Skadi
Attack: 696
Defense: 793
HP: 1411
Class: Monk
Realm: Jotumheim
Element: Ice/Blue
Mana Speed: Average (10 tiles)
Special Skill: Iceberg Crush
- Deals 220% damage to all enemies.
- The damage is increased by 50% per each dead enemy.
- Stack: All enemies receive 30 Frost damage per each killed enemy or enemy minion at the end of each turn. The maximum size of stack is 10.
- Stack: All enemies get -6% mana generation per each killed enemy or enemy minion. The maximum size of stack is 10.
Skadi Hero Review:
Skadi has stats that are skewed towards the defensive side – her defense and Hp combined put her in the top 75th percentile of durability for all heroes.
To further understand her special, lets drill down the damage multiplier for different numbers of dead enemies
- 0 Dead Enemies – 220% * 5 = 1100%
- 1 Dead – 270% * 4 = 1080%
- 2 Dead – 320% * 3= 960%
- 3 Dead – 370% * 2= 740%
- 4 Dead – 420% * 1 = 420%
Notice that Skadi deals a fairly significant amount of damage consistently even with reduced number of enemies. This reduces one of the drawbacks of special skills that target all enemies – diminishing damage dealt.
Skadi’s stacks are awesome. Potentially 300 damage per turn, 60% mana reduction. Yes please.
However, Stacks are only activated when Skadi’s Special skill kills a minion or an enemy hero. And that’s the biggest downside of all.
Skadi in Offensive raids
Skadi is too unreliable in an offensive raids.
- She has a low attack stat (696 base attack),
- Special skill is at a base 220%
Put together, it means that it is unlikely for Skadi to be able to finish off minions (much less heroes) be able to trigger the stacks. And if the stacks cannot be trigger consistently, or reliably, then that makes Skadi very weak.
And if we take into consideration that the current meta favors green tanks, that makes Skadi even more underwhelming.
*However, the situation reverses if Skadi’s stacks take into consideration minions and enemies killed by allied heroes.
*Changes on 31/8/2020 – The increase in base damage of Skadi’s special skill does help Skadi to take out minions with a higher consistency. The changes are good. In a drawn out battle with many healers. (Think Telluria + Freya/Delilah) Skadi can change the tide quite significantly.
However, this makes Skadi a very inconsistent hero – Not every defensive team features a minion heavy team composition.
Read more about setting up your teams for offensive raids here.
Skadi in Defense
I am unable to of a good strategic reason why you Skadi deserves a slot in your defense team.
The “wow” factor of Skadi is obviously her stacks. When her stacks are triggered early, it buys time for your allied heroes to activate their special skills + softens the attackers for your other heroes to take them out. Much like the Telluria + Vela combination.
However, when you take into the considerations the requirements for the stacks to be triggered, then it becomes moot. Skadi is too inconsistent in defense.
Read more about setting up your teams for raid defense here.
Skadi against Titans
Skadi does not fit into anytitan teams.
She does not have any high attack stats, any attack buff nor defense debuff.
Skadi’s stacks will also not be able to trigger.. So it’s a really poor choice.
Skadi Hero Grade/Rating
Offence – B
Defence Wing – C
Defence Flank – C
Defence Tank – B
Titan – C
Tournaments Bloody Battle – C
Tournaments Rush Attack – A
Tournaments Buff Booster – C
Overall C
So a couple of questions.
1 – Are enemy deaths “cumulative” as it were? meaning heroes who regenerate (Tyr or Atomos for example) or who are brought back by a special (Mother North or Alberich) permanently counted towards the boost? Same question applies for minions…who rise and fall like ocean waves in some battles. IF the total enemy deaths continue to count up and never go down with resurrects or new minion casts…it may at least make Skadi useful on offense with some punch when say 6 or 8 minions and 1 or 2 heroes have already fallen (at least once) and then the the attack could quickly rise into the 400 level. Most Telluria battles I face she fires once(hopefully only once!). Thats 3 middle minions who ALWAYS get taken out quickly in the continued battering of the enemy Telluria tank. at +70 boost to Skadi each, and Telluria herself, youd have Skadi at over 400% after Taking out Telluria and her surrounding minions (which is fairly normal). To have Skadi stay at 400+ for the rest of the battle. This is of course dependent on 1 – Do deaths count and stay counted regardless of regen/resurrects/new minions being cast? If the answer is YES, its a big deal. Wont help in most circumstances, but in raid battles or wars, could be very serviceable.
The STACK stuff is a bonus with the same question applying. Some very decent damage at stack 10, and crippling mana reduction at stack 10. BUT how is it counted? Mana reduce for example. 6% per KILLED enemy max stack 10. What if youve killed Tyre 3 or 4x (Ive seen him come back 7x on me in some battles! He very annoying when he simply wont die!). So thats 7 x 6%, thats 42% mana reduction ON STACK 1?!?!? That makes no sense at all. If its body count…well then it becomes believable…but also useless till you KILL kill an enemy…and also till stacks rise up.
Which the problem with STACKS. I was very excited to land Mireweave when season 3 began. And it seemed like a good idea. Highish stats, stack up to 100% attack bonus!
Only after levelling did I figure out…in all but a VERY few cases, you just dont fire specials 9x in the average fight. Most battles I was LUCKY to fire Mireweave 3 or 4x before someone important was dead. Sometimes Mireweave herself, Or sometimes my whole team, or sometimes the enemy. It just wasnt as useful in practice as it seemed on paper.
Now in the Pirates missions where some levels are extremely long, I did get Mire up to stack 10, and it was nice on the boss level. Hit 700-800 each landed shot (with buff help from WuKong being necessary). But it wasnt easy to balance out to get those dominoes all to fall into alignment. Im overall not using Mire much because of the amount of concentrated work to get the stack up high enough to be threatening, AND then with the lowly 150 damage you really have to bump the attack stat at least 100% or more (hence my preference for WuKong or sometimes Tarlak when I used Mire). Now if Mire’s base hit was 200+ instead of 150, it would be much easier to like. But on new heroes, especially the greens like Heimdall and Telluria. Its just getting hard for Blues to be useful, and especially if they have stacks that require careful building to make them do their job.
Hi TLK,
Cumulative minion counts stacks. However, the problem is getting the stacks to actually activate. Skadi Special has to be the finishing blow for the minions for the stack to trigger.
Meaning to say – if you cascade a bunch of blue tiles and those kill a minion – no stacks are granted when Skadi’s special is trigger.
If other heroes’ special kill off the minions then Skadi’s special is activated – also no stacks are granted.
UGH. So Skadi is Mireweave 2.0, a hero that sounds like once you get the stack built you have a monster…but you have to work WAY too hard to see that awesomeness and it really wont happen much or ever. Skadi only hits 170, which granted is enough to kill minions, probably not so much hosts…but it works.
Trouble is, it becomes necessary to let the enemy HAVE minions, and then Skadi personally must close escrow with the attack strike (at the soso-ish 170). Seems like a lot of potential to NOT get to stack 10 ever if tiles or another hero on your team takes out more minions than Skadi. And if you do get Skadi the kill shots that get to 10x, how many deaths had to occur? that implies at least 2 minion loads fired by whomever.
Im a fan of the Telluria rule. It applies. Telly fires once, youre fine. Twice…youre in semi serious trouble…3x youre probably dead already and just like watching your heroes writhe in agony rather than flee. I really dont wanna SEE that many minions released against me. It means they are shooting multiple specials AT you…and thats never a good thing.
Thanks for the heads up on how they count the stack. It means even as offense only, Skadi is probably never gonna be a good contributor