.Relics are a nightmare!!

• Fights now last A LOT with all these effects, so you always get attacked before spending your free attacks.
• The difference between high spenders and the rest is way bigger now. Before , I could win 130’s with lower monsters doing it fine, now all the people in legendary 2 and up have maxed relics who drain your stamina in 1turn, or reduce your max stamina to 0 , making your monster absolutely useless ( these ones are RIDICULOUS)
• all kind of bugs due to relics
• most of them are useless, only the ones you spend money are worth it, of course
• they have transformed some powerful monsters into something totally useless now, due to the ** stamina drain/refill
• now they use the trash ones to replace gems in pvp, with all kind of excuses. But 3seasons in a row without gems. It is pathetic.

This game is going into a direction of no return. It will be dead in less than a year, I am afraid. The gap between players is too big, unplayable for many people.

Edit: language per forum rules

Totally agree with you. 100%. There are some fights with all kind of effects each turn that I just want to quit. It is a pain to waste so much time in each turn. And then Uriel’s essences and the torture starts again...

Well they thought Thetys was OP but at least she needs to go first in order to drain stamina. She is also pretty much useless in her 2nd turn as a trade off.

Now with the staff and mask combo, monsters can drain you AND lower your max stamina so you can't even effectively recharge just by sitting there and get hit. With absolutely no down side.

Is a shame how much the game has deteriorated by the introduction of relics.

I like relics, simply because they introduce more diversity to the game.

Having said that I do agree with many of your points:

1. The relics that reduce maximum stamina are way too overpowered. The only thing your monsters can do is sit there and poop in the corner, hoping for a special. Stamina drain is fine, reducing maximum stamina is not. Of course there are ways around these relics, but since you cannot see them in PVP before pressing attack ....

2. Please introduce a lag of 10 minutes of your shield dropping when doing your attacks.. It makes no sense not being able to complete them.

Did anyone else noticed lately on their profiles. or teammates' profiles or even random player' profile that in some case mutliplayer stats and history are not updated? In many people I have checked lately the history indicates that the previous season was season 10. In these cases the numbers of attack and defense battles have not been reset for at least 2 seasons. At first I was thinking it comes from my game, but after checking all my teammates and seeing the same I also checked other players profiles with similar observation. So far only a handful of the profiles I checked appeared to be updated properly in term of stats and history. I was just curious to know if anyone observed that as well.

@xargul said in 9Let’s discuss seriously about relics.:

I was just curious to know if anyone observed that as well.

A bit off topic, but yes I did notice that.

@Ekto-Gamat Yes it was a bit more than off topic, sorry for that, was thinking being in pvp related thread.
So to be more related to this topic it appears clear that these stamina draining relics are starting to spread widely making fights a real pain: got a fight in which i was totally drained with legendaries max stamina reduced to 83, I think I had to recharge more times than using offensive skills; I finally won but that was a close and surprising one as all the enemies monsters were using these relics.

Yes, Exhausting Mask is pretty nasty. But I think it a good example of decent balancing:

Even a fully upgraded Exhausting Mask only reduces maximum stamina by 90, leaving 50 max stamina (without stamina runes).

And there are heaps of relics that give stamina back, at every rarity and type. It isn't too difficult to construct a team to overcome a single Exhausting Mask.

Where they can be very effective is when more than one is in play. Certainly, relics force me to decide when to use an aoe and when to snipe - no way I will trigger multiple masks with an aoe, over sniping (ohk avoids triggering the mask).

And that leads to the second part of the balancing: there aren't many monsters that can wear two masks - and those that can, tend to have low life and are therefore easier to snipe and avoid triggering the masks at all.

Anyway, there are only a few ways of dealing with an effective Exhaustion defence if it manages to get you locked (as far as I can see):

1. Hope for a special.

2. Use monsters that can do something with 0 stamina (mostly Nemesis, with Hydratila being the best for this).

3. Use a monster like Nox that can kill one of your own monsters, kill the gimped ally, then Resurrect it with Samael or Uriel or Gravedigger.

4. OHK the bastards with Masks. Not so easy when they carry life runes or Armour relics are in play.

5. Use attacks that do no damage but inflict DoT (they don't seem to trigger the relic).

6. Use stamina runes.

Generally, I enjoy the relics. They give me a bit more to think about when fighting (around target selection and kill timing, eg to use an opponent's Uriel Essence, to reset the turn order to my advantage; or triggering relics that increase max life when the opponents are not at max life and you have placed DoT etc).

It has become habit to examine enemy relics and cater for them.

@C0ntr1v3d You are right. It is certainly possible to construct teams that overcome draining masks. However, that requires planning, changing relics, runes and possibly even skills. It's fine to do this for wars, not so much for PVP when you cannot see the relics beforehand.

Although I suppose that over time we will grow used to what kind of monsters carry these things and anticipate them.

@C0ntr1v3d said in 9Let’s discuss seriously about relics.:

Anyway, there are only a few ways of dealing with an effective Exhaustion defence if it manages to get you locked (as far as I can see):

1. Hope for a special.

2. Use monsters that can do something with 0 stamina (mostly Nemesis, with Hydratila being the best for this).

3. Use a monster like Nox that can kill one of your own monsters, kill the gimped ally, then Resurrect it with Samael or Uriel or Gravedigger.

4. OHK the bastards with Masks. Not so easy when they carry life runes or Armour relics are in play.

5. Use attacks that do no damage but inflict DoT (they don't seem to trigger the relic).

6. Use stamina runes.

Just want to share my opinion on your proposed solutions:

1. A method that will fail 9/10 times (probability wise) is not really a solution. It is no longer a strategy game if you have to wish for a miracle to win. Is more like hitting a jackpot playing slots.

