Holy War Changes and Strategies

I'm sure people are wondering how the addition of Position Skills and Skill Chains effect Holy Wars and the strategies players use. Before I move to them I would like to point out the other important changes. I'm not going to discuss all of them nor all their facets, just the pertinent ones.

1) Changes to Holy War Points Received - High minimum points from lower level players, higher minimum points when attacking users with lower DEF PWR.

This change is directly used to combat the lockout strategy since even at lowest DEF PWR they will pay more points. The strategy itself will still be viable since the increase will probably be slight.

2) Full-Force Attacks - Players can use up to 3HP to do up to 3HP worth of damage and gain 3HP worth of points in a single attack.

This ability is going to cause some shit to go down. Rage of Bahamut introduces and automatic weapon. I can attack 3x per HP, and I can burn 3HP isntantly? That's 9 attacks per click. I imagine we will see quite a few last minute power explosions when coupled with the bonus from the Skill Chains and Order Leader Skill.

Skill Chains:

I will address this change first because it is extremely simple and should happen naturally in most cases. Players just need to keep attacking until the skill chain is capped. While the bonus is active you gain 10% ATK, and when the number increases you can attain up to 50% bonus. This makes it more important than ever for a lot of players to attack constantly and remain active. It would be awful to lose a chain bonus.

I do have a thought on this since it doesn't mention whether or not attacking the castle or a wall will gain the bonus nor does it mention the amount of attack required. I think it might be possible to gain a high chain early on by simply attacking the castle with a low power deck. This is a theory though since we have yet to see how it implements.

Position Skills: 
Some things to note on position skills are that skills of the same type cannot be active simultaneously skills require SP to use, skills have cooldowns based on the power of the skills.

Order Leader: Shingeki
By far the best skill, the Order leader bonus can be activated when a player gains 1000 SP and will last a full 10 minutes. The cooldown of the skill is 5 minutes. This bonus increases players ATK by 20-25% and the points received by 50-60%. 

Vice Leader: Braveheart
This skill is a baby version of Shingeki and cannot be active at the same time. It costs 500 SP and will last 5 minutes. The skills effect increases ATK and DEF by 10-15% and the points received by 20-25%.

Attack Leader: Warcry
This skill will decrease an opponents defense for a SINGLE ATTACK by 30-45%. It costs 60 SP and should be used ONLY WHEN THE ENEMY DEFENSE LEADER ACTIVATES PHALANX.

Defense Leader: Phalanx
This using this skill properly will be able to make or break orders. It will increase the defense leaders defense by 30-40% and when activated only the DEF leader can be attacked until he is either defeated or 6 minutes wears off. It costs 300 SP. Obviously Attack Leader's Warcry negates the bonus, making attack leader presence mandatory. 

Support Leader: Boost
It's an HP. Should be saved for attack leader or defense leaders. It increases the ATK/DEF of a member by 300-350 ATK/DEF PWR. The cooldown ranges from 3 minutes to 100 seconds and consumes 50 SP.

Support Leader: Magic Shield
This is the second skill available to support leaders increasing DEF. I...do not get this skill. The way its phrases makes it simply appear pointless no matter what. 

Regular Members: Yell
This skill is why you'll want a lot of members on simultaneously. It appears to have no cooldown and increases the ATK and SP of a player by 10-30 ATK/SP.  SP consumed is 30 SP, but if you're not a leader you're not using it. 
 

Now lets talk strategy:
So, how do these skills effect strategy? Well, it all depends on how easy it is to generate SP and whether you want to win or you want to go for mammoth points. I assume most people want mammoth points.

The way I see it, early on players should be attacking to increase the chain as well as generate SP which they should be sending to the Order leader. Once the chain reaches maximum power, and the order leader uses Shingeki, the team should go to down burning through Full Force attacks to maximize the point boosts of the chain as well as Shingeki. Once this is complete, players tone down, send SP to the order leader as they generate it by keeping the chain going until they can repeat the process.

Now, some players may be thinking...doesn't it makes sense to have two defense leaders alternating Phalanx the entire match? Absolutely...depending on how much SP we generate per attack that we can send to them. Each Phalanx costs 300 SP for 6 minutes. This means an order could have 18 minutes of defense in exchange for the same amount of SP that would earn 10 minutes of offense for the order leader. I DO NOT RECOMMEND PUSHING DEFENSE. The primary reason is because Phalanx ends when the defender is defeated. This means you could potentially spend 300 SP for one minute of defense and mitigating no points from the enemy. Instead, you could save that to eventually gain 10 minutes of bonus points and damage. 

So, if you shouldn't alternate Phalanx, how should you use it? I recommend using it on the home stretch, the last 6 minutes of the match to protect your lead or give you time to gain one.

I think with skill chains, full force attacks, and shingeki, players will be able to accumulate very large numbers of points very quickly. Because of that, 6 minutes of defense that an attack leader can break by combining his teams shingeki, morale boost, and warcry...doesn't seem like a good value. 

But hey, I'm an offense guy.