Intro:
This is PART 2 of the complete guide to all the Tank Heroes in the game. As the “Tank” category would suggest, these characters specialize in absorbing large amounts of damage, protecting the team so that everyone continues to survive. They generally have high Tenacity growth, which helps them deal with disables and keep on going. Each of them has a place in the game, so this guide will provide insight to each Tank hero’s value.
Disclaimer: This Guide will always be under construction, either through updating information or adding more content as more new heroes are released in the game. I will be doing updates accordingly for as long as I continue to play the game.
Fix-It-Felix Jr.
Overview
Strengths:
+Emergency healing
+Bonus Skill Power for the entire team
+Good stall potential
+Good defensive stats
Weaknesses:
-Too passive
-Susceptible to burst damage
-Weak spatial control
Gameplay:
Felix is a unique Tank who protects his team by sponging damage for them while healing himself in the process. He is one of the most passive among Tanks, who’s only source of direct damage is “Nicelander Stampede”. His other skills are almost completely dedicated to supporting his teammates. Felix’s “Honey Glow” blinds enemies and “Fix it, Felix!” provides a burst of healing–both skills helps with sponging hits effectively. Felix’s defensive prowess is unsurprisingly not well suited for attacking. That said, he performs a lot better on defensive teams that excel at stalling the clock. Even the stun from his active skill further helps out with such stall tactics. He works well within defense teams for Arena and Guild Wars, but not for attack. However, he can stall when attacking in the Coliseum. He performs rather poorly in City Watch and he is largely outclassed as a healer in Invasion by Kristoff & Sven, Genie, and Duke Caboom.
Friendship Disks:
Felix’s Disks are designed to enhance the core functions of being a Tank, which is to take more hits, or cause more disruption. Ralph’s disk speeds up Felix’s self-healing, causing him to heal faster the less HP he has. This disk directly improves Felix’s survivability and it even increases his HP even more. Frozone’s disk makes Felix a little more disruptive by giving him the ability to freeze nearby enemies. It’s quite difficult to use the new freezing properties until this disk has maxed out stats though. Otherwise, the increase in Skill Power strengthens “Nicelander Stampede” and “Fix It, Felix!”. Frozone’s disk when maxed out tends to be better in PvP, but Ralph’s disk is more useful for Invasion.
Team Options:
Felix equipped with Frozone’s disk can somewhat fit in a freeze team along with Olaf and Elsa, but WALL-E and Kristoff & Sven are often the better choices for freeze comps. Goofy(Mi) is good for protecting Felix at the front; his speed boost helps Felix heal even faster and both heroes can cause even more frequent blinds. Timon & Pumbaa can also give some temporary protection without being too passive. That said, he actually doesn’t mind having passive teammates–specifically Rafiki and Meg. If Meg link with him, Felix will be in a position that allows him to spam Nicelander Stampede. Rafiki with a fully invested Jack-Jack disk can keep the heals coming while also further promoting nasty stall tactics. And of course, Hercules(Ma) can give Felix some invincibility which helps give Felix the time he needs to heal himself.
Counters:
Felix suffers greatly when faced with heavy CC even with his modest Tenacity growth, and slow effects from Finnick and Mad Hatter severely limit his self-healing. While Felix can do some decent freezing with Frozone’s disk, he won’t be able to keep up with Olaf, who is also often accompanied by Elsa. Immobilizing Felix completely will render him utterly defenseless and easy to dispatch. Curse users like Maleficent, Tia, Yzma, and Magica can tear apart Felix’s over-reliance on healing. Long range attackers are also particularly annoying. Merida gets a special mention as she can effortlessly freeze Felix with her ice arrows and soften his defenses with armor shredding while also staying happily out of range from Felix’s close-range freezing.
Gerald, Marlin, & Nemo
Overview
COMING SOON
Gonzo
Overview
Strengths:
+Remarkable durability levels
+Fantastic utilities
+Great disruption potential
+Good synergy
Weaknesses:
-Easy to peel off
-No spatial control
Gameplay:
Gonzo is a hybrid Tank archetype with skills inspired from heroes that came before him. As a stuntman, Gonzo’s brand of protection relies on him putting himself right in the middle of the enemy team (similar to Aladdin), forcing damage away from his team to the point that the enemy frontline is even forced to turn their back just to face him. This daring act of initiation is as risky as it sounds. “Gonzo the Great” is exactly the skill that allows him to get away with turning himself into a hostile beacon. Essentially, the less HP he has, the more durable he becomes, granting remarkable endurance. This perilous position he puts himself into usually causes him to build energy very rapidly, allowing him to frequently stun enemy groups in a feathery stampede. His strength of endurance is very good in most game modes. He somewhat struggles with wards that stop him from causing stuns, however.
Talent Search:
Gonzo’s Red Skill is very easy to get value from. Even at the very lowest level, Gonzo’s shields with be given healing properties. This gives him an actual self-sufficient form of longevity. Vitality aside, this skill also gives a very technical new enhancement to Gonzo’s abilities. The enemy who is doing the most damage will be marked “Most Wanted”. The stigmatized target will suffer stuns from Gonzo’s regular attacks, giving Gonzo even more control over the battle field. This works particularly well due to the nature of his attacks. Much like Baymax, Gonzo’s regular attacks count as piercing projectiles. This means that even if the “Most Wanted” target is beyond the reach of melee attacks, Gonzo’s attacks will always be able to reach them. Unfortunately, the stun effect may fail if the skill remains underleveled. Still, the self-healing alone provides incredible value, so it still has great use even with minimal investment.
