Flanking Bubbles

Introduction
This squad uses a few different synergistic aspects of 4 Tier 2's and 2 Tier 1 champs. Basic strategic involves 1 front center, 2 front flanks, 1 mid support, and 2 range support.



Battles with this squad do start off slow, often yielding in the enemy achieving first kill, but quickly pick up pace allowing for rapid succession kills.

For use in this strategy guide, "Squire-side" indicates the left/right side the squire is on, and "Bandit-side indicates the left/right side the bandit is on. As long as the Cleric is Squire-side, it does not matter which side the Squire is set on and which side the Bandit is set on.

Strategies
The main idea is to get and hold the middle of the map. As seen in the below image, the Axeman is in the middle flanked by the Squire and Bandit. The Engineer is relatively center to provide support anywhere it is need, and healers/range damage fall in to the side and behind the flanks.



Each character's roll is purposed to their location.

I use the Squire instead of a Knight for this strategy because the Squire has a faster energy regeneration.

Squire
The Squire is used to deal damage and push units with Pushback (5 tick ability) into an appropriate location for the Axeman and the Bandit.



Bandit
The Bandit deals linear damage from the side using Penetrating Shot (5 tick ability). One of the first things you want to do with the Bandit is Reflect (4 tick ability) and get to the side finding a line of enemies 2 or 3 deep.



Engineer
The Engineer can provide emergency energy using Energize (4 tick ability) to just about every unit if a quick heal or quick damage is needed. Also getting the Engineer into a mid field position will allow good placement of the Energy Mine (5 tick ability) for that extra damage.

I generally use the Engineer exclusively for energizing the Cleric and Axeman, although a well placed Enery Mine where it will hit at least 3 enemies is a useful plus. Energizing the Cleric can allow for 2 close secession heals, and Energizing the Axeman will allow for a Resharpen (4 tick ability) and Cleave (5 tick ability) combo to happen faster, often catching the enemy off guard.



Cleric
The Cleric provides shielding using Holy Shield (5 tick ability) to the front characters and heals using Replenish (4 tick ability) to the center and Squire-side champs. Shielding is generally on the champ holding the middle (which should be the Axeman, but if he dies another champ can fill in). A key note with the Cleric: if you already have a shield up, it is ok to sit at 5 energy until a heal is needed. Don't feel the need to attack with the Cleric just because you have the energy. The idea is to not "overheal". If a character is only down 50 or so health, unless a targeted drain on that champ is imminent, don't waste a 100+ health heal.

Apprentice
The Apprentice provides range damage using Fire Bolt (5 tick ability) and heals using Heal (4 tick ability) to the Bandit-side champs. The same strategy can be applied as with the Cleric. Sitting on max energy is ok. I personally prefer to deal as much damage as possible with this character so I tend to play the damage>heal strategy with respect to the Apprentice.

Generally you will want to go after enemy controller's or squishy units with the Apprentice's Fire Bolt. Don't waste too much energy on nuking tanks like Corruptor or Knight as they die fast enough with the Squire/Axeman/Bandit working on them.



Axeman
Axeman holds down the fort and does Cleave whenever possible.



Champs combos
Besides the obvious combos, Squire uses Pushback on enemy champs in range of Axeman's Cleave, Bandit's Penetrating Shot, or Engineer's Energy Mine, a few very useful combos exist with this champ setup.

The Bandit has its own shield, Reflect (4 tick ability), and should be utilized appropriately. The Cleric's Holy Shield should either be on the Axeman or the Squire, which ever is most convinient. If the Axeman should go down, a "double bubble", that is the Bandit's Reflect and Cleric's Holy Shield, on the Bandit can hold the center of the map VERY effectively. A "double bubbled" Bandit can take a very large amount of abuse, especially with two characters available to heal it. This can be used to hold the middle until the Axeman gets back into the fray.

Another good combo is actually more a quadruple combo. Once the Engineer lays down a good Energy Mine placement (assuming it doesn't go off on its own) the Squire can use Pushback to place more enemies into the mine range, and the Axeman can be used to Cleave into the Energy Mine, setting it off. This is VERY devastating as it can easily deal 600+ total damage between the mine and Axeman's damage. Topping this off with a Bandit's Penetrating Shot across 2 or 3 enemies will result in a very fast death of 2 or more enemy champs. After this crushing blow, your champs should be able to rearrange with a fairly open map to obtain the preferred placement.

Don't be affraid to use your Squire or Axeman to set off the Engineer's mine. The amount of damage it does outways the amount of damage you take, and you have two healers available to pump your sacrificial character back up (plus Cleric's Holy Shield mitigation).

Contributors
Ryotha