On an unrelated note, I’m kinda surprised there hasn’t been a Mythic made with “Transform all Gems of a chosen color to Doomskulls”
It would be very simple, but very effective and very mythic…
10 Likes
Agreed, Ishtara seems like too much work at this point, would need a bless-happy hero weapon to save it.
(Still not as bad as Elemaugrim, for what it’s worth. Devs would be better off doing what they did with Elemaug and give Ishtara a completely unrelated 3rd trait rather than what they have currently.)
Find it in a chest. Never, ever use it. Just what everyone wants to see in a mythic.
3 Likes
That’s most mythics these days 
It’s a tough thing to balance - you’ll only use a new troop if it’s better than something else you’re using, so to make it useful, they have to make it stronger, somehow. But they also need to avoid rapid power creep and the only way to keep that at bay is to make a lot of the troops “useless”.
If you’re a new-ish player, with only a mythic or two, still missing legendaries, then most mythics that end-gamers consider “useless” can actually be very useful 
I suspect those players are the main target audience for new mythics.
2 Likes
For me the real issue is when a Mythic doesn’t even work in a niche team. The real balance should be that every mythic had advantages over other in different situations.
1 Like
I just want a sidegrade for most of the newer mythics. It doesn’t have to be more powerful
3 Likes
The whole point of a Mythic is for it to be better than all other tiers. In this game 10 or so Mythics fit that bill. The rest hardly compete against even Legendaries.
3 Likes
I agree with you. There’s some Mythics that I have no clue how they got that title and then there are legendaries that are actually better than a lot of the Mythics.
That’s called creative bankruptcy. The developers are not interested in providing a good gaming experience anymore, so they can simply keep pushing more uninspired mythics that only works to fulfill the slot for the second Mythic for each kingdom. They will also keep pushing the same battle system, with shop and reward tiers, they will also place more gated status bonuses with ridiculous requirements like the books of deeds.
6 Likes
But Ishtara will only add a maximum of 3 (if entire team is blessed) cause himself wear off bless status when spell cast, right ?
Bless happens after the cast, so it is technically possible he could bless himself. It’s even possible he could bless himself when the rest of the team is already blessed for max boost ratio.
But I think winning the lottery will have better odds.
It will never count itself as blessed for the boost ratio because the way spells process, even if there isn’t a targeting step, is for the “casting” step to process which removes all mana and “fragile” status effects (like bless) then process every step of the spell. By the time the first step of the spell is processed, Ishtara will never be blessed, thus the maximum boost ratio is +3. It would require a base engine change to function otherwise, so I’m 99% confident this will release like this. Odds are the boost ratio display will not reflect this, and indicate you can get a +4 while everyone is blessed, even though this has been an issue with several other troops reported multiple times at this point.
(I believe the only way for a fragile buff to be counted in a user’s own boost ratio in the current engine state is if the buff was granted “when I/ally casts a spell”, as this step is processed before all spell steps but should be after the “casting” step, or as part of the same spell before the boost ratio is calculated)
The main thing that the trait change does when changing from yellow gem matches to 50% when my turn begins is degrades the spell to a practically unusable level. There are plenty of existing troops that spawn between 8 and 11 gems that most people here have a good idea of the efficacy of a gem spawn on a stacked/neutral/bare board (both in terms of raw matches and extra turns) with a given spawn. The “matching yellow” version makes Ishtara a fairly consistent 9 or 10 spawner, occasionally 11, who can keep spawning at 9-11 until the spawn streak combo breaker kicks in or you just get unlucky, since casting the spell would probably re-bless someone (hopefully not ishtara, since it won’t matter) and casting a yellow generator would again probably bless someone to keep going. The “50% when my turn begins” version will likely Ishtara generally an 8 or 9 spawner on first cast. If you happen to get up to an 11 spawn through sheer luck and a lot of stalling, you’ll gradually get fewer blessed allies as you get a “lucky” skull cascade on the first troop or need to cast your generator, unless said generator also blesses, which extremely pidgeonholes any valid combos already. The keep the turn synergy is entirely gone since you have to start new turns to (potentially) get more bless.
The first version is a troop you could potentially use as a win condition if there isn’t a lot of counterplay involved while also having a tool that is independently good, the second you are more than likely going to blow up in your face an unreasonable amount of time if you try to cast it while having a tool that is also significantly less good is most situations.
The second version trait could still be interesting if Ishtara had a bigger boost ratio on spawns per blessed ally (like, say, +2/3 per bless, for a huge amount of gem spawns with a good set up, but gradually less unless you use one of a handful of synergistic troops to reapply bless mid-turn without dropping the turn which makes the setup extremely clunky), but I’m not holding my breath. Still mostly “worse” than the first version, but at least interesting.
“50% bless when my turn begins” I would argue is a decent trait in a vacuum (just decent, though, wouldn’t mind it on a defensively oriented troop that actually fits in a team where you’d want to stall, to fulfill that niche, not a mythic), but it absolutely kills the potential of this spell, which makes the whole package rather lackluster. As was pointed out already, we don’t generally use a team slot for just passive bless.
4 Likes
I’m pretty sure I’m on board the “bring back Ishtara v1” train.
