Is the vip shop worth buying?

This will be up to each individual and their personal budget. That aside, I’ll share the benefits I’ve gotten from VIP. First, each level includes perks that give you troop-specific might, resistance, and HP buffs. They are marginal, but they made a difference in being able to beat my R5 in the arena. Second, super recruitment tickets. When you reach VIP Lv. 2, you can buy a certain number of tickets per day (typically 50,000 VIP points per ticket, which is 12,500 gems if you’re exchanging). I went into S3 with 260 tickets and nearly maxed Rozen Blade. If you aren’t a big spender, this is probably the single best way to acquire a large number or tickets. Other things I’ve exchanged points for: epic hero medals, needed to level up season hero skills, and charcoal, which higher levels of some buildings (e.g., Raider Hall) require a lot of. If you don’t want to spend $100, you can unlock VIP for $80 (a little more than a AAA video game) by buying weekly 1250 badge packs, but it’ll take more time. For me (not a huge spender), VIP is actually the ONLY thing worth money in this game.

Absolutely it was. A recent update has made it free. It remains to be seen if this is any better.