Valiant Force Forum

Ok, so just to reconfirm what Genez has discussed in a more comprehensive manner, the full damage calculation formula for normal attacks is:
(<Attacker's ATK> - <Defender's DEF>)*(1 + <amplification>%)*(1 - <reduction>%)

Disclaimer: This will be a long post
Contents:
Section 1) Evaluations of the proposed changes to Valiants
Section 2) Explain some fundamental principles/tools I use to evaluate heroes
Section 3) A little bit of my own suggestions

Section 1: Evaluations

Darrion - Holy Defender
Active (5-turn CD):
- Remove bonus effects from all enemies
- Increase DEF of this hero or ally by 60/70/80% of hero's DEF for 3 turns
- Removes negative effects from party

Evaluation: Purging enemies is a good addition, yet not a unique interaction. Improving DEF of ally is a good change to improve the HDarrion's compatibility. However, the loss of global taunt is too great of an exchange. This version of HDarrion can only protect 1 target for 3 turns after a 5-turn CD as compared to the old one, where unless the taunt is resisted, HDarrion can protect the entire party with a 5-turn CD skill. The dispelling of debuffs on own team is rather lackluster, and can also be redundant when combined with the enemy purging effect, since rarely there are enemies that both buff themselves AND debuff your team at the same time. Sure it does make this skill more flexible, able to deal with both buffs and debuffs, but the 5-turn CD is not exactly a short one. Overall, the purge+dispel effects combined are not enough to warrant the removal of a global taunt, and while the single-target DEF buff is great to have, it is still too low-impact even when combined with the purge+dispel.

Overall rating: 2/10, this version of HDarrion can't really defend his team
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Darrion - Chaos Knight
Active (5-turn CD): 
- Delay enemy skill counter by 2 turns
- Swaps position of hero and enemy
- Deals magic damage equal to 140/160/180% of hero's DEF to enemy

Evaluation: The main change here being the delaying of enemy skill counter is definitely very much a positive change. The old taunt was single-target and rather meaningless especially considering CK Darrion's swap effect. However, this change makes CK Darrion pretty much the same as CK Aden, with the swap being a replacement for Aden's pull. If we do a rough damage calculation, 100% of a 5*+2 Hercules CK Aden's HP is 9208 whereas 180% of a 5*+2 Kratos CK Darrion's DEF (also counting an extra 15% DEF from his own aura) is 8416. The damage difference is about 1k, and thus unless Darrion's swap is miles better than Aden's pull, which I would argue that they are about the same. Even if we give Darrion's swap a slight edge to counteract the difference in damage, CK Darrion's active ends up being only a roughly-equal counterpart to CK Aden's active, which for a Valiant, is embarrassing to say the least.

Overall rating: 3.5/10, this version of CK Darrion is just a slightly different version of CK Aden
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Freya - Dragoon
Active (6-turn CD): 

- Leaps onto an empty tile, dealing damage around it equal to 160% of Hero's ATK (8 tile AOE radius)
- Stuns Enemies, disabling those affected for 2 turn(s).
- Refresh this hero

Aura:
When Hero attacks, there is a 40% chance to:
- Trigger Everyone in aura to Stun an enemy for 1 turn(s).
- Increase ATK of Everyone in Aura by 15% of Hero's ATK for 2 turn(s).


Evaluation: The slight damage buff and improvement to hit 8 tiles all-around is awesome. The 100% increase in stun duration puts the icing on the cake and secures FreyDragoon as the go-to option for hard-CC amongst Champions. However, this makes it such that the refresh effect is pretty overpowered as an addition to the already powerful kit, given that refresh can be insanely powerful given the right minmaxing. The aura buff to 40% is also a great step forward in the cc department, further solidifying FreyDragoon's ability to play her role before her skill is off CD. Similarly, the 15% ATK buff to the entire squad is easily overkill just like the refresh.

Overall rating: 6.5/10, this version of FreyDragoon is so powerful that she will wreak havoc in PvE and PvP alike, able to control the battlefield via consistent stuns while also giving the whole team a significant ATK buff. Her active skill is pretty much a one-skill-win-condition in PvP (being a perfect set-up skill before casting massive AoE damage skills, denying enemies 2 turns of defensive skill responses) and a major tide-turner in PvE.
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Freya - Warlord
Active (5-turn CD): 

- Increase ATK of Party by 25% of Hero's ATK for 2 turn(s).
- Pulls Enemy to empty tile in front of caster.
- Deals magic damage equal to 220% of Hero's ATK to Enemy
Aura:

When Hero attacks, there is a 40% chance to:
Trigger others in aura to attack with 120% of their ATK

Evaluation: The slight damage buff to her active as well as the 2 turn ATK buff is precisely what Freya Warlord needs to stand out. Warlords typically only have a vanilla pull bundled with a single-target damage that is good but nothing mind-shattering like the single-target skill damage Berserkers can put out. If we compare again to CK Aden, this is really underpowered since CK Aden also reduces the enemy skill counter on top of this. By adding a slight team ATK buff to Warlords, it solidifies Freya Warlord's role as a supporting attacker that relies on teammates more than herself. The improvement to her Aura feels like a little bit overbuffed since the increase in percentage of allies' ATK is more than 30%, especially when considering that this is on top of a 15% party-wide ATK buff on a 5-turn CD.

Overall rating: 8.5/10, this version of Freya Warlord would be very balanced and competitive in any squad that relies on iterative normal attacks, with her aura trigger being potentially crazy overpowered given certain situations (*ahem*Svenzerker&Wyvern*ahem*).
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Shizu - Magebane
Active (6-turn CD): 

- Debuff 40% Mag for 2 turns (3x3 AOE)
- 120-150% Damage based on ATK (3x3 AOE)
- 66% Chance to Stun enemies for 2 turns
Aura:

When Shizu attacks, there is a 35% chance to:
Trigger others in aura to attack with 85% of their attack
Trigger others in aura to stun enemies for 1 turn.

Evaluation: The MAG reduction is the perfect thing to put on a Magebane, given that the class is called, a MAGEBANE. This combined with the increased AoE size compensated with slightly lowered damage and chance to stun as well as a slight consistency buff to her aura trigger makes Shizu Magebane perform more consistently and become more specialized in her role as a mage counter.

Overall rating: 10/10, this version of Shizu Magebane is what I would have expected to be the strongest Magebane.
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Shizu - Assassin
Active (6-turn CD): 

- 100% Chance to stun enemy for 2 turns
- 135% damage over time based on Hero's ATK for 3 turns
- Amplify 25% damage to enemy for 2 turns

Aura:
No change

Evaluation: Firstly, I would like to point out that currently Shizusin does 135% of her CRT in damage EVERY SINGLE TURN for 3 turns, so it's not 135% spread out over 3 turns but rather 135%*3 = 405% over 3 turns. Thus I would word it as either "135% of hero's ATK damage for 3 turns" or "405% of hero's ATK damage over 3 turns" to minimize confusion. Next, this I would say is a rather powerful buff to the Shizusin. A unique 25% damage amp in exchange for the stealth is definitely welcome as it focuses Shizusin towards the single-target application, with stealth being relatively weak given that the main threat is likely to have been stunned by her skill anyway. What is worth discussing is the decision to change her scaling to ATK instead of CRT. Almost all Assassin class hero has skills that scale off CRT, and also have auras that benefit from high CRT. Therefore there was always a dilemma for Assassin users whether to continue to pursue CRT after the Critical Chance cap has been reached. Doing so helps scale the Assassin's skill and aura damage, but provided nothing in terms of physical attack strength or chance to trigger auras that are based on critical strikes, choosing to go for ATK instead would result in the opposite. With this change however, both Shizusin's skill damage and physical attack would be strengthened just by getting higher ATK, which makes her more straightforward to build but also less thought-provoking and customizable.

Overall rating: 8/10, overall very good, damage amp swapping for the stealth is a big plus, but not so sure about the scaling stat change.
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Kane - Gunslinger
Active (4-turn CD): 
- Damage 1 target 120-150% based on ATK
- Stuns 1 target for 2 turns
- Silence Aura 1 target for 2 turns

Aura:
When Kane attacks, 40% chance to trigger
100% damage based on ATK

Evaluation: I do not see why GSKane, out of all the other Valiants, belong in the category that needs buffing. No matter how I see it, the new GSKane is simply overpowered and would do nothing to provide any new way to use GSKane. The aura silence sounds neat but is rather meaningless in PvE since monsters have no auras, and is also pretty overlookable in PvP, since denying 1 enemy character's aura for 2 short turns isn't really doing much with PvP's turn-counting system. This version of GSKane is really just a regular GSKane with beefed up numbers, that's all.

Overall rating: 1/10, unneeded buffs, meaningless additional effects and clearly overpowered
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Kane - Sharpshooter
Active (6-turn CD): 
- Buff ATK 25% based on ATK on self for 3 turns
- Damage 1 target 160-220% based on ATK
- Stealth self for 3 turns

Aura:
For every Ally in aura, buff Kane 15% ATK based on ATK

Evaluation: Similar to Assassins, the current SSKane also faces a weird dilemma or whether one should focus in CRT or ATK. His skill scales on ATK, his role is based in ATK, but both his aura and his active provide bonuses based in CRT. However, the decision SSKane faces is less of choosing between playstyles and more of an optimum output math problem (which can be solved by graph analysis). This is because choosing to focus in CRT or ATK doesn't change SSKane's role in battle rather, just his aggregate physical output. Hence, I welcome the change to streamline SSKane's self-buffs to the ATK stat. In terms of the stealth, I also thinking that this is a great idea to solidify SSKane's role as a specialized sniper.

Overall rating: 10/10, well-streamlined for easier building as well as a unique skill effect that emphasizes his role
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Kiera - Rune Magus
Active (6-turn CD): 

- Damage all 130% based on MAG
- Knockback all 2 tiles
- Spawns wall with HP 210-300% Based on MAG

Aura:
When allies in aura gets hit, 35% chance to trigger
Haste (Reduce 1 CD from Skill CD)

Evaluation: The damage boost and improved knockback on RM Kiera's active is definitely welcome, but the same cannot be said for her new aura. Instead of focusing RM Kiera towards knockback as her main specialty, her new aura introduces Haste. What is unclear is whether the Haste is applied to her or her allies in aura or everyone in aura. Either way, what makes this aura dubious at best is the trigger mechanism. Unless RM Kiera is partied with a bunch of other even more paper heroes, chances are, Kiera herself is a more lucrative target for most enemies regardless of PvE or PvP. This can be easily fixed by making the aura trigger when anyone in aura gets hit instead.

