We're just 3 short days away from game launch, exciting! As I've been putting my Teams together I've been trying to figure which abilities or combination of abilities will be most effective in-game.

I wasn't part of the closed Beta test so i don't have first hand experience with the mechanics of these abilities but I have watched hours of streaming thanks to @holoz0r who has live streamed, posted his streams, and even offered to try out Teams based on your suggestions. Thanks for this!

Some of these abilities may have been changed since being announced, but I haven't seen anything official from SM letting us know what's changed so here goes...

POTENTIAL TOP 5 OFFENSIVE ABILITIES

Inspire - Monsters with Inspire provide a Melee Attack boost to all friendly Monsters. Load up on Inspire and watch your Melee Monsters destroy! Unfortunately there isn't the equivalent for magic or ranged units at this point in time.



Sneak - Monsters with Sneak will attack the last Monster on the opposing Team instead of the first, and may Melee attack even when not in the first position. I've seen how Sneak works and it looks powerful, being able to bypass the Tank and attack a Monster being protected at the back is a big advantage!



Snipe - Monsters with Snipe will attack the first Monster on the opposing Team that has Ranged or Magic attack. Only Monsters with Ranged or Magic attack can have the Snipe ability. Look out for snipers, these guys bypass the Tank and attack Magic units, win win! I think magic units will be powerful in this game, so any chance to directly attack these guys is great.



Piercing - Melee or Ranged attack damage beyond the amount of Armor of the defending Monster will reduce hit the defending Monster's health, as opposed to normally where Armor will absorb the entire attack. Bypassing armor for some damage is awesome! Looking around I don't see a ton of Monsters with big armor which means there will be opportunities to get some damage on Monsters where there normally wound't be.



Enrage - Monsters with Enrage will receive a Melee attack boost when they are below full Health. I like this because it's guaranteed to proc as soon as the Monster is below full health, not below 50% or some other mark.

Obviously there are other abilities I haven't mentioned, mostly because they only have a chance to proc, and I'm just not sure what that percentage chance is because that info isn't available at this time.

Eventually we will have access to game logs and will know exactly how often each ability is proc'ing. The difference between an ability proc'ing 5% of the time vs 30% of the time can be game changing. For this reason I have left many abilities off this list that may be proven later to be really awesome.

POTENTIAL TOP 5 DEFENSIVE ABILITIES

Heal - Monsters with Heal will restore a portion of their Health at the start of each round. More healing means less dying,..win!

Group Heal - Monsters with Group Heal will restore a portion of all friendly Monsters' Health at the start of each round. I've heard this was OP and has been changed to Tank Heal, if someone can confirm that would be great.

Slow - Monsters with Slow cause the Speed stat of all enemy Monsters to be reduced. Lower speed of ALL enemies...epic! Speed plays an important part of attacking and defending. Lower speed means enemy monsters have a reduced chance of avoiding your attack, and an increased chance that they miss when attacking you.

Protect - Monsters with Protect provide an Armor boost to all friendly Monsters and makes them immune to Fear. I really like this because it's an armor boost to ALL your monsters plus you don't have to worry about fear sending one of your melee monsters to the back where he likely cant attack from.

Resurrect - Monsters with the Resurrect ability will bring the first friendly Monster that dies back to life with (1) health. This ability may only be triggered once per Battle and a Monster cannot resurrect itself. Only triggered once, but depending on who is first to drop this could be a game changer.

WHICH ABILITIES DO YOU THINK ARE THE BEST?