Introduction

The arrival of Version 1.7 will once again change up the PvP meta as players are now going to be strongly encouraged to fill out multiple dungeons. This will both provide stat bonuses to the featured colour, but will also provide the opportunity to grant your Bosses stun/silence immunity for their first turn. However, this will prove to be challenging to all but the most veteran players who have a deep Creature roster.

The main drive for filling out multiple dungeon is capitalize on a higher chance of your defender’s Specials being ready upon entering a floor. Sadly, the boost/increase will be on a lower starting value compared to what we currently experience and only equalizes with 5 dungeons. Thus, if you run less than 5, you will have a lower chance to start the floor with a Special ready compared to pre-Version 1.7.

With all that being said, I will begin expanding into Small/Common tier lists with Epics coming soon.

Regardless of how many dungeons you fill out, Floor 1 still remains the most important to populate well.

You can read about the previous Tier List updates HERE.

Video commentary

—video coming soon—



Current Meta

It is hard to predict exactly what is going to become the next Meta, but if players had unlimited resources, it would probably closely mirror what we are currently experiencing. However, there are not enough ideal 4-dots to go around so compromises will have to be made to fill out a reasonable amount of dungeons.

It is my presumption that filling out only 1 dungeon will result in almost no one starting with a Special ready to fire. Thus, it may be advantageous to fill out at least 3 to capitalize on the stat boosts. Of course filling out 4-5 is ideal, but most players probably have insufficient Creatures to do so.

With this in mind, it will be unlikely players can populate several dungeons with multiple stunning Creatures. Thus, we may begin to see a hybrid of previous strategies and stun-meta: using 1 stunner plus utility as needed followed by high damaging Creatures.

Floor 2 and 3 tend to have less relevance as most of the fight is predetermined in the first few turns. As a result, the key to success is building and countering Floor 1.

All Bosses have natural counters and I often receive feedback saying that they can easily defeat XYZ Boss. This is perhaps a result of them actually running their specific (colour) counter or entering with the full team alive. And to be honest, if you enter a Boss floor with all 5 members alive, you are most likely to win any way. Thus, the validity of Boss’s somewhat hinge on Attackers entering their floor heavily damaged, out of mana, or missing multiple members.

Enchants

Enchants are a reasonably new feature within Creature Quest as they allow for further customization. While there are countless different combinations available, there will naturally be those that are superior overall.

Generally speaking, the stat-boosting Enchants tend to be the most universally strong option, especially on their primary attribute. This is further amplified through buffs and weekly boosts.

if you wish to read my in-depth Enchanting article, please click HERE.

For the purposes of this article, it is assumed everyone has perfect Gold Enchants.

Kingdom shrines

For the sake of this article, it will assume everyone has equal Kingdom buffs. Amusingly, due to the steep rise in Kingdom costs, most players tend to be clumped around a similar level and thus more even playing field.

Updating Tier Lists

Indicates a Creature has moved up that many tiers since the last posting.

Indicates a Creature has moved down that many tiers since the last posting.

Always assumes max awoken, equal number of Combo Dots, and optimal Enchants.

Debut Tier Lists along with further explanation can be found for Offense and Defense through their respective links.

Lists all assume fully awoken and equal Combo Dots. However, due to the scarcity of 4-dots, it is safe to assume a Creature may move up 1-2 tiers if they are your only 4-dot.

New criteria for Offense

Mana Funnel

Successful Offense teams are now built around funneling Mana into a specific Creature to have a Special Ability ready by your second turn/cycle. As a result, we need to carefully decide who will be your Mana Funnel recipient as you will be using their Special Ability before any one else on your team.

For a period of time, it was viable to funnel Mana into an AoE Creature who could then combo to 4x/8x and have them remove an entire row of Defenders. Sadly, with the current Stun meta, you can no longer reliably activate a combo and must use them without any additional multiplier.

