PvP Legendary, Epic, Rare, and Common Tier List – February 24th, 2018

Introduction

Version 1.7 is in full swing and the incentive to fill out multiple dungeons is at an all time high to help ensure Specials are ready when an Attacker enters your dungeon. However, this is problematic due to the fact that numerous dungeon layouts are lackluster along with insufficient resources to use among so many Creatures.

This has led to two district groups: one tries to fill out as many dungeons as possible to capitalize on the higher chance for starting Specials while the others rely on one amazing dungeon to carry them through.

Both of these strategies is viable even assuming not all 5 dungeons are perfect. This is because of how Combo Dots work along with relying on the Chance to Drain Mana on Basic Attack enchant.

However, we will one day reach a point where players can feasibly fill out all 5 dungeons so we do need to start planning accordingly.

Regardless of how many dungeons you fill out, Floor 1 still remains the most important to populate well.

This updated Tier List will include all sized Creatures and will do so moving forward.

You can read about the previous Tier List updates HERE.

Current Meta

It is hard to predict exactly what is going to become the next Meta, but I have a strong inkling that players may begin to gravitate towards one optimally built dungeon that utilizes the Chance to Drain Mana Enchant on all their Creatures.

However, that strategy will only feasibly work if you are running all 4-Dots to ensure your Specials will charge up after entering with nothing ready. As such, players with less 4-Dots may find merit in running multiple dungeons to help compensate by having Specials already ready when Attackers enter.

1 optimal dungeon

One optimal Dungeon being run has the potential to ignore the Special starting chance by relying on the Mana Drain Enchant and using all 4-Dot Creatures. This set up enables your Defenders to drain mana from the Attacker’s Funnel to prevent any lethal action being taken. By draining their mana, you are essentially buying your Defenders another round to cast their own Specials and helps offset the lowered chance to start casting upon entry.

However, this set up heavily relies on your Defenders being 4-Dot to ensure they can cast their own abilities while the Attackers are building mana once again.

Of course, this set up relies on a certain degree of luck as you have to drain the Attacker’s mana. Thankfully, one can utilize the Scholar Tome to change their Basic Attack to one that hits all targets. Thus, all 6 Defenders can have a decent likelihood of draining mana and preventing Attackers from using Specials.

While this is a potentially lethal strategy, Attackers can somewhat circumnavigate this by over Funneling their Creature. For example, if your Creature requires 130 mana to cast, you can instead gain 150 mana on your first action to help mitigate the mana drain. This will push further emphasis of running a full team of 4-Dot Creatures along with the Mystic Tome.

Filling out multiple Dungeons

Filling out multiple dungeons will favour players who are lacking the Creatures for 1 ideal dungeon and especially if lacking 4-Dots. This is because filling out a single dungeon without 4-Dots will most lilkely result in no Specials being ready at the start and a much slower time for them to come up after their first action.

While this may seem counter intuitive, running several dungeons (provided you can at least Bronze Enchant and Totem Floor 1) will probably yield more success than 1 dungeon lacking 4-Dots.

Furthermore, if you can capitalize on the colour bonuses for your first floor or Boss wave, you can pull off surprising victories. For example, I have seen many players fail my dungeons because the Boss was able to resist their first stun/silence along with boasting augmented stats.

I personally love the idea that a Boss actually being a Boss and scary to Attackers and hope VCME does push this further by either boosting 2 colours per week along with tweaking Boss stats for the off-colours.

Regardless of which strategy you wish to pursue, Floor 2 and 3 tend to have less relevance as most of the fight is predetermined in the first few turns (with the exception of stat-boosted Bosses). As a result, the key to success is building and countering Floor 1.

All Bosses have natural counters and I often receive feedback saying that they can easily defeat XYZ Boss. This is perhaps a result of them actually running their specific (colour) counter or entering with the full team alive. To be honest, if you enter a Boss floor with all 5 members alive, you are most likely to win any way. Thus, the validity of Bosses somewhat hinges on Attackers entering their floor heavily damaged, out of mana, or missing multiple members.

