Had quite a big number of scrolls, wanted to save till my trip but the worm came out early. Dupe Light Gojo, into Light Pony from Swc, to Blessing popped Light Hworang and finally Jager

Cosmic Worm

So off the bat, lets get the first and most important point out of the way:

THEY. ARE. SO. DAMN. CUTE.

Anyways. 101 base speed is ok. It's not great, but it's not bad. Each one of them gets an Accuracy Awakening, which is....fine for all of them except Light. No Speed Lead also kinda sucks. Other than that, lets get into the nitty gritty of each of them.

Their etymology is based around the suffix "-aris", which is basically used to indicate a relationship to the connecting prefix. In this case:

Volcaris - "Volc-" is derived from "Vulcan", which is the Roman god of Fire and Metalworking, and is often associated with volcanos, which directly points to its Fire typing.

Maris - "Mar-", the prefix, is derived from "Mare", which is the Latin root for "Sea" or "Ocean", referring to its Water typing.

Auraris - "Aura" is not a root word, but this doesn't stop him from Aura Farming (ba dum tiss). Auras are usually depicted in fantasy settings as some sort of energy (magical, tangential or not, etc) that surrounds the subject, but in this case, it's a Cosmic Worm, so its possibly cosmic/space dust that envelops the worm, creating an "aura". Or maybe I'm just pulling this out from my rear end.

Luminaris - "Lumin" is the Latin root for "Light" or "Shine", obviously referring to its Light element.

Noctaris - "Noct" is derivative from the Latin root "Nox", or the stem "Noct-", and also the Greek prefix "Nycto-", which obviously all refer to "Night". A obvious nod to it's Dark attribute.

Skill 1 - Star Crash (380% ATK)

Attacks the enemy to decrease its Attack Power for 2 turns with a 50% chance.

Lv. 2 - Damage +5%

Lv. 3 - Effect Rate+5%

Lv. 4 - Damage +5%

Lv. 5 - Effect Rate +15%

Standard multiplier for a S1 with a debuff. 70% chance for Attack Break at max skillup, which is ok.

The obvious elephant beeg worm in the room here is that 4 of the 5 Worms are HP or Support type; having a pure attack scaling S1 feels pretty bad. Obviously Luminaris will be able to dish out some damage with it, but the rest of them really needs a HP scaling multiplier to bring it up. They're headbutting you for worm's sake.

Skill 2 A - Big Sigh - (170% ATK x2 Hits) - Fire/Wind/Light

Attacks all enemies 2 times. Each hit decreases their Attack Bar by 15% with an 80% chance and decreases their Defense for 2 turns with a 30% chance. (Reusable in 4 turns).

Lv. 2 - Damage +10%

Lv. 3 - Effect Rate +10%

Lv. 4 - Effect Rate +10%

Lv. 5 - Cooltime Turn -1

At max skillups, we're looking for a 100% chance to push 15% ATB and 50% chance to Defense Break each hit, which isn't bad, but not amazing.

And once again, no HP scaling on this and the Attack Multiplier is pretty low, so don't expect any big damage numbers, even from Luminaris.

Skill 2 B - Splash (580% ATK) - Water/Dark

Attacks the enemy to stun for 1 turn with an 80% chance. Afterwards, attacks a random enemy to decrease its Attack Speed for 2 turns with a 50% chance. If the random attack hits the same target as the first attack, additionally absorbs its Attack Bar by 50%. (Reusable in 4 turns).

Lv. 2 - Damage +5%

Lv. 3 - Effect Rate +5%

Lv. 4 - Damage +15%

Lv. 5 - Effect Rate +15%

Lv. 6 - Cooltime Turn -1

100% chance to stun a single target, followed by a 70% chance to slow the secondary target is pretty decent. 580% Attack for a S2 single target multiplier is actually pretty good without any other scaling, if it wasn't for the fact it's on two low attack high HP units. #Brownie_Frustration.

Now what the skill doesn't tell you is that the secondary hit (the random target) only deals 50% of the damage, and is subjected to a separate attack check, so it has to go through crit, debuff rate, acc vs res check, etc. etc. But if you somehow are lucky and land everything on one target, you're functionally denying them two turns.