Sample teams

For example, my older team funnels Mana into Phoenix to have their special ready every single turn if they are used first:

After acquiring new Creatures, I have modified my Offense team to this form where I am able to use my Gold PWR Oathkeeper to sweep an entire row (and heal almost 10k) with 8x combo. Also, having two White Creatures help divert damage away from each other. While it is no longer feasibly to perform an 8x combo, my Oathkeeper still provides healing, damage, and the vital Protection buff.

Unfortunately or fortunately, no one is able to feasibly fill out 5 dungeons for the stun/silence immunity so it now the most important to find counters to wave 1.

I strongly suggest you check out my video detailing how to make a stronger Offense team:

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Strong AoE

AoE or Area of Effect are Special Abilities that are able to deal damage to several targets. However, they tend to have lower base damage to compensate for this and can also be classified as strong or weak AoE.

Any special that randomly targets Creatures is feasible on Single Target but is horrible against multiple targets. This is because you will often fail to actually kill anything. In addition, abilities that deal significantly less damage to subsequent targets is considered weak as you may only remove one Creature.

Thus, you want to look for AoE Creatures who deal full damage to all targets to ensure multiple enemies die in one Special. However, all AoE Creatures require some form of combo to deal damage which can be risky if those colours die or are stunned.

From my above example, my Oathkeeper is able to hit 8x Combo and sweep an entire row as he deals full damage to all Creatures.

Pure damage is less powerful unless it is blisteringly high

If your Special is unable to kill a single target with no combo, it is not worth pursuing as a mana funnel as you would have been better off with an AoE ability to remove several threats. In addition, if you require 2x to remove one target, your mana funnel Creature will not have enough mana to cast again unless they have some form of mana generation via Deathblow.

One main problem arising now is the HP of defenders outpaces the PWR gains through Kingdom Shrines and Enchants. This has made it nearly impossible for a Creature to use a Single Target ability and kill any Defender they were not already strong against.

Creatures need to survive

Unless you are running a Resurrection Creature, fragile cards will be less desirable as they can be quickly removed from powerful Floor 1’s. Thus, many cards that were quite flimsy have been demoted accordingly.

By extension to this, passive abilities tend to shine as they still take effect even when you are stunned.

It’s hard being Green Yellow

Last Tier list we saw Green Creatures face a challenging time due to the prevalence of Wyverns and Boarbarians. However, with the introduction of Wood Nymph and the common sighting of Toads on the ground, it has somewhat pushed out some major Red threats. As a result, it may be quite challenging for Yellow Creatures to survive as they will be stunned all the time from Nymph and take more damage from her Special Ability.

Some may argue that Red Creatures may excel now but if Toads are always present, they can present a serious threat. This is because the Small Toad is now able to reach high level of PWR through Shrines and Enchants to deal reasonable damage to attackers.

Mono White/Black

Due to the overwhelming strength of colour counters, it becomes crucial to find solutions to challenging Floor 1’s. However, it can be difficult if using Blue, Red, Green, or Yellow Creatures as they are losing the rock/paper/scissors match too often.

Thus, it is advantageous to run several Creatures that are White or Black as they are more effective overall. This is because they are still vulnerable to their opposite colour but also strong at the same time. Furthermore, stacking several of the same colour leads to distractions as enemies will tend to have more scattered damage as they are now effective against multiple targets. This can lead to protection for valuable Creatures such as Astral Watcher.

Finally, it is wise to create your Mana Funnel on a Creature where there are multiple of the same colour. This will allow you to charge up a wider variety of actives based on the situation at hand.

Dungeon Offense Tier List – February 5, 2018 –

S A

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*Debut * – B

C

D



Changes explained

Dracolich – Debut at A

Dracolich is the newest Legendary Creature to be into the game and comes with the unique 100% debuff resistance. This passive awakening enables them to resist all forms of stuns, silence, and debuffs. As a result, they can always take an action or provide mana to an ally.

While their own Special is reasonable, their exuberantly high mana cost makes it impractical to execute. As a result, Dracolich will most likely sit on your team and act as a Mana Bank as they will always be able to donate their mana dots to another team member. This may seem borderline excessive/luxurious, but that is how Tier Lists work, they assume unlimited resources.

