In defense of HA 10 (for FTP, at least)

General Discussion
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Not sure why I was thinking about this today, but I know some folks have debated the usefulness of HA 10. The trainings are long and expensive, and the odds of getting something new are poor. I’d like to see all of these things change. But, as I’m approaching 2 years (in October) of having run HA 10 constantly, I thought about what it has done for my five-star roster as a FTP player. So, I went back to see how many new-to-me five-stars I’ve gotten from each source since I started running HA 10 in October 2020. (Since I often screenshot new heroes, this wasn’t too difficult.) Here are the results:

From TC20: Isarnia
From summon portals: Zulag, Krampus, Heimdall, Russula, Yang Mai, Devana, Francine, Hanitra, Silvaria
From HA10: Richard, Elkanen, G. Kong, Seshat, Kageburado, Rana
From SE: Jean-Francois

I’m very near the published odds on HA10. Just a little under 5% on non-S1 heroes and just a little above 5% on heroes with costumes.

For context, I have been hoarding challenge coins and gems for CF 2, so I have 100+ coins and 8200+ that I anticipate burning most of next week. I also have 24 S4 pulls that I’ve been hoarding, waiting for a decent-looking HotM. I would have used those last month to shore up my purples with Arfanais, but when Kage came out of HA10, that need lessened somewhat. If I fail to land Tahir from CF2, I’ll go after him the next week with these S4 coins. Bottom line is that I could possibly have had 1-2 more HotM and maybe 1-2 more summoned five-stars if I had used all my summon currencies.

New Heroes

On to the math. As should be expected, the majority of the new-to-me five-stars over this period are HotM, the easiest non-S1 heroes for FTP to land. Of these, I only really chased Yang Mai. Silvaria showed up on two pulls; Devana on about four. So, HotM make up 29% (5 of 17) of the new-to-me five-stars I’ve gotten since October 2020. Summoned heroes as a whole make up almost half (8 of 17). HA10 accounts for 35% (6 of 17), higher even than HotM.

To be fair, though, I should probably remove the S1s from the list, as it was just a fluke of the odds that I didn’t have them already. Recalculating based on this gives 36% (5 of 14) HotM, 57% (8 of 14) from summoned heroes overall, and 29% (4 of 14) coming from HA10. That’s roughly one-third of my new non-S1 heroes! Another way of looking at it is that I have 40% more new non-S1 five-star heroes by running HA 10 than I would have without it. (Would have had 10 without it; got 4 from it; 4 / 10 = 40%.) I gotta say that’s worth it.

New Costumes

With costumes, it’s even more worth it. Since October 2020, I’ve gotten 2 five-star costumes from summons - Leo from costume chamber and Francine from Morlovia summons. Over the same period, I’ve gotten three S1 costumes from HA 10 - Isarnia, Thorne, and Magni. (No, I don’t know why they are all blue!) So, 60% (3 of 5) of my new five-star costumes since October 2020 have come from HA 10 vs. 40% (2 of 5) from summons. For context, I previously had costumes for Justice and Domitia from costume chamber summons, so HA 10 is responsible for 38% (3 of 8) of my five-star costumes overall. Again, about a third, and 60% more than I would have had without HA10.

Conclusion

Yes, HA 10 is resource intensive. Yes, the trainings take too long. Yes, the odds are low. But for a FTP player who mainly keeps playing to work on new projects, it has proven to be worth the investment. I use Kong and Seshat all the time, Kage is almost ready (at which point he’ll nestle right into my mono purple squad), and Rana is coming along (even though I don’t have a great plan for her overall, she’ll help on monk trials, I think.) Haven’t gotten started on the Magni costume yet, and the others I maxed mainly for the stat boost, except C. Leo, of course. With the paywalled monsters out there, though, those stat boosts for S1s are critical. FWIW, I recently raided into the top 20 globally with my meager FTP roster.

Finally, I’ll acknowledge that I have been very lucky not to have any duplicates among my non-S1 and costume results from HA10. That would be terrible. Also, as noted, I got all heroes that really fit into my roster, with the possible exception of Rana. I haven’t landed any of the lower-tier non-S1s like Reuben on any of my retrains. I can understand how these factors would make some players sour on HA 10 quickly. But at this point, I’m calling it a net positive for my player experience, and not a small one at that.

