BobTheSnark

I guess the question is “what would you be doing with the WE instead?” (What is sitting in your energy bar anyway, plus whatever stockpile of flasks may be accruing.) When there is a conflagration of WE-using quests, then it’s a matter in working in some kind of priority (how important the loot is to you vs time left on the quest), but more generally now there’s always a farming season on somewhere. The question then becomes whether you would get more recruits or backpacks or whatever you need from autofarming defunct Season N than from autoplaying some generic “Common” Quest. (Keeping in mind that farming for summoning coins is [A] generally exceedingly slow arguably worth very little for many players for at least some of the seasons, e.g. how many S2 or S3, or maybe even S4, heroes would you currently level and use, even with costumes.) In short, for most folks who at least have most of the seasons open - or even done - many generic Quests probably at least aren’t a priority. (I haven’t done the math on the experience quest vs gaining experience in various farming seasons, but even if I did the math, how much difference would slightly more or less experience on a few dozen energy once or twice a week make?) Quests that drop anything that isn’t readily farmable, though, sure yeah. For example, while regular class quests aren’t what they used to be, with the number of emblems so low and regular emblems devalued compared to yesteryears, they still drop a 3* trainer hero. I still do every single Rare quest, even though without a massive change in my gaming budget it is likely I may never use all the (e.g.) tabards I currently have.

For me, I suppose the issue is whether a HotM fills in something I don't need. Sure, yeah, if a HotM is a [generic green sniper] and I have other [generic green snipers], especially less than (say) a year old, then sure, I'm not going to tip toward the HotM either. But if the HotM brings something I don't have -- or even something I do have, but only on a hero whose card and/or latest costume is at least two.. or three.. or five years old -- then I can't ignore the potential, certainly. Hi. That kind of attack boosting is at least kinda notable, not least of all in Towers or even in Buff Booster attack teams. For people who have no choice but to attack uphill in raids/tourneys/W3K/HL/etc., big attack buffs can be at least the occasional puncher's chance. And Chloris does, you know, boost heal. That might not be exciting for someone who already has significant boost healing in every flavor of the rainbow, but for other folks it's handy to have -- not so much because it replaces primary healing, but it can supplement it. Sure, yes, okay, for someone who already has heroes who can match opponents stat-for-stat, why ever bring anything smaller, excepting perhaps really unique abilities? But HotM aren't the gift for the SG player who already has everything, natch. And yeah, it doesn't help that in their infinite wisdom SG decided to stop selling (what were pretty popular and nice-to-have) HotM costumes some time ago, while cranking out costumes for an ever-widening array of other heroes instead. If Chloris were to actually get a costume like, oh, I dunno, Eiora or Xiaotu or, yes, even Melendor's Katamari-Damacy-ball-of-five-costumes, she'd pretty arguably still be significantly viable. (And for the record, I still use my Chloris even as is.) Heck, I'd go start a thread with SG asking them to spur along development of Tavern of Legends for the purpose to start cranking out HotM costumes again! --but given my general track record with SG, if they did note my request then the most likely result would probably be *checks notes* there would be instead released a berjillionth new hero family, the Übermensch, who would have all the abilities of Cats and Mahayoddha rolled into one, plus cost 800 gems per summon for a 0.3% chance of featured Übermensch hero, "No Classic 5* Heroes," but all non-featured 5* heroes would be HotM from, oh, 2023 or before (and in a "glitch," those HotM lucky enough to actually have costumes would not have them included) like the Bazaar Summon, the Übermensch Tavern of Legends Summon would not have a chance to grant the current HotM because irony the Übermensch hero "passive" would be something like "reach through the screen into the physical world and punch target player in the face"

It sure helps when a HotM has a unique ability (unlike, say, this month's Gilda and her chain-hit being upstaged by Asakura Masao before even getting halfway through the month she was released in) - and it's interesting that cPerseus and cHel at least still have that going for them!