Overall rating: 7/10, active skill good, aura kind of unusable.
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Kiera - Elementalist
Active (6-turn CD): 
- Deals 130-160% damage based on MAG (3x3 radius)
- Burns ground for 50% of MAG for 2 turns (Units that got hit)
- 33% Chance to Stun enemies for 1 turn

Aura:
Buff 20% MAG based on MAG to allies in aura
Buff 10% DEF based on MAG to allies in aura

Evaluation: Again, the current EleKiera buffs the MAG stat of EVERYONE in aura, not just allies. I'll just assume that the new aura also applies to everyone instead of just allies. Having said that, while this is a significant buff to EleKiera's total damage, it is still barely enough to put her into the viable category of damage-dealer mages. The main reasons for this is her low output:survivability ratio as well as her inherent anti-synergy, both of which I will discuss in detail in the next section. Her new aura gives her slightly better survivability and a little bit of flexibility, but it doesn't effectively address EleKiera's main problems, which is what causes her to fall out of favour over other damage-dealing mages. The 33% chance to stun helps a little but is just too inconsistent to be of any real utility.

Overall rating: 4/10, good effort, EleKiera is no doubt better now, but still nowhere near good enough to be used consistently by players for PvP or PvE
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Lucille - Archbishop
Active (4-turn CD): 
- Heals Ally or Self for180-240%of MAG
- Invincible shield 100% for 2 turns (Single Target)
- Cleanse Ally or Self (Single Target)

Evaluation: Good. Good and very good. This buff hits the spot for AB Lucille. Puts her further into her specialty, and makes her good at it.

Overall rating: 10/10, 'nuff said
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Lucille - Spirit Walker
Active (4-turn CD): 
- Cast 10-40% Amplify to all enemies for 2 turns
- Cast Haste -1 CD to an Ally or Self

Aura:
When Hero gets hit, 75% chance to heal 35% based of hero's MAG (Ally and Self)

Evaluation: The active actually gives SW Lucille a very powerful and flexible damage booster, and would pretty much become an auto-include in almost any damage-heavy squad. On the other hand, the relatively difficult-to-use aura makes up for it. Although difficult-to-use, it is not impossible to. It would simply require the squad to include other heroes whom all have higher DEF than SW Lucille. With Athena or Hercules faith on SW Lucille, this may not be a very difficult thing to do.

Overall rating: 9/10, hard to use, but also really strong. A nuanced combination of flexibility and inflexibility that demands smart planning.
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Section 2: Theories and Principles

O/S ratio and skill CDs
Output:survivabiity ratio (O/S ratio) is an analytic tool I use to determine the strength of a hero as a damage dealer. It shows how much damage a character can output versus the damage he/she is likely to take within that same duration. It is mostly only accurate on heroes that deal damage without any cc effects or alternative RNG damage sources since it does not compensate for random-chance damage nor any cc provided. What I call the O/S ratio is defined as:

Cumulative damage output by turn x
-----------------------------------------------
Cumulative damage taken by turn x

I'll use EleKiera as an example since I attribute her weakness mainly to her bad performance of this. A PvE scenario against 6 monster units will be used to demonstrate. For the first 6 turns, EleKiera can merely auto-attack, hence for the first 6 turns she deals about 100+50*3 = 250 dmg per turn in normal attacks (assuming the splash hits 3 targets). In 6 turns she deals a total of 250*6 = 1500 dmg. On the other hand, depending on where your EleKiera is positioned and what your squad lineup is, EleKiera is likely to have taken about 4000 damage from enemy normal attacks. Thus at turn 6, EleKiera's O/S ratio is 1500/4000 = 0.375, this tells us that for each point of HP EleKiera loses, she outputs 0.375 dmg, up to turn 6.

Now let's look at Talissa Warlock's O/S ratio at turn 6. Talilock would have taken slightly less damage as compared to EleKiera because she has much higher base DEF (about 300 more), so maybe about 3500 damage. Her damage for the first three turns will deal slightly less damage than EleKiera, but not by much, about 80+55*3 = 245 dmg (Kiera does 100%+50% to 4 directions while Talissa does 100%+70% to 4 directions). So in 3 turns, Talilockwill deal 245*3 = 735 dmg. On turn 4, Talilock will summon her Twilight Sentinel and deal about 2000 dmg to all 6 enemies for 2 turns. Her twilight sentinel will attack for about 4000 physical damage. Hence by the end of turn 4, Talilock would have racked up 735+2000*6+4500 = 16835 dmg. At turn 5, Talilock and her sentinel both attack for another 4000+245=4245 dmg and her active DoTs for another 2000*6 dmg, bringing it to a total of 16835+4245+2000*6 = 33080 dmg. At turn 6, Talilock uses a normal attack for 245 while her sentinel deals about 7000*3 dmg immediately and DoTs the enemies for another 3000 dmg for 2 turns. This brings Talilock's cumulative damage at turn 6 to 33080+245+7000*3+2000*6 = 66325 dmg. Thus at turn 6, Talilock's O/S ratio would be 66325/3500 = 18.95, so this tells us that for each point of HP Talilock loses, she outputs 18.95 dmg, up to turn 6.

But what happens at turn 7, the supposed turn that EleKiera starts to take everything back? Let's see...EleKiera casts her huge nuke, dealing 9000 dmg to all 6 targets for a total of 54000 damage, bringing her to 55500 dmg, and following the previously established rate of taking damage, she would have taken another 666 dmg, racking the damage she would have taken by turn 7 to 4666. Hence, EleKiera's turn 7 O/S ratio is 55500/4666 = 11.895, which is pretty respectable, but nothing in comparison with Talilock's O/S ratio at turn 6. Also, on turn 7, Talilock would have dealt an addtional 2000*6 DoT dmg plus 245 normal attack, which brings her O/S ratio to 78570/4083 = 19.24, still miles ahead of EleKiera. On Turn 8, EleKiera gets another 2500*6+250 dmg, reaching an O/S ratio of 70750/5332 = 13.27. Talilock on the other hand, summons her Twilight Sentinel again, dealing 2000*6+4000 dmg, reaching an OS ratio of 94570/4666 = 20.27. It should be quite obvious by this point of time that there is no way for EleKiera to even come close to Talilock's O/S ratio at no matter what turn after turn 3. Hopefully from this it can also be seen that improving the burn damage over time of EleKiera by anything less than +60% of MAG is not going to make anything different because unless your EleKiera plays as a suicide bomber and pretty much dies right after casting her active, the fact that it takes an entire turn to deal the burn damage makes it such that she will be taking lots and lots of damage before she can deal any significant amount. Also, some may have realized that throughout the entire calculation process, I have not even put in Talilock's dmg from her aura, which can be rather unstable but is still far more significant than her normal attack damage.

To better utilize the O/S ratio, one can multiply the O/S ratio at the turn that the hero's actions start to cycle by the HP pool of your hero to find out how much potential damage is possible within 1 full HP bar. And this is where it gets totally laughable for EleKiera versus Talilock. Talilock actually has better base HP pool than EleKiera. With both 5*+2 and Athena faith, Talilock has 6342 base HP whereas EleKiera has 5305 base HP. This means that Talilock will be able to deal at least 19.24*6342=122020 dmg in 1 HP bar whereas EleKiera only deals 70397 dmg in 1 HP bar.

So what is the significance of doing such analysis? It is to emphasize how heavy/negative having a high skill CD is. The higher a hero's skill CD, the more damage the hero will have to take to deal back any significant damage. Again, this may not be so accurate for heroes whose auras have a % chance to deal damage, have cc/utility options or take tiny damage due to extremely high DEF, but for those heroes who are almost entirely reliant on their active skill AND regularly takes a ton of regular normal attack damage from enemies *ahem*EleKiera*ahem*, the power of the active skill required to justify a skill CD as long as 7 or 6 turns must be completely insane, almost a immediate win-condition kind of skill, or else it is simply not justifiable to include that hero in a squad, or at least their flexibility will be greatly hindered as they are restricted to being used in teams that can mitigate enough damage via heals or defensive auras/skills for the OS ratio to actually reach a reasonable amount as compared to other damage-dealing mages. 

"1 HP" syndrome and negative synergy of blanket AoE dmg at later turns
Most RPGs nowadays, including VF run the "1 HP" syndrome, where characters pretty much perform as well when they are at max HP as when they are at 1 HP. They only "lose functionality" when they get to 0 HP, where they become unable to do anything. Hence, if given the chance to reduce the HP of 5 enemies by 50% each or to kill off 2 of the 5 enemies outright and deal nothing to the rest, the latter option is generally speaking, the wiser option. 

The main point here is that, as the turns of a round increase, more and more enemies die off, thus blanket AoE dmg becomes less and less desirable as compared to "smart" damage. "Smart" damage refers to missile-type spells in VF, where the spell guarantees the total damage dealt, but randomizes which enemies get hit. These "smart" spells don't work that well at the "early-game", when there are lots of enemy units, all of them at pretty healthy HP. This is when you want to use blanket AoE dmg skills such as EleKiera's active. But when enemies start dying one by one and get left with 3 or 4 hard-to-kill ones at the end, EleKiera's blanket AoE would suffer a great reduction in damage due to a lack of targets, whereas "smart" damage skills used by both Ronans and Talilock's Twilight Sentinel thrive in such situations. And guess what, skill CDs of 6 and 7 generally tend to land you in such situations, especially in event and other PvE boss maps. Basically what I am getting at is, EleKiera's skill is not the most optimal damage spell to use usually by the time it is turn 7, missile spells from Ronan and Talilock far outshine her when the number of targets are low.

