BobTheSnark

Indeed! 20 souls also already a "stretch goal" for me, generally, and part of why I write my "budget guides" to SE. (And why I just PASS on at least some SE, even when I have some tradeins.) Along these lines, I was thinking even something along the lines of "how much difference can any one hero make?" --Especially if that one hero is understood to be potentially, or actually, a blue-sky-lightning sort of event. Specifically, consider the hypothetical scenario in which the game offered you, or me, or anyone, or even EVERYONE one free hero. Any hero currently released in the game, but you have, say, 3 days to choose. ??? I'm not even sure how I would start picking a hero out of, say, the current Borg collective. Partly because I wouldn't be able to surround it with Borg-level companions, and partly because I'm not sure how much any one hero would change the game for me. Either the marginal utility of a single Mega Hero would be less than what I hoped for (which would be disappointing), or -- as a unique event if it did single-handedly fundamentally change even some aspects of the game for me -- that could be its own kind of depressing, not only that a single current hero could so completely outclass my current roster (and making all my current attack teams "This Big Guy/Gal plus Four Randos") but also watching it "Flowers for Algernon" decay in usefulness without similar companions or costumes or replacement as New Borg Heroes inevitably shoved it from the limelight. I mean, sure, I'd take a free megahero, don't get me wrong -- but if it would be that potentially problematic for free and out of any of the released heroes, then how in heck would dropping 50 souls to purchase a near-blue-sky-lightning effect from a much more limited set of heroes be better? When I pick a "workhorse" SE for, say, 15 souls, I expect it to be a decent bench or even second-string hero I can use for a while and/or for certain purposes. If I were to save for a 50 soul choice... that's such a big investment for me (and for MOST players at least) that it's hard to imagine it not at least eventually disappointing. Also a good point! For folks for whom 50 is a major stretch goal, the roster space requirement is an added burden. For the sort of folks who have (as I estimated above) a $300-500/month summoning budget (and could thereby regularly benefit from a 50 choice, never mind burning up to 70 souls per SE), roster space buys are perhaps an annoying but minor tax by comparison.

And this is a lot of my problem with the reported upcoming potential change (to 50). Yes -- in principle, if the 10-soul heroes stay at the same tier of usefulness but only cost 5 souls, that part is potentially a boon for F2P and VC2P. But 20 souls was at least a "stretch goal" for VC2P/C2P players, or perhaps some few particularly motivated and/or extra-patient F2P. 50 souls is pretty much almost by design out of reach of most-to-all C2P players. (More to the point, even a C2P player who could, even eventually, save up 50 souls has to confront whether one 50-soul choice is worth more than three 15-soul choices.) Let's put this another way in terms of "how much of a paywall really?" -- In order to have an average of at least 50 trade-in 5* heroes every three months (not just as a "once in a blue moon" sort of trade-in), you need roughly 1316 summons (I'm assuming here for simplicity that all summons have a total effective 2.5-per-100 rate of 5* heroes plus a 1.3-per-100 rate of HoTM, which is largely-but-not-universally true; I'm also assuming that Mystic Summons drop a negligible number of completely free 5*). This will also land you up to 13 Fated Summon picks, but since you can only take 20 FS heroes every six months, I'll just assume for simplicity that 10 FS choices every three months are going into SE to allow you to actually keep 10 of the 5* heroes you actually want during that time. (If you want to keep more than 10 new heroes every three months, obviously you'll need to summon more; I'm trying for a reasonable floor estimate.) Where this gets squirrelier is figuring out how many of these summons you can accomplish for free (i.e. through earning pulls through in-game events, Daily Streak, opening chests, Seasonal Brawls, people buying "help your alliance" offers, even saving up all freely earned gems for gem-pulls, etc.) In the interest of keeping a very conservative round estimate, I'm going to allow for up to 100 freely earned summons per month (which I frankly think is a significant overestimate, but gives us a starting point). This means, conservatively, you need to buy a minimum of 1000 summons per three months. Some deals might allow you somewhat less than 1USD/pull, but at that scale you likely won't be to keep all pulls at or below that price (more expensive coin deals, gem pulls are more expensive, composite deals may involve buying other things, etc etc.). Let's be generous and assume you can somehow make that many summons at 1USD/pull.... to be at the 50 tier regularly for Soul Exchange, you need to be dropping easily over 330USD/month on summoning alone -- and possibly closer to 500, depending on the actual cost/pull for many large pulls. (Never mind anything else like mats, LB items, emblems/memblems, roster space, etc.) While I am generally careful not to assign exact dollar amounts to "C2P" or what have you, I'd argue that much of the playerbase would not consider "several hundred US dollars a month" to be a small amount of money to drop on a single game. A 50 tier is pretty arguably dang close to being a hard paywall (or, maybe at most generous, a "peon players can maybe choose one 'real' SE hero every year or two," which is hard enough of a paywall to likely just not bother with).

