Zhul'Kari Rework

The Eldrazhor faction is actually quite reliant on first slot Tomb Spider spawn for 2x skull damage after Deep Huntsman dies.

This is actually a big nerf: making the Web Gem is meaningless on Tomb Spider without that 2x skull damage to synergize with it.

This is a Sunspear level of downgrade and should be protested by the general audience, but most people have already done their Eldrazhor faction so Tomb Spider is already off the radar.

Magic Spirit should have been replaced over Stalker

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You get a deathmark on cast now at least - previously it was only if there was 13+ purple gems on the board.
I would say deathmark is better than fishing for skulls. Especially Eldrazhor where you are inflicting a lot of status effects so the death mark keeps getting refreshed.

And it HAD to be done in Guild War week just after the Krinklemess. Yes. Because 'tis the season to be jolly.

1 Like

You do know that refreshing status effects prevents deathmark from triggering, right?

Summary

This is how it goes…

  1. Apply deathmark
  2. 0% chance to trigger DM
  3. 10% chance to trigger DM
  4. 10% chance to trigger DM…and so on until cleansed or activated.

This is what happens if you constantly refresh status effects:

  1. Apply deathmark
  2. 0% chance to trigger DM
  3. Refresh status effect
  4. 0% chance to trigger DM
  5. 10% chance to trigger DM
  6. Refresh status effect
  7. 0% chance to trigger DM…
2 Likes

I strongly disagree.

There are already many factions with the Death Mark mechanic as its primary gimmick and most of those factions are unpleasant and win with other means than Death Mark (or spam Potions of Power to do enough damage to avoid Death Mark). Death Mark is very inconsistent.

Meanwhile hitting for a consistent 150-200+ skull damage is very valuable as secondary damage when you’re already doing damage with other sources.

The skull damage helps a lot in the final Eldrazhor room when you’re getting webbed down by the opponents team. (Deep Huntman does Curse and Web to the first enemy troop, Deep Magus can Curse all or Web all, Matron Velenne can Curse and Web by sitting around and existing).

Sure you might lose the attack from Deep Elven Rogue if it casts on it, but until it happened, its the best damage source you’ll have.

Fishing for Skulls is better than fishing for Death Mark, if only so you aren’t waiting around only for Death Mark to fizzle (meanwhile the AI can hit you back during the waiting time) only to end up losing troops/the match because it takes too long and the enemies hit you with skulls instead.

If you need a refresher on the futilities of Death Marks, try the Hell Gate faction again.

3 Likes

We’ve got missing graphics again - not turning black, completely missing.

Yup, this change is super annoying right as I was about to work on the pure faction run.

1 Like

Ah, right, I forgot about that. Thanks.

On a tangent note, the change to Night Terror seems welcome for that one battle in Broken Spire’s questline (vs. 4 Night Terrors). The boost ratio can become quite dangerous at low levels but at least it no longer steals Magic per cast.

What happened to Sunspear when?

Pretty sure Death Mark can kill on turn 1 now?

For a short time in one of the older updates, the dev team misunderstood (hopefully? I can’t imagine it being malice?) the grievances of the players having troop talents that create storms at the beginning of the battle being useless on Sunspear since the 3rd trait overwrites those talents.

So… instead of adjusting those troop talents, they changed the 3rd trait to be the red version of Corsair/Archmagus. +2 Red Mana on a Red Gem match.

At the time, Phoenicia had finally become popular with farming, so people took it as an intentional nerf to farming teams for resource generating.

+2 Red Mana on a Red Gem matche is actually pretty decent, but doesn’t compare to a permastorm at all.

After like 2-3 days, they had to make an official statement about the change and reverted it back to a permastorm.

There’s like a dozen classes that could use those kind of buffs, but instead a popular class got tinkered with.

5 Likes
  • Yes this is a big nerf of Tomb Spider, particularly on Eldrazhor as noted. Given that the devs said that the troop changes were all supposed to be “buffs or sideways changes” to justify no troop refunds, they should look at reverting this change at least for this reason alone. I also think the mana cost increase in exchange for always inflicting death mark is a bad trade, and would revert that change as well.

  • I wouldn’t exaggerate it and say it’s as bad as the Sunspear nerf though. That nerf would have been devastating for red teams.

I didn’t rely on Tomb Spider in my pure 500 run on Eldrazhor, preferring (and succeeding) at keeping my Deep Huntsman alive in the first slot. My strategy turned on Deep Elven Rogue wiping out the skull damage of each enemy troop, with two Huntsmen ensuring plenty of Rogue and Velenne casts.

  • 100% agree that swapping out Magic Spirit would’ve made the change a proper buff instead of the nerf that it is.
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After a few days I have to say that I had to replace Night Spider (RIP) and replace not only the troop but the whole team in PVP and Pet Rescue, where it was my main team. :confounded:

3 Likes

I’m sure someone has said this before: It’d be nice if the stage releases were moved one day earlier so that you’re not forced to play on a weekend to complete the event.
Now => Proposed
Stage 1: Mon => Mon
Stage 2: Thu => Wed
Stage 3: Sun => Sat
Stage 4: Wed => Tue
Stage 5: Sat => Fri
You’d still have 3 days per phase, but the release of the 2nd phase would come sooner.

3 Likes

Just to let everyone know, pet ‘Yvendra’s Tome’ can be found in pet rescues.

11 Likes

The Silken Queen is available for chests:

Ace of Cups is available in Vault:
image

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Apologies for necro-ing this post, but I wasn’t able to get onto the forum at the time and point out an issue, so thought I’d raise it now, since I’ve managed to get onto the forum.

Why doesn’t this post mention the change to Tal’Rae?
Tal’Rae originally had the stalker trait, which gives double skull damage against webbed troops, which is very useful on teams that commonly web the enemy team. This was changed to terror pact, which has a chance to summon another troop on death. That is a massive nerf, as far as I’m concerned, and the fact that the change wasn’t included in this list feels suspicious.
Tal’Rae’s main gimmick is dealing bonus damage against webbed troops, hence her spell working that way, and her spell webs troops which works well with the stalker trait, but not so much with the terror pact trait.
Zhul’kari now only has one troop with the stalker trait, and that’s devourer, a bounty troop. Hell, there’s only 2 troops in the game with stalker now, so clearly it wasn’t an overdone trait, so why replace it? I know webspinner exists and has lethal toxin, but it has a damage all spell while Tal’Rae’s spell is targeted, and webspinner is a Daemon whereas Tal’Rae is an elf/mystic, meaning they fill different niches. Or rather they did, because this nerf to Tal’Rae means she no longer works as well in the niche she was filling.
I know it’s been a while, but any chance we can get a statement on whether this change was intended, why it wasn’t announced and - if it wasn’t intentional - whether it can be reversed? It’d be great to get Tal’Rae back as she was.

@Kafka @Bramble
Any chance of an answer from the team? Please and thanks in advance.

I’m like 99% sure they don’t work on the weekends. They are in Australia, though, so Monday comes soon.

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Ah, fair enough, I forget it’s the weekend sometimes. Thanks.

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Not sure if this got missed or ignored. Any chance of an answer on why Tal’Rae was changed and if she can be changed back? Please and thanks.

The Weaver’s Tome and The Silken Queen are available in this week’s soulforge:
image

3 Likes