(!) Spoiler Alert (!) -- [Any Details Provided are Subject to Change] (Part 2)

[Darkborne]

@TheIdleOne

That 3rd trait is horrible and its holding this troop back so badly. Its funny since its an additional effect, but it may as well be nothing.

This has been the theme for some time now with campaign mythics creating the new heroic gem(s) that are featured in the new campaign, starting with Aravatar. It makes it obvious that the devs do not have creative and powerful ideas for the final traits of recent mythics.

The spell for Aldrich seems to be a bit of morthani’s darkness and the gray king, but both of those mythics are much more useful in terms of damage and shutting down the most powerful threats.

The campaign weapon makes him a bit better, but I think they just needed some more time with him. It’s just not quite right because he should have a better follow-up, similar to the frostbound blade.

[TheIdleOne]

@Fourdottwoone

The spell is boosted pretty significantly by ghost gems, they get created passively at the start of the turn and are hard to get rid off.

It runs into the same problem of Amatiel where those gems don’t stick on the field long enough to ever provide any decent boost. There’s just too many things available that can accidentally get rid of things on the board.

Even in the early game, new players get told to get a Leprechaun. If not, things like Harpy Mage are very easy to obtain.

@Fourdottwoone

There’s also Undying and Ice Armor, making this a really good tank.

Except it happens to be 3 colors and happens to be Blue/Red/Brown, which blocks some very keys colors. It also happens to be susceptible to stun.

@Fourdottwoone

I’m sure players still working on their account progress will find it useful.

They still have to trait the thing and despite end-game players having lots of orb of wisdoms, for new players, getting Arcane and Celestial traitstones won’t be the easiest and orb of wisdoms are still a bit of a crapshoot to obtain.

Either new players fork over a lot of stones to obtain a very weak 3rd trait to unlock boost ratios or they get stuck with a very average cast for accounts with low magic for 24 mana.

@Fourdottwoone

Better than most campaign mythics though, or even regular ones.

Mythics I would easily rather have over Aldric the Frostbound:

Kurandara
Faerie Gobmother
The Onyx Giant
King of Ravens
Khronos
King Stormgard

Campaign Mythics I would rather have over Aldric the Frostbound, but don’t see much play:

Quetzalma
Hatir and Skroll
Fountain of Stars (would use this troop more if the 3rd trait was more consistent)

Tihamata (I don’t use it since the wildcard spawn count is too low, but its still something I’d use over Aldric. Good candidate for a buff to push it to be good)

Medusa (I use it when I want to use its 3rd trait, happens occasionally, including Naga PvP this week. hurray! damage output is lacking)

The Elder Dragon (I would use this more if it was 2-3 mana cheaper. -1 to match Elemaugrim/Ishtara, -2 for Void Dragon)

Aravatar (debatable, but it has a better boost ratio not stuck based on its gimmick gem, the 3rd trait spawns more gimmick gems, and lower mana cost)

Dread Captain Grim (Aldric is a better cast and better traits, but if I ever had to do some weird Treasure Map farming for some reason, this troop would be top tier. Can’t say I’d use Aldric as a premier anything)

Amatiel (Aldric is a better cast, but I rather break an Angel Gem over either troop’s spell or Ghost Gem 9 out of 10 times. Less harmful to just sit somewhere and do nothing. Pound for Pound, Id rather have the Bless. However, Aldric is probably more event useful than Amatiel, so this could change at some point)

I would rather have Aldric the Frostbound:

Nefertani
Dao
The Sparkinator

Smash that list together:

Kurandara
Faerie Gobmother
The Onyx Giant
King of Ravens
Khronos
King Stormgard
Quetzalma
Hatir and Skroll
Fountain of Stars
Tihamata
Medusa
The Elder God
Aravatar
Dread Captain Grim (for only 1 particular function)
Amatiel

Nefertani
Dao
The Sparkinator

So… better than most Campaign Mythics? that’s a no from me.

Now if it was like Medusa and had Curse + Freeze a random enemy on 4/5 match, it’d jump way higher on the useable list.

[Darkborne]

The campaign weapon reads, “create a mix of 16 ghost and freeze gems. Then explode a random gem.”

It’s strange that ghost gems don’t match with blue gems, but maybe that was an oversight…

I had problems uploading the image for the campaign weapon, but maybe if Aldrich the Frostbrand exploded all freeze and blue gems when he got a kill, it would have more potential. The idea for him is very nice as a “frozen king,” who reminds me of Arthas, but he just needs a better follow-up.

Ghost gem converters could also make him have more potential too, but I doubt any of those new troops will have powerful synergy with him like the campaign weapon.

[ANGI]

“frozen king” is funny, as himself isn’t immune to frozen.
also third trait named frozen legion by creating a ghost gem is typical for devs nowadays

[TheIdleOne]

@Darkborne

The campaign weapon reads, “create a mix of 16 ghost and freeze gems. Then explode a random gem.”

ghost gems are like blocks. (tooltip in-game in the heroic gem guide)

[TheIdleOne]

Red Elemental.

You would think Elemental would be an easy slam dunk, but Red is… a little iffy. Its better than the last 2 Journey events and there should be just enough choices to make it possible. Early frontrunners include Amarok spam again, or Sheggra/Maraji Queen.

Blue Undead is an interesting one. It has a lot of tools to win matches safely like The Gray King, and a decent amount of generators like Captain Skullbeard, but winning fast (in higher levels) is a different story.

Quite humorously, this one is going to be absolutely worthless in Merlantis events, despite making blue… Guess how many Undead troops Merlantis has… yeah.

[Kezef]

While it makes little sense within the context of the kingdom, at least an “Undead” Journey event sounds like it ought to make some amount of sense within the context of the campaign. Not that the developers do nearly enough of that, because there are areas where they could do it better – e.g., Bounty troops.

