Introduction

Version 1.8 is now live and comes with some of the most exciting changes for PvP within Creature Quest.

Not only are we able to promote any Creature to 4 Combo Dots, but we can also build our dream Attack Teams via perfect Combo Rerolling. This will naturally lead to an increase in Offense rates; however, Defenses are also on the rise due to Two Colours/Stats being buffed during Legendary weeks.

This double buffing opens up numerous combinations for Dungeon Defense as you can now weave interesting combinations and create potentially lethal floors. During the White/Black week, I was able to boast a 70.8% Defense rate while being attacked by all the top players in the game.

In fact, not being in the top guilds helped propel my Prestige as I was continuously attacked and pushed upwards thanks to clever dungeon compositions. You can read more about my winning strategies in my previous article HERE.

This updated Tier List will include all sized Creatures and will do so moving forward.

You can read about the previous Tier List updates HERE.

Current Meta

I personally love the two colour boosted weeks as it helped make Defenses matter as players could potentially climb via Defensive wins. As such, I dearly hope this will extend to the Epic weeks as it will open up a continuous cycle of new Dungeon compositions if two different colours are featured each week.

With that in mind, it is important to prioritize using those on-colour boosted Creatures as they become so much more powerful overall. As such, I will be adjusting my ranking systems to reflect what it means to be S-tier.

Enchants

Enchants are a powerful mechanic 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. However, there has been a significant rise in Chance to Drain Mana enchant to prolong the time it takes for Attackers to cast Specials.

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.

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.

With this being said, there is some merit to “over-funneling” one Creature to help combat the Mana Drain Enchants. This may seem wasteful but can help you survive those particular dungeons.

Counterattacks & Passive abilities

Counterattacks and Passive Abilities are becoming the most dominant factor in strong PvP Offense teams. This is because you can only donate mana into a single Creature and your other 4 will be left without a Special Ability for a period of time. Thus, they have to be able to do something outside of Basic Attacks.

As such, Counterattacks help provide a large boost in value when hit with a Special Ability. This used to be challenging to achieve, but has become more relevant with numerous AoE-oriented Defenders who will continusouly trigger your Counterattacks.

By extension, Passive abilities will always provide their effect regardless if they were hit by a Special Ability.

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 can nearly sweep an entire row as he deals full damage to all Creatures.

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 Yellow

We are still deep within a Wood Nymph meta which makes it challenging for Yellow cards to push through. This has led to a modest shift away from using these Creatures as they tend to beaten up quite quickly. However, special mention should be given to Thunder Giant as he can counter attack and gain free mana to stun as needed.

Green attackers still struggle against Wyverns and Boarbarians but these have become a bit less common due to the need to run other Creatures.

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. As such, if you plan on running a Red Creature, you should try to position them on the left or rightmost side of your team.

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.

Colour Counters

With two stats and colours being boosted for Legendary weeks, it will become vital to your success to change your Attacking team as required. This is more easily achieved via the new Combo Dot Reroll system, but you should still try your best to avoid being Colour Countered.

For example, during White and Black week, it was quite challenging to actually bring any White or Black Creature into a high level dungeon and I found myself changing to a more Fire/Wood composition to compensate. I plan to discuss this more in a future article.

Dungeon Offense Tier List – April 5, 2018 –

S A

—



*Debut*

– B



—

*Debut*

C

D



Changes explained

Peri S -> A

Peri is still a powerful Creature to own as he is able to provide PWR and LUK Buffs, conditional healing, and a dispell. However, White is already saturated with amazing Creatures which makes it harder for Peri to function unless he is your Mana Funnel Recipient.

As a Mana Funnel Recipient he is viable as his Special does full damage to the enemy row, it will not be enough to kill anyone. Furthermore, the healing component, while strong, only works if you already have a LUK/PWR buff in place. Thus, it will take at least two casts to heal your team which may potentially be too late.

Furthermore, Peri is somewhat Fragile despite the -25% Damage from Special Abilities.

Thus, the demotion is a result of him not being competitive enough to run over other White or Mana Funnel options.

Siege Construct – Debut at A

I am assigning Seige Construct a conservative Debut rank of A but it could easily change to S once more players begin using him (and myself if I can get enough Greater Essences).