<More to come....>
EDIT: Given that so many have already posted below me, I shall continue on a new post

I have some agree & disagree with ur analysis, but seriously 10/10 for shizu magebane?,  really? perfect?. in what scenario is that?, meanwhile Kiera 4/10?, 8.5/10 for assasin shizu, compare to dragooon freiya 6.5/10?, i really like how u presented ur analysis, but i really hope u also give the depth in ur analysis, bcs a visualize scenario of formation & etc, might be can help to give more weight to ur score.
Just my 2 cents

<continued from previous post>

On balance and roles
This is in part a response to freydom's post below my previous post. I totally disagree with the point that we should give special consideration to those who own the overpowered heroes when thinking about whether or not to nerf them. There are ridiculously many reasons not to do so. For one, every hero is at least owned by somebody out there, so any nerf will impact someone's experience negatively, so does that mean we should not nerf heroes at all? Or if you choose to say, we protect the heroes that more people own than those that less people own (judging from your ‘One way to counter those heroes are often to use those same heroes.’), this will eventually lead to a meta where all the relevant players are playing with pretty much the exact same squads, with no chance for those who do not own these overpowered heroes. This would stale the community and reduce enjoyment because bad gem-rolls would hurt players much more. It would rob players the ability to make meaningful choices

When you talk about " And top arena ranks are filled with guardians anyway, by that form of measure, does that mean we should nerf or limit number of guardians one can use?", we come into the discussion of balance and diversity. Balance on its own is very simple. Make every single hero have the exact same stats and skills, just have different names and we are done with balance. But when balance meets diversity, when players are given choices to how they want to play, balance becomes a non-linear metric. Balance in the environment of diversity will have to address the relative strength of heroes within that diversity of play, or in other words, their different strengths and weaknesses in each possible aspect of the game. So, we can classify imbalance into two categories. Specialized imbalance and blanket imbalance. Specialized imbalance is when a hero is extremely strong or even indispensable for one or two specific and sometimes niche role in the game. Example, SW Kahuna. Without SW Kahuna, SDD is simply impossible, but then again, SW Kahuna is really only useful in that way. He lacks the flexibility to be an strong pick in a most squad archetypes for various PvE and PvP maps. Specialized imbalance is simple to deal with, sometimes even a good thing as it allows for extreme minmaxing of the game. Blanket imbalance is when a hero is not necessarily extremely strong in a certain aspect of the game, but proves to be an auto-include in more than 50% of the squad archetypes in meta. Such heroes usually provide something very flexible that can fit into almost any squad and has raw output or raw cc that far outshines all other alternatives in both PvE and PvP. Examples include both Fayes, Talilock and GS Kane/Cybella. Blanket imbalance, as compared to specialized imbalance, is far more terrible. It encourages homogeneity of player squads and emphasizes the power of luck in RNG hero rolls.  With this, I will answer freydom that when top arena ranks are filled with guardians, we should specifically nerf those guardians whom are used heavily in arena as well as outside arena (hi Fayes) while leaving those Guardians who are pretty much only useful in arena and maybe 1 other niche area alone (hi CK Darrion/Victoria).

With that settled, let me now move into what I mean by "flexibility" and "better solidify xxx's role" when I said such in my valiant revamp evaluations. From the previously mentioned specialized imbalance, we have an idea of a hero being especially strong at a certain thing. This is called a hero's role or primary role. Solidifying a role means that this hero would now be much better or more consistent in performing this role, while flexibility means that this hero is now able to work better or more consistently outside of his role(s). While it is good for heroes to be more specialized and have solidified roles, going overboard can also lead to role monopoly, where ONLY that hero is viable to play that role (hi SW Kahuna). This is inherently a bad thing because it punishes those who are unable to get these heroes via rolls. How much it punishes depends on whether there are alternative squad archetypes that are equally effective as the one made unavailable by the monopoly. In layman terms, if I don't get any Kahuna in 3 gem 10x summons, am I able to use what I may get from the 3 gem 10x summons to make a team that is somewhat equivalent to a Kahuna SDD team? Of course, there is also the question of whether such a team is even needed in the first place, but my assumption is that every squad archetype that exists, exists to serve an in-game purpose. Hence, more flexible heroes that do not have strong specialties so-called "have a market". They fill the gap where the absolute best hero for the job are unavailable, and where they are weaker than those heroes, they makeup for it by able to be included in more squad archetypes. However, going overboard on flexibility is equally troubling, as heroes that are too much Jack-of-all-trades will generally end up being able to fulfill no role properly, and when these heroes get rolled by players, they are essentially "pack-fillers" that don't really contribute to anything. On the other hand, if a hero becomes a Master-of-all-trades because he/she is extremely flexible yet can still outshine other heroes with less flexibility at the same role, then we get to the aforementioned problem of blanket imbalance, where this hero becomes an auto-include in more than half the squad archetypes in meta and creates too much homogeneity between players. Therefore, we want a good spectrum of heroes, some more specialized, some more flexible, but not overperforming in both nor underperforming in either. 

<next I will give some of my own suggestions to the valiant revamp, more to come...>

Ok, so just to reconfirm what Genez has discussed in a more comprehensive manner, the full damage calculation formula for normal attacks is:
(<Attacker's ATK> - <Defender's DEF>)*(1 + <amplification>%)*(1 - <reduction>%)

Disclaimer: This will be a long post
Contents:
Section 1) Evaluations of the proposed changes to Valiants
Section 2) Explain some fundamental principles/tools I use to evaluate heroes
Section 3) A little bit of my own suggestions

Section 1: Evaluations

Darrion - Holy Defender
Active (5-turn CD):
- Remove bonus effects from all enemies
- Increase DEF of this hero or ally by 60/70/80% of hero's DEF for 3 turns
- Removes negative effects from party

Evaluation: Purging enemies is a good addition, yet not a unique interaction. Improving DEF of ally is a good change to improve the HDarrion's compatibility. However, the loss of global taunt is too great of an exchange. This version of HDarrion can only protect 1 target for 3 turns after a 5-turn CD as compared to the old one, where unless the taunt is resisted, HDarrion can protect the entire party with a 5-turn CD skill. The dispelling of debuffs on own team is rather lackluster, and can also be redundant when combined with the enemy purging effect, since rarely there are enemies that both buff themselves AND debuff your team at the same time. Sure it does make this skill more flexible, able to deal with both buffs and debuffs, but the 5-turn CD is not exactly a short one. Overall, the purge+dispel effects combined are not enough to warrant the removal of a global taunt, and while the single-target DEF buff is great to have, it is still too low-impact even when combined with the purge+dispel.

Overall rating: 2/10, this version of HDarrion can't really defend his team
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Darrion - Chaos Knight
Active (5-turn CD): 
- Delay enemy skill counter by 2 turns
- Swaps position of hero and enemy
- Deals magic damage equal to 140/160/180% of hero's DEF to enemy

Evaluation: The main change here being the delaying of enemy skill counter is definitely very much a positive change. The old taunt was single-target and rather meaningless especially considering CK Darrion's swap effect. However, this change makes CK Darrion pretty much the same as CK Aden, with the swap being a replacement for Aden's pull. If we do a rough damage calculation, 100% of a 5*+2 Hercules CK Aden's HP is 9208 whereas 180% of a 5*+2 Kratos CK Darrion's DEF (also counting an extra 15% DEF from his own aura) is 8416. The damage difference is about 1k, and thus unless Darrion's swap is miles better than Aden's pull, which I would argue that they are about the same. Even if we give Darrion's swap a slight edge to counteract the difference in damage, CK Darrion's active ends up being only a roughly-equal counterpart to CK Aden's active, which for a Valiant, is embarrassing to say the least.

Overall rating: 3.5/10, this version of CK Darrion is just a slightly different version of CK Aden
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Freya - Dragoon
Active (6-turn CD): 

- Leaps onto an empty tile, dealing damage around it equal to 160% of Hero's ATK (8 tile AOE radius)
- Stuns Enemies, disabling those affected for 2 turn(s).
- Refresh this hero

Aura:
When Hero attacks, there is a 40% chance to:
- Trigger Everyone in aura to Stun an enemy for 1 turn(s).
- Increase ATK of Everyone in Aura by 15% of Hero's ATK for 2 turn(s).


Evaluation: The slight damage buff and improvement to hit 8 tiles all-around is awesome. The 100% increase in stun duration puts the icing on the cake and secures FreyDragoon as the go-to option for hard-CC amongst Champions. However, this makes it such that the refresh effect is pretty overpowered as an addition to the already powerful kit, given that refresh can be insanely powerful given the right minmaxing. The aura buff to 40% is also a great step forward in the cc department, further solidifying FreyDragoon's ability to play her role before her skill is off CD. Similarly, the 15% ATK buff to the entire squad is easily overkill just like the refresh.

Overall rating: 6.5/10, this version of FreyDragoon is so powerful that she will wreak havoc in PvE and PvP alike, able to control the battlefield via consistent stuns while also giving the whole team a significant ATK buff. Her active skill is pretty much a one-skill-win-condition in PvP (being a perfect set-up skill before casting massive AoE damage skills, denying enemies 2 turns of defensive skill responses) and a major tide-turner in PvE.
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Freya - Warlord
Active (5-turn CD): 

- Increase ATK of Party by 25% of Hero's ATK for 2 turn(s).
- Pulls Enemy to empty tile in front of caster.
- Deals magic damage equal to 220% of Hero's ATK to Enemy
Aura:

When Hero attacks, there is a 40% chance to:
Trigger others in aura to attack with 120% of their ATK

Evaluation: The slight damage buff to her active as well as the 2 turn ATK buff is precisely what Freya Warlord needs to stand out. Warlords typically only have a vanilla pull bundled with a single-target damage that is good but nothing mind-shattering like the single-target skill damage Berserkers can put out. If we compare again to CK Aden, this is really underpowered since CK Aden also reduces the enemy skill counter on top of this. By adding a slight team ATK buff to Warlords, it solidifies Freya Warlord's role as a supporting attacker that relies on teammates more than herself. The improvement to her Aura feels like a little bit overbuffed since the increase in percentage of allies' ATK is more than 30%, especially when considering that this is on top of a 15% party-wide ATK buff on a 5-turn CD.

Overall rating: 8.5/10, this version of Freya Warlord would be very balanced and competitive in any squad that relies on iterative normal attacks, with her aura trigger being potentially crazy overpowered given certain situations (*ahem*Svenzerker&Wyvern*ahem*).
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Shizu - Magebane
Active (6-turn CD): 

- Debuff 40% Mag for 2 turns (3x3 AOE)
- 120-150% Damage based on ATK (3x3 AOE)
- 66% Chance to Stun enemies for 2 turns
Aura:

When Shizu attacks, there is a 35% chance to:
Trigger others in aura to attack with 85% of their attack
Trigger others in aura to stun enemies for 1 turn.

Evaluation: The MAG reduction is the perfect thing to put on a Magebane, given that the class is called, a MAGEBANE. This combined with the increased AoE size compensated with slightly lowered damage and chance to stun as well as a slight consistency buff to her aura trigger makes Shizu Magebane perform more consistently and become more specialized in her role as a mage counter.