Oh, wonderful, more CATTING cats. So if and when I manage the planetary alignment necessary for a HotM to actually Do The Whole Thing, the cat just bounces back from the dead instantly with a bored yawn. Again. ("Kill the cat last" is not a very comforting tactic when cats are (A) tanking (b) taking up several positions in the team (c) across several teams in various war targets and (d) in between, say, Mahayoddha heroes with stats of Infinity/Infinity/Infinity.) It feels like we are long overdue for an anti-cat HotM. (And some more-widely-accessible-for-non-Borg-player Growth-busting, never mind Growth-stealing.) Yeah, right.

For what it's worth, I saved up Red "Lucky" coins for ... some time. When I got over 100, I waited until there was a selection of heroes where I did not have 8 out of the 10 heroes. Sure, some of them might have been a bit weaker than others, but 80% chance for a new-to-me 5* hero beats most portals-- That was... a bit offputting. But eventually I figured I'd try W3K a bit more. There were some free Red Lucky coins somewhere along the way, so it wouldn't take too many more wars to save up to 100. And there was a new set of RL heroes! And 9 out of the 10 I didn't have! Surely this time-- That was spread out over wars of effort... but... still, it wasn't four of the same hero, just two dupes spread out across time. Still. Yeah. Some portals just seem indistinguishable from "actively malicious." (Don't get me started on my experiences with the S5/Dunes portal.) I would be really interested to know, though, if there actually are more reports / evidence of Red "Lucky" summons tending/always giving dupes when doing multiple pulls, because that would be harsh.

BobTheSnark review, straight from the graveyard! https://bobthesnark.org/hotm

For what it's worth, site has been updated (1) with commentary on the Beta potential overhaul of Soul Exchange and (2) with a review of Cordelia, April 2026 Hero of the Month.

