

I put mine on my Pumpkin Duke, to make sure he'll be in every boss battle, etc.  If I had a SK, that's where I'd put it.  I may end up putting it on my new DD, but not yet, because I am not using him that much.


Doom Balloon -- skill deals damage to 5 nearby enemy Buildings. Also increases the DMG they take for 3s.  Autoprocs.  The skill description says "nearby", but I have not found that to be true.  It appears to be buildings anywhere on the map.

Generally, a weak hero, since he affects buildings and they are relatively unimportant.  Obviously you don't want to give this guy to any sniper, since he'll consume building HPs for nothing.  He's good, though, for cleanup or for times when you want to kill buildings without concern for heroes.   Dungeons is the main example.  You'll want to give to a hero that you use in dungeons and/or for cleanup.  Santa is the most obvious place, or Mino.

I gave Santa my Doom Balloon.


Drako -- skill has a chance to deal damage to a random nearby enemy hero and targets around it when its Hero attacks.  Reduces energy of targeted heroes.

This guy screams "scatter team".  Any time you're trying to scatter -- one of your teams in LBF, bosses -- you want this guy in the lineup somewhere.

I gave mine to my Cupid, since he's a member of every scatter team.


Finix -- skill has a chance to set an enemy hero's location on fire when its hero attacks. Damages targets within the area over 3s.  Also reduces their MOV SPD.

This is your guy for a slowdown team.  Appears that the damage might help a sniper (need to test this).  I don't have a functioning slowdown team right now.  So Finix is just a bit of extra damage to dish while sniping.

I gave it to my Grizzly Reaper, who's my third sniper.  I might give him to Harpy Queen if I start using slowdown on a boss.


Little Havoc -- skill has a chance to deal damage to a nearby enemy hero with the lowest HP when its Hero attacks. Also reduces target's ATK and ATK SPD.

This guy is a debuffer.  Put him with any hero that you want to use on tough bosses where you'll need debuffing.

I gave mine to my Druid, who is always present in boss fights.  (I don't have Ghoulem.)


Mini Angi -- skill reduces DMG taken by allied Hero with the lowest HP by a substantial amount.

This is like a mini Treantar, except Angi autoprocs.  Great for HtH fights, great for snipers if they are dealing with arrow towers.  Also could be very useful in boss fights if you are not easily tanking a boss.  (This is still the case for me with the Rage Goblin.)

I gave mine to my Aries, since he does both HtH and sniping.

Finally a Tank

Did a single gem roll for a quest...

Now if I could just roll SK...

Yowza!  I'm now bringing him up.

Free Stuff from IGG

Shh!  Secret!

Free stuff!  There's a "Sign-In and Win Prized" going on, Oct 25-31.  It gets you a 150 shards, 2000 HB, 150 gems, or a Demogorgon if you are lucky.

I got the shards.  Oh well, it's free.

But there's something better!  There are codes to get 300 gems, 300 merits, 3000 HB,  and 300 shards.  Apparently IGG is having an event oriented around social media, or something.  I dunno.  Anyway, you need some "secret" codes (which have been posted on reddit a few times; one is here).  On some devices they have a link to an entry place in the game.  That's not the case on iOS, but you can go to this page (http://event-cc.igg.com/event/ios_cdkey/?g_id=1030019903) and enter the codes.  

Insane 2-10

Progress.  Beat it on the first try, and got three stars in two more tries.

Victory!

 Now I can sweep that much better:

Cha ching

How much better?  As you can see, now it's 75HB and maybe shards, and 53330 experience.  Insane 1-10, my former sweep, is 69HG/maybe shards, and 32780 experience.  That's less than 10% more HB and shards, but 62% more experience.  Nice.

Maxxing Damage on an Archdemon

The last post raised an interesting question: which hero is better against an Archdemon (damage cap: 500000)?  Succubus, or Phantom King?

Succubus procs every 7 hits, getting the full 500000 damage in her proc.  PK procs every hit, with proc damage similar to his normal hit damage.  Thus, the damage multiplier is going to determine the difference.

When PD is at max speed and being hit by the Archdemon, he procs roughly every 1.2 seconds.  He'll proc a little more often, actually, because of energy that Cupid adds.  But let's ignore that.  PD's proc lasts 8 seconds.  So, we'll have a sustained stack of 6 or 7 procs.

Let's assume 6 procs for now.  My PD has max skill, so +55% bonus per proc.  So we compute the net multiplier for PD as 1.55^6, which is 13.86.

(Incidentally, note that the speedup with 6 procs is also 13.86.  This is how we know that all heroes, even Atlanticore, are hitting every 200 ms.)

Druid also amps team damage, though less.  He procs every 1.4 seconds, with procs lasting 5 seconds.  That's 3 or 4 procs.  My Druid has skill level 7, so he gets +29% per proc.  Assuming 3, we get a net multiplier of 1.29^3, which is 2.14.

