Introduction

Enchanting is a new and exciting mechanic to come to Creature Quest as it allows players to further customize their Creatures to fulfill various roles. Enchants can range from basic (but powerful) stat boosts to healing upon deathblows and improved critical strike chance.

However, the Enchants you gain are randomized and cost varying levels of resources based on Bronze, Silver, and Gold tiers. While there will naturally be stronger/better enchants, most are meaningful to a certain degree and some have interesting uses.

This article will summarize my thoughts on Enchanting, provide guidance to min/max your usage, and how the system can be improved.

Video commentary

–video coming soon–



What are Enchants?

Enchants come in 4 flavours and are referred to by their primary Kingdoms resource required and have a loose typing associated with them:

Wood/Courage : Defensive enchants

: Defensive enchants Ore/Honour : Offensive utility

: Offensive utility Sulfur/Spirit : Supportive utility/debuffing

: Supportive utility/debuffing Mercury/Wrath: Offensive damage

In addition to this, each type of Enchant has 3 different tiers: Bronze, Silver, and Gold that all have varying degrees of cost and potency.

However, the goal of Enchants is to add another layer or dimension of power to your Creatures to help you achieve new levels of greatness.

Some Enchants are naturally stronger while others have more merit/value depending on the game mode you are playing. On this train of thought, Bosses tend to benefit the most from flat stat Enchants as only these are multiplied in a Dungeon.

Kingdom resources

All Enchants cost varying degrees of Kingdom resources. While each Enchant has a different cost, the ratio of each resource remains constant across so there is no “discount” Enchant. However, due to the demand of Wood and Ore for the majority of your Kingdom experience at the beginning, these may be in shorter supply so your first Gold Enchants may often be in Sulfur or Mercury.

Enchants also demand heavy Scroll (Kingdoms research resource) usage which is Fantastic as it now lends more value to Libraries that use Tomes and Compendiums which are a relatively non-contested resource.

Enchanting values

All Enchants feature a value range that increases as you move up from Bronze, Silver, and finally Gold. Unfortunately, the increase in potency does not scale linearly with the increase in price which can often lead to one trying to Min/Max a lower tier enchant as it would cheaper than gambling on a pricier one.

The following table showcases all of the ranges for each Enchant at each level. Click to open in a new window to improve visibility.

Wood/Courage Enchants

Wood or Courage Enchants can be best classified as those that enhance the durability of your Creature. However, only half of them are truly viable and this can change depending on which game mode you are playing through.

Universally speaking, the flat HP is the strongest Courage Enchant as it always provides value regardless of which game mode is used. However, Protection and flat damage reduction against Specials are valuable in a PvP setting.

When you are attacking opposing dungeons, it is the Special Abilities that kill your Creatures. Thus, if we were to compare the best Gold Enchants of each, it would require an attack of 33,333 to equalize the 15% reduction versus 5,000 health. Unfortunately, this is not a realistic number as the most damaging defenders will not deal sufficient damage to justify this (and you are probably dead as well); however, this is the second best durability Enchant.

By comparison, +Protection has merits, especially for defending Bosses as they already have naturally higher LUK which may result in a more consistent resistance of debuffs. Damage reduction against Basic Attacks can be useful in challenging PvE encounters.

Altering damage when at full or half HP is not practical for the most part as their window of opportunity is too small to feasibly work. You are almost never at full health and when below half you may just simply die anyway.

Finally, reduced damage from debuffed/burn & poison is too conditional to work and should honestly be removed because they may not actually apply to your Creature as not everyone is able to debuff an opposing Creature.

Ranking for Courage:

Health Damage reduction vs Special Protection Damage reduction vs Basic Attacks All the rest

In fact, Bronze HP is more efficient than any other Silver Enchant unless you are on the receiving end of a Special Ability that deals 11,111 damage (this equals to 1,000 damage reduction which equals the HP boost) when looking at the top value of both Enchants.

Ore / Honour Enchants

Ore or Honour Enchants can be best categorized as a hybrid offensive / utility trait. While the stat altering ATK and DEF are tremendously powerful, the +DMG to Large and Bosses is the best Enchant for defending Creatures.

Unfortunately, this can then lead to problematic scenarios for Creatures that rely on ATK or DEF for their Special Abilities as you will not be able to double dip compared to PWR and LUK Creatures.

Looking at the other possible Enchants, the Counterattack with Basic Attack is poor for most non-Boss Defenders while the Mana burn seems too unreliable overall (the entire Mana Drain mechanic is strange at the moment).

Finally, the increased damage against Yellow and Red HP may look strange at first, but can have minor applications for both Dungeon Offense and Defense.

