# Update 2.0.1 Preview **URL:** \ **Category:** Official News\ **Created:** [July 12, 2016, 8:02am UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/update-2-0-1-preview/9427 "2016-07-12T08:02:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Sirrian](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/community.gemsofwar.com/sirrian/32/35758_2.png) [@Sirrian](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/Sirrian)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2016, 11:50am UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/update-2-0-1-preview/9427/41 "2016-07-12T11:50:55Z")
> [@yonizaf](#): > > I don’t like this at all. Mana Burn and Devour are not status effects, and there is no reason for Imprevious to protect from them while it does not protect form other named effects such as Charm and Drain. That’s a good point… we might consider extending it to cover those in future too! 👿 ---
**Author:** ![yonizaf](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/community.gemsofwar.com/yonizaf/32/1435_2.png) [@yonizaf](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/yonizaf)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2016, 11:56am UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/update-2-0-1-preview/9427/42 "2016-07-12T11:56:03Z")
You demon! That clearly wasn’t my intention… If you go that route, then soon Impervious will protect from just about anything. In addition, the trait text talks about status effects. If you insist on including things that are clearly not status effects, the trait description need to be changed in order to make sense. ---
**Author:** ![sethrogensbackhair](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/community.gemsofwar.com/sethrogensbackhair/32/563_2.png) [@sethrogensbackhair](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/sethrogensbackhair)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2016, 12:01pm UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/update-2-0-1-preview/9427/43 "2016-07-12T12:01:20Z")
Sirrian need not make sense!😁 ---
**Author:** ![yonizaf](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/community.gemsofwar.com/yonizaf/32/1435_2.png) [@yonizaf](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/yonizaf)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2016, 12:07pm UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/update-2-0-1-preview/9427/44 "2016-07-12T12:07:30Z")
Sirrian may not need to make sense, but the game does. If things do not work the way they are described in the game, that’s a source of unnecessary confusion. Most players don’t visit the forum and don’t read patch notes, they still deserve to understand what’s going on at least by reading in-game descriptions. ---
**Author:** ![Sirrian](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/community.gemsofwar.com/sirrian/32/35758_2.png) [@Sirrian](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/Sirrian)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2016, 12:09pm UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/update-2-0-1-preview/9427/45 "2016-07-12T12:09:51Z")
Sorry - I _was_ trolling a little bit there, wasn’t I. 😉 We have changed up the description of the effect in 2.0.1. But we’re finding it a nice change that makes some more troops feel like they might have a place in the meta… if extending it onto other special effects is an improvement, we _might_ consider it, but no plans for that yet. ---
**Author:** ![Fourdottwoone](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/community.gemsofwar.com/fourdottwoone/32/66655_2.png) [@Fourdottwoone](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/Fourdottwoone)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2016, 12:09pm UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/update-2-0-1-preview/9427/46 "2016-07-12T12:09:52Z")
> [@Zelarith](#): > > A little concern I have though is that Impervious is growing more and more powerfull while other single status protection feels as weak as ever.I think single status protection should be upgraded to counter three things each, so they would at least compete a bit with impervious. > > For example : Healthy : immune to poison / disease / death markEtheral : immune to web / entangle / devourWeatherproof: immune to burn / mana burn / frozenWary : immune to silence / hunter’s mark / stat loss Feels too complicated to me, I already have trouble remembering which single effect gets countered by which trait. Instead, I’d rather like to see those highly specialized single counter traits extended to protect to the whole party. Adds a bit of tactical challenge, if your team relies on poison, better kill that traited Goblin Shaman first. ---
**Author:** ![Drathas](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/community.gemsofwar.com/drathas/32/7344_2.png) [@Drathas](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/Drathas)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2016, 12:19pm UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/update-2-0-1-preview/9427/47 "2016-07-12T12:19:49Z")
I kind of wish I’d spent the glory traiting Behemoth now… ---
**Author:** ![Zelarith](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/community.gemsofwar.com/zelarith/32/1642_2.png) [@Zelarith](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/Zelarith)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2016, 12:33pm UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/update-2-0-1-preview/9427/48 "2016-07-12T12:33:06Z")
I don’t think it’s that complicated, but at the same time I actually prefer your idea. The thought of having one insulated unit block frozen on all my units… Perfect ! ---
**Author:** ![Zelfore](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/community.gemsofwar.com/zelfore/32/22295_2.png) [@Zelfore](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/Zelfore)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2016, 12:41pm UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/update-2-0-1-preview/9427/49 "2016-07-12T12:41:42Z")
> [@Fourdottwoone](#): > > Instead, I’d rather like to see those highly specialized single counter traits extended to protect to the whole party. This would be interesting. While Impervious would selfishly protect a troop from any and every effect, single effect traits protect the whole team. Kinda crazy though. I can tell you now, if people didn’t hate Gorgotha or Mab before, they’d certainly hate them after a change like that. ---
