Play-around Guide: Daken

Daken is one of the most popular choices for PvP with his latent healing and latent damage boosts. When he was buffed to add the active ability with solid damage output he only got stronger. There is no way to play PvP without frequently encountering him as you climb, and even at the highest ranks. He can be a scary opponent, and at times skipping around a Daken team may be the best choice. When you have to fight him though, how do you approach it?

Daken comes in two flavors, the standard 2 star and the gold 3 star version. The 2 star is a staple of 2 star PvP, with Ares and OBW he clearly occupies the highest tier. The gold 3 star version is also excellent, however at the 3 star level he appears less frequently. This is both due to the fact that 3 star teams have more options for team building, as well as more answers to Daken’s unique abilities.

Dane’s two passives are Pheromone Rage and Healing & Heat. Pheromone Rage creates a red strike tile on any green match. Healing and Heat either restores health or causes damage to Daken. His active is Chemical Reaction, which does damage, destroys attack tiles, and creates a few green tiles.

Pheromone Rage is probably the first one you really need to think about. A lot of passives that create special tiles on matches can be dealt with by denying the opponent those matches. Not here, as your green will create strike tiles as well. In a way, your creating the tiles is slightly worse, as Daken then gets the benefit without you having a chance to remove them. The best way to deal with this move is to just continually remove the red strike tiles. At this highest level, Gold Daken creates two strength 46 tiles, 2 star Daken creates one strength 46 tile. Neither is immediately lethal to similarly leveled character. The danger comes from these tiles stacking up and being paired with special moves. As long as you prioritize red matches, you should be able to keep the board relatively clear. You can also use moves that destroy special tiles, such as Daredevil’s Radar Sense or Squirrel Girl’s Nuts From Above. I find that these moves are very helpful, but only once per match.

Pheromone Rage: The Bane of PvP

The second move to deal with is Healing & Heat. This move causes latent healing each turn based on the number of blue tiles on the board. If there are less than a certain number of blue tiles, Daken takes damage each turn. The difficulty is that at max level, Daken only needs 6 blue tiles to maintain healing. It can be very tough to keep this number down, so you should prepare to get hit with a lot of heals. When I face Daken, I always prioritize first clearing any red strike tiles, and second clearing any blue tiles. A few turns of “Heat” can really slow an enemy Daken down. One thing to be careful of, especially as a climbing 2 star player, is when Healing restores more health per turn than your match damage. In these cases, its best to put another opponent first, save up for a lethal amount of special moves, then switch to focusing Daken and kill him in one shot.

Daken’s active move does moderate base damage, plus bonus damage based on the strike tiles on the board. It destroys these tiles, and also converts 2 blue tiles to green tiles. This is good, because it reduces the number of blue tiles on the board, but also bad, because it makes it very easy for Daken to replace any consumed strike tiles with immediate cascades. The other difficulty with this move is that it only requires 5 blue AP, and if there are a few strike tiles on the board, can hit very hard.

Daken’s biggest weakness is actually to stun. If you need to get rid of some green tiles, a stunned Daken will not fire Pheromone Rage. Additionally, you won’t see Healing and Heat function on a turn that Daken is stunned. Even occasional stuns can be essential to manage the green tiles.

Daken is generally high on my kill list. Pheromone Rage is never immediately lethal, but over time, it adds up. However, as mentioned earlier, if his healing is equal (or even nearly equal) to your match damage, put him in back until you have enough specials charged to one shot him. Blue denial is a possibility, but it ultimately will depend on the board. It is satisfy to watch him die from a Healing and Heat turn, but as long as you are denying blue AP to fire Chemical Reaction, you probably won’t be getting the total blue tiles below 6 often.