2. The main offender of the Mask + Staff strategy is Ruby. Of the monsters with 0 stamina cost move, I believe only Boltcaster and Llum is able to speed tie Ruby. Plague Carrier will get outspeed.

3. Assuming your Nox can KO the enemy team, doesn't he need at least 1 Strength rune? Even if you are using all Team Speed on Nox, while you are doing this killing ally and resurrecting, the other 2 on their team namely Nadiel and Llum is not just going to watch. And all these turns wasted just to counter 1 activation of the Mask. I can't say this is going to be an effective strategy.

4. OHK requires your hitter to have 1 Str Rune, meaning your team build is max 5 Team Speed. Elite Ruby defense teams are almost invariably 6 Team Speed. Letting Ruby get the first turn is heavily not going to be in your favor.

5. That is another very slim selection there and also not realistic.

6. Similar reason to why point 4 doesn't quite work

When a certain mechanic in a game is introduced that pigeon hole the players to use only one or two monsters to win with minimal way to counter it basically kills the diversity and is considered not balanced.

The proposed solution is already taking into account you have unlimited funding and all monsters available to you to counter. What about the players who can't pay 5k a month to keep up? Before relics, most teams can still be countered with other MONSTERS, even full nemesis ones. Now if you use certain relics, the MONSTERS has become irrelevant.

I appreciate you enlightening us with creative ways to counter this menace. However the problem here is really the imbalance it creates in the game, which should not be tolerated or justified.

@Portgas-D.-Ace

No, the issue isn't the mask. It is Ruby. The relic isn't the imbalance. The monster is.

@C0ntr1v3d said in 9Let’s discuss seriously about relics.:

@Portgas-D.-Ace

No, the issue isn't the mask. It is Ruby. The relic isn't the imbalance. The monster is.

I was referring to the Exhausting Mask + Revenge Staff combo that is commonly encountered in high tier PVP. The 2 monsters commonly running it are Ruby and Nadiel. Haven't noticed it on others.

I guess we don't have to worry about Exhausting Mask lowering Max Stamina anymore.

Thanks SP for listening and removing (soon to be implemented) this completely broken mechanic.

@C0ntr1v3d Hi. If you have nemesis then not ftp. Being ftp I dont like relics. I have no intention of buying any so bronze not much. Until relics can be see on opponents not interested.

Charge Mask
Charging Armour
Energizing Amulet
Energy Banner

Are all Bronze relics that negate energy drain. By now even ftp players should have obtained a pile of bronze relics and odds are they include at least one of those. Since they are useful across the board in any battle, upgrade them.

If max energy has been reduced to 50 but your relics replenish that 50, max stamina drain relics are not very effective. Just be aware of the Exhausting Mask and don't trigger it excessively. Snipe.

@C0ntr1v3d said in 9Let’s discuss seriously about relics.:

Charge Mask
Charging Armour
Energizing Amulet
Energy Banner

Are all Bronze relics that negate energy drain. By now even ftp players should have obtained a pile of bronze relics and odds are they include at least one of those. Since they are useful across the board in any battle, upgrade them.

If max energy has been reduced to 50 but your relics replenish that 50, max stamina drain relics are not very effective. Just be aware of the Exhausting Mask and don't trigger it excessively. Snipe.

Of the 4 you mentioned, only Energizing Amulet will work reliably, and also has 2 uses to counter the draining mechanic twice.

Charge Mask - Won't activate until you are hit AND also below 50% life. Chances are you are
either going to be dead after the hit or you are hit with a denial move.

Charging Armor - Won't activate until you are hit and only 1 use. So lets be generous and say it will help you 50% of the time.

Energy Banner - You have no control who will get the stamina so again not really a counter.

Just an FYI, even the dev team deemed the Max Stamina reduction to be too unbalanced, and is preparing for a change to the relic. But what it will turn into will likely be a massive and complete stamina drain when coupled with the staff when you decide to touch either Ruby or Nadiel.

https://forums.socialpointgames.com/topic/4586/bugfixes-21-12-2017

@Portgas-D.-Ace I completely agree with you here. I find the majority of relics for top level wars rather useless and the few useful ones I managed to obtain mostly don't fit my top monsters in most elements/books. In order to be able to use some of the ones I have, I would have to pick and rank up the appropriate monsters (not going to happen!) or I would need to acquire specific relics to fit onto my key ranked monsters which is unfortunately impossible due to the chest gambling system SP imposes on us.

I am not explicitly against relics, but currently they are of no use to anyone (except by sheer chance) other than top spending players that have a) a huge variety of ranked monsters and b) enough gems at their disposal to buy a few chests until they get what they want/need!

@David-ML
Couldn't said it better

Some of these relics look alike & very easy to sacrifice the wrong ones. If I'm lucky, I may get 2 bronze relics a week, mostly, just a measly one. & what's the big idea of only giving out bronze relic chests in the silly team races (individual rewards)...got 5 useless bronze relics for spending over a 1000 gems to come in 4th place overall in the group, & thanks for making this an expensive Christmas with back to back expensive team races! This game, started off with strategy & smarts, now, slowly, but surely, is turning into a gambler's paradise... we have winter book chests...! These relics are expensive trinkets that players are expected to gamble on to get & same here, I don't have a string of ranked up monsters to have 3 hogged up in PvP defence, nor to apply the appropriate "trinket"...biding my time, will ensure my team is secure, seriously not liking much in ML...I don't like playing a game that's depended on gambling...the original diversity would've worked better if I didn't have to buy 18, to sacrifice 17 fully fed level 100 monsters, in the first place! Sorry, if not everything's about relics, but they're all kinda linked.