Love all of the changes in the patch, and how you keep moving toward a game that favors more experimenting and unique team builds. The trait system really helps diversify the potential teams even more by creating a lot more opportunity for fun and unique synergies with different troop compositions.
The one concern I have is that with all of the troop options, we move farther away from using your hero and all of the fun and neat weapons/items that you have created. When you use a hero for a weapon/item, you now not only lose a potential team bonus, but now in addition trait bonuses.
I think each weapon/item should have a Kingdom association and work toward that kingdom bonus, as if the presence of that Kingdom’s artifact inspires the troops from that kingdom. I would also like to see some sort of Trait Stone/Enhancement system for weapons/items also.