Water March Reimagined and Harnessing the Power of the Chill Effect

Hello Infinity Kingdom This is Magic Mage from Server 243 and today we are looking closely at the water march newly imaged. We will explore an experimental build I have not yet seen but has the potential to be extremely successful. 

Overview:

• A close look at the Chill Effect
• Applying the Chill Effect without Dido or Artemisia
• Silencing the Enemy
• Margaret Now Viable
• Building a New Water March
• Impact of Patch notes 2.7.6
• Closing Thoughts 

With the introduction of the Immortal Portraits, I have had many players’ reach out inquiring how to enhance their Water marches. Over the past two years I have seen many different water builds. Some extremely effective. When you first begin playing, we all start with a water team. As we grow, these teams develop. In looking at builds and immortals within the water teams, I realized their has not been a lot of discussion on Water builds since Myrahk’s article looking at a mixed water march with Hani-Richard-Quin-Merlin water dragon build, and His January 20, 2023 article review of Margaret I.

When reviewing the character Margaret, Myrahk cautioned users he fears with this character “...that the low regen rate of Margaret l means that she will never be competitive replacement for Merlin. As such, you are going to be forced into either missing Chill effect reducing the output of them both significantly, or run her instead of Merlin. That is really the big drawback of this new immortal and the main reason why I do not recommend you spend and rush to get Margaret l maxed. I think she will find her place in some niche setups, but she will not be the core Immortal of the element like we have seen Seondeok become in real main fire teams and as Merlin has been and continues to be for water.”

However, as our game evolves, new skills are released, and our understanding of the ultimate skills of immortals are unlocked, I feel like Myrahk’s prediction of her finding a place in some niche setups could be now. 

A Close Look at the Chill Effect

A Lord recently shared with me information confirmed by IKVIP regarding the term “Chill”. I believe, this knowledge could be game changing. When looking at battle reports, we can see the chill affect when applied by Dido or Margaret results in a buff Icon of Attack Speed Down. 

Knowing the buff report displays chill as an active attack speed down buff. The next logical question a lord may want to know is: “Does this mean, any skill (ultimate or passive) which results in an active buff of reduced attack speed, can be preserved as a “chill effect?” – IKVIP has confirmed this to be true.

Knowing this, the water march can become more versatile in selecting immortals to utilize, and potently extremely deadly. It also means, Margaret and her slow energy regeneration may be the perfect immortal to maximize the water team’s potential. The march I have worked with Yawgmoth in developing based on this information (to be discussed later within this article), is not an easy free to play friendly option, but would not be impossible, with some creativity for low to mid spenders.

Now we know the chill affect is essentially reduced attack speed, we can look at skills and other immortals outside of Dido and Artemisia to pair along side Merlin. 

Applying the Chill Effect without Dido or Artemisia 

One skill Lords running water teams may have initially overlooked, may want to highly consider to ensure they are leveraging Merlin to his full potential is Heavy Lifter (TOK Skill Level 52). This skill has a chance to deal magical damage to all enemies and reducing their attack speed. That means, when adding heavy lifter to your team you are essentially adding another chance to proctor Chill.

You would want to place this on an immortal that has high regeneration of energy to ensure the skill is occurring as frequently as possible. As this skill is tied to the ultimate skill, the higher the regeneration speed, the more often the chance for this skill to be cast. 

Due to the Mechanics of this skill, Heavy Lifter, if applied on Merlin will proctor before Merlin’s Prophecy Attack occurs. Once Merlin reaches full energy regeneration to activate the ultimate skill, because Merlin’s skill has a wind up before delivering the attack where Heavy lifter recognizes Merlin Ultimate skill is in effect and applies immediately. Therefore, each time Merlin Proctor’s there is a 50% chance chill will automatically be applied to all enemies reducing their attack speed increasing the damage performed by Merlin 50%. 

We can then take this knowledge further. By paring Merlin with Margaret in the back line.

With the knowledge that Heavy Lifter has a Attack Speed Down “chill” effect applied for 12 seconds, if you place this skill on Merlin (who regeneration speed is faster than Margaret’s but close enough she can proctor within 12 seconds after Merlin as long as she is not effected by an enemies’ skill suppressing her energy regeneration or triggering of her ultimate skill, She will also be able to take advantage of the Heavy Lifter “Chill” effect where she will deal additional physical damage, and if the target is silenced, have the damage the enemy deals reduced by x% for an additional 6 seconds.

Silencing the Enemy

Attila’s Ultimate Skill Wild Corrosion has a chance to silence an enemy. 

Furthermore, there two skills within the tower of knowledge which has the ability to silence an enemy.

The first is a rare skill aptly named Silence. It has the ability up to a 45% chance of silencing an enemy for 4 seconds, but the chance this skill proctors and is in effect when Margaret engages her ultimate skill is low and therefore, I would not make the recommendation of using a passive skill slot for “silence”.