Enchants

Enchants are a powerful mechanic within Creature Quest as they allow for further customization. While there are countless different combinations available, there will naturally be those that are superior overall.

Generally speaking, the stat-boosting Enchants tend to be the most universally strong option, especially on their primary attribute. This is further amplified through buffs and weekly boosts. However, there has been a significant rise in Chance to Drain Mana enchant to prolong the time it takes for Attackers to cast Specials.

if you wish to read my in-depth Enchanting article, please click HERE.

For the purposes of this article, it is assumed everyone has perfect Gold Enchants.

Kingdom shrines

For the sake of this article, it will assume everyone has equal Kingdom buffs. Amusingly, due to the steep rise in Kingdom costs, most players tend to be clumped around a similar level and thus more even playing field.

Updating Tier Lists

 Indicates a Creature has moved up that many tiers since the last posting.

 Indicates a Creature has moved down that many tiers since the last posting.

Always assumes max awoken, equal number of Combo Dots, and optimal Enchants.

Debut Tier Lists along with further explanation can be found for Offense and Defense through their respective links.

Lists all assume fully awoken and equal Combo Dots. However, due to the scarcity of 4-dots, it is safe to assume a Creature may move up 1-2 tiers if they are your only 4-dot.

Criteria for Offense

Mana Funnel

Successful Offense teams are now built around funneling Mana into a specific Creature to have a Special Ability ready by your second turn/cycle. As a result, we need to carefully decide who will be your Mana Funnel recipient as you will be using their Special Ability before any one else on your team.

For a period of time, it was viable to funnel Mana into an AoE Creature who could then combo to 4x/8x and have them remove an entire row of Defenders. Sadly, with the current Stun meta, you can no longer reliably activate a combo and must use them without any additional multiplier.

Sample teams

For example, my older team funnels Mana into Phoenix to have their special ready every single turn if they are used first:

After acquiring new Creatures, I have modified my Offense team to this form where I am able to use my Gold PWR Oathkeeper to sweep an entire row (and heal almost 10k) with 8x combo. Also, having two White Creatures help divert damage away from each other. While it is no longer feasibly to perform an 8x combo, my Oathkeeper still provides healing, damage, and the vital Protection buff.

With this being said, there is some merit to “over-funneling” one Creature to help combat the Mana Drain Enchants. This may seem wasteful but can help you survive those particular dungeons.

I strongly suggest you check out my video detailing how to make a stronger Offense team:

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Strong AoE

AoE or Area of Effect are Special Abilities that are able to deal damage to several targets. However, they tend to have lower base damage to compensate for this and can also be classified as strong or weak AoE.

Any special that randomly targets Creatures is feasible on Single Target but is horrible against multiple targets. This is because you will often fail to actually kill anything. In addition, abilities that deal significantly less damage to subsequent targets is considered weak as you may only remove one Creature.

Thus, you want to look for AoE Creatures who deal full damage to all targets to ensure multiple enemies die in one Special. However, all AoE Creatures require some form of combo to deal damage which can be risky if those colours die or are stunned.

From my above example, my Oathkeeper is able to hit 8x Combo and can nearly sweep an entire row as he deals full damage to all Creatures.

Pure damage is less powerful unless it is blisteringly high

If your Special is unable to kill a single target with no combo, it is not worth pursuing as a mana funnel as you would have been better off with an AoE ability to remove several threats. In addition, if you require 2x to remove one target, your mana funnel Creature will not have enough mana to cast again unless they have some form of mana generation via Deathblow.

One main problem arising now is the HP of defenders outpaces the PWR gains through Kingdom Shrines and Enchants. This has made it nearly impossible for a Creature to use a Single Target ability and kill any Defender they were not already strong against.

Creatures need to survive

Unless you are running a Resurrection Creature, fragile cards will be less desirable as they can be quickly removed from powerful Floor 1’s. Thus, many cards that were quite flimsy have been demoted accordingly.

By extension to this, passive abilities tend to shine as they still take effect even when you are stunned.