Overall rating: 10/10, this version of Shizu Magebane is what I would have expected to be the strongest Magebane.
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Shizu - Assassin
Active (6-turn CD): 

- 100% Chance to stun enemy for 2 turns
- 135% damage over time based on Hero's ATK for 3 turns
- Amplify 25% damage to enemy for 2 turns

Aura:
No change

Evaluation: Firstly, I would like to point out that currently Shizusin does 135% of her CRT in damage EVERY SINGLE TURN for 3 turns, so it's not 135% spread out over 3 turns but rather 135%*3 = 405% over 3 turns. Thus I would word it as either "135% of hero's ATK damage for 3 turns" or "405% of hero's ATK damage over 3 turns" to minimize confusion. Next, this I would say is a rather powerful buff to the Shizusin. A unique 25% damage amp in exchange for the stealth is definitely welcome as it focuses Shizusin towards the single-target application, with stealth being relatively weak given that the main threat is likely to have been stunned by her skill anyway. What is worth discussing is the decision to change her scaling to ATK instead of CRT. Almost all Assassin class hero has skills that scale off CRT, and also have auras that benefit from high CRT. Therefore there was always a dilemma for Assassin users whether to continue to pursue CRT after the Critical Chance cap has been reached. Doing so helps scale the Assassin's skill and aura damage, but provided nothing in terms of physical attack strength or chance to trigger auras that are based on critical strikes, choosing to go for ATK instead would result in the opposite. With this change however, both Shizusin's skill damage and physical attack would be strengthened just by getting higher ATK, which makes her more straightforward to build but also less thought-provoking and customizable.

Overall rating: 8/10, overall very good, damage amp swapping for the stealth is a big plus, but not so sure about the scaling stat change.
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Kane - Gunslinger
Active (4-turn CD): 
- Damage 1 target 120-150% based on ATK
- Stuns 1 target for 2 turns
- Silence Aura 1 target for 2 turns

Aura:
When Kane attacks, 40% chance to trigger
100% damage based on ATK

Evaluation: I do not see why GSKane, out of all the other Valiants, belong in the category that needs buffing. No matter how I see it, the new GSKane is simply overpowered and would do nothing to provide any new way to use GSKane. The aura silence sounds neat but is rather meaningless in PvE since monsters have no auras, and is also pretty overlookable in PvP, since denying 1 enemy character's aura for 2 short turns isn't really doing much with PvP's turn-counting system. This version of GSKane is really just a regular GSKane with beefed up numbers, that's all.

Overall rating: 1/10, unneeded buffs, meaningless additional effects and clearly overpowered
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Kane - Sharpshooter
Active (6-turn CD): 
- Buff ATK 25% based on ATK on self for 3 turns
- Damage 1 target 160-220% based on ATK
- Stealth self for 3 turns

Aura:
For every Ally in aura, buff Kane 15% ATK based on ATK

Evaluation: Similar to Assassins, the current SSKane also faces a weird dilemma or whether one should focus in CRT or ATK. His skill scales on ATK, his role is based in ATK, but both his aura and his active provide bonuses based in CRT. However, the decision SSKane faces is less of choosing between playstyles and more of an optimum output math problem (which can be solved by graph analysis). This is because choosing to focus in CRT or ATK doesn't change SSKane's role in battle rather, just his aggregate physical output. Hence, I welcome the change to streamline SSKane's self-buffs to the ATK stat. In terms of the stealth, I also thinking that this is a great idea to solidify SSKane's role as a specialized sniper.

Overall rating: 10/10, well-streamlined for easier building as well as a unique skill effect that emphasizes his role
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Kiera - Rune Magus
Active (6-turn CD): 

- Damage all 130% based on MAG
- Knockback all 2 tiles
- Spawns wall with HP 210-300% Based on MAG

Aura:
When allies in aura gets hit, 35% chance to trigger
Haste (Reduce 1 CD from Skill CD)

Evaluation: The damage boost and improved knockback on RM Kiera's active is definitely welcome, but the same cannot be said for her new aura. Instead of focusing RM Kiera towards knockback as her main specialty, her new aura introduces Haste. What is unclear is whether the Haste is applied to her or her allies in aura or everyone in aura. Either way, what makes this aura dubious at best is the trigger mechanism. Unless RM Kiera is partied with a bunch of other even more paper heroes, chances are, Kiera herself is a more lucrative target for most enemies regardless of PvE or PvP. This can be easily fixed by making the aura trigger when anyone in aura gets hit instead.

Overall rating: 7/10, active skill good, aura kind of unusable.
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Kiera - Elementalist
Active (6-turn CD): 
- Deals 130-160% damage based on MAG (3x3 radius)
- Burns ground for 50% of MAG for 2 turns (Units that got hit)
- 33% Chance to Stun enemies for 1 turn

Aura:
Buff 20% MAG based on MAG to allies in aura
Buff 10% DEF based on MAG to allies in aura

Evaluation: Again, the current EleKiera buffs the MAG stat of EVERYONE in aura, not just allies. I'll just assume that the new aura also applies to everyone instead of just allies. Having said that, while this is a significant buff to EleKiera's total damage, it is still barely enough to put her into the viable category of damage-dealer mages. The main reasons for this is her low output:survivability ratio as well as her inherent anti-synergy, both of which I will discuss in detail in the next section. Her new aura gives her slightly better survivability and a little bit of flexibility, but it doesn't effectively address EleKiera's main problems, which is what causes her to fall out of favour over other damage-dealing mages. The 33% chance to stun helps a little but is just too inconsistent to be of any real utility.

Overall rating: 4/10, good effort, EleKiera is no doubt better now, but still nowhere near good enough to be used consistently by players for PvP or PvE
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Lucille - Archbishop
Active (4-turn CD): 
- Heals Ally or Self for180-240%of MAG
- Invincible shield 100% for 2 turns (Single Target)
- Cleanse Ally or Self (Single Target)

Evaluation: Good. Good and very good. This buff hits the spot for AB Lucille. Puts her further into her specialty, and makes her good at it.

Overall rating: 10/10, 'nuff said
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Lucille - Spirit Walker
Active (4-turn CD): 
- Cast 10-40% Amplify to all enemies for 2 turns
- Cast Haste -1 CD to an Ally or Self

Aura:
When Hero gets hit, 75% chance to heal 35% based of hero's MAG (Ally and Self)

Evaluation: The active actually gives SW Lucille a very powerful and flexible damage booster, and would pretty much become an auto-include in almost any damage-heavy squad. On the other hand, the relatively difficult-to-use aura makes up for it. Although difficult-to-use, it is not impossible to. It would simply require the squad to include other heroes whom all have higher DEF than SW Lucille. With Athena or Hercules faith on SW Lucille, this may not be a very difficult thing to do.

Overall rating: 9/10, hard to use, but also really strong. A nuanced combination of flexibility and inflexibility that demands smart planning.
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Section 2: Theories and Principles

O/S ratio and skill CDs
Output:survivabiity ratio (O/S ratio) is an analytic tool I use to determine the strength of a hero as a damage dealer. It shows how much damage a character can output versus the damage he/she is likely to take within that same duration. It is mostly only accurate on heroes that deal damage without any cc effects or alternative RNG damage sources since it does not compensate for random-chance damage nor any cc provided. What I call the O/S ratio is defined as:

Cumulative damage output by turn x
-----------------------------------------------
Cumulative damage taken by turn x

I'll use EleKiera as an example since I attribute her weakness mainly to her bad performance of this. A PvE scenario against 6 monster units will be used to demonstrate. For the first 6 turns, EleKiera can merely auto-attack, hence for the first 6 turns she deals about 100+50*3 = 250 dmg per turn in normal attacks (assuming the splash hits 3 targets). In 6 turns she deals a total of 250*6 = 1500 dmg. On the other hand, depending on where your EleKiera is positioned and what your squad lineup is, EleKiera is likely to have taken about 4000 damage from enemy normal attacks. Thus at turn 6, EleKiera's O/S ratio is 1500/4000 = 0.375, this tells us that for each point of HP EleKiera loses, she outputs 0.375 dmg, up to turn 6.

Now let's look at Talissa Warlock's O/S ratio at turn 6. Talilock would have taken slightly less damage as compared to EleKiera because she has much higher base DEF (about 300 more), so maybe about 3500 damage. Her damage for the first three turns will deal slightly less damage than EleKiera, but not by much, about 80+55*3 = 245 dmg (Kiera does 100%+50% to 4 directions while Talissa does 100%+70% to 4 directions). So in 3 turns, Talilockwill deal 245*3 = 735 dmg. On turn 4, Talilock will summon her Twilight Sentinel and deal about 2000 dmg to all 6 enemies for 2 turns. Her twilight sentinel will attack for about 4000 physical damage. Hence by the end of turn 4, Talilock would have racked up 735+2000*6+4500 = 16835 dmg. At turn 5, Talilock and her sentinel both attack for another 4000+245=4245 dmg and her active DoTs for another 2000*6 dmg, bringing it to a total of 16835+4245+2000*6 = 33080 dmg. At turn 6, Talilock uses a normal attack for 245 while her sentinel deals about 7000*3 dmg immediately and DoTs the enemies for another 3000 dmg for 2 turns. This brings Talilock's cumulative damage at turn 6 to 33080+245+7000*3+2000*6 = 66325 dmg. Thus at turn 6, Talilock's O/S ratio would be 66325/3500 = 18.95, so this tells us that for each point of HP Talilock loses, she outputs 18.95 dmg, up to turn 6.

But what happens at turn 7, the supposed turn that EleKiera starts to take everything back? Let's see...EleKiera casts her huge nuke, dealing 9000 dmg to all 6 targets for a total of 54000 damage, bringing her to 55500 dmg, and following the previously established rate of taking damage, she would have taken another 666 dmg, racking the damage she would have taken by turn 7 to 4666. Hence, EleKiera's turn 7 O/S ratio is 55500/4666 = 11.895, which is pretty respectable, but nothing in comparison with Talilock's O/S ratio at turn 6. Also, on turn 7, Talilock would have dealt an addtional 2000*6 DoT dmg plus 245 normal attack, which brings her O/S ratio to 78570/4083 = 19.24, still miles ahead of EleKiera. On Turn 8, EleKiera gets another 2500*6+250 dmg, reaching an O/S ratio of 70750/5332 = 13.27. Talilock on the other hand, summons her Twilight Sentinel again, dealing 2000*6+4000 dmg, reaching an OS ratio of 94570/4666 = 20.27. It should be quite obvious by this point of time that there is no way for EleKiera to even come close to Talilock's O/S ratio at no matter what turn after turn 3. Hopefully from this it can also be seen that improving the burn damage over time of EleKiera by anything less than +60% of MAG is not going to make anything different because unless your EleKiera plays as a suicide bomber and pretty much dies right after casting her active, the fact that it takes an entire turn to deal the burn damage makes it such that she will be taking lots and lots of damage before she can deal any significant amount. Also, some may have realized that throughout the entire calculation process, I have not even put in Talilock's dmg from her aura, which can be rather unstable but is still far more significant than her normal attack damage.