Finally, Cupid is always active, adding +45%, or 1.45.  He doesn't stack but his cooldown and proc effect are the same.

So, we find a net team multiplier of 43.1.  This means that any hit that is at least 11589 will end up as a maximum hit.  The multiplier can go considerably higher, if both PD and Druid are on the higher number of procs they can do.

Returning to the original question, I find my Succubus hits for 10828.  (She is evo 2.)  So, she is doing near max hits each hit.  Thus her total damage per 1.4 seconds is 40,000,000.

Now we compute PK's damage and compare... but wait just a second!

Succubus does 40m damage?  That makes no sense!  If she gets 40m damage per 1.4 seconds, over a full three minutes she should get 5 billion damage.  And yet the #1 player in the world got about 1.1 billion for his whole team.

Obviously something about the whole calculation above is off.  Way off.

It's obvious in retrospect.  The Archdemon dodges.  You can see it happening in any video of the Archdemon (check youtube).   For the damage reduction implied by the amount I actually scored, he must dodge a lot.  Yet I don't see that in videos... do you?  It's a mystery.

Well, I went to reddit and asked about it.  More than one guy there told me that the dodge rate is fairly low, but in addition there is some sort of stone-skin like damage reduction.  After looking at videos some more, I agree.  The dodging rate you can see is low.  You just don't see a lot of MISS notifications compared to hits.

So, my best guess at this point is that the Archdemon dodges about 10%, with a mysterious damage reduction of about 90% (!).

Returning to the original question... well, let's un-ask that.  We know that practically all hits that we're doing are not in fact capped, and indeed nowhere near capped.  (The only hits that might hit the cap are Deadly Strike hits and (maybe?) critical hits.)  So, amping up damage more is the name of the game.  There are two heroes that can do that: Siren and Beast Tamer.  Beast Tamer adds another whole hero to the lineup, and so is worth roughly +16% just for that.  At low level, somewhat less... call it +10%.  Then on top of that, at skill 7 he adds +22% damage for 9 seconds out of 12.  Siren, also at skill 7, adds +23% damage all the time.  So obviously Beast Tamer is the one to go with.

Hmm.  I already have my Siren at level 120, whereas I still have Beast Tamer as a card because I have never found any use for him.  Ah well... I need the might.

Come out, beasty boy

What's his talent?

Baby Beast Tamer 

Deadly strike!  It's not useless in this application.  I'll put on Slowdown crests once I level him up.

Theorycrafting Slowdown Teams

I've been trying to figure out how to get high damage on the Archdemon.  Pursuing that, I was watching some youtube vids and I saw some guy do a great trick with a slowdown team.  It's worth mentioning, since I am sure I will need that eventually.

The problem I have had with slowdown (besides the fact that I don't want the crests on most of my heroes most of the time) is that I cannot get a boss slowed down enough to stop him from getting to his first target.  I have tried with Warlock/Revite 3 and Harpy Queen -- still not enough.  And that stopped me.

But this guy I saw was using just about the same trick I use against the Rage Goblin and Centaur Ruler -- which you can find elsewhere at this blog.  The trick is this: you put in a hero with Revive for the boss's initial target.  Then you pour in the rest of your heroes and hit Invincible.  (This guy didn't even do that, but he was facing an Archdemon and they don't do that much damage.  Also he probably had max this and that, which I don't.)  After the Invincible ends, of course the boss kills the initial target -- but then that target revives.  Meanwhile the boss has targeted some other hero, but he's been slowed to zero with 10 seconds of full amped up Slowdown hits and various slowing procs.  So he can't move at all.  Then you pound away for the remaining ~168 seconds, completely safe.

This won't actually work on the iOS Archdemon because he autoprocs (so far we've only seen the one which stuns).  But it would work on any other single boss.

Castle Crisis Report

Two things of interest from the latest castle Crisis.

First, this time I gave maximum stuff to the Avaricifer for two days, then enough stuff on day 3 to get max rewards.  This is the fourth day; the Avaricifer is done.  Here are my two crests from the Mythic Crest chests:

Bling.

I forged the basic level 3 crests... didn't get anything.  Boo.

Last night when I looked the completion percentage was around 85%.  So it appears that you might have gotten in four days worth of giving, but only if you could be awake right at the time when the Avaricifer's new day begins.  I seem to recall it being something like 2 AM this time (for me anyway -- EDT), so, I didn't plan for it.  Which was smart; as I said, when I got up today at 7:00 AM the thing was done.

Anyway, in future we should all plan on Avaricifer going for three days only.  You can still get max rewards, but it is a bit more costly.

Second, I managed to go a full three minutes with the Archdemon!

Archdemon damage.