Yellow HP occurs at 50-25% while Red HP is found at 24-1%. Unfortunately, the Yellow damage is lost once the Creature turns Red. On the bright side, if you understand how your Offense team works, you can plan for specific Creatures to have the bonus damage versus Yellow to potentially push a defender down low enough for your next member to finish off. While this is a limiting scenario, it can be worked with but probably has more applications in PvE. From a defender point of view, the bonus damage versus Yellow may execute an attacking Creature.

Ranking for Honour

+DMG to Large/Boss (defenders) ATK and DEF All the rest but can vary from Creature to Creature

Sulfur / Spirit Enchants

The Sulfur / Spirit Enchants are best categorized as supportive utility and debuffing. While it may not feel as flashy as the other 3 types at first glance, it is home to some of the most powerful Enchants in the game when reaching Gold Tier.

First and foremost, LUK is a universally beneficial Enchant as it improves all aspects of a Creature and has even more value on those that scale with LUK. Furthermore, like all stat-boosting Enchants, it has tremendous value on Bosses as it can dramatically lower the chances of debuffs landing.

However, LUK is not always the clear winner for the best Spirit Enchant as the power of deathblow self and AoE healing quickly ramps up in Gold.

At first, I was skeptical rolling a Gold AoE %PWR heal on my Phoenix, but is has transformed by fiery chicken into an off-healer. Deathblow still occurs if you use a burn or poison and if you have a dedicated card you funnel mana into, you can greatly benefit from the deathblow healing.

With a range of 30-40% PWR, it would not be uncommon to heal each Creature for 1,200-1,500 health with every kill and if you are funneling mana into this Creature, you will have successfully gained an off-healer. Conversely, the self healing after a Deathblow can translate into 7,000-9,000 health which instantly makes a defending Boss a true monster or various high-damaging Creatures self sufficient.

Being able to generate an extra mana ball is wonderful, but unreliable even at 40%. This is because you often carefully build your team and combo dot colours to have just enough mana available to your funneling target and nothing is left to chance. Thus, it can be too unreliable in PvP and probably worthless for defenders.

25% chance to apply a 25% poison or burn is interesting but too slow to be a truly competitive option. Despite the fact that this type of damage ignores defense, the additional damage is usually too slow to take effect in PvP. Most Creatures do not live long enough to see 2 turns of the DoT tick and at only 25% PWR the actual damage is quite low (maybe 750-1,000 at best). These also have no effect if your team already has a burn/poison as only the highest value is applied. However, one interesting combo is using a row-based basic attack as all of the hits have the chance to apply the DoT.

Conversely, the 25% chance to apply a 20% stat debuff is too random and underwhelming to be of true value. 20% debuff of a single stat (especially if it hits an unimportant one) will have little overall effect. Perhaps if it was a higher percent and extended to one more it could be viable.

Finally, the self cleanse on basic attack is far too situational to be a reliable enchant. This is further compounded by the low 15% chance.

Spirit Enchant rankings

LUK / Deathblow healing Burn / Poison debuff Extra mana ball Stat debuff Self cleanse

Mercury / Wrath Enchants

Wrath Enchants are home to some of the most powerful and potentially game breaking traits a Creature can inherit. This is because it can potentially grant 800 PWR which will dramatically alter the potential of your Creature. Naturally, defenders that rely on PWR will want to gain as much as possible but the real terror can occur on AoE-oriented abilities.

Generally speaking, AoE specials are carefully scaled down in damage to compensate for the ability to hit multiple targets. However, when you suddenly throw in an additional 800 PWR, that Creature can suddenly hit like a truck and quickly wipe out many opposing enemies. This will be most noticeable for your Mana funnel target or Boss Creatures. They will be able to either rely less on a combo multiplier or can sweep an opposing team with one less cast.

Of course your Single Target Creatures (especially floor 1 defenders) will greatly benefit from PWR, but does not open new doors of opportunity by comparison.

PWR aside, Wrath Enchants can also dramatically improve your overall output as the bonuses to Critical strike chance and damage can outweigh the PWR gains for certain abilities. However, it is usually better to pursue an increased chance as it almost guarantees something will die. On the other hand, gaining 50% chance to double strike with a Basic Attack or +50% combo multiplier damage can help round out various members of your team.

Unfortunately, there are some lackluster Enchants such as bonus damage when Full and Yellow/Red health. This is because you are almost never full health in any scenario and if any defender is running a row-based basic attack (which is common for +15% PWR), you instantly lose all of your damage. Perhaps if it was >75% it could be feasible as you have some wiggle room. Conversely, being in Yellow/Red means you are below 50% health and thus begin playing with fire. This also works against any passive healing awakenings or AoE deathblow Enchants.