It’s hard being Green Yellow

We are still deep within a Wood Nymph meta which makes it challenging for Yellow cards to push through. This has led to a modest shift away from using these Creatures as they tend to beaten up quite quickly. However, special mention should be given to Thunder Giant as he can counter attack and gain free mana to stun as needed.

Green attackers still struggle against Wyverns and Boarbarians but these have become a bit less common due to the need to run other Creatures.

Some may argue that Red Creatures may excel now but if Toads are always present, they can present a serious threat. This is because the Small Toad is now able to reach high level of PWR through Shrines and Enchants to deal reasonable damage to attackers. As such, if you plan on running a Red Creature, you should try to position them on the left or rightmost side of your team.

Mono White/Black

Due to the overwhelming strength of colour counters, it becomes crucial to find solutions to challenging Floor 1’s. However, it can be difficult if using Blue, Red, Green, or Yellow Creatures as they are losing the rock/paper/scissors match too often.

Thus, it is advantageous to run several Creatures that are White or Black as they are more effective overall. This is because they are still vulnerable to their opposite colour but also strong at the same time. Furthermore, stacking several of the same colour leads to distractions as enemies will tend to have more scattered damage as they are now effective against multiple targets. This can lead to protection for valuable Creatures such as Astral Watcher.

Finally, it is wise to create your Mana Funnel on a Creature where there are multiple of the same colour. This will allow you to charge up a wider variety of actives based on the situation at hand.

Counter attacks are meaningful

For a period of time, counter attacking Creatures had lower value due to the meta shifting to pure single target; however, with the switch to more AoE oriented specials, counter attacking has regained value. This is because common defenders such as the Nymphs, Statues, Toad, and Drillman all hit multiple targets and can quickly trigger a counter attack. Presently speaking, Cerberus is the king of counter attacking due to the massive damage dealt.

Dungeon Offense Tier List – February 24, 2018
– S
A
– B
C
D

Changes explained

No changes

At this point in time, I do not foresee any dramatic shifts in the meta from an Attacking point of view unless a more dominant strategy emerges.

Criteria for Defense

We are currently enjoying an era where many players are filling out 5/5 dungeons which dramatically bolsters the viability of Bosses. However, without the weekly colour bonuses, most fail to survive long enough to cast a second round of Specials.

Being stun and silence immune can help Defenders eliminate some Attackers, but they may simply fall due to their relative fragility. This is a shame because i would love to see Bosses actually function like a Boss.

As such, most Bosses will still not be able to remove a full Attacking team but we can at least try and choose the ones that will give us the highest chance possible.

Regardless of your Boss selection choice, most of the focus will still remain on building a lethal Floor 1 to heavily cripple or outright win.

One last point to keep in mind is that colour counters are even more effective as a Creature that is weak to another will have a significantly lower chance of landing their debuff statuses along with dealing half damage. This vulnerability goes both ways as an Attacking Wood Creature will most likely solo a defending Yellow Boss. Thus, if you see a trend where specific Attackers are always slipping through, it would be wise to switch to a Boss that colour counters them. For example, if Phoenixes are always slipping through, switching to a Blue Boss will almost guarantee a win.

Stun was/is King

The Stun meta is a frustrating experience but at least we are able to actually take an action and are no longer able to be chain stunned. Stunning is more powerful on Floor 1 than Bosses as you have up to 7 Creatures attacking at once and can do far more damage overall.

As a result, Stun-oriented Bosses can still function, but are unable to repeatedly stun the same Creature again which takes away one of their strongest assets.

Colour Counters are more meaningful

Colour counters even more power when facing what they are effective against as they will be far less likely to become debuffed. What this means is that a Red Boss will be significantly less likely to be stunned by a Green Attacker. This also applies to Boss’s Specials against attackers.

What this means is that the popular meta cards will be able to effecitevly solo what they are effective against. This also means that Bosses that rely on debuffs are going to lose even more ground.

As a result, many bosses that used debuffs are now demoted and in all honesty, Wood bosses are now even more vulnerable to Phoenixes.

