Guide: In-depth Review of Every Hero Art

Hey guys, here's my full review of every single Hero Art. Instead of tier ranking, my objective is to say good or bad, pinpoint exactly why I feel it's good or bad, and then try and offer suggestions for those Hero Arts that need more tailored decks than the other generic ones.

Please skim or read through my previous post to get the definition of MP advantage and board advantage which I use very often when reviewing the Hero Arts in this text. Just read all the bold text if you're in a hurry.

For easy reference and a quick review, the Hero Arts deal with these unit properties and statuses.

• <Combo> - Deals damage twice when attacking.
• <Flight> - If unit across cannot block Flight, attacks hero directly. Can block units with <Flight>.
• <Shield> - Nullifies damage taken once. Can be stacked.
• <Veil> - Prevents targeting by an opponent's Action cards and Hero Art.
• <Heavy Pierce> - After defeating an enemy unit, the damage dealt to that unit will also be dealt to the enemy Hero.
• Halt - Resets attack gauge. While halted, the target will be unable to attack or counter.
• <Slow> - Halves attack gauge speed.
• Resonate - Triggered when an Action Card is used. The effect can be activated during Active Response.
• <Revenge> - When defeated, goes back to your deck instead of the Graveyard, and cost is reduced to half. Triggers once only.

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So what makes a Hero Art good?

• It's aggressive - the most important factor. Any Hero Art that is defensive must at the very least open a path to be aggressive; otherwise, the Hero Art doesn't advance the most major win condition (reducing enemy HP to 0).
• Good value for AP cost - 18 AP for 7 damage is the standard set by Shinku Hadoken. High AP cost Hero Arts (ie, 20 or more) are generally a sign of a heavier and less usable ability, but the Art can make up for it by providing more field control.
• Takes up minimal deck space - A Hero Art which only works for certain types of cards means some or all of your deck must be devoted to the Hero Art, which lowers your overall deck versatility. However, if the Hero Art is obscenely strong (coughSpikeLaunchcough) then this may not matter too much.
• Can be used with minimal set up - Any time a Hero Art requires something specific from your side of the field, it gets docked points. One unit is a reasonable ask, but AoE Hero Arts on your side generally need to boost your advantage by a lot to make up for the set up required.
• Does not require following up - After you fire your Hero Art, you should be able to relax a little bit because the Hero Art should have inherently gained you advantage. If, on the other hand, your Hero Art does something like give your units a buff that require you to do something afterwards to trigger it, then it's asking for trouble. That means both your hand and your available MP must be in a certain state for the Hero Art to be effective. Often times, this means stalling until you're ready to follow-up the Hero Art immediately, instead of just throwing it out as soon as its charged.
• Comeback potential - There's two concepts I refer to a bit, which is win-more and comeback. Win-more means the Hero Art lets you secure an ongoing lead you have onboard. Comeback means to break your opponent's hold on the board. If a Hero Art only lets you win-more but has no comeback potential, it likely means that it has a minimal effect on board.

Ryu

• Shinku Hadoken : 18 AP - 7 damage to an enemy unit
• Denjin Renki : 22 AP - +2 damage ability to friendly units on field, and in hand and EX Pocket
• Metsu Shoryuken : 12 AP - Grant <Combo> to 1 friendly unit

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Ryu's Hero Arts are very simple, basic effects that make him great for beginners and not too difficult to start deck building around. His constant application of damage to units can deny your opponent from setting up a board or at the very least, make their presence a vulnerable one. His single target nature means you'll need to be good about picking which lanes to focus. Just like in his fighting games, he's easy to use and can carry you into high tiers after mastery.

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Shinku Hadoken is a good target removal, and probably his best one as it requires no setup or cards in hand to use correctly. Just target enemies with big threat or high health and you're good to go.

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Denjin Renki is the only one of Ryu's Arts to require some proper deck building. Its higher AP makes it less usable than the other two, but if you pick the correct units to include in your deck, you can quickly rack up damage and removal just from playing your units. Most units have their damage effects trigger as a "when played" ability though, which means you'll require a decent hand before activating the Art, but there are so many possible targets you'll rarely make a bad activation.