The second skill that is more valuable would be No Escape. This is a triggered skill that has a 27% to 90% chance to silence an entire team for 6 seconds.

No escape does require ability stones to purchase while silence is free to play. However, No Escape is far superior as it will silence the entire team opposed to one random unit ensuring Margaret’s ultimate skill can be utilized to the full advantage. Additionally, even if the silence ends when Margaret proctors her skill there is still the chance, they receive physical damage at x% and to stun 2 random units for 3 seconds. If “Chill” is in effect when the ultimate skill of Margaret is unleashed, her damage still increases. 

The other location a lord could proctor silence from would be the Shadow Dragon Melanthios’ second skill Eclipse:

The best viable option to silence an enemy within the water team would be No Escape. This skill allows for Margaret to leverage her damage in multiple forms.

Margaret I, ultimate skill deals physical damage to all enemies at a damage rate between 150% to 500% as she is developed. If a target is chilled, she will deal additional physical damage at a rate of 90% to 300%. If the target is silenced by say Attila, then this immortal silenced will have reduced damage for 6% to 20% over the course of 6 seconds. 

Margaret Now Viable 

We now have with heavy lifter both Merlin and Margaret able to take advantage of the “chill” effect of reduced attack speed, letting us use these player’s side by side.

This one skill (Heavy Lifter) now removes the Main problem initially identified by Myrahk and other Lords when she was first released in 2023:

But we can capitalize on this reduced attack speed further.

Ultimate skills such as Hippolyta who also reduces attack speed actively where the ultimate skill triggers as a buff:

And Bjorn when his exclusive artifact is applied when his ultimate skill is triggered based on the unique attribute. 

This means if you were to place either Hippolyta or Bjorn in the front line with Merlin and Margaret you have now added a second form of the chill affect to this march if you are using the skill Heavy Lifter. Of these two immortals, Bjorn is a far superior option for two reasons. The first is he offers defensive skills and is an extremely tanky immortal helping your march overall sustainability, but also because he has the elemental advantage over all basic elements being a shadow immortal.

Pulling the chill effect from Bjorn and Heavy Lifter to enhance both Margaret and Merlin’s overall Physical and Magical damage leaves us with one final front row spot to complete our march. This could either be Harald III or Attila. While Attila has the capacity to Silence allowing a lord to take advantage of Margaret’s ultimate skill’s full potential, I prefer Harald III in terms of his overall damage he can perform and reducing the enemies’ physical defense. The added advantage of Suffocation also helps in giving our immortals time to regenerate further energy without taking on additional damage from the enemy team.

When building our team and selecting skills, you may ask why I did not mention the Aura Paralysis as this skill also reduces the attack speed of all enemy units. On paper it sounds fantastic. However, because this skill is an Aura the reduced attack speed is more of a passive buff and not an active buff. This means the decreased attack speed occurs on the back end where you do not see it as a buff displayed within the reports. 

The Ultimate skill of Merlin and Margaret works similarly to an if/then statement. If there is a buff of attack speed down applied to an immortal attacked by one of these’ immortal’s ultimate skills, then Chill is in effect, and the increased damage of the ultimate skill will occur. If there is now attack speed down buff in place, the ultimate skill damage related to chill will not occur. Therefore, as Paralysis, does not appear as an active buff within battle, when Merlin or Margaret reaches full energy to unleash their ultimate skills, the effect will not result in additional damage triggered by the chill effect.

Knowing this we next want to build our march with Margaret and Merlin. This build is truly set for those in conquest as some of the skills can only be obtained after castle level 50.

Building a New Water March

After reviewing the skills and immortal’s individual skills and artifacts I would build the march as follows:

Bjorn –

• Oaken Guard or Resist: depending on who you are fighting and the skills that team is utilizing (Resist (TOK level 34) for heavy magic damage dealers) (Oaken Guard (TOK35) for heavy physical damage dealers) to reduce damage received
• Fighting Master: (TOK level 28) so you can ensure constant chill because he will not be stunned or silenced reducing his ultimate skill from occurring
• No Escape: (TOK level 54) This will provide the chance to silence the whole team to increase the damage they receive, but also when attacked by Margaret and her ultimate skill it can also reduce the physical damage that immortal can deal

Harald –

• Executioner: (TOK level 51) we will leverage damage over time from his ultimate skill by applying executioner
• Energy Suppression: (TOK level 36) This will slow the energy regeneration speed of all enemy troops decreasing the chances of them proctoring their ultimate skill causing damage to our own team.
• Life Link: (TOK level 31) this will ensure any damage incurred by Harald can be shared with the enemy team as he is not as tanky as Bjorn)

