Clarissa – May 2020 HotM
Attack: 733
Defense: 712
HP: 1367
Class: Paladin
Resist: Poison – This Hero has innate resistance against Poison.
Element: Dark/Purple
Mana Speed: Very Fast (6.5 Tiles)
Special Skill: Miasma Mace
- Deals 135% damage to the target and nearby enemies
- The target and nearby enemies receive 224 poison damage over 2 turns.
- Deals extra damage against Holy.
- Element Link gives all Dark allies 30% defense against Special Skills for 4 turns. This effect can’t be dispelled.
Clarissa Hero Review:
Clarissa.. is basically a purple Gravemaker. There are only 3 main differences.
- It is poison damage. It will stack with gravemaker, Jean Francois etc fire damage, vela’s water damage. It will also override other poison damage.
- Elemental Link gives dark allies +30% defense against special skills for 4 turns instead of 5% attack & 5% defense for 6 turns.
- Her Poison damage 25% weaker than Gravemaker’s burn damage.
Despite being released in 2018, Gravemaker is still one of the most popular heroes in the game for the defending team.
Although Clarissa Paladin talents is more useful than the barbarian talent & her elemental link has more impact, Clarissa does 25% lesser damage than Clarissa.
Damage over time effects (DoT)
For heroes that feature DoT, the amount of damage is a function of their base attack stat. In other words, the total damage inflicted will be less than that shown on the “advertised card” until the hero is fully leveled and the special skill is at 8/8.
Emblems/Talents that give attack will also increase the base DoT
While buffs affect slash/tile attacks and special skills, they do not affect DoT damage. For example:
- Attack buffs (such as that received from Brienne) will increase the initial hit delivered but will not increase the DoT amount.
- Defense buffs (such as that received from Kiril) will decrease the damage delivered by the initial hit but will not decrease the DoT amount.
- Counterattacks (such as part of Obakan’s special) will reflect a portion of the initial hit but will not reflect the DoT damage.
While buffs do not affect DoT, troops do.
Gravemaker DoT
How does Clarissa’s Damage over time compare to the number one hero in the game?
At talent 20, Gravemaker does 342 Burn damage. On defense, Gravemaker with a level 30 Mana troop does 518 Burn damage over two turns.
At talent 20, Clarissa would have 254 Poison damage & with Level 30 Mana troop, She will have 384 Poison Damage.
To put into perspective, Clarissa Still has a very solid damage output. At 384 damage per hero, and you will hit 2-3 heroes most of the time that is still a remarkable 1000+ damage at a very fast speed.
Clarissa in Offensive raids
In offensive raids, the majority of Clarissa‘s damage would come from her poison damage.
This makes it weaker to fight heal over time effects (as they cancel each other out), and does not prevent enemy teams from activating their special.
With the current meta featuring so many Telluria / Ursena / Kunchen, I would expect Clarissa to be mediocre in offensive raids (for today’s meta).
That being said as the meta changes with every new hero that is released (ever so slightly), I would expect Clarissa to have a dominant position in your offensive raids sooner or later.
Read more about setting up your teams for offensive raids here.
Clarissa in Defense
Gravemaker has been the number 1 used hero in defensive teams (regardless of position) since August 2018. That is a total of 22 months since Gravemaker’s release.
The fact that Clarissa‘s DoT is able to stack with Gravemaker’s DoT would give it a strong pairing. I would expect the top defensive teams to feature Clarissa, Vela, Telluria & Gravemaker for some havoc.
That being said, Clarissa and the above team would be easily countered by Grazul or cleanse effects (rigards, vivica etc). But that is in theory only – because there are not enough fast/very fast cleansers out there that would give your opponents a suitable composition with defensive and offensive heroes.
Another drawback of Clarissa is also due to the meta. Right now there are quite a few strong yellow heroes (which explains why the prevalence of dark tanks) have dropped.
Read more about setting up your teams for raid defense here.
Clarissa against Titans
Clarissa would not fare well against titans. She does not have enough attack stat for tile damage, or have significant buff/debuff abilities that would make Clarissa a must have for titan teams.
Clarissa Hero Review – Summary
Overall, I do not expect Clarissa to see much play in defense teams because – there are simply too many good Paladins out there. You have Heimdall and Telluria that will definitely take priority for the emblems for your defense team (because they are better tanks).
On offense, there are is no lack of awesome Purple attackers – Seshat, Sartana, Guardian Panther, Hel etc.
Definitely a good Hero of the Month – worth ascending & talenting. Just that Telluria and Heimdall are better Paladins.
