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!