Request for Legendary Tier List

Thanks all for the troop evaluations. So many times I unlock a troop, traiit and level it, and then never look at it again. I’ll definitely have to give Willow a second look.

And since I’m taking something away, I thought I’d leave something as well. Gob King deserves better than a C. He doesn’t stun like Dwarf summoner, or start Dwarves at 50% mana, but he’s still a Goblin. Need to shift stones so Glacyon or Bloodhammer can get a 4 match? Done. Need a buffer troop, who might be worthless? Maybe you get lucky and get da Rocket. Bonus.

Orcses is da best, but Gobbos is good too. gl hf

Thanks again for the Willow tip. I wasn’t a fan of the movie; maybe I let that cloud my judgement. Unrelated, I know. But name association. Kinda like if I see a troop uses Blue mana, I instinctively don’t like it…

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The rebalance from elite levels technically hasn’t happened yet, but its foreseeable that both allies and opposing troops will have max elite levels. Not too reachy.

As for whether or not warmaster is a nerf, I guess that’s debatable? Having to do 3 more 4/5 matches to kill is a significant difference, but you can argue that getting 12 durability to offset an opponent’s +6 magic is a win. Particularly since she’s a summoner, survivability matters more, since it buys you time to make a comeback.

I would still tend to favor killing faster over being able to survive though. I can foresee situations where a Hyndla cast falls just short of killing a full-mana opponent (as her average damage falls significantly short of many of the better legendaries with elite levels factored in). This will force a player to choose between casting to end a turn (and hoping the freeze sticks) or waiting and hoping to survive the opponent’s turn.

Something to chew on though.

In a Giants team, Hyndla was never the one actually killing anything. She stalls them with freeze/resummons holes/ and makes the other Giants into bigger killers. In the end, her damage output isn’t that important compared to say Jotnar or Fire Giant.

Not everyone is needed for their damage.

I prefer survivability over kill speed in real games of Gems of War, most notably in places like delves. I factor in kill speed for the sole purpose of keeping my team alive long enough to win the match. Well, faster matches don’t hurt either.

Gotta go fast for farming mats though. ?

Even if Hyndla isn’t the main threat on the giants team, her damage being worse does hurt that team somewhat. Pre-elite level, her damage is actually pretty good, and I used her to chip away at the other team’s health and get late kills effectively. In fact, paired with titan class hero, she was an option I always kept in mind when I needed a blue mana user on a team. Between freeze getting worse and her damage getting worse, it’s hard not to feel like the giants team has lost a little steam, and that she won’t have any utility outside of that team anymore once the elite levels become more prevalent.

On kill speed vs survivability, are the giant teams much of a factor on scaling content? I can’t say I’d heard of that. I thought they were more of a non-scaling team, where speed tends to matter more (especially in pvp; not so much in pve stuff though).

I think you may be right actually. When I first made the list, I’d written the Goblin King off, as his life gain is insignificant, and his traits aren’t much help. But since then, goblins have gotten stronger (Cedric Medal, strong new Goblin troops), and doomskull teams, heavily dependent on getting proper alignments, have become more prevalent. As such, I’m thinking Goblin King may actually be a bit more worth using. I’ll move him up to B on the next list.

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I couldn’t even find the latest version of the list in this thread, so I figure now’s as good as any time to release my current 4.6.5 tier list. Note that I am accounting for elite levels here - that will help some of the placements make more sense.

EDIT: List is out of date, find the current list here.

Tiers:
S: You can base a team around these troops through the endgame.
A: Niche+; these are more limited than the S-tiers, but a bit more versatile/stronger than the Bs.
B: These either are restricted to specific teams or modes in the endgame, or are just too good to be lumped in with the C-tier troops.
C: These are ok troops whose flaws can be overlooked until the midgame. You might still use some of these for events.
D: Flawed troops that you shouldn’t bother trying to make work.

S-Tier:
Divinia
Divine Ishbaala
Forest Guardian
Glaycion
King Bloodhammer
Qilin
Queen Titania
Tesla
Yao Guai

A-Tier:
Emperor Khorvash
Holy St Astra
Keeper of Souls
Nimue
Sekhma
Wrath

B-Tier:
Crimson Bat
Emperor Liang
Goblin King
Hyndla Frostcrown
Infernal King
Jarl Firemantle
King Avelorn
King Highforge
Krystenax
Lust
Magnus
Medea
Queen Mab
Scylla
Starflower
Taloca
Tinseltail
Umberwolf
Webspinner
Willow
Winter Imp