Margaret  –

• Full Coverage: (TOK level 43) this will ensure with proctoring her ultimate skill a 70% chance to deal physical damage to the whole enemy team (as her energy regeneration is less than Merlin’s this will increase the damage dealt in the lesser time provided). It also has a second benefit where it gives Margret more area of effect (AOE) , with her single alt she can get multiple sets of damage especially if the enemy has attack speed down Chill effect. (Essentially one ult could result in three separate instances of damage. And has good synergy with the second skill recommended Blood Frenzy)
• Blood Frenzy: (TOK level 54) after dealing direct damage with the ultimate skill 4 times physical attack damage is increased, stacked up to 3 times. If the chill effect is in place additional damage will occur
• Corrosive Power: (TOK level 55) – after direct damage with an ultimate skill occurs 3 times, we restore energy 60 points to 200 and increase the damage of her ultimate skills by 18% to 60% for 2 seconds.  This skill when partnered with blood frenzy and full coverage will enhance damage dealt significantly by her ultimate skill Winter Passage

Merlin –

• Heavy Lifter: (TOK level 52) – This skill is critical for the march as it will act as a chill effect necessary for increased damage by both Merlin and Margaret when unleashing their ultimate skills.
• Psionic Tide: (TOK level 54) – after dealing direct damage will restore energy up to 200 points and increase magical damage up to 15% stacking up to 3 times. This means more instances of chill effect to be in place and increased magical damage from Merlin when he ults.
• Abundant Spirit: (TOK level 51) – this increases triggering probability of your skills and magical damage. While both Heavy lifter and Psionic Tide are passive skills without triggers, the increased magical damage of x% (9% up to 30%) is significant and makes this skill viable to add to Merlin.  

Now that we have identified skills, we will want to look at artifact attributes for this march. This is important to ensure our immortals are performing at peak performance.

Bjorn you will want to use a Guard exclusive artifact with the immortal tree of Sturdy Barrier to grant a shield to all allies absorbing their damage so they can live longer to deliver the damage they were built to deliver

Merlin can use both Annihilation or Deadly. You would want to pick between Corrupting wave or Abyssal Inferno for increasing the magical damage dealt based on the skills elected for Merlin.

The artifact for Margret you will want to have is Iron fist to enhance the damage you have built for her. With this artifact I would pair the immortal tree option of Concentration Stance increasing damage dealt by ultimate skills up to 100%.

Harald – you will want the surge artifact to increase the speed of his attacks and Knights spirit to increase damage dealt and attack speed. 

Impact of Patch Notes 2.7.6

We will finish our build by Looking at patch Notes version 2.7.6 as this update will significantly impact the above march. 

With regard to Fighting Master we put on Bjorn, this means the back row immortals of Merlin and Margret can be put in the void where if they had this skill, they could avoid Himiko’s void. However as we can now proctor the chill effect by both Bjorn who has fighting master and Merlin with Heavy lifter by both immortals this choice of using fighting master on a front-line immortal even with Himiko is a calculated risk but with greater advantages to this team build to be placed on Bjorn.

The above displayed boost to Corrosive power means you will gain increased damage for 7 more seconds following the update. That means this march will be stronger in relation to this skill.

Lastly the skill our entire march is built upon (Heavy Lifter) will go from a 50% chance to a 70% chance to deal direct magical damage. While, this is good, the down side is all enemies will no longer have reduced attack speed, this is being adjusted to reducing attack speed of the 2 unites with the highest physical attack. In the purpose of our chill effect this is not as advantageous but on a positive note, it does mean the highest attack speed immortals are slowed down and receiving the most damage first. Hopefully as we kill off immortals of the enemy, that attack speed decrease will allow for us to target the most threatening immortals to our march opposed to it being random. 

Closing Thoughts

As explained this march is not cheap to obtain, while Merlin is easy to unlock and build with soul crystals, and Harald can be summoned or unlocked from the arena and then found within the market. Margaret is best obtained probably through the golden path for free to play/low spenders.

She can also be obtained through cultivating immortals: 

I have summoned her from the Hall of Immortals but the probability of summoning her is not significant enough for me to rely solely on this means. Same with the harbor ship. If I max out the immortal fragments from golden path, the random water pulls for 60 coins has yielded better results but is not guaranteed for the immortal we are looking to build. 

The most expensive immortal to build will be Bjorn as you will want to get him through sparks and his artifact needs to be just right to ensure this march is successful.

Skills will also be costly as not all are free to play friendly, while some can be obtained by KVK and for free without ability stones, a majority will require an investment. I would recommend looking at the recharge packages to obtain these. But even slowly you are looking at $200 every other week to unlock some of these skills and to have 40 stones to apply to another skill for purchase or to acquire artifact fragments for Bjorn and/or Alchemy stones from the Wish shop.

I do see the potential of this march and if you have already developed some of the immortals it may be worth testing out this set up to leverage chill based on skills applied for two strong back-line damage dealers. 

Let me know your thoughts and share your results as you try out this march. I am curious to know what works and does not work for you, if you changed a skill up for a different one and the reason behind your choice. What was the results you experienced. Happy battling.

Magic Mage

Official Press Officer for Infinity Kingdom

Server #243

Infinity Kingdom / 無盡城戰

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