Hurrah.  Used the same strategy as before.  There is a lot more damage this time; kast time I got 171m.  Obviously it should be 50% more just because of  three minutes instead of two.  But also it is more because I kitted out my heroes with Slowdown crests.  These give in effect +25% damage regardless of damage cap.

My first try was not as good:

Less Archdemon damage.

Not sure what happened.  (I was typing the beginning of this post.)  You can see all the heroes are dead, though.  And I know it didn't get to three minutes.

I still need to figure out if I am hitting the damage cap and can use better heroes.  Obviously not hitting the cap, at least for some heroes.  The top players are getting over 1 billion in damage, that is, twice what I got.  But I did some math and it appears that I ought to be getting far higher damage than I am.  Not sure what's up with that.  I guess the Archdemon dodges?  Not sure.

Pretty good for FtP.

Right now I am #293 in the world!  That will drop, but still: mwahahaha!

How to Snipe in Castle Clash

What is Sniping in Castle Clash?

"Sniping" is shooting at someone doesn't know you're there -- and thus, someone who cannot shoot back.  In Castle Clash, most hero-on-hero attacks happen in the range of the target hero, so that the defending hero can either hit back simultaneously or at least move to close the range so as to hit.  (Rarely you'll get a situation where a hero is near the edge of his range and is targeted; in this case, he'll retreat to his hero base drawing the enemy within targeting range.)  Put generally: a hero's target can always hit back.  However, that is not true of procs -- many heroes have the ability to do proc damage at range, and defensive enemy heroes in many of CC's subgames will never attack unless their hero base is within a certain range of an attacking hero.  So it is possible to snipe them.  That's the general idea for sniping: you find something safe to beat on -- typically, not a hero -- which will generate lots of procs, and you use those procs to remotely kill the enemy heroes.

Why Snipe?

Why is sniping useful?  It's useful because it allows you to take on heroes (and thus, bases) which you could never beat in any other way.

For example, consider the 2nd most overpowered hero in the game: Skull Knight (SK).  SK has among the highest hitpoints per level in the game, and his proc -- which lasts 10 seconds out of 12 -- caps the damage you can do to him.  Also his proc boosts his damage to stratospheric levels.  Any competent player will have lifedrain 4+ on his SK, so that even purely alone, he is nearly impossible to kill in a toe to toe fight with any normal hero or group of heroes.  He attacks faster, hits ridiculously hard, and heals himself fully in every hit.  If you get anywhere near him, he'll attack and proc, and then it's game over for you.

Beating a high level SK toe to toe is very hard.  It's also not super easy by sniping, because of SK's monstrous hitpoints.  (I didn't yet mention his inherent Revive 8.)  But it's often at least possible, and when possible, it's very low risk.  When you're sniping, all you need is enough buildings, walls, and/or troops that are out of his range.  So long as you can grind through hitpoints out of his range, you can keep damaging him without his retaliation.  He never procs to cap the damage.  He never hits you to stop the damage.  And he never hits to heal himself.  Eventually, when you've ground enough hitpoints, he dies without ever attacking even once.

So, one answer to "why snipe" is: to beat those pesky Skull Knights.

More generally, sniping is a method to beat heroes that you cannot beat safely, or beat at all, in other ways.  Beyond that, another answer to "why snipe" is to keep the risk of attack low.  If you are attacking a base which you don't know you can beat, sniping usually allows you to abort the attack without losing heroes if it doesn't work as you thought.  This allows you to raid without waiting for heroes to revive, or to do expeditions and guild wars battles more safely.  (I review the particular twists of each subgame below.)

Which Heroes Can Snipe?

Many heroes have procs that do no damage at all, or whose procs are not long range; obviously they cannot snipe.

Of those heroes who proc with a ranged attack, most will target any non-wall enemy thing: heroes, troops, and buildings.  These heroes also are not good for sniping, because there are a lot of buildings, and few heroes.  These heroes will mostly hit buildings with their procs, which is doubly bad.  It's bad because they are "wasting" procs on a non-threat; and it's bad because buildings are the source of the hitpoints you're using to snipe with.  If you eliminate the available hitpoints that are out of range of enemy heroes, you will move in and come into contact with the enemy heroes before the enemy heroes are dead.

Note that a similar logic applies for heroes that target troops.  However, at least at present (September 2016) defending bases rarely have troops, and when they do, you can usually use a different sniper.

So, in general to be a decent sniper a hero must have a long range proc that does not target buildings.  We'll look at the specific heroes who can snipe below.

It is occasionally possible to snipe with a general remote damage hero like Santa, but typically only if you can find a situation where you can path him to beat through a thick wall for a while.  This is rare.  Also, it is not good in game modes where you are trying for 100% wins, because the damage is quite random.