With all that being said, White and Black Bosses remain unchanged.

I am well aware that every boss has a counter and can be defeated with specific set ups but there are still some stronger options compared to others.

Powerful AoE is stronger now

Like the strong AoE described in the Offense section, similarly powerful AoE abilities gain increased value from a Boss point of view. This is because a Boss has augmented stats and if they are able to deal full damage to multiple targets, they may be able to remove several attackers at once.

Furthermore, a perfectly enchanted Boss for Defense is able to take advantage of Stat-modifiers as well as bonus damage to Large/Boss. This will naturally be overkill for burst Single Target, but helps propel the AoE damage to near lethal levels.

As a result, if an AoE-oriented Boss is able to gain the filled dungeon boosts, they can in theory remove all Attackers in 2 casts.

ATK or DEF scaling is favourable

While both of these stats compete with bonus damage to Large and Boss from an Enchanting point of view, they are the only two stats that are improved by the 2/5 Dungeon bonuses.

As a result, these Creatures gain increased value compared to other alternatives during those weeks where their colour is augmented.

Dungeon Defense Tier List – February 24, 2018
S
A	—
B
C
D
H

Changes explained

 Oathkeeper S -> A

Oathkeeper was once one of the more formidable Bosses but is unfortunately on the decline. While other AoE-oriented Creatures are able to come out ahead due to Shrines/Enchants, Oath Keeper’s lower PWR ratio prevents him from becoming the monster he once was.

This is because he is unable to deal enough damage to be truly threatening. He will be able to cast his Special and then enjoy a 50% Protection buff that also provides damage reduction. Sadly, he will not be able to kill anything in a timely manner and it turns the battle into a grind-oriented one that tends to favour the Attacker.

Long battles of attrition  will enable Attackers to charge up their own Specials while not actually dying for several rounds. This results in the tanky Oathkeeper falling down over time. Comparing him to other AoE Bosses, he will not be able to remove all Attackers in 2-3 rounds and during this time, the opposing player can heal, buff, stun, debuff over time and come out ahead.

From my own personal experience, I have gold PWR on my own Oathkeeper which made him quite threatening at first. Sadly, as shrines and Enchants  caught up, his potential for killing an Attacker went down and he began to be sidelined for other options.

Building a strong Dungeon Defense

Check out my earlier video on how to build an effective Dungeon Defense for making a strong Floor 1:

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Rare and Common Creature tier list

I plan to be including this section to all my Tier List posts moving forward. You can read the first Rare Tier list HERE.

Dungeon Synergy

The following Tier Lists evaluates the performance of each Creature without taking into consideration elaborate Defender synergy.

Elaborate Defender synergy is essentially using any 2+ Creatures to enhance the overall performance of your group. This could be multiple Poison characters to more easily trigger the bonus damage, a LUK debuffer to help proc your Mummy awoken effect, or buffing any stat except PWR.

I consider PWR to be by far the strongest stat for a Special to scale off from as it enables you to use 1 buff to dramatically improve the whole team. As a result, PWR buffs tend to be superior to the other stat-modifiers as it also improves Basic Attacks and other enchants. This is partially tied to the fact that Wyvern is able to deal amazing amounts of damage while also buffing PWR. No other relevant Creature can do the same for another stat while being able to deal that much damage.

However, with optimal enchants, a LUK-scaling Creature gains the most offensive potential of any Creature due to the ability to run Bonus to Large/Boss, LUK, and Critical Strike chance.

Ranking criteria

Prior to the release of Nymph, the Dungeon Defense meta largely worked around Single Target abilities with complimenting support (buffs/debuffs) to enhance those Creature’s performance.

However, with the addition of Nymph, we are starting to see a rise in stuns as she is able to stun multiple targets while providing modest damage. Just be aware that you cannot re-stun the same target so they will be able to take an action eventually.

Points to consider:

• Does the colour counter popular meta Legendaries?
• Does the Special deal large amounts of damage (crits, high multiplier etc.)?
• Does the Special provide reliable stun/silence?
• Can the Special provide multiple (relevant) buffs/debuffs?
  • Buffs: PWR or Mend
  • Debuffs: PWR, DEF, or Fatigue

Having a healer is helpful, but they need to provide more than just healing to be relevant as a Defender.