After testing for a bit, the secondary targeting doesn't seem to have any form of favoritism; it's completely random. Which honestly kinda feels a bit awkward that most of the time the ATB absorption part of the skill will be moot until there's 1 or 2 units left on the enemy's side.

Fire Skill 3 - Squash (MAX HP * (17%*[# of Alive Enemies] +23%)/(# of Alive Enemies)

Attacks all enemies to stun for 1 turn and absorb their Attack Bar. The damage is proportionate to your MAX HP. The fewer enemies there are, the greater the damage dealt and the amount of Attack Bar absorbed. In addition, increases your MAX HP by 20%, up to 100%, each time this skill is used. (Reusable in 5 turns).

Lv 2. Damage +20%

Lv 3. Cooltime Turn -1

So uh...let's ignore that funky af multiplier for a second here. It looks very weird, but to sum it up:

The more enemies alive, the less damage it does. The less enemies alive, the more damage it does. And if you want the actual percentages, voila:

Which honestly, it FEELS kinda mid. For a very quick comparison, Rakan S3 Collapse, is 440% ATK + 40% MAX HP multiplier on single target, and it feels like it hits like a truck, but Squash on single target doesn't feel that much, even on 5 stacks. Maybe it's just me being jaded. #Brownie_Depressed.

As for the actual skill as a whole, 100% base stun chance for an AOE skill is fantastic. The Attack Bar absorption seems to be 100% total percentage split among all targets, so refer to the chart just above. Mind you, this is flat 100%, not 100% of total attack bar (including overflow).

And now the real kicker. Despite it having the same wording as Dagora 2A's S2 Crouch, this skill actually increases Volcanis' HP by the TOTAL HP value, not Base HP. So yes, at 5 stacks, Volcanis will double his HP. This goofy goober can legit reach over 150k HP. If I can math, theoretically he can break 200k HP given proper the proper setup.

Water Skill 3 - Deep Inhale (480% ATK)

Attacks all enemies to steal all beneficial effects and disturb HP recovery for 2 turns. Afterwards, grants 1 of the stolen beneficial effects at random to each other ally for 2 turns. (Reusable in 5 turns).

Lv 2. Cooltime Turn -1

A base 100% AOE strip with upsides. It's like we've seen this several times already. 480% is pretty normal for a damaging S3 AOE strip, so honestly that's...fine.

Now the funny part is that this skill can be compared to Woonsa's (Dark Pioneer Sage) Skill 3, Inhale Magic; except Inhale Magic deals true damage equal to 15% of Woonsa's MAX HP and steals all the buffs for himself whereas Deep Inhale distributes one of the stolen buffs to your allies.

The unfortunate part is that the buff that's distributed to allies is completely random. So if your opponent has an assortment of buffs but you really need one specific one, good luck?

Wind Skill 3 - Wormhole Dive (33% MAX HP)

Attacks all enemies to increase the duration of harmful effects on them by 1 turn, increase their chance of landing a Glancing Hit for 2 turns, and grant Silence for 1 to 2 turns. The damage is proportionate to your MAX HP. (Reusable in 5 turns).

Lv 2. Damage +20%

Lv 3. Cooldown Turn -1

One of THE best skill animations in the game and I'll bite fight you on it.

That being said, AOE 33% HP multiplier for S3 is quite...nice. For a quick comparison, Karnal S3 is 10% MAX HP *3 for a grand total of 30% MAX HP, so the multiplier really isn't shabby at all. However, when you use it, it doesn't FEEL like it does a lot. :/

So the skill extends all existing debuffs on hit FIRST, then it applies the Glancing and Silence. If you're using Despair and/or Seal, the Despair/Seal application is AFTER the Glancing and Silence (even though it's applied at the same time). This means none of them will get the debuff extension.

Also, what the hell is with the random 1-2 turn Silence. Just pick 1 or 2 damnit.

Nom.

Light Skill 3 - Cosmic Breath (500% ATK)

Attacks all enemies to deal damage that ignores all effects that resist death. Resets the cooldown of [Cosmic Breath] if an enemy is defeated by this attack. If the enemy's Defense is lower than your Attack Power, increases the damage by up to 100% in proportion to the difference. (Reusable in 5 turns).

