Hearthstone Mercenaries Aren’t Hearthstone – Here’s What You Need to Know

Hearthstone Mercenaries is available today within the Hearthstone client. With this release, Hearthstone effectively becomes a platform, hosting the main Hearthstone game that you may be familiar with, which is a traditional digital card game, the Battlegrounds auto-battle game (auto-chess), and now a new game, Hearthstone Mercenaries. Let’s get some key information out before we dig deeper. Hearthstone Mercenaries:

• It does not use any of your existing Hearthstone collection.
• It uses the same in-game currency as Hearthstone, gold.
• It does not play by any of the same rules or mechanics as Hearthstone.
• It is turn-based and speed is a factor in abilities (i.e. a skill with a speed of 1 will activate before a slower, probably stronger, skill with a speed of 9).
• Players don’t build decks; instead bring a party of 6 characters to each bounty mission or PvP battle
• Characters level up, unlock new abilities, and get gear as you play them and get resources from missions.

Mercenaries is, in fact, a kind of compact RPG experience with some rogue-like qualities and variable elements to consider at each run. In each game through an area, the enemy fights may be different and some special boosts you receive are temporary. However, the experience points you earn and the resources you acquire are permanent, which means that your roster generally always grows stronger regardless of the outcome of the race. When you start the game, the options will be limited due to your character’s low levels and abilities; You’ll probably be limited to a single skill to use on each character for a while, and your list won’t be that great. . Think of this phase as you head to The Barrens as a kind of era in an early RPG where you’re killing rats, slimes, and spiders. While you won’t experience a lot of complexity or counterplay here, it will teach you the essential basics as you move towards a more difficult and interesting rate soon enough.

What should you try to learn here in your opening hours? Two things: the timing and the triangle of weakness. Basically, all the characters in Hearthstone Mercenaries are divided into three groups of archetypes. Protectors are your great warriors and fighters, Fighters are your most agile rogues, rangers, and beasts, and casters are your clerics, warlocks, and wizards. Each role is associated with a color, and that color is important because it dictates how combat will unfold through the triangle of weakness. Shields deal double damage to Fighters, Fighters deal double damage to Casters, and Casters deal double damage to Shields. There are also colorless and classless entities that have no strengths or weaknesses when it comes to battle.

At the most basic level, this means that if you go on a mission knowing that the boss is going to be an evil wizard of some sort, you probably want to stack your party with a team of fighters for the best chance of winning the day. Of course, that’s just a base-level strategy, but having the ability to deal double the usual damage to any target is a huge perk to start every battle, so keep that in mind. When it comes to PVP, you won’t be able to see the opponent’s board before you drop yours, which means there will be all kinds of meta-strategies in the pre-game builds, or maybe people will just start playing one of each kind. in an initial drop … we’ll have to see.

As you fight, upgrade character skills, and unlock some new characters, new options are easily presented. The complexity increases as characters unlock gear options, allowing you to fundamentally alter or enhance one of their abilities through gear. Eventually, your groups who would go in and simply farm minor dungeons and enemies with a skill will be tested in all sorts of challenges, some of which amount to time puzzles and others that are best served with interesting combinations and synergies.

Sylvanas, for example, is a good example of a character who isn’t really too impressive outside of a party designed to use her, but can turn into a huge wrecking ball when properly fed. Slyvanas can harness the souls of the fallen to greatly enhance their own attack prowess, and if handled creatively with, say, a ton of fodder as summoned characters designed to die, you can have an absolute banshee queen on the field. When all is said and done. With that said, don’t get too greedy because figuring out exactly when to get her on the board in this situation can be the tricky part. She can go out and upgrade herself to breakneck attack value, but if the battle is already very much in favor of the enemy with a readiness position, it may not matter at all.

If this doesn’t make any sense, that’s fine, it’s a lot easier to see in action than to explain. Other synergies are immediately obvious, like bringing all of your murloc champions together to create a fun and fishy moment. Not all pairings are so obvious, and playing with your list to try to find some combinations that are outside the easy options is quite satisfying.

Since Mercenaries is a free mode (it’s actually its own game) that gives you everything you need to play the game, the best way to find out exactly how it works is to go in and do a few battles.

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Does Hearthstone Mercenaries sound like your kind of game? Let us know in the comments below!