Sniping Theory

When sniping, your goal is to turn hitpoints of things that you can safely attack into procs that kill heroes you cannot safely attack.  When thinking about it, I like to keep in mind a concept I call "sniping efficiency" (also "sniper" or just "snipe" efficiency), which is the ratio between a sniper's attack damage, and the proc damage he produces.  Since every hero's proc damage is based on his attack damage, the ratio is largely determined by the hero's particular skill, and the skill level.

One interesting thing that thinking about snipe efficiency implies is that your hero's attack number and attack speed are relatively unimportant.  To see this, consider a hypothetical sniper with attack 5000, hitting a building with 70000 HP.  Every seven hits, he procs.  So, after 14 hits, the building is down and he has procced twice.  Each proc has 5000 HP as the base for computing proc damage.  Assume that the proc gets 200% attack against one enemy hero (no actual hero does this).  Then he will do 20000 damage remotely.  70000 building HP have been consumed, yielding 20000 HP of sniping.

Note that the attacker's attack speed has no effect on this conversion at all, other than how long it takes.  If his attack speed is 1000ms, it takes 14 seconds.  If his attack speed is 1500ms, it is 21 seconds.

Less obvious is that the sniper's attack number also has no effect on the snipe efficiency.  It affects only how long it takes.  To see this, consider what happens when we evolve the hero, and get his damage up to 10000.  Now he kills the building in 7 hits, and accordingly procs one time only.  This proc does 20000 damage: 200% of the 10000.  So, 70000 to 20000.  The sniper has the exact same efficiency. What this means is: don't worry too much about evolving your snipers or getting their levels really high.  I find evo1 180 is fine, and indeed I did pretty well even with level 160-180 non-evo'ed snipers.  What matters most for sniping is the snipers' skill level.  Get those skill levels up!

Now let me back off of that somewhat.  For one thing, evolving your snipers is good because it allows them to have an artifact, which can be helpful in ways outside of damage production.  Also, higher level snipers have more hitpoints, which allows them to deal better with damage from towers, autoproccing enemy heroes, and other sources.

Another reason for higher level snipers is that higher attack can actually increase sniper efficiency; this happens when an attack kills a thing and there is overkill.  You get energy per blow regardless of damage done, and proc damage is not based on the damage that the triggering blow dealt, but on the sniper's attack stat.  Overkill effects are most relevant when you are using a sniper and he wades into a group of troops.  Most kinds of troops he will easily one-shot; his procs still do full damage.  Here, you want the highest attack possible for your sniper.

(Note that overkill on proc attacks works the other way, lowering efficiency.  But since overkilling heroes is not possible without killing them, and killing them is what you're trying to do, it's usually not a problem.  Also, there are far fewer hero targets than buildings plus (maybe) troops and walls... so in general, high levels benefits the sniper.)

Also, while attack and attack speed are not that important, you do want enough of them so that your primary sniper can go through most of a high-level base in about 2 to 2.5 minutes.  Since you have three minutes per attack, this leaves 30 to 60 seconds for cleanup, which is usually plenty.  (Sometimes a nest of highly garrisoned magic towers can take quite a while to break.)  If you find that you're running out of time in an average sniping attack, you should work on getting your snipers' levels up.

Snipers Reviewed

Since sniping can only work when there are non-hero hitpoints of some sort to chew on, there are only a handful of heroes that have restricted enough targeting so as to be useful for sniping.  These heroes are summarized in the following spreadsheet; I'll discuss each individually.  (Note that Triton is not listed, but he can snipe, albeit far more weakly than any legendary hero.  If you are just starting, you might find a Triton useful.  But please buy TG and Griz ASAP.)
​

 CC Snipers

​

#5: Pixie

Pixie

Pixie can snipe, but she's a weak sniper for the most part.  She has a number of problems.  Foremost is her weak sniper efficiency: she simply isn't great at converting hitpoints into proc damage.  It is true, though, that her efficiency is not as bad as the spreadsheet makes it look, because it factors in her 3 target limit.  Since sniping when there are 1-3 targets left is important, she's not as weak as the spreadsheet makes her look.

Another problem is that Pixie flies.  Fliers never target walls, so there are a fair number of bases that other heroes can snipe that she can't.  This matters when raiding in particular, because you cannot choose which heroes to bring to a raid on a per-base basis.  However, it also matters (albeit less) in any mode, simply because your resources are finite.  Experience and hero shards are finite.  Every experience point or skillpoint that you spend to develop Pixie can't be given to any other hero.  And while you can in theory swap around crests and artifacts on the fly, doing so is a pain in the ass.

On the plus side, Pixie targets only heroes, which is the best target setting for a sniper.  Also, she is at least partially self-healing, which is a useful thing.  Her skill is also useful when sniping with multiple snipers against an enemy Dread Drake.  DDs tend be hard to kill with mass snipers because they autoproc and their proc protects them.  Pixie will strip that away.