To better utilize the O/S ratio, one can multiply the O/S ratio at the turn that the hero's actions start to cycle by the HP pool of your hero to find out how much potential damage is possible within 1 full HP bar. And this is where it gets totally laughable for EleKiera versus Talilock. Talilock actually has better base HP pool than EleKiera. With both 5*+2 and Athena faith, Talilock has 6342 base HP whereas EleKiera has 5305 base HP. This means that Talilock will be able to deal at least 19.24*6342=122020 dmg in 1 HP bar whereas EleKiera only deals 70397 dmg in 1 HP bar.

So what is the significance of doing such analysis? It is to emphasize how heavy/negative having a high skill CD is. The higher a hero's skill CD, the more damage the hero will have to take to deal back any significant damage. Again, this may not be so accurate for heroes whose auras have a % chance to deal damage, have cc/utility options or take tiny damage due to extremely high DEF, but for those heroes who are almost entirely reliant on their active skill AND regularly takes a ton of regular normal attack damage from enemies *ahem*EleKiera*ahem*, the power of the active skill required to justify a skill CD as long as 7 or 6 turns must be completely insane, almost a immediate win-condition kind of skill, or else it is simply not justifiable to include that hero in a squad, or at least their flexibility will be greatly hindered as they are restricted to being used in teams that can mitigate enough damage via heals or defensive auras/skills for the OS ratio to actually reach a reasonable amount as compared to other damage-dealing mages. 

"1 HP" syndrome and negative synergy of blanket AoE dmg at later turns
Most RPGs nowadays, including VF run the "1 HP" syndrome, where characters pretty much perform as well when they are at max HP as when they are at 1 HP. They only "lose functionality" when they get to 0 HP, where they become unable to do anything. Hence, if given the chance to reduce the HP of 5 enemies by 50% each or to kill off 2 of the 5 enemies outright and deal nothing to the rest, the latter option is generally speaking, the wiser option. 

The main point here is that, as the turns of a round increase, more and more enemies die off, thus blanket AoE dmg becomes less and less desirable as compared to "smart" damage. "Smart" damage refers to missile-type spells in VF, where the spell guarantees the total damage dealt, but randomizes which enemies get hit. These "smart" spells don't work that well at the "early-game", when there are lots of enemy units, all of them at pretty healthy HP. This is when you want to use blanket AoE dmg skills such as EleKiera's active. But when enemies start dying one by one and get left with 3 or 4 hard-to-kill ones at the end, EleKiera's blanket AoE would suffer a great reduction in damage due to a lack of targets, whereas "smart" damage skills used by both Ronans and Talilock's Twilight Sentinel thrive in such situations. And guess what, skill CDs of 6 and 7 generally tend to land you in such situations, especially in event and other PvE boss maps. Basically what I am getting at is, EleKiera's skill is not the most optimal damage spell to use usually by the time it is turn 7, missile spells from Ronan and Talilock far outshine her when the number of targets are low.

<More to come....>
EDIT: Given that so many have already posted below me, I shall continue on a new post

I have some agree & disagree with ur analysis, but seriously 10/10 for shizu magebane?,  really? perfect?. in what scenario is that?, meanwhile Kiera 4/10?, 8.5/10 for assasin shizu, compare to dragooon freiya 6.5/10?, i really like how u presented ur analysis, but i really hope u also give the depth in ur analysis, bcs a visualize scenario of formation & etc, might be can help to give more weight to ur score.
Just my 2 cents

My main evaluation consideration is the viability of the valiant to be used in various scenarios the game provides. The rating rates how good the proposed changes are in terms of 
1. Making that hero perform better at his/her role, more consistency or potency
2. Allowing that hero more flexibility to be included in more squad archetypes
3. Making that hero unique, since these are supposed to be valiants.
4. Whether the revamped hero would be over or underpowered

Hence the 10/10 for Shizu Magebane isn't with respect to one specific scenario, but rather because it provides a strong niche that Shizu Magebane is unique in (heavily reducing enemy MAG) and makes her consistent and potent at this job (the 3x3 AoE). At the same time, she isn't overpowered by these new buffs because the chance to stun from her active has been reduced, and her flexibility to be included in different squad archetypes has been slightly boosted by improving the rate of her aura triggering. I believe that these place the revamped Shizu Magebane in a good spot to be a strong pickup for anti-mage squads and also a highly possible inclusion in stun-based or trigger-attack-based squads. You asked for a tad too many further explanations for my overall ratings, and I think my original post has some rather comprehensive evaluations written already, so I'll just explain in detail one more. Which will be EleKiera.

EleKiera, with the revamp, still has no uniqueness to the hero herself, but she has become more consistent in being able to perform (increased DEF improves chances of surviving to turn 7) but potency-wise she's still pretty much at the bottom of the barrel, being unable to compete with Talilock or the Ronans for reasons that I have explained in section 2. The revamp gave her more flexibility as well, being able to boost the DEF of those in her aura, but not by much since EleKiera does not really have a need for this extra flexibility since she is already struggling at her own role. With low normal attack, low practical magical output (low O/S ratio), average survivability and a tiny bit of RNG utility (33% chance to stun), the revamped EleKiera would still be hard to include in most squad archetypes. Simply put, making her slightly more tanky isn't going to solve the problem of her not being able to match the damage output of her peers. Therefore despite ultimately still being almost as bad as she was before the revamp, the EleKiera revamp deserves an A for effort, and given the increased flexibility, I give this revamp a 4/10.

EDIT: I noticed that you talked about using EleKiera purely for her aura MAG buff before. While I'm not sure how efficient this inclusion or squad archetype is, I would like to point out that the revamped EleKiera actually buffs everyone in her aura by 5% less MAG, which actually hurts her application in such squads. 

Ok, so just to reconfirm what Genez has discussed in a more comprehensive manner, the full damage calculation formula for normal attacks is:
(<Attacker's ATK> - <Defender's DEF>)*(1 + <amplification>%)*(1 - <reduction>%)

Disclaimer: This will be a long post
Contents:
Section 1) Evaluations of the proposed changes to Valiants
Section 2) Explain some fundamental principles/tools I use to evaluate heroes
Section 3) A little bit of my own suggestions

Section 1: Evaluations

Darrion - Holy Defender
Active (5-turn CD):
- Remove bonus effects from all enemies
- Increase DEF of this hero or ally by 60/70/80% of hero's DEF for 3 turns
- Removes negative effects from party

Evaluation: Purging enemies is a good addition, yet not a unique interaction. Improving DEF of ally is a good change to improve the HDarrion's compatibility. However, the loss of global taunt is too great of an exchange. This version of HDarrion can only protect 1 target for 3 turns after a 5-turn CD as compared to the old one, where unless the taunt is resisted, HDarrion can protect the entire party with a 5-turn CD skill. The dispelling of debuffs on own team is rather lackluster, and can also be redundant when combined with the enemy purging effect, since rarely there are enemies that both buff themselves AND debuff your team at the same time. Sure it does make this skill more flexible, able to deal with both buffs and debuffs, but the 5-turn CD is not exactly a short one. Overall, the purge+dispel effects combined are not enough to warrant the removal of a global taunt, and while the single-target DEF buff is great to have, it is still too low-impact even when combined with the purge+dispel.

Overall rating: 2/10, this version of HDarrion can't really defend his team
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Darrion - Chaos Knight
Active (5-turn CD): 
- Delay enemy skill counter by 2 turns
- Swaps position of hero and enemy
- Deals magic damage equal to 140/160/180% of hero's DEF to enemy

Evaluation: The main change here being the delaying of enemy skill counter is definitely very much a positive change. The old taunt was single-target and rather meaningless especially considering CK Darrion's swap effect. However, this change makes CK Darrion pretty much the same as CK Aden, with the swap being a replacement for Aden's pull. If we do a rough damage calculation, 100% of a 5*+2 Hercules CK Aden's HP is 9208 whereas 180% of a 5*+2 Kratos CK Darrion's DEF (also counting an extra 15% DEF from his own aura) is 8416. The damage difference is about 1k, and thus unless Darrion's swap is miles better than Aden's pull, which I would argue that they are about the same. Even if we give Darrion's swap a slight edge to counteract the difference in damage, CK Darrion's active ends up being only a roughly-equal counterpart to CK Aden's active, which for a Valiant, is embarrassing to say the least.

Overall rating: 3.5/10, this version of CK Darrion is just a slightly different version of CK Aden
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Freya - Dragoon
Active (6-turn CD): 

- Leaps onto an empty tile, dealing damage around it equal to 160% of Hero's ATK (8 tile AOE radius)
- Stuns Enemies, disabling those affected for 2 turn(s).
- Refresh this hero

Aura:
When Hero attacks, there is a 40% chance to:
- Trigger Everyone in aura to Stun an enemy for 1 turn(s).
- Increase ATK of Everyone in Aura by 15% of Hero's ATK for 2 turn(s).


Evaluation: The slight damage buff and improvement to hit 8 tiles all-around is awesome. The 100% increase in stun duration puts the icing on the cake and secures FreyDragoon as the go-to option for hard-CC amongst Champions. However, this makes it such that the refresh effect is pretty overpowered as an addition to the already powerful kit, given that refresh can be insanely powerful given the right minmaxing. The aura buff to 40% is also a great step forward in the cc department, further solidifying FreyDragoon's ability to play her role before her skill is off CD. Similarly, the 15% ATK buff to the entire squad is easily overkill just like the refresh.