Hope you got something out of reading this, even if it was just being thankful that you don’t type as much as I do!

31 Likes
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I get it, just tired of being under odds… I’ve done about 65 trainings and have 2 older HOTM (one a duplicate) and zero costumes. I am running it again here, I just would like to be close to odds, not underwhelmingly under lol.

9 Likes
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I get it. I got to 50 retrains before I even got a non-S1. It can be disheartening. But Kage and Rana came back-to-back not too long ago to put me close to 5%.

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HA10 is amazing for f2p. It’s our best access to five star heroes we don’t have.
I can see why it would be much more frustrating for someone with a better roster.

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Agree with this. For players who rely mostly on S1 along with some assorted lucky HotM or season pulls there is a lot of worth to HA10 whereas for a heavier spender who already has a lot of non S1 pieces and is hoping for some finishing touches the odds just aren’t there.

2 Likes
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Today will be my 83rd ha10 swap…

I’ve gotten a dupe telluria… A costume joon that sits at 3.70… A ranvir and elradir that sit at 1.1. El might be leveled… But very possible nope.

Ha 10 is around 3 behind pace for me… And… It had been a waste of ham and time… And the opportunity cost of getting feeders/trainers/troops.

3 Likes
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This seems to suggest that your roster is better than mine. If I had Joon’s costume, it’d get leveled asap. Admittedly, my Ranvir still sits at 3^70, but I still bring him out against the baby titans I fight. Don’t have Elrandir, but almost every non-S1 on my roster at least gets to 3^70, and most eventually go all the way. I even have Zulag at 4^80.

3 Likes
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Guys, I am certain that odds in TC20 and HA10 are the same as the ones in portals if not less

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If Seshat comes out of my HA, I’ll be so … I don’t even know which word to use! :heart_eyes: I’ll keep running it :pray::four_leaf_clover:

1 Like
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I understand your point, it is really frustrating that after so many trainings, time and food spent you get nothing. The odds add up to 1 every 20 retrains but not always work that way

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TC20 odds have been estimated by the community to be about 5% chance of getting a five-star. Odds of getting a non-S1 hero or a costume from HA 10 are published at 5% each.

Yeah, iirc, you and I are in the same boat on needing purple help, so Seshat was a serious upgrade for me, too.

Reducing the retraining time would help with this frustration, as more people would tend toward the mean faster.

2 Likes
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Who cares what 5 people got from TC and HA?
I get under 2%. So, let’s establish that percentages at 2%, shall we?

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Great post @Noble_Weasel . I agree completely with this sentiment as a fellow FTP.

When I started HA I would say I got 100% of the 6 or so S2 vanillas I was missing. Granted those are one time benefits because I don’t keep dupes, but getting the likes of Vivica and some other was huge. People can take for granted not even being able to get all the vanillas after years.

As for 5* costumes, I have only ever gotten 4. 2 Lianna’s from Costume Chamber and then Magni and Elena from HA10. I got the second Lianna this last CC, so really HA has been a better source of 5* costumes for me then the CC itself. I use all 3 unique ones regularly.

It has also given me HotMs. My roster has all the vanillas, an S3 5* (Tyr), and the other 5’s are 9 HotMs. Of the 9 HotMs, 1 is a dupe. HA has given me Zimkitha, Perseus, 2 Seshat’s (sorry @Noble_Weasel and @Gwniver . If I could trade my spare Seshat I would … to @Gwniver . @Noble_Weasel nerfed my HA :wink:).

I don’t use dupes, so I won’t count them here, but HA have me:

  • 6 of 20 vanillas
  • 3 of 8 HotMs (side note, 2 are from ToL. Normal summons only got me 3 of 8. :-1:)
  • 2 of 3 5* costumes

My roster would look completely different without HA. That isn’t even touching HA8. While it is currently on an @Noble_Weasel induced dry spell, I have no regrets running it.

