Plundering with Polonia

A Simplified Perspective by Tyco (Revision on Sep 10, 2023)

*Please contact me @ tyco.gamer on Discord for comments or feedback*

Maximizing Polonia’s Innate

The times they are a-changin’

The value of Polonia’s innate skills have evolved a lot over the years. Here we aim to take a clean slate view on how, and when, to optimize her use, with or without tricksters, in as simple a way as possible.

The table below summarizes where there is value to be derived from Polonia’s innate.

Player surcharge targets	We be Lootin’ Talent	Typical dungeons for questing	Steal slot drops	Value of Polonia’s steal slot	Value of Polonia’s non-steal slots	Are dedicated tricksters recommended?
T10 and under	With or without	Temple and under	Maxed at T10	Surcharge profit	Surcharge profit	Yes
T11	With	Temple, Peak	Capped at T11	Surcharge profit	Surcharge profit	Yes
T11	Without	Peak, Volcano	Capped at T10	Discount fodder	Surcharge profit	No
T12 and over	With or without	Volcano, Void	Capped at T10/11	Discount fodder	Surcharge profit	No
				**Steal slot IS buffed by tricksters**	**Non-steal slots are NOT buffed by tricksters**

As illustrated here, surcharging T11 is basically the end of the road for Polonia’s steals being a key source of your shop’s income, and that’s with the the “We be lootin’” talent activated. Otherwise, the steals, and profit potential, cap at T10.

Because tricksters only buff Polonia’s steal slot, this is also the final point at which running a dedicated trickster team with Polonia is doing anything other than bringing home additional discount fodder.

Recommendations for Building Tricksters

If you’ve decided to build a dedicated trickster for Polonia, my suggestion is to keep it versatile and use the sim. Because there is a finite lifespan for your trickster’s ability to buff Polonia’s steals you might as well go ahead and make a good overall hero that can also maximize those buffs.

Be aware that you may end up retiring all or some of your Polonia tricksters once you’ve progressed into the later dungeons and are no longer profiting significantly from her steals. While retiring a hero that has been promoted with a titan soul may seem like a waste, there will be a point that you have more titan souls than heroes to promote.

Skills

Here are my recommendations:

• Don’t build around rest-time reduction skills as it will limit their overall effectiveness as heroes
• Generally focus on skills that buff attack, defence, and/or evasion, while
• It is usually helpful to include a weapon skill if intending to quest in the more difficult dungeons (although note that thieves/tricksters have a limited built-in weapon skill as part of their innate, so they can get by without it)
• It’s best to avoid a) crit-based skills and b) exclusively stacking survivability as these will also limit the overall effectiveness of your hero

Some of the best skills include:

And these are also good skills:

As with all heroes, remember that some skills will work better, or synergize, with a subset of other specific skills. It is always helpful to check the sim to evaluate performance of a specific combination of skills.

Gear

To maximize the items Polonia steals, battles need to be just long enough to ensure drops hit the steal slot cap, but not so long that you end up with millions of gold in repair costs and a passed out champ on your hands.

Here are a few considerations for when you are gearing up your tricksters:

• The longer Polonia battles will lead to more gear breaks; do not over-gear your tricksters. Use the sim to see how cheap you can go without sacrificing the survival of your party
• If your battles are going too fast to cap the steal slot, equip your tricksters with weaker weapons; the sim can also help you tweak weapon selection accordingly
• If the battles are just long enough to cap the steal but Polonia is biting the dust too often, try using mammoth spirits to add threat to your tricksters and take some of the heat off of her

And there you have it; all you need to know about making the most of Polonia and tricksters.

Happy questing!