HA! Indeed. I landed Vela -- sans Telluria -- and watched my poor waterbender get repeatedly smacked with the nerfstick when she was hardly problematic outside the infamous GTV combo. But you're right that whole debacle certainly seemed to contribute to making SG gun-shy about "premium" HotM, especially when they decided to instead stick more überheroes in higher-charge premium portals and crank power creep up into exponential power rush. Alas, poor Gravemaker! I knew him, @ NevarMaor : a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent burnination; he hath borne me on his back through a thousand raids. I agree with @ Shohoku79 that you don't forget your first. I landed GM in an Atlantis "now featuring old HotM" portal pull, already in the autumn of his heyday. I was a bit nonplussed at his mechanic at first until I gave him a whirl, and learned how different and diverse abilities can be a real strengthening point for a roster. These days, I'd still love to indulge in Visiting Outfitter to at least land his costume (and the utility of the sneaky VF "passive" dispel-one-from-all it brings), but it's hard to justify vs all the other poor costumeless souls lingering in my roster (and that cGravemaker is probably scarcely a 4* hero, if that, these days). Agreed! Anything that says "no" to an OP hero (much less turns its strength against itself/its teammates) is a nice way to be able to punch up. And it's why I like to still talk about HotM a fair bit as well -- I agree with @ NevarMaor that it might be easy for some folks whose roster looks like a Borgified Maha-Astral-Cat-aggeddon to dismiss HotM as "trash", but for F2P they can be indispensable, and for folks in the middle... I sometimes have projects that are a little bit more tempting than a HotM I might also like to level up, but there are times HotM offer a role/color/ability that I really need and they are really nice to have as well. Even far fallen from their Telluria-gate days, HotM still have a place in the E&P ecosystem. Fair! It is a nice set of abilities, and ... EDD still really isn't that common. Heck, in my own roster, my source of EDD blue is... cNordri. (Heck, my profile pic, Fogg, I still keep around for his EDD. He was pretty nice when I got him, but I don't even have his costume... and... yeah.) I do have a Frida, but only long after her release, and while I would like in principle to rank her up... but it's tricky to justify even for Hero Coach if I'm 99% going to use her for titan EDD duty. Sheesh, we could really use some costume updates for special heroes like this.

Increasingly, I find that there are parts of this game I just don't even. I mean, that's not intrinsically terrible when it's because there are a berjillion things to do in a game and one just doesn't have the time or inclination to necessarily do all of them, of course. But there are some parts of the game that I just don't find all that fun, which is... most of Dragonspire, honestly. Heck, I've been making my case to #SlayTheDragons since before Dragonspire was released, and moreso now that the Dragonspire... story, for what it's worth... has actually gotten to a point where it actually leaves a plausible opening to shut down Dragonspire (and, say, instead convert it into part of the main game instead) --not that I expect that to actually happen. Dragon!raids generally leave me "bleh." I mean, the log in my dragon!watchtower stretches back 52 days; I barely do enough raids to bumble through a handful of dragon!PoV tasks, not nearly all the raid tasks, but enough to finish collecting all the main free dragon!PoV left-handed widdershins fidget-spinners. But dragon!Rush? Double bleh with a side of ptooey. I suppose I should sign up for the tournament to collect 3d4 Crystalline Worm Castings or whatever as my prize for finishing in the top 99.999%, but I honestly consider spending my time quixotically messaging SG to #SlayTheDragons to be more interesting than running my chop-suey dragon!roster through a meat-grinder of "I paid for whatever passes for optimal dragons" in addition to the "I generally can't fire Specials with six tiles and often need basically nine, while defenders only need 6.5" Rush-specific issue.

I know there are some folks who are “eh” or worse about sniper heroes, but I don’t mind — and this looks pretty straightforward and generally serviceable (unlike April’s problematic-at-Slow Cordelia or May’s conditional-hit Dubhan-clone Zerfain)

Zerfain’s core mechanic is pretty much a copy-paste straight from Dubhan, only two years later. The % damage even matches — but only for the first hit, which feels unnecessary. Dubhan’s rider effect is light Bleed damage that offers nearby allies a smidge of proportional healing, rather than mana-cut-on-kill. Dubhan does also have that nifty little passive chance to reduce incoming Special direct damage to 1. I’m not against the idea of recycling a mechanic that many folks might not have, but given that, over the last two years, the proliferation of Average and even Fast unconditional hit-all heroes who also do other nasty stuff, it does feel like the Zerfain/Dubhan mechanic should have a little bit more payoff. (Even as vanilla as “higher damage,” much less perhaps a bit of a twist like “steals 20% of the mana of all enemies and distributes among allies.”)

