Journey for better heroes - A painstakingly long road to TC20 (and beyond) for a F2P

Update time, not too much and something significant.

Since the last time, I was still saving gems while using whatever currencies are available. While I did finally manage to complete the S4 3* collection by getting Morris during one of the Underwild’s sessions, my second Dune coin pull gave me Jarif, the first S5 3* for the roster.

The Jarif pull could’ve been saved for the recently announced (at the time) Fated Summons since I won’t start any S5 contents until I finish S4, and won’t even start working on Jarif until I am done with my blue projects. But being a 3* he will take some priorities… But that priority changes when…

Today my HA10 spat out Isarnia and her costume, first costume. This was one of my most coveted goals since costumes were introduced, it almost seemed surreal that she finally did appear on my result screen. Her regular form went right back into HA10. The thing is, I’ve been saving all my gems (since October 2020 when I made the 30x Atlantis pull) just for one day Isarnia-C is featured in the costume chamber that I will try going for her.

Had the first costume been where $GG had stopped, I would’ve immediately shifted the gem spending to some other portals… But $GG had to go out and make 2nd costumes, which means… Isarnia is once again, incomplete, and I will continue be saving gems to try for her 2nd costume when she’s featured. Or until her 2nd costume come by the way of one of the future HA10 sessions (won’t be next week because you can’t get the same base hero than the one you sent in).

But yeah, one more 5* costume and it’s the one I had wanted the most, but now it’s her 2nd costume now on the hunt list.

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Congrats on your Isarnia costume.

Happy gaming

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Congrats on your C-Isa @Shohoku79! :partying_face::tada::confetti_ball:

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wowza you got the holy grail, the promised land! patience paid off!! enjoy!

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Those that know my play style to this game knows that I am a bit of an odd ball. Playin for Free, Don’t keep duplicate heroes, I don’t war or raid, and leveling heroes is a slow as molasses process because I don’t really queue 1* to 2* feeders and is now made even slower because all of my training camps are now running TC20 to maximize my ability to make a play at future Soul Exchange sessions.

That being said, there are also some things I won’t do when it comes to this game.

  • I do not do War of the Three Kingdoms (it’s a big huge raid party), nor would I plan on summoning in that portal. Not that I dislike the story of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, I just don’t believe the heroes belong in Empires and Puzzles. So while I can’t control who I would get if I go into these multi-event crossing portals, I just won’t ever do the event or summon the heroes out of principal, so you’d never see me acquire any 3 kingdom coins.
  • Art style is also important to me, recently these past few releases featured super deformed, chibi-style, heroes such as Celidana, Miriam/Midnight, Matilda, and Goopy, art style really does not seem to belong in the Empire and Puzzles, so I won’t actively summon for these heroes either.

Getting through the month of October, and bypassing chances of acquiring Celidana through various portals, November is here and it’s probably time to move the needle a bit on the Fated Summon portal. Noted above since Isarnia is not a featured costume choice in the Oct/Nov costume chamber, I won’t be dropping keys or gems in, which would equate approximately 1/3 of the entire Fated Summons if I went all out, but I am not going to.

So it’s the two EHT that I have left over, from the 6 used in October, which got me Ana-Belle earlier. Odd are so low that a somewhat friendly pull (Seasonal portals had always been a bit of a friendlier portal overall for me when it comes to unique heroes, maybe it’s EHT being used?) that I am more likely to get a dupe Vlad, Jack, or the Goopy Goop.

So last night after the calendar refreshed and I was still up (stayed up to finish a movie), tested a few waters with Silvers until I landed on a Gunnar, first EHT in gave me Caedmon (they really should start to include at the very least 1st costumes with these), the needle for the fated summon moved up by 1, but didn’t move any more because the 2nd EHT I dropped in got me Francine and her costume. This will be my second seasonal 5* and the first with the hero and costume.

I think I just found my solution to produce higher damage output against Blue Titans if I am looking at her cards correctly. But it will once again, take me a while to get her up and running and there are tons of work in progress ahead of her. Didn’t get Valeria again this year, but I think I am quite content at this outcome.

Even if for the rest of the month all I do is to move the Fated Summon counter needle, I shall remain quite satisfied.

Huzzah!

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It took me a week of savoring to fully get through this thread. I’m barely toe deep in this forum, but I think I’m safe saying Shohoku is a credit to the game.

Few random comments from a 5-month in Noob F2P:

I love reading about the “vanillia” 5. I know I’ll get there, but right now almost all of them are cool to me.
I feel I’ve been pretty lucky, I’ve already been blessed with getting upper-level players. I have twenty 4./5 heroes, the only dupes being Scarlett (costume) and Boldtusk, not a bad dupe to have.
*For some reason, the portals love giving me Reds, 10 of my uppers are Red. Blue and Green seem to be a bummer, although C-Lianna just brought me some joy.
Believe it or not, but my first 5 was Joon, and my second costume was Jahangir. And another early costume was Wu Kong. Sorry, Sho!!

