The new patron

[DRIFTER]

Just when you think you've done it all... they manage to make you replay everything again! With only reworked champs!

I'm so tired...

...anyone try his variants yet?

[Derpykat5]

I'll be honest, I don't really like it. It's the kind of challenge that just makes you hope for powercreep because if you spend too long building up strength to clear it some of that strength gets taken from you.

I guess they wanted a way to make legendary dismantles more important?

[Kyouko Tsukino]

My gems are too busy being spent on getting Hew Mann, Sentry and Widdle to be speedier, so that Gandalf The Blue-with-Brown-Hat will have to wait for now.

Besides I'm far enough from "done it all" for the other Patrons.

[Flooz]

I was already halfway there with gems. I expected it to be 50k but I'll save another day and get it done.

[starwol]

With the newer champions restriction at least there won't be any "use a champion commonly added to trials assault party for 367 areas" in the weekly challenges.

I just gave a zone 825 variant a go. Bit of a mistake as I'll only have enough influence to buy one local upgrade.

For some reason variants that'll require more than I think arena 1350 are unavailable (so quick and quack is available but not all's well that ends well) and I guess that's to stop people who can clear those being able to get a golden epic potion without playing hundreds of variants.

[treadbear]

I'm about 10 variants off complete with the other 4 patrons. Can I be bothered with the new one? Really not sure, especially post the mega-nerf on the patron favour.

[LostSoul]

What's really bad about this particular patron is that whether or not you'll be able to do any given variant is largely out of your control from one year to the next. All because one or more key champions dropped off the patron's eligible roster. One year you might have the champions but not the power, the next year you might have the power but not the champions.

[MxTommy96]

free-to-players will almost never touch this patron ever. I joined the game pretty late, i still miss some non-patron variants, i don't think i'll ever reach 800+ with new, unleveled, champions. Maybe some of them, but this feel completely f2p unfriendly.

[Kyouko Tsukino]

I've only been playing for less than one year and I have many champions at ilvl 100+, and some of my last few unlocks are my main DPSs who can throttle through to z1200. Even Dork Urge can get there, and he's a scrub with ilvl 30 gear.

Three years of time added to that? Considering a team of "Team Z" members can reach z900 on no favor (did it while unlocking Gale,) then I don't think having to use """""new""""" champions is such a dire limitation.

And no, I haven't spent a single dime in this game, other than the obvious "spending" that is done while this game stays mostly a background app to other games.

[Derpykat5]

Originally posted by Kyouko Tsukino:

I've only been playing for less than one year and I have many champions at ilvl 100+, and some of my last few unlocks are my main DPSs who can throttle through to z1200. Even Dork Urge can get there, and he's a scrub with ilvl 30 gear.

Three years of time added to that? Considering a team of "Team Z" members can reach z900 on no favor (did it while unlocking Gale,) then I don't think having to use """""new""""" champions is such a dire limitation.

And no, I haven't spent a single dime in this game, other than the obvious "spending" that is done while this game stays mostly a background app to other games.

Try z1500 with only evil champions. That's the kind of thing you have to do to get anything of value out of Elminster. The mass of z825 stuff is mostly pointless fluff.

[JC]

I just spent 250k grabbing the last familar last night.. Now i have to wait a bit and grind more lol.

as for how the new patron works, it could be interesting with buffs and changes making you need to tweak formations. Sounds like a more reasons to end game, unless of course people already have max legendary's on every character. (unlike me who barely has a handful with a handful of lvl's total.) I'll get back to you next year and let ya know how it goes.

[LostSoul]

Originally posted by Derpykat5:

Originally posted by Kyouko Tsukino:

I've only been playing for less than one year and I have many champions at ilvl 100+, and some of my last few unlocks are my main DPSs who can throttle through to z1200. Even Dork Urge can get there, and he's a scrub with ilvl 30 gear.

Three years of time added to that? Considering a team of "Team Z" members can reach z900 on no favor (did it while unlocking Gale,) then I don't think having to use """""new""""" champions is such a dire limitation.

And no, I haven't spent a single dime in this game, other than the obvious "spending" that is done while this game stays mostly a background app to other games.

Try z1500 with only evil champions. That's the kind of thing you have to do to get anything of value out of Elminster. The mass of z825 stuff is mostly pointless fluff.

I agree with that assessment. The z1000 variants (Witchlight) barely make a dent in unlocking patron shop items. These are variants that unlock pretty much the entire store for the other patrons, but barely get you past the consumables with Elminster. And you can forget about patron perks.

Elminster is the *END* end-game of patron grinds. You're not getting anything meaningful from him unless you can clear more than 95% of all the other patron variants already.

[HaggiBear]

Has anyone found a sensible formation yet?

[Sapwn]

Originally posted by HaggiBear:

Has anyone found a sensible formation yet?

i'm going to take a guess, and say that full tadpole is probably great (+ dynaheir can pull in minsk)

if i were you i'd just check how that far that carries you in an elminster freeplay and then just take that max area as a cutoff for the 100+ variants that have no restriction mechanic to build gale up, because his buff will be just as good as karlachs once you have enough variants done

everything else depends too much on the variants and their restriction to say anything

there's rumors that the next celebration should be here (very) soon, so it might also help to move some legendaries over to gale/dm/durge, (if you are at endgame yet, thats an easy +e100 just from the three, which you can take into any variant)

[kab_reg]

Originally posted by trip:

it might also help to move some legendaries over to gale/dm/durge, (if you are at endgame yet, thats an easy +e100 just from the three, which you can take into any variant)

I doubt I'll bother. I'll probably just abandon IC completely after the next free time gate. IIRC, the only high-end core DU is compatible with is Magic Core, which is not my cup of tea.

[LostSoul]

Originally posted by trip:

it might also help to move some legendaries over to gale/dm/durge, (if you are at endgame yet, thats an easy +e100 just from the three, which you can take into any variant)

That ignores the fact that it's not enough to just 'move levels' over. Not all legendary effects are created equal. In fact, most are pretty bad, bordering on completely useless. For the average champion, only 2 or 3 of them are going to be of any real value, no matter what level they are. The *real* time sink is rerolling legendary effects to ones that are actually (or more) useful.

Here's hoping that CNE realizes the legendary system is still backing players into a corner, and that further changes are still need. A properly designs system should allow players to bring to bear the full value of their total accumulated legendary power to any formation, regardless of patron or variant.