This is because he has the possibly the highest durability of any White Creature in the game (rivals Cloud Giant ) which makes him a prime candidate for Astral Watcher protection.

Astral Watcher is one of the most commonly used Legendaries due to the fact that he is the strongest resurrection cards available. As such, most players now build Black-heavy Floor 1’s to stop his advance as an Astral left alive can resurrect your entire team.

However, Astral is modestly fragile and is often protected by other White cards to help distract Defenders. Thus, Siege Construct may become one of Astral Watcher’s best friends as you can give him Defender Tome and have him absorb the attacks.

Comparing Siege Construct to Cloud Giant, Seige Construct has 80% chance to resist debuffs along with 40% chance to heal himself for 200% PWR when hit with a Special Ability. This is a massive self heal and being nearly immune to debuffs (could possibly achieve this via Enchants) is invaluable as you can always donate your mana.

However, Cloud Giant has a 70% chance to reduce incoming damage by 50% along with a stronger Special Ability for Offense which also has a much lower mana cost.

This leads me to believe Siege Construct will also fulfill a similar role to Cloud Giant as a

Queen Scylla – Debut at B

Queen Scylla is another new Legendary Creature that was added but is unfortunately average overall. She is the first Blue Legendary Creature that has a Mend, but suffers from several problematic traits.

Most notably is her fragility and conditional Mend buff. She will only cast Mend when the enemy has already been poisoned so you either have to cast her Special once before or get lucky with a Cerberus Counterattack. This is problematic and makes her too inconsistent as a Mana Funnel target as she will only be achieving a heal and poison. As such, she would act as a less durable Forest Giant with no stun or counterattack.

In order to make Queen Scylla viable, she would have to either have a counterattack poison to better trigger her mend, more durability, or just have Mend occur all the time and make it stronger if the target is already poisoned.

Criteria for Defense

We are currently enjoying an era where many players are filling out 4-5/5 dungeons which dramatically bolsters the viability of Bosses. However, without the weekly colour bonuses, most fail to survive long enough to cast a second round of Specials.

Being stun and silence immune can help Defenders eliminate some Attackers, but they may simply fall due to their relative fragility. This is a shame because i would love to see Bosses actually function like a Boss.

As such, most Bosses will still not be able to remove a full Attacking team but we can at least try and choose the ones that will give us the highest chance possible.

Regardless of your Boss selection choice, most of the focus will still remain on building a lethal Floor 1 to heavily cripple or outright win.

One last 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. Thus, if you see a trend where specific Attackers are always slipping through, it would be wise to switch to a Boss that colour counters them. For example, if Phoenixes are always slipping through, switching to a Blue Boss will almost guarantee a win.

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 – April 5, 2018 S

—



*Debut*

A

—

B



—



C



—

*Debut*

D

H

Changes explained

Dracolich A -> S

Dracolich is utterly terrifying on Black weeks as their special scales with HP. This enables them to deal an amazing amount of damage along with self healing based on how many Attackers she hit. This is important as she is one of the few Defenders who is better suited to fighting a full team of 5. Furthermore, her full immunity to debuffs stop numerous top tier attackers as they can no longer apply DoTs/debuffs, silence, or stun her.

In fact, I would often avoid Dracolich defended dungeons during Black week or at least bring a specialized team to counter her.

Stegosaurus A -> S

Stegosaurus has undergone a wild ride of ups and downs due to various buffs and nerfs. However, with the changes to Dungeon Challenge, Stego is able to become one of the scariest bosses in the game.

This is because she scales with DEF which enables her to achieve spectacular levels of damage output and will be able to 1-2 shot most Attackers. Furthermore, her immense bulk and durability help keep her alive along with her built in heal.

Of course her viability drops outside of Blue weeks, but can still be formidable.

Siege Construct – Debut at S

It is my belief that Siege Construct will function like Dracolich as they have 80% chance to resist debuffs, a self heal like Forest Giant , along with a powerful Special Ability.

Siege Construct is able to deal full damage to the entire row along with firing two rockets to deal both bonus damage and stun two random targets. This helps slow down the wave of Attackers as well as providing badly needed burst damage when facing 1-2 opponents.

The introduction of Siege Construct has demoted Colossus as they are both tankier and more effective against single target.