SE has been appealing in no small part because it’s useful to the kind of player who still uses at least some heroes generally even when they are, say, 2+ years old. For the kind of player who heavily focuses on constantly cycling Heroes from the Last Six Months (if that), a 50-soul choice will generally age out just as quickly as all the rest (assuming that the 50 tier are even Brand New Choices; if the 50 tier offers heroes that are, e.g. even six months old already, then they often might not be worth leveling/ascending/embleming/LBing — to the kind of player who can afford them — compared to a hero out this month). This may depend somewhat on what kind of heroes are available at 5 souls. For one thing, it seems like I am one of the few people to make much argument for generally considering 10-soul heroes as serious choices — outside of the occasional, say, Blossom. (Heck, this is why I still call my SE analyses “Bob’s Brief Bizarro Budget Breakdown,” alliteration aside: they grew out of me initially doing an analysis ONLY of 10-soul choices amidst forum discussions which were 90%+ focused on 20-soul choices and 95%+ focused on 15-and-20-soul choices.) So it can come off as a little disingenuous to have both the “lowest-tier SE heroes just suck and are a waste of time/food/mats/LB/etc to anyone” argument AND the “well now that more players would be able to afford the ‘sucky’ heroes more easily, it’s okay” argument. If the lowest tier are actually okay budget options, then a price cut on them actually is a good deal; if the lowest tier is “trash,” then a price cut is false economy. This will be also influenced by any possible future selections at 5 remaining at least as relatively on-a-budget-useful as the old 10s; if they get relatively worse (“because they’re so cheap now”) then we’ve gone from the old argument of “lol, never take a 10, just save for a 20” to “lol, never take a 5, just save for a 50“ argument. Er. There kind of is. First, the difference between the “sucky”/“budget” choices and the “premium” choices goes from a factor of 2 to a factor of 10. But putting that literalism aside, there is a BIG difference for at least some, if not many, players between 20 and 50. For a long time, for me, 20 has been kinda a stretch goal at best. If I want the possibility of splurging on some future 20 choice, I need to be conservative spending souls with the most immediate SE choices *and* aggressively pursue every free pull I can get *and* tilt what C2P spending I do toward cheaper (e.g. EHT) pulls over more premium (e.g. Wilderness) pulls so I get more trade-in souls per unit currency spent *and* grind the ever-loving daylights out of multiple TC20s (which doesn’t help me when it comes to feeders leveling the heroes I do get). In short, SE is something I have to TRY to be able to use. I don’t just get “lol, 30 HotM duplicates this month while I was chasing my second Ustad, third Thaffer, and full set of veggie heroes.” I hardly ever choose a 20 hero, because the difference in cost -- to me — between even a 15 and a 20 is a lot. (Often bigger than any difference in utility to me, if any, between a 15 hero and a 20 hero.) And yeah, I’ve entirely skipped more than a few SE — even when there are heroes I wouldn’t mind getting, because I have to weigh kinda-nice-hero now against a bigger-difference-maker later. And to a certain extent, okay, fine, resource management is DEFINITELY a huge part of this game. (At least, for folks with finite resources.) But taking that up to “if you can save up for 20, then you can save up for 50”? Not for me! Not practically, at least. It already takes me so long to save for 20, that SPENDING 20 is a rare and precious splurge. Of course I can EVENTUALLY get to 50 in principle, but in practice actually chasing 50 means I’m getting a new SE hero so seldom that SE might as well hardly exist for me. Meanwhile, the folks who can afford 50 souls every time are just… what… splurging on expensive collector pieces I will rarely be able afford (if 50-soul choices aren’t really worth it compared to what they pull everyday anyway) OR widening the already-considerable gap between Borg Paradigm spending and Bob spending (if 50-soul choices ARE worth it). — All of this comes back to my biggest problem with having a 50 tier in SE: a positive aspect of a few specific features in the game — Hero Coach, Visiting Outfitter, and Soul Exchange (even, perhaps, Fated Summon) — is that they are “anti-frustration” features for the “rest of us.” They don’t close the gap between “Borg Paradigm” and “everybody else” — heck, they may barely slow the rate at which the gap widens — but they give the proletariat bulk of the playerbase options, choices, toys, and maybe a slightly enhanced ability to “punch up” occasionally. Most of the game is already devoted to “spending more = more advantage,” and I get it, RNG help me, I really really do, that SG/Zynga/TT is a BUSINESS. Fine. But a 50 tier takes something that was a very small measure of “here’s something for everybody else, to help you to maybe have an interesting set of choices once in a while” and turns it to “let’s take part of that and give that to the biggest spenders too.“ For those of us who aren’t the biggest spenders, that… sucks.

I’m not sure at all, I’m straight-up asking! I just thought it was weird that the new!toons get their own event… and then compete with Costume Chamber with a shared summoning currency? I mean, I’m definitely not advocating for yet another separate kind of summoning coin here, but it will create a potentially odd tension between “do I use keys to hope for, e.g. toon!Ariel or stylish!Vivica?” Also it seems weird to not have toon!S2 be primarily a mechanism to rejuvenate interest in the S2 portal and associated Atlantis coins. I mean, there’s nothing stopping SG from offering toon!S2 in both, but if there IS both: the new toon portal has only toon non-S1, and the S2 portal has toon!S2… and a bunch of old costume!S2, maybe S1, and maybe even still old HotM having both won’t do much for S2 portal sales if the toon!S2 portal is like, right there instead. (I suppose if SG substantially reworks the S2 portal, but it might seem unlikely it will strip out all the non-toon and S1 possibilities too…)

