Guildrun Tier List: Best Team Comps

Every Stall trigger makes Skorn sturdier twice: Stalled Defense adds 45 Defense and his Tank's Tower Shield gains 2, while Come At Me! pays 10 Shields plus 10% of his Defense and Magic per Stall so far this game, so a later Taunt multiplies a longer count by a higher Defense. The same triggers make Deceleration Reactor and Trigger Safeguard Activator each Shield all heroes by a tenth of their Max HP, and Shield Conduit, after its 7,500 Shield quest, grants Shielded heroes 100 Magic plus 100 Attack.

Patch 0.5.5 set the tier: Come At Me! gained a flat 100 Shields plus 100 per rank and Tank's Readiness Banner went from 6 to 8 seconds. Patch 0.5.9 only adds half a second of Stun to Aria's Amulet of Storms, the single piece of the comp it names. Until Victory Mandate and Arcane Mandate pay out, after 4 wins and 15,000 active ability damage, three heroes fit on the Battlefield.

Mana Regen sets how fast two of its stacks build: Pollen's flower field gains a Poison each second per 5 points of it, Gustav's Blizzard a Frost per 8. The Investor gives all heroes 2 per Investment, Stall Battery 3 and Trigger Safeguard Activator 2 on every Stall trigger. On Stall (15), Stall (30) and Stall (45), Frost Catalyst deals 5 damage per Frost an enemy holds and Deceleration Corruptor doubles its Poison. Rowan, the only Tank or Vanguard, alone collects the 8 Defense of Tank's Patience Banner and the Shields worth 1000% of Defense from Defensive Energy Crystal at Stall (20) and (40).

Every patch from 0.5.3 to 0.5.7 moved it forward: The Fae's Kiss to Stall (10), Pollen's divisor from 8 to 5. Patch 0.5.9 reaches three pieces: the two Mystic's Orb pay a Mana Regen every 4 casts instead of 6, The Friend banks 5 Defense per trigger instead of 4, and the Amulet stuns half a second longer.

This five-hero version runs a Stall clock beside Rush. Duelist's Memento makes Stall abilities trigger 4 seconds earlier per Duelist in combat, and Deceleration Conduit 6 seconds faster after six Stall triggers. That pulls forward Irini's Limitless, whose auto attacks after Stall (15) hit for extra damage equal to all her Attack Speed. Limitless also adds 1 Attack Speed per auto attack, each Duelist's Foil gains 1 every 15 attacks, Scroll of Violence grants +25% Attack and Attack Speed after 100, and The Warband passes her Karsu's banked stats at combat start.

In 0.5.4 Karsu's volley began adding an arrow per 50 Attack Speed, and 0.5.5 doubled the Rush window of Critical Timing. Patch 0.5.9 then doubled what The Warband banks per cast, 2 Crit and 3 Attack instead of 1 and 2, kept for the run and passed to every other Duelist at combat start. That is what lifts it into S; ranking five heroes is what keeps it last there.

Every Rush trigger pays twice. On the spot, four of its relics give each hero 20 Attack Speed, 10 Attack, 5 Crit, 200 Shields and a lasting Shield of 10% Max HP. Over the run, Rush Dynamo, the rank A upgrade of Nyx and Irini, grants Duelists 1 Attack Speed per trigger this game, and Irini's Gathering Storm hits harder with each one. Rip converts health into damage: Rushed Size gives him +100% Max HP during Rush (12), and Bloodthirsty adds 5% of Max HP as Attack for Rush (10).

The S dates from patch 0.5.6. Before it, 0.5.3 gave Rogue's Cowl 20 Attack Speed and 0.5.5 shortened the Accumulator quest from 3 triggers to 2, while 0.5.8 stopped an early Ferality refresh from wiping the growth Nyx had built. Patch 0.5.9 is the first since its promotion to leave it entirely alone: not one of its eleven Acceleration relics moved, and neither did its three heroes.

Only Yuuna is a born Assassin, yet all three count as one: The Magnanimous gives Ratna the class plus 25 Crit, The Brute gives Rip the class plus 35. So Assassin's Medallion's 15 Crit and Yuuna's Banked Presence, 1 Crit per banked Shard for Rush (10), reach everyone. Those Crits feed two quests: after 40, Precision Conduit cuts the target's Defense by 3 per Crit; after 100, Critical Ascendancy gives each hero's opening auto attack on every enemy 1,500 Crit and a Stun.

