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Special Draug (build post)

Hi all!

I was looking for another high scoring Arena unit that's easy to acquire. Since I don't have many strong reds, and my barracks contain 7 Draugs, I want to build him. Special Fighter also peaks my interest.

Few questions, how good do you guys think the build is and should I make the investment to build it? Barrier Blade or Slaying Edge?

Draug; +Atk-Res (best nature I have)
Slaying Edge +spd or Barrier Blade +spd
Rally Atk/def
Aether
Brazen Atk/Def
Special Fighter
Panic Ploy (62HP is no joke)
QR3 Sacred Seal

Brazen Atk/Def can be substituted by Distant Counter when I pull my next fodder. It just fits nicely and I do have Brazen Atk/Def fodder.

General idea; Draug hits 42 speed with Water Blessing at +10 merge, 45 speed with a simple rally buff. He will double whatever he needs to on player phase, and with QR3 seal he doubles whatever he couldn't on enemy phase. Slaying Edge + Special Fighter means he always procs Aether if he doubles, whereas the enemy will have a hard time ever proccing a special. The new Barrier Blade may be better for the current Arena meta though, so Draug doesn't end up accidentally killing enemies (Aether will be ready for the next fight).

I haven't tested Special Fighter yet, but would like to and on paper I think it's broken af. The investment for this build is insane, though. Aside from 5*ing a bunch of Draug, it would cost me another 60k just for the weapon, Aether and Panic Ploy, as well as Brazen Atk/Def fodder AND my free summon from CYL2.

Thanks for reading!

Asked by Cygnus3 months 3 weeks ago

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Answers

I don't play armors at all, so I can't really help too much when it comes to this, but from basic observation, I can tell, that a brazen skill is practically dead on Draug with special fighter, especially if he has slaying edge, which makes aether a 4 turn special and allows draug to trigger it in every encounter where he does a follow-up attack, and that will heal him to full hp in most of the occasions, so brazen would not get activated.

This is so obvious that I'm actually a little ashamed of myself.

If I don't have DC fodder yet, what would you try to sub in?

For instance, I do have attack/speed bond, but that seems less useful to me on an offensive unit.

Well, considering you want to give him DC eventually, it would be more efficient to give him a skill that is not extremely rare. Something like Death blow or fury could be fine for the time being. They are cheap to get, so it won't hurt you that you will replace it once you get DC.

Merging him to +10 will be a long term project anyway, so by the time you'll be able to fully merge him, you should hopefully get your DC fodder as well. I think that L.Hector will be on the next legendary banner, so that should be a decent chance to get DC.

Again, great advice! I think I will use fury for now, have lots of Hinata thankfully. Perhaps I will use Armored March then, as Panic Ploy and Fury don't go well together. Will probably start using Panic Ploy seal on my bonus units anyway.

+Atk -Res is optimal for Draug. And Slaying Edge sounds good. But Brazen will not synergize with Aether.

I'd say it's the perfect build, except for Brazen. I'd use DC instead because without it, he'll be a sitting duck for ranged attackers.

It's amazing how you can miss these things, thanks to you both for pointing that out! It seems so obvious now, lol.

Do you have any experience using Special Fighter? It just seems completely broken, but nobody (here) is really talking about it.

People were talking about it a lot during the first week of CYL2. It's obviously good on heroes, that can get follow-ups on both phases, which is why it's so perfect on Ephraim, who can cheat out follow-ups thanks to his weapon. Draug should be fine in this regard, as his speed should be decent enough to double armored units on player phase, and he can double faster units on enemy phase thanks to a QR seal.

I have also seen purely defensive uses of special fighters. Brave Hector had it in my last arena run and I guess it's also a viable thing to do, as it makes him an extremely strong enemy phase hero, because he has QR in his weapon and special fighter gives him a special cd boost while slowing down the enemy's charge. The problem with this approach is that you are reliant on enemy phase (and are therefore extremely weak on player phase), so you don't have that much in terms of flexibility.

My thoughts were similar to yours. Either Ephraim (who comes with it but is expensive as a 5* exclusive) or fast armors. And there is only one 'fast' armor unit that's readily available.

I have to say, Special Fighter as a pure defensive skill is good when you are pilotting the unit. I haven't had trouble facing them because you can usually circumvent it. The Hector you describe can easily be lured, and Ephraim can just be the last target to kill. The only combination that has been dangerous to me in Arena is B!Ephraim with Armored boots, as you need to scratch his HP to take his Garm effect away.

I'm using B!Ephraim and of course, he's perfect with Special Fighter. It's actually scary how that skill can turn things over. I'm considering giving SF to B!Hector (enemy phase build) to laugh at Ayra / Zelgius.

I met a few SF armors in arena, mainly Zelgius and L!Hector, and they all required to be extra careful. Getting the Guard effect is no joke.

The only problem I see with giving SF to Draug, is that he would lose BF. Not sure 45 Spd is enough to double consistently in arena (I'm thinking Ayra, Karla, SY!Tiki...). So it may occasionally turn him into more of an enemy phase unit (hence the importance of DC).

The good thing there is that Draug doesn't need to double the fast units naturally, since he will have a QR seal for that. When he faces a faster unit, he'll just switch to enemy phase where he'll tank it and kill. It should be fine against heroes like Ayra and Karla, since he'll also block their special with special fighter.

Yes, it should be alright. And it's definitely a more interesting build than the usual BF+QR.

Only problem is when the enemy also has Guard / SF. Then Draug can't rely on his special anymore.

If you're going for special fighter I think you're best to be as fast as you can and go slaying + DC + aether and just heal every round and tank forever