The god of the seas — and apparently horses, which I will never stop finding funny — has crashed onto the roster. Trident in hand, surfboard at the ready, and a kit that is roughly 80% boiling water. Meet Poseidon, the latest hero from the Greek adventure event.
I broke down Zeus and Poseidon into separate videos, so this one is purely a Poseidon review. He's a $20 paid hero, which is not exactly free, so let's take a look at his base stats, his level progression, his globals, his skills, his forge, then take him into Dragon's Tower and see whether his ultimate's invulnerability actually means invulnerability.
| 10 | +10% Area of Effect |
|---|---|
| 20 | -5% Cooldown |
| 30 | +5% Critical Hit Chance |
| 40 | GEYSIR: Every 5s Poseidon creates a Geysir at a random location for 10s, dealing 1840% damage per tick. |
| 50 | All Heroes: +12.5% Damage |
| 60 | +50% Damage |
| 70 | All Heroes: +2.5% XP Bonus |
| 80 | BURSTING BUBBLES: Every 2s Poseidon creates 3 bubbles. Bubbles explode on contact dealing 5510% damage in an area. |
| 90 | All Heroes that share Faction: +1 Magical Projectile(s) |
| 100 | LAST TIDE: Defeating enemies with any weapon fills the meter. When full, Poseidon summons a massive wave and surfs on it, increasing movement speed and reducing incoming damage by 100%. Enemies hit by the wave take 700% damage. |
| 120 | All Heroes: +5% Critical Hit Chance |
| 140 | Strong Stat Bonus: -15% Cooldown |
| 160 | All Heroes: +100% Damage |
Poseidon is a magical damage hero in the special faction. The "special faction" tag is the part to keep an eye on — special faction heroes only get hero charges from events and from Dragon's Tower, which means star levels for him are going to crawl. I have heroes I've owned for over a year, like Dragon Empress and Leprechaun, that still aren't four stars. If you buy Poseidon and you want him strong fast, you're going to have to throw some real investment at him.
For an early game player, the talents you want from his level progression are cooldown, area of effect, critical strike, and projectiles. Poseidon hits all four. That makes him exactly the kind of hero you want to be leveling if you just picked the game up this week and you want a strong carry through Normal and Hard Mode.
Then you get to the late game stat bonuses and things start to wobble. The 50 damage at level 60 is fine. The 15% cooldown at level 140 is the problem — by the time you have enough heroes to push your cooldown to 60% base (and 40% in the lower-cap modes), that 15% is almost completely wasted. It's one of the worst 140 stat bonuses in the game right now. They should change it to literally anything else.
Globals are what your hero gives the rest of your roster while sitting on the shelf. Poseidon's are surprisingly solid.
Crit at 120, slow multiplier at forge 30, and the magical projectile for special faction — that's a B-tier global package. Right around average. You'll take it.
What you're looking for in a forge is improvements to skills and the weapon. They do this consistently with new heroes now — it didn't used to be the case, but the dev team has been on a hot streak, and Poseidon's forge is no exception. Almost every line in here either makes a skill better or stacks a status effect onto his kit. Well done, Freaywood.
Level 1: Pressure of the Deep. Geyser now spawns one much bigger geyser with 200% area, instead of two random ones (the Cascade option). The bigger single geyser is technically more area than two of the smaller ones, and it's easier to actually use. Take Pressure of the Deep.
Level 2: Clinging Bubbles. Bubbles slow enemies hit for 3 seconds, around 50%. The other option, Pressurized Bubbles, just adds bubble damage. The slow is the easy pick — any kind of disruption in your kit makes you dramatically more survivable, and a 50% slow on a skill that fires every 2 seconds means most of the screen is going to be slowed most of the time.
Level 4: Heat Forged Trident. The trident now boils, burning foes. Burn damage stacks into his kit and synergizes with the crit and projectile multipliers from the level progression. This is also the start of his weapon evolution.
Level 5: Two paths. The first makes Heat Forged Trident deal static damage regardless of distance — turns out his projectile was doing less damage at longer ranges, and this fixes it. The other adds push back to Last Tide and increases its damage by 1.2x. The card text says "1.2%" but that's almost certainly a typo for x1.2 — there has never been a Heroes vs Hordes hero released without at least one description typo, and they will never fix it. Push back on the ultimate is genuinely strong, especially in Nightmare Mode where you need to keep the horde off you. Pick whichever fits your modes — push back for Nightmare and tougher content, static damage if you're playing Normal and Hard.
Slow on the bubbles, burn on the trident, push back or static damage on the ult — this is exactly the buffet you want from a forge. Every line either pushes a skill or layers a status effect. This is a well-designed kit.
Most heroes get most of their damage from skills, and the newer heroes scale especially hard with star levels. Getting a four-star Poseidon is going to be very, very strong — but again, special faction, so it's going to take time.
Every 5 seconds beside Poseidon creates a geyser in a random location for 10 seconds, dealing damage per tick. The 5-second cooldown is a little long, but the damage adds up across the duration. Random placement is the trade-off.
Every 2 seconds, Poseidon creates three bubbles beside him. The bubbles explode on contact, dealing damage. Two seconds is a fast-acting skill — this is the bread-and-butter chip damage in his kit and what most of his forge upgrades will end up improving.
Defeating enemies with any weapon fills the meter. When it pops, Poseidon summons a massive wave and surfs on it, gaining movement speed and reducing incoming damage by 100%. Enemies hit by the wave take 7x damage. The 100% damage reduction is the part to circle — it's effectively a window of full invulnerability, which is incredibly rare. We'll test it in Dragon's Tower in a minute, because if it works there, it changes how he plays in the harder content.
Let's take him into Dragon's Tower, because the question I cared about most was whether the Last Tide invulnerability actually works in the harder content. Short answer: yes. 100% reduced damage means 100% reduced damage. I rode the wave straight through fire pools and just stood on them. Never stand on the fire — except, apparently, when you're Poseidon mid-ultimate.
The one real limitation is his main weapon projectile speed. It is incredibly slow. Look at it on screen and the trident wave is practically lazing across the battlefield. I tried stacking projectile speed talents to see if that fixed it, and it barely moved the needle. Poseidon is fundamentally a close-range hero — you have to play him on top of the horde, not from the back line.
Boss Brawl-wise, he's not a strong pick. I tested both Greek heroes during the live stream and neither of them is a Boss Brawl carry. The slow-multiplier global also skips Boss Brawl. Build him for everything else, and use a different hero set there.
Where Poseidon lands: low S tier. Well-rounded from the very beginning, with slow, burn, push back, cooldown, and an ultimate that gives you full invulnerability in every game mode. The kit checks every box you want for an early game carry, and the ultimate gives him a real role in late game content like Nightmare and Dragon's Tower. The only meaningful weaknesses are the wasted 140 cooldown bonus and the painfully slow projectile speed.
On the paid side: I really only ever recommend No Ads, the Pet Expedition pass, and the Faction Wars pass. Everything else is take-it-or-leave-it. Poseidon at $20 is one of the rare exceptions where I'd actually say it's worth — about as much honor as I can give a paid hero in this game.