C-Tier:
Artema
Bone Dragon
Borealis
Carnex
Dullahan
Frostfeather
Gar’Nok
Garuda
Glitterclaw
Gorgotha
Imp of Love
Kerberos
King Mikhail
King Silenus
Kraken
Leviathan
Orion
Queen Grapplepot
Queen Moonclaw
Queen Ysabelle
Sheggra
Sol’Zara
Spooky Imp
Spring Imp
Sylvanimora
The Dragon Soul
The Great Maw
The Widow Queen
Urskula
Viper

D-Tier:
Abhorath
Autumnal Imp
Behemoth
Bunni’Nog
Celestasia
Chief Stronghorn
Dark Monolith
Dracos 1337
Gloom Leaf
Gog and Gud
Gruz the Undefeated
Hydra
Kruarg the Dread
Moloch
Psion
Saguaro
Shadow Dragon
Summer Imp
The Silent One
Venoxia

As always, thanks for the feedback, it has improved the list tons.

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Wait a second, where is the Maraji Queen on the list? I’d say A-tier… can’t rank it the same as crimson bat or goblin king. Or maybe I like EoE nukes too much.

I only included the Legendaries in chests, no faction Legendaries - since arguably the point of this list is to guide event key expenditure, they’d be kind of irrelevant.

(For fun, the Maraji Queen would be an S if she were included though.)

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Was going to update the list, but not much has changed really since December. The new guild guardians were good for several legendaries, most notably Sekhma and Taloca. But I don’t think they were improved enough to change their tier standing; that said, I’m open to arguments to the contrary.

We also received Krampus and Captain Macaw. I would start them both off in C, as they are both gimmicky instakill troops (albeit better than the last one we received, Dullahan). Krampus is one of the more reliable instakill options, with a 2/3 chance of a good outcome, but its risky to cast him on damaged troops, as you could replace them with a full-health demon.

The newly-announced Darkstone Mythic could change the equation for Captain Macaw; she is rogue-type and looking really strong. Even though Macaw’s tools don’t complement her at all, 50% start alone would make Macaw instantly relevent, even if his spell never gets cast.

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There’s talk in another thread of legendaries that need buffs, and I wanted to weigh in/raise the question here:

  • Gloom Leaf seems to be surprisingly popular. I have a hard time seeing a use for it on offense, do people find it useful for defenses? The lack of skull reduction makes it fail at its primary objective (first-slot troop), though the impervious+thorns trait combo make it likely that it’ll take down whatever kills it. The spell just isn’t very good; stealing a skull’s worth or so of armor and 16 attack at best for 16 mana. If it stole enough attack to actually hurt the enemy’s team, it might be more interesting, but I’m not seeing it as a useful troop in its current incarnation.
  • Psion was formerly great, but has similar problems to Gloom Leaf - it can’t function as front troop well in the modern game, making the third trait useless. Its damage is terrible too. The mana-draining aspect of its spell could give it a niche, but we have so many other mana drainers now that I’m not seeing it. Open to persuasion on this one though.

Garuda and Viper do have bad traits (particularly Garuda), but their spells are much better than the D-tier troops, and the new guild guardians can be used to even further boost their damage.

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I would love to see all old troops that used to be great (like Gloom Leaf and Psion) get a rework so that they’re really good choices again. I think the main thing that makes troops obsolete over time is troops that have a capped, “hardcode” number—Gloom Leaf’s Attack stealing being just plain 4, rather than 4% (or something else that would scale), because just plain old 4 nowadays is nothing compared to the pretty significant something it used to be.

And not that I mean to derail the thread, but the percentages-thing had me thinking it could be a partial delve-troop fix, too, since people lately have really been on about delve complaints; a stat gain of 9 life for Deep Vitality is basically nothing. “9% of my life hoard-stat” added in addidtion is—suddenly—something to be pleased about, and it doesn’t even have the adverse effect of ruining PVP or any other game mode (or making the defender harder) because it’s limited to helping the player only in true-faction runs, basically.

