With 1.0.9 now changing the way difficulty works, more specifically not applying to PvP, this nerfs the heck out of Bone Dragon. Bone Dragon really shines in PvP on Warlord 2 and higher due to increased stats of your opponent. With that now removed, Bone dragon won’t have the large armor targets that made it uber strong. Don’t get me wrong, Bone Dragon is still going to be top tier, but it wont be quite as dominant.
He will probably have another nerf on top of that. Even on normal difficulty his ability creates too many skulls and does too much. His ability really needs to be raised to a 16 mana cost like Sheggra and Keeper of Souls.
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And his ratio has to get hit pretty hard. 8 skulls plus another 10 from 2:1 off 20~ armor … casual 18 from a spawner, and we’ve freaked out about things like Shaman on half that…
Oh and shreds a target’s armor too. And gains armor for no reason.
Being biased doesn’t make me wrong, only annoyed. Could cost 20 in its current state.
My very next match after I post, this happened, not even kidding. Its preposterous. Don’t need to be Warlord II or anything.
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I’m always hesitant about nerfing skull spawners too hard for entangle and attack reduction always have their potential to leave them useless. My ideal Bone Dragon would be:
- 16 mana cost
- Spawn 6 skulls, down from 8
- 1:3 ratio, down from 1:2
- Keep the armor gain (it is small and fits with Khetar)
- Keep armor shred
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Tacet, this might backfire our teams badly using BD. It means that maybe 30% of the time we uses BD we will get a 3 skull combo(if we get any combinations at all), then the enemy team will get some 4 skull combos with extra turns taking out our team. I agree with the mana cost should be raised to maybe 18. It also happens that the enemy team lacks armour, which will make BD an even bader troop if the tweak is as you suggested. With the 1:3 ratio as well, the troop won’t be a top tier anymore.
I approve all this. What happens when opponents have no armor? He becomes pretty lame. This DOES happen. Especially with agile troops.
Bone dragon activates - sheds armor makes skulls
Agile troop dodges everything
Repeat, no troops with armor left.
That is true, but irrelevant. Freeze on first troop prevents skull extra turns. EVERY skull spawner is at risk.
Even if he hits a low armor target he is still almost guaranteed to take out at least one troop and keep the turn, and that is for 14 mana, it is really quite ridiculous.
For all intents and purposes his spell right now is probably stronger than the one that is coming for the Great Maw which is restricted to one use per battle.
If you’d change Bone dragons text to "destroy the opponents first troop, deal 3-30 damage to the second one, gain an extra turn" it would sound outrageously overpowered, but in actual gameplay its spell results in exactly that at least 80% of the time(and mildly less catastrophic the remaining 20%).
Sheggras spell is also quite close to that ridiculousness, and mana cost isn’t even the real issue, you can’t really put an appropriate manacost to spells that powerful.
Compare it to spells like Jarls which also cost 16(also red/brown exact same cost as Sheggras), spells like those get dwarfed in power by the skull dragons.
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We are not talking about Freeze here, but BD.
The only reason i use bone dragon is because of agility. i use it to get the armor off those guys to start since it can take 3 or 4 skull sets to do ANY damage. i liked my old team then agility hit… and it was like… wth…
Not true. BD is in my standard line-up for invades
Centaur***
Centaur***
BD*
Star Gazer***
I noticed that the ‘sweet spot’ for being sort of guaranteed extra turn is around 17 armor of the troop you release the spell on. Any lower than that backfires around 50 percent of the time, with just one 3 match of skulls, leaving the rest to the enemy.
(so the question is what is ‘low’ in your view? 
)
You said how the risk of less skulls is no extra turn, but in the next patch all skull spawners will have a similar potential risk. The difference with nerfed BD is that he constantly would has some risk, but for the trade off of having armor shred and armor gain. Compared to a Sheggra or KoS with a first troop frozen, who are now completely useless with no additional actions.
How can something be true, but irrelevant?
Because the bellow:
This is pretty much true, especially at lower levels.
But as I mentioned before. Freeze does exactly what you just said, except at 100% instead of approximately 30%. It is irrelevant in that BD has additional actions aside from just spawning skulls, whereas many skull spawners only have their skulls.
I often use the exact same line-up as you. I have also noticed that if you use Bone Dragon’s spell on a troop with 12 armor or less there is a very good chance that the spell will backfire, giving the other team the extra turn instead. When I face low armored troop teams I rarely even use him but use Skeleton instead.
I support this. Although possibly a 4:1 ratio instead of 3:1 depending on what stats look like …
The base skulls is definitely a good place to hit it - this reinforces the need to utilize it on armored targets, as it is less viable and more prone to backfiring otherwise.
But a status effect for another troop shouldnt be the reason for tweak BD extra, as you suggested.
Lets be a little honest with ourselves, BD will never be tweaked this much.
You weren’t here when it occurred, but there was a long heated discussion about the implications of Grave Knight when he was first introduced 9 or so months ago. The concept of reducing a troop’s armor from any amount to 0 is HUGE. This is only 1/3 of what Bone Dragon does. His skull spawn is a 2 mana less Sheggra, his armor shred is only 3 mana cost more than Grave Knight, and on top of all of that he gets armor.
I havent said I have been here when it occured. But that doesnt have to mean that I lack understanding of the game. But I doubt Sirrian would make a top tier Legendary, medicore. My 5 cents is that he will probably take up BD mana to 16 cost as Sheggra and KoS, then make him create 6-7 skulls. Ratio 2:1 stays the same.