Despite Siege Construct being a new Legendary and not having been able to test him out myself, I am confident he will see significant play time on both Offense and Defense.

Colossus S -> A

Colossus is still the strongest AoE-oriented Legendary in the game due to the fact that he ignores Defense. However, even with full Enchants and Shrines, Colossus is unable to kill an Attacking team fast enough. This is partially attributed to the lack of any secondary effect that prevents Colossus from having sustain, added durability, or any form of disruption.

Even with White buffed week, Colossus does not have enough survivability to optimally function. Furthermore, with the introduction of Siege Construct, it is harder to justify using Colossus as a Defender.

Oathkeeper A -> B

Like Colossus, Oathkeeper is unable to pump out enough damage to be threatening enough as his Special deals even less damage. While Oathkeeper is able to sustain and self heal himself, it is not enough to kill enough Attackers and somewhat makes him like Forest Giant : a giant meat shield with not enough threat to kill Attackers.

Queen Scylla – Debut at C

I don’t actually own a Queen Scylla on either account so it is hard to test her true viability, but looking at her specs, she is quite fragile and slow to ramp up damage. Thus, it would be challenging to make her an effective Defender as the Mend is conditional on hitting a Poisoned Creature. As such, she would probably only really work against a heavily crippled team, but at least her Special Ability deals modest damage.

Building a strong Dungeon Defense

I would recommend you check out my previous article HERE in regards to building powerful combinations for your Dungeon.

New ranking criteria

With the changes to Dungeon Defense, it has become highly advantageous to run on-colour cards as the dual stats helps propel them into amazing Defenders.

This results in a much more diverse Dungeon composition that will change and adapt with each week. With that being said, I still wish to keep the general template of my Ranking criteria down below but will modify S-tier Creatures to be those that you would choose to run outside of their Colour-boosted week.

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 my Epic, Rare and Common Creature Tier Lists.

Bear in mind that a card will move up 1-2 tiers during their stat-boosted week.

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.

Epic Creature tier list

Epic Flying Creature Dungeon Defense Tier List

April 5, 2018 S A

—



B

C D

Epic Ground Creature Dungeon Defense Tier List

April 5, 2018 – S

—

A – B

C D

Changes explained

Evil Eye A -> S

Large flying Creatures are somewhat lackluster in their damage output; however, special acknowledgement must be made for the Evil Eye. This creepy looking eye is able to deal sizable single target damage for a Flier and stun. Furthermore, his colouring makes him terrifying for White-heavy teams which is what the majority of the top-tier players use. Thus, you would have to divert your attention to removing or at least stunning the Evil eye lest your Creature becomes severely damaged/killed. In addition, the Evil Eye gains +40% damage against debuffed so a second cast will virtually guarantee a Creature’s death.

Tapping into the +40% damage is vital for ensuring a one-shot and this can be accomplished through other Creatures who can debuff. Thus, using something like the Carousing Clurichaun can be a lethal combo as you gain both a PWR buff and a Debuff to trigger the additional damage.

Water Elemental Lord B -> A

It appears that the dual stat bonuses will be for ATK and DEF which means buffing those can result in spectacular performance for those Creatures. Thus, the Water Elemental Lord fits nicely as his dual ATK and DEF buffs help your Defenders achieve wonderful stat-levels. Furthermore, their damage output is respectable as it hits the entire row.

Jade Dragon C -> A

I was not initially a fan of using Jade Dragon as a Defender but his unrivaled buffing potential is hard to compete against. Being able to buff all stats as well as providing Mend and Protection is invaluable considering Epic Fliers tend to be low on the damage output. Thus, having a Jade Dragon among two other Epic Creatures (Dungeon 4 & 5) creates an interesting conundrum.

If an Attacker enters Floor 2 and both Jade Dragon and another threatening Epic are on turn 1 timers, who do you stun/silence? If you let the Jade buff, everything will become harder but by letting the other threat cast, you could lose a Creature. This paradox does happen modestly often when players are running 4-5 dungeons and is worth considering if you have high damage dealers alongside Jade Dragon.

Naga Priestess A -> S

Naga Priestess not only boasts a high damage Single Target Special and Silence, but is also capable of buffing both PWR and LUK. While ATK/DEF are the two boosted stats, the majority of Creatures still scale off LUK. Thus, Naga Priestess not only makes herself stronger, but all your other Defenders. This forces players into trying to remove her immediately lest the other Defenders gain lethal levels of damage output.

