Add ability to "reincarnate" standard 5* heroes to HOTM/event heroes

Seems the forum is lively today with this topic (mostly me rambling, haha). I’ll keep this brief to avoid a wall of text. See my post history for why I think this is needed and my game experience.

Problem: Past HOTM and event heroes are unavailable, but key to progression for end-game players that started late or don’t spend large amounts of money.

Solution: Put in place a way to reincarnate a 5* hero to a HOTM/event hero. My idea would be to allow you to reroll a maxed 5* hero of a chosen color to HOTM/event (of choice or random, TBD). They would be “reincarnated” as level 1.

Benefits:

  • Ascension materials gain more value: Right now I have an abundance of 3 and 4-star ascension items I’m not using because maxing certain heroes would provide little benefit to my team(s). Ascension materials are really what drive every aspect of the game. Filling chests, titans, AW, events, are all done in hopes of getting ascension materials. Once they start to lose value, the game becomes less fun. I personally have no incentive to spend on offers that include ascension materials now as well. Ascending a maxed hero means you will need at least 12 4-star and 8 3-star items to max an ascended hero, adding value.

  • A reason to max any 5-star hero: Thorne sucks. Everyone knows it. But if he is the first and only 5-star hero you get, you should still be motivated to max him, right? With this system, you can work on maxing him, get use out of him, and know that as you progress he can serve a better purpose to maybe be reincarnated as Athena. And you can also use him until you want to ascend to HOTM! This also removes some of the bitterness of players that maxed a trash hero without knowing they were trash (or if they no longer fit their team).

  • Food/feeder/(iron) sink: I’m accumulating millions of food and thousands of feeder items (backpacks, swords, etc.) because I have nothing to spend them on (almost 30 4/5-star AW heroes maxed too). This system would act as a “sink” for all these excess materials. I would also suggest making this require a large amount of iron somehow, as that is starting to pile up as well.

  • Opportunity to try new teams: I’d love to try some interesting set ups with Elkanen or Khagan, but can’t justify maxing them just for fun. If this system was in place, I could max them out, try my idea , and if it turns out my team idea sucks I have piece of mind knowing I can reincarnate them. Plus, we could start to see some more unique team combinations with less used heroes when raiding.

Personally speaking, this system would motivate me to keep playing this game and spending my USD$20-30/month. The total cost (food, feeder materials, ascension materials) seems high enough to not anger the players who spent to get certain heroes, but low enough that F2P grinders and small spenders have something to aspire to.

(OK, I lied. I failed at being brief.)

I like this idea. It gives a way for further evolution for those who already got full set of max 5* heroes and a stretch goal to those who is in progress of building 5*s.
I’d say that conversion into a HOTM should be random, but preserve the color of a hero.

Those heroes should be named somehow differently. Paladins? Champions?