Clash is superfun and supercasual.

It basically asks a simple question: Can human tactics win over AI defenses and towers?

Anyone can get into Clash pvp,
there are no hard feelings, its all AI after all!

Here, I will lay out what I learnt playing Clash in Season 1.

Season 2's map is a fight of the Defence's high ground versus the Attacker's low ground. Movement is limited for the attacker, and the map favours quick matches since Defence are able to reach the Attack's start location easily.

Attackers start in a bad position with units separated into three parts. Left is extremely vulnerable to being pushed into the water, while right is almost always too far to help left, and usually becomes an teleportation attempt at High Stronghold/

There is a small river that separates the Attack and Defence start points, this river is right next to the Attack start location and can cause immediate K.Os by pulling people into it. In reverse, Attackers can also teleport and score an easy kill by pushing a Defender placed forward for free.

There are two main strategies: Forward Defence placement backed by flags and Rear Defense placement backed by traps and barricades.

Defending the stronghold almost doesn't matter for forward defences since you either win or lose within two rounds.

Rear defence is possible and is an option if more people employ the "push into river" strategy, but is inferior since it doesn't take advantage of the Attacker's bad starting positions. Camping on high ground is not optimal since Beryl can still nuke the whole of the top ledge from the right side.


Maitha can just walk up and push someone off the ledge on the left side!

Maitha can charge up to the High Stronghold with Maitha's Charge on the second step.

Nungal has a hard time hitting high tiles.

AOE changes their tiling according to the little raised platforms

Crossbows can shoot High Stronghold from the second step onwards.

You are still able to fight people in Silver while in Gold.

I'm on level 48 when season starts, so I had to ditch my Hangman team because otherwise I'll get nuked by Beryl. I'll go back to playing Hangmen when I reach level 50.

You MUST guard the raised central tile or else Beryl can just hop and nuke from it!

Maitha on left must use 2 steps forward before you can put a barrel?

Gloria can't throw her spear over the river on the Attacker's side. (laugh).

IMPORTANT: The attacking character on the furthermost top right side can teleport up the high ground with [Maneuver Command]! Set a trap or barricade here to prevent this!

"This is the guide to playing Clash PROPERLY!"

You Pick Your Opponents - There is no penalty to backing out of a fight before it starts. You can check an opponent's stats and defense setup and click the back button if you find they are too strong.

Fight Opponents Evenly Matched Or Weaker - Levels and trinkets still matter. Someone one gear tier ahead of you has a much better chance of winning since it is less likely you can punish their tactical errors. For example, a level 25 will have a hard time beating a level 35 because of the level gap and because their gear is likely maxed out at level 40 already.

Winning An Easy Match Is More Profitable Than A Half-Victory - Winning a hard match gives 13 points. Winning a normal match gives 12 points. Winning an easy match gives 10 points. A game where you wipe the enemy team but you are unable to destroy a stronghold only gives 6 points. Losing a match completely without any kills gives you only 1 point. Therefore, we should avoid complete wipeouts and half-wins, because you would have achieved the same result with less effort fighting an easy opponent. Unless you are aiming for a high score, then the risk is worth the extra points.

"Attacking is easy, just be higher levelled than your opponent!"
"Wtf Fuyi..."

Attack Is Largely Favored To Win - While there are defense setups that require specific teams, being able to choose your approach before you start is a large advantage. On even speed (i.e 2 Maithas), the attacker also goes first. The AI is also unable to play around certain tactics like planting an exploding barrel in the AI's path.

The Goal Is To Destroy The Stronghold - Usually this happens in a cleanup phase after all enemy characters are dead. The higher level you go, the more likely you need to trade pieces with an opponent, resulting in maybe 3~ characters dead before you reach the stronghold. The higher level you go, strongholds go from 1hkoable to needing 2 turns to destroy. This is especially true at the level 40~ versus level 50~ range. Losing your healer while having injured characters could lose you the game if you can't down the stronghold with the injured/dying debuff.

If you can't 1hit an enemy flag... - You are probably playing far above your level gap or severely undergeared/ undertalented. The game gives an abundance of star shards, but you can focus on learning tactics and only leveling relevant talents. (e.g very little defenders need magic attack, so you can skip that node.)

There Is No Need To Rush Recklessly - If your opponent has an open defense, you can wait for your opponent to come to you instead of walking through their traps and blades. This will allow you to set up charged AOEs that the enemy AI will walk into. Take note that holding back does not cause you to lose turns that could be used to destroy strongholds.