Overall rating: 6.5/10, this version of FreyDragoon is so powerful that she will wreak havoc in PvE and PvP alike, able to control the battlefield via consistent stuns while also giving the whole team a significant ATK buff. Her active skill is pretty much a one-skill-win-condition in PvP (being a perfect set-up skill before casting massive AoE damage skills, denying enemies 2 turns of defensive skill responses) and a major tide-turner in PvE.
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Freya - Warlord
Active (5-turn CD): 

- Increase ATK of Party by 25% of Hero's ATK for 2 turn(s).
- Pulls Enemy to empty tile in front of caster.
- Deals magic damage equal to 220% of Hero's ATK to Enemy
Aura:

When Hero attacks, there is a 40% chance to:
Trigger others in aura to attack with 120% of their ATK

Evaluation: The slight damage buff to her active as well as the 2 turn ATK buff is precisely what Freya Warlord needs to stand out. Warlords typically only have a vanilla pull bundled with a single-target damage that is good but nothing mind-shattering like the single-target skill damage Berserkers can put out. If we compare again to CK Aden, this is really underpowered since CK Aden also reduces the enemy skill counter on top of this. By adding a slight team ATK buff to Warlords, it solidifies Freya Warlord's role as a supporting attacker that relies on teammates more than herself. The improvement to her Aura feels like a little bit overbuffed since the increase in percentage of allies' ATK is more than 30%, especially when considering that this is on top of a 15% party-wide ATK buff on a 5-turn CD.

Overall rating: 8.5/10, this version of Freya Warlord would be very balanced and competitive in any squad that relies on iterative normal attacks, with her aura trigger being potentially crazy overpowered given certain situations (*ahem*Svenzerker&Wyvern*ahem*).
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Shizu - Magebane
Active (6-turn CD): 

- Debuff 40% Mag for 2 turns (3x3 AOE)
- 120-150% Damage based on ATK (3x3 AOE)
- 66% Chance to Stun enemies for 2 turns
Aura:

When Shizu attacks, there is a 35% chance to:
Trigger others in aura to attack with 85% of their attack
Trigger others in aura to stun enemies for 1 turn.

Evaluation: The MAG reduction is the perfect thing to put on a Magebane, given that the class is called, a MAGEBANE. This combined with the increased AoE size compensated with slightly lowered damage and chance to stun as well as a slight consistency buff to her aura trigger makes Shizu Magebane perform more consistently and become more specialized in her role as a mage counter.

Overall rating: 10/10, this version of Shizu Magebane is what I would have expected to be the strongest Magebane.
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Shizu - Assassin
Active (6-turn CD): 

- 100% Chance to stun enemy for 2 turns
- 135% damage over time based on Hero's ATK for 3 turns
- Amplify 25% damage to enemy for 2 turns

Aura:
No change

Evaluation: Firstly, I would like to point out that currently Shizusin does 135% of her CRT in damage EVERY SINGLE TURN for 3 turns, so it's not 135% spread out over 3 turns but rather 135%*3 = 405% over 3 turns. Thus I would word it as either "135% of hero's ATK damage for 3 turns" or "405% of hero's ATK damage over 3 turns" to minimize confusion. Next, this I would say is a rather powerful buff to the Shizusin. A unique 25% damage amp in exchange for the stealth is definitely welcome as it focuses Shizusin towards the single-target application, with stealth being relatively weak given that the main threat is likely to have been stunned by her skill anyway. What is worth discussing is the decision to change her scaling to ATK instead of CRT. Almost all Assassin class hero has skills that scale off CRT, and also have auras that benefit from high CRT. Therefore there was always a dilemma for Assassin users whether to continue to pursue CRT after the Critical Chance cap has been reached. Doing so helps scale the Assassin's skill and aura damage, but provided nothing in terms of physical attack strength or chance to trigger auras that are based on critical strikes, choosing to go for ATK instead would result in the opposite. With this change however, both Shizusin's skill damage and physical attack would be strengthened just by getting higher ATK, which makes her more straightforward to build but also less thought-provoking and customizable.

Overall rating: 8/10, overall very good, damage amp swapping for the stealth is a big plus, but not so sure about the scaling stat change.
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Kane - Gunslinger
Active (4-turn CD): 
- Damage 1 target 120-150% based on ATK
- Stuns 1 target for 2 turns
- Silence Aura 1 target for 2 turns

Aura:
When Kane attacks, 40% chance to trigger
100% damage based on ATK

Evaluation: I do not see why GSKane, out of all the other Valiants, belong in the category that needs buffing. No matter how I see it, the new GSKane is simply overpowered and would do nothing to provide any new way to use GSKane. The aura silence sounds neat but is rather meaningless in PvE since monsters have no auras, and is also pretty overlookable in PvP, since denying 1 enemy character's aura for 2 short turns isn't really doing much with PvP's turn-counting system. This version of GSKane is really just a regular GSKane with beefed up numbers, that's all.

Overall rating: 1/10, unneeded buffs, meaningless additional effects and clearly overpowered
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Kane - Sharpshooter
Active (6-turn CD): 
- Buff ATK 25% based on ATK on self for 3 turns
- Damage 1 target 160-220% based on ATK
- Stealth self for 3 turns

Aura:
For every Ally in aura, buff Kane 15% ATK based on ATK

Evaluation: Similar to Assassins, the current SSKane also faces a weird dilemma or whether one should focus in CRT or ATK. His skill scales on ATK, his role is based in ATK, but both his aura and his active provide bonuses based in CRT. However, the decision SSKane faces is less of choosing between playstyles and more of an optimum output math problem (which can be solved by graph analysis). This is because choosing to focus in CRT or ATK doesn't change SSKane's role in battle rather, just his aggregate physical output. Hence, I welcome the change to streamline SSKane's self-buffs to the ATK stat. In terms of the stealth, I also thinking that this is a great idea to solidify SSKane's role as a specialized sniper.

Overall rating: 10/10, well-streamlined for easier building as well as a unique skill effect that emphasizes his role
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Kiera - Rune Magus
Active (6-turn CD): 

- Damage all 130% based on MAG
- Knockback all 2 tiles
- Spawns wall with HP 210-300% Based on MAG

Aura:
When allies in aura gets hit, 35% chance to trigger
Haste (Reduce 1 CD from Skill CD)

Evaluation: The damage boost and improved knockback on RM Kiera's active is definitely welcome, but the same cannot be said for her new aura. Instead of focusing RM Kiera towards knockback as her main specialty, her new aura introduces Haste. What is unclear is whether the Haste is applied to her or her allies in aura or everyone in aura. Either way, what makes this aura dubious at best is the trigger mechanism. Unless RM Kiera is partied with a bunch of other even more paper heroes, chances are, Kiera herself is a more lucrative target for most enemies regardless of PvE or PvP. This can be easily fixed by making the aura trigger when anyone in aura gets hit instead.

Overall rating: 7/10, active skill good, aura kind of unusable.
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Kiera - Elementalist
Active (6-turn CD): 
- Deals 130-160% damage based on MAG (3x3 radius)
- Burns ground for 50% of MAG for 2 turns (Units that got hit)
- 33% Chance to Stun enemies for 1 turn

Aura:
Buff 20% MAG based on MAG to allies in aura
Buff 10% DEF based on MAG to allies in aura

Evaluation: Again, the current EleKiera buffs the MAG stat of EVERYONE in aura, not just allies. I'll just assume that the new aura also applies to everyone instead of just allies. Having said that, while this is a significant buff to EleKiera's total damage, it is still barely enough to put her into the viable category of damage-dealer mages. The main reasons for this is her low output:survivability ratio as well as her inherent anti-synergy, both of which I will discuss in detail in the next section. Her new aura gives her slightly better survivability and a little bit of flexibility, but it doesn't effectively address EleKiera's main problems, which is what causes her to fall out of favour over other damage-dealing mages. The 33% chance to stun helps a little but is just too inconsistent to be of any real utility.

Overall rating: 4/10, good effort, EleKiera is no doubt better now, but still nowhere near good enough to be used consistently by players for PvP or PvE
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Lucille - Archbishop
Active (4-turn CD): 
- Heals Ally or Self for180-240%of MAG
- Invincible shield 100% for 2 turns (Single Target)
- Cleanse Ally or Self (Single Target)

Evaluation: Good. Good and very good. This buff hits the spot for AB Lucille. Puts her further into her specialty, and makes her good at it.

Overall rating: 10/10, 'nuff said
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Lucille - Spirit Walker
Active (4-turn CD): 
- Cast 10-40% Amplify to all enemies for 2 turns
- Cast Haste -1 CD to an Ally or Self

Aura:
When Hero gets hit, 75% chance to heal 35% based of hero's MAG (Ally and Self)

Evaluation: The active actually gives SW Lucille a very powerful and flexible damage booster, and would pretty much become an auto-include in almost any damage-heavy squad. On the other hand, the relatively difficult-to-use aura makes up for it. Although difficult-to-use, it is not impossible to. It would simply require the squad to include other heroes whom all have higher DEF than SW Lucille. With Athena or Hercules faith on SW Lucille, this may not be a very difficult thing to do.

Overall rating: 9/10, hard to use, but also really strong. A nuanced combination of flexibility and inflexibility that demands smart planning.
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Section 2: Theories and Principles

O/S ratio and skill CDs
Output:survivabiity ratio (O/S ratio) is an analytic tool I use to determine the strength of a hero as a damage dealer. It shows how much damage a character can output versus the damage he/she is likely to take within that same duration. It is mostly only accurate on heroes that deal damage without any cc effects or alternative RNG damage sources since it does not compensate for random-chance damage nor any cc provided. What I call the O/S ratio is defined as:

Cumulative damage output by turn x
-----------------------------------------------
Cumulative damage taken by turn x

I'll use EleKiera as an example since I attribute her weakness mainly to her bad performance of this. A PvE scenario against 6 monster units will be used to demonstrate. For the first 6 turns, EleKiera can merely auto-attack, hence for the first 6 turns she deals about 100+50*3 = 250 dmg per turn in normal attacks (assuming the splash hits 3 targets). In 6 turns she deals a total of 250*6 = 1500 dmg. On the other hand, depending on where your EleKiera is positioned and what your squad lineup is, EleKiera is likely to have taken about 4000 damage from enemy normal attacks. Thus at turn 6, EleKiera's O/S ratio is 1500/4000 = 0.375, this tells us that for each point of HP EleKiera loses, she outputs 0.375 dmg, up to turn 6.