#4 Thunder God

Thunder God

Thunder God is an often overlooked sniper.  I know I stopped using mine for a long time; indeed it is only writing this article that I seriously started using him.  The problem is, of course, that his proc is at least somewhat unpredictable; it can hit anything.  But it's not nearly as random as you might think, and its randomness does not always matter.  I love my TG now.

TG's sniper efficiency can be huge due to the large amount of damage his procs do and their area effect.  But even when 6 heroes are present it won't necessarily hit all of them, or even any of them!  TG loves to proc on the enemy townhall, and if within range (seems to be about 1/3 of the playfield edge) will usually choose to hit it.  So he's often unusable in the sense that he expends way too many of the hitpoints he is consuming to nuke the townhall.

However, if you can arrange to drop him and keep him far from the townhall, or else to take down the townhall first (with some other sniper, or sometimes TG himself), then he can be excellent.  In my experience, if the townhall is not available he'll often target troops.  But after that, he prefers heroes.  He does this often enough to use in any game mode.  In a raid, if he doesn't do what you expect, you can always take the loss.  In Expeditions and in Guild Wars, you can keep restarting until he does open up on enemy heroes.  Once he starts hitting them, he tends to keep doing so.  From observation, I think that once TG selects a target for his proc, he'll keep hitting it until it dies.  Only then does he retarget the proc.

Unlike any other sniper, TG is a melee-ranged attacker.  This is both a strength and a weakness.  It is bad in the sense that in general TG cannot snipe for as long as other snipers can before being engaged by the enemy, because he has to go closer to any given building.  However, it can be a real strength in giving TG a path that a longer-range hero won't take.  Often people put buildings along a both sides of wall around their base.  Because TG must be right next to a building to hit it, when he kills it often the next building on the outside will be his next target.  By comparison, a ranged hero hitting the same building is much further from it, and to the ranged hero a building on the other side of the wall is closer.  The ranged hero will fly over the wall, or run around it, and end up engaging enemy heroes sooner.

One other important way that TG is great, is that he can be obtained for shards.  You don't have to wait months to roll him.  Every single sniper team, IMO, should have a TG (and a Griz; read on).

Finally, TG's proc has the side effect of stunning.  This is, of course, almost useless unless confronting enemy heroes.  But if you have to fight, it can occasionally be very helpful.

#3 Grizzly Reaper

Grizzly Reaper

Grizzly Reaper (aka Griz) has his weaknesses as a sniper.  One is that he flies.  Just as with Pixie, flying is mostly a weakness because it precludes the ability to pound walls.  This doesn't always matter, but when it does, you'll wish for a different hero.

Also, Griz's proc targets both troops and heroes.  Troops in defending bases are relatively rare in CC, at least at present (September 2016).  But when they are there, they can be a huge boon for a sniper -- but only if using a hero whose proc targets only heroes.  Troops protect against Griz: he'll spend most of his procs snuffing them until they are all gone.  Only then will he focus on the heroes.

Apart from his weaknesses, though, Griz is among the better snipers.  He does very good damage, and with high skill can affect every defending hero at once (which makes him more predictable).  Also, like TG he is available to buy with shards.  He should be the second hero you buy with shards, after TG.  Finally, Griz's proc has the useful side-effect of self-healing, albeit a modest amount.  You'll still want Lifedrain on him, but his self-healing means he can get away with a bit less of it than other snipers.

#2: Aries

Aries

Aries is dominant in many game modes due his nasty ability to silence enemy heroes via his Calamity skill.  He's also a good sniper.

Aries really only has one downside as a sniper: for some reason he gains only 12 energy per attack, not 15 like other heroes.  Thus it takes him 2 extra hits to proc.  This reduces his sniping efficiency.  However, it is quite good to begin with.  It is competitive when there are 5 or 6 enemy heroes alive, but then it declines when you've killed the easier ones.

On the plus side, like Pixie, Aries only targets heroes.  Unlike Pixie, Aries is ground-based so you can get him to beat on walls.  Also he has fairly long range, which is generally helpful.  And if you are willing to risk confronting enemy heroes, Calamity is about the best skill there is.  

Aries has several other less obvious advantages.  

First, because Aries is so dominant in so many subgames, you should level him rapidly, evo him ASAP, and get his skill to 9+.  As such, you might as well put him in the sniper team.  Even if you don't give him lifedrain, he can snipe in certain circumstances and help clean up.

Second, Aries can be useful as a solo sniper against bases which have really strong autoproccing defenders.  Aries removes energy with each proc; no enemy hero can ever autoproc against only Aries.  If you put in Aries with another hero, it's kind of unpredictable what happens.  Depending on how they synchronize, Aries may shut down enemy autoprocs, or he may not.  

