Yo guys, what's good.
Az here, and today we will be talking about Deradan, the Arbalist.
TLDR: I am fairly disappointed by him, but it's probably because he has so much competition. His overall kit isn't strong enough and piercing damage is rather weak. However, I still want to give him a fair review.
Deradan is a Rare Fire Hero of the Chaos type. He deals magical Damage.
Skills
Passive: Focused Shot, afflicting targets with a Focus Fire mark, decreasing their Attack and Defense on basic attacks
S1: Increases his hit by 6 for 12 turns and costs 1.
S2: Deals 490% piercing damage to a single target and costs 5 Mana.
Gear and Stats
He wears all Legendary pieces, focusing on Attack, Attack Speed and Critical Damage.
I left his gear the same way as I had it in the Piercing Damage testing.
Strengths
His biggest strength is his 490% piercing damage Multiplier. It's the highest in game for piercing damage, followed by Monica with 420%.
Being of the Chaos type and Fire element allows him to build up Mana quickly. While not 100% reliable, later on your teams and the enemies will land lot's of crits.
While fighting against First Guardians, he has the ability to "skip a turn" using his S1, which can prevent shield build ups.
Weaknesses
His Mana cost is fairly high. If not paired with a Mana booster, it takes a while until he can use his nuke. Outside of that, he not be effective for your team. His S1 being single target only benefits him. His Critical Hit is only at 60, which makes him very reliant on breaks, to actually put out his damage. Overall he is a very selfish hero, which in the current state of the game is rather disadvantageous.
PVP
Honestly if you need a damage dealer for PVP, there are way better alternatives, either in the Rare or Legendary Category.
PVE
You have to use him for a couple of Special Difficulty Dungeons, but outside of that, you won't ever find a use for him.
In Shelter of Avarice you need stronger Heroes than him.
Conclusion
Given the overall meta and the how the game works, he is rather weak.
Compared with Nermash who is also a 3 star, has Final hit and a damage dealing S2, Deradan seems lack luster. His only advantage seems to be that he is of the Fire type.
However, there are a lot of replacements in the Forest and even within the Fire category.
Because it's so easy to get good Legendaries, he seems out of place.
The Piercing damage is not high enough, that you would choose him.
According to my calculations, once enemies get above 2300 Defense he COULD pull ahead against 700% multipliers, but being a Rare with lower Base stats, Astarte would still be better due to her higher multiplier and stats.
The piercing damage would need to penetrate 25-30% to be worthwhile the investment.
Overall I had fun testing him out, however I don't see a use for him outside of the Special Dungeon he is used in. Unleashing seems like a wasted effort, since there is Astarte. Maybe I'm a little bit biased, but the lack of Crits without legendary gear ruined him for me.
If you wonder why I didn't put that gear on it, it's simple. I want to present Characters how they are. Almost any Hero with good gear can output good enough damage. I see this series more as a quick guide, what you can expect from a Hero right of the bat.
Let me know in the comments if you agree and if you enjoy my content, consider subscribing to my channel.
Any feedback or recommendations on whom I should feature next, are very welcome.
As always it was a pleasure to have you here. I
will see you for the next one and until then... Enjoy the Grind.
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