I don't think either of the sets will truly make much of a difference, in terms of changing the meta. They're both nice, but neither are amazing.

That champ though - *that* will 100% be meta-defining. Not because of the passive - the passive is largely irrelevant, since you don't really want to be attacking people with buffs at all, most certainly not bosses. I doubt there's a world where you're intentionally letting them keep buffs just to exploit that passive.

It'll be meta-defining because of the A2. Literally the only ability in the game that will remove *all* buffs, and which cannot be resisted or blocked. That is just completely gamechanging. All those stoneskin comps are suddenly rendered completely useless.

Which makes me wonder whether we'll be transitioning back towards a speed meta again.

has it actually been confirmed that his a2 works on stoneskin? cause its actual wording is that it "prevents" buff removal or steal and i feel like every time that's been called into question before, it's been treated as its own seperate thing.

Great question. Mod team to the rescue!

I agree that the sets are good but nothing to get excited about.  Reflex still slightly better, and I don't need any more champs in it tbh. So just gradually improving that by 2 rolls seems easier than farming a new set entirely. I am so far behind gear wise (sand devil 7, hard mode 0, ... 😆) I guess I just have more room for improvement than you min/maxers.  I built my first dark fae team this month... only took me 2 years to get to that.

But the new champ is the only thing to talk about here... wow. 

Assuming Zeal is actually a straight +30% damage it'll become the best PVE nuking set over Savage.  It'd be better in PvP as well but the days of one shotting in high end arena are pretty much over so don't think it'll be as useful.  

I'll still prefer Reflex to Impulse but any excuse to farm less Ice Golem is a win for me.

Mod team EVENTUALLY to the rescue. 😭😭

You have got to let me know how you post those animated gifs lol. This is the perfect spot for an ELO meme :) don't let me down,  broosh!

There is zero percent chance that is the case. Sorry. 

some of the damage calcs with champions they have built in ignore defense effects are very promising, for what it's worth. 

Can't wait for live arena! Namely because in live arena every situation will be different and you have to strategize on the fly. It really appeals to the problem-solving side of gaming, and it's my favourite content in Summoners War. I was tempted to do a summary of how live arena works in SW, but the mechanics will be different, not least because Raid has far more advanced options and artifact sets.

One thing I will say, though - live arena games in SW are often won or lost at the draft stage. That means, to win, players generally need not just good champs and gear but also a good understanding of what skills the opposing champs have, and what champs can be used to counter them. I figure speed leads and block damage/unkillable team comps are going to be common choices.

However, the P2W element is really going to be underlined by live arena, more so than any other content - which some people will complain about - but it should still be possible to have fun with live arena anyway, even if it will often be challenging and frustrating!

Just curious as to why you think that's the case?  It's worded like it will be a straight damage increase but Plarium has never been good at proper descriptions.

The damage bonus from masteries (for example Heart of Glory) and skills is additive, I don't think the set will behave in another way.  So it will not increase the actual damage output by 30%, but it's still a very good set. 

Also, it's probably calculated per hit, so the bonus will be lower for the second hit of multi hitting attacks, as the target allready has lower hp from the first strike.

Find the one you want and save it to your laptop, or like me, have a bunch already saved on your phone for your discord and texting, and just use those.

Upload into pics and boom....

i

...brand new you.

Just get Plarium to enable Giphy on their forums :(

I have enough trouble with the spam bots, why you want it worse. 

i

Never mind the sets, an irresistible strip that cannot be countered will at a stroke destroy stoneskin. Unless I am reading the skill wrong? 

Still waiting for live arena to be available. : (

Hopefully tomorrow...

...then I'll regret my eagerness as I get thrashed, no doubt. :D

Yup, my thoughts exactly. 

The champ seems to be strong, but his buff strip is single target only. Not much difference to Astralith in regards of killing champs with stoneskin. The only constellation where the new champ is better would be a situation where the stoneskin champ is not the fastest on the enemy team, and a bomb from Astralith would be reoved by Mithrala/Pythion before it can explode. In other words, he is counter to stoneskin UDK.

I know that the Live arena is currently being beta tested but the match making is definitely something to be desired. Not sure if it only looks at how many points you have and since everyone starts at 900 and can't drop below that it may be a mess for a bit until people climb but there should be some other variables as well otherwise most people starting out in Live will play it once, most likely get crushed, and never play it again until they reach level 100 if then.  My account is level 59 has minimal legenday's and most aren't PVP focused. My total team power is only around 500 to 600K depending on how much food I have leveled. It was matching me with level 100 players that just basically 1 shotted me. I had 1 match vs another level 59 account that was a decent match but otherwise I was just a pillow for someone to kick.