Troop Stacking
Build the best army for Epic Monsters, CP Runs and PvP battles.
Account & presets
iBattle
Army limits
iTroops
iLoading units…
Mercenaries
(optional) i IncludeArmy bonuses
iPlayer
Battle
Army Limits
Army Limits
Army Limits
Max Fill finds the fullest safe stack at or below the entered army limit. Turn it off to enter your own fill percentage.
i
Leave this off to optimize Troops and Monsters only. Selected mercenaries use the Standard method. You can add, remove, or change mercenaries and Authority settings after optimization; Results and Battle Details update immediately without re-optimizing.
Turn it on to optimize Troops, Monsters, and selected Mercenaries together. Your Authority fill becomes a maximum: the result will never exceed it, but may use less Authority when that produces more expected lifetime damage. Changing mercenaries then requires re-optimization and can increase optimization time.
Unit Bonuses
Monster species follow Monsters, and human troop classes follow Humans, by default. Expand either row to enter profile-specific bonuses.
Global Battle Bonuses
Squad Separation is the target health gap between squads next to each other in the planned death order. A higher value creates a larger health gap but can use army capacity less efficiently. At 0.05%, each squad is targeted to have about 0.05% more health than the squad that should die after it.
Selection
Select only the units you want to send into battle. Selecting all available units can cause optimization to time out. Select a level to include all its units, or expand it to choose individual units.
Custom Die Order
Drag a squad tile into the order you want it to die. Units can be mixed between tiers within Troops, Monsters, or Mercs. On a phone, use the arrow buttons.
Cycle lines show predicted death thresholds for this Epic when your army attacks first. A tile with two cycle numbers shows army-first / Epic-first outcomes. These are estimates based on the current calculated stack.
Troops
Monsters
Mercs
Results
Capacity
Battle DetailsView predicted death order, attacks, and lifetime damage
Opening sacrifice
| Unit | Qty | Death | Attacks | Gold Revival | Damage / Opportunity | Lifetime Damage |
|---|
PvP Battle DetailsView predicted death order, revival cost, and expected PvP damage
| Unit | Qty | Death | Gold Revival | Silver Revival | Expected Damage | Reason |
|---|
Mercenaries
Monsters
Troops
Encounter Strategy
Encounter strategy
| Revival strategy | Gold + Potion outcome | Silver outcome | Dragon Coins outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | — | |
| — | — | — | |
| — | — | — |
Silver and Dragon Coin spending uses minimum observed training costs from a fully developed, fully researched account.
Squad health by predicted death order. Select a point to view unit details.
Input Help
How Epic Battles Are Calculated
Follow the complete calculation, or open only the section you need.
1Battle overview
An Epic battle is a sequence of attacks between your surviving squads and the Epic’s surviving enemy squads. The calculator models each friendly squad separately, including its health, target matchups, attack opportunities, and expected damage.
The first attack is a 50/50 coin toss: either your army or the Epic attacks first. After that opening cycle, the Epic attacks first in every later cycle. The calculator simulates both opening outcomes and averages them.
A normal Epic formation contains one Flying, Mounted, Melee, and Ranged enemy squad. Arachne contains two of each. Custom encounters may contain from one to eight enemy squads.
2Unit bonus assignment
Every unit uses one bonus profile. Species takes priority over troop class: Beasts, Dragons, Elementals, and Giants use their matching species profile even when the unit appears in a Specialist or mercenary group.
Cursed, Demon, Elves, Undead, and Barbarian units use Guardsman bonuses. Human mercenaries without a Guardsman, Specialist, or Engineer class also use Guardsman bonuses. Mercenaries otherwise follow the same species rules as every other unit.
Rows marked Auto follow their parent Monsters or Humans row. Turning Auto off lets that profile use its own Double Damage, Strike Twice, Health, and Strength values.
3Epic battle damage
Base Strength is the unit’s original strength. Profile Strength is the Strength value from the unit’s assigned Beast, Guardsman, Specialist, or other profile. Strength PvE is a global bonus applied to every unit fighting an Epic.
Base Strength × (1 + Profile Strength + Strength PvE + Epic bonus + matchup bonus + Arachne bonus)An Epic bonus belongs to a specific unit and applies against Epic monsters. A matchup bonus applies only when that unit attacks a matching Flying, Mounted, Melee, or Ranged enemy squad. An intrinsic Arachne bonus applies only in an Arachne encounter.
A unit has 1,000 Base Strength, 2,000% Profile Strength, 3,000% Strength PvE, a 100% Epic bonus, and a 50% bonus against its target.