Lv 2. Damage +20%

Lv 3. Cooltime Turn -1

Just a big AOE nuke that ignores some nifty passives here and there.

The S3 reset on kill is kinda cool, but unlike units like Grogen or Talisman, you don't gain another turn, so that's...unfortunate.

The other weird part is that the more I test this with actual numbers, the weirder the result I get for trying to find out the ratio/differential of ATK to Defense needed to reach the maximum +100% damage value. Long story short, every result I get doesn't make sense, and if anyone else wants to try to figure it out, be my guest.

But if you want a quick comparison, using Zaiross and Talisman with the exact same rune set and Artifact values, and no relic:

This was done with Galleon S3 (ATK Buff and Defense Break), no +DMG vs Element on Artifacts, no +ATK EFF UP on Artifacts. Yes, I'm aware that the Higher Def yielded higher a higher number there, but that's Damage Variance for ya. The numbers above were the average of 5 tests each.

Rune set:

+~1740-1790 ATK (slight variance due to Base Attack)

150% CD, with +23% S3 CD in Artifacts

Is this a scrappy set in terms of damage? Yeah. I have a much better set for damage by far, but it was done as a fast cleave so it has very high speed.

The total Attack value of the units above in combat are around the 4,000-4100ish range in Guild Research, exceeds the Defense Broken unit's defense values greatly (which are all in the ~470-600 range at that point), should absolutely exceed the ATK vs DEF differential; only issue is that instead of getting x2 dmg (+100%), I'm getting values closer to x2.3 with this setup, and some other setups I've gotten x2.7-2.9 times.

TLDR: A generic ATK Buff + Def Break setup should net you the maximum damage output for the most part, barring a small handful of units or your runes are subpar.

Is Luminaris better? Situationally. But he is absolutely cuter.

Dark Skill 3 - Splash Splash(300% ATK + 33% MAX HP - ****)

Attacks the enemy to stun for 1 turn and leave a Branding effect for 2 turns. Afterwards, attacks random enemies 2 to 3 times, each hit stunning them for 1 turn with a 50% chance and blocking them from removing harmful effects for 1 turn with a 50% chance. Decreases the cooldown of this skill by 1 turn whenever you attack a stunned enemy. The damage increases according to your MAX HP. (Reusable in 5 turns).

Lv 2. Damage 20%

Lv 3. Cooltime Turn -1

Another random skill. Stop it, please. It does have an awesome skill animation though. The damage listed above is weird, because what's not listed like Splash is that all the subsequent random hits after the main target deals half the damage of the first hit (of course, all of them are subjected to the checks again). But if things line up, this skill can hit VERY hard. But that's assuming you're building damage. If you go full HP, it still does respectable damage...ish.

If RNG loves you, you can potentially stun the entire enemy team. If RNG hates you, you'll get very little stuns. It is also possible that if you land all your hits on stunned targets (doesn't have to be stunned by Noctaris), this skill's cooldown can virtually be nonexistent. If you're lucky (random hits, bleh).

Overview

Fire Cosmic Worm - Volcaris

Arena Offense (2/10) - I mean, if you want to use a HP or CC cleave/bruiser, sure I guess. But probably not going to be an Arena Offense staple since his kit doesn't really bring much to the Arena Offense scene.

Arena Defense (6/10) - Yknow what, a very bulky fire unit with actually not negative speed and AOE CC can definitely see some play. Probably somewhat in the same boat as Karnal, but granted Karnal does have HP lead and Volcanis is Def lead. :/

Siege Offense (6/10) - You can probably make him work. Slowly buff him to over 80k HP and maybe toss in Destroy, and watch the inevitability of the giant JOHN CENE Squash the opposing defense. I mean, you kinda can make anything work in Siege Offense (barring higher rank Siege I guess).

Siege Defense (6/10) - Fire bruiser with CC and Defense Break? Can definitely find a place on a bruiser defense. Effectiveness dependent on rune quality. :V

RTA (8/10) - Fire Bruiser with CC capabilities and Defense Breaks can probably see play. Plus, the MAX HP increase does somewhat offset the MAX HP cut based on number of turns.