Regards, all!

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Thanks for taking the time to read my longwinded journal entries since the start of my journey through E&P. Not only is it a running log of my unique hero acquisitions, it also serves as a little reminder of the state of E&P at the time of the entries.

At some point one has to realize though I am not endorsing the way I play this game to any one, only a reminder of how I choose to approach this game (F2P, no raid, no war, no dupe heroes, no active roster spending, etc.).

As long as I still play this game, I will still return to update the entries from time to time.

Appreciate the read.

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I, for one, appreciate someone who says they are going to do something and then they do it. Or stick to it. We could use more of that in the world!

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Fated Summon going, and things are going to be slow coming. With every gem opportunity being saved for Isarnia C2, every little bit of alternative currency counts. Aside from Challenge Coins that I will be saving for CF2, everything else is fair game.

Working a few Underwild Stages got me enough for some pulls, 3 out of the 5 turned out to be S1 3* is just still too much of odds of S1 and not even with costume is just disappointing. At least it moved the FS needle some. One is dupe Vollermork that was fed, and the other one Griffin, my first S4 4*, he’s definitely one of the first releases in S4 if I remember correctly. Reading his card I just thought he was going to be the one that’s going to be eating Cyprian’s lunch because his special bypasses through Ripostes.

Covenant Summon arrived earlier today, didn’t do it because I was tired so I dropped the coins in the morning. You’d think I’d be able to pick up some Monster Hunter heroes, but nope, super Kool-Aid pool had other plans.

Shrubbear (Dupe)
Guardian Bat (Dupe)
Prisca (Dupe)
Kailani (Dupe)
Jahangir (Dupe)

Again, with then S1 no costumes, ugh.

Then one of the Covenant Coins looked like they got stuck in the Gacha machine, and after a while reluctantly spat out Alfrike, controversial, often talked about Al-Freaky. Who will make my 3rd S3 5*. Honestly, I am not sure I will work on her right-away, too many other projects to work on and always 3* before 4*, before 5*, and I will likely finish some of the other 5* I had started before her.

The Fated summon needle moved just slightly this weekend.

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Thanks for bringing a lot of positivity- reminds me of when I was new, and even getting Rigard or Lianna was a big grand moment

It took me about 4 years to complete the vanilla 5* so hang in there! (Took me 16 months to complete the vanilla 4* for reference)

Thanks! I’m so early in this game, I’m just having fun trying to upgrade my talent and plow my way through the map stages. I enjoy reading about so many of the heroes, but realize I’ll never see most of them, so I’m going to just sit in my corner and be content. Lianna or Ana-belle might not be much to almost everybody, but they are way above what I’ve been fighting with, so I’ll happily try to level them up.

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That’s the attitude for enjoying this game :slight_smile:

There is something to be said about how weird RNG and timing works in this game. Leading up to the Soul Exchange 2, I didn’t think I was going to make a play for any of the tier 2 heroes, but a few random pieces falling into place (like getting S1 5* dupe in some portals or TC20 suddenly spat some out in the last minute), I had enough to pull Lady of the Lake out of SE2.

Back to the present, leading up to this here Soul Exchange 4, I once again had skipped SE3 (as I did SE1), and having a few dupes short of tier 2 (sitting at 13 dupes). It was going to be one of those, I might as well go for the skip instead of going for someone in Tier 1, not that I have all of them, but they just look a little on the meh side that I think I can do well without adding to my collection of now growing, unworked projects.

Then two days ago, TC20 spat out dupe 14, huh, this is interesting. Then I remember that last one sitting in the HA10 oven ready to come out too and on the same day the SE is to close too, thinking I might spend some gems to speed it along, but finally decided against it. Then I looked at the time left on the portal vs. how much time there is left on the HA10, I’ve got about 5 hours ahead of closing time.

But what if HA10 is spitting out a new hero that I would keep? That means I am going to end up skipping this SE any way. Surely my HA10 luck isn’t that good… Then the time came to collect, a dupe S1 5*, who would’ve gone right back into the oven, but it’s time to take another break on HA10 again.

Earlier the day I had hoped that some of my TC20s who were finishing up their sessions would spit out some dupe 5* so I can keep the HA10 going. So I waited for my last one that would finish before SE closes to spit out a dupe food before I sent the dupes in and collected Ludwig.

