Got past Bommal this time, no problem, so can clear more and am happier. :)

Amius is distilled, high octane, military-grade BS. If you want to penalize skill cooldown reductions to the point that they are unusable, just save everyone the trouble and make them, you know, unusable. Doesn't help that his skill descriptions are an essay, but at least that's a problem with laziness on my part rather than straight up malicious game design.

The rest, I'm ranging from neutral to positive about, which probably makes this the best thing they've done in the game for a year or two. I'm somewhat concerned about the champion restrictions in combination with some of the exceedingly overtuned bosses, which I suspect is going to reduce any strategy to stacking resistance to high heaven. We'll see.

went straight to amius this month, was able to bs my way through the fight. Clearing rooms that I can, not building or swapping gear. Will switch to normal soon. Picking up the remnant summon things and not even going to bother with soulcross.

I managed to do amius this rotation but it was ridiculously difficult for me due to missing a few key champs.

As for the rest of it, i think you may have the right idea. If changing gear didnt cost silver (i know theres an event on right now) maybe i would feel different.

I find the idea of punishing masteries to be a bad mechanic as well.

+1 on the cycle of magic bs.

Just checking in.... how far did everyone get on the last one? Did you beat Amius as well?

How far do you feel you're going to get this rotation? Amius getting any easier or is it just more mastery resets?

I had 2 bosses left to finish on the last rotation, and beat amius last rotation.

Its a bit early since i havent started soulcross but if anything i am finding it harder.

I took something ridiculous like 1000 moves to kill amius this rotation (no morrigaine, siphi, cardiel etc)

Last one, stopped in the last island on Soulcross, I think I finished ~2-3 of them before stopping. I think this one will go smoother, will let you know when I stop.

so far i believe this rotation much more easier, but it remains to see...

last rotation i menaged 81 stages... 

will see how far would it be this rotation...

Beat amius (x2) and finished approx 90 stages.  Stopped hard around xmas and never bothered going back after finishing normal.

Guessing I will do less this rotation due to time more than anything else.

Good content, I am indifferent towards CycOfMagic BS lol.   It is just late gamers complaining free stuff isnt easy enough tbh.  HAve to build more champs, isn't that what all were complaining about? Too many useless champs.  Getting to end game with as few champs as possible (optimal resource management some would say) is a ship that sailed long ago and this put that nail in the coffin.  I'm probably closer to quitting every day this year, but that has nothinhg to do with state of game other than not enough QoL time reduction for me.

I enjoy the game, but I fall further behind by being "lazy" every day.

The payout relative to cost is out of whack. It's not a problem to require specific champs; it is a problem when you need to either respec constantly or build new champs, just to earn a handful of okay artifacts once.

I think the rewards are pretty darn good for stages...especial the  OILS

I really like the content and do not expect to kill the Boss  on  Normal difficulty again :/  ...but love all the rewards and the journey around the map on both  NORMAL/HARD  modes

I like  it :)

I can relate to that although it is hydra clash for me that makes me want to quit.

Some of our clan members are now manualling hydra and putting out 200 mill damage for example (NM).  I want to contribute properly but ill be damned if i sit manualling for 90 mins a fight.

As for the complainers :) - i dont think the rewards equal the effort on cursed city, i did about the same number of stages last rotation as you did, but it completely wiped out all my chickens and resources - and i didnt get a single set of merciless at the end of it (mostly 5 star stuff dropped)

Perhaps though i am just impatient and jaded and because i am jaded about the game (its well over 3 years now) perhaps i am being unfairly negative about good content as you say. 

5 rotations using 5 random champs, alot requireing masteries changed and possibly gear changes basically sucks. these champs have roles elsewhere in the game requireing specific builds,  wrecking them for 1 fight a month is really demotivateing, not to mention the cost and time involved plus trying to regear them afterwards!! this is just for the boss, if u wanna push into soulcross it will get far  worse very quickly, wud imagine a big drop in particiation which there analytics will start showing  after a couple more rotations if not already when the novelty factor has worn off!!

why have a free gear removal when people dont know what/who they need to regear... ps the answer to this is very obvious when u been playing for a while

I think the rewards are better than you think, we all said same with IT, hydra, ... everything.  I removed cycle of magic from 2 champs, I did regear anyone completely.  Left my pvp champs in pvp gear and hydra champs the same.  I used a significant amount of my chicken/brew warehouse but have plenty left.  I'm content to get what I can while building new champs slowly from here on out.

As for Clash, if I have time for my 2 hour NM run so be it.  Otherwise I'll contribute 650-750 M for the week, and have no expectations for anyone else in my clan to do otherwise.  I'm in a casual clan (no cvc but we do hydra), so clash is hit or miss but I don't stress about it.  Its ok to miss the quest and 1 refill too LOL ;}  

I rage-posted about similar stuff yesterday. I did beat Amius, don't even sk me how, I was getting pissed, i restarted and hit auto, went for a smoke, came back and boss was down to less than 25%. Apparently the AI is much smarter than I am LOL.

But ya, CoM passive is BS. Look I dont mind anything else. Requires crazy stats? fine. Requires strategic play, fine. But CoM is on some of my champions for a reason. And some, the reason is, if you want to reach the tier 5 mastery that extends buffs, you HAVE to pick CoM most of the time, especially if you start with the Accuracy tree, and not the HP one. So please, remove this non-sense from the boss's kit.

That depends. If like me, you only regear for Boss, then re-regear back, and for the rest you just do whatever you can then stop, the rewards/effort ratio is quite good. Where it gets out of line is if you try to complete Soulcross. Some CC's invested over 200m silver to get it done, and for what? In their case, i understand the need to get the Mythical champion ASAP for showcases, but for common players, it's totally undoable and not worthwhile to try and get that champion within 5 months.

re: rewards, I am with you. ascension stuff, awakening mats, mythic charms, the new gear and even remnants are all relevant to my interests on top of free energy, chickens and multis

that said I'm not going super hard in the paint trying to beat every stage because well, i can't beat all 101 anyway so there's not a big point unless there's a specific reward I want (and if it's gonna take me super long, meh)

the Cycle of Magic thing is probably my biggest pet peeve with Sintranos by a large margin just because of how silly it is

Poked at the boss a bit, didn't get anywhere. Will eventually revisit, but for now I'm gonna wander around the map and see what else is a blocker. I do wish they'd time this a little more in-line with fusions, so that we can level champs during champ training when we reach blockers :/

Maybe i am just ready to quit as i am so jaded with it, christ i dont normally play a game this long.

Although- you have been playing far longer than me, when i came on here as a newbie for advice you had already been playing years.

This rotation seems to have a lot of stages where i simply dont have the required awakening level too- i tend to save for the big six stars