I’m trying to think what kind of OP meta change might have been anticipated – maybe the devs were afraid of creating any further L&D-type builds with Orbweaver and a steady source of Bless? I struggle to think this would be the solution, though. Maybe they thought the looping was too strong, and she was too strong on her own without needing set-up troops to help.
The Bless as part of the boost ratio is similar to any of the other troops boosted by Bless or Submerge – e.g. Vanya or Mervorax – or Voice of Orpheus, whose mana famously doesn’t count since it’s used up before a target is selected. On-cast effects happen first, as described above.
2 Likes
I mean, if they’re worried about that they should first consider nerfing freaking L&D itself. Seeing as a blind deaf mute - picking a random animal, I want to say insect? - who hasn’t played games before could figure that one out.
2 Likes
new spoilers, nothing too new/surprising. lots of troop names, next faction quest line, arena event details…
New Achievements:
Crazy Pet Lady
Collect 10 Pets
Are you not Entertained?
Complete an Arena Run with no losses
The Better Part of Valor
Earn 100 Valor in a single Arena Event
Considering most other event Achievements aren’t too bad, this shouldn’t be either. Looks better than a stupid Epic Vault Key.
OK, I guess this stuff might be interesting:
We’re actually getting a
Spoiler
Duskbringer
The next faction troops being worked on (most likely) will be about Kobolds and it looks to be tied to Emperinazar .
The other factions:
Blackhawk: TheBlackHeart +2 Blue, +1 Purple, -1 Yellow
Broken Spire: FireRift +2 Red, +1 Brown, -1 Blue
Dragon’s Claw: Wyrmrun +2 Yellow, +1 Red, -1 Purple
Ghulvania : DarkCourt +2 Purple, +1 Yellow, -1 Green
Grosh-Nak: Dripping Caverns +2 Blue, +1 Green, -1 Red
Karakoth: Duergaroth +2 Brown, +1 Purple, - 1 Green
Khaziel: Emperinazar +2 Yellow, +1 Brown, - 1 Purple
Maugrim Woods: HellGate +2 Brown, +1 Red, -1 Yellow
Pridelands: IndrajitsDen +2 Red, +1 Purple, -1 Brown
Wild Plains: TheLabyrinth +2 Green, +1 Red, -1 Yellow
8 Likes
Future incoming KP:
Bright Forest: KP 13 + 1 troop in progress (KP 14)
Silverglade: KP 13 + 1 troop in progress (KP 14)
Adana: KP 16 + 1 troop in progress (KP 17)
Merlantis: KP 15 + 2 troops in progress (KP 17)
Zhul’Kari: KP 12 + 1 troop in progress + 4 faction troops coming soon (KP 17)
Suncrest: KP 15 + 3 troops in progress (KP 18)
Khaziel: KP 14 + 1 troop in progress + 4 future faction troops (KP 19)
Pan’s Vale: KP 17 + 2 troops in progress (KP 19)
Maugrim Woods: KP 14 + 1 troop in progress + 4 future faction troops (KP 19)
Whitehelm: KP 18 (coming soon) + 1 troop in progress (KP 19)
Blighted Lands: KP 18 + 2 troops in progress (KP 20)
Broken Spire: KP 14 + 2 troops in progress (1 bounty) + 4 future faction troops (KP 20)
Khetar: KP 18 (coming soon) + 2 troops in progress (KP 20)
Stormheim: KP 18 + 2 troops in progress (KP 20)
Zaejin: KP 20 (coming soon) + 1 troop in progress (KP 21)
Ghulvania: KP 17 + 2 troops in progress + 4 future faction troops (KP 23: 3 pets at Level 20)
Others of note:
Blackhawk: 4 future faction troops (KP 18)
Pridelands: 4 future faction troops (KP 19)
Dragon’s Claw: KP 15 (coming soon) + 4 future faction troops (KP 19)
Grosh’Nak: KP 17 (coming soon) + 4 future faction troops (KP 21)
Karakoth: 4 future faction troops (KP 21)
Wild Plains: 4 future faction troops (KP 21)
hopefully I didn’t miss anything too interesting
4 Likes
Nice to know there are some incoming banner color combos that we sort of direly need, like a red/brown that doesn’t -1 purple, or blue/green/yellow that doesn’t -1 one of the three in that combination.
3 Likes
For me, the big one today is:
[MINIGAME_INTRO_3000_2]
OLD: Choose from a random set of troops to take into a series of battles. Win up to 8 times for increasing rewards.
NEW: Choose from a random set of troops to take into a series of battles. Win up to 6 times for increasing rewards.
[MINIGAME_INTRO_3000_3]
OLD: Then see how many players you can beat before you suffer 2 defeats. Win 8 times for a huge reward!
NEW: Then see how many players you can beat before you suffer 2 defeats. Win 6 times for a huge reward!
And there was already [VIP_BENEFIT_ARENAWINS]: +%1 Starting Wins in Arena
The less I need to play the arena, the better 
1 Like
on paper, that sounds good… but without knowing what they’ve done with the mode, its hard to tell if that’s actually a good thing.
They will probably make whatever new arena thing they are dropping on us more required, without making it better. So whatever kind of process it is, we will “have to” do it and it will be lame.
1 Like