After playing with and against some of the new weapon mechanics, and reading all the tiers for each, here is my personal list of the good and bad.
Well Done
Here are the weapons that i feel the upgrade was well done, in the sense that they give an extra something to the weapon to make it interesting. I am taking into account the rarity, of course, i don’t expect miracles for a low rarity weapon.
Rare : weapons are weak, but some traits make them semi-interresting, but hey, most stay rather weak.
Demonic Kopesh: Draining effect nice addition
Icy Glaive: Frozen effect nice addition to this weapon that already removes red gems.
Ulta Rare: some nice touch make a few weapons rather decent
Dagger of the Void: interresting addition of a guarantee summon from a blue source. And the summoned Horror will make use of the free Darkstorm.
Lance of Divinity: gaining 4 mana for a 9 cast weapon is a fun way to spam this damage, with free barrier!
Staff of Magnus : the self-enchanting and magic boosting effect make this cheap cast weapon an always ready damage source.
Epic
Boom Boom: this weapon goes from exploding 3 gems to exploding 3+1, making it decent.
Holy Avenger: Vorpal? Vorpal! Yes, Vorpal.
Kriss Knife: Another guarantee summon, this time in red. Fun.
Nature Staff: Entangle the first, hide underwater and enchant for quick recast. Not bad.
Dark staff: Disease, Web, and some mana drain of first enemy. Decent.
Frost Staff: the freezing affect is good and in the right theme. Explosion and some mana drain too.
Prey Seeker: Great addition of Mass Hunter Mark to this weapon that deals double to the marked target. The mark applies after damage, but it’s there for next shot. Plus some board changes.
Legendary
Fire and Ice: Very fun to play now, with creation of gems of it’s color (blue and red) and the burn + freeze of top enemy.
Crescendo: Crescendo gains the more it casts, and gains free turn if you kill. So the Faerie Fire and self-enchantment are nice touch.
Death Knell: Ok, goblins have shown us the power of Explode + Extra turn. This weapon now is great. Damage, extra turn, and 2 explosions, plus life drain. Can easily be the 4th in usual goblin team.
Ice Dagger: this weapon becomes a double freezer (first and last ennemy). Not bad with the extra mini-plosion too,
Mortani Scythe: at tier 7, the weapon creates a skull, making it 8 new total skulls. Easier to build around it now.
Mountain Crusher: Wow. No wasted magic bonus tier. Creates a Dustsorm!! So, if after the first massive explosion, you don’t get a free turn and full refill, the storm hits and you get another mini-explosion, increasing your loop-chance. Nice.
Spider Kiss: this weapon now deals true damage to first ennemy, and: entangle, poison and web it. It creates it’s own color Darkstorm, and the free Charm is a great icing on the cake.
** The Bad**
These weapons have traits that make no sense. What a waste:
Daemonomicon: In addition to 3 tiers that give a useless bonus to magic, the last tier has this 10% chance to summon a Quasit. So, you actually need to be down 2 creatures to benefit, and draw the lucky 10%, for a weak creature that will steal your purple mana. Really? Come on, fix this!
Ocean Protector: Tier 8 gives submerged, but it’s already part of the spell (the weapon submerge all allies including the hero). If that’s not enough of a waste, the next tier in a chance for a treasure map. Really bad.
Shadowbringer: This weapon damages the last ennemy and removes all purple. So, why summon a Darkstorm? Using this weapon usually means you are trying to remove purple! That storm makes no sense!
-Skullblade: Same here. You summon a Bone Storm after removing all skulls. Makes little sense to me. The Treasure Map chance adds to the insult.
So there it is, my own little list, feel free to comment or add to it.
It’s certainly a good idea and a fair first attempt, but there are dozens of tweaks and changes to be made.
Many weapons are NOT boosted by magic yet has a magic boost for one of the first 5 upgrades.
I was thinking about this one and in fact any “add a storm” upgrade… Is it really nice? Because if your team don’t really care of this color aside for the weapon, it seems to be a mistake to have this upgrade…
Which is great, several other weapons don’t though and still have upgrade tiers with magic bonuses and i’d really like to know whether this is something that will be changed or if this will stay this way. Info about that would be greatly appreciated.
Storms are a double edged hot potato.
Because they help both sides unless it’s a color the opponent does not need.
So usually it’s best for it’s increased chance of extra turn after an explosion, and better if the color actually fills the exploder.
Infernus is a good exemple, with the fire storm he often loops, or the Azura - Skadi combo meaning Azura just loops.
So on Mountain crusher you get the same effect that the explosion under a dust storm will often create an extra turn and fill the hammer again.
With a Hero Class trait that puts the Hunter Mark, it can be solid (since the double skull damage also applies for exploding skulls)
One to be put on the worst: Bullseye = The last Upgrade reduces 2 points of attack from the first enemy. So you have this Epic weapon fully upgraded to be able to reduce 2 points of attack. Wow… just… wow…
I have not listed any of the Mythic weapons because they are all pretty blend.
On one side, I understand not wanting to make the best weapon even better, but right now I don’t think any Mythic is worth spending the ingots.
The most logical is probably Serve and Protect (a never used weapon) since you finally Barrier yourself too, and gain armor.
Most bows are awful removing green gems on their spells and then creating a Leafstorm…
Some weapons simply would need to be reworked from the basic spell, but i doubt this will happen at all.
Nimhain commented on a similar but different issue which is why the talent Well-read offers magic for tomes, when all but one of them don’t benefit from magic(the answer in short: it is for future tomes that actually will benefit from magic).
My question is about specific weapons that do not benefit from magic, like Golden Cog for example, but have upgrade tiers on them payed for with ingots, that increase magic to no effect whatsoever.
Yeah, the “create one gem” upgrades are pretty much universally bad and a mistake to purchase. They turn predictable spells unpredictable; and even the semi-unpredictable Eternal Flame can be negatively impacted, as you point out.