Thought I'd try broaching a discussion on Heroes of the Month -- partly because they can be contentious. By that, I mean that there seem to be some players who seem to be almost-constantly disappointed in HotM. I'd certainly support HotM having a bit more oomph, but at the same time I still see a use for them for many folks, who might really like either at least semi-modern stats compared to older heroes and/or abilities they just don't have out of the ever-expanding panoply of portals. so... what HotM do you have? like? use? Either recent (and in current use), or historically (and even that you might love to see costume updates for to make them more feasible choices)? -- Some for me personally: at least semi recently: Claeg (I really needed a 5* blue healer, and one who heals/cleanses at Fast and can't be silenced is useful), Eliane (reasonable damage and dispel and self-mana-gain-from-burn), Mystia (reflect can be one of the most useful abilities in the game, especially against bigger foes), Chloris (decent boost heal with a notable persistent attack buff, if you can keep it; especially nice in Tower events) older but still useful at times: Mene and Aviana (some damage plus buff-blocking), Roughian & Nurgib (though stats/damage has been really starting to show its age, hit+mana steal is nice, and auto-chomping minions is a tasty passive), Ithar (VF buff-and-mana-steal is a potentially evergreen ability, even if she looks pretty small stats-wise these days) older favs I'd love to be bigger/more useful again: Malosi (no-status-effects at VF), Grazul (quick heal and ailmentblock), Hanitra (silenceproof Fast dodge and max-health-reduce-proof), Devana (hit-3, dispel-3, summon auto-eats enemy minions), Natalya (uncleansable DoT and significant mana-slow actually can be sneaky good in war cleanups)

Given that we got this mimic on the early end of the rough window I was guessing at above, it's certainly consistent with the possibility of having another mimic during (or at least near to) the birthday event. Say, for instance, the last day of the birthday portal to try to entice folks to buy up last-minute, likely subpar, sales of gems to have a few more goes? I'll probably be saving my gems and not summoning anything at the birthday portal until either (A) a sufficiently interesting Gem Summon challenge (B) a mimic (C) the last day of said portal. ...maybe. My luck with omnibus portals like Birthday/Solstice/Black Friday has been.... poor to say the least.

I think you make an excellent point - perhaps a part of it is structural, insofar as the game makes it a lot easier to chat with the people you are playing together with rather than your opponents... so folks who like to trash-talk foes are going to find a different game in which to do so. But in general that there are few problem players in alliance, on the old forums, even on Discord much less here as the forums are rebuilt is something I can well appreciate too!

For what it's worth, I've been doubling down on my old #SlayTheDragons forum thread on E&P Discord: In particular, that... pretty arguably, everything we've seen in what passes for the dragon!story would actually be amusingly consistent with burning down Dragonspire and reconstituting it into the main game instead. it's possible that the delay in finally wrapping up the Dragonspire, er, story, is that maybe SG has realized they ought to tie it all up a little neater than "the epic story of emo stalker boy." (Or it's just unrelated chicanery, of course; I'm not particularly expecting SG to ACTUALLY end Dragonspire per se.)

Firstly, no one ever knows for sure until less than or equal to around 24 hours in advance, as far as I know. Secondly, one can look at the recent release dates to get some idea (standard disclaimer: past performance is not indicative of future results) Feb 22 - Troop (blue) Feb 7 - Aether (purple) Jan 26 - Aether (green) Jan 5 - Aether (yellow) Dec 11 - Aether (blue) Roughly every 2-3 weeks or so. If that holds, then the next mimic would possibly be somewhen roughly around March 8-15.