But the most powerful thing about Aries is that Silence disables not only skills but also many talents.  This includes Revive.  That is, if you kill a hero with Revive while he is Silent, he doesn't revive.  This is generally not that important, because most Revive talents are coming from crests and only revive with 15% or 20% hitpoints.  Usually if you can snipe a hero at all, getting another 20% is also doable.  However, Skull Knight has Revive 8 -- he revives with 100% hitpoints.  Without being Silenced, he's almost always the last enemy hero to go down, and often his sheer hitpoints (along with his unbeatable toe-to-toe abilities) are the reason why a sniping attack fails or has to be aborted without three stars. So, it's a big deal to have a way to kill SK on the cheap. 

Note that Calamity does not impose Silence (and thus disable Revive) until after the damage associated with that Calamity.  In other words, by himself and using only procs, Aries cannot kill heroes without them reviving.  He can only do it if accompanying some other sniper, or in toe-to-toe combat.  The way I use him is to put in my primary sniper (Warlock) first.  Then I watch the enemy SK and put in Aries when the SK is nearing dead.  It doesn't always work, but when it does, it's awesome.  You can often try to kill SK this way repeatedly in Guild Wars or an Expedition, quitting and restarting until you succeed.

#1 Warlock

Warlock

I am embarrassed to recall it, but when I first rolled my Warlock I left him as a level 1 nobody for several months.  I just didn't understand his utility.  I was sniping already then, using Griz mostly.  But once I started really thinking about sniping, and about how I always seemed to end up with a few of the same heroes living longer than all others, I looked at this guy's stats again... and wow!  Best sniper.

If you look at the spreadsheet, Warlock doesn't really jump out until you imagine the effect he has after the enemy is down to three heroes or less.  And here, Warlock shines.  Only TG can approach his sniping efficiency, and that's only if TG is hitting all remaining heroes.  Whereas Warlock never targets anything but heroes.  Unlike TG, Warlock's normal attack is ranged, which is usually superior for most sniping.

Unlike Griz, Warlock moves on the ground.  So you can sometimes find bases where you can get him to beat on a wall.  And also unlike Griz, he targets only heroes.  This means you can use enemy troops as snipe-fodder.

One other nice thing about Warlock is the effect on himself of his Fire Shield.  It helps protect against damage from arrow towers, enemy procs, etc.  Think of it this way: deflecting 40% of damage for 5 seconds out of 7 gives roughly the same protection as a Flame Guard 7/8.  So Warlock is your best bet as a "tank sniper".  This is particularly important in Guild Wars, where you will often find bases with max level, highly garrisoned arrow towers.

Other Considerations for Snipers

Talents and Crests

It is highly helpful for a sniper to have lifedrain.  In fact, I'd say it's mandatory.  Although it is possible to snipe a few relatively common base designs without healing, most enemy bases have bombs and towers that you need to tank; also there are some defending heroes that can proc defensively.  Even level 2 lifedrain makes a big difference, but I would want at least lifedrain 4 on my primary sniper, and even then there are bases that put out unsustainable damage.  I have level 6 lifedrain on my Warlock (evo 1 189), and he still occasionally runs into bases sporting massed high-level and highly garrisoned arrow towers that are simply too hot for him to handle.  It's rare, but it happens, particularly in Guild Wars.

Excepting lifedrain, other talents are not that important.  You definitely do not want Slow Down, Heavy Blow, or Deadly Strike.  These crests get extra damage against their possessor's main target, but no extra procs or extra proc damage; that means they decrease your sniper efficiency.

Generally, I would recommend using your other talent/crest to optimize the hero's utility in game mode(s) other than the sniping modes.

Most talents that are pretty nice in other game modes are not that important for a sniper, because you generally have time and are not expecting to die ever.  Thus, for example, Revitalize is the equivalent of a building or two.  Or consider Revive: if you died once, you're almost certainly going to die twice.  Still, Revive can be nice in giving you time to notice and quit the attack.

A lot of talents have effect only on the immediate target or vicinity, but do not have any effect on sniper efficiency.  These include Scatter, Condemnation, Corrode, etc.  You might want these if you are going to risk letting your sniper confront enemy heroes one on one.  Otherwise, something else might be better.  There is no harm in them, at least.

In general, the offensive crests (War God, Bulwark) may be helpful on increasing the effective attack speed of lower level snipers.  But since they have the same effect as raising hero level, you won't need them forever.  Apply them with crests, then level up and use something else once you are wiping bases out fast enough.  Or just leave them; they don't hurt.  They do marginally increase sniping efficiency via overkill.

Berserk can speed up some of the slower snipers nicely.  Do stay aware of a sniper's cooldown, if he has it, and don't speed your sniper so fast that he wastes attacks with a full energy bar.

The defensive crests (Flame Guard, Scorch, Stone Skin, etc.) are similar to the offensive in the sense that getting up hero level does roughly the same thing.  I rate them less important since a lot of the time your snipers won't be taking any fire at all. However, they are more useful at times since there is always a tougher base out there that needs more defense.