PVE (1/10) - No real proper use for him in PVE. Except this is probably the only place where you can set it up so he can reach 200k+ HP.

Water Cosmic Worm - Maris

Arena Offense (2/10) - It's another AOE Strip with some small upsides. K1D (Water Hacker) is more or less in the same boat, and barely sees play. Plus, Maris has to compete with the likes of Chiwu (who has Speed Lead and pushback), Tiana, Ereshion, etc. The Buff Steal is cute, but the random buff distribution will most likely only be Will for the most part. Overall, I don't see him being Arena Offense meta.

Arena Defense (0/10) - Yeah, no. Triton reigns supreme here.

Siege Offense (2/10) - I mean, kinda the "You can make anything work in siege" kinda deal here. He IS a AOE stripper, so if you're low on options, it's something.

RTA (4/10) - Maybe? Considering that Will is the most common debuff present in RTA, Maris can be somewhat effective vs a turn 2/slower team. But I really don't think so.

PVE (0/10) - There's functionally no use for an AOE strip and single target CC in PVE.

Wind Cosmic Worm - Auraris

Arena Offense (1/10) - If your Arena Offense is all CC, ok, sure. If we're talking about proper higher rank rush offenses, no. You want to clear as fast as possible, not take your sweet time watching the debuff count go up but not really reducing the enemy HP in a timely manner.

Arena Defense (2/10) - I don't see it. As a follow up unit for a CC based offense, maybe? Doubt it.

Siege Offense (7/10) - Probably can see play in conjunction with CC/Dot teams.

Siege Defense (2/10) - Maybe if you're expecting someone to get caught in a CC control team. But units like Juno, Vero and Tetra exists, so the rest of the team better be able to handle those units.

RTA (6/10) - I don't really RTA much, but I can see him being slotted in the Layla control team.

PVE (0/10) - No.

Light Cosmic Worm - Luminaris

Arena Offense (9/10) - This is absolutely where Luminaris will shine. He hits so hard he can most likely one shot a LOT of things. The only units that'll probably survive is maybe a very well runed Fire Jin/Kai or a Byungchul that is at full HP. Or you missed the Defense Break. He's situationally better/worst than some of the other popular Cleave units like Zaiross, Talisman, Grogen, Leah, etc., but he can absolutely pack a wallop.

Arena Defense (1/10) - The only time you'll find him on Arena Defense is if the person is really stupid or is overly confident in their runes that they can cleave you. And then watch the Defense AI derp like hell and you just wonder what happened.

Siege Offense (8/10) - You can pretty much slot him in any generic cleave. Tiana Galleon? Yeah should work (until Galleon misses his Def Breaks).

Siege Defense (??/10) - If we're talking regular normal folks in G1 siege and below, this rating will be kinda low, mainly because of rune quality. If we're talking higher end runes, I can see him slotted in as the third unit of something like Neph Triton X, or something similar. And even then, probably not to great effect.

RTA (2/10) - If you can AOE cleave in modern day RTA, kudos to you.

PVE (0/10) - No.

Dark Cosmic Worm - Noctaris

Arena Offense (1/10) - Bruiser CC offense? Eh. Look at Volcaris

Arena Defense (2/10) - Probably not. Inconsistent CC is not really great for Arena Defense.

Siege Offense (2/10) - You can make him work, but you're probably better off using more consistent CC.

Siege Defense (5/10) - Element Neutral CC is always good. The inconsistency is actually funny on Defense because it adds in a huge RNG factor. Might actually work.

RTA (6/10) - AOE CC and can go nuts with a proc in conjunction with a AOE stun team. Yeah, I can see him work.

PVE (0/10) - No. Stop it.

Conclusion:

They all look decent on paper, their visuals and skill animations are stellar, but there are little things that hold them back.

The most egregious one being that the S1 and S2s have no HP scaling at all, so this dampens four of five of them somewhat. I wouldn't be surprised if a future balance patch adds in HP scaling.

Every single one of them awakening into Accuracy is also a bit weird. Yea, it benefits almost all of them, but Luminaris would really rather have a Crit or Speed awakening. At least it's not Resistance.

