Deepdive into Doomed "Doomskull" Weapons

[igniteice]

So you want your Hero to make some Doomskulls. Well, there’s only one set of weapons for that, and those are the original Doomed weapons. But which one should you use? Well, first let’s start with weapon types…

Talent Tree	Level	Talent Name	Description
Death	1	Reaper	Gain 2 Magic if using a Scythe.
Forest	5	Perfect Aim	Gain 2 Magic if using a Bow.
Storms	5	Mace of Power	Gain 2 Magic if using a Mace.
War	10	Axes of Doom	Gain 3 Magic is using an Axe.
Water	10	Ocean’s Trident	Gain 3 Magic if using a Polearm.

Now we need to pair these up with the classes, and because it would be a really long list if we didn’t, we’ll also narrow it down by class bonus color.

• Blue classes include Corsair, Frostmage, Knight, Slayer, Tidecaller, and Warpriest. However, there is no bonus for using a Sword, so the most you’ll get is 5 Magic for just matching the color.
• There are a ton of Brown classes, but only one of them has the Storm tree: Warden, so if you’re looking to use the Doomed Club with Mace of Power talent for that extra 2 Magic, you’re really limited…
• The Doomed Axe is yellow, but there are zero yellow classes (Bard, Dervish, Priest, Stormcaller) that have the War talent tree (Barbarian, Shaman, Slayer, Titan, Warlord, Warpriest) for 3 Magic using Axes.
• Five classes use Green (Archer, Hierophant, Plaguelord, Orbweaver, Shaman), but none of them have the Water talent tree, so again, you’re out 3 Magic using the Glaive Polearm.
• Purple requires the Death tree for 2 Magic using Scythe, and two classes feature just that: Deathknight and Necromancer.
• Last we have the Doomed Crossbow, a red weapon, and Bows require the Forest tree. There are two classes for that: Sunspear and Barbarian.

Alright… so we know which classes can get us the maximum magic bonus, but obviously there’s more to it than that. How about the upgrades on the weapons? All of the weapons have the same last talent upgrade that drains 2 mana from enemies that share the weapon’s color. Aside from that though, they all have their own set of talents, some more useful than others…

• Doomed Blade features Mighty (Gain 2 Attack), Watery (Create a Blue Gem), Frozen (Freeze the first enemy), Striking (deal 5 damage to the first enemy). The 2 Attack is irrelevant – you’re making Doomskulls. That kind of explosion of damage is much more than gaining 2 Attack. The Frozen is very nice, but unfortunately, you’ll be freezing the same target that’s probably going to die. The Watery is the worst part. You absolutely don’t want to have a 5 match of Doomskulls get nullified because the middle one turns into a Blue gem.
• Doomed Club features Vital (Gain 4 Life), Carved (Create a Brown Gem), Rending (Deal 3 Splash damage to a random enemy), and Dust (create a Duststorm). The 4 Life is much more important than 2 Attack, so that’s good. Rending is nice because it can potentially hit 3 targets, taking out a Barrier here and there. The Duststorm is fantastic because it can fill the Doomed Club back up. But again, that create a gem talent… boooo!
• Doomed Axe has Enfeebling (remove 2 Attack from first enemy), Flaming (burn first enemy), Lightning (5 scatter damage), and Light (lightstorm). The first upgrade is rather useless, but that second upgrade is fantastic for classes with Fireblade, because the Burn is applied before the skull damage is done. I much prefer Lightning as well to Rending, because it hits all targets. And again, a Lightstorm is created to refill the weapon. Awesome!
• The Doomed Glaive has Vital (4 Life), Tangling (Entangle the first enemy), Reaching (5 damage to the second enemy), and Leafstorm. This is a fantastic set of upgrades. The Vital again is better than gaining Attack or removing points from the enemy. The Entangling is amazing because it allows you to use Doomed Glaive in some situations that may not be the best, knowing the enemy will be Entangled anyway. The Reaching hits a target that isn’t immediately going to die to Doomskulls, and Leafstorm refills the weapon!
• The Doomed Scythe is the only weapon of the six that doesn’t create a storm for its color. Its upgrades include Anti-Magic (1 magic removed from first enemy), Leeching (steal 2 mana from first enemy), Vampiric (steal 3 Life from first enemy), and Bonestorm. Now, the 1 magic removal is clearly better, in most situations, than removing 2 attack. And stealing 2 mana is great as well, arguably better than Draining 3, and Vampiric is better than Vital as well. The Bonestorm though is where this weapon gets interesting, because you’re exploding a bunch of gems with Doomskulls, and now you have more skulls coming down. That can be very advantageous.
• Last we have the Doomed Crossbow. It has some of the rather mundane upgrades (Chaotic which removes 2 random skill points from first enemy) and Striking, but it also has one of the BEST upgrades out of any of the Doomed weapons: Ruined, which creates a Doomskull. Doomed Blade and Doomed Club both create gems of their respective colors, and the other weapons are better for not having this, but Doomed Crossbow goes further in adding a Doomskull to the board. Fantastic.