Just some stray thoughts. Hope they’re not intrusive—I do enjoy the tier list debates, and like to chime in from time to time to say as much :slight_smile:

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I agree that Gloom Leaf could most assuredly use a rework. Psion has definitely seen better days as well but can still be somewhat functional. It’s squishiness makes use of it’s Legendary trait risky but a lot of teams are using front line troops with no skull damage mitigation these days. The classic use of the tank (e.g. Gorgotha) up front has been significantly diminished with the host of empowered converters and Doomskull spammers. Psion’s Magic Link is solid and Alert is not terrible. There are a fair amount of mana drain resistant troops now but not to the point that it makes Psion unusable. It is no longer great but it is better than many of the other D tier troops listed.
I also agree that Garuda’s spell is pretty good but his traits are horrible. They are so bad that it totally diminishes his usefulness. Viper’s spell is OK - if not for the charm aspect, it would be dreadful. However, her traits are pretty bad. Arcane is nice but her spell only strikes a single opponent so even a ton of looping won’t boost her damage too much. Her last trait is laughable compared to other Legendary traits.
You are correct that the new guild guardians can help both of these troops but I was trying to look at them in a vacuum when trying to ascertain their overall usefulness. If you look at some of the D tier Legendary troops outside of a vacuum, I think some of them would climb the ratings a bit. For example, on a gold spamming team, the subpar Gog and Gud can be a real force.
The one troop that is currently D listed that I question is Behemoth. It is nothing to get overly excited about but it’s spell does some AoE damage (roughly equal to Garuda’s) and it generates some mana as well. It is Impervious which is always a good thing and can rack up some major life boosts on a looping team. Not a great troop by any stretch of the imagination but could perhaps be ranked a little higher.

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Cripes! Wanted to put something in here for Sir Quentin, and realized that I left you hanging for 3 weeks, my bad.

Generally this is true, but I feel like front troops who aren’t the hero and don’t have skull reduction are still mostly niche cases, exceptions to the general rule. I just don’t see a niche for using Psion up front in modern teams, especially since there’s no way to resummon him if he dies, and he mana blocks Reflection of Good. Plus, if you’re going to go to the trouble of using RoG, why not use it for a front troop with some real offense, rather than just stalling the match with mana draining?

One possible fringe pairing for Psion that could be ok is with Queen of Sin. His stalling could buy the team time to get going, at which point you could replace Psion with Wrath or Lust. I don’t think that kind of team would work as well as just running Wrath out there in the first place, but it might be worth a try.

That makes sense, but I’d argue that the only ranking that really matters is one that considers the optimal teams the troop can be used for. Otherwise, a troop like Webspinner would be considered kind of crappy, but having a fully traited and leveled one is essential if you ever want to use Arachnaean Weaver.

(Maybe Gog and Gud should be moved up? Even though he’d be completely mana-blocked on the standard gold team, on attack, that third trait is arguably better than having Greed on your team.)

I’ve thought about moving up - it’s kind of fast, and boostable via dervish class. I have it in D though because that destroying 12 gems is pretty terrible - you can randomly give the opponent a really good board if you are unlucky. Like weapon affixes that do gem creation/destruction, I can’t see myself using Behemoth because of this bad random factor.

I’m revisiting my rankings for a handful of Legendaries, what are your thoughts on the following?

–Kerberos (B or C): Kerberos is your standard risky instakill troop, except for two interesting facets: a) it’s a beast, so it can cash in on the spectacular beast synergies offered by Forest Guardian, Qilin, and Willow, and b) it has the necromancy trait. I currently use it on a soul-farming team for scaling content, where, on the back line, it can occasionally speed up the team a bit. I definitely think it’s a more useful late-game soul farming tool than the Dragon Soul or Sol’Zara, but I’m not sure if that alone can get it to B-tier. Not to mention, there may be a better risky instakiller in the form of…

–Krampus (B or C): Krampus is unusual for an instakill troop in that it has a 2/3 chance of a good outcome, which is pretty high for these types of troops. For those without High King Irongut, is a looping team based around Krampus good enough to bank on?

–King Silenus (B or C): This is a retread, but since our earlier discussion, Tian Yi got a massive series of buffs, bringing its damage in line with other mythics. Is Tian Yi (with Silenus, who gives the Shentang mythic a fast start) a viable centerpiece, at least for non-scaling content? Any teams people have used would be appreciated.

–The Great Maw (B or C): Another retread, but since then I heard of the innovative synergy TGM has with Vash’Dagon (guaranteed devour an enemy with TGM, devour TGM with Vash for some massive damage). Is this team a gimmick, or is it truly viable in the endgame?

–The Widow Queen (B or C): The rise of Vash’Dagon has shown a sacrifice-based team can work, particularly with the empowered troop options we now have. Does this extend to the Widow Queen, who remains the only passive source of web (an upper-tier status effect) in the game? I strongly feel that it does, particularly with life stats growing as they have for endgame players, but am curious if others feel differently.

Thanks in advance for your input!

In honor of Matron Dragotani, our first non-faction Legendary in a couple months, I thought I’d post my latest (4.8) Legendary tier list. There are lots of minor adjustments throughout the list compared to last time, enough to where I thought it was time for an update. See what you think!