Artifacts

No artifact has any direct effect on sniper efficiency.  So it doesn't matter much which you use, other than that the Goblet of Life is a poor-man's lifedrain, and can be helpful in keeping a sniper alive.  Other artifacts can boost defense (Victor's Emblem, Lightning Rock) or offense (Axe of Strife, Blitz Scroll).  The Blitz Scroll acts like a Berserk crest: speeds up attack but can reduce sniper efficiency if the hero has a cooldown.

I use the Axe of Strife on my snipers, since it does marginally increase sniper efficiency via overkill.  

Bases to Avoid and Bases to Hit

Many bases in CC are unique, and must be judged individually.  However, there are a number of common base patterns, which are helpful to learn for the purpose of sniping.  Some common bases are usually snipeable; others are usually not.

HBM Bases - Snipeable

The general idea in most HBM bases is to put most buildings outside of the walls, using walls to funnel monsters in to where the heroes can hit them while they stupidly/helplessly walk by. 

HBM base

These bases may be be great for stopping waves of heroes and monsters, but they are bad against snipers.  A sniper (sometimes two are needed, as in the case above) can hit the buildings outside of the main base.

Anti Guild Wars Bases -- not snipeable

Since the advent of the Guild Wars subgame, people have started hardening bases a lot.  Anti-sniping is a key element of this.  Most of the common designs you'll find in Guild Wars cannot be easily sniped.  Increasingly, Guild Wars anti-snipe bases are appearing in other modes too, as people use the same base for all modes.

Here are some examples of "Guild Wars" bases; all of these examples are not easily sniped, if snipeable at all.  If they have low-level heroes (level 180 or lower, not evolved), maybe.  If they have lots of troops, maybe.

You should become familiar with these kinds of bases to the point where you can detect one that is weak.  A weak base will have some flaw in it that allows you to snipe.  Most common are "V" bases where they did not make the walls thick enough at the point; this permits you to beat on a thick wall using one, or sometime two, snipers.  Sometimes you'll see "brackets" bases with too thin walls; here you may get a sniper on either wall beating on it.  "X" bases don't tend to have any obvious and common failure modes beyond low-level heroes and troops.

The "X" base (four short wall sections with four gaps):

"X" base

The "brackets" base (two long walls with two gaps):

"Brackets" base

The "V" base (one large walled side):

"V" base

Four Corners Base -- often Snipeable

Before Guild Wars, probably the most common base you'd see was the "Four Corners" base.  

"Four Corners" base

"Four Corners" is still fairly common.  It has centralized heroes and a surrounding wall with openings on two sides, but the key feature is four clumps of buildings in the corners.  This is a moderately effective anti-sniping defense; a single sniper obviously cannot do it alone.  But four snipers -- or three, and a Cupid or Druid to amp them -- often can.  This depends on the defending hero levels: if they are non-evo 180 or lower, it will probably work.  Above that, maybe or maybe not.  If they have troops and you have at least two of Pixie/Aries/Warlock, it will probably work.

Also, look for insufficiently thick walls on the two closed sides, where you may be able to get a hero to beat the wall.  (The base pictured above is certainly weak on the north side and probably on the south also.)  That hero may be a sniper (TG is often good), or -- after a delay to let the snipers work on the corner buildings -- a cleanup hero like PD or Santa.

Game Modes Discussed

There are three CC game modes where sniping is useful: raids, expeditions, and guild wars.  They have a lot of similarities, but there are also important differences.  I discuss each mode here.

Raiding

Raiding has one downside the other two modes don't have: you cannot see a base before choosing the heroes you are going to attack with.  This is not a serious handicap, but it is a handicap of sorts. 

There are several ways in which raiding is a lot easier than the other two modes.

First... did I mention that you can quit out at any time during a raid, and lose only a handful of honor badges?  No, I don't think I did say that.  Well: you can quit out at any time during any raid, and lose only a handful of honor badges!  Yes.  It's true.  Use it.  It's slightly better to get at least one star, and that's often doable.  Then you gain an honor badge or two!  But you can quit with no stars and nothing really bad happens.

Second, when you raid you can use spells.  This is nice; spells allow you to deal with an enemy in toe-to-toe combat.  Snipe away, then when you get close, if you've got a decent chance to prevail, help out your sniper with a healing (for lesser enemies) or invulnerability (for nastier enemies) -- or both -- and see what happens.  Often the sniper will prevail.

You can also snipe for as long as possible, hoping to weaken or kill as many enemy heroes as you can, and then -- when the sniper is soon to be engaged anyway -- dump in a full-scale assault (all your heroes and spells as needed).

You can always quit if the toe-to-toe isn't going well.  Well, you can usually quit in time.  Even losing one hero to, for example, an unexpected Atlanticore Hero Totem is annoying, because it means you have to wait to raid, or else raid without the most desirable lineup.  So pay attention. 