There is some significance with this one. He is (aside from my second dark 5* this month and needing to wait to be worked on):

  • My first CoK hero
  • My first taunt 5* after having only Shrubbear at the 3*
  • My first 5* acquired where I don’t already have at least a 3* or 4* from the same event

I made it known to just about everyone I know who play this game I hated CoK the event. Ludwig on the stages isn’t someone I felt compelled to despise when being faced, probably because unlike Black Knight, he doesn’t do the just a scratch insult. I much hated dealing with Wolfgang, Quintin, and Rayne more after having to be softened up by their lackies first before they came in for the kill.

Is it me or did his full body portrait look kind of awkward, like it’s off centered?

Sure I would’ve liked to keep HA10 going, But it’s good to lighten the roster load again. Now it’s just waiting for the next dupe 5* to show to start cooking HA10 again.

Until next time.

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Congrats on your Alfrike @Shohoku79! :partying_face::tada::confetti_ball:

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Wow nice heroes from SE, might have to call you a micro whale in future…

Happy gaming

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Hah, you mean hero (singular) from SE. Sure, I’d probably still decided to wait for a future SE if dupe 14 didn’t show up when it did instead of taking someone in tier 1, but since it did, and I had already picked up Alfrike a few days before, it made picking up Ludwig now making that much more sense than the other choices on the board for all the reasons I specified.

A micro whale? Hardly, there is still so many heroes in this game that I don’t have, and aside from S1 5*, I’ve never gotten dupe 5* from any other source, events, seasonal, and HoTM alike, so it’s all, just grinding, timing, and sometimes when things need to fall into place when they did.

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Traveled with family a few days a few days ago. My daughter who was in first grade already let out starting on Monday, so counting the weekends, she would have no school for a total of 9 days. Back when I was going to school, we still had classes the 3 days leading up to Thanksgiving, and a half day on Wednesday if we are lucky. Let’s call this for what this really is, a Fall Break (as opposed to Spring Break), for the children.

During the travels, Black Friday summons appeared, while I was going to allow myself 2 gem summons, I still had to take a good long few minutes to go through the entire list of heroes (minus the S1 vanillas) from the portal once, then the summons happened. You’d think with as many new heroes since the last Black Friday portal, there would still be some chances for me to acquire someone new on single summons.

Not so, dupe Bauchan and dupe Sally. HA5 and CF candidates. Exact same thing happened during Summer Solstice Summon this year, dupe Grevle and dupe Frosty.

After some time away from the game, looking at the gem inventory, I am still a bit closer to my already banked gems for 3 x 10 summons when the next Costume Chamber comes (and if Isarnia is not featured, it’s more gem saving time) than I am to a 4th 10x. So I just allowed myself two more tries, and those would be it.

At a different area and on a mobile network, I got new Ribbit and new Wren to add to the roster. Not a single monster hunter hero to prep myself for the upcoming Monster Island events, but it’s ok, still new heroes to work on.

Fated Summon moved by 4 this Thanksgiving.

Until next time.

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Just kidding…
:smile:

Happy gaming

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Approaching the end of the month where I essentially didn’t even bother playing a single S3 stage when Valhalla was here (didn’t feel like hunting Gnomes) or S5 stage when Dunes are here (don’t want to touch S5 until I am done with S4), relative calm and uneventful rest of Thanksgiving weekend.

But since making the exchange for Ludwig, and waiting for more chips to come so I can get HA10 started again, all those extra recruits that couldn’t translate to HA10 resources got used in HA1 so I can start pushing my 3* projects up the charts a bit. But those HA functions really do need that Claim All button. The 3*s mostly ate pretty well where some of them ended up being maxed.

On Sunday evening the HA10 break is over when a TC20 spat out a Sartana who went to that other building, having HA4 to manage recruits, troops, iron management sure made things easier than just with a Forge, not that I don’t want HA to have another function. Later that night TC20 spat out a Khagan, there started the dupe pool heading towards the next SE.

Monday came, and here comes the Tavern of Drunkards, bypassed the previous summoning attempt because of Fated Summons. The odds are so abysmal here for anything unique that these should just be treated as Fated Summon counter movers. I had enough for 3 summon attempts, Grimm, Karil and Sabina. Yup, there is no point saving Tavern coins because of the odds for a past HoTM sucks so much here.

But I did end up getting Morax on that first Taverns pull, November 2022 HoTM. Seems like a 5* version of Fura. That’s 3 Purple 5* that just got added to my roster relatively quickly that will be vying for time, resources, and mats. Got to finish up 3* and 4* first, then it’s back to the 5* again, I won’t be short of purple projects for a while, it seems.

Too lazy to figure out if Taverns will still be around when the month turns December, if so, I guess I drop my 2 summon attempts from finishing the Tavern quest in for December HoTM, if not, no harms done, I will just wait for the next Taverns.

Until the next update.

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Congrats on your Morax @Shohoku79! :partying_face::tada::confetti_ball:

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