Tactics have Common, intermediate and Advanced grades.

You cannot equip two tactics with the same grade.

I grade tactics into Important, Situational and Unusable.

COMMON

INTERMEDIATE

ADVANCED

"This scares the non-clash player."

The Goal of Defense Is To Cripple The Enemy - It is unlikely you wipe the attacking team, given that you are evenly matched. Chances are the attacking team will be far stronger than yours in the first place. Defender AI is also messy and dumb at times. Therefore, the goal should be to set up a defense that can stall and force the enemy to make bad moves.

If Enough People Die... - They will not be able to finish the stronghold within 10 rounds. One good scenario is that even if the defenders are wiped, the attackers are injured and lost their healer, so they do not deal enough damage to the strongholds.

Open and Closed Setups - You can use facilities (mostly barricades) to completely block off your side of the map, resulting in a Closed Setup. The upside is that the defender AI is trapped within this box and will not move too far out. You can also use a semi-open setup where is seemingly only one way out, but is actually sealed off with a trap. Attackers can still break one barricade and lure the AI out.

Far And Near Setups - A Setup can also be far or near. Far setups usually put the characters at the back of the map so the defending AI takes turns to reach the front. Usually this is paired with a burst tower to force the enemy to move. Near Setups put all the characters up front and close to the attacker's spawn. This is usually backed by three banners behind them. This gives the defenders a major stat advantage, especially if their team is faster in speed.

The Defenders Will Not Step On Traps, but... - They can charge onto them. The Defender AI can 'see the traps' and avoid them/ stop their movement before them. It doesn't stop Maitha from being dumb and using [Maitha's Charge] on an enemy and stepping on a bear trap on the way. Attackers can predict where the traps are from strange AI movement.

Nobody Willingly Attacks A Strong Setup - Therefore the trick is to appear weak while being strong. If you are aiming to get attacked, an excessively strong looking setup will just scare people off. (They choose the opponents.)

The Enemy Still Wins If They Only Destroy One Stronghold - Attackers get full points even if they only manage to destroy one stronghold. Any setup that does not defend both high and low points fails to deny points.

In general, the stronghold is upgraded first. Then whatever facilities you use.

The goal of facilities is to force and delay enemy movement.

Facilities can be divided into Towers, Traps, Utilities.


Towers are used to force enemy moves. Burst and Frost Tower in particular have high range and dangerous effects, so the Attacker is forced to think and strategize (oh no not that word!) in order to win.


One extra thing to note is that towers can be healed. They can also be made to [Act Again] with Inanna. This makes a Burst Tower fire off immediately the same turn it aims!

All traps can be predicted by Defender AI movement. They can also be destroyed by AOE landing on them (i.e Gloria's Flag). The Wheel of Fortune AOE might also remove traps. (have only seen it done once)


Utilities usually focus on making a certain strategy work better. i.e Many ranged units on Rally Beacon removes AI movement, so they are less likely to make mistakes. Enemies that try to cross the central bridge in S1 die due to ranged increase before they even reach the stronghold. Counter: Just go the other side.

There might be none. It will depend on what characters you have and what characters your opponent lacks.

For example, Nungal in Season 1 was able to snipe vast majority of flag/tower placements, making it difficult to have a [Far Setup] with flags, since an attacker Nungal can go on the low platform and hit most of that side of the map. The attacker can then easily wait for the Defender AI to come out with a severe disadvantage.

However, certain setups can force soft "character checks". E.g Banner placement in S1 2 tiles behind the high platform can only be struck at by Nungal.


Season 2 is still ongoing, please be patient while I update this...

Currently it seems that many people are playing with flame traps.

Ballista Is Far Stronger Than On Paper - Ballista's [Penetrating Arrow] debuff is applied during the charge-up for [Siege]. Unsure if it is a bug, but this means that enemies caught have an immediate -40% P.Def before they are even hit by the actual skill!

[Sniping Mode] doko? - Will never use [Sniping Mode]. Sad!

[Fortification] doko? - Will never use [Fortification]. Sad! This is restricted to Attackers only. It is very good at luring out attacks by Defender AI though.

Best Friends With Nungal - Edda's [Wine Barrel Casting] causes opponents in a far AOE take a -40% M.Def debuff. Nungal's attacks are magical, making them a super team. Only downside is that you need a speedy character (Maitha) to give Edda a speed buff with an equipped [Old Scrolls Of Auguste] so Edda acts first instead of Nungal. Enjoy your ridiculously overpowered duo!