Clarissa Hero Grade/Rating
Offence – A
Defence Wing – A
Defence Flank – A
Defence Tank – A
Titan – B
Tournaments Bloody Battle – A+
Tournaments Rush Attack – B
Tournaments Buff Booster – B
Overall A
She was nerfed to much from beta. And, why Paladin? Should be Rogue.
I agree. 25% nerf is significant. Still good enough.
I find it interesting that of late they are trying to overcome the relative stagnation of new strategy heroes they suffered from a year ago, by creating entirely strategy based heroes of late. Gravemaker was one of the most difficult to counter heroes in the game…still is. Yes hes beatable, it took some balancing and figuring out, but recall in the early days, gravemaker was being used largely as a tank by many/most, and even before Telluria that had fallen off to him being flank or wing almost exclusively. Not that it mattered, he kills people wherever hes planted, but people realized that he kills 1 turn more generally if he doesnt get the constant abuse a tank takes. Plus tanks like Kunch and Telluria keep themselves and their team alive longer, which benefits him and them.
Now we have Gravemaker 2.0, which is great and all…but it doesnt solve the new meta issue as much as perpetuates it. They are making heroes that are harder to kill before they kill you. Great idea, but it means success is more difficult. Sure, they have tried to solve it a little. Malosi is kind of an anti-telluria weapon. Seems almost designed specifically to stop telluria. That is, until we see the new team meta for the top players. As you pointed out. A Telluria tank, Vela, Grave, and Clarissa, then throw in your choice of fast yellows (if you wanna keep the rainbow motif) and it gets really hard to deal with. Malosi hits moderately and stops time based buffs and penalties. But only on 1 player (Telluria is his decided target usually). But now 2 very fast hitters who will fire as often as he fires only at Telluria and can stack with each other…they will each knock off 600 damage x2. If both shoot twice at Malosi, now hes dead? What then? pray a healer saves the team? There are zero very fast healers. There is only 1 fast healer who happens to be only a 4 star and comes with a penalty that basically makes her average speed after the 1st heal.(Lady Woolerton), plus she doesnt dispel ailments. So she isnt a solution ? Bring a cleanser? so you can stop a pair of very fast damage over time heroes who may be firing 1 turn apart? Which cleanser can handle them BOTH? Since all the popular ones are average or slow?
The solution is block them all from shooting to begin with! OKAY, we have a plan! HEL or PROTEUS both can solve that little issue 3 enemies at once! BUT… Alas, they are both average speed. They could easily never get a shot off against a pair of very fast hitters nailing 600 on 3 enemies every 2 turns.
Its really the designers making bigger fireworks, and bloodier splashier CGI warfare in the Battle of the 300. As awesome as it is to watch bigger badder heroes doing bigger badder things(Go Sparta! Show its awesome to watch biffed up warriors kick ass!)…But we all know before the battle starts King Leo and his troop have already lost and have no chance! (barring the ever amazing 1st move turns into a nuclear 17 level cascade we all see once every month or 3)
I had a good pull today. As soon as Atlantis opened, I had 100+ atlantis coins saved. Cashed em, pulled Kageburado and then drew Clarissa bonus. (Now THAT is a pull PULL!). Its exciting to get Gravemaker 2.0!
(I didnt have the 1st one, really woulda been cool to pull Grave and CLarissa with 1 single hero pull!). But the new one just exacerbates the existing problem. The game is outgrowing weaker players rapidly with this new uber-hero meta of the past 6 months. Heimdall, Telluria, etc are making teams that are harder to stop with ANY traditional attack. Certain strategies that existed to beat 1 or 2 or even 3 mega heroes fall off the board when teams will now exist with 4 or even 5 heroes that combined plug all the holes?
Dont know where it goes from here? I guess we will find out when a few levelled Clarissas work there way into the top teams. But I dont know that it keeps the game enjoyable if it becomes unwinnable against players who have the resources and luck to assemble mega defensive teams that cant be stopped? Clarissa puts us one step closer to that.
Hell yea, I agree with you.
There’s simply not enough heroes that cures status ailments that are fast/viable.
You essentially have to go in with Grazul, Sonya (viking), Malosi, Rigard etc if you are fighting against such a team. It doesn’t matter if they nerfed the damage on Clarissa.
there’s just wayyy too many DoTs going on…. and that’s annoying.
My thought would be possibly something for the hero academy to finally be able to solve. Add skills to existing heroes (1 max most likely). a skill to reflect DOT or a skill to block various ailments (fire/poison/whatever). Allow us to gadget up a bit to prepare for battles that as it stands are becoming more and more unwinnable on offense. Used to be the AI was the offensive advantage, we always knew it would shoot at the wrong person, at the wrong time…and leave us a huge advantage that we could pick off our equals generally with ease.