As far as upgrades go, it’s pretty easy to rank these weapons:

1. Doomed Crossbow for having Ruined
2. Doomed Glaive for having Tangling
3. Doomed Axe for having Flaming
4. Doomed Scythe for having Leeching and Bone.
5. Doomed Blade for having Frozen
6. Doomed Club for having uh… well, nothing, this one sucks.

But what about synergy with other troops? Certainly that plays a role in things! For instance, a very successful Delve team uses a Forest Troll, 2x King Gobtruffle, and a Doomed Glaive in the back. Due to the team generating so much green and brown, you can fill the Doomed Glaive in the back row and loop it with the other troops.

Some skull generators aren’t so good with looping into other troops though. Wrath, for instance, turns Blue into Brown and yellow into skulls. You want Wrath in the front though so it can explode gems when it deals skull damage, but the brown it generates will just fill itself before it ever fills, for instance, a Doomed Club behind it, and then it color blocks a Doomed Axe while it’s at it.

Glaycion is a great troop though. It has a massive skull damage reduction (65%), and it transforms yellow to blue, providing mana to a troop behind it. Unfortunately, that means you’d have to be using Doomed Blade, which skulls, especially because Doomed Blade also transforms red to doomskulls, which Glaycion just did.

One of my favorite and fastest teams for Skull spam uses Wrath, Glaycion, King Bloodhammer, and Doomed Glaive. For some reason, it just works really well, because it covers a lot of bases. Glaive converts Brown to Doomskulls. Bloodhammer converts Blue to Doomskulls. Glaycion converts Red to Doomskulls, and Wrath converts yellow to skulls (but enrages himself!) No color is overlapped. Furthermore, while Wrath refills himself converting Blue to Brown, Glaycion creates Blue for King Bloodhammer to convert to Doomskulls. So how does anyone get mana? Well, you’ll notice that Purple and Green are never converted, which allows the explosions from Doomskulls to fill Glaycion and Doomed Glaive.

Another fast team I use also features Glaycion, but this time at the front. Then I have Leprechaun which I open with, followed by Doomed Crossbow, and then Zuul’Goth. This team is another great exercise in color management. Glaycion fills Zuul’Goth with Blue matches and helps fill others with doomskull explosions, while Leprechaun fills the rest by exploding green gems, then the Firestorm from Doomed Crossbow helps refill itself and the others.

I would avoid using Doomed Blade and Doomed Club because of creating gems that can ruin Doomskull matches. Doomed Axe could be great for classes that have access to Fireblade due to its ability to Burn the enemy its hitting – however, you’ll have to cast it again to burn the next target, and there are much better ways to get Burn onto enemies.

In the end… I think Doomed Glaive and Crossbow are the best Doomed weapons available. Doomed Axe and Scythe can be useful. Doomed Club and Blade should be avoided.

[Thevc]

In the right team, blade is more destructive than most doomed weapons.

[Jonathan]

I thought this was really nice!

I have to mildly (but respectfully, I hope!!) disagree with a couple of minor thoughts on upgrades.

@igniteice

Rending is nice because it can potentially hit 3 targets, taking out a Barrier here and there.