A fair point - and that reminds me that it's worth remember that for heroes who invoke minions/Mega Minions/fiends/Mega Fiends, LB2 can also be important, as minions/Mega are capped at 1000hp/2000hp in size until 2LB. (These days, with at-all-modern-ish heroes plus legendary troops, it means generally if you want your minions/fiends to reach the full % of hp listed on the card, you kinda need to 2LB.)

Counterpoint: toon!Cyprian's counterattack is undispellable (and longer!) on himself plus any adjoining purple, which makes him a pretty obnoxious tank, doubleplustrue in 4* no-yellow tournaments when it's way too easy to flank him with purples. If you tank with Azmia (or non-Toon Cyprian or most other counterattackers), someone like rocket!cLiXiu (in her Wizard class) can auto-dispel counterattack via Superior Jinx from tile damage (never mind other, regular dispellers). Once toon!Cyprian gets his counterattack up, though, it's basically until his death. (Even trying to buffblock him is problematic because of his Toon-resist-everything.)

Review is up! (I might tweak it a bit as I chew this over and/or get feedback.) Short version: how well can you make the chain-targeting mechanic work for you? https://www.bobthesnark.org/hotm

For what it's worth, there's currently the Moonlit Vault deal (here in USD) Of course, even this deal (like many with alphas) depends on how much you value what else is in the deal -- here, how much you value paying for a couple of Covenant draws. (But if you do value an AA at around 2USD, then it means two Covenant pulls for 1USD.) cf. Phoenix VIP 10USD for 3 alphas, 950 gems, 1 big/5 medium/10 small LB1, some emblems/memblems, one max ascension item and trainer heroes and food/iron boxes. If you actually want at least some of the other stuff, it can be a fair deal, but (assuming "2 USD alphas") the rest needs to actually be worth more than 4USD to you. With these deals around, I'd agree that the goal would be to indeed avoid paying more than 2USD (without buying too much other stuff in a bundle you don't want to actually shell out for), if you are buying over the long run.

I’m here to second what @ Spinach said — I don’t automatically 2LB every hero. Sure, if I had infinite alphas, I guess, but how much you 2LB depends on the rate at which you accrue both heroes you actually wanna use versus the rate at which you accrue alphas — and there’s a fair of portal RNG on the former, and spending level (zero or otherwise) affects both. —If nonzero spending on a finite budget is involved, it signals that it’s time to spend less on summons and more on more-optimally-priced sales on alphas. (It’s also worth noting that one use for Hero Coach is to jump a hero up from 4/80 or 4/85 up to 4/90 for cheap — if the hero is old enough.) But overall? I mean, I actually use, at times, some * snipers * HotM * Slow heroes * Insanity heroes much less sometimes even heroes who aren’t (yet, or even ever planned to be) 2LB. Maybe all of this is… heresy, at least to folks who are or would like to be used to being constantly able to draw and fully max top-level Borg defenses. But I agree with a lot of folks that plenty of us are more in another camp: Resource management is part of the game, neh?

It is kinda unfair when there is a specialist who stands head and shoulders above most, if not all, other titan specialist heroes (and who isn’t shabby in other fights), and though I’m missing any number of more recent premium heroes I’m still lucky to have landed Gastille. On the one hand, you ideally want to stack abilities like defense down, elemental defense down, attack up, normal attack up, “more damage taken,” but on the other hand, you also want to generally have a solid base attack to work all those multipliers on (so at least some high stats and mostly in the strong color), so it becomes a balancing act based on what you have.

It’s a fair point — it’s good to note “Visiting Outfitter could help with this,” but if and when you already have a queue (never mind what else you might also get in the meantime from Fated Summon or other summons), then yeah it doesn’t pay to value too much a hypothetical costume you may never get around to.

I guess I would add that c-UT1 and Faun Insanity-resistance also significantly matters if you actually *use* Insanity heroes. I realize that’s not a popular option for many, but for someone who uses Insanity even sometimes, then that use case would certainly be a lot more frequent than Insanity wars. (I agree that the Insanity PvE event generally doesn’t need any particular resistance, if for no other reason than you can bring a bunch of minor healing potions and antidotes!) Insanity isn’t my favorite thing - but I think at least some Insanity heroes can be underrated; in fact, I might noodle around the idea of writing up a Bob’s Practical Guide to Insanity. —If I can defend much-maligned snipers, for RNG’s sake, I can probably make some arguments about Insanity; one main issue is that when actually actively using Insanity heroes, each one tends to have their own twist. The main thing to me about Insanity heroes is that you almost cannot just drop them into an existing team the way you would a big often-generically-effective hitter, you do have to plan — and play — around them.

