At risk of duplicating a pre-existing discussion, I think this one really NEEDS to be singled out from the rest:
Platform: (any/all)
For the Merlantis Kingdom Trials, you are hinted to buff your team with Submerged to protect against spells that target all troops. Easy, right?
Well, there’s just one problem with this strategy:
- The enemy team has Leviathan.
- Leviathan’s spell explicitly Dispels all targets before dealing damage, making the Submerged gimmick literally impossible to demonstrate.
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Even at Tier 1. Sometimes a Trial’s gimmick gets weakened by passive traits that activate around Tiers 2-3, but this is a fixed Leviathan spell effect that occurs at all levels.
- Worse, there are apparently no other Merlantis Troops with spells targeting “all enemies” – aka. there’s literally NO way to demonstrate how Submerged works using only Merlantis troops.
I never want to allege that the designers “didn’t test” new features or game modes (there were 36+ Kingdoms to pick Trials teams for, after all), but … I really do have to ask how something THIS obvious was not noticed right away during development?
There are really only two ways to resolve this problem with Merlantis trials:
- Remove Leviathan from the cpu’s Trials team + replace with literally any other AOE Troop (that doesn’t dispel targets).
- Rebalance Leviathan’s spell to “dispel all survivors” (i.e. damage first, dispel second). This way Leviathan CAN be blocked with Barrier and dodged with Submerged, which would actually make this Trial more manageable. Yes, it’s also a small nerf to a troop that I wouldn’t allege is somehow “OP”, but this one enemy troop defeats the whole point of its Kingdom’s Trials.
20 Likes
Hello 
@Stratelier
Thank you for the detailed report.
I will raise this issue with the development team about the Merlantis Kingdom Trials
In addition, I have deleted replies that are not constructive to the current conversation. In order for me to better help you guys, please keep conversations civil!
1 Like
Another common complaint about Trials is how pitting a kingdom team vs. same-kingdom team tends to be self-defeating for whatever gimmick that team is trying to demonstrate, as a team that features a specific gimmick is often already resistant/immune to that gimmick themselves.
various Kingdom examples
- Broken Spire: Burning Gems vs. Fireproof
- Bright Forest: Faerie Fire vs. Fireproof (changed to) Mana Drain vs. Mana Shield
- Forest of Thorns: Entangle vs. Wood Ancestry/Nimble
- Glacial Peaks: Frozen vs. Insulated
- Merlantis: Submerged vs. no “all enemy” spellcasters
- Khetar: Death Mark vs. Warded/Undying
- Zhul’Kari: Web vs. Dark Ancestry/Slippery
Another tweak to the cpu team could be to put Coral Golem first, Lamprey second, because Lamprey is actually the more likely threat to end an attempt (30% Devour vs. 3 of your 4 troops, double Skull damage vs. all your Troops, cannot be shuffled away from 1st position because Stealthy). Sure, that will make Coral Golem’s buffing more annoying (and Hippocampus’s random healing is always an annoyance) but over time Triton’s spellcasting will eventually outpower them.
PS - (Also, I saw the two posts before they were removed and wouldn’t exactly call them “uncivil”. A bit sarcastic, yes, but not crossing the line.)
8 Likes
I understand that we should keep epic trials civil @Bramble, but the merlantis trials prove that the developers put little thought and care into this new game mode.
If you tried the epic trials this week on switch, you would realize the “tips and tricks” are teaching players nothing except frustration for several reasons:
- Placing barrier on troops is meaningless if leviathan casts and buffing up your troops cannot keep up with enemy damage output.
- If lamprey is alive, any skull will kill your troops in one hit, it can get devours which force you to reset, AND you are forced to kill it with pathetic splash damage.
- If you managed to defeat their lamprey, you then target their leviathan, and since coral golem and hippocampus change the board, you are victim to overwhelming troop durability and rng skulls with mana accumulation.
The fight makes it feel you are poking the enemy with a toothpick, while they are bashing you with a sledgehammer in the face…
9 Likes
I can understand if the dev team merely did an “on-paper” or “armchair” analysis when designing literally 37 player + cpu teams, but Merlantis here really does imply certain battles were not ACTUALLY live-tested to be sure they didn’t overlook/forget anything important (like Leviathan’s ability to hit through Submerged). Heck, even us casual players offer better on-paper analyses…
5 Likes
There is absolutely no way to passing this epic trails this week. It’s either lamprey kills right away or has the boards on their favor and hits you with skulls then BAM! Troops gone. Look at the seconds on the image already lost a troop already.
Even if and that’s IF you kill lamprey you’re stuck with a very high level Leviathan.Having Lamprey and Leviathan on the same team is a no go, sorry. My suggestion is Leviathan needs to be taken out and Lamprey does not need to be positioned in the first place.
2 Likes
F that, don’t give them an out. These trials have been absolute dog shot! If not forTodd or the rework for Adana, I probably would have quit. The worst is yet to come. If we had some choice, it wouldn’t be so bad. Id love to see the dev team try to pass these trials. How TF do they think we’ll learn from this garbage. Im endgame but I get destroyed by them. They are the worst.
4 Likes
In the Bright Forest trial, what is the point of Florian’s mana drain? Brownie is stealthy, and Shimmerscale, Cu Sith and Tinseltail are all mana shielded. Florian is completely useless unless you kill the 3 mana shielded units first.
Honestly, if you’re going to limit the player to using units from each kingdom, at least let us pick the 4 units from our deck, or with a randomizer like in Arena.
2 Likes
The teams were either pulled out of a hat or designed with only the lowest levels in mind. Complaining achieves nothing beyond that they change the teams to something equally random, as was the case for bright forest, which had pixie originally, I believe, then replaced by Florian.
I have no idea what the point in the epic trials is. They introduced them at the same time as saying they wanted to reduce grind … LOL? The only logic behind them I can come up with, is that high level players complained about lack of challenge. I’ve seen devs throw out ridiculous rubbish in lieu of actual challenges before. Unfortunately, they neglected to gate the trials so only bored maxed out players could access them and instead make them available for anyone who’d done the previous challenges, which in itself suggests they are meant for us, and see no issue with implementing a difficulty spike unlike any I’ve ever seen in 30 + years of gaming. It’s like they think there are new players and level 1500+, and nothing in between. Almost like admitting any new players will leave before getting to the point where they would be facing epic trials.
2 Likes