@igniteice

I much prefer Lightning as well to Rending, because it hits all targets.

These bits of damage happen after the main spell effect, which includes damage to all enemy troops. As such, any Barriers will have already been expended against this bigger hit, unless the Troops were Submerged (in which case only Rending has a chance to have an effect).

The main exception to this would be triggering an enemy’s Savior talent by killing an enemy Troop with the initial ‘damage all’ – this seems pretty niche, though. The upgrades can also be detrimental against an Orbweaver hero or Orcs.

On the whole, therefore, I generally find the damage to be either meaningless, unreliable, or occasionally/situationally/rarely useful against Troops with ~1-3 Health left – so not really that nice or good (my opinion/take).

@igniteice

The Frozen is very nice, but unfortunately, you’ll be freezing the same target that’s probably going to die.

I totally agree, and realistically think this reasoning applies to a lot of the other upgrades as well, making them less useful.

But yeah, I guess Leeching can be useful if you gain 2 mana, Vampiric is fine because you gain 3 Life and could kill an enemy with ≤3 Health, allowing you to use the Skull hits on the next enemy (also an argument somewhat in favour of Striking), and so on.

I do agree with your thoughts on Glaive’s Tangling, but also sometimes kind of wish it Entangled the second enemy (either instead or as well), though .

@igniteice

one of the BEST upgrades out of any of the Doomed weapons: Ruined

I’ve typically/historically always agreed with this – after all, if making Doomskulls, why not have more?

Lately, though, I’ve considered a couple of situations where it’s actually detrimental ():

• When it joins two disparate skull groups, to subsequently deal less damage

• If you were to cast it when there would be no available Skull matches afterwards, and considered ‘safe’, but creating a Doomskull opens up a Skull match for the enemy.

At the end of the day, I think ‘Create a Gem’ upgrades simply don’t belong on Weapons that Convert Gems, since Converting Gems is all about predictability, consistency, precision, etc.

---

Loving your breakdowns of various game elements, tbh!!!

[Shimrra]

While I do not disagree with any specific point … the priorities for picking a doomskull weapon for a team are going to be the colors:
How the color of the weapon interacts with the other three troops’ colors.
And - if applicable - how the color transform from the weapon interacts with the transforms, storms, etc, from the other three troops.

So while Glaive is amazing because it has Entangle, Glaive is also amazing specifically to pair with Obsidius because it generates a green storm on cast, fills itself a bit as things go to hell, Obsidius then generates a brown storm once you kill something and fills the board with brown for Glaive to transform again.

Between that synergy, really wanting Obsidius’ stun trait, their mana colors not interfering, etc - I don’t really care anymore than Glaive has Entangle, I care that its got the right color combination.

Similarly, if I have a set of three troops that has no brown on it, I’m gonna probably be adding the Doomed Club to that team regardless of anything else simply because of the colors.

Going in-depth about the rest of the forge upgrades (and “upgrades”), where I can chip in another couple points of damage on the AOE or the color/class combination, all that? Very low priority by comparison.

You aren’t wrong in your analysis, its just not as important unfortunately. The bits I wanted to see are touched on later, of course.

The other bit that I feel was missed … is the fact that Blade and Club have that irritating capacity to undo your extra turns. You already ranked them last but there’s no mention of that part.
I stand corrected, carry on.

[Grundulum]

It is kind of amazing that Blade and Club have lasted this long with bad affixes. Virtually anything that did not modify the board would be an improvement, and the time to fix this is, generously, 10 minutes to talk to whoever is currently lead dev of GoW about the replacement and a further 10 to find/modify the spots in the code.

[TheIdleOne]

@igniteice

In the end… I think Doomed Glaive and Crossbow are the best Doomed weapons available. Doomed Axe and Scythe can be useful. Doomed Club and Blade should be avoided.

While your entire post is very insightful, I find “best” in terms of what other troops currently can do.

Doomed Blade is a Blue weapon that turns Red into Doomskulls. If you look at your other blue options, you have Bastite Princess for a non-efficient Yellow to Skull converter. If you look at to Doomskull, you have Moira Cragheart (Bl/Br) and The Maraji Queen (Bl/R) convert Green to Doomskull. Doomed Blade has a unique effect in its color so far.

