Review updates
08. January. 2020 for actual release stats and special skills
14. January. 2020 for updated damage calculations and change to grading
Guardian Chameleon
Guardians bonus
Bonus for 2/3/4/5 Heroes:
+5%/10%/15%/20% defense
+4%/6%/9%/13% healing
Stats – Balanced, Above average.
Special: Elemental Magic
Mana Speed : Average (10 Tiles)
Remove all dispellable and undispellable status effects from all enemies.
Changes the element of all enemies to the element they are strong against for 3 turns.
All allies get +54% attack for 4 turns.
All allies get +36% Critical Chance for 4 turns.
Guardian Chameleon Hero Review:
A very interesting and unique special skill.
Firstly, the first hero that can dispel undispellable status effects from enemies.
Secondly, the color switch. A Nature element switches to an Ice element so on and so forth.
What makes this really interesting is timing the special of Guardian Chameleon, when you have diamonds to activate.
On one hand, your diamond activation could be strong against some heroes, on the other hand, the attack up and critical hit chance can make up for the “weaker tiles”.
Taking troops out of the calculation, a simple damage calculation would be as follows.
An example would be a purple diamond vs yellow targets. Activating Elemental Magic would switch their colors to purple, making it “weaker”.
Without activation of Elemental Magic:
Damage on Strong tiles : 1 dmg *200% = 2damage per tile
With activation of elemental magic :
Damage on weaker color = (1 + 0. 54 attack up) *0.36 critical chance of *2dmg + (1+0.54 attack up) *0.64chance of no critical *0.5dmg on weaker color = 1.6016 damage per tile
Damage to neutral color = (1 + 0.54 Attack up) *0.36 Critical Chance of *2 damage + (1.54 attack up) *0.64 No Critical Damage = 2.094 damage per tile
Damage to Strong color = 2 (1 + 0.54 Attack up) * 0.36 Critical Chance of *2 + 2( 1 + 0.54 Attack up) *0.64 no critical = 4.188 damage per tile.
*Weak tiles hit for half the damage
*Critical hits deal 2x damage, (similar to weak spot on titans)
**Calculations are oversimplified and will not be accurate after factoring in defense and attack stats.
***Critical stat troops could potentially skew this calculation to make it such that it is always beneficial to activate Elemental Magic.
****Critical hits CAN stack with “strong’ tiles to give 4x damage.
In this simplified calculation we can see that the damage difference on a weak color is ~ 20%. The buffed damage will also be hitting neutral targets (in raids) which would make up on the damage lost on having “weaker” tiles.
TLDR: Better with the buff on!
Guardian Chameleon in Offense
Most defense teams are “rainbow” arrangements. Using Chameleon, you would still end up with a rainbow defense, with a different arrangement.
The color switch can be useful when you have brought Blue against a Y – R – B – G – D formation. After activation of Elemental Magic, you will be fighting against a D- G – R – B – Y formation. This would allow you to help take out the Tank quickly, and then focus on the flank immediately.
However, Chameleon’s special is very tile dependant – after activating the special, you still require the “right tiles” or a good cascade of tiles to really maximize the critical chance boost on Elemental Magic.
Personally, I would rather bring a Kiril or Boldtusk or any of the 4* healer on my offensive raid for more consistent survivability & guaranteed effectiveness of their specials.
That being said, the damage boost provided by Chameleon is still very significant.
Guardian Chameleon in Defense
Guardian Chameleon’s special does not have any significant impact. Ares minus the heal and defensive stats.. is just not good enough for tank or flank position.
Chameleon does not fit into the flank position either, as you want his buff to be activated so that your wings can do maximum damage.
Guardian Chameleon against Titans
Example:
Guardian Chameleon against an Ice Titan and activate his special, the Ice Titan would now be a Fire titan. Which means your only viable team is an Ice team, with you spending mana potions to ensure that Chameleon has a 100% uptime. Only with such an arrangement would you be able to maximize the damage of Chameleon. However, the Nature tiles from chameleon would be halved.
Which really makes titan fights a really expensive endeavor in terms of item (mana potion) usage.
In the end, it really boils down to the depth and diversity of the heroes at your disposal. If you have a deep enough bench, and enough resources at your disposal, the additional critical damage from Guardian Chameleon could make a massive impact on your overall titan hits.
Chameleon could also be useful if you want to switch the titan’s color to a color that you are “stronger/better” against.
Overall, it is really quite hard to use chameleon consistently in a titan fight. It will definitely be worth a consideration as to whether the benefits outweigh the down sides in each individual scenario.
Definitely not a must have in a titan fight, but you can really hit the high score if you are able to maximize the buff that chameleon provides with a high uptime!
Guardian Chameleon Hero Grade/Rating
Off
Offence – B
Defence Wing – C
Defence Flank – B
Defence Tank – B
Titan – A
Tournaments Bloody Battle – B
Tournaments Rush Attack – A
Tournaments Buff Booster – A
Overall B