So for the first time ever we decided to test out the Spirit Shield for kicks. Turns out it’s nothing but snake oil.
To begin with: it’s pretty well established (at least from my viewpoint) that enemies, including Kingdom Defense bosses gain mana at a baseline rate of 2 mana per gem collected, whether those gems are matched, destroyed, exploded, etc (Big gems are considered equivalent to non-big gems for this purpose). Gems that are of a color alignment with the enemy (e.g. Green gems for green enemy or a Poison Dragon) provide 25% more mana (therefore, 2.5 mana per gem) and gems that are of a color associated with a favorable affinity against the enemy (e.g. Red gems for green enemies or a Poison Dragon) provide 25% less mana (therefore, 1.5 mana per gem).
Update 1.2 introduced kingdom bosses along with this nifty little item for the low low cost of only 200 ingots:
Given that every Kingdom Defense boss spell is only 50 mana, that extra 25% limitation could actually be quite useful, but at a price of 200 ingots, its a tough sell. Today though we tried it out. At first, things looked promising:
Pretty excited to test this thing out! Sadly though, much disappointment ensued:
My kingdom mate and former naked berserker @rob also attempted to test out the Spirit Shield. He is more technologically advanced than this lizard and he provided the following:
The numbers look pretty simple here: 3 green gems matched should be 6 mana (25% bonus mana from green gems, -25% mana from Spirit Shield). However, 7 mana gained says that the Spirit Shield is a dud.
The fact that we are four months into Kingdom Defense and no one has reported this says a lot about the perceived utility of the Spirit Shield by players. Needless to say kingdom leaders, if you have ever bought a Spirit Shield, you should probably be requesting a refund of ingots.