**Author:** ![Sirrian](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/community.gemsofwar.com/sirrian/32/35758_2.png) [@Sirrian](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/Sirrian)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2016, 12:44pm UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/update-2-0-1-preview/9427/50 "2016-07-12T12:44:58Z")
While I think making that change to existing traits might make some troops a little TOO good, actually introducing traits that offer team immunities as a NEW thing might be a neat idea we could look into in the future. ---
**Author:** ![Spherix](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/community.gemsofwar.com/spherix/32/2388_2.png) [@Spherix](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/Spherix)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2016, 1:02pm UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/update-2-0-1-preview/9427/51 "2016-07-12T13:02:49Z")
Looks like this will be a fantastic update, with lots of great changes, despite being tagged as a “minor” release. Explore mode should be an interesting way both to revisit the quest battles, which are otherwise only seen once, and a lot more fun than mindlessly grinding the same challenge over and over again for traitstones. > [@Koolbiird](#): > > What’s the catch with ‘Explore’? Seems too easy. Random battle for better rewards. I must be missing something. I think the point is that they’re random, rather than farming the same challenge over and over again. It will be both more interesting, and _slightly_ more difficult, in that theoretically you’d have to actually pay attention to the enemy team. I know that rarely matters any more to players with strong teams, but for newer players, they’ll have to pick their teams wisely, which will take a bit longer than just farming a challenge with the same team. The extra rewards balance out that additional time. For people at the top, it just makes it competitive with PvP, providing different rewards. If you want gold and glory, PvP. If you want traitstones, Explore. Challenges will be relegated to the one-shot soul caches they were presumably supposed to be. @Lyya, I don’t think they’re giving away nearly as much as it seems, when you take all the factors into account. * * * The type changes are going to mean reviewing some teams, but I imagine the types will make more sense, and will open up a lot of new combinations. Hopefully the splitting of types will be balanced out by the addition of multiple types, because otherwise a lot of troops that shared a type before might not now. I’m excited for the status effect changes. Web and stun should provide additional strategies for dealing with powerful spells and traits, Death Mark might actually be worth using, and Entangle will actually be a valid counter for the troops that most needed it – including Maw. * * * I think I like the trait changes, or at least the idea behind them: hard counters to particularly strong mechanics. But I agree with the general sentiment that some traits really seem too narrow, and when troops are limited to three traits, it seems difficult to fit in ones that should be applicable. I do like the idea of things like an “ethereal” trait, that protects against all the status effects that logically shouldn’t be able to affect intangible troops. Size traits protecting against devour is also still a very appealing idea, given that they’re not particularly strong traits, and devour is of pretty limited availability. Hard counters make more troops useful, but when a troop only counters a very few things, and there are very few troops that counter the same thing, it narrows the solution space too much. The player should be trying to find interesting combinations, rather than just picking each of the troops that hard counters whatever troops they’re facing. > [@yonizaf](#): > > Mana Burn and Devour are not status effects They may not appear to be from the player’s perspective, but it’s quite possible that’s how they’re implemented internally. * * * The new mini game button is a welcome addition, particularly as it hints that there will be more mini games in the future, but I’m hoping that they’ll remain linked to the particular kingdoms in the future, rather than just “For now”. It gives each kingdom additional flavor, makes them seem like they have unique value and potential, rather than just being entries in a table with slightly different numbers. ---
**Author:** ![TaliaParks](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/community.gemsofwar.com/taliaparks/32/11738_2.png) [@TaliaParks](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/TaliaParks)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2016, 1:07pm UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/update-2-0-1-preview/9427/52 "2016-07-12T13:07:18Z")
So what if Impervious protected against all status effects and similar effects? Skulls and/or Spell damage is all you need ---
**Author:** ![Fourdottwoone](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/community.gemsofwar.com/fourdottwoone/32/66655_2.png) [@Fourdottwoone](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/Fourdottwoone)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2016, 1:15pm UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/update-2-0-1-preview/9427/53 "2016-07-12T13:15:33Z")
> [@Sirrian](#): > > While I think making that change to existing traits might make some troops a little TOO good, actually introducing traits that offer team immunities as a NEW thing might be a neat idea we could look into in the future. It might be based on play style, my personal experience with those single counter traits is that they are worse than useless. There are so many effects now, a single troop being immune to a single one of them is like insuring yourself against getting hit by a flying saucer piloted by Nessie. Even if the effect you are protected against does show up during a match, it’s very likely it will land on one of your other troops instead, especially if the effect dealer is controlled by a human. Given a choice, I’d happily exchange those single counter traits with anything else the trait pool has to offer, possibly excluding Hunter’s Mark. I believe it would make all of those troops stronger. ---