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Metsu Shoryuken requires knowing which of your units to target, but other than this, doesn't ask for specific cards on field or in hand or deck. This can be used to pressure face more than Shinku Hadoken if you can keep the buffed unit alive, but it also charges fast and allows you to change your lane focus when necessary.

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Rathalos

• Dive Attack : 25 AP - +2 Attack to all friendly units
• Wrath Awoken : 17 AP - Grant <Flight> and +X Attack to a friendly unit, X = times Attack was boosted by Action card.
• Blazing Wall : 14 AP - +2 HP and grant <Shield> to a friendly unit.

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Rathalos is most capable of applying heavy pressure with strong flying units, and all the Hero Arts reflect extremely well for this purpose. His cheaper Hero Arts are single-target focused like Ryu, so the best way to use Rathalos to pump one specific unit as much as possible as fast as possible before your opponent can find a way to remove it.

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Dive Attack is held back by its high AP cost, and you need to have field presence to make the most of it. Red also does not have the strongest swarm capability, meaning you'll likely be relying on cheap, fast flying units to avoid getting counter damaged too often, or splashing another colour's unit spammers or protection. Most of the time, it ends up too slow to be useful.

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Wrath Awoken allows you to hard focus one lane, and splash in non-flying units into your deck with additional synergies. It can instantly make a standard unit into a dangerous threat, especially with a lot of Attack pumping Action cards. While it does require setup and a proper deck build, pumping Attack isn't something you'd have to go out of your way to do, and this Art is a natural conclusion to that strategy. This would be my pick for best Rathalos Art.

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Blazing Wall is the fastest Rathalos Art, and while it is a more defensive play, it can allow a high Attack flyer to continue being a threat for a longer duration. Shields are capable of blocking damage dealing Actions and Arts too so even troublesome arts like Ryu's Shinku Hadoken and Nergigante's Spike Launch may not be capable of stopping an effective use of this Art, and it charges faster than those too.

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X

• Heart Tank : 18 AP - +7 HP to a friendly unit
• Charge Shot : 16 AP - Grant "When HP is boosted: Gain +1 Attack" to all friendly units
• Gaea Armor : 21 AP - Grant <Veil> to all friendly units

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X is my favourite character in this game, but he has arguably the worst Hero Arts of every character. The trouble is multifold.

The biggest factor is that none of them inherently or immediately speed up your win condition. Heart Tank and Gaea Armor are both defensive plays, meaning all you do is delay your opponent advancing for a little bit. Your rate of attack does not improve.

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For Heart Tank, it doesn't necessarily protect your unit either, such as the case with Black destroy cards which often rely on increasing a unit's Attack to resist. It's also still vulnerable to being reset or bounced to EX Pocket. Alternatively, your opponent could opt to pump one of their unit's Attack to break past, which means you indirectly encouraged them to amp up a threat. While it seems on par with Ryu's Shinku Hadoken (7 heal to 7 damage at same AP cost), in practice your field advantage is changed minimally since you aren't denying your opponent a play like Hadoken can. If you really insist, Emergency Strike (which turns your unit HP into an offensive strike) is the best way to synergize with this Art. Try to find additional ways to turn HP into Attack and damage, such as Victory effects.

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Gaea Armor is nice against targeted effects, most notably from Ryu and Wesker, as well as Purple and Black debilitation and destroy cards. However, it does nothing against non-targeting effects and damage like Nergigante's Spike Launch or Morrigan's Dark Illusion. Veil also does not protect against random application of damage or effects, nor against units causing effects and damage (eg, Purple units causing Halt, Red units causing damage). This ability can hard counter very specific decks, but doesn't work well for the general case, so it often ends up as too niche to really do much of anything, and it's slow to charge up too.

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The only one that can be considered offensive is Charge Shot. However, Charge Shot has its own problems: it requires having a field presence, and it requires having healing cards in hand with enough MP to play them. Ideally, you'll have at least two healing Actions in hand ready-to-go to stop your opponent from taking MP advantage when you start the chain. This is a great amount of required setup AND follow-through that most other Hero Arts simply do not require. That being said, Green has a plethora of multi-unit heals like Healing Dance and Supply as well as 3-cost units that heal friendlies on field, which you should abuse if you're going with this Hero Art to make as many lanes a threat as possible. This is definitely still the most usable X Art, but it's a high-risk play as everything needs to fall into place correctly, and it's hard to stage a comeback using it if you fell too far behind.

