My hope is the traits are on specific weapons and not on hero. So “Gard’s Wall” might get stoneskin while “Eye of Xanthos” might get Fey Slayer
If only…
How sadly likely. I look forward to the salty popcorn I will be enjoying to go with the overreactions.
My biggest complaint with it would probably be if every weapon has 3 traits. While most weapons are indeed obsolete, that is still roughly as many weapons as there are troops. Not to mention traitstones put on hero weapons will do nothing for kingdom levels, like how primals are now.
The other main issue, assuming traits are indeed linked to weapons, will be that some good weapons will have bad traits, some bad weapons will have good traits, and some good weapons will have good traits. It will just be meta chaos in trying to find the right build, not to mention the cost.
If interchangeable traits are given to hero, higher leveled players will just stack unbelievably strong 3 paired traits.
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Ok so let’s summarize… the devs post a preview of a new feature, and we can see a weak troop (recently slightly buffed) benefiting from it. A player comes in crying wolf as it always happens in these cases, even though no one actually has seen said new feature in action yet. Other players step in to disagree. The first player keeps pushing it with increasingly unbelievable arguments (a level 100 is supposed to have a mythic Dryad with all traits unlocked? did this player start with a bought level 1000 account or is their memory that fuzzy of early plays?). Other players keep saying that it’s unlikely. Then, out of nowhere, fake mod comes in and act like the discussion is somehow some kind of huge flame war, which other people - who so far have said nothing in the aforementioned discussion - approve. And the one who started the whole “OP” discussion jump onboard because… they had no argument left? That one escapes me.
1/ Learn what trolling is versus discussing. When people lay arguments, that’s not trolling. When people disagree, that’s not flaming. I did post something that was satirical, and not the nicest thing, but that was not rude in itself, I didn’t use offensive language or did personal attack. That’s the point where I simply gave up, since bad faith means impossible discussion.
2/ “Veteran player” is not equal to “divine word”. People have the right to disagree with them; just because they have some form of “elderness” does not make what they say automatically true or clever. The more time I spend on the forums, the more I understand the low level players who PM me for help/advice rather than creating posts - one of them actually called the forums “unwelcoming”; I thought that was a bit of an exaggeration, since I felt at home at first, but I’m starting to understand her point of view. You are more than welcome on the forums, as long as you never disagree with anything old players say…. when you do, you’ll be labeled as a troll, a flamer or an idiot (or all three at once, I suppose). A veteran is salty? Let’s all agree or not say anything! A non-veteran is not ok with something? Let’s tell them to calm down as if they just started an internet war! Yay equality!
3/ People on these forums always seem to react negatively to most announcements. I have no idea why. I mean, the devs changed a feature preemptively, after clearly stating the feature was fine and fun to play with beforehand. And that’s their choice, I’m sure what they came up with is just as fine. But every time something new comes in, players start complaining. It’s tiresome. If it’s a veteran complaining, people shut up or nod in agreement. If it’s not a veteran, they’re called whiny and annoying, of course. What happened above? New feature is shown, veteran starts complaining. Other players, me included, disagreed, because for Gob’s sake, it’s not even out yet, we need time to see how it actually works out, and obviously, we shouldn’t have, because you can’t say anything to veterans.
Yes, the game keeps evolving, and yes, sometimes it needs rebalancing. I dislike some of the trait system, and I’m sure I’ll dislike some of the future updates too. Thing is, preemptive calls for nerfs or buffs really irk me, and just like people have the right to complain about it, I and other players have the right to disagree, to not want to hear it, or to discuss it. That can mean disagreeing with veterans. Deal with it. A lot of us do not care about your elitist club.
I have my own opinion / my own knowledge of hero traits and the likes. I know some troops are going to be reworked, and some might become actually OP in my opinion. I’m not, however, interested in whining about things that are not even released yet. And I’d appreciate it if players could stop being negative on principle, and could stop seeing flame wars where there are none - especially since some have actively participated in some before, that’s a bit rich.
In any case, of course, it’s painfully obvious disagreement is generally regarded as a big no-no, so I’m going to keep helping the shy/reluctant newbies in the background while you guys keep congratulating yourselves on stopping people from expressing their differing opinion. At least I know I’m actually helping lots of beginners, and that means a lot more to me than the validity of a handful of jaded players. 
