Regarding the nerf on Phantom Touch and Brimstone: These changes are a huge hit on all the playerbase since these blessings are the only general use ones in the game (very good in pretty much all PvE contents and not bad in PvP). They are mostly used in PvE, where they help many players, especially F2P and low-spenders without access to the best champions and gears, advance through difficult contents. Since they are used in mostly PvE contents they are always helpful and don't cause trouble because PvE is single-player, not competitive so Brimstone and Phantom Touch do not cause frustration among the playerbase. They are very welcome addition and sometimes are the only way for some people to beat certain contents. They are strong indeed but the biggest reason people choose them is because they are the only general-use and generally useful blessings, since most other blessings are either only really shine in arena or too niche/low chance of ever being useful.
The combination of them being useful all-around even at low awakening levels along with soulstone being a very scarce, RNG-heavy resource that require people to spend a lot of energy and specific champions. Iron Twin is extremely powerful so a lot of players don't even attempt to fight it at all, or try to experiment different strategies, because the probability of losing and wasting energy is very high. Most content creators settle for the same strategy of using Geomancer and block damage/ultra tanky team since they don't find a way to beat this boss consistently other than this. For the average F2P and low spenders the best way they can make use of blessing is to buy 1 star souls for the champions they have and want and the best blessing to use at 1 star is of course Brimstone and Phantom Touch. Hitting these 2 blessings that have been so helpful to all players, whales, low-spenders and f2p alike, and change it in a way that scream "spend tons of money and pray for RNG that it hit 5-6 stars on the legendary champ you have and want if you want it to be good like it used to be" is not exactly a good move and the community outrage is expected.
Also more information about them should be clarified because people are confused about whether they require accuracy now for lower levels because the line about it cannot be resisted has been removed but people were told blessings don't require accuracy so they no longer know what is true anymore. That information is very crucial and need to be clarified ASAP.
Regarding other blessings: It is true that many blessings deserve buffs but in the form of rework, not changing the numbers. Too many blessings are too niche to be useful.
Miracle Heal is not used because the only places where destroy Max HP happen is Hydra, Sand Devil (a dungeon that a lot of people try to ignore if they don't have to clear that annoying Advance Quest that force them to spend like 100+ energy to get a 130 energy refill) and the occasional Skull Lord Var'gal in Doom Tower but even then that blessing is not needed since people can ignore their destroyed HP and still win or in the Sand Devil and Hydra have ways to get back destroyed HP already.
Those anti-debuffs blessing (Indomitable Spirit, Dark Resolve and Chainbreaker) have too low chance of happening, RNG-heavy, too passive and not useful in many contents.
While I appreciate that the dev want to implement different strategies in arena, the Arena Poison and HP Burn completely miss the mark because Poison and HP Burn as they are now, without any additional mechanics, are strong in PvE contents, not in PvP since they are designed to counter high HP bosses and minions, not player champions. In arena people either fight against speed nuke teams or tanky go-second teams. Against speed nuke team you don't have time to setup those Poison and HP burn since if you win the speed race against them you want to kill them immediately, if you lose the speed race you either get destroyed immediately or if you survive you still want to kill them as quickly as possible in 1 or 2 turns before their big skills get back online (and they get back online very fast). Against tanky go-second team poison and HP burn is even more irrelevant because of stoneskin, high resistance comps, block debuffs, remove debuffs and heal (1 continuous heal = 3 poison) so they don't even have the chance to be effective. People don't use Poison and HP Burn in arena because they are too easily countered and there's not enough time in arena match for them to be effective (and increasing damage does not solve these problems). Additionally, poison and hp burn champions are mostly PvE so players will gear them accordingly and use blessings for PvE, not PvP. I don't build my Bad-el Kazar and Tomb Lord for PvP so even though they are good poisoners that can solo entire dungeons they are still very bad in arena games where stat requirements are completely different from PvE. These champions' place are in PvE contents so I would not change my gear or pick those arena poison and hp burn blessings and will instead use PvE blessings, like the reliable and useful Brimstone.
