I don’t think the troops would be exclusive, since the initial announcement for it was during a discussion about being able to target specific mythics. There might be some exclusive troops, but even if there were, I feel like we’d be able to craft existing troops as well. Also Weapons might be exclusive, but it could also be something like different results for a couple weapons (see my Weapon Forging proposal for more thoughts on this. Though not saying it’s what they’ve done, I have no idea on that, just it’s one way they might have gone about it). Or they could add some long gone event weapons for crafting as there have been a number of calls for some of them. Eg look at the recent bring back of Crescendo during the Pan’s Vale week with Nyx recently, I’ll be the devs saw an increase in weapon packs bought during that week over normal weeks.
I do agree that it’s not mutually exclusive to a pity timer though.
However the problem I see with a pity timer is that it could increase/start the perception of the game being “pay to win”. Using the values from @Ashasekayi’s example explaining what a pity timer was:
2,000 Gems is roughly $130 without VIP levels. (Motherload is 1500 gems for $99.99) So you would know that if you paid $130 you would be guaranteed that the mythic would drop. For those with particularly bad luck (or having a string of bad luck on a Mythic they really wanted) they will start perceiving that the game is more pay to win now, since if you don’t drop $130 you won’t get the mythic.
Now this would be slightly mitigated by the fact we can and do get a lot of gems just from playing the game (Tributes, guild tasks, PVP wins etc), so a number of people probably do have 2,000 gems lying around if they want to target a specific mythic. However this might create the perception that the lower level players will never be able to catch up to the top if the top can just grab each new mythic with almost 100% consistency due to not needing currency for much else. There is this perception a little bit at the moment, and is one of the reasons behind the call for a crafting system, but currently there is a plateau at the top where RNG slows down the top in their quest for a complete 4x Mythic collection.
Note: I might be overstating the resources available to the top players on a regular basis, it’s possible that once their backlog of resources get used up that they would be in the same boat as everyone else.
A minor side effect to this would be that people would probably stop using gems outside of Mythic exclusive weeks, and just save for the sure thing that they will get a mythic they don’t have then, rather than blowing them in a normal week and risk getting a mythic they already have. While this is minor, I feel the devs would prefer that currency is being used in a mostly constant and consistent fashion.
EDIT: Just to clarify, I’m not against a pity timer per se, I’m just cautious about the unintended side effects that might arise from it.