That hurts me more to read, than for you to write.
I did burp while writing that… did you sense it? 
That’s awesome glad you are joining us
1 Like
Can people stop posting that picture?
My optician is already rubbing his hands with glee!
thank you. being only level 394 my weapons aren’t that powerful so dawn bringer was decimating me in the arena glad it’s fixed and playable again
Here are my two cents…
First of all, I’m really happy for all the people who are now able to enjoy Arena again since, previously, they were of too low level and game knowledge to face DB or any other reason;
My conviction is that nobody should be forced to face Dawnbringer in the game mode that was specifically designed to provide (hopefully) leveled playing field for all participants…but here comes BUT…I don’t thing the current solution is the best option.
If Devs allowed DB in the Arena in the first place, simply replacing it with another weapon is not the right way to go. What about adding additional difficulty settings (for Arena only)? Now it goes like ‘normal’, ‘hard’, etc.; my idea is that it should go like ‘normal’, normal with DB’ , ‘hard’, ‘hard with DB’ and so on. This solution wouldn’t be so difficult to implement technically, would it?;
When first faced with DB problem I, I was one of those who said: damn that weapon to hell and kill it! Later, I (just like bunch of other players) found ways to deal with it and DB became just a mild annoyance instead of being a gamebreaker; moreover, defeating DB with non-DB weapon in the arena sort of gives player certain bragging rights (and I’ve done it with variety of tools, including Crude Club, but discluding DB itself [I only use it in guild wars, raids and invasions]);
long story short - I think Arena should have a choice of whether facing DB (for more dedicated, hardcore players) or not.
P.S.
On a sidenote, I’ve been writing down my Arena endeavors since early February, and here are the basic statistical results (I repeat once more, that I have not used DB in the Arena, except for one Arena run to check how fast it goes; also, I used variety of weapons, depending on the color of troops I chose) February to April:
games played - 1080
games lost - 105 (9.7%);
Dawnbringers faced - 356 (33 %; longest streak of six in a row)
Runic blades faced - 274 (25%; longest streak of five in row)
Dawnbringer wins - 76% of all DB faced;
Dawnbringer losses - 81% of all losses encountered.
EDIT:
Added - RB losses - 10% of all losses encountered.
Edit2:
I used RB once, went 8-0, including 3-0 against DB and 2-0 against DB in that run.
2 Likes
The stats would be more interesting with your loss rate vs. Runic Blade. I harped on this in detail before in the grand DB vs. Runic Blade argument.
In this post-DB Arena I feel like, in this environment:
- A rare Dawnbringer was a nice challenge for a very good team. I wish it was a bonus round for an 8-0 run.
- Runic Blade on offense is so boring easy I don’t even like using it.
- Runic Blade on defense is “just another tough weapon” because the AI can’t quite coordinate its hits to really make it work.
All in all I agree that any solution that brings DB back as either an optional, rare, or bonus encounter is cool. I’ll fight alongside you for those ideas.
Right now I feel like the “problem” is life is too easy if you pick Runic Blade as your weapon every time. On defense I respect it but don’t fear it in the same way I did Dawnbringer. So this is very different than DB: I feel like it hurts experienced players far more than newbies by taking a lot of the thought out of drafting. This is much harder to solve than when we can prove “one weapon represents 80% of losses, even for experienced players.” Your numbers imply Runic Blade is, at worst, 15% of your losses while representing 25% of opponents, that’s a terrible justification for “broken on defense”. (Dawnbringer was 81% of losses from 33% of opponents, that’s a much dumber rate and implies it’s a great “boss”.)
Yes, before this fix I didn’t think Runic Blade was so overwhelmingly easy. I don’t think that means the situation before was good. It was like there was this random boss monster wandering the Arena that would sometimes decide it hated your guts and interrupt your run.
So I have this grocery list of Arena features, considering that it serves as both a means for trophy farming AND a place for lower-collection people to wait on PvP:
- I’d like to see DB on defense reappear as either an optional encounter or limited to the last battle of a perfect run. In this world I think you should get a slight reward bonus for having beaten DB. Another idea: it’s a 9th battle as a reward for an 8-0 run.
- I’d like to see things that encourage players to try weapons that aren’t the top 3. Stuff like reward bonuses for having an all-colors team with no weapon overlap. Maybe a weekly bonus to rewards for using weapons from the event kingdom. (Trophy farmers probably won’t care, but people who are there for “a challenge” will definitely appreciate it.)
- Reintroduce DB and organize weapons into “tiers” on defense. Like PvP, you select a “tier” every match and get points based on that team’s rating. Final rewards are based on record and points.
I think these ideas promote a bit of offensive variety while also opening the door to people who would honestly like to face 8 Dawnbringers in a row. But they all represent a significant level of developer effort, so it might take a while to push for any one of them.
2 Likes
Honestly, talking about an easy fix they could have had? Remove Hero altogether and add an Epic troop. Arena would have become so much more interesting to play for everyone.
Also, reading the first 50 or so posts about the complainers complaining that there wasn’t enough love in the posts for the change…? Please move on to your next lynching project, big thanks
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I’m kind of waiting for the next one to show up and I’ll hop aboard if I agree. Player sentiment is real cloudy right now. I see these topics as the most likely popular gripes over the next month or so:
- Doomskulls are the worst
- Doomskulls are OK because now my favorite troop uses them
- This Queen Mab team is everywhere, let’s nerf Nyx to fix it
- This Queen Mab team is everywhere, let’s nerf Trolls to fix it
- This Queen Mab team is everywhere, let’s nerf Dawnbringer to fix it
- Look guys, Queen Mab isn’t really overpowered, it’s the other troops
- It shouldn’t cost 50 gems to change classes
- A short treatise on why a 5-member guild that plays 3 days a week should open Portal 12 or else the devs are greedy
4 Likes