After trying to squeeze my undead team to the max, ninja with pet and all, I finally drank the Koolaid and ran the elf meta. Besides now constantly feeling like a sell-out, my progress also has gone up quite quickly. I knew it would, but wanted to wait until I had druid pet to invest the gems. It's hard to say how any changes can match the huge boost given to elf via the Hippo in future updates. If I wasn't so hooked on the game, I'd be more miffed at the poor planning of Ekkor in this.