Welp, this thread is going to get a mite more unpredictable if the changes in Beta actually occur, namely, if the tiers go from 10/15/20 to 5/15/50. I don't even know where to begin with that: would the new 5 tier still be the same "sort" of hero as the old 10 tier? (Hopefully not weaker, given many folks' general opinion of 10s already.) Would the 15 tier be "the same" as prior 15 tiers? Or would it be more like the old 20 tier? But the 50 tier? Assuming community backlash doesn't cause that to be brought down a little bit from geosynchronous-orbit levels, would these be genuinely brand-new or near-new Borg-paradigm Most Favored Heroes of the Moment?

Given my penchant for “Bob’s Brief Bizarro Budget Breakdown” looks at Soul Exchanges over the years, I’d argue that shopping for a bargain has long been part of this event — and a welcome one — and one player’s “outmoded” is another player’s godsend. I mean, by construction even most, if not all, of the 20-soul choices are largely “outmoded” in the frame of reference of someone with at least some number of really-recent heroes. One of the most fun things about Soul Exchange is that it has been an event for “the rest of us” — especially C2P and dedicated F2P who could, at least once in a while, make the decision to push a bunch of dupes and “eh” and even “maybe” heroes into the pot to get something we really want. Yeah, okay, SE has never aimed greatly at the biggest spenders — but it didn’t need to. Pretty arguably a large chunk of the game, from the constant onslaught of new often hard-to-match heroes vomited forth from a panoply of portals, to anything competitive (PvP or PvE ranking), ALREADY has leaned first and foremost to those both budgeted and lucky enough to have both a deep but especially ever-refreshing fully-upgraded modern roster. It’s one thing to *maybe* make the top tier of heroes *slightly* more expensive in order to have significantly more recent choices — though given the ever-increasing pace of hero release and power, even that’s arguable. But FIFTY SOULS?!? Come on. This all but puts a literal graphic between the first two tiers and the third tier marked “PAYWALL.” There’s already plenty of this game that already increasingly feels that way, but this takes one of the handful of the actual proletarian-feeling events in the game and slaps the majority of the playerbase in the collective face with a chiding “ah ah ah! not for you.” Even having a cheaper lower tier of Soul Exchange isn’t going to make up for this, especially given the bevy of already-expressed opinions that “10-soul choices [almost] always just suck.” Soul Exchange engages much of the playerbase in a way that few other events do because it IS “for the rest of us.” Taking away one-third of that from many players to cater yet again even more to the biggest spenders is an alienating decision. And? To be honest? A player who summons so much that they have fifty spare 5* heroes to throw in, much less four times a year? Is actually unlikely to benefit much from ANY POSSIBLE Soul Exchange. Cheesing off a large chunk of the playerbase to cater to the already-most-catered-to part instead -- in a way that won’t even help most of the latter much if at all? Sounds like a really bad trade to me.

For I don’t know how many years, I’ve been wishing I could update my poor costumeless Ariel — but even when VO started, there are so many other old heroes of mine needing costumes, that it’s hard to justify using a pick on something that would be what, maybe barely 4* effectively? So depending on the stat upgrade, if Ariel’s new numbers actually make her competitive again, it might be kinda tempting. As for it being Toons… well… mixed feelings. The aesthetic is, I’d say, “blah” if not “ugh” at best, but the “resist most things lol, at least when you face off against Toons” passive is often useful, admittedly. Will S2 toons *only* be available through this toon!Covenant? It feels like it would be a missed opportunity to not also have them in the S2 portal — to make S2 coins have some meaning, say. As it is, it’s hard to imagine many people would currently buy S2 coins, for one thing; even beginner accounts could presumably be buying/soon be buying *any number* of summoning coins with hilariously higher-powered heroes instead.