No other changes

At this point in time, I do not foresee any dramatic shifts in the meta so unless a more dominant strategy emerges, no changes will be made this time around.

New criteria for Defense

Despite the encouragement to heavily populate several dungeons, it is hard to fathom many players being able to competatively fill all 5 dungeons. As a result, most of the focus will still remain on building a lethal Floor 1 to heavily cripple or outright win.

Unfortunately, it is hard to fathom a scenario where even a fully boosted Boss from 5/5 dungeons filled will be able to eliminate a full health/mana team. It may still happen and new and surprising things may emerge when niche bosses find more relevancy as more players experiment.

With all that being said, a Boss can still turn the tide in your favour, especially if they opposing team enters the floor in a weakened state. Furthermore, a 4-dot Creature will often surpass higher-tiered alternatives with 3-dots. This list assumes all Creatures are 4-dots (which may be unrealistic in practice).

Another point to keep in mind is that colour counters are even more effective as a Creature that is weak to another will have a significantly lower chance of landing their debuff statuses along with dealing half damage. This vulnerability goes both ways as an Attacking Wood Creature will most likely solo a defending Yellow Boss.

Stun was/is King

The Stun meta is a frustrating experience but at least we are able to actually take an action and are no longer able to be chain stunned. Stunning is more powerful on Floor 1 than Bosses as you have up to 7 Creatures attacking at once and can do far more damage overall.

As a result, Stun-oriented Bosses can still function, but are unable to repeatedly stun the same Creature again which takes away one of their strongest assets.

Colour Counters are more meaningful

Colour counters even more power when facing what they are effective against as they will be far less likely to become debuffed. What this means is that a Red Boss will be significantly less likely to be stunned by a Green Attacker. This also applies to Boss’s Specials against attackers.

What this means is that the popular meta cards will be able to effecitevly solo what they are effective against. This also means that Bosses that rely on debuffs are going to lose even more ground.

As a result, many bosses that used debuffs are now demoted and in all honesty, Wood bosses are now even more vulnerable to Phoenixes.

With all that being said, White and Black Bosses remain unchanged.

I am well aware that every boss has a counter and can be defeated with specific set ups but there are still some stronger options compared to others.

Powerful AoE is stronger now

Like the strong AoE described in the Offense section, similarly powerful AoE abilities gain increased value from a Boss point of view. This is because a Boss has augmented stats and if they are able to deal full damage to multiple targets, they may be able to remove several attackers at once.

Furthermore, a perfectly enchanted Boss for Defense is able to take advantage of Stat-modifiers as well as bonus damage to Large/Boss. This will naturally be overkill for burst Single Target, but helps propel the AoE damage to near lethal levels.

As a result, if an AoE-oriented Boss is able to gain the filled dungeon boosts, they can in theory remove all Attackers in 2 casts.

ATK or DEF scaling is favourable

While both of these stats compete with bonus damage to Large and Boss from an Enchanting point of view, they are the only two stats that are improved by the 2/5 Dungeon bonuses.

As a result, these Creatures gain increased value compared to other alternatives during those weeks where their colour is augmented.

Dungeon Defense Tier List – February 5, 2018 S

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A

—



*Debut* B

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C

D

H

Changes explained

Ancient Blue Dragon A -> S

Ancient Blue Dragon has gone through numerous ups and downs over the course of the past several months. Several months ago, he was considered one of the best Defenders due to the ability to chain stun. However, this reign came to an end when Attackers could no longer be chain stunned.

As a result, he kind of sat in a semi-awkward place until Kingdoms and Enchants took off.

As mentioned above, Kingdom Shrines and Enchants provide faster scaling for strong AoE Creatures. Furthermore, Ancient Blue Dragon’s Special deals respectable damage to adjacent targets, but really takes off when you land the second cast. This is because they gain significant bonus damage against stunned targets and even though Attackers can still take another action, the increased damage may be enough to kill them.