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Chun Li

• Kikosho : 17 AP - Gives <Shield> to all friendly units.
• Hyakuretsukyaku : 13 AP - Gives +1 Attack and <Heavy Pierce> to a friendly unit.
• Yawn : 15 AP - Gives "Gain MP+4 when leaving the field" to a friendly unit.

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Chun Li has all low cost abilities that are quite versatile, so Chun Li decks often do not follow along a single line of thought. They're all very speedy plays, which can provide a good mix of offence and defence.

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Kikosho is a good basic defensive play and often allows your units to tie or win match-ups even if the opponent has pumped Attack. Damage effects are the most common form of removal, which Shield will hard counter, and they can be even be stacked so if you manage to play the card Oath to Father in conjunction, you can do something crazy like resist two Spike Launches in a row. However, this does require having a strong field presence before usage, meaning you should take advantage of Green's swarm and bulk up cards. This also works great with Victory stacking cards.

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On the other hand, maybe you don't wanna swarm and instead want to build up massive threats one lane at a time. Hyakuretsukyaku adds huge threat to a unit, much like Rathalos' Wrath Awoken and Ryu's Metsu Shoryuken, and this best compounds on top of a unit with a Victory effect. While you're vulnerable to some extent on single-target removal and control, Hyakuretsukyaku is Chun Li's fastest Art meaning you can likely add threat to another lane while your opponent spends resources trying to take care of your existing powerhouse. Sidenote: Lightning Legs is the only source of <Heavy Pierce> in the game.

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Or, maybe you just wanna play cards faster and faster and overwhelm your opponent with units and actions before they had a chance to get something going. You'll need a cohesive deck to properly take advantage of Yawn, but knowing when to use it is simple since all you have to do is stick it on a unit that's about to die, and all decks benefit from more MP. Stacking constant MP advantage over your opponent makes this my pick as Chun-Li's best Art. I mean, if you think about it, the card Oath to Father does the same thing as Kikosho and it costs 4MP, so Yawn can do the same thing at less AP cost. Those 4MP can be used for anything too, not just shields, but also HP, Attack or units, so it has versatility on top of Kikosho, and it's quite a quick Art to charge up. The main drawback is that you'll have to draw into the cards you need, but given that means playing cards to cycle your hand any way, Yawn should always be handy.

Morrigan

• Temptation : 23 AP - Halt all enemy units for 13 sec.
• Darkness Illusion : 15 AP - Destroys any enemy units inflicted with Halt.
• Shadow Blade : 18 AP - Deals 4 damage to an enemy unit or 6 damage if the unit has <Flight>. Morrigan gains Life equal to damage dealt.

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Morrigan's powerful control capability can completely deny setup for your opponent. Her abilities can lock down bad unit picks on each lane (eg, not having something to block your flyer) and can add up to enemy board wipes or straight hopping for excessive face damage, while blocking their attempts to pump their units in any way.

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Temptation is more expensive than most arts, but for good reason. Many Purple cards deal damage to Halted units, and Halted units can't attack or counter either, meaning Temptation is often just setting up for either an enemy board wipe or player kill. Cards that affect Halted units can be as cheap as 3MP, like Ada Wong or Mega Shock, so this is very easy to follow up on, especially if your opponent gives you a Reaction chance and saves you 2MP. Temptation is also the only way in the game as of writing to deal mass Halt, as every other card only deals it out to one unit at a time.

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For that reason, Darkness Illusion is a bit harder to use, as your deck needs to centre around its ability to spam Halt on several lanes. However, there's no true follow-up you need for Darkness Illusion and it's much faster to charge than Temptation, allowing you to pick off specific enemies more frequently. It's a great counter to stat pumping on units, which is an all-too-common strategy. This would be my pick for best Morrigan Art.