All of these points apply to both Rare and Common Creature Tier Lists.

These lists assume all 4 dots. Thus, a 3 dot of an S-tier Creature is often comparable to a 4 dot of a A-tier.

Epic Creature tier list

Epic Flying Creature Dungeon Defense Tier List February 24, 2018
S	None
A
B	—
C
D

Epic Ground Creature Dungeon Defense Tier List February 24, 2018
–S
A	—
–B	—
C
D

Changes explained

 Onyx Drake B -> A

Onyx Drake has the ability to one shot any White Creature when fully awoken which enables them to act as a hurdle to most meta teams. While the Dark Elf is superior overall due to being able to kill all colours, having an Onyx Drake will force Attackers to  remove them first. This level of diversion has meaning and can pay large dividends if Attackers enter your Floor 2 without a stun ready.

 Sunburst Drake C -> B

Sunburst Drake’s main role will be to instantly kill an Attacker Cerberus due to their additional damage vs Black Creatures. This may seem like a niche counter, but Cerberus is quickly becoming one of the most popular (and powerful) Attackers to run. As such, it is advantageous to find ways to quickly remove them as they are able to quickly destroy your own Bosses due to ignoring DEF and having one of the highest PWR ratios in the game.

 Mechanical Spider King A -> B

My hopes and initial evaluation for the Mechanical Spider King was to act as an anti-Cerberus spawn. Unfortunately, the Spider King is unable to actually outright one-shot a full health Cerberus which invalidates their main purpose. This combined with no collateral buff for your other Defenders forces them out of the A-tier.

They can still deal reasonable damage to Black Creatures, but without a PWR buff, it will be insufficient to remove them instantly.

Rare Creature tier list

Rare Flying Creature Dungeon Defense Tier List February 24, 2018
–S
A	— *Debut*
–B	—
C
D

Rare Ground Creature Dungeon Defense Tier List February 24, 2018
S
A
B
C
D

Changes explained

Lightning Nymph – Debut at A

The Lightning Nymph is the third in the series to be released and works as a reliable Silencer against Attackers. Her Special is able to deal damage to the entire row along with silencing them for one turn. Furthermore, she will Silence all Attackers when she dies making it risky to remove her early on.

For the most part, Silencing is weaker than Stunning as Creatures can still take an action, donate mana, and deal damage with Basic Attacks. Thus, She is naturally less potent than her Wood cousin, but still has a place on a Defending team. One interesting feature of Stunning and Silencing is how they can stack on each other. By casting both types of debuffs, you can incapacitate an Attacker, then prevent them casting a Special, and then potentially restun them again. This cannot be chained indefinitely, but during that time, there is a strong likelihood your Defense has already won.

This layering of debuffs can be powerful, and does work well with the Mana Drain tactic. However, it tends to be strongest when paired with at least 1 stunner.

With the introduction of the Lightning Nymph, the Sand Devil has been demoted as she fulfills the role of a Yellow Silencer much better.

Sand Devil A -> B

Sand Devil is still a reasonable Defender, but is outclassed by Lightning Nymph due to her higher consistency in silencing along with silencing all Attackers.

This is not to say you cannot use Sand Devil effectively, but his random targets along with potential to silence less Attackers hinders his overall viability.

 Nymph Oracle B -> A

Nymph Oracle is another PWR buffer but has less offensive potency compared to Wyvern. This is because she delivers multiple random target hits which prevent outright killing an Attacker along with no enemy buff removal. However, she is able to provide modest amount of healing which can be meaningful under the right conditions.

If you are planning on locking down Attackers via Mana Drain/Stun, the additional healing can prevent your opponent from killing off your Defenders with Basic Attacks. However, I still prefer Wyvern for the most part unless you are lacking Support in your defense.

