2. Lord Balrog

• Balrog the Meat Shield. This tank is, in my opinion, the tank that does the second best job when you only look at the role “tanking”. He has high Armor, high HP and he has self-sustain from his Special Skill “Dark Blade – Deals (230%*Attack) damage against an enemy and gains (250%*Attack) HP.” Is really nice. Add in his Passive Skill “Devil Armor III – When HP is lower than 30%, increases own armor by 120% for 3 rounds” and you’ll have a tank that does a nice job at keeping your hero in the Safe Spot safe. Balrog as a tank also works really well because of his Passive Skill “Fear III – When attacked, reduces the target’s 18% Crit for 3 rounds”, which is really good considering how many heroes actually basic attack the front row tank, and not only that, when Balrog gets hit by a Special Skill it also activates + it stacks. A nice hero to debuff the opponent’s heroes.

I’ve also seen Lord Balrog in a team with Rosa and Ormus and after fighting that team I definitely changed my opinion about Balrog. His attack getting increased by Rosa so he heals more and Ormus healing him making him stay alive even longer. It’s a combo that, in my opinion, works well.

Recommended Artifact and Stone: Balrog is definitely a hero that needs the Damage Reduction Artifact and since you want him to stay alive as long as possible, you either want the HP Stone or Attack Stone. I’d say HP stone if you don’t have Ormus or Rosa and Attack Stone if you do. With Attack Stone you’ll end up healing more with his Special Skill than what the HP stone gives you, because Rosa and Ormus will make him stay alive long enough for this to actually happen.

3. Dantalian

• You’re probably thinking: “Dryp, are you out of your mind!? Why is Dantalian an almost Top Tier Hero and not a Top Tier Hero!?” and I completely understand why you’d want to think that, since I first thought so as well. The reason for him being so strong is his ridiculously high Attack and Armor – highest Armor in the game. So because of his Passive Skill “Self Cure III – When damaged, has a 100% chance to recover (36%\Attack) HP.”* and his really high attack, he’ll of course gain a really nice amount of HP whenever he is getting hit. And because of his really high Armor, opponent’s heroes will of course deal less damage to him than they will to other heroes, resulting in Dantalian healing for more than the amount of damage heroes deal to him – Or that’s at least how Dantalian works against heroes that aren’t at his own * or higher.

At 6* he smashes 5* teams. At 7* he can beat most 6* teams. At 8* he’s struggling to beat a whole 7* team. At 9* you shouldn’t even thinking about using him as the only hero against a whole 8* team. And all this comes down to how scaling on Armor works in this game and how level scaling works.

So, Dantalian has 2.4k Armor at 9* and he’ll maybe have 1.2k Armor at 6. At 9 he’ll be hit by other 9* heroes with 20k Attack while at 6* Dantalian will be hit by heroes with 10k Attack. Let’s say 1.2k armor will block 1/3rd of the 10k Attack. But this doesn’t mean that 2.4k Armor will block 1/3rd of the 20k Attack. It’ll block less. This is because of scaling. And because heroes gain more Attack the more they level up compared to the amount of Armor Dantalian gains, he’s falling off at 9* and isn’t Top Tier.

But even after all of this, he is still a nice hero. In my opinion I’ll categorize him as a situational tank because of his Special Skill “Flame Sword – Deals (83%\Attack) damage against all enemies and extra 120% damage against Warriors.”* and his Passive Skill “The bane of Warrior III – Deals 50% more damage to Warriors.” so in a matchup where you opponents might have both 2-3 tanks like Balrog, Groo, Asmodel or maybe Sleepless, he might serve as a nice hero in your lineup as a tank.

Recommended Artifact and Stone: I’d recommend using Damage Reduction Artifact on him and an Attack Stone so he heals a bit more whenever he’s hit.