Weekly Challenge: The Double-hitting Life Archer Pelacor Arbalest

Greetings to all the members of the Hive Blockchain community, most especially those who enjoy playing Splinterlands. This week's Share Your Battle challenge features the Pelacor Arbalest.

The Pelacor Arbalest is a six-mana rare monster from the Life splinter. It was trained to accurately shoot crossbows in each hand. In the gold league, I say it is underwhelming at level 6. At this level, it has 2 archery damage, 3 speed, 5 health, shoots twice (Double Strike), and has the flying ability. While the increases in health and evasion factor are crucial in its survival, the Pelacor Arbalest's damage is too low. A damage debuff (Headwind) could weaken this archer. Hence, I do not usually use it. In one of the rare instances I did, I lost. LOL! Let me share my thoughts on why I was defeated.

I used the Pelacor Arbalest in this particular battle with these rules:

I chose the Life team of Lorna Shine. I usually have Pelacor Conjurer in the front as my main tank due to its high evasion and magic reflection ability. I placed Crystal Jaguar in my rear to protect against Melee Monsters. As I am expecting a number of Melee attackers, I put in Disintegrator to lessen their damage (Demoralize). I then added Pelacor Arbalest as my main damage dealer and Supply Runner to boost the speed of my team to increase evasion. Then, I finished up by choosing Vulguine as my secondary tank, whose health will increase as more monsters from either side die in the battle field. I expected that my opponent will find it hard to hit me.

When the cards were revealed, I felt confident because my opponent chose the magic-reflect summoner Owster Rotwell. I did not have magic monsters on board so I thought I had the upper hand. Unfortunately, his Silent Shavi and the regenerating Cursed Windeku annihilated my whole team. The most disappointing part was the damage of Pelacor Arbelest was debuffed, delivering a meager 1 damage x 2 to my opponent's self-healing front tank Xenith Monk. Possibly, had I used General Sloan instead, my archers would have done a quick work of my opponent's front liners.

I do not usually use Pelacor Arbalest in my battles. I think its damage output is not enough. If I buff it using General Sloan, its survivability will shorten. Nonetheless, for very specific instances wherein the battle rules are that all monsters have the same starting health (Equalizer) and archers can attack in the first position (Close Range), then I would use Pelacor Arbalest with General Sloan for the damage buff and Time Mage to slow down enemies, effectively decreasing the opponent's accuracy. This trio could melt the opponent's front liners. But in most other circumstances, I would prefer to look at other options.