 Clockwork Demolisher – A+

Clockwork Demolisher fluctuates between A and S-tier due to their ability to break DEF, deal reasonable damage to the entire row, and DEF buff. However, he competes for the highly competitive ground slot that is often taken over by the Wacky Toad (Small Creature).

Both options are powerful and choosing to Clockwork or Toad is dependent on how much Mana Draining you have. If you have ample amounts of Mana Drain, the need to stun is diminished and being able to kill Attackers faster due to DEF break is more valuable. On the flip side, if you lack Mana Drain, stunning is the way to go and often results in Clockwork being benched for the Toad.

As time progresses and the meta settles on Stun vs Mana Drain, Clockwork may or may not move back up to S-tier.

As a forewarning, Clockwork is exceptionally vulnerable to Cerberus’s counterattack which can put a damper on his own viability.

Common Creature tier list

Common Flying Creature Dungeon Defense Tier List February 24, 2018
–S
A
–B
C
D

Common Ground Creature Dungeon Defense Tier List February 24, 2018
S	—
A
B
C
D

Changes explained

No new changes at this point in time.

Dungeon selection

Presently speaking, it is is best to run Dungeon 5 and  Dungeon 2 as you are able to easily put in Toad along with the most number of Medium Creatures. However, if aiming for a total of 3 Dungeons, I would recommend using Dungeon, 2, 4, and 5. Unfortunately, just randomly sticking in high-ranking Creatures is not always the surest path to victory.

You can classify Defenders as Support or Offense and you need a healthy mixture of both to succeed.

Supportive Creatures provide buffs, debuffs, stuns, silence, Resurrection, or any combination of the above. This often means they deal less damage compared to their offensive counterparts. As a result, I would suggest you never run more than 3 Supportive Creatures as your overall damage would be too low and probably fail to stop as many Attackers.

On the flip side, you should run between 3-5 Offensive Creatures and is based on the Creatures you have on hand. You need some Support to augment the performance and the key is finding a healthy balance.

To Toad or not to Toad

The Wacky Toad is a Small Ground Creature who is able to stun 1-3 targets while also having one of the highest HP stats of a Common Creature. Prior to Kingdoms, Toad was instrumental in enabling the old stun meta but fell out of favour when Dungeon Challenge 2.0 came out.

However, Toad is once again a fearsome threat as he is able to stun alongside Wood Nymph and keep the enemy from taking any actions. Furthermore, with PWR Enchants and Kingdom Shrines, the Wacky Toad is now able to deal reasonable damage. This is because small Creatures once had abysmal stats but decent Special multipliers. Now with Enchants/Shrines, these Small Creatures are now able to achieve respectable stat levels.

With that being said, is can often be advantageous to run a Toad in a Medium slot if it will provide the needed stun due to a lack of Wood Nymphs.

Toad is the primary reason for demoting Clockwork Demolisher but depending on your own set up, you may or may not wish to run Toad over him.

Ideal dungeon composition

This is just for fun, but I feel the “ideal” dungeon composition would look something like shown below. However, they should all be 4-dot which is not something I have at this point in time.

The rationale behind this team is that the double stunners will provide enough time for Wyvern/Statue to cast. Wyvern and Skeletons are key here as they have some of the highest damage in the game along with Skeletons having 40% crit rate and all scaling with the PWR Wyvern buff. This will result in frequent kills while Attackers remain helpless to react.

Conversely, if you are able to run enough Mana Drain, you can swap out the Toad for Clockwork Demolisher to hasten the kill potential of your Defenders.

However, the above set up can be run in either Dungeon 2 or 5 which can open options overall. As such, one could run this set up in Dungeon 2 and a more Clockwork-oriented one in Dungeon 5.

Conclusion

This month’s tier list is has somewhat settled down and the main new composition is running Mana Drain on Floor 1. This has the potential to be the most destructive but can also be countered by over Funneling Mana into a Creature. Only time will dictate where the meta shifts but as more players level up their Kingdom and have excess resources to spend, new strategies may emerge.

Let me know what you think about the changes and how you plan to develop and build your team moving forward.

Happy Questing!

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