I think this is a great point - it often feels like “why are fighting hordes again?” While there can be a push to hit hordes early to (theoretically) make everything else easier with relics, it sure feels like a lot of hordes drop nothing, much less actual treasure chest keys. Also, the loot system is nearly entirely about opening treasure chests if not like around or at least the top 100 alliances, so for any alliance not at full membership and participation, grabbing a few relics and knocking down all the titans you can can be kinda what there is.

I'm not so sure about that - Monster Island, especially effectively speedrunning titans, can readily soak a pretty fair number of battle items. For someone with a surfeit of such, that's fine of course, but W3K and Tower don't burn items in anything like the same way (notably, W3K doesn't use items at all, though its rewards seem to be much more in line with "how big is your roster and thus what size and thus rank of warband do you get sorted into"). All events require time, of course, but MI doles its energy out in dibs and drabs; even discounting purchased Tower Energy flasks, Tower can be done once a day anytime during the day, and W3K can be done even all in one go at the end if desired. And generally, MI takes more effort, for coordination if nothing else. MI is fine for people who enjoy its gameplay for its own sake, of course, but it feels like to me it demands much more in time and certainly in resources but doesn't give correspondingly more concrete rewards in return (or at least for those in non-top alliances). Admittedly, tournaments arguably do yield less, but tournaments seem to me, even with high finishes, to generally yield ... little, period -- beyond more bites at the PoV/PoG-tasks apple or playing for pride.

Gastille's ability doesn't change for LB1 or LB2, just his survivability (and to a minor extent, his contribution to purple tile damage) - so if you're only using him for titan hits, it may make some sense to not invest resources you need elsewhere. Having said that, Gastille can certainly be used in PvE and raids as well - even if his debuff doesn't land, his buff plus a tile cascade can be a surprising burst of damage. If his debuff also lands, then a tile cascade of the right color(s) can go through your opponents' heroes like a chainsaw through butter. If anything, try him out in other contexts as is (it's easy to think of him as "just" a titan hero because he is so superlative there) and decide if you think you'd like to try using him elsewhere as well!

Alas, poor waterbender, victim of the GTV nerfhammer for so long. Multiple rounds of nerfing, as I recall, as I landed her back in the day but never had the GTV combo - but somehow Vela kept getting "rebalanced" despite her hardly being a problem even in her time, at least outside the infamous combo. (And it's not like Telluria didn't get smacked with a whole sack of nerfhammers anyway, sheesh.) Definitely part of a moment that changed how SG looked at HotM (with the later Big Imbalance Update, the increasing general aversion to direct nerfs, the preference for runaway exponential power rush, and the profusion of super-premium portals).

We're a long-running alliance with a fair share of long-term players, but with some folks having taken a hiatus from the game we are looking for some new faces! Turpitude Level/power/cups: our "Required Trophies" is currently set to 2600, but that (nor level nor power) is a hard requirement War: optional but encouraged (we do encourage folks to opt out when needed, i.e. anytime you can't be confident of using all flags) -- when opted in, you do need to use all flags. Failure to do so results in demotion (or can result in kick from Member level). Otherwise, we're pretty laid back to war strategy - no unified tanks, and you can clean up after yourself or others as per your best judgment. If you're not sure, just ask! Titans: we are currently chaining 15s and some 16s. Titan hits aren't enforced but are strongly encouraged - you don't need to have huge titan teams or lots of battle item resources, but we encourage folks to contribute as they can! Alliance Events: active casual -- we don't hard-chase rankings, but we cooperate where possible to, e.g., open AQ levels quickly, have some accounts explore Monster Island while others optimize to nuke hordes and Apex, etc. Geography/time: international/odd times, but a fair number in North America. Any time zone (or early birds or night owls) welcome. Languages: English. (The alliance language is set to Deutsch to avoid "charmingly" random censorship of English words.) Merger: Currently open to merging up to nine players in. Even if not merging, we certainly welcome folks who want to join together (friends, partners, etc.) Contact: Find us in-game, respond to this thread, message me here, or even find me on Discord (where I am also @BobTheSnark ) Questions are welcome, here, in direct message, or in-game should you decide to join us, and good hunting!

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.