Tiers:
S: The centerpieces; you can base a team around these troops.
A: Support; these are commonly used to complement other strong troops.
B: Niche; restricted to very specific teams, or just too good to be lumped in with the C-tier troops.
C: Ok troops whose flaws can be overlooked until the midgame. May see occasional event usage as well.
D: Flawed troops that you shouldn’t bother trying to make work, either due to random factors or obsolescence.

S-Tier:
Divinia
Divine Ishbaala
Forest Guardian
Glaycion
Nimue
Qilin
Tesla
Yao Guai

A-Tier:
Emperor Liang
Holy St. Astra
Keeper of Souls
King Bloodhammer
Queen Titania
Sir Quentin Hadley
Sekhma
Tinseltail
Wrath

B-Tier:
Captain Macaw
Crimson Bat
Emperor Khorvash
Goblin King
Hyndla Frostcrown
Infernal King
King Avelorn
King Highforge
Krampus
Krystenax
Lust
Magnus
Medea
Queen Mab
Queen Ysabelle
Spooky Imp
Starflower
Taloca
Umberwolf
Webspinner
The Widow Queen
Willow
Winter Imp

C-Tier:
Bone Dragon
Borealis
Frostfeather
Gar’Nok
Garuda
Glitterclaw
Gog and Gud
Gorgotha
Imp of Love
Jarl Firemantle
Kerberos
King Mikhail
King Silenus
Kraken
Leviathan
Matron Dragotani
Queen Moonclaw
Scylla
Sheggra
Sol’Zara
Spring Imp
Sylvanimora
The Dragon Soul
The Great Maw
Urskula
Viper

D-Tier:
Abhorath
Artema
Autumnal Imp
Behemoth
Bunni’Nog
Carnex
Celestasia
Chief Stronghorn
Dark Monolith
Dracos 1337
Dullahan
Gloom Leaf
Gruz the Undefeated
Hydra
Kruarg the Dread
Moloch
Orion
Psion
Queen Grapplepot
Saguaro
Shadow Dragon
Summer Imp
The Silent One
Venoxia

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did i miss Gobtruffle or is your list non-delve troops?

but without power creep, we wouldn’t be pressured to pull for newer troops. I totally get your argument and wish that some rebalancing would happen the older a game gets to scale up some of the classic troops to the newer metas or power creeps, but in reality I haven’t seen it in practice in any of the games, save for Empires and Puzzles (they added gacha costumes to refresh skills).

Agree that some older troops need to have their damage/ability scale with magic to make them more useful. Way too many troops don’t scale and using them is just a waste of time.

I get the power creep argument for those of us who have been here a long time and have full collections, but I feel like anyone without a complete collection would feel more compelled to pull keys frequently, because if everything were worth having then there’d be no reason to save only for the new stuff.

A person missing Gloom Leaf right now probably doesn’t care. But if it were buffed, maybe people would spend keys trying to get it even when it’s not Forest of Thorns week, or at the very least, when it is (currently they might skip, to have more chances at the new legendaries as they drop).

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Good list and excellent points you make when dealing with it.

Here’s a take I can make from a lot of PvP and what troops seem to get used a lot. I think the context of your listing maybe needs to be streamlined in a way where you reconsider your explanations of your tiers? I think from reading a post below, it prompted me to think of the word ‘progressive’. The list needs maybe to look at the progressive nature of the game and how things work in game modes.

In this regard, you’ve tried to cater for maybe all roundedness and encompassed all troops together. Your list maybe be better viewed if you maybe revisit the listing and identify troops as to their core abilities/type

Maybe;

Support

Healers, generators, half way houses (a bit of both) Divinia, Holy St Astra etc.

Tier A and B, Tier C could be for junk.

All-round effectiveness?

Utility troops do a bit for another, or themselves, can change events in battle. Let’s say Keeper of Souls or Emperor K, Magnus, maybe Umberwolf, yep it has quite a bit of utility, King Highforge maybe, always hits back two targets, not effected by stealth, stuns, summons, accelerates Slayer for Fireblade, gives Dwarves 50% start etc.

Overwhelming Performance

Think troops that can effectively win a battle on their own or can seamlessly ride in many a team

Glaycion is a prime example. YG is.

Situationally Effective

Like say Queen Mab (neutered by troops immune to mana burn or are submerged), Taloca (effective when storm running), maybe Macaw etc.

Maybe it’s more apt with the state of the game to identify the best overall and the better at specific things? New players will read that and see where those troops are best suited. It will help them choose which troops they want for which things.