[Fourdottwoone]

Recent data file updates suggest that VP will be reset each season. I wonder what that means for alliance ranks, do we all drop back to lowest rank and have to earn those 800k VP over and over again for full rewards?

[DracoL1ch]

Do Noone will ever reach the top alliance rank so Noone to gain gold marks. Carrotstick is working!

[Ash3nShad3]

@Fourdottwoone

Recent data file updates suggest that VP will be reset each season. I wonder what that means for alliance ranks, do we all drop back to lowest rank and have to earn those 800k VP over and over again for full rewards?

Did they not already mention there will be some ways (=paying) to keep part of your score for the next season?

[TheIdleOne]

yup, in the preview video for 7.5

[Mana_Surgeon]

Why so much love for Gobmother? Wish gems being so prone to being useless or backfiring have had me avoiding using her.

(Might still be better than the godawful Aldric, but “easily” seems to be a stretch?)

[TheIdleOne]

@Mana_Surgeon

Why so much love for Gobmother?

Her spell comes with an Extra turn.

Yeah, Wish gems can backfire heavily: definitely don’t recommend her vs Valravens, but she does a lot for teams that are focused on extra turns.

Wish gems can also be useful when the opponent isn’t very threatening (think E12)

[TheIdleOne]

More season passes… good lord.

[STUB]

I hope this isnt the pay to win nail in the gems of war coffin.

[Darkborne]

It looks like those season passes will be tied to pvp with more money offers?

Many people have already left because of pay walled troops and weapons and this is just going to add to the frustration. I’m guessing that they will price this new offer like kingdom passes.

Would it be so hard to ask to be able to get new and exciting things in the game without paying for them? Or waiting for them to be available, if at all?

It’s funny because part of the reason the synch was delayed for Nintendo Switch was because Nintendo wanted to prevent 505 games from having too many money offers. Now that the floodgate has opened, we are subject to this terrible business practice just like the rest of you guys. Dear Lord…

[sylverscale]

If they’d at least put as much effort into the game as they put into new ways to milk the whales…

[NerdieBirdie]

Story time!

Long ago in a galaxy far, far away, there was a little mobile game called Mighty Monsters. It was fairly Pokemon-esque, involving capturing creatures of various types and battling them. I have very fond memories of this game. A lot of the creatures looked really cool, especially to my little baby brain

The coolest creatures, by far, were the ones you could win from doing well in each PvP season, though. If memory serves me, these weren’t locked behind a paywall or given only to the top 1% of players. I think most anyone could earn them if their monsters were strong enough and they put in good effort.

Check some of these bad boys out…

What game are we playing again? Oh, right, Gems of War!

Anyway, I hear and share the concerns about potential P2W shenanigans, but I’m hoping IP2 continues their long track record of every troop being attainable F2P with enough time and effort. Season reward Immortal troops would make my little kid self so happy

[TheIdleOne]

Fascinating…

Impervious with Freeze and Terror 3rd trait.

Midwinter Lycan is kinda overpowered trait-wise and is “balanced” by creating 16 gems which is completely unreliable and those gems being curse and freeze gems which will also overwrite current brown/blue gems AND leave it in a position to be cursed and frozen by its own spell.

I’m conflicted. I want to praise a useful troop, but personally I also don’t like slot machine troops.

First off:

Immortal Ossifer’s 3rd Trait already exists as Medusa’s Stone Curse. You don’t need to make the same 3rd Trait with a different name like Phoenicia’s Sun Flare/Ursuvius’s Burning Embers doing the same thing. It just looks bad to have the same legendary trait with different names as the optics looks like there is no attention to detail for Gems of War.

Edit:

I guess if Awakened Torment is a thing, then… I guess regular Torment should be fine? …

That being said, these Immortal troops look really good and they’re designed to be obtainable…

Edit: Those Awakened traits look very strong.

Ossifer’s Edge weapon needs a redesign. It just doesn’t work because 1 of 3 things will happen:

1. Most players will Convert color gems into Doomskulls that will lead into an extra turn match on top of setting off Doomskulls. That’ll leave very little to no Doomskulls left on the table for the weapon’s gimmick to convert Doomskulls into Uber Doomskulls

2. The troop is played like the devs intend and leave a bunch of Doomskulls on the table without matches, so the AI can then take their turn and likely return Doomskulls to sender. End result: no Doomskulls left to convert to Uber Doomskulls.

3. Magical Christmas land happens where you can cast this troop and make Doomskulls and the AI doesn’t do anything with the Doomskulls. You can then use the weapon to turn Doomskulls into Uber Doomskulls… but you’re still in the same problem where the Uber Doomskulls weren’t in a good positions to use anyways.

The easiest fix to make Ossifer’s Edge is to give Immortal Ossifer an extra turn (please don’t give Immortal Ossifer a guaranteed extra turn). That won’t work. So… the weapon just needs to be straight up changed.

There’s some semblance of awareness that the Edge’s effect doesn’t really work since they added an Extra turn possibility to the weapon to not make it totally unusable, but… it just won’t work if the Doomskulls aren’t still on the table in the first place.

[Kezef]

The link between the Immortal troops and the upcoming weapons suggests to me that the Immortals are meant to be earned and used by players. (Whereas the Guardian troops we now fight in PvP are not.)

In terms of continuing power creep that we’ve seen in many aspects of the game? I don’t like the idea of more troops that have Invulnerable that players can use, but I guess that’s something that can serve as a counter-balance to the number of Zuul’goth/Ctharrasque teams that are very popular these days. Plus the frequency of Curse effects making Impervious ineffective against a lot of things.