Arcana Style Unlocks

[Deepbluediver]

So this is a combination rant and discussion, feel free to jump in at any time with any comment. But I wanted to talk about my opinions on the various Arcana alternate style unlocks.


PHANTOM ASSASSIN
Starting off with one of the few Arcanas with a style-unlock that I don't have. Being one of the early releases though, PA has one of the simplest mechanics. Win a game, get a point- earn 100 points to fully unlock the Arcana. If I recall correctly it was also released with an event where you could earn more than 1 point per match, so assuming a 50% winrate, most people would average about 200 matches or a bit less to reach full unlocked status. My only complaint is that it's a bit grindy
Unexciting, perhaps, but also uncomplicated.
Rating: B-

WRAITH KING
I feel like this mechanic probably has the most work put into it, what with the custom map/tracker and in-game alerts. You could, if you were very lucky, unlock the 2nd style in as few as 20 matches, but that would require such insane coincidence that it would be like being hit with lighting at the same moment you win the lottery. So unless you're cheating, you're likely to rapidly earn heroes at the start, slowing down as it gets harder and harder to find heroes you haven't slain yet. The good news though is that new heroes added after the map was produced still count, even if they don't show up, so the process is getting easier over time. Plus, WK is a big-beefy-boi who rarely has an issue landing the killing blow. Assuming the same 50% winrate, and that you can earn 4+ unlocks at the start and only 1-2 at the end, most people could probably average 1 hero per match, meaning about 100 matches to fully unlock the style.
Rating: A+

EARTHSHAKER
Another very straightforward unlock, and you don't even need to win, just get kills or assists with your ult. I could average about 3-4 points on a loss, and 8-10 on a win; if you were better than me (not hard) you could probably do it even faster. Overall though if you averaged about 7 points per match, you could unlock the 2nd style in 75-80 matches.
Rating: B+

QUEEN OF PAIN
Similar to Earthshaker, you have to hit people with your ult, but you also need to win. The only complaint I have hear is that I never figured out what "torment" exactly means. It's not a game mechanic- it didn't seem to line up with kills or assists, and to this day I don't know what the unlock requirement really wanted me to do (even the Wiki is unhelpful). But I could usually earn a double-digit number of points each win, pushing 20+ in matches where I did really well. Assuming the same 50% winrate as before, most people can probably unlock the 2nd style in a little over 100 matches, lets say ~125.
It just loses points for lack of clarity.
Rating: B

DROW RANGER
The most recent Arcana released on this list, another pretty simple mechanic. In fact if you win, it's almost impossible NOT to die once and then get a kill or assist on whoever killed you. And like PA, it was released during an event where you could earn extra points to help kickstart your grind. So probably about the same number of matches for most players- around or a little under 200.
The only change I would make is maybe instead of it just being 1 hero per match, I would uncap it so you could earn points for EVERY hero you got revenge on, allowing you to earn more than 1 point per game. Then it wouldn't be so grindy.
Rating: B-

WINDRANGER
I do NOT like this style unlock- the chief reason is that it feels like a MUCH longer grind than many of the rest. A quarter of a million points of damage (2,500,000) with your ult is bad enough, but what it DOESN'T say anywhere in the game is that it's NOT just damage- you have to damage the enemy AND kill them while your ult is up, something I didn't realize at first. So lets say you shackle someone tanky like a Tide or Axe, unload your full ult on them, and they walk away with 5% health? Not a single point of that counts. Furthermore, WR is a pretty flexible hero- maybe not the best at anything, but able to fill a variety of roles, so there's no guarantee you'll be able to sink a ton of gold into damage items. Additionally, since it only counts against heroes, there are times when I find myself AVOIDING using my ult on towers, so I can save it for heroes, which of course makes the game harder to win. (if I could make one suggestion, it would be this- to let ult-damage against towers count for the unlock)
Now maybe people better than me can do this faster, but during my BEST WR matches I only find myself earning 14k-15k in style-unlock damage, and in some of my worst matches I've barely broken 1,000 points. At an average of ~7k per game, that means it'll take over 350 matches to full unlock the second style! That's insane! I haven't even played that many games with my most-used hero ever.
Rating: C