And speaking of PvP blessings, people are not happy because the really problematic ones remain untouched. Polymorph is of course the biggest offender since it's extremely annoying to play against. While it has low chance of happening, it's still likely to happen because it counts for every debuff and every buff strip so even at level 1 it's still a threat. If someone wants to debuff/strip a team of 2-3 Polymorph users then their chance of getting sheep is very real, especially when they put more than 1 debuff. Sheep just completely take a champion out of the equation, with no chance to resist or cleanse, and when they come back, even if they are the tankiest sort, they lost 50% HP straight up. Lightning Cage is another strong PvP blessing that is pretty much fully operational at level 1 since it has almost all features and 50% buff protection already. Aside from the problems and the change already made to it (which is speculated by a lot of people only because it hurt the money-maker that is Divine Speed gear), Temporal Chains can stack with multiple champs using it and reduce speed by a lot. These are blessings that work extremely well at level 1 Awakening and becoming more powerful (and annoying) at higher levels but they are not addressed like Brimstone and Phantom Touch, which are nerf for allegedly on the ground that they perform too well at level 1 Awakening and limit choices. The choice limitation is already pointed out due to most other blessings being too niche to be effective and Brimstone + Phantom Touch are generally useful while the "broken at level 1" stuff also happens with these PvP blessings but they are mostly left alone. This obviously trigger most of the playerbase because most players want to use generally useful, PvE blessings to help them advance through PvE contents, which are the most important part of the game, and only use PvP blessings for certain arena champs. The fact that broken PvP blessings are untouched while PvE blessings got nerf is seen by the community as a move that, whether intentional or not, cater to big spender, competitive PvP platinum pushers (and pretty much only whales/krakens ever have a real chance to compete in platinum, who would spend tons of money to get every inch of advantage possible by buying speed gears and soulstones) with those specific PvP blessings and punish the the majority of players.
In my opinion the blessing system is not a bad idea but at the moment its implementation is not great due to heavy RNG, high cost (energy, coins/essence and money pricing for soulstones) and scarce resource, locked behind an extremely powerful boss that can't be farmed by average teams and there are too many obviously niche blessing options that are ignored in favor of obviously better, more useful blessings. Most of the system need to be overhauled and "useless" blessings require extensive rework to make them viable options when put on the table alongside useful ones. Like a general-use blessings for healers and tanks to do their job would be appreciated (Brimstone is also picked by healers and tanks because they don't have better stuffs that suit their role). The poison and hp burn blessings need to either work in PvE or if they're confined in PvP then they need very exciting mechanics, even at lower levels because people can't afford to rely on high awakening to make a blessing useful, to make them viable instead of just more damage, because poison and hp burn are easily countered in PvP where anti-debuffs and speed are everywhere. Problematic PvP blessings need to be addressed since they exist in a competitive environment and make people frustrated when fight against, whereas PvE blessings upset nobody.
That's my take on this update and the community outrage in reaction to it. I really hope that Plarium actually take the community feedbacks into consideration and listen to the players because there has been so many things that upset the players, especially the low-spenders and f2p, already (increasing cost for fusion and guaranteed, back-to-back-to-back Void guaranteed when nobody has enough void shard, gear ascension advanced quest, the entire plarium point system and replacing normal rewards with plarium/titan points, etc.) and this blessing "balance change" that hit the useful blessings, doesn't make unplayable blessings more playable and doesn't address the really problematic ones, is seen as another move against the playerbase. If Plarium continue to enrage the community by pulling questionable stunts then they would lose players for real and that's not a good thing. I genuinely believe the players want to love this game and want it to succeed so Plarium should give them more reasons to, not finding more ways to exploit and punish the players as much as possible (every games are made to exploit players in some way but there needs to be limits and enough rewards). Once again, I hope Plarium listen and acknowledge the community's opinions and feelings to make the game better for the players' enjoyment. When players love the game and feel they are appreciated and rewarded then they will generate income for the company, by willingly spend more time, money and recommend the game to others.