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While Shadow Blade is Morrigan's worst Art, it's also still pretty good relative to other heroes. Considering Ryu's Shinku Hadoken is 7 damage, this is potentially an 8 or 12 damage advantage, and 6 damage on flyers is a pretty heavy counter to most flying units. However, 4 damage standard normally isn't enough to destroy most threatening units, and Red flying units all have more than 6 HP (except basic Rathalos), so this isn't as strong of a suppression tool as Hadoken. Also, this has to go up against her other two very powerful Arts that are more generic and more aggressive, which causes this one to see less usage.

Dante

• Quicksilver : 27 AP - Inflicts <Slow> and Counterbind (cannot counter your units' attacks) to all enemy units
• Ebony & Ivory : 19 AP - Enables all friendly units to trigger Resonate twice
• Devil Trigger : 13 AP - Take no damage for 10 seconds

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Dante's...odd. I don't really know how else to put it. His Hero Arts are mostly non-offensive, aiming for control and survivability, but I feel he has trouble differentiating himself from Morrigan in any meaningful way.

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Ebony & Ivory is his most unique option to set him apart from Morrigan. However, since you’ll be more likely to start an Action chain, you’ll inherently be fighting against giving MP advantage for your opponent. In order to stay even, you want at least 2 Action cards in hand and enough MP for them both. Also, this Art requires having a field with Resonate unit(s) alive and active. So, a Hero Art that requires having a proper board, a proper hand and MP in stock to follow-through. Sound familiar? Hint: it's the exact same problems as X's Charge Shot.

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Quicksilver is cool, but its AP cost is high. Also <Slow>+Counterbind is inferior to just outright Halting your enemies, and <Slow>+Counterbind doesn't setup a board wipe with Mega Shock / Ada Wong. The final nail in the coffin? Morrigan's Temptation is cheaper to use. There is no practical reason to use this over Temptation. The only use case I can think of is maybe you'd rather keep your opponent's side of the field filled with bad unit choices for each lane, but there are just too many ways for an opponent to utilize a full field. Sidenote: Quicksilver is the only source of both <Slow> and Counterbind. How bizarre, it's like they were trying really hard to not make this Temptation, but they forgot to provide support for <Slow> like they did Halt.

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On paper, Devil Trigger is pretty eh. It's a defensive play that doesn't advance a win condition. Ultimately, taking this means that your units have no Hero Art to back them up on field vs. an enemy set of units who do have a Hero Art supporting them, inherently putting you at disadvantage in field control.

I wrote this off in another thread, but there were some adamant defenders and there are Champion rank players who swear by it. For that reason, I decided to play this deck extensively just to see if I would change my mind. Out of the 50 or so battles I've had, I could count on one hand how many times Devil Trigger actually saved me. Any time I was going to win, Devil Trigger didn't help me. Most of the times I was going to lose, Devil Trigger only delayed the inevitable.

You could say this lets you build up MP for higher cost cards, but your opponent gains MP at the same rate you do, meaning they'll also have plays ready and waiting. While this does let you win lane races (eg, you have an unblocked super-buffed unit, your opponent also has a unblocked super-buffed unit, Devil Trigger on their attack and ta-da you win), more often than not it plays only as win-more and has almost no comeback potential.

All that said, it's easy to use, requires no specific deck, field or hand, and given how fast the current Purple meta deck plays, its low cost makes it one of the few Hero Arts you might actually charge up in time to use. It can work well against dual-colour decks when you can guess the opponent has a clogged hand (eg, 3 units on board, nothing but units in-hand), letting you build your MP while they're capped at 5. And there are players higher ranked than I am with way higher play time than I have who still strongly favour this Hero Art, so please keep in mind I may be wrong by thinking it's mediocre.

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Albert Wesker

• Dark Destruction : 18 AP - Destroys a 5MP or less enemy unit.
• Uroboros : 22 AP - Summons the highest MP unit your Graveyard.
• Bringer of Nightmares : 12 AP - Adds a unit activated with <Revenge> to the EX Pocket.

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Wesker's a fun character to play as, but hard to justify when Nergigante exists. Even still, he's way better at taking advantage of <Revenge> units and offers a differing playstyle despite being the same colour. He'll require some knowledge on most cards to be quick about his Hero Arts though, as you'll need to be able to know immediately how to target based on MP costs.

