PvP week / Events on, no time for that too

[Tridimensionale]

1° Bradata 5755
2° Caretakerii 4793
3° DaveMurray 4686

Seems i have to open this thread to congratulate to my fellow trooper for the top 3 ! Well done Dave ! you were always in top spots.. you deserved this podium and you are keepin it up this week too
As title, many new events last week and this one too / focusing on them leave us few time for pvp's stuff

Oh well i really can t do Nicko's job xD lets hope he will be back soon

[Askora]

Congrats to Bradata, Caretaker and DaveMurray on taking the podium. Thanks to Tridimensionale (congrats again on the prisoner) for kicking off the post.

Seemed a slow week in PVP to me. Saturday morning was at rank 26, didn't play and ended at 37. Good enough for me, as I'll take 5 chances at a 4* dupe over the almost guaranteed 3* gunner I'd get for ranking higher.

Not much else to add. Thorns still obviously an issue. Even had my stunned team permadeath-ed by them this morning. So, attack or not and they inflict all kinds of nastiness. Makes me wonder why the dev team thought void was OP. Hopefully the new bug update brings some change to the meta as it's getting a bit stale.

[DaveMurray]

Thanks for you kind words Tridimensionale and gratz to Bradata, Caretakerii and everyone else that keeps playing on that really bugged arena.
Nice to step up and keep that thread going too m8.

I finally found some free time on a Saturday, i decided to spend it on arena since i was near the top for most of the week and i only had a few freezes until then.
I kinda regret it cause it just reminded me of how wrong the whole point system is set and how it's all about the toons you got rather the skills to set up a good team. That said i will use the rest of the podium guys as an example:
Caretakerii made an incredible Saturday run and took second place easily while he mantained a low profile for the previous 6 days of the arena. If you are fast and you got free time on Saturday you can take advantage of the terrible point system and gain way more points since you are starting from a lower position. Also the system won't be able to even your attack and defence in a few hours making fun of everyone else that played a lot the previous days.
On the other hand Bradata made a run midweek(Wednesday or Thursday, can't remember exactly), gained a good lead and kept his place until the end with a few attacks but also due to his exceptional defence. Having hold rates of around 40%(supposingly speaking from reading what others with similar defences have) because of the purple beast along with prisoner is a huge advantage against others like me that don't have the superOP toons.

I really don't see NF being able to balance toons in the near future(probably they don't want to), they jusy keep taking wrong decisions and never listen to their players. There will be periods that RNG will benefit a few and screw the others, a never ending circle.
Also buggs and freezes should be their top priority but it's not, they prefer to launch useless toons all the time instead.

Last but not least, i can't say that i am not happy by finishing third against so many great players but i don't know where i would finish if players like J16, G, Kamuz, Carlos, Nicko, Ringe, etc participated.

Have fun and may the thorns be with you.

[Bradata]

Thank you, Askora and Dave!
@Askora
If you have the blue bat, you will not care about the thorns. Just make sure he survives the first wave.
@ DaveMurray Congrats!
My defense was at 22% at the reset not over 40% Many players learned how to beat it easily, I knew that was gonna happen eventually, if I could beat it all the time when I was testing it why not everybody else
I completely agree with you on the point system, it is very discouraging for people who want to get ahead of the others! I don't think it's fare for you to lose 13 points if a lower ranked player beats your defense but gain only 12 points if you beat his, it's like you are making one step forward but then right a way you are going two steps backwards. On Saturday my goal was to stop at 6000 and up until 3 hours before the reset I was going backwards all the time from that target. And the rewards, don't get me started on this topic...
My only reason to run for Eternal was that I wanted another shot at getting Eternity Eddie and if I wasn't gonna make it, I would've had to wait one more week for only 5 more fragments and thanks god I did get him after 5-6 Wraths, 4-5 Clairvoyants and 2-3 Beelzebubs.
And you are also correct about the big guns, with them playing we would not get as high in the ranks as we did last week.
@Caretaker
Congrats, man! I saw you moving fast to the top pretty quick last few hours before the grate finale. I guess next is Eternal for you too

[Kardas]

Despite the slower week, congrats to all the Top10, with special congrats to Bradata, Caretaker, and DaveMurray

I noticed the slow week as well. Managed to stick in Top25 with no purchased refills, though getting 15 SoW out of a stack of 99 Souls might have had something to do with it.

I am gravely disappointed there's as of yet no fix released for the Thorn/Cyclone reflect bug. I don't think PVP has ever had anything that gives an advantage as massive as this to the defense (alas I am low on Skill Shards and the AoP needs a lot). Because when Energy Talismans were OP, everyone could take advantage of them. But here, the minute 2 Thorns trigger on both sides at the start you are stuck waiting on the game for 5 minutes while it tries and fails to resolve the effects, before ultimately crashing. I don't think I've encountered anything that kills my PVP interest this fast.
I fear I am only preaching to the choir though.

Not only that, but with the resurgence of the Prisoner, I notice that I need a lot more Immunity Talismans for both the sake of my defense and offense (I found out this week that Talismans aren't saved anymore after exiting the defense menu), and BNW just ain't dropping them. Feels like being between a rock and a hard place.

[Sparton_LOTB]

I am gravely disappointed there's as of yet no fix released for the Thorn/Cyclone reflect bug.

Coming Soon^TM.

[Bradata]

Coming Soon^TM.

Can you at least give us an idea what kind of fix will it be. The thorns don't bother me a lot but still, I am curious of what this fix will do.
Thanks!

[Sparton_LOTB]

Can you at least give us an idea what kind of fix will it be. The thorns don't bother me a lot but still, I am curious of what this fix will do.
Thanks!

Damage can only be reflected once, so if you attack my characters with Thorn Shields, it'll reflect a portion of the damage (and have a chance for it's extra Thorn effects) back to your characters, but reflect shields on your characters won't reflect anything (nor would they be able to do their extra effects for reflecting damage).

[Askora]

Damage can only be reflected once, so if you attack my characters with Thorn Shields, it'll reflect a portion of the damage (and have a chance for it's extra Thorn effects) back to your characters, but reflect shields on your characters won't reflect anything (nor would they be able to do their extra effects for reflecting damage).

I had a battle where my entire team was stunned, no reflective shields and still got hit with permadeath. Also, non-attack skills trigger the thorn effect sometimes. I've had pharaoh trigger it using hunt and also revive all skills. Artillery dog has triggered it using his entrench skill. Any chance those issues will be fixed?

[Sparton_LOTB]

I had a battle where my entire team was stunned, no reflective shields and still got hit with permadeath. Also, non-attack skills trigger the thorn effect sometimes. I've had pharaoh trigger it using hunt and also revive all skills. Artillery dog has triggered it using his entrench skill. Any chance those issues will be fixed?

I went over your message with one of our QA guys. It looks like there's a bug where damage over time effects (Burn, Shock, Bleed, etc) can trigger reflect shields, which in turn can trigger things like Thorn's Permadeath/Heal Block. So for stuff like "Entrench" seemingly causing Thorns to trigger, it's likely what you saw was a display issue where using Entrench at the end of the turn made it look like it was doing that, when instead it was a previous turn's Bleed (from Artillery Dog's War Machine) triggering enemy Thorn Shields at the end of their turn. That could also cause the "whole team was stunned" reflection to occur as well (since most damage over time effects last 2-3 turns).

We've entered that into our system, but we're rather close to us shipping the next update. As such, it's unlikely it'll be fixed in said update, but I'll work with the team to ensure this is appropriately prioritized relative to other bugs we plan to tackle for subsequent updates.