Now they arent so equal. Perhaps some new idea from headquarters will start dealing with it. Till then, ets all enjoy the last week or 2 before the Clarissa crews start appearing. My evil dead zombie prediction will be grave, crlarissa, vela, and then some yellow? Id probably go with Poseidon or Joon or something with instant damage over 400, but the argument could be made for rabbit or malosi . REALLY? Malosi on yellow instant hit duty? Yeah hes only 300 which isnt Poseidon or Joon 1 shot kill level, but he looks like Maui and hes very fast….and to place all that on an enemy DEFENSE? 3 different color very fasts?(We could throw in more, but we would lose the color scheme. But no reason we COULDNT swap in Victor or Grazul to the defense too? Or gawd forbid…MARGARET…the very fast hitter…wait she doesnt hit…the very fast defender…sorry her defense stat sucks…ok the very fast dispeller…no she dont…the…oh wait thats right…she makes people miss specials only for a couple of turns. No damage, no healing, no reason those 2 turns of not firing a special will bother anyone…)
Point being…its gonna get worse before it gets better. And I never wanted Grazul so I didnt spend any pulls…looked useless. NOW…at least till they come up with something new…we have to deal with the new lay of the land. Id just finally gotten a Malosi up to 3-xx and put him in the lineup, and hes serviceable against teams with up to 2 DoTs IF he blocks the 1st shot fired. But 3, and 2 of them very fast? I expect it will be avoidance. when those enemies pop up…just reroll till you find someone who isnt indestructable?
But thats no fun
dude, you put in a whole chunk of words… took some time to decipher what you are saying.
But I fully agree with you. In my initial analysis, Telluria isn’t the best tank out there.. Kunchen still fares better.
But what makes Telluria so strong is that flanking Telluria with Vela and Gravemaker blocks out a lot of color stacking options. I did not factor in the current heroes that Telluria would be able to be paired up against when deciding that Telluria would not be so prominent.
At this current rate – we will have to play against telluria for a long long long time. 🙁
Im sure they are seeing the Telluria heavy meta and are probably ruminating on it. I dont know that there is a good solution?
Right now hit 3 or all DoT is the popular Telluria support crowd meta. When Gravemaker was the only really good hero offering that it was hard. The past year has added Vela, Jean Francois, and now Clarissa which allows players to now bring 2 or even 3 really dangerous DoTs to the defense. The lack of any fast/very fast mana/skill stoppers makes it very viable. And if they decide to nerf Telluria back a skill or 2, that may solve the problem quickest. Or they can create 2 or 3 very fast HEL 2.0 heroes.So what if your enemy has atomic bombs if you do also?
They are on a weird path. Its interesting if nothing else. All I know is I reroll raids way more than I used to. Mainly because no amount of team chemistry can beat certain lineups unless its VERY specific nowadays, and I simply dont have all the specific heroes required for attacking many lineups with any serious efficiency.
I miss the good old days when all I had to worry about was firing Proteus in time to block Guinivere or Kunchen and it was usually a done deal. Now, Ive run into lineups with Guin, Telluria, Grave, Vela, and Seshat and I really can only pray for cascades. STrategy doesnt work against multiple queens on the board.
Guess we will have to wait and see. 🙂 But its an interesting new issue.
Just today SG released a statement about an upcoming Telluria nerfing. Although I have the GM/Telly/Vela defense, I understand the reasons for nerfing. That combo is all I see in the 2800+ cup range.
Yea I saw that information.
I will review telluria again after the nerf.
I had just finished leveling a Kingston when Telluria was released and I got one. So as I then had zero tonics there was no ability to finish Telluria any time soon so I didnt wanna pay any mats to the idea until I saw say 3 or 4 tonics to make it at least plan worthy.
The Nerf that has been announced makes me real happy that I didnt go there by luck. Depending on how much they nerf Telly, will decide if she even remains viable as a tank. If they drop her to SLOW, then Id say shes off the board. If they pull or reduce 1 or 2 abilities then we wont know till testing. Her main contribution is as a board crawl hero. She slows the ability to kill the entire team and makes them shoot back more.
I really hope they go heavy on 1 side or the other. Removal of the mana speed slowing might balance the tables more and allow it to still be barely enough to not kill tank ability entirely.
But really, whatever they do will change the make-up of the majority of the power teams in the game. WIll be nice to see some variation in team heroes again. It was getting kinda blah the past few months.