3.4 Sneak Peek Doomskulls

@Mithran I’m very much afraid of the points you’ve made as not ‘addressed’ and when they drop doom skulls in the next couple weeks we are going to have another epic fiasco :man_facepalming:

1 Like

What happens if you select a Doomskull for a Guardian troop’s selectable color?

10 Likes

The sad thing is “not all spawners are created equal”, and some could seriously do with some brakes.

Courage is a good example of a B-level spawner. It was probably A-level and pushing S-level beforehand. My understanding is the Guardians teams were revered as “completely broken” and “a menace” beforehand. They can still be pretty powerful: I’ve been playing with Justice League lately and it’s still explosive when luck tilts your way.

But here’s a problem we rarely talk about: sometimes one troop alone isn’t the problem, it’s a whole team.

So Nyx is nerfed. Party time, right? Nyxbringer’s finally solved. Well, not quite. In my very first match post-nerf, I got a little ambitious and had almost-full mana on my team. Being capped at 12 mana doesn’t hurt Nyx at all when you get 12 turns. Nyx hit me, filled troll, troll hit, filled Nyx, Nyx hit me, filled troll, etc. I got hit by Mab 3 times in that sequence. It was completely devastating.

Nyx doesn’t need to be nerfed more. I actually don’t think she deserved the first nerf. The problem is when you put Nyx and the right Troll together, they can feed each other for at least 8 turns in the right situation. If you pair them with Mab, that means a completely frozen and demoralized opponent. Now, that’s the ceiling. In general, maybe the opponent “only” gets 4 free turns because there’s only 2 things to drain with Nyx. That’s still plenty to have Mab freeze the entire opponent’s team and Dawnbringer fire off.

Doomskulls might slow this down, or might not.

My favored solution at this point is some kind of teambuilding constraints that make it impossible to put Troll / Nyx / Mab on the same team, period. It’d be exceptionally difficult to balance, but it’s inspired by the “Canadian Highlander” format in Magic: the Gathering.

In that format, you get a certain number of “points” to spend on your deck, I think 7. Most cards in the format are worth 0 points, so you’re free to use them without constraints. But the set of “extremely powerful” cards all have a point value. Some cards are worth 7 whole points, because everyone agrees having that one card in your deck represents such an advantage you shouldn’t get more help. For the most part, it means people pick a set of 3 or 4 “point” cards and try to build around them.

It’d be neat to see a raid/invasion style extra mode that tries that model. I think Troll/Nyx is only a problem when paired with a trait like Mab’s. I think Mab is only a problem when you can statistically guarantee you’ll get 4-6 free turns. Dawnbringer’s really a third wheel, you can stick a lot of troops in that slot and do well.

There are other generator troops that probably are a problem on their own. Balance is a hard issue.

2 Likes

That is a neat idea in theory, but in reality this will most likely just shift the discussion tone from ‘TroopXY is too strong, nerf it!’ to 'Why does TroopXY only cost 3 budget points it needs to be 5 at least!’ and instead of the Devs rebalancing broken troops they will have to spend their time readjusting theoretical values of troops.

Another side-effect of this system would be that Devs would have to apply official values to all even the really shitty legendary troops, openly acknowledging how terrible these legendaries are (looking at the left and right side of this forum page…yeah you two included) and showing how drastic power creep, and how volatile their general troop “balancing” has become lately.
And while i personally would like that side-effect as it puts more pressure on the Devs to give older legendaries some much needed love, i don’t think the Devs will see it the same way.

Doomskulls will certainly be 10% of skull drops. The base weighting to drop the seven main gem types won’t change, absent a Storm. Bonestorm will operate as now, with 10% being doomskulls, so there’ll be more. I’ve no precise idea what a Doomstorm will do.

2 Likes

Q: do doomskulls count as skulls?
A: YES – (See next answer for en example)
Q: Spells that use or are boosted by skulls: do those count Doomskulls? For example, if there are 6 skulls and 2 doomskulls on the board, will doomskulls count for this interaction?
A: Skeleros will double the number of SKULLS on the board – doom skulls will count for the number of skulls generated, though the skulls generated will only be NORMAL skulls, NOT doom skulls.
Q: Do randomly generated skulls (eg., Bone Dragon - ‘Create X Skulls’) and randomly generated Doomskulls (eg., insert unreleased troop here) overwrite existing Doomskulls/skulls?
A: Yes. This uses the same ‘CREATE’ rule that all other troops use. It’s possible for ANY gem created to overwrite another gem type on the board. But, unless the spell specifies doomskulls, they will not create doomskulls.
Q: Do things that transform, remove, destroy, or explode skulls target doomskulls?
A: The spell will specify “Gem”, “Color”, “Chosen Type” accordingly. If it states “Colour” then Skulls OR Doom Skulls will not be targeted as they spells target mana colours (e.g. Select mana colour). If it states “Skulls” then ONLY Skulls will be targeted, NOT Doom Skulls. ‘Of a chosen type’ does not specifiy mana or skulls, so both doomskulls or mana colours/gems could be selected.

In short:
Selected mana Color - cannot allow skulls/doomskulls, gems only
Of a chosen type - does not specify colour or gem so Doom Skulls can be selected, yes, this means Guild Guardians can create a mixture of Doom Skulls and gems!
A random gem colour - denotes a colour, skulls will not be chosen
Random gems of a chosen colour - denotes colour, skulls cannot be chosen

:sweat_smile: Time for a cup of tea. Thanks to a member of QA for the info.

18 Likes

Thanks @Vexx! :wink:

2 Likes

Looks like troops like Courage could be great again! How bout that! Lol

2 Likes

Yes, great and terrible. Imagine the backfire potential of handing the board of doomskulls over to the enemy…

2 Likes

You mean instant retreat? Lol.
For PvP only… Never GW. Still 7-8 doomskulls. That could match 2 normal skulls. I like my odds honestly. Cause it shouldn’t trigger the combo breaker. :grinning::grinning::grinning::grinning::grinning::grinning::grinning:

Firebombx2, Courage, Infernus
Shwing

will doomskull, combined with normal skulls…trigger Courage’s trait???

An epic complaint thread, followed by an emergency fix that breaks something else.

6 Likes

Sounds like normal routine? :wink:

I’m keen to use Loyalty, and some other guild guardians a bit more, I love her art.

Me and my 88k seals wants more guild troops.

3 Likes

My 88k seals and I*
They may respond better to proper grammar. Just trying to help.

2 Likes

They’re australians. Grammer? Lol, you’re lucky they type all the silbals when they type.

1 Like

Uh oh
Screenshot_20180420-000251_Chrome
:laughing::wink:

3 Likes

Spells like Frost Giant’s one which are boosted by the number of Skulls, will not be boosted by Doomskulls. That’s right?

Actually, Frost Giant’s spell is boosted by Doomskulls because whilst a Doomskull counts as a type of Skull a Skull does not count as a type of Doomskull.

:exploding_head:

:exploding_head:


Is somehow different then? In regards to Doomskulls.

1 Like