Two older buffs made it strong: since patch 0.5.2 each Spellblade gives 2 Magic per auto attack, and since 0.5.3 Precise Codex rolls 1d6 Crit. Patch 0.5.9 gave Assassin's Supremacy Filigree 10 seconds of 200 Crit and Stealth at the opening, and Ratna's Lone Wolf's Bow a 66% splash, but cut Precision Conduit to 3 Defense per Crit. It sits in A since 0.5.10: Ratna and Yuuna win fewer runs than most heroes.

The Resplendent on a rank A Aria makes Mages inflict 20% plus 10% per rank more Debuffs, Aria another 50%, and for Rush (12) Plague Amplifier adds one to every Debuff enemies gain. Funke brings Burn: Wildfire puts 75% of his Magic as Burn on all enemies in range, The Detonator makes them take 7 plus 7 per rank Burn ticks per cast, and for Rush (15) Burn Catalyst adds 50% to Burn damage. Only Zuri, no Mage, brings Poison: The Serpent's Kiss gives each enemy auto attacking her one Poison plus one per 60 Defense and per 50 Magic, and after Poison Conduit's 150 Poison quest, each 2 she inflicts add 1 Magic and 1 Attack.

S since the 0.5.5 buffs to Wildfire and Magical Growth, it drops to A on 0.5.10: Funke wins fewer runs than any other hero. Patch 0.5.9 added a finisher: Burning Spiral Engine blows up enemies dying with 100 Burn for 66% of their Max HP, not 50%.

Shards generated mid-fight give the Rush Duelists frame a second engine. Nyx and Irini swap Rush Dynamo for Golden Eye, 1 Shard every 9 auto attacks, beside two sources Rush Duelists already has: Acceleration Nexus, 1 Shard every 2 Rush triggers, and Irini's Sacrificial Scythe, 5 the first time each combat she is back at full health. Per generation, Shard Fluctuator and Shard Power Extractor deal at least 3,000 damage to every enemy between them and Shard Resonator gives each hero 400 Shields. After 25 generated Shards, Generation Conduit grants 500 Shields and 15 Crit on each generation and Shard Ascendancy an extra Shard.

It lost its S on Shields: Shard Resonator paid 1,000 per generation until 0.5.3 lowered it to 600 and 0.5.5 to 400. Patch 0.5.9 hands it damage instead of Shields: its two Lone Wolf's Bow, the only pair across the nine comps, splash 66% of the attack rather than 50%. First in A, not yet S.

Attack Speed drives both damage lines. On each auto attack, Sal's Burning Attacks burns for 1 plus one per 33 Attack Speed. After Stall (15), Irini's auto attacks add bonus damage worth 100% of her Attack Speed; a completed Zeus's Thunder turns 66% into a hit on all enemies per auto attack. Debuffs raise it: Freezing Acceleration gives a Duelist 2 against targets with Frost, The Breezy 1 per rank for each Debuff a Mage or Duelist inflicts, and Plague Velocitizer every hero 1 per Debuff type on all enemies every 4 seconds.

Patch 0.5.5 turned Duelist's Outbreak Banner's 1 Attack Speed per Debuff type into 20 bonus damage, the multiplier the comp had been missing, and moved Burning Attacks from 1 per 40 Attack Speed to 1 per 33. Patch 0.5.9 adds 5 Attack Speed and 3 Crit to the base stats of Irini's Zeus's Thunder. Two relics on theme are still too few for the S.

Seven of its pieces fire on Shards generated. Dragomir and Hoyoung keep that trigger busy: Shard Collector pays each one Shard per two Crits, a Devour kill yields 2 plus 2 per rank, and The Hunter gives Hoyoung 1 per hex between him and his kill. Zuri generates none. Per generation, Shard Fluctuator hits all enemies for 500, Greedy Shiv for 450 and Shard Power Extractor for at least 2,500, while Shard Resonator and Greedy Gauntlet Shield the heroes for 400 and 750, Generation Conduit for 500 more after its quest.

Those cuts are behind its drop to A: Shard Resonator lost 400 Shields in 0.5.3 and 200 more in 0.5.5, and patch 0.5.4 took 500 off the Gauntlet and 300 off the Shiv. Patch 0.5.9 does not touch a single piece of it: with Rush Duelists, it is one of the two comps that come out of the patch exactly as they went in.