Doomed Glaive is a Green weapon that turns Brown to Doomskulls. Other green to skull converters includes Nimue/Alderfather/Xerodar- Yellow to Skull, Forest Guardian- Purple to Skull. Doomed Glaive has a unique effect in its color so far.

Doomed Blade (without the create a gem affix) and Doomed Glaive are my two top choices.

Doomed Axe turns Purple to Doomskulls. Forest Guardian is also a yellow troop that can turn Purple to Skulls.

Doomed Scythe turns Yellow to Doomskulls. Alderfather, Nimue, Xerodar, Fist of Zorn are all purple troops that can turn Yellow to Skulls.

Doomed Axe and Doomed Scythe can be replaced by other things, but still have some purpose if you need Doomskulls over regular Skulls. Future Hero Class spoilers: The Sin of Maraj hero class weapon will be Purple and turn Yellow to Doomskulls. 100% overlap with Doomed Scythe. It’ll only do half magic aoe though and won’t have the skull storm, which might be a positive. At that point, DS may get moved down to Doomed Club and Doomed Crossbow territory.

P.S. I hate the Skull storm that Doomed Scythe leaves behind. Makes it harder to refill DS over the other 5 weapons, and more likely to work against you if you have to give up your turn.

Doomed Club turns Green to Doomskulls. Moira Cragheart is also a brown troop that can turn Green into Doomskulls.

Doomed Crossbow turns Blue to Doomskulls. King Bloodhammer is also a red troop that can turn Blue into Doomskulls. Sekhma can turns Blue into Skulls.

Doomed Crossbow and Doomed Club have replacement troops that can do the exact same thing. Never once have I said, wow I really like Doomed Club. I like Doomed Crossbow, but I’ve always wished it did something else.

[Samyaza]

@TheIdleOne

Doomed Crossbow and Doomed Club have replacement troops that can do the exact same thing.

This has two main counterarguments :

• replacements use another color too, so they can mana block other troops if put above
• you need hero in the team for class exp. so if you choose a replacement troop, there may be not another optimal weapon to choose AND you need to swap your replacement to another troop.

While i’m not a fan of doomed weapon, they have their spot in team building.

[igniteice]

@Shimrra

The other bit that I feel was missed … is the fact that Blade and Club have that irritating capacity to undo your extra turns. You already ranked them last but there’s no mention of that part.

I mentioned that multiple times actually: “The Watery is the worst part. You absolutely don’t want to have a 5 match of Doomskulls get nullified because the middle one turns into a Blue gem.”

@Jonathan

These bits of damage happen after the main spell effect, which includes damage to all enemy troops. As such, any Barriers will have already been expended against this bigger hit, unless the Troops were Submerged (in which case only Rending has a chance to have an effect).

Sometimes I’m not smart! You are absolutely correct. I guess I was thinking of only doomskulls and scatter damage and not the other damage too!

[Shimrra]

@igniteice

I mentioned that multiple times actually

So you did. I forgot the names of all the damn things lol. Probably repressed in this case!

[xolid99]

Great post and the effort put in.

I wish we had more weapons like this. They are worth every gem spent in ToD, unlike the others…

Couple of things I’d comment on if I may.

Doomed Blade’s lack of storm regeneration and watery can be problematic, without running something like Skadi and a freeze team. If you do, generally Winter’s Orb is better. I’m not sure if it is an oversight, but maybe watery could be overwritten with Icestorm? It’s the only doomed without a storm as an affix.

Glaycion is exceptional with Xbow, better than Blade, although Blade appears to make more sense. So long as you fill the red first, then use Glaycion, it almost always makes an alignment for the Xbow if it can cast and resume. Whereas the other way round, it does not work quite as well by Glaycion taking your reds.

The create a doomskull is also extremely handy here with using a top slot with Glaycion because of his durability and the possible chance that you will keep the turn with the Xbow. It gives you greater chance than all other except the Axe to do that. I think you are right to mention this and it’s a nod in the direction of the Xbow. We already have a chance to keep the turn with a lucky doomskull explosion, this gives a slight increase to that possibility. Axe does this too.