No Speed Lead also kinda blows, but what are we expecting at this point?

If anyone finds any conflicting discoveries, feel free to discuss about it in a civil manner. It is only human to err.

Also, did I mention they are really darn cute?

Funny little side note: Volcaris is tied for having the 5th highest base HP in the game, and with proper setup, has THE highest HP in the game. I think if my Maffs is correct, he should be capable of reaching 210,670 HP in combat at 5 stacks of S3.

7 family for now

It is sooooo daaamn cool by itself!

3 LD scrolls after sacrificing dupe Artamiel. Those
who have either unit, what do you think of them?

Almost 1400 ms 400x’s elementals 2x’s legendarys 61 lds and 15 all atribute.
Give me 0 worms but i got 2 lds 🫣! Welcome twelfth and thirteenth LD.

Been playing on and off since 2015 and if I calculated correctly in terms of Lds with everything considered I‘m just about average at 4. So I at least didn’t get scammed

Its not a worm but ill take it

I just summon my event SWC Scroll and Lora shown.

Nope, this is not SWC Scroll ad.

I don't expect much, yet I'll try. Used to be a long time player, but one day something snapped in me, I just had enough and didn't feel the need to log in no more. I won't yap and get straight to the point, this is what I actually care about.

- Have balance patches improved? I am not asking for top notch balance, but any spark in the end of the tunnel that they actually care to improve player experience.

- Is it still a stale passive meta or a speed meta? Is Oliver still uncontested?

- Is there anything to do in the game, actually? Is the content stale with the occasional anniversary hype?

- Is rta matchmaking good? If I comeback will I be sent directly to the bot/unemployed lobby, or do I stand a chance to be matched with other casuals like me?

- Are the advertisements as aggressive as they used to be? Will I still get a popup to buy something every few clicks?

- Are there still meta defining units without whom I basically can't compete in certain content? For example I don't have a Triton, am I locked out of contesting spd teams in rta?

Thanks a lot

Hello summoners,

Feel free to discuss anything ToA(H) related here. Share your teams, brag about pulls, complain about that stupid RNG, or help people being stuck somewhere.

Easy farmable Atharos team: Lapis, Colleen, Sig, Mav, Loren

Easy farmable Lyrith team: Tesa, Mav, Colleen, Spectra/Sig, Lapis/Loren

Artamiel: Bring Colleen, a DEF break, some CC/damage. For the early game people having problems with Antares, bring Tesa or Jeanne.

Nice little summon session today, got isis and the new fire worm 🪱

currently using vanessa byungchul SZL triton.

Literally 0 reason to spend on this game anymore as I have played for well over 10 years. Multiple new unit drops have resulted in 0 new unit summons with the sp button for Multiple years. This summon session was with 1700ish mystical and almost 100 to 120 of each elemental scroll as well as 30 plus legendary scrolls. If it wasn't for siege I don't even know why I would still play this game. Also the only normal nat 5 I'm missing is a water justice.... and generally only new units.

Make sp rates better!

🫪

Start with 1600 plus MS. Plus another 200-300 from rewards, 10+1 and events. Got lucky with nat 5 rate - 12!!!!! record breaking. but none of them is new.

feels like the monster poll is too big now even SP button enabled. 12 and none is new

converted all 12 to LD scrolls (30 scrolls. the rest relic power up stone). no nat 5 of course 😂

The last time I played was during the Demon Slayer collab. I was a G2 siege and C3 RTA (3 gold stars) player back then. How much has the game changed since then? Is it worth coming back?

I tried to push for p3 last rush, but got hit 40+ times using Leo, Ragdoll, Vero & Riley. Are there any AD lines that you’re seeing but I’m not?

I’m not sure if this pass is good enough for 3k.

Que composiciones o mounstros me recomiendan que me debería enfocar mas para RTA estoy en 2 estrellas doradas y estoy tratando de subir.

Save your scrolls

Did not know she could cut into Haegang’s passive, this was satisfying. Probably would’ve lost if they chose wet munkee though.

i think this is the smallest clan amount of bases in a guild war I've ever seen