Update 8.20: Faultless Defence Spotlight

With the recent change to blessings in Update 8.20, Faultless Defence underwent a significant overhaul more than most other blessings. Previously, it would reduce the damage you take from subsequent attacks making it niche useful in places where you would take multiple hits in one attack. Examples of this are Clan Boss when it would change to affinity becoming 4 hits in 1 attack on the A2.

The new Faultless Defence takes away this concept and instead focusses on reflecting damage. Whilst this significantly reduces its original intent, it does open doors to new strategies unlocking some of the hardest content pieces in Raid: Shadow Legends.

Faultless Defence now will reflect damage back equal to a percentage of that which was taken when an ally is attacked. To enable this you will need the champion wearing Faultless Defence to place an Increase Defence Buff on themselves or an ally. As this is a reflect damage effect, the standard issues with reflect damage applies:

1. Cannot reflect damage dealt to a shield
2. Cannot reflect damage if a champion is unkillable and low HP (as the champion only takes 1 damage)

You may be wondering at this point, why would this be any good to us? There is currently rarely a use case for Reflect Buff and the frustration players experience at the hands of Warchief or Sniktraak are only when faced in Dungeon and Boss content (due to how their base stats scale high). The difference here is reflect happens to be very good for reducing the Shield stacks of Fire-Knight in Normal, Hard Modes and Sintranos. When the fire-knight attacks he’ll activate the blessing meaning 5 stacks will already be reduced from the total required before you take your turns. This can mean the difference between your team successfully taking the boss down or falling amongst the flames of the Fire-Knight’s Lair.

Champions who bring Increase Defence will increase in value in the Fire-Knight. We have a few examples above including probably the most valuable, Martyr. Not only will you get a Counter-Attack with her A2 ability she also places the Increase Defence on all allies. This means you will get your initial -5 reduction of the stacks and then you can follow up with your champions attack.

Other Champions that most would consider for this role include

1. Alatreon Blademaster who places a protected Increase Defence on all allies
2. Tuhanarak who places this buff with additional speed buffs
3. Doomscreech who can also boost your turn meter whilst placing the buff.

If you have ventured into the depths of the Fire-Knight’s Lair and progressed through to Hard Mode, then you will be aware of how challenging this particular dungeon is for any well seasoned player. The combination of requiring freeze to drop turn meter instead of a standard turn meter drop paired with a high stack count for the Fire-Knight shield makes this the least accessible Hard mode dungeon in the game.

With the recent additions of Neldor Rimeblade and Criodan the Blue, we now have some strong epic freeze champions purpose built for this boss but for many it remains a slow and inconsistent dungeon. So the question begs to be asked – will this blessing change improve this situation?

In HellHades, playtest team, he built out a team consisting of:

1. Martyr (Leader) – 264 Speed
2. Lady Mikage – 247 Speed
3. Criodan the Blue – 249 Speed
4. Neldor Rimeblade – 242 Speed
5. Gnut – 245 Speed

Utilising the Martyr A2 ability, he was able to sustain not one but two fire-knight attacks on the team with both dropping the shield stacks by 5. Lady Mikage extension was noted to help sustain the duration of these buffs and may prove essential to the team. The key takeaway is that the blessing was critical to improving the consistency and speed of clearing the boss with a time of 2:55.

Faultless Defence in the right team, looks to be a fine addition to any Fire Knight Hard team that cannot reliably keep the turn meter down!

This change is hugely valuable for restricted content in places like the Cursed City of Sintranos, or if you lack a wide spread of champion options. That being said, if you have the MVP champions for Fire-Knight Normal such as Alure or you build out a double ally attack Fire-Knight Hard team with champions such as Neldor then you probably will never allow the boss to take a turn.

These speed teams focus on breaking the shield and permanently reducing the turn meter. This is much harder on Fire-Knight hard so more options will exist there but for Normal a standard Alure team likely means this blessing adds very little value. Additionally, the requirement that you place Increase Defence makes it harder to fit into a Fire-Knight Hard team that already requires very specific combinations of champions with Freeze Debuff and Ally Attackers.

We, at HH Gaming, consider this blessing a great bonus for those who are progressing through Fire-Knight stages or those aiming to complete some of the hardest content pieces in Soulcross in the Cursed City of Sintranos.