Oh, and one other thing... you can quit out at any time during any raid, and take only a tiny little penalty of a handful of honor badges.  It's really quite handy, that.

Expeditions

Expeditions are similar to raids, with two main exceptions.  First, you can use any of your heroes, and you get to use up to 10 of them at a time.  (The actual number depends on your nobility.)  Second, if you quit out of an expedition attack before getting any stars, it doesn't count, and you can try again.  You do lose any heroes that died for the remainder of that expedition.  (This is one reason sniping is very helpful in expeditions.  It's probably the mode where sniping is most important for doing well.)

One other mild difference is that Expedition bases tend to be chosen to be fairly attackable; that is, at least early in the expedition they tend to be easier than the average base you see on a raid.

In general, you can three-star many bases on an expedition that you could not in a raid, simply because you can "zero-star quit".  That is, you can quite and restart as many times as needed to get a relatively rare event.  For example, having your Warlock hit an enemy SK with each of his first three procs is pretty rare.  (Assuming 6 enemy heroes, it's about 1 in 8.)  But if you need it, and you have the time to play, you can keep trying until it happens.  Similarly, if you need a sniper to path just so in order to get him to beat a wall, you can keep trying slightly different drop spots until he does.

You can also use the zero-star quit in order to scout a base for hidden or non-obvious things.  Hidden things include locations of hero traps and hero totems.  Non-obvious things include pathing (particularly seeing if you can path a hero through a wall), and the potency of enemy towers.

You get to pass on up to 5 bases during an expedition; don't waste these.  Often I will accept an easy two-star win if a three-star win is not available, rather than use up a pass.  This is particularly true early in the expedition.  Note that even using non-snipers, it is often possible to get 1 or 2 stars from a "Four Corners" style base.

One trick I have for sniping on expeditions is that I have a level 1 Cupid that I occasionally use.  (I call him miniCupid.)  The idea is that a level 1 hero does very little damage, and therefore will practically never manage to kill even a single building; so he costs almost nothing in terms of using up building hitpoints.  But Cupid's skill effect does not depend on his level.  So you can get Cupid-injected energy without losing building hitpoints.  I boosted miniCupid's skill to level 2, so that he gives 15 energy and +15% damage when he procs.  Note that his +15% damage does not increase sniper efficiency (just speed), but his +15 energy does boost efficiency.  I use miniCupid occasionally when I am facing a base where I try a few times but I find myself falling just short of a safe win using my main sniper(s).  Just be careful.  You can't place miniCupid in the range of any tower except cannon towers (which can't target flyers).  Also, any defensive hero who can auto-proc will kill miniCupid in one shot.  Before using a miniCupid, carefully scan the enemy hero lineup to make sure there are no autoproccers.  (Heroes that autoproc: Warlock, Dread Drake, Harpy Queen, Phantom King.)  Even when there is an enemy autoproc, sometimes you can snipe for a while with your main sniper, then when the enemy autoproccers are all dead, put in miniCupid in a corner.

There is no other hero that in miniHero form will increase sniper efficiency.  There are several heroes that might have marginal benefit as miniHeroes.  For example, a miniAries could be nice in dealing with enemy Skull Knights and other heroes with Revive.  I have not tried that, though; perhaps if you have a lot of extra Arieses you might.  One other thing you might try is a highly skilled miniCupid.  Upping Cupid's skill won't help, beyond a point, for the heroes with cooldowns.  However, for TG and Griz, who lack cooldowns, any amount of extra energy injection will help.  There are also a number of heroes that in miniHero form might be useful to aid toe-to-toe fighting... but since this is a sniper guide, I'll leave that to you.

Guild Wars

Guild Wars is a cross between raids and expeditions, though with its own twists.  Like expeditions, if you fail to get a star the attack doesn't count.  Unlike expeditions, if you lose a hero and/or troops in an zero-star attack it also doesn't count.  Also, if you do lose a hero in a raid that does count, it works like a raid.  You get the hero back after a while.  (Troops lost in a 1+ star attack are just gone, and must be rebuilt.)

Guild Wars bases range from very hard down to very easy, since you can attack any base in the enemy guilds.  But in general you'll want to attack the hard ones, since they give more points.  As such, Guild Wars bases tend to be much harder than expeditions and harder than raids.  You'll often run into maxxed out towers with full level 7 garrisons, in a base with full level 200 evo2 heroes including SK, Ghoulem, and Dread Drake.  These can be challenging even when they not well designed.

As with expeditions, because a zero-star quit doesn't count, you can scout out an enemy base. In fact in a Guild War attack you can scout even further, since you can get all your heroes and troops killed without losing them (so long as you don't get 50%).

As with raids, you can afford to go "all in" in a guild war attack. You may lose the use of heroes for 15 minutes, but that's usually worth it if it gets you three stars.