🦅 Ilmarinen – 5* Fire / Red from Legends of Kalevala

So a new player starts out. It takes forrrrrrever to collect 6 ascension mat rings, but he’s excited when he’s done collecting them because he has no red five star heroes. He doesn’t know much or who would be a good choice to ascend. So he comes on to the forum, sees this forum poster defending ilmarinen to the death - so he thinks to himself “wow he must be good”.

So this new player gets “lucky” and pulls ilmarinen. Even though he already had Wilbur maxed. He spends a crap ton of ham, all his rings, and maybe even his aethers to ascend and max ilmarinen. His lone maxed red five star.

Weeks go by and slowly he realizes “ilmarinen reaalllly sucks for 90% of the game and is barely better than Wilbur, how the heck did I get convinced as a new player ilmarinen might be good for me?!!”

Now we know how.

[addendum] - I forgot to mention, this new player pulled octros shortly after ascending ilmarinen

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This really, really depends on who else you have developed. If you have and bring really strong hit-3 or hit-all heroes, then chain-DD can be useful against even high-hp enemies…

…but for me, my best direct damage output comes from single-target snipers, and in events I want to bring down one of the bosses in nasty boss fights first to make a hole, ghost tiles, and give me a chance to start working on other bosses.

Chain-DD is arguably much better in raids because enemy heroes don’t have the ten zillion hp of challenge event bosses. For my roster at least, I generally don’t want to chain together bosses, even with DD, because it means I’m just damaging all three instead of getting anyone off the board… which means I’ll have to pair Ilmarinen with dispel if I want to get the advantage of big DD without the relative disadvantage of chained enemies, which just made him even more cumbersome to use.

Wilbur’s DD is a bit less, but he also does chain and DU, which Ilmarinen doesn’t. Ilmarinen only inflicts uncleansable against blue, which means on the attack I’m bringing the wrong color to attack with. His blue-punishing is more notable and useful on defense, but attackers can avoid the issue by attacking with a neutral color (like yellow or purple) instead, the same way that I typically won’t bring yellow to attack an Ursena tank.

Does this make Ilmarinen useless? No. I didn’t say that, I’m just saying… with a special that’s pretty similar to Wilbur’s, I’d expect him to at least fire at the same speed, that’s all.

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So someone mentioned ilmarinen “forces enemies to share damage” in support of him.

I don’t think “forces” is the right word…

To those who might not know, “sharing damage” is considered a buff and increases survivability in 95% of game scenarios. So saying “ilmarinen forces enemies to share damage” is sort of like saying “ilmarinen forces enemies to increase their survivability”. (There’s a reason ‘cleansing ailments’ doesn’t take away ‘sharing damage’)

A hero that does “defense down but let’s their enemies share damage” is worse than a hero that does “defense down” - what I see as yet another knock against a below average hero.

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Please can someone say something good about him? Any news on a buff on the horizon?

I got him, got excited then read his card.

@Jack.O.Kent He’s got potential, but he’s being overlooked. Players will be sleeping on him. Not me. I see his value as a titan hero, and challenge events. He’s also good on rush

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Thanks @Photon Thats some great feedback, I’ve always tried to believe every hero can be used for something.

So he can definitely be useful for the things you mentioned and he’s worth giving some emblems?

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yeah. If going to use him for challenge events and titans, go for the crit node. You’ll want to maximize the amount of damage possible.

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this new player listens lonely voice who said Ilmarinen is great, but doesnt listen to the majority of the community who says he is bellow average for majority of players :slight_smile:

This new player made mistake, but can now focus for titan highest scores :slight_smile:

Lone voice nothing. Actually for once in line with the majority.


Screenshot_2022-07-09-15-34-09-94_40deb401b9ffe8e1df2f1cc5ba480b12

But whatever think what you like. Fed up wasting my breath on it.

I actually think it’s a good thing for anyone to be happy with a hero. If you told me a stranger just pulled a legendary, I would hope that stranger is happy with the hero. So, if you think ilmarinen is great, I’m happy for you.

So if a bunch of people want to use their coins or diamonds to pull for ilmarinen and be happy to get him, that’s great.

