Yes, but you said, “Now we have orbs to help.” The only troop orbs help you get is Zuul’Goth.
There is an orb that grants one rarity…
Oh! You’re right. Once you GET the troop those orbs are worth anything from 25-100 cards depending on context. I hadn’t considered that angle!
I enjoy the rarity of troops. It’s called rarity for a reason, it’s rare. When the Soulforge came out I wasn’t very happy. Even with having to save up to 4000 diamonds, I didn’t like the idea of anyone being able to get what they wanted. I enjoyed the RARE aspect to the game. It gives more meaning when i get a new mythic.
That being said, these gnomes are hard to get. They are mostly for collector purposes. It would be more impressive to have a mythic of a treasure gnome in your defense team to show it off if we do not change anything. Eventually someone will get it just like eventually someone crafted Xathenos and Dawnbringer.
I have been speed traitstone farming since reset and I haven’t managed to get a single vault key. I have 2300 snot rocks from explore. I’ve obtained 2 vault keys from Invasion rank packages and no hint of a troop card.
Vault key drop rate is very low besides during the vault events, I’ve seen quite a few gnomes since reset but had none drop a key either and I’m around 4k snotstones as well.