You include several game modes in your assessment. That again makes things difficult, because a troop like say Captain Macaw generally won’t work in explore, it only works vs hero talents and a few troops and needs to submerge a none submerged troop, then recast to kill it. So it’s probably better in PvP where several hero classes can submerge troops. Yet, where is it in T3 PvP.

So maybe you could when describing your assessments, identify their viability in game modes.

So each troop maybe gets a 3-4 line description.

Say - Leviathan

Can reorder opponents and dispel status effects, has utility to submerge itself and deal damage to all troops. Generally a situationally effective troop – has some utility but is rarely seen in any game modes. No known effective teams some use with other dragons, has dual category as a Merfolk/Dragon but unable to be accelerated to a half start.

Things like that.

What made me do this was also looking at a couple of troops.

Wrath - disagree, if you are calling S tier a centrepiece, Wrath is a centrepiece of

Wrath

Doomed Glaive or Club

Obsidius

Mercy

That team is extremely viable at meta PvP. Another reason I also disagree, is I can substitute umpteen troops in that setup and revolve it around Wrath. The conversion of yellow to skulls, the enrage, the conversion of blue to brown and the burn all.

I can make the hero almost any class and it work. I can use Fireblade.

I can swap Obsidius for TPK, Qilin, ZG. I can drop Mercy for a TPK and so on, yet Wrath is still extremely effective. Obsidius works well because stuns will negate things like fireblades and webspinners/savage hunters etc, making Wrath’s lack of skull protection less of an issue. Wrath is an exceptional troop.

Divinia - is it really a centrepiece troop? Does it make any team effective in meta PvP performance? It doesn’t scale really.

I love Divinia, 6,500 PvP uses, but it has been neutered by the Divine nerf and the arrival of say Moon Rabbit and Leprechaun.

I used to run Bard Dawnbringer or Divine Protector, Ubastet, Divinia, Mercy a lot and had a lot of success, but despite all the great things Divinia can supply, it doesn’t have fast or swift or is empowered, and it needs Ishbaala for 40% starts. An empowered to accelerate it is not ideal, it has cleanse, but only on cast. It can give numerous positive effects, but they are random, so it actually is too limited to be something to reliably build a team round. The only team I can think of where I have seen it recently, is within a team with YG, but all it tends to do is maybe extend a battle or never cast. I get that it can random enrage/barrier/submerge/bless etc, but if those were guaranteed on a cast, then it’s a centrepiece imho.

Can you say that Divinia is more useful in teams than Queen Titania? QT is very common, yes it does not have the all roundedness of Divinia, but…

Similarly, Holy St Astra once it casts, can be more effective than Divinia at times.

So I think you are better off recategorizing your lists to reflect how the troops work.

An example, your assessment of B: - Niche is perhaps a little misleading. Is not Flamifier, YG, QT, TP a niche team for QT? You could probably argue nearly all troops could be niche, but it’s maybe a little subjective of an assessment. I don’t know what you could put, maybe ‘effective troops in a variety of environments’ - might be better? If you recategorized, you could pick several types and then describe troops.

A further example, Webspinner B - Bone Dragon C. You can very easily make a team with Webspinner and Bone Dragon and it could even become very effective at T3 pvp. We get lazy, there are awful pvp teams with little or no effort wreaking havoc, so experimenting is fraught, but if we persevere, maybe we can work a few things.

Let’s see, Webspinner, Doomed Axe, Bone Dragon, Grave Seer - that could work well if we wanted to. Even Gimlet, giving Webby an enrage. We could use Moon Rabbit there, or even Mercy, which helps vs Frostmage or entangled starts. We could pop EoE in instead of Doomed Axe, endless possibilities.

Sheggra - C - we could very easily make a skull team with Sheggra. Let me see…

Here’s one, Stonehammer, that much maligned dude, Sheggra, Doomed Blade, Mercy, Titan or Bard or Mech (think tree of knowledge). I mean an exceptional team, albeit slow, Glaycion, Stonehammer (yes that way round is best) Doomed Xbow, Mercy. I never lose vs anything that wants to skull hit. I can beat every meta team with it, but it’s not completely reliable because speed kills, but if I want a team vs most things, that will decimate.

The old Stonehammer/Glaycion/Crossbow/Grave Seer was also good as thief, but too much freeze could be its undoing.

Heck, let’s change colour, Champion of Gaard, Doomed Blade, Sheggra, any empowered you want to accelerate.

So, maybe if I may, you may be better sorting your listings by modes, with descriptions, rather than just popping them all in the tiers like thus, as it will surely help see things better and would be a really nice reference for players. :slight_smile:

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