This often results in her being used during non-Blue boosted weeks as she helps everyone else perform better.

Rare Creature tier list

Rare Flying Creature Dungeon Defense Tier List

April 5, 2018 – S

—

*Debut* A

—

– B

—



C D

Rare Ground Creature Dungeon Defense Tier List

April 5, 2018 S

—

A B C D

Changes explained

Cloud Nymph – Debut at S

Cloud Nymph is the newest Rare Creature to be added into the game and has quickly become one of the most powerful Defenders. This is because she boasts modest damage output combined with heavy debuffing. However, her main appeal is her on-death effect where she casts all her debuffs at once. This differs from the Runic Statue as her debuffs are more lethal and she cannot be removed early on.

In essence, she is a more damaging statue that cannot be removed unless your team has copious amounts of dispells.

She is worth awakening and promoting to 4-dots but one thing that may be advantageous is not giving her an HP-enchant and HP Totems to keep her health intentionally lower. This is important because you somewhat want her to die right away and makes her amazing bait for Cerberus Attackers. This is because his “random” counterattack tends to hit White Defenders and could potentially kill her instantly and trigger her on-death debuffs.

Mechanical Owl S -> A

With the introduction of Cloud Nymph, Mechanical Owl has yet another competing Creature for the Medium Flier slot and is unfortunately not strong enough to keep up. The maximum number of Medium fliers you could use on your Floor 1 is three and the Mechanical Owl does not provide enough value to merit an S-rank.

This problem is two-fold: your buffing/debuffing/support Defenders tend to be fliers and the Mechanical Owl’s damage is not enough to compensate, especially when compared against the Wyvern who also provides a PWR buff. While the Mechanical Owl has the potential to deal heavy damage to Dark Creatures he cannot one shot a Cerberus whereas Kitsune can.

Essentially Mechanical Owl is unable to provide enough value compared to other options available. This is not to say they are a bad Creature, just not as elite compared to other Medium fliers.

Ultramoth A -> B

My hopes for Ultramoth was that he would be able to provide a steady stream of AoE-damage to Attackers while ramping up as they became poisoned. This could synergize with other Poison Creatures, but like the Mechanical Owl, he is not strong enough to run over Supportive Fliers.

You always want a healthy mix of Support and Damage Dealers and it would be hard to work Ultramoth into your lineup. This is because they tend to scale best with another Ultramoth or the Wicked Witch , but the ramp up time is slow and you are quire reliant on Stuns and PWR buffs to succeed. However, most other Defenders will perform better under those same conditions (stun + PWR buff) and have shorter ramp up times.

As such, Ultramoth drops down to B-tier but may see some action during Red/Yellow weeks when you can pair with Wyverns and Walloporoos .

Clockwork Demolisher – A -> S

Clockwork Demolisher has fluctuated between A and S-tier due to their ability to break DEF, deal reasonable damage to the entire row, and DEF buff. However, I feel he deserves to move back up to S-tier as he helps everyone perform better as he amplifies all damage as well as providing significant more durability.

The DEF buff works amazingly well with your boosted stats as the DEF will jump even higher and has great synergy with Wood Nymph .

In addition to all this, Clockwork Demolisher is reasonably durable durable as well as innately resisting debuffs. This helps him survive Cerberus’s Counterattack as he will be less likely to be poisoned/burned.

Common Creature tier list

Common Flying Creature Dungeon Defense Tier List

April 5, 2018 – S A – B C D

Common Ground Creature Dungeon Defense Tier List

April 5, 2018 S — A B

C

D

Changes explained

No new changes at this point in time.

Dungeon selection

Presently speaking, it is is best to run Dungeon 5 and Dungeon 2 as you are able to easily put in Toad along with the most number of Medium Creatures. However, if aiming for a total of 3 Dungeons, I would recommend using Dungeon, 2, 4, and 5. Unfortunately, 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.

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.

Conclusion

This month’s tier list is beginning to settle down and I do not foresee any major changes to the meta as the release of Creatures is quite slow. The only major game changer would be having the two buffed colours rotating so it is not always White/Black etc.

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

Happy Questing!