Then it’s bugged. Because it’s not working the way transforms are supposed to work then according to @Nimhain.
P.S. I didn’t think to look at the level of Queen Aurora in the Arena match. But it makes sense to hear that’s level 15 instead of 8 or 7 considering the overall stats it has.
Give it a once turn activation delay since it (or any other status effect application refreshing the timer) was applied, like Deathmark, clarify if it is supposed to be 10% or 15%, and actually make in function consistently with previously existing forced enemy transform mechanics (halve their level and disable any traits rather than giving them a new fully traited troop).
I will contend that because of how central Essence of Evil is as a “punch up tool” compared to literally every other thing in the game that could inflict lycanthropy, including any upcoming troops that are probably the full extent the mechanic will be used that it does, at least currently, make the game worse by simply existing, especially in its current state. A properly working and balanced Lycanthropy might not be that bad, but unless this somehow slips into the meta and/or allows fun interactions (given that forced transforms of other types already exist, the former seems unlikely and the latter is subjective but is a hard pass from me). Removing it from the list of “all negative statuses” as it relates to stuff that can be inflicted by random negative status/all negative statuses makes it less bad by just existing, but would put it into a place where it is a random one off gimmick that nobody will care or think about outside of the faction. Which I suppose is actually probably the best outcome we can hope for.
And also, called it.
I was curious so I put this into days.
That’s almost an entire year! Not trying to make any statements on whether that’s good or bad, just found it interesting 
Edit: if someone can PM me and tell me how to get these GIFs to play automatically (without needing to download the Tenor keyboard), I will edit this post and thank you publicly for the advice.
Oh and it currently breaks the game for at least mobile players if you cast Lycanthropy on certain hero classes (depending on traits/talents.)
You know to add to the unwantedness.
5.4… You are the 2020 of patches.
Yeah, I’m not using EoE anymore for now. Too bad, it was part of my pvp team.
It was bad enough that I fully upgraded it when I knew too little about the game… It’s bad enough that it now can potentially transform an enemy troop into a beast… But the bug made it unusable for me.
There are so many players here with a lot of play time under their belt, why do the devs not make use of them/us?
Another game I play did, and they’re doing better than ever.
There is still a big community of people who would love to give advise and test for bugs for free.
As for giving us something with each update… How about extra slots for medal sets? Double the amount of mythics in the forge so we actually have a chance to forge something we want…
It’s nothing new in that sense but two things players would really enjoy to get.
And happy players are more likely to open their wallets to pay for stuff.
So many things that could have been done rather than adding a half cooked new ability that breaks a weapon that many players like, and the game itself…
They used to several years ago, it’s still considered the golden age of the game everybody involved remembers fondly. Then the key person on their side left, communication broke down and the game has been on a slow death spiral ever since.
Haven’t been there for that, sadly. Too bad. It really helps both sides.
Other game had a similar problem, but then they got a new community manager and it turned again. So there’s still hope, I guess?
I’m not sure a new community manager would help, it rather looks like the game is intentionally being bled dry. Take ticket support, the backlog has been steadily growing the past year, it can now take up to several months for your ticket to get processed. Feels like the whole crew jumped ship and only left the cook and the cabin boy behind, with the autopilot locked full speed into an unknown destination.
There’s a new faction released tomorrow. The community has been trying for weeks to make the devs aware that the faction weapon is incorrectly assigned to an entirely different kingdom. There’s still 12 hours left to correct it, maybe someone will remember how to pick up a phone.
Pretty sure there have been changes “behind the scenes” in the other game as just a new community manager and style of communication overall won’t change how a game is handled.
It sure helped, though, to have someone advocating for players and their ideas.
I used Essence of Evil for my new faction delve run all the way up to 500. Suffice it to say, I encountered Lycanthrophy triggering a LOT. It was more annoying than anything. I run a Stonehammer and Zuul’Goth team, so it wasn’t a problem killing the transformed troop, but it was definitely annoying that all the negative effects were effectively nullified.
I think this would go a long way actually.
Patch/update notes don’t include everything. I don’t mean the generic “fixed assorted minor bugs” type statement every game makes and is fine. But, big things people would love. For example, when an update allowed power orbs to potentially drop from a major chaos orb, there was no mention of it at all in the patch notes. That’s a weird thing to exclude because the community would go nuts with excitement about that. Don’t want a forum with only negative posts? Don’t hide the good stuff!
There’s currently confusion in the community because no one knows if the faction weapon was intentionally set to the “wrong” kingdom. I think that’s an error. But the devs are silent about it. When it was first brought up weeks ago Salty said the faction release date was moved which… ok, that wasn’t relevant so ??? Now it’s released and still no word. Yes, I’m aware they don’t work weekends, but they had weeks, they could’ve released it and stated “Hey community! So sorry, we’re aware this is the wrong kingdom but will be fixing that shortly!” Or “Hey community! From now on, faction weapons do not have to be tied to their faction kingdoms.”
Does the above fix the bugs, change the game, etc? Nope. Does it make players happier and encourage a better community? Yep.
As a programmer myself, I’m in the weird group of people that would actually only love a line-by-line break down of any changes, however minor (I play two other free titles, AAA quality, and they easily detail everything). I absolutely loathe that this game’s notes are so brief when there are clearly other changes.
God I hate Lycanthropy. It is NOT A NEGATIVE EFFECT. It completely breaks Essence of Evil. I just LOST a Guild Wars match because an enemy troop that I had used Essence of Evil on transformed into a completely new troop, cleansed of everything, ready to go. The enemy had two troops left, and I used EoE on the first one, which meant all those colors were frozen, it was entangled of course, etc. But it transformed into a new troop and all those effects went away. Enemy hero, which was behind it, cast and created a bunch of skulls, which WOULD have done nothing because of the entangled troop, but because of Lycanthropy, the enemy’s troop had been fully healed, fully cleansed, doing 75+ Attack damage on skull hits instead of 0.