Fallen Angel (VIP 8) A -> S

Fallen Angel boasts a 320% ATK single target nuke which will eliminate one Attacker, but his true value comes with his Deathblow effect. Upon delivering a Deathblow (will happen every time unless he is heavily debuffed), Fallen Angel will deal 200% ATK to all enemies. This amounts to the highest splash damage of any AoE ability and will often remove several targets at once. Furthermore, he has a massive built in heal on Deathblow effect so he will essentially replenish himself to full health.

To make help push Fallen Angel even higher is the fact that he scales with ATK and can potentially receive the Dungeon Boost modifier. As a result, he could potentially wipe out an entire enemy team in one go.

Monkey King B -> A

Monkey King has continued to exceed my expectations with his often hilarious damage output. This is because he has the amazing possibility to instantly remove several full HP Attackers in a single Nimbus Strike if you are fortune enough to critically strike several times. Monkey King has an innate 40% critical strike chance and this results in unexpected and inconsistent damage, but also has the potential to be devastating. Furthermore, he can instantly remove a lone Full-HP Attacker which is rare for an AoE Special.

However, Monkey King faces the same problem any chaining Creature has: the damage (and splash) will not jump over dead Attackers. This means he is best against full teams or crippled teams that have no gaps between Creatures. If he was changed to chain/jump over dead Creatures, he could become quite formidable and possibly one of the best Defenders in the game.

Dracolich – Debut at A

I initially valued Dracolich as H (Healer) but found that some players were using him as a powerful Boss. This is because he has a massive HP pool and DEF stats along with full Debuff immunity along with a Special that scales with HP.

All of these factors combined with a modest damaging Special and self healing means you have to painfully grind Dracolich down. While this is still doable, it can cause many teams to fall apart or run out of mana to keep up with the AoE Special. However, Dracolich will become truly terrifying during Dark weeks where he gains a boost to their HP as their damage and durability will both increase.

Sandworm C -> B

Sandworm has fallen hard from grace when the chain stunning was removed since he was the most fragile of all the Boss stunners. However, as Kingdoms and Enchants improve, Sandworm’s damage output increases faster than the rate of HP on Attackers. However, it is the recent HP buff he received that has improved his former fragility.

All of this does not make Sandworm as terrifying as before, but has at least elevated his current status.

Building a strong Dungeon Defense

Check out my earlier video on how to build an effective Dungeon Defense for making a strong Floor 1:

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Rare and Common Creature tier list

I plan to be including this section to all my Tier List posts moving forward. You can read the first Rare Tier list HERE.

Dungeon Synergy

The following Tier Lists evaluates the performance of each Creature without taking into consideration elaborate Defender synergy.

Elaborate Defender synergy is essentially using any 2+ Creatures to enhance the overall performance of your group. This could be multiple Poison characters to more easily trigger the bonus damage, a LUK debuffer to help proc your Mummy awoken effect, or buffing any stat except PWR.

I consider PWR to be by far the strongest stat for a Special to scale off from as it enables you to use 1 buff to dramatically improve the whole team. As a result, PWR buffs tend to be superior to the other stat-modifiers as it also improves Basic Attacks and other enchants. This is partially tied to the fact that Wyvern is able to deal amazing amounts of damage while also buffing PWR. No other relevant Creature can do the same for another stat while being able to deal that much damage.

However, with optimal enchants, a LUK-scaling Creature gains the most offensive potential of any Creature due to the ability to run Bonus to Large/Boss, LUK, and Critical Strike chance.

Ranking criteria

Prior to the release of Nymph, the Dungeon Defense meta largely worked around Single Target abilities with complimenting support (buffs/debuffs) to enhance those Creature’s performance.

However, with the addition of Nymph, we are starting to see a rise in stuns as she is able to stun multiple targets while providing modest damage. Just be aware that you cannot re-stun the same target so they will be able to take an action eventually.

Points to consider:

Does the colour counter popular meta Legendaries?