Chameleon is a tough call - the special has fantastic potential utility, but without any costume he’s… hmm a titan/Mythic Titan specialist possibly? Size isn’t everything, but in stats and survivability he’s basically a 4* hero at a 5* cost. If you don’t mind investing in a specialist, it’s a very nice ability, just tough. I don’t know if you’ve pulled the trigger already, but I guess I’d say some of whom you keep depends on whether any of your keepers would be leveled potentially soon, or “maybe someday.” If it’s the latter, then heroes whom you can costume via Visiting Outfitter are a consideration — depending on how many *other* folks you have already waiting on a costume. Hulda -> cHulda is a consideration, just ask yourself how often you’d go full summon (she’d likely go well together with cW3K heroes and their Unstoppable Minion schtick). Depending on what you’re facing, Vaishali is possibly still decently usable as-is, but also her costume will be VO-able in about a year. For more immediate use: Eron’s Shifting Mindless Attack is always useful; his attack mechanic mean that Growth/Wither matter for with him than most heroes. And while some folks look down on HotM, Liora and Dvalin are both reasonably respectable damage and some utility (Liora’s dispel-and-possibly-steal, Dvalin’s debuff-and-buff). — Personally, I’d probably lean toward something like Vaishali, Eron, and either Chameleon or a HotM (possibly Liora if you were leaning her way already), but it depends a bit on how you’d combo them up with teams of course. Good hunting!

Gastille (he really is ridiculously high-powered for titans, and not shabby for other use; I use him for all titans except Rare purples who reflect purple) cVivica (Zatanna version, defense-down) Guardian Jackal (elemental defense down; I don’t yet have Leonidas costumes) Haumri (Wither lowers defense) toon!Joon (mostly just to contribute some high base attack, but Blind isn’t awful to throw) cf. my general thoughts on stacking titanbusting abilities: https://bobthesnark.org/titanguide

For what it’s worth, I’d argue that Silverpaw is worth the souls because of his unique ability (see https://bobthesnark.org/soulexchange ) — though he’s hardly the only good choice in this lineup! since we are bringing up Visiting Outfitter, there’s also Hero Coach next month… which could insta-level the base form of one of the SE costumed heroes (just the base form, but still) or Odile or Pophit. I’m not saying that’s a main reason to pick one possible choice over another, but it is another potential consideration.

Heh, sorry about that I guess; this SE probably has a higher degree of FOMO than most, with enticing bargains, powerful useful abilities in the midrange, and significant power at the high end. There are pretty legitimate reasons most all of the SE heroes could be a good fit for at least some players, even if a few are more niche than others. You can look up heroes on reference sites, notably https://empuzzled.com/hero-database/ For example, if you look up Song Jiang https://empuzzled.com/hero-database?search=song&hero=outlaw_song_jiang up front amongst other information, it shows you his Power rating, both when fully emblemed and elevated to LB2 (1580) and also when max level but without emblems or limit break (1203). To be fair, cDomiventus is not a bad choice for most folks, if you have the heroes to trade in. And you should pick whom you will most enjoy using! One consideration is this: * there are many heroes who can throw pretty good damage one way or another (and you have some even already) * but Silverpaw has some unique mechanics (most notably, lasting Greed, but combined with minion stealing, Curse damage-over-time, and healing nerf through the passive ability) But make sure you’re happy trying to learn Silverpaw’s use and playstyle before you commit to him. See, e.g. https://bobthesnark.org/soulexchange If you’d really prefer cDomiventus boom, don’t let us talk you out of what you will actually enjoy playing, but do read up and consider, and good hunting!

Whaaaat? Sarcasm? On E&P forums? No. I mean, what would THAT be like? Snark and sarcasm ahoy!