I don’t understand why a troop that uses green/yellow mana would have the Water link trait: “Gain bonus Blue Mana from Blue Gem matches”. I might be the only person in the game that uses that troop, but I like the it and field it from time to time, and it would be nice if it had a trait that would actually be somewhat useful.
The trait is helping all blue allies, isn’t it?
If you field a team without blue troops, though, it is rather pointless.
I agree on the blue mana thing, but there’s like 50 traits in the game, and they decide to put a blue mana trait on the troop that doesn’t use it? Literally ANY other trait would be better instead of water link.
There are 4 more troops with the Water Link trait, but not using blue mana. Might be intentional 
the problem is that this trait completely locks the troop into blue mana based team. I was using it with true damage team I don’t think I had any blue troops. I get the logic when you have, for example, Frostfire troll. Also yellow and green mana troop, but it’s a generator and creates mix of blue and red gems, so you know you will use it only with blue or red mana troops. Or any other generator of blue mana. Shocktopus does generate mana, but it can be any mana you need at the moment, and this link forces you to favor blue. That’s just… not ok.
There are actually at least 24 troops with an “[Element] Link” trait not matching their own color, why single out Shocktopus for criticism?
(mostly) complete list of Element Link troops
Water Link (24 total):
- Marsh Raptor (Yellow/Green)
- Naga Queen (Green/Brown)
- Shocktopus (Yellow/Green)
- Silver Drakon (Purple)
- Valkyrie (Red/Yellow)
- (plus 19 Blue Troops)
Nature Link (17 total):
- Dryad (Yellow/Green)
- Festival Cow (Yellow)
- Leshy (Brown)
- Nymph (Purple/Yellow)
- Urska Druid (Brown/Yellow)
- (plus 12 Green Troops)
Air Link (17 total):
- Anthea (Green/Blue)
- Orion’s Herald (Green)
- (plus 15 Yellow Troops)
Fire Link (21 total):
- Falconer (Yellow/Green)
- Fire Giant (Brown/Yellow)
- Royal Engineer (Blue/Brown)
- Spiritmane (Purple/Green)
- Spring Emissary (GreenBlue)
- Shocktopus (Fire Link, Green/Yellow)
- (plus 15 Red Troops)
Magic Link (24 total):
- Bastite Priestess (Yellow/Blue)
- Giant Spider (Green/Blue)
- Snake Charmer (Green/Blue)
- Snowy Owl (Yellow)
- (plus 20 Purple Troops)
Stone Link (15 total):
- Acolyte (Blue/Purple)
- Sunsail (Green)
- (plus 13 Brown Troops)
As players of the Friday dungeon know, King Dokkalfar benefits massively from his Giant Spiders having “Magic Link” as a trait (on top of them already being Purple Mana converters). Likewise, Krystenax similarly benefits from his Silver Drakons having “Water Link”.
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The short and quick answer to Shocktopus is that it was a community polled created troop. A lot of the things it has are slightly different from the norm at times. Unfortunately, different parts of the community want different things on a troop and troop flavor got voted over practical applications a few different times.
The chances of Shocktopus getting changed is probably near 0 because of the community creation aspect. The chances of changes on most troops that are Epic and below are near 0 though, unless its a fabled Kingdom Rework once every 2 years or so.
Because unless they are mana converters, I don’t use other such troops. I actually used Shocktopus in true damage teams that had no blue color in it, so it’s kinda like Chalcedony - one of its traits work like a charm in a certain situation, but in other situations you have 2 traits on your troop instead of 3. And also because Shocktopus is kinda unique in the sense that its mana generation + damage depends on enemy colors.
As for Giant spider, it’s a King Dokkalfar’s summon. Every time he can, Dokkalfar WILL summon GS, so it’s logical GS would have magic link on top of converting color to purple to help power Dokkalfar which does have purple mana. The same with Silver drakon which is summoned to create blue gems and power up Krystenax with even more blue via water link. If Shocktopus was exploding or destroying blue gems or converting to blue, it would be logical for it to have water link. But its mana generation is dependant on the enemy mana. I won’t destroy blue gems if I don’t have a blue troop, or if the enemy is, for example, green/red, as I am wasting the opportunity to damage enemy at the same time. So we have a situation where you definitely can have Shocktopus in a team without blue mana and then face enemy without blue mana either. Tell me that’s amazing design.
On the other hand, I forgot that Shocktopus was a community creation, so it’s not likely to be changed. Which only shows that community designs can be a great idea, but devs should also have a say in the final result.