**Author:** ![yonizaf](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/community.gemsofwar.com/yonizaf/32/1435_2.png) [@yonizaf](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/yonizaf)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2016, 1:15pm UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/update-2-0-1-preview/9427/54 "2016-07-12T13:15:55Z")
> [@Spherix](#): > > They may not appear to be from the player’s perspective, but it’s quite possible that’s how they’re implemented internally. Just… what? There is a very clear definition to the term ‘status effect’, which is something that stays for awhile, usually with a visual indicator to its presence. Every game with status effects that I’ve seen to date follows that definition. How something is implemented internally (what does that even mean?) has nothing to do with it. Mana Burn is no more a status effect than skull damage, unless you invent your own definition that’s different from every game out there, and I fail to see how that’s a good idea. > [@TaliaParks](#): > > So what if Impervious protected against all status effects and similar effects? Skulls and/or Spell damage is all you need Except that Mana Burn IS spell damage. It is much more similar to other spells that depend on a specific stat for damage (such as Rowanne’s), and has nothing in common with any other status effect. ---
**Author:** ![Spherix](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/community.gemsofwar.com/spherix/32/2388_2.png) [@Spherix](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/Spherix)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2016, 1:23pm UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/update-2-0-1-preview/9427/55 "2016-07-12T13:23:13Z")
How something is presented to the player isn’t necessarily what it looks like in code. The developers have repeatedly said that the spell scripting language is very limited because of what Apple will allow on their store, so they’ve had to be creative when implementing new spells. Devour may very well be implemented as applying a status effect to the enemy that instantly kills them, and applying one to the caster that increases their skills. Just because it’s not visually represented to the player the same way doesn’t mean it isn’t one, as far as the code is concerned. ---
**Author:** ![TaliaParks](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/community.gemsofwar.com/taliaparks/32/11738_2.png) [@TaliaParks](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/TaliaParks)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2016, 1:26pm UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/update-2-0-1-preview/9427/56 "2016-07-12T13:26:38Z")
edited for clarity ---
**Author:** ![CSZ](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/community.gemsofwar.com/csz/32/4784_2.png) [@CSZ](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/CSZ)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2016, 1:30pm UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/update-2-0-1-preview/9427/57 "2016-07-12T13:30:41Z")
EDIT: comment not needed anymore ---
**Author:** ![yonizaf](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/community.gemsofwar.com/yonizaf/32/1435_2.png) [@yonizaf](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/yonizaf)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2016, 1:33pm UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/update-2-0-1-preview/9427/58 "2016-07-12T13:33:48Z")
> [@Spherix](#): > > How something is presented to the player isn’t necessarily what it looks like in code. And how something looks like in code has nothing to do with how it is defined when presented to the player. As long as Devour and Mana Burn work like they do on the player side, they can not be defined as status effects. That is, unless you’re trying to claim that there’s a technical limitation that forces them to be treated the same as a status effect regarding Impervious, but that is evidently not correct because Impervious did not protect from them until now, so that limitation clearly does not exist. > [@TaliaParks](#): > > Mana Burn is simply Mana Drain + damage No, Mana Burn does not drain. It simlply deals damage depending on how much mana the enemy have. That’s no different from how Shadow Hunter or Blade Dancer work with life/armor. Besides, even if it did drain, Drain is not considered a status effect, Impervious does not protect from it and will not in the new patch either. ---
**Author:** ![Grundulum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/82dd89/32.png) [@Grundulum](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/Grundulum)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2016, 1:35pm UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/update-2-0-1-preview/9427/59 "2016-07-12T13:35:13Z")
There is one exception to the rule that single-status protection is pretty useless. Because Frozen affects how your team plays, having _any_ troops protected against it is worthwhile. ---
**Author:** ![Brakkish](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/community.gemsofwar.com/brakkish/32/24058_2.png) [@Brakkish](https://community.gemsofwar.com/u/Brakkish)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2016, 1:35pm UTC](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/update-2-0-1-preview/9427/60 "2016-07-12T13:35:37Z")
Golem has always been my favorite tank troop. Now he’s gonna be even better! Glad to see these changes. Hopefully, they’ll help make top level teams a little less Maw-notonous. [Previous page](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/update-2-0-1-preview/9427.md?page=2) [Next page](https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/update-2-0-1-preview/9427.md?page=4)