Warning, wall of text incoming.
The new ascension feature had me thinking. What’s really now the difference between a common troop ascended to legendary and a legendary troop? Stats seem to be about the same. Somebody from the GoW team mentioned they might be upping true legendary stats a bit, that feels somewhat lackluster though. For me, legendary (and the steps in between from common upwards) isn’t really an extra point of armor or two, it’s the exciting special ways troops sidestep the usual set of rules. Like those expensive spells that cost a lot and often do something spectacular.
We probably can’t just give legendary troops more than a single spell, that would complicate things in multiple places. What about traits though? Currently, each troop has exactly three traits, which seem to be assigned somewhat arbitrarily (e.g. some troops might receive a trait as third pick which another troop receives as second pick, at varying costs). Those traits also make troops feel special, even just experimenting with combinations is a lot of fun.
Let’s just suppose traits were collected into groups, a group of common traits, a group of rare traits, a group of ultra rare traits, a group of epic traits, a group of legendary traits. Let’s further suppose troops received traits based on the true rarity they start out with, never affected by ascension. A common troop would receive a predefined common trait (for a total of one), a rare troop would receive a predefined common and a predefined rare trait (for a total of two), a legendary troop would receive a predefined common, rare, ultra rare, epic and legendary trait (for a total of five). Traits would have to be unlocked in sequence (from common to epic) and would cost the same (in trait stone amount and rarity, not color) based on their rarity group. This could even be expanded to mythic rarity, should such troops ever be introduced.
Would this work to make rarer troops more interesting? It feels like it would make progression smoother, something to aim for in the long run after getting the goblin team going. Just speaking for myself, I’d find myself wanting to switch to true ultra rare or better troops, because they have more to offer than true common troops could ever receive, even when ascended. It would also even out those bumps in trait stones requirements, because troops have to pass through each cost layer, of which the higher ones are only available to a selected few. Of course, such a balancing change could only be introduced by resetting all traits and refunding the trait stones spent. Which, like always, doesn’t sound like that much work to the person not having to do it. 
So, bad idea?
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