Now let's look at Talissa Warlock's O/S ratio at turn 6. Talilock would have taken slightly less damage as compared to EleKiera because she has much higher base DEF (about 300 more), so maybe about 3500 damage. Her damage for the first three turns will deal slightly less damage than EleKiera, but not by much, about 80+55*3 = 245 dmg (Kiera does 100%+50% to 4 directions while Talissa does 100%+70% to 4 directions). So in 3 turns, Talilockwill deal 245*3 = 735 dmg. On turn 4, Talilock will summon her Twilight Sentinel and deal about 2000 dmg to all 6 enemies for 2 turns. Her twilight sentinel will attack for about 4000 physical damage. Hence by the end of turn 4, Talilock would have racked up 735+2000*6+4500 = 16835 dmg. At turn 5, Talilock and her sentinel both attack for another 4000+245=4245 dmg and her active DoTs for another 2000*6 dmg, bringing it to a total of 16835+4245+2000*6 = 33080 dmg. At turn 6, Talilock uses a normal attack for 245 while her sentinel deals about 7000*3 dmg immediately and DoTs the enemies for another 3000 dmg for 2 turns. This brings Talilock's cumulative damage at turn 6 to 33080+245+7000*3+2000*6 = 66325 dmg. Thus at turn 6, Talilock's O/S ratio would be 66325/3500 = 18.95, so this tells us that for each point of HP Talilock loses, she outputs 18.95 dmg, up to turn 6.

But what happens at turn 7, the supposed turn that EleKiera starts to take everything back? Let's see...EleKiera casts her huge nuke, dealing 9000 dmg to all 6 targets for a total of 54000 damage, bringing her to 55500 dmg, and following the previously established rate of taking damage, she would have taken another 666 dmg, racking the damage she would have taken by turn 7 to 4666. Hence, EleKiera's turn 7 O/S ratio is 55500/4666 = 11.895, which is pretty respectable, but nothing in comparison with Talilock's O/S ratio at turn 6. Also, on turn 7, Talilock would have dealt an addtional 2000*6 DoT dmg plus 245 normal attack, which brings her O/S ratio to 78570/4083 = 19.24, still miles ahead of EleKiera. On Turn 8, EleKiera gets another 2500*6+250 dmg, reaching an O/S ratio of 70750/5332 = 13.27. Talilock on the other hand, summons her Twilight Sentinel again, dealing 2000*6+4000 dmg, reaching an OS ratio of 94570/4666 = 20.27. It should be quite obvious by this point of time that there is no way for EleKiera to even come close to Talilock's O/S ratio at no matter what turn after turn 3. Hopefully from this it can also be seen that improving the burn damage over time of EleKiera by anything less than +60% of MAG is not going to make anything different because unless your EleKiera plays as a suicide bomber and pretty much dies right after casting her active, the fact that it takes an entire turn to deal the burn damage makes it such that she will be taking lots and lots of damage before she can deal any significant amount. Also, some may have realized that throughout the entire calculation process, I have not even put in Talilock's dmg from her aura, which can be rather unstable but is still far more significant than her normal attack damage.

To better utilize the O/S ratio, one can multiply the O/S ratio at the turn that the hero's actions start to cycle by the HP pool of your hero to find out how much potential damage is possible within 1 full HP bar. And this is where it gets totally laughable for EleKiera versus Talilock. Talilock actually has better base HP pool than EleKiera. With both 5*+2 and Athena faith, Talilock has 6342 base HP whereas EleKiera has 5305 base HP. This means that Talilock will be able to deal at least 19.24*6342=122020 dmg in 1 HP bar whereas EleKiera only deals 70397 dmg in 1 HP bar.

So what is the significance of doing such analysis? It is to emphasize how heavy/negative having a high skill CD is. The higher a hero's skill CD, the more damage the hero will have to take to deal back any significant damage. Again, this may not be so accurate for heroes whose auras have a % chance to deal damage, have cc/utility options or take tiny damage due to extremely high DEF, but for those heroes who are almost entirely reliant on their active skill AND regularly takes a ton of regular normal attack damage from enemies *ahem*EleKiera*ahem*, the power of the active skill required to justify a skill CD as long as 7 or 6 turns must be completely insane, almost a immediate win-condition kind of skill, or else it is simply not justifiable to include that hero in a squad, or at least their flexibility will be greatly hindered as they are restricted to being used in teams that can mitigate enough damage via heals or defensive auras/skills for the OS ratio to actually reach a reasonable amount as compared to other damage-dealing mages. 

"1 HP" syndrome and negative synergy of blanket AoE dmg at later turns
Most RPGs nowadays, including VF run the "1 HP" syndrome, where characters pretty much perform as well when they are at max HP as when they are at 1 HP. They only "lose functionality" when they get to 0 HP, where they become unable to do anything. Hence, if given the chance to reduce the HP of 5 enemies by 50% each or to kill off 2 of the 5 enemies outright and deal nothing to the rest, the latter option is generally speaking, the wiser option. 

The main point here is that, as the turns of a round increase, more and more enemies die off, thus blanket AoE dmg becomes less and less desirable as compared to "smart" damage. "Smart" damage refers to missile-type spells in VF, where the spell guarantees the total damage dealt, but randomizes which enemies get hit. These "smart" spells don't work that well at the "early-game", when there are lots of enemy units, all of them at pretty healthy HP. This is when you want to use blanket AoE dmg skills such as EleKiera's active. But when enemies start dying one by one and get left with 3 or 4 hard-to-kill ones at the end, EleKiera's blanket AoE would suffer a great reduction in damage due to a lack of targets, whereas "smart" damage skills used by both Ronans and Talilock's Twilight Sentinel thrive in such situations. And guess what, skill CDs of 6 and 7 generally tend to land you in such situations, especially in event and other PvE boss maps. Basically what I am getting at is, EleKiera's skill is not the most optimal damage spell to use usually by the time it is turn 7, missile spells from Ronan and Talilock far outshine her when the number of targets are low.

<More to come....>
EDIT: Given that so many have already posted below me, I shall continue on a new post

I have some agree & disagree with ur analysis, but seriously 10/10 for shizu magebane?,  really? perfect?. in what scenario is that?, meanwhile Kiera 4/10?, 8.5/10 for assasin shizu, compare to dragooon freiya 6.5/10?, i really like how u presented ur analysis, but i really hope u also give the depth in ur analysis, bcs a visualize scenario of formation & etc, might be can help to give more weight to ur score.
Just my 2 cents

My main evaluation consideration is the viability of the valiant to be used in various scenarios the game provides. The rating rates how good the proposed changes are in terms of 
1. Making that hero perform better at his/her role, more consistency or potency
2. Allowing that hero more flexibility to be included in more squad archetypes
3. Making that hero unique, since these are supposed to be valiants.
4. Whether the revamped hero would be over or underpowered

Hence the 10/10 for Shizu Magebane isn't with respect to one specific scenario, but rather because it provides a strong niche that Shizu Magebane is unique in (heavily reducing enemy MAG) and makes her consistent and potent at this job (the 3x3 AoE). At the same time, she isn't overpowered by these new buffs because the chance to stun from her active has been reduced, and her flexibility to be included in different squad archetypes has been slightly boosted by improving the rate of her aura triggering. I believe that these place the revamped Shizu Magebane in a good spot to be a strong pickup for anti-mage squads and also a highly possible inclusion in stun-based or trigger-attack-based squads. You asked for a tad too many further explanations for my overall ratings, and I think my original post has some rather comprehensive evaluations written already, so I'll just explain in detail one more. Which will be EleKiera.

EleKiera, with the revamp, still has no uniqueness to the hero herself, but she has become more consistent in being able to perform (increased DEF improves chances of surviving to turn 7) but potency-wise she's still pretty much at the bottom of the barrel, being unable to compete with Talilock or the Ronans for reasons that I have explained in section 2. The revamp gave her more flexibility as well, being able to boost the DEF of those in her aura, but not by much since EleKiera does not really have a need for this extra flexibility since she is already struggling at her own role. With low normal attack, low practical magical output (low O/S ratio), average survivability and a tiny bit of RNG utility (33% chance to stun), the revamped EleKiera would still be hard to include in most squad archetypes. Simply put, making her slightly more tanky isn't going to solve the problem of her not being able to match the damage output of her peers. Therefore despite ultimately still being almost as bad as she was before the revamp, the EleKiera revamp deserves an A for effort, and given the increased flexibility, I give this revamp a 4/10.

EDIT: I noticed that you talked about using EleKiera purely for her aura MAG buff before. While I'm not sure how efficient this inclusion or squad archetype is, I would like to point out that the revamped EleKiera actually buffs everyone in her aura by 5% less MAG, which actually hurts her application in such squads. 

Ok then i will respect ur opinion even i will totally disagree with 10/10 shizu magebane, for EleKiera yes indeed i agree the reducing 5% mag in her aura a bis disheatening for some ppl, but still 4/10?, & in compare to shizu MB 10/10, u might need to see my previous MB shizu & also previous post like gunfrey & he even feel she's underwhelming, for My PoV ur opinion regarding shizu magebane is overwhelming bad just because u give her perfect score & idk do u even play her all this time, because i already have the arguments on my previous post & i already have an opurtunity from MiloD privately to give dev direct opinion so i will not give a fuss regarding shizu MB anymore.
Why i give u a reply? bcs i respect & a fan of ur works(how u presented the analysis), but unfortunately u cross to what i consider underwhelming with a perfect score, it doesn't seems right for me.
If my reply offend u or whatsoever i really deeply apologize, & keep ur good works 

<continued from previous post>

On balance and roles
This is in part a response to freydom's post below my previous post. I totally disagree with the point that we should give special consideration to those who own the overpowered heroes when thinking about whether or not to nerf them. There are ridiculously many reasons not to do so. For one, every hero is at least owned by somebody out there, so any nerf will impact someone's experience negatively, so does that mean we should not nerf heroes at all? Or if you choose to say, we protect the heroes that more people own than those that less people own (judging from your ‘One way to counter those heroes are often to use those same heroes.’), this will eventually lead to a meta where all the relevant players are playing with pretty much the exact same squads, with no chance for those who do not own these overpowered heroes. This would stale the community and reduce enjoyment because bad gem-rolls would hurt players much more. It would rob players the ability to make meaningful choices<next I will give some of my own suggestions to the valiant revamp, more to come...>

I believe we share quite different perspectives on various issues, which is good, since it promotes healthy discussion. I was honestly quite impressed with the ratio you created to evaluate Valiants. But tbh, not so much with this response of yours. Still, I appreciate it

Quote:
"This will eventually lead to a meta where all the relevant players are playing with pretty much the exact same squads, with no chance for those who do not own these overpowered heroes. This would stale the community and reduce enjoyment because bad gem-rolls would hurt players much more. It would rob players the ability to make meaningful choices"

No chance? We have valianites now. Didnt get the hero you want from rolling? Exchange it with valianite. Why would you complain that there are not many meaningful choices available at the moment? There are easily 50 heroes you can choose from to build. While not all heroes are end-game OP, most have sufficient utility for you to clear story mode. As you get higher level, you may get gems more easily, which allow you to roll or get valianites to exchange for heroes you need. Just need some patience.  