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Dark Destruction is possibly the strongest single target removal, like a Shinku Hadoken that goes through Shields and HP buffing but still costs the same. The 5MP stipulation is not often a problem, as most players will be using units that cost 5MP or less (2-colour decks cap at 5 MP, and 6+ MP units are often quite bricky and require some stalling to play). Much like Shinku, you don't need preparation or follow-through and it works well to help you get board advantage. I'd pick this one as his best in the current format.

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Uroboros on the other hand requires a decent deck built around it. You'll need to stall correctly to play a high cost unit in the first place, or some other way to set up the Grave. There are some cards which can help set up your Graveyard in order to take advantage of this ability (False Throne), but those must be used very early on as their payoff is delayed until this Art fully charges, and you’ll essentially be fighting at MP disadvantage since graveyard setup effects do nothing to help your board. This also has a disharmony with <Revenge> units, as they won't fill your graveyard very quickly with how they're sent back to the deck on first death. The AP cost is higher than average too. While the effect on field is delayed, this definitely has high comeback potential if it pulls in the correct unit at a critical moment.

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Bringer of Nightmares is Wesker's most unique option, his fastest Art, and it's simple to understand how to take advantage of with your deck construction. The low cost of <Revenge> active units combined with the hand advantage gained from using the EX Pocket, means you're likely be able to combo very quickly after activation. However, given that <Revenge> decks will often be full of cards with this exact ability, it's usually better to stick with Dark Destruction to help with field control. If you find you don't need removal or you're facing too many decks relying on 6+ MP cost units, Bringer of Nightmares will be the better pick.

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Nergigante

• Spike Divebomb : 15 AP - Gives +4/+4 to a friendly unit. Unit is destroyed after one attack.
• Spike Launch : 17 AP - Split damage equal to sacrificed life points to all enemy units.
• Change Form : 25 AP - If your Hero as 15 life or less, units in your hand and EX Pocket gain +2/+2.

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Nergigante's theme is to hurt himself or his units to get powerful effects. 2 out of 3 Nergigante abilities are average to bad but...let's get real, you all should know what sets Nerg apart as the highest tier character and metagame definer.

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Spike Launch. Undoubtedly, the strongest Hero Art in the entire game as of writing. Any card with Sacrifice grants you power beyond the standard stats or effects of the given MP cost, the idea being that it's supposed to be risky. However, you'll be filling your board with powerful units and denying your opponent from setting up a strong field...ultimately preparing your Sacrifice point count for a devastating board wipe should your enemy manage to pull anything off. What's more, Spike Launch is extremely reusable, being low cost, and its power doesn't decrease if you heal Nergigante, meaning you can cast 2 or even 3 no MP cost board wipes in a single game that can deal 20+ damage total, while your own Life is at 20-30. Literally, take Shinku Hadoken, triple it, and lower the cost by 1. I don't even know how this made it into the game in this state, to be quite frank with you.

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Spike Divebomb is an odd option. It's a single hit pump that's easily intercepted unless you're using this on a flyer. Because of the self-destruct, you lose some field presence after it hits. The main reason to run this is for triggering <Revenge> on your units while at the same time hitting hard once, but other than that, I can't think of very many other use cases. The extra HP doesn't even really do anything considering the unit is just going to die the moment it hits something anyway. Compare the economics of this Art with others: for 15 AP and an on-field unit, deal 4 extra damage eventually to enemy unit / hero, versus Shinku Hadoken, costs 18 AP and deals 7 damage instantly to a unit. Is the cheaper cost, chance of hitting face and setting <Revenge> worth a unit and -3 damage output over Hadoken? In my opinion, not really. Also Spike Launch exists in the same colour.

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Change Form can be a powerful in-hand pump, since, as explained before, Sacrifice units already have a lot of stats relative to their MP cost, and adding more can only make them more oppressive. This also works well with <Revenge> active units, who receive both buffs and an MP cost reduction upon being sent back to deck, and Change Form can pump them even further. However, the 15 Life requirement is a bit stifling since that means you can't play very many more Sacrifice cards (most of them deal 3 damage, which means 4 cards or less), and its AP cost is quite high relative to other Hero Arts. You could potentially combine Art with Life healing cards, so you can cast the Art and then heal back up.

Submitted July 17, 2019 at 05:20PM by Flamefury https://ift.tt/2SmaBX2