Does the Special deal large amounts of damage (crits, high multiplier etc.)?

Does the Special provide reliable stun/silence?

Can the Special provide multiple (relevant) buffs/debuffs? Buffs: PWR or Mend Debuffs: PWR, DEF, or Fatigue



Having a healer is helpful, but they need to provide more than just healing to be relevant as a Defender.

All of these points apply to both Rare and Common Creature Tier Lists.

These lists assume all 4 dots. Thus, a 3 dot of an S-tier Creature is often comparable to a 4 dot of a A-tier.

Rare Creature tier list

Rare Flying Creature Dungeon Defense Tier List

February 5, 2018 – S A

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– B C D

Rare Ground Creature Dungeon Defense Tier List

February 5, 2018 S

—

A

—

B C D

Changes explained

Possessed Marionette – B -> A

The Possessed Marionette acts like a pseudo Statue in that he can provide a Fatigue, PWR, and LUK debuff along with reasonable damage. While Statue has the chance to debuff more along with a various Buffs plus a Mend Buff, it is inconsistent and not always reliable. Thus, the Marionette provides the consistency to cripple 3 Attackers while also being a modest threat to White Creatures.

As we are forced to open up more dungeons, I would not be surprised to see more Marionettes as Statue alternatives or when you want a hybrid damage dealer/support. This is important when you wish to build a Dungeon that is more damage oriented in hopes of preventing an Attacking team from stalling for mana.

Kitsune A -> S

Kitsune boasts the highest scaling multiplier of and Rare Creature along with possibly the highest base stat for a primary attribute. She is able to deal 360% LUK in damage along with dispelling several buffs. However, it is this 360% LUK combined with one of the highest stats in the game (for a Rare) that makes her a true monster.

With Gold LUK and high level Shrines, she is able to easily surpass 4,000 LUK which basically puts her ahead of any other Creature by around 1,000 stats for a primary attribute. This advantage is further multiplied by a significantly higher ratio (360% vs usually 250%) along with the ability to run the best Enchants.

As a LUK scaling Creature, she can equip Bonus damage to Large/Bosses, LUK, and Critical Strike chance. All of these make her truly terrifying, especially when you consider the fact that she will have naturally high Critical Strike rate due to high LUK. In fact, she will reliably one shot Black Creatures which cannot be said from any other Defender for their respective colour counter.

However, she is a tad fragile but suffers from an ideal Buffer to use along side as there is no Wyvern equivalent for LUK.

Big Game Hunter A -> S

Big Game Hunter or the Lizardman has a powerful, albeit high variance Special Ability. He scales off ATK (so can use +Crit chance) along with having a random targeting Special with naturally high Critical Strike Rate. While random targets are often a liability, they become significantly stronger when the Attacker’s team is weakened/killed off.

However, the actual damage output (when factoring in 40% Critical Strike Chance) is quite formidable as he can deal sizable damage with each arrow launched and has the chance to hit the same target several times and potentially kill them off. Of course this chance improves as more Attackers are killed, but having the chance at magical damage is worthwhile.

Clockwork Demolisher S -> A

The Clockwork Demolisher or Drillman is still a formidable Defender, but is now fighting a highly contested spot with other support oriented Creatures. While his damage output is higher than a traditional support, his secondary effect has less value overall.

Being able to DEF break an Attacker greatly improves the damage you can deal, but stunning tends to be more effective overall. This Clockwork will often be sidelined for the small Toad. Furthermore, the DEF buff is in conflict with Wood Nymph. As a result, he has lost most of his unique value and is harder to justify using when presented with other options.

However, Clockwork has more value compared to Toad if you are trying to build a more offensive oriented Dungeon that does not allow for Attackers to stall.

Common Creature tier list

Common Flying Creature Dungeon Defense Tier List

February 5, 2018 – S A – B C D

Common Ground Creature Dungeon Defense Tier List

December 30, 2017 S — A B

C

D

Notable Creatures

For the most part, it is highly advisable to only run S or A tier Creatures. This is because you often only need to fill a couple of spot compared to Rare Creatures. Furthermore, due to the lower stats of Common Creatures, you tend to want more supportive Specials to compliment your more damaging cards.