:beers:

6 Likes
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A few important things were brought up, some implied.

  1. Hero Academy (level 10 specifically) was lauded by $GG as the solution / savior to duplicate hero problems. It wasn’t and players quickly realized it. That’s why we got the Soul Exchange.
  2. There is a lot left to be desired from HA10, and a lot of the feedbacks and suggestions made should’ve been made into it right from the get-go.
  3. If Alchemy Lab can be made a second version of, why not Hero Academy?
  4. The more lavish and diverse your roster is, the less attractive / desirable HA10 becomes.

I started my HA10 middle of March 2021 and stopped beginning of December 2021 only because HA5 and HA8 were improved with Classic Challenge 3* and 4* added as possible results and that I, as a collector is looking to acquire the set, even though they may not be top-notch anymore. HA5 finished relatively quickly because I was really only missing Vodnik after managing to get Bauchan from the Challenge Festival Portal right before. Even though I am battling against the vanilla 3*, there were only 5 challenge 3* to be had so the pool was a little smaller there. HA8 took longer than I had wanted, I managed to get multiples/dupes of 4* challenge heroes, but for the longest time just won’t give me Peters until it finally did to finish the collection.

By the time I closed down HA8, it was already June 2022, and I had just finished exchanging 15 dupe 5* for Lady of the Lake during Soul Exchange, my first Challenge 5* in this game. It was always my intention to go back to HA10, after HA8 being done. But the problem now is that I am out of dupe 5* and portals and TC20s were not giving me anything to use. I finally obtained a dupe Thorne out of the portals to start again by the middle of July.

Before my half-year break, I managed 37 sessions out of HA10, missing a couple of weeks in between because I accidentally fed the dupe 5* that came out instead of sending him/her right back in.

Out of those, I got 1 x Joon-C and 1 x Gravemaker (no costume). Haven’t gotten anything else since restarting.

Crappy Odds, takes too long, no queuing and HA can only run 2 sessions, checkmarks on all those crappy shortcomings, and maybe just like @Muchacho but a smaller sample size, I think @Noble_Weasel cursed my HA10 too.

But as long as there is a chance for something unique, I will keep running it. Gives my dupes something to do while waiting for the next time I can make a play at a Soul Exchange.

5 Likes
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Join the club. 78 retrains: 2 HotMs (one duplicate), and 2 costumes. So I’m a little better than you on costumes, but as for new heroes, just the one.

I get there is some angst over the resources, but really, the main resources are food and recruits. Conversely, as it is a long training time, it’s only once a week, so it’s not that much of a real burden.
The question would be what would I run instead? Maybe a troop feeder instead, but that’ll come soon enough as I finish my current projects and have no real need for hero trainers…

I figure some small chance is better than 0 chance considering that I’m not paying for it.

3 Likes
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For a little bit I have run ha8 to get Gretel and Hansel .
Have also done double troops for a bit.

So there are options, ha10 is suppyto be the best but with it taking a week it makes it hard for odds to normalize cause of the low frequency so I find it better to take breaks and go back to it.

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I’m not FTP nor am I a whale. I probably spend on the higher side of CTP. I still find value in HA 10. Gravemaker was the first non S1 I pulled. I was totally thrilled since I did not have him. From there I recived 6 other old HOTM, one of them being Seshat. I pulled costume Quintas about 5 weeks ago and pulled Red Hood 2 weeks ago. Over all I have received 9 non S1 heroes from HA 10 and I started in OCT of 2020. HA 10 has allowed me to bulk up my roster without feeling guilty over having spent money on gems that netted me zero 5*'s due to my horrendous luck.

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I’ve been running HA10 continuously, but the second queue does alternate. It was running troop trainers, but then when the retired heroes came to HA8 and HA5, I ran those to get them. It didn’t take long and I’ve been running hero trainers. But now my projects are starting to wind down, I’ll soon go back to troop trainers. I guess I could run double, but I find the cost of 3* troops is a little high in materials and 1* troops isn’t really that worth it.

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You seem to be a pretty self centered person! :smiley:

Because YOU are unlucky the probabilities established by a lot of people should be adjusted to your result?! :-1:

2 Likes
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No. I just say, because 5 people made research and got around the same result, does not mean that other 1 million players have the same result.
Recently, there was a guy who did 260 TC20 pulls and got 8 5*. I am closer to his results and I claim his percentage is more correct