🧪 Early information on the March 2021 HOTM Malicna

Gameplay Help & Tactics
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NOTE: Please do not, under any circumstances, share IMAGES OR VIDEOS from Beta in this or any public Forum thread. Violations can cause players to lose their Beta accounts, or threads to be closed down.

This thread is to provide early insights and discussion on the March 2021 HOTM, Malicna.

All Information from Beta is Subject to Change!

Don’t get attached

Details from beta, especially brand-new beta content, don’t tend to be very reliable for actual hero release.

It’s incredibly common that heroes are changed during beta testing, or sometimes even after testing but before release. That is, after all, the purpose of beta testing.

So I wouldn’t get too attached to any of this — it’s not unheard of for entire portions of skills to be removed or reworked, or for radical changes to stats to be made.

Malicna Beta Info & Stats (Extremely Likely to Change)

Gender: Female

Attack: 766
Defense: 741
HP: 1339
Power: 788

Element: Dark :new_moon: (Purple)

Class: Cleric

Innate Resistance: Health Steal Ailments ( HPSteal RecoverSteal )
This hero has an innate resistance against status ailments that Steal Health

Innate Ability: Status Effect on Mana Reduction
This hero receives the following status effect on Mana Reduction:
“The caster gets +94% defence against Holy for 3 turns.”

Mana Speed: Average

Special Skill: Grimoire Skim

  • Deals 225% 260% damage to the target and nearby enemies.
  • Randomly casts one of the following Alternatives:
    • Alternative 1
      • The target and nearby enemies get -54% defence for 3 turns
      • The target and nearby enemies get -34% -54% attack for 3 turns.
      • The target and nearby enemies get -24% mana generation for 3 turns.
    • Alternative 2
      • The target and nearby enemies get -12% -16% defence for 3 turns.
    • Alternative 3
      • The target and nearby enemies get -12% -16% attack for 3 turns.
  • Element Link gives all dark allies a small amount of mana at the end of each turn for 4 turns. This effect can’t be dispelled.

:money_with_wings: Avoiding Overspending & Heartache :broken_heart:

Or: How many summons are needed to get a HOTM?

Special thanks to @Garanwyn for assistance on summoning odds and proofreading for this section.

It’s important to remember that HOTM have very low summoning odds. No amount of summoning will guarantee a HOTM.

On average, in a 10-pull, you have a 12.3% chance of summoning the HOTM.

But that statistic can lead our minds astray in exactly how our odds play out as we continue summoning.

Some useful insights:

  • 73 times out of 100, you’ll get a HOTM by pull 100
  • 95 times out of 100, you’ll get a HOTM by pull 229
  • 99 times out of 100, you’ll get a HOTM by pull 352

Putting that in Perspective

  • 27 out of every 100 people won’t get the HOTM by the 100th pull

  • If 1 Million players each summoned 100 times, 270,000 of those players wouldn’t get the HOTM

  • 5 out of every 100 people won’t get the HOTM by the 229th pull

  • If 1 Million players each summoned 229 times, 50,000 of those players wouldn’t get the HOTM

More Insights & Reading

I highly recommend reading these two threads for more information and context on summoning odds:

If you’ve read them a million times before, you may consider reading them again before deciding on your budget for summoning. A little time spent deciding on how much money you want to risk on summoning goes a long way to avoiding disappointment, frustration, and regret later. :slight_smile:

For a full list of items currently in beta testing, as well as their related threads, please see the master beta-beat thread:

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Yes there are TWO (2) Passive abilities for this new HotM (and the Jan & Feb ones too).

This appears to be the start of the 4th generation of HotM which have both a passive resistance AND a passive ability…

Also yes, there are NO TYPO’S.

THE First alternative is clearly VERY strong while the other two are much less so to counterbalance the strength of Alternative 1.

Finally, the elemental link IS a passive mana generation per turn. Same as Alberich does :slight_smile:

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Small amount of mana, just put the numbers, full transparency

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What’s written in the post is what’s written on the card. It is consistent with all other instances of straight mana generation (Alberich, Misandra, Grimble, Fenrir etc…)

From memory (and you can use the :mag: to look more) previous player testing had “small amount” meaning 0.8 mana units.

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I was referring to the creator of cards, you are good @Guvnor. The element link sounds a bit vague, and it will be 4 more heroes with it

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Wdym by stating that it’s Nature (dark)? Is this some kind of a new thing, 2 elements combined in one hero? :smiley:

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I think that was just a typo @Bfili Maybe a… natural dark? :sunglasses:

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Fixed now.
20characters

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I checked the chance of each alternative on a small sample (42 activations) and it seems to be around 21-48-31% respectively.

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I suspect that it will eventually end up being pretty close to 33-33-33 (even odds).

Similar to Danza & Rumple.