1,000 × (1 + 20 + 30 + 1 + 0.5) = 52,500 damageThe extra 1 represents the unit’s original 100% Base Strength.
4Double Damage and Strike Twice
Double Damage is the chance that an attack deals twice its normal damage. The calculator adds the unit’s intrinsic Double Damage to its profile value and caps the final chance at 100%. For example, a Smiter with an intrinsic 5% bonus and a 14% profile value has a 19% Double Damage chance.
Strike Twice is the chance to attack a second, distinct enemy squad. Damage is calculated separately for that second target, so the first target’s matchup bonus is not automatically reused.
(1 + Double Damage chance) × (first-strike damage + Strike Twice chance × second-strike damage)A ranged Guardsman deals 150 damage to Flying because of a matchup bonus, but 100 damage to its next-best target. With 20% Strike Twice:
150 + (0.20 × 100) = 170 expected damageIf it also receives the same matchup bonus against Melee, its second strike may deal 150 damage instead. With Arachne, two copies of each enemy type exist, so both strikes can sometimes receive the same matchup bonus while still targeting different squads.
5Health and predicted death order
Quantity × Base Health × (1 + Profile Health)The calculator uses effective squad health to construct the predicted death ladder. Higher-health friendly squads are expected to be defeated earlier; lower-health squads remain for later attack opportunities.
Minimum Separation uses the smallest legal health difference that preserves the requested order. Fixed separation requires a larger percentage gap between adjacent squads.
Quantities must be whole legal increments, remain below the capacity limit, and preserve the health ladder. A final deterministic top-up adds every legal increment it can. Any remaining space may be too small for another unit or adding one may reverse the intended death order.
6Calculation methods
Simulates many quantity and death-order structures and returns the highest Expected Lifetime Damage found. This is the default method for Epic encounters.
Builds legal quantities and an automatic death order from the selected units. The player can then change the order, and the calculator preserves those changes.
7Shared armies
Epic encounters with the same captain or hero setup can share an army. Choose Use shared army to copy the group's army limits, unit bonuses, selected units, and Custom order. Later changes to a shared army update the other linked encounters. Choose Edit independently when one encounter needs its own setup.
The groups are 1 Captain (Tinman, Hellforge, Doomsday, Fenrir, Jormungandr, Chimera), 1 Hero (Basilisk, Armageddon), 1 Hero + 3 Captains (Ashen, Shadow City), and 3 Captains (Arachne, Arcanomancer, Briareus). Arachne can share army settings with its group, but needs its own optimization because it fights eight enemy squads instead of four.
Use Export to save a .player backup of your account, and Import to load it on another device. Older .stacks and .biff files can still be imported.
8Optimizer workflow
The optimizer searches only the units selected by the player. When mercenaries are excluded, their quantities remain fixed and their damage is included in the final score.
- Validate and prepareResolve unit profiles, bonuses, capacity limits, enemy formation, and legal quantity rules.
- Screen independent seedsCreate several different starting army structures so the search is not dependent on one initial guess.
- Local refinementTransfer progressively smaller amounts of capacity between squads and keep improvements.
- Structural explorationTest alternate death orders, attack-opportunity thresholds, counterfactual battle basins, and related squad-group redistributions.
- Precision polishRevisit the strongest candidates with smaller changes until no tested move improves ELD.
- Highest-ELD selectionCompare the tested candidates and return the mathematical maximum found. No practical death-order preference is allowed to replace it with a lower-ELD army.
- Opening-sacrifice checkIf a non-siege squad receives no attack during the opening cycle while siege is present, test for the best alternative in which every non-siege squad attacks.
- Canonical final scoreRe-run the selected army through the shared battle simulator and display its quantities, death order, ELD, and revival cost.
When detected, Battle Details shows one collapsed explanation. If a verified no-sacrifice army exists, the player may preview it together with its exact ELD reduction and restore the maximum-ELD army at any time.
9Reading the results
The average total damage the army is expected to cause across its predicted attack opportunities. It is a comparison metric, not a guarantee for one battle.
The Temple-adjusted Gold cost for 90% revivable attacking losses. Whole-unit rounding is applied.
Expected Lifetime Damage divided by the selected encounter's recorded average ELD per point. This is an estimate based on observed results, not a guarantee for one battle.
A squad may die earlier because sacrificing one attack can allow several stronger squads to gain attacks. The optimizer compares total army ELD rather than judging one squad in isolation.
Why does this squad die early?
Reviewing Selection
Preparing the selection review…
Your current selection will not change unless you accept a recommendation.
Optimizing Army
Preparing your selected squads…
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