Mercenary mode and independent card tactics rewards

Blizzard Entertainment today released a new Mercenary Mode for hearthstone Thus expanding the indoor card game platform, which again gained popularity only with the battlefield mode apart from the traditional card duels. Mercenary mode is completely separate from all other modes and is in principle a turn-based tactical card game with roguelite elements.

In this mode (free in principle) a normal deck of cards is not required with the previous Hearthstone cards, but in this game variant you can collect all sorts of characters from the WarCraft world (as well as guests like Diablo) as mercenaries and send them on rewards generated from Procedurally in which other opponents or characters must be defeated. In the beginning, you only have a few mercenaries and the more rewards you complete, the more mercenaries you add. In addition, mercenaries level up with the experience points they have collected and become stronger (attack and life). In addition, their skills can be upgraded with the mercenary coins collected. A mercenary can also take one of three possible pieces of equipment into battle. Mercenary coins and items are collected through bounties or wait as rewards.

On the journey of collecting and upgrading through WarCraft rewards, your warehouse as the center of the game mode will be gradually expanded and equipped with more options – from PvP duels (the system of designating and rating your opponent) to daily quests, awarded by visitors around the campfire.

This bonus consists of several encounters with enemy battles or with event spaces on an extensive map. Before the bonus begins, you must, however, collect the most suitable mercenary squad with a maximum of six characters, whereby three mercenaries can fight side by side.

Each mercenary belongs to a class or color: protector (red), fighter (green) and forerunner (blue). Protectors are effective against Fighters, Fighters are effective against Spellcasters, and Spellcasters get a bonus double for damage against Protectors. So you have to adjust the forces to the expected types of opponents. If there are many spellcasters, you should take many fighters with you and not necessarily protectors. By the way, the first eight mercenaries were obtained in the course of the tutorial.

Blizzard: “Just like in traditional Hearthstone modes, when a character attacks an enemy, they deal damage equal to the value of their attack. But the damage dealt by the defender to the attacker is not doubled based on the roles of the mercenary. With varying spells and attacks, the defender cannot respond at all.”

Each mercenary has three skills that have a certain speed value. This speed value determines when and in what order the attack is performed in the round. Because all mercenaries have different skills, synergies arise between them, for example when orcs strengthen each other in attack or spells reveal a particular weakness. Certain keywords (for example, mysterious group or fire group) cause another effect to be cast if another mercenary casts a spell of this class at this turn. Or you can prepare everything to improve the character in a special way.

By the way: If one of the six mercenaries dies during the reward. This cannot be used until the end of the reward – or you can find a spiritual healer in the field. At the end, there is usually a boss as well as a treasure chest waiting.

At first, the mercenary mode reminded me of pet battles from World of WarCraft (à la Pokémon), where it was also important to confront the “pet classes” with pets. However, with Mercenaries, things get to work faster because the skill selection for each character is less, but the synergies and improvement effects are more critical and important. However, after several hours, it was not possible to estimate how extensive this situation was and how difficult the battles would be in the end. Even level 10 (with mercenaries) it was always enough to use the correct colors. The limit is 30 per character.

In addition, Blizzard can still work on understanding and visualizing combat action, which passes through places very quickly and only then has to look at the small fight log to see what happened in the fight in the blink of an eye. Eye.

Otherwise you collect a lot of mercenary coins on rewards, which are also available in heroic mode, which can not only be used to upgrade skills, but can also be used to produce rare, epic and legendary mercenary cards.

New mercenaries can also be obtained through Mercenary Packs, which ensure that each pack contains a mercenary card or photo. These mercenary packages win in the course of bonus contracts or you can buy them for real money – which, of course, speeds up the collection of mercenaries and quickly upgrade their skills. The three mercenaries Diablo, the Leach King, and Sylvanas, all of which are available to pre-order in packs, are also available without purchasing these packs with Mercenary Packs or through the in-game crafting function.

Blizzard: “Some upgrades are free and unlocked while you play, and others cost gold. When released, it will cost you 900 gold to upgrade your entire village: 100 to open the battle pit, 200 to upgrade the travel point (this unlocks the Heroic difficulty level to get rewards) ), 200 to upgrade the campfire (to add another space to the mission board) and another 400 gold to upgrade the campfire a second time (for an additional slot on the mission board).”

Many of Hearthstone’s daily and weekly missions will not be compatible with Mercenary Mode at launch. In any case, Blizzard would like to ensure more compatibility in the future.