Just remember that you being all friends and in agreement on the forums does not mean you’re representative of the GoW players as a whole, and that this behaviour is pushing lots of people away. But hey, what do I know, I’m not in a top 10 guild… 
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Whoa, wall of text…
Very true… if only we were all this wise… Most people in this thread should look at their part and learn from that… and I’m sure I’m just as guilty time and time again… easy to get carried away when we all like the game so much…
Mostly true, apart from me… where Divine Word is almost approaching my greatness and omniscience…
Some do. Some of us have been known to be positive. I liked the first draft of Frozen, and I am fine with this new Barrier effect. I reserve the right to suggest balancing / nerfing etc once it’s all going and we see if any broken things emerge… I agree that a vocal disproportionate minority have spoiled the good news in these sneek peeks…
So that’s a bit much, my dear… few of us are ‘friends’ and rarely much in agreement from what I can tell here either! and yes, obviously the forum is a TINY slice of the player base…
That’s unfair and broad-brush…
So can we all move on before the devs (wisely) shut down this thread?
How about some constructive ideas? What new traits could make use of Barrier? If it becomes big in the meta, what will you do to counter it? any cool new combos in mind?
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Oh don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying everybody’s mean and have bad intentions, I just know for a fact that this kind of attitude have already made some players flee, and it is something that has been increasingly bothering me, mostly because I know there are a lot of very cool GoW players, and I really dislike knowing they’re leaving because of some… specific ways people tend to react. We are the community we want to be. I want to be able to discuss things, to disagree, in a constructive manner, and not to see people get shut down as soon as they’re not ok with someone else’s statement. I don’t think it’s asking much. GoW has a pretty large player base, with lots of very friendly people. Having PMs from people not daring to participate is pretty telling to me, and it saddens me. I’m sure people don’t actually intend to make it bad for others. It’s a byproduct. But having a friendly community, it’s a group effort. Whether we all agree or not. 
As for barrier, I really don’t see the big deal - it only blocks ONE piece of damage. You’re poisoned? Barrier’s gone. Burnt? Same deal. Use AoE? Gone. Also, lots of spells target several people for cheap. Ancient Watcher removes barrier while damaging another unit. Same with some other spells, like the Ranger, the Hobgoblin, the Druid or Rhynax for instance. We don’t know everything about 1.0.9, but chances are, some under-used troops will be buffed in the process, and who knows, Rhynax might be the next skeleton. (Ok, that one’s unlikely, but you get the point.) In any case, I’m on the wait & see corner, same as Frozen. There is often a difference between what we predict and what actually happens. No one thought that high Attack / skulls creator would be that popular before 1.0.8 simply because we didn’t really know how Ascension would work out. Although some were already wary of some traits - and for good reasons -, it was not necessarily the ones people talked about. Lots of people looked at Jinx as some awesome/almost game-breaking trait, and to be honest, it hasn’t bothered me a single time in battle. I’m still annoyed with Agile and True Shot though. ^^
So that’s my take, in a nutshell. Barrier will probably be cool and useful, especially against skull-heavy annoying line-ups, but far from overpowered. Frozen will be cool but more situational than anything. And then I’ll play and realise we were all wrong all along, that Hunter’s Mark is the best thing ever and Poison Master is the one true GoW troop. We’ll see. ^^
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If anyone is familiar with HearthStone, Barrier is basically Divine Shield. It’s a huge deal in HS, because when two troops bump into each other, they normally both take damage, and the shield prevents that. In GoW, the impact shouldn’t be quite as big, since it will only mean “oh, I can’t hurt your troop right now” rather than “oh, you can kill my troop without a scratch”.
Even in HS, though, all it takes is a single source of even 1 damage to pop the shield before your main attack on the troop, and disaster can be averted. In GoW, we have plenty of cheap damage sources, even free ones (skulls from explosions or cascades, spread or split damage from spells etc) and popping the shield should also be less of a priority, since the consequences of leaving it be aren’t that threatening.
Of course, casting your 16-mana single damage spell when there’s a Barrier on the other side would probably not be a good idea. If the top enemy troop has a Barrier when a 5 skull match presents itself on the board, it might be disappointing. But most of the time, it should simply be a slight delay in your gaming plan rather than a thorn in your side.
I imagine that if Barrier-emitting troops become popular in the meta, then most people will pack at least one “deals x damage to all enemies” or “deals x damage randomly split among all enemies” spell and/or a troop that can apply Poison, preferably a low mana cost one.
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Barrier might also indirectly buff exploders, the collateral exploded skull usually doesn’t have a huge impact but might be very meaningful vs barrier teams.
