The William Myth Debunked: How Infinity Kingdom’s Skill Terminology Created Confusion Around William

Community testing and developer clarification have resolved a quite surprising but also VERY persistent misunderstanding or myth amongst many players. Having gone over this multiple times with newer players, VictorSeven has been kind enough to help shine a light on the misunderstanding and helping me correct is here once in for all!

For a long time, many players have been believing that William’s ultimate skill only increased the critical chance of troop attack animations, rather than increasing the crit rate relevant to Immortal damage. This interpretation usually came from the word “troops” in William’s skill description. That assumption is incorrect.

Troop attack animations should not be understood as separate damage sources that independently deal meaningful damage to opposing troops. In battle reports, damage is attributed to Immortals because Infinity Kingdom’s combat model works through Immortals commanding a number of troops under them.

Those troops still matter, but not as separate attackers in the way many players imagine. Their per-troop attributes are included in the damage equation behind the Immortal’s output. In practical terms, troop attributes contribute to the damage numbers produced by an Immortal’s normal attacks, skills, and ultimate ability.

This means William’s ultimate is not simply increasing the crit chance of some separate background troop animation. The relevant point is that the troop-based attributes under an Immortal are part of the Immortal’s actual combat calculation.

Special credit goes to community player VictorSeven, who originally investigated the issue, compared the game’s terminology across multiple systems, and shared the developer clarification that helped settle the discussion.

---

The Terminology Problem

Recently, while reviewing Tower of Knowledge skills, we noticed something interesting. Several universally accepted buffs also use the word “troops” in their descriptions — despite clearly affecting Immortals.

For example:

• Resist
• War Blessing
• Afterimage
• Defense Blessing
• Demon Body
• Speed Blessing
• Energy Suppression

That last one is what made me stop and reconsider the entire William discussion. Energy Suppression explicitly affects energy mechanics, but wait – troops do not have energy. Only Immortals do.

And you can visibly see the effect apply to Immortals during battle. So if Energy Suppression says “troops,” yet clearly affects Immortals, then the wording itself obviously cannot be treated as a strict mechanical distinction. At that point, the most likely explanation became pretty obvious: Infinity Kingdom’s English localization is inconsistent. Different translators and writers appear to use different terminology interchangeably.

---

Confirmation From the Developers

To verify it, I contacted the developers directly.

The response itself actually reinforced the heart of this issue… Instead of using the word “Immortals,” the support response referred to them as “Heroic Spirits,” which is another example of inconsistent terminology across the game’s translation pipeline.

But the important part was the clarification:

Skills that affect troops also affect Immortals.

That includes William’s ultimate. So yes — William’s crit rate increase does apply to your Immortals.

This is not just a tooltip technicality. It directly changes how you evaluate e.g. William and fire compositions.

---

What This Means for Fire Teams

The standard progression most players recommend looks something like this:

• Empress Wu
• Emperor Qin or Matilda
• Hippolyta
• William

Then eventually:

• Remove William
• Add Trajan

The logic behind the the William-to-Trajan swap was never entirely about damage.

A major reason many experienced players eventually remove William is his regeneration value. Compared to other late-game options, William’s sustain scaling is relatively weak, especially in longer PvP fights where survivability and recovery heavily influence march performance. That part of the community assessment is still reasonable.

The problem is that many players also believed William’s crit support did not meaningfully affect Immortal damage because his skill description referred to “troops.” Once that assumption is removed, William’s offensive contribution becomes much stronger than people originally gave him credit for.

If that assumption is wrong, the calculus changes. William suddenly becomes much more valuable in sustained PvP setups because his crit support directly benefits your Immortals’ skill damage and chase output. And that matters quite a bit for Wu.

Most optimized Wu builds already lean heavily into Chase and crit scaling. Additional crit rate has real value there, especially in extended fights where consistent skill pressure matters more than raw burst.

However, even with the clarification around William’s ultimate, Trajan is still probably the stronger overall choice in most mature Fire PvP builds. On paper, William’s skill is exceptionally strong. Once you account for the fact that his crit support genuinely affects Immortal damage — especially alongside his unique artifact — his offensive ceiling becomes much higher than many players originally assumed. In pure damage terms, there are situations where William can look better than Trajan.

The issue is regeneration. William’s regen value is simply too low compared to what Trajan brings in extended PvP fights. In practice, this means William often takes a long time before his impact is fully felt, particularly against durable late-game marches where sustain and tempo matter more than short bursts of pressure.

Trajan contributes much earlier and much more consistently because of his superior regeneration profile. That reliability is a major reason why most experienced players still prefer him in competitive Fire setups.

So while the old explanation for replacing William turns out to be incorrect, the end result often stays the same: Trajan is usually the more practical PvP choice.

Still, the potential is clearly there for William. A properly optimized regeneration-focused William build could eventually shift that evaluation. The offensive foundation is strong enough that it would not be surprising to see someone develop a version capable of competing with standard Trajan variants.

---

Published: 15-05-2025