But if I were to trust those polls, 9 out of every 10 legendaries would be worth using my coins or diamonds to pull for. And then I would end up with the likes of Yunan. (Who apparently is 15% more “absolutely worth pulling for” than ilmarinen)

I see him work great with Khufu on VF wars :slight_smile: But I agree with most opinions, he should be average speed… I have him, Khufu and Elizabeth in line for rings and he will wait a long time… Lets hope he gets buffed, but I think SG will consider it next year, it seems they like to buff heroes just before they appear to make events more attractive :upside_down_face:

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Yeah I agree, thanks for your reply. They do tend to buff heroes at the worst time for us players. It’s a shame I don’t have Khufu.

He could do with a buff like they gave to some of the magic heroes where he does damage, but I suppose it’s different with mana x1/x2 charge heroes.

I want to find a use for him. Once I’ve maxed El Nad I’ll level him up and keep my fingers crossed for a buff.

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Whether he is viewed as great or meh is all about what you prioritize in the game. He may not be great for war/raids outside of VF but he is great for events. During the CoK events the top players were all trying for him and insta-maxing him if they got him to boost their legendary teams

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I keep seeing “great for events,” and again, if you have the right roster (lots of big hit-all or hit-3, i.e. hit-all-3-equally, hitters) then sure.

But for many players, linking together zillion-hp-bosses is not a great move, and using even a slightly lesser amount of DD that doesn’t link up enemies would be stronger.

That’s a pretty significant condition on “great for events” outside of already-top players (who may be assumed to have most any roster population desired already).

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I have been trying since shortly after i started this game to get Wilbur (but got 3 Proteii… Pro… whatever!) to no avail. Today, this:

Well? as good as Wilbur or not? which is it? i guess not as good as Wilbur 2.0 for titans, but still…

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And like I said it depends what you prioritize in the game. He is great for those that compete in events. So if you dont compete hes probably not going to be your top option for mats.

Ah, well, I should have been more precise myself as “great at events” could mean “upping score for folks already actively competing in events” or it could mean “making it easier to just complete/get further in events, notably Alliance Quest, Gargoyles, Towers etc.” concerning folks for whom just even getting a set reward (never mind rankings) is desirable and/or a challenge in itself.

Having said that, a hero who is desirable for events for at most a few thousand people…. Well…

If this thread is any indication, it’s a bit “opinion is still mixed” together with “it’s still early days” and a lot of “it depends on what you want him for.”

Titan is arguably one of the places where Ilmarinen is more of an upgrade over Wilbur, just a matter of how he compares to other red priorities/your availability of mats/what you can use for DD now as to whether he’s “worth it” as a priority in your roster (to say nothing of how much you think you’d be likely to use him in other instances, general PvE, raids, wars, defense, etc.)

I suppose I’d say “I want Wilbur but never got him” makes Ilmarinen a better get than “I have Wilbur and am trying to decide if it’s worth putting the time/resources into a ‘Wilbur’s big brother’ hero as well.”

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Yeah, as some noted above - this is a hero which will upgrade your titan and challenge events scores. He is also great in rush, because of the mana cut and you can pair them with strong slow heroes (e.g. Azlar, Khagan) to wreak havoc.

I am not using him in regular raids/wars though, but I knew I wouldn’t when I was maxing him. This is a hero designed for a specific purpose and IMO he serves it very well.

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This is encouraging, as he is the only 5* I’ve got so far (so, probably, this year) from Kalevala. I’m on 5/6 rings and was kind of expecting to use them on Zagrog when the last one arrives, but will give it some thought and try Ilmarinen out at 3.70 a bit before taking the plunge. Green titans are my downfall.

(I’ve also got Marjana, Elena and Azlar at 3.70 but they’re going nowhere unless I get their costumes; plus Captain Nemo, Tyr, Reuben and Natalya who are also at 3.70 and will be going nowhere forever, in the absence of a very substantial buff. Not that I’m sorry to have them. They’re sometimes used as disposable heroes in Towers etc. and are quite good for that.)

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Illmarinen is on my bottom list of reds. Unless they’ll change mana to average, he will became food for Soul Exchange. I see him useful only in Rush Wars, but this game is more than that

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