SPECTRE
Another hero I find myself struggling with, but for different reasons. You need to get a 5-kill killstreak to earn a point, 100 points for the unlock, and you can only earn a max of 1 point per match. Again I'm not a great carry player, but I find myself earning this only about 70% of the time in matches that I win, and 10% of the time in matches that I lose. Adding on to this, unlike some other heroes (PA, WK, etc), Spectre is tends not to hit that hard- she deals damage over time to everything around her with various abilities and items to grind down the enemy, meaning that depending on your team-comp it can actually be pretty difficult to land that last-hit that you need to pump up your killstreak.
There are a couple of different changes I might make- the first being to let assists count towards your kills (so 5 kills or assists in a row without dying, or up the number if you must to keep it balanced). Alternatively every extra kill over your 5-kill killstreak gives you another point (so a 6-kill streak is worth 2 points, a 7 kill streak is 3 points, etc). That way if you have a really good match and go on a rampage, you can earn a bunch of points. As it stands, I'm probably looking at around ~250 matches to full unlock this style, and even if I were a lot better I probably wouldn't manage it in less than 200.
My real issue though, is that it encourages you to play badly. The most reliable way to make progress on the unlock is to do nothing but sit in the jungle and press R when an enemy is low on health- basically to pretend you're a kill-stealing Zeus. Since you don't need to win, it's perfectly fine to screw over your team for your own benefit. Playing normally I continuously run away from fights earlier than I otherwise might because I don't want to risk breaking my streak, which of course makes it harder to win.
Rating: D-


Anywho, so I think that's all of them- if there's anyone I missed just let me know and I'll add some thoughts if I have any.


EDIT:
OGRE MAGI
Another Arcana I don't have, but one that seems pretty straightforward. Yes it's luck-based, but all you gotta do is play normally, and you'll make progress towards unlocking it. Overall it seems kinda like the Earthshaker Arcana, which means I like it because it doesn't affect your playstyle very much. More ability use equals more progress, which is what you want to be doing anyway.
Since I don't have it, if someone who DOES have it wants to comment about how many points you get each match towards the unlock, I'd be appreciative.
Rating: B+

[Deepbluediver]

Originally posted by Zagryzaec:

Because ALL character have lower higher and normal amounts of damage and having 20000 is nothing special. In good game you can easily do 30-40 damage on most damage dealing characters. Yes not every of this damage kills , but to play well you need to actually start making sure that you kill enemy, not just fool around. I played vs wr, I played with wr, she is pretty popular character and I've seen her a lot. She can 1 vs 1 most characters right under tower if needed.

Also majority of her damage should come from her ulty. Yes PowerShot also contribute but her motto is choose one target and being it down with ulty. Her normal damage output is amazing without items or with minimal amount of those and her kit was created when her windrun wasn't even possible to use on the move.

You keep saying that but you don't have any proof, and you just admitted that you don't play WR a lot. I listed 10 matches, and only 4 of them broke 20k at all. No, getting 30k damage in a match isn't special, but it's also not RELIABLE, which is the point.

Do you have the Arcana? Why don't you go try a few matches with WR, and let me know how much damage you add to the unlock each time.

Edit: I just went and looked up the match I named above where WR did 34.8k damage (6525022718), and do you want to know how much of that damage was attack-damage? About 19.1k.
So barely 56% of all the damage she did in the match was attack-damage, which means the damage from her ult was even less than that. It's probably right around 40-50% (of her total damage), which is what I said.

[MVP_lCE™]

What is your opinion about Crystal Maiden? A++ ?

[Deepbluediver]

Originally posted by coUp dE gRâce :

What is your opinion about Crystal Maiden? A++ ?

The Arcana is very nice, but it doesn't have a style-unlock so there's not much to comment on. It actually makes we want to talk about the Lina Arcana though, which being the very first one released seems a little outdated now. I think it would be nice if Valve went back to it and spruced it up a little, maybe brought it more in line with the new ones, perhaps added a pet (like a kitty!) as a mirror image of CM's.

[MVP_lCE™]

Originally posted by Deepbluediver:

Originally posted by coUp dE gRâce :

What is your opinion about Crystal Maiden? A++ ?

The Arcana is very nice, but it doesn't have a style-unlock so there's not much to comment on. It actually makes we want to talk about the Lina Arcana though, which being the very first one released seems a little outdated now. I think it would be nice if Valve went back to it and spruced it up a little, maybe brought it more in line with the new ones, perhaps added a pet (like a kitty!) as a mirror image of CM's.

I see. Btw, your "specter" there spelling needs correction. ^^''

[Deepbluediver]

Originally posted by coUp dE gRâce :

I see. Btw, your "specter" there spelling needs correction. ^^''

Dammit, you're right- thanks for pointing that out.

"specter" is how the word is spelled, but the character's name is "Spectre". I guess it's a bit like "theater" vs "theatre", but that's kinda frustrating.
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/specter

[ixthid the desolate]

Originally posted by Deepbluediver:

Originally posted by coUp dE gRâce :

I see. Btw, your "specter" there spelling needs correction. ^^''

Dammit, you're right- thanks for pointing that out.

"specter" is how the word is spelled, but the character's name is "Spectre". I guess it's a bit like "theater" vs "theatre", but that's kinda frustrating.
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/specter

Yeah in general both are correct and it depends on what spellings you follow - british or american. But if its part of a name then only one form is correct and thats specific to whoevers name it is.