If a player is new, dont just expect he/she should catch up with a long time player of 6 months or more with one month of playing without spending much cash. Dont understand why you would make owning a specific hero sound like such a chore in this game. They are even giving out event heroes on event completion. Only heroes less attainable would be the valiants, which I am sure some will start to call for nerfs once the revamps are rolled out and more players test them out. If every little thing that dont seem to go a player way and he ask for it to be nerfed, when will such calls ever end. Really, you make it sound like certain heroes are so OP, there are no existing solutions to them. If you face problems with talissa and sven in arena, then focus on eliminating those heroes first then. If its tough with ur current team, get the necessary heroes, if you still fail, get the equips and runes. Its a journey. No shortcuts. Choices are there, you just choose not to see them or acknowledge them. 


Quote:
"Specialized imbalance is when a hero is extremely strong or even indispensable for one or two specific and sometimes niche role in the game. Example, SW Kahuna. Without SW Kahuna, SDD is simply impossible, but then again, SW Kahuna is really only useful in that way..... Blanket imbalance is when a hero is not necessarily extremely strong in a certain aspect of the game, but proves to be an auto-include in more than 50% of the squad archetypes in meta. Such heroes usually provide something very flexible that can fit into almost any squad and has raw output or raw cc that far outshines all other alternatives in both PvE and PvP. Examples include both Fayes, Talilock and GS Kane/Cybella. Blanket imbalance, as compared to specialized imbalance, is far more terrible."

Just to fact check, you do not need a SW kahuna to run a SDD now that we have matilda WD. Set her up with 2 aura slaves and a drake dragoon and you can still trigger the full 6 min with few or no resets. Kahuna may seemingly be only useful in a SDD, but that is only when you choose to ignore how it can be theoretically possible to create a team with sufficient consistent healing which can trigger any non specific unit to attack dealing heavy single damage with the right equips.  But obviously no one tries such a setup because its non mainstream and extremely costly and impractical. But strictly speaking, its possible. The choice is there. Diversity is there, but not an easy practical build so people dont work on it. People dont make it, doesnt mean it cannot exist. 

Also, with regards to what you say about specific roles can only be filled by 1 hero only, it will be better to paraphrase as specific roles can be best/ideally filled by 1 hero, but there are always alternative. Its just you keep focusing on the best hero to fill a particular role and then claim that the weaker alternatives dont exist. If a new player has no luck on the best hero to fill a certain role, why cant he rely on the lesser heroes first? Why is there the rush to get to end game? If you wish to have better roles and reach end game faster, spend more money. 


I dont mean to be rude, but it comes across to me that you dont seem to be very clear about what is the exact result of the game you want. You claim that more diversity, more choices, units should all be equally versatile and strong so that blanket imbalance- the term you coined, this terrible phenomenon can be reduced or lessened. If every units are to have their own specific unique purpose and not encompass an utility that spreads over a few areas of the game- aka, Blanket Utility( see same phenomenon, change wording, and you have a much more positive outlook) , do you know how costly it will be to play this game as a F2P? That would suggest every player needs to have a variety of units to use for different aspects of the game to be able to enjoy it. Wonder how long that would take. This is definitely very F2P unfriendly, imagining when you already have limited resource, now you need to build a bigger pool of heroes. You sure that is what you want? lol. 


This same diverse but F2P costly result you want ironically contradicts with the ideal homogeneous game you want--- results from your massive nerfing of existing useful heroes be it inside or outside arena. If you havent notice, while the meta is not shifting every other day, the meta doesnt stay stale. And it does not always rotate to the presence of new units. For example, arena meta began with mage, then DPS oriented/ ninja turtle guardian team, archer team, guardians with ronan, summoners, now back to guardian heavy. Meta hasnt been stale, how fast do you want meta to shift? lol. Are you proposing no meta at all? How are the developers going to profit from the game? Make it equally expensive to build every hero you mention? xD. Does that actually make all the players better off? haha
  
 

since valiants are hard to get .... why not just give them a unique mechanic like the summoners........ to make them worth more..... for example a 4 way aura.....or sumtin else that could make them stand out... I like the changes but they dont feel like "valiants"

you could add additional passive on there skills..... party heal for darrions skill, party atk buff for freya, party def for lucille skill and etc

<continued from previous post>

On balance and roles
I totally disagree with the point that we should give special consideration to those who own the overpowered heroes when thinking about whether or not to nerf them. There are ridiculously many reasons not to do so. For one, every hero is at least owned by somebody out there, so any nerf will impact someone's experience negatively, so does that mean we should not nerf heroes at all? Or if you choose to say, we protect the heroes that more people own than those that less people own (judging from your ‘One way to counter those heroes are often to use those same heroes.’), this will eventually lead to a meta where all the relevant players are playing with pretty much the exact same squads, with no chance for those who do not own these overpowered heroes. This would stale the community and reduce enjoyment because bad gem-rolls would hurt players much more. It would rob players the ability to make meaningful choices
While it is good for heroes to be more specialized and have solidified roles, going overboard can also lead to role monopoly, where ONLY that hero is viable to play that role (hi SW Kahuna). This is inherently a bad thing because it punishes those who are unable to get these heroes via rolls. How much it punishes depends on whether there are alternative squad archetypes that are equally effective as the one made unavailable by the monopoly. In layman terms, if I don't get any Kahuna in 3 gem 10x summons, am I able to use what I may get from the 3 gem 10x summons to make a team that is somewhat equivalent to a Kahuna SDD team? 

I totally disagree with the point that we should not give special consideration to those who own the overpowered heroes when thinking about whether or not to nerf them.

For one, this is a gacha game, where people could have possibly spent (a lot of) money just to get the heroes they wanted. Why? Because they are OP/fits their deck/useful/versatile/whatever.

This isn't some of those old school games where their devs can easily nerf a skill/mechanic just because it's OP.

Unless a hero/unit/skill is inherently bugged/not working as intended/allowing you to steamroll all enemies everywhere in one hit, i doubt devs of most gacha games will choose nerfs over buffs simply because there is a very fine line separating nerfing for "the good of the game" vs bait and switch.

The recent summoner nerfs/balancing which i personally see it as "for the good of the game" could easily be interpreted by another guy down the road as a bait and switch (see the people complaining about it and how now the game favors AI and "ruins" their game.)

But why do i see the summoner nerfs as acceptable? Because, to me they were not working as intended in the first place, where the devs brought them out into the mix without considering what extra units will do to the arena. So to me, it is a fixing of an exploitation/broken mechanic which the devs didn't catch on before implementation. And the fact that it is a rule change targeting a group of units instead of homing into any one unit also helps bring it closer to the "side of good".

But zooming in into specific heroes and nerfing them just because they come across as OP compared to other units is a whole different story altogether. People (buy gems to) summon those units and you're saying that the devs should not "give special consideration to those who own the overpowered heroes when thinking about whether or not to nerf them"? If the devs make it a habit of releasing new heroes as OP and then hit them with the nerf gun after people have done their summoning, this game will die even faster than you think.

Nerfs is never a good solution in a game involving gacha and money. Buffing will be more appropriate (and that's what the devs are doing with the valiants now).

Ronan OP! Nerf. Talissa OP! Nerf. Sven OP! Nerf. Archers OP! Nerf. Guardians OP! Nerf. What to nerf next? Why bother summoning?

Btw, I'm not a whale or even a dolphin and i don't have MLB of any of the "OP" units possibly in your list but to me, nerfs is never a good solution. And if i were those that paid money to get enough units to MLB those specific OP units that you are intending to nerf, I don't think i would be happy or even spend again.

Kiera

LAST BUT NOT LEAST!! MiloD presents to you Kiera!!

Rune Magus will become more and more important as new metas arrive to capture flags. Is Zedd enough? Is Ronan sufficient? Why not bring all 3 of them in?? Muahahaha

Rune Magus Kiera
Old Obelisks of Gaia (CD:6)
Damage all 115% based on MAG
Knockback all 1 tile
Spawns wall with HP 210-300% Based on MAG

Old Hieroglyphs of Power
When allies in aura attack, 30% chance to trigger
Knockback + 75% damage based on ATK

New Obelisks of Gaia (CD:6)
Damage all 130% based on MAG
Knockback all 2 tiles
Spawns wall with HP 210-300% Based on MAG

New Hieroglyphs of Power
When allies in aura gets hit, 35% chance to trigger
Haste (Reduce 1 CD from Skill CD)

Welcome back to the fold Elementalist Kiera. We missed you. We are essentially giving her a huge damage boost by reducing her CD and increasing her burning ground effect. At the same time, we are giving her more survivability. She will still have the highest MAG ratio, along with a good dose of defence.

Elementalist Kiera
Old Sacred Blaze (CD:7)
Deals 135-165% damage based on MAG (3x3 radius)
Burns ground for 35% of MAG for 2 turns (Units that got hit)


Old Eye of the Storm
Buff 25% MAG based on MAG to allies in aura

New Sacred Blaze (CD:6)
Deals 130-160% damage based on MAG (3x3 radius)
Burns ground for 50% of MAG for 2 turns (Units that got hit)
33% Chance to Stun enemies for 1 turn

New Eye of the Storm
Buff 20% MAG based on MAG to allies in aura
Buff 10% DEF based on MAG to allies in aura

These are the concepts that we have for the Valiants thus far! We will continue to receive all your feedback, improve and tweak the figures or change their skills as we go along to prepare for their complete revamp.


Thank you all for your time, keep the questions coming and MiloD will respond as best as I can!

I think another way to buff kiera is to make her a counter to faye.
As per her skill name, 'sacred blaze'
Why not add another effect on this? which is 'remove all bonus on enemies'.
I think this will bring her back to number one mage on valiant force as no other mages have this type of skill.

Thank you all for your feedback once again.

I've consolidated all the feedback and have passed them on to the developers. They are pleased with this discussion and will make further changes after considering multiple points of views.

Disclaimers: 
1) Do note that when the Valiants Revamp do get released, it will definitely not please everyone. But that's not our job. Our job is to make them strong yet balanced. Fun and not overpowered. 
2) The last 12 Valiants may or may not be released after their 18th (YES THAT MANY) round of discussions. 
3) If we do release anymore Valiants, it will be on a new post! 

Do get hyped!