M.T.M.’s Deck Building 101 — Defender Skills
Hey everyone, it has been a while! I mean, not in general, but since I did one of these.
“I” being M.T.M., and “one of these” being an edition of Deck Building 101, the introductory series to building decks in Legendary: Game of Heroes. We previously covered The Basics, Battle Skills, and other things too…you know, the list is getting kind of long, I think I’ll just direct you to the Resources Tab of the Legendary Database if you want to check out everything, or you can search the stories feed on the N3TWORK app. Lots of other useful stuff there, too.
In this article I’ll be covering a pretty specific, yet extremely important topic: Defender Skills. Defender Skills are the most common variety of things opponents use to defend themselves besides, you know, damage. They can shut down your Heroes’ Battle and Passive Skills, deal damage, or heal the boss. They can even have more exotic effects like giving you less time to match gems or turning the entire gem board into bombs! Learning to deal with them is an important part of building your decks, particularly for Events and GvG.
One last disclaimer before we start, though: this article was written in August 2019. Legendary constantly evolves and changes, so if you are reading this later it is a good idea to make sure everything still works the same!
Okay then, on with the Defender Skills…
The Basics
Before we get down to actually building your decks, first, everyone’s favorite part…drumroll, please…definitions of terms and essential mechanics! Yay! Yay! YAY! Okay, so that might be only my favorite part. Fortunately, there is already a great (and official) Defender Skill Guide on the forums that covers that already (be sure to scroll to the bottom).
I want to draw extra attention to the whole “silencing” thing, though. As the guide says, “Defender skills that affect part of a [battle or passive] skill will block the ENTIRE skill.” Importantly, this is still the case when its effect is conditional and you don’t meet the conditions. It doesn’t matter if your Battle Skill only heals on a Tuesday under a full moon and it is Wednesday and the moon is waxing gibbous, if you are hit by Toxin it will be shut down.
Besides being a common problem players run into, it’ll be important for the next section. Promise this wasn’t just an excuse to use the phrase “waxing gibbous.”
Countering & Cleansing
The traditional way to deal with Defender Skills is to bring one or more Heroes with the appropriate Counter Skill. They will have a chance to dispel the Defender Skill (and any existing copies of it, too) based on the difference between their Counter Skill Level vs the Defender Skill Level, as explained in this handy dandy chart:
Conveniently, the weekly Event Deck has appropriate Counter Skills for that week’s Event Bosses (with some exceptions, like Frenzy and Punisher Bosses). This means if you have the Event Deck you are already set, but even if you don’t, you can use the information to plan what Counters to bring. Also, older Heroes are just as effective at Countering as the Event Heroes.
Wardens are the best Counters, with +3 to their normal Skill Level, which is more than enough to guarantee a 100% Dispel Chance against existing Event Bosses. Unfortunately, they rarely have good Battle Skills (there are exceptions!) and won’t have Empowered Affinity, so I usually try to avoid having to resort to them.
A few Heroes and Relics also have the ability to “Cleanse” (or “Dispel”) a Defender Skill after it is cast. The most powerful of these remove all Buffs from the enemy or all Debuffs from your Heroes, while others are limited to certain Defender Skills, Cleanse only some of your Heroes, or have other restrictions. Remember that “silencing issue,” though! See, told you it would be important! If something blocks another part of the Hero’s Skill it will also shut down the Cleanse, so even the best of them have vulnerabilities you need to pay attention to when including them in your decks.
Lastly, an important warning about relying on the in-game Intel screen: it considers Counters and Cleanses to be the same thing and will give you a happy green check mark for “Heroes Equipped with Counters” if you bring one with a Cleanse…but only for some Heroes. This is probably the most common source of confusion as to why a Counter isn’t working, second only to Power Gem Silence and Gem Silence looking *really* similar, and is something to look out for if you have any of those sorts of Heroes in your deck.
Avoiding & Ignoring
Remembering a Counter or Cleanse quickly becomes a habit, to the point players forget you don’t *have* to remove every single Defender Skill. Sometimes you can deal with their effects instead.
Sure, Chaos is pretty shocking to see, but if your deck doesn’t rely on saving gems between turns it often doesn’t hurt you much (if at all). Alacrity silences Turn Delay but won’t do a thing to a deck that doesn’t have any. Buffs like Armor and Thorns have a 1-turn window between wearing off and being recast, so with careful timing you can avoid those as well. Some things are easier to ignore than others (going without gem spawning to ignore Gemsilence is not recommended), but before you start swapping in less optimal Heroes just to Counter you should make sure you really need to.
Even if a Defender Skill isn’t easily ignored there may be other ways around it. In Slayer, Bosses don’t attack until Turn 2, so “kill them before they can do anything” is great if you can pull it off. Turn Delay so thoroughly shuts down normal Defender Skills that Birthright and Relentless were both created in part to reduce its dominance in GvG. Even if you don’t totally lock down a Boss so it never gets to attack (a common strategy in GvG and against Ultimate Challenges) a couple turns of Delay can give you time to build up for your big attack or for a Defender Skill to wear off. Carefully timed damage reduction or immunity, healing, or small changes to your deck or strategy can also get around the effects of many Defender Skills without actually removing them.
Defender Skills and GvG
GvG is the chance for *you* to be the boss!
Well, your Heroes (preferably Wardens) at least. GvG (and Arena/PvP, if that ever comes back) is the only chance they get to use their own Defender Skills, and many of the same rules apply…but, you know, in reverse. You’ll want heroes with Defender Skills that aren’t easily avoided or ignored, and ideally consider the Cleanse options (Counters aren’t generally popular because the high Defender Skill level of Wardens makes them unreliable, one of a couple reasons to use Wardens). It all gets pretty elaborate, so I’ll be devoting the next edition of Deck Building 101 to GvG specifically.
That means it is time to say goodbye for now. But first, be sure to let me know of any other question you have in the comments, as well as any topics you’d like me to cover in the future, and maybe your favorite Defender Skill while you’re at it!