A team that is really good is Stonehammer, Glaycion, Xbow and then up to you, Gimlet/Tai Pan, either yellow empowered converter/Lep or usually Grave Seer for loading Glaycion for Stoney. On offence it is slow, but if you want to win, without having ZG, its cool. I don’t use it vs L&D because L&D, but an easy Xbow team vs that is Willow, Xbow, Qilin, FG. Very easy, just use the excess purple for Qilin to load Xbow.

With the Anu medals now and a class with exploding gems, (Lightning Strike, Tidecaller 3rd trait etc), it’s easier to fill one of those top two troops. You will need 2 x Cedrics, but it can loop between Glaycion, Xbow and Stonehammer. You can also if you want use the likes of Sunspear or Hierophant, Dragonguard etc as the burn will come from Stonehammer (plus the stun that also helps). However the exploding traits/talents are probably too good to ignore to help generate mana in a team that needs more mana than most. I have however ran a Fireblade combo with Grave Seer, cast that, Hero self enchants then if cast early. Usually Dragonguard so your first 3 troops have 80%, 65% and 40% skull reduction.

[Mana_Surgeon]

@TheIdleOne

P.S. I hate the Skull storm that Doomed Scythe leaves behind. Makes it harder to refill DS over the other 5 weapons, and more likely to work against you if you have to give up your turn.

I did not fully upgrade the Scythe for this reason. Only two troops benefit enough from bonestorm for it to be worth the downside risk: Wrath and The Possessed King (and Wrath converts away the yellow gems that the Scythe needs). I could not see any upside large enough to get this upgrade to outweigh the negative effects Idle mentioned.

[FeelTheBern]

Plenty of good converters to compliment it
Forest guardian, king bloodhammer, etc
Certain classes like slayer or Titan, that add enrage, or archer etc with hunters mark make it even better

[ChunkyMono]

@TheIdleOne

Doomed Blade (without the create a gem affix) and Doomed Glaive are my two top choices.

Does that mean you didn’t upgrade the Blade to include Watery? Or just that you are warning future players not to?

Also, has anybody used the non-Doomskull Doom weapons? I seem to recall someone in global chat loving Doomed Statue, but I’ve never used it.

I’m just thinking about my guildmembers, and on which weapons I should recommend they use their forge scrolls. My guess would be Doomskull versions, but those are expensive to craft (some weren’t playing when the weapons were introduced). Much obliged.

[xolid99]

@ChunkyMono

Also, has anybody used the non-Doomskull Doom weapons? I seem to recall someone in global chat loving Doomed Statue, but I’ve never used it.

The statue has a self cleanse, a silence and a self enchant, plus a drain, which isn’t too bad, but
they are borderline useless on offence, mainly because damage wins and the mana cost is 18. The yellow one I suppose in theory can counter web for example and recast and exert a little control over first slot and yellow enemies, but you can do that with the doomskull variants to almost the same degree, whilst setting up more damage.

If they had a cleanse all, they’d be okay, but things like Staff of St Astra has a cleanse all, gives 3 mana to yellow with Radiant and Angelic. It also silences and is less mana cost. And there’s not much place for that Staff either for similar reasons, imo.

I mean I suppose you could run it in a team with a lot of damage and get by, but then your overall mana cost is going to be high.

A general rule of thumb I would suggest. Complete the TOD to 25, get all the relevant forge scrolls and use them only on the likes of the Doomskull Weapons first. See what happens after. The next set of Doomeds look better than the last two sets for example, and they will also most likely be used more than those.

[Peregrinfalcon1]

@igniteice

This is great for those of us thoroughly confused by too many options. I have Doomed Axe fullly upgraded. The wrote, “The first upgrade is rather useless, but that second upgrade is fantastic for classes with Fireblade, because the Burn is applied before the skull damage is done. I much prefer Lightning as well to Rending, because it hits all targets. And again, a Lightstorm is created to refill the weapon. Awesome!”