Yamero Col! - Col's AI is bugged. She will frequently run up to an opponent and use [Mask], ending her turn without doing damage.


Will slowly update this list when I come down to it.

Buffing AI - Inexplicably, if you have a buffing skill like Maitha's [Come On, Everybody!], the AI will prioritize using it on as many people possible, even at the expense of moving backwards! This also applies to Gloria's [Brilliance] Can be extremely bad when you would rather the AI attack instead, beware!

Beware The 1HKO - Certain characters are usually heavily invested in and can 1hko on contact. Some notable ones are Dantelion using [Dawnlight], Col, Beryl, Nungal in Season 1.

Most Used Attacking Team: Ballista, Nungal, Angel, Maitha, Rawiyah, Gloria
Most Used Defending Team: Ballista, Nungal, Angel, Maitha, Abyss, Gloria

Season 1 revolved around defending a single 3x6 bridge as a chokepoint. There were many opportunities to fall into the water, so I put Maitha and Rawiyah in for knockback duty. Unlike many people, I put both [Leg Slam] and [Maitha's Charge] on Maitha so she's always a menace on the bridge.

As mentioned earlier, Nungal really changes how Clash is played. Her long range (with beacon) usually shuts off a side of the bridge unless Gloria chucks a flag her way.

Most people didn't have their teams properly setup/ pulled the units they wanted, so there wasn't much variance in teams. They usually consisted of some combination of the early banner characters (Col, Dantelion, Gloria and Beryl). I abused this fact to place Nungal with a beacon behind her on a raised platform, knowing that very little people would have Momo to pull her into the water.

Coincidentally, Ballista's [Siege] is also a 3x6 skill, and the moment I realized that, Clash became much easier. Ballista would usually kill multiple characters with [Siege] because the AI just keeps walking/ gets baited into range! The only time that this doesn't work is if he is interrupted by a knockback. (Usually Rawiyah)

There was a Burst Tower placement on High Stronghold that was out of both Nungal's and Ballista's reach. One tile behind the bottom right corner. I should make up a notation system so I can better describe this without screenshots.

I think I experimented a little too much, resulting in many losses that were unneeded. Did you know that Lash will ignore Explosive Barrels and just cast her horizontal Lash spell over it? Many of the big strategies; Beacon Camping, Triple Banner, Multiple Burst Towers were invented here!

My Setup For Season 1 - Only came really late and by accident. Because Abyss has high speed, and because the [Sanctuary Statue] gave invincibility to the Defender with the lowest HP, I abused this by giving Abyss bad equips and having her stand right on the frontlines. This lets her get off a [Dark Ripple] off safely, locking passives and reaction skills.

This setup was extremely funny because you could see who was playing on auto mode and couldn't deal with the Abyss outta nowhere. Because a Hunter's Trap has been set on the central tile, Gloria or Beryls trying to do a big AOE usually step on it. Some people play around this by sending units to the side, but this frequently happens and they get locked in front of the [Storm Blade] or killed by Nungal.

I experimented a lot with [Bomb Trap], it was very funny whenever it went off, but sadly most people are able to destroy it by directly hitting it with Gloria's flag or just destroying it when it appeared.

"The weakest pvper."

There are many gaps in Author-kun's knowledge. I only get to play Clash five times a day after all (laugh). I prioritise experimenting and using exploding barrels, because art is a bang, mmnh. I also am really bad at making videos so I can't properly demonstrate many things I talk about here. Maybe Author-kun a hack and fraud after all! (laugh)

I'll update this when I have time. If there are people who want to make cool clash videos to demonstrate cool stuff in clash, I would like to include it here!

If you want to, come tell me what you think about this guide here or in-game! I don't have normie social media, no.

May your defenses always work and your attacks always succeed, Touch Fluffy Vlder Tail!

“These fools are everywhere, restrained by emotions and morals, they deserve to be stupidly manipulated by rules. What’s sadder is that when they see others not being restrained, they would jump out and criticise, trying to impart these morals to the people, not allowing others to have more freedom than them. In this process, they would even enjoy this ridiculous moral superiority and bliss. - Reverard Insanity, Ch. 127

Author-kun writes 【I Shall Now Apply Western RPG Logic Onto Your Xianxia Strategy Game!】, a webnovel about cute and funny girls who go around killing dragons in Not-Skyrim. Only on Royal Road!

In parting, I leave you a quote from Reverend Insanity, my favourite webnovel, without comment (laugh)!