And last but most certainly least is the chance to detonate DoTs on a Basic Attack. This has to be one of the most useless Enchants as only a small percentage of the population has a DoT to apply and the detonation is only for a single tick along with being a measly 15%.

Wrath Enchant Rankings – Offense

PWR (assumes you scale off PWR) Combo damage Critical Strike chance Chance to Double Strike with Basic Attack Bonus damage at Red/Yellow HP Critical Strike damage Damage when Full HP Detonate DoTs

Wrath Enchant Rankings – Defense

PWR (assumes you scale off PWR) Critical Strike chance Bonus damage at Red/Yellow HP Chance to Double Strike with Basic Attack Critical Strike damage Damage when Full HP Detonate DoTs Combo damage

The Power of PWR

Presently speaking, Basic Attacks (and damaging debuff Enchants) all scale off PWR which can be problematic for Creatures that do not rely on this stat for their Special Ability. This is because you will often not wish to pursue PWR as an Enchant as it has the lowest value. Unfortunately, if your Creature rolled the burn/poison or you want extra oomph from Basic Attacks, PWR is required. In my opinion, it would be nice if their primary stat offered some additional damage for Basic Attacks or the burn/poison scaled off of their primary stat.

In addition, it is also problematic for Creatures who scale with DEF or ATK as they cannot utilize the stat and +DMG to Large and Boss.

Go for Gold?

The cost of enchanting rapidly increases as you transition to the next tier. Unfortunately, the gains are not always worthwhile when combating the randomness of each Enchant and the possibility of a more lackluster one. Thus, the question now becomes, do I try to min/max a lower tier Enchant or pray for the next rarity up.

Optimize Bronze

First and foremost, you should have all of your used Creatures (on Offense and Defense) with Bronze enchants that have been optimized for the stat-modifiers. These provide the most bang for your figurative buck and are easy to roll into. At worst, I would obtain PWR and LUK as Sulfur and Mercury tend to be more bountiful than Wood and Ore.

Ideal Silver versus Gold

Depending on your situation and resources available, it will not be likely that you can achieve Gold Enchants on all of your Creatures. Furthermore, the vanilla Kingdom resource cost is 20x more for Gold while the improvements are only around 2x stronger for the most part. While the other materials can be a hurdle, it is the Wood/Ore/Sulfur/Mercury that are the main limiting factors.

As a result, I would highly encourage you to go for the ideal Silver Enchants on your primary team and Floor 1 Defenders instead of pursuing Gold unless you have copious resources to spare. This is largely attributed to the fact that there are some truly disappointing Enchants in each category and rolling a Gold of those will be far worse than an ideal Silver.

Ways to improve Enchanting

Like any new system, there are several areas of improvement as it is my belief that the Enchants within each category should provide merit or value. In addition, they all should be reasonably competitive against each other and the best Silver (types not ranges) should be similar to the worst Gold Enchant but at the moment, some Gold Enchants are worthless.

Thus, it would be ideal if the bottom ranked Enchants within each category were scaled up or removed completely to at least offer appeal when limited for resources and pursuing Silver/Gold.

Enchants that can be interesting but are presently underwhelming are any that have a health clause. Being full health is not a realistic scenario as any point of damage removes all of your benefit. Thus, it would be more sensible to have the range cut off at 75% so you still have some wiggle room while retaining the potential to offer additional damage. By extension, it may be beneficial for Yellow to start at 60% to at least offer an easier window to activate (and Red around 33%) along with the Yellow carrying over into Red as it is already a lower value.

Furthermore, Enchants that are dependent on external factors should not be included. This includes DoT Detonation or anything involving a Debuff. This is because most Creatures do not naturally come with these traits and you are reliant on a teammate to provide these which is problematic due to the restrictive nature of Combo Dot colours. As a result, these Enchants often have zero value for the vast majority of Creatures which goes against the notion of Enchanting.

Finally, you should never be able to reroll an existing Enchant into a lower range value of itself. While this is forgivable/tolerable in Bronze, it becomes painful at Silver and above as it becomes too expensive and you are rerolling because you are unhappy with the current situation.

Conclusion

Enchanting is an exciting mechanic to be added into Creature Quest. It provides a new avenue for grinding as well as providing an avenue to utilize all types of resources. While there is too much disparity within each category, the notion overall is exciting and will most likely be addressed.

Finally, it is worth min-maxing your Silver Enchants for used Creatures as it will provide a noticeable boost to your overall power and efficiency.

On a side note, I strongly encourage you to visit my Discord server as it has a thriving Creature Quest Community that has players from all Skill levels and progression.

Happy Questing!

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