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Which makes absolutely no sense… We already have enough randomness in matches when you consider tile genaration and the way the AI acts.

Having a special that does 3 different things and the all are on the same power level is good design, but having one that does a very powerful thing or 2 laughable ones is pretty poor.

My solution? Either have the special doing 1 thing in each of the three cases and have that one thing on its maximum or have it do all three each time but on different percentages.

Something like:

Alternative 1, - 54% defense
Alternative 2, - 34% attack
Alternative 3, - 24% mana generation

(Weaker, more boring version)

Alternative 1: -54% defense, -12% attack, -12% mana Generation

Alternative 2: -24% defense, -34% attack, -12% mana Generation

Alternative 3: -24% defense, -12% attack, -24% Mana Generation

(Stronger, more dynamic version)

Just my 2 cents

Best Regards

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Please don’t!

Best Regards

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Woah it’s different, so I’m intrigued from the start.

I’ll start with the special skill. Of the three possible, the first is obviously the most desirable. I’d say the defense down is the second most valuable with the attack down being the third most. Yes as many have said above the first is much stronger.

If you get either of the second two (~67% of the time), she’ll be worse than Glenda. I’d rather have the cleanse than those small status effects. But when you do get that good effect, she’ll be great. She’ll be hard to create offensive synergies with because you can’t rely on what she’s going to do, and she could overwrite more powerful status effects from other healers. Maybe I use her after Tiburtus and take the extra damage and risk the 1/3 chance of a smaller defense debuff.

Innate resistances: I’m not sure everyone who does Health Steal, but the Halloween heroes come to mind. Direct mana reduction resistance is helpful for the Holy heroes that do that (Guin, Li, Chao, Leo, etc). 94% defense against Holy skills is nice for a Dark hero.

I guess I can see her as a tank. 1/3 of the time she wrecks your team. Given how often I see people say they win ~90% of raids, perhaps 1/3 of the time is good enough? Her stats don’t align with the tank position. Malosi would be an obvious counter and most people have already built their teams to have more cleansers or status blockers.

Elemental link: this will be one of the better ones out there. The 4% extra mana generation we’ve seen before was almost useless, but all heroes can always use the straight “small amount” gain. Another argument for having her at tank.

Will enough people risk having her at tank knowing two thirds of the time they’ll easily lose? It’s hard to see her in many other defensive positions. I see Odin being an obvious flank for her (or potentially her as a flank to Odin). On defense, combine her small amount of mana gain with Odin’s mana buff for some nice synergies.

Edit: leaving the above alone, but I realized the mana buff is only elemental link so it does not apply to Odin. Oops.

I was thinking I’d want to give her a B rating. But 1/3 of the time she’ll be A.

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Artwork is a cross between a

librarian/ Mother Goose

and

Magik ( Illyana Nikolievna Rasputin ) with her Eldritch armor, and Soul sword, from Marvel Comics ( linky, linky )

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It’s nice that they’re making someone new, but I don’t think I’ll be too impressed with her performance. Maybe if the ailments lasted 4 turns instead? Or maybe if her two weaker ailments were buffed to -25% or something?

I also don’t like the idea of using someone who can only do something good 33% of the time. Rumpelstiltskin, on the other hand, seems much safer to me. Don’t let me spoil the fun alone, but personally, I’d rather have her nuke option nerfed and the other two buffed

…Or maybe she NEEDS to be weaker than other heroes aside from that element link? Exactly how small is this “small amount” of mana? We talking 1 tile per turn? That sounds very powerful for an element link

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Wow, now I see an old lady with a huge sword, something like a badass Mother North. Well, can’t wait to see a picture ahah !

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Another thought–Is this the first time we’ve had only one monthly added to beta? I wonder if testing these month-by-month will be a new trend. No complaints here!

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I agree that the elemental link is an awesome one. As someone who is a huge fan of Alberich seeing that part of his skill as a link is pretty nice.
The text says “Small ammount of mana”, the same text as Alby, so I’m guessing it’s 0.8 mana units per turn (12% for VF, 10% for Fast, 8% for Average and so on…)
I Disagree where you say it’s gonna increase the value as a tank, you traditionally don’t want to double up on your tank’s collor since your attackers will, traditionally, bring more heroes of the stronger color. I really don’t see Malicna as a tank.

Probably 0.8 mana units, same as Alberich…

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Which only reinforces my argument that the skills should be balanced in power level while still having each’s individual flavor.

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I think that’s the point of this hero though. If all three were equal we may turn around and say “none of those are good enough”. By making one really good and the other 2 relatively weaker, we can say those 2 are relatively useless, but one third of the time it’s fantastic.
It’s not much different than using Wu/Ranvir. When it works it’s fantastic, but when it doesn’t it’s not as good.
At least she does damage in all cases and doesn’t have a mana freeze like Danza.

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