Empires & Puzzles – Clarissa

Clarissa – May 2020 HotM

• 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.

1. 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.
2. Elemental Link gives dark allies +30% defense against special skills for 4 turns instead of 5% attack & 5% defense for 6 turns.
3. 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.

Guide to Titan Fights

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