I actually do think that @MadOrange has a point-- I really don’t care that much whether DB stays in Arena or not, but I’ve become very reactive about all the “nerf this, change that” complaints on these boards.
I’ve participated in some of this myself-- if you go back and read my comments from the time the new UI was being (ham-handedly) rolled out, some of them are absurdly bitter and accusatory. So maybe I’m trying to atone for those errors in my own judgement…
Mostly it comes down to the fact that since I’ve posted in this thread, I get notified when there are new posts. I read them, and then it’s…
I’ll try to pipe down now and leave everyone here to complain in peace!
I know, right?! I can’t say I haven’t fallen victim to doing that and clearly this forum is rife with it. The pitfall for people passionate about something.
I just want to repost it in nearly every thread on here…
And that’s simply not the case for 90% of the time I face Dawnbringer and that image shows the typical result of the first cast. The outcome is he kills 2-3 troops with the first cast every time, and PLUS barriers the entire enemy team. No other weapon in Arena does this, and no other weapon even comes close, which is why Dawnbringer is unbalanced to a lot of people.
Yeah, I let my response get out of hand and a little too personal. In both my forum posts and Discord I really need to think a little bit more about what I say.
I think the following are true:
If one weapon represents such an advantage that 30% of the team pool is using it, that weapon is overpowered.
If one weapon represents an almost 10% effect on your observed win rate, that weapon may be overpowered.
Both of these could be tempered by more data. For example:
If we found out that the top 5 weapons have ~30%, ~25%, ~20%, ~10% distribution, then the 30% by itself is not quite as alarming. This is “there are a few weapons that are much more powerful than the rest” and that’s a more complex problem.
If we figured out the top 5 weapons all have more or less a 10% impact on win rate, again that suggests “in line with the next-most-powerful weapons” and the situation gets more complex.
But there are a lot of other things at play too, and we’ve been over them. I think “pure” data would mean you don’t ever get to push the “retire” button, and should involve keeping track of win-loss records vs. every weapon. If someone wants to do that kind of record taking they can feel free, but it sounds boring and slow to me and the devs are in a better position to provide that data. I’m a data nerd and I’d love to see a kind of live ranking like that, but it’s a big feature for little gain. (But I’d pay for access to it )
Everyone’s experience in the game is different. I’ve tried a handful of suggestions for vs. Dawnbringer and so far Runic Blade’s still my most successful strategy. Summer’s Fury is still quite expensive in terms of mana, and if I don’t get a team that helps me fill red I find the match goes roughly like when I can’t manipulate a good Runic Blade hit.
The presence of Dawnbringer completely changes how I pick troops and has widened the window of what teams I consider unlikely to make it all 8 wins. That alone bothers me. I still stand by the same assessments as before: Runic Blade is hard to beat with lesser teams, but Dawnbringer eliminates so many teams as to make my expected Arena returns in both rewards and “fun” too low.
Very good points throughout, but I wanted to address this one comment…
I wish I had broken out all opponent weapons, it would have been interesting to see the result. But I didn’t, and not likely to devote the effort in the future. I will say that my impression is that Runic Blade is at least as common as DB in Arena.
Here’s a chart of weapons seen in Arena-- based not on hard data but on my anecdotal “impressions”, so take it for what it’s worth:
DawnBringer 30%
Runic Blade 30%
Crude Club 10%
Mang 10%
Prismatic Orb 10%
All others 10%
Not commenting on the powerlevel of Dawnbringer which clearly is strong af(but also very manaintense and deniable), but I don’t think representation is a good way to look at it.
Right before Dawnbringer existed, Runic Blade was massively overrepresented, i’d say easily 50%(probably even more) of enemy teams had it. That doesn’t mean it was overpowered though, as a matter of fact i personally wouldn’t even have put it in my top3 arena weapons at that time. It just got hyped on these very forums and people are lazy and tend to pick whatever is called out as being strong in forum discussions.
Incidentally that is what will happen if Dawnbringer gets taken out of Arena btw. Instead of 30% Dawnbringer we will be back to 50+% Runic Blade, not that i would mind either way, just saying people will always flock to whatever gets called out as the “best” on here.
Like its been said, Arena is outdated. Hell, its gone the way of the dinosaurs. The devs need to overhaul that game mode much like they’ve done with everything else. The bandaid solutions aren’t the way to go.
I’m sure that as long as there is money to be made and/or continues to be made, the publisher will give them the green light.
I agree, Runic Blade was overrepresented but I don’t think it was overpowered. 1 cast on practically any full health enemy would 90% of the time not even kill 1 enemy, whereas Dawnbringer on 1 cast usually kills 3 of my troops (or if it kills 2 brings the other down to 1-2 HP).
I think just from a balance standpoint where we can’t have access to any other mythics where 1 cast could wipe out or nearly wipe out a whole team (not to mention barrier), I don’t think we should have access to Dawnbringer either. Not that its unbeatable or unblockable, but as the topic says, it’s pretty unbalanced
Reminder this thread is 6 months old and the devs don’t give a flip most people feel like an entire game mode is broken by a single piece of endgame player swag.
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