Friendship Disks:
Duke Caboom’s provides a unique countermeasure against speed boosts from enemy units. Having this disk shortens the duration of enemy speed boosting effects of any kind, giving Gonzo a very unique niche in the process! It also weakens the Basic Damage of opposing Support Heroes while also increasing the Basic Damage for all allies. On the other hand, Launchpad’s disk is more supportive in nature. It gives more HP to allies while also increasing Gonzo’s Skill Power. This does make Gonzo’s Chicken Run hit harder and his personal shield a little stronger. Speaking of which, the main effect of Launchpad’s disk is to strengthen the shields for allies, making it easier for allies like Violet, Baymax, Kevin, etc to get more value out of their shields. Since speed boosting is so popular, Duke’s disk tends to be more favored in PvP settings. However, Launchpad’s disk has great value for the HP boost alone.
Team Options:
Gonzo works very well with just about any hero. His ability to greatly reduce incoming damage makes him an ideal link partner for Meg. He reduces nearly 50% of damage if he’s only at 1 HP, which allows for Meg to stay around much more comfortably. She also gives Gonzo more opportunities to use Chicken Run for even more disruptions. Generally speaking, Gonzo will almost always want the accompaniment of a speed boosting hero. Goofy and Animal are the particularly strong standouts in this case. The faster Gonzo attacks, the sooner he can use his shields to protect himself from unnecessary damage. The shields will largely contribute to his overall longevity while the speed boost makes him generally more threatening. Gonzo is also yet another competent hero to team up with other characters that abuse stuns. Maleficent and/or Gaston especially appreciate his ability to stay aggro.
Counters:
Gonzo does his best work when he’s right in the middle of the enemy team. However, he can only dive to that spot at the beginning of a fight. If he gets pushed back, he cannot regain the space he lost in the process. This overall makes him less efficient at protecting his team. As such, any hero that can push him back is a good response against his aggressive antics. Timon & Pumbaa and Animal are especially problematic for this reason. As Gonzo relies heavily in his positioning to quickly gain energy to use Chicken Run, there are heroes that can give him trouble just for that. Jasmine and Jafar can be soft counters; Gonzo’s quick energy gain means he will be a likely target for energy loss. Similarly, Kevin can also be a soft counter. Chicken Run does a lot of damage, which means Kevin is very likely to gain lots of energy from getting hit from it. This allows him to quickly fire off a Power Cleanse to remove the stun from his team.
Goofy
Overview
Strengths:
+Team speed boost
+Solid stats
+Incredible synergy
+High survivability
+Great Friendship disks
Weaknesses:
-Shield has very long cooldown
-No spatial control
-Somewhat below average damage
Gameplay:
Goofy is one of the most reliable heroes there are. Ever since his introduction, Goofy has been praised for his team support and his impressive survivability. Goofy’s “Bust a Move” just might be one of the very best active skills in the game. With it, Goofy blinds all enemies while granting a 100% attack speed bonus for himself and his team. The speed boost here is the key to his success. Even allies that are levels ahead of him fully benefit from the speed, so it will always be useful in all situations. His other three skills are all dedicated to help him stay in the fight for as long as possible, and they work too. Goofy’s sheer versatility makes him a top choice for any game mode and is arguably team Red’s best Tank.
Friendship Disks:
Goofy’s friendship disks are focused in either improving his defense or offense. Mickey’s disk drastically improves Goofy’s ability to protect his allies as he may now bestow shields whenever he uses “How to Goof”. Even by most standards, the shields are quite weak durability-wise, but they also have no actual expiry. The most important aspect about the shields is that they can block all disables and heal allies instead. The healing effect occurs whenever the shields successfully block disables. Do note that the anti-disable effects are only for Goofy’s allies, and NOT for Goofy himself. Jessie’s disk is a lot more straightforward–it simply boosts damage done against blinded enemies. The damage boost can come from any ally’s blind-inducing skills, not just Goofy’s. Both are very, very useful. Of course, Mickey’s is more defensive while Jessie’s leans towards a more aggressive approach, so switch them around depending on circumstances.
Team Options:
Goofy works very well with just about anyone. He can team up with fellow speed-boosters like Woody and Duke, or he can further abuse blinds with Rafiki, Jafar(Sc), and Powerline. Kevin and Donald can team up with Goofy to maximize anti-CC coverage. The three of them together make for a particularly strong defensive core. He can also fit in shield comps when equipped with Mickey’s disk. And of course, Mickey, his eternal pal, will always be a good partner for Goofy. Both can combine their actives together for devastating effect, bestowing speed and power to everyone.
Counters:
Goofy’s biggest struggle is his lack of spatial control. Anything that can place Goofy out of position makes it harder for him to protect his allies. As such, heroes with strong knock backs such as Violet, Timon & Pumbaa, and Hercules can prove to be suffocating at times. Rex gets a special mention because not only does he have two knock back skills for Goofy to deal with, he can also eat away Goofy’s shields very quickly. Ursula is also problematic. Her Hex can rob Goofy of his speed boost while also completely denying him the chance to heal himself safely. Kevin can be considered a soft-counter to Goofy as well. Goofy’s blind lasts for a long time, but Kevin can easily rectify that with his cleanse.
More in Part 3 (CLICK HERE)