I’ve been playing for about a year, so Gravemaker feels like ancient history. He’s still in practically all the top defense teams, though. He’s definitely more powerful than most.
So, question is, was there much forum drama over Gravemaker when he was new, like there was with Guinevere? Did he cause much frustration? We know there’s a TON of drama with Telluria right now to an extent I’ve never seen. Is it only the tanks that get people that upset? Finley’s super powerful, yes, but is he frustrating? For me, there’s a difference between the two. How upsetting was Gravemaker when he was new?
I wasn’t playing when Gravemaker was first released, so I can’t address how the player base responded. But I have seen multiple posts that many didn’t think he’d be that powerful at first. It should hardly be surprising that many misjudged him; I have also read that, at the time, most players didn’t appreciate how effective stacking was.
I will caution that it’s hard to compare heroes based on their prevalence (and prevalence is probably correlated to some extent with complaint threads). Gravemaker and Finley have had vastly different opportunities to frustrate the player base. GM’s availability was probably something like a full month as the HOTM and then a few times as an Atlantis returning HOTM (when many were gunning for him). In contrast, Finley is a very recent hero and has only been available a few times. Plus he is a low probability draw, due to the other five stars in his event. And his event likely attracts fewer pulls than other events. I do think GM is better than Finley, but we’d also expect to see more of the former just based on historic availability.
No one understood how important Damage over Time was nor did anyone realize the benefits of extra damage against nature. People thought Gravemaker was terrible upon release.
If I recall correctly, Gravemaker was actually buffed from his original beta form. Immediate damage was initially around 85%, I think, and it was increased to the current level of 135%
So did people not recognize Gravemaker’s power then like they do now? Took a minute to realize? Or was he suddenly as powerful as he is because of the buff @lexinen just mentioned?
OR maybe even after the buff he was good (but not a star player), and his current standing came only after the meta evolved further? That I would find highly interesting.
This I think hits the heart of the matter with any of the drama we’ve seen with any hero at all… comparison. Though I wasn’t around at the time of his release myself, it seems apparent to me that he was first of his kind and therefore people had no basis of comparison other than high or low level of damage.
Now that the game has become more complicated and more heroes created we can easily compare say Telluria to Guin where one (Telluria) positively affects the whole team in health over time (HoT) and the other (Guin) does not, plus Guin’s talent (emblem type) is not at all as helpful to her abilities as Telluria’s paladin (defense) ability as tank.
If we could stop comparing drama would finally die, but then so would the game I suspect. I’ve had immensely more fun with Telluria (from both ends) so I for one am sad to see her nerfed and hoping she’ll still be the top tank even if not quite as effective.
Well I didnt play at that time either, but you have to know that at this time it wasnt possible to initially push a hero to 18++ emblems
More, the defenses had like +9 +10 emblems, and no level 30 troops. So the total TS was about 4400 or so.
Then, typical atracker teams 3/2 color stacked even without talents had over 4000 TS.
So you had like -400 TS when attacking “high end defenses” at that time.
Now, lots of people play with about 4000, most of them mono colored against 4700 defenses. Thats a critical point.
And therefore it wasnt such a big deal to have gravemaker in a defense, cause with “only” 8 Talents he could be beaten from a “normal” blue stack team.
I personally think, that also many GM+20 tank defense would bring tears in everyones eyes.
You think you have no time against telluria?
Guess what, gravemaker almost strikes a second time when tellus average mana finally triggers.
But thats none of my business (yes… I tried it this atlantis…
DoT and extra damage to certain color is hard to understood.
Even in 2020, a lot of people misjudged Vela like they did to GM, saying that she is garbage and weak hero. But now, almost all realize she is great hero to the point that some people ask for her nerf.
After my wife got vela and asked me to summon for her, i declined as i thought its not a hard hitter I would like. … yeah, now I think twice about a heroes proper strength , but still I am often not quite sure, like malosi, that firstly I hated, now he seems to be okay.
Grazul: hated. Now she is awesome
Grimvle: hated. Now he still is level 1 and I hate him