How is that a NEGATIVE effect?
Consensus is yes then?
I’m a bit torn, wisdom teeth feel like a strong contender. 
See. Now you make me look argumentative.
I believe we evolved wisdom teeth out of use.
I could be wrong though.
Where as Lycanthropy. Has zero use. Other than to drive up PQ3’s early access numbers.
And with that. I finally see its intended use.
Stay woke ladies and gents.
Oh, for sure! Communication is definitely needed in this game. That has never been the issue of the other game. They have several ways they use to communicate with players like actually good ingame news where they list the key points and link to a forum post for in-depth descriptions for example.
There’s a pop up when opening the game that shows one key element. At the moment it’s season missions. It might also be a campaign going, update notes of the upcoming (!) update being posted etc.
Only for a time that has been a bit one-sided. Now you can really notice that the devs actually talk about and try to implement player ideas if possible.
Must be lucrative as well because we’re getting a lot of new stuff all the time, new campaigns, weapons, characters, season missions but alps fixes and good changes to game mechanics that weren’t optimal. They wouldn’t do so much for the game if it wouldn’t pay off.
So it’s a win-win situation.
What other game?
I would like the designers/developers to elaborate on what their intentions were with Lycanthropy. It is obviously very similar to Hexed. Hexed is a 10% chance to transform the first enemy troop into a Giant Toad. There are only four weapons with Hexed, the first one being Essence of Evil, then Memories of Stone, Staff of Insanity, and Screaming Tome. The first is a class weapon, the second two are Delve Faction weapons.
Hexed is most noticeable in its problems with Essence of Evil, because the transform happens after all of the negative effects from EoE have been applied to the target (if the target is the first enemy). This means that it’s no different than if Essence of Evil just had a straight 10% chance to transform the first enemy and NOT apply any negative effects.
Hexed is not the first class weapon that can transform an enemy though. Dragon’s Eye is guaranteed to transform the last enemy into a Baby Dragon. However, it used to be that it was not Empowered (starts with full mana). This was ridiculous overpowered, because the last enemy troop would effectively be made useless (unless the enemy team has no red mana color blocking the Baby Dragon). When it was changed to be empowered, it gave the enemy a fighting chance. Sure, they’d lose their original troop, but at least they could instantly use it to transform into a random Dragon.
There are of course many troops that can transform enemies into other troops: Starflower (40% pixie), The Possessed King (20%x3 random Daemon), Krampus (33% random daemon), Lust (40% succubus/incubus), and some others: Spooky Imp, Gael Spiritwhisperer, Night Hag, Fungomancer, and Giant Toadstool.
So… is there a difference between these weapons and troops, and Lycanthropy? Of course there is. In fact, there is even a difference between MOST of these weapons, troops, and Essence of Evil.
When a troop is transformed, its current status effects are not carried over to the new troop. The new troop is “cleansed” so to speak. In the case of Essence of Evil, in fact, transforming the same target you may have just used it on (The first target) is NOT what you want to happen, because the new troop isn’t frozen, entangled, silenced, webbed, and so forth.
But AT LEAST with all of these troop transformations from troops and weapons, the new creature’s level is half of what it originally was. That allows The Possessed King, for instance, to slowly transform an enemy from a high level (think delves) to a very low level.
Remember the troop Copycat from Mirrored Halls? It would just keep summoning copies of itself, but at least those copies were always half the level of the original, so eventually you’d be fighting Copycats that were like level 5.
In that regard…
Yes, I will concede that Hexed, and other enemy troop transformers, are in fact “negative” effects. You use them willingly, or unwillingly, to disrupt the enemy team by changing their troop selection. Hexed is only severely annoying in the case of Essence of Evil, especially, because Giant Toad can pull your troops, and because it undoes everything EoE did to the target. But at the end of the day, yes, the troop is half of what it used to be in levels, and you aren’t fighting the same troop. I mean, I’d rather be hitting a Giant Toad with skulls than something with 50% skull reduction, right? Of course, I’d rather be hitting a troop that is stunned and has hunter’s mark on it more…
But Lycantrophy is something else entirely, because the transformed troop isn’t specific, but more because the level of the transformed troop doesn’t change. After Lycantrophy triggers:
I’m not sure if the new troop has traits. Those two things alone though are enough to make Lycanthropy a positive status effect though. Consider the troops Umberwolf, Nosferatu, and Bat Swarm (and Werewolf/Villager). Isn’t it super frustrating when you’ve just almost killed them, and then they transform? You have to start all over again.
Their “transformation” isn’t a negative status effect. That is in fact their design. They’re supposed to transform. That’s a good thing. It allows them to survive and have access to different abilities. Lycanthropy is no different. If my troop just got hit with Essence of Evil, I will GLADLY prefer a 15% chance to transform into a new, healed troop, than sit there with a 10% chance to instantly die from death mark, or be frozen and lock my other troops out of extra turns, and so forth. I will take that EVERY TIME.
Let me say it again, in case any designers/developers are reading:
If any enemy uses Essence of Evil on one of my troops, or has any number of negative effects on one of my troops, or my troop is about to die, it’s clinging to its last bit of life, I will take the “negative” effect of Lycantropy and hope it triggers every time. There is NEVER a time I would not want that.
Now, can you say that about ANY other negative effect? “Enemy team just Death Marked me. I sure hope they also put Web on me. I sure hope they freeze me too. I sure hope I’m silenced as well.” No, you wouldn’t want ANY of those. But you WOULD want Lycanthropy. Free full heal and cleanse? I will take it over dying. Absolutely.