What do you mean, “classes with Fireblade,” “lightning as well to Rending”? I use Bard class; should I change to one of those that has the War talent tree? The thing I like about Bard is that the Axe starts with 50% mana.

Thanks for your help & great advice.

[TheIdleOne]

@ChunkyMono

Does that mean you didn’t upgrade the Blade to include Watery ? Or just that you are warning future players not to?

Both, actually.

[Jonathan]

@Peregrinfalcon1

I have Doomed Axe fullly upgraded.

Good choice!

@Peregrinfalcon1

What do you mean, “classes with Fireblade,”

‘Fireblade’ is the final Talent on the ‘Fire’ talent tree, unlocked at Champion level 100, and exclusive to the Warlord, Dragonguard, Sunspear, Hierophant and Slayer classes (did I miss any?). It lets your Hero deal triple skull damage to enemies that are Burning .

@Peregrinfalcon1

What do you mean, […] “lightning as well to Rending”?

@igniteice

Lightning (5 scatter damage)

@igniteice

Rending (Deal 3 Splash damage to a random enemy)

‘Lightning’ and ‘Rending’ are both weapon upgrades for various weapons and their effects are described above. igniteice is saying that he(?) prefers the Lightning upgrade to the Rending upgrade; he thinks Lightning is better.

@Peregrinfalcon1

should I change to one of those that has the War talent tree?

The War talent tree has that Axes of Doom talent that gives +3 Magic when using an Axe, but I generally wouldn’t think it was worth switching to a different (potentially suboptimal) class just for that. Moreover, the Bard class gets +5 Magic for using a Yellow weapon (and the D. Axe uses Yellow), so you’re already ahead.

The 50% Mana start is definitely good and useful. Bard’s 3rd Trait will also give you +1 Magic (and all other stats) each turn, so you’ll do more damage – but that really only helps in longer (turn count) battles, and they don’t tend to happen as much in end game.

I don’t know what stage you’re up to in the game; for me, the classes I choose often depend on the storms available in their Talents/traits, the presence or availability of a ‘Lightning Strike’ Talent (or trait in the case of Tidecaller), and then other useful traits/talents/type synergies/magic bonuses. It really all depends on your team composition and the enemy you’re facing, I think.

[igniteice]

@ChunkyMono

Also, has anybody used the non-Doomskull Doom weapons? I seem to recall someone in global chat loving Doomed Statue, but I’ve never used it.

Doomed Runestones (brown) is the only one I don’t have.

Doomed Statue (yellow) is my favorite because of the cleanse, enchant, and silence. The 18 mana cost is effectively lowered by 2 every turn, so it’s only ever 18 at the beginning, and if you use a 50% mana start, it goes even faster.

Next would be Doomed Helm (red) because you get an Enrage, a Barrier, and you steal 2 mana. The mana steal of course is like a one turn enchant, but if the first enemy is red, you’re draining 4 mana from them.

The Doomed Mask (blue) is interesting because you get the cleanse, a freeze on the first enemy, but also Glacial (give all blue Allies 2 mana), which means you’re giving 7 mana to all blue allies (or 5 to non-blue), including yourself.

Doomed Potions (green) does a pretty good job of royally messing up the first enemy: steal 2 mana, then disease/poison/web them. Brutal.

The most useless of them is Doomed Cauldron, purple, by far. You get just awful upgrades: gain 4 life, create a purple gem, 10% chance to summon a Quasit, and disease first enemy.

I don’t know what the brown one’s upgrades are, but they’ve got to be better than the purple’s…

[ChunkyMono]

Phenomenal, thanks for the breakdown.

And @TheIdleOne, I don’t think it’s fair that you can look at a weapon trait and think “Yeah, I can see that backfiring”, and opting out of the upgrade; while Orcs like me just blindly upgrade whateva wenneva. Just not fair. Stoopid game, axing me to read and stuff.

Thanks all.

[TheIdleOne]

@ChunkyMono

while Orcs like me just blindly upgrade whateva wenneva. Just not fair

the shiny blue mana for the weapon cost is a trap for you Orcs