Friar Mantis – S

Friar Mantis has a comical death noise but is the major exception to Common Creatures playing a supportive role as they have truly explosive damage potential. However, they also provide a PWR buff which enables your other Creatures to deal more damage and allows them to fulfill a similar role to the Wyvern.

Pristine Ornithopter – S

The Ornithopter is an exceptional support Creature as they can provide a powerful heal and Resurrection to a single target. The ability to revive a dead Defender is amazingly powerful but their true value lies in their 50% chance to self revive upon taking fatal damage. It is this 50% chance that sets them above the Nevermortitian who is also able to revive allies.

Monarch Butterfly – S

The Monarch Butterfly acts as a Statue alternative, but can provide cleanse and will always provide all their buffs. This buff consistency is important as you are able to augment your entire wave with every Special cast along with cleansing. However, the lack of a Fatigue Debuff and more fragility compared to Statue makes them a less ideal choice if able to use a Medium or Small Creature.

Hypnotoad – S

The Hypnotoad with the Wood Nymph are responsible for reviving the stun meta. He is able to stun up to 3 targets while also covering for the colour weakness of Wood Nymph. This helps ensure Fire Attacker do not burn away your defense. Furthermore, with Enchants and Kingdom Shrines, Hypnotoad is able to produce respectable damage for a support Creature.

What sets Hypnotoad above Gnome Crossbowman is the more reliable stun coupled with a much higher HP pool.

Dungeon selection

Presently speaking, it is is best to run Dungeon 5 and Dungeon 2 as you are able to easily put in Toad. However, if aiming for a total of 3 Dungeons, I would recommend using Dungeon, 2, 4, and 5. However, just randomly sticking in high-ranking Creatures is not always the surest path to victory.

You can classify Defenders as Support or Offense and you need a healthy mixture of both to succeed.

Supportive Creatures provide buffs, debuffs, stuns, silence, Resurrection, or any combination of the above. This often means they deal less damage compared to their offensive counterparts. As a result, I would suggest you never run more than 3 Supportive Creatures as your overall damage would be too low and probably fail to stop as many Attackers.

On the flip side, you should run between 3-5 Offensive Creatures and is based on the Creatures you have on hand. You need some Support to augment the performance and the key is finding a healthy balance.

At the moment, I am running 3 Support Creatures and it seems to work quite well:

To Toad or not to Toad

The Wacky Toad is a Small Ground Creature who is able to stun 1-3 targets while also having one of the highest HP stats of a Common Creature. Prior to Kingdoms, Toad was instrumental in enabling the old stun meta but fell out of favour when Dungeon Challenge 2.0 came out.

However, Toad is once again a fearsome threat as he is able to stun alongside Wood Nymph and keep the enemy from taking any actions. Furthermore, with PWR Enchants and Kingdom Shrines, the Wacky Toad is now able to deal reasonable damage. This is because small Creatures once had abysmal stats but decent Special multipliers. Now with Enchants/Shrines, these Small Creatures are now able to achieve respectable stat levels.

With that being said, is can often be advantageous to run a Toad in a Medium slot if it will provide the needed stun due to a lack of Wood Nymphs.

Ideal dungeon composition

This is just for fun, but I feel the “ideal” dungeon composition would look something like shown below. However, they should all be 4-dot which is not something I have at this point in time.

The rationale behind this team is that the double stunners will provide enough time for Wyvern/Statue to cast. Wyvern and Skeletons are key here as they have some of the highest damage in the game along with Skeletons having 40% crit rate and all scaling with the PWR Wyvern buff. This will result in frequent kills while Attackers remain helpless to react.

Conclusion

This month’s tier list is subject to more variance as players begin to adapt to the changing PvP meta and running multiple dungeons.

Let me know what you think about the changes and how you plan to develop and build your team moving forward.

Happy Questing!