Just to clarify, I never said that barrier in itself is OP, but that Dryad getting 2 buffs in 1 update is OP (lowest mana cost barrier and a +2 HP gain buff). A good majority of average performing troops would be at least in the commonly used tier if they were to get 2 buffs so quickly. The reasoning for mentioning Dryad as OP is for its:
- synergy capabilities
- no hard counter (no troop has 3x to Fey and no “good” troop has 2x skull damage, but that may change with other buffs or with a single event week)
- Great early game (3-4 Fey with 3-4 Forest of Thorn buff will make the troops strong in comparison. Dryad also has strong low level capabilities due to her magic having little difference)
- Immunity (immunity + Ice Witch negates about 1/2 the disadvantages barrier has)
Barrier will have the problem of:
- Spread shots
- AoE
- Multi-shots
- Exploders
- Poison
- Burn
- Damage self/allies
- Destroy X gems/skulls
- Extra turns
But no, Dryad shouldn’t be nerfed before the update even goes live. There is no data for that yet. My main reason for even bringing this up in the first place was so the devs can start on the art and coding for a Fey Slayer troop with a 3x damage to fey cast. Then people started disagreeing with the concept of what is too powerful, so I had to defend the concept.
The team of:
Dryad
Gloom Leaf
Treant
Ice Witch
,
Gloom Leaf
Dryad
Treant
Ice Witch
, and
Treant
Gloom Leaf
Dryad
Green Seer
are all already strong defend teams. I just really don’t want to see another defend team spammed that is arguably STRONGER than 4x Marauder pre-Gob-Chomper and pre-freeze.
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Please find my points of view of this new effect:
- the name shound’t be “Bubble”? For a “Barrier” I will prefer something like “Stoneskin” trait which reduces 50% of damage and like the other effect has a 10% of disappear, 20% next turn, etc.
- I really don’t understand why “Poison” will remove it. A Barrier should stop attack coming from outside the Barrier, no?
- we can say that this Barrier has one life point only (ie it dissapear as soon as it received damage). Why not including life points and level (adding a little number at the top of the Barrier icon)? For example, a caster can create a level 10 Barrier (with 10 life points) and:
a) you have to do at least 10 damage else the Barrier isn’t broken (traits aren’t taken into account) → maybe too powerful but at least useful
or
b) Barrier life is reduced. But, if the caster spells on the same troop he gives 10 more life points to the barrier. Maybe need a max life limit. Or Barrier may loose one life point each turn (min 1 point).
Hey, my comments on these…
- Bubble might be a better name for this effect… but the Barrier idea you describe sounds too complicated…
- Mixed views - agree Poison feels like it should be ‘underneath’ the Barrier… but balance-wise, Poison is already weak and will need to be able to beat this Barrier effect too…
- Sounds really complicated… like adding extra ‘super armour’ and no obvious place to display the extra number (Barrier’s effect only displays as a gold glow on the existing Armour icon)… and (a) that would be way too strong, (b) that would be complex as I say…
Some nice ideas here but I’d be wary it’d lose the simple appeal of the current effect - good ol’ Divine Shield…
Jainus said it more diplomatically, but what you’re suggesting is simply Armor. We already have Armor, as well as spells that increase or reduce Armor. Having a second Armor on top of the existing one would just require more maths for the exact same thing: “that troop has 10 Armor plus 10 Bubble” instead of “that troop has 20 Armor”. You’d still need to do 20 damage to that troop to remove it all, either way. Barrier is a different concept: “that troop has 10 Armor and a Barrier”; this means you need to hit that troop twice, no matter what, and do 10 damage the second time. This actually adds depth to the gameplay, whereas extra Armor under another name would still just be extra Armor.
I quite like Barrier as a name for the effect, actually. It’s self-explanatory and sounds fantasy-like enough. They could also have used Force Field, Outer Shell, or Divine Shield, for instance, but Barrier was not taken and it’s a fine name. “Bubble” doesn’t strike me as fitting as well.
As for Poison removing Barrier, I agree it would make more sense if it didn’t, since Poison’s description doesn’t involve damage but “lose 1 Life”, as discussed earlier on in the thread. It’s true that Poison is not as strong an effect in the current meta as it used to be, however (Burn is much scarier right now, especially in the Arena), so this could be a way to help Poison stay relevant in 1.0.9.
I don’t see why it’s complicated: the damage reduction is the same than an actual trait and the disappear functionnality will be the same than Poison. Maybe for another bonus effect ;-).
I was thinking about something like that:
Of course, with a more polish integration to the aura ;-).
More or less an Armor but I never say that you could go through the Barrier and continue on the Armor/Life with one hit ;-). Of course, Barrier has to stop the attack that destroys it. So in your example “that troop has 10 Armor plus 10 Bubble”, you will need two hits. The main difference is the amount of life points of the Barrier (Bubble was to outline the too-much fragility of the Barrier) . Else, as you already mentionned, you can easily remove it with low damage to all or split damage.
I don’t see any kind of way to integrate a barrier worth a specific amount of damage. Sounds clunky, feels clunky, no place to display it, can be substituted with any armor buffing move, and would be too annoying figure it all out. Where does that number come from - magic scaling? Sounds like a stock armor buff to me. And if it was just a static amount of damage block, it would be